Amid U.S. involvement in a war against Iran, President Donald J. Trump has decided to double down on previous public expressions of disregard and distrust toward NATO. President Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO several times since his reelection. His repeated jibes at the alliance have raised concern among European defense experts and government officials. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder recently noted that “It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense.” And French President Macron indicated on April 2nd that, in his view, U.S. President Trump was undermining NATO through his repeated threats to withdraw from the alliance. Raising new fears of American abandonment on the part of European leaders, Trump, in various interviews and social media posts within a few days, said that the United States “will remember” France’s refusal to assist in the war against Iran; that NATO was a “paper tiger”; and that “Putin knows that, too, by the way.”

The most recent Presidential broadsides against NATO reflected Trump’s frustration with European allies who chose not to involve themselves in the war against Iran and/or denied their political and military support for the actions taken under Operation EPIC FURY—an effort that Secretary of War, Hegseth describes as “laser-focused [to] destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons.” But this hesitancy among European allies should not have surprised U.S. leadership. Neither NATO as an alliance nor individual European governments were consulted before the decision to go to war, nor were they fully informed until the operation was already in progress. Further to the issue of NATO support, Trump’s address to the nation on April 1st simply assumed that the United States would wind up its military operations within several weeks and would turn the problem of unblocking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz over to European countries and others. In addition, Western European governments have strong public support for putting distance between themselves and the war in Iran. Popular majorities in every country oppose the U.S. and Israeli campaign, and European opposition to the war is enhanced by Trump’s personal unpopularity on that side of the Atlantic.

An additional element in the split between Trump and NATO was the Russian interpretation of its implications for the war in Ukraine, and more broadly, for Russia’s national security strategy writ large. Prolonged U.S. commitment to war in the Middle East could deplete the availability of military assets that would otherwise be available to sustain Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. The global spike in gas and oil prices was an obvious boon to the Russian economy and, from the standpoint of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an unwelcome distraction for European leaders from the priority of supporting Ukraine. Russia also took advantage of Epic Fury to reinforce its support for Iran by providing targeting information for Iranian missile attacks against Israel and other regional states. Russia and Iran had already been sharing technology and knowledge with respect to drone warfare even prior to the launch of military operations against Tehran.

To some extent, the volatility in the Trump administration’s approach to NATO reflected the President’s frustration at his inability to broker a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Vladimir Putin viewed Russia’s war as existential and refused to acknowledge that there was any distinction between Ukrainian and Russian civilizations, let alone sovereignties. The Ukrainians responded in kind, resisting Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory with creative use of drone technology and edgy defensive strategizing that put at risk a variety of targets in Russian territory, including bomber bases and critical infrastructure. Worse for Putin, his invasion in 2022, preceded by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, refocused NATO on its primary mission of deterrence and defense in Europe as opposed to “out of the area” operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the formerly Cold War neutral states, Sweden and Finland, were added to NATO’s membership because of Russia’s attempted coup de main against Kiev that turned into the longest and most destructive war in Europe since World War II. Caught in a trap of his own making, Putin continued to pour troops and material into the battlefields of Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine to support a more favorable negotiating position, should productive negotiations ever materialize.

Given Trump’s propensity for rearranging the deck chairs on foreign policy via Truth Social memoranda, it is conceivable that he will tone down the anti–NATO rhetoric once he has decided on a strategy for winding down the U.S. military campaign in Iran. The process of deconflicting the Strait of Hormuz will likely involve participation from European nations and other countries. Almost nobody benefits from continued bottlenecks in global shipping of oil and other vital commodities. Regardless of the outcome in Iran, the United States needs NATO, and NATO needs the United States. Without the U.S. as the indispensable leading partner, NATO Europe has insufficient nuclear or conventional deterrence against further Russian aggression. This assertion implies no disregard for the steps that the U.S. European allies have already taken since 2022 to improve the quality of their armed forces and military–industrial complexes. It is instead a recognition that the unique American nuclear deterrent and conventional war-fighting capabilities, supported by European determination to resist further Russian aggression, create a global as well as a regional deterrent for Russia and its partners (The CRINKs – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) that benefits not only NATO but also world peace. On the other hand, a divided and internally fractious NATO invites further aggression within and beyond Europe.

Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous works on nuclear deterrence, arms control, and military strategy. He is a senior fellow at NIDS and a recent contributor to the Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies edited by Dr. Alexander Hill (Routledge: 2025). The views of the author are his own.

Trumping NATO was originally published on Global Security Review.

Two parties have watched Operation Epic Fury (OEF) from a distance. China has been taking notes. The United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) has tracked munitions consumption rates of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Both the PRC and INDOPACOM know that what is happening above, in, and around Tehran will impact Beijing’s plans to take Taiwan. And they know Washington plans to prevent that.

Opposing Forces

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) strongman Xi Jinping declared Taiwan “must and will be” absorbed. He has even set a deadline of 2027 for his military to be ready to seize Taiwan. The Pentagon reports that Beijing “continues to refine multiple military options” to take Taiwan “by brute force.” Xi is assembling the capabilities to execute those options. This includes 420,000 troops, 750 fighter-jets, 300 bombers, 158 warships (including 50 landing ships) and hundreds of missile systems, all in the Taiwan Strait region.

In response, Taiwan has increased defense spending from 2% of GDP in 2019 to 3.3% of GDP in 2026, with plans to invest 5% of GDP on defense by 2030. Taiwan is using those resources to produce homegrown antiship, air-defense, land-attack and air-to-air missiles; expand production of attack-drones; and build a fleet of submarines. Taiwan recently received ATACMS missiles and HIMARS systems. Taipei is still awaiting delivery of dozens of F-16V fighters and TOW antitank systems, which is part of a $21 billion backlog of U.S. arms. Taipei also wants F-35s and additional Patriot systems. In short, Taiwan is racing to construct “a porcupine defense”—one that would make an invasion so painful as to dissuade Xi from even attempting it.

The United States Response

While Xi has been clear about his plans for Taiwan, Washington has been vague. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, neither side of the Taiwan Strait knows exactly what Washington would do in the event of war.

The INDOPACOM commander, Adm. Samuel Paparo, is doing his part to send a clear message. If Beijing attacks Taiwan, he plans to “turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape.” The drones and missilery of “hellscape” would come from multiple directions. Further supporting this clear message is that in 2024, the U.S. Army moved Typhon missile systems to the Philippines, and in 2025 the Pentagon created Task Force-Philippines and deployed a Marine unit armed with anti-ship systems to the Philippines. Lastly, in 2026, the Pentagon unveiled Army Rotational Force-Philippines, which will deploy missile and drone assets.

Currently the Pentagon is revitalizing airfields in the Philippines, Tinian and Wake Island; basing top-of-the-line fighters on Okinawa; and rotating B-52s through Australia. Army units on Palau have tested land-based missiles against seagoing targets. And F-35s are now carrying long-range antiship missiles tailormade for targeting a PRC invasion fleet.

Near the end of his tenure, however, commanding U.S. Army-Pacific, Gen. Robert Brown reported that his PRC counterparts “don’t fear us anymore.” This is regrettable, but understandable. America’s Navy deploys fewer than 300 ships which, like America’s commitments, are spread around the world. Those commitments expend finite assets: OEF has exposed the limitations of U.S. weapons stockpiles and production capacity, and it has forced the Pentagon to shuffle assets from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East.

Allied Response

America’s not-so-secret weapon is its interconnected system of alliances. America’s alliances serve as force-multipliers, layers of strategic depth, and outer rings of America’s own security, which enable power projection through prepositioning, basing, overflight, and resupply. Even though U.S. allies are critical, China has no real allies.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi describes an attack on Taiwan as a “threat to Japan’s survival,” indicating Japan would assist the U.S. in defending the island. In hopes of preventing such a scenario, Japan has bolstered defenses across its southwestern territories, placing F-35Bs on Kyushu, anti-ship systems, air-defenses, and electronic-warfare units on islands south of Kyushu; and air-defense and missile-defense units on Yonaguni Island (70 miles east of Taiwan). In addition, Japan is fielding 22 attack submarines, acquiring 500 TLAMs, producing missiles domestically, and upconverting ships into aircraft carriers armed with F-35Bs.

Australia is partnering with the U.S. and Britain to deploy a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, and Australia has opened its territory to U.S. Marines, submarines and B-52s.

Briain and France have stepped up in production of a key element needed for TLAM production due to China shutting off the supply. Norway is supplying the U.S. with antiship missiles and joint strike missiles. A U.S.-Israeli partnership is manufacturing loitering munitions, which are likely part of Paparo’s “hellscape.” Japan, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, and Germany have conducted freedom-of-navigation operations through the Taiwan Strait further supported by Britain, Italy, and France coordinating deployments of their aircraft carriers in the Pacific.

Enhancing A Deterrent Posture

China’s commitments and assets, conversely, are focused on its neighborhood. If Xi moves against Taiwan, his arsenal will be better positioned than the U.S. and is more sophisticated than Iran’s.

Deterring Xi from making that move will require more capability and more defense spending.

Sen. Roger Wicker has unveiled a plan to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP. Similarly, the Commission on National Defense Strategy recommends lifting defense spending to levels “commensurate with the U.S. national effort seen during the Cold War.”

Although the president recently called for more military spending, the administration’s FY2026 defense budget was just 3.2% of GDP. The Cold War average was more than twice that.

The Way Forward

It is time to maintain a policy of “strategic ambiguity” to one of strategic clarity because of the great danger it presents. The secret alliances that led to World War I remind us that there is a greater risk in leaving defense guarantees opaque. The open defense treaties that followed World War II, and prevented World War III remind us that the prudent course is clarity of commitment.

There is a blueprint for deterring war over Taiwan: Washington needs to be clear about the nature of its commitment to Taiwan. Washington needs to view alliances not as liabilities to cut, but as resources to nurture. “We cannot afford,” as Churchill once counseled, “to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength.”

Alan Dowd is a regular contributor to Global Security Review and a senior fellow with the Sagamore Institute, where he leads the Center for America’s Purpose. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

A Blueprint for Deterring War Over Taiwan was originally published on Global Security Review.

Secretary Meink’s wake-up call deserves restating,

One area of particular focus for the US Space Force is “space control,” the ability to ensure that US satellites can operate without interference while denying adversaries the same freedom. Unfortunately, 10 to 15 years ago, some of our adversaries started to weaponize space, and weaponized space aggressively. We stood on the sideline, probably too long. We didn’t want to go down that path, but now we are pushing hard. We didn’t start the race to weaponize space, but we have to make sure we can continue to operate in that domain. Going forward, we can’t lose that high ground.

This long overdue improvement in strategic communication marks a turning point toward rebuilding a credible American space deterrent. China seized the high ground through a rapid build-up of space deterrence and warfighting forces, while Australia, Japan, and South Korea observed warily this tipping of the strategic balance. The US and Europe pretended it was not a problem at all.

This was part of a broader trend for the West to bury its head in the sand for most of the past 35 years, from nuclear deterrence to space warfare. As adversaries weaponized space, the US Space Force (USSF) acknowledges at long last it must focus on fielding credible and effective deterrence and warfighting forces in space.

The USSF published an International Partnership Strategy, where “strength through partnerships” aligns allies with US space efforts. There are challenges, however, for an effective USSF international strategy. These include divisive geopolitics in space and foundational issues surrounding space defense strategy beyond support services. In addition to geopolitical and strategic quandaries, organizational politics stand in the way of a sound strategy. 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.

It turns out allies make similar moves. The US and UK Space Commands conducted their first-ever coordinated satellite maneuver in early September 2025. Among Quad members, Japan’s new space domain defense guidelines spearhead rapid battlespace awareness and real-time detection and tracking of threats. This further reinforces the importance of disrupting adversary command, control, communications, computers, and information (C4I) and other expanding threats. India will develop “bodyguard satellites” after an orbital near-miss. France’s National Strategic Review 2025 makes space central to sovereignty and defense, to acquire rapidly deployable ground and space capabilities to deny, disable, or disrupt adversaries. Last, but certainly not least, Germany is ramping up its military space posture.

When Boris Pistorius, Federal Minister of Defense of Germany, announced a $41 billion investment to counter the “fundamental threat” posed by Russia and China, he mentioned their targeting and tracking of Western satellites. While flying over Germany on reconnaissance missions, two Russian Luch-Olymp spy satellites tracked two Intelsat satellites used by the German Bundeswehr.

Pistorius suggested the Bundeswehr could centralize Germany’s military space functions to quickly respond in conflict. That requires investment in hardened systems less prone to Russian and Chinese jamming, spoofing, and manipulation. Installing “guardian satellites” to provide defensive and offensive capabilities to boost deterrence is required.

Insufficient yet required functionalities need fixing. This includes resilience of satellite constellations and ground stations, secured launch functions, improved space domain awareness capabilities, and space surveillance satellites.

This does not happen in a capability vacuum and leaves some questions unanswered on how to square that with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Despite Ariane 6 and rocket ventures, Europe does not have the required launching capability and still depends on SpaceX. IRIS², the European security-oriented constellation, will not be operational until the 2030s. Until then, dependency on Starlink remains.

Industry partners, such as Eutelsat, SES Satellites, Airbus Defense and Space, Thales, and OHB SE, will get the contracts for the German and European military space systems, but are they financially fit-for-purpose and able to deliver quickly? It depends. Airbus and Thales have heavy defense order backlogs. Eutelsat must recover from its acquisition of OneWeb, and SES just acquired Intelsat.

The question of military space capacity building for non-US NATO allies further resonates outside NATO. Japan does everything to strengthen its military space industrial base, while India puts in a serious effort from space situational awareness to launchers to warfighting satellites. Allies will get there eventually, but it may not be fast enough vis-à-vis Russia and China.

One thing is clear, the center of gravity in deterrence is shifting to space-enabled, long-range, rapidly replaceable kill webs. With NATO officially calling space a warfighting domain, it is no longer a support area. Non-US NATO leaders need to build military space capacity. They should not wait another decade to adopt an Allied Space Operations Doctrine 1.0.

Indo-Pacific allies should endeavor for a similar effort, all while leveraging NATO’s military space experience. That might include some degree of coordination between NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, especially for areas of concern to all, such as the Arctic. Without delegated authorities, codified protect-and-defend protocols, attribution thresholds, tactically responsive launch (less than 96 hours), and common allied space rules of engagement, the good guys’ response times will miss the fight as adversaries dominate orbit.

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.

A Realist Shift in Western Military Space Posture was originally published on Global Security Review.

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, the international community consistently made efforts toward disarmament. However, the world saw both vertical and horizontal nuclear proliferation. Nuclear-armed states are modernizing their nuclear forces.

Although there are notable breakthroughs in efforts to reach agreements on arms control and disarmament, the world remains far from achieving disarmament goals and is still on a long quest to eliminate nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons hold a key place in security policy.

The latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says nearly all nuclear-armed states, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, are modernizing and upgrading their nuclear capabilities. Consequently, a perilous new nuclear arms race is emerging, and reliance on nuclear weapons is increasing. This inevitably raises the question, is nuclear disarmament still logical and relevant?

Signed in July 1968, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is considered the first major step aimed at preventing nuclear proliferation and ensuring disarmament, including the recognized nuclear powers under the treaty. Article VI of the NPT emphasizes the pursuit of negotiations in good faith to bring an end to the nuclear arms race, achieve nuclear disarmament, and promote general disarmament by nuclear-armed states. Article VI serves as the foundation for global efforts such as the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

However, nuclear weapon states under the NPT are not adequately fulfilling their obligations and commitments under Article VI and instead continue to modernize their nuclear capabilities. They even provide support to their allies on nuclear matters in clear violation of the treaty. The Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) deal and the Nuclear Supplier Group’s waiver to India are cases in point. It is important to note that nuclear weapon states are primarily responsible for progressing disarmament. Under the NPT, the division between nuclear weapons states and non–nuclear weapon states is not supposed to be permanent as all NPT parties will move to non–nuclear weapon states.

The current geopolitical landscape regarding nuclear proliferation, nonproliferation, counter-proliferation, and disarmament indicates a deadlock in the pursuit of a global zero (GZ). Two key terms, conceptualized in this article, may help explain the shortcomings in nuclear disarmament efforts under the grand bargain. The first is the security betrayal trap (SBT), which refers to a situation where security guarantees are betrayed, leaving a country exposed and vulnerable. The second is disarmament deception syndrome (DDS), a pattern of negative consequences resulting from false promises made during the disarmament process.

This situation is exacerbated by the fear of cheating among the nuclear-armed countries, “If we disarm, others might not.” Hence any proactive action would leave some at some disadvantage vis-à-vis adversaries.

The latest SIPRI report suggests that countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals with a greater reliance on nuclear weapons, which undermines the efforts of arms control and disarmament. The abandonment of bilateral arms control treaties between the United States and Russia, alongside the failure to develop multilateral treaties on the subject, led to a lack of faith in arms control and disarmament.

In South Asia, India’s prestige-driven global ambitions and expansion of its nuclear arsenal beyond a credible minimum deterrent is complicating security dynamics in the region and beyond. This is further worsened by a purported strategic chain with cascading-downward influence on arms control, nuclear risk reduction, crisis management, confidence-building, and strategic stability in South Asia—induced by extra-regional powers. While offering no cascading upward stimuli for bringing regional stability, there are biases and discriminatory norms governing nonproliferation regimes and arms control and disarmament negotiations at the conference on disarmament (CD).

This suggests not only why nuclear disarmament is not happening, but it also explains skepticism over the future of disarmament. For instance, Ukraine presents a novel case of SBT and questions the negative and positive security assurances/guarantees in conventional as well as nuclear terms. The Ukraine paradox cautions other countries, in a DDS, that their survival rests with nuclear weapons of their own. Even confidence in the nuclear umbrella and assurance by treaty allies is eroding. NPT-member states are yearning for nuclear weapons and pose the greatest danger of proliferation.

Ukraine regrets abandoning its inherited nukes in the wake of its ongoing war with Russia. The withdrawal of North Korea from the NPT and the lesson it learned are that nukes are key to national survival. Similarly, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capability is considered inevitable for the country’s national security. In this geopolitical context, it is hard to make countries believe in any negative as well as positive security in return for disarmament and de-nuclearization.

Disarmament is also unlikely in today’s world due to the changing technological landscape. Countries with advanced technologies and space-based capabilities can still threaten the survival of their enemies.

Emerging technologies are leading to increased conventional imbalances between rivals, which heightens reliance on nuclear weapons for crucial security interests and could, therefore, serve as the ultimate deterrent. Moving toward disarmament requires five actions. First, there is a need for legally binding agreements to address the threats posed by emerging technologies. Second, nuclear powers should not support their allies’ nuclear pursuits. Third, effective multilateral arms control agreements are required. Fourth, it is important to address biases within global frameworks. Finally, confidence-building measures (CBMs) between rivals are needed to resolve long-standing disputes, help prevent arms races, reduce nuclear risks, and build hope for disarmament in the future.

Sher Ali Kakar is an Associate Director of Research with a focus on Nuclear and Strategic Affairs at Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), at BUITEMS Quetta. Atta Ullah is a Research Fellow with a focus on Nuclear and Strategic Affairs at Balochistan Think Tank Network (BTTN), at BUITEMS Quetta. Views expressed in this article are the authors’ own.

Illogic of Nuclear Disarmament in the Contemporary Era 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.

India and the Philippines are set to sign a $200 million missile deal in 2025, that will include Akash missiles, which is a short-range surface-to-air ballistic missile and has a range of 25 kilometers (km). This is the second defense venture between Manila and New Delhi, the first being the acquisition of missile systems in 2022 worth $375 million from India. This new development shows India’s rise in the international defense market.

To enhance its defense capabilities, India robustly tests missile systems. In March 2024, India successfully tested the nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Agni-5 missile, which has a range of 5,000 km. This missile is capable of carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) and has elevated India’s status as it enters the group of states that can fire multiple warheads from a single ICBM. In November 2024, India tested a long-range hypersonic missile successfully that can mark targets 1,500 km away. This missile is indigenously developed and puts India in the league of just a few countries that have developed this advanced technology.

In its Defence Day parade in January 2025, India publicized the mass production of quasi-ballistic Pralay missiles, which have a range of 150 to 500 km, can carry a payload of 500 to 1,000 kilograms (kg), and can maneuver while keeping a low trajectory. This is a short-range surface-to-surface tactical missile and is expected to be deployed near the Chinese and Pakistani borders. Moreover, there are media reports that Armenia is interested in buying these missiles from India.

According to media reports, India issued a notice to airmen (NATOM) in early 2025 for potential missile tests in the Bay of Bengal. It is anticipated that this NATOM was  conducting tests of the Agni-5MII. If tested successfully the Agni-5MII will modernize the Indian military, advance the Indian missile program, give India an edge over regional competitors, and will enhance India’s status in shaping the global security dynamics.

Along with the modernization of its missile program, the MTCR’s membership grants India greater boosted defense ties with various states, as previously mentioned. The MTCR focuses on missiles alone, but Indian defense exports are beyond just missiles. They include a broader range of equipment and services. Indian defense exports are estimated to increase to over $4 billion by 2025.

Moreover, India is actively pursuing partnerships with France, Israel, Russia, and the US. All of these partnerships focus on joint development and production of defense equipment, joint productions, transfer of technology, and military exercises.

Growing Indian missile capabilities pose a challenge to regional competition, putting Pakistan in a position where it needs to maintain the balance of power in the region via upgrading its defense capabilities. Indo-Philippine defense ties can be translated as a shift in the alliance in the Pak-Philippines equation. This was a traditionally warm relationship. It can force Pakistan to look out for developing closer ties with other states to counter this emerging alliance.

The technological advancement India achieved via the Akash missile can push Pakistan to invest in developing the same capabilities to counter any future Indian threat. The selling of Akash missile technology to the Philippines can be viewed in the light of India’s attempt to expand its strategic footprint at the regional and global level.

Pakistan then needs to reassess its own strategic alliances and defense posture. Growing Indian missile and defense ambitions will have repercussions on peace and stability both at the regional and global level. India’s growing missile ranges, in the case of ICBMs, will be perceived by China as an emerging threat, which can escalate tensions between these two states. The mutual perception of threat by China and Pakistan has the possibility of driving these two nations closer together. This is certainly not something the United States desires.

Dr. Anum Riaz is the Associate Director of Research for the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.

India’s Missile Program: A Threat to Regional and Global Peace and Stability was originally published on Global Security Review.

The conflict caused widespread destruction and displacement, exacerbating the long-standing humanitarian crisis in the region. It then extended into Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah engaged in hostilities against Israel. On November 27, 2024, following months of intense confrontations, the US brokered a 60-day ceasefire, allowing thousands of displaced individuals to return to southern Lebanon. However, the ceasefire’s durability remains uncertain, with speculation concerning potential violations and the broader implications for regional stability.

In Syria, rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) capitalized on regional unrest to seize control of key areas, including Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama. The Assad regime’s traditional allies—Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia—were preoccupied with their own conflicts, allowing the Assad regime’s overthrow. HTS, which is presumably anti-Iran, is making Syria more difficult for Iran to influence. Iranian influence allowed the regime to transit armaments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Over the past year, Israel intensified its military operations to degrade Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East, employing a combination of airstrikes, special operations, and strategic assassinations. On October 26, 2024, Israel launched Operation Days of Repentance, targeting over 20 locations in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. This operation significantly damaged Iran’s capabilities for missile production and utilization of its air defense systems.

This also included the destruction of long-range surface-to-air missile batteries and detection radars. Israeli operations employed targeted assassinations to eliminate key figures within Iran’s proxy networks, including Hassan Nasrallah, who was eliminated in an airstrike in Beirut on September 27, 2024, along with other senior officials. Previously, on July 31, 2024, in an operation attributed to Israel, another notable assassination in Tehran, Iran, eliminated Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas.

Furthermore, Israeli special forces conducted covert special operations and missions to disrupt Iran’s proxy activities. For instance, in September 2024, Israeli commandos raided an underground facility near Masyaf, Syria, known for its weapons development and potential use by Iran and Hezbollah to produce precision-guided missiles. Israeli forces also captured Ali Soleiman al-Assi in southern Syria in November, accusing him of aiding Iranian intelligence efforts.

Despite the systematic degradation of Iran’s proxy forces in the region, Iran continues to advance its nuclear program, posing a significant threat to the region. The head of France’s foreign intelligence agency stated that Iran’s nuclear proliferation poses a serious threat in the coming months, and both France and the United Kingdom are developing strategies to counter this threat.

However, the current geopolitical and military dynamics may present a unique opportunity for Israel to strike Iran, with a focus on neutralizing its nuclear and regional threats. A combination of factors, particularly the expectation of a West-backed Israeli military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, can underpin the reasoning.

Degraded Proxy Capabilities

In the past few months, Israel has effectively degraded the operational strength of Iranian-affiliated groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq. Moreover, the precise eliminations of various leadership divisions within Hezbollah and Hamas significantly undermine the command frameworks of Iran’s affiliates and their capacity to orchestrate operations.

Furthermore, Israeli precision strikes and covert operations effectively dismantled essential facilities supporting these groups, thereby diminishing their capacity for swift counteractions. With its proxies weakened, Iran is likely encountering difficulties in coordinating a robust regional strategy.

Israeli operations significantly degraded Iran’s air defense systems, including their Russian S-300s and other advanced defense platforms. This leaves critical facilities, including nuclear sites like Natanz and Fordow, more exposed to precision strikes aimed at eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat. Some Western experts believe that a successful strike now could potentially delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions for many years.

Domestically, Iran is also facing severe economic challenges, including unemployment, inflation, and widespread dissatisfaction among its population, which was further fuelled by protests over the past two years as a result of the dire economic situation of the country as well as the increasing repression by the regime. Ongoing protests and internal dissent are already straining the regime’s resources. Analysts believe that Iran’s leadership is significantly preoccupied with maintaining internal stability rather than launching a significant retaliatory campaign.

Overall, reports indicate that Iran’s national funds are nearly depleted, along with most of its financial resources being drained by its support to military and proxy activities. In addition, energy shortages, including electricity and gas, have fueled Iran’s economic crisis, thus, severely impacting its citizens and therefore further increasing civil unrest towards the regime.

That said, there is already a growing gap between the government and the public. This gap spans economic, political, and social aspects along with the increasing dissatisfaction over the government’s inability to address internal civil needs in parallel to the increasing repression by the regime.

Iran’s nuclear program is progressing at a rapid pace, with the emergence of reports indicating the installation of advanced centrifuges and uranium enrichment nearing the weapons-grade levels. Israel and the West may be seeing this as a narrowing window of opportunity to act decisively before Iran develops a nuclear weapon or possesses weapons-grade uranium. The possibility of delaying a firm action could allow Iran to fortify its facilities further or even achieve a nuclear breakout.

Iran’s foreign minister recently stated that if the West proceeds with the threat of reimposing all United Nations sanctions, Iran is likely to move toward possessing its own nuclear weapons. This statement raises concerns about the effectiveness of the sanctions against Iran over the past years in advancing its nuclear objectives.

The ceasefire with Hezbollah and reduced clashes with Hamas is expected to establish a brief respite in regional conflicts. However, the US and European allies are growing increasingly exasperated with Iran’s unwillingness to engage on its nuclear program, which could render decisive action more acceptable on the diplomatic front. Arab nations, while cautious, share concerns about Iran’s regional influence and the progress in the development of its nuclear capabilities.

Although Iran held a new round of nuclear talks with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on November 29, 2024, talks resulted in minimal progress and no immediate course of action. This underscores the fact that diplomatic discussions with Iran yielded nothing in recent years, except for Iran’s continued advancement in its nuclear aspirations.

Furthermore, this will likely increase Europe’s shift towards adopting a hard-line position regarding engagement with Iran on nuclear issues. In this respect, it was reported that US President-elect Donald Trump is weighing options in countering Iran’s nuclear developments, including the option for a preventive airstrike.

Recent Israeli successes against Iran and its proxies created strategic momentum. Waiting too long could allow Iran to rebuild its defenses and recover its regional proxies to actively engage in attrition warfare with American and Israeli forces in the Middle East. This could occur while potentially working covertly in strengthening its own nuclear program. In this respect, some security analysts may argue that a Western-supported Israeli strike would leverage the latter’s current military and intelligence superiority in countering Iran’s regional proxies.

While highlighting these opportunities, it is also important to anticipate the possible risks, including the regional escalation involving Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Syria. The risk of fully strained international relations with Iran also exists, especially if a strike triggers widespread civilian casualties or destabilizes global oil markets. Furthermore, a military action could arguably accelerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions clandestinely.

Those advocating for prompt action are likely to contend that the dangers of failing to act against Iran surpass the dangers of launching a pre-emptive strike before it is too late, putting Iran in a position to acquire nuclear weapons or nuclear-grade enriched uranium. It can be argued that the current moment is a fleeting alignment of weakened Iranian proxies, vulnerable defenses, and growing nuclear threats, making it a strategically opportune time to act decisively in pressuring Iran to refrain from pursuing its nuclear program. Finally, with President’s Trump return, it can be assumed that the new US administration may not have the immediate intention to pursue diplomacy with Iran, instead it would be more likely that a “maximum pressure” campaign would be adopted.

Mohamed ELDoh, PhD, is a business development and consulting professional in the defense and security sector. He regularly authors articles addressing defense cooperation, counterterrorism, geopolitics, and emerging security threats in the Middle East and Africa.

Is This the Right Moment to Act Against Iran on All Fronts? 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.

In planning to strengthen space defense capabilities, the French military procurement agency, Directorate General of the Armament (DGA) focuses on surveillance, security, and cooperation. France aims to have a full space defense capability by 2030, built on military space capabilities such as Earth observation, communications, positioning, and navigation. The country is also expanding its space situational awareness capability to monitor, classify, and better understand space activities and threats.

France unveiled Toutatis, a new space surveillance program to protect low-Earth orbit assets, focusing on satellite detection, characterization, and targeting. Toutatis works with two satellites. A “spotter” cubesat detects targets and a smaller target satellite—developed by French start-up U-space in partnership with defense industry major MBDA.

France also works on geosynchronous orbit surveillance through the Yoda program of small satellites with cameras to monitor space threats. The annual military space exercise, AsterX, highlights the need for enhanced situational awareness in low-Earth orbit. Within two years, the Toutatis program will test capabilities with planned launches of maneuverable satellites.

Rather than kinetic weapons against weaponized space assets, France deploys non-destructive measures like dazzling adversaries with lasers to neutralize threats—without creating debris. The country also seeks to balance autonomy with international cooperation. For example, an envoy from Ukraine recently discussed space defense in Paris. Pawan Kumar, Director of the Indian Defense Space Agency, recently provided the French space command with an update on military space cooperation between the two countries.

The French view is that enhanced situational awareness in space, through programs like Toutatis, is a cornerstone of its space defense strategies. Nations should prioritize investments in monitoring technology to observe potential threats and signal their deterrence capabilities.

France’s focus on space start-ups indicates a shift towards commercial and civilian involvement in space security. A timely joint-announcement made by two rising space ventures, Cailabs and Unseenlabs, revealed they successfully tested space laser transmission for satellite downlink in a world first. While Cailabs supplied the optical ground station, Unseenlabs deployed a low-Earth orbit nano-satellite with a laser payload. The pair established a stable link for several minutes. France’s Ministry of Armed Forces called the successful test a world first. It was a first for the commercial sector, but a few other experiments remain confined to American government attempts.

The French Defense Innovation Agency funded the test with €5.5 million ($6.1 million). The Cailabs/Unseenlabs system will be integrated on France’s future military satellites. Laser technology is hard to intercept or hack, compared with radio antennas.

Such a capability would be useful for expanding battlefield data transmissions. France’s optical communications satellite project, dubbed Keraunos (thunderbolt in Greek), helps mitigate the effects of atmospheric turbulence, making space-Earth liaisons handy on mobile, land-based, naval, and airborne platforms.

The European Space Agency Director, General Josef Aschbacher, rightly noted that a gap in space spending between Europe and the United States (a ratio of 1 to 6) is complicated further by spending in Europe that is spread among a wider range of national space agencies. Streamlining European defense and space governance is thornier than in the US since it involves structural reforms on technological gaps, fragmented capital markets, and strategic spending.

A rather disappointing report on European competitiveness by Mario Draghi, former Italian Prime Minister and president of the European Central Bank, generated immediate push-back from Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI). ESPI methodically reviewed the Draghi Report’s shortcomings when it came to European Defense and Space. ESPI suggested the report lacked an impulse for the needed market reforms.

As stated by Eva Portier, space deputy in France’s military procurement agency, Directorate General of the Armament (DGA), “Access to space is an essential element of our national sovereignty, our capacity to use space to launch our satellites and conduct operations.” While greater Europe is struggling to fundamentally unite in its efforts to counter future malicious space efforts by China and Russia, France is stepping forward in a more limited way. It is not lost on observers that French satellite names harken to a past where France needed protection. For example, Toutatis, discussed above, was a divinity once worshipped in ancient Gaul and Britain, and was considered a protector of Gallic and Celtic tribes. The annual military space exercise, AsterX, led by the French Air and Space Force and involving 15 partners countries, is a wink to Asterix and Obelix, leading characters of a comic book series describing the adventures of a small village resisting the Roman invaders. Legend has it the Gauls feared only “that the sky would fall on their head.”

French efforts are moving in the right direction, but unless Europe reforms and consolidates space defense efforts across the continent, Europe will be unprepared when a crisis occurs. Major space reforms take time. Thus, it is important those reforms begin now. France simply cannot accomplish what is needed on its own.

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. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

France Doubles Down on Space Defense Tech was originally published on Global Security Review.

In 2024, the world’s population surpassed 8 billion citizens. This is more than a 300 percent increase since 1950, which is an important year for global warming. It was this year when carbon-dioxide (CO₂) emissions began to increase dramatically—driving up the global temperature.

Today, the average American emits about 15 tons of greenhouse gases annually, while the average African emits less than 1 ton per year. The global mean is about 4.3 tons per person per year, a 4.8 percent increase over the previous year.

As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists points out, the planet is now feeling the devastating effects of the 1.1-degree Fahrenheit increase in global temperature since 1880. According to the Bulletin, recent global warming is responsible for the increased risk of wildfires, the rise of rare diseases, the decline in global crop yields, and may even cause a “mosquito-pocalypse.”

Nuclear weapons deserve a large share of blame for these events. Let me explain.

Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change

As the graph below illustrates, 1–2 percent of the global population, mostly civilians, perished annually because of war between 1600 and 1945. Since 1950, with the development and fielding of great-power nuclear arsenals, that number has declined to less than 0.1 percent.

It is no mere coincidence that the global population has increased 300 percent in only seven decades. The fielding of large nuclear arsenals by the United States and Russia ensured that the great powers and their allies would not engage in World War III, or any other great-power war, that historically ensured the planet did not become overpopulated. Built on a foundation of White privilege, nuclear deterrence created a fear of utter destruction, which completely eliminated great-power war and led to a marked decline in the frequency and severity of all conflict—causing the human population to explode. Thus, the check on population growth was removed.

These weapons not only limit war, but they also decrease defense expenditures and the resources required for reconstruction after war. For example, the United States spent almost half of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) waging a world war from 1942–1945. More recently, the United States spent at least $3 trillion fighting limited wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, because of the Soviet and American nuclear arsenals, American defense spending, as a percentage of GDP, averaged a mere 5 percent during the Cold War and is now at a low of 3.5 percent.

The consequence of this reallocation of wealth from conventional warfare was unprecedented economic growth, which not only allowed populations to increase but also allowed societies to improve the health, prosperity, and consumption of their citizens—dramatically reducing poverty and increasing the average life expectancy (62 percent). This prosperity also led to the most rapid increase in technological development in human history.

The population growth and human prosperity brought about by seven decades of effective nuclear deterrence may appear to be a net positive, but a closer look reveals that human prosperity comes at the cost of devastating increases in the rate of global warming. There are simply more humans generating more greenhouse gases than ever, and the problem is only getting worse. There is a solution.

Solving the Climate Change Problem

It is time for the United States to take the lead in nuclear disarmament. If the United States, Great Britain, and France disarm, Russia, China, and North Korea will surely follow suit. The global community can then pressure India and Pakistan to disarm as well.

This does not mean we must put an end to war. Nuclear disarmament properly allows the world to return to waging large-scale conventional wars, which regulate population growth and economic prosperity. Such wars will help bring man-made global warming to an end. For example, a war between the United States, Russia, and China—post nuclear disarmament—would optimistically eliminate 80–160 million people. The planet would receive a respite in CO₂ production not enjoyed since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns of 2020–2021.

The return to large-scale warfare will also ensure worldwide economic degrowth, which will further reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. It is only through a less prosperous world that we can ensure global warming ends. Another equitable feature of this strategy is that population will be reduced among the richest, most consumptive nations, possibly leaving room for some modest increases in the developing world.

Some may balk at this solution because they believe a return to great-power wars is not necessary because green energy will solve the problem. Unfortunately,  green energy’s high cost, unreliable energy production, and visible failures in Texas, Germany, and elsewhere are likely to turn people against a degrowth strategy relying on a green energy transition. Despite our best efforts, renewable energy simply cannot meet the insatiable demand of a wealthier and healthier global population. A return to widespread warfare is the only feasible solution.

It is time we follow the advice of Jonathan Swift, who, in his pamphlet, “A Modest Proposal: For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick,” courageously sought to solve the Irish poverty problem by encouraging the Irish to sell their children as food for the hungry. Making the world safe for war is an equally innovative approach to ending global warming and deserves the same consideration Swift’s proposal received. We must act before it is too late.

Postscript

For those wondering if this is a serious article, the answer should be obvious, no. The article employs a rhetorical technique, reductio ad absurdum or, as Jonathan Swift called it, satire, to make a point. In short, a world without nuclear weapons is prone to frequent great-power wars that create greater human misery. No amount of hope can change what history and human nature have, for at least five thousand years, shown to be true.

Adam Lowther, PhD, is Vice President of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

The Climate Change Consequences of Nuclear Weapons was originally published on Global Security Review.

It calls for a coordinated response using all available tools and those of member states. This includes dual-use space systems and services. However, the policy remains confined to an emphasis on resilience of space assets and confidence-building measures to clarify intentions behind various space activities. While this is not a bad thing, it does not express the European Union’s readiness to prevent and respond to space attack by deterring adversaries from hostile actions.

 Space Threat Analysis

The EU proposes an annual classified analysis of space threats called the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC), a system of systems where both civilian and military contributions are used for all-sources intelligence assessments. This integrates all space threat analyses within the broader EU threat analysis process. However, its key asset, the EU Satellite Center, requires timely geospatial and orbital intelligence capabilities. It needs to see that long-acknowledged technological shortcomings in early warning and conflict analysis  are effectively addressed.

Space Threat Response Architecture

When responding to space threats, the strategy calls for a comprehensive toolbox of joint EU state responses but goes no further in stating what these responses might look like. It does emphasize information-sharing and regular exercises. While the EU considers preventive and restrictive measures under the Common Foreign and Security Policy, it has yet to determine whether to treat attacks in the space domain as armed aggressions under Article 42(7) of the EU Treaty.

The EU rightly acknowledges the need to enhance the use of space for security and defense and intends to do so by integrating the space dimension into Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions. Strengths include additional communication services through IRIS² and relying on assured independent access to space. IRIS² is the new EU secure satellite constellation which stands for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity, and Security by Satellite. However, while IRIS² is a credible prospect, European independent access to space remains hindered by bureaucratic processes.

Indigenous Launch Capabilities

The EU made the strategic mistake of not developing any heavy lift reusable launch vehicles and the maiden flight of its expendable heavy lift launcher program, Ariane 6, is delayed until 2024. Even if successful, it will remain expensive and subsidized to survive. This led to contracting SpaceX for launch services for such EU mainstays as the Galileo navigation satellites.

Space Norms of Behavior

On norms for responsible behaviors in space, the EU reaffirms its commitment to norms and joined the US in condemning destructive anti-satellite missile (ASAT) tests. The strategy underscores the priority of dialogue with spacefaring nations and international organizations to ensure norm implementation. While the establishment of a structured dialogue on space norms between the EU, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Nations (UN) is a step in the right direction, the strategy falls short in acknowledging that normative cooperation alone will not deter adversary behavior. This is due in part to Russia and China’s opposition for such norms and their rapid buildup in ASAT weapons and other offensive space forces. In short, the EU is posturing for resilience, not deterrence.

Resilience-based Posture

Back to the very core of the EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence, which is to “enhance resilience and protection of space systems,” the document emphasizes the need for a common resilience framework, proposing the creation of an EU Space Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC). In the realm of defense space systems, EU member states tend to develop indigenous capabilities. The United Kingdom leads with the sixth-generation Skynet for military telecoms, followed by France’s Syracuse, and Italy’s Sicral. Despite attempts at common definitions, a shared system remains elusive. An exception is the joint high-speed communication satellite Athena-Fidus by France and Italy. The EU Commission aims for the GOVSATCOM system, providing secure government communications. Observation satellites for reconnaissance see France pioneering with Helios, while European collaboration efforts falter due to national-centric approaches and protective industrial interests.

Strengthen EU Space Industry

Overall, the intention to reduce European strategic dependencies on foreign-produced critical technologies, while keeping the industrial base for its civilian and defense value chains sovereign and competitive, is a good goal. This will be easier said than done, considering the entanglement of Europe with technologically advanced economies such as the US and Japan. Moreover, challenges stem primarily from economic dependency on China. The solution has been defined as “de-risking” rather than “decoupling.” It is not entirely clear how that might work.

In conclusion, the new EU strategy addresses challenges and outlines goals for strengthening capabilities and cooperation in the space domain. Unfortunately, it fails to address gaps in deterrence measures and consider the evolving geopolitical landscape to ensure the security of EU space systems. While Russia showed some restraint in orbital warfare by relying on non-kinetic and reversible capabilities against Ukrainian and Western space assets, there is no guarantee China would similarly restrain itself. Are the EU and its allies ready for prime time in a major space conflict? The answer to that question might come earlier than we think.

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.

European Union Space Strategy for Security and Defense was originally published on Global Security Review.

Voting for him seemed like the only chance for Iranians to end the corruption and mass murder of the post-revolution years. But, sadly, the more Khatami grew in his presidential role, the more distant he became from the people and the more obedient to the Supreme Leader. Although he later denied it, before the end of his presidency, he said: “the president is no more than a middleman in Iran.”

By now, the United States seems to be realizing that too, albeit very late. Khatami left in 2005, with a legacy of student arrest and murder and the raid on Tehran University in 1998. His successors Ahmadinejad and Rouhani and their record of repression are much the same.

The Iranian people carry the trauma of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. However, it is clear that they do not want another war, and the low voter turnout of the recent election sends a clear message that they do not support the regime, either. Starting with the people inside Iran, promoted by the Iranian diaspora abroad, the virtual campaign of #NO2IRI paid off and should be a wake-up call for Iranian authorities.

Resentment against the regime is high, and its reasons are abundant. The Iranian people are suffocating from shooting citizens on the streets in November 2020 to shooting down Ukrainian flight PF752 with missiles. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been suppressing human rights for over 40 years. First, the mass cleansing of the opposition inside Iran in the 80s, enforcing anti-women and anti-freedom regulations and then targeting dissidents abroad in the 90s. Today, complete control of state media and social media filtering put freedom at risk more than ever. One must either express support for the regime or say nothing at all.

So if Iranians want neither this regime nor war, what do they want?

Iranians may have taken part in the 1979 revolution, but the outcome blindsided them. Today, they blame President Carter for his lack of support to back the Shah. Thirty years later, in 2009, they blamed President Obama for not standing firm on the Green Movement protests. President Obama regrets the same in his book, “A Promised Land.” Rightfully, Iranians are terrified that President Biden will sacrifice them to make a weak deal with a rogue regime. In his first presidential interview, new President Raisi said, “He will not meet with the U.S. President.”

The United States should not be afraid of the regime. The Iranian people showed their courage by staying home and not participating in a predetermined election. The U.S. should do the same by standing high on the foundation of America: democracy and freedom for all.

President Biden and his national security team have the chance, for the first time since the revolution, to make it right with the people of Iran:

1. The U.S. can and should add all human rights demands to the negotiating table in Vienna and stand by them. Such demands should go beyond merely asking to free American hostages in Iran. They must include higher international law standards, such as prevention of torture and access to free and fair trials, equal rights for women, minorities, and LGBTQs. Iran will not like it and claim domestic sovereignty, but it too signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1945. Human rights for all is what President Biden has promised. With his leadership, the Europeans will follow.
2. The White House should support the Iranian people in every way short of the use of force. Iranians want the President to condemn regime atrocities strongly. Since January 2021, the State Department Farsi section has lost followers on social media. Human rights content is far more critical than scattered messages on Jazz or birthday wishes. The State Department should transform its Farsi page and tailor it to the target audience of Iranians. Information on fundamental human rights and needs, privacy protection, and accessible VPNs should be the contents of USABEHFARSI. It is wrong to think the U.S. will blame the people by supporting them. The Iranian regime always blames the U.S; the U.S. should always stand by what is right and what the regime despises.
3. The word on the ground among the Iranian diaspora is that Iran lobby groups such as NIAC (National Iranian American Council) did not establish themselves independently and that the CIA played a role in setting them up as a concession to the regime. The U.S. government should set the record straight, denounce these regime lobby groups, and stay as far from them as it can. These groups have only worked against U.S. interests and the regime in the last decade.
4. The U.S. Justice Department’s actions against Iranian malign activities should go beyond shutting down IRGC websites. Instead, it should focus on those individuals who create division and hate among Americans, claiming the U.S. is at fault for everything wrong in Iran. A specific Task Force is now needed to target those individuals, their travel, and finances.
5. Meeting with Iranian groups from all perspectives must be a top priority within the State Department. In the last decade, the regime lobby groups have gotten close enough to the U.S. government and bought time for the regime. This should change, and the U.S. should hear out everybody.

The path ahead for the United States to deal with the Iranian government is neither war nor fruitless diplomacy, rather fierce advocacy for human rights and the freedom of the Iranian people. The regime has the money and the tools of repression, but it doesn’t have the people’s support.

The United States now has the chance to do the right thing for the people of Iran. The regime needs to know the world is watching. The Iranian people will surprise themselves and the world with their courage to change and a better future.

The JCPOA is Dead—Renewal Not Required was originally published on Global Security Review.

In the wake of the AUKUS agreement, EU member states must come to terms with the loss of primacy and the shift of the U.S.’s geostrategic center of gravity to the East to counter Chinese expansionism. The old Eurocentric western security architecture is essentially in shambles, hindering NATO’s integrity as well. The emerging “Quad” alliance between the U.S., U.K., Australia, India, and Japan diminishes NATO’s importance in the Indo-Pacific. The French and other traditional allies and partners—members of EU and NATO—collectively appeared more enraged than China, highlighting the clumsy formation of AUKUS that was accelerated by the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. AUKUS marks a turning point in global geopolitics that will have a domino effect on several parts of the world—one being the Eastern Mediterranean.

After the diplomatic blow of AUKUS and Angela Merkel’s retirement from frontline politics, France’s first reaction was to strengthen its ties with Greece and increase its presence in the Eastern Mediterranean by signing a rearmament deal that modernizes the Hellenic Navy and commits to an important Defense Assistance Agreement. The latter includes a clause of mutual defense assistance—similar to the mutual defense clause (Article 42.7 TEU) of the Treaty of the European Union—in case one of the two states is attacked on its territory.

Analysts note a relation between AUKUS and U.S. support for France to pursue a more proactive role in the Eastern Mediterranean through the game-changing Franco-Greek deal that bolsters the Greek armed forces with three Belharra frigates (+1 option). Athens previously ordered 18 Rafale fighter jets and has plans to acquire six more in the future.

France already showed its intention to support Greece against Turkey during a prolonged 82-day crisis that brought Greece and Turkey (two historic rivals and NATO members) to the brink of conflict. Back in 2020, the Turks deployed their seismic research vessel Oruç Reis accompanied by a flotilla of warships to conduct surveys on the Greek continental shelf (as described in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – UNCLOS III) that Turkey claims with the unsubstantiated Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) naval doctrine. The Mavi Vatan opposes UNCLOS III provisions and is based on the arbitrary assumption that all islands are deprived of the right to exert jurisdiction on the continental shelf. However, the Law of the Sea is binding on all states to the extent that it represents customary international law, and although Turkey is not a signatory to it, it has to comply with it.

French President Emmanuel Macron openly criticizing Turkey’s activity on the Greek and Cypriot continental shelf/exclusive economic zone (EEZ) said, “I don’t consider that in recent years Turkey’s strategy is the strategy of a NATO ally… when you have a country which attacks the exclusive economic zones or the sovereignty of two members of the European Union.” In contrast, on another occasion, he clarified that “France has been very clear. When there were unilateral acts in the eastern Mediterranean, we condemned them with words, and we acted by sending frigates.” After signing the Franco-Greek deal in Élysée Palace, he also noted that “it will help protect the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of both states.”

France’s intervention came as no surprise since it has competing interests with Turkey over Syria, Lebanon, and Africa. As Professor of Geopolitics Kostas Grivas explained, France has a large presence and significant geopolitical interests in Africa. Its strategic depth is in Africa, incorporating more than the Francophone states.

The Mediterranean is bridging France with the African continent; thus is imperative to maintain control of it, especially after the recently discovered energy resources attracting a great deal of interest. This brings France closer to Greece, and the Republic of Cyprus in a containment effort against Turkey’s expansionism left unanswered by the EU’s inability to guard its outermost borders.

The Turks, as expected, expressed their frustration with the newly formed Franco-Greek strategic alliance by putting pressure on Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. Turkish frigates obstructed the Maltese-flagged research vessel Nautical Geo hired to conduct research related to the EastMed gas pipeline. The ship attempted to work on the Greek continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (delimitated with Egypt) and Cypriot EEZ (delimitated with Egypt). Turkey, however, is claiming the same continental self with the Mavi Vatan doctrine.

With an increased military presence, the Turks aimed and succeeded in forcing the Americans on yet another equidistance statement. A State Department spokesman said the U.S. “encourages all states to resolve maritime delimitation issues through peaceful dialogue and in accordance with international law,” an announcement that overlooks the fact that the Turkish frigate obstructed Nautical Geo’s work on Greek and Cypriot delineated EEZs.

The Connection Between AUKUS, the Franco-Greek Pact, and the EastMed Pipeline was originally published on Global Security Review.

Even among allies at the Security Council, such as the United States, France, and the U.K. — known informally as the P3 — relations have also broken down on critical issues, from the response to civil war in Libya to the role of the World Health Organization in the fight against coronavirus. More frequent use of informal meeting formats, especially among democratic countries, is a necessary step in efforts to end increasingly complex conflicts around the world.

In a recent attempt to ease tensions, the U.K.’s former Permanent Representative, Karen Pierce, initiated a new informal meeting format over the past year. Known by diplomats in New York as “sofa talks,” these gatherings take the form of unscripted meetings, which aim to develop a problem-solving mindset among representatives. There are no agendas and no minutes. The formula also differs from other meeting formats because representatives do not submit issues for discussion, and only Permanent Representatives (and the catering staff) are present. Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan coined the term “Pierce formula” to describe the new meetings.

In late March 2020, as the United States went into its coronavirus lockdown, Ambassador Pierce left New York to become British Ambassador in Washington. This transitional moment requires Security Council members to cement the format Pierce initiated as an essential tool for internal dispute resolution.

A diplomat at the U.K. Mission with whom I spoke welcomed the continued use of informal sofa talks, even if the prospect of holding in-person meetings in the near future remains low due to social distancing measures. While their exact form may be different in the future, informal meetings without agendas have demonstrably led to better working relationships, even when diplomatic ties are strained. From the British perspective, Pierce formula meetings have helped the U.K. to rebuild some semblance of a working relationship with fellow permanent member Russia since the low point of the Skripal poisoning in 2018.

Concerns about transparency at the United Nations should not limit the use of the Pierce formula. Transparency remains essential for the UN’s credibility. Over the past decade, the number of formal, open meetings of the Security Council has increased significantly to reflect member states’ desire for greater public accountability. In 2018, there were 275 open meetings and only 120 closed consultations. This marked a significant shift since the early 2010s when around half of meetings took place behind closed doors. In light of the broader trend towards greater transparency, the Security Council should not shy away from closed-door informal meetings when necessary if the formula delivers results in conflict de-escalation and peacebuilding.

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As the period of increased Security Council productivity immediately after the end of the Cold War demonstrated, private, informal meetings can generate more honest discussion and lead to better decision-making. In March 1992, for example, a Croatian priest contacted Venezuelan Permanent Representative Diego Arria during Venezuela’s presidency of the Security Council. He wanted to share his account of the ongoing violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but only UN Secretariat officials were typically able to brief the Council formally. Instead, Arria gathered Security Council members informally to hear the priest’s first-hand accounts. From there, the “Arria-formula” emerged. The arrangement allows non-state actors, representatives of NGOs, and others, to brief the Council in an informal setting and is now a fully institutionalized feature of Security Council operations.

From 1989 to 1994 alone, the Security Council authorized 20 new peacekeeping missions. These resolutions required extensive informal discussions to reach an agreement on new Security Council mandates. Then, as now, the global order was in a state of transformation, and the increasingly divergent interests of permanent members in the 21st century necessitate more informal consultation to build trust and rapport.

Despite the challenges that the pandemic will continue to pose for face-to-face diplomacy, the need to maintain informal lines of communication, as well as open in-person discussions where possible, remains. During the pandemic, local actors, such as the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, took advantage of an international community distracted by domestic concerns about the coronavirus by escalating military action.

In a time of crisis, a coordinated international response is more important than ever. If Haftar and other regional players continue to sense paralysis on the part of the Security Council, the conflict will only escalate further beyond the reach of multilateral solutions. Frequent, unscripted dialogue between Security Council members is the first step toward greater unity, especially in the context of greater activism at the Security Council by Russia and China.

On the civil war in Libya, more Pierce formula meetings may enable France, the U.K., and the United States to understand each other’s positions more clearly, and thus formulate a unified set of proposals for peace. If U.S. Permanent Representative Kelly Kraft is serious about her recent assertion that Libya must find “a political path to stability,” then the use of informal meetings to reach consensus among traditional allies at the Council may be part of a multilateral solution. Without the improved understanding and cohesion that informal meetings can provide, it seems unlikely that the P3 can reign in their wayward Turkish and Gulf allies, whose continued incursions into the conflict in Libya divide the Council. While France continues to offer support to the United Arab Emirates’ intervention on behalf of Haftar, the United States is concerned about Russia’s involvement on the same side. Neither country’s approach helps the UN-backed government in Tripoli. As permanent members of the UN’s most powerful body, such an incoherent policy is unacceptable.

As the role of proxies and external actors in the wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen continues to shape the conflict, unity among allies at the Security Council is essential. Unity, especially among democratic Security Council members, acts as leverage against outside intervention in local conflicts, and may, in turn, influence Russian and Chinese geopolitical calculations. Informal mechanisms like the Pierce formula provide a critical forum for this effort.

The views expressed in this piece are solely those of the author.

A new formula for the UN Security Council was originally published on Global Security Review.

After withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—in May 2018, the Trump administration has embarked on a policy of “maximum pressure” towards Iran, denying Tehran the benefits it was meant to receive through the deal and reimposing sanctions on broad sectors of the Iranian economy. 

For its part, Tehran has responded by shooting down U.S. military drones, seizing foreign-flagged tankers in the Strait of Hormuz—threatening the freedom of navigation in the strategically critical maritime route—and violating its JCPOA obligations by stockpiling and enriching uranium beyond the agreed-upon levels.

To garner support for a U.S.-led operation to protect ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, Washington urged its transatlantic partners—the U.K., France, and Germany chief among them) to participate in a maritime security mission. Their responses, however, indicated that, in contrast to the U.S., Europe didn’t perceive the Islamic Republic to be a threat to European interests that merited possible military action.

Tensions between London and Tehran peaked when the U.K. impounded an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar over suspicions that it was violating an EU embargo by carrying oil destined for sale in Syria. In a tit-for-tat escalation, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy seized a tanker flying the British flag in July for allegedly turning off its GPS locator, breaking the maritime traffic pattern in the Strait of Hormuz, and polluting water by dumping crude oil residue.

Initially, the U.K. was hesitant over the idea of its naval forces joining those of the U.S., and instead formulated plans for a European-led mission in the area. However, following Boris Johnson’s appointment as Prime Minister and the lack of continental support for a European-led maritime security mission (with Germany showing little more than complete disinterest), the U.K. announced it would join the U.S.-led operation. The move served to demonstrate Anglo-American solidarity and strengthen ties between the two countries—in part due to the Boris Johnson government’s prioritization of a post-Brexit free-trade agreement with the U.S.

France’s interests are more nuanced. Thus far, Paris has rejected joining any U.S.-led operation. Instead, Paris has been actively engaged in a lengthy diplomatic campaign intended to convince both Tehran and Washington to de-escalate and enter into negotiations. However, France was among the first few European countries to initially support the European-led naval operation that was proposed by the U.K. France has a direct interest in the Persian Gulf as it imports most of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia. French companies have business interests in Iran, in large part driven by the export of jets, aircraft parts, and automobile parts. A scenario in which tensions with Iran escalate would undermine France’s strategic interests in the region. Therefore, Paris continues to emphasize diplomacy and show restraint in response to the proposed U.S.-led maritime security operation.

In contrast with France and the U.K., Germany’s outright rejection of the United States’ proposal reflects the downward trend in relations between the two countries. This isn’t the first time Germany has declined to participate in a U.S.-led military operation. Germany previously refused to participate in U.S.-led airstrikes in Douma, Syria, as well as refusing to deploy ground troops to Syria. 

Like France and the U.K., Germany was in favor of maintaining the Iran nuclear deal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s failure to convince U.S. President Donald Trump not to withdraw from the JCPOA was viewed in Germany as a significant political setback—both for German-American relations and for Merkel’s reputation at home.

Germany’s primary interests in Iran revolve around promoting stability in the Persian Gulf region, which remains critically important for global economic security, as well as resolving conflicts in the Middle East to prevent further mass-migration by refugees and other migrants towards Europe. For this reason, Berlin’s stance is that escalating the situation is neither necessary nor opportune. Germany’s preferred outcome is a diplomatic solution, and continually stresses its resolute opposition to a military solution. There is little political appetite or support in Germany for the United States’ Iran policy under the Trump administration.  The concern for German policymakers is that Berlin must avoid entrapment in U.S. policy and see itself drawn into a conflict.

In other words, Germany doesn’t share the same interests as the U.S., the U.K., or France when it comes to Iran. Unlike the U.K., no German ships or tankers have been harassed or seized by Iran, and, unlike France, Germany doesn’t rely on the Persian Gulf for its energy needs.

Diverging Interests in Iran Behind Germany’s Rejection of U.S. Maritime Security Mission was originally published on Global Security Review.

Up until the Libyan National Army (LNA) reached the southern outskirts of Tripoli, the campaign somewhat resembled a sneak attack. The LNA is lead by General Khalifa Haftar, an ex-Libyan Army officer who served under Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. From 1990 to 2011, Haftar lived in exile in the United States, returning to Libya in 2011 during the country’s revolution, holding a senior position in the group that overthrew Gaddafi’s regime.

In Haftar’s rhetoric, the assault is described merely as a campaign to liberate the capital from the extremist Islamic groups governing it. These assertions do have some logic to them, apart from the fact that the purported extremist groups aren’t overtly specified. Nevertheless, attempting to capture the capital—let alone effectively administering the country after a victory—may prove to be a bridge too far.

General Haftar Gains Ground

Ever since the chaotic events of 2011, Haftar has nearly continuously fought against jihadists, managing to achieve significant territorial gains. In earlier campaigns, some of his troops are known to have committed war crimes, but it would be a fallacy to assume no such crimes were committed by extremist groups on the opposing side.

Since the fall from power and subsequent death of Muammar al-Gaddafi in late 2011, Libya has lacked an effective central government. After a transition period, elections were held in 2012, which resulted in violence and left the country without functioning state organs. Concurrently, as an interim governing authority was established in Tripoli, Haftar struck an alliance with the rival governing body, the House of Representatives in Tobruk, Libya.

The legitimacy of the Tobruk-based government is itself disputed. Initially, it was recognized by the West, most likely in the hope that it would ultimately unite with the Tripoli-based government. This optimism could be deemed naïve, especially after Haftar quickly managed to mobilize an army (the Libyan National Army) primarily from Gaddafi-era officers and soldiers, with support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The LNA succeeded in capturing various cities in Eastern Libya, including Benghazi, after defeating ISIS and Shura Council forces in 2017.

After gaining power over Libya’s vital oil production areas in 2016, Haftar temporarily lost the key export ports of Brega, Es Sidr, and Ras Lanuf, but was able to reestablish control over them shortly after that. In contrast to their successes in eastern Libya, Haftar and his allies lost control over Tripoli’s international airport in 2014. However, heavy fighting damaged the airport’s facilities—if not even ruined them—rendering the airport inoperable.

In the wake of these clashes, Misrata-led armed groups and their allies formed the “Libya Dawn” coalition and took over the capital. In December 2015, Libya’s two main rivals—the House of Representatives and the Tripoli-based Libya Dawn coalition—reached an agreement over the formation of a UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which was formed in Spring 2016.

Clashing Congressmen in the Capital

The supreme authority in Tripoli is the Presidential Council (PC), made up of nine members and chaired by the prime minister. Some members of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives never accepted the idea of a GNA, leaving little chance for any future cooperation. This is unsurprising, however, given that in any merger, members of both power centers would lose standing relative to their current positions.

Notably, the head of the GNA—Fayez Al-Sarraj—was a member of the House of Representatives in Tobruk. Regardless, this detail never fostered trust between the rival factions, nor did it prevent Haftar from seizing valuable oil installations in southern Libya.  Initially occupied by armed clans and militant groups, the GNA had to send troops to protect these facilities from Haftar’s advancing forces.

On the other hand, Haftar isn’t the only one causing gray hairs for Libya’s newly formed state institutions. Basing its mandate on the General National Congress elections of 2012, the Government of National Salvation of Khalifa Ghwell was also founded in Tripoli, though without any real governing structures. In 2016, Ghwell again tried to reassert his position but failed. The following year, he and his troops were finally ousted from the capital. Even though Ghwell’s possibilities were limited, the intra-Tripoli clashes 2016–2017 challenged Al-Sarraj’s regime, and in turn, provided momentum for Haftar to slowly approach the capital.

It is likely that internal rivalries existed amongst decision-makers in Tobruk, and that Al-Sarraj was expected to loyally support the aims of the eastern Libya-based House of Representatives. Instead, in the eyes of his former colleagues, he became too independent and powerful through his apparatus in Tripoli, which led to open confrontation between rival factions.

Despite any doubts held concerning Al-Sarraj’s loyalty, not all parliamentarians in Tobruk supported Haftar’s final push towards Tripoli. Dozens pledged their support for the general, but a number rejected the use of force and urged their colleagues to convene and elect a new chairperson. Those dissenting viewed the incumbent as a close ally of Haftar, but failed to gather the necessary quorum to hold a vote until later, but were unable to effectuate any meaningful action.

Foreign Friends & Funding

Despite sharp divisions between those allied with him, Haftar had no problem commencing his campaign to seize Tripoli. When Haftar ordered his troops to “liberate” Tripoli on April 4, 2019, he had already secured Saudi-Arabian backing as well as support from Egypt and the UAE. GNA forces shot down UAVs that were reported to be of Emirati origin, even though the UAE was not officially involved. Furthermore, it is likely that Saudi funding financed the Tripoli campaign, including pay for soldiers.

On the surface, it would seem paradoxical that Haftar—a man whose stated purpose is combating extremism—is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Wahabbi monarchy. However, considering that Libyan extremists mainly subscribe to a different strain of Islamic fundamentalism than the Saudis, the paradox is not so striking. Turkey, a major regional rival of the Saudis, has provided support and backing to Al-Sarraj and wasted no time in denouncing Haftar’s move against Tripoli. Ankara has also been accused of transporting fundamentalist militants to Libya from areas that were formerly controlled by ISIS, and more recently, of arming GNA forces.

Fervent Egyptian support for Haftar is similarly complex. President Al-Sisi has taken a hard line against Islamist movements—notably the Muslim Brotherhood—but such predilections have yet to deter Egyptian participation in a Saudi-funded operation. From Cairo’s perspective, ensuring extremist groups stay away from Egypt and its vicinity is a goal that justifies even minor procedural deviations.

Similarly, French decision-making is heavily guided by security concerns. France’s strategy of ambiguity, however, merits some explanation. In 2011, airstrikes carried out by French fighter jets, alongside British and U.S. planes, were instrumental in ousting Gaddafi. Shortly after that, however, Paris began to support Haftar’s campaign against militant fundamentalists in Libya. France vetoed a UN Security Council resolution over Libya’s current situation, which was perceived as too unilaterally condemning of Haftar, illustrating France’s pragmatic approach.

More recently and in a logical continuation of its strategic ambiguity, France called on the UN Security Council to facilitate a settlement in Libya. After Al-Sarraj threatened western energy companies operating in Libya over the status of their operating licenses, France relaxed its seemingly supportive stance towards Haftar’s LNA. While exhibiting sympathy for the endangered GNA in Tripoli, as well as a willingness to serve as an intermediary, Paris is increasingly aware that it’s unlikely a negotiated settlement will be reached.

Al-Sarraj’s threat similarly applies to Italian firms. While the Italian government has held meetings with representatives of both sides, it has mostly limited itself to rhetorically highlighting the need for a political solution to the conflict. While Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s position as the head of a populist left- and right-wing populist governing coalition is a question in-and-of-itself, the primary reason for the Italian government’s intransigence is likely the ongoing refugee crisis. Italy has been a prime destination for migrants setting off from the Libyan coast, and is, rather cynically, weighing which of the warring parties is best-positioned to stem (if not stop entirely) the substantial influx.

In contrast, Libya’s neighbor Tunisia is not so concerned about possible refugees, not least because Haftar controls most of the Libyan side of the Libyan-Tunisian border. If allegations of Tunisian arms sent to Tripoli and fighters joining GNA are true, Tunis may have lost one income source. Still, a humanitarian catastrophe next door would cause significant economic and social problems for Tunisia as well.

For its part, Russia denies involvement in the escalation in Libya. In the past, Moscow has provided Haftar’s forces with arms, and Russian private security firms have reportedly been engaged in operations within Libya. The Kremlin, however, is more focused on the international legal precedents that would be established in the event of a UN-brokered settlement, so as to be able to later refer to it as a model for resolving internal conflicts. If Western powers—mainly the U.S., France, Britain, and Germany—agree to a UN-brokered settlement, the precedent established in Libya could be used by Moscow to settle, on its own terms, internal conflicts it has provoked through the creation of quasi-states like Transnistria, Abkhazia, and the Donetsk People’s Republic, to name a few.

Haftar advances towards Tripoli

As the UN voiced its concern over impending hostilities— in vain—Haftar’s forces closed in on the capital along the two main roads that run parallel to one another into Tripoli. The initial phase was rather quick, and Haftar’s troops succeeded in advancing to the Tunisian border in the west and Janzur on the western outskirts of Tripoli, essentially cutting the city off from any supplies or reinforcements, leaving just two small GNA-loyal pockets along the coast. In the opposite direction, this also prevents possible refugees from crossing over to Tunisia.

Shortly after that, the LNA lost one airplane, reportedly due to technical failures. The LNA bombed the city’s only functioning airport, Mitiga, which was closed for several days. Once again, the heaviest fighting has been concentrated in and around the old airport, located roughly 30 kilometers south of the city center. For now, Haftar is in control the airport itself, with enemy forces just yards away.

Situated between the two main roads leading to Tripoli from the south, the airport serves as a crucial foothold to block access to the city, as well as a forward base from which to conduct further operations. Together with Janzur (had its capture succeeded—instead, around 140 of Haftar’s men were besieged and captured) and a strategic intersection close to the suburb of Tajoura, these gains would offer optimal positions from which to lay siege to the city. Or, if the LNA manages to establish a hold on the old airport, Janzur isn’t even needed, since the LNA already controls Surman, which blockades the area west of Al-Zawiyah.

As of this article’s publication, the LNA’s main base of operations remains in Gharyan, some 60 kilometers from Tripoli, whereas the frontline goes from the Qaser Bin Ghashir suburb adjacent to the old airport. Gharyan itself closes a counterattack route via Kilka—the corner of the vast GNA-loyal enclave situated behind the LNA—just southwest of Tripoli. The LNA’s loss of Al-Aziziyah was a setback, and fierce fighting continues around it and the old airport. The LNA has managed to achieve minor territorial gains around Al-Aziziyah, and for a short period, were able to progress to the Tripoli Medical Center, roughly 10 kilometers from the city center.

Overall, the LNA has been unable to break through the Tripoli defense lines, which have been reinforced by fighters from Misrata. If Haftar were to concentrate all his forces in Tripoli, it would weaken his flanks, leaving his positions open to a possible counterattack from Misrata—towards Bani Walid or from along the eastern coast. Conversely, by drawing in and binding as many Misrata-based armed groups as possible to the Tripoli trenches, Haftar diminishes the likelihood of a counterattack from Misrata.

Launching an assault on a new front along the coast by Sirte is another tactic Haftar could employ to prevent any attacks on his forces from the rear. On the other hand, however, it implies that breaking through Tripoli’s southern defenses proved harder than initially expected. Thus, clashes remain sporadic, but increasingly heavy shelling has inflicted large amounts of damage on the southern Tripoli suburbs, as thousands have fled amidst a death toll that has risen into the hundreds. Even if the fighting remains localized, the situation could worsen quickly. With deteriorating living conditions, there is a risk of a far greater humanitarian crisis.

No easy solution

Escalation into a full-scale civil war cannot be excluded, given the aspirations of the involved parties. As the capital plays a strategic role, capturing it would solidify—to an extent—Haftar’s control over Libya. Nevertheless, maintaining control over crossroad towns such as Tarhouna, Bani Walid, Waddan, and a small village east of Sirte remains vital for LNA operations in the northwest of Libya.

On the other hand, Al-Sarraj’s most effective (and likely only) way to remain in power is to defeat Haftar’s LNA at Tripoli’s gates. A counterattack from Misrata or anywhere else would bog down forces plus weaken the capital’s southern defenses. Thus, the GNA’s primary objective is ensuring that the main routes into Tripoli remain closed to the LNA to preclude the possibility of a siege on the city.

In the event of an all-out civil war, there would be no victors. First and foremost, the death toll would likely rise into the tens of thousands, and it would take substantial time and resources to rebuild Libya after another civil war. Hafter can’t afford to lose the battle for Tripoli, as it would mean the end of his career. If Haftar is victorious, the population of Tripoli isn’t likely to welcome him as a liberator, thus forcing him into a long campaign to win their hearts and minds.

Likewise, if the GNA prevails, it cannot be sure whether the various armed groups backing it now would subsequently submit to its authority. This would be particularly so if the decisive factor delivering the victory were troops from Misrata, who might seek a more significant share of power, encouraged by their successes and perceived leverage. In this scenario, the intra-Tripoli situation from 2016-2017 would likely repeat itself. Furthermore, several armed groups remain, among whom are former ISIS militants, who could take advantage of factional infighting. Such groups are unlikely to submit to the rule of a central governing authority, and whoever should prevail in Tripoli must effectively deal with these factions—or else the next conflict is already looming.

Haftar Ante Portas Tripoli was originally published on Global Security Review.

Of course, much has been said about Brexit over the past years, so much so that it has become nearly impossible to escape the daily dose of Westminster’s drama. Economic experts have warned of the potential danger of exiting the E.U. without a deal, to then warn of the genuine damage that Britain’s Brexit limbo is doing to the economy. British entrepreneurs have been split on the consequences of the vote, with some embracing the opportunities that free trade agreements beyond the E.U. framework might bring, and others complaining of the reduction in market access and the difficulties in attracting skilled workers to the country.

Political activists, journalists, and experts have been mobilized as early as the Brexit vote, providing commentaries, analyses, and opinions on the thousand political, social and historical implications of the referendum result. Immigrants, from both the EU and beyond, have either stoically braced themselves hoping for a painless outcome, or packed their bags and given up on a country that has made its views so painfully clear. In short, and whatever political inclination one might have, one thing is sure: the Brexit quagmire has profoundly altered the fabrics of British society, irreversibly changing how the nation-state functions, exists and is perceived, both domestically and abroad. 

There is, however, one segment of British society that, arguably more than others, encapsulates the dramatic changes occurring in the post-Brexit landscape and, ironically, it is the same segment that has created the conditions for its demise. The irresponsibility of the British political class and its increasingly apparent detachment from various societal predicaments has led to a forceful renegotiation of the pact between government and individuals, whereby deep-seated resentments have found their way into a new wave of mainstream ultra-nationalism.

With the era of austerity—prompted by the collapse of the global financial system—weighing heavily on the shoulders of the poor and shrinking the middle class, the rescue of the super-rich by governments entrenched in neoliberal market logic has opened the door for a general reassessment of the political order, and for a growing mistrust towards the promised benefits of the current status quo. The global landscape further played a role in creating such a strong polarisation.

The E.U.’s eastbound expansion has put the Kremlin on high alert, encouraging Putin to a more proactive role in propping up Eurosceptic leaders, as he funnels millions into the pockets of parties such as the French Front National, the German Alternative for Germany, the Italian La Lega, and, allegedly, the British “Leave.EU” campaign team. Simultaneously, the legacy of the war in Syria has had far-reaching socio-political implications, effectively increasing the gap between nativist and non-nativist groups in Europe and framing European political discourse along the lines of the “Us vs. Them” paradigm.

It is in this context of fear, disillusionment, and disenfranchisement that nationalistic sentiments find their way to the dinner table, as mainstream society becomes progressively more exposed to narratives advocating for the reform of internationalism, a retreat from the global, and a general denunciation of the foreign. This was, after all, the pillar upon which the Brexit campaign was built, and the underlying message that resonated the most with the public. “Take back control” became the simplest and most effective way to channel the entire spectrum of pro-Brexit stances into a hopeful slogan, but also to tap into the primary driver of people’s anxieties – the widespread sense of abandonment and impotence, and the promise of social redemption. 

The Politics of Politics

It is likely that historians will write down Cameron’s decision to hold the E.U. referendum as one of the greatest political miscalculations in British history. As the story goes, the former British Prime Minister called the Brexit referendum in the hopes of consolidating the unity of the Conservative Party ahead of the 2015 general elections, effectively tying British membership to the E.U. to strategic considerations of party politics.

As leader of a party that had traditionally maintained a certain scepticism towards the European Union—perfectly encapsulated in Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech, in which she claimed: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels”—Cameron knew that the easy “remain” victory he had anticipated and hoped for would help him consolidate his leadership, draw the hardliners out of his party, and finally put the E.U. issue to bed. Even more, Cameron hoped that the promise of a referendum would be enough to stave off the risk that the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP)—which had made of anti-immigration and anti-E.U. sentiments the pillars of its political agenda—would attract conservative votes and play in favor of the Miliband-led Labour Party: “Look, we have heard the message loud and clear about the things you want to see changed. We will change those things”—he pleaded—“come with us, come back home to us rather than risk all of this good work being undone by Labour.” 

People did hear him, loud and clear. Not only was Cameron re-elected into a second term, but he had also won a majority that, however thin, allowed him to head the first majority conservative government for twenty years. The cheering in Downing Street, however, might have been short-lived. According to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, Cameron did not expect to win a majority in 2015; rather, he thought that he would again have a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, who would promptly block the referendum in exchange for concessions on the alternative vote in local elections.

Had things gone to plan, Cameron would have arguably had his cake, eaten it, and enjoyed it too. He would have stabilized his party, silenced the E.U. issue among conservative MPs, inflicted a severe defeat to UKIP, scared the E.U. into renegotiating some of the most disputed aspects of British membership, and secured another five years into government without taking responsibility for a referendum that was promised but never happened. But with the ideologically-awkward, yet politically-convenient, Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition now out of the picture, Cameron had to deliver on the promise made: give British citizens an in/out option on the EU. As Tusk put it: “Paradoxically David Cameron became the real victim of his victory.”

With the referendum now sure to take place, further political miscalculations were made by the Prime Minister in the run-up to the vote. By late 2015, the House of Lords passed a motion with a majority of 82 to lower the voting age to 16, which was aimed at enfranchising youngsters to politics and give them a voice on the E.U. referendum. While Brexiteers predictably trembled at the prospect—as the “leave” and “remain” camps were segmented along  “old” and “young” demographic lines—Cameron too firmly rejected the idea, fearing that left-inclined young voters would turn the tide against the conservatives in future general elections. Thus, putting again party politics before the upcoming E.U. vote, Cameron disenfranchised around 1.5 million potential young voters that were likely to vote “remain.” In retrospect, considering that “leave” won by approximately 1.2 million votes, a young pro-E.U. vote could have indeed saved Cameron’s political career. 

The voting age miscalculation was not the only one committed by the government, but one of the many that occurred since the referendum was promised in January 2013. Above all, there was Cameron’s inability to appreciate popular moods concerning the question of Britain’s E.U. membership, which in turn severely restricted his chances of selling home the new deal he negotiated with Brussels after the 2015 elections.

The popular argument is that Cameron’s attempt to revisit the parameters of the UK-E.U. relationship was mostly unsatisfactory—or as The Sun put it, “pathetic” and “gutless”—and that he should have pressed for more concessions. While there might be some truth in this, since Cameron had repeatedly downplayed the chances of a “leave” vote to E.U. leaders—even commenting back in 2014 that he would easily win “by 70:30”—the three main miscalculations lied elsewhere.

First, Cameron believed that the concessions obtained from the EU, particularly in relation to the issue of immigration, would be enough to sway popular consensus towards the “remain” camp, as he misread people’s anxiety as stemming from in-work benefits for E.U. immigrants (which he managed to renegotiate) instead of from the numbers of E.U. immigration (which he could not).

Immigration ranked first among people’s top concerns, and although the “emergency break” on benefits was aimed at discouraging new migrants from moving to Britain, it was surely not enough to placate the fears of the British people. Second, Cameron failed to read the overarching mood and narratives driving the Brexit campaign, which had become increasingly polarising, slogan-driven, and dominated by strong popular emotions. There was arguably little room for in-depth analyses of the legal niceties of the summit’s set of conclusions, and many of the concessions obtained were either lost in the wind or swept under the carpet by Brexiteers, who simply adjudged they amounted to nothing as they were not binding. Third, and perhaps even more importantly, Cameron’s failure to bring home concrete results that practically addressed people’s fears, directly played into one of the most effective Brexit tropes, one which claims that Britain has given up its sovereignty to the EU.

When Ian Duncan Smith, Cameron’s former Work, and Pensions Secretary, lashed out at German Chancellor Angela Merkel accusing her of directly sabotaging the government’s efforts to control immigration, the British press went on overdrive. The Sun, which claims 33.3 million readers each month, promptly ran the news story titled: “Cam’s in her hans: Germany SABOTAGED David Cameron’s E.U. renegotiation, and he let them, IDS [Ian Duncan Smith] sensationally claims,” in which Ian Duncan Smith’s point was clearly made: “The Germans said from the outset, you are not getting border control. Full stop… We put ourselves in a compliant position to another country which doesn’t have your best interests necessarily at heart… We are now in a worse position than we were before.”

Here lay one of Cameron’s main miscalculations, or perhaps one of the most illustrative examples of his political naïveté. The prime minister hoped that he could both quell the “leave” side’s unrest by securing a better deal with the E.U.—which would have in turn afforded him an almost certain victory in the referendum—while simultaneously win over E.U. leaders, Merkel above all, by forcing them to make concessions on free movement.

Of course, no one in Brussels was willing to sacrifice the unity and fundamental principles of the Union to get Cameron out of the political jam he had put himself into. This meant that, when the E.U. deal was brought back home with accusations of German interference and of Cameron’s incompetence, Brexiteers were able to find yet another reason to push for the “leave” vote. As UKIP’s then leader Nigel Farage commented: “[David Cameron] is not aiming for any substantial renegotiation… no promise to regain the supremacy of Parliament, nothing on ending the free movement of people and no attempt to reduce Britain’s massive contribution to the E.U. budget”.

With the deal being presented to the public as nothing short of a major disappointment, pro-leave elites came to be equipped with the perfect rhetorical weapon which allowed them to tie together the issue of immigration with the issue of sovereignty: if Britain wanted a chance at regulating the migration flux into its borders, it had to make itself “independent” from the European Union.

The final, fatal blow to David Cameron’s “remain” campaign was delivered by a series of misguided steps that the prime minister took as he attempted to keep the Conservative Party united and avoid public clashes between high-profile conservative MPs. Indeed, by the time he returned to London with an underwhelming set of promises on the future of Britain’s relationship with the EU, the pro-Brexit faction in Westminster was in full swing, relentlessly campaigning to give Britain a supposed “independence” from Brussels. With the European Research Group (ERG) moving conservative MPs towards a hard-Brexit stance that was directly opposed to the European ambitions of their party leader, two senior figures in the conservative party, Michael Gove—himself a ERG member—and Boris Johnson, came to the forefront of the “leave” campaign as early as February 2016, the former out of (primarily) principles, the latter out of (primarily) ambitions. 

In line with his overarching belief that “remain” would get an easy win, and that remaining in Europe was, by all means, the sensible thing to do, Cameron rested assured that both MPs would back him in the campaign out of loyalty to the premiership, out of friendship, and out of reason. The miscalculation, however, proved itself costly. Indeed, not only was Cameron forced to resort to convoluted maneuvers to soften the blow when his friends moved to the other side—first by attacking Johnson and then calling for a truce—but it also meant that the leave campaign could now benefit from the support of two, high-profile conservatives.

Indeed, both Gove and Johnson had different ideas from David Cameron when it came to Europe, as throughout their political career both had, more or less publicly, argued cases against Brussels’s legislative influence over London, as well as criticized EU’s laws on free movement. More than that, the former London mayor saw in the Brexit referendum the political opportunity of a lifetime, as he reasoned that, although Brexit was a major political gamble, it could offer the perfect chance to advance his trajectory to Downing Street, effectively guaranteeing him enough conservative support to prop him up to become next prime minister, either after the end of Cameron’s mandate or after his resignation.

On the other hand, Michael Gove’s Brexit stance was underpinned by a stronger Euroscepticism, by an ever-lingering sense of ideological fatigue, and by an equally strong Orientalism which had made him a central player during the “Trojan Horse’ affair—a scandal that eventually contributed in convincing Cameron to remove him from his role of education secretary. As such, while the £30,000 pay-cut might have played a role in spoiling his friendship with Cameron, his “Us VS Them” ideology informed his stance in relation to the issue of immigration, so much so that the speech with which he announced his support to the “leave” campaign was primarily framed along those lines: 

“E.U. immigration policies have encouraged people traffickers and brought desperate refugee camps to our borders. Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU’s policies have become a source of instability and insecurity… the E.U. is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria. The former head of Interpol says the EU’s internal borders policy is ‘like hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe.'”

Crucially, that is not to say that both MPs jumped on the Brexit wagon light-heartedly. As Shipman notes, both Gove and Johnson remained on the fence for as long as it was possible for them to do so, sincerely torn between their beliefs and their loyalty, and between the comforting certainty of a “remain” vote, and the many unknowns of the Brexit gamble. But when Cameron presented the result of his E.U. negotiations, and with the Conservative Party already effectively fractured between “leavers” and “remainers’, both MPs saw slim chances of casting a vote in favour of Brussels, opting instead for what they believed was the natural outcome of a political career never shy of anti-E.U. sentiments. 

After February 2016 delivered two important and highly regarded MPs to the Brexit cause—which spread the feeling that “leave” was not, after all, utter lunacy—it should have been an all-out war for a prime minister whose chances of winning were getting increasingly slim. It was not. Instead, Cameron refused to confront either Johnson or Gove in television debates for fear that Brexit would turn into, as he commented, “a Tory psychodrama.”

Indeed, Cameron became more concerned with the idea of rebuilding the Conservative Party after Brexit than with Brexit itself and reasoned that a public confrontation against leading conservative MPs of the caliber of Johnson and Gove would demolish any appearance of party unity. Perhaps, Cameron still believed that “remain” would be the natural outcome of the referendum, or perhaps he was willing to sacrifice his political career for the good of the party. Regardless, the prime minister scrapped the idea of a “blue on blue” debate and opted instead for a confrontation with a very familiar face in the “leave” camp: Nigel Farage, on June 7.

Although the two never shared a stage—rather had allocated slots to make their case and take questions from the audience—the show unveiled the underlying logic behind the entire Brexit debate, giving a clear sense of what real drivers of the “leave” campaign were and which popular sentiments were underpinning it. Indeed, for as much as David Cameron attempted to play the “economy card”—claiming, at times arrogantly, that every expert had warned against the economic repercussions of Brexit—immigration remained the salient issue which many in the audience wanted to keep as the focus of the debate. This played directly into the hands of the UKIP leader, for Farage—a controversial figure in British politics whose 20-year long political career was built on anti-immigration sentiments—knew too well that his audience was not in the TV studios, but at home, and was eager to hear more about the dangers of the EU’s free movement policy.

Crucially, although many in the press were quick in attributing the victory to the more polished David Cameron, any mention of immigration virtually assigned a point to the “leave” side. Indeed, on the one hand, Cameron had no real answers to give, for there was no easy solution to the question of immigration; and on the other, Farage was quite happy to keep the debate on that specific issue, even if that meant casting himself as an untouchable hardliner in the “leave” camp. For example, when a woman from the audience raised the issue of Farage’s comments linking the Cologne sexual assaults to remaining in the EU, he promptly responded: 

“It’s a massive issue in Germany; it’s a huge issue in Sweden. I think Angela Merkel has made a big mistake by saying “please anyone come.” And what’s happened is, a very large number of young, single males have settled in Germany and in Sweden, who come from cultures where attitudes towards women are different.”

Although Farage’s stance sits at the far-end of the Islamophobic discourse that emerged during the Brexit campaign, it is useful to remember that such a narrative was widely and happily shared among Brexiteers. Ian Duncan Smith repeatedly claimed that a vote to remain would expose the UK “to terror risks.” Gove’s announcement that he would back the “leave” vote revolved around the security threat posed by the E.U. free movement rule, which, he claimed, “actively abets terrorists.” Johnson too, despite his long history of controversial comments, seized the opportunity to argue that Brexit would improve Britain’s security against the terror threat. 

Of course, this is not to say that the Brexit campaign was centered on the question of Muslims in Britain, nor that “leave” voters were solely motivated by their views on Islam. Instead, British discontent with the European Union encapsulated a wide array of popular beliefs and discontents with social issues, with the political class, and with the country’s economy. Even so, however, it is significant that Brexit came to be framed along the lines of security, terrorism, and multiculturalism, rather than, for example, practical considerations of economic stability.

Sure, Gove dismissed any attempt at rationality when he claimed that Britons “have had enough of experts,” but the “leave” team could not win the debate by merely rebutting technical arguments. Instead, they needed something that they could tie to both the global landscape and to the question of Britain’s E.U. membership.  As “Take back control” offered them the perfect slogan to silence pragmatism, the issue of Middle Eastern migrants and the widespread panic around terrorist attacks in Europe gave them the ideal ammunition to make their stronger case: leaving the E.U. could rid the country of Muslim migrants, and with them, of the risk of terrorism. 

These arguments had a profound impact on British society, which came to the inevitable conclusion that there was, in fact, a link between terrorism and Brexit. In January 2016, the vast majority of people polled by YouGov (77%) demanded a ban of the Islamic veil in British schools, and another 58% believed that many economic restrictions had to be imposed on asylum seekers. By February 2016, 56% believed that “a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society” existed. As Brexit slowly paved the way for a wave of Islamophobic sentiments across the country, by June 2016 immigration became the most important issue for voters. After the referendum, hate crimes against racial and religious minority reached an all-time record. 

The Turkish Question 

Much of David Cameron political credibility had also being compromised by his fearless stance in support of Turkey’s entry into the European Union, which in the run-up to the referendum vote became another significantly hot topic for British society, busy assessing the pros and cons of its membership to the Union. In that sense, Cameron was more Tony Blair than he was Margaret Thatcher.

Indeed, while the Iron Lady became responsible for introducing the concept of “Britishness” in an attempt to emphasize the need to preserve British national identity against the growing European one, the New Labour leader had long advocated the idea of a Turkish seat at the European table. Behind Blair’s support of Ankara lied practical considerations of foreign policy, as Turkey’s strategic value—further increased by the events that followed 9/11—trumped the socio-cultural factors that had made other member state sceptical, for a country boasting a population of nearly 80 million, 99% of which Muslim, was perceived by many European bureaucrats as a threat to Europe.

Ironically, one key argument which would underpin both Blair’s and Cameron’s stance concerning the Turkish question was more sectarian than pragmatic. Indeed both leaders believed that Turkey’s accession would contribute towards staving off the risk of a “clash of civilisation” between Muslims and non-Muslims, as it could strengthen Turkey’s resistance against Islamist fundamentalism while simultaneously shutting down “intense arguments about the incompatibility of Islam with democracy or Islam with human rights and modernity.”

Secure in his belief that Turkey, sitting at the border between Europe and the Middle East, could indeed bridge Christianity and Islam, in 2010 Cameron commented: “Turkey can be a great unifier. Because instead of choosing between East and West, Turkey has chosen both. And it’s this opportunity to unite East and West that gives Turkey such an important role with countries in the region in helping to deliver improved security for us all.”

However, with the Brexit referendum unveiling the country’s real mood about immigration—and even more so in relation to multiculturalism—Cameron sensed that his support for Turkey’s entry in the E.U. was misplaced. Indeed, the question of Turkey’s membership was quickly weaponized by Brexiteers—both outside and within Cameron’s own government—who began to spread claims that Britain would be flooded by Muslim migrants carrying crime, security threats and the risk of further strains on the country’s public services such as the National Health Service (NHS). As new posters reading “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU: Vote leave, take back control” began to circulate, David Cameron spectacularly U-turned on his pro-expansion stance, ridiculing the Ankara government during a May 2016 interview, in which he claimed that it would not be able to join the E.U. “until the year 3000”.

Equally spectacularly, however, David Cameron maintained a somewhat ambiguous stance over this issue, which was made even more suspicious after leading Brexiteers such as Gove and Johnson had demanded from the government a clear commitment to veto Turkey’s entry. Arguably to their delight, this never happened. Whether because he feared that such a commitment could jeopardize Britain’s bilateral relationship with Turkey, or because he did not want to face future diplomatic awkwardness at European level, Cameron never clearly gave assurances that he would, in fact, veto Turkey’s accession, rather, he relied on the French government—which had conveniently called for a referendum on the issue—to stop Ankara from entering the Union. Again, however, Cameron’s political calculations played into the wrong hands: as questions about Britain’s loss of sovereignty lingered, his decision to pass the gavel to Paris on such a crucial issue made many wonder why was Downing Street “relying on somebody else” to stop Turkey’s accession. “Take back control” scored another important victory. 

The issue of Turkey became central in the Brexit saga. Indeed, by then the “leave” campaign had begun to show one of its ugliest faces, creating a sectarian divide that leveraged on pure prejudice against migrants—and even more so against Muslims. Crucially, while early efforts to sway public opinion towards the “leave” option had focused on issues of sovereignty and economics (with strong emphasis being placed for example on Britain’s E.U. membership fee), Brexit supporters were quick in shifting towards arguments that could be more easily understood, and that could have a more significant impact among the “anxious middle” in British society.

While it was arguably difficult to make an economic case in support of Brexit—for the E.U. remains the largest single market in the world and the world’s largest economy—the global context that framed the Brexit vote provided “leave” campaigners with anti-immigration ammunition. In the years that followed the rise of the Islamic State (IS), Europe had witnessed increasing anti-Muslim sentiments stemming from large numbers of migrants fleeing war zones in the Middle East, as well as from some high-profile Islamist terror attacks in France, Belgium, Germany, and England.

Thus, fuelled by its furthest-right activists operating in the streets and online, anti-Muslim sentiments in Britain found unexpected legitimisation in the words of mainstream politicians such as Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, who promptly linked their Brexit ambitions to the issue of immigration, which was in turn connected to the question of opening British doors to Turkish Muslims. Completing the picture, Nigel Farage’s infamous “Breaking Point” poster—showing a large queue of non-white, Middle Eastern-looking migrants and a sign reading “We must break free from the E.U. and take back control”—further strengthened the connection between the “leave” vote and Muslim existence in Britain, regardless of their nationality or status.

Little did it matter that the majority of mainstream Brexiteers promptly distanced themselves from the radical views of the UKIP leader. In a short period, Brexit had not only come to be firmly discussed in terms of immigration and border control but had come to be framed within a “Us VS Them” paradigm that further allowed for a mainstream scapegoating of Muslims. It is thus unsurprising that a record surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes occurred in fact in the aftermath of the vote, as abuses such as “Get out – we voted Leave,” or “Shouldn’t you be on a plane back to Pakistan? We voted you out,” became the clearest, and ugliest, a manifestation of what the Brexit vote meant for many.

The Economy, Stupid

Any analysis of the Brexit referendum and the moods that it encapsulated would be incomplete without an assessment of the economic backdrop within which the vote occurred. Indeed, while party politics and the question of Turkey steered the outcome towards the “leave” side, revealing the significant political capital that issues such as multiculturalism and immigration have in such circumstances, it was the economic situation in Britain that provided the conditions for anti-Muslim sentiments to emerge. 

A plethora of studies have convincingly demonstrated that there exists a direct correlation between economic conditions and openness towards immigration and that, specifically, worse economic condition—such as high rates of unemployment—directly impacts how migrants come to be perceived by nativist groups. For example, Johnston and Lordan have found that “prejudice among native-born whites increases with the unemployment rate,” and that a mere 1% increase in unemployment can result in a 4% increase in prejudice among middle-class men in full employment.

Others have contended that “While a functioning welfare state can compensate the globalization losers… welfare cuts may do the opposite,” suggesting that austerity programs have a direct effect in attracting individuals to populist parties and in increasing anti-immigration sentiments. And others yet have contended that “once unemployment and austerity hits, people tend to turn against themselves by using their last democratic weapon: turning against democracy itself by voting for extreme right-wing parties.” In short, many notable studies (including post-Brexit ones) have given empirical and theoretical evidence in support of the broadly held belief that Britain’s economy played a key role in swaying public opinion against migrants and Europe. 

From a political perspective, Cameron’s decision to call for a referendum after years of austerity was, by all means, political suicide. Just months before the general elections of 2015, The Guardian ran an article in which it was stated that the government planned to slash out a further £55 billion by 2019, which added to the already £35 billion cuts since the Conservative Party seized Downing Street. The cuts were unforgiving. Funding for social enterprises providing help for the disabled, for refugees, or even for job seekers, almost entirely disappeared—forcing many to shut down.

Funding for councils was nearly halved, with public services for housing and leisure, libraries, and even roads maintenance collapsing. Proposals to freeze working-age benefits, to reduce the benefit cap of £3000, and to limit access to housing benefit for people under 21, loomed. Child poverty increased, police cuts turned into higher crime rates, food banks emptied, and 120,000 deaths came to be directly linked to Cameron’s austerity program under the unforgiving label “economic murder.” 

Ironically, the Cameron government was both relieved and surprised by the muted reaction to its austerity program, particularly considering that when Spain adopted equally severe austerity measures, the country went into something resembling a civil war. In truth, however, Britain’s discontent had a very different face, short of Spanish hot-blood and full of British aplomb. Indeed, instead of taking the streets, Britons took the polling booth and cast a vote that reflected years of frustration and disillusionment, preferring the unknowns of a “leave” vote to the economically unsustainable status quo. And while ascribing the Brexit vote solely to the economic disaster that the conservative elite-driven austerity caused might be reductive, enough research exists to substantiate the claim that the thousand cuts brought about by the Cameron government did play an important role in channeling anti-E.U. sentiments. 

For example, people in the poorest households were more likely to support “leave” than those in households with incomes over £60,000 per year; people out of work were equally more likely to favor Brexit than those in fulltime employment, as were people in low-skilled and manual labor. The most impoverished towns in England overwhelmingly voted for “leave’, with Boston (Lincolnshire) heading the group with 76% of people in favor of Brexit, and with South Holland (Lincolnshire) and Castle Point (Essex) following with nearly 74% and 73% respectively.

Interestingly, all three towns witnessed dramatic cuts on services and benefits. Lincolnshire, for example, suffered from severe cuts to the police force, which caused a sharp increase in “austerity crimes that led to an overall crime increase”; meanwhile, emergency funding for low-income families in Essex shrunk by 87%. All this accompanied a variety of other measures that dramatically shrunk towns” budgets and compromised the lives of millions. Significantly, the districts that suffered the most from the austerity cuts imposed by the government recorded a surge in votes for UKIP, “whose raison d’etre,” argues Fetzer, “was Britain’s exit from the EU.” 

While Cameron’s ruthless subscription to neoliberal logics of anti-welfare, state-slashing, poor-punishing, strict policies of pro-market madness might explain his inclination to subjugate Britain under a 10-year long austerity plan, his decision to call for an in/out E.U. referendum amid his austerity project remains puzzling at best. On balance, it could also be cynically interpreted as the clearest sign of how self-entitled, privately-educated elites had lost touch with the reality on the ground. Enveloped in a happy bubble of self-righteousness and privilege, Cameron severely misjudged how the economic impact of his austerity program was providing populist narratives of division and ultra-nationalism with powerful ammunition.

UKIP, conversely, sensed that trend, as since 2012 it moved from targeting the middle class and focused on the “less educated, worse off, insecure and pessimistic (white) voters.” To be sure, Cameron’s follow-up decision to use his face for the “remain” campaign was also profoundly misguided, as by 2016 his approval rating had sunk to 34%, with 58% claiming he was not “doing a good job.” When the Panama Papers showed to the public that their prime minister had benefited from a comfortable family nest of offshore money—which inspired the famous nickname “Dodgy Dave”—another good chunk of public confidence went missing. With 68% of surveyed Britons claiming they would not trust him on tax avoidance, David Cameron’s “remain” campaign inevitably came to suffer from another important blow.

Brexit Orientalism 

While the analysis of the Brexit saga’s economic backdrop provides a partial explanation of the sentiments with which millions of British citizens approached the referendum, it also sheds light on the dynamics that helped to frame the E.U. vote within an anti-Muslim discourse. Indeed, keeping in mind that the last decade has witnessed explosive tensions in the Middle East—first with the Arab Spring, then with the rise of IS, and then with the war in Syria—the popular mood created by Cameron’s austerity program helps understand why anti-Muslim rhetoric came to the forefront during the campaign and, more violently, after the vote. Two reasons can be found for this. 

First, Cameron’s view of migration contributed to the creation of a space for anti-migrant sentiments to emerge so forcefully during the Brexit campaign and, ironically, in limiting the effectiveness of his own “remain” campaign. Having already advocated “good immigration, not mass immigration” during a 2011 speech in parliament, Cameron repeatedly lashed out at Brussels’s free movement policies claiming that the weak economies of certain member states were preventing Britain from reducing its capacity for migration. As noted earlier, he sought to reduce immigration by making the prospect of living in Britain unattractive, first through the emergency break discussed with E.U. leaders in the 2015 summit, and second through the Immigration Act 2014, the goal of which was to “create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration” by making it increasingly difficult for non-British to access basic services such as employment, healthcare, housing, education, banking, and others. 

What is particularly striking, however, is that Cameron’s position was not limited to the issue of free movement in Europe, but extended to a racializing narrative that effectively created an overlap between the need to control migration and the issue of multiculturalism. In October 2011, the government’s view on this became abundantly clear, as a direct connection between the economic difficulties faced by many and the presence of minority communities across the country was spelled out:

“Excessive immigration brings pressures, real pressures on our communities up and down the country. Pressures on schools, housing and healthcare and social pressures too. When large numbers of people arrive in new neighborhoods, perhaps not all able to speak the same language as those who live there, perhaps not always wanting to integrate, perhaps seeking simply to take advantage of our NHS, paid for by our taxpayers, there is a discomfort and tension in some of our communities… And there is also the concern that relatively uncontrolled immigration can hurt the low paid and the low skilled while the better off reap many of the benefits. So I think it’s absolutely right to address all of these concerns because if people don’t feel that mainstream political parties understand these issues, they will turn instead to those who seek to exploit these issues to create social unrest.”

Remarkably, the October speech followed another memorable moment in Cameron’s relationship with cultural diversity. Speaking in Munich in February 2011, he stated that multiculturalism had failed, because “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream…We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values.” The speech was significant, as the juxtaposition of multiculturalism with terrorism effectively reframed interfaith and interethnic relationships along the lines of securitization. In the space of a few months, Cameron had thus managed to link multiculturalism—and Muslims specifically—to both economic issues and terrorism.

As such, while much of his follow-up measures created a strong degree of separation between the government and British Muslims (for example, during the Trojan Horse scandal, or when he rejected calls for annual meetings with Muslims, or when he threatened deportation for Muslim women who failed English language tests, or when he introduced the concept of “British values” to tackle extremism, or when his cabinet asked Muslim leaders to demonstrate that Islam is compatible with “British values’), they also contributed in conflating the issue of economic immigration with that of multiculturalism and race. Thus, by the time the Brexit campaign came to be centered squarely on immigration, “leave” came to be construed as a means to stop Muslims from entering, or living, in the UK. The high circulation of Islamophobic tweets in the immediate aftermath of the referendum effectively showed that Brexit had “framed “western” identity in non-inclusive terms and unleashed social anxieties about Muslims as the foreign “other’.” 

The second factor that contributed to bringing Brexit about, among other things, Muslim existence in Britain, ought to be found in UKIP’s political revival. Moving from being a fringe party of “loonies” and “closet racists”—as Cameron once described them—to becoming one of the fastest growing parties in British politics as early as 2013, UKIP traditionally ran on inflammatory political agendas centered upon strong anti-E.U. and anti-immigration sentiments. Its 2015 manifesto, for example, spells out the party main objectives and shows its aggressive stance in relation to the issue of immigration: 1) End immigration for unskilled jobs for a five-year period; 2) Tackle the problem of sham marriages; 3) Introduce a new visa system for workers, visitors, students, families and asylum seekers; 4) End access to benefits and free NHS treatment for new immigrants until they have paid tax and NI for five years; 5) Require all visitors and new immigrants to the UK to have their own health insurance; 6) End welfare tourism with a five-year embargo on benefits for migrants; 7) Allow British businesses to choose to employ British workers first.

UKIP’s nationalist agenda accompanied an even more concerning stance about Muslims and Islam. The investigative group Powerbase identifies many links between the party and Islamophobic organizations such as the Dutch Freedom party, the EDL, Pegida UK, Liberty GB (formerly British Freedom Party); as well as with European far-right parties within the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) umbrella. Even more, UKIP’s then leader Nigel Farage had never made a mystery of his views on Muslims and Islam. In 2012 he argued:

“On the issue of Islamification, I think we have to do a bit more, probably starting in our schools to actually teach people about the values of our Judeo-Christian culture… There are over twenty police forces now in this country turning a complete blind eye to the operation of Sharia courts and Sharia law…  if you’re not prepared as a nation to stand up for your cultures and your values, then those cultures and values will be threatened.” 

In 2014, he blamed Muslims for anti-Semitism in Europe; in 2015 he claimed that people’s concerns over immigration were founded, as Muslims were attempting to create a “fifth column” to effectively “kill” Britons. He further added:

“There is an especial problem with some of the people who’ve come here and who are of the Muslim religion who don’t want to become part of our culture. So there is no previous experience, in our history, of a migrant group that comes to Britain that fundamentally wants to change who we are and what we are. That is, I think, above everything else, what people are really concerned about.”

 A few months later, he accused Muslims of having “split loyalties”; and later in 2017 he stated:

“There are quite big areas of east London that have become wholly Muslim areas… There are gangs of men out saying to women in short dresses there shouldn’t be there; to people in having a drink that they shouldn’t be there. There are parts of Paris and parts of Brussels that are even worse. Any woman, in a normal manner, if she walks down the streets, she will receive abuse.”

With such a long history of Islamophobic comments, it is perhaps unsurprising that when Farage became one of the most recognizable faces in the “leave” camp, the Brexit campaign turned squarely on a debate about multiculturalism, which focused on Muslims above any other ethnic group. Indeed, while pro-leave MPs and activists were “playing defense” on the economy for the entire duration of the campaign, a shift in focus towards the issue of immigration afforded them the greatest yet fighting chance. Farage himself knew too well that immigration had to be played up if “leave” wanted that chance. He was so sure of this that in April 2016 he declared:

“What I have urged “Vote Leave”—the official designated vehicle—we have got to get onto the other part of the pitch, we gotta start attacking the enemy’s goal, and where the enemies are at their absolute weakest is at this whole question of open door migration, the effects that it’s had on the lives of ordinary Britons over the course of the last decade, and the threat that it poses given the new terror and security threat that we face in the West… I would love myself and UKIP to work with you [Vote Leave] on this campaign. Because actually we are the form horses when it comes to immigration when it comes to the impact that it’s had on people in this country.” 

The official “leave” campaign never allowed Farage to add his name to the team, and promptly distanced itself from his most controversial moves. In a bid to secure a favorable outcome, Brexiteers across the political spectrum found themselves resorting to very similar arguments. 

Conclusion

Research conducted by Hope Not Hate showed that 49% of “leave” voters believed that “There are no go areas in Britain where sharia law dominates and non-Muslims cannot enter,” against a mere 19% of “remain” voters. Similarly, 54% of “leave” voters agreed that “Islam is generally a threat to the British way of life,” against 17% of remainers. Subsequent polls showed that 47% of “leavers” believed that the government was deliberately hiding the truth about the number of migrants living in the UK, and 31% believed that “Immigration to this country is part of a bigger plan to make Muslims a majority of the country’s population.” 

The conflation between the issue of E.U. migrants and the securitization of Muslims came to the forefront of the Brexit campaign as a result of clever political calculations on one side, and not-so-clever political mistakes on the other. 

Mistakes punctuated Cameron’s political career since the announcement of the referendum up to his resignation. Failing to read popular moods stemming from his aggressive austerity policy, the prime minister called for a simple in/out referendum on the future of Britain in the EU, incidentally at a time in which his approval rate was at historical lows. This was followed by a series of missteps that directly helped the “leave” side to build a case for Brexit.

First, Cameron returned from the E.U. negotiations without significant achievements. While it could not have been otherwise, as Brussels does not negotiate on the four indivisible freedoms, his mistake lied in his belief, or hope, that E.U. leaders would rescue him out of the political jam he had put himself into.

Second, Cameron failed to give practical reassurances on the question of Turkey’s entry in the EU, choosing to rely on the French government for a potential veto. This was further inflamed by his traditional pro-Turkey stance, which made his U-turn appear insincere and contributed to spreading conjectures about European power vis-à-vis Britain’s sovereignty.

Third, he put party politics above any other consideration or concern. This occurred when he called the referendum to strengthen his leadership; when he misjudged Gove and Johnson’s stance losing them to the “leave” camp; when he refused to debate conservative Brexiteers; and when he rejected the idea of lowering the voting age.

Finally, he blamed the failings of his austerity policy on migrants, further declaring the failure of multiculturalism and conflating Muslim existence in Britain with issues of terrorism and extremism. On the opposite side, Brexiteers displayed incredible flexibility in their willingness to capitalize on such mistakes. Recognizing their slim chances of winning on the economy front, “leave” MPs, activists, campaigners, and newspapers bet everything on immigration, further strengthening the link between immigration and terrorism.

The vilest manifestation of this trend was Farage’s “Breaking Point” poster, arguably a culmination of a 20-year long career built upon the demonization of minorities. But while the poster might have horrified some of the most moderate Brexiteers, the increased support for UKIP during the 2015 elections, and the relentless anti-Muslim narrative upon which UKIP had consolidated its appeal, proved that the “Muslim card” could indeed be a wise one to play. 

Brexiteers across the political spectrum capitalized on this. Gove, for example, claimed he “shuddered” after seeing the poster, yet his speech in support of Brexit was built within the framework of security, terrorism, and immigration. Hardly a surprise. His view that “The west faces a challenge to its values, culture, and freedom as profound in its way as the threat posed by fascism and communism,” had made him a key player during the infamous Trojan Horse affair.

To be sure, the entire “Vote Leave” campaign—the mainstream face of the otherwise ugly affair—came to be centered upon the Muslim-Immigration-Terrorism triad as soon as Brexiteers realized technical arguments on the economy were unbeatable. At the sound of “Murderers, terrorists and kidnappers from countries like Turkey could flock to Britain if it remains in the European Union,” they secured the long-awaited victory—condemning millions of Muslims to violence and discrimination in the process.

Brexit and the Politics of Islamophobia 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.

European leaders announced the establishment of a European Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate payments for oil exported from Iran to other countries. However, it’s in Europe’s interest to immediately cease all funding and support for the Iranian government.

There are three reasons it’s in Europe’s interest to scuttle the SPV.

First, Europe cannot easily implement the SPV.  Europe not only faces unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States but must also contend with the hardliners in Tehran. With less than a month until the SPV is operational, the Iranian parliament has yet to approve two critical anti-money laundering bills. One is known as CFT (Countering the Financing of Terrorism) and the other relates to the United Nations Palermo Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The Expediency Discernment Council, an Iranian body that ensures bills align with the principles of Sharia law, has yet to ratify the Palermo Convention.

Second, the Iranian regime will use the SPV as a means to acquire funding used to support terrorism throughout the middle east. Therefore, the special purpose vehicle won’t legitimize oil payments to Iran. The Iranian economy is heavily dependent on the oil industry, which has been entirely taken over by government and military entities such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.  Consequently, there are little resources to go towards privatizing or modernizing the economy. The Quds Force has allowed Iran’s infrastructure to decay while it has spent considerable amounts of money in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon (Hezbollah), and Gaza (Hamas). Furthermore, Europe’s SPV has tacitly condoned Iranian missile tests, as the mechanism could have been employed as leverage to induce a freeze Iran’s missile testing program.

Third, the SPV will only be a short-term panacea for Iran’s complex and corrupt economy, should the Iranian government decide to make use of the vehicle. As the U.S. has imposed more sanctions on Iran, the country’s currency has become increasingly volatile. Plummeting currency value has created turmoil both in the market and throughout the population. Banks and investment funds are going bankrupt in ever-greater numbers, and are increasingly unable to provide their customers with access to their savings. As a result, there have been regular protests and strikes throughout Iran.

It is wrong to assume the SPV is anything similar to other international intermediaries.

While it may seem that the mechanism is merely a means of paying for Europe’s oil demand, it is, in fact, a means of providing funding for fundamentalist religious groups within Iran, nearly all of which saw increased funding in Iran’s 2018 fiscal budget. The role of these entities is not to facilitate socio-economic productivity in Iran, rather, it is to create and disseminate propaganda that condemns European values.

Europeans are wrong if they hope that by offering the SPV, Iran will cease its malign activities. In 2018, the Iranian government dispatched operatives to Europe in an effort to assassinate members of Iranian opposition groups. These activities and Iran’s support for terrorist groups should come as no surprise for Europe. It was less than two decades ago in the 1990s that Iran attempted to carry out assassinations in Europe. The regime halted its behavior only after survivors took legal action in European courts.

Europeans have long turned a blind eye to the Iranian government’s pervasive violations of human rights. Today, it would behoove Europe to take a strong stance against the illegal imprisonment of union workers, torture or mysterious death of prisoners, child marriage, women’s rights and religious freedom in Iran.

Recently, Europe has taken some necessary steps towards overcoming its tacit acceptance of Iran’s domestic and international actions. Germany barred Mahan Air flights in early 2019, and French sanctions have sent a message against missile tests by Iran. Poland is hosting a meeting in February concerning the future of the Middle East and has excluded the Iranian government. Europe can shed light on the suffering of the Iranian people by ceasing all support and funding for the regime in Tehran. Europe should not legitimize a hostile, totalitarian, and fundamentalist Iranian regime.

A Precarious Future for Iran-Europe Relations was originally published on Global Security Review.

When the Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Partushev, claimed in mid-January that the continuation of policies “by the Kiev authorities can contribute to the loss of Ukraine’s statehood,” members of the international security community expressed outrage at what appeared to be a blatant threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty. Nevertheless, impulsive proclamations have overshadowed subtle diplomacy and enabled largely-unnoticed progress between Germany, Ukraine, and Russia to decrease tensions and facilitate a degree of quasi-cooperation.

In light of the November 2018 naval confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian vessels, maritime activities on the Sea of Azov, particularly in the vicinity of the Kerch Strait Bridge, have exhibited the potential to escalate tensions between the two countries. Recently, however, the Russian government has accepted a German proposal for joint monitoring missions with France to ensure freedom of navigation for shipping on the Azov Sea—a proposal that is very much welcomed by Ukrainian officials. Joint Franco-German monitoring would help to prevent further confrontations between Ukrainian and Russian vessels and counter Russia’s claims to the right to regulate passage of the Kerch Strait.

In December, the Russian government rejected Germany’s initial proposal for monitoring missions by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Russian officials were disinterested in an expansion of OSCE missions beyond the current observations in the Donetsk-Luhansk region. However, with the removal of this stipulation, Russian President Vladimir Putin “immediately agreed” to allow German and French observers to evaluate Russian compliance with international law in the Sea of Azov and at the Kerch Strait, the site of the controversial bridge connecting the Russian mainland with Russian-annexed Crimea. The revised proposal, submitted to the Kremlin by Heiko Maas, Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, on January 18th, is intended to ensure Russian activities do not impede shipping through the Kerch Strait and comply with international maritime law.

Given Ukraine’s deep-seated interests in maintaining its freedom of navigation within the Sea of Azov, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has welcomed the German initiative as assurance against the potential for Russian forces to accuse Ukraine of noncompliance and induce penalties on Ukrainian maritime operations. Germany’s proposal arrives at a critical moment for Ukraine as twenty-four of its sailors involved in the November Kerch Strait incident remain in Russian custody  having been charged with illegal border crossing, which carries a sentence of up to six years in prison.

At a recent press conference, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin eagerly welcomed prospects of an international monitoring mission led by Germany with the caveat that he hopes Russian authorities “don’t manipulate it.” Klimkin further urged that the mission refrain from inadvertently legitimizing Russian activities on Azov and that it explicitly denounce the border between Ukraine and Crimea under international law while also refusing to acknowledge the Kerch Strait Authority.

Official negotiations between German, Russian, and Ukrainian officials have yet to occur as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas have constrained discussions of the mission to separate and private talks with Ukrainian and Russian leaders. However, upcoming talks between Ukraine and Germany to negotiate a “joint vision… to work with the Russian side” appear promising since diplomatic relations between Russia and Ukraine are, by-and-large, nonexistent. “They are at an absolute minimum – only for protecting our citizens,” Klimkin explained at a Kiev press conference earlier this month. “But we are looking for a formula, as soon as we find it, we will definitely apply it.” Germany’s effort to ensure the stability of the Sea of Azov and monitor the Kerch Strait may very well prove to be the missing variable in this formula.

Germany: The Subtle Mediator Between Russia and Ukraine was originally published on Global Security Review.

What began as a small collection of infrastructure projects in neighboring countries in 2013, has now expanded to neighboring regions and continents, impacting 65% of the world’s population, and 40% of global GDP. Primarily funded by private investors, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and China’s Exim Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s flagship of foreign policy and investment. Encompassing massive economic corridors, transportation routes, and critical infrastructure across 68 countries, BRI is nothing short of the most ambitious development project in history.

The incentive for the initiative stems from a shared desire to improve transcontinental connectivity in commerce and people-to-people ties by offering massive investment, inexpensive credit lines, and excess Chinese capacity in steel and cement — all vital to critical infrastructure projects. In turn, Beijing aims to realize the return on BRI investments through the expansion of its geopolitical and economic spheres of influence.

Initially driving investment in transportation routes between Eastern and Western China, an economic corridor through Pakistan, and deep sea port development in Sri Lanka, BRI projects quickly spread from Central and Southeast Asia to Eastern and Southern Europe. Already the EU’s second-largest trading partner, China offers Europe abundant opportunities to improve transportation in the Eurasian corridor by decreasing transportation costs, transit times, and carbon emissions.

As international trade routes operate now, importing Chinese products can be rather cumbersome. The most cost-efficient route can take up to 40 days on a container ship. To reach European markets from coastal China, a freight ship must sail through the Strait of Malacca, across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, and through the Mediterranean Sea to round Iberia and Normandy, and finally pass through the English Channel to dock at the deep-water ports of Rotterdam and Hamburg.

With new high speed rail across Central Asia, trains could freight materials by land directly from China to the European Union. According to research from the Center for Economic Policy Research, new transportation routes created by BRI infrastructure projects will decrease shipping times and costs by 3.5% and 4% between BRI countries and by 2.8% and 3.2% with the rest of the world.

Although there are numerous ways in which Chinese investment — within and apart from BRI — can benefit Europe, the European Union remains wary of increasing Chinese influence within its member states, and with good reason. In 2017, China’s state-owned enterprise (SOE) COSCO Shipping, one of the world’s largest ocean carriers, bought up a 51% share in the Port of Piraeus — Greece’s largest port. Athens subsequently blocked a joint EU statement on Chinese human rights abuses at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Far from being an isolated incident, Chinese lobbying of the kind seen in the Port of Piraeus has become China’s M.O. in exercising economic sharp power in Europe. While the Belt and Road Initiative is an opportunity to foment economic development and stability across Eurasia, it is also the disguised economic engine of Chinese geopolitical statecraft.

Beijing seeks to insert itself into the European dialogue and policymaking process to undermine European unity to gain preferential access to European markets and limit the ability of the European Union to exercise collective foreign and economic policy that hampers China’s geopolitical ambitions. Where Russia seeks to challenge and disrupt Europe through disinformation and military posturing, China seeks to assert its will into European policymaking to manipulate the geopolitical climate to its advantage.

Countering Sharp Power

In recognition of the threat to collective policymaking, on 20 November, after less than 18 months of negotiations, the European Parliament, Council, and Commission committed to the creation of an investment screening mechanism. The unprecedented speed and unity on this issue marks the gravity with which the European Union perceives the threat of Chinese economic influence in the European theater. Although the mechanism applies broadly to all FDI in the European Union, the motivation to protect the EU’s domestic interests through its creation is evident.

The EU also appears acutely aware of the need the accompany investment screening with its own economic development initiatives. Greater EU investment in Southern and Eastern Europe would strengthen political ties with Northern and Western Europe. It would also provide an economic alternative to Chinese investment in European countries with higher unemployment, emigration, and hostility towards the political elite in Brussels.

The EU recognizes that without a significant economic alternative, Europe’s poorer countries are willing to file in line with China’s geopolitical ambitions so long as they reap the benefits from Chinese investment. China has already invested €600 million in the Port of Piraeus in an attempt to modernize the port, which is poised to bring in thousands of logistics jobs and an increased demand for further infrastructure investments from Greece, inland to Western Europe.

China’s success in pressuring Greece to block a joint statement against Chinese human rights abuses at the UN is undoubtedly alarming to European national security policymakers.  Nevertheless, it’s important to recognize that Greek politicians are beholden to their constituents, who might be willing to overlook criticizing Chinese human rights for the economic benefits that accompany Chinese investment.

Even with enhanced investment screening, the EU’s foreign interests remain vulnerable. On 21 September, following a 2017 “Joint Staff Working Document” on a “Euro-Asian Connectivity Mapping Exercise,” the European External Action Service adopted an “EU Strategy on Connecting Europe and Asia,” hereafter referred to as the Euro-Asian Connectivity Initiative (ECI). Implicitly designed to respond to the geopolitical ambitions of the BRI, the ECI aims to further develop the EU’s own soft power through increased economic and diplomatic presence within its Eastern neighborhood and beyond.

Adapted to “pursue a ‘coherent approach’ to connectivity” which “encompass[es] all modes of transport links (land, sea and air) as well as digital and energy links in the Euro-Asian area,” the ECI will likely become an integral part of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in the East, providing an economic and diplomatic framework for future relations. The question remains, will Europe’s ECI come into direct competition with China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

Although Europe and China have differing visions for Eurasia, many of their fundamental goals are shared. Both Europe and China recognize the potential for economic growth at home and abroad by bringing the two ends of Eurasia closer together. Fostering greater connectivity and trade through Central Asia would not only drive down the costs and time required of maritime shipping, but also provide economic stimulus for developing economies in the region and greater access to rich natural resources. As Central Asians’ mobility and wealth increase, greater connectivity  will encourage stronger people-to-people ties through shared education, research, innovation, culture, and tourism. China and Europe also share a mutual interest and commitment to the political stability and security of periphery countries at the nexus of Europe and Asia which can be strengthened through economic growth.

However, Europe’s vision for Eurasian connectivity is to encourage economic development, good governance, and open society through adherence to “principles of sustainability, transparency, market principles, open procurement rules, a level playing field, as well as equal treatment and equal access.” Likewise, Europe will likely require benchmarks for the respect of human rights and democratic governance to its investment proposals through the ECI. In addition to these laudable goals, the EU will, nonetheless, seek to develop its own soft power and influence throughout Central Asia, in part for its own merit and in part to counter the influence of China over the heartland of Eurasia.

In contrast, China is solely dedicated to reaping economic benefits and accruing political leverage over key routes of connectivity, reflected by its lack of insistence on governmental transparency, respect for human rights, or equal access to investment opportunities. Most BRI contracts are ultimately chosen by Beijing. However, Chinese investments often come with a ‘no strings attached’ policy which may appeal to countries reluctant to meet Western provisions for economic and political liberalization.

Baiting the Balkans

Even within non-EU European nations, the temptation of Chinese investment funding is strong. There are fewer bureaucratic delays and stipulations attached to massive infrastructure investment projects when dealing with an autocratic regime. China has the financial resources, enterprise, and political wherewithal to invest billions in new development projects overnight.

In the eyes of EU candidate countries, Chinese investment is a godsend. Among the EU’s Copenhagen Criteria for European Union membership, countries must have a well-developed and stable economy to integrate well into the single market without posing themselves a burden on the European economy. For EU hopefuls like Serbia, Chinese infrastructure investment reads like a golden ticket to economic prosperity and eventual EU membership.

With around €5.3 billion ($6 billion) in Chinese investments in Serbia alone, the Balkans has become China’s backdoor entry to securing greater influence in the European Union.

Yet Beijing’s investment overtures in the Balkans and Eastern Europe are the call of a siren for many would-be EU member states. As attractive as these investments may seem, Serbia doesn’t have to look far to get a sense of the risks that come with Chinese investment. Just 500 km from Belgrade, Montenegro embarked on an ambitious project in 2017 to connect their port of Bar to mainland Serbia, largely funded by China’s Exim Bank.

In theory, completing this project could be hugely beneficial to Montenegro. Yet two feasibility studies in 2006 and 2012 disproved the project’s economically viability due to the lack of traffic in the area. With an already burgeoning debt to GDP ratio, the Chinese loan “has sent Montenegro’s debt soaring and forced the government to raise taxes, partially freeze public sector wages and end a benefit for mothers to get its finances in order.”

China’s “if you fund it, they will come” approach to economic development may not actually yield the short and long term results it promises. What’s even more disappointing for the Balkans is the use of Chinese labor and capital to advance these projects — in Montenegro, 70% of the workers on the port of Bar project are Chinese. China is, in essence, driving Montenegro into debt to finance a project with highly questionable economic returns while using primarily Chinese labor in Serbia’s backyard. Belgrade should take note.

For now, the EU’s dualistic response to China’s increasing sharp power is encouraging. A stronger investment screening mechanism will ensure that European countries agree to infrastructure projects or loans on financially stable terms and will prevent China from buying up industries that could threaten national security. At the same time, EU funding initiatives will provide an economic alternative to Chinese investment and will bolster political ties with European, Central, and South Asian countries.

The Road Ahead

American hegemony over the post-Cold War liberal world order grew out of an alliance of Western countries adhering to free market economics, democratic soft power, and control over the global commons. While China has no ambition to replace the United States and become a global hegemon, but rather aims to displace the West’s influence by leveraging Chinese capital, technocratic policymaking, and foreign debt.

By amplifying its political and economic soft power through BRI investments, China simultaneously creates and controls the means by which its economic power is exercised through BRI countries. The renowned scholar of Asian geopolitics Parag Khanna tells us that the driving force of the 21st century will be the ever-closer economic and people-to-people ties between nations around the world. He is right to claim so. Connectivity — and the means to control it — is the new currency of geopolitics.

The European Union is gradually coming around to this way of thinking, but its implementation in foreign policy remains slow. The ECI marks a first step towards pursuing a greater presence in Eurasian connectivity projects and policymaking. As Europe moves closer to a state of strategic autonomy, it must develop a more comprehensive, efficient, and effective foreign policy regime to keep pace with China’s expanding influence. Great strides have been taken already by establishing a screening mechanism for FDI, establishing the Permanent Structured Cooperation, and elaborating upon the European Union’s Neighborhood Policies. Nevertheless, Brussels needs to develop a more cohesive strategy to address Chinese sharp power influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The European Union has yet to reconcile its own principles with its nascent role as a regional hegemonic power. Maintaining and promoting liberal international values of democracy, free market equality, and human rights are difficult to pair with the realpolitik of geopolitics in the era of connectivity. It remains to be seen if the EU has the political wherewithal to compete with China on 21st century terms. For now, the future of Eurasia hangs in the balance.

This article was originally published on The International Scholar.

Geopolitics in the Era of Connectivity: Beijing and Brussels Compete for Central Asia was originally published on Global Security Review.

These trends are particularly evident in Europe, where elections, treaties, and other events will reshape the continent. Before the end of 2018, the Italian government and the European Union were locked in a dispute over Italy’s budgetary plans. The European Commission sharply criticized the spending plans due to concerns that Italy’s approximately $3 trillion in debt combined with higher public spending could lead to a banking crisis that could spread to other countries in the Eurozone. While Rome did pass a revised budget to appease E.U. officials in Brussels, the ordeal has sewed divisions within Italy’s populist coalition government which are likely to persist throughout 2019. Tensions between Rome and Brussels will also continue, and possibly escalate.

The United Kingdom is scheduled to formally withdraw from the European Union on March 29, 2019. However, no agreement has been approved by the U.K. parliament that would avert a potentially catastrophic “no-deal” or “hard” Brexit. British Prime Minister Theresa May has come under considerable criticism from within her party over the tentative agreement her government negotiated with the E.U., but no alternative plans have been put forth. Regardless of the outcome, the U.K. will continue to strengthen bilateral relations with E.U. member states such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland.

In May, European Parliamentary elections will take place, while E.U. member states will appoint a new President of the European Commission in October. Despite a rise in nationalist and euro-skeptic parties, pro-European factions are expected to maintain overall control. A divided political landscape will make it difficult for the E.U. to implement any significant reforms. Furthermore, E.U. member states are divided when it comes to fiscal policy. Southern states like Italy, Portugal, and Spain are pushing for higher spending and greater risk-sharing, whereas northern states led by Germany are calling for greater fiscal responsibility in Frankfurt.

Ongoing Political Divisions in the E.U. and its Member States

E.U. member states after the U.K. withdrawal) to focus inwards. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that her current term will be her last and resigned as leader of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party. The CDU elected Annegret Kramp-Karrenbaur as party leader in the latter part of 2018. However, the party is divided over a range of policy positions. Furthermore, the CDU’s coalition partner is facing an identity crisis of its own, which has already weakened the coalition government. Further disagreements and intra-coalition infighting could lead to early elections in Germany.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s institutional and economic reforms have fueled substantial, and in some cases, violent opposition. Large-scale protests have erupted throughout France. 2019 will see continued opposition to Macron’s reforms, opposition stoked by groups on both the far-right and the far-left ends of the political spectrum. Some of Macron’s economic reforms will succeed, but French citizens will be increasingly vocal in their rejection of his attempts to revitalize the French economy.

Domestic political concerns will require greater attention from both Paris and Berlin, decreasing both powers from critical external affairs. Political divisions will hamper initiatives to achieve greater strategic autonomy through the implementation of increased European military integration and the promotion of the Euro over the U.S. Dollar as the global reserve currency. Therefore, it is unlikely these major initiatives will see substantial progress in 2019.

Trade and China

Trade will be a significant area of focus. If the U.S. imposes higher tariffs on European-manufactured vehicles, for instance, approximately 10% of total U.S.-E.U. trade will be affected. In such a scenario, the E.U. would be forced to respond in kind, leading to a greater rift in transatlantic relations. Automobile tariffs would disproportionately affect the German auto industry, which manufactures one in every three cars produced in Europe. However, trade disputes will not lead to the collapse of the transatlantic alliance, as both the U.S. and E.U. have concerns over unfair Chinese trade practices.

Aside from trade, Europe has other concerns with China. Led by the governments in Berlin and Paris, policymakers across Europe are increasingly wary over Beijing’s economic activity on the continent. As a result, Europe has begun to exclude China from investing in critical infrastructures such as ports and telecommunications networks. China filed suit against the E.U. in the WTO, arguing that Beijing should be treated as a market economy. The case will come to a resolution in 2019, and the outcome will have a significant impact on the ongoing trade dispute between the U.S., the E.U., and China.

The complicated bureaucratic system of rules and regulations, however, put poorer or smaller member states at an economic disadvantage. As such, these states are more welcoming to Chinese investment and lending. Those states that are receptive to Chinese economic activity in Europe will likely continue to lobby against Berlin And Paris. The European bloc’s position towards China will be ambiguous, leading to more vocal action by those states that are concerned about China’s economic activities.

Escalating Tensions Between Russia and the U.S.

The relationship between Russia and the United States will continue to deteriorate. The U.S. is set to formally withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which bans intermediate-range missiles. Washington has cited Moscow’s noncompliance with the treaty as the justification for its withdrawal. The collapse of the INF treaty will heighten tensions in Eastern Europe, leading to a military buildup. This will be particularly visible in Poland and Romania, both of which will continue to lobby the U.S. for increased military commitments. Moscow will continue to build up its military forces in Kaliningrad, and the Crimea, both of which will likely play host to Russian intermediate-range missiles should the U.S. decide to deploy its own in Europe.

U.S. discussions with Poland regarding a possible permanent deployment of U.S. troops will continue throughout 2019. The Kremlin, citing what it perceives as “NATO-encirclement” will maintain, or even increase its efforts to interfere in the domestic politics of European states through malign activity in cyberspace, possible covert actions, and support for Euro-skeptic and nationalist factions across the E.U. The European parliamentary elections in May will provide Moscow with an opportunity to bolster the ranks of nationalist and Euro-skeptic groups, further sewing divisions within the E.U.

It is also possible that Moscow will open a military base in Belarus, as had previously been hinted by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. However, Lukashenko has made increasing overtures to the E.U. and the U.S., which could lead to increased hostility from Moscow. Russia’s efforts to undermine the integrity of NATO and the E.U. will be particularly visible in the Balkan states of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia.

High Stakes for Ukraine as the Kremlin Deals With Domestic Challenges of its Own

Ukraine will face considerable challenges throughout 2019. Both the TurkStream and NordStream 2 natural gas pipelines are set to become active. The pipelines will circumvent Ukraine, providing Moscow with enormous economic leverage over Kiev. Ukraine will be deprived of substantial transit fees that it will now lose as the two pipelines exclude Ukraine from Russia’s natural gas supply lines.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have deteriorated in the aftermath of Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Sea of Azov, and tensions are expected to continue throughout 2019. The conflict in Eastern Ukraine will continue, and Ukraine is set to hold presidential elections in March. Depending on the outcome, negotiations could reopen between Moscow and Kiev, however, it is unlikely the two parties will come to a resolution. It is in Russia’s interest to maintain a state of low-grade or frozen conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which effectively prevents the former Soviet republic from joining NATO.

Russia, however, will face its own domestic challenges in 2019. The Kremlin has announced controversial economic reforms, including increasing the retirement age, raising the value-added tax (VAT), and imposing new taxes on certain consumer products and the tourism sector. The reforms are designed to bolster the government’s revenue but have generated considerable backlash from Russians across the country. It is the working class that will be hardest hit by the measures, which are due to come into effect this month. As such, there is likely to be a degree of social unrest. Meaningful changes are unlikely, however, as there is presently no viable opposition party capable of threatening Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power.

Overall, 2019 will be a year of volatility in Europe. Diplomatic, trade, and economic disagreements will persist between Europe and the United States, and within Europe itself. Tensions between Russia and NATO heighten anxiety for Eastern European states, which will lead to a buildup of military capabilities on both sides.

Political Uncertainty Will Plague Europe Throughout 2019 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.

Emblematic of Trump, despite warnings from various journalism watchdog groups that the global trend of his phrase may have restrictive and even deadly consequences – witness the suspected execution of columnist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government, as well as the more recent anonymous delivery of a pipe bomb to CNN’s New York offices – the president seems to be taking the micro-narcissist view of the problem.  He expresses pride that a phrase he coined is gaining popularity around the world instead of focusing on the likelihood that his incessant criticism may likely be contributing to crackdowns by autocratic governments on freedom of expression and the press globally.

Ever resilient against criticism, if also ironically hyper-sensitive, Trump has ignored the United States’ precipitous fall to 45^th place in the World Press Freedom Index because of his anti-news media rhetoric. And while it cannot be proven as causal, there does seem to be a strong inverse correlation between this decline and the increase around the globe of arrests and the physical harassment of journalists.

The strongest sign that “fake news” is more than a passing political fad is the disturbing example of a world leader within the cradle of democracy giving in to the temptation of using it as a weapon.  France’s Emmanuel Macron succeeded in passing a law which takes effect within three months of a general election and allows for emergency governmental action to block ‘manipulative and misleading information’ within 48 hours of it being brought before a judge.

What so disturbed Macron was his sense of being the target during 2017 of a vicious and fallacious disinformation campaign by political opponents.  Sound familiar?

There is no doubt that France feels confident that it has crafted a rational ‘golden middle’ path through the fake news debate by limiting the time frame in which the law can be utilized (strictly before general elections) and by requiring the potential target of government action to be brought before the judiciary for formal legal approval.  But the reality is that this French initiative could create its own unintended consequences, as it no longer allows isolates press restrictions to the realm of dictators.  Indeed, Macron’s move has given flexibility to stable democracies to do similar undemocratic things.

Meantime, what of those nation states that might be defined as decidedly less democratic – perhaps as autocratic or semi-autocratic?  How are they dealing with “fake news”?  Here’s a quick world tour:

• Belarus: passed media laws that permit the government to prosecute people who spread ‘false information online.’ The laws spread further into allowing the government to potentially block websites deemed in violation.
• Brazil: the Federal Police announced the creation of a special task force to identify, locate, and punish authors of fake news.
• Cambodia: in the weeks leading up to the country’s national elections, the government passed measures that gave it the right to block websites and other forms of media it deemed a ‘danger to national security.’
• Croatia: similar to a move pursued in Germany, Croatian officials passed a law meant to stop the spread of hate speech and misinformation on social media platforms.
• Egypt: the government now openly regulates any social media accounts that have large followings in order to make sure misinformation is not spread throughout the country.
• Indonesia: a newly-formed National Cyber and Encryption Agency was tasked to help intelligence and police agencies combat online disinformation and social media hoaxes.
• Kenya: the national government passed laws criminalizing 17 different forms of online activity.
• Russia: despite being the most common target of countries around the world that criticize states trying to foment fake news, it didn’t stop Russia from introducing its own domestic legislation against disinformation.
• Tanzania: the government, growing ever more concerned about the pervasiveness of online misinformation, has levied several possible legal initiatives that would constrict and/or punish online publishers.

While this list is by no means exhaustive, it suggests a general global trend:  governments are actively attempting to regulate, monitor, limit, and restrict citizen impact within online social/political participation.

Through it all, there never seems to be any explicit attempt to define and describe fake news. Keeping terms amorphous and ambiguous allows governments to advantageously use the slippery slope approach to opposition forces: “If you are against me I will just make sure the arguments you make are deemed fake news.”

Indeed, many if not most of the initiatives do not seem to be motivated by a desire to improve the quality of news and resource information for the public. Instead, they are structured to simply provide greater obstacles and legal roadblocks to grassroots organizations that are unwilling to be in lockstep with central authorities. The bottom line: Many of these fake news policies are really just poorly masked proposals to prevent a more significant and healthy development of civil society in nations that are in desperate need of such development.

Finally, it is not a coincidence that in every case, regardless of political system or regime, there is no mention or discussion of repercussions and consequences on the governments or their officials if they are found guilty of spreading fake news themselves – perhaps because governments have been issuing fake news – we used to call it propaganda – for ages.

If you accept all this to be true, then you are left with one very disturbing political conclusion about these fake news initiatives: they are not efforts to improve the quality of political dialogue but ultimately to shut down that dialogue altogether.

When governments seem intent to weaponize alleged fake news and use it to bludgeon opponents and opposition, then the ultimate political consequence is the crippling of public oversight, citizen criticism, and grassroots activism.

Which leads us back to the United States and President Trump.  Many here seem to view President Trump’s tirades against fake news with bemusement, yet a lack of real concern due to their enduring faith in the institutions of American democracy and its innate principles safeguarding freedom of the press, association, and expression. That is all well and good.  But many of the governments around the world, clearly inspired by Trumpian rhetoric, are not beholden to our check-and-balance structural limitations.  As such, their efforts do not bolster the quality of their politics but serve only to solidify their power.

The Unintended Consequences of Fake News was originally published on Global Security Review.

The ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been described by the U.N. as the “highest level of emergency;” comparable with Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

In January 2018 Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, informed the Security Council of the recently deteriorating situation and the urgent need to bolster peacekeeping efforts within the country. However, in contrast to the latter crises, the ongoing conflict in the DRC has received far less attention from international media platforms.

Since 2016, at least 3000 civilians have been killed and a further 1.4 million displaced. A catalyst for this conflict has been significant public resistance to the rule of President Joseph Kabila. In June 2016, a traditional chief within the central Kasia region called for a popular uprising against the government and state institutions.

Following the chief’s death two months later, the result of a police raid, civil unrest escalated to a disturbing level unprecedented in recent years; including the alarming re-emergence of child soldiers.

The grievances voiced over President Kabila’s rule, which caused the initial protests earlier that year, intensified in December 2016 when the president refused to step down after his five-year term concluded.

Despite the earlier implementation of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Republic Mission in the Democratic of the Congo (MONUSCO), with a mandate aimed at protecting civilians, humanitarian personnel and stabilizing the government, civil conflict has continued to rise.

The current escalation in violence in the DRC is the latest in a series of bloody civil conflicts dating back to the mid-1990s.

The Second Congo War (1998-2003) was the deadliest conflict globally since the Second World War, resulting in 5.4 million deaths. The nature of violence was so extreme that children under the age of five were the hardest hit, accounting for almost half of all those killed.

The scale of the war was so vast that it destabilized the entire region, as foreign armies and rebel groups fought for control over the country’s natural resources; recently estimated to be worth more than $24 trillion.

The conflict, exacerbated by endemic corruption, forced millions to flee their homes, further destabilizing the region. The ongoing failure of the DRC security forces to prevent the humanitarian crisis has continued to this day.

The inherent weakness of those forces to protect civilians ultimately led to U.N. Resolution 1279, and the creation of the United Nation Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).

Charged with the observation of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, it was replaced in 2010 by the current MONUSCO mission, which as previously stated was to ensure the protection of civilians.

The latest manifestations of the conflict witnessed since 2016, have highlighted the glaring failures of the current U.N. mission in achieving that mandate.

The Failures and Shortcomings of U.N. Peacekeeping Forces

In addition to being unable to fulfill its overall purpose, the latest U.N. mission has endured considerable losses; most recently the deaths of 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers in December 2017; in total, U.N. peacekeeping missions in the DRC have suffered the loss of 93 personnel.

A U.N. report from March 2018 investigating these deaths highlighted shortcomings in the training of its troops as a significant causal factor. Although contributing substantial troop numbers, the majority of the MONUSCO assisting militaries are from developing states themselves, inevitably posing limitations to the overall capability of the mission.

Despite some of these contributing states, specifically Tanzania, offering evident military strengths such as regional expertise, those forces do not provide the mission access to the technological military resources required by the mission’s efforts. For example, UAV surveillance technology has already been requested as a necessity. A further weakness of the current U.N. peacekeeping mission is the sizable reduction to its budget announced by the U.S. in 2017.

The ongoing conflict is by its nature a complex and fragmented issue which can only be resolved through a multi-dimensional approach, encompassing transformations in international assistance and new efforts which tackle corruption and the under-resourced security forces.

International Economic Legislation Exacerbates Destabilization in the DRC

Disconcertingly, the international economic legislation spearheaded by the Obama Administration, compels many corporations to avoid mineral extraction in conflict-prone areas.

While initially supported by the international community, this measure, known as the broader U.S. economic reform the Dodd-Frank Act, has propelled millions of miners and their families deeper into poverty.  As a direct result of reduced employment prospects for miners, destabilization has increased.

The growing unemployment has encouraged individuals to join the ranks of militias involved in the DRC conflict, exacerbating local corruption; DRC security forces themselves have routinely been involved in mineral extraction and subsequent smuggling into neighboring countries.

By some estimates, $400 million dollars in gold was smuggled out by militias the year after the U.S. legislation was passed. Although the negative impact on regional turbulence may be reduced with a redress of economic policy from the international community, the civil unrest has already generated long-term security issues for the European continent.

Recommendations for Policymakers

A 2017 Gallup Poll highlighted how in 2016, 50% of people within the DRC wished to migrate, accounting for approximately 40 million people. As recent migratory trends suggest, this would unequivocally place further strain on southern Europe. To prevent the danger of a mass exodus of the Congolese population, presenting a catastrophic risk to the DRC and the European continent alike, it is essential that the international community now provides a more suitable and capable approach to dealing with the increasing civil unrest within the country.

With the need for a more comprehensive approach, aimed at increasing the operational effectiveness of the current peacekeeping mission and alleviating the obstructive effect of the economic legislation, there leaves an opportunity for NATO’s recently operationalized Southern Hub.

This new facility, located in Naples, Italy, has been charged with the mandate of responding more effectively to security challenges beyond Europe’s southern boundary. This strategic aim is supported by leading European Security experts; Carnegie Europe claims that NATO is obligated to mitigate the consequences of security threats facing state failure.

The July 2018 NATO Summit has solidified the geopolitical climate for a NATO-led training mission to the DRC, aimed at the protection of civilians through the development of the DRC security forces. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted the need for “a package of additional measures for the South.”

The increased deployment of short-term training teams by NATO members has proven highly effective in increasing the operational capabilities of European-allied states across Africa, including Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Such training missions, often small enough in number to ensure political sustainability, enhance regional stability by increasing the capabilities of the local security forces themselves. This is in direct contrast to the hands-on approach witnessed by the U.N. peacekeepers, resulting in the significant death toll. As previously discussed, issues of civil unrest in the DRC require attention in various areas, with a particular emphasis for future missions potentially placed on anti-smuggling.

Of course, to address the root causes of the conflict, a unilateral security approach will not counter essential issues such as high unemployment, large-scale corruption and lack of social mobility. However, what a proposed NATO-led training mission would deliver is a hopeful reduction in the high figure of peacekeeping fatalities and an improvement in the local security situation in the DRC.

This would subsequently improve the security situation currently facing Europe’s Southern flank. With Europe’s politicians having only recently managed to implement systems to reduce the high levels of migration to the continent, a new migrant crisis numbering several million refugees fleeing this latest conflict presents a threat to European security which cannot be ignored.

Crisis in the Congo: A New Role for NATO’s Southern Hub was originally published on Global Security Review.

The tone of the summit was set well in advance following President Trump’s criticism of NATO members failing to spend 2% of the GDP on defense expenditure. The United States, in this regard, has been contributing the bulk to what the U.S. President sees as a collective defense organization, in which member states need to contribute equally for their security and thus not be seen as free riders. Notwithstanding the real challenges that the E.U. faces in the form of growing terrorist attacks on European capitals, social tensions, and Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy to influence western governments, the discourse of the summit centered around Trump’s persistence over increased defence spending and his criticism for the German government which has only grown ever since he took over the U.S. presidency.

The narrative that drives President Trump’s criticism towards western allies is based on the changing perception of the United States towards transatlantic alliance as a whole. To understand this changing perception, it is important to shed light on the reasons that led the U.S. to support European integration and security in the first place.

The United States supported European integration for myriad reasons. First, European integration served as a way of containing Germany and tying it tightly to western institutions, namely the E.U. and NATO. Second, supporting and strengthening European allies served as a viable way of containing Soviet expansion in Europe. Third, a strong European alliance meant reduced American burden for economic and military security of Europe in the long run. Fourth, European integration was a valuable mean of ensuring that no European power develops hegemonic tendencies and that a unified bloc would serve as a balance against the Soviet Union, thereby limiting Soviet threat to the European theatre. In other words, the idea was that an integrated Europe would serve U.S. long-term security and economic interest.

In particular, NATO was formulated as a military alliance with a singular purpose of protecting western Europe against the Soviet threat. The alliance was formed with the idea that, U.S. security guarantee would enable western European countries, to develop and strengthen their economies and military capabilities to counter Soviet expansion.

The threat of common enemy worked in favor of both the United States and western European countries. The European countries had the geographical risk of bearing the cost of a war in mind, while for the Americans, the Soviet threat enabled it to be a key player in European geopolitics. The common threat served as a binding factor, which kept the alliance together during the Cold War.

Not much changed following the end of Cold War and disintegration of the Soviet Union. Although the Soviet Union did not exist anymore, the idea of European integration expanded as central and eastern European countries that were previously under Soviet influence, wanted to be part of the western bloc. Even NATO which no longer had Soviet threat to counter expanded as more and more post-communist countries kept applying for NATO membership. The trend continues to date.

The rationale behind the expansion was to bring post-Soviet countries into the framework of common western defense and economic system, which would solidify their transition into the western democratic system thereby making the continent peaceful. For post-communist countries, entry into E.U. and NATO meant economic prosperity and national security from Russian aggression. For the United States, E.U. and NATO enlargement meant the expansion of western influence.

Since more and more countries were becoming part of the alliance and since the bloc functioned on consensus, the U.S. would always have a say as far as its interest in Europe were concerned. Increased European integration would thus enable the United States to focus its attention towards Asia- Pacific, where a rising China is seen as a challenge to global U.S. dominance.

However, things started to change following the global economic crisis of 2008-2009 and its subsequent effect on European economies. European integration which was thought to reduce conflict and encourage consensus behavior resulted in producing divergence on many issues related to economic management and border security. Most European countries have become skeptical of Germany’s behavior within the E.U. Some even debate, Germany as the economic hegemon of Europe. This is true to some extent. Germany is in many ways the economic powerhouse of Europe, with a healthy economy, high wage rate, and low unemployment.

However, that growth is primarily because E.U. member states and the United States absorb Germany’s surplus products. Germany produces more than it consumes and to sell the surplus it needs markets. The free trade agreement with E.U. and a healthy trade relationship with the United States provides Berlin with the advantage of selling its surplus. In fact, it was the United States, which absorbed German exports following the global financial slowdown of 2008-09 which in many ways cocooned the German economy from economic instability.

The problem with Germany’s growth is that it is seen as one-sided. The criticism that follows Berlin is that it is too concerned about its economic well being than taking into account the broader security concerns of its NATO allies. For the United States, the German government is seen as a free rider when it comes to economic and security policy. At present, Berlin enjoys a trade surplus of over 50 billion euros with the United States. German contribution to the NATO budget, however, stands at just 1.2% of the GDP which is the lowest when compared to some of the other powerful economies in Europe.

Germany does have a plan to increase its defense spending to the agreed-upon target of 2% by 2024, but the current low contribution figure does not go down well with Eastern European countries and the United States, who see Berlin’s unwillingness to counter Russian aggression and the need to spend more on defense as a problem.

Furthermore, Germany’s tight grip on deciding fiscal rules for the bloc and forcing member states to agree on its refugee policy is seen as the imposition of German preferences on matters that concern German interest. For the United States and Eastern European countries, Germany’s relationship with Russia is at best seen as dubious. A case in point, the Nord Stream II pipeline which President Trump called out during the recent NATO summit. Nord Stream II is a joint project between German and Austrian companies and Russia’s Gazprom. On completion the pipeline will enable Russia to deliver gas directly to Germany, bypassing existing pipelines that run through Ukraine.

In other words, Nord Stream II will enable Russia to deliver gas to European customers without having to pay transit fees to Ukraine. The pipeline project has been heavily criticized by the European Commission, the United States and countries like Poland and Ukraine for making Europe more vulnerable to Russian pressure. The United States and Eastern European countries consider the pipeline project as detrimental to European security. Germany, however, does not and it continues to go ahead with the project. For Berlin, the pipeline is a viable mean of securing energy needs at affordable prices and at the same time, maintain its economic engagement with Russia.

Therefore, what emerges now is a divergence of interest at many levels. For the current U.S. administration, the behavior of certain European allies, Germany, in particular, is seen as problematic considering that it was the U.S. security guarantee that enabled Europe to grow economically. Trump, who sees maintaining a military alliance and burden sharing on the same scale, getting away with everyday assurances is not going to be easy.

President Trump has already threatened that the U.S. could go its own way if allies don’t contribute. Such a threat is not assuring to the unity of transatlantic alliance as a whole, given the already extensive areas of divergences from climate change to Iran nuclear deal to protectionist trade policies and Russian aggression in Europe. However, it is not to say that the geopolitical reality of having a strong E.U. and NATO is not paramount to U.S. interest or that the European allies can function without the U.S. role in European security. But given the differing perception of allies on a whole number of issues, it is hard to imagine how long can transatlantic partners work together.

Increasing Divergences Amongst Transatlantic Partners was originally published on Global Security Review.

According to reports in the French newspaper Le Monde, Saudi Arabia has asked the government of France to assist it in preventing Qatar from buying the S-400 system from Russia.

The S-400 is Russia’s most advanced air defense missile system, and both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have signed agreements to purchase the S-400 system.

The report states that King Salman of Saudi Arabia expressed his “deep concerns” concerning Qatar’s intentions to purchase the air defense system.

Furthermore, the King specifically threated to take military action against Qatar if the S-400 sale goes forward and the missile system is deployed.

King Salman reportedly stated in the letter that “the kingdom [Saudi Arabia] would be ready to take all necessary measures to eliminate this defense system, including military action.

Qatar and Russia signed a military and technical cooperation agreement on military in 2017.

In January of 2018, the Qatari ambassador to Russia was quoted saying that Qatar’s government was in talks at the “advanced stage” to acquire the Russian S-400 missile air defense system.

Despite Saudi Threats, Russia Indicates S-400 Deal Will Go Forward

A senior Russian politician has said that Russia will supply Qatar with an anti-aircraft missile system despite Saudi Arabia’s reported threats.

Russian Lawmaker Aleksei Kondratyev, a member of the Russian upper house and the deputy chairman of the committee on Defence and Security, said Russia would pursue its own objectives in determining the countries that it allows to purchase its S-400 surface-to-air missile system.

“Russia seeks its own interest, supplying S-400 to Qatar and earning money for the state budget. Saudi Arabia’s position has nothing to do with it, Russia’s plans will not change,” Kondratyev said in remarks to Russian state media, adding that “it is clear that Riyadh plays a dominant role in the region, but Qatar gets an advantage by enhancing its armed forces due to the acquisition of Russian S-400 systems.”

No End in Sight

Saudi Arabia, backed by other regional powers including Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, broke off relations with Qatar in June last year, after harshly criticizing Qatar’s deepening ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s strategic rival in the region, and accusing the Gulf state of funding terrorism throughout the region.

In April of 2018, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir warned Qatar that it faced “imminent demise” unless it provided funding and support for a U.S.-led military presence in Syria.

Foreign Minister of Bahrain Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said in a May interview with a Saudi-owned newspaper that there was no “glimmer of hope” for an end to the crisis.

Saudi Arabia Threatens Military Action if Qatar Purchases Russian S-400 Air Defense System was originally published on Global Security Review.

The attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. election through social media is but one example of how traditional espionage, foreign government propaganda, and information warfare tactics have evolved to make use of social media and other technologies to pose a more significant national security threat than ever before.

Researchers from the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council reviewed and analyzed hundreds of thousands of social media messages, botnets, and bot accounts that were allegedly under the control or influence of the Kremlin.

The team presented their findings at the February 2018 Munich Security Conference, where they demonstrated how the Kremlin tightly coordinates different branches of its multi-faceted and far-reaching disinformation system.

The announcement follows the indictments filed in February by the U.S. Department of Justice and Special Counsel Robert Mueller against 13 Russian nationals and three entities associated with certain social media accounts and botnets, which were allegedly employed as part of the Kremlin’s campaign to interfere in the U.S. political system.

The accounts and botnets were reportedly used to amplify messaging designed to influence the 2016 election, according to an indictment filed by the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

A tightly-coordinated system for disseminating Kremlin disinformation

The bots were just one component of a multi-faceted strategy employed by the Russians. Overt propaganda outlets masquerading as genuine news sources, such as RT and Sputnik, will publish fake news stories designed to influence a particular population (fake news), and post likes to those stories on social media.

Alongside these outlets, diplomatic social media accounts such as that of the Russian embassy in London will push messaging that aligns with the narrative being driven by the media outlets.

At the same time, websites, which claim to be independent, but have been proven by whistle-blowers or forensic researchers to have been funded by the Russian government, publish content that supports the narrative being pushed by outlets like RT and official Russian government social media accounts.

To amplify this content, troll accounts (which are fake accounts that are operated by a human being) and automated ‘bots,’ comment, repost or employ other methods to increase the reach of a particular message.

Russian hackers obtained emails from the Democratic National Committee in mid-2016. Subsequently, Wikileaks published the stolen emails.  The timeline of the hacking and publications of the hacked documents reveals the different elements of the Russian’s propaganda machine and illustrates the disinformation distribution system employed by Russian government operatives.

For example, one Twitter account that was known to be run by the St. Petersburg  Troll Factory, Tennessee GOP, rapidly gained several thousand retweets for a tweet linking to the hacked DNC content published by Wikileaks.  At the same time, RT and Sputnik were reporting on the contents of the DNC leaks.

Russia is engaged in a sustained information warfare campaign

The Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the 2016 or any U.S. election. Nevertheless, it’s increasingly clear that the Russian’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election is just the beginning of a more sustained campaign designed to divide society and breed institutional distrust.

This effort to discredit the global standing of the United States and its allies is one that requires an improved defense, which includes a deterrent component.

Private sector companies like Facebook and Twitter—whether they like it or not—are where this “information war” is being waged. Rather than protesting regulations and subsequently reacting to them, private sector firms should proactively engage in collaboration with the intelligence and national security communities.

Proactive public-private engagement and collaboration between the national security community and companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter is in the best interest of all parties and should be regarded as critical to U.S. national security.

Russian Election Interference Campaign Was a Well-Oiled Information Warfare Machine was originally published on Global Security Review.

• The seven largest emerging market countries could grow, on average, around two times as fast as advanced G7 economies.
• Six of the seven largest economies in the world are projected to be emerging economies. In 2050, the global economy will be led by China, with India in second place, followed by Indonesia in fourth place.
• The United States is projected to be the world’s third-largest economy in 2050, based on gross domestic product (GDP).
• The European Union’s share of world GDP could fall below 10% by 2050.
• The U.K. could drop to tenth place, with France potentially cut from the top 10, and Italy falling from the top 20. They are projected to be overtaken by countries with faster-growing economies like Mexico, Turkey, and Vietnam (respectively).

The global economy could more than double in size by 2050, far outstripping population growth, thanks to continued technology-driven productivity improvements. Emerging markets will drive global financial growth, and will progressively increase their share of world gross domestic product, based on an analysis of World Bank economic projection data. The global economy is projected to approximately double in size by 2042, growing at an annual average rate of around 2.6% between 2016 and 2050.

This growth is expected to be primarily driven by emerging market and developing nations, with the Emerging-Seven (E7) economies of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey growing at an annual average rate of almost 3.5% during the next 34 years, compared with an annual average growth rate of 1.6% for the G7 countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

 Half of the seven largest economies in the world are still considered emerging markets.

A continued shift will be observed in international economic power away from high-income advanced economies towards emerging economies in Asia and elsewhere. The E7 could account for nearly 50% of the globe’s gross domestic product by 2050, while the G7’s share of global GDP declines to just over 20%.

China has already overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, while India currently stands in third place and is projected to overtake the U.S. by 2050. In terms of PPP, the United Kingdom is projected to. fall to tenth place, France is forecasted to fall out of the top ten, and Indonesia could climb to fourth place by 2050

While looking at Gross domestic product measured at market exchange rates (MERs), one doesn’t see quite such a radical shift in international economic power, representing the lower average price levels in emerging economies.

However, China is projected to be the world’s largest economy by 2030, and India the third largest in the world by 2050. This reveals a considerable and gradual shift in economic power towards Asia and the Indo-Pacific region.

Emerging economies will take center stage by 2050.

By 2050 economies like Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico are likely to be bigger than those of the United Kingdom and France, while Egypt and Pakistan could overtake Italy and Canada. With regards to growth, Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh may be the most rapidly growing economies from 2015-2050, averaging an increase of around 5% annually.

Nigeria has the potential to be the fastest growing major African economy, and could potentially increase its national gross domestic product ranking from place to fourteenth by 2050. However, Nigeria will only realize this possibility if it can diversify its economy away from oil and strengthen its democratic institutions and national infrastructure.

Poland and Colombia exhibit great potential and are projected to be the quickest growing large economies in their respective regions; Latin America and the E.U. Many emerging economies will be supported by a relatively rapidly growing populations, boosting domestic demand and the size of the workforce.

Investments in education and improved economic freedoms are necessary to ensure there are enough jobs for the growing number of young individuals in these countries, providing a path of sustainable growth for countries with emerging markets and developing economies. 

Today’s advanced economies will continue to have higher average incomes, but developing countries will likely make progress towards eliminating that gap. With the possible exception of Italy, each of the G7 will rank above the E7 states in 2050, based on rankings of projected gross domestic product per capita.

Emerging Economies Will Hold Increasing Amounts of Global Economic Power by 2050 was originally published on Global Security Review.

The real question is, how? The post-World War II international order that enabled today’s political, economic, and security arrangements and institutions is in question as power diffuses worldwide, shuffling seats at the table of global decision making.

Today, aspiring powers seek to adjust the rules of the international order and alter the global context in a way beneficial to their interests.

This complicates any reform of international institutions such as the UN Security Council or the Bretton-Woods institutions, also brings into question whether political, civil and human rights—hallmarks of liberal values and US leadership since 1945—will continue to be so.

Norms that were believed to be settled are increasingly threatened if present trends hold, and consensus to implement and follow standards can be difficult to build as Russia, China, and Iran seek to shape regions and international norms in their favor. Some features of the evolving global order are apparent:

Rising and Declining Powers Exert Their Influence

Competition is on the increase as China and Russia seek to exert more considerable influence over their neighboring regions and encourage an order wherein US influence doesn’t dominate.

Although nations and organizations will continue to shape citizen anticipation about the future order, citizen and sub-national concerns will increasingly push states to the stage that international and domestic politics won’t be separable.

This may result in the near term in waning responsibilities to security concepts and human rights among several nations, even as many individuals and smaller groups advocate for ideas through platforms, venues, and institutions.

Authoritarian regimes are likely to reinterpret and manipulate human rights norms increasingly.  This may probably lead to decreasing consensus in the international arena on the extraterritorial obligations of nations, which might have implications for domestic societies and the resolution of humanitarian conflicts.

International Norms are Changing

The norms and practices emerging around climate change—and their influence on global and state development policies—are the more than likely candidates for fostering a twenty-first-century set of universal principles.  Majorities in 40 nations, according to a poll by Pew, say that climate change is a significant issue, with a median of 54 percent saying it’s an issue.

The near-term likelihood of international competition leading to doubt and global disorder will stay raised as long as ad-hoc internationalism persists.

As dominant nations limit cooperation to a subset of issues while asserting their interests in regional matters, international norms and institutions are likely to hamper and the global system to fragment in favor of contested regional spheres of influence.

A Multipolar Global Order Doesn’t Mean the West is “in Retreat” was originally published on Global Security Review.

Under the administration of Donald Trump, the United States has been attempting to rebalance its priorities, giving the appearance that it is stepping back from its traditional role as guarantor of international security, trade, and diplomacy. However, the rhetoric from the executive branch is hardly news.

Prior U.S. presidential administrations—recently the Obama and Bush administrations—repeatedly stressed the need for NATO allies in Europe to increase defense spending. U.S. Presidents and politicians from both political parties have long made the argument that, for decades, American taxpayers have underwritten European security and defense.

U.S. Allies in Europe

The European Union—and its two largest economies, France and Germany are facing growing uncertainty in their electorates regarding the role of the Union. The bloc remains comprised of vastly contrarian points-of-view, and it remains to be seen how the E.U. will handle Brexit negotiations with the United Kingdom. At present, it is possible the U.K. and E.U. will agree to some degree of security and defense cooperation.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as leaders of the two most influential European Union member states, will need to alleviate the concerns of their respective electorates, which are increasingly concerned with issues such as terrorism and mass immigration—both of which pose severe challenges to European security and social cohesion. Additionally, they will need to effectively communicate the purpose and value of the bloc, in economic, security, and social terms.

On the surface, the European Union would seem to be in a better position than China (oft-touted as the successor to U.S. global hegemony) to serve as a guarantor of global security.

However, the capability of any future E.U. military would pale in comparison to those of the United States. While they compare regarding the number of citizens under arms, American military spending and technological capability far outweigh those of the EU, meaning that the United States remains the only country capable of projecting force on a truly global scale.

Germany became acutely aware of the strategic consequences the European Union would face should Marine Le Pen ascend to the French presidency and follow through with her promises to withdraw France from the both European Union and the NATO Joint Military Command Structure. After the U.S. and Russia, France possesses the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was notably concerned about the prospect of France withdrawing from the European Union, as such an act would leave the E.U. without a nuclear deterrent. In this scenario, Germany would likely become the bloc’s de-facto military and economic leader and would have to consider leading the development of a European Union nuclear weapons program to deter an increasingly aggressive and opportunistic Russia.

U.S. Allies in the Middle East

Iran’s continued military and political involvement in Syria is viewed as a strategic national security threat to Israel, and continued encroachment towards Israeli territory heightens the risk of a large-scale conflict between Iran and Israel, with a remote possibility of Sunni Gulf Monarchies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates supporting Israel in an effort to check Iran’s hegemonic ambitions.

The U.S. seems to have, at the least, tacitly approved of heightened Israeli aggression against Iranian targets in Syria, although it remains to be seen the level of involvement the U.S. will take on following the appointment of noted hawk John Bolton as U.S. National Security Advisor, and the pending Secretary of State nomination of the similarly hawkish Mike Pompeo, both of whom have long argued for preemptive U.S. action against Iran.

U.S. Allies in Asia

Key American allies in East Asia, notably Japan, are also reacting to the “America First” Japan’s military capabilities are restricted by its post-World War II constitution. Japan is limited in its ability to deploy troops overseas and is forbidden from developing or possessing aircraft carriers. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has advocated for constitutional reforms that would allow for expanded military and defense capabilities.

Japan’s push to increase its military capabilities isn’t a reaction to the rhetoric currently emanating from the White House. Instead, Japan’s decades-long reluctance to demonstrate its “hard power” capabilities is increasingly outweighed by China’s increasing expansionism and North Korea’s nuclear program.

2018 will likely reveal the limits of China’s influence over the “hermit kingdom.” While China recognizes the security threat posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea with increased intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, Beijing is more concerned with the prospect of a U.S.-aligned, unified Korea. As such, it likely intends to maintain the status quo on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. Allies More Likely to Take Unilateral Action in 2018 was originally published on Global Security Review.

The 2016 Brexit vote and rising the popularity of far-right nationalist political parties in Western Europe has led many observers to question the long-term viability of a united Europe. In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many were concerned that European far-right politicians like Marine Le Pen would gain traction in their electoral contests.

However, despite considerable attempts by Le Pen’s campaign—and the Kremlin, in no small degree—Emmanuel Macron led a stunning rebuke of the populist trend circumventing the globe. Europe seems to be trending away from the right as the United States Government continues to be paralyzed by the competing factions of the governing Republican Party.

Rising ethnic, demographic, and economic tensions will make European integration more difficult. Furthermore, Europeans must repair the structural problems in E.U. institutions. For example, E.U. agencies set monetary policy for members of the Eurozone; however, member states retain control over their financial and security obligations. This leaves poorer E.U. states like Greece with vast amounts of debt and decreasing growth prospects. There is no unified E.U. security policy; each member state determines its national security strategy.

The E.U. Will Attempt to Implement Reforms in 2018

Europe is in dire need of reform, both politically and economically. The bloc faces significant internal divisions. Demographics, economic stagnation, and ideological arguments threaten the European Union’s ability to act as a global power.

Over the next two years, the E.U. will need to decide whether or not it is in search of an ever-closer union, mainly as it manages Brexit negotiations. The bloc’s leadership badly needs to prove the legitimacy and value of the Union, and consolidating power as the UK leaves may be the way forward.

While Brexit initially seemed to undermine the E.U.’s standing overseas, it may have had the opposite effect. Member states on the continent have primarily reaffirmed their commitment to the bloc, particularly following the election of pro-EU President Emmanuel Macron of France.

In fact, the loss of the UK may facilitate more easy implementation of EU-wide fiscal and monetary policies, as the UK has famously retained its currency—the pound—and with it, monetary sovereignty.

Security concerns may play a decisive role in further E.U. integration. Concerns about U.S. credibility following the election of Donald Trump could lead to higher military integration by E.U. members. Germany, which has maintained a more pacifist stance since the end of the Cold War, is integrating parts of its’ armed forces with the militaries of the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Romania.

Increased numbers of NATO and European troops have been deployed along Europe’s frontiers with Russia and Belarus.  Additionally, there has been more and more talk of greater security integration and E.U.-wide policy towards defense and security.

What’s the future of the European Union?

Economically, Europe is still at risk. Eurozone banks continue to distribute capital unevenly due to irregular E.U. banking regulations. Migration within the E.U. will persist, as will migration to Europe from Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Separatist movements will continue, encouraged by the Brexit movement.

Demographically, Europe’s population is changing. Aging population will consume government revenues as health care will be an even more significant concern. Youth unemployment in countries like Spain and Italy will continue to be a security risk, as this is a group at risk for violent radicalization. Growth will be dependent on Europe’s abilities to reform E.U. institutions, provide employment, and manage public anxiety about issues like immigration, terrorism, and national identity.

Of immediate concern is the aftermath of the recent Catalonian independence crisis in Spain. The handling of the issue by the central government in Madrid, the imprisonment of Catalonian political leaders, and the steadfast refusal of Catalonia’s leaders to find a compromise could destabilize the internal politics of the bloc, and encourage other separatist regions in E.U.-states like Belgium to pursue secession referendums of their own. The dispute could be prolonged in the aftermath of snap elections called in the wake of Madrid seizing administrative power over Catalonia.

The European Union Faces Challenges to Its Legitimacy in 2018 was originally published on Global Security Review.

In the meantime, social networks have provided new tools for citizens to vent their political frustrations.  Conservative religious groups—including Brotherhood affiliates and movements—and ethnically-based organizations like those based on Kurdish identity are poised to be superior alternatives to weak governments in the region.

Such groups typically supply social services better than the nation and their politics resonate with publics who’re usually more conservative and religious than the region’s political and economic elites.

If left unchecked, current trends will further fragment the region. 

The effect of Islamist groups is very likely to expand, reducing the tolerance for and presence of minorities, setting the stage for additional migration flows.  Hazards of uncertainty in Arab countries like Egypt, and possibly Saudi Arabia, could induce rulers to impose control via force–an impulse at odds with countertrends like the technological empowerment of human data flows, and poverty reduction.

Additionally, a transition to democracy could offer an attractive model, if it delivers better stability and inclusive wealth.  Progress on poverty reduction, education, and girls’ empowerment in individual portions of the region provides momentum for tapping into the growing number of young people which will be coming of working age.

Deepening crises undermine the credibility of international peace building and security institutions.

Geopolitically, developing humanitarian crises and regional conflict in the Middle East and North Africa will threaten to further undermine the credibility of international dispute resolution and human rights standards.  Perceptions in the area’s capitals which Washington is undependable have invited competition from Russia, and possibly China, and hedging by nations regarding US obligations.

These perceptions stem from unenforced red lines in Syria, withheld support for Mubarak along with other Arab incumbents in 2011, an alleged tilt toward Iran and away from traditional Sunni allies and Israel, and a sense of neglect due to the US rebalance to Asia.

Iran, Israel, and Turkey are most likely to rise in power and regional influence

In the meantime, Iran, Israel, and perhaps Turkey are likely to rise in power and influence relative to other nations in the area but will remain at odds with one another.

Iran’s growing influence, nuclear capabilities, and aggressive behavior will continue to be a concern for Gulf and Israel Arab nations.  The sectarian nature of Iranian and Saudi regional competition, which promotes inflammatory rhetoric and allegations of heresy throughout the region, heightens these concerns.

Converging Economic and Demographic Trends Threaten Security in the Middle East and North Africa was originally published on Global Security Review.

Leaving the EU is now looking like a distant possibility for France as well (many are calling it Frexit). Nationalists on the far-right like Marine Le Pen want increased national sovereignty over a collective Union. The United States-based think tank, the Pew Research Center, believes that more than 60% of the people in France view the EU as an unfavorable option. The study claimed that in case a referendum was held, almost 33% of the people would vote to leave, while 40% would want to remain. At least 22% would be left undecided, as per the reports of the study. Now, let’s talk about the strategic disadvantages of leaving the EU for France.

Leaving is Going to be a Serious Problem

First of all, leaving the EU is not an easy job by any means. Once a country joins the European Union, it can’t just up and leave at its behest. It is only recently that Britain invoked Article 50, which is the official notification of intent sent by Britain to the head of the EU, stating the country’s desire to leave. This is the first in a long line of steps for leaving the EU. Now, there are talks that serious levies will be placed on Britain, amounting to billions of pounds, for leaving the EU. Some countries in the EU claim that the process for leaving should become even harder and more expensive, which would ultimately prevent others from leaving too. This is a serious deterrent for any country that plans on leaving the EU.

The EU Nuclear Program

In order to combat the Russia deterrent, the European Union also plans to create its own nuclear weapons program. Under the proposed program, the nuclear weapons arsenal of France will be overseen by the European Union and will be put under common European command.

This will serve as a direct Russia deterrent, and will also provide protection to countries in the European Union. For France leaving the European Union, this could lead to serious sanctions, and a sizeable part of the country’s arsenal of nuclear weapons might also be seized by the European Union for use. For France, leaving the EU might mean increased sanctions because of its nuclear capability.

Economical Impact

Countries in the EU enjoy a variety of benefits, especially relating to trade between other countries in the EU. There are a streamlined set of guidelines that all countries are supposed to follow when trading with other countries in the European Union. Keeping aside the Russia deterrent or any other sort of deterrence that the country might face, perhaps one of the greatest issues that the country will face is related to trade.

However, if France decides to leave the EU, it will have to renegotiate deals with all of the major countries that it currently trades with. This could mean increased tariffs and costs, and could also lead some countries to increase trading prices with France. Naturally, this could cause serious problems for the country as that could lead to the abolition of long-standing trade deals that the country currently has in place. The main driving force for the campaign to leave the EU is due to the immigration policy, as well as a marked increase in the number of attacks in France.

Why Should France Stay in the European Union? was originally published on Global Security Review.