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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Beyond the military practicalities of the battlefield, the Kursk offensive is challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions about the war. Crucially, Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has demonstrated that Putin’s nuclear threats and his talk of red lines are in reality a big bluff designed to intimidate the West.

Ukrainians have long accused Western policymakers of being overly concerned about the dangers of provoking Putin. They argue that since 2022, the international response to Russian aggression has been hampered by a widespread fear of escalation that has led to regular delays in military aid and absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons. Ukraine’s offensive has now made a mockery of this excessive caution. If the Kremlin does not view the actual invasion of Russia by a foreign army as worthy of a major escalation, it is hard to imagine what would qualify.

As the Kursk offensive unfolds, Ukraine is hoping the country’s allies will draw the logical conclusions. Initial indications are encouraging, with US and EU officials voicing their support for Ukraine’s cross-border incursion despite longstanding concerns over any military operations inside Russia. At the same time, restrictions on the use of certain categories of weapons remain in place. This is hindering the advance of Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast. It is also preventing Kyiv from striking back against the airbases used to bomb Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive represents a powerful signal to the country’s partners. It demonstrates that the Ukrainian military is a highly professional force capable of conducting complex offensive operations and worthy of greater international backing. It also confirms that Putin’s Russia is dangerously overstretched and is militarily far weaker than it pretends to be.

The muddled and unconvincing Russian response to Ukraine’s invasion speaks volumes about the relative powerlessness of the Putin regime. This should persuade Kyiv’s allies of the need for greater boldness and convince them that the time has come to commit to Ukrainian victory.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

The senators joined a growing chorus of US lawmakers and experts calling on the Biden administration to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US weapons against military targets in Russia. After months of pressure, the administration assented in May to allow limited strikes inside Russia, but only under specific conditions. Blumenthal and Graham see the folly in limiting when and how Ukraine can use US weapons and vowed to “urge the Biden administration to lift restrictions on weapons provided by the United States so they can strike the Russian invaders more effectively.”

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, the senators offered the prospect of a strategic economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine centered on metals and rare earth elements development. Their press release hinted that their suggestion was a welcome surprise for Zelenskyy, whose government has expressed hopes of leveraging Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth to become a major exporter of lithium and rare earths, raw materials key to new technologies and the energy transition. In a veiled reference to China’s dominant position in the rare earths market, the senators noted that “an agreement with Ukraine in this area would make the US less dependent on foreign adversaries for rare earth minerals.”

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After the House of Representatives belatedly passed the national security supplemental package that unlocked further US aid to Ukraine in April, experts and lawmakers alike began to wonder how Washington might continue to support Ukraine throughout the rest of 2024. The Blumenthal-Graham priorities outline what could be an ambitious, re-energized US policy on Ukraine through the end of the current year.

US President Joe Biden has been skittish at the last two NATO summits about pushing for Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance, largely for fear of escalating tensions with Russia. But with Biden now out of the 2024 presidential race, he may be thinking more about his foreign policy legacy. Having already helped usher Finland and Sweden into the Alliance, opening Ukraine’s accession bid in earnest would be the third in a hat-trick of transatlantic security wins for Biden. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s underwhelming response to Ukraine’s offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast should certainly tamp down any misplaced fears of escalation.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Blumenthal’s Stand With Ukraine Act will likely run up against latent partisanship and electoral jitters when he introduces it in September. Much of Congress will be campaigning this fall, avoiding difficult votes while trying to score political points against the other party. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could very well bring the bill to a floor vote, both to support Ukraine and to force a vote from anti-Ukraine Republicans, but Speaker of the House Mike Johnson may be loath to spend political capital to do the same. Even so, the bill may get the ball rolling on further Ukraine legislation, especially as some pro-Ukraine Republicans indicate they want funding to continue uninterrupted, even under the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

As for dropping restrictions on the use of US weapons, only the Biden administration can reverse this policy, something it has repeatedly declined to do. It may take further public and private calls from Democrats such as Blumenthal before the White House agrees to a change. In the meantime, Russian rockets will continue to kill Ukrainian civilians using launch systems that could have been taken out by US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and other Western-supplied weapons.

The senators’ proposal for a US-Ukraine economic partnership has all the ingredients for bipartisan consensus in Washington: Support for Ukraine without US taxpayer dollars, reduced dependence on China, and the potential for economic gain by importing one of the few materials the United States can’t make itself. A formal agreement would likely be highly technical and take many months to negotiate, but all the incentives are there for a new element in US-Ukraine relations.

Congressional delegations can sometimes be high on style and discussion but low on action and deliverables. This time, Blumenthal and Graham delivered on all counts and laid out a road map outlining US support for Ukraine through the end of 2024. Their list is as ambitious as it is sounds, both in its support for US interests and in helping Ukraine move toward victory on the battlefield. That combination of vision and vigor is exactly why their initiatives deserve bipartisan support.

Andrew D’Anieri is a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

From the Pentagon to the Philippines, integrating deterrence in the Indo-Pacific

Kevin M. Wheeler — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 18:56:07 +0000

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Late last month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the Philippines to meet with their counterparts and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. Their visit was the latest in a series of top-level diplomatic meetings between the two countries highlighting, among other factors, their shared interest in security and a free and open Indo-Pacific region. As the officials emphasized, this trip was also a reaffirmation of each country’s concerns about Chinese actions that threaten maritime security in the region.

Marcos did not mention China by name in his state of the nation address on July 22, but it was clear who he was talking about when he said the Philippines “cannot yield . . . cannot waver.” Marcos then continued, “The West Philippine Sea”—meaning the portion of the South China Sea that the Philippines claims as its exclusive economic zone—“is not merely a figment of our imagination. It is ours. And it will remain ours as long as the spirit of our beloved country, the Philippines, burns brightly.” As a demonstration of this resolve, Philippine armed forces continued their work to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre on the Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in the days that followed Marcos’s speech.

After a year of working alongside Philippine Marines and servicemembers, I can say that the attitude of national resolve to defend their homeland and surrounding waters is widely shared in the country. It is reflected in Balikatan, for example, arguably the most well-known Joint-Combined exercise in the Philippines, which translates as “shoulder to shoulder.”

This cross-cutting sense of purpose is important because the true strength of US and Philippine efforts—and the efforts of both with other countries in the Indo-Pacific—lies not simply in diplomacy among top officials and leaders. It also rests on what is happening on the ground among US and Philippine servicemembers and officials—the action officers. It’s in the day-to-day communication, coordination, planning, and relationship-building that is required to establish deterrence. This work is part of what the US Department of Defense calls “integrated deterrence,” an important but often misunderstood concept.

Taking integrated deterrence from concept to reality

In 2022, when the current National Defense Strategy was released with its “primary focus on the need to sustain and strengthen US deterrence against China,” I was working as an operations analyst for the Department of Defense, contributing toward the development of the Joint Warfighting Concept. As concept writers do, my fellow officers and I dismantled, debated, and explored what the words on screen meant and how they should be translated into action at each echelon of command within the Department of Defense—particularly the new idea of “integrated deterrence.” The idea was often met with skepticism early on. Some people asked: How is this different from what the United States has always done? At the same time, there was a shared belief in our discussion group that making deterrence a reality required a new conceptual approach.

After this experience, I wanted to take what we had done conceptually and see it implemented in practice. The Indo-Pacific seemed the most logical place for this, and I asked for my next assignment to return me to the tactical level, a regiment in the Marine Corps, hoping to take ideas discussed in wargames and within the walls of the Pentagon and do my small part to help see them realized at the forward edge of the first island chain. My request was granted, so I write this while in the Philippines, deployed with one of the most lethal, modern US military formations. We are manned by some of the smartest and most capable humans I have ever met and equipped with cutting-edge technology that has yet again changed the character of warfare. But, with each month of being here and working with our allies in the Philippines, especially as a logistician, it becomes clearer to me that integrated deterrence is not simply a product of measured combat power born of sheer numbers of postured tanks and ships; there is something more to getting deterrence right.

Preparation is essential. It is hard to imagine today, but during World War II, the United States wrote and trained its military leaders on plans written to contend against many of the credible military powers of the day: Japan, Mexico, Latin American countries, and even the British empire. These plans prepared military leaders for a multitude of scenarios that may require action from them. Hearkening back to the spirit of these color-coded plans, the Joint Staff continues to develop concepts for employment and wrestle with what it would take to win. To be ready for a potential conflict, the United States and its allies and partners must find innovative ways to implement the capabilities and tools they have developed. This leads to another essential requirement: integration.

All the components contributing to defense need to work together to be effective. Traditional measures of military strength, such as the number of servicemembers, ships, and tanks available, count for little if they cannot operate together and be sustained. This integration must happen across several areas, including:

Integration to reinforce and balance Joint Force and ally capabilities. Host nations are ready to defend their homelands, and US international partners and allies are eager to contribute; the United States must be ready to stand by them as leaders. That means knowing what everyone brings to the table. As the Joint Force, the world will look to the United States to provide the structure. A combat-credible force must have clear command relationships, a clear understanding of available combat power, and be ready to exercise decision-making authority quickly and effectively. Forces must be ready to find commonalities and overlaps that can mutually benefit each other’s maneuver and sustainment.

Integration across multiple spectrums of conflict to sustain military operations posturing. The spectrum of conflict ranges from competition to crisis to armed conflict. To integrate across this spectrum, senior leaders must attain a greater understanding of what stakeholders bring to the table. How do nations in the competition phase strengthen their militaries, develop new technologies, and deter hostilities? Educating all parties on the gruesome realities of war and the amount of resources required to sustain open conflict could be just as important as the technology required to wage such a war.

Integration of capabilities across terrestrial with non-terrestrial domains. Even today, tanks, piloted airplanes, and battleships appear to many people as national power realized. It is one of the reasons why Hollywood remains obsessed with World War II movies. And while the terrestrial domains of land, air, and maritime remain important, before these weapons are wielded, there are tools that have already been at work, clearing a path. It is important to understand how the information environment, cyberspace, and space contribute toward integrated deterrence and how they will aid in the rapid decision-making needed to execute warfare.

Deterrence is and will continue to be a team effort. The United States and its allies and partners must work together across all levels, from meetings among top-level officials to servicemembers on the ground helping teach close-quarter battle tactics. Success will be measured by maintaining order, under a structure agreed to by multiple nations as equals, benefiting as many peoples as possible.

Kevin M. Wheeler is a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Wheeler is an active-duty US Marine Corps Major serving as the regimental logistics officer for the 3d Marine Littoral Regiment. He was previously assigned to the Joint Staff J-7, focusing on assessments and analysis for future employment of the US military Joint Force. His comments are his own views, and do not represent those of the Department of Defense, the United States Marine Corps, or any other US government or military organization.

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Ukraine’s Kursk offensive proves surprise is still possible in modern war

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:19:36 +0000

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is now in its second week and the sense of shock is still tangible. The Ukrainian military was able to achieve almost total surprise when it crossed the border into Russia’s Kursk Oblast on August 6. While the ultimate goals of the operation remain subject to much debate, Ukraine’s success in catching the Russians completely off-guard is a considerable accomplishment in its own right.

The Ukrainian military’s ability to maintain a veil of secrecy around preparations for the current operation is all the more remarkable given the evidence from the first two-and-a-half years of Russia’s invasion. The war in Ukraine has been marked by the growing importance of drone and electromagnetic surveillance, creating what most analysts agree is a remarkably transparent battlefield. This is making it more and more difficult for either army to benefit from the element of surprise.

Given the increased visibility on both sides of the front lines, how did Ukraine manage to spring such a surprise? At this stage there is very little detailed information available about Ukraine’s preparations, but initial reports indicate that unprecedented levels of operational silence and the innovative deployment of Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities played important roles.

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Ukraine’s political leaders have been unusually tight-lipped about the entire offensive, providing no hint in advance and saying very little during the first week of the campaign. This is in stark contrast to the approach adopted last year, when the country’s coming summer offensive was widely referenced by officials and previewed in the media. Ukraine’s efforts to enforce operational silence appear to have also extended to the military. According to The New York Times, even senior Ukrainian commanders only learned of the plan to invade Russia at the last moment.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive appears to have been a major surprise for Ukraine’s Western partners. The Financial Times has reported that neither the US nor Germany were informed in advance of the planned Ukrainian operation. Given the West’s record of seeking to avoid any actions that might provoke Putin, it is certainly not difficult to understand why Kyiv might have chosen not to signal its intentions.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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It is also likely that Ukraine benefited from Russia’s own complacency and overconfidence. Despite suffering a series of defeats in Ukraine since 2022, the Kremlin remains almost pathologically dismissive of Ukrainian capabilities and does not appear to have seriously entertained the possibility of a large-scale Ukrainian invasion of the Russian Federation. The modest defenses established throughout the border zone confirm that Moscow anticipated minor border raids but had no plans to repel a major Ukrainian incursion.

Russia’s sense of confidence doubtless owed much to Western restrictions imposed on Ukraine since the start of the war that have prohibited the use of Western weapons inside Russia. These restrictions were partially relaxed in May 2024 following Russia’s own cross-border offensive into Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, but the Kremlin clearly did not believe Kyiv would be bold enough to use this as the basis for offensive operations inside Russia. Vladimir Putin is now paying a steep price for underestimating his opponent.

It remains far too early to assess the impact of Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive. One of the most interesting questions will be whether Ukraine can force the Kremlin to divert military units from the fighting in eastern Ukraine in order to defend Russia itself. Much will depend on the amount of Russian land Ukraine is able to seize and hold. Putin must also decide whether his military should focus on merely stopping Ukraine’s advance or liberating occupied Russian territory.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible on the modern battlefield. This is a significant achievement that underlines the skill and competence of the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian invasion has also confirmed once again that Putin’s talk of Russian red lines and his frequent threats of nuclear escalation are a bluff designed to intimidate the West. Taken together, these factors should be enough to convince Kyiv’s partners that now is the time to increase military support and provide Ukraine with the tools for victory.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

Ukraine’s most obvious intention is probably to ease the military pressure in the south and east of the country, where Russia has been slowly but steadily advancing in recent months. By attacking across the lightly defended border and seizing Russian territory, Ukrainian commanders believe they can force the Kremlin to withdraw troops from the front lines of the war in Ukraine in order to redeploy them for the defense of Russia itself.

The offensive also creates opportunities for Ukraine to regain the military initiative after a year of costly and demoralizing defensive operations. It has long been obvious that Ukraine cannot realistically hope to win a war of attrition against the far larger and wealthier Russian Federation. Kyiv’s best chance of military success lies in returning to a war of mobility and maneuver that allows Ukrainian commanders to take advantage of their relative agility while exploiting the Russian army’s far more cumbersome decision-making processes. This is exactly what the invasion of Kursk Oblast has achieved.

In psychological terms, bringing the war home to Russia has allowed Ukraine to strike a powerful blow against enemy morale. The Ukrainian army’s advances in Kursk Oblast are spreading panic throughout the surrounding region and undermining Putin’s efforts to prevent the invasion of Ukraine from disrupting the daily lives of ordinary Russians. On the home front, Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive has provided Ukrainian society with a desperately needed morale boost, reviving hopes that the war-weary nation can still achieve meaningful military success.

The Kursk offensive may ultimately be part of Ukraine’s preparations for a future peace process, with Kyiv looking to occupy as much Russian territory as possible to use as a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the Kremlin. Indeed, during the initial days of the invasion, there was widespread speculation that Ukraine’s primary target may be the Kursk nuclear power plant, with a view to trading it for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. An eventual land swap on a far larger scale may be part of Kyiv’s calculations.

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The Ukrainian army’s advance into Russia has profound implications for perceptions of the war. It directly challenges the widespread belief that Russia’s invasion has reached a stalemate and can no longer be decided on the battlefield. Crucially, it also exposes the emptiness of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and the folly of the West’s emphasis on escalation management.

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the international response has been hindered by fear of escalation. Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin, who has used thinly veiled nuclear threats and frequent talk of Russian red lines to restrict the flow of military aid and convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons inside Russia. As a result, Ukraine has effectively been forced to wage war with one hand tied behind its back.

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What we are currently witnessing is entirely in line with a well-established pattern of Russian threats being exposed as bluffs by Ukrainian boldness. During the first year of the war as Putin prepared to announce the annexation of occupied Ukrainian city Kherson, he warned that any attempt to reclaim this “Russian land” would result in a nuclear reply. “I’m not bluffing,” he famously declared. But when Ukraine liberated Kherson just weeks later, Putin did not reach for the nuclear button. Instead, he ordered his beaten troops to quietly retreat.

Russia’s reaction to wartime setbacks in Crimea has been similarly underwhelming. The 2014 seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula remains Putin’s crowning glory and serves as the basis for his claim to a place in Russian history alongside the country’s greatest rulers. Nevertheless, when Ukraine deployed missiles and marine drones to sink or disable around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, there was no apocalyptic response from the Kremlin. On the contrary, Putin instructed his remaining warships to withdraw from Crimea and seek safety in Russian ports.

This record of inglorious Russian retreats makes the West’s frequently voiced fear of escalation all the more difficult to justify. Ukrainians will now be hoping Putin’s characteristically weak response to the Kursk offensive can persuade Western leaders to belatedly abandon their failed policies of escalation management and acknowledge that the quickest way to end the war is by arming Ukraine for victory.

There are some indications that attitudes among Ukraine’s Western allies may finally be changing. The EU has led the way, with European Commission spokesperson Peter Thano responding to the Ukrainian cross-border push into Kursk Oblast by saying Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself, including inside Russia. Berlin has reacted in the same manner, with the German Foreign Ministry issuing a statement confirming that Ukraine’s right to self defense “is not limited to its own territory.” Meanwhile, US officials have also signaled their approval. “Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to be successful on the battlefield,” commented a Pentagon official.

This broadly supportive international reaction is welcome news for Ukraine, but officials in Kyiv are also well aware that further steps are required in order to set the stage for Putin’s eventual defeat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlined this point in his August 11 evening address, when he once again called for the lifting of all Western restrictions on long-range strikes against military targets in Russia. Until that happens, Moscow will retain the ability to pummel Ukrainian cities at will and Putin will have little reason to end his invasion.

The West has spent more than two years slow-walking military aid to Ukraine for fear of provoking Putin. And yet time after time, Ukraine has proved that whenever the Russian dictator is confronted with the prospect of defeat, he is far more likely to retreat than escalate. Now that the Ukrainian military has crossed the last of Putin’s red lines and invaded Russia without sparking World War III, there are no more excuses for restricting Kyiv’s ability to defend itself or denying Ukraine the weapons it needs to win the war.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Despite being by far the smallest Russian Navy Day since the holiday was reinstated in 2017, this year’s event nevertheless represented an excellent opportunity for Putin to honor Russia’s fallen sailors and vow retribution for the country’s unprecedented losses in the Black Sea. In fact, he did nothing of the sort. Throughout his official address, Putin barely mentioned the casualties suffered or the sacrifices made by the Russian Navy during the invasion of Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin dictator preferred to flush Russia’s Black Sea defeats down the memory hole. He was aided by the loyal Russian media, which carefully avoided any awkward references to the disaster that has befallen the country’s Black Sea Fleet.

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All this brings to mind an old Soviet joke that begins with Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great looking down from heaven at a Red Army parade on Red Square. Caesar indicates the endless rows of Soviet troops and says, “with so many men, I could have held Germania.” Alexander points to the tanks and missiles and declares, “with such weapons of war, I could have conquered all India.” Napoleon, meanwhile, completely ignores the parade and is instead engrossed in a copy of Pravda. “If I had such a newspaper,” he proclaims, “nobody would have heard of Waterloo.”

Many Soviet jokes have not aged well, but this particular punchline remains as relevant as ever in modern Russia, where Putin has succeeded in creating a propaganda machine every bit as potent as its Soviet predecessor. Today’s Kremlin-controlled multimedia ecosystem is far more sophisticated than its Communist forerunner, but it serves the same basic function of bending reality to suit the whims of Russia’s ruling elite.

For the past decade, Putin has used this unrivaled information weapon to fuel the biggest European invasion since World War II. Kremlin propagandists have managed to convince millions of ordinary Russians that democratic Ukraine is actually a “Nazi state” whose very existence poses an intolerable threat to Russia. Ukrainians have been demonized and dehumanized to such an extent that genocidal anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is now a routine feature on prime time Russian TV.

The success of these efforts is all too apparent, with a wide range of opinion polls, research, and anecdotal evidence pointing to consistently high levels of Russian public support for the invasion. Meanwhile, there is no meaningful anti-war movement in the country, despite widespread knowledge of the horrors taking place in neighboring Ukraine. This is not surprising. After all, as Voltaire once warned, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Putin’s ability to distort Russian reality is genuinely terrifying, but the sheer scale of his propaganda operation could also inadvertently offer hope for the future. Many commentators have argued that failure in Ukraine would lead to the fall of the Putin regime and quite possibly the breakup of Russia itself, but these concerns may be exaggerated. While a third Russian collapse in a little over a century cannot be ruled out, the experience of the past two-and-a-half years gives good cause to believe that Moscow’s disinformation industry is more than capable of rebranding any future retreat from Ukraine in a favorable light, or of burying it completely. In other words, if the Russian media can manufacture a major war, it can also fabricate a suitably plausible peace.

Anyone who still doubts the Kremlin’s capacity to whitewash military defeat in Ukraine hasn’t been paying attention. We have recently witnessed Putin hosting the biggest naval event of the year while studiously ignoring the historic humbling of his southern fleet. It was the same story in 2022, when he ceremoniously announced that Kherson had joined Russia “forever,” only to order his beaten troops to abandon the city just weeks later. Likewise, when Russia lost the Battle of Kyiv during the initial phase of the invasion, the Kremlin refused to acknowledge defeat and absurdly insisted that the retreat from northern Ukraine was a mere “goodwill gesture.” If Putin is eventually forced to end his invasion, it seems safe to assume he will downplay this humiliation in similar fashion.

Since February 2022, Western leaders have found numerous reasons to limit their support for Ukraine. Some are restricted by modest defense budgets and competing domestic priorities. Most are afraid of possible escalation and have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s talk of Russian red lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says many of his country’s Western partners are also reluctant to arm Ukraine because they fear the unpredictable geopolitical consequences of a Russian defeat. This Western alarm over a possible Russian collapse is exaggerated and fails to account for the power of Putin’s propaganda.

If Russia suffers a decisive defeat in Ukraine, past experience indicates that the Kremlin will almost certainly seek to move the goalposts, change the narrative, or devise some other way of rewriting history and claiming victory. Any embarrassing evidence of failure would simply be flushed down the memory hole, along with all the sunken Russian warships of the Black Sea Fleet.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Putin is convinced he can outlast the West and win in Ukraine

Mykola Bielieskov — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 18:16:56 +0000

The annual NATO summit in early July resulted in a range of encouraging statements and practical measures in support of Ukraine. However, this widely anticipated gathering in Washington DC failed to produce the kind of decisive steps that could convince Vladimir Putin to end his invasion.

It was already clear some time before the NATO summit that there would be no serious discussion of a membership invitation for Ukraine. Instead, the emphasis would be on improving the existing partnership, with alliance leaders preserving as much room to maneuver as possible when dealing with the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Post-summit coverage focused on the official communique declaring Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to future NATO membership, but not everyone saw the wording of the joint statement as a breakthrough. Indeed, some skeptics interpreted this latest rephrasing of NATO’s open door for Ukraine as an indication that the alliance is still no closer to agreeing on a specific time frame regarding Ukrainian membership.

The summit was not a complete anticlimax, of course. A number of countries pledged additional air defense systems to Ukraine, meeting one of Kyiv’s most urgent requests to help protect the country from Russian bombardment. There were announcements regarding the imminent arrival of the first F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine, while additional mechanisms to coordinate weapons deliveries and enhance cooperation were unveiled.

NATO members also agreed in Washington to allocate forty billion euros for Ukrainian military aid next year. While this figure is certainly significant, it falls far below the level of funding needed to ensure Ukrainian victory. This is not a new issue. While the collective GDP of the West dwarfs Russia’s, Western leaders have yet to mobilize their financial resources to provide Ukraine with an overwhelming military advantage. As a consequence, it is the much smaller Russian economy that is currently producing more artillery shells than the entire Western world.

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The modest progress made at the NATO summit reflects a lack of urgency that has hampered the Western response ever since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. There is little chance this hesitancy will provoke a change of heart in Moscow. On the contrary, Russian policymakers are far more likely to regard the West’s current posture as proof that the war is going according to plan.

Unlike the West, the Kremlin has a clear and coherent vision for a future Russian victory in Ukraine. This involves gradually wearing down Ukrainian battlefield resistance with relentless high intensity combat along the front lines of the war, while extensively bombing civilian infrastructure and population centers across the country.

In parallel to these military measures, Russia will also continue to conduct diverse influence operations targeting Ukrainian and Western audiences, with the goal of undermining morale and sowing division. This will leave Ukraine increasingly isolated and exhausted, leading eventually to collapse and capitulation.

The Russian authorities believe Ukraine will struggle to maintain the attention of its Western allies, and are encouraged by growing signs that many in the West now view the invasion as a stalemate. Putin himself appears to be more confident that ever that the West will lose interest in the war, and expects Western leaders to reluctantly pressure Kyiv into a negotiated settlement on Russian terms.

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Since the invasion began nearly two and a half years ago, Western leaders have failed to demonstrate the kind of resolve that would force Putin to revise his expectations. Instead of flooding Kyiv with the very latest tanks, jets, drones, and missiles, Ukraine’s partners have consistently slow-walked military aid while imposing absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons.

The West’s messaging has been equally inadequate. Rather than publicly committing themselves to Ukrainian victory, Western leaders have spoken of preventing Ukrainian defeat and of standing with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” This is not the language of strength that Putin understands.

Confronted by continued signs of Western indecisiveness, the Russian dictator is now escalating his demands. His most recent peace proposal envisaged Ukraine ceding all lands already occupied by Russia along with significant additional territory not currently under Kremlin control. There can be little doubt that he remains as committed as ever to the complete surrender and subjugation of Ukraine.

Putin knows he could not hope to match the collective might of the democratic world, but this does not discourage him. Instead, he fully expects continued Western weakness to hand Russia an historic victory in Ukraine. Unless the West is finally prepared to translate its vast financial, military, and technical potential into war-winning support for Ukraine, he may be proved right.

Dean interviewed by Sky News on AUKUS

ylee — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:34:03 +0000

On July 24, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean appeared in an interview with Sky News discussing the AUKUS submarine deal and its potential trajectory under a Trump presidency. This interview was regenerated through the Mercury, Townsville Bulletin, and Cairns Post.

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Andriy Yermak: Ukraine and NATO are restoring Europe’s security architecture

Andriy Yermak — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 12:04:47 +0000

As I listened to world leaders announce the signing of the Ukraine Compact on the sidelines of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, my mind drifted back to September 13, 2022. On that cold, rainy day, Anders Fogh Rasmussen and I first unveiled the Kyiv Security Compact concept.

President Zelenskyy’s idea, which Anders and I began to implement together, was that allies should provide Ukraine with everything necessary to defeat Russia on the battlefield and to deter further aggression. The proposal outlined a set of measures designed to ensure that Ukraine could defend itself independently until it joins NATO.

Specifically, it included commitments from a group of guarantor states to provide weapons, conduct joint exercises under the EU and NATO flags, share intelligence, and assist in developing Ukraine’s defense industry. We claimed that security commitments were not an end in themselves, but a transitional phase towards Ukraine’s full-fledged membership in both the European Union and the NATO Alliance.

At the time, one journalist asked if I truly believed we could find even half a dozen countries willing to support this initiative. I responded with a line from John Lennon’s song: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” This has proved to be an accurate forecast.

At the NATO Vilnius summit in July 2023, G7 leaders issued a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine, based on our initiative. Other countries began joining soon after. Before long, their number exceeded thirty. By that time, we already had several bilateral security agreements in place. This work is ongoing, with 23 bilateral agreements currently signed. Together with our allies, we set out on the path to restore the European security architecture. We are determined not to stray from it again.

The Ukraine Compact, open for others to join, became the final piece in creating an ecosystem of security guarantees for our country. It is designed to enhance Ukraine’s resilience and ability to defend itself in the future, and to serve as a bridge during the period when Article 5 does not yet apply. I’m pleased that this aligns perfectly with Anders’ and my original draft. The bridge metaphor is also enshrined in the NATO summit’s final declaration. This is a crucial detail. Since 2008, Ukraine has been hitting a glass wall trying to enter the Alliance’s supposedly “open doors,” and now it has been removed.

The summit declaration’s statement on Ukraine’s irreversible path to NATO is another strong step. Throughout the past year, Anders and I have emphasized again and again: NATO leaders need to make it clear to Vladimir Putin that his war is futile, that support for Ukraine will not waver, and that Ukraine will sooner rather than later become a NATO member. Finally, this signal has now been sent: Russia’s war of choice has been stripped of its stated pretext.

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Currently, the Ukraine Compact bears 25 signatures. It has been supported by the United States and Canada, nineteen European countries, and the European Union. Japan is also among the signatories. This is very telling, as Ukraine is a cornerstone not only of European but also of global security.

The Washington summit demonstrated that the Alliance can no longer limit itself to the Euro-Atlantic space as it seeks to effectively counter global challenges and threats. Aggressive autocracies are increasingly collaborating and taking on the shape of a military-political alliance. For all democratic countries this means one thing: Russia is not alone in its aggression against Ukraine, and the possibility of new conflicts elsewhere depends on Moscow’s ability to succeed. It is therefore in our common interest to do everything to ensure that Ukraine emerges victorious from this war, and that this victory is convincing.

I note that the recent NATO summit’s decisions are aimed precisely at this. Three key points are worth mentioning here. First, the institutionalization of aid formats that have emerged ad hoc during the war. Second, building Ukraine’s defense capabilities and strengthening the potential of its defense-industrial base. And third, the course toward deepening Ukraine’s political and military interaction with NATO structures.

We are sincerely grateful for these steps and extend thanks to our allies, whose unwavering leadership has allowed us to successfully defend ourselves despite Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of resources. Your dedication and your value-based choices strengthen the chances of our common victory over a lawless and cynical enemy.

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Looking ahead, I need to outline several critical points. The further strengthening of Ukraine’s air defense system is crucial. Russia intends to continue terrorizing our civilian population by destroying residential buildings, power grids, and other critical infrastructure. The recent strikes on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, as well as two additional health clinics, have once again clearly demonstrated that for the Russian military, there are no red lines in terms of international law and ethics. There is therefore no alternative to strengthening the air shield over Ukraine.

One of the key components of this air shield will be F-16 jets. Ukraine’s allies have committed to delivering the first batch this summer. However, I have to emphasize that this is not enough. The Russians boast about using three-ton guided bombs against Ukraine. Their bombers are based at airfields in Russia’s border regions. In order to neutralize this threat, we still need long-range capabilities. Simply put, if there is a hornet’s nest in your neighborhood, you can hunt them one by one with varying success, or you can destroy the nest itself. Currently, only the first option is available to us, and even that is quite limited.

Addressing this problem will not only reduce the number of casualties; it will also further enhance the operational compatibility of Ukrainian defense forces with NATO. We sincerely welcome steps in this direction, in particular the creation of the NSATU (NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine) program.

We are also extremely grateful to member states for their specific commitments to aid Ukraine, and for implementing a system of proportional contributions that will provide base funding of forty billion euros over the next year. We expect these funds to be spent specifically on purchasing weapons, rather than alternative forms of support, which are undoubtedly important as well.

At the same time, it is worth noting that this burden could be reduced by fine-tuning mechanisms for transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. A related issue is the further intensification of sanctions pressure on both Russia and the partners who enable Moscow to continue making weapons using microelectronics produced in the West. This has made it possible for Russia to manufacture the type of missile that hit the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital with Western components.

Our relationship with NATO has always been a two-way street, and we remain committed to this principle. We fully understand that one of the leading factors in Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration is our capacity for transformation. President Zelenskyy and his team remain dedicated to reforms aimed at strengthening institutional resilience and democratic processes in the country.

Changes continue despite the war, and they are irreversible. We unhesitatingly and without reservations agree that the reforms mentioned in the summit’s final declaration are of utmost importance for Ukraine’s prospects. At the same time, common sense suggests that all these changes will only matter if Ukraine withstands this war. Withstands and wins. Only a strong, free, and successful Ukraine can be a reliable outpost of democracy in Eastern Europe. Comprehensive and long-term assistance to Ukraine is not charity. It’s an investment in a secure future for the entire Euro-Atlantic community.

Andriy Yermak is the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President.

Hinata-Yamaguchi quoted in VOA on US air power in the Pacific

ylee — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:48:52 +0000

On July 10, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in VOA regarding the US plan to boost its Pacific air power to counterbalance China, highlighting that the upgrades will enhance the US-Japan alliance’s readiness against regional threats.

Fellow

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Indo-Pacific

The post Hinata-Yamaguchi quoted in VOA on US air power in the Pacific appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Five reasons why Ukraine should be invited to join NATO

Paul Grod — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:33:21 +0000

NATO leaders have this week declared that Ukraine’s path to membership is “irreversible,” but once again stopped short of officially inviting the country to join the alliance. This represents another missed opportunity to end the ambiguity over Kyiv’s NATO aspirations and set the stage for a return to greater international stability.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was high on the agenda as alliance leaders gathered in Washington DC for NATO’s three-day annual summit. This focus on Ukraine was hardly surprising. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 is the largest European conflict since World War II, and poses substantial security challenges for all NATO members.

Since the invasion began almost two and a half years ago, Russia has strengthened cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea, who all share Moscow’s commitment to undermining the existing rules-based world order. The emergence of this Authoritarian Axis has helped underline the need for a decisive NATO response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Alliance members are acutely aware that China in particular is closely monitoring the NATO reaction to Moscow’s invasion, with any Russian success in Ukraine likely to fuel Beijing’s own expansionist ambitions in Taiwan and elsewhere.

While there is widespread recognition that the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will shape the future of international relations, this week’s summit confirmed that there is still no consensus within NATO over Ukrainian membership. On the contrary, the alliance appears to be deeply divided on the issue.

Objections center around the potential for a further dangerous escalation in the current confrontation with the Kremlin. Opponents argue that by inviting Ukraine to join, NATO could soon find itself at war with Russia. Meanwhile, many supporters of Ukrainian NATO membership believe keeping the country in geopolitical limbo is a mistake that only serves to embolden Moscow and prolong the war.

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There are five compelling reasons to invite Ukraine to join NATO. Firstly, it would end Russian imperial ambitions in Ukraine. By formally inviting Ukraine to join NATO and announcing the commencement of accession talks, the alliance would send a clear message to Moscow that its dreams of subjugating Ukraine and restoring the Russian Empire are futile. This would represent a watershed moment for modern Russia that would likely force the country to rethink its role in the wider world.

Secondly, Ukrainian membership would significantly strengthen NATO. Ukraine boasts one of Europe’s largest, most capable, and innovative armies. For almost two and a half years, Ukrainian troops have defied expectations and successfully resisted the Russian military, which is widely regarded as the world’s second most powerful army. As a member of the NATO alliance, Ukraine would bolster Europe’s security, contributing its unique combat experience and knowledge of the most advanced battlefield technologies.

Third, inviting Ukraine to join NATO would help deter Russia from engaging in aggression or malign actions in other parts of Europe. It would confirm the counter-productive nature of Russia’s revisionist agenda and the likelihood of further negative consequences if the Kremlin continues to pursue policies hostile to the West. The security of Ukraine, eventually guaranteed by Article Five of the Washington Treaty, would ensure stability and peace throughout the Euro-Atlantic space.

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Fourth, Ukraine would be a particularly committed member of the NATO alliance. Polls consistently indicate that around three-quarters of Ukrainians back NATO membership, representing a higher level of public support than in many existing alliance members.

Ukrainian officials and Ukrainian society as a whole have a very good understanding of the responsibilities that would come with joining NATO. Throughout the past decade, Ukraine has demonstrated a high level of financial discipline, complying with NATO’s defense spending guidelines stipulating two percent of GDP. The Ukrainian military has also made major progress toward interoperability and the adoption of NATO standards.

The fifth compelling argument for Ukrainian NATO membership is the signal this would send to the international community. Inviting Ukraine to join the alliance would demonstrate the unity and resolve of the collective West at a time when Russia and other autocracies are looking for signs of weakness.

Few expected this year’s NATO summit to produce any meaningful breakthroughs toward Ukrainian membership. Nevertheless, the lack of progress will be welcomed by Russia, and will inevitably fuel frustration in Ukraine. Once again, NATO leaders have offered strong words but been unable to back this up with decisive actions.

Despite this setback, it is important to continue the debate over Ukraine’s future accession in the months ahead. Crucially, Ukrainians are not asking to join NATO immediately, and do not expect to receive the benefits of the alliance’s collective security in the context of Russia’s current invasion. Instead, they seek an invitation that will create a realistic and practical road map toward future membership.

Most Ukrainians see NATO membership as the only way to guarantee the long-term security of their nation against Russia and create the conditions for a sustainable peace in Eastern Europe. Unless a firm invitation to join the alliance is forthcoming, they fear that any ceasefire agreement with Moscow will only provide a temporary pause before Russia’s next attack.

Paul Grod is President of the Ukrainian World Congress.

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Starmer has long been an outspoken advocate of British backing for Ukraine. As the country prepared to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion in February 2023, he visited Kyiv to offer assurances that the UK would remain a steadfast partner under his leadership. “I’ve said throughout this conflict there will be no difference between the political parties on this,” he commented while in the Ukrainian capital.

The Labour Party has vowed to continue providing Ukraine with current levels of military, financial, and diplomatic support, while also pushing to hold Russia accountable for the invasion, including support for efforts to establish an international tribunal for the crime of aggression. The Labour Party is also committed to helping provide Ukraine with a clear path toward future NATO membership.

Starmer’s stance is a continuation of the leading role played by the British government in support of Ukraine since the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion. With the Russian military concentrated on the Ukrainian border in January 2022 and posed to invade, Britain was among the first countries to provide Ukraine with anti-tank weapons. This set the tone for British military aid to Ukraine, with the UK repeatedly setting the standard for other partners to follow by delivering new categories of weapons such as modern tanks and cruise missiles.

Britain has also provided Ukraine with vocal diplomatic backing in the international arena. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was a particularly prominent supporter of the country, visiting Kyiv on numerous occasions and speaking powerfully of the threat to international security posed by Russian aggression. This advocacy helped earn Johnson something approaching cult status in Ukraine, with streets named and a pastry dish created in his honor.

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The firm stance adopted by successive UK governments reflects British public opinion, which strongly favors continued support for Ukraine. This is very much in line with British tradition. Indeed, for many Brits, Ukraine’s current struggle against Russia’s invasion echoes their own fight against Nazi Germany almost a century earlier.

Starmer will have an opportunity to emphasize his commitment to Ukraine at the 2024 NATO Summit, which takes place this week in Washington. While there is no realistic prospect of any breakthrough toward Ukrainian membership of the alliance, this high-profile event will allow the new British leader to lay out his vision for continued international support for the Ukrainian war effort.

The bipartisan consistency of British support for Ukraine comes as a welcome relief to Ukrainians. The Ukrainian military is heavily dependent on continued international deliveries of weapons and equipment, but this aid has proven vulnerable to disruption due to political shifts in various Western capitals. Amid uncertainly over the implications of elections in key partners including France and the United States, Britain’s clear position gives Ukrainians much-needed confidence as they continue to fight for national survival.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Memo to NATO leaders: Why and how NATO countries should engage in the Indo-Pacific

Matthew Kroenig, Jeffrey Cimmino — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 18:37:04 +0000

TO: NATO heads of state and government
FROM: Matthew Kroenig and Jeffrey Cimmino
SUBJECT: Why and how NATO countries should engage in the Indo-Pacific

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What do world leaders need to know? The Atlantic Council’s new “Memo to…” series has the answer with briefings on the world’s most pressing issues from our experts, drawing on their experience advising the highest levels of government.

Bottom line up front: NATO countries should step up their engagement in the Indo-Pacific in a number of ways, including by protecting their economies from excessive exposure to China’s, reiterating diplomatic statements calling for the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and conducting regular freedom-of-navigation operations. Transatlantic allies have self-interested reasons to engage in the Indo-Pacific; the United States cannot counter the challenges emanating from the region without European help; and transatlantic engagement in the region will help counter the reality and the perception that European allies are not contributing their fair share to NATO.

Background: Confronting multiple adversaries

Though all eyes will be on Ukraine as NATO leaders gather in Washington this week, the Alliance cannot afford to ignore the Indo-Pacific. The United States and its allies face what is perhaps the most daunting international security environment since World War II. Revisionist autocracies—China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran—are working together to disrupt and displace the US-led, rules-based international system, including through military aggression and coercion. The challenge facing the free world, therefore, is how to simultaneously counter multiple adversaries in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

Some analysts argue that the United States should disengage from Europe and pivot to the Indo-Pacific, while European countries take on greater responsibility in Europe, but this is the wrong answer. Instead, Washington should continue to lead in both theaters. European countries should take on greater responsibilities for defending Europe, but they should also assist Washington to counter China and address threats emanating from the Indo-Pacific.

This memo is directed to NATO leaders on the eve of the Washington Summit, but some of the below recommendations can also be pursued at the country level, or through other bodies, such as the European Union.

Why European countries should deepen engagement in the Indo-Pacific

Europe has many concrete interests in the Indo-Pacific. A major war between the United States and China, for example, would be devastating for the global economy and for the interests of European nations. The 2021 EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific states that the security of South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait may have a direct impact on European security and prosperity.
The United States needs Europe’s help to effectively address the China challenge. The China threat is comprehensive and includes an economic and technological dimension. While Europe is not a military superpower, it is an economic, technological, and diplomatic superpower. European nations make up roughly 20 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and are technology leaders in many areas, including 5G. A US strategy of economic and technological de-risking from China, for example, will fail without European cooperation.
European engagement in the Indo-Pacific can contribute to Alliance burden sharing. By helping the United States address its most significant challenge, China, European nations can help to show that they are valuable allies meaningfully contributing to transatlantic security.
A European role in the Indo-Pacific can strengthen US domestic support for continued US engagement in Europe. Some Americans argue that the United States should pivot away from Europe to allocate more attention and resources to the bigger challenges posed by China and the Indo-Pacific. By helping the United States address the China challenge, Europe can demonstrate its continued value as an Alliance partner and strengthen US support for continued attention to European priorities.
The European and Indo-Pacific theaters are interconnected. China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in 2022 shortly before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and they are collaborating closely in many strategic and military matters. More recently, they reaffirmed this partnership as marking a “new era.” Countering China in the Indo-Pacific will directly improve the security environment in Europe.

How? Recommended actions for NATO leaders

We propose the following actions for NATO and its constituent members to bolster cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners and build around US efforts to secure the Indo-Pacific region. Some of these initiatives are already underway, but there is room to both intensify these activities and expand them to include fuller participation from additional transatlantic partners.

Transatlantic allies should join the United States in systematically de-risking their economies from China. To be most effective, a de-risking strategy will need to include all free-world allies and partners. De-risking should proceed according to the following principles:
1. The United States and its allies should pursue a complete decoupling from China in areas sensitive to national security.
2. In domains where China has employed unfair trade practices, the United States and its allies should counter with a coordinated campaign of tariffs or other countervailing measures.
3. The United States and its allies should diversify their economic relationships away from China to minimize their exposure to Chinese economic coercion.
4. In sectors of minimal national security risk where China is abiding by free-market principles, free and fair trade can continue.
European allies should threaten to sanction China if it engages in an armed attack on US allies and partners in Asia. If China were to attack Taiwan or other regional neighbors, Washington would encourage European and Indo-Pacific allies to join the United States in punitive economic measures. Allies should develop a sanctions package in preparation for a crisis ahead of time and communicate it to Xi Jinping as a an element of a broader deterrent.
The United States and its transatlantic allies should coordinate to control the commanding heights of twenty-first-century technologies, such as artificial intelligence. If China, a hostile autocratic power, succeeds in its plans to dominate the twenty-first-century technological landscape, there will be profound and negative consequences for global security, economics, and democracy. Maintaining a tech advantage that favors freedom will require:
1. Promoting technological development and innovation ecosystems in the free world;
2. Protecting against China’s malign technology practices through investment screening, export controls, and countering intellectual property theft; and
3. Coordinating on regulations and standards to embed Alliance norms and values into twenty-first-century technology.
NATO allies should make it clear through diplomatic statements that any effort by China to disrupt peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait would trigger a break in relations with the free world. Beyond a Taiwan crisis, NATO allies can use diplomatic statements to call out human rights abuses and unfair trade practices, leveraging Europe’s moral authority in the face of China’s violations of international rules and norms. These statements should take place both collectively, in official alliance documents, and privately, in bilateral engagements between NATO members and Chinese officials.
The United States and Europe should work together to develop new frameworks to stitch together transatlantic and Asian allies. These frameworks can expand upon or be modeled on NATO’s relationship with the IP4 (Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand) and the Australia-UK-US agreement known as AUKUS.
NATO allies can help the United States in the Indo-Pacific by meeting their burden-sharing commitments. If Europe has a more robust ability to defend itself, deter Russia, and bolster Ukraine’s defense, this will free up resources for the United States to shift to deterring and, if necessary, defeating Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
European allies can serve as an arsenal of democracy for possible conflicts in the Indo-Pacific. In the event of a serious conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the United States will run out of high-end munitions quickly. Europe could play a vital support role by producing and replenishing US stocks of munitions and other weapons.
NATO countries should conduct freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs) in the Indo-Pacific. Several European allies, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, have executed FONOPs in the Indo-Pacific. More allies should do so, and on a more regular basis, to show China that in asserting its territorial claims, it is not just confronting its neighbors or the United States, but the entire free world.
NATO allies should participate in military exercises in the Indo-Pacific. Seven European nations are at RIMPAC 2024. Future participation by these countries and others could range from sending a ship, to a squadron of special operations forces, or even a single staff officer. These activities will improve Atlantic-Pacific cooperation and send a message to China that Europe is committed to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
European allies should prepare for an Article 5 scenario. If there is a major US-China war, it is possible that China would attack the continental United States, which would trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. NATO allies should contemplate and plan for what actions they would take in the event of a major war in the Indo-Pacific. More capable allies might be able to send ships and aircraft. All allies could send personnel and munitions. Some allies could offer niche capabilities. Norway, for example, has a large merchant fleet that could be used in wartime for shipping and logistical support in the Indo-Pacific.

Jeffrey Cimmino is the deputy director of operations and a fellow of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Matthew Kroenig served in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. He is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

This publication was supported in part by Airbus. The Atlantic Council maintains a strict intellectual independence policy, and the analysis and conclusions in this memo are the authors’ alone.

Issue Brief Jun 27, 2024

Production diplomacy for deterrence, readiness, and resilience in the Indo-Pacific

By Andrew Brown, John T. Watts, Markus Garlauskas

Production diplomacy provides opportunities to protect supply chains, strengthen alliances and partnerships, enhance deterrence, and build defense readiness, though it is not without risks and challenges.

Australia Defense Industry

Inflection Points Today Jun 20, 2024

The troubling significance of Putin’s Pyongyang deal

By Frederick Kempe

The Russian president was feted in North Korea this week, showing how a confederation of autocracies is emerging to support the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine and each other.

Conflict Korea

New Atlanticist Feb 6, 2023

NATO is entering a new phase in the Indo-Pacific

By Sara Bjerg Moller

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Japan and South Korea trip was striking both for its timing and for its messaging shift on China.

China East Asia

The post Memo to NATO leaders: Why and how NATO countries should engage in the Indo-Pacific appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Garlauskas featured on CBS discussing Putin-Xi meeting

ylee — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 20:11:20 +0000

On July 3, Markus Garlauskas appeared on CBS to discuss Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s recent meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Kazakhstan. Garlauskas explained that this partnership allows China to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and more effectively confront the US in their attempt to reshape the strategic environment and challenge the rules-based international order.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

The post Garlauskas featured on CBS discussing Putin-Xi meeting appeared first on Atlantic Council.

US signals long-term support for Ukraine with new security pact

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 17:59:59 +0000

The United States and Ukraine signed a bilateral security agreement on June 13 in a bid to underline Washington’s long-term support as Ukraine fights for national survival against Russia’s ongoing invasion. The agreement is the latest in a series of similar bilateral security pacts concluded by Kyiv since the start of 2024, but has attracted additional attention due to the critical role of US support for the Ukrainian war effort.

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the United States has been the single biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine. Without US hardware, ammunition, training, and intelligence, Ukraine would not have been able to defend itself in a high intensity conventional war for so long. In other words, the US has emerged over the past two and a half years as an indispensable partner for Ukraine, both in terms of the country’s current military operations and long-term security.

The new US-Ukraine security agreement contains no major surprises. Rather than breaking new ground, it aims to establish a more long-term commitment to existing forms of military cooperation including training and weapons supplies, while also setting the stage for deepening partnership in defense production. “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now, and to deter future aggression,” President Biden commented.

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Crucially, the US-Ukraine bilateral security pact is not a formal treaty or military alliance and does not oblige the US to defend Ukraine. Instead, the terms of the agreement commit the United States to engage in high-level consultations with Ukraine within twenty-four hours of any future attacks on the country. This cautious approach is in line with well documented concerns within the Biden administration over the possibility of a direct clash between the US and Russia.

Critics claim the terms of the security agreement are deliberately broad and open to interpretation, reflecting what they see as Washington’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with anything approaching binding security guarantees. The absence of any official ratification procedures also leaves the ten-year agreement vulnerable to potential future changes in US foreign policy if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election in November.

The Biden White House is not the first US administration to face claims of adopting an excessively cautious approach toward Russian aggression in Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine first began in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, three successive US presidents have all been accused of failing to effectively deter the Kremlin.

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While welcomed by both sides, this latest security initiative is unlikely to convince Moscow of any fundamental change in the US stance or persuade Putin to end his invasion. It comes weeks after the end of a prolonged pause in US military aid to Ukraine caused by political deadlock in Congress over the passage of a sixty billion dollar support bill.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought to put an optimistic spin on the signing of the new security agreement, hailing it as “historic” and saying the pact would serve as a bridge toward his country’s future NATO membership. Others have been less generous, noting that the absence of specific military commitments underlines the limitations of Western support for Ukraine.

Ukraine remains heavily dependent on continued Western military aid and is clearly in no position to demand greater commitment from the country’s Western partners. However, many Ukrainians believe the US and other Western nations have a vital self-interest in maintaining their support for the country.

Amid mounting frustration at the failure to offer Kyiv any fully-fledged military alliances, advocates of stronger support for Ukraine argue that the West’s unprecedented material and political investment since the outbreak of hostilities in 2022 means a Ukrainian defeat would represent a massive blow to Western prestige. It would therefore make more sense for the US and other partners to back Ukraine now, rather than face the far higher costs that would follow a Russian victory.

In a best case scenario, this new security agreement could create the conditions to anchor Ukraine firmly within the Western world, and could serve as a gateway to eventual Ukrainian NATO membership. However, without the requisite political will in Washington, the pact could come to be seen as the successor to the infamous 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which saw Ukraine unilaterally surrendering the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances that were exposed as worthless by Russia’s subsequent invasion.

A realistic appraisal of the recently signed US-Ukraine security pact is particularly important as both countries look to strengthen their partnership amid the largest European invasion since World War II. If Kyiv and Washington wish to convince Moscow to abandon its hopes of outlasting the West, they will need to match the sentiments expressed in the security agreement with concrete steps that will set the stage for Ukrainian victory.

Strengthening Taiwan’s resiliency

Franklin D. Kramer, Philip W. Yu, Joseph Webster, Elizabeth Sizeland — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Introduction
Establish a comprehensive security strategy
Cybersecurity and critical infrastructure resilience
Energy
Food and water resiliency
Enhancing defense resilience
Conclusion
About the authors
Acknowledgments

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Introduction

This report recommends actions for the new leadership of Taiwan to take to enhance its societal resilience against Chinese aggression in the context of both “gray zone” conflict and wartime attacks. The report focuses on establishing a comprehensive security strategy and analyzes three key areas particularly important for effective resilience: enhancing cybersecurity for critical infrastructures; improving energy security; and accelerating defense transformation.

The new administration of Lai Ching-te faces both existing resilience challenges and the potential for significantly greater problems if the People’s Republic of China (PRC) pursues expanded gray zone activities or if actual conflict occurs.¹ The ongoing challenges include substantial disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, military incursions, and periodic economic coercion. Potential future challenges could involve expansion of one or more of these ongoing Chinese activities. In the context of a more contested environment such as a quarantine,² blockade, or a kinetic conflict, Chinese actions could seek to cause leadership failures and loss of social cohesion; undertake cyberattacks to target critical infrastructures; generate energy shortages; and seek to defeat Taiwan militarily before the United States could provide effective support. The potential for such harms substantially increases the importance of resilient responses by Taiwan.

The report recommends four major sets of actions to enhance Taiwan’s resilience:

Establish a comprehensive security strategy that engages government, the private sector, and individuals in cooperative efforts to ensure all facets of resilience including:
1. Risk analyses and priority requirements.
2. Organization of data relevant to responding to challenges from the PRC.
3. Development of expertise in key areas required for response.
4. Provision of governmental leadership and activation of the whole nation as part of a comprehensive approach.
Enhance cybersecurity by establishing:
1. Off-island, cloud-based capabilities to duplicate governmental and other critical functions.
2. Working arrangements with high-end, private-sector cybersecurity providers.
3. A surge capability of cybersecurity experts.
4. Regular engagement with US Cyber Command’s Hunt Forward program.
5. Alternatives to undersea cables through low-earth orbit (LEO) communications satellites.
Bolster energy security resilience by:
1. Rationalizing—that is, increasing—energy prices, especially for electricity.
2. Supporting indigenous supply, including nuclear energy.
3. Prioritizing energy needs.
4. Dispersing and hardening energy storage facilities.
5. Preparing comprehensive rationing plans for energy.
Enhance defense resilience by:
1. Continuing the trend of higher defense spending to at least 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
2. Leveraging Taiwan’s strength in high tech manufacturing and shipbuilding to accelerate the development of a Ukraine-style, public-private “capability accelerator”³ for emerging technologies.
3. Fielding low-cost, high-effectiveness capabilities including unmanned surface vessels, unmanned aerial vehicles, and naval mines.
4. Incorporating training in emerging technologies and unconventional tactics for conscripts and reserves.
5. Investing in East Coast port infrastructure as counterblockade strongholds.
6. Raising the All-out Defense Mobilization Agency (ADMA) to the national level and implementing a larger civil defense force that fully integrates civilian agencies and local governments.

Establish a comprehensive security strategy

Resilience is not a new theme in Taiwan. Former President Tsai Ing-wen, who completed two terms in office on May 20, entitled her 2022 National Day Address “Island of Resilience,”⁴ and similarly identified resilience as a key factor for Taiwan in her two subsequent National Day addresses.⁵ “The work of making the Republic of China (Taiwan) a more resilient country is now our most important national development priority,” she stated in that 2022 speech, in which she articulated four key areas of resilience: economy and industry, social safety net, free and democratic government system, and national defense. What is left undone, however, is aligning these and other resilience elements into a comprehensive security strategy similar to those undertaken by Finland⁶ and Sweden,⁷ which utilize a whole-of society approach to enhance resilience.

Resilience is a nation’s ability to understand, address, respond to, and recover from any type of national security risk. Given the scale of risk Taiwan faces from China, domestic resilience should be front and center in Taiwan’s national security strategy.⁸ Comparable comprehensive national security approaches, such as the Finnish model, aim to foster and enable an engaged national ecosystem of partners, each with a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Finland’s model is instructive, underscoring the importance of engagement by the entire society:

The Security Strategy for Society lays out the general principles governing preparedness in Finnish society. The preparedness is based on the principle of comprehensive security in which the vital functions of society are jointly safeguarded by the authorities, business operators, organisations and citizens.⁹

Comprehensive security thus is far more than just government activities:

Comprehensive security has evolved into a cooperation model in which actors share and analyse security information, prepare joint plans, as well as train and work together. The cooperation model covers all relevant actors, from citizens to the authorities. The cooperation is based on statutory tasks, cooperation agreements and the Security Strategy for Society.¹⁰

The Finnish strategy identifies seven “vital functions” as key areas: leadership; international and European Union activities; defense capability; internal security; economy, infrastructure, and security of supply; functional capacity of the population and services; and psychological resilience.¹¹

Taiwan has taken a variety of actions to enhance resilience including the establishment in 2022 of the All-out Defense Mobilization Agency.¹² That agency has a useful but limited scope with its mandate of “comprehensive management of ‘planning for mobilization, management, service, civil defense, [and] building reserve capacity.’ ”¹³ But while defense is important (and further discussed below), as the Finnish and Swedish strategies underscore, Taiwan should expand its approach to resilience to include the full spectrum of governmental, private sector, and individual tasks—and the necessary cooperative efforts to make them most effective.

President Lai’s recent election ushered in an unprecedented third consecutive term for the Democratic Progressive Party.¹⁴ This outcome not only provides continuity in the agenda set by the island’s duly elected leader, but also presents an opportunity to sharpen the focus areas for resilience. As Taiwan transitions to a Lai presidency, the challenge of shoring up the island’s resilience should be at the forefront.

As a valuable starting point for establishing such an expanded resilience strategy, the Lai government should undertake extensive consultations with both Finland and Sweden—which could be facilitated as necessary by the United States. Taiwan should also seek to engage with the Hybrid Center of Excellence, based in Finland, which is an “autonomous, network-based international organization countering hybrid threats.”¹⁵

The discussion below describes several important elements of a comprehensive resilience strategy, and it will be a crucial task for the Lai administration to expand Taiwan’s current efforts to the full scope of such an approach. Resilience is a team game with the whole of society playing a role. But only Taiwan’s central government can act as the team captain, setting expectations, establishing priorities, formulating and communicating national strategy, and coordinating activities. Only leaders in national-level government can oversee the critical work of developing institutional effectiveness in key areas of risk management and resilience.

As a starting point, Taiwan should undertake a comprehensive audit now to uncover any gaps in the country’s ability to understand, respond to, and recover from both the chronic risks it currently faces and any more acute manifestations of PRC aggression in the future. Taiwan’s government should examine the following areas to pursue greater resilience:

Activating the whole nation: Working with the private sector and local government, and communicating to households are essential to develop a truly comprehensive approach to Taiwan’s resilience.
Understanding risk: Developing a set of scenarios that will help prioritize activities across government and beyond. Prioritizing is critical where resources are limited—as is identifying areas of cross-cutting work that can help to reduce risk in multiple scenarios.
Building data capacity: Laying a foundation for data exploitation needs will be critical for Taiwan, which will need this capacity both ahead of and during any crisis response. Preparing for and providing this capacity is not just the preserve of government, as commercially available and industry data sources will provide critical insights. Planning to access, receive, store, and process this data needs to start early, as the foundations for technical infrastructure, capabilities, data-sharing policies, and data expertise in government all require time and cannot just be activated on the cusp of crisis. Part of this work entails developing scenarios to help analysts map out gaps in information sources (intelligence, open source, commercial, and from allies) that Taiwan will likely need in each circumstance to build situational awareness. Ahead of and during crisis, risk assessment and effective decision-making will be highly dependent on the availability, quality, and usability of intelligence, information, and data.
Expanding its network of professional skills and resources: Assessing the range of skills and the levels of resourcing needed in government to manage a long-term crisis posture should start well ahead of any crisis. It would be helpful to look now at the gaps in key areas of professional expertise: analysts, data experts, crisis-response professionals, and operational planners will all be needed in larger numbers to sustain an effective response. Taiwan will also need professionally administered and well-exercised crisis facilities, resilient technical infrastructure, and business continuity approaches in place.
Preparedness and planning: Thinking through potential impacts of crisis scenarios in advance and working up potential policy and operational responses will bolster the quality of adaptability, which is an essential component of resilience. The process of exercising and refining plans is also helpful to build the professional connections and networks that will be activated during a live response.

Working with countries that are already developing vanguard resilience capabilities could help Taiwan quickly establish a workable model. For example, the United Kingdom’s National Situation Centre¹⁶—built in less than a year during the COVID-19 pandemic—is a model of developing access to critical data in peacetime and lessons learned from previous crisis scenarios about the practical challenges a nation could face in a variety of scenarios. Many commercial providers offer competent ways of displaying data insights on dashboards, and while this is helpful, it is only part of what can be achieved.

As a model for its broader resilience requirements, Taiwan will have the benefit of its existing efforts including in the counterdisinformation arena, where it has programs as effective as any in the world, despite the fact that Taiwan consistently faces the world’s highest volume of targeted disinformation campaigns.¹⁷ The saturation of PRC information manipulation across Taiwan’s traditional and social media platforms is strategically designed to undermine social cohesion, erode trust in government institutions, and soften resistance to Beijing’s forced unification agenda, while sowing doubts about America’s commitment to peace and stability in the region.

Taiwan has developed a multifaceted strategy to combat this onslaught, eschewing heavy-handed censorship in favor of promoting free speech and empowering civil society. This approach serves as a beacon for other democracies, demonstrating how to effectively counter disinformation through rapid-response mechanisms, independent fact-checking, along with widespread media literacy initiatives. Collaborative efforts such as the Taiwan FactCheck Center, Cofacts, and MyGoPen have proven instrumental in swiftly identifying and debunking false rumors, notably during the closely watched presidential election on January 13.¹⁸

Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs (MoDA) attributes the island’s success in combating this “infodemic” to its sophisticated civil-sector efforts, which avoids reliance on reactive takedowns of malicious content akin to a game of whack-a-mole. Much like its handling of the pandemic—where Taiwan achieved one of the world’s lowest COVID-19 fatality rates without resorting to draconian lockdowns—it has demonstrated resilience and innovation in the digital sphere.¹⁹

Taiwan’s response to disinformation demonstrates that it is well-positioned to establish a comprehensive approach to societal resilience. The discussion below describes several important elements of a comprehensive resilience strategy, but it will be a crucial task for the Lai administration to expand Taiwan’s current efforts to the full scope of such an approach.

Cybersecurity and critical infrastructure resilience

Cyber risks to critical infrastructures

Like all advanced economies, Taiwan depends on its critical infrastructures. Critical infrastructures have been described as “sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital . . . that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety.”²⁰ Since several critical infrastructures are interlinked, it is important in evaluating resilience to “capture cross-cutting risks and associated dependencies that may have cascading impacts within and across sectors.”²¹ Among those interlinked critical infrastructures are energy, communications, transportation, and water. Each of these are critical to society as a whole and each are dependent on digital technology for their operations.

In Taiwan, the Administration for Cyber Security has identified critical infrastructures “by their feature types into the following eight fields: energy, water resource, telecommunications, transportation, banking and finance, emergency aid and hospitals, central and local governments, and high-tech parks.”²² It is worth underscoring that several of Taiwan’s critical infrastructures, such as the electric grid²³ and the water system,²⁴ are significantly centralized or have other notable vulnerabilities such as the dependency on undersea cables for international communications²⁵ that increase the potential consequences from a successful cyberattack.

The Taiwan government has fully recognized the significant risks from cyberattacks. As described by Taiwan’s Administration for Cyber Security, “Due to Taiwan’s unique political and economic situation, the country faces not only a complex global cyber security environment but also severe cyber security threats, making the continuous implementation and improvement of cyber security measures a necessity.”²⁶

The number of cyberattacks against Taiwan is notable.²⁷ Published estimates range from five million cyberattacks per day against Taiwanese government agencies²⁸ to the detection of 15,000 cyberattacks per second, including attempted intrusions, in Taiwan during the first half of 2023.²⁹

The attacks often focus on key societal infrastructures. A recent Voice of America report noted that just prior to the January 2024 elections:

Most of the attacks appeared to focus on government offices, police departments, and financial institutions, with the attackers focused on internal communications, police reports, bank statements and insurance information.³⁰

Google researchers have likewise described the cyber threat to key critical infrastructures, revealing that it is “tracking close to 100 hacking groups out of China [and that these] malicious groups are attacking a wide spectrum of organizations, including the government, private industry players and defense organizations.”³¹

The attacks themselves are often relatively sophisticated. Trellix, a cybersecurity firm, described multiple techniques utilized by attackers that “focused on defense evasion, discovery, and command and control . . . to subvert system defenses to gather information about accounts, systems, and networks.” Among them are “living-off-the-land” techniques, which allow attackers to maintain their intrusions over time with smaller chances of detection.³²

While no one can say with certainty what actions the PRC would take in the context of a blockade of or outright conflict with Taiwan, the United States is clear-eyed about the potential for attacks on its own critical infrastructures if engaged in conflict with China. The February 2023 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community notes the likelihood of such PRC cyberattacks in that context:

If Beijing feared that a major conflict with the United States were imminent, it almost certainly would consider undertaking aggressive cyber operations against U.S. homeland critical infrastructure and military assets worldwide . . . China almost certainly is capable of launching cyber attacks that could disrupt critical infrastructure services within the United States, including against oil and gas pipelines, and rail systems.³³

The ongoing Russian cyberattacks against Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war further underscore the reality of critical infrastructures as a target in a conflict. It seems reasonable to assume that comparable actions (and perhaps even more) would be undertaken against Taiwan in the event of a blockade or kinetic conflict. “Probable targets,” according to James A. Lewis, would include critical infrastructures such as electrical power facilities, information and communications systems, and pipelines.³⁴

Actions to enhance Taiwan’s cyber resilience

Taiwan can enhance its cyber resilience through its own actions and in collaborative activities with private-sector companies and with the United States. While cyberattacks can be highly disruptive, one of the important lessons of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is that the effects on operations can be mitigated, as described in a CyberScoop analysis that underscores a shift in expectations:

The war has inspired a defensive effort that government officials and technology executives describe as unprecedented—challenging the adage in cybersecurity that if you give a well-resourced attacker enough time, they will pretty much always succeed. The relative success of the defensive effort in Ukraine is beginning to change the calculation about what a robust cyber defense might look like going forward.³⁵

According to the analysis, the critical element for such success has been significant multinational and public-private collaboration:

This high level of defense capability is a consequence of a combination of Ukraine’s own effectiveness, significant support from other nations including the United States and the United Kingdom, and a key role for private sector companies.
The defensive cyber strategy in Ukraine has been an international effort, bringing together some of the biggest technology companies in the world such as Google and Microsoft, Western allies such as the U.S. and Britain and social media giants such as Meta who have worked together against Russia’s digital aggression.³⁶

Actions by Taiwan

Taiwan should utilize the Ukraine model of cyber resilience—backed in part by private-sector companies—and take comparable actions to enhance its cybersecurity. Taiwan has a substantial existing cybersecurity framework on which to build such mitigating actions. Since 2022, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, through its Administration for Cyber Security, is responsible for “implementing cyber security management and defense mechanisms for national critical infrastructures” including “evaluating and auditing cyber security works at government agencies and public entities.”³⁷ Utilizing that framework, Taiwan should undertake the following four actions that would significantly enhance the island’s cybersecurity resilience.

First, Taiwan should utilize cloud-based capabilities to establish a duplicative set of cyber-enabled governmental functions outside of Taiwan. Ukraine undertook such actions, thereby rendering Russian cyberattacks in Ukraine unable to disrupt ongoing governmental activities. Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs has been evaluating the use of public clouds including the possibility of “digital embassies” abroad to hold data.³⁸ Taiwan should organize such actions with key cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, which provided support to Ukraine.³⁹ The United States should work with Taiwan and appropriate cloud providers to help effectuate such a result.

Second, Taiwan should establish arrangements with private-sector cybersecurity providers to undertake defensive operations against PRC cyberattacks in the context of a blockade or kinetic conflict. As noted above, such private-sector actions have been instrumental to Ukraine, and would similarly be invaluable for Taiwan. The United States should also help facilitate such private-sector defensive cyber operations for Taiwan.

Third, Taiwan should organize a surge capability of individual cybersecurity experts who can be called upon to complement governmental resources. Both Estonia and the United Kingdom have very effective cyber-reserve approaches, and Taiwan should engage with each country, seeking lessons learned as part of establishing its own reserve corps.

Fourth, Taiwan needs to accelerate its low-earth orbit satellite communications program. The Ministry of Digital Affairs’ two-year, US$18 million plan to strengthen the resilience of government communications entails building more than 700 satellite receiver stations. The impetus: ships from mainland China have repeatedly severed submarine internet cables in what Taiwan perceived as “a trial of methods” that the PRC could use to prepare for a military invasion.⁴⁰

The existing program involves satellites as well as ground-based receivers. The Taiwan Space Agency disclosed its plan for a “dedicated” LEO satellite communications project in late 2022,⁴¹ as a public-private partnership:

Distinct from traditional government programs, this groundbreaking project is structured as a privately operated venture, wherein the Taiwanese government would retain a substantial minority ownership. . . . This project intends to enhance the Taiwan Space Agency’s initial proposal for two government-built LEO satellites by evolving it into a “2+4” configuration. This will involve constructing four additional satellites through collaborative efforts between the public and private sectors.⁴²

Actions with the United States

In accord with the Taiwan Relations Act,⁴³ and as a matter of long-standing policy, the United States strongly supports Taiwan’s defensive capabilities including for cybersecurity. The Integrated Country Strategy of the American Institute in Taiwan (essentially the unofficial US embassy) specifically provides that “bolster[ing] Taiwan’s cybersecurity resilience” is one of the United States’ strategic priorities for the island.⁴⁴ To support that objective, the United States can enhance Taiwan cybersecurity through cooperative defensive activities.

First, US Cyber Command regularly supports the network resilience of allied countries and partners through its “Hunt Forward” operations, which are “strictly defensive” joint ventures, undertaken following an invitation from the ally or partner, to “observe and detect malicious cyber activity” on these networks, together searching out “vulnerabilities, malware, and adversary presence.”⁴⁵

While Taiwan has not been specifically identified as a Hunt Forward participant, Anne Neuberger, who is the US deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, said at a Politico Tech Summit in 2023 that in the event of a major cyberattack on Taiwan, the United States would “send its best teams to help hunt down the attackers, the same approach typically used to help global allies in cyberspace.”⁴⁶ She described the typical approach as:

Putting our best teams to hunt on their most sensitive networks to help identify any current intrusions and to help remediate and make those networks as strong as possible.”⁴⁷

Neuberger also highlighted US work with Taiwan to carry out military tabletop games and exercises to prepare for potential cyberattack.⁴⁸

More recently, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024 explicitly authorized the Defense Department to cooperate on:

Defensive military cybersecurity activities with the military forces of Taiwan to (1) defend military networks, infrastructure, and systems; (2) counter malicious cyber activity that has compromised such military networks, infrastructure, and systems; (3) leverage United States commercial and military cybersecurity technology and services to harden and defend such military networks, infrastructure, and systems; and (4) conduct combined cybersecurity training activities and exercises.⁴⁹

Going forward, those authorities authorize not only Hunt Forward actions but also actions to leverage commercial and military technology to harden such networks (which would seem to resolve any export control issues) and to conduct combined training and exercises, all of which underscores clear congressional approval for enhanced cybersecurity activities with Taiwan.⁵⁰

Second, the United States should undertake to enhance Taiwan’s communications resilience by making available access to US commercial and military LEO networks. The important role of the commercial provider Starlink in assuring communications in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war is well-known.⁵¹ Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX, is, however, controlled by Elon Musk, whose Tesla company has major investments in China. That linkage has raised the question of whether Taiwan could rely on any commercial arrangements it might make on its own with Starlink—particularly since Starlink did impose some limitations on Ukraine’s use of the network.⁵² However, as previously described by one of the authors of this report, the US government has sway on such matters:

The Defense Production Act authorizes the [US] government to require the prioritized provision of services—which would include services from space companies—and exempts any company receiving such an order from liabilities such as inability to support other customers.⁵³

Accordingly, the US should rely on this authority to organize appropriate arrangements with Starlink—and other space companies that provide like capabilities—to ensure access that would support Taiwan communications. One way to do this would be to incorporate appropriate terms into the commercial augmentation space reserve (CASR) program arrangements that US Space Force is currently negotiating with civil space providers,⁵⁴ as part of the Department of Defense’s overall commercial space strategy.⁵⁵

Additionally, the DOD is developing its own LEO capability through a variety of constellations being put in place by Space Force.⁵⁶ Pursuant to the recent NDAA authorization noted above, DOD should work with the Taiwan military to ensure that those constellations will be available to support Taiwan as necessary.

Longer term, the United States should also undertake to enhance the resilience of Taiwan’s undersea cables. As previously proposed by one of the authors, the United States should lead in establishing an international undersea infrastructure protection corps. It should:

Combine governmental and private activities to support the resilience of undersea cables and pipelines. Membership should include the United States, allied nations with undersea maritime capabilities, and key private-sector cable and pipeline companies.⁵⁷

Such an activity would include focus on cybersecurity for undersea cable networks, hardening and other protection for cable landing points, and capabilities and resources to ensure expeditious repair of cables as needed.⁵⁸ To be sure, getting such an activity up and running will necessarily be a multiyear effort. However, Taiwan’s vulnerability underscores the importance of beginning promptly and working as expeditiously as possible.

Cybersecurity recommendations for Taiwan

Utilize cloud-based capabilities to establish a duplicative set of cyber-enabled governmental functions outside of Taiwan.
Establish arrangements with private-sector cybersecurity providers to undertake defensive operations against PRC cyberattacks.
Organize a surge capability of individual cybersecurity experts who can be called upon to complement governmental resources.
Accelerate the low-earth orbit satellite communications program.
Actively engage with Cyber Command’s Hunt Forward activities.
Enhance Taiwan’s communications resilience by making available access to US commercial and military LEO networks.
Undertake on a longer-term basis enhanced resilience of Taiwan’s undersea cables.

Energy

As part of its efforts to enhance resilience, Taiwan must mitigate its energy vulnerabilities, as its reliance on maritime imports for about 97 percent⁵⁹ of its energy needs creates acute risks. To lessen its dependency on maritime imports and strengthen its resiliency in the face of potential PRC coercion, Taiwan should curb energy and electricity demand, bolster indigenous supply, overhaul its inventory management, and prepare rationing plans. A resilient energy security approach would credibly signal to the PRC that Taiwan could hold out for long durations without maritime resupply.

Curbing demand by rationalizing prices

Taiwan’s ultra-low electricity prices are a security risk (and a black eye for its climate targets). Reliance on seaborne energy shipments presents straightforward security problems, and Taiwan’s low electricity prices subsidize consumption that is being met by imports of hydrocarbons, especially coal. The new Lai administration should make haste prudently, increasing electricity prices more frequently and significantly, without exceeding the limits of the politically possible.

Taiwan’s electricity price quandary is illustrated by Taipower, the state-owned monopoly utility. In 2022 and 2023, Taipower lost 227.2 billion New Taiwan dollars (NTD) and 198.5 billion NTD, respectively, as its per kilowatt hour cost of electricity sold substantially exceeded per unit prices.⁶⁰ Taipower’s prices failed to offset the steep rise in electricity input costs amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the post-COVID-19 unsnarling of supply chains.

Taiwan’s electricity costs remain too low, diminishing the island’s resiliency, although policymakers have now taken some steps in light of the problem. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ latest electricity price review, in March 2024, raised average prices by about 11 percent, with the new tariff reaching about 3.4518 NTD, or approximately $0.11 USD/kWh.⁶¹ This rationalization of prices, while welcome, is insufficient. In the United States, the rolling twelve-month ending price in January 2024 for all sectors totaled $0.127/kWh.⁶² Taiwan’s heavily subsidized electricity consumers therefore enjoy a discount in excess of 13 percent compared to their US counterparts, despite US access to low-cost, abundant, and indigenously produced energy.

Taiwan’s heavily subsidized electricity prices incentivize maritime imports, especially coal. Astonishingly, Taiwan was the world’s largest per capita user of coal generation for electricity in 2022, higher than even Australia, a major coal exporter.

Taiwan’s low electricity prices and use of coal expose the island to PRC economic coercion. Taiwan’s dependency on imported coal heightens its vulnerability in the summer, when the island’s electricity-generation needs peak. Concerningly, Taiwan has already experienced electricity shortfalls in summer peacetime conditions, including a wave of outages⁶³ between July and August 2022. With the island’s future summer cooling needs set to rise even further due to climate change and hotter temperatures, Taiwan’s electricity needs pose a vulnerability that the PRC may attempt to exploit.

Curbing Taiwan’s electricity demand during summer months is critical, necessitating a rise in prices. While this reduction is a principal energy security challenge, the island must also do more to secure supply, especially for nuclear energy.

Supply: Support indigenous production

Taiwan’s resiliency will be strengthened by producing as much indigenous energy as possible, especially during the critical summer months. Taiwan, which has virtually no hydrocarbon resources, can therefore indigenously produce only four different forms of energy at scale: nuclear energy, offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar. Taiwan should pursue each of these indigenous energy sources. Taiwan should apply “carrots” by strengthening incentives and payments for indigenous production. At the same time, applying the “stick” of higher prices to energy consumption, especially for energy imports, would bolster the island’s resiliency.

Taiwan’s renewable resources are significant and often economically viable, but they cannot secure adequate levels of resiliency by themselves. Taiwan’s wind speeds slow in the summer,⁶⁴ limiting onshore and offshore wind’s effectiveness in bolstering energy security. Additionally, Taiwan’s stringent localization requirements for offshore appropriately minimize PRC components and sensors in Taiwan’s offshore wind turbines, but also raise the costs of this technology. Taiwan’s solar potential⁶⁵ is also limited⁶⁶ by cloudy skies, frequent rainfall, and land scarcity.

Accordingly, nuclear energy is the most viable way for Taiwan to address its summer electricity needs without turning to maritime imports. While Taiwan’s nuclear reactors must acquire fuel from abroad, this fuel can be used for approximately eighteen to twenty-four months.⁶⁷ Taiwan should maintain its existing nuclear energy capacity; restart retired capacity as soon as politically and technically feasible; and seek new, incremental capacity over time.⁶⁸

Unpacking Taiwan’s storage complexities: Dispersal and hardening is critical

To cope with various contingencies, including the possibility of a prolonged summertime blockade, Taiwan should increase its stockpiles of energy, disperse inventory around the island, and harden facilities.

While Taiwan’s ability to hold out against a blockade involves by many factors, energy inventories are a critical element. Taiwan’s electricity reserves are limited: it reported fifty-six days of supply of coal inventories in February 2023,⁶⁹ and aims to raise its natural gas inventories from eleven days to more than twenty days by 2030.⁷⁰ These inventory levels should be expanded, in part because “days of supply” fail to encapsulate uncertainty. Demand fluctuates depending on temperature and other variables, while Taiwan’s access to energy storage inventories faces the risk of sabotage and, in certain scenarios, kinetic strikes.

Taiwan’s management of petroleum reserves is a matter of great importance, given the use of these fuels, especially diesel, for military matters. Taiwan’s Energy Administration, in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, reported in April 2024 that its total oil inventories stood at 167 days of supply.⁷¹ This topline figure presents an overly optimistic portrait of Taiwan’s petroleum security, however. For instance, Taiwan’s government-controlled inventories in April 2024⁷² included 2.6 million kiloliters of crude oil and refined products; private stocks added another 6.5 million kiloliters. Accordingly, Taiwan reports forty-seven days of supply from government stockpiles, with an additional 120 days from private inventories.⁷³ Given that domestic sales and consumption equated to about 54,200 kiloliters per day from prior comparable periods,⁷⁴ Taiwan calculated it had about 167 days of supply.

There may, however, be insufficient monitoring of private inventories. Marek Jestrab observed:

A concerning—and possibly significant—loophole exists in these laws, where the criteria and computation formulas for the actual on-hand security stockpiles will be determined by the central competent authority, and are not required to be disclosed. This presents the opportunity for energy that is loaded onboard merchant shipping while in transit to Taiwan to count toward these figures.⁷⁵

While Taiwan should ensure that stockpiles are actually on the island, and not at sea, it also needs to carefully examine the inventory split between crude oil and crude products, such as diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, etc. Additionally, Taiwan’s policymakers should not expect to rely on its crude inventories, which only have a latent potential: crude oil cannot be used until it is refined into a crude product. Therefore, if the PRC disrupted Taiwan’s refineries via cyber or even kinetic means, Taiwan would not be able to access the totality of its crude oil reserves.

Taiwan’s military requirements for fuel would likely surge during a confrontation or conflict with the PRC, reducing the “days of supply.” Since Taiwan’s military vehicles largely run on diesel, the island should pay careful attention to this product.

Taiwan should disperse and harden its energy assets, especially diesel storage, as concentrated objects would present inviting targets for the PRC. Beijing is studying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine closely and will not fail to notice that Moscow attacked about 30 percent of Ukrainian infrastructure in a single day.⁷⁶ As one author witnessed during his recent visit to Kyiv, Ukraine’s dispersal of electricity assets is achieving a reasonable degree of success. Indeed, Russia’s more recent campaign⁷⁷ attacking large-scale thermal and hydroelectric power plants illustrates the utility of dispersed energy infrastructure. Like Ukraine, Taiwan should disperse and harden its energy storage inventories to the maximal feasible extent.

Rationing plans

While both Taiwan’s electricity supply and demand will be very hard to predict in a state of emergency, rationing plans must be considered—especially for the island’s manufacturing and semiconductor industries.

Taiwan’s economy is uniquely⁷⁸ tied to electricity-intensive manufacturing, as industrial consumers accounted for more than 55 percent of Taiwan’s electricity consumption in 2023.⁷⁹ Most of these industrial producers (such as chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) service export markets—not Taiwan. While the PRC might attempt to disrupt the island’s energy and electricity supply via cyber and kinetic means, Taiwan’s electricity consumption would fall dramatically during a crisis if Taiwan’s industries were forced to shut down. Although the closure of Taiwan’s industry would prove economically ruinous, it would also make the island’s electricity and energy issues much more manageable. Adding an additional layer of complication, many of Taiwan’s most valuable exports – such as chips – are shipped via civilian airliners, not on seaborne vessels, and would consequently be more difficult to interdict in circumstances short of war.⁸⁰ Taiwan should prepare rationing plans for a variety of contingencies, adapting to a range of scenarios, including a quarantine, siege, or even kinetic conflict. Taiwan must be ready.

Energy recommendations for Taiwan

Gradually raise electricity and energy prices, communicating that price hikes will persist and require significant adjustments over the medium term.
Expand the frequency of electricity price reviews from twice a year to a quarterly basis. More frequent price adjustments will allow smaller incremental increases while also enabling Taiwan to respond more quickly to potential contingencies.
Expand fiscal support for indigenous forms of energy. Demand-side management programs could include virtual power plants, building efficiency measures, two-way air conditioning units, and more. On the supply side, Taiwan should incentivize indigenous energy production, including nuclear energy, onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar.
Extend the life of Taiwan’s nuclear energy power plants and consider expanding capacity. Nuclear energy is not only Taiwan’s best option for meeting its summer generation needs but also extremely safe and reliable. In the event of a conflict, the PRC is extremely unlikely to launch highly escalatory and provocative attacks against nuclear facilities on territory it seeks to occupy.
Bolster domestic energy supplies and decarbonization objectives including by considering easing localization requirements for offshore wind projects—while ensuring that PRC components and sensors are not incorporated.
Disperse and, where possible, harden energy and electricity assets and volumes across the island for both military and civil defense needs.
Examine potential alternatives to diesel, as diesel inventories can begin to degrade after several weeks, including “long-duration diesel” solutions that, while more polluting, could extend the shelf life of its inventories, enhancing the durability of Taiwan’s military and civil defense efforts.
Deepen liquified natural gas (LNG) ties with the United States. Contracting with US LNG producers would moderately bolster Taiwan’s energy security, as the PRC would be more reluctant to interdict US cargoes than vessels from other nations.
Conduct comprehensive studies into energy contingency planning, examining how energy and electricity would be prioritized and rationed during various scenarios.

Food and water resiliency

Taiwan’s food supply needs will be significant in the event of a contingency, but pale in comparison to its energy and water requirements. Taiwan’s water security is a serious concern, as it is already suffering from water access issues in noncrisis periods. Taiwan should prioritize scarce land for electricity generation, especially onshore wind and solar, which are much less water-intensive than coal and natural gas generation. Repurposing farmland for renewables would ease Taiwan’s electricity and water needs in peacetime and during any crisis.

Taiwan’s food security challenges are serious, but manageable. The island’s self-sufficiency ratio for food stands at about 40 percent, after rising somewhat in recent years. Unlike energy, however, Taiwan can both store food, especially rice, and replenish these inventories. Meals ready to eat (MREs) can store for more than eighteen months.

Additionally, the island would likely be able to resupply itself aerially in all situations short of conflict. The PRC might well be extremely reluctant to shoot down a civilian aircraft resupplying Taiwan with food. The PRC’s shootdown of a civilian aircraft would damage external perceptions of the PRC, and strengthen global support for sanctions. While there can be no certainty, the PRC’s self-interest in managing perceptions of a confrontation would increase the likelihood of the safe transit of aerial and perhaps even maritime food deliveries to the island.

Taiwan’s water access problems are serious. Water shortages have manifested even in peacetime, as Taiwan experienced a severe drought in 2021. During a contingency with the PRC, Beijing might attempt to exploit this vulnerability.

Luckily, Taiwan’s water resiliency can be strengthened by tackling agricultural consumption and, wherever politically and technically feasible, repurposing farmland for energy generation. From 2013 to 2022, 71 percent of Taiwan’s water consumption was attributable to agriculture. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s industries comprised only 10 percent of demand during that period, with domestic (i.e., residential and commercial) consumption accounting for the remainder. Taiwan’s water needs are growing, due to “thirsty” industrial customers, but the agricultural sector is primarily responsible for the majority of the island’s consumption, although consumption and supply sources vary across the island.

Taiwan’s policymakers recognize its water problems and have begun raising water prices, especially for heavy users. Taiwan should continue to encourage efficiency by gradually but perceptibly increasing water prices. Concomitantly, it should further reduce demand by repurposing water-intensive farmland for electricity generation, when feasible. Repurposing farmland will undoubtedly prove politically difficult, but it will also improve Taiwan’s water and electricity resiliency.

Food and water security recommendations

Prioritize energy and water security needs over food production.
Secure and disperse inventories of foodstuffs, such as MREs, medicines, and water, along with water purification tablets.
Bolster the island’s cold storage supply chains and overall foodstuff inventories.
Plan and work with partners to stage food supply if a Berlin airlift-style operation becomes necessary.
Continue to encourage water conservation by increasing water prices gradually but steadily.
Ensure redundancy of water supplies and systems, especially in the more populous northern part of the island.
Ensure that drinking water and sanitation systems can operate continuously, after accounting for any electricity needs.

SOURCES

Gustavo F. Ferreira and J. A. Critelli, “Taiwan’s Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China,” US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters 53, no. 2 (2023), doi:10.55540/0031-1723.3222; Joseph Webster, “Does Taiwan’s Massive Reliance on Energy Imports Put Its Security at Risk?,” New Atlanticist, Atlantic Council blog, July 7, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/does-taiwans-massive-reliance-on-energy-imports-put-its-security-at-risk/; Amy Chang Chien, Mike Ives, and Billy H. C. Kwok, “Taiwan Prays for Rain and Scrambles to Save Water,” New York Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/asia/taiwan-drought.html; “Water Resources Utilization,” Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), Water Resources Agency, 2022, https://eng.wra.gov.tw/cp.aspx?n=5154&dn=5155; Meng-hsuan Yang, “Why Did Formosa Plastics Build Its Own Desalination Facility?,” CommonWealth Magazine, May 31, 2023, https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3440; and Chao Li-yen and Ko Lin, “Taiwan State-Owned Utility Evaluates Water Price Adjustments,” Focus Taiwan, January 26, 2024, https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202401260017#:~:text=As%20of%20Aug.

NOTE

The Berlin airlift of 1948 and 1949 demonstrates the power of aerial food replenishment logistics in an uncontested environment. From June 26, 1948, to September 30, 1949, Allied forces delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin in over 278,000 airdrops. While Taiwan’s population of more than twenty-three million is significantly larger than West Berlin’s population of 2.5 million, the world civilian air cargo fleet has expanded dramatically over the past seventy-five years. In all situations short of conflict, Taiwan would be able to restock food from the air. For more on the Berlin airlift, see Katie Lange, “The Berlin Airlift: What It Was, Its Importance in the Cold War,” DOD News, June 24, 2022, https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/3072635/the-berlin-airlift-what-it-was-its-importance-in-the-cold-war/.

Enhancing defense resilience

Ever since Beijing leveraged then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan as an excuse to launch large-scale joint blockade military exercises, pundits have labeled the residual military situation around Taiwan as a “new normal.” Yet there is really nothing normal about a permanent presence of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy warships menacingly surrounding the island along its twenty-four nautical mile contiguous zone, and nothing usual about increasing numbers of manned and unmanned military aircraft crossing the tacit median line in the Taiwan Strait—a line that held significance for seven decades as a symbol of cross-strait stability. Nor should it be viewed as normal that a steady stream of high-altitude surveillance balloons—which are suspected of collecting military intelligence—violate Taiwan’s airspace.⁸¹ Some have better described this “new normal” as a strategy akin to an anaconda noticeably tightening its grip around the island, drawing close enough to reduce warning time and provocative enough to raise the risk of inadvertent clashes. In other words, the PRC has unilaterally dialed up a military cost-imposition campaign meant to chip away at peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, wear down Taiwan’s military, and erode confidence and social cohesion in Taiwan society.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was an additional wake-up call for the citizens of Taiwan, following mainland China’s 2019 crackdown on Hong Kong freedoms, heightening recognition of the risks presented by the PRC and, in particular, that the long-standing status quo in cross-strait relations is no longer acceptable to Beijing. Taiwan thus finds itself in the unenviable position of simultaneously countering PLA gray zone intrusions and cognitive warfare—what NATO calls affecting attitudes and behaviors to gain advantage⁸²—while beefing itself up militarily to deter the growing threat of a blockade or assault.

With this backdrop, Taipei authorities have since embarked on long-overdue reforms in defense affairs, marked by several developments aimed at bolstering the island democracy’s military capabilities and readiness in the face of growing threats from Beijing.

First, Taiwan’s overall defense spending has undergone seven consecutive year-on-year increases, reaching 2.5 percent of gross domestic product.⁸³ While this is commendable, Taiwan’s defense requirements are very substantial, and its budget in US dollars is only $19.1 billion.⁸⁴ Accordingly, it will be important for Taiwan to continue the trend of higher defense spending to at least 3 percent of GDP both to bolster Taiwan’s military capabilities and as a deterrent signal to Beijing—and also to garner international community recognition that Taiwan is serious about its own defense. A key element will be to ensure that Taiwan has sufficient stocks of ammunition and other weapons capabilities to fight effectively until the United States could fully engage and in the event of a longer war. One area that deserves a high degree of attention is defense against ballistic and cruise missiles and unmanned vehicles. Especially in light of the recent coalition success in defeating such Iranian attacks against Israel, planning should be undertaken to assure comparable success for Taiwan against PRC attacks. Adding mobile, short-range air defenses to the high-priority list of military investments for Taiwan—such as the highly mobile National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS)⁸⁵—will make it harder for the PLA to find and destroy Taiwan defenses, especially if combined with passive means for target detection and missile guidance.

Second, the new president can kick-start an enhanced approach to defense by embracing full integration of public-private innovation and adopting Ukraine’s model of grass-roots innovation for defense, which has served it well through a decade of war against a much larger Russia. Recognizing that innovation is itself a form of resilience, Taiwan can draw valuable lessons from Ukraine, particularly in leveraging private-sector expertise. By implementing what some Ukrainian defense experts term a “capability accelerator” to integrate emerging technologies into mission-focused capabilities, Taiwan can enhance its resilience and swiftly adapt to evolving security challenges, including rapidly fielding a high volume of unmanned systems to achieve distributed surveillance, redundant command and control, and higher survivability.⁸⁶ This comprehensive approach, which recognizes the private sector as the greatest source of innovation in today’s complex security environment, holds significant potential for enhancing Taiwan’s defense capabilities through the utilization of disruptive technologies. The island’s overall resilience would significantly benefit by drawing the private sector in as a direct stakeholder in national defense matters.

Ukraine’s grass-roots model of defense innovation, spearheaded by volunteers, nongovernment organizations, and international partners, is a worthy and timely model for Taiwan. Ukraine’s approach has yielded significant advancements in drone warfare, as well as sophisticated capabilities like the Delta battlefield management system—a user-friendly cloud-based situational awareness tool that provides real-time information on enemy and friendly forces through the integration of data from sources such as drones, satellites, and even civilian reports.⁸⁷ This collaborative model, reliant on cooperation between civilian developers and military end users, has propelled Ukraine’s military technological revolution by integrating intelligence and surveillance tasks, while enhancing decision-making and kill-chain target acquisition. Taiwan will benefit from a comparable approach.

Third, as suggested above, Taiwan should focus a large portion of its defense budget on low-cost, highly effective systems. In terms of force structure, it appears that Taiwan has settled on a design that blends large legacy platforms of a twentieth-century military with the introduction of more survivable and distributable low-end asymmetric capabilities. The latter are best exemplified by Taiwan’s indigenously produced Ta Chiang-class of high-speed, guided-missile corvettes (PGG) and Min Jiang-class fast mine laying boats (FMLB).⁸⁸ But much more must be done to bolster Taiwan’s overall defense capabilities by focusing on less expensive, but nonetheless highly effective systems.

In Ukraine’s battle against Russian Federation invaders, drones have provided Ukrainian forces with important tactical capabilities by enabling them to gather intelligence, monitor enemy movements, and conduct precision strikes on high-value targets. Taiwan can comparably utilize low-cost UAVs to establish mesh networks that connect devices for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and for targeting that would be invaluable in countering a PRC amphibious assault. Lessons from Ukraine further highlight the importance of having the right mix of drone types and capabilities in substantial stockpiles, capable of a variety of missions. Notably, Ukrainian officials have called for the production of more than one million domestically produced drones in 2024.⁸⁹ Then-President Tsai’s formation of a civilian-led “drone national team” program is a commendable step in this direction and underscores the power of collaborative innovation in joint efforts between users.⁹⁰ Encouraging cooperation between Taiwan drone makers and US private industry will accelerate the development of a combat-ready unmanned systems fleet with sufficient range, endurance, and payload to enhance situational awareness and battlefield effects.

Concurrent with those efforts utilizing unmanned systems, Taiwan should bolster its naval mining capabilities as a strategic measure against PRC aggression. Naval mines represent one of the most cost-effective and immediately impactful layers of defense.⁹¹ In this regard, Taiwan’s new Min Jiang class of FMLB represents the right type of investments in capabilities which could prove pivotal in thwarting potential invasion attempts.

Even more significantly for a Taiwan audience, Ukraine broke a blockade of its Black Sea ports using a combination of naval drones and coastal defense missiles—and repelled the once-mighty Russian Black Sea Fleet—all without a traditional navy of its own.⁹² Faced with clear intent by a PLA Navy practicing daily to isolate the island, the time is past due for Taiwanese authorities to hone their own counterblockade skills including a heavy reliance on unmanned surface vehicles.

Taiwan should also make rapid investments in port infrastructure and defenses along Taiwan’s eastern seaboard in places such as Su’ao and Hualien harbors, which can serve as deepwater ports that are accessible, strategic, antiblockade strongpoints, and where any conceivable PLA blockade would be at its weakest and most vulnerable point logistically. Su’ao harbor, as a potential future homeport for Taiwan’s new indigenous Hai Kun-class diesel submarines, could also serve a dual purpose as an experimentation and development zone for public-private collaboration on unmanned-systems employment and operations. Infrastructure investments in East Coast ports could enhance the island’s ability to attain emergency resupply of energy, food, humanitarian supplies, and munitions under all conditions, broadening options for international community aid and complicating PLA efforts.

Fourth, every new capability needs trained operators who are empowered to employ and engage. This year Taiwan began implementation of a new, one-year conscript training system for male adults born after January 1, 2005 (up from a wholly inadequate four months of conscription in the past decade).⁹³ Taiwan’s “all-out defense” plan realigns into a frontline main battle force consisting of all-volunteer career military personnel, backed up by a standing garrison force composed mainly of conscripted military personnel guarding infrastructure, along with a civil defense system integrated with local governments and private-sector resources. Upon mobilization, there would also be a reserve force to supplement the main battle and garrison forces.

According to details laid out in its 2023 National Defense Report, Taiwan’s revamped one-year conscript system and reorganized reserve mobilization system place significant emphasis on traditional military combat skills, such as rifle marksmanship and operation of mortars.⁹⁴ However, in response to evolving security challenges and the changing nature of warfare, Taiwan’s military should incorporate greater training in emerging technologies and unconventional tactics, along with decentralized command and control, especially in the areas of drone warfare, where unmanned aerial vehicles and surface vessels play a crucial role in reconnaissance, surveillance, and targeted strikes. By integrating drone warfare training into the conscript system as well as in annual reserve call-up training, Taiwan can better prepare its military personnel to adapt to modern battlefield environments and effectively counter emerging threats.

Integrating drone operations into military operations down to the conscript and reservist level offers a cost-effective means to enhance battlefield situational awareness and operational capabilities, and also has the added benefit of enhancing the attractiveness and value of a mandatory conscription system emerging from years of low morale and characterized by Taiwan’s outgoing president as “insufficient” and “full of outmoded training.”⁹⁵ Recognizing the imperative to modernize military training to face up to a rapidly expanding PLA threat, Taiwan’s military force realignment plan came with a promise to “include training in the use of Stinger missiles, Javelin missiles, Kestrel rockets, drones, and other new types of weapons . . . in accordance with mission requirements to meet the needs of modern warfare.”⁹⁶ Looking at the example of Ukraine, where drones have been utilized, underscores the importance of incorporating drone warfare training into its asymmetric strategy.

The Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act “prioritize[d] realistic training” by the United States, with Taiwan authorizing “an enduring rotational United States military presence that assists Taiwan in maintaining force readiness.”⁹⁷ There have been numerous reports of US special forces in Taiwan,⁹⁸ and those forces could provide training in tactical air control, dynamic targeting, urban warfare, and comparable capabilities.⁹⁹ Likewise, parts of an Army Security Force Assistance Brigade could do similar work on a rotational basis, on- or off-island.

To facilitate a comprehensive and integrated approach to defense planning and preparedness between the military, government agencies, and civilian organizations, Taiwan has also established the All-out Defense Mobilization Agency, which (as noted above) is a centralized body subordinate to the Ministry of National Defense that is tasked with coordinating efforts across various sectors, down to the local level, to enhance national defense readiness. That agency would be significantly more effective if raised to the national level with a broadened mandate as part of a comprehensive approach.

The Taiwanese leadership also should consider elevating their efforts to create a large-scale civil defense force, offering practical skills training which would appeal to Taiwanese willing to dedicate time and effort toward defense of their communities and localities. These skills could include emergency medical training, casualty evacuation, additive manufacturing, drone flying, and open-source intelligence. Private, nonprofit civil defense organizations such as Taiwan’s Kuma Academy hold widespread appeal to citizens seeking to enhance basic preparedness skills.¹⁰⁰ With a curriculum that covers topics ranging from basic first aid to cognitive warfare, Kuma Academy’s popular classes typically sell out within minutes of going online. According to a recent survey of domestic Taiwan opinions sponsored by Spirit of America, “When facing external threats, 75.3% of the people agree that Taiwanese citizens have an obligation to defend Taiwan.”¹⁰¹ A well-trained civil defense force and other whole-of-society resilience measures provide an additional layer of defense and enhance social cohesion to better deny Beijing’s ultimate political objective of subjugating the will of the people.

Defense resilience recommendations for Taiwan

Raise defense spending to at least 3 percent of GDP.
Adopt Ukraine’s model of grass-roots innovation in defense.
Focus a large portion of its defense budget on low-cost, highly effective systems including unmanned vehicles and naval mines.
Incorporate greater training in emerging technologies and unconventional tactics for conscripts and reserves.
Invest in East Coast port infrastructure as counterblockade strongholds.
Elevate the All-out Defense Mobilization Agency to the national level and implement a larger civil defense force that fully integrates civilian agencies and local governments.

Conclusion

On April 3, 2024, Taiwan was struck by the strongest earthquake in twenty-five years. In the face of this magnitude 7.4 quake, Taiwan’s response highlights the effectiveness of robust investment in stricter building codes, earthquake alert systems, and resilience policies, resulting in minimal casualties and low infrastructure damage.¹⁰² Taiwan’s precarious position on the seismically vulnerable Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanoes around the Pacific Ocean, mirrors its vulnerability under constant threat of military and gray zone aggression from a mainland China seeking seismic changes in geopolitical power. Drawing from its success in preparing for and mitigating the impact of natural disasters, Taiwan can apply a similarly proactive approach in its defense preparedness. Safeguarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and security requires investments in a comprehensive security strategy for resilience across society—including cybersecurity for critical infrastructures, bolstering energy security, and enhanced defense resilience. Such an approach would provide Taiwan the greatest likelihood of deterring or, if necessary, defeating PRC aggression including through blockade or kinetic conflict.

About the authors

Franklin D. Kramer is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a member of its board. He is a former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

Philip Yu is a nonresident senior fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and a retired US Navy rear admiral.

Joseph Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, a nonresident senior fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and editor of the independent China-Russia Report.

Elizabeth “Beth” Sizeland is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Earlier, she served in the United Kingdom’s government including as deputy national security adviser and as adviser to the UK prime minister on intelligence, security, and resilience issues.

This analysis reflects the personal opinions of the authors.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their helpful comments and feedback: Amber Lin, Elsie Hung, Kwangyin Liu, and Alison O’Neil.

Garlauskas featured on VOA on RIMPAC exercise

ylee — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 19:23:00 +0000

On June 28, Markus Garlauskas was featured on a VOA television broadcast discussing the biennial RIMPAC exercise beginning this week, its goals, and how China might view this year’s exercise.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

The post Garlauskas featured on VOA on RIMPAC exercise appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Production diplomacy for deterrence, readiness, and resilience in the Indo-Pacific

Andrew Brown, John T. Watts, Markus Garlauskas — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 16:42:13 +0000

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Executive summary

Production diplomacy integrates the defense industrial bases (DIB) of allies and partners by protecting supply chains, strengthening alliances and partnerships, enhancing deterrence, and building defense readiness, though it is not without risks and challenges. In order to meet growing challenges of an evolving geostrategic environment including facing multiple adversaries simultaneously, the United States should rapidly develop and implement new production diplomacy initiatives in the Indo-Pacific.

The term production diplomacy was coined by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A. LaPlante, and subsequently defined in the National Defense Industrial Strategy as a strategy to protect DIB supply chain. It can additionally support national security objectives in the Indo-Pacific geostrategic environment.

Production diplomacy plays a key role in deepening and broadening integration among allies and partners, while enhancing resilience and building stockpiles and surge capacity. The application of production diplomacy also comes with risks and challenges, including difficulties creating sustainable industry environments, unintended technology transfer to adversaries, and domestic political environments.

While production diplomacy will not apply in every case, when applied creatively under the right circumstances, it has the potential to enhance US, allied, and partner national security. This creativity can include both coproducing and assembling forward, as well as multilateral coproduction to create win-win-win outcomes.

Maximizing effectiveness of production diplomacy initiatives to support US, allied, and partner national security objectives will require executive branch and congressional action. The full issue brief includes recommendations that think creatively; craft programs to support multiple national security objectives; assess and manage risks; overcome gaps and seams; and apply historical lessons.

The Tiger Project, an Atlantic Council effort, develops new insights and actionable recommendations for the United States, as well as its allies and partners, to deter and counter aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Explore our collection of work, including expert commentary, multimedia content, and in-depth analysis, on strategic defense and deterrence issues in the region.

Dean quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald on implications of a second Trump administration for allies

ylee — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 19:12:13 +0000

On June 23, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, where he shared what a second Trump administration could mean for allies.

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

The post Dean quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald on implications of a second Trump administration for allies appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Jo quoted in ASB Zeitung on recent Russia-North Korea agreement

ylee — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 18:21:54 +0000

On June 21, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Bee Yun Jo was quoted in ASB Zeitung regarding the recent Russia-North Korea agreement, which contains a concerning clause allowing for potential military assistance between the two nations.

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Bee Yun Jo

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Korea Korean

The post Jo quoted in ASB Zeitung on recent Russia-North Korea agreement appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Jo quoted in CNN on Putin’s North Korea visit

ylee — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:05:08 +0000

On June 20, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Bee Yun Jo was quoted in CNN discussing Putin’s recent first visit to North Korea and the escalating cooperation between the two countries, specifically regarding the “comprehensive strategic partnership pact” they signed and its article outlining the possibility of military-technical cooperation.

Fellow

Bee Yun Jo

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Korea Korean

The post Jo quoted in CNN on Putin’s North Korea visit appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin just reminded the world why Russia must lose

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 21:26:06 +0000

On the eve of last weekend’s Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, Vladimir Putin unveiled a peace proposal of his own. The presentation of this rival peace plan was an obvious attempt to undermine Ukraine’s Swiss initiative, but it also served as a timely reminder that Putin is waging an old-fashioned war of imperial conquest and will continue to escalate his demands until he is defeated.

Putin’s uncompromising vision for a future peace in Ukraine was widely condemned, with Kyiv officials and world leaders rejecting it as an “ultimatum.” Crucially, the terms outlined by the Kremlin leader would leave around twenty percent of Ukraine under Russian control, including significant portions of the country that Putin’s army has so far been unable to capture.

This new peace proposal is the latest example of the growing territorial demands that have accompanied Russia’s ten-year invasion of Ukraine. Time after time over the past decade, Putin has rejected accusations of an expansionist agenda, only to then escalate his invasion of Ukraine further.

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When Russia first attacked Ukraine in February 2014, Putin insisted Moscow had no territorial ambitions beyond the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. “We do not want to divide Ukraine,” he assured the watching world. Within weeks, however, Kremlin forces posing as locals had sparked a separatist war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

For the following eight years, Putin steadily strengthened his grip on the so-called “separatist republics” of eastern Ukraine, while consistently denying any direct involvement. The failure of the international community to hold Putin accountable for this shameless duplicity fuelled a sense of impunity in Moscow that set the stage for the largest European invasion since World War II.

In his February 2022 address announcing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin once again denied harboring any ambitions to annex additional Ukrainian lands. “It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory,” he stated. “We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” Just six months later, Putin demonstrated the true value of his word by solemnly announcing the annexation of four more Ukrainian provinces.

Significantly, the invading Russian army did not fully control any of the Ukrainian provinces claimed by Putin in September 2022. This created a degree of ambiguity regarding the exact geographical extent of Russia’s goals, with Kremlin officials typically limiting themselves to vague calls for Ukraine to recognize the “new territorial realities” created by the front lines of the invasion.

Putin’s new peace plan has now removed all doubt. Indeed, he took special care to clarify that he expects the Ukrainian military to withdraw completely from the four Ukrainian provinces in question, including unoccupied areas. Among other things, this would mean handing over the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, with a prewar population of more than seven hundred thousand, along with Kherson, which was the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by the Russians before being liberated in November 2022.

Ukraine would also have to voluntarily demilitarize, accept geopolitical neutrality, and submit to “denazification,” Kremlin code for the suppression of Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of a Russian imperial ideology. In other words, Putin is insisting Ukraine admit defeat and surrender.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

The terms offered by Putin confirm that he has no intention of reaching a sustainable peace with Ukraine. On the contrary, the Russian dictator evidently remains as committed as ever to his overriding war aim of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and erasing the Ukrainian nation. As if to underline the point, Putin accompanied his latest demands with a chilling warning that “the existence of Ukraine” depends on Kyiv’s readiness to accept his conditions.

In fact, there is even more at stake than the continued existence of the Ukrainian state. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of global security is currently being determined on the battlefields of Ukraine. If Putin’s invasion succeeds, it will signal the dawning of a new era marked by rising international insecurity, ballooning defense budgets, and increasingly frequent wars of aggression.

A victorious Russia would almost certainly remain at the forefront of this descent into lawlessness for many years to come. Throughout the past decade, Putin has steadily escalated his invasion of Ukraine while shifting his entire country onto a war footing. By this point, it should be painfully clear to all objective observers that he will not stop until he is stopped. Indeed, Putin has openly compared today’s war to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Peter the Great, and frequently speaks in terms of a sacred mission to “return historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are at least fifteen other countries beyond Ukraine that were once part of the Russian Empire and therefore meet Putin’s definition of “historically Russian.” All are now potential targets. While it is impossible to know exactly what Putin will do next if he defeats Ukraine, the idea that he will simply choose to stop is perhaps the most far-fetched scenario of all.

Nor will Putin be the only authoritarian ruler looking to embrace a new age of imperial aggression. China, Iran, and North Korea are all already providing the Russian war effort with varying degrees of support, and make no secret of their eagerness to overturn the existing world order. If Moscow achieves an historic victory in Ukraine, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang will also be emboldened, along with a whole host of fellow autocrats throughout the Global South.

The only way to avoid a geopolitical future shaped by rising insecurity and resurgent imperialism is by ensuring Russia loses in Ukraine. Putin’s recent bogus peace proposal is essentially a call for Kyiv’s capitulation and the absorption of Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. This is entirely in line with the policies of escalation he has pursued throughout the past decade, and reflects an imperial agenda that leaves no room for meaningful compromise.

The Russian dictator still clearly believes he can overwhelm Ukraine with brute force while intimidating the wider Western world into inaction. If he succeeds, the consequences for international security will be devastating. Ukraine’s leaders have already responded to Putin’s latest demands with characteristic defiance. Kyiv’s international partners must now go further and provide the military support to secure Ukrainian victory.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

FPV drones in Ukraine are changing modern warfare

Tomas Milasauskas, Liudvikas Jaškūnas — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 20:27:42 +0000

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is often referred to as the world’s first large-scale drone war. But what exactly does “drone war” mean in practical terms, and how is this war being waged?

Media coverage of the drone war often focuses on particular models such as the Shahed drones used by Russia to attack Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, or the Bayraktar drones that played an eye-catching role in Ukraine’s fight back during the initial stages of the invasion. However, behind these brands lies a much more complex and rapidly expanding drone ecosystem.

By far the most prevalent type of drone on the Ukrainian battlefield is the First Person View (FPV) drone—a type that our company sells in Ukraine and elsewhere. Despite their relatively low cost compared to other aerial platforms, FPV drones possess a number of capabilities that have resulted in a dramatic shift in our understanding of modern warfare. Given their navigation capabilities, these drones have become the preferred platform for mounting explosives and executing targeted strikes.

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Originally emerging from the realm of civilian hobby drone racing, FPV drones have robust motors and frames that are built to withstand the rigors of high-speed races and multiple crashes.

Relative to their fixed-wing cousins, copter-type drones have greater maneuvering capabilities, which, in the hands of skilled pilots, convert into precision targeting unique to FPV drones. It is not uncommon for pilots to fly their drones through the window of a building or into the open hatch of an armored vehicle, unleashing an explosion on exposed personnel inside. FPV drones are also well-suited for targeting specific equipment like optics, radars, and antennas mounted on the exteriors of armored vehicles.

FPV pilots in Ukraine do not normally operate from front-line trenches. Instead, they typically serve in specialized teams located around two to five kilometers away from the front line. This distance provides them with relative security from small arms and larger systems mounted on armored vehicles as well as from the indirect fire of mortars.

The nature of drone piloting equipment offers an additional layer of protection. Since everything is controlled remotely, only the antenna transmitting between the drone and operator needs to be exposed. The remaining equipment and the team can conduct their operations from the safety of a bunker or basement.

While hubs of drone operators are now recognized as high-value targets, in practice most attention is focused on blocking or destroying the drones themselves. This shift of lethal danger from personnel in forward positions to drones has accelerated the proliferation of FPV drone usage. It appeals to soldiers, who naturally seek to minimize the dangers of combat, and also appeals to Ukrainian and Russian commanders as they wage a war of attrition amid growing manpower shortages.

Eurasia Center events

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

The main feature that has made FPV drones such a key weapon in the Russian war on Ukraine is their relatively low cost, with prices for a single unit sometimes lower than five hundred US dollars. This affordability, coupled with performance and tactical versatility, helps to explain the ubiquity of FPV drones on the front lines of the war. For Ukraine, which has not always had access to predictable weapons supplies from its Western partners, the affordability of FPV drones has helped its military stay in the fight, despite being outgunned by Russia.

In technological terms, FPV drones are currently in the early stages of their development. Most components are still sourced from the civilian market, while many models offer only a relatively limited range of frequencies. This is significant, as jamming is considered the Achilles’ heel of FPV drones. Many skeptics argue that it won’t be long until jammers are employed everywhere, rendering radio controls useless. However, jammers have their own hardware limitations that can be difficult to overcome.

Creating signal interference relies on sending a stronger signal than the one it is aiming to jam. In other words, effective jamming capabilities require considerable electrical power and bulky hardware. This is why most infantry units can only operate with small jamming devices that create a limited protection bubble for short periods of time. Stronger jamming systems can be employed on armored vehicles, but the prevalence of tank “cope cages” and the recent appearance of “turtle tanks” hints that physical armor is still the go-to protection against FPV drone attacks.

Despite efforts to counter them with jamming technology, FPV drones have proven resilient and have managed to adapt effectively to electronic warfare measures. Ongoing innovations in areas such as customized frequencies, frequency-hopping, and automated flight patterns promise to further enhance their effectiveness.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought FPV drones to prominence as a component of modern militaries and it appears that they are here to stay. This can be seen in the way the Ukrainian and Russian armies are both incorporating this technology into existing military structures. Indeed, in early 2024, Ukraine launched a new branch of the country’s armed forces dedicated exclusively to drones.

There are few reasons to believe the role of FPV drones will diminish in the coming years. On the contrary, as technologies advance and military tactics evolve, FPV drones are likely to become even more prominent in the wars of the future. This new reality is already being digested by military planners and commanders around the world. As they look to assess how best to incorporate FPV drones into their own defense doctrines, they will be studying the significant shifts currently taking place on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Tomas Milasauskas is CEO of RSI Europe, a Lithuania-based remotely controlled systems manufacturer for the defense sector. Liudvikas Jaškūnas is head of marketing and communications at RSI Europe.

Turkey signed two major deals with Somalia. Will it be able to implement them?

Kiran Baez — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 16:56:08 +0000

On June 17, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara. It was the fourth high-level meeting between the two countries this year, and the pace of dialogue between Somalia and Turkey is set to increase, following two major agreements between Turkey and Somalia signed earlier this year—a comprehensive maritime and defense agreement signed in February and an oil and gas cooperation deal reached in March.

These agreements have drawn attention to Ankara’s presence in the Horn of Africa and build upon a long history of Turkish engagement in the region. They hold great potential for expanding the security and economic benefits of Turkey-Somalia cooperation, but implementing them will not be easy. Great-power competition over influence in Mogadishu, regional rivalries, security challenges, and a fractured Somali government will all pose significant challenges to these agreements and Turkey’s bid for a greater role in the Horn of Africa.

What’s the big deal?

On February 22, Ankara and Mogadishu signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishing the Turkish Armed Forces as a partner in Somalia’s maritime security and law enforcement for the next ten years. Per reports about the MOU, Turkey will reconstruct, equip, and train the Somali Navy while receiving 30 percent of the revenue from Somalia’s exclusive economic zone. Proponents say that the stability and security brought to Somalia’s seas outweigh the costs. Somalia loses $500 million dollars annually to illegal fishing, for example to Iranian and Chinese fishermen, while Somalia’s oil and gas reserves of up to thirty billion barrels remain largely untapped since civil war broke out in 1991. A brief period of stability has led oil and gas companies to cautiously return to Somalia. In 2019, ExxonMobil and Shell indicated a potential return to the country, and in 2022, Coastline Exploration struck a seven-block exploration deal, though an increase in fighting once again prevented any major steps forward. Shortly following this agreement with Turkey, Liberty Petroleum announced that it had secured three offshore blocks for exploration.

Shortly after reaching the maritime defense and security deal, Ankara and Mogadishu announced another MOU, establishing Turkey as a partner in Somalia’s exploration, appraisal, and extraction of petroleum blocks, with the possibility of Turkey taking over sales and distribution. Though the first agreement of its kind for Turkey, Ankara is increasingly factoring hydrocarbons into its diplomatic efforts, including in Libya.

Guns and roses

Turkey’s reaching out to Somalia has been in the making for nearly two decades, though then Turkish Prime Minister (and current president) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Somalia during a devastating famine in 2011 was the watershed moment. The first non-African head of state to visit Somalia in twenty years, Erdoğan toured refugee camps and hospitals, pledging aid and drawing international attention to the crisis. His visit was warmly received by the Somali people, many of whom felt abandoned by the global community.

In the years since Erdoğan’s visit, Turkey has integrated deeply into Somali affairs, in everything from its security to its garbage collection and wastewater treatment to its management of seaports and airports. According to Erdoğan, Turkey provided more than one billion dollars in aid to Somalia between 2011 and 2022. Though Turkey’s presence has not been entirely without controversy, evidence of its popularity is widespread, whether through popular fundraising efforts for Turkish earthquake relief in 2023 or in day-to-day life—“Istanbul” is now a common girl’s name in Somalia.

Turkey receives major attention for the aid it provides, especially considering that it is in the middle on the list of providers of official direct aid to Somalia. This is likely because of Turkey’s tendency to heavily brand its projects, its willingness to operate in dangerous areas of the country, and the close political ties between the two countries. The Turks often capitalize on shared cultural and religious ties to legitimize and optimize their operations, while the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (also known as the Diyanet) facilitates some projects.

At the heart of the Turkey-Somalia relationship is military cooperation, which began in 2015. In 2017, Turkey established its first African military base, Camp TURKSOM in Mogadishu, and it has reportedly trained up to sixteen thousand troops. Alongside the United States, Turkey has conducted drone strikes against the terrorist group al-Shabaab, with at least nineteen confirmed strikes since 2022. In April 2023, Ankara sold Bayraktar TB2 drones to Mogadishu as part of counterterrorism efforts (a sale for which the United Nations accused Ankara of violating an arms embargo). Turkey also plays an important role in training and arming the Haramcad paramilitary unit and Gorgor commando brigade— one of two major elite units in the Somali National Army (SNA), with the other being the Danab brigade, which is trained by the United States. In collaboration with the Danab brigade, the Gorgor has played an important role in combatting al-Shabaab, particularly in renewed fighting in 2021 and 2022.

Turkey turns southward

Ankara’s presence in Somalia is part of a Turkish push toward Africa that started in 1998, with the creation of the Africa Action Plan. By 2008, Turkey had been declared a strategic partner of the African Union and opened at least a dozen embassies across the continent. When Turkey made its successful bid to become a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2009, it was supported by fifty-one of the fifty-three African states. In 2013, Turkey became a member of the African Development Bank Group. Turkey has varying interests in Africa, including ideological motivations, economic and trade priorities, and a desire to build up Ankara’s own defense industries and capabilities. Now, Turkey has a large presence in the region in the areas of humanitarian aid and military cooperation. As of 2022, some thirty African states had signed security cooperation agreements with Turkey, nineteen of which included troop training.

The Horn of Africa is critical for Turkish interests because of its its geographical position, rich mineral resources, and development potential. The region has seen increasing great-power competition involving a diverse cast of characters including Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Russia, China, and the United States. Since 2001, at least eighteen foreign military bases have been constructed in the region, primarily for counterterrorism and counterpiracy operations.

Over the past two decades, Ankara has developed a complex web of economic and military ties with the region, including by leasing the Sudanese island of Suakin, selling drones to Ethiopia, and participating in a decades-long anti-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa under NATO’s Combined Task Force 151. In 2017, Djiboutian officials invited Turkey to establish a military base near the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait in an effort to promote freedom of navigation and regional stability. On February 20 this year, Djibouti and Turkey signed a military training cooperation agreement.

The Emirati angle

Turkey is far from the only power involved in Somalia. As recently as mid-February, Mogadishu signed an MOU with Washington to open five new military bases in the country and increase training for its Danab brigade. Qatar and the United Kingdom are also players in Somalia. Turkey’s primary competitor in Somalia, however, is the UAE, which has historically seen the region as critical to its strategic interests.

Flush with cash, the Emiratis have embarked on a campaign of infrastructure projects and security agreements across the region, including building major ports in Somaliland (an unrecognized republic in the north of Somalia that self-declared independence in 1991), Eritrea, and Djibouti. It also armed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Sudan and the Ethiopian government during conflicts in those countries. In November 2022, according to Middle East Eye, Somalia reportedly signed a secretive deal with the UAE to train ten thousand Somali troops and police officers in Egypt. However, frustration among officials with the terms of the agreement, as well as continued Emirati projects in Somaliland, have complicated the UAE-Somalia relationship. On January 1, Ethiopia (also close with the UAE) announced it had reached an MOU with Somaliland exchanging recognition for sea access and the lease of a military base. Following the two major Turkey-Somalia agreements of 2024, the Emiratis severely cut their support for the SNA, which included providing an additional $256 in monthly salary for the 14,400 soldiers trained by the UAE.

The Emirati factor carries two major risks for Turkish ambitions in Somalia. First, Abu Dhabi has played a critical role in the fight against al-Shabaab, including through air strikes. Manpower shortages have plagued the SNA for decades, an issue that Emirati coffers have helped alleviate. The withdrawal or reduction of Emirati support in the fight against terrorism will have a compounding effect as the African Union’s Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), abiding by a request from Somalia, plans to withdraw its forces by the end of 2024. The withdrawal of both ATMIS and the UAE risks Turkey becoming further burdened by the region’s fight against terrorist groups. Second, the UAE has faced several setbacks across the region as the number of players continues to grow, and its attempts to reinforce its position will create effects that will impact Turkey. The UAE is entering increasing competition with China in Djibouti, especially now that Djibouti’s government nationalized the Doraleh Deep Water Port, which was previously owned by an Emirati company; meanwhile, in Sudan, the Emirati-backed RSF has seen its first major setbacks in months with the loss of Omdurman to the Sudanese Armed Forces, who have purchased weapons from Iran. As the UAE seeks to reassert itself and reinforce its position in the region, it will likely double down on its already substantial investments in Puntland, Somaliland, and Ethiopia. Whether the emboldening of Somalia’s rivals and the geopolitical balancing in the Horn will have a stabilizing or destabilizing effect remains to be seen, but it will likely be closely watched by Turkey.

Known unknowns

Though Somali and Turkish officials maintain that the recent agreements are unrelated to the major deal between Somaliland and Ethiopia, the timing is difficult to ignore. The Somali cabinet labeled the Somaliland-Ethiopia MOU as a “blatant assault” on its sovereignty and said it was an example of Ethiopian “interference against the sovereignty of [Somalia].” Unsurprisingly, Somalilanders reacted similarly to the Turkey-Somalia agreements that followed. Though the regional backlash to the MOU may in part steer Ethiopia and Somalia to dissolve it, this is far from certain. It remains unknown if Turkey’s enforcement of Somali maritime security will extend to Somaliland waters, which Ankara recognizes as part of Somalia. In May, Somaliland’s foreign minister explicitly stated that Turkish naval vessels would not be welcome in its territorial waters. This issue will be particularly important if Ethiopia proceeds with its plans to build a naval facility in Somaliland. Despite a strong Turkish-Ethiopian relationship, the Turkish Navy supported joint Somalia-Egypt naval exercises days after the January 1 agreement was signed. It is also unclear how the Turkish Navy will interact with the Puntland Maritime Police Force, which has received funding support from the UAE. Though the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland does not claim total independence, it pulled recognition of the Somali federal government in March.

Equally uncertain is how Ankara will react should the Houthis attack a ship transiting through the Somali waters that it will be charged with protecting. Handcuffed by the group’s connection to the war in Gaza, Turkey has balanced a precarious relationship with the extremist group, quietly opposing them over the last seven years while refusing to label them a terrorist organization and shying away from joining the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian.

A winding path forward

It is uncertain how Turkey and Somalia will deliver on the major agreements and continue the upward trajectory in their bilateral relations. Turkey faces a complex and challenging Somali political landscape. Both MOUs were quickly ratified by the Somali parliament (members perhaps had little choice in the matter, according to one Somaliland-based researcher), though the deal is not without detractors. Beyond concerns over sovereignty, Mohamud is in need of an influential patron as he faces allegations of consolidating power. For Mohamud, Turkey may be the answer, as Turkey largely disregards Somalia’s domestic politics and offers near unconditional support for Villa Somalia, which has led some analysts to describe Turkey as an “all-weather friend.” Mohamud recently proposed a series of constitutional changes, including transitioning to a presidential system, arguing that it would combat clan politics and unite the country. The reforms have prompted protests and polarized the parliament. The Puntland region declared on March 31 that it would be withdrawing from the federal government until a new constitution was put in place. Days later, the Daily Somalia reported that Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni traveled to the UAE and Ethiopia.

Furthermore, Mohamud’s government lacks unity. The same day that the Liberty Petroleum deal was signed by Somali Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Abdirizak Omar Mohamed, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre expressed concerns and called for revoking the deal. Similarly, the Somali government lacks a clear strategy toward al-Shabaab. Following a successful first phase of “total war” in 2022, both battlefield and political gains have slowed, and al-Shabaab has struck back with a series of horrific attacks. Barre declared his support for peace talks with al-Shabaab in direct opposition to Mohamud, garnering public and private support from within a fractured cabinet.

Moreover, the recent battlefield gains by al-Shabaab undermine the legitimacy of Turkey’s military presence in the country. The concessions required for a peaceful settlement with the terrorist group may include ejecting Turkey’s military, the presence of which al-Shabaab has condemned harshly.

As Turkish officials and lawmakers consider ratification and implementation, they will no doubt look to the past decades of Turkish engagement with Somalia—but also the challenges that lay ahead. The difficulties posed by external influences, great-power competition, tumultuous domestic politics, widespread corruption, high costs, and continued conflict in Somalia will make Turkey’s enormous promises extremely difficult to fulfill. The future of these agreements and thus the future of Turkey’s relations with Somalia and position in the Horn of Africa, though built upon a strong foundation, remains to be seen.

Kiran Baez is a young global professional at the Atlantic Council Turkey program. Add him on LinkedIn.

The views expressed in TURKEYSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Charai in the National Interest: Assessing the G-7 Summit

Atlantic Council — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 17:24:12 +0000

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The view from Kyiv: Why Ukrainian NATO membership is in US interests

Alyona Getmanchuk — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 14:40:58 +0000

In his recent interview with TIME magazine, US President Joe Biden indicated that his skepticism about Ukrainian NATO membership is deep-rooted and goes far beyond any practical opposition to granting Kyiv an invitation to join the alliance while the current war with Russia is still ongoing. It would seem that President Biden does not regard Ukrainian NATO membership as a prerequisite for lasting peace in the region.

Unsurprisingly, the view in wartime Kyiv is strikingly different. Record numbers of Ukrainians now support NATO membership, which is widely seen as the best way to preserve the country’s sovereignty and prevent any future invasions. Crucially, many Ukrainians are also convinced that their country’s NATO accession would be in the national interests of the United States as well as Ukraine itself.

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There are a number of reasons to believe Ukrainian NATO accession would also be beneficial for the US. These range from military practicalities to potential strategic advantages and geopolitical gains.

First, the United States has an obvious and immediate interest in ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as this would allow the US to focus on other pressing domestic and foreign policy priorities. But it is equally clear that the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 will never truly end as long as the issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership remains undecided.

Second, the apparent reluctance of the United States to make a clear commitment regarding future Ukrainian NATO membership sends a dangerous signal to Putin. It encourages him to believe his policy of invading and occupying neighboring countries to prevent them from joining NATO is successful and should be continued.

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Third, Ukrainian NATO membership is the best way to protect the considerable US investment in Ukrainian security. The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in security assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion began more than two years ago. This investment can only be regarded as successful if Ukraine is secure from further Russian attack. At this stage, the only credible way to guarantee Ukrainian security is by providing the country with a road map to NATO membership.

Some critics of military aid to Ukraine have complained about so-called “blank checks” in support of the Ukrainian war effort. While this characterization of aid is misleading, it is worth underlining that NATO accession would likely be a far more economical way of safeguarding Ukraine’s future security than the regular financial support packages the country’s partners currently provide.

Fourth, as a NATO member, Ukraine would be a considerable asset. The Ukrainian military is large, combat-hardened, highly skilled, and boasts unrivaled experience in the realities of modern warfare. In other words, Ukraine’s army is ideally suited to become the core of NATO’s eastern flank. This would significantly enhance European security while reducing the current military burden on the United States, potentially freeing up US forces for deployment elsewhere.

Lastly, Russia’s imperial ambitions did not begin with Vladimir Putin and do not end in Ukraine. Nevertheless, inviting Ukraine to join NATO would represent a powerful blow to the imperial identity cherished by many ordinary Russians and members of the Kremlin elite. Indeed, granting Ukraine membership of the alliance is perhaps the only way to fully convince Russian society that neither the Soviet Union nor the Russian Empire will ever be restored in any form. This would represent a huge gain for the US and for the future of international security.

Alyona Getmanchuk is the founder and director of New Europe Center and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia’s Center.

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

Olivia Yanchik — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:17:53 +0000

A combination of Ukrainian ingenuity and Western-supplied long-range missiles is making the Russian occupation of Crimea increasingly untenable. The continued weakening of Russia’s position on the Crimean peninsula is a major blow to Kremlin prestige that also has potentially serious practical implications for the future of the war.

In recent weeks, long-awaited supplies of US missiles have allowed Ukraine to step up a campaign of air strikes against Russian air defense assets and other military targets throughout the occupied peninsula. This follows on from an earlier series of drone and missile attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which forced the bulk of Putin’s warships to retreat from Crimea to the relative safety of Novorossiysk in Russia (and the Caribbean).

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Reports of fresh Ukrainian air strikes on Russian military assets in Crimea are now an almost daily occurrence. On June 10, for example, Ukraine claimed to have struck three advanced Russian air defense systems. Additional high value targets have included Russian airfields, radars, command posts, and communications centers. The majority of recent attacks have been possible thanks to the delivery of ATACMS missiles from the US as part of the military aid bill that was finally passed by Congress in April following months of delays.

In addition to steadily depleting Russia’s defensive capacities, Ukraine also appears intent on isolating Crimea by targeting the Kremlin’s logistical connections to the occupied peninsula. According to Britain’s Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian air strikes in late May damaged two rail ferries on the Crimean side of the Kerch Strait, putting them temporarily out of service. This represented a significant blow as Moscow has grown reliant on these ferry services to resupply its army in Crimea following a series of Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Bridge connecting the peninsula to Russia.

Ukraine’s recent ferry service attack has reportedly forced Russia to resume the transportation of military supplies and fuel over the vulnerable Crimean Bridge. Moscow has sought to protect the bridge from possible attack by deploying a series of barges in addition to extensive existing defenses. However, the apparent ease with which Ukraine has been able to hit Russian air defenses and logistical hubs throughout Crimea has led some to suggest that the destruction of the Crimean Bridge may now only be a matter of time.

The Kremlin appears to be well aware of this vulnerability. For the past year, Russian engineers have been constructing a series of railway lines running from Russia itself through occupied regions of mainland Ukraine along the coast of the Sea of Azov to Crimea. This should help Moscow maintain connection with the peninsula and supply Russian forces in southern Ukraine, but the new railway routes will also serve as key targets for Ukrainian missiles and saboteurs.

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It is now evident that Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are placing Russian occupation forces in Crimea in a precarious position. By utilizing Western-provided cruise missiles and domestically produced naval drones, Ukraine has already succeeded in forcing most of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to withdraw from its home port of Sevastopol in Crimea. This has also restricted the ability of Russian warships to operate in the western Black Sea.

The next stage of this effort is now underway, with Ukraine methodically depleting Russian air defenses and exposing the entire peninsula to further attack. Ukraine is expected to receive the first F-16 fighter jets in the coming months, setting the stage for what is likely to be a broader air campaign against Russia’s extensive surviving military infrastructure throughout Crimea. With its air defenses decimated and supply lines under threat, the Russian army in Crimea may soon face the realization that its position is no longer sustainable.

Russia’s declining fortunes in Crimea represent a very personal humiliation for Vladimir Putin. The 2014 seizure of the peninsula marked the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion and is still widely regarded as the greatest single achievement of Putin’s entire reign. With this in mind, he is likely to resist calls to reduce the Russian military presence in Crimea unless absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it is already clear that Crimea is no longer the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” it once was. Instead, it is becoming a weak link in Russia’s invasion that Ukraine will continue to exploit.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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The Russian army has clearly failed to live up to its inflated prewar reputation in Ukraine, but it would nevertheless be reckless to underestimate Moscow’s military potential. Putin’s commanders have learned a series of important lessons since the start of the invasion in February 2022, and have acquired combat experience that no other major power can match. With a battle-hardened and rapidly modernizing army backed by a defense industry operating around the clock, Putin is now arguably in a stronger position relative to his slowly rearming Western adversaries than any Russian ruler since 1945. Victory in Ukraine would further widen this already alarming gap in military capabilities.

The Russian and Ukrainian armies are currently by far the largest and most formidable fighting forces in Europe. If Putin triumphs in Ukraine, he will control them both. While many Ukrainian soldiers would doubtless continue to wage a partisan war or seek to regroup abroad, a victorious Russia would look to rapidly conscript hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into military service, just as it has already done in areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control. In addition to a massive manpower boost, Russia would also take possession of Ukraine’s extensive military equipment stores, ranging from stockpiles of artillery shells and attack drones to Western-supplied tanks and missile systems.

Control over Ukraine would allow Russia to reintegrate the vast Ukrainian military-industrial complex that played such a central role in arming the Red Army during the Cold War. For much of the Soviet era, Ukraine produced a large proportion of the USSR’s missiles, tanks, aircraft, and warships. This colossal industrial inheritance was neglected during the first three decades of Ukrainian independence and fell into a state of disrepair, but a Russian occupation administration or Kremlin-loyal puppet regime in Kyiv would likely prioritize the revival of military production. This increased output would allow Russia to rapidly recover from the punishing losses of the Ukrainian campaign, while also enabling Moscow to overcome many of the obstacles created by Western sanctions.

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Economically, the conquest of Ukraine would significantly improve Russia’s financial position and strengthen Moscow’s ability to shape world affairs. The Kremlin would acquire Ukraine’s sizable untapped energy reserves along with potentially trillions of dollars in mineral assets. Meanwhile, the famed Ukrainian breadbasket would enable Russia to establish itself virtually overnight as the dominant force on international agricultural markets. Putin has already demonstrated his readiness to weaponize global food security by blockading Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Control over the Ukrainian farming industry would present the Kremlin with powerful new tools to reward allies and punish opponents.

Many in the Global South would not wait to be bribed with grain shipments or coerced by the threat of famine. Instead, they would readily recognize Russian victory in Ukraine as a major geopolitical turning point and would queue up in Moscow to pay their respects. The emphasis on diplomatic neutrality that is currently evident in much of Asia, Africa, and beyond, would be replaced by a scramble to strengthen ties with the Kremlin. Countries throughout the Global South would begin to ship arms and other military supplies to Moscow, while the West’s already limited ability to impose sanctions on Russia would become hopelessly compromised. Commentators everywhere would soon be trumpeting the dawn of a new post-Western era in international affairs.

Where would a strengthened and emboldened Putin be most likely to strike next? The Kremlin dictator has made clear that he sees the current war as an imperial quest to return “historically Russian lands.” Beyond Ukraine, there are more than a dozen other countries including Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, and Moldova that were once part of the Russian Empire and therefore meet Putin’s definition of “historically Russian.” All would be potential targets. During the build-up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late 2021, Putin underlined the scale of his ambition by calling on NATO to retreat to the borders of the former Warsaw Pact. It seems reasonable to assume that success in Ukraine will only make him more ambitious.

There is certainly little to indicate that Putin is in any way intimidated by the West. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Russian ruler has proven so skilled at intimidating his enemies that almost two-and-a-half years into the largest European invasion since World War II, Kyiv’s partners remain preoccupied with avoiding escalation and continue to impose absurd restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. This escalation management is the appeasement of the twenty-first century, and risks inviting the same tragic consequences.

If Russia does expand the war further, the one thing Western leaders cannot do is claim they were not warned. Putin has placed the whole of Russian society on a war footing and is openly preparing his entire country for a protracted struggle against the West. The current invasion is an important part of this struggle, but it is only the beginning. Russian victory in Ukraine would set the stage for even bolder acts of international aggression. It would supercharge Putin’s war machine and radically increase the cost of stopping him. The only way to avoid this disastrous outcome is by making sure the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends in defeat.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Rudder mentioned in international media on Taiwan-US Defense Industry Forum

ylee — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 19:36:06 +0000

This week, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Steven R. Rudder was mentioned in a South China Morning Post article and pieces by Focus Taiwan, China Daily, the Taipei Times, and Taiwan News regarding his participation in the Taiwan-US Defense Industry Forum, where he engaged in discussions regarding Taiwan’s procurement requirements for advanced defense technologies.

Fellow

Steven R. Rudder

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Indo-Pacific Maritime Security

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Vladimir Putin just tacitly admitted Crimea is not really part of Russia

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:01:50 +0000

Ukraine achieved a major diplomatic breakthrough last week, securing the green light from key allies for strikes inside Russia using Western weapons. The Russian reaction to this landmark news has bordered on the hysterical, with a host of Kremlin officials and propagandists denouncing the West and vowing terrible revenge.

Predictably, Vladimir Putin led the way, issuing yet more of the thinly-veiled nuclear threats that have become his trademark. Speaking in Tashkent, Putin warned European leaders of “serious consequences,” before reminding them of their own vulnerability. “They should keep in mind that theirs are small and densely populated countries, which is a factor to reckon with before they start talking about striking deep into Russian territory,” he commented.

Close Putin ally and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s response featured an even more explicit nuclear threat. Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said it would be a “fatal mistake” for Western leaders to believe Russia was not ready to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or individual NATO member states. “This is, alas, not an attempt at intimidation or a nuclear bluff,” he declared.

Russia’s use of nuclear blackmail is no longer particularly surprising, of course. Since the very first days of the Ukraine invasion, Putin has engaged in frequent bouts of nuclear saber-rattling as part of a broader Russian effort to establish so-called red lines and undermine Western support for Ukraine. Nevertheless, this latest example of nuclear bluster is worthy of closer attention as it inadvertently provides revealing insights into the political realities behind Putin’s lofty imperial rhetoric of conquest and annexation.

With his chilling references to “small and densely populated countries,” Putin clearly hoped to intimidate his opponents and signal that the use of Western weapons on Russian territory is a major red line for the Kremlin. But according to Russia’s own logic, this particular red line has already been crossed on hundreds of occasions. Since 2022, Ukraine has routinely used Western weapons throughout the occupied Ukrainian regions that Putin says are now part of Russia, without triggering any discernible escalation from Moscow. In Putin’s new Russian Empire, it would seem, some places are more Russian than others.

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Officially, at least, there is no ambiguity in Moscow over the status of the Ukrainian regions claimed by the Kremlin. According to the Russian Constitution, Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson provinces along with the Crimean peninsula are now all part of the Russian Federation. Russia proclaimed the “return” of Crimea in March 2014, just a few weeks after the lightning military takeover of the peninsula that marked the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. More recently, Putin announced the “annexation” of four more Ukrainian provinces in a lavish September 2022 Kremlin ceremony.

Technically speaking, the five Ukrainian provinces subject to unilateral Russian “annexation” should all now enjoy the same protections as the rest of Putin’s realm. In practice, however, it has long been apparent that Moscow has no intention of expanding its nuclear umbrella to cover these regions, or of even attempting to impose its red lines regarding the use of Western weapons.

The Battle of Kherson provides a particularly vivid demonstration of the credibility gap between Russian rhetoric and Russian reality. The only regional capital captured during the entire Russian invasion, Kherson was liberated in November 2022, less than two months after Putin had declared it to be “Russian forever.” Rather than reach for his nuclear button, Putin responded to this embarrassing setback by ordering his defeated troops to quietly withdraw across the Dnipro River.

The evolving Battle of Crimea is perhaps even more revealing. For over ten years, Putin has insisted the occupied Ukrainian peninsula is now part of Russia, and has rejected all attempts to discuss its status. During this period, the seizure of Crimea has emerged as arguably the most important single element in modern Russia’s national narrative; it has come to be seen as the greatest achievement of Putin’s entire reign, and is widely regarded as a symbol of the country’s return to the top table of international affairs. This official Russian reverence for Crimea initially persuaded many in the West to view the peninsula as off-limits, but failed to deter Ukraine.

Since the early months of the war, Ukraine has been attacking Russian forces in Crimea with every available weapon, including those provided by the country’s Western allies. Western-supplied missiles have played a central role in the Battle of Crimea, enabling Ukraine to methodically deplete Russian air defenses throughout the peninsula and sink numerous Russian warships. The most eye-catching attack of all came in September 2023, when Ukraine used Western cruise missiles to bomb and partially destroy the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. If Kherson was an embarrassment for Putin, this was a very personal humiliation. Crucially, it did not lead to World War III. Instead, Putin withdrew most of his remaining warships from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

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The obvious inconsistency in the Kremlin’s public position regarding attacks on Russian soil has a number of practical implications for the further conduct of the war. It highlights the flexibility of Russia’s red lines, and strengthens perceptions that Moscow is primarily seeking to exploit the West’s own fear of escalation rather than establish any genuine boundaries.

Clearly, no responsible Western leader can afford to completely disregard the threat of nuclear war. At the same time, it is increasingly apparent that Russia’s relentless nuclear saber-rattling is losing its potency. By engaging in regular nuclear threats that never lead to action, the Kremlin has weakened the entire concept of nuclear deterrence and left Russia looking toothless. Based on the experience of the past two years, it now seems safe to conclude that while carpet-bombing the Kremlin might force Putin into some kind of drastic response, targeted attacks on Russian military bases and firing positions across the border from Ukraine are highly unlikely to fuel any kind of major escalation.

The Kremlin’s obvious reluctance to treat “annexed” regions of Ukraine as fully Russian directly contradicts Moscow’s own efforts to portray the occupation of Ukrainian lands as irreversible. While Putin likes to compare himself to Peter the Great and boast of “returning historically Russian lands,” he is evidently in no hurry to grant his Ukrainian “conquests” the kind of unequivocal security commitments that are the ultimate marker of sovereignty. Indeed, after more than a decade, the hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who have been shipped to occupied Crimea since 2014 will no doubt be wondering how much longer they must wait before the Kremlin finally considers them worthy of protection.

Far from being set in stone, Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine are largely opportunist and will expand or contract based on the military situation. Putin and his colleagues often call on Ukraine to accept the “new territorial realities” created by the current front lines of the war, but their actions send an unmistakable signal that the future of the “annexed” Ukrainian regions is still very much up for debate. Meanwhile, the multiple retreats from “historically Russian land” conducted by Putin’s invading army since 2022 suggest the chances of a nuclear apocalypse have been wildly exaggerated. This should help Kyiv’s Western partners overcome their self-defeating fear of escalation, and encourage them to finally provide Ukraine with the tools, along with the free hand, to finish the job of defeating Russia.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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If the West wants a sustainable peace it must commit to Ukrainian victory

Hanna Hopko, Andrius Kubilius — Thu, 30 May 2024 21:01:22 +0000

In the coming weeks, the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, the G7 Summit in Italy, the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, and the jubilee NATO Summit in Washington DC will all offer opportunities for the international community to reinforce its support for Ukraine. These high-profile events should also serve as a chance to take stock. With no end in sight to Russia’s genocidal invasion, Kyiv’s Western partners must define the endgame of their support for Ukraine. Is it Ukrainian victory or merely Ukrainian survival?

Why does the West not have a coherent victory plan? How long can Ukraine be expected to sustain the current war effort if the country only receives sufficient military aid to survive? Is the latest US aid package enough to secure Ukrainian victory? Is Europe doing enough to enforce sanctions, confiscate Russian assets, and supply advanced weapons systems like Taurus missiles? These are just some of the key questions Ukraine’s partners should be asking themselves in the coming weeks.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Putin’s Russia poses a direct threat to the global security system and to a sustainable peace in Europe. The outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine will define the future security framework on the European continent for decades to come. If the West provides Ukraine with the support it needs to win the war, this victory will secure peace not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe. Russian defeat could also spark a political transformation inside Russia and help undermine the country’s aggressive imperial ambitions.

The consequences of Russian success in Ukraine would be equally far-reaching. If the West continues to demonstrate weakness in Ukraine and supports calls for some kind of ceasefire or negotiated settlement, Russia will claim an historic victory and will become even more internationally aggressive. This aggression will not be limited to Ukraine, and will be targeted against the whole Western world.

Nor will the Kremlin be acting alone. On the contrary, Russian victory over the West in Ukraine would embolden the Alliance of Autocracies that has emerged in recent years, bringing together Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. While further Russian aggression is likely to focus on Europe, Putin’s fellow autocrats will be encouraged to embrace their own expansionist agendas elsewhere.

This is why the international community needs to accept that only Ukrainian victory can open the door to a sustainable peace, both for Ukraine and the wider world. Any attempt to reach a compromise peace agreement with Putin would not only hand Russia victory and allow Moscow to continue occupying entire regions of Ukraine; it would also be a dangerous repetition of the 1938 Munich Conference, which had such tragic consequences for the entire international community. The British and French leaders who agreed to hand Hitler part of Czechoslovakia in Munich also hoped they were securing peace. Instead, they were setting the stage for World War II. Europe cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

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At present, the West appears to be split into two main camps over the issue of how to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One camp recognizes the importance of Ukrainian victory for European security, and sees Russian defeat as its clear goal. These countries are committed to supporting the Ukrainian war effort and refuse to rule out sending troops to defend Ukraine if necessary.

The other camp favors a negotiated settlement and typically frames this readiness to compromise with the Kremlin as a desire for peace. Such posturing is intellectually dishonest. After all, nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians themselves. However, Ukrainians understand that peace cannot be secured by offering territorial concessions to the Putin regime that would abandon millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of permanent Russian occupation. They know that accepting a ceasefire without victory would make it impossible to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.

Crucially, Ukrainians also recognize that unless Putin is defeated, he will inevitably go further. Encouraged by the impunity of a ceasefire agreement, Russia would use any pause in hostilities to rearm and prepare for the next phase of its war against Ukraine and the West. This would create dangers similar to the threat faced by the Allies during World War II, when Churchill and Roosevelt warned against a premature peace and instead declared the goal of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. Today’s Western leaders must now recognize that offering Putin a ceasefire will not bring about a lasting peace. Instead, it will pave the way for more war.

Future Western support for Ukraine must be built around a clear and unambiguous commitment to Ukrainian victory. This is currently missing. When Western leaders and policymakers gather in the coming weeks, the need to work toward a Ukrainian victory should be at the very top of the agenda. Meanwhile, Ukrainians must continue to explain the difference between a temporary ceasefire and a lasting peace. In 2023, Ukrainian civil society experts did their part by developing their own vision, which was outlined in the Sustainable Peace Manifesto, describing the importance of bringing Russia to justice and providing Ukraine with unambiguous security guarantees.

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After more than ten years of Russian military aggression against Ukraine, it is time for Kyiv’s partners to learn the lessons of this war and avoid falling into further Russian traps. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, it did so under a veil of deniability using so-called “little green men,” or Russian soldiers without insignia. A decade later, Russia is now openly waging the largest European invasion since World War II, and is supported by an alliance of fellow tyrannies who share the Kremlin’s goal of destroying the rules-based international order. Russia is now attacking Ukraine with Iranian drones and North Korean missiles, while receiving military supplies and vital economic support from China. If the West is unable to counter this growing threat, it will forfeit its position at the heart of the international security architecture and be replaced by the rising authoritarian powers.

In 2014, Western leaders were naive enough to expect a diplomatic solution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It should now be painfully obvious that such hopes were unrealistic. Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine engaged in more than 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia, but this failed to prevent the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Even while talks continued, Russia made its genocidal intentions clear with relentless propaganda denying the existence of the Ukrainian nation and dehumanizing Ukrainians. This genocidal rhetoric has since been implemented in practice by Putin’s invading army, with well-documented massacres in places like Bucha and Izium, mass abductions and forced deportations, and the eradication of all symbols of Ukrainian national identity in areas under Russian occupation. While the international community sees what is happening in Ukraine, most remain reluctant to accuse Russia of genocide as this would oblige them to act. But turning a blind eye cannot change the fact that we are witnessing a genocide in the center of twenty-first century Europe.

Everybody understands what is needed for Ukraine victory. They know how much Western military assistance is required, and exactly which weapons should be delivered. Everybody knows what sanctions, tribunals, and security agreements are necessary in order to establish a sustainable peace. At the same time, the leaders of the democratic world have yet to address why they have so far shied away from policies that could facilitate Ukrainian victory. The answer is very simple: Western leaders are still heavily influenced by the twin fears of a possible Russian escalation and a potential Russian collapse. In other words, they are unable to commit fully to Ukrainian victory because they are afraid of Russian defeat. This is now the greatest single obstacle to a sustainable peace in Europe.

Perhaps the best advice for Ukraine’s Western partners comes from Pope John Paul II, who said “be not afraid” as he led the fight for freedom and democracy in Central Europe during the 1980s. Europe must now overcome its fears once again if it is to safeguard the freedoms that define the continent. Sustainable peace cannot be achieved at the expense of justice. European security will remain elusive if Putin is allowed to gain from his aggression and consolidate his genocidal occupation of Ukrainian lands.

With the Russian invasion now in its third year, Ukraine’s partners must finally acknowledge that European security depends on Ukrainian victory. The sooner they develop and implement a strategy to achieve this victory, the more lives will be saved. Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win.

Hanna Hopko is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and head of the ANTS Network. Andrius Kubilius is a member of the European Parliament, former Prime Minister of Lithuania, and chair of the United for Ukraine global parliamentary network.

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The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is the latest international organization to voice its support for an end to restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons. Lawmakers from all 32 NATO states adopted a declaration on May 27 urging alliance members to allow strikes on military targets inside Russia. “Ukraine can only defend itself if it can attack Russia’s supply lines and Russian bases of operation. It is time to recognize this reality and let Ukraine do what it must,” stated NATO Parliamentary Assembly President Michal Szczerba.

This declaration echoed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenburg’s May 24 interview with Britain’s The Economist calling on NATO allies to end their prohibition on the use of Western weapons against Russian targets. “The time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions they have put on the use of weapons they have donated to Ukraine,” commented Stoltenberg. “Especially now when a lot of the fighting is going on in Kharkiv, close to the border, to deny Ukraine the possibility of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very hard for them to defend themselves.”

A number of senior Western officials have also recently backed an end to restrictions. During an early May visit to Kyiv, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced that Ukraine had the “right” to use British-supplied weapons for attacks inside Russia. Speaking in Germany on May 27, French President Emmanuel Macron noted that Ukraine was being attacked from Russia. “We must allow them to take out the military sites the missiles are fired from,” he commented. The following day, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said the present ban was forcing Ukraine to fight “with one hand tied behind its back” and argued that lifting restrictions “should not be subject to debate.”

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Not everyone is convinced. For now, the Biden administration remains unwilling to revise its position limiting the use of US weapons. Meanwhile, a number of European countries including Germany and Italy have also called for caution. This reluctance to escalate the existing confrontation with Russia was on display in Brussels on Tuesday, when Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced plans to provide Ukraine with thirty F-16 fighter jets, but informed visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the planes were not to be used inside Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to mounting talk of an end to Western restrictions on attacks inside Russia by warning of “serious consequences” and hinting at a possible nuclear response. “If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons,” he commented in Tashkent this week. “Do they want a global conflict?”

Putin’s nuclear threats are nothing new, of course. Since the start of the Ukraine invasion, he has made numerous thinly-veiled references to nuclear escalation as part of efforts to intimidate the West and reduce the flow of weapons to Ukraine. These nuclear blackmail tactics have proved highly effective, encouraging Western leaders to embrace policies of escalation management that have significantly undermined the international response to Russia’s invasion.

The Kremlin dictator is now clearly hoping the same approach can deter the US and other key allies from giving Ukraine the green light to strike Russia using Western weapons. If he succeeds in this latest act of nuclear intimidation, it will bring Russian victory in Ukraine closer and set a dangerous precedent for the future of international security.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

This has caused levels of damage far beyond anything witnessed during previous Russian air offensives. Ukraine’s largest private power producer, DTEK, confirmed in early May that more than ninety percent of its thermal power plants had been destroyed. Meanwhile, the news from state-owned power generator Centrenergo was even grimmer, with all coal-fired units wrecked by Russian bombardment.

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For the time being, the situation is not critical. With the days currently getting longer and Ukraine basking in glorious spring sunshine, power consumption remains relatively low and can mostly be covered by the country’s remaining nuclear and renewable generation. Nevertheless, when electricity demand spikes during evening hours or when the weather turns cloudy, Ukraine is already facing shortfalls that cannot be entirely met with imports from neighboring EU markets.

In order to balance the power grid, Ukraine’s transmission system operator, Ukrenergo, has introduced a schedule of rolling power cuts that leave households and industrial consumers without access to electricity for hours on end. This is impacting the production capacity of the Ukrainian defense industry, which is expanding rapidly in a bid to reduce the country’s reliance on faltering Western supplies of weapons.

Ukraine’s current electricity shortages are relatively straightforward compared to the far more serious challenges posed by the rapidly approaching winter season. While the sun is now shining in Ukraine, within five months the country will enter a half-year period of freezing temperatures and long, dark nights with much of its energy generation capacity wrecked and demand for electricity likely to double. This is a recipe for potential humanitarian catastrophe that requires urgent international attention.

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Ukraine’s heroic energy engineers are currently hard at work mending torn transmission lines, rebuilding power plants, and attempting to fix damaged transformers. In many cases, these repairs need to be carried out from scratch. Power companies are appealing to EU countries to donate old kit from decommissioned stations or share spare stocks ahead of the coming winter season. Efforts are also underway to increase border capacity with EU countries by around one-third in the coming months.

If Ukrainian power producers succeed in restoring a large portion of damaged thermal capacity, the country will be relatively well equipped to cope with the seasonal surge in demand once winter arrives. Some small-scale generation capacity using natural gas may also be added to the system, helping to bring more flexibility during periods of peak consumption.

However, it is crucial to underline that this is a highly optimistic scenario. Without significantly enhanced air defenses, the danger of fresh Russian air strikes will remain. Any energy infrastructure repaired between now and October may well be destroyed once again on the eve of the first big winter chill.

A number of alternative solutions to Ukraine’s energy sector crisis have been pitched so far. These include building decentralized electricity clusters around urban areas that would be less vulnerable to Russian bombardment. Other proposals depend on the possibility of expanding interconnection capacity with EU countries and increasing production specifically for export to Ukraine. While such steps could play a vital role in enabling Ukraine to survive the coming winter season, they would likely require complex political negotiations.

The most immediate challenge facing Ukraine is defending the country’s remaining power grid and preventing Russia from destroying repaired facilities. This should be the top priority for all of Ukraine’s partners. While recovery and investment conferences offer hope for the future, Ukraine desperately needs additional air defenses to keep the lights on right now. If this does not happen, millions of Ukrainians will face the prospect of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation as the winter season draws closer.

Dr. Aura Sabadus is a senior energy journalist who writes about Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Ukraine for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider. Her views are her own.

Ukraine’s Western allies should fear Russian victory not Russian defeat

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 21 May 2024 21:33:07 +0000

Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Western military support for Ukraine has been plagued by endless delays, restrictions, and half-measures. This underwhelming response has typically been blamed on concerns over possible Russian retaliation and the desire to avoid a wider war. In reality, however, some Western leaders may also be motivated by perceptions of Russian weakness rather than fear of Russian strength.

This was the argument set out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week as he bemoaned the inadequate Western reaction to Russia’s invasion. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said he believes Ukraine’s partners “are afraid of Russia losing the war” because this would lead to “unpredictable geopolitical consequences.”

Zelenskyy’s comments are not entirely new, of course. There have long been suggestions that the West’s hesitant approach to aiding Ukraine reflects worries that a Russian defeat could lead to the fall of the Putin regime. Some have even speculated that the Russian Federation itself would be unlikely to survive, and would instead break up into a number of new states, in a continuation of the process that began in 1991.

It is easy enough to imagine why Western policymakers might be alarmed by the prospect of a new Russian collapse. Indeed, the Western response to the disintegration of the USSR was equally cautious, with US President George H. W. Bush traveling to Ukraine on the eve of the country’s declaration of independence in August 1991 to deliver his infamous “Chicken Kiev speech” warning against “suicidal nationalism.”

President Bush was far from alone in prioritizing geopolitical stability over the statehood aspirations of Ukraine and the USSR’s other captive nations. One year earlier, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had visited Ukraine and offered a similarly skeptical view of the country’s independence struggle. Bush and Thatcher were primarily concerned with the fate of the Soviet Union’s colossal war machine and vast nuclear arsenal. Allowing this to be redistributed among a collection of newly independent states seemed the height of recklessness. So rather than hasten the fall of the Soviet Empire, they sought to prevent or at least manage the process.

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These same concerns are now hampering support for Ukraine as it fights against Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reverse the verdict of 1991. But is today’s Russia really at risk of collapse?

The Wagner mutiny of June 2023 would certainly suggest that Putin’s grip on the country is far more fragile than the Kremlin would like us to believe. While the mutiny was a short-lived affair, it was nevertheless revealing that rebellious troops were able to seize control of one of Russia’s largest cities without encountering opposition. Equally noteworthy was the absence of establishment figures rushing to rally around the throne. At the same time, the demands of the Wagner rebels did not amount to regime change, never mind anything that might constitute a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity. On the contrary, they sought a stronger Russia with more effective wartime leadership.

This is not to say that the break-up of the Russian Federation is impossible, of course. The invasion of Ukraine has underlined Russia’s status as the last of the great European empires, and has sparked a long overdue debate over the need for decolonization. However, talk of an impending collapse may be wishful thinking. While Russia has a history of unraveling in sudden and dramatic fashion, there is currently little evidence of serious independence movements in any of the country’s ethnic minority republics.

Rather than sparking the next stage in Russia’s long retreat from empire, defeat in Ukraine would be far more likely to bring about the fall of the Putin regime and usher in a period of national reflection and reform. This has been the case following numerous other notable Russian military defeats. After losing the Crimean War in the middle of the nineteenth century, Russia abandoned serfdom. Defeat to Japan in 1905 led to a brief flirtation with parliamentary democracy.

Meanwhile, the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s fueled public demands for reform that helped end the Cold War. If the current invasion also ends in defeat, there is every reason to believe Russia will survive intact. After all, while a retreat from Ukraine would be deeply wounding for Russian national pride, it would hardly pose an existential threat to Russia itself.

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Rather than scaring themselves into self-deterrence with nightmare scenarios of future Russian collapse, Western leaders should be laser-focused on the far more immediate dangers posed by Russian victory. After a series of initial setbacks, the Russian army has now regained the initiative in Ukraine and is advancing. Putin is more confident than ever and is clearly preparing his entire country to wage a long war of attrition. Unless the West dramatically increases its military support for Ukraine, there is every chance he will succeed.

If Putin achieves victory in Ukraine, he will almost certainly go further. The Kremlin dictator is already boasting of his Ukrainian “conquests” and comparing himself to all-conquering eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great. At the beginning the war, Putin had sought to frame the invasion as a defensive measure by blaming it on NATO expansion and imaginary “Ukrainian Nazis.” As his battlefield fortunes have improved, he has begun to talk openly of reclaiming “historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are currently at least a dozen other countries beyond Ukraine that could also fit Putin’s definition of “historically Russian lands.” The list of potential targets includes Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the whole of Central Asia. None of these countries can feel safe. Putin’s entire reign has been defined by his desire to reestablish Russia as a Great Power and end the era of Western domination. If he achieves victory in Ukraine, it is ludicrous to suggest he will simply stop.

Some commentators are inclined to downplay the risk of further invasions by pointing to the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine and claiming that Russia is in no position to engage in further military adventures. Unfortunately, such arguments fail to take into account the impact of Russian success in Ukraine. A Russian victory would transform the geopolitical climate, leading to a surge in international support for the Kremlin and the demoralization of the West. Countries throughout the Global South would abandon neutrality and rush to foster closer ties with Moscow.

In material terms, the Russian conquest of Ukraine would have even more profound consequences for European security. Putin already commands Europe’s largest army. With Ukraine subjugated, he would also have control over Europe’s second-largest army, along with Ukraine’s long neglected but rapidly reviving military-industrial capabilities. Possession of Ukraine’s fabled black earth would make Russia the dominant power on global agricultural markets, providing Putin with a formidable tool to bribe and blackmail the international community.

Even if a victorious Russia did not immediately embark on new conquests, every government in Europe would be obliged to radically increase defense spending. Many are just starting to rearm now in reaction to the Russian war against Ukraine. Expenditures could soon rise far beyond the current cost of arming Ukraine. There would also be a very real danger of a new nuclear arms race. Given the evident effectiveness of Putin’s naked nuclear blackmail in deterring the West from aiding Ukraine, it would be entirely logical for other nations to conclude that they will only be truly safe with a nuclear deterrent of their own.

The international repercussions of a Russian victory in Ukraine would be equally disastrous. Autocrats around the world would view Putin’s triumph as a sign of unprecedented Western weakness and an open invitation to pursue their own expansionist agendas. The period of relative peace and progress that followed the end of the Cold War would be replaced by a new era of international instability and insecurity.

None of this is inevitable. Russia can still be defeated in Ukraine if the West takes the decisive step of committing itself to Ukrainian victory. This means supplying Ukraine with sufficient weapons to not only defend itself but to actually defeat Russia. Crucially, it means ending absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons and allowing strikes on legitimate military targets inside Russia. And it means providing Ukraine with the kind of guaranteed long-term military support that will convince Putin his hopes of outlasting the West are futile.

Confronting the Kremlin effectively will require considerable political will and courage. Russia will inevitably respond to any hardening of Western resolve by escalating its nuclear intimidation tactics, but the usefulness of nuclear saber-rattling diminishes when Western governments don’t allow such threats to cloud their strategic calculus.

It is now painfully obvious that the hesitancy and indecisiveness of the past two years have not succeeded in appeasing Putin or reducing the challenge posed by a resurgent Russia. Instead, the West is now facing the very real prospect of a defeat that would have catastrophic consequences for the future of international security. In order to avert disaster, Putin must lose in Ukraine. Any worries about the future of the Russian Federation will have to wait until this far more urgent threat has been addressed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 14 May 2024 13:08:20 +0000

Russia launched a cross-border offensive into northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on May 10, opening a new front in its ongoing invasion. The attack had been widely anticipated, but the apparent ease with which Russian forces were able to penetrate the Ukrainian border sparked considerable alarm and allegations of security blunders.

The debate over Ukraine’s apparent failure to secure the border overlooks the fact that fortifications are typically located some 15 to 20 kilometers behind forward positions. Nevertheless, the renewed presence of Russian troops in northern Ukraine marks a significant escalation in the war.

During the first five days of the offensive, Russia has been able to establish two separate bridgeheads on Ukrainian territory and advance between five and seven kilometers into the country. These modest gains reflect the relatively small numbers of Russian troops involved in the initial incursion. However, that may change in the coming days as the Kremlin has concentrated approximately 30,000 to 35,000 soldiers across the border and continues to reinforce the ongoing offensive.

Ukrainian officials had earlier predicted the start of Russian offensive operations in the Kharkiv region toward the end of May or in early June. The recent US decision to grant Ukraine a major new aid package may have convinced the Kremlin to attack earlier than planned in order to exploit the remaining window of opportunity before fresh deliveries of US weapons reach the front lines.

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At this point, Russia’s immediate military goals look to be rather limited, as can be seen from the numbers of troops involved. The initial objective may be the establishment of a buffer zone along the Ukrainian border in the Kharkiv region. This is something Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin leaders have spoken about repeatedly in recent months. If Russian forces do manage to advance further and establish a foothold around 15 kilometers inside northern Ukraine, this would place Kharkiv itself within range of Russian artillery.

Ukraine’s former capital and second-largest city with a prewar population of more than one and a half million, Kharkiv has been subjected to intensive Russian bombing since the beginning of 2024. The city’s power plants were destroyed in March, while residential districts are frequently subjected to missile, drone, and glide bomb attacks. There are now fears that Russian artillery could take this campaign of destruction to the next level. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov has repeatedly warned that his city risks becoming a “second Aleppo,” a reference to the Syrian city reduced to rubble almost a decade ago following relentless bombardment by Russian and Syrian forces.

Russia’s end goal appears to be the depopulation of Kharkiv. Moscow aims to make the city unlivable and force the vast majority of its over one million residents to flee. By emptying Kharkiv of its civilian population, the Kremlin hopes to create the conditions for the city’s capture. However, this would require far more troops than Russia currently has available in the region.

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While many observers assume Kharkiv remains Russia’s primary objective, the new offensive may actually be an attempt to destabilize Ukraine’s broader defenses. By opening up a new front in the north of the country, Russia creates dilemmas for Ukrainian commanders and forces them to divert key units that are currently holding the front line in the east of the country.

The present military situation is rapidly evolving and extremely challenging for Ukraine, but it is not yet critical. Indeed, given the clear battlefield advantages enjoyed by defensive forces since the start of the war more than two years ago, the Ukrainian military theoretically has every chance of preventing any major breakthroughs and should also be able to inflict significant losses on advancing Russian forces. However, Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself are currently being severely hampered by an inability to strike Russian targets across the border.

Throughout the war, most of Ukraine’s international partners have insisted that the weapons they provide only be used on Ukrainian territory. These restrictions contradict all military logic and have created uniquely favorable conditions for Russia, which is able to concentrate troops close to the Ukrainian border and prepare to attack without fear of being targeted. Unless Ukraine is granted the right to hit military targets inside Russia, it will be extremely difficult to defeat the current offensive or prevent more cross-border attacks similar the recently opened front in the Kharkiv region.

Russia’s new Kharkiv offensive is an attempt by the Kremlin to capitalize on considerable advantages in both manpower and firepower. Despite suffering staggering losses over the past two years, Putin has succeeded in creating a force far larger than the army that first invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been seriously weakened by more than half a year without major arms deliveries, and is unable to strike back effectively due to restrictions imposed by the country’s Western partners. None of this means Russia is guaranteed to succeed, but it does make it far more difficult for Ukraine to prevail.

Putin’s one tank victory parade is a timely reminder Russia can be beaten

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 09 May 2024 20:35:44 +0000

For the second year running, Russia’s Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9 featured just one solitary tank. Throughout his twenty-four year reign, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin has used the annual Victory Day holiday to showcase his country’s resurgence as a military superpower. However, the underwhelming spectacle of a single World War II-era T-34 tank pootling across Red Square has now become a embarrassing tradition and a painful reminder of the catastrophic losses suffered by the Russian military in Ukraine.

Prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Victory Day parades had typically featured dozens of tanks as the Kremlin sought to demonstrate its vast arsenal and trumpet Russia’s leading role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The difference this year did not go unnoticed, with many commentators poking fun at Putin. “This T-34, the legendary Soviet tank from World War II, was the only Russian tank on display at the Victory Day parade in Red Square today. The others must all be busy somewhere!” quipped Financial Times Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon.

Putin’s parade came just one day after analysts at open source conflict monitoring site Oryx announced that visually confirmed Russian tank losses in Ukraine had passed the 3000 mark. Oryx researchers document military losses based on video or photographic evidence, while recognizing that overall figures are likely to be “significantly higher” than those verified by publicly available open source materials. Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Ukrainian military indicate Russia has lost as many as 7429 tanks since February 2022. While Ukraine’s claims regarding Russian battlefield losses are generally treated with a degree of skepticism, even the visually confirmed baseline figure of 3000 tanks underlines the devastating toll of Putin’s invasion on the Russian military.

In addition to exposing the Kremlin’s dwindling supply of tanks, this year’s strikingly modest Victory Day festivities have also drawn attention to other negative consequences of Russia’s ongoing Ukraine invasion. During the buildup to the holiday, a number of major Russian cities including Pskov, Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod announced they would not be staging traditional Victory Day parades this year. These cancellations were justified on security grounds, highlighting the growing threat posed by Ukraine to targets inside Russia.

Since the start of 2024, Ukraine has brought the war home to Russia with a highly successful long-range drone campaign against the country’s oil and gas industry, including air strikes against refineries located more than one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border. While Kyiv has largely refrained from attacks on civilian targets, Ukraine’s proven ability to strike deep inside Russia is a major blow to the Kremlin, which has vowed to shield the Russian public from the war and prevent any disruption to everyday life.

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The downgrading of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations is a personal blow for Putin, who has sought to place the holiday at the heart of efforts to revive Russian nationalism following the loss of status and perceived humiliations of the early post-Soviet period. This approach marked a departure from the Soviet years, when Victory Day was overshadowed by a number of more ideologically driven holidays such as May Day and the annual anniversary of the October Revolution. Indeed, during the 46-year period between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, the Soviet authorities held just three Victory Day military parades in Moscow.

It was Putin who masterminded the rise of Victory Day to its current position as Russia’s most important public holiday. Since the early 2000s, he has transformed Victory Day into the propaganda centerpiece of a pseudo-religious cult, complete with its own sacred symbols, feast days, saints, and dogmas. Anyone who dares question the Kremlin’s heavily distorted and highly sanitized version of the Soviet role in World War II is treated with the kind of ruthless severity once reserved for medieval heretics. Meanwhile, in a further nod to the continued potency of the World War II narrative in Putin’s Russia, opponents of the Kremlin are routinely branded as “fascists” and “Nazis.”

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The mythology surrounding Putin’s Victory Day cult is not just a matter of repairing battered Russian national pride. It has also helped strengthen perceptions of the Russian army as unbeatable. Both inside Russia and among international audiences, the pomp and propaganda surrounding the holiday have encouraged people to view the Russian army as simply too big and powerful to be defeated. This is complete nonsense. The past few centuries of Russian history are littered with resounding military defeats including the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Russia even managed to lose World War I, despite starting the war on the winning side.

The historically unjustified but widespread belief that Russian victory is somehow inevitable has helped shape the West’s weak response to the invasion of Ukraine. When the war began, most Western observers were convinced Ukraine would fall in a matter of days. Even after the Ukrainian military shocked the world by winning battle after battle and liberating half the land occupied by Russia, many have clung to the assumption that eventual Russian victory remains assured. This defeatist thinking has been an important factor hampering efforts to arm Ukraine adequately. It may yet become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The sight of a lone tank on Red Square this week is a timely reminder that behind the facade of overwhelming strength, Putin’s Russia is far from invincible. For years, the Kremlin has sought to intimidate the outside world with carefully choreographed displays of military muscle-flexing. However, the invasion of Ukraine has revealed a very different reality. Since February 2022, Putin’s once vaunted army has seen its reputation plummet and has suffered a series of stinging battlefield defeats while failing to achieve a decisive breakthrough against its much smaller neighbor. The Russian military remains a formidable force and should not be underestimated, but the events of the past two years have demonstrated that it is also very much beatable. If Ukraine is finally given the necessary tools by the country’s partners, it will finish the job.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Peter Dickinson — Fri, 03 May 2024 21:23:35 +0000

Ukraine can use British-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated during a May 2 visit to Kyiv. “Ukraine has that right,” Cameron told Reuters. “Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself.”

The British Foreign Secretary’s comments represent a departure from the cautious position adopted by most of Ukraine’s Western partners over the past two years. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the majority of countries backing Ukraine have insisted that Western weapons can only be used within Ukraine’s international borders and must not be deployed against targets inside the Russian Federation.

These restrictions reflect widespread concerns in Western capitals over a possible escalation of the current war into a far broader European conflict. Moscow has skillfully exploited the West’s fear of escalation, with Kremlin officials regularly warning of Russian red lines and Vladimir Putin making frequent thinly-veiled nuclear threats.

So far, Russia’s intimidation tactics have proved highly effective. By threatening to escalate the war, Moscow has been able to slow down the flow of military aid to Ukraine, while also deterring the delivery of certain weapons categories and limiting Kyiv’s ability to strike back against otherwise legitimate targets inside Russia.

This has placed Ukraine at a significant military disadvantage. Already massively outgunned and outnumbered by its much larger and wealthier Russian adversary, Ukraine has had to defend itself without the ability to deploy Western weapons against Russia’s military infrastructure. Critics of this approach claim the West is effectively making Ukraine fight against a far larger opponent with one hand tied behind its back.

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With the existence of their country under threat, Ukrainians have bristled at Western restrictions and are using their own limited range of weapons to strike back. These attacks include a recent campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries that have hurt the Russian energy sector and divided opinion among Ukraine’s partners. While US officials have voiced their disapproval and urged Kyiv to focus on military targets, France has indicated its support.

The situation regarding the use of Western weapons on Russian territory has been further complicated by the Kremlin’s territorial claims inside Ukraine. In September 2022, Moscow declared the “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and officially incorporated them into the Russian Constitution. Fighting has continued in all four of these partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, with the Ukrainian military free to deploy Western weapons despite the Kremlin’s insistence that these regions are now part of Russia.

In contrast to the caution displayed by Western leaders, Ukraine has repeatedly called Putin’s bluff and exposed the emptiness of Russia’s nuclear blackmail. Weeks after the Kremlin dictator ceremoniously announced the entry of Kherson into the Russian Federation, Ukrainian troops liberated the city. Rather than retaliating by deploying the might of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, Putin simply accepted this humiliating defeat and withdrew his beleaguered army across the Dnipro River.

The Kremlin’s reaction to mounting Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula has been similarly underwhelming. Since first occupying Crimea in 2014, Putin has portrayed the peninsula in almost mystical terms as a symbol of Russia’s return to Great Power status. However, when Ukraine used a combination of locally developed naval drones and Western-supplied cruise missiles to sink or damage around one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Putin quietly ordered the bulk of his remaining warships to retreat from Crimea and head for Russian ports. Despite the crucial role played by Western weapons in this Ukrainian success, there has been no sign of any escalation from Russia.

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With the Russian invasion now in its third year, there are indications that Western leaders may now finally be overcoming their self-defeating fear of escalation. In addition to David Cameron’s landmark comments regarding the use of British weapons inside Russia, the US has recently begun providing Ukraine with large quantities of long-range ATACMS missile systems capable of striking targets throughout occupied Ukrainian territory. Moscow had consistently warned against such deliveries, but has yet to provide any meaningful response to this highly conspicuous crossing of yet another Russian red line.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is actively attempting to reclaim the escalation initiative from Moscow by refusing to rule out the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine. This development has clearly riled the Kremlin. Putin has reacted to Macron’s newfound boldness by engaging in more nuclear blackmail, while the nuclear saber-rattling continued last weekend on Russia’s flagship current affairs TV show. None of this seems to have put Macron off. On the contrary, he remains adamant that direct Western military involvement in the defense of Ukraine must remain on the table.

This apparent strengthening of Western resolve comes at a pivotal moment in the war. With Ukrainian forces suffering from shortages in both ammunition and manpower, Russia has recently been able to regain the battlefield initiative and make significant advances for the first time in two years. Preparations are now underway for a major Russian summer offensive that could potentially break through Ukraine’s weakened front lines and deliver a knockout blow to the war weary country.

Removing restrictions on attacks inside Russia would enable Ukraine to disrupt preparations for the coming offensive. It would also limit Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian cities and destroy the country’s civilian infrastructure with impunity. This will not be enough to transform the course of the war, but it will go some way to evening out the odds.

By giving Kyiv the green light to use Western weapons in Russia, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has established an important new precedent. This is in many ways fitting. After all, Britain has consistently set the tone for international aid since the eve of the Russian invasion, providing Ukrainians with anti-tank weapons, tanks, and cruise missiles in advance of other allies. Ukrainians will now be hoping the country’s other partners follow suit soon.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Since late 2023, the negative impact of delaying military aid to Ukraine has been all too apparent. With Ukrainian troops often at a ten-to-one disadvantage in terms of artillery firepower, Russia has been able to advance at various points along the approximately 1000 kilometer front line of the war, capturing the town of Avdiivka in February and pushing further forward in recent weeks. Russian commanders have also taken advantage of growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses to launch a new bombing campaign targeting the country’s cities and civilian energy infrastructure. This has led to the destruction of multiple power plants, sparking fears of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

As soon as it begins to arrive in the coming days, US aid will go some way to addressing the most immediate challenges facing Ukraine. The package approved this week in Washington DC includes air defense systems and interceptor ammunition that will help protect residential areas and vital infrastructure from further Russian bombardment. Likewise, the delivery of artillery shells and long-range missiles should make it far more difficult for the Russian army to advance and occupy additional Ukrainian territory. Russian dominance of the skies above the battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine will also soon become increasingly contested.

At the same time, this new US military aid package will not provide Ukraine with anything like the quantities it needs to defeat Russia. This has been a problem ever since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. While the West has provided significant amounts of military aid, weapons have consistently been delivered to Ukraine after extended delays and in insufficient quantities. The first meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which brings together more than 50 countries in support of Ukraine, did not take place until more than two months after the onset of Russia’s invasion. It would be almost a year before NATO member countries agreed to supply Ukraine with a modest number of modern tanks. With the invasion now in its third year, Ukraine is still waiting for the arrival of the first F-16 fighter jets.

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The underwhelming international response to Russia’s invasion has led to accusations that Ukraine’s partners seek to provide Kyiv with sufficient weapons to avoid defeat but not enough to actually win. This cautious approach is primarily due to the West’s well-documented fear of escalation. It also reflects widespread concerns over the potentially destabilizing geopolitical consequences of a Ukrainian victory.

Many in the West seem to sincerely believe that if confronted by the prospect of imminent battlefield defeat, a desperate Vladimir Putin may be prepared to use nuclear weapons. Putin himself has skillfully exploited these fears, intimidating Western leaders into self-deterrence with his frequent and thinly-veiled nuclear threats. Meanwhile, if Russia does lose the war, there is considerable anxiety that this could lead to the collapse of the Putin regime and the breakup of the Russian Federation into a series of smaller successor states. Faced with these nightmare scenarios, Kyiv’s Western backers have repeatedly shied away from bold decisions that could have turned the tide of the war decisively in Ukraine’s favor.

Russia’s war effort suffers from no such uncertainty or indecision. On the contrary, Putin has succeeded in mobilizing the entire country in support of his invasion. He has moved the Russian economy onto a war footing, and is now comfortably outproducing the far wealthier West in key categories such as artillery shells. The Kremlin-controlled Russian media and the Russian Orthodox Church have led efforts to consolidate popular backing for the invasion of Ukraine, which has been presented to the Russian public as a “holy war” and an existential struggle against the West. With no sign of domestic opposition and ample supplies of both men and equipment, Russia is clearly preparing for a long war.

There are growing indications that Europe now recognizes the scale of the threat posed by Russia. This week, Britain confirmed its largest Ukrainian military aid package to date. In recent months, French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged that Ukrainian victory is vital for European security, and has refused to rule out sending French troops. Across Europe, initiatives to boost armament manufacturing are gradually gaining momentum and will lead to far greater production volumes by the end of the current year. This is encouraging but it is not enough.

The recent scare over US aid has underlined the fragility of the current Western approach to arming Ukraine. With the future of US support for Ukraine still uncertain, European leaders must accept a far greater share of the burden. This means taking the necessary steps to move toward a wartime economy capable of supplying the Ukrainian military for years to come. Such a shift is likely to prove politically unpopular with domestic European audiences, but the alternative is even more unpalatable. Unless Putin is stopped in Ukraine, he will go further. Europe can either support Ukraine today or face a resurgent Russia tomorrow, with all the additional costs this would involve.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the vote “a bad day for Putin” and “a bad day for anyone who dared to believe that America could waver when it comes to defending what and who it stands for.” Ukraine’s top diplomat also stressed the role of the bill in bolstering the US position on the international stage. “Everyone who made this decision a reality made the right choice. The United States has reaffirmed its global leadership.”

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Saturday’s vote in the United States was closely monitored by Ukrainian troops stationed thousands of miles away on the front lines of the war in eastern and southern Ukraine. Ukrainian ambassador-at-large Olexander Scherba shared a message sent to him by one soldier serving in the Donbas, who recounted the enthusiastic reaction among his comrades. “The whole unit was watching. After the vote, you could hear shouts of “YESSS!” along the entire trench.”

For many Ukrainians, the House of Representatives vote has helped rebuild faith in the country’s international partners following months of mounting frustration and feelings of abandonment. Since late summer 2023, Ukrainians have watched in dismay as their country’s survival has become hostage to US domestic politics. Meanwhile, Russia has taken advantage of Ukraine’s dwindling ammunition and air defenses to regain the battlefield initiative in eastern Ukraine and launch a nationwide bombing campaign targeting the country’s increasingly unprotected residential districts and civilian infrastructure.

With major new US weapons shipments reportedly “ready to go” once final confirmation of the aid package is received from the Senate and the White House, there are now renewed hopes that Ukraine will receive the military support it needs in order to push Russian forces back and defend the country. This boost could not be more timely, with Ukrainian weapons shortages rapidly approaching critical levels and preparations well underway for what is expected to be a major Russian offensive in the coming months.

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In the wake of Saturday’s vote, Ukrainian army medic Yulia Paievska was one of numerous prominent figures from the country’s military community to praise Ukraine’s American partners and stress the importance of their continued support in the struggle against Russia. “They have lived up to their promises, which once again proves that justice and freedom are not empty words to the American people,” she commented. “Despite all the obstacles, we advance toward victory.”

These upbeat sentiments were echoed by a number of front line soldiers quoted by CNN. “We thought our partners had forgotten about us. This news gives us a sense of support and an understanding that we have not been forgotten,” one Ukrainian intelligence officer serving on the Zaporizhzhia front noted. “When we feel support from the outside, it motivates us. After all, the military knows it cannot win with sticks and bows and arrows,” stated another.

While the House of Representatives vote clearly boosted Ukrainian morale, many in Ukraine were also realistic about the scale of the challenges that remain. With the US presidential election set to take place later this year, further large-scale US military aid cannot be taken for granted. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European partners are working to boost defense production but have so far struggled to fill the gap created by the recent pause in US security assistance.

If Western leaders are serious about preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine, they will have to look beyond the current $61 billion US aid package and develop the necessary resources to prevail in a long confrontation with the Kremlin. “Please don’t forget that Russia’s annual military budget is more than $100 billion,” noted Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko on Saturday evening. “We have won time today, but we have not won the war. We will still need to finish the job.”

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Nusairat quoted in El País on Jordan’s intervention against Iran’s attack on Israel

Atlantic Council — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 17:11:10 +0000

Original SOurce

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Organizing for victory

Ben Hodges — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 16:34:40 +0000

Ten years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began with the illegal annexation of Crimea, it is clear that a Russia containment strategy 2.0 is inevitable. I am convinced Ukraine will be our best partner for such a strategy in terms of intelligence, understanding of Russian psychology, and military defense. It will be a bulwark against Putin’s clearly articulated plans for further European conquest. Ukraine’s survival and the necessity of bringing it into NATO as soon as possible are paramount to a new European and global deterrence and containment strategy.

We are currently witnessing the continuing collapse of the USSR, which began in 1991. This process is not a straight-line decline, but it is unmistakable. Putin’s unprovoked war against Ukraine has undermined Russia’s economy and severed it from much of the West. His military has been exposed for its many shortcomings and corruption. Nearly all the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact members have turned their backs on Russia. Finland and Sweden have joined NATO.

We should not fear this Russian decline. In fact, we should seek to accelerate it by helping Ukraine defeat Russia and eject it back to its 1991 borders. Ukraine defeating Russia now is the best way to ensure NATO never has to fight directly against Russia. This is in our own strategic interest.

Does the West have the combined political will, industrial strength, and military capabilities to address the strategic challenges posed by Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China? These challenges are all linked and must be viewed as parts of a strategic whole, leading to the conclusion that it in the West’s interests to prioritize the defeat of Russia in Ukraine.

A “Russia first” approach would echo the example set by the allies during World War II. In 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a “Germany first” strategy. One year later, they defined their war aim as the “unconditional surrender” of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. This provides a model for the kind of strategic clarity the current generation of Western leaders should be looking to emulate.

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An assessment of today’s battlefield confirms that the Ukrainian military faces a very difficult situation. However, present narratives are overly gloomy and defeatist. After ten years of war, and despite holding every advantage, Russia still only controls just under twenty percent of Ukraine.

The Russian army has suffered hundreds of thousands of losses, while the weaknesses of the Russian navy and air force have been revealed. The Black Sea Fleet has lost around one-third of its ships and is in retreat from Sevastopol. The Russian Air Force has failed in its two main tasks of securing air superiority over Ukraine and cutting the supply lines bringing military equipment into Ukraine from the EU.

Much has been made of minor Russian victories such as the recent capture of Avdiivka, but these advances should be put in a proper geopolitical and operational context. Despite efforts by many of the doom-mongers to make it sound like Stalingrad, Avdiivka is in reality a small town located close to the 2022 front lines in eastern Ukraine. Indeed, it is currently far from clear whether the Russians have the operational capability to exploit even local tactical successes.

At this stage of the war, neither side appears capable of delivering a knockout blow. For Ukraine’s new military Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky, the key task this year is to stabilize the situation in order to buy time, build combat power, and fix the country’s personnel system. Worn-out units need to be reconstituted and new units built. Training should include a focus on countering Russia’s advantages in electronic and drone warfare.

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What does Ukraine need in order to actually win? The Ukrainian military needs the capacity to make Crimea, the decisive terrain of this war, untenable for the Russian navy, air force, and logistics. Every square inch of Crimea is within ATACMS range. Ukraine has already proven the concept with a relatively small number of cruise missiles provided by Britain and France. This has made it possible to seriously damage the Black Sea Fleet HQ and naval maintenance capability in Sevastopol, forcing the fleet to partially withdraw to Russia. There are no good reasons for not providing Ukraine with ATACMS missiles, only excuses from an administration that is unwilling or unable to develop a strategy for Ukrainian victory.

The Ukrainian military also needs a long-range strike capability to neutralize the Russian army on land by destroying Russian troop concentrations, command posts, artillery, and logistics. Significantly enhanced air defense and counter-drone capabilities are essential, along with more naval drones and anti-ship missiles to allow Ukraine to build on the country’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea.

One of the most important steps toward securing Ukrainian victory is a clear declaration from the US and EU that it is in our own strategic interest to help Ukraine win. The failure of the current US administration to clearly explain this to the American people has led to incoherent and self-deterring policies along with incremental decision-making and a drip-feed approach to military aid for Ukraine. This has left the door open for disinformation and made it possible for a MAGA-led minority within the Republican Party to block aid despite majority support.

The current year is a year of industrial competition that the West can and must win. Western countries should collectively be dwarfing Russia’s output but there is currently a lack of urgency. Encouragingly, ammunition production is finally picking up some momentum in Europe and the US. We just need the US Congress to approve delivery. Meanwhile, EU nations must reassess their priorities and address the large percentage of ammunition production that is currently heading to customers outside Europe. Greater efforts are also required to source existing ample ammunition stockpiles globally.

The West needs a return to the clarity of Churchill and Roosevelt, who communicated clear strategic priorities to the public, industry, and the military. Identifying these priorities was a vital step, making it possible for the allies to organize the war effort and secure victory. The lessons of this approach should now be applied to the confrontation with Putin’s Russia, Iran, and China. At the end of the day, it’s all about political will and leaders speaking to their populations as adults.

Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ben Hodges is the former Commander of US Army Europe.

gmatchett — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:01:35 +0000

On April 14, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Samantha Vinograd appeared on CBS “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan to discuss the increasing amount of terrorism around the globe since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict and its implications for US national security and Israeli-Iranian tension.

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Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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Ukraine pleads for Patriot air defense systems as Russia destroys power grid

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:10:50 +0000

Ukraine’s top diplomat is becoming increasingly undiplomatic in his quest to bolster the fraying air defenses of his beleaguered country. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says he is no longer holding back as he desperately tries to secure additional Patriot air defense systems to protect Ukraine’s cities and civilian infrastructure from Russian bombardment. “Give us the damn Patriots,” he told Politico in late March.

Speaking to the Washington Post this week, Kuleba explained that his tough new tone reflects the growing sense of exasperation felt by many in Kyiv at the apparent lack of urgency among Ukraine’s partners amid growing shortages of vital military aid. “We’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to work,” he commented. “The feeling that extraordinary decisions are needed on a regular basis to end this war with a victory for Ukraine is gone.”

Kuleba says his team has identified more the one hundred available Patriot systems that could potentially be handed over to Ukraine. Officials in Kyiv say they need 26 systems in order to provide comprehensive cover for the entire country. The immediate objective is to acquire seven Patriot systems to guard key targets against Russian airstrikes. EU partners including Germany have vowed to assist in the search for Patriot systems, but there have yet to be any breakthroughs.

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Ukraine’s hunt for Patriot air defense systems is taking place against the backdrop of an escalating Russian air offensive that is capitalizing on months declining Western military support and prolonged deadlock in the US Congress over a major Ukrainian aid package. With gaps now growing in Ukraine’s air defense network and individual air defense units increasingly obliged to ration their dwindling resources, Russia has launched a series of overnight attacks in recent weeks that have decimated much of Ukraine’s power grid.

Ukraine’s second-largest city and former capital, Kharkiv, has been particularly hard hit. Located just a few dozen miles from the border with Russia in eastern Ukraine, the city has been subjected to an intensive bombing campaign since mid-March that has caused extensive damage to residential districts and civilian infrastructure. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands have been left without power for extended periods.

The destruction in Kharkiv has been so severe that some analysts now believe Russia’s objective is to empty the city of its more than one million residents ahead of an anticipated summer offensive. “The Kremlin wants to make Ukraine’s second city unlivable,” reported Britain’s The Economist in early April.

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The latest wave of Russian missiles and drones struck targets across Ukraine early on April 11. In an indication of Ukraine’s increasingly ineffective air defenses and mounting vulnerability to Russian bombardment, all of the Kremlin’s hard-to-intercept hypersonic and ballistic missiles reportedly reached their objectives, according to the Kyiv Post.

A major power plant close to Kyiv was among those destroyed in the overnight attack, dealing a further significant blow to Ukraine’s energy resilience. The Trypilska Thermal Power Plant, the largest supplier of electricity to central Ukraine’s Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Zhytomyr regions, suffered a series of direct hits and was left in ruins.

“The scale of destruction is terrifying,” commented Andriy Hota, the chairman of Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo. Speaking to the BBC, Hota said the Kyiv region plant can be rebuilt with the help of spare parts from elsewhere in Europe, but warned that the facility will remain vulnerable to Russian attack unless Ukraine’s partners provide powerful air defenses. “We can repair. We can do the impossible. But we need protection.”

With each new Russian bombardment destroying more of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, there is a growing sense that time is now running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the country. Unless Ukraine urgently receives additional air defense systems and ammunition, entire regions could soon face rapidly deteriorating conditions without access to electricity and other basic services. This could fuel a new refugee crisis, with millions of Ukrainians entering the EU.

The collapse of the country’s power grid would also cause economic mayhem and dramatically undermine the Ukrainian war effort. This would set the stage for a Russian military victory that would have disastrous consequences for Ukraine itself and for the future of international security. Russia has so far been unable to break Ukraine on the battlefield, but there is now a very real chance that a lack of air defenses will allow the Kremlin to achieve its goals by targeting Ukraine’s increasingly undefended civilian infrastructure.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Garlauskas in Breaking Defense

everges — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 17:33:46 +0000

On April 10, Markus Garlauskas was featured in Breaking Defense for his recent analysis in a New Atlanticist piece about modernizing the US-Japan alliance’s military command and control (C2) arrangements. The Breaking Defense article quotes Garlauskas’ statement that the C2 upgrade must “address the Japanese C2 component, the future structure of US Forces Japan, how US and Japanese forces will operate together in and around Japan, and how these forces will operate with other countries’ forces and farther afield from Japan.”

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Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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Searight in the Mainichi Shimbun

everges — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 17:49:17 +0000

On April 8, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Amy Searight was interviewed for an article by the Mainichi Shinbun, a major Japanese news platform. She discussed the significance of Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to Washington, DC, and how the shared vision for the US-Japan alliance is being translated into concrete action on defense and economic security cooperation.

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Amy Searight

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Economy & Business Indo-Pacific

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Western weakness in Ukraine could provoke a far bigger war with Russia

Oleksiy Goncharenko — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 01:15:19 +0000

Does the West actually want Ukraine to defeat Russia? That is the question many in Kyiv are now asking amid continued signs of Western indecision as the biggest European invasion since World War II approaches its third summer with no end in sight.

The mounting sense of frustration among Ukrainians is easy to understand. Encouraged by delays in military aid for Ukraine, Russia has intensified the bombing of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure over the past month, plunging entire cities into darkness and leaving millions without access to electricity, heating, water, or internet. Despite the looming prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe, the Western response has been notably lacking in urgency.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has begun striking back with drone attacks on Russian refineries, and has succeeded in disrupting more than ten percent of Russian refining capacity. Rather than supporting this seemingly effective campaign to weaken Putin’s war machine, The US has reportedly called on Kyiv to end its drone strikes due to concerns over global oil prices and possible retaliation. Viewed from Ukraine, these do not look like the actions of partners who are fully committed to Ukrainian victory.

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Over the past two years, Ukrainians have grown accustomed to excessive Western caution and insufficient Western support. While the democratic world deserves considerable credit for delivering the weapons that have allowed Ukraine to survive, the military aid provided since February 2022 has been subject to frequent delays, and has consistently fallen far short of the quantities required to defeat a military superpower like Russia.

The West’s inadequate response to Russia’s invasion is primarily due to a crippling fear of escalation. Putin sees this indecisiveness and acts accordingly. He easily intimidates Western leaders with nuclear blackmail, while escalating his own attacks on Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure.

In March 2024 alone, Russia attacked Ukraine with 264 missiles and 515 drones, according to Ukrainian Air Force data. Some were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, but ammunition is rapidly running out. With no clear idea of when the next batches of interceptor missiles may arrive, Ukrainian troops must ration supplies, leaving millions vulnerable to the horrors of Russian bombardment.

The situation on the front lines of the war is equally critical. With half of promised weapons deliveries arriving late and vital US military aid held up in Congress for the past eight months, Ukrainian troops are running short of crucial ammunition and are currently in danger of being overwhelmed by Russian firepower. In late March, President Zelenskyy admitted that if US aid is not forthcoming, Ukraine will be forced to retreat. If that happens, he warned, Russia could break through Ukraine’s defensive lines and attempt to seize the country’s biggest cities.

Despite this deteriorating picture, there is currently a surreal sense of business as usual in much of the West. The political classes are increasingly preoccupied with upcoming elections and appear largely unaware of the geopolitical disaster unfolding on Europe’s eastern frontier. Many seem to think Ukrainian courage alone will be enough to hold Russia back until the invasion runs out of steam. This is wishful thinking. In reality, if Ukraine does not urgently receive increased support, there is a very real chance that Putin will win. And if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will go further.

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At present, the West appears content to wage of a slow war of attrition while drip-feeding Ukraine minimal supplies. This is a recipe for defeat. Russia enjoys huge advantages in terms of manpower and weapons, while the Kremlin has successfully shifted the entire Russian economy onto a war footing. Putin clearly believes he can outlast the West in Ukraine, and is confident time is on his side.

This does not mean a Ukrainian victory is unachievable, but Ukraine’s partners need to demonstrate far more resolve if they genuinely hope to secure Putin’s defeat. Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries have exposed the vulnerability of Russia’s economically crucial energy industry, but the Western response has so far been predictably cautious. This needs to change. Ukraine cannot win a war against such a powerful enemy with one hand tied behind its back.

Likewise, Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea debunks notions of Russian red lines and offers a road map toward victory over the Kremlin. Despite not having a conventional navy of its own, Ukraine has used drones and missile strikes to sink around a quarter of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This has forced Putin to quietly withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from Crimea.

Similar success is possible on land if Ukraine’s Western partners give the country the tools it needs. Ukraine’s requirements are already well known; the Ukrainian military needs vast quantities of artillery shells and drones along with increased deliveries of armored vehicles, combat aircraft, air defense systems, electronic warfare technologies, and long-range missiles.

Without this military aid, Ukraine’s prospects look grim. Nor would the consequences of a Russian victory be confined to Ukraine alone. On the contrary, the shock waves would be felt around the world as Putin and his fellow autocrats sought to capitalize on Western weakness.

A triumphant Putin would almost certainly look to build on the considerable geopolitical momentum created by success in Ukraine. In practical terms, this would mean expanding his quest to reverse the verdict of 1991 and reclaim “historically Russian lands.” Putin’s revisionist agenda would place more than a dozen independent states that formerly belonged to the Russian Empire at risk of suffering the same fate as Ukraine. The most probable initial targets would include Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, but his ambitions would likely expand further.

The fall of Ukraine would leave NATO demoralized and discredited, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Russian dictator to achieve his ultimate goal and instigate the break-up of the alliance. NATO leaders have already demonstrated that they are afraid of escalation and inclined to back down when confronted by the Kremlin. In a post-Ukraine environment, Putin may look to exploit this lack of resolve by testing NATO’s own red lines while stopping short of full-scale hostilities. If the alliance failed to rise to this challenge, it would risk losing all credibility overnight. While NATO could technically survive such a crisis, the alliance would struggle to maintain any legitimacy without its cast-iron commitment to collective security.

Fellow authoritarian powers like China and Iran are also watching the West’s weakness in Ukraine and are drawing the obvious conclusions. This is already helping to fuel insecurity in the Middle East and increasing the threat to Taiwan. The global security architecture established over the past eighty years is clearly crumbling, and Ukraine is the front line in the fight to shape the future of international relations.

The West’s fear of escalation is Vladimir Putin’s secret weapon. It has deterred Western leaders from arming Ukraine, and has prolonged the war by preventing the Ukrainian army from building on its early battlefield successes. Unless the West can overcome this self-defeating fear, it may ultimately lead to Russian victory.

Russian success in Ukraine would almost certainly set the stage for a far bigger military confrontation between the Kremlin and the democratic world. Since February 2022, Putin has placed his entire country on a war footing and has positioned Russia as the leader of an anti-Western coalition of authoritarian states aiming to transform the world order. As the invasion of Ukraine has escalated, he has become increasingly open about his own imperial ambitions. It is dangerously delusional to suggest Putin will simply stop if he wins in Ukraine. Instead, Western leaders must decide whether they would rather arm Ukraine for victory today, or find themselves confronted with a resurgent and emboldened Russia tomorrow.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

Dean published through the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre

everges — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 19:34:57 +0000

On March 31, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Peter Dean co-authored a report on “Foundations for AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines” through the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre (USSC). He was also featured on an episode of the USSC Briefing Room podcast exploring Indo-Pacific security cooperation from an Australian perspective.

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Russia’s new air offensive leaves Ukraine facing humanitarian disaster

Aura Sabadus — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:02:38 +0000

In recent weeks, Russia has launched the largest bombing campaign of the war with a series of major overnight attacks targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. This has resulted in comprehensive damage to the Ukrainian power grid and plunged millions into darkness. Unless Ukraine urgently receives additional air defense systems and ammunition from its Western partners, large parts of the country may soon be on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Russia’s new air offensive began in the second half of March. It has featured a combination of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and kamikaze drones, with a wide range of infrastructure objects targeted throughout the entire country. The complex nature of the strikes suggests detailed knowledge of Ukraine’s energy system. In a little over a week, this bombing campaign has succeeded in destroying multiple power plants, damaging a gas storage site, and disabling electricity transmission infrastructure across Ukraine.

In a further indication of Russia’s intention to escalate the air war, a number of Ukraine’s hydroelectric power plants have also been targeted in the latest wave of attacks. This is raising concerns over a potential ecological disaster if dams situated on some of Ukraine’s biggest waterways are breached.

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While there is no official data for the total damage caused to Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure by Russia’s new air offensive, the country’s largest private power provider, DTEK, confirmed on March 30 that it had lost 80 percent of its generating capacity due to the recent wave of attacks.

Much of this damage was to facilities that had only recently been repaired following earlier Russian attacks in 2022 and 2023. “Some of the units that were put into operation two months ago are gone,” commented DTEK executive director Dmytro Sakharuk. “We had rebuilt roofs, installed transformers, repaired turbines and generators. It’s all in ruins now.”

Since March 22, cities across the country including Kharkiv in the east and Odesa in the south have suffered temporary blackouts. Many residents continue to experience sporadic access to electricity. Even in regions where the population has not been disconnected from the grid, Russian attacks have caused significant disruption and forced industrial shutdowns.

With at least 2GW of capacity damaged or destroyed across the country, Ukraine is now looking to maximize electricity imports from EU neighbors. Prior to the recent escalation in Russian bombing, Ukraine needed to use around 0.5GW of cross-border capacity to import energy from EU countries. This has now tripled to 1.5GW, which is close to the maximum technical capacity of 1.7GW provided by existing interconnection lines.

The cost of fixing the damage caused by the most recent wave of Russian attacks will be high. This is expected to significantly increase earlier World Bank estimates that already placed Ukraine’s wartime civilian infrastructure repair bill at over $135 billion. DTEK alone may have to find an additional $200 million to rebuild facilities. Understandably, some are questioning whether it currently makes sense to invest such large sums in another round of repairs given the potential for fresh Russian airstrikes.

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Ever since the start of the full-scale invasion a little over two years ago, Russia has deliberately targeted Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. By doing so, the Kremlin hopes to disrupt economic activity, break the Ukrainian population’s will to resist, and force millions of civilians to flee their homes.

These efforts have so far proved unsuccessful. Ukraine’s resilience is in large part due to the courage and ingenuity of the country’s engineers, who have repeatedly exposed themselves to the dangers of missile and drone strikes in order to repair power plants, substations, generators, and distribution lines.

The herculean efforts of Ukraine’s energy sector workers cannot be expected to continue indefinitely, however. This is especially true in the current circumstances, when recently repaired infrastructure is once again being targeted and destroyed by Russian airstrikes.

The only long-term solution to the threat posed by Russian bombardment is enhanced air defenses. Ukrainian officials including President Zelenskyy have been vocal in recent days in their calls for the country’s partners to urgently deliver new air defense systems and fresh interceptor missiles.

The current deadlock in the US Congress over a major new Ukrainian aid bill has raised serious doubts over the future of Western military support for Ukraine. With supplies now running low, Ukraine is already finding itself forced to ration ammunition on the front lines and in defense of its cities. This is emboldening Russia, and may have been a contributing factor behind the current surge in aerial attacks.

If Ukraine’s air defenses are further depleted, there can be no serious doubt that Russia will seek to destroy the country’s civilian energy infrastructure entirely. This would leave tens of millions of Ukrainians without access to basic amenities such as electricity, heating, water, and internet. The stage would be set for a vast humanitarian crisis that would have grave consequences for the war itself and for the whole of Central Europe, with an unprecedented wave of migrants likely to enter the EU from Ukraine.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has already issued arrest warrants for two Russian military commanders in connection with earlier Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. While Russia alone bears responsibility for these war crimes, the West’s continued failure to supply Ukraine with adequate air defenses makes them complicit in the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

Ukraine urgently needs air defenses as Russia decimates power grid

Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 21:15:50 +0000

A series of Russian drone and missile attacks beginning March 22 has destroyed much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The damage, which will cost billions of dollars and many months to repair, has crippled Ukraine’s ability to light and heat itself for the medium term and marks a major escalation in Russia’s ongoing invasion.

The latest wave of Russian airstrikes has been notable for its breadth. Virtually every one of Ukraine’s thermal power plants has been hit along with a series of substations. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power company, reports that two of its thermal power plants (TPP) are no longer operational, with repairs expected to take several years. A separate plant in Kharkiv has also been seriously damaged and will take years to repair, according to regional authorities.

The specific condition of additional Ukrainian power plants remains classified, but reports of recent blackouts in multiple major cities have underlined the extent of the threat to Ukraine’s power grid. In a move indicating the scale of the damage caused by recent Russian bombing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered an early end to the country’s heating season.

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Russian targets in recent days have included the Dnipro Hydroelectric Dam, sparking fears of a possible ecological disaster. The dam itself has not collapsed, but the power plant was partially destroyed and pollutants are now reportedly leaking into the reservoir. Even more worryingly, the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lost grid connectivity due to the attack, putting its cooling systems at risk of stopping. Energoatom called the situation “extremely dangerous.”

In a further escalation, Russia has also expanded its air offensive with attacks on Ukraine’s natural gas storage facilities. These facilities, which house large quantities of gas for European customers, had not previously been targeted in earlier Russian bombing campaigns. Although the storage facilities themselves are underground, the pumping stations that allow for the insertion and extraction of gas are not.

On March 24, Russia launched approximately 20 missiles and drones at the Bilche-Volitsko-Ugerskoye storage facility, which represents around half of Ukraine’s total storage capacity. Ukrainian state-owned gas company Naftogaz downplayed the extent of the damage but did acknowledge that repairs would be necessary. Naftogaz officials also sought to reassure European storage customers that all obligations would be met by Ukraine, regardless of the Russian airstrikes.

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The recent wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system comes amid reports that the White House has been pressuring Kyiv to stop attacking Russian oil refineries due to concerns about the possible impact on oil prices ahead of the November 2024 US presidential election. Starting in January, Ukraine began a series of long-range drone strikes on refining facilities inside Russia. These attacks have succeeded in hurting Russia’s energy-dependent economy, with disruption reported to oil and oil product exports, gasoline and other fuel supplies in Russia, military fuel supplies, and Russian income from energy exports.

Global prices for crude oil and diesel, as well as other oil products, have risen in the wake of the Ukrainian attacks. This appears to be making US politicians nervous about the potential impact on their country’s forthcoming elections. Unsurprisingly, many in Kyiv have been outraged by the reported US efforts to effectively protect the Russian energy industry at a time when Moscow is bombing Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure and plunging entire cities into darkness. Ukrainian officials have responded by insisting Russian refineries are legitimate targets.

So far, there have been no reports of European leaders seeking to deter Ukraine from attacking Russia’s oil and gas industry, but that could change as the continent faces a range of looming geopolitical and energy market problems. Russia’s gas transit contract with Ukraine is set to expire in December 2024, with the Ukrainian authorities stating they will not seek an extension. With the vulnerability of Ukraine’s gas storage facilities now an issue thanks to recent Russian airstrikes, and with instability in the Middle East making Arabian Gulf LNG both less assured and much more expensive, Europe may soon begin to pressure Ukraine, too.

Each wave of Russian airstrikes makes Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction more challenging while narrowing the options available to the country. Without crucial US military aid that remains held up in Congress, and faced with hypocritical but likely mounting pressure from Western capitals to play nice with Russia on energy infrastructure while Russia decimates Ukraine’s power grid, the path forward is unclear.

Instead of artificial restrictions on their own ability to strike back, Kyiv desperately needs adequate air defense systems so Ukraine can protect its power plants from Russian assaults. In the meantime, the many Ukrainians who are working tirelessly to maintain their country’s battered energy systems have a long road ahead of them.

Suriya Jayanti is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Dean published in the Australian and featured by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News

everges — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 17:00:12 +0000

This week, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Peter Dean published an article in the Australian critiquing recent arguments by a coalition of AUKUS dissenters. He also spoke to ABC News on the recent announcement that Australia will fund increased nuclear reactor production in the United Kingdom through the AUKUS agreement.

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Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Is the US Congress finally poised to pass Ukraine aid?

Doug Klain — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 21:09:57 +0000

The end of March will mark eight months since United States President Joe Biden first requested supplemental aid to resupply Ukraine’s armed forces and help the country prepare for coming Russian offensives. With Congress beginning yet another recess, there may finally be an end in sight to the partisan logjam, but the shape that Ukraine aid ultimately takes and the path to getting a bill to Biden’s desk for his signature remain unclear.

Since former representative Kevin McCarthy was forced to vacate his leadership role as Speaker of the House, Speaker Mike Johnson has feared inviting a similar ouster. Before leaving for a two-week recess on March 22, House Democrats signaled they will protect him from just such a motion to vacate if he announces a plan to take up the bipartisan National Security Supplemental package passed by the Senate last month.

Johnson has said he’d take on Ukraine aid after passing a federal budget, which he’s now accomplished. The next two weeks may see him coordinating with allies and negotiating with Democrats on a potential deal before Congress resumes on April 9, meaning the earliest that Ukraine aid could optimistically be passed is mid to late April.

There are four likely vehicles for passing the supplemental military, budgetary, and humanitarian aid requested by Biden: Johnson bringing forth the Senate-passed supplemental to a vote on the House floor, as is typically done with legislation; a potential new supplemental package crafted by Republicans at Johnson’s behest; a Democrat-led bipartisan discharge petition to bring the Senate-passed supplemental to a vote; or a Republican-led discharge petition to bring slimmed-down supplemental aid to a vote.

A critical factor in any of these options is that if the House passes legislation that differs from the supplemental aid, it will have to revert to the Senate for further deliberations and another series of votes. This would lead to additional delays, opportunities for political sabotage, and a sharper advantage for Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine.

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The best option for swiftly passing Ukraine aid is for Johnson to bring the bill that already passed the Senate to the floor for a vote, which could be done quickly upon Congress’s return. Democrats are signaling that Johnson announcing this move would guarantee their support against a motion to remove him from the speakership, which was already filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and could soon come to a procedural vote.

Johnson in recent weeks has also reportedly been working to craft his own new version of supplemental aid. After Republicans aligned with former president Donald Trump tanked a bipartisan supplemental aid deal that included substantial reforms to US immigration policy, the Senate passed an aid package that omitted border policy changes and focused on foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and Palestine. Johnson has directed three prominent Republican committee chairs to put together a proposal that pairs foreign aid with border policy, as well as other potential legislation such as the REPO Act to transfer Russian state assets to Ukraine.

No text has been released and minimal details about this new prospective aid package have emerged, but Johnson may try to negotiate with Democrats to include some of these provisions in whatever he brings to the floor. While Johnson and many other congressional Republicans agree on the need to pass Ukraine aid, the electoral incentives in their party may pressure some to present any eventual deal as some kind of political win over Democrats, even if the details are largely the same as what Democrats are asking for. The REPO Act, in addition to being smart policy, would also allow Johnson to claim that he’s helping relieve the burden of foreign aid from the American taxpayer, though Russian state assets in the US are reportedly only around $5 billion.

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Johnson has failed to bring Ukraine aid to the floor for months and Democrats are now hedging their bets. Rep. Jim McGovern opened a discharge petition earlier this month to forcibly bring the Senate-passed supplemental to a vote. Discharge petitions are rare parliamentary mechanisms in which members must physically walk to the rostrum on the House floor and add their signature to a petition which, should it reach a majority of 218, will sideline the Speaker and trigger a vote on the associated legislation.

The McGovern petition quickly garnered Democratic support and has reached 191 signatures, including a lone Republican signature from Rep. Ken Buck on the second-to-last day before his retirement from Congress. There is significant pressure on Republicans not to side with what appears to be a Democratic effort, but delays from Johnson and dysfunction within their own party make defections more likely. Progressive Democrats are also reluctant to sign due to the package’s Israel aid, though many have privately signaled their willingness to sign if the White House announces accountability measures for this military aid to prevent misuse by Israeli forces.

A second discharge petition is being floated by Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus. Fitzpatrick has crafted a slimmed-down version of supplemental aid that includes controversial border measures such as Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, seen as toxic by most Democrats.

Fitzpatrick’s version reduces total aid for Ukraine by eliminating all humanitarian funding, cuts crucial financial aid that allows the Ukrainian government to function, and doesn’t expand allowances for the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which would mean less immediate aid to Ukraine at a critical time.

Under this package, new military aid may not be provided until next year, though the White House would be able to replenish stocks depleted in the past. Some Ukraine aid is certainly better than none, but this would appear far from a first choice for Ukraine. If Fitzpatrick were to amend his proposal to address these issues, he’d be far more likely to attract Democratic support.

The next two weeks will see private negotiations between Johnson and Democratic leadership as well as further pressure on representatives to sign onto discharge petitions. Further GOP signatures onto the McGovern petition in particular would increase the pressure on Johnson to avoid embarrassment by bringing aid to the floor himself, while also increasing the likelihood of aid passing regardless. Another important variable is that, as in the case of the Senate border deal, Trump could intervene at the eleventh hour to pressure Republicans not to pass Ukraine aid.

After nearly eight months of delays, there may finally be a path to passing Ukraine aid through Congress. With Russia planning a new offensive in the coming months, potentially to conquer the city of Kharkiv, it can’t come a moment too soon. Ukrainian forces have had to ration ammunition because of Republicans blocking supplemental aid, losing towns and lives in the process. If the US wants to stop burning the trust of its allies and show that it can still be a reliable security partner, the time and place to do so is now on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Doug Klain is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a policy analyst at Razom for Ukraine, a nonprofit humanitarian aid and advocacy organization.

Shaffer in Real Clear Energy: Washington Denies a Bedrock of Warfighting

smeadows — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:35:00 +0000

original source

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Dean in Reuters and the Australian

everges — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 19:12:10 +0000

This week, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Peter Dean was quoted in a Reuters article and a piece by the Australian discussing recent protests in Australia against plans for a new AUKUS submarine base.

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Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Taylor on TaiwanPlus News

kyusko — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 20:26:16 +0000

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 14, IPSI Nonresident Fellow Jessica Taylor spoke on TaiwanPlus News about this month’s concluded annual US-ROK “Freedom Shield” exercises and continued alliance efforts to shore up defensive capabilities.

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Jessica Taylor

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Turkey and Egypt bury the hatchet, marking an end to emerging third axis in the Middle East

Borzou Daragahi — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 14:39:24 +0000

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Egypt on February 14 marked a milestone in diplomatic relations between two countries that fell grievously afoul of each other during a rare period of political and ideological divergence that lasted almost a decade.

The carefully choreographed and worded meeting between Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, also served as a final burial ceremony for what was once an emerging third axis in the Middle East. This axis was distinct from the Saudi-led, pro-Western camp of Arab states that includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, and Jordan, as well as the Iranian-led, self-described “Axis of Resistance” consisting of Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and Shia militias in Iraq.

That partnership consisted of Turkey, Qatar, and movements and political parties in the Middle East and North Africa rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and the Sunni political populism that peaked in the region following the 2011 Arab uprisings. Erdogan last visited Cairo in 2011, when he came to address the Arab League while pro-democracy and Islamist protesters were still triumphantly celebrating the toppling of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. In the afterglow of the Arab uprisings, Erdogan, then then prime minister of Turkey, was hailed as a “rock star” by Arab activists and Western thinkers for his country’s perceived model of moderate Islamic principles within a secular democracy.

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Back then, Sisi was an obscure but powerful senior army officer and a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the body that assumed power in Egypt after removing Mubarak in 2011. He emerged from the shadows in 2013, removing and jailing democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi and rebuilding Mubarak’s autocratic military regime but with himself at the center.

Erdogan led the way in condemning the coup d’état, as he saw Morsi as a political fellow traveler. Turkey welcomed Egyptians—mostly Muslim Brotherhood or Islamist-leaning dissidents fleeing Sisi’s purges and mass arrests—allowing the activists to launch television stations and operate relatively freely. Egyptian authorities abruptly canceled Erdogan’s planned visit to the Gaza Strip via its Sinai border. Just months after the coup, in November 2013, diplomatic ties between Egypt and Turkey were downgraded.

In Sisi, Erdogan likely saw the type of military autocrat who had undermined Turkish democratic aspirations since the republic’s founding. The generals sent one of Erdogan’s political idols, the popularly elected Adnan Menderes, to the gallows in 1961, and removed his onetime political mentor, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, from office in 1997.

Relations between Turkey and Egypt remained bitter for years. Egypt drew closer to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which considered the Muslim Brotherhood their archenemy.

In 2017, the Gulf states, with the backing of Egypt, launched an unprecedented blockade of Qatar over its geopolitical ambitions and support for populist Islamic groups. Turkey came to Doha’s aid, not only airlifting emergency provisions but deploying additional troops, expanding a security cooperation deal the countries had signed in 2014.

Though tensions had been developing since Sisi’s coup, the blockade and its aftermath can be seen as marking the emergence of the third axis.

After Morsi died in prison in 2019, relations between Cairo and Ankara worsened. Erdogan described Sisi as a “tyrant” and accused him of having a direct role in the death of the ousted president, who died from a heart attack suffered while in court. “They are so cowardly that they could not even deliver his body to his family,” Erdogan said. Meanwhile, Egyptian officials accused Turkey of backing terrorist groups.

The rift impacted commerce. Turkey’s exports to Egypt fell to a twelve-year low of $2.3 billion in 2017, while Egypt’s exports to Turkey sank to a twelve-year low of $1.2 billion in 2015.

More dangerously, Turkey and Egypt—along with their respective partners—found themselves on opposite sides of armed conflicts and political struggles across the Middle East and North Africa. Ankara backed the Syrian rebels, while Sisi sought to ease tensions with President Assad. Turkey sought engagement with Iran even as Cairo’s Saudi and UAE partners, backed by then US President Donald Trump, were at the forefront of confronting Tehran.

But Libya’s civil war was the most perilous and decisive battleground between the Saudi-led axis and Turkey’s camp. Cairo and Abu Dhabi funneled arms and fighters, including fighter jets as well as Russian Wagner military forces, to warlord Khalifa Haftar’s eastern-based army as it launched an attack on Tripoli in 2019. Turkey, with the possible financial backing of Qatar, openly ferried weapons and military advisers to help defend the government in Tripoli, which included elements of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Libya branch. It was in Libya that Turkey first successfully deployed the now famous Bayraktar drones. They helped turn back Haftar’s forces in an expensive and bloody full-blown proxy war.

As 2021 began, the blockade of Qatar was ended in a deal brokered by Washington and Kuwait. Concluding the dispute made sense. For one thing, Morsi was dead. The Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring had been wiped out, along with domestic political-reform movements in the Arab world. Haftar’s expensive gamble had failed. Turkey had successfully inserted itself into the Arab world, establishing semipermanent military presences in former Ottoman lands, including Libya, Syria, Qatar, and Somalia.

Effectively, there was nothing left to fight about.

While alongside Erdogan in February, Sisi said he welcomed this “current period of calm” in the region. “I hope we can build upon it to reach lasting solutions to outstanding disputes,” he said.

Days after Erdogan’s meeting with Sisi on February 14, Turkey stripped the acquired Turkish citizenship of former Muslim Brotherhood branch leader Mahmoud Hussein and his wife, along with fifty other members of the organization.

Continuing to hold grudges would hurt both countries. As tensions have eased, trade has rebounded. Turkey’s exports to Egypt jumped to $4.5 billion in 2021, a 43-percent increase from the previous year, and to $4.5 billion in 2022. Egypt’s exports to Turkey increased from $2 billion in 2018 to a ten-year high of $2.6 billion in 2021 and a record high of $3.7 billion in 2022.

Making nice with Egypt, along with ending the Muslim Brotherhood’s free reign in Turkey, was also likely required for rapprochement with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as access to their pools of liquidity amid an economic crisis and the most formidable political challenge Erdogan had faced since 2003. During his public appearance in Egypt last month, Erdogan said the two countries had committed to doubling their trade volume. He spoke of collaboration on defense and energy projects, including eastern Mediterranean gas reserves.

While the de-escalation between the two countries began in earnest in 2021, it would likely have begun sooner had Morsi not died, an event that sharply escalated the rhetoric between the two countries. In addition to economic interests and a regional shift toward more multipolar diplomatic postures, Erdogan’s political ideology began to change in 2015. That is when he abandoned hopes of courting pious Kurdish voters or the liberals who had once supported him, and instead embraced the same hardline nationalists who tormented his ideological forebears for decades.

Egypt and Turkey nearly slipped into armed conflict in the late 1950s as the Arab nationalist movement led by Gamal Abdel Nasser sought to draw Syria into Egypt’s temporary unification with Iraq. But the latest rift between Egypt and Turkey was anomalous. Two militaristic nations ruthlessly fixated for decades on territorial security and empowerment of privileged elites fell dramatically afoul not over a border or resources, but on matters of principle, including popular legitimacy, human rights, and political teleology.

Before his historic Cairo visit in 2011, in which he addressed activists in Tahrir Square, Erdogan was scheduled to visit Mubarak in a grand state visit, presumably to cut the kinds of deals he recently forged with Sisi. Erdogan canceled that visit over the president’s response to the ongoing protests at Tahrir Square, a testament to the Arab uprising’s far-reaching impact.

“Listen to the shouting of the people, the extremely humane demands. Without hesitation, satisfy the people’s desire for change,” Erdogan said.

The tremors of the 2011 earthquake have long since dissipated. The region has settled into a duller status quo dominated by autocrats divvying up the spoils behind closed doors. Both Erdogan and Sisi alluded to their support for the Palestinian cause amid Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but it is unlikely the two countries will take bold steps in that regard. For the foreseeable future, Turkey and Egypt’s relations will be focused on big energy deals, tourism numbers, and expansion of lucrative business ties.

Borzou Daragahi is a journalist who has covered the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe for US and UK news outlets since 2002. He is also a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Security Initiative. Follow him on X: @borzou.

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Peace is impossible until Ukraine is safe from future Russian aggression

Mykola Bielieskov — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 20:44:27 +0000

A series of news items in recent weeks have reignited the simmering debate over a possible peace deal to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While none of these developments provided a plausible roadmap toward a sustainable settlement, they did help highlight some of the key obstacles preventing a return to the negotiating table.

The first significant development was the March 1 publication by the Wall Street Journal of a draft peace agreement that was drawn up during the initial stages of the invasion before being abandoned amid a breakdown in talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly referred to this document as alleged proof that he was ready to end the war but was rebuffed by Ukraine following intervention from Kyiv’s Western partners.

On closer inspection, however, it is clear that the terms proposed by Moscow in April 2022 would have left Ukraine severely weakened and virtually helpless against further rounds of Russian aggression. The agreement would have meant ceding land to Russia, condemning millions of Ukrainians to permanent Russian occupation, drastically reducing the strength and size of the Ukrainian army, and preventing the country from entering into any military cooperation with the West.

If these punishing terms had been implemented in spring 2022, It would surely only have been a matter of time before a disarmed and isolated Ukraine found itself facing a fresh Russian invasion with little hope of defending itself. In other words, Putin’s widely touted peace proposal was in fact an attempt to secure the surrender of the Ukrainian state.

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The publication of Putin’s punitive peace plan did not deter Pope Francis from entering the debate in early March with his own controversial call for Ukraine to “have the courage to raise the white flag” and negotiate with Russia. The Pope’s comments sparked outrage in Ukraine and across Europe, with a number of senior officials condemning the religious leader. Days later, the Vatican was forced to backtrack, with Cardinal Pietro Parolin clarifying that the onus in any future peace process should be on Russia as the “aggressor” country.

The most ominous recent contribution to the debate over possible future negotiations has come from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Following his meeting with former US President Donald Trump in Florida, Orban announced that if re-elected in November, Trump plans to cut all US support for Ukraine. “If the Americans don’t give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over,” commented the Hungarian leader.

These revelations were not entirely unexpected. Indeed, the current deadlock in Congress over US military aid for Ukraine is widely seen as a reflection of Donald Trump’s personal position. Nevertheless, Ukrainians were dismayed by Orban’s claims that Trump’s vision for peace amounts to abandoning Ukraine and letting Russia win. Far from ending the war, this approach would mean the end of Ukraine.

Putin himself has since underlined the obvious flaws in Trump’s strategy. In a March 13 interview, the Kremlin dictator dismissed the idea of peace talks at a time when his army has regained the battlefield initiative thanks in large part to Ukraine’s mounting weapons shortages. “It would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating with Ukraine just because it’s running out of ammunition,” Putin stated.

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At present, the potential negotiating positions of Russia and Ukraine remain poles apart. While Kyiv insists on a complete end to the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory and the payment of reparations for war damage, the Russian leadership is becoming more and more maximalist in its demands. Putin and other senior officials have long insisted Ukraine cede five partially occupied provinces to Russia. With Russia’s military prospects improving and international support for Ukraine wavering, the Kremlin now appears to embracing even more ambitious goals.

Putin used his high-profile February 2024 interview with US media personality Tucker Carlson to position the war as an historic mission to reclaim “Russian lands.” Meanwhile, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has gone even further, declaring in early March that “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”

These maximalist statements tally with the Kremlin’s increasingly vitriolic anti-Ukrainian propaganda, which portrays Ukraine as an enemy of Russia and an instrument of the West’s anti-Russian policy. For the past two years, the invasion of Ukraine has been depicted by the Kremlin as an existential struggle, with Russia’s national survival dependent on the total subjugation of Ukraine.

This framing makes it difficult to see how any kind of negotiated settlement could prove enduring. On the contrary, while Moscow may seek to temporarily pause hostilities for strategic reasons, it is now obvious that the Putin regime has committed Russia to a long-term war of aggression with the clear goal of destroying Ukraine.

Ukrainians are well aware of Russia’s genocidal agenda. They see the daily incitement to genocide on Kremlin TV, and are regularly confronted with fresh evidence of efforts to eradicate Ukrainian identity throughout occupied regions of Ukraine. Understandably, the vast majority of Ukrainians see no room for compromise between Russian genocide and their own survival. Instead, they are committed to fighting on until Ukraine can achieve the basis for long-term national security.

There are indications that Ukraine’s partners are increasingly recognizing the need for comprehensive security guarantees. Since January 2024, Ukraine has signed a series of bilateral security agreements with partner countries including Britain, France, and Germany. While these documents do not qualify as military alliances, they do formalize current cooperation while outlining avenues for future defense sector partnership.

In recent weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron has raised the stakes further by refusing to rule out the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine. Macron’s suggestion has sparked considerable alarm among European leaders, but supporters have noted that the West gains nothing by signalling its own red lines to the Kremlin. Bilateral security agreements and the French President’s increasingly bold rhetoric cannot replace the unrivaled security provided by NATO membership, but these recent developments do indicate growing recognition in Western capitals that European peace depends on a secure Ukraine.

With Russia’s invasion now in its third year, factors such as Ukraine’s failed 2023 counteroffensive and creeping Ukraine fatigue among the country’s Western partners are contributing to calls for a compromise settlement to end the war. At the same time, Putin appears more confident than ever that he can achieve his expansionist goals and is clearly in no hurry to return to the negotiating table.

In the current circumstances, the best way to secure a lasting peace is by demonstrating to the Kremlin that Russia’s hopes of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood are futile. Putin only understands the language of strength. With this in mind, Ukraine’s international partners must send an unambiguous message to Moscow by ditching their “as long as it takes” mantra and deploying the full weight of their overwhelming economic and technological superiority. This would be more than enough to give Ukraine a decisive battlefield advantage and set the stage for victory over Russia.

Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians themselves, but they also recognize that a premature peace with Putin would only lead to more war. Advocates of a negotiated settlement would be wise to listen to these Ukrainian concerns before calling on Kyiv to compromise with the Kremlin. As Winston Churchill observed, meeting jaw to jaw is better than war. However, in this particular case, it should be evident to all that there can be no durable peace in Europe until Ukraine is safe from Russian aggression.

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary: The West is still in denial over Russia

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 18:08:33 +0000

When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov found himself having to repeatedly reassure Ukraine’s doubting partners that the country was not about to collapse. “At the beginning of the war, nobody believed we would stand,” he recalls.

Danilov says the lack of faith he encountered among Ukraine’s allies during the first days of the invasion reflects the widespread disinformation that continues to cloud international perceptions of his country’s struggle against resurgent Russian imperialism. With the invasion now in its third year, Danilov warns that many in the West remain in denial over the scale of the threat posed by Putin’s Russia, and have yet to grasp the true international implications of the war in Ukraine.

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Danilov has led Ukraine’s influential National Security and Defense Council since October 2019, and has been at the heart of Ukrainian attempts to galvanize international opposition to Russia’s invasion. He readily admits that these efforts have been consistently hampered by Russia’s sophisticated and highly effective disinformation strategies. Looking back at the past two years, Danilov says this experience has underlined the growing importance of information warfare in shaping today’s multidimensional battlefield. “We all make decisions based on the information we have. While there is now an unprecedented amount of information available, it is also apparent that this information can be easily manipulated and distorted.”

Today’s increasingly chaotic and overloaded information landscape is helping Russia conceal its true intentions in Ukraine and disguise its geopolitical ambitions, says Danilov. He frames the ongoing invasion of Ukraine as the central stage in a far broader global confrontation between the democratic world and the resurgent forces of autocracy led by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, but cautions that such clarity is often lacking during his interactions with Ukraine’s Western partners.

The 61-year-old Ukrainian Security Council Secretary bemoans the absence of a modern-day Reagan or Churchill with the necessary vision to see the Russian threat in its true historical context. Unless today’s generation of Western leaders urgently acknowledge the scale of the challenge, he predicts they will soon be confronted by a very different and more hostile international environment. “Too many countries remain stuck in an information fog and do not realize that World War III is already underway. The whole world is engaged in the current war in one way or another, even though Ukraine is the only country doing the actual fighting against Russia.”

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With no end in sight to Russia’s invasion, the diplomatic debate in many Western capitals currently revolves around the question of Vladimir Putin’s ultimate war aims and how far he is prepared to go. To Danilov, the answer is disarmingly simple: Putin wants to completely transform the geopolitical climate and will keep going until he is stopped. If Ukraine should fall, Danilov is convinced Russia will expand its aggression further. He believes the countries most immediately at risk will be the former member states of the Warsaw Pact. “Putin made his intentions perfectly clear in his December 2021 ultimatum to the West, when he called for NATO to withdraw from Central and Eastern Europe. Just look at the map; it’s all there.”

Returning to the status quo of the early 1990s is unlikely to satisfy the Russian dictator, Danilov says. He argues that Putin’s foreign policy objectives ultimately stretch far beyond the old Iron Curtain and include the breakup of the European Union itself. This would allow Putin to divide and conquer Europe. “One of Putin’s key goals is the destruction of the EU. It is very difficult for the Kremlin to deal with a united Europe; this puts Russia at a significant disadvantage. Putin would much prefer to splinter the EU and negotiate with each European country separately.”

This does not mean Russia is preparing to imminently invade Belgium or occupy Brussels, of course. On the contrary, the Kremlin is far more likely to employ the kind of hybrid warfare tactics honed in Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Indeed, Danilov argues that Moscow has been engaged in an active campaign of hybrid hostilities inside the European Union for a number of years, and accuses European leaders of turning a blind eye to this unwelcome reality. “Russia’s hybrid war against the EU is already well underway, but some Western countries prefer not to acknowledge it. Putin constantly commits acts of hybrid aggression against Europe, but many Europeans are reluctant to draw the obvious conclusions as this would force them to recognize the threat and respond.”

Putin’s other great strategic priority is the dissolution of NATO. While skeptics argue that the Russian military is currently in no shape to take on NATO, Danilov believes Putin could potentially achieve his goal by discrediting the alliance rather than defeating it in a conventional war. With Western weakness increasingly evident in Ukraine, Putin may seek to test the shaky resolve of NATO leaders by staging some kind of border provocation. According to Danilov, if the alliance fails to produce an adequate response, there is a very real chance that member countries will quickly lose faith in collective security and seek alternative arrangements. NATO may be able to formally survive such a blow, but the damage to its credibility would be fatal. “When you have a maniac on the loose in your neighborhood, the task is to stop him as soon as possible and not engage in negotiations or other nonsense,” Danilov says.

Based on his own extensive interactions with NATO commanders over the past two years, Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary has full confidence in the alliance’s military leadership and believes they are under no illusions regarding both the nature of the Putin regime and urgency of the threat facing the West. However, he also stresses that the same cannot necessarily be said for Europe’s political leaders. This is a recipe for potential disaster, says Danilov. “Putin is the Hitler of our era. The current situation is strikingly similar to the 1930s, when military men warned of the mounting danger but were overruled by politicians who preferred to appease Hitler. If we make the same mistake again, it could mean the eclipse of the West.”

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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NATO enlargement at twenty-five: How we got there and what it achieved

Jerzy Koźmiński and Daniel Fried — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 17:59:02 +0000

Two years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale war to force Ukraine back into Russia’s empire. Other European nations once under Kremlin control escaped that fate, arguably because they were already NATO members. This coming Tuesday, March 12, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of NATO’s enlargement to include Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, which paved the way for others in formally Kremlin-dominated Europe to do so and later to join the European Union (EU). NATO enlargement seems, then, to have been a big success. But critics have blamed NATO enlargement for alienating Russia or for encroaching on Russia’s natural “sphere of influence.”

Why did NATO decide to bring in countries that had just escaped Moscow’s control? What was the United States seeking? What were the Poles and others in Central and Eastern Europe after? Did the policy discount the risks or ignore Russian interests? The authors of this article, a Pole and an American, played roles in their respective governments in the 1990s and worked closely together on NATO enlargement. Given the persistent argument over the merits of NATO enlargement, the debates from that time are still relevant today.

Removing the Iron Curtain

The Poles, like many others in Central and Eastern Europe, had concluded in the early 1990s that their newly regained freedom would be at risk without membership in NATO. They thought that the West, the United States especially, had a window of opportunity to act. Lech Wałęsa and Václav Havel, leaders respectively of Poland’s and the Czech Republic’s successful efforts to overthrow communism in 1989 and then presidents of their countries, conveyed this message to US President Bill Clinton in the early months of his presidency.

The Clinton administration understood the Poles’ and others’ fears and aspirations but initially prioritized relations with Russia and opposed NATO enlargement. If post-Soviet Russia developed in a democratic and pro-Western direction, went the initial US logic, then European security, Central Europe’s included, would follow.

US administration thinking changed, however, after serious (and sometimes contentious) internal debate. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake especially grew uncomfortable with a policy that would lock Central Europeans outside Western institutions and leave them in a “gray zone.” Treating the Central Europeans as apart from the rest of Europe would, he and some others in the Clinton administration feared, effectively perpetuate the line of the Iron Curtain, leaving them subject to future Russian domination. Moreover, by 1993, free market democracy in Central Europe, especially in Poland, was advancing, producing what would become a generation of mostly rapid growth and political stability while in Russia, reforms were uneven and nationalist parties were rising as early as 1993. Given the reality on the ground, a design for post-Cold War European and transatlantic security based solely on hopes for Russia seemed shaky.

The Clinton administration concluded that achieving a Europe whole and free required erasing the line of the Iron Curtain. That meant opening the West’s key institutions, starting with NATO and the European Community (now the EU) to the Central Europeans if they met Western standards in key areas such as democracy, free markets, and good relations with their neighbors.

A two-track approach

The United States did not cast aside relations with Russia. NATO enlargement would be part of a two-track approach, proceeding in parallel with development of a NATO-Russia relationship that could become an “alliance with the Alliance.” NATO enlargement and NATO-Russia relations would not be linked. Each would proceed independent of progress on the other, meaning that Russia could not block NATO enlargement by stalling on NATO-Russia relations.

The Clinton administration also addressed Russian concerns about the military implications of NATO enlargement, including two key assurances in the 1997 Founding Act that formalized the new NATO-Russia relationship. First, the Founding Act affirmed that NATO had “no intention, no plan, and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members.” Second, the Alliance declared that “in the current and foreseeable security environment,” NATO defense did not require the “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.” NATO kept these pledges, even after Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Moreover, the United States continued its post-Cold War drawdown of its forces in Europe.

The Poles remained skeptical about Russia’s post-Soviet development, but they accepted the Clinton administration’s two-track approach, especially given US assurances that NATO enlargement would be based on the ability of Poland and other aspirants to meet NATO’s standards, not on Russia’s permission. To support the Clinton administration’s case, the Poles even toned down their public skepticism about Russia, emphasizing that NATO enlargement aimed more at integrating and stabilizing Europe than warding off a potential Russian threat.

The Poles worried that NATO would offer only second-class membership, with caveats that would weaken the Article 5 collective defense commitment. But the United States informally consulted with the Poles about the wording of the Founding Act’s assurances to Russia about conventional force stationing, explaining what it did and did not mean, and took Polish concerns into account before finalizing the language.

In 1997, NATO advanced the NATO-Russia relationship by concluding the Founding Act and, later that year at the Madrid NATO Summit, extended an invitation to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. The US Senate ratified their accession to the Alliance in 1998 (by a strong vote of 80-19) and on March 12, 1999, NATO formally brought in the first countries that had been east of the Iron Curtain. The George W. Bush administration continued the two-track policy. NATO upgraded the NATO-Russia relationship in 2002 and, later that year, NATO extended invitations to seven more Central and Eastern European countries, including Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all of which had been illegally annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. In 2004, all of these new NATO members also joined the EU.

A NATO enlargement balance sheet

What is the net result of NATO enlargement twenty-five years after the accession of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic?

NATO enlargement met its objectives. Most Central European countries, comprising more than one hundred million people, enjoyed a generation of economic development, democracy, and security that few on either side of the Iron Curtain expected when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

The NATO-Russia track did not. Russian President Boris Yeltsin de facto accepted NATO enlargement in 1997 and Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin in 2000, did not object to enlargement, even to the Baltic states. But several years into his rule, Putin turned to authoritarianism at home and increased his ambitions abroad, trying, as later became apparent, to reassemble the Russian empire, including through war. He mistakenly saw a US hand in indigenous pro-democracy movements that backed pro-Western leaders in Georgia and Ukraine. By 2007, Putin had cast the West as a foe.

Nevertheless, NATO enlargement appears even better in hindsight. In 1993-94, Wałęsa and Havel cautioned Clinton that if NATO did not bring in new members when it could, Russia would return to claim as much of its former empire as its armies could reach. The war they warned about then is the war Ukraine now faces: a war of imperial reconquest. Putin has repeatedly made clear his support for Russia’s imperial ambitions as well as his contempt for Poland and his endorsement of false narratives about Poland’s history, including in his most recent interview with Tucker Carlson. If NATO enlargement had not taken place, then Europe might now be dealing with Russian domination of Ukraine, reoccupation of the Baltics, and the direct threat of an invasion of Poland.

What went wrong in relations with Russia was not NATO enlargement but Russian leadership’s own conception of their country and its needs. The United States sought to work with post-Soviet Russia as a country. Putin came to define Russia as an empire. Those imperial claims include Ukraine and potentially extend to the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and most of Central Asia. As a giant billboard in Russia, including at the border with Estonia, puts it, “Russia’s borders do not end.” NATO enlargement did not prevent Russia from launching imperial wars. It did make sure that those wars took place further east.

To mark the anniversary of Poland’s NATO membership, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will meet with US President Joe Biden on March 12 in Washington. These Polish leaders come from different and competing ends of Poland’s political spectrum, but they are united in their support for NATO, for Ukraine, and for the free world. They have an opportunity on this anniversary to stress how much Europe and the United States gained over the past generation as freedom and security advanced and how critical it is to continue that process by supporting Ukraine in its fight for those same values.

Jerzy Koźmiński was director general and undersecretary of state in the Polish Prime Minister’s Office from 1989-1993, Poland’s deputy foreign minister from 1993 to 1994 and Poland’s ambassador to the United States from 1994 to 2000. Currently he is president of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation.

Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US ambassador to Poland. 2000. He was a political counselor at the US Embassy in Warsaw from 1990 to 1993, national security director and later senior director for Central and Eastern Europe from 1993 to 2000, and US ambassador to Poland from 1997 to 2000.

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Dean in Australia Broadcasting Corporation

everges — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 21:49:00 +0000

On March 4, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Peter Dean was quoted in an Australia Broadcasting Corporation article discussing the benefits that AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will bring to Australia.

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Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

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Ukraine needs enhanced air defenses as Russia expands missile arsenal

Olivia Yanchik — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 19:13:02 +0000

With efforts to pass new US military aid to Ukraine still stuck in Congress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently singled out reinforcing the country’s air defenses as one of Kyiv’s most pressing priorities. “The most important thing is to unblock the sky,” Zelenskyy commented during a press event in Kyiv to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 25.

Recent reports indicate that unless Congress is able to break the current deadlock, Ukraine will face potentially catastrophic shortages of ammunition and air defenses within weeks. Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly bolstering its own growing stockpiles with deliveries of ballistic missiles from Iran.

Ukraine’s Western partners have provided significant air defense capabilities over the past two years since the onset of Russia’s invasion. This proved particularly crucial during the first winter of the war, when Russia launched a sustained air offensive against Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure in an apparent bid to freeze the country into submission and force Kyiv to surrender.

Despite improvements in Ukraine’s air defenses, the country remains highly vulnerable to Russian missile and drone attacks. While Kyiv now has relatively strong air defense coverage, other major cities such as Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia are far less protected and regularly experience deadly bombardments.

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The most prized assets within Ukraine’s patchwork air defenses are the Patriot systems the country has received from international partners. The US military’s most advanced air defense system, Patriot batteries are capable of shooting down nearly all of the missile types currently being used by Russia to strike targets across Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has also reportedly deployed Patriots in an innovative offensive capacity to shoot down Russian war planes close to the front lines of the conflict.

So far, Ukraine has only received a handful of Patriot systems. Given their effectiveness, Kyiv is understandably eager for more. Speaking in late February, Zelenskyy said the delivery of ten Patriot systems would be enough to have a significant impact on the course of the war. He argued that this would allow Ukraine to shield big cities and vital infrastructure while also defending the skies above the battlefield and potentially enabling Ukrainian troops to break through fortified Russian defensive lines.

At the same time, there is recognition in Kyiv and among the country’s partners that Ukraine’s air defense challenges cannot be solved by more Patriot systems alone. With individual missiles costing millions of dollars, the Patriot system is not a cost-effective option, especially when targets include waves of relatively cheap kamikaze drones that Russia is receiving from Iran and also producing domestically in increasingly large quantities.

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In order to counter Russia’s growing aerial threat, Ukraine’s partners must continue helping the Ukrainian military establish a multi-layered air defense network covering the entire country. This network should be designed with economic factors and supply sustainability in mind. It should also reflect the expanding variety of drones and missiles being deployed by the Russians.

Russia’s most dangerous missiles, such as the Kinzhal, are often deployed within larger bombardments that include a range of ballistic and cruise missiles alongside drones. These complex attacks are particularly challenging for Ukrainian air defense units. “The most difficult is an attack by various types of aerial targets,” confirmed one Kyiv air defense commander in summer 2023.

Ukraine’s international partners need to provide a range of additional air defense tools such as laser-guided weapons that can help counter Russia’s use of drones. US-made Hawk systems, which predate the Patriot system, have also proven a valuable addition to Ukraine’s air defense arsenal, as have gun trucks. A more diverse array of systems will enable Ukrainian air defense units to target large numbers of incoming drones without depleting their own limited supplies of expensive interceptor missiles.

Providing Ukraine with enhanced air defenses is essential for the country’s war effort. This will allow Ukraine to defend its civilian population and vital infrastructure from Russian attack, while also strengthening the country’s resilience and making it possible for business and everyday life to continue. This is critical if Ukraine is to withstand the Kremlin’s attrition tactics. With Russia now reportedly receiving missiles from both Iran and North Korea, it is time for Ukraine’s partners to step up their own deliveries of air defense systems and ammunition.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Irregular migration starts well before the US southern border. Focus on the driving causes of the problem.

María Eugenia Brizuela de Avila — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:09:57 +0000

With US President Joe Biden and former US president (and current candidate) Donald Trump both scheduled to visit the southern border on Thursday, the spotlight is once again on the United States’ immigration policies. But it is an issue that extends well beyond the US-Mexico border. In 2023, a record 520,000 people crossed the treacherous jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darién Gap, more than double the number reported the year before, according to figures from the government of Panama. This figure highlights the critical need for comprehensive policies in the United States and in the region that not only ensure citizen and border security but also address migration as part of a broader, interconnected security challenge in the Western Hemisphere, spotlighting the pivotal role of the countries that migrants traverse.

Most immigrant traffic to the United States goes through and comes from Latin America. A lack of economic opportunities, climate vulnerabilities, political instability, and the pervasive influence of organized crime are often cited as push factors for these migrants. However, recent migration patterns also reveal a diversification of nationalities at the US southern border, underscoring the global nature of the challenge. In addition to regional events such as the collapse of Venezuela, political instability in Haiti, violence in Ecuador, and the ongoing and unrelenting crackdown in Nicaragua, conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in the Middle East are also fueling the migration crisis. Most migrants at the US southern border in recent years originated in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. However, despite the persistent conception of most migrants coming from Central America, in December, more than half of migrant encounters at the US-Mexico border involved citizens of other countries, such as Russia, India, Brazil, Afghanistan, Romania, Turkey, and others.

As such, Latin American countries and the United States should work together to develop and implement policies and strategies that address the driving causes of migration that are specific to the region and mitigate the region-wide risks of such a large migrant flow—much of which now comes from outside the region.

Specifically, the United States should work with the countries originating high numbers of migrants to improve conditions and thus prevent the need for people to leave their countries—whether from Latin America and the Caribbean or other parts of the world. That starts with a holistic security strategy to address the challenges of human, drug, and arms trafficking. Supporting local economic growth and human capital development, employing climate change mitigation and adaptation programs, and fostering coordinated, multifaceted responses to the drug supply chain would create a more secure hemisphere and decrease the number of people fleeing violence.

Additionally, the United States needs to recognize that its current policies aimed at deterring migration are ineffective and often harmful. The hardline policies that were put in place by the Trump administration and have largely been continued by the Biden administration have done little to nothing to curb migration flows. At the US-Mexico border, migration crossings have hit a record high, with more than three hundred thousand Border Patrol encounters with migrants in December. This context demands a reevaluation of current strategies aimed at deterring migration.

Instead of continuing its failed effort at deterrence, Congress should focus on developing humane, legal pathways to migration, recognizing pull factors in the United States, which will decrease the frequency of irregular migration. A straightforward recommendation is for clear, realistic timelines for US judges to expeditiously deliver decisions on asylum cases.

The United States should not take on all of the burden. There are opportunities to work in the region and support regional partners on integrating displaced migrants in third countries, from the region or from other parts of the world, to help alleviate the migration flow to the US border. A new report by the Atlantic Council also puts forward the idea of the United States supporting a regional task force “with the goal of jointly addressing the factors behind irregular migration and insecurity.” The idea builds on the existing work of countries such as Costa Rica and Panama, which are working hand in hand to establish more streamlined, efficient, and unified border crossings. Last week, these two countries, with the assistance of the Inter-American Development Bank, inaugurated a one-of-a-kind border facility. Building on the Atlantic Council’s recommendation for a regional task force to address these challenges, the United States, Mexico, and Guatemala are already moving in this direction. The three nations have just “committed to establish an operationally focused trilateral working group aimed at enhancing security, law enforcement processes, and infrastructure along their international borders”—a concrete manifestation of a collaborative approach to solving regional challenges.”

Migration and security are inherently interlinked issues, and the urgency for a collaborative, multifaceted approach to both cannot be overstated. The United States must work with and support other countries in the hemisphere to holistically mitigate the root causes of migration and create safer conditions for citizens across the region.

María Eugenia Brizuela de Avila is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and a former minister of foreign affairs of El Salvador.

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Garlauskas, Webster, and Verges quoted in the Diplomat on China’s aid to Russia

kyusko — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:47:52 +0000

On February 24, a New Atlanticist article by Markus Garlauskas, Global Energy Center Senior Fellow Joseph Webster, and Emma Verges, titled, “China’s support for Russia has been hindering Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” was quoted in a Diplomat piece on China’s economic and material support to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

Staff

Joseph Webster

Senior Fellow, Global Energy Center

Global Energy Center Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

Central Asia China

Former staff

Emma C. Verges

Former Assistant Director

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Chinese

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Dean quoted in Australian media on Australia’s Navy overhaul

kyusko — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:37:35 +0000

On February 23, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean was quoted in an Australian Financial Review article on Australia’s plans to revamp its navy amidst rising global tensions. Dean was also quoted in the Australian on Canberra’s decision to retain a downsized Hunter-class frigate program.

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Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Climate crisis fuels change in MENA region

Rabah Arezki — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +0000

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Evolution of freedom

Freedom to prosperity

The future ahead

Evolution of freedom

The countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are stuck in economic and political transitions toward more open economic and political markets. The lack of economic freedom has long echoed the lack of political freedom in the region. To maintain the status quo, political elites have for many years sought to cultivate an enduring social contract wherein economic and political elites capture economic rents—including from oil revenues—and citizens receiving patronage spending have tended to look the other way.

That is evident from the overall freedom score for the region, which has remained considerably lower than the global average. Indeed, the MENA region’s freedom score in 2022 is the same as two decades before (around 46.9), 15.4 points below the global average. That said, an increase in the freedom score is evident at the beginning of the period of analysis (from 1995 to 2002) which coincided with a wave of both economic and political reforms.

While there are important cultural and legal similarities among MENA countries, the region is also heterogeneous in many ways. Three distinct groups have progressed at different speeds in their economic transitions: the high-speed group, mostly composed of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries; moderate-speed, mostly composed of North African countries plus countries like Jordan and Lebanon; and the low-speed group, which includes conflict or post-conflict countries. Indeed, the GCC countries, which are mostly nonpopulous economies with vast wealth, have outperformed the other two groups, increasing their average freedom score by 6.7 points over the sample (1995–2022). The “moderate-speed” group of countries in North Africa, plus Jordan and Lebanon, includes both oil-importing and oil-exporting states, with a mixed record of economic reforms. Most of these countries are populous, with Egypt home to the largest population in the region. The conflict and post-conflict group includes Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, each with a complex history of civil wars coupled with foreign invasions.

The diversity of circumstances is evident when considering the evolution of the economic freedom score. The regional score has increased by 5 points throughout the period, driven by improvements in women’s economic freedom and, recently, investment freedom. This increase is mainly driven by progress in the GCC group of countries, where economic freedom went up by 14.5 points. The GCC is now led by Saudi Arabia, which has embarked on an important economic and social transformation agenda. In the “low-speed” group, we see an overall decline over the period (−3.7 points). Across the region, trade freedom presents a significant negative trend since 2011, losing almost 15 points.

On the political freedom front, the region is home to the world’s last absolute monarchies, whose transition to constitutional monarchies has been slow, and at times reversed. Military involvement in politics is all too common and has been on the rise. The wave of protests that spread through almost the entire region and which came to be known as the Arab Spring is apparent in the data. The Arab Spring erupted in the early 2010s from the frustration of a young and educated population aspiring to more political and economic freedom and prosperity. The hope raised by the Arab Spring proved, however, to be temporary. Indeed, protests ended up either tamed by autocrats or resulted in internal conflicts, with foreign interventions supporting opposing sides. The political freedom score shows an increase starting in 2010, which has vanished by 2014. All indicators of the political freedom subindex have been affected. This shows that countries in the region are stuck in political transitions toward democracy.

Legal freedom is relatively low in the region, with all its indicators except informality scoring below 50 in 2022. Most indicators of legal freedom have had a flat trend in the last decade, showing no signs of improvement. Here as well, the GCC countries score higher than the other two groups, with a stable score over the sample. In the other two groups, legal freedom is declining. Just as on the political front, legal reforms toward more fair and inclusive systems have stalled.

From freedom to prosperity

The prosperity score of the MENA region has clearly diverged from the global average during the period 1995–2022. Overall scores mask important differences between countries in MENA, especially along economic lines. Indeed, the MENA region has the largest reserves of oil and other hydrocarbons in the world.¹ But not all countries in the region are rich in oil. The region is host to both oil importers and oil exporters, and the impacts of oil shocks far outweigh any policy intervention. Evidently, persistently high oil prices—albeit remaining volatile—have been good news for oil exporters and somewhat bad news for oil importers in the region. However, the reality is not always so straightforward, as high oil prices result in large and positive spillover effects from oil exporters to oil importers, especially in terms of remittances and foreign aid, and these have tended to mitigate the differences between the two groups.

While the consequences of oil market fluctuations continue to play a dominant role in driving prosperity in the region, that situation is clearly not sustainable as the world economy is firmly embarking on a transition away from fossil fuels. The MENA region scores higher than the global average in income, health, and environment, but the gap in the last two decades has been narrowing. Countries in the region should not be complacent and should transform their economies by supporting more (genuine) private sector development. The success of the economic and social transformation agenda led by Saudi Arabia is vital for the region. Yet the ultimate test of that transformation is whether it would be sustained and financed through (domestic and foreign) private investment instead of state funds, which will eventually run out.

Education is the best performing indicator for the region, with a score that has doubled in the period of analysis. Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement, as the level is still low (close to 45 points), relative to the global average. Educated but unemployed youth have been the drivers of the Arab Spring. That situation is a source of worry for leaders who want to keep the status quo, and has led them to place limits on political freedom and civil liberties.

The region scores significantly below the global average in inequality and minority rights, and the gaps have not been reduced in the last twenty-five years. Persistently high inequality is a source of further tensions. The need to promote equality of opportunity in the region—through free enterprise and curbing cronyism—has never been greater. Failure to address deficiencies in economic but also political freedom will hamper prosperity in the region and lead to further instability.

The future ahead

Over the next decade, countries in the MENA region will have to grapple with economic and political transitions in a world in mutation. To achieve freedom and prosperity, countries in the region will have to face up to risks linked to geopolitics, climate change, and the transformation of energy markets, as well as social polarization.

The region is at a tipping point when it comes to conflict escalation. Indeed, the alarming intensity and casualties resulting from the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territories risk engulfing the whole region. This new phase of escalation of violence brings not only tragic loss of lives but also physical destruction, fear, and uncertainty. That new spread of violence will have far-reaching economic and social consequences. What is more, the Palestinian issue is an important fault line between the Global North and the Global South that could have global repercussions and tear the region further apart.

The region is also extremely exposed to the existential threat posed by climate change. Climate change is simply making the Middle East and North Africa unlivable at a faster rate than any other region. Specifically, temperatures have reached record highs and a water crisis is looming in the region, which could lead to heightened domestic tensions and interstate conflicts. The crisis is made worse by the inadequate governance of the water sector and other utilities, which has exacerbated the frustration of the citizenry over poor public services.

The region also needs to transition away from fossil fuels. Oil prices have been persistently high and this has provided some respite to the many oil-exporting countries in the region. Yet, as the world moves away from fossil fuels, the vast reserves of oil and natural gas with which MENA is endowed will eventually become stranded—and so will the capital investment in the sector. With these considerations in mind, several MENA countries have embarked on ambitious diversification programs to move away from oil, although success has, so far, been elusive. As we have said, Saudi Arabia’s ambitious economic and social transformation agenda could be a game changer for the region and perhaps offer a model for other countries to emulate.

A credible economic and social transformation agenda is long overdue, to meet the aspirations of an educated youth and to absorb millions of young people—females and males alike—into the labor market. The aborted political transitions have, however, polarized societies in the region: the people on the streets who continue to protest on the one side, and the political elites and crony capitalists on the other. The political and economic transitions are interlinked and failure to address both could result in further social tensions and instability.²

Rabah Arezki is a former vice president at the African Development Bank, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region, and a former chief of commodities at the the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department. He is now a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development and at Harvard Kennedy School.

EXPLORE THE DATA

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Jun 15, 2023

Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The indexes rank 164 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. Use our site to explore twenty-eight years of data, compare countries and regions, and examine the sub-indexes and indicators that comprise our indexes.

1 Hereafter the terms “hydrocarbon” and “oil” are used interchangeably. The region is host to the largest oil and natural gas exporters in the world.

2 Editors’ note: This chapter was written before the start of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war

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Making Russia pay for the invasion of Ukraine

Paul Grod — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 17:03:58 +0000

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, the costs of the conflict continue to rise. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and forced more than ten million Ukrainians to flee their homes. Dozens of towns and cities have been reduced to rubble by the invading Russian army, while the entire Ukrainian nation has been subjected to unimaginable trauma.

It is impossible to put a price on this death and destruction, of course. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the financial dimension of Russia’s invasion. Every single month, Ukraine requires billions of dollars from partners to fund the war effort, balance the state budget, and keep its economy afloat. In the coming years, the bill for the reconstruction of the country is expected to be in excess of $500 billion. These are truly staggering sums. Making Russia pay would be the most sensible solution, from both a moral and practical perspective.

There is believed to be at least $300 billion in Russian assets currently frozen in the West. Discussions have been underway since the early stages of the invasion over possible mechanisms for handing these assets over to Ukraine. In recent months, the idea of using Russian funds to finance international support for Ukraine has gained momentum, with a range of parallel initiatives unfolding in the US, the EU (which holds the biggest share of frozen Russian assets), and among the G7 group of leading industrialized nations. Multiple different options are currently being explored, from directly transferring funds to Ukraine, to using frozen Russian assets as collateral for bonds.

It is now vital for individual countries to draw up and implement the necessary legislation at the national level, while also coordinating with global initiatives to create legally solid foundations for the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. This task must be approached with a sense of urgency that reflects the scale of the challenges facing Ukraine, while also underlining Russia’s criminal responsibility for what is by far the largest and bloodiest European invasion since World War II.

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Critics of asset seizures have argued that any attempt to hand over Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine could undermine faith in the international financial system while potentially deterring state bodies and private investors from the Global South from putting their money in the West. However, these concerns are overblown.

Much as the Kremlin would like to make this an issue of global confidence in Western financial institutions, any autocrats with major concerns would have been more likely to withdraw their money from Western jurisdictions in early 2022 when Russian assets were first frozen. That did not happen, in part due to recognition of the exceptional circumstances, and partly as there were no viable alternatives to Western currencies and assets. This remains the case, despite very public discussions over the possible seizure of Russia’s frozen assets.

Others have warned that Russia would almost certainly retaliate by confiscating assets belonging to Western governments and businesses. This, too, is not a serious argument against using Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine. The Kremlin is already applying a range of tools to seize Western businesses and assets located inside Russia, without any apparent need to justify such actions by pointing to the loss of its own frozen assets in the West. Companies that chose to invest in Putin’s Russia did so knowing this involved a high degree of risk. They cannot now realistically expect the international community to frame its response to Russia’s invasion around their narrow commercial interests, especially in light of the obvious ethical issues involved.

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From a pragmatic perspective, the argument in favor of seizing Russian assets and transferring them to Ukraine is compelling. Western support for Ukraine is expensive, with the international coalition of countries backing the Ukrainian war effort already contributing hundreds of billions of dollars over the past two years. As Ukrainian officials have rightly noted, this is not charity. On the contrary, Ukraine is fighting to defend the security and values of the entire Western world. If Russia is not defeated in Ukraine, the cost of stopping Putin will rise dramatically. It is therefore entirely reasonable to expect Western countries to back Ukraine financially.

At the same time, the very large sums involved are perhaps inevitably making Ukrainian aid an increasingly contentious domestic issue in countries across the West. Amid a widespread cost of living crisis and sluggish economic growth, many Western taxpayers are uncomfortable seeing so much money being sent to Ukraine. Kremlin allies are already seeking to exploit this mood, as are opponents of further Western aid to Ukraine. Using confiscated Russian assets would ease the burden on Western countries and silence critics who complain of paying the price for the Kremlin’s war.

Crucially, the seizure of Russia’s frozen assets is morally justified. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is widely acknowledged as a war of aggression and has been condemned in numerous UN votes. International investigators have documented evidence indicating thousands of individual Russian war crimes, while Vladimir Putin himself has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Failing to hold Russia financially accountable for the invasion would make a mockery of the entire notion of a rules-based international order.

Those expressing concerns over the legality of asset seizures or the possible implications for financial stability must recognize that time is running out. Their navel gazing is already preventing Ukraine from being able to defend itself properly and is costing Ukrainian lives on a daily basis. Urgent progress is particularly necessary as we are now approaching a period of geopolitical uncertainty, with an unprecedented number of elections set to take place around the world in the coming months.

Finding the right formula to fund Ukraine with Russia’s frozen assets should be an international priority. This will reduce the financial pressure on Western countries and undermine economic arguments against continued international support for Ukraine. Most of all, it should be pursued on moral grounds. Bringing Russians to justice for their crimes in Ukraine and transferring Russian assets located in the West to Ukraine are two very concrete steps to support Ukraine’s victory. States guilty of violating international law should be punished and held financially accountable. This would bolster the rules-based international order and send a clear message that any country embarking on wars of aggression can expect to pay a very high price for doing so.

Paul Grod is President of the Ukrainian World Congress.

Atlantic Council — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:09:47 +0000

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Pavia joins i24 to discuss Algeria-Palestinian Authority relations

Atlantic Council — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:09:44 +0000

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Putin’s unpunished Crimean crime set the stage for Russia’s 2022 invasion

Mercedes Sapuppo — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 19:19:16 +0000

On February 24, the world will reflect on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While attention is understandably focused on the current phase of Russia’s war, this week also marked ten years since the Kremlin first began its attack on Ukraine with the military takeover of Crimea. One decade on, it should now be painfully obvious that the international community’s inadequate response to Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea was a geopolitical blunder of historic proportions that emboldened Vladimir Putin and set the stage for the biggest European invasion since World War II.

The Russian seizure of Crimea in early 2014 caught the watching world almost entirely by surprise. While Western leaders were quick to condemn the Kremlin’s actions, their response was marked by a high degree of caution. Crucially, there was no attempt to oppose the invasion militarily or arm Ukraine. Instead, Western leaders called on Kyiv to avoid any actions that might lead to an escalation.

This underwhelming response was to have disastrous consequences, helping to convince Putin that the West ultimately lacked the resolve to confront him. Nobel Prize Laureate and Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk has noted that Crimea established a dangerous precedent. “Crimea was a test because it was the first time since the Second World War that a country annexed a part of another country and the world did nothing,” she commented in 2023.

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By adopting an overly cautious approach to the Russian invasion of Crimea, the West was guilty of seriously underestimating, or willfully ignoring, the true extent of Putin’s imperial ambitions. This refusal to accept the uncomfortable new geopolitical reality of an expansionist Russia only served to encourage the Kremlin.

In the weeks following the occupation of Crimea, Putin attempted to spark pro-Russian uprisings throughout southern and eastern Ukraine. When these efforts were largely thwarted by local Ukrainian opposition, he focused on instigating an armed conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Following the Crimean model, he once again used Russian troops and Kremlin agents posing as local militias. The war Putin unleashed in eastern Ukraine would remain unresolved for eight years before ultimately serving as his immediate excuse for the full-scale invasion of February 2022. However, the fuse was first lit in Crimea.

Since 2014, Russia has tightened its grip on Crimea. It has transformed the occupied Ukrainian peninsula into a military base, utilizing it as a jumping off point for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Crimea currently serves as an important logistical hub for the Russian military, acting as an airbase and naval base while playing a key role in the resupply of the Russian army in southern Ukraine.

Over the last decade, residents of occupied Crimea have been exposed to the repressive realities of Russian occupation. The US Department of State has determined that Crimean Tatars in particular have been subjected to “serious governmental and societal violence and discrimination.”

The many Ukrainian prisoners detained in Crimea reportedly face “mock executions, beatings, electric shocks, and sexual violence” from Russian occupation authorities that “commonly engage in torture of detainees and other abuses.” An estimated 208 Crimean political prisoners are currently behind bars in Russian-occupied Crimea, of which 125 are Crimean Tatars. Many of the repressive practices pioneered in occupied Crimea have since been used in other parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Understandably, thousands have fled Crimea since 2014 and moved to mainland Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has sought to transform the demographic makeup of the peninsula by importing hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens. These new arrivals include large numbers of military personnel, who have been deployed as part of an expanding Russian military presence on the peninsula.

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Today’s full-scale war underlines the folly of failing to immediately deter the Kremlin at the very beginning of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. When Putin first ordered the seizure of Crimea, he initially attempted to distance himself from the unfolding military operation and officially denied any direct involvement. However, once it became clear that the West would not impose serious costs, he was all too willing to claim personal responsibility for what was viewed in Russia as a major triumph.

This careful monitoring of Western reaction has been a constant feature of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, with Putin always ready to go further if he senses weakness. The fear of escalation that Western leaders first demonstrated during the capture of Crimea has continued to cloud their judgment throughout the past decade and has been skillfully exploited by Putin, who uses thinly veiled threats and nuclear blackmail to discourage international support for Ukraine as he expands the war and occupies more Ukrainian land.

There are now indications that Western leaders finally recognize the cost of appeasing Putin. “They stole Crimea. They stole Donbas. And now they want to steal the entire country. We must not let that happen,” commented Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky recently. Such clarity is welcome. However, it is crucial that strong statements are matched by the kind of decisive action that can defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine and deter the Kremlin from embarking on further wars of aggression.

In hindsight, it is clear that the Russian occupation of Crimea was one of the great watershed moments of the twenty-first century. By militarily occupying and attempting to annex the territory of a neighboring European state, Putin was signaling the end of the post-1991 settlement and the dawning of a dangerous new era. Unless Putin is finally confronted and defeated in Ukraine, his sense of impunity will only increase and other countries will become victims of resurgent Russian imperialism.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Time is running out to help Ukraine and defend the West

Victor Pinchuk — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:44:18 +0000

Friends of Ukraine often say to Western political leaders: The West’s economy is 20-25 times bigger than Russia’s, how could we possibly give Ukraine fewer weapons than Russia has? Let’s do more, it is not such a big deal. But it is a bigger deal than that. I would like to encourage you to take a hard look at the truth and at the urgency of the situation we are facing.

The West is potentially overwhelmingly stronger than Russia and can enable Ukraine to win. But only with an effort, and a speed, that are on a completely different level to current policies of support.

The West’s economy is 20-25 times bigger than Russia’s. But who uses their full strength now? The US and the EU have directed 0.3% and 0.4% of their GDPs, respectively, to supporting Ukraine (including financial and humanitarian aid). Russia spends approximately 40% of its budget on attacking Ukraine, which is estimated as between 6% and 10% of the country’s GDP. This far greater commitment is helping Russia compensate for the West’s much larger economic potential. A smaller fighter who sacrifices everything can overcome a much bigger opponent who does not fight so hard.

But even worse, this is not a fight between the West’s potential and Russia’s potential. Everything depends on what the West gives right now, against what Russia produces right now, plus what Russia receives from Iran and North Korea. These are relatively small economies, but with disproportionately powerful military production.

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Russia’s leaders consider this war as existential for them. The Kremlin squeezes everything out of the Russian economy for the war effort. The West does not yet appear to see the war as existential, or fully appreciate the urgency of the situation. This is wrong.

It would be a mistake to think that Ukrainians can continue holding the front for as long as the West needs in order to decide its approach. It would be a mistake to take comfort from the insight that Russia’s economic sacrifices are not sustainable in the long term.

Ukrainians are fighting against a critical threat right now. This threat is ultimately directed against the West. Economic potential alone will not win the war for Ukraine. The West must fight for its own survival by helping Ukraine, and must do so now.

Since the US has stopped giving aid and Europe has failed to make up for it, as things currently stand, Ukraine will lose. Of course, Ukrainians will keep fighting, whatever happens. Of course, Ukrainians will never give up. Yes, Ukrainians will do the impossible. No, Russia cannot ultimately win in Ukraine. But Ukraine can lose in the short term, unless the West immediately increases instead of decreasing its support.

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Ukrainians are exhausted and lack the minimum of ammunition. Even worse, Ukrainians currently lack a reliable perspective regarding sufficient support in the foreseeable future.

I often talk to Ukrainian soldiers. They feel that at the moment, North Korea is a more reliable partner to Russia than the West is to Ukraine. They say that if they knew aid was coming in the not-too-distant future, it would give them the strength to reach that point. But right now, they don’t have such a perspective to count on.

If the West wants to turn this around, the most important thing to realize is that there is no time to spare. In 2022, the West waited too long, because some thought Russia would not really launch a full-scale attack, while others thought Ukraine would not survive more than a few days.

In 2024, many are once again waiting too long because they think Ukraine will not really lose. Have you not learned that bad things do happen? That you must act before they do? Unless there are major changes in the West’s approach, you may regret your current inaction even more than you did after February 2022.

As an engineer, I sometimes find simple formulas useful to make a situation clear. 2022 was the year when everyone underestimated Ukraine. 2023 was the year when everyone underestimated Russia. 2024 is the year of truth.

The war will not be decided by the potential of the West versus Russia alone. It will be determined by what the West does right now to support Ukraine, versus what Russia and allies like Iran and North Korea do right now. And don’t forget, whatever losses Ukraine suffers in 2024 cannot simply be undone by ramping up production in 2025.

In war, it does not matter if you did a lot. All that matters is if you did enough. And quickly enough. Europe and the West must switch their logic 180 degrees. Ukraine should not have to ask for weapons. The West should be offering proactively. Instead of Ukrainian requests that the West answers after long deliberations, Western offers should be coming in all the time.

Then, and only then, you will have given Ukrainians what they need to fight back the aggressor and preserve their independence. This will create a chance for peace and security. For you.

Victor Pinchuk is a businessman, philanthropist, and founder and member of the board of Yalta European Strategy. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board. The Victor Pinchuk Foundation is a donor to the Atlantic Council.

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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Ukraine’s Black Sea success offers hope as Russian invasion enters third year

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 21:43:51 +0000

As Ukrainians prepare to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the news from the front lines is increasingly bleak. After the failure of last year’s counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military has now switched to active defense and is struggling to prevent fresh Russian advances. This task is being further complicated by delays in Western military aid that are leaving Ukrainian units outgunned and forcing them to ration ammunition.

Amid this mounting gloom, Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Black Sea continues to serve as a welcome source of inspiration. The most recent victory came in the early hours of February 14, when a major Russian warship was reportedly caught off the coast of Crimea and sunk by a mosquito fleet of five Ukrainian maritime drones. The Caesar Kunikov landing ship is the latest in an expanding list of Russian warships to be damaged or destroyed during the past two years. Ukraine has now disabled one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian officials told CNN in the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack.

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The Battle of the Black Sea began on the eve of the full-scale invasion, with Vladimir Putin ordering his navy to impose a blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports more than a week before Russian tanks rolled across the border on February 24, 2022. On paper, at least, the war at sea appeared to be a foregone conclusion, with the Ukrainian Navy’s handful of small vessels hopelessly outmatched by the might of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. However, it would not be long before Ukraine was challenging such assumptions.

Ukraine’s first naval triumph was the April 2022 sinking of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Moskva, which was struck by a brace of Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles. Two months later, Ukraine succeeded in liberating Snake Island, a small by strategically important Black Sea island which had been occupied by Russia on the first day of the invasion. By late summer 2022, Ukraine had begun drone strikes on the Russian fleet and related naval facilities in Russian-occupied Crimea.

These attacks gained significant momentum in 2023, thanks to developments in Ukraine’s marine drone fleet along with the appearance of British and French-supplied cruise missiles in the Ukrainian arsenal. Landmark achievements included a successful long-range marine drone attack on a warship close to the Russian port of Novorossiysk in the eastern Black Sea, and the destruction of a Russian submarine and warship undergoing maintenance in Crimea’s Sevastopol, the traditional home port of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

This week’s attack on the Caesar Kunikov is the second successful naval operation in February 2024 alone, and comes following the reported destruction of Russian warship the Ivanovets at the start of the month. As is now customary, news of this latest sinking inspired a flood of memes on social media as Ukrainians toasted the further weakening of the Russian navy. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called it a “great victory for Ukrainians,” and noted that the country has been able to “inflict heavy losses on the Russian Black Sea Fleet.”

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The sinking of Russian warships will not prove decisive in a land war, of course. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s success in the Battle of the Black Sea is no mere morale boost and is already shaping the course of the wider war. Ukrainian attacks have made it difficult for the Russian navy to maintain a presence in the northwestern Black Sea and have forced Putin to withdraw the bulk of his fleet from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports. This is hampering Russia’s ability to bomb Ukraine using the Black Sea Fleet’s missile-carrying warships, while also disrupting the logistics of the Russian army in Crimea and southern Ukraine.

Crucially, sinking so many Russian warships has enabled Ukraine to break the blockade of the country’s Black Sea ports and resume maritime exports to global markets. The reopening of merchant shipping lanes for the country’s vast agricultural industry represents a financial lifeline for Ukraine, which is struggling to keep its battered economy afloat and fund the war effort. Many were skeptical that Ukraine could defy the Russian blockade, but the results speak for themselves. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy, exports in January 2024 reached 12 million metric tons, the highest monthly total since the start of the invasion and just two million tons below prewar levels.

In addition to restricting the role of the Russian navy and boosting the domestic economy, Ukraine’s victories at sea are also providing important lessons for the future conduct of the war. The effective use of British and French cruise missiles has underlined Ukraine’s ability to deploy sophisticated Western weapons systems, while also highlighting Russia’s vulnerability. The success achieved over the past year in Crimea and the Black Sea with relatively limited supplies of cruise missiles offers a glimpse of what could be possible if Ukraine’s partners finally agree to deliver long-range missiles in anything like the quantities Kyiv is asking for.

Perhaps the single most important lesson to take from the Battle of the Black Sea is the need for the West to overcome its crippling fear of escalation. For the past two years, risk-averse Western leaders have consistently demonstrated excessive caution in their response to the Russian invasion, while warning against anything that might potentially provoke Putin. The Russian dictator has skillfully exploited these concerns, hinting at dire consequences if Western support for Ukraine passes certain thresholds. President Zelenskyy has long complained that this preoccupation with avoiding escalation plays directly into Russia’s hands while leaving Ukraine at a massive disadvantage.

Ukraine’s Black Sea success has now made a mockery of the West’s self-deterrence and exposed the emptiness of Russian threats. During the first year of the invasion, Putin and other senior Russian officials repeatedly indicated that attacks on Crimea represented a red line for the Kremlin. However, when Ukraine ignored these threats and proceeded with its campaign against the Russian navy, Putin’s promised retribution failed to materialize. Confronted with unfavorable new military realities, the Kremlin strongman simply ordered his fleet to retreat.

If Putin is prepared to quietly withdraw the bulk of his navy from Crimea, which is the jewel in the crown of his new Russian Empire, there is every reason to believe he will be similarly pragmatic when faced with the prospect of military disaster in mainland Ukraine. In other words, Putin can be defeated if Ukraine’s partners conquer their fear of escalation and refuse to be intimidated by the Kremlin.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Dean published in the Australian on AUKUS

kyusko — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 15:11:31 +0000

On February 9, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean co-authored an article in the Australian titled, “AUKUS has become a case study in generational politics,” discussing the apprehension of Australia’s younger population toward AUKUS.

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

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Garlauskas quoted in the Daily Beast on fears of North Korean aggression

kyusko — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 18:14:10 +0000

On February 5, Markus Garlauskas’ remarks from a recent public event at the Korea Society were quoted by the Daily Beast. The article, examining rising fears of North Korean aggression, referenced his recent comments that the focus should not be on full-scale war, but “in that space between provocation of war.”

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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Hinata-Yamaguchi quoted in the Japan Times on Japan’s defense upgrades

kyusko — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 19:34:34 +0000

On February 2, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in an article by the Japan Times, discussing Japan’s efforts to build up its defense and deterrence against simultaneous threats from China, North Korea, and Russia.

Fellow

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Indo-Pacific

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Iran is on its way to replacing Russia as a leading arms exporter. The US needs a strategy to counter this trend.

Danny Citrinowicz — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 16:21:20 +0000

The latest reports regarding the sale of Iran’s Mohajer-6 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for use in the Sudanese civil war, which has been raging for the past year, should not surprise those who follow Iranian arms sales.

In recent years, and even more so in the last year alone, Iran has been increasing the pace of its sales and transfers of UAVs to various parts of the globe, including Ethiopia, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Western Sahara’s Polisario Front. Iran is well on its way to becoming a leading arms exporter globally, especially since additional countries are interested in buying these capabilities.

The economic profit Iran receives in this regard is clear. It is estimated that the cost of the popular Shahed-136 is $20,000-$40,000 for one unit. This fact, together with the reports that Iran sold more than two thousand drones to Russia alone, makes it clear that Tehran earns millions of dollars from these transactions. However, Iran obtains more than financial gains from this dynamic, as it also deepens the Islamic Republic’s political foothold in these countries, creating dependence on the former and its products.

In this context, Iran has significant advantages compared to countries like the United Kingdom, Israel, or the United States, which export similar capabilities worldwide. Iran’s drones and other military capabilities, such as Fateh-110 short-range missiles, are cheaper than its Western competitors. On top of that, Iran has no political or legal restrictions that prevent it from selling these weapons around the world; it is apparently not afraid that these products will fall into the hands of dangerous foreign parties.

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Most importantly, Iran’s products have been proven on the battlefield, whether it has been through Russia’s use of them in the war against Ukraine or the terrorist organizations’ use of them under Iran’s auspices, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, or the Shia militias in Iraq. The potency of these weapons in the hands of the latter category of actors was evidenced in the January 28 attack on a base in northeastern Jordan, which killed three service members, as well as the start of the “Iron Swords” campaign, when Israel was viciously attacked by the terrorist group Hamas on October 7, 2023.

This situation has allowed Iran to dramatically increase its sales to many countries worldwide, especially to those to which the West has difficulty transferring weapons, such as countries involved in military conflicts or civil wars.

Another relevant factor in this equation is the position of Russia, which was once a leading weapons exporter before experiencing difficulty maintaining its position as a major power after invading Ukraine. The resulting war has consumed vast Russian resources and provoked an array of sanctions, producing a vacuum in the world of arms sales and military equipment in a time of global instability.

As a result, Iran has become more dominant and attractive in the eyes of countries that previously depended on Russia’s supply of military equipment. Furthermore, the current situation can create a joint venture between Iran and Russia that may increase their conventional mutual arms sales due to their high production capabilities.

Iran’s recent activities in this regard are a clear warning of what will happen if it increases its weapons exports. On top of the other problems this trend creates, it must be remembered that giving strategic capabilities to those with problematic decision-making mechanisms/processes may lead to the misuse of said capabilities, which can significantly destabilize various areas of the world.

The recent events in the Bab al-Mandab Strait are an example of these alarming developments; that the Houthis can threaten the maritime routes in the Red Sea and beyond is driven by the fact that they received strategic capabilities, including drones and Coastal Defense Cruise Missiles (CDCMs), from Iran. If Iran increases the spread of these capabilities, it will probably duplicate the situation in the Red Sea in other places around the world.

For this reason alone, the US government should understand the seriousness of these developments. Ignoring this trend could lead to an irreversible situation that might make Iran the leading arms exporter in the world.

There are multiple actions the Joe Biden administration needs to take to prevent this from happening. First, it must significantly increase pressure on Iran’s drone industry by placing more sanctions on relevant entities, thereby preventing companies from sending dual-use components that could be used in the Iranian drone industry and so forth. Such a measure would make it much more complicated and much more expensive to produce these drones.

Imposing economic and political sanctions on any country that acquires military capabilities from Iran or conducts joint military ventures with it, like Tajikistan, will present hefty trade-offs that could act as a deterrent.

At the same time, the Biden administration needs to consider how to facilitate and speed up its own selling capabilities in order to block the infiltration of Iranian weapons into different countries. As the Sudan case proves, states in need will turn to Iran for help even if a diplomatic rift exists (i.e., Sudan angered Iran by deciding to join the normalization process with Israel). In that regard, the United States can consider selling a version of conventional capabilities with a lower classification, including less sensitive technology, with the understanding that selling weapons to different countries strengthens their stability and increases their dependence on the US.

As mentioned before, the perceived effectiveness of Iran’s drones is bolstered by their use in various combat arenas around the world. The recent tragic event in Jordan, where Kataib Hezbollah wielded an Iranian Shahed drone, further highlights the need to increase the focus on Iran’s UAV industry and its distribution around the Middle East, especially its proxies, in order to prevent these weapons from becoming attractive to countries and organizations that will use them to harm US interests around the globe.

The Biden administration must build a plan aimed at undermining this perception. For example, the Pentagon claimed that the missiles fired from Iran toward Syria on January 15th were inaccurate. If the credibility of Iran’s drones is damaged, it will cause countries to question the benefit of buying from Tehran.

The worst thing the Biden administration can do is ignore the disturbing development of Iran’s weapons transfers in favor of focusing on other negative features of its activities, be it its nuclear program or regional proxies. The US must understand the seriousness of the situation: without active measures, it will be extremely tough to stop Tehran from becoming a world leader in arms sales, not to mention all the negative implications for international stability that would accompany such a reality.

Danny Citrinowicz served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence (IDI), including as the head of the Iran branch in the Research and Analysis Division (RAD) in the Israeli defense intelligence and as the division’s representative in the United States. Follow him on Twitter: @citrinowicz.

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Europe United: EU leaders agree on long-term support package for Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 20:59:38 +0000

The European Union confirmed a landmark $54 billion aid package for Ukraine on February 1 in Brussels, after EU leaders were able to overcome opposition from Hungary. The agreement is a major breakthrough for Ukraine amid growing concerns over the future of Western backing for the war against Russia. It will provide vital long-term support that should help the country stay afloat financially for the coming four years.

EU member states first attempted to sign off on a major Ukraine funding package in December 2023, but were unable to achieve unanimity due to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is widely seen as Russia’s closest remaining European ally.

Orban remained defiant in the run-up to this week’s summit, but eventually bowed to pressure from other EU member states when it became clear that he was completely isolated and risked further undermining Hungary’s position within the bloc. The Hungarian PM was able to secure a number of minor concessions regarding future reviews of EU aid for Ukraine, allowing him to save face and claim a victory of sorts.

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News of the EU decision was warmly welcomed in Kyiv, where Ukrainians have spent recent months watching with mounting alarm as international support for the country has run into political obstacles. “With today’s big decisions, Europe is sending a signal across the Atlantic and around the world that the international rules-based world order will endure challenges,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on social media. “Europe sets the tone for global affairs through its unity. This is already a fact. And it must remain this way.”

The democratic world has provided Ukraine with unprecedented support since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. This has included billions of dollars in military equipment and financial aid. However, cracks in Western unity began to appear in the second half of 2023, with a major American aid package becoming hostage to domestic politics in the US and the EU’s long-term commitment running into obstacles.

Delays in the delivery of aid are already creating fresh challenges for the Ukrainian military as it seeks to defend the country against Russia’s invasion along a front line of more than one thousand kilometers. In recent weeks, there have been increasing reports of Ukrainian units being forced to ration artillery shells and other ammunition, leaving them dangerously outgunned as Russia continues to conduct offensive operations.

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The EU’s new package is primarily focused on supporting the Ukrainian state and enabling the government in Kyiv to continue functioning in wartime conditions. It also underlines Europe’s long-term commitment to Ukraine at a time when individual European countries are becoming increasingly aware that they cannot rely on the US for their security and must look to address the threat posed by Putin’s Russia themselves.

Since the start of 2024, a number of senior European officials including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have spoken of the need for the continent to dramatically increase defense spending and military support for Ukraine. Others have warned that Europe as a whole must urgently wake up to the very real danger of war with Russia in the coming years. “Europe had been lucky to have America as a partner but we have to be lucid. Ukraine is part of the European continent and whatever America decides, we have to take the right and bold decisions to support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,” Macron stated on January 30.

While Ukrainians will be encouraged by this week’s EU aid breakthrough and the increasingly vocal calls for a more robust European stance toward Russia, serious doubts remain over Europe’s ability to fully replace US military support if the current political deadlock in Washington DC continues. America has been at the forefront of the coalition backing the Ukrainian war effort, and has provided a range of crucial weapons systems. Without continued US support, it is far from clear whether the Ukrainian military will be capable of liberating the approximately twenty percent of the country that remains under Russian occupation.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

The post Garlauskas published in Newsweek on rising threat of North Korea appeared first on Atlantic Council.

A US-South Korea alliance strategic memo on reassurance and coordination for a China conflict

Markus Garlauskas, Lauren D. Gilbert — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 14:00:00 +0000

TO: Republic of Korea National Security Office director, US national security advisor, ROK minister of national defense, and US secretary of defense
SUBJECT: Reassurance and coordination on a potential conflict with China

Bottom line up front: Though views in Seoul and Washington on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have grown more aligned in recent years, the ROK-US alliance’s role in a potential PRC-US military confrontation remains a sensitive and difficult question. Many South Koreans openly worry about being entrapped by such a confrontation, while some Americans question why they should commit to risking a nuclear war to defend the ROK if Seoul is hesitant to risk fighting alongside the United States against the PRC. As a result, Seoul and Washington should work to better coordinate on and mutually reassure each other regarding the parameters that will apply to the alliance in the event of a PRC-US conflict.

Background: Concerns and sensitivities within the alliance on a PRC-US conflict

Many South Koreans are concerned about being caught between the PRC and the United States in their intensifying strategic rivalry, particularly about the potential for the ROK to be dragged to the front line of a future PRC-US conflict over Taiwan. For its part, Seoul has not openly committed to fight alongside the United States in such a conflict and often appears hesitant to side with the United States against the PRC too explicitly, particularly to minimize the harm to its political and economic ties with Beijing.

Such concerns are understandable given the presence of US military forces and bases in South Korea, and the growing conventional wisdom that a PRC attack on Taiwan could trigger a PRC-US war in the coming years that would lead to PRC strikes against US bases in the region. As assessed by former ROK government official Lee Sang Hyun, who is president of the Sejong Institute: “In case of a full scale US-China war, all of Asia may be involved, and South Korea cannot escape from being dragged in . . . the question is when and how.”

Though Seoul is not eager to unnecessarily antagonize its most powerful neighbor or risk economic retaliation from its largest trading partner, that does not mean that Seoul would necessarily cave in to pressure from Beijing to withhold support for its ally on an important security matter. The ROK risked economic punishment from the PRC in 2017 for accepting the deployment of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense battery over Beijing’s objections, yet followed through despite heavy economic costs. Public support for deploying THAAD even rose after PRC economic punishment was inflicted.

If Washington confronts aggression from Beijing, there is reason to believe that South Koreans would support backing the United States if Seoul chose to do so. Polls have shown that South Korea’s population has the most negative views of the PRC of any country’s population in the world, and that over 90 percent of South Koreans would choose the United States over the PRC if forced to choose. Recent polling even shows a majority of South Koreans would favor either direct or indirect military support for US military operations in a Taiwan contingency.

Regardless of positive signs of growing alignment between Seoul and Washington regarding the PRC, many Americans see Seoul’s caution on the PRC and are skeptical of the ROK’s willingness to take the risk of supporting the United States in a crisis or conflict with the PRC despite the ROK-US alliance. These skeptics note Seoul’s hesitance to even criticize or warn about threats from Beijing as strongly as other US-allied capitals, including Tokyo and Manila, and Seoul’s focus on North Korea as its overriding security threat. Recent signaling by Seoul on its concerns about potential PRC aggression against Taiwan and moves to more closely align with Washington and Tokyo, absent any explicit commitment to backing the United States in the event of a conflict, have not convinced these skeptics.

A common assumption is that South Korea would provide at most only indirect support to the United States in a US-PRC conflict. Some authors argue that South Korea would attempt to “stay out” of the conflict and oppose the departure of US Forces Korea (USFK) elements from South Korea in favor of USFK focusing on supporting the deterrence of North Korea as the alliance priority. This naturally leads to the question of why the United States should be willing to risk nuclear retaliation for defending South Korea against North Korea if Seoul would not be willing to risk supporting the United States in a conflict with the PRC—or even support US forces operating from South Korea.
Meanwhile, some South Koreans fear that Washington will pull its forces out of their nation to fight the PRC in such a scenario, undermining defense and deterrence against North Korea. Though understandable, these fears may be overblown. As Gen. (US Army, retired) Walter “Skip” Sharp notes: “We are still going to have to deter North Korea if China attacks Taiwan. With what little US combat power we have stationed in Korea, I do find it hard to believe that we would pull our forces out of Korea to deal with a Taiwan contingency… the challenge will be what additional forces we could send to Korea if needed.”

Recommendations for coordination and reassurance on a PRC-US conflict

Specific mutual reassurances regarding US bases in South Korea and USFK: Given these US and South Korean concerns, the potential for misunderstanding and even mistrust in the alliance regarding how to approach a potential US-PRC conflict is important to address. A series of mutual reassurances as first principles would help to clarify the status and use of US military facilities and forces in South Korea as a foundational mutual understanding within the alliance. The following reassurances should be both offered and made public:

Washington should reassure Seoul that it will not use US forces or bases in the ROK—or pass through ROK air and maritime territory—to conduct offensive operations against the PRC absent mutual agreement from Seoul. Though such a reassurance may seem a statement of the obvious to some Americans, a formal reassurance in this regard could help make it clear that Washington will respect ROK sovereignty.
Seoul should reassure Washington that it will help to deter and defend against attacks on US forces and bases in the ROK, while warning that attacks on them will be considered attacks on the ROK. Some Americans are skeptical that Seoul would necessarily consider PRC strikes on US bases in South Korea an attack on the ROK, while at least some South Koreans—including contributor Yulgok Kim—believe they would be considered attacks on the ROK. This should be clarified. South Korea should reassure the United States that it will deter Beijing by warning it, through appropriate means of its choosing, that an attack on US bases within South Korea would still be considered an attack on the ROK. Seoul should also reassure the United States that the ROK would support the defense of those bases from PRC attacks on the same terms as if the attacks were by North Korea. Lastly, Seoul should also be unequivocal that the ROK-US mutual defense treaty applies in such a situation.
Washington should reassure Seoul that US Forces in Korea will continue to deter and prepare for North Korean aggression, even if a PRC-US conflict is ongoing, and that USFK will not be withdrawn. Recognizing that a two-front war is a possibility if PRC aggression triggers a conflict with the United States, the United States has both the clear obligation under the mutual defense treaty and the operational necessity to deter and defeat not just the PRC, but also North Korean aggression against the ROK.
Seoul should reassure Washington that the operations of US bases and forces in the ROK will continue to be supported even during an ongoing conflict with the PRC, and that US military support functions could continue to be conducted in the ROK. Such functions would include maintenance, repair, and casualty care, along with various command, control, communications, and reconnaissance activities that could be key to the United States’ ability to minimize the loss of lives of its personnel, sustain its forces, and defend its bases in the region. Ideally, South Korea would also provide US forces with rear-area support functions including medical assistance, noncombatant evacuation, maintenance and repair of military assets, ammunition, and continued bilateral military training, as appropriate.

Delineate specific mutual expectations and military plans in various US-PRC conflict scenarios: Informed by the above reassurances, alliance defense and military leaders should work together to develop and refine the details of how the alliance should operate militarily in various scenarios including PRC kinetic attacks on targets in the ROK, nonkinetic attacks in the ROK, or no attacks of any kind in the ROK. The specifics of such mutual expectations could and should remain classified, but the fact that such expectations exist should be made public. Some particular aspects of importance include:

Consider logistical stockpile reallocations. Given the massive logistical requirements of a high-intensity conflict between the PRC and United States, particularly for various types of munitions and repair parts, and the distance such stocks would have to travel from the United States, being able to draw upon existing stockpiles in the ROK could be important for the US war effort. Such stocks would include US-owned munitions and parts stored in the ROK, but could also include requests for ROK-owned munitions and components. The decisions on these stockpiles would have key political and strategic ramifications, both because of the military significance of those stockpiles for the PRC-US conflict, and because of the importance of those stockpiles if North Korea later attacks the ROK. ROK and US officials are unlikely to come up with definitive answers of how to balance these considerations, but discussions of such details prior to a conflict could be key in helping the alliance to effectively manage such trade-offs.
Prepare and discuss various noncombatant evacuation options. Another politically sensitive operational issue in the event of a PRC-US conflict is likely to be the evacuation of US and US-allied noncombatants in the region. The United States does not publicize its noncombatant evacuation plans in advance, but regularly exercises for such operations with allies and partners. ROK and US diplomats and military officers will have to grapple with tough questions with the lives of many innocent civilians at stake if a US-PRC conflict occurs. Could or should US or other friendly citizens from areas targeted by PRC strikes in the region be evacuated to the ROK as a potential sanctuary from such attacks? Should, instead, such evacuation take place from the ROK in anticipation of further escalation from the PRC even if the conflict has not yet shown clear signs of spreading to the ROK? There are no easy answers to these questions, but they should be discussed and prepared for as much as possible before the moment of crisis.
Prepare for two-front war in the Indo-Pacific region. Regardless of the alliance’s approach to a PRC-US conflict, and whether or not the PRC initiates strikes into the ROK, deterrence of North Korea would be under tremendous strain in such a situation. Whether North Korea attacks out of opportunism, fear, and with or without Beijing’s encouragement and support, this would drive an exponentially more complex politico-military problem for the ROK-US alliance than a campaign to defeat North Korea.

About the authors

Markus Garlauskas is the primary author and director of the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, housed in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Lauren Gilbert is the co-author and deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative.

Yulgok Kim is a contributor and is the secretary general and a non-resident research fellow of the ROK Forum for Nuclear Strategy (ROKFNS).

The research for this policy memorandum was made possible by the support of the Korea Foundation, but it represents the views of the authors rather than those of the Korea Foundation, the Atlantic Council, or any government entity.

A US-South Korea alliance strategic memo on countering Beijing’s economic coercion

Kyoko Imai, Markus Garlauskas — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 14:00:00 +0000

TO: Republic of Korea National Security Office director, minister for trade, and minister of trade, industry, and energy; US national security advisor, trade representative, and commerce secretary
SUBJECT: An alliance approach to countering Beijing’s economic coercion

Bottom line up front: The economic interdependence of the Republic of Korea (ROK), the United States, and other Indo-Pacific countries with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is enabling Beijing to pose threats to key US and ROK national security interests—particularly through the threat of economic coercion and manipulation. To reduce the risks associated with economic interdependence with the PRC, Seoul and Washington should utilize a combination of protection, collaboration, and institutionalization. The United States and South Korea should align their strategies in advanced technologies crucial to national security, operationalize the trilateral partnership with Japan to enhance the resilience of supply chains, and reinforce the rules-based economic system in the Indo-Pacific to reduce PRC economic coercion and technological theft.

Background: Economic interdependence of Indo-Pacific countries with China is enabling Beijing to threaten the interests of Seoul and Washington

The PRC has long used its economic leverage—and implicit and explicit threats of coercive economic measures in recent years—to affect the policy decisions of countries in the Indo-Pacific region. Both Seoul and Washington have sought to counter such behavior yet have been cautious about confronting Beijing or strongly retaliating for such practices, in part due to their own considerable economic interdependence with the PRC.

For more than two decades, South Korea has enjoyed strong trade relations with the PRC that have come with implicit and increasingly explicit threats of economic retaliation for angering Beijing. Seoul is thus understandably hesitant at times to undertake policies that risk provoking Beijing. This reluctance can lead to friction in the ROK-US alliance when it factors into a decision with national security implications for both the ROK and United States.

In a notable example, Beijing warned Seoul against expanding US missile defense assets in South Korea, claiming that hosting such systems—particularly the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system—would make the ROK part of a “US missile defense shield.” In 2017, after a long period of ROK-US consultations and a bilateral decision to deploy THAAD despite Beijing’s objections, a US THAAD battery began arriving in South Korea in response to increasing missile and nuclear threats from North Korea. Beijing retaliated with a wide range of economic measures. This resulted in an estimated nearly $2 billion in losses for the South Korean company, Lotte, which had provided the land for the THAAD deployment. This also harmed various sectors of the ROK economy, particularly tourism and entertainment, which led to significant backlash from the ROK public.

After nearly two decades of the PRC being South Korea’s top market for trade, the United States returned to that position in 2023. However, Beijing still makes up a significant portion of the market for South Korean businesses and Seoul maintains a strong interest in keeping the PRC as a key trading partner. Currently, under President Yoon Suk Yeol, Seoul is taking a much more hard-line stance toward Beijing than in previous administrations, indicating an increase in appetite for stronger measures to counter PRC economic coercion—though perhaps just temporarily, as South Korean policies are subject to fluctuation due to political transitions and public opinion.

For its part, the United States is pursuing approaches to reduce economic interdependence with the PRC, as part of a strategy termed “derisking,” in favor of “friend-shoring” trade relationships with allies and partners. In recent years, the United States also has been more willing to take a tougher stance vis-à-vis China on security and economic issues in general, accepting greater risk of economic retribution.

Recommendations for US and South Korean leadership:

Enhance integration and alignment of US-ROK strategies and policies in advanced technology sectors that are vital to national security. To reduce vulnerability to PRC disruptions, Seoul and Washington should divert critical components of their defense industrial base away from Beijing. The United States and South Korea individually will find it more difficult to remain competitive with the sheer scale and rapidity of Chinese military technology advancements than if they work together. It is thus in their best interest to coordinate with one another, as trusted allies in the Indo-Pacific region, on a bilateral, proactive protection system in core technology areas that are crucial to their defense systems.

In Washington, the Department of Justice and Department of Commerce have established a Disruptive Technology Strike Force to defend against efforts by adversaries to steal advanced technologies. Seoul has similarly implemented a Technology Protection Strategy to coordinate government responses to attempts by adversaries to unlawfully access core technologies. These individual strategies can carry more weight and efficacy when they are fully integrated in a bilateral US-ROK approach to counter malign PRC efforts.
Such efforts’ success will require greater alignment between US and ROK government agencies. For instance, the US National Science Foundation and ROK Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology convene annually to strengthen cooperation on digital economic policy issues in the public sector. To advance bilateral economic relations into a whole-of-county response to PRC economic threats to national security, these government agencies should also enable funding and other incentives to private-sector defense companies and technology manufacturers that invest in and produce these critical technologies.
Investments by US companies and ROK companies, respectively, in the advanced technology sectors of the allied country have mutually reinforcing and long-term benefits. South Korea’s Samsung applied for tax breaks to construct eleven semiconductor plants throughout the United States in the next twenty years. For the United States, these plants will enhance the resiliency of domestic supply chains by developing a high-skilled workforce that is integral to the production of sensitive technologies. For South Korea, this project will help Samsung meet the ever-growing demands of a global manufacturing company and narrows its gap with competitors.

Operationalize the trilateral partnership with Japan to enhance supply chain resiliency. In the face of an aggressive Chinese economic posture, friend-shoring among the United States, South Korea, and Japan will be vital for bolstering each country’s defense industry sectors.

The United States, South Korea, and Japan have already launched a pilot program for a supply chain early warning system with the aim of preventing supply chain disruptions by proactively sharing key resources to offset blockages in the production and logistics networks. Trilateral cooperation can also encompass the mapping of existing stockpiles of key resources for critical supply chains and identification of potential vulnerabilities to each country’s security infrastructure.

There is a need for immediate trilateral action to address deep vulnerabilities in the critical mineral sector.”
—Minister Yeo Han-Koo, former ROK minister of trade

Rare metals such as gallium and germanium, which are essential components in semiconductors, are prime targets of opportunity for testing the newly established supply chain early warning system. In July 2023, despite already dominating the world’s production of these materials at 85 percent and 60 percent, respectively, China restricted the export of these metals. As a result, Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo are facing supply chain issues as their access to a significant proportion of the world’s gallium and germanium has been suddenly restricted. Given the vital role that semiconductors, and consequently these metals, play in the US-ROK-Japan defense apparatus, it is imperative that the group find alternative sources.
To avoid overdependence on Beijing for materials so critical to national security, the three countries should pool their resources through the Minerals Security Partnership to offset future supply disruptions. This approach can be replicated for other materials that are key components of the security architecture. In the event that one of the three countries faces a shortage of a materials—likely due to PRC economic retaliation—the other two countries can temporarily provide supplies of that material through contingency transactions or government procurements in the form of a supply swap.
The US-ROK-Japan partnership should also coordinate the placement of strategic export controls on sensitive technologies to the PRC. Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo can redirect any existing flows of advanced technologies such as machine tooling and artificial intelligence chips away from Beijing and furnish supply to each other instead. This will effectively reduce the flow of critical defense technologies to adversaries.

Promote and enforce the rules-based system in the Indo-Pacific economic security architecture alongside like-minded partners. The United States and South Korea can lead efforts to ensure the regional trade system remains free and open to all participating economies. They can offer smaller Indo-Pacific economies with a liberal alternative model to the PRC, which often invokes predatory lending, corruption, and abuse of labor rights. The United States and South Korea should:

Spearhead rulemaking to promote secure and resilient supply chains through multilateral partnerships with like-minded nations such as through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). This would include enforcing transparent policymaking and implementation to allow for a fair and inclusive system. The United States and South Korea also can share best practices with IPEF members such as promoting capacity building in critical and emerging technologies, while continuing to uphold democratic values.
Arm emerging economies with the toolkit to thwart attempts by Beijing to bully them into aligning their economic and political policies with the PRC. Use available tools such as the IPEF Supply Chain Crisis Response Network to share information and establish early warning alerts for disruptions to critical supply chains. With IPEF’s diverse membership base with various areas of comparative advantage, the group can collectively decrease the consequences of Chinese economic coercion.

Democratic nations should emphasize that they will not bow to economic coercion.”
—Dr. Robert Dohner, former US deputy assistant secretary of treasury

In response to the PRC’s next use of economic coercion against an Indo-Pacific country, Seoul and Washington should gather like-minded Indo-Pacific partners to issue a joint statement condemning the use of coercive tactics. The joint statement should emphasize that while signatories do not seek to harm Chinese economic progress, any attempts to interfere with the integrity of democratic institutions and economic prosperity will not be tolerated. Given their proximity to and degree of economic interconnectivity with the PRC, small Indo-Pacific countries are particularly vulnerable to potential acts of economic coercion. However, they are often reluctant to take a firm stance against the PRC without strong support from leading economies like South Korea and the United States, which can help them withstand potential economic repercussions.

About the authors

Kyoko Imai is the primary author for this policy memorandum and the associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, housed in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Markus Garlauskas is the co-author for this policy memorandum and the director of the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative.

Heemin Yang is a contributor and an associate with Forward Risk.

A US-South Korea alliance strategic memo on deterrence

Markus Garlauskas, Lauren D. Gilbert — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 14:00:00 +0000

TO: Republic of Korea minister of national defense, US secretary of defense, and the ROK-US Military Committee
SUBJECT: Strengthening ROK-US alliance deterrence against North Korea

Bottom line up front: Deterrence of North Korean aggression against the Republic of Korea (ROK) is growing increasingly complex and difficult, as North Korea’s nuclear and nonnuclear strike capabilities rapidly expand and as Pyongyang builds its policy justifications for “preventive” escalation. Meanwhile, the actions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—and its potential to attack Taiwan—are increasingly likely to further undermine deterrence of North Korean aggression. In light of these challenges, the ROK and the United States should go beyond reinforcing long-standing threats of punishment, and instead build new deterrence approaches to ensure the alliance is: clearly resilient in the face of attack; ready to quickly defeat aggression beyond “provocations” but short of war; and prepared to deter North Korea even during a US-PRC war.

Background: Deterrence faces new challenges, but alliance is reinforcing same approach

There is now strong agreement in the ROK-US alliance that North Korea’s evolving military capabilities and changes to its doctrine pose an increasing challenge to deterrence of North Korean aggression, particularly nuclear aggression or aggression backed by the threat of nuclear escalation.

North Korea’s growing ability to strike the United States with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) is often cited as first among those challenges, particularly as it tests mobile solid-propellant ICBMs suited for “second strike” deterrence. Some South Koreans fear that Washington, seeing the credibility of the threat of nuclear retaliation against US cities increasing, would be reluctant to back South Korea in a military confrontation.

Growing North Korean tactical nuclear capabilities also give Pyongyang a wider range of options to threaten South Korea with nuclear attack at a threshold it might believe would not automatically trigger massive US nuclear retaliation. As our contributor, Jung Jae Kwon, has noted, this means that the “alliance must cope with the possibility of North Korea using tactical nuclear weapons in order to achieve military or political objectives without triggering American nuclear retaliation.” Meanwhile, North Korea’s nonnuclear capabilities to launch limited surprise attacks against South Korea continue to improve, as demonstrated by its tests of more capable short-range solid-propellant missiles and its drone incursions, for example.

North Korea’s policies and rhetoric also are increasingly signaling its intention to escalate. In September 2022, Pyongyang’s new “Law and Policy” on nuclear weapons laid out a range of scenarios where it would be justified in using nuclear weapons first, including threats to the regime “on the horizon” or to “retake the initiative” in an ongoing conflict. Besides the risk of nuclear strikes, these intentions and capabilities also create a dilemma for deterring limited nonnuclear aggression, particularly ambiguous “gray zone” threats like cyberattacks or incursions with drones. Using nuclear threats as a backdrop, North Korea could escalate aggression against South Korea, calculating that neither Seoul nor Washington would be willing to risk war in response.

Beijing also has been posing new challenges for deterrence of North Korean aggression against the ROK, though this is not acknowledged as openly as the challenges posed by North Korea’s weapons and policies. Beijing has increasingly provided political cover for North Korean provocative behavior, and helped it to evade UN Security Council sanctions, thereby enabling its weapons programs’ advancements. Meanwhile, rising strategic competition between the PRC and United States means that the alliance must be prepared to deter Pyongyang in scenarios where Washington is simultaneously confronting Beijing.

As South Koreans including President Yoon Suk Yeol have noted, North Korea could seek to take advantage of a PRC-US conflict over Taiwan with aggression against the ROK.
Some American analysts also worry that the PRC could encourage North Korea to escalate as a way to tie down US forces that could otherwise interfere with PRC operations against Taiwan. A recent Atlantic Council study notes that, beyond these scenarios, a prolonged conflict over Taiwan is still likely to spread to engulf the Korean peninsula.

In the face of these challenges, though ROK and US leaders are visibly working to strengthen deterrence, they are doing so in ways that may not directly address the evolving nature of these threats—and that could just incentivize North Korea to escalate first in the event of a crisis. So far, the primary solution to increased deterrence challenges has been to reinforce existing approaches: strongly reemphasizing “deterrence by punishment”; bilaterally warning that any nuclear attack on the ROK would result in the “end of that regime”; and by publicizing deployments of US strategic military assets to the peninsula like ballistic missile submarines and bombers. Meanwhile, Seoul’s officials continue to threaten preemption, regime decapitation, and “massive punishment and retaliation.” Though such statements and displays may be reassuring to the ROK domestic audience, such threats:

May not outweigh the incentives North Korea has to escalate first, even to tactical nuclear strikes, in a confrontation or conflict where it believes the regime’s survival is already at stake.
Do not close a potential gap in the credibility of the alliance’s response options at levels short of full-scale war—if North Korea escalates beyond typical provocations while leveraging the threat of nuclear escalation to discourage a strong and unified alliance response.
May lack credibility in the context of a US-PRC conflict, if North Korea believes that the ROK-US alliance is unprepared to confront North Korea during a PRC-US conflict.

Recommendations to strengthen alliance deterrence with new elements

Many ROK and US experts and former officials agree on the need to strengthen alliance deterrence.

As former commander of US Forces Korea, Gen. (US Army, retired) Curtis “Mike” Scaparrotti notes: “The steady expansion and growing lethality of North Korea’s nuclear capability and their recent declarations of first use nuclear policy, coupled with the US-PRC tensions in the broader Indo-Pacific region, present an extremely complex security environment—one that has not been fully addressed by the Alliance.”
From the perspective of Sang Hyun Lee, president of the Sejong Institute and a former ROK government official: “North Korea’s increasing nuclear weapons capabilities pose an existential threat to the ROK, and South Koreans consistently support the development of their own independent nuclear weapons capability . . . but this is not yet politically feasible. The most realistic option for now is for the alliance to strengthen both US extended deterrence and South Korea’s own nonnuclear deterrence.”

To strengthen deterrence in the context of these factors, the alliance should visibly:

Ensure the resilience of alliance military forces to reduce any perceived vulnerability to surprise attacks and limited nuclear attacks—thereby decreasing North Korea’s incentive to escalate first.
Enable alliance readiness to quickly counterattack against limited North Korean aggression without the need to take the risk of transitioning to a full-scale war footing.
Counter Beijing as an enabler of North Korean aggression by demonstrating preparedness to deter and defeat North Korean aggression even during a US-PRC conflict.

Ensure resilience of alliance military capabilities to surprise attacks and tactical nuclear attacks: To ensure ROK-US military capabilities on the Korean peninsula do not appear vulnerable to North Korean escalation—particularly tactical nuclear attacks—the alliance must take visible steps to improve its resilience. To this end, the alliance should:

Ensure that key elements of South Korean military forces and US Forces Korea (USFK) are more survivable to reduce their perceived vulnerability to a surprise attack. This should include improved active countermissile and counterdrone defense measures, but also improved passive defense measures such as hardening, dispersion, and deception. Reducing perceived vulnerabilities of fixed command and control facilities is particularly critical to avoid North Korea thinking that a surprise attack, with or without nuclear weapons, would be sufficient to cripple the alliance’s ability to command and control its forces. Ensuring the visible readiness and dispersion of land- and sea-based mobile missile forces on and around the peninsula could also be key to ensuring that Pyongyang does not believe neutralizing alliance bases in surprise attacks would be sufficient to prevent effective strikes on key targets deep inside North Korea.

Establish the clear preparedness of the alliance to respond to and overcome North Korean tactical/limited nuclear attacks. The new ROK-US Nuclear Consultative Group and associated alliance mechanisms can strengthen deterrence by helping to make it clear that a North Korean nuclear attack will not politically or militarily defeat the alliance. These mechanisms should aim to ensure that nuclear responses to North Korea will take place in an alliance framework of close coordination between the ROK and the United States that accounts for potential nuclear strikes and responses, demonstrating to Pyongyang that it cannot expect to divide the alliance’s leaders or disrupt its military operations through either the threat or employment of nuclear weapons. The alliance should also periodically conduct its annual exercises in scenarios where North Korea launches a nuclear attack, as the November 2023 Security Consultative Meeting communiqué noted is already under discussion. At the tactical level, ROK and USFK units should regularly and visibly train to continue to operate effectively in nuclear-contaminated environments.

Enable quick, combined, and calibrated alliance military responses short of war: To prevent North Korea from seeing a gap in alliance response capability in situations beyond an ROK-only provocation response but still short of a full-scale war that would risk a nuclear exchange, the alliance must show it can fight and win a limited military exchange without transitioning to the wartime ROK-US command and control posture. As a recent Atlantic Council study described, the requirement is for “quick, combined, and calibrated” responses: quick enough that they can be executed without considerable delay for additional preparations; with combined ROK-US military forces operating together instead of ROK or US forces operating unilaterally; at an appropriate level of intensity that is neither so weak as to essentially hand a victory to Pyongyang but not so disproportionate as to run an unacceptable risk of triggering nuclear retaliation. To make this possible, the alliance should:

Establish, regularly exercise, and display a standing operational military headquarters with the authority, responsibility, and capability to control an ROK-US alliance military response to a limited scenario short of war. This headquarters would lead the response to North Korea in scenarios where activating the full wartime ROK-US alliance military structure would be excessive but where Seoul and Washington agree a small-scale unilateral ROK military response is insufficient.

Ensure and demonstrate the day-to-day readiness of ROK and US standoff precision-strike capabilities to respond decisively to any surprise limited North Korean aggression. These conventional precision-strike assets should have the clear ability to rapidly destroy targets deep within North Korea without having to take escalatory and time-consuming measures to defeat North Korean air defenses, meaning these would be airstrikes by stealth aircraft from “standoff” ranges or missiles from land- or sea-based launchers. The targeting of these strike assets should be able to be rapidly tailored to the situation based on bilateral guidance from the national leadership rather than, for example, a list of predesignated targets for “massive punishment and retaliation.” This would require their connection with alliance command, control, communications, and intelligence capability to enable effective allied short-notice counterstrikes. At the same time, the alliance’s language and drills should focus on implementation of calibrated responses so these strike assets can be used reliably when needed but without automatically generating escalatory dynamics and creating a “use-it-or-lose-it” dilemma for the Kim regime and its nuclear arsenal.

Countering Beijing as enabler of North Korean escalation: To prevent a PRC-US military confrontation from undermining deterrence of North Korea, Seoul and Washington must clearly show that they are prepared for such a scenario. Further, they should also work to convince Pyongyang that a US conflict with the PRC is not a moment of opportunity and convince Beijing that encouraging Pyongyang to open a “second front” in Korea would backfire. To make this possible, the alliance must overcome its aversion to discussing such “sensitive” issues as part of the normal public discourse on alliance military preparations and training, and instead the alliance should:

Explicitly acknowledge that the alliance must prepare to deter, and if necessary, defeat North Korean aggression and adventurism in the event of a PRC-US conflict. ROK-US alliance military forces already explicitly prepare and train to deter, and if necessary, defeat a North Korean attack against the ROK in isolation. Meanwhile, the threat of PRC aggression is the explicit “pacing threat” for which the US military prepares to deter, and if necessary, defeat. Yet, the alliance has still not explicitly acknowledged that it must prepare for both at the same time.

Normalize including scenarios of deterring and defeating North Korea during a PRC-US conflict in routine alliance activities. This includes making such scenarios part of periodic tabletop exercises and other elements of the alliance defense readiness and military training programs. Such normalization would also include making this topic an acknowledged part of normal ROK-US dialogues on deterrence and military preparedness, such as during the annual ROK-US Security Consultative Meeting and Military Committee Meeting.
Ensure preparations to deter and defeat North Korea during a PRC-US conflict have wide involvement and are clearly communicated publicly. Even presuming that the alliance could fully and comprehensively prepare militarily for such scenarios quietly and secretly, it would not do much for deterrence if the intended audience cannot see enough to learn that such preparations are robust, in earnest, and have political backing in Seoul and Washington. The alliance need not be explicit about how such a situation would be handled, particularly not in public: some ambiguity on specifics could even be helpful for deterrence. However, to deter simultaneous conflicts with the PRC and North Korea, Beijing and Pyongyang must be fully convinced that the alliance is politically and militarily ready to deal with such a scenario.

About the authors

Markus Garlauskas is the primary author and director of the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, housed in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Lauren Gilbert is the co-author and deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative.

Jung Jae Kwon is a contributor and PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Political Science and Security Studies Program. He is currently a Stanton Nuclear Security Research Fellow at the Project on Managing the Atom and the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

Hinata-Yamaguchi in SCMP

everges — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 16:40:00 +0000

On January 29, IPSI Nonresident Senior Fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in a South China Morning Post article on Putin’s proposed trip to Pyongyang and the evolving military ties between Russia and North Korea.

Fellow

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Indo-Pacific

The post Hinata-Yamaguchi in SCMP appeared first on Atlantic Council.

IPSI report on deterrence in Korea cited across major media platforms

kyusko — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 21:13:52 +0000

This month, IPSI’s latest report, Deterrence is crumbling in Korea: How we can fix it, has been cited in Reuters, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. These articles highlighted several key points from the report, including its warning that although Kim Jong Un is unlikely to pursue a full-scale nuclear war, North Korea still has the capacity to challenge the US-ROK alliance with limited nuclear attacks.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

Staff

Lauren D. Gilbert

Deputy Director

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

East Asia Human Rights

The post IPSI report on deterrence in Korea cited across major media platforms appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Dean quoted in the Australian on the future of AUKUS

kyusko — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 18:42:00 +0000

On January 23, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean was quoted in an article in the Australian examining the future of AUKUS in the event of another presidential term for Donald Trump.

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

The post Dean quoted in the Australian on the future of AUKUS appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Dean quoted in the Australian Financial Review on protecting AUKUS technology

kyusko — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:47:30 +0000

On January 22, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean was quoted in an Australian Financial Review article, where he explained that Australian private sector security arrangements are insufficient to protect sensitive AUKUS technology.

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

The post Dean quoted in the Australian Financial Review on protecting AUKUS technology appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s Black Sea success exposes folly of West’s “don’t escalate” mantra

Peter Dickinson — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:43:06 +0000

There is no disguising the disquiet in today’s Ukraine as the country braces itself for what promises to be an exceptionally difficult year. The optimism of early 2023 has been replaced by a far gloomier outlook that reflects the failure of Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive and mounting alarm over delays in vital military aid from the country’s international partners.

This is fueling fresh calls for a negotiated settlement, with advocates arguing that the war with Russia has now reached a stalemate. However, talk of an impasse may be premature. Although the 1000 kilometer front line of the conflict has barely moved for the past twelve months, events elsewhere indicate a military breakthrough could still be a realistic possibility.

While the international media has spent much of the past year firmly focused on the bloody but largely static battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine, the most dynamic developments of the war in 2023 actually took place at sea. Despite having no warships of its own, Ukraine managed to force Putin’s fleet to retreat from Crimea and succeeded in breaking the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. This remarkable Ukrainian progress may now offer a blueprint for a more general victory over Russia.

Ukraine has been able to transform the balance of power in the Black Sea thanks to the skill, boldness, and ingenuity of the country’s military, together with ample supplies of Western weapons and the ability to use them without being hampered by restrictions based on misguided fears of a possible escalation. If applied to the wider Ukrainian war effort, this winning combination could pave the way for Russia’s eventual defeat.

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On the eve of the full-scale invasion two years ago, Russian mastery of the Black Sea seemed all but assured. Ukraine was even more hopelessly outgunned at sea than on land, and appeared no match for the might of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Putin was so confident that he began the blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports under the guise of naval exercises almost two weeks before the start of the land invasion.

The first significant naval engagement came in the initial hours of the invasion when the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s powerful flagship, the Moskva, approached Ukraine’s Snake Island and ordered the tiny garrison to surrender, only to be told: “Russian warship, go f*ck yourself.” This instantly iconic reply was rapidly embraced by Ukrainians as a symbol of national defiance and an unofficial slogan for the country’s entire war effort. It was soon appearing on billboards and bumper stickers, and even inspired an award-winning postage stamp.

During the early weeks of the invasion, residents of southern Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast were on high alert over possible amphibious landings, with Russian warships cruising menacingly along the horizon. However, these landings would never take place. Instead, in April 2022, Ukraine scored its first major success in the Battle of the Black Sea by sinking Russia’s flagship with domestically produced cruise missiles.

Two months later, Ukraine used a mix of artillery, air power, and drones to force a Russian withdrawal from the small but strategically important Snake Island. This was followed by the first Ukrainian drone attacks on port facilities and naval infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea.

As 2022 drew to a close, it was clear that the tide was beginning to turn at sea, with Russian naval dominance no longer a foregone conclusion. Even so, the scale of Ukraine’s subsequent achievements on the Black Sea front would surpass all expectations.

Britain’s May 2023 decision to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles set the stage for the spectacular progress that was to follow. In July, France followed suit with deliveries of its own SCALP cruise missiles. This dramatically enhanced Ukraine’s ability to strike targets in Crimea.

During the second half of the year, Ukraine bombed an array of Russian warships, logistics hubs, air defense systems, and command centers throughout the occupied peninsula. Highlights included a series of attacks in September that seriously damaged a Russian warship and submarine along with the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet itself.

At sea, Ukraine deployed domestically produced naval drones to great effect, striking Russian shipping in Crimea and across the northern Black Sea. In August 2023, Ukraine signaled the range of its naval drone fleet with successful attacks on a Russian warship and oil tanker close to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, which serves as a major hub for Russian energy exports.

This campaign of missile and drone attacks eventually forced Russia’s Black Sea Fleet commanders to acknowledge that their position was no longer tenable. By early October, Russia had reportedly withdrawn the bulk of its remaining warships and submarines from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

Russia’s naval retreat allowed Ukraine to end the blockade of the country’s seaports and resume merchant shipping. An earlier grain agreement brokered by the UN in July 2022 had made it possible for Ukraine to export some agricultural produce, but these shipments were on unfavorable terms and subject to Russian interference. When Putin announced Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative in summer 2023 and threatened to target any ships sailing for Ukrainian ports, Ukraine felt confident enough to defy the Kremlin and declare a new “humanitarian corridor” for cargo vessels.

This new corridor has thrived, with food exports in December 2023 already surpassing the maximum monthly volume achieved during the UN-backed grain deal. The renewal of maritime trade has provided Ukraine with a vital economic lifeline and contributed to last year’s impressive GDP growth of approximately five percent.

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Ukraine’s remarkable gains in the Black Sea arena highlight what can be achieved when the country’s partners overcome their escalation phobia and provide Ukrainian commanders with sufficient weapons without imposing artificial restrictions on their use.

Ever since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion, Western leaders have withheld key categories of weapons while limiting Ukraine’s ability to strike back at Russia due to concerns over Moscow’s possible response. This self-defeating approach was also initially applied to Crimea, even though the Russian-occupied peninsula is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently highlighted the damage done by the West’s obvious fear of escalation. Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelenskyy recounted how Ukrainian officials constantly heard the same “don’t escalate” mantra from the country’s allies. “Every “don’t escalate” to us, sounded like “you will prevail” to Putin,” he noted. “Nothing has harmed our coalition more than this concept.”

There is no question that Putin has sought to exploit the West’s evident timidity. Throughout the invasion, he has employed threats and bluster to decrease the flow of weapons to Ukraine and determine where Ukraine can and cannot attack. Putin’s most powerful tool in this regard has been nuclear blackmail. On numerous occasions, he has hinted at a nuclear response if territory he regards as Russian is targeted. “I’m not bluffing,” he warned in September 2022.

While Western leaders have proven highly susceptible to Russian saber-rattling, Ukrainians have had no such qualms about calling Putin’s bluff and have done so repeatedly. On each occasion, it has soon become clear that the Russian dictator’s threats are about as credible as his promises.

Despite increasingly bold Ukrainian attacks on Crimean targets, Putin has failed to escalate in any meaningful way. Instead, when confronted by unfavorable new military realities in the Black Sea, the Russian fleet quietly withdrew. This makes a complete mockery of the crippling hesitancy displayed by much of the democratic world.

Ukraine’s strategic success in the Black Sea offers a number of important lessons for the future conduct of the war. It underlines the Ukrainian military’s ability to seamlessly integrate the latest Western weapons systems into their own offensive operations, while also confirming Russia’s inability to defend itself against this enhanced Ukrainian firepower.

By combining a limited number of cruise missiles provided by Britain and France with its own expanding drone capabilities, Ukraine has been able to destroy around 20 percent of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and force the remaining warships to retreat. Additional weapons supplies could have a similarly profound impact on the battlefields of mainland Ukraine.

Perhaps most of all, Ukraine’s progress at sea confirms the emptiness of Russian threats and the utter folly of the West’s emphasis on avoiding escalation at all costs. Kremlin officials employ threatening language because they believe the West lacks resolve. So far, they have been proved correct.

For almost two years, Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Russia. They have denied Ukraine the weapons needed to win the war for fear of provoking Putin. This disastrous approach has merely served to prolong hostilities and embolden the Kremlin. It should now be painfully clear that nothing is more likely to provoke Russian aggression than continued Western weakness.

In 2024, Ukraine’s partners must draw the logical conclusions from developments in the Black Sea and apply them to create a war-winning strategy. This means abandoning their own self-imposed red lines and finally providing Ukraine with the tools to finish the job. Western fear of Russian escalation is Putin’s secret weapon. It is high time he was disarmed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

In the final weeks of 2023, Britain and France jointly reaffirmed their determination to make sure Russia’s invasion ends in failure, while calling on the West to leverage its economic might in order to overtake Russia’s own shift to a wartime economy. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron pointed out that the economies of Ukraine’s Western allies are 25 times larger than Russia’s. “What we have to do is make that economic strength pay,” he commented. “I have no doubt we can make sure Putin loses, and it’s essential that he does lose.”

The UK further underlined its support for Ukraine when British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kyiv in January to confirm a record annual support package of over $3 billion and to sign a landmark bilateral security pact. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has recently confirmed France will deliver military aid to Ukraine in 2024 including 40 long range Scalp cruise missiles and several hundred bombs. He plans to visit Kyiv in February, and is expected to sign a security agreement similar to the recently inked accord between Britain and Ukraine. France is also ramping up weapons production to keep pace with Ukraine’s requirements.

In early January, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans to double military aid to Ukraine in 2024 while urging fellow EU member states to do likewise. “I call on our allies in the European Union to also step up their efforts in support of Ukraine. The arms deliveries for Ukraine planned so far by the majority of EU member states are by all means too small,” he commented. “We need higher contributions.”

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In 2023, the Baltic states and Norway led the pack in proportional terms with military and humanitarian aid donations to Ukraine amounting to more than 1.6 percent of their GDPs, according to Kiel Institute figures. A number of European countries are set provide Ukraine with vital fighter jets in 2024 and beyond. The Netherlands and Denmark are expected to supply Ukraine with up to 61 F-16 fighter jets, with Belgium on track to deliver over 50 jets as new replacement models arrive. Norway has agreed to hand over ten F-16s equipped with anti-ship missiles.

Ukraine’s fellow Black Sea nations are also increasing their engagement. In early 2024, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey signed off on a new trilateral initiative to improve maritime safety in the Black Sea and help Ukraine keep shipping lanes open by clearing Russian mines. The move comes after Ukraine broke the Russian naval blockade of the country’s Black Sea ports and in the second half of 2023 and established a new corridor for merchant shipping.

In Brussels, efforts continue to overcome obstacles created by Hungary, which used its veto to block a landmark EU aid package for Ukraine in December 2023. Members of the European Parliament are initiating efforts to strip Budapest of its veto powers to prevent the country from holding the rest of the EU to ransom. “The EU will approve Ukraine aid with or without Hungary,” pledged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on January 16 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Europe’s growing support for Ukraine comes as the full-scale Russian invasion of the country approaches the two-year mark with no end in sight. European leaders increasingly appreciate that their own security is at stake in Ukraine, and understand that if Putin’s invasion ends in victory, their own countries will be directly at risk. The military threat posed by a resurgent Russia has clearly focused European attention, as have recent delays in US aid. There is now a realization across the continent that Putin is a European problem, and it is primarily up to Europe to stop him.

Diane Francis is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, editor-at-large with the National Post in Canada, author of ten books, and author of a newsletter on America.

Confident Putin boasts of Russian “conquests” in Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:19:11 +0000

When Vladimir Putin first embarked on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he sought to disguise the attack as an act of self-defense while claiming Russia had no interest in occupying Ukrainian territory. “We do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone,” he declared.

With the invasion now fast approaching the two-year mark, the Russian dictator apparently no longer feels the need to dress up his true intentions. Buoyed by a very visible recent weakening in Western resolve, Putin is now openly embracing the language of imperialism and referring to Russian “conquests” in Ukraine.

Speaking at a January 16 meeting of municipal authorities in the Moscow region, Putin dismissed Ukraine’s Peace Formula and expressed his unwillingness to discuss the status of the Ukrainian regions currently under Russian occupation. “As for the negotiation process, this is an attempt to encourage us to abandon the conquests we have made over the past one-and-a-half years. Everyone understands that this is impossible,” he commented.

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Putin’s revealing reference to conquered Ukrainian lands underlines the imperialistic ambitions at the heart of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. It also further discredits Russian efforts to blame the invasion on imaginary Nazis and a non-existent NATO threat.

On the eve of the invasion, Putin made much of NATO’s post-1991 enlargement and was highly critical of the alliance’s decision to accept former Warsaw Pact countries as members. While Ukraine itself had no realistic prospects of joining the alliance in 2022, Putin claimed the prospect of deepening cooperation between NATO and Kyiv posed an intolerable security threat to Russia.

Putin’s protestations were undermined by his own subsequent lack of concern over Finnish NATO membership. When the Finns responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by abandoning decades of neutrality and joining the alliance, Putin reacted by demilitarizing Russia’s entire 1300 kilometer border with Finland. “If we were a threat, they would certainly not have moved their troops away, even in a situation where they are engaged somewhere else,” commented Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen in August 2023.

While Russia’s NATO claims do not stand up to scrutiny, Moscow’s entire anti-Nazi narrative is even less convincing. During Putin’s reign, the Kremlin has revived and dramatically amplified lingering Soviet propaganda labeling Ukrainians as Nazis. This has helped to dehumanize Ukrainians in the eyes of the Russian population and generate grassroots support for the current war.

Putin himself has been at the heart of this process, regularly equating expressions of Ukrainian identity with Nazism while insisting Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). Unsurprisingly, when Putin announced his invasion in February 2022, he declared the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine as his main war aim. This was widely understood to mean the eradication of a separate Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of a Russian imperial identity.

The Kremlin’s attempts to portray Ukraine as some kind of fascist threat have played well within the Russian information bubble but have failed to convince international audiences, due largely to the absence of any actual Ukrainian Nazis. Indeed, Ukraine’s far right parties are so unpopular that they actually formed a coalition ahead of the country’s last parliamentary elections in 2019 in a bid to end decades of ballot box failure, but still only managed to secure 2.16 percent of the vote.

Russian propagandists have also been unable to explain how “Nazi” Ukraine could be led by Jewish President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. When quizzed about this obvious inconsistency on Italian TV in May 2022, a clearly flustered Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that Zelenskyy’s Jewishness was irrelevant as “Hitler also had Jewish blood.” This shameful episode highlighted the absurdity of Russia’s attempts to portray democratic Ukraine as a hotbed of Nazism.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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It should now be clear to any objective observer that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has always been an exercise in old-fashioned imperialism. Putin’s most recent statement about Russian “conquests” in Ukraine is not the first time he has adopted the swagger of the conqueror. In summer 2022, he compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great. He has repeatedly claimed to be fighting for “historic Russian lands,” while denying Ukraine’s right to exist.

Putin’s increasingly open imperialism raises serious doubts over the possibility of reaching any kind of compromise agreement to end the war. Recent reports in the international media have suggested that he is “quietly signaling” his readiness for a ceasefire, but it is difficult to see how this could work without legitimizing a land grab that would have profound negative connotations for European stability and international security.

The most obvious question is how far Putin’s imperial ambitions extend. The man himself has proclaimed much of unoccupied Ukraine to be historically Russian, including the country’s main Black Sea port city, Odesa, and the entire southern coastline. This alone is reason enough to believe that any ceasefire along the current front lines of the conflict would merely provide Russia with a pause to rearm and regroup before renewing hostilities.

There are also mounting concerns that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will go further. He has repeatedly stated that the entire Soviet Union was “historical Russia,” while the borders of the old Russian Empire stretched even further. If Putin chooses to apply his weaponized version of Russian imperial history in its broadest sense, the list of potential targets would include Finland, Poland, Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Alaska, and the whole of Central Asia.

Putin’s use of unambiguously imperialistic language is an indication of his growing confidence amid mounting signs of Western weakness. With vital Ukrainian aid packages currently held up in both the US and EU, Putin clearly believes he can outlast the democratic world and achieve his goals in Ukraine. If he is proved right, Ukrainians are highly unlikely to be the last victims of Russian imperial aggression.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

IPSI report on simultaneous conflicts referenced in VOA

kyusko — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 20:55:59 +0000

On January 14, IPSI’s report, “The United States and its allies must be ready to deter a two-front war and nuclear attacks in East Asia,” was referenced in a VOA article, which underscored the report’s warning about the potential for China to target US bases in South Korea in a conflict with the United States.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

The post IPSI report on simultaneous conflicts referenced in VOA appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Dean featured on new episode of Defence Connect podcast

kyusko — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 18:29:19 +0000

On January 11, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Peter Dean spoke as a featured guest on an episode of the Defence Connect podcast for a discussion on “shaping the Australian Navy’s future fleet.”

Fellow

Peter J. Dean

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Australia Conflict

The post Dean featured on new episode of Defence Connect podcast appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Hinata-Yamaguchi quoted in South China Morning Post on Japanese defense exports

kyusko — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:42:58 +0000

On January 8, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in a South China Morning Post article on Japan’s export of Patriot missiles to the United States, suggesting that these exports are “vital in boosting Japan’s defence industry and the Japan-US defence equipment supply chain.”

Fellow

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Indo-Pacific

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Ukraine is on the front lines of global cyber security

Joshua Stein — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:37:52 +0000

There is no clear dividing line between “cyber warfare” and “cyber crime.” This is particularly true with regard to alleged acts of cyber aggression originating from Russia. The recent suspected Russian cyber attack on Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar is a reminder of the potential dangers posed by cyber operations to infrastructure, governments, and private companies around the world.

Russian cyber activities are widely viewed as something akin to a public-private partnership. These activities are thought to include official government actors who commit cyber attacks and unofficial private hacker networks that are almost certainly (though unofficially) sanctioned, directed, and protected by the Russian authorities.

The most significant government actor in Russia’s cyber operations is reportedly Military Unit 74455, more commonly called Sandworm. This unit has been accused of engaging in cyber attacks since at least 2014. The recent attack on Ukraine’s telecommunications infrastructure was probably affiliated with Sandworm, though specific relationships are intentionally hard to pin down.

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Attributing cyber attacks is notoriously difficult; they are designed that way. In some cases, like the attacks on Ukraine’s electrical and cellular infrastructure, attribution is a matter of common sense. In other cases, if there is enough information, security firms and governments can trace attacks to specific sources.

Much of Russian cyber crime occurs through private hacker groups. Russia is accused of protecting criminals who act in the interests of the state. One notable case is that of alleged hacker Maksim Yakubets, who has been accused of targeting bank accounts around the world but remains at large in Russia despite facing charges from the US and UK.

The Kremlin’s preferred public-private partnership model has helped make Russia a major hub for aggressive cyber attacks and cyber crime. Private hacker networks receive protection, while military hacking projects are often able to disguise their activities by operating alongside private attacks, which provide the Kremlin with a degree of plausible deniability.

More than ten years ago, Thomas Rid predicted “cyber war will not take place.” Cyber attacks are not a battlefield, they are a race for digital resources (including access to and control of sensitive devices and accounts). This race has been ongoing for well over a decade.

Part of the reason the US and other NATO allies should be concerned about and invested in the war in Ukraine is that today’s cyber attacks are having an impact on cyber security that is being felt far beyond Ukraine. As Russia mounts further attacks against Ukrainian targets, it is also expanding its resources in the wider global cyber race.

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Andy Greenberg’s book Sandworm documents a range of alleged Russian attacks stretching back a number of years and states that Sandworm’s alleged operations have not been limited to cyber attacks against Ukraine. The United States indicted six GRU operatives as part of Sandworm for their role in a series of attacks, including attempts to control the website of the Georgian Parliament. Cyber security experts are also reasonably sure that the NotPetya global attack of 2016 was perpetrated by Sandworm.

The NotPetya attack initially targeted Ukraine and looked superficially like a ransomware operation. In such instances, the victim is normally prompted to send cryptocurrency to an account in order to unlock the targeted device and files. This is a common form of cyber crime. The NotPetya attack also occurred after a major spree of ransomware attacks, so many companies were prepared to make payouts. But it soon became apparent that NotPetya was not ransomware. It was not meant to be profit-generating; it was destructive.

The NotPetya malware rapidly spread throughout the US and Europe. It disrupted global commerce when it hit shipping giant Maersk and India’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port. It hit major American companies including Merck and Mondelez. The commonly cited estimate for total economic damage caused by NotPetya is $10 billion, but even this figure does not capture the far greater potential it exposed for global chaos.

Ukraine is currently on the front lines of global cyber security and the primary target for groundbreaking new cyber attacks. While identifying the exact sources of these attacks is necessarily difficult, few doubt that what we are witnessing is the cyber dimension of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Looking ahead, these attacks are unlikely to stay in Ukraine. On the contrary, the same cyber weapons being honed in Russia’s war against Ukraine may be deployed against other countries throughout the West. This makes it all the more important for Western cyber security experts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.

Joshua Stein is a researcher with a PhD from the University of Calgary.

Hinata-Yamaguchi quoted in NK News on Russian use of North Korean missiles

kyusko — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 20:12:35 +0000

On January 5, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in NK News on Russia’s recent use of North Korean ballistic missiles in Ukraine.

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Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

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To defeat Putin in a long war, Ukraine must switch to active defense in 2024

Mykola Bielieskov — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 21:54:53 +0000

As Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches the two-year mark, it is vital for Ukraine’s military and political leadership to properly digest the lessons of 2022 and 2023.

The most important conclusion to draw from the past two years of fighting is the dominance of defensive warfare over offensive operations. This has been demonstrated again and again, beginning with the failure of Russia’s initial blitzkrieg in the first month of the war.

A second key lesson is the importance of balancing political goals with military capabilities. Since February 2022, political considerations have forced both Russia and Ukraine to embark on ill-fated offensives with insufficient forces, leading to heavy losses.

While Ukraine’s long-term aim remains the complete liberation of the country from Russian occupation, current circumstances do not favor bold offensive operations. On the international front, US and EU aid commitments have run into serious political obstacles, while efforts to expand the production of military equipment and armaments have fallen well behind schedule. In Ukraine, concerns are mounting over high casualty rates and potential manpower shortages.

With this in mind, Ukraine’s military strategy for 2024 should focus on holding the front line and ensuring continued control over the approximately 82% of the country that remains in Ukrainian hands. A strategic shift to active defense would play to Ukraine’s current strengths while buying valuable time to regroup and rearm ahead of what are likely to be more advantageous conditions in 2025.

Crucially, a more defensive posture would allow Ukraine to exploit Moscow’s pressing need for victories. With the Russian army under huge political pressure to advance, Ukrainian commanders would have plenty of opportunities to steadily bleed out Putin’s invasion force, much as they are currently doing at Avdiivka.

In parallel, Ukraine should look to continue degrading Russia’s ability to wage war by conducting an escalating campaign of air strikes on targets far behind the front lines throughout occupied Ukraine and inside Russia itself. This could include attacks on troop concentrations, military bases, and munitions stores along with logistical hubs and armament production facilities.

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The effectiveness of any defensive strategy in 2024 will rely heavily on the level of support provided by Ukraine’s partners. In terms of weapons deliveries, priorities will include vast amounts of artillery ammunition together with electronic warfare systems, strike drones, additional air defense capabilities, and long-range missiles. The hotly anticipated arrival of F-16 fighter jets in the coming months will also significantly enhance Ukraine’s ability to deny Russia control of the skies.

If this military aid is forthcoming, Ukraine will be in a position to implement a strategy of active defense throughout the coming year, while also preparing for future offensives. These preparations should include expanded training programs for Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries. While tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops have already undergone training during the first two years of the war, front line setbacks in the second half of 2023 exposed the shortcomings of these efforts. Clearly, much more time is required to provide Ukrainian soldiers with the military knowledge and skills required to succeed on the modern battlefield.

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