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“Prometheism,” an ideology and strategy devised in the early part of the twentieth century to combat Russia’s imperialism, is being revived in Europe’s east. The ideology—whose name is derived from ancient Greek mythology, in which the god Prometheus stole fire from the Olympian gods and gave it to humans as a symbol of knowledge, technology, and advancement—represents freedom, progress, and national liberation from Russian imperialism. Poland and Ukraine stand at the forefront of this developing movement, aimed at weakening Russia from within by supporting a host of national and regional groups seeking sovereignty and independence.

The Promethean strategy was originally developed by revolutionary fighters for Polish independence. In response to Russia’s mass invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the approach has now been revived and unofficially adopted by both Ukraine and Poland. Both Kyiv and Warsaw are laying the foundations of a new power center in Europe, having put aside their historic disputes to share a strategic vision that the Russian state must never again be allowed to threaten its neighbors. With a combined population of some eighty million, two of Europe’s most powerful armies, and substantial prospects for economic development after the war, both countries will be strengthened by a closely synchronized foreign and security policy.

Poland’s priorities are to help Ukraine defeat the Russian military, gain membership in NATO, and position a major NATO force in the country on a permanent basis. It also seeks to accelerate Ukraine’s membership in the European Union and provide a major boost to its post-war economy. A vital component of Ukraine’s revival and reconstruction is to guarantee that Russia no longer poses a threat to its territory and statehood. In this context, Prometheism offers an important strategy to embroil Moscow in its own internal problems while dismantling its imperial possessions.

Current “neo-Prometheism” is the third stage in its historic development following the collapse of Tsarism and Sovietism. The first Promethean Movement emerged during the death throes of Tsarist Russia and heralded the national liberation of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland from Mosvow’s control as an example to other captive nations. Lenin’s Bolsheviks staged a coup in 1917 in order to restore the collapsing Russian empire under an internationalist communist ideology. After several years of war and reconquest, they managed to subjugate several new states that had declared their independence, including Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and a number of republics in what is now the Russian Federation, including in the North Caucasus and Middle Volga.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Prometheism was both an anti-imperial and anti-communist movement that promoted the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the creation of independent states. It encouraged any centrifugal forces, whether ethnonational or regional, that could undermine Moscow’s control. It was also based on the calculation that if Russia again succeeded in subjugating Poland, then it could dominate all of Central Europe. According to modern Poland’s founding father Józef Piłsudski and his supporters, Poland could only be protected against Moscow’s expansionism by pushing Russia back eastward and keeping it permanently enclosed within the borders of the sixteenth-century Grand Duchy of Muscovy. Poland’s plans for a wide-ranging Promethean revolution in the post-Tsarist empire were bolstered by its defeat of the Red Army in 1920, but were subsequently thwarted by the Treaty of Riga signed in March 1921. The treaty did not guarantee Poland a lasting peace, while the partition of Belarusian and Ukrainian territories prevented the creation of independent states and allies along Poland’s eastern border.

During the interwar period, Warsaw established a Promethean League that included representatives of nations that sought to gain independence from the Soviet Union and Polish strategists and activists that worked behind enemy lines. The Promethean agenda was followed by several public institutions dealing with Eastern Europe, and in the late 1920s became state policy until the signing of the Polish-Soviet non-aggression Pact of 1932. The Promethean project suffered a major setback when Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany signed their own non-aggression pact in 1939 to divide up Europe’s east and subsequently launched World War Two by invading Poland. As a result of the war, Moscow’s post-war communist empire captured half of Europe and stifled all national dissent, but Promethean ideology survived, mostly in émigré circles.

During the 1970s, Polish émigrés Jerzy Giedroyc and Juliusz Mieroszewski developed a doctrine that followed the Promethean tradition by advocating reconciliation among all Central-East European countries, the independence of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, and for a future independent Poland to give up any claims to its former eastern territories that were seized by the Soviet Union after World War Two. This policy was adopted by all democratic governments after the fall of Communism in 1989 and was central to developing trust between Poland and its newly independent neighbors. This second stage of Prometheism bore results in the early 1990s when the Soviet bloc was dissolved, the Central European countries liberated themselves from Moscow’s control, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed into fifteen new states, including Ukraine. In effect, this constituted the second phase of dismantling the Russian empire.

No Polish government or any significant political party has harbored aspirations to absorb, partition, or suborn Ukraine or Belarus. On the contrary, since the rejection of Soviet imperialism, Warsaw has campaigned for the freedom of independent states to enter the multi-national institutions of their choice. For Poland, NATO and EU membership and a strategic partnership with the United States became cornerstones for the defense of its independence. Warsaw also endeavored to secure and stabilize its eastern borders by helping immediate neighbors move closer toward European institutions. In addition, Poland has revived the post-World War I “Intermarium” project among Central-East European states including Ukraine. This is not depicted as a substitute for either NATO or the EU, but as a proposed alliance to enhance regional cooperation in national defense and economic development and as mutual protection against any resurgence of Russian imperialism. Poland’s multi-national regional efforts have included the Three Seas Initiative to enhance economic and infrastructural connections between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas.

Moscow’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022 was an attempt to recapture wider swathes of its former empire. The plan has not only failed militarily, but it has backfired geopolitically by reviving a multi-national neo-Promethean movement that is supported by both Warsaw and Kyiv. The third historical stage of this broad multi-national project is the permanent rupture of the centralized Putinist-Muscovite inner empire, disguised as the Russian Federation. Although the fracturing of Russia is not official state policy, both Warsaw and Kyiv have hosted meetings among representatives from national and regional movements that seek liberation from Moscow. Although most activists operate in exile, they also maintain links with their home republics and regions inside Russia. An embassy for the independent Chechen-Ichkerian government in exile will be opened in Kyiv in May and other national movements are likely to follow suit. Several Ukrainian officials, Polish parliamentarians, and a number of experts have stated that Russia’s demise is essential for any durable regional security.

A growing multi-national movement unofficially supported by Kyiv and Warsaw held its first Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum in Washington in April with representatives from over a dozen republics and regions demanding independence from the Russian Federation. Moscow’s failing war in Ukraine and its increasing isolation from Europe and the rest of the democratic world provide a unique opportunity for building new states to ensure the dissolution of Europe’s last empire. Activists representing a diverse assortment of nations from Chechnya and Tatarstan to Siberia, Buryatia, and Sakha in the Far East believe that conditions for imperial collapse are ripening. Moscow’s enormous military losses and the country’s accelerating economic decline are revealing the incompetence of Russia’s ruling elite. Moscow is increasingly perceived as an exploiting colonial metropolis that has failed to provide either security or welfare for its subjects.

Ukraine’s military victory will also demonstrate that Russia’s claimed borders are transient. The loss of occupied Crimea and three Ukrainian regions officially annexed by Moscow will symbolically and practically demonstrate that Russia is losing territory. Other regions can also free themselves from Moscow’s control as regime capacities weaken in holding together the diverse and unwieldy Russian state. Warsaw and Kyiv believe that it is crucial for independent voices beyond the narrow Moscow-centric liberal opposition to bring their message to the United States and Western Europe, similar to the “captive nations” during the Cold War whose independence was supported by the U.S. government and Congress.

The key message for Western leaders is that encouraging regions and republics to cooperate in designing a “post-Russia” will help contain the violent disintegration that many in the West fear. The regime in Moscow is likely to promote violence to try and keep the country together, as occurred during the collapse of the twentieth-century Russian Empire and to some extent during the disintegration of the Soviet Union, with military crackdowns in several Union Republics. Moreover, it is unclear how many states will arise from the demise of the Russian Federation, what their precise borders will be, and what sort of governments will gain power. Nonetheless, nations trapped inside Russia who want to coexist peacefully with their neighbors will welcome Western support and mediation over statehood, borders, resources, and institutions. Hence, preparations to recognize the independence of new states seeking freedom, democracy, self-determination, and international cooperation are fully in line with Western values and interests.

Aspiring states also want to focus attention on the positive outcome of Russia’s rupture. A shrinking state under international sanctions with a collapsing budget and escalating internal pressures for the formation of new states will have severely reduced capabilities to attack its neighbors. Moscow’s ability to entangle Europe in energy dependence, engage in political corruption, and spread disinformation will all be curtailed. NATO’s eastern flank from the Arctic to the Black Sea will become more secure and enhance economic development, business investment, and regional cooperation. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia can regain their occupied territories and petition for EU and NATO integration without fear of Russia’s reaction. Belarus can also secure its independence. Despite frequent threats from Moscow, a shrunken Russian state will not use nuclear weapons against internal adversaries and its leaders will not commit suicide by attacking the West. As during the Soviet collapse, they will seek to retain as much power and assets as possible to ensure their political survival.

The Promethean strategy has a positive view of Russia’s citizens rather than the patronizing stereotypes evident among many Western policymakers who see them as passive followers of autocratic rulers. With open support from the West for pluralism, democracy, and regional sovereignty, Russia’s citizens will realize that they are not globally isolated. They will also need information that Moscow suppresses, particularly on the political and economic advantages of forming new states that cultivate cooperative relations with all neighbors.

Russia’s rupture and the emergence of over a dozen entities is likely to be a prolonged process that can generate new instabilities for which Washington needs to prepare and minimize any spillovers and escalation of regional conflicts. However, the positive results must also be acknowledged, as several arising states can become new allies for Western and Eastern democracies, whether across the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Oceans. American leaders should not fear the collapse of a failed empire but view it as an opportunity to intensify multi-national cooperation, open new markets, and help embryonic democracies to develop. They also need to understand that Polish-Ukrainian neo-Prometheism is based on an optimistic vision of Europe and Eurasia, in which freedom ultimately prevails over imperial subjugation.

Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington DC. His recent book is Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture. His next book is titled Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Strategic Player. He has just toured Ukraine with the Ukrainian translation of his Russia Rupture book.

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Two recent diplomatic events brokered by the West in the ongoing peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan indicate that the United States and the European Union have become fully engaged in brokering a deal to normalize relations between the two sides. The outcomes of these two events also represent the final nail in the coffin for the secessionist ambitions of the Karabakh Armenians and their supporters.

The West has thus now unambiguously aligned its position on the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan with support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. This is due not only to a renewed realization of the advantages of upholding this cornerstone principle of world order centered on the UN Charter, but also to the recognition that Azerbaijan is the indispensable country for the advancement of the West’s strategic energy and connectivity ambitions in the Caspian Sea basin, and Eurasia more broadly (a more useful term here might be “Silk Road region”).

This, in turn, implies a strong connection between supporting the establishment of enduring peace between Baku and Yerevan along lines proposed by the former in spring 2022 and broader Western interests in what Zbigniew Brzezinski called the “strategically pivot states” of Eurasia, like Azerbaijan. And this, in turn, implies the relativization of a values-first U.S. foreign policy in the face of more solidly realist geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations. In the present case, this involves understanding the implication of the contrast between the fact that Azerbaijan’s president was the “first post-Soviet leader to publicly distance himself from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” with the assessment that Armenia is a satellite of Russia and an ally of Iran—notwithstanding perhaps genuine yet tactically unfulfillable overtures to the West.

The foregoing is an integral part of the background against which we can measure the achievements of the two recent events brokered by the West involving the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process. The first was held in Washington and hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on 1–4 May 2023. Delegations led by the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan (Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, respectively) produced significant enough progress on the text of a peace treaty to set the stage for the second recent event: a meeting between the leaders of the two states (Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, respectively) in Brussels on May 14, 2023, which was hosted by EU Council president Charles Michel.

The statement read by Michel at the conclusion of the Brussels meeting (we can safely assume it was drafted with Armenian and Azerbaijani input) suggests that peace has never been closer—both its tone and substance reflect Blinken’s remark at the end of the Washington meetings that “an agreement is within sight, within reach”—whilst still leaving unanswered the question of whether it is close enough.

Four basic observations are warranted in this regard.

First, the Brussels meeting was the first one between President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan in many months. It took quite a long time for Michel to overcome the opposition of French president Emmanuel Macron, who insisted on personally participating in the continued EU facilitation of the peace talks, which Azerbaijan deemed unacceptable. An intra-EU compromise seems to have finally been worked out. Without American support, however, the peace process would have likely reverted entirely to Russian mediation. Not only did the United States pick up the ball after the EU needlessly dropped it, but Washington and Brussels seem now to be closely coordinating their efforts: the outcome of the American thread of the process looks to have been seamlessly woven into the European one.

This concerted Western effort is all the more important since it does not necessarily appear to be at zero-sum odds with Russian mediation. This effectually makes the South Caucasus the sole geopolitical theater in which the White House and the Kremlin are presently not in overt opposition, which suggests a tacit realization by each that their respective interests in this part of the world are not entirely incompatible. The veracity of this hypothesis, however, will be tested soon on May 19, when foreign ministers Mirzoyan and Bayramov travel to Moscow for further talks brokered by the Russian side.

Second, the fact that Aliyev met with EU Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič on the same day that Michel hosted peace talks in Brussels suggests that the two main branches of the EU—the Council and the Commission—are also closely coordinating their approaches. Further evidence is the meeting that took place between Bayramov and the head of the EU diplomatic service, Josep Borrell, one day later, also in Brussels. Of note is that the Aliyev-Šefčovič and Bayramov-Borrell meetings took place two weeks after the latest round of the EU-Azerbaijan Energy Dialogue between EU Commissioner for Energy and Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov, which also took place in Brussels.

Both the timing and outcome of the Aliyev-Šefčovič meeting represents a critical signpost. It demonstrates that the bilateral strategic energy partnership is further deepening, both in terms of the provision of more Azerbaijani natural gas but also renewables from Azerbaijani (and Georgian) sources in the years and decades ahead. All this flows directly from the terms of the historic Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in Baku between Aliyev and President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen in July 2022.

Why is the Azerbaijan-EU strategic energy partnership important in the context of the peace process? Because it shows that the EU is broadening its understanding of the consequences of Azerbaijan’s indispensability, as characterized above. The imperative of fulfilling the unique potential of the aforementioned strategic energy partnership ensures the EU remains constructively neutral in its role as a facilitator of the peace process. This appreciably reduces the influence of “spoilers” like the Armenian diaspora operating in parts of the EU, particularly in France (and, by extension, parts of the United States). It also compartmentalizes the “Macron effect” by indicating clearly that the French president’s participation in informal Aliyev-Pashinyan-Michel meetings scheduled to take place on the margins of the European Political Community summits in June (Moldova) and October (Spain) will be supplemented by the participation of German chancellor Olaf Scholz, whom Baku considers to be less partisan than his French counterpart.

In other words, when it comes to engaging strategically with the Silk Road region, particularly in the context of providing support to Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization and the anticipated peace dividend, the EU is no longer even pretending that geopolitics and geo-economics are not intrinsically linked. This is a direct consequence of the EU’s decision to impose sanctions on Russia, in close coordination with the United States.

Third, the press statement made by Michel after the Brussels meeting shows that the five peace principles that Azerbaijan put forward in Spring 2022, as noted above, continue to be the primary basis of the negotiations.

Going into some of the textual details is warranted, because the Michel statement is refreshingly clear on several fundamental points, two of which should be highlighted. One, the document says that Aliyev and Pashinyan “confirmed their unequivocal commitment to the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration,” which recognized all the Soviet-era union republic borders as the sovereign borders of the newly-independent states. The immediate sequel explicitly mentions the square kilometer area of both countries, which unmistakably signifies no support for what the Michel statement calls the “former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast” as anything other than constituting an integral part of Azerbaijan. The message is clear: the Michel statement extinguishes the secessionist hope of the Karabakh Armenians and their supporters. The territory former NKAO, which is known in secessionist circles as “Artsakh,” has no legal personality whatsoever.

Two, the entire paragraph of the Michel statement on what Baku calls the Zangezur Corridor is very encouraging from the standpoint of regional connectivity. The document says that the Armenian and Azerbaijani position on “reopening the railway connection to and via Nakhchivan” are “very close to each other.” This implies that a road connection is unlikely to be part of the agreement, at least not initially. But it indicates that a rail link will probably become a reality in relatively short order. What still needs to be finalized, the document says, are some modalities—including customs arrangements—and a concrete timetable on construction. But the text indicates that Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to instruct their technical negotiating teams to get this done. Presumably, this means that Michel (and perhaps Blinken) will push Armenia not to renege on its commitment to actually achieve a breakthrough on the Zangezur rail link. The document does not indicate what, if any, role will be played by the Russian FSB Border Guard Service in this context, which, after all, is one of the provisions of Article 9 of the November 10, 2020 tripartite statement. In fact, the Michel document does not mention Russia at all.

The fourth observation concerning the Michel statement centers on what else the document did not say. One, the text says absolutely nothing about arrangements having to do with the Lachin Corridor. The omission here likely implies that this topic falls outside of the EU thread of the peace process and lends credence to Baku’s position that these arrangements—now and in the future—effectually have nothing to do with Armenia, either.

Two, the Michel statement also says nothing about the establishment of any sort of new foreign on-the-ground monitoring presence or oversight or anything similar—whether in the context of the delimitation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border or in the context of the providing for the Karabakh Armenian population. Regarding the former, it does not exclude the possibility of Armenia making side deals with Russia, the CSTO, or the EU in this regard, although Azerbaijan is unlikely to take kindly to such unilateral or uncoordinated steps. Baku’s reaction to the establishment and subsequent deployment of a small, two-year European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) speaks to this point, as does the Armenian perception of its ineffectiveness. Regarding the latter, the statement does indicate Michel’s “encouragement” for Azerbaijan to “develop a positive agenda with the aim of guaranteeing the rights and security of this population, in close cooperation with the international community.” This, understandably is a perfectly reasonable standard for what is now accepted as being a domestic matter (more on this below), which can be achieved through the resumption of what the Michel statement calls a “transparent and constructive dialogue” between the central authorities in Baku and the local Karabakh Armenian population.

There are two evident implications of the foregoing. One, foreigners are unlikely to actively participate in Baku’s talks with the Karabakh Armenians in anything resembling the manner in which they have in the peace talks between Baku and Yerevan. This suggests that the Armenian side has dropped its earlier demand for the intra-Azerbaijan (Karabakh) discussions to take place within an “internationally mediated” mechanism. Two, no new foreign civilian, much less military, presence on the ground is likely to be established to “guarantee” the implementation of whatever ends up being agreed between the central authority and the Karabakh Armenians.

If Armenia actually strikes a deal with Azerbaijan, then normalization with Turkey will swiftly follow. The resulting peace dividend would provide Yerevan with significant diplomatic, economic, and security benefits whilst bringing Armenia back into the regional fold after three decades of political isolation. Although a derailment remains a possibility, the train does appear to be nearing its station. Not only because the West now truly seems to understand the “geostrategic stakes and is making a smart play,” as Mike Doran recently wrote, but also because all external stakeholders, including Russia, appear to have concluded that the continued pursuit of their respective interests lies in maintaining, even strengthening, their ties with Baku.

All things considered, Azerbaijan’s intensifying centripetal allure may indeed turn out to be the reason the peace process crosses the finish line.

Damjan Krnjević Mišković is Professor of Practice at ADA University and Director for Policy Research, Analysis, and Publications at its Institute for Development and Diplomacy, serving as Co-Editor of Baku Dialogues. He is a former senior Serbian and UN official (2004–2013) who previously served as managing editor of The National Interest (2002–2004). He is also a member of the Board of Editors of Orbis. The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author.

Image: Shutterstock.

There is no other way to say it: the outcome of Turkey’s elections is a huge setback for the country’s political opposition. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the “Nation Alliance’s” candidate, seeking to defeat incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, gained 45 percent of the vote, coming in second after Erdogan, who achieved 49.3 percent. Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan will now face a runoff election on May 28. Whoever crosses the 50 percent threshold will win the presidency. Many who voted for Kilicdaroglu are understandably demoralized and stunned at the outcome. This was supposed to be the occasion when Erdogan was finally dethroned. Alas. Critics are crying foul play, while others declare that it’s not over yet, and there is still a chance to defeat Erdogan at the runoff. How expected was this outcome and what are the chances for Kilicdaroglu to defeat Erdogan on May 28?

It depends on who you talk to. A variety of established observers of Turkish politics in the media, academia, and policy world predicted for months that Erdogan’s downfall was imminent. This certainty was predicated on the overly-confident claim that the country’s depressed economy, the impact of the earthquake, and Erdogan’s deepening authoritarian slide were all straws that broke the camel’s back and frustrated the citizenry. Therefore, Erdogan would lose. On the other hand, more cautious observers highlighted several red flags, mainly related to the nature of Turkey’s authoritarian regime, arguing that it was too soon to pop the champagne. This latter group of observers was somewhat callously labeled as “pessimists” and ignored. The actual result on election night was that much more stunning, because of the false euphoria generated by Turkey’s mainstream independent media, respected scholars, and policy analysts.

Bottom line: expectation management should have guided analysts’ analysis, which unfortunately gave way to them becoming cheerleaders for team Kilicdaroglu. Within days of the election, allegations started surfacing from across the country, specifically from voting precincts that there may be widespread fraud in the reporting of results. This may or may not be true and should obviously be investigated. That said, one should bear in mind that these objections will likely get tied up in courts and the Supreme Election Council, will likely certify the results anyway. We may never find out the true vote count, but more importantly, it demonstrates that the Nation Alliance was wholly unprepared to mitigate what the so-called “pessimist” camp had been warning about for months.

Even if the results are tainted, it does not change the basic outcome that Erdogan beat Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan’s People’s Alliance gained a majority of seats in parliament. This is not because it is right, but because this is what is likely to be imposed by the YSK. To be fair, both Erdogan and his governing Justice and Development Party lost votes since the 2018 election, and contrastingly, Kilicdaroglu gained the highest percentage of votes in his Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) history since 1950.

While these are important details, voters only really care about who will win the presidency on May 28. At present, this looks more likely to be Erdogan. Kilicdaroglu’s campaign, in the last few weeks focused exclusively on principles, encapsulated around the slogan “Rights, Rule of Law and Justice!” On stage, Kilicdaroglu and his surrogates promised to free the country from Erdogan’s yolk of injustice and rebuild a more equitable economy that benefited ordinary citizens. This was likely the right strategy, but it underestimated the role of identity. The most plausible explanation that explains why Erdogan received nearly 50 percent is based on the polarizing campaign he ran. In his campaign rallies, Erdogan drove home the point that every vote for Kilicdaroglu and the CHP would be one which would close down mosques, allow same-sex individuals to marry, and undermine Turkey’s family values. Moreover, Erdogan screamed from podiums that voting for the CHP would result in Kurdish terrorists being released into the streets. Ultimately, this seems to have resonated with voters, and in the event that Erdogan succeeds in clinching the presidency in the second round, Turkey’s political landscape is likely to be represented by hyper-nationalism, homophobia, and anti-Westernism.

If Kilicdaroglu has any chance of defeating Erdogan on May 28, he has to look and behave like a winner. This has not been the case since election night. He has barely been seen in public. As the results were becoming increasingly clear in the early hours of May 15, an emboldened President Erdogan confidently stepped outside his party headquarters balcony in Ankara and addressed thousands of his supporters. Moments later, the six leaders of the Nation Alliance assembled on stage in a closed auditorium with only journalists present and whined about how election results were being falsely reported. Supporters of Kilicdaroglu are justifiably frustrated. They have all been aware that serious challenges exist to prevent a free and fair election from taking place. The question they desperately want to be answered is: what are Kilicdaroglu and his alliance going to do about it? Complaining about it is unlikely to satisfy voters, as well as change the outcome of what they fear to be an Erdogan victory in less than two weeks. A serious strategy change must be adopted by the CHP leadership if they want to even contemplate winning.

On the other hand, if Erdogan does clinch the presidency on May 28, he will be in charge of the country for another five years. He will also have a parliamentary majority and many now fear that he will use this opportunity to eradicate the remaining vestiges of democracy. Remaining journalists, independent media outlets, and academics who have been vocal critics of Erdogan fear that they may no longer have room to breathe in a country that has all but stifled freedoms. If Kilicdaroglu does lose, there’ll be immense pressure for him to resign as chairman of the CHP. If that happens, the charismatic mayor of Istanbul, who arguably was the lifeblood of the Nation Alliance’s campaign, is well-positioned to become the next leader of Ataturk’s party. However, he has a lawsuit pending against him, which could see him slapped down with a political ban. In addition to losing his political rights, Erdogan could appoint an unelected caretaker mayor of Istanbul, which he has long desired, since losing the country’s largest city in the 2019 local elections.

Sobering times await Turkey and its brave, yet beleaguered citizens.

Sinan Ciddi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power. Follow Sinan on Twitter @SinanCiddi.

Image: Shutterstock.

Within days of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the State Department undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Neuland, declared that the U.S. objective in the conflict is the “strategic defeat” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

One month later, Nuland doubled down. “It is clear that Russia will lose this conflict. ... It is only a matter of time.”

At Davos one year ago, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen added Europe’s voice to the American chorus. “Putin's aggression must be a strategic failure,” she said.

It is well and good, and indeed to be expected, that when the guns start sounding leaders will seek to rally their troops to the cause. Remember George W. Bush’s famous, if premature “mission accomplished” declaration, well before the decisive conflict in Iraq commenced.

But when the real work of waging war commences, President Joe Biden, and the public whose endorsement he seeks, must, in word as well as deed, answer the question: What indeed does such high-sounding rhetoric really mean? How will we know when we have arrived at such a solemn and expansive if indefinite objective as Russia’s strategic defeat? 

Putin has paid very close attention to the statements coming from Washington. He cannot afford to have illusions about Washington’s objective or dismiss its intentions as hyperbole.

“The goal of the West,” he declares, “is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. To finish us off. That’s exactly how we understand it all. It’s about the existence of our country. But they cannot fail to understand that it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.”

In a war notable for Washington’s incremental, and so far strategically unsuccessful, escalation of the means—military as well as economic and financial—employed to attain Russia’s strategic defeat, the clarity of U.S. aims today is no more definite than it was at the war’s outset. 

Both Washington’s political class and the public at large have become minor-league strategists. They prefer to focus on simple and often simplistic calculations to ascertain the direction of the conflict—how many tanks and artillery shells Washington is sending to Ukraine—even as they avoid more significant questions raised by Washington’s commitment to Putin’s ruin that a sober appreciation of costs and benefits would challenge if not reject outright.

Indeed, by declaring such an outsized and unambiguous purpose—for that is what a pledge to achieve Russia’s “strategic defeat” requires—the Biden administration risks a policy debacle not unlike Barack Obama’s famous declaration that Syria’s “Assad must go.” That policy has now entered its final act in Syria, where President Bashar Assad has just been unconditionally readmitted to the Arab League.

The antonym of strategic failure is strategic victory, and that indeed is what Iran is now announcing these very days in Damascus.

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi’s deputy for political affairs, Mohammad Jamshidi, noted prior to Raisi’s recent arrival in Damascus that the visit is a sign of “the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic victory in the region.”

Jamshidi explained that the very same Arab nations that supported Washington’s campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran are now reconciling with Tehran—with China’s and Russia’s support—and coordinating Syria’s return to the Arab fold. Washington’s role has been reduced to that of a spoiler, exiled to the periphery of dynamic events aimed at ending Syria’s civil war.

Obama’s call for regime change in Syria, for all of its increasingly evident faults, at least had the advantage of clarity.

In contrast, after a year of war in Europe, Washington, even as it claims that Putin is “scaling back his near-term ambitions” in Ukraine, admits that the chance of Russian concessions at any negotiating table this year “will be low.”

Clearly, the Biden administration is no closer to defining a scale for measuring the degree to which the war’s essential achievement in Washington’s calculus—that is Russia’s strategic defeat—has been, or indeed can be, achieved.

While the diplomats chatter, months of war have dragged on in battles more reminiscent of the static battle lines of World War I than the shock and awe of Washington’s Iraq invasion.

I admit that I am no military expert, but Europe’s bloody history advises that betting against the Russian army is a dangerous and costly wager.

Historian Mark Perry, of blessed memory, never tired of describing the Soviet Red Army as a formidable and, indeed, an implacable foe whose strength and power derived from the immensity of Russia’s unassailable command of the Eurasian landmass. He would often note that during World War II, Josef Stalin executed almost 200,000 of Russia’s own for desertion. In other words, Russia conducts war in a historical and geographic context different, indeed foreign, to our own.

To command the strategic defeat of any enemy, let alone a nuclear-armed Russia, is no mean feat. Recent history offers few examples of this scale of victory—the Taliban’s recent expulsion of Western forces, Israel’s June 1967 triumph, perhaps even Bush’s Operation Desert Shield come to mind—but even these military achievements proved short-lived or incomplete.

Washington’s commitment to Putin’s (or is it Russia’s?) strategic defeat seeks to leave Russia unable to achieve even the most modest of its war objectives in Ukraine as well as weaken Moscow’s sovereign capabilities to resist NATO’s expansion. Events of the past year have at least made it clear that Washington’s commitment to Russia’s strategic defeat has not been accompanied by a U.S. guarantee of Ukraine’s “victory,” however defined.

Geoffrey Aronson is a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute and a former advisor to the EU and others on regional political and security issues.

Image: Pimen / Shutterstock.com

At this year’s Victory Parade commemorating the Soviet defeat of Nazism during the Second World War, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin compared Russia’s struggle against the Ukraine today to the Soviet war against Nazi Germany: “Today, civilization again is at a breaking point. Again, a true war has been unleashed against our motherland.”

He continued: “Western globalist elites still talk about their exceptionalism, pitting people against each other and splitting society, provoking bloody conflicts and coups, sowing hatred, Russophobia, [and] aggressive nationalism. The Ukrainian nation has become hostage to a coup which led to a criminal regime led by its Western masters. It has become a pawn to their cruel and selfish plans.”

While Armenia attended Putin’s Victory Parade in Moscow, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev stood in solidarity with the West and declined Putin’s invitation to attend this anti-Western charade.   Only six countries including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan attended this anti-Western charade.  Due to his grave crimes against humanity, which include raping and torturing Ukrainian prisoners and abducting Ukrainian children, most of the civilized world is now boycotting Putin’s Russia.

The fact that Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev had the courage to boycott the Victory Parade, even though Russian Peacekeepers are stationed in Karabakh and threatening the stability of his country, a sign that Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is a true ally of the West and an excellent friend of the United States of America. 

According to a statement issued by the US State Department, “The United States established diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan in 1992, following its independence from the Soviet Union. Together, the two countries work to promote European energy security, expand bilateral trade and investment, and combat terrorism and transnational threats.”    When the United States was fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan was part of their international coalition on the ground there, fighting against the terror.   Azerbaijan also assisted the United States in Iraq and Kosovo as well.   They actively partake in NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program. 

In support of the US-led War on Terror, apart from troop contributions, Azerbaijan provided overflight, refueling, and landing rights for American forces bound for Iraq and Afghanistan.   They shared information to combat terror financing.  They detained and prosecuted suspect terrorists.   They provided the US with over one-third of the non-lethal equipment including fuel, clothing and food used by the US military when they were in Afghanistan.   And today, Azerbaijan is helping Europe to obtain energy security, without the use of Russian or Iranian oil.   

In 1919, the late US President Woodrow Wilson stated the following about Azerbaijan: “Do you know where Azerbaijan is? Well, one day there came in a very dignified and interesting group of gentlemen who were from Azerbaijan. I didn’t have time, until they were gone, to find out where they came from. But I did find this out immediately: that I was talking to men who talked the same language that I did in respect of ideas, in respect of conceptions of liberty, in respect of conceptions of right and justice.”

What the late Woodrow Wilson said about Azerbaijan in 1919 is also true today.   For this reason, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev did not participate in Putin’s public relations stunt in Moscow, thus choosing to heed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call to isolate the Kremlin.     For this reason, the United States can count on Azerbaijan to always be an ally of the United States.   

/ France, Audiovisuel, Information, Médias, Presse, Terrorisme - Médias / France, Audiovisuel, Information, Médias, Presse, Terrorisme - Médias

Washington must make it easier to recruit and retain top talent.

A contest to succeed President Abbas could destabilize the region.

On February 24, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo launched the Biden administration’s vision for implementing the CHIPS Act, encouraging semiconductor companies to apply for a piece of the $39 billion which has been devoted to reinvigorating America’s domestic chipmaking capacity. Coupled with the Commerce Department’s stringent export controls issued last fall, which targeted leading chipmakers with ties to the Chinese military such as YMTC, it’s clear that the Biden administration is serious about semiconductor competition with China. But every chip matters to national and economic security, not just the leading-edge variety. But as a new paper from China Tech Threat argues, the administration must now address the threat of “legacy” Chinese chips from companies like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

Also known as mature chips, legacy chips—either fourteen or twenty-eight nanometers in size or larger, depending on your definition—are the semiconductors that go into commonplace technologies such as cars, refrigerators, and washing machines. More importantly, defense systems make frequent use of them—Gina Raimondo has told the U.S. Senate, “We have reports from Ukrainians that when they find Russian military equipment on the ground, it’s filled with semiconductors that they took out of dishwashers and refrigerators.” While they don’t get as much attention as leading-edge chips, which are associated with advanced technologies, legacy chips are everywhere. And with the adoption of 5G networks fueling the rise of “smart” objects, the demand for all types of semiconductors will only increase. Unfortunately, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which administers export controls, has only targeted China’s advanced semiconductor-making capacity.

Chinese companies, perhaps recognizing how the West has underestimated the importance of legacy chips, have decided to increase their output of these critical products. John Lee, the director of the consulting firm East West Futures, told the MIT Technology Review in January that China’s role in supplying these “indispensable chips … is becoming bigger rather than smaller.” Leading that effort is SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker. The Commerce Department placed SMIC on the Entity List in late 2020 with the intent to kill its ability to make leading-edge chips. But SMIC’s legacy business remains unaffected. The company recently posted a record $7.2 billion in revenue and announced expansion plans, despite uncertainty in the broader semiconductor sector. When the company’s four new production fabs come online, it will more than triple the company’s output, estimates Samuel Wang, a chip analyst with the consulting firm Gartner.

A deluge of Chinese legacy chips will spell lots of pain for the global chip market. Because SMIC and other Chinese semiconductor companies have benefitted from billions of dollars in Chinese government subsidies, SMIC is positioned to undercut prices, threaten Western competitors’ existence, and increase American and global dependence on China. China has already poured subsidies into its domestic solar panel industry to become the world’s leader in production. Beijing is poised to run that playbook again with legacy chips.

SMIC is also a threat because of its ties to the Chinese military apparatus. James Mulvenon, an expert on the Chinese military and Chinese cyber issues, has extensively documented these ties, including SMIC’s relationship with China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, “a state-owned defense conglomerate specializing in the research and production of military-use electronics, defense electronic information infrastructure, and military-use software.” Multiple other Chinese entities focused on applied research for military purposes also use SMIC products in their work. The United States shouldn’t allow U.S. technologies to support Beijing’s military buildup. Nor should Chinese chips of any kind be allowed in any U.S. military equipment out of sabotage and cybersecurity concerns. But the risk of compromised American weapons increases if there is no alternative to a China-controlled supply.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are sounding the alarm about the economic and national security concerns SMIC poses. Senator Bill Hagerty has confirmed SMIC’s “very close ties” to the Chinese military and highlighted reporting that SMIC may be jointly developing a $10 billion chipmaking facility with Entity-Listed Huawei. Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have also observed, “Although SMIC’s designation on the Entity List is hampering its ability to make the most bleeding-edge semiconductors, it is having little to no effect on its overall production capability.”

The duty of plugging this leak in export control policy falls to the Department of Commerce. BIS under secretary Alan Estevez and his team should expand the current restrictions on SMIC so that American technologies cannot be used in the production of legacy chips manufactured by SMIC or any other Chinese-owned and operated chip firms. There’s nowhere to go but up: in the span of just a few months in 2020 and 2021, BIS approved $41 billion in licenses for American companies looking to sell their technologies to SMIC.

Leaders on Capitol Hill also have their own levers to pull. According to former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, “The idea that ‘made in China’ chips are embedded in U.S. defense and intelligence systems, national critical infrastructure, and government networks is both absurd and, unfortunately, our reality.” This year’s National Defense Authorization Act should include an expansion of Section 5949 to completely bar federal contractors from using Chinese chips in their equipment. Doing so will better safeguard American military systems and U.S. critical infrastructure that China is virtually certain to target for a cyberattack in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.

As a geostrategic imperative, the CHIPS Act is a generational step toward bringing advanced chip manufacturing back to America. Ideally, the United States will one day reclaim its status as a world-leading manufacturer of legacy chips. But if we fail to counteract SMIC and other Chinese legacy chipmakers now, that opportunity may never come.

Retired U.S. Army Major General James “Spider” Marks is a principal at China Tech Threat. His final posting in uniform was as the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence School in Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Image: Shutterstock.

In an episode of the hit TV show How I Met Your Mother, one of the characters drily explains that “the Eighties didn’t come to Canada until, like, ’93.” Today, Canadian cultural delay remains in full force. Just this year, the American 2016 presidential election seems to have finally arrived up north. This time, it is foreign interference by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at issue. The Chinese have targeted America’s largest trading partner, our partner in continental air defense, and a founding member of NATO. Americans should take notice.

As any American who even remotely paid attention to Russia’s efforts to sow chaos in the 2016 election can attest, the fog of foreign interference is disconcerting and frightening. While recent studies have suggested that these efforts did not sway a critical mass of voters, they did succeed in causing a significant portion of the American population to doubt the legitimacy of the Trump administration. Now, it’s Canada’s turn in the barrel.

Since February, Canadians have been treated to a constant stream of damning reports, spurred by a source in the Canadian intelligence services, suggesting that Canada has been the target of a widespread effort to affect elections at the federal, provincial, and local levels. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ordered two separate, albeit closed-door, investigations into China’s chicanery—although both the Tories and Trudeau’s governing coalition partner, the New Democracy Party, have argued that this is insufficient.

The allegations are as salacious as they are troubling: explicit Chinese involvement in defeating targeted candidates, including cash donations and Russian-style disinformation campaigns, in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. China’s aims in 2021 were allegedly to secure a chaotic minority government led by, but not dominated by, the Liberal Party. While a review conducted by the former chairman of the Pierre Trudeau Foundation—which itself has been embroiled in a scandal wrought by revelations it received CA$140,000 from a donor backstopped by the PRC—claimed the results were unaffected by China’s activity, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole estimates that the Chinese activity may have scuppered eight or nine Tory victories.

More recent revelations are just as shocking. China’s diplomatic mission in Vancouver conducted candidate recruitment efforts ahead of the city’s most recent local elections. Worse, it appears that the Trudeau government knew that a Chinese diplomat operating in Toronto was targeting the Hong Kong-based family members of Michael Chong, the current shadow foreign affairs minister, and failed to notify Chong or expel the PRC's man from the country. (After this failure became public, the Canadian government did expel the diplomat, Zhao Wei, spurring China to expel a Canadian diplomat in turn.)

One of the alleged targets of China’s efforts, Kenny Chiu, just happened to be the champion of a foreign agents’ registration bill. (Canada, unlike the United States, does not require political influencers in the pay of foreign governments to register and report activities on behalf of their paymasters.) One of the alleged beneficiaries of Beijing’s largesse, Han Dong, purportedly urged a Chinese diplomat not to release two Canadian citizens being held hostage by the PRC because doing so would benefit the Conservative Party. (Dong, who has left the Liberal bench to become an independent, hotly denies these allegations and has filed suit against the Canadian media outlet that has reported it.)

That these events were set in motion by a source in the Canadian intelligence services is also disquieting. It could be—as the leaker him/herself suggested in the pages of the Globe and Mail—that the appropriate political agents have been hesitant to take action against Beijing’s shenanigans, perhaps unwilling to forgo the possible political rewards. But at this juncture, it could just as easily be the case that profane, not patriotic motives were at issue. Given that Canada is a crucial intelligence partner of the United States through the Five Eyes arrangement, neither option is a good ingredient to toss into the boiling cauldron bubbling on our northern border.

As you might expect, this is just the beginning. Trudeau’s chief of staff has testified in Parliament, albeit in a more limited capacity than desired by the opposition, about how the government learned of China’s interference. And at the end of May, a special rapporteur appointed by Trudeau will make a recommendation on whether the two secret reviews are sufficient—or whether a public inquiry (think something north of the Mueller investigation and south of the January 6th Committee in terms of publicity) is necessary.

As a rule, the American public tends not to pay attention to the vagaries of Canadian politics. This benign neglect may be unsustainable going forward. Americans do not generally recognize how deeply intertwined we are with Canada’s political and economic system for the same reason that fish do not think about why the water is wet. But a loss of public faith in Canada’s electoral system could spark a significant and unsalutary crisis in Ottawa—just as Russian interference did here. Such instability could echo through the U.S.-Canadian relationship.

Furthermore, we should keep in mind that hostile foreign powers will undoubtedly seek to replicate whatever elements of China’s Canadian playbook appear promising, including in our own election next year. This is unlikely to be an isolated incident. While there is still time, the United States needs to get on the same page with our North American cousins and confront these threats together going forward.

Zac Morgan is an attorney specializing in First Amendment and campaign finance law. He previously worked for the Institute for Free Speech, and currently serves as counsel to Commissioner Allen Dickerson of the Federal Election Commission.

The views expressed in this article are his own and do not express an official view of the U.S. government.

Image: Shutterstock.

/ France, Éducation, Inégalités, Jeunes, Société - Social / France, Éducation, Inégalités, Jeunes, Société - Social

Après de longs mois de tractations et huit motions de défiance du Parlement, le président sud-africain Jacob Zuma, impliqué dans plusieurs scandales de corruption, a fini par démissionner, le 14 février, au profit de M. Cyril Ramaphosa. Le Congrès national africain affronte de graves tensions internes (...) / Afrique du Sud, Criminalité financière, Démocratie, Élections, Histoire, Parti politique, Politique - 2018/03

The new geopolitics of synthetic opioids.

Can a new president hold the country together?

With national elections taking place in Turkey, the stakes could hardly be higher as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, battle for the presidency.

The Center for the National Interest invited two leading foreign affairs analysts to discuss the elections on Sunday, May 14.

Henri Barkey is the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen professor in international relations at Lehigh University and has served on the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff.

Dennis Ross is the William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has served as special Middle East Coordinator under President Bill Clinton and as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department under President George H. W. Bush.

Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, moderated the discussion.

Image: arda savasciogullari / Shutterstock.com

Today, Turks will head to the polls to elect a new president and parliament. The incumbent, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be on the ballot. Previous elections have seen comfortable majorities both for Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has enabled him to stay in power for twenty years—first as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, and then as president from 2014 onwards.

The upcoming elections, however, will prove to be the biggest challenge to his authority over the Turkish state. The deterioration of the Turkish economy and the damage caused by the massive earthquake on February 6 has turned much of the Turkish population against Erdogan, and there is the very real possibility of his party, and by extension Erdogan himself, being voted out of office, thereby forcing him to take a number of steps to bolster support. One way he has done this is by leveraging Turkey’s position in NATO to block Sweden’s ascension to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), by claiming that Sweden has been refusing to extradite suspected terrorists and not taking concrete steps to combat groups that Turkey considers to be security threats. While there might be some legitimacy in these claims, Erdogan’s belligerent stance towards Sweden can be more realistically interpreted as a means of portraying himself as a populist who will protect the Turks from Kurdish separatist groups and project Turkey’s influence as a serious player on the international scene to garner support ahead of the elections.

Under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey has become more confrontational in its foreign policy and is more willing to intervene in the domestic affairs of its neighbors. According to Kali Robinson, “Erdogan has engineered an assertive shift in foreign policy that focuses on expanding Turkey’s military and diplomatic footprint. To this end, Turkey has launched military interventions in countries including Azerbaijan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria; supplied partners such as Ethiopia and Ukraine with drones; and built Islamic schools abroad.” It should be recognized, however, that domestic factors have long influenced Turkish foreign policy, and that the country’s foreign policy positions have often changed to accommodate those factors. As such, while it is easy to take the current diplomatic spat between Turkey and Sweden at face value, it should be framed within the context of the upcoming election and the impact of Turkey’s considerable internal problems.

The greatest among those problems is the economy. Since he was first elected in 2003, Erdogan favored using aggressive pro-growth policies—such as encouraging foreign investors, undertaking massive infrastructure projects, and accumulating of debt—to stimulate the economy. Over time, this economic model proved to be unsustainable since the glut of cheap loans and low-interest rates that were implemented by the Turkish central bank put an increasing strain on the economy. Erdogan’s own views on economics run counter to reality, and he has continually insisted on keeping interest rates low out of the belief that high-interest rates cause inflation when the reality is the opposite. In an interview with TRT news, Erdogan stated that “interest rates make the rich richer, the poor poorer,” and has invoked Islamic teachings against usury and referred to interest on loans as “the mother and father of all evil.” It can be debated as to how much Erdogan believes in such ideas and how much of it is to pander to his more conservative base, but the reality is that his policies have had a severe impact on the Turkish economy. Property prices have skyrocketed by 241 percent as of October 2022, the value of the Turkish lira has been slashed by half, and according to official figures published by the Turkish Statistical Institute, inflation reached 85 percent, although unofficial figures have put the annual rate at 185 percent. The purchasing power of the average Turkish citizen has collapsed, and many goods and services have become too expensive for many people to buy. The situation has only been made worse by Erdogan’s stubborn refusal to listen to anyone who disagrees with his economic policies, to the point of firing three members of the central bank’s monetary policy committee who opposed Erdogan on the issue of interest rates.

There are several factors that work in Erdogan’s favor though. Inflation has slowly been decreasing, as Erdogan has been pumping money into the economy in the leadup to the elections in an effort to soften the blow of the crisis to the Turkish population. These measures have included raising the minimum wage by 55 percent, providing subsidized loans to small businesses and tradespeople, and launching a scheme to protect savers against exchange rate losses if they convert their dollar and euro accounts to lira. The devaluation of the currency has also meant that exports have become cheaper, with exports increasing by 13 percent in 2022, meaning that foreign currency in entering the country.

The situation became direr, however, after the February 2023 earthquake. The disaster killed around 50,000 people in Turkey alone, destroyed thousands of buildings, and according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 20 percent of Turkey’s agricultural production was damaged, affecting over 15 million people. To add insult to injury, floods caused by torrential rains killed a further two dozen people in March, and left thousands more homeless. All in all, the damage caused by the earthquake exceeds $100 billion dollars, which accounts for roughly 10 percent of Turkey’s GDP. Recovery efforts are expected to take years to yield results.

The earthquake also piles political pressure on Erdogan. The government’s slow response to the earthquake and its inability to provide timely aid to the victims has seen its popularity drop. Despite increased efforts by the Turkish government to provide aid, many survivors expressed criticism of the government’s initial response, with many stating that the authorities were nowhere to be found, with people left homeless in the middle of winter with nowhere to go, supplies running low, and the impression that the victims were left to fend for themselves. The earthquake also tainted Erdogan’s personal reputation. When the AKP party was swept into power in 2003, Erdogan made promises of good governance, a clampdown on corruption, and establishing a state that was more receptive to the needs of the people. These promises were music to people who were upset at the aftermath of a previous earthquake in 1999, which led to a reform of the country’s building codes to earthquake-proof Turkey’s infrastructure. Instead, corruption became more entrenched as contractors took advantage of a construction boom to cut corners while the authorities awarded contracts without competitive tenders or proper regulatory oversight. To address this criticism, Erdogan has issued arrest warrants for dozens of contractors and fast-tracking reconstruction efforts, although it is unclear if this will have an impact.

Erdogan’s opponents have taken full advantage of his dilemmas and have shown a remarkable level of unity and discipline. Six opposition parties spanning the center-left and center-right, have allied together to create the Nation Alliance and put forward veteran politician Kemal Kilicdaroglu as their candidate. Kilicdaroglu, who is nicknamed the “Turkish Gandhi,” has projected an image of an everyman appeal, and has campaigned on promises of tackling inflation and ensuring a return to parliamentary democracy. His prospects increased when the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which usually wins around 10 percent of the vote in national elections, decided not to nominate their own candidate—which is especially advantageous since Kilicdaroglu has, in the past, expressed a willingness to extend more political rights to the Kurdish community.

The final factor to consider is the impact of the Kurdish question. Since 1978, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has fought a guerilla campaign to force the Turkish state to give greater rights to the Kurds, and Turkey has labeled the PKK as a terrorist group. Early in his tenure, Erdogan supported greater political rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority but several factors changed his approach. While the AKP has consistently been the largest party in Turkey since 2003, it has had to ally with the far-right, ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to achieve a majority in parliament. Due to the MHP’s hardline stance towards the Kurds, Erdogan has had to adopt some of their policies to keep their alliance intact. The issue only grew more complicated with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. The breakdown of the Syrian state apparatus in the north of the country allowed the Kurdish population there to establish an autonomous Kurdish enclave. This stoked fears of Kurdish separatism that would spill over into Turkey, which led Erdogan to order the Turkish armed forces to conduct military operations into the enclave in an effort to stymie the Kurds from consolidating control of the area.

So, what does this have to do with Sweden? The answer is that the Scandinavian country is an easy target for Erdogan to distract the Turkish citizenry away from Turkey’s internal problems and towards an imagined bad-faith actor. Historically, Sweden has been a favorite destination for political dissidents to seek refuge and, as a result, has a large Kurdish diaspora population. When Sweden submitted a joint formal application, alongside Finland, to join NATO in May 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey initially blocked the bid. In June 2022, however, Turkey, Finland, and Sweden signed the Trilateral Memorandum, whereupon Sweden and Finland would agree to take a stronger stance against Kurdish separatist groups, drop all arms embargos by Sweden and Finland against Turkey, and extradite individuals that Turkey considers terrorists. The agreement fell apart, however, in December 2022, when Sweden’s supreme court rejected the extradition request of Kurdish journalist Bulent Kenes due to the “risk of persecution based on the person’s political views” if he were to be sent back to Turkey, which did not sit well with Erdogan. Kenes used to be the editor of Today’s Zaman, an English-language newspaper that was often critical of Erdogan. After the failed coup attempt against Erdogan in 2016, Today’s Zaman was shut down and Kenes escaped to Sweden after an arrest warrant was issued against him alleging that he part of a network linked to U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, who Erdogan blamed for the coup attempt. The situation only escalated in January 2023, after pro-Kurdish demonstrators in Stockholm waved flags of various Kurdish groups, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey and is banned in the country, as well as hanging an effigy of Erdogan. This happened in parallel with another incident where far-right Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan burned a copy of the Quran during a protest in front of the Turkish embassy.

Unsurprisingly, Erdogan was upset with these developments and stated that Turkey would refuse to support Sweden’s application to join NATO as long as Sweden allowed Quran burning and pro-Kurdish protests to continue. In response, the Swedish government stated that it did not support the protests, but that they cannot ban the pro-Kurdish protests nor Quran burning because such actions would go against Swedish law which protects them as free speech. Regardless, though, this was not enough for Erdogan, with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accusing Sweden of being complicit of a “hate and racist crime.” There is still hope that Turkey might become more conciliatory towards Sweden after the elections, and the Swedish government is introducing a new anti-terrorism law which it hopes will persuade Turkey to change its mind.

Despite the strained relationship between the two countries, Erdogan’s primary concern is winning the election, and antagonizing Sweden is just one of the tactics that he is employing to shore up support. Once the elections have passed, it is quite possible that new negotiations will pave the way forward for Sweden to join NATO and even help to reset the relationship between the two countries.

Joe Boueiz is an independent analyst in international relations and the politics of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. He is a graduate of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and the American University of Beirut (AUB), and a former lecturer of international relations at the Modern University of Business and Science (MUBS) in Beirut, Lebanon.

Image: Shutterstock.

Over the last fifty years, western European energy businesses developed deep personal and business connections with the Soviet and then Russian gas industry. The greatest exponent of this relationship is former German chancellor Gerhard Schroder. As chancellor, he cleared the way for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline project, becoming its chairman after he left office. Alongside this job, he was a persistent advocate of an ever-stronger German-Russian energy relationship.

For Schroder and others like him in the European energy sector, the small matter of an all-out, state-on-state war on the European continent between Russia and Ukraine does not necessarily mean an end to business as usual. For now, it is true that Gazprom exports of Russian pipeline gas to the European Union have collapsed. Nevertheless, many business and political leaders want to return to “normal” as soon as possible. Already in Germany, Saxony’s prime minister called for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to be repaired and Russian gas flows restored. In Italy, one of the members of the Russian-Italian energy old guard, Paolo Scaroni, has been elected to become the chairman of the Italian energy giant ENEL.

It is not too difficult to see the game at play. The “business as usual” crowd, led by the likes of Schroder and Scaroni, will be pushing for doing deals on gas flows with Moscow.

At first sight, Re-Schroderisation looks impossible. Imports of Russian pipeline gas to Europe have fallen from 40 percent of European imports to around 5 percent. The largest Russian gas importer, Germany, has secured several new LNG floating regasification ships to import LNG. German ministers are constantly repeating talking points on energy diversification. Germany will take Norwegian natural gas, LNG, wind, solar—anything but Russian gas. However, beneath the radar Russian natural gas has not wholly gone away. Whilst it is true that Russian pipeline imports have collapsed, Russian LNG imports have increased. In fact, across the EU, Russian LNG imports are now only in second place to U.S. LNG imports.

More fundamentally the economic and political support system for Russian energy imports across Western Europe has not disappeared. It may be that, currently, it is seeking lower visibility, but that support system is ready to reengage and push Russian gas at the first opportune moment. Already we have Saxony’s prime minister, Michael Kretschmer, making the case for the repair of Nord Stream 1. Interestingly Kretschmer uses the suppression of Germany’s nuclear power station, the last three of which were switched off on April 15, as a justification. This case for restoring flows through Nord Stream 1 fits with a broader strategy of German supporters of Russian gas. They know that it is going to be difficult to furnish Germany with sufficient alternative energy sources with the effective ending of Russian gas imports. The loss in the last three years of altogether six nuclear power stations increases demand for more power from elsewhere, and planning restrictions make it difficult to bring wind power on enhanced networks to where it is needed. No one wants to massively increase coal use (though that is happening). All the German supporters of Russian energy need is a really cold winter and the Chinese buying up sufficient liquid natural gas on global markets that natural gas prices ramp up dramatically. At that point, the case for repairing Nord Stream 1—at the mere cost of $500 million—and returning to business as usual will be made.

This is not just an argument that will be made just in Germany. Schroderization, which sees European politicians and business executives seeking and supporting deep connections with the Russian energy market was, and remains, a feature of the Western European energy sector as a whole—not just in Germany. One can now see Re-Schroderization also in play in Italy, where the Meloni government, pushed by its pro-Russian Berlusconi wing, appointed a member of the Russian-Italian energy old guard, Paolo Scaroni, as chairman of ENEL, the Italian energy giant.

Scaroni was previously CEO of the other major Italian energy company, ENI, and developed a strong relationship, as the Kremlin minutes themselves demonstrate, with Vladimir Putin. He also supported, and partially financed, the ill-fated South Stream project which had the aim of undermining Ukraine by providing an alternative transit route for Russian gas into Europe. The clear overall aim of Moscow was not just to weaken Ukraine’s revenues but also to reduce Ukraine’s importance to the EU, making it easier (in theory) to attack later, with less chance of any European interest. ENI under Scaroni also locked Italy into the Russian gas network by sustaining long-term gas contracts with Gazprom and acquiring gas fields in Russia.

Like many others like him, Scaroni has shown no rethinking or repentance for his actions. He has continued to argue that Italy needs Russian gas for another decade and has opposed sanctions on Russia. This is despite the fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens European security and the international order. And despite the fact that the actions of Scaroni, Schroder, and others in the Western European energy establishment essentially encouraged Putin to contemplate invading Ukraine. From an energy perspective, their actions made Europe dependent on Russian gas, and when Moscow pulled the energy rug from underneath the EU, European consumers ended up paying the bill. The cost of EU energy imports in 2022 was three times what it was in 2021.

It is not difficult to see that Scaroni will soon be coordinating with the pro-Russians in the German energy establishment to push a resumption of Russian gas imports. All it will take is a cold winter, limited LNG, and high energy prices, and Scaroni will be seeking a revival of Russian gas flows, with Gerhard Schroder, and other Russian “energy understanders.” The Re-Schroderization of the Western European energy sector will then be fully underway.

Dr. Alan Riley is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Washington DC. He specializes in antitrust, trade and energy law, and EU policy issues.

Image: Shutterstock.

The war in Ukraine has settled into a bloody stalemate with no end in sight. As the world braces for more bloodshed and destruction in the second year of the war, all the major players find themselves having gained no clear victory—except China.

On one side of the conflict are the United States and its allies. Since President Joe Biden has come to office, the United States has been Ukraine’s most steadfast supporter, pumping more than $75 billion into the country in humanitarian, financial, and military support. Washington has been, or will soon be, providing Kiev with advanced weapons systems, including Javelins, the Patriot air defense system, and M1A1 and A2 Abrams tanks. America’s European partners have also been providing ongoing assistance to Ukraine in different areas, including financial, humanitarian, energy, and budget support, as well as diplomatic outreach. The European Union in December last year agreed on a legislative package that will provide Ukraine with €18 billion in financial support over 2023. Yet, despite the seemingly bottomless support provided by the West to Ukraine, the United States and its European allies are no closer to expelling Russia from Ukraine than when the war first began, while draining their own resources.

On the other side of the war is Russia, which continues to be the architect of its own demise. While the Russian economy has resisted the brunt of Western economic sanctions, Moscow has lost the EU market, experienced a tremendous brain drain, grown dependent on Iran and North Korea for arms and supplies, and become the de facto junior partner to China. By all metrics, Russia has failed in its bid for renewed hegemony over its own front yard. NATO is now more united than ever, has added Finland to the alliance, and is on track to add Sweden. Furthermore, the Russian-Ukrainian war has accelerated the global transition towards alternative energy, thereby posing a grave threat to Moscow’s fossil-fuel-based economy. In terms of the human cost of war, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies reports that Russian armed forces and private military contractors fighting alongside them have suffered 60,000 to 70,000 combat fatalities over the past year.

Clearly, the biggest loser in the war is Ukraine itself. Having heroically fought off the initial Russian decapitation strike aimed against Kiev, which targeted President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself, Ukraine now finds itself facing a World War I-esque situation of trench warfare against the Russians. The frontlines have become largely static along the oblasts of Kherson, Zaprizhchia, Donetsk, and Luhansk. At least 8,000 non-combatants and tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the war began. Nearly 18 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, with 14 million displaced from their homes. Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up the nuclear brinkmanship, announcing plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July of this year—a move that would pose an existential threat to Ukraine’s survival. While Kiev has managed to avert defeat, victory—or more practically an end to the war—appears nowhere in sight.

Yet there is one country that is winning from the carnage: China. Just as Beijing sat back and smiled as the United States bled itself in various interventions in the Middle East over the past two decades, it is again doing the same now as Washington has found itself bogged down in yet another protracted and unwinnable war. In the meantime, China has funneled considerable expenditure into its military, modernizing its air and ground forces, expanding its naval forces in East Asia to counter the existing U.S. naval presence, and upgrading its strategic and tactical nuclear stockpile and launch systems. Chinese policymakers understand that continued and costly American forays abroad will only tip the balance of power further in Beijing’s favor. China has also taken advantage of the Ukraine war in its foreign policy, steadily increasing its economic relations with Russia and, according to some China experts, possibly supplying Russia with weapons and ammunition in the near future.

The devastating irony of the situation is that the West became embroiled in a war against Russia at the very moment when it should have been cultivating Russia as a counterbalance against the rise of China. Instead, the West has pushed Russia into the waiting arms of Beijing, which has been more than willing to pursue a “friendship with no limits” with a Russia that has every reason to fear a rising China. Nevertheless, instead of a situation where the United States and Russia are working together to contain China, we instead have one where they are effectively fighting a war against each other in Ukraine. The United States has thus set itself up for a confrontation against two great powers, a situation that only naïve optimists believe the United States can win.

Nilay Saiya is an associate professor of public policy and global affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Rahmat Wadidi is a graduate student in international relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Image: Shutterstock.

The recent visit of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, often simply known as Lula, to Beijing should be a reality check for Washington. Coming on the heels of visits from leaders of France, Spain, Singapore, and Malaysia, plus success brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, it affirms that China is now a global player on the world stage. Its presence is permanent and growing. Yet the United States has not fully accounted for the magnitude of China’s rise, nor for the multipolar system of international relations it augurs.

The U.S. relationship with China has always been defined in binary terms. The “good” China was the pragmatic one; it embraced capitalism following Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978 and fostered illusions that political pluralism, if not democracy, was around the corner. The “bad” one is the increasingly authoritarian Communist China of Xi Jinping, which parted with Deng’s reforms in 2012. This China has centralized power, stifled openness, massively modernized the military in every warfare area, and projected its power in East and Southeast Asia.

Yet China and the United States are stuck in a codependent relationship. Trade and investment ties between the two countries are critical to their prosperity and that of the world economy. The Biden administration’s extension of Donald Trump’s protectionist policies has curtailed trade and made China insecure. China’s rejection of international collaboration in favor of national self-reliance in technological innovation, from AI to quantum computing, has similarly alarmed Washington.

China believes the United States seeks to contain its rise—a far from fanciful notion given that Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia in 2012 was partly intended to reassert America’s military primacy in the Asia-Pacific. The United States, for its part, fears that China will supplant it as the world’s hegemon. Although its relentless growth has been diminished by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the bursting of the real estate bubble, nonperforming loans, and a shrinking labor pool, China is still likely to become the world’s dominant economic power by midcentury. This trajectory and Xi’s repeated verbal sallies that the United States is in fatal decline only intensify American anxieties.

Pressured by public opinion produced by their own rhetoric, Washington and Beijing are demonizing each other, and talk of war is in the air. Critical to retreating from the precipice of conflict is re-establishing a dialogue. Without such a dialogue, there can be no hope of regaining a measure of mutual trust, as Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times on April 14.

Both sides must reduce their attachments to cultural blinders that obstruct compromise. Xi may fancy that China has resurrected its celestial status as the Middle Kingdom, the center of civilization around which the world revolves, but that is an anachronism in a world of emerging powers. Ditto for the culturally ingrained American belief that the United States has been historically destined to redeem a wayward world. The objective of foreign policy is not to transform the world into America’s self-image; it is to defend and enhance the country’s interests in a competitive and often conflictual world.

To advance this objective, eliminate barriers to communication, and rebuild trust between Washington and Beijing, greater emphasis must be placed on diplomacy. Xi must abandon the combative wolf warrior diplomacy driven by hostility toward the West and resume the cooperative and pragmatic approach of Hu Jintao and his predecessors. The United States should put to rest its lingering attachment to unipolarity and the simplistic division of the world into democracies and autocracies. There needs to be a rule of law, but in the multipolar world that is emerging the United States will no longer be the sole rulemaker.

Protecting America’s interests requires retaining a robust military force, one that is well-trained and equipped and operates at a high state of readiness. It is prudent to impose sanctions on dual-use semiconductor chips that China will use to modernize its military capabilities. Publicly communicating America’s social and scientific achievements and its success in improving the quality of life for its citizenry, as Robert Gates has written, will also help to counter Chinese disinformation so long as the message is free of sanctimony. America should present itself as a model for others to emulate rather than as a proselytizing missionary.

Ultimately, the United States must recognize that China’s rise is part of the broader redistribution of global power stimulated by the end of the Cold War. Freed from the constraints of the U.S.-Soviet struggle, emerging countries began to assert their national interests. India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, and other states are intent on replacing a Western-dominated world order with policies that coincide with their objectives.

They favor a rules-based world, as Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar said last year, so long as it does not compromise their interests. Southeast Asian nations refuse to take sides in the U.S.-China conflict; they remain skeptical that the war in Ukraine is the portentous clash of ideologies presented by the West. Conflicting interests prompted fifteen African countries to abstain from the February 2023 UN vote calling on Russia to remove its forces from Ukraine. Competing interests likewise intrude on the solidarity of America’s allies, who wish to avoid becoming “vassals,” as French prime minister Emanuel Macron put it, in a U.S.-China confrontation.

De-dollarization is underway in international trade, in part to avoid U.S. financial sanctions in national security matters. Lula favors the use of alternative currencies to settle cross-border trades, and Bangladesh has recently decided to pay for a Russian nuclear power plant using the Chinese renminbi. Economists and investors such as Nouriel Roubini and Ruchir Sharma maintain that we are headed for a world of currency blocs.

Rising tensions between the United States and China threaten to redivide a world whose cohesion will be crucial to addressing a multitude of problems, among which climate change, poverty, disease prevention, and military conflict loom the largest. In the evolving international political system that is emerging from the ruins of the former U.S.-Soviet condominium, the distribution of power is becoming more dispersed. To maintain a stable world order, it will be increasingly important for both the United States and China to find a middle ground with other regional powers no less intent on having a say in how the world is governed. To avoid a calamitous conflict that would balkanize the world or, far worse, plunge it into a new dark age of perpetual warfare, Washington and Beijing must find a modus vivendi that will allow them peacefully to reconcile their competing interests in a changing world.

Hugh De Santis is a former career officer in the Department of State who served on the Policy Planning Staff, among other assignments, and later chaired the department of national security strategy at the National War College. His latest book is The Right to Rule: American Exceptionalism and the Coming Multipolar World Order.

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