Diplomacy & Crisis News

In a more interconnected globe, people with access to digital devices are now highly exposed to cybercrimes. The United States has become the favorite target of these. In 2022, cybercrime cases reported in the United States numbered over 800,000, and the losses amounted to $10.3 billion. In Europe, meanwhile, scammers stole $505 million by targeting the French-speaking population across France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Amid increasing cybercrimes, citizens look towards the state, yet even governments find it difficult to keep up with the volume of scamming operations and the increasingly sophisticated tactics scammers employ.

To make matters worse, these fraud operations emanate from countries far outside the jurisdiction of their victims. Weak cybersecurity and physical governance add to the issue’s complexity. The problem of decentralized or absent state authority in various places allows nonstate actors to organize effective criminal syndicates. It is apparent that more must be done.

The Art of Pig Butchery

The cybercriminal’s technique of choice is what is called “pig butchering.” It originated in China, where it is known as Shā Zhū Pán, and has spread worldwide. It is also known by other names, such as “romance baiting,” “crypto romance scam,” and “cryptorom.”

The technique is analogous to fattening a pig for slaughter. Scammers use dating apps, random text messages, websites, social media, WhatsApp, Google chat, and Telegram to approach potential target users. The operation proceeds by systematic steps, starting with a fake identity. The scammer asks for a small investment in cryptocurrency. Victims initially see good returns and subsequently increase their investments. This scam is distinct in its spillover into extended social circles as the victim borrows from friends and relatives and sells properties, stocks, and assets to invest more in the supposedly high-return schemes. Pig butchering scammers usually fabricate applications, dashboards, websites, and games and otherwise spin a false sense of legitimacy over regular long-term virtual interactions.

The number of cases grows yearly. According to the Global Anti Scam organization, around 66 percent of people affected by cyberscams are educated. The complexity of the pig butchering scams makes it even more challenging to counter, and it is apparent that these “scammers appear to be operating multiple scams either in succession or in conjunction.”

The pig butchering industry is becoming more prominent yearly and attracts many workers looking for lucrative employment. Many hail from the Southeast Asian region and beyond, including China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Thailand. Potential workers are tricked by false promises of better pay and are forced to labor under physical and verbal threats. Even more worrying is the scamming industry has integrated itself with other criminal activities. The former Golden Triangle area encompassing Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, once known for the production of opium, is now emerging as the new nexus of human trafficking, the drug trade, and cybercrimes.

The Butcher’s Bill

The Global Anti Scam Organization states North America is home to the most pig butchering cases, followed by Asia. The target demographic is often English and Chinese speakers outside of Mainland China. What makes pig butchering scams notably different is the targets, scale, and site of the scam.

First, the scams target well-off people. In 2022, romance scams led to a loss of $1.3 billion involving 70,000 people. Recently, Forbes reported on one U.S. citizen that was scammed out of $1 million. However, only 15 percent of people report the cases, and the number may be even more, as many people do not share their cases due to the stigma related to scamming operations and lack of hope in getting any returns back.

Second, the scale of the pig butchering scam is enormous, amounting to billions of dollars. An Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) report stated that Investment scams in 2022 amounted to $3.31 billion, an increase of 127 percent from $1.45 billion in 2021. This rise is likely driven by the increase in pig butchering scams. The exact growth and data on pig butchering scams are difficult to estimate as these fall under different categories, such as cryptocurrency investment and romance scams.

Third, the site that is the operations of the scam industry is controlled from outside of the United States making it difficult to counter and stop these syndicates.

Steps Taken: Domestic and Global

We have seen some progress in dealing with the scams through existing mechanisms; however, much remains to be done. U.S. agencies like the FBI have established comprehensive tools like the IC3, where victims report cases, and the collected data helps identify trends. With increasing monetary losses, more people are reporting cybercrimes. Nonetheless, more awareness is needed. Better coordination through mechanisms like the Recovery Assets Team allows funding freezes which increase the possibility of investment recovery, with a success rate of 73 percent.

In addition, other steps, like the seizure of domains used for cryptocurrency fraud by the Department of Justice, slow the pace of cybercrimes. Yet, still more needs to be done, like better coordination between federal, state, and local agencies in addition to speedy prosecution. This calls for a whole-government approach and systematic coordination with the private sector. The private-public partnership is vital to enhancing cybersecurity. For example, Google Play and Apple stores feature pig butchering scam apps. This legitimizes their use and assures the users of their safety. Another vital step that needs urgent attention is increasing the number of people working on solving cyberscam cases, particularly pig butchering, which is more complex and takes time. Human capacity needs to be strengthened by giving proper education, training, allocating resources, and technical skills.

Another area is international cooperation in countering pig butchering scams, especially with ASEAN states, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Laos, as discussed in the Third US-ASEAN Cybersecurity Dialogue in February 2023. For this, the US can leverage its relations with states like Singapore and Indonesia. Better coordination, information sharing, and financial support to local NGOs working against human trafficking and cybercrimes is another way the U.S. can address this issue.

Today, U.S. citizens are spending increasing amounts of time on social media. This activity boosts the likelihood of cybercrimes, particularly pig butchering. Even though cyberscam losses dropped drastically from $10.9 billion in 2021 to $5.9 billion in 2022, these are the results of the crypto currency’s declining market performance and not systematic prevention. Romance scam cases remain unaffected by this larger trend, which targets high-worth individuals. In addition, the scams’ scope, scale, and origin add to the difficulty. Recent steps taken by the U.S. government to stop cybercrimes have not resulted in a significant decrease. Therefore, systematic and institutional changes are needed to counter the rise in cybercrimes, such as workforce training and better integration and coordination between investigating agencies and big tech at local and national levels. International cooperation is another challenge that needs focus, particularly with ASEAN states. Recent steps and developments have induced optimism, as reflected in the National Cybersecurity Strategy.

However, whether the changes wrought to counter these scams will work remains to be seen.

Abhishek Sharma is a Non-resident Kelly Fellow at the Pacific Forum and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delhi. His research focuses on the intersection of critical emerging technologies and geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly Cybercrimes and Cyber strategies. His work has been published by the NK News, South China Morning Post, 9Dashline, Observer Research Foundation, and The Diplomat.

Image: Shutterstock.

Agathe Demarais, Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests (New York City: Columbia University Press). 304 pp., $30.00.

According to the Financial Times, back in October 2022, 70 percent of Europe’s fertilizer and 50 percent of aluminum production capacity was offline due to energy shortages. The EU’s energy sanctions on Russia, imposed in response to the latter’s invasion of Ukraine, had the consequence of crippling the continent’s industrial capacity at the time. Firms ranging from BASF to ArcelorMittal made plans to relocate to China or the United States to escape high energy costs. While European countries were able to wean off Russian gas, the replacement of this with other sources led to developing countries, like Pakistan, to suffer from power outages.

While Europe resolved its energy crisis for now, the gas sanctions on Russia had unintentional consequences not only for European countries but also for countries not directly involved in the Russian-Ukrainian war. But why are sanctions so prone to producing unintended consequences? Agathe Demarais’ Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests, which came out in the middle of 2022, answers this question. She delves specifically into the rich post-World War Two history of the United States sanctioning other countries.

Past Failures

It has been a common critique of sanctions that they do not work, and Demarais does an excellent job of proving this to be true. From unintended humanitarian consequences to sanctions derailing global commodities markets, Demarais provides detailed sanctions of well-intended policies having unintended consequences.

For example, there is how non-American businesses deal with U.S. sanctions. Before the mid-1990s, non-American companies did not have to comply with the specially designated nationals list, to the complaint of U.S. businesses that said it was unfair. Yet with the passing of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, the United States decreed that international firms could not trade with Cuba. Yet rather than effectively isolating Havana and affecting regime change, the U.S. sanctions regime has only driven it into the arms of America’s foreign adversaries, including China.

There are other consequences of businesses being concerned about violating sanctions by accident. An entire cottage industry has sprung up to handle the complexity of America’s sanctions regime, with hundreds of thousands of people employed in financial compliance.

Demarais goes into examples of when sanctions strengthen an entity U.S. policy intended to weaken. For example, French oil giant Total’s South Pars project in Iran in the early 2010s was originally not subject to sanctions—as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e., the nuclear deal), European companies could finally operate in the country without fear of American sanctions. When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, however, a component of his foreign policy was to be tougher on Iran, including using secondary sanctions on Total to make sure a European company would not do business in Iran As a result of this pivot, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ended up taking control of the project. The group the United States intended the sanctions to hurt in the first place was instead rewarded with ownership of a natural gas project.

Demarais goes into the recent history of Russia sanctions for yet another example. In 2017, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with ties to the Kremlin, along with Rusal, the Russian aluminum giant that Deripaska owned a third of. Rusal is no small company; it is the second-largest producer of aluminum in the world. As such, these U.S. sanctions soon derailed the global aluminum markets. Only a deal with Deripaska that lifted some of the sanctions restored market stability.

The “How” of Sanctions and Attempts to Get Around Them

It is telling that very little of the book is devoted to exactly how the U.S. government enacts sanctions. The Government Accountability Office, for one, notes that “federal agencies do not conduct comprehensive assessments that measure how effective sanctions are in meeting U.S. foreign policy goals.” Estimates on the specific impact of sanctions are extremely limited, given the amount of sanctioning Washington does. The Rusal example is a demonstration of this, given that OFAC staff noted that the Rusal sanctions would have unintended consequences, but policymakers still went ahead with these.

Part of the reason why Washington can enact sanctions with such impunity and little foresight is the global dominance of the U.S. dollar; the threat of being cut off from the world’s reserve currency is one of the ways the United States gets other countries in line with U.S. sanctions. Attempts to circumvent this yield little fruit. One response, for instance, to this is to avoid using dollars by engaging in bilateral currency swaps to buy goods. While that certainly gets around dollar-based sanctions, de-dollarization is not helpful if one cannot buy goods invoiced in that currency. On a more technical level, fully replacing the usage of the dollar with another currency—the Chinese yuan, for example—is unlikely to happen given Beijing’s limited desire to have an external deficit and/or liberalize its capital flows.

Demarais notes across her work the other variety of ways countries have been trying to bypass American sanctions, with mixed results. Among the failures is Instex, a special vehicle intended to facilitate transactions with Iran. Far from being a blow against American sanctions, Instex ended up being severely restricted only due to concerns of violating sanctions. Other examples of sanction bypass methods, like the CIPS payment system China is building, are not as mighty as they seem. Far from being a replacement for SWIFT—the Western-dominated messaging network used to facilitate financial transactions and payments between banks worldwide—CIPS actually uses SWIFT for messaging between banks. It only functions as a replacement for SWIFT if one does transactions purely in renminbi.

Another example of this phenomenon can be seen with the Mir payment system, which the Russians built to get around U.S. sanctions. Russia has been struggling to find the chips to create the banking cards due to supply chain issues. Additionally, countries like Egypt, Turkey, and Uzbekistan have suspended the acceptance of the Mir card for fear of getting sanctioned by the United States and getting cut off from the U.S. dollar. Concerns over the usage of Mir cards even stretch to being unable to track if an individual user is sanctioned or not.

Attempts to circumvent U.S. sanctions via more recent digital innovations have also failed. OFAC has put great effort into quashing the usage of cryptocurrency to get around sanctions, for instance. Back in August 2022, OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash, a “mixer” that lets one obscure cryptocurrency transactions, thereby making it hard to trace where money is both coming from and going. While the code repository for the mixer is back up, thereby allowing the service to be cloned and continued, traffic has fallen dramatically.

Something that Demarais failed to address in her work is the new non-digital means being used by nations to get around U.S. sanctions. These include using radar spoofing to disguise the locations of ships or ship-to-ship transfers of goods. While not nearly as flashy as using cryptocurrency, these more analog methods may be more sustainable methods than the usage of digital currencies whose prices are notoriously fickle.

The China Challenge

Demarais devotes the final chapter of her book to predicting how the current spate in the U.S.-China competition could hurt America. In decoupling, there is a concern that, instead of reducing America’s dependence on China, Beijing instead gains technical independence, which would allow it to act more autonomously.

We have seen this play out over the past several months. On October 7, 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) implemented new export controls on semiconductors. This move is a continuation of multiple years of escalating policy by the United States to restrict the supply of American technology to Chinese firms. Yet Beijing continues to pour billions of dollars into development, at a greater pace than U.S. firms, and has recently indicated it will restrict exporting critical minerals used to make chips. It is thus an open question if U.S. measures will actually successfully kneecap the Chinese semiconductor industry, rather than motivate it to successfully become independent of American pressures.

These continue today. At the start of 2023, the United States convinced Japan and the Netherlands to restrict the export of critical chip manufacturing equipment to China. These measures were a follow-up to the sanctions that BIS enacted for American firms at the end of 2022. In response to these measures, in the middle of May 2023, the Chinese government restricted the usage of Micron chips in Chinese infrastructure due to claims that the product had “serious network security risks.”

A New Era of Sanctions?

The United States is at a strange point when it comes to sanctions and sanctions-like policy. While Demarais claims that we have reached “peak sanction” and that its power may decline, one could argue that the reverse is happening. While export controls are not exactly the same as sanctions, the United States is deeply interested in restricting the flow of technology from any American ally to China.

Whether these new methods work or fail, however, remains an open question.

Lars Erik Schönander is a Policy Technologist at the Foundation for American Innovation

Image: Shutterstock.

On March 20, Russian president Vladimir Putin met with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Moscow. The meeting, at which the two leaders “reaffirm[ed] the special nature of the Russia-China partnership,” may be a crucial moment in the emergence of the new multipolar world that is challenging U.S. hegemony.

But while the United States and its European partners watched and worried about the meeting with Xi, Putin was busy shuttling between that meeting and a conference where representatives from more than forty African countries attended. The conference was called Russia-Africa in a Multipolar World.

The African response to the war in Ukraine surprised the United States. The well-attended conference demonstrated that African countries were not abandoning Russia despite the war. Not one country in Africa has joined the U.S.-led sanctions on Russia and the dominant stance of the continent has been neutrality. The United States expected strong support from Africa and strong condemnation of Russia. Instead, it saw neutrality from most, a lack of condemnation of Russia from many, and the blame being placed on the United States and NATO by several.

At the conference in Moscow, Putin was warmly greeted by the delegates. Putin called the conference “important in the context of the continued development of Russia’s multifaceted cooperation with the countries of the African continent” and said, “[t]he partnership between Russia and African countries has gained additional momentum and is reaching a whole new level.” He promised that Russia “has always and will always consider cooperation with African states a priority.” The tone was very different from what Africa hears from the United States and Europe. The effect has been very different too.

The representatives of many of the African countries attending the conference on Russia and Africa in a multipolar world joined Putin in the call for that new world. The representatives from South Africa and the Congo said their countries support a multipolar world, as did the representatives from Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe, Mali, and more.

“To the surprise of the United States,” Alden Young, professor of African-American Studies at UCLA, told me, “Putin finds a receptive audience when he talks of multipolarity in Africa.” He says that the idea “resonates independently of Russia.” African countries realize that U.S. hegemony can be just as easily weaponized against them. 

There is a deep dissatisfaction with unipolarity in Africa. Young says that African states feel “marginalized” and that they are “frustrated with their inability to have a larger voice in international organizations.” As South Africa has seen with the Russian and Chinese-led BRICS, perhaps the only important international organization in which an African country has an equal voice, multipolarity offers an alternative. 

The Russia-Africa in a Multipolar World conference was a preparation for the second Russia-Africa Summit to be held in Russia in July. Olayinka Ajala, senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University, told me that “the main focus of Russia and China at the moment is to get African countries to support the proposed BRICS currency and this will be a major topic in the upcoming conference.” He added, “With a population of over 1.2 billion, if Russia and China are able to convince African countries on the need to ditch the dollar, it will be a huge blow to the United States.” Liberation from the hegemony of the U.S. dollar is a mechanism for the liberation from U.S. hegemony in a unipolar world.

Russia’s new foreign policy concept, released in March, promises that Russia “stands in solidarity with Africa in its desire to occupy a more prominent place in the world and eliminate inequality caused by the ‘neo-colonial policies of some developed states.’ Moscow is ready to support the sovereignty and independence of African nations, including through security assistance as well as trade and investments.”

“Russia,” Young says, “has its finger on the pulse and is responding to demands that are popular in the vast majority of the world. The Biden administration was out of touch: they thought these weren’t grievances.”

Africa’s answer of neutrality is not the continent declining to take a position. It is the powerful new stance that you do not have to choose a side in a world where you can partner with many poles, in a world where you don’t have to fall in behind the United States in a unipolar world or choose between blocs in a new Cold War.

The United States exerted intense pressure on Africa to support U.S.-led sanctions. The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told African countries that “if a country decides to engage with Russia, where there are sanctions, then they are breaking those sanctions.” She warned them that if they do break those sanctions, “They stand the chance of having actions taken against them.” Nonetheless, not one African country has sanctioned Russia. Her threat had the opposite effect, Ajala told me: It “has done nothing but strengthen the resolve of African countries to remain defiant in their position.”

Ajala reports that South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has said that “his country has been pressured to take a ‘very adversarial stance against Russia.’” Ramaphosa not only repelled that pressure and insisted, instead, on negotiations, but blamed the United States and NATO. He told the South African parliament that, “The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region.”

In July 2022, U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken traveled to South Africa to warn Pretoria away from cooperating with Russia and to win U.S. support. It did not go well. In September 2022, President Joe Biden met with Ramaphosa in an attempt to persuade the country seen as leading African neutrality and the refusal to condemn Russia. That did not go any better. South Africa has rejected joining U.S.-led sanctions on Russia and has abstained from voting against Russia at the United Nations. On January 23, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in South Africa for talks aimed at strengthening their relationship. In February, South Africa, ignoring criticism from the United States and the EU, held joint military training exercises with Russia and China of its coast. Ajala says that navy exercise “has been of concern to Western countries, especially the United States.” The South African National Defense Force said that the drills are a “means to strengthen the already flourishing relations between South Africa, Russia and China.”

Along with Russia, China, India, and Brazil, South Africa is a member of BRICS, an international organization intended to balance U.S. hegemony and advance a multipolar world. Egypt, Nigeria, and Senegal were recently welcomed as guests at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting. 

On June 3, 2022, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, was accompanied by African Union Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat on a trip to Moscow. This defiance of Western isolation of Russia was especially worrisome for Washington and the West because Macky Sall is not only the president of Senegal but was, at the time, the chairman of the African Union. According to Ajala, Washington and the West have wondered whether Sall’s stance should be interpreted as representing the stance of Africa as a whole.

There are many reasons for Africa’s predominantly neutral stance and defense of a multipolar world. Not least is that Africa finds it hard to buy into America’s message of Russia as the historical villain who dismisses international law and disrespects other countries’ sovereignty while America is the hero who protects them. 

In April, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor complained that “This notion of international rules is very comfortable for some people to use when it suits them, but they don’t believe in international rules when it doesn’t suit them ... If you believe in international law truly, then whenever sovereignty is infringed, it must apply … We use the framework of international law unequally depending on who is affected.”

Africa remembers colonialism and neocolonialism; Africa remembers U.S. coups, as Zambia’s opposition leader just reminded the United States.

Putin reminded his audience at the conference that “Ever since the African peoples’ heroic struggle for independence, it has been common knowledge that the Soviet Union provided significant support to the peoples of Africa in their fight against colonialism, racism and apartheid.” He then provided the update that “Today, the Russian Federation continues its policy of providing the continent with support and assistance.”

His receptive audience agreed. A representative from South Africa remembered that “Russia has no colonial heritage in Africa and no African country sees Russia as an enemy. On the contrary, you helped us in our liberation, you are a reliable partner.” A representative from the Republic of Congo remembered that “Relations between Russia and Africa became special during the period of struggle for independence, when the Soviet Union was the main force supporting the national liberation movements. Thus, the USSR became the defender of the oppressed. Then it was the USSR, and now it is Russia taking a special place among the friends of Congo in difficult times.” A representative from Namibia said that his country would always be grateful to Russia and appreciate its support.

Speaking a month before the conference, Ugandan foreign minister Jeje Odongo pointed out that “We were colonized, and we forgave those who colonized us. Now the colonizers are asking us to be enemies of Russia, who never colonized us. Is that fair? Not for us. Their enemies are their enemies. Our friends are our friends.”

There is a long-remembered history of American and European colonialism. In March, during a joint press conference, Democratic Republic of Congo president Felix Tshisekedi found it necessary to scold French president Emmanuel Macron, telling him, “This must change, the way Europe and France treat us, you must begin to respect us and see Africa in a different way. You have to stop treating us and talking to us in a paternalistic tone. As if you were already absolutely right and we were not.”

In a reversal of the official narrative, in Africa, with its history of colonialism, it is not hard to see the United States and Europe as the villain and Russia as the hero.

And, as blatant colonialism has been replaced by subtle neocolonialism, nothing has changed. Neocolonialism is colonialism imposed without formal rule. It is colonialism carried out, not by controlling a country’s territory, but by controlling its economy. In 1965, Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah said that “neo-colonialism is the worst form of imperialism.” He explained that “foreign capital is used for the exploitation, rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world.” A few months later, Nkrumah was taken out in a U.S.-backed military coup.

An International Monetary Fund senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Africa would later confess that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south ‘privatize’ or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa. . . .”

Nkrumah’s coup was nothing new. Africans also remember the coup in the Congo in which Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. As colonialism gave way to neocolonialism, coups gave way to contemporary coups. According to Nick Turse, since 2008, U.S.-trained officers have attempted at least nine coups in West Africa.

There are a number of other contemporary motivations for African neutrality. The most important is the support for a multipolar world. But many African countries also see the war in Ukraine as yet another cold war proxy war between NATO and Russia in which entanglement brings no benefit. Africa believes that, “while there are global implications, it’s primarily a Western problem,” Mvemba Dizolele, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Washington Post. “Africans are used to being told when they have problems, they should find an African solution to their problem,” he said. “That’s part of the mind-set: Why is it that your problem has to be the entire world’s problem?”

Alden Young agrees. He told me that African countries have long felt neglected in U.S.-African relations. He said that Africa feels that the United States “only worries about Africa when it is important to other issues. Not Africa on its own terms.”

A senior official in the Biden administration told The Washington Post that “African leaders have made clear to White House and administration officials that they simply want an end to the war,” and they disagree with the United States and “oppose the idea of punishing Russia or insisting that Kyiv must agree to any resolution.”

Despite Washington’s reluctance to push for or endorse negotiations, in May, Ramaphosa announced that he had held phone calls with Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy who both agreed to separately receive a delegation of African heads of state to discuss a possible peace plan to end the war. Joining South Africa in the delegation will be Senegal, Uganda, Egypt, the Republic of the Congo, and Zambia.

There is also the matter of military ties. Several African countries are reliant on Russia for their weapons.

Though the mainstream media often stresses the military motivation, it is but one of many motivations. In addition to multipolarity, colonialism, and coups, the unattractiveness of involvement in a proxy war and military ties, there are a number of other contributing motivations.

Many African countries enjoy growing economic relations with Russia. “What is particularly striking,” according to Ajala, “is the position held by Russia to give support to African countries without interfering in local politics.” Young also points to the “transactional nature of Western help.” The Russian approach is very different from the West’s policy of dictating ideological alignment or economic or political structural adjustments that “privatized” the South and “created economic bedlam” in Africa. Young says “the veil that the United States does it better has collapsed.”

African countries have also complained of discrimination and neglect by the West. COVID didn’t help. While wealthy Western nations sat on their vaccine stocks or disposed of unused, expired vaccines, neglected African countries, who thought they could count on the West, turned to China and Russia. Putin reminded the Russia-Africa conference that “[d]uring the coronavirus pandemic, Russia was among the first countries to provide African states with large volumes of vaccines, test kits, personal protective equipment, and other medical and humanitarian cargoes.” Ajala says that the “perceived lack of support from the West during the pandemic further pushed African countries away from their traditional Western allies.” Africans tire, Young told me, of the United States wanting Africa to rally behind them when they didn’t help Africa on other issues.

With the onset of the war in Ukraine, Africa was again reminded of the discrimination. The continent was critical of the discriminatory treatment of Africans when it came to evacuation and safety. “Africans trying to escape Ukraine were being racially discriminated against,” Euronews reported. Africans were prevented from boarding buses and trains and experienced physical abuse. The International Journal of Public Health reports that the average time for people of color to cross borders is longer compared to Ukrainians. Once across the border they “find it more difficult to find temporary housing and assistance in European countries.” It also points out that European countries were “welcoming White Ukrainian refugees without hesitation” while “historically blocking entry to refugees of color from varying countries.”

The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner noted “with serious concern” the reports of officials preventing Africans from crossing the Ukrainian border, denying Africans entry to busses and trains “until all white migrants and asylum seekers have been accommodated,” and denying “entry for people of African descent into some neighboring countries.” Several African countries condemned the discriminatory treatment, and the African Union and the African Union Commission issued a statement saying that they “are particularly disturbed” by the discriminatory treatment and that “Reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach international law.”

The war in Ukraine has forced African countries to complain, not only of discrimination, but of neglect. Several African countries are dependent on Russia and Ukraine for wheat and fertilizer. The war has threatened their food security. So, they were greatly relieved by the deal signed in Istanbul by Russia and Ukraine to permit the safe export of grain from Ukrainian ports. But, as Putin reminded the delegates at the Moscow conference, “about 45 percent of the total volume of grain exported from Ukraine went to European countries, and only three percent went to Africa ... despite the fact that this whole deal was presented under the pretext of ensuring the interests of African countries.”

According to the UN, as of the earlier date of July 2022, 36 percent had gone to European countries and 17 percent had reached Africa. Though a little better than Putin’s statistics, the difference is unlikely to impress Africans. At that time, only a very small amount of food specifically shipped under the World Food Program had reached Africa. Reuters reported on March 20 that “the main destinations for grain shipped under the deal have been China, Spain and Turkey.”

Putin contrasted the West’s treatment of Africa with the “almost 12 million tonnes [of grain] ... sent from Russia to Africa.” In November 2022, Russia agreed to send grain to some African countries for free. Ajala says Russia’s willingness to donate grain to Africa “can perhaps be seen as highlighting the desirability of a neutral stance towards the war in Ukraine.” Putin promised African countries at the conference that if the grain deal is not extended, “Russia will be ready to supply the same amount that was delivered under the deal, from Russia to the African countries in great need, at no expense.”

This neglect and discrimination, together with aid and support, economic partnership free of ideological dictates, military ties, and a continuing history of colonialism and coups have encouraged much of Africa to withhold support for U.S.-led sanctions and condemnation of Russia. To the surprise and concern of the United States and Europe, the predominant response of Africa to the war in Ukraine has been neutrality and growing support for a multipolar world.

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on US foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets.

Image: Shutterstock.

The short-lived revolt led by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin caused analysts far and wide to speculate about the future of the Wagner Group in Africa, arguing that its role on the continent is now in question. These assertions tend to overstate the current disarray inside the Kremlin and understate the importance of Wagner’s economic and geopolitical ventures to the war in Ukraine. While some might argue that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to let Prigozhin off unscathed in Belarusian exile reflects the former’s weakening grip on power, the necessity of the Wagner network to the financial feasibility of the Ukraine “special operation” makes the decision appear more calculated.

The reality of the Russian war effort is that it relies on profits from Wagner’s African business ventures. With near total state control in the Central African Republic (CAR), a strong presence in Mali, Libya, and Sudan, and rumored military deployments in countries throughout the Sahel, including Burkina Faso and Chad, Wagner’s network in Africa is strong, multifaceted, and effective. But more importantly, it is a network partially built for mitigating the financial fallout of the Ukraine War—Moscow’s contingency planning.

Wagner secures payment for security services in unstable African nations through resource contracts, including gold and timber in CAR and oil in Libya, which is then funneled to Russia to support the war in Ukraine. In CAR, reports reveal that Wagner’s control extends to every sector of the economy—not only natural resources but also the sale of pedestrian products such as beer—reaping massive financial rewards for Moscow. Experts estimate that Wagner’s control of forestry and the Ndassima gold mine in CAR alone could produce billions of dollars in revenue. With these funds and more from Wagner’s entire African network, the failure of Western sanctions to deal a death blow to the Russian war effort in Ukraine is less puzzling.

The bottom line is that Putin needs Wagner—the group’s ventures are a critical lifeline for the war. And unfortunately for Putin, Prigozhin is the man that has ensured Wagner’s success. Prigozhin’s business model is one of the greatest contributions to Russia’s geopolitical goals in recent years. With Prigozhin dead or jailed, Putin would threaten the sustainability of Wagner’s model. Wagner forces loyal to Prigozhin may not accept a unilateral change in the group’s institutional hierarchy and organizational structure. Infighting for control and leadership would surely emerge, leaving its capacity to carry out critical operations and business ventures stymied. Thus, the decision by Putin to give Prigozhin the equivalent of a slap on the wrist emerged from a pragmatic recognition of the importance of Wagner’s activities to the Ukraine war effort. The deal is a sort of insurance policy that allows Putin to continue benefiting from Wagner in the short term while buying him time to reduce Prigozhin’s control of the empire without threatening the group’s operations.

But financial resilience is just one of many benefits Russia gains from Prigozhin’s strategic kleptocracy in Africa. Countries with a Wagner presence, including Mali and CAR, abstained from voting to condemn the Ukraine invasion. Meanwhile, disinformation campaigns throughout the continent foment strong support for Russia while exploiting anti-Western sentiment that has arisen in some parts of the continent, especially in Mali and the Sahel.

The Putin-Prigozhin deal that ended the mutiny should therefore be viewed, at least partially, as a strategic calculation by Putin. The vastness of the empire built by Prigozhin and carried out by Wagner throughout Africa should not be underestimated. Indeed, the group carries out economic, political, or military operations in at least a dozen African nations. For Putin, risking the collapse of that empire as his country fails to make progress in Ukraine would be misguided. Consequently, while Putin may force Wagner troops operating in Ukraine to integrate with the Russian army (or accept exile in Belarus), those operating throughout Africa will likely remain untouched as Putin works to wrestle control of the PMC from Prigozhin.

Analysts do correctly agree, however, that skepticism over Wagner's strategic value may preclude Wagner's expansion into new client nations in Africa, at least in the near future. Prigozhin’s mutiny may initiate a period of hesitancy towards Wagner partnerships among African leaders. However, suppose Wagner operations in current client states remain unchanged, as reported by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, and Russia continues to pump out disinformation campaigns. This period is sure to be short-lived.

For the US, the mutiny has thus gifted the Biden administration with a crucial, albeit small, window of opportunity to uproot Russia’s tightening grip on the continent, especially in the Sahel. Taking advantage of African hesitancy towards the Wagner Group post-mutiny can allow the United States to contest Russian influence on the continent. Efforts such as the approval of emergency humanitarian aid to Burkina Faso and Mali, which are facing highly neglected humanitarian crises, and the appointment of a Special Envoy for the Sahel, a position that has remained vacant since the administration took office, would ensure that the region remains a priority while offering insecure nations an alternative international partner.

As the world grapples with the immediate impacts of Prigozhin’s mutiny, The United States should avoid underestimating the strategic necessity of the Wagner Group in Africa for Russia. The lack of adequate engagement with African nations targeted by Wagner may prove to be the greatest folly of Western efforts to halt Russia’s war in Ukraine. Thanks to Prigozhin, a critical opportunity for the US to undercut the Wagner empire has opened, an opportunity that the US cannot overlook.

Shalin Mehta is an undergraduate at Rice University studying Political Science and Policy Analysis. His topics of interest include the Middle East, Africa, arms control, and peacebuilding.

Image: Shutterstock.

Assurément les Forces armées révolutionnaires de Colombie (FARC) ont partie liée avec des histoires que les scénaristes de Hollywood auraient peine à imaginer : celle du vieux chef maquisard Manuel Marulanda Vélez, donné mort soixante-treize fois par la presse ; du paysan devenu à 16 ans (...) / Culture, Colombie, Amérique latine, Guérilla, Littérature, Sexualité, Armée - 2018/05

Jacques Wajnsztejn, ancien du Mouvement du 22 mars lyonnais et des Cahiers de Mai, propose avec Mai 68 à Lyon un ouvrage mêlant les témoignages de quelques-uns de ses acteurs les plus en pointe, dont il fit partie, et une analyse guidée par la radicalité anticapitaliste de Temps critiques, la revue (...) / France, Mouvement de contestation, Syndicalisme, Travail, Jeunes, Mouvement de libération, Ville, Extrême gauche, Histoire - 2018/05

Last week, President Biden rolled out the red carpet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, extending the leader of the world’s largest democracy the full honors of an official state visit. After Mr. Modi addressed a joint session of Congress for the second time in his career, he joined his American counterpart for an opulent state dinner Thursday evening (June 22nd) ­– only the third such dinner of President Biden’s term. This historic visit was anticipated to yield tangible results and invigorate commercial and military ties between the U.S. and India. As the world’s most populous nation and future global powerhouse, India is a vital counterweight to growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Indeed, a robust strategic partnership with India is invaluable for American interests, but it’s difficult to ignore the elephant in the room. For all the talk of shared political values, India is a backsliding democracy that has often opposed American international initiatives. It’s crucial to analyze and appreciate the strengthening U.S.-India partnership for what it is, a transactional relationship built on mutual interests.

Despite their shared democratic heritage, the U.S. and India historically remained at odds in the international arena. In fact, New Delhi enjoyed warmer relations with Moscow than Washington during the Cold War. As a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, India has long resisted Washington’s orbit, balancing between the competing interests of the U.S. and Soviet-led blocs. This non-aligned posture persists today, demonstrated by Mr. Modi’s refusal to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

 

However, these historical differences should not prevent Washington and New Delhi from becoming partners or even friends in the emerging multipolar order. Both countries face a common geopolitical adversary in China and have numerous incentives for intensive collaboration. Presently, Indian and American interests are more closely aligned than ever before, and unlike previous decades, Washington needs India just as much as India needs Washington.

 

New Delhi recognizes Washington as a critical source of investment and advanced technology, while Washington sees New Delhi as a burgeoning economic superpower that has yet to realize its immense potential. In his address to Congress, Mr. Modi aptly described the scope of U.S.-Indian cooperation as “limitless.” Encouragingly, this cooperation is already gaining momentum, evident in the announcement of several new agreements covering diverse policy initiatives.

 

During their discussion, President Biden and Mr. Modi unveiled a range of defense-related arrangements, including New Delhi’s plans to acquire thirty-one MQ-9Bs drones from the U.S. Notably, General Electric will manufacture F414 fighter jet engines in India, collaborating with the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics. As the world’s largest arms importer, India presents an attractive market for U.S. defense contractors. However, the primary aim is to reduce India’s reliance on Russian military hardware. New Delhi sources nearly half of its supplies from Moscow, and Washington hopes to limit a vital revenue stream for the Kremlin while bolstering military interoperability with India. Moreover, India is open to procuring equipment elsewhere, particularly given Russia’s underwhelming military performance in Ukraine.

 

Economically, as the U.S., and to a lesser extent the EU, look to decouple from China and locate alternative supply chain destinations, India increasingly appears as the most promising option. Recognizing his country’s untapped industrial capacity, Mr. Modi has positioned his “Made in India” initiative as a cornerstone of his political agenda. Although India’s current manufacturing share of total GDP is 14%, well below his ambitious 25% target, recent developments mark a political triumph for Mr. Modi. On June 22nd, Micron Technology announced it would invest over $800 million in a new semiconductor factory in Gujarat, its first-ever venture in India. Additionally, Applied Materials will allocate $400 million over four years to establish a similar semiconductor center. As confidence in India’s manufacturing capabilities continues to grow, more private-sector deals like these are expected to emerge in the coming months and years.

 

Additional arrangements cover space exploration, quantum computing, telecommunications, renewable energy, critical minerals, and trade. Notably, Washington will streamline the visa approval process, simplifying the pathway for skilled Indian professionals to remain and work in the U.S. Developments and initiatives of this breadth signify the dawn of a new era in U.S.-India strategic relations.

Throughout Mr. Modi’s visit, U.S. policymakers vaunted U.S.-India relations as a natural friendship rooted in a shared commitment to democracy. Mr. Modi reiterated the term “democracy” seventeen times during his address to Congress. While bilateral relations have reached a new level of depth, idealized depictions of democratic kinship oversimplify and skew the relationship’s fundamental reality.

 

As a rising global power, India holds its own aspirations and vision for its role in the world. Furthermore, Mr. Modi’s ethnonationalism and illiberal practices are widely acknowledged. It’s also evident that Mr. Modi does not subscribe to President Biden’s democracy vs. autocracy dichotomy. When U.S. politicians portray India as an ally in the international struggle for democracy, it not only misrepresents the situation but also undermines America’s position as the global champion of human rights. And while India conducts free elections, its long-term vision diverges from Washington. For example, from 2014-2019, India’s votes in the UN General Assembly coincided with the U.S. a mere 20% of the time. Moreover, India’s active participation in the BRICS further complicates the relationship’s dynamics.

 

However, the significance of Mr. Modi’s visit and its implications for U.S.-India relations should not be understated. Historically, unity and cooperation flourish in the face of a common threat, and in this case, that threat is China. While India and the U.S. have distinct reasons for tensions with China, the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” holds true. The series of agreements attest to the recent strategic alignment and convergence of mutual interests as both countries navigate the complexities of the 21st century. By forging closer ties, the U.S.-India partnership has the potential to shape the future of the Indo-Pacific and stabilize an increasingly fragile international order.

Il y a comme une évidence à associer les cinéastes Pierre Creton et Dominique Marchais. L'un comme l'autre ont fait d'une certaine vision du territoire, du local, leur propre monde ; et, de ce monde, un univers que leurs films exposent et réinventent à la fois. En octobre dernier sortait Va, Toto !, (...) / Cinéma, France, Écologie, Culture, Environnement, Agriculture - 2018/05

The costs of expanding the alliance outweigh the benefits.

It’s time to expand the UN Security Council.

China’s race towards nuclear parity with the United States and Russia is transforming international strategic stability. As Washington contemplates how to address two nuclear peers, some argue the United States needs a larger nuclear arsenal than China and Russia’s combined strategic forces.

This would be a tragic mistake. An extensive nuclear buildup would reduce deterrence and security by hollowing out U.S. conventional forces. Instead, Washington must realistically assess the danger and find cost-effective methods to shore up deterrence.

As the ultimate guarantor of a nation’s security, nuclear weapons generally provide an excellent return on investment. That doesn’t mean they are cheap, however.

The United States is currently modernizing its entire nuclear force, including warheads, ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), strategic bombers, and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) most recently estimated that this effort will cost $634 billion for the ten-year period starting in 2021. By 2030, CBO projects nuclear modernization to account for 12 percent of the budget of the Department of Defense (DOD).

If China reaches nuclear parity with the United States and Russia, Washington would need to double the size of its arsenal to equal Beijing and Moscow’s combined forces. The United States and Russia currently have about 1,550 deployed nuclear weapons. In 2020, CBO estimated that building out the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 3,000 to 3,500 warheads in a survivable manner would cost as much as $172 billion just to purchase the delivery systems. That’s more than DOD’s entire procurement budget this year. Moreover, that figure excludes the costs of building additional warheads as well as sustainment costs, the latter of which could be an additional $8 billion a year (or nearly 1 percent of DOD’s current budget).

Even this is an overly optimistic assessment; matching Russia and China nuke for nuke would be much more difficult and costly. Already, supply chain issues are delaying America’s current nuclear modernization plans. The defense industrial base would struggle to double the size of America’s arsenal and non-nuclear military investments would almost certainly suffer as a result. Moreover, Moscow and Beijing would not stand idle if Washington undertook this nuclear expansion. Instead, they would expand the size of their arsenals, requiring Washington to spend even more time and resources building additional nuclear capabilities.

None of this is affordable at a time when the United States is dealing with Russian aggression in Ukraine and an unprecedented Chinese military buildup in the Indo-Pacific. Deterring China is an especially daunting challenge given the pace of its military expansion. Beijing already boasts the largest navy in the world and a sophisticated set of conventional capabilities designed precisely to deter or defeat the U.S. Joint Force. Simply put, devoting more money to nuclear weapons would leave the United States and its allies outmatched in the Indo-Pacific.

Fortunately, the United States doesn’t have to pursue this self-defeating policy. For all the talk about a “no limits” partnership, a unified Chinese-Russian nuclear attack is inconceivable for the foreseeable future. As I write about in my book, Atomic Friends: How America Deals With Nuclear-Armed Allies, combining multiple nations’ nuclear arsenals into a single force is an extraordinary challenge. At the very least, it would require China and Russia to have a unified military command.

As NATO’s experience demonstrates, this is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. A unified nuclear force requires one nation to cede some control over its strategic weapons to the others. Given the consequences of nuclear war, even the closest allies won’t give up their nuclear buttons. In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States pushed the UK and France to put their atomic weapons under NATO command. Since NATO is led by an American general, this essentially meant under U.S. control. Although the UK nominally agreed to this, the British prime minister retained the exclusive right to decide when to use—and not use—London’s nuclear weapons. France wouldn’t even entertain the idea. No Russian or Chinese leader will give up their nuclear weapons to the other side, especially given the potential gains of sitting out a nuclear exchange with the United States.

At the absolute most, then, America’s arsenal needs to be capable of withstanding a nuclear attack from Russia or China, retaliating against that country, and still retaining enough forces to deter the other one. This shouldn’t be a problem given that U.S. ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) remain undetectable, and—according to the Department of Defense—each one carries twenty submarine-launched ballistic missiles with multiple, independently targeted warheads. One or two SSBNs should be more than sufficient to deter the remaining adversary after a nuclear exchange.

There are also lower-cost options to hedge. As the United States acquires its new strategic bomber, the B-21, it can retain the existing nuclear-capable B-2 bombers, much as it has with the B-52, which was first deployed in 1961. Similarly, it can expand the number of bases capable of hosting strategic bombers. During a crisis, the bombers can disperse to more areas, making it difficult for an adversary to eliminate them in a first strike.

America’s land-based ICBMs can also be made more survivable—and powerful—relatively cheaply. Instead of building more missiles, the United States could simply build more silos to host them. Since China and Russia couldn’t be sure which silos had ICBMs at any one time, either country would have to expend more nuclear weapons in a first strike. Furthermore, to enhance each missile’s power, the United States could once again put multiple warheads on each missile, something it only stopped doing after the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.

The coming era of nuclear tripolarity presents significant challenges. In addressing the changed strategic environment, Washington must find creative solutions to challenges rather than pursue costly, robotic policies that leave America and its allies more vulnerable below the nuclear threshold.

Zachary Keck is a former managing editor of The National Interest and Congressional staffer. He is the author of Atomic Friends: How America Deals With Nuclear-Armed Allies. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Defense Department or the U.S. government.

Image: Shutterstock.

Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s central power have been weakened by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny. The fact that Prigozhin and his rebellious troops have not been punished will embolden others to challenge Putin’s authority. Russia may well descend into internal turmoil that would include a new round of breakaways by constituent republics similar to the one in 1991. Policymakers in Washington and other Free World capitals must prepare for this eventuality.

Putin has not delivered for the Russian people. After twenty-four years of Putin’s rule, Russia remains well behind Europe in both freedom and prosperity. And falling further behind. He is now asking Russians to die in a war against peaceful brother Slavs and suffer even more deprivations from foreign economic sanctions.

Neither has he delivered for the corrupt clique that controls Russia’s security, military, and economic levers of power. The Ukraine war has turned Russia into a pariah country and most of them suffered sanctions and asset freezes by Free World countries.

Putin also appears weak. He is losing in Ukraine. Before his invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s military was seen as second in the world, behind the United States. Now it is viewed as second in Eastern Europe, behind Ukraine even. At home, Prigozhin’s mercenaries captured one of Russia’s key military centers without firing a shot; several Russian military leaders waited and watched before they chose the regime’s side; and Putin did not have the power to punish Prigozhin and his mutineers.

This environment of discontent and weakness is likely to encourage more power challenges. Maybe from another military man. Or through renewed separatism among Russia’s republics.

Russia is a multinational empire. Over the centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow expanded by conquering peoples in Europe and Asia. But these peoples have not forgotten their national identity and dreams of freedom, similar to the peoples once part of Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia.

Separatist movements in Russia were strong but ultimately unsuccessful in 1917 when Russia was losing in the First World War, and the incompetent and corrupt Tsarist regime had little popular support. They were successful in 1991 when fifteen republics, including Ukraine, the Baltics, and Kazakhstan, succeeded in breaking away after the Soviet Union had lost the Afghan war and was failing economically.

Russia’s heavy losses of life and treasure in the Ukraine war, isolation and sanctioning by the Free World, and the weakening of Moscow’s central authority are creating conditions in which separatist tendencies are likely to assert themselves again. Particularly since Russian minorities are thirty times more likely to die in Ukraine than Russians.

Russia’s twenty-one republics already have the legal construct they need to break away. Each has its own constitution, legislature, president or prime minister, court system, flag, and anthem. There are of course differences when it comes to their history, geography, and natural resources. Some are on Russia’s borders and are resource-rich, like Chechnya and other Caucasus republics, Tyva, Karelia, and Sakha. Others are in the Volga region, landlocked but with a strategic position and natural resources, and home to large numbers of Muslims and Buddhists, like Tatarstan, Kalmukya, and Mordovia.

A new wave of breakaways by Russian republics may be peaceful like the first wave in 1991. Or it may lead to a protracted civil war like the one in Yugoslavia.

Contrary to the claims of conspiracy theorists in Moscow, and they are many, Russia’s current troubles are not the result of evil plots in foreign capitals. They are the effect of Putin’s policies which are corrupt and oppressive at home, and revisionist and expansionist abroad.

Still, U.S. and Free World policymakers will have to address three thorny issues.

First, how to respond to the demands for recognition from Russian republics seeking self-determination.

Second, how to ensure that Russia’s 6,000 nuclear weapons are not used during the unrest. Matthew Kroenig raised the possibility that Russia may experience the first nuclear civil war.

Third, how to deter a Chinese land grab in resource-rich Siberia. The current borders were established only 160 years ago when a weak China was forced to cede to a strong Russia 350,000 square miles of Siberia (more than Texas, somewhat less than Egypt). Today the power balance is reversed. And especially in terms of population in the border region, where a Russian population of 6 million faces 90 million Chinese.

A new round of secessions by Russian republics may seem far-fetched today. But so did the first round at its time. It is important to prepare policy options for this eventuality.

Dan Negrea is the Senior Director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council. He served at the U.S. Department of State as a member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Office and as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The National Interest or its editors.

Image: Shutterstock.

Over one year into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, various analysts have argued that the conflict has weakened Moscow’s influence over the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. One of these republics, energy-rich Turkmenistan, has been treading carefully with its tightly-controlled media, often parroting Moscow’s talking points. However, the country is now better placed than at any time in its history to diversify its energy consumer base outside of Russia. Accessing Turkmenistan’s gas reserves will be challenging, but doing so could bring significant benefits to both Ashgabat and the West.

The Case of Turkmen Energy Connectivity

Turkmenistan is a relatively closed country, with a long history of working with Russia in the energy sphere. However, since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Ashgabat has sought new partners, including the European Union and the United States. The EU itself has been searching for new energy sources following Germany’s freeze on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

This presents an opportunity for Turkmenistan, which has positioned itself to benefit from East-West cooperation. It has sought to improve and open up its economy by increasing transparency, strengthening its legal system, and encouraging private-sector capital formation. Additionally, there is Turkmenistan’s position along with the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, better known as Middle Corridor. This loosely-defined trade route links China and the markets of East Asia with Europe, crossing the Central Asian steppe, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus. That this route bypasses Russia, currently under heavy sanctions because of the Russo-Ukranian War, means that Ashgabat benefits from a significant increase in its geopolitical importance.

There is even greater interest when it comes to energy geopolitics and logistics. Several regional countries, including Azerbaijan and Turkey, have sought to capitalize on the further development of an energy transport system from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan.

Key to this would be the establishment of a Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP), which would also bypass Russia and provide energy supplies to Europe. Turkmenistan has also shown an interest in constructing the TCP by participating in various Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council ministerial meetings. Ashgabat sees the TCP project as an excellent chance to develop its domestic energy industry.

Additionally, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, Turkmen president Serdar Berdimuhamedov, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in 2022 to discuss the transportation of Turkmen gas to Europe. At the meeting, Erdogan highlighted that the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), a critical project carrying natural gas from Azerbaijan to Turkish markets and eventually to Europe, is operating at its total capacity of 32 billion cubic meters. The transportation of Turkmen gas to Turkey and Europe via the TANAP is the most convenient option currently available.

Further developing the TANAP and improving the connectivity of the Middle Corridor would greatly benefit the West. Even before the Russo-Ukrainian War, Europe has been searching for ways to diversify its energy sources. The EU acted on its ambitions by signing a deal with Azerbaijan in 2022 to double imports of natural gas by 2027. Azerbaijan could expand its ability to supply Europe with energy as Baku is cultivating closer relations with Turkmenistan. Connectivity with the TANAP would only further the EU’s energy security.

Pipelines will be critical because they are the only economically viable way to move natural gas in vast quantities, especially across the Caspian Sea. Turning natural gas into liquified natural gas is too costly for transport over such a short distance. Pipelines, meanwhile, have over time become more viable forms of transport. The Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, signed by Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkmenistan in 2018, significantly reduced barriers to pipeline construction.

There are, however, a few problems that impede successful trade cooperation with Turkmenistan. Domestic issues and China’s influence in Turkmenistan present risks for the United States and the EU. Infrastructure in Turkmenistan has historically been weak. Modernization and regulatory integration will also be a significant challenge, given the closed nature of Turkmenistan’s government and its close relations with Russia and China. Additionally, Turkmenistan’s underpaid and under-trained staff at border stations and related trade offices spur corruption and bribery.

Opening the Middle Corridor

Despite these challenges, Trans-Caspian corridor cooperation in a multipolar world—particularly amid the energy supply chain disruptions caused by the Russo-Ukrainian War—will become more critical.

China’s own political and economic stability depends on international trade, but its overland route through Russia (the Northern Corridor) and maritime passage through the Malacca Strait are prone to disruptions. In comparison, the Middle Corridor allows China to bypass these high-risk routes. Russia too would also benefit from the Middle Corridor, as it would provide new logistic opportunities despite the current disruptions to the Northern Corridor.

The Central Asian countries, however, would likely benefit the most from higher connectivity with the West and all major actors, including China and Russia. As a result, all powers—Russia, China, the EU, and the United States—have a reason for favorable attitudes toward such an initiative, which can provide a realistic opportunity for cooperation.

There are one or two issues. For example, consider Beijing’s view on Turkey’s involvement. The latter’s geographic location, and the fact that the Middle Corridor passes through its territory, make it an indispensable partner for the West in achieving Middle Corridor connectivity. China, however, is concerned about Turkey’s emphasis on Turkic integration, potentially aggravating separatism among ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This has caused tension in the past. Ankara would be wise to make the case that Middle Corridor cooperation is, first and foremost, a commercial venture with no political strings attached.

Another issue is potential bottlenecks due to differing legal, regulatory, and logistical capabilities. These, however, are more easily solved via sufficient investment and actor participation. In November 2022, for instance, the Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh, and Turkish heads of transport and foreign ministries agreed to a $7.5 billion roadmap for bottleneck removal to facilitate the Middle Corridor from 2022 to 2027.

This endeavor could further benefit from private sector participation from the United States and the EU. Washington, with an open multilateral approach and emphasis on predictability, could incorporate cooperation on global supply chains into a working group. The Supply Chain Ministerial Forum, comprising the EU and the United States, among other partners, would be a logical place to start by including Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and China. This group could work to identify and mitigate bottlenecks and other obstacles affecting energy transport along the Middle Corridor.

Another way the West could help is by providing technical assistance since the digitization of multimodal data and document exchange will also be critical for predictability and reliability. However, such should not be propelled unilaterally and rely on any one partner’s technology. While China has been successful with the digitization of its BRI projects, Central Asian countries could be wary of relying solely on Chinese technology, with risks of surveillance. The United States and the EU are well-equipped to contribute to the digitization of trade routes and give Central Asian countries assurance that they do need to rely solely on tech from Beijing.

While risks and obstacles inhibit Middle Corridor connectivity and subsequent Turkmen gas flowing to Europe, the benefits could outweigh the costs. Through this cooperative project, China can address trade route issues that will persist, especially while the Russo-Ukrainian War disrupts supply routes. Given current geopolitical realities, there is no better time for the West, China, and Central Asian countries, including Turkmenistan, to develop Middle Corridor connectivity.

Alex Little is an MS graduate of Georgia Tech and specializes in Russian and Central Asian affairs.

Image: Shutterstock.

There are only so many options for the future of the relationship between China and the United States. I’ve been able to identify three:

1. One of the two countries makes the active choice to initiate a military campaign against the other.
2. The two nations continue playing their ongoing game of chicken, hoping against hope to avoid an accident that leads to escalation.  
3. China and the United States work diplomatically to establish guidelines for a working relationship in the midst of an economic and ideological rivalry.

In truth, these three options can be boiled down to two- either preserve the status quo and allow “the fates” to decide if and when a conflict takes place, or engage diplomatically to disrupt the trend of increasingly frigid relations between the two superpowers.

To the extent that we can imagine a clear endgame for each of the aforementioned paths, choosing between “brinkmanship” and diplomacy is just as much a logic problem as it is a diplomatic matter. The United States and China will work together diplomatically or the risk of conflict between the two nations will continue to rise until either accident or malice makes fighting inevitable.

It is not difficult to glimpse this “small piece of the future that has already come to pass”, and the horror of conflict between superpowers armed with nuclear weapons is unimaginable. As a consequence, this is a call for direct diplomacy, even when that means making difficult choices.

Reports suggest that China is making a massive investment in Cuba in exchange for the ability to use Cuban territory to host a spy base. Certainly this represents an escalation from the American perspective, but just as clearly it mirrors what the United States has done through increased weapons sales to Taiwan. Those of us with a Western bias, myself included, might be uncomfortable with this comparison, but that discomfort does little to hide the similarities. 

If negotiations fail, or fail to occur in earnest in the first place, the United States faces grim prospects regarding a conflict over Taiwan. Wargames regularly project that American forces would struggle to respond to the initial attempt to occupy Taiwan due to China’s proximity, and that the vast ocean between the United States and the conflict would stress the demand for both resources and reinforcements. 

Taiwan is an independent country, and an American effort to resist a potential occupation would, by every measure, be a defensive war. That first fact being established  such a conflict would come with the demands and difficulties of an offensive operation. This factor, more than any other, explains the outcomes projected by the war games mentioned earlier.

Even with this context in mind, the United States remains the most powerful nation in the world, there is little room to argue otherwise. Still, the period of unquestioned global hegemony experienced following the end of the Cold War is coming to an end- this much is equally obvious. Momentarily putting China to the side, nations including India, Brazil, and South Africia are on upward trajectories, and each rising power will want some measure of respect, and decision making autonomy, in accordance with their heightened global role. 

The United States will need to work diplomatically and collaboratively with these nations in order to maintain, and hopefully deepen relationships with these rising powers. Not only are strongarm tactics distasteful, but the would-be targets have grown too large for such tactics to be effective. Now is the moment to initiate a new era of American diplomacy that emphasizes the strength of the American economy and the virtues of democratic government.

This sort of diplomatic approach will likely come with a re-entrenchment of America’s military positioning, but that does not mean ignoring the national interest. Continued support for Ukraine, for example, allows the United States to work with partners around the world against expansionism. Still, a diplomatic mentality means not exacerbating Putin’s insecurities once the invasion has been rebuffed. 

Bringing the conflict in Ukraine to an end is only truly valuable if that resolution secures a lasting peace. This will mean asking difficult questions about continued NATO expansion- avoiding conflict with China will likely mean asking equally difficult questions.

Perhaps the key challenge for the United States in the coming decades, both regarding China and regarding the world’s many other nations, will be understanding when and where to emphasize the various tools in America’s famed Arsenal of Democracy. In order to avoid conflict with China and strengthen ties with other rising powers, the United States should prioritize diplomats over dominance.

 

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Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association. The views expressed here are his and not necessarily those of the Association.

The political divisions and military rivalries that sparked civil war in Khartoum could erupt in post-Biya Yaoundé.

C'est connu : la culture, c'est beau, c'est grand, c'est l'outil idéal du vivre-ensemble. D'ailleurs, elle est sacralisée — la preuve, on a inventé l'« exception culturelle ». Qui oserait attaquer les démarches qui tendent si vertueusement à en favoriser l'accessibilité, la visibilité, l'appropriation, (...) / France, Idéologie, Capitalisme, Culture, Idées, Inégalités - 2018/05

New Delhi isn’t a party to the U.N. Refugee Convention—leaving migrants in legal limbo.

But for the Bundeswehr to fight will take a culture shift, not just weapons orders.

The most important lesson of the Wagner rebellion is the FSB’s failure.

Even in times of polarization, consensus has prevailed.