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Plus d'un an que je n'avais publié sur ce blog. Il faut dire que l'Ukraine a pris bien de mon temps et que je consacre finalement mon analyse géopolitique à La Vigie. Dès lors, je vais réorienter ce blog vers d'autres aspects, notamment la BD.

Pour commencer, le dernier Blake et Mortimer, Huit heures à Berlin.

Désormais, il y a dans la série Blake et Mortimer plus d'albums publiés par les suiveurs (19) que par E.P. Jacobs (11). Dans l'ensemble, sauf de rares exceptions (Schuitten voire Ch. Caillaux), les auteurs restent fidèles au trait et à l'esprit du maître. Le comité éditorial est très vigilant à ces principes, ce qui évite les dérives que l'on peut apercevoir dans Spirou, ou de bonnes choses se perdent dans des délires peu intéressants. Chez Blake et Mortimer, la série est maîtrisée, avec un album par an, qui satisfait les Jacobsiens sans les désorienter.

Dans le cas présent, il faut admirer le travail exceptionnel du dessinateur, Antoine Aubin. Tout y est : le trait, les mouvements, les détails mais aussi les citations (telle cette voiture qui plonge dans le lac de Genève, référence à l'affaire Tournesol d'Hergé). C'est absolument bluffant et constitue une réussite exceptionnelle qu'il faut mettre en avant.

En face, le scénario est plaisant mais sans surprendre. Il y a des incohérences (imagine-t-on le chef du MI6 faire l'espion de terrain sans appui ? Comment fait Blake pour passer sans problème d'URSS à Berlin ?) mais  cela fait après tout partie des licences d'un auteur. On a les ressorts classiques d'un roman d'espionage moderne, avec deux héros qui ont des aventures parallèles, trois pages à l'un, trois à l'autre, et qui se retrouvent à la fin. Mais précisément, c'est un peu banal.

Et puis surtout,q uelque chose me gêne beaucoup : jusqu'à présent, les B&M se passaient dans une période d'après-guerre indéterminée : datée mais sans référence à la vraie actualité. La situation politique était le plus souvent absente, malgré quelques citations ici ou là : par exemple, les savants atomiques. Mais finalement, on évitait les personnages historiques et en tout cas, ils ne formaient pas le coeur de l'intrigue. Là au contraire, tout le contexte est désigné : l'URSS et la guerre froide, avec en plus un personnage historique (pas n'importe lequel) qui tien tun rôle important, à savoir JF Kennedy lors de son passage à Berlin pour son discours "Ich bin ein Berliner". Et du coup, nous perdons toute la magie distanciée de B&M qui savait créer un univers en soi, plaqué sur une réalité datable et avec en même temps une dimension fictionnelle fondamentale. Elle a disparu dans cet album ce qui est très dommage. J'ose espérer que ce n'est qu'un ocup de doigt et que les scénaristes ne reprendront pas cette mauvaise méthode.

Pour conclure : un bon album avec un dessin sensationnel et un scénario un peu décevant.

O. Kempf

Zahra Billoo attacked US Jews last year at the American Muslims for Palestine Conference, singling out as 'enemies' not only Jewish organizations but also "Zionist Synagogues." CAIR's national office came to her defense. After all, Billoo is the executive director of their San Franciso branch.

Among those Billoo targeted:

We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses, because just because they are your friends today, doesn’t mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights.

And Billoo also pointed out those Jewish groups that she finds 'acceptable':

Know your JVP leadership, your SJP leadership, your IfNotNow leadership, the list goes on. Know who is on your side. Build community with them, because the next thing I’m going to tell you is to know your enemies.

One would imagine that CAIR would agree with Billoo that groups like JVP and IfNotNow are groups that represent the kinds of Jews that are acceptable and can be associated with.

Which is kind of odd.

Because it is not at all clear if CAIR itself, which claims to be "America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization," actually represents the US Muslim community it claims to serve.

Irina Tsukerman, a human rights lawyer and national security analyst, writes that CAIR is one of those Muslim organizations that have fabricated their human rights image:

through a combination of generous political donations and influence campaigns, and by outright disinformation, presenting themselves as the mainstream of Muslim American communities and as the authoritative voices on Muslim civil rights issues. In reality, these groups are a fringe minority recycling and cross-pollinating members from charity to charity, who nevertheless go to great lengths to suppress alternative voices. CAIR and others receive the sort of support that nascent community organizations do not; they portray themselves as pan-Islamic organizations ignoring the fact that Muslim American communities are culturally and religious diverse.

They have also gained legitimacy by being the only game in town and forming partnerships with political training groups, intelligence agencies and law enforcement, and soft power institutions.

Going a step further, Abdullah Antepli, Associate Professor of the Practice of Interfaith Relations at Duke University, has stated not only that Muslim organizations like CAIR and ISNA represent only a small fraction of the Muslim community in the US, but that such organizations pose a danger to American Muslims as well:

They don’t represent in any significant portion of the American Muslim community. They represent the organized Muslim community space, which is more or less like 10%. And they are bullying and thought policing that space irresponsibly, reprehensive really with so many consequences to the American Islam and American Muslim community.

Their damage is not limited to 10%. They are further alienating American Muslim communities. They are further marginalizing American Islam. They are damaging the image of Islam as a religion and Muslims as Americans, Muslims as a people. But by all means, they are not representative. [emphasis added]

This description of CAIR as a fringe group claiming a larger role for itself than it actually has, is supported by a Gallup poll published in 2011.

The poll supports CAIR's claim to be the largest organization representing the Muslim community -- if you compare it to how tiny the support is for the other groups. However, the fact that the majority of Muslim men did not think any Muslim organizations represented their interests or, put another way, that 88% of Muslim men did not think CAIR represented them is revealing. And the responses of female Muslims was no better.

But why doesn't CAIR have a large following?

In 2007, The Washington Examiner published information on the number of CAIR's members based on CAIR's tax records. It found that CAIR's membership plummeted from 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006. Their annual income based on dues fell from $732,765 in 2000 when dues were $25, to $58,750 in 2016 when dues were higher at $35.

The terror attacks in 2001 may account for some of this.

But the article quotes M. Zuhdi Jasser, director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who puts the blame on CAIR itself:

• CAIR marginalized itself by exploiting the media attention it garnered in order to promote 'victimization issues' at the expense of representing the priorities of the American Muslims
• CAIR's sympathy for Islamism combined with its apparent inability to condemn Muslim terrorist groups was a turn-off for American Muslims who did not share their ideology.
• Some Muslims did not want to join an organization that may be linked to other groups that finance terrorism

According to The Washington Examiner, as a result of a shrinking membership and decreasing dues --

The organization instead is relying on about two dozen donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR’s budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year.

It would have been nice to know more about who was making those contributions because it seems likely that CAIR would have been more representative of the desires of those major contributors than to the few members who were paying dues.

Maybe it's time for another look at CAIR's membership and funding?

Another indication of CAIR's desperation is noted in the conclusion to the article, where it notes how CAIR exaggerates its role on behalf of the Muslim community:

CAIR constantly notes in its press releases that it cooperates with federal law-enforcement activities and claims to conduct sensitivity training for Homeland Security officials. A February press release from CAIR’s Chicago office says it met with Homeland Security immigration officials and made an agreement to “conduct sensitivity training to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers and possibly prison personnel.”

When asked, officials from Homeland Security denied CAIR's claims, and a check of a database of government contracts since 2000 indicated that in fact CAIR was never awarded neither a grant nor a government contract.

A Homeland Security official noted:

The department does not have a formalized relationship with that particular organization. We do have formalized relations with other community groups with whom we do contracts for training and consultation on matters that are specific to a given community.

It is not uncommon for that particular organization to issue a press release attempting to overstate their interaction with the department. [emphasis added]

That was then. But what about now? 

It seems that CAIR is still desperate to stay in the spotlight.
How desperate?

The Middle East Forum (MEF) reported last year that CAIR opposed the appointment of a Muslim federal judge:

In a historic June 10 vote, the US Senate confirmed Judge Zahid Quraishi's appointment to the US District Court for New Jersey, making him the first Muslim federal judge in American history. Although the nomination received bipartisan support, an unlikely source sharply criticized Quraishi's appointment: a leading civil rights organization that claims to speak on behalf of Muslim American interests.

..."I would much rather have a white Christian judge with progressive values," said Zahra Billoo, head of CAIR's San Francisco branch, a supposedly non-partisan Islamic civil rights group. "It's not enough that he is Muslim. In fact, it's insulting," she added.

While the reasons given for opposing Quraishi were based on issues relating to his record, many Muslim groups were supportive of the appointment.

MEF suggests that CAIR's motives stem from jealousy -- and an inability to compete with an up-and-coming rival Muslim group:

Despite its former proximity to the White House, CAIR failed to accomplish what a relative newcomer to Muslim political advocacy circles has achieved in the first months of the Biden administration. Founded in 2017, the American Pakistani Public Affairs Committee (APPAC) is loudly claiming credit for Quraishi's nomination, insisting that it played an "instrumental role" in selecting the judge from among "dozens of potential candidates."
...While CAIR's own political action committee raised a paltry $4,250 in federal donations last election cycle, APPAC gave over $1.3 million to the Biden campaign in a single August fundraiser. During this event, Biden was chummy with Ahmed, calling the APPAC chairman a "vouching force" in his community. [emphasis added]

Billoo's latest attack shows that CAIR is not about to change what it sees as a tried and true formula of radicalization and attacks on the Jewish community to maintain its status, at the expense of American Muslims.

When I asked Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, director of EMET’s Program for Emerging Democratic Voices From the Middle East, about how representative CAIR was of the Muslim community, he replied:

I'm sure a majority of American Muslims are not interested nor invested in any kind of activism and just trying to live normally. However I'm sure CAIR supporters numbers went up due to the radicalizing effect on the progressive wave on Muslim youth.

What will it take before CAIR is seen for what it is?

(Originally posted February 1, 2022 on Elder of Ziyon)

Amos Nachoum a établi de nouvelles normes en matière de photographie sous-marine en prenant des risques énormes. Il a plongé sans cage de sécurité et a capturé des images primées de prédateurs marins. Il raconte ici à la BBC d'où vient sa passion et comment sa relation avec son père l'a façonné en tant qu'homme.

Emile Rakotondrazaka, dit Ramily et considéré comme le grand-père de la photographie malgache, est décédé en 2017. Une exposition à l'espace d'art contemporain Hakanto à Antananarivo, présente son travail dans des portraits inédits de gens ordinaires et de la vie quotidienne.

I was back on the Blog Talk Radio show Midrats this week, talking about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s strategy, what might happen next, and consequences for Russia’s domestic politics. The recording is now available on the show’s website. The show description is as follows:

Episode 621: Russian Military SITREP with Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg

For over 11-years, once a year or so today’s guest has joined us on Midrats to discuss the latest military and national security developments with Russia.

With the war waging in Ukraine and in the process of transitioning to a new phase, there couldn’t be a better time to hear from Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg who will be with us for the full hour in a wide ranging discussion about the buildup to war, and the important takeaways so far.

Here are the abstracts from the latest issue of our Russian Media Analysis newsletter. You can also download the full text PDF version.

1. INVASION OF UKRAINE: NATO STRATEGY

Russian analysts are still focusing on the issue of NATO membership for Ukraine. Many point out that the ongoing war, while leading to a de facto defense arrangement between the “collective West” and Ukraine, has also hindered it from formally joining the alliance. Many authors believe that this is a benefit to Russia, although it has come at the cost of NATO unity and an amplification of arms supplies to Ukraine.

2. INVASION OF UKRAINE: EU STRATEGY

Connected to, although distinct from, the issue of Ukraine’s NATO ambitions, is the desire by its political leadership to join the EU. While Russian commentators are broadly pessimistic about how much defense cooperation there now is between Ukraine and the West, they are more optimistic that Ukraine’s EU bid will remain stalled for the foreseeable future. Although both sides have made many symbolic gestures to signal an agreement for membership down the road, concrete steps are harder to find, and the internal political machinations of the EU will further slow down integration.

3. INVASION OF UKRAINE: RESPONSES TO WESTERN SANCTIONS

More than a dozen articles offer responses to international sanctions against Russia, featuring reactions ranging from optimism to pessimism, and including skepticism and determination to wreak economic havoc on the West. Some serve to reassure the Russian public that even though foreign industries are leaving, they will still be able to access certain goods. Others discuss the prospect of more serious sanctions, such as EU bans on Russian oil and gas imports, or a U.S. sea-route trade embargo against Russia. The authors argue that such measures would introduce a number of cascading effects that would harm countries “hostile to Russia.”

4. INVASION OF UKRAINE: RESPONSES TO NATO MILITARY AID

The details and implications of NATO and U.S. military aid and efforts to arm Ukraine are the subject of several articles. It is evident that there is concern for the unified support that Ukraine is getting from the West, but there remains a confidence in the narrative surrounding Russian capabilities against the perceived lackluster quality of provisions going to Ukraine.

5. INVASION OF UKRAINE: U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Several articles address U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s decision to cancel a Minuteman III missile test following President Putin’s announcement that Russia put its nuclear forces on a “special combat regime duty.” While some experts characterize the test cancellation as an effort to avoid nuclear escalation, one article suspects that it helped avoid drawing attention to the stagnant U.S. nuclear modernization process. An additional article takes issue with the optics and messaging that the U.S. is responsibly conducting nuclear policy, when it has conducted “mock nuclear strikes” in recent exercises and increased the frequency of nuclear-capable aircraft flights near Russia’s border.

6. INVASION OF UKRAINE: PERCEPTIONS OF A NO-FLY ZONE

As Ukraine’s request for a West-enforced no-fly zone remains unmet, Russian commentators caution against the implementation of anything remotely close to it and highlight the escalatory nature of such potential actions by NATO and the U.S..

7. INVASION OF UKRAINE: UKRAINE AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONSPIRACY

A recent issue of the Ministry of Defense newspaper posits the conspiracy theory that “Ukraine’s scientific establishment has sufficient competencies to create a nuclear explosive device.” The content of this article appears to be drawn from a TASS report that cites the Russian intelligence agency SVR as a source of claims that Ukraine had an advanced missile and nuclear weapon program.

8. INVASION OF UKRAINE: THE BIOLABS CONSPIRACY

Coverage of the conspiracy theories about U.S. DTRA reference laboratories in Ukraine continues to proliferate across Russian media sources. It now includes official newspapers as well as MOD and MFA officials. Coverage has also begun to note statements made by Chinese government officials on this issue.

9. CHINESE-RUSSIAN RELATIONS

A number of articles in the Russian press assess the state of the Russian-Chinese relationship as well as China’s diplomatic and economic relations with the United States and the broader West. Many commentators are quick to point out that China is resistant to following along with the West’s sanctions regime against Russia, although also acknowledging that there remains much to be desired in terms of China’s closeness to Russia itself.

10. SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES AND NATO

The ambitions of Scandinavian countries to join NATO continue to be a worry for Russian commentators. Yet given the scale of hostilities in Ukraine, experts are quick to note that parallels with Ukraine-and any potential Russian reaction to new Scandinavian member-states-are improper. Although Russia assesses the membership of Sweden and Finland to NATO in a very negative light, it is clear that this issue is not an existential one compared to Russian perceptions of Ukraine’s or Georgia’s entrance into the alliance.

11. IRAN AND THE JCPOA

Russian commentators have maintained a close watch over U.S. actions and engagement with other OPEC+ and oil suppliers ever since the U.S. sanctioned Russian oil. Analysts have focused on the U.S.-Iran relationship and the relevance of Iranian oil to the JCPOA negotiations. They remain critical of U.S. moral flexibility and assert that the “special military operation” in Ukraine has had a profound impact on long-term global security, as is evidenced by the changing oil environment around the globe.

12. FOREIGN ACQUISITION OF U.S. ARMS

Several articles focus on and are critical of the proliferation of U.S. weaponry abroad. They include the legal sale of arms to Egypt and the resulting arms capabilities of the Taliban after the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

13. U.S. STRATEGY IN THE ASIA PACIFIC

Amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian media maintain a close watch on U.S. policy developments in other areas of the world, especially the Indo-Pacific region.

14. INFORMATION WARFARE

Two articles address alleged acts of “information warfare” against Russia, tending to take on a defensive tone about Moscow’s leadership and the progress of the “special military operation.” The first article responds to recent quotes from U.S. Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby, who noted Russia’s history of use and potential future use of chemical and biological weapons. The second article details alleged activities from the 72nd Center for Information and Psychological Operations (CIPO) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which the article claims was trained by the UK.

15. U.S. AND EUROPEAN MILITARY CAPABILITIES

Several articles report on developments of U.S. and NATO capabilities and weapons systems. One article reports on funding cuts to the U.S. Air Force’s first hypersonic missile, the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). A second article reports on a reorganization of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment that puts combat groups on the first and second island chains of the Pacific at a moment’s notice. A third article reports on Germany’s decision to purchase 35 American F-35A fighter jets to replace the Tornado fighter-bombers it uses to carry American B61 nuclear weapons.

Here are the abstracts from the latest issue of our Russian Media Analysis newsletter. You can also download the full text PDF version.

1. Invasion of Ukraine: Putin’s speech

In a February 24 speech, carried in full by Krasnaya Zvezda, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin gave remarks that sought to provide background and justification to Russian actions in Ukraine. As his past speeches, this one offered an extensive overview of his grievances against the United States and the West and what he perceives as disregard for Russian interests in the post-Cold War order.

2. Invasion of Ukraine: Justifications

Five articles provide various justifications for Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Several identify defending the people of the Donbas region as the primary factor for the invasion, echoing President Putin’s justification of protecting people “who have been subjected to abuse [and] genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.” Others argue that the main reason for the invasion is to protect Russia from the military threat posed by Ukraine’s increasing ties to NATO. Articles also claim that there are Western information operations concerning the motives of Moscow’s military actions.

3. Invasion of Ukraine: Russian Domestic Perceptions

The views of the Russian population on the conflict are still undergoing initial polling, and divergences are expected across polling companies. One company, Russian Field, conducted a poll that Novye Izvestiya reported as being particularly supportive of the conflict. The poll was on the larger side, with 2,000 respondents across Russia.

4. Invasion of Ukraine: Discussions of Western Strategy

A large number of articles discuss Russian perceptions of Western strategy towards Russia and towards the conflict in Ukraine. Articles published before the invasion focus on the role of the United States in fomenting the conflict, and highlight US weaknesses that made Vladimir Putin decide that now was a good time to push to renegotiate the post-Cold War global order. Articles published in the early days of the invasion argue that the West is in the process of realizing that it underestimated Russian power and resolve and is looking to salvage its position.

5. Invasion of Ukraine: Nuclear Issues

Several articles discuss nuclear issues. An article in Topwar.ru argues that the US is potentially considering the infliction of a first disarming strike against Russia. An article in Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie (NVO) discusses the possibility of Belarusian and Ukrainian nuclear weapons. In Gazeta.ru, Irina Al’shaeva writes about the “special combat duty regime” requested by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin for the Russian strategic forces. A Novye Izvestiya article points out that open source researchers have been tracking the movements of the US Boeing E-4B AWACS aircraft on the flight from Lincoln, Nebraska, after the Russian initiation of the Russian war in Ukraine.

6. Invasion of Ukraine: The Threat from NATO

Russian media also focused on the direct threat that NATO poses to Russia and to regional stability in Europe. The articles focused on the destabilizing effect of NATO force deployments near Russia’s border, NATO’s history of using military campaigns to achieve its geopolitical goals, and the risk of a broader conflict between Russia and NATO.

7. Invasion of Ukraine: NATO Enlargement

The potential further enlargement of NATO is both a cause and consequence of the conflict with Ukraine in the eyes of several Russian writers. Framed as a genuine threat to Russia, articles discuss the possibility of Scandinavian states joining the alliance as well as states in the Balkans such as Kosovo. Other writers reiterate the Russian line that NATO was never supposed to expand in the first place.

8. Invasion of Ukraine: Responses to NATO Military Aid

Russian media reflect a variation in attitudes on NATO military aid in Ukraine. Numerous commentators doubt the utility of Western assistance and dismiss it as disinformation; they say that the West is only providing older arms and materials, and criticize the selfish nature of overall Western involvement in the conflict. Other journalists express legitimate concern about the impact that such significant aid could cause in Ukraine. There is an unprecedented coordination of support, and it seems there is some surprise among journalists about the swift nature of such collaboration.

9. Invasion of Ukraine: Ukrainian EU and NATO Membership

Ukrainian membership in EU and NATO is still a point of interest in the media, especially amidst an active invasion in Ukraine. Several articles posit that an acceptance of Ukraine, if it occurs at all, is in the very distant future, especially considering the presence of Russian troops. Others highlight Ukraine’s application as a forced response to Russian assistance in Donetsk and Luhansk and caution that Georgia and Moldova may be likely for EU candidate status as well. Overall, there is a shared opinion that Ukrainian membership in EU and NATO is not out of the question but has been made significantly more complex with current Russian activity in Ukraine.

10. Invasion of Ukraine: Responses to Western Sanctions

Numerous articles in the Russian press discuss the recent sanctions imposed on Russia and largely dismiss the significance of their long-term impact on Russian society, stating that they are more damaging to the West. Media commentators even welcome the challenge, stating that such independence will fix issues of Russia’s import dependence and brain drain. Additionally, the Russian media analyze the challenges that the imposed sanctions will cause for specific Russian industry, such as shipbuilding and aviation capabilities and technology and computer chip development.

11. Invasion of Ukraine: Russia’s Future in the New Order

Several articles focus on how Russia and its role in the world will change in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine. These articles suggest that sanctions will cause some pain but the sacrifice will be worthwhile to achieve the goal of ending the threat posed by an anti-Russian Ukraine and restoring Russia’s greatness and sovereignty. The possibility of increasing internal repression to ensure national unity is also discussed in a positive light.

12. Invasion of Ukraine: Role of Neighboring States

States in the immediate vicinity of Ukraine are seen as potentially vital interlocutors in both the positive and negative sense for several Russian commentators. Poland and the wider east-central European NATO member-states are viewed as having taken a turn towards a decisive rearmament and preparation for future conflict. Meanwhile, Belarus holds its position as a key Russian ally, underlining its important role for Moscow as a constituent part of the Russian-Belarusian “Union State” and very likely a further consolidation of de facto Russian control over more elements of Belarus’ statehood and independence.

13. Invasion of Ukraine: Turkey’s Position

Russian commentators remain concerned about Turkey’s role in the Russo-Ukrainian War and the geopolitical fallout from the conflict. Perspectives vary, from those who note Turkey’s unwillingness to go along with the full spectrum of sanctions proposed by European and North American states, to others who reiterate the concern about the longer-term designs of Turkey’s leadership in the broader Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, and even Central Asian states. Observers are particularly wary of Turkey’s naval presence, which for some is described as a genuine threat to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, alongside Turkey’s ability to block passage through the straits. The growing role of Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 combat drones also add impetus to commentator concerns.

14. Invasion of Ukraine: The Biolabs Conspiracy

Several articles once again raise the conspiracy theory about the role of US DTRA reference labs in the former Soviet Union states, but this time in Ukraine, referencing recent coverage in the UK newspaper Expose. In an article in Sovetskaya Rossia, Valentin Kasatonov argues that “US military biolabs in Ukraine” are the reasons for Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. In Topwar.ru, Yevgeniy Fedorov provides more conspiracy theories that the labs are a part of growing NATO infrastructure in Ukraine.

15. China’s Geopolitical Position

Russian commentators have noted the parallels between Russia’s ongoing intervention into Ukraine—and the West’s reaction—and China’s presumed geopolitical designs for Taiwan. Some argue that while such parallels exist, they do not necessarily mean that China intends to support Russia’s goals in Ukraine. Indeed, they argue that it is possible that this could be a major test of the strength of the Russian-Chinese relationship at the highest levels. Others are more sanguine about the relationship and argue that this provides a potential test-case for a future Chinese effort to retake Taiwan.

16. Russia-Nicaragua Relations

Although most commentary in Russia remains focused on events in Eurasia and Eastern Europe, some look to other parts of the world as a means of shoring up the global picture of Russia’s alliances and international relationships. An article in NVO looks to the political regime in Nicaragua. It argues that there is a friendly face in this Central American country, and that Russia can use it as “something [with which] to respond to US pressure in Europe” by further improving relations with this “soft underbelly of the United States.”

17. Information and Hybrid Warfare

Several articles discuss how Russians understand the US/NATO approaches to information warfare and hybrid warfare. An article by Aleksandr Bartosh focuses on what he explains is a hybrid warfare in US and NATO strategies. An article in Krasnaya Zvezda focuses on the Western concept of “cognitive warfare.” In an article in Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er (VPK), Sergey Korotkov argues that the “heat of information (hybrid) war [against Russia] has reached a critical point.” In another VPK article, Leontiy Shevtsov analyzes what he calls “US and NATO information warfare operations.”

18. Shortcomings of the US Military

One article responds to US Navy chief of staff Michael Gilday’s recent comments that the Navy needs a fleet of more than 500 ships to meet its commitments in the forthcoming National Defense Strategy, noting that US shipbuilding capacity will be a major obstacle to reaching that goal. A second article examines the evolution of US aircraft carriers, and argues that the capabilities of current air wing configurations to counter an enemy are “significantly lower than they were” in the 1970s and 1980s. A third article examines US missile and air defense capabilities, arguing that capabilities were inefficiently developed due to US overconfidence in its pilots and aircraft.

19. US and European Military Capabilities

Three articles discuss developments of specific US and European capabilities and systems. One article discusses the US Navy’s public launch of its Snakehead underwater drone, “which apparently is being created in analogue to the Russian Poseidon submarine platform.” A second article discusses the US Space Force’s Deep space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) project, which “will allow the delivery of accurate strikes against enemy satellites, and will also complete the formation of a unified system for coordinating the actions of the US armed forces around the planet.” A third article discusses the “Eurodrone” project between Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

I’m going to be participating in the following panel tomorrow. Great lineup, encourage those interested to sign up.

Yesterday, together with Pavel Baev I participated in a Marshall Center panel on the regional fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. My colleague Graeme Herd put together the following summary of the discussion…

This is a summary of the discussion at the latest workshop of the current series of online Russia Seminar Series (RSS) webinars held on March 8, 2022 by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (GCMC) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. The summary reflects the overall tenor of the discussion, and no specific element necessarily should be presumed to be the view of either of the participants.

Context

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a devastating impact on humanitarian conditions within Ukraine itself. Critical national infrastructure in Ukraine is under attack. Ukraine’s transport system, hospitals and communication networks are being degraded. The UNHCR reports that over 2 million Ukrainians, mainly women and children, have become refugees in neighboring countries, particularly Poland. At the same time, Russian military advances in Ukraine appear to have stalled in most operational theatres. Explanations for this unexpected outcome include logistical difficulties, poor planning, long and vulnerable supply lines, and an inability to execute combined arms warfare effectively. In places where Russia has taken territory, a hostile civil population protests in the rear, even in Russian-speaking regions such as Kherson. Can captured territory be held?

However, the picture is fluid and Russia is not yet fully committed. While Russia will seek to bombard the pivots and hubs used to supply military materiel through Poland and Romania, its usable precision guided weapon stockpile for this “special military operation” is fast depleting, though reserves are available for operations against NATO. Ukraine is able to create reserve battalions around Lviv and receive air defense and anti-tank capabilities. Poland has offered to hand over its entire inventory of 23 MiG-29 fighter aircraft to the US at Ramstein Air Base in Germany for potential transfer to Ukraine pending a NATO decision. These combat aircraft can be flown by Ukrainian pilots. Romania, Slovakia and Hungary also have MiG-29s in their inventories and some or all of these could also be provided to Ukraine. Russia does not have the troop to task ratio to occupy an unwilling Ukraine. And Ukrainian resistance is growing, with the calculation in Kyiv that any deal made today will not be as good as the one made a week from now.

This deadlock is dangerous as Putin needs a “special military operation” victory to support his “everything going according to plan” narrative. Thus, if “victory is not possible and defeat is not an option” – if the choice is between bloody debilitating occupation or withdrawal – then Putin may seek to escalate by opening new fronts to present the Russian public with distracting mini-breakthroughs and victories in the wider region. Short-term risks in the Black Sea region appears highest. Longer-term risks include disruptions to energy and food exports from Russia and Ukraine, and conflicts around Exclusive Economic Zones in the Black Sea, for example, as borders are redrawn but not recognized. This summary identifies short and longer term spillover risks in both regions.

Black Sea Region

Had the “special military operation” actually gone to plan, Kyiv would have fallen within 2-4 days, and in a “best case” scenario from a Russian perspective, resistance would implode and Ukraine suffer sullen occupation. At this point the risks of spillover to Moldova and Georgia would have been much higher. The ideological narrative constructed by Putin around “Slavic unity” and regathering “ancient Russian lands” may have included Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. If not, then this would have suggested EU membership was off the cards for both states and imposed neutrality (“demilitarization”) would have been attempted by Russia.

However, without first capturing Odesa (still possible through a combined air assault and amphibious landing operation) and finding troops to occupy Ukraine in the context of a hostile and debilitating insurgency, military operations into Moldova do not appear viable. Transnistrian forces themselves have no offensive capability and rail links to Odesa region from Tiraspol are cut. Thus, while in Moldova pro-Russian parties and opposition groups in the breakaway Dniester region and the pro-Russian Gagauzia oppose EU accession, Russia aggression in Ukraine propels the majority of the society to support this westward economic and normative reorientation, as is the case in Georgia.

However, the seizure of Georgian territory is possible. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been remarkably passive and inactive and still has the reserves and capacity to act. The seizure of Poti region in Georgia is a possibility, supported by Chechen forces formally subordinated to Russia’s Rosgvardia (National Guard) but actually under the control of Ramzan Kadyrov. If Putin’s power weakens, Kadyrov may also plan to act more autonomously into the Pankisi Gorge, even if in the name of Putinism and justified with reference to Russian national goals. In such circumstances, Azerbaijan might look to complete “unfinished business” towards Nagorno-Karabakh.

In Georgia itself, the Russian invasion of Ukraine further polarizes society. There is pressure on Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili and ‘Georgia Dream’ party who have adopted a “neutral” policy towards Russia. Neutrality translates into a policy of not supporting international sanctions and keeping Georgia’s air space open to Russian aircraft. Since 24 February opposition rallies in Tbilisi have protested daily against the Russian invasion outside the Georgian Parliament, demanding: 1. A visa regime with Russia; 2. Banning Russian media/propaganda outlets in Georgia; and 3. Closing Georgia’s airspace to Russia.

The role of Turkey is pivotal. Turkey attempts to avoid alienating Russia by keeping its air space open to Russian commercial flights and not applying sanctions. As a result, Turkey, like Georgia, is not included on the Russian list of hostile states. However, Turkey does send effective military aid (drones) to Ukraine. Turkey, citing Article 19 of the Montreux Convention, has closed the entrance to the Black Sea to the navies of the parties to the conflict. With its “sea bridge” unable to function, Russia is forced to resupply Syria using a more expensive and more limited air bridge. This in turn weakens Russia’s presence in Syria relative to Turkey’s. At the same time, the US and NATO face a difficult choice regarding the sending of combat ships into the Black Sea in support of Bulgaria and Romania. Turkey attempts to dissuade allies from requesting access, but the need to protect two exposed allies is growing.

Baltic Sea Region

The risk of spillovers into the Baltic-Nordic region are less than the Black Sea region, at least in the short-term and while the “active phase” of Russian aggression in Ukraine is ongoing. Risks associated with Kaliningrad proves to be the exception to this general rule. If the closure of air space is joined by cutting rail links to Kaliningrad, then this could generate a Russian kinetic response. In addition, reports of resignations and refusal of Belarusian officers and soldiers to follow orders and deploy to Ukraine suggest that Lukashenka’s regime may be less stable than supposed. Does Russia have the spare capacity to bolster Belarus, when Rosgvardia is needed at home as a praetorian safeguard to quell protest potential in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities in Russia?

The Estonian Center Party has severed ties to the United Russia Party. On 5 March, 103 members of its extended board, with no abstentions, voted to rescind the cooperation protocol signed in 2004. In Latvia, though, the polarization of society is a danger, with pro-Russian supporters using provocative rhetoric to radicalise their potential voters ahead of parliamentary elections. Two potential conflict dates loom – the commemoration of Latvian Legionnaires on 16 March and the Soviet Victory Day on 9 May. Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis has stated that Vilnius has no red lines regarding possible sanctions against Russia – including oil and gas.

Non-aligned Finland and Sweden seek even closer defense cooperation with each other and with NATO. Indeed, the potential for NATO membership has increased and this will lead to heightened tension in medium to long-term. Defense spending is set to increase in all Baltic States. Lithuania adds an extra $0.5bn and its parliament agrees to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP. Spending will likely be on deterrent gaps in capabilities necessary to counter Russia’s way of war, such as air defense and drones.

Points of escalation might be driven by the possible use of thermobaric bombs in Kyiv, and/or the slaughter of Ukrainian refugee convoys struggling to reach the Polish border from Lviv. Such horrific violence would stress-test to destruction the ability of NATO member states to achieve all three of its objectives: 1) apply sanctions to Russia and provide humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine; 2) uphold
national interests, democratic values and principles; and 3) avoid miscalculation, spillover and escalation. As RHSS#3 summary noted: “In the context of mass civilian casualties, how does the West calibrate and balance moral principles that reflect its values with pragmatic approaches in line with interests? At what point does “responsibility to protect” trump other considerations?” Almost certainly risk calculus in NATO would change, with a much greater emphasis on alleviating immediate suffering and the “responsibility to protect”.

Conclusions

• The invasion has also shaken the Putin regime in Russia. The Putinist system, born in the violence of the Second Chechen campaign, has grown organically over the last 23 years. It weathered the ‘Moscow Maidan’ protests of 2011-12 and was boosted by the Crimea annexation of 2014. Putin and the players in the system understood the rules of the game, how these rules could be enforced and the necessity of a balance between the normative state, parastatal entities and oligarchs. In 2022, the pressure of sanctions disrupts and destabilizes oligarchs, the business models of parastatal entities and the normative state moves to a war footing, its lead representatives complicit in the war and war crimes.

• In this context, escalation does not have just to be horizontal – a spillover into the wider region – but it can be vertical. The possibility of an accidental radioactive discharge due to Russian attack on nuclear power plant is high. If nuclear signaling is needed, Russia could withdrawal from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and then promptly stage a nuclear test to intimidate and deter. A low likelihood event involves a Russian “false flag” operation around CBRNE might be considered. A “dirty bomb” fits Russian media narratives that a US-controlled “neo-Nazi” regime would practice genocidal “nuclear terrorism”. The function of this narrative could be to provide a retroactive justification for invasion – prevention of nuclear terrorism – and to place the blame for any nuclear radiation leakage on Kyiv. Such leakages would massively impact on refugee flows westwards. For Putin such flows would be understood in terms of an asymmetric responses by Russia to western pressure.

• Might Putin be tempted to declare martial law or a state of emergency in Russia? Putin may calculate that full mobilization is a necessary means to offset 1) battlefield losses through conscription; 2) economic isolation and rent redistributions to shore up elite support; and 3) evidence the idea that this is an existential fight for Russia, that Ukraine is merely the territory upon which Russia battles the real enemy – NATO. Such reasoning concludes that once battle is joined all measures are justified by Russia if this leads to the defeat of NATO.

• If such reasoning prevails, martial law and mobilization in Russia could prove to be the second and last strategic blunder by Putin. Russian military reforms introduced by Defense Minister Serdyukov 2009-2012 means mass mobilization is not possible – the Russian military does not have the capacity or infrastructure to train such large numbers. Moreover, such a move might precipitate a societal revolt, one in which the Russian security services would struggle to maintain order. Alternatively, it could encourage a military coup, with a charismatic and politically acceptable Defense Minister Shoigu at its head. Given “everything is forever until it is no more”, the entourage and inner-circle around Putin may well calculate that the president himself is the problem and his removal the solution.

• Fear of failure in Ukraine and fear of revolt and removal in Russia likely increases Putin’s isolation and paranoia. He may then adopt a differentiated understanding of risk. At home he is risk averse. Martial law or declaring a state of emergency is avoided. Putin likely compensates by accepting greater risk abroad. This suggests a Black Sea Fleet “special military operation” against Poti could come into focus, or Russia looks to conducts a dirty bomb “false flag” operation in Ukraine. In Putin’s mind, both options would create disruptive situations to generate options and new opportunities for leverage and exploitation.

I was on the Defense One Radio Podcast on Friday, together with some other guests, talking about the larger context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. You can listen or read the transcript here. Here’s a sample:

Watson: I’m wondering, what is your read on this next generation of power brokers in Russia, and their interest in Putin’s kind of, you know, revanchist tendencies here?

Gorenburg: It’s, you know, it’s really hard to tell what, how things, you know, what any of these next generation people really think. And, you know, one movie that I think is well worth watching, not just for the history, but also for just when you start thinking about how a bunch of psychopaths interact with the Supreme Leader’s, is the “Death of Stalin.” And you see that kind of cow-towing, right? But also, what the actual history of that time tells us is that the survivors, the people who stuck around in positions of power became very good at hiding their true beliefs while Stalin was around. And so, we don’t really know what a lot of these people think, because the ones that had clear positions that were contrary to what Putin wants have been sidelined.

…

Watson: What are the long-game considerations that maybe the U.S. officials in the policy community may not have been thinking about as much as perhaps they ought to? 

Gorenburg: Well, I think we’re heading into clearly a time of NATO-Russia confrontation. A lot will depend on how this goes. If this goes well and easily for Putin, then I think the appetite may increase. If it becomes complicated and painful, then there’ll be a time of reckoning, recalculation, or even just a time of trying to assimilate what’s been gained. But if it does go well, then I worry a bit about Moldova, honestly.

Here are the abstracts from the latest issue of our Russian Media Analysis newsletter. You can also download the full text PDF version.

This newsletter covers developments up to February 21, 2022. Russian media discussions of Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics on February 21, 2022, as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, will be covered in the following issue.

1. HIGHLIGHTS OF PUTIN SPEECH

The key points of Vladimir Putin’s speech on February 21 include the following: Ukraine is preparing for a conflict with Western military support. Ukraine will seek to create nuclear weapons, or potentially get Western assistance to do so. Ukraine joining NATO is just a matter of time. Ukraine in NATO is a “direct threat to Russian security.” The US and NATO have sought not only to arm and train but also to integrate Ukraine’s military. These actions present a threat to Russia. NATO military bases are already present in Ukraine. Previous rounds of NATO expansion have not led to an improvement in relations with Russia, as the West has promised. Russia has unsuccessfully sought to cooperate with the West in various formats. Instead, the West has “cheated” and NATO infrastructure is now on Russia’s doorstep. US missile defense and strike capabilities are expanding and will pose a threat to Russia from Ukrainian territory. The West has “ignored” Russian proposals to resolve the current situation and this will have consequences.

2. PERCEPTION OF US GOALS IN THE CRISIS

Several articles discuss Russian perceptions of what the United States is looking to achieve in the current confrontation between the West and Russia. They focus on US domestic problems and fears of a loss of world domination as reasons that Washington is provoking a confrontation with Russia. They also suggest that the current confrontation is just the culmination of a long-term US plan to weaken Russia. They also argue that the US feels that Russia has little to offer in the way of potential concessions to end the crisis.

3. RUSSIAN GOALS IN THE CONFRONTATION

Several articles discuss Russian goals in the confrontation with the West and what Russia has achieved. Unlike Western analysts, who tend to focus on efforts to stop NATO enlargement or reorient Ukraine, Russian analysts address possibilities such as averting a new European missile crisis or forcing Ukraine to carry out the Minsk agreements. Russian achievements during the confrontation including bringing the US and its European allies to the negotiating table on major security issues, while negative consequences include reinforcing Western unity and creating a more negative perception of Russia in the West.

4. THE CONSEQUENCES OF WAR AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Two authors discuss the potentially dangerous consequences for Russia of a war in Ukraine, while several offer possible solutions to the crisis. Writing from opposing perspectives, a conservative commentator and a liberal former FSB general agree that Russia is not prepared for war in Ukraine and for confrontation with the West. Possible solutions to the crisis focus primarily on the possibility of a neutral Ukraine, though some propose a broader array of confidence-building measures to reduce the extent of confrontation in Europe as a whole.

5. IMPLICATIONS OF US AND EUROPEAN SANCTIONS

Numerous articles in the Russian press discuss and even dismiss the potential implications of US efforts to impose sanctions on Russia. In Gazeta.ru, Anatoliy Akulov analyzes the challenges of US consensus-building among European actors to sanction Nordstream 2. In Topwar.ru, Aleksandr Staver critiques US targeted sanctions against Russia, arguing that they in essence view the children of Russian investors in the UK as hostages. In Izvestiya, Mariya Vasil’eva focuses on the sanctions’ potential impact on the Russian embassies abroad, arms exports, and electronics, among others. In Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er (VPK), Vladimir Eranosyan writes about the challenges that the US faces in making good on its threat to disconnect Russia from SWIFT as well as about the INSTEX system created in the wake of Iran’s disconnect from SWIFT. Finally, in another article in VPK, Vitaliy Orlov writes about how Russia could transition away from the use of the US dollar for exports of Russian armaments abroad.

6. WESTERN FORCE DEPLOYMENTS GARNER RUSSIAN ATTENTION

As the crisis between Ukraine and Russia heats up, Russian authors have been quick to point out new military deployments by Western powers in the region. American deployments to Poland and Slovakia have been of interest, as well as UK support elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Overall, the articles view these deployments as ominous, but also par for the course given the bellicose trajectory of interstate relations in recent months.

7. UKRAINE ARMS FOR WAR

Many articles in the Russian press are reviewing current political and military tensions surrounding Ukraine. Taking a variety of tacks, articles largely focus on the state of the Ukrainian military and its support by Western powers. They encompass details about military equipment and technology transfers, discuss the broader abilities of the Ukrainian armed forces, and launch critical broadsides against Ukraine’s perceived bellicose position relative to Russia and the separatist republics.

8. BELARUS AIDS IN RUSSIA’S MILITARY BUILDUP

Cooperation between Russia and Belarus are a point of interest for several observers, especially as tensions continue to ratchet up with neighboring Ukraine. Belarus and Russia are jointly undertaking combined-arms military exercises in the form of “Union Resolve – 2022,” which some view as a further step away from any putative neutrality by Belarus. Others noted that Belarus has taken a hard line vis-à-vis Ukraine in terms of public declarations of support for Russia’s side, which is a shift from previous years. Finally, a military doctrine for the Russo-Belarusian Union State has been recently approved, which has further underlined the considerable alignment between the two countries.

9. TURKEY AS A MEDIATOR FOR THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT

An Izvestiya article interviews Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, who discusses Ankara’s offer to mediate the Russia-Ukraine crisis. While Turkey claims that it is “the only country” that can meet both Russia and Ukraine halfway to find resolution, the ambassador has doubts of Turkey’s impartiality, noting its “well-known military-technical ties with Ukraine.” Moreover, the ambassador suggests that Ankara may not adequately understand the extent of Russia’s grievances. He states, “If our Turkish partners can influence the Ukrainians and encourage them to fulfill the previously-made [Minsk] agreements and obligations, this can be welcomed.”

10. SIVKOV CAUTIONS US ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR

In VPK, Russian commentator Konstantin Sivkov extrapolates from what he alleges to have been a statement made by Gen. David Goldfein about “three steps to destroy Russia.” He concludes that a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia would be fatal for both Russia and the United States—and lead to the dominance of other states in the international system. This, he notes, should force “global and US elites to think—should they free up a “place in the sun” for others?”

11. PERSPECTIVES ON INFORMATION WARFARE

In a February 11 article in Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie (NVO), Yuriy Yur’ev writes about the concept of information warfare as a “component part of hybrid warfare” and traces the evolution of US information warfare concepts, arguing that Russia has lost the initiative to its opponents in this area. In Krasnaya Zvezda, Oleg Martynov discusses the creation in Poland of a cyber defense force. This article traces the evolution of US and NATO concepts in the cyber domain and posits that NATO has long “viewed the cyber sphere as a domain for military action.”

12. NEXUS OF CRIMINALS AND TERRORISTS IN HYBRID WARS AND COLOR REVOLUTIONS

In VPK, Konstantin Strigunov focuses on the nexus of criminal and terrorist groups as a potential globalization trend that weakens state governments. He argues that criminal, terrorist, and other groups are also utilized in “non-classical wars” such as hybrid wars and color revolutions.

13. US EXERCISES AND WEAPONS SYSTEMS

VPK and Kommersant discuss US and allied exercises and weapons systems. In Kommersant, Marianna Belen’kaya discusses Western reactions to the Russo-Belarusian Allied Resolve 2022 exercises and Russian commentators’ perspectives on military activities in the region. In VPK, authors discuss US presence in the Mediterranean for the Neptune Strike-2022 exercises, the testing of the joint air-to-ground missile, and US ballistic and cruise missile programs.

14. CHINESE-RUSSIAN STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Several articles reported on the meetings between presidents Putin and Xi on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics: the leaders declared that there were no limits to their strategic partnership; they vowed to counter instances of foreign interference in internal affairs; and Beijing announced that it joins Putin in opposing further NATO expansion. While some articles gloat at these new developments, others are more cautious—noting drawbacks and inequities in the alliance in the context of the Ukraine conflict. Another article argues that the US is trying to use Ukraine to drive a wedge between China and Russia.

15. KURIL ISLANDS DEVELOPMENTS; RUSSIAN-JAPANESE RELATIONS

Several articles report on an alleged US Virginia-class submarine incident that occurred near the Kuril Islands on February 12, which the Russian Ministry of Defense characterized as “a gross violation of international law.” According to reports, the submarine entered Russian territorial waters during a planned Russian military exercise, ignored warning messages instructing the vessel to surface, and was chased away by a Russian frigate. Other articles discuss the Japanese-Russian territorial dispute surrounding the South Kuril Islands, and how potential anti-Russian sanctions from Tokyo might affect the bilateral relationship.

16. IRAN NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS

Two articles discuss the US decision to reintroduce sanction waivers to Iran in hopes of reviving the nuclear negotiations. In an interview, the Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna notes that this step “should have been taken long ago” but welcomes the decision. A different article questions whether this is enough to save the Iran deal, noting Tehran’s lack of enthusiasm in response to the waivers, and the lack of trust that a diplomatic resolution would be upheld by future US administrations.

Here are the abstracts from the latest issue of our Russian Media Analysis newsletter. You can also download the full text PDF version.

1. The Ukraine Crisis: Views of US-Russia Negotiations

Negotiations between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine-Russia crisis are widely discussed across Russian media, from a variety of angles. Most commentators are in agreement that the United States and its allies are engaging in bad-faith negotiations, given their continued military-technical support for Ukraine, although some note concern with Russian posture. The negotiations themselves are seen as a first step, and meetings with Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov, as well as the formal diplomatic response from the United States to Russia over their treaty proposals, are treated in a variety of ways.

2. The Ukraine Crisis: Perceptions of US Strategy

In discussing the current confrontation between the United States and Russia, a number of publications consider causal factors affecting US strategy. The focus is on the impact of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and its effect on US assessments of geopolitical risks and US aggressiveness. The articles also discuss the US predilection for narcissism and double standards. Some analysts do note the clear rejection of a military response by US leadership as leaving open the possibility of a compromise solution.

3. The Ukraine Crisis: Discussion of Russia’s Strategy

Russian media published a number of articles discussing Russian goals and strategy in the Ukraine crisis. Several articles focus on Russia’s need for security guarantees as a key driver of the current crisis. Other articles suggest that Russia’s real concern is not NATO enlargement per se but specifically the placement of NATO military hardware near Russia’s borders. Others suggest that in provoking a crisis now, Russia is reacting to a perception of weakness on the part of the United States in order to push the US into making concessions on Russian security demands.

4. The Ukraine Crisis: Signals of Potential Elite Unease

Two articles highlight the possibility of concerns within the Russian military about how an invasion of Ukraine would play out. The two authors, both well connected with segments of the Russian military and defense industry, suggest that a Russian military intervention in Ukraine could go badly and does not correspond to Russian national interests.

5. The Ukraine Crisis: Reaction to Potential US Sanctions

In Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er (VPK), Vladimir Vasil’yev of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies (ISKRAN) argues that the Russia sanctions bill proposed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Menendez is “Cold War 2.0 legislation.” Vasil’yev notes that one way to interpret the bill is that it intends sanctions to “speed up and ease the Ukraine’s accession” to NATO. In a Topwar.ru article focused on how sanctions on exports of high technologies to Russia can be incredibly damaging to the Russian economy, Andrey Mitrofanov posits that US sanctions seek to turn Russia into North Korea 2.0.

6. The Ukraine Crisis: Reactions to Western Military Activities and “Information Warfare”

Numerous articles in the Russian press focus on the US deployments to Europe and the shifts in force postures and military activities in the region. Kommersant describes the state of “information warfare” and “hysteria” around Ukraine. Nezavisimaya Gazeta describes the military exercises and troop movements in the region, noting that NATO “assumes Russian aggression against Ukraine, [while] the Russian-Belarusian side [is concerned about] the possibility of NATO provocations that could push Kiev to resolve the problem of Donbass and Luhansk by force. Anton Lavrov, Roman Kretsul, and Andrey Fedorov discuss changes in the US force posture in Europe and quote a former Ministry of Foreign Affairs official as saying that some can be regarded as a “menacing maneuver.”

7. The Ukraine Crisis: Military Aid to Ukraine

More than 10 articles report on training and military aid to Ukraine, including new shipments from the US and UK, as well as transfers of US weapons from the Baltics, UAVs from Turkey, and artillery shells from the Czech Republic. While one article suggests that the acquisition of these new capabilities proves Ukraine’s intent to invade the Donbas, most are skeptical that these weapons provide Ukraine with any new meaningful capability.

8. The Ukraine Crisis: Ukrainian Military Developments

Several articles report on Ukrainian military developments “which confirm the fact that it is preparing for aggression against the [Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics].” Two articles report on movements of the 58th Separate Motorized Infantry and 53rd and 54th Separate Motorized Brigades, transport of portable demining units, military exercises near Crimea, and Zelensky’s decree to increase the size of armed forces by 100,000. A Topwar.ru article argues that Ukraine has been preparing to take back the Donbas by force since 2014. A fourth article reports on the low morale of Ukrainian troops.

9. Reactions to NATO Development Plans

Several articles address how NATO is planning to develop in the near to medium term and the threat that the organization’s plans pose to Russia. The topics include the expansion of NATO’s zone of operations to new territories, such as the Middle East, and new domains, such as space. NATO enlargement and its aggressive militarism, in the context of an overwhelming conventional force superiority over Russia, are highlighted as the main threats to Russia. The possibility of an unwanted NATO-Russia war being caused by Ukraine is also mentioned.

10. Scandinavia and NATO Enlargement

Yevgeny Fedorov, writing in Topwar.ru, discusses the possibility of Sweden and Finland joining NATO. He argues that even though the two countries recently reiterated that they are not currently interested in joining the alliance, they retain the right to join at any point in the future while remaining so closely integrated with the alliance that membership would be merely a formal change in status.

11. Concerns About Turkish Expansionism

An article in VPK discusses how Turkey is increasingly being used by the US and UK as a proxy to contain Russia on its southern flank and to pursue expansionist ambitions in Central Asia. The article argues that despite some tensions with its NATO allies, Turkey remains firmly committed to the alliance’s strategy to weaken Russia by forcing it to defend all of its borders and to impact its economy by creating alternative energy sources for Europe.

12. Potential Russian Military Development in the Caribbean

Two articles discuss potential Russian military developments in Caribbean states-namely, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. A Topwar.ru article argues that because NATO is “increasingly, unceremoniously settling in close to Russia’s borders from the Barents to the Black Sea,” including US missile deployment, Russia is forced to respond in kind. A Novye Izvestiya article argues that while US influence on Venezuela and Cuba may prevent them from being viable hosts of Russian military bases, Nicaragua may be a more suitable option. Both articles acknowledge the challenges associated with challenging US hegemony in the region.

13. US Support for Japan’s Military Goals

Russian commentators continue to be concerned about a further deepening of the US-Japanese security relationship, arguing that Japan’s military-strategic plans to reemerge as an important player in East Asia have led it to follow the US lead on geopolitical issues elsewhere. Writing in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Valery Kistanov explores the question of why Japan wishes to become a military power, and what it is willing to sacrifice in order to achieve this. Although suspicious of Japan’s claims to be concerned about national security, he nevertheless writes that it is necessary to take this as-is and focus on the fact that a considerable military buildup is in its early stages.

14. Chinese-Russian Relations as a ‘Biathlon’

The Olympic Games in Beijing may bring about renewed and strengthened diplomatic ties, according to Yuri Tavrovsky, the head of the Expert Council of the Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace, and Development. Writing in Moskovskii Komsomolets, Tavrovsky argues that upcoming meetings between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in the context of the games are a perfect venue for continuing down a line of close cooperation between the two at a personal level.

15. The CSTO in Central Asia Versus NATO

The deployment of CSTO forces into Kazakhstan during political troubles earlier in January has led to some Russian analysts to reappraise the organization. One article in Gazeta.ru by Viktor Sokirko and Dmitry Mayorov attempted to assess the CSTO’s military capabilities at the alliance level. They argue that in fact the CSTO, while inferior to NATO in general, is more than capable of maintaining order in Central Asia and ensuring a form of moderate collective defense. This is more than sufficient, given that the CSTO has very different goals from NATO in the first place, according to the authors.

16. Russian-Iranian Cooperation and Reactions to JCPOA Negotiations

Topwar.ru provides an update on the JCPOA negotiations and expressed criticism of the US position in the talks, highlighting Russian opposition to artificial deadlines. An article in Ekspert about the recent visit by Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi to Moscow highlights areas of Russo-Iranian cooperation, and says that the visit was aimed at securing Russian support in the face of US pressure for additional concessions from Iran as part of JCPOA negotiations.

Here are the abstracts from the latest issue of our Russian Media Analysis newsletter. You can also download the full text PDF version.

1. Russian perceptions of the NATO threat

Several articles describe Russian perceptions of NATO and the threat that it poses to Russian security. They focus on the role of the alliance as a weapon of US domination in Europe, the threat posed to Russia by NATO’s previous expansion to the east, and the possibility that it could expand further to include Sweden, Finland, or Georgia. These Western actions can be countered either by NATO and the United States providing binding security guarantees to Russia or by Russia extending its security border to the Soviet Union’s previous western border in Belarus and Ukraine.

2. Karaganov argues that NATO is a metastasizing “cancer” that needs to be “limited territorially”

On January 19, the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty interviewed Sergey Karaganov, dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, on the state of Russia’s relations with the US and NATO. In the interview, Karaganov also discusses Russia’s intentions in Ukraine, contrasts Russia with the Soviet Union, and discusses potential steps that Russia could take in response to the ongoing crisis.

3. US-Russia diplomatic engagements

During this reporting period, recent diplomatic efforts are frequently mentioned. These include US-Russia talks in Geneva, NATO-Russia talks in Brussels, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) talks in Vienna, and a phone conversation between Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary Blinken. Several articles discuss Russia’s motivation behind the talks, which followed unrealistic demands for security guarantees and largely ended in stalemate. They also discuss what lies ahead.

4. Plans for US sanctions against Russia

Several articles highlight potential US plans to further strengthen sanctions against Russia. Draft US plans to impose personal sanctions against top Russian officials are dismissed as unlikely. However, the possibility of serious measures to limit interactions with Russian financial institutions and to prohibit the transfer of a wide range of technology to Russia (and the use of that technology by Russia) is taken more seriously. Russia could respond with highly disruptive countermeasures and may see the most severe measures as, in effect, a declaration of war.

5. The West prepares for conflict

Russian media published extensive discussions of statements being made by Western officials in response to Russia’s deployment of forces near Ukraine. These articles focus on the deployment of additional NATO forces to Eastern Europe, reports about the evacuation of Western and Russian embassy personnel from Kyiv, and US efforts to find alternative sources of natural gas for EU member states that would be engaged in a conflict with Russia.

6. NATO, Russia-Belarus military exercises

One article discusses NATO’s upcoming Cold Response exercise, which will take place in late March and early April and will include 35,000 military personnel from 28 states. The article notes that “such large-scale exercises as Cold Response-2022 have not been held in Norway since the 1980s.” Earlier in the year, on February 10–20, Russia and Belarus will hold joint military exercises, titled “Allied Resolve.” Two articles discuss the size, scope, and motivation of the maneuvers. A fourth article reports that the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau requested that NATO hold military exercises in the region in response to the joint Russian-Belarusian exercises.

7. Nuclear risk reduction and potential Western reactions to Belarusian nukes

Several articles cover nuclear issues. Krasnaya Zvezda focuses on Russia’s views on the importance of the P5 Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races, and the importance to Russia of the “inadmissibility of any war between nuclear states, whether nuclear or with the use of conventional weapons.” Aleksey Poplavskiy in Gazeta.ru offers Russian expert commentary on potential Western reactions to the unlikely placement of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. (The December 6–16, 2021, issue of Russian Media Analysisaddressed this latter issue.)

8. Options for new Russian missile bases as competition grows

As geopolitical competition increases, Russian authors are suggesting possibilities for new staging points that can counter perceived NATO encroachment. Two articles in Topwar.ru point out the potential for sites in Cuba and Serbia, respectively, as states that may be particularly open to hosting new forward-deployed arms. While Cuba is seen with a glow of Soviet-era nostalgia, the Balkan case represents a more novel vision in any future arms race.

9. Western information warfare against Russia

In Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kur’er (VPK), Sergey Korotkov argues that the US (and the West) are leaders in disinformation and have used this in the past to create a justification for wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia. The article posits that “the US views the internet as the main instrument of conducting hybrid warfare to achieve global domination in the global information space” and “aggressive propaganda in the form of disinformation campaigns is conducted at the state level and is a component of the ‘systematic deterrence of Russia.’” Separately, an article in Topwar.ru offers perspectives on a January 6 Atlantic Council event that featured retired general Wesley Clark, who argued that Putin is a war criminal and that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine.

10. Military aid to Ukraine

Many articles have focused on the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, looking specifically at new plans for military aid being developed by NATO countries to assist Ukraine in light of a potential Russian military action. Several articles focus on aid from the UK, which is stated to be moving faster and with greater qualitative effectiveness than other aid plans at present. Other authors review US military aid being debated in Congress as well. In general, the articles frame UK and US military aid as a means of ratcheting up the local threat against Russia, further destabilizing the regional security environment, and further cementing Ukraine’s de facto position as a quasi-member of NATO and the broader Western security architecture.

11. Tumult and fragmentation in Ukrainian domestic politics

The domestic travails of Ukraine were recently noted by two Russian authors, each arguing that the internal politics of the country were riven by scandal, faction, and dissent. Both articles are provocative: one, in Topwar.ru, asks why Ukrainian statehood had ever even been considered; the other, in VPK, drives home the point that Western efforts to aid Ukraine are not always clearly appreciated by Kyiv.

12. How future wars will be fought

Two articles by noted military specialists address the question of how wars will be fought in the future. Aleksandr Khramchikhin suggests that UAVs are likely to become the most important weapon in future wars, because they would be virtually impossible to eliminate and could be used to eliminate enemy air defense infrastructure. Viktor Murakhovsky is, on the whole, more skeptical about the dominance of technology in future warfare. The ineffectiveness of high-tech warfare in Afghanistan and Yemen suggests that future warfare may not be as technology dependent as visionaries on both sides believe.

13. Concerns about Turkish geopolitical designs

Multiple articles in Topwar.ru look at the geopolitical place of Turkey as well as ethnic ties across the Turkic peoples of Eurasia. Focusing on the potential for military cooperation along a pan-Turkic basis, as well as the prospects for major military expansion by Turkey in the Black Sea and Mediterranean, the articles add to a growing sense of paranoia about the prospect of alternative regional power blocs based on ethnic relations.

14. US accused of stirring up extremist groups in the North Caucasus

According to an article by Evgeny Fedorov in Topwar.ru, the United States is seeking to undermine internal Russian stability by way of encouraging extremist movements in the North Caucasus. Fedorov argues that American support in organizing and propagating Islamic extremist movements over the internet has grown in recent years, with the goal of provoking protest and confrontation between the authorities and local radicals. Fedorov highlights a new memorial set up by a local extremist organization, 1ADAT, as a new means of American meddling in internal affairs.

15. Alarm about new Kazakhstan biosafety-level-4 lab

Several articles in the Russian media and on online sites discuss the planned construction of a BSL-4 laboratory in Kazakhstan. Articles in Topwar.ru and Izvestiya argue that reference labs and biosafety facilities in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan are an enormous cause for concern for Russia because they are nontransparent and potentially unaccountable facilities conducting dangerous work close to the Russian border. While both of these articles include disinformation, they also exemplify the perspectives of Russian military analysts about CTR-supported installations in Eurasia.

Vicious antisemitic attacks against Jewish students on campus are certainly nothing new, but one particular incident led to a potential tool that could both help protect Jewish students and offer acknowledgment of their Zionist identity.

Let's take a look back.

In 2016, San Francisco State University was rated 10th on The Algemeiner's List of the US and Canada’s Worst Campuses for Jewish Students, based on the ongoing disruption of activities and deliberate intimidation of the students.  One of the incidents that earned SFSU their inclusion on The Algemeiner's list was their response to an appearance by the then-Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat when he came to speak. Anti-Israel students disrupted the speech.

But it was more than just a disruption.
And it resulted not only being included on a list -- it led to a lawsuit. 

According to a Lawfare Project press release, the disruption in 2016 demonstrated that the administration of San Francisco State University itself was part of the problem:

The lawsuit was triggered following the alleged complicity of senior university administrators and police officers in the disruption of an April, 2016, speech by the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. At that event organized by SF Hillel, Jewish students and audience members were subjected to genocidal and offensive chants and expletives by a raging mob that used bullhorns to intimidate and drown out the Mayor’s speech and physically threaten and intimidate members of the mostly-Jewish audience. At the same time, campus police – including the chief – stood by, on order from senior university administrators who instructed the police to “stand down” despite direct and implicit threats and violations of university codes governing campus conduct.

The civil rights lawsuit was brought by The Lawfare Project the following year against then-president Leslie Wong along with several other university officials. The lawsuit alleged that the situation had deteriorated to the point that “Jews are often afraid to wear Stars of David or yarmulkes on campus, and regularly text their friends to describe potential safety issues and suggest alternate, often circuitous, routes to campus destinations.”

In March 2019, California State University public university system settled.

As part of the settlement, SFSU agreed to the following:

• Public statement: Issue a statement affirming that "it understands that, for many Jews, Zionism is an important part of their identity";
• Coordinator of Jewish Student Life: "Hire a Coordinator of Jewish Student Life within the Division of Equity & Community Inclusion" and dedicate suitable office space for this position;
• External review of policies: "Retain an independent, external consultant to assess SFSU’s procedures for enforcement of applicable CSU system-wide anti-discrimination policies and student code of conduct";
• Independent investigation of additional complaints: "SFSU will, for a period of 24 months, assign all complaints of religious discrimination under either E.O. 1096 or E.O. 1097 to an independent, outside investigator for investigation";
• Funding viewpoint diversity: "SFSU will allocate an additional $200,000 to support educational outreach efforts to promote viewpoint diversity (including but not limited to pro-Israel or Zionist viewpoints) and inclusion and equity on the basis of religious identity (including but not limited to Jewish religious identity)"; and
• Campus mural: Engage in the SFSU process to allocate "space on the SFSU campus for a mural to be installed under the oversight of the Division of Equity & Community Inclusion, paid for by the University, that will be designed by student groups of differing viewpoints on the issues that are the subject of this litigation to be agreed by the parties (including but not limited to Jewish, pro-Israel,  and/or Zionist student groups, should such student groups elect to participate in the process)."

That first condition -- San Francisco State University publicly acknowledging that "for many Jews, Zionism is an important part of their identity" -- was an unprecedented recognition of the importance of Zionism to Jewish identity. 

Just imagine if universities across the country followed this example in recognition of Zionism. It could be the academic equivalent of the legislative campaign to have the boycott of Israel made illegal in all 50 states.

When I asked The Lawfare Project about the potential to establish these guarantees at other universities around the country, they responded that

we think Jewish students will recognize the need to fight for the same guarantees we’ve received in our settlement agreement with SFSU. We also believe that our success will serve as fertile ground upon which Jewish students can begin their journey to fight for their rights on campus. This is not something that should require legal enforcement. Take, for example, the stand taken in 2019 by Martha Pollak, president of Cornell University, in response to the demand by JVP to divest from Israel: BDS unfairly singles out one country in the world for sanction when there are many countries around the world whose governments’ policies may be viewed as controversial. Moreover, it places all of the responsibility for an extraordinarily complex geopolitical situation on just one country and frequently conflates the policies of the Israeli government with the very right of Israel to exist as a nation, which I find particularly troublesome. [emphasis added]

Pollak not only took a stand against BDS. She publicly stated her personal rejection of BDS and went beyond vague appeals to diversity and respect for ideas on campus.

But how many university presidents have been willing to deal head-on with the problem of Zionophobia on campus?
What are the chances of other universities adopting the measures in the settlement?
For that matter, has San Francisco State University really learned its lesson?

Apparently not.

In September 2020, the terrorist Leila Khaled was invited to speak at SFSU. Khaled participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv in August 1969. The following year she took part in the hijacking of an El Al flight from Amsterdam to New York City.

So how did the president of SFSU, Lynn Mahoney, respond in light of the lawsuit settlement?

Let me be clear: I condemn the glorification of terrorism and use of violence against unarmed civilians. I strongly condemn antisemitism and other hateful ideologies that marginalize people based on their identities, origins or beliefs.

At the same time, I represent a public university, which is committed to academic freedom and the ability of faculty to conduct their teaching and scholarship without censorship.

Mahoney went on to pay lip service to the now-required recognition of the Zionist identity of the university's students:

My conversations with SF Hillel and Jewish student leaders have enhanced my appreciation for the deeply painful impact of this upcoming presenter, as well as past campus experiences. I understand that Zionism is an important part of the identity of many of our Jewish students. The university welcomes Jewish faculty and students expressing their beliefs and worldviews in the classroom and on the quad, through formal and informal programming. [emphasis added]

Prof. Judea Pearl, professor of computer science and statistics at UCLA and president of The Daniel Pearl Foundation, was unimpressed by Mahoney's attempt to reconcile welcoming a terrorist who targets Jews on the one hand with declaring support for the Jewish Zionist identity on the other. He points out:

it is a logical contradiction from the scientific perspective and a breach of contract from the legal perspective...and I’m known to be expert on the logical perspective.

For their part, The Lawfare Project, which spearheaded the drive to keep Khaled's proposed appearance at SFSU off of Zoom, agrees with Prof. Pearl from the legal perspective. They told me in no uncertain terms:

Should Khaled ever speak on campus, not only would that be a breach of the settlement agreement, but also a gross violation of the university’s fundamental responsibility to protect its Jewish students. [emphasis added]

But what is happening is more than just a continuation of antisemitic hatred on college campuses with the typical weak response by the university administration. We are all familiar with groups that claim to affiliate with the Jewish community while rejecting Israel and a Zionist identity. 

What is being overlooked is that there is a pro-Zionist voice at the beginning stages of asserting itself, and the public statement required by the lawsuit settlement is part of that -- even if imperfectly implemented by the university.

In a recent interview with Moment Magazine, Prof. Pearl described the developing situation:

I predict American Jewry will soon undergo a profound, painful and irreparable split. I cannot think of another period in Jewish history where the schism was so deep, and growing deeper so rapidly. I see the split in every aspect of life and on many levels...On the surface, most of our faculty and students are still sitting on the fence, true, but the polarization is growing; the Zionist group is becoming more assertive and is closing ranks rapidly, while the Zionophobic group is becoming louder, more organized and more aggressive. [emphasis added]

That pro-Zionist voice showed itself in response to a student at USC, Yasmeen Mashayech, who attacked Jews with tweets such as:

• "I want to kill every motherf**cking Zionist"
• "Death to Israel and its b**tch the U.S."
• "Israel has no history just a criminal record"
• "yel3an el yahood [curse the Jews]."

But even more important than those tweets and the criticism of the university's weak response is the reaction from Jewish leaders -- something that has been ignored by the media.

In An Open Letter to the Leadership of USC, more than 65 faculty members at USC took a stand: We, the undersigned faculty, wish to register our dismay about ongoing open expressions of anti-Semitism and Zionophobia on our campus that go unrebuked. The silence of our leadership on this matter is alienating, hurtful, and depressing. It amounts to tacit acceptance of a toxic atmosphere of hatred and hostility.

The letter went beyond just condemnation of antisemitism and rejecting the university claim that because of legal considerations, USC "cannot discuss university processes or actions with respect to a specific student, much less denounce them publicly." The faculty said it was time for the university to publicly welcome Zionists on campus:

Most importantly, Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli students, as well as those who support the right of the State of Israel to exist need to hear from our leaders that they are welcome on our campus. Such a statement would not infringe on free speech or take sides in political dispute. It is a call for character and dignity. It is overdue. [emphasis added]

This would parallel the SFSU's settlement agreement recognizing the Zionist identity of its students -- and not because Zionists need to be protected as victims. More than that.

Again, Prof. Pearl:

We want the university to say there is something noble about Zionism. Zionists are welcome here not because everybody needs to be protected, but because they can contribute here.

This is what has been missing till now from the hand wringing of universities, with their vague promises to their Jewish students that they will deal with antisemitism on campus.

This is what has to change.

And the SFSU lawsuit and the USC faculty letter show that there are those willing to start to demand it. 

  

En 2021, la France s’est intéressée au Pacifique pour deux raisons : d’une part à cause du revirement australien sur le contrat de sous-marins, d’autre part à cause du troisième référendum d’indépendance en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Gageons que 2022 connaîtra moins d’intérêt pour la zone car usuellement, la métropole ne porte guère attention à ces régions éloignées.

La Nouvelle Calédonie est éloignée de 16.000 km de la métropole, quasiment à son opposé géographique du globe (aux antipodes). Cette île de 18.000 km² se situe au nord-est de la grande île australienne. Elle appartient donc de fait au continent océanien, tout comme la Polynésie d’ailleurs. C’est d’ailleurs tout le problème…

En effet, l’Océanie est un continent mal perçu. Si l’on retrace l’histoire des continents, on s’aperçoit que leur nombre a évolué : ils sont passés de deux (cf. la Revue des deux-mondes : l’île Afro-asiatique, l’île Amérique) à trois (conception traditionnelle des Grecs avec l’Asie, l’Europe et l’Afrique) puis à quatre (jonction des deux approches précédentes : Afrique, Amérique, Asie et Europe) puis à cinq (adjonction de l’Océanie) et aujourd’hui à six (car on a découvert que l’Antarctique était un continent). Des six, l’Océanie est le plus problématique car elle est composée d’une agglomération d’îles où la dimension terrestre cède le pas à la dimension maritime. De plus, elle est disposée dans le Pacifique sud, océan lui-même très vaste et peu favorable à la navigation, à cause justement des étendues.

Ainsi, la Nouvelle-Calédonie est éloignée de 1.400 km de l’Australie, de 1.480 km de la Nouvelle-Zélande. L’île la plus proche, Vanuatu, est à 540 km. A titre de comparaison, la Corse est éloignée de 180 km de Menton, quand il faut parcourir 780 km pour aller de Marseille à Alger. En élevant la perspective, le géographe constate que la Nouvelles Calédonie se situe à 4.500 km de la Chine, soit en gros la distance entre Paris et Abidjan ou près de deux fois Paris-Moscou.

La conclusion est assez limpide : la Nouvelle-Calédonie est d’abord assez isolée dans un continent lui-même isolé. Elle ne fait pas vraiment partie de l’espace indopacifique dont on nous parle tant ces derniers mois. Pourtant, certains n’ont cessé de la citer comme pierre angulaire de nos intérêts dans la zone. Cela pouvait avoir du sens quand elle s’insérait dans un réseau plus vaste. En ce sens, le grand contrat de sous-marins signé en 2016 avec l’Australie contribuait à cet objectif, tout comme les négociations toujours en cours avec l’Indonésie. Depuis l’accord AUKUS de l’été 2021 qui a vu la rupture de l’alliance australienne, cette stratégie est à plat et la Nouvelle-Calédonie est redevenue un isolat stratégique, trop loin de la métropole pour réellement appuyer une stratégie régionale.

La Nouvelle-Calédonie a toujours été négligée par la France. Tardivement colonisée, elle paraissait trop loin (même du temps de l’Indochine) pour susciter l’intérêt. Le dispositif militaire actuel est lui-même très juste : les Forces armées de Nouvelle Calédonie (les FANC) sont maigres : le régiment de service militaire adapté a plus un rôle social que militaire. Ne reste donc côté terrestre que le RIMa du Pacifique-Nlle Calédonie (RIMaP-NC), petit bataillon au matériel vieillissant et accueillant surtout des compagnies tournantes venant de métropole. La base aérienne 186 dispose de quelques appareils eux aussi hors d’âge. Quant à la Marine, elle compte une frégate de surveillance et deux patrouilleurs pour assurer le contrôle d’une zone qui fait la moitié de la Méditerranée. Ces bâtiments sont également obsolètes. Ce dispositif malingre ne démontre pas une grande stratégie, même si les enjeux régionaux ne semblent pas d’abord militaires.

Ils pourraient être économiques au travers du nickel, dont le Caillou est le troisième producteur au monde. Toutefois, le manque d’investissement à mis à mal les sociétés locales alors que le métal est de plus en plus recherché. Cependant, cette production minière permet à la Nouvelle Calédonie d’avoir la plus grande richesse des DOM COM avec un PIB / h de plus de 20.000 €/h. A noter que cette richesse est très inégalement répartie avec des disparités territoriales, ethniques et sociales criantes.

Alors, si la France n’a pas d’intérêt positif à la Nouvelle Calédonie, celle-ci demeure un enjeu. En effet, le débat ne porte pas tellement sur l’Asie orientale (le vrai sujet de ce qu’on appelle Indo-Pacifique) mais sur une partie du Pacifique, celui de la mer de Corail et alentours. Un petit détour par l’histoire s’impose : pendant la Deuxième guerre mondiale, la guerre du Pacifique se déroule à proximité. Guadalcanal est à moins de 1.500 km et les Américains s’installent sur le caillou à partir de 1942, allant jusqu’à déployer 20.000 hommes (deuxième garnison du Pacifique après San Francisco). Ainsi, la Nouvelle-Calédonie est une base arrière de la lutte d’influence qui se déroule dans l’ouest du Pacifique, entre Micronésie et Mélanésie.

Tuvalu, Nauru, Fidji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa : autant d’ex-colonies devenues indépendantes et qu sont désormais ciblées par le pouvoir chinois. En effet, Pékin ne cherche plus seulement à prendre le contrôle de la mer intérieure, celle qui sépare son rivage de la première chaîne d’îles partant du Japon jusqu’à Taïwan (mer de Chine Orientale) puis vers les Philippines et l’Indonésie (mer de Chine méridionale) : via la poldérisation des Spratleys et Paracels, l’objectif est quasiment atteint. Pékin veut aller plus loin et prendre pied sur la deuxième chaîne d’îles, comprenant notamment celles que je viens de citer. En vassalisant un certain nombre d’entre elles, la Chine desserrerait l’étau américain sur l’océan.

Observons ce qui s’est passé à Vanuatu : il s’agit du nom des anciennes Nouvelles Hébrides, ce condominium franco-britannique devenu indépendant en 1980. L’île de 12.000 km² compte 300.000 habitants et est surtout connue pour le risque qu’elle court de submersion, avec l’élévation des eaux des continents à la suite du réchauffement climatique. Si au début de son indépendance, Port-Vila (la capitale) noua de nombreux accords avec la France, elle se tourna ensuite vers l’Australie et désormais vers la Chine. Celle-ci prend une place de plus en plus importante, investit dans le secteur économique et construit des bâtiments symboliques et très visibles, en échange d’une dette colossale. On parle d’un port en eau profonde et d’un réseau de télécommunication et d’une base militaire , même si Vanuatu dément et rappelle être non-aligné. « De la Papouasie aux Tonga, cette diplomatie de la dette forme une "ceinture" très fermée. Qu’on en juge. D’ouest en est, la République populaire de Chine a installé son pouvoir financier en Papouasie, aux Etats fédérés de Micronésie, au Vanuatu, aux Fidji, aux Samoa, à Tonga, à Niue. Et plus récemment, en 2019, les îles Salomon et Kiribati sont entrées, à leur tour, dans le giron de Pékin » .

Dans cette perspective, la Nouvelle-Calédonie constitue un pion dans la ceinture entourant l’Australie et joignant Nouvelle-Zélande, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée et Indonésie. Le soutien probable de la Chine aux indépendantistes kanaks doit être compris à cette aune. Il s’agit bien d’une partie de jeu de go et les îles du Pacifique se prêtent particulièrement à ce calcul.

Ainsi, la Nouvelle Calédonie constitue-t-elle pour la France d’abord un atout passif « je l’ai moins pour ce qu’il me rapporte que par ce que tu obtiendrais si tu l’avais ».

C’est ce qu’on bien compris les indépendantistes. Pour eux, agiter sans cesse le spectre de l’indépendance, trouver les moyens de contester l’incontestable (en l’occurrence la légalité et la légitimité de la série des trois référendums tenus à la suite des accords de Nouméa), permet d’être toujours en position de négocier de nouveaux subsides avec Paris, dans un marchandage délétère qui ne porte aucun projet d’avenir. Et Paris, agacé mais n’en pouvant mais, de mettre la main au portefeuille.

O. Kempf

When Holocaust deniers are not going around denying that the Holocaust ever happened or claiming that it is exaggerated, they like to make comparisons between Israel and Nazis.

In an interview in 2011 with Haaretz, the Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt called these sorts of comparisons "Holocaust abuse": 

Renowned Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt says that American and Israeli politicians who invoke the Holocaust for contemporary political purposes are engaging in “Holocaust abuse”, which is similar to “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust...

“When you take these terrible moments in our history, and you use it for contemporary purposes, in order to fulfill your political objectives, you mangle history, you trample on it,” she said.  [emphasis added]

Strong words.
And Lipstadt knows what she is talking about.

After all, this past July Biden nominated Lipstadt as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

So how did Lipstadt react a little over a month later, when Biden was on the presidential campaign and said about Trump:

He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge

Lipstadt supported the comparison to Goebbels:

Goebbels was very successful at what he did, and I think the comparison by Vice President Biden was a very apt comparison because we’re seeing a lot of this now.

In a tweet that she later deleted, Lipstadt went further, claiming that

had VP Biden — or anyone else — compared him to what Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, or Eichmann did, she/he would have been wrong. But a comparison to the master of the big lie, Josef Goebbels? That's historically apt. It's all about historical nuance.

Goebbels was more than a master propagandist. He was a supporter of the Final Solution.
Nuance only goes so far.

As Melanie Phillips notes:

But it wasn’t apt at all. The comparison was indefensible. Not only was it an egregiously unjustified smear against Trump; more importantly, it downplayed the evil of Goebbels and grossly disrespected the memory of those who were slaughtered in the Holocaust.

For it wasn’t simply that Goebbels was a lying propagandist. It was that he was a Nazi committed to the extermination of the Jews. To compare Trump to such an individual was ridiculous and shameful, and should have been robustly condemned.

And 3 days after Biden's comment, when the Jewish Democratic Council of America released a video comparing the Trump presidency to the Nazi era...

Unlike the ADL, The American Jewish Committee and The Simon Wiesenthal Center -- who all called for the JDC ad to be taken down -- Lipstadt again supported the use of Nazi images for political purposes:

But in the current era, Lipstadt said, the key to acceptable Holocaust comparisons is precision and nuance. Is it the Holocaust? No. But does the current era presage an authoritarian takeover? Maybe.

“People ask me, is this Kristallnacht?” she said. “Is this the beginning of pogroms, etc.? I don’t think those comparisons are correct. “However, I do think certain comparisons are fitting … it’s certainly not 1938,” when Nazis led the Kristallnacht pogroms throughout Germany. “It’s not even September 1935, and the Nuremberg Laws” institutionalizing racist policies.

“What it well might be is December 1932, Hitler comes to power on Jan. 30, 1933 — it might be Jan. 15, 1933.” [emphasis added]

So contrary to her comment in the tweet she deleted, Lipstadt actually does draw a connection between Trump and Hitler.

Nuance, indeed.

Now that Lipstadt has helpfully established that Holocaust comparisons are permitted when they adhere to "precision and nuance," are the people most likely to exploit Holocaust comparisons really going to care -- and how would Lipstadt as Antisemitism Envoy condemn Holocaust comparisons without those doing it laughing at her for her double standard?

For example -- just this week: European Jewish group outraged by use of yellow star during demonstration in Brussels against corona measures:

The European Jewish Association (EJA) reacted with outrage to the image of a yellow star, symbol of Nazi persecution of Jews, used by protestors during a demonstration in Brussels against the governmental corona measures on Sunday.

In a statement, EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin said: “It is hard to know where to begin with how wrong this is.’’

Rabbi Margolin goes on to point out how comparisons with the Holocaust demonstrate a lack of understanding for the magnitude of what the Holocaust was:

It makes me sick to think how little people understand the hurt that such banners cause, and how little people have a true understanding and appreciation of the sheer scale and magnitude of the Holocaust. To those who marched today with a huge Yellow star, I say this: “just don’t. No matter how you feel about covid restrictions, nobody is tattooing your arms, nobody is herding you onto cattle trucks, and nobody wants you, your families and all your loved ones to die. Above all, educate yourselves and learn what this yellow star truly represents.”

Would Lipstadt echo Rabbi Margolin's words? Probably.

But how does someone who compares a president of the United States with the Nazi Goebbels ("60 percent of [the Jews] will have to be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be put to work...A judgment is being carried out on the Jews that is barbaric but thoroughly deserved") go on to lecture others who use a yellow star to describe what they consider draconian corona measures?

Another question is: what about Democrats -- has Lipstadt been as critical of them?

According to Fox News:

President Biden’s nominee to serve as U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism once blasted Rep. Ilhan Omar’s controversial statements criticizing Israel.

 And The New York Post reports:

President Biden’s pick to serve as special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism has previously slammed Rep. Ilhan Omar for criticizing Israel.

But actually, in contrast to her comments on Trump that were made in public, Lipstadt's comments about Omar were made in response to a question during an interview:

Adam Rubenstein: As you begin to define antisemitism in your new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now, you write that “Antisemitism is not simply the hatred of something ‘foreign’ but the hatred of a perpetual evil in this world.” So on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent comment about “foreign allegiance” in the context of pro-Israel Americans, and in discussion of her Jewish colleagues; what do you make of it? Is this textbook antisemitism?

Deborah Lipstadt: Sadly, I believe it is. Dual loyalties is part of the textbook accusations against Jews. They are cosmopolitans, globalists, not loyal to their country or fellow citizens.

Further on in the interview, it becomes clear that Lipstadt neither "blasts" nor "smashes" Omar's comments. Instead, she manages to criticize the statements, without condemning the person -- a far more judicious approach -- unlike in her comments about Trump.

But she bent over backward to excuse Omar:

AR: In your view, are Rep. Omar’s statements antisemitic or are they simply anti-Israel? Antisemitism and anti-Zionism aren’t in theory the same thing, but they often have connection points. Is what Rep. Omar says, her “foreign allegiance” comment, her support for BDS, and that support for Israel in Congress is “about the Benjamins,” i.e. Jewish money, simply “critical of Israel” or does it cross the line into antisemitism?

DL: This is such a nuanced topic and I deal with it in depth in the book. But simply put, (and giving her the benefit of the doubt… which is harder to do each time she engages in one of these attacks), she may think she is only criticizing Israel and its policies but one cannot ignore the fact that she is relying on traditional antisemitic tropes to do so...

Lipstadt goes even further in this comment, putting Omar in a select category of antisemitism:

What it suggests to me is that, at best, these people exist in a place where antisemitism is out in the ethosphere; they hear it, breath it in, and don’t even recognize it as antisemitism.

Similarly, in the case of Rev. Raphael Warnock, during the special election for senator of Georgia -- despite the anti-Israel sermon he gave in 2018, Lipstadt defended Warnock's later claim 2 years later in 2020 that he was pro-Israel.

Here is the key excerpt of the sermon:

As described by Jewish Insider:

Warnock’s 2018 sermon was delivered shortly after the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. “It’s been a tough week,” Warnock noted. “The administration opened up the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Standing there [were] the president’s family and a few mealy-mouthed evangelical preachers who are responsible for the mess that we found ourselves in, both there and here — misquoting and misinterpreting the Scripture, talking about peace.”

Warnock went on to compare the struggle for Palestinian rights with the Black Lives Matter movement. “Meanwhile, young Palestinian sisters and brothers, who are struggling for their very lives, struggling for water and struggling for their human dignity stood up in a non-violent protest, saying, ‘If we’re going to die, we’re going to die struggling.’ And yes, there may have been some folk who were violent, but we oughta know how that works out,” Warnock said. “We know what it’s like to stand up and have a peaceful demonstration and have the media focus on a few violent uprisings. But you have to look at those Palestinian sisters and brothers, who are struggling for their human dignity and they have a right to self-determination, they have a right to breathe free.” 

“We need a two-state solution where all of God’s children can live together,” Warnock proclaimed in the 2018 video before proceeding to charge Israel with shooting innocent Palestinians. “We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey. And I don’t care who does it, it is wrong. It is wrong to shoot down God’s children like they don’t matter at all. And it’s no more antisemitic for me to say that than it is anti-white for me to say that Black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.” [emphasis added]

Faced with his past remarks accusing Israel of killing peaceful Palestinian Arabs, Warnock's campaign gave an evasive response that posting the video showed that the other campaign was rummaging around videos to 'misrepresent' his actual views.

But just one year before the Georgia election, in March 2019, Warnock signed onto the Group Pilgrimage Statement on Israel and Palestine, which featured common distortions about Israel, including associating it with apartheid:

j. We saw the patterns that seem to have been borrowed and perfected from other previous oppressive regimes:

1. The ever-present physical walls that wall in Palestinians in a political wall reminiscent of the Berlin Wall
2. Roads built through occupied Palestinian villages, on which Palestinians are not permitted to drive; and homes and families divided by walls and barriers.
3. The heavy militarization of the West Bank, reminiscent of the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa.
4. The laws of segregation that allow one thing for the Jewish people and another for the Palestinians; we saw evidence of forced removals; homes abandoned, olive trees uprooted or confiscated and taken over, shops and businesses bolted with doors welded to close out any commercial activities. [emphasis added]

Yet Warnock's stand on Israel just a year after that is supposed to show that he did an about-face, now supporting Israel. 

He even appeared at AIPAC. Lipstadt writes:

How, I wondered, could someone who had said that, show up at AIPAC? To answer this question, I read his policy paper on Israel. In it, he expressed unequivocal support for Israel, for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, for a two-state solution, and for the $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding, which when signed in 2016 constituted the largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in U.S. history. He also unequivocally opposed conditioning aid to Israel, as some have proposed.

Lipstadt says that Warnock's new support for Israel answers the question of how he could appear at AIPAC. One might argue that such an abrupt change just one year later only deepens the questions.

In a piece for The Washington Examiner, Jackson Richman includes Lipstadt's support for Warnock as one of the reasons that Deborah Lipstadt should be voted down by the Senate:

Lipstadt said Warnock had come around on Israel-related issues — never mind that he did not apologize or repudiate his past statements and activities on that issue — such as opposing conditioning U.S. assistance to the Jewish state. She argued, "It would be hard for Warnock to repudiate his most recent views as expressed in his Israel policy paper and numerous interviews."

Except it would not have been hard to offer a sincere apology.

It's an odd argument for Lipstadt to make -- vote for Warnock, because even if he is not sincere in his current pro-Israel position, at least he won't be able to easily go back to his previously anti-Israel position.

But all this talk about Lipstadt being Antisemitism Envoy may be for naught, anyway.

Not because her nomination has stalled in the Senate.
But who's to say that Biden will pay any attention to Lipstadt anyway when it is politically inconvenient?

When Fox News wanted to report on the White House reaction to Lipstadt's criticism of Omar -- there wasn't any:

However; when asked if the administration agreed with its nominee’s views on Omar’s comments, the White House was silent, not responding to Fox News’ request for comment.

The Squad can rest easy.

Of the attitudes of the international community towards Israel, one of the most maddening is criticism of Israeli reaction to the terrorist rocket attacks launched by Hamas -- and the lack of international condemnation of those rocket attacks themselves, deliberately launched against civilian targets.

We criticize the West for its lack of sustained outrage against Hamas targeting civilians.
We note that no country would tolerate such attacks without taking strong measures to stop such attacks.

But does Israel itself bear any of the responsibility for the failure of the international community to condemn these deliberate terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians?

In a 2012 article, Where 8,000 Rocket Launches Are Not a Casus Belli, Evelyn Gordon blames this on the indecisiveness of the IDF in retaliating against Gaza rockets as: the rotten fruit of a government policy that for years dismissed the rockets as a minor nuisance for reasons of petty politics: For the Kadima party, in power from 2005-2009, admitting the rockets were a problem meant admitting that its flagship policy, the Gaza pullout, was a disaster. A 2011 report for the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, The Missile Threat from Gaza:From Nuisance to Strategic Threat, by Israeli missile defense expert Uzi Rubin notes how Israeli leaders at the time played down and even dismissed outright the Hamas rocket threat:

• Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to Ariel Sharon, in June 2005 referred to the rockets as "flying objects...in terms of national risk management, they do not constitute a significant factor."
  
  
• Koby Toren, then Director General of the Ministry of Defense, dismissed the the rockets in 2006 as nothing more than a "psychological threat" because of their low level of lethality.
  
  
• Shimon Peres, then Deputy Prime Minister, complained in 2006, "Everyone is stoking the hysteria. What is the big deal? Kiryat Shmona was bombed for years."
  
  
• Ehud Olmert was still downplaying the need for bomb shelters in 2007, announcing that "we will not shelter ourselves to death."
  
  
• Deputy Minister of Defense, Maj. Gen. (res.) Matan Vilnai made a speech at the Knesset in 2008 comparing the complaints of Israeli communities near Gaza with the resilience of Jerusalem’s residents in the face of suicide attacks: "We in Jerusalem…suffered hundreds of dead...did we complain that we could not sleep at night?...Did we claim to have been forsaken?"

 In fairness to Peres, he did not totally ignore the Qassam threat. The same article  that quotes him minimizing the Qassams, also reports:

Translation:

According to Peres, "Palestinians need to be told: Qassams Shmassams, we will persevere. We will not move from here." The deputy prime minister also accused that "our response stimulates the other side to strike. A series of measures must be taken to eliminate the Qassam." Peres declined to elaborate on what means he meant.

According to Rubin, Olmert qualified his comment about shelters with "...though there may be extreme situations in which we will have a limited response capability."

Also according to Rubin, Vilnai visited the Jewish areas near Gaza the very next day in order to correct the negative impression his comments made.

But the fact remains that Israeli leaders initially played down the threat of Qassam rockets coming out of Gaza.

For years.

The lack of a strong Israeli response to the Hamas rocket attacks took the US by surprise.

In a 2011 interview, former US envoy to Israel Dan Kurtzer said that PM Sharon's failure to respond to Hamas rocket attacks following the 2005 Disengagement was a major mistake: Kurtzer, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, said that immediately after Israel left the Gaza Strip he told Washington “to expect a very serious Israeli response to the first act of violence coming out of Gaza.”

...Kurtzer said his message to the Bush Administration was to be ready for a sharp Israeli military response to rocket fire, “and be ready to support it.”

“The success of disengagement rested on the aftermath of its implementation, so I was very surprised there was no reaction to the first rocket, second rocket and 15th rocket,” Kurtzer said.

Instead, according to Kurtzer, "Sharon argued that the rockets were landing in fields, 'not really that bad,' or were being fired by dissident elements, and not the Gaza leadership" -- setting the tone for excuses of Israeli leaders who followed.

As Gordon points out, one of the motives of the Israeli government in initially downplaying the rocket attacks was to defend the Disengagement itself.

But the Begin-Sadat Center report gives other reasons as well. After all, it was not just the leadership that showed disinterest:

the same Israeli public that withstood so determinately the suicide attacks from the West Bank, demonstrated a lack of unity and determination in contending with the Gaza rocket campaign.

The initial rocket attacks started in 2001 and need to be understood in the context of the Second Intifada that was creating a crisis at the time. Life in Sderot was "was calmer and more secure at the time than metropolitan areas like Netanya, Hadera or Jerusalem":

In hindsight, the scant attention paid to the campaign at its onset in 2001 is easy to justify against the backdrop of violence of the Second Intifada and the suicide terror offensive raging at the time through the heart of Israel's major cities, an offensive which reached its peak in April-May 2002. This absorbed all the attention of the general public as well as Israel's political and military leadership. The few hits, the negligible damage and the insignificant casualties inflicted by the primitive rockets launched at the time from Gaza were justifiably regarded as a minor nuisance compared to the ongoing terror campaign against Israel's traffic, public transportation, shopping malls and civic centers. [emphasis added]

But that does not explain the continued lackadaisical response the following year when Operation Defensive Shield was succeeding in combating the Second Intifada.

According to Rubin, both local as well as national leaders played down the threat during the first 3 years. Even when Israel took steps to invade nearby launching areas in Gaza and fired on rocket production areas that were further away,

At the same time, active defense – that is, anti-rocket systems that could destroy Gaza rockets in flight – was shunned repeatedly until about five years into the campaign when the shock of the Second Lebanon War prompted Israel's incumbent minister of defense [Amir Peretz] to initiate the development of an active defense system against short-range rockets. The failure to do so earlier is another indication of the low significance attributed to the rocket campaign against the south of the country by the political leadership of the time. [emphasis added]

The Second Lebanon War came to an end in mid-August, 2006 and Israel was focusing on the failure to secure an undisputed victory. During this time of soul searching, the priority was on rebuilding the IDF, recovering from economic losses, and repairing damage in northern Israel. The needs of the Israeli communities near Gaza were put on the back burner.

The decision to start development on Iron Dome was not taken until February, 2007 and Israeli bureaucracy delayed not only the development of Iron Dome but also the government-sponsored building of shelters.

The report gives several reasons for this:

• The slow increase in the number of rockets and casualties after the first rocket hit Sderot in 2001 lulled residents as well as local and national leaders into inactivity. o A full-scale defense initiative against the rockets would have been an admission that the Disengagement was responsible for a deterioration in Israel's security.
  
  
• There was disagreement over the correct strategy in response to the Qassams. Eli Moyal, the Mayor of Sderot was one of those who believed that civil protection was an admission that Israel was acceding to terrorist aggression -- "to accept civil protection is to accept terror as part of your life" and that instead of defensive measures, "the war should have been pursued aggressively."
  
  
• There was a concern that as the terrorist rockets increased in range and efficiency, and more communities were put at risk, so too would there be an increased demand for costly population protection.

Today, we proudly point to Israel's system of shelters against terrorist attack from Gaza.

But according to Rubin:

In his 2005 report on the status of the school and kindergarten sheltering program in Sderot, the State Comptroller condemned the government's mishandling of the situation, calling it "a continuous debacle." This harsh term could well describe the government's handling of the entire sheltering program in southern Israel.

Israel has come a long way since that 2011 report, especially in terms of Iron Dome, which is now in demand by other countries facing similar threats.

But we tend to forget the initial slow response by Israel to the Qassam threat, and that may have served in part as an initial excuse by the international community to downplay the dangerous threat that Hamas rockets increasingly pose to Israeli civilians.

 

A Jelen hetilap mai számában Jeszenszky Géza történészt, a rendszerváltás külügyminiszterét, korábbi washingtoni  és oslói nagykövetet köszöntöm 80. születésnapján.

Egy kis ízelítő a cikkből:
"Jeszenszky külügyminisztersége őt történelmi személyiséggé avatja. Fontos öröksége az Antall-Jeszenszky-féle külpolitikának Magyarország nemzetközi szerepvállalása hármas célrendszerének megalapozása: euroatlanti integráció – jó kapcsolatok a szomszédokkal – a határon túl magyarság érdekeinek képviselete. Külügyminiszterként jelentős szerepe van Magyarországnak a Nyugatba történő újraintegrációjában, hiszen Magyarország későbbi EU- és NATO-tagságának az alapjait az Antall-Jeszenszky-féle külpolitika rakta le. Nagy szerepük volt a szovjet csapatok kivonásában, valamint a KGST és a Varsói Szerződés megszüntetésében is."

Jelen lapajánló videó II/45

Jelen hetilap publicisztika: Fehér Zoltán: Jeszenszky 80 (2021. november 11.)

 

Jeszenszky Géza történész, a rendszerváltás külügyminisztere, korábbi washingtoni és oslói nagykövet 2021. november 10-én töltötte be 80. születésnapját. Ez alkalomból egy online eseményt szerveztem, amelyen barátai, kollégái és tisztelői köszöntöttük a neves tudóst és diplomatát a nyilvánosság bevonásával. Az esemény házigazdái az Új Világ Néppárt és a Mindenki Magyarországa Mozgalom voltak. A születésnapi esemény fontos része volt „Az elveszett presztízs” című külpolitikai panelbeszélgetés, amelyben Jeszenszky Géza nemrég újra kiadott műve kapcsán azt vitattuk meg, hogyan vesztette el Magyarország ismét a nemzetközi presztízsét az elmúlt évtized során és hogyan lehetne azt a közeljövőben újra visszaszerezni. Születésnapi köszöntőt mondott:
- Márki-Zay Péter, az egységes ellenzék miniszterelnök-jelöltje, Hódmezővásárhely polgármestere, a Mindenki Magyarországa Mozgalom elnöke
- Pálinkás József akadémikus, az Új Világ Néppárt elnöke, a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia volt elnöke „Az elveszett presztízs” külpolitikai panelbeszélgetésen részt vettek:
- Jeszenszky Géza történész, a rendszerváltás külügyminisztere, korábbi washingtoni és oslói nagykövet,
- Pálinkás József akadémikus, az Új Világ Néppárt elnöke, a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia volt elnöke,
- Győrffy Dóra, a Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem és a Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem professzora,
- Szent-Iványi István külpolitikai szakértő, volt külügyi államtitkár és ljubljanai nagykövet, - Fehér Zoltán diplomata-politikatudós, a Texasi Egyetem (Austin) tudományos kutatója. Isten éltessen, Géza! Még sok boldog születésnapot! A külpolitikai panelbeszélgetéssel egybekötött születésnapi köszöntés egy élő Facebook-eseményként zajlott, amely felvételről megtekinthető az alábbi linkeken: Jeszenszky 80: születésnapi köszöntés és külpolitikai panelbeszélgetés (Facebook) Jeszenszky 80: születésnapi köszöntés és külpolitikai panelbeszélgetés (Youtube)

Bizonyos rendszerességgel nyilatkozom a New Yorkban működő, az amerikai orosz diaszpórának sugárzó TV-csatornának, a meglehetősen színvonalas hírprogrammal jelentkező RTVi-nak. Ezúttal arról kérdeztek az interjúban, hogy mi a háttere annak, hogy az Egyesült Államok és Nagy-Britannia nukleáris tengeralattjárók gyártásáról állapodott meg Ausztráliával, ezzel komoly diplomáciai csörtét okozva Washington és Párizs között, hiszen az AUKUS-nak elnevezett szerződés Franciaországot ütötte el az Ausztrália részére történő tengeralattjáró-gyártástól, amelyről már korábban megállapodtak. Az AUKUS szerződés célja nyilvánvalóan Kína katonai erejének ellensúlyozása az Indiai- és Csendes-óceáni régióban.

Az orosz nyelvű interjú megtekinthető az alábbi linken:
RTVi New York-i orosz tévécsatorna: Interjú az AUKUS megállapodásról és a nyomában kialakult amerikai-francia diplomáciai csörtéről (2021. szeptember 20.)