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Mostrando postagens com marcador Europa. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Europa. Mostrar todas as postagens

sexta-feira, 8 de março de 2024

Putin pretende expandir a Rússia até a antiga URSS, na Europa e mais além - Anton Geraschenko

 From: Anton Geraschenko

Europe and NATO might be closer to war with Russia than they may now believe.

Let's  recall how many experts and politicians denied a potential full-scale  Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even though there was enough  evidence - but in hindsight, it seems obvious.

On the other hand,  many knew and believed that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine  was going to happen, but was there a plan for a confrontation? The first  months after the invasion were a time of confusion and waiting for  events to unfold. Ukraine survived primarily thanks to the heroism of  the people who went out to stop Russian tanks with their bare hands.

Today,  it seems that we are back in the spring of 2022, when there is no  unity, no specific common plan of action, no determination, and the West  is watching the development of events.

With the war in Ukraine, Russia has clearly seen that the West is afraid of escalation in the context of mutual destruction.

Indeed, Russia won't be able to wage a large-scale war against NATO (unless it has powerful allies).

Therefore, Russia might resort to the tactic of gradual steps: strike, cease hostilities, and offer to negotiate. 

Russia  sees that NATO is not reacting swiftly, that there is no unanimity and  decisions are made collectively by consensus, and that there is a  tendency to delay and resolve issues diplomatically. 

Russia has  long openly stated that it is at war with the West, that it wants NATO  to collapse, and that it wants to change the geopolitical outlook of the  world.

At the moment, Russian population is prepared for a  conflict with NATO, for huge human losses, for a possible nuclear war,  and it approves, on the whole.

At the same time, Russia can carry out strikes of various kinds: 

◾️ strikes on critical civilian infrastructure in European NATO countries;

◾️ Russian missiles can "accidentally" fly into the space of a NATO country and each time reach farther and farther;

◾️ interfere in elections;

◾️ launch cyberattacks, leak wiretaps;

◾️ crash and take control of social media;

◾️ cut cables at the bottom of the seas;

◾️ blackmail with grain, oil, fertilizers, nuclear war, etc.;

◾️ corrupt and blackmail politicians, journalists, and celebrities in the West;

◾️ spread propaganda;

◾️ push allies against each other, manipulate them.

After  another strike, Russia would send signals to the moderate governments  and politicians: "Don't fight for your allies with us if you don't want  your population to be dragged into a war and be the ones blamed for it.  This is not your 'conflict'. And we will give your country cheap gas for  it, for example."

So, first of all, it is not about a possible  direct military, forceful confrontation between NATO and Russia, but  about who is scared of it and who will be the first to want to negotiate  and agree to the terms of the other side. 

I am sure that Putin today believes that he has already won.

He  sees the West being unprepared for war on all levels. He sees the lack  of aid to Ukraine. So, for him, this is evidence that Russia is  defeating the West right at this particular moment.

The West's  psychological fear of nuclear escalation and direct confrontation is the  possible future basis for negotiating a security architecture in Europe  and the world on Russia's terms. 

Thus, Russia does not need a  force equal to the military might of NATO. It only needs to scare the  West, or rather the people who are now making decisions, with  psychological pressure to make them indecisive.

Internal  dissension and endless discussions of escalation only reinforce Russia's  belief that NATO will back down if Russia moves on.

Will Russia  wait 10 to 20 years? I don't think so. Putin is already in his advanced  years and wants to end his life with a "victory" - restoring Russia to  the confines of the USSR.

So things could develop much faster. 

Russia has been saying for ten years that it is at war with NATO and that it wants to defeat NATO.

Russian people are internally ready for everything, even for nuclear war.

Today,  Ukraine continues to contain Russia and fight for our existential  survival. But our forces are unequal. We have no time for indecision and  no time for deliberations. We must not allow the situation to reach the  "too late" part. Unity, determination, and weapons are needed urgently.



quinta-feira, 7 de março de 2024

Como lidar com o imperialismo expansionista russo-putinesco na Europa? - Sven Biscop (Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations_

 The phrase above applies to the European (and Belgian) elections, but also to the EU and its candidate countries. If the EU is not ready to do for Georgia and Moldova what it is doing for Ukraine, if necessary, it should not have invited them in. This is the argument of my new Egmont Commentary, which I hope will be of interest.

Best wishes,

 

Sven 

 

image001.jpg

 

     Universiteit Gent - Ghent University

 

 

Prof. Dr. Sven Biscop

 

Director – Europe in the World Programme, Egmont

Professor – Ghent University 

Associate Member – Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences 

 

Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations

Rue des Petits Carmes 15, B-1000 Brussels

+ 32 473 31 68 23

 

s.biscop@egmontinstitute.be




 

If Russia “Protects” Transnistria, Will the EU Defend Moldova? And Georgia?


https://www.egmontinstitute.be/if-russia-protects-transnistria-will-the-eu-defend-moldova-and-georgia/


If Russia “Protects” Transnistria, Will the EU Defend Moldova? And Georgia?

  

In

 

 

On 28 February 2024, the day before Putin’s annual speech in parliament, Transnistria asked Russia for protection against Moldova, the state from which the region has broken away. Fabricating a threat against a kindred people as a pretext for invasion: the playbook is well known. That is how Russia has justified its wars against Georgia and Ukraine, and how it threatens the Baltic States. But the playbook is much older: in 1938-9, the purported plight of the Sudeten Germans was Hitler’s pretext for dismembering Czechoslovakia. There are parallels – but they do not run in Russia’s favour.

 

Minsk Is Not Munich

There are differences too. Russia already is in Transnistria, with some 1500 troops that have been there since 1992. And the EU already is in Moldova, with an EU Partnership Mission (EUPM) of up to 40 security officials, launched in April 2023 to assist with building resilience against hybrid actions. The West is not abandoning anybody, therefore. Indeed, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands have only just opened an embassy in Chisinau, and Greece and Spain will follow shortly.

Perhaps Putin had understood the Minsk Agreements that France and Germany mediated between Ukraine and Russia in 2014-5 as a Munich moment: the first step towards the West letting Ukraine go. But then he overlooked another accord: the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, also signed in 2014, by which (wittingly or unwittingly) Europe committed itself to the survival of Ukraine, whatever the future might bring. Putin should have remembered that when Nazi Germany violated the Munich Agreement, Britain and France could indeed not prevent the destruction of Czechoslovakia – but they did then offer a security guarantee to Poland and went to War when Hitler invaded it. In a similar vein, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine provoked the EU and the US into non-belligerent yet massive and indeed vital support for Kyiv. In June 2022, the EU accepted both Ukraine and Moldova as candidates for membership, cementing its commitment.

 

But the War Might Yet Expand

Putin did not actually mention Moldova in his speech. Perhaps the Transnistrian call for help is a sign of desperation more than anything else, as things have been going bad for the leadership ever since Ukraine closed the border when war started. Transnistria being where it is, Russia can difficultly reinforce or supply its troops there, and Russia has of course failed to link it up with the territory that it occupies in Ukraine. Nevertheless, if Putin felt it necessary to create a diversion, the troops currently in Transnistria could cause havoc. And already today Russia is engaged in a massive subversion campaign in Moldova. The call for protection is itself an example of that. Is the EUPM sufficient to bolster the country?

The EU also has to worry about Georgia, which in December 2023 became a candidate for membership as well. There too, Russian troops shore up breakaway regions: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Those border on Russia, however; it is Georgia that is isolated, in a military sense. The Montreux Convention limits access via the Black Sea, and while the country does border on fellow EU candidate Turkey, the latter (though a NATO Ally) has its own special relationship with Russia. In case of renewed hostilities, how would the EU (and the US) get military support to Georgia? And in Georgia too, massive Russian influence operations are underway.

Even Armenia now appears to be hoping for some sort of security support from Europe. Armenia was gravely disappointed with Russia’s lack of support when in September 2023 Azerbaijan in a swift war took control of Nagorno-Karabakh. in February 2024, Armenia suspended its membership of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), its military alliance with Russia. Azerbaijan, at the same time, is a key partner of the EU’s Global Gateway. The EU need not choose sides between them; it needs a strategy for regional stability.

 

Defend Your Candidate!

Accepting a country as a candidate creates obligations towards it, and it alters the geopolitical position of the EU, almost as much as actual enlargement.

Enlargement always was a geopolitical project, but never before has it been actively contested by another great power. In the past, the EU has accepted as candidates countries that came out of war, on the Balkans, but never a country currently at war, like Ukraine, or facing a great risk of war, like Georgia and Moldova. In geopolitical terms, these were three buffer states in between the EU and Russia. Ukraine and Moldova have now become border states – they are the frontier of the West; Georgia, however, is a geopolitical outpost. The security guarantee contained in Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union does not yet apply, of course. But the EU can also not just stand idly by when a candidate is threatened or aggressed, in a military or a hybrid way – not without greatly damaging its credibility. And if the EU is not seen to stand up for its candidates, other powers might begin to doubt even the strength of solidarity between current Member States, to the detriment of deterrence.

By accepting new candidates, the EU has de facto altered its geopolitical situation. That must now be reflected in an updated strategy. At the very least, the EU should prepare contingency plans for non-belligerent support to Georgia and Moldova, up to the same massive scale as for Ukraine if necessary. That will require courage and resources. But if the EU is not willing to defend them, it should not have accorded candidate status to countries facing such a high risk of conflict. Geopolitics and strategy is not a game for the meek or the miserly.

 

Sven Biscop cannot help seeing historical analogies – he has just read too many books.

 

 


domingo, 23 de julho de 2023

Europa se distancia dos Estados Unidos: crescimento é mais rápido numa economia mais livre

 "Segundo números do Banco Mundial e do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) trabalhados pelo think tank Conselho Europeu sobre Relações Exteriores (ECFR, na sigla em inglês), em 2008, as economias dos países da União Europeia somavam US$ 16,2 trilhões, contra US$ 14,7 trilhões dos Estados Unidos.

Porém, no ano passado, o PIB americano chegou a US$ 25 trilhões, enquanto a UE e o Reino Unido (que deixou o bloco nesse intervalo) juntos atingiram apenas US$ 19,8 trilhões. (...)

Em um artigo recente para o Financial Times, o colunista Gideon Rachman apresentou dados que ilustram como a Europa ficou para trás. Enquanto as maiores empresas de tecnologia do mundo são americanas e a China vem conseguindo desenvolver também gigantes no setor, há apenas duas big techs europeias no top 20 mundial em valor de mercado (a holandesa ASML e a alemã SAP).

Rachman citou também que os levantamentos Shanghai Ranking e Times Higher Education de melhores universidades do mundo colocaram apenas uma instituição da UE entre as 30 primeiras (o Reino Unido teve mais nomes, como Cambridge e Oxford); que a participação europeia na fabricação mundial de semicondutores caiu de 44% para 9% desde 1990; e que hoje o capital privado para investimentos está muito mais disponível nos Estados Unidos do que na Europa.

O ponto de partida para a disparidade econômica entre os aliados foi a crise de 2008, que, conforme ressaltado por Josilmar Cordenonssi, professor de ciências econômicas do Centro de Ciências Sociais e Aplicadas (CCSA) da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM), “apesar de ter surgido nos Estados Unidos, foi pior para a Europa”.

Em 2009, ano seguinte à detonação da crise, o PIB dos Estados Unidos sofreu retração de 2,6%, segundo dados do Banco Mundial; já o da UE teve queda de 4,3%. Com a crise e nos anos seguintes, países do bloco enfrentaram problemas de solvência, recessão profunda, aumento da dívida pública, ajustes fiscais severos e outros obstáculos.

A isso, lembrou Cordenonssi em entrevista à Gazeta do Povo, se somam fatores estruturais. “A economia americana é muito mais dinâmica que a europeia. É muito menos regulada, principalmente no mercado de trabalho, na facilidade de abrir e fechar negócios”, explicou. “Você tem países na Europa, como a Espanha, em que o desemprego dificilmente fica abaixo de 10%. Nos EUA, o nível de desemprego é sistematicamente baixo, [hoje está] abaixo de 4%.”

O analista destacou outras diferenças nos Estados Unidos: uma rede de proteção social menor para os trabalhadores americanos, “então eles precisam trabalhar mais e tendem a ser mais produtivos”; maior abertura para a imigração, o que traz mais dinamismo para o mercado de trabalho, apesar de problemas na fronteira com o México; e o respeito à chamada destruição criativa.

“Se a empresa vai mal, que quebre, ninguém vai lá recuperar, enquanto na Europa, o Estado tenta entrar para salvar se [a empresa] é um símbolo nacional, é uma relação mais paternalista em relação a algumas empresas”, comparou.

Cordenonssi citou o exemplo das grandes demissões realizadas pelas big techs este ano, sem grandes repercussões internas nos Estados Unidos, “enquanto na Europa estavam negociando com governos e sindicatos como fazer”.

“É muito mais difícil [demitir funcionários e reestruturar empresas na Europa]. Os principais talentos, os grandes centros de desenvolvimento tecnológico, como é uma atividade de risco, migram naturalmente para os Estados Unidos, para diminuir esse custo da inovação. Na Europa, há uma mentalidade, parecida com a do Brasil, muito sindical, estatizante, de proteção. Isso sufoca esses setores mais dinâmicos da economia, é difícil inovar, melhor ir para os Estados Unidos”, afirmou o professor."

Eu acrescentaria apenas mais uma variável nesta equação que torna os EUA muito mais dinâmico que a Europa: Nos EUA não tem IVA.

Estados vilões buscam a inteligência das universidades ocidentais - Fiona Hamilton (Times)

É um fato: Estados vilões - aqui identificados explicitamente com a Rússia de Putin, a China de Xi Jinping e o Irã dos aiatolás - usam o conhecimento avançado obtido nos centros de produção mais sofisticados como alavancas contra os seus próprios povos e contra outras nações civilizadas. Goste-se ou não da afirmação, ela parece evidente.

You are targets for hostile states, students told

Fiona Hamilton 

Crime and Security Editor 

Times, July 27, 2023

Universities are "magnetic targets for espionage and manipulation", the head of M15 has warned, as he compared the global scientific race to the Cold War.

 Ken McCallum said hostile actors were stealing British research with "dispiriting regularity" and urged students to be extremely cautious to avoid passing secrets to China, Russia and Iran.

 McCallum said: "Today's contest for scientific and technological advantage is not a rerun of what we had in the Cold War but it is every bit as far reaching. Systemic competition means just that.

If your field of research is relevant to advanced materials or quantum computing or AI or biotech, to name but a few, your work will be of interest to people employed by states who do not share our values." 

McCallum issued the warning last month as he delivered the annual Bowman Lecture at the University of Glasgow, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1996. He was speaking to students, staff and alumni. 

He has previously said that spies for hostile states are targeting politicians, military officials, think tanks, academics and other officials to gather valuable information but had not previously been so explicit in his language about the threat at universities. 

Last week a report by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee said universities had become a "rich feeding ground" for China to seek intellectual property and military technology, saying some had turned a "blind eye" to the risks while taking its money. 

The Times revealed last year that British universities had accepted £240 million for research collaborations with Chinese institutions, many with links to the military, leading to concerns the work could help Beijing to build superweapons. 

McCallum told Glasgow students:

"Hostile actors working for other states make it their business to take your hard work and use it for their gain... We see this happening with dispiriting regularity. Precisely because our great universities are so great and rightly prize openness, they are magnetic targets for espionage and manipulation." 

He added: "If you look at what [Vladimir] Putin's military and mercenaries are doing in Ukraine; at the Iranian regime's ongoing suppression of its own people; at the restrictions of freedoms in Hong Kong and human rights violations in Xinjiang, or China's escalatory activity around Taiwan - I don't think you want the fruits of your inspiration and perspiration to be turned to the advantage of the Russian, Iranian or Chinese governments."

 McCallum said students should not be fooled by attractive conference invitations, collaboration proposals, "donations with strings" or "jointly funded research that builds dependency". 

"These aren't hypotheticals," he said. "They're things MI5 sees in investigations week by week, and they happen in universities just like Glasgow." 

The National Protective Security Authority, which is part of MI5, will offer expert advice and training to universities, businesses and institutions to help them protect themselves.


segunda-feira, 22 de novembro de 2021

O caldeirão europeu no fogo de imigração selvagem - James Forsyth (Spectator)

 Existem nações que são, supostamente, um “farol de liberdade” para o mundo, como os Estados Unidos pretendem ser, ao mesmo tempo em que se julgam os “supremos árbitros” dos problemas da Humanidade.

Existem outras que já foram a civilização mais avançada dessa mesma Humanidade, como a China, e que agora assusta um pouco o resto do mundo, quando volta a flexionar novamente os seus músculos econômicos, depois de dois séculos de letargia, declínio estatal e imenso atraso social. Seja bem vinda, desde que sem expansionismo indevido.

E existem certas nações, como a antiga Rússia das estepes (e bem menos de São Petersburgo) que assustam o mundo das democracias de mercado, ao reafirmar um DNA decididamente autocrático no seu revival do czarismo brutal do passado.

Os europeus ocidentais, que já foram colonizadores impiedosos nos cinco séculos que precederam a “segunda guerra de Trinta Anos”, tentam se equilibrar entre esses monstros frios imperiais. Eles são, atualmente, um pequeno promontório de defesa das liberdades democráticas e dos direitos humanos num mundo novamente devastado por conflitos inter-estatais, guerras civis, étnicas e religiosas, com dezenas de milhões de refugiados políticos e de exilados econômicos. Os europeus da franja democrática saberão resistir à pressão demográfica, aos impactos econômicos e às tensões sociais e culturais decorrentes desse mar imenso de emigrantes desesperados, em levas contínuas de ingressos ilegais? Resistirão eles ao neonacionalusmo tacanho de políticos racistas, xenófobos e fundamentalistas, geralmente de direita ou de extrema-direita? 

Estamos voltando ao umbilicalismo tacanho dos anos 1930?

Espero que não…

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 


Europe’s cauldron: The EU’s migrant crisis and the new hybrid war

Today’s Russia is a shadow of the Soviet Union. Yet Putin remains determined to create a near abroad for his obvious next target.

James Forsyth *

Spectator, Londres – 21.11.2021

Joe Biden’s foreign policy has been driven by two objectives: to revive the US-led alliance system that atrophied under Donald Trump and to clear the decks to allow for a new focus on China. This requires America’s allies doing more elsewhere to free the US up for the task of preventing Beijing from achieving regional hegemony in Asia.

America has been moving in this direction for some time: Barack Obama spent his presidency talking about an Indo-Pacific pivot. Yet every time the US has tried to get out of a region, it’s been pulled back. One of the reasons that Biden was so determined to withdraw from Afghanistan — despite the chaos that would inevitably ensue — was to show his willingness to jettison other priorities to focus on great power competition with China.

Events, though, might be about to intervene again. On 15 November, Biden and Xi Jinping held a virtual summit — to talk about how to avoid stumbling into war — or, as the US President put it, the need for ‘guardrails to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict’ and ‘to keep lines of communication open’. This brought to mind the Cold War hotline between Washington and Moscow that Kennedy and Khrushchev set up after the Cuban missile crisis. As befits a cold war, America is now moving towards a diplomatic boycott of the coming Beijing Winter Olympics.

Yet nothing that came out of this summit could match the drama of what Antony Blinken, Biden’s Secretary of State, said days before. When asked about the prospects of Russia invading Ukraine, he voiced his fears that ‘Russia may make the serious mistake of attempting to rehash what it undertook back in 2014 when it amassed forces along the border, crossed into sovereign Ukrainian territory, and did so claiming falsely that it was provoked’. In other words: the world should prepare for a new war in Europe.

This was no slip of the tongue. After Blinken’s speech, there was a period of frantic US diplomacy designed to alert European states to what Vladimir Putin might be considering with the military build-up on Ukraine’s borders. In 2014, Putin got away with it: he annexed Crimea and all the West could do was to impose sanctions after the fact. This time, America wants to be better prepared. Or, rather, it wants Europe to be better prepared.

The message appears to be getting across. Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, this week visited Ukraine and met the President and Defence Minister: the UK is now ready to arm Ukraine, selling it surface-to-surface Brimstone missiles that can be deployed from Ukrainian destroyers. For his part, Emmanuel Macron has told Putin in a phone call that France is prepared to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Even Berlin is doing its bit, having paused approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that connects Russia to Germany (and would allow Moscow to bypass its Ukrainian pipeline, making war easier).

When I put it to one diplomatic source that Blinken’s very public warning seemed rather blunt, he outlined just how high the stakes are for Washington. If Putin did march into Ukraine, Biden’s foreign policy would be in tatters. If Russia did succeed in annexing more Ukrainian territory it would significantly weaken the very alliance system that America is trying to strengthen. But if the US intervened, as it did in Bosnia and Libya, it would be a massive distraction from the Chinese challenge.

It has never been easy to read Putin’s intentions, but there are plenty of signs that he’s serious about Ukraine, or more specifically eastern Ukraine, where Russia already has an informal presence. Previous Russian military build-ups near the Ukrainian border have been explicit, almost designed to discomfit the West. The current exercise, involving about 100,000 Russian troops, has been lower profile. Putin, a tactical opportunist if ever there was one, may just be trying to test and probe to see how serious Biden is about his China shift — and if America really might leave the Europeans to it this time.

Putin’s trump card is Russian energy supplies. With Europe suffering an energy crunch as winter approaches, storage tanks are only half-filled and some reports predict energy blackouts, so it’s a good time for him to play hardball. Moscow may well feel that the EU, which relies on imports for more than half its energy, will be reluctant to break relations with its biggest supplier. In pressing ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the face of repeated American and eastern European protests, Germany had put its own energy needs first.

It was German intelligence that, in the spring, first identified the new threat facing Europe: that one of its adversaries could use migrants as part of a ‘hybrid war’. A classified 19-page document outlined what could happen: a foreign power could divert migrants to Europe’s weak spot to promote border chaos and the ‘political incitement of society’. When the EU placed sanctions on the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko (to punish him for abducting a journalist from a Ryanair flight), he replied by enacting precisely this strategy.

What we are witnessing, then, is a new form of warfare. Belarus is flying migrants in from Iraq and Syria to Belarus and then, upon arrival, dispatching them up to the Polish and Lithuanian borders. Video footage shows the Belarusian military using vehicles to try to take down Polish border posts and wire fencing. They have used lasers to make it impossible for Polish troops to see what is going on, fired blank rounds and even armed migrants with stun grenades. On Tuesday, footage showed children throwing rocks at Polish forces.

Polish police have seen waves of migrants before, but nothing like this. In their daily dispatches — accompanied by videos of advancing, sometimes armed migrants — Polish authorities refer to ‘waves’ of ‘attacks’. They haven’t yet fired on the migrants. But Belarus’s actions make that an ever-increasing risk; it is not hard to see how a Polish soldier might panic given the pressure.

In August last year, there were no recorded illegal attempts to cross the Belarusian- Polish border. But 17,000 attempts were made last month alone. Lithuania this week declared a state of emergency on its border. One Lithuanian television investigation found black Mercedes vans awaiting Iraqis at Minsk airport, taking them to hotels for several days until the call came to pack their things and head for the border. The migrants are falsely promised a similar service on the other side of the border.

This playbook was written by Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who successfully blackmailed the EU by saying he would stop large numbers of migrants reaching Europe. In return, Brussels moderated its criticisms of Erdogan’s increasing turn to authoritarianism and his regional power plays. Lukashenko was clearly looking to see if he could pull off the same trick. Hence, his decision to entice migrants to Belarus.

That’s why it was such a mistake for Angela Merkel, the outgoing German Chancellor, to buckle and contact Lukashenko earlier this week, giving him the line of communication — and recognition — that he craves. It was the first call between Lukashenko and a western leader since his brutal crackdown on the opposition after the August 2020 election. Lithuania has openly accused Merkel of playing into Lukashenko’s hands. Putin, for his part, will see yet again an easily divided Europe unable to agree on a common line.

Behind this lies perhaps an even-bigger question: how should western governments respond to the migration challenge? There’s little doubt that those migrants freezing in the woods on the Belarus side of the border are victims exploited by Lukashenko — just as those crossing the English Channel are being manipulated by people-smugglers. But if Poland waved them through and let them settle across the EU, it would undermine the faith of their own citizens in the basics of border control, promoting outrage and political instability. The Liverpool bombing is a reminder of the security risks of not controlling your own borders or running effective asylum policies.

No wonder Washington is concerned. The problems being cooked up on Europe’s borders are already causing division and mayhem.

The best the free world can do in responding to this threat is to use its economic muscle. The UK, Canada, the US and the EU have already cooperated effectively on sanctions on Belarus. They should now aim to expand their alliance as much as possible and make clear that any airline involved in flying migrants to Belarus will be sanctioned. Equally stringent sanctions should apply to any firm that leases aircraft used for these flights. Anyone playing Lukashenko’s game should be deterred.

The next thing the free world should do is to reduce its dependence on authoritarian regimes as much as possible. The aim should be to deny them leverage. This means freezing Nord Stream 2, which had been weeks away from opening until German regulators withheld approval very recently. If opened, the pipeline would deepen Europe’s reliance on Russian gas and give Putin more freedom of action in Ukraine. Perhaps the single greatest contribution the incoming German government could make to European security is to drop the project.

Today’s Russia is a shadow of the Soviet Union. Yet Putin remains determined to create a near abroad for Russia by fair means and foul — with Ukraine his obvious next target. He’ll be looking at the reaction to the latest border chaos, and asking what would happen if the annexation of eastern Ukraine was thrown into the mix.

Ultimately, Biden is right in his analysis. China is the most serious threat that the US-led world order has faced in decades, with economic power and technological prowess which make it a more formidable foe than the Soviet Union ever was. Biden is also right to see Moscow’s adventurism as a problem that can be confronted if Europe is clear-eyed about the shared risk — and the need for a shared response. It’s a test. Much depends on how Britain — and the rest of Europe — responds to it.

* James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator.

quarta-feira, 30 de junho de 2021

O aquecimento global está virando uma obsessão na Europa e nos EUA: talvez seja o momento de enfrentar esse touro...

29/06/2021: 

The Washington Post
Today's WorldView
 
 

domingo, 25 de abril de 2021

A “ordem liberal” que na verdade era hegemonica - Velina Tchakarova

Is a Cold War 2.0 inevitable?

23 April 2021

The message is clear — every state actor, big or small, will have to choose sides between two very different global offerings, each with their own set of norms, rules and ideologies.

This article is part of the series — Raisina Files 2021.


The global system[1] has never been as interconnected as was demonstrated by the COVID-19 outbreak. But global affairs are also at an inflection point. An unexpected manifestation of the pandemic is the bifurcation of the global order in a way unseen since the Cold War. It begs the question — is the world witnessing the beginning of a new bipolar era of global competition?

Global powers rise and fall. The pendulum swings back and forth, and a fragile equilibrium is achieved through the constant struggle for power and influence that keeps global affairs afloat. The rationale behind it lies in maximising the gains, forming powerful alliances and partnerships, and building enough capabilities to project power beyond the national realm. Any competitor strong enough to question the dominance of a global power will surely seize an opportunity to fill the gaps wherever they may present themselves. In the presence of a hegemon, there is always a process of polarisation that leads to the creation of a secondary system organised around a pole consisting of a single competitor or a group of rivals that seek to undermine the incumbent’s global power supremacy. To put things into perspective: a global reserve currency is not possible nowadays without the global power projection capabilities that enable the US to control the interconnected flows of goods, capital, services, and data, and to protect trade and transport routes from disruptions that might result in major supply shocks.

Any competitor strong enough to question the dominance of a global power will surely seize an opportunity to fill the gaps wherever they may present themselves.

Global affairs are constantly influenced by competition and cooperation. The global system has recently entered a new transitional period with the formation of two centres of power — the US and China. The former has predominantly shaped international relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War through global power projection via transnational networks established over decades of world dominance. On the other hand, given China’s impressive economic growth trajectories, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are heightened expectations around its continued rise to prominence in the global arena. However, it remains to be seen whether Beijing will be capable of transforming its growing geoeconomic clout and geopolitical influence into global power projection. Under any circumstance, the global system is already facing profound consequences, with long-lasting impacts for international affairs. Is a Cold War 2.0 inevitable amid the competition between the US and China?

From ‘Chimerica’ to systemic decoupling

According to US President Joe Biden’s new administration, China “is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”[2] Furthermore, Secretary of State Antony Blinken portrayed China as “America’s most powerful adversary and competitor” as well as “America’s biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.”[3] Chinese President Xi Jinping similarly identified the US as “the biggest source of chaos in the present-day world” as well as “the biggest threat to our country’s development and security.”[4] Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party “revealed late last year that the [Five Year] plan would span not just military but also economic, financial, and technological security.”[5]

The integration of China into US-led systems during the Cold War and afterwards led to the emergence of what many have termed as “Chimerica.”

A systemic rivalry means competition over the access to and control of global socioeconomic networks and structures. The integration of China into US-led systems during the Cold War and afterwards led to the emergence of what many have termed as “Chimerica.”[6] Globalisation created highly interconnected networks between Washington and Beijing, while also causing the consequent rise of China. This unintended outcome has led to China challenging US dominance in various spheres. This ongoing phenomenon has a ‘Cold War-like’ texture and may implicate the emergence of what has been termed as systemic decoupling — “the creation of two separate systems, that are often in competition with each other.”[7]

In the 1960s, British geographer Halford Mackinder claimed that China could become a major player in global affairs based on its geographic location, stretching from the “heartland” to “rimland terrains” of the world.[8] In keeping with Mackinder’s vision, China is seeking to establish a terrestrial connectivity through Eurasia[9] with the industrial heart of Europe — Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain. Central and Eastern Europe are key to win “the heartland” as the control over these geographies will enable China’s global power projection. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)[10] can be viewed through the Mackinder prism. The BRI entails two terrestrial connectivity routes to Central and Eastern Europe — one through Russia, and the other through Central Asia and Turkey. Additionally, Beijing has also introduced various political and economic platforms for engagement and cooperation, with the ‘Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries’ (or the ‘17+1’) initiative the most prominent among them.[11]Based on Nicholas Spykman’s geopolitical premises,[12] China is also building up its sea power presence in the ‘rimland terrains’ of the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific, and has developed a “string of pearls” approach in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to create a network of friendly ports and trade posts in India’s immediate neighbourhood as part of the maritime connectivity within the BRI.[13]

In reality, China is already pursuing the simultaneous formation of alternative routes via maritime and terrestrial connectivity, an approach combining Mackinder’s “heartland” and Spykman’s “rimland” strategies. China is seizing the opportunity to become the first Asian global power in modern international relations.

Political scientist Andrew Michta describes Beijing’s endgame as a “global inversion” of the interconnected trade flows, “which currently favour maritime routes, a setup that relies on U.S. naval power as enforcement. If China can develop a cross-Eurasian supply chain and protect it, it won’t need to match America in the maritime domain.”[14] In reality, China is already pursuing the simultaneous formation of alternative routes via maritime and terrestrial connectivity, an approach combining Mackinder’s “heartland” and Spykman’s “rimland” strategies. China is seizing the opportunity to become the first Asian global power in modern international relations. However, Beijing’s global rise will primarily be determined by the outcome of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its capability to establish global networks of finance, trade, energy, economics and diplomacy.

Contrary to the bipolar global order established during the Cold War, the systemic rivalry between the US and China is evolving simultaneously at sea and on land. State actors seek to “weaponise interdependence” by leveraging global networks for strategic advantages.[15] There are four domains that will be crucial in determining the outcome of this mutual competition — political economy, technology, international rules and ideology, and partnerships and alliances.

Political economy

According to realpolitik thinking,[16] the distribution of power lies at the heart of international relations. Realpolitik has once again become the true motor of global affairs; it is the main driver of the systemic decoupling between the US and China following the shift of global power from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. Competition between the two systemic rivals was already taking shape when former US President Barack Obama launched the American pivot to Asia and engaged with likeminded states to build institutional alliances, trade blocs and coalitions to counterbalance China’s increasing geoeconomic clout. His successor Donald Trump continued building up the pressure on Beijing on all fronts, mostly by applying a protectionist approach through bilateral agreements and coalitions.[17]

Beijing is just as keen to break up its dependence on American monetary, financial, economic, trade, diplomatic and technological networks.

But Washington is not the only one pursuing the decoupling of ‘Chimerica’; Beijing is just as keen to break up its dependence on American monetary, financial, economic, trade, diplomatic and technological networks. China is focusing on “sustaining economic growth and prosperity, developing its domestic markets, boosting innovation and technology, improving its military capabilities and maintaining domestic stability.”[18] Its approach is clearly aimed at achieving greater self-sufficiency by establishing alternative systems and substituting critical connectedness that is “forcing China and the United States towards a zero-sum understanding” [19] due to the complex challenges and the bifurcation of the global affairs today.

Riding the Fourth Industrial Revolution wave

The nature of globalisation is determined by the geoeconomic and geopolitical expansion model by the nation-state that has established global dominance, much like Great Britain did in the nineteenth century and the US did at the end of the Cold War in the twentieth century. Both states achieved a dominant position in global affairs by riding the wave of previous industrial revolutions. Which country will emerge the winner from the ongoing digital revolution is yet to be seen, but the victor will surely impose its dominance on competitors and allies alike in the future. Attempts at establishing supremacy during the Fourth Industrial Revolution necessitates a drive towards self-sufficiency in critical technologies and global supply chains. Logically, there can only be one winner in such a contest; Xi has staked early claim and “has publicly proclaimed the imminence of China’s industrial superiority and strived to achieve it via the largest industrial espionage offensive in history.”[20]

Which country will emerge the winner from the ongoing digital revolution is yet to be seen, but the victor will surely impose its dominance on competitors and allies alike in the future.

At the same time, reconfiguring global supply chains away from China is becoming a reality as American capital withdrew from Beijing amidst COVID-19.[21] A global disruption of supply chains, alongside an imperilled rules-based global order and eroding international structures, has impacted all regions around the world. But the reconfiguration will be initiated mainly by the US to bring manufacturing and supply chains back home or to trusted partner countries. Moving production from traditional hubs to new ones will take time and effort but will also certainly create new geoeconomic advantages for certain actor such as India, projected to become the world’s third-largest economic power in the next decade.[22] Regional centres of trade, such as Japan and the European Union (EU), have already began considering a shift of manufacturing operations out of China. Over the long term, two parallel supply chains networks are likely to emerge — one centred around the US, the other facilitated by China.[23]

Sectors such as space technologies, artificial intelligence, defence and the cyber domain will witness strategic investments to promote the growth of new, regional power centres. This is important since any significant breakthrough in these areas will bestow global competitiveness and geoeconomic advantages. Further, the unprecedented interconnectedness of all socioeconomic systems has obfuscated any distinction between economic and trade indicators on one hand, and defence and security considerations on the other. This explains why the competition between the US and China does not solely represent a trade war but a broader rivalry extending to the global networks of finance, trade, economy, diplomacy, energy, defence and so forth.

Moving production from traditional hubs to new ones will take time and effort but will also certainly create new geoeconomic advantages for certain actor such as India, projected to become the world’s third-largest economic power in the next decade.

Battle over global norms and ideologies

The Cold War encompassed a competition over the systemic hierarchy of international values, norms, and rules. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, the US was able to define this agenda by promoting the liberal ideas of a democratic political order coupled with a market economy, human rights, and freedoms. Similarly, the outcome of the ongoing competition between Washington and Beijing will also have an impact on the future of the global order in terms of norms, standards, rules, and values.[24] This will be implicated by a growing systemic coordination between China and Russia (the “Dragonbear”[25]) that indicates “a willingness to challenge the international order and the US position in it.”[26]

While there is no overt ideological competition yet, the US-led liberal international order is facing a threat from the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian ideology and governance model.[27] Following China’s global ascent, authoritarian regimes and ideas have established a stronghold in Southeast Asia, with “strongmen in power in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia, single parties in Laos and Vietnam, and democracy eroding in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia.”[28] China has also drawn international attention for human rights abuses, “including a crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and against Uighurs in Xinjiang.”[29] And there is some speculation that Beijing might seek to penetrate the political spectrum and socioeconomic fabric of Taiwan to establish control over its processes and structures in the long run.[30]

Following China’s global ascent, authoritarian regimes and ideas have established a stronghold in Southeast Asia.

At the same time, the demand for a COVID-19 vaccine scenario has presented a new dimension to the ongoing battle of international vaccines, and will pose a new challenge for the West as China sought to establish a “Health Silk Road” at the beginning of the pandemic to support partner countries with medical supplies.[31] Furthermore, Beijing aims to enhance its global image through its vaccine diplomacy.[32] In response, the US and three of its closest Indo-Pacific partners — India, Japan and Australia; together known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)[33] — committed to boosting COVID-19 vaccine supply at their first summit and pledged to cooperate in the maritime, security, and cyber domain to meet the challenges posed by China.[34] Quad cooperation is aimed at boosting security and defence ties between the four Indo-Pacific countries, while counterbalancing China’s rise in this region.

The United Nations (UN) and other international organisations have already been impacted by the ongoing global power competition between the US and China. The diminished role of the UN Security Council (UNSC) is linked to Washington’s declining international role, particularly under the Trump administration.[35] It has been unable to keep the transatlantic community together and often faces difficulties in convincing allies to vote in favour of its draft resolutions (for instance, on Iran[36]). This is compounded by the rising assertiveness of China and Russia as diplomatic powers and their deft manoeuvring of multilateral institutions.

Quad cooperation is aimed at boosting security and defence ties between the four Indo-Pacific countries, while counterbalancing China’s rise in this region.

Multilateralism is at risk of becoming only a buzzword,[37] with institutions reduced to playgrounds for diplomatic battles between competing powers, much like the UNSC was during the Cold War. This dynamic could easily resurface, with the transatlantic community on one side, and China and Russia on the other. China and Russia operate within the existent global order with the clear goal of disrupting it, dismantling its multilateral structures, and creating better conditions for their conceptualisation of multilateralism, which is strictly opposed to Western values, norms and rules.[38] Coordinated efforts by the Dragonbear within the UNSC and other international organisations will likely increase further, as both states will seek to boost their international image as norm-setters in a rapidly changing rules-based global order.

Systemic bipolar era and alliances

The emergence of regional power centres has created the illusion of multipolarity, even as the systemic bipolarity between the US and China encompasses all relevant networks. An important structural layer of the global system consists of middle-sized powers oscillating between Washington and Beijing to maximise their own gains while avoiding picking a side for as long as possible — there are neither eternal allies, nor perpetual enemies, only eternal and perpetual interests.[39] This seems to be the leading geopolitical maxim of the upcoming Indo-Pacific decade. To counterbalance the growing Chinese presence in the IOR and its direct neighbourhood, India is expanding its network of regional and bilateral partnerships through various security and defence constellations, “while playing as well, carefully but with dedication, the card of the Indo-Pacific.”[40] Other key players like Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, and Turkey have one thing in common, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic — playing a balancing act between the US and China while delaying the difficult task of choosing a side. From a geopolitical point of view, the new great game will be predominantly situated in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean due to rising competition between the two Asian giants, China and India, in addition to the systemic rivalry between China and the US.

The chasm between Washington and Beijing has not only led to the bipolarisation of the global order but has also increasingly put pressure on the regional powers caught in the middle.

The main hotspots and potential triggers for an escalation of the US-China rivalry are in the South and East China Seas, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Caspian, and the Black Sea, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa. Tensions are also expected along the global chokepoints for energy and food as well as the Chinese Belt and Road connectivity. China has been in the lead at various multilateral forums, such as BRICS, the Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and trade blocs such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which covers 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region but excludes major economic powers like the US, EU and India.[41] The chasm between Washington and Beijing has not only led to the bipolarisation of the global order but has also increasingly put pressure on the regional powers caught in the middle.

What next

China has become the main external factor in American domestic politics, but the US can only exert a limited influence on Chinese domestic affairs. International cooperation has become a function of the competition and systemic rivalry between Washington and Beijing. But this competition need not necessarily turn into an overt and direct confrontation. Blinken stressed that the “relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be.”[42]During the first face-to-face high-level bilateral talks with the Biden administration, China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi stressed that “US can no longer ‘speak to China from a position of strength.’”[43]

Eventually, the systemic competition between the US and China will fragment the interdependent and globalised world by unleashing centrifugal forces of bipolarity, affecting the entire global system deeply.

The competition between the US and China is made up as much by the technological, geoeconomic and institutional decoupling as it is by the oscillating alliances of middle power countries. China has already become a second pole of global power and has also begun challenging existing international structures and networks. While the US is seeking to preserve its institutional heritage, technological leverage and geoeconomic clout in cooperation with transatlantic allies and regional partners, China will clearly aim to establish and promote alternative structures and systems to counterbalance and challenge the American dominance. These competing strategies cannot result in a win-win situation. Eventually, the systemic competition between the US and China will fragment the interdependent and globalised world by unleashing centrifugal forces of bipolarity, affecting the entire global system deeply.

A pessimistic scenario will mean a more radical and consistent mutual decoupling, while an optimistic view reveals a more peaceful systemic coexistence, with Beijing focusing on partnerships and commitments to strengthen its domestic development until it builds a counterbalance to the overwhelming American influence.[44] In both scenarios, the message is clear — every state actor, big or small, will have to choose sides between two very different global offerings, each with their own set of norms, rules and ideologies. [45] The US has so far been the biggest source of China’s wealth.[46] And yet, Washington might also become the biggest source of China’s demise. The US will certainly not shy away from advancing this idea under aggravating circumstances of global power competition.


[1] Velina Tchakarova, “Global System Outlook 2020,” Antifragilista, 9 February 2020.

[2] Joe Biden, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, Washington, The White House, March 2021, pp. 8.

[3] Dan De Luce and Abigail Williams, “China poses ‘biggest geopolitical test’ for the U.S., Secretary of State Blinken says,” NBCNEWS, 3 March 2021.

[4] Chris Buckley, “‘The East Is Rising’: Xi Maps Out China’s Post-Covid Ascent,” New York Times, 3 March 2021.

[5] George Magnus, “Economics, National Security, and the Competition with China,” War on the Rocks, 3 March 2021.

[6] Andrew Browne, “Bloomberg New Economy: The Chimera that Was ‘Chimerica’,” Bloomberg, 11 July 2020.

[7] Mark Leon Goldberg, “How COVID-19 is Accelerating Geopolitical Shifts,” UN Dispatch, 23 April 2020.

[8] Halford Mackinder, “Democratic ideals and reality,” Diane Publishing, no. 184, 1962.

[9] Mark Bassin, “Eurasia,” in European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History, eds Diana Mishkova and Balázs Trencsényi (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019), pp. 210-32.

[10] World Bank, “Belt And Road Initiative,” 2018.

[11] Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries, 2013.

[12] Nicholas Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York, Harcourt: Brace and Company, 1944); America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power, (New York, Harcourt: Brace and Company, 1942).

[13] Velina Tchakarova, “China and India: Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific Decade, Part I,” The Defence Horizon Journal, Special Edition I/21, Geopolitics: 14-19.

[14] Andrew Michta, “Opinion | Can China Turn Europe Against America?” The Wall Street Journal, 2021.

[15] Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44, no. 1 (Summer 2019): 42-79.

[16] John Bew, History of Realpolitik (Oxford University Press Inc, 2016).

[17] Guy Erb and Scott Sommers, “Still Losing Ground: The Consequences of the Trump Administration’s Bilateral Trade Policy,” Washington International Trade Association, 7 September 2020.

[18] Øystein Tunsjø, “The new US-China superpower rivalry,” East Asia Forum, 4 April 2020.

[19] Tunsjø, “The new US-China superpower rivalry”

[20] Edward Luttwak, “How to stop China’s long march,” UnHerd, 27 February 2021.

[21] Chloe Taylor, “Coronavirus is accelerating a ‘capital war’ between China and the US, investor warns,” CNBC News, 27 May 2021.

[22] “India to become 5th largest economy in 2025, 3rd largest by 2030,” The Economic Times, 26 December 2020.

[23] Velina Tchakarova, “Covid-19 and the Indo-Pacific Decade,” Observer Research Foundation, 8 July 2020.

[24] Sean Fleming, “World order is going to be rocked by AI – this is how,” The World Economic Forum, 13 February 2020.

[25] Velina Tchakarova, “The Dragonbear: An Axis of Convenience or a New Mode of Shaping the Global System?” Irmo Brief, March 2020.

[26] Michael Spirtas, “Are We Truly Prepared for a War with Russia or China?” The Rand Blog, 8 October 2018.

[27] “How China’s Communist Party trains foreign politicians,” The Economist, 10 December 2020.

[28] Bhavan Jaipragas, “Advantage China, as democracy slides from view in Southeast Asia,” South China Morning Post, 7 February 2021.

[29] Luce and Williams, “China poses ‘biggest geopolitical test’ for the U.S., Secretary of State Blinken says”

[30] Chia-Chien Chang and Alan H. Yang, “Weaponized Interdependence: China’s Economic Statecraft and Social Penetration against Taiwan,” Orbis 64, no. 2 (2020): 312-333.

[31] Wade Shepard, “China’s ‘Health Silk Road’ Gets A Boost From COVID-19,” Forbes, 27 March 2020.

[32] Emma Graham-Harrison and Tom Phillips, “China hopes ‘vaccine diplomacy’ will restore its image and boost its influence,” The Guardian, 29 November 2020.

[33] Ankit Panda, “The ‘Quad’ Summit: Delivering Value in the Indo-Pacific,” The Diplomat, 17 March 2021.

[34] “US, Indo-Pacific allies pledge to boost Covid-19 vaccine supply at Quad summit,” France 24, 13 March 2021.

[35] David Whineray, “The United States’ Current and Future Relationship With the United Nations,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 6 March 2020.

[36] “Isolated by allies, US suffers UNSC defeat on Iran arms ban,” National Herald, 15 August 2020.

[37] Velina Tchakarova, “UNSC balancing between USA and the Dragonbear,” in Powering Universalism, ed. Ursula Werther-Pietsch, to be published in April 2021.

[38] Tchakarova, “The Dragonbear”

[39] Oxford Reference, “Lord Palmerston 1784–1865,” Oxford University Press.

[40] Jean-Luc Racine, “The New Indian Geopolitics of the Sea: From the Indian Ocean to the Indo-Pacific,” Hérodote 163 (4) (2016): 101-129.

[41] Iwamoto, Kentaro, “ ” Nikkei Asia, 2020.

[42] Luce and Williams, “China poses ‘biggest geopolitical test’ for the U.S., Secretary of State Blinken says.”

[43] Justin McCurry, “US and China publicly rebuke each other in first major talks of Biden era,” The Guardian, 19 March 2021.

[44] Øystein Tunsjø, “The new US-China superpower rivalry,” East Asia Forum, 4 April 2020.

[45] Michael Auslin, “The Coronacrisis Will Simply Exacerbate The Geo-Strategic Competition Between Beijing And Washington,” Hoover Institution, no. 64, 23 April 2020.

[46] Orville Schell, “The Ugly End of Chimerica,” Foreign Policy, 3 April 2020.

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