Indian Strategic Studies

16 October 2024

Moscow and Islamabad Discuss LNG Cooperation

Syed Fazl-e-Haider

A Russian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk arrived in Islamabad on September 18 for a two-day visit. To strengthen bilateral relations, they held separate meetings with top Pakistani leadership, including President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. Connectivity and energy collaboration were the main focus of the bilateral discussion (Geo TV, September 19). This visit comes at a time when the two nations are exploring future liquefied natural gas (LNG) transactions. Moscow announced that it could export LNG to Pakistan by 2026, once its LNG export terminals are operational. This would allow for Pakistan to reconsider some of its previous agreements regarding LNG. Pakistan’s long-term LNG contracts signed in 2016 and 2021 with Qatar include price re-opening clauses, meaning Islamabad could renegotiate the LNG price with Doha in 2026. Russia’s LNG offer would become a strategic option for the South Asian nation to secure a favorable LNG import price amid Western sanctions restricting its options in the region (Energy Update, August 13). Pakistan has encountered numerous obstacles in building and establishing energy infrastructure, and a partnership with Russia would benefit not only Pakistan’s energy industry but also Russia’s sanction-bound economy.

In 2022, Pakistan initiated talks with Russia on energy purchases, particularly LNG and oil (see EDM, October 5, November 11, 2022; Dawn, September 19). Pakistan-Russia energy collaboration deepened in 2023 when Pakistan began purchasing Russian crude oil at a discount (see EDM, August 16, 2023). In September 2023, Pakistan received its first liquefied petroleum gas shipment from Russia (Express Tribune, September 18).

The Reality of Afghanistan’s Land Link With China

Aarish U. Khan

Looking at Afghanistan’s map, one observes a narrow strip of land protruding northeastward out of its northern part. Called the Wakhan Corridor, it is a colonial construct to keep the borders of the Indian subcontinent, then under the British empire, and the Russian Empire from intersecting. Today, the 350-kilometer long and 16-to-64-km wide Wakhan Corridor separates Pakistan and Tajikistan and ends at a short 92 km border with China’s expansive Xinjiang province.

This small strip of land is sparsely populated by around 10,000 people, but its strategic significance can be gauged from the fact that NATO built a military camp in the area during its presence in Afghanistan but never manned it to avoid geopolitical escalation with China. The Chinese also operated joint patrols with Afghan troops in the area in 2018 and initiated talks with the Afghan officials for constructing a military base in the region. China is believed to be operating a secret military facility in the isolated Tajik town of Shaymak, 30 km from its border into Tajikistan and around 14 km from the Tajik-Afghan border to monitor activity in this crucial border region.

Besides its strategic significance, the Wakhan Corridor is now widely seen in Afghanistan as a possible direct trade conduit with China. Currently, there is no trade link on their small shared border; Afghanistan’s trade with China is instead routed through third countries, like Pakistan.

Japan: America’s Indispensable Ally in the 21st Century

Mohammed Soliman

In the 20th century, the United States and Great Britain formed a special relationship that defined the century, ensuring American primacy and British survival as the world transitioned from Pax Britannica to Pax Americana. Across the Atlantic, once a British colony, America stood as a steadfast ally in the two great world wars. In addition to their shared culture and history, Washington recognized London’s pivotal role as an anchor state for American power in Europe. Against the specter of German aggression and continental hegemony under Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler, the US-UK alliance served as a bulwark against Imperial German and Nazi domination of continental Europe. Since the dawn of this millennium, there has been a clear shift in the global economic balance of power from Europe to Asia, and a new military balance of power will follow, as history informs us. Consequently, the fate of American power now hinges on the Indo-Pacific, where the specter of Chinese regional hegemony looms large. Washington is currently engaged in a vigorous debate over American grand strategy for the 21st century, with advocates of an Asia-first approach competing against those who prioritize Europe. As the Ukraine War drags on, this debate is likely to cross partisan lines. At its core is the question of whether a new successor, such as Japan, is taking over London’s role from the last century. There is little doubt that Japan now serves as the anchor of US power in the Indo-Pacific. The US-Japan alliance is poised to define America’s Asian and global role, as well as Japan’s survival—just as the US-UK alliance did in the 20th century.

The U.S. Must Confront the Multi-Front War Against the West

Ambassador James S. Gilmore III

October 7th is the first anniversary of the unprovoked attack and murder of Israeli citizens by Hamas in Gaza. A year later, kidnapped innocents remained as hostages to Iran's goal of making Israel uninhabitable by Jews, causing the Jewish people to abandon—their country, and driving the United States from the area.

October 7 and the Israeli war must be seen in the context of the global war that we are now in. As a red-letter date, October 7 should be paired with February 24, the date in 2022 when Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine, to attack Kyiv directly, topple its government, murder its leadership, and absorb the sovereign nation of Ukraine into Russia by force.

Americans must wake up to the world conflict that is now underway, and ask ourselves what must be done to ensure our own survival. So far the U.S. has followed a strategy of "deterrence" to prevent invasion and aggression from starting in. the first place. That strategy has failed in both Europe and the Middle East and may fail any day in the Pacific as China threatens the democratic island of Taiwan.

Can The Euro Or Renminbi Really Challenge The US Dollar? – Analysis

Masaaki Yoshimori

The United States dollar has long held its position as the world’s dominant currency. This is mainly due to the vast size and stability of the US economy and the unmatched liquidity of its financial markets. These factors have solidified the dollar’s supremacy in international trade and finance, with the US economy valued at over $25 trillion. However, in recent years, two other currencies — the European euro and the Chinese renminbi — have emerged as potential challengers to the dollar’s supremacy.

The euro, underpinned by the Eurozone’s robust institutional framework, offers political stability and a solid monetary authority. These traits make it a compelling candidate for a global reserve currency. Nevertheless, the structural and political fragmentationwithin the European Union and divergent fiscal policies among its member states undermine the euro’s reliability as a universal reserve asset. As of 2023, the euro accounts for just 21% of global foreign exchange reserves compared to the US dollar’s commanding 58%. Even with the issuance of 400 billion euros (over $447 billion) in jointly backed debt during the Covid-19 crisis, the Eurozone still lacks the deep and liquid debt markets needed to elevate the euro’s status as a reserve currency.

Breaking The Barrier: Four Years Of PRC Military Activity Around Taiwan – Analysis

Thomas J. Shattuck and Benjamin Lewis

On September 17, 2020, the Republic of China’s (Taiwan’s) Ministry of National Defense (MND) released its first-ever “real-time military update” documenting two incursions into the country’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) by two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the day prior. An ADIZ is “an area of airspace over land or water, in which the ready identification, location, and control of all aircraft . . . is required in the interest of national security,” essentially a buffer zone before an aircraft reaches a country’s defense area or territorial airspace. For Taiwan, its ADIZ includes the all-important median line of the Taiwan Strait, a line created in 1955 by General Benjamin Davis, Jr., that divides the waterway in half, originally meant to deconflict military operations by Taiwan and China.

Since 2020, Taiwan’s ADIZ has become the center of the PRC’s military activity around Taiwan. That first report in 2020—containing a map of Taiwan’s ADIZ, the approximate flight paths of the aircraft, and photos of the aircraft taken by Taiwan’s air force—started a new practice in Taipei for publicizing military pressure and coercion by Beijing.

Iran’s Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Year

Raphael S. Cohen

There is no shortage of misery in the Middle East today. As the region marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, Israel mourned the murder of around 1,200 Israelis and worried about the fate of the remaining 100 hostages held by Hamas. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent war, hundreds of thousands are currently homeless, and much of Gaza lies in ruins. Lebanon, too, is now devolving into a war zone.

Often overlooked amid all this misery is Iran, which is also having a terrible, horrible, very bad year. But unlike most of the other actors here, it has only itself to blame.

The United States Has More at Risk in the Middle East Than You Probably Think

Douglas London

Who is winning the expanding conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies? In his fiery United Nations speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly justified his expanded war against Hezbollah and boasted that Israel was winning. The rhetoric from the other side, from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, is little different, celebrating the costs their “resistance” is inflicting on Israel and its allies.

I spent many of my 34-plus years in the CIA’s clandestine service living in this region, meeting our Iranian, Hezbollah and Palestinian agents, and working with Israeli and Arab counterparts. And among the most enduring lessons I learned is that measuring winning and losing in the Middle East is often not readily apparent in the moment. The consequence of any single event sometimes unfolds over generations.

Iran’s recent attack on Israel featured some 180 to 200 ballistic missiles and caused minimal damage, according to Israeli claims. Yet in the midst of this same attack, eight Israelis were killed, and at least seven seriously wounded, when two Hamas gunmen opened fire in the normally tranquil, tree-lined area of Jaffa. Even as we await what could conceivably be further large-scale direct attacks between Israel and Iran that might further draw in the U.S., the Jaffa attacks show that Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, are adapting and likely steering toward what foreign policy types call a more “asymmetrical” strategy.

Would An All-Out Israel-Iran War Send Oil Prices Skyrocketing? – Analysis

Abubakar Siddique

The prospect of an all-out war in the Middle East increased after Iran launched a massive missile attack on Israel on October 1.

Israel has threatened retaliation, fueling concerns of a disruption to the flow of oil and gas from the energy-rich region.

Global oil prices have already soared 9 percent since Iran’s attack, which came amid Israel’s yearlong war in the Gaza Strip and its invasion of southern Lebanon earlier this month.

A full-scale conflict between Israel and Iran could upend the international energy supply and send shock waves throughout the global economy, experts warn.

“Major disruption of regional oil and gas exports is likely to have a material impact on the global economy,” said Farzan Sabet, senior research associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

‘Act Of Aggression’

Israeli media reports suggest the country could target Iran’s nuclear sites or its oil or gas installations.

Has Israel Crossed the Line in Lebanon?

Janet Abou-Elias

In the past week, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has significantly expanded, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announcing that troops have captured a Hezbollah base in the border village of Maroun al-Ras. Drone footage has also revealed destruction in the nearby village of Yaroun. This escalation raises serious concerns about the growing humanitarian crisis and the potential for further violence in the region.

Anyone paying attention should be deeply concerned about Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon. Though Israel describes its activity as “localized raids” and “very limited in scope and the area of operation,” the Lebanese government has said that a million people, a fifth of the population and a larger number than the displaced of the 2006 war, have fled their homes.

The human suffering is devastating, and the potential for continued tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran could very well be the “October surprise” for the upcoming U.S. election. The risk of a broader conflict between Israel and Iran is not a distant or abstract threat; it’s a rapidly unfolding reality. With each passing day, the chances of escalation grow, pulling not only regional actors but also the United States deeper into the fray. A senior U.S. official has confirmed that the Pentagon plans to send thousands of additional troops to the Middle East in response to heightened tensions, underlining Washington’s ongoing commitment to Israel’s security despite its violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) over the past year.

Experts React: Energy Implications of Escalating Middle East Conflic

Kevin Book, Ben Cahill, Adi Imsirovic, Raad Alkadiri, Kunro Irié, and Leslie Palti-Guzman

The escalating turmoil in the Middle East threatens to reshape global energy markets, yet oil prices remain curiously stable. What’s behind this unexpected market calm in the face of growing regional conflict? The CSIS Energy Security and Climate Program turned to leading experts for insights. In the following essays, they delve into the factors keeping oil prices in check, discuss scenarios that could disrupt markets, and examine how the widening conflict might impact global liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies.

Supply Risk Rises Again

Kevin Book, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), Energy Security and Climate Change Program

For months, oil markets did not seem to be pricing in the prospect that Israel’s multifront battle against Iran and its regional proxies might disrupt global supplies. The front-month Brent crude futures price had fallen about 20 percent, from roughly $90 per barrel (bbl) when Tehran and Tel Aviv last confronted one another directly in mid-April, to a little less than $72/bbl at the end of September. Last week, however, Brent surged approximately 10 percent or a little more than $7/bbl, and on Monday it reached an intraday peak north of $81/bbl. Traders appeared to be factoring in strikes on Iranian petroleum infrastructure.

Another US Strike in Yemen But Little Evidence Military Operations Are Deterring Houthis

Konstantin Toropin

The Pentagon has provided more details on its latest strike against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday, but as the rebel group's attacks continue, the goal of making the Red Sea safe for merchant ships still seems out of reach.

Major Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Monday that the strike involved 15 Houthi targets across five locations, and those targets included "offensive military capabilities, to include Houthi training and weapons storage facilities." He said "initial assessments are that we had good effects on that."

However, the strike involving Navy ships and Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles follows a year of U.S. military operations in the Red Sea aimed at fending off Houthi attacks, yet the rebels have continued to lob missiles and send drones to harass merchant ship traffic.

The U.S. conducted two other similarly-sized strikes earlier this year, though with the help of allies, in January and February. The January strike hit more than 60 targets at 16 locations controlled by the Iranian-backed militants and the February strike hit 36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen.

Al-Qaeda Attack on Russians in Bamako Latest Setback for Russia’s Africa Corps

Andrew McGregor

Al-Qaeda has come hunting for Russian troops in the Sahel region, scoring another blow against Moscow’s “Africa Corps” in Mali’s capital of Bamako on September 17 (France24, September 17; Al Jazeera, September 20). The attack on Russian and Malian military facilities came a month after a devastating joint strike by al-Qaeda and Tuareg separatists on a Russian-Malian column at Tinzwatène, near the Algerian border (see EDM, September 11). Recent defeats of Russian-backed government forces in Niger, the sudden withdrawal of paramilitaries for deployment on the Kursk Front, and the instability of military regimes in three Sahel states belonging to the pro-Russian Sahel Group State Alliance (AES, consisting of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso) are beginning to raise questions about the future of Russian forces in the region (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 31; The Moscow Times, August 31).

The September 17 attack was carried out by militants of the Group for Supporters of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin, JNIM), led by a veteran Malian Tuareg jihadist, Iyad ag Ghali (see Militant Leadership Monitor, February 29, 2012). JNIM was formed in 2017 as a coalition of smaller jihadist groups drawn from the Tuareg, Arab, and Fulani communities. They pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda almost immediately and were accepted into the movement (see Terrorism Monitor, April 21, 2017). This by no means, however, indicates general support for al-Qaeda amongst these minority ethnic groups, who are targeted daily in Malian and Russian counterinsurgency operations.

18 striking photos from this year’s best wildlife photographers

Christine Dell'Amore

To capture western toad tadpoles swimming through a sunlit underwater world, Shane Gross snorkeled for hours through carpets of lily pads, moving carefully to avoid disturbing the fine layers of silt and algae.

The resulting photograph, “The Swarm of Life,” earned Gross the title of 60th Wildlife Photographer of the Year, awarded October 8 by London’s Natural History Museum.

“To have an image win in the 60th WPY is incredibly special, and representing wetlands is a true honor,” says Gross, a Canadian marine conservation photojournalist who has contributed to National Geographic.

He photographed the darkly colored, paperclip-size tadpoles in Cedar Lake, part of Canada’s Vancouver Island. “The challenge was to get the camera-to-subject distance just right and light them well enough to have them pop off the colorful background,” he told National Geographic in an email. (See the 2023 winners.)

“Wetlands can be stunningly beautiful and badly need our protection,” Gross says. “They do so much for us that most people are oblivious to,” such as protecting cities from floods.

The CIA runs a nonprofit venture capital firm. What’s it investing in?

Kai Ryssdal and Andie Corban

The Central Intelligence Agency is responsible for collecting information relevant to national security, updating policymakers and conducting top-secret actions. Also running an investment firm called In-Q-Tel. According to its website, its mission is to “be the premier partner trusted to identify, evaluate, and leverage emerging commercial technologies for the U.S. national security community and America’s allies.”

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Jon Keegan, tech reporter at Sherwood News, about the companies the CIA is investing in. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: The CIA, it turns out, has an investment arm. Say more.

Jon Keegan: Yeah, this is unusual. It’s not exactly breaking news that this company exists, but it’s an interesting moment to be looking at it. So, back in 1999, the CIA decided that they needed to get their hands into the technology that was emerging from Silicon Valley. It was an exciting time. The internet was just booming. All these companies were developing all this cool technology. And over on the other side of the country, the CIA was watching, and so they started a venture capital firm. It’s a most unusual venture capital firm. It’s a nonprofit, and they are looking for companies that are making technology that could be useful to them.

Ryssdal: We’re going to get into the technology they’re investing in in a minute. But I want to give people a sense of the size and the scale of this thing. Since 2011 you write, In-Q-Tel, which is the name of this investment firm, the nonprofit that CIA has established, they’ve gotten $1.2 billion in taxpayer money in the last 13, 14 years. How does it work?

On (Protracted) War: The Challenge of Sustained Large-Scale Combat Operations

John Nagl and George Topic

An increasing number of highly respected analysts note the tighter coordination among Russia (America’s acute challenge), China (America’s pacing challenge), North Korea, and Iran. These countries share an aversion to the international system organized and maintained by the United States and her allies. They also share a determination to achieve national goals that do not comply with expected international norms about the use of force in international politics to change boundaries and respect for sovereignty. These nations are increasingly sharing natural resources, military equipment, and training; together, they present the prospect of being the most formidable adversary America has faced at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union (the reason some are proclaiming a “new Cold War”) and perhaps since World War II (the reasons others are comparing today to 1938 and arguing that a third world war is imminent).

Today, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has resulted in the most consequential war in Europe in generations and taught many lessons about the changing character of war. China’s provocations in the Indo-Pacific region threaten US allies in the region and put at risk the regional security balance that has held for decades. While the threats posed individually by Iran and its proxies or North Korea do not rise to the same level as those of Russia or China, they nonetheless can produce significant negative impacts for the United States and our Western allies and increase instability around the world. The threats that are posed by the potential cooperation by several or all of these adversaries are especially dangerous, and as noted below, there are clear indications that to some extent this is already happening. The resources required to manage multiple conflicts, especially protracted wars—and the coordination challenges involved in doing so—could overextend the capabilities of the United States and its allies.

How America Can Regain Its Edge in Great-Power Competition

Nadia Schadlow

From the start of his term as U.S. president, Donald Trump rang the alarm about the return of great-power competition. His administration’s first National Security Strategy emphasized that adversaries of the United States were seeking to erode its position in the international order. This outlook was relatively novel at the time, but today, much of the broader U.S. foreign policy community shares Trump’s basic assessment. The competition has only intensified in the years since.

The Hypersonic Drone Market: How The Axis Of Innovation Is Forming Around It – Analysis

David Kirichenko

As Ukraine races to develop vital autonomous drones that have proved integral to its battlefield successes, other world powers are starting to accelerate hypersonic development to prepare for the battlefields of tomorrow.

On July 8, 2024, Russia launched an attack on Ukrainian cities which included the use of hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, targeting a children’s hospital in Kyiv among other sites.

An Axis of Innovation

As the China-Russia axis establishes a market hegemony, Ukraine has been impacted by the use of the pairing’s “daggers” technology and emerging hypersonic developments that have led the Western alliance to seek cooperative innovation for hypersonic drones in particular. Destinus has taken an incentive as a European-based company to supply Ukraine with hypersonic arms in the future that is not reliant on the China-Russian hierarchy or the United States-Chinese trade conflict.

DoD Has Embraced AI. Now What?

Bob Ashley

The U.S. Defense Department is starting to get its reps in with AI.

In November last year, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks released the department’s AI Adoption Strategy. Eight months later, as part of its modernization efforts, the Air Force launched NIPRGPT, “an experimental bridge to leverage GenAI on the Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network.” Currently, Army’s Vantage program is “joining and enriching millions of data points” into AI/ML to “accelerate decisions on everything from personnel readiness to financial return on investment.”

Thus far, the military’s embrace of this formidable new technology has been, for all its complexity and challenges, both measured and maturing. Safety has been a top focus, as Deputy Secretary Hicks underscored when releasing the strategy: “Safety is critical because unsafe systems are ineffective systems.”

The full promise of AI to empower organizations with greater efficiency, effectiveness, understanding – and enable faster decisions relative to our adversaries – will impact every process, from back office functions, to warfighting across all domains. We won’t get it right at first. This will be an iterative process from which we’ll have to learn as we go. So, in the spirit of relentless improvement, what are some of the foundational questions we should be thinking about as it applies to warfighting and the application of AI/ML?

Is ‘Big AI’ beating 'small AI'—and what does it mean for the military?

PATRICK TUCKER

The prevailing "bigger-is-better" approach to artificial intelligence—ingest more training data, produce larger models, build bigger data centers—might be undermining the kind of research and development the U.S. military actually needs now and in the future.

That’s the argument in "Hype, Sustainability, and the Price of the Bigger-is-Better Paradigm in AI," a new paper that scrutinizes common assumptions driving AI research. Its authors demonstrate that the performance of larger models doesn’t necessarily justify the vastly increased resources needed to build and power them. They also argue that concentrating AI efforts in a relative handful of big tech companies adds geopolitical risks.

Broadly speaking, the Defense Department is pursuing AI along two tracks: large models that require enormous computational resources, and smaller, on-platform AI that can function disconnected from the internet. In some ways, the study validates the second approach. But, the authors note, future research in “small AI” could be limited due to growing influence of large AI providers.

The Russian Army Faces an Uncertain Future

Mark N. Katz

The Future of the Russian Military After Ukraine: What Comes Next?

What shape will the Russian army be in after the Russia-Ukraine war ends? Much depends, of course, on how the war ends.

If the war ends because the Russian army collapses as it did in 1917, the shape of the Russian army and Russia itself will be extremely dire. Yet while it cannot be ruled out, this scenario does not seem likely.

Far more likely ways for the war to end now appear to be either a ceasefire, in which Russia retains control of Ukrainian territory it now occupies, or Ukraine agreeing to give up even more territory than it already has and making other concessions to Moscow.

Under these scenarios, the Russian army will not only remain intact, but will appear more threatening than ever to what is left of Ukraine, to other European countries less willing and able to defend themselves than Ukraine has been, and to the United States which is committed to defend its NATO allies but where the public is unprepared for a major war with Russia and the losses that it would entail. A victorious post-Ukraine war Russian army with experience of prolonged, large-scale conflict will only enhance this perception.

Ukraine in EU? First, trouble with Hungarians, Slovaks, and the Poles want the bodies back

Anthony J. Constantini

Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the beleaguered country formally applied to join the European Union. The application was a fulfillment of a long-held desire, going back years. In 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych was forced out via likely unconstitutional means over a desire to stay more aligned with Russia rather than the European Union. His successor, President Petro Poroshenko, once declared that he hoped to see Ukraine ensconced in the EU by 2020. That obviously did not happen. But the current administration, under President Volodymyr Zelensky, is optimistically hoping to enter around 2030.

The problem is that this is all easier said than done. Entering the European Union is a fraught process requiring each applying state to match a series of benchmarks. But even when they do so, they still need the approval of every member state. And here is where things get tricky for Ukraine.

Ukraine, and much of Eastern Europe, has borders which are, in a civilisational context, relatively “new.” What belongs to one country today belonged to another as recently as the last century. Look at a map of Poland today and a map of Poland from 100 years ago, for example, and you could be excused for thinking you are looking at two different countries.

What would victory in Ukraine look like?

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

Victory in war is sometimes easy to define. World War II ended with Allied troops in control of Berlin and Tokyo, and with the German and Japanese leadership removed. The Vietnam War, on the other hand, ended in a clear defeat for the United States: North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam despite the futile expenditure of 58,000 American lives. The Korean War is sometimes called a stalemate because it never formally ended.

But such definitions can be deceiving. In Iraq, the US removed Saddam Hussein but neither found weapons of mass destruction (the justification for their deployment) nor turned that country into a functioning democracy. Worse, some cynics would argue that the true victor was Iran, which became the most influential political force in Iraq.

On the other hand, though the demilitarised zone remains in place in Korea, the southern half of the peninsula has evolved into a vibrant, prosperous democracy with an annual per capita income of US$35,000, whereas North Korea is a dangerous dictatorship with an estimated annual per capita income of US$1,200 and recurrent food crises. Who won the stalemated war?

How to prevent the next Azerbaijan-Armenia war

Hrair Balian

Another Azerbaijani war against Armenia with potential for significant regional destabilization is imminent. Yet, it is preventable.

Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey and Russia, claims the right to an extra-territorial “corridor” through Southern Armenia. Following the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29 — November 11-22, 2024) in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, when the world attention is elsewhere, the risk of an Azerbaijani offensive to grab the “corridor” by force will increase significantly.

Armenia could preempt this violent outcome by urging comprehensive negotiations with Azerbaijan, also engaging regional and global powers.

The September 2023 Azerbaijani offensive against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) and the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians there fundamentally altered the geopolitical landscape and terminated the November 9, 2020 tripartite ceasefire agreement that ended the 44-day Azerbaijani war against the unrecognized NKR. The agreement was signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, based on which Azerbaijan claims the right to a “corridor” through southern Armenia’s Syunik Province, which Azerbaijan calls “Zankezur.”

U.S. Threatens Google With Break-Up

Michael Curzon

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) is considering forcing Google to break up, or to make significant changes to how it does business, just weeks after a judge ruled that the search engine giant had acted illegally to maintain its monopoly.

There are about 8.5 billion searches on Google every day, which equates to around 90% of the global online search market. But the DoJ is now weighing up measures, including “structural requirements,” that could see the company being “asked” to divest its smartphone Android operating system or its Chrome browser. It could also be required to make its search data available to rivals, and barred from paying other tech firms to have its search engine pre-installed on new devices.

Google has expectedly dismissed these ideas as “radical,” adding that they “go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.” They could, of course, radically shrink the revenue of parent company Alphabet, while granting its competitors room to grow.

BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman also described such a move as “complicated,” but added that it would “make a huge statement.”

15 October 2024

India Brings Maldives Under Its Security Umbrella – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

New Delhi backs it up with financial bonanza to help Maldives meet its development needs and debt repayment obligations

There were two major outcomes of the official visit of the Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu to India: New Delhi has brought Male under its security umbrella and has backed it up with a financial bonanza to help Maldives meet its development needs and debt repayment obligations.

President Muizzu had talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 7 and was scheduled to visit Agra, Mumbai and Bengaluru before going back to Male.

Security Dimension

On the security dimension, the Indo-Maldivian Vision Document had the following things to say:

India and Maldives share common challenges in the Indian Ocean Region which have multi-dimensional implications for the security and development of both the countries. As natural partners, they resolve to work together in advancing the maritime and security cooperation for the benefit of peoples of both India and Maldives as well as for the larger Indian Ocean Region.

Reclaiming the Promise of Nuclear Power in India

Ashley J. Tellis

Introduction

Ever since its independence in 1947, India has obsessively pursued the goal of domesticating high technology. After the Second World War, atomic energy came to symbolize the acme of scientific prowess. It is therefore not surprising that a country whose nationalist narrative held that Western technological superiority had ensured its colonial subjugation would want to master the most important scientific advances as a means of preserving its newly secured freedom.

The history of atomic energy in India, however, predates the country’s independence. Homi Bhabha, the visionary who founded India’s nuclear program, created the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in 1945 to pursue his myriad scientific interests, which included nurturing nuclear science to promote nuclear power production in India after it was freed from British rule.1 Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, knew Bhabha well and shared his belief that economic development required dramatically increased availability of electricity. Consistent with the common assumption then, that atomic energy would provide electricity plentifully and cheaply, Nehru created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1948 to oversee India’s efforts to develop nuclear technology and govern its accompanying institutions.2 And in 1949, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research—the agency overseeing science and technology development within India—would designate the TIFR as the nodal center for all large-scale projects in nuclear research.3

Q&A: What was the Relationship Between the United Front System and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office?

Arran Hope

The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO) was a constituent element of the united front system prior to their official merger in 2017 under the aegis of the United Front Work Department (UFWD). Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government guidance documents, bureaucratic and budgetary linkages, and dual-hatted personnel all show clear relationships between OCAOs and their respective UFWDs. The official merger removed bureaucratic duplication.

United front work has a long history of being the responsibility of the entire party. Agencies at all levels, including OCAOs, are tasked with carrying out united front work. The centrality of united front work has been reiterated by every Party leader. In 1951, while he was primarily in charge of consolidating CCP control over southwestern China, Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) said, “united front work is the responsibility of all departments within the Party. If every cadre and every Party member does not understand this point, this work will not be done well” (China Association for Promoting Democracy, Accessed September 25). Jiang Zemin (江泽民) and Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) made similar comments (CPC News, Accessed September 25; China Reform Data, July 10, 2006). More recently, during the Central United Front Work Conference in July 2022, Xi Jinping also stated: “United front work is the responsibility of the entire Party. It must be taken seriously by the whole Party, and everyone should work together. We must establish a united front work framework in which the Party committee provides unified leadership, the united front departments take the lead in coordination, and relevant sectors assume their respective responsibilities” (PRC Central Government, July 30, 2022).

Deterring Dictators: Whose Foreign Policy Will Stand Up to China, Russia, and Iran?

G. E. Butler

Introduction

As the election draws near, getting a better sense of the effectiveness of the next President’s foreign policy should be scrutinized and considered as part of each voter’s ballot calculus. The foreign policy analysis published by Strategy Central over the past three weeks, along with selected deterrence articles, was used to compare policy and possible success at deterring China, Russia, and Iran. We used AI to compare and judge each policy. The conclusion was a surprise.

In comparing the foreign policies of Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris to determine whose approach would most effectively restore the United States' deterrence capabilities against authoritarian rivals such as China, Russia, and Iran, we must first understand the context in which each policy was crafted. The U.S. today faces a deteriorating global order, one increasingly shaped by authoritarian regimes that challenge the norms of international relations with little repercussions. These regimes exploit gaps in international rules and capitalize on weakened U.S. deterrence. With that backdrop, we can now compare the respective foreign policies of Trump, Biden, and Harris and judge their relative effectiveness in confronting these challenges.

An American alternative to the China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Ami Bera

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), referred to as “Yi dai yi lu” in Chinese, has reshaped global infrastructure financing and investment. It promotes a “China-centred model” of development, which often does not set terms with regard to human rights, transparency or Western legal and market-based principles. BRI emphasises flexible, voluntary cooperation without the stringent legal frameworks and infrastructure financing that host governments might find beneficial in the short term to start projects. Such a model comes with risks for participating countries. As we navigate this landscape, the US must offer a compelling alternative that prioritises transparency, rule of law and sustainable economic models.

Projects associated with BRI have frequently led to substantial financial obligations for participating countries. These arrangements typically involve long-term repayment commitments to Beijing, creating financial dependence on the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) and giving the PRC significant leverage over host nations. This influence extends beyond loan terms and project implementation to broader political pressures China may exert on these countries.

China frequently prefers to extend or renegotiate loans rather than offer debt forgiveness, thereby maintaining or even increasing its economic and political sway over host governments. In contrast, institutions like the World Bank and IMF have shown greater willingness to forgive debt, particularly for highly indebted poor countries.

The Middle East, One Year After October 7

Joshua Yaphe

Much of the commentary coming out of think tanks and news outlets over the last week has been limited in scope and vision, often focusing on public attitudes in Israel, the prospects for reviving a two-state solution, and the potential for yet more escalation. The limited horizon of expectations derives in part from the fact that fighting is ongoing and outside observers are still caught up in the ever-changing battlefield dynamics. That is logical.

Another reason for the narrow lens of analysis is that Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has consistently caught everyone else off-guard in terms of his risk tolerance and advance planning, leaving the experts to play catch-up in their assessments at every stage. That, too, is understandable. A third reason for the tunnel vision is that the war has had rather little impact on domestic politics and economics in most of the region.

Algeria and Tunisia held presidential elections and returned Presidents Tebboune and Saied, respectively, to office. The opposition in both cases was largely excluded from the polls by the countries’ electoral commissions, ending in court cases in Tunisia for over a dozen candidates brought up on spurious charges of falsifying endorsement signatures.

Russia’s Eroding Influence in the Middle East

Pavel K. Baev

Escalation over the last year of the decades-long conflict in the Middle East has exposed the near-total disappearance of Russian influence from the region. Historically, Moscow excelled at exploiting outbreaks of regional violence and was poorly equipped for promoting peace processes. In the current fast-moving crisis, however, Russia has not been able to partner with those who oppose US positions. The only feeble signal from the Kremlin in recent days was a statement of “serious concern” by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who described the possibility of Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran as unacceptable (RIA Novosti, October 3). Former US President Donald Trump, however, who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime, suggested worrying about the consequences of a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities after the destruction (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, October 5). Russia is desperately trying to maintain its position in the world, which is dwindling due to its war in Ukraine. Its meager efforts to influence the situation in the Middle East highlight the reputational damage it has sustained among global powers.

Previously, Syria was Russia’s main bastion in the Middle East, but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s abbreviated visit to the Kremlin in July of 2023 illustrated Damascus’ weakening dependency on Moscow and Tehran as the pivotal source of support (see EDM, November 27, 2023, July 29; Kommersant, July 25). Russia’s military command has no knowledge about, nor control over, the supply of Iranian arms to Assad’s regime, and Russian media is only capable of circulating basic reports, such as one covering Israeli strikes on a smuggling tunnel under the Syrian-Lebanese border (Interfax, October 4). This is in contrast to Israel’s strike on Russia’s Khmeimim airbase on October 3, which was hardly reported on. Only a few “patriotic” bloggers dared to clarify that the target was an Iranian munitions storage facility, not the Russian base itself. The facility, constructed close to the perimeter of the airbase, was destroyed, while the expectation that Russian surface-to-air systems would intercept the incoming missiles was not met (News.ru, October 3).

Israel to refrain from attacking Iran's nuclear sites, focus on military targets, sources say

YONAH JEREMY BOB

Israel is not expected to attack Iran’s nuclear program but rather focus on various kinds of military bases and intelligence sites, The Jerusalem Post has learned, following a New York Times report on the issue.

Confronted with the Times report, sources did not deny the thrust of it, which predicted that Israel’s retaliation against Iran for its massive October 1 strike on the Jewish state would fall more in the medium range of attack scenarios.

Further, the Post understands that Israel’s attack on Iran – which virtually all top Israeli officials have publicly promised – will still be much more substantial than its narrower retaliation on April 19, when Iran’s S-300 anti-aircraft missile system was damaged.

Despite being presented with the idea that the current context could be a once-in-50-years opportunity to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, sources indicated that attacking Iran’s nuclear program would not necessarily be consistent with the “goals of the war” as set by the security cabinet.

Hezbollah’s fatal miscalculations

Jamie Dettmer

TEL AVIV, Israel — “We are winning.”

That’s the unwavering refrain from senior Israeli officials when asked about where all the warfare roiling the Levant will end.

Astonishingly scything through arch-foe Hezbollah’s upper echelons, remorselessly picking off leaders and military commanders one after another, Israel’s becoming increasingly bullish, convinced the disaster of Oct. 7 is being paid back.

Israel is being made safer, victory snatched from the jaws of defeat — or so its leaders argue. And soon, they believe, it will achieve the unbelievable — vanquishing both of Iran’s key allies in the region: Hamas and Hezbollah — the redrawing of the Middle East’s geopolitical map within its grasp.

Of course, how Israel’s military campaign actually fares — whether Iran and Hezbollah find a convenient hook to disengage, are thoroughly defeated on the battlefield or, as some fear, Israel is beckoned by a quagmire in the stony, ravine-filled terrain of southern Lebanon — only time will tell. But whatever happens, the cost in human misery and lives will be high. And as Israelis continue to mourn those murdered in Hamas’ slaughter of innocents, many are in no mood to think much about the human toll in Lebanon or Gaza.

The Iranian-Israeli Confrontation: The Start Of A Regional War Or A ‘Deterrence Strategy’? – Analysis

Iran’s bombardment of Israel on 1 October 2024, with approximately 180 projectiles, including many ballistic missiles, marked a clear shift toward direct confrontation between the two regional powers, Iran and Israel.

This contrasts with the indirect ‘proxy wars‘ waged since 7 October 2023, through pro-Iranian militias, particularly the Palestinian Hamas movement, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Houthi movement in Yemen. According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the attack came in response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in central Tehran on 31 July 2024, and Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September 2024.

This attack differs from Iran’s earlier strike on 13-14 April this year, as it was twice as intense. In this operation, Iran used ballistic missiles, unlike the April attack, where mostly drones and cruise missiles were employed. Most of the missiles in the April strike were conventional rockets, which took at least two hours to reach their targets in Israel, except for a few ballistic missiles. In contrast, in the latest attack, the rockets took only 15 minutes to hit their targets in Israel. For the first time, Iran deployed its hypersonic missile “Fattah,” capable of speeds 15 times faster than the speed of sound and with a range of up to 1,400 kilometres. This is only the second time such missiles have been used, with Russia deploying them first in the Ukraine war.

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