Diplomacy & Crisis News

At a juncture where sustainable peace seemed achievable, Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan—arriving finally two years after the end of the Second Karabakh War, with the mediation of Brussels and Washington—appeared to be a positive development. Regrettably, this promising trajectory now faces the risk of unraveling, jeopardizing all progress made after the recent escalation around Lachin Road and claims about humanitarian conditions.

On April 23 of this year, Azerbaijan strategically positioned a checkpoint in Lachin, a pivotal juncture along the internationally recognized border between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This checkpoint held significant importance as it served as the sole road connecting the Armenian-populated territory in Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia. Initially, the road functioned without major disruptions. However, tensions escalated following an attack on its checkpoint on June 15, prompting Azerbaijan to impose limitations on its operations. Azerbaijan also contended that this road had been exploited for illicit activities such as smuggling mines, weapons, and individuals affiliated with the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) into the region.

On July 26, a convoy of nineteen trucks carrying humanitarian aid was dispatched by the Armenian government, but Azerbaijan barred its entry into the region. This provided Armenia with a pretext to instrumentalize humanitarian issues to bring the matter before the UN Security Council for discussion on August 16. It was not coincidental that certain speakers during the Security Council discussion recommended refraining from employing humanitarian concerns as political leverage. Ahead of the UN Security Council session, significant resources were channeled into a global media campaign, involving politicians, celebrities, and even controversial figures like Luis Moreno Ocampo. The intention behind this was to shape a pro-Armenian sentiment within the international audience and to impose psychological and moral pressure on Azerbaijan, the global community, and the members of the UN Security Council.

Matters have only escalated since. On August 29, the Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society, affiliated with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, dispatched two trucks loaded with flour to aid Armenian residents in Karabakh through the Aghdam Road. This effort was aimed at breaking the ongoing deadlock and addressing concerns of manipulation surrounding the delivery of aid. However, the trucks encountered concrete roadblocks erected by individuals associated with radical groups who staunchly advocate for the sole use of the Lachin Road and vehemently oppose any alternative routes to the region. A few days later, the spokesperson for Charles Michel, president of the European Council, emphasized the importance of a step-by-step approach, which would involve a carefully sequenced operation for the full utilization of the Ağdam and Lachin routes.

Peace Is Achievable Solely via Sincere Negotiations

Rather than engaging in direct and honest dialogue with Azerbaijan without any mediators—as also endorsed and urged by the United States to address any concerns, including humanitarian matters—Armenia is putting significant effort into exploiting humanitarian issues for its global propaganda purposes. Conversely, following the conclusion of the Second Karabakh War, Armenian propaganda has focused on attempting tirelessly to portray Azerbaijan through an “Israelization” lens and positioning Armenia as a victim in a manner reminiscent of the Palestinian situation.

The intent behind this approach is unmistakably clear, evident not just to those in Baku but also conspicuously acknowledged in Yerevan: to establish the notion within the international community that Karabakhi Armenians cannot viably coexist under Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction. This narrative is constructed to morally validate the concept of remedial secession or separatism for Karabakhi Armenians.

As previously articulated within this platform, for Azerbaijan the dark reality of occupation hides behind the glitzy façade of remedial secession or self-determination and efforts to link the claim to liberal values, like in Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Donbas, and Luhansk. Additionally, the discussions and promotional efforts aimed at advancing a remedial secession agenda are perceived by Azerbaijan as an endeavor to divert the attention of the international community from the twenty-seven-year-long occupation of Azerbaijani territories, the plights of up to one million internally displaced persons, their inability to return to the liberated lands because of widely planted landmines, and the complete destruction of urban centers and rural communities like Aghdam. Indeed, acknowledging these responsibilities and addressing the complexities arising from this prolonged situation holds the utmost significance in ensuring enduring peace for the times ahead. Disregarding or deflecting focus away from the twenty-seven-year-long occupation could cast a shadow over the prospects of future peace, potentially leading to a less hopeful outlook.

Following their defeat in the 2020 conflict, Armenia lacks the military capability to directly challenge Azerbaijan and assert its claims over Karabakh. Moreover, Armenia's demands are not substantiated by international law. In light of these constraints, Armenia’s primary recourse remains the pursuit of “moral justification” on the global stage to substantiate its claim over Karabakh.

At the same time, prominent Armenian analysts, including figures like Richard Kirakosyan, advocate for a strategic approach acknowledging Armenia's military inferiority to Azerbaijan. They propose delaying the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan to allocate time for rebuilding and modernizing Armenia's military capabilities.

Significantly, the program outlined by Pashinyan’s government for the former Nagorno-Karabakh Oblast, endorsed by Armenia’s National Assembly following the 2021 elections, contains a provision obligating Pashinyan’s administration to secure the Karabakhi Armenians’ right to remedial secession. The recent acknowledgment of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan by Pashinyan’s government is not contradictory to this obligation; instead, it aligns with the commitment made in 2021 to pursue remedial secession. This alignment is evident in the range of actions and policies pursued by the Pashinyan government, including its recent international initiatives related to Lachin.

As a result, the statement made by the U.S ambassador to Armenia, Kristina Kvien, at the beginning of June, asserting the potential for Karabakhi Armenians to coexist securely under Azerbaijani governance, faced considerable backlash—even in the wake of the recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. This criticism prompted the ambassador to walk back her comments the following day, stating that the United States “does not presuppose the outcome of negotiations on the future of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Enough is Enough

Beneath the surface of this intricate political struggle lies the enduring plight of ordinary people from both sides of the conflict. Amidst the Russian military presence and the remnants of Armenia’s armed forces, individual stories such as that of Izaura Balasanyan emerge, encapsulating the persistent suffering endured. Her story also sheds light on the intricate complexities that impede the path to normalcy and reconciliation for two populations separated by a protracted three-decade-long conflict.

In September 2021, faced with mounting needs and an avaricious landlord, Izaura made a fateful decision driven by desperation: escaping the confines of the Armenian-controlled territory. Her goal was to reach the comparatively promising Azerbaijani-controlled territories. However, her journey was abruptly halted when Russian peacekeepers apprehended her and handed her back into the custody of local Armenian security services.

Since then, the fate of this unfortunate woman has remained cloaked in uncertainty, her story fading into obscurity. Remarkably, her plight has failed to attract the attention of any international institution, leaving her ordeal unexamined and her voice unheard. This stark reality underscores the challenges faced by countless individuals akin to Izaura, trapped in the labyrinthine nexus of radical nationalism and a three-decade-long conflict.

The tale of Izaura serves as a clear example of those opposing the reintegration of these two communities and those acting as a barrier between them. In 2022, with the mediation of the United States in Washington, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement to commence dialogue for the reintegration between Baku and the Karabakhi Armenians. Interestingly, immediately following this accord, Moscow sent a Russian billionaire, Ruben Vardanyan, who lacks native ties to Karabakh, to the region to undermine the reintegration dialogue. He subsequently expelled all proponents of dialogue from the local de-facto administration. Despite his resignation, both he and Russia continue to uphold the trajectory that was established to impede all reintegration efforts.

Nevertheless, accountability extends beyond Russia and the radicals it supports. It encompasses politicians, experts, and journalists who, regrettably, remain detached from the anguish experienced by individuals like Izaura. Their disengagement underscores the urgency of comprehending the broader context enveloping these narratives.

Blame Games

Paradoxically, while politicians silence the cries of desperate individuals like Izaura, who were taken hostage and who are marginalized, they concurrently appeal to the global stage about the existence of humanitarian crises. In a contrasting stance, local leaders such as Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan and others advocate for a balanced approach. Stepanyan advises restraint in sharing social media posts containing videos of uplifting occasions like weddings and other events that radiate inspiration and prosperity. Conversely, he advocates for refraining from disseminating videos depicting lavish lifestyles—a narrative that clashes with the established official stance.

Consequently, the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has now found its way into the realm of conflicting narratives within the sphere of social media. On these platforms, Armenians are diligently amplifying efforts to underscore the allegedly pressing humanitarian situation on the ground. In a contrasting display, Azerbaijani social media users are sharing recently published videos featuring Armenian counterparts participating in weddings, extravagant restaurant celebrations, and gatherings within Karabakh that radiate joy and prosperity. This clash of narratives reached its peak during a session of the UN Security Council. The Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs presented images of purportedly distressed children, prompting the Azerbaijani ambassador to counter with joyful and abundant photographs depicting life in Karabakh.

The clash of narratives occasionally crosses boundaries, prompting Karabakhi Armenian activist Artur Osipyan to advocate for a more balanced stance when making claims about hunger. Osipyan points out the potential negative consequences of stretching the truth excessively, as falsehoods can erode their credibility. However, it's worth noting that Osipyan later clarified his statement, indicating that his initial words had been misunderstood and taken out of context.

Karabakh Is Not an Island with One Port

Nonetheless, the intention behind the aforementioned words is not to disregard the potential consequences of the ongoing deadlock on the ground. Rather, the aim is to propose a viable exit or solution to the international community, with the intention of assisting both sides involved.

Tensions run high in both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Oftentimes, choices and declarations are shaped with a keen focus on their respective domestic audiences. With the pivotal elections in Yerevan in September,  Prime Minister Pashinyan is facing allegations of lacking firmness and not pursuing all possible avenues. Alarmingly, some voices are even shamelessly advocating for cynicism, going as far as suggesting the use of children and women as shields.

For Armenia and the local separatists, their foremost concern revolves around unhindered access via the Lachin road. Conversely, Azerbaijan asserts its rightful ownership of both Lachin and Karabakh—a status further acknowledged by Armenia’s prime minister. Consequently, Baku maintains that it holds the right to determine the routes and roads through which essential goods and supplies should be transported to the region. Despite Baku’s offer to extend aid and provisions through the Azerbaijani town of Aghdam, certain radical factions among the Karabakhi Armenians turned down this proposal. There are also notable figures who were dismissed from their positions, and they advocate for Karabakhi Armenians to engage immediately in sincere dialogue without the involvement of any mediators.

As Hikmet Hajiyev, the assistant to the president of Azerbaijan, recently emphasized, Armenia’s strong rejection of using the Aghdam Road while simultaneously insisting solely on retaining the Lachin Road is interpreted in Azerbaijan as an indication that Armenia’s intentions lean more towards pursuing the separatism of Karabakhi Armenians rather than their reintegration to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani officials draw parallels between the perspectives of U.S. officials on analogous instances involving separatist elements in Ukraine and Russia, juxtaposing these with the situation involving Karabakh separatists and Armenia. Notably, during a 2014 United Nations Security Council gathering, then-U.S. ambassador Samantha Power unequivocally stated that Russia had no legitimate basis for delivering assistance to Ukrainian separatists. Curiously, in the context of Karabakh, Ambassador Power advocates for Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin Road for the delivery of aid to separatists. This divergent stance displayed by certain Western officials has been perceived by both the Azerbaijani government and its populace as a form of double standard, one that ultimately exacerbates the existing deadlock.

In fact, the way out from the artificial deadlock entails a decisive choice between prioritizing the reopening of the Lachin Road or emphasizing humanitarian considerations and exigencies.

Should the latter carry greater weight, then a straightforward solution emerges, rendering the ongoing crisis artificially prolonged. It is important to note that the Armenian populated territory in Karabakh is not an island, nor can it be solely reliant on the Lachin Road. The International Committee of the Red Cross, USAID, and other international humanitarian organizations possess the capability officially to address Azerbaijan to explore alternative routes, such as Aghdam, for the delivery of essential supplies to Karabakh, should the Lachin route remain an insurmountable obstacle.

Fuad Chiragov is Deputy Director of the Center for Studies of the South Caucasus (CSSC).

Image: Shutterstock.

PAK DA Looks Doomed - Russian aircraft designer Tupolev, now part of the United Aircraft Corporation - a powerhouse conglomerate that includes the likes of Sukhoi and Mikoyan-Gurevich - is well known for its large aircraft designs.

In the 1930’s, it held the record for the largest aircraft, the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky. Since then, the company has built on its pedigree with the Tu-95 strategic bomber, introduced in 1956 and still in service today; the Tu-154, one of the most ubiquitous short haul passenger jets in Russia and the former Eastern Bloc; and the Tu-144, the first ever supersonic commercial airliner.

Currently, Tupolev is working on their next project, the PAK DA, Russia’s first stealth bomber.

Introducing the PAK DA

The Russian Air Force has had a stealth bomber in the works for quite some time.

Initial requirements were formulated in the 1990s and by the first decade of the 2000’s, Tupolev had begun work on the design.

While for most combat aircraft, faster is better and aerospace engineers have worked to achieve that goal, in the case of the PAK DA, Tupolev has actually gone the other way and intends to produce a subsonic bomber incapable of flying faster than Mach 1.0.

Instead, the design focuses on stealth capabilities, seeking to produce a result similar to the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 Spirit bomber which relies on low observability rather than speed to survive.

B-2 Clone? 

Stealth technology is not the only way the PAK DA appears to mimic the B-2. The Spirit is a highly recognizable aircraft due to its shape - it has often been called a flying wing. Essentially this means it does not have the typical parts of an aircraft, a fuselage, wings, and an empennage or tail assembly with various stabilization and flight control surfaces. Instead, the aircraft relies on a sophisticated flight control computer to maintain stability while aloft.

The lack of a tail assembly plays into the stealth aspect as well, greatly decreasing radar cross section.

Many details of the PAK DA remain unknown, however, its type of payload has been confirmed as conventional, nuclear, and even hypersonic weapons. Being able to launch such high speed ordnance is yet another reason which precludes the need for high speed flight.

Rather, being able to stealthily loiter outside an enemy’s air defenses while hypersonic missiles penetrate to the target will be the name of the game.

One of the challenges of stealth aircraft is weapons storage. Typically, combat aircraft store missiles, bombs, and rockets, on pylons or “racks” attached to the wings and fuselage. This both generates drag and reduces stealth profile making them easy to see.

To combat this, stealth aircraft are designed to store their weapons internally, which can make increasing the payload difficult. This doesn’t seem to be an issue for the PAK DA however, which is rumored to have a payload of 30T, more than the 20T limit of the B-2.

Currently, it appears that Tupolev has built at least one full scale mockup of the PAK DA and perhaps several smaller models for wind tunnel testing. Prototypes are expected to begin rolling out over the next several years and the first flight is projected for 2025.

While Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Maturov has said “there is no talk of using foreign parts in a project of this type,” it remains to be seen whether Western Sanctions due to the ongoing war in Ukraine will have an impact on the development of the new bomber.

What The Experts Told Us

"Clearly, Russia wants the PAK DA. However, I have no idea how they could afford it. Further, I would also add they don't have the microchips needed to make this work or technology due to sanctions related to the Ukraine war. For now, the PAK DA, I would argue, is just a dream," explained a former aviation expert who is retired from a major U.S. defense contractor. 

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.

NOTE: This piece has been updated to include expert commentary. 

During my recent stay in Germany’s picturesque town of Heidelberg, I got into a rather heated conversation with a number of African, Indian, and Chinese postgraduate researchers from the town’s medieval university on the BRICS group and whether or not they can spawn a new movement akin to the Non-Aligned Movement of the last century.

Their argument that the last two decades have been extraordinarily good for developing countries and their mostly poor citizens, does make some sense. Indeed, Harvard University’s celebrated economist Dani Rodrik likewise noted that the economies of developing countries have expanded at unprecedented rates, resulting both in a large reduction in extreme poverty and a significant expansion of the middle class.

Such superlative performance was and still is—so argued my interlocutors from the developing world—primarily driven by China and India—countries that, along with Russia, Brazil, and South Africa, make up the BRICS group.

There is no doubt that the BRICS group has become increasingly formalized and institutionalized over the past decade, hosting regular summits and establishing collective bodies. But can they pose a challenge to the G7?

The recent 15th BRICS Summit held in Johannesburg saw six new countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, being invited to join the bloc in a move alluding to China’s and Russia’s ever-strengthening ties at a time when tensions with the West are reaching boiling point. Even long-time US allies such as the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, along with Argentina and Ethiopia are also set to enter BRICS from Jan. 1, 2024.

Despite Russia being heavily sanctioned by the West, it was surprising to see BRICS pull off a side event of sorts in Moscow—dubbed the Cloud City International Innovation Forum—where representatives of some thirty countries talked about their vision of cities in the future and how technology could be incorporated with modern city designs. Among the speakers were Nobel Prize winners, Professor of Economics Mohamed Yunus (2006) and the UN Secretary General's Advisor Rae Kwon Chung (2007), as well as Serbian film director Emir Kusturica, a longtime acquaintance of President Vladimir Putin. The forum was attended by major urban practitioners from all corners of the world including Erol Ozguner, director of information technology of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Khaled El-Attar, deputy minister of communications and IT of Egypt, Abdulrahman Ibrahim, Medina city’s development authority, and Daouda Gueye, vice mayor of Dakar for technology, who discussed how modern technologies could help improve the quality of life and find effective solutions and ensure technological sovereignty. As someone born in Yugoslavia, the event harkens back to the days of the Bandung Conference, when Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sukarno laid the groundwork for the Non-Aligned Movement.

Both Moscow and Beijing are keen to breathe new life into the BRICS bloc to show the world that there are alternatives to the patchwork U.S.-led alliance and institutions that have dominated global affairs for decades. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the BRICS countries have only distanced themselves further from the West. Neither India, Brazil, South Africa, nor China are taking part in sanctions against Russia. Trade between India and Russia, and Brazil’s dependence on Russian fertilizer, have reached near historic levels.

Oliver Stuenkel notes that all BRICS members see the emergence of multipolarity as both inevitable and generally desirable—and identify the bloc as a means to play a more active role in shaping the post-Western global order. Member states share a deep-seated skepticism of the U.S.-led unipolarity and believe that the BRICS nations increase their strategic autonomy and bargaining power when they become independent of the West, the United States in particular. And over the past decade, India and China have enabled each other’s rise as emerging technology powerhouses. Chinese tech giants have invested billions of dollars into India’s biggest startups, while its smartphone makers dominate the country’s market and Indians have flocked to Chinese apps like TikTok.

So should the BRICS alliance be perceived as a counter to the West or more a forum for increased sovereign and autonomous thought? That depends on what one’s country’s ideological orientation is. Some, such as Iran and Argentina, are jumping on the bandwagon because they sense an economic opportunity. To others, BRICS serves as an attempt, if inchoate, to create an alternative to the existing world order.

The potential for synergies between the BRICS countries is enormous. In their current form, the BRICS make up around 31.5 percent of world GDP when adjusted on a purchasing power parity basis. Taken together, the expanded BRICS countries currently produce around 26 percent of global oil output and 50 percent of iron ore production used to make steel. They produce around 40 percent of global corn production and 46 percent of global wheat production. More importantly, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are home to 3.2 billion people, 42 percent of the world's population. In effect, these countries hold 42 percent of one of the most valuable resources on the planet: personal data.

China’s GDP is more than double that of the other four BRICS combined: almost $18 trillion compared with Brazil ($1.6 trillion), Russia ($1.8 trillion), India ($3.2 trillion), and South Africa ($400 billion). Joseph W. Sullivan wrote in Foreign Policy how in 2022 the BRICS ran a trade surplus of $387 billion—mostly thanks to China—and that all the talk of those countries coining their own currency may not be too far-fetched after all. The BRICS would also be poised to achieve a level of self-sufficiency in international trade that has eluded other currency unions as they are not united by shared territorial borders and hence are more likely to produce a wider range of goods than any existing monetary union. Finally, half of the BRICS countries’ population is already online, contributing significantly to domestic and international economic activity. These countries are working to welcome digital innovation and massively investing in their digital capabilities, crafting new data protection frameworks and increasingly requiring tech companies to store data about a person in that person’s home country. China has the most ambitious approach, making major investments in 5G networks, artificial intelligence, and high-tech manufacturing in a bid to be an even larger global technology power than it already is.

Russia and China have increasingly presented themselves to developing nations as economic and military alternatives to the West—that will neither attach demands on democracy nor human rights to diplomatic relations. Both Russia and China are upping the ante in recruiting these developing countries that are non-aligned and neutral.

Although they might find Russia an increasingly awkward partner, most Asian nations pragmatically choose to maintain their relationships for a combination of economic, military, and diplomatic reasons. The combination of China’s manufacturing might and India’s software and service prowess provides across-the-board capabilities. David Moschella and Robert D. Atkinson recently noted that parallels between America’s dependency on China for manufacturing and its dependency on India for IT services are striking.

In that context, Russia sees the relevance of the BRICS Innovation Forum as a means of strengthening relationships with friends and allies in an era of major geopolitical tectonic shifts. While many in the West hoped that Russia’s invasion would rally nations in the developing world behind the rules-based order, many in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East have largely rejected Western framings of the conflict as a battle between might and right.

For them, non-alignment in the form of BRICS is much more comfortable than being pigeonholed as part of a Western position—or, indeed, an Eastern position.

Harun Karčić is a journalist and political analyst covering the Balkans and Turkey. Over the past decade, he has authored numerous articles on Islam and foreign influence in the region, including Saudi, Iranian, Turkish, and more recently Chinese and Russian. He also regularly reports on Muslim minorities in Europe and rising right-wing nationalism. He tweets @HarunKarcic.

Image: Shutterstock.

Waning American support for military aid to Ukraine displays a marked partisan division, among both the public and politicians in Washington. In a poll conducted for CNN and published in August, respondents were asked whether the United States “should do more to stop Russian military actions in Ukraine” or had “already done enough.” Among Democrats, 61 percent said it should do more, and 38 percent said it had done enough. A majority of Republicans—59 percent—said the United States had already done enough, and only 40 percent said it should do more.

Such views among the Republican Party faithful are being reflected in the posture of many Republican candidates on the campaign trail. In Congress, the loudest voices opposing aid to Ukraine are coming from some members of a Republican caucus that is divided on the issue.

No single explanation underlies this pattern. Multiple factors are in play, including ones that are legitimate parts of a healthy foreign policy debate and ones that are not. The following are the principal factors involved, beginning with the two that can be part of a healthy conversation about foreign policy.

Calculated response to the course of the war

Although it might be hard to point to evidence of careful analysis, especially among respondents to public opinion polls, opposition to further military aid to Ukraine can be an understandable response to how people see the war going. Many view the current Ukrainian counteroffensive as yielding meager results at a high cost. This leads to an opinion that more aid to Ukraine would be throwing good money after bad. A related view is that further aid discourages the Ukrainians from accepting the inevitable outcome of a compromise settlement and only prolongs a needless expenditure of blood and treasure.

This is not, of course, the only reasonable way to interpret the story of the war so far. Even those who see an eventual negotiated settlement as inevitable may favor additional military aid to Ukraine as necessary in persuading the Russian leadership to accept a compromise peace agreement. But opposition to more aid is a legitimate, defensible posture, and one that Republicans can hold just as much as anyone else.

In the CNN poll, self-declared independents expressed views on this issue closer to Republicans than to Democrats. This may suggest that for Republicans as a whole, partisan considerations are playing no greater role in positions about the war in Ukraine than they are for Democrats, although the result masks the sharp divisions among Republicans on the issue.

Traditional isolationism

Opposition to aiding Kyiv’s war effort may be based at least as much on general foreign policy ideology as on interpretations of the specific war being waged in Ukraine. Isolationism, with an eschewing of involvement in other nations’ conflicts, has a long pedigree in America, and has been a prominent strand of opinion in the Republican Party. Some of the most prominent isolationist figures of the twentieth century were leading congressional Republicans such as William Borah and Robert Taft. The only senators to vote against ratification of the United Nations Charter were two other isolationist Republicans, William Langer and Henrik Shipstead.

The isolationist strand is competing against another ideological strand in the Republican Party, one that is partial to using military means to assert interests abroad and that favors standing tall against aggressive tendencies of regimes in Moscow. The conflict between these two ideological traditions is reflected in the split among congressional Republicans today regarding the war in Ukraine.

Making political life difficult for a Democratic president

The partisan warfare mode of addressing issues of the Ukraine war was demonstrated in the early days after the Russian invasion when the reflexive response of some Republican politicians was to blame President Joe Biden for the war, just as they might, as a matter of habit, try to blame him for any other untoward happening in the world. Senator Ted Cruz’s comment at the time that “Joe Biden sought to appease Vladimir Putin from the very beginning” was a ludicrous as well as puzzling way to wage partisan warfare when one compares Biden’s posture toward Putin with the posture toward the Russian president of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. 

That a Democratic U.S. president has been leading not only U.S. but also international support for Ukraine stimulates the Republican instinct to oppose whatever a Democratic president proposes. That instinct, like the isolationist tradition, has been colliding with Republican inclinations to oppose Russian aggression. The resulting confusion within the Republican caucus was aptly described by Democratic senator Chris Murphy when he said of his Republican colleagues, “I think many of them really do want to help Ukraine, but they are so used to opposing a Democratic president on everything and anything that they can’t figure out how to get out of their own way.”

Sympathy for Russia as “anti-woke”

The culture war to which the Republican Party devotes much attention and effort intersects with the issue of the war in Ukraine because Putin is waging a cultural war with similar themes, which has won him admiration among much of the American Right. Putin is “anti-woke,” former Trump political advisor Steve Bannon approvingly declares. Putin has used his own culture war, with its religious and anti-LGBTQ themes, as a device not only to help build support within Russia for his war in Ukraine but also, by appealing to culture warriors in the West, to weaken Western support for the Ukrainians. 

To the extent this strategy is even partially successful, it is another reason for Republicans to balk at added military support to Ukraine. Apart from any isolationist or analytical reasons for such opposition, Russia is seen as not the bad guy, and maybe even the good guy, in the conflict.

The projection of domestic social and cultural preferences onto a foreign policy issue is not new. Something similar happened in the early years of the United States, when attitudes of Federalists and Democratic-Republicans toward Britain and France sometimes had less to do with protecting U.S. interests abroad than with how partisans saw in each of the two warring European powers social patterns that they either sought or feared in the United States itself.

The Trump-Russia connection

That the Republican Party is still largely in thrall to Trump is reflected in his huge lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and in how most of those ostensibly running against him say they would support his candidacy even if he were a convicted felon. It follows that Trump’s extraordinary relationship with Putin and Russia colors Republican attitudes toward the war between Russian and Ukraine, and all subsidiary issues such as military aid to Ukraine.

The most evident foundation for that relationship was Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election in favor of Trump. More opaque but evidently no less real given Trump’s secretive dealings with Putin while still in office have been Trump’s business or other connections with Russia. All this augments any disinclination to aid another state in defending itself in a war against Russia.

Added to this disinclination have been related efforts to demean Ukraine and to associate it with corruption supposedly involving Biden or his family—the notion that was at the center of Trump’s caper that led to his first impeachment. Some other Republicans, in an apparent effort to deflect attention from Russia’s pro-Trump election interference, have falsely suggested that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election in favor of Democrats. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, continued to push this notion even after it had been investigated and debunked.

Conclusions

First, Republican opposition against aid to Ukraine is over-determined. This opposition is thus likely to continue growing.

Second, among the reasons for that opposition are some that are not legitimate ingredients of a healthy foreign policy debate and are likely only to confuse and pollute that debate.

But third, the illegitimate ingredients should not be allowed to overshadow sound reasons to question an open-ended supply line to Ukraine. The future course of the war in Ukraine has yet to be determined, and the jury is still out on which approach toward the war is best for U.S. interests and for bringing a stable peace to that part of Europe. All the arguments both in favor of and opposed to added military aid to Ukraine need to be carefully considered, regardless of any other reasons some participants in the debate have for taking the stand they do.

Paul R. Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy. He is also a contributing editor for this publication.

Image: Consolidated News Photos / Shutterstock.com

On August 28, 2023, U.S. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced in a statement that President Joe Biden will meet Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on September 10 in Hanoi to “explore opportunities to promote the growth of a technology-focused and innovation-driven Vietnamese economy, expand our people-to-people ties through education exchanges and workforce development programs, combat climate change, and increase peace, prosperity, and stability in the region.” Biden’s trip is expected to see an upgrade of a “comprehensive strategic partnership”––the highest rank in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy. In the context of China’s increasingly aggressive behaviors in the South China Sea, the possibility of a U.S.-Vietnam alliance is increasingly debatable.

Hanoi appears to leave the door open for deepening security cooperation with the United States. Despite the potential of an elevated partnership between the United States and Vietnam being forged during the Biden trip, I argue that the likelihood of a strategic alliance is highly unlikely. Apart from Vietnam’s adherence to the “Three No’s” policy, it is unlikely for both states to enter into an alliance for two reasons. First, Vietnam and the United States have non-overlapping interests in the South China Sea. Second, Vietnam has a deep-seated suspicion of U.S. peaceful evolution.

China’s recent assertive actions in the South China Sea may prompt Vietnam to consider aligning more closely with external powers like the United States. Many scholars believe that the U.S. presence in the South China Sea serves as a crucial factor in counterbalancing China’s aggressive behavior. However, whether the United States is willing to form an alliance with Vietnam against China is still highly doubtful, as Hanoi itself is uncertain on what position it would play in U.S. China strategy. Put differently, what cost would the United States be willing to bear to help Vietnam in the South China Sea disputes?

Vietnam is one of the main claimants having very high stakes in the South China Sea. The most important goal in Vietnam’s maritime policy is to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is critical to the Communist Party of Vietnam’s legitimacy. In the short term, Hanoi aims to maintain the territorial status quo and protect its waters in order to keep conducting regular economic activities such as oil drilling and fishing. In the long term, Vietnam attempts to recover its lost territories in the South China Sea. Hence, security and resources are two of Vietnam’s existential interests in the South China Sea.

While the United States has increased its naval presence in the disputed waters of the South China Sea to indicate its strong opposition to China’s activities, the United States has not employed its forces to protect claimant states’ security and resource rights. Instead, the United States has justified its interests in terms of upholding freedom of navigation by conducting freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in defiance of Chinese claims. For instance, the United States deployed its Navy ships and Air Force jets to patrol the waters of the Philippines in order to protect “freedom of navigation and overflight rights,” and called on China “to abide by its obligations under international law.”

Thus, we should not assume that the United States has high stakes in the South China Sea. If the United States does not protect its allies’ security in the sea, it may lose their trust. However, the United States does not suffer any direct losses to its truly vital security interests. Accordingly, while Vietnam’s concerns over territorial security, resources, and legitimacy may push policymakers in Hanoi to pursue an alliance with the United States policy, Hanoi needs to think twice about how far the United States is willing to go to defend Vietnam’s security. The exaggeration of U.S. interests in the South China Sea could undermine Vietnam’s long-term maritime policy.

Although Vietnam and the United States share significant concerns about China’s hegemonic maritime ambitions in the South China Sea, Vietnam remains highly skeptical about U.S. intentions regarding democracy, human rights, and religion, constraining the possibility of an alliance. In fact, according to the Vietnamese Communist Party propagandists, “Vietnam is still a major target of the hostile forces and reactionaries’ ‘peaceful evolution strategy,’” and “[g]iven the duplicity of several Western administrations, there remain plots and activities that take advantage of cooperative relationships to carry out the ‘peaceful evolution strategy’ in Vietnam, notably support of several administrations for individuals and organizations hostile towards Vietnam. These organizations still capitalize on American standards on ‘democracy,’ ‘human rights,’ ‘freedom of speech,’ ‘freedom of religion,’ etc., to slander Vietnam about violation of democracy and human rights, and use it as a driver to bolster the domestic forces politically and spiritually.”

Just ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Hanoi on April 15 this year, the United States condemned Vietnam’s jailing of a political activist and called for his release and the release of other human rights activists. The U.S. State Department spokesperson added that “Vietnam is an important partner in the Indo-Pacific, and that partnership can only reach its full potential if its government takes concerted steps to meet its obligations and commitments under international law and improve its human rights record.”

The Vietnam-U.S. alliance has always had two sides to it, and Hanoi needs to consider this dichotomy thoroughly before entering into an alliance. On the one hand, the alliance would strengthen Vietnam’s defensive capabilities against China’s intimidating behavior in the South China Sea. On the other hand, the alliance possibly impairs the Vietnamese government’s capability to implement self-reliant defense policies.

All this said, regardless of the shared concern about China, it is unlikely that Vietnam and the United States will join in an alliance due to the non-overlapping interests between the two states in the South China Sea and Vietnam’s deep-rooted suspicions of U.S. political intentions. 

Thi Mai Anh Nguyen holds a Master of International Relations from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She studies Vietnam’s foreign policy, U.S.-Southeast Asia relations, China’s foreign policy, and non-Western international relations theories.

Image: Shutterstock.

More F-35I Adir Fighters for Israel? This week, Israel’s Defense Ministry submitted an official request to the U.S. military’s Joint Program Office to purchase a third squadron of F-35 fighters.

If accepted, the current Israeli Air Force (IAF) fleet of 50 F-35s will increase to 75. 

Jerusalem announced earlier this summer that a potential F-35 acquisition was internally approved. The chief executive of Lockheed Martin Israel responded to the latest request in a statement: “We are proud to support the Israeli Defense Forces in providing the F-35 and honored that the Israeli government has announced its intent to purchase additional F-35s.” 

The proposed $3 billion dollar deal would elevate the IAF’s already formidable aerial capabilities.

Israel’s Unique F-35I History

Israel’s relationship with the F-35 Lightning II dates back to 2010, when the fifth-generation aircraft’s nine-nation co-development group gave the Jewish state the green light to procure a specialized version of the jet, which became the F-35I.

Lockheed Martin rarely allows client state-requested modifications to be incorporated into the F-35, but Jerusalem wished to layer its own electronic warfare capabilities on top of the platform’s existing avionics. 

In addition to these homegrown sensors and countermeasures, the IAF incorporated its own helmet-mounted displays and other data gathering and processing capabilities to their own model — the Adir, or “Mighty One.”

According to the Eurasian Times, the IAF’s drive for operational and developmental independence with its fleet of F-35 fighters stems from the service wanting an added layer of protection in case a cyber attack targets the F-35 platform. 

Is the F-35I Adir the Best F-35 Variant?

Surrounded by hostile neighbors and threatened by Iran’s nuclear aspirations, Israel has specific security needs that require ultra-advanced electronics. The Adir’s EWS enables the IAF to jam the electronics and guidance systems of adversarial ground-fired anti-aircraft weapons.

The Iran-aligned proxy groups operating around Israel’s borders make this capability especially significant. 

However, considering Iran’s distance from Israel, the F-35’s subpar range is a concern. The IAF could struggle to use the aircraft for aerial and ground attacks on targets more than 1,000 miles away.

Israel has made great use of the platform. In 2018, the Jewish state became the first country to use the stealth fighter in a combat role in the Middle East.

As detailed by Lockheed’s chairman, “With C4I technology integrated into the Adir, the F-35 is particularly critical to countering Hezbollah’s vast rocket threat through rapid identification and prioritization of targets for the IAF. They can fly in what we call ‘beast mode,’ carrying up to 18,000 pounds of internal and external ordnance, in a mix that can include 5,000-pound-class weapons.”

F-35I Adir Fighter. 

Two Israeli Air Force squadrons fly the F-35I Adir — the 116th Lions of the South Squadron, and the 140th Golden Eagle Squadron at Nevatim Base. Israel’s air force will certainly be pleased to add 25 new F-35Is. 

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. 

This week marked a huge milestone for the Air Force’s F-15EX Eagle II platform.

According to the 53rd Wing, the new fighter successfully completed the first phase of its initial operational test and evaluation program with the launch of an AGM-158 Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile.

During this phase, the Eagle II fighter participated in 19 Large Force Exercise events where it flew alongside the service’s fifth-generation airframes.

The JASSM was launched during exercise Combat Hammer. While the exact details of the shot remain highly classified, the jet’s employment of the longest non-nuclear Air-to-Ground munition in the Air Force’s inventory is quite the feat for the platform. 

Maj. Calvin Conner, 85th TES F-15 division commander commented that “Proving the F-15EX capability to employ three JASSMs after witnessing validation of the Air-to-Air dominance role it can play with a 12 AMRAAM loadout is incredible,” adding that “The firepower a 4-ship of F-15EXs brings to a combatant commander is tremendous.” As the service’s first ever airframe to carry out an Integrated Test and Evaluation program, the latest Eagle variant is a unique addition to the Air Force’s arsenal of aircraft. Equipped with more weapon stations than other Eagle predecessors, an enhanced processor and fly-by-wire control system, the F-15EX will add to the service’s already formidable fleet.

A brief overview of the Eagle II

Back in 2018, the Air Force discussed the development with an F-15 successor to replace aging variants with manufacturer Boeing. The service desired a new fighter that could carry up to 22 air-to-air missiles with the Advanced Missile and Bomb Ejector Rack, an AESA radar and other sophisticated attributes. Boeing proposed two prototypes, a single seat and a two-seat variant, which the USAF opted for the latter. Although the new Eagle variant is not expected to survive into the next decade, the airframe was procured by the Air Force at a time when F-22 Raptor production ceased to exist, the F-35 Lightning II was delayed and its existing arsenal of older F-15 models were badly aging. 

As detailed by the Air and Space Forces, “Due to insufficient FY22 procurement, the F-15C/D fleet has continued flying beyond its designed service life, posing a serious risk of structural failure. Similar infrastructure, support, and training requirements will permit existing F-15 units to quickly transition to the F-15EX.”

The Bomb Truck: Specs & Capabilities

By 2020, the new F-15EX program was approved under the National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year, which was signed in December 2019.

The same year, the first F110-GE-129 engine for the new fighter was delivered to the Air Force. By 2021, the latest Eagle iteration took its first flight.

Equipped with powerful engines, the F-15EXX can fly at a speed of Mach 2.5 (times the speed of sound), making it the fastest fighter jet across the globe. Comparably, the fifth-generation F-22 Raptor can fly at speeds of Mach 2.25.

The new Eagle can notably store up to 30,000 pounds of munitions, a huge threshold when compared to the F-35 Lightning II’s internal storage capacity of 6,000 pounds. 

Although the Eagle II’s service tenure will be short once it enters service with the Air Force, it will surely be impressive. 

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.

Multiple administrations in Seoul and Washington have recognized the importance of cooperation in emerging technologies, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI). The 2021 joint statement, for instance, commits both nations “to collaboratively develop a future-oriented partnership.” This year’s follow-up joint statement further underscores the significance of “strengthening public and private cooperation” by leveraging AI talents. In essence, fostering AI bilateral cooperation aligns with the national interests of both South Korea and the United States. Even within its trilateral context, the urgency of this need is evident in the latest Camp David summit’s call to “maintain focus on building robust cooperation in the economic security and technology spheres.”

However, the call for AI cooperation still lacks clarity, primarily due to the lack of concrete discussions about the necessary steps for making this collaboration a reality. Facilitating cooperation that aligns with national interests requires a mutual approach, as defined by two key aspects according to the international relations scholar Robert Keohane. First and foremost, collaboration relies on a conditional framework similar to quid pro quo dynamics. A reciprocal action follows prior actions taken by the partner and contributes to their shared goals. Following this principle, there's a notion of equivalency, meaning that any assistance received should ideally be met with proportionate gestures or resources.

Exploring AI cooperation between South Korea and the United States raises a fundamental question: Can a reciprocal framework be implemented? Within the context of contingency, the feasibility of applying the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” seems uncertain. This challenge is particularly evident in the landscape of private enterprises in both countries, frequently caught in competitive dynamics. A notable example of this competitive spirit is Naver. This major Korean IT company intends to advance a customized AI model to address non-English-speaking nations’ distinct linguistic and politically nuanced needs.

Furthermore, in the South Korean context, six prominent companies have either introduced or are developing their own generative AI models. These efforts are driven by a shared goal to provide personalized and finely-tuned services, particularly for the domestic user base. The ultimate objective of these initiatives is to enhance user experiences by delivering services tailored to the nuances of the local landscape.

The recent conflict stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act, which revolves around consumer subsidies for electric vehicle manufacturers, vividly illustrates the power imbalance. This case highlights the breach of the reciprocity principle. Although South Korea succeeded in having its manufacturers included in the list of eligible recipients for these subsidies, a substantial portion of its domestic subsidy fund ultimately benefits American manufacturers. This situation underscores a violation of the contingent facet of reciprocal cooperation.

For instance, this discrepancy is evident when purchasing a Tesla Model 3 in South Korea. Consumers receive approximately 4 percent of the total vehicle cost as a tax credit. In stark contrast, the principle of reciprocity weakens when attempting to acquire an equivalent electric vehicle, such as the Hyundai Ioniq 6, within American borders. In this context, the absence of available tax credits for purchasing purposes becomes apparent, with a limited 15 percent tax credit reserved solely for leasing agreements. This comparison highlights the inequitable nature of reciprocity in consumer incentives for electric vehicles.

In the broader context of national AI capacity, a discernible disparity exists between the United States and South Korea, as highlighted by data from the Emerging Technology Observatory’s Country Activity Tracker dataset. Notably, the United States stands out as the foremost producer of internationally collaborated articles, contributing to nearly half of all AI-related scientific publications. Interestingly, U.S. researchers collaborate extensively with their Chinese counterparts, co-authoring 32 percent of these articles, while collaboration with South Korean researchers remains relatively modest at 4 percent.

Conversely, South Korean researchers actively collaborate with U.S.-affiliated researchers, accounting for 44 percent of their joint publications. In terms of direct investment in AI companies, South Korea invests $1.7 billion in the U.S. sector, while American investors direct $2 billion. The former accounts for 30.5 percent of Korea’s total disclosed AI investment inflow, whereas the latter represents 0.5 percent of the American total. This analysis accentuates the substantial gap in AI research and investment levels between the United States and South Korea. It also underscores South Korea’s significant reliance on American investment and academic capacity, while the United States may consider South Korea as one of several potential collaborators.

The series of analyses underscores the impracticality of achieving genuine reciprocal AI cooperation between the two countries. This leads to another pertinent question: What should be the guiding principle for such collaboration? Unlike traditional reciprocity, diffuse reciprocity emphasizes moral values like mutual trust and good faith instead of rigid equivalence in exchanges. This innovative approach promotes cooperative endeavors that advance the collective good, transcending the limitations of direct quid pro quo arrangements.

Since they share democratic values, Seoul and Washington must explore collaborative avenues that amplify individual efforts and promote the broader welfare. Diffuse reciprocity emerges as a promising framework to shape the future trajectory of AI and emerging technology collaboration between Seoul and Washington.

Both nations possess the capacity to complement areas where the other may exhibit vulnerabilities or require further advancement. According to OECD.AI data, the United States has an extensive research and development infrastructure, marked by its wide-ranging international research collaboration and significant investments from the public and private sectors. This fusion of academic and industrial strength positions the United States as a formidable leader in technological innovation. On the other hand, South Korea exhibits a resilient AI workforce and the potential to cultivate a conducive research environment, highlighted by its transformation into a hub for AI talent inflow. As such, the convergence of South Korea’s skilled workforce and America’s robust research infrastructure promises synergistic outcomes.

In fostering research networks and nurturing cooperative relationships with other nations, Seoul and Washington find common ground with key partners, including Canada, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and France. These shared allies not only prioritize democratic values in their foreign policies but also exhibit a strong commitment to scientific advancement. Leveraging this shared foundation, the diffusion of cooperative efforts between Seoul and Washington can potentially radiate benefits across these interconnected networks.

By infusing their cooperative endeavors with a sense of shared purpose and mutual trust, both nations can pursue ambitious goals that transcend the constraints of traditional reciprocal arrangements. At the same time, this collaborative synergy arises from the inherent power imbalance between the two nations, with each contributing unique strengths to address their respective shortcomings. In doing so, they will strengthen their bilateral partnership and contribute to advancing democratic values and technological progress on a global scale.

Sanghyun Han is a Ph.D. student in International Affairs, Science, and Technology at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. He has previously worked with research institutions in both Washington D.C. and Seoul, such as the Atlantic Council, the National Bureau of Asian Research, the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, and the East Asia Foundation.

This article was prepared as part of the CSIS Korea Chair’s 3.0 Program, where the author is part of the inaugural cohort. The author would like to thank Victor Cha, Evan Ramstad, and other Young Leaders for their insights.

Image: Shutterstock.

On April 18, 2007, a Chinese man named Wang Xiaoning filed a lawsuit at the U.S. Federal Court in the Northern District of California over his arrest by the Ministry of Public Safety for his pro-democracy activities. His detainment in China involved torture by the authorities. Despite his cautiousness in utilizing pseudonyms and publishing pro-democratic materials anonymously, the arrest was made possible through cooperation from American multinational technology company Yahoo, which handed over private email records, copies of email messages, and other content of the electronic communications. This has led to national attention in the United States. However, the case was later withdrawn after the plaintiff received an undisclosed settlement amount from Yahoo.

With the sixteen-year-old legal precedent of Xiaoning v. Yahoo!, Inc. (2007), there's been a shadowy history of U.S. businesses’ contributions to China’s mass surveillance and censorship programs. As uncovered through Doe I v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (2014), it has been an open secret that Cisco was involved in the development of China’s notorious censorship program, the Golden Shield Project, in the 1990s to early 2000s. Based on the timeline of these events, which is a decade old, these cases may no longer seem to be relevant in the present day. But as the human rights violations of Uyghurs and intelligence activities of China have been highlighted throughout the exacerbation of U.S.-China relations, the informational technology companies’ involvement in aiding and abetting foreign intelligence activities in alleged human rights violations will continue to face scrutiny.

In the case of China's human rights violations against Uyghurs and political dissidents, it has been acknowledged that the artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms that have been used to oppress these individuals have originated from American venture capitalists’ investments in the AI industry. Also, law enforcement surveillance devices ranging from police scanners to DNA forensic devices are still being exported to China from the United States, despite the existence of regulatory efforts such as the International Trafficking Arms Regulations, National Defense Authorization Act, and Export Administration Regulations. Amid the concerns pertaining to the private sector’s technological contribution to digital authoritarianism in foreign countries, many U.S.-based companies that have been publicly identified for alleged violations have asserted that they are in compliance with the relevant U.S. bylaws and these issues are inevitable collateral damage from the complicatedness of global supply chain.

Furthermore, as demonstrated through the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative ruling in Nestle USA, Inc. v. Doe I (2021) on the limitation and criteria of the extraterritorial applicability aspect of Alien Tort Statute (ATS)—which requires substantial conduct in the United States but doesn’t apply to foreign companies—these corporate activities have not borne any significant legal repercussions thus far since these issues have been deemed as a force majeure from the complicatedness of the global supply chain. As of July 2023, however, the Ninth Circuit has held in Doe I. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (2014) that the claims of aiding and abetting human rights abuse by Cisco on the grounds of the Torture Victims Protection Act and the ATS, as shown by the U.S. District Court’s initial dismissal of the motion under ATS in 2014. Indeed, the motion to establish a claim for secondary liabilities of these corporate activities has been often challenged by the plaintiffs’ failure to satisfy mens rea (carried out acts that had substantial effects on the perpetration of a specific crime) and actus reus (substantially assisting the act of crimes) criteria of the court.

As shown with Russia's utilization of the global supply chain to acquire sanctioned semiconductor chips and other utilities for military operations, the limitations pertaining to sanctions are clearly evident as effective sanctions enforcement requires active multilateral cooperation at both the public and private level. Even though the high degree of interconnectedness due to globalization has created opportunities for sanction evasions, these transnational security challenges demand continued attention from the relevant authorities. These security challenges pertaining to human rights violations may seem irrelevant to many Americans, but they are becoming corrosive to U.S. national security and may leave Americans at risk of becoming victims to foreign adversaries’ intelligence gatherings.

With the absence of a singular law that protects overall data privacy, foreign intelligence agencies’ aggressive data collection activities, ranging from social media platforms to the gaming industry and including the collection of sensitive personal data through both purchase and breach of databases from data brokers, are posing a growing threat. In fact, reports indicate that massive data collection efforts may already be an effective tool for foreign intelligence operatives.

By acquiring information on targeted individuals, foreign adversaries are better positioned to infiltrate and intimidate their targets. Recent indictments from the Department of Justice have shown that the Chinese and Iranian governments have aggressively sought the expanded use of these opportunities by utilizing American private investigators for their transnational repression campaigns in the United States. Furthermore, in contrast to the United States, where the concept of governance on overall data privacy is not comprehensively adopted through a unilateral law at the national level, the legal governance of overall data privacy has become one of the most important agendas for Beijing's security apparatus.

In the case of China, subsequent to the implementation of the Cybersecurity Law in 2016, the Data Security Law (DSL) and Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) came into effect in 2021. These privacy protections have shown that China has benchmarked Europe's General Data Protection Regulation and strengthened its protection efforts on overall data privacy. Both the DSL and PIPL have outlawed sales of personal data from China to foreign actors without prior approval from the Chinese government. The PIPL also contains an extraterritorial impact by posing legal repercussions on the entities that are complicit such as the revocation of a business license in mainland China if there were to be any issue of concern pertaining to data that has been collected in China, no matter where the location of collection was made.

Since the effectiveness and importance of open source intelligence and data collection for modern-day spycraft has been highlighted throughout the Russia-Ukraine War, China has responded to these security concerns through the enforcement of the amendments to the pre-existing 2014 Counter-Espionage Act in July of 2023—which includes a broad definition of national security and defines the collection of information pertaining to national security interests as an act of espionage. These legal devices have reinforced China’s efforts to limit the open-source intelligence capabilities of its potential adversaries. Whilst having to reinforce its legislative efforts to counter foreign intelligence’s capabilities, China’s intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, is known to have recently increased its investments in open-source military intelligence and data collection. 

As multilateral security cooperation in cyberspace has recently been emphasized throughout the realm of international security, the United States and traditional security allies like South Korea have been increasing their bilateral cooperation in cyberspace to counter threats that are being posed by adversaries like North Korea. However, apart from international security cooperation at the government level, the structure of these security challenges that are being posed by adversaries is more oriented toward challenging the core values of liberal democracy, and its objectives are accomplished through exploiting the legal loopholes. Thus, the active exchange of knowledge and open discussion on the concept of privacy and the extent of these cybersecurity challenges amongst the liberal democratic states are needed more than ever.

Jong Min Lee is currently a master’s candidate with a concentration in International Security and Public International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. His main areas of interest include non-conventional warfare, neo-authoritarianism, and transnational threats. He is also a graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where he pursued a concentration in Security Policy and Global Public Health.

Image: Shutterstock.

For many years, the U.S. retained air superiority over its adversaries.

However, as China and Russia expanded their respective fifth-generation airframe programs, America’s aerial arsenal became less menacing. Beijing’s Chengdu J-20 and Moscow’s Su-57 have specifically threatened America’s former monopoly on next-generation platforms.

In order to rectify these tipping scales, the U.S. Air Force is developing its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. A new sixth-generation fighter will be the center of the program, which is expected to enter service sometime in the late 2030’s. 

The history of the NGAD program:

The NGAD program was conceptualized nearly one decade ago, when DARPA studies was initiated to explore new technologies for air superiority systems for both the Air Force and Navy.

Over the next few years, the Aerospace Innovation Initiative was launched and the NGAD as we know today was created. Intended to replace the aging F-22 Raptor fighters, the new air dominance program is actually a suite of capabilities and not just a singular airframe. Propulsion, advanced weapons, digital design and stealth are some of the key technologies the NGAD program will feature. 

Last year, manufacturer Lockheed Martin released mock-up images for the next-generation program. These images, and the little information that has been released by the Air Force, sums up what we know about the program. The highly classified program will be developed by either Lockheed Martin or Boeing. Northrop Grumman was also a contender, however, reports suggest that the manufacturer took itself out of the bidding process this summer. The mock-up images released by Lockheed depict a sleek and tailless airframe with refueling drawn from the LMXT tanker concept, which enables greater stealth and lower observability. 

What (little) we know:

Although we don’t know how fast this sixth-generation airframe will be able to cruise, Lockheed’s rendering appeared on the manufacturer’s Instagram handle alongside images of well-known speedy airframes, including the Raptor, the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Nighthawk. The F-22 can fly at speeds nearing Mach 2.0 (times the speed of sound) at altitudes reaching 60,000 feet. Analysts predict that the NGAD fighter will be able to fly with comparable capabilities. 

As a “family of systems,” the NGAD fighter will fly alongside drone “wingmen.” Earlier this year, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced plans to procure at least 1,000 of these sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

As explained by Sandboxx News, “At the heart of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft concept is the need for capable artificial intelligence agents that can fly NGAD’s drone wingmen, take cues from local human operators, and even serve as advanced co-pilots inside the crewed fighter itself to help reduce the massive cognitive load pilots must manage while flying their aircraft in combat. The Air Force’s Project VENOM is among the efforts underway to make exactly that happen.” 

Aviation buffs and industry experts alike are anticipating the release of more information surrounding the Air Force’s NGAD program. The new fighter has some tough shoes to fill, however, considering the legacy of the F-22 Raptor platform, NGAD could be amazing. 

Author Expertise 

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. 

Late last week, Iranian officials drew headlines with their claims of being able to detect and track American F-35s flying over the Persian Gulf. This prompted a flood of claims on social media about the $1.7 trillion stealth fighter program no longer offering a strategic edge over the aggressive nation.

“Over the past days, several of these planes were flying over the Persian Gulf and were fully monitored by our radars from the moment they took off,” an unnamed Iranian official was quoted as saying by the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen news, an outlet that is frequently criticized for its bias toward authoritarian regimes in Iran, Syria, and the militant group Hezbollah.

Is this claim true? The truth is… it’s pretty likely – but that wouldn’t have the implications many may think it does. Stealth fighters have long been detectable via certain radar frequencies and that’s neither new nor troubling for military planners. This story, like many that have come before it, is leveraging popular misconceptions about stealth, rather than the science associated with this technology, in an attempt to paint modern 5th generation fighters as less capable than they truly are. And make no mistake, the F-35’s detectability is not unique to its airframe – every 5th-generation fighter regardless of origin can be detected under the right circumstances.

It’s targeting those aircraft that can be tough.

The F-35 Claim from Iran

According to several Iranian-bases news outlets, Brigadier General Reza Khajeh, the deputy commander of operations of the Iranian Army Air Defense Force, was the first official to come forward with the claim that Iran has been detecting and potentially even tracking F-35s in the region. This claim follows the deployment of about a dozen F-35s to the U.S. Central Command region following a series of aggressive encounters involving Russian aircraft over Syria and Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz.

F-35 stealth fighter. 

According to General Khajeh, all flights in the region have been monitored by Iranian air defense systems, bolstered by what he referred to as “eavesdropping systems,” going on to claim that they have yet to detect a sortie via those listening methods that they weren’t also able to track on radar.

And based on the responses we’ve immediately seen popping up on social media, it’s clear that many are convinced, based on these claims, that Iran has cracked the code to peering through the most advanced fighter on the planet’s stealth capabilities.

Understand Stealth

Stealth aircraft are designed to delay or sometimes even defeat detection via a variety of means, including radar and infrared, but it’s commonly understood that stealth is not invisibility. That is to say that under the right circumstances, these aircraft are often detectable – especially when we’re talking about stealth fighters, in particular.

However, there is a significant difference between being able to detect a stealth fighter and being able to effectively target one, and these claims out of Iran (and subsequent media stories) rely on the average reader’s lack of awareness when it comes to this important distinction.

Modern stealth fighters are designed to delay or prevent detection specifically from high-frequency radar arrays that are capable of providing a “weapons-grade lock” – or radar arrays that can guide a missile to a target. Lower frequency radar arrays are not capable of guiding weapons with this 

Radar Issues

Different radar arrays broadcast in different wavelengths and frequencies for different reasons. The types of design elements that can help delay or prevent detection from one type of radar frequency won’t necessarily help prevent detection from another.

As a result, stealth fighter designs are specifically intended to limit detection from the types of radar arrays that can effectively guide a weapon to its position. While stealth aircraft are still not invisible to radar arrays that work within these bands, the goal is to make their radar returns small enough to delay detection, allowing the stealth fighter to either engage a target or escape without ever being targeted itself.

Radars operate by broadcasting electromagnetic energy (radar waves), usually in the L, S, C, X, or K bands. Each band uses a different wavelength and frequency, with only higher frequency (smaller wavelength) systems providing the image fidelity needed to accurately target an aircraft.

In other words, only certain types of radars can be used to guide a missile toward a target and get it close enough to destroy it. Lower frequency arrays are often capable of spotting stealth fighters in the air, but because of their larger wavelengths, can’t provide accurate enough data to actually lock onto an aircraft with a missile.

Stealth fighter designs only limit detection against higher frequency radar arrays, including parts of the S-band and the C, X, and Ku bands to prevent being targeted. Because these fighters are still visible on lower-frequency radar bands operating on S and C bands, these arrays can be leveraged effectively as early warning systems, notifying defensive forces that stealth fighters are in the area, and allowing for other defensive systems to be oriented in the right direction. But importantly, low-frequency arrays can do little more than point systems toward the area a stealth fighter is in. An effective stealth fighter design remains difficult to target via a high-frequency array even with this head start.

Stealth Fighters Are More Than Just Stealth

It’s not at all uncommon for stealth fighters like the F-35 to fly with radar reflectors on to both render them more detectable and mask their actual radar profiles while operating in regions with enemy air defense systems that are eager to gobble up data about their radar returns. These reflectors, often called Luneburg lenses, aren’t always easy to spot with the naked eye, but they render even the stealthiest aircraft easy to detect on radar.

In other words, it’s entirely possible that American F-35s operating in the Middle East may be flying with these lenses on specifically to make it more difficult for enemy air defense systems to work toward figuring out how to detect these aircraft more readily.

And considering the United States sent these fighters to the region as an intentional message to aggressive Iranian and Russian forces, advertising their presence is an intentional decision. That much was made clear by the Pentagon’s public announcement of their deployment prior to the F-35s even arriving in the region.

“In coordination with our regional allies, partners, and the U.S. Navy, the F-35s will partner with A-10s and F-16s already in theater helping monitor the Strait of Hormuz,” Air Forces Central (AFCENT) spokesman Col. Mike Andrews said in a statement last month.

In other words, there’s a multitude of reasons why Iran might be able to detect F-35s operating over the Persian Gulf, from Luneburg lenses to low-frequency radar arrays. In fact, it would be somewhat damning if they couldn’t. But just as Russia leveraged confusion about the definition of modern hypersonic missiles to claim their Kh47M2 Kinzhal was more than a simple air-launched ballistic missile, Iran is now leveraging confusion around the word stealth in a similar manner.

So, did Iran detect F-35s over the Persian Gulf a few weeks back? It’s pretty likely. But is that anything American military planners are sweating?

Almost certainly not.

Alex Hollings is the editor of the Sandboxx blog (where this first appeared) and is a former U.S. Marine who writes about defense policy and technology. He lives with his wife and daughter in Georgia. 

Last week, China released a new map called the 10-Dash map as a successor to Dash-9. This map represents an escalation by Beijing to further extend its unilateral redrawing of international boundaries. It is an extraordinarily provocative move. It also violates the International Law of the Sea. 

With the 9-dash line, China brazenly claims waters which are thousands of miles away from its territory, but along the coast of smaller nations. The latest map further solidifies those claims and expands upon them with the addition of one more “dash” around Taiwan. The United States must not stand idly by as China tries to redraw the world map.

Beijing's intent is to, first, acquire more territory and resources as some of these areas are rich in hydrocarbons; second, increase pressure on Taiwan by edging closer to its boundaries; and third, flex its muscles with its neighbors while testing U.S. reaction and resolve. 

The publication of the 10-Dash map indicates that China is getting bolder in pursuing its strategic objective to change the regional balance of power and pursue regional hegemony.

The countries of Southeast Asia, who are directly threatened by this Chinese action, are furious and have responded strongly, with some stating that they will take measures necessary to defend their territory. But it is not clear what those measures will be, and their collective failure to respond effectively to 9-Dash has clearly emboldened China to push ahead. 

The latest Chinese action has serious implications for the United States, and it would be a mistake to just dismiss this as bluster. We have treaty commitments to some of the countries threatened, including the Philippines. Our supply chain for several strategic items depends on unfettered access to the region. We simply cannot allow the arbitrary expansion of Chinese power to stand.

Countries in the region are watching for a U.S. response and are more open than previously to the prospect of greater security and military cooperation with the United States. Chinese hegemony in the region will change the global balance of power and directly threaten our vital national interests.

What should we do? Having just returned from a trip to Southeast Asia, I recommend the following measures be taken:

1. Deter Chinese escalation and aggression. For this, we will need to address gaps in our capabilities and those of our allies. Burden-sharing must become a hallmark of our rebalancing of power in the region. We must learn from our mistakes in Europe during the containment of the former Soviet Union. We should not and need not carry a disproportionately heavy amount of that burden.

2. Addressing the chasm in shipbuilding should be a priority. China’s shipyards have a capacity that far exceeds U.S. shipyards, by orders of magnitude—some estimate the gap is 25 million gross tons per year in China vs. 100,000 gross tons per year in the United States. Furthermore, China builds ships for a much lower cost. We must expand our industrial base for manufacturing ships. We should also take advantage of allied capabilities. For example, South Korea has the capacity to produce ship hulls. Some of our laws and policies stand in the way of cooperative production, but there are shelf-ready solutions. The rules should be changed to allow neutral components to be manufactured elsewhere, with the more sensitive capabilities subsequently installed in either the United States or another allied country.

3. Burden sharing and pooling resources should extend to maintenance and repair work on our and allied ships to get them back into commission more quickly. For example, we are in an advantageous position with our nuclear submarines, but many are in maintenance for extensive periods largely because of the legal requirement for only American entities to do the work. This requirement should be appropriately reviewed and adjusted. 

4. Our aircraft and those of our allies are vulnerable to Chinese missiles on airfields without hardened shelters. Our allies should assume a greater portion of this burden by assuming broader responsibility for hardening these facilities across the region. 

5. The United States must assume the role of dispute mediator among the bickering nations affected by China’s Dash-10 provocation. Each nation is clear that the move is a violation of their borders, their sovereignty, and their security. They all have a strong shared interest in meeting this threat. But bilateral disputes among them are impeding their ability to act. This is an important opportunity for the United States to quietly step in as a mediator and work behind the scenes to help resolve these disputes. Such a strategic move would enable the affected countries to pursue joint cooperative policies against Chinese provocations.

These steps are necessary if we are to avoid further aggressive moves by China. The geopolitical risk is outsized. Without taking such bold measures, China may well miscalculate its capacity to continue this encroachment and overreach. There is a distinct potential for this strategic trend to lead them into a major regional conflict. We must take concrete steps like these now in order to preclude such a development.

Zalmay Khalilzad is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Image: Shutterstock.

In early May 2011, a CIA-led operation conducted by members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6, also known as DEVGRU, took out the most infamous terrorist leader of the modern era, Osama Bin Laden. The mission, known internally as Operation Neptune Spear, was successful, though not everything went according to plan.

The plan called for the use of two highly classified and heavily modified UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters built specifically for clandestine operations. One of these stealth Black Hawks was meant to hover above Bin Laden’s walled compound for operators to fast rope in, while the other landed nearby to deploy troops, interpreters, and dog handlers to secure the perimeter.

But just as the mission started, things began to go wrong when one of the stealth helicopters crashed inside the compound.

Thanks to the pilot’s quick reaction, none of the operators or crewmembers onboard the helicopter were seriously injured, and the mission was ultimately successful. In order to prevent the stealth technology within the rotorcraft from falling into the wrong hands, the helicopter itself was destroyed prior to the special operations team’s departure.

But the exotic-looking tail section of this highly classified platform remained intact and left behind. It was clearly shown in pictures of the compound shared by media outlets around the world the following day.

Initially, the media didn’t seem to realize what they’d just shown the world… or perhaps the story of Bin Laden’s death simply warranted too much attention to address the uniquely angular and alien-looking tail rotor shown in the photographs. But it wasn’t long before journalists and aviation buffs around the world recognized how unusual the tail section really was, and came to a stark realization: Stealth helicopters are a reality. They’re in service. And none of us in the world at large, or even in the conventional side of the U.S. military, knew about it. At least, not until now.

Stealth is far more than a singular approach to radar evasion.

As detection and targeting capabilities continued to mature, so too did the technologies inherent to what we call “stealth.” Today, stealth designs take great pains to reduce not just radar detection, but also electromagnetic, infrared, acoustic, and even visual detection. It can be extremely difficult to incorporate these stealth design elements into fixed-wing aircraft, but one might argue that it’s even tougher when it comes to adding stealth to helicopters.

As retired U.S. Air Force helicopter pilot and former Air Force Weapons School instructor Mike McKinney put it, helicopters pose a number of unique challenges to the stealth enterprise because “they routinely operate within the heart of the threat envelope and their physical configuration does not allow for the use of many masking techniques.” 

In other words, it isn’t enough to build modern stealth helicopters that can delay radar detection: rather, they also need to minimize the heat produced by the engines, the detectability of their radio transmissions, and importantly, in the case of low-flying rotorcraft, the noise produced by their propellers. Helicopters have large propellers, which are basically narrow wings being spun overhead. These tend to produce a significant radar and acoustic signature, while the helicopters’ powerful engines pump out a ton of heat, all in a platform that’s slower and less agile than modern fixed-wing aircraft.

But it’s also important to understand that stealth isn’t a thing that a platform has or doesn’t have. It might be better to think of stealth as a segment within a spectrum of observability. On the broadly observable side, you have easy-to-spot platforms like the B-52 Stratofortress or the F-15 Eagle, and on the opposite “low observable” side, you have platforms like the F-117 Nighthawk and F-22 Raptor.

The degree of stealth required for a platform to be considered stealth in any given era is based not on clearly defined universal requirements, but rather on how a platform compares to the means of detection used in its day and to similar platforms of its class. Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57, for instance, may boast a worst-in-class stealth profile when it comes to its 5th-generation peers, but it is significantly stealthier than its 4th-generation predecessors. Its radar return may be thousands of times larger than an F-22, but it is dozens of times smaller than an F-15’s, pushing it far enough toward the low-observable side of the spectrum for many to consider it a stealth fighter.

The 90-degree angles inherent to helicopter design, as well as the ways in which these platforms operate, almost preclude them from ever achieving the sort of low observability that’s possible in bomber or fighter designs, but it is possible to design a helicopter that’s far less observable than its in-class peers and precursors, earning that coveted “stealth” designation, even if it will not be nearly as sneaky as its fixed-wing sisters-in-service.

About the Author

Alex Hollings is the editor of the Sandboxx blog (where this first appeared) and is a former U.S. Marine who writes about defense policy and technology. He lives with his wife and daughter in Georgia. 

The 15th annual BRICS summit kicked off on August 22nd in Johannesburg, South Africa, in its most widely observed meeting to date. As the acronym suggests, leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa convened for a three-day conference with expansion at the top of the agenda. Because Vladimir Putin has an arrest warrant with the International Criminal Court, his attendance came virtually, sparing South Africa the diplomatic headache. Presented as an alternative to the U.S.-led liberal international order and a representative of the Global South, the BRICS group is determined to challenge the “Washington Consensus-driven Bretton Woods Institutions.” This year’s gathering culminated with an invitation to six countries: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Even before this expansion, the rise of BRICS has prompted doomsday calls in Western media outlets regarding the future of the U.S. Dollar and the structure of international finance. However, if the bloc is to become a counterweight to the Bretton Woods system, it will need to harmonize its members competing interests and geopolitical ambitions.

The story started in 2001 when Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neil used the term ‘BRIC’ to describe the fastest-growing economies in the developing world. However, the coalition was only formed in 2009 with its inaugural summit, incorporating South Africa the following year to become BRICS. Fast forward fourteen years: the bloc constitutes 43% of the world’s population, 16% of its trade, and boasts a GDP surpassing the G7. The prevailing sentiment among its members is that current global governance institutions overly centralize power in the U.S. and fellow liberal democracies. At the same time, their dependency on the U.S. dollar creates vulnerabilities and restricts monetary autonomy. Even though the BRICS have made tangible efforts toward what they call a more equitable and multipolar order, such as The New Development Bank and Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the impact has been minute thus far. There is even debate about a potential BRICS currency akin to the Euro, but this is as unrealistic as it would be economically catastrophic.

While these developments are not insignificant, behind the curtain, there is a lack of consensus on purpose and trajectory among BRICS leaders. Aside from using the organization as a vehicle to increase global influence, the bloc comprises countries with differing agendas and motivations. For its part, China sees BRICS as a strategic instrument for counterbalancing America’s international power projection, expanding its economic reach, and supplanting the U.S. dollar’s trade role with the renminbi. During the summit, President Xi Jinping appealed to the resource-rich Global South, arguing for the group’s rapid enlargement while laying veiled criticism toward the West.

On the other hand, India advocates a more cautious approach regarding new members, fearing the bloc’s transformation into a Beijing-run forum dedicated to opposing American interests. Moreover, China and India have unsettled territorial disputes, underscored by recent skirmishes along the Line of Actual Control.

Meanwhile, Putin is eager to demonstrate that, despite Western Sanctions, his country is not diplomatically isolated. In tune with Beijing, he argues for the swift enlargement of BRICS throughout the developing world. However, Putin’s refusal to renew the grain accord with Ukraine and the continued weaponization of the global food supply cast a grim shadow over Russia’s relationship with emerging economies.

Regarding Brazil and South Africa, both countries want to increase their global influence without antagonizing the U.S., which is made more difficult with the addition of Iran. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa even said afterward that the “BRICS is not anti-West.” Looking to spearhead the African Agenda, Ramaphosa has pressed for the swift inclusion of African nations, while Brazil wants a slower expansion for fear of diluting its influence.

When looking at the new members, specifically Iran, it appears China and Russia’s position prevailed. Despite Ramaphosa’s comment, Iran’s inclusion immediately gives the impression that economic initiatives are taking a backseat to Putin and Xi’s efforts to form a coalition against the U.S. Officials in Washington downplayed the developments, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying that the White House does not perceive BRICS as an emerging “geopolitical rival.”

The competing incentives within the group throw into question the idea of the bloc as anything more than a financial forum. For one, there are significant economic and political disparities among member states. Simultaneously, BRICS contains the world’s largest democracy and autocracy, and now arguably two of the most repressive regimes in Moscow and Tehran. While deviating ideologies can hamper long-term decision-making and cooperation, the fiscal variations exceed those of the political ones. These financial differences do not bode well for any future bloc currency, especially considering how uneven development levels under the Euro exacerbated the fallout from the 2009 eurozone crisis. Sanctions against Russia also complicate matters for the bloc, as the New Development Bank has refrained from investing in the country. Furthermore, if BRICS is not a Chinese-dominated economic tool, then the addition of new members makes agreement ever more elusive.

With that said, the American-led order is far from perfect, with the last successful international response dating back to the Great Financial Crisis. Though it may appear that this order is on its last leg, if not shattered already, hysteric notions of BRICS colluding to outcompete the U.S. and the dollar are premature. While the bloc’s growth is significant, it reflects the shifting tides of multipolarity and strategic competition. For now, BRICs should be regarded for what it is – a grouping of nations with disjointed objectives and separate visions for themselves and the future. Regardless, the U.S. should continue strengthening existing partnerships while forging new ones, while at the same time leveraging its key strengths like soft power and innovation to remain competitive in decades to come. This is not the first time U.S. leadership has been questioned, and as President Biden has mentioned in the past, “it’s never a good bet to bet against America.”

The term “Political Maronitism” entered Lebanon’s political lexicon on the eve of the country’s civil war (1975–1990). Its introduction was due to the leadership of the Druze Jumblatt family, which criticized Maronite hegemony over Lebanon’s confessional system. In essence, however, Political Maronitism reflected the desire of the political and spiritual leadership of the Maronite Catholic community to influence Lebanon’s domestic and foreign policies with the goal of maintaining Maronite influence within the state. Only such influence, these proponents believed, could guarantee the protection of the privileges and safety of the Christian community in general and the Maronite community in particular.

Origins

In this respect, Political Maronitism as a leading political force in Lebanon can be initially traced to the reign of the first Maronite leader, Emir Bashir Shihab II (1789–1840), who ruled Mount Lebanon under Ottoman suzerainty. Regional developments within the Ottoman Empire forced his hand to pursue domestic policies inimical to sectarian coexistence. Dismayed by the Ottoman Porte (central government) for not granting him the province of Syria as compensation for his efforts in crushing the puritanical Wahhabi movement in Arabia, the ruler of Egypt Muhammad Ali invaded the Levant in 1831. Ali asked Emir Bashir for help in subduing the Druze rebellion in Hawran, which extended to Mount Lebanon. Unable to decline Ali’s request, Emir Bashir rallied a Maronite force of 4,000 to subdue the rebels. This marked the first time in the history of Mount Lebanon that a sect sided with a foreign force against another sect, bringing sectarianism to the fore of Mount Lebanon’s politics.

Once British and Ottoman forces forced Egyptian forces from the Levant in 1840, Emir Bashir was forced into exile and died in Istanbul in 1850. As tensions continued to escalate, a sectarian war erupted in which Druze forces massacred thousands of Christians in Mount Lebanon’s mixed towns. In hindsight, the 1860 massacres were instigated no less by sectarian hatred than communal vindictive superiority. Whereas the Maronite clergy described the war as one of religion and the Maronite stronghold of Kesrwan readied 50,000 men to help their brethren, the Druze led a struggle for a lasting ascendency dispensed with a knife at hand. The promised relief never came and the Maronites were butchered. European powers stopped the massacres and in concert with the Porte established a confessional system, Mutasarifiyah, in Mount Lebanon overseen by a Christian Ottoman wali (governor).

Stability in Mount Lebanon was shattered with the advent of World War I (1914–1918). Concerned about Christian collaboration with the French, Ottoman authorities blockaded Mount Lebanon and sought to subdue the Maronites by starving them. One-third of the population of Mount Lebanon and Beirut died from starvation and epidemics. Eventually, the Allies defeated the Ottoman Empire, and the French Army landed in Beirut in 1918, whereupon France had the mandate over Lebanon.

The French established a confessional system favoring the Maronite community, whose clergy played a key role in establishing Greater Lebanon. The National Pact actualized Lebanon’s independence in 1943, but it neither fostered nor forged a national identity. It was based on a compromise guided by the false assumptions that Muslims would “Arabize” the Christians while Christians would “Lebanonize” Muslims. The pact provided that Lebanon’s identity would be characterized by an “Arab face” and manifested by the slogan “No East, No West.” Significantly, deep currents within the Maronite community represented a spectrum of various impulses ranging from the belief of organic affiliation with the West, to opposition to Arabism, to espousing the idea of Phoenician origin. On one end of the spectrum, a Maronite political majority and the clergy supported Greater Lebanon; on the other end, a political minority advocated a smaller Lebanon where Christians would constitute a majority.

Disruption

Ultimately, Maronites wielded power in a confessional system undergirded by a communal balance. But this communal balance has often been disrupted. President Camille Chamoun (1952–1958) felt threatened by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser’s strident pan-Arabism which intensified anti-Maronitism among the Left, pro-Palestinian activists, and Arab nationalists. Led by the man of the Left Kamal Jumblatt, the National Union Front rallied anti-Maronite groups. Considering Nasserism to be a direct threat to Lebanon’s informal dissociation from the Arab-Israeli conflict, to Maronite hegemony over the Lebanese state, and to his growing relationship with the United States, Chamoun endorsed the Eisenhower Doctrine, under which a country could request U.S. military assistance if it was being threatened by another state.

Once Lebanon’s parliament approved the doctrine, the National Union Front called for the government to resign and a general strike. Meanwhile, Egypt and Syria supplied arms to Chamoun’s opposition. In May 1958, the general strike transformed into civil strife. Chamoun invoked the Eisenhower Doctrine and requested military assistance from President Dwight Eisenhower. A heated debate ensued in the U.S. Congress because some members believed that it was not communism but domestic issues that lay at the heart of Lebanon’s civil strife. Ultimately, the American military intervention took place only after a violent Arab nationalist coup d’état overthrew the pro-British Iraq’s Hashemite monarchy.

The U.S. Marines defused the crisis; yet its causes simmered, eventually leading to the eruption of Lebanon’s long and bloody civil war (1975–1990). Jumblatt led the Muslim camp, whose mainstay was the National Movement, a coalition including Leftists, Marxists, Nasserists, and pro-Syrians. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) fronted the National Movement. Jumblatt sought to overthrow Maronite hegemony over the state because he perceived them as central players in a U.S. and Zionist conspiracy against Lebanon and the Arabs in general. The Christians rallied around the Lebanese Front, whose mainstay included the Phalange party, National Liberal Party, and the supporters of then-President Suleiman Franjieh.

Maronite entreaty with the Americans to help the Christian camp led to nowhere, at least until the camp was faced with defeat in 1976. Washington saw a win for the pan-Arab-Leftist camp as a win for the Soviet Union, and therefore the Gerald R. Ford administration brokered the unwritten Red Line agreement between Israel and Syria to allow Syrian military intervention in Lebanon to stop the war and prevent the collapse of the Christian camp. Bashir Gemayel, son of the founder of the Phalange party Pierre Gemayel, sought Israel’s help to reinforce the Christian military camp and eventually drive Syrian and PLO forces out of Lebanon. Israel helped him as he became the pivot around which Israel’s policy revolved in Beirut.

Meanwhile, Bashir, under the banner of unifying the “Christian rifle [and cause],” into what became the Lebanese Forces, ordered both the assassination of former President Frangieh’s son Tony and subsequently the crippling of the Phalange’s rival militia, the National Liberal party’s Tigers. The 1978 and 1980 massacres of Ehden and Safra left deep wounds in the Christian community’s collective consciousness, which only deepened by the later assassination in 1990 of former President Chamoun’s son Dany and his family. During this time, Washington’s main concern in the region was stability and preventing an Arab-Israeli war. Washington came to broker a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1979, and entertained the idea of a potential Israel-Syria peace agreement. Henry Kissinger’s slogan “No war without Egypt and No peace without Syria,” reflected Washington’s outlook.

Yet Washington remained diligent in keeping an eye on the fast-paced developments in Lebanon and their repercussions for the region. American intelligence, led by Robert Ames, observed closely the chain of events in war-torn Beirut. Ames, among other American officials, had a paradoxical relationship with the Maronites. Although American officials sought to support the Maronites given their pro-American stance, they also had concerns about them. Ames felt there was enough hatred in Lebanon to fill the whole world. He called Bashir “our brutal warlord.” And he often emphasized that the “Christians want their own state, protected by the U.S., just like Israel. We don’t need another Israel in the area.” His words more or less still ring true in America’s corridors of power. Ames died in the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in April 1983.

Modern Times

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 alarmed Washington, which wanted to resolve the conflict before it spread across the region. Bashir was elected president and the PLO was evicted to Tunisia. Bashir, who had toyed with the idea of creating a Christian state, amplified his resolve to secure Lebanon’s territorial sovereignty. President Ronald Reagan, through his presidential enjoy Philip Habib, underscored to Bashir that he was no longer a sectarian Christian leader but a leader of all Lebanese regardless of sects. Sensing its potential defeat in Lebanon, the Syrian regime then masterminded the murder of the president-elect by a pro-Syrian Lebanese. Bashir’s death was tantamount to the collapse of the house cards upon which Israel had built its policy in Lebanon.

Consequently, as Israel began its withdrawal from Lebanon in 1983–1984, Christian forces were routed in Mount Lebanon’s Shouf area. Christian misfortunes sank to a new low when interim Prime Minister General Michel Aoun declared a “liberation war” against Syria in 1989. At the same time, Aoun opposed the efforts of Lebanese deputies to amend the constitution. He rejected the new version of the constitution, known as the Taif Accords, as a Syrian scheme to whittle away at Maronite power and called on the Lebanese Forces to stand by him in meeting the Syrian challenge. The Lebanese Forces demurred because they considered Aoun’s war against Syria to be political suicide. Consequently, deadly hostilities broke out between Aoun’s forces and the Lebanese Forces, shattering whatever was left of Christian unity. It was against this background that Iraq invaded Kuwait. Washington needed Syria’s help in forming an international and Arab anti-Iraq coalition to extract Iraq from Kuwait.

No sooner, Washington endorsed the implementation of the Taif Accords, and apparently gave the go-ahead to Syria and its allies in Lebanon to oust Aoun as a price for Syria’s participation in the U.S.-led anti-Iraq coalition. Consequently, Syria occupied Lebanon and expedited the implementation of the Taif Accords, which conferred equal powers to the Maronite president, the Sunni prime minister, and the Shia speaker of the house.

Thanks to Syria and Iran, the Shia Islamist party Hezbollah was able to build a state-within-a-state in Lebanon under the pretext of expelling Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon and defending it against Israel’s aggressions. The murder of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 by Hezbollah members reportedly with Syrian collusion sparked a mass demonstration, known as the Cedar Revolution, which all but crushed the Syrian order in Lebanon. But corruption remained the hallmark of the confessional system. Ominously, since the end of the civil war in 1990 until the present, Lebanon’s political elite have forged a Faustian deal with Hezbollah grounded in preserving national coexistence, but practically expressed in providing political cover for Hezbollah in return for an extraordinary theft of the state by the political ruling class.

The Present

The steady collapse of the economy, the steep downfall of Lebanon’s currency as pegged to the dollar, and the poaching of the people’s savings have pauperized and starved society. It was against this background that the nuclear-like explosion in Beirut’s port in August 2020 sank the country to a depth of destruction and misery unseen in its history. Demonstrations and calls for reform and holding the culprits behind the port explosion accountable led nowhere thanks to obstruction from Hezbollah and the country’s political elite.

Frustrated, demeaned, and fed up with the chronic failure of the political system, proposals of federalism, partition, or creating a Christian state have once again been expressed by mainly Maronite voices. No doubt, the state and nation are facing an unprecedented crisis and need salvation and help. But Maronite plans have to be taken under careful consideration. As shown here, Political Maronitism since Emir Bashir to the present has been affected by both domestic and regional forces which continuously diminished the very influence Political Maronitism had planned to preserve. Today, the Maronites face challenges and threats within and beyond the community far more dangerous than ever before. The community is divided and has neither allies nor partners among the other sects nor among regional countries supporting its plans. Even Washington has been clear about its priorities in Lebanon: building state capacity and strengthening government institutions such as the Lebanese Armed Forces to impose its authority over the total territory of the country.

Broadly speaking, Washington’s view of Beirut still reflects Ames’ outlook. Saudi Arabia and even Israel have brushed aside Maronite exclusive plans. As happened recently, Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, on the order of Israel’s High Court of Justice, declassified documents, which were cited in Haaretz, pertaining to its plans in Lebanon and its relationship with Bashir Gemayel. The documents reveal that many Israeli officials had more apprehension than consideration about the Maronites, and that the real decisionmaker was not Bashir but his father Pierre, who was critical of Israel. Interestingly, some analysts believe the declassification of the documents at this time was partially meant to nip in the bud any formal or informal renewed contact by some Maronites with Israel.

Political Maronitism metaphorically resembles the myth of Sisyphus who is condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top. Suicide was not an option for Sisyphus and his struggle against defeat may have gained him definition and identity. Similarly, Political Maronitism today is a struggle against defeat, but the problem is that the boulder Lebanon’s Maronites are carrying to the top of the hill may crush them on the way down, should they not learn the lessons of their history.

Robert G. Rabil is a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. He can be reached @robertgrabil and www.robertrabil.com.

Image: Carlos Haidamous / Shutterstock.com

Taipei’s lobbying to include the 24-million democratic island nation of Taiwan in the upcoming UN General Assembly this month in New York will most likely upset China. With the continuing support for Taiwan’s “meaningful participation in the UN system” and other international organizations (IOs), the United States’ engagement in Taiwan Strait relations may also take another turning point in the Sino-American rivalry and the Indo-Pacific defense posture.

With the fresh memory of the infamous slogan of “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow,” the United States and the global community are looking anxiously at the volatile Taiwan issue. China’s relentless military intrusions into the island’s airspace with continuing naval exercises in and around the Taiwan Strait are worrisome for not only the immediate stakeholders but also the whole international community.

President Xi Jinping’s stated mission of “national reunification,” which would culminate in Taiwan’s “return” to the Chinese “motherland,” has always been the undercurrent of these simmering tensions. Beijing’s comprehensive plans for Taiwan encompass not only the threat of a possible armed attack but also a long-term consistent campaign of isolating the democratic island nation in the international space.

Countering the Beijing strategy to block the Taipei government’s meaningful participation in IOs, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated its diplomatic campaign for inclusion in the United Nations ahead of the UN General Assembly. Taiwan has been excluded from the UN for more than fifty years.

Is Taiwan a “Renegade Province” of China?

As a result of China’s over two decades of civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, Mao Zedong’s communist forces seized power over the mainland, announcing the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949. The nationalist forces of the defeated Republic of China (ROC) led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek were forced to evacuate to the island of Taiwan.

Since then, both governments—the one in Beijing and the one in Taipei—have considered themselves the sole legitimate authority of all of China. Discrediting Taipei’s democratic ROC government, Beijing calls Taiwan a “renegade province.” It should, however, be noted that the current Taiwanese authorities are a continuation of the government of the ROC, which was established long before the intermittent civil war periods between 1927 and 1949. Indeed in 1911, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the “Father of the Nation” and the founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party (or Kuomintang, known by the acronym KMT), became the first president of the ROC after the collapse of millennia-old China’s dynastic empire. If it were not for the victory of Mao and his comrades, the world would today perceive the Chinese communists merely as rebels.

Despite losing the civil war in 1949, the ROC (Taiwan) kept the “China seat” in the United Nations for the next two decades. It was not until 1971 that the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 in which it dismissed the representatives of the ROC from the seat, inviting the representation of the communist PRC in their place.

China’s Effective Disinformation Campaign

Whenever the issue of the return of the Taiwan representation to the UN is brought up, China triumphantly pulls the 1971 resolution out from its sleeve. According to Beijing, the UN resolution confirmed—once and for all—that “Taiwan is part of the PRC.” In fact, however, the claims of the Chinese authorities are based on manipulation.

UN Resolution 2758 recognizes the PRC as the “only lawful representative of China.” However, it does not resolve the statehood of Taiwan. It neither mentions the “Republic of China” nor “Taiwan.” It only states the removal of “Chiang Kai-shek’s representation” from the United Nations. In other words, the carefully drafted resolution does not authorize Beijing to represent Taiwan in the UN system and it does not state that Taiwan is part of the PRC.

Chiang Kai-shek—the head of the Nationalist government in China (1928–1949) and later in Taiwan (1949–1975)—has long been gone. Since then, Taiwan has become a flourishing democracy in the Indo-Pacific. Today, the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections are held in Taiwan. The thriving Taiwan’s democracy—ranked best in all of Asia—is among the top ten strongest “full democracies” in the world.

Taiwan also has a powerful partner: the United States. Even though Washington ceased its official relations with Taipei in order to establish diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979, U.S. presidential administrations have maintained unofficial relations with Taiwan and guaranteed its security as confirmed by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, three U.S.-China joint communiqués of 1972, 1978, and 1982, and the Six Assurances. Nevertheless, with its stated “policy of ambiguity,” the United States deliberately avoids making legally binding declarations as to whether it would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack.

In all this, is membership in the UN really necessary for Taiwan? Or, perhaps, are Taiwan’s efforts to return to the UN an unjustified provocation against Beijing in the midst of Sino-American rivalry and increasing military posture in the Indo-Pacific?

Not to Provoke the Chinese Dragon?

The serious consequences of Taiwan’s exclusion from the UN system and other IOs are best evidenced by the events of the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the lack of Taiwan’s presence in the World Health Organization (WHO), for example, Taiwanese experts could not share their experiences from the previous fight against the SARS epidemic in 2003 on the WHO forum. Moreover, because of the continued pressure from China, Taiwan experienced a wide range of problems with the purchase of vaccines.

On the other hand, Taiwan was ranked as one of the countries that performed best in controlling Covid-19 infections. In fact, it was Taiwan that first informed the WHO about the mysterious transmissions of the new virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Thus, it will not be an exaggeration to claim that Taiwan needs the UN, and the international community needs Taiwan. For the United States and the rest of the world, Taiwan’s participation is “not a political issue, but a pragmatic one.”

For years, Taipei has been trying to obtain membership or at least observer status in the UN family of organizations. However, despite the wide support of the United States, Japan, and the European Union countries, China has kept the door closed for Taiwan in many IOs.

China’s World Order, Replacing the United States

The rising China has been consistently and actively strengthening its position in the UN system and other IOs. Beijing has increasingly been placing Chinese nationals in IOs as well as influencing other member states and supporting their nationals if they were favorably aligned with Beijing’s strategic goals. For example, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus—the current director general of WHO and former minister of foreign affairs and minister of health of Ethiopia—was suspected of following China’s policy during the coronavirus pandemic.

China’s influence kept growing in IOs as the United States has until recently been neglecting the UN agencies. After five years of absence, for example, the Biden White House rejoined the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in July 2023. Meanwhile, China had space to replace the United States not just with its pressure and influence, but also the financial leverage coming from membership dues. In the absence of the United States, China became the largest contributor to UNESCO’s annual budget.

By taking control of UN funds and modifying the language of international documents as Beijing sees fit, China has slowly been changing the international order from within. The aim of these actions is to impose on the world the vision of the Communist Party of China, which depreciates the importance of universal human rights—e.g., equality among all as well as the freedom of speech and religion.

Everything considered, the global support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN is far more than just a matter of the international presence of the shining democratic island nation. It is about counterbalancing China’s growing influences in IOs and countervailing threats to democratic values and freedom worldwide.

Dr. Patrick Mendis, a former American diplomat and military professor in the NATO and Indo-Pacific Commands during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, is a distinguished visiting professor of transatlantic relations at the University of Warsaw in Poland.

Dr. Antonina Luszczykiewicz, a former Fulbright senior scholar at Indiana University in Bloomington, is an assistant professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

Image: Shutterstock.

Soviet Oppression during the Prague Spring 1968 influenced much of Milan Kundera’s perspective on Czechoslovak society at the time under Communism.

The recent passing of Czech author Milan Kundera was a great loss to the literary world. Exiled to Paris for his anti-Soviet writings, Kundera’s novels explored the inner psychological effects on individuals living under Communist regimes. While focused on Czechoslovakia and the state of affairs around the time of the Prague Spring, Kundera influenced ideals of free speech and liberty in all places that suffered under political oppression. While his work was famous in Europe, much of his following came from places like Latin America, where many of his readers grew up in the shadow of military dictatorships from the 1960s to the 1980s. The inner mind of someone who is trying to survive is an important perspective to understand, as political oppression affects people on many different levels.

While not to the same degree, my own country has recently passed a law where much of my content, the content of FPA.org, along with all local and even international news has been removed from the majority of social media platforms throughout the nation. The effect is so extensive, that even non-media related policy reports and things as simple as the best way to cook with flower honey, is also blocked on major social media platforms in the country. While there are ways of getting around such limitations (as practiced by those who live in China and other censored national grids), free speech and the ability to share ideas, whether they be critical of society or supportive of policy, needs to be given the maximum level of distribution, lest the Government seeks to passively limit such criticism.

Lessons from those like Milan Kundera, or Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, seek to not only highlight the plight of those living under left wing Communist dictatorships and Far Right military dictatorships, but serve as a lesson to never repeat the mistakes of the recent past. The lasting effect on free speech, and missions like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty effectively used an outside perspective, critical of oppressive Governments, to bring down those same Governments. So effective was leaking information and the truth inside the Iron Curtain, that many regimes more recently created their own counter-narrative Government run media organisations to sow discontent and division in Western countries.

Care must be taken to establish legislation that guarantees not only free speech, but also protect state institutions from being degraded via creating a systemic bulk ward against free speech. Government supported media and fully funded media is easily degraded, and has the effect of becoming a tool for a small elite of Government officials who wish to limit any criticism or opposition. Such institutions should only exist if it can be regularly demonstrated to not only meet the local standards of free speech and liberty, but also meet an international standard as they are the voice of an entire nation. Distributing scripted lines from a Government can easily be labelled as Journalism, even when it clearly supports a small elite group. Labels against elected opposition can be used as well by the same media to limit criticism of the Government of the day, even when operating in an otherwise robust democracy. If your media attacks the opposition while constantly supporting the Government, they lack an understanding of their own role in a democracy.

While political courses often drill in the idea that “Absolute Power, Corrupts Absolutely”, the further reach of such power not only corrupts a country systemically, but is almost impossible to remove from the institutions once it infects the system. Absolutist power in reality is almost never removed, as the cure for such anti-corruption measures are often limited to using systemic tools that have already been corrupted. All Governments would prefer to operate in a system where there are no checks and balances, but such a system without checks, will never achieve any balance. Those with more money, influence and power will gain it increasingly, with the rest of us rapidly become like many of the characters in a Kundera novel, silently and secretly trying to live our lives, hoping that the regime does not decide to activate a tank battalion to crush an elected leader and a Prague Spring, or simply use banned military weapons against its own citizens. Even when an otherwise healthy democracy ignores abuses and creates relations with such regimes, the oppression from the regime seeps into the democratic institutions that are founded on principals banning such treatment of its citizens. The decay of democratic principals is one of the greatest real and persistent threats to existing democracies. Lessons of the Cold War ignored have already lead to some of the largest tank battles since 1945, and not just because its 2023.

After decades of stumbling progress toward democracy, suddenly, in the past few months, eight West African nations have been rocked by coups and civil wars, triggering waves of emigration to the United States and the EU, disrupting the production of oil, gas, and strategic minerals, and spreading shocking amounts of human misery.

What happened? Africa was on track to report the second fastest growth rate in the world this year, projected at 4.1 percent, compared to 3.8 percent in 2022. That puts it much higher than the global average of 2.9 percent. Only Asia’s growth of 4.3 percent will be higher.

Africa is also rich in the minerals needed for electric car batteries and other energy-transition industries. The demand for these minerals is climbing sharply and Africa is best placed to benefit from the mining and refining of these vital resources.

Yet another asset of Africa is the youth of its population. A growing cohort of people under thirty years of age means more workers, more consumers, and more new ideas. By 2050, Africa will be home to 2.4 billion under thirty, while Europe, South America, and North America will see a shrinkage of working-age populations.

Now, given recent developments, these projections may not be realized.

A Troubled Continent

Given these advantages and a potentially bright future ahead, why then is Africa in revolt?

One problem is the lack of investment in water, a necessity for rapidly urbanizing populations. Additionally, war and terror attacks are driving rural people away from land that they had long irrigated. Abandoned land is soon scoured by winds that scatter the topsoil, turning farmland into desert. The Sahara is marching south while other deserts are creeping behind the fleeing populations in the marginal areas of the Sahel and Southern Africa.

Schooling is lacking in too many places and the educated are among the first to emigrate. Once they have learned English and math, they can earn more abroad than at home—a brain drain that keeps the benefits of education from becoming a capital asset for many African lands.

For the enterprising that remain, inflation and currency fluctuations devour their savings. The coronavirus pandemic and a shortage of farm fertilizers from Ukraine only accelerated underlying trends.

At the root of it all is poor governance and state corruption. Bribery is common and placing politically-connected incompetents—a problem in every society—is arguably worse in Africa, where both tribal and political loyalties require jobs for followers lest they become rebels.

It is fashionable to incriminate the former colonizing nations, which once preferred low-priced raw materials over refined products that command higher prices. Yet African nations have been free of colonialists for at least half a century and corrupt elites have generally preferred to siphon their cut from raw-material sales rather than invest in value-adding technology that would produce higher returns over the long run. They have continued colonial economics, not departed from them.

Now, after decades, they own the failures that they once decried from pith-helmet-wearing exploiters. Overall, African elites have never managed to find national consensus in favor of stable and inclusive political systems, preferring tribalism and populism to political struggle around a social goal.

In the handful of cases where societies did unify and reform, economic growth surged, education improved, and poverty fell. Meanwhile, gangrenous states have allowed or encouraged the spread of terror groups across the Sahel for twenty years. This, too, drives away farmers and teachers while perpetuating poverty. All of this produces despair and desperate people imagine a savior, someone strong enough to right all of the wrongs.

Failing to produce a local model of reform, African leaders are seduced by China, which marries the idea of a strongman-savior with that of an alternative to the West. As one leader told former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers: “Look, I like your values better than I like China’s. But the truth is, when we’re engaged with the Chinese, we get an airport. And when we’re engaged with you guys, we get a lecture.”

The Scramble for Africa 2.0 and America’s Role

A new “scramble for Africa” is underway—and the West is way behind. China has become the main economic partner in Africa. Turkey has built its first military base abroad (in Somalia). Vladimir Putin’s Russia is “rediscovering” Africa, pushing aside the Wagner Group to manage military affairs directly. Democratic regression in Africa also reflects great power dynamics. It is in this context that the latest coups must be placed.

Anti-French sentiment is linked to Paris’ refusal to change the paradigm. The soldiers are acclaimed by the people because the people are exasperated by the inefficiency of the state and the absence of public services.

The United States is right to refuse foreign military interventions which would only crystallize mistrust and weaken nations. Still, Washington has a leading role to play for several reasons.

First, America has no colonial liabilities, which is a definite advantage in the current context. Moreover, if the United States is faithful to its values, it will develop an accompanying policy for strengthening democracy, fighting corruption, and encouraging investment.

Second, America could offer a framework for investment in mining and energy projects in exchange for transparency. This would mean that ordinary Africans, not the elites, would take the lion’s share of the returns.

Third, America could also work to stabilize African currencies—perhaps through currency boards that would peg those monies to the U.S. dollar—to defeat the scourges of inflation and devaluation.

American leadership, within the framework of international institutions, would allow Africa to emerge from underdevelopment and allow the world economy to benefit from its reservoir of growth. Otherwise, dictatorships will continue to make Africa synonymous with misery.

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

Image: U.S. State Department.

All truths, however long they may take, will find themselves revealed with the passage of time. Unfortunately, in the case of Imam Musa Sadr, that moment has not yet come. August 31 marked the forty-fifth anniversary of Sadr’s disappearance while traveling to Libya to meet the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Many observers, including people from his family, hold the former Libyan leader responsible for his disappearance and hope to discover one day what happened to him. 

But what did Sadr do during his life in Lebanon that he merits remembrance today? Born in Iran to Lebanese parents of Shia heritage, Sadr adhered to the teachings of Islam and is universally beloved by Lebanon’s Shia community. If any traveler were to visit the religiously and ethnically diverse Mediterranean country, they will find pictures of the Imam across the Shia-populated areas of Lebanon. However, his impact on Lebanon goes far beyond a single sect. He is remembered and cherished by Lebanese people across different religions, including Lebanon’s Maronite community.

To understand his legacy, one must explore the effect Sadr had on Lebanon and his efforts to support social cohesion during times of political violence and fear.

One resident of the Shia-majority town of Baalbek, Ali Kusai, shared his views on Sadr and how the imam’s teachings brought Lebanese people together at a moment when peace seemed like an illusion for most.

“He was a man of unity, a defender of human rights. Whoever is a person who cherishes unity, he is threatened in Lebanon.”

During the late 1970s, Lebanon was shattered by a fifteen-year civil war. Where before, peoples of all different faiths could visit and enjoy the beauty of all of Lebanon, many were now living in fear of their fellow Lebanese.

Twenty-two kilometers north of Baalbek lies the small town of Deir El Ahmar, whose inhabitants are mostly Maronites Christians. Like everyone else during the war, they too saw their neighbors take up arms and join militias, and felt they were next in line to be targeted.

In a single statement, Sadr called for the safety of Lebanese Christians and declared what they meant to him.

“Whoever shoots a bullet at the people of Deir al-Ahmar is as if he were shooting it in my chest. For me, everyone is to pray in the church as I pray in the mosque. There is no difference between a Muslim and a Christian, between my south and my north.”  

Truly, he was a man who garnered the respect of all Lebanese and worked effortlessly to stop senseless bloodshed. And this was no easy task, for Lebanon’s civil war also possessed a regional element, which succeeded in dragging Lebanon into a conflict that served no sect or community. This was something that Sadr was trying to stop.

In the south of Lebanon, Palestinian commandoes and militia-fighters, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat, were running what was effectively their own autonomous region.

With this freehand in the south, the Palestinian guerrillas were waging a war against Israel with dire consequences for Lebanon. Although was a supporter of the Palestinian cause, Sadr did not endorse Arafat’s strategy of fighting Israel or any other Palestinian group. He believed it would only cause unnecessary harm to the people living in the south due to Israeli retaliation.

Sadr was prepared to go to great lengths to solve this issue, which included having a dialogue with Libya’s Gaddafi. According to Hassan Chami, a judge and coordinator of Lebanon’s official committee that is investigating the disappearance of Sadr and his two companions, Gaddafi wanted to fight Israel through Lebanon’s territory by supporting Palestinian organizations and militias. Since the other Arab countries had ceasefires with Israel (Egypt, Jordan, and Syria), Lebanon was the only pathway to waging war against the Jewish state. Gaddafi was committed to proving himself to be the Arab World’s next Gamal Abdel Nasser, who died of a heart attack in 1970.

In a discussion with the National Interest, Chami spoke about Gaddafi’s theories on how to solve the Lebanese civil war and the Palestine-Israel conflict.

“From Gaddafi’s point of view, if you want to resolve the Lebanese war, you must clear the Christians from the country to places like Australia or Canada. Imam Musa Sadr did not accept this. This absurd idea from the Gaddafi was the first area of contention between the two men. Sadr rejected all forms of sectarianism, making it clear Lebanon was home to all. Yet, the most crucial and deeper motivation for Gaddafi was his Nasser obsession and desire to fight Israel.”

Chami continued, “Gaddafi dreamed of being the successor and second version of Gamal Abdel Nasser. If anyone wants to be a great Arab leader, he must fight Israel. Gaddafi saw Sadr as an obstacle and needed him out of the picture.”

According to Chami, Sadr was not killed immediately after he arrived at the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Rather, he was put in prison because Gaddafi believed in old “black magic” that says you cannot kill someone on your lands. This was allegedly revealed to Sadr’s family by Libya’s new officials after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime. This old superstitious belief may have prevented Sadr from being killed, but it did not save his life. Further, this terrible ordeal may have indirectly caused the Lebanese civil war to carry on for many years. What would have happened if he lived?

In the end, no one knows for sure. But everyone knows what happened when he was gone. The best way to honor Sadr’s timeless influence is to build the Lebanon that he struggled to see in his lifetime. One of peace, coexistence of all, and support for your fellow citizens who fall on hard times.

Adnan Nasser is an independent foreign policy analyst and journalist with a focus on Middle East affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Adnansoutlook29.

Image: Hiba Al Kallas / Shutterstock.com

Three years ago, Belarusians took to the streets to protest the fraudulent presidential elections that saw dictator Alexander Lukashenko reelected as president for the sixth time. The regime responded with a brutal crackdown, leading to the West breaking off diplomatic relations and imposing sanctions. Since then, Lukashenko has adopted an increasingly belligerent stance against his Western neighbors by orchestrating a migrant crisis, aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hosting Wagner Group mercenaries, and authorizing the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil. While these provocations serve the Kremlin’s interests by destabilizing NATO’s eastern frontier, Lukashenko hopes they will pressure the European Union to normalize relations and lift sanctions as his country grows more isolated and dependent on Russia.

Compared to other post-Soviet countries, Belarus has achieved minimal political and economic reforms. By maintaining a largely state-controlled economy—heavily dependent on Russia—and strengthening the internal security apparatus, Lukashenko has consolidated power since he attained the presidency in 1994. There have been sporadic attempts to improve relations with the West, most notably in 2008 after Russia attacked Georgia, and again in 2015, after the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Both attempts led to the release of political prisoners and the rise of pragmatic and reform-oriented technocrats seeking to reduce ties with Russia, such as the late Vladimir Makei. Ultimately, efforts to normalize relations were short-lived, and Lukashenko reverted to mass repression and human rights violations after the 2010 and 2020 presidential elections.

The 2020 anti-government protests were the largest in Belarus’s history, with over 200,000 people marching in the streets of Minsk demanding Lukashenko’s resignation. Had the Kremlin not provided political support to the regime and offered to intervene militarily, perhaps Belarus’s story would have taken a different path. Russia’s intelligence apparatus worked closely with their Belarusian counterparts to help suppress protests, and it’s likely they provided intelligence on the whereabouts of opposition activist Roman Protasevich, allowing the regime to hijack Ryanair Flight 4978 in 2021.

The fact that Lukashenko needed Kremlin support to survive undermined his authority and legitimacy within his own government. This allowed Russia to develop closer ties with other key regime figures and infiltrate Belarus’s security apparatus. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolay Karpenkov, who heads both Belarus’s security forces and the Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime Corruption (GUBOPiK), played a crucial role in suppressing protests and is a staunch supporter of Russia. He often overshadows his superior, Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Kubrakov, and is one of Russia’s preferred candidates to replace Lukashenko. Aware of Moscow’s tendrils, Lukashenko has tried to limit its influence by naming Ivan Tertel, who has few ties to Russia, as the head of the State Security Committee (KGB).

Even though some members of the security apparatus are apprehensive of Russia’s encroaching influence, they remain anti-West and have a vested interest in preserving the regime. Furthermore, the Russian Ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, is very close to the siloviki (Putin’s inner circle) and helps reassert Russia’s influence while keeping an eye on the internal power dynamics in Minsk. Belarus’ pragmatic technocrats have been sidelined, especially after the sudden and mysterious death of Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei in November 2022, who happened to be one of the few figures openly hostile to Russia.

With Belarus now cut off from Western markets, its economy has become even more dependent on Russia, which is by far its largest trading partner. Minsk’s weakened bargaining position has allowed Moscow to accelerate plans for economic integration and defense cooperation within the Union State of Russia and Belarus. In 2021, both countries signed twenty-eight agreements, including a unified tax system, oil and gas market, and customs union. Ironically, when the Union State was first conceptualized in the late 1990s, Lukashenko pushed for greater integration between the two states, hoping that he would lead the union and take power in the Kremlin after Boris Yeltsin.

Although the opposition, led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, is supported by the West and most Belarusians, it is unlikely that they will be able to overthrow the regime. The constitutional amendments, passed in February 2022, allow Lukashenko to secure lifelong immunity from prosecution and retain power post-presidency as President of the All Belarussian People’s Assembly. The amendments also enable the permanent deployment of Russian troops and nuclear weapons in Belarus. Lukashenko may retain an honorific title but gradually lose actual power within his own country, whereas Russia’s influence is likely to stay for the foreseeable future. 

Lukashenko hoped hosting Wagner troops, thanks to his mediation efforts during Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny in June 2023, would provide greater security from Russia. The bold assassination of Wagner’s leadership two months after the mutiny served as a message to Russians and allies alike, including Lukashenko, that betrayal is an unforgivable sin. Lukashenko has inadvertently traded his country’s sovereignty to remain in power for a few more years.

Kelly Alkhouli is a political consultant and director of international relations at the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA).

Image: Shutterstock.