Diplomacy & Crisis News

Israel turns seventy-five this week. Most Israelis certainly didn’t anticipate this kind of commemoration as the country is engulfed in its biggest domestic crisis since its inception.

Yet this crisis is turning into the very gift that Israelis are giving to themselves and others for their birthday. It turns out that for all the talk that democracy cannot take root in countries where there is no democratic tradition, Israel’s demographic makeup tells a very different story. Notwithstanding that the majority of its population today has immigrated from across the Middle East, people are strongly committed to their freedoms.

With now sixteen straight weeks of demonstrations often totaling up to 4 percent of the entire population, one sees the depth of the Israeli public’s commitment to democracy. Nowhere else in the Middle East would even one week of such demonstrations be met with anything but massive bloodshed—and this extraordinary grassroots movement is a reminder that Israelis won’t tolerate the threat to end the separation of powers and an independent judiciary. Israelis won’t accept a majoritarian approach to the country that fails to respect the rights of minorities and preserves the rule of law.

The Israeli public has been aroused by what they see as a threat to Israel’s democratic character. Many of those demonstrating now have never demonstrated before. Reservists from elite air, naval, and commando units; the high-tech sector; the universities going on strike, hospitals offering only emergency services—all this forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call for a pause and to signal he understands that any such judicial change must reflect a broad consensus in Israel. The story is not over by any means, but the Israeli public has acted in an unprecedented way because it perceived a threat to the democratic fabric of the country. At this point, the tide seems to have turned in favor of the grassroots democracy movement.

There are many lessons from this crisis that will be discussed for some time, but one of them surely is how a society that is fundamentally resilient can self-correct, especially when seeking to preserve its democratic identity. In Israel’s case, being a Jewish-democratic state is part of its ethos and that means both sides of the hyphen must flourish or they will each whither. In this framework, a Jewish-democratic state has meant equal voting rights whether one is Jewish or not for the last seventy-five years.

It is true that the Palestinian issue has not been the focus of the grassroots democracy movement in Israel. But there is no way to preserve Israel as a Jewish democracy without addressing the Palestinian issue. Those Israelis who favor yielding land in the West Bank do so not just to maintain dignity for Palestinians, but to ensure that Israel can remain both Jewish and democratic. This is critical to understand. For those Israeli leaders who take two states for two peoples off the table, they leave only one state as the answer—or their silence and the absence of a story to tell about the endgame of the conflict with the Palestinians leaves a vacuum. On the inside in Israel, there are extremist ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich who are only too happy to fill it.

But we also see there are those on the outside who, from a very different perspective, will seek to fill the intellectual and policy vacuum left by seemingly departing from two states for two peoples as a goal.

A case in point is the recent Foreign Affairs article written by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami, entitled “Israel’s One State Reality.” Regrettably, they offer a one-sided view of the conflict and present a picture that seems divorced from reality. In the Barnett et al telling, there is only a denial of Palestinian rights. One would not know that there are rejectionist threats against Israel. That Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas deny Israel’s right to exist, support terror against it—and would even if there was no occupation—and acquire and develop weapons to act on their aims. Barnett et al note Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and say that Israel retained control over the territory’s entry and exit points and the air and sea around it. Why? No mention is made of the fact that even after Israel withdrew, Hamas continued to carry out attacks against it and still does eighteen years later.

Hamas has never put the development of Gaza over its aims of resistance against Israel. It went from having roughly 3,000 rockets after the 2014 conflict to having over 30,000 in the 2021 conflict. Hamas used that time not just to acquire rockets but to build an underground city of tunnels, exploiting materials (concrete, electrical wiring, steel, and wood) that could and should have been used to develop and build Gaza above ground. The tunnels weren’t to protect the people of Gaza by creating shelters. Rather, their purpose was to protect Hamas leaders, fighters, and weapons and to be used to try to infiltrate Israel. If Barnett et al are concerned about Israel’s control of entry and exits from Gaza, why not call for Hamas to give up its rockets and stop building tunnels in return for a Marshall Plan for Gaza and an end to such Israeli control? Why not call on Hamas to accept a two-state solution?

But sadly the authors are more concerned with indicting Israel than promoting Palestinian needs and rights. In a world in which the authors are indifferent to the threats that Israel faces, it is not a leap to argue, as they do, to condition military aid to Israel in order to terminate Israeli military rule over Palestinians. How do the authors think the Iranians, Hezbollah, and Hamas would react to an American cut-off of military assistance to Israel? Would that make conflict less likely? Would that reassure others in the region about the threats they are likely to face? Wouldn’t the forces that produce failed and failing states in the region—Iran’s greatest export—perceive great opportunity in such a circumstance? We have seen a foretaste this spring. Amid all the announcements that Israeli pilots and elite forces were threatening to refrain from reserve duty due to the democracy demonstrations, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah openly talked about Israel’s early collapse. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya rushed to Beirut amid talk about the possibilities of a united front.

None of this is a concern to the authors. They are far more concerned with Israel being a Jewish state which “fosters a form of ethnic nationalism rather than a civic one…” For the authors, this is a sin, and while they acknowledge that it is not a perfect fit, they still apply the apartheid label to Israel. But apartheid was an ideology of subjugation of a large majority by a small minority; it promulgated a legal structure to ensure the power and control of the white minority over the black majority of people, permitting them to live only in certain areas, to have only certain kinds of jobs, go to certain schools, with limited access to any legal remedies. Is there inequality in Israel (as there is in the United States and in other democracies)? Yes. Is it written into the law, no. Is there a minority oppressing a majority with a legal edifice justifying it? No.

But the apartheid label fits the authors’ purpose of indicting Israel and justifying its call for creating equality in one state. There is equality before the law in Israel of its citizens, including its Arab citizens who vote and hold parliamentary and judicial office, even if this is not necessarily realized in the daily reality of those citizens. Obviously, the Palestinians in the West Bank are treated differently.

And, to be fair, there is a drift toward a binational state that needs to be arrested and reversed. We wrote a book about the need for Israel to have a political leadership that will make the hard decisions—and override the inevitable backlash of those like Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and extremist settlers—to ensure that Israel does not become a binational state where either it gives up being a democracy or it gives up being a Jewish state.

By definition, in a binational state, Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic. For the extreme in Israel, they see no contradiction between being Jewish and denying rights to Palestinians. We do. Unlike the authors, who see the extremist vision having “strong grounding in Zionist thought and practice,” we see that vision as a fundamental contradiction of Zionism and its basic values. The most important Zionist theorists and leaders shared a deep belief in democracy and the rights of all people, including that the rights to Arabs must not be denied.

In no small part, the backlash today in Israel and the strong movement domestically to save Israel’s democratic character is a response to an extremist vision of Israel. They see the Supreme Court as the institutional safeguard against those trying to impose their values on the country—whether it is to block the religious parties trying to impose their values on the secular majority in Israel or it is the settler-dominated parties who don’t want the Court to block their ability to claim private Palestinian land.

One of the basic things that Barnett et al fail to see is that the democracy movement has the potential to address not just the internal threat to Israel’s democratic character but also the one posed by continuing occupation of Palestinians. Drifting toward a binational state is also a threat to Israel as a Jewish democracy. Yes, to date that drift has seemed far too abstract to produce a serious public backlash against it—especially with Hamas in control of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority characterized by dysfunction and corruption, and no sign of any Palestinian willingness to compromise. But with an aroused Israeli public more sensitive to the threats to democracy, it may no longer be possible to postpone the necessary debate on the dangers of a binational state.

While Barnett et al put the onus only on Israel, two states for two peoples requires something of the Palestinians as well. In fact, a serious Palestinian move to reform the Palestinian Authority or a determined and more public and peaceful form of Palestinian protest against occupation could help stimulate the debate in Israel. Violence plays into the hands of those in Israel who favor one state. They see it as definitive proof that Israeli territorial concessions will make it more vulnerable and not more secure. But ultimately one state is a threat to Israel and the drift toward it needs to be addressed.

For Barnett et al, one state is not just a reality, it appears desirable. But this, too, is a misreading because there is no such thing as a one-state solution. The authors fail to understand that the separate national identities of Israelis and Palestinians are deeply rooted and will not melt away. Both Israelis and Palestinians have paid a heavy price to preserve who they are. Israelis have built a state in an environment where they were rejected and wars were forced on it. Does a country with a flourishing culture and which successfully achieved its raison d’être by ingathering more than a million Jews from the Soviet Union, as well as providing a home to Jews from Ethiopia, Syria, Yemen, and throughout discriminated communities in the Middle East, suddenly yield that identity? Does a country of close to ten million—over seven million Jews and two million Israeli Arab citizens—that has persevered through wars to become the “start-up” nation with a GDP per capita now ahead of Germany, Britain, France, and Japan, say their state and identity has failed?

Palestinians, too, have persevered. In their dispersal, in the refugee camps, and through two intifadas and profound suffering, they have not surrendered their identity. Ahmed Ghneim, a Fatah activist who remains close to Marwan Barghouti, once explained why he favored two states: “in one state, one of us [Israelis or Palestinians] will feel the need to dominate the other.” Ghneim is right. A binational state would guarantee that the conflict would turn inward. For a country that does not share the same language, religion, or experience, this would turn into a nightmare very quickly.

Two states for two peoples may be difficult to achieve but it serves both Israeli and Palestinian interests. Barnett et al are too focused on their one-state reality to address how it would be certain to doom both Israelis and Palestinians to enduring conflict. Indeed, the bloodiest wars are civil wars. Having a flag and a soccer team is not enough. The authors ignore that in the Middle East there is not a post-nationalism reality. Every state in the region that is characterized by more than one sectarian, tribal, or national identity is either at war internally or completely paralyzed. Does anyone really want Israel-Palestine to look like the tragic conflicts that have engulfed Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, or Yemen? Is that the future that we should hope for these two peoples?

Yes, it is hard to go from where we are to two states for two peoples. And, yes the United States tried three times to achieve an end of conflict result requiring major compromise. You would not know from the authors of the essay that the Palestinians were a large part of the failure of those efforts, even if there is enough blame to go around. Even if the end of conflict moment is not at hand, Israel needs to have a policy that has two states for two peoples as a destination. The starting point for getting there is having that as a vision; moving to improve the realities on the ground for Palestinians; reforming the Palestinian Authority the way it was done in 2007 when Salaam Fayyad came in and restored law and order and created transparency economically; pressing the Israelis to help a reforming PA to deliver; restoring a sense of possibility for both Palestinian and Israeli public.

Given the complex realities of the Middle East, it is not enough for an idea to have abstract appeal. It has to provide very detailed, real-world answers that would satisfy deeply held nationalist aspirations on each side of this conflict. One state cannot and will not do that. If one state may seem too simple and misguided, that is because it is.

Ambassador Dennis Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. Ambassador Ross’s distinguished diplomatic career includes service as special assistant to President Barack Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Middle East Envoy to President Bill Clinton, and Director of Policy Planning for President George H.W. Bush.

David Makovsky is the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations. He is also an adjunct professor in Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2013–2014, he worked in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of State, serving as a senior advisor to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.

Image: Shutterstock.

On April 13, Russia’s Institute of Technological Development for the Fuel-Energy Complex organized a panel to discuss energy cooperation between Moscow and African countries. One of the experts, Gabriel Anicet Kotchofa, who served as Benin’s ambassador to Russia, explained that “in Africa, we are waiting for Russia—for what Russia can do. I will tell you something that is never said today: we are tired of Europe.”

As a graduate of the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas and a Russian citizen, Kotchofa is not a neutral commentator. Nonetheless, recent energy trends support his proclamation. African countries are exponentially multiplying their imports of Russian oil in response to European sanctions and price caps, providing the Kremlin with additional flexibility in the financing of its war against Ukraine.

Morocco imported 600,000 barrels of Russian diesel in the entirety of 2021. In February 2022 alone, approximately double that number arrived in the North African country’s Mediterranean ports. Last month, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria accounted for 30 percent of Russia’s diesel exports, which just returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Moscow is fulfilling a need in Africa. The International Energy Agency noted that the coronavirus pandemic provoked debt crises in twenty African countries, which will exacerbate the subsidy burdens that these nations already face as a result of frequent oscillations in energy prices. Paired with the fact that factories have still not recovered from pandemic restrictions, African countries are looking for outside aid from new sources. “Significant parts of [African refineries] are idle or underloaded due to equipment deterioration, maintenance problems, [and] interruptions in the supply of raw materials,” said Lyudmila Kalinichenko, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, during the aforementioned panel. At the same time, Africa’s population is growing vertiginously.

As such, African countries are faced with two compounding challenges: energy refinery shortages and rising demand. One solution they have pursued is to step up their reliance on imports. Accordingly, these nations have turned to Russian gas companies happy to gain access to new markets. Some African companies have taken advantage of this realignment of imports and exports to deceive European countries seeking replacements for the Russian energy that used to flow under the Baltic Sea.

In Morocco, for instance, an MP accused several energy companies of forging documents about the origins of Russian gas quickly resold to Europe at a higher price upon arrival. These companies have allegedly mixed Russian oil into their domestic components to alleviate pressure from local extraction processes and augment their profits from both Russian sellers and European buyers. The gas Moscow is sending to Africa is clearly not all being used to satisfy domestic demand.

Beyond energy, relations between the EU and Africa have been deteriorating for the past few decades. Russian disinformation tactics, which have been scaled up since the start of the Russo-Ukraine war, partly explain this trend.

Despite European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s assurances that the EU has “no sanctions on food and agricultural products,” Senegalese president Macky Sall repeatedly voiced concern that European trade restrictions have blocked mechanisms that allow African countries to pay for indispensable Russian grains and fertilizers. On the military side, France’s inability to protect Malians from jihadist terrorist groups led to a complete withdrawal of its forces in 2022. This sparked widespread anti-French sentiment in West Africa, leading to attacks on businesses and diplomatic buildings in addition to shocking images of French flags being burned.

Russian propaganda has fueled this discontent. The Kremlin’s state-funded television networks like RT have signed deals with their African counterparts to shape minds about the ongoing war in Ukraine while repeating to audiences that France and the United States have harmed African interests. The recent U.S. intelligence leak adds detail about how Russian officials brainstormed propaganda initiatives to “realign” African public opinion on Western influence.

Russia has not spared energy debates from its carefully crafted narratives. During the panel, Kotchofa argued that African countries have been “forced to conclude unprofitable contracts with European partners in which over 90 percent of oil and petroleum products are exported from the continent.” He added that since Russia is blessed with its own array of natural resources, it feels “no need to take raw materials” from others. Such rhetoric is frequently repeated in the media and diffused throughout Africa, even if it blatantly ignores Russia’s increase in cobalt, gold, and diamond mining and the proliferation of joint ventures between Russian and African companies.

Indeed, Russia has entered into natural resource deals with about twenty African countries. In November 2021, the Russian State Space Corporation “Roscosmos” signed a cooperation agreement with Zimbabwe to expand its satellite intelligence in the country as a way to locate mineral deposits. Earlier this year, a columnist in one of Russia’s largest state-owned news sources, RIA Novosti, noted that Congo’s immense trove of resources represents the financial “contract of the century” before claiming that Russia feels no urge to repeat Europe’s “neo-colonialism.” He then exposed Moscow’s media-based strategy: “African leaders often do not have to explain why they need Russia…[our] PR on the continent is good and self-supporting.”

Western and Russian observers alike make the mistake of saying that Beijing and Moscow’s replacement of French influence in Africa demonstrates that the United States is losing ground on the continent. In reality, French and American interests in Africa are not interchangeable.

However, the United States and France do agree that it is strategically advantageous to oppose Russia. Their unity against the Kremlin will strengthen as Russians take the place of the French. And if Russian companies pool resources into Africa only to be outmatched by China while the United States directs its attention toward Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, Moscow’s increased involvement in Africa suddenly does not look so bad. With this logic, perhaps the United States should not rush to extend diplomatic ties to the disillusioned African countries tempted by Russian energy exports.

This argument has a critical flaw, however. It contradicts the sanctions policy that the U.S. Treasury Department has pursued since the start of the war in Ukraine: erode Moscow’s ability to financially support its wartime operations. With the recent news that Russia’s oil is being shipped to Europe through Africa, the Biden administration should think of the growing continent as inseparable from its Russia strategy rather than as a separate theater. This is especially the case for the North African countries that border the Mediterranean.

As one of the Russian experts said during the panel, “We are currently shipping Russian oil and petroleum products across the sea in the Mediterranean, in the Spanish port of Ceuta, and in the Greek port of Kalamata. But what prevents us from using the port infrastructure of North African countries for these purposes?” If American policymakers want to hinder the scope of Russia’s military operations, they cannot turn a blind eye to the African countries that have begun accepting enormous shipments of Russian oil and may fall prey to the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, Voice of America, and U.S. oil and gas companies must synchronize their efforts to achieve this goal. The first can scale up humanitarian aid, the second can provide further support to independent media organizations, and the third can provide competitive alternatives to Russian oil sailing to the African coast.

Russian experts are seriously thinking about how they can use Africa as an eager energy market and a natural resource hub to gain ground on the battlefield. American experts must do the same, focusing on the African countries that receive substantive aid from the West and are prepared to counter the Kremlin’s gas diplomacy and the way Russian media has portrayed the war in Ukraine.

Axel de Vernou is a sophomore at Yale University studying Global Affairs and History with a Certificate of Advanced Language Study in Russian. He is a Research Assistant at the Yorktown Institute.

Image: 

There is growing discussion that Department of Defense (DoD) procurement programs are not nimble enough to meet emerging threats from peer competitors such as China. The timeline for the development of new defense capabilities is lengthy, impeding the nation’s ability to offset swiftly and efficiently growing capabilities of potential adversaries. Critics say that the Department is not adequately accelerating the development of game-changing technologies and not effectively leveraging commercial technology. They have called for comprehensive procurement reform as the solution to these problems.

In fairness, the Pentagon has often proven itself more than able to use existing procurement authorities rapidly and effectively when urgency demands quick action. For example, in 2008, in response to warfighter needs in Afghanistan and Iraq for enhanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, the Air Force successfully developed and deployed the MC-12 Liberty aircraft in less than eight months following congressional funding approval. Similarly, in order to protect soldiers and Marines from improvised explosive devices, the Department of Defense rapidly acquired a new armored vehicle, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protect (MRAP). The decision to buy, followed by the actual commencement of production, took less than a year. More recently, the Air Force used its Rapid Capabilities Office to develop the new B-21 Raider bomber on time and on budget (so far!).

The challenge that remains is fostering an even greater collective effort to expedite weapons development. How can the nation better accelerate the DoD acquisitions process? What can be learned from the experience of the private sector to help? How might DoD adapt the intelligence community’s successful experiment, establishing In-Q-Tel, for military procurement? What can be done to harness private capital markets to help fund and speed Pentagon building programs, such as the renovation of our Navy’s shipyards?

When Aversion to Risk is a Negative

Complicating the challenge of improving the procurement process is the natural tendency toward risk aversion within any large government organization such as DoD, governed by a complex regulatory structure. Innovation carries risk. The safer approach, one surmises, is to follow the careful procurement system that has been developed incrementally by thousands of Pentagon regulations over the course of decades. Moving fast can mean less review, and hence carry greater risk for failure. Only when the need for speed is urgent and clearly demanded by top leadership, such as was the case with MRAP’s or Operation Warp Speed, does the bureaucracy turn to quicker procurement techniques available in the legal toolbox. Much as no one was ever fired at DoD for buying IBM computers in the 1960s, no one in the building is fired today for taking a careful, safe approach to procurement under the guidelines of a manifold regulatory system.

Another aspect of the challenge requiring consideration is congressional authority. Procurement laws and rules only address “how” the contracting process is pursued for the development and purchase of a weapons system. They do not address the issue of authorization—i.e., “what” Congress has empowered the Pentagon to do on a specific weapons system or program, including the expenditure of funds. The Air Force developed and deployed the MC-12 aircraft only after receiving congressional permission. The plane’s development was specifically authorized and funded by Congress, as was the Space Development Agency’s satellite constellation. Unless funding is first approved by Congress, DoD cannot lawfully commence the contracting process for the development of any new system.

This approach of detailed congressional authorization tends to be somewhat more pronounced for the DoD than for other government entities. Most federal agencies are governed by broadly worded authorizations that give them latitude for innovative purchasing and, in many cases, the ability to guarantee credit. The Department of Defense, on the other hand, tends to be controlled by a more detailed, annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) process that delimits exactly what it can and cannot develop and buy over specific time periods. The end result is an awkward system of annual funding for complex, long-term programs and institutionalized, cultural reluctance by the Pentagon to move innovatively unless specifically authorized by Congress.

An Alternative Approach?

A good illustration of the problem is DoD’s approach to experimenting with venture capital compared to other agencies. The CIA, in collaboration with other members of the intelligence community, created its own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, almost a quarter century ago. NASA followed suit a few years later with the creation of the Mercury Fund. In both instances, the CIA and NASA relied on their general statutory authority to set up these programs.

In 2002, Congress created the Army Venture Capital Corporation to invest in startups relating to power technology, but its funding robustness has so far been largely limited to its original appropriation. More recently, in December 2022, Secretary of Defense Austin established an Office of Strategic Capital whose mission will include partnering the Pentagon with public and private capital markets However, at this point, its ability to raise capital funding in the markets remains an open question as it continues to await specific congressional authorization to operate and guarantee credit, as well as an appropriation that can be used to support program funding, corporate investments, and reserves against lending or guarantees. Language contained in the Senate Report for NDAA 2023 contained wording that would have done much of that, but it was not incorporated into the final congressional conference report for the bill.

Change and innovation are hard. With rising strategic challenges in the Pacific and around the world, the Pentagon and the Hill must continue to work together to find more ways to speed the acquisition process. The Pentagon should continue, whenever possible, to use alternative approaches provided by existing procurement regulations to accelerate strategic weapons development. The regulatory success of such initiatives as Operation Warp Speed, MRAP, or the MC-12W aircraft might serve more often as an approach to speed up other programs. At the same time, Congress could consider providing the Pentagon with broader empowerment language for specific programs under the annual NDAA and appropriations process, as Capitol Hill has long done with other agencies. For example, Congress, if willing, could give DoD’s new Office of Strategic Capital just a few lines of NDAA wording to empower more open, Pentagon access to capital markets to support the application of commercial technology and major recapitalization projects.

The bottom-line reality is that practical approaches and solutions are available, both through the regulatory and legislative processes. More red tape can be cut, better enabling faster production of weapons systems to meet growing challenges in a multi-polar world.

Chuck Blanchard, a former general counsel of the Army and Air Force, is an Arnold & Porter partner specializing in government contracts law.

Ramon Marks, a retired Arnold & Porter partner, is Vice Chair of Business Executives for National Security (BENS).

The views expressed in this article are strictly their own.

Image: Shutterstock.

When it comes to illegal mass migration, it is almost impossible to successfully protect a thin border line stretching for hundreds and thousands of miles. Thousands of people—concentrating their efforts on short border sections—can easily overrun the equipment and guards, as has happened from the Spanish exclave of Ceuta to the small city of Yuma, Arizona.

Neighboring states are reluctant to deter people from crossing because they do not want to serve as a “parking lot” for illegal migrants, as Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić has said. It is much simpler for transit countries to simply let people go—a win-win situation both for the migrants and the transit country.

Similar patterns are visible not only in Europe, but also in Mexico, which—after the end of pressure and threats from the Trump administration—has begun refusing to permit Customs and Border Protection to expel families with children under the age of seven, citing a new law relating to the treatment of migrant children since the Biden administration took office. 

Yet it is not only the “carrot and stick” policy—which does not save transit countries from becoming parking lots—that can bear fruit for both transit and destination countries. Providing support for transit countries’ own border protection to prevent aliens from entering can be more beneficial for all participants, likely in a cheaper manner than pure—and costly—blackmailing and bargaining.

During the current migration crisis in Europe, more and more countries recognized the need for closer cooperation with transit countries in a way that makes them also interested in combating illegal border crossings. One of the possible solutions is to help them with their own border security. In November 2022, Austria, Hungary, and Serbia signed a trilateral agreement in which the two EU member states offered to help Belgrade organize deportations by plane for people who arrived in the Balkan nation from safe countries and are not eligible for asylum. Furthermore, they pledged a police contingent equipped with vehicles, thermal vision goggles, and drones to strengthen border protection along the North Macedonian-Serbian border. So, what actually happened was that the three countries shifted the focus of border security to the south, from the Hungarian-Serbian border to the Serbian-North Macedonian one. It made Belgrade interested in participating in the collaboration and perhaps it is closer to a durable solution than the constant debates between Belgrade, Vienna, and Budapest. And this may be just the beginning. As President Vučić emphasized, “we are ready to move further south together with North Macedonia and thus protect both Europe and our own country.”

Due to the increasing number of illegal border crossings across the Western Balkan routes toward Italy, a similar plan emerged through the participation of Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy in late March. According to the preliminary negotiations, Slovenia and Italy will send joint police forces to their neighbor to combat illegal migration within Croatia, while local authorities can concentrate their efforts on the border area. The measure could make available hundreds of additional law enforcement personnel to strengthen border protection, while it can also reduce the flow of irregular migrants to Slovenia and Italy.

Similar solutions are not unknown on the other side of the Atlantic: certain U.S. administrations also realized that it was much cheaper and more efficient to provide assistance for Mexico to police its own southern border than focusing only on the American one. For instance, the Southern Border Plan aimed to construct a network of communications towers along Mexico’s southern border region in 2014–15 to help security and migration forces to communicate despite gaps in radio coverage. According to a report by WOLA, most towers had been built by 2019, even if final construction was delayed by Mexico’s lack of issuance of a deployment plan. 

But physical infrastructure is not the only thing. In the drug war, U.S. DEA agents are deployed to Mexico to facilitate the fight against cartels. The United States could follow similar patterns against illegal migration, sending Border Patrol agents to the southern border of Mexico. Even if they could operate—similarly to their European counterparts—only with the presence of local law enforcement agencies, it could increase the protection of the Mexico-Guatemala border and, from a humanitarian perspective, could make the procedure easier for people who are really escaping from persecution and war.

Furthermore, we should not forget that the length of the southwest border of the United States is 1,954 miles, while the Mexico-Guatemala one is just one-quarter of that, 541 miles, which makes more concentrated efforts possible.

Of course, this will not mean that the United States can neglect its own border security in the southwest. Even with enhanced support from Mexican border authorities, thousands will manage to reach the United States—not to mention people who fly directly to Mexico with valid tourist visas, and later move north. But preventing illegal migrants from crossing into Mexico from the south is also in the interest of Mexico City, which does not want to be “a parking lot.” Therefore, similarly to the European examples, it can lead to a mutually-beneficial collaboration and a win-win situation for both participants.

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

Image: Shutterstock.

French president Emmanuel Macron has again sparked controversy by suggesting that Europe should chart an independent course from the United States, this time over Taiwan. This is a recurring theme from the French leader, one that is both a challenge to his fellow Europeans and an opportunity for the United States.

On the one hand, the French have sought ways to distance themselves and Europe from U.S. leadership, while at the same time advancing their own authority. On the other hand, they have shown a reluctance to participate in the very organizations they seek to benefit from and to head. It is not easy to belong to a group whose leader does not seem to want to be a member.

The French have at least been consistent. Charles DeGaulle withdrew France from NATO's integrated military structure in 1966, intent on maintaining French autonomy, while at the same time retaining France's membership, and voting rights, in the organization.

In the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eventual dissolution of Yugoslavia, French officials promoted the Western European Union (WEU), a fully-European security organization and tacit substitute for NATO. The WEU—made up initially of French and German military units—was supposed to provide Europe with the modest level of security it needed in the post-Cold War era, cutting Washington out of the scene.

But the WEU did not work. Worse still was what might have happened if it did. France would not accept German leadership, nor were the Germans eager to cede authority to Paris. In the wake of European paralysis in response to dueling crises in Bosnia and Kosovo, the WEU was quietly euthanized and Europe returned to its security dependence on the United States.

However, the Gallic dream of a purely European security alliance—one with France at the helm—never entirely perished. Macron has enthusiastically sponsored a new security dialogue with his counterpart in Germany, Olaf Scholz, both before and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Germans, for their part, appear amenable to continuing the conversation, though the question of which great power will hold greater sway in the relationship remains unaddressed.

Such posturing regarding jettisoning reliance on the United States routinely elicits anguish and anxiety from members of the Atlantic security establishment. Yet it is doubtful that European security run, and paid for, by Europeans constitutes a significant problem for the United States.

Indeed, there are a number of benefits. The first, and most obvious, is that it would be cheaper. There has long been bipartisan support in the United States for the idea of Europe ponying up more for its own defense. American presidents from Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to Donald Trump have called for Europeans to do so. The problem is that Europe did not have to. Free-riding is a thing. European autonomy would force Europeans, not Americans, to pay for Europe's security.

Europe was also skeptical of the need for security and reluctant to provide what U.S. officials thought prudent. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has kindly resolved doubts on this matter. At the same time, the war in Ukraine has made it clear that in military terms Russia is not the Soviet Union. What was once thought to be “the second best army in the world” is now more widely acknowledged as possibly the second-best army among the former Soviet republics.

While Russia and other security challenges remain, Europe is fully capable of addressing them. Gone are the days when Europe, humbled by two world wars, could not afford to protect itself. Europe has instead become addicted to American largesse (a phenomenon I refer to as "military welfare") while at the same time complaining about their North American partners.

One final concern is that the United States will lose the benefits it accrues from membership in NATO. What are these benefits? One of the most often referenced, and vague, is "influence." The notion that Europe will stray into darkness without U.S. supervision, as it did twice in the twentieth century, is a uniquely American conceit. Europe is a different place today, one that is stable, affluent, and moderate in its posture. It does not need Americans telling it what to do.

Nor is it the case that the United States needs to meddle in European affairs for its own policy purposes. By and large, Europeans will adopt policies and actions that are, for the most part, compatible with U.S. interests, with or without U.S. efforts to impose outcomes on Europe.

At the same time, America needs to focus on problems elsewhere. China is richer and likely more competent militarily and politically than Russia. While some European militaries have executed gestures in solidarity with U.S. efforts to contain Beijing, these efforts mostly just demonstrate the limited value of Europe's contributions in a region that is distant from Europe geographically and politically. A better outcome for the United States would be for Europeans to resolve their own security concerns, allowing the United States to actually pivot to Asia.

Macron has laid heavy hints that the United States has overstayed its welcome in Europe. Other leaders are more polite, but their sentiment is also clear. America can afford to be gracious in response. As tensions in Eastern Europe abate in the aftermath of the Russo-Ukraine war, there will be an opportunity for the United States to refocus and streamline its security commitments in Europe. Doing so will free up resources and reduce liabilities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Erik Gartzke is professor of political science and director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at the University of California at San Diego.

Image: Nicolas Economou / Shutterstock.com

Until recently, relations between Mexico and the United States had largely been centered around immigration, almost to the exclusion of other concerns, with the Biden administration seeking to control cross-border flows while moving away from former President Donald Trump’s harsh “build the wall” rhetoric. However, lately, another sensitive issue, narcotics trafficking, which had been relatively dormant in recent years, has become a high-profile source of friction, with harsh words over fentanyl emanating from both Washington and Mexico City, followed by some efforts to defuse tensions.

Unquestionably, there is reason for concern regarding fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic opiate, as it has increasingly become the product of choice among U.S. consumers of hard drugs. It is fifty times more potent than heroin. 70,000 deaths per year have been attributed to fentanyl overdoses, out of a total of 100,000 narcotics-related deaths.

Fentanyl’s precursor chemicals are produced in China, cross the Pacific by sea, and are smuggled into Mexican ports. The final product is then created in laboratories in Mexico and sent to the United States. The infrastructure for this, of course, already exists as Mexican drug trafficking organizations have long been major sources of heroin and cocaine entering the United States.

Calls in Washington for Unilateral Action Provoke a Sharp Response

With fentanyl deaths rising and receiving extensive coverage in the media, American politicians have become engaged. Republican Representatives Michael Waltz and Dan Crenshaw have submitted draft legislation authorizing the use of military force against the fentanyl trafficking cartels, while Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy have submitted a bill designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

The evident intention of these bills is to put the United States in a position to take unilateral kinetic action against the cartels whether or not Mexico agrees, as has been done against terrorist targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Although Crenshaw did tell Mexico that “we would love to have you as a partner,” the implication behind such a statement is that the United States should act in any event. And Trump publicly stated that if re-elected he will “order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare and other overt and covert actions” against the cartels.

Mexican president Andres Manuel López Obrador reacted immediately to these initiatives. Never one to hold back on his own rhetoric, he asserted that fentanyl was America’s problem and the result of its “social decay,” rather than that of Mexico which, he said, does not produce or consume the product. This claim of Mexican non-involvement is true only if one somehow does not consider the processing laboratories in Mexican soil as production. And as for consumption, while it has not become a major issue in Mexico yet, there are documented examples of it taking place there.

Obrador has gone so far as threatening to urge Mexican-Americans to vote against Republicans if they do not cease their pressure campaign. This has resulted in some pushback from activists from that community, who have suggested that, instead, he should be concentrating on securing the safety of would-be immigrants—there was recently a fire at a Mexican detention center along the border in which forty detainees died.

Foreign Minister Marcel Ebrard also took up the cry against the American congressmen, going so far as to say he would call upon consular officials stationed in the United States to mount a public relations campaign “to defend Mexico.” And unsurprisingly, Mexican officials have also repeated their often-used response to American pressure on security issues, asserting (with considerable truth) that their country is flooded with weapons that are smuggled in from the north.

Answer: An Action Plan

After several weeks of sniping by American congressmen on one side and the López Obrador administration on the other, there has been some effort to turn down the heat. The Biden administration has avoided reacting to the Republicans’ offensive on the issue, doubtless viewing it as a complement to their ongoing effort to characterize its immigration policy as ineffective, despite the reality that fentanyl is smuggled into the United States through border crossings and not through illegal immigration.

For its part, despite its initial (and highly predictable) hostile reaction to U.S. congressional pressure, Mexico apparently has grudgingly accepted the need to be seen as “doing something” on fentanyl. A meeting between U.S. and Mexican officials took place on April 13, and Mexico has announced a fentanyl action plan which covers ground that will be familiar to those who have followed drug policy initiatives over the years.

The elements of this plan include creating a coordinating body within the Mexican government to address fentanyl, increasing the number of army personnel monitoring land customs stations and the number of navy and customs personnel at maritime ports, creating a special unit within the national prosecutor’s office dedicated to synthetic drugs and weapons, and establishing a protocol for consultations between the Mexican Finance Ministry and the U.S. Treasury Department on money laundering.

And after saying that fentanyl was entirely a U.S. problem, López Obrador has at least recognized that the precursor chemicals are entering Mexico. He has written to Chinese president Xi Jinping asking that action be taken to halt their flow. He is still awaiting a response.

At the same time, the U.S. Justice Department has recently announced charges of fentanyl trafficking against the sons of now-imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, together with a $10 million reward for their capture. In addition to whatever legal merits this step may have, it has come at a moment when the Biden administration would certainly benefit from the appearance of aggressive action on this issue. However, López Obrador has criticized the United States for operating without consulting Mexican authorities, and said that his law enforcement priority is “public safety.” Further, while Mexican cooperation with the United States on fighting drugs will continue, López Obrador noted that it is at a “second level” of importance, seemingly undercutting any impact of the previously announced action plan.

The Drug Issue Always Comes Back

Thus it is not clear if the politics of fentanyl will remain conflictive or whether some sustained effort will be made to lower the decibel level. History shows that U.S. politicians and media become periodically seized on the issue of drugs coming from Mexico.

This includes during the Nixon administration when the border was nearly shut down for thirty days in “Operation Intercept”; during the Reagan administration, where at one point U.S. customs briefly repeated this action in an effort to put pressure on Mexico to address the abduction of a Drug Enforcement Agency agent; and during the Bush and Obama administrations, when, more productively, in response to the unprecedented rise of powerful drug cartels, the United States provided massive counter-narcotics assistance to Mexico under the so-called “Merida Initiative,” including aid to the police and military and also resources for judicial reform and human rights observance.

The narcotics issue, now manifesting itself as fentanyl, rises and falls as a public concern but never goes away. And the pattern of a spike in concern and the exchange of heated rhetoric by politicians, followed by an effort to return the issue to normal bureaucratic channels is likely to repeat itself. Ultimately, both countries have an interest in preventing the issue from disrupting the overall relationship. But in managing the issue, policymakers on both sides of the border will have to recognize certain unchanging realities.

The United States Needs to Get Real…

One reality that the United States must face is that unilateral action—subjecting the drug cartels to counterterrorist-style operations without Mexican consent—is a non-starter. Indeed, one may ask whether those promoting it are truly serious or are just looking to score political points. But if reiterated often enough an idea, no matter how dangerous, can go from the fringes to the center of debate, moving the famous “Overton window” of thinkable policy options.

First and foremost, unilateral action would not work. “Decapitation” strategies are unlikely to change the capabilities of the drug cartels if not accompanied by broader efforts to reclaim state presence in the large, lawless areas of rural Mexico in which they operate. Killing an individual drug lord or destroying an individual laboratory will have little effect without long-term follow-up by the Mexican government. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose career includes service in Colombia, has stressed that counternarcotics operations are fruitless without local “support and approval.”

And few things would be more likely to make such cooperation impossible than unilateral military action within Mexico by the U.S. armed forces. The country’s historic memory includes the 1846–48 Mexican War in which much of its north was annexed and during which Mexico City was occupied. It also includes the U.S. interventions during the administration of Woodrow Wilson in which the port city of Veracruz was occupied and General John Pershing embarked on a “punitive expedition” against Pancho Villa in northern Mexico.

Given this history, no Mexican government could tolerate U.S. forces acting on its soil without its consent. It would likely mean that cooperation on immigration, the other top U.S. priority, would stop, and instead of Mexican security forces discouraging periodic caravans of would-be immigrants trudging towards the border from Central and South America, they would simply let them pass.

The “remain in Mexico” policy, which began under Trump and was maintained with some modifications by President Joe Biden, under which asylum claimants are not allowed to enter the United States for adjudication but must wait in Mexico until their hearing date, would no longer be tenable. And vital cooperation on trade, law enforcement, the environment, and public health could come to a grinding halt.

…And So Does Mexico

But there are also realities that Mexico needs to recognize, notably that legalization by the United States of hard drugs, a solution preferred throughout Latin America, is simply not on the political agenda. While marijuana has been largely legalized at the state level (and de facto at the federal level), there does not appear to be any movement toward doing the same for cocaine, heroin, or now fentanyl. Given the rise in deaths and the potency of this synthetic drug, Mexican leaders cannot expect that the United States will solve the problem for them.

And although change is unlikely to occur during his administration, another reality is that López Obrador’s policy regarding the drug cartels has been a failure. He termed his approach “abrazos no balazos” (hugs, not shooting), arguing that the answer to the drug problem was social welfare spending to improve the situation of poverty-stricken Mexicans who would otherwise turn to this illicit trade.

Implicit in this policy shift was an end to aggressive action to defeat or even contain the cartels—live and let live, essentially in the hope of seeing reduced violence. This entailed lowering the frequency and intensity of counter-narcotics operations, disbanding a U.S.-trained investigative unit while severely curtailing the DEA’s ability to work with local counterparts, and forcing the United States to replace the Merida Initiative assistance to a far less counternarcotics-oriented “Bicentennial Framework.”

The result has been continued narcotics-related violence, and ever-stronger cartel domination of many of Mexico’s states, with local governments and security services becoming in effect their junior partners. And while this has gone on, the cartels, with their Chinese associates, have moved into fentanyl production—and although the recent round of tough talk in each direction may have gotten the López Obrador government at least to admit that a problem exists, it strains credibility to think that placing a few hundred more soldiers and sailors at customs posts and holding inter-agency meetings, per its recently announced plan, will make much difference.

In It for the Long Haul?

What steps should the United States take? First, to quote Hippocrates, do no harm. The prospect of treating fentanyl traffickers like terrorists may have brought the issue to the forefront but further threats of unilateral action will be unlikely to produce results and actually undertaking it would be a disaster. And we must recognize that López Obrador, heading toward his last year in office, is not likely to make major changes in his narcotics policies behind the absolute minimum to keep the United States at bay.

For the United States, the only hope is to press for greater cooperation from López Obrador while understanding that the real challenge will be to begin a dialogue with his potential successors, be they from his party or from one of the opposition groupings. It will need to make clear that the prospect of legalization, and especially that of fentanyl, is a chimera, while recognizing that geographic reality and ongoing demand for narcotics in the United States means that complete elimination of Mexico-based trafficking is impossible.

Rather, both the United States and Mexico need to understand that aggressive Mexican law enforcement, backed by significant U.S. assistance, can have a positive, though admittedly not conclusive effect on containing and then shrinking the power of the cartels and their capacity to traffic in fentanyl.

Mexico, of course, is not likely to greet a restart of an aggressive counternarcotics effort with great enthusiasm. Action against the cartels will cost lives and treasure, and require patience. The initial goal must be simply to keep the cartels’ power and their capacity to produce fentanyl and other drugs from increasing. But Mexico may come to realize—hopefully before it is too late—that simply letting the cartels have their way and expand further will impose far higher costs, and indeed may let the country drift toward failed state status in large areas of its territory. On both sides of the Rio Grande, realism is in order.

Richard M. Sanders is a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former member of the Senior Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State, he served as Deputy Director of the Office of Mexican Affairs and as Director of the Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs and at embassies throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Image: Shutterstock.

Ukraine may need to use older missile defence systems with the dwindling stock of more advanced surface to air missiles.

A modern development of war that many were likely not aware of over the last decade was the ability for missiles to shoot down other offensive munitions like missiles and artillery shells. While it is still very difficult to shoot down targets that are small and fast moving, very high, or very low, if an acquisition radar can see a target, many advanced missiles have a high probability of shooting it down. The stealth solution can provide a level of protection, but at great cost and limited capability depending on the system being used. Even in the case of stealth, newer and more powerful radars are now able to see many stealth aircraft, but are unable to fire on the target for the time being. With modern missiles being such a great threat, it is often better to avoid using many air assets in a war zone, or use non-expensive and disposable equipment like cheaper drones en masse to overwhelm a small anti-air unit. In Ukraine, the conflict might change rapidly as it may be the case that Ukraine and its allies are running out of many of the advanced missile systems keeping the country protected from Russian missile and artillery threats.

In the video in the link here, the analyst discusses the probable lack of proper advanced air defence missiles possessed by Ukraine, and the limited numbers of international stock of other types of advanced missiles needed to keep up the current level of protection over Ukraine. The tactic of using low cost drones to terrorise Ukraine’s population by Russia, pressured Ukraine to use much of their modern missile stock against many low cost drones over the last few months. While the use of lower cost anti-air artillery like Gepards, Oerlikons and Shilkas might have been less effective, the upgrading of those systems should have been considered early on as an essential project to knock down drones as advanced missiles are limited in number, costly, and take time to produce in quantity. Another essential tactic to eliminate the threats of terror weapons on Ukrainians would have been to target the source of such equipment, especially if it is outside of Russia. Considering those weapons were designed to be used specifically against civilians, it would be considered an appropriate target under International Law.

With the recent decision to finally move allied MiG-29s into Ukraine from their neighbours, Ukraine will soon depend more on air-to-air assets for defence. This sudden change in policy is likely due to the low stock of Air Defence missiles possessed by Ukraine and its allies. Ukraine will soon be depending on fighter jets to manage the tracking and guidance of their own missiles on targets. Another reason for the increase in air assets to Ukraine is that with a diminished Air Defence shield, Russian Air Force planes are now less likely to be shot down by advanced anti-air systems from the ground. The mostly absent Russian air arm has been fairly passive in its approach since the beginning of the war, and it could be the case that the months of drone attacks to waste advanced Ukrainian missiles was planned so that the spring offensive could be supported in a more robust manner by Russian Air force artillery. Even with advanced tanks coming from NATO, air assets could cause a lot of problems for Western tanks on the field in Ukraine. Severe losses of NATO equipment may not change the position of the front lines in the war, but it would diminish the perception of power Western countries have over Russian forces in Ukraine. Whatever the outcome, the upcoming spring offensive will alter the narrative of the war when fighting intensifies on the fields of Ukraine.

The suffering of the Sudanese people becomes more dramatic by the hour: water and food supplies are shrinking while the injured are turned out of their hospital beds to make room for fresh victims of a pointless civil war, the third in as many decades. Hundreds have died and thousands have been gravely wounded in the crossfire as two generals fight for supremacy.

The shooting started the day following the Framework Agreement, which was supposed to enable the transition to a civilian government. Democracy in Sudan is always, tantalizingly, just out of reach.

Sudan’s politics live in a tragic loop. Since its independence from Great Britain in 1955, Sudan has been ruled by strongmen who are later replaced by coup leaders promising democracy, the rule of law, and, sometimes, the rule of Islam. Each time, from the coup leaders, a new strongman emerges.

After a bloodless 1989 coup, General Omar al-Bashir came to power along with his former classmates in what was then called Gordon College. Bashir, by 1996, had seized total power, pushing out the Islamists, former communists, and some northern tribal leaders. Bashir was himself was toppled in 2018 by protests, but the army quickly took control before democracy could break out. The doom loop cycled again.

Still, it would be wrong and dangerous to America’s security to assume a disintegrating Sudan poses no risks to the United States.

First, other global powers are already contending to control Sudan’s oil, gold, and strategic ports. If one Sudanese faction wins, then Russian demands for a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast would give Putin’s navy a global reach. If the other faction wins, Russia would also gain but Chinese influence in Sudan—already extensive, as measured by the Chinese-built skyscrapers in Khartoum and the bobbing oil derricks in the Nuba region—would surge.

During a visit to Khartoum in February, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the prospect of a Russian naval base with Sudanese leaders and the goal of completing it by the end of 2023, according to a document leaked online by a Massachusetts air national guardsman.

What’s important is that, left to its own devices, Sudan’s future will be controlled by America’s rivals. Those rivals, especially, include China.

China, already the world's largest consumer of energy, sees Africa as a “promised land’ of oil and gas. Sudanese crude alone satisfies more than 10 percent of Chinese oil needs. Beijing needs Sudan.

China’s Africa Policy Paper, released in 2015, calls for deep military engagement, technological cooperation, and a strengthening of African security forces. Although assistance initiatives to the African Union and its regional military pacts have multiplied considerably under this policy, Beijing channels most of its support bilaterally, from government to government. Often, this means arms sales. As a result, China is currently the largest arms supplier to sub-Saharan Africa with 27 percent of the region's imports between 2013 and 2017—an increase of 55 percent over the period 2008–2012, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Sudan represents a significant part of that increase in weapon sales.

China also rules sub-Saharan Africa through debt. Growing debts of China’s military partner countries to Chinese state banks that fund China’s megaprojects now worry officials across Africa. They also ruefully note that China hires few locals for its African mega-projects—creating African debt without African wealth.

If Sudan comes apart like Libya, refugees will follow the Nile north and swamp Egypt’s rickety refugee centers. If Egypt decides to become more involved in Sudan, as it did in years past, it will use its influence to stem the tide of refugees and oppose the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on Ethiopia’s stretch of the Blue Nile. This will put Ethiopia into conflict with both Sudan and Egypt. East Africa could soon be aflame—risking U.S. counter-terror operations in the region.

Other U.S. allies have strategic interests at stake, too. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pressuring both sides to adopt a diplomatic solution. Sudan was part of the original Abraham Accord normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. But after a military coup in Sudan in October 2021, the final steps of the process with Khartoum stalled. Israel is inviting Sudan’s warring parties to a peace summit in Jerusalem. For Egypt and Turkey, a civil war in Sudan would pose a significant threat to their naval presence in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.

For the United States, the options for mitigating the crisis are limited.  After successfully evacuating U.S. diplomats and citizens, the focus should shift to alleviating human suffering by establishing safe corridors to allow trapped civilians to escape.

This is an opportunity for America to impose its leadership and to restore the Framework for democracy with negotiation, not war.

The United States has left a vacuum in Africa and now its rivals have rushed in. It is not too late for America to offer the African continent what it really wants: peace, prosperity, recognition, and democracy. It could start with Sudan.

Ahmed Charai is a Publisher. He is on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council, the International Crisis Group, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the Center for the National Interest.

Image: Shutterstock.

From 2016 until February 24, 2022, most U.S. foreign policymakers focused on America’s strategy in countering a rising China. Many policymakers placed Europe on the backburner, taking for granted the endurability of American primacy on the continent. The invasion of Ukraine changed this dynamic. Since the start of this war, America’s attention has shifted back towards Europe and NATO.

However, many policymakers seem to be regurgitating old solutions to new problems. These include an expansion of NATO and sending more American troops to Europe. Essentially, such solutions are a Cold War and 1990s answer to today’s new security environment. Whereas America’s position in the 1990s as the sole great power permitted it to expand the alliance, today’s NATO faces a revisionist Russia tired of the status quo of NATO expansion. Moreover, unlike the Cold War, today’s international environment consists of multiple great powers.

All of these concerns beg the question: what is the United States to do about Europe? The answer lies in strengthening Germany’s military.

Germany remains one of the richest countries in the continent, possessing a GDP of $4.479 trillion in 2022. It possesses much latent power, a form of power that John Mearsheimer defines in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics as “the socio-economic ingredients that go into building military power.” The more money, population, and resources a country has, the more likely it can use those resources to make a strong military.

In the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany seems to be attempting to transition this latent power into hard military power. As German chancellor Olaf Scholz stated in a speech to the Bundestag on February 27, 2022, Germany and Europe are at a Zeitenwende, or a turning point. As Scholz late elaborated in December 2022, this Zeitenwende involves Germany’s plan to build up its military capabilities to serve as “one of the main providers of security in Europe.” Despite critics pointing out Germany’s lack of ammunition stockpiles, and that Germany’s rearmament plans are lagging behind schedule, there remains hope and reason for the United States to encourage German rearmament. 

The main reason why the United States should desire a formidable German military is the dilemma of extended deterrence, usually defined as the capability and willingness of a country to deter and defend its allies against a potential attack. The dilemma with extended deterrence lies in its difficulty to credibly defend an ally at risk of military attack, since (in the words of RAND’s Michael J. Mazarr) “an aggressor can almost always be certain a state will fight to defend itself, but it may doubt that a defender will fulfill a pledge to defend a third party.”

It is understandable for critics of this German strategy to be hesitant in loosening the leash on Germany’s military. After all, Germany was the primary antagonist of two world wars in the twentieth century. Thankfully, the German government has taken measures to prevent this from occurring within its country again, having implemented laws on hate speech, and the German government employed its first rabbis to serve as a chaplain within the Bundeswehr. To be clear, there is a difference between militarism and maintaining a strong military. Militarists glorify war and the military, whereas prudent military strategists understand the necessity of a military to protect their country’s national interests. In other words, the difference between militarism and having a military is in the ends of having a military: militarists see war and the military as ends to themselves, whereas prudent strategists view these as means to achieve the ends of security.

Another way to make certain that Germany does not fall back into its militarist past is for it to create a people’s military. Such an ideal is not unfamiliar to German thinking. In fact, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, a high-ranking Prussian military reformer, strongly advocated for such a military. As Trevor Dupuy details in his book, A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945, Scharnhorst sought to extend military participation to common Prussians and grant them rights in a new constitution. Scharnhorst’s logic was to create a common identity with the military and Prussian citizens, thereby improving Prussian morale and military effectiveness.

The good news is that today’s Germany has made considerable progress in creating this people’s military. As James Angelos notes, Germany possesses “homeland protection” units within its military reserves, many of its personnel serving as part-time soldiers. To further progress this people’s military, Germany might consider reintroducing military conscription, creating an increase in citizen-soldiers within Germany.

The United States should encourage this development of German civil-military relations. Creating a people’s military within Germany would water two plants with one hose: improve its military effectiveness and solidify its democratic governance amid a strengthened military.  

An independent Europe would be the goal of all this remilitarization and engaged civil-military relations within Germany. Essentially, this would involve Europeans providing for Europe’s security. Germany would lead the way in this increased defense spending effort.

The world is anarchic, meaning there remains no international government to induce order. Creating order and stability is left to the most powerful countries to compromise over their interests. In this world, states can only count on themselves to guarantee their protection. Amid the need for the United States to deal with its domestic issues, such as increasing economic inequality and a mental health crisis, and a world of multiple great powers, it will be difficult for Washington to continue to be the security guarantor in Europe. Prudency and careful analysis are needed in foreign policy. Such statecraft is especially needed in our present world, where history is back with a vengeance in international politics. If we are not careful, we may be at risk of repeating history’s gravest mistakes.

Benjamin Giltner is a student at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.

This essay won the John Quincy Adams Society’s 2023 Student Foreign Policy Essay Contest.

Image: Shutterstock.

Late last week, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner described how over-classification of national security-related information is a key and neglected factor behind the latest, disturbing intelligence leak. “We need frankly a system that limits classification to really important documents and then have a process to declassify when appropriate.” His argument: fewer secrets shared with fewer officials are essential to keep our secrets secret.

He’s on to something. Just before the New York Times first revealed that top secret documents had been posted on social media, my nonprofit released a major study on over-classification. Those in the “know” understand that over-classification is bad but insist officials can’t help themselves: the penalties for letting a document leak far outweigh any professional rewards that might come from making secret information more available.

That’s the conventional wisdom. It’s also dead wrong. In fact, effective national security organizations have strong incentives not to over-classify. There are effective ways to avoid doing so, and one of the most important U.S. intelligence agencies—the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)—has done it.

This is the key conclusion of a classification project my nonprofit ran for two years. Last month, the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) asked that I privately brief them on the project’s final report. The study subsequently received national attention. It gave examples of how harmful over-classification has become:

• American troops in Afghanistan couldn’t get timely, properly classified imagery from our government. To fight effectively, they had to buy unclassified imagery from private firms, which they could share with their Afghan compatriots.

• The Pentagon recently used a new information restriction—controlled unclassified information (CUI)—to keep unclassified weapons test results from Congress.

• The head of the U.S. Space Force was prohibited from publicly uttering the name of our key spy satellite system (KH-11), even though the media has long and repeatedly referred to it.

• Official historians writing classified studies to help black program managers learn from past mistakes and successes have been unable to find key classified documents because routine archival classification reviews, which would otherwise assure proper document filing, are not being done.

• Wasteful, expensive, duplicative military space programs have been shielded from oversight by special access program classification barriers that effectively block cross-communication and information sharing.

• Draconian security rules discourage innovative firms here and abroad from sharing their best with the Pentagon. These same rules are blocking needed military collaboration with our closest allies.

• Previously unclassified U.S. civilian nuclear export and cooperation information is being kept from Congress even though such commerce might help countries develop nuclear weapons options.

What allows this? In a word, mismanagement.

Currently, our government has over 2,000 security classification guidebooks and roughly 1,400 original classification authorities. Nobody can consult them all, and they don’t. These numbers, and the impossibility of mastering their guidance, are why so many government officials over-classify—it’s safe, it’s easy, and it takes little or no thought.

Fortunately, our best government organizations disagree. A case in point is the NGA. Seven years ago, it recognized it could only succeed if it added value to its imagery and got it to its “customers” quicker than commercial, unclassified space imagery firms. If it continued to deliver its product too late, or made it difficult to share with critical allies and firms, the agency would effectively go out of business.

The NGA was floundering using sixty-five classification guidebooks to classify its imagery. So what did it do? It boiled these down to a single electronic guide, eliminating previously subjective, contradictory guidance. It also required classifiers to justify their proposals to an intra-agency group of users, de-classifiers, historians, and subject-matter experts, and made appeals easy and quick. Finally, it encouraged constant updating of its new consolidated guidebook.

One Senator—Mike Rounds (R-SD)—noticed. He asked the Pentagon to report on how well the NGA’s example is being followed. He saw its model as the one our government should replicate. If it doesn’t, automating the review of the millions of classified documents it generates will be pointless: even the best document filtering system will fail if it follows contradictory and vague guidance that’s inevitable with thousands of different guidebooks and officials acting as classifying authorities.

So, what’s yet to be done? The Biden administration has pledged to tighten up the current system. But Congress must also act. At a minimum, it should fund and authorize dedicated staff to its own declassification policy review unit, the PIDB, which it has so far failed to do. Congress almost did this last year. It needs to get on with it.

Second, Congress should task the PIDB to oversee any government bidding on advanced technology contracts aimed to help automate the classification process. It also should track how many guidebooks, original classifications guidebooks, original classification authorities, classified documents, and declassification requests are being generated and recommend how best to reduce these numbers. 

More, of course, is needed. But skipping these first steps will only ensure we still will have too many classified documents to track to ever keep America’s top secrets from leaking again.

Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, served as deputy for nonproliferation in the Defense Department and is the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future.

Image: Shutterstock.

The White House released a twelve-page summary report on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with little fanfare ahead of the Easter holiday. This low-key approach is unsurprising, given that America’s longest war ended in what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley described as a “strategic failure,” and that the national security apparatus has moved on to strategic competition with China and the war in Ukraine.

Yet while the report ostensibly provides context for a series of disastrous decisions that culminated in the deaths of thirteen U.S. service members at the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in August 2021, it is also notable for what it doesn’t mention: what informed the decision to remove U.S. contractors as part of the operational retrograde. This is especially important considering the Biden administration’s plan relied on the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) to secure the country during the U.S. withdrawal and beyond.

Where Was the Air Support?

The February 2023 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) report, titled “Why the Afghan Security Forces Collapsed,” notes that many Afghans thought the bilateral U.S.-Taliban peace agreement was “an act of bad faith and a signal that the U.S. was handing over Afghanistan to the enemy as it rushed to exit the country.” Despite intelligence estimates about when the Afghan government would fall ranging from two years, to somewhere between six to eighteen months, to a month after the U.S. withdrawal, Milley noted that “There are no reports that I am aware of that predicted a security force of 300,000 would evaporate in 11 days.” That is how quickly the Taliban insurgency rapidly took over villages, then provinces, and eventually Kabul itself, as the ANDSF unexpectedly collapsed and the troops melted away. If there was a window to stop or at least slow the Taliban’s advance, it was in those eleven days.

It is here that questions should begin, because, in addition to a sizeable advantage in troop strength over the 80,000 Taliban fighters, the White House report includes the Afghan Air Force (AAF) in its overall assessment of ANDSF capabilities. Unfortunately, the AAF deteriorated before the United States completed the withdrawal and its demise was a predictable (and predicted) outcome not reflected in these intelligence estimates.

Former Afghan Army commander and three-star general Sami Sadat authored a blistering New York Times opinion essay expressing his anger over the peace agreement that cut off contractor support for the fledgling AAF attack and support aircraft fleet when it was critically needed to halt the Taliban offensive. In addition to military forces, the agreement specified that the United States would withdraw “all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel.” Accordingly, Sadat proclaimed that most of the 17,000 contractors were withdrawn by July 2021, “taking their proprietary software and weapons systems with them.” Consequently, the Afghan military lost its “superiority to the Taliban when our air support dried up and our ammunition ran out.”

The SIGAR report corroborates Sadat’s arguments and frustrations. Specifically, it states the AAF “was the greatest advantage the force had over the Taliban” but was not projected to be self-sufficient until at least 2030. The report also explains that the “decision to withdraw on-site contract maintenance from Afghanistan in May 2021 reduced the availability of operational aircraft and removed maintenance instruction at key regional airfields…As a result, ANDSF units complained that they lacked enough ammunition, food, water, and other military equipment to sustain military engagements against the Taliban.”

The SIGAR report concludes that the reduction of U.S. support “destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police.” As demonstrated by Ukraine’s armed forces defending their homeland against a Russian aggressor more than a year after many analysts (wrongly) predicted the government would fall within days or weeks, morale and the will to fight can offset numeric superiority.

Questions to be Asked, Lessons to be Learned

If withdrawing contractors from the AAF was the seminal event described in the SIGAR report and by Sami Sadat, then these decisions warrant greater analysis and consideration going forward. The risk of prematurely cutting off contractor support should concern the Pentagon and policymakers. The demand for contractor support in efforts to advance U.S. national interests is unlikely to abate anytime soon. Moreover, some argue that such contractors have become a permanent element of the U.S. military force structure. If true, it behooves senior leaders in Washington to learn the right lessons from the Afghanistan experience and clarify policy going forward. The U.S. House’s various committees that provide oversight and perform investigations can positively contribute to these efforts by accessing classified reports and calling witnesses to provide a more robust analysis of the situation and the decisions made by military commanders and senior officials.

While one can criticize the United States for setting up the ANDSF for failure by providing an air force that is “too technologically advanced for its native country to sustain,” this risk was known to senior leaders before the withdrawal announcement. The White House summary report notes that President Joe Biden “took the advice of his military commanders on the tactical decisions regarding the operational retrograde of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, including the dates they closed facilities, and he regularly asked them if there was anything else they needed.” The House committees should summon these commanders to Capitol Hill and query them about these conversations and the impact of withdrawing AAF contractors. For example, there were legitimate concerns about force protection requirements for contractors in Afghanistan during the retrograde. What were the discussions regarding risk and was there a mitigation plan? Were there any deliberations about continuing AAF contractor work outside of the country?

In June 2021, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued that “we should encourage the Afghan government to retain or engage contractor support for the Afghan Air Force and other key logistical and operational elements of the Afghan security forces – and we should pay for that support (including private security to protect those contractors).” Such an arrangement would allow American and other foreign contractors to remain in Afghanistan and maintain the AAF throughout the U.S. withdrawal and possibly beyond. House committees should inquire whether the Biden administration ever seriously considered such proposals.

Previously, I personally lauded the Biden administration for applying lessons learned from the botched Afghanistan withdrawal to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Specifically, I appreciated the extensive consultations and diplomatic efforts to rally NATO and lead a broader international coalition focused on countering Russian president Vladimir Putin’s ambitions and upholding the international order. That said, the “train, advise, assist” approach to build and sustain security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is not applicable to the Ukraine case because the United States does not have military troops conducting these activities in the country. Instead, training the Ukrainian Armed Forces is occurring in Europe and the United States. The contractor support issue will be interesting to watch as Ukraine receives and employs more Western equipment on the battlefield.

While I supported President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and am sympathetic to the constraints and deadlines inherited from his predecessor, he had agency for the withdrawal debacle that occurred on his watch. He should answer questions about whether his administration truly planned “for all contingencies – including a rapid deterioration of the security situation” as described in the summary report. Despite the political theater all too common in Washington these days, House committees should view the White House summary report as an opportunity for sober and bipartisan oversight to find out exactly what transpired, determine appropriate accountability, and codify lessons learned that can be applied in future operations.

Jim Cook is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed here are his own.

Image: Shutterstock.