Relations between India and Pakistan—long shaped by historical rivalries and persistent conflict—are now teetering on the brink of a fresh crisis. On April 22, 2025, a deadly terrorist attack in the Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, claimed the lives of 26 civilians. The attack, the deadliest since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has reignited debate across India over long-standing issues such as the Kashmir conflict, cross-border terrorism, and nuclear brinkmanship.

Claimed by the Resistance Front (TRF), a group that emerged in 2019 in response to India’s Kashmir policies, the attack has once again placed Pakistan-India relations at the center of global scrutiny. India swiftly blamed Pakistan, accusing it of supporting cross-border terrorism. Pakistan, in turn, denied involvement and called for an international, independent investigation.

India’s reaction was multifaceted—diplomatic, economic, and strategic. Most notably, it announced the suspension of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, signed under World Bank auspices, and revoked visas issued to Pakistani nationals. Furthermore, India imposed a complete ban on imports from Pakistan, effectively freezing what little bilateral trade remained.

Pakistan, while rejecting the terrorism allegations, emphasized the need for a transparent, international investigation and urged global institutions to intervene. In response to India’s sanctions, Islamabad implemented symbolic countermeasures and declared its intention to suspend all bilateral agreements with India, including the 1971 Simla Agreement, which has long shaped India-Pakistan diplomacy.

Historical Echoes in a Modern Crisis

This latest round of hostilities bears the unmistakable imprint of history. The Kashmir dispute remains the epicenter of tensions, echoing the unresolved legacies of partition. Pakistan continues to advocate for Kashmir’s right to self-determination and insists the conflict is international in nature. India, however, treats Kashmir as a purely internal issue and frames all discourse about it as a matter of national security.

India’s strategy of blaming Pakistan for every major incident in Kashmir reinforces its longstanding narrative: Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. This pattern—repeating in 2001, 2008, 2019, and now 2025—illustrates the historical continuity of arguments used by both sides. However, what sets this crisis apart is the mutual suspension of two foundational agreements: the Indus Waters Treaty and the Simla Agreement.

These developments raise the specter of renewed disputes over vital issues such as water resource sharing, the status of the Line of Control (LoC), and the internationalization of the Kashmir issue—topics that had, until now, been largely settled or frozen.

The Root Cause: Kashmir

The ideological and structural tensions between India and Pakistan have persisted since the 1947 Partition. Central to this divide are identity-based narratives and the Kashmir question. Pakistan’s founding ideology—the Two-Nation Theory—underpins its position. In the wake of the April 2025 attack, Pakistan’s National Security Committee cited the incident as further validation of the Two-Nation Theory’s relevance.

For both nations, Kashmir represents more than just territory—it is an existential concern. This has led to multiple wars (1947, 1965, 1971, 1999) and numerous skirmishes. Since the 2000s, the discourse has evolved to focus on terrorism and counterterrorism, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting armed insurgents in Kashmir.

Key turning points like the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the 2019 Pulwama bombing have hardened India’s stance. Pakistan, meanwhile, maintains it merely supports Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.

India’s 2019 decision to revoke Article 370 of its Constitution—which had granted special autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir—further inflamed tensions. This move not only altered the region’s demographic dynamics but also underlined India’s insistence that the issue lies solely within its sovereign purview. However, this unilateral action has fueled demands for legal reforms and reignited grievances among the region’s Muslim-majority population.

Diplomatic Bridges in Limbo: Indus Waters and Simla Agreements

The fact that two nuclear powers are once again clashing over Kashmir raises urgent questions about regional stability. This time, the stakes are higher. India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, originally signed in 1960, could have far-reaching consequences.

The treaty allocated usage rights of eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India and western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan. As over 80% of Pakistan’s water supply relies on these western rivers, the treaty has been a lifeline for its agricultural economy and energy needs. As the upper riparian, India had been constrained from using water as a strategic weapon—until now.

Pakistan has warned that India’s withdrawal could be considered an act of war, underlining the treaty’s significance for its national security and food sovereignty.

In response, Pakistan has announced it will suspend the Simla Agreement 1971, which committed both countries to resolve all disputes bilaterally and peacefully. The Simla Agreement effectively prevented third-party intervention in Kashmir, favoring direct dialogue. India has historically used it to avoid internationalizing the Kashmir issue, while Pakistan has seen it as a path to maintain diplomatic engagement and avoid military escalation.

Another vital clause in the Simla Agreement defines the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border in Kashmir. Though repeatedly violated, the LoC remains a critical buffer. Suspending the agreement may open new disputes about the legitimacy and control of this volatile frontier.

A Crisis Beyond Borders

The India-Pakistan conflict continues to be shaped by long-standing identity-based divisions and unresolved historical grievances. The April 2025 terrorist attack has not only reignited old hostilities but introduced new risks by dismantling key diplomatic safeguards.

With the Indus Waters Treaty and Simla Agreement effectively suspended, the crisis risks spilling into broader domains: water security, cross-border diplomacy, and international law. The specter of weaponized water and the disappearance of a legal framework governing the LoC make this moment particularly dangerous.

India’s emphasis on internal security and Pakistan’s push for internationalization reflect deeply rooted policy approaches. This confrontation, therefore, can be read as an updated version of a recurring pattern—but with higher stakes.

Given both nations’ nuclear capabilities, the ramifications of continued escalation are not just regional, but potentially global. As we advance, international actors and diplomatic channels must intervene and de-escalate tensions. Otherwise, the collapse of foundational agreements could open the door to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic outcomes—not just for India and Pakistan, but for all of South Asia.

Rising tensions between Iran and Israel, culminating in retaliatory warfare since the 7th of October, have plunged Saudi Arabia into a state of uncertainty. Despite Riyadh’s long-standing rivalry with Tehran, the recent truce with Iran, escalating regional tensions and Saudi Arabia’s own domestic interests have led its leaders to adopt a more cautious and pacifist tone.

This time, Saudi Arabia has framed its response to Israel’s actions against Iran in legal rather than political terms. Riyadh condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran as a “blatant violation” of Iran’s sovereignty. Earlier, Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1 April, followed by Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone barrage two weeks later, prompted Saudi Arabia, along with other Gulf states, to swiftly condemn the Israeli attack and warn of “the dangers of war and its dire consequences”.

Despite historic tensions with Iran, Saudi Arabia has been actively involved in diplomatic efforts to prevent a catastrophic escalation. Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, has been at the forefront of communication with all parties involved, advocating “double restraint” and stressing that “we do not need more conflict in our region”.

For the Saudis, a war with Iran – whether started by Israel or anyone else – is a no-win scenario. It will be fought in their backyard and the Arabs will bear the brunt of the devastation. Arab soil will be the battleground because Israel and Iran have no common borders. Such a war would shatter Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MbS) vision of a prosperous and unified Middle East, a dream he once likened to a ‘new Europe’. Instead, the region could tragically morph into a post-World War II Europe, divided and set back for decades.

As a key player in the global oil market, Saudi Arabia is acutely aware of the economic consequences of any disruption to oil supplies in the event of a regional war. The recent example of the Houthis, a relatively small group, posing a critical threat to international shipping routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza conflict, albeit with subtle efforts at prevention by the ad hoc US-UK-led naval coalition. In addition, the kingdom’s proximity to conflict zones and the presence of Iranian-backed militias in neighboring Iraq and Yemen on Iran’s axis of resistance pose significant security threats.

Before even considering such a fight, the Saudis need ironclad security guarantees from their Western allies, the same kind that Israel enjoys to ensure deterrence. Frankly, that’s a tall order, at least for now. While their offensive capabilities exceed those of Iran, the Saudis recognize the need for robust air defences to counter Iran’s extensive arsenal of missiles and drones. This concern underscores the importance of President Donald Trump’s 2020 proposal for a Middle East NATO against Iran, particularly one that unites Saudi Arabia, Israel and other Arab states.

Building on the momentum of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, the US envisioned a regional defence cooperation framework. This included transferring Israel’s operational area of responsibility from the US European Command (EUCOM) to the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and proposing integrated air and missile defence (IAMD). This vision seems to be bearing fruit, albeit in a fragile and secretive way.

Although acknowledged by Israel and denied by Arab governments, including Riyadh, reports from outlets such as the Wall Street Journal suggest that Saudi Arabia has played a role in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones. Of course, this was a sign of cooperation, not an intention to engage in a full-scale war between the two. Unlike Arab officials, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant openly saw it as “an opportunity to build a strategic alliance against this serious threat from Iran, which threatens to put nuclear explosives on the heads of these missiles”.

Iran’s attack on Israel served two purposes. First, it exposed Israel’s formidable air defenses and unwavering Western support, which boasts an impressive, reported 99% intercepting success rate. Second, this narrative would undoubtedly spark a parallel drive for advanced defence capabilities in Saudi Arabia, while raising concerns about unequal treatment of allies in the face of the Iranian threat. It reminds us of how the Saudis have endured a serious threat from Iranian-backed Houthi rebels since 2015 (over 430 ballistic missiles and 851 armed drones).

President Biden’s complex relationship with Saudi Arabia’s MbS has further complicated the situation, shaking security assurances. Attacks by Iranian-supplied Houthi missiles and drones on key Saudi energy facilities in 2019 and 2021 marked a turning point. The subsequent US withdrawal of Patriot missile batteries in 2021 exacerbated feelings of abandonment and a lack of US commitment, as expressed by Prince Turki Al-Faisal to CNBC, ‘not indicative of America’s stated intention to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against external enemies’.

Recently, Saudi Arabia took a step back from discord with Iran, a step towards normalization with Israel, and another towards a security pact with the US before the presidential elections in November. But the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war has halted progress on these fronts. One reason is Saudi Arabia’s balancing of moral imperatives with strategic considerations.

Traditionally a champion of the Palestinian cause, Saudi Arabia finds it morally and popularly unacceptable to ally itself with the Jewish state (Israel) occupying Palestinian territory and recently killing 33,000 in Gaza against the Shiite Muslim state (Iran), especially at a time of war. But despite discreet cooperation with Israel, Saudi Arabia is officially stuck in a ‘chicken or the egg’ conundrum. Should a solution to the Palestinian problem come before normalizing relations with Israel, or vice versa?

Precarious neutrality reigns

In a multipolar regional landscape where Iran and Israel, both adversaries of the Arabs, are engaged in a protracted conflict, Saudi Arabia will arguably gain a strategic advantage in the regional balance of power. It is worth noting that the Arab Israeli enmity predates that of Iran and has been unresolved since 1948.

The Saudis may consider themselves fortunate to have cautiously forged a truce with Iran and avoided formal normalization with Israel, which would provide a strategic buffer in the event of war. This stance may allow them to maintain neutrality, be ready to mediate, or at least send an appeasing message to Iran if necessary.

In Saudi Arabia’s quest for foreign policy autonomy, neutrality has become one of its strategic tools. It allows Riyadh to avoid entanglement in US rivalries, as seen in conflicts such as the Russian-Ukrainian war and the brewing Israeli Iranian escalation. Such detachment is in line with Saudi political and economic interests.

Indeed, any attempt by Saudi Arabia to remain neutral in a looming war between Israel and Iran is a precarious balancing act. The kingdom hosts some American business and defence assets on its soil, including Patriot batteries, which necessitates routine cooperation with the US, especially in contingencies such as an Israeli Iranian war.

The Russia-Ukraine war marked a watershed moment in relations between the European Union (EU) and Russia, which had previously been strained by the Georgian war and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Post-Cold War efforts to improve EU-Russia relations through trade and dialogue have not succeeded in transforming Russia politically into the democratic regime the EU desired. On the contrary, the Russian political regime has embarked on an expansionist policy of violating the independence and sovereignty of countries in the former Soviet geography and sphere of influence by military force. This has led key EU countries such as Germany and France to reassess their approach to Russia.

The EU countries, which somehow maintained relations with Russia after the war in Georgia (2008) and the annexation of Crimea (2014), realized that Russia’s expansionist policy would not stop with the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which Russia announced as a “special military operation”. We have begun to observe that a new approach to the EU’s relations with Russia has been adopted in this process.

The swift imposition of EU sanctions against Russia was the first step in this new approach. Against the possibility that this coercive measure would fail to convince Russia to make peace and that this war would spread to other parts of Europe, Germany’s decision to increase its military capacity with a fund of 100 billion euros, announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 27, 2022 as a turning point (Zeitenwende), signaled a serious transformation.

The EU’s strategic autonomy in the field of defense, which gained momentum with the adoption of the Strategic Compass in March 2022 when France held the rotating presidency of the European Union, was accelerated by the two-year Russia-Ukraine war and the growing needs in the field of defense. Steps have been taken to support this with new policies, programs, and funding.

Another step in this direction was the decision to establish the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), led by Germany and including Turkey, to create a defense shield with missile defense systems against Russian aggression from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The reasons behind this move are the increased importance of missile defense systems based on the lessons learned from Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure and Russia’s deployment of Russian hypersonic missiles in Kaliningrad, between Lithuania and Poland, in August 2022.

However, this law does not change the fact that the European defense industry does not have sufficient stocks to meet Ukraine’s demand for ammunition in a short period of time. In other words, the Russia-Ukraine war has left EU defense production unable to replenish depleted military stocks and meet the pace needed to support Ukraine. The main reason for this ammunition problem is that EU defense industry production is based on a peacetime economy, not a wartime economy. Shifting to a wartime economy means shifting a significant portion of the budget from other areas to defense.

At this point, the EU adopted the European Defense Industry Strategy (EDIS) to address these concerns. Based on the results of the defense investment gap analysis and an extensive consultation process, the first European Defense Industrial Strategy, entitled “First ever Defense Industrial Strategy and a New Defense Industry Program to Enhance Europe’s Readiness and Security”, was presented by the European Commission and the EU’s High Representative on March 5, 2024.

Keeping production going and building industrial confidence through ambitious targets is an important part of this strategy. The strategy also calls for EU countries to work together to purchase at least 40 percent of defense equipment by 2030, to spend at least half of their defense procurement budgets on products made in Europe, and to trade at least 35 percent of defense goods between EU countries instead of with other countries. The strategy is intended to help make the EU more secure and resilient and would also benefit key allies such as Ukraine.

The Cost of Energy Security

Besides providing ammunition to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron recently mentioned direct military support and readiness for a major war in Europe. All these discourses should also be read in the context of Russia’s moves in Africa and the price it is paying for France’s energy security. France, which gets a significant part of its energy from nuclear power, also gets a significant part of its uranium, the fuel for nuclear power, from Africa. After the coup in Niger, pro-Russian Niger’s decision to suspend uranium exports to France increased France’s discomfort with growing Russian influence in the region.

Moreover, the search for an alternative natural gas supplier to Russian gas and to reduce energy dependence on Russia was further intensified by the Russia-Ukraine war. As a result, the search for natural gas from Africa gained momentum. The planned Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, which would transport Nigerian natural gas through Niger and Algeria to Europe, appears to have been blocked by Russia. As France is squeezed by Russia’s strategic moves in Africa, we observe President Macron’s assertive statements, the steps taken to strengthen the defense industry, and finally, as an alternative to endangered energy supplies in Africa, France is turning to one of the world’s largest uranium producers such as Kazakhstan.

Some EU members, led by France, want nuclear energy to be widely used in Europe to combat climate change, and nuclear energy is seen as the main alternative to eliminate energy dependence on Russia. Against this backdrop, the first Nuclear Energy Summit was held in Brussels on March 21, 2024, and proposals were made to promote the use of nuclear energy.

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n a press statement on Sunday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan lauded the Antalya Diplomacy Forum as an internationally recognized brand and a distinguished intellectual platform in the field of diplomacy.

Fidan highlighted the forum’s evolution into a global brand, emphasizing its regional ownership perspective. Speaking on the X platform, he stated, “It serves as a platform where various approaches and experiences tackling global issues are exchanged, and a wide range of worldviews are articulated.”

The Foreign Minister expressed his gratitude as he revealed that the 3rd edition of the Forum, held recently, successfully hosted approximately 4,700 participants from 48 countries. He extended thanks to all participants and colleagues who contributed to the organization’s success.

The third forum

This year’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum 2024, from March 1-3, was held under the auspices of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of the Republic of Turkey. The event was initiated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, Hakan Fidan.

The forum, in its third edition, brought together heads of states and governments, ministers, diplomats, business leaders, academics, think-tankers, as well as representatives from youth and media for an extensive debate. The overarching theme for 2024, “Advancing Diplomacy in Times of Turmoil,” aims to provide a comprehensive reflection on the turbulent global period.

The challenges addressed include ongoing wars, acts of terrorism, irregular migration, the rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia, risks associated with AI, climate change, natural disasters, pandemics, and widening socioeconomic gaps. The erosion of trust in the rules-based international order is also identified as a concerning trend, undermining the predictability of the environment in which states operate.

Third of world’s population heads to polls

Against the backdrop of several global turmoils, the forum aims to explore the potential structural changes in the political, economic, and security landscape. As one-third of the world’s population heads to the polls in 2024, the impact of elections on pressing international issues and concerns about AI-manipulated disinformation and fake news will be central to the international agenda.

Minister Fidan stressed the importance of adopting a novel understanding of diplomacy beyond its traditional framework of dialogue. The Antalya Diplomacy Forum is positioned to offer its distinguished participants an interactive and thought-provoking platform to address challenging global and regional issues and to discuss innovative tools to advance diplomacy in times of turmoil. #ADF2024 will be the official hashtag for the event.

Sources: Anadolu Agency and Antalya Diplomacy Forum

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he recent allegations regarding North Korea’s supply of military equipment and munitions to Russia have provoked international condemnation from countries including South Korea, the U.S., and Japan. These countries have expressed their deep concerns, claiming that such transfers exacerbate the human toll of Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

A joint statement, released by the top diplomats from South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, offers a unified stance against what they perceive as a destabilizing factor in an already precarious global situation. South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa together asserted that these weapon deliveries, some of which have been confirmed, “will significantly increase the human toll of Russia’s war of aggression.”

The geopolitical implications of this alliance are manifold. Historically, North Korea and Russia, both engaged in separate confrontations with the U.S. and its allies, have often found common ground in their mutual interests. This bond seems to have tightened recently, as evidenced by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia, where he met President Vladimir Putin and toured several key military installations.

Significant shift in the balance of power

The fears of Japan, South Korea and the U.S. aren’t unfounded. Reports suggest that North Korea isn’t just making a one-sided deal; it seeks advanced weapons technologies from Russia to augment its nuclear program. If these speculations hold water, they could represent a significant shift in the balance of power in the region, posing a direct threat to many countries, especially given North Korea’s historic volatility.

The U.S., South Korea, and other concerned nations suspect this alliance to be a two-way street. While North Korea allegedly provides Russia with conventional arms to supplement its dwindling arsenal, Russia, in return, is believed to be supplying North Korea with sophisticated weapons technologies. This would not only bolster North Korea’s nuclear capabilities but could also lead to more reliable and advanced weapons systems.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, however, dismissed these allegations. During a recent trip to Pyongyang, he emphasized Russia’s appreciation for North Korea’s “unwavering” support in its Ukraine conflict. Upon his return to Moscow, and in response to these claims, he stated that “the Americans keep accusing everyone” and refused to comment further, labeling them as mere “rumors.”

1,000 containers of military equipment

However, contrary to Lavrov’s dismissive stance, the White House recently disclosed evidence suggesting North Korea had indeed delivered over 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia. These containers, the U.S. claimed, were transferred to a Russian-flagged ship and subsequently transported via train to southwestern Russia.

The international community’s concerns aren’t limited to the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Since the previous year, North Korea has conducted over 100 missile tests, many simulating nuclear strikes against the U.S. and South Korea. With Russia potentially providing advanced weapon technologies, Kim Jong Un could develop more reliable nuclear weapons systems, threatening global stability.

To counter North Korea’s increasing nuclear prowess, the U.S. and South Korea have intensified their regular military exercises. In a show of collective defense, they have even reinstated some joint training exercises with Japan. This week witnessed the three nations’ armed forces carrying out their inaugural trilateral aerial exercise close to the Korean Peninsula.

Maritime exercise

Moreover, South Korea’s navy announced a comprehensive maritime exercise off the Korean Peninsula’s western coast. This training, encompassing live-fire drills, also saw participation from U.S. military helicopters and patrol aircraft.

While North Korea has yet to comment on this maritime drill, it has a history of perceiving such U.S.-South Korean exercises as precursors to invasion, often retaliating with missile tests.

The evolving dynamics in the region underscore the intricate balance of power and the high stakes involved. As alliances shift and nations recalibrate their strategies, the world watches closely, hoping that diplomacy and dialogue will prevail over confrontation.

Sources: The Independent, Japan Today, AP News

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n a surprising move, China’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu has been removed from his post, just seven months after assuming the role. This announcement comes after he vanished from the public eye two months ago, sparking widespread speculation about his whereabouts.

While the specific reason for his removal remains undisclosed, U.S. officials believe it may be related to corruption charges tied to his former role overseeing military procurement.

Alongside Minister Li, former Foreign Minister Qin Gang has also been stripped of his position as state councilor. Qin’s removal from the foreign minister post in July was followed by his predecessor, Wang Yi, reassuming the role.

Strong Xi

These abrupt changes have prompted questions regarding the decision-making process of China’s powerful leader, Xi Jinping, who is perceived to have a more direct influence over the Communist Party’s personnel decisions than his predecessors.

Both Li and Qin were considered by many as pivotal figures in President Xi’s vision to elevate China’s status on the global stage. The nature of their dismissals, occurring in such quick succession, has heightened concerns about the stability and transparency of Xi’s leadership.

Experts argue that while these changes might seem dramatic, they are unlikely to influence China’s overarching military or diplomatic strategies. However, they do shed light on the challenges Xi faces in his endeavor to rid the nation’s defense apparatus of corruption. The recent events highlight an ongoing effort by the Chinese leadership to strengthen its military capabilities and establish a world-class defense force by mid-century.

Anti-corruption?

Xi’s rigorous anti-corruption drive, while often viewed as a way to consolidate his own power and eliminate political threats, has also been a response to internal and external pressures to clean up the nation’s political and defense establishments.

Despite the shake-ups, the international community awaits clarity on the fate of the removed officials and whether they will face legal consequences. The nature of China’s political system, known for its opaqueness, has left many questions unanswered, fueling speculations about the real motives behind these high-profile dismissals.

Source: CNN, Aljazeera and the Washington Post

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laska, under Russian control until 1867, has recently become the focus of international attention after Russian and Chinese warships conducted joint patrols near the Aleutian Islands on August 6.

Historically, Alaska’s importance is rooted in its status as a former Russian territory and as sourcing a quarter of U.S. oil needs. The Crimean War of 1853-1856 inflicted significant financial losses on the Soviet Union, leading it to cede control of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million due to resource shortages and difficulty to defend. Alaska’s importance was enhanced by the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1870s, drawing numerous prospectors to the region after extensive gold deposits were discovered.

Joint Russian-Chinese naval maneuvers raise alarms

Recent developments in the region center around the joint patrols of eleven Russian and Chinese warships in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands. The flotilla included two Chinese Navy Type 052D guided missile destroyers, two Type 054A guided missile frigates, and a Type 903 comprehensive replenishment ship.

Simultaneously, reports from the Global Times suggest that the Russian navy’s contribution to the flotilla included significant anti-submarine ships and corvettes. In response, the United States dispatched four U.S. Navy destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft on August 7, 2023. However, reports confirm that the Russian and Chinese ships did not breach U.S. territorial waters during their joint maneuvers.

Echoing past operations

This is not the first instance of Russia and China cooperating in naval operations in the Pacific. In 2015, as reported by the U.S. Naval Institute News, five People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) ships had transited the Aleutian Islands chain without mishap and in compliance. According to the report, this transit, which was 12 nautical miles from the Aleutian Islands, was classified as an “innocent passage.” Similarly, in August 2021, the U.S. Coast Guard reported seeing a Chinese naval force consisting of four ships, led by a 10,000-ton Type 055 large destroyer, in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone near the Aleutian Islands.

In September 2022, a formation of seven Chinese and Russian ships were spotted together up to 200 nautical miles off the Aleutian Islands by the U.S. Coast Guard. During a routine Bering Sea patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Kimball encountered a People’s Republic of China guided missile cruiser near Kiska Island, Alaska.

The U.S. Coast Guard subsequently identified two other Chinese naval vessels and four Russian naval ships, including a destroyer. Rear Admiral Nathan Moore of the U.S. Coast Guard said at the time that the formation complied with international rules, but also emphasized the principle of “presence with presence” that would be applied to protect U.S. maritime interests in the Alaska region.

Maritime borders

At the time, only one U.S. Coast Guard cutter was stationed there. According to the Wall Street Journal, the destroyers USS John S. McCain, USS Benfold, USS John Finn, and USS Chung-Hoon, as well as a U.S. P-8 maritime patrol aircraft are currently deployed near Alaska.

On the other hand, U.S. warships have frequently crossed into Chinese territorial seas in the South China Sea. The destroyers USS John S. McCain, USS Benfold, USS John Finn, and USS Chung-Hoon, accompanied by a P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, have previously transited the Taiwan Strait. Within this group, the USS John S. McCain, USS Benfold, and USS Chung-Hoon were subsequently removed for unlawful entry into Chinese territorial waters in the South China Sea.

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski emphasized the geographic significance of Alaska’s proximity to China and Russia, calling it a “stark reminder.” Senator Dan Sullivan expressed concern about what he called an “incursion” of 11 Chinese and Russian warships operating together off the Alaskan coast, suggesting that this event signals a new era of authoritarian aggression led by Beijing and Moscow. He advocated for a more robust U.S. military response in the event of another joint naval operation of this nature.

Securing strategic passages

Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired navy captain, described the joint patrols as a “historic first.” He pointed out that heightened tensions surrounding the war in Ukraine and concerns about Taiwan make this move by Russia and China seem highly provocative.

Chinese Defense Ministry Spokesperson Senior Colonel Tan Kefei stated in a regular press conference on July 27 that the “Northern/Interaction-2023” collaborative drills and subsequent joint naval patrol are a clear expression of the strong strategic trust between China and Russia. He stressed that these missions further strengthen the long-standing cooperation between the Russian and Chinese armed forces. Tan reiterated China’s commitment to promoting effective dialogue and cooperation with all interested parties to contribute to maintaining regional peace and stability effectively.

Joint naval operations, while nothing new in the Pacific, are taking on renewed importance in the context of current global tensions. The intrusion of military vessels is a reflection of broader shifts in power dynamics and reflects strategic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. As nations commit to regional peace and stability, the evolving maritime theater around Alaska is indicative of the ongoing interplay of interests, strategies, and potential turning points on the international stage.

Alaska continues to be an outpost where the past, present, and future of global power dynamics come together in terms of history and geopolitics. The importance of the region remains, as warships continue to transit the waters near the Aleutian Islands and new pieces come into play on the geopolitical chessboard.

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e are at a historic turning point in terms of the power struggle in the international political system. The two devastating World Wars and the Cold War were major turning points in the twentieth century; however, in terms of shaking the power of “Western supremacy,” a very important undercurrent in the development of global politics, these developments did not have a significant impact.

World War I was largely a war between Western powers, and in its aftermath, the military and economic supremacy of the West continued to grow. World War II was also largely fought between Western powers and ended in the defeat of the challengers. Russia, one of the traditional European powers, challenged the United States and Western Europe under the Soviet regime during the Cold War, which also ended in defeat. It is generally accepted the current challenge to Western supremacy is a development that needs to be taken more seriously in terms of ending nearly 250 years of Western dominance.

If we look at where this challenge is coming from, Asia is clearly at the forefront, but Latin America and Africa have also raised objections to a global political system that reflects Western domination, albeit not as strongly. Let us examine the place of the BRICS, which brings together actors from these three continents, in the U.S.- and European-led international system; their challenge to this system; and the disadvantages they face in doing so.

Indicators of economic dominance

The first step in understanding the scale of the BRICS challenge should be a comparison of their positions in the global economy with those of the U.S. and the EU. In GDP terms, according to purchasing power parity (PPP), the main indicator of economic power, BRICS is the world’s largest economic bloc and one of its members, China, is the world’s largest economy.

The fact that by 2020 the five members of BRICS have reached a GDP (in PPP terms) larger than that of the United States and the 27-member-strong European Union combined shows that the organization has reached the capacity to have a serious impact on the future of the global economic and political system. There are now frequent reports that the BRICS members’ efforts to counter the United States’ increasing use of the dollar and the SWIFT system as a weapon could undermine the dollar’s position. Among the issues to be discussed at the BRICS summit in South Africa in August is the creation of a BRICS currency to counter the dominance of the dollar.

Brazil’s GDP, which stood at $2.47 trillion in 2013 when the instability began, shrank almost every year, falling to $1.48 trillion in 2020. Given that the domestic instability caused by social and political polarization and income distribution problems in the country has created an environment open to interference and manipulation by external actors dissatisfied with Brazil’s foreign policy line, it is clear that Lula da Silva, who will resume the presidency in January 2023, will have to tread more carefully in the global power struggle.

In addition to these weaknesses, another handicap of the BRICS countries in challenging the Western-dominated global political and economic system is that their military capabilities still lag far behind those of the United States and its allies. Although three of the five BRICS members possess nuclear weapons, the BRICS countries are not comparable to the United States in terms of military spending.

World history is full of examples showing that military power is as important as economic power in determining the fate of global challenges. The challenge to Russia’s military capabilities in Ukraine serves as the most recent example of this.

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razil has been at the center of speculations between Western expectations towards a renewed regional leadership and the increasing ties with BRICS. In April 2023, Lula da Silva, or simply Lula, Brazil’s president, visited China, welcomed Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, in Brasilia, and sent Celso Amorim, his closest foreign policy advisor, to meet Volodímir Zelenski. While Lula is showing democratic credentials and holds hard feelings towards Washington, Brazil’s  new international strategy looks to take advantage of the great power competition with an active nonaligned perspective. Latin America seems to be going in the same direction but not necessarily due of Brazil’s new active diplomacy.

Brazil is back

After overcoming a judicial process that included serving a period in prison and returning to the political arena, Lula’s 2023 electoral victory allowed him to resume an active foreign policy with an autonomist orientation that seeks a balance between developed Western powers and revisionist visions of the global order. As Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), argues, Brazil is hedging among great powers and pursuing an agenda of nonalignment, as exemplified in Lula’s visit to Beijing.

Lula has made clear that his priority is to focus on Brazil’s international reinsertion, strongly criticizing the Bolsonaro era both for its authoritarian attitudes domestically and for its erratic foreign policy. Among the main priorities of his new international agenda are the search for peace in the Ukrainian conflict, the establishment of a new regional leadership, and an active and determined projection in the Global South. Special attention has been given to regions where Brazil had regressed in the Bolsonaro era, such as the Middle East and Africa.

However, the new administration faces significant challenges due to the current international landscape, which differs considerably from when it left power. Back then, Brazil was considered a rising star and major powers had a generally positive perception of its role in the global governance agenda—at least until the signing of the tripartite agreement with Iran and Turkey. Today, however, strategic competition among major powers imposes constraints on pursuing a more autonomous foreign policy, especially vis-à-vis traditional partners such as Washington or new strategic partners such as Moscow.

Autonomous decisions have a higher cost. Moreover, the regional context has changed. During the Bolsonaro era, Brazil became a major non-NATO ally (MNNA), which increased its degree of strategic interdependence with the U.S., while the growing presence of China forces Brazil to have a more balanced position given the existing tensions between China and the U.S.

Finally, Lula intends to rebuild the Union of South American Nations (USAN, or UNASUR in Spanish), but South America is less ideologically and politically homogenous than it used to be, which in some ways hinders plans to relaunch this regional body that was deactivated during the previous administration.

Latin America and the Russo-Ukrainian War

The Russian presence has not gone unnoticed in discussions in Latin America. The war in Ukraine is the focus of foreign policy debate in most of Latin America; the discussions are framed in a context of how the region should navigate the rise of China and the emergence of new global actors such as Russia. Among academics, experts, and decision-makers, there are broadly two perspectives on Latin America’s place in an increasingly multipolar world: on the one side, to side with the U.S., or China and/or Russia in the new great power competition, or, on the other, to remain outside of the competition.

The alignment calls for a choice between the United States and China. This option is generally marginal in Latin American foreign policy discussions, and often has a strong liberal ideological component. The strong pro-democratic and liberal affinities generally favor a special closeness with the United States and the Western world, but there are also growing pro-China sympathies, for example, in Venezuela and among some of Latin America’s left-wing movements.

Across the region there is a near consensus not to engage in the new great power competition, while seeking opportunities for economic development and strategic alliances with other countries. The second option has different expressions but can be summarized as a form of nonalignment. The recent book “Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World Order: The Active Non-Alignment Option” edited by Fortin, Heine and Ominami reunites different voices which call for an equidistant position between the White House and Beijing while seeking to deepen regional integration and more active diplomacy both with rising players and in the Global South.

For example, facing the Russo-Ukrainian War, the major Latin American regional players—Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico—have shown a more pragmatic and less forceful stance with respect to condemnation, with a mixture of balanced positions and a search for compensation. Thus, no country in Latin America adopted sanctions against Russia. The case of Brazil is particularly interesting since it shows an important degree of continuity between Bolsonaro and Lula except for the new “peace coalition” project which has been at the core of the current presidential diplomatic maneuvers. Although Bolsonaro’s and Lula’s diplomatic responses offered different nuances within and across different regional players, they signaled an autonomous perspective facing global pressures.

What does active nonalignment mean for Latin America?

Are Brazil and Latin America nonaligned? The answer is yes. Neutrality and nonalignment have been at the center of Latin America’s external choices both in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War and the U.S.-China strategic competition. However, only to stand aside in a changing global environment is not enough to strengthen agency in world politics. Latin America suffers from a structural relevance deficit in the global scenario, so a more active and prompt approach towards global affairs is needed. Diversification, open regionalism, multilateralism, and soft power are optimal routes to increase regional presence and relative weight in international affairs.

While nonalignment is a fact in current times, the active side of the equation seems to be far behind regional needs. Regional fragmentation and stagnation have been increasing in recent years and the multilateral position does not mean that the regional players coordinate their policies—even those related to the Russo-Ukrainian War— while diversification and soft power policies fluctuate in relation to the importance that governments give to international issues. The relations between Turkey and Latin America are a vivid example of the lack of continuity, with the initiative usually coming from Ankara. In the end, Lula’s new Brazil offers an opportunity to put the region back on the international stage, although it will most likely be following Brasilia’s and not a collective agenda.

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eports about the death of the state amongst international relations scholars seem premature just yet. In this century, the world will conduct an extraordinary experiment in government. By 2050, forty percent of the planet’s population will live in just four places: India, China, the European Union, and the United States. These are superstates: polities that are distinguished from normal countries by expansiveness, population, diversity, and complexity.

Modern statecraft has attempted to adapt to the challenges of globalization, interdependency, and population increase, bringing piling responsibilities to the states. How can superstates manage the burden of their growing scale? Can such states be effectively governed at all? Looking at other model modern states offers only an incomplete picture; however, while there is not much experience to be drawn from today, empires may offer a guide.

Alasdair Roberts, professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, likens these superstates to the empires of the past. After all, it was the age of empires that gave way to the age of states, and later the hybrid polity superstates. In the coming decades, the least populous superstate, the U.S., will contain as many people as the vast British Empire did at its peak in 1914.

Roberts first attempts to decipher the nature of this ongoing experimentin light of new dilemmas of governance. He argues that, for the most part, superstates wrestle with the same problems of leadership, control, and creed that plagued empires for centuries. Yet, there are no simple solutions.

Could superstates be more durable? What are the pros and cons of a superstate in comparison to an empire? A postulate of empires is the assumption of their eventual death. Size and complexity led to fragility, and imperial rulers improvised constantly to put off the day of reckoning—leaders of superstates are doing the same today.

However, superstates now differ from traditional empires in the responsibilities that they bear, and most importantly in the obligation to improve life for ordinary citizens. They pursue radically different strategies for governing at scale that have profound implications for democracy and human rights. While technology provides more ease to superstates for surveillance and many other tasks, their populations are more restless and demanding, they need to govern more intensively and provide more services.

Roberts takes the reader through each superstate one by one to understand their unique challenges and complementing strategies, and reveals common themes amongst these giants in the process. He, then, takes the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to analyze how these superstates reacted to a common problem in a different way and how they bared during a shock at the global level.

How should superstates be governed? What must their leaders do to hold these immense polities together? How can these superstates withstand the extraordinary strains and shocks of the contemporary world? If they survive, will they thrive? Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century attempts to answer these and other questions by looking into history for ways to govern these sprawling and diverse polities.

With a groundbreaking twist in thinking about the art and methods of statecraft, Roberts considers the decisions leaders must make to devise and redevise strategies for governance at such a grand scale. Pragmatism, a little bit of reservation, and sometimes unorthodox policies may be necessary.

Alasdair Roberts, Superstates: Empires of the Twenty-First Century (Polity Press, 2022) ISBN: 978-1-509-54449-3, 224 pages

After months of tergiversations, Chinese President Xi Jinping finally made a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – the first time the two leaders have spoken since the outbreak of the war. Zelenskyy tweeted in praise for this meaningful move, highlighting the need for collaboration in paving the way for peace. Subsequently, China pledged to send a special envoy to lead its mediation efforts and help provide vital humanitarian aid.

The road to peace is long, gruelling, and full of obstacles, and no observer expects a single phone call to stop this conflict. However, this step represents an important signal that China is interested in peace, thus kick-starting a process that may end this devastating war.

Beijing-Moscow Ties as a Leverage? 

The War in Ukraine boosted the China-Russia partnership. Beijing brought a breeze of fresh air to the sanctions-thorn Russian economy thanks to a $190 billion trade deal. Moreover, China’s diplomatic support was pivotal in insulating Russia from international condemnation in the UNSC. Beijing also dismissed parts of the joint statement at the G-20 that condemned Russia.

Nevertheless, China is the major partner in this relationship, retaining the upper hand owing to discounted energy prices and an expanding volume of Yuan in Russian markets and treasury.

Can China use its strategic advantage to pressure Moscow into ending the war in Ukraine? China has already revealed its diplomatic prowess by bringing Saudi Arabia and Iran to the negotiating table, and now it is offering to help facilitate peace talks in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the conflict in Ukraine presents a unique challenge that may require a different approach.

BRICS and Yuan

While the allure of cheap oil, the Yuan’s volume in the Gulf, and the BRICS membership can be attractive to some lower-league players, building a global reputation as a responsible superpower is another ball game. But let’s be real: China’s lifeline to Russia may give them the upper hand, but the Ukraine war is also a golden opportunity for its global stature.

Ending the conflict in Ukraine could bring an invaluable reputational gain that cannot be measured in dollars or Yuan. China would gain more from the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine than any further escalation.

Meanwhile, Beijing is playing a multi-faceted game – boosting its reputation and keeping an eye on the potential for reconstruction opportunities that could arise from a de-escalation scenario leading to peace. Rebuilding a region devastated by war is a lucrative business, and China appears poised to have its share of the pie.

Getting the West Out of the Way

China’s actions carry a tacit warning to Washington to keep its distance. It is important to note that China’s 12-point political solution proposal to the Russia-Ukraine War, released on the first anniversary of the conflict, includes two significant points: the rejection of a Cold War mentality and the ineffectiveness of sanctions. These points are direct jabs aimed at NATO expansion and the stance of Western countries that joined the U.S. bandwagon in imposing sanctions. China is reminding the latter, particularly the U.S., that they have effectively removed themselves from the negotiation table by adopting such a posture.

French President Macron’s visit to China revealed cracks in the European standpoint, as some players were forced to fend for themselves, refusing to become mere followers of the United States, even if the latter provided the continent’s security for decades.

No one knows what game Macron is playing, and many find his goal of reaching “strategic autonomy” in Europe unrealistic. In any case, Macron’s statement that France would not interfere in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan irked most U.S. and European decision-makers. While it demonstrates Europe’s unwillingness to get caught in the middle of crises, it weakens Washington’s hand, raising questions about the sustainability of sanctions on Russia and similar other containment strategies intended for China in the future.

What Can Beijing Do?

If Beijing’s resolve persists, the conflict will likely witness a peace process preceded by confidence-building measures. Xi Jinping can keep Putin’s offensive tendencies in check. There is a growing consensus that a nuclear showdown would be a lose-lose situation for all parties involved. This situation is contingent upon the Ukrainian side’s cessation of any major offensives.

Moreover, the hostility towards NATO, which unites Russia and China, means that the transatlantic alliance will not be part of a China-led peace scenario.

Furthermore, Beijing could use its leverage to limit escalation, bolster humanitarian aid, and maintain the grain corridor deal spearheaded by Turkey last year.

In international politics, progress can be slow and incremental, and the recent phone call between China and Russia is unlikely to yield immediate results. The White House will not sit idle and could push for a major spring Ukrainian offensive. Meanwhile, whether Russia will come to terms with China’s efforts to de-escalate ongoing conflicts remains to be seen. At the end of the day, as Confucius wisely said, “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

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he Pacific is heating up. The rise of China rocks the balance of power making room for an emerging new order. In this month’s book bundle, we present eight books about the hottest topic of international affairs: the U.S.-China rivalry. What awaits the world as tensions rise? This selection approaches the topic from comprehensive and diverse angles ranging from international relations theory assumptions to the most outstanding topics of the U.S.-China rivalry such as economic leadership and information war.

The competition between the two great powers has overtaken the world agenda and is shaping foreign policy decisions globally. Therefore, this book bundle was compiled with special attention to the reactions of middle and smaller powers in the face of this competition, aiming to give the reader a broader perspective to interpret what awaits the world more holistically.

Will the shift in the balance of power between the U.S. and China lead to a war? International relations theory predicts that shifts between a hegemon and a rising power may trigger actions with such consequences. Steve Chan examines how many of these theories hold true in the case of U.S.-China relations with Taiwan remaining a flash point for a possible Sino-American conflict.

Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War further explores the risk-oriented popular narratives on the topic with sound and well-grounded judgement, considering whether several factors that can raise or lower international tension apply to the current situation. Chan criticizes overly mechanistic frameworks and shows that power shifts do not predetermine violent outcomes—and neither does their absence ensure peace. In fact, many factors like domestic politics, international political economy, and the choices of individual leaders come into play.

Rumbles of Thunder demonstrates that claims of a “rising China” catching up and overtaking the United States are alarmist, and Chan predicts that American structural advantages will endure for some time to come. Contrary to popular belief, Chan does not maintain that China acts like a revisionist power seeking to overturn the system or that the U.S. is defending the international order. Rumbles of Thunder brings a fresh analytical outlook to the table and challenges conventional wisdom on the likelihood of war between the United States and China.

Steve Chan, Rumbles of Thunder: Power Shifts and the Danger of Sino-American War (Columbia University Press, 2022) ISBN: 9780231208451, 336 pages

In Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives, Stephan Roach argues that the conflict between the U.S. and China wouldn’t have emerged were it not for a needless clash of false narratives, and that much of the rhetoric on both sides is dangerously misguided, amplified by information distortion, and should be seen more like a reflection of each nation’s fears and vulnerabilities than a credible assessment of the risks they face. The U.S. blames its trade and technology threats on China yet overlooks its shaky saving foundation. Meanwhile, China blames its growth challenges on the alleged U.S. containment of market-based socialism, ignoring its failed economic rebalancing.

Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives provides an analysis of both nations’ economies, politics, and policies, and offers a new road map for restoring a mutually advantageous relationship. The book will be available in paperback on June 6, 2023.

Stephan Roach, Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives (Yale University Press, 2022) ISBN: 9780300259643, 448 pages

Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who spent more than forty years in China, puts the turbulent relationship between the U.S. and China under the spotlight with insightful analyses based on his firsthand understanding of the mindsets of the leadership whose judgment will determine whether the future course of events will escalate to a war.

Rudd provides context as to why the U.S.-China relationship rests on a seismic fault: cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility are all pivotal antecedents. The antagonism between the two superpowers is starkly visible, among others, in the field of military, intelligence, technology, and trade, while either country’s capacity to draw the last straw grows daily.

Against this gloomy backdrop, Rudd constructively argues that the relationship is not doomed to escalating tension and war. If both sides can sustain a “managed strategic competition” by coexisting without betraying their core interests, conflict could be avoided. However, the opposite could be catastrophic. The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other.

Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China (PublicAffairs, 2022) ISBN-13 9781541701304, 432 pages

As the U.S. faces the first real challenge to its economic hegemony with the rise of China, The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership sees experienced policymaker, economist, and scholar C. Fred Bergsten analyze the two great powers’ competition from the scope of global economic leadership. Is economic conflict beyond the existing trade war inevitable between China and the U.S.? Will their clash produce a new economic leadership vacuum? What can the consequences of a world economy adopting Chinese characteristics be?

According to Bergsten a confrontation between the two would be calamitous. He further argues that it would be self-defeating for the U.S. to attempt to “decouple” from its rival. Bergsten advices the U.S. to pursue “conditional competitive cooperation” to lead, rather than destroy, the world economy instead of a policy of containment. As for China, he recommends exercising constructive global leadership.

Fred Bergsten, The United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership (Polity Press, 2022) ISBN-13 978-1509547357, 384 pages

Is China really a threat to the U.S. or just a threat to its unilateral superpower status? According to Paolo Urio, the U.S. has historically disguised the true nature of its relations with the nations that have stood in the way of its ambitions, often projecting fear of harm from other nations even as it was expanding its dominion over them. America and the China Threat: From the End of History to the End of Empire revisits and debunks the idea of the universality of U.S. values, and the perception of the imperial, dictatorial, and state capitalist character of today’s China. It provides a historical analysis of the divergent ideologies of the U.S. and China, and reveals the source of strain the U.S. faces in adapting to the changes occurring in the international system that has moved beyond its exceptionalism and uncontested leadership, now challenged by China.

Urio challenges the U.S. proclamation that it alone can assure stability and prosperity in the international system, while demonstrating that Chinese ideology has achieved greater flexibility by integrating values imported from the West and several Confucian values. Urio argues that China is better able to adapt its public policies to changes in the national and international environments. America and the China Threat: From the End of History to the End of Empire further addresses China’s significant military and economic advances and its new investments.

Paolo Urio, America and the China Threat: From the End of History to the End of Empire (Clarity Press, 2022) ISBN-10 1949762505, 476 pages

Information War: How Artificial Intelligence Is Driving U.S.-China Military Competition addresses a crucial variable shaping the intensifying confrontation between the U.S. and China: the struggle to control information. How will modern technology be wielded in a rising conflict between the two superpowers?

Technology and national security expert Tom Stefanick argues that the two contemporary superpowers will base their security competition primarily on the fight to dominate information and perception. How will the adversaries attack the other’s information architecture while protecting their own? Stefanick highlights that the way each country chooses to employ information countermeasures will determine the amount of friction and uncertainty in the conflict.

Stefanick draws attention to artificial intelligence, which will play an important role. Information War: How Artificial Intelligence Is Driving U.S.-China Military Competition reviews the recent Chinese research and trends in AI to determine how it will approach the conflict, and provides a sober view of how artificial intelligence will be weaponized in the new information war.

Tom Stefanick, Information War: How Artificial Intelligence Is Driving U.S.-China Military Competition (Brookings Institution Press, 2022) ISBN-13: 9780815738824, 280 pages

China expert Andrew Small offers an eclectic view of a rivalry ranging far beyond “great power” politics. He provides the inside story of a revolution in the China policy of countries from around the world. The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future explains a diverse range of topics such as how many of the Western politicians and business leaders closest to Beijing have now become its sharpest opponents, how the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated this trend, and why 5G represents the first test case as to whether China can win the race for the future.

As competition grows between systems, the Western model itself is transforming given that China’s rise changes both the balance of ideas and the balance of power. Small traces U.S. efforts to recast relations with old allies, examining Europe’s growing role in the technological and economic contest, and Beijing’s attempts to build a coalition of its own.

Andrew Small, The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future (Hurst Publishers, 2022) ISBN 9781787387782, 304 pages

What path does a middle power take when engrossed in the competition between great powers? Do they get caught up between the two or forge a path of their own? In the heating U.S.-China rivalry, what are the strategic responses of middle powers in the Asia-Pacific? The Strategic Options of Middle Powers in the Asia-Pacific examines these questions through the specific case studies of South Korea, Australia, Japan, India, Taiwan, and Vietnam from their local perspectives.

With each chapter, written by experts, the book provides comprehensive studies of the regional powers in the Asia-Pacific with an in-depth examination of the contemporary geopolitics of the region, including the impact of both the Trump and Biden administrations, Beijing’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy, cross-strait relations with Taiwan, and the influences of Japan, Vietnam, Australia, and South Korea. The Strategic Options of Middle Powers in the Asia-Pacific reveals that regional middle powers actually exert influence on the direction of regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, and develops theories of foreign policy analyses, forming a systematic framework through initiating crucial concepts, including reluctant hedging, economic statecraft, and strategic position-taking.

Chien-Wen Kou, Chiung-Chiu Huang, Brian Job, The Strategic Options of Middle Powers in the Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2022) ISBN 9781003156314, 278 pages

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hroughout history, misinformation was a powerful weapon in the hands of people who fought to maximize their interests. Atrocity fabrication—the invention and reporting of atrocities committed by an adversary without knowledge that they ever occurred—has a centuries-long history at the heart of propaganda and power politics as an effective means of moving public and international opinion.

Now more than ever, the role and scope of misinformation has been able to expand and become an entrenched practice, almost a default extension to any given conflict. Understanding atrocity fabrication and its effects has become crucial to understanding contemporary geopolitics.

Geopolitics expert A.B. Abrams compiles the most significant cases of atrocity fabrication in eleven major conflicts shaping the world order from the Cold War to the present. These include Vietnam and Cuba, the Korean War, Tiananmen Square, the Yugoslav wars, the Gulf War, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the emerging U.S.-China rivalry. The information sphere currently dominated by Western powers has roots tracing back to early colonial days, which the author initially touches upon to pinpoint a starting point for the evolution of its current-day form.

Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order demonstrates atrocity fabrication in its many forms and varieties, the keys to its success, with the roles played by media and both government and non-governmental organizations in misleading the public, often engrained into larger self-reinforcing metanarratives that form a backdrop to new bits of information.

Abrams highlights how atrocity fabrication is used, and the consequences it has for the populations of the targeted countries, often paving the way for real atrocities such as military interventions committed against them on even larger scales of depravity than those described in the fabricated narratives. Furthermore, atrocity fabrication enforces an interventionist “World Order 2.0” by furthering Western geopolitical interests, an order of conditional sovereignty held by Western opinion of affairs elsewhere in the world, which, conceptually and in practice, has disastrous consequences.

Case by case, Abrams shows how its use can provide pretext for a range of hostile measures against its targets by triggering public moral outrage, transforming wars of unprovoked aggression into those of liberation, turning blockades to starve enemy civilians into humane efforts to pressure abusive governments under the moralistic label of sanctions, and delegitimizing and silencing criticism of one’s actions under accusations of siding with injustice.

Not only is understanding atrocity fabrication important to debunk misinformation about a set of events, but it is also reading how challengers of Western power will continue to be assailed. Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences provides an important selection of atrocity fabrication history which is crucial to understanding this mode of action on a broader context of international affairs. The book is a revealing account of how perception is reality by providing history, context, and analysis for a trend that is here to stay.

A.B. Abrams, Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order (Clarity Press, 2023) ISBN: 978-1-949762-70-9, 424 pages

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here come times throughout history where military innovations or shifts in the character of warfare take great revolutionary leaps, allowing those able to reap their benefits first to position themselves at a substantive competitive advantage. Militaries that identify and exploit these periods of disruptive changes make major shifts in the balance of power, security, and prosperity for their nations. Those who fail to do so, or fail to adapt to change, risk exposing their country to danger. What will the next big thing in warfare be? And how can militaries successfully adapt to meet the challenge? The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers provides an authoritative take and the necessary foundation for healthy speculation.

Military strategist Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. discusses military revolutions—or shifts in the character of warfare—and specifically the most recent precision warfare revolution which is currently reaching its maturity.

According to Krepinevich, an even newer revolution is emerging. This is fueled by the advances of commercial and military-driven technology, such as AI 3D manufacturing, synthetic biology and quantum computing, and directed energy and hypersonic weapons, and is accelerated by the competition between the U.S., Russia, and China.

The precision warfare revolution was introduced by the U.S. military in the First Gulf War. It gave the U.S. a monopoly over this form of warfare for several decades, but now other powers such as China have these capabilities.

In this era of increased competition amongst great powers, The Origins of Victory, first gives a preliminary assessment of the disruptive changes occurring in general war to identify the existing characteristics of the precision warfare regime, and goes on to offer speculation of the overlapping successor revolution.

Second, The Origins of Victory examines the crucial factor of how military organizations have successfully anticipated and exploited disruptive changes in warfare faster than their rivals.

The book consists of two parts. In Part I, Krepinevich considers the characteristics of the emerging competitive environment through trends over the years and identifies the ones that may show yield in the future. He discusses the maturing precision warfare and the overlapping new revolution, as well as their implication for deterrence.

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ave theory in international relations refers to four waves to explain modern terrorism and how the concept of terrorism and political violence has developed over time from being an anarchist concept (associated with political activism) to being associated with religion (such as suicide bombings that harm civilians). The theory attempts to provide an understanding of terrorist groups based on studying the history of terrorism over four 40-year-long phases and the use of tactics, theology, shared characteristics, and the future vision of terrorist groups. Introduced by David C. Rapoport at the University of California in 2004, wave theory has gained much weight since its first appearance.

Four Waves of Terrorism

Rapoport argues that the first wave of modern terrorism emerged in Russia. Known as the Anarchist Wave, it started on January 24, 1878, when Vera Zasulich, an anarchist, wounded General Trepov, the governor of St. Petersburg, over his role in flogging political prisoners. The Anarchist Wave extended to 1919. Zasulich was not convicted following her trial, where she claimed, “I am a terrorist, not a killer.” Zasulich’s memorable words suggest that the concept has gone through structural changes from being “almost acceptable” and open to debate, to being extremely negative today.

The fact that Zasulich was not convicted speaks of this change. The Anarchist Wave spread to countries such as China and the United States, and was known for its use of assassinations of political figures, police officers, and state officials such as U.S. President William McKinley who was assassinated in 1901. The globalization of the Anarchist Wave left its marked on this period as Russian anarchists were able to spread their propaganda to other countries and change the characteristics of traditional terrorism as it existed before.

World War I marked the end of the Anarchist Wave and the rise of nation-states, which translated into a gradual disappearance of anarchism from public spaces. At the same time, many nations, especially in the Balkans, hoped to rid themselves of the rule of traditional colonialism – a hope that vanished with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. At the same time, groups such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which adopted a liberation discourse against British colonialism in Ireland emerged. At the same time, towards the end of the 1940s, the Zionist paramilitary group Irgun appeared in British Mandate Palestine, carrying out terrorist attacks including targeting the King David Hotel in 1946, killing hundreds of British and Palestinians.

In the 1940s, the term “terrorism” gained more negativity over targeting civilians and using excessive violence unlike the Anarchist Wave that was centered around targeted assassinations. The second wave, the Anti-Colonial Wave, was centered on a discourse based on national histories and cultures, focusing on the local rather than the global. The mid-1960s saw the end of the Anti-Colonial Wave, with most non-state actors gaining their independence, such as the National Liberation Front (FLN in French) in Algeria in 1962.

The Third Wave, also known as the New Left Wave, began in the mid-1960s, kicking off in the midst of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc, led by the United States. The Vietnam War saw the mobilization of the global left against the war. The Cold War allowed the Soviet Union to support anti-West forces and allowed the West to support anti-Soviet forces, which was translated into giving weapons, and political and financial support to different non-state actors, thus making the sponsorship of non-state actors involved in terrorism a state policy.

The Third Wave of terrorism was more about propaganda rather than harming people and it saw the rise of plane hijacking to send political messages or to release prisoners held by specific state actors through swaps. Tools such as radio and television were important elements in spreading the message of terrorism and political violence at the time, and terrorism was still able to maintain its global, but not globalized aspect. Assassinations, inspired by the First Wave of terrorism, were also revised during the Third Wave.

The Fourth Wave of terrorism, known as the Religious Wave, was largely inspired by the Iranian Revolution. The targeting of U.S. marines by Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and the American hostage crisis in Iran which ended in 1981 following an Algerian mediation are two important examples from this wave. Although the Fourth Wave is largely associated with the Muslim world, it has also taken place in other parts or targeted Muslims such as the use of nerve gas by Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in Palestine, and the Tamil Tiger violence in Sri Lanka.

Unlike the three previous waves which were led by intellectuals, the Fourth Wave includes people of all backgrounds. This wave is ongoing and includes groups such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh, which has almost disappeared after its defeat in Iraq and Syria.

The Cold War and the Arab Spring 

The Cold War has played a major role in providing a political, military, and financial cover for non-state actors classified as terrorist by certain state actors such as the FLN in Algeria. Thanks to the politics of the Cold War, the FLN was more accepting of terms such as “revolutionary terrorism.” In the words of an FLN leader, “Urban terrorism like guerrilla warfare is the only method of expression of a crushed people.”

Yet, with the end of the Cold War, the excessive use of violence against civilians, the rise of the United States as the only superpower, the impact of 9/11 and the momentousness of harming so many civilians at once, and the politics of labeling, terrorism has become an all-negative concept. Non-state actors became preoccupied with removing themselves from terror lists by offering concessions or adopting a discourse that is more acceptable to state actors that deem them terrorist.

The Arab Spring and the sectarian politics it brought along has only emphasized the role of labeling in the terrorism debate, where regional politics, in addition to global politics, became effective in identifying a group as terrorist or not. The politics of the Cold War and the Arab Spring have contributed to making terrorism an exclusively negative concept, especially following 9/11 and the shock waves it sent across the world.

Looking at the concept of terrorism, over the span of 125 years, we see that it has emerged from being “almost acceptable” to being rejected as purely and extremely negative. Today, terrorism is a negative label and with the end of most anti-colonial struggles, it will become harder for non-state actors using violence as a tool of political expression to market their agenda to the rest of the world, especially in light of regional and global politics.

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ecently, in a long memo to U.S. Air Force commanders, the four-star Air Force General Mike Minihan delivered an ominous warning “choring up a possible confrontation with China” in two years. Since the beginning of the growth of Chinese economy back in the 1980s under then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, American multinationals have doubled their profits by entering the vast Chinese consumer market. Over the span of decades, China has become the most attractive investment destination for Western companies and start-ups.

Within decades, China emerged as a manufacturing hub for cheaper goods and services and began boosting its export industry filling state coffers with billions of dollars. By 2010, the People’s Republic of China replaced Japan as the second largest economy in the world shocking the world with its new model of economic development known as “Beijing Consensus” or “China Model.”

In 2012, China saw a change in the political landscape, when Xi Jinping became the new leader of the People’s Republic. This was interpreted by Chinese experts as the beginning of the “Chinese Century.” The term is complex and is rooted in a Chinese neologism that describes an economic miracle indicating that the 21^st century may be geoeconomically or geopolitically dominated by the People’s Republic of China. Within a year, in 2013, Xi announced China’s dream project, the One Belt One Road (OBOR) Initiative, often referred to as the “New Silk Route,” with a new Chinese economic philosophy of a “win-win situation.”

The multibillion-dollar One Belt and One Road Initiative is China’s global infrastructure development strategy that aims to invest in more than 150 countries around the world by building large-scale infrastructure projects such as ports (both dry and seaports), railways, highways, small and big economic zones, and commercial airfields.

Two hundred years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte famously remarked that “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep for when she wakes up, she will move the world.” With Xi Jinping in China, it seems the sleeping dragon has awakened. But will it really shake the world as Napoleon once predicted? Even before the inauguration of the initiative, in 2004, several U.S. geopolitical experts coined the theory of “String of Pearls” which is a geopolitical hypothesis that speculated the Chinese domination in the Indian Ocean via commercialization of key ports by establishing lanes of communication that will connect mainland China with the Horn of Africa.

The major commercial ports in the Indian Ocean, which China is currently developing for commercial use, include Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, Lamu and Mombasa Port in Kenya, Bagamoyo Port and Dar es Salaam Port in Tanzania, Sokhna Port in Egypt, and Sudan Port in the Republic of Sudan. There are also several other small ports, which China is planning to jointly develop with relevant governments in the aforementioned countries.

As per Chinese claims, these ports are exclusively being developed for commercial purposes, but U.S. geopolitical experts see the growing Chinese sphere of influence over the Indian Ocean as a growing threat. In his celebrated book Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, American political scholar Robert D. Kaplan observes that U.S. power and influence are trending downward, while China is rising on both accounts across the region.

However, the Chinese leadership refutes these claims and defends its commercialization of major ports in the Indian Ocean as a pathway to boost China’s trade relations with the countries in Asia and Africa. The rapid success of key infrastructural development ports under the OBOR Initiative clearly suggests the beginning of the Chinese Century. According to Chinese historians and political experts, the “Chinese Century” under the leadership of Xi suggests the unification of China’s three key historical traditions.

For instance, according to Chinese philosopher Gan Yang Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are the three main historical traditions that have shaped Chinese culture and society over the course of centuries. In Yang’s view throughout Chinese history ranging from the dynastic rule, Republican Revolution to Communist Revolution; these three traditions have shaped Chinese culture and society and continue to influence the way that people think and live in China today.

In his 2012 seminal lecture at Tsinghua University entitled “‘Unifying the Three Traditions’ in the New Era,” Chinese philosopher Gan Yang explains how China under the leadership of Xi is flourishing across the political, social, economic, and cultural spheres. Referring to the history of China in the 21^st century, Gan told the audience, “Modern Chinese history refers to a new understanding of the links and continuities between the success of reform and opening and the Mao era, as well as a new understanding of the foundational role that traditional Chinese history and civilization have played in modern China.”

Jiang Shigong, another Chinese philosopher, shares the same pragmatism about the beginning of the Chinese Century in his essay “Empire and World Order.” Referring to Chinese isolation in the mid-twentieth century after the communist revolution and its emergence as a global power in the 21st century, Shigong explains the process in the following way: “The progression of world history as the progress of smaller political units towards larger conglomerations, or empires, culminating in the latest phase of “world empire.”

Likewise in his other renowned essay “Philosophy and History: Interpreting the ‘Xi Jinping Era’ through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCP,” Shigong explains Xi’s notion of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” in the following way:

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new age, meaning that the Chinese people, who have long suffered in the modern age, have now made a great leap, from standing up 站起来 to becoming rich 富起来, to becoming strong 强起来.” “Standing up,” “getting rich,” and “becoming strong” are ways to divide the histories of our Party and our Republic, referring respectively to the Mao Zedong era, the Deng Xiaoping era, and the Xi Jinping era.

Xi elucidated the foundation of the “Chinese Century” in his famous Nineteenth National Congress address to the Communist Party in 2017. In this address, citing the classical Confucian concept of tianxia (天下), or “all under heaven,” Xi explained his vision for China’s role in facilitating the development of various regions around the world. Today, across the geoeconomic and geopolitical spheres, China is a leading competitor of the West and it was the Chinese economic miracle of the recent century that propelled China to pick the race with the U.S. Today, the question is whether this competition will turn into a confrontation.

Beginning from the last decade, the American Eagle and Chinese Dragon are facing off against each other on various fronts. For instance, the Trump trade war with China in 2016 was the beginning of this direct rivalry, which widened the economic distrust between the West and China. Likewise, Chinese claims to the nine-dash line in the South China Sea also became a major sign of the confrontation that continues to this day.

Recently, Chinese neutrality and a light tone of support for Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine have further escalated the already tense diplomatic and economic confrontation with the West. In response to China’s silence over the Ukrainian conflict, Western countries have collectively decided to deprive China of chip imports, which are essential to its booming telecommunication technological progress.

The ongoing policy of Western sanctions against China and Russia are clearly the calm before the storm. The question is whether the West can afford two fronts if the U.S. and Europe decide to start a war with China. The recent ominous warning of General Minihan about a possible war with China by 2025 clearly signals a worsening situation in a conflict-ridden world. It is time for global powers to think about collective humanity because growing global insecurity signals that leaders are highly cautious and concerned about even the smallest potential threats. Even a small confrontation between China and the United States can result in a full-scale world war that seems to be approaching.

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multipolar regional order is in the making in the Middle East, the preponderance of the U.S. is waning and rising powers, primarily China and Russia, are deepening their involvement in the region. For the U.S., the Middle East has been losing its significance and the Asia Pacific region is considered economically and militarily more vital. The stable supply of oil from the Middle East is no more a top U.S. concern as the booming shale oil production in North America helps towards energy independence.

The badly ended invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq showed the limits of the U.S. power and influence in the region, which makes American policymakers less willing to play a major role in Middle Eastern affairs. The most recent escalation of violence between Israel and Palestinians in Jenin was met with mere calls for calm by the U.S. and President Biden so far has been quite unwilling to reinitiate the Middle East peace process. As the U.S. interest in the region diminishes, the rising powers of China and Russia are increasingly more interested in strengthening their ties with the Middle East.

The longstanding U.S. allies in the Middle East, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey, are forming new intra and extra regional alliances. The Abraham Accords (2020) largely ended Israel’s isolation in the region, on an official level, as it established diplomatic relations with the UAE and Bahrain. In 2020, Morocco also recognized Israel and Sudan declared such an intention, which has not materialized yet. After four years of rupture, diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey were restored in December 2022. Even Saudi Arabia’s relations with Israel are on the mend, though a normalization between the two is still not in the offing. In short, Israel is no more isolated officially and hence less dependent on the U.S. for its security.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE are all establishing stronger ties with China and Russia. Egypt and China have fast growing economic and military ties, and Egypt is one of the major focus countries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The two countries call their relationship a “strategic partnership.” Saudi Arabia is strengthening its strategic ties with China. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh in December 2022 and the two sides agreed that “they firmly support each other’s core interests” and would strengthen their partnership on energy and defense. President Jinping also met with representatives of other oil-producing Gulf states and the Arab League countries in the same visit, and called for the use of Chinese yuan, instead of U.S. dollars, in oil and gas transactions as he promised that China would continue its large volume oil imports from the region.

The increasing trade with the region is not simply driven by oil, there is also strong demand for the Chinese goods in the Middle East. Most strikingly, U.S.-banned Huawei technologies, such as its 5G equipment, are welcomed in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. refusal to sell certain advanced technology weapons to a number of Middle East countries, along with Russia’s focus on its war in Ukraine, have led China to become “the secondary arms supplier of choice for many Middle East countries” in 2022.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are already partners of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s dialogue. Russia is also making inroads in the region beyond its already entrenched regional alliances, e.g., with Syria. The Saudi-Russia cooperation is particularly strong in OPEC+, where both countries seek to cut oil supplies to prevent a drop in oil prices. Saudi Arabia’s oil alliance with Russia is a serious concern for the U.S., and American policymakers argue that this alliance benefits Russia for continuing its invasion of Ukraine. Egypt and Turkey also have close ties with Russia.

Turkey’s purchase of the Russian-made S400 air defense system and the ongoing construction of the first Turkish nuclear power plant by a Russian state-owned company are notable examples of the strengthening Turkish-Russian relationship. In July 2022, Egypt and Russia signed a deal for Egypt’s first nuclear power plant to the chagrin of the West, which has placed economic sanctions on Russia due to the war in Ukraine. Both Egypt and Turkey have maintained neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war and chose not to implement any economic sanctions against Russia. That’s also the case with all other major U.S. allies in the Middle East: neither UAE nor Israel or Saudi Arabia has taken sides in the war.

China maintains a close relationship with Iran, the main U.S. rival in the region. The trade between Iran and China provides Iran with the badly needed cash for its economic survival in the face of U.S.-led sanctions imposed on Tehran for its nuclear program. Although Iran is worried over China’s growing cooperation with Saudi Arabia, China has thus far managed to develop its ties with the two rival countries. The U.S. is particularly worried about China’s increasing cheap oil imports from Iran.

China weakens U.S. influence in the Middle East and Iran sustains its economy through trade with China. There is no reason for China and Iran to abandon such mutually beneficial trade. The relationship between Iran and Russia is also deepening as Iran supplies Russia with drones and other military equipment in its war against Ukraine, and Russia remains a key Iranian ally in countering the U.S.-led sanctions.

Regional powers in the Middle East seem to have already benefited from the lessening of U.S. interest in the region. The growing ties with China and Russia enable regional actors in the Middle East to withstand U.S. influence. However, this does not entail a breakup of their relations with the U.S. Egypt, Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are not going to part ways with the U.S. They are rather more likely to hold on to the middle ground, being neither fully committed allies nor rivals to the U.S. If that path is to be continued by regional actors, we may well be witnessing the emergence of a multipolar order in the Middle East, one that is not dominated by any external or regional player.

On the other hand, China’s growing influence in the Middle East is a fact that does not necessarily mean replacing the U.S. The Chinese are keen on improving their economic and trade ties with the Middle East, but there is no evidence of any plans for military presence in the region. The U.S. still remains the major power in the Middle East, though its influence is in decline. The regional actors in the Middle East are likely to exploit the U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia rivalries at the global and regional levels to strengthen their positions. A multipolar order in the Middle East is definitely not the guaranteed outcome of shifting alliances and growing ties between regional and rising powers, but it appears as the most likely option.

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lassical realism has been a long-standing theory in explaining international relations, and Jonathan Kirschner reminds us why. Although it has been overshadowed by newer schools of thought such as structuralism, classical realism offers great insight into contemporary issues in the international politics arena.

Have contemporary realists lost their way? With renewed emphasis on the crucial roles played by uncertainty, contingency, and contestation, An Unwritten Future: Realism and Uncertainty in World Politics shows how classical realism better explains the formative events of the past and vital issues of today while assessing the fundamental flaws of classical realism’s would-be successors, namely structural realism and hyper-rationalism. It seeks to reclaim classical realism and deem it, once again, a worthwhile theory. The book, however, does not engage in paradigm wars and does not stray away from the realist tradition.

An Unwritten Future lays out realism’s core principles and discusses the contributions of the perspective’s key thinkers, including Thucydides, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron, among others. On brand with classical realism where “doubt is not an afterthought,” Kirschner also addresses realism’s limits and shortcomings.

In turn, Kirschner explores contemporary issues, including the ascent of great power challengers, the political implications of globalization, and the diffusion of power in modern world politics—such as the implications of China’s rise, future global order, and the shifts of balance of power and nature of conflict. He also does not neglect to provide a guide to a classical realist political economy highlighting the overlooked but impactful factor of social economy.

Kirshner debunks the notion that classical realism is unscientific and supports the idea that it is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong. He highlights classical realism’s emphasis on attending to both power and purpose where history, uncertainty, and contingency play a large role. Classical realism, therefore, offers practical utility in an increasingly unpredictable world. Kirshner applies classical realism to the case of the British appeasement of the Nazis and the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War to demonstrate theory in practice. The book also contains a discussion dedicated to explaining the inner workings of classical realism for its persistent skeptics.

Providing a refreshing reminder of the richness of classical realism, this reexamination of the realist tradition is a must-read for students, analysts, and academics interested in international relations theory. Furthermore, An Unwritten Future is rich within its scope, delving into theory, economy, history, and contemporary topics, and provides a little something for everybody.

Jonathan Kirschner, An Unwritten Future: Realism and Uncertainty in World Politics (Princeton University Press, 2022) ISBN: 9780691166773, 336 pages

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n Thursday, February 2, 2023, the United States and the Philippines signed an agreement which will allow the U.S. to use four additional military bases in the country to face the rise of China, about which both Washington and Manila share concerns. The move will give the U.S. army more access and a strategic footing on the southeastern edge of the South China Sea, allowing it to overlook Taiwan.

A statement by Philippine and American officials noted that the four military bases to be used by the American army are located in “strategic” locations in the country.

The new agreement is part of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed between the U.S. and the Philippines in 2014.

After signing the agreement in Manila, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters: “That’s just part of our efforts to modernize our alliance. And these efforts are especially important as the People’s Republic of China continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West Philippine Sea.”

China responds to the Philippines move

Mao Ning, a spokeswoman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused the United States on Thursday of threatening regional peace and stability, adding that Washington still has a cold war mentality. Ning noted that this mentality is visible through the U.S. military expansion in the South China Sea.

The statement noted that some parties in the U.S. try to use Taiwan as a card to contain China.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that Taiwan is part of China, calling on the U.S. to respect the One China Policy and to stop its military support for the island.

The U.S. currently uses five military bases in islands across the Philippines, and according to the new agreement, the U.S. will provide these islands with $83 million to boost infrastructure.

The locations of the four new military bases to be used by the U.S. forces is yet to be declared.

The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos is interested in strengthening the Philippines’ ties with the U.S. unlike that of Rodrigo Duterte, which leaned more towards China.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris paid a visit to the Philippines in November, where she asserted that her country will support the Philippines against “intimidation” in the South China Sea.

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In late December 2022, the Japanese government announced a new security policy, abandoning the fiction that the country’s military (euphemistically called the “Self Defense Forces”) would not possess offensive weaponry. Perhaps more significantly, the government also announced it would increase military spending dramatically, almost doubling the budget over the next five years.

This has been reported on internationally (and domestically) as an inevitable reaction to increasing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and elsewhere. Such reporting, however, misses the broader political context.

The two percent figure: Pleasing the Americans

The Japanese government’s stated aim is to have military spending at two percent of GDP: a startling departure from the longstanding policy commitment to keep the budget at or around one percent. This would make Japan the third-largest military spender in the world, after the United States and China—an uncomfortable fact rarely mentioned in the Japanese media.

The two percent figure is an arbitrary one, not based on any kind of serious assessment of defense needs. Indeed, some commentators have argued that the military does not have the capacity to absorb the large sums: the all-volunteer forces have consistently not been able to meet their recruiting goals. Nevertheless, successive governments of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), backed by big business, have long pushed for the increase—a push that became stronger under the overtly nationalistic cabinets of Shinzo Abe.

Rather, the reasoning is political. NATO countries, the closest allies of the United States, commit to a two percent GDP target (though not many of them fulfill this pledge, inviting American criticism). Though obviously not a NATO member, Japan increasing its military budget to two percent, would, in the minds of the political elite, endear the country to the eyes of the all-important Americans.

For Japan to be recognized as a good student and invited to the front of the classroom to sit amongst the big boys, so the political elite believe, Japan must prove its worth to the United States as a trusty military sidekick, ready to jump to action at a moment’s notice. The notion that American interests may differ from Japan’s, or that Japan may be dragged into a catastrophic war, seems simply inconceivable; for better or for worse, Japan wants to be all in.

China as Japan’s eternal boogeyman

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has, of course, provided a bandwagon for the LDP to obtain support for a larger military, and has been relentlessly exploited. However, the true adversary has always been China, labelled in the new policy as “a matter of serious concern” for Japan and the “greatest strategic challenge” the country faces.

This mantra of the Chinese threat has been repeated ad naseum in Japan for the better part of twenty years, in particular since China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010. The Japanese have essentially been spoon-fed a sustained, almost hysterical barrage of how they must fear the Chinese menace.

China is a security threat, an economic threat, a political threat, a cultural threat— the list goes on and on, and is repeated over and over in official statements and in the media. Yet few can point to any plausible, concrete threat that China poses to Japan, and certainly none that would be solved by aggressive military posturing. That China poses a challenge to unipolar American hegemony in the Asia Pacific (and elsewhere) is clear, but that is a problem for Japan only because of the slavish attitude of the political elite towards the United States.

The context: Continuing Japanese decline

The background of this is, of course, ongoing Japanese decline. Since the bubble economy imploded in 1990, economic growth has been anemic at best. Wages have remained stagnant for the better part of thirty years, and the country is now in the lower third of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A recent global survey showed that salaries for information technology (IT) engineers in Japan came in at a dismal twentieth place. With the weakening yen, more and more young people are moving abroad for higher wages—a situation that would have been inconceivable a generation ago.

The low wages are particularly galling given the brutally long hours most Japanese still work: karoshi, death from overwork, remains a major social issue in the country, with people regularly working over the officially recognized “karoshi line” of 80 hours of monthly overtime. An international survey of young people in 2018 showed that Japan was dead last in terms of hope for the future: only 12 percent of Japanese respondents said they had any hope. The second lowest, France, had twice that. Forty percent of Japanese, double the percentage of 1989, are currently in precarious, contract-based employment.

Within this general context of anxiety, people often want a scapegoat, and China has served as the all-menacing boogeyman. Of course, the Japanese do not believe that China is the direct cause of the country’s economic and social decay: rather, it is the vague sense of impending doom, of being stalked, overtaken, and left in the cold by some dark, powerful force that has, over time, gripped the popular consciousness. More and more, the “Chinese threat” is being used to simply shut down any debate—something that can be observed with the military expansion.

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lobalization has paved the way for intricate networks of illicit financial activities that have drawn attention because of the harm they cause to democracy.

Recently, Chatham House removed the name of Russian-Turkmen ex-banker Dmitry Leus, a Conservative Party donor, from the “The UK’s Kleptocracy Problem” report after a “threatened legal action for libel.”

The UK is facing ongoing issues to address the silent war of economic crimes within its political sphere. The Russia-Ukraine war potentially paved an opportunity for the UK and the U.S. to target economic crimes within their borders, but also individuals closely linked to Russian and post-Soviet countries.

Prior to the war, the UK maintained a relationship with Russia despite the present—but not as publicized— illicit economic activities of kleptocratic actors. Since the Russia-Ukraine war, the UK has further funded the National Crime Agency (NCA) to tackle economic crimes. It even strengthened the U.S.-UK sanction partnership for national security. Both countries deepen their foreign policy cooperation with a joint aim for wider awareness as these transnational crimes pose economic and political threats to national security.

Here the unanswered question is whether this move forward represents a firm stance by the UK and U.S. to overcome transnational crimes, in general, or just towards Russia because of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Political discourse around kleptocracy

The use of the term “kleptocracy” is more prevalent in UK and U.S. discourse especially since efforts of addressing this form of corruption have become more publicized. This effort can be noticed to specifically highlight only the cases related to Russia and post-Soviet countries. Kleptocracy refers to political actors engaging in illicit economic activities, while exploiting the complex economic structures for their own gain at the cost of the country’s citizens.

Economic crimes, kleptocracy, and its effects

Economic crimes, especially money laundering and tax fraud, have developed into complex systems with the development of globalization. Kleptocracy refers to a “rule by thieves” and a specific form of corruption. Economic crimes are committed by political agents for personal gain. Money laundering and the exploitation of global economic systems, structured by political agents, are perpetrated for personal benefit.

It is claimed that Russia and post-Soviet nations such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan have laundered money to the UK through offshore companies and bought properties for personal gain; however, if true, these tendencies pose a global problem.

In their report on kleptocracy, Chatham House, states that “kleptocracy also poses a potential security threat when it involves the merger of the contest between states over national interests and the conflict between elites over their vested interests.”

Global problems require global solutions

The next era of world order is expected to be that of multipolarity. Recently, Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the heads of the CIS Security and Intelligence Agencies, stated, “The world is changing and indeed becoming multipolar.” He went on to emphasize that “some players in the international community are trying at all costs to maintain their faltering hegemony … against those who disagree with their policies.”

Economic crimes of kleptocratic nature have the potential to go unacknowledged without substantial communication among states. What this multipolar world will look like is deeply rooted in the nature of the mutual interests and ideals of democracy.

“Corruptly acquired capital does not merely flow to ‘havens’ in Europe and the U.S., but also increasingly to Middle Eastern and Asian financial centres such as Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore,” observed the report by Chatham House. “This is truly a global problem,” the report continues.

Putin has even called on the Arab League Summit in his quest for a multipolar world. He openly encouraged the U.S. to accept this new era of multipolarity while simultaneously establishing strong ties with China for a “just, democratic and multipolar world order.”

Given that economic crimes related to corruption are a transnational and global problem, it will require a global solution. The economic gain of a few translates into disastrous effects on citizens, social stability, and ties between states.

Already in the midst of a Russia-Ukraine war, international relations are heavily skewed while efforts to confirm an agreement are ongoing. Saving democracy from economic transnational crimes is another tough conversation.

G7 to G20

Leaders at the 2021 G7 summit made a statement about corruption and kleptocracy. If corruption and kleptocracy as a dialogue of interest was highlighted in the 2022 G7 summit is unanswered.

The G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group 2020 presented a report highlighting the extensive work in certain countries on anti-corruption measures and assets recovered by acts of kleptocratic corruption. The first Summit for Democracy in 2022 established its efforts against kleptocracy. The G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group has published an action plan for 2022-2024.

Countries like the UK and U.S. have openly started working to address these concerns publicly with Russia and post-Soviet countries at the center. These joint UK-U.S. efforts have been persistent. Whether economic crimes related to kleptocracy and corruption will be a topic in the G20 Summit is a matter of debate.

Since economic crimes of corruption and especially kleptocratic crimes have been a concern among states, and efforts are being made to tackle corruption, the fact that only certain countries have been targeted—given the political climate or the existence of persistent structural issues among certain nations—does not go unnoticed.

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he United States’ unilateral moment is long gone, and the previously indisputable superpower is being confronted with new rising powers that are challenging its supremacy. For several years now, a new silent but intense rivalry has been dominating the international system: the rivalry between the U.S. and China. As the need for influence, rather than land, drives this competition, these two great powers have been vying in different areas, including technology, economy, and military.

However, both the U.S. and China are also pursuing ambitious but less visible policies in another domain: space. Space competition is considered to have a crucial impact on the U.S.-China rivalry as space has become a vital geopolitical determinant in international politics.

Controlling space could have a direct impact on national securities since space can provide important advantages in terms of economy, politics, and military. Indeed, this was the main driver of the first space race during the Cold War, between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the latter, the race was put on hold and the competition regained impetus several years later. However, what sets apart and makes the ongoing space race more complicated when compared to the previous one is the expanding number of actors, including both state and non-state ones.

Small satellites

Believed to have created a revolution in the space industry—or as it sometimes called “Space 2.0”—small satellites are more compact, cheaper, and easier to develop. The constellations of a few, large, complex, and expensive satellites will be at some point replaced by mega-constellations of large numbers of small satellites which may be used both for commercial and military activities.

To give an example, SpaceX is planning to create a 42,000-strong Starlink satellite constellation in the next decades. While the benefits and risks of such a development are still being discussed, small satellites are an indispensable part of the space race between the U.S. and China, especially when we take into consideration their military application.

The small satellites which are used for commercial purposes are mainly used for communication and earth observation; however, when used for military purposes, they cover a much wider range of activities which are expected to have a direct impact on all levels of military operations. Specifically, these activities include simple tasks such as improvement of communication and navigation, as well as tasks that can have a direct impact on the battlefield including reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, targeting, and ballistic/hypersonic missile early warning.

It is important to mention that small satellites are located in low Earth orbit (LEO) or medium Earth orbit (MEO), while the previous satellites are mainly located in geostationary orbit (GEO). This not only makes the launching of these satellites cheaper and easier but at the same time the images/data received are more detailed and the communication is faster—both crucial advantages in military operations.

That said, it should be noted that while the usage of large satellites impacts only the strategic level of warfare, the usage of small satellites will have a direct impact on the tactical and operational levels as well. To put it differently, previously, the information gathered by large satellites was available mainly to decision-makers who would guide the other levels of warfare.

Space systems and military capabilities

As the space systems and technologies develop and small satellites become an indispensable asset of military activities, decision-making at the strategical level gains a timing advantage and the effectiveness of the armed forces on the ground increases considerably.

The main reason is that small satellites provide quicker and easier information, and better communication for the forces on the ground. Furthermore, if combined, small satellites can increase the effectiveness of weapon systems, such as drones. Several Chinese researchers, who emphasize the threat of the Starlink program to Chinese national security, have estimated that if combined with a Starlink connection, the data transmission speed of the U.S. military drones and stealth fighter jets could increase more than 100 times.

If we were to give a more specific example, we need look no further than the impact of Starlink satellites on the war in Ukraine. As drones are connected to the Starlink internet system, they can easily operate and hit targets in areas where there is no internet or power which is considered to have had a great impact on the Ukrainian resistance and the battleground as a whole.

For exactly this reason, many states are interested in the production and usage of small satellites, especially in the military. The rivalry between the U.S. and China has not only extended to the space domain, but both states are trying to explore new ways of using small satellites against any possible threats to their national security.

In the case of the U.S., the interest in small satellites and their application for military purposes has heightened considerably in recent years. To mention a few examples, starting in 2007, the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command Technical Center’s Kestrel Eye program aimed to provide rapid images from the satellite to the tactical users (soldiers) on the ground. Two small satellites were launched under this project (2017-2018) and the results have been quite optimistic.

Project Convergence is another undertaking of the U.S. Army, where the satellites are not only used to take rapid and detailed images, but are supported by an artificial intelligence (AI) system for communication in the battlefield. Specifically, one small satellite sends a detailed image to the ground station which is enhanced with an AI system.

The AI system processes the data in the images, detects the threat, and transforms it to target data. Through satellite communication, the data is sent to another AI system which recommends a possible solution and afterwards, if approved, that solution is transferred to the soldier or the weapon system that will hit the target.

The United States and small satellites

BlackJack program is another important project undertaken by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) whose main aim is to produce small satellites that would be used on the battleground, not only for communication and targeting but also for missile warning.

Producing small satellites is an important issue within the U.S. defense circles, considering it is claimed that China has conducted hypersonic missile tests amid the rising tensions between the two states. Within this framework, at the beginning of 2022, the U.S. Space Development Agency launched a contest for the development of a small satellites constellation that would be able to track both ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

China and small satellites

Besides the U.S., China has taken very important steps as well and shown that it poses a threat to the American space hegemony. While there is no detailed information on government programs regarding the development of small satellites for military use, the most recent developments reflect the capacity of China’s space activities.

First, in December 2021, China’s small nimble satellite Beijing-3, which has AI-enhanced reconnaissance capabilities, could take photos of American cities from space in just 42 seconds. Not only this, it could recognize military vehicles and weapons. This makes Beijing-3 one of the most powerful observation satellites considering that it is 2-3 times faster than the U.S.-made World View-4 satellite, which retired in 2019 due to technical issues.

In April 2022, news made the headlines that China had transformed a commercial small satellite into a spy satellite. Accordingly, Chinese researchers had developed an AI system that enhanced the capabilities of Jilin-1 commercial satellite. The developed system could detect small objects seen in the videos captured by Jilin-1 with a 95% precision.

T

he Russian invasion of Ukraine not only led to a war between the two countries, but also brought about a discursive and value-laden struggle between western and eastern countries. The most recent developments indicate that the East-West axis in international relations entail costs on both sides. Political, military, and economic changes in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans immensely affect the choices of regional actors’ foreign policies who have to choose between the policy options set before them by Russia, China, or the Western powers with the U.S. taking the lead among the latter.

Meanwhile, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey act in accordance with the realities of contemporary multipolar global politics. Turkey, for example, as a regional player successfully maintains political, military, and economic ties with multiple states, which occasionally have conflicting interests, and avoids a unilateral alignment in its foreign policy. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two prominent powers in the Middle East, try to pursue their national interests almost independently of the great powers’ political, military, and economic agendas.

These three nations, which have lately undergone a degree of political normalization, may now be progressing towards the next level of cooperation within one of the most important groupings of emerging economies, namely BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). In this regard, BRICS as one of the organizations of non-Western actors in the international political and economic system points to the weight of these actors in the international economic system.

Turkey’s mediator role

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Turkey took on a significant role on issues such as ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, and the resolution of global/transboundary crises, combining historical diplomatic experience with the relevance of its geographical location. As an international actor in cooperation with international organizations and as part of its own foreign policy, Turkey maintained talks with both Russia and Ukraine. Turkish authorities brought the warring parties together in Turkey, and established the Grain Corridor Deal together with Russia, Ukraine, and the UN to tackle the regional and global food crisis.

It is worth highlighting that Turkey is both a NATO member and maintains ties with Russia, and could thus keep communication and diplomatic channels open. As the most trustable third party, Turkey garners the appreciation of both Russia and Ukraine, while after the Grain Corridor Deal, Turkish-Russian nuclear cooperation continues to develop as witnessed by the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are two regional powers that tread cautiously in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as other regional and international challenges. Egypt, for instance, while preserving ties with the United States, cooperates with Russia on nuclear issues.

Egypt condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the UN General Assembly but did not entirely oppose Russia and tries to sustain a balanced policy. On the one hand, Egypt historically needs the West’s political backing, especially in terms of political legitimacy and foreign aid, but, on the other, the high number of Ukrainian tourists visiting Egypt and the substantial amount of grain imported from Russia required it to pursue a more balanced approach toward the conflict.

The balanced approach of Saudi Arabia

Although today’s international relations have a multipolar structure, the Russian invasion of Ukraine again triggered and revealed an East-West struggle. At this point, similar to Turkey and Egypt, Saudi Arabia follows a neutral and balanced approach in this regard. Saudi Arabia, like other Gulf states, pursues a balanced policy not only in opposing Russia’s invasion but also with regards to the East-West axis. Saudi Arabia is improving its military and diplomatic ties with China and Russia, has been in talks with Russia for the procurement of Russian military hardware, and has signed a defense cooperation agreement with Russia. The kingdom is also cooperating with China on ballistic missile development on Saudi soil.

At the Jeddah Security and Development Summit 2022, attended by U.S. President Joe Biden who met with the leaders of the GCC states and Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq, the U.S. administration did not succeed in building a front against Russia, Iran, and China—the basic motivation behind Biden’s visit. This idea was politely overridden by several states that have close and interdependent political, military, and economic ties with Russia and China.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt want to strengthen their ties with BRICS members, and this interest is not one-sided. According to Purnima Anand, a representative of the BRICS International Forum, these three states may join the BRICS countries soon.

What would the BRICS group bring to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt?

The three countries becoming members of the BRICS group would immediately be a vital turning point for them, the BRICS member-states, and the organization itself. Particularly in the Chinese media, it is claimed that the three countries’ participation would strengthen the organization’s discourse on global governance and a fairer international political and economic system. In addition, the GDP of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, each more than $800 billion, and Egypt’s GDP, which also exceeds $400 billion, would mean that BRICS would grow by almost $2 trillion, and its international economic potential and role would be tremendously augmented.

Along these lines, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attendance of the 2018 BRICS meeting in South Africa’s capital had furthered discussion over the country’s membership—a discussion that occasionally pops up on the Turkish foreign policy agenda. The economic forum, which is comprised of five states with a combined GDP of $21–22 trillion and roughly half of the world’s population, is undeniably significant.

The relations that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt can develop with various economic organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would help these states sustain their balance-oriented foreign policies within the framework of the East-West axis, and would also serve as a healthy bridge between the region and the West.

Three years ago, when the Wall Street Journal reported that China had signed a secret agreement with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen granting Chinese armed forces exclusive rights to a Cambodian naval installation in the Gulf of Thailand, Beijing denounced the report as “fake news,” saying, it has “never made any such agreement as reported by foreign media outlets.”

But it turns out the reporting was indeed accurate, with Western officials telling the Washington Post on June 6 that China has begun building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military, and that Chinese and Cambodian officials are taking “extraordinary measures” to conceal the operation, although a Chinese official in Beijing confirmed to the newspaper that a “portion of the base” will be used by “the Chinese military.”

Beijing, however, continues to deny the reports, even as Cambodian and Chinese officials took part in a ground-breaking ceremony at the Ream Naval Base on June 8, making it the second such overseas outpost for the Chinese military, but the first in the strategically significant Indo-Pacific region, raising fresh fears in the United States and its Western Pacific allies, particularly Australia, which have been on high alert since China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands on March 30.

While Beijing denies it plans to build a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands by calling such allegations “completely fabricated,” the undeniable reality is the deal specifies that China would be allowed to send security forces to the Solomons at the request of the Solomons government, which, in recent times, has become completely subservient to Beijing in exchange for bribes worth little more than hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Leaked documents also reveal Honiara held secret talks with Beijing to allow China to bring weapons, including machine guns and other light arms, into the capital.

Beijing’s covert move on the Solomon Islands has put the “Blue Continent,” an oceanic territory that spans three million kilometres and includes a dozen countries and 13 million people, at the centre of a great power struggle between China and the United States, but with Australia playing the lead role. Revelations the Chinese Navy will soon be operating from a naval base in Cambodia, despite Beijing’s earlier denials, only adds fuel to this simmering fire.

Seeking to add further wins to its “island hopping” campaign, one mirrored on the United States’ strategy to dislodge Imperial Japan from its territorial conquests during the Second World War, Beijing has launched a charm offensive in the region with the aim of cutting off the US from its allies in Indo Pacific, but without firing a shot. The geography hasn’t changed but the tactics have.

China is following the dictum prescribed by Chinese general Sun Tzu, who remarked that the supreme art of war is to “subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Last month, Beijing tried to cajole and coerce 10 small Pacific nations into endorsing a major cooperation agreement covering everything from security to fisheries in what Micronesia warned to be a ”game changing” attempt by Beijing to wrestle control of the region.

A leaked draft of Beijing’s sweeping proposal show it wants to train local security forces, expand law enforcement cooperation, and partner on “traditional and non-traditional security,” while also cooperating on developing fisheries, improving Internet access, and establishing a Chinese cultural presence.

But the deal was flatly rejected for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Pacific Island nations were put offside by Beijing’s attempt to bypass the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, with Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Mataʻafa summing up the collective mood in saying, “You cannot have regional agreements if the region has not met to discuss it.”

Secondly, Australia has launched an effective charm offensive of its own in the region, with the new Labor government deploying its Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, to three Pacific countries in her first 10 days in office, compared with the handful of visits her predecessor made during her four years in the job.

“We will increase our contribution to regional security: we understand that the security of the Pacific is the responsibility of the Pacific family, of which Australia is a part,” she told reporters on the eve of her visit to Samoa and Tonga earlier this month.

She promised Australia would stand “shoulder with our Pacific family” in combatting the existential threat of climate change, while also deepening cultural and sporting ties, and building on the conservative coalition government’s $500 million “Step up” commitment in 2017 towards promoting economic cooperation and greater integration within the Pacific and also with the Australian and New Zealand economies, and tackling security challenges.

Dr Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, says China’s unsuccessful attempt to ram through its major cooperation package with 10 Pacific Island nations will have not only emboldened the US and Australia, but also encourage them to more in the region to counter China, warning, “The strategic competition will be far from easy for both sides.”

But having failed to woo Pacific Island nations, Beijing is now offering the new Australian government the arm of friendship in congratulating new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on his electoral win, marking the first direct communication between the senior leadership of the two countries in nearly three years.

“The Chinese side is ready to work with the Australian side to uphold the principle of mutual respect and mutual benefit,” said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Rising post-pandemic demand, droughts, high energy prices, confined food stocks, supply chain disruptions, taxes, and export restrictions have stressed the food market and sent global inflation soaring. The Russian invasion of Ukraine added insult to injury as farmers face further rising oil and fertilizer costs, and the lingering effects of COVID19 labor restrictions.

The conditions of the war in Ukraine disrupted agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine, that together, according to the UN Comtrade Database, account for 24% of wheat exports, 57% of sunflower seed oil exports, and 14% of corn exports globally in the years 2016-2020.

Furthermore, due to damaged infrastructure, closed ports, blockades, and mines in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian grain stock is unable to be exported, potentially straining storage for the 2022 harvest. Shipping companies are also hesitant to transport wheat and oil from Ukraine due to the risk that their ships may be jeopardized in the fighting. This has reduced the global supply and caused the price of alternatives to soar. Global food prices are almost 30% higher than the same time last year, according to the UN.

As the war’s effects are felt in the global markets, Russia and the West play the blame game about who is responsible for the shortages and rising prices. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the war had worsened food insecurity in poorer nations and that the only effective solution to the crisis was reintegrating Ukraine’s food production and fertilizers produced by both Russia and Belarus, back into the global market.

Who is responsible?

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of causing food insecurity by holding 20 million tons of grain hostage in Ukraine due to its invasion. Russia dismissed these claims blaming the situation on Western sanctions and the naval mines floating near Ukrainian ports.

Russia’s UN representative Dmitry Polyanskiy argued that Russia is not the one to blame for the inoperativeness of the Ukrainian ports putting the blame instead on Ukraine for refusing to remove the mines from its ports. Both Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of laying underwater mines in the Black Sea.

Moscow claims that the issue is caused by the effects of the sanctions on its grain and fertilizer exports, and the consequent impact on shipping, banking, and insurance. The EU has cut Russia’s largest banks out of the Swift bank messaging system, hindering business with them.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen criticized Russia for misinformation, pointing out that the food crisis was rooted in Russia’s “brutal, unjustified war.”

On June 6, the Russian UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia walked out of a Security Council meeting where President of the European Council Charles Michel solely held Russia responsible for the food crisis.

Michel posted a Twitter thread following the meeting reaffirming his stance. He wrote, “Russia’s tanks, bombs and mines that are preventing #Ukraine from planting and harvesting. The Kremlin is also targeting grain storages and stealing grain from areas it has occupied while shifting the blame on others.”

He continued, “The EU has no sanctions on the agricultural sector in Russia. Zero. And even our sanctions on the Russian transport sector do not go beyond our EU borders. They do not prevent Russian flagged vessels from carrying grain, food, or fertilizers to developing countries. This is cowardly. This is propaganda.”

The World Food Program spokesman Martin Rentsch told Deutsche Welle that even though food exports from Russia are not sanctioned, prices are high and there are administrative hurdles. Therefore, Russia has been accused of sweeping more revenues.

How can the issue be resolved?

Efforts to remove Russia’s blockade of Ukraine are ongoing. Lithuania has suggested a plan for the lift of the Black Sea blockade, where the UN would call on Russia to ensure safe passage of ships and Ukraine to remove mines from the port of Odessa. On May 31, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had urged Vladimir Putin to end the blockade of Ukraine’s port of Odessa under the terms of a UN resolution.

The African Union warned EU leaders that blockades pose a catastrophic scenario. Its leader Macky Sall said he supported proposals for the UN to coordinate efforts to release supplies from Ukrainian ports. He also blamed EU sanctions on Russian banks for aggravating the problem. Before the war, African countries imported almost half of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia.

Alternatively, the EU has set the goal of moving 20 million tons of wheat out of Ukraine through solidarity lines via Europe before the end of July but logistical challenges pertain. According to Adina Vǎlean, the EU transport commissioner, 10,000 barges and almost 300 large ships are needed to carry 20 million tons of grains if it is to be exported from EU ports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the blockade on Ukrainian ports can be lifted on his end, but only after sanctions are revoked. On June 3, Putin claimed that there were no problems in exporting grain from Ukraine. He added that Ukrainian ports, Russian controlled ports, or Central Europe may be used, but suggested exports via Belarus, which would depend on lifting sanctions. Ukraine has characterized Russia’s conditions as blackmail.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on June 8 to discuss topics including a Black Sea corridor for grain exports. Lavrov stated that Turkey would help clear the mines near the ports and added that the safety of shipments could be guaranteed by either Turkey and Russia, or Russia alone.

Çavuşoğlu stated that mines could be cleared within one or two weeks, and mentioned the concerns of Russian and Ukrainian sides by stating, “Ukraine does not want Russian warships to enter through the Odessa port, and Russia does not want cargo ships to carry weapons into Ukraine. How will they be sure? There must be a control mechanism.” He also added that both Zelenskyy and Putin are willing to cooperate on this issue.

As tensions between Russia and the West regarding the food crisis remain high, diplomatic efforts may potentially offer viable solutions to alleviate the global food crisis.

When the war broke out in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many observers were caught by surprise in spite of the dire predictions and warnings in reporting by mainstream Western media. The “old” global crisis of the COVID19 pandemic was quickly relegated to a secondary role and replaced in the headlines with the Russia-Ukraine war.

However, a lot of the reporting and analyses from Western countries have drawn global generalizations based on Western-centric values and interests. These generalizations, in turn, have informed and influenced the Western world’s perception, understanding, and reactions to the events unfolding in Ukraine. In the long run, such reporting concludes that the process may incur unforeseen or unanticipated threats and expose weaknesses for countries seeking to integrate further into the Euro-Atlantic structures as a pre-emptive security measure.

The shock effect of the Russia-Ukraine war

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caught various international observers by surprise, not the least, owing to the almost universal belief that the various threatened sanctions would mean that costs would outweigh any benefits of a military campaign.

The lack of foresight and predictions hints at a possible divergence in international relations between the U.S. unipolar global order and the countries and civilizations that fall beyond this geopolitical realm. There has been an expected international shock and uncertainty caused by the war, but it has been far from a universal condemnation of Russia for launching its military operation against Ukraine.

What seems to have happened in this increasing global divide between Western and non-Western countries is a growing gap in national interests, values, and perceptions with the process already beginning before the current Ukraine war. The idea of global messianic universalism under Western leadership—especially that of the United States—is fading away as the world grows more diverse and unstable in the wake of Western ascendency after the outcomes of the Cold War.

Although a physical war is taking place in Ukraine, its implications and repercussions are much wider in the context of the United States seeking to defend its global hegemonic position against countries such as China and Russia.

Finland learned a particularly painful lesson in the wake of the Soviet Union’s attack on the country in the 1939-40 Winter War, and the subsequent alignment with Nazi Germany to remedy those territorial loses in the 1941-44 Continuation War, which proved to be disastrous.

A hard lesson was learned on the risks of being a junior partner to a larger military power. Therefore, a more nuanced and independent foreign and security policy was pursued in order to ensure national interests could be protected without foreign entanglements.

However, there have been an increasing number of events and attempts to push Finnish and Swedish public opinion incrementally towards the NATO membership option. NATO has been actively lobbying both countries through diplomatic activities to join the alliance. There were also highly publicized events of the unconfirmed “Russian submarines” in Helsinki Harbor and the Stockholm Archipelago, which increased public support for NATO membership.

Sweden has been increasingly integrating with NATO before the Russia-Ukraine War broke out, for example, by hosting military exercises with NATO forces in Exercise Aurora. These efforts to shift public opinion towards a more favorable view of NATO membership have been based on fear: the fear of something bad happening (see Russian military attack), and that something bad can happen to the citizens of both countries. This is captured in the parting words of former U.S. ambassador to Sweden, Mark Brzezinski, who said that NATO was like an insurance policy for Sweden.

Even though Finland and Sweden are not yet NATO members, they both gave up the policy of neutrality long ago. When the war in Ukraine broke out, Sweden initially rejected any consideration of joining NATO and the Swedish prime minister stated that the country had no such intentions.

The underlying reason given by Sweden for not wanting to join NATO was that to do so would destabilize the Northern European security. This stood in contrast to the Finnish prime minister who promised a quick public debate on the issue of NATO membership.

However, Sweden’s official government position on the NATO question changed to align with Finland’s, with both countries pledging to decide on the matter by the end of June 2022. The war in Ukraine has successfully shaped a slight majority of public opinion in favor of joining NATO in both countries, although this all comes in a time of war and through the use of fear. The Swedish and Finish decision on exploring the NATO option is likely to have been decided before the Russia-Ukraine war at the political level, and it still requires time and circumstance to engineer public consent.

Possible consequences of NATO expansion in the Baltic Sea

The dilemmas of Finland and Sweden are tied to the current environment of politics of perceived risk. These mainly pertain to risk considerations such as Russia’s border politics, lack of hard security capacity, and potential dangers posed by Russia owing to perceptions of unpredictability and lack of reliability.

However, by seeking NATO membership, there are multiple risks. Finland and Sweden joining NATO may be seen as a de facto declaration of war against Russia; they will become entangled in great power politics that is not in their national interests; it is likely to harm bilateral relations and issues of collaboration/cooperation; they will lose the independent ability to influence and manage foreign relations with Russia; and they will be at the frontline of any possible wider armed conflict, if one were to break out.

Certainly, Russia has warned of the consequences of Finland and/or Sweden joining NATO given their perception of security interests being further compromised by the U.S.-led alliance. In addition to a likely Russian military redeployment to take into account the new status of Finland and Sweden, there are also likely to be political and economic consequences of joining NATO.

It would also spell a likely end to initiatives of a non-nuclear Baltic region and negatively impact Sweden’s initiatives to influence the world in a positive direction—for example the obvious contradictions that will arise with its “humanitarian superpower” brand and feminist foreign policy.

A new iron curtain for a new Cold War?

In recent years, as the multipolar order gained strength and influence, there have been increasing discussions and speculations about a “New Cold War.”. Given the global effects on international relations, there seems to be a new Iron Curtain descending not only on Europe but across the entire globe, which divides the Western-centric and non-Western centric powers. This is a point in time when the U.S. seeks to claim back its global hegemony, which increases the risks for everyone owing to a volatile global geopolitical polarization.

There have been a number of worrying public statements that suggest and confirm that the war in Ukraine concerns much more than the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country. In a relatively underexposed moment of clarity, General Curtis Scaparrotti, the former Commander of the United States European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe,  stated, “We are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces.”

More recently, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that the U.S. wants to weaken Russia. Messaging of a U.S. proxy war against Russia has been echoed by former U.S. secretary of defense Leon Panetta. In other words, apart from the political and geopolitical repercussions and consequences of the war in Ukraine, there are also strong economic shocks that will be further exacerbated by the Western world’s sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine.

To liberate Asia Pacific from Japanese Imperialist Forces during the Second World War, the United States devised an “island hopping” strategy meant to secure as many islands as possible, with the aim of forcing the enemy back to its home soil.

Two battles were crucial to the Allies’ success: the Battle of Midway in 1942, where the U.S. Navy inflicted mortal wounds on its Japanese counterpart, and the Battle of Guadalcanal spanning 1942 to 1943, where the U.S. Army and Marines defeated Japanese land forces in the Solomon Islands.

A full 80 years later, the Solomon Islands has suddenly become the centre of superpower confrontation once again, but this time between the United States and an ever-increasingly militaristic and imperialistic China.

Unlike, Japan, however, China has effectively seized the South Pacific country, comprising six major islands and hundreds of smaller islands, without firing a shot. This Chinese move has left the U.S. and Australia, along with their regional allies, in a state of frenzy rage because the islands, particularly Guadalcanal, are a choke point connecting the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand, which is why Japan wanted the islands eight decades ago, and why China wants them today.

If the U.S. is cut off from Australia and New Zealand, then it is essentially cut off from the South Pacific, giving China a huge leg up in its ambition to dislodge the U.S. from the entire Western Pacific and Asia. Suddenly, the memory of Japanese submarines torpedoing Australian vessels in Sydney Harbor, and Japanese warplanes bombing the Australian city of Darwin in 1942 has invoked a security crisis in Canberra and Washington DC.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings predicts Chinese warships and warplanes could arrive in the Solomons within weeks, saying, “Their model is what they’ve done in the South China Sea, which is to move quickly and decisively before people are able to gather their thoughts and resist,” adding he expects Beijing to move while Australian policy elites are distracted with the national election, scheduled for May 21.

Solomon Island’s Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has given verbal assurances he will not allow China to construct a military base on its soil, but nobody in Canberra or Washington DC is buying it, given the deal was revealed only after details of it were leaked; revelations Sogavare has allowed Beijing to secretly bring dozens of weapons into Honiara; and because Beijing has essentially bought the Solomon’s parliament by paying $40,000 to parliamentarians who voted for Sogarvare.

On Friday, a U.S. delegation by Indo-Pacific envoy Kurt Campbell arrived in the Solomon Islands to discuss concerns the U.S. and its allies have over the security pact with China, which they fear will extend China’s military presence in the region, igniting a new regional arms race. Australia has also shuttled diplomats to Honiara, with Japan announcing it will do likewise later this month, and New Zealand and Tonga saying they will raise their concerns at the forthcoming Pacific Islands Forum.

Chinese state media has slammed opposition to Beijing’s security pact with Honiara, even accusing Australia of having a “colonialist mentality,” while Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Kijian said Australia and US should “respect the sovereign and independent choices made by China and the Solomons and not instigate confrontation.”

But these claims and statements are patently absurd, given the Australian government, unlike its Chinese counterpart, has not sought to bolster its relationship with the Pacific Island country by bribing and extorting its political class.

Moreover, Australia’s Pacific “Step Up,” which has allocated $2 billion to building infrastructure in the region, does not saddle countries with unrepayable debt, unlike China’s debt trap diplomacy, or what is known as its One Belt Initiative.

“In Mr. Sogavare, the Chinese government has found a willing partner. And his commitment to such a secretive deal has shown how a single politician cosying up to Beijing in a small country can create geopolitical risks worldwide,” observes the New York Times.

Most significantly, Solomon Islanders view the move as anti-democratic, with recent polls showing 90 percent of the country wanting closer ties to the U.S. and Australia over China, and 79 percent opposing financial aid from Beijing. They also remember that the country was rocked by anti-Chinese violence in November of last year, after it was revealed Sogavare used Chinese government money to sway votes in the parliament.

The country’s opposition leader, Hon. Mathew Wale, slammed the China deal, calling it does not represent the interests of Solomon Islanders, but “for the personal and self-interests of the Prime Minister.”

“His election campaign was said to be funded by PRC state-owned companies. The payment of members for his political survival in November was also bought with PRC money. This personal secret military deal with the PRC is no different. This deal is not for the military protection of Solomon Islands. There are no external threats to Solomon Islands. The deal is to maintain Sogavare’s hold on power and to undermine the democratic freedoms available to Solomon islanders,” he said.

The opposition leader also called out the Prime Minister over promises closer ties to China would herald a flood of Chinexe investment, which, until now, have not materialized.

While most analysts believe the Solomon Islands can be persuaded to walk back the China deal, Jennings says it will take a “focused effort” on Australia’s part and “more money than we would like to spend,” but it’s a price Canberra and its regional allies must be prepared to pay if they do not wish a repeat of the same threat they endured from an expansionist Japan eighty years ago.

For Latin America’s political map, the weekend of March 11-13 was historical. On Friday, March 11, 2022, in Chile’s capital, Santiago, newly elected president Gabriel Boric and his cabinet assumed power in the Andean country, with a recent past of intense social turmoil. On Sunday, March 13, the Colombian people too elected their legislative body and a number of parties decided by popular vote their final candidates for the presidential election on May 29.

With COVID 19 gradually receding, the challenge of the incoming presidents in Latin America will be addressing the aftermath of the pandemic’s catastrophic implications of over the last two years.

In the last decades, both Colombia and Chile have been ruled by what could be described as right-wing neoliberal governments. Boric, a former student leader whose role in the social struggle throughout the past years in Chile has been recognized, rose to power with a promise of bringing about structural social changes in the economic spectrum, pensions, abortion, gender issues, migration, and other sensitive issues for the Chilean people.

Feared by the traditional Chilean power centers, Boric is now facing critics from his own leftist base who voted him in mainly due to his moderate stance regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he recently condemned, the same as he had condemned autocratic leftist Latin American governments such as Nicaragua.

Boric’s positions in the early days of his duties in office seem less radical than what voters from, for example, the Chilean Communist Party would have expected them to be. It is clear that for Boric to have a grip on power in Chile, he must distance himself from radical postures and somehow calm the traditional elites without submitting to them. The fact that he is 36, one of the youngest presidents in the world, puts some extra pressure on him.

The continent’s youths seem to have awoken from a long lethargy and the fact that the young man, known as a student who took to the streets in Chile, a country shattered by the violence of a prowling dictatorship became president is significant. Boric has to prove that the future is better in the hands of those who stand a higher chance to be part of it.

The March 13 primary elections in Colombia helped cast a denser shadow over the results of the 2018 election. A few days after the primary elections’ results were released in 2018, Petro’s party, Pacto Histórico, had gained at least 390,000 votes as “found” by his party’s election witnesses body, after electoral observers reported irregularities.

So even though the leftist parties may still not have a majority in Congress, they will definitely have a larger representation than they did in the past four years. This scenario could lead to Petro’s presidency, giving him a strong legislative support, but, as Boric did in Chile, he will necessarily have to bargain with the traditional parties to develop his social agenda, through flirting with the Colombian electorate.

Still, there’s nothing sure for Petro in a country where the political and social establishment is not used to losing and the right-wing candidate, Federico Gutiérrez, has all the political machinery on his side.

During the pandemic, Chile and Colombia experienced drastic social unrest, rarely seen before, despite their violent histories. The ruling regimes in both countries failed to deliver welfare to their peoples in the midst of the pandemic. Latin America is a region plagued by social inequalities where natural resources have been exploited for the benefit of foreign multinational companies with the complicity of local elites. Poverty levels and crime rates skyrocketed in most Latin American countries.

Politically, the subcontinent has oscillated between populist governments simplistically labeled “leftist” or “right-wing.”

Countries like Argentina have been oscillating between both extremes without achieving sustainable prosperity. Mexico’s leftist President Andrés López Obrador, who after three attempts, snatched power from the conservative ruling parties, still keeps a relatively healthy level of popularity among Mexicans, but violence is rampant and social inequalities are more than evident.

Likewise, other Latin American countries also fail to find continuity in state policies that would translate in social conquests redounding to better conditions for their citizens. The roots of inequality and social injustice in Latin America are profoundly and intimately related to its colonial history and the process to transcend it is tortuous and slow-moving compared to the people’s needs.

Brazil, the region’s giant, will have presidential elections in early October, expecting a probable comeback of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the socialist former president (2003-2010). Da Silva represents a radical contrast to Bolsonaro’s ultra-right, pro-U.S. government.

The recent developments this year in Chile and Colombia as well as the possibility of Brazil following their footsteps in their elections in October may give birth to a new hope in the region. An essential issue that the new governments must approach is the resumption of diplomatic ties between South American countries, shattered by the influence of the United States.

For instance, Venezuela has no ties today with Colombia and Brazil, two of its most important and increasingly relevant neighbors. The three countries share key challenges like migration and economic development.

America’s leaders are fighting too many battles at once. They are taking on Russia, China, and DAESH as well as North Korea, Iran, and a host of militias with transnational reach. They are spreading inadequate military forces over vast distances with no control over multiple confrontations that can quickly escalate into conflagrations across every continent and ocean.

In all of the would-be superpowers, generals and diplomats think they can choose their own wars. Once they identify key adversaries, they lay out plans to contain them within well-defined boundaries—assuming they can shift resources between competing fronts to put out fires as they breakout in one region after another.

Over the last two decades, four American presidents became the most enthusiastic advocates of this approach. One after another, they spun a series of dubious and contradictory geopolitical projects—The Global War on Terror, democratizing the Greater Middle East, the pivot to East Asia, joining maritime zones to form an imaginary Indo-Pacific theater, and, through it all, the steady expansion of NATO into post-Soviet territories.

Growing complexity of global politics

As each administration struggled to exit the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan, it was obvious that U.S. strategists would have to juggle at least three regional fronts simultaneously. China, Russia, and countless Islamic movements would mount constant challenges to Washington’s efforts to shore up its superpower status. Instead of dominating a unipolar world, America had to wrestle multiple power centers with impressive resources and unpredictable intentions.

Then, just as American strategists thought they were ready to cope with the growing complexity of global politics, the Ukrainian war upended all of their key assumptions. China no longer seemed to pose the greatest threat to international order. Russia was not behaving as the second-rate player Washington envisioned, but as the assertive Eurasian power it has always aspired to become.

In the Middle East, a new nuclear deal with Iran had to be postponed and Syrian volunteers were asked to fight in Ukrainian cities.  Once again, simmering Middle Eastern tensions were fueling chain reactions with a distant crisis that Beltway thinkers viewed as unrelated.

China’s goal is to rebrand itself as a guarantor of the international system in contrast to Washington’s warnings that it is a revisionist power determined to overthrow the status quo. Chinese leaders are convinced that the tide of history is shifting the balance of power in their favor. In this light, they see the war in Ukraine as another rung on their ladder toward replacing the United States as the benevolent hegemon most deserving of global respect and leadership.

Analyzing the current situation in Ukraine, a Chinese commentator expressed precisely this sentiment. Zheng Yongnian argued that events are moving in China’s direction and that, as long as China doesn’t sabotage itself with foolish behavior, it will continue to prosper. Zheng’s caveat about reckless action might have been intended as a mere aside, but his warning can also be seen as the most important part of the picture. The world order that China claims to value is a shambles—largely due to the flagrant law breaking of all the great powers, China included.

From Abu Ghraib to Mariupol

International law is generally respected in commerce and diplomacy, but it is routinely cast aside in matters of armed conflict, human rights, and immigration. The very countries that make the rules violate them with impunity. Abu Ghraib, Xinjiang, and Aleppo helped establish the pattern long before Kharkiv and Mariupol.

Defying the law of nations is part of a wider pattern of ignoring risk that has become a typical approach in many areas of policy making around the world. Beyond refusals to limit the use of military force, we see failures to manage economic meltdowns, environmental disasters, recurring pandemics, waves of human migration, and ethnic violence. Scholars in several fields have tried to explain the striking increase in such seemingly irrational behavior.

Many views combine psychological, economic, and structural approaches. The most frequently cited causes of dysfunction include distorted information, biases of individualistic cultures, disincentives to collective action, indifference to externalities, the inherent anarchy of sovereign nations, and coalitions of entrenched interest groups. These ideas have blended into a new orthodoxy of social skepticism that refutes once dominant assumptions about rational choice and efficient markets.

Increasing distrust in governments

Unfortunately, skepticism may not sufficiently illuminate the gravity of the situation because it neglects the central issues of intention and responsibility. In much of the world, political leaders have failed so often that their citizens no longer believe they are acting in good faith to protect the public interest.

By fostering ever deeper inequalities, governments and international organizations seem to serve privileged elites at the expense of everyone else. This perception undermines the legitimacy of all ruling institutions whether they are national or global, political, or corporate.

The result is an upsurge in social movements with transnational reach demanding accountability for war criminals, tax evaders, polluters, and human traffickers. Several countries have adopted a form of universal jurisdiction permitting their courts to judge particularly heinous crimes no matter where they are committed even if the perpetrators are sitting officials.

When President Biden declares Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”, he is bending to public outrage against all leaders who flaunt international law. Biden’s denunciation requires action—not merely against America’s adversaries, but against perpetrators from his own country, both past and present.

After the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, legal immunity for international crimes narrowed in theory only to resurface in recent years as impunity in practice. This is a collective lapse of conscience among ruling elites that world citizens are still struggling to reverse.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine can be analyzed from different perspectives. For example, one can focus on the human rights aspect and, in this context, on how much Russia’s previous war tactics in Chechnya and Syria have come to the fore in Ukraine. Do the attacks on the cities of Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mariupol resemble the policy of creating “decivilized” zones with the “carpet bombing” tactic used in Grozny and Aleppo? I wonder whether approaches based on “blondeness”, “Slavism”, and “Europeanism” or perspectives centered on “hegemony” and “power policy” will be decisive for Kiev’s future.

Another analysis could focus on examining the issue from the perspective of international law. Despite the serious steps towards the construction and strengthening of international law after World War II, how was a country with a population of 45 million like Ukraine exposed to such an unlawful invasion? Were the gratuitous and unpunished clear violations of international law, which were previously committed especially by global powers, the main factors that encouraged Russia?

The reciprocation of violations of international law, such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the unlawful withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, and Israel’s bombing of Gaza, can be analyzed as decisive in shaping Putin’s Ukraine policy.

Russian Attack and international power struggle

This article will focus on what the Russian attack on Ukraine means in terms of the international power struggle. Of course, this is not completely independent of the aforementioned perspectives, but human rights and international law are generally not considered factors in the global power struggle and do not affect the development of events.

This has also been the case in Ukraine so far: Russia has continued to advance by force, regardless of international law and human rights, despite all the objections from the international community. Russia continues to seize cities while simultaneously targeting civilians in Ukraine, which it has begun to occupy in violation of the fundamental principles of international law.

This Russian initiative can be seen as a manifestation of its effort to exist as an independent actor in the global power struggle by protecting and expanding its sphere of influence. Seeing that the international political system is gradually turning into a bipolar system torn between the U.S. and China, Putin believes that if he fails to take the necessary measures, there is a risk that even Russia will come under the influence of one of these two powers in the future. In terms of both GDP and annual military expenditure figures, Russia lags far behind these two countries.

While the 1990s, under Boris Yeltsin, represented a period when Russia hit rock bottom economically, Yeltsin’s successor, Putin, effectively brought energy resources into the economy, preventing the country from disintegrating. Between 2000 and 2013, Russia’s GDP grew by about 8.8 times, rising from $259.7 billion to $2,292 billion. However, from 2014 onwards, things started to slow down for the Russian economy.

The decline in oil and natural gas prices, political corruption, and Moscow drifting into conflicts and wars first in Ukraine and then in Syria brought along economic problems. By 2020, Russia’s GDP decreased to $1,483 billion. Considering that the economies of China and the U.S. continued to grow rapidly in the same period, the gap in the global economic power competition between Russia and the aforementioned two is getting vaster.

The fact that Russia is lagging behind the U.S. and China in the economic power race is naturally reflected in the military power race. Between 2013 and 2020, Russian military expenditure decreased from $88 billion to $62 billion, while the U.S. military expenditure increased from $679 billion to $778 billion, and Chinese military expenditure increased from $164 billion to $252 billion. (Graph 2) These figures show that Russia’s conventional military power is gradually decreasing.

At this point, the question of whether Russia’s attack on Ukraine, is a sign of rational behavior by Moscow is paramount. It is clear that the failure of this attempt and the prolongation of the war will have devastating consequences for Russia. The cost of prolonging the war after the economic sanctions imposed by Western countries may deeply shake the Russian economy, and as a result, the country may descend into chaos.

If Russia’s failure to achieve its goals in Ukraine entails such negative consequences, why did Moscow take such a risky step? There are a number of factors that impacted Putin’s decision: nuclear weapons, China, energy leverage, and the West’s disunity.

Above all, it appears that Putin is considering compensating for his country’s conventional weakness vis-à-vis NATO with Russia’s massive nuclear weapons. He thought that his military superiority over Ukraine would be enough to defeat the country and that he could prevent possible NATO intervention by using his nuclear weapons as a deterrent. NATO’s refusal to close Ukraine’s airspace shows that Putin’s calculations have been accurate so far.

China and the energy factors

Second, China’s emergence as a counterbalance to the West and the United States’ main focus on potential threats originating from China led Putin to calculate that Washington and its allies will not go very far in supporting Ukraine. Although the SWIFT sanctions and the freezing of the Russian Central Bank’s assets in the West show that he is partially wrong on this front, Putin may think that he can keep his economy afloat until the end of the Ukraine war by maintaining relations with China and other countries that do not accept the sanctions against Moscow.

Third, Russia commenced its military operation in Ukraine, considering that its energy resources and leverage would prove useful against Europe’s sanctions. Putin may have calculated that with the crisis, energy prices would rise significantly, and this would force European countries to take a step back. The statement of Deputy Chairman of the National Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev after Germany’s decision to stop Nord Stream 2 epitomizes this notion: “Welcome to a brave new world where Europeans will soon pay 2,000 Euros for a thousand cubic meters of natural gas.”

Fourth, Putin is likely to have taken into account the disunity of Western institutions such as NATO and the EU, and that these institutions would not act jointly in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine. He might have calculated that the West, which remained silent in the face of Russia’s attacks in Georgia and Syria and didn’t do much against the annexation of Crimea, would show a similar attitude towards the occupation of Ukraine and would not want to escalate the tension with Russia.

Limitations

In the first days of the Russian invasion, the reluctance of some European countries such as Germany and Italy to impose SWIFT sanctions showed that these calculations almost paid off. However, Germany’s change of attitude in the face of pressure from the public among with similar changes in Germany’s allies showed that Putin’s calculations were largely in vain. For now, Russia’s attack on Ukraine seems to have had a consolidating effect on NATO and the EU.

Global security has the extraordinary characteristic that states, irrelevant of their strength, do not respond according to their capacity. Global escalations, which have contributed immensely to our knowledge base, have transformed what is “normal” for humans, society, and humanity in this sense. The term “normal” has, actually, become blurred since traditional, modern, and post-modern have become intertwined. We are experiencing a mixture of old and new conceptualized – or not – political phenomena enriched by emerging challenges. Such complex developments perplex all actors in international politics.

Scholarship has shaped our understanding of international and transnational security under the clout of natural disasters, societal mobility, pandemic diseases, climate change, or living standards. There is no unity and resilience in addressing these emerging risks among state actors, though awareness has been expanding among individuals, civil society, and the global public.

In this frame, international community actors are trying to put such concerns on the agenda. This requires resilience, collaborative engagements, and compliance with the prerequisites of what has to be committed to in order to respond to the dangers exposed. Unfortunately, the states’ commitments to keep security risks at a tolerable level are not the same as the ones by those affected by global security concerns.

A consensus was reached among state actors to take joint action against the well-circulated threats. Nevertheless, they ignore the issues which have an economic or political impact on the continuity of their sovereignty or their economic interests and territorial gains. For instance, global climate change has been a concern for most states, in parallel with the demand for action by individuals or societies. Developing states with vast populations, like India and China, refrain from complying with the Paris Conference decisions, while the U.S. stance is vulnerable to any governmental policy change.

In other words, individuals and communities press for a “change,” but states resist, while individuals and society themselves challenge the climate objectives by insisting on consumption habits. Like the climate challenge, protectionism of culture and identity have pushed individuals and communities to put pressure on the state. Cultural and identity protectionism have been equated to countering immigration and xenophobia.

Another case worth scrutinizing is the pandemic of the last two years. There has been a solid stance to fight COVID19 at all levels and units in international politics. But vaccine diplomacy, affiliated with the vaccine economy, diverted the firm stance to a competitive pattern whereby states compete which will profit the most from vaccine sales. The economic consequences of the pandemic, on the other hand, have boosted concerns of political security and, for some countries, regime continuity.

In other words, the pandemic could not prevent conflicts across the globe, like those in Syria and Libya, while its consequences can devastate the order of the international political system. It has shifted attention away from dedicated cooperation and the grants given by developed countries to less developed ones, and what remains is only symbolic commitments.

Global concerns, as manifested in the emerging “soft” threats and challenging situations described above, are not only about the experienced traumas in our lives but cover a broader spectrum. The newly emerging concerns can form a long list like digital currencies, space mining, cultural expansion, consumption habits, digital space, importing high-level human resources from developing countries. These new challenges will be on our agendas as humans and society feel their impact in their ordinary course of lives. Hence states or groups will be compelled to compete for more gain or enhance protectionism against the new interpretations of security.

Strategy-Making for Multilayered and Multilateral Security

The strategy-making of this era, with its obligation to address complicated structures and threats, requires flexible and critical thinking with intelligent technologies. Policymakers have to scan more dynamics, actors, and variables of all sorts with a heightened capacity for analysis and synthesis. As options increase for all brands of actors in the international realm, predictability becomes compelling. In other words, the probabilities of “misunderstanding” and “miscalculation,” which may spark any conflict, have become a risk for peace and stability.

What is more, the features of the contemporary era, which are integrating modernity and pre-modernity with new interpretations, require all international community actors to invent sui generis modus operandi for all courses of political, economic, military, or environmental actions. Today’s strategy-making has to address multilayered concerns regarding “unusual” situations in order to be prepared for the worst-case scenarios.

For all actors and against the backdrop of this new security environment, the strategy-making process needs to address the emerging structure of today’s politics. In this frame, actors prefer to use multilateralism as the new mood of the day. This term implies the existing superpower, namely the U.S., and the potential ones with long-term projections. Given the militarily inspired statements of French President Macron and the German quest to dominate the EU economically and diplomatically, Europe wants to be more independent. Russia is more concerned about re-establishing the former Soviet “sphere of influence.”

Finally, China is inclined to be a superpower to honor the 100^th anniversary of the PRC with a pledge to the teachings of Mao and Deng Xiaoping. On the other hand, the U.S. is committed to countering the emerging superpowers while building a check mechanism based on NATO and partners. One can, then, question whether multipolarity brings stability as achieved by the Cold War through mutually assured destruction or imposes a “Cold Peace” which sustains low-intensity conflicts with its emerging modus operandi. This picture of international politics expands the courses but strains the states’ options.

Regionalism’s Scattered Structure

Other than global politics, there is another level of complexity involving actors, dynamics, and events in the regional systems.  Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver’s regional security complex theory includes new, uncontrollable inputs whereby the classical balance of power or bandwagoning strategies are not fit for addressing modern concerns. For instance, the Gulf countries function beyond their traditional area of interest spanning across vast regions beyond the Persian Gulf, where they compete with one another, all made possible by their wealth.

“Glocalism” pushes these states to observe the concerns of their citizens due to the trauma of the Arab Spring (or Winter?) while making sure their regimes – not states – are seen as able to play this challenging role in order to retain credibility. On the other hand, external actors continue to search for security in rentier economies. Compared to the Gulf countries, the Middle East appeared to have more regional systems inside its multilayered regional system. On the other hand, regionalism in Central Asia, the Balkans, or the Caucasus is reminiscent of the Cold War era. As a result, regions have their sui generis characteristics. Nevertheless, regional complexities can bring back the traditional threat perceptions of the Cold War.

Transnational Interaction

States and the organizations of what the states make are short of covering the cobweb of individuals and communities. The strength of individuals vastly increased in the last two decades, thanks to communication technology and human mobility. The interaction among individuals of different communities has resulted in new communities of interest and groups that put pressure on international actors. States cannot control individuals, and have concerns about maintaining their existence and regime security. The fundamental challenge to the state regards the loyalty, sacrifice, and dedication of communities.

Hence, a self-organizing body of individuals and their collectivity exist with unique interests, concerns, and commitments. This picture compels states to take conservative measures for preserving the societal order within their borders while encouraging a change abroad through access to the digital world. Hence, transnationalism is a threat to the state, but inspired by the state for a controlled transformation in other actors.

After all the discussion on global and regional systems (and subsystems), the themes addressed denote changes in the structure of actors and engagements in the international system. Traditional responses are still valid, but the expansion and deepness of the sectors and units in international politics has entered a new phase. The essential features of this new phase are unsteadiness, intertwined dynamics, and the degradation of consequences. In this sense, international situations cannot be fixed to a particular course but rather need to be treated flexibly.

After the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, the West has unanimously slapped severe sanctions on Moscow that, at the moment, have further raised energy and commodity prices in the international market. This is due to the fact that Russia covers one third of the world’s gas supply needs using pipe gas.

China’s stand and role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is key for the larger Russia-West conflict, and will set the tone for the U.S.-China competition in the emerging global order. China has all the tools in its armory to gain maximum benefit from this conflict.

China is already Russia’s largest trading partner and sanctions-hit Russia will sell its oil, gas, and other natural resources to the Chinese market using the Chinese alternative to SWIFT, the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, or CIPS. Central Asian states, Belarus, and a few other countries can’t survive without financial transactions with Russia. This will give China’s CIPS a great opening to enter into large global financial transactions.

SWIFT or CIPS?

Shutting Russia off from the SWIFT payment system may help China’s efforts to advance an already established alternative to SWIFT. Strict Western sanctions on Russia and the expulsion from the SWIFT system of international financial transactions will force Russia to adopt the Chinese alternative to SWIFT. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and strict Western sanctions on Moscow will undoubtedly increase Chinese clout in the global order.

A new Chinese option could allow Russia to conduct the majority of its trade in yuan rather than US dollars. CIPS, which was established in 2015, will receive a much-needed boost. In principle, there is no reason why CIPS cannot be used in the place of SWIFT. And if Russia successfully transitions its trade payments away from the dollar system, American prestige and power would suffer greatly.

Russia may also demand all payments for Russian goods be paid through SPFS, which is Russia’s SWIFT alternative. Cutting off Russia from SWIFT won’t do the damage it did to Iran. Russia and China saw how SWIFT was being used as a sanctions weapon and developed their own SWIFT alternatives.

Russia’s total exports reached $489.8 billion in 2021, according to the country’s central bank. Crude oil accounted for $110.2 billion, oil products for $68.7 billion, pipeline natural gas for $54.2 billion, and liquefied natural gas for $7.6 billion. Europe is so reliant on Russian oil and gas that it purchases more than 70% of the country’s natural gas and roughly half of its oil.

Russia-China Future Collaboration

For the Russians, the two-decade-old Russia-China “Treaty of Good Neighbourliness, Friendship, and Cooperation” will be crucial. During the recent Putin-Xi meeting, it was agreed that China will continue to buy Russian oil and gas.

That is, if a difficulty arises in Russia’s European market, the next buyer is ready to step in. During the meeting, Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC agreed to supply gas through a new route for the next 25 years. By 2025, the “Power of Siberia” pipeline, which began operations in 2019, will be fully operational.

China, for its part, has begun to reposition itself in relation to the United States. The United States may be able to encircle Russia near its border and as a result, the United States’ efforts to contain China through its Indo-Pacific strategy, may be hampered.

China Plays Its Cards

With the war in Ukraine, the yuan has been traded as a safe haven currency. Prospects for more easing in China should see China’s growth rebound, keeping Chinese stocks resilient even as U.S. equities fall. On the other hand, since the Ukraine crisis began, the euro’s attraction has been weakened due to the EU’s proximity to the conflict zone and its reliance on Russian energy imports.

The U.S. and the West have overused their sanctions and embargo playbooks. They used to work well against small countries, but not for countries like Russia that sells massive amounts of supplies to the West. On the other hand, European powers, which depend mostly on the U.S. for their security, now realize that there is no alternative to hard power.

The U.S. might succeed in bogging down Russia in Ukraine, but this in turn will give China more strength to challenge the U.S. hegemony in other parts of the world.

This is the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union that the United States and Europe have faced a serious challenge, and it is only conceivable because of China’s strong partnership with Russia. China abstained from voting for the Ukraine Resolution at the UNSC or the UNGA, did not designate the Russian offensive an invasion, and declined to impose sanctions on Russia. China attributed this development to the U.S. and NATO’s provocation.

The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is largely covered in the media around the world triggering waves of heated debates and public outrage. While the Russian military operation in Ukraine is taking place, understanding Russia’s perspective can be useful to understand not only the current situation but also Russia’s foreign policy and diplomacy.

The year 2022 marks an important anniversary for Russian diplomacy: 220 years since Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) was officially created. The foreign policy of Alexander I, regarded as the founder of the ministry, was characterized by the idea of building coalitions and deepening relations with European powers to promote the peaceful coexistence of European nations.

Interestingly enough, Russia’s way to celebrate the anniversary is quite provocative. The ministry has issued a statement declaring its intention “… to keep the West … ‘on its toes’… ‘electrified’ (i.e., 220 voltage) is fitting in this context. Our partners [the West] will have to get used to the new rules.” It seems that Russia’s diplomatic rhetoric toward the West is in contrast with what Alexander I aimed to achieve. Instead of negotiating a European partnership, Russia and the West are sharply deteriorating their relations.

From a diplomatic perspective, the ongoing situation has an explanation which can be better understood through a classical realist tradition in international relations. Based on the iconic book by Hans Morgenthau Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics (1949), I briefly touch upon what contemporary Russian foreign policy and diplomacy mean in practice by using the perspectives of rationalism, morality, and statecraft.

Rationalism

The reliance on reason and rational control asserts that people are rational and are capable of acting according to their understanding of social, economic, and political experiences. Acquiring empirical knowledge, rationalism evaluates those experiences and assesses how actions are coordinated with produced outcomes. In the rationalist view, emotions are subordinate, but they might challenge rational thoughts and alter the foreign policy decision-making process and behavior.

Looking at contemporary Russian diplomacy with NATO and post-Soviet territories, one could assume it is rooted in rationalist assumptions. NATO enlargement is a security problem for Russia and according to the logic of rationalism, Russia’s response to that is military operations in the post-Soviet space which indicated an interest to join NATO, combined with diplomatic negotiations with NATO member states. From this perspective, the rational move would be to terminate NATO enlargement to reassure Russia’s security concerns.

Moscow also criticizes Kiev’s non-cooperation in implementing the Minsk agreements of 2014 which had sought to resolve the conflict in the Donbas region. Active political and diplomatic leverage, and tacit and explicit actions in Ukraine are used to promote Russia’s interests and foreign policy goals associated with preserving the ontological security of Russia and are thus seen as morally justified. 

Statecraft

The dimension of statecraft should be dealt with separately from the Ukraine issue because statecraft unveils the divergence in the epistemological assumptions between Russia and the collective West. The international world order in its current form has shaped the practices of modern diplomacy and statecraft, and vice versa. States have legislative and political power, and can impose their power on other states using the legislative mechanisms of international law.

Russia’s foreign policy and diplomatic attitude is fundamentally based on the idea that international law needs to be internalized and upheld by states themselves. Yet, the collective Western perspective on international statecraft is more focused on a rule-based order – also known as the liberal international order with shared sovereignty. The rules-based order is promoted by the West, but this perspective is less likely to be accepted by Russia.

Moreover, a rules-based order rhetoric cannot possibly be imposed by any foreign power on Russia without threatening its national identity, ontological security, and even the idea of national sovereignty. Thus, the idea of the priority of international law in the realist tradition is viable for Russia while a rules-based order in the liberal tradition is unacceptable, adding another issue for deepening diplomatic tensions between Russia and the West.

In sum, Russian foreign policy fits well within the realist tradition where the nexus between rationalism, morality, and statecraft helps to explain the ongoing hostilities between Russia and the West. The main differences that are causing tensions remain within the perceptions and interpretations of these characteristics. Rationalism for Russia revolves around the security issue which explains why Russia would not tolerate further NATO enlargement and why Ukrainians expressed willingness to join NATO.

Morality intertwines with Russia’s ontological security perceptions. Contrasting perceptions about international law and promoting a rules-based order also erected obstacles in the relations between Russia and the West in terms of the international world order and the roles the main powers would play in it.

Acknowledging the peculiarities of rationalism, morality, and statecraft helps better recognize and interpret Russia’s political aims and understand its foreign policy intentions. From this point of view, Russian foreign policy and diplomacy remain rational and overall predictable in their ambition to provide security for the state even at the cost of maintaining relations with the West by keeping it “electrified.”

The hegemonic interpretation of the Cold War has been a struggle between a capitalist and liberal democratic Western bloc led by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the one hand, and a communist Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact on the other. It is certainly true that this depiction covers the two most significant alliances of the Cold War in terms of their military and economic capabilities.

However, this interpretation writes off a third category of countries, which constituted a much larger group than either the Western or the communist bloc in terms of their population: the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Inspired by the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955, and formally established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1961, it was initially spearheaded by a number of Third World leaders including Nasser, Nkrumah, Nehru, Sukarno, and Tito, the leaders of Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia, respectively.

Only three years later, led by the NAM, the “Group of 77” (G77) was established on June 15, 1964 by 77 developing countries signatories of the “Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries” issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. These countries already then represented, and even more so represent today, a very sizeable percentage of the world’s population. They included dozens of recently decolonized African and Asian countries as well as a few Latin American countries, but almost no European ones with the notable exception of Yugoslavia.

The NAM was not at all a one-off attempt by a group of developing, and mostly postcolonial, African and Asian countries trying to justify their refusal to ally with the Soviet Union or the United States. Rather, it was a notable step in a series of systematic and recurrent attempts and designs to chart a “third way” for what came to be known as the Global South.

These efforts continued with a call for economic justice and the need for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), culminating in the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) “Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Order” on May 1, 1974.

The NAM, G77, and NIEO stoked the idealism of those who aspired to a world government.

The NAM, G77, and NIEO, launched by the same group of countries, represented the “third way” during the Cold War, and claimed the mantle of an activist kind of “neutrality.” Their activism brought energy and symbolic relevance to the UNGA in particular, with a flurry of UNGA resolutions condemning various gross violations of human rights. The NAM, G77, and NIEO also stoked the idealism of those who aspired to a world government based on the United Nations (UN), while also motivating spirited calls for a reform of the UN.

This was a sign of how seriously the UN was taken by some political and social actors at the time, especially in the Global South. These efforts contrast with the widespread cynicism vis-à-vis intergovernmental organizations, and especially the UN, at present.

In a special issue of Perceptions, the academic periodical of Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that debated Turkey’s grand strategy, which I edited, I suggested that Turkey’s role should be that of a “third power,” supporting the independence and territorial integrity of its neighbors that have been occupied by the two rival global and regional alliances spearheaded by the United States and Russia.

The United Arab Emirates and Iran are the countries spearheading the regional operations of these U.S.-led and Russia-led global alliances, respectively, and the disastrous consequences of their interventions are observable most clearly in Syria and Yemen.

Middle powers and some former great powers are looking for a third way since the end of the US-led liberal international order and unipolarity.

Many other middle powers and even some former great powers are looking for a “third way” at present, especially since the end of the U.S.-led liberal international order and unipolarity, for which 2016 is often considered as the turning point with Brexit and Donald Trump’s election in the United States. Brazil under Lula da Silva could be considered another such example of a rising regional power that sought a third way in the emerging multipolar world order.

The efforts of Muslim countries to get together to defend their common interests and to stop genocidal massacres or the mass internment of Muslim minorities from Bosnia to Myanmar, and Kashmir to Xinjiang are yet another such example.

Having moved from a world order of liberal-socialist bipolarity (1945-1991) to one of a liberal unipolarity for about a quarter century (1991-2016), we arguably inhabit a post-socialist, post-liberal, and multipolar world order today. This is an environment, both geopolitically and ideologically, which is very propitious for the flourishing of a “third way” thinking, not (only) of the Tony Blair-Anthony Giddens variety, but along the lines of South-to-South cooperation as previously observed.

The experience of the NAM, however, also provides cautionary tales about the hijacking of such attempts at international solidarity by one or the other of the two great power alliances (such as the Soviet bloc) as well as benefiting autocratic regimes that deny the basic right to vote and competitive elections to their own citizens at home in the name of progressivism.

The U.S. administration under Joe Biden has singled out a “growing rivalry with China and Russia” as a key challenge facing the United States. A White House document outlining Biden’s national security policies, made public on March 3, 2021, describes China, the world’s second-largest economic power, as “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”

The 24-page document also warns that Russia “remains determined to enhance its global influence and play a disruptive role on the world stage.”

According to the document entitled “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance,” both Beijing and Moscow “have invested heavily in efforts meant to check U.S. strengths and prevent us from defending our interests and allies around the world.”

After four years of former president Donald Trump’s “America first” approach, Biden has vowed to confront “authoritarianism” in China and Russia while reengaging with allies and centering multilateral diplomacy.

Washington and Beijing are at odds over influence in the Indo-Pacific region, China’s economic practices, and human rights in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang region.

Moscow’s relations with Washington are at post-Cold War lows, strained by issues including the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, Russia’s alleged meddling in elections in the United States and other democracies, and the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Actually, this is not the first time a Democratic U.S. administration vows to shift its emphasis away from unneeded legacy platforms and weapons systems to free up resources for investing in cutting-edge technologies to contain China’s increasing and widening influence not only in Asia, but also in the Middle East and Africa.

Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state in the Obama administration, openly described Washington’s new foreign policy as “America’s Pacific Century” in an article she wrote in 2011.

Clinton believed the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.

But as the U.S. Asia strategy unfolded, Chinese perception has changed and Beijing began to see the rebalance toward Asia as a shift of focus from economic and diplomatic engagement to one more centered on security issues. The concern peaked in the fall of 2011, when the U.S. decided to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in which China is not a member, as a top priority of its trade agenda. Washington also announced its rotating military deployment of U.S. Marines Corps in Australia and tried to insert a security agenda into the East Asia Summit.

In response to the U.S. application of more diplomatic, security, and economic resources to Southeast Asia, in part to undermine China’s growing influence, China has stepped up efforts to strengthen ties with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, especially Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Beijing also moved to enhance its economic cooperation with South Korea, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand.

A mighty obstacle: Growing China-Russia cooperation

China’s most important response was to enhance and deepen its relations with Russia, another U.S. rival and one that the U.S. has tried to contain since the Cold War. Both Beijing and Moscow strengthened their economic and military relations to counter Washington’s sphere of influence in the region.

Today with the deepening ties between China and Russia, the Biden administration faces a worst-case scenario that could prove to be the most significant test of Biden’s leadership.

In April 2021, Russia and China simultaneously escalated their separate military activities and threats to the sovereignty of Ukraine and Taiwan respectively – countries whose independence is an affront to Moscow and Beijing but lies at the heart of the U.S. and its allies’ interests in their regions.

Even if Moscow’s and Beijing’s actions do not result in a military conflict of either country, the scale and intensity of the military moves rises the concerns of the Biden administration officials. The U.S. and its allies do not dismiss the possibility that Russia and China are sharing intelligence, and the likelihood that they are increasingly coordinating actions and strategies.

The Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community believes China is attempting to exploit doubts about the U.S. commitment to the region, undermine Taiwan’s democracy, and extend Beijing’s influence. It also warns about Russia’s growing strategic cooperation with China to achieve its objectives.

Biden’s defining challenge

In such a critical political and strategic environment, the Biden administration once again is trying to establish policies to face and dismiss the key challenges facing America. But the question is how will it do this. Will the U.S. target Russia first? Will Washington directly carry out policies to contain China? Or will it deal with China and Russia in tandem?

Around the shady corridors of the White House and the State Department, it is easy to see there is an ongoing debate on whether to start with Russia or China.

The tendency to assign different priorities to the two countries is understandable. Pivoting its foreign policy towards containing China has been the grand strategy for the U.S. for more than a decade. With its immense economic weight, world-class technological capabilities, swelling geopolitical ambitions, and growing global influence at a time of intricate U.S.-China economic entanglement, China poses an unprecedented strategic challenge that has to be carefully weighed.

Political assassinations are not new to world politics. In fact, political assassinations have existed for thousands of years. Looking at the roots of the English word “assassinate” one can better understand the context in which it emerged and has since then been used in the English-speaking world.

“To assassinate” originated from a group known as Hashashiyyin, or assassins, in the Muslim world, in modern-day Iran. Founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, the group was known for carrying out political assassinations from the eight to the fourteenth centuries, targeting religious and political figures, including the Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, and Christian Crusaders.

The claims that Hashashiyyin derived their name from hashish as they were under the influence of hashish when carrying out their assassinations or while being indoctrinated into the group, is still a matter of debate.

Today, most political assassinations have taken place in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Albania, and Brazil, with Afghanistan and Iraq topping the list. This comes as no surprise given the lack of security in both countries following the U.S. invasions, which brought with them renewed fighting between different militant groups.

Afghanistan and Iraq still witness political assassinations, and especially Iraq, where the phenomenon has returned to the streets following the protests that broke out in October 2019 calling for political, social, and economic reforms.

Over the last century, political assassinations have significantly shaped the course of international politics and international relations. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the throne of Austria-Hungary, at the hand of a Serbian activist in Sarajevo was the spark that caused the outbreak of World War I, which eventually claimed the lives of 20 million people.

What made the assassination of Ferdinand exceptional was the spillover affect it created, extending beyond the boundaries of the Balkans and impacting all of Europe. It was not merely the assassination of one person, be it the heir of the throne of Austria-Hungary, but triggered a domino effect across a large part of the world.

The legacy of Gandhi has lived on after his assassination, and he has become a model and leading example for many struggles across the world by his non-violent approach to ending colonialism.

Following a long non-violent struggle against the British colonial authorities in India, and a year after India won its independence from Britain (1947), Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist named Nathuram Godse. Godse objected to Gandhi’s calls for religious and racial tolerance, and to his approach of including India’s Muslim minority in the state-building process.

The legacy of Gandhi has lived on after his assassination, and he has become a model and leading example for many struggles across the world by his non-violent approach to ending colonialism. The peak of his approach was staging the Salt March in 1930 to protest the British control of the salt industry and its imposition of taxes under the caste system, which classified people into different social classes. As Gandhi arrived at the Arabian Sea on April 24, 1931, he picked up some salt and declared, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.”

The establishment of Israel in the Middle East saw with it a number of assassinations that had a considerable impact on Middle East politics. The assassination of Lord Moyne, the British minister of state in the Middle East, in front of his home in Cairo in 1944 was only the start of a series of political assassinations that followed.

In 1948, the Lehi gang assassinated Swedish diplomat and UN Peace Mediator Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem to protest his efforts to modify the UN Partition Plan of 1947 in favor of the Palestinians.

Palestinian factions, too, have carried out political assassinations against Israelis, although at a much lower scale. The most prominent was the assassination of Rehavam Ze’evi, Israel’s tourism minister, by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Abu Ali Mustapha, the secretary general of the PFLP.

Following its establishment, Israel has assassinated key Palestinian political leaders, by planting bombs in their cars (writer Ghassan Kanafani); by poisoning them (Wadi Haddad, who is believed to have been assassinated by Israel by a poisoned chocolate bar); by direct shooting (fatal shooting of Islamic Jihad leader, Fathi Shaghaghi, who was gunned down in Cyprus, and Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’s supreme leader, who was killed by a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter as he left a mosque on a wheelchair in 2004).

In the same year, Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO was rushed to a hospital in Paris where he passed away after falling sick. The common knowledge among Palestinians today is that Arafat may also have been assassinated by Israel using poison.

Palestinian factions, too, have carried out political assassinations against Israelis, although at a much lower scale. The most prominent was the assassination of Rehavam Ze’evi, Israel’s tourism minister, by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Abu Ali Mustapha, the secretary general of the PFLP.

Most recently, political assassinations have started to focus on more influential figures including presidents, prime ministers, scientists, and military commanders. The most prominent examples of political assassinations of top state officials include the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Alsadat in 1981, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minster Rafic Al-Hariri in 2005.

The U.S. assassinations of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda leader, and Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Al-Quds Force, provide a clearer understanding of how states perceive threats now on the international stage.

The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist in late November 2020 near Tehran, and the way he was assassinated by placing a remote-controlled gun on a truck is telling of how assassinations in the future might look like.

Since 2010, four more Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated on Iranian soil, with Iran accusing Israel of standing behind the assassinations.

Political assassinations have always been part of global politics and they will continue to be used as an effective tool to protect national interests of state and non-state actors alike.

But what is most worrisome about political assassinations today is that just like the assassination of Ferdinand in 1914 was the spark that ignited World War I, assassinations could lead to further conflicts and confrontations, that might, in turn, lead to an all-out war.

At the time, no one anticipated that the assassination of Ferdinand could lead to a world war. Could political assassinations today be the trigger for an all-out war, especially as today’s politics are becoming ever more intense?

Just like the term Hashashiyyin originated in Iran in the eighth century, another assassination in Iran could cause a full-blown war, the implications of which are yet to be known. The cost of such a conflict might exceed those of World War I and II.

Within a context of international Islamophobia and the persecution of Muslim populations in many countries, it has become more and more commonplace amongst Muslims to lament the lack of unity in the ummah, the global community of believers.

Many Muslim rulers seem all too ready to neglect solidarity with Muslims for the sake of narrowly defined national interests.

Certainly, the most prominent example is Palestine. Despite unrelenting Israeli colonization and the entrenchment of apartheid, several important Muslim countries have taken the bold step of normalizing relations with Israel, and appear to be abandoning the Palestinian cause.

Unfortunately however, Palestine is far from the only example. A number of Muslim countries in Southeast Asia have pushed back boats of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar.

Meanwhile, the governments of many Muslim countries have shied away from criticizing China for its cultural genocide of the Uyghur people in Xinyang, where Muslims are openly targeted for imprisonment and “re-education” for praying, avoiding pork and alcohol, or fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

Despite these violations, no Muslim state joined an initiative in July 2019, when 23 countries sent a letter to the president of the UN Human Rights Council demanding action against China.

Far from campaigning for the rights of Muslims, Muslim states sided with the oppressor.

Indeed, four days later, 27 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) signed a counter letter, praising “China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights,” and thanking it for its firm measures against “religious extremism.” Far from campaigning for the rights of Muslims, in other words, Muslim states sided with the oppressor.

However, the situation is not completely grim. In November 2019, Gambia, with the support of the OIC, filed a genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The case is ongoing, but the evidence of genocide committed by the Myanmar military is overwhelming, and the court has already ruled in favor of Gambia’s request for provisional measures.

Many historians note that, outside of the earliest days of Islam, the Muslim ummah has never truly functioned as a unified political entity as a result of the state-based international system being deeply entrenched. The ummah has always been predominantly a spiritual community of believers, not a political force.

Gambia, a West African country many thousands of kilometers away from Myanmar, took the case to the ICJ. This shows that Muslim countries can act in solidarity to advance the rights of Muslims, even when their national interests are not directly at stake.

Nevertheless, that does not preclude the possibility of creating a strengthened ummah, unified in the face of current challenges. The question is one of political will.

In this regard, the Gambia case is an important precedent.

The fact that Gambia, a West African country many thousands of kilometers away from Myanmar, took the case to the ICJ shows that Muslim countries can act in solidarity to advance the rights of Muslims, even when their national interests are not directly at stake.

What is needed urgently is a rethinking of what the ummah should look like in today’s world, and of the concrete framework and institutions that need to be built.

Freedom of movement

International legal standards protecting the rights of refugees and other migrants are sorely inadequate, with millions – more and more of whom are Muslim – unable to secure protection from human rights violations.

Liberal citizenship is also being weakened as Islamophobic policies in many countries target Muslim minority communities for exclusion. A new, modern ummah can and should act as a counterforce to these trends, and put forward a more inclusive form of citizenship: a Muslim citizenship that would allow all believers access to safety.

It is proposed that Muslim countries should issue common travel documents, providing freedom of movement. Similar to the EU, any citizen would be allowed to enter, reside, and work in any other Islamic bloc country, with equal rights and duties as citizens of that country.

Refugees from Muslim countries would automatically have the right to protection, not as a refugee with the limited rights that often entails, but as a citizen of the ummah. Borders within the Islamic bloc would, for most practical purposes, cease to exist.

This is the case in the EU, and while progress has not been linear (and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some steps back), it is clear that the EU is moving toward a form of common citizenship that will transcend individual states.

Refugees from Muslim countries would automatically have the right to protection, not as a refugee with the limited rights that often entails, but as a citizen of the ummah. Borders within the Islamic bloc would, for most practical purposes, cease to exist.

This is the case in the EU, and while progress has not been linear (and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some steps back), it is clear that the EU is moving toward a form of common citizenship that will transcend individual states.

What is needed urgently is a rethinking of what the ummah should look like in today’s world, and of the concrete framework and institutions that need to be built.

There are potential pitfalls to this proposal, not least that Islamophobic governments could use it to advance even more exclusionary policies towards Muslims.

Despite this being a serious concern, Muslim countries should not refrain from taking steps towards greater unity simply because of the abusive practices of other states.

Countries that wish to exclude Muslims will, unfortunately, find ways to do so. The first obligation of the Islamic bloc should be to protect other members of the ummah, and to provide them with a safe haven if necessary.

Universal rights

Providing for freedom of movement is only half of the picture, since it would not be able to protect Muslim minorities who are unwilling or unable to leave their country of nationality.

Therefore, the ummah must have effective mechanisms to highlight violations of the rights of Muslims and put effective pressure on abusive governments.

Attempting to continue stale debates on the alleged lack of compatibility of the international human rights regime with Islamic religious laws and values is pointless. Even worse, it plays into the Islamophobic narrative that Islam is incompatible with modern norms.

The undeniable reality is that the vast majority of Muslims everywhere by and large accept the universal validity of international human rights standards.

Contrary to the wishes of their people, many Muslim governments have spent far too much time and energy at international meetings arguing against universal standards in a transparent effort to use religion to deflect criticism of their own oppressive practices.

This has damaged the credibility of those governments and, in the eyes of many, Islam itself.

The Andes Mountains are the backbone of South America. Their snowy summits are exceptional witnesses to the greatness of the flight of the condor, a black-and-white bird of the New World vulture family that is native to South America and is part of the coat of arms of Colombia.

It is considered the king of birds by the Mapuche people of Chile, a symbol of the sky by the Quechua and Aymara indigenous peoples of Bolivia, and an icon of life and survival for the whole continent due to its status as an endangered species.

Maybe because of its symbolic meaning, the CIA cynically named Operation Condor after this South American bird, outlining its ambitious plan to dominate the destiny of all countries in the region and guarantee the implementation of its particular idea of “democracy” and neoliberalism through local puppets.

The infamous Monroe Doctrine, which was introduced by John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, and was attributed to James Monroe in 1823 is not very clear to many Latin Americans.

“America for the Americans” is the essence of this doctrine but many of those living below the river of Río Grande ask, “Aren’t we American enough?” This question is raised because Latin Americans haven’t seen many Europeans conspiring to overthrow their democratically elected governments but mostly leaders of their own with very strong ties to the imperialist establishment of the United States.

The history of the United States’ intervention in national affairs of other countries through direct military force or clandestine support for local paramilitary groups extends to more than 170 years. Mexico lost almost half of its territory between 1846 and 1848 to its northern neighbor; California and Texas became part of what is today the United States, while the locals sadly becoming the first victims of U.S. imperialism in Latin America.

In 1854, the U.S. bombarded Nicaragua, installing a banker named William Walker a year later as its president. Then, came the plan to expel the Spaniards from Cuba and Puerto Rico, a decaying empire against a rising one. Today, Puerto Rico is essentially a colony of the United States.

In 1903, the United States promoted the segregation of Panama from Colombia, in an effort to stop the French from building the Panama Canal which allows a quick passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa. The United States directly controlled the canal until December 31, 1999.

Since then, every country from Mexico to Argentina has been impacted by the bald American eagle’s twisting of destinies reaching its peak with the infamous Operation Condor. Operation Condor promoted the installation and support for United States-friendly dictatorships in several countries: Hugo Banzer in Bolivia (1971-1975), Ernesto Geisel in Brazil (1974-1979), Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990), Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay (1954-1989), Juan María Bordaberry in Uruguay (1973-1976), and Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina (1975-1978).

Chile’s case is especially exceptional. Chile is the country with the highest economic indicators and standards of living in Latin America. Recently, it has been rocked by intense social unrest with months of street protests, and scores of injuries and deaths among civilians due to torture. In October 2020,

Operation Condor promoted the installation and support for United States-friendly dictatorships in several countries: Hugo Banzer in Bolivia (1971-1975), Ernesto Geisel in Brazil (1974-1979), Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990), Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay (1954-1989), Juan María Bordaberry in Uruguay (1973-1976), and Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina (1975-1978).

Chile has voted in favor of amending its constitution, which according to the majority of its population, is a nefarious legacy of the Pinochet era.

Bolivia, with nearly 70% indigenous population, only saw a native president in 2006 when Evo Morales, a union leader from the Aymara people, won the presidency in the heart of South America.

Many years of internal conflict between leftist guerrillas and government forces, with the help of paramilitary organizations, has caused even more pain and misery there, especially in the rural areas of the country with evident consequences also in major cities.

Colombians ask why the U.S. fuels this war, which has only led to more bloodshed, with weapons and military support. Meanwhile, on the streets of Chicago and New York, where most of these drugs are consumed, they seem happy with the drugs industry. There is no answer to this question, it seems.

Bolivia, with nearly 70% indigenous population, only saw a native president in 2006 when Evo Morales, a union leader from the Aymara people, won the presidency in the heart of South America.

With a socialist and anti-imperialist approach, Morales achieved an impressive economic growth for Bolivia: an average of 5% growth in the GDP (one of the highest in the region). His economic plans resulted, among other important numbers, in decreasing extreme poverty from 36.7% to 16.8% between 2005 and 2015, and a reduction of the illiteracy rate from 13.3% to 3.7% during his first few years in office according to official UNESCO figures.

Accused of trying to cling to power through fraud and corruption, and following a victory at the polls for the fourth time, Morales resigned and left to Mexico due to pressure by the military and a portion of the Bolivian opposition led by the pro-United States politician Jeanine Añez. Añez entered the Presidential Palace one night in November 2019 carrying a copy of the Bible and claiming that God gave the Bolivian opposition the mandate to “save Bolivia from anarchy and evil.”

Evangelical groups in Latin America are, just like those in the United States, becoming important electoral support for pro-imperialist regimes. Eventually, in October 2020, Luis Arce, a politician from Morales’s political party, won the Bolivian elections with 55% of votes, allowing Morales’s return to his homeland.

Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan hero attributed with the liberation of five nations in Latin America (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, and Bolivia) from Spain once said, “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” His words are truer today more than ever.

Latin Americans wonder if someday a free mighty Andean condor, not the American eagle disguised as one, will cast its magnificent shadow over the Andes, without feeling endangered by extinction. Time will only tell, but the peoples from Mexico to Argentina still have the final say.

With more than 78 million popular votes and 306 electoral college votes, Democratic president elect Joe Biden has decisively defeated President Donald Trump, becoming the 46th president of the United States.

Trump was only elected in the first place through a quirk in US electoral politics which allows a candidate to attain the presidency despite having lost the popular vote. In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton bested Trump by nearly three million votes, yet he cruised to victory by a whopping 306-232 margin in the electoral college.

This anti-democratic electoral college, along with the Senate, is a vestige of the Founding Fathers’ original Faustian bargain with states that enslaved human beings. It enticed them into a federated republic without fear of losing their chattel by establishing a system through which the smaller electoral base of slave states could exercise disproportionate influence over federal policy.

While slavery was belatedly abolished only in 1865, the electoral college and Senate still play much the same role as originally envisioned: to buttress white supremacy by attaching disproportionate electoral weight to thinly-populated, overwhelmingly white, conservative states to the disadvantage of more populous, diverse, and liberal states. To take the most egregious example, votes in Wyoming are weighted 3.6 times more than votes in California.

Whether Trump is actually so delusional as to believe his claims is immaterial. The purpose of his delegitimization of the democratic process is to set the stage for a coup attempt should he decide to try to cling to power after his legal remedies are exhausted.

So far, the signs do not bode well for a peaceful transfer of power. Trump is being bucked up by a largely sycophantic Republican congressional caucus and a coterie of close advisers who are emboldening him not to concede, while his attorney general is disgracing whatever is left of his already badly-frayed credibility by lending credence to the president’s specious allegations.

Most troubling, Trump unceremoniously fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper via Twitter. Trump has loathed Esper ever since he opposed his efforts to invoke the Insurrection Act and mobilize troops to quell racial justice protests that erupted this summer after the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in Minneapolis.

Asked by the Military Times in an interview published a few days before his ouster why he did not do more to oppose Trump’s policies, Esper expressed concern at what would happen if he were fired. “Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

In Christopher Miller, Trump now has a loyalist in place who could be more amenable than Esper to acceding to a coup attempt.

In the first presidential debate, Trump told supportive white supremacist militia to “stand by.” If Trump decides to unleash them now in a last-ditch attempt to remain in power, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Even if Trump is coaxed out of the White House and Biden is able to assume the presidency in a modicum of normality, Trumpism is far from being a spent force.

Despite everything over the past five years since Trump announced his candidacy–his mocking of people with disabilities; his virulent anti-Black and anti-Latino racism, xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, and antisemitism; his praise of authoritarians and rejection of democratic allies; his obstruction of justice and his solicitation of foreign government intervention in his reelection effort; his bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic which has now infected more than 10 million people in the United States and killed more than 250,000; his congenital lying, pomposity, braggadocio, bullying, buffoonery, sloth, incompetence, and ignorance–despite all of this and so many other blatant disqualifications to be president, the most perturbing aspect of this election is that more than 71 million people witnessed all of this and decided they wanted more.

Over the course of the disastrous Trump administration, many liberal (mostly white) people shook their heads despondently and muttered in disbelief that “this is not who we are as a country.” Yet Trump just won the second-most popular votes of any presidential candidate in the history of the country. Yes, Trump is an ugly reflection of all the worst history, policies, and proclivities of the United States in caricatured form.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties mobilized their bases in unprecedented numbers for the 2020 election, leaving the country even more diametrically polarized and deeply divided between liberal, diverse, urban and suburban islands in a sea of conservative, white, small-town and rural strongholds. Of course, there are exceptions to this over-generalization. For example, Lynchburg, Virginia, home of the Christian fundamentalist Liberty University, voted blue for the first time since 1946.

The election results also reinforced the tenacious and enduring reality of white supremacy. According to ABC News exit polls, white people were the only racial group to support Trump and his brand of white nationalism, and by a wide margin, 58 to 41 percent.

Steve Schmidt, a founder of the anti-Trump Republican super PAC (political action committee) the Lincoln Project, whose devastating ads riled Trump, thrilled the Democratic base, but apparently had little effect on its intended target of the mythical moderate Republican voter, perhaps stated best the sad legacy of Trumpism.

“Trump has been defeated, but Trumpism has not,” Schmidt told the Washington Post. “What Trumpism is is a statist, authoritarian ideology that’s inimical to the American precepts of democracy. It’s antithetical to America’s ideas and ideals, and it has fascistic markers. It is a cult of personality . . . and 70 million-plus people in the country were susceptible to it, to the racial antagonisms, to the assault on institutions and the rule of law, and it’s going to take a long time to deal with it.”

Joe Biden is now faced with the daunting prospect of trying to unite and govern this fractured polity. President Abraham Lincoln famously stated that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Believing that the country could not endure “permanently half slave and half free,” he nevertheless was optimistic that the country “will cease to be divided.”

Historians tend to agree that Lincoln was the greatest US president for his deft leadership of the country through its Civil War. Today, the United States is at perhaps its greatest divide since then. Clearly, Biden will need to summon Lincolnian levels of leadership if we are to consign Trumpism to the history books.

Apart from claiming and adversely affecting innumerable lives across the world and nose-diving the global economy, COVID-19 has occasioned a new political dimension in the global politics arena: vaccine nationalism.

It is unfortunate that at a time of a ravaging global pandemic – one that has transcended and traversed national and geographical borders with catastrophic ramifications – the world is also witnessing a global vaccine nationalism craze. Wealthy countries are at the forefront of this vaccine nationalism by branding themselves the embodiments of civility, moral consciousness, and the safe-keepers of human dignity.

On September 5, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, lamented the threat of vaccine nationalism. He warned that “vaccine nationalism will prolong the pandemic, not shorten it.” Needless to say, vaccine nationalism is an affront to our moral and public health imperatives, and our shared human values.

The WHO COVAX Initiative

Ever since the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, multiple groups of scientists and researchers consolidated their efforts to find a vaccine. These scientists converged at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and began multidisciplinary and multinational research to find a vaccine. Furthermore, since January 30, 2020, CEPI established a global network of laboratories to centralize assessment of COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

Vaccine Nationalism is a Step in the Wrong Direction

Echoing the Trump administration’s criticism and contempt for global institutions like the United Nations (UN), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and, most recently, the WHO, the U.S. has receded into itself, riding a wave of rancid nationalism and nativism in its internal politics. Hence, the U.S. initiated its own Operation Warp Speed (OWS) to seek COVID-19 vaccines for its own citizens. Moreover, the U.S. committed to buy 100 million doses of vaccines developed by Moderna, a U.S. pharmaceutical company. However, Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate has prompted an antibody response in all clinical trial participants rendering it unfeasible for now.

It is time for governments to suppress their nationalism and “our country comes first” reflexes since COVID-19 is a global threat requiring a global, coordinated effort.

Russia, the other major country that undertook its own national effort to find COVID-19 vaccines, struggles with credibility in terms of its vaccine productions. Ever since Vladimir Putin declared in a televised announcement that Russia has approved the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, there has been nothing to show for its effectiveness and reliability as a vaccine. The Sputnik V vaccine was planned for mass-production in early October. This has not happened. Indeed, Russia has been shady and evasive when it comes to Sputnik V, rendering it just another geopolitical bluff and yet another aspect of vaccine nationalism. Furthermore, the WHO recommended caution in regard to Russia’s vaccine since its clinical trial findings and progress were not disclosed. The bottom line is that Russia hasn’t effectively proven whether the Sputnik V vaccine can treat or protect against COVID-19.

With vaccine nationalism on the rise, wealthy nations are hording crucial and potential vaccines – including their research and development procedures. Moreover, wealthy nations have locked deals with drug manufacturers exacerbating the cynical and amoral rush for vaccines: the U.S. has a deal with Moderna; EU member states have a deal with AstraZeneca; the UK and Canada have deals with GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi. Vaccine nationalism seems to be a healthy competition among wealthy nations; however, COVID-19 is a planetary threat to our intricately interconnected global society. Even if one nation finds a vaccine and immunizes all its citizens, this will not lessen COVID-19 threats to the global health and economy.

A concerted global effort, such as COVAX, can offer a solution to the whole world, not just to a few countries. Let us also remember that a vaccine might not be an all-encompassing solution to COVID-19: while we have vaccines and immunizations against diseases like Polio and Measles, they still linger and are even making a comeback in the U.S. with deadly cases.

Global Cooperation against COVID-19

As of November 3, 2020, more than 47 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 1.2 million lives have been lost – with more infections and testing, these numbers will definitely rise further. Yet, the world has not found a definitive solution for COVID-19 due to political and geopolitical imperatives, and, most recently, due to the effects of misguided vaccine nationalism. Vaccine nationalism is a threat to global health – it is, for all intents and purposes, an Orwellian global nightmare unfolding.

It is time for governments to suppress their nationalism and “our country comes first” reflexes since COVID-19 is a global threat requiring a global, coordinated effort. While it is “healthy” for every country to seek its own solutions in this Hobbesian international order, a single COVID-19 case is a threat to the whole world. Reason and morality should dictate that the only solution for a substantial and long-lasting solution to COVID-19 is a global-reaching effort, predicated on cooperation and solidarity. On the contrary, vaccine nationalism is a step in the wrong direction.

“Attention, this is Moscow speaking!” A Soviet citizen knew that something important would follow this famous radio announcement’s opening sentence. From the shores of the Arctic, the city of Vladivostok, and in the great steppes of Central Asia, this ominous imperative reminded the people under which nation’s guidance they are living.

Even though the ‘national anthem’ of the Soviet Union started with the words “Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics”, it continued as “Great Russia has welded forever to stand”. Thus, it was clear who was the master and who was the serf in the ‘voluntary’ union. Despite the myths about the creation of the new Soviet man, a trial to create a single Soviet nation from a blend of diverse ethnicities, ‘nationalities question’ followed the Soviet Union until its demise. The quest to form Russian-free national identities in the post-Soviet area is still one of the priorities of the former communist states.

Central Asia, with its geostrategic importance and pathway of the historic Silk Road, hosts significant human potential along with its economic leap in the last two decades. Almost 30 years after the dissolution of the Union, Russia no longer holds the monopoly of cultural hegemony in the region. Russian language is in decline and favored mostly by the older generations. The indigenous cultures and other foreign languages are gaining popularity among the new generation. Furthermore, Russian culture is also challenged by the official changes in legislation.

However, considering economic and historic ties, Moscow is still the most dominant state over Central Asia and is trying to use its soft power as much as possible to protect its economic, political, and military interests.

Russian Language

In 1938, the Russian language became mandatory at all schools in the Soviet Union, which increased the popularity of the language among the newly literate population. 1989 Soviet demographic census showed that 80 percent of the Soviet Union spoke Russian, and most of them were non-Russians inhabitants. The dominance of the Russian language covered all aspects of daily life and business, from media to army to literature. Russian also became a lingua franca among the elites and artists of the Soviet Union from various ethnic backgrounds, and even created a fictive class difference depending on the level to which the language had been mastered.

Nowadays, the number of Russian speakers is decreasing in Central Asia, where the language is losing its former strength and importance. Apart from Kazakhstan, Russian speakers do not exceed 50 percent of the total population in each Central Asian state, now briefly analyzed in turn.

One of the major problems by the end of the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a demographic problem in Kazakhstan. The northern part of the country was mostly inhabited by the ethnic Russians and despite the mass exodus with the dissolution, they still constitute 21 percent of the total population. The question of loyalty of the Russian population in Kazakhstan was a barrier for  Kazakh nation-building and the sovereign unity of the country after independence. The concerns of separatism even forced the government to move the capital from the southern city of Almaty to Astana (Nursultan).

In the 1990s, 25 to 40 percent of Kazakhs could speak very little or almost no mother tongue, and 65 percent of Kazakhs expressed their Russian knowledge in the level of native or very fluent in a 1989 census. Currently, both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are leading on the number of Russian speakers and their constitutions give official status to the Russian language.

On the other hand, Kyrgyzstan is still under the significant cultural dominance of its northern neighbor. In contrast to all other Central Asian countries, Russian schools are increasing in Kyrgyzstan and most of the higher education is offered in Russian as well. Despite the need to take a language test in Kyrgyz for civil service, most of the daily business is still conducted in Russian. Printed outlets and TV shows in Russian continue to be preferred over Kyrgyz media. The country’s economic reliability on Russia prevents Bishkek applying strict measures as Kazakhstan. However better Russian knowledge of Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia makes them advantageous compared to others in the market.

In contrast to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks are trying to eradicate all remnants of Russian in the government business. Today, the country is preparing a law to penalize government officials for their usage of Russian in official business. Uzbekistan continually reforms the legislation to promote Uzbek and its Latin alphabet as well. However, a wide range of Uzbek language users still write in the Cyrillic alphabet. Despite the decrease in studying Russian, the language still holds significance because of the high numbers of Uzbek migrants, which was over two million who went to Russia in 2018 alone.

Turkmenistan also takes extreme measures against the Russian language since the country distanced itself against everything Russian. Besides strong enforcement of the Latin alphabet, the speakers of Russian are only 18 percent of the country according to a 2013 study. This generation mostly consists of elders who studied in the Soviet Union and still live a hybrid lifestyle, a mix between Russian and Turkmen cultures. There is only one Russian school in Turkmenistan, which is named after famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, and the printed and visual media in Russian is almost non-existent in the country.

Alternative Paths

Besides the non-arguable decline of the Russian language, certain sectors cannot be imagined without Russian cultural influence. Firstly, traditional cultural institutions such as theatre, culture shows, museums, and libraries are mostly under the supervision of the state in Central Asia. These state institutions are still controlled by nomenklatura who were educated in the communist regime and missing their lifestyle and fame in the U.S.S.R. They are mostly the older generations, some of them having ethnic Russian background, however, the rest were brainwashed and assimilated during the Soviet reign. They continuously try to use their influence over the people to create a pro-Russian agenda.