Diplomacy & Crisis News

Following the West’s repudiation of the Maduro regime, for a class of government-connected Venezuelans commonly referred to as enchufdos—those who are “plugged” into government—there came a fear to invest internationally. When faced with the prospect of sanctions, incarceration, and frozen bank accounts, this ragtag group, composed mainly of members of the enabling old elite and phony populists who became the country’s nouveau riche, had to innovate.

In the pursuit of new money flows, and limited by an inability to re-invest their ill-earned dollars with confidence, this group, accompanied by so-called anti-imperialists, suddenly went all-in with the de facto dollarization of the Venezuelan economy. With this came not only the unexpected opening of a Ferrari dealership in the capital, but what many referred to as “La Era del Bodegón” (The Age of Bodegas), a term used by shocked, sometimes optimistic, and often satiric, Caraqueños who—after enduring the absence of milk, toilet paper, and sugar—started to see the rise of bodegas with, to many’s surprise, basic essentials. 

This is all rather uneventful, some may think, but with this perceived progress came a reduction of expressed social discontent.

This is not due to a substantive change in the state of affairs. The country remains corruption-ridden and the currency hyper-inflated. To this day, there are gasoline and water shortages (yes, in Venezuela). The overwhelming majority of the population lives under the poverty line. Still, even when the emigration numbers are comparable with those in Syria and Ukraine, thousands who have been forced to live miserably can be made ecstatic with vacuous, slight progress. Under the guise of social betterment, it appears that there is nothing more than a superficial notion of modernization.

To properly assess the situation on the ground, it’s necessary to examine social relations within the country with honesty—and without unshakeable faith in development theory. This means that instead of expecting dissatisfaction with the regime, hoping for it to perish or for imminent revolution to happen, we must take all predictions with a grain of salt. Criticism of the country’s fractured opposition and commentary regarding the changing approach of foreign actors may carry some validity. But the two are insufficient without a deeper exploration of how the population of Venezuela feels about the country they live in today, as multifarious as that feeling may be. 

The claim that “Venezuela se Arregló,” which translates to “Venezuela has been fixed,” has become ubiquitous in popular discourse, although sometimes it is expressed in an almost nihilistic manner. In family reunions and parties, in the supermarket and after church, and throughout the country, overhearing these debates is unavoidable. As journalist Alonso Moleiro claimed in El País, the phrase has become a mirage that torments the national consciousness, as its expression alludes, correctly, to some progress in the proliferation of establishments, while others believe that the utterance in itself looks over the galloping monetary catastrophe and the ever-evolving human rights crisis.

As someone who lived a significant part of my life in the country, and is visiting Caracas for the first time in six years, I decided to examine what the “Venezuela se Arregló” claim really means by talking to Venezuelans themselves.

As I arrived in Caracas, once known as “the Pearl of the Caribbean,” my first conversation was with a talkative taxi driver and family man from San Cristóbal. When I asked about the now-popular saying, he outright coarsely responded: “pure bullshit.” He explained that his nephew “spent three months in prison after the 2012 protests, even when he was not protesting.” In his words, the true intention of his capture was criminal, as “the national guard asked for four thousand dollars” for his release. With visible horror, he claimed that, while arbitrarily detained, his nephew was terrorized to such a degree that, when his nephew’s mother brought maize-based arepas for her son, they were filled with human feces—an attempt to degrade the now traumatized young man.

“Fear”, he said, “combined with the need to adapt to changing circumstances” has reduced public demonstrations, saying that those who claim that things are better were privileged beforehand. He suggested that the recently built business establishments appeal to a select few, as the average Venezuelan would have to work for weeks to afford a plate at one of the more trendy restaurants. If conditions were getting better, he posited, “there would not be thousands selling everything they have to leave their home country in precarious conditions.”

The next day I talked to a very different sort of individual: a college student at the Metropolitan University of Venezuela. We met at a burger joint. The food was good, the prices were higher than I expected, and the conversation lovely. Without having to ask, he updated me on how much has changed since he last saw me.

“Do you remember Las Mercedes?” From what I could recollect, it was the nicer part of the city, with good gastronomy and nightlife. But then again, the last time I was in the city I was a sixteen-year-old and lacking a sophisticated palate.

According to him, Las Mercedes is now “literally the bastard child of Paris.” Semi-jokingly, he explained that the district is “all lit-up as if it were Times Square, with rooftops, and hundreds of new restaurants.” To this, he added that there is a replica of the iconic Miami-based nightclub, E11EVEN, which has been conveniently baptized as “Twelve.” According to him, it is “just a hole in the ground, but still, there are plenty of new places to party,” something that previously did not exist. If this sounds exaggerated, then BBC’s Norberto Paredes calling the district “the epicenter of Venezuelan capitalism” should be even more eye-catching.

Following this, I talked to one friend’s mother, and she had a lot to say. From a six-floor glass-covered gallery, with all the luxury brands named Avanti to several padel courts built by the family of First Lady Cilia Flores, she suggested that Caracas “has been fixed.” She emphasized that “all the money is dirty, but people don’t think about it too much,” suggesting that “it’s always been corrupt, so for some, it’s a matter of a corruption that at least builds, or a corruption that only destroys.”

Like her, another mother helped me learn a lot about the absurd changes in the city. She talked about Altum, a floating Dubai-style restaurant that lifts its customers to incredible heights with a crane, which she described as “insane and obscene,” claiming that she has no doubts “money laundering is behind it.” Additionally, she talked about the opening of Salvaje Caracas, a luxury Japanese cuisine chain with restaurants in Paris, Miami, and Madrid.

In her eyes, although a few businesses weren’t started by enchufados, there is no doubt, and in dozens of cases, it has been proven, that those connected with the narco-state are behind most of the development. The mother exclaimed that “they have billions of dollars that they cannot hide.”

Regarding the bodega phenomenon, the college student suggested that “there are more American products here than in the United States.”  Putting aside this fascinating sales pitch, the tone of the conversation shifted when I queried if this was a marked departure from the old status quo. “Even ‘Venezuela Plus’ is still Venezuela,” he asserted, suggesting that the water is still cut on a day-to-day basis, and that, “the wifi still sucks.” When pressed about the social discontent, he claimed that “there are no protests anymore,” explaining that being an enchufado has become so normal that even the old elites have many of them in their friend groups.

“We know who is who, but we don’t do anything about it, we can’t do anything, and trying to do anything leads to nothing,” he mused.

When talking to an older man while in line for some pastries, I found general agreement. Although more politically focused, the man told me that the revolution-esque discourse has been replaced with cohabitation, and many of the people with any money left are either in “survival mode or taking advantage of the changing business environment.” He claimed that the opposition is filled with opportunists who, when push comes to shove, benefit from the status quo, stating that, “everyone hates Maduro, but no one does anything, so it is just what it is.”

With notable hopelessness, and maybe a tad of indifference, another student, this time from Andrés Bello Catholic University, told me that “with things the way they are, who cares who is in power?” He continued, “all politicians in this country are corrupt, Venezuelans have a short memory, and those with power who could challenge Maduro lack balls,” claiming that, unlike what some “Guaido-lovers hoped,” things will not change. If anything, he stated, “Maduro’s grasp on power will become even stronger.”

The foreign policy world must be made aware of these sorts of views and developments. From regime change supporters to barrier-reduction advocates, it is essential to grasp how the Venezuelan regime and its enablers have reacted to a hostile international market and how their reaction affects the prospects of political change. Only by doing this can policymakers enhance their approach to this particular South American nation, so that any steps made actually advance tangible, lasting goals. Even more so, for those who seek to understand how nations change, if anything can be learned from these interviews it is that much can be extracted vis-à-vis social relations within a country from how citizens interact on an ordinary basis.

One cannot appreciate what one cannot remember. In the case of Venezuela, memories of national greatness have been overshadowed by those of national tragedy. The effects this has on perceptions of progress are evidenced in the Venezuela se Arregló debacle, and to understand Venezuela today, this trend cannot be overlooked.

Juan P. Villasmil “J.P. Ballard” is a commentator and analyst who often writes about American culture, foreign policy, and political philosophy. He has been featured in The American Spectator, The National Interest, The Wall Street Journal, International Policy Digest, Fox News, Telemundo, MSNBC, and others.

Image: Shutterstock.

With the appointment of Boris Pistorius, the former interior minister of Lower Saxony, to replace Christine Lambrecht as defense minister, Germany has reached a turning point. Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a Zeitenwende, or new era, in a dramatic speech in the Bundestag in February 2022, but he has not really fulfilled his promise. With a NATO defense ministers meeting on Ukraine taking place at the U.S. military base in Ramstein on January 20, he now has a second chance.

In confronting a new threat from Russia, Germany faces many of the same issues and sentiments that it once faced after World War II when it began to contemplate the creation of armed forces. Christian Democratic Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was key to the process. Adenauer was determined to break with the bad, old German past of shuttling between East and West for geopolitical advantage. A staunch Atlanticist, he wanted to embed Bonn in the West. To accomplish his goal, he drew on the help of the former Wehrmacht general Hans Speidel, who later became the first German NATO commander, to write a series of papers contending that German security was an integral part of Western Europe’s.

In their history, From Shadow to Substance, Dennis L. Bark and David R. Gress note that in 1949 Speidel drafted a memorandum for Adenauer recommending the creation of “15 German army divisions at once, to be equipped with American weapons.” The majority of the German population was opposed to the establishment of a military force, including everyone from unrepentant Nazis to members of the Social Democratic Party, with the former seeing it as a sellout to the West and the latter believing it would jeopardize relations with the East. But as the early Cold War developed, America, France, and Great Britain realized that they could not defend Europe against Stalin’s Soviet Union absent the contribution of West Germany itself. With the outbreak of the Korean War, rearmament became a foregone conclusion, but it took until November 1955 for the formal establishment of the Bundeswehr. The pacifist sentiments and sympathy toward Russia that resided among the Social Democrats would never go away, manifesting themselves in the concessive Ostpolitik of the 1970s, a new policy based on economic, political, and cultural engagement rather than confrontation that was a direct reaction to what was seen as an ossified hardline approach toward the Soviet Union.

At bottom, the German Army was always an unwanted stepchild in German society—a regrettable necessity rather than a bulwark of freedom. But since the end of the Cold War, matters have worsened. The threat of war seemed to recede wholly into the past, and the Bundeswehr fell into utter disrepair, rendering it a subject of widespread mockery in the German media. The furor Teutonicus of yore had been replaced by a stupor Teutonicus.

Former Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht failed to initiate the modernization of the German Army despite the government’s approval of an outlay of an additional €100 billion to modernize the Army. She added insult to injury by declaring that Germany would assist Ukraine with 5,000 military helmets and by posting a cheerful New Year’s Eve video that hailed her personal encounters in Ukraine even as fireworks exploded around her in Berlin.

Can Pistorius save the day? In initial remarks in Hannover on Tuesday, Pistorius did not mince his words. He stated, “The Bundeswehr must adjust to a new situation that has been created by Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. I want to strengthen the Bundeswehr for the era that confronts us.” Pistorius must insist that Germany allow the shipment of Leopard 2 tanks from Poland and Finland to Ukraine now.

But as Christoph von Marschall perceptively notes, the question is whether Scholz recognizes his past missteps in fearing to antagonize Moscow or shuns a course correction. He could start by approving the shipment of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, a move that would signal that Germany is not wavering but all in on supporting Kyiv in its struggle against Russian aggression.

Until now, Scholz’s coalition partners, the Free Democrats and the Greens, have been far more forthright than him about assisting Ukraine and assailing the Kremlin. Many in the Social Democratic Party cling to the notion that they can go back to the future—to the cozy ties that once existed between Moscow and Berlin. But the war crimes that Russian president Vladimir Putin has committed in Ukraine mean that this is a dangerous chimera. The time for Germany once again to go West has arrived.

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest.

Image: DVIDS.

Editor's Note: Due to massive reader interest in all things Leopard 2 as it could be headed to Ukraine, we represent this article to get a better understanding of this tank. 

Germany’s Leopard 2 main battle tank has a reputation as one of the finest in the world, competing for that distinction with proven designs such as the American M1 Abrams and the British Challenger 2. However, that reputation for nigh-invincibility has faced setbacks on Syrian battlefields, and placed Berlin in a uniquely awkward national-level dispute with Turkey, its fellow NATO member.

Ankara had offered to release a German political prisoner in exchange for Germany upgrading the Turkish Army’s older-model Leopard 2A4 tank, which had proven embarrassingly vulnerable in combat. However, on January 24, public outrage over reports that Turkey was using its Leopard 2s to kill Kurdish fighters in the Syrian enclaves of Afrin and Manbij forced Berlin to freeze the hostage-for-tanks deal.

The Leopard 2 is often compared to its near contemporary, the M1 Abrams: in truth the two designs share broadly similar characteristics, including a scale-tipping weight of well over sixty tons of advanced composite armor, 1,500 horsepower engines allowing speeds over forty miles per hour and, for certain models, the same forty-four-caliber 120-millimeter main gun produced by Rheinmetall.

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Both types can easily destroy most Russian-built tanks at medium and long ranges, at which they are unlikely to be penetrated by return fire from standard 125-millimeter guns. Furthermore, they have better sights with superior thermal imagers and magnification, that make them more likely to detect and hit the enemy first—historically, an even greater determinant of the victor in armored warfare than sheer firepower. A Greek trial found that moving Leopard 2s and Abramses hit a 2.3-meter target nineteen and twenty times out of twenty, respectively, while a Soviet T-80 scored only eleven hits.

The modest differences between the two Western tanks reveal different national philosophies. The Abrams has a noisy 1,500-horsepower gas-guzzling turbine, which starts up more rapidly, while the Leopard 2’s diesel motor grants it greater range before refueling. The Abrams has achieved some of its extraordinary offensive and defensive capabilities through use of depleted uranium ammunition and armor packages—technologies politically unacceptable to the Germans. Therefore, later models of the Leopard 2A6 now mount a higher-velocity fifty-five-caliber gun to make up the difference in penetrating power, while the 2A5 Leopard introduced an extra wedge of spaced armor on the turret to better absorb enemy fire.

German scruples also extend to arms exports, with Berlin imposing more extensive restrictions on which countries it is willing to sell weapons to—at least in comparison to France, the United States or Russia. While the Leopard 2 is in service with eighteen countries, including many NATO members, a lucrative Saudi bid for between four hundred and eight hundred Leopard 2s was rejected by Berlin because of the Middle Eastern country’s human-rights records, and its bloody war in Yemen in particular. The Saudis instead ordered additional Abramses to their fleet of around four hundred.

This bring us to Turkey, a NATO country with which Berlin has important historical and economic ties, but which also has had bouts of military government and waged a controversial counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish separatists for decades. In the early 2000s, under a more favorable political climate, Berlin sold 354 of its retired Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ankara. These represented a major upgrade over the less well protected M60 Patton tanks that make up the bulk of Turkey’s armored forces.

However, the rumor has long persisted that Berlin agreed to the sale under the condition that the German tanks not be used in Turkey’s counterinsurgency operations against the Kurds. Whether such an understanding ever existed is hotly contested, but the fact remains that the Leopard 2 was kept well away from the Kurdish conflict and instead deployed in northern Turkey, opposite Russia.

However, in the fall of 2016, Turkish Leopard 2s of the Second Armored Brigade finally deployed to the Syrian border to support Operation Euphrates Shield, Turkey’s intervention against ISIS. Prior to the Leopard’s arrival, around a dozen Turkish Patton tanks were destroyed by both ISIS and Kurdish missiles. Turkish defense commentators expressed the hope that the tougher Leopard would fare better.

The 2A4 model was the last of the Cold War–era Leopard 2s, which were designed to fight in relatively concentrated units in a fast-paced defensive war against Soviet tank columns, not to survive IEDs and missiles fired by ambushing insurgents in long-term counterinsurgency campaigns where every single loss was a political issue. The 2A4 retains an older boxy turret configurations which affords less protection from modern antitank missiles, especially to the generally more vulnerable rear and side armor, which is a bigger problem in a counterinsurgency environment, where an attack may come from any direction.

This was shockingly illustrated in December 2016 when evidence emerged that numerous Leopard 2s had been destroyed in intense fighting over ISIS-held Al-Bab—a fight that Turkish military leaders described as a “trauma,” according to Der Spiegel. A document published online listed ISIS as apparently having destroyed ten of the supposedly invincible Leopard 2s; five reportedly by antitank missiles, two by mines or IEDs, one to rocket or mortar fire, and the others to more ambiguous causes.

These photos confirm the destruction of at least eight. One shows a Leopard 2 apparently knocked out by a suicide VBIED—an armored kamikaze truck packed with explosives. Another had its turret blown clean off. Three Leopard wrecks can be seen around the same hospital near Al-Bab, along with several other Turkish armored vehicles. It appears the vehicles were mostly struck the more lightly protected belly and side armor by IEDs and AT-7 Metis and AT-5 Konkurs antitank missiles.

Undoubtedly, the manner in which the Turkish Army employed the German tanks likely contributed to the losses. Rather than using them in a combined arms force alongside mutually supporting infantry, they were deployed to the rear as long-range fire-support weapons while Turkish-allied Syrian militias stiffened with Turkish special forces led the assaults. Isolated on exposed firing positions without adequate nearby infantry to form a good defensive perimeter, the Turkish Leopards were vulnerable to ambushes. The same poor tactics have led to the loss of numerous Saudi Abrams tanks in Yemen, as you can see in this video.

By contrast, more modern Leopard 2s have seen quite a bit of action in Afghanistan combating Taliban insurgents in the service of the Canadian 2A6Ms (with enhanced protection against mines and even floating “safety seats”) and Danish 2A5s. Though a few were damaged by mines, all were put back into service, though a Danish Leopard 2 crew member was mortally injured by an IED attack in 2008. In return, the tanks were praised by field commanders for their mobility and providing accurate and timely fire support during major combat operations in southern Afghanistan.

In 2017, Germany began rebuilding its tank fleet, building an even beefier Leopard 2A7V model more likely to survive in a counterinsurgency environment. Now Ankara is pressing Berlin to upgrade the defense on its Leopard 2 tanks, especially as the domestically produced Altay tank has been repeatedly delayed.

The Turkish military not only wants additional belly armor to protect against IEDs, but the addition of an Active Protection System (APS) that can detect incoming missiles and their point of origin, and jam or even shoot them down. The U.S. Army recently authorized the installation of Israeli Trophy APS on a brigade of M1 Abrams tanks, a type that has proven effective in combat. Meanwhile, Leopard 2 manufacturer Rheinmetall has unveiled its own ADATS APS, which supposedly poses a lesser risk of harming friendly troops with its defensive countermeasure missiles.

However, German-Turkish relations deteriorated sharply, especially after Erdogan initiated a prolonged crackdown on thousands of supposed conspirators after a failed military coup attempt in August 2016. In February 2017, German-Turkish dual-citizen Deniz Yücel, a correspondent for periodical Die Welt, was arrested by Turkish authorities, ostensibly for being a pro-Kurdish spy. His detention caused outrage in Germany.

Ankara pointedly let it be known that if a Leopard 2 upgrade were allowed to proceed, Yücel would be released back to Germany. Though Berlin publicly insisted it would never agree to such a quid pro quo, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel quietly began moving towards authorizing the upgrade in a bid to improve relations in the face of what looks suspiciously like tank-based blackmail. Gabriel presented the deal as a measure to protect Turkish soldiers’ lives from ISIS.

However, in mid-January 2018, Turkey launched an offensive against the Kurdish enclaves of Afrin and Manbij in northwestern Syria. The attack was precipitated generally by Turkish fears that effective Kurdish control of the Syrian border would lead to a de facto state that would expand into Turkish territory, and proximately by an announcement by the Pentagon that it was recruiting the Kurds to form a “border security force” to continue the fight against ISIS.

However, photos on social media soon emerged showing that Leopard 2 tanks were being employed to blast Kurdish positions in Afrin, where there have several dozen civilian casualties have been reported. Furthermore, on January 21, the Kurdish YPG published a YouTube video depicting a Turkish Leopard 2 being struck by a Konkurs antitank missiles. However, it is not possible to tell if the tank was knocked out; the missile may have struck the Leopard 2’s front armor, which is rated as equivalent to 590 to 690 millimeters of rolled homogenous armor on the 2A4, while the two types of Konkurs missiles can penetrate six or eight hundred millimeters of RHA.

In any event, parliamentarians both from German left-wing parties and Merkel’s right-wing Christian Democratic Union reacted with outrage, with a member of the latter describing the Turkish offensive as a violation of international law. On January 25, the Merkel administration was forced to announce that an upgrade to the Leopard 2 was off the table, at least for now. Ankara views the deal as merely postponed, and cagey rhetoric from Berlin suggests it may return to the deal at a more politically opportune time.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

To pursue an efficient foreign policy, the United States should send its best diplomats to countries of vital interest. As the Indo-Pacific remains the most contested region in global geopolitics, Washington must devote its utmost attention and resources to the region, including its best people. Today, the strategic salience of India is more than any other nation for the United States. It is vital that Washington send an ambassador to New Delhi sooner rather than later.

India is the only credible power in the Indo-Pacific that could help the United States create a stable balance of power in the region. The country is indispensable in boosting the coalitional ability of the United States, primarily because the other significant actors in the region are either already U.S. allies or under Chinese influence. On top of this, India faces active Chinese aggression at its borders, and it is the only country with combat experience against the People’s Liberation Army in the last four decades. Finally, India contributes skilled talent in the technology sector, which is crucial for the United States if it wishes to lead the technology and innovation race against China.

Unfortunately, though President Joe Biden’s term in office is nearly half done, there is still no U.S. ambassador in New Delhi. Ever since Ambassador Kenneth Juster stepped down from the post in January 2021, the Biden administration has appointed six interim chargé d’affaires, the most recent of which was named in October of last year. Now over 700 days, this is the longest period of time in the two countries’ diplomatic history, including the Cold War, in which there has been no U.S. ambassador in India’s capital. The continual appointment of ad hoc envoys sends a woeful message to New Delhi: Washington is being negligent.

This is not entirely the White House’s fault. Biden nominated former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be the U.S. ambassador to India in July 2021. Garcetti’s confirmation vote, however, was put on hold after a Republican senator alleged him of inaction against sexual misconduct by his aide.

Garcetti’s bid has been on hold ever since. A number of other factors have delayed the confirmation vote: pending business in a hung Senate, partisan bickering, and Washington’s overriding preoccupation with the Russo-Ukrainian War. 

With the U.S. Senate’s flip in Democrats’ favor, however, the Biden administration is now better positioned to secure full support for Garcetti’s hung nomination. A White House press conference in December conveyed a similar sentiment. More recently, Biden re-nominated Garcetti for the position. 

Yet by not having an ambassador for almost two years, the United States has compromised diplomatic continuity and lost touch with realities in New Delhi. The Biden administration risks its understanding of India being limited to what is written by armchair analysts and “India watchers,” rather than drawing upon information provided by on-the-ground professional diplomats. Complicating matters even further is the fact that India’s diplomatic corps comes from an elite bureaucracy that is very hierarchical and sensitive to protocols. They perceive an organizational slippage from the American side, as intermittent chargé d’affaires have been posted for so long.

In practice, this means that dealing with New Delhi becomes much more difficult barring the involvement of top-level leadership. For instance, India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, a veteran diplomat-turned-politician, had to bring up a minor consular matter, like trouble overcoming visa deadlocks, to U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken at a very public joint press conference.

Furthermore, popular opinion in India is still distrusting of the United States from the Cold War despite genuine progress in the bilateral ties. When India’s extremely popular BJP government explicitly positions itself as “not-West,” it only reinforces mass skepticism towards the United States. Consider, for example, Jaishankar’s unprecedentedly voracious articulations of India’s stance on various issues and how they differ from the West, especially since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

An ambassador in New Delhi will only help diffuse anxieties within India’s entire political apparatus.

During the Cold War, the United States maintained an excellent track record of posting experienced envoys in India. For example, only two ambassadors—Kenneth Galbraith and Chester Bowles—served in New Delhi for most of the 1960s. Despite India’s staunch nonaligned position, Galbraith and Bowles developed close friendships with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and advised him on economic policy. Galbraith even convinced the Kennedy administration to send military support to India during the 1962 India-China War. Even later, the ambassadors harnessed their connections to exercise significant influence on New Delhi despite its inclination towards Moscow. If the United States ensured a stable diplomatic engagement with a socialist India back then, there is no reason why it should leave any stone unturned now.

Today, India's outlook is very different from the nonaligned obsession of the Nehruvian era. India is now both confident and capable of playing a positive role in modern-day geopolitics. It is not far-fetched to claim that New Delhi can be to the U.S.-China rivalry what Beijing was to the United States during the Cold War. It is because of this critical role that the U.S.-India relationship must be nurtured across all levels, from national leadership to the last consulate worker. The United States risks both practical inefficiency and creating political misunderstandings in otherwise growing ties by not having an ambassador in New Delhi.

Ambuj Sahu is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington. He was previously trained as an electrical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.  He tweets at @DarthThunderous. 

Image: Flickr/U.S. State Department.

Here's What You Need to Know: Only USS Missouri remained operational when the Korean War began, so the other three battleships had to be reactivated and updated.

In the final months of the Second World War, the battleships of the U.S. Navy (USN) ranged across the archipelago of Japan, bombarding industrial, military and logistical targets at will. The Japanese military lacked enough ships, planes and fuel to defend the nation, leaving coastal areas at the mercy of the steel behemoths. Although most of the credit (such that it is) for the destruction of urban Japan belongs to the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force, the battleships and cruisers of the navy contributed their share.

At the end of the war, most of the USN’s battleships were scrapped, sunk as targets or placed into reserve. When the United States went to war again, earlier than anyone had expected, three battleships of the Iowa class returned to service, joining their sister USS Missouri off the coast of Korea. For three years, these ships would rain terror down upon North Korean and Chinese forces.

Response and Reactivation

The ferocity and efficiency of the North Korean offensive of June 1950 into South Korea took everyone, including the U.S. Navy, by surprise. Nevertheless, local forces quickly responded, including the Oregon City-class heavy cruiser USS Rochester, which used its eight-inch guns to soften beaches at Inchon and elsewhere. USS Missouri, the only U.S. battleship to have remained operational since World War II, arrived in Korean waters on September 19, 1950. In a few weeks she would conduct extensive shore bombardments along the coast of North Korea. Missouri continued to provide fire support after the tide of war turned in November; in December, she conducted bombardments to ensure the survival of U.S. troops retreating from the People’s Liberation Army’s surprise offensive.

Notably, the U.S. Navy decided not to transfer the three heavy cruisers of the Des Moines class, which mostly remained in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. These cruisers, carrying auto-loading eight-inch guns, could lay waste to a coastal area nearly as effectively as a battleship. However, they were regarded as too important to the mission of deterring the Soviet Union to risk transfer to the Pacific.

Instead, the U.S. government decided to reactivate the three other Iowa class battleships. Iowa, New Jersey and Wisconsin had all entered the reserve fleet before the beginning of the Korean War. All three remained in excellent condition, and required minimal modification in order to return to service. The most significant change came with the replacement of World War II-era floatplanes by helicopters. The navy recommissioned New Jersey in November 1950, Wisconsin in March 1951 and Iowa in August 1951. Several heavy cruisers also conducted tours off of Korea, but the navy declined to reactivate any of the thirteen other battleships in the reserve fleet.

Operations

Each of the four battleships acted as a flagship at one time or another, contributing facilities necessary to the coordination of broader naval warfare efforts. More to the point, however, the battleships used both their sixteen-inch main armament and their five-inch secondary armament to pound Chinese and North Korean positions along the coast. These positions included cave systems, concealed artillery and command posts. As with the end of the Second World War, the battleships also hit strategic and operational targets, including railways, industrial parks and transport centers. These attacks, which could range up to twenty miles inland, periodically disrupted but did not stop Communist efforts to resupply their armies in the field.

Extensive mining reduced the freedom-of-action of U.S. naval forces, to the extent that the battleships only rarely operated against North Korean and Chinese positions along the Yellow Sea. Although Communist aircraft did conduct attacks against major U.S. ships early in the war, UN air and naval superiority made such sorties difficult as the war proceeded. Other than mines, the main danger to the battleships came through coastal artillery, which they regularly sparred against. However, the effectiveness of the USN in bombarding all along the peninsula showed both countries how vulnerable they were to naval attack.

After a refit beginning in March 1951, USS Missouri resumed bombardment and escort duties from October 1952 until March 1953. New Jersey carried out her first shore bombardment in May 1951, and remained in the area until November. She returned for a second tour in April 1953, and remained through the duration of the conflict. USS Wisconsin operated off Korea from November 1951 until April 1952, and USS Iowa contributed short bombardment between April and October 1952.

Reaction

The Iowas certainly delivered a great deal of ordinance to targets on the Korean Peninsula over the course of the war. However, the overall impact of their presence is difficult to assess. Communist forces quickly learned to move critical facilities and troop concentration outside of the range of the battleships’ guns, although the transport network was hard to shift inland. Heavy U.S. bombing of targets across Korea contributed to the general destruction, making it hard to parse out how much the battleships themselves mattered. The smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers could often deliver similar levels of destruction to enemy targets. Still, the very presence of the battleships may have had some degree of psychological effect on Communist and UN forces alike.

Wrap

By 1958, all four Iowas had returned to the reserve fleet. Although they performed their shore bombardment role effectively, but not really any more effectively than the smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers. The manning requirements were significant, however, making them very expensive ships to operate for extended periods of time. The navy would only reactivate one of the four (USS New Jersey) for the Vietnam War, and only in partial service. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States disposed of the remaining thirteen battleships in its inventory.

The Iowas nevertheless survived, and were finally reactivated (and modernized) in the 1980s. The legacy of the Iowas’ performance off Korea lived on in North Korean and Chinese naval doctrine and procurement. Both Pyongyang and Beijing became aware of their dreadful vulnerability to naval attack, and developed coastal defense capabilities intended to dissuade any foe from approaching their waters. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has grown past that stage, but the navy of the DPRK continues to concentrate on defensive operations in the littoral.

The Iowas will not, of course, participate in any future conflict on the Korean Peninsula. However, in the event of conflict USN surface ships will undoubtedly contribute significantly to the conflict by means of land attack cruise missiles. Moreover, the navy may yet provide USS Zumwalt and her sisters with the means to provide gunfire support against land targets. In such a case, North Korean coastal installations would become very vulnerable, indeed.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissemination and the Diplomat.

This article first appeared in 2017 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

At the virtual Munich Security Conference in February 2021, newly elected U.S. president Joe Biden declared that “America is back. The transatlantic alliance is back.” In a pre-election pitch, Biden also made clear that NATO is at the very heart of U.S. national security and is the bulwark of the liberal democratic ideal.

To date, Biden has held firm on his promise and revitalized NATO in its stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The same applies to Europe, which has abandoned its lethargy and also taken a firm stand.

Biden also made it clear that the United States would withdraw the vast majority of its troops from the wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, narrowly defining America’s mission as defeating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). This shift focused on America’s most cost-effective operation, where 2,000 special forces troops and intelligence assets allied with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria to defeat the Islamic State. 

In October 2019, then-President Donald Trump reversed U.S. policy when he, in a telephone call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, greenlighted a third Turkish incursion into Syria and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. special forces from the area. Trump considered the move “strategically brilliant,” although Brett McGurk, once Trump’s special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, panned it as “strategically backward.” Nevertheless, U.S. special forces have maintained a foothold in the region.

Consequently, U.S. support for the SDF and its backbone, the Kurdish YPG militia, remains a bone of contention between the United States and its supposed Turkish ally. This week, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is visiting Washington in an attempt to iron out disagreements with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. These issues include a plan to sell forty F-16 fighter jets and nearly eighty modernization kits to Turkey and Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 air-defense system.

But given that Turkey is a major disruptive force in the region, it is incomprehensible that the Biden administration would consider the sale of the F-16 jets to be in line with U.S. national security interests and NATO’s long-term unity. The State Department’s letter to Congress recommending the sale even went so far as to claim that Turkey is “an important deterrent to malign influence in the region.”   

In fact, Turkey has decided to capitalize on its nuisance value. For example, in 2019, it attempted to block NATO’s plans for the defense of Poland and the Baltic states unless it labeled the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as terrorists. It is doing the same with Finland and Sweden’s applications for NATO membership, unless Sweden, in particular, hands over a number of political refugees.

As Nate Schenkkan, then the project director at Freedom House, noted five years ago, while hostage-taking is a feature of Turkish foreign policy, it backfired in Ankara’s attempt to swap pastor Andrew Brunson for the Turkish imam Fethullah Gülen.

A cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in the region is the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, which denotes Greece as a valuable NATO member, Israel as a steadfast ally, and Cyprus as a key strategic partner. In 2021, the U.S.-Greece Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement (MDCA) was updated to reinforce defense and security cooperation.

In contrast, Turkey has adopted its “Blue Homeland” maritime strategy, which lays claim to 462,000 square kilometers in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean, and the Black Sea, including Greek and Cypriot territorial waters. Erdogan has also threatened Greece with a missile strike.

Against this backdrop, supplying Turkey with additional weaponry makes no strategic sense. According to the Turkish press, the sale of the F-16s is already a done deal. “The [Biden] administration intends the prospect of the sale to prod Türkiye to sign off on Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO,” according to a report in the Hürriyet Daily News. If this is the case, the Biden administration has settled for a policy of appeasement.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton holds a different view and believes Turkey’s NATO membership should be called into question because of its support for Russia.

There will be presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey this June. If there were a level playing field, Erdogan would face defeat, not least because of Turkey’s cash-strapped economy and monumental inflation.

Erdogan has already locked up the co-chair of the Kurdish-based HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), Selahattin Demirtas, and Turkey’s Constitutional Court has suspended the HDP’s funding over alleged ties to terrorism. Erdogan’s major contender, Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, faces jail time and a political ban on a charge of insulting electoral officials. But three of Erdogan’s rivals also stand a good chance of replacing him.

Now, Erdogan is considering a well-tried way of drumming up popular support: a fourth incursion into Syria against America’s Kurdish allies. For this, he needs Moscow’s approval and for Washington to look the other way.

If all this fails, there are fears that Erdogan might attempt to overthrow the constitutional order with the support of his own militia, SADAT, Turkey’s answer to Blackwater and the Wagner Group.

Robert Ellis is an international advisor at the Research Institute for European and American Studies in Athens.

Image: Flickr/White House.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Given that the YF-23 was generally perceived to be the more innovative design, and that it had a slightly higher price tag, the chances that it could have sailed through without a hitch are correspondingly low. And trouble with design and production might have left the USAF with even fewer operational fighters.

The Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition, staged at the end of the Cold War, yielded a pair of remarkable fighter designs. The United States would eventually select the F-22 Raptor, widely acknowledged as the most capable air superiority aircraft of the early twenty-first century. The loser, the YF-23, now graces museums in Torrance, California and Dayton, Ohio.

How did the Pentagon decide on the F-22, and what impact did that decision have? We will never know, but going with the F-22 Raptor may have saved the Pentagon some major headaches.

ATF Competition:

The origins of the ATF competition came in the early 1980s, when it became apparent that the Soviets were planning to field fighters (the MiG-29 and the Su-27) capable of competing effectively with the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) F-15/F-16 “high-low” mix. The ATF would allow the US to re-establish its advantages, potentially on grounds (notably stealth) where the Soviets would struggle to compete.

To great degree, the success of either of the ATF competitors was overdetermined. The Soviet Union disappeared during the course of the competition, and the major European aerospace powers largely declined to compete on the same terrain (stealth, supercruise, and eventually sensor fusion). Either the F-22 or the F-23 would become the finest fighter of the early 21st century; the only question was which aircraft would win the investment of DoD. And each plane had its advantages. The YF-23 enjoyed superior supercruise, and in some accounts better stealth performance, over the F-22. The F-22 offered a somewhat simpler, less risky design, along with an extraordinary degree of agility that made it an awesome dogfighter.

The Choice:

As Dave Majumdar pointed out a year ago, political and bureaucratic factors contributed to the selection of the F-22. Fed up with Northrop and (the still independent) McDonnell Douglas in the wake of the B-2 and A-12 projects, the Pentagon preferred Lockheed. The US Navy disliked the F-23 for idiosyncratic reasons, and hoped it would get a crack at a heavily modified F-22. For its part, the Air Force preferred the gaudy maneuverability of the F-22, which gave it an advantage in nearly every potential combat situation. In a sense, the F-22 (and to some extent its Russian competitor, the PAK-FA) represent the ultimate expression of the jet-age air superiority fighter. They can challenge and defeat opponents in every potential aspect of a fight, while also having stealth characteristics that allow them to engage (or refuse an engagement) under highly advantageous circumstances.

Had the ATF competition not taken place coincident with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the YF-23 might have stood a chance for resurrection. Some of its characteristics were sufficiently advanced that they could have drawn further attention and investment. Moreover, building the F-23 alongside the F-22 could have been justified on grounds of maintaining the health of the US defense industrial base; as it was, the selection of the Lockheed aircraft undoubtedly contributed to the decision to consolidate Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

Raptor Problems:

As is the case with the X-32, the YF-23 never faced the most dramatic problems to afflict the F-22 Raptor. It never experienced cost overruns, technology failures, software snafus, or pilot-killing respiratory issues. Those problems, which regularly afflict new defense projects (in fairness, the pilot suffocation is largely idiosyncratic to the Raptor) were consequential. In context of the broader demands of the War on Terror, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates curtailed the F-22 production run at 187 operational aircraft, just as the fighter was working through its teething troubles. Although understandable at the time, this left the USAF with a fighter deficit that only the F-35 could fill.

Had the YF-23 enjoyed a smoother development path (a huge “if”), the fighter might not have faced such a hostile environment as it entered service. But given that the YF-23 was generally perceived to be the more innovative (and therefore riskier) design, and that it had a slightly higher price tag, the chances that it could have sailed through without a hitch are correspondingly low. And trouble with design and production might have left the USAF with even fewer operational fighters.

Parting Thoughts:

The F-23 included some characteristics that may eventually find themselves in a sixth generation fighter, or perhaps in the Air Force’s “deep interceptor” intended to support B-21 Raiders on the way to their targets. For example, the V-tail aspect has been mentioned in some of the early conceptualization for a next generation fighter. And Boeing will undoubtedly hearken back to its experience with the F-23 when thinking about its next fighter.

For years, one of the two YF-23 prototypes sat in the Hangar of Unwanted Planes (more formally known as the Research and Development Hangar) at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The YF-23 was positioned right under the last remaining XB-70 Valkyrie, the centerpiece of the museum’s collection. Both aircraft have now moved to the newly opened fourth building of the museum, where they continue to represent alternative visions of the (past) future of the Air Force, visions deeply grounded in the industrial and organizational realities of American airpower.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat.

This first appeared several years ago and is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Lockheed’s proposal was for 250 of the upgraded stealth fighters at an estimated unit price of $70 million per airframe. The Seahawk was submitted to the JAST competition—but was turned down because the Navy was looking for a higher-performing fighter plane. 

The F-117 Nighthawk made a definite impression on both Iraqi air defenses and the American public when it demonstrated the capabilities of stealth technology in the 1991 Gulf War. Yet the iconic jet-black attack plane was ultimately left behind by improvements in technology and retired in 2008 in favor of the new F-22 stealth fighter.

But what if the Nighthawk design had been evolved into a carrier-based multi-role fighter capable of flying longer distances at higher speed with a greater weapon load? In fact, Lockheed proposed exactly such a “Seahawk” in the early 90s.

The original F-117’s iconic faceted airframe was limited in performance because it was a product of first-generation stealth technology. Despite being called the “stealth fighter”, the F-117 was incapable of engaging enemy aircraft. It was not particularly fast, could only carry two bombs, relied on in-flight refueling to traverse significant distances, and lacked its own radar. New coats of expensive radar-absorbent paint had to be applied frequently. Such a plane was constrained to the role of infiltrating enemy air defenses to attack strategic installations not too far into enemy airspace.

As a result, the Pentagon procured only 59 operational F-117As and quickly moved onto newer stealth aircraft that evolved into the B-2 bomber, the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and ultimately the F-35 “joint strike fighter.”

However, the Gulf War had raised the esteem of the Nighthawk in the public’s eye—and more crucially, in the eye of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Perceiving an opportunity, in 1992 Lockheed proposed the F-117N “Seahawk” to the U.S Navy.

The original fairly unambitious proposal would have simply involved an automatic carrier landing system (ACLS) and corrosion-resistant coatings for the F-117.  But the Navy was in the process of phasing outs its pure attack planes (the A-6 and A-7) in favor of additional FA-18 Hornet and upgraded F-14 “Bombcat” multi-role fighters with significant ground attack capabilities. A single-role stealth attack plane was not what the Navy was looking for—it wanted an actual fighter with supersonic speed and air-to-air capability, which led to it pursuing the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program.

After the initial F-117N was rejected, Lockheed sketched out new aircraft that incorporated technologies from various proposed F-117Bs rejected by both the U.S. Air Force and the British Royal Air Force.

The ultimate iteration was the A/F-117X Seahawk, which threw everything but the kitchen sink into Nighthawk airframe. The Seahawk’s wings were lengthened nearly 50% to 64 feet long and adjusted from a 48 to 42 degree slant, while additional horizontal ailerons were added on the tail.  This was done to improve the Nighthawk’s aerodynamics and low-speed handling to enable landing on carrier decks. Visibility was improved through a bubble canopy. Of course, the Seahawk also came with reinforced landing gear, ACLS, arrestor hook and folding wings standard for carrier operation.

More powerful F114 engines with afterburners—the same type used in the Navy’s Super Hornet fighters today—would have increased speed, possibly even enabling supersonic flight.  Likewise, the Sea Hawk’s range would have nearly doubled at up to 970 miles.

The Seahawk also included both a multi-mode air-to-air and air-to-ground radar and an Infrared Search and Tracking System (IRST), and it could carry air-to-air missiles on the interior of the bomb bay doors, including short-range heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinders as well as the long range radar-guided AIM-120 Scorpion. The Scorpion missiles in particular could theoretically have allowed the lower-performing F-117 to be a viable air-superiority fighter, sniping from far away at enemy aircraft unable to detect its presence. A bulge in the Seahawk’s bomb bays would have permitted an increased internal bombload to 10,000 pounds (up from just two 2,000 pounds bombs on the F-117A), and there were even provisions for an additional 8,000 pounds of un-stealthy bombs on underwing hardpoints to be mounted after enemy radars had been neutralized.

Lockheed’s proposal was for 250 of the upgraded stealth fighters at an estimated unit price of $70 million per airframe. The Seahawk was submitted to the JAST competition—but was turned down because the Navy was looking for a higher-performing fighter plane. Lockheed was warned by the Pentagon not to continue promoting the plane to its champions in the Armed Services Committee at the risk of its contract for the F-22 stealth fighter.

And so the F-117 program went quietly into the night. The JAST ultimately developed into the “Joint Strike Fighter,” the F-35. The Navy estimates it will finally have F-35C stealth fighters operational in 2019, twenty-seven years later.

The F-35, billed as cheaper mass-production alternative to the high-performing F-22 stealth fighter, has its share of detractors not only because it is inferior to the F-22 in performance, but because endless delays and cost overruns have failed to make it that much cheaper. However, the F-35 does benefit from far more modern avionics and datalinks than the Raptor, and the Pentagon is counting on a combination of stealth, long-range missiles and networked warfare to minimize the F-35’s shortcomings.

The Seahawk might have been turned out to be a decent multi-role strike plane—and it would have looked quite stunning—but the Pentagon wanted to pursue a more capable next-generation stealth fighter rather than trying to revive a dated design. Investing long-term was probably the right call to make in a decade where serious military challenges to the United States’ post-Cold War hegemony had yet to materialize.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article is being republished due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: While both the Su-47 and the X-29 never made it past the prototype stage, they were important for pushing the limits of what was possible, and some of the technologies they helped prove are in use today.

The Su-47 looks like something from a 1960s science fiction novel but is actually tech from the mid-1980s. While innovative, the prototype failed to ever be serially produced — partly because of a lack of funding, and partly because of one crucial design flaw.

Forward Sweep, Forward Thinking?

Airframes with forward-swept wings have several advantages. They’re highly maneuverable, especially at subsonic speeds. They also have unique lift characteristics that allow for short takeoff distances, among others. One of the early interest groups was the Soviet Navy, which was in need of a capable dogfighter that could take off from the kinds of short runways that typify aircraft carriers.

Unfortunately, forward-swept wings have several serious disadvantages as well. Aircraft with forward-swept wing have seriously unstable flight characteristics. The wings themselves undergo severe stress, especially at higher speeds. Due to high-stress loads, the wings need to be able to bend without breaking — no easy feat of engineering.

Still, the Su-47 is extremely maneuverable. Due to its unstable design, it uses a fly-by-wire system that adjusts and corrects the airframe’s flight path faster than a pilot could, keeping the plane stable during flight. It’s capable of some pretty extreme maneuvers, as seen in this video.

Shortly after the Su-47’s debut, western analysts speculated that the airframe may have been somewhat stealthy. Although difficult to verify, it may indeed have had a radar-absorbent coating, though the aircraft itself was not by any means stealthy.

The project was originally conceived in the early to late 1980s. Unfortunately for both the developing firm, Sukhoi, and for the plane itself, the breakup of the Soviet Union doomed the project. Although the Su-47 pops up now and then at various airshows, only one airframe was ever built. It was a victim of the times.

X-29:

DARPA — that is, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — also explored forward-swept wings, even going so far as making a technology demonstrator that is visually very similar to the Su-47. DARPA claims that their X-29 is the “most aerodynamically unstable aircraft ever built.”

Just like with the Su-47, technologies used in the development of the X-29 pushed the limits of what was possible. Some of the X-29 tech were eventually used in developing future platforms. “Advanced composite materials are now used extensively in military and commercial aircraft,” a DARPA statement explains. “Aeroelastic tailoring to resist twisting under flight loads is now a standard tool for advanced designs with relevant outcomes including the long, thin wings of the Global Hawk, an unmanned surveillance aircraft.”

Flopping off the Drawing Board:

While both the Su-47 and the X-29 never made it past the prototype stage, they were important for pushing the limits of what was possible, and some of the technologies they helped prove are in use today. So, not totally useless after all.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with The National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

This article first appeared in 2020 and is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

/ États-Unis, Capitalisme, Entreprise, Inégalités, Libéralisme, Logement, Urbanisme, Ville, Géographie - Espace et territoire / États-Unis, Capitalisme, Entreprise, Inégalités, Libéralisme, Logement, Urbanisme, Ville, Géographie - Espace et territoire

Comparisons between the January 8 assault on government buildings in Brasilia and the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol involve a certain amount of speculation unless one has unique insights about the inquiries conducted into the events. What is clear by now, though, is that something has been going on in Brazil, the world’s fifth-largest country by area and sixth-largest by population, which is considered to have been a democracy since its military rule ended in 1985. Recently, however, political and social developments in Brazil have led to concerns—not unlike those elsewhere in the world—about the stability of its democratic system.

Interestingly, those concerns have been voiced from both the right and the left. In the run-up to the January 1 inauguration of Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva to his third term as president, it was not surprising to hear supporters of his adversary, Jair Bolsonaro, claim that the situation in the country was getting out of hand. The fact that Brazilians were eager to comment and share their views could be seen as a sign of a healthy democracy. Nevertheless, public and social discourse seemed very polarized—also through amplification by contemporary media platforms—and, in some cases, drove wedges between family members and friends. While certain aspects of this state of affairs may be similar to other countries, it is useful to zoom out from the recent presidential election and look at the bigger picture of Brazil’s past and present.

In a speech to the public following his investiture in the National Congress, Lula repeatedly struck a conciliatory tone, stating that “there are no two Brazils” and that all Brazilians belong to one country. While a seasoned politician like Lula is certainly aware of the responsibilities that come with the highest public office, it is probably also his real intention to improve national consensus during his term. In democratic countries worldwide, it is not unusual to see left- and right-wing governments alternate, especially in states with presidential and/or majority-based systems. As a result, a certain bifurcation of the political landscape is not uncommon. However, Brazil, like most Latin American countries, has always been characterized by sharp socio-economic gaps, often resulting in clear divisions in the political realm.

The cleavage between the Lulistas and Bolsonaristas is indeed nothing new. During its history, Brazil has been split in similar ways—for instance, between monarquistas and republicanos in the nineteenth century and between supporters and opponents of President Getúlio Vargas after 1945.

In truth, Brazil faces a more fundamental problem: a lack of societal cohesion, as well as a clear need to strengthen a sense of shared responsibility among the public. Indeed, while most Brazilians do not appear to lack a sense of national identity, in practice, their belonging to the nation takes forms that can be as different as night and day. Access to education, jobs, and leisure, as well as health and nutrition, can be extremely different from one Brazilian to the other, impacting one’s day-to-day for a lifetime. In such a situation, it is not unsurprising that individuals are less inclined to see themselves and their actions as part of a larger society. It is not uncommon to hear Brazilians refer to the social and political situation in their country by quipping that “in Brazil, laws are Swiss, yet the population is Brazilian.” While this tendency is particularly striking in the light of the usual Brazilian amiability in interpersonal contacts, it affects political and economic powers in their decision-making, as well as people in their daily lives. Many of Brazil’s pains—corruption, violence, and ecological challenges—are linked to it.

A number of objective circumstances that provide some explanation for this situation have been mentioned above. Brazil has a very large population, which has historically been very mixed. Its geographical area is huge and as diverse as its inhabitants. However, whereas such factors may indeed increase the chance of acute socioeconomic differences, it remains a chicken-or-egg question whether these differences are responsible for the lack of shared responsibility or whether it is the absence of the latter that perpetuates the cleavages. In any case, the current situation is characterized by low intergenerational mobility, usually considered a barrier to economic development that leads to a perpetuation of the state of affairs.

Brazil’s condition is one, in all earnest, that transcends party differences. Accusations that opposing camps launch at each other might indeed tell more about the country’s underlying woes than about the competitors themselves. For instance, while it may be true that poverty rose during Bolsonaro’s term as a president, it would be incorrect to claim that there were not any swathes of the population living in destitute conditions during and after the presidencies of Lula and his heir, Dilma Rousseff. On the other hand, whereas Lula’s and Dilma’s Workers’ Party has been plagued by corruption scandals, allegations of corruption have also been brought against Bolsonaro more than once. Corruption has been a recurrent predicament in Brazil. Corruption contributed to the rise of President Getúlio Vargas in the 1920s, and it also helped bring down the military government in the 1980s. Yet the first democratically elected presidents after 1985, José Sarney and Fernando Collor de Melo, both became immensely unpopular because of the many allegations of corruption they faced.

While Brasilia’s central Ministries Esplanade was the scene of violence unleashed by an angry mob on January 8, it was filled with a gleeful atmosphere a week earlier, with the slogan “Brazil is happy again” floating over Lula’s inauguration. However, it is unlikely that all the promises Lula made in his address to the nation will be fulfilled four years from now. While the official ceremony continued on one end of the Esplanade, men were halting cars at the other end, asking for a little help to feed their children. It will be great if Brazil’s new government proves capable of considerably improving the conditions of those people. If it can do so without antagonizing the other half of the country, even better.

Dr. Alexander Loengarov is a Senior Affiliated Fellow at the Institute for International Law at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium), as well as a former official of the European Economic and Social Committee of the European Union. He studied Brazilian and international law at the University of Brasilia and participated in the Teixeira de Freitas program at the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court. In Brussels, he coordinated the first rounds of the EU’s Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window scheme for academic mobility with Israeli and Palestinian institutions, and he regularly publishes analysis and opinion pieces on the Middle East, notably for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israel Policy Forum, and the National Interest. His writings reflect solely his own views, and not those of the European Economic and Social Committee or the European Union, which cannot be held responsible for any use made of it.

Image: Shutterstock.

Here's What You Need to Remember: In an interview with the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik, a Russian defense commentator said that he believed China’s Chengdu J-20 makes use of some of the MiG 1.44’s features.

In response to the United State’s Advanced Tactical Fighter program — which spawned the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor— the Soviet Union initiated a crash project to produce a comparable fighter. What they got was the MiG 1.44.

Jack of All Trades

Like the F-22 Raptor, the MiG 1.44 was supposed to do it all. On paper at least, the MiG combined stealthy characteristics with excellent maneuverability, which designers hoped would result in excellent fighting capabilities. 

In addition to weight-saving materials used in airframe and wing construction, radar-absorbent materials were incorporated on the airframe, with special attention given to the airframe’s radar “hotspots” like the wing edges and engine intakes.

Rather than straight-through engine intakes, the MiG 1.44’s were curved, “serpentine” intakes that could bounce incoming radar inside them, hopefully dissipating or eliminating a return signal.

Despite a few stealthy characteristics the MiG 1.44 may not have been all that stealthy.

Stealthy — or Not?

Though intended as a stealthy jet, a few features call into question the degree to which the MiG 1.44 can be considered a stealthy design. One of these is the MiG’s canards.

Canards are control surfaces — essentially ‘winglets’ usually just aft or below the cockpit that provide additional lift or aid in control during certain flight scenarios. Although not incompatible with stealthy designs, they are not ideal and can amplify an airframe’s radar signature. 

Popular Science explains why airframes with a canard design are difficult to make stealthy. “Designing a stealthy canard is difficult, particularly if the canards are big enough to enable the airplane to recover quickly from an extreme nose-up attitude.” This is due to the extra surfaces that can return a radar signal — more surfaces, more return signal.

The issue is the MiG’s apparent canard-wing (mis)alignment. Stealthy jets, like the F-22 Raptor, minimize the radar reflection of control surfaces like wings and tail assembly. When viewed from a head-on position, the F-22’s tail assemblyis ‘hidden’ behind the wings, reducing the number of surfaces that would be visible to radar.

The MiG 1.44 does not follow this design principle. When viewed from the front, the two canards are not on the same horizontal plane as the wings, creating a “louder” or more reflective radar signature — and possibly compromising its stealth characteristics.

Oddly, the MiG 1.44 had prominent pylons on its wings for attaching weapons or fuel tanks — which would have further decreased the jet’s stealth. The F-35 can optionally carry fuel or ordinance on its wings, but when not in use, the pylons are removed so as not to degrade stealth.

Another Stolen Bird?

In an interview with the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik, a Russian defense commentator said that he believed China’s Chengdu J-20 makes use of some of the MiG 1.44’s features.

"In my opinion, the machine is based on the Russian MiG 1.44. That plane was created to compete with the PAK FA at the preliminary design stage, and made its maiden flight in 2000. The Chinese plane is very similar," the commentator explained.

“Although it hasn't been announced officially, the J-20 uses our AL-31F engine, developed by Salut, which the Chinese bought for half a billion dollars,” a nod to Russia and China’s budding — if contentious — defense relationship.

All for Naught?

Russia’s stealth ambitions are…grounded. One of their newest heavy fighters/interceptors, the Su-57, has had a number of teething issues. The Su-57 fleet totals only about a dozen airframes. Though certainly a more refined design than the MiG 1.44, stealth appears to be easier to say than to do.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with The National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

Image: Flickr.

Following its stint as the G20 president in November of last year, Indonesia has another opportunity to project its power and pursue its priorities as the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2023. With the theme “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth,” Indonesia officially started its term as ASEAN chair on January 1, taking over from Cambodia. Often perceived as the de facto leader of the regional bloc, Indonesia faces high expectations to manage and resolve many significant issues, including the ongoing turmoil in Myanmar and the South China Sea disputes. In August last year, then-Malaysian prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob expressed confidence in Jakarta’s ability to better address ASEAN and global issues in its capacity as ASEAN chair. While the ASEAN chairmanship presents an opportunity for Indonesia to regain its regional leadership, it also comes with greater responsibilities for Jakarta to tackle many significant regional challenges.

Myanmar

Almost two years after the February 2021 military coup, there is still no end in sight to Myanmar’s deepening crisis. While ASEAN is expected to act as a peacemaker to resolve the conflict, the bloc has been largely ineffective in restoring peace and stability in the country through its Five-Point Consensus (5PC). The bloc remains divided over how to deal with the Myanmar junta and has often been criticized for making little meaningful progress in the implementation of the 5PC. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines are among the bloc's most vocal critics of the junta.

Tackling the post-coup crisis in Myanmar remains a major headache for Indonesia under its chairmanship, whose success will likely be assessed based on how Jakarta manages the issue that divides the bloc. Dr. Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said it would be very difficult for Jakarta to achieve any significant breakthroughs in the Myanmar issue for two reasons. 

“Firstly, ASEAN works on consensus, and a number of ASEAN countries may not agree with taking a harder line with Myanmar. Secondly, the junta, just as its many predecessors over the last half centuries, had hardened itself against the detrimental effects of the various sanctions,” Oh explained.

However, Policy and Economic Affairs Centre of Malaysia (PEACE) CEO Dr. Zokhri Idris expressed confidence that Indonesia would play a key role in ensuring peace progress in Myanmar but said collective efforts within ASEAN are needed.

“Indonesia has the tendency to work with various parties to solve conflicts. It manages to bring contesting parties [Ukraine and Russia] to a Forum [G20], and I am sure it will replicate the same method to the Myanmar issue,” the Idris said.

“There is no a single winner in solving the issue, but rather a concerted effort of ASEAN members to fill in the gap during the peace process,” he further added.

South China Sea

The South China Sea (SCS) dispute remains a key security flashpoint in the region. The idea of the Code of Conduct (CoC), which aims to manage tensions between claimant states over the SCS, was formally adopted and acknowledged in 2002. However, since then, ASEAN and China have been engaged in negotiations over the CoC agreement without significant progress. Beijing and some ASEAN claimant states have overlapping claims in the SCS, including the nine-dash line. With these fundamental divergent interests at play, the China-ASEAN CoC is unlikely to be concluded during Indonesia’s ASEAN chairmanship.

“The conclusion of CoC negotiation is nowhere to be seen. This is mainly because the enforceability of the code is a sensitive point, in that most of the negotiants would like it to be enforceable on others but not themselves,” Oh explained.

This was echoed by Zokhri, who felt that it would be hard for Indonesia to push forward the CoC negotiations as Indonesia is not one of the claimants in SCS disputes.

“Although we admit the fact that Indonesia, through its foreign policy, would be stern in protecting territorial sovereignty, the SCS sovereignty is very much contested between UNCLOS vs historical perspectives. We have not seen a strong/active response from Indonesia much particularly towards SCS,” he said.

Timor-Leste

In a statement issued in November last year at the annual leaders’ summit in Phnom Penh, the leaders of ASEAN agreed “in principle” to admit Timor-Leste as the group’s eleventh member, with full membership pending. During a visit to Indonesia in July 2022, Timor Leste president Jose Ramos-Horta expressed hope for his young country to join ASEAN under Indonesia’s chairmanship. While Indonesian president Joko Widodo has been a vocal advocate for Timor-Leste’s membership, it remains to be seen if he can continue to exert his leadership to convince his fellow regional leaders to accept Timor-Leste as a full member of the bloc.

“At this rate, we are positive that Timor Leste will be a member of ASEAN in 2023. However, that depends on whether each ASEAN country remains steadfast in building a consensus to accept Timor-Leste’s membership,” Zokhri said.

While Timor-Leste may have the smallest economic size in comparison to those of the other members within ASEAN, its full membership can help ASEAN strengthen its centrality at a time of great global uncertainty. As ASEAN chair, Indonesia can play a vital role in advancing its diplomatic efforts to create a road map for Timor-Leste’s formal membership.

ASEAN and the Great Powers

In 2023, the increasing U.S.-China geopolitical and geo-economic bifurcation and competition for influence will continue to resonate throughout the ASEAN region. As ASEAN’s largest bilateral trading partner, China represents a trading volume that is 54 percent higher than that of the United States. Meanwhile, the United States is ASEAN’s largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), providing $34.7 billion (25.3 percent of total FDI inflows) to ASEAN in 2020, compared with $12 billion from China and Hong Kong (8.7 percent of total inflows). So far, states have generally maintained equidistance between the two great powers.

Yet events such as the Myanmar crisis, the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the increasing pressure on countries to take sides between the United States and China have threatened the equilibrium and exposed divisions within the bloc. Such divisions severely impair the unity and the effectiveness of ASEAN, risking it falling into a region of divergent regimes and endangering ASEAN centrality.

Under Indonesia’s Chairmanship, ASEAN faces the critical challenge of halting this diverging trend. If the bloc’s largest and most populated economy cannot do it, the situation left for the next chairman state will be even more problematic. While Widodo vowed to prevent ASEAN from becoming a “proxy to any powers”, it remains a big challenge for him to lead ASEAN out of the great power dilemma.

Economic Growth

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is the largest trade agreement in human history, took effect for Indonesia on January 2. RCEP is a remarkable affirmation of multilateralism and openness by Asian countries. The pact is also the first free trade agreement (FTA) that includes China, Japan, and Korea—the three major economies in East Asia.

ASEAN’s economic growth has almost always been higher than the global average, and its GDP was projected to grow by 5.1 percent in 2022, compared to 3.2 percent worldwide. As the largest economy within ASEAN and the fifth largest among RECP parties, hope is high for Indonesia’s leadership to keep the ASEAN economic engine running full steam and achieve even higher levels.

However, this task may not be easy. With the ongoing great power rivalry, a war in Europe, and a looming international financial crisis, the global economic outlook for 2023 is bleak and gloomy. In both 1997 and 2008, ASEAN showed staunch commitments to strengthen its integration efforts when facing regional and international financial turmoil. 2023 may be a bigger test for the bloc’s unity and economic resilience. Other issues also raise high expectations, such as establishing the RCEP Support Unit, a body to coordinate the trade agreement, and Hong Kong’s recent bid to join RCEP.

Energy Cooperation

Energy security is another tough challenge that Indonesia’s chairmanship needs to deal with. The recent seventh ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO7) released by the ASEAN Center for Energy (ACE) in late 2022 projects continuous high energy demand growth, tripling 2020 level by 2050, with total final energy consumption (TFEC) expected to reach 473.1 Mtoe by 2025 and 1,281.7 Mtoe by 2050. With the current natural resource reserve and production capacity, ASEAN will become a net importer of natural gas by 2025 and coal by 2039.

As the world’s fourth-largest producer of coal, ASEAN’s biggest gas supplier, and the largest biofuel producer globally, Indonesia may not have energy issues itself but will most surely face pressure to coordinate the distribution of energy among ASEAN member states. “Energy should be borderless. The problem with energy is that we limit energy within [the borders of] our member states,” said ACE executive director Nuki Agya Utama at the launch of AEO7.

The AEO7 also calls for Indonesia to connect its electricity system in Sumatra to Peninsular Malaysia by 2025 to enable ASEAN to meet its growing electricity demand while keeping costs in check.

“We already have Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore on the ASEAN Power Grid. I really hope that Indonesia can take the lead in 2023, and be connected [to the ASEAN Power Grid], either through Singapore or Peninsular Malaysia or maybe the Borneo grid to up until The Philippines,” said Nuki.

Coming Storms

The issues for Indonesia’s ASEAN chairmanship to address will not be easy and undoubtedly require support from all other member states. Earlier at the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits, Widodo called for the bloc’s members to be consistent with the spirit of cooperation and implement the ASEAN Charter completely. As Jakarta tries to maintain the current positive trend to make ASEAN the “epicentrum” of growth and maintain regional stability, it must prepare to weather storms both from outside and within.

Danny Teh Zi Yee is a Li Ka Shing scholar in international affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He was previously the Director of External Affairs for the ASEAN Youth Advocates Network (AYAN) Malaysia. His articles and commentaries have appeared in Cambodianess, Modern Diplomacy, Malaysiakini, New Straits Times, The National Interest, and The Diplomat, among others. Get in touch with him via Twitter, LinkedIn, or email. 

Yuxin Hou is a scholar in international affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He was previously the Manager of China Business at the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT) and until recently the Vice President of Yaqiao Education Group, a leading private education provider which he co-founded in China. Yuxin is a contributor to Caixin Media in China, the US-China Perception Monitor by the Carter Center, and the AsiaGlobal Online Journal, among others. Get in touch with him via LinkedIn or email.

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BASF, the German chemical products behemoth, made a bet on Russia in recent decades. After Russia invaded Ukraine, that bet failed to pay off. Now it’s making another risky bet on China, just as great power competition is heating up.

In 1990, BASF forged an alliance that would provide the company—and Germany more broadly—with a steady supply of inexpensive Russian natural gas. BASF is Europe’s largest commercial consumer of Russian gas. At its largest factory—a small, self-contained city with its own hospital and wastewater treatment plant—BASF consumed thirty-seven terawatt-hours of Russian natural gas in 2021, nearly 4 percent of Germany's total natural gas consumption that year. The fuel became so essential that the CEO of BASF referred to Russian gas as “the basis of our industry’s competitiveness.”

.Months after Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a unified Europe turned off the tap of Russian oil and gas, starving BASF of much-needed energy and chemical ingredients. BASF tried to weather the restrictions by dialing back production, but with the prospect of the continuing sanctions and a war stretching toward its second year, BASF has cut its losses and moved operations to China, where it is building a €10 billion factory complex in Guangdong.

BASF is not alone. Germany’s economic and industrial might has depended heavily on cheap Russian gas. High energy prices and uncertain supply have impacted German companies large and small. Facing energy uncertainty, a shocking 9 percent of Germany’s small and medium industrial companies are also considering moving operations abroad.

For BASF, the calculus was rather simple. No longer able to rely on that natural gas to power its factories and create its chemical precursors, like ammonia and acetylene, BASF was forced to find a new jurisdiction where energy is plentiful. China checked that box.

For similar reasons, some German politicians now seek to forge new economic ties with China. German chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China in November in order to “further develop” cooperation between the countries—efforts that led to China’s purchase of 140 Airbus airplanes.

By tying itself to China, however, Germany risks making its Russia mistake all over again. It is doing so at a time when tensions are heating up between Beijing and the West. Moreover, Germany should be investing in unprecedented transatlantic cooperation and pan-democratic unity in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, and as fears grow over a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The reason the Russian gas supply has stopped was predictable but not inevitable. It occurred because Russia is a country that a single person controls—a person capable of horrific and violent blunders. Indeed, reliance on Russian gas was a vulnerability because Russia is non-democratic and capricious. Today, the country is engaged in the megalomaniacal war of one man who has unified much of the democratic world in opposition.

By turning to China, however, BASF and other German companies risk another major miscalculation—allowing the allure of cheaper energy to bind them to another autocratic and capricious regime controlled largely by one man. Germany, which enjoys alliances throughout Europe and North America, should recognize the risks. Xi Jinping’s saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait could be a sign of things to come. China is capable of making the same mistake as Russia and paying even more significant consequences. China’s economy is entangled with many of its Western trading partners.

On top of that, German engagement with China always carries the substantial risks of technology theft and knowledge transfer—a risk that some scholars have described as Beijing’s “weaponization of cooperation.”

BASF is just one of the many multinational companies that risk being caught flatfooted if Beijing becomes militarily aggressive or if it decides to establish a state-owned competitor to the German companies that it previously cooperated with.

Of course, BASF is also investing heavily in China because, like most multinationals, it values the Chinese market. And it’s not alone here, either. China is Germany’s largest trading partner outside of Europe. German carmaker Volkswagen gets more than 40 percent of its global revenue from China. As BASF’s chief executive explained, “we’ve come to the conclusion that China is an opportunity . . . and it makes sense to expand our position [there].”

BASF is heading in the same direction. While Europe made up 40 percent of BASF’s sales, and North America made up another 27 percent, China’s contribution to global sales is growing. In the third quarter of 2022, China made up 14 percent of BASF’s global sales at just under EUR 3 billion.

BASF currently employs 50,000 workers in Germany. Similarly, small and medium-sized companies in the industrial sectors are major drivers of employment in Germany. If companies and their jobs leave for China, it will be hard for Germans to ignore the economic and social implications of significant job flight. A push toward greater independence is now needed, including boosting energy capacity from existing nuclear power plants and more aggressive renewables infrastructure.

BASF’s calculation to double down on China may backfire on the country in other ways. As the United States and Europe examine their critical supply lines, routing essential industrial chemicals through China seems unappealing. BASF is not alone. Many other countries may find themselves in a similar situation. However, Western countries are increasingly concluding that economic and national security interests require repositioning their critical-component supply lines through friendly, democratic partners.

This is why many multinational companies have recently increased “ally-shoring”—re-routing supply chains to friendly countries for greater economic security, keeping jobs closer to home, and reinforcing democratic norms. Ally-shoring may not work in all markets and for all types of critical industries. But Europe and the United States understand that they must join forces where possible to reduce vulnerabilities. An industrial alliance of democratic countries would be hard to beat—Germany and the United States should be taking the lead in such an alliance.

BASF has taken a great risk. A bet on China might prove even more disastrous than the bet it made on Russia more than thirty years ago.

John Austin directs the Michigan Economic Center and is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Elaine Dezenski is senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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More than a year has passed since the formation of AUKUS—a trilateral security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia—and the subsequent diplomatic crisis between France and Australia. After the initial shock provoked by the announcement of AUKUS, France had no choice but to revamp its partnership policy in the Indo-Pacific.

The dispute not only tarnished the bilateral relationship between Paris and Canberra but also complicated France’s plans in the region. Though the media initially read the French discontent as a business dispute over the cancellation of Australia’s multi-billion-dollar order for France’s Naval Group submarines, the deal was just one component of a broader strategy to anchor France into the Indo-Pacific.

Until September 2021, this strategy was supposed to rely on two legs. France’s rapprochement with India provided the “Indo” leg, while the partnership with Australia represented the “Pacific” one. This was all the more crucial because, historically, France has been more involved in the Indian Ocean than in the Pacific, and the partnership with Canberra was partly expected to fix this imbalance.

Since the AUKUS dispute, France’s Indo-Pacific engagement has taken several forms. At the bilateral level, one of the most significant developments has been France’s rapprochement with Indonesia. Over the last year, exchanges between both sides’ foreign and defense ministers have increased. In July, Indonesia’s defense minister, Prabowo Subianto, called France “Indonesia’s main strategic partner.” A few months later, French minister of the armed forces Sebastien Lecornu followed up by asserting that “a powerful strategic intimacy … is being born with Indonesia and France.” The rapprochement is not only in words: amid Indonesian plans to modernize its armed forces, France secured a deal to sell forty-two Rafale fighters to Indonesia, which may be followed by the sale of two French Scorpene-class attack submarines.

Meanwhile, France has embraced the “minilateral” approach. Back in 2020, France launched a trilateral dialogue with India and Australia, but it came to a halt after the AUKUS crisis. However, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last September, French diplomats met with their counterparts from India and Australia in order to revive that framework.

Seen from Paris, the replacement of Australian prime minister Scott Morrison by Anthony Albanese after the May 2022 election was a precondition for restoring those ties. Then, a July visit by Albanese to Paris helped relaunch French-Australian dialogue at the highest level. French president Emmanuel Macron even suggested that year that the submarine deal was still “on the table” if the new Australian government was open to the idea (it isn’t so far). The sense of “betrayal” around the AUKUS dispute left deep scars in the French foreign policy establishment and the president’s entourage. Although bilateral consultations may go on, there are no expectations for the time being that France will reconsider the partnership with Canberra as a pillar of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Interestingly, another trilateral gathering occurred during the UN General Assembly in New York. On the sidelines of the General Assembly, India, France, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) held their first meeting together. That trilateral partnership truly grew in earnest after the AUKUS debacle, though French officials carefully reject any causation between the two events and emphasize that the rapprochement among the three countries had been in the making for several years.

The UAE has hosted France’s naval command for the Indian Ocean since 2009, along with about 800 French troops. Coincidentally, on September 15, 2021, the day AUKUS was announced, Macron hosted the Emirati leader, Mohammed bin Zayed, who has his own grievances with the United States. Three months later, amid the suspension of contentious F-35 talks between Abu Dhabi and Washington, the UAE announced its intention to purchase eighty French Rafale fighter jets. In the meantime, the Emiratis and the Indians have also turned their relationship into a strategic partnership that now involves counterterrorism cooperation and major Emirati investments in India’s infrastructure. By 2021, the navies of the three countries held joint drills in the Persian Gulf.

It is too early to say how far this nascent trilateral bloc can go. France appears eager to promote talks on joint defense industrial cooperation, especially as the Dassault company produces Rafale fighter jets for both Abu Dhabi and New Delhi. There is also the possibility of greater consultations in the field of maritime security in the Indian Ocean, though the UAE’s limited naval capabilities may constrain such ambitions.

France’s Indo-Pacific strategy has also taken a more ambitious character at the multilateral level. In the past two years, Paris deepened its engagement with regional organizations. In 2020, it became an official member of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, making the case that its territories in the area—La Réunion and Mayotte—made it a sovereign state of the region on par with Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. In November 2022, France also gained the status of observer state in the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meetings Plus, ASEAN’s platform for military consultations with external partners such as Australia, India, and the United States.

Furthermore, in November 2022, Macron was the first European leader to deliver a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum’s​​ summit in Bangkok, allowing him to highlight the French approach towards the region, often described by the expression “balancing power,” or “puissance d’équilibre,” a concept as vague in English as it is in French.

French officials insist that Paris rejects the notion of “confrontation” between great powers in the region. The goal of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy is not to counter China but to promote partnerships focused on common interests rather than common threats. Such French rhetoric plays as a barely veiled critique of the American posture, perceived in Paris (as well as in some Asian capitals) as too polarizing.

Recent initiatives such as the rapprochement with Indonesia, the launching of the UAE-India dialogue, and the resurrection of the dialogue with India and Australia have built new momentum for France’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Admittedly, the partnership with Abu Dhabi and New Delhi has its own limitations—it can strengthen France’s presence in the Western Indian Ocean but hardly beyond that area. This is again what makes France’s partnership with Canberra so crucial.

As a result, France is still reviewing ways to enlarge its partnership policy. Some observers speculate that Indonesia could join the India-UAE framework. In addition to its recent rapprochement with France, the Southeast Asian country has also cultivated close ties with both India and the UAE. Singapore is also frequently mentioned, especially due to its significant diplomatic and military cooperation with Paris. As it maintains a carefully balanced posture between the United States and China, Singapore may also find France’s rhetoric more appealing than the current stance in Washington.

Eventually, in this search for local partnerships to shore up its Indo-Pacific strategy, France must confront two fundamental questions. The first relates to its ability to shape the local environment. Asian policy circles remain skeptical about the military and economic might a country like France can deploy to the Indo-Pacific when compared to great powers like Washington and Beijing. Paris is well aware of the need to address this credibility gap and announced in the past year new naval deployments to increase its presence in Asian waters. French military expenditures are also expected to rise, but those are driven less by Asia’s security challenges than by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No one in Paris is under the illusion that France could match American and Chinese capacities. Instead, the goal is to maintain sufficient resources to lead Asian middle powers to consider the French proposal as a true alternative. Defining this level of sufficiency remains unclear, however.

This brings about the second issue facing Paris, which relates to the need to clarify its regional posture. Although French diplomats boast the distinctive nature of the country’s Indo-Pacific strategy vis-à-vis the United States, catchphrases such as “Paris’ third way,” “balancing power,” or France as “a power of initiatives“ are not compelling. They may look like shallow statements hiding an absence of concrete objectives or, worse, could be dismissed as lofty rhetoric disguising the true priority of Paris—i.e., weapons sales.

France’s Indo-Pacific policy is not as different from America’s as its rhetoric suggests. France remains a NATO ally of Washington and has similarly highlighted China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and its predatory investments in Asia and Africa. Furthermore, when working with an American audience, France tends to tone down the talk of its “third way,” promoting its Indo-Pacific strategy as complementary to Washington’s. It is a difficult enterprise for France to position itself as an alternative foreign policy player to the United States while also persuading Washington that this approach benefits both countries.

Ultimately, the credibility of France’s capabilities and intentions is an interrelated issue, and the key to solving it may lie in its ability to its Indo-Pacific strategy. Under this approach, the EU would provide resources that France cannot offer on its own, possibly supporting the ability of Europe to act as a true alternative to U.S.-China competition. For French diplomats, this means they must keep the EU engaged in Asia at a time it is focused on the war in Ukraine. In other words, the future of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy may be played out in Brussels just as much as in Asian capitals.

Jean-Loup Samaan is a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore and a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. A former policy advisor with the French Ministry of Defense and NATO, he is the author, with Frederic Grare, of The Indian Ocean as a New Political and Security Region (Palgrave, 2022).

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On January 6, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the executive board members of the Qods Aviation and Aerospace Industries Organization (IAIO), an Iranian defense company founded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1985. IAIO designs and manufactures Mohajer-6 mid-range reconnaissance and combat drones, which were supposedly transferred to Russia in the summer. In September, Russia reportedly used the Mohajer-6 to coordinate an attack on the Ukrainian port of Odessa, contradicting Tehran’s denials of supplying drones to Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine. IAIO has been sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) since December 2013.

The U.S. government may also increase sanctions against officials of the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation (HESA), which produces the Shahed-136 suicide drone that Russia has renamed the Geran-2 and that has featured prominently in the war in Ukraine. Since September, Russia has deployed the Shahed-136/Geran-2 in waves of drone and missile strikes, crippling Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and terrorizing its civilian population. Like IAIO, HESA has been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom for over a decade.  

For years, the United States has imposed sanctions against Iran’s military-industrial complex and manufacturing base, including entities like IAIO, HESA, Fajr Aviation Composite Industries (FACI), Iran Helicopter Support and Renewal Industries (PAHNA), and Iran Aircraft Industries (IACI), to name a few. Nevertheless, Iran’s aerospace sector and drone industry have continued to expand and thrive. Western sanctions have been unable to prevent Iran from becoming a prominent player in the military drone market and sharing drone technology with partners and proxies inside and outside of the Middle East. 

Iran has manufactured and operated military drones since the Iran-Iraq War in the mid-1980s. With over thirty-three models, Iran’s highly developed, sophisticated military drone complex comprises one of the four pillars of its security strategy and force structure, complementing its missile technology, proxy forces, and cyberwarfare. Drones have increasingly offered an asymmetric advantage to Iran, with the understanding that it cannot compete with more modern air forces in the region—even as it attempts to acquire Su-35 fighter jets from Russia in exchange for drones, missiles, and other military assistance. Iranian drones are cheaper than their Western counterparts and have proven to be effective on the battlefield, whether against domestic and regional insurgents or American and allied assets in and around the Persian Gulf.

Drones have also enabled Iran to project power and earn profits, showcase technology and enhance prestige, strengthen alliances, and influence conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. To this end, Iran has delivered drones and their designs, components, and training to its partners and proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as to foreign governments such as Ethiopia, Russia, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela—transactions facilitated by the expiration of the UN arms embargo against Iran in October 2020. In May 2022, Iranian Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Iranian drone factory in Tajikistan, its first offshore drone production facility. On October 18, as Russia continued deploying the Shahed-136/Geran-2 against Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians, Maj. Gen. Yahya Safava, a top military aide to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, claimed that twenty-two countries wanted to purchase Iranian drones.

So far, Iran has refrained from delivering to Russia longer-range and more lethal drones and missiles, like the Arash-2 suicide drone and the Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar short-range ballistic missile (SRBM). In doing so, Tehran seeks to avoid being subjected to snapback sanctions under UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2231 until a key provision expires in October 2023. Meanwhile, in the port city of Bandar Abbas, the IRGC Navy has contracted the Iran Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Complex to convert the Shahid Mahdavi container ship into a drone aircraft carrier.

In addition to increasing sanctions against Iran, Washington intends to enforce export controls and pressure private companies to disrupt the technological supply chain connected to Tehran’s drone industry. These plans were made public after reports surfaced that the Shahed-136 is manufactured with American and British components. These components not only complicate Iran’s revolutionary narrative of independence and self-sufficiency but also demonstrate its uncanny ability to bypass sanctions.

As with Western sanctions, it is unlikely that more export controls and corporate pressure will significantly reduce Iran’s access to these components. First, as indicated above, foreign components have already been integrated into a robust drone program with an established supply chain. Second, while the United States could perhaps punish companies that sell dual- or multi-use technology to Iran and other so-called rogue states, it cannot fully stop resellers of such technology, like eBay or Alibaba, from doing so.

The Iranian leadership embraces a whole-of-government approach and uses all available tools, from regime elites attending universities abroad to cyber espionage, to access the latest technologies. Iran may have difficulty accessing or creating complex communication technology. Yet it could still easily purchase a Texas Instruments electronic signal receiver chip of the type that Ukrainian forces discovered inside a downed Shahed-136, particularly from China’s large and unregulated technology market.

Turkey, for example, successfully circumvented a U.S. export ban on drone components—engines, optoelectronics, and bomb racks—by importing them from the British subsidiary of an American company. A similar ban by the Canadian government incentivized Turkey to manufacture more components locally in the long term. Access to hardware and components aside, Iran’s high human capital could allow it to accelerate localized production of drone components. Such an outcome could be made possible by the first-rate scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematicians produced by the Sharif University of Technology and other top-notch Iranian educational institutions, even as they have become epicenters of heightened unrest and repression during Iran’s latest protests.

Considering the difficulty, if not impossibility, of disrupting Iran’s drone program through economic sanctions and export controls, the United States would do well to adopt a new strategy. Such a strategy would endeavor to use an innovative, holistic approach to break the endless cycle of American sanctions imposition and Iranian sanctions avoidance. Under this strategy, punitive economic and financial measures would be part of a broader policy toolkit to achieve a whole-of-government support effect.

As a counterfactual, one cannot help but wonder whether Iranian-Russian military cooperation would be as strong had Washington remained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or rejoined it and rejected the route of maximum pressure. Somewhere between extreme coercion (military action and economic sanctions) and cooperation (diplomatic engagement and sanctions relief) may exist the right combination of sticks and carrots to change Iran’s behavior. Doing so could possibly prevent Washington, Tehran, and their respective allies from continuing down the destructive, irreversible path of intensified conflict and instability.

Eric Lob is a non-resident scholar with the Middle East Institute’s Iran Program and an associate professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University.

Col. Edward Riehle, USA, Ret. works on advanced technologies, sensors, and sensor processing in Northern California.

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Much to the chagrin of traditional Georgia watchers in the West, an undeniable return of great power competition has compelled the current political leadership in Tbilisi to pursue a more pragmatic foreign policy. However, this has not spared the current ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), from Western criticism. Tbilisi stands being accused of deviating from Georgia’s traditional pro-Western course.

This criticism is astonishing, mainly because recent excoriations of the ruling GD government inaccurately reflect the collective spirit of Georgian society. Georgia’s storied history is embedded in its pro-Western strategic culture. Even the ultranationalist but democratically elected first president, Zviad Gamsakurdia, attempted to use his “strategic idealism” with Washington, but to no avail. Georgia, in other words, has been offering itself to the collective West on a silver platter throughout its early and modern history without any takers. Still, Tbilisi is openly being accused, for all the wrong reasons, of deviating from its traditional Western-oriented foreign policy.

So, what is lurking behind this tactical change in Tbilisi? The gist of it seems to center around the fact that Georgian society has started to awaken from Tbilisi’s strategic slumber from the previous decades. And while the country remains overwhelmingly pro-Western, the overall anti-Russian hysteria that defined the presidency of the now-jailed Mikhail Saakashvili—the boisterous golden boy of the Bush administration—has subsided. In turn, Washington’s foreign policy community has expressed explicit irritation with Tbilisi for being out of tune with Washington’s drumbeat, which in the past has kept Georgia firmly in line with the high pitch of Moscow-bashing. 

Consider the accusations from former U.S. ambassador to Georgia, Ian Kelly. The ambassador blames Tbilisi for straying from the West and not showing enough solidarity with Ukraine. Such commentary is suggestive of political spin, if not of an intentional omission of facts. Kelly’s meaning following his peculiar statement that “…this is a very bad time for all this when there is a real discussion about NATO enlargement,” is also unclear. It is precisely because of the unfettered promotion of Georgia for NATO membership that Russia felt threatened and invaded it in 2008. Were it not for Saakashvili’s recklessness, Georgia could have kept Moscow not only from invading it, but also from recognizing the two regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali as independent states—something that Eduard Shevardnadze had achieved by balancing with Moscow. In other words, Georgia’s strategic stance went from bad to worse in a matter of five days. And yet, judging from these comments, this existential threat to Georgia seems to matter little to the ambassador, as long as the NATO expansionism talk continues unfazed.

In yet another instance, Luke Coffey suggested that Georgia should be pushed into NATO, but without the Article V guarantees for the two separatist regions. But again, such fantastical innovations augment the existential threat Georgia faces from Russia. The reason Moscow supports separatist movements in these regions is to ensure that not a sliver of Georgian territory joins NATO. Therefore, it is far from clear how Russia will ever accept what would amount to a separate peace with Abkhazia and Tskhinvali while the rest of Georgia receives Article V protection. Even the most ardent proponents of liberal internationalism must suspect that such a policy would further weaken Georgia’s sovereignty by once again enraging Moscow. 

Needless to say, the gradual accumulation of such views created a toxic political climate. Most recently, pushback came from Georgia Dream, the party of Georgia’s own prime minister. It claimed that “certain forces” in Ukraine close to the United National Movement (UNM) were engaged in machinations to push Georgia into opening the second front against Russia. Even U.S. ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan had to explicitly deny such rumors to calm political waters. Degnan also had to face her own audience in Washington, when members of U.S. Congress became interested. However, the damage had already been done; four former members of the current government wrote an open letter claiming that the European Union (EU) would not grant Georgia its candidate status if it “does not join the war or join the sanctions against Russia.”

And of course, the current context of political petulance would not be complete without the ominous shadow of the UNM that continues to loom large in Georgian politics. The criminality of Saakashvili’s regime has deeply stigmatized the population and made it wary of UNM’s return. So far, a good indication of this shift in public perspective is that Saakashvili’s arrest has not generated the level of support among his electorate that he had hoped. Bereft of political and moral legitimacy, it is unlikely that he will return to politics in Georgia any time soon. 

To be sure, GD has been far from innocent in this political quagmire. Having skillfully used this uncertainty, it has dangled the prospect of UNM’s return as the resumption of state terror. Having won an unprecedented third term, GD has managed to keep the population at bay even with its consistent failure to improve the economy and its blatant withdrawal from EU-brokered agreements. Ironically, this failure has not prevented it from exploiting the existing public perception that the UNM is being egged on against GD by Georgia’s Western partners. 

In order to diffuse tensions, the West must take the high road and de-escalate the political climate in Tbilisi. The current political duel is shabby theatrics and only deepens polarization. The West exerts much more influence over Tbilisi, but political officials in Washington must understand how to properly take advantage of it. One aspect of the relationship they must leverage is Georgia’s long-held tradition of using personal relations as a way to engage in robust diplomacy behind the scenes. Further, Washington must forego its infatuation with Saakashvili, recognize harsh realities on the ground, and treat the GD as an equal player.

Lastly and most importantly, geopolitics is part and parcel of the region. Western officials must consider this vital fact, prior to equating Tbilisi’s pragmatism with an anti-Western shift. Georgia has bandwagoned before with its northern neighbor. This geopolitical consideration should not come as a surprise to Washington, given that it cannot guarantee Georgia’s security in either the short- or long-term. Georgians have started to pay closer attention to this dynamic, if only because the historic visit of the American president to their country frustrated their hopes for NATO membership. 

Ironically, the United States and Georgia are tied together. Even though Georgia does not represent a “vital” security interest for the United States, Washington has made enormous political, financial, and military investments to strengthen Georgia’s legitimacy and sovereignty. If Washington wants to strengthen this tie with Georgia, American policymakers must show strategic flexibility by reducing pressure on the leadership in Tbilisi. No great decisions can be made while Georgian policymakers are constantly squeezed between a rock and a hard place.

Giorgi Lasha Kasradze is an academic liaison and strategic business development officer at Sokhumi State University and a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Image: Shutterstock.

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