Diplomacy & Crisis News

Since President Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021, North Korea has ended its provocation pause and test-launched more missiles than ever, aiming to perfect its means of attacking the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons. The United States and its partners have strived to parry these threats through enhanced diplomacy, sanctions, deterrence, and a combination of offensive and defensive military capabilities.

Reaching New Heights

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has resumed testing its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are designed to deliver a nuclear warhead against the United States. On February 18, the DPRK simulated a short-notice launch of its Hwasong-15 ICBM, rehearsing how to initiate nuclear strikes before the United States and its allies fully mobilize their defenses. The missile flew deep into outer space, more than a dozen times higher than the International Space Station. It could have landed anywhere in the United States if launched on a flatter trajectory.

This test is further evidence that the DPRK missile arsenal is increasing in quantity and improving in quality. Since it began its “turbocharged testing spree” last year, the North launched more nuclear-capable missiles than in any previous year. Many of these launches displayed innovative techniques and technologies intended to negate existing U.S. and allied defenses, such as using many missiles concurrently to overwhelm defenders, launching missiles from rail-mobile and submarine-based platforms, and employing hypersonic glide technologies that enable the warhead’s reentry vehicle to maneuver while descending on a target.

At the same time, the DPRK’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has declared his country’s nuclear status to be “irreversible.” Furthermore, the DPRK adopted a new law that may authorize DPRK field commanders to launch preemptive nuclear strikes and automatic retaliatory attacks if Kim is de-capitated. Additional enhancements to the DPRK missile arsenal are coming. In December 2022, Kim called for an “exponential” augmentation in the country’s weaponry, including serial manufacture of tactical nuclear weapons, reconnaissance satellites to assist with long-range missile strikes, and ICBMs intended for rapid counterstrikes against U.S. targets. Having resumed fissile material production, the DPRK might have several hundred nuclear-armed missiles by the end of this decade. 

Missile Motives

Pyongyang pursues nuclear-armed missiles for power, prestige, and profits. The missiles aim to deter and, if necessary, defeat the United States and its allies, boost the North’s status and global attention, distract foreign and domestic observers from the DPRK’s economic and political flaws, and enhance the North’s leverage for extracting money and other Western concessions. 

In peacetime, the North can leverage its missiles to coerce concessions from the United States and its allies. In a conflict, they provide the DPRK with a shield behind which to wage aggressive regional wars. Following the Russian playbook in Ukraine, Pyongyang’s policymakers might aspire to attack another country and then brandish its nuclear arsenal to deter a U.S. military response. American officials have acknowledged that possibility could weaken Washington’s extended deterrence guarantees to protect its Asian allies like Japan and South Korea. The DPRK wants these countries to doubt U.S. pledges to protect them—inducing them to appease rather than resist the North’s demands.

Fruitlessly Unconstrained

Three decades of negotiations, sanctions, and military countermeasures have failed to induce North Korea to relinquish its nuclear weapons aspirations. Past efforts to convince North Koreans that they would be more secure without nuclear weapons, offering the DPRK security assurances and confidence-building measures, or dangling visions of wealth and international acceptance have all proved insufficiently enticing. The DPRK has dismissed the Biden administration’s offers to resume direct talks despite proposals for “calibrated” diplomatic measures to decrease tensions with the North, dispel misperceptions that the United States threatens the DPRK, and facilitate North Korea’s return to compliance with its nuclear obligations.

The many sanctions adopted by the international community have restricted DPRK imports and exports, contributed to the isolation of the DPRK leadership, and constrained the North’s financial resources, but they have not halted the North’s missile development programs. Beijing and Moscow no longer enforce many existing sanctions and refuse to adopt new ones. Chinese and Russian leaders see DPRK provocations as mischievously helpful for distracting the United States from focusing on Beijing and Moscow.

Spurring Proliferation

The credibility of U.S. pledges to defend South Korea and Japan with all possible means, including U.S. nuclear weapons, was weakening even before the DPRK’s recent provocations. For several years, opinion polls indicate that most South Koreans want to acquire their own nuclear weapons or induce Washington to return U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea. Some Japanese leaders have also more openly discussed their country’s nuclear weapons options in recent years. These views plausibly reflect the belief that the North will never abandon its nuclear weapons while the United States might prove unwilling to use its nuclear forces against North Korea if the DPRK could retaliate with nuclear strikes against U.S. territory. 

U.S. officials and analysts have discouraged allies from pursuing nuclear weapons for fears of legitimizing the DPRK’s nuclear arsenal, spurring further nuclear proliferation, promoting regional arms races, and decreasing crisis stability. By seeking nuclear weapons, Japan and South Korea would antagonize the United States and other governments, demean their countries’ lofty international reputations, expose themselves to economic sanctions, and intensify first-strike incentives in a crisis. Instead, the United States has assisted its allies to enhance their missile defenses, damage limitation, and other non-nuclear capabilities.     

Furthermore, the Biden administration made bolstering the credibility of U.S. extended security guarantees to these Asian partners one of the highest priorities of the recently completed U.S. Nuclear Posture and Missile Defense Reviews. The first review explicitly warns that the United States will destroy the DPRK regime should it use nuclear weapons: “Any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its Allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime.” The need to reassure allies like South Korea and Japan, which rely on U.S. nuclear weapons for defense against major non-nuclear as well as nuclear attacks, was a major factor leading the Biden administration to reject proposals to adopt a “sole-purpose” or “no-first-use” declaratory doctrine. Such a declaration would have committed the administration to employ nuclear weapons only after an aggressor country had used them against the United States.

Opportunities for Defense

Yet, there is no attractive offensive military option available to the United States. Even with U.S. nuclear forces, a limited preemptive strike may not destroy all DPRK weapons of mass destruction, which are widely dispersed in concealed and hardened facilities. A U.S. first strike could easily precipitate a conventional war on the Korean Peninsula even more destructive than the one seen in Ukraine. The United States and other defenders will attempt to disrupt North Korea’s missiles through cyber attacks, electronic warfare, and other non-kinetic means, but DPRK designers have enhanced their missiles from such vulnerabilities.

The Biden administration’s Missile Defense Review, therefore, insists that “the United States will also continue to stay ahead of North Korean missile threats to the homeland through a comprehensive missile defeat approach, complemented by the credible threat of direct cost imposition through nuclear and non-nuclear means.” These words echo those of the Trump administration’s Missile Defense Review, which affirmed that the United States would “continually improve [U.S.] defensive capabilities as needed to stay ahead of North Korean missile threats if they continue to grow, while also taking steps to preclude an arms race with China or Russia.” Following the most recent DPRK missile test, U.S. Representative Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, released a statement affirming that “Protecting the U.S. homeland must be paramount as we develop our 2024 budget, and this includes fully-funding homeland missile defense assets.” Even imperfect missile defenses can help deter and defeat attacks by complicating a potential missile aggressor’s certainty of success. They can also reassure allies that they do not need nuclear weapons or to appease those who are threatening them.

The foundation of the U.S. homeland defense against DPRK missiles is the fleet of Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) in Alaska and California that underpin the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense architecture over North America. These multi-stage solid-fueled rocket boosters are equipped with an unarmed Exo-Atmospheric Kill Vehicle, that collides with a target in outer space, obliterating it with kinetic energy. Presently only a few dozen interceptors protect the continental United States from incoming ICBMs. Unfortunately, the United States rushed these GBIs into service in the early 2000s and has not yet comprehensively renewed them. Instead, they have received only patched upgrades and infrequent tests. At this point, the potential for further upgrading the original GBIs is limited given their decades-old technology, calling into question their efficacy of dealing with the North’s rapidly expanding capabilities. 

The United States is, therefore, developing a Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) to provide a more reliable kill vehicle to address the expanding North Korean missile threat. Though an entirely new system built from the ground up, the NGI technology maturation plan aims for an evolutionary rather than revolutionary increase in capabilities. Its improved command, control, communications, and sensor capabilities will increase the system’s reliability. The NGI’s larger payload can carry more than one kill vehicle on each interceptor. Its greater propulsion than the GBI will bring the kill vehicles faster to their interception points, giving warfighters makers more time to make decisions, more opportunities to address complex threats, and more assured means of discriminating between decoys and genuine targets. With planned deployment by 2028, the NGI’s modularity and preplanned upgrades will enable the United States to address subsequent threats more rapidly and confidently.

The Missile Defense Agency, responsible for overseeing the systems requirements and design review for the interceptors, has admirably promoted competition between two contracting teams to accelerate the delivery timeline, drive down costs, and limit technical risk. Meeting this performance metric will require testing the GBI frequently in demanding scenarios, independently and in combination with other elements to enhance performance. For some of these enablers, it might be prudent for the Agency to accept more risks with technology development programs, such as those intended to thwart emerging threats like hypersonic missiles. The planned upgrades to the existing network of sensors, command-and-control nodes, cyber defenses, and other critical support systems will also make the current GBI fleet more effective, pending the eventual deployment of the NGI. Extending the NGI competition through a prototype fly-off would further ensure the fielding of the most capable interceptor.

To construct a multi-layered defense architecture against the DPRK’s ICBM-class targets that protects Hawaii and Guam as well as the Continental United States, the Pentagon will need to integrate the NGIs with regional missile defenses. In the Indo-Pacific region, these include the Aegis-equipped Standard Missile interceptors deployed on ships along with the land-based Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems. Besides protecting U.S. deployed forces and allies, these regional missile defenses can provide important warning and tracking data of ICBMs launched from North Korea toward the United States. The potential effectiveness of such local systems has been evident in Ukraine, where even less advanced regional missile defenses have worked well in blunting the Russian missile onslaught. A comprehensive global defense architecture could also help protect the United States and its allies and forces from missiles launched by other countries. 

The long-term solution to the Korean crisis is internal regime change and reunification under a government that resembles present-day South Korea. Yet, no one knows how long this process could take given the ruthless effectiveness of the DPRK’s totalitarian regime. In the interim, having a robust spectrum of defense capabilities, suitable for a range of scenarios, is critical given the rapidly evolving threat environment.

Richard Weitz is the director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Today, it is hard to remember a time when the cause of human rights was not a core element in U.S. foreign policy, and even now our advocacy for human rights is uneven. Moreover, there are still those in the United States who would prefer that we relegate human rights to the second or even third tier of our concerns—which is sometimes exactly what both Republican and Democratic administrations do. It is undeniable, however, that millions around the world are grateful to the United States for championing human rights. That is a Carter legacy, and one we should all appreciate.

When President Jimmy Carter left office in January of 1981 his record was largely seen as mixed, his administration, a disappointment. His accomplishments, including the Camp David Accords, were conceded by some but largely overshadowed by the Iranian hostage sage and high inflation. The conclusion of the Panama Canal Treaty negotiation, which established a time timeline for the transfer of the canal to the government of Panama, was necessary and maybe even overdue yet viewed with ambivalence in some quarters. His response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which included canceling U.S. participation in the Moscow Olympic Games of 1980, was seen as ineffective. Of course, the grain embargo he imposed on the USSR was a more substantive measure but, like the Olympic boycott, it seemed to punish the United States as much as the Soviets. 

Carter’s elevation of human rights to the status of a fundamental tenet of U.S. foreign policy, which he announced early in his tenure, was considered by many foreign affairs professionals a naïve embrace of a principle more likely to impede rather than advance the pursuit of U.S. interests. Worse yet, once established as a permanent feature of U.S. foreign policy, human rights monitoring and advocacy could not be abandoned without serious reputational damage. That was certainly the mindset I encountered when I went to my first diplomatic post—the U.S. embassy in Santiago, Chile—in the early 1980s. 

Over the next decade, throughout three more assignments in Latin America, I observed the way human rights continued to figure in efforts to achieve U.S. policy goals in the region. In Central America in particular, our relatively newfound commitment to human rights generated reactions that ranged from skepticism to asperity to enthusiasm. Traditionally oppressed sectors welcomed the State Department’s annual published human rights reports, which they saw as part and parcel of America’s support for democracy. Entrenched political leaders, often, did not share this view, and decried what they saw as the hypocrisy of U.S. policy toward smaller, vulnerable nations in contrast to the apparently more tolerant approach of the U.S. toward countries in other regions which they assumed we considered more important or, at a minimum, less vulnerable to U.S. pressure to reform.

The bottom line in the field was that, for many of us, human rights monitoring and reporting was a useful but burdensome activity that, while inherently worth doing, sometimes made advancing other issues harder. In Paraguay in 1993, however, I had an experience that invested my understanding of the impact of our human rights advocacy with a very human dimension. I was in my third year on the embassy team when President Carter and a team from the Carter Center came to Paraguay to observe the country’s first genuinely democratic election. Only four years earlier, then-General Andres Rodriguez had led a coup that ended the noxious thirty-four-year dictatorship of long-time President Alfredo Stroessner. Rodriguez held on to power after by quickly holding an election that many characterized as inherently flawed, by definition, because Rodriquez had come to power via a violent coup. So the election of 1993, in which Rodriquez was not a candidate, was heralded as a milestone.

Any presidential visit, even a visit by a former president, is an “all-hands-on deck” event for a U.S. diplomatic mission. This is as true then as now. At one point as I walked through the embassy grounds during President Carter’s visit, I encountered a Paraguayan employee from the grounds-keeping staff weeping unashamedly. I asked what was wrong and he said simply: “I am alive today because of that man.” He was overcome with emotion by the very idea that President Carter had come to Paraguay. Apparently, during the darkest days of the Stroessner regime, he had been picked up for some reason by the security forces and tortured. He attributed his survival of that ordeal entirely to President Carter’s determination to make human rights a fundamental yardstick for evaluating our international partnerships.

When I first traveled to South America as a young diplomat in the early 1980s, most of the countries of the region were ruled by military dictators. Human rights were mostly honored in the breach. The region is a very different place today, despite some backsliding (especially in Nicaragua and Venezuela) and not just because of U.S. human rights policy. The United States, which at one time was viewed as tacitly supportive of even the most iron-fisted strongmen as long as they professed to be anti-communist, is also seen differently. Our foreign policy is held to a different standard—one which we sometimes fail to meet. Nevertheless, it seems only fair to acknowledge that President Carter’s human rights advocacy has had an enduring impact on the conduct of U.S. diplomacy generally and especially in the Americas.

Ambassador Patrick Duddy, now retired after a long career in the U.S. Department of State, is the director of Duke University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela for both President Bush and President Obama.

Image: Shutterstock.

Since the establishment of Israel’s hardline government last December, U.S. foreign policy experts have expressed increasing concern over the future of their countries’ special relationship. Citing the extremist ideologies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners, they have warned that the countries' sense of “shared values”—one of the twin pillars of this relationship—is under threat.

These warnings have taken on greater urgency since the Netanyahu government began pushing plans for a radical overhaul of the country’s judiciary—a plan that, if implemented, is widely expected to provoke a constitutional crisis and possibly spell the end of Israeli democracy.

Unfortunately, these warnings are based on a dangerous misconception: namely, that while Israeli-American “shared values” are at risk, the other pillar of this special relationship—the countries’ “shared interests”—remains intact; that while the far-right agenda of the current Israeli government may bode ill for Israel's liberal democracy, it does not threaten to undermine U.S. strategic interests.

Remarkably, the U.S. administration appears trapped in this same misconception too.

In the most high-profile remarks so far, Secretary of State Antony Blinken used a joint press appearance with Netanyahu in Jerusalem in late January to frame his concern about the trajectory of Israeli politics by talking about the importance of democracy. Invoking truths that should have been self-evident, Blinken reminded the Israeli leader of their countries' shared commitments “to defend and bolster the pillars of our democracy.”

A couple of weeks later, President Joe Biden followed suit. Weighing in on the emerging constitutional crisis in Israel, Biden chose to underscore his view that at stake are first and foremost Israeli and American shared democratic values. “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary,” Biden noted. “Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”

If American and Israeli democracies can be described as genius, that is more than can be said for the administration’s view on the current Israeli government and its anti-democratic turn. Indeed, judging by the public rhetoric used by the Biden administration, Washington is failing to appreciate the extent to which the present Israeli government is putting not merely Israeli-American shared values at risk but also the countries’ shared interests.

The Palestinian front is only the most obvious area where the present Israeli government is undermining U.S. interests. Expansionist policies and escalating violence is already demanding significant American attention, as reflected in the convening of an emergency security summit in Aqaba late last month and the number and frequency of visits by top U.S. officials in recent weeks, including the apparently spur-of-the-moment one by General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Yet on security issues, too, Washington’s public rhetoric seems stuck in the register of morals and values. For instance, in response to Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call to “wipe out” the Palestinian town of Huwara, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned the words as “irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting”—terms that, strong though they are, evoke deep moral (and bodily) distaste rather than political or diplomatic outrage.

Such rhetoric is perplexing, given that political and diplomatic interests are no less at stake than moral values. After all, any instability in the occupied territories is in danger of spilling over into Jordan, a solid majority of whose population is Palestinian by origin and deeply identifies with the Palestinians on the west bank of the Jordan River. Jordan is defined as a key U.S. partner, and anything that endangers its stability undermines U.S. strategic interests.

And while Jordan, next to the Palestinians, is poised to be the most immediate casualty of Israel’s extremist government, other neighboring states of strategic importance to the United States would likely be affected as well. Certainly, the regimes of such countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states are strong enough to weather any storm in the Palestinian-occupied territories, yet the impact on them could translate into policies and practices that are inconsistent if not outright contradictory to U.S. interests (as well as, of course, values). These might include a crackdown on street protests and suppression of freedom of speech against anyone who might use the situation to criticize the complicit or explicit relations between any of these regimes and Israel.

When it comes to Israel’s plans to eviscerate the judiciary, moreover, by the very fact that such a close ally openly and defiantly violates American core values the United States could suffer strategic setbacks in other parts of the world. After all, Washington continues to use democratic and liberal values as yet another tool in its kit for advancing its interests across the globe, from Latin America to Asia and even Iran. Israeli policies in Palestine already expose the United States to charges of double standard from a wide variety of global actors; the wholesale implosion of Israeli democracy is bound to create for America new challenges across multiple frontiers, such as in its engagement with China on Hong Kong or Taiwan, or in its efforts to leverage popular unrest in Iran to force the Tehran to compromise on a revised nuclear deal.

The damage of Israel's current government, in other words, is as much to U.S. interests as to its values. It is time for Washington to confront this fact and consider the damage that the Netanyahu government is about to inflict on American strategic interests in the Middle East and beyond.

Yonatan Touval is a senior foreign and security policy analyst with Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.

Image: Shutterstock.

Since last month’s horrific 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the Turkish-Syrian border, humanitarian support for Turkey has been coming in from around the world. Countries helping with relief efforts include Turkey’s close friends as well as some countries that have, at least until recently, had major problems with Ankara.

Neighboring Greece, which experienced enormous amounts of tension in relations with Turkey in 2022 and early 2023, immediately stepped in to help the Turks suffering from the disaster. A possible silver lining of this catastrophic event could be a significant improvement in Athens and Ankara’s bilateral relationship.

Despite their fraught relations, Greece was one of the first countries to send rescue teams to Turkey to help save victims. Within the European Union, Greece is playing a central role in terms of garnering resources to help Turkey. Turkey has been highly appreciative of these efforts. The gratitude has been on constant display in Turkish media since February 6 and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman and chief foreign policy adviser publicly thanked Greece for its assistance on February 10.

“Greece did what it had to do in the spirit of solidarity under extreme circumstances,” George Tzogopoulos, a senior fellow at the Centre International de Formation Européenne (CIFE), told us. “What I find particularly emotional is the interest of ordinary Greek citizens to send food and clothes to affected people in Turkey.”

“Earthquake diplomacy” is not new to Greek-Turkish relations. On August 17, 1999, the İzmit earthquake in Turkey’s Marmara region took roughly 20,000 lives and caused about 100,000 buildings to collapse. At that time, there were diplomatic tensions between Athens and Ankara over a number of issues—only three years earlier the two had almost gone to war over a pair of uninhabited islets that was only averted due to U.S. intervention. Yet, Greece stepped in to provide high levels of support. Tragically, the following month another earthquake 150 times more powerful took place in Athens, resulting in ninety-eight deaths and approximately 50,000 people becoming homeless. The Turks reciprocated and provided their neighbor with much assistance. What followed was roughly one decade of warm relations between the two countries. 

Almost a quarter of a century later, “earthquake diplomacy” is in effect again, significantly brightening the prospects for a new era of warmer Greek-Turkish relations. “I hope that what happens this time in response to Turkey’s horrific earthquakes is similar in the diplomatic sphere as to what happened after the deadly 1999 earthquake in Turkey,” explained Matthew Bryza, who served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia from 2005 until 2009, in an interview with the authors. 

These warming relations will likely assuage Greek fears of the Turkish head of state and his allies capitalizing on tensions between Ankara and Athens, and even a possible direct military confrontation between the two in the Aegean or Eastern Mediterranean, to rally nationalist support for Erdogan’s re-election campaign. Such concerns among the Greeks have been relieved last month.

“All that belligerent talk and any thoughts of armed conflict at all have gone away as everybody focuses together on taking care of those who have suffered so much from this earthquake, and then on rebuilding which will take years,” added Bryza.

Ronald Meinardus, the head of the Mediterranean Program at the Athens-based think tank Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, told us that “the massive earthquake opens the door to the de-escalation in the relations of the two countries.” Now “diplomacy has kicked in” with Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias visiting southern Turkey, explained Meinardus. That visit constituted a “remarkable move which comes hand in hand with an outpour of solidarity” as officials in Athens and Ankara are now speaking of a “new page” opening in bilateral relations.

Relations between Ankara and Athens are, to some degree, already warming. So far, Greek assistance prompted Erdogan and Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to speak for the first time since March last year. In another surprising instance, Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu spoke at length about the prospects of a détente between the two neighbors and even submitted a six-point proposal to Greece with the aim of improving bilateral relations. 

Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy

Tensions between Greece and Turkey have long contributed to division in the transatlantic alliance. Therefore, at a time when President Joe Biden’s administration is working hard to strengthen NATO’s unity, any improvement in Athens and Ankara’s relationship is good news for Washington. 

The United States will be very pleased if the past few weeks of warmth between the two Mediterranean countries lead to more lasting closeness, cooperation, and solidarity between these two U.S. allies. While speaking in the Greek capital on February 21, U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken said, “It’s profoundly in our interest and I believe in the interest of both Greece and Turkey to find ways to resolve longstanding differences.” 

Within the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both Turkey and Greece’s geostrategic roles have become more important in the eyes of the United States and the rest of NATO. Thus, the more that relations between Athens and Ankara can improve, the better off Washington will be in terms of its national security interests in this part of the Mediterranean. “We want our allies to be friendly with each other,” said Bryza. The former U.S. diplomat emphasized that both Greece and Turkey “offer quite important geographic space for the NATO alliance and significant military bases as well.”

Nonetheless, U.S. policymakers seeking to push Greece and Turkey’s relationship in a warmer direction will not necessarily have an easy task. Mindful of how much tension built up between Athens and Ankara in 2022 and early 2023, there are open questions about how easily any sharp turn-around in bilateral affairs could occur.

“It is too early to tell if any tangible outcome will emerge from the initial warming of ties between Greece and Turkey,” explained Dr. Serhat Süha Çubukçuoğlu, a senior researcher at TRENDS Research and Advisory, in an interview with us. “The history of the bilateral relationship is full of trials-and-failures and the United States is no longer as committed to intervene or act as a balanced mediator to settle some of the most pressing issues such as the ‘gray zones’ of islands and rocks in Aegean Sea.”

In a world continuing to move toward multipolarity, Turkey’s foreign policy becomes more independent, resulting in Washington having less sway over Ankara compared to previous points in history. In upcoming months, it will be important to monitor any potential shifts in Turkey’s foreign policy vis-à-vis its claims to parts of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. If there are none, the root causes of much of the tension between Athens and Ankara will not be resolved, notwithstanding Greece’s solidarity with Turkey’s earthquake victims, and it will be more difficult for Biden’s administration to successfully bring Greece and Turkey closer together as NATO allies.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics and an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project.

Emily Milliken (Przyborowski) is the Senior Vice President and Lead Analyst at Askari Associates, LLC.

Image: adlaphotography / Shutterstock.com

In June of 2020, along a ridge high in the Galwan Valley in the Himalayas, Indian and Chinese troops fought desperately in a life-or-death night struggle using sticks, nail-studded iron bars, and even rocks. The incident left twenty Indian army soldiers and four Chinese troops dead as each side blamed the other for violating the non-discrete border. China is often the instigator of such incidents. India’s struggle to stop these Chinese incursions is only a small piece of China’s larger expansionist policy across the region, creating a security and stability concern for the rest of the world.

Ongoing disputes between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India over their shared Himalayan border provide the perfect opportunity for a strong military power to firmly reject Chinese expansionism. Tough military responses to all incursions along with a robust public relations campaign based on video footage from incidents are the key to India “holding the line.”

Border Clashes

Chinese expansion has been a threat to its territorial neighbors since Mao Zedong declared the establishment of the PRC in 1949.

In 1951, the PRC “liberated” Tibet and has occupied it ever since. It fought a brief war with India in 1962 in part to solidify and maintain that occupation. In 1969 China attempted to take possession of various disputed border areas with the Soviet Union, and a battle on Zhenbao Island nearly led to a full-scale war. The PRC invaded Vietnam a decade later, although they retreated a month into the campaign and declared victory despite accomplishing their stated goals. Expansionism continues today through ongoing efforts to fold Taiwan into the PRC and exert control over the South China Sea.

PRC and Indian troops have clashed in several places along their border in the past few years. In 2017, hundreds of Indian troops stopped Chinese attempts to build a road across the border at Doklam near the tri-border with Bhutan. Importantly no shots were fired, and the PRC retreated. The 2020 skirmish in Galwan was also concluded without gunfire. These low-level clashes continue today, with the most recent brawl taking place in December of last year. These incidents frighten much of the world because they make it seem that two nuclear powers are poised for a broader conflict that could breach the nuclear threshold.

Territorial Integrity Through Cameras

Delhi must take the strongest position possible to maintain its territorial integrity. India must do this for their own security, but also for the security of other nations under the PRC shadow. The best way to achieve this is through a firm military response to every incursion, along with compiling video footage to help “win” the public relations battle on the international stage. Video evidence holds strong sway over public opinion, and can provide an objective view of events that corroborates accusations of Chinese aggression.

Some steps have been taken in this direction; Indian army troops were outfitted with a bevy of new technology in the last year including cameras to enhance situational awareness. But the Indian Armed Forces should go further and equip its troops with body-worn cameras, similar to those used by police in the United States. This would augment video recordings from cell phones, such as those taken from a September 2021 border dispute in Arunachal Pradesh, along with any stationary cameras that can help support the Indian narrative. Studies from U.S. policing suggest that the mere presence of body cameras may reduce “use of force” complaints, suggesting that in a border crisis the relevant parties would opt to avoid violence if it is known any action is likely to be recorded.

The Nuclear Threat

The main opposition from the international community to a tougher response from India comes from the fear surrounding any dispute between nuclear powers. Such concerns are logical, but in the case of India and China, a deeper analysis suggests that border conflicts will not escalate to the level of nuclear war, as neither country has anything to gain from such an exchange. A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace details how India has the conventional military capacity to handle any border conflict, and China has no incentive to resort to nuclear weapons. Furthermore, both countries have declared “no-first-use policies” that make the usage of nuclear weapons a highly unlikely outcome—even from a full-scale border war. India in particular sees its nuclear arsenal as a second-strike weapon, meant to retaliate against nuclear strikes on their soil.

Moreover, India has proven its ability to conduct combat operations at a level that dissuades escalation. During the 1999 Kargil War, for example, Indian decisionmakers overruled military advice to attack targets within Pakistan, and even took the extreme position of denying the Indian Air Force permission to cross the border to conduct more effective strikes against Pakistani forces in Indian territory. They accepted higher casualties and less effective operations to ensure that they were not perceived as the aggressors. In the Sino-Indian case, China appears to be the aggressor in recent disputes. Though perhaps a bit morbid, India can use the same policy and discipline they used during the Kargil War to maintain the moral high ground and again come across as the offended party in the court of international opinion.

Stopping Chinese Regional Expansionism

There is another reason India needs to take a stronger stance against China: the latter continues to press its claims across the region without any real pushback. Although states are disputing Chinese claims to its “Nine Dash Line” in the South China Sea, and the United States has conducted freedom of navigation exercises, there has been no effort to physically stop PRC island building, illegal fishing, or other operations. No state wants to risk the loss of civilian vessels or lives, and a military confrontation between superpowers involves serious risks. But in the Sino-Indian border context, risks are largely contained, as border conflicts are typically between military members of each side and are unlikely to involve civilians. Additionally, although India and the United States are strengthening ties, there are no formal treaties that could threaten a broader war. The Himalayan border is the perfect place for India, and perhaps to a broader extent, the world, to take a firm stand and keep the event within a military context. 

A strong showing against Chinese incursions is also just what Indian prime minister Narendra Modi needs in his efforts to counter Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region. Though some critics have accused Modi of failing in his efforts to stand up to China, implementing the above suggestions is the perfect way to refute those critics and strengthen India’s case even as they try to de-escalate tensions in the wake of each incident. His efforts should also be lauded by Western leaders with the broader goal of stopping Chinese expansionism. They must also relay and amplify evidence of future incursions to the world to win the court of international opinion for India and the West.

China’s expansionism can and must be challenged. India is the perfect place to firmly check PRC designs by aggressively defending their border. The risks of escalation to a nuclear level are slim, and the Chinese stand to lose more economically and in terms of world opinion from a wider conventional conflict than India. As long as India can maintain the position of the offended party as they have done in the past, it can serve as the world’s best place to hold strong against Chinese expansionism.

Ian Bertram is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force pursuing an MA in International Security with the Joseph Korbel School at the University of Denver, with a focus on Indian Ocean Area affairs. He has an MA in Military History from Norwich University, and has published articles with The Strategy Bridge, Air and Space Power Journal blog, Small Wars Journal, and others. He is an instructor pilot and Advanced Air Advisor, and has led multiple missions to the Indian Ocean region to build partner capability and capacity.

Image: Sajad Hameed/Shutterstock.

A recent American commando raid against a high-profile Islamic State leader in East Africa offers a reminder that terrorist groups continue to pose a major threat to the United States and its allies, even if U.S. policymakers have shifted most of their focus to Russia and China.

It’d be a grave mistake for Washington to ease the pressure on violent extremist organizations in remote terrorist hotbeds such as northeastern Somalia. Terrorists have already openly celebrated the possibility that the war in Ukraine will distract Western leaders and enable these groups to repeat their deadly past successes. We can't let that happen.

The American public's frustration with "endless wars" is understandable, especially given the long engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars for little tangible gain. That frustration prompted President Donald Trump to order U.S. forces to withdraw from Somalia in late 2020.

But terrorist groups, in Somalia and elsewhere, have not been defeated, and it does not seem that they will be in the near future. In fact, the rapidly deteriorating security situation in East Africa necessitated the redeployment of American troops by the Biden administration, provoking harsh criticism.

Although the branches of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda have suffered serious setbacks over the last two decades, they still control hundreds of thousands of square miles and millions of people from the Lake Chad Basin across south-central Somalia to Yemen and Afghanistan. They also have the capacity to launch attacks far from their original strongholds. And thanks to modern telecommunications technology, their propaganda, recruitment, and fundraising networks reach all parts of the world—including the United States.

The recent operations of al-Shabaab and the Islamic State in East Africa demonstrate that they are professional, adaptive, and lethal—not only for local governments but also for American citizens. In 2019, al-Shabaab attacked the DusitD2 Hotel in Nairobi, killing twenty-one people, including Jason Spindler, an American tech CEO who survived the 9/11 World Trade Center terror attack.

The following year, a Kenyan man who attended flight school in the Philippines was accused of plotting to hijack a plane and fly it into a tall building in a U.S. city. According to the FBI, he had direct connections with senior al-Shabaab leaders. In the same year, Somali jihadists attacked Camp Simba in Manda Bay, Kenya, killing a U.S. soldier and two Department of Defense contractors, wounding two other U.S. service members and a third contractor, and destroying and damaging at least half a dozen aircraft valued at nearly $72 million.

The target of the latest commando raid in Somalia, Bilal al-Sudani, offers a typical example of a high-level terrorist commander who maintained and facilitated global networks and operations. Sudani, who left al-Shabaab for the Islamic State, was a key figure in the organization's Al-Karrar regional office, which serves as a coordination hub for all Islamic State activity in East Africa. Sudani also facilitated connections between local branches and the Islamic State network beyond Africa.

The liquidation of Sudani significantly degrades the Islamic State's financial capacities, limiting its ability to launch new attacks—at least for a while. Support for friendly local forces—such as the U.S. military’s strikes in Somalia on January 23—is a cost-effective tool to counter violent extremists' operations.

Increasing great power competition and the return of interstate wars are the realities of the current international system. But that doesn't mean that we can forget about terrorists—mainly because they do not forget us.

Violent extremist organizations are closely following global events and are trying to exploit them. Consider the ongoing border crisis. In the fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol caught ninety-eight foreign nationals on the FBI's terror watch list, obliterating the previous record of fifteen set the year before. And this year will likely set another record; in just the past five months, Border Patrol has apprehended fifty-three suspected terrorists.

And that's only the ones that agents caught. There have been 1.2 million known "got aways"—illegal aliens who successfully crossed into the United States and evaded law enforcement—since President Joe Biden took office.

If the United States wants to avoid the possibility of a new terrorist attack on its soil, its leaders cannot neglect what's brewing in Africa—or on its southern border, for that matter. The days of extended military engagements like the war in Afghanistan may have passed, but keeping the pressure on violent extremist organizations and conducting small-scale commando raids, similar to the killing of Sudani, must continue.

Viktor Marsai, Ph.D., is the Director of the Budapest-based Migration Research Institute, an associate professor of the National University of Public Service in Hungary, and an Andrássy Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, DC.

Image: DVIDS.

On Feb 26, Syria’s President Bashar al Assad welcomed representatives and diplomats from Arab League countries who visited to show “solidarity” following the February 6 earthquake that killed thousands. Syria’s full return to the Arab League is practically a fait accompli. Yet as a result, questions about the future of Lebanese-Syrian relations loom, especially given Assad’s rehabilitation in eyes of the Arab rulers. Those who once saw him as part of the problem, as he brutally suppressed all forms of opposition and strengthened his reliance on Iran, now see him as part of the solution to the region’s security. 

The primary question being asked is how will Assad use this new boost in legitimacy to strengthen his hand in neighboring Lebanon. It may sound like an absurd proposition given the circumstances—Assad is still attempting to fully recover from over a decade of civil war that has destroyed his country’s infrastructure and displaced millions of Syrians, both internally and externally. However, the notion is not totally without logic, as Assad has ways of manipulating events in Lebanon to his favor in a way that may be part of a long-term strategy to become the dominant figure in the Levant. 

For starters, he has Lebanese allies vying to fill the presidential vacancy that was left after Michel Aoun completed his six-year mandate in October 2022. One such ally is Suliman Frangieh, leader of the Marada Movement and a Maronite Christian politician who hails from the northern Lebanese town of Zgharta and close friend of Bashar al-Assad. Frangieh’s relationship with the Assad family goes back to his childhood. In 1975, Lebanon found itself locked in a bloody civil war, caused by both confessional divisions and Palestinian militants present in the country. As the fighting raged on, the president at the time, Suleiman Frangieh (the current Suliman’s grandfather) called upon Syria’s Hafez al-Assad to intervene on the side of the government and Lebanese political right against Lebanese leftists and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Syria responded as part of a large Arab peacekeeping force—the bulk of it being Syrian and remained in the country as an occupying power until the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.

Although public sentiment turned against Assad and the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, the relationship between the Frangieh and the Assad families never wavered. Despite the fact that Marada only has one member in Lebanon’s parliament, it has provided the younger Frangieh the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of his grandfather—possibly all the way to the presidential palace. His alliance with Assad also includes friends from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which has contributed significant military assistance to the Assad regime in fighting armed opponents back in Syria. Frangieh is also Hezbollah’s undeclared preferred presidential candidate, as it has recently had a falling out with its old Christian ally the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and its leader, Gebran Bassil. A member of FPM, Jimmy Jabbour, revealed that Hezbollah has chosen to end the memorandum of understanding with his party as it seeks to gain support for Frangieh. Nothing has been officially declared, but the trajectory of the alliance is unlikely to reverse unless Hezbollah drops Frangieh.

For Assad, Lebanon is “Syria’s main flank,” as he phrased it in an interview he gave last November. The Syrian leader also referred to Hezbollah as his strategic ally and vowed to continue supporting the organization. It is unequivocally clear that Assad is considering every possible avenue if it will help cement his authority. Having Hezbollah and Frangieh in his corner while simultaneously returning to the good graces of the Arab World will give him the leverage he needs to secure his regime for many years to come.

However, Assad is still ruling over a destroyed country that needs funds for reconstruction. His regime is still under the Caesar Act Sanctions by the United States and it doesn’t appear those will be lifted any time soon. As Professor Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma, a Syria expert, has pointed out to me in an interview:

Many pressure groups are working with the White House and Congress to restrict the liberalization of the sanctions regime on Syria enacted after the earthquake. Much of the Syrian opposition, along with pro-Israeli groups in Washington, is fearful that sanctions may be permanently lifted. They do not want to see any softening of the boycott on Assad. But the Arab governments see this as an opportunity to move ahead with an opening to Damascus on their own. Much will depend on how Assad responds to them and whether he is willing to meet them halfway.

If Assad is prepared to play ball with Gulf states, make some token political concession or two that could allow for the removal of sanctions altogether, and have a presidential friend in Beirut, he might find himself once again having a powerful hand in Lebanon’s affairs.

Adnan Nasser is an independent foreign policy analyst and journalist with a focus on Middle East affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Adnansoutlook29.

Image: Shutterstock.

“We are engaged anew in a great battle for freedom. A battle between democracy and autocracy. Between liberty and repression,” President Joe Biden said in the wake of Russia’s belligerent incursion into Ukraine. Indeed, emphasizing an epochal struggle between competing systems of political governance as the key feature of international politics in the twenty-first century has become the hallmark of U.S. grand strategic rhetoric under the current administration. In the words of Walter Lippman, this binary proposition arguably constitutes “the fundamental postulate of American national security doctrine” in the age of great power competition and in the context of new Cold War discourse.

True, the democracy-autocracy formula offered the spirit of trans-Atlanticism a new lease on life at a time when the liberal international order seemed in irretrievable disarray. As a clarion call, it has proven useful as a force for psychic and material mobilization, whether with respect to galvanizing support for Ukraine (primarily among G7 nations), weening continental Europe off its reliance on Russian energy, or rendering the idea of popular sovereignty and its conflict with the principle of autocracy the dominant current of the age.

Yet for all its rhetorical expediency and partial truth, the democracy-autocracy formula is an artless Manichean antithesis as imprecise as it is untenable. So long as it continues to deeply inform U.S. foreign policymaking under the Biden administration, it deserves to be routinely scrutinized. Notwithstanding its lilting assonant appeal—democracy versus autocracy—this formula precludes strategic flexibility and the pursuit of détente at precisely the moment in which both are required. Even Evan Osnos of The New Yorker, author of Joe Biden’s definitive biography, Joe Biden: American Dreamer, recently pleaded as much, arguing that “if we are to limit the worst risks of a [new] cold war, the U.S. should … prepare for what the Nixon Administration called détente,” involving in the words of Henry Kissinger, “both deterrence and coexistence, both containment and an effort to relax tensions.”

In the words of Hans Morgenthau, harping on the democracy-autocracy antithesis has enabled the Biden administration to “indulge in the cultivation of moral principles divorced from political exigencies.” If the United States wants to be successful in a geopolitical war of attrition over the long run with bitter antagonists and peer competitors like China, Russia, and Iran, administration officials need to recognize the limitations of this cherished dyadic nostrum, which emerged as a hyperbolic over-reaction to the cartoonish neo-isolationism of the Trump years.

To be clear, America should defend democratic values. It should even promote such values—in some cases, at the end of the lethal aid sword. Restrainers rightly caution against the excesses of American interventionism. But the progressive critique of American military power projection, if not simply ‘liberal imperialism,’ often comes across as the fashionable preoccupation of worthy dilettantes, who tend to downplay the degree to which history abhors a vacuum—and arcs toward Whiggish progress. The point is that the United States can combine high power with high purpose without hitching its foreign relations to a blinkered ideological lodestar.

Analytically speaking, the democracy-autocracy formula flies in the face of the extensive regime typology literature in the comparative politics subfield, the existence of which is prima facie evidence of the slogan’s empirical vacuity and practical incoherence. For example, in 2022, India was downgraded by Freedom House to the status of an “electoral autocracy.” Does this mean that India is an enemy of democracy, an enemy of the United States? Singapore is described as a nation-state that “allows for some political pluralism, but…constrains the growth of credible opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.” Is Singapore, too, an enemy of democracy? Ukraine, of all nations, has a 39.39 “Democracy Percentage” according to the metrics devised by the non-profit. Someone should tell the White House that it is underwriting a “transitional or hybrid regime” to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in military assistance, even if obliged to do so (and right to do so) by way of the Budapest Memorandum. Even the Chinese party-state capitalist model has been described as an “autocracy with democratic characteristics” by political scientists living and working in America, such as Yuen Yuen Ang.

Moreover, if we understand the administration to be “progressive,” it should be all the more sensitive to the field of post-colonial studies, which stresses the (supposedly) pernicious Eurocentric assumptions that underwrite neocolonial attitudes toward ‘traditional’ modes of political governance and “local” processes of political-economic development. Governments come in many shapes and sizes. The democracy-autocracy formula is what the German historian Reinhart Koselleck might have deemed an “asymmetrical-counter concept.” Given the Biden administration’s moral economy, we live in a world of “Hellenes” and “Barbarians,” “Christians” and “Heathens,” small-d democrats and autocrats—and nothing in between.

With respect to international trade and economics, the democracy-autocracy antithesis suffers from a grave internal contradiction. From its earliest days, the Biden administration has spoken of a “foreign policy for the middle class.” Instead of belligerent tariff wars, it would pursue meaningful forms of strategic decoupling and enact concrete industrial policies, the redistributive effects of which would presumably alleviate Rust Belt grievances and set the United States on a path to splendid critical-industrial self-sufficiency (although U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo oddly disputes this). Indeed, with the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Congress passed two pieces of legislation that will likely bear significant fruit in these respects (although the jury is still out, as inputs do not linearly imply outputs).

The obvious problem, however, is that the neomercantilist flavor of Biden’s “America First” agenda directly undermines the Atlanticist spirit of cooperative multilateralism and the geoeconomic interests of America’s democracy-loving allies, threatening to entrench intractable rifts between them, even if “friend-shoring” is feasible. In December 2022, Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, pulled out of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, a “key coordinating body for trans-Atlantic economic policy,” as its agenda “no longer gives sufficient space to issues of concern to many European industry ministers and businesses.” More recently, French president Emmanuel Macron argued that the implementation of the IRA threatens to “fragment the West.”

The practical limitations of the democracy-autocracy antithesis have been made abundantly clear in the global response to the war in Ukraine, specifically, with the emergence of a Cold War 2.0 non-aligned ‘movement’ of nations, largely in the so-called “Global South,” many of which insist on neutrality for various reasons. Much ink has been spilled on these dynamics. Suffice it to say that although Western resolve is remarkable and important, as was clear at the Munich Security Conference and in the resolution (predictably absent Russian and Chinese endorsement) passed at the recent G20 summit condemning Russian aggression, “key states in the global south,” as Stephen Walt has recently argued, “do not share the Western belief that the future of the 21st century is going to be determined by the outcome of the war. For them, economic development, climate change, migration, civil conflicts, terrorism, the rising power of India and China, and many others will all exert a greater impact on humanity’s future than the fate of the Donbas or Crimea.”

Where Western analysts often see the clear emergence and demarcation of two distinct civilizational spheres of influence, rooted in a preponderance of military and economic power emanating largely from Washington and Beijing, the rest of the world sees multipolarity for what it is. For most states caught in the crossfire of great power competition, the shifting distribution of power in the international system simply means a future of pragmatic adaptation, not zero-sum ideological contestation. As World Trade Organization director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has simply said, “Many countries don’t want to have to choose between two blocs.”

Other instances of relatively recent U.S. diplomatic engagement demonstrate the limitations of the democracy-autocracy formula. The “Summit of Democracies,” hosted by Biden in June 2021, was pitched as an attempt at “renewing democracy in the United States and around the world.” Yet the event was panned as “a fiasco, a flop, a disappointment.” For the most part, so too was the “Summit for the Americas,” hosted by the White House in June 2022, as both events excluded leaders from countries deemed qualitatively lacking in democratic bona fides. Biden being reduced to exchanging a deflating “cool dad” fist bump with Mohammad Bin Salman while in search of crude oil infusions from OPEC+ during the peak of the 2022 oil-supply shock, after vowing to turn the crown prince into a “pariah” in light of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, was another such instance.

It turns out Washington must do business with nominally autocratic governments—at least if it hopes to maintain friendly relations with “a vital U.S. partner on a range of issues.” It is worth noting that the U.S. recently released two Pakistani brothers, held in devastating Kafka-esque captivity in Guantanamo Bay for twenty years without ever being charged with substantial crimes, all the while subjected to unspeakable torture methods. Which is more barbaric: dissolving a man’s body in an acid bath after his perhaps not-so-swift execution or two decades of “rectal rehydration,” sleep deprivation, beatings, and solitary confinement in cold cells and subjection to a byzantine and unilateral international legal regime?

Apart from the practical limitations of the democracy-autocracy formula, “a strategic monstrosity,” as Lippman might have put it, the ideological content of this antithesis deserves greater attention. Just when “the end of the end of history” seemed to have definitively arrived, the Biden administration sought to resuscitate not only a kind of apocalyptic George W. Bush-era logic (“you are either with us or against us”), but a familiar eschatological vision for Western liberal democracy, that is, its “imminent universalization.” Biden and his senior staff sometimes wind up sounding like Alexis de Tocqueville, who once claimed, in a moment of unrivaled teleological conviction (although he had his great doubts about liberalism), that an “attempt to check democracy would be…to resist the will of God.”

Likewise, just as the international system became genuinely multipolar, the Biden administration insisted on the emergence of a world order characterized by ideological bipolarity. This effort was always an expression of a kind of “unipolar moment anxiety disorder.” The democracy-autocracy formula exhumed the repressed determinism at the heart of post-Cold War triumphalism about the “unabashed victory” of economic and political liberalism at precisely the wrong moment in time. A world safe for liberal democratic capitalism is something to aspire to, of course. But given the administration’s rhetoric, the United States is now presumably engaged in a “twilight struggle” with any nation that does not satisfy Freedom Houses’ holistic criteria.

Biden tends to draw on elements of Teddy Roosevelt’s “rhetoric of militant decency” and Woodrow Wilson’s implacable Calvinist belief in America’s providential promise, combing the universalist impulses of liberal internationalism (or progressive imperialism) with the expansive essence of containment (which, of course, George Kennan spent a good deal of his life trying to remedy) and the hegemonic idealism of “armed primacy.” With such rhetoric, Biden has not made the world safer for democracy, but rather brought to it a mighty set of unwieldy swords. The idea that the emergent world order will not be safe until it consists only of democracies (or constitutional republics, parliamentary democracies, and so on) is more theological than the concept of a balance of power, which the administration should counsel.

If anything, the U.S. foreign policy community should look to the diplomatic culture cultivated within and implicitly promoted by ASEAN, a political and economic union made up of ten member states, some of which embrace autocratic tendencies (or “responsive communitarianism”), that has managed, in Kishore Mahbubani’s words, to pursue and maintain relative regional peace and security by embracing a “nuanced and pragmatic approach to managing geopolitical competition,” and as such, is “increasingly seen as a model for the rest of the developing world.”

Biden should stop insisting on the wisdom of this great rhetorical gambit, for its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages in terms of securing American interests abroad. The age ahead is likely to be fraught with moral ambiguities, unpalatable compromises, and the emergence of novel forms of political economy, political governance, and social, civilizational, and regional organization and segmentation—as all ages are—that utterly defy the democracy-autocracy spectrum. After all, some American commentators have recently questioned whether the United States is, in fact, a democracy at all.

Addis Goldman is a writer based in New York. He holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago, an MA from the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University, and a BA in Political Science from Colorado College. He previously interned in the David Rockefeller Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Image: Shutterstock.

The first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an appropriate time to assess Israel’s policies toward it, chiefly its refusal to sell weapons to Ukraine. The need for this assessment is particularly acute given the close strategic relationship that has emerged between Russia and Iran and the ramifications for U.S.-Israeli relations.

Israel’s sympathies lie squarely with Ukraine. Nevertheless, its response to date has been limited to significant, but not overwhelming, humanitarian aid, including a field hospital, ambulances, protective vests, helmets, food, water purification equipment, and more. Israel has reportedly also provided Ukraine with intelligence information and voted with it in the United Nations. Conversely, Israel has steadfastly rebuffed Ukrainian requests to provide weapons, including defensive ones, such as Iron Dome.

A wounded bear is particularly dangerous and Russia can cause Israel severe harm. We thus believe that Israel’s refusal to sell Ukraine weapons remains appropriate, but that this may change depending on Russia’s actions. For now, we propose a number of semi-military measures that would be of great utility for Ukraine and position Israel firmly within the Western camp but mitigate Russia’s response.

There are seven primary reasons for our caution.

First, Iran has supplied Russia with 1,700 drones, is apparently building a factory in Russia to produce as many as 6,000 more, and may provide it with ballistic missiles. In return, Russia has reportedly agreed to supply Iran with SU-35s fighters, helicopters, and possibly the S-400 air-defense system, warships, submarines, and satellites. Russia and Iran already cooperate in the cyber realm. They also recently signed two agreements designed to promote bilateral economic ties and circumvent international sanctions: a “transportation corridor” from Russia to Iran and out to the Far East; and an alternative mechanism to the global SWIFT system. Israel must avoid measures that may lead to an even closer Russian-Iranian strategic alliance.

Second, Russia and Iran are the two primary players in Syria. At times, Russia has sought to counterbalance Iran’s efforts to expand its influence there, including the build-up of a significant military presence and use of Syria to transfer weapons to Hezbollah. Wartime needs forced Russia to withdraw some forces from Syria, but not the S-400s. If used against Israeli aircraft, Israel’s ability to counter Iran’s buildup would be greatly constrained. So far, Russia has refrained from doing so, but that could change at any time. No less than NATO countries, Israel is on the front lines with Russia today and can find itself at war at any moment with Iran, Hezbollah, and Iranian-supported Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israel cannot allow this to happen.

Third, Russia is a party to the nuclear agreement with Iran and ongoing international negotiations. At times, Russia has played a constructive role in this regard, but it has been supportive of Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency recently and can be highly disruptive. A desperate Russia might even provide Iran with concrete assistance for its nuclear program. Israel cannot afford to alienate Russia too much.

Fourth, Israel is not a global power with major weapons stockpiles, does not have the spare capability, and cannot transfer critical systems to Ukraine without endangering its own security. Indeed, it has the minimum number of Iron Dome batteries necessary and a shortage of interceptor missiles. Moreover, as Ukraine’s defense minister indicated, other systems are better suited to its needs, including American ones, which the United States has abjured from supplying so far. What Ukraine really wants is to drag Israel into the conflict on its side. That is understandable, but Israel must weigh its overall interests, not just sentiments.

Fifth, some 15 percent of Israel’s population has roots in the former USSR and 600,000 Jews still live in Russia. Russia has already taken measures designed to demonstrate its ability to stop emigration. The ingathering of the exiles is Israel’s raison d’être.

Sixth, unless the United States changes the policy of partial disengagement from the Middle East pursued by four consecutive presidents, Russia will remain a critical player in the region. In addition to support for Iran, Russia is providing Turkey and Egypt with advanced weapons and nuclear power reactors that could morph into military nuclear programs, has proposed similar deals with the Saudis and others, is an important player in OPEC+ and Libya, and more.

Seventh, France, Germany, Japan, and other leading states have provided only limited aid to Ukraine, belatedly and hesitantly. South Korea has refused to provide any weapons. Even the United States has imposed strict limits on the kinds of weapons it provides, for example, aircraft, missiles, air-defense systems, and until now, tanks. Israel does not have to be at the forefront of this issue. Some question Israel’s commitment to the Western camp because they have high expectations of it; others because they wish to use this issue as part of a broader delegitimization campaign. Most understand that Israel’s strategic circumstances require painful compromises between moral and strategic considerations.

Changes to Israel’s refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine might be warranted if, for example, Russia decided to limit its freedom of aerial maneuver in Syria; supplied certain weapons systems to Iran, e.g. the S-400s; adopted a clearly obstructionist position in the nuclear talks; or provided direct assistance to Iran’s nuclear program. In each case, the details would determine the nature of Israel’s response. Russia must be made to understand that Israel has the ability to significantly harm its interests, if pushed too far.

What Israel should be doing, were it not engulfed in its domestic convulsions, is providing Ukraine with outsized humanitarian assistance. It should send the field hospital back to Ukraine, if necessary, by turning it into an Israel Defense Force (IDF) operation; dispatch IDF search and rescue teams; expand rehabilitation programs for wounded Ukrainians; and complete the transfer of the rocket alert technology promised to Ukraine, all areas in which Israel is a global frontrunner. It should again provide emergency supplies for Ukrainian civilians.

Expanded assistance such as this would be of significant benefit for Ukraine, but likely not lead to an excessive Russian response. All sides understand that there are certain rules to the game.

Chuck Freilich is a senior fellow at the Miryam Institute and was a deputy national security adviser in Israel.

Danny Ayalon, a policy expert at the Miryam Institute, is a former deputy foreign minister of Israel and a former ambassador to the United States.

Both authors are co-hosts of the Miryam Institute’s biweekly podcast, the Israel Defense and Diplomacy Forum (IDDF).

Image: Shutterstock.

When most people hear the word intelligence in a political context, they immediately think of clandestine sources, spies, and secret meetings. Intelligence services still rely on human source intelligence (HUMINT) and intercepted communications (SIGINT). However, in the twenty-first century, open-source intelligence (OSINT) has become indispensable for understanding your adversaries and is often the primary and most valuable source of actionable intelligence. According to a detailed article highlighting the power of OSINT in the Wall Street Journal, “80% of what a U.S. president or military commander needs to know comes from OSINT.”

What then is OSINT, and why is it so important in 2023?

In brief, OSINT is the painstaking gathering and analysis of information from a wide range of open sources for the military, intelligence, police, and business communities. The explosion of social media—from real-time videos to blogs to chat rooms to Twitter and Facebook—has produced unprecedented opportunities for insight into areas and people where HUMINT and SIGINT are not as effective or cost too much while decreasing the risk to human intelligence assets. In addition, the analysis of covert intelligence is informed and sometimes significantly changed by OSINT.

As such, combining OSINT, HUMINT, VISINT (visual intelligence), and SIGINT allows a country’s national and diplomatic security apparatus to pre-emptively act to thwart threats, inform allies, negotiate from the point of strength, and challenge international organizations and non-government organizations with accurate information, especially those with hostile intent.

OSINT’s importance is increasingly recognized, especially in U.S. intelligence circles. The aforementioned Wall Street Journal article quotes Robert Cardillo, a senior intelligence expert, commenting that he “doesn’t worry about the intelligence community going away. I worry about it mattering. Goverment policymakers could rely less on traditional intelligence briefings and more on open-source products, which are generally cheaper and easier to access.” Almost in response to this challenge, former high-ranking U.S. intelligence experts—including a director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a retired Army major general who commanded the Army Intelligence Center, and the former deputy director of national intelligence for analysis—have formed the OSINT Foundation, which is “focused on OSINT's use within the intelligence community to answer questions for national leadership and policymakers because of a recognition that U.S. intelligence doesn’t give it the prominence it deserves.”

The significance of OSINT is not lost on U.S. adversaries either. Consider China: according to William Hannas of Georgetown University, Beijing has an “estimated 100,000 analysts scouring scientific and technical development globally” through open sources. Even in closed societies, the exponential growth of social media has given opposition forces the tools to share information with the outside world. It was the Iranian opposition that first revealed Iran’s advanced nuclear program, after all.

But it is perhaps in the private sphere that OSINT’s effects are being felt most, private intelligence companies may surpass government intelligence agencies in the gathering of actionable intelligence. An intelligence unit of Dow Chemical, using only open-source intelligence, predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 23, 2022: “Supercharged by the Ukraine war, the rise of open-source intelligence, which comprises everything from commercial satellite imagery to social media posts and purchasable databases, poses revolutionary challenges for the Central Intelligence Agency and its sister spy agencies, according to former senior officials who spent decades working in those agencies’ classified spaces.”

Consider as an example of this trend the Israeli research and educational think tank Alma—which one of the authors of this article is the CEO of. The organization studies Syria, Iraq, and Iran while relying almost entirely on OSINT. Its reporting and analysis are used by major media organizations, politicians, and security agencies for reliable information on the threats posed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and other Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq. Alma’s special reports and analysis have unearthed information on a vast array of issues, including the propagation of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Europe to south Florida, Hezbollah’s drug industry in Syria, Iran’s entrenchment in south Damascus, Hamas’ growing presence in Lebanon, the Iranian smuggling of weapons into Beirut and Damascus airports, Russia’s military deployment in Syria, Iranian and Hezbollah espionage and terrorist activity in Scandinavia, details on the Iranian weapons land corridor, analysis of Syria’s air defenses, and documentation on the deployment of advanced Iranian UAVs throughout the Middle East. Hezbollah was so concerned about the accuracy of Alma’s reporting that they threatened the organization by posting its GPS coordinates as a warning.

Yet OSINT is not without some drawbacks, which must be kept in mind.

For one, given the enormous volume of open-source intelligence, professional analysts must somehow separate the wheat from the chaff. Analyzing press briefings, websites, government-supported journals, private commercial imagery from satellites, technical reports, corporate and government databases, first-hand observation, and more, the list of OSINT sources is endless. Information overload is a potential problem that must be navigated. In the past, people tended to believe secret sources produced the most valuable intelligence. Today it is becoming increasingly clear that professional and creative OSINT analysts can draw an excellent picture of reality—but only so long as analysts can condense an enormous amount of information into a presentable and accessible intelligence product.

Next is the problem posed by disinformation. Intelligence communities that rely on the complete range of intelligence sources have long had to stand guard against such, and there is a belief that OSINT can be more challenging for intelligence analysts as there may be a greater risk of such. At the same time though, it is also clear today that every form of intelligence, whether open or secret source, is maybe “infected” by disinformation. Appropriate judgment and careful evaluation are now more important than before.

Finally, leaked classified information that makes its way into open sources presents a double-edged sword: while such information can be helpful to policymakers who were cut out of the classified loop by their security agencies, the problem is that now one’s enemies also know.

No one knows the future of intelligence, but valuing the importance of OSINT, in combination with HUMINT and SIGINT, will give us a fighting chance to inform our leaders with the best information to protect our interests and societies from those who want to do us harm.  

Dr. Eric Mandel is the Director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network, and briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy experts. He is the Senior Security Editor of the Jerusalem Report and a regular contributor to The Hill. 

Sarit Zehavi is the CEO of Alma Research and Education Center. She is a lieutenant colonel (res.) in the Israel Defense Forces and served for fifteen years as a military intelligence officer.

Image: Shutterstock.

As an unprecedented protest movement quickly spread to dozens of Chinese cities last fall, calling into question Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s authority, the country’s Orwellian surveillance system went into high gear to scrutinize video footage, track phone records, and identify those involved. Yet China’s success in neutralizing these and other threats to the regime rests not on technology developed in Beijing, but in Silicon Valley.

Protests in China are not particularly rare. The number of “public order disturbances” rose tenfold from about 8,700 per year in the 1990s to around 90,000 in the early 2000s, according to Chinese government statistics. Beijing stopped reporting protest data in 2006, although credible studies suggest such figures have hovered near historic highs, with one such study estimating nearly 180,000 protests in 2010 alone. But whereas most Chinese protests involve specific material issues, such as local pay disputes and environmental causes, last December’s demonstrations centered around overturning Xi’s harsh zero-COVID restrictions—with some protestors even calling for Xi’s ouster.

Thousands of people from all parts of society risked their lives to pressure the Chinese government into relaxing mandatory COVID testing requirements, quarantines, and stringent lockdowns. The public anger was understandable: Xi’s pandemic restrictions wrought havoc on China’s public finances and exacerbated many of the structural imbalances that have long plagued Chinese society. The result has been a sharp uptick in urban youth unemployment, a record $1.1 trillion Chinese budget deficit, and a 26 percent drop in land sale revenues—a key driver of local government spending. Spooked by the scale of the demonstrations and the intensity of citizens’ grievances, Xi did the unexpected: he hastily retreated and ordered the rollback of nearly all of China’s pandemic-related restrictions.

Seemingly overnight, China’s protest movement fizzled out, too—but not because Xi relented. Instead, within hours of the first demonstrations, Chinese authorities began knocking on protestors’ doors and demanding to know their whereabouts during the unrest. Many demonstrators received threatening text messages about their participation in “illegal riots,” whereas others were ordered to report to the nearest police station for questioning. Some simply vanished.

China’s successful protest crackdown was no fluke—it was by design. For three decades, China has been developing a complex web of high-tech surveillance systems with ominous names like “Sharp Eyes” and “Golden Shield.” Their first objective was to establish a unified network of spy cameras around the country, many featuring facial recognition software linked to China’s national registry database. These systems were later bolstered by corresponding cloud-based databases and geolocation platforms capable of analyzing terabytes of information generated hourly by Chinese traffic cameras and telecommunications networks, as well as data gleaned by China’s army of internet censors. Under Xi’s leadership, China nearly doubled its annual spending on “public safety” to $210 billion—a figure that exceeds the country’s defense budget.

The beneficiaries of Xi’s surveillance spending spree included Silicon Valley, which explains why U.S. software and equipment from companies such as IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle is deeply embedded throughout China’s police state. Beyond aiding in the development and maintenance of government-controlled systems used to squash last December’s protests, some U.S. firms also actively collaborate with Chinese companies that publicize their links to China’s surveillance apparatus and human rights atrocities.

A typical example of these problematic partnerships is U.S. semiconductor manufacturer Intel’s years-long relationship with Tiandy, a Chinese firm recently blacklisted by Washington for aiding Beijing’s persecution of Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang province. Tiandy produces surveillance cameras and networked surveillance systems equipped with facial recognition technology that Chinese authorities have deployed throughout China, including in cities where last month’s protests occurred. The company also sells torture devices known as “tiger chairs” used by Chinese officials to interrogate, sometimes for days, political dissidents. An investigation by tech watchdog IPVM further revealed Tiandy sold its surveillance systems to the sanctioned Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, possibly for use against peaceful protesters there.

Tiandy hardly hid its ties to China’s police state. In fact, the company championed such collaboration in its advertising materials and on its website. Tiandy CEO Dai Lin even hosted meetings with former Deputy Communist Party Secretary of Xinjiang Province Wang Junzheng, whom the U.S. government sanctioned for his role in orchestrating China’s Uighur genocide. And yet, Tiandy also maintained a top-tier alliance with Intel, whose processors power Tiandy’s genocide-enabling products. Even worse, IVPM alerted Intel about Tiandy’s activities in 2021 and Intel elected to maintain the partnership, only severing it when Tiandy was added to Washington’s export control list in December.

Intel is not alone, and its links to Tiandy go well beyond any due-diligence snafu. Instead, the company’s approach is broadly representative of Silicon Valley’s culture of compliance in China, where U.S. tech firms often outsource human rights and end-user risk assessments to third-party suppliers, many themselves linked to China’s military-industrial complex. In passing the buck, U.S. multinationals can have it both ways. They can claim to be vetting their supply chains, but also maintain some plausible deniability about what derogatory information may or may not have been shared with them by these third-party entities.

To be fair, most tech sales to Chinese entities are not prohibited by U.S. law, particularly because Washington often issues licenses explicitly permitting such transfers. But, the provision of any technology that optimizes the performance or sustains the day-to-day operations of Chinese entities involved in human rights violations is, at a minimum, ethically problematic. This moral dilemma is compounded further because many U.S. tech firms, including Intel, tout their commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives even as they sell their products and services to autocratic regimes. At the same time, investment research firms, like Morningstar, have acknowledged how gaps in their ESG ratings systems can inadvertently give a free pass to companies linked to China’s censorship and surveillance apparatus.

For instance, it was Cisco that provided the routers and know-how necessary to construct China’s “Great Firewall”—used by Beijing to block Western websites and censor data—even though, since 1994, Chinese leaders have been transparent about using internet gateways to control China’s masses. As recently as 2017, Apple also helped China shore up the firewall by deleting five dozen apps that Chinese citizens could use to circumvent government internet filters.

Just as troubling, Public Security Bureaus in Beijing, as well as Fujian, Guangdong, and Henan provinces, all rely on IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle products to maintain their monitoring and censorship operations, according to public contract documents from as recently as 2020. These products enable, among other things, internet traffic monitoring, as well as facial and license plate recognition. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Windows operating system is widely used by Chinese police departments, which the U.S. State Department has cited for their “routine, arbitrary, and unlawful interference” in Chinese citizens’ lives.

The U.S. tech sector’s links to the Uighur genocide are even more glaring. For instance, the Chinese entity responsible for constructing the Uighur detention facilities in Xinjiang, Zhongke Fuxing, counts IBM, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Oracle among its trusted partners. For their part, Intel and Nvidia chip’s power the Urumqi Cloud Computing Center in Xinjiang, which, since its inception in 2015, has been cited by Chinese state media for its ties to China’s security apparatus. More specifically, this computer center analyzes peoples’ daily patterns to support China’s so-called predictive policing, in which anyone can be pre-emptively arrested for crimes they have not even committed.

In all, far too many U.S. companies, as well as well-respected U.S. universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have engaged in wide-ranging, unregulated, and often dual-use research with Chinese firms whose business models revolve around furthering repression and undermining freedom. Even when those Chinese companies have been cited by the U.S. or other governments as national security threats, some multinationals look the other way.

Case in point: Amazon Web Services—which maintains billion-dollar contracts with the U.S. Defense Department and intelligence community—hosts streaming services for Hikvision and Dahua, two surveillance firms blacklisted by Washington for supporting China’s Uighur genocide. Both companies are banned from selling their products in the United States. Hikvision, in particular, developed police tools to track protest activities in China, including system-wide alarms that are triggered when crowds “disrupt order in public places.” For its part, Amazon contends that these relationships are in “in full compliance with the law.”

Some U.S. tech giants, like Dell, have signaled plans to draw down their China-based operations amid concerns over Sino-U.S. tensions. But if Amazon’s legalistic retort is any indication, hard-hitting new laws and export control regulations will be needed to compel tech firms to decouple from China’s surveillance state. Indeed, it took an outright ban on the importation of Chinese goods made via forced labor for clothing manufacturers to finally get serious about mapping their distributor networks and shifting supply chains. Similar measures—in which the legal onus falls on tech companies to prove that their third-party vendors are not linked to Chinese law enforcement agencies—should be considered.

That said, the hope of better due diligence in the future will be cold comfort to Chinese citizens arrested for participating in last month’s peaceful protests, including demonstrators identified with the use of Silicon Valley’s latest wares. For America’s tech giants, that’s just business.

Craig Singleton, a former U.S. diplomat, is a senior China fellow at the non-partisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Image: Jiraroj Praditcharoenkul/Shutterstock.

What should Ukraine’s long-term future relationship with Europe, and the West in general, look like if and when this terrible war can be brought to a close? It is not too soon to ask this question. Waiting for talks to begin would be imprudent, given the importance of the task. Indeed, planning for the post-World War II international order began well before 1945. This may not be World War II—but the Ukraine conflict is nonetheless a major event in European history. It behooves us to think big and think from first principles when considering how to help end it. 

A stable peace will require a fair deal that allows Ukraine to rebuild its nation with strong ties to the West and strengthen its economy even as it seeks to do so in a way that minimizes the likely Russian counterreaction. Thinking of Ukraine and Turkey together as new members of the European Union by 2030 provides the right strategic objective as we contemplate a new architecture for the region. These are the two largest countries of Europe’s eastern flank, besides Russia itself, and the two that are also most in flux geostrategically. Anchoring them into a broader European order will be important not only for their future security, but for the broader region’s stability as well—whether we think in terms of the West’s coherence and cohesion, or deterrence of Russia, or both. 

One element of such an approach clearly must involve security. As one of us has written elsewhere, a negotiated settlement to the current war requires enough reassurance and security enhancement for Ukraine that Russia will not wind up attacking again in a year or two or three. NATO membership for Ukraine, and binding security guarantees, seem implausible as part of any accord with Russia. But a strong NATO training presence in a future Ukraine, combined with the creation of a new Eurasian security structure that is distinct from NATO and stronger than the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, may provide the right formula. Ukraine would be a founding member of such a structure, along with many or most NATO members. A post-Vladimir Putin and reformed Russia could someday join as well.

However, it is not all about security, as important as that is. Ukraine’s broader place in Europe is crucial to consider, as well. The alternative to thinking about postwar dynamics now is to wait for military conditions to be ripe for political negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow to begin. This strategy of patience may prove too long, too risky, and too costly for all the parties involved, including Europe and the United States. While the West must continue to help Ukraine militarily and economically, it should also incentivize Kyiv to think about postwar stabilization, democracy, and prosperity. A clear path leading to Ukraine’s EU membership—with a generous financial package for postwar reconstruction—is a promising and realistic strategy for the West. 

But this long-term European strategic objective that includes Ukraine in the EU should not shut the door to Turkey. Europe must not turn into a Christian club that excludes a critically important Muslim country that applied to join the club long before Ukraine even emerged as an independent state in 1991. To be sure, Turkey’s autocratic path under Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot and should not be rewarded. Instead, the EU must chart a course that incentivizes and rewards a post-Erdogan Turkish political context. This scenario may very well emerge after the Turkish elections scheduled for this summer. The recent devastating earthquake in the country has only sharpened the resolve of the Turkish opposition, who blames the Erdogan government for the slow rescue effort, inefficient post-disaster relief, and lax construction standards. According to most polls the opposition—a unified front of six political parties—has a reasonable chance to win. A combination of dismal economic conditions and Erdogan-fatigue among large segments of Turkey’s young and dynamic society is likely to turn a new page in Turkish politics after twenty years under the same ruler. Under a more democratic government and after having welcomed Sweden and Norway as new NATO members, a post-Erdogan Turkey will deserve a second chance with the EU. Given Turkey’s complex—and potentially helpful—role in the Ukraine crisis, this new page in Turkey-EU relations can also help Ankara escape Russia’s strategic and economic orbit. 

Ukraine gained candidate status in the EU shortly after the Russian invasion began. But candidacy is no guarantee for membership, as Turkey, another country that gained such status in 1999 and began accession negotiations in 2005, bitterly knows. Some may object that the EU cannot accept a state with occupied territory. In fact, the EU already has a member with unsettled borders: Cyprus. To Turkey’s dismay, Cyprus gained membership in the union despite voting against a United Nations-sponsored plan that would have united the island. 

Turkey’s own EU accession process is currently on hold for reasons largely related to its autocratic turn. But Cyprus and Greece are also serious impediments. An opposition victory against Erdogan in the upcoming elections could create a narrow window of opportunity on that front too. A recent document outlining the Turkish opposition’s strategic vision underlines the need for diplomatic engagement rather than saber-rattling with Greece. Reviving Ankara’s EU membership process in a post-Erdogan context would provide a rewarding boost to a new Turkish government that seeks diplomatic rather than militaristic solutions to deeply-rooted problems in the Aegean sea and Eastern Mediterranean. 

All this is easier said than done. With Brexit, the EU lost the country that was the most ardent supporter of enlargement. Washington also lost its most valued partner in the EU. In the absence of the United Kingdom, Washington needs to become the champion of EU enlargement. The case to be made to the EU’s Franco-German engine is a convincing one: a path for Ukraine and Turkey to join the club by 2030 will significantly improve peace and stability in Europe. The alternative will be a Ukraine in limbo and a frustrated Ankara continuing to move away from the transatlantic community. Yes, Turkey is already a NATO member, but a highly problematic one. Ankara has purchased missile defense systems from Russia and currently holds Finnish and Swedish membership to NATO hostage. The Biden administration should make the case that a more democratic Turkey after Erdogan will need a European perspective to stay the course. This positive trajectory change in Turkish foreign and domestic politics will certainly be a game-changer for Turkish-Russian relations. 

At the end of the day, only the EU can take decisions about its future. Declaring that EU membership for Ukraine could take “decades,” French president Emmanuel Macron has recently launched the “European Political Community”—a large and toothless initiative bringing together forty-two countries that includes Israel, Georgia, and Armenia. Ukraine and Turkey will need more than inclusion in a large and ineffective pan-European tent with no economic and political benefits. To truly defeat Russian objectives, the EU and the United States need to establish a stronger and much more audacious transatlantic agenda. Anchoring Ukraine and Turkey in the EU by the end of the decade should be at the heart of this strategic vision. 

Michael O’Hanlon holds the Philip Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at The Brookings Institution and is author of Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars since 1861.

Omer Taspinar is professor at National Defense University and Johns Hopkins/SAIS.

Image: Salma Bashir Motiwala / Shutterstock.com

The past few years have seen a wave of concern over how increasing political and social polarization is negatively affecting the political systems of the United States and other democracies. To clarify, social polarization refers to the growing divide between different social groups, which is often characterized by deep political, ideological, and cultural differences. Rising polarization can lead to increased distrust and even hostility between social groups, to the point where the domestic stability of both developed and developing countries are threatened—particularly in democracies. As people view those on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum as a threat or enemy, the likelihood of justifying violence to “protect their country” or “take it back” from “others” increases. Experts have examined the unfavorable impacts of polarization on several political dynamics, such as civic engagement, social trust, and trust in government.

However, we have a poor understanding of how polarization in society would affect militaries, particularly their performance and relations with their parent governments. After all, military institutions often reflect the characteristics of their societies, so there is little reason to believe militaries are immune to social polarization. Military officers have their own political views, and increasing political partisanship and polarization among the ranks has become worrying, if not detrimental, for national security.

The Military Consequences of Polarization

The first and perhaps the most serious such consequence is the decline of public trust in the military. When people perceive the military as representing one particular ideological view, especially one that is opposed to the views held by a significant segment of the civilian population, a military’s traditional neutral and non-partisan role is eroded, creating a divide between the military and the civilian public. Such a public perception would threaten a military’s ability to maintain the support of a broader population, making it difficult to elicit public support for military-related matters, particularly concerning funding, equipment, or training.

Second, polarization also increases the risk of politicizing the military appointment process. Politicians are incentivized to appoint partisan loyalists in military leadership, since they may not trust other military leaders who disagree with their political beliefs. Moreover, this would also affect the appointment of mid-level officers, since military leaders themselves might prefer working with subordinates who share similar political views, and distrust those who do not.

Beyond the appointment process, polarization could even affect the basic recruitment process in the military. The Turkish military is a prime example of this: polarization among ultranationalist, secularist, and religious communities in Turkey has deepened under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule over the past two decades, affecting the country’s military as Erdogan divided and dispersed it, taking complete control of what was once an institutional force. One of Erdogan's strongest allies, SADAT, officially a defense consultancy contractor, has been involved in choosing the desired candidates for the Turkish Military Academy (recently rebranded as National Defense University) and determining the list of questions in cadet selection interviews. Instead of questions that measure the qualifications of the candidates, SADAT’s questions are designed to recruit candidates who share their political views. Consider the following example questions: “Should Turkey be governed by democracy or theocracy?” “If both the Chief of the General Staff and the President give you an order at the same time, whose order would you follow?”

Third, social polarization can also impact the battlefield performance of militaries. The breakdown in social trust caused by polarization can be felt across the ranks, making it difficult for militaries to create strong bonds and cohesive units. This can deteriorate morale, and negatively impact soldiers’ performance on the battlefield. Additionally, polarization can make it difficult for militaries to undertake important efforts, such as intelligence gathering. If a military is perceived as closely aligned with one particular social group, or out of touch with certain social groups, it will find it hard to gain trust and cooperation from those groups. This could degrade a military’s ability to gather vital intelligence about an adversary, particularly in a counterinsurgency context where gathering information from locals is critical.

Polarized Military as Menace to Democracy

The dangers of a polarized military are not limited to the military itself—they can spread and even threaten the existence of fundamental democratic values, such as democratic civilian control over the military, that the military should possess non-partisan character, or even the acceptance of political transitions.

Consider for example recent political events in Brazil, where now-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in an election. Following Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat, a mob of his supporters attacked Brazil’s federal government buildings, including the nation’s Congress. Lula though noted that individuals in the military facilitated these insurrectionists’ storming of government buildings, indicating that polarization between right- and left-wing supporters in Brazil has affected the country’s military.

In addition to active-duty officers, social polarization also influences retired officers. For instance, there is a recent trend of retired U.S. officers adopting partisan positions and weighing in on subjects not related to military expertise. 124 retired generals and admirals released a letter in 2021 advancing a false claim that the presidential vote in 2020 was rigged in Joe Biden’s favor and opined about various domestic issues, such as the construction of a border wall. Retired generals in the United States also sometimes get directly involved in politics by speaking at political party conventions and endorsing political candidates. By involving themselves in these kinds of political activities, officers fail to preserve a military’s non-partisan character.

Polarization can create challenges to another democratic norm: civilian control of the military. If the military is perceived as being more powerful or influential than other institutions in society, the potential for abuse of power or erosion of democratic accountability can manifest. Additionally, if the military is perceived as being more respected or trusted than other institutions, this can produce a sense of entitlement and overconfidence among military leaders, making it harder for civilian leaders to provide effective oversight and guidance. This argument is consistent with professor Peter Erickson’s view that high levels of social polarization, combined with high military prestige, is a dangerous mix.

Overcoming Military Polarization

Despite this gloomy picture, there are also several potential solutions to the problem of polarization.

One solution is for militaries to engage with communities that perceive them as representing a different ideological group. There are several ways to achieve this, including diversifying the pool of recruits by including people from marginalized communities. Doing so can increase contact between people with different worldviews and foster a shared sense of purpose among those from diverse backgrounds, which can help alleviate the adverse effects of polarization.

Moreover, military organizations can partner with local organizations that serve their communities to better understand local needs. This partnership is particularly crucial during times of crisis, such as when militaries provide assistance during natural disasters—especially when marginalized communities are disproportionately affected. By paying special attention to helping these communities in a timely manner, militaries attain trust and break down barriers.

Furthermore, accountability is crucial for strengthening efforts to contain polarization. Not all officers are equally professional, and some may not even be aware of their implicit political biases. To prevent the possibility that such biases might poison the culture of professionalism and accountability in the military, senior leadership must take certain necessary measures, such as offering specialized training and making reporting channels open. Training can help officers become more aware of their implicit biases, foster a culture of open communication, and being able to raise concerns within legal limits against polarizing rhetoric or behaviors can help neutralize the harmful effects of polarization.

Together with the military’s own efforts, civilian leaders must do their bit to hold politicians responsible for their own deeds that could exacerbate a military’s polarization problem. To stop the politicization of uniformed troops or military resources in partisan contexts, the public ought to speak out and advocate for changes to laws on civil-military relations or the educational doctrine of particular militaries. These changes should aim to strictly restrict politicians from taking advantage of the reputation of their militaries for their own political agendas.

Lessons Learned from History

History is the most powerful teacher, and historical examples aptly demonstrate how polarization has led to defeats on the battlefield or undermined a military’s ability to respond to threats. Using these examples to demonstrate the consequences that a military faces, if polarization is left unresolved, might encourage individual military personnel to do their part to fix the issue.

The Ottoman military’s performance during the Balkan Wars (1912 to 1913) is a case in point. The Ottoman defeat in the First Balkan War was attributed to polarization among the officer ranks and the lack of a clear ideological message to unite soldiers.

The Balkan Wars marked the beginning of the Ottoman empire’s final decade. While conscription of non-Muslim males eligible for military service was legal since 1856, it was only enforced after 1909. While some Ottoman elites believed a more inclusive military was necessary to promote Ottomanism and save imperial unity, others believed it would exacerbate the already existing fault lines in the polarized Ottoman forces. The defeat in the Balkan Wars and World War I revealed the political tensions within the Ottoman political and military elite over Ottomanism, Islamism, and Turkism. The wars and the military coup of 1913 led to a de facto military dictatorship by the Committee of Union and Progress’ triumvirate until the end of the empire. Aware of the dangers of a politically polarized military, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the founding father of the nascent Turkish Republic, enforced a strict separation of the officer ranks from politics through legislation and constitutional amendments.

In sum, social polarization can lead to several serious consequences for militaries, such as the decline of public trust, the politicization of appointment and recruitment processes, and the negative impact on battlefield performance. These consequences are particularly worrying in a time of growing political partisanship and polarization in societies, where the military’s neutral and non-partisan role can be threatened, and its ability to maintain public support may be compromised. Furthermore, a polarized military can become a menace to democracy, where its actions may even threaten fundamental democratic values. It is crucial to recognize the impact of social polarization on militaries and take action to mitigate its negative consequences, such as promoting merit-based appointments and curbing civilian politicization of the military. An institution tasked with national security and defense of the nation can’t afford political exploitation of its nonpartisan ethic and constitutional duty. Preserving the institutional identity and shared values of the military calls for resilience and resistance from military leadership, civilian defenders, and a vigilant public.

Mustafa Kirisci is an Assistant Professor of Homeland Security at Desales University. His research interests are terrorism, civil conflict, interstate conflict, and civil-military relations.

Ibrahim Kocaman is an Assistant Professor at the department of security studies and international affairs at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. His research interests are civil conflict, civil-military relations, interstate conflict, and political economy.

Cagil Albayrak is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas. His research interests are terrorism, political institutions, and civil-military relations.

Image: Shutterstock.

The arrest of a “global terrorist” and financial supporter of Hezbollah in Romania on February 24 exemplifies the lengths the Lebanese militant group will go to insulate itself from U.S. sanctions. According to an indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, a fifty-eight-year-old Lebanese and Belgian citizen, conspired to “secretly move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United States to Lebanon” and “provide continued financial assistance to Hizballah,” a designated foreign terrorist organization. Bazzi, who was himself declared a Specially Designed Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2018, is now awaiting extradition to the United States alongside another Lebanese citizen, Talal Chahine, for participation in the same crimes.

Bazzi and Chahine’s offenses reach far beyond Romania and the United States. As described in the OFAC designation, Bazzi has generated millions of dollars for Hezbollah from business activities in Belgium, Gambia, Lebanon, and Iraq, among other locations. Further, as a “key Hizballah financier,” he maintains ties to other material supporters of Hezbollah and OFAC-designated and sanctioned SDGTs, as well as the Central Bank of Iran.

The Iran angle is particularly interesting, as Hezbollah has been known to receive the bulk of its funding (and weapons) from the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Iran’s foremost proxy which has carried out Iranian-backed operations in Syria and Yemen and against Israel, the ties between the two are extensive. Hezbollah has grown so powerful due to Iranian largess that it has often been called a “state within a state,” and has leveraged its capabilities to exert considerable political influence over Lebanon’s domestic and foreign policies.

Yet Hezbollah has also faced various financial constraints over the past two decades, including those brought on by Iran’s deteriorating economy, international financial sanctions, political competition in Lebanon, and combat operations in Syria. These pressures created an impetus for Iran and Hezbollah to get creative. Just this last week, for example, Israel announced the discovery of a gold smuggling operation between Iran and Venezuela, in which the former’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force would smuggle Venezuelan gold to Iran, sell it for a profit, and transfer the funds to Hezbollah.

This revelation should not be surprising. Hezbollah has worked assiduously to establish a presence in Latin America, especially in the notorious tri-border area between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, where a significant number of Lebanese immigrants live. As described by Matthew Levitt, a former senior official at the Treasury Department and a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in his 2013 book, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God, Hezbollah not only built formal and informal support networks in this area, including sleeper cells, but engaged in drug trafficking and “every financial crime in the book” to generate funds.

Hezbollah has established similar transnational criminal networks in Europe, Africa, and even the United States, providing it with sources of funding that are entirely independent of Iran. This has made cracking down on the group an arduous task for U.S. and international law enforcement.

This brings us back to Bazzi and Chahine. Despite being described as “the most senior catch in the top tier” of Hezbollah’s Business Affairs Component, the organizational structure that undergirds the group’s international enterprises, it is far from a death blow. Indeed, countering Hezbollah, which in addition to controlling a worldwide criminal network also commands a large political following in Lebanon, requires friends of a free and democratic Lebanon to play the long game.

To be sure, one way in which the United States has sought to support Lebanese democracy and Lebanese alternatives to Hezbollah is by supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). According to the U.S. State Department, the United States has invested over $3 billion into the LAF since 2006 as a means of supporting Lebanon’s institutions, strengthening its sovereignty, securing its borders, and countering internal threats and terrorists.

Unfortunately, Lebanon’s economic emergency and political dysfunction are straining the LAF to the breaking point. Al-Monitor reported in late February that desertions are rising as the country’s currency has collapsed by more than 98 percent over the past three years. Lebanese security chiefs are warning of their declining ability to secure the country at the same time that Lebanese citizens and police are “storming” banks to access their own money and violent clashes are occurring in the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp.

Whether a solution to these problems can be found is difficult to say, but Lebanon’s long-standing political deadlock suggests that the situation will further worsen before it improves. The country has failed to elect a new president since its former president, Michel Aoun, left office last October, leaving it in the hands of a caretaker government. This constitutional crisis is only one more problem upon a mountain of challenges that the Lebanese must summit before their situation improves. In this light, the arrest of two senior Hezbollah financiers is laudable, but ultimately a sideshow for the Lebanese people, whose country stands on the edge of a precipice.

Adam Lammon is a former executive editor at The National Interest and an analyst of Middle Eastern affairs based in Washington, DC. The opinions expressed in this article are his own.

Image: Crop Media/Shutterstock.

The Melian Dialogue is among the most heavily analyzed sections in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Athens wanted to take Melos, a small island, as a subject of their empire. The Athenians sent envoys to negotiate with the Melians, who had no true means of resisting a superpower like Athens unless their allies, the Spartans, chose to once again fight a long, bloody war on their behalf.

Unlike Melos, which never received Spartan aid and whose population was ultimately annihilated, Ukraine has received an endless supply of military aid from Western countries. Russian leaders regularly warn that the West’s military support of Ukraine could lead to a full-fledged war between NATO and Russia. After all, the truth of the matter is that American and other NATO members’ weapons are being sent to Ukraine in order to kill Russian soldiers.

Furthermore, while the Melian Dialogue certainly consisted of a lot of talking, there was hardly any true negotiation. Each party maintained unconditional positions that were paradoxical to one another, making any meaningful progress impossible. The same can be said with Russia and Ukraine; each party refuses to even come to the negotiating table until the other agrees to unacceptable demands. To avoid a Melian ending in Ukraine, one or both parties will have to modify their conditions. To avoid a worse ending, NATO should consider the following questions. Was it prudent for Sparta not to intervene in Melos, or should they have risked another massive war with Athens over the island? Should Melos have surrendered? As the war in Ukraine rages on, and peace talks have yet to commence, it’s long past time we ask ourselves if helping Kyiv regain control of eastern Ukraine is worth the risks, and if there isn’t another way forward.

The Athenian envoys opened the dialogue by acknowledging that they were brought only before the rulers of Melos, or “the Few,” because the people,“the Many,” would quickly agree to the Athenians’ demands and inferred that the Few knew this to be true. The Melians stated that though they would take part in a dialogue, there was hardly any serious discussion to be had. They understood that the Athenians had made up their minds and intended to turn Melos into their subject, which the Melians refused to consider. Herein lies the key problem that persists throughout the entire dialogue: each side maintained unconditional positions that were paradoxical to one another. The unconditional Athenian position was that Melos would become a subject of the Athenian empire, the only question being whether they would secure it through Melian submission or war. The unconditional Melian position was that they would not become a subject of the Athenian empire, the only question being whether they would achieve that through persuasion or war. The only outcome that both parties were willing to accept was also the one they both wanted to avoid. Does this sound familiar?

Kyiv has offered a ten-point peace proposal to the Russians, which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and the restoration of pre-war borders. It should come as no surprise that Russia declined Kyiv’s proposal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has urged Ukraine to accept the “new realities” and that if they don’t, “no kind of progress is possible.” Among these “new realities” include the annexed regions of eastern Ukraine being part of the Russian Federation. Referendums were held in each of these regions, and though they all allegedly voted to join the Russian Federation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, along with most of the Western world, has denounced these referendums as “shams” with “no legal value.”

Like the Athenians and Melians, Russia and Ukraine each maintain paradoxical, unconditional positions. The party being aggressed has every right to resist. That said, if either of these countries eventually become serious about ending the war for the sake of preventing further loss of life and destruction, there will have to be peace talks, and concessions will have to be made. Short of that, the only alternative is for one side to military defeat the other, which would lead to a far worse outcome for the loser.

The Athenians, like the Russians today, encouraged the Melians to accept the reality before them. They dismissed all arguments grounded in the abstract, such as the importance of hope. The Melians spoke of “the fortune of war” and stated that “to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.” The Athenians responded coldly, referring to hope as “danger’s comforter,” and said that when reality is too harsh to accept, people “turn to the invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction.” Ukraine is in a similar position, but unlike the Melians, they have been fed reasons to be hopeful by Western governments. Melos received no support from their allies, whereas Ukraine has received foreign military aid since the beginning of the war. This has been noticeably beneficial to the Ukrainians. As of November 2022, Ukraine has reclaimed over 50 of percent the land captured by Russia, though Russian forces still control roughly 15 to 20 percent of the country. Even with most NATO members agreeing to supply Ukraine with tanks, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that dozens of tanks will hardly make a difference, given the fact that Russia has thousands of them. Despite the quantity being insufficient, those tanks do provide a real benefit to the Ukrainian military, according to Zelenskyy. “They do only one very important thing—they motivate our soldiers to fight for their own values. Because they show that the whole world is with you.” In short, the West has supplied Ukrainians with hope.

The Melians cited the prospect of a Spartan intervention as a stronger argument against Athenian aggression. They claimed that the Spartans would intervene, “if only for very shame…”. Again, the Athenians struck them down, saying that danger is something “the Spartans generally court as little as possible.” One might not think of the United States as a nation that courts danger infrequently, given their long history of foreign interventions. But in the post-World War II era, the United States has exclusively fought against relatively minor powers. Major powers, which make up most of the United States’ greatest adversaries, tend to be off limits, and rightfully so. Not because America would lose a conventional war against a major power, but because of one key factor: nuclear weapons. In this regard, Americans are like the Spartans, who generally court danger as little as possible.

After going back and forth several more times over the prospect of a Spartan intervention, the Athenians suggested that the Few should seek advice from others before it’s too late. Before leaving, they told the Melians to make their final decision carefully, as it was a choice between “prosperity or ruin.”

The Few never changed their minds, they never sought advice from others and war ensued. The Melians held out for roughly a year before finally surrendering, at which point every man in Melos was executed, the women and children were sold into slavery, and Athenian colonists settled Melos for themselves. The Many were annihilated because of a decision made by a small group of individuals. To prefer death over the loss of sovereignty is noble. Subjecting an entire city to that decision is probably poor governance. If the Many had any say in this dialogue, would they have made the same decision, or would they have preferred to live as subjects of the Athenian empire? For the war in Ukraine to end through peace talks instead of a more Melian fate, either Russia or Ukraine will have to change their unconditional demands. 

There are only two possible outcomes for Ukraine. Either most of Ukraine will remain under Kyiv’s control, or all of Ukraine will be reduced to rubble, its leadership overthrown, and the entire country will potentially face annexation. The first outcome relies on peace talks taking place before the Ukrainian military is outright defeated. Those peace talks would probably include Kyiv surrendering its eastern territory to Russia. The second outcome is virtually guaranteed if Ukraine is defeated before agreeing to a peace treaty that involves forfeiting territory it hasn’t had real control of since 2014 anyway. This is true even with a continued supply of Western military equipment.

Readers will note that excluded from these two options is the outcome that most hope for: Ukraine defeating the Russian military and regaining control of the entire country. Those in the West who promote this outcome are feeding Ukrainians with what we know to be “danger’s comforter.” The longer the West provides Ukraine with military aid, the longer Ukrainians will be deluded in the face of greater dangers than those they already face.

Ending the war through a peace treaty, even an unideal one, is an objectively better outcome than the logical conclusion of its current course. Each new round of military equipment sent to Ukraine is more advanced than the last. The first batch of American aid included anti-armor and antiaircraft munitions. Roughly a year later, NATO countries have provided Ukraine with Patriot missile systems and are in the process of supplying them with tanks as well. Meanwhile, the Russians are becoming increasingly angry with Western governments, cutting diplomatic ties, exiting treaties, and occasionally threatening nuclear war. Is helping Kyiv regain control over the eastern territory worth that risk? Alternatively, Western governments could instantly eliminate that risk by ceasing its military aid. That would, of course, expedite Ukraine’s inevitable defeat and hurt the pride of Western leaders. Was the pride of the Few, or their value of sovereignty, worth the lives of Melos’ populace? And is there a lesson to be learned from the Spartans’ decision not to intervene?

Michael Guy is a political writer, activist, and campaign worker with a master’s degree in political science with a focus on political theory and American politics.

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One year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ugliness of humanity is fully on display. But instead of working to stop the war immediately, major powers in the world are directly or indirectly prolonging this man-made tragedy.

In total, as of the time of writing, the United States has committed more than $27.4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the current administration, and more than $26.7 billion since the beginning of Russia’s brutal invasion on February 24, 2022. President Joe Biden himself announced another half a billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine during his February 20 surprise visit to Kyiv. “To meet Ukraine’s evolving battlefield requirements, the United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities,” the U.S. Department of Defense declared when announcing the additional security aid. When appearing alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Biden proudly stated that, “Together, we’ve committed nearly 700 tanks and thousands of armored vehicles. 1,000 artillery systems, more than 2 million rounds of artillery ammunition, more than 50 advanced launch rocket systems, anti-ship and air defense systems, all to defend Ukraine.”

At the same time, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said his country would be pledging another $5.5 billion in assistance, because of “strong concern that Ukraine may be tomorrow’s East Asia.” 

Supporting Ukraine in its resistance against Russian invasion is the right thing to do. But is this the only thing the United States can do? Have the United States and other powers tried to end the war? Why has our society become so tolerant of this bloody war?

China, another major global power—which is reportedly considering supplying Russia with drones and artillery equipment—released its “Global Security Initiative Concept Paper” a few days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion. In this document, China touts the concept of “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security,” and reiterates its commitments “to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries” and “to taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously.”

This is a paradoxical position: the first commitment appears to be supporting Ukraine, while the second supports Russia. Without specific, actionable measures to implement this supposed global security initiative, the document sounds hollow. 

Yet the contradictory position may be the point, since the same dire situation that exists in Ukraine also exists in the Taiwan Strait. It’s in everyone’s interest not to turn Taiwan into another Ukraine. Yet the United States and China seem to be heading towards the exact same kind of showdown.

Depending on who you ask, a U.S.-China war over Taiwan could break out in 2049, 2035, 2027, or as soon as 2025—with that last one being based on the “gut feelings” of General Mike Minihan of the U.S. Air Mobility Command.

And how is the United States preparing for this potential scenario? By arming Taiwan.

Washington has never ceased arms sales to Taiwan after it switched official recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, which is consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). The TRA, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, states that the United States “shall provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.”

In recent years, the United States has sharply increased security and military support for Taiwan while China becomes more assertive. For instance, the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, included in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), authorizes appropriations for military grant assistance for Taiwan up to $2 billion per year from 2023 through 2027.

This so-called “porcupine strategy” is aimed at arming Taiwan so much that China would think twice before it launches an attack on Taiwan. The question is, with the People’s Liberation Army’s own modernization and Xi Jinping’s historical mission of realizing the “Chinese dream,” which includes China’s unification with Taiwan, will the porcupine strategy work? Or is it counterproductive, since Washington’s efforts to beef up Taiwan’s defense will only harden Beijing’s resolve to be better prepared for an eventual conflict?

U.S. diplomats and scholars used to be the most consistent and loudest supporters of cross-Taiwan Strait dialogue. Nowadays, nobody in Washington is promoting dialogue; everyone is busy predicting when the war with China will start—it is automatically presumed that such an outcome is a foregone conclusion.

The U.S. government tended to be vague about its long-term goal in Taiwan, and it was believed that Washington did not care about a particular outcome of cross-strait relations so long as the process is peaceful. Today, the United States does not seem to support cross-strait unification anymore, even if it is achieved peacefully. Indeed, Taiwan has become a more valuable strategic asset for both Washington and Beijing as U.S.-China rivalry intensifies.

As Washington continues to arm Taiwan and as Beijing ramps up military and diplomatic pressures on Taiwan, a U.S.-China military conflict seems highly likely.

No one benefits from wars, except greedy arms dealers. As great powers, the United States and China should ask themselves: what have we done to end or prevent wars?

Zhiqun Zhu is a professor of international relations and political science at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He has written extensively on U.S.-China relations and East Asian political economy.

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Newly re-elected Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and high-level Israeli ministers have recently met with multiple U.S. delegations led by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on January 19, CIA director Bill Burns shortly after, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken between January 30-31. The litany of meetings marks the first early engagements between the partner countries under Israel’s new government, coming at a truly unique moment for Israel and Palestine in which a perfect confluence of hardline views and groups could erupt into a regionally destabilizing conflict.

The historic election of the most far-right government in Israeli history following Israeli parliamentary elections in November has dominated the media cycle for months, in no small part because Netanyahu’s coalition consists of ultranationalist and ultraorthodox parties operated by openly racist and xenophobic fascists. The most notable non-Likud parties and individuals in this new coalition include Religious Zionism, run by Bezalel Smotrich; Otzma Yehudit, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir; Shas, led by Aryeh Deri; and United Torah Judaism, led by Yitzchak Goldknopf.

Netanyahu’s Likud is the largest party in the Israeli Knesset (the Israeli parliament) with thirty-two seats. It is also the furthest left political entity in the coalition, raising eyebrows given that the party is very conservative. Major cabinet-level positions were given to each of the party leaders in the coalition, including Smotrich as minister of finance and Ben Gvir as minister for national security. Specifically, Smotrich will control the Finance Ministry for two years while also serving as a minister in the Ministry of Defense, overseeing West Bank settlements. Ben Gvir will oversee police forces across Israel and the West Bank.

Ultimately, the ministry assignments are striking considering the conflict of interests at play. This includes Smotrich’s plans to shift governing responsibilities from the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Civil Administration under the Defense Ministry to “relevant ministries” and thus civilian control—a “de facto annexation” of Palestinian land as it would apply Israeli civil law instead of military rule to the occupied territories. Smotrich’s Finance Ministry would likely be one governing entity gaining powers over the West Bank in this regard, as he desires full control of development in Area C (60 percent of the West Bank) to advance Israeli settler colony construction. Importantly, Smotrich lives in the historic settlement of Kedumim, half of which falls under Area C.

This plan was partially operationalized on February 23, when a number of responsibilities under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Civil Administration, the two Defense Ministry agencies in charge of civilian affairs in Area C of the West Bank where Israel has full security and civilian control, were transferred to Smotrich. To avoid political backlash, the power transfer is defined as within the Defense Ministry, where Smotrich is a minister. Ultimately, power over the West Bank will be split between Smotrich, Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and Netanyahu—setting up a power struggle. More importantly, Smotrich will now have supposed final say on enforcement of illegal settlement construction.

Each of these leaders, as well as their parties broadly, openly support repressive policies that advance Israeli apartheid over Palestinians specifically and non-Jewish minorities generally. This includes settlement expansion (including legalizing illegal outposts in occupied Palestine on February 12), expanding policing of Palestinian-majority communities, loosening policies allowing for police to fire on civilians, outlawing the Palestinian flag, and broadening the interior minister’s ability to revoke citizenship for a lack of “loyalty” to the state of Israel. Each of these policies is used to decrease the power of Palestinians to resist the occupation and further harden the alternative legal regime under which they live.

Ultimately, the combination of fascistic politicians, coupled with the guaranteed deepening of Israeli apartheid against Palestinians in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)—not to mention the attempted annexation of Palestinian land through settlement expansion, recognition, and legal reforms—is certain to spell disaster for Palestine, Israel, and the broader region. Indeed, the advent of Israel’s new government comes amidst the perfect storm of adjacent issues.

This includes the rapidly decaying influence of and support for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the West Bank. Aging PA president Mahmoud Abbas, alongside most of the PA leadership under his Fatah Movement, is widely viewed as ineffectual and out of touch—for good reason. PA cooperation with Israel has regularly produced terrible outcomes for Palestinians, often in the form of Ramallah’s brutal repression of the Palestinian street itself. Many Palestinians view the PA as an arm of the Israeli government, especially given its own brutal tactics against the Palestinian people.

Due to its loss of legitimacy, the PA is ceding ground to new armed groups across the OPT, not limited to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, alongside newer groups like the Lion’s Den. Palestinian Youth are particularly prominent in new militant groups in the West Bank and carry widespread support—a sign that Palestinians have lost faith in peaceful engagement with Israel. This is best represented by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research’s (PCPSR) latest polling of Palestinians in the West Bank, which found that 40 percent of individuals now support “waging an armed struggle” against the occupation.

This is a long-running and unsurprising trend. Israel has forced millions of Palestinians into both poverty and increasingly smaller communities over the decades while supporting settler efforts to swallow up OPT land, such as mob attacks on Palestinian communities. Consecutive Israeli governments have ignored the clear need for peace talks with the Palestinian leadership, cynically opting to slowly creep over Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse entire communities, in no small part because it is politically popular in Israel. Masafer Yatta, near Hebron, offers one of a litany of examples of this strategy. Indeed, the Israeli far-right appears dead set on expanding Israeli territory to force Palestinians out of their communities. Smotrich’s statements, claiming he has “no interest” in the PA’s existence, is the personification of a broader reality in which the West Bank is entirely annexed—a leading cause of Palestinian upheaval today. Israeli efforts to cut PA funding, led by Smotrich, only worsen destabilization.

Thus, the perfect storm presents itself. One of the core sources of regional instability—namely the fight for Palestinian statehood—is reaching an apex moment in which hardline stances in Israel and Palestine are resulting in exceedingly violent incidents. Much of this falls on Israel’s refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians given domestic political realities and the perception that it can bypass concessions through efforts to expand the Abraham Accords, which connected Israel to multiple Arab governments in 2020 through so-called “peace deals.”

This, coupled with overt military repression that has particularly worsened in the last year, evidenced by a marked increase in West Bank raids since last year, has forced many Palestinians to view violence as their only option. To be sure, increasingly repressive tactics are the norm of both moderate and right-wing Israeli governments for years, especially following the deadliest year for Palestinians on record (2022). Unfortunately, the new government’s makeup and rhetoric prove that it will continue to push Palestinians beyond the breaking point. Recent violence in the West Bank during the U.S. delegation visits, including the worst Israeli raid in a decade, and, subsequently, the worst Palestinian attack on Israelis in fifteen years are the results.

Without exceedingly careful diplomacy by world leaders—namely, the United States—a new and major conflict will erupt between Israelis and Palestinians that could transcend the OPT into Israeli communities. This was already witnessed during the 2021 Gaza War, which for the first time saw intracommunal violence across Israel as Hamas and the IDF rained bombs on each other for weeks. Simply put, it is not outlandish, albeit incredibly saddening, that 2023 faces the very real risk of a third Intifada should the new Israeli government push Palestinians to the breaking point. PCPSR’s research suggests that many think this is already occurring, with 61 percent of Palestinians and 65 percent of Israeli Jews agreeing an intifada has already started.

Recent U.S. delegations to Israel suggest that important conversations focused on stabilizing the situation are occurring. However, Netanyahu’s word is highly contentious given the far-right’s hold over him due to his ongoing corruption trial. Ultimately, Netanyahu needs his coalition partners to push through judicial reforms that will save his political career. His decision to create a coalition with fascists already suggests he is compromised on this front and beholden to their interests. Thus, his comments about stability and the status quo should ring hollow, let alone any expectation that he can keep his cabinet in check. This is particularly true given the recent conflict within his cabinet following the destruction of the illegal Or Hachaim outpost in the West Bank, in which Gallant and Smotrich clashed over the closing of the settler outpost. Israel’s brutal Nablus raid on February 22, mere hours after promising to cease West Bank raids in exchange for the PA’s removal of a highly critical United Nations Security Council resolution against Israel, further proves this reality. The brutality that occurred during the Huwara pogroms, at nearly the same time as meetings in Jordan between Palestinian, Israeli, American, and other regional delegations, only adds insult to injury.

Washington must recognize the moment. The Biden administration has attempted to play “quiet diplomacy” with Israel in the hopes of avoiding a rupture, but this strategy was always doomed to fail. Any approach that utilizes increasingly toothless peace and security rhetoric without a political process, which Israel and the United States continue to say is not viable, is doomed to lead to violence as Palestinians face daily raids, deaths, poverty, and no state. Hoping that an outbreak of additional (and worse) violence does not occur even as the U.S. government does its utmost to defend Israel and the current status quo will neither support U.S. interests nor aid in peace and stability. It will only leave the region a powder keg set to ignite at any moment.

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst focused on the Middle East and North Africa. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him at @langloisajl.

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