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he International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has unveiled its highly anticipated Armed Conflict Survey for 2023, providing a comprehensive analysis of ongoing conflicts worldwide. The report delves into the political, military, and humanitarian aspects of active conflicts, offering a valuable resource for policymakers and analysts.

Notably, researchers from the Clingendael Institute have made significant contributions to this edition, adding their expertise to the chapters on Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad.

The Armed Conflict Survey 2023 provides a comprehensive overview of the contemporary global conflict landscape, offering valuable insights into the intricate web of factors contributing to conflicts and their far-reaching repercussions.

Intractability

The survey identifies intractability as the defining feature of the current global conflict landscape. This complexity is fueled by the proliferation of non-state armed groups (NSAGs) with intricate and overlapping motives, external interference, and the accelerating impact of climate change.

The survey sheds light on the growing involvement of emerging and revisionist powers in internal conflicts. These powers often diverge from democratic principles and the prevailing rule-based international order. This trend contributes to democratic backsliding in fragile regions globally and amplifies geopolitical fragmentation in the Global South.

The 2023 edition adopts an expanded regional focus to better capture the transnational drivers and repercussions of conflicts. It includes Regional Spotlight chapters addressing trends of global and regional strategic importance.

Regional spotlight chapters:

• Drug-Trafficking Dynamics in the Americas: Examines shifting dynamics in drug trafficking.
• Security Guarantees in Ukraine: Explores the centrality of security guarantees in Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts.
• Converging Crises in North Africa: Discusses policy best practices to address climate, political, and food insecurity crises.
• Changing Nature of Jihadism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analyzes evolving trends in jihadism.
• Re-emergence of Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan: Explores implications for Asian security.

The Armed Conflict Survey 2023 emphasizes the evolving nature of conflicts, geopolitical shifts, and emerging threats. With detailed analyses and rich visual aids, the report is poised to influence security policymaking and provide a crucial reference for those deeply involved in understanding armed conflicts worldwide.

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he politics surrounding guns in the United States is a deeply contentious issue that has long held a prominent place in the nation’s public discourse. Rooted in historical, cultural, and constitutional factors, the debate over gun rights and regulations has become an enduring hallmark of American politics. The sheer ubiquity of firearms, coupled with deeply ingrained beliefs about individual rights, self-defense, and the role of government, has created a complex landscape where passionate arguments clash and ideological battle lines are drawn.

In Merchants of the Right Jennifer Carlson delves into the multifaceted world of gun sellers, uncovering how their trade extends beyond the mere exchange of firearms. The book sheds light on a remarkable surge in gun purchases, which occurred amidst a confluence of extraordinary events: a once-in-a-century pandemic, widespread racial unrest, and a presidential election that shook the very foundations of American democracy. Carlson’s exploration of this phenomenon reveals how conservative political culture experienced a newfound spur, providing readers with a unique vantage point into the front lines of the ongoing culture war surrounding gun rights and an understanding of how guns became politicized.

Through extensive interviews with gun sellers across the United States, Carlson paints a vivid picture of the struggles faced by these merchants in navigating the complex intersection of guns and politics. The book reveals a frame breaking trend: While it is commonly assumed that the majority of gun owners lean conservative, new gun buyers are more likely to identify as liberal. The significant dilemma that gun sellers faced in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election was should they embrace these new liberal customers, potentially ushering in a new era of bipartisan engagement in the realm of guns, or should they solidify their position on gun politics as a conservative stronghold?

Robert H. Latiff’s Future Peace, a sequel to Future War, specifically brings to attention a subtle, yet potentially destructive effect of technologies such as autonomous systems, advanced weapons, and AI: the provocation to violence. Against the backdrop of the brewing power rivalry between the U.S. and its adversaries, technology aggregates tension and catalyzes violence.

Future Peace touches upon the ethical, security-related, behavioral, and technical aspects of technology and warfare. It consists of four chapters: “A Giant Armed Nervous System” (referring to the military), “Urge to Violence,” “Stumbling into War,” and “Avoiding War.”

Latiff’s book comes as a warning to practice caution when adopting new weapons technology, and aids in understanding human and technical behaviors to attenuate its harms and decrease the chances of war. Not only does technology make war easier and speedier, hence enabling the rush to war, but hinders human reasoning. Such technical changes make the process of sound judgement difficult; for example, thinking and acting in a diplomatic manner. Furthermore, these changes enhance the potential for human error to get out of hand.

Latiff argues that it is vitally important to avoid entering conflict in the first place. He highlights the importance of the cooperative efforts of many segments of society, from the public and technologists to militarists and decision-makers. He implies that it is criminal negligence to leave everything to automation processes or politicians. Therefore, Future Peace also lays out long to short term recommendations to maintain peace and reverse the rush to war.

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utonomous features are not a matter of the future; they have been used in warfare for years. However, it is quite evident that with the advancement of technology and the weaponization of artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons systems are swiftly adapting and becoming accepted.

As these changes emerge, the question that is often raised by international organizations such as the UN, which set the norms of conduct in an effort to control and regulate the use of autonomous weapons, is “How will human beings maintain control of the use of autonomous weapons?” In their study, Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss flip the script to reveal another perspective of this dynamic.

Bode and Huelss aim to explain how testing, developing, and using weapons systems with autonomous features shapes ethical and legal norms, and how standards manifest and change in practice. The authors also examine the consequences of autonomous weapons for international relations.

Bode and Huelss acknowledge the fear and risks that these developments bring but adopt the approach that autonomous weapon systems may push people away from taking immediate decisions on the use of force as norms adapt to the appropriate use of force.

In short, Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms analyses the normative repercussions of weaponizing artificial intelligence by examining them not as tools used by the military but as shaping forces. Chapters include “Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Relations,” “New Technologies of Warfare: Emergence and Regulation,” “International Law, Norms, and Order,” “Norms in International Relations,” and “How Autonomous Weapons Systems Make Norms,” and contain assisting tables and figures.

As the trend and debate of autonomizing weapons systems continues, Autonomous Weapon Systems and International Norms equips the reader with an understanding of the relation of human-machine interaction and the process of integrating new technologies into war.

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n War Virtually, Roberto J. González takes the reader behind the scenes to expose how scientists, programmers, and engineers developed technologies that automate war, predict conflict, and regulate human thought and behavior. Does this sound utopian? Not so when you factor in the persistent drive to arm for virtual warfare. In this quest, data comes a valuable commodity.

González evaluates autonomous weapons, robotic systems, predictive modeling software, advanced surveillance programs, and psyops techniques. He examines the foundation of the latest version of warfare in order to explain how it has taken its current form through contemporary military operations and their high-tech and cultural underpinnings.

However, War Virtually transcends the design, innovative, and transformative aspects of technology and warfare, and touches upon human engineering. González reveals the relations between U.S. intelligence agencies and Big Tech, and its implications. It is no secret that algorithms construct behavioral models for anticipating or even predicting human behavior, and, therefore, all of us risk having our digital lives become part of the military-industrial economy.

Adopting a critical approach, González examines how the U.S. military is weaponizing technology and data for new kinds of warfare, and questions the notion that technological advancements will lead to more efficient and less destructive warfare. In fact, he implies that such an aspiration comes at a great cost, and argues that in this world, there is little room for hubris.

War Virtually covers a large array of topics including automated battlefield robotics, social scientists’ involvement in experimental defense research, the blurred line between political consulting and propaganda in the internet era, and the military’s use of big data to craft new counterinsurgency methods based on predicting conflict.

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n Proto-Algorithmic War, Stefka Hristova offers a unique perspective on the Iraq War and the history of algorithmic and digital logic that came to be a crucial element of today’s warfare. She examines the military policy of the United States going into the Iraq War: the U.S. approached the war with the logic of digital and emerging algorithmic technology alongside the preceding numerical logics of the British Mandate in Iraq. In a sense, the Iraq War became an experiment in the early stages of development and utilization of such technology in warfare, and moreover war culture.

Hristova provides a case study of a comparative historical framework reaching back to the quantification techniques harnessed during the era of Mandatory Iraq (1918-1932) and analyzes the parallels and diversions between the numerical logics in both cases.

The author further evaluates the logic that moved beyond the British mandate for Iraq and reduced culture, society, and the physical body and environment into visual data-driven, sterilized, reproducible warfare, highlighting that it lacked cultural and historical context. Indeed, the actual experience of the Iraq War resulted in massive-scale death and destruction.

Proto-Algorithmic War offers an insight into the digitization and automation of war. Hristova aptly scrutinizes the ways in which the Iraq War attempted and often failed to see and incorporate population and territory as digital and further proto-algorithmic entities.

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en Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie use fire as an analogy to showcase how AI has a dual nature: destructive and constructive. Just like our distant ancestors learning to operate their newly discovered, full of potential tool, our responsibility is to understand and use AI potential wisely. With AI revolutionizing the world, democracies have a responsibility to harness that power constructively and come out on top. Transformation is on its way—can humanity use AI to light the way? Or will the fire burn wildly and ignite a new type of war?

In The New Fire, Buchanan and Imbrie help us understand AI better by breaking it down into its “sparks,” which are data, algorithms, and computing power. They further explain the tangible and potentially destructive consequences of these sparks such as disinformation campaigns, new hacking tools, and military weapons.

On a larger scale, The New Fire shows the urgency of democracies to adapt to the powerful tool that is AI, as autocrats may use it for domestic centralized control and asymmetric advantages in combat. In that sense, they argue that harnessing the power of AI is crucial for holding democracy in balance in the world. The New Fire also acknowledges that democracies have a harder time adapting to the age of AI given ethical and civil concerns, but that new ways could be forged based on the advantages of democracy.

Drawing on examples from geopolitical competition and its analysis, Buchanan and Imbrie show how AI can work for democracy while respecting civil rights. In the age of AI, this crucial topic may determine the choice of course between war and peace.

Written by Dilara Özer

In the past two decades, Russia has become the largest supplier of weapons to Southeast Asia in an attempt to balance China with Russian arms exports to Southeast Asia totaling more than $10.8 billion. What makes Russia a suitable supplier of arms to certain Southeast Asian countries is that it offers cheaper equipment, barter as a payment alternative, and does not consider human rights records unlike Europe and the United States. Nevertheless, there is a decline in the region’s arms imports from Russia, mainly due to the drop of imports by Vietnam, but also a regionwide decrease of arms imports overall.

Although applied selectively, a factor that caused the recent decline of the regional arms trade with Russia is the wariness of sanctions associated with the U.S. Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). However, for countries such as Myanmar which are already criticized by the U.S., or for countries with long-lasting historical ties to Russia, the benefits outweigh the costs.

Myanmar

Myanmar has long been riddled by conflict between armed militias and repressive regimes. The country underwent regime change in February 2021 with a military coup. Russia has since shown support to the junta regime as seen in the participation of Russian officials in the 2021 military ceremony for the Armed Forces Day on March 27; the supply of arms to the junta; and the June 2021 visit of Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader who is now the prime minister of Myanmar, to Moscow, at the invitation of the Kremlin.

China is Myanmar’s top arms supplier, but it also provides support to armed militia groups along its border, and therefore Russia allows the Myanmar military to balance its reliance on China. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), over the past 20 years, Myanmar purchased $1.686 billion worth of arms. The arm purchases in the last decade include R-73 air-to-air missiles, BRDM-2 armored vehicles, Yak-130 and Su-30MK aircraft, 57E6 surface-to-air missiles, 96K9 Pantsir-S1 missile systems, and Orlan-10E drones.

Vietnam

Although Vietnam’s arms imports from Russia are on the decline, it still mainly relies on Russia, accounting for around 85% of its total arms imports. In the past 20 years, Russia has sold $6.542 billion worth of weapons to the Southeast Asian country. Apart from a tightening military budget causing the decline, past procurement issues caused by sanctions towards Russia during the annexation of Crimea have pushed Hanoi to attempt to diversify its suppliers.

Vietnam’s ongoing dispute with China on the South China Sea impacts its arm purchases. Since China is superior in military power, Vietnam mainly opts for an anti-access/area denial strategy that aims to block its adversary’s entry or movement. Its purchases from Russia have included Gepard-3 frigates, various anti-ship missiles, Project-636E Kilo-class submarines, the K-300P Bastion-P coastal defense system and coastal defense artillery, Su-30MK2 aircraft, T-90S/SK tanks, and Yak-130 aircraft.

Malaysia

Russian arms imports made up 33% of Malaysia’s total arms imports in the past two decades. However, recently, the country does not seem to be interested in buying arms from Russia. Between 2007 and 2013, Russia exported approximately $1.2 billion worth of arms to Malaysia. However, after 2013, there is no reported purchase of Russian arms by Malaysia; the country has been looking to reduce its reliance on Russian arms and seems to be moving further away from Russia even with existing contracts.

Malaysia has a contract with Russia for the supply of spare parts for its 18 Sukhoi Su-30MKM aircraft purchased in 2003, but is considering procurement of spare parts from other countries such as India. Its contract for the supply of Metis-M anti-tank missiles still appears to be intact.

The newcomers and infrequent buyers

Cambodia and the Philippines are newcomers to the Russian arms market. Cambodia only recently, in 2021, bought two secondhand Mi-8MT/Mi-17 transport helicopters. The Philippines has sought to modernize its military throughout the years, but has struggled with financial strains. The Philippines is traditionally a U.S. ally and did not buy major weapons from Russia until 2021, despite the fluctuating relations with the U.S. over human rights concerns during President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. However, it turned to Russia in an effort to diversify its market.

In 2016. the U.S. Senate blocked a sale of 20,000 assault rifles to the Philippines. Russia later donated 5,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 5,000 steel helmets, about a million rounds of rifle ammunition, and 20 army trucks to the country. Russia even offered a “no political condition” weapon production deal in 2019 and started negotiations for selling helicopters and submarines.

The Philippines signed a $249 million contract in November 2021 with Russia to buy 17 Mi-17 transport helicopters projected to be delivered in a little over two years. As for the submarines, the countries have yet to make a decision.

Another potential market for Russia to increase its arms supplies is Thailand. The Royal Thai Armed Forces acquired 10 Mi-8MT/Mi-17 transport helicopters intermittently over the years 2008, 2015, 2018, and 2021. In 2008, they also bought 36 Igla-S portable surface-to-air missiles. Since 2017, Thailand and Russia have seen an increased cooperation with the military-technology collaboration agreement that has been reached between the two countries.

Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam remain Russia’s most outstanding arms customers in Southeast Asia. Regarding Laos and Myanmar, Russian verbal support of their authoritarian regimes is also observable. While markets such as Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines may pose potential opportunities, the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have detrimental implications on these openings considering the possibility of international backlash on the aforementioned countries.

Shortly before officially handing over her office to Olaf Scholz, former German chancellor Angela Merkel approved an arms deal that caused much criticism. Since the start of the year and by November 29, 2021, Germany had exported weapons and armaments worth €0.18 billion. With the approval of the arms deal shortly before the government change, the value of arms exports rose to €9.04 billion which means that Germany broke its 2019 record of €8.015 billion worth of arms exports.

Furthermore, Germany exported 65.8 percent of its arms and armaments to third countries (non-EU states) in 2021. Last year, the percentage of arms exports to third countries was 50.1; €1.6 billion worth of arms exports were reported to have been exported to EU countries, and €1.5 billion to NATO members and states on an equal level with the alliance. While €4 billion worth of weapons were exported, €5 billion worth of military equipment was exported.

The export of military equipment worth €4.34 billion to Egypt was approved. This means that almost half of the approved arms deals were destined for Egypt, making it by far the largest destination for German arms exports. It was announced that the export of three warships and 16 air defense systems to Egypt was approved on December 7, 2021.

Criticism from the left spectrum

The approved arms deals were criticized by the German Left Party and the Greens. Statistics on German arms exports from 2021 were published by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action upon the request of Left Party politician Sevim Dağdelen. Dağdelen criticized Chancellor Scholz and the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) based on the statistics records.

The German government is preparing to set certain criteria for approving and rejecting arms export deals.

The SPD was in government with the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany) for the last two legislative terms (2013-2021). Dağdelen criticized the fact that despite the arms exports to dictatorships, the SPD did not have to face any consequences and even won the election, and called Scholz a “crook” (Gaunerstück).

The Greens are now in government and are mainly responsible for arms exports. They, too, criticized Merkel’s approved arms deals. In response, Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock announced that the German government wants to control arms exports better in the future. To this end, the German government is preparing to set certain criteria for approving and rejecting arms export deals.

“Traffic light coalition” must maintain its credibility

After the arms deal was announced, the current German government is under pressure. It is expected that especially the SPD and the Greens will not view the decision of German arms exports the same way. The SPD sees Germany as a trading state and wants to continue with arms exports without any restrictions, as it is one of the country’s most important sources of revenue. The Greens, on the other hand, want to review arms export deals in light of human rights issues. It is a matter of question now whether realpolitik or value-based politics will win.

In May 2021, the current minister of economic affairs and climate action and Green politician Robert Habeck said that the German government should supply weapons to Ukraine.

Interestingly, statements by the Greens and their actual position do not match in some cases. In May 2021, the current minister of economic affairs and climate action and Green politician Robert Habeck said that the German government should supply weapons to Ukraine. Habeck’s statement contradicted those of Baerbock, who is against arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The Greens are under pressure mainly because, as a party, they are a pacifist one; however, their credibility was lost after the Kosovo War in 1999. At that time, the Greens were in government and were responsible for Germany becoming actively involved in a war for the first time since World War II. Then, realpolitik had prevailed over value-based politics.

Double standards?

Germany’s approved arms deals to third countries where human rights are violated shows a lack of credibility. While Germany and France outwardly pioneer defending human rights, they cause further human rights violations by allowing arms exports to dictatorships. Morality and political ethics are only of discursive value, with no essential value – and perhaps even a weapon to use against “others.”

Statements by CDU politician Kiesenwetter about the competition with China and Russia summarize this paradox quite well, showing that moral values are only important in domestic politics, but in international affairs, Germany acts no differently than authoritarian regimes like the aforementioned two countries.

The silence of the SPD and Olaf Scholz illustrate that the German federal government wants to continue this policy. The Greens will appear to oppose it in their statements; however, their lack of credibility and effectiveness will impede them from having any  real say on the issue. In the end, it seems highly likely that Germany will continue its current unchecked policy of arms exports.

During the Cold War era, the Soviet Union was a staunch ally of India, with Moscow viewing the sub-continent nation as a bulwark against China and a cornerstone to expanding its empire into the Asia Pacific region, where the U.S. achieved unrivaled dominance at the conclusion of the Second World War.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, President Boris Yeltsin reiterated Moscow’s commitment to New Delhi by declaring Kashmir an integral part of India, while describing his country as a “Euro-Asian power” and admitting “the earlier [Soviet] relationship with India was seen in Moscow as a counterweight to the United States and China.”

In 2002, President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed this position by calling for a “triangle” alliance between India and China, arguing that “by strengthening the defense of India and that of China, we strengthen Russian security,” and in 2015 Russia’s Maritime Doctrine identified “strengthening relations with India” as one of its six regional priorities in the Indian Ocean.

Barely five years later, however, Russia’s policy towards India and South Asia has taken a 180-degree turn, as has India’s relationship with Russia and the United States, with New Delhi now firmly in the corner of Washington DC in what has been described as “Cold War 2.0” between the U.S. and China in Asia Pacific

When U.S. President Barack Obama announced his “pivot to Asia” in 2012 as U.S. military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan drew down, it signaled the start of new contest for primary and hegemony in the region, pitting China’s regional ambitions against a United States that sees itself as the hegemon of a unipolar world, thus rubbing against Russia, which sees itself as one of a handful of dominant powers in a multipolar world.

With Russia’s military and diplomatic efforts focused more on Europe, where it sees itself locked in a struggle to coerce and cajole former Soviet states into resisting NATO and European Union expansionism, Moscow has signaled that it’s willing to be a “hostage to China’s behavior,” according to Rumer, who says China’s policy in Asia is now essentially Russia’s policy, with Putin not allowing anyone or anything to put distance between himself and Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping.

“No relationship matters more to the Kremlin,” argues Bobo Low for The Lowy Institute.

“China is much more than a bilateral partner; it is crucial to Putin’s grand enterprise of positioning Russia at the forefront of global affairs, the great middle power between the United States and China. For Moscow, the partnership is a force multiplier for Russian influence and status around the world, and is in large part the reason Russia enjoys an international prominence not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.”

Therefore, as China’s relationship has strengthened with Pakistan, as has Russia’s relationship with India’s regional rival.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov became the first Russian foreign minister in almost a decade to visit Pakistan, after being snubbed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi just two days earlier, a meeting that Pakistani columnist Inam Ul Haque described as an “important visit in the rapidly evolving regional environment.”

“The Russian amity offering a ‘blank cheque’, and geo-economic cooperation are unprecedented. The scope of the visit spanned economy, trade, energy, counter-terrorism, security/defence, education, and people-to-people exchanges,” he writes.

While Russia currently provides India with 49 percent of its military imports, its closer ties with Pakistan, along with China’s increasing hostility towards India promise to reset future arms deals between the two countries, as noted by former Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, who warned last week that the India-China relationship will be marked by “hard times” over the next five to ten years, particularly because of India’s move to join the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), a fledgling or potential NATO like security agreement between it and the US, Japan and Australia.

These ever-evolving relations promise to change the way in which Russia views the dispute over Kashmir, given China’s recent military clash with Indian security forces in the Ladakh region during the past six months, but more importantly the ever-closer relationship between Islamabad and Beijing, particularly in Pakistan Administered Kashmir.

Parjanya Bhatt, a research fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai, rightly notes that while China and Pakistan do not share land borders, their “military and diplomatic collusion against India,” along with China’s geopolitical priorities in the region, “have brought them together” against India’s claims to Jammu and Kashmir.