The strategy emerged from a moment of truth. Years of military overstretch, industrial erosion, and fiscal strain have collided with domestic anxieties over migration, trade imbalances, and energy security. The document acknowledges, indirectly, that the United States can no longer afford to be everywhere, doing everything, for everyone. In response, it narrows the definition of what truly matters for the United States––the Western Hemisphere.

The Western Hemisphere is elevated as the primary theater of concern by invoking a 200-year-old policy of the Monroe Doctrine that rejects external influence close to home. The Middle East is quietly downgraded, its strategic relevance diminished by American energy independence. Europe, which was once a central theater to Washington’s worldview, is urged to take primary responsibility for its own security and political future by restoring stability within the region.

The strategy is not one of isolationism, as the NSS is careful to reject that label. As per the document, the United States will continue to prevent adversaries from dominating key regions. Nowhere is this commitment clearer than in the Indo-Pacific, where China is described as a main competitor. But while the ends remain familiar, the means have changed. The burden of maintaining or reinforcing regional balance is no longer something Washington is willing, or claims it should ever have been expected, to carry alone.

The Indo-Pacific strategy outlined in the NSS revolves around the First Island Chain, the arc of territory stretching from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines. This geography is cast as the front line of any future conflict in East Asia. The United States pledges to build a force capable of denying aggression anywhere along this chain; however, it also emphasizes that such denial must be collective. Diplomacy will be used to press allies to increase defense spending and investment in deterrence-focused capabilities. In effect, the strategy seeks to integrate partnered militaries into a dense denial network in which primary responsibility lies with regional partners, with the U.S. aiding through commercial matters, technology sharing, and defense procurement.

There is a cold logic to this approach. If successful, it would complicate any Chinese military campaign, raising costs through layered defenses, maritime surveillance, anti-ship missiles, cyber capabilities, and hardened infrastructure. It would allow the United States to concentrate on high-end enablers such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and missile defense, while others invest in the less glamorous but more geographically exposed components of deterrence. This move can be seen as a reconfiguration designed to make competition with China cheaper and more sustainable for Washington.

Nevertheless, for America’s partners, the strategy feels less like empowerment and more like exposure. Japan offers the clearest example. Tokyo is amid a historic military buildup. Its defense budget now exceeds 9 trillion yen and is on track to reach 2 percent of its GDP, a threshold once unthinkable in a country shaped by postwar pacifism. Japan is acquiring long-range standoff missiles, expanding coastal defenses, and revising its security doctrines to prepare for contingencies that explicitly include Taiwan. These steps reflect genuine threat perceptions, particularly as Chinese military activity intensifies near Japanese territory. But they also reveal how burden shifting works in practice, and Japan is expected to bear frontline risks in a conflict whose escalation dynamics it might not be able to fully control.

South Korea’s dilemma is even starker. Long praised as a model non-proliferation state, Seoul built its security on trust in the American nuclear umbrella. That trust is now fraying. North Korea’s arsenal has grown more sophisticated, and its missiles are more mobile and survivable. At the same time, the South Koreans are increasingly skeptical that Washington would risk Los Angeles or New York to save Seoul, particularly amid U.S. political polarization and the personalization of foreign policy under President Donald Trump. The NSS urges partners to spend more and do more for collective defense, but it cannot dispel the fundamental fear that extended deterrence may fail at the moment of truth. The result is a once-taboo debate over whether South Korea needs its own nuclear weapons, a debate that speaks volumes about how burden shifting erodes confidence even as it seeks to strengthen deterrence.

The Philippines illustrates another facet of this strategy. Cast as a frontline state in the South China Sea, Manila is offered expanded U.S. access under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. The benefits are tangible; however, the risks are also profound. Philippine lawmakers have openly questioned whether hosting U.S. forces makes the country a target without ensuring reciprocal American vulnerability. There is a lingering fear of becoming a buffer state, absorbing grey-zone pressure while great powers manage escalation elsewhere. These developments urged Manila to deepen ties with Washington, but simultaneously diversify partnerships with Japan, France, India, and regional neighbors to avoid being locked into a proxy role.

These anxieties are compounded by the broader signals the NSS sends about American leadership. The document features President Trump with unusual prominence, underscoring how closely U.S. strategy is now associated with a single, mercurial figure. Its harsh treatment of European allies will not go unnoticed in Asia, where confidence in U.S. commitments has always rested as much on perception as on capability. The strategy also stated that “the outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations.” This assertion is most striking because it indicates that international order rests on the rule of the major powers. This framing implicitly places major powers (Washington, Moscow, and Beijing) in an exclusive tier of decisive actors and reminds the middle powers that their agency has limits. For allies asked to shoulder greater burdens, such language offers little reassurance.

A familiar Asia strategy thus sits alongside a more disquieting and unsettled redefinition of global leadership. The United States still seeks to shape outcomes, deter adversaries, and preserve its primacy. But it increasingly does so by asking others to stand closer to the fire. Whether allies will continue to accept that role, without firmer guarantees and clearer commitments, may determine not only the future of the Indo-Pacific but the credibility of American power itself.

Sidra Shaukat is a Research Officer at the Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), a leading Pakistani think tank focused on nuclear and strategic affairs. Her research and commentary have addressed peaceful uses of nuclear technologies, Pakistan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, nuclear diplomacy, and broader geostrategic developments in South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East across various platforms. A full list of her publications is available on SVI’s website. Views Expressed in this article are author’s own.

America’s Managed Retreat: How the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy Shifts the Burden to Allies was originally published on Global Security Review.

At the time, the Soviet Union and United States committed to reducing their nuclear arsenals, eliminating an entire category of nuclear weapons, and allowing thorough onsite inspections to ensure treaty compliance. During the Cold War, the INF Treaty served as a crucial stabilizing mechanism in the global nuclear order. Historically, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) of 1972 and 1979 were the first of several agreements between the US and the Soviet Union. As a result, both sides agreed to reduce their strategic weaponry, which included ballistic missile defenses, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty. Additionally, they established inspection procedures to make sure both parties followed the agreement. Due to the treaty, 2,600 missiles were destroyed, marking a significant Cold War breakthrough. Despite decades of arms control, the US and Russia still field the largest nuclear forces. Although it is challenging to determine the exact extent of their stockpiles, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that the US possesses 5,328 warheads, while Russia has 5,580.

In August 2025, Russia declared it would no longer fulfil its commitments under the INF Treaty, citing increasing threats from the United States and other Western nations. When the US withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019 because of Russian noncompliance with treaty limitations, Moscow stated that it would not use such weapons as long as Washington did not. This may have served as an effective ruse, but it served a purpose.

Questions are increasing about the utility of nuclear proliferation, the threat of arms racing, and the future of nuclear deterrence following the decision of Russia to fully abrogate the INF Treaty. The collapse of the INF Treaty represents a significant shift in the trajectory of international arms control.

The situation took a more dramatic turn as President Donald Trump announced that the US would move two of its nuclear-armed submarines closer to Russia in reaction to the “inflammatory statements” issued by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. This action highlights the challenge that arises when arms control breaks down—the potential for misunderstandings and overreactions increase.

Among nuclear-armed states, communication, predictability, and a certain measure of self-control are essential elements of nuclear deterrence. They were shaped by the INF Treaty, which placed verifiable limitations on missile sites. With the failure of the INF Treaty, useful tools were removed.

The future deployment of intermediate-range systems in regions that were shielded from them may prove an urgent strategic issue. Once at the epicenter of Cold War nuclear worries, Europe may have to host such weapons once more, but with improved accuracy, shorter travel times, and, perhaps, lower yields.

Deterrence dynamics in the Asia-Pacific are more difficult, especially between the US, China, and Russia, after the INF Treaty. The great powers are now accelerating nuclear modernization, while non-nuclear states are reconsidering their nonproliferation commitments. A replay of the Cold War–era European missile crisis has emerged with the collapse of the treaty.

Now, both Russia and the US are free to use and develop short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles without any official restraints. One more issue concerns the intentions of other governments, who may be influenced by the deterioration of controls on nuclear systems. States that did not previously possess nuclear weapons may choose to acquire them. Modern arms racing may be fast, less predictable, and more destabilizing due to technological advancements, such as autonomous delivery systems, hypersonic weapons, and AI-assisted targeting.

There are limited prospects for cooperative tools to mitigate these risks of escalation between the US and Russia. The two largest nuclear powers have a special duty to control and limit the scope of their competition.

Measures that encourage openness, trust, and communication between nuclear and non-nuclear governments will be crucial. In the absence of a global treaty, regional security accords, tailored to today’s security challenges, can effectively restrict risky deployments and restrain great powers from further modernizing their nuclear arsenals.

Nations in the Asia-Pacific can, for example, agree to mutual missile deployment restrictions similar to those in the INF Treaty’s verification procedures, which include regular inspections and satellite monitoring by mutual compliance. This would prevent insecure military build-ups in the region and reduce mistrust between states. Whatever course nations take, the importance of preventing escalation to nuclear use is foremost.

Nazia Sheikh is a Research Officer at the Centre for International Strategic Studies, AJK. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Deterrence and Proliferation was originally published on Global Security Review.

However, there are at least two major areas of concern for an effective future USSF international strategy: divisive geopolitics in space and foundational issues of a real space defense strategy beyond support services. In addition to geopolitical and strategic quandaries, organizational politics stand in the way of a sound strategy.

Divisive Geopolitics

Europe acknowledges space as congested and contested but stops short of calling space a warfighting domain. Europe adamantly refuses to declare China as a threatening adversary in the space domain. Not only does Europe struggle with a China dependency, chasing elusive economic benefits, but mainstream European diplomacy emphasizes engagement with China as a preferred way to hedge against (allegedly) unpredictable American behavior.

China managed to deter Europe from taking any offensive space posture, further making sure the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) remains busy with relentless Russian threats. It remains unclear where Europe would stand in a collective space defense scenario resulting from a multi-theater conflict involving both Taiwan and Eastern Europe.

Strategic Quandary

The USSF international partnership strategy signals a service fixated on space support rather than getting after the real problem, which is defeating space threats. This cannot be achieved without offensive space capabilities that deter, and, if necessary, destroy enemy capabilities.

In Europe and the Indo-Pacific, France and Japan are technologically capable of developing offensive capabilities, but politics forbid them from fielding offensive weapons in space, leaving Russian and Chinese rendezvous and proximity operations and kill chains unchallenged. This means such partnerships are unlikely to support the US with truly offensive capabilities in space.

Effective Bilateral and Mini-lateral Partnerships

US Space Command shares space situational awareness data with 33 partner countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Norway, and the United Kingdom (UK). Multinational Force Operation Olympic Defender (OOD) is a US Space Command operation to strengthen defenses and deter aggression in space, and involves more than six countries.

US Space Command and the US Space Force have agreements for exchange of personnel and liaison officers for these countries. Bilateral and mini-lateral partnerships include hosting payloads on allied systems such as Norway’s Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS aka Michibiki); Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) with the UK and Australia; and Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) using commercial space domain awareness data with allies and partners. Such needed bilateral and mini-lateral agreements get more done and faster.

Challenging Multilateral Partnerships

Implementing wideband global satellite communications (WGS) to provide satellite communications (SATCOM) to NATO can be challenging when over twenty nations all want to have their own homegrown terminals that can use any nation’s SATCOM satellites. This is made worse by the NATO Communications and Information Agency imposing further rules.

Bottlenecks with extremely high frequency (EHF) communications for nuclear deterrence means all capitals want to have a chance to say yay or nay on who makes the decision and communicates through the EHF with allied command operations. Compared with bi- or mini-lateral agreements, multilateral partnerships are complicated to implement.

The GAO Report on Organizational Politics

An earlier report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the US Department of Defense (DoD) faces persistent challenges that impede its efforts to integrate allies and partners into space operations and activities by establishing joint goals. The unclassified version of the GAO report tackles organizational politics specifically.
The report identified that the DoD has several organizations that have overlapping roles and responsibilities for space-related security cooperation.

Several foreign government officials said that finding the appropriate DoD contact with whom to coordinate is difficult, resulting in confusion and missed opportunities. GAO found that USSF has not identified, analyzed, or responded to the risk of not filling positions within its service components, including space-related planning, information sharing, and security cooperation positions.

The USSF strategy acknowledges resource constraints: personnel, budget, and time are limited for all parties. Overclassification limits intelligence sharing and is a concern. Policy misalignment, lack of straightforward national policies, and interoperability risks hinder cooperation.

The USSF is already seeking $6 billion for its own unfunded priorities such as its nascent Military Network (MILNET) satellite constellation and various classified projects. Meanwhile, China appears eager to beat the USSF to the punch in space refueling. Hence the criticality of the USSF astroscale refueling deal. Europe and Japan remain in the process of developing elementary space-based surveillance and passive defense assets.

Should the US Go It Alone in Space?

Current USSF half-baked strategic and cooperation models, leadership alignment issues, capability gaps among allies, and inefficiencies in multilateral agreements are not helping the US to lead in solving allies’ collective space security quandaries, let alone guaranteeing the United States’ own homeland security. In a worst-case scenario, the US might need to be prepared to go it alone and add foreign capabilities as “nice to have.”

If the US has more robust space capabilities, partnering with the US is more attractive for allies. The ability to go it alone with the prospect of winning is what gains allies, many of whom will be sitting on the fence. Furthermore, allies of the US could be knocked out, one-by-one, by China and Russia in orbit, leaving the US to go it alone anyway.

If the USSF international partnerships strategy is to be relevant, the USSF needs to further evolve from support functions to offensive space warfare, which should form the backbone of any allied international counterspace capabilities. Ultimately, in space, as on Earth, one either leads, follows, or gets out of the way. The US is allowing itself to be paralyzed by committee, which is a sure-fire way to lose the war in space that already started.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Should the US Go It Alone in Space? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Russia continued its bombardment of Ukraine with drone and missile strikes, and the US weighed the possibility of additional economic sanctions on Russia, including secondary sanctions against states trading with Russia. Debates among the Washington cognoscenti about possible peace settlements focused on two “baskets” of topics: what kind of “land swap” might be agreeable to Ukraine and Russia and what sort of security guarantees would be necessary for a postwar Ukraine. Amid all of this, one elephant in the room received little attention: the status of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence in future relationships between Ukraine and Russia and between Russia and NATO.

President Donald Trump posted on social media in late July 2025, that Dmitri Medvedev, Russia’s former president, was a “failed former President of Russia” who had better “watch his words.” Trump was responding to earlier remarks by Medvedev, after Trump threatened economic sanctions against Russia unless Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a temporary ceasefire and expedited peace talks with Ukraine.

In the earlier exchange, Medvedev called Trump’s ultimatum about peace talks a threat and a step toward war. Most recently, Medvedev again warned against nuclear danger by referring to the American television series The Walking Dead and reminded Trump that Russia retains the Soviet “Dead Hand” system for automatic nuclear launch even under the most extreme postattack conditions.

In response, President Trump posted on social media that he ordered two nuclear submarines to be repositioned in response to Medvedev’s threats. Trump said he ordered the submarines “to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.” In addition, the President noted that “[w]ords are very important and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances.”

Nuclear submarine movements are among the most highly classified information pertinent to military operations. If the reference was to American nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), this public announcement was unprecedented.

At one level, these interchanges between Medvedev and Trump are as much performative as they are substantive. During the early stages of Russia’s war against Ukraine beginning in February 2022, Putin issued frequent warnings about the possibility of Russian nuclear first use in response to actions taken by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that might be unacceptable to Russia. These warnings were dismissed by many Western political leaders and military experts as bluff to conceal Russia’s frustration at the prolonged military deadlock it faced in Ukraine, as well as distractions from looking too closely at Russia’s disappointing battlefield performances.

As Russia’s military operations on the ground seemed to improve in 2024 and 2025, nuclear threats became less frequent and less explicit. At present, Russia seems confident of maximizing its forward progress in military reach and operational control over the Donbass and other districts in the east and south of Ukraine.

Even a “small” nuclear war fought with tactical nuclear weapons would be a self-defeating endeavor for Russia. Fighting a conventional war under the shadow of possible nuclear escalation is sufficiently risky. If Russia were to cross the bridge into nuclear first use there would be a strong likelihood of a NATO nuclear response.

Russians need to interrogate their own military literature from the Cold War with respect to the challenge of conducting military operations in a nuclear environment. Troops seeking an operational breakthrough against enemy defenses would be fighting against the prompt and delayed effects of nuclear detonations that slow operational movement, inflict significant numbers of casualties, and corrupt the coordination and cohesion of combined arms. The Soviet Union could draw upon its ideological indoctrination and favorable memories of its victory in the Great Patriotic War (World War II) to maintain morale and avoid mass desertion, Russia cannot.

Nor would the economy of Europe, including Russia, survive anything beyond the very restrictive use of a few ultra-low-yield or low-yield in the sub-five kiloton range. In today’s world of social media and globally transmitted visual images, the meltdown of major financial and other institutions in Europe would trigger a global crash of markets, disrupt supply chains, let loose armed formations of criminals, and drive many leading politicians to abdication. Some in NATO might hope that Putin’s mistaken decision for nuclear first use would finally convince Russia’s military and security forces to overthrow their president and sue for peace, but Putin is not Lenin, and he is as likely to double down on escalation as he is to acquiesce to a nuclear ceasefire.

And therein lies the second danger, escalation to strategic nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Putin might calculate that he could hive off the nuclear deterrents of the British and French from their American allies and bully the former into submission while frightening the American government and public with separate threats of mass destruction. This would be a dangerous miscalculation because the nuclear forces of the United States are politically and operationally coupled to those of their European allies.

American nuclear weapons and American personnel deployed in Europe are effectively tied to the continent under Article V of the NATO charter. The idea that selective use of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe by Russia could be sealed off from wider and more deadly destruction, is beyond optimism.

In addition to misplaced optimism about escalation control during a major European war, there is also a lack of appreciation for the challenge of skillful crisis management that might avoid war altogether. Experience teaches that the requirements for nuclear and other crisis management include shared understandings and expectations about the risks of war and a willingness to consider the danger of misperceptions held by leaders in stressful situations. They may misjudge other national leaders as irrevocably committed to acts of conquest or aggression, when in fact those other heads of state may be undecided about their final judgments for or against war.

Communication between and among leaders may be incomplete and intelligence assessments can be blinkered by insufficient information or political bias. Examples of these and other maladies in crisis are provided by the July crisis of 1914 leading to the outbreak of World War I, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and by numerous other crises.

Russians playing with the rhetoric of Armageddon are legitimizing nuclear coercion in a time of troubles. The arrangement of a prompt ceasefire and peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia is of the highest significance for many reasons. These include putting an end to the loss of life and the destruction of national infrastructure. This objective should be pursued with aggressive diplomacy and without the distraction of references to the possibility of a war that would have no precedent in its capacity to do irreparable harm to civilization.

Steve Cimbala is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Nuclear Danger Remains in Ukraine Peace Settlement was originally published on Global Security Review.

Since January 20, Trump administration officials have announced an end to US participation in NATO military exercises; floated plans to relinquish NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander post (held by an American since NATO’s founding); proposed withdrawing 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe; threatened the sovereignty of NATO ally Canada; raised the prospect of using force to seize Greenland (a territory of NATO ally Denmark); derided “freeloading” Europeans; said of Vladimir Putin that America “should take him at his word”; torpedoed NATO’s unanimous declaration to “never recognize Russia’s illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea”; and suggested America’s NATO allies would not “come and protect us” in a time of crisis. This follows Trump’s 2024 invitation to Putin’s henchmen to “do whatever the hell they want” to allies failing to meet NATO’s defense-spending requirements; 2018 threat to withdraw from NATO; and a 2016 declaration that he would defend NATO members under attack only if they had “fulfilled their obligations to us.” Add it all up, and Trump’s view of NATO diverges dramatically from that of what was once known as the “Grand Old Party.”

For instance, as he took the reins as NATO’s first military commander, General Dwight Eisenhower—a future Republican president—called NATO “the last remaining chance for the survival of Western civilization.” President Richard Nixon viewed NATO as “a moral force.” President Gerald Ford believed NATO “protected the free world from the threat of aggression.”

President George H. W. Bush called NATO “an insurance policy.” Indeed, for America, NATO insures against the worst scenario: another European conflict triggering another global war. For the rest of NATO, the alliance is a security guarantee backed by the United States. Without that guarantee, there is no security in Europe, as history has a way of reminding those on the outside looking in, from Cold War Hungary to post–Cold War Ukraine.

President George W. Bush called NATO “the essential foundation of transatlantic security.” This essay did not forget President Ronald Reagan. However, many of those who claim Reagan’s mantle forget that he was an unwavering NATO advocate—during and after the Cold War. Rather than dismissing NATO as “obsolete,” Reagan called NATO “the core of America’s foreign policy and of America’s own security.” Rather than alarming NATO allies, Reagan reassured them by echoing the words of the North Atlantic Treaty: “If you are threatened, we’re threatened…. An attack on you is an attack on us.”

Rather than distorting NATO into a transactional protection racket, Reagan championed NATO as a “community of democratic states” and “a bond which has served us so well.”

Reagan never questioned NATO’s relevance, never browbeat NATO laggards, never threatened withdrawing from NATO, and never raised doubts about America’s commitment to NATO. Instead, Reagan championed NATO as “an antidote to chaos,” “a living commitment of the nations of the West to the defense of democracy and individual liberty.”

Importantly, Reagan did not think NATO’s mission was over when the Berlin Wall fell. In fact, he endorsed NATO’s continued growth. “Room must be made in NATO for the democracies of Central and Eastern Europe,” he declared after the Cold War thawed. And even after Moscow began walking the path of reform, Reagan cautioned, “We cannot afford to forget that we are dealing with a political system, a political culture and a political history going back many decades, even centuries…. We must stick with the strategy of strength.” In short, Reagan shrewdly saw NATO as a hedge against a Russia that might revert to revanchism—which is exactly what has happened.

Putin’s Russia violated nuclear treaties, conventional-weapons treaties, and its own pledge to “respect the independence…sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine”; warned NATO member Poland that its western territories were “a gift from Stalin”; dismembered NATO aspirants Georgia and Ukraine; countenanced and/or conducted cyberattacks against American energy infrastructure; interfered in elections throughout NATO’s membership roster; conducted sabotage operations across NATO’s footprint (including American targets); threatened use of nuclear weapons; aided and funded attacks against American forces; provided targeting data to support Houthi attacks against allied ships; and made “massive investments in its defense sector” (according to Trump’s own intelligence officials). In light of all of that—and the Kremlin’s long history of deceit—Reagan would never “take Putin at his word.”

GOP presidents, and their democrat counterparts, supported NATO because they recognized that NATO serves America’s interests. For 40 years, NATO helped deter Moscow and prevent the Cold War from turning hot. But that is just a fraction of how NATO has served America’s interests.

Thirteen current NATO allies deployed troops to assist America in defending South Korea. NATO militaries, infrastructure, and decades of interoperability served as the nucleus for the coalition that ejected Iraq from Kuwait, with NATO allies deploying thousands of troops to assist America.

The only time NATO’s all-for-one collective-defense clause was invoked was after September 11, 2001, when NATO allies rushed aircraft and personnel to this side of the Atlantic to guard America’s skies. NATO then bled with America in the Sisyphean campaign that followed, with 455 Brits, 158 Canadians, 86 French, 54 Germans, 48 Italians, 43 Danes, and 40 Poles dying in Afghanistan. When America withdrew from Afghanistan—20 years after the attacks on America’s capital, America’s military headquarters, America’s largest city—74 percent of the foreign troops deployed in the country that spawned 9/11 were not Americans. The vast majority were NATO allies. Trump is apparently unaware of this history.

In Operation Iraqi Freedom, 16 NATO allies sent troops when America asked for help. Hundreds of NATO troops—Brits, Italians, Poles, Bulgarians, Latvians, Danes, Dutch, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs—died in Iraq, as did 18 soldiers from Ukraine, a country that is not a NATO ally but certainly acts like one.

In the post Iraqi freedom years, seven NATO members conducted airstrikes against the ISIS caliphate. Again, NATO was there.

Far from “freeloading,” NATO allies Britain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain are supporting operations in the Red Sea. Likewise, British, French, Italian, Spanish, and Canadian assets are promoting freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific.

European nations sent more aid to Ukraine than the US. Britain and France are organizing a peacekeeping force for postwar Ukraine.

NATO has eight battlegroups defending its most at-risk members along the eastern flank. Only one is American-led.

Britain leads the battlegroup in Estonia, supported by Denmark, France, and Iceland. Britain is committing resources to defend NATO’s northern flank. And the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales just commenced a globe-spanning mission—the largest deployment of British naval airpower in a quarter-century.

Germany leads the battlegroup in Lithuania, backed by Belgium, Czechia, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway. Germany is building permanent bases in Lithuania for 4,800 German troops. Germany is spearheading a continentwide missile shield. And Germany’s parliament recently approved a massive defense-infrastructure fund.

Canada leads the battlegroup in Latvia, supported by 10 other NATO allies. France leads NATO’s battlegroup in Romania. Pouring almost 5 percent of GDP into defense, Poland fields NATO’s third-largest military. Sweden is quadrupling production of anti-tank weapons.

What NATO is doing and deterring underscores something General James Mattis observed almost a decade ago, “If we did not have NATO today, we would need to create it.”

This begs the questions: what if we did not have NATO? What if these first hundred days mark the last days of history’s greatest alliance for peace?

NATO is designed not to wage war, but to deter war. If there is any doubt about NATO’s collective-defense guarantee—and these first hundred days have created enormous doubts—Putin could be tempted to do in the Baltics what he has done in Ukraine. That would force NATO to blink or fire back. And that would lead to terrible outcomes. The former means the collapse of NATO—and with it, the entire US-led alliance system. The latter means great power war.

The best way to prevent such dire outcomes is through deterrent military strength, clarity of intent, and certainty of cause and effect. Trump’s words and actions have undermined all of these.

What the transactional Trump administration fails to recognize is that by undermining NATO, it is undermining America’s security. If a cyberattack or EMP blast or bioweapon paralyzes America; if ISIS or al Qaeda or some other terror group unleashes something worse than 9/11 or 10/7; if Moscow blinds America’s constellation of satellites; if Beijing moves against Taiwan; or if Pyongyang restarts the long-paused Korean War, America will call for help.

A post-NATO Europe may be unable or unwilling to answer.

Alan Dowd leads the Sagamore Institute Center for America’s Purpose.

FYI to the GOP on NATO was originally published on Global Security Review.

The international system is now firmly bipolar, with China’s global power rapidly increasing at a time when Russia regularly threatens to use nuclear weapons against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), influencing the administration of President Donald Trump. The combined Chinese and Russian threats are leading President Trump to warn of a possible World War III.

American power is increasingly contested, bringing new operational challenges to extended deterrence. A fundamental question is now in play—should the US abandon the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it created in 1960s and instead push its allies to field nuclear weapons?

Allies are already reconsidering their nuclear stance. In the Asia-Pacific, American ally Australia provides useful historical insights.

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Australia sought to acquire nuclear weapons in response to an unstable international order where it felt threatened by China. In 1967, Secretary of US Defense Robert McNamara said it would be “entirely natural” and “an obvious thing to happen” for Australia to acquire nuclear weapons in response to China developing them. He also expressed interest in establishing a collective nuclear organization for the Far East, “starting with Australia and the Philippines.”

Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk earlier suggested a “US-supplied Far Eastern nuclear stockpile” open to Japan and India. In 1958, others proposed the US could base intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in Australia, in the event the US decided to keep tight control of nuclear weapons in its own hands and actively worked to push its allies to agree to the NPT treaty.

There were similar debates around friendly nuclear proliferation in Europe around the same time. Aiming to regain leadership in Europe, the US proposed a multilateral nuclear force within NATO. While there were doubts over its military utility, the diplomatic discussions that started around sharing nuclear hardware and control did allow time to develop a European non-proliferation solution. In 1966, the NATO nuclear planning group was established, allowing some European allies to be involved in how and under which circumstances American weapons might be used.

The structural changes in the international system that prompted these earlier ideas are happening again. It is time to start thinking seriously about the next steps to take. The nuclear history noted suggests three broad approaches.

First, allies might build their own nuclear forces. The logic is that in a high-intensity conflict between the US and a nuclear power, the adversary may target American allies with nuclear weapons. Such an escalation demonstrates an adversary’s willingness to coerce allies into ceasing support for the United States.

This is the worst-case scenario that extended deterrence was created to prevent. If allies seriously doubt American credibility, fielding independent nuclear forces is a solution.  Indeed, economically challenged Pakistan and North Korea took this path already. For America’s allies, acquiring nuclear forces may be a lower cost option than growing their conventional forces.

Second, allies might work together to devise a modern multilateral nuclear force as considered in 1960s Europe. In the Pacific, Australia considered working with Britain on nuclear weapons in the late 1940s and 1950s; some still favor this effort. In that regard, Japan and Australia have recently acquired Tomahawk cruise missiles, which the US armed with nuclear warheads to deter Russia in the 1980s. Such weapons might be a starting point for an allied nuclear force in the eastern Pacific. As noted, the US considered deploying ICBMs in the Australian outback.

Third, another option, arguably better for American global leadership, is to address the allies’ deepening concerns over extended deterrence. This would involve the current administration actively reassuring allies that it still places importance on existing security treaties, increasing nuclear sharing and including more nations in nuclear planning, especially in the Pacific. Such steps would be at marginal cost to the US.

The most important might be nuclear sharing as this appears a tangible example of commitment. Of course, nuclear sharing is actually a misnomer since the US shares in the employment of certain nuclear weapons. It retains full control of the weapons prior to an authorization to strike a target.

The US could increase nuclear sharing with Pacific allies, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, and broaden out to other NATO nations like Poland and the Scandinavian nations, which appear to be Russia’s next target after Ukraine. These nations could then reciprocate in hosting US nuclear weapons as Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands do now.

This discussion hinges on American ambitions for global leadership. As the Trump administration pushes allies to bare a greater share of their own security while attempting to close a $2 trillion annual deficit, the US must necessarily cut costs everywhere. Thus, American allies must take a realistic look at what President Trump is seeking to accomplish with the federal budget and understand that they must step into the breach while the US sets its house in order.

Sometimes, a great power must admit that it may be in its interests to change direction and push its allies down a new, different path. In that case, the Trump administration might declare the NPT finished and instead encourage its allies to go nuclear.

Dr. Christine Leah is a Fellow at the US National Institute for Deterrence Studies and has worked on nuclear issues at Yale, MIT, and RAND and in London, Singapore, and Canberra. She is the author of The Consequences of American Nuclear Disarmament and Australia and the Bomb. Dr. Peter Layton is Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He is author of Grand Strategy and coauthor of Warfare in the Robotic Age.

Time to Proliferate Nuclear Weapons (or Not?) was originally published on Global Security Review.

This digital divide is not just about access to technology but also about the ability to harness AI’s potential for economic, social, and global political empowerment. The implications of the AI divide are leading to a tech race that impact geopolitical power dynamics, exacerbating competition major powers like the US, China, France, and India. Depending on how the race ends, it could swing the balance of power in a negative direction.

AI Paris Summit

The recent AI Action Summit held in Paris emerged as a pivotal event that highlights both the opportunities and challenges associated with this evolving AI tech race. This summit serves as a beacon of innovation, encouraging France and India to collaborate more closely, while also exposing the complex interplay of international reactions, particularly from major powers like the United States, United Kingdom (UK), and China.

The summit focused on expanding AI’s boundaries while respecting environmental and ethical obligations. France’s President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his nation’s commitment to AI innovation, while maintaining high regulatory standards that draw parallels to Notre Dame Cathedral’s restoration. Such a strategy will likely accelerate AI ventures and foster innovation.

However, the regulation proposed was also a noose around the neck of the summit’s emphasis—deregulation. It is worth considering whether drastic deregulation will lead to genuine advances or the weakening of certain crucial safety nets as the world grapples with how to handle ever expanding data and the fragmentation that result from the intersection of geopolitical interests and the private ownership of data and capability. The US and China approach the issue differently than Europe, whose adoption of the AI Act (2023) will see the first comprehensive AI regulation in the world.

Many wondered how agentic AI will impact the balance of power. Whether AI will have a net positive or negative effect is uncertain. The rate at which agentic AI is developed and adopted in the three main economic blocs of China, Europe, and the United States will determine much.

India-France AI Alliance

India and France are forming a partnership to leverage AI’s full potential globally, sharing knowledge, resources, and best practices to create a robust framework for AI initiatives and global dialogue. During the summit, leaders from both countries addressed how their alliance could facilitate joint ventures, research collaborations, and talent exchange programs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Macron foresaw great potential for future cooperation in 2019 when they endorsed the Indo-French Roadmap on Cybersecurity and Digital Technology. India and France, founding members of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, aim to develop a safe, open, secure, and ethical AI for human development and global commons.

Global Reactions

As the world watches the developments in Paris, reactions from other global powers, notably China and the United States, added another layer of complexity to the conversation around AI regulation and collaboration. In recent years, both states have invested heavily in AI research and development, seeing it as critical to their national security and economic competitiveness.

China’s approach to AI governance contrasts significantly with that of France and India. While the Chinese government prioritizes rapid innovation with minimal regulatory oversight, this led to concerns about privacy, surveillance, and ethical implications. The US, on the other hand, grapples with debates around data privacy, corporate responsibility, and the potential for AI misuse. As a result, the responses from these two states illustrate differing philosophies about how best to harness AI’s potential while safeguarding public interests.

The US and UK declined to sign a declaration on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence at the Paris summit, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology. The document was backed by 60 other signatories on February 11, 2025, including France, China, India, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

The reactions from the relevant stakeholders highlight the urgent need for international cooperation and dialogue. As AI transcends borders, creating harmonized standards and frameworks could mitigate risks associated with its deployment.

Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

The summit concluded by emphasizing the need for proactive state engagement in AI regulation, prioritizing innovation while protecting individual rights and societal values. This, participants believed, would allow the world to fully capitalize on AI’s benefits.

As the world grapples with the realities of increasingly AI-driven technology, the voices of diverse stakeholders, including technologists, ethicists, policymakers, and civil society must be heard in shaping the future of AI. Under the flag of the AI Paris Summit, the India-France AI alliance is entering into a new and more unpredictable phase. By defying red tape and cultivating a spirit of cooperation, states are setting the pace for unlocking unprecedented opportunities while highlighting the inherent challenges of this transformative technology.

Huma Rehman is a project consultant, consultant, and defense and foreign affairs analyst. She can be reached at X @HumaRehman1.

AI Paris Summit and Emerging Paradox of AI Haves and Have-Nots was originally published on Global Security Review.

As it stands, Ukraine cannot rely entirely on aid packages from Europe and especially not the US who, under Trump, is taking a much more careful role in European conflict. So far, support for Ukraine from the international community is limited, costly, and dependent on repayment either in natural resources or as the United Kingdom said, “the extraordinary profits on immobilized Russian sovereign assets.”

There are certain things which, due to their higher cost, Ukraine must receive from aid deals with foreign governments, such as missile systems and larger manned vehicles. These more expensive items must be produced by larger defense contractors as they have greater access to raw materials and a larger production budget. UAVs, however, can be produced as effectively by smaller companies which are able and willing to provide the Ukrainian government a better deal financially. Over the past few years, a German AI company, Helsing, has filled an important role in providing affordable drone systems to the Ukrainian military. Four thousand reconnaissance drones, designed and manufactured by Helsing, are already operational in Ukraine, and a recent deal was struck to provide 6,000 of their new HX-2 attack drones.

The HX-2 attack drones are similar in design to the Russian Lancet drone, produced by Russian aerospace giant ZALA, but come with a few key advantages and innovations. The HX-2 is technologically advanced and able to avoid signal disruption, a feature which can transform drone capabilities on the Ukrainian battlefield. The engagement range is also far higher, at 100 kilometers (km) compared to the Lancet’s 40–60 km. Helsing is the developer of an AI software which allows the drones to travel on missions in a swarm, where many are piloted by one individual, allowing for incredibly destructive capabilities.

The key advantage of a company like Helsing, over a larger aerospace company with a wider range of products, such as ZALA, is the significantly lower production cost, which Helsing offers. Helsing has plans to increase output, building “resilience factories” across Europe, which allow for countries to carry out domestic production.

The Ukrainian government clearly spotted some of the advantages in giving smaller defense companies the opportunity to develop new and innovative products. Brave1 is an initiative run by the Ukrainian government, where investors, engineers, defense companies, and military experts are able to meet to address some of the gaps and issues that Ukraine faces on the battlefield. The idea is to fix issues and fill gaps as fast as possible, and so far, it has been successful. The Ukrainian government incentivizes both smaller and larger technology companies to innovate by offering them a shot at a lucrative government contract.

Another similar program aimed at kickstarting innovation in the European defense industry is the Darkstar Coalition. Listed as one of the partners of Brave1, Darkstar is a team of European tech start-up owners and investors who joined forces to boost European defense. Darkstar hosted two boot camps, where small tech start-ups demonstrate their creations and compete for the winning prize: cash to expand their operations. A third boot camp will take place in Spring of 2025, with a total of €1.5 million awarded to the two most successful companies. Even companies which do not win the funding will benefit from attending, as they are given the opportunity to carry out field testing, network with other companies, gain technical advice, and potentially receive funding externally from other interested attendees. The success of the boot camps demonstrates the previously underutilized talent and innovative ability in Europe in sectors such as engineering, robotics, AI, and cybersecurity. When incentivized and supported, these smaller start-ups can have a real impact on the war in Ukraine and European security more broadly.

It is not just defense manufacturing companies that are stepping up to meet the changing requirements of the Ukrainian government, but also AI programming companies such as Swarmer are also innovating. Swarmer is a company that creates drone swarm programs with huge capabilities in modern warfare. It is also a company which is consistently present at Brave1 tech summits, meeting with investors and Ukrainian military officials.

As the war enters a new phase, with reduced support from the US and the prospect of limited support from Europe, stretching the Ukrainian defense budget as far is it will go will become even more of a priority. This is where these smaller defense and tech start-ups will thrive. Whilst giants such as Lockheed Martin, BAE, or Airbus typically fill a majority of the orders during long-term conflicts, Ukraine recognized the power in allowing smaller, newer, more nimble defense technology companies to innovate.

Raphael Chiswick is an independent author. Views expressed are his own.  

AI Defense Start-ups was originally published on Global Security Review.

Vance addressed the continents’ hostile stance on freedom of opinion. He suggested Europe is becoming the enemy they opposed during the Cold War, and with elections coming, challenged Europeans to step up and take charge of their own defense. Vance also argued that the most urgent issue shared by all nations at the conference was mass migration.

Europe is Not Unified

 Incidentally, in late 2024, Global Security Review (GSR) published an updated independent assessment of European political uncertainties. It shows that JD Vance’s statements made in February 2025 were factual and fully grounded, even if inconvenient.

The governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are fractured and dysfunctional. Another late 2024 GSR independent assessment of an endgame in Ukraine suggested an uncomfortable realpolitik-driven negotiated settlement, even before the Trump administration offered its plan after the Munich Security Conference.

That suggests two observations. First, the complete terms will never be made public but are already known to powerbrokers. Present neutrality of Russian forces in Transnistria and a lack of attacks on Ukrainian leadership suggests some form of agreed limitation of the conflict. Recently both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio remarked on Zelensky’s duplicitousness. Apparently, he would agree to terms in meetings and then lie to the media about them. The ostentatious way Zelensky ended up confronting both President Donald Trump and Vice President Vance in the Oval Office, despite the rather realistic and transactional path to settlement, only reinforces this assessment.

The indignation and moral outrage over the conflict is mostly performative for the media and the public. It gives governments cover to prolong the conflict by providing aid, winning elections, and increasing the size of their bureaucratic apparatus, along with the corrupt mechanisms endemic to Ukraine. What online outrage does not do is enable a negotiated settlement of hostilities.

After the White House debacle, President Macron arranged an emergency meeting. While President Macron again pushed for “strategic autonomy” for Europe, the emergency meeting again showed that other European countries are not getting on the France bandwagon just yet. Together with the UK, France is the most likely to send troops to Ukraine, an idea that both Germany and Poland loathe. Italy is attempting a pragmatic balancing act between Europe and the US. Regrettably, the Baltic and Nordic countries, who are the frontline against Russia and invest the most in their defense, were not represented in a meaningful way.

Second, the claims of America “abandoning” Kyiv are hyperbolic, counterfactual, and premature. This is an ongoing negotiation. The facts are clear. The US provided 0.6 percent of its 2021 GDP to Ukraine and more than $160,000,000,000 in financial assistance and munitions, just about half of all assistance Ukraine has received. This aid, unlike European aid, has no strings attached and no expectation of repayment. The US also secured billions in loans from various banks for the benefit of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the US is strategically overextended and incapable of matching the more immediate threat (China). The Trump administration understands this. Many Americans know this, too, which is why 72 percent of registered voters want a negotiated settlement. That does not mean President Trump is surrendering to Putin or “abandoning” Europe. Nor does it make him a tool of Putin.

The West is in a bad strategic and operational position. Even after three years of supporting the Ukrainian war effort, weapons production across all North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states cannot meet demand, let alone stockpile in case of war in the Pacific. While many speculate that Russia is in bad shape and is showing indicators of economic decline, they are stronger than Ukraine and its immediate neighbors.

For the West there are only two alternatives to a brokered peace: a dramatic escalation led by American conventional forces and resources or continuing to feed the war of attrition. Neither is a good scenario for the Ukrainian people who are dying by the thousands. President Trump understands this fact.

The Future of NATO

How Europe responds to the US remains to be seen. There are deeper fractures within and between the UK, France, and Germany than mainstream observers realize. The only ones significantly expanding their militaries and cooperating with the US are Poland, the Baltic states, and the Nordic countries.

As for the United States’ participation in NATO, it should be scaled back over time and be contingent on shared values with partner nations, especially when it comes to freedom of conscience and speech. Countries like Denmark, who believe Russia will invade Europe in 5 years, should expand their militaries and demonstrate not only commitment to liberal values but self-defense. The United States cannot fund its welfare state and those of Europe. Americans are not that wealthy.

American involvement in NATO should be primarily limited to (1) logistics (air and sea transport to Europe); (2) support in the form of weaponry, materiel, and war support materiel; (3) maintaining freedom of the seas; and 4) developing missile defense systems that can serve American and, when purchased, NATO. The United States also has unmatched space capabilities.

There should be no expectation of American boots on the ground simply because Europe neglected its security obligations for nearly 30 years. While there is still immense value in joint training and cooperation, the US should be seen as a rear guard and a last resort force. American taxpayers should not be the primary funder and provider of military forces and capability for Europe.

It is difficult to expect any long-term peace to be possible so long as NATO serves primarily as an anti-Russia platform funded by the United States. Europeans need to solve their own problems without vilifying the United States for solving American problems first. This means Eastern Europe needs to secure the buy-in of countries like Italy and Spain, who do not feel the Russian threat. As Vice President Vance suggested in Munich, Europeans must reflect on what they are defending and not just what they are against.

Europe is their continent and their home. It is their responsibility and duty to be the primary protectors of their individual nations and European society. Unfortunately, Europe does not appear to be ready to make a unified effort. Nonetheless, the proposal by the newly elected German chancellor, which calls for France and the United Kingdom to share their nuclear deterrent, might be a first concrete step in the right direction.

Michael Fincher is a Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed are the authors’ own.

The US and Europe: A Reality Check was originally published on Global Security Review.

Professional diplomats in the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies might have wondered if this was an unrehearsed skit from Saturday Night Live.  Only Alec Baldwin playing the role of Trump was missing. Allies do not talk to each other like in front of the media.

It was clear that Trump and Vice President JD Vance expected to have a pleasant conversation in front of the cameras, have a nice private lunch, and then publicly sign a mineral deal with President Zelensky. They did not expect the pushback and demands that came near the end of the conversation. As a famous French diplomat once said, with respect to another diplomatic blunder, it was “worse than a crime. It was a mistake.”

Zelensky ended up being unceremoniously escorted out of the White House without lunch or a deal. The agreement that would allow the United States to mine rare Earth minerals in Ukraine was that it would repay the United States for the more than $160 billion that American taxpayers have invested in Ukraine’s defense. Profits from American mining operations would also help rebuild Ukraine. American businesses operating in Ukraine would also offer de facto security guarantees to Ukraine. Absent such an agreement, it was feared that China may partner with Ukraine to mine these critical minerals.

While President Trump is likely genuine in his desire to see the killing end and Ukraine rebuilt, Ukraine is only a small part of a larger strategic game the United States is playing. The Trump administration believes that Europe is no longer the strategic pivot of international relations. Instead, the focal point of American diplomacy and military preparedness is the Far East, with a rising China as the main adversary standing in the way of American global leadership and international influence. Europe is a secondary theater of operations, and it is time Europeans bare the burden of their own defense.

This view is a tectonic shift in American focus, but understandable. China has ambitions that go well beyond military and political competition with the United States in China’s backyard.

China’s global strategy of multi-domain competition with the US includes all spheres of power and influence. Its tool kit includes explicit challenges to the United States in the development and deployment of nuclear weapons, the military use of space, artificial intelligence development, cyberwar, and economic influence.

China’s ambitious naval expansion may fall short of driving the US Navy from the high seas, but its combined arms approach to anti-access and area denial (A2AD) in East Asia is intended to deter and, if necessary, defeat any power that would oppose China’s mastery of its immediate sphere of influence, including Taiwan.

Nevertheless, recognition of the threat posed by a rising China does not invalidate the strategic significance of events in Europe. America’s commitment to the defense and security of a free Europe is not transactional, it is existential. This is embodied in the NATO alliance.

NATO is the result of symbiotic relationships among democratic states that provide collective security within a context of political freedom. Ironically, this is why JD Vance’s challenge to European allies at the Munich Security Conference was so interesting. Vance noted that the United States and Europe are linked, not only by procedures and financial commitments, but also by shared values, including free speech. He rightly urged the European members of NATO and the European Union to enhance their commitments to free speech that, in his view, are in decline across Europe.

Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, with its objective of destroying Ukraine’s armed forces, economy, infrastructure and its viability as a state is clearly grossly immoral. But evil in the world is nothing new, nor is it incumbent on the American taxpayer to fund every effort to eradicate all evil in the world. American efforts to impose liberal democracies where they do not exist has a poor track record of success.

Europe was the cradle of American civilization, but Americans fled Europe because of religious persecution, a lack of economic opportunity, and other reasons that are inconsistent with freedom. Doubtless, Zelensky and other European politicians drive their American partners crazy at times. During the Second World War, Charles de Gaulle drove British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower to distraction.  But the imperious de Gaulle was the symbol of French nationalism for those who opposed Germany and the Vichy regime.

An American abandonment of a free Europe would leave Europe to repeat its past mistakes, which the continent has repeated over and over and over again. Zelensky is far from an ideal partner. However, a Ukraine swallowed by Russia will result in a less stable Europe.

Vladimir Putin clearly sees a free Ukraine as a political and economic threat to Russia.  He denies that Ukraine is a distinct civilization or country. He constantly refers to Ukrainians as neo-Nazis. A negotiated settlement will not change this perspective. Any agreement with Putin must follow President Ronald Reagan’s dictum, trust but verify.

Ironically, one outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine is the enlargement of NATO with the addition of Finland and Sweden. Thus, NATO added considerable strategic depth and an ability to prevent Russian ships from leaving port in the Baltic Sea. Without the United States, European NATO may waiver. In the end, President Trump’s efforts to push European states to play a larger role in their own security are important, but they should never lead to an American departure from the Alliance.

Stephen Cimbala, PhD, is a Professor at Penn State University at Brandywine and a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Trump and Zelensky: Bad Manners or Strategic Disaster? was originally published on Global Security Review.

In the UK, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, gross domestic product (GDP) growth has stalled. PM Starmer committed to spending at least 2.5 percent of GDP on defense. However, funding has not materialized. A clear plan for future UK defense may not emerge until the Summer of 2025.

In Germany, left-of-center Chancellor Scholz dissolved his coalition, and the Christian Democratic Union’s Friedrich Merz is expected to take over with a right-of-center coalition after snap elections in the first quarter of 2025. However, the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose leader recently chatted with Elon Musk, remains a wild card. Germany has yet to define and fund its defense budget at the 2 percent of GDP threshold.

Chancellor Scholz, who paid a last visit to Ukraine in early December 2024, committed to deliver Patriot systems in 2025. Merz wants to up the ante with the delivery of Taurus medium-range missiles to Kyiv. While the Ukraine dossier is being used as a political football, a root cause of the problem is that NATO’s defense math just does not add up.

In France, the downfall of the Barnier government stems from rejection of his budget. The new centrist prime minister François Bayrou now faces the same budgetary dead-end and parliamentary gridlock. Barnier was punished for trying to reduce the French deficit to 5 percent of GDP in 2025. The European Union (EU) rule is 3 percent as the maximum.

France’s current deficit is over 6 percent of GDP and might end up closer to 7 percent. France is in third place for debt-to-GDP ratio at 111 percent. Only Greece and Italy have a worse situation.

The EU average is 82 percent, with Germany maintaining a healthy 62 percent. There is a looming debt crisis, and it will not be possible to kick the can down the road forever. France already passed its 2024–2030 Military Programming Act (Loi de Programmation Militaire).

President Macron is committed to seeing it through until the 2027 presidential election. Yet the funding needs to be in place for France to remain the top European spender in civilian and military space.

At the other end of the spectrum is Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden. These Nordic and Baltic states clearly lead the way, as they are all becoming increasingly significant players in European security. In particular, Sweden and Finland’s membership in NATO plays a central role in securing the High North and deterring Russia, as these two countries continue to supercharge NATO’s deterrence.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his economy on a war footing. His defense budget steadily increased over the past two years. Of course, this strains society’s resources and patience after nearly three years of war. The vast majority of Russian society is wired to bite the bullet and take the pain for as long as necessary until an endgame pans out. And for good measure, Putin will maintain his nuclear swagger at the highest level.

For the West, it is time to think deeply about deterring the use of low-yield theater nuclear weapons. This is a capability that not only Russia but China has deployed in great numbers and is in the process of augmenting.

The latest uncertainty comes from NATO member Romania. The courts unexpectedly nullified the results of the first round of presidential elections—deeming them unlawful because of alleged Russian interference.

The establishment candidate, who favors EU and NATO, is likely to win. But blaming the surge on an alleged TikTok-driven Russian conspiracy misses the deeper picture: across Europe, from France to Germany to Austria to Hungary to Romania, there is a rising wave of discontent with the current European order. Thus, “extremist” parties are supported in disrupting mainstream left-of-center politics.

The grapes of wrath stem from stalled economies, unwanted immigration from Africa and the Middle East, growing crime and social disruption, and a welfare state that cannot afford both native born citizens and the influx of immigrants. Europe’s wealth level gap with the United States is 30 percent and growing.

By culture, Europe disdains billionaires and even taxes or tries to interdict their free speech, as exemplified in a recent exchange on X (Twitter) between former European Commissioner Thierry Breton and Elon Musk. Not wired for animal instinct, creative destruction, freedom of innovation, entrepreneurship, and disruptive capitalism, European socialism loathes wealth creation as a positive value.

Even though history shows that socialism only leads to failure, or, in the words of Lady Thatcher, “running out of other people’s money,” Europeans tend to shrug and call that state of things “Venezuela without the sun.”

As long as this does not change, the best and the brightest will keep flocking to the US, be it from India, Latin America, or South Africa. To say that it is time for Europe to get its act together would be an understatement. Europe needs to understand that it can never develop into an autonomous power without the free creation of wealth, which is required to fund the defenses Europe requires.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

More Political Uncertainties Affecting Europe’s Defense Build-up was originally published on Global Security Review.

Prior to their defeat, the UK’s Conservatives advocated for raising defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030, higher than NATO’s existing 2 percent goal for member states. Their 14-year record left much to be desired with programs cancelled, defense investment waning, and the British armed forces nearly “hollowed out.” Enter Labour, which also pledged to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defense, subject to streamlining government finances. With an unwavering commitment to NATO and the UK’s nuclear deterrent, such an increase may be possible.

However, Labour’s immediate decision was to declare a “strategic” pause on the 6th-generation aircraft program whilst they investigate its feasibility. Chief of the General Staff General Sir Roland Walker predicted that Britain must be ready within three years to fight a war against an “axis of upheaval” of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. And when delivering his closing keynote address at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Land Warfare Conference (2024), Walker declared that he intends to double the Army in three years and triple it by 2030.

In France, foreign and defense policy are reserved for the president. However, it is the parliament that controls the purse, which is problematic when the president’s party does not hold a majority in parliament—the case for Macron. Because Macron was concerned with the strong showing of the “far right” National Rally in European Parliament elections, he abruptly dissolved the French Parliament, calling for constitutionally scripted elections in two rounds, for its 577 members (called “députés”) to be renewed.

The first round saw the National Rally come in first place, followed by an improvised grouping of “far left” communists, socialists, and greens, with Macron’s centrist party shrinking and the center-right Les Républicains barely surviving. Tactical voting in the second round had Macron’s party and the hastily coalesced left mutually desist to prevent the right-leaning candidates from reaching an absolute majority. This resulted in a hung parliament, with no pathway for coalitions leading to an absolute majority from which a prime minister could be selected.

Because of France’s election outcome, Macron might wait until September to nominate a prime minister. No one knows from which party the prime minister will come. The key is choosing a person who can ensure the government survives any parliamentary motion to terminate the government. Thus, it remains unclear how the potential ungovernability of France, until the 2027 presidential election, may affect defense policy.

The European Parliament’s swing to the right weakened German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social-Democrat Party and his Green Party allies. Former German defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, recently won reelection to the presidency of the European Commission by a more comfortable margin than five years ago, grabbing the vote of Green Party members. She pledged to implement the Green Deal, albeit in diluted form. Von der Leyen also received support from Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni, who leads the right-wing coalition immediately on von der Leyen’s right, though not as “far” right as the coalition led by French National Rally’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Victor Orban. As president of the European Commission, von der Leyen offers strong support for Ukraine, and stronger European defense—in areas where the European Commission can sway what national governments plan and implement.

At the NATO 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC, the national leaders of member-states issued a plan for the next year, calling Ukraine’s path to membership in the alliance “irreversible.” That statement follows a document issued by NATO at the 2023 Vilnius, Lithuania, summit. For NATO accession to start, a country should not be involved in on-going conflict. So even if the NATO accession process could be accelerated for Ukraine, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was not given an accession schedule.

In February 2024, at the annual Munich Security Conference, long before his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance rang alarm bells among Europe’s political and foreign policy elites when he voiced his opposition to military aid for Ukraine and bluntly warned that Europe will have to rely less on the US to support NATO. Political rhetoric has a place in American elections, but the fact is, American presidents change their views as resources tighten.

Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris win the White House in November, the United States faces fiscal constraints in the years ahead because it faces a national debt that now exceeds defense spending. A perfect storm driven by the “Axis of Upheaval” may absorb American capability in the Indo-Pacific while the US is stretched thin elsewhere.

Europeans may signal which candidate they perceive as more hostile to their interest, but it is the geopolitical and budgetary math that ultimately shapes the nature of alliances. Unless Europe tackles the harsh reality that it must take its own defense seriously, French President Macron will be proven right after he once argued that it was not only an issue of sovereignty, but a matter of survival for Europe. How that works politically and fiscally is for Europe to figure out.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Political Uncertainties Are Affecting Europe’s Defense Buildup was originally published on Global Security Review.

Consequently, both nonproliferation and deterrence are under sustained attacks on multiple, interactive fronts as is any concept of international order or security. These threats challenge not only Washington but also allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This is leading to significant increases in conventional and nuclear weapons spending in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia (India) and East Asia in reaction to Russo-Chinese, Russo-North Korean, and other threats.

It is important to understand that these nuclear and conventional threats are linked. In Ukraine, Putin began brandishing nuclear threats early in the war to allow the Russian army to proceed without the threat of Western intervention or sustained weapons supply. Iran too uses its accelerating nuclear, missile, and drone programs to extend its deterrence to its terrorist clients so that they can put Israel and Red Sea shipping at risk. The Russo-North Korean alliance similarly raises the likelihood of Pyongyang acquiring new satellite, missile, and, possibly, nuclear technologies with which it can emulate Moscow and Tehran. Meanwhile, China continues to threaten Taiwan, the Philippines, and even India, always with the threat of more attacks in the background. At the same time, Chinese aid to Russia, in the form of technology exports, is probably vital to Russian aggression.

Thus, deterrence, nonproliferation, the international order, and, more specifically, the US and its allies are all under growing threat. Rhetoric aside, the next president after the November 2024 elections must confront these unpalatable facts and speak frankly about how the nation must meet them. To sustain and reform, and it is clear the Pentagon is failing to meet the challenge, it is necessary to rebuild both conventional and nuclear deterrence as allies in Europe and Asia are doing.

To do that, the American economy requires reinvigoration. The necessity for higher defense spending is competing with unprecedented levels of social spending at a time when the nation now spends as much each year to service the national debt as it spends on defense. This economic approach is unsustainable. Unfortunately, there is no royal road to fiscal stability other than raising taxes. The best hope for the country is to grow the economy and exercise fiscal discipline while rebuilding the nation’s military.

The revitalization of American defenses requires extensive and continuous modernization of both the conventional and nuclear forces. That probably includes both a qualitative and quantitative increase in the nuclear arsenal. Undoubtedly the partisans of anti-nuclear policies will be outraged by this. But the conclusions of governmental reports and America’s adversaries’ unrelenting nuclear programs are stubborn facts that these partisans refuse to acknowledge at ever-rising risk to international security. The only way to prevent or at least arrest proliferation and threats to deterrence is this dual-track policy of conventional and nuclear modernization and reform. And this truth applies as well to allies who have already begun to implement this policy.

An improved allied conventional capability in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East allows the United States and its allies to deter future threats at the lowest level of deterrence or thwart aggression because of improved strategic unity and military superiority, backed by economic primacy. This will also deter attempts to use, for example, Russian nuclear weapons as a shield for a failed conventional war in Ukraine. It is also important to deter terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah from attacking Israel, the United States, or other Western targets. This includes Houthi attacks on international shipping.

Moreover, the launching of such projects will also make clear to Putin, for example, that his attempts to globalize the failed war in Ukraine to rescue his regime by threatening nuclear or peripheral wars are doomed to failure. If the United States and its allies engage in the efforts suggested, it is also likely that Beijing will conclude that it cannot overcome allied deterrence in India, the Philippines, the South China Sea, Taiwan, or elsewhere. The objective is always the maintenance of peace.

Critics will complain that this program of defense growth and strengthening is a wartime program. Unfortunately, they have yet to realize that the American-led international order is under sustained and continuous attack and has been for several years. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are all states that validate the American radical Randolph Bourne’s insight that “[w]ar is the health of the state.” Indeed, it is the only way they can sustain their states. Therefore, in a nuclear world they must be deterred now before they can infect others with their poison.

Stephen Blank, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed are the author’s own.

The Emerging Nuclear Scenario was originally published on Global Security Review.

While the military supplement package is undoubtedly beneficial, it falls short of grappling with the deeper strategic complexities of the conflict. The war in Ukraine is not merely a matter of tactical engagements. It is a multifaceted struggle that demands a comprehensive approach.

The cyclical nature of military aid inadvertently creates vulnerabilities. As obstacles arise—whether due to domestic political debates, bureaucracy, or logistic challenges—a new gap in Ukraine’s defense could emerge. With each step forward, Russian forces entrench themselves deeper into Ukrainian territory, making subsequent efforts to reclaim lost ground more resource-intensive and costly in terms of human lives. Russia has already switched to an exhaustion strategy that is too costly for Ukraine.

While the current rate of military aid may bolster Ukraine’s defense, it is unlikely to afford Ukrainian forces the opportunity for a counteroffensive or strategic initiative that can secure victory. As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Washington looms, the prevailing stance in the US and Europe is to persist in providing life support for Ukraine, yet refrain from confronting Russia, the root cause of Ukraine’s tragedy. This approach affords the Kremlin increased confidence and time to adapt its war economy.

By choosing political passivity and refraining from adopting a counter-offensive stance against Russia, Western democracies are gradually ceding their global influence. The strategic choice—or, more accurately, the strategic indecisiveness—to remain in a passive-defensive mode against Russia extends beyond the relationship between Western democracies and Russia. The war in Ukraine is but a single theater in a much larger conflict—a third world war, to be blunt—where the free world is pitted against authoritarian regimes. China, Iran, and North Korea already emerged as major supporting actors on Russia’s side, fully cognizant that their fight is not against Ukraine, but an indirect war with Western democracies.

For China, the war in Ukraine holds paramount importance. By supplying military components and dual-use technologies to Russia, and purchasing Russian oil and gas, China can gauge not only the effectiveness of economic sanctions on a large authoritarian state, but also the seriousness of the US and European countries in implementing full-scale isolation of the aggressor. This could be a pivotal factor in the future, particularly when assessing the impact of potential economic isolation from Western democracies towards China, for instance, in a scenario involving an assault on or blockade of Taiwan.

As one report indicates, China is already the largest single exporter of key military goods to Russia. This clearly reveals Beijing’s strategic posture on the war. Chinese communist leaders aim to defeat Western powers in Ukraine by exposing democracies as unable to compete with the authoritarian axis in terms of political will, efficient strategic decisions, and even by depleting the military reserves of NATO countries and the readiness of democratic societies to fight for democratic values.

Despite these challenges, the Biden administration persists in seeking dialogue with China, even with the knowledge that China attempts to “influence and arguably interfere” with the upcoming election in the United States. However, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to China demonstrated that Beijing does not seem inclined towards meaningful conversations with Washington. It appears that Chinese leaders already assessed the Ukraine-Russia war in terms of Western resolve to fight back. These conclusions bolster Beijing’s confidence that the US and NATO allies are too timid, too slow, and too preoccupied with domestic political issues to assert themselves against Russia.

The war in Ukraine is likely the initial phase of a much longer and more complex war between the US and China, as leaders of diametrically opposed blocs in the current global landscape. This initial phase could culminate in a victory for China if Western democracies fail to adopt a robust stance and enter a counter-offensive mode against Russia.

NATO must dissuade Russia that it fears the dubious escalation risk, a narrative heavily promoted by the Kremlin’s propaganda, to prevent genuine NATO membership accession talks with Ukraine. This would send an unequivocal signal that Russia is incapable of conquering Ukraine, regardless of the duration of their attempts. And Ukrainians, armed with military supplies from NATO, will do everything in their power to liberate the occupied territories from Russian control. This is the path forward for Western democracies to re-assert their global role and uphold democratic values.

Tomas Janeliūnas is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, and a professor of international relations at Vilnius University, Lithuania. At X: @TomasJaneliunas The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

The Strategic Contest in Ukraine: A Pivotal War Foreshadowing a Major US-China Conflict was originally published on Global Security Review.

European nations’ responses to the Russia challenge remain fragmented. They also show little concern about threats from China and North Korea. This led to a lack of strategic alignment between the US and Europe on the problem of facing the combined threat of China, North Korea, and Russia.

France and Germany prevented the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from qualifying China as a threat. France also torpedoed a NATO attempt to open a representative office in Japan. Neither does Europe plan to get involved in a Taiwan conflict. Max Hoell, during his talk, said, “European strategic autonomy thus appears to translate into a quasi-equidistance between Washington and Beijing.” This perspective appears correct.

The European political discourse is replete with concerns that a second Donald Trump presidency will usher in a post-NATO world. Such concerns miss the point. Regardless of who is in the White House in Washington, DC, the views of American presidents evolve as resources become finite. Europe needs to step up to the plate and not only pay their fair share for Europe’s defense, but also understand the need for a division of labor to defend a world threatened by revisionist powers. British and French deterrence face a credibility challenge. If faced with a conflict against China or Russia, Europe’s nuclear arsenals may not deter absent American support.

Realpolitik is to advocate a stronger transatlantic cooperation in extended deterrence. To rely solely on national European deterrence introduces reliability issues, such as the security of one country depending on the presidential power of another. Certain political parties, if victorious in French or German elections, would opt to appease China and Russia—possibly ending NATO and a European nuclear deterrent. Ideally, Europe should increase its contributions to deterrence efforts, including strategic alignment with NATO, increasing defense spending, and expanding European nuclear capabilities within the framework of transatlantic cooperation.

There is a need, though, for political leadership to engage domestic audiences in understanding the importance of nuclear deterrence to garner support for necessary security policies. Educating the public on nuclear realities and strategic imperatives is vital. European nations should continue evaluating their security strategies in light of evolving geopolitical dynamics and disruptive technological advancements. Only modernization can ensure adaptability and effectiveness in deterrence efforts.

Practically speaking, what are the options for a European nuclear deterrent involving France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) that operate in concert with the United States? A joint European nuclear force, unified under joint command and control involving France, Germany, and the UK, could provide a deterrent against threats to European security, but at a level well below that of Russia. Another option, an Anglo-French nuclear umbrella under a bilateral arrangement between the UK and France to cover other European nations, could provide security guarantees and potentially share nuclear assets.

Independently maintaining and enhancing European nuclear capabilities and further developing their own nuclear arsenal and deterrence strategy may be a necessary step. But that would further fragment the approach to European security. Alternatively, Europe could create a European federation where a unified nuclear force is established. Spearheaded by France, Germany, and the UK, it could support a “European Federation Nuclear Force.” This option, which is no less than the Holy Grail of European unity and strategic autonomy, would require significant political integration and coordination among European states. Nationalist tendencies would prove problematic. This not only sounds far-fetched, based on decades of previous attempts, but the contemporary climate of election interference and electoral tactics make it not only a remote prospect, but also a repellant to a majority of voters.

A fiscally sustainable endgame could be an expanded NATO nuclear-sharing agreement, with additional European countries sharing the burden of nuclear responsibilities within the alliance, together with France and the UK. The feasibility and desirability of these options would depend on various factors, including intra-European political will and transatlantic cooperation, while getting the China and Russia strategic picture right. A combination of realist threat perception and American-led deterrence realpolitik can generate the kind of tremendous pressure under which Europe will prove itself to be adaptive and step up to demonstrate its ability to lead and deter.

Christophe Bosquillon has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Rebuilding a Credible European Nuclear Deterrent was originally published on Global Security Review.

In Washington policy and political circles, the former President’s comments are met with both shock and disdain. The familiar tropes about the indispensability of the Western alliance and the civilizational connection with Europe are trotted out to defend NATO. In the Pentagon, there is even an optimistic belief that Europe is the security partner of future expeditionary missions around the world.

While Trump may talk like a shock jock, what he says about NATO and Europe hold true. Unless some tough love is imposed on the Europeans, American taxpayers will foot Europe’s security bill indefinitely. What Europe needs to understand is that America is changing, and with it Europe’s free pass is getting rescinded.

The Demographic Transition

One reason the Trans-Atlantic political and military alliance will change is the demographic transition in both the United States and Europe. In the US, by about 2045, citizens not of European extraction become a slim majority. Surveys of the next generation show that the affinity for Europe and with traditional American foreign policy imperatives is shrinking. The younger generation’s position on the Palestine-Israel conflict is a case in point. Latinos, Asians, and black Americans do not have emotional ties to Europe. They are, therefore, less inclined to tolerate and support the subsidizing of European defense efforts.

Instead, much like Trump, they will call on Europe to pay its bills. Europe, however, cannot pay those bills since it is an aging society with a large welfare state. As Table 1 shows, major European societies are rapidly aging. Not only that, but their median age is also going to rise to the extent that they will have a hard time fielding women and men of a fighting age.

 Table 1

Source:  Data retrieved from UN Population Revision 2019. (These numbers do not account for the recent population transfer from Ukraine to Russia or to the millions of Ukrainian refugees now in other parts of Europe who are unlikely to return.)

These numbers paint a bleak future. The nations listed above have the largest and most capable armed forces among NATO. In short, they all have greying populations and, by 2030, except for Turkey, will have a median age that is greater than 40. Italy, for example, is in serious demographic trouble with a median age of 50.8. Spain and Greece also have a median age of nearly 50. Worse, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain are all going to see a major decline in their populations. The priority of these countries is focused on meeting the social needs of their populations—something which is very expensive and can only come at the cost of reduced defense expenditure.

The other big problem for the Europeans is finding people who are willing to join the armed forces. After the Cold War, most European countries eliminated conscription. Reintroducing it would be political suicide for even the most conservative politician. Thus, while German Prime Minister Olof Schulz has committed 100 billion euros to defense modernization, he cannot realistically bring about force expansion without bringing back conscription. Further, 100 billion euros are not primarily going to buy more weapons but, instead, refurbish and modernize the existing force, much of which is mothballed.

The fact that the European nations lack manpower and the fact that rebuilding the forces will be expensive leads to the modest size of the militaries of the major NATO countries (as shown in Table 2). The question then arises, how many troops and weapons can these nations realistically field in modern combat? The answer is very few as these countries are likely to be casualty averse given their shrinking and aging demographics.

Table 2: Cuts in Force Levels of Major European Nations

Source: The Military Balance [IISS: London], 1972, 2017, and 2023 editions.

The Two Percent Myth

The other myth that Europe must stop hyping is that of how these countries are going to reach 2 percent of GDP in their defense spending. A remilitarization of Europe would require the Germans to cross the 2 percent threshold, but, by the end of 2022, the German government was admitting that it is unlikely to raise defense expenditure to 2 percent of GDP.

Table 3: NATO Defense Expenditure as a Percentage of GDP, 2023

Source: Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014–2023), NATO Communique, July 7, 2023.

            The news is not all bad. Those NATO member-states who most fear Russia, or, in the cases of Greece and Turkey, are spending the required 2 percent of GDP on defense. However, except for the United Kingdom, the further geographically from Russia a NATO member-state gets, the less the country spends on defense.

Table 4: NATO Nations Spending Two Percent of GDP on Defense

Source: Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014–2023), NATO Communique, July 7, 2023.

With only a third of NATO member-states contributing 2 percent of GDP, it begs the question to what end? Estonia, for example, has a population is 1.3 million. Is 2 percent of Estonia’s small GDP a meaningful contribution to the Continent’s collective defense? Latvia, similarly, has 1.9 million citizens. Lithuania has 2.79 million citizens. In practical terms, this means that for credible militarization the rich and populous states of Europe need to reach a similar level of defense expenditures.

Most NATO nations intend to raise their defense expenditure to 2 percent by 2026. Italy and Spain expect to reach it by 2028 and 2029, respectively. This is, however, a medium-term projection which does not consider the state of the economy. Neither does it explain where funding will come from. The social democracies of Europe are unlikely to agree to a transfer of resources from social welfare programs to defense expenditures. In fact, with rapidly aging populations the cost of elderly care will grow.

The other alternative, raising taxes, is unpopular in European societies, which already carry a heavy individual tax burden. Further, in some countries, notably Britain, the prevailing mood is to cut taxes, making it unfeasible to ask the citizenry to agree to a tax increase to fund defense expenditures. The question arises, therefore, where will the money come from to pay for new weapons, the development of a defense infrastructure, and the intake of more troops to boost larger military formations?

A European Nuclear Deterrent

 One way out is for Europe to field a Euro-centric nuclear umbrella. Talk is already ongoing as some suggest the French nuclear force transform into one requiring joint authority to permit employment. The British nuclear force, since 1962, has been committed to the protection of NATO members.

One way to achieve this integration painlessly would be to state which missions fell under the purview of the French or British nuclear authority and which would be covered by the joint command. Thus, a French decision to use a tactical nuclear weapon in response to a 9/11-style terror attack, for example, would be the country’s sovereign right while a Russian assault would fall under the category of a jointly authorized strike. NATO member states would contribute to the cost of maintaining and fielding the force—perhaps increasing its size and capability.

One can also speculate on whether other NATO states may decide to cross the nuclear Rubicon given the changed security environment on the continent. Sweden and Poland would certainly fall into this category given their fears of Russian expansionism. If this happens, it is well within the scope of nonproliferation laws since countries are allowed to leave the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty if their core security interests are threatened (The problem for the US, however, is how to prevent non-Western states from taking a similar step).

While this may compensate for the inability to field adequate forces it would certainly meet with considerable opposition from the peace groups in Europe and the general population which is wary of nuclearization.   Which then brings the issue back to the need for conventional militarization.

Fielding capable militaries that can defend Europe and project power in alliance with the United States requires NATO member-states to make hard choices about spending and compulsory military service. For the reasons cited above that is unlikely. For the United States, therefore, the best course of action is to redefine its commitment to Europe and let the continent make the diplomatic and political compromises needed to bring about regional stability.

For those in the Pentagon who think Europe is a partner to help maintain global security, it is time to look for new security alliances. The evidence is clear. Europe has neither the funds nor the manpower to be a partner of the United States.

Amit Gupta was on the faculty of the USAF Air War College and is now a Senior Advisor on Peace and Conflict Resolution to the Forum of Federations, Ottawa. The views in this piece are his. He may be contacted at agupta1856@gmail.com.

Is Trump Right About Europe? was originally published on Global Security Review.

The European Commission is the European Union’s (EU) executive arm, responsible for drafting legislative proposals. It also implements the decisions of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. This means the EC calls the shots when it comes to the outline of policy. For EU member-states, they must balance national interest against the sovereignty relinquished to the EC.

Breton, the current Commissioner for the European Union Internal Market at the European Commission, leads, among many markets, the space sector. His political mandate is to ensure European access to space. Furthermore, Timo Personen, head of the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space at the EC, made it clear that Europe must take responsibility of its own defense in space.

While the European Commission’s key actions for 2024 start with the creation of a single market for space, regaining independent access to space begins with Ariane VI and Vega-C, which are set to become operational this year. Additional launch programs are also coming, protecting space systems and boosting space commercialization are also important.

Commissioner Breton put an emphasis on delivering new services for space defense needs. The EU’s efforts to address challenges, foster innovation, and deliver strategic autonomy in space appear to be serious efforts this time around. And while these remain forward-looking statements, the new European Strategy for Security and Defense and the above-mentioned EC decisions are triggering a renewed dynamic of bolder and better aligned European leadership and stronger political will in upgrading its defense. This is all while reckoning with the central role the space domain will play. Including proper capacity-building for the new European secure connectivity satellites constellation IRIS2—pending resolution of current issues—is also an important move.

While the EC is taking over European space policy, starting with independent launch and defense, there is still a role left to national space agencies and the European Space Agency (ESA) itself. ESA will remain in its various roles and funded by individual member states. These agencies, including ESA, have mandates in space science and exploration—cis/lunar space and beyond—and anything “space for Earth,” such as Earth observation supporting downstream data markets.

ESA is also deeply involved in space-based solar power studies, and its overall activity goes far beyond launch. However, the current programing, funding, and execution model for Western space agencies is a question. One may wonder whether that model remains relevant, also looking at the weight of the military among Indo-Pacific space powers. Should European nations relinquish the leadership and execution of land, maritime, and air economies and defense to agencies respectively in charge of agriculture and forestry, oceanography, and atmospheric studies? Of course not, but then why are they doing exactly that in the space domain?

For example, Europe has shipyards that are owned by the government, the private sector, or a combination of both, and they serve military and civilian markets. Some would argue that the current space agency model is simply broken. Many also believe that commercial and economic space development, together with defense, should eventually be tackled by organizations that are fit-for-purpose. The mindset for such purposes is not prevalent among space agencies, satisfied with basic science and exploration only. Setting up fit-for-purpose organizations would not exclude cooperation with space agencies, but it would streamline the policy budgeting and execution for each purpose.

The doubts expressed by Mike Griffin concerning the Artemis program is one example. Such concerns may eventually lead to considerations about what forms or organizations are fit-for-purpose to effectively run economic development and defense programs in space—on budget and on schedule. However, major institutional changes in the foreseeable future should not be the expectation.

As the Biden administration and Congress further address the defense of the United States, the space domain looms large. Defense of national interest needs to continue to involve deep engagement and multi-domain cooperation with Indo-Pacific, Middle East, and European allies—space included. It sounds strategically and fiscally reasonable to expect allies to provide a stronger contribution to their own defense and the joint-interest of collective defense. Should NATO require serious recalibration, that might start with aligning the actual weight of European contributions with the rhetoric. European states need to walk the walk of “strategic autonomy” by taking responsibility, starting with some fiscally irreversible defense and security engagement in the space domain.

Europeans must take charge of their own defense, focusing on space. Commissioner Breton decided, the EU will take substantially increased responsibility for its own defense as part of the alliance—an essential step to taking the alliance to the next level. It is crucial for a fiscally responsible EU to shoulder its fair share of the burden. Seen from an orbital space perspective, it becomes apparent that the security of the alliance goes beyond the North Atlantic. The Arctic, the Eurasian continental plate, and Indo-Pacific all matter. Europe is better off if it fosters alliances/partnerships and advocates for policymakers who support such policies.

Christophe Bosquillon has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. The views in this article are the authors own.  

European Commission: Taking Charge of Space Defense was originally published on Global Security Review.

The recent defense bill passed by Congress fully supports the Sentinel program. The Strategic Posture Commission report also supports the replacement of the Minuteman III ICBM, although the commission also recommends the US examine making some portion of the ICBM force mobile. The ACA rejects efforts to make ICBMs more survivable and recommends the elimination of all American ICBMs, a switch from their previous view that the US should keep the 54-year-old Minuteman III as an alternative to Sentinel.

ICBM mobility was reviewed by previous administrations in detail, but due to opposition from environmental groups and disarmament advocates, mobile ICBMs never received the political support needed. In 1977, just after President Jimmy Carter proposed the fielding of 200 mobile MX missiles, two senators, Howard Cannon (D-NV) and Frank Moss (D-UT), cleverly proposed to the Senate Armed Services Committee that Utah and Nevada would deploy one hundred mobile MX missiles but required another state accept the other half of the force. As they anticipated, there were no takers. Thus, the nation never fielded a mobile MX missile.

In 1983, a combined mobile and fixed ICBM force that included the multi-warhead Peacekeeper and the single warhead Small ICBM, were both recommended by the congressionally mandated Scowcroft Commission. The dual system approach, noted Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-WY), was made because “[y]ou cannot make an elephant a rabbit and you can’t make a rabbit an elephant!”

In 1986, the Air Force fielded 50 Peacekeeper missiles in silos, as part of President Ronald Reagan’s nuclear modernization. However, with the end of the Cold War and a 50 percent cut to warheads under START I, plans for road-mobile Small ICBM and rail-mobile Peacekeeper missiles were both terminated.

Now, four decades later, with a nuclear arsenal 90 percent smaller than during the Cold War, the ACA rejects ICBMs altogether, whether fixed or mobile. In reality, their idea makes nuclear war more likely and does not address new strategic developments.

The most likely use of nuclear weapons is no longer a massive bolt-out-of-the blue strike, which arms control advocates cite as part of their rationale for eliminating the ICBM. The recent Strategic Posture Commission report unanimously concluded, as Mark Schneider explains, the most likely use of nuclear weapons against the United States is a coercive, but limited, nuclear strike as part of a regional conflict by Russia or China.

Within Russian strategy, limited strikes are part of an escalate to win approach that does not include strikes on American ICBMs. In fact, the very point of employing lower-yield tactical nuclear weapons is to keep strategic nuclear weapons out of the fight.

Most at risk are American military targets in Europe, the Western Pacific, and the Middle East. Here the US is already at risk with no theater nuclear forces in Asia and fewer than 200 fighter-delivered gravity bombs in Europe.

Unilaterally retiring American ICBMs from the nuclear triad would do nothing to prevent the use of nuclear weapons at either the strategic or theater level. In fact, a Russian or Chinese nuclear attack might prove more likely. For example, without ICBMs, American nuclear force structure would be reduced to five bomber and submarine bases and a handful of submarines at sea. More specifically, killing ICBMs reduces the number of targets an adversary must strike from over five hundred to about dozen—with none requiring a nuclear strike. The American deterrent is now survivable and allows for a robust second strike.

Eliminating the ICBM force invites a disarming attack by Russia or China. For example, although a majority of American ballistic missile submarines are at sea at any given time and are highly survivable, submarines are highly susceptible to conventional attack in port or when entering or leaving port. An underseas technology breakthrough would allow even our submarines at sea to be targeted.

Destroying the bomber force’s two Weapons Storage Areas before weapons are onloaded could take the bomber force out of any fight. ICBMs alone force Russia and China to expend at least 1,000 warheads in hope of destroying the force, while also knowing hundreds of American ICBMs could retaliate even after a confirmed warhead strike on the US.

An American deterrent without ICBMs invites rather than prevents aggression because it reduces the uncertainty and risk of an attack. Reducing the US nuclear force to less than a dozen aim points invites cooperative nuclear-armed adversaries to hide their intentions, promise a “peaceful rise,” and at a time of their choosing aim a possible surprise disarming strike at the United States. It also eliminates a significant hedge option for the United States.

Like the nuclear freeze, which Americans rejected half a century ago, once again the disarmament community proposes a dangerous unilateral measure that would make the very nuclear war they seek to avoid more likely. The American people must once again reject a bad idea.

Peter Huessy is Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The view’s expressed are the authors own. 

Killing ICBMs was originally published on Global Security Review.

It is straightforward to see that beyond the deterrent or “last defense” aspect of possessing a nuclear arsenal these weapons are one tool among other strategic options. It is the duty of a military planner to plan for outcomes with the instruments that adversaries possess, however distasteful those weapons (nuclear weapons). It does not require reams of classified intelligence nor deep policy experience to recognize the appeal of a nuclear weapon to achieve winning outcomes. Even the technical specifications of specific weapons, their delivery method, and the effects achieved by their use can take a second seat to the appealing utility of their use in the mind of a foe.

A brief look at two kinds of adversary is instructive. First, there is the ideologically driven actor who seeks to remake the international state system and its associated norms, behaviors, and morals. Second, there is a leader or state-party that seeks to climb politically, economically, and cultural-informationally within the extant Western-built international system.

For the antagonist motivated by an ideology whose primary ambition is the destruction of contemporary norms or who desires to trigger a millenarian kind of resorting, whether secular or religious, a nuclear weapon heralds to fellow adherents the breaking of the status quo by the offer of a new, radicalized future. To achieve such an outcome a nuclear weapon targeted at a populated area, especially a political capital or major religious center, would offer the radical damage and chaos sought.

The size of the nuclear device need not be large. The purpose is to tear down a targeted society by inflicting as many casualties as possible and to wreck the symbols and sinews that symbolized the victims’ way of life and station in the international order. There is no doubt many terrorist organizations that would leap at the chance to exploit a nuclear weapon in this fashion. And there are state challengers who no doubt see the same appeal. The only risk to such leaders is the repercussions they may face. But to the radicalized actor, the repercussions are just another aspect of martyrdom—religious or ideological. One imagines that such a scenario has not occurred more due to lack of opportunity than to a lack of desire.

A nuclear weapon fired by a state’s armed forces is even more likely to occur if for no other reason than governments possess the world’s nuclear arms. State arsenals and their delivery systems continue to proliferate in both number and capability, thus expanding the scenarios for weapons use. The danger of the “mutually assured destruction” problem that occupied many deterrence thinkers during the Cold War is still a threat, but the logic of employment success points towards battlefield use.

A nuclear weapon that struck a key military target could decisively alter the course of a battle and a campaign by inflicting damage at a scale that conventional weapons can only achieve over much longer periods of time. The historical record informs us that winning quickly is a tremendous advantage for an adversary.

The one sure way to suffer a military defeat by the US and any American-led coalition is to wait for American joint and combined forces to deploy, assemble, and wage a maneuver campaign. If the Normandy landings of World War II are too distant, then the overwhelming success of the United States in the Gulf War (1991) is a more recent reminder of the fate of any adversary that simply waits for the United States to come to them. The war in Ukraine is an ongoing example of the grinding, almost interminable, result of fighting when early wins do not occur. Despite the many technological advances that modern armed forces possess, speed in multi-domain operations is still decisive, and elusive.

America’s adversaries are certainly aware that speed matters. Alongside the imperatives of increasing range and the convergence of lethal effects, the rapid way a nuclear weapon can alter battlefield geometries and the correlation of forces gives so called “battlefield nukes” tremendous appeal. There are many creative ways to benefit from a nuclear weapon, not just on land, but also in the maritime and air domains. Sealing an area off from maneuver; denying communications, targeting, and surveillance systems; destroying logistical nodes and stockpiles; damaging vehicles and equipment; and inflicting casualties on the adversary are all additional ways nuclear weapons are useful. This is not to mention the escalatory advantage of skipping rungs on the escalation ladder, thereby intimidating America’s partners and neutral states—foreclosing incremental steps from American policymakers.

Simply put, nuclear weapons present an urgent operational challenge to the joint force of the United States and its military partners. Whether the scenario is in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or globally, the United States must imagine that adversaries are thinking about, and at least gaming if not planning, nuclear weapons use to achieve their objectives.

Americans must admit that there is a problem and stop hiding behind sincere wishes that nuclear weapons are never used again. The logic of their employment demands that the nation act on the facts as they are. Nuclear weapons are present. They are plentiful. It is also almost certainly only a matter of time before an adversary exploits American reticence to prepare for their use. It is time to prepare for that day.

Major General (Ret.) Bradley T. Gericke, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

The Operational Logic of Nuclear Weapons Use by an Adversary was originally published on Global Security Review.

Currently, Russia holds a third of Europe’s gas imports and imports 140 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas annually through Ukrainian pipelines. The two most important reasons for Russia’s gas monopoly are economical and practical: distance and cost. Geographic proximity makes Russian gas not only more reliable than other competitors but also cheaper and closer.

Why Build Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream?

The pre-existing monopoly begs the question of why build two new pipelines, both of which have attracted ardent criticism from the United States and certain European countries. Many critics claim, for example, that Russia has the potential to exploit that energy dominance for political gain. Others argue that Nord Stream 2 would supply gas to Germany first, effectively removing other EU nations from the decision-making process and exacerbate inter-EU tensions.

However, building two new pipelines broadly serves Russian interests. Both projects not only cement Russia’s monopoly on gas but also open the door towards Russian gas exports reaching China as well as seize a share of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. Nord Stream 2 mainly helps Russia export gas to the northern European market and bypass Ukraine and the corresponding political situation there. TurkStream also plays a role in circumventing Ukraine, carrying gas to south and southern Europe and Turkey.

To answer critics’ concerns about energy security, many European politicians point to proposed legislation that aims to prevent Russian market manipulation, long-term goals to address the security of supply challenges, and diversification away from fossil fuels. The Third Energy Package, for example, aims to liberalize and integrate natural gas markets—ultimately aiming to break up the Russian-state own monopoly (i.e., Gazprom and Rosneft).

The EU’s Energy Union strategy further commits to ensuring that every EU state has access to at least three different sources of gas. Additionally, many EU states are moving away from fossil fuels. Some Baltic states, for example, are developing LNG terminals (ex: the Klaipeda LNG terminal) to diversify their gas imports and supporting low-carbon energy sources.

Despite these attempts to become more energy-dependent, Europe truly does not have a leg to stand on. Up until 2030, Russian pipeline gas and global LNG will remain the two main sources of gas for the EU. Further, no significant pipeline gas that does not already originate in Russia will be available in the EU before 2025.

TurkStream

After the cancellation of Russia’s South Stream project in 2014, Russia quickly moved to replace one pipeline project with another. The South Stream project was led by Gazprom and aimed to transport Russian gas across the Black Sea to Bulgaria and, from there, disperse within Europe. However, in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and subsequent invasion of Eastern Ukraine, along with a regulatory dispute between Gazprom and the EU, the project was canceled.

In response, Gazprom signed a Memorandum of Understanding with BOTAS Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (Turkish state-owned gas company) to construct TurkStream in December 2014. In 2019, TurkStream was officially completed and on January 8, 2020, Russian President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan inaugurated TurkStream and certified it ready for use.

Nord Stream 2

In 2012, after the successful construction of the initial Nord Stream pipeline, Gazprom also moved to expand to additional lines (later named Nord Stream 2). In 2015, Gazprom signed an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell, E.On, OMV, and Engie to build Nord Stream 2. Poland blocked this plan in 2017—leading Gazprom to develop a financing plan with Wintershall, Engie, OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, and Uniper instead.

In 2018, Germany approved Nord Stream 2’s construction permits in German waters. Although the U.S. has threatened sanctions on companies that work with Gazprom—causing Allseas to pull its support—Gazprom has claimed that it would complete construction alone and would finish by 2020.

Many observers note that TurkStream is likely a counter to the original U.S. backed Southern Gas project, which was developing a pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe and that Nord Stream 2 is a bid to replace Ukraine as a transit state. Not surprisingly, members of the U.S. government have expressed concern over TurkStream and Nord Stream 2—claiming that it threatens European energy independence and security.

Many Central and Eastern European states see the pipeline as an attempt to undermine European unity and bypass transit states such as Poland and Ukraine—also depriving those countries of transit fees. However, Germany has argued that the pipeline was purely market-driven. In response to threatened U.S. sanctions, Germany warned the U.S. to “mind its own business.”

Together, TurkStream and Nord Stream 2 provide Russia with over 140 bcm in capacity—amounting to almost the same as Ukraine’s total transit capacity. TurkStream not only provides Russia with a stronger monopoly on gas in southern and southeastern Europe but also strengthens an already-strong Turkish-Russian relationship. Given the financial incentives to be Europe’s new gas hub, it is no wonder that Nord Stream 2 has also led to a stronger German-Russian relationship.

Russia’s Energy Dominance: Reinforced

The construction of TurkStream and Nord Stream 2 reinforce Russia’s dominance of the energy market, even though it may not lead to the political leverage that many critics expect. With one pipeline already completed and another expected in 2020, both TurkStream and Nord Stream 2 illustrate Russia solidifying its grip on the European market while also expanding its reach to other markets. This monopoly on gas is strengthened by Europe’s gas market—where demand is only growing.

In 2019, Europe imported 123 bcm of gas last year, nearly twice as much as 2017. Further, critics who point to energy security and independence, such as the U.S. do not affect policy in practice. While sanctions against working with Gazprom have somewhat of an effect in cooling interest, in this case, economic interests trump security interests. Russia’s geographic proximity to Europe means that Russian gas will be closer and cheaper than other competitors for the foreseeable future.

However, while Europe’s gas markets may be inherently dependent on Russian gas, Russia is similarly reliant on the European market as a buyer for its gas. In short, Europe is Russia’s most important market for Russian natural gas exports. This limits Russia’s ability to manipulate energy politically without severely compromising its economic relations with Europe. Therefore, Russian renewed energy dominance in Europe is certainly on the horizon with the imminent arrival of Nord Stream 2 and preexisting TurkStream. However, it is not nearly as concerning as Russophobic critics would have the public believe.

Russia’s Renewed Energy Dominance in Europe was originally published on Global Security Review.

Existing security measures and strategies are incapable of combating the hydra of extremism, foreign espionage, international terrorism, and serious organized crime. Drug trafficking, immigration, and containerized illegal trade, and their detrimental impact on industry and the market economy create further complexities for policymakers and law enforcement agencies.

Exacerbating domestic tensions between communities and the security apparatus has transpired through a range of strategies aimed at countering and reassessing national security threats. CONTEST and other counterterrorism laws have failed to tackle the core issue. This year, the government passed the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, providing police officers with authorization to stop, question, search, and detain individuals entering the country from abroad. However, a wide range of human trafficking networks both within and outside the U.K. continue to pose significant challenges for British law enforcement agencies.

Britain has been subjected to a series of terrorist attacks for over 18 years. In 2005 and 2009, homegrown extremist groups targeted both government installations and public places in London. In 2013, attacks on mosques in Birmingham generated significant consternation, and in 2014, the Woolwich attack on a British army soldier cast doubt on the government’s credibility and its law enforcement mechanisms. The three attacks of 2017 increased the public’s lack of confidence in the authorities for a variety of reasons; police failed to disrupt terrorist plots, as the law and order situation deteriorated, as the media criticized the government’s lack of a strategic approach to security threats. 

Civil wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq—along with the British military’s involvement in those conflicts—contributed to the deterioration of domestic stability. The threat of extremism and terrorism expanded as radicalized elements who had joined the conflicts in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia, returned to the U.K. with new ideas and ways of thinking. Until 2018, there were more than 25,000 registered extremist and radicalized elements representing a range of sectarian groups in British in towns and cities. However, by any reasonable barometer, the level of security of the United Kingdom in 2017 was inauspicious. That year, terrorists carried out three attacks in which several civilians were killed. 

British police and intelligence agencies are undoubtedly well-trained and competent, but their ranks have dwindled.¹ Over the past two decades, police have been a less visible presence in the streets, relying on technology to provide them with visibility in towns and cities. Since 2005, intelligence collection has been mostly dependent on CCTV, mobile phones, and surveillance technology to deal with threats like foreign espionage and international terrorism. Conversely, in a majority of EU member states, human intelligence accompanied by a technical approach to national security challenges was of great importance. In the U.K.,  changes were proposed to improve the professionalism and competence of police intelligence (National Intelligence Model, Ballistic Intelligence, Special Branch, CID, cyber forces) and counter-espionage programs, but political and bureaucratic stakeholders resisted every reform package.²

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is the only oversight institution designed to improve the competence of the police force, but its efforts went unacknowledged. The commission was established in 2004 to investigate the conduct of police forces.³ On January 8, 2018, the Independent Police Complains Commission was renamed as the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).⁴  The Policing and Crime Act 2019 also introduced some changes in the system, but these changes were not implemented.⁵  The Home Office and the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) remain imperfect with limited capacity for maintaining and conducting oversight over a powerful intelligence infrastructure. Recent reforms notwithstanding, the ISC remains a weak body over which the Prime Minister and government exercise their influence. The editors of The U.K.’s Changing Democracy  noted some aspects of security sector reforms as they pertain to the ISC and surveillance operations: 

“Choreographed evidence sessions between the committee and the service heads suggest an over-cooperative, too close relationship. So too does the past willingness of the committee to very promptly exonerate the GCHQ petabytes the Snowden revelations and the charges of data collection and surveillance exceeding the agency’s remit—a clearance that occurred while the revelations were still emerging. Although the ISC criticized the lack of privacy safeguards in the Investigatory Power Bill, it did not secure major changes in the final act. Security Sector Reforms (SSR) is a complex process. Narrowly defined, it can encompass institutions and organizations established to deal with external and internal threats to the security of the state and its citizens. At a minimum, therefore, the security sector includes military and paramilitary forces, the intelligence services, national and local police services, border, customs, and coast guards. However, it is increasingly understood that SSR is broader than these institutions.”⁶ 

British intelligence agencies supported the U.S.-led War on Terror, arresting civilians and handing them over to the CIA and U.S. military for interrogation. There was some degree of public condemnation over this partnership, but neither Parliament nor political parties were in any position to criticize the security services. On 28 June 2018, the UK Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee’s torture and rendition report was sharply criticized by human right NGOs: “The report is bound to contain some revelations and criticism about the U.K.’s agencies, but even more worrying is what it won’t contain,” said Bellah Sankey, Deputy Director of Reprieve. “The committee only saw what the government allowed it to see, being denied access to individual intelligence agents and could only question senior officers who were not directly involved in alleged torture and rendition,” Sankey continued.⁷

On 03 June 2018, the Guardian reported: “Britain’s spies stand accused of continuing to share intelligence obtained under torture, in breach of official guidance. However, the Daily Mail reported Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakraborti’s anger: “The commissioner’s most recent report reveals a doubling of cases considered under the Consolidated Guidance, compared with the last three years, and an unprecedented number of acknowledged failures to apply the Guidance.”⁸ MPs found that British spies had seen detainees being mistreated at least 13 times and were told by prisoners on 25 other occasions that they were being mistreated. On another 128 occasions, they were told of mistreatment by foreign agencies.⁹ But despite having knowledge of malpractice, British intelligence agencies continued to supply questions for interrogations. The U.K. maintains a robust surveillance apparatus supporting police and security agencies in maintaining law and order.¹⁰ GCHQ—the British signals intelligence agency—operates TEMPORA, a surveillance system designed to identify foreign threats and a competent tool for combating domestic terrorism and radicalization.¹¹

The role of the Interception Communications Commissioner (IoCC) is widely discussed throughout intellectual forums in the U.K. The IoCC’s role, and oversight mandate was seen as controversial and serving to alienate citizens from the state and government. The commissioner claimed that, under Part-1, Chapter-1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000, its role was to provide independent statutory oversight over the lawful interception of communication, and also asserted that it also investigates complaints.¹² Civil society and intellectual groups don’t agree with this assessment. The functions of the Office of Surveillance Commissioners (OSC) are not so different from that of Intelligence Surveillance Commissioner (ISC). The OSC use human intelligence sources under the Police Act of 1997, as well as under Part-11 and Part-111 of the Regulations of Investigatory Power Act of 2000 (RIPA). These institutions help the state to maintain security and stability as well as provide important information to intelligence agencies. Further expanding the functions of the Intelligence Surveillance Commissioner was the Justice and Security Act of 2013.¹³

The introduction of mass surveillance programs by British and European intelligence services prompted a nationwide debate on the rights of civilians to be protected from illegitimate or warrantless collection, and analysis of their data and metadata.¹⁴ British newspapers and human rights forums published numerous reports, in which experts expressed concerns about the diminishing privacy of citizens. However, the growing concern of citizens about the right of their privacy has also been reported in print and electronic media, but their voice was never heard.

Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook continue to violate the rights of their users. They operate like intelligence agencies, collecting and noting every aspect of a user’s interactions and conversations.¹⁵ “Don’t Spy on US,” a coalition of organizations released a policy paper in September 2014 highlighting surveillance and intelligence operations and their impact on the privacy of citizens in the EU and U.K.: “In summer 2013 it was revealed that GCHQ was routinely intercepting submarine fiber-optic cables containing private communication of millions of British residents (the ‘TEMPORA’ program). The reported scale of the interception is staggering: each day, GCHQ accesses some 21 petabytes of data—the equivalent of downloading the entire British Library 192 times.”¹⁶

TEMPORA¹⁷ is a surveillance tool used by Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). TEMPORA intercepts communications—collecting information from fiber-optic cables.¹⁸ The system is able to access the data of large amounts of internet users, including personal data, regardless of individual suspicion or targeting. Edward Snowden noted in 2016 that TEMPORA maintains two principal components: Mastering the Internet (MTI) and Global Telecoms Exploitation (GTE).¹⁹

Some intelligence experts argue that GCHQ is more effective at mass-surveillance than the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) because TEMPORA has access to all telephone and internet communications—including Facebook and email—across Europe.²⁰ TEMPORA is comprised of different components codenamed POKERFACE and the XKEYSCORE. In a 2016 television interview, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and GCHQ were using a new surveillance system called MUSCULAR, one of at least four other similar programs that rely on a trusted second party. The programs together are known as WINDSTOP. According to newspaper reports, over a 30-day period from December 2012 to January 2013, MUSCULAR collected 181 million records, while INCENSER, another WINDSTOP program, collected over 14 billion records over the same period. MUSCULAR can collect information without needing warrants, and also supports the NSA’s PINWALE data collection system.²¹

On July 1, 2015, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which investigates complaints of unlawful contact by the UK intelligence agencies, notified Amnesty International that the British government agencies had spied on the organization by intercepting, accessing and storing its communications.²² The IPT previously identified one of two NGOs which it found had been subjected to unlawful surveillance by the U.K. government as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) when it should have been identified as Amnesty International.²³ The other NGO which was spied on was the Legal Resources Center in South Africa.²⁴ The Investigatory Powers Tribunal said that until December 2014, GCHQ failed to provide clear enough details of how it shared data collected from mass internet surveillance. It was the IPT’s first ruling against an intelligence agency in its fifteen-year history.²⁵

The inquiry was prompted by the revelations from information leaked by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden.²⁶ The committee concluded that there was no bulk surveillance and gave a lengthy defense on it: “We have established that bulk interception cannot be used to search for and examine the communications of an individual in the U.K. unless GCHQ first obtain a specific authorization naming that individual, signed by a secretary of state.”²⁷ At the time, the government was attempting to restore control orders,²⁸ but the very concept of control orders had already failed.²⁹ Unless extremist returnees are de-radicalized at the community level, no control order can prevent them from joining the ISIS terrorist network. 

Moreover, Britain faces the threat of cyber terrorism.³⁰ While GCHQ is a top-notch intelligence agency, the U.K. is unable to counter the threat of Chinese or Russian cyber attacks unless it increases the recruitment of young information warriors.³¹ Russia maintains strong cyber forces that make use of technology the U.K. doesn’t have. The U.K. Cyber Security Strategy (2011) noted cyber threats were coming from other states that seek to conduct espionage to spy on or compromise the British government, military, industrial, and economic assets, as well as monitoring opponents of their own regimes.³² Moreover, cyber-attacks that cause environmental and financial damage will carry a 14-year prison sentence.³³ Ironically, U.K. authorities have failed to arrest a single cyber-terrorist thus far, while professional hackers continue to establish their networks in the U.K. and target state institutions with impunity.³⁴ The U.K. faces a new form of intelligence war in which its institutions are attacked from a safe distance.

Notes and references

[1] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[2] Ibid

[3] The Independent Police Complaints Commission, https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/independent-police-complaint-commission

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] The UK’s Changing Democracy: The 2018 Democratic Audit, edited by: Patrick Dunleavy, Alice Park, and Ros Taylor. LSE Press, 2018

[7] On 28 June 2018, the UK Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee released the torture and rendition report.

[8] Daily Mail, 03 June 2018, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5800457/British-spies-accused-sharing-intelligence-obtained-torture.html

[9] The Independent, 28 June 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-torture-rendition-detainees-treatment-isc-mi5-mi6-911-war-terror-a8421856.html

[10] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[11] Ibid

[12] Interception of communication Code of Practice Pursuant to section 71 of the ROPA Act 2000, Interception of Communications Code of Practice Pursuant to section 71 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 February 2015

[13] Ibid

[14] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[15] Ibid

[16] Ibid

[17] Reforming Surveillance in the UK, The Don’t Spy on US campaign of various organizations that defend privacy report, September 2014, https://www.dontspyonus.org.uk/assets/files/pdfs/reports/DSOU_Reforming_surveillance.pdf

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid; NSA Report: Liberty and Security in a Changing World, The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, Richard A. Clarke, Michael J. Morell, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein, Peter Swire, Princeton University Press, 31 Mar 2014

[20] Intelligence in Vex: The EU and UK intelligence agencies are in a state of fret. Musa Khan Jalalzai. Vij Publishing, India, 2018

[21] Ibid

[22] Press release of Privacy International: UK intelligence agencies admits unlawfully spying on Privacy International, 25 September 2018, https://privacyinternational.org/press-release/2283/press-release-uk-intelligence-agency-admits-unlawfully-spying-privacy

[23] Ibid

[24] Ibid

[25] Ibid

[26] Fact Sheet: Investigatory Power, HO News Team 17 June 2019, https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/17/fact-sheet-what-are-investigatory-powers/. Securing the Insecure States in Britain and Europe. Musa Khan Jalalzai, Algora new York, 2017

[27] Ibid

[28] On February 16, 2015, The Guardian reported that a man from Liverpool had been charged with attempting to obtain a chemical weapon.

[29] Daily Times, 12 September 2014

[30] Ibid, Policy Paper, 04 December 2013

[31] Amnesty International, 03 July 2015 

[32] BBC, 06 February, 2015

[33] The inquiry was prompted by the revelations from documents leaked by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, The Guardian, 12 March 2015

[34] Ibid

Britain’s Changing Security Perceptions was originally published on Global Security Review.

After President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was sworn in as Ukraine’s sixth president, his first order of business was to dissolve the current parliament. Zelenskiy announced this move in his inaugural address; a strategic move meant to capitalize upon his present popularity in the hopes of gaining a majority. In this address, he also criticized the current Cabinet of Ministers and called for a change in the office of the General Prosecutor, presently held by Yuriy Lutsenko.

Zelenskiy, however, may face difficulties in moving his agenda forward in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament). While the decree to dissolve the Rada was accepted and snap elections are in preparations for July 21, Zelenskiy also called for this new election to be based on votes for parties rather than people. His argument centers around corruption, where he claims that voting for individuals promotes corruption. In the emergency session of the Rada to vote on this, only 92 lawmakers voted in favor. To place any such proposal on the agenda, a majority of 226 votes is necessary. This proposal was also voted down, along with another plan submitted by Zelenskiy that would change the rules for state purchases during election campaigns.

Does this precede a standoff between Zelenskiy and the Rada?

Due to Zelenskiy’s unique electoral support base and the fact that he ran without a political party, he has little to no formal support within the Parliament itself. This has meant that even though Zelenskiy has called for the government to step down, the Rada did not accept it. Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman only received 97 of the 226 votes necessary to accept his resignation. Even more important is the fact that Rada speaker Andriy Parubiy has claimed that Zelenskiy’s decree to dissolve parliaments and to call snap elections in July is illegal. He has stated he will appeal to the Constitutional Court, saying that “it is sad and alarming that the guarantor of the constitution starts his work in the post with a gross violation of the constitution.”

Interestingly, other members of the government are also attempting to call appointments illegal and in violation of lustration legislation. Tetyana Kozachenko, the head of the public council on lustration issues, has claimed that Zelenskiy’s appointment of Andriy Bohdan violates lustration legislation because he held posts under former President Viktor Yanukovych.

Is dissolving the current Rada possible?

According to the Ukrainian Constitution, there are three strategies through which Zelenskiy could dissolve the Ukrainian parliament. The first is if the Rada fails to build a coalition. Second is if there are no plenary meetings within thirty days of the start of the legislative session. Alternatively, the Rada could be dissolved if, after sixty days after the resignation of the Cabinet of Minister, it has not reformed.

According to Volodymyr Fesenko, a political scientist, such a dissolution is not possible right now because there are no norms on how the absence of a coalition set within the Regulations of the Rada. Fesenko also notes that “Before this, the president must hold consultations with the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada and heads of factions on the expediency of dissolution. And all this needs to be done within a few days, since, according to the Constitution, six months before the end of Rada’s powers (no later than May 27), it cannot be dissolved.”

If Fesenko is to be believed, dissolving the Rada would precede a political crisis. How does he know this? Because Yushchenko used this strategy in 2007. However, it was only achieved after compromise with the representatives of every parliamentary faction. According to writer Anastasia Zaremba, the problem is that Zelenskiy does not have any motivation to work with the current parliament. Due to his popularity, he can use his recent election to claim that the Rada is stonewalling him rather than choosing to work with his constructively.

Given Parubiy’s appeal to the Constitutional Court, observers will have to wait and see whether such a dissolution of the Rada is possible. As for Zelenskiy, his choice of advisors will likely prove whether or not this brief standoff will continue to endure for the foreseeable future.

President of Ukraine Moves to Disband Parliament was originally published on Global Security Review.

In 2017, Catalonia held an illegal referendum on independence from Spain, despite it having been declared unconstitutional by the Spanish Constitutional Court. While 92% of referendum voters supported independence, only 43% of registered voters voted. Amid police crackdowns and massive protests, the Spanish National Court ordered the imprisonment of Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, two Catalan separatist leaders. In spite of this, Catalonian MPs voted to declare independence. In response, Spain imposed direct rule over Catalonia. However, the situation is not as straightforward as many commentators make it seem, as vital information key to understanding the unrest has been overlooked.

Both the United States Senate and an independent study conducted by the George Washington University have claimed that Kremlin-connected media outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik created “zombie accounts” or bots to perpetuate a negative perception of Spain in the days leading up to the referendum. Half of the stories shared by RT highlighted police violence to deliberately disrupt internal cohesion in Spain.

Spain is not Moscow’s only target, however. Over the last year, the E.U. East StratCom Task Force reported 993 reports of disinformation cases, 152 of which targeted the E.U. and originated from Russia. Furthermore, eighty-three percent of Europeans believe “fake news” is a danger to democracy.  Disinformation is on the rise, and there is ample evidence that Russian disinformation is part of an orchestrated campaign to overwhelm democracies and free media outlets. Coined by Russian expert Mark Galeotti, the “Gerasimov doctrine” is a colloquial term that refers to the employment of non-kinetic or non-military methods to achieve political ends—to destabilize the E.U. and NATO from within through the exploitation of existing social, ethnic, and religious divisions.  The so-called “Gerasimov doctrine” merely describes an operational concept and isn’t a reference to a Russian military doctrine.

For decades, the trans-Atlantic alliance has remained stable, but history is no guarantee of stability in perpetuity. Despite mostly positive support for NATO amongst the citizens of its member states, Russia seizes upon existing dissatisfaction felt by a minority of citizens and pushes messaging that employs terms like “occupying power” to describe the alliance. The same goes for the European Union. Member states regularly disagree over issues such as refugee resettlement, Russian sanctions, and the resurgence of nationalism across the continent. Such subjects are prime targets for Russian disinformation campaigns, which are disseminated by Kremlin-controlled media outlets like RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik, as well as on fringe websites and social media accounts to amplify the message further.

Disinformation is challenging to counter, despite increasing and widespread awareness. Some European states like France have enacted laws that compel social networks to disclose the source of funding for sponsored political content and allow for candidates to sue for the removal of contested news reports during elections. In 2018, the E.U. enacted a non-binding disinformation code of practice, aimed at targeting “fake news” in upcoming European elections.

Such measures, however, are merely reactive and fail to anticipate the continually adapting strategies of disinformation purveyors. To avoid laws that target foreign influence campaigns, state-sponsored actors are buying political ads in local currency. Actors are increasingly adept at masking their locations and are moving towards image-based disinformation campaigns, which are less regulated and significantly more difficult to legislate.

Rather than perpetually being one step behind, Europe should emulate the strategies of states like Estonia that have been dealing with Russian disinformation campaigns for years. Rather than allow for Russian disinformation campaigns to gather steam, the websites such as the Estonia-based Propastop continuously debunk disinformation. The Estonian government also operates a Russian-language news channel to serve as an alternative to RT. Moreover, all Estonian politicians and public administration officers do not give interviews to Russian state-controlled media outlets. This strategy of national resilience is also strengthened by Estonia’s National Center for Defense and Security Awareness (NCDSA), a non-governmental organization that aims to foster a society that is resilient and resistant to hostile foreign influence.

France: The Yellow Vests

Counter-disinformation tactics must be adaptable because disinformation comes in many different forms. Catalonia and Estonia are not the only case studies by far. France, for example, is currently dealing with an enormous surge of anti-government protestors who disagreed vehemently with an increase on the gas tax. These protestors are better known by their moniker “yellow vests.” Although the demonstrators’ original demand of suspending the gas tax increase was met, the next day, more than 125,000 yellow vest protestors took to the streets, clashing with police and looting stores as they went.

According to New Knowledge, 340 pro-Kremlin accounts created and magnified “the brutality of the French police, Macron’s inability to lead the nation, and anti-NATO or anti-migrant sentiments more than 20,000 times.” Since late October 2017, these accounts have posted at least 1,600 times a day on Twitter, retweeting false information to increase its believability. These accounts, as well as others, impersonated journalists and legitimate news outlets to craft a narrative of France being embroiled in a civil war and blaming Macron for its onset.

What does the Kremlin hope to accomplish through its disinformation campaigns in France? Ultimately, Russia wants to undermine the French government’s ability to govern effectively. If the French government’s focus is entirely domestic, it can no longer point fingers at Russia, continue its sanctions regime, and pose any serious threat to Russia. By amplifying societal discontent in France with disinformation through social media, Russia is creating a reality where French democracy is indeed under threat. As the yellow vest protests continue, it remains to be seen whether or not Russia has achieved its goals.

Georgia: Disinformation as the Status Quo

Unfortunately, Russian disinformation in Georgia is nothing new. During the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, the former launched an intense pro-Russian propaganda campaign to spread claims that the Georgian government was violating the human rights of Russian speakers in Georgia. Although the accusations were widely discredited, they were used by Russia to justify the invasion and subsequent occupation of the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While Georgian politicians are aware of threat Russian disinformation poses, they lack the political will to enact meaningful countermeasures.

According to the Georgia-based Media Development Foundation (MDF), this lack of response may be problematic given that almost 2000 anti-Western messages were detected throughout Georgian media outlets in 2017. In contrast to 2016, when most of the Russian disinformation campaign was centered on human rights, the dominant topic in 2017 was the polarization of the Georgian domestic political landscape. Pro-Kremlin actors focused on targeting everyday Georgian’s perceived loss of national identity paired with demonizing rhetoric of the U.S., NATO, and the E.U.

Russia’s disinformation campaigns in Georgia are based on a three-part strategy. First, create a threat. Second, foster distrust of Georgia’s Western allies and partners. Third, reinstate and reinforce the belief that Russia is the sole trustworthy partner. Russian disinformation campaigns in Georgia used fake photos and videos to encourage conspiratorial thinking and increase radicalism in groups like Georgian Neo-Nazi parties. One example of this tactic is the “lab of death” narrative, where it was claimed that a U.S.-funded laboratory in Georgia which was giving untested drugs to Georgians, causing them to die.

In Georgia, the goal of such disinformation campaigns is quite different than in France. As Georgia is not presently a member of the E.U., the bulk of Russian messaging is intended to ensure that will never happen. Russia sees Georgia as lying within its sphere of influence, and any attempt to align with the West is seen as a threat. The 2008 Russian-Georgian war, for example, is primarily seen as the driver behind Georgia’s push to receive a NATO Membership Action Plan.

Despite the troubled relationship between the two countries, Georgia has adopted a pragmatic approach for its foreign policy, where it has downplayed tensions with Russia and even is in talks to create trade corridors through the frozen conflict zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Again, Russia’s disinformation campaigns are having the desired impact. Despite Georgia’s westward orientation, Tbilisi continues to adopt a less aggressive and more pacifist tone towards Moscow.

Europe Needs to Fight Back

From Western Europe to the Eastern Neighborhood, disinformation campaigns are having a severe impact on societal cohesion. In France, the “yellow vest” protests are ongoing. In Georgia, right-wing radicalism is on the rise, threatening Georgia’s turn to the West. Disinformation is even suspected to be involved with Brexit, and the recent German parliamentary election. In this hostile environment, Europe must reorient itself and learn from the E.U. East Stratcom Task Force and Estonia. Otherwise, the E.U. risks further fragmentation within itself and other Western democracies.

Russia’s campaigns are succeeding within Europe because countries are not adopting the appropriate countermeasures. Instead of simply acknowledging that disinformation is a problem, European countries must take proactive measures to debunk Russian propaganda. The E.U.’s East Stratcom Task Force is already doing much of this work, but it could receive further funding and publicity from all E.U. member states.

Counter-disinformation efforts can only be successful if they are marketed effectively. Furthermore, European countries ought to create more societal resilience programs, modeling them off the Estonian model. While not every European country has a Russian-speaking minority, each has segments of disenfranchised people who are vulnerable to disinformation. Put bluntly, the best way to combat the current successes of Russian disinformation is to fight back.

How Russia’s Disinformation Campaigns are Succeeding in Europe was originally published on Global Security Review.

The Crimean Peninsula may have strategic significance for the Russian military, but Russian President Vladimir Putin can no longer play the Crimea card at home for political gain. Even though the 2014 annexation of Crimea resulted in a sharp increase in the Russian president’s approval ratings, five years on the matter has been overshadowed by widespread economic hardship.

Crimea is heavily subsidized by Moscow, with no hope of becoming economically self-sufficient in the current political climate. Russia has invested billions of rubles into the peninsula but has yet to resolve the most critical issue: water supply. Crimea, especially its northern region, is heavily dependent on Ukraine when it comes to water and power supply.

Following the incorporation of Crimea into the Russian Federation, Ukraine imposed an economic embargo of the peninsula, cutting off its supply of water and power. The embargo resulted in severe economic and ecological problems for northern Crimea. More recently, Russia has established two power stations to strengthen the peninsula’s energy security. However, Moscow has been unable to ensure a sustainable water supply.

Had Russia seized the whole of southeastern Ukraine—and not just Crimea as some Russian hardliners suggested at the time—the water-supply problem may have been avoided. Since such actions weren’t taken, however, Crimea was without an overland connection to the Russian mainland until 2018, when Russia completed construction of a bridge over the Kerch Strait that connected the mainland to the peninsula. 

The Kerch Strait, however, is a strategic vulnerability for Russia. In the event of a conflict, the bridge would be an easy target for sabotage. To hedge against this vulnerability, the Russian military deployed the S-400 integrated air defense system along with additional warships to Crimea in the aftermath of the November 2018 clash between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the Kerch Strait.

The Kremlin must also contend with growing Turkish influence in the Black Sea region. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Crimea was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. Today, Crimean Tatars—a Turkic ethnic group—retain strong cultural and religious ties to Turkey. Given that Turkey has been pursuing a more active foreign policy in recent years, it’s likely Ankara will pursue a more proactive role in Crimean affairs in the long-term. In the short-term, however, Turkey is expected to maintain its behind-the-scenes role.

The current geopolitical climate means that Moscow will have to manage Crimea like a suitcase without a handle for the foreseeable future. The Kremlin has invested heavily in integrating Crimea into the Russian Federation, but Western sanctions enacted in response to Russia’s behavior have helped to isolate the peninsula, raising prices and inhibiting economic development.

Despite these difficulties, approximately seventy-two percent of Crimean respondents said that their lives have improved since Crimea’s annexation, according to polling conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM).  However, in the long-run, the economic situation in Crimea and throughout Russia will only deteriorate due to the effects of Western sanctions.

Russia Faces Rising Costs 5 Years After Crimea’s Annexation was originally published on Global Security Review.

Over the past year and a half, European foreign policymakers and thought leaders have adopted a new lexicon. Terms like strategic autonomy and defense union have become commonplace in the face of wavering American commitments to NATO and the transatlantic alliance. Europe has come to realize that the United States is no longer the stalwart ally of the Cold War era. The shift in the discussion hints at a move towards greater European collective action on the world stage. With the resurgence of China, the return of Russia, the retreat of the United States, and the rise of the rest, Europe needs to define its own grand strategy.

With the resurgence of China, the return of Russia, the retreat of the United States, and the rise of the rest, Europe needs to define its own grand strategy.

The concept of American grand strategy is so well-established that it has all but become its own niche field within the realm of international relations studies. Over the last 70 years, the United States has pursued a grand strategy of "liberal hegemony," establishing international institutions for the advancement of democracy, free market economics, and human rights. Despite the change in expression and tone of American foreign policy from administration to administration, liberal hegemony has remained the blueprint.

The European Union, in contrast, has never had an overarching strategy to interact with and define the global landscape, though it has a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) which in principle guides collective European policy. In reality, European CFSP follows the foreign policy initiatives of a few member states and has demonstrated a preference to follow Washington's lead on major initiatives. For the past several decades, this system has worked extremely well for Europe; shared principles and foreign policy goals have allowed Europe to support most U.S. positions on foreign affairs and focus its energies on European economic development, integration, and domestic policy.

Yet, ever since the Iraq War, European and American foreign policy priorities, goals, and even principles have begun to diverge. The arrival of the Trump administration has further fractured the relationship and made clear to European leaders that the United States is no longer a reliable security guarantor or partner on human rights, nuclear non-proliferation, defense, and free trade issues. In an increasingly multipolar world with competing major powers vying to alter the terms of the liberal international order, Europe can no longer afford to solely rely on the United States.

Unpacking Strategic Autonomy

What would European strategic autonomy look like? It would require developing greater self-reliance, capacity, and capability (particularly in terms of defense and collective security) to act alone to achieve European interests. At the same time, the EU would have to remain willing and able to cooperate with international partners on areas of common interest. The final push towards this ideological shift has come from two years of butting heads with the Trump administration over everything from trade to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA—the Iran nuclear deal) to NATO spending. As the transatlantic relationship changes, so must European strategy for dealing with Washington.

The concept of strategic autonomy provides an ideological framework for working on an independent basis to resolve issues of European concern in terms of collective security as well as foreign policy. Under such a framework, the EU would selectively seek partners to address climate change, forced migration, and the advancement of human rights and democracy, and would operate alone when necessary. Properly applied and refined, strategic autonomy could become a powerful and effective grand strategy by which Europe engages the international community. But for a European grand strategy to evolve and be effective, Europe must stand united.

Yet Europe remains relatively divided and reactive. All too often, substantive collective European foreign policy has required American initiative, remained reactive in the face of conflict, or stripped of substance due to internal divisions. This last scenario has become all the more threatening to a collective grand strategy given the influence of targeted Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe. Chinese FDI lobbying in Greece and Hungary has already derailed the EU critique of Beijing's human rights record and its activity in the South China Sea.

Despite the impact of Chinese FDI, the divergent priorities of EU member states remain the greatest obstacle to creating consensus in European foreign policy and strategy. The rise of Russian cyber warfare is of primary concern to the Baltic states but of less concern to Italy, France, Spain, Malta, Greece, and Hungary, who are primarily preoccupied with issues surrounding terrorism and migration. French and German foreign policy priorities are more comprehensive, but still focus largely on defense, international trade, and relations with the United States. Even among countries with common foreign policy priorities, perspectives often diverge on how to address them.

Strategic Autonomy as Grand Strategy

Yet there is cause to be optimistic at the prospect of collective grand strategy. In his July 2018 visit to the United States, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reiterated the European commitment to multilateralism and free trade when possible, and resolved to take independent action and apply reciprocal sanctions when necessary. EU and national leaders continue to maintain strong support for the JCPOA and meet with Iranian leaders to find ways to encourage Iranian economic development. Most recently, in September 2018 the European Commission announced a proposal of a regulation to establish a framework for a collective screening mechanism of foreign direct investments into the European Union by the end of 2018.

Europeans are also taking steps to create a more cohesive collective security apparatus. On December 11 2017, 26 EU member states formally created the Permanent Security Cooperation (PESCO) set forth in the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. In his now famous Sorbonne Speech in November 2017, Macron called for the creation of a European Intervention Initiative to enable Europe to act collectively and independently on behalf of its own defense. In May 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly stated that Europe could no longer rely on the United States and urged Europe to "take destiny into its own hands." Indeed, the United States now represents a serious threat to the current system of international affairs and the principle of open society.

In an increasingly multipolar world with competing major powers vying to alter the terms of the liberal international order, Europe can no longer afford to solely rely on the United States.

In order to determine its own future and protect the rules-based liberal international order which has enabled it to prosper, Europe must learn to work as one to create a robust grand strategy. Brussels and European states that are already pioneering European foreign policy initiatives should first aim to develop consensus on principles of action, eliminate redundancies in EU defense policy and industry, and establish more regular dialogue between EU leaders and foreign ministers to communicate concerns, coordinate priorities, and develop a coherent, single voice through the High Representative for CFSP supported by a chorus of member states.

Strategic autonomy must become the base upon which European grand strategy is formed. Operating as one, Europe can then seek allies to support a more inclusive rules-based world order, protect international institutions from aggressive and subversive international actors, and promote the principles of democracy and human rights on the world stage.

Under a cohesive grand strategy of strategic autonomy, EU member states should coordinate their strategic interests collectively and lead individually where they are most competent. Spain and Portugal, for example, maintain strong diplomatic and people-to-people relationships with the majority of Latin American countries, and could serve as the EU's voice with the continent. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have developed extremely capable cybersecurity and intelligence capacities and could pioneer European operations in cyberspace and intelligence gathering. France retains strong diplomatic ties with nations in North Africa and the Middle East, and could leverage those relations on behalf of collective European policy. France, Denmark, Poland, and Finland have well-developed militaries and could spearhead collective European defense operations and deployment to conflict zones.

Indeed, the framework for collective defense operations has already been laid through the foundation of PESCO and the European Intervention Initiative (E2I) agreed to in July 2018 by France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. However, there is still much work to be done before Europe is capable of seamless joint operations; much of the defense industry remains fragmented due to protectionist national policies aimed at deterring the short-term losses that would result from developing a collective defense industry. To create a truly strategically autonomous union, equipment must be standardized and regiments made interoperable to work as a unified force. The European Army may never march by name, but European joint task forces will.

To create a truly strategically autonomous union, equipment must be standardized and regiments made interoperable to work as a unified force. The European Army may never march by name, but European joint task forces will.

Already, most EU countries participate in collaborative, NATO joint operations, but they are often highly reliant upon American leadership and forces. This was on open display in Trident Juncture held in October and November 2018 – the latest and largest NATO exercise since the Cold War. In a joint operation simulation of an Article 5 scenario calling NATO allies to defend an attack on Norway with 50,000 troops from 31 nations, the United States fielded 20,000 troops and an equally sizable proportion of its vessels, aircraft, and machinery. Without the United States' participation, NATO's capacity to defend Norway—or any other European state, for that matter—would be seriously compromised.

Rather than a replacement, PESCO or another EU-level organization should serve as a bulwark to NATO while ensuring an autonomous defense and operations capacity for the European Union.

In a strategically autonomous Europe, the EU would be able to field its own collective defense force, equal in size, strength, and sophistication of its American counterpart. Rather than a replacement, PESCO or another EU-level organization should serve as a bulwark to NATO while ensuring an autonomous defense and operations capacity for the European Union.

More important than its defense capacity, if European grand strategy is to succeed in revitalizing the liberal international order, Europe must continue to play by the rules. The United States has failed to consistently adhere to the principles of the international world order that it created, notably pioneering the creation of the International Court of Justice and then refusing to join it. By neglecting the rules it established and failing to create a more inclusive system, Washington has lost credibility and encouraged rising powers to challenge the established order. Europe cannot make the same mistake.

Regardless of the form that European grand strategy takes and the world order it promotes, the EU can no longer afford to remain passive. For Europe to preserve its place in the world, it must learn to lead as one.

This article was originally published by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The International Scholar.

Refining Strategic Autonomy: A Call for European Grand Strategy was originally published on Global Security Review.

China’s vast amounts of territory are inhabited by diverse groups of people—each with distinct cultural, political, economic, and religious traditions. Today, the Chinese Communist Party aims to forge a single, homogeneous “Chinese” national identity. Beijing is implementing policies designed to effectuate the forced ethnic and cultural assimilation of minorities like the Tibetans and the Uyghurs of Xinjiang.

This lack of a singular national identity was further compounded by a geographical landscape that impeded the establishment of a multipolar regional order like that of Europe. Europe’s plains and uplands are divided by rivers and mountain ranges—a vast swath of territory that enabled the rise of multiple, sovereign nation-states.

Eventually, European imperialist ambitions would extend this competition to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. As competing sovereign entities, European nation-states were actors an evolving political system that would eventually become known as the balance of power. This system upended the universalist status quo following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The term balance of power gained significance in the aftermath of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

China’s topography isn’t conducive to balance of power politics. Where the Europeans had space to expand and develop distinct national identities, China’s various competing groups had competed with one another for supremacy in the absence of a strong central authority. Each ruling dynasty followed a similar path to power, with minor exceptions.

Controlling the Chinese heartland allows for the control over all of China.

Until the tenth century, the Guanzhong Plain was the primary center of political power. Eventually, this concentration of wealth and power shifted to the North China Plain, which took on increased economic and cultural significance. The North China Plain then connected to the fertile Yangtze Plain. The importance of the North China Plain only increased as the Chinese empire expanded further to the north and the east.

The Yangtze Plain, by contrast, generated dynasties that instantly succumbed either to their weaknesses, like the Southern Song in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries or to their northerly competitors like the short-lived nationalist government did in the twentieth century.

The North China Plain’s political importance is primarily due to its geography. Unlike areas to the south, the North China Plain expands mostly uninterrupted by mountains and has fewer rivers. This facilitated rapid communication by horseback. This resulted in a mostly homogeneous linguistic makeup, relative to the many different languages and dialects that are found throughout southern China. The ability to communicate rapidly across a significant distance allowed political and economic power to be concentrated along the North China Plain.

While the North China Plain was primarily the political center of China after the tenth century, it was control over Zhongyuan (中原)—the Central Plains—that was central to the survival of any ruling dynasty. Each understood that control over the Central Plains—the Chinese heartland—would enable for the control over all of China. This principle, the “Heartland Theory” was laid out by British economic theorist Halford Mackinder in The Geographical Pivot of History.

Historically, China’s international relations were based on suzerainty rather than sovereignty.

The area that comprises the Chinese heartland is less than one-third the size of the European plains, albeit with a substantially higher population. These demographic and geographic variables inhibit the development of a system of competing sovereign states. As such, the concept of sovereignty was nonexistent in imperial China.

Whereas the great powers of Europe looked upon rival powers as peers and understood the concept of sovereignty, China held no such outlook. Up until the nineteenth century, China’s international relations were based on the idea of suzerainty. China considered itself to be without equal, seeing itself as the world’s cultural and political center. It managed its international relations through a tributary system.

The Mandarin word for China is Zhongguo (中国), which translates literally as the “Middle Kingdom.” This Sinocentric perception can be primarily be attributed to China’s geographical reality and the fact that it possessed no notion of national sovereignty. Political scientist Suzanne Ogden has discussed Chinese international relations as being fundamentally based on the concept of universal morality, one that is developed, implemented, and imposed on others by a single entity. This belief of “moral persuasion and cultural superiority” as Ogden puts it, is a significant driver of the narrative of Chinese exceptionalism.

The Chinese emperor was identified as the single “supreme authority under heaven.” The area “under heaven” was, therefore, subject to the emperor’s authority. The sole “supreme authority” was the emperor of the Middle Kingdom. During China’s imperial period, no word akin to “Chinese emperor” existed. In relations with other rulers, even those of European states, the Chinese viewed the emperor as a patriarchal figure to which there was no equal.

East Asia expert Alan M. Wachman explains that the Chinese emperor’s sovereignty or rule over the imperial Chinese state was “potential, not actual, control.” As such, the degree to which the emperor’s authority was accepted depended on the period and location in question. This belief guided the nation through generations of unification, expansion, fragmentation, and decline, prescribing an approach for handling each phase in the cycle.

At times of dynastic corrosion and rebellion, for example, defense and military strategy had been the answer for aspiring leaders. Furthermore, major infrastructure development projects like the Grand Canal and military incursions in the broader region helped a dynasty secure the “mandate of heaven”—thereby legitimizing its hold on power.

The bureaucracy was and is essential to central government’s exercise of political power. Auxiliary tiers of bureaucratic authorities within the central government’s control extended from the heartland to the rest of China, and beyond. Utilizing a tributary system of appointed officials and in rare circumstances, military forces, China’s leaders were able to diffuse their power within Central Asia, into the Korean Peninsula, and throughout Southeast Asia, consolidating their control over the heartland, China, and the world as they saw it.

Chinese notions of geopolitics failed to account for the importance of maritime power.

During the seventeenth century, however, the onset of the maritime era would interrupt China’s illusions of being a separate realm. Naval invaders began arriving on the nation’s shore, where the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty, would eventually meet them.

Although the Manchu Qing possessed what Mackinder called the “superior mobility of horsemen and camelmen,” their approach to repelling invasions was no different from that of the previous ethnically Han Ming dynasty. Where the Han Ming dynasty constructed the Great Wall to protect against the Manchu, the Qing erected fortifications along the shoreline to keep foreign invaders at bay.

At that point, China hadn’t developed significant naval assets of its own, and its conceptualization of geopolitics wouldn’t include maritime power for three centuries. Even then, the geostrategic implications of robust naval power would garner little notice within China before Japan used its superior naval power to achieve victory over China in the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and 1895.

China’s defeat marked the beginning of another era of decline and the demise of the Sinocentric view of international relations. It took the so-called “century of humiliation” for China to comprehend that this worldview was no longer compatible with the rest of the world.

The broader geopolitical strategy which prevailed in the West did not serve the European powers far better. After fighting for control of the Eurasian landmass, what Mackinder dubbed the World Island, they emerged from two world wars and innumerable smaller conflicts only to see that the center of international power had moved across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States.

Contemporary Chinese foreign policy is rooted in the successes and failures of the past.

As maritime and land-based powers (the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively) expanded their spheres of influence across the globe, the combination of territory on the border of the Eurasian landmass and a shoreline seemed to sentence China to be on the margins of the international system.

Nevertheless, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, China overcame its geographical circumstances, and in the process, its reasoning has evolved. The trials and tribulations it suffered through in the second half of the twentieth century, including the wars on the Korean Peninsula and in Vietnam, a U.S. naval quarantine, and concurrent pressure from the Soviet Union, encouraged China to realize its capabilities. The geography that once seemed a curse to Chinese theorists now brimmed with possibility.

The country’s location, in the end, provides it access to developed economies overseas and overland access to precious energy assets in Central Asia and the Middle East, an edge that economic theorist Nicholas Spykman identified in the early 1940s. China’s geopolitical goal was now to tap into wealth in the east, and technological advancement in the west, as stated by Chinese scholar Zhang Wenmu.

China’s ascendancy to great power status in the twenty-first century was primarily enabled by a combination of geographic, political, and economic factors. It’s economic growth allowed in this century an unprecedented concentration on naval development. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has grown substantially over the previous two decades, enabling the overseas projection of Chinese military power.

As it has done throughout history, China is embarking on an expansionary course more out of necessity than out of ambition. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for instance, aims to ease the country’s economic and logistical dependence on its eastern coast while developing its less-developed interior regions.

Similarly, Beijing’s increasingly assertive maritime policy is another attempt to secure its access to overseas markets and preclude a challenger from presenting a threat to its multiplying global interests. There are consequences, however, for China’s increasingly aggressive expansionism.

China will attempt to outmaneuver these consequences wherever possible, as it strives to revise the terms of the international order. Chinese expansionism is a policy that will yield unpredictable results after centuries of a Sinocentrist approach to international relations. However, if the U.S. and its allies fail to provide and sustain a viable alternative to counter China’s hegemonic ambitions, Beijing will find it increasingly easier to rewrite the rules of global trade and security.

How Chinese Exceptionalism Fuels an Expansionist Foreign Policy was originally published on Global Security Review.