Diplomacy & Crisis News

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Madrid-based Prisoners Defenders, an NGO focused on Cuban human rights, reported that the Cuban and Russian governments signed an agreement in which Cuba would send soldiers to join the war in Ukraine. Such a development raises many important questions.

The Wagner Group’s dramatic failed mutiny displayed something the Kremlin knew long ago: the group, including its leader, Yevgeny Prighozin, has become a problem for Russia, particularly on the Ukrainian front.

The group had little military training and served as cannon fodder in the war. Thousands of its fighters fell in battle. Wagner was convenient to Russia, as many of its recruits were criminals recruited out of Russian prisons. In other words, they were soldiers whose lives were expendable. Moreover, using these Wagnerites in lieu of formal soldiers helped prevent a crisis of internal legitimacy in Russia.

Likewise, Wagner has played an essential role in various parts of the world, where its operations are tied to the Russian military and intelligence community. The group has provided security services, paramilitary assistance, and launched disinformation campaigns for regimes and political organizations in Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Mali, Libya, and particularly Syria.

The group’s usefulness explains Russian president Vladimir Putin’s restraint towards Prighozin, who has been a harsh critic of the Russian military establishment and, more ominously to Putin, the rationale for the war in Ukraine itself.

As Prighozin’s hostility towards the military increased, the Putin regime sought alternatives to Wagner, which became more of a threat than an asset. The Russian Ministry of Defence planned to disband Wagner by July 1.

It is again this background that we can understand Russia's recruitment of Cuban soldiers.

According to Prisoners Defenders, Russia would pay every soldier $2,000 monthly, but the Cuban government would take 75 to 95 percent of such income. The report also claims that these soldiers have no choice but to join Russian troops. Otherwise, they would be subjected to retaliation and punishment.

This is not the first time Cuban soldiers have been deployed abroad in such a manner; they have been involved in wars in Angola, Ethiopia, Congo, Algeria, Iraq, and Syria. In Africa alone, Cuba is estimated to have lost 5,000 soldiers.

It is reasonable to assume that Cuban casualties will be significantly higher in the current war, as they are likely to have the same status as Wagner’s recruited prisoners.

The Cuban government would benefit economically from such a deal, and the Russians would begin to reduce their dependence on the Wagner Group.

In addition, it would presumably strengthen the alliance between Russia and left-wing Latin American regimes, such as Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela, Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua, and Diaz Cannel’s Cuba, which supported Putin during the Wagner rebellion.

A strategic alliance exists between Russia and illiberal left-wing regimes in Latin America. Russia has also deployed military equipment, troops, and mercenaries to Venezuela, including members of Wagner. It has deployed S-300 air defense systems and provided hundreds of military advisors. Russia has also sent Tupolev Tu-160 nuclear bombers to Venezuela and Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, the Ortega regime authorized 180–230 Russian troops, aircraft, ships, and weapons to operate on its soil. Likewise, Russian troops have been trained in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

It only makes sense then that, as part of this alliance, Putin would try to offer similar deals to Maduro and Ortega to recruit more soldiers. 

Putin’s stubbornness is not likely to lead to an end of the conflict any time soon. Casualties will multiply, and increasingly authoritarian Latin American regimes might sacrifice their sons to a senseless war and indefinitely prolong it.

Luis Fleischman, PhD, is co-founder of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy & Policy Research, professor of Social Sciences at Palm Beach State College, and the author of the book Latin American in the Post-Chavez Era: A Threat to U.S. Security.

Following sustained Chinese presence in Vietnamese-claimed territory in the South China Sea, the United States sent the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier to Vietnam for a port call visit this week at Vietnamese invitation—only the third such visit since the Vietnam War. This visit not only sent a powerful message of deterrence but also symbolized the incredible growth in relations between the two countries over the decades.

Just fifty years ago, the United States withdrew from Vietnam after over a decade of brutal conflict. Since then, the relationship has blossomed into a vital partnership, especially in recent years. Given the upward trend of relations and China’s increasingly coercive action in the South China Sea, some experts have either called for or predicted a formal upgrade of ties from a comprehensive partnership to a strategic partnership—something both countries have signaled a desire to do. However, given the apprehensions held by Vietnam regarding potential Chinese repercussions, the prospects of an upgrade in relations remain unlikely.

How We Got Here

Beginning in 1954, the United States and Vietnam fought a decades-long war that culminated in the U.S. withdrawal and a unified country under the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1975. The conflict resulted in the death of millions of people and a complete severance of relations between the two countries, with little optimism for reconciliation.

However, evolving geopolitical and economic circumstances resulted in a re-engagement between the two former enemies. Shortly after the war, Vietnam began experiencing severe economic difficulties partly due to a dysfunctional centralized economy, its evolving reliance on the fledgling Soviet Union, and its economic isolation from the United States following Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Yet, in 1986 Vietnam transformed its economy through economic reforms (Doi Moi), and in 1989 it withdrew its military from Cambodia. 

These two occurrences presented an opportunity for reconciliation with the United States, ultimately leading to the normalization of relations in 1995. One of the most immediate impacts of this normalization was observed in trade relations, further solidified by the signing of a bilateral trade agreement in 2001. Consequently, between 1995 and 2022, bilateral trade between the two countries increased from $451 million to $113 billion.

The culmination of these efforts occurred in 2013 when the two countries upgraded their relations to a comprehensive partnership. This upgrade established an overarching framework for the two Pacific powers to cooperate on trade, security, climate change, and people-to-people engagement.

Building on this momentum, in 2015, Vietnamese general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made the first visit of a Vietnamese Communist Party leader to the White House. Less than a year later, President Barack Obama became the first president since Bill Clinton to travel to Vietnam for a bilateral visit and only the second since the war. These visits led to the Obama administration’s decision to remove the embargo on lethal weapon sales to Vietnam.

Lifting the embargo created space for both countries to elevate security relations. Since 2016 Vietnam and U.S. security cooperation has included the docking of U.S. aircraft carriers on several occasions, participation in a RIMPAC military exercise, the transfer of millions of dollars of defense equipment—particularly equipment related to maritime security like U.S. Coast Guard Cutters, a T-6 trainer aircraft, and metal shark patrol boats—and multiple high-level visits.

Upgrade as the Next Logical Step

Given this trend in relations, many expect both countries to upgrade relations to a strategic partnership, something both countries have transparently supported. In March of this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Vietnam, where both countries expressed a desire to grow their relations. Blinken said, “This is … one of the most important relationships we’ve had … It’s had a remarkable trajectory over the last couple of decades. Our conviction is that it can and will grow even stronger (emphasis added).” Similarly, as reported by Reuters, Prime Minster Pham Minh Chinh said the two countries “were looking to elevate ties ‘to a new height.’” Blinken even suggested a tentative “weeks and months” timeline for an announcement.

At face value, this upgrade in relations makes sense. As the United States attempts to disentangle its economy from China (“de-risking”), Vietnam has become a prime benefactor as a partial replacement in the supply chain. Major manufacturers, such as Microsoft, Foxconn, Apple, and Samsung, have moved some of their operations to Vietnam to mitigate the costs of future economic clashes between China and America or U.S. sanctions and restrictions placed on companies operating in China. This move has deepened their economic engagement even further.

More importantly, from a security perspective, both have aligned interests in the Pacific on maintaining a rules-based order with skepticism about China’s intentions. The initial catalyst for improved cooperation was China’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea, where it has overlapping claims with Vietnam over the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Consequently, China has infiltrated Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (including this month), occupying vast Vietnamese-claimed territory in both island chains. This incursion threatens Vietnamese resources, trade, strategic autonomy, and territory.

This fear is not theoretical but rather rooted in a history of Chinese invasion and colonization spanning thousands of years—something China has also reaffirmed more recently. In 1979, Vietnam fought a short but bloody war that killed millions after China invaded its northern territory to pressure Vietnam to evacuate Cambodia. In the 2014 China-Vietnam oil rig crisis, which occurred when China moved an oil rig and three oil and gas service ships into Vietnamese-claimed territory, there was a months-long standoff and Vietnamese riots, which were targeted at ethnic Chinese, resulted in the destruction of various Chinese businesses and the death of six Chinese citizens.

This concern is still palpable among Vietnamese. The Singaporean-based think tank ISEAS, which conducts an annual survey of business and policy leaders in Southeast Asia, found that just 1.5 percent of respondents have confidence in China to provide leadership to maintain the rules-based order and uphold international law.

The United States shares this concern about Chinese intentions and has a vested interest in ensuring China doesn’t control the South China Sea. America’s prevailing interest in the disputes revolves around international law—if China can throw out UNCLOS, it can dispense with other international laws and norms. Additionally, as U.S. secretary of defense Lloyd Austin said, “[The] Indo-Pacific is at the heart of American grand strategy.” China threatens this grand strategy if it can bully its way into control of the South China Sea and threaten the United States' ability to ensure the free movement of goods and station forces throughout the region.

With an Eye Toward China

Despite the momentum of relations and aligned interest, an upgrade has yet to manifest, despite having an auspicious opportunity. Earlier this year, Blinken visited Vietnam to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the tenth anniversary since the last time the two countries upgraded ties. Still, the visit came and went with nothing but lip service to their desires to upgrade relations.

This lack of progress is primarily because Hanoi is careful not to pivot too close to Washington to avoid ire from Beijing, which has a history of choosing punitive measures when states pursue policies China finds unacceptable. The most recent example occurred in 2020 when China applied tariffs on various Australian agricultural products following Australia’s call for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Given Vietnam’s geographic proximity to and economic interdependence on China, its prudence is well-founded. China's track record of encroaching upon Vietnamese territory and Vietnam's reliance on Chinese exports partnership further compound the risk faced by Vietnam. This reality leaves Vietnam vulnerable, especially when factoring in its skepticism of American commitment to the region.

Similarly, although China would likely respond with punitive measures, it isn’t clear what tangibles would result from upgrading relations with the United States. As Bich T. Tran notes, U.S.-Vietnamese officials have argued that the relationship is already strategic in practice. Put another way, Vietnam values the United States as a security partner to deter Chinese aggression, but growing that security partnership doesn’t require an upgrade in relations. Therefore, by not upgrading relations, Vietnam avoids a high-risk, low-reward scenario and can continue to grow its security partnership with the United States while preserving relatively healthy relations with China. 

Vietnamese anxiety about Chinese reactions contributes to how each envisions the upgrade in relations and how it would serve overlapping yet distinct objectives. As the Diplomat’s Southeast Asia editor, Sebastian Strangio, wrote in the lead-up to Blinken’s visit to Vietnam earlier this year, “What Vietnam wants out of its relations with the U.S. (strategic autonomy, economic growth, and the preservation of CPV rule) differs from what the United States wants … (a partner in the containment of Chinese power and influence).”

Other impediments do exist. For example, Vietnam has existential concerns with getting too close to the United States and the repercussions that will have on democratic progression in its own country—something Vietnam expert Bill Hayton argues the Vietnamese leadership considers the “single biggest threat they face.” Likewise, the United States is troubled by Vietnam’s authoritarian government and close relationship with other autocratic powers, such as Russia. There are also lingering grievances from the war, such as the accounting and returning POW remains on the American side and Agent Orange clean up in Vietnam.

Nevertheless, the primary obstacle hindering any progress in advancing relations lies in Vietnam's apprehension of provoking China without a clear and tangible benefit. Unless the United States actively pressures the situation, it would require China's aggressive behavior in the region to escalate to a level where Vietnam deems it imperative to enhance its relations to deter Chinese actions. Nonetheless, we are currently distant from such a scenario, and it would be imprudent to anticipate any immediate official upgrade in relations.

Vincenzo Caporale has a BA from UC Berkeley in Comparative Politics and an M.Phil from the University of Cambridge in International Relations. He is currently an Editor at Large at the Realist Review and a Contributor at Modern Diplomacy. His work focuses on development and geopolitics in Southeast Asia. You can reach Vincenzo or follow his work on Twitter @VincenzoCIV.

Image: Shutterstock.

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Emmanuel Macron is pushing a European policy that flatters France and annoys everyone else.

Privatization and the hollowing out of the U.S. defense industry.

The U.S. Navy performed without parallel in World War II, and more than met the challenges of the first Cold War. But both conflicts are firmly in the past. Today, we now face a formidable maritime and industrial power rival in China. The technological and geopolitical challenges we now face demand that the United States act much more urgently and faster. Nowhere is this more clear than in our Navy.

America desperately needs more ships, but maintenance delays result in, as one retired admiral put it, “the equivalent of losing half an aircraft carrier and three submarines each year.”

The USS Connecticut, a premier submarine, commissioned for service in 1998, struck an underwater mountain in the South China Sea in 2021. It won’t be back in service until 2026, according to the Navy. This is about three times as long as the sixteen months it took to build the Pentagon, the physical building, in the first place. By coincidence, the estimated cost of repair for the USS Connecticut is $80 million—equal to the cost of building the Pentagon ($1.1 billion in today’s dollars).

The Pentagon is a big place. Room for 25,000 workers. Parking spots for 9,700.

Defense officials and experts at the Hay Seward Initiative consider the US submarine force a crucial advantage over a numerically larger Chinese navy. But the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a 2022 summary concerning U.S. capabilities against China that the Navy lost 10,363 operational days from 2008 through 2018—the equivalent of more than twenty-eight years—“as a result of delays in getting into and out of the shipyards.”

Currently, an alarming eighteen of the Navy’s forty-nine fast-attack subs are out of service, awaiting repair and servicing. Fast-attack subs fire torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are essential to winning a potential fight against China over Taiwan or South China Sea lanes.

Maurer of the GAO explains that the Navy may be giving top priority “for scarce shipyard space” to aircraft carriers and ballistic-missile submarines, “which means attack subs are more likely to rack up idle time waiting to get into an available dry dock.”

This is totally unacceptable. The Connecticut is one of the United States’ three nuclear-powered Seawolf-class vessels, the service’s largest attack subs. The Navy describes the class as “exceptionally quiet, fast, well-armed, and equipped with advanced sensors.” It has eight torpedo tubes and can hold as many as fifty weapons in its torpedo room.

Ronald O’Rourke, a naval analyst with the Congressional Research Service, indicated that the delay is “a product of the complexity of modern warships – and thus the complexity of the work needed to repair damage to them.”

As I highlighted in Power Rivals: America and China’s Superpower Struggle, both the Navy and Congress need to address this issue without delay. The Pentagon, likewise, needs to be much more agile and nimble. Speed, flexibility, and time are just as important as the number of ships and subs. Advanced technology and complexity are great, but not if it leads to key assets sitting in dry dock.

Calls for bureaucratic reform are not new, and experts have long warned of the dangers of a culture that cripples organizations, as officials check boxes rather than get results.

The time for renewal, reform, and rebuilding is past due. It is high time to push for change in a bureaucratic Washington that is too much talk and little action.

Luckily, Washington has allies in South Korea and Japan that are building some of the highest quality and affordable naval assets in the world.

Buying ships from these countries, or building U.S.-designed vessels in their shipyards, perhaps including the Philippines in the mix as well, could be a cost-effective way of catching up with China.

All three countries have mutual defense treaties with the United States. So why doesn’t Washington team up with them to outbuild China?

The problem is largely political; U.S. law currently prevents the Navy from buying foreign-built ships, even from allies, or from building its own ships in foreign countries due to both security issues and to protect America’s shipbuilding industry.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon estimates China’s navy to have around 340 warships, while the United States has fewer than 300. It likewise estimates the Chinese fleet will grow to 400 in the next two years, while the U.S. fleet will take until 2045 to hit 350.

Voters should have a clear message for Washington: if more money is going to be spent on defense, then make sure it is being spent effectively.

Carl Timothy Delfeld is the co-founder of the Independent Republican and Hay Seward Initiative, managing director of Blackthread LLC, a former U.S. Treasury advisor, former U.S. Director of the Asian Development Bank, and author of Power Rivals: America and China’s Superpower Struggle.

Image: U.S. Navy/Flickr.

Over the last few weeks, Washington has been abuzz with everything India. On June 22, President Joe Biden, cabinet secretaries, and the U.S. Congress gave a rousing reception to the visiting Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. For his part, the prime minister cheered Republican and Democratic congressmen with his quip that he could “help them reach bipartisan consensus,” referring to the across-the-aisle support India enjoys in Washington.

It was certainly an apt decision to honor the Indian leader, given that the U.S.-India partnership has significantly expanded under President Biden. Both the White House and several members of the Biden administration, from the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to the Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell, have characterized it as the “most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century.”

However, over the last few months, some of the Biden administration’s regional policies in the Indo-Pacific have done more harm to its partners, particularly India and its geopolitical leverage in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Biden administration’s foreign policy cut a significant departure from its predecessors until last month, returning to Washington’s old ways: myopic democratic interventions, benevolent outreach to adversarial nations, and partisan bickering. Over the last few weeks, Washington’s primary Indo-Pacific partners, India and Japan, have borne the brunt of these missteps.

President Biden, in a last-minute change of plans, canceled his scheduled trip to Papua New Guinea and Australia to address the debt-ceiling crisis in Washington, with Republicans stalling the Democrats from raising the debt ceiling levels. While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went ahead with his trip to Papua New Guinea and signed a crucial defense agreement with the Pacific Island nation, Biden canceling that leg of the tour was not the best messaging to a region increasingly falling under China’s orbit.

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Modi went ahead with his travel itinerary as scheduled and turned it into an opportunity to showcase India’s position on the global stage. New Guinea’s president hailed Modi as the leader of the Global South. Taking an implicit jab at the United States and China, the island-nation leader said, “we are victims of global powerplay, and you [Modi] are the leader of Global South. We will rally behind your leadership at global forums.” Prior to Biden’s cancellation, the Indian government had decided to accommodate his visit and cut short their visits as a courtesy to the incoming American presidential delegation.

While this was a minor setback for a coordinated approach toward Chinese expansionism in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean challenge is a more geopolitically complex Gordian knot.

In mid-May, Blinken threatened Bangladesh with sanctions if the Indian Ocean state did not host free and fair elections in the 2024 poll. Suppose the United States were to follow through with its threat. In that case, India and Japan will be in a quandary as they have consistently positioned Bangladesh as a gateway connecting the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia for supply chain and infrastructure connectivity initiatives. Geographically, Bangladesh is nestled between India’s state of Bengal to the west and India’s northeastern provinces to the east, bordering a thin strip of land the connects the rest of India to the northeast (also known as the “chicken’s neck”). Thus the densely populated country’s interaction with the rest of the world is directed through India or the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

Both New Delhi and Tokyo have invested in infrastructure in the region and have long-term plans to invest in Dhaka’s growth. Recently, Japan and India agreed to jointly develop the Matabari deep-sea port in Bangladesh to serve as a “strategic anchor” in the Indian Ocean. Though often underreported, Japanese investment plays a vital role in South Asian development. It is also undeniably India's Northeast region's major infrastructure and development partner. Through the Bay of Bengal-Northeast India Industrial Value Chain, the Japanese government envisions increased connectivity between India’s landlocked northeast and Southeast Asia, creating a single economic zone and an alternative trade connectivity project to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida articulating his government’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in New Delhi in early March this year, called for increased integration of India’s Northeast with Bangladesh to transform the region into a single economic zone.

Moreover, Japan is attempting to capture the businesses moving out of the pricier markets of Southeast Asia, using the Bay of Bengal region. Japan’s regional strategy has neatly complemented the Modi government’s policies. Modi transformed the older “Look East” policy into an “Act East” policy of increasing strategic and economic engagement with Southeast Asia as a countervailing force to China’s involvement in the region.

Tokyo has slowly and steadily supported this transformation. A case in point is Tokyo and New Delhi hosting the India-Japan Act East forum to discuss cooperation on a range of projects that will increase connectivity in India's Northeast to Southeast Asia.

India’s Northeast has a history of civil unrest and strife, making it a challenging region for development. Furthermore, its landlocked topography and poor infrastructure limited its connectivity to both its neighboring countries and the rest of India. Only parties interested in the long game or have a vision for the region could invest in that part of the world, and in this case, it is Japan.

Interestingly, as an extension, both Japan and India are engaging the immediate eastern neighbor to Bangladesh and India, Myanmar. Sanctioned by the United States, Myanmar has limited partners on the world stage. Nonetheless, Japan and India have continued engagement with the military junta to prevent the nation from falling entirely under China’s influence.

However, once again, Indo-Japanese interests are affected by America’s sanctions

Earlier in May, India-Myanmar inaugurated the Sittwe port in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. India supported this port to enhance sea lane connectivity between India’s eastern states and Myanmar. However, since the sanctions, Indian companies have either had to depart Myanmar altogether or face global scrutiny for working with the military junta-led government.

As satellite images released earlier this year indicated, increased activity on the Great Coco Islands of Myanmar had the markings of Chinese military involvement. Situated less than thirty miles north of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, any potential militarization of the Coco Islands by the Chinese could pose a significant threat to India’s security in the Indian Ocean. In this geopolitical equation, India cannot afford to disengage from Myanmar. And yet, America’s economic statecraft is undercutting India’s vital regional partnerships.

Henry Kissinger, who celebrated 100 years last May, summed up this dynamic well, "it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.” It is undoubtedly proving so for Japan and India, but more so for New Delhi in the Indian Ocean.

Against the backdrop of these measures comes the Biden administration’s attempts at thawing relations with China. While Biden departs from his predecessors as the only recent president to not ask for Kissinger’s advice, he is beginning to walk in the footsteps of a grand strategist by making attempts to mend ties with China.

From the dialogue in Vienna to Blinken rescheduling his trip to Beijing for last month to the official abandonment of economic “decoupling” for the less confrontational “de-risking,” Washington’s approach to China shows signs of softening. While members of IPEF agreed on moving ahead with a supply chain agreement in Detroit, in the same week, on the sidelines of the APEC meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai met with her Chinese counterpart to discuss trade and economic ties. Washington's blow-hot and blow-cold approach does not assure allies and partners of the consistency of its priorities and policies, particularly partners that it courts for strategic competition with China.

Furthermore, Washington’s skewed sanction policies toward democratic backsliding in a few states while calling for engagement with authoritarian China raise questions about the motives of such policies. While the United States has sanctioned Chinese officials allegedly involved in human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it continues to do massive business with Beijing. This selective condemnation only further isolates partners and strengthens Chinese engagement with the sanctioned nations.   

Director for Regional Affairs at the Pacific Forum, Rob York, called this misbegotten strategy “a holdover from America's unipolar moment that we [America] need to outgrow. America's moral authority, and the benefits of aligning with Washington, are no longer assumed but must be competed for, and sanctions must be employed far more judiciously than they have been.”

This type of awakening to multipolar realities of the world order should inform Washington of the pitfalls and shortsightedness of its foreign policies. America’s sanctions and other tools of economic statecraft should not be used for democratic interventions but to deter its enemies. If not, the United States will have few allies in its strategic competition with China.

Akhil Ramesh is a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum.

Image: Shutterstock.

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