Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands: A Study of a Changing Eurasia and Its Implications for Europe (Contributions to International Relations) 3031339398, 9783031339394

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Contributions to International Relations

Antonia Colibășanu

Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands A Study of a Changing Eurasia and Its Implications for Europe

Contributions to International Relations

This book series offers an outlet for cutting-edge research on all areas of international relations. Contributions to International Relations (CIR) welcomes theoretically sound and empirically robust monographs, edited volumes and handbooks from various disciplines and approaches on topics such as IR-theory, international security studies, foreign policy, peace and conflict studies, international organization, global governance, international political economy, the history of international relations and related fields. All titles in this series are peer-reviewed.

Antonia Colibășanu

Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands A Study of a Changing Eurasia and Its Implications for Europe

Antonia Colibășanu National University of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest, Romania

ISSN 2731-5061 ISSN 2731-507X (electronic) Contributions to International Relations ISBN 978-3-031-33939-4 ISBN 978-3-031-33940-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of several years of work and has benefitted from the help of too many organizations and individuals to thank each individually. I therefore apologize in advance for any overlook. The Department of International Relations and European Integration at the Romanian National University of Political Science and Public Administration, as well as the American online publishing firm Geopolitical Futures LLC (www. geopoliticalfutures.com), where many of the ideas in this book were first debated and published for the general public, provided invaluable assistance. This book could not have been written without the topical discussions with George Friedman, Allison Fedirka, and the entire team of Geopolitical Futures. Their suggestions and criticisms were crucial in shaping this book. Having the opportunity to access some of the most recent polling data from Gallup Analytics and consulting with the Gallup team of experts, to whom I am grateful for their time, had a significant impact on some of the most important arguments in the book. The text benefitted from interviews and discussions with officials and practitioners, as well as insights from geopolitical and foreign policy researchers and journalists. I am grateful to the Romanian security think tank, New Strategy Center, and the CIVICA Alliance, of which the National University of Political Science and Public Administration is a member, for providing a forum for discussing the book’s topics. I am grateful to my editor, Niko Chtouris, who not only guided me to write a good text but was also patiently supportive throughout the process, which had its own challenges given the geopolitically eventful timing of the book’s publication. Finally, and on a more personal note, I’d like to thank my family and friends for their patience, love, support, and encouragement while I worked on this project. It is to them that this book is dedicated.

v

Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 How to Assess Importance in the Borderlands: A Method . . . . . 1.2 The Topical Challenges and Their Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 3 5

2

A Theoretical Discussion on the Borderlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Mackinder’s Theory on the Borderlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Spykman’s Rimland Theory on the Borderlands . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Mahan’s Sea Power Theory for Borderlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 The Common Denominator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . .

9 11 12 13 14 16

3

The Core Borderland: Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Making of the Crossroads Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 The Role of History and Current Challenges . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Conflictual Foundations and Geopolitical Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Deglobalization: Beginnings and Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Beginning: From New York to Central Asia . . . . . 3.2.2 The US Withdrawal from Afghanistan: A Discussion on Amplitude or Ramifications? . . . . . . . 3.3 The Future: The New Great Game? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 The Crossroads of Ambitions: A Triangle Between Pakistan, India, and China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 A Case Study: China and Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 19 20

4

The Middle Powers and the Core Borderland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Pakistan: The Struggle for Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 The Morphology of a Challenging Geography . . . . . . 4.1.2 The Troubled Politics’ Effects on Poor Socio-economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24 27 27 29 30 31 32 36

. . .

41 42 43

.

44 vii

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Contents

4.2

A Troubled Border: The Potential for Conflict Between Afghanistan and Pakistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 A Complex Militant Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 The Politics of Insurgency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 A Good(?) Neighborhood: Afghanistan and Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Balochistan: Between Self-Determination and a Place for Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 The Islamic State and the Opportunity for Coordination, If Not Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

6

Iran: The Resurgent(?) Landlocked Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Geographical Challenges and Geopolitical Imperatives . . . . . . . 5.1.1 The Human Geography of a Mountainous Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Assessing Imperatives and the Regional Moving Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Iran’s Internal Problems and Strategic Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 An Analysis on the Iran’s Contemporary Revolutionary Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 A Structural Overview of Iran’s Problems and Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 The Signs for Change in the Middle East—and Their Limits . . . 5.3.1 A Narrow Window of Opportunity: The Rapprochement Between Iran and Saudi Arabia . . . 5.3.2 Normalizing the Complex Relations Between Turkey and Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Connector Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 From the Middle East into Europe: Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 A Complex Equation for the Syrian Problem . . . . . . . . 6.1.2 A Rapprochement and Its (Im)possibility . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 The Earthquake and Its Shaky Ramifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 A Factor for External Disruption or One for External Consolidation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 The Challenges for the Turkish Internal Buildup . . . . . 6.3 Beyond the Crisis: Turkey’s Geopolitical Imperatives . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Unpacking Turkey’s Geographical Anatomy . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Controlling What Flows: The Straits and the Water Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.3 The Geography of Constant Adaptation as the State’s First Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46 47 48 50 50 51 52 57 57 57 58 60 60 62 63 64 68 72 75 75 75 76 78 78 79 81 81 84 87 93

Contents

7

8

9

The Turkish Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Turkey’s Grand Strategy and Its Relationship with Europe . . . . . 7.1.1 A Realistic Explainer for Neo-Ottomanism . . . . . . . . . 7.1.2 The Ukraine Pivot and Turkey’s Opportunities in the Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Turkey’s Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 Turkey and the European Union: The Challenge of the Necessary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.2 Turkey’s Internal Dynamics: Navigating the Challenges Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Turkey’s Open Seas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 The Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Turkey in the Maghreb: the Challenges for Europe . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix

97 97 97 100 103 103 106 109 109 118 122

The Caucasus: Borderlands Meeting Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 The South Caucasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 A Shared History of Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.2 Nagorno-Karabakh and the Ukrainian Factor . . . . . . . . 8.2 The North Caucasus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 A History of Assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 Chechnya and the Ukrainian Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Russia’s New Containment Line: The Caucasus Connection . . . 8.3.1 The North–South Transport Corridor: Beyond the Caucasus(?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.2 The Indian Question: Back to the Core Borderland(?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

127 128 129 135 139 140 145 149

The Landmass Pressure: Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Russia’s Geopolitical Imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.1 Understanding the Drivers and the Dynamics of Russia’s Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.2 Decoding Russia’s Key Imperatives and Objectives . . . 9.2 Russian Grand Strategy: Navigating Complex Challenges and Uncertainties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2.1 Asian Siberia: A Threatless Border Region for Russia? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2.2 The Central Asian Region: The Calm Borderland? . . . . 9.2.3 Europe: Russia’s Final Frontier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Understanding the War in Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.1 About Ukraine and Its Place in the World . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.2 The Russian Urgency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.3 The Complex Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.4 Russian Tactics and Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 A Developing War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

159 159

149 150 153

160 162 166 166 168 171 172 173 174 175 177 182

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Contents

9.4.1 9.4.2

An Analysis on the Limits of Russia’s Resilience . . . . . 182 Russia’s New Foreign Policy Vectors and the Tactics for the Long War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 10

11

12

The Nodes and the Re-Shifts: The Borderlands in Transition . . . . . 10.1 The European Frontier or the New Containment Line? . . . . . . . 10.1.1 The Strategic Surprise in Eastern Europe . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.2 The Potential for Russia to Invade NATO(?) . . . . . . . . 10.2 NATO: Back to the Future with Its New Strategic Concept? . . . 10.2.1 The New Linguistics for Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.2 The Practical Translation into Alliance . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 The Challenge: Is the Western Alliance Standing Together? . . . . 10.3.1 The European Factor: From EU Cohesion to European Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.2 The Hungarian Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 The Northern Borderland: How Fast for NATO Enlargement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.1 Finland and Sweden: NATO Accession and Different Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.2 Russia’s Reaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.3 The Turkey Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5 Georgia and the Republic of Moldova: The Careful Mid-way? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5.1 Georgia’s Cautiousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5.2 Moldova’s Wariness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6 The Balkans: The Stable Troubled Borderland? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6.1 Energy Dependency and Balkan Politics . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6.2 The Regional Key: Serbia’s Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7 The South: What African Perspectives? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7.1 African Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7.2 The Western Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Geopolitical Node: The Black Sea and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Navigating the Waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.1 An Inland Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.2 Beyond the Black Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 The South China Sea: Echoes to Another Global Geopolitical Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.1 Russia’s Strategy: Ramifications in the South China Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.2 Keeping the Balance: Nodes and the Core Borderland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

197 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 203 205 208 208 210 211 212 213 216 219 220 221 225 226 227 229 233 234 235 236 237 237 239 242

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Chapter 1

Introduction

Europe is facing unprecedented challenges. The European borderlands are reshaped by the Russian war on Ukraine, which started in February 2022. At the time of writing, global international affairs are affected by the economic war that started when the Ukrainian ports had to stop operating because of the Russian invasion—all while the effects of the 2020 pandemic are still visible. However, while all this is likely the most important event of the decade, if not the most important event of the beginning of the twenty-first century, it has been in the making since the early 2000s. The working thesis for this book is that Europe will face an increasingly complex environment in the decades to come, as its neighborhood is changing. The clash between the major powers—the USA, Russia, and China is laying the ground for new challenges that emerging powers like Turkey, Iran, or even India take on in resetting their regional presence, by becoming increasingly active in the waters and regions surrounding the European continent, each seeking its own interest. Therefore, the research focus of this book has been to detail the emerging threats in each of the challenging regions for European stability in the Southeast, going from the Mediterranean basin into the Black Sea. It examines the specific geopolitical and geoeconomic risks that could, left unchecked, have global repercussions. The book shows how the events of the past five years have been caused by underlying problems that have been slowly destabilizing each borderland region of the world for decades. It also looks at the geopolitical constraints and objectives of the countries within these regions, seeking to build a basis for understanding their current and future security challenges. The book first considers the current context of intense globalization to redefine borders conceptually, considering the geographical borders more fluid and therefore prone to increased uncertainty and instability. More, it discusses the European borderlands in a non-traditional way. It begins by examining the two types of topography that create their realities: the seas and the mountains of the Eurasian continent. It then investigates how political and socio-economic challenges shapes such teritory, delving into specific factors influencing contemporary circumstances and identifying the key drivers for the future stability of the borderlands. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_1

1

2

1 Introduction

The main argument of the research is that a global political and socio-economic restructuring process has begun. Therefore, the long-standing problems in the borderlands have not only become more urgent, but they are also shaping the stability of the interior—of Eurasia and of Europe in particular, considering the way they are addressed and solved by emerging regional actors. While each of the chapters focuses on a specific region, giving an account of the particular geopolitical risks that it encounters, the rationale of the research has been built around three sets of questions the book has been built upon: 1. What are the major challenges for the regional stability in the European borderlands that the pandemic—an extreme geopolitical event has brought forward? How are they specific to extreme events and how are they pertaining to historical socio-economic and political patterns in the selected regions? 2. Which of these challenges have a geopolitical (and geoeconomic) foundation that is independent from the pandemic (and any other extreme event that might influence regional stability)? How are these geopolitical (and geoeconomic) trends evolving past the current context? Has the extreme event of the pandemic modified the geopolitical balance existing prior to 2020 and if so, how? 3. Is there a pivot territory and/or a pivot country that has highly influenced the borderland region in most recent years? How is it currently addressing the challenges and how is it likely to change its approach during the next 5 to 10 years, considering the pandemic and the shift in the geopolitical power play since February 2022, when the war in Ukraine started? The book discusses the concept of “borderland” from a geopolitical perspective by first consulting the three main geopolitical theories, developed by Halford Mackinder, Nicholas Spykman, and Alfred Thayer Mahan. Therefore, it builds the specific analytical framework for the borderlands by taking into account historical cycles and contemporary patterns of development, focusing on key variables that need to be considered as systemic geopolitical and geoeconomic challengers. Supported by existing geopolitical and international relations theory, the first chapters explain the different—and sometimes divergent visions on what makes a borderland: a place of meeting the other’s culture, of cooperation, but also a place of conflict. In the next chapters, as empirical evidence for the theory is explored, the evolution of the borderlands to Europe is given through the most recent historical cycles, representing the measurement of change in what regards both the theory of international relations and geopolitics. Considering current events in the twenty-first century are highlighting a high level of interconnectivity which may give the (false) impression of borders going through an erosion, a dilution process. Instead, they are being reshaped and reinstalled, from a geopolitical perspective.

1.1

1.1

How to Assess Importance in the Borderlands: A Method

3

How to Assess Importance in the Borderlands: A Method

There were several methods used for highlighting the specific patterns of a borderland. First, a theoretical study based on documentation was conducted in establishing a good working definition for borderlands. For the development of the methodology employed for conducting research and responding to the questions above, a study of the main geopolitical theories was conducted, considering their application to the borderland question. This helped establish the toolbox for the research and the boundaries for interpretation when it comes to geopolitics. Modern theories referring to the importance of the concept of borderlands for the domain of international relations in general and the area of geopolitics, in particular, were used to understand the specific parameters that we need to take into consideration when discussing current and extreme events challenges. Within this framework, by using specific methods pertaining to the geopolitical study domain like anthropo-geographical method (which talks about a set of specific conditions for living in a particular geographical area), the ethnographic method (which discusses the cohesion of a community independently of its heterogeneity or homogeneity, giving strength through structure, supported by beliefs, an ethics system, and tradition), while setting up the morphology of the social system, the book explains the challenges of the European borderlands by looking at the main power players and the shifts that current events impose for the future. To discuss geopolitical imperatives and constraints in the context of flowing repercussions from extreme events like the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, a socio-economic perspective is added to the basic analytical toolbox. Gallup polling data covering most of the last two decades (the series of data usually employed is that between 2005–2022) is employed to understand the difference between longstanding transformational social patterns and short-term patterns that regard mainly the “fast reaction” of society to the latest events (the pandemic and the global economic war, triggered by the Russian aggression on Ukraine). This is a new technique that, added to the large analytical framework usually employed in the geopolitical study, is setting the “noise” apart from fundamental transformations that nation-states undergo. Ultimately, while the latest events are clearly important triggers for international affairs, it is the fundamental transformations within the states’ societies that challenge their interests and make them shift their strategy, in affecting the European borderlands. Employing data-driven social analytical methods allows us to understand what variables are relevant to discussing the large strategic trends that shape the countries and ultimately the regions that they are a part of. Besides the data-driven methodology that is employed throughout the book, the general analytical framework for all chapters lies on a tridimensional geopolitical axis that has the political, the economic, and the security as major components for identifying and discussing the major challenges of the borderland regions. The three

4

1 Introduction

components intersect and support each other for painting the social realities at the regional and national level in the borderlands. Going in layers, from the global perspective toward a regional and then to a national approach, the analytical framework rests upon the tridimensional model to give the challenges and the inflection points in the borderlands. At the same time, historical patterns and the current conditions (the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine as main challenging elements, consisting of multiple effects at all levels) are considered as fundamental layers for understanding the borderlands. Considering the core questions that the book poses, there are several parameters for each of the three axis components that will be investigated throughout the chapters and which will build the theoretical support for the discussion. First, the political component of the analysis rests on the investigation of the political systems in the borderland region. The specifics of the political systems of the countries in the borderlands will be considered and discussed in light of the assessment of their stability. At the same time, the ambivalence between democratic and non-democratic influences is assessed, looking at both the governing system and the elections during the last decade (considering some countries in the borderlands have more frequent elections than others, we will also address the context for such occurrence). The historical background is considered for understanding the evolution of the political system as well as the potential structural problems that it may have. The political stability of the countries in the borderline regions is assessed based on the information obtained through a close reading of local news as well as academic reports and policy papers, with the polling data available on the topic validating (or not) the documented information. The goal of investigating the political systems and their stability rests in the assessment of the potential for outside influence and, not least importantly, the potential for instability and (renewed) conflict. Second, the economic component of the analysis rests upon the consideration of the main macroeconomic parameters in order to discuss the economic dependencies the countries in the borderlands may have, as well as the potential for instability triggered by socio-economic problems. The analysis focuses on identifying those economic sectors contributing to the national growth and development as well as the degree of reliance on foreign trade and investment that borderlands’ countries have. The interdependencies between states in a specific borderland will also be discussed. The specific tools (like strategic investments or specific trade policy) that outside players use in dealing with the economies in the borderlands will be analyzed considering their political power in shaping the business environment and to a larger extent, the overall stability of the region. At the same time, specific features relating to critical infrastructure (which depends upon the main economic features that countries possess) are also considered key parameters to evaluate the strategic dimension of the discussion relating to these regions’ overall stability. In fact, the economic challenges are addressed through a two-layered framework which first discovers the specific dependencies that a country lies upon and later on addresses the manner in which these dependencies are linking together the countries belonging to the same region, through the critical infrastructure serving their growth and

1.2

The Topical Challenges and Their Rationale

5

development support. All this leads to the next major component of the analytical framework used in the book. The third component of the tridimensional axis is security which is also considered through a multilayered approach. First, the attachment of the countries in the borderlands to international organizations and outside powers will be considered. Second, the military attachment is discussed considering the political and economic interests and challenges that have been assessed in previous analytical steps. Third, the other, non-military, parameters relating to security are assessed, looking at the specific dependencies that each of the countries in the region has as well as to its internal political engagements. This approach will allow the identification of both political and economic threats toward regional security as well as the ways that could prevent potential risks from happening—from potential military alliances to trade agreements that take shape (be it they are underway or could be potentially happening in the future) inside the borderland regions or between countries in the region and outside powers. This analytical framework will take into consideration the specific elements that the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine brought forward. This means that the tridimensional axis mentioned above is supported by data and information obtained during the last five years and considers the specific health-related issues and other problems (such as supply chain problems or energy problems) that have led to new policy considerations in the borderlands and outside these regions—all affecting the global balance and the potential for major powers to modify their stance toward the borderland regions. The documented effects of the pandemic are analyzed taking into consideration the tridimensional analysis framework and therefore considering the political, the economic, and the security aspects that are affected by such changes. At the same time, the analytical method relies not only upon the classic documentation which involves extended reading and understanding of the regional features but also upon travel in the regions that are analyzed (the exception being the conflict-torn areas of Ukraine and the South Caucasus). Interviews with local and regional experts have broadened the understanding of current challenges faced in the extended European borderlands.

1.2

The Topical Challenges and Their Rationale

Considering the proposed methodology, each chapter will have a top-down approach that mirrors the discovery process of particular features of the region that is under investigation. Therefore, the first chapter following the discussion on the theoretical framework is dedicated to Afghanistan, the core borderland. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan has been an important spillover effect of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and the post-pandemic environment has accelerated trends that have been underway for years, reshaping the borderlands. The Russian war in Ukraine and all other events that are shaping the way the world’s borderlands look have begun in

6

1 Introduction

Afghanistan. To understand how this happened and—more importantly—the future trends that the precise challenges of Afghanistan impose on the world, we investigate the specifics that have made Afghanistan a core borderland. Historical documentation was used for highlighting the variables that should be considered for building the theoretical morphological box for discussing the geopolitical imperatives that great powers and emerging powers alike have for the crossroads civilization that Afghanistan embodies. From the discussion on Afghanistan’s geopolitical challenges, two major questions are further taken into consideration with regard to the borderlands: the deglobalization phenomena and the potential for a “new great game” to have started in the Central and South Asia. The book argues that current deglobalization has begun in 2001 and has had several phases so far, with the pandemic and the global economic war being most recent ones. The specific relations between the USA and Afghanistan are also addressed, by discussing their ramifications. Most recently in history, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was done in three phases: 2010, 2020, and 2021. In 2010, the Obama administration promised the Afghan President Hamid Karzai that political and operational military authority would be transitioned from the USA to local Afghans. In 2020, the final drawdown began and 2021 saw the drawdown completion. The foreign affairs media criticized this last third phase as it appeared that the USA did not secure the exit of all support personnel as the American forces exited the country. However, in August 2021, the Taliban leadership took over Kabul and the global pandemic made news reports—Afghanistan took a secondary role. Relations between Afghanistan and the USA became frozen and sanctions were imposed against the newly installed government while non-humanitarian aid to Afghanistan was denied. Questions about the way the American and Western policies should adapt to respond to the challenges that a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan were to be addressed during 2022, but they remained unanswered. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and renewed Sino-American tensions, on the background of a global economic war, have complicated the already complex global environment. The repercussions of Afghanistan’s distress are further analyzed, by using the main geopolitical theories, in the next chapter that focuses on the way the so-called middle powers of the wider region—Pakistan and Iran can address them in their efforts of securing their imperatives. Using the same geopolitical toolbox, the chapter focuses on discussing specific Afghan borderlands’ challenges while addressing Pakistani and Iranian imperatives with regard to the wider region. Further implications for Europe are being stressed as security and economic risks are highlighted by using the morphological study on the three borderland societies. The way another borderland, the Middle East is being considered in the next two chapters, discussing the geopolitical imperatives and constraints of Iran and Turkey. Both emerging powers are posing specific questions and framing particular threats and opportunities for the European borderlands, highlighting a new transition wave that started from the core borderland distress: Afghanistan. The specific risks brought forward by the pandemic and the specific nature of the 2023 earthquake, another extreme event that marks the region, have transformed the social fabric and,

1.2

The Topical Challenges and Their Rationale

7

pressuring the political establishment in both Iran and Turkey, have caused particular challenges for their stability. Internal pressures, along with global and regional trends that accelerate change throughout the Middle East are exposed in the subchapters referring to Iran and Turkey geopolitical imperatives. The discussion on both countries’ strategic priorities has also highlighted the forces that both can use to project power into the European neighborhood. The relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia and that between Turkey and Egypt are given a special focus, given their potential for change and, through that, their importance for shaping the new Middle East trends. However, the way that the Middle East is transformed, under the pressures coming from beyond Central and South Asia, poses specific problems for two major European borderlands, closer to European’s core: the Mediterranean and the Black Sea areas. The Turkish imperatives and constraints setting its grand strategy for Europe are analyzed in a separate chapter. The Mediterranean—the open sea that Turkey considers most important for managing its relationship to Western Europe is given a special attention, highlighting two sub-regional flashpoints: the Eastern Mediterranean and the Maghreb. Turkey’s relationship to Russia, the other emerging power that is currently challenging the West is analyzed in a separate chapter, highlighting the Caucasus and the Black Sea as the place where all European borderlands meet. While “transition” as a socio-political change is a common feature for the region, the way history has shaped the imperatives of small states, middle powers, and grand players gives insights into how the region may change, considering the war in Ukraine. An analysis of a potential new containment line, connecting Russia’s north to Iran’s south and crossing the Caucasus is also offered as a special case to consider when discussing the borderlands’ contemporary shifts. Russia’s imperatives and constraints are given particular attention in investigating Moscow’s grand strategy in the next chapter. The way Russia built up its posture and the way imperatives have changed throughout history is telling of how Europe became key to the country’s stability. Two subchapters cover the way the war in Ukraine started and how it developed into a global economic war. Ukraine’s importance to European stability is mirrored by the way Moscow looks at the country as the analysis encompasses the tridimensional layers of politics, economics, and defense in addressing potential challenges. The next chapter discusses the questions concluding from the research covering the most important and challenging European borderlands. Seven problems for Europe encompassing topics like the relationship between the Western allies against Russia, NATO’s future, the Alliance’s new containment line in Eastern Europe, Moldova, or the (in)stability in the Balkans along with Africa’s question on (re)alignment are being treated each in separate subchapters. They are a metaphor for a historical “geopolitical week” that is shaping the European borderlands and with them, European stability. Just as China is being talked about in almost every chapter as a major power in the making, each question—subchapter reflects upon the role of Beijing in finding the answer to the regional challenges analyzed.

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1 Introduction

The last chapter of the book concludes on the major trend set by the “geopolitical node” of the Black Sea—the borderland that most affected by the two critical events shaping the decade (and likely the half of the twenty-first century). The chapter discusses the broad ramifications of the war, launched after the pandemic and addresses a new geopolitical theory, not only connecting the fate of the Black Sea with that of the South China Sea, but also launching a tridimensional framework for seeing the world through the borderlands’ lenses. The two seas, defining two distinct borderlands, are geographically located in a diametral opposition—but if we consider their “core” in Central Asia, Afghanistan (and the US withdrawal in Afghanistan) set in motion changes that are twinning the two borderlands into increased pressures and disbalance. Their disbalance, due to the way the world works has the potential to disbalance the world. This is why thorough research on the Asian borderlands should be further conducted.

Chapter 2

A Theoretical Discussion on the Borderlands

The term “borderlands” describes areas that are located at the intersection of two or more distinct geographic, political, cultural, or linguistic regions. These areas are frequently distinguished by distinct cultural, economic, social, and political dynamics that result from their location at the intersection of various geographic areas. Borderlands can be found all over the world, from the densely populated borderlands between the USA and Mexico to the mountainous border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Borderlands are often disputed regions where different groups, states, or communities compete for control over resources, territory, or influence. Conflicts, violence, or marginalization may result from political, economic, or cultural differences in these areas, turning them into areas of tension and instability. However, borderlands are also places where various cultures, languages, and economies interact and therefore influence one another. When they are places for creativity, innovation, where new cultural forms, technological advancements, or economic paradigms are created through the blending of various customs and practices, they are sources of growth and development for the surrounding areas. Besides geography, history, politics, economics, and culture can influence the dynamics of the borderlands. Those located in mountainous or desert regions may be more remote and prone to conflict, which explains why many such borderlands have a long history of conflict or colonization, breeding resentment, and deep-seated tensions among various communities. The political and economic structures that exist on both sides of the border can also affect the dynamics of a borderland. For instance, if one side of a border is more developed or wealthy than the other, it may draw people, resources, or both, which may lead to imbalances and inequalities within the borderland region. In recent research, political science scholars focused on the most prevalent characteristics of borderlands in addressing their complexity and diversity. There are several theories pertaining to recent studies, making use of the borderlands’ discussion for larger political topics.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_2

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A Theoretical Discussion on the Borderlands

First, borderlands are seen as a site of resistance. This vision emphasizes the ways in which borderlands can act as a block against prevailing political, economic, and cultural forces. Borderlands can be a place of hybridity and creative resistance where new identities and types of knowledge can emerge, according to academics like Gloria Anzaldua (1987), Chela Sandoval (2012), and Walter Mignolo (2000, 2011), (E-International Relations 2017). All of them have looked at the matter from a humanistic, social theory point of view and mostly focused their work on Latin America region. The other theory on borderlands is transnationalism. This viewpoint emphasizes how flows of people, goods, and ideas that cross international borders can be used to describe borderlands. Researchers like Saskia Sassen (2009, 2013), and Arjun Appadurai (1986) have looked into how transnationalism can conflict with conventional ideas of territoriality and sovereignty. The role of borderlands in the governance of cross-border flows of people, goods, and ideas is highlighted by this perspective. Saskia Bonjour (2011) and Thomas Spijkerboer (2020), among others, have studied how borderlands are regulated and how they address political and judicial oversight, and control. Another theory refers to the connection between borderlands and environmental change. This perception emphasizes how environmental processes like climate change, resource depletion, and ecological degradation shape borderlands. Environmental change’s potential to cause conflict, displacement, and migration in borderland regions has been studied by academics like J. Peter Brosius (1999, 2016), Bram Büscher (2018), Büscher and Fletcher (2018). The last and the most relevant theory that has been developed and investigated recently refers to the critical geopolitics in the borderlands. This perspective emphasizes the ways that borderlands are shaped by geopolitical forces, such as the competition for dominance and influence among states, regions, and international actors. Researchers like Reece Jones (2009, 2011, 2012, 2016), Alison Mountz (2020), and Simon Springer (2009, 2012) have investigated how politics and economics can alter the dynamics of borderlands, having an impact on locals lives, focusing their work mainly on migration and security studies. Most of the research done on the topic pertains to international relations, which limits the works’ utility for geopolitics and strategic studies. Meanwhile, geopolitical writings by Robert D. Kaplan or George Friedman bring forth the importance of borderlands for shaping power. Kaplan discusses the importance of terrain and border cultures in most of his book, most relevant being “The Return of Marco Polo’s World” (Kaplan, 2018), “The Revenge of Geography” (Kaplan, 2012) and “In Europe’s Shadow” (Kaplan, 2016), while Friedman has studied the eastern European borderlands for his European forecasting, writing about the topic both in “The Next 100 Years” (Friedman, 2008) “The Next Decade” (Friedman, 2011b) and in “Borderlands: Geopolitical Journey” (Friedman, 2011a). In his latest book, “Ukraine and the Art of Strategy” (Freedman, 2019), Lawrence Freedman is also highlighting the borderlands as a distinct concept in strategic studies (Freedman, 2013). Political scientists like Bary Buzan (Buzan & Wæver, 2003; Buzan, 2021) has also considered in his works the concept of borderlands

2.1

Mackinder’s Theory on the Borderlands

11

developing his theory on regional security. Andreas Wimmer has also discussed on “borderland identity” in his works about nation building and nationalism (Wimmer, 2012, 2018). Using the classic geopolitical theory in integrating the concept of borderlands, we would need to integrate the geopolitical study method for the borderlands. Considering geography is the key element that helps explain international relations, while the human society organized in communities pertaining to nation-states is the subject of geopolitics, besides designing an analytical framework for considering the special case of borderlands, we would need to refer to the three main geopolitical theories, developed by Halford Mackinder, Nicholas Spykman, and Alfred Thayer Mahan.

2.1

Mackinder’s Theory on the Borderlands

Halford Mackinder was a British geographer and politician who developed the Heartland Theory in 1904, advanced in an article titled “The Geographical Pivot of History” and presented to the Royal Geographical Society (Mackinder, 1904). According to Mackinder, the world can be divided into three regions: the WorldIsland (Eurasia and Africa), the offshore islands (Britain, Japan, and the USA), and the outlying islands (Australia, New Zealand, and the smaller Pacific Islands). He argued that the key to world domination stands in controlling the World-Island, which is rich in resources and has the largest population. Mackinder believed that the power that controlled the Heartland (the area stretching from Eastern Europe to Central Asia) would be able to dominate the World-Island and eventually the world. Mackinder’s Heartland Theory has particular relevance to borderlands because it emphasizes the importance of controlling territory in order to dominate the world. In borderland areas, different groups may want to control the same land, and the state may not have much power. The Heartland Theory or the Pivot Theory says that these areas must be controlled if a country wants to keep its power and influence on the world stage. Mackinder’s theory also suggests that the state with the largest population and resources will ultimately dominate, which may lead to competition between different groups within the borderland region. One implication of Mackinder’s theory for borderlands is that controlling strategic land-based territory is essential for establishing dominance over the global political landscape. Borderlands often have key strategic areas, like mountain passes, river valleys, and coastal areas, which can be important for keeping control of resources and territory, including during warfare. Moreover, they may contain valuable mineral deposits, fertile agricultural land, or key transportation routes. Mackinder’s theory suggests that the state or group of states that is able to establish control over these strategic areas will be able to exert influence over the larger region. Controlling key resources and infrastructure can be critical for maintaining economic and political dominance over the larger region, even if there is no immediate security threat to address by using military means.

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A Theoretical Discussion on the Borderlands

Mackinder’s theory about borderlands also means that controlling strategic borderland areas can be used to exert power and influence over states and regions nearby. This can be particularly important for those regions where there may be competition between different states or groups for control over resources and territory. Establishing control over borderland regions can be used to establish dominance over neighboring regions and to project power and influence over the larger global political landscape. Controlling borderlands also enables the establishment of tactical defensive positions, including buffer areas against prospective threats from other states, which is essential for upholding national security. Another aspect of Mackinder’s borderland theory is that strategic borderland control can be used to undermine the influence of competing states or groups. This can be especially crucial in borderlands, where there may be conflict between many states or organizations over territory and resource control. According to Mackinder’s theory, a state or group can take control of the greater international political scene by undermining the influence of competitor governments or organizations. Last but not least, Mackinder’s theory acknowledges the significance of coalitions and partnerships in elevating power and influence. This can be especially crucial in borderlands, where there may be conflict between many states or organizations over territory and resource control. Alliances can serve to create stability and security in these areas by supporting land-based activities and defending against any attacks from neighboring nations or groups.

2.2

Spykman’s Rimland Theory on the Borderlands

Nicholas Spykman was an American political scientist who developed the Rimland Theory in the 1940s, published in the Geographical Review (Spykman, 1942). He argued that the key to world dominance lays in controlling the Rimland, the region that surrounds the Heartland. The largest concentration of resources, people, and industry, according to Spykman, made the Rimland the most strategically significant region in the entire world. The power that ruled the Rimland, he argued, would be able to rule the World-Island and eventually rule the world. The Rimland encompasses regions like Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, all of which have complicated border structures and diverse populations. The control of strategic resources and industry is necessary for preserving power and influence, according to Spykman’s theory. Borderlands are frequently regions where various groups fight each other for ownership of resources like water, minerals, and arable land. Therefore, in seeking to control as many strategic resources and industries, states may get into competition. This is especially true in the borderlands, where this competition can manifest itself in conflicts over natural resources, such as oil or water, or over strategic industries, such as transportation or energy. Another implication of Spykman’s theory for borderlands is that the Rimland is a region that is strategically important for trade. The Rimland includes major transportation routes, such as the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca, which are

2.3

Mahan’s Sea Power Theory for Borderlands

13

essential for the global trade flows. The Rimland also contains major economic centers, such as Europe and East Asia, which are major drivers of the global economy. In essence, borderlands are particularly important for global trade, as they are, during peacetime, connecting different regions or markets. Moreover, Spykman’s Rimland is a region that is characterized by diverse populations and complex borders. That is, a global borderland, including areas such as Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, all of which have experienced significant geopolitical shifts and border changes over time. But these regions’ borderlands can and will be particularly vulnerable to conflicts, considering their much more diverse populations and their location: at the periphery of states or regions. Such conflicts would be more complex as they regard identity, culture, and political representation, as different groups seek to assert their authority and control over their territory. Spykman’s theory suggests that the state or group that is able to establish control over the borderlands of the Rimland will be able to exert influence over the larger region and ultimately, the world.

2.3

Mahan’s Sea Power Theory for Borderlands

In 1890, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, a naval history lecturer (and the president of the United States Naval War College Theodore Roosevelt), released “The Influence of Sea Strength Upon History, 1660–1783” (Roosevelt & Mahan, 1894), a revolutionary analysis of the role of naval power in the establishment of the British Empire. He argued that the key to world domination lays in controlling the sea lanes and having a powerful navy. Mahan considered the naval power essential for protecting trade routes and projecting military force around the world. Dominating the world, according to his theory, was controlling the sea. Mahan’s Sea Power Theory has implications for the world’s borderlands particularly because it emphasizes the importance of controlling the sea lanes, which essentially translates that in coastal borderland regions, there may be conflicts over access to ports and sea routes. This theory also recognizes the importance of maritime power in shaping national security, which translates into the fact that controlling strategic ports and sea lanes is essential for maintaining power and influence. Apart from states being able to maintain influence, controlling the ports and sea lanes may lead to significant economic benefits, which can be particularly important for borderland regions. Trade and commerce can help drive economic growth and development, thereby alleviating poverty and promoting stability in these regions. At the same time, through the ports, maritime power can be used to project power and influence over land-based regions. A maritime power can be used to support land-based operations, such as troop movements and supply chains, which can help to establish control over borderland regions. Mahan’s theory also recognizes the importance of naval alliances and partnerships in promoting maritime power and influence. Therefore, naval partnerships or a

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2 A Theoretical Discussion on the Borderlands

naval force can also be used to protect trade and commerce from piracy and other forms of maritime crime, while projecting influence into the land-based regions. This is especially important in borderlands, where different states or groups may be competing for control of resources and territory. Just as it may be used to block or disrupt the trade of competitors. This applies to those borderland regions, where there may be competition between different states or groups for control over resources and territory.

2.4

The Common Denominator

Using Mackinder’s approach to geopolitics, as well as the theories developed by Spykman and Mahan, we can establish a common geographical denominator for borderlands. Such denominator would be called a “core borderland”—a place that, considering its location, its socio-economic features, and the sustained interest both major and middle powers have in ensuring its stability, could, under specific conditions, reshape all the other borderlands in a particular region or continent. When it becomes unstable, the potential for conflict in the region it is located and the neighboring region(s) increases. Theoretically, such a common denominator, if put under pressure from the outside or the inside, could make the whole international system unstable, since the interests of major powers are tied to its fate. Mackinder coined the term “heartland,” which he defined as the vast Eurasian landmass that includes much of modern-day Russia, Central Asia, and much Southwestern Asia, covering Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan. Control of the heartland, according to Mackinder, was the key to global dominance. He believed that whoever controlled the heartland could control the resources of the world island (Europe, Asia, and Africa) and thus rule the world. Spykman has Heartland or the Pivot Area defined as the region in the center of the Eurasian landmass that includes Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. Geographically, he argued that the Heartland was an impregnable fortress, protected by natural barriers like the Ural Mountains, the Caspian Sea, and the Himalayas, making it difficult for outside powers to penetrate and control. The countries in the heartland were Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia. However, Spykman said that not the heartland, which remained always protected, but that the Rimland—the territory surrounding the heartland is key for controlling the world. For Mahan, controlling the world was controlling the sea—which had apparently no overlap with the other two theories. Except for the fact that Mahan did recognize the importance of land power in the fact that the control of the seas allowed nations to project their power across the globe and secure access to vital inland resources and markets. For him, controlling strategic locations and routes connecting the seas was key. Ports were merely seen as parts of trade corridors and inland locations where such corridors intersected were of high strategic importance.

2.4

The Common Denominator

15

In this context, contemporary Afghanistan appears to be a common denominator (i.e., a core borderland). It is strategically located at the crossroads of multiple regions and powers. It shares borders with Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan and is close to the energy-rich Caspian Sea region. Afghanistan also lies along historic trade routes between Europe and Asia, including the Silk Road and the Khyber Pass. Furthermore, Afghanistan has rugged terrain with mountain ranges that make it difficult to control or govern. As a result, Afghanistan has earned the moniker “graveyard of empires,” with numerous foreign powers vying for control of the region. Afghanistan has become a key battleground in the global war on terrorism due to its rugged terrain, which has made it an ideal location for insurgents and militants to operate. Mackinder argued that the key to controlling the heartland was to gain control of the “rimland,” the outer ring of territory surrounding the heartland. In this context, Afghanistan serves as a crucial buffer between the heartland and the rimland powers of India and Iran. As such, Afghanistan has historically been caught between these powers, with India and Iran vying for influence over the region. For Spykman, Afghanistan is situated in the middle of the Rimland and is strategically located at the crossroads of multiple regions and powers, making it a vital location for controlling access to both the Heartland and the world’s Offshore Islands. Spykman also believed that the Rimland’s power balance was critical to global stability. He argued that the USA should work to prevent any single power from dominating the region, as this would upset the power balance and potentially lead to conflict. In this context, the US involvement in Afghanistan can be viewed as an attempt to maintain the region’s balance of power and prevent any one power from dominating. According to Mahan’s sea power theory, Afghanistan’s landlocked status limits its access to the seas, making it less important in terms of global power projection. However, Afghanistan’s location is strategically important as it lies along important land routes that connect different regions of Asia. The ancient Silk Road, for example, passed through Afghanistan, connecting China to Europe and the Middle East. As a result, Afghanistan became an important crossroads for trade and cultural exchange between different civilizations. Furthermore, the location of Afghanistan has made it essential in terms of access to key resources. The region is rich in natural resources such as minerals and precious metals, and it also plays an important role in opium production, which has become a major source of revenue for the Taliban and other insurgent groups. In this context, many regional powers, including Iran, Pakistan, and China, have prioritized control of Afghanistan. Finally, Afghanistan has long been a key borderland due to its strategic location at the crossroads of multiple regions and powers. Using the three geopolitical approaches, developed by Mackinder, Spykman, and Mahan at different times in history that had little in common with one another, Afghanistan’s geographic location has made it an important buffer between the heartland and the rimland, as well as a key location for controlling access to the world’s oceans. This is why, despite ongoing conflict and political unrest—or precisely because of continued

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A Theoretical Discussion on the Borderlands

tensions in the region, Afghanistan is the core borderland of Eurasia, a key state in global geopolitics for the foreseeable future.

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Roosevelt, T., & Mahan, A. T. (1894). The influence of sea power upon history. 1660–1783. Political Science Quarterly, 9, 171. https://doi.org/10.2307/2139927 Sandoval, C. (Ed.). (2012). Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands. Indiana University Press. Sassen, S. (2009). Bordering capabilities versus borders: Implications for national borders. In: Michigan Journal of International Law. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=1127&context=mjil. Accessed 18 Mar 2023. Sassen, S. (2013). When the center no longer holds: Cities as frontier zones. Cities, 34, 67–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2012.05.007 Spijkerboer, T. (2020). Afterword: From the Iron Curtain to Lampedusa. Border Deaths: Causes, Dynamics and Consequences of Migration-related Mortality, 163–170. https://doi.org/10.2307/ j.ctvt1sgz6.14 Springer, S. (2009). Violence, democracy, and the neoliberal “order”: The contestation of public space in posttransitional Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99, 138–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045600802223333 Springer, S. (2012). Neoliberalising violence: Of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments. Area, 44, 136–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01084.x Spykman, N. J. (1942). Frontiers, security, and international organization. Geographical Review, 32, 436. https://doi.org/10.2307/210386 Wimmer, A. (2012). Waves of war. Nationalism, state formation, and ethnic exclusion in the modern world. Cambridge University Press. Wimmer, A. (2018). Nation building. Why some countries come together while others fall apart. Princeton University Press.

Chapter 3

The Core Borderland: Afghanistan

3.1

The Making of the Crossroads Civilization

The pandemic’s effects on the world have increased inequality, living costs, and impoverishment. In effect, the pandemic fueled popular anger, especially in less developed countries. In Afghanistan, 2021 ended one chapter and opened another. The Taliban government has imposed restrictions on personal conduct, cutting down liberties. Not only was private initiative cut to the minimum, but also, considering the dire conditions of the economy, many chose to leave the country. While the UN suggests that millions of Afghan children are starving, refugee flows into neighboring countries and beyond have increased. This has been one important spillover effect of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many argue that the US departure from Afghanistan contributed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Bildt, 2022; Malic, 2022; Kotoulas & Pusztai, 2022). Moscow saw in the US global detachment an opportunity for it to take back its buffer zone. Indeed, Afghanistan has taught the US that it can choose which war to fight because none is existential. In many ways, the current American military strategy and foreign policy have their roots in the early 2000s, when Afghanistan was the US’s main preoccupation. But the US detachment wasn’t the only factor that made Russia consider its stance toward Ukraine. The post-pandemic environment accelerated trends that had been underway for years, reshaping the borderlands. However, investigating Afghanistan and the way it had become the core borderland, as well as the potential challenges that it poses for the region and beyond, for the world, is essential in learning about the European borderlands. Afghanistan is key to both major and middle powers, all seeking to influence it to serve their interests, while looking to address the risks the country’s political and security challenges had posed, throughout history.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_3

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3.1.1

3

The Core Borderland: Afghanistan

The Role of History and Current Challenges

There are very few other places that speak as much about the meaning of borderlands as Afghanistan does. There is a sense of endurance and yet a feeling of constant change that characterizes the place. It is a landlocked, mountainous country at the crossroads of Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, making it the literal center of Eurasia. It is usual for people to think of Afghanistan as a place that has been existing since antiquity; however, even if its lands’ history is rich, with many explorers giving their perspective when crossing them, Afghanistan as we know it was established only several hundred years ago and has since existed as a buffer of sorts between the major powers bordering it. Afghanistan, both figuratively and practically, lies where the winds meet according to any weather forecast map, throughout the year. Their meeting makes for an arid, dry climate, no matter the season. The country’s geographical position determines its tough climate, shaping the fears and aspirations of its people. The high differences in temperature between night and day seem to entertain the sharp, stringent mood changes of the place. This is especially perceived in the cities, where the dusty, crowded, but lively atmosphere of the day is replaced by a clearer reality during the night. That is when the edgy silence of all moving shapes and all shadows underlines the toughness of the place. The urban fabric of the country is likely the most familiar to foreigners, who rarely venture away from its urban settings. The terrain has helped maintain the tribal soul of the country, which has contributed to its fragility. In between the Iranian plateau and the Himalayan mountains, Afghanistan’s major geographic feature, the Hindu Kush mountains are running at a southwestern angle and are dividing the country in half. The depth of the valleys makes Afghanistan a state that is governed mostly at a local and regional level, with the population looking for the local leadership to provide guidance rather than the central government. Meanwhile, the country’s external borders aren’t natural, and they are currently prone to illegal traffic of all kinds, from weapons and drugs to human beings. Considering this geography, the urban life of Afghanistan is the most significant when looking to understand the country’s role, its geopolitical imperatives, and its challenges. Located at the core of a network of ancient trade routes that connected China and India to Persia and Europe, the layers of architecture that are still visible in the cities reflect the influences of the major powers that the country was connected to. Therefore, historical buildings are still showing influences from Buddhist architecture and Zoroastrian (ancient Persian) architecture, even if the Islamic architecture influences are predominant. While fragile, these buildings speak of the webwork of tribes that later developed into what we can call today’s urban settings, and their patterns, holes, and colors are, in many ways, those that have molded (and are still molding) modern Afghanistan. Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan today and likely the best-known Afghani mark, was an important commercial and pilgrim center in antiquity. Archeological studies and historical writings (check sources) show that most of the people who lived in

3.1

The Making of the Crossroads Civilization

21

Kabul before the Arabs came in 698 were Buddhists and that the city had many Buddhist temples (Hakimi, 2022; Klasanova, 2021). Years after the Arab invasion, the locals accepted Islam as their new religion, along with the religion’s sociocultural values and administrative management. This dramatically changed the face of the city and formed its foundation until today. The Afghans continue to use locally sourced materials for their houses and focus on building socially cohesive spaces that have specific uses within the family and the community’s lives, all based on orthodox Islamic rules still followed to date (Suvetha, 2021). While its foundation remained attached to Islam and its rules, Kabul’s lifestyle and, with it, the city’s fabric were mostly shaped by the political role the capital has had over time. It had its first open gardens when Kabul served as the capital city of the Mughal empire in the early 1500s. It was Babur Shah, the founder of the Mughal empire who commissioned their construction and who transformed Kabul into an important regional urban center (Koch, 1997). Bābur, a descendant of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and of the Turkic conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) embodied a complex personality: he was not only a statesman and a military adventurer, but also a writer. The Babur Nama, his autobiography, gives not only a detailed account of his adventures but also important observations on nature, society, and politics in the places he visited throughout his life. Born in 1483 as a descendant of Timur, the Turkic conqueror whose empire was covering today’s Iran and most of Central Asia, Babur faced a harsh reality: a lot of princes, all descendants of Timur and not enough principalities for them to peacefully rule over. This made for a constant political intrigue and wars between rivals that were aiming to expand their territories (Karataș, 2022; Oral Seyhan, 2011). This is how Babur Nama’s text teaches an important lesson in regional geopolitics. During his youth, Babur wanted to capture and hold Samarkand, the old capital of the Timur empire in Ferghana. After occupying Kabul in 1504, Babur turned his attention toward India, and as he gave up on Samarkand in 1511, he began to plan the attack on the Punjab region. By the time of Babur’s death in 1530, his newly settled Mughal empire controlled all of northern India, from the Indus to Bengal (sources). Kabul gave him the opportunity to move away from Central Asia and instead focus on Southeastern Asia while cautiously securing the empire from threats coming in from the east. Perhaps for the first time in history, the city of Kabul had proven its strategic position: its location provided for anyone controlling it to understand both the risks and opportunities of the lands around it. It is simply the meeting point to multiple borderlands: Central Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the Middle East all have their meeting point in Kabul. If these three regions are controlled and relatively stable, Kabul is stable and may control and secure the areas around it. The Mughal empire established its capital in today’s New Delhi, but Kabul remained the most important city for securing the empire from continental invasions. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, when instability in South Asia slowly led to the empire’s dissolution, Kabul struggled to remain stable (Lal, 2001). At the same time, structural changes within the Ottoman, Russian, and the Persian empires were challenging Eurasian stability. The Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739

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3 The Core Borderland: Afghanistan

between Russia and the Ottoman Empire followed the war between the Ottoman Empire’s and Persia and continued raids by the Crimean Tatars into the Sea of Azov basin and toward the Caucasus. Russia was fighting for access to the Black Sea, which was dominated at the time by the Ottomans and bottlenecked by the Tatars in Crimea. Persia had been recovering after the fall of the Safavid dynasty. The shah has been defeated after the rebellious Ghilzai Afghans in Kandahar moved westwards against the Persian leader to finally besiege the capital, Isfahan (Calmard, 2001). Taking advantage of the internal chaos in Persia, both Russia and the Ottomans moved to seize land from the empire’s borders. This is the background against which Nader Shah comes to power, first as a military leader and, as he manages to retake Isfahan, as a political leader. His next moves were to regain lost territories from the Ottomans and reestablish Persia as a dominant power over the Caucasus, something that had made him the shah of Persia. As the Persian empire was reestablished, considering both the Ghilzai Afghan threat and the instability left after the dissolution of the Mughal empire in Northern India, Nader Shah concentrated on expanding Persian control toward the East. In 1738, Nader conquered Kandahar, the home of Ghilzai Afghans. In 1739, Nader used the pretext of his Afghan enemies taking refuge in Mughal India and crossed the border, capturing Kabul, Ghazni, and Lahore (Erman, 2018). Not only did the Mughal empire come to an end, but Kabul changed as well; only a portion of the buildings survived the invasion, and the gardens were destroyed. From a strategic outpost, Kabul became a provincial urban center, located in the distant borderlands that Persia had controlled. In the following years, Nader, leading the Persian forces, together with Afghans from Kandahar, invaded today’s Indian territory, seeking to expand his rule into the Mughal empire and plundering Old Delhi. After Nader’s assassination in 1747, his commander Ahmed Shah Durani took over as Afghan ruler. Leading multiple campaigns south, against the receding Mughal empire and the other empires stretching north and east of Kandahar, he is the founder of modern Afghanistan, expanding its territory (Kubilayhan, 2013). His son Timur Shah, who ruled from 1772 to 1793, restructured the state and, in consolidating power after his father’s death, moved the capital from Kandahar to Kabul (Crown & Shah, 1984) which, after the new conquests, was located at the heart of the state. The internal politics of Afghanistan have revolved around the Council, the Meeting of Tribal Chiefs, or the so-called Loya Jirga, which was created in the early eighteenth century. The Loya Jirga of 1747 founded the Afghan State, and since then and until the 1970s, the state was controlled by the monarchy of the Durrani tribe, belonging to the Pashtun ethnic group (Hasan et al., 2023). All decisions need to be taken by consensus within the Loya Jirga for them to be implemented. Considering the variety of ethnicities living in Afghanistan—Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Turkmens, and Tajiks being just a few of them, the consensus wasn’t an easy task. The Jirga is a way not only to discuss disputes but also to establish new political and economic rulings.

3.1

The Making of the Crossroads Civilization

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The Jirga has remained the keystone of the governing system in Afghanistan throughout centuries, even if the country has been subject to different political leadership styles (Sazhenov, 2020). The one-party rule in 1977 was established through a Jirga, as was the case with the August 2020 Jirga held to decide the fate of 400 Taliban prisoners accused of serious crimes who were supposed to be freed as part of the Afghan peace process (Al Jazeera, 2020). This particular way of governing contributed to the country’s political fragility. From the very beginning of the state, existing rivalries within the Pashtun factions were frequently encouraged by the neighboring powers, making for a fragile monarchy (Akhtar, 2021). Timur Shah, the founder of modern Afghanistan, ruled the country at the same time that Catherine the Great ruled Russia (1762 to 1796). It was during that time that the Mughal empire was declining in India and when the British empire, through the British East India Company, which was initially founded to trade in the Indian Ocean, was growing its control over the Indian subcontinent by advancing up north (Choudhary, 2018). (The British Company had become, by 1775, the protector of the Mughal dynasty in Delhi, which made it the de facto ruler of the lands bordering Afghanistan.) Therefore, Timur Shah benefited from a period where, while both Russia and the British Empire saw each other as competing powers, their primary interest was not going into straightforward conflict with each other. Catherine the Great had followed the strategy that Peter the Great laid out at the beginning of the eighteenth century. To dominate the world, it is said that Peter the Great considered it necessary for Russia to take both Constantinople and India into its hands (Menchinger, 2018; Riasanovsky & de Madariaga, 1982). Catherine’s primary goal was to give her fleet access to the Mediterranean—a sea that the Brits were dominating at the time, from the Black Sea—which the Turks were holding under control. Therefore, she saw it necessary for the Turks to be expelled from Constantinople (Givens & Lentin, 1974). Russia didn’t manage to do that, but it did take Crimea, the last stronghold of the Mongol empire (the same Golden Horde empire that had ruled over Russian territory just two centuries ago before Catherine’s rule) and which the Ottomans were protecting at the time. The Black Sea was no longer a Turkish Sea, and the fact that Russians managed to increase their presence in the Caucasus and the Near East gave the British East India Company reasons for concern. Catherine also considered taking India from Britain’s tightening grip. After all, not only was Britain dominating the Mediterranean, but it looked to be expanding its influence and control into Central Asia. Considering that the British East India Company was gaining control in India at the expense of the French, it is perhaps no wonder that a Frenchman was the first one to come up with a plan to lay out the specifics of how to fight them. According to Monsieur de St. Genie’s plan, Russian troops should have taken a route through Kabul, announcing as they advanced that they had come to restore Muslim rule under the Golden Horn Mongol empire (Hopkirk, 2017). This would have made the Muslim Khanates along the invasion route support Russia and would have triggered instability within India, troubling British rule. While this plan was not pursued, it was the first of a succession of such

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3 The Core Borderland: Afghanistan

schemes with which Russian rulers were to work during the next century in trying to invade or push for more influence on the Indian peninsula. However, with Catherine’s death, such fears were momentarily forgotten, also because the British empire had to deal with the ambitions of France, ruled by the young Napoleon Bonaparte. After successfully leading his European campaigns, he looked to increase its control over Egypt, in an attempt to establish a strategic foothold in the Near East and cut Britain’s links and its control over India, the source of their economic riches and their power. Alexander the first ruled Russia (after the short reign of his father Paul the first after the death of Catherine the Great), and having first established an alliance with Napoleon that envisaged taking India together after settling their reach in Europe and the Near East, he soon understood that Napoleon’s ambition was not to be satisfied by a settlement on partitioning the world (Florinsky & Strakhovsky, 1947). Alexander had to focus on defending his own borders—which led Russia in a turbulent environment. At the turn of the eighteenth century, all major powers were focused on something other than what happened in the valleys of the tall Hindu Kush mountains. However, as the Napoleonic Wars ended, it became clear that, considering that it had gained control over much of what it wanted in Europe, India would become the next target for Russia (Simona, 2015). The path to India had to go through Central Asia and the “savage land” (as Napoleon called it) north of India. The dispute between the British and the Russian empires resulted into the emergence and confirmation of modern Afghanistan, the land that could not be conquered by any of the two parties, given the rough terrain. The two powers agreed on leaving Afghanistan as a neutral state between the two, being aware of the dangers that it possessed for their borders. Essentially a buffer state was formed by the Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen tribes living north of the Hindu Kush mountains that run through the country, the Pashtuns living south of them, the Hazara ethnics in the central valleys of the high mountains, and other smaller ethnic communities, including Kyrgyz, Kurds, Pamiris, and Indo-Aryans throughout the Afghan territory. Considering such ethnic diversity, each having its own culture, its religion, and traditions, and the terrain making it hard for the tribes to share and communicate between themselves, let alone find commonalities on which to establish a ruling government, Afghanistan evolved into a fragile network of tribes. They were difficult to conquer but they also promised an unstable environment posing security risks for all the bordering states.

3.1.2

Conflictual Foundations and Geopolitical Imperatives

Both Afghanistan’s fabric and fate have been heavily influenced by the major powers’ interests in the region. Historically, being a natural buffer more than anything else, neutrality helped the country remain stable, while the world powers were busy fighting each other. However, stability didn’t translate into growth and development.

3.1

The Making of the Crossroads Civilization

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Afghanistan was founded on the conflict between the Russian and the British empire (Bearden, 2001). During the First World War it remained neutral: Britain had subsidized the Afghan leadership and controlled the country’s foreign relations, making sure Kabul doesn’t fall under the pressures of the Central Powers. During the Second World War, despite the British pressure, Afghanistan stayed on friendly terms with the Axis. Even if in 1940, the Afghanistan legation in Berlin asked if Germany would cede land in British India to Afghanistan if it won the war, in an apparent sign of a deal with the Axis, the country remained neutral until the end of the conflict. Neutrality was an imperative that Kabul didn’t manage to maintain during the Cold War. Both the USA and the USSR were expansionists, but in different ways and employing different tactics. Despite the non-aggression treaty dating from 1931 between the USSR and the King of Afghanistan, the dynamics of the Cold War made the USSR intervene politically in Afghanistan to make sure it maintained influence in the country and the USA didn’t take advantage of the turbulent Afghan politics. In 1979, Soviet troops crossed the border under the pretext of protecting the then Afghan communist government. However, the USSR invasion of Afghanistan is considered to have been a strategic mistake, as it marked the first step of the USSR’s collapse and the end of the Cold War (Kalinovsky, 2009). The Afghan terrain is prone to asymmetrical guerilla warfare, with the communities autonomously governing themselves, something that makes it hard for any central government to establish and keep control over the territory. The USSR had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan that had been provided with heavy weaponry. They didn’t hesitate to use the weaponry while trying to control the country’s modernization through the introduction of similar reforms the USSR had introduced successfully in the other Central Asian republics. The terrain of Afghanistan, the historical rivalries, and the specific traditions of the tribes that make up the country worked against the interests of the USSR (Gerth, 2019). Moreover, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan left Pakistan in an uncomfortable geopolitical situation—it found itself between India and the USSR, which was at the time an ally of the Indian Government. Meanwhile, the USSR’s intervention was considered a hostile movement by the USA, which decided to help the insurgency through Pakistan’s Intelligence Service (ISI Inter-Services Intelligence), along with Saudi Arabia and China. The insurgence forces were provided with Stinger surface to air with infrared guided missiles. They had a range of more than 4500 meters and therefore prevented the use of helicopters, which were a key aspect of the conflict. In addition, it forced fixed-wing aircraft, particularly the Su-25, to carry out their bombings from higher, which worsened their precision (Drozdova & Felter, 2019). All this, coupled with the increasing number of casualties in what had become guerilla warfare, forced the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989. Consequently, Afghanistan regained its neutrality, but remained extremely vulnerable, featuring unstable politics and deep insecurity. After three decades of war, most of the population had known nothing but guerilla fighting. Not to mention that millions of Afghans who had chosen to live as refugees in Iran or Pakistan during the war had little to come back for in the 1990s. Other than its neighbors, no country

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3 The Core Borderland: Afghanistan

(including major powers) was preoccupied with what was going on in the country, nor was it interested in influencing it anymore. The USSR was disintegrating. Russia had its own problems to deal with, while new Central Asian republics were bordering Afghanistan. The USA and the West were looking for ways to increase their gains from globalization. No one could be bothered with Afghan problems. Therefore, the fragile government system reemerged into a web of tribes, deeply affected by underdevelopment. The country’s existence was defined by the way ethnic communities interacted with one another, of which five tribes have remained most important: Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Turkmen, and Uzbeks, and other 20 were minor tribal communities (like the Baluchis or the Aimaq, being of less than 2% of the total population) (Schetter, 2016). The Pashtuns have been considered the founders of the state, constituting about 40% of the population. Despite the different factions’ rivalry for power and of the Sunni religion, they are considered to be the group that identifies with nationalist feelings, even if their social interaction is still dependent on tribal rules. The Tajiks are also Sunnis and of Persian origin and are traditionally members of the administration under Pashtun leadership. The Hazaras are about 10% of the population; they are originally nomads of probably Mongolian descent and are considered by the rest of the ethnic communities as a pariah group, being relegated to the poorer and more mountainous areas in the center of the country (Hvistendahl, 2015). Because they are Shia and are perceived to have certain ties with Iran, they have been repudiated by the Taliban, who do not consider them Muslims. The Uzbeks and Turkmen are of Turkish origin, and they make up 9% and 3% of the population, living in the regions nearby Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, in the north of Afghanistan (Ahwar, 2017). All ethnic groups are cross-border, except the Hazaras, something that gives a measure of influence of neighboring states into different regions of Afghanistan. The Pashtun majority is maintaining close ties with the Pashtun minority of Pakistan (Karell, 2016). Out of about 40 million, 13 million Pashtun live in Afghanistan where they are a majority compared to other ethnic groups, whereas the other 27 million live in Pakistan, where they constitute a minority compared to the others and feel discriminated against, considering that their per-capita income is less than the country’s average (Pelevin, 2022). Therefore, it is no surprise that the Soviets could not build their influence over Afghanistan; the one critical factor that triggered their withdrawal was the failure of the Afghan Marxist regime (that the USSR supported) to bring into its ranks the ones living outside Kabul—the people in the villages and provinces in Afghanistan—a process that would have detribalized the country. Therefore, right after the Soviet withdrawal (1992–96), the clashes between the mujahedin factions that were supported by the tacit coalition fighting the Soviets started. Since the Afghan resistance against the USSR had been organized along ethnic lines, right after the goal of fighting the Soviets was resolved, there was no common goal for the fighting factions to pursue—instead, factions started supporting their own narrow interests (Rabush, 2021). There was no effort for reconstructing the country and certainly no idea of building up unity.

3.2

Deglobalization: Beginnings and Waves

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Instead, the country had a “governance gap,” which gave the Pakistani InterServices Intelligence (ISI) the chance to create the Taliban and help them get to power. Pakistan’s goal was to prevent tensions and instability in the Pashtun area of Pakistan. Since then, the ISI has been the militant group’s main external supporter, providing it with logistical support and a relatively safe haven in Pakistani territory (Choudhary et al., 2022). Pakistan has done nothing new, however. It has always supported the Afghan Pashtun in its fights against foreign troops or other ethnic groups. The Cold War insurgents and even Al-Qaeda members found refuge in the Pashtun-inhabited northwestern regions of Pakistan. This is because Pakistan has an interest in making sure its proxies have a decisive influence over the Afghan government, ultimately looking for control and stability in the neighboring country. That’s the way to secure its western regions; after all, that’s part of the largest Pakistani strategic imperative: keeping its own territory stable.

3.2

Deglobalization: Beginnings and Waves

The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in New York in 2001 were the first call that a new era was set to begin. Globalization, as it was thought out and managed since the end of the Cold War, saw its first negative effects. Not all countries were equal, and not all could benefit from the trade and investment network that the US and, generally, the West had established since the early ’90 s. Moreover, socio-economic problems and dysfunctional states hosted anti-Western movements that could turn into dangerous risks for Western society and their businesses worldwide. While the USA was hit, the global environment suffered its first shock as it had to consider terrorism as a risk that could take many forms on the supply chain and in internal political affairs.

3.2.1

The Beginning: From New York to Central Asia

Terrorist groups could be anywhere in the world, but Afghanistan had taken a central spot in the war against terror launched in 2001, given that it was home to Al-Qaeda, the organization that had taken responsibility for downing the two towers in New York. Having consolidated their power in 1996, the Taliban had provided a safe haven for Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization, and their leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, refused to listen to the Loya Jirga’s advice to hand over Bin Laden to the USA or order him to leave the country, as the USA had demanded. Consequently, in November 2001, the USA, and the representatives of regional leaders, among whom Russia and Iran were notably present, have used the Loya Jirga procedure to select an Afghani president, Hamid Karzai, and promulgate a new

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constitution for the country. The USA has also ensured—together with NATO, a military intervention to route the Taliban and find Bin Laden. The International Security Assistance Force has gathered more than 40 countries, with its mission getting increasingly complex in time as other objectives were added to that of finding Bin Laden, including that of establishing a democratic state that could sustain itself, something that would have prevented the Taliban from returning to power (Ghufran, 2001; Quie, 2012). However, as the number of US and allied soldiers increased, security conditions worsened. The socio-economic conditions deteriorated, with both warlords and druglords growing in power, and the production of poppies in Afghanistan exceeded 90% of the world’s total (source). Meanwhile, the guerilla attacks on Allied Forces have grown in sophistication, and the support for the war in Allied countries, and in the USA in particular, has dropped to the minimum. All that has resulted in the much announced and negotiated withdrawal of the USA from Afghanistan. Overall, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was done in three phases (Wright, 2021). The first one started in 2010, when the Obama administration promised the Afghan President Hamid Karzai that political and operational military authority would be transitioned from the USA to local Afghans. The second phase followed Obama’s commitment: it was the physical withdrawal of US troops down from roughly 140,000 to 10,000. The final drawdown—the third phase—began in 2020, and it was completed in 2021. The foreign affairs media heavily criticized this third phase because it appeared that the USA did not ensure the exit of all support personnel as the American forces left the nation (Miller, 2021). In fact, the criticism was due to the surprising Taliban take of the government—something that no one had anticipated. Therefore, it was surprising that the Afghan governing coalition would collapse almost immediately that the US forces left the country not allowing for much exit management strategies to take place. The Taliban appeared to be very aggressive in winning back the country, willing to take avenge against all who have helped or worked for the allied forces (Al Jazeera, 2021). The transition process had not started the way that was planned. Meanwhile, even if what appeared to be a defeat against democracy and a human tragedy caught the public’s attention in August 2021, as the Taliban leadership was taken over Kabul, the global pandemic made news reports from Afghanistan take a secondary role. September reporting had little to do with Afghanistan, and soon the country was closed to foreign journalists who were not invited by the newly installed Taliban government. Relations between Afghanistan and the USA were frozen. Sanctions were imposed against the newly installed government while non-humanitarian aid to Afghanistan was denied (Nawaz, 2022).

3.2

Deglobalization: Beginnings and Waves

3.2.2

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The US Withdrawal from Afghanistan: A Discussion on Amplitude or Ramifications?

The year 2021 ended with questions referring to major repercussions of the global pandemic. Afghanistan appeared to be a place where the economic crisis would have hit harder than in others (Maizland, 2022). While questions about the way American and Western policies should adapt to respond to the challenges of a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan were to be addressed during 2022, they remained unanswered. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and a global economic war has started since. Renewed Sino-American tensions have also complicated the already complex global environment. Afghanistan seemed to be forgotten by the international community for a while. However, in August 2022, the US announced that Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike (Plummer & Murphy, 2022). The head of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was hosted by a senior member of the Afghan Taliban government in a Kabul safe house, reportedly owned by a top aide of Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. The fact that he was hosted by the current government went against the Doha agreement between the USA and the Taliban and the Kabul Joint Declaration between the USA and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, both of which were signed in February 2020. In these agreements, the Afghan government promised, among other things, not to “cooperate” with the terrorist group (Dept. of State, 2020). The 2020 agreements between the US, the Taliban, and the Islamic State of Afghanistan were meant to serve as a framework for both sides to secure a working dialog between the parties even if they had different goals in their mind at the time of signing. The US looked to secure it can withdraw its military while still being able to combat terrorist threats in Afghanistan (Miller, 2022). The Afghans—both the then established government and the Taliban representatives were looking forward to establishing their leadership over the newly “liberated” but not yet institutionally stable state of Afghanistan. The Taliban made a choice not to fight and wait for the Allies to leave. They took a pragmatic first step to ensure they could later take control of the country. Therefore, even if the news about the killing of al-Zawahiri made the headlines of major media outlets, not much else was talked about—there was simply not much else to be said or done. Business as usual continued in the world’s major capitals, which were more concerned with the Russian war on Ukraine and its repercussions than anything else. However, the Russian war in Ukraine—and all other events that are shaping the way the world’s borderlands look—have begun in Afghanistan. In 2001, the world received its first wakeup call, signaling Afghanistan as the most problematic country for the global environment, with terrorism becoming the new risk that the West was fighting against. Afghanistan was neglected by the international community after the Cold War ended and therefore became home to what appeared to be the most dangerous terrorist organization. Globalization didn’t work well for the Afghan people (or the world)—on the contrary, the first major negative effect was that it helped terrorist organizations and guerilla warfare go global.

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The Core Borderland: Afghanistan

Later, in the early 2010s, as the West was fighting the global economic crisis, another negative side effect of globalization, the Obama administration launched the transition process for Afghanistan as the USA was shaping its foreign affairs strategy to fit its new priorities. The pivot to Asia and the disengagement from the Middle East were key to the USA refocusing on internal matters. Washington’s approach to fighting wars had changed. The intervention in Iraq put an end to the “democracy promotion” approach, and, along with the failure in Afghanistan, it profoundly changed the way post-George W. Bush administrations were approaching military force. Obama’s “leading from behind” in Libya is founded on the lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan (Gros, 2012), and the non-intervention in Syria relates to the Libyan lessons (Löfflmann, 2015). Since 2010, the USA has used military force more selectively and cautiously, with a downward review of strategic objectives and means deployed. This approach has led the world to understand that the USA is disengaging from global affairs. The COVID-19 pandemic, which had been taking over the world as the USA was preparing its withdrawal from Afghanistan, accelerated processes that were long under way in Eurasia and that have shaped the behavior of major regional powers. In many ways, the way things have evolved in Afghanistan and in the wider region since the USA announced in 2010 that it would withdraw its troops tells the story of the new Eurasian world in the making. Russia appears to have taken the US’s refocus on its internal affairs since the early 2000s and the withdrawal from Afghanistan as an invitation to increase its influence in Europe. China, on the other hand, is looking to consolidate its regional position as it deals with its own internal problems that make it a balance between the USA and Russia. India appears to increase its role in global affairs while also keeping a careful balance between the West, Russia, and China, cautiously distancing from all. Other regional powers, like Iran and Pakistan, are also dealing with internal problems and seeking to restructure their strategies to gain stability in the long term. In many ways, Afghanistan seems to have regained its role for Eurasian stability, similar to what it did centuries ago when Tsarist Russia was looking to dominate the Mediterranean while carefully calculating its strategy toward British India.

3.3

The Future: The New Great Game?

The geography has, after all, changed little if at all. Not much technology was added nor other alterations have been made to the Afghan terrain since the beginning of the twentieth century. Therefore, if you are an Indian or a Pakistani, you will not see Afghanistan as Europeans or Americans do. You would not see it as part of southern Central Asia, but as part of the Indian subcontinent. In a demographic sense, the state organized around the Indus River Valley and its tributaries (which is Pakistan) is competing in Afghanistan with the state organized around the Ganges River Valley and its tributaries (which is India). Both are competing for trade routes in southern Central Asia, and both are pressured by Russia and China within the continent.

3.3

The Future: The New Great Game?

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Therefore, just as Pakistan needs to secure its influence in Afghanistan so that it keeps its Western Pashtun-inhabited region stable, so does India have an interest in an Afghanistan that is not an extension of Pakistan. This explains why India is carefully supporting infrastructure projects between Afghanistan and Iran so that Afghans lean more on Iranians and there is less dependence on Pakistan. An example is the Indian support and coordination with the Taliban for the Chabahar Port project in Iran as a platform for regional trade and connectivity (McLain Gill, 2022).

3.3.1

The Crossroads of Ambitions: A Triangle Between Pakistan, India, and China

It is likely that both Pakistan and India will try to accelerate their will to influence over Afghanistan through various economic projects, especially since socioeconomic stability appears to be the Taliban’s priority, given that the country’s economy has collapsed since Western aid has stopped coming in. To achieve that goal, the energy sector may play an important role in the years to come. Even if Afghanistan has several oil reserves in the north and minerals are reported to be found in the south’s subsoil, its added value comes from the potential for it to become a transit place for energy sources coming from Iran and Turkmenistan into Pakistan, India, and even China. Iran and Turkmenistan are both rich in natural gas, and they would, in theory, be interested in supplying the region. Even if they pose the question of Russian reaction to new infrastructure projects, given that it controls much of the output in the region, such ideas are not new. UNOCAL, a California-based company that former president Hamid Karzai was consulting, planned the construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Herat in Afghanistan and through Multan into Pakistan. However, plans stopped in 2001 when US intervention ended all infrastructure projects (Watson, 2002). However, before thinking about such possibilities for development, the Taliban government needs to fully secure its ruling. This is likely why the Taliban government has slowly opened to discussing not only with Afghanistan’s neighboring countries but also with the West, allowing researchers and opening diplomatic talks even with the USA. The Taliban are, after all, fighting two insurgencies: one led by the Islamic State’s local branch in the east and the other by the National Resistance Front (NRF) and other groups aligned with the former government in the northern provinces (Mills, 2022). The placid atmosphere of today’s Kabul hides reports of resistance fighting that even the government confirms. The country appears significantly more peaceful than a year ago as confirmed by journalists traveling into Afghanistan. However, the Taliban government looks like it is still struggling to control the country. They lack the manpower needed to maintain the checkpoints on roads, and, even more important, they do not seem to perceive the villages that hosted their fighters during the insurgency years as threats, even if the government is dealing daily with guerilla

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attacks. Such a situation threatens greater insecurity if it is not effectively managed. The harsh response and tactics against adversaries, when they are caught, create a backlash that may increase fighting against their rule. They seem to understand most of the risks—the Talibans have, after all, reiterated a general amnesty, applicable to those who abstain from fighting them, and even reached out to former enemies, urging them to help rebuild state institutions, including the security forces (International Crisis Group, 2022). Considering the harsh economic environment, the personal conduct rules that are difficult to implement in the northern urban settings, away from the traditional Taliban strongholds in the south of the country, it is the Taliban’s adaptation and its flexibility that will either trigger stability, or, on the contrary, make it the regional black hole again. However, the regional players are all looking to contribute to the assembly of a peaceful Afghanistan, according to their liking. In other words, the vacuum that the USA (and the West in general) left when it withdrew from Afghanistan could soon be filled not only by Pakistani and Indian initiatives but also by Chinese, Turkmen, Tajik, and even Uzbek projects. Russia is shy about contributing, given its history in Afghanistan, but, at least before the war in Ukraine, it was vocally supporting its Central Asian allies in doing business with the newly installed government. Since the Taliban ruling has opened up talks with the USA and the first in person meeting between officials was held in October (Marquardt, 2022), Moscow has been reluctant to talk to the Afghan government. Perhaps most actively of all, China has increased its presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover (Pandey, 2023). Beijing sent vaccine aid, earthquake relief, and food aid to Afghanistan, while Chinese companies started lobbying to discuss possible projects as well as explore new ones (Tyagi, 2023). While this is meant to show that China is one of the few big players still active in Afghanistan, underlying the Chinese posture toward that of the USA, very little has so far actually moved forward. Beijing stated that it is ready to support the implementation of Afghanistan transport projects, including a railway that would connect Uzbekistan’s Mazar-iSharif, Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, and Peshawar, in Pakistan, but it all depends on whether there is a rationale behind it and, more importantly, if China still has money to spend on such projects. Just as the war on terror, which began in 2001, has shaped the way the USA and the West conduct military warfare, the way the global economy will be shaped by the current economic war will set Afghanistan’s future. A new great game is therefore in the making.

3.3.2

A Case Study: China and Afghanistan

(A version of this case study was published by www.GeopoliticalFutures.com) The Chinese government, like most countries, does not even formally recognize the Afghan Taliban administration. However, Afghanistan’s geography and the allure of its natural resources are too much for China to ignore. China, as well as

3.3

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33

regional countries like India and Pakistan, views Afghanistan differently from how the USA sees it because of its geographic proximity and strategic interests. Afghanistan borders Kashmir, a disputed region among the three countries. For China, moreover, a stable Afghanistan could provide a gateway to greater influence in Central Asia and serve as a buffer against the spread of extremism into China’s Uighur regions near the border. Afghanistan is also believed to be rich in rare earth minerals such as lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium, as well as valuable metals such as aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury, and lithium (Pandey, 2023). China dominates the global production and supply of rare earth minerals critical for renewable energy and defense, and it’s seeking to secure its position in the market. In light of increased competition from other nations looking to secure their own supplies and reduce dependency on China, Beijing sees developing relations with Afghanistan as a key step toward maintaining its long-term dominance in the rare earth mineral market. Afghanistan is also key to China’s development of its Belt and Road plans (Wei, 2018). Afghanistan’s instability makes it hard to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which will connect China to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan (Deng & Xiao, 2018). Pakistan wants to ensure its mostly Pashtun west is calm. India, fearing that Pakistan will gain control of Afghanistan and use it to expand, has attempted to help Iran create more infrastructure links with Afghanistan. For its part, Iran needs investment to shore up its economy, and it wants to prevent the growth of an insurgency next door. China and Iran have also long discussed opportunities for Iran to become a partner in the Belt and Road Initiative (Madani, 2022). However, domestic difficulties restrict the ability of Pakistan and Iran to influence Kabul. The foreign ministers of China and Afghanistan spoke for nearly an hour on January 22, 2023 about Afghanistan’s economic development and ensuring the security of Chinese personnel involved in Afghan projects (CGTN Television Network, 2023). This followed the signing on Jan. 5 of an oil extraction agreement between China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co. and the Afghan Taliban government (Madhok et al., 2023). Even if China had been actively coordinating with the Taliban since 2021, it was a surprising turnaround, considering that just weeks earlier, following a Dec. 12, 2022 terrorist attack in Kabul that injured five Chinese nationals, Beijing was advising its citizens to leave the country (Yawar, 2022). Afghanistan remains the most fragile state of the region—socially, economically, and politically. This is why the oil development project is highly significant for Kabul. It is the first extraction agreement the Taliban have signed with a foreign entity since retaking control of the country in 2021. For China to put enough trust in the Taliban regime to justify such an investment is no small thing. Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban government has dealt with two major problems. First, although overall violence has decreased, the Islamic State emerged as a major security threat. Second, the economy depends on foreign aid. The West and the United Nations sanctioned the Taliban after they ousted the US-backed administration, freezing $9.5 billion of Afghan assets. Sanctions relief for humanitarian purposes did little to help the impoverished country. According to Gallup polls, nine in 10 Afghans say they are finding it “difficult” or

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“very difficult” to get by on their current household income (Gallup, Inc., 2022). Less than a third of the population is satisfied with their food and housing situations. The Afghan standards aren’t high, so polls indicating sharp drops for all indicators that make for a reasonable lifestyle are worrying. Only 15% of the respondents have access to quality healthcare, 25% have confidence in the local police force, 7% are employed, and 23% say they could count on help from other fellow citizens. Remnants of the long war, like land mines, continue to hinder a return to normalcy. The Taliban government began to realize it needed to be pragmatic about governing the country. They reached out to professionals from the previous administrations, something that made more people feel confident about their leadership in 2022 compared to 2021. About 27% of the respondents to a Gallup poll have said they approve of the national leadership in 2022, compared to 23% in 2021 (Gallup World Poll, 2023). This is a positive development. However, trust in national leadership has been on a downward trend since 2014 (when the NATO Combat Command ended). The terrain in Afghanistan is prone to insurgency. The Taliban know that if they don’t manage to restore stability, the Islamic State and other factions will likely increase their activity. More, they already find it challenging to keep the balance between the pragmatism needed to govern the country and their Islamic agenda. China is best positioned to take advantage of the void left by the US withdrawal. During the 1990s, Beijing engaged the Taliban and managed to stop militant infiltration into western China. As the Taliban were retaking the capital in August 2021, drawing widespread condemnation, Beijing encouraged them to execute a smooth transition and limit terrorism and crime. Despite its principle of non-interference, Beijing has only increased its influence in Afghanistan since then, providing aid and hosting multilateral meetings with the purpose of engaging the Taliban (Xinhua, 2021). It has encouraged Chinese businesses to build inroads in the country. In 2022, a Chinese steel plant started work in the country, and Kabul approved a joint project with Beijing to develop a $216 million industrial park project to host up to 150 factories on the capital’s outskirts (Zhou, 2022). But in spite of its efforts, according to 2022 Gallup poll results, Afghans’ perceptions of China’s leadership are deteriorating along with those of the USA and Russia (Gallup World Poll, 2023). While the fragile state of Afghanistan explains the public’s attitude toward the national government, their perception of the global environment shapes their view of the major powers and what they can do to help. So, although China appears to be in the lead, the price of stabilizing the South Asian country tends to be higher than would-be patrons expect going in. Three factors will limit China’s ability to fully exploit the opportunity presented by the US departure. First, China’s socio-economic problems are eating away at its ability to invest in the Belt and Road. Second, although Afghanistan’s economic opportunities are significant, so is its political uncertainty. Finally, and perhaps most important, Afghanistan is critical to a new Eurasia-wide great game in the making. Like the war in Ukraine and the global economic war, what happens in Afghanistan will shape the power balance among the major players—but perhaps not in the ways one might expect. If Afghan history has taught foreign powers anything, it is that the country that invests the most in trying to control it always loses in the end.

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Chapter 4

The Middle Powers and the Core Borderland

The shock that the Taliban took control of Afghanistan has diluted by 2022. The Taliban’s governing style, coupled with the Western disengagement from Afghanistan, seemed to mark a new era for the region. Especially since it was all coming right as the global pandemic was ending. Afghanistan’s neighbors needed to simply “deal with it.” But 2022 didn’t let events unfold slowly. Instead, in February, Russia invaded Ukraine. The conflict that cast a long shadow over global affairs has toppled the pandemic and triggered major repercussions throughout the world’s borderlands. The war has given way for non-Western middle powers’ influence and autonomy to grow. (In Eurasia, think Pakistan, Iran, or Turkey for middle powers and Russia, India, or China for major powers.) Growing, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into stability (Woo, 2021). For a state to grow its power, it needs to assertively foster its interests beyond its borders. To do that, it requires strong leadership. In non-democratic societies, it is usual for strong leadership to translate into control, autocracies, and even dictatorships. But during transition times, as states grow in power, dictatorships, autocracies, and generally, political leadership get tested. Therefore, the post-pandemic challenges and the way social and security problems escalated in the region made it so that all of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries have faced increased instability since late 2021, even before Russia invaded Ukraine. The repercussions stemming from the war are therefore adding just another layer to the already concerning instability challenge. Looking at the avenues for pre-existing instability, there are several sources to consider. First, after the Taliban took control of the country, a new wave of Afghan refugees emerged. Their main destinations were Pakistan, Iran, but also Tajikistan, Europe, through Turkey, and beyond (European Union Agency for Asylum, 2022). By February 2023, reports about the potential increase in deportations abounded. Pakistan (Ebrahim, 2023) and Iran (Latifi, 2022) have deported Afghans since mid-2022, claiming they do not have the necessary papers. Turkey has also started deportations toward the end of 2022 (Frelick, 2022). All reports released by the UN point to a critical situation for the Afghans, both for those remaining and for those leaving Afghanistan (UNHCR, 2022). Reports also © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_4

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point to a potential improvement, considering the Taliban government has, since 2022, started talking to its neighbors, aiming to improve relations. Such openness has been welcomed by the neighboring countries, which see it as an opportunity to avoid the social problems the refugee waves brought forth. This gets us to the second avenue for regional instability. All the countries in the region are facing similar socio-economic problems. The challenges that the COVID pandemic has brought forward are similar for all landlocked countries. Border closures meant regional trade contraction. Higher global prices for fuel and food translated into growing inflation. At its turn, higher inflation translates into trade deficits and declining foreign reserves. In practice, this means that the population can afford to buy fewer goods every day. This also makes fewer imported goods available, limiting the country’s production capabilities. In short, the global economic slowdown and recession have become reality. As it was expected, it is not surprising that, after the pandemic, a global socio-economic restructuring has started. But for the developing countries, like the middle powers in all borderland regions, this is worrying, if not altogether bad news. To focus our scope on those regions that are immediately relevant to European stability, we will begin examining whether particular challenges for South Asia and the Middle East are or could be interfering with the European borderlands. Considering the classical geopolitical theories (Mackinder’s heartland theory and Spykman’s rimland theory, in particular) and using a heuristic approach to geopolitics, the two regions would be Europe’s most important extended borderlands. Afghanistan ties them both together as the epicenter for historical instability. Within the two regions, we will examine the way middle powers like Pakistan and Iran are handling the multiple global crises and how they have changed or could change their posture within their regions, with regard to major powers. In 2023, Pakistan and Iran struggle to regain stability (and governance altogether). The way they choose to solve their problems will shape not only regional affairs, but also potentially trigger responses in places like Moscow, Beijing, Washington, or Bruxelles.

4.1

Pakistan: The Struggle for Stability

Pakistan’s core region is made out of the fertile plains of the Indus River valley around Punjab. That is the most populous part of the country and its political and economic heartland. Like Afghanistan, Pakistan doesn’t have defensive natural boundaries. This is the country’s most important challenge, shaping its geopolitical imperatives.

4.1

Pakistan: The Struggle for Stability

4.1.1

43

The Morphology of a Challenging Geography

The Punjab area in the North East is bordering India, a historical rival of Pakistan. In 1947, the country was carved out of the Muslim majority northwest and northeast of India (Griffiths, 1968). Both countries claim the territory of Kashmir in the north and have fought three wars with each other. In 1971, Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, became independent from Pakistan with India’s help (Wriggins, 1973). In the West, Pakistan has sought to influence Afghanistan, to prevent Kabul from falling into the Indian New Delhi Orbit. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has remained contentious since it was first established by the British in 1893, long before Pakistan as a modern state was established (Omrani, 2009). Considering the Pashtuns in western Pakistan, Kabul claims that the Afghan true border runs deeper into the country. The mountainous terrain made the region hard to govern for both sides. This is why, while trying to keep Afghanistan under its influence, the Pakistani border has remained deeply porous. At its southwest, Pakistan borders Iran in the arid but large province of Balochistan. This is Pakistan’s oldest borderline, having been discussed upon since 1871. At the time, the Persians and the British (who had controlled Pakistan and most of India since the eighteenth century) had reached an agreement on their mutual frontier. There wasn’t any clear line drawn on the ground under the British rule, but once Pakistan gained independence, the border could be mapped out. It covers more than 900 km of some of the most unwelcoming mountainous terrain, and therefore it has become a point of concern for both countries. The illegal crossings, the drug and terrorist related traffic, have driven the two states to fence it since the early 2010s (Raheem et al., 2021). However, progress has been slow. The western border of Pakistan, from the Hindu Kush and the Pamir Mountains and through the Salih Mountains, ends in Gwadar Bay on the Arabian Sea. The bay has recently become the center of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) agreement. Part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, the agreement focuses on the deepwater port of Gwadar, which China wants to link to its Xinjiang Province. The Chinese Overseas Port Holding Company (COPH) acquired the port on lease in 2013 for 40 years (PTI, 2017), but as construction has started, the local population and its problems have been mostly ignored. With most of the locals involved in fishing, the issue of special fishing permits has been tackled, but many issues remain unresolved (Mayadeen, 2023). Other problems, like the lack of provision of jobs and water and electricity facilities, are still standing. Gwadar is part of Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and most impoverished province. As the locals didn’t see much improvement in their lives, instead having to deal with harsher conditions, protests erupted at the end of 2022 (Hafeez, 2023) in the bay and continued during the first months of 2023. The demonstrators asked for an end to illegal trawling, a constant problem for the fishermen. They also asked for easing restrictions on informal cross-border trade with Iran and the reduction of security

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checkpoints in the area. Last but not least, protesters want access to clean drinking water, hospitals, and electricity (Nazir, 2023). The frustration of the residents is not new, but it is underlying an anti-Chinese drive. The protests have asked that Chinese nationals leave the port city. The port development supported by China is one of the reasons why surveillance and security checkpoints have increased in the area. At the same time, the issue of trawling really goes beyond illegal practices. The government has reportedly licensed Chinese trawlers to fish in the waters off the coast, and local fishermen are unable to compete with them. The protests in the Gwadar have been relevant not only because they were against China (a major power that’s an ally of Pakistan), but also due to their timing. They happened at a time when Pakistan has become extremely vulnerable, both from a political and economic standpoint.

4.1.2

The Troubled Politics’ Effects on Poor Socio-economics

Politically, the army has been the country’s most powerful institution for more than seven decades. The year 2022 put this to the test. The military establishment has grown divided since the offensive launched against it by the Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) political party and its leader, former Prime Minister Imran Khan. After Khan won office, relations deteriorated due to his populist rule, anti-US rhetoric, and his attempts to plant loyalists in top army positions (to secure his rule). As the country’s economy was deteriorating and support for a no-confidence vote grew, Khan claimed that the USA was behind a plot to oust him. Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa rejected the conspiracy and rebuffed Khan’s effort to win him over with an indefinite extension as chief. In April 2022, Khan was ousted. A coalition government headed by Shehbaz Sharif took over (Reuters, 2022). The political crisis intensified during the last quarter of 2022, with next year (and likely next years) politics becoming further unstable (Bokhari, 2022). In November 2022, Khan survived an attempt on his life during an anti-government march. Since then, he has blamed the military’s leadership for the attack; he went going so far as to say that two very senior officials from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency orchestrated it (Hussain, 2022). While this is not the first time that Pakistani politicians have criticized the military, it has never been done this bluntly before. It was usual for the military to hold the upper hand. The explanation is given by the way Pakistani politics have evolved during the last decade. In particular, this evolution may be explained by the way the PTI has developed. Moreover, it is about Pakistani politics becoming more complex and more unstable at the same time. The PTI was a social movement before it was an official political party. Following a common practice in Pakistani politics, the PTI was supposed to be a political party supported by the army. Traditionally, such a relationship is a patron–proxy

4.1

Pakistan: The Struggle for Stability

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relationship, in which the military uses the party as a proxy for controlling the political life. To gain power, the PTI needed the military (Rizvi, 2018). To support the PTI, the military needed a charismatic civilian to back its platform. Khan played his part in assuming leadership of military narratives, which secured PTI popularity. This gave him access within the military machine. Therefore, the relationship between the army and PTI was more mutually beneficial and less patron–proxy. The PTI and the military supported each other in the first years that the PTI came to power. As the economy got worse, the military started to see how dangerous a populist agenda could be for its own goals. Starting in 2020, the army chose to distance itself from the PTI (Subramanian, 2022). As Khan and his government faced growing public criticism, the military began to be publicly blamed because it had enabled his rise to power. PTI was becoming a major liability for the military establishment as the country was becoming more unstable economically. As the pandemic was taking its toll, the country’s economic activity was dropping, and inflation was rising. To respond, the government appointed three finance ministers in a similar number of years. By late 2021, it became clear that the military was no longer able to work with Khan. A final disagreement over military appointments had the army partner with the opposition against Khan, and, as a result, the government was ousted in spring 2022 (Kermani, 2022). With it, a dozen years that the military has spent cultivating Khan’s political movement as an alternative to the other two dominant parties, the Pakistan Muslim League and the Pakistan People’s Party, looked wasted. This is important, considering that this was the most significant attempt made by the military to create a political proxy (Schwemlen, 2022). The military has ruled Pakistan intermittently for almost half of the country’s 70-year history, remaining its strongest institution. Since the early 2000s, Pakistan’s two-party political system has slowly devolved into a patchwork of ideologically rigid groups, many of which are Islamist or right-wing. PTI was one of them. As the country grew unstable, the military had the PTI become a third political force and, eventually, an alternative that it could control. PTI won the elections in 2018 after a corruption scandal weakened the then-ruling Pakistan Muslim League. It came into power as the country’s economic struggles began. In 2017, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves were enough to cover about three months’ worth of imports, or $14 billion. The reserves were falling because Pakistan’s exports were falling. Debt servicing stood at 29% of export earnings. And Pakistan’s population was exploding. It exceeded 200 million people in the 2017 census and has increased by 57% since the last census in 1998 (Rana, 2017). Even if poverty has decreased since the early 2000s, the Pakistani economy didn’t manage to diversify (Bonner, 2023). Private and government consumption drove economic growth, while investment and exports remained low. Productivity hasn’t increased much, and human development hasn’t improved much either. Growth of per-capita GDP has been averaging only around 2.1 percent annually over 2000–18 (World Bank, 2023). Educational standards have been declining for years, with the literacy rate down to 58%—and likely to further decline (Dawn, 2018).

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The COVID-19 pandemic has also had serious impacts on human development outcomes and economic growth. Floods in 2021 and 2022 have made matters worse. More than a quarter of the population lives in poverty (World Bank, 2022). In January 2023, the country’s foreign reserves dropped to $4.3 billion, the lowest level since February 2014. According to the World Food Program, the country finds itself in a seriously vulnerable situation. Other organizations report that the country is facing a severe situation, with more than 3.4 million children in Pakistan facing chronic hunger at the end of 2022 (Save the Children, 2022). The political crisis that Pakistan entered in 2022 resulted in a new military leadership. General Syed Asim Munir, who took charge in November, has followed tradition and made his first visit to Saudi Arabia (Hussain, 2023). He obtained the Crown Prince’s promise that Saudi Arabia would send $11 billion in investments to Pakistan in 2023. Munir also visited the UAE, which promised Pakistan $2 billion in assistance. Such financial help will likely help the country stabilize itself in the short term (Khan, 2023). For Pakistan to recover, it needs outside investment. However, investments have dropped everywhere in the world, considering the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Historically, Pakistan has tried to nurture relationships with the USA and China both. Keeping good ties with Saudi Arabia has been key to the country’s strategy, considering its geographic position. But due to its highly populist policies, the PTI administration managed to upset relations with all three allies. The USA became worried about the country continuing to host terrorists. China felt like the government was fueling anti-Chinese sentiment. The general public didn’t benefit much from the Chinese investment, which was largely delayed by the many negotiations between the two countries’ governments. On the long term, the problems and dilemmas confronting Pakistan’s leadership remain complex. A deepening vortex of mutual suspicions, the potential for increased terrorism, and a weak economy are all contributing to a semi-paralyzed system. Public opinion polls are showing an increasing distrust for the country’s leadership. With the public trust in outside help diminishing, the Pakistani social crisis may get worse before it gets better. This would open opportunities for major players like India and China to advance their influence in South Asia. At the same time, considering the larger picture, it is also limiting their options.

4.2

A Troubled Border: The Potential for Conflict Between Afghanistan and Pakistan

One of the most important limits to major powers’ influence in the region is the potential for conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan. As the political crisis escalates and tensions at the border grow, such scenario becomes highly likely.

4.2

A Troubled Border: The Potential for Conflict Between Afghanistan and Pakistan

4.2.1

47

A Complex Militant Landscape

Pakistan has entered the election year of 2023 with a deeply divided society and political body. The coalition government headed by Shehbaz Sharif has been facing months of violent protests orchestrated by Khan’s PTI party. Anti-Western and anti-China rhetoric has left the country’s leadership little room for maneuver in discussing with its allies. The level of public anger is high, as living costs have grown and the prospect for a better life grew dim during the last decade. Devastating floods submerged a third of the country and at the end of 2022 about 20.6 million Pakistani (about 10% of the country’s population) require humanitarian aid (World Bank, 2022). This is a poor environment for elections and the delays in relief will likely help boost Khan’s base. Not to mention that the country’s chronic economic problems could lead to its default. To avoid this, the leadership needs to push for difficult reforms that will likely produce a further devaluation of the currency and fuel more social unrest. The elections in 2023 prevent Islamabad to take the steps needed to stop the current financial problems create further socio-political uncertainty. More, the main contenders in the elections disagree on the rules of the game and it is likely that if Khan party doesn’t win, he is likely to reject the outcome and fuel more protests. Even if the military vows to stay out of the political fray, it is likely that heightened social unrest may make it hard for the military to stand by. In such an environment, internal conflict becomes highly probable. Meanwhile, Islamist rebels are likely to intensify their insurgency. In December 2022, the Pakistani security forces launched a military operation to regain a facility in the northwestern city of Bannu that had been seized by militants belonging to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group (RFE/RL Mashaal, 2022). The TTP ended a cease-fire agreement on November 28, 2022, and ordered attacks across the country. The truce, which lasted from June to November, was mediated by the Afghan Taliban after the TTP increased its attacks following the departure of US forces from Afghanistan (AFP NDTV, 2022). The complex militant landscape of Pakistan may be explained through its Cold War history (Schofield, 2011). At the time, Islamabad was blaming the regime in Kabul for siding with its historical rival India; therefore, it supported the opposition, which happened to be the Afghan jihadists. By the time Pakistan realized it could no longer control the Taliban next door, it was already too late. Islamabad supported the regime change in Kabul in the 1970s because it considered it too close to India. Pakistan felt like it was strategically encircled: a pro-Indian government was neighboring it to the west while India was on its east (Ishfaq & Ashfaq, 2021). Afghanistan has never recognized the border with Pakistan. As a result, Pakistan remained fearful of the threat of Kabul-supported Pashtun ethno-nationalism. To counter this threat, Pakistan promoted Islamism—both domestically and abroad— building ties into the Afghan Pashtun population. The strategy gained momentum after the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. By the early 1990s, Pakistan had helped defeat the Marxists in Afghanistan, channeling the massive

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military and financial support from the USA and Saudi Arabia. The left-wing Pashtun nationalists on its side of the border were weakened. After the end of the Cold War, Pakistan no longer had a hostile regime at the border. Instead, Afghanistan was now a state in which Islamist factions struggled for power. The Afghan Taliban emerged from this struggle in 1996, and Pakistan sought it out as a good political ally. However, the Taliban ideology was also gaining ground in Pakistan, as was al-Qaeda. Pakistan wanted to help the Taliban consolidate power, but by doing so, it was also enabling internal political groups that have evolved into enemies for the Islamabad political establishment (Nelson, 2010). This was a natural consequence of Pakistan cultivating non-state proxies whose ideology challenged the national identity and narrative of the patron state. The war on terrorism launched after 9/11 initially focused on al-Qaeda and its particular brand of international jihadism. Beyond that, there was the matter of a failed state (Afghanistan) and that of a troubled state that could no longer control its proxies (Pakistan). Therefore, Islamabad problems only got worse—it found itself sandwiched between its ally, the USA and its premier Islamist proxy, the Taliban while a national Taliban militant group was taking shape inside Pakistan. By the time that the USA withdrew its forces from Afghanistan, Pakistan had become critically unstable. The Taliban had become a major national concern. Starting in 2007 and until 2015, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group waged brutal and violent attacks against the Pakistani state (Mahmood, 2020). The Pakistani counter-insurgency operations were increased along the border with Afghanistan, and eventually, the Taliban rebels were stopped. By the end of 2018, this cost Islamabad about 80,000 lives and $150 billion in economic damages (Ahmed, 2021). But the TTP wasn’t fully eliminated—many went into sanctuaries in Afghanistan. This is why, once the Taliban came into power in Kabul, it was expected that TTP attacks would grow into Pakistan. The Islamist forces in Pakistan felt emboldened, once their peers got in power next door. While there are other Islamic factions within the country, the TTP is most dangerous, considering it is an extension of the original Afghan Taliban movement.

4.2.2

The Politics of Insurgency

Unlike the Afghan Taliban in power in Kabul, who is concerned with governing the country and, in many aspects, a different organization than it was in the early 2000s, the TTP is an insurgent opposition, not much changed since the early 2000s. It is an insurgent force having extensive experience in controlling territory on the Pakistani side of the border and willing to go back fighting the government. With the Pakistani government weakened as it is, the TTP prepares for a major campaign against the state. The conditions in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, are similar to those in the early 2000s (Sabawoon, 2020). At the time, an alliance of

4.2

A Troubled Border: The Potential for Conflict Between Afghanistan and Pakistan

49

Islamist parties ruled the province for five years. Now, a similar alliance is taking shape, after the opposition party to Khan’s PTI has ruled the province for a decade. Even if it is not an Islamist group, Khan’s PTI has a right-wing religious nationalist bent and has nurtured a soft approach toward the Taliban rebels and their parent organization now ruling Afghanistan. Traditionally, the Pakistani government’s method of dealing with the TTP has been to rely on the Afghan Taliban. But the truce between the TTP and the government, mediated by the Afghan Taliban in June, didn’t last more than six months. Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban is dealing with its own problems at home. They, too, face the challenge of the transnational jihadist movement. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province took advantage of the US withdrawal and established its own caliphate (Webber, 2023). It has also engaged in an extensive campaign against the Taliban’s Afghan leadership, portraying it as a fake jihadist movement. The Afghan Taliban are criticized for their internal struggles between ideology and pragmatism when it comes to decisions referring to Afghan state governance. Considering that the government in Kabul has started reaching out to former officials on matters regarding the state government, it is likely that such criticisms will increase. Therefore, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan can’t risk becoming too close to the regime in Islamabad, quieting the TTP. Doing so would undermine its own Islamic legitimacy, leaving it vulnerable to further accusations. More importantly, the Afghan Taliban have an interest in promoting nationalism within Afghanistan. This is why they, as their predecessors, didn’t recognize and settle on the country’s physical boundary with Pakistan. They don’t want to be seen too close to the government in the neighboring country because that would only support further internal frictions within their base at home. TTP insurgency in Pakistan’s northwestern regions provides the Afghan Taliban a buffer. All this is certainly known to Islamabad. However, growing militant attacks in the northwest makes the Pakistani establishment increasingly vulnerable. Moreover, considering the socio-economic conditions and the political instability, Pakistan’s fragility poses more risks than opportunities to its powerful neighbors, India and Iran. Just as the Pakistani military has begun to look for solutions to financing the country, they have also begun to engage in cross-border fighting against the TTP. In 2023, a year after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine and two after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, renewed conflict brews into the oldest key borderland in Eurasia. As the Pakistani counter attacks the TTP insurgency and TTP facilities in Eastern Afghanistan fell into their hands, Pakistan gets closer to an open conflict with the Afghan Talibans in Kabul. No matter how much Islamabad would want to avoid a conflict with its longtime proxy in Afghanistan, geopolitical realities seem to force it.

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4.3

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The Middle Powers and the Core Borderland

A Good(?) Neighborhood: Afghanistan and Iran

As the potential for conflict in the Pakistani northwest intensifies, tensions along the country’s western border (with Iran) are likely to grow as well. In fact, in January 2023, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that four Pakistani security personnel were killed in firing across the Pakistan-Iran border in Balochistan’s Panjgur district. Pakistan asked Iran to help “hunt down the terrorists” on their side (Yeni Șafak, 2023). Meanwhile, the Baloch rebel group Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) which is thought to have attacked the Pakistani convoy, denied using Iranian soil.

4.3.1

Balochistan: Between Self-Determination and a Place for Competition

Clashes along the border are not unusual, considering the terrorist traffic in the region, among other kinds of traffic. Just as the Pakistani southwestern region has Pakistan’s oldest border, the region is also famous for its instability. The Balochistan and Sistan regions of Iran, along this border is inhabited by about two million Sunni Muslims who have historically been discriminated against the predominantly Shia Iran (Hessari & Kazemzadeh, 2004). The Baluchs in Pakistan are largely secular and want autonomy from Islamabad. They are arguing that Balochistan proclaimed its independence in 1947, the year that both Pakistan and India became independent, but Pakistan sent forces into the territory and made it its province (Ahmad, 1973). Separatist movements have increased their activity since the 1950s. The Baloch rebel group’s history stretches over more than six decades, considering the group was formed in 1963–1964 in Syria. This is also known as one of the most lethal movements among the Baloch rebel organizations that are working against Pakistan. On the other side, Jundullah, Jaish-ul Adl, and Harakat Ansar Iran are the three militant groups similarly known for operating against Iranian interests (Rehman, 2014). The January 2023 event seems to be mirroring an instance reported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in December 2022. At the time, four members of Iran’s security forces were killed in a firefight near the Pakistan border, and the IRGC accused an unknown terrorist group of carrying it out (Motamedi, 2022). Iranian authorities have regularly accused Baluch militant groups operating in Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan Province of being supported by foreign countries—the USA, Britain, but also Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. However, just as both Iran and Pakistan suspect each other of supporting insurgency in the region, they are united in their fear of a potential alliance between the Baluch militants. After all, the fence that has been built up on the borderline for decades is meant to make sure Balochistan doesn’t emerge as a new state. Several Baluch tribes have been divided since the ’50s by that borderline, but it has never

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A Good(?) Neighborhood: Afghanistan and Iran

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kept them apart. The daily exchange of goods between the people on either side of the border has never stopped. Moreover, the stability of Balochistan is key to Chinese interests in the region (Raza, 2019). While Iran has been hoping for years that China could extend its Belt and Road Initiative to their country, Beijing faces opposition to its plans in Pakistani Balochistan region. It is likely that the project keeps being dragged on, not only considering the political and economic turmoil that Pakistan faces, but also the potential for increased insurgency. The Pakistani Taliban group TTP announced in December 2022 that it merged with an unnamed terrorist group in Balochistan. Considering the Afghan Taliban government will not be able to control the Pakistani Taliban TTP any time soon, it is likely that insecurity will only increase.

4.3.2

The Islamic State and the Opportunity for Coordination, If Not Cooperation

Iran and Pakistan both want Afghanistan to be stable, but they both know that this is not likely to happen any time soon. While they understand Balochistan needs to be dealt with separately, both Iran and Pakistan need the Taliban to keep the so-called Islamic State and other transnational jihadi actors in check. ISIS has been neutralized in Iraq recently, so Iran does not want to see the jihadis grow in strength on its eastern flank. Pakistan, at its turn, fears that if ISIS grows its posture in Afghanistan, that may add more militant insurgency near its own borders. The key to keeping ISIS in control in Afghanistan is the Taliban’s ability to build stable governance. Even if the Taliban dominates the country militarily, a viable economy would secure effective governance. However, considering the way things are, it is unlikely for this to happen, especially since the Taliban are increasingly struggling to balance the pragmatism necessary to govern with their core ideological commitments. If the Taliban moderate their behavior, they could lose many of their members to more radical groups. If they don’t moderate their behavior, then the country’s socio-economic situation may further deteriorate. ISIS could gain ground. Both Pakistan and Iran would want to prevent that by influencing the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan is limited by unprecedented social and political crises. Iran may have a better chance (Mahnad et al., 2014). Iran’s border with Afghanistan is a third of the border Pakistan shares with Afghanistan. However, Iran could cultivate ties with the majority Afghan ethnic group, the Pashtuns, by using Dari, the Afghan variant of Persian, as a lingua franca. Tehran also maintained good ties with Afghanistan’s various minorities, like the Tajik, the Uzbek, the Hazara, the Turkmen, and even the Baluch communities. Politically, Iran and Pakistan have competed in Kabul. In the early 1990s, it supported a coalition of smaller groups, including communities inclined to ally with Tehran, such as the Tajiks and the Shiite Hazaras. They opposed to the Taliban, but

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were never able to form a political movement able to compete them. Back then, Tehran couldn’t hold much influence (if any) in Kabul. However, things have changed now. The Taliban, which runs the Afghan government, is no longer solely a Pashtun organization. In time, the Talibans have reached out to various ethnic minorities in the country (which also explains their efficiency in taking control of the country in 2021). Moreover, during the last 15 years, Iran has enhanced its relations with elements of the Taliban insurgency. It needed to do so, considering the movement was clearly too powerful to ignore. Much of Iran’s change of strategy is explained by the country’s relationship to the USA. In 2001, Tehran provided intelligence support to the USA, helping the Alliance oust the Taliban from power. The US involvement in Iraq and disputes over Tehran’s nuclear program changed relations between the two countries. Therefore, starting in 2005, the Iranians have begun cultivating ties with the Taliban. By 2010, the Taliban insurgents were supplied with weapons by the Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) (Mustafa et al., 2020). At the same time, Iran kept a good relationship with the minority groups in Afghanistan. All this speaks to Iran’s ability to help the Taliban in Kabul stabilize Afghanistan. But Tehran, too, is limited in its actions. First, helping the Talibans build stability in Afghanistan requires Tehran to cooperate with Islamabad. Second, its capacity to grow its influence within the region is dependent upon the increasing challenges it faces at home.

References AFP NDTV R. (2022). Pakistan’s Taliban ends ceasefire agreement, orders attacks across country. In: NDTV.com. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/pakistans-taliban-end-ceasefireagreement-order-attacks-across-country-3560476. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Ahmad, A. (1973). The National Question in Baluchistan. Pakistan Forum, 3, 4. https://doi.org/10. 2307/2569087 Ahmed, K. (2021). ‘War on terror’ has cost Pakistan more than $150bn in losses since 9/11, officials say. In: Arab News. https://arab.news/zt78q. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Bokhari, K. (2022). Pakistan’s Military is weakening politically – Geopolitical futures. https:// geopoliticalfutures.com/pakistans-military-is-weakening-politically/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Bonner, B. (2023). The fragile state of Pakistan. In: GIS Reports. https://www.gisreportsonline. com/r/pakistan-fragile-state/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Dawn, R. (2018). Literacy rate has fallen to 58pc, minister tells Senate. In: DAWN.COM. https:// www.dawn.com/news/1452740. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Ebrahim, Z. T. (2023). Pakistan sends back hundreds of Afghan refugees to face Taliban repression. In: The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jan/10/ pakistan-sends-back-hundreds-of-afghan-refugees-to-face-taliban-repression. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. European Union Agency for Asylum R. (2022). Mobility trends report: Afghan Nationals in Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia. https://euaa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publica tions/2022-09/2022_09_Afghanistan_Mobility_Trends.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar 2023.

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Frelick, B. (2022). No One Asked Me Why I Left Afghanistan. In: “No One Asked Me Why I Left Afghanistan”: Pushbacks and Deportations of Afghans from Turkey | HRW. https://www.hrw. org/report/2022/11/18/no-one-asked-me-why-i-left-afghanistan/pushbacks-and-deportationsafghans-turkey. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Griffiths, P. J. (1968). India, Pakistan, and the West, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857–1964, Experiment with Freedom: India and Pakistan, 1947, The Partition of India 1947 and The Indo-Pak Conflict of 1965. International Affairs, 44, 143–145. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 2613591 Hafeez, S. (2023). Gwadar’s trials and tribulations. In: Gwadar’s trials and tribulations – The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/gwadars-trials-and-tribulations/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Hessari, F. A., & Kazemzadeh, A. (2004). A case study of sustainable development in the SistanBalochistan province of Iran. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 11, 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504500409469810 Hussain, A. (2022). Imran Khan asks Pakistan’s president to investigate military. In: Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/7/imran-khan-requests-president-to-launch-inquiryon-military. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Hussain, A. (2023). Pakistan’s army chief visits Saudi Arabia amid economic crisis. In: Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/7/pakistans-new-army-chief-asif-munir-visits-saudiarabia-economic-crisis. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Ishfaq, U., & Ashfaq, K. (2021). Pakistan’s Foreign Policy towards Afghanistan. Global Foreign Policies Review, IV, 29–36. https://doi.org/10.31703/gfpr.2021(iv-iii).04 Kermani, S. (2022). Imran Khan: What led to charismatic Pakistan PM’s downfall. In: BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61047736. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Khan, S. (2023). UAE agrees to rollover $2bn loan, give additional $1bn. In: DAWN.COM. https:// www.dawn.com/news/1731269. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Latifi, A. M. (2022). Over 240,000 Afghan refugees deported from Iran and Turkey. In: Middle East Eye. http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-turkey-afghan-refugees-deported. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Mahmood, Z. (2020). Critical discourse analysis of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan: An intertextual recontextualization. Pakistan Social Sciences Review, 4, 503–524. https://doi.org/10.35484/ pssr.2020(4-ii)41 Mahnad, L., Nader, A., Scotten, A. G., et al. (2014). Iran’s influence in Afghanistan. Rand Corporation. Mayadeen, A. (2023). Fishermens’ protest in Pakistan Gwadar port is a bone in the throat of Beijing. In: Fishermens’ protest in Pakistan Gwadar port is a bone in the throat of Beijing | bilaterals.org. https://www.bilaterals.org/?fishermens-protest-in-pakistan. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Motamedi, M. (2022). Iran says four security forces killed near Pakistan border. In: Iran says four security forces killed near Pakistan border | News | Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/ news/2022/12/19/irgc-says-four-security-forces-killed-near-pakistan-border. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Mustafa, G., Ahmed, M., & Junaid, A. (2020). Role of China and Iran in Afghanistan peace process. sjesr, 3, 424–432. https://doi.org/10.36902/sjesr-vol3-iss4-2020(424-432) Nazir, M. (2023). CPEC made Gwadar look attractive to Pakistan. But “development” ringing hollow to local people. In: ThePrint. https://theprint.in/opinion/cpec-made-gwadar-lookattractive-to-pakistan-but-development-ringing-hollow-to-local-people/1307189/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Nelson, M. J. (2010). Pakistan in 2009: Tackling the Taliban? Asian Survey, 50, 112–126. https:// doi.org/10.1525/as.2010.50.1.112 Omrani, B. (2009). The Durand Line: History and problems of the Afghan-Pakistan Border. Asian Affairs, 40, 177–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/03068370902871508

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PTI R. (2017). Pakistan’s Gwadar port leased to Chinese company for 40 years. In: The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/pakistans-gwa dar-port-leased-to-chinese-company-for-40-years/articleshow/58284735.cms. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Raheem, A., Badshah, I., & Arshed, W. (2021). Political economy of smuggling: The living source for the natives (a case study of Jiwani-Iran Border, Baluchistan). Journal of Development and Social Sciences, 2. https://doi.org/10.47205/jdss.2021(2-iv)66 Rana, S. (2017). 6th census findings: 207 million and counting | The Express Tribune. In: The Express Tribune. https://tribune.com.pk/story/1490674/57-increase-pakistans-population-19years-shows-new-census. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Raza, F. (2019). Prospects for Pakistan-China-Iran trilateral cooperation: Opportunities and challenges. Strategic Studies, 39, 37–52. https://doi.org/10.53532/ss.039.03.00104 Rehman, Z. U. (2014). The Baluch insurgency: Linking Iran to Pakistan. In: Norwegian Peacebuilding Center. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/180927/31c68a20991b5a98b0dece4fd92 9c9c8.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Reuters, R. (2022). Pakistan army chief Javed Bajwa takes on Imran Khan over alleged US conspiracy – Times of India. In: The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ world/pakistan/pakistan-army-chief-javed-bajwa-takes-on-imran-khan-over-alleged-us-conspir acy/articleshow/95720210.cms. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. RFE/RL Mashaal R. (2022). Pakistani Raid Kills All Taliban Hostage-Takers, Hostages Released, Government Says. In: RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistantaliban-hostages-raid-pakhtunkhwa-militants-killed/32185070.html. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Rizvi, A. (2018). Review on political system of Pakistan. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/ 10.2139/ssrn.3207128. Sabawoon, M. (2020). The Gates of Friendship: How Afghans cross the Afghan-Pakistani border – Afghanistan Analysts Network – English. In: Afghanistan Analysts Network – English. https:// www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/regional-relations/the-gates-of-friendship-howafghans-cross-the-afghan-pakistani-border/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Save the Children R. (2022). Pakistan Floods: More than 3.4 million children across Pakistan going hungry – Pakistan. In: ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-floods-more-34million-children-across-pakistan-going-hungry. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Schofield, J. (2011). Diversionary wars: Pashtun unrest and the sources of the Pakistan-Afghan confrontation. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 17, 38–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422. 2011.557283 Schwemlen, J. (2022). Why Imran Khan Isn’t Going Away. In: Carnegie Endowment. https:// carnegieendowment.org/2022/04/12/why-imran-khan-isn-t-going-away-pub-86880. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Subramanian, N. (2022). Army got Imran Khan PM’s job, why it’s now tugging at the rug under his feet. In: The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/no-confidence-motionpakistan-army-got-imran-khan-pms-job-why-its-now-tugging-at-the-rug-under-his-feet-78451 84/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. UNHCR R. (2022). Situation Afghanistan situation. In: Situation in Afghanistan. https://data.unhcr. org/en/situations/afghanistan. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Webber, L. (2023). Islamic State Khorasan: Global Jihad in a Multipolar World. In: Islamic State Khorasan: Global Jihad in a Multipolar World – The Diplomat. https://thediplomat. com/2023/01/islamic-state-khorasan-global-jihad-in-a-multipolar-world/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Woo, B. (2021). Empirical categorization of middle powers and how different middle powers are treated in international organizations: The case of India and South Korea. International Area Studies Review, 24, 149–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/22338659211024872

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World Bank R. (2022). Pakistan Floods 2022. Post Disaster Need Assessment. In: World Bank. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/4a0114eb7d1cecbbbf2f65c5ce0789db-0310012022/ original/Pakistan-Floods-2022-PDNA-Main-Report.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. World Bank R. (2023). World bank overview – Pakistan. In: World Bank. https://www.worldbank. org/en/country/pakistan/overview. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Wriggins, H. (1973). One year later: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Worldview, 16, 6–13. https:// doi.org/10.1017/s0084255900017381 Yeni Șafak, R. (2023). Pakistan urges Iran not to let ‘terrorists use its soil for attacks’. In: Yeni Şafak. https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/pakistan-urges-iran-not-to-let-terrorists-use-itssoil-for-attacks-3659212. Accessed 19 Mar 2023.

Chapter 5

Iran: The Resurgent(?) Landlocked Power

5.1

Geographical Challenges and Geopolitical Imperatives

Bordering the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, Iran is located in both Western South Asia and the Middle East. It literally sits at the crossroads of the Islamic World, being a pivot state between South and Central Asia, the Middle East, and the South Caucasus. Iran has struggled to balance the benefits and the risks coming from its geographic position.

5.1.1

The Human Geography of a Mountainous Landscape

Iran’s core is within the western Zagros Mountain range, running from the South Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. This is where the Persian Empire began spreading throughout Iran’s mountainous topography. At its height, the empire stretched from the eastern Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush mountains, bridging modern-day Europe and Asia. Arabs, Mongols, and Turks have conquered parts of the Persian Empire, making it want to expand territorial control to protect its core. Persian history explains why Iran’s primary geographic challenge is to secure itself from external threats on its borders (Stratfor, 2011). This is despite the fact that, looking at the geographic terrain, tall mountains border the country. Besides the Zagros Mountains, the Alborz Mountains run east-west along the Caspian Sea in Iran’s northern frontier, separating Iran from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkmenistan. To the east, mountains separate Iran from Afghanistan and Pakistan. As we have learned, even if they are a natural barrier, mountains pose specific security challenges. Defense comes easy for Iran as long as the country is stable and there are no political and/or ethnic factions posing a threat to its stability. Iran has several large minority populations, including the Baluchis, Azeris, and Kurds, all of which have separatist tendencies. This is a problem that the current regime has tried © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_5

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to solve by cultivating a national identity based on the shared Persian language and Shiism. However, religion is not the best tool to work with when it comes to managing the frontier areas. While South Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Caucasus are all home to a Shiite population, Iran is the only Islamic State, incorporating religious practices into its acts of government (Arjomand et al., 1982). Iran is also the only state that the majority of the population is Shiite. This limits its ability to use religion to grow its influence in its neighborhood (Farazmand, 1995). It is surrounded by either Sunni majority states (Saudi Arabia being the most prominent example) or rather secular Shiite states (Azerbaijan or Iraq, which has a weak government). Therefore, it doesn’t have natural allies in its neighborhood. This is why Iran’s national security strategy is to neutralize all threats resulting from the growing influence of the Sunni Arabs. This is how, through Iran, South Central Asia, and the Middle East, they become integrated. All in all, the relationship between Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and India defined the dynamics of the two regions. To stay safe, Iran needed to protect itself against security risks stemming from Afghanistan and Pakistan while trying to grow its power in the Middle East, taking advantage of the conflicts and poor socio-economic conditions in the region. Traditionally, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been allies, sharing the same religion (Weinbaum & Khurram, 2014). Meanwhile, Iran and India shared similar interests (Hafeez, 2019). India needs to keep Pakistan from extending its influence and has coordinated with Iran on all Afghan moves against Pakistan’s interests. India has also been the major investor in Chabahar port in Iran, considering it to be a good gateway for Afghanistan and other Central Asian markets to the Persian Gulf, currently depending on Pakistan to reach the sea. Iran welcomed Indian investments, especially as it felt jealous on Pakistan for getting China’s attention and money (Mattoo, 2022).

5.1.2

Assessing Imperatives and the Regional Moving Parts

Considering Pakistani relations to the USA, India has always needed to be careful of the US’s balance of power act in the region. Seeing eye to eye on Afghanistan, when the USA was committed to support Pakistan’s interests was key to India. But the USA leaving Afghanistan while Pakistan no longer enjoys good ties with Washington is seen as both an opportunity and a challenge for India. Iran needed to consider closer ties with Pakistan due to the common threat that Afghanistan poses (Narayanan Kutty, 2023). Consequently, Saudi Arabia, becoming wary of such relations, has entertained better relations with India, which India reciprocated, for similar reasons (Fontenrose, 2021). In other words, the regional dynamics have shifted once the USA signaled its withdrawal. Now, they are in full motion. Consequently, to the US withdrawal from the region, Iran also reassesses its allies in the Middle East. After the Iranian Revolution, there were few friendly states Iran

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could have allied with. However, in the 1980s, Islamist groups were gaining popularity—this was a great audience for Iran, which at the time promoted Islamism for governance. This made it easy for Iran to find allies within the Shiite groups in the Arab world. Hezbollah has been a key group that Iran has nurtured in the Middle East. Syria, the only state in the Middle East that is allied with Iran, also sponsors Hezbollah (Wastnidge, 2017). Syria is allied with Iran for a few reasons. First, the Assad clan belongs to the sect of Shiite Islam known as the Alawites. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the Assads and the Alawites headed the Syrian Baath Party, in conflict with the Iraqi Baath Party, led by Saddam Hussein. At the time, the Iraqis were supported by Saudi Arabia. On a smaller scale, Iran also tried to support the Kurdish factions and the Iraqi Shiite groups to counter the Iraqi government. Tehran maintained such relations until today (El Husseini, 2010). Iran strategy was largely successful. Tehran used sectarian differences in the region, disagreements among Arab states, and proxies to grow its influence in the Middle East. While doing so, Iran was also rebuilding itself internally. In the neighborhood, Iraq faced a conflict with Kuwait that culminated in the Persian Gulf War, leaving it weakened. Moreover, in the early 2000s, with the emergence of the US-led war on terror, Iraq needed to be neutralized. The USA would cooperate with Iran in the subsequent invasion of Iraq in 2003. Saudi Arabia, even if it had grown by then into a strong US ally and supported the US-led war on terror, opposed the move. Ryad knew that if Saddam Hussein fell, he could be replaced with a Shiite state allied with Iran. Even if Washington and Tehran coordinated in Iraq, the USA imposed a sanctions regime on Iran, considering its nuclear program. The Europeans joined the USA in imposing sanctions against Tehran (Rezaei, 2017). Iran’s nuclear program had been launched in the 1950s with the help of the USA, and Tehran ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. However, after the 1979 revolution, the USA ceased working on the program. Despite this, Iran continued its nuclear program on a clandestine basis, giving the West good reason to believe that the Iranian nuclear program is not meant for civilian use only and was likely developed for military purposes (Reardon, 2012). The sanctions didn’t stop coordination between the USA and Iran in Iraq. After Saddam fell, Iraq had indeed become an ally of Iran, something that made it a must. Until the USA left Iraq, Iran and the USA had a complex relationship of competition and cooperation in Iraq (Nader, 2015). However, once the USA withdrew from Iraq, there was no better time for Iran. Right now, the Shia factions are fighting one another for power, and the political void is damaging the country. Elsewhere in the region, Syria, Iran’s closest ally, had become a war zone. The civil unrest turned into a civil war. Rebel forces fighting against the Assad regime were supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Russia joined Iran in supporting Assad, and the government regained a lot of territory it had lost. However, the country is much weaker—a shadow of what it once was (Abdulaaev, 2022). Not a strong partner for Tehran anymore.

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Things are not different elsewhere. In Yemen, the Iranian-supported Houthi movement remains contained by the Saudis. More than four million people have been displaced by the fighting, which has also caused cholera outbreaks, medication shortages, and hunger concerns (UN OCHA, 2019). Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict has stretched the group thin in Lebanon, another country in the region facing difficult socio-economic problems (Holleis, 2023). Iran appears to have exploited all opportunities it had in the Arab world. It looks like Tehran faces a lot of constraints. The year 2023 finds Iran more isolated than at any point in decades. It has very little options besides trying to better its ties with its eastern neighbors—Pakistan and Afghanistan, while hoping for the best with regard to its ties to its West. But perhaps the most important challenge Iran faces is at home.

5.2

Iran’s Internal Problems and Strategic Priorities

For years, Iran has been experiencing financial pain due to international sanctions. Most types of sanctions the West has used against Russia during 2022 were previously tested on Iran as part of the Western dispute with Tehran over the nuclear program. Iranian politics were since then shaped by the country’s relationship with the West and its socio-economic problems.

5.2.1

An Analysis on the Iran’s Contemporary Revolutionary Spirits

Massive anti-regime protests started in September 2022 after a young woman died while in the custody of the morality police. She was detained for “improper hijab,” a headscarf that Iranian women must wear by law. However, the protests were demanding more than just social and political reforms, but the regime’s complete ouster (Askew, 2022). Iran’s merciless crackdown has made the demonstrations die down during the first weeks of 2023. However, countrywide strikes and other acts of resistance, such as writing slogans or destroying government signs, have increased. The protesters are mostly young, which makes them intent on keeping the resistance movement going. This doesn’t mean, however, that the protests have much chance of changing the regime (Safaei, 2023). The major challenge for the country’s young population protesting against the regime is to win over older middle-class Iranians, who fear its violence. Then joining the resistance movement will allow it to reach critical mass. Without their joining, it is unlikely for leaders to emerge from among the protesters or for the demonstrations to make the regime react.

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Iran’s Internal Problems and Strategic Priorities

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While nothing yet suggests that the regime will disintegrate, most recent polls indicate that it is losing some support. Confidence in national government has been on a decreasing trend since 2011, when national government enjoyed the confidence of 80% of the respondents in a Gallup poll. However, confidence ratings for the national government are at 54% in 2022, while only 44% approve of the country’s leadership (Gallup World Poll, 2023). The trend is downward but holding steady and not sharp. Things are different when it comes to the presidency. The approval ratings for Iran’s presidency dropped significantly just one year after the presidential elections. About 40% of the respondents to a Gallup poll in 2022 disapprove of the country’s president, a sharp increase from 16% the year before (Gallup World Poll, 2023). The ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi got elected in 2021. Therefore, in 2022, the regime was set to undergo a major transition from a moderate to a hard-line president. This would have accompanied the transition that everyone is thinking about: the key open question of who will succeed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Rahimpour, 2020). At the same time, Iran is experiencing a great deal of financial pain. The government announced that poverty doubled during the last year, while inflation reached 45 percent at the end of December. This paints a dire situation for the economy. However, the latest polls conducted by Gallup paint a rather contradictory picture. On one side, about 60% of the respondents are satisfied with their standard of living, and 56% trust the financial institutions. On the other hand, only 11% say that the local job market is “good,” 76% are dissatisfied with their housing conditions, and 54% worry about not having enough money for food (Gallup World Poll, 2023). While nothing suggests the regime is in trouble, the rather contradictory polling data talks about a hidden but growing social anger. The degree of isolation that Iran finds itself in is certainly not helping. This is likely the reason why it has chosen to release statistics pointing at their dire economic situation. On January 22, 2023, Iranian President Raisi was addressing the parliament, acknowledging the problem of growing inflation after the national currency had hit a record high in its devaluation against the US dollar (AFP/France 24, 2023). At the end of 2022, inflation had reached 45%, and some estimates for mid-January were of 48 percent, underlining a galloping upward trend. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare released a report confirming that the number of Iranians living in poverty had doubled from 2020 to 2021, pointing to a dramatic escalation of the country’s socio-economic problems (Iran International, 2023). The regime would benefit from the West relaxing its sanctions toward Iran. But the West is unlikely to be kinder to Tehran. Not after its recent decision to supply weapons to Russia (Gramer, 2023). Meanwhile, the Iranian political stability further weakens. Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian society has undergone a massive political and cultural shift which divided it between secularist and religious views. To understand the current turmoil the country finds itself into, it is necessary to know the framework of Iranian theocracy.

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A Structural Overview of Iran’s Problems and Priorities

The intellectual basis of the Islamic Republic was established by Ruhollah Khomeini, the country’s religious leader who led the revolution against the Shah. Even if the country’s armed forces had declared their neutrality toward the revolution, taking the revolutionaries fear of a countercoup, Khomeini established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the IRGC) to lead the forces that were committed to the new regime. The IRGC was initially a counterweight to the regular army, which had been originally loyal to the Shah. The new Iranian constitution formalized the permanence of the IRGC, making it the key institution of the country (Alamdari, 2005). The fundamental change that the IRGC facilitated was the gradual killing (or its taking over) of the functions of the Iranian bazaar. The bazaar, a metaphor for the great marketplace of Iran, was, in fact, the economic pillar of the country, a representation of Iran’s capitalism. Through commerce and market laws, the relations resulting from trading with the West had the power to shape society. The religious leadership would often work with the bazaar’s merchants to shape their relations with the monarchy (Adib-Moghaddam, 2018). The merchants were key players in the revolution, having organized, together with the clerics, many demonstrations leading up to the events of spring 1979 (Mazaheri, 2006). After the revolution, the conservative bazaar merchants became part of the government and therefore lost their influence in the civil society. The merchants had essentially split into two camps: one that was loyal and one that was disloyal to the regime. This had become obvious after the Iran–Iraq War in 1988 and after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. During President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s time in office from 1989 to 1997, with the regime looking to benefit from globalization, the IRGC was allowed to become an economic entity. In maintaining control over the economy, the IRGC guaranteed that no uprising would be facilitated by the merchants. In the early 2000s, the IRGC expanded its role in the economy, with conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad, initially the mayor of Tehran and later the president of the country, facilitating IRGC-linked companies’ dominance of private sector activities (Gregory, 2010). In time, the IRGC excluded other players than those it could control from all critical infrastructure in the country. In its business role, the IRGC even took on a perverse mission of looking for ways to smuggle goods into the country, considering the economic sanctions. However, business makes for competition. With profits, homogeneity was lost within the IRGC. The merchants who helped finance political successes became constituents of the political system (Wehrey et al., 2009). Most of them were producers of goods and services, targeting the internal market. The ones focusing on trading goods (smuggling included) have created a new class of merchants. Rival political groups have appeared, and as the economic conditions worsen, tensions facilitate instability. This is why Iran’s economic problems can’t be dismissed when it comes to popular uprisings. Especially since Iran has entered, since 2021, a transition period, with the conservatives focused on the selection of a successor for the Supreme

5.3

The Signs for Change in the Middle East—and Their Limits

63

Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While Khamenei would like for his son to inherit his position, the IRGC is opposed to the idea. The opposition had already cost the IRGC intelligence chief his job. Meanwhile, there seems no politician is up for the job, considering most candidates have controversial pasts and there is no charismatic religious figure that would independently fill the political vacuum. No matter the candidates for a successor, the religious establishment is not considering reform. The rivalry factions within the conservatives will likely increase the likelihood for opposition to any potential successors to the supreme leader. Therefore, political instability is likely to increase. Even if it may take years for the Iran political regime to fall—or change, the process has started in 2022. Because Iran can’t influence the region if it doesn’t enjoy stability at home, the very potential for change triggers consequences for the Middle East. When (and if) the clerical regime falls, the Sunni-Shia sectarian war will likely end, considering no support for Shia factions would be available. However, the fact that the regime in Iran might change or fall is not necessarily good news. Even if Tehran governance model will increasingly prove dysfunctional, there is no clear and institutionally viable alternative to replace it. A transition process will take place—and that is usually painful, the country usually going through years of turmoil. The recent post-Cold War reality in Eastern Europe teaches us that even when democracy succeeds, it does not emerge overnight. In states that don’t have real tradition of democracy, the process is even more painful. Think Afghanistan, if nothing else. Of course, Iran geographic features, its history and culture provide for a slow transition to whatever may replace the current governing system. But the protests, along with all news reports referring to further socio-economic instability point to a new reality: the fear of anarchy will slowly replace fear of autocracy in Iran. In the process, Iran will become less and less interested in upsetting the USA. Without much ability to further support proxy groups in the Middle East, Iran must work toward a sanctions relief. Tehran knows that the USA only seeks to establish a balance of power in the region, not allowing Iran to gain too much power at the expense of the Arabs. Now that it can’t gain much power anyways, Tehran needs to enter negotiations over the nuclear deal. This is why the regime releases worrying economic statistics, while trying to restore stability. Iran also hopes to benefit from the war against the Islamic State. Because Tehran doesn’t have much room to maneuver, it can hope for a further disconnect between Turkey and the USA. But as Turkey becomes more active in Syria and in the Black Sea, Iran will only face new challenges. This is how the troubles Iran faces only announce new troubles for Turkey, in a yet different borderland than that of Iran.

5.3

The Signs for Change in the Middle East—and Their Limits

Saudi Arabia and Iran, two of the Middle East’s most powerful rivals, announced on March 11, 2023, that they had made peace following a conference in Beijing and had agreed to restore diplomatic relations after more than seven years of bitter relations

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and confrontation. They will reopen embassies in Tehran and Riyadh and pursue further talks toward rapprochement (Daou, 2023). The move, which surprised many, should not have come as a surprise, given the geopolitical imperatives and the current environment in the region. Domestic instability in Iran, a recent wave of normalization efforts between former adversaries in the region (such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Israel), the slow demise of the Iran nuclear deal, and signs of further US disengagement from the Middle East laid the foundations for Saudi-Iranian dialogue (Ataman et al., 2022). With the USA taking a back seat militarily (especially after the withdrawal from Afghanistan) and no regional security framework in place to prevent rapid escalation, the stage is set for Riyadh and Tehran to attempt warmer relations. Despite the decade-long tensions, both countries have an interest in cooperating given the highly vulnerable regional socioeconomics.

5.3.1

A Narrow Window of Opportunity: The Rapprochement Between Iran and Saudi Arabia

To understand the limits of cooperation, we need to address the Iranian-Saudi rivalry and its sources. The Saudi-Iranian relationship reached a breaking point on the evening of January 2, 2016, when Iranian demonstrators set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in protest of the execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr (Deutche Welle, 2016). Riyadh responded by closing the embassy, cutting diplomatic ties, and putting pressure on partners to isolate Iran. The 2016 incident was the last straw for Saudi Arabia, but it came after decades of rivalry for regional influence. Both countries see themselves as natural Middle Eastern leaders. They believe they are geographically and ideologically wellpositioned to project power and shape regional geopolitics in their favor. Saudi Arabia regards itself as the Sunni Arab world’s leader and wields considerable power over its Gulf neighbors and other Sunni Arab states. Riyadh is strategically located between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, bordering the Levant. Saudi Arabia’s ideological influence is one of its greatest assets; it is considered the birthplace of Islam and the custodian of its two holy cities, Mecca and Medina (Soage, 2017). This is accompanied by the fact that the country has the world’s second-largest oil reserves. In comparison, Iran is home to more than one-third of the world’s Shia Muslims, an identity that has been deeply ingrained in the country’s domestic and foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran has attempted to weaken Arab nationalism by introducing sectarian rivalry, undermining Gulf leadership over the Arab world by taking advantage of sectarian schisms in other countries in the region and making use of its revolutionary ideology to foment unrest and project influence abroad. Given its geographic constraints, Iran is relying on its politicization of

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sectarian ideology and Shiite militarism to maintain a bridge of political, security, and economic influence from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Iran has also heavily relied on proxy networks and security assistance, particularly in states with significant governance gaps and sectarian divisions, such as Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. As a result, Saudi Arabia and Iran are natural adversaries. Their ideological differences were violently expressed in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, with Iran establishing a network of loyalist militant groups through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Saudi Arabia assisting its opponents or intervening directly to limit Iranian influence. While countering Iran’s presence in the Levant was high on Saudi Arabia’s priority list, no conflict was closer to home than the Yemeni civil war. The Houthi rebels defeated Gulf-backed Yemeni forces with Iranian assistance, prompting Saudi Arabia to form a coalition of nine countries and intervene directly (Darwich, 2018). Undeterred, Iran countered Saudi’s actions by launching strikes on Saudi territory and on Saudi Aramco oil storage facilities in 2019 (Hubbard et al., 2019). China’s “secret” meeting in 2023 was far from the first attempt to mediate peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Countries such as Iraq and the USA had attempted regional de-escalation talks with little success (Reuters, 2023). The circumstances that brought both sides to the table in the first place are much different now than they were several years ago. Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the failure to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, exacerbated Saudi-Iranian rivalry and distrust. As Iran continued to enrich uranium at levels that exceeded the agreed-upon 3.67 percent limit under the 2015 JCPOA and as the USA signaled military withdrawal from the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and other regional players began to consider alternative self-defense options in anticipation of a more dangerous, unpredictable Iran (Akbarzadeh, 2018). As a result, former adversaries such as the UAE, Israel, Turkey, and Qatar have launched a flurry of regional normalization efforts (Singh, 2022). Initially, rapprochement has occurred primarily along economic lines (Krasna, 2022), but the underlying goal is eventual security cooperation against what appears to be a formidable regional power: Iran. However, increased militarization increases the possibility of escalation. Recognizing that the JCPOA was doomed, with Iran on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia sought out discussions to try to ease regional tensions. In terms of timing, persistent unrest within Iran created a window of opportunity for Saudi Arabia—and for the Chinese mediators—to reach an agreement with Tehran. The crisis has exposed deep political schisms and discontent with the country’s social and political policies, which has been exacerbated by the economic strain of international sanctions. The protests have also drawn attention to the uncertain constitutional succession that would occur if Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died. While the government initially cracked down on protesters, it also pardoned more than 22,000 of them, signaling a reversal from its hard-line policy (RFE/RL R Farda, 2023). Tehran understands the West will not ease sanctions and sees an opportunity to discuss this with Saudi Arabia, signaling yet another change in its policy. In other words, Tehran was in an ideal position for Riyadh to lure it to the table.

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At the same time, Saudi Arabia is also under pressure to change. When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman unveiled his vision for Saudi development in 2016, he seemed confident that his country had everything it needed to build a competitive and sustainable industrial economy by 2030. He was trustful that bright young Saudi talents could complete the monumental task. He predicted that the number of factories in Saudi Arabia would reach 36,000 by 2035. Since then, reality has set in (McBurney, 2022). Though he continued to claim that another Saudi Arabia, a fully developed country, was possible, he realized that Saudi economic development was a long way off. The new Saudi Arabia he envisioned required society to reject extremism, wean its economy off oil, establish balanced international relations, unleash society’s talents, and eradicate corruption. Instead of combating corruption, he gave it a new lease on life. The Control and Anti-Corruption Authority reports only to Prince Mohammad bin Salman and will not act against anyone unless he directs it to, even if there is documented evidence against them. Simply put, Prince Mohammad bin Salman covers up the corruption of some loyal princes while targeting those he distrusts (Zixin, 2018). Because corruption was inherent in Saudi Arabia’s economic development, it remains a critical problem in the moral justification of public policy. Oil money accentuated it, and it became a structural feature of Saudi Arabia’s rigid bureaucracy, institutionalizing corruption. If Mohammad bin Salman decides to fight the bureaucracy’s structural corruption, he risks alienating a class of beneficiaries who grew over decades and ensured the regime’s stability. If he chooses not to reform the public sector in order to maintain his authority, he will be unable to implement his contentious economic goals. Bribery, favoritism, and nepotism are thus still prevalent (Rahman, 2020). Rather than promoting new societal values, his plan rejected ideas that would promote modernity. Saudi society is divided along sharp tribal, sectarian, and regional lines, which the state has exacerbated by outlawing all spaces that bring people together, such as unions, political parties, and demonstrations (Clarke, 2007). The state deals with tribal heads or regional notables rather than citizens. There are no social integration formations in the country, making it much easier for the authorities to manage a large population. Despite deep regional divisions, the government has made no investments in nation building or defined a national identity. On the contrary, by relying on influential Sunni families in Najd and Hijaz while excluding the largely Shiite Eastern Province and Ismaili south, it solidified divisions. The government’s policies do not instill in Saudi citizens the value of hard work. Despite its surface-level technical and vocational training assistance, the government needed to do more to steer young people toward productive occupations. Instead, government welfare policies encouraged extravagant consumption and tolerated chauvinistic attitudes toward expatriate workers. Saudi youth regard vocational work as demeaning, preferring to be unemployed. The private sector, in turn, produced a local bourgeoisie rather than a national one because it refused to hire Saudis and instead relied on foreign labor. The business class is following in the

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footsteps of the state’s social policies in producing generations of young people with no skills, exacerbating the demographic crisis, and perpetuating the values that the regime imposed during the boom years (Wagner, 2022). Mohammad bin Salman’s Vision 2030 (or MBS Vision 2030), which includes the yet-to-be-built Red Sea city of NEOM, exists only in his imagination. NEOM is actually a good mirror of the upcoming challenges. Many observers agree that building a city in the desert is a $500 billion gamble. Others believe it is merely an attempt to improve the prince’s image and divert attention away from his human rights violations. He, like other megalomaniacal autocrats, wishes to construct a futuristic city that future generations will remember (Clingendael, 2022). The transition from oil is yet to be started, and instead, his coordination policy with Russia to make sure a minimum price is guaranteed for the country’s revenue levels not to drop is an indicator that oil will likely remain the most important source of revenue for the years to come. It is no coincidence the MBS Vision 2030 was launched in 2016. Between 2014 and early 2016, oil prices fell from nearly $110 per barrel to $29 (Schaer, 2022). Since then, Saudi Arabia has been forced into an uneasy alliance with Russia. Saudi Arabia’s willingness to act as a “swing producer” (Fattouh, 2015) is motivated solely by self-interest. The recent production cuts aim to shift the market narrative away from demand destruction and toward undersupply and to set a price floor of $90 per barrel. Raising oil prices would undermine US efforts to cap the price of Russian oil, which the Saudis see as a dangerous precedent (El-Erian, 2022). After all, if Western countries use their demand power to impose price caps on Russian oil, they could theoretically do the same for Middle Eastern oil. As a result, Saudi Arabia may seek to establish itself as a long-term swing producer—playing both sides, depending on its interests. However, this underlines the country’s long-term reliance on oil. Such pressures, which ultimately could drive socio-economic and political distress in the kingdom, result in good timing to work with Iran and try to have their bilateral divisions behind. After all, while Russia is a longtime ally with Iran, the USA is also supportive of anything that might change Iran’s behavior—so, it is clearly not against a rapprochement. But a first meeting doesn’t mean that there aren’t limits to further cooperation. Although Iran did not promise any significant changes in its foreign policy, it did make some concessions in the name of building trust. According to reports, Iran has agreed to halt its support for cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia by Houthi rebels in Yemen. However, even this agreement is fraught with danger and uncertainty. Both countries are aware that Iran-aligned armed groups do not always act in accordance with Tehran’s wishes and demands. At the same time, while Iran may claim that it didn’t support any future attacks, Riyadh is unlikely to believe it. Even with diplomatic relations restored, the next subjects under consideration in bilateral talks between the two countries are more difficult and may lead to dead ends. Though Iran has softened its support for Houthi militant activity, it is less likely to relinquish control of proxy militias throughout the Levant, primarily in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. This posture, which is a cornerstone of Iran’s Shiite

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Crescent strategy, has allowed Iran to geographically expand its military and ideological influence beyond the Zagros Mountain range and into the Mediterranean. Tehran regards this as a critical geopolitical imperative (which is why it was not discussed during the JCPOA negotiations). Saudi Arabia is unlikely to fare any better than the USA and the European Union in convincing Iran to back down from using such proxies since the tactic works for sustaining Tehran’s imperative. Then there’s Israel, the “elephant in the room.” The Israelis, one of Iran’s most vehement regional adversaries, are unlikely to warm up to rapprochement anytime soon. Because of the reduced US security footprint in the region, Israel has begun to shape a new regional security framework, beginning with agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, and others. Normalization under the so-called Abraham Accords provided a path for Israel to construct this security framework that would serve as a coalition to constrain Iran and its proxies (Feierstein & Guzansky, 2022). But the Saudi-Iranian agreement complicates Israeli plans. Israel will put significant pressure on its new Gulf allies to press Iran for significant concessions, particularly regarding its support for Hezbollah along Israel’s borders. Otherwise, Israel threatens to stymie progress on Abraham Accords-related infrastructure, commercial, and financial projects that the Gulf States hope will help diversify their economies. Riyadh will have to weigh the consequences of further engagement with Tehran against the harm done to its ties with Israel and the Abraham Accords. Moreover, besides the shift that normalization between Iran and Saudi Arabia could represent, underlying distrust and competing interests will be the most important limits to all normalization efforts.

5.3.2

Normalizing the Complex Relations Between Turkey and Egypt

Besides the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, another shift is marked by the warming relations between Egypt and Turkey. Relations between the two countries have worsened as the Egyptian military, then led by current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, deposed democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2013. El-Sisi then declared the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist” organization and declared it illegal. For years, Turkey has served as a haven for Egyptian opposition activists, escalating tensions between the two regional powers (Maher & Hayatsever, 2023). However, the regional dynamics and the two countries facing the common problem of economic instability offer the opportunity of a rapprochement. Egypt and Turkey have been among the main players of the Mediterranean political scene during the last decade, each looking to grow their individual posture in terms of power and influence in the geopolitical dynamics of the region. Cairo and Ankara attempted to safeguard their interests (energy, trade, and security) in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea by forming various political blocs. Although the unresolved issues in their bilateral relations are numerous

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(ranging from Libya to offshore gas disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as their specific economic interests in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa), Egypt and Turkey now have an excellent opportunity to close this chapter of controversies (Dentice 2022). The reset is an important part of a larger process involving the entire Middle East. While Ankara attempted to de-escalate its long-running disputes with Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia, Egypt revived relations with Qatar. Behind these divisions were different ideological and political views on one side, with Libya becoming one of the main theaters of conflict (Fishman, 2023), where the polarized fight against “political Islam” has increased tensions between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE on one side, and Turkey and Qatar (proponents of political Islamist activism) on the other. This axis has advocated an Islamist agenda at home since 2011. More generally, it has helped Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamist and revolutionary groups strengthen their ties and change the regional landscape in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Somalia. This required changing the regional strategic status quo, which was in opposition to Egypt’s and the Gulf’s traditionalist perceptions (shared by Israel). These actions were also an unmistakable Turkish attempt to assert its dominance in the management of the Eastern Mediterranean’s gas resources and to promote its position as Libya’s “kingmaker,” acting against comparable Egyptian interests in these areas (Dentice 2022). The current de-escalation between Egypt and Turkey needs to be seen as part of the path of regional normalization and détente that began in January 2021, following the GCC summit in al-Ula, Saudi Arabia, during which Riyadh and Doha defined the very first steps of this process, ending the Gulf blockade against Qatar (2017–2021). The resumption of bilateral talks between Cairo and Ankara was a result of this pattern, which culminated in early 2021 with the launch of a series of parallel diplomatic roundtables (Kabalan, 2021). The most important of these meetings was a two-day exploratory conference in Cairo (on May 5–6, 2021) between the deputy foreign ministers and other diplomats from both countries. The stated goal of the discussions was to try to help restore bilateral relations after years of hostility through concrete and open discussions on a variety of issues (economy, trade, and security). These talks also represented the very first step in relations between Turkey and Egypt since 2013 (Danışmanlık ve Yazılım, 2021). Since then, while the confrontational dynamic between Egypt and Turkey persists, it has become less assertive than in the past. For instance, the recent energy deal signed by Ankara and Tripoli’s Government of National Unity (GNU) on October 3, 2022, which allows Turkish and Libyan companies to conduct joint explorations in the Eastern Mediterranean, has been rejected by Cairo and Athens (Fishman, 2023). However, besides the regional context, marked by specific pressures tied, in many ways, to the US withdrawal from the region, there are also the global pressures that have created the need for the two countries to look for ways to improve their relations. The multifaceted effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have also created significant economic, social, political, and security challenges for both countries on multiple levels.

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The conflict in Ukraine has increased the threat of food insecurity, and both countries heavily rely on grain and wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, a potential food crisis and further increases in bread prices could severely destabilize Middle East and North African countries (as in Egypt) or exacerbate a looming economic and financial crisis (as in Turkey). These factors point to the potential threat of social instability. The ghost of the Arab Spring still haunts the Egyptian political establishment, which wants to avoid new protests from occurring while Turkish popular discontent could lead to further socio-economic destabilization in Turkey, which is already fragile and fighting an economic crisis. Therefore, both saw an opportunity in opening up to each other. This is why the Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry days after the earthquake in February 2023 and Egypt was one of the first countries offering help to Turkey. This was the first state visit between the two states since the normalization process started. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also visited Egypt on March 18, 2023, in an effort “to mend ties” with the country, according to reports in the Turkish media. While Ankara hopes to show its willingness to end regional isolation, Cairo is interested in Turkey withdrawing its support for the Muslim Brotherhood (Morgan, 2022). Libya is, however, key to the two countries’ relationship as it is there where both need to reach compromise. Both Cairo and Ankara believe that a large-scale resumption of violence in Libya would be economically and militarily unsustainable. That sets the common ground. A compromise for Ankara would translate into fully accepting the reality that Libya is crucial to Egypt’s survival. Meanwhile, Cairo is dissatisfied with its Libyan partners (the LNA and Khalifa Haftar) following years of ineffective sieges against Tripoli and has long been concerned about how instability in Libya can breed instability in Egypt. This would be a good background for Cairo working with Turkey in resolving the Libyan crisis. Considering that the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE reduced Egypt and Turkey’s roles in several regional dynamics, the bilateral agreement between the two could ensure they grow their posture in the region. While the Accords propose normalization between the signatories (Israel, UAE and Bahrain— with the USA mediating them), they also set up a fund for future infrastructure projects (Intl. Development Finance Corporation, 2020). Even if the fund is yet to receive funding, its first projects were reported to be the upgrading of checkpoints between Israel and the Palestinian territories and a gas pipeline between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. For Cairo, the construction of new pipelines and transport routes in the Eastern Mediterranean could potentially reduce Suez Canal transport revenues, an important source of income that generates around 2% of Egyptian GDP (Espagnol, 2022). For Turkey, such a project would weaken its ambitions in the Mediterranean in favor of other coastal states (Israel in particular). That reinforces the idea for the two to put aside their differences and use their common fears in establishing a strategic rapprochement. However, the challenges both countries face—and those that they will face—will set the pace for bilateral engagement in the future, just as the Middle East is reshaping itself.

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Morgan, N. (2022). Has Erdoğan given up on the Muslim Brotherhood? In: AhvalNews. https:// ahvalnews.com/muslim-brotherhood/has-erdogan-given-muslim-brotherhood. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Nader, A. (2015). Iran’s Role in Iraq: Room for U.S.-Iran Cooperation? In: Rand Corporation, JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep02425. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Narayanan Kutty, S. (2023). India–Iran relations and the US exit from Afghanistan: Finding commo n grou nd? Globa l Discourse, 1 3, 53–6 9. https ://doi.org/10 .1332 / 204378921x16587379187471 Rahimpour, R. (2020). Iran’s Supreme Leader: Who might succeed Ali Khamenei? In: BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55257059. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Rahman, K. (2020). An overview of corruption and anti-corruption in Saudi Arabia. In: Transparency International. https://knowledgehub.transparency.org/assets/uploads/helpdesk/Countryprofile-Saudi-Arabia-2020__PR.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Reardon, R. J. (2012). Iran’s nuclear program: Past, present, and future. In: Containing Iran: Strategies for Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/ j.ctt1q60rb.10. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Reuters, R. (2023). US aware of Iran-Saudi report, supports de-escalation in Middle East. In: The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-733956. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Rezaei, F. (2017). Sanctions and nuclear rollback: The case of Iran. Middle East Policy, 24, 74–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12309 RFE/RL R Farda R. (2023). Iranian justice chief says 22,000 protesters pardoned as part of amnesty. In: RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-pardons-amnestyprotesters/32315382.html. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Safaei, S. (2023). Iran’s protests are nowhere near revolutionary. In: Foreign Policy. https:// foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/17/irans-protests-are-nowhere-near-revolutionary/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Schaer, C. (2022). Saudi Arabia’s bid to shift from oil — fantasy or reality? – DW – 06/11/2022. In: dw.com. https://www.dw.com/en/skiing-in-saudi-arabia-fantasy-or-genuine-economic-change/ a-62090850. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Singh, M. (2022). Axis of Abraham: Arab-Israeli normalization could remake the Middle East. In: Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2022-02-22/axis-abraham. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Soage, A. B. (2017). What is Really Behind the Iran-Saudi Arabia Cold War? In: IEES Spain. https://www.ieee.es/en/Galerias/fichero/docs_opinion/2017/DIEEEO71-2017_Guerra_Fria_ ArabiaSaudi-Iran_AnaBelenSoage_ENGLISH.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Stratfor, R. (2011). The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress. In: Stratfor. article/geopolitics-Iran-holding-center-mountain-fortress. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. UN OCHA. (2019). Yemen: Over 460K cases of cholera registered to date this year. In: OCHA. https://www.unocha.org/story/yemen-over-460k-cases-cholera-registered-date-year. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Wagner, L. (2022). Make way for the King: Saudi Arabia’s Destructive Modernization – The World Mind. In: The World Mind. https://www.theworldmind.org/home/2022/10/19/make-way-forthe-king-saudi-arabias-destructive-modernization. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Wastnidge, E. (2017). Iran and Syria: An enduring axis. Middle East Policy, 24, 148–159. https:// doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12275 Wehrey, F., Green, J. D., Nichiporuk, N., et al. (2009). The IRGC’s business conglomerate and public works. In: RAND Corporation, JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.7249/mg821 osd.12.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Weinbaum, M. G., & Khurram, A. B. (2014). Pakistan and Saudi Arabia: Deference, dependence, and deterrence. The Middle East Journal, 68, 211–228. https://doi.org/10.3751/68.2.12 Zixin, L. (2018). Saudi: Anti-corruption or royal conflict? Reform is the only answer. In: Saudi: Anti-corruption or royal conflict? Reform is the only answer. https://www.ciis.org.cn/english/ COMMENTARIES/202007/t20200715_2629.html. Accessed 19 Mar 2023.

Chapter 6

The Connector Challenges

6.1

From the Middle East into Europe: Turkey

Instability stretches throughout the Greater Middle East. The political void in Afghanistan has made room for a new great game, but no party is stable enough to sustain rapid growth in influence in the country. China looks to be best prepared to hold Kabul under control—but China, too, has its internal problems to deal with first. India does not have an urgent interest in controlling Kabul other than making sure it limits Pakistani reach. To do that, it continues working with Iran. But it seems to be in no hurry to do that since Pakistan is now busy with its own existential crisis and Iran is also having a tough time at home. Meanwhile, on the other side of the region, the situation in Syria is also posing fundamental stability problems. The rise of ultra-radical jihadist organizations like the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra persuaded the United States to halt its support for groups aiming at toppling the Assad government. Meanwhile, when Iranian proxies failed to defeat the rebels, Russia had to intervene and rescue Assad’s government. But in 2022, the war in Ukraine forced Russia to change tactics on the Syrian front.

6.1.1

A Complex Equation for the Syrian Problem

In Syria, Russia has never had a sizable military presence. In order to bring fighters into Ukraine, the government had to withdraw some of its Wagner Group mercenaries and retreat from some regions in southwest and far eastern Syria. This meant that new problems would arise on the ground. Additionally, Russia has relocated an S-300 air defense system from Syria to Ukraine. As it gears up for another offensive later in 2023, Russia may be required to withdraw additional military resources and transfer them to Ukraine (Yacoubian, 2023). These moves have empowered Turkey © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_6

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in seeking to seize the upper hand over Russia. On the other hand, Iran has been looking to exploit the tactical advantage on the ground while deepening its ties with Russia. For Iran, the overthrow of the Assad regime would have amounted to making a significant rift in its sphere of influence in the region. The fragile, pro-Iranian Shiite polity in Iraq would be put in danger, and Iran would be cut off from its key regional proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah. A Sunni rebel-dominated battlespace in Syria would further isolate Iran (Lane, 2023). Turkey, on the other hand, has opposed the Assad regime from the very beginning of the Syrian civil war. Turkey broke diplomatic relations with Damascus in 2011 and supported the armed rebels in the north of the country. It has stopped engaging the Syrian regime and focused on constraining the Kurdish armed groups—such as the People’s Protection Units (YYPG)—that Turkey says sponsor Kurdish separatism and violence across Syria, Iraq, and Turkey (BBC, 2022). For Turkey, this mission has been a key national security priority. In northern Syria, Ankara has also established a peace corridor along the border, an area used to repatriate Syrian refugees and prevent violent spillover into Turkey. However, Turkey’s socio-economic conditions have translated into political problems. The devastating 7.8 earthquake in spring 2023 has increased challenges for Turkey’s stability. It affected Turkey’s southwest and Syria’s northwest (Dickie, 2023). At the time of writing, it is still unclear how much pain this will add to the current problems that the country is dealing with. There has already been increased hostility toward Turkey’s four million Syrian refugees (Kirişci, 2023). This, combined with increasing tensions between the Turks and the Kurds, given the terrorist attack in Istanbul on November 13, 2022, has made the current Erdogan regime consider the establishment of the repatriation zone in Syria’s north and combating Kurdish armed groups a key and urgent goal prior to the earthquake. The Turkish government did not achieve this militarily during Operation ClawSword in November and early December, halting a ground incursion in the face of international pressure and signs of blowback among dormant Islamic State cells across northeastern Syria (Rose et al., 2023). Considering the elections in May 2023, the Turkish leadership had started exploring the potential for engagement with the Assad regime.

6.1.2

A Rapprochement and Its (Im)possibility

Before February, the idea of a rapprochement with the Syrian regime was part of the government party’s political campaigning strategy. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) has gained approval for the rapprochement not only from its coalition partners, such as the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, but also from the main opposition force, the Republican People’s Party. The Turkish government has been cautious in starting high-level meetings and building momentum to eventually convene both countries’ foreign ministers and heads of state. Russia was key to

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From the Middle East into Europe: Turkey

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mediating these efforts. Moscow hosted the first high-level meeting between Turkish intelligence and defense officials and their counterparts. On this occasion, the first draft of a “Turkish-Syrian-Russian roadmap” was drawn (Soylu, 2022). In January 2023, reports quoted Turkish President Erdogan as saying that he might meet Syria’s Assad after a trilateral foreign ministers meeting. According to reports, the plan would reopen the Aleppo-Latakia highway, expand joint military patrols, and lay the groundwork for gradually pushing the YPG out of Turkey’s intended buffer zone along the border (Hamidi, 2023). People’s Protection Units or YPG (in Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) is a Kurdish militia that was founded in 2011 in Syria and was involved in the Syrian Civil War. The YPG is closely linked to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish political organization in Syria, which opposes the Assad regime. However, Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group that has been fighting for greater autonomy in Turkey for several decades. This is why Ankara has been concerned about the growing influence of the YPG in northern Syria, accusing the YPG of launching attacks on Turkish soil. During the last decade, Turkey has carried out a series of military operations in northern Syria aimed at pushing back the YPG and creating a “safe zone” along the border. The YPG, for its part, has accused Turkey of targeting Kurdish civilians in its operations and has called on the international community to intervene. The YPG has also been critical of the United States for its support of Turkey, which the YPG sees as a betrayal of their shared fight against ISIS. Overall, the relationship between the YPG and Turkey is characterized by deep mistrust and conflict, and the situation is likely to remain tense and unpredictable in the near future. This is why the Turkey-Syria-Russia roadmap that has been drafted raises a few important questions about the way Turkey might change its focus in the region (Lister, 2023). On January 18, 2023, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the United States and likely discussed the matter. Considering that more reports about contacts between Turkey and Syria followed in the weeks after the meeting, the rapprochement is likely something that Turkey and the US are consulting on, if not coordinating on (United States Department of State, 2023). Just as Syria has been consulting with Russia. But this doesn’t guarantee much at the moment—it only includes the matter within the list to be settled during the global economic realignment that started when the war in Ukraine began. Moreover, the way Turkey will grow its own stability while increasing its posture in the region will set (and limit) most of the regional challenges for European security.

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The Earthquake and Its Shaky Ramifications

On February sixth, 2023, in the morning, two powerful earthquakes struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, causing thousands of buildings to collapse and burying families as they slept. Aftershocks continued for days, and they continue at the time of this writing. The death toll is more than 50,000, with more than 6000 buildings collapsing and about 7000 severely damaged, with adjacent infrastructure affected. In total, about 23 million lives have been damaged one way or another by the quake (Al Jazeera, 2023). As the enormous human tragedy is being reported by the media and as international aid and rescue teams flow into the country, repercussions are starting to be discussed and thought about.

6.2.1

A Factor for External Disruption or One for External Consolidation?

For the Turkish government, the earthquakes are a major disruptor. Not only does it need to ensure disruption management for the area but considering that the earthquake-affected northern Syria and the rebel Kurdish area, it also poses new security challenges as well as fresh opportunities. The Turkish Foreign Minister confirmed on Feb. 8 that Turkey is working to open two more border crossings with Syria to allow more humanitarian aid to enter the country. The number of border crossings between the two countries was reduced from four to one, and even if it serves the Syrian rebel area to receive aid since 2014 through a mechanism created in 2014, it is highly contested by Damascus and its ally Moscow, which see it as a violation of Syrian sovereignty. However, Turkey has been working on a rapprochement with the Syrian regime (with Russia as the mediator) for months now. Opening more border crossings now would literally mean more bridges being built between the two countries (Suleiman et al., 2023). Or, instead, that they are broken, considering growing fears on the Syrian side and the fact that Moscow is in fact the decision-maker. In fact, during a visit to Moscow in March, 2023, Syria’s Assad conditioned talks on Turkey’s full withdrawal from the regions it currently controls (Al-Khalidi, 2023). Doing so is unacceptable for Turkey, considering that it needs to make sure that it keeps risks at a minimum considering that months following the earthquake. Moreover, it is expected that more Syrians could seek refuge in Turkey and Europe after the earthquake. This would add to the list of problems that the Erdogan regime deals with internally. Worsening economic conditions during the last few years have translated into domestic political frustrations, including hostility toward the country’s four million Syrian refugees—the very reason for which Turkey sought to reestablish diplomatic relations with Damascus.

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However, an increase in the flow of refugees would also translate into a new opportunity for Turkey’s diplomatic ties with Europe. Since 2012, the EU has been sending Turkey close to $4 billion in humanitarian aid to assist the country with Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, and other refugees (European Commission, 2022). Negotiating European aid and ways to reinforce EU security has been one of the major issues that Ankara discussed with Brussels during the last decade. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the EU has mobilized its rescEU strategic reserves and announced a fund of $3.21 million for emergency humanitarian assistance (European Commission, 2023). Sweden is holding the EU presidency, and its accession to NATO has been dependent on the Turkish vote. Turkey has been threatening to veto the Swedish membership due to its stance on Kurdish issues. Meanwhile, Sweden has a good track record with providing humanitarian aid and has been among the first countries to help Turkey, sending rescue teams and civil engineers, IT and logistics experts to the country to help with logistical aspects. Sweden is also the only European country that has already announced it will contribute about $3.5 million for emergency assistance, a sum that is comparable to the one the EU dispatched for the same purpose (Swedish Government, 2023). After all, natural disasters provide opportunities for diplomatic breakthroughs. Internally, the Turkish government knew there are some tough months ahead. A three-month state of emergency in areas struck by the earthquake was declared. The state of emergency was reported to help the regime, considering the 2023 elections season. After all, Erdogan fought the last elections during a similar state of emergency following the coup attempt. However, back then, the state of emergency was imposed on the entire country, as opposed to only 10 regions. Such a measure may have avoided major protests, but it also highlighted the difficulties the Turkish leadership faces in governing the country. While making it easier to monitor potential social unrest, it also allowed for the implementation of economic policies designed to maintain social and economic stability throughout the period of the state of emergency. However, as the state of emergency was lifted, the elections highlighted increased social tension, with current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan winning presidency by a small margin.

6.2.2

The Challenges for the Turkish Internal Buildup

There is no estimate available now on the scale of the earthquake’s economic damage. Injured workers, destroyed facilities, and interrupted transportation infrastructure are just a few of the outcomes of an earthquake. The region is key for major oil infrastructure—the foundation for Turkey becoming an energy hub. Not only that it hosts two of the major oil pipelines: Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan and Kirkuk–Ceyhan, but it is also home to two of the four Turkish oil terminals: Ceyhan and Iskenderun. While the pipelines are said to be undamaged by the quake, both terminals are affected (Reuters, 2023a, b). The port of Iskenderun closed down all operations after

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heavy fires affected the docks hours after the earthquake. The control room for the Azeri shipments of the Ceyhan oil terminal was heavily damaged. Two of three bays at the Ceyhan oil terminal are affected—only one of them, handling oil from Iraq resumed operations on February 7, 2023, in the evening. No timeline was initially given for damages to be addressed. BP Plc, which has a 30.1% stake in the Baku– Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan to Ceyhan, had declared force majeure on loadings of Azeri crude from Ceyhan until the terminal was put into action again, on February 12, 2023 (SP Global, 2023). While supplies were restored through the pipelines, their working remained under close monitoring for months and the disruption highlighted new vulnerabilities for the energy system and Turkey’s role as an energy hub under such circumstances. Apart from the energy infrastructure, roads, railways, and telecommunication lines will need to be restored or fully rebuilt. This will need lots of investment, much of which will likely be secured through international organizations—the World Bank already announced $1.78 billion in assistance to help with relief and recovery efforts of the country (World Bank, 2023). Iskenderun also hosts a metallurgical site, while the rest of the region relies on manufacturing, support industries, and services. However, while vast, the affected region is not one of Turkey’s richest. Local media reports suggest the affected region makes less than 10% of the national GDP, which, under the current circumstances, is still significant (Daily Sabah, 2023). Supply disruptions will likely put pressure on inflation, which runs counter to the intent of the government to keep the lira stable, considering upcoming elections. The current inflation level is at 64.30%, compared to 84.40% last month and 36.10% last year, with many commenting that the economy is in free fall, considering the growing trend of the general cost of living (Reuters, 2023a, b). The situation will likely continue to deteriorate, with the increasingly high cost of living driving further unrest. This only means that if the disaster response is strong and effective, keeping further repercussions on the national economy at a minimum, the ruling party will be rewarded in the next elections. If not, chances are that the opposition will likely win. This is something that Erdogan knows well—he won the 2023 elections but needs to make sure his party remains in power during the next parliamentary elections. While the media has reported that this is likely the most powerful quake in the region for at least 100 years, Turkey has had a large earthquake several decades ago. Back in 1999, Izmir and Istanbul—an area making 35% of the national GDP—were heavily affected by a major earthquake. The earthquake hit in August 1999, and the presidential elections were scheduled for April 2000. The government was blamed for the poor management of the disaster response, while the local administration was accused of being too corrupt and allowing poor construction and bad planning. Accusing the government of all wrongdoings, Erdogan won the elections and has since then ruled the country (Akarca & Tansel, 2008). Should people start questioning the quality of local administration planning, construction quality, and poor disaster response management. . . they will likely start questioning his leadership abilities. Knowing all this, he needs to keep things under control. Before the earthquake, it was expected that Erdogan would use a

6.3

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populist platform and exploit tensions with the West, including within NATO and the EU, to win votes at home. However, the support is pouring in from many countries, particularly from allies and regional players—something that limits this strategy for the long term. Instead, it is likely that he will balance between the West and the rest of the global players, including Russia, to show his negotiation skills and the ability to keep Turkey growing its power in the region.

6.3

Beyond the Crisis: Turkey’s Geopolitical Imperatives

A natural disaster that could not have been anticipated, the earthquake will drive the political life of the country in the months to come. Moreover, the earthquake repercussions added to Turkey’s socio-economic vulnerability, adding to the already high pressures that the Turkish leadership faced. The security and economic challenges that the Turkish government faces could therefore lead to a new status quo with Syria and Russia along its southern border. In return, this could also alter other Turkish interests. Growing its coordination with Russia could change Turkey’s Black Sea strategy, something that would also reshape its relationship with the US. To understand Turkey’s grand strategy, its national imperatives, and its constraints, we must examine its geography, along with its historical features that are foundational for today’s politics and economics.

6.3.1

Unpacking Turkey’s Geographical Anatomy

Turkey is a natural bridge between three regions, being able to influence clockwise the Balkans, the Black Sea wider region, and the Middle East. Dominating the Anatolian plateau, or Asia Minor, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, Turkey is a rectangular-shaped peninsular country that consists of two, secondary peninsulas: the Asiatic Anatolian Peninsula and the European Thrace located on the Balkan Peninsula. The peninsulas are thinly divided by the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits, two significant waterways that connect the Aegean, Black, and Mediterranean Seas between the two peninsulas. The features of the two peninsulas define the country’s internal tensions. The Turkish Thrace (otherwise known as the Trakya in Turkish) lies in the southeastern portion of Europe, extending from the Balkans between the Aegean and Black Seas. Geographically, it encompasses only three percent of Turkey. However, Thrace comprises over 10 percent of the Turkish population and is home to the largest city in the country, Istanbul, making it a strategically significant region (Erinç, 1970). On the other side of Turkey, the Anatolian Peninsula, also known as the Oblong peninsula or Anadolu, lies along the stretch of Asia Minor. Its plateau, consisting of the Armenian highlands and coastal areas along the Black and Mediterranean seas,

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comprises much of Turkey’s historical heartland—spanning back to the origin of the Ottoman Empire. Its eastern border is naturally defined by the Euphrates River and Armenian Highlands, between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea. The Anatolian Peninsula is much larger than Thrace, comprising most Turkish geographic territory and much more diverse climates, demographics, and topography. Considering the hard-to-reach ports, rugged terrain, and inaccessible coastal regions of Anatolia, the Thracian peninsula is the most strategically important maritime asset to Turkey because of its accessible terrain and access to both the straits. The Black Sea coast’s mountainous wall that blockades most interior access and inhibits the number of harborages, as well as the Mediterranean region’s Taurus mountains, making the coast surrounding Thrace, the Straits, and the Sea of Marmara, the most geopolitically significant for the area. The extended maritime coasts give Turkey a series of seaports along its coasts in the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Aegean Sea, offering great commercial and maritime access to states in both Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. However, due to the rugged terrain in the Anatolian peninsula—particularly on the cliffs of the Black Sea coast—the number of port cities is limited. Turkey’s lack of accessibility to many coastal areas increases the importance of the few ports it possesses, particularly those with great connectivity into the country’s interior, close proximity to the Turkish Straits, and the ability to accommodate container ships. The majority of ports are in the Turkish Straits and Sea of Marmara, with nearly a dozen along the Black Sea, three in the Aegean, and seven in the Mediterranean. At the moment, only twenty of Turkey’s fifty-four ports can handle 14,000 of the 8000 20-foot equivalent container units (TEU) giant cargo ships. The country has a number of major container ports that connect to the Turkish railway system, the most important of which are Asyaport, Haydarpasa, Izmir, Ambarli, Marport, and Mersin. Asyaport, which covers 300,000 square miles, is the most accommodating port (Sinha, 2021). Another strategically important port is Istanbul’s Marport, which cannot accommodate large container ships but can accommodate large ships carrying up to 16,000 TEU. About 75% of Turkey’s total boundaries are maritime boundaries, collectively estimated to be about 4000 miles. However, Turkey’s exposure along the Black, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas leaves the country vulnerable, necessitating the deployment of a skilled, adept maritime force to protect the country. As a result, modern-day Turkey has had to develop its blue-water assets and capabilities, projecting force outward into the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas to protect sea lanes. Historically, the peninsula’s cartographic features enabled the Ottoman Empire to achieve regional dominance and continue to benefit modern-day Turkey as it seeks to reestablish itself as an influential geopolitical player in Europe and the Middle East. Because of Anatolia’s role as a buffer between Central Asia and the Straits, threats from Europe are prioritized along the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, given their closer proximity and interest in accessing the Straits. It is for this reason that the Ottoman Empire considered control of the Balkans one of its most strategic advantages and why Turkey is today more emboldened to keep its Balkan rivals in check—most notably, Greece.

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Because of the narrowness and sharp turns of the Straits (the Strait of Istanbul and Canakkale can sometimes turn 80 degrees), it can be dangerous to navigate and pass through, necessitating maritime access regulation. The challenges of the Strait also strengthen Turkey’s defenses. The country is vulnerable to seaborne threats because of its narrow waterways, which are incompatible with offensive warships, and the straits’ exposure, which exposes attackers to live fire from multiple locations on both peninsulas. Because of the Bosporus’ threat to the security of maritime navigation and the importance of securing the Straits as a means of survival, the Turkish state has become protective over controlling the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, which included provisions for the internationalization of the Turkish Straits. However, this treaty was never ratified, and negotiations on access to the Straits continued between Turkey and other countries (Montgomery, 1972). Turkey and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, recognizing Turkey’s sovereignty over the Turkish Straits. This treaty paved the way for further discussions on the issue. Initially, the Turkish government proposed a system of tolls and fees for crossing the Straits. Other countries, however, who desired greater access to the waterway, rejected this proposal. Negotiations continued through the 1920s. The Turkish government, led by President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, sought to speed up the negotiations in the early 1930s, recognizing the importance of securing a stable agreement on the use of the Straits. In 1933, Atatürk dispatched a delegation to London to negotiate with the British government, which had a strong interest in the region because it controlled the Suez Canal. The negotiations eventually resulted in the signing of the Montreux Convention in 1936, which established clear rules and regulations for other countries’ use of the Turkish Straits and was signed by Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union, Japan. The Convention established the principle of free passage for commercial vessels and limits on the size and duration of stay for naval vessels passing through the Straits, with special provisions for warships from countries without a Black Sea coastline. In times of war, Turkey may close the Straits to all foreign military vessels except those of Black Sea states, which are allowed to pass through the Straits under certain conditions. The Convention restricts the size and armament of warships that can transit the Straits during peacetime. The tonnage of warships passing through the Straits, for example, is limited to 15,000 tons, and the number of warships passing through at any given time is also limited. The Convention grants Turkey the right to fortify the Straits’ shores and take any other measures necessary to ensure the Straits’ safety (Howard, 1936). While the Bosporus’s narrow features and heavy maritime traffic caused concerns for safe commerce, they prompted the government to think about building the Istanbul Kanal—or the Istanbul Channel. The project aims to connect the Black Sea north of Istanbul to the Marmara Sea to the south, easing the shipping traffic on the Bosphorus Strait, one of the world’s busiest maritime passages, and, according to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, will cost about 20 billion dollars

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(Duvar, 2022). However, construction is yet to start; the project has been debated internally between the governing party and the opposition, which does not see such a project as a priority, considering the channel will no longer be subject to the Montreux Convention and therefore Turkey would no longer be able to protect its interests or halt the passage of foreign military vessels in times of war. With the earthquake, the construction of the Channel remains uncertain in the near future.

6.3.2

Controlling What Flows: The Straits and the Water Problems

Turkey also initiated the Istanbul Channel project to further control the straits, regulating commercial cargo carriers, auxiliary ships, and military vessels that travel through. However, reality has proven that Turkey is able to control much of trade in the Black Sea through the straits, especially during war time. After the West imposed sanctions on the Russian economy and its energy trade, Turkey further regulated the passage of oil tankers through the Straits. In mid-December 2022, Turkey secured a new regulation that requires vessels to show proof of insurance for the duration of their transit through the Bosphorus or when calling at Turkish ports (Euractiv, 2022). This is because the year’s last set of sanctions, which went into effect on December 5, limited financing, brokerage, shipping, and insurance services used to ship Russian oil if the crude is purchased for more than $60 per barrel. If crude oil trades at or below $60 per barrel, countries participating in the cap, including the G-7, the European Union, and Australia, will allow access to key services. Turkey said it needs to make sure that all oil shipments (Russian shipments or adjacent to Russia) should present the required documents before entering the Straits, considering the risk of war in the Black Sea. While Turkey’s claim was first criticized by its partners as it seemed like Ankara was looking to make some additional profit off the war, its implementation was in line with Turkey’s interest of making sure the Straits and its shores are protected (Smith et al., 2022). Even if the rugged Anatolian terrain makes it almost impossible for an attack to reach Turkey—even with skilled amphibious capabilities, logistical support, and air power, the short length of the Straits causes Turkey to be protective of the Sea of Marmara, its intermediary between the two seas. Control over the straits, while a unique, geostrategic advantage for Turkey, has been a source of maritime tension and disagreement with neighboring Greek islands but also with maritime powers, such as Russia, that rely upon access to the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. This is what has been known as the “Straits Question,” which emerged in the late nineteenth century between European, Russian, Ottoman, and Greek powers. While Aegean and Mediterranean powers worry about potential Turkish expansion upon islands in proximity to the Straits, Turkey is concerned about the Aegean cutting it off from new maritime jurisdiction zones. Not only does Turkey need to prevent the

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buildup of a large military force in Istanbul’s immediate proximity and avoid a two-front war on its eastern and western borders at the same time, but it also needs to make sure it controls and makes use of the economic benefits of its geographical location. In recent years, geopolitical competition and suspicion in the Mediterranean and the Aegean Seas have encompassed drilling zones on the continental shelf, flight information zones in the airspace, and control over shipping routes. The Straits are Turkey’s economic and defensive lifeline, and the 2400 Greek islands just miles from the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus are considered a potential obstruction to Turkish safety, open passage into the Aegean, and commercial supply lines. In many ways, Turkey’s control over the Straits defines the region’s dynamism, creating an uneven power balance—even with militarily superior states and commercial heavyweights—when engaging in the Black and Aegean Seas. Another important geographic feature of Turkey is its waterways. They define the country’s natural borders between its regions and neighboring countries, playing an important cartographic role for the country. The Aras River, in particular, is the defining geographic and political feature of Turkey’s border with Iran, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Its high speed and winding narrows that make it difficult to cross are good border features for Turkey. The 275-mile river in eastern Anatolian Turkey flows from south of Erzurum’s Bingol Daglari Mountains into Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea. In the past, it used to flood regularly and was canalized in 1897 to empty some of its drainage into the Caspian Sea. The Aras is surrounded by a series of deltas that support agricultural production, the so-called Kura-Aras (Bilgi İşlem Başkanlığı et al., 2021). The country’s rivers also determine limited locations of Turkish arable land— creating sparse population distributions in central Anatolia—with a series of fertile, flattened, agriculturally-rich deltas across Turkey, particularly in the Zonguldak, Samsun, and Rize regions that enable specialized agriculture in citrus fruit, tobacco, and crop-based products. Turkey is the world’s seventh-largest agricultural producer, according to United Nations estimates, producing and exporting a wide variety of crops and other agricultural products, largely due to the waterway’s deltas and plateaus that are rich in soil. Additionally, Turkey is the site where two of Central Asia’s most significant rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, form, offering the nation a strategic advantage in controlling water flows into Iraq and Syria. While many of Turkey’s rivers are impossible and too dangerous to navigate, their high-speed currents and highwater levels offer infrastructural opportunities in hydroelectric projects and infrastructural, where Turkey has risen as the top European hydroelectric power, and fourth in the world. • The Tigris River has a total length of 1900 kilometers, with 523 kilometers running through Turkey from the Armenian highlands and Taurus mountains. The Tigris River flows south into Iraq and into the Persian Gulf at Basra, and it is regarded as the natural border where Turkey, Syria, and Iraq meet in Turkey’s southeast. In Shatt al-Arab, the Tigris joins the Euphrates. It is considered a key

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component of the Fertile Crescent, supporting civilizations along its basin with its fresh water, navigability, and irrigation suitable for farming in hot, dry climates. • The Euphrates River is the longest river in Southeast Asia, measuring 2800 kilometers in total length. It flows through Turkey from Eastern Anatolia, then south into Iraq, joining the Tigris River and draining into the Persian Gulf at Basra. In Turkey, it joins the Karasu river in the north and the Murat river in the east, both of which flow into Lake Van. Its fertile basins have enabled nearby residents to use its irrigation for intensive agricultural production, particularly in the piedmont area of southeastern Anatolia. Controlling the headwaters of the two most important rivers in Central Asia gives Turkey a great geographical advantage. It could, should it choose to do so, cut the supply of water to Syria and Iraq. But doing this would be the equivalent of an act of war (Kaplan, 2012). The fear that Turkey would reduce the water flow because of its own agricultural needs is giving Ankara a way to maintain influence in the Middle East. Key to this matter is the Ataturk Dam—the centerpiece of the Southeast Anatolia Project, located 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the Turkish border with Syria. The Southeastern Anatolia Project, a project Turkey launched in 1977, included the building of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants, irrigating 1.7 million hectares of agricultural land. Syria and Iraq have both accused Ankara of violating their access rights several times during the last decade. In Iraq, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers supply most of the country’s water stations and agricultural production, which has been declining over the last three decades due to water scarcity but also due to Iran’s flood of cheap products into the Iraqi market (a matter that is connected with the water problems Iran faces). The flow of water from Turkey into Iraq through the two rivers fell by half in 2021, while Iran diverted Tigris tributaries to build dams. Ankara has officially acknowledged reducing the Euphrates’ water flow into Iraq and Syria from 500 cubic meters per second to 200 cubic meters per second, though officials from the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria claim the true figure is 125 cubic meters per second (Kullab, 2022). The drastic reduction rendered hydroelectric turbines inoperable, causing crop irrigation issues. The earthquake gave way to fake news or “just rumors” spreading about the dams being damaged (BBC, 2023). Days after the earthquake, farmers located in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province saw their rivers, all tributaries of the Euphrates, flow once again after a period of drought, while social media posts showed photos of cracks in dams, albeit no specific location was given to the photos, making them suspicious. Many concluded that the Turkish dams must have been damaged while others pointed to the photos serving some propaganda/fake news campaigns targeted against Turkey. Others went as far as saying that the Turkish dams contributed to the earthquake, even if there is little scientific proof (Magazine & Zielinski, 2009) to support such a theory. While no argument is scientifically true, all have been shaped by the fact that Turkey is increasing its regional power due to its ability to use and control the waterways to its own benefit. In such an environment, considering one of the major

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problems in the years to come for the Middle East is the accessibility and management of water resources, Turkey has both the opportunity and the challenge of growing its power by using the resource to influence politics in its near neighborhood. Apart from the Atatürk Dam, which has a capacity of more than 43 billion cubic meters, one of the megadams of the country, Turkey is home to a network of 860 active dams. This is due to Turkey’s topography and its specific need for sustainable economic development. Turkey’s sloped and steep landscape creates a harsh climate difficult for agricultural production, with just under 16% of flat terrain. While Turkey was historically a self-sufficient nation in food production, mass urban migration, soil erosion, and extreme climate conditions in Anatolia have caused Turkey to struggle with sustainable farming and become a net food importer. This is particularly true after the earthquake, as production is likely to be limited (Alexandra de Cramer, 2023). Turkey’s highlands have a political dimension as well—they serve as demarcation lines for the country’s seven regions and as the country’s natural borders with many of its neighbors in the east. The rugged terrain provides Turkey with a doubleedged sword: self-defense from enemies, but also barriers to government access in remote areas. Turkey’s sweeping, rugged terrain increases the cost of infrastructural development and inter-regional transportation because many of the regions are isolated by natural barriers. The topography additionally poses a challenge to martial forces and modern militaries, with the large ranges of harsh terrain and few passageways making it highly difficult to maneuver.

6.3.3

The Geography of Constant Adaptation as the State’s First Imperative

The diverse topography of the majority of Turkish Anatolia creates a series of hinterlands across the country, isolating many regions from each other due to mountainous ranges, unnavigable rivers, and rugged terrain. These hinterlands create enclaves of cultural identities—particularly in the Armenian highlands and Anatolia’s heartland, where much of the Ottoman identity and clan affiliations remain a prominent element of local culture. This dynamic is reciprocal to Turkey’s governance, making it difficult for the government to access, engage, and promote policies among remote groups that reside in Anatolia. The social, economic, and political isolation dissuades active governmental presence and therefore creates enclaves of semi-autonomous rule, particularly among the Armenian, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, and Kurdish communities. With such varied terrain, Turkey has a variety of climates across the peninsula. The further east you go, the colder, drier, and more continental it becomes. Furthermore, eastern Turkey receives more precipitation, with an annual average of 25,000 millimeters. The more elevated, mountainous regions experience harsher winters

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than plateaued, flattened regions. Inland, elevated regions that are isolated by mountainous ranges typically experience distinct seasons, with continental climates that enable limited agricultural production. The most seasonally extreme region is the Anatolian Plateau, where summers are severely hot, with record-high temperatures of 119 degrees Fahrenheit and low temperatures of -50 degrees. Anatolia contrasts with the coastal Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, which vary from record temperatures of -27 degrees Fahrenheit to 114 degrees Fahrenheit. Generally, the coastal regions of the Aegean and the Mediterranean experience more moderate, warmer climates that are friendlier to sustained agricultural production throughout the year. While the 2023 earthquake was particularly severe, earthquakes are common, particularly in North Anatolia and East Anatolia, on both sides of the Anatolian Plate. Much of Turkey’s population density and distribution are determined by the country’s topography and climate. Dense populations are most common in plateaued, coastal regions that are easily accessible and have mild climates. Turkey’s population density is generally regarded as low, with less than one-half that of European countries. The map below shows its uneven distribution, with coastal areas in the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean coast—hard-to-reach, rocky regions— having low population density. The majority of the population lives along the southern Mediterranean coast, the Anatolian plateau, and the Turkish Straits, where urban areas abound. The urban population has grown dramatically since the 1950s as a result of Ataturk’s policies and modernization reforms. In 1950, only 18% of Turkey’s population lived in cities (Cevat, 1970). By 1995, more than 65% of the population lived in cities such as Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir, Ankara, and Adana. Now, more than 76% of the Turkish population is urban (Şengül, 2018). This is due to the Turkish strategy of encouraging the Turkish identity, a core concept for the establishment of the Turkish nation-state after the Ottoman empire disintegrated in the post World War I period (Ayata, 1997). Therefore, the urbanization drive was helped by the fact that during the Republican period (under Ataturk), Turkey began investing in its transportation systems as part of a wave of national reforms to modernize Turkey’s education system, buildings, and infrastructure. While much of Turkey’s infrastructure is concentrated around the Sea of Marmara, the government has made significant efforts to “bridge” the gap between unpopulated, rural areas via infrastructure and transportation projects, with the goal of alleviating political and ethnic grievances with the government. The Southeastern Anatolia Project that established the mega Ataturk dam was actually part of the Turkish government’s strategy to invest in Kurdish communities and reduce poverty rates in Turkey’s southeast (Brismar, 2002). A key feature of Turkey is its demographic diversity, with a series of ethnic groups residing in the country, a heritage of the Ottoman Empire. It is estimated that over 80% of the population is considered Turkish, although the definition of Turkish identity is characterized by a series of political and nationalist elements that have grown Turkey into the republic that it is today (Cagaptay, 2006) and is, in general, considered a non-ethnic identity.

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While much of the demographic dispersion has changed dramatically since the Ottoman Empire, the location of certain Turkish minorities provides additional insight into some of their political and economic disadvantages, as well as opposition from the Turkish government. The most notable example is Turkey’s Kurdish community, which is primarily concentrated in the country’s southeast, near the borders with Iraq and Syria. Their language, culture, political philosophies, and semi-autonomous governance—had thrived throughout the Ottoman Empire due to the Southeast’s relative isolation from the rest of Turkey, owing to the Taurus Mountain ranges and harsh climate (and with a degree of permission from the Sultan, as was the case in Beirut, Cairo, etc.). Turkey has an estimated 15 million Kurds (though the government downplays this figure, claiming around 12 million)— 18% of the total population—with 68 counted Kurdish communities all concentrated in southeastern Anatolia. While the Turkish government has struggled to contain and control the Kurdish community since the late nineteenth century, the topography of southeastern Anatolia is the Kurds’ most valuable strategic asset: it has allowed the PKK to train its units in relative isolation, use the Kurdish language (despite Ataturk era bans on it), pass down cultural traditions, and create a culture of resistance against Ankara. Its proximity to Kurdish communities in Iraq, Syria, and Iran (who too, don’t love their national governments) is an additional geographic element that Turkey cannot control (Yucesahin et al., 2016). The Kurdish community is also key to understanding the rivalry between Turkey and Iran—the inheritors of the Ottoman and Persian empires (Dara Hama Ameen, 2023). Iraq and Syria were both part of the Ottoman Empire until its demise in World War I. An early draft of a postwar treaty even granted Turkey more land further south, but this was dropped by the time the Treaty of Lausanne was drafted. Almost all Persian–Ottoman wars took place in what is now Iraq and Syria, including fierce competition for Baghdad. It is critical to keep this competition as far away from Anatolia as possible. Kurdistan has therefore a buffer role. Turkey must make sure that the area to its southeast, up to the Zagros mountains, and generally inhabited by Kurds, is not controlled by a foreign power. This is why Turkey needs to prevent any potential adversary from establishing a firm base on its border with Syria and Iraq and limit that adversary’s power if it already exists (Ünay, 2022). When Turkey controls the territory up to the Zagros, it needs to maintain a strong deterrent force in the area, block low-lying southern paths through the Zagros, and wage defensive wars. If the territory is chaotic, it needs to maintain a balance of power between competing powers long enough for Turkey to grow its strength and assert its own control. That means that Turkey would need to seek all threats that are strategically located either on the border or near roads that move into Turkey and Northeast Syria and secure control. This also explains why Turkey supports local militias that oppose any Iranian back-up of the Assad regime. At the same time, while Turkey is working with Russia, it also needs to ensure Russia and Iran do not get into an alliance and do not work against Turkey’s interests in its neighborhood.

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In addition to the Kurdish community, Turkey is home to Pomaks, Jewish, Albanian, Hamshin, Gagauz, Laz, Zazas, Bosnian Muslim, Azerbaijani, Greek, Serb, Circassian, Assyrian, Armenian, Aramean, and Arab communities. Most ethnic minorities reside in Turkey’s southeast, including Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, Zazas, and Slavs, with Georgians, Azeris, and Lazis concentrated in the northeast. Because of the rugged, sloped terrain across the Anatolian peninsula, these communities in Turkey’s eastern periphery are more isolated, introverted, and traditional, with many characteristics and habits independent of the state-encouraged Turkish identity (Dashyan & Kudelin, 2020). While there is no community posing a similar threat or being a source of concern for Turkey as the Kurdish community, the northeastern Azeris are key to keeping an influence in the South Caucasus, another area where Turkey must prevent an alliance between Russia and Iran against its interests. It is difficult to control the South Caucasus given its mountainous terrain and local loyalties. Many wars have been fought between the ancestors of Turkey, Iran, and Russia over the region by armies traveling through passes in the Caucasus. The interests of the three powers diverge with regard to the region, but all see it as a buffer for their own security. Neither of the three states needs to fully control the Caucasus (Moreno, 2007). To maintain their own security, each of the three powers must simply deny access to the area to a state that is powerful enough to take advantage of the strategic passes to enter their border. In the case of Turkey, that means cutting off access to foreign powers entering through the northeast passages. Therefore, Turkey’s strategic goal is to keep a balance of power between the countries in the region so that Iranian or Russian domination is prevented. To do so, cultivating mutually beneficial economic relations and interactions with South Caucasus countries is key. Exploiting its ties of shared Turkic-identity with Azerbaijan is also foundational to the Turkish strategy in the region (Iqbal, 2020). A tactic for sustaining this strategy and combining the two core elements is providing an export route for Azerbaijani oil, which is also beneficial to Turkey (Suleymanov et al., 2017). Building the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway along the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline is essential for diversifying business ties away from the energy sector. Turkey is Georgia’s largest source of imports and one of the leading investors in Georgia. Georgia stands to benefit from being a transit hub (since transport of anything from Azerbaijan must pass through Georgia, given Turkey’s poor relations with Armenia) (Papava, 2012). Turkey also supports Georgia’s territorial integrity and speaks out against all recognitions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In pursuing its interests in the South Caucasus, Turkey faces the constraints of overlapping Iranian and Russian interests and the complexity of the region. Given the large population of Azeris in Iran (more than the total population of Azerbaijan, comprising between 16% and 20% of the Iranian population), Iran is wary of their Turkic ethnicity, which poses the latent threat of Azeri nationalism within Iran (Bekiarova, 2019). The majority of Azerbaijanis are Shia Muslims, and Iran has used the shared cultural and religious heritage to establish the basis for cooperation between the two countries on a range of issues, including energy cooperation and

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cultural exchange. However, the two states share a major disagreement: their dispute over the Caspian Sea. Iran has insisted on an equal division of the sea among the five littoral states, including Azerbaijan, whereas Azerbaijan has supported a sectoral division based on each country’s coastal length. Moreover, they have their interests aligned with different and diverging regional powers. Iran has traditionally had close ties with Russia and Syria, while Azerbaijan has cultivated closer ties with Turkey and Israel. This has sometimes led to friction between the two countries, most recently over issues related to the conflict in Syria but also referring to the broader geopolitics of the South Caucasus region. One area where the two countries have worked to sustain good relations is the economic sector. They have worked to deepen economic ties, including through joint infrastructure projects such as the construction of the North-South Transport Corridor, which aims to improve transportation links between India, Iran, and Russia via Azerbaijan. While this project does not go against Turkey’s interest in building itself into an energy and commercial hub between Europe and Asia, it is giving Russia an important alternative to the Black Sea routes it now uses, having the potential to change the bilateral relationship between Turkey and Russia when and if it comes online. However, the Black Sea and the South Caucasus are currently under the pressure of change, considering the war in Ukraine.

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org/syria/operation-claw-sword-exposes-blind-spots-in-the-us-ne-syria-strategy/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Şengül, H. (2018). Determining urbanization levels for rapidly urbanizing 10 cities of Turkey. Sosyoekonomi 49–63. https://doi.org/10.17233/sosyoekonomi.2018.02.03 Sinha, S. (2021). 6 Major Ports in Turkey. In: Marine Insight. https://www.marineinsight.com/ know-more/6-major-ports-in-turkey/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Smith, Y., Wilson, T., & Yackley, A. J. (2022). Subscribe to read | Financial Times. In: Financial https://www.ft.com/content/dfe37d21-6462-43ae-8e3d-1263c0d82604. Accessed Times. 19 Mar 2023. Soylu, R. (2022). Erdogan outlines roadmap to Syria reconciliation. In: Middle East Eye. http:// www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-syria-erdogan-roadmap-reconciliation. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. SP Global. (2023). Turkey’s BTC resumes crude loadings at Ceyhan after earthquake halt. In: Turkey’s BTC resumes crude loadings at Ceyhan after earthquake halt | S&P Global Commodity Insights. https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/ oil/021223-turkeys-btc-resumes-crude-loadings-at-ceyhan-after-earthquake-halt. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Suleiman, H., Hezaber, A. H., & Hezaber, H. (2023). After earthquakes, Syrians utilise new rules to cross from Turkey. In: After earthquakes, Syrians utilise new rules to cross from Turkey | Turkey-Syria Earthquake News | Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/9/afterearthquakes-syrians-utilise-new-rules-to-cross-from-turkey. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Suleymanov, E., Bulut, C., & Rahmanov, F. (2017). Economic and political analysis of AzerbaijanTurkeyEnergy relations. In: Economic and political analysis of Azerbaijan-TurkeyEnergy relations by Elchin Suleymanov, Cihan Bulut, Farhad Rahmanov :: SSRN. https://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3060066. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Swedish Government R. (2023). Sweden’s assistance to those affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. In: Regeringskansliet. https://www.government.se/government-policy/ swedens-assistance-to-those-affected-by-the-earthquakes-in-turkiye-and-syria/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Ünay, H. (2022). The Relations between Policies on the Border and the Architecture of the Border: The Case of the Turkey-Syria Border. In: Conference Paper. https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/360720545_The_Relations_between_Policies_on_the_Border_and_the_Architec ture_of_the_Border_The_Case_of_the_Turkey-Syria_Border. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. United States Department of State R. (2023). Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at a Joint Press Availability – United States Department of State. In: United States Department of State. https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-andturkish-foreign-minister-mevlut-cavusoglu-at-a-joint-press-availability/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. World Bank R. (2023). World Bank announces initial $1.78 Billion for Türkiye’s recovery & reconstruction efforts after earthquake disaster. In: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/ news/press-release/2023/02/09/world-bank-announces-initial-1-78-billion-for-turkiye-recov ery-reconstruction-efforts-after-earthquake-disaster. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Yacoubian, M. (2023). Ukraine’s consequences are finally spreading to Syria. In: War on the Rocks. nsequences-are-finally-spreading-to-syria/. Accessed 19 Mar 2023. Yucesahin, M. M., Adalı, T., & Türkyılmaz, A. S. (2016). Population policies in Turkey and demographic changes on a Social Map. Border Crossing, 6, 240–266. https://doi.org/10.33182/ bc.v6i2.493

Chapter 7

The Turkish Question

7.1

Turkey’s Grand Strategy and Its Relationship with Europe

The key element that has caused Turkey to shift its strategy historically is its relationship to Europe. The country’s imperatives toward the European continent go beyond the Straits and need to be examined through the history of the Ottoman Empire and the evolution of the Turkish nation-state since its inception.

7.1.1

A Realistic Explainer for Neo-Ottomanism

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and subsequent wars with European empires as Ottoman armies penetrated the eastern regions of the continent shaped today’s Turkey’s relations with—along with its ambitions toward Europe early on. The Ottoman Empire rose to prominence, but its failure to capture Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Austrian Empire, in 1529 led to its gradual decline. The Ottoman Empire did not participate in the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution, which transformed Europe socially, economically, and militarily (Mikhail & Philliou, 2012). Instead, it became known as Europe’s problem. Its restive Christian populations in the Balkans contributed to its demise in the nineteenth century, which was exacerbated in the following century by the rise of nationalism. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, Turkey and Europe grew closer, both politically and economically. To emphasize the importance of Europe to Turkey, 16 of the 26 ambassadors he assigned to foreign missions served in key European capitals. Turkey applied for associate membership in the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union, in 1959. Turkey officially applied for membership in 1987, and the bloc confirmed its eventual acceptance two years later. Turkey was admitted to the European Customs © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_7

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Union in 1996 but never became an EU member. The West considered Turkish democracy superficial and criticized the government’s treatment of the country’s minorities, hinting that Turkish membership would create a political problem for the EU (Saz, 2011). During the last decade, Ankara has started to lose interest in joining the EU, which, after the 2008 financial crisis, became less and less attractive to Turkey. As Europe has changed, so has the foreign policy focus of Turkey. During the Ataturk era, strengthening ties with Europe was a priority that was supposed to help the country develop, but at the same time, Turkey’s focus was shifting from the Middle East to Europe. Ataturk changed the weekly holiday from Friday to Sunday and abandoned the Arabic alphabet in favor of the Latin alphabet. Secularism in Turkey emerged not as a historical process of modernization, but as a political effort. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk severed Turkey’s ties to a millennium of Islamic cultural heritage, viewing its Arab neighbors as hostile. For eight decades, the Turkish military dominated government institutions and controlled the country’s foreign policy, promoting a relationship with the secular West (Çamlı, 2021). At the same time, the regime, instead of simply separating politics and religion as Western democracies had done, limited the role of religion in public life. However, these efforts failed to remove Islam from public life. Necmettin Erbakan founded the Islamic-oriented National Order Party in 1970, but it was banned by the government a year later because it promoted values that were considered incompatible with the secular orientation of the state. The National Salvation Party, its successor, was founded in 1972. The attempts of the CHP, Ataturk’s Republican People’s Party, and the military to impose secularism on Turkish society resulted in a severe ideological schism that has yet to be resolved. CHP embraced Europe, opposing Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or the AKP party. The AKP has embraced Islam, turning away from Europe; today, Erdogan’s major opposition figure, judging by the political rallies, is Ataturk and his value proposition for Turkey, or the so-called Kemalist view. In other words, Europe is at the core of the social and identity changes in Turkey. Understanding this is important for understanding why internal struggles seem to project instability and unpredictability with regard to Turkey’s foreign policy (Aslan, 2005). While it might appear that Ankara has not yet made a convincing case for itself as a bridge between East and West owing to its failure to embrace Western civilization and its core values, it is exactly this failure that makes it a bridge. Following the geography and its social struggle, Turkish foreign policy combines five political constants: NATO membership, Black Sea security, the virtual European identity, the strategic partnership with the U.S., and pan-Turkism. While these may be at times conflicting, they need to be understood as part of the larger imperative with regard to Europe: Turkey’s constant redefinition as part of its bridging, transitioning identity between the continents (Özel, 2019). When Turkey embraces its secularism, it becomes more interested in sustaining good ties and avoiding conflict with Western Europe. When it embraces its Islamic roots, it focuses on expanding its influence over its former Ottoman buffer states, regarding Europe more like a competitor than a partner.

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This explains Turkey’s relations with the Balkan states, where Ankara is interested in promoting the perception of Turkey as the transnational protector of Muslims throughout the region, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Turkey has also made some symbolic investments in the Balkans, especially in infrastructure and cultural sites. Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, Turkey has tense relations with France and Greece, has disputes over Cyprus, has resources in the Eastern Mediterranean and islands in the Aegean Sea, and even has influence in the North African states, which it has started to engage with since 2017, when Erdogan and the AKP consolidated their position internally. In general, during the last two decades, Turkey’s relationship with Europe has cooled down, while Turkey became entangled in Middle Eastern, Islam related affairs, driven by both ideology and domestic interests. In many ways, internal politics have driven the so-called neo-Ottomanism strategy, a realpolitik approach to foreign affairs that focuses on expanding ties with Islamic Turkic communities that may grow Ankara’s influence in the former Ottoman Empire (Iqbal, 2020). Since taking office in 2003, Erdogan has based Turkey’s relations with its Middle Eastern neighbors on its ability to wield power, maximize material capabilities, and form alliances. Ankara employs military force to appease the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, while employing soft power elsewhere in the Middle East. Elsewhere, in North Africa, the Balkans, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, Turkey prefers to build business ties and support allies, considering both political and economic interests. The neo-Ottomanism strategy is not entirely new; it is inspired by the idea of establishing a greater Turkish State. The Committee of Union and Progress, which was secretly established in Istanbul in 1889 and sought to establish a Turkish entity named Turan on the ruins of the faltering Ottoman Empire, was the first to promote it (Khashan, 2022). The advocates of Turanian ideology consider the Turan region to include the areas between the Iranian plateau and the Caspian Sea. Some supporters of Turkic nationalism argue that the Turkic peoples range from western China to eastern Europe (Haas, 2023). They consider the Turkic peoples of today to be those who live in Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Balkans. The cause of establishing a larger Turkish state has been taken up by modern Turkish leaders. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s founding father, also took the lead in championing the project before his Justice and Development Party (AKP) took power in 2002, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became its most vocal supporter. Ataturk, however, rejected the idea of blending it with neo-Ottomanism. To him and his followers, the building of the larger Turkish state was a matter of establishing alliances that grow over time and become important for the development of the partnering states, thus fueling the development of Turkey (Yilmaz, 2021). Therefore, Turkish leaders have sought to form alliances with other Muslimmajority countries in order to broaden Turkey’s reach. Turgut Ozal, who served as Prime Minister from 1989 to 1993, sought to begin a new chapter in Turkish relations with Arab and Muslim countries after years of strained ties under the CHP. Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria are

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members of the Developing-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, which was founded in 1997 by Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. When the AKP came to power, the foreign minister instituted Turkey’s “zero problems with its neighbors” policy, which aimed to reduce tensions with other Middle Eastern countries (Kutlu, 2022). Turkey’s state media published a new map of the country in 2016, expanding its internationally recognized borders. It included a few Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, as well as territory in northern Syria extending from Aleppo to Mosul and Kirkuk in northern Iraq (Danforth, 2016). The map’s release coincided with Erdogan’s remarks about the need to amend the 1923 Lausanne Agreement, which established modern Turkey’s borders. He also allegedly criticized Ataturk for deserting Mosul and Aleppo (Epitideios, 2016). Turkey established a military base in Qatar in 2017 amid reports of invasion plans, and it deployed troops to Libya in 2019. Its military intervention ended the Libyan National Army’s siege of Tripoli. Turkey and Libya’s unity government recently signed a military cooperation agreement. While it mended ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and expressed willingness to work with Egypt to resolve differences, it escalated its dispute with Greece and Cyprus over its exclusive economic zone in the Eastern Mediterranean. A symbolic gesture pointing to Turkey’s aspirations is the reopening of the Hagia Sophia mosque in 2020. The mosque was originally built as a Greek Orthodox church and served as such from 360 until the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453, when it became a mosque until the Kemalist secularism had it made into a museum in 1935 (Dag, 2022). Erdogan stated in 2020 that the reopening of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia mosque reminded the Turkish people of their strength, symbolizing their resurrection and the breaking of the shackles on their feet. He promised to keep marching until Turkey arrived at its destination. Reading between the line, the destination is likely a neo-Ottoman, large Turkish state (Butler & Toksabay, 2020).

7.1.2

The Ukraine Pivot and Turkey’s Opportunities in the Making

Ankara sees opportunities in Turkey’s strategic environment, considering the war in Ukraine and the potential instability in Iran. Russia’s and Iran’s parallel crises create a good environment for Turkey to benefit from. However, such benefits depend on the way that the Ukraine war evolves—and more importantly, on the way that the economic environment changes. Turkey’s own politics and political economy are serious constraints that have developed before the 2023 earthquake challenges, which translated into increased pressure on the country’s stability. Even before the 2023 earthquake, the relationship with Syria was set to change, supporting Turkey’s growth into a regional power. After an explosion in Istanbul’s

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Istiklal Street on November 14, 2022, killed eight people and injured dozens more, Erdogan vowed vengeance, blaming the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization, and its operations in Kobani, Syria (Kenyon & Tanis, 2022). The border city was seized in 2014 by the Islamic State but recaptured by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as the Syrian arm of the PKK, in 2015 with the United States’ help. In a speech to parliament on November 23, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey’s air operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in northern Syria were just the beginning of a much larger land offensive that Ankara would launch whenever it was convenient. Erdogan stated that his country was more determined than ever before to secure its southern border by expanding its existing “security corridor” within Syrian territory. Reuters reported a day earlier, before the speech, that Turkey’s warplanes entered Russian and US-controlled airspace over Syria to attack Syrian Kurdish separatist positions in retaliation for an Istanbul bombing on November 13 (Devranoglu & Kucukgocmen, 2022). According to an unnamed senior Turkish official, the Turkish authorities coordinated the F-16 bombing runs with US and Russian authorities (Coskun & Al-Khalidi, 2022). On November 20, Ankara launched Operation Claw-Sword, which included airstrikes and a ground campaign against the Kurdish positions ranging from Aleppo to Erbil. Erdogan says he intends to establish a security belt on the Syrian side of the border, measuring 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) deep and more than 900 kilometers (about 560 miles) long from the Mediterranean to the Iraqi border. Turkey has launched four operations in Syria since 2016 with the goal of containing Syrian Kurdish separatism. Every previous campaign saw Turkey seize territory in northern Syria as part of Erdogan’s stated goal in 2015 of establishing a buffer zone along the border. He claims that this project will protect Turkish national interests while also assisting in the resettlement of one million of Turkey’s 3.5 million Syrian refugees (Sadri Alibabalu, 2022). The United States has not supported Erdogan’s plan. The YPG and the Women’s Protection Units, both of which Ankara considers terrorist organizations, are the most important components of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which have gained ground because the U.S. backed them as the front line in the war against the Islamic State (Seldin, 2022). Russia and Iran, both participants in the Astana peace process on Syria, oppose any Turkish military operation in northern Syria. Neither Russia nor Iran has the same bandwidth to deal with Syria that they have had in years past. However, 2022 has been a game-changer of sorts. Russia’s war in Ukraine has undermined Moscow’s foreign policy position, while Iran is facing a growing general uprising at home. Moreover, the geography of the Black Sea (a separate chapter is dedicated to the region) has imposed Turkey as a major mediator between the US and Russia in negotiating an agreement allowing Ukraine to export its grains to the world (Kenyon & Radde, 2023). It is unclear how much room for maneuver Turkey has, but without substantial support from its Russian and Iranian allies, the Assad regime will almost certainly face a resurgence of rebel forces that Turkey is keen to support. This has led to Turkey starting talks with the Syrians through the Russians, in an effort to contain

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the Kurdish threat before the earthquake in February 2023. The natural disaster causing so much damage to both countries could further support the dialogue—or, on the contrary, create a situation where instability hits both states and rebel forces take advantage of the situation. This is why it is likely that Ankara continues to push toward a rapprochement with the Assad regime through proxies. After all, the YPG was given control of parts of northern Syria by Bashar Assad’s regime. Assad saw the Kurds as allies of his government, which had welcomed the PKK leader and offered him refuge in Damascus for nearly two decades during a period of strained Turkish–Syrian relations (Ibrahim, 2019). When the civil war broke out, the Kurds felt empowered, bolstering their dream of establishing a Kurdistan in Syria modeled after Iraqi Kurdistan. The official Turkish position is that the political orientation of Syrian Kurds is determined by Kurdish separatists in Iraqi Kurdistan. More than 20 Turkish military bases are in northern Iraq, primarily near Mosul, the country’s second-largest city after Baghdad. Despite Iraqi government protests, Turkey is expanding its post in the Metina region of Duhok Governorate to become the focal point of its operations against the PKK. Turkey’s defense minister has stated on January 31 that his country intervenes in Iraq respecting Article 51 of the UN Charter which gives members the right to self-defense (Reuters, 2023). However, fears are high about Turkey intervening as it did in Syria, and seize new territory in the country’s north. However, while airstrikes may work, sending in ground forces in both Syria and Iraq will be much more difficult because that is where Turkey will most likely run into Iranian forces—specifically, Iranian-led militias. The Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has done the heavy lifting to keep the Assad regime from collapsing in the face of a rebellion led primarily by Sunni Islamist militias. The Quds Force mobilized, trained, and supported tens of thousands of militiamen who, years after assisting the Assad regime in putting down the insurgency, are still deployed and not far from northern Syrian regions where the Turks want to expand their presence (Motamedi, 2022). Turkish forces will have to first neutralize the Syrian Kurds before re-energizing Sunni forces to take advantage of the Iranians being distracted by a popular domestic uprising. This was another reason for which Turkey used the momentum for a rapprochement with Syria’s Assad. Apart from serving Erdogan’s political campaigning, he wanted to use it to portray himself as able to solve a major problem for Turkey’s socio-economics: sending a great number of Turkey’s Syrian migrants back home. It would have also served the country’s posturing in the region. But taking into account that Syria’s Assad rejected the proposal, Erdogan can continue his initial strategy; after all, everyone saw he was willing to end fighting. The Middle East is not the only region where Turkey could take advantage of the pressures both Russia and Iran are under. The South Caucasus will receive special attention in the next chapter, considering the special situation of the Black Sea after the war in Ukraine started. This is the region where Turkey may have the most opportunities. Considering Turkish relations with Azerbaijan, Ankara hopes to benefit from Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia, which is currently weakened,

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given Russia is mostly engaged in Ukraine. Turkey has negotiated a corridor that would directly connect it to Azerbaijan via Baku’s exclave of Nakhchivan and through Armenian territory, allowing Turkey to tap into the trans-Caspian region’s and Central Asia’s energy resources. The Balkans are another region where Turkey hopes to reestablish its influence, notably in Bosnia (Sheikh, 2020). The Dayton Accords, which ended the Bosnian war in 1995, established a complex political arrangement among the country’s Bosniak, Serb, and Croat populations. The Dayton Accords have come under increasing strain, particularly in light of the semi-autonomous ethnic Serb republic’s attempts to secede from the Bosnian federation. Serbia has allied itself with Russia, but Moscow has even justified the Ukraine war by drawing parallels between NATO’s bombing of Serbia and support for Kosovo’s independence. One reason Serbia has distanced itself from Russia since the war began and has even condemned the invasion is that, while watching Russia weaken, it is also wondering what this means for Serbia’s future in the Western Balkans. Belgrade is concerned that Russia could be using the Balkans as a flanking spot without its knowledge, given its ties to the region, in order to counter its losses in Ukraine. Meanwhile, it is clearly unable to help its Serbian allies in Republika Srpska, who have been challenging the Dayton Accords, and they might actually start the conflict themselves. The potential for the Western Balkans to plunge into renewed conflict is seriously taken into account by all powers, not only regional states. That would create an opening for Turkey to come to the aid of its Bosnian allies in a much more robust manner than it did in the 1990s, especially with Turkey today aggressively pursuing great-power status and with the declining fortunes of Russia.

7.2

Turkey’s Constraints

The geopolitical vacuums forming around Turkey due to the uncertainty in Central and South Asia and the Russian war in Ukraine are offering Turkey lots of opportunities to grow its power. However, Ankara’s political and economic domestic problems constrain its ability to grow its regional posture.

7.2.1

Turkey and the European Union: The Challenge of the Necessary

After nearly two decades in power, the Erdogan-AKP regime’s future will undergo a public vote of confidence with the president facing elections this year (which most expect it to pass). The modern Turkish Republic turns 100 years old in 2023. As prime minister, Erdogan started his political career with a decade of economic

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revival, allowing the consolidation of AKP policies. The country has seen harsh economic problems for the last five years and the earthquake seems to press for change. No matter who wins the next elections (and even if it looks like Erdogan will stay in power), Turkey’s new problems trigger new policy options that the country’s leaders need to assess. However, Turkey will continue to assert itself as a regional power, following its geopolitical imperatives. This is supported by the country’s recent history and geographic map, as well as by the Gallup data. Economic duress can be an agent of change in any country. Turkey, with its history of coups and complicated relationship with secularism and Islamism, and the current challenges that the earthquake brought forward, makes no exception. Following the mid-February 2023 announcement of the Turkish government’s measures to support the economy and stock market, including through measures incentivizing company share buyback programs and increasing mandatory stock pension fund allocation, Turkish companies repurchased TL 25 billion ($1.32 billion) of shares (Yilmaz, 2023) just weeks after the earthquake. The Turkish government also prohibited layoffs and announced a temporary wage support scheme in ten provinces to protect workers and businesses affected by the deadly February earthquakes (Daily Sabah, 2023). Emergency aid is paid to households and loans are offered to traders, while Erdogan promised to rebuild the entire region (Guldogan, 2023). In many ways, the earthquake gave Erdogan a reason to take populist economic steps that might have been needed but would have been hard to pass before the earthquake. Before the earthquake, poorer areas, like the area where it happened, needed help from the government, but the government’s funds were already stretched thin because of the country’s economic problems. With the earthquake, Erdogan avoided the usual political criticism of wanting to fix long-term problems with short-term solutions like subsidies and other support policies. After all, the wider economic problems are not going anywhere—on the contrary. While these measures are intended to help the earthquake-affected areas, Turkey is also dealing with record-high inflation. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK, or TurkStat), the official consumer price index (CPI) inflation was recorded at 55% y/y in February 2023 compared to 58% y/y in January (TUIK, 2023). In the same report, TUIK said that it was unable to gather price data in the earthquake-affected area where it is expected to be higher. In January 2023, the central bank kept its estimate for the official inflation rate at the end of the year at 22% (upper bound: 27%). The estimate was given based on the idea that the lira would not crash again (TUIK, 2023). To avoid such a scenario, every month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan provides advice to the central bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) on whether the policy interest rate is adequate or needs to be further lowered in order to control inflation. The policy rate and the central bank are essentially kept idle on the sidelines. Instead, President Erdogan and his government conduct monetary policy via macroprudential measures and non-capital controls (Akman, 2023). Even though the lira supply is growing and record trade deficits are sending hard currency out of the country, the lira stays stable because the government officials keep the banking

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system under control, essentially blocking the foreign exchange demand. The government is also managing inflation by adding supportive but unidentified inflows from “friendly countries” into the mix (Nazli, 2023). All of the above indicate that another lira tragedy would come as no surprise. That was the case before the earthquake hit. According to Swiss customs data, Switzerland sent 58.3 tons of gold to Turkey in January worth 3.3 billion Swiss francs ($3.6 billion) (Hobson, 2023). The significant increase in gold imports may indicate that Turkish citizens were becoming increasingly concerned about the country’s instability and poor economics even before the earthquake. According to most recent Gallup poll available at the time of writing, more than half of the country’s population has been dissatisfied with their standard of living in 2022. This has been the case for the last three years in a row (between 2020–2022), while general dissatisfaction with the living standards has been on a growing trend since 2015. This is not by chance. The Turkish economy took a turn for the worse in 2013, when the first protests against Erdogan erupted (Yackley, 2013). Since then, inflation has been on a growing trend. Turkey’s troubles started, like every other country’s, with the 2008 financial crisis. While the financial crisis slowed investments worldwide, including in Turkey, business confidence has declined since due to Turkey’s structural economic problems. Turkey’s problems in the 2010s were sourced in the way the country developed following the 2001 Turkish economic crash, itself a consequence of the 1999 devastating earthquake that hit the industrial heartland of Turkey. At the time, the IMF launched a recovery program that pushed for systemic financial and economic reform in Turkey. This program, combined with Turkey’s hopes for EU membership, resulted in increased budgetary transparency, greater independence for the central bank, and a general shift toward a more open market. Turkey became increasingly dependent on foreign trade and investment to fund its own development, before growing its own industrial base. As a result, it experienced rapid economic growth between 2002 and 2007, with the economy expanding at an annual average of 6.8%. Since 2008–2009, the economic performance of the country has fluctuated, with the average growth during the decade following the financial crisis standing at 3.5%. Using World Bank data, since 2008, Turkey’s average growth has been 5.21% (World Bank, 2022a, b). By a wide margin, the EU became Turkey’s top import and export partner, as well as its leading source of investment. Turkey’s most important European trading partner is Germany (Amt, 2022). It is not only the country’s top export destination but also the source of the majority of foreign investments. Germany is also Turkey’s most important European import source. German companies frequently set up shop in Turkey, where they assemble goods that are later exported to Asia or the Balkans, because of Turkey’s geographic location in reducing logistics costs, an extended free-trade agreement with the EU, and Turkey’s low-cost labor force. Over the last two decades, investment has driven Turkey’s economic growth. The majority of foreign investment came from Europe. All of this makes Turkey vulnerable to economic problems in both the EU and especially Germany.

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However, Turkish exports have become more competitive, to the point where Turkey has become a trusted supplier of high-quality consumer goods such as commercial vehicles, televisions, and electrical appliances. But the majority of these products have been destined for European markets. During the European economic crisis of the 2010s, not only did European investment stop flowing into Turkey, but the European market was no longer very welcoming to Turkish products (Campos et al., 2021). This is why the European economic crisis also marked a turning point in Turkey’s foreign policy. As the EU faced increasing challenges, Turkey’s potential EU membership waned.

7.2.2

Turkey’s Internal Dynamics: Navigating the Challenges Ahead

With no incentive to continue reforms that the EU asked for Turkey to become a member of the EU, the Turkish government’s decision-making became more arbitrary. The internal business environment deteriorated as it became more difficult for companies to operate without the necessary government contacts (The Economist, 2022a). Corruption within businesses remained high: after a drop during the early 2000s, during the 2010s, corruption got back on an increasing trend, with more than 60% of Gallup respondents considering the business environment corrupt. However, economic growth continued, fueled primarily by domestic consumption. Turkey’s savings rate fell while consumer debt rose. Low-interest rates have pushed domestic investment into higher-yielding sectors, such as the real estate market. Across the country, new housing estates, office complexes, and shopping malls outnumber industrial sites. Meanwhile, Turkey continued to export most of its merchandise to Europe as it failed to find alternative markets in such a short time. However, as government policies became increasingly tied to personal political interests, investment was slow to return to Turkey after the European economic crisis. The loss of investor confidence triggered the lira’s depreciation. Currency depreciation occurs when investors lose faith in the economy’s stability because they perceive the government as either unable to contain potential volatility or, on the contrary, as increasing control over the economy, potentially leading to nationalization of industries. Both scenarios result in investors attempting to withdraw their funds from the country, selling domestic currency denominated assets, and causing capital flight. With lower consumer demand, companies saw few reasons to increase their investments, particularly in foreign countries, after the mid-2010s economic crisis hit Europe. Companies are focusing more on their existing business operations and limiting their expansion as a result of the global slowdown. Foreign investors have then become concerned as a result of the 2016 coup attempt and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s push to increase his power. The government’s efforts to consolidate power demonstrate an increase in political risk. Investors are also concerned

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about the deteriorating security situation since 2016, which has caused them to flee the country, putting additional pressure on the lira. The falling value of the lira first benefited Turkey by making its exports cheaper. According to the World Bank, Turkish exports as percentage of GDP increased from 23.1% in 2016 to 32.5% in 2019. However, Turkey’s most important partner is still the EU, and in the EU, Germany. As the pandemic hit, Turkish exports decreased and only returned to a somewhat slow, moderated growth in 2021, over increased European consumption. Moreover, the increased dependency of the Turkish economy on exports did not translate in economic growth or stability—on the contrary (World Bank, 2022a, b). As the economy declined and inflation grew, the Turkish government resisted raising interest rates in an attempt to keep internal investment incentivized and instead has been conducting monetary policy by employing macroprudential measures and non-capital controls. However, the strategy did not bring forth positive results: the Turkish internal production capacity was not enough to support its growth, and the international context certainly did not help: following the EU economic crisis in the mid-2010s, the pandemic did not allow Turkish businesses to grow their market. As a result, the population became increasingly pessimistic about their future. In 2021 and 2022, only 19.1% of the respondents believe the standard of living will get better in the next years—a drop from 38.4% registered in 2019. The Turkish population seems to have gradually lost lope that their life will get better since 2018, when the percentage of those thinking that their life standard would become worse has grown every year—in 2022, 65% of the population thinks that the standard of living would worsen in the future. Moreover, the situation seems to have deteriorated at the local level—for a country that prides itself with sustained investment in local infrastructure and urbanization, the percentage of those not willing to recommend the city they live in has grown up to 40% in 2022, an indicator that has been on a growing trend since 2013—coincidentally, the first year that the Erdogan regime faced protests due to poor economic performance. In 2022, 73% think city/local economy is getting worse and about 40.5% of the respondents admitted the local economic conditions to be poor—in 2017, only 26.7% thought the local economy would worsen, and 15.1% said that the economic conditions were poor. Turkey’s financial situation has forced Erdogan to seek partners beyond Europe, and the first region to look at was the Middle East. Apart from Eastern Mediterranean ambitions that would provide long-term benefits to Turkey—strategic depth and cheaper energy resources—the Turkish government is in urgent need of liquidity. With elections coming close, Erdogan was on a mission to strengthen relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and, most recently, Egypt. In December 2022, Turkey and Saudi Arabia agreed to a $5 billion Saudi deposit in the Turkish central bank (Turak, 2023). Turkey’s central bank has $28 billion in local currency swap deals with several of its counterparts. Turkey also signed similar contracts worth nearly $1 billion with South Korea, $6 billion with China, and $1 billion with Qatar (Coskun & Devranoglu, 2022). Such swap deals encourage trade in local currencies while boosting the Turkish central bank’s gross reserves.

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However, the polls indicate the population is no longer supportive of the government’s public policy, given the economic problems the country faces. Dissatisfaction is on an increased trend for several important indicators. According to the latest data available, more than 70% of the respondents are dissatisfied in 2022 with the fact that they cannot access affordable housing (to compare, 29.6% were dissatisfied with the matter in 2013). About 44.9% are dissatisfied with the urban healthcare infrastructure (27% were dissatisfied with the matter a decade ago). In 2022, 53% of the respondents are dissatisfied with the educational system—38% were dissatisfied with the system in 2013. At the same time, a growing number of people think Turkey is not a good place for immigrants (46.1% of the respondents in 2022—as opposed to 36% in 2014) and 52% of the respondents distrust the country’s judicial system (Gallup World Poll, 2023). Perhaps most important, more than half of the respondents disapprove of the country’s leadership. The number of those supporting it in 2022 counts 36.5% of the respondents, close to the minimum low in 2009, when the economic situation had first become unstable after a decade of growth. Meanwhile, the confidence the population has in the national government has been on a decreasing trend since 2019, with only 44.2% of the respondents trusting the national government in 2022 (Gallup World Poll, 2023). At the same time, only 29.4% of the respondents perceive the media to be free—marking a sharp distrust in the media as the failed coup drove a consolidation of power in the hands of the current country’s leadership (more than 40% of the respondents thought the media was free between 2010 and 2015). All this indicates that the socio-political environment before the 2023 elections was setting the conditions for change, pushing Erdogan to become more aggressive in finding solutions to (re)gain the electorate’s support. Increasing his diplomatic activity and making it appear he is leading the country toward a new important chapter of its history was one solution that Erdogan found in keeping the country on his side. Ankara’s promotion of a Pan-Islamist (Maziad & Sotiriadis, 2020), Neo-Ottoman strategy is translated into economic terms by an aggressive search of alternative markets to the West, a search for new partners. The strategy has an ideological element—Turkey’s business culture endures only when there is the ambition of projecting truly unique leadership, as it was that of the Ottomans. So, Turkey’s style of leadership, which goes beyond internal political leadership that affects government policies and instead talks about the country’s place in the world, is an interesting polling variable to discuss. Comparing the poll’s results for the approval ratings on the leadership styles of Turkey, the US, Germany, China, and Russia, there are several interesting observations that need to be made. First, the respondents approval for the US and China’s leadership has been dropping during the last years. Second, there are similar levels of approval for both countries—20.5% approve the US leadership and 23.5% approve the Chinese leadership. Third, the approval for Germany and that for Russia’s leadership has been on an increasing trend. Approval for Russia has increased since 2016 (17.6%). However, while the growing trend is maintained, the war in Ukraine likely had an effect on the positive way that the Turkish population saw Russia—only 28.2% approved Russian leadership in 2022 while 37.2% approved it

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in 2021. Approval for Germany’s leadership has grown during the last few years— from 26.8% in 2019 to 43.3% in 2020, 46.1% in 2021, and 39.4% in 2022 (Gallup World Poll, 2023). According to latest Gallup World Poll data (released in 2023), considering that of those wanting to leave the country, 27.2% said would go to Germany in 2022 and 28.4% in 2021 from only 17% before the pandemic, it is likely that the approval for the German leadership has a lot to do with the way the Turkish population saw the German state managing the pandemic. At the same time, looking at the way that only 0.5% would leave Turkey for China and 2.4% would leave it for Russia—compared to 10% that would leave for the US, it becomes clear that foreign policy factors add to those referring to the internal policy affairs when it comes to judging the leadership of these countries. Several hypotheses should therefore be considered. First, the drop in the approval rating for both the US and China could be tied to the two countries’ global ambitions and their growing conflict over global governance. Second, considering that approval for Russian leadership started to be on a growing trend since 2009, with a sustained growth since 2015, it may be that Turkish society approves of the way Russia has become more assertive in growing its posture and reclaiming its role as a regional power. Something that appears to correlate with Turkey’s foreign policy during the last decade. While the relationship with Russia has become increasingly complex during the last decade, Turkey’s relationship with Europe has visibly changed into a power relationship. But the way Turkey will grow into a regional power depends on the way internal challenges are solved.

7.3 7.3.1

Turkey’s Open Seas The Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond

As Turkey’s dreams of joining the European Union have faded, Ankara has shifted its strategy toward the West. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is where Turkey and Greece, two of the Mediterranean’s greatest rivals, have long disputed the region’s dominance. Cyprus, an island divided between Greek influence and Turkish occupants, has been the focal point of their competition. Because it is located at the crossroads of the Eastern Mediterranean’s main sea lanes, regional energy markets, and trade routes, the island has great geostrategic value. Control of Cyprus would allow a country to gain access to the island’s valuable natural gas reserves as well as exploratory drilling rights, allowing it to project itself as the dominant Eastern Mediterranean power. As a result, Turkey and Greece have increased their efforts to defend their maritime claims in the region. Two concepts are currently used to revive the two countries imperial pasts in the region. Turkey uses the so-called Blue Homeland or Mavi Vatan concept (Josseran, 2022), which harkens back to the glory days of the Ottoman Empire, to justify

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expanding its reach further into the Mediterranean Sea. Greece uses the “Megali Idea,” which implies the Greek reestablishment of the old contours of the Byzantine Empire. These ideas are not just rhetoric; they are part of one of the world’s most complex and intertwined geopolitical rivalries (Улунян, 2022). However, other factors complicate the dynamics of the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia, Syria, Iran, and Libya all have vested interests in the region. Furthermore, growing regional competition has increased paranoia among Mediterranean powers over sea lanes, navigation, and energy resources (Tagliapietra, 2012). As a result, there has been a rush to delimit exclusive economic zones (regardless of legal parameters), the formation of tighter alliances, the escalation of the Libyan crisis, and the emergence of the risk of military conflict. The Eastern Mediterranean was last under such strain in 1967, when the Soviet Union formed the fifth Mediterranean Squadron, causing tensions between the Soviets and NATO member navies to rise. Considering the competition, Turkey’s naval capabilities have become increasingly important. The Turkish navy is regarded as one of the four most powerful in the Eastern Mediterranean (Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2022). (The region’s other dominant maritime forces are Greece, Israel, and Egypt, with the US Sixth Fleet and Russia’s Mediterranean Naval Force also present.) However, Turkey has pushed to expand its naval capabilities over the last two decades, particularly as tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean have grown, indicating an increasingly ambitious Turkish naval agenda in the coming years. This has marked a major shift for Turkey. For much of the twentieth century, Turkey did not prioritize naval development. In addition to Turkey’s accession to NATO, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s and his successors’ inward-looking foreign policy resulted in a more limited naval strategy. Ankara saw no need to improve its maritime capabilities beyond defending the Turkish Straits, the Sea of Marmara, and the Aegean Sea. “Peace at home, peace in the world,” one of Ataturk’s key principles, was an isolationist motto that allowed Ankara to focus on domestic infrastructure and social reforms. The current government tried to change this by strengthening the country’s naval capabilities, while promoting a neo-Ottoman narrative led by the Blue Homeland concept in an effort to reestablish Turkey’s rightful place as a key naval power in the region. However, geography is Turkey’s major constraint in its naval development (Mevlutoglu, 2019). The Turkish coastline is long, and the country’s access to the wider Mediterranean is hampered by a string of Greek islands, some of which are only 72 kilometers (45 miles) from Turkish territory. Because of the limited breathing space between Turkey and Greece, Turkey finds it difficult to focus on conventional naval capabilities, especially since its primary imperative remains the defense of its littoral waters. Nonetheless, to pursue its ambition, Turkey needs to extend its buffer zone further into the Eastern Mediterranean. Since 2014, it has used gunboat diplomacy— the pursuit of strategic objectives through acts of intimidation at sea—to protect its seismic and exploratory drilling activities, as well as its maritime trade routes, across the Eastern Mediterranean. (Turkey’s ports handle 87% of the country’s trade.)

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This strategy is not new, even if the tactics are somewhat different at the moment. Since the 1970s, Turkey has sought greater control over the Mediterranean. Its invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when it annexed 40% of the island in its first foray back into the Mediterranean since the Ottoman Empire’s demise, was a watershed moment. Several geopolitical “openings” have since given Turkey room to flex its naval muscles (Rose, 2020). Turkish expansion in the region was made possible by Greece’s financial crisis and inability to maintain naval defense spending, and Ankara’s anxiety about its reliance on foreign energy suppliers drove it to seek out new natural gas sources. Turkey’s naval construction has accelerated significantly in recent years. Its domestic manufacturing capacity has grown, and its navy has been modernized with retrofitting and new equipment, such as cutting-edge propulsion, detection, and navigation systems. Since 2007, the country has tripled its military R&D spending, which reached $1.2 billion in 2018. Its defense budget was $19 billion in 2019, a 24% increase over the previous year. Furthermore, Ankara has launched the MILGEM program, a project to manufacture frigates and corvettes in Turkey for the Turkish Navy (Seren, 2020). As an example of how ambitious this project is, the country intends to build 24 new ships, including frigates, aircraft carriers (some of which will be compatible with the F-35B), and amphibious assault ships, which are set to be delivered by 2023 (Brimelow, 2023). In addition, six new, slightly longer-range submarines and a series of destroyers are being developed for larger, longer-term campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its acquisition of these types of vessels demonstrates a continuing need for convoy escort missions, as they can accompany Turkish seismic drilling ships in contested continental shelves where conflict between Eastern Mediterranean adversaries is a possibility. Turkey has also begun to promote domestically manufactured equipment abroad in an effort to establish itself as a global arms exporter, which would help the country’s economy and position it as a Mediterranean industrial power. The expansion of Turkey’s defense industry is possibly the single most significant development in Turkey’s naval advancement, which could pay economic and strategic dividends in the next years (The Economist, 2022a, b). Ankara also hopes to start building more forward bases, including a naval base in Northern Cyprus, most likely in Famagusta near the Iskele Strait. This base is the center of Turkey’s new maritime strategy. It lets the country expand its naval logistics and drilling capabilities and send long-range, long-term deployments deep into the Mediterranean. Also, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is spending $10 billion to fix up the abandoned Maras port in Famagusta. This is probably being done with help from Turkey (Rose, 2020). The pace of naval exercises has also increased. The Turkish navy held its secondlargest drills, appropriately named Blue Homeland, in early 2019, and conducted live-fire exercises in the Greek Cypriot exclusive economic zone. In addition, Turkey will host its largest naval exercises, known as the Sea Wolf exercises, in the Mediterranean, Black, and Aegean seas in May. All of these developments serve a symbolic as well as a strategic purpose: they send a clear message to Turkey’s

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adversaries, namely Greece, Israel, Greek Cyprus, and Egypt, that the country is a force to be reckoned with. Even if these moves to strengthen Turkey’s naval power suggest that Ankara is increasingly concerned about the risks of a large-scale conventional conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ankara’s primary focus remains closer to home. Turkey is concerned with the defense of its own coastline and the defense of its interests in Cyprus from threats posed by Greece and its allies. It is also worth noting that a fullfledged conflict is extremely unlikely due to the naval limitations of Turkey’s main rivals in the Mediterranean. Greece’s armed forces are estimated to number 360,500 people, or roughly half of Turkey’s 735,000. Both countries have submarines, patrol ships, frigates, and sea mine equipment, but Greece’s navy is not as strong as Turkey’s because it has a lot of decommissioned and out-of-date ships. Also, Greece’s efforts to update its navy have been slow since the country’s financial crisis (International Crisis Group, 2021). Athens, on the other hand, benefits from regional allies. Even if Turkey has recently embarked on a mission to better its ties with Israel and Egypt, Greece is a member of the newly formed East Mediterranean Gas Forum, along with Egypt, Israel, Greek Cyprus, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. While the consortium’s primary focus is on energy resources, its members’ naval cooperation and joint training have increased (Karbuz, 2021). Meanwhile, Egypt’s armed forces outnumber Turkey’s, and its naval assets are superior in both quantity and quality, as it has more helicopter aircraft carriers and patrol vessels. However, only a few of its surface vessels and Type 033 Romeo-class submarines are operational, and the country has lagged in updating and refitting as its economy has slowed (Pinko, 2019). Turkey, too, has limitations that should cast some doubt on its chances of becoming the undisputed naval power in the Mediterranean. While it has nearly 200 naval assets, including frigates, submarines, and patrol vessels, the majority of them are from the 1990s, and some from the late 1970s, and need to be updated. Furthermore, Turkey’s possession of a large number of short-range, fast-attack craft suggests a limited ability to engage in a long-term campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean, such as a mission to support Libya’s Government of National Accord, which Ankara agreed to assist with a troop deployment in December. Nonetheless, Turkey’s increased production of conventional naval equipment to supplement the F-35 and drone capabilities (Mevlutoglu, 2020), as well as plans to strengthen forward bases in Somalia and Qatar and build a naval base in Northern Cyprus, reflect the country’s growing intentions in the region (Iddon, 2019). In the end, what Turkey really needs to achieve greater power projection is aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and improved aerial defense to sustain supply lines and amphibious operations. So, despite some bold moves and declarations of intent, it still has a long way to go. For the time being, Turkey will continue to pose as a dominant naval power while taking small steps toward expanding its presence in the Mediterranean. An example is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest visit to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in July 2021. On the occasion, he announced

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the resumption of Turkish energy exploration in the area, show that the pursuit of the neo-Ottoman “Mavi Vatan” (Blue Homeland) doctrine may also be pursued by using economic and political means (Uras, 2021). The development of any large projects in the Eastern Mediterranean in the current climate is debatable, but Turkey needs to deter conventional threats along its coastline, and energy exploration may be the best excuse under the circumstances. At the same time, Erdogan may use the prospect of a new crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean to divert attention away from domestic economic problems that threaten to destabilize his rule. Though this strategy might work in normal circumstances, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine has created a complex reality that raises the possibility of tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean spiraling out of Ankara’s control. After peaking in 2020, tensions between Turkey and the European Union (particularly Greece) over oil and gas exploration off the coast of Cyprus appear to have subsided. However, no constructive dialogue has taken place between the two parties. On his visit, to Northern Cyprus, Erdogan declared that United Nations efforts to unite the island, which is divided between a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish north, had failed. He believes the strategy should be abandoned in favor of a two-state solution. Erdogan also supported the reopening of Varosha, once the island’s top resort but whose Greek Cypriot population fled during the Turkish invasion in 1974 (Jones, 2021). It is important to notice that Erdogan’s trip to Northern Cyprus came just three days after Turkey’s U.N. envoy spoke with the U.N. secretary-general about Greece’s “continuous flagrant violations” of international law in the Aegean and Mediterranean (UN Release, 2021). The envoy claims that Athens violated the 1923 Lausanne Treaty by militarizing islands close to Turkey that were supposed to remain unarmed. Last but not least, Turkey wants to change or revoke the agreement that gave Greece sovereignty over the islands close to its coast, as well as the right to explore for and exploit marine resources, depriving Turkey of a sizable exclusive economic zone. At the same time, Erdogan said before the visit that Turkey will keep looking for energy in the Eastern Mediterranean, even though the opening of Varosha and statements about a two-state solution for Cyprus made headlines. This declaration appears to contradict previous statements promising no further provocations. After all, the discovery of energy resources reignited long-standing tensions between Turkey and Greece. Tensions between Ankara and Athens rose in 2019 and 2020 as Turkey dispatched seismic research ships to waters disputed by Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, intervened in Libya’s civil war, and signed a maritime delimitation agreement with Tripoli (Jacinto, 2020). In fact, the region is in a completely different reality in the early twenty-first century than it was a few decades ago. The resurgence of the Russian threat, an increasingly aggressive Iran, the EU’s weakened position as a result of its socio-economic problems, and the growing antiTurkish coalition in the Middle East have forced Ankara to reconsider its position in

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the region. Furthermore, the country’s economic problems, which predated the pandemic and have grown in complexity since it struck, becoming even greater after the 2023 earthquake in February, have all added to the government’s list of issues. Ankara had already begun to adopt a more assertive, independent military doctrine as it moved away from the West, which began when it became clear that Turkey would not become an EU member state despite being a NATO member. Given the current situation, the diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United Nations, as well as the renewed dispute between Turkey and Greece, must be viewed as part of a potential realignment among regional powers that will have an impact on broader strategic alliances. But to better understand what the matter is actually about and how a realignment could become a reality, we need to look back into the history of the Greek–Turkish conflict and the particularities of Cyprus. The Lausanne Treaty—signed on July 24, 1923, ended hostilities between Turkey and Greece at the end of World War I and especially after the Turkish War of Independence, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s troops drove the Greeks out of Anatolia and, consequently, the Greeks retained most of the Aegean islands. Cyprus was a British colony at the time. The treaty’s terms paved the way for reconciliation between the two countries during the interwar period, and they even signed a friendship treaty in 1930 and the Balkan Pact in 1934 (Goldman, 2016). Several events, however, contributed to the deterioration of bilateral relations following WWII. First, defeated Italy ceded the Dodecanese archipelago in the southern Aegean to Greece, much to the chagrin of Turkey, which did not enter the war against the Axis powers until February 1945, leaving it out of the spoils. Second, during what should have been the Cypriot state-building process, decolonization of Cyprus sparked serious conflicts between the island’s Greeks and Turks. The fragile equilibrium was finally broken in 1974, when a Greek junta overthrew the regime of Archbishop Makarios III, a supporter of the island’s independence and an opponent of Greek meddling in Cypriot affairs, sparking a Turkish military intervention in the island’s north (Leonidou, 2022). Despite international efforts at diplomacy, this resulted in the island’s partition and the establishment of the selfproclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983, which only Turkey recognizes. Third, the development of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the 1950s sparked a long-running dispute between Athens and Ankara, with the latter refusing to sign on to the law’s main conventions, which Turkey claimed gave Greece complete sovereignty over the Aegean Sea. Turkey instead made its own demands, which Greece accepted. Turkey specifically stated that if Greece extended its Aegean territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, Turkey would consider it a casus belli. On two occasions, in 1987 and 1996, disputes between the two countries came dangerously close to escalating into war. However, there were no such tensions until recently, after Turkey applied to join the European Union in 1999. Relations between the two countries have gradually deteriorated since Turkey realized that EU membership was no longer a viable option. A divided Cyprus joined

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the EU in 2004, while Turkey has closed only one of 35 negotiating chapters (Talmon, 2006). Turkey has not formally renounced its desire to join the EU, but its focus has shifted to modernizing the EU–Turkey customs union and liberalizing visa policies. The European Union’s socio-economic crisis, combined with the refugee crisis, compelled Ankara to alter its relationship with Brussels. Given that one of the main migration routes from the Middle East passes through the Aegean, Turkey and the European Union (particularly Greece, as the first receiving country) have had to work together to manage the migrant flow. Much is made of Greece’s militarization of its islands by Turkey. When Turkey emphasizes Greece’s militarization of its islands, much of it is due to the placement of security personnel to ensure that migrant flows are well-managed and locals face minimal risks. At the same time, Turkey has tried to establish itself as a key transit country within Europe’s southern gas supply corridor through its involvement in the TANAP and TurkStream pipelines, which move gas from the Caucasus and Russia, respectively. Oil and gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean further fueled Turkish ambitions to become a regional energy hub, even as hopes for improved relations between Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece faded. Following the failure of the last round of Cyprus-related negotiations in 2017, the Republic of Cyprus announced the exploitation of its deposits. Turkey condemned the decision as a violation of Turkish Cypriot rights and launched its “gunboat policy,” dispatching warships to prevent this initiative and conduct its own exploration in disputed areas (Aydıntaşbaş, 2021). Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece are not alone in the Eastern Mediterranean’s new energy game. Israel was the first to benefit from the region’s gas, and it has since become a gas exporter since the discovery in 2010. Egypt became a member of the club in 2011. The two countries have complicated relations with Turkey, which has complicated Turkey’s position in the region, particularly since Greece, Cyprus, and Israel have moved closer together following the first gas discoveries. Countries then established exclusive economic zones over the areas in which energy was discovered. This led to the appropriation of certain areas and, consequently, made Turkey feel as though it was being boxed in again—hardly a happy outcome for an aspiring regional power. It thus revived its “Blue Homeland” strategy, whereby Turkey would develop its navy and strengthen its ability to protect Turkish interests overseas. It has since become synonymous with the designation of maritime areas from which Turkey is said to have been unfairly deprived in its near abroad under Erdogan. Blue Homeland, for example, was used to justify Turkey’s intervention in Libya, which resulted in the signing of a bilateral treaty in 2019 that established an EEZ with Libya in the Eastern Mediterranean (Colibasanu, 2021a, b). Erdogan wants to control the area passed through by a potential underwater gas pipeline constructed and used by a Greek–Cypriot–Israeli consortium as well as create a route between Greek positions in the Aegean Sea and the gas fields of the Eastern Mediterranean. The goal of the Blue Homeland strategy is not just to increase Turkey’s influence abroad, but also to look out for many of Turkey’s domestic and financial interests. The idea is based on the idea that Turkey should rule the Mediterranean and regain

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the commercial and naval power that the Ottomans once had. It argues that Turkey’s geographic position is an asset, not a vulnerability. Having a strong naval presence in the Mediterranean, particularly the Eastern Mediterranean, would allow Turkey to assert claims to oil and gas reserves in contested waters there. This would in turn help Ankara become an energy hub and achieve energy independence, and the city’s renewed prominence is something the ruling party can use to distract voters from the plight of the Turkish economy. Even though some might argue that having a project come online in the Eastern Mediterranean could be just another way to decrease dependence on Russian supplies, it is difficult to believe an underwater gas pipeline will be built under the Mediterranean any time soon given how badly the pandemic and the war affected the energy markets. So, considering current conditions, Ankara needs to act carefully. While its emerging economic status has helped its aggressiveness, the pandemic and the 2023 earthquake weakened the Turkish economy and, in effect, its socio-political stability. This is why Turkey cannot afford to be too aggressive in the Eastern Mediterranean. But by choosing diplomacy first, Ankara makes sure it keeps its options open. Take, for example, the 2021 incident in Varosha. Erdogan claimed that the United Nations had failed to resolve the situation and expressed support for the city’s opening to settlement. Every permanent member of the United Nations Security Council pleaded with him not to do so. It was a subtle way for Erdogan to remind them that he is still present and has the ability to destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean if he so desires. Greece, on the other hand, expects the EU and NATO to rein in Turkey’s ambitions. The EU’s problem is that its member states disagree on how to handle a potential crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean. France has chosen to back Greece, while Germany has chosen to stay out of the fray. However, with the expectation of another wave of migration following any unrest, the EU is managing its relationship with Turkey with caution. Within NATO, of which both Greece and Turkey are members, things are even more complex. First, there is the relationship between Turkey and the U.S. Even if relations are tense, they are too important to forego. The U.S. may have reduced its military footprint in the Middle East, but it will never accept that the fastest sea link between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean be compromised. Moreover, the U.S. strategy toward Russia depends on containment and preventive action through NATO. The more tensions between Greece and Turkey increase, the more it divides NATO, which Washington does not want or need at the moment. Since the war in Ukraine started, the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean has increased in complexity, and the Russian factor has grown in importance (Ptrequin, 2022). Cyprus has had a complex relationship with Russia. In the early 1990s, Nicosia developed good relations with Moscow for political and economic reasons. Politically, Cyprus benefited from Russia’s rivalry with Turkey and received Russia’s support in the dispute over Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus. Meanwhile, Russian investors and tourists boosted the Cypriot economy. The island has long served as a banking hub for illicit Russian fortunes.

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Following the 2008 financial crisis, the relationship deteriorated. Cypriot banks began to strictly enforce anti-money laundering regulations, making it more difficult for Russian oligarchs to park their funds in the country. In 2018, US regulators persuaded Cyprus to halt its contentious “Golden Visa” program, which provided foreigners with a passport in exchange for massive investment in the country. The scheme, which began in 2013, provided passports to many Russian oligarchs and brought in approximately 7 billion euros ($7.27 billion). The Cypriot economy has expanded since the financial crisis, and it is in a strong position thanks to prudent fiscal policy, but much of its growth was supported by investment, consumer spending, and tourism (Kalotay, 2013). The services sector— especially, banking, tourism, shipping, and real estate—dominates, accounting for nearly 84% of Cyprus’ gross domestic product. With investment already decreasing, Cyprus was hesitant during the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to follow its Western partners and impose sanctions against Russia. After all, Russians accounted for 20% of all tourists in the country before the pandemic (Alfonsi, 2023). Cypriot authorities initially were against banning major Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment network before coming around. In fact, the Russian state-owned VTB Bank quietly transferred all its shares in the Cypriot RCB Bank to Cypriot shareholdings, making it a 100 percent Cypriot-owned bank, in hopes that European authorities would recognize it as a fully European institution (Hazou, 2022). The ploy failed, and RCB had to close its retail business. Meanwhile, Cyprus agreed to close its airspace to Russian planes but said it might reconsider if Turkey failed to do the same (FinancialMonitor, 2022). In fact, it is Turkish activity in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean that led Cyprus to take a stance against Russia over the war while cautiously considering its options. Nicosia aligned with the West—while working closely with the United Kingdom, which has bases in the country—to shore up its position in the eastern Mediterranean. Gallup polling data for Cyprus and Northern Cyprus shows that, for 2022, confidence in national government and approval in the country’s leadership has dropped for both (Gallup World Poll, 2023). However, the respondents from Northern Cyprus are even less confident in their leadership—which means that their trust in Turkey has decreased to minimal levels. While that happens, Northern Cyprus respondents have given higher approval rates for the EU, the German, and the US leadership than Cyprus respondents have. In fact, discussing with random people in Northern Nicosia, or Lefkoşa in Turkish, they will tell you about the benefits of various EU programs they could participate into and speak with lower voice about the war in Ukraine. Their fear is that if Russia wins, “renewed conflicts” in their area will follow. While it is difficult to get what they mean by “renewed conflicts” and which actor they fear most, they point to fewer tourists coming into their shops due to the war. During my research trip in Cyprus in 2022, people in the Greek Nicosia were much more direct. They condemned Russia’s aggression while also complaining about the West’s silence on Turkey and the Northern Cyprus issue. From their perspective, this double standard could only make things worse in the eastern

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Mediterranean, where Turkey is expanding its influence through its budding relationship with Libya. On October 3, 2022, Turkey signed an agreement with the government in Tripoli to explore for oil and gas off the Libyan coast, without specifying whether surveys would take place in waters south of Greece, where Athens says the Turks have no right to explore (Stamouli, 2022). This comes after years of talks between Israel, Cyprus, and Turkey, with Israel trying to press the two sides to work together to develop its share of the eastern Mediterranean’s natural gas riches or stay on the sidelines and continue their decades-old stalemate over Northern Cyprus. Cyprus fears that with the new agreement between Turkey and Libya, Turkey will become more aggressive in the eastern Mediterranean. Russia is focused on the Black Sea, and from Cyprus’ perspective, Turkey is copying Russia’s actions there: Just as Russia’s control over Crimea blocked Ukraine from developing its energy potential in the Black Sea and enabled Moscow to monitor most of Ukraine’s coastal economic operations, Turkey is trying to establish de facto control in the eastern Mediterranean to secure its coastlines and give itself a veto over new energy projects. Adding to the tensions, 2023 is an election year for both Greece, Turkey. At the time of my visit, in December 2022, most people I talked to kept repeating to me that campaign seasons rarely brings stability, especially during war times. And so, while they appear calm from a distance, the waters of the Mediterranean are busy in the east: combat ships and aircraft crew, rotating between sea policing, core military missions, sovereignty actions and safeguarding shipwrecked migrants, are all setting a complex reality of switching from one framework of legitimacy to another on a daily basis. The region is simply too important for interested parties to ignore it. Increased diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Greece, coupled with the presence of increasingly sophisticated defense systems on ships or ashore, raise the risk of misunderstandings during maneuvers—which makes for the increased potential of tensions.

7.3.2

Turkey in the Maghreb: the Challenges for Europe

A battle for influence over the Mediterranean is underway. Its most hotly contested front is in the east, where Turkish designs on oil deposits have pitted Ankara directly against Greece and Cyprus and indirectly against their benefactor, France. Flying under the radar, however, is another contest between Turkey and France on the Mediterranean’s southernmost border: the Maghreb (Donelli & Gonzalez-Levaggi, 2019). France is the major European power in the region. For the countries in the Maghreb, relations with Paris were a political and economic necessity; French trade, investment, and influence, some of which were holdovers from colonialism, were too much to forego. But things have since changed a little. France is no longer the power it once was, and political upheaval brought on by the Arab Spring revolts

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has ushered in different governments. France regard the region as important for its security, but it needs to rebalance its position in light of these new challenges. This partly explains how relations between France and Algeria have deteriorated and have become prone to cyclical fluctuations, driven by internal political agendas in both countries (Monde, 2023). However, the French–Algerian issues are not just French–Algerian issues. They play a role in the affairs of nearly all the areas of the Maghreb—especially Western Sahara, the disputed territory in neighboring Morocco—which butt up against Turkish ambitions in North Africa.

A Major Divisive Issue On April 8, 2021, French President Macron’s party announced it would open an office in the southern Moroccan city of Dakhla, located in Western Sahara. The statement came just a few days after CMA CGM, France’s leading transport and logistics company, set up shop in all Moroccan ports, including Dakhla (Hamann, 2021). Paris’ efforts to shore up influence in Western Sahara have led many to suspect the government is gearing up to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory. The region is a divisive issue within Moroccan politics. Morocco annexed Western Sahara in 1975 after it was under Spanish rule up until 1974. This led to a 16-year armed conflict between the Moroccan government and the Polisario, a political group made up of the region’s Sahrawi people and supported by regional rival Algeria. In 1991, a United Nations-brokered cease-fire was reached, and Morocco pledged to hold an independence referendum. The referendum never took place, and the Polisario continue their fight. The ethnic Sahrawi consider their homeland in Western Sahara occupied territory. Northerners believe it is simply another part of the Moroccan kingdom. The region remains within Morocco’s control. The U.N. considers it a conflict area, while Algeria supports its independence (UN Release, 2020). Since Morocco and Algeria gained independence, they have been in conflict over their border, which remains closed and contested even today. For Algeria, the key strategic priority is controlling the southern territories that threaten its security. The Algerian economy depends on energy production, and most of its reserves and production facilities are in the south (Margolis et al., 2013). The porous desert borders and militant activity have forced Algeria to establish strong security on two separate fronts: Mali to the southwest and Tunisia and Libya to the east. To secure the southwest, Algeria has established a strategic partnership with Mauritania, which borders most of Western Sahara, making Morocco the only challenging neighbor for Algeria in the Maghreb. Morocco, on the other hand, does not have the hydrocarbon resources of its neighbors to support defense expenditures. It has invested instead in its relationships with the United States and Arab kingdoms in the Gulf, and France.

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The Broader Picture Morocco and Algeria are the most developed countries of the Maghreb region. The area is united by the Atlas Mountains as well as its shared history of Ottoman and European domination. Algeria was a French colony while Morocco was a Spanish and French protectorate and Tunisia a French protectorate. The Ottomans tried to reach Gibraltar, but none of the Maghrebian provinces were under their strict control. All this can be explained by geography—while Morocco faces the Atlantic Ocean, which makes it harder to dominate, the other two are Mediterranean states. Strategically, though, both France and the Ottomans wanted to reach Gibraltar, so they had to maintain a careful relationship with Morocco. Where French–Moroccan relations have always been comparatively good, Paris has slowly lost ground in Algeria and Tunisia since 2011 (Yahiaoui & Farhat, 2021). The European economic crisis weakened the French economy, so former colonies started seeing less French trade and investment coming their way. Both grew increasingly unstable, but Algeria was hit hard starting in mid-2014 when oil prices started to decline. With no economic reforms in place and without French investments and aid, both countries saw increased protests that triggered political change. Naturally, anti-French sentiment also grew (Ramadan, 2023). Many in the Maghreb had to look for a replacement for France. Enter Turkey, which wants to reclaim the influence it lost with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Since 2011, Turkey has supported popular revolts toppling the region’s autocrats, backed Islamic movements, and promoted the image of Turkey as a defender of the Muslim world. In practical terms, Turkey has focused its strategy on trade and investment. The approach worked best in Algeria, where more than 1200 Turkish companies have set up shop. While Algeria has become Turkey’s fourth-largest gas supplier over the past decade, Turkey has become the third-largest importer of Algerian products. Turkey gets a reliable source of cheap energy, and Algeria gets an economic shot in the arm (from time to time). For Tunisia, Turkish overtures have been a source of both progress and friction. Ankara’s efforts to revive Muslim sites and communities have not translated into much of a trade and investment partnership. Trade grew substantially after 2011, mostly to the benefit of Turkey, as local Tunisian businesses, especially those working in the textile sector, got hit by low-cost Turkish products. This forced the government in Tunis to reimpose some import duties in 2018 (Yaşar & Aksoy, 2021). Tunis has since turned to Paris for help. In 2020, the two signed a three-year framework agreement worth 350 million euros ($420 million) to “support Tunisian public policies in various fields,” and Paris has also sent medical support in the fight against COVID-19. In exchange, Paris pressed the Tunisian leadership to organize the 50th anniversary of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, a symbolic move for a society that remains divided. Still, local support for the Turkish

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cultural model challenges the government’s decision to extend ties to France (Dubessy, 2020). Morocco was the most difficult country for Turkey to woo. The free-trade agreement they signed in 2004 was revised in October 2020, raising taxes on imported Turkish goods by up to 90% (Caglayan, 2020). For Morocco, the motivation behind it was as political as it was economic. Not only were cheap Turkish goods flooding its market, but officials also wanted to placate other allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are natural competitors of Turkey. The move is rightly seen as support for the informal Saudi-led boycott of Turkish products.

Implications The diplomatic conflict between France and Turkey is not new. However, the growing war of words between the Turkish and French presidents is heightening tensions between Turkey and its Gulf allies like Qatar on one side, and between France and Gulf allies like the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the other. It may have the same effect in the Maghreb, where the sides are becoming increasingly clear. Things will likely be more complicated for Tunisia, where France and Turkey are pushing to win more influence. Religion, especially Islam, has increasingly become a contentious issue in France. Between 8 to 10 percent of the French population identify as Muslim (Pew Research, 2017), and according to media reports, most of the poorer neighborhoods known as “banlieues” are inhabited by immigrants believed to belong, in their majority, to the Islamic faith. Many immigrants in France are from the Maghreb—a third of the total and about 100,000 more than it has received from other European Union countries. In 2019, the Algerian immigrant community in France stood at about 850,000. About 300,000 of France’s population are Tunisian (INSEE, 2022). As Turkey is influencing the politics of both former French colonies, it is likely that their populations, including those entering France from these countries in search of economic opportunity, are equally influenced by Turkish cultural diplomacy. In the Maghreb, the more countries recognize the Western Sahara region as part of Morocco (even unofficially), the more it could fuel tensions with Algeria. Considering the current economic environment, neither Morocco nor Algeria wants a full-blown conflict. However, history shows that countries cannot always control the scale of tensions, particularly in mountainous and desert areas where seemingly minor escalations can quickly escalate (Colibasanu, 2021a, b). The fact that Algiers and Rabat started an arms race 15 years ago while both nations were stocking up on supplies for a potential conflict does not help the situation. The border—and the Maghreb in general—needs a close watch since any conflict between the two countries would implicate Turkey and France, affecting European security and stability on the whole.

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Tagliapietra, S. (2012). The rise of Turkey and the new Mediterranean challenges and opportunities for energy cooperation in a region in transition. In: The rise of Turkey and the new Mediterranean challenges and opportunities for energy cooperation in a region in transition by Simone Tagliapietra :: SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2162404. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Talmon, S. A. (2006). Cyprus: An obstacle on Turkey’s way to Europe. In: Cyprus: An obstacle on Turkey’s way to Europe by Stefan A. G. Talmon :: SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=931109. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. The Economist R. (2022a). Lessons from Turkey on the evils of high inflation. In: Lessons from Turkey on the evils of high inflation | The Economist. https://www.economist.com/ leaders/2022/07/21/lessons-from-turkey-on-the-evils-of-high-inflation. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. The Economist R. (2022b). Turkey is the arms industry’s new upstart. In: Turkey is the arms industry’s new upstart | The Economist. https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/02/12/ turkey-is-the-arms-industrys-new-upstart. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. TUIK R. (2023). TÜİK Kurumsal – Inflation Report February 2023. In: TÜİK Kurumsal. https:// data.tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=Non-Domestic-Producer-Price-Index-February-2023-49546. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Turak, N. (2023). Saudi Arabia drops $5 billion in Turkey’s central bank to help its struggling economy. In: CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/06/saudi-arabia-deposits-5-billion-inturkeys-central-bank.html. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. UN Release R. (2020). Guterres ‘remains committed’ to maintaining 1991 ceasefire in Western Sahara. In: UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/11/1077672. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. UN Release R. (2021). UN chief pledges to fight for all Cypriots, as impasse remains. In: UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/04/1090902. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Uras, U. (2021). Turkey’s Erdogan visits Northern Cyprus amid tensions with EU. In: Turkey’s Erdogan visits Northern Cyprus amid tensions with EU | Recep Tayyip Erdogan News | Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/18/turkeys-erdogan-visits-northern-cyprusamid-tensions-with-eu. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. World Bank R. (2022a). Exports of goods and services (% of GDP) – Turkiye | Data. In: Exports of goods and services (% of GDP) – Turkiye | Data. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP. GNFS.ZS?locations=TR. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. World Bank R. (2022b). Overview. In: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/turkey/ overview. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Yackley, A. J. (2013). Turkish police fire tear gas in worst protests in years. In: Reuters. https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-protests-idUSBRE94U0J920130531. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Yahiaoui, K., & Farhat, M. (2021). The Arab Spring, 10 years on: In Tunisia, “the powerful are still stealing from us.” In: France 24. https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210114-the-arabspring-10-years-on-in-tunisia-the-powerful-are-still-stealing-from-us. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Yaşar, N. T., & Aksoy, H. A. (2021). Making sense of Turkey’s cautious reaction to power shifts in Tunisia. In: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP). https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/ publication/making-sense-of-turkeys-cautious-reaction-to-power-shifts-in-tunisia. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Yilmaz, I. (2021). What is Erdoganism? In: What is Erdoganism? by Ihsan Yilmaz :: SSRN. https:// papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3877674. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Yilmaz, U. (2023). Turkish support for stocks sparks $1 billion buyback scramble – BNN Bloomberg. In: Turkish support for stocks sparks $1 billion buyback scramble – BNN Bloomberg. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/turkish-support-for-stocks-sparks-1-billion-buy back-scramble-1.1884177. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Улунян АрА. (2022). Geostrategic construct “Blue Motherland” (Mavi Vatan) in the context of general tradition of geohistorical concepts of the Turkish Republic. Историческая география, 276–295. https://doi.org/10.21267/aquilo.2022.94.75.001

Chapter 8

The Caucasus: Borderlands Meeting Point

In the Mediterranean and, to a certain extent, in the Balkans, Turkey appears to challenge primarily the West and uses its strategy to reshape its relationship with Europe. It is working and uses its relationship with Russia and other powers as a secondary one to the one Ankara has with the US and its posture within NATO. In the South Caucasus, Turkey primarily meets Russian and Iranian interests directly and indirectly, using, on a secondary level, the posture it has within NATO. To understand the interests that make the case for competition and sometimes cooperation between the three regional powers, we need to look at the wider Caucasus instead, at the features that make it a bridge and those characteristics that make it a border between civilizations. For over a century, Azerbaijan’s oil reserves propelled the Soviet Union to continental and then global dominance (Bagirov, 1996). Stalingrad was the Soviet Union’s last stand against Hitler’s attempt to reach those oil resources and starve the Soviet military machine of its ability to wage war. It was the largest battle in human history in terms of the number of people involved and killed. Stalin, a Georgian, not a Russian, seized control of the Soviet Union in 1922, laying the groundwork for events that defined the twentieth century. The Caucasus also revealed to the world the true extent of the Soviet Union’s weakness as it approached its demise. The rise of anti-Soviet nationalism in Georgia at the end of the 1980s, as well as the Soviet Union’s failure to prevent a small region in Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh from seceding and joining Armenia, marked the end of the bloc, and with it a 500-year epoch in which at least one of the world’s major powers resided on the European continent. The Caucasus is formed by the South Caucasus and the North Caucasus. The North is currently located within Russia’s southern borders and has developed into a key region for modern, post-Cold War Russia. The South Caucasus includes modern-day Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as the de facto states and contested territories of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and the uncontested but detached region of Nakhichevan, a region that was never subdued

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_8

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and always troubled by the passage of empires, currently made into regional powers (Forsyth, 2013). Therefore, the region is, first and foremost, key to Moscow. Russia’s primary interest in the Caucasus is to safeguard the plain to the north of the Greater Caucasus, which extends into Russian territory. Flat terrain is difficult to defend, and crossing the Greater Caucasus via the Darial Pass would pose a mortal threat to Russia. The 400-mile stretch from Astrakhan to Rostov-on-Don would have to be Russia’s last stand. It is far easier to obstruct a single route through a mountain range. This is why the Darial Pass, as well as the Georgian Military Road that runs through it, is so important to Russian security (Georgia Today, 2022). Control of the area immediately north of the Greater Caucasus is critical for Russia, though it would prefer to exert as much power to the south as possible in order to provide an even deeper buffer. For Turkey, the Caucasus imperative is to avoid that the region be controlled by one or allied foreign powers. If this happens, the foreign power(s) could access, via passageways through the mountains, into Turkey and pose a direct security threat to its Northeast. Similarly to Turkey, Iran sees a danger in a foreign power dominating and fully controlling the region because it then poses a threat to its northwest. For both countries and their bilateral relation, Azerbaijan is a key player in the South Caucasus. For Russia and its relationship to Iran and Turkey, the region and its frozen conflicts are key. Many wars have been fought between Turkey, Iran, and Russia over the Caucasus, and other wars between the same powers were fought by armies traveling through passes in the Caucasus. Turkey itself does not need control of the Caucasus to maintain security, it must simply deny access to the area to a state that is powerful enough to take advantage of the strategic passes to enter Turkey from the northeast. Iran needs to be aware of regional politics, while Russia needs to increase its influence over the region and extend its buffer toward the greater Middle East and Central Asia. All in all, the Caucasus is a sum of borderlands seen through different perspectives, each from the vantage point of a former empire watching the region to observe any threat to its own stability. It is a place that plays an outsized role in world history relative to its size and population, which is about 16 million people. If Afghanistan is Eurasia’s core borderland, the Caucasus is Europe’s core borderland, a heartland of the modern world.

8.1

The South Caucasus

Without its mountains, the Caucasus would be a 300-mile (480-kilometer) wide land bridge connecting the Caspian and Black Seas. But the mountains are the Caucasus’ distinguishing geographical feature. They divide the region into two ranges. The Greater Caucasus is the taller and more rugged mountain range, as the name implies.

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It stretches nearly the entire length of the land bridge from the Black Sea’s northeastern shores to the Caspian, giving way to a low-lying plain just west of Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. The Greater Caucasus is effectively a nearly impenetrable barrier between Russia and the South Caucasus countries. Mount Elbrus, at 18,510 feet (5642 m), is not only the tallest mountain in Russia, but also in Europe. The Lesser Caucasus, which begins in southern Georgia and curves southeast into Armenia, around Lake Sevan, and into the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, lies to the south. The Kura River flows between the two mountain ranges, forming a valley that empties into an increasingly flat plain as it flows east through Azerbaijan and into the Caspian Sea. The flat, fertile plain in Georgia’s far east is characterized by temperate weather, making it ideal for agriculture as well as for winemaking, the industry that made Georgia famous worldwide (Abbasov & Smakhtin, 2009). This east–west passage along the Kura and its flanking flatlands is one of the few strategic highways through which great armies have traversed and fought for millennia. The Greater Caucasus has historically had only two north–south passages through it, both of which are extremely narrow. The first is a flat area along the Caspian coast that stretches from Baku to Dagestan via the Derbent Pass and is thought to be where Alexander the Great built the Gates of Alexander, a wall, to prevent “barbarians” from coming from the north. The second, the Darial Pass, runs through the heart of the Greater Caucasus from Tbilisi, Georgia, to Vladikavkaz, Russia. The ominously named Georgian Military Road winds its way through the pass, very close to South Ossetia, lending disproportionate importance to the small Georgian semiautonomous region (Georgia Today, 2022). To Russia, this road is a way that could be used by an invading force to enter its interior. The Soviet Union built a second highway, the Transcaucasian Highway, in the 1970s and 1980s, connecting North and South Ossetia for the first time in their history. It runs through South Ossetia, giving it strategic value comparable to the Georgian Military Road (Väyrynen & Alieva, 2000). However, it is a more dangerous path that is prone to closures in the winter.

8.1.1

A Shared History of Conflict

The Caucasus has been the place that Turkey, Iran, and Russia’s ancestors—the Ottoman, Safavid, and Russian empires, have waged wars with one another. The mountains between them, on the other hand, made tactics more complex, making the region’s few traversable passages invaluable. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Dynasty (Iran’s predecessor) competed for territorial supremacy and command of the Islamic world’s religious loyalties in a series of five wars. However, just because they fought frequently does not imply that the fighting was simple (Matthee, 2022). The Caucasus mountain range is harsh, with only a few months of the year being free of snow. All military objectives had to be accomplished before winter

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broke the supply line and stranded the army without food or munitions. It was impossible to keep each campaign’s territorial gains. It was also critical for both militaries to secure the support of local Caucasus tribes, who would otherwise constantly threaten supply lines. The tribes were relatively powerless on their own, but their assistance was critical for empires trying to keep armies in the field. The Zagros Mountains, which today protect Iran’s western border, lay between their empires. To attack the Safavid Dynasty, the Ottomans had to first move north into the Armenian Highlands—a 3000-foot-high plateau west of the Lesser Caucasus and north of Lake Van, which is dotted with mountains—and then southwest into Iran. Control of Tabriz, the capital of the Safavid Dynasty at the time and located in northwestern Iran, was changed a few times between the two empires, eventually leading the Safavid shahs to relocate the capital east, first to Isfahan and then to Tehran. For about 130 years, the Ottomans and Safavids fought intermittently, only for winter to wipe the slate clean. Finally, in 1639, they signed the Treaty of Zuhab, which established boundaries between their empires that are essentially identical to the modern borders of Iraq, Turkey (which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time), and Iran (Güngörürler, 2020). Meanwhile, Russia’s primary interest in the Caucasus is to safeguard the plain to the north of the Greater Caucasus, which extends into Russian territory. Flat terrain is difficult to defend, and crossing the Greater Caucasus via the Darial Pass would pose a mortal threat to Russia. The 400-mile (630 km) stretch from Astrakhan to Rostov-on-Don would have to be Russia’s last stand. It is far easier to obstruct a single route through a mountain range. This is why the Darial Pass, as well as the Georgian Military Road that runs through it, is so important to Russian security. Following Peter the Great’s reforms in the eighteenth century and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Russia pushed south past the Greater Caucasus and engaged the Ottomans in a series of wars. Hostilities between the two powers were not new; between 1568 and World War I, 12 Russo-Turkish wars were fought. However, Peter’s consolidation of the Russian Empire and military reforms allowed his successor, Catherine the Great, to gain control of the South Caucasus. Because of the difficulty of subjugating the mountainous clans and tribes that inhabit every corner and crevice of the terrain, the Russian Empire never fully controlled the South Caucasus as it did the North Caucasus. Nonetheless, from this point forward, Russia gradually increased its influence in the region, albeit indirectly and at the expense of the Ottoman Empire (Menchinger, 2018), culminating in the South Caucasus countries’ accession to the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. They still had some autonomy, especially in comparison to other regions, such as Belorussia, which had been completely consumed by Soviet force. However, Soviet oversight was sufficient to keep the peace, albeit through brutal terror, among the Caucasus’ numerous rival ethnicities and religions. It could not possibly last. The people who live in the Caucasus are isolated by the mountainous terrain. Residents are loyal to their small social units, not to the other people who happen to live with them within the state’s invisible borders. The modern South Caucasus is

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made up of only three countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, but they are incapable of accommodating all of the region’s diverse identities. Georgia, for example, is made up of both Georgians and ethnic Abkhazians. Within Georgia, however, there is the semi-autonomous region of Abkhazia, which is home to ethnic Abkhazians as well as ethnic Georgians. The ethnic Georgians who fled Abkhazia in the early 1990s found the aftermath of the Abkhazia war confusing and tragic. According to Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus scholar, this is a “double stranger” experience (de Waal, 2020). Ethnic Georgians born in Abkhazia were strangers in Abkhazia because they were not ethnically Abkhazian, but they were also strangers in Georgia because they were from Abkhazia and thus unwelcome. Religion also plays a role in both uniting and dividing the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan is primarily composed of Shiite Muslims, which fosters ties with Shiite Iran (Zviadadze, 2021). In fact, there are three times as many ethnic Azeris in Iran as there are in Azerbaijan. However, Azeris are ethnically Turkic and thus have affinities with Turks in Turkey. The Azerbaijani language is so similar to Turkish that speakers understand each other. Iran, which has a sizable Azeri population, is concerned that a form of trans-Azerbaijani nationalism will emerge and that its 25 million ethnic Azeris will challenge the Islamic regime. However, while ethnicity frequently encourages alliance, it does not guarantee it. Because of the Soviet Union’s indirect control over Azerbaijan, a major split developed between Azeris in Azerbaijan and those in Iran (Ismayilov, 2014). Nonetheless, Turkey and Iran have competing interests, with Iran fearing that Turkey will use its large Azeri population against it. Shiite Iran is currently closer to Orthodox Armenia than Shiite Azerbaijan, in comparison to Turkey and Azerbaijan. Armenia and Georgia are predominantly Orthodox Christian, which has historically created a bond between these populations and Orthodox Russia. This was especially true in the late nineteenth century, when the Russian Empire was at war with the Sunni Ottoman Empire. Even this harmony is complicated by the presence of pre-Christian pagan and Zoroastrian elements in Caucasus Orthodox Christianity (Charles, 2010). All and each of these factors offer an explanation for why, as the Soviet Union declined and then fell in the late 1980s and early 1990s, nationalism surged in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan as they all broke away from their Soviet overlords. The new state of Georgia sought to reacquire Abkhazia and South Ossetia, threatening Russian strategic interests. It was a threat that Russia did not tolerate for long. Azerbaijani nationalism brought it into conflict with Armenia over NagornoKarabakh, which had been allocated to Azerbaijan in 1921. War ensued in the early 1990s, and today the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is still unresolved (Malik, 2022). We will consider each of these conflicts in turn and discuss how the geopolitical interests of the surrounding powers shaped their outcomes. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are two semi-autonomous states within Georgia that are only officially recognized by Russia and each other. Georgia maintains its denial of their existence, claiming that they are part of its own sovereign territory. Going back in time, the Ossets or Ossetians are a Georgian ethnic group that came to

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Russia’s attention in the late eighteenth century when Russia began to push south through the Caucasus (Oleg, 2007). The Georgian Military Road runs through North Ossetia and into Georgia, passing only two miles east of South Ossetia in Gudauri. The establishment of Vladikavkaz on the northern edge of the highway in 1784 demonstrated Russia’s—and still is—determination to control the route. Vladikavkaz eventually became North Ossetia’s capital and a major Russian fortress. Its name translates as “rule over the Caucasus.” Unlike Georgia, Ossetia has generally been pro-Russian since the late 1700s. When Georgia backed the Mensheviks, the anti-Bolshevik forces in Russia’s civil war, in 1918–20, the Ossets backed the Bolsheviks and declared loyalty to Russia. The Bolsheviks would later repay the favor by granting South Ossetia autonomy within the Soviet Union as the South Ossetian Autonomous Region (Saparov, 2009). Abkhazia, like South Ossetia, is a semi-autonomous region within Georgia. It has a larger population than South Ossetia, has historically been wealthier, and has a low-lying coast with access to the Black Sea, making it a highly desirable territory for Russia, which would otherwise have limited ocean access. It is more ethnically diverse than South Ossetia. It has at least five major ethnic groups, and ethnic Abkhazians made up only 18% of the population in 1989, before Abkhazia and Georgia waged a 13-month war over the region’s status, compared to 45% for ethnic Georgians (Hopf, 2005). When the Soviet Union fell apart, Georgian nationalism resurfaced, and the Georgians sought to reintegrate South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of a new unified nation-state (Pearson, 1999). (Rhetoric that referred to South Ossetians as “guests” on Georgian territory alarmed the Ossets, who were right to be concerned about the risk of ethnic cleansing.) Russia became concerned that Georgia would attempt to seize the two regions, threatening the southern end of the Georgian Military Road and the Transcaucasian Highway, as well as Russia’s access to the South Caucasus and the Black Sea. So Russia indirectly supported their independence in the 1990s, and then directly in 2008. The fear that Georgia would begin to receive more Western support eventually drew Russia in. Georgia has been at the vanguard of the growing conflict between Russia and the West. It ignited the raging fire of “color revolutions,” which disturbed the Kremlin. And Tbilisi has been a persistent US partner, sending troops to both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (Lomsadze, 2021). These concerns were realized after the 2003 Rose Revolution (the first in the Former Soviet Union) and the fact that a pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, took office in 2004, the year that was also marked by the first color revolution in Ukraine. Fearful of Russia, Saakashvili supported Georgia’s membership in NATO, which was founded on anti-Russian sentiment. To keep Georgia divided, Russia began issuing Russian passports to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008 and recognized the heads of state of both regions (Cheterian, 2018). War broke out not long after Georgian artillery units fired on positions in South Ossetia. When the war broke out, Saakashvili expected help from the United States, with which Georgia had recently improved relations. Russia came to the aid of South

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Ossetia and Abkhazia, but the United States did not. Georgia, due to its proximity to Russia, is far more important to Russia than it is to the United States. This was Moscow’s first major invasion since the end of the Cold War, and it exposed the limits of American support in regions of the world that are not critical to American interests. The six-day war in 2008 marked a turning point in NATO expansion (Lazarević, 2009). Furthermore, Russia’s subsequent recognition of the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia amounted to a partial dismemberment of the Georgian state. Although Ukraine has since emerged as the primary site of conflict between Russia and the West, the conflict over Georgia remains a critical element in South Caucasus geopolitics. Georgia does not have access to the region’s major oil fields, but its location in the center of the South Caucasus places it along a critical east–west transit route for oil pipelines leaving the region. One pipeline transports Caspian oil to Turkey for export, beginning in Baku, passing through Tbilisi, and ending in Ceyhan, Turkey (Stulberg, 2009). Similarly, in Turkey, a railway from Baku to Tbilisi to Kars came online in 2017. Russia sees danger in these transit routes. It is concerned that they will assist Georgia in expanding its economic relationship with the West, reducing its reliance on Moscow. Georgia, for its part, would welcome closer ties with the West, but its experience in 2008 taught it that this partnership has limits. Azerbaijan wanted the pipeline and railway from Baku to Turkey to avoid Armenia because of their rivalry, and Turkey’s borders have been closed to Armenia since the Nagorno-Karabakh war (not to mention that Armenia retains a foul historical memory of the genocide of its people by the Ottoman Empire during World War I). Even if progress seemed to be made for normalization since the Ukraine war started (and as a ramification of the war), borders remain closed and traffic is still difficult, if not reason for conflict (Isayev & Mejlumyan, 2022). As a result, landlocked Armenia is completely reliant on Georgia and Iran for trade and access to the rest of the world. This includes trade with its ally, Russia, which Georgia cannot afford to aggravate. As a result, in addition to maintaining friendly relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, Georgia must also maintain friendly relations with Armenia. Armenia effectively controls Nagorno-Karabakh, but no one, not even Armenia, recognizes its independence (Kucera, 2022). In 1988, ethnic Armenians living in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic’s Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), an Armenian-majority enclave, demanded that the territory be transferred to Armenia. However, the Soviet Union collapsed three years later, before the issue could be resolved. When Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence, they went to war over Nagorno-Karabakh. It was one of Europe’s bloodiest wars since World War II’s end. Out of a total Caucasian population of 16 million, 20,000 people were killed and nearly one million were displaced (Radney, 2023). Russia has supported both sides of the conflict at various times. However, it is difficult to say exactly what its role was at the time because control of the Russian military was quite decentralized, with many Russian soldiers acting more as

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mercenaries. Nonetheless, Russia currently supplies arms to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is content with the conflict’s stalemate because it can use the existing ambiguity to exert pressure on whichever country it needs to sway at the time. Any formal resolution would deprive Moscow of this leverage. Some believe Russia’s strategy is to use Armenia’s reliance on Russia to force it to withdraw from areas of Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for concessions from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has become richer and less reliant on Russia since it began exporting oil to Europe via the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline. In exchange, Russia would ask that Azerbaijan join one of its multilateral economic or military institutions, such as the Eurasian Economic Union or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (Markedonov, 2018), thereby pulling it away from the West and, most immediately, from Turkey’s influence. It is unlikely that Azerbaijan will accept this offer. The ability of Azerbaijan to strike a balance between Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the United States currently underpins its national security strategy. If it leaned too heavily in one direction, it would lose flexibility. Furthermore, Sunni jihadists from Dagestan in the North Caucasus are viewed as a serious threat by Azerbaijan, a country with a predominately Shiite population. Azerbaijan might be caught between an uprising of Sunnis at the northern end of the Derbent pass and Iran, which might take advantage of the opportunity to extend its influence further north into the Caucasus if it were to pivot away from the West and toward Russia and Russia’s control over the North Caucasus were to decline. This conflict has been brewing for decades. In 1988, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), an enclave in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic with a majority of ethnic Armenians, asked the USSR to transfer their region (oblast) to Armenia. But three years later, the Soviet Union collapsed before the issue could be resolved—instead, conflict broke out. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War ended in a Russian-sponsored cease-fire in 1994, with Armenian forces controlling the NKAO, which took control of seven Azerbaijani territories to the west, south, and east and declared independence. The status quo lasted until September 2020, when the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War broke out, ending with another cease-fire negotiated by Moscow (International Crisis Group, 2020). Azerbaijan seized control of a portion of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the towns of Shusha and Hadrut, as well as seven adjacent territories. Turkey–Russian relations were fundamentally reset as a result of the six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh. With Turkish military aid, particularly the supply of Bayraktar drones, Azerbaijan was able to reverse the balance of power in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where Armenia has held the upper hand since 1994. Having gained a substantial amount of territory, Azerbaijan’s border with Iran is now considerably longer. At the same time, with Turkey establishing itself as a regional power, Moscow must defend and reevaluate its position. Although the Kremlin’s inability to keep the conflict at a standstill was a major setback, it now has troops operating throughout the region, in addition to its military base in Armenia, occupation forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and peacekeepers in Azerbaijan.

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Finally, there is Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave inside Armenia. It, too, arose from Azerbaijani nationalism following the fall of the Soviet Union. Though it is recognized as part of Azerbaijan, it is still isolated from the rest of Azerbaijan by 30 miles of hostile Armenian territory. Fighting in the early 1990s between Armenia and Azerbaijan nearly drew Turkey and Russia into a conflict. Turkey was concerned that Armenia would seize Nakhichevan, which shares a 17-kilometer (11-mile) border with Turkey, so it dispatched thousands of troops to the border. Russia responded by deploying thousands of troops already stationed in Armenia to the Nakhichevan-Turkey border (Heintz, 2023). Whether because of this escalation or otherwise, Armenia did not attempt to seize Nakhichevan, and both Turkey and Russia withdrew their forces.

8.1.2

Nagorno-Karabakh and the Ukrainian Factor

Geographic security and the need to keep its most important buffer state toward the West were the main reasons Russia invaded Ukraine. Moscow’s strategy has been to strengthen its farthest reaches in an effort to protect itself from what it perceives as potential threats on its border. While it launched its invasion into Ukraine, it hoped to have other borders secured. However, this has not been the case—on the contrary. The longer the war has continued, and as other regions have become unstable, the Russian buffer zone has also become increasingly volatile. This has caused the situation in the region to increase in complexity, especially in the Caucasus. Due to Azerbaijani protesters, the Lachin corridor, a crucial route linking Armenia and the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been blocked for months, since December 2022 (RFE/RL 2023). The Lachin crisis might increase Russia’s vulnerability and threaten its position in the region. Russian peacekeepers have come under fire from Armenia for failing to fulfill their obligations to uphold the control of the corridor (Light & Bagirova, 2023). Concerns about Russia’s relationship with its customarily steadfast ally have been raised in light of the war in Ukraine. The corridor effectively serves as the only route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians to the outside world. Azerbaijani protesters blockaded the road in December, ostensibly over environmental concerns, but many believed they were acting with the tacit support, if not at the behest, of the government in Baku. Even if the International Court of Justice ruled on February 23, 2023, that “Azerbaijan shall. . . take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions” (ICJ, 2023), little seems to be done in practice for progress to be made. The blockade has already made it hard to get food and medicine, and there are often power outages because of it. It is no surprise, then, that Armenia believes Russia is not holding up its end of the bargain. In response, in January, Armenia refused to conduct exercises with the Collective Security Treaty Organization on its territory (Interfax, 2023), raising questions about the long-term sustainability of the

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organization. More significantly, the Yerevan government has stated that it is forced to find new partners to provide them assistance. The Armenian foreign minister said that the G-20 nations should put pressure on Azerbaijan to intervene on the matter (TASS, 2023), while the European Union has already established a civilian mission in Armenia (EU Council, 2023). All this would seem to suggest that Russia is too preoccupied with Ukraine to effectively manage its affairs elsewhere and that its relationship with Armenia is in peril. However, on the longer term, things stand differently. Economic ties between Armenia and Russia, particularly in the energy sector, will be extremely difficult to replace. At the same time. Moscow was Yerevan’s key economic and investment partner. The trade turnover with Russia in 2021 was $2.6 billion, which accounted for 34% of Armenia’s imports and 27% of its exports. Economic ties only intensified in 2022, when the Armenian economy grew 13% thanks largely to Russian migrants and the growth of trade and parallel exports. Human capital in the IT sector increased by 25%, according to the head of Armenia’s national bank (Kucera, 2023). The service sector has already shown significant growth: from January to August, the volume of services provided in the country increased by 27% compared with the previous year. Russians registered more than 2700 companies in the country from February to August (RBC, 2023). Armenian exports to Russia went up by 49% in the first half of 2022 compared to the same time the year before. Imports grew by 42%. However, under the current circumstances, Armenia is trying to play Russia off the West so that it may strengthen its own objectives. It has improved relations with the EU and even with Turkey. Armenia lifted the trade ban it imposed on Turkey in 2021, after the six-week war in 2020. Consequently, according to the Ministry of Economy, Armenia and Turkey traded $324.5 million in 2022, which is 4.4. times more than in the same period of 2021 ($73.5 million)—marking a 139 times increase in value of the Armenian exports to Turkey (News Armenia, 2023). While some argue that Armenia wants to complement Russian assistance rather than replace it (Zolotova, 2023), the current shift seems to have started before 2020. Since the early 90 s, Russia provided military support to Armenia and sold weapons to its government. Russia has a defense agreement with Armenia and maintains a military base in the country, which is seen as a key strategic asset in the region. However, the criticism toward Russia’s policies, particularly when it comes to issues such as corruption and democratic governance (Gallup, 2019) has increased during the last five years and in particular since the Velvet Revolution in 2018, which drew a growing influence of the general public on matters of foreign policy (Huseynov & Rzayev, 2018). Since 2019, according to Gallup, the approval rating for the US leadership has increased in Armenia, while the approval rating for Russia has decreased. In 2022, 55% of the respondents to a Gallup poll approved of the US leadership, while only 32% approved of Russia’s leadership. In 2018, only 31% of Armenians approved of the US leadership and 54% approved of Russia’s (Gallup World Poll, 2023). The public perception is tied not only to the way Russia has managed the Lachin corridor crisis, but also to the way that Russia has (not) reacted during the latest

8.1

The South Caucasus

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clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in September 2022. This is actually what triggered Armenia’s refusal to participate in the CSTO’s exercises. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called Russian President Vladimir Putin after fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan along their border, reached out to the UN, and requested action from the international community. At the time, he also said that Yerevan would use Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is led by Russia, against Baku for attacking land that the rest of the world agreed was part of Armenia. According to the article, CSTO members are required to defend fellow members who are being attacked. The same clause was invoked by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in January to request military support from Russia after anti-government riots broke out in the nation, which Kazakhstan got, considering Russian military forces came into Astana and only left after the new government had been installed. In Armenia’s case, Moscow has not provided military assistance. Instead, Moscow stated that it had begun mediating a cease-fire. The United States and the EU have both called for a de-escalation. The clashes in September 2022 were the recent serious round of fighting in the protracted conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Since the Second NagornoKarabakh War in 2020, which resulted in a cease-fire brokered by Moscow and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, there have been intermittent border clashes, raising concerns about a larger conflict. Hostilities in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, have been intensifying since the start of the war in Ukraine. In the early days of the war in Ukraine, officials in Yerevan and in NagornoKarabakh’s de facto capital of Stepanakert feared that Azerbaijan would take advantage of Russia’s and the West’s preoccupation to recapture more land in the breakaway region. In 2020, Azerbaijan took control of part of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the towns of Shusha and Hadrut and the seven adjacent territories it had lost to Armenia in 1994. Armenian troops withdrew, but Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the region to patrol the parts of the former NKAO that remained in the hands of ethnic Armenians. In March 2022, renewed fighting resulted in Azerbaijan gaining control of Farukh, a village that lies in an Armenian-populated district of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the time, Russian forces successfully pressed both sides to end the fighting. The territory’s own troops left the area under Russian monitoring toward the end of the month, but Azerbaijani forces remained. The U.S., the EU, France, and Russia all asked Baku to move its forces back to where they were before. However, Baku chose not to obey them. As a result, Russian peacekeepers were sent to Farukh to halt any further advancements by Azerbaijani forces. Azerbaijan found itself in a unique situation as it became clear that the war in Ukraine would not be ending anytime soon. Along with Turkey, its main ally in the region, it could not only give Europe a much-needed alternative source of natural gas, but it also saw an opportunity to strengthen its position as a potential middleman between Russia and the West. While delegations from the United States and Europe

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were in Azerbaijan for energy talks, Baku also maintained friendly ties with Moscow. It did not outright condemn the Russian invasion, but it also did not declare the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk independent. Instead, it kept up its collaboration with Turkey and pursued opportunities that suited its interests as a country. The September flareup began just a day after reports indicated that a counteroffensive launched by Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine was successful (Duggal, 2022). Although there is limited information about such matters, it seems clear that the morale of the Russian military has suffered greatly during the 2022 winter (Rozhanskiy, 2023). If the Russian military has indeed suffered the kind of losses reported by most Western media, it needs to consider a new strategy. One option is to engage in another region where it has the upper hand. In Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia mainly plays the role of peacemaker rather than aggressor, seeing this as the best way to maintain its influence in the region. However, Moscow reportedly no longer has a full contingent of peacekeepers deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh, so it is unclear whether it would be able to keep the peace there anyway (Shahverdyan, 2022). This may be why Azerbaijan saw an opportunity to attack Armenia at a time when Russia appeared unable to help. Moscow was pushed into a position where it must adhere strictly to the terms of the cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh. The peacekeepers’ sole duty is to police the Lachin Road and ensure that nobody else is being shot at. Giving Russian peacekeepers the authority to open the Lachin corridor could complicate the conflict in the area and impede relations with Azerbaijan, which is already a key state for Moscow’s strategy in the war. Yerevan says that the current blockade is a response to the rejection of the Zangezur corridor. This corridor would have connected Azerbaijanis living in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with the rest of Azerbaijan. If so, the Lachin corridor crisis could also be seen as an attempt from Azerbaijan to put pressure on Moscow to start new talks that could lead to Zangezur making concessions. However, this might work in Armenia’s favor: Zangezur does not really help Moscow under Western sanctions, and any attempt to establish new shipping lanes that avoid Russia might not succeed. At the moment of writing, the crisis is evolving, and as with all crises in the South Caucasus, it may take weeks, but also months or years, to come to a resolution. However, zooming out and focusing on the larger question of whether NagornoKarabakh can become a new front for Russia, all of the evidence above points out that it is highly unlikely for this to happen. However, if Russia does not come to Armenia’s aid, Moscow’s influence in the South Caucasus could diminish in the long term. Failing to intervene during another crisis (that could potentially be opened during the weeks and months of the Ukraine war or even after the war is over) would further weaken Russia’s position, while presenting opportunities—and headaches— for the West.

8.2

8.2

The North Caucasus

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The North Caucasus

From a strategic point of view, Russia needs to have some influence over the South Caucasus while keeping the North Caucasus under its control. This is because these regions are natural buffer zones, and if they fell into the hands of an enemy, Russia’s borders and even its core (the Muscovy region and its surroundings) would be at risk. But these areas have always been hard to control—because of their terrain and the populations living there and those influencing the regions. The Russians’ centurieslong struggle to tame this region has resulted in the North Caucasus’ current administrative structure. According to Caucasus and Central Asia scholar Marie Bennigsen Broxup, the North Caucasus served as a “barrier” separating Russia from the center of the Muslim world (Bennigsen-Broxup, 2001) until it was subdued during the czarist regime in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, the mountainous topography prevented this region from being truly accessed by important Muslim powers to the south, such as the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid (and later Qajar) Persians. Despite their efforts, the Turks and the Persians were unable to advance past the South Caucasus in their attempts to conquer the Caucasus region. Both the Ottomans and the Persians lacked the political, economic, and military capacities that Russia and the other Europeans had amassed by the eighteenth century. The Turks were also deeply invested in Europe, where they were beginning to lose territory, and they were engaged in a bitter rivalry in the Middle East. Ultimately, the vast Greater Caucasus mountain range eluded both the Ottomans and the Persians. The Russians, on the other hand, had no such problems. Orthodox Christian Russia was in a much better position to eventually conquer the North Caucasus, even though it did take time. This is why, unlike the South Caucasus, there are no separate sovereign states in the North Caucasus. Instead, the region is an integral part of Russia and is split between the North Caucasus Federal District and the Southern Federal District, two of the eight federal districts that make up the Russian Federation. The majority of the area falls under the jurisdiction of the North Caucasian district, which broke away from the Southern district in 2010, one year after the Second Chechen War’s conclusion. The North Caucasian district is the only Muslim-majority district in the federation, with the Southern district mostly to the north. It stretches from the Sea of Azov in the northwest to the Caspian Sea in the southeast. In the Southern district, the Krasnodar region and the Adygea enclave are found. Together, they make up the westernmost part of the region. Krasnodar primarily consists of flat land, which made it easier for Russia to slavize the region after the Circassian inhabitants were forcibly driven out in the late nineteenth century. The remainder of the North Caucasus, or the North Caucasian district, was organized into a single federal district because it has maintained its distinctively Muslim identity. This region, which stretches from Krasnodar to the Caspian Sea, is made up of the republics of Dagestan, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, KarachayCherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. North Ossetia and the region of Stavropol are the only places in the North Caucasus that are mostly Russian and Orthodox

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Christian. Stavropol is between the republics of Dagestan and Krasnodar and shares southern borders with both of them.

8.2.1

A History of Assimilation

Russian interest in the region was sparked by Ivan the Terrible’s conquest of Astrakhan (a region of the North Caucasus that is located near the northwest corner of the Caspian Sea) in 1556. During this first push into the North Caucasus, which lasted until 1604, the Russians got as far as Dagestan, which was easy to do because the northern half of the region is flat. This invasion did not last, however. The Ottomans, who at the time were still a powerful opponent, aided the Dagestanis in their resistance to the Russian invasion. The Russians had no choice but to retreat to Astrakhan. The area was essentially left on its own from 1604 to 1783. The Turks were constrained by their conflicts with the Persians, and Russia’s attention had shifted to Europe. Due in large part to the halting of Russian efforts to invade the region and the support of the Ottoman Turks and Crimean Tatars, Islam, which had been present in the region since the eighth century, was able to spread rapidly through the central and western parts of the North Caucasus due to this relative isolation. Russia was able to exert power in the North Caucasus under Catherine II. Russia waged a deliberate campaign to conquer the area from 1783 to 1824. The Ottoman Empire supported Chechen Sufi leader Sheikh Mansour, who was able to unite much of the North Caucasus, but his followers faced fierce opposition from the Russians between 1785 and 1791. After suffering a significant loss at the hands of these Muslim warriors on the banks of the Sunzha River in 1785, the Russian army was able to return and crush the resistance thanks to its victory in the Napoleonic Wars. However, the locals learned from the uprising that Islam could serve as a unifying force and the basis for armed resistance, even though it was ultimately put down. This sparked a number of jihad-based campaigns that continued up until the Soviet Union’s formation in 1922. The traditional North Caucasian feudal elite began to disintegrate at this time, and Sufi orders began to expand. Islam’s significance in North Caucasus politics increased as a result. Professor Robert F. Baumann of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College discusses how challenging it was for the Russians to completely conquer the region because inciting religious fervor was an effective way to mobilize people to resist them (Baumann, 2010). Although Islamic resistance increased the cost of the Russians’ conquest of the area, it was unable to stop it entirely. Russian colonization of the North Caucasus has consequences that are comparable to those of British and French colonialism in Africa and India, respectively. In a 1996 article, former CIA and national security official Paul Henze wrote that Russian colonialism brought order and progress to the North Caucasus, which had been a chaotic area of tribal highlanders cut off from the rest of the world (Henze, 1996). Moscow did, in fact, give the area modern infrastructure in the form of highways,

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railroads, ports, and cities, but only after a protracted campaign to quell local dissent. The Russians sought to rule a region that was much closer to home than the majority of other European powers, which sought colonies in far-off lands. It was crucial that the Russians fully assimilate the region because the Caucasus was right on their doorstep. They invested a lot of time in attempting to convert the locals to Orthodox Christianity, believing that this would facilitate assimilation. That strategy ultimately backfired. Despite the fact that this area was home to numerous ethnolinguistic groups, the majority of them had been Muslim for many years. The region has a wide range of religious preferences. The identity and ideology of the Chechens and Dagestanis in the east heavily depend on Islam. However, religious zeal tends to wane as one travels west. Beyond Islam, the diverse peoples of the North Caucasus share very little in common (Barrett, 1995). The Russians sought to capitalize on their divisions along clan, ethnic, linguistic, and territorial lines. The traditional feudal Muslim elites and religious authorities sought to hold onto their positions of authority through two different sets of laws. While the latter emphasized customary laws, religious authorities promoted Shariah, or Islamic law, in an effort to gain more power. These two opposing forces were able to coexist to a large extent prior to the arrival of the Russians. Michael Khodarkovsky, a historian at Loyola University, claims that Russia pursued a sophisticated plan to conquer the North Caucasus (Khodarkovsky, 1999). The Russians occasionally found allies. But in other cases, they used force, particularly when acquiring lands and driving out the locals. Russia frequently coopted the feudal Muslim elite, assimilating them into supporters of Moscow when it was in need of local allies. Elites from the North Caucasus were sent to Moscow to study, where many of them embraced Russian culture and Orthodox Christianity. However, since few of them returned home, they did little to advance assimilation in the North Caucasus. By the second half of the nineteenth century, Moscow started to back locals who had grievances against the landed gentry because they realized they needed people to represent Russian interests in the North Caucasus. Orthodox Christian conversion campaigns there undermine the empire’s more pressing interests in retaining regional allegiance. Conversion efforts were obviously abhorrent to the Muslim clergy (Cohen, 2019), but they also met with resistance from the traditional elite circles. It was challenging for the Russians to change course because they saw conversion as integral to their efforts to advance their imperial interests in the region. Along with the requirement to secularize the assimilation process, Moscow’s control of the North Caucasus was unclear. Should it be treated as a colony or should it be fully assimilated into the empire as a full-fledged province? Another significant outbreak of resistance occurred there as the Russians looked for the best way to govern the North Caucasus. Imam Shamil, the founder of the Caucasian Imamate, an Islamic polity that aimed to free the region from the Russians, served as the campaign’s leader (Barrett, 1994). He did this in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Russians were compelled to admit that their new form of government needed to take into account the regional legal customs. However, the Russians were caught in this situation by the conflicting laws of Islamic and

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customary law (Reynolds, 2005). Siding with the clergy would have lessened the propensity for armed religious resistance, but the Russians preferred the local political and economic elites because they wanted local allies who would be willing to adopt Russian customs. As a result, Russia struggled to control the North Caucasus throughout the czarist era. The empire eventually succeeded in establishing a pro-Russian elite class in the area because many local elites believed that Russification was the only way to bring about European modernization (Tsvetkova, 2017). The gap between the elites and the masses, however, grew wider as the masses remained devoted to Islamic teachings. But by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, religious identity and ethnic nationalism would be combined, and the elites and the common people would find common ground. After the end of World War II, the North Caucasus was already cut off from the rest of the world by geography and Russian subjugation when it was more or less completely hidden behind communism and the Soviet Union. The Soviets broke up the North Caucasus into different Soviet Socialist Republics. They did this because they knew how hard it was for the czarists who came before them to assimilate the region into Russia. The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created when the main Soviet Socialist Republic in the North Caucasus combined Chechnya and Ingushetia. Additionally, the Soviets kept a sophisticated and effective KGB-led coercive security establishment in place, which allowed them to pacify this historically unruly region (Grau, 2007). However, the Chechens openly voiced their discontent (Perović, 2015) and, between 1940 and 1944, mounted an uprising against the Soviet government under the guidance of nationalist guerilla leader Hasan Israilov. Josef Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, ordered the mass expulsion of residents from the area in order to quell dissent after charging the Chechens with working with the Nazis during World War II. Approximately 650,000 residents of the area, the majority of whom were Chechens, were compelled to move to Central Asia in 1944 (Campana, 2007). Making amends with the Chechens did not start until the time of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The Chechens were allowed to return to their homes in 1956. The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was reinstated two years later. The following three decades saw a general calm in the region, but the early 1990s saw another uprising as 15 republics proclaimed their independence and the Soviet Union fell apart. Along with a few disputed territories, the South Caucasus was divided into the independent republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. However, the Russians were unwilling to recognize the independence of the North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya, which proclaimed its independence in 1991 (Malek, 2009). Following each other, two wars—the first from 1993 to 1996 and the second from 1999 to 2009—occurred. Nationalists who adhered to the Sufi faith and sought an independent Chechnya initially held sway in the Chechen wars (Kramer, 2005). Salafists, however, gradually gained more control over the conflict with Russian forces. Over time, these jihadists shifted their focus from creating an independent

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Islamic Chechnya to pursuing more global objectives, such as establishing a regional Islamic state that would include the larger North Caucasus (Hellesøy, 2013). Chechen jihadists modeled themselves after the legendary religious warriors who resisted Russian incursions in the North Caucasus starting in the sixteenth century, who were inspired by al-Qaida and helped by the influx of many Arab foreign fighters. The Caucasus Emirate is a regional movement that was established in 2007 (Gerber & Mendelson, 2009). The group known as the Caucasus Emirate has essentially lost all relevance as a result of the expansion of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but many militants from the North Caucasus, including those from Chechnya, relocated to Syria and Iraq to join the jihadist government (Beccaro, 2021). Therefore, the republic was able to establish a stable government headed by the Kadyrov clan, which has maintained stability for at least ten years, as a result of the Chechen insurgency’s decline in the late 2000s. Key to this stability was the Kremlin support for the Kadyrov regime in the region—the cohabitation between the two. In fact, this was one of the main challenges for Vladimir Putin had when he came to power in the early 2000s. Gaining the loyalty of Akhmad Kadyrov, the former mufti of the short-lived independent Chechnya guaranteed that no other war would follow in the region. However, after the wars in 90 s war, three groups emerged: nationalists, Islamists, and jihadists. Over time, transnational jihadists with ties to al-Qaida gained prominence in the conflict with Russia as nationalists lost their sway. But seven months after taking office in 2003, jihadists murdered Akhmad Kadyrov. Ramzan Kadyrov, his son and logical successor, was deemed ineligible to serve as president by the Chechen Constitution due to his youth—he was 30 at the time. As a result, Alu Alkhanov, a pro-Russian politician, took over as president for three years. Ramzan Kadyrov was appointed president by President Vladimir Putin in 2007. By this point, the Russians had significantly reduced the threat posed by jihadists in the area, but not without some luck. Many Chechen jihadists had left the area voluntarily to fight in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia, some of which taking leadership positions within the Islamic State’s jihadist rule in Syria and Iraq (Bokhari, 2017). Putin and Kadyrov’s close relationship has ensured overall stability despite the occasional Chechen terrorist attack still occurring domestically and even inside Russia. The good cooperation between the two leaders have led to some of the security forces from Kadyrov’s government having been dispatched to help Russia in its Syrian intervention. If significant threats to Kadyrov’s authority materialized, the fragile peace in Chechnya could be upended. There are already opponents who could succeed, such as jihadists and competing clans. If Kadyrov was unable to rely on Moscow’s assistance, whether as a result of a disagreement or the Kremlin’s inability to assist Kadyrov, this process would be sped up. The other regional governments in Russia are undoubtedly watching with concern. While Moscow’s waning influence offers them the chance to assert more independence, it also presents opportunities for both their internal and external enemies.

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Meanwhile, Putin himself has been under a lot of pressure from the Russian political and military elite with regards to Chechnya even before the war in Ukraine. Igor Sechin, the chief of Russian oil giant Rosneft, was at odds with Kadyrov over control of Rosneft’s assets in Chechnya for years (Moscow Times, 2017). In 2018, after Sechin managed to get something in return from Putin, Kadyrov got control over the assets in 2018, which he said to have been neglected as Rosneft did not invest in developing the energy resources of the region (Warsaw Institute, 2018). Putin’s interest was to get Sechin to cooperate, given that he does not need to have Chechnya become a problem for Moscow. Another example where the Kremlin got involved into the region’s internal affairs but was careful not to alienate Kadyrov was Chechnya’s discrimination against homosexuals in 2017. Putin typically would not be interested in issues like this, and he is not a supporter of gay rights. However, twelve people were reported dead in 2017 as a result of the crackdown, and at least one hundred more are said to have been imprisoned, all while Kadyrov denies any involvement (The Guardian, 2017). Putin asked Kadyrov to stop the crackdown as a result of the negative coverage the situation has received in the international media. The matter was solved “through dialogue” (Arutunyan, 2017)—Kadyrov issued an official statement at the time saying that due to its Muslim tradition, Chechnya has no homosexuals. But when it comes to upholding Islamic religious traditions, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In Chechnya, Kadyrov has established himself as the protector of the Islamic faith by enforcing dress codes for women, advocating harsh penalties for intermixing the sexes, and endorsing polygamy. Normally, Kadyrov’s Kremlin bosses would not appreciate him advocating religion. However, Moscow has kept quiet because both governments understand that now is not the time to feed jihadists, not with Russian resources already stretched thin—as it was the case for most of the last decade, and with transnational jihadist groups proliferating around the globe. But the issue with pandering to religion is that radical Islamists are the ones who gain the most (and this applies to many, if not most, areas with a majority of Muslims). In an ironic twist, the Muslim governments that use religion to maintain stability frequently bring about the outcome they wished to prevent by giving the jihadists legitimacy and a voice. In the case of Chechnya, religion is unlikely to make up for the fact that the Kadyrov regime is a Russian creation, which is a problem that is hardwired into it. In Chechnya, Russia needs Kadyrov. The Kadyrovs’ rule did not put an end to militancy in the area, but the fact that it is somewhat under their control satisfies Russia’s strategic need to keep the North Caucasus under its control and prevent the rise of rival powers there. The ruling class in Moscow has been worried about the return of Russians from the Caucasus who had fought in Syria and Iraq as well as the declaration of allegiance by local militants to the Islamic State for years (Arutunyan, 2018). The Islamic State is a secondary threat to the Kremlin because it does not threaten Russia’s ability to control the North Caucasus on a territorial level. Moscow’s top priority is to keep good relations with influential local officials. The opposite is equally, if not more, true; without Kremlin assistance, Kadyrov would not have been able to suppress dissidents and maintain his fiefdom. However,

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The North Caucasus

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jihadist forces and other adversaries of Kadyrov will try to take advantage of it as Russia’s capacity to assist in managing the region dwindles. A weakened Russia will not be able to maintain control over Chechnya and the larger North Caucasus, just as the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s was no longer able to project power into its peripheral regions, leading to the secession of its republics in the Baltics, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Chechnya will inevitably descend into factional warfare if left to its own devices. And jihadists, who have a tendency to mobilize people around religion, stand to gain the most from this situation.

8.2.2

Chechnya and the Ukrainian Factor

Chechnya is governed as a fiefdom under the unwritten terms of the partnership between the Kremlin and Kadyrov, but is heavily funded by Moscow. In Chechnya, Kadyrov exercises dictatorial control over an army of about 30,000 men—the Kadyrovtsy, while disobeying Russian laws (Lüdtke, 2018). Even though some of his soldiers work for the Russian government, in reality they answer to Kadyrov rather than Moscow. In Chechnya, there are no competing political figures or parties, and members of the Kadyrov family hold prominent positions and have easy access to resources. Kadyrov is still reliant on Moscow for funding despite having complete autonomy within Chechnya. The Kadyrovtsy have become key to the Putin regime during the last decade. These soldiers can be relied upon to help the regime against Russian opposition in the event of serious trouble in Moscow. In the months leading up to the March 2012 presidential election, when Moscow was rocked by sizable protests against the Putin regime, Kadyrov’s function as a Kremlin security provider became clear. He referred to the organizers as jackals, hyenas, and “enemies of the people” in a series of outbursts (RFE/RL 2012), triggering advocates for civil rights to demand action be taken against him. Kadyrov has also been useful in Syria. Russian support for Bashar al-Assad was primarily limited to the air war because non-Muslim troops on the ground would not be welcome (and mercenaries supporting the government forces). The Kadyrovtsy were not subject to that restriction. Therefore, a Chechen police battalion was sent to patrol Aleppo’s streets and both the Russian and Syrian media as well as the locals were pleased by the move (Hodge, 2017). Chechnya is, in many ways, the place Russia meets the Middle East directly—and because it chooses to do so. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen Republic, is frequently used by Moscow as a middleman in its dealings with the Muslim world. Because of his Muslim background and close ties to the Kremlin, Kadyrov is the perfect candidate. In February 2021, Kadyrov traveled to the United Arab Emirates where he met with Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and delivered a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin. His visit came just before a meeting between Russia, Turkey, and Iran to discuss the Syrian peace process.

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Putin reportedly praised the “productive and multifaceted” ties between Russia and the UAE and thanked them for donating personal protective equipment to the North Caucasus in order to combat the pandemic. In addition to discussing other areas of cooperation, Kadyrov emphasized the contribution of Emirati projects to the development of Chechnya. A visit and a message of this nature between the two leaders demonstrate that Putin wants something from the Arab world. In essence, Russia keeps engaging multiple sides to expand its influence. This is just an example for the tactics Russia employs. For years, the good relations between the Kremlin, between Putin personally and Kadyrov have been described as a guarantee for political stability in the region and in Russia proper. They have even become the source of a new term in political science: the Chechenization process (Russell, 2008), which essentially translates into a central government sustaining control by giving the local leader a deal of autonomy in exchange for his/her loyalty to the central authority. Such a system poses its own risks, but, based on loyalty networks, it is highly stable for both authorities (Sakwa, 2010). It is, however, highly vulnerable when one of the leadership systems weakens—it weakens the other. This is, in essence, the main challenge that the war in Ukraine brought forth. The Kadyrov regime has seized the opportunity to leverage its military might and allegiance to Putin’s administration in order to play a larger role outside of Chechnya. Therefore, the Kadyrovtsy have also become active in Ukraine (Mirovalev, 2022), while the Kadyrov regime has increased its political role by launching propaganda campaigns for the Kremlin for the first time. Due to their combat prowess and loyalty, Kadyrov and his forces were chosen by the Russian government as essential resources for the invasion during the February 2022 special operation in Ukraine. According to reports, Kadyrov was aware of the Russian invasion weeks in advance (BBC, 2022). Most estimates place the number of Kadyrovites in Ukraine at just over 2000, with the majority serving as Rosgvardiya. Kadyrov boasted on Telegram in March 2022 that he could gather over 70,000 Chechen fighters who supported Russia (National Guard). Later in the conflict, the Chechen leader helped create the “volunteer” battalions to support the shaky Russian effort to recruit professional soldiers (ISW, 2022). Despite the substantial financial incentives offered for recruitment, locals and visitors contend that coercive recruitment and pressure on families played a major role in the Chechen mobilization (Caucasian Knot, 2022). All this has made Kadyrov take a leading role in the public discourse about the war after Russia was defeated in the Kharkiv counteroffensive in September 2022. Mobilization has caused a social backlash. After the announcement of mobilization, protests broke out in several cities across Russia, especially in areas where most people are not Russian (Urcosta, 2022). In the North Caucasus, Chechnya included, anti-war protests turned violent. The turmoil has not disrupted mobilization, but considering the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, mobilization could, in fact, pose a formidable political threat. Kadyrov has, since October 2022, started criticizing Russia’s inaction, even if he continues to help the Kremlin, and force recruitment is still taking place in Chechnya

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despite Kadyrov’s declaration that the region would be exempt from the federal mobilization (Atsayev, 2022). In November 2022, following his criticism publicly lambasting the “incompetence and softness” of the Russian army, a new commander was named for leading the Russian war efforts in Ukraine: Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced the military commander in charge of the Ukraine war with Gen. Sergei Surovikin. This changed the military culture of the conflict itself (Friedman, 2022), but did not come close to what Kadyrov seemed to envision at the time. At the foundation of their partnership, Kadyrov and Putin have been dedicated to stopping Russia’s disintegration. Kadyrov supported the invasion of Ukraine but was apparently horrified by the high command of the Russian army’s apparent weakness. Instead, pro-Kadyrov Telegram channels and other social media platforms advertised the involvement of the Chechen military in the conquest of Popasna, Mariupol, and Sievierodonetsk. They portrayed the Kadyrovites as valiant Russian patriots and significant contributors to the Russian forces’ meager success in Ukraine. The Kadyrovites were described as an elite military force at the forefront of the war in Ukraine, alongside the Wagner mercenaries. All of this was meant to transform Kadyrov from an outcast to a crucial figure in Russian nationalism (Chambers, 2022). Kadyrov’s strategy is not new—it was previously deployed in Syria. Just as Kadyrov forces assisted the build-up of mosques in Syria, in Ukraine they were portrayed by the state-controlled media as being engaged in distributing charitable aid in occupied Ukraine and assisting in the reconstruction of destroyed cities like Mariupol, participating in the so-called humanitarian activities. The role played by the Akhmat Kadyrov Fund (AKF fund) and Kadyrov’s alleged devotion to the wellbeing of the Donbas civilian population were also depicted—after all, Kadyrov provided armored vehicles to the Donbas’ occupying forces (Riddle Russia, 2022). Before the call for war mobilization, anti-war demonstrations had largely been restricted to the North Caucasus—no matter the personal relation between Putin and Kadyrov and the political loyalty between the two regimes, the locals remember the two most recent wars with Moscow that they have lived through, and Russian aggression is something familiar to their minds (Shemakov, 2022). Most of these protests were small and contained. But the calls for mobilization seemed to announce further political instability in the North Caucasus (Murphy & Thomas, 2022). While Kadyrov forced mobilization was criticized, there is a growing political mobilization outside of the North Caucasus that is directed at the region and also feeds this unrest. Russian invasion has caused a surge of support for Ukraine among the diaspora in the North Caucasus. Chechens, who suffered greatly during the two Chechen wars, have demonstrated their support for the cause by attending public events in European capitals and posting messages online. They saw parallels between the atrocities carried out by the Russian regime and those that took place in Chechnya two decades ago (Ratelle, 2022). For them, Ukraine had joined a long history of bloody conflicts against Russian imperialism taking place throughout the former Soviet Union (Popova, 2022).

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Chechens from the European diaspora also enlisted to support Ukraine’s resistance. The Russian invasion also provided an opportunity for exiled Chechen politicians and other activists to intensify their opposition to Russia and their dedication to the region’s independence. Anzor Mashkadov, the son of the former president of Chechnya, and former foreign minister Akhmed Zakayev visited Ukraine to meet with Chechen fighters, support the war effort, and show their support for the Ukrainian resistance. Representatives of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s government in Europe have actively framed the conflict as a shared struggle against Russian imperialism. Finally, and perhaps more importantly for both the Kadyrov and Putin regimes, the Islamic State issued a statement denouncing Muslims who participated in the fighting in Ukraine and portraying it as a conflict between “infidel” Western countries (crusaders). The terrorist organizations have suggested that rather than fighting Russia, the conflict in Ukraine may offer an opportunity to attack the West (Schaer, 2022). All this has prompted a conversation about a renewed insurgency in Chechnya and in southern Russia. The main insurgent force has been the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, a Chechen battalion that has been fighting in Ukraine since 2014. One of the four armed forces of the Ichkerian nationalists, the group has stated that its goal in Chechnya as well as fighting the Russians in Ukraine is the reason for its presence there. According to Ichkerian nationalists, the strong Western backing for Ukraine is opening a window for militants to revive anti-Russian grievances. They can retake control of the Chechen insurgency that was lost to jihadist forces by situating their struggle within the larger decolonization movement against the Russian empire, which also presents a threat to Kadyrov’s rule over Chechnya (Smith, 2022). However, chances for renewed insurgency depend on the evolution of the conflict in Ukraine. After a brutal counterinsurgency and a fighter exodus to Syria, the North Caucasus insurgency has been utterly crushed since 2016 (Crisis Group, 2016). Attacks by insurgents are typically the result of lone individuals (“lone wolf” attacks) or small groups that lack proper organizational cohesion (Souleimanov, 2016). Additionally, the North Caucasus’ remaining insurgents face persistent difficulties that make it impossible for them to continue their military operations against Russian forces over an extended period of time. With the mass migration to Syria and Western Europe, there are currently no transit routes for weapons and recruits to the North Caucasus, local support for the insurgency has waned, and the current political climate in Russia fosters an environment that is prone to repression where incumbents can more easily suppress new insurgent movements (Klimentov, 2021). However, the longer the Ukraine war continues, the higher the chance for further destabilization of the Northern Caucasus—one of the poorest regions of Russia. It is easy to imagine the North Caucasus as a ticking time bomb that could blow up at any moment—the Caucasus powder keg, spreading chaos throughout Russia. But the actual situation is more complex. While Ramzan Kadyrov is increasing his posture at the federal level and could benefit from the war, the potential for

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escalating political unrest triggers the potential for further disintegration of Russia, something that is likely the highest risk for the Kremlin. While fighting continues in Ukraine, the more fragile the North Caucasus becomes, the more vulnerable Russia becomes.

8.3

Russia’s New Containment Line: The Caucasus Connection

No matter the risks, Moscow’s strategic math has the Caucasus as the key to its new infrastructure plans and to its new containment line against the West. Its role stands in its geography: as a land bridge to Iran and, from there, into South Asia and (if India allows) the rest of the world. Mohsen Karami, Iran’s central bank deputy governor, said on February 1, 2023 (AP, 2023), that Iran and Russia had connected their bank messaging systems, a move that should bolster cooperation and trade between them. Moscow has not confirmed the news, but reports last year indicated that the countries were working on such a plan. This is just one of a series of moves to strengthen ties since Russia invaded Ukraine early last year. Indeed, they have been getting closer since 2014, when the West first imposed sanctions on Russia following its annexation of Crimea. That year, Russia and Iran signed agreements on nuclear energy cooperation as well as trade and economic cooperation. In 2016, they signed a deal that allowed Iran to ship its natural gas to Russia. In 2022, they have grown their ties in the energy field, with some commentators discussing the potential of a cartel coming alive from their agreement (Watkins, 2022). However, despite these efforts, bilateral trade between Iran and Russia remains relatively small in comparison to trade with other countries.

8.3.1

The North–South Transport Corridor: Beyond the Caucasus(?)

The two countries—Iran and Russia, both under severe Western sanctions, have more converging economic interests now than before the Ukraine war. Iran views Russia as a promising market for its manufactured goods. However, Iran can offer little of what Russia needs: it is not a producer of equipment and semi-finished products that Russia could use for its industries, in replacing the imports suspended from traditional suppliers. However, Russian cooperation with Iran has a strategic dimension when it comes to the development of infrastructure projects. Equipment from other, non-Western exporters could be shipped to Russia through Iran. Moreover, by building new shipping corridors, Russia could reach beyond its traditional markets as well. Russia and Iran have been developing the International North–South Transport Corridor, a new shipping corridor that is meant to bypass Europe and Western

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sanctions and cater to the Eurasian landmass (Sharma, 2022). Reports from Russia say that the corridor is operational, with some adding that it has already become the main route for shipments from Mumbai to St. Petersburg (Zolotova, 2022). If that is true, cargo must be transported using existing infrastructure—crossing Iran and the Caucasus to St. Petersburg currently takes more than a week if a driver would put in 8–9 hours of driving per day. The project of the “North-South Transport Corridor” was designed on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement signed between Russia, Iran, and India on September 12, 2000. When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran in July 2022, he and his counterpart Ebrahim Raisi concluded that the Rasht–Astara rail link in northern Iran needs to be finished as soon as possible (Cursino, 2022). However, it is supposed to be completed by 2025 (Silk Road Briefing, 2022). From Rasht to the Southern Iranian ports there are more than 1000 km. To connect St. Petersburg to the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman, 6000 km of highways are under construction and only 1000 km are set to finish by March 2023. While the construction may be sped up, the key element to making the project fully operational is the Indian blessing and cooperation. The Indian and Iranian ministers of transport met during the summer of 2022 and a senior Iranian diplomat visited India in November to discuss development of the port of Chabahar in southern Iran, which would connect India with the rest of the corridor. Since their initial agreement to develop it in 2003, New Delhi and Tehran have been discussing the port project. In 2015, India committed to assist in developing Iran’s Chabahar port and a related railway in 2015, so that India could conduct commerce with Afghanistan without Pakistan’s interference and expand its trade with Central Asia. To equip two berths at Chabahar port for Phase I, India invested about $85.21 million (Staff, 2016). However, the $1.6 billion railway line from Chabahar to Zahedan remains unfinished (Haidar, 2020). The main obstacle to finishing up the project has been the international policy shifts on Iran and the US policy in particular. India negotiated and invested into Chabahar during the times that the West was negotiating with Tehran over the nuclear program. Since 2018, when the US overturned the JCPOA and re-imposed stringent sanctions on Iran, India has suspended work on the project. Most recently, however, India has not participated in the sanctions against Moscow and has continued to buy Russian oil.

8.3.2

The Indian Question: Back to the Core Borderland(?)

It may be easier for Russia to convince India about the effectiveness of the proposed corridor. Russia shifted its exports toward Asia last year, becoming India’s largest oil supplier (High North News, 2023). To do so, Russia has increased its usage of the Arctic Route, shipping its energy from Murmansk through the North Sea Route into the Pacific and then toward the Indian Ocean. Reports in Indian media are quoting “familiar” sources as saying that Indian energy conglomerates are interested in

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acquiring additional stakes in Russian energy assets in the Arctic and Russian Far East (Chaudhury, 2022), after Indian PM Modi said India would be keen on strengthening cooperation with Russia at a meeting with Putin in September 2022. India has been cautious about keeping its good ties with the West but saw an opportunity in benefiting from good relations with Russia. It remains to be seen whether that will continue (so far, the West has been reluctant to hold India accountable for its purchases of Russian oil, which are essential to keeping the Indian economy running), but, just as Russia does, India sees infrastructure as strategic to its interests. Besides giving India a major trade and connectivity hub on Iran’s coast that is an alternative route to Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan, it also provides it with a strategic counter to Pakistan’s Gwadar port, which is being developed by China right next door. The Chabahar trade zone could also become an important weigh station for India’s energy imports and food and material exports coming from Kandla and Mundra ports. It would be a good addition to India’s infrastructure at a time when the geopolitical importance of the Indian Ocean is growing. The ocean accounts for about 80% of the world’s maritime oil trade flows and is likely the most densely populated littoral, comprising some of the world’s fastest-growing regions from a demographic perspective. Most recently, the US set up the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a new trade pact (Herczegh, 2022) meant to divert trade away from China. Existing security alliances have also considered the area more and more often, considering its growing economic importance. Considering its strategy to counter the Western moves in the global economic war and find alternative partners to the West, Russia sees the Indian Ocean as a place that would help grow its global influence. Trading with India by increasing traffic on the Arctic Route is one thing. Convincing India to become its partner in developing the International North–South Transport Corridor is another. Here, Moscow’s reasoning goes beyond trade routes and is linked to its grand strategy. The Corridor is a natural extension of the Arctic Route, starting in Murmansk and connecting with St. Petersburg by river. It allows Russia to avoid all European NATO countries and, should highways and railways be built, considerably shortens the shipping time. In essence, by creating this new infrastructure, Moscow looks beyond its economic interests—it seeks to create a functional containment line against Europe. It goes parallel to the new NATO containment line in Europe, running from the Baltic to the Black Sea. India, however, is friendly with the United States, and both countries are part of the Quad Security Pact, which also includes Australia and Japan. This is why New Delhi will be the one to watch as the economic war between the West and Russia plays out. Moscow will continue to try to draw New Delhi closer. But for India, this would have major repercussions for its relationships with its other strategic partners—especially since it would mean drawing closer to Iran. India needs to consider the potential effects on its supply chain, access to international financial networks, and, perhaps most important, its security alliance in the Indo-Pacific. Any steps it takes toward boosting cooperation with Moscow could put these components at risk. But that won’t stop Russia from trying.

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Lüdtke, L. (2018). Kadyrov’s Chechnya poses a growing risk for Putin. GIS Reports. https://www. gisreportsonline.com/r/ruthless-troops-ukraine-syria/. Malek, M. (2009). Russia’s asymmetric wars in Chechnya since 1994. Connections: The Quarterly Journal, 08(4), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.11610/connections.08.4.05 Malik, H. (2022). Understanding use of diplomacy and force – A case study of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. In: Understanding use of diplomacy and force – A case study of Nagorno Karabakh conflict by Hiba Malik :: SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4128022. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Markedonov, S. (2018). Will Azerbaijan Join the “Eurasian NATO”? In: Carnegie Moscow. https:// carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/77116. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Matthee, R. (2022). Safavid Iran and the “Turkish Question” or How to Avoid a War on Multiple Fronts | Iranian Studies | Cambridge Core. In: Cambridge Core. https://www.cambridge.org/ core/journals/iranian-studies/article/abs/safavid-iran-and-the-turkish-question-or-how-to-avoida-war-on-multiple-fronts/6C0C41E605FBFC8D3AD81DF491B94503. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Menchinger, E. L. (2018). Contemporary Ottoman views of Catherine the great. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 42, 84–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12591 Mirovalev, M. (2022). The real role of Pro-Russian Chechens in Ukraine. In: The real role of ProRussian Chechens in Ukraine | Russia-Ukraine War News | Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera. com/news/2022/8/18/the-real-role-of-pro-russian-chechens-in-ukraine. Moscow Times, R. (2017). Rosneft pledges investment in Chechnya after Kadyrov Meeting. The Moscow Times. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2017/04/20/rosneft-pledges-investmentinchechnya-after-kadyrov-sell-out-rumors-a57767. Murphy, M., & Thomas, M. (2022). Ukraine war: Protests in Russia’s Dagestan Region against New Draft. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63028586. News Armenia, R. (2023). Sputnik Армения: Армения в 2022 Году Вывезла в Турцию Товаров в 139 Раз Больше, Чем в 2021 Году. Sputnik Армения: Армения в 2022 Году Вывезла в Турцию Товаров в 139 Раз Больше, Чем в 2021 Году. https://news.am/rus/news/747667. html. Oleg, B. (2007). The Ossets in the Southern Caucasus: Natives or newcomers? In: КиберЛенинка. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-ossets-in-the-southern-caucasus-natives-or-newcomers. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Pearson, R. (1999). Ethnicity, nationalism and conflict in and after the Soviet Union: The mind aflame. Political Geography, 18, 104–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0962-6298(98)00016-x Perović, J. (2015, March 20). Highland rebels: The North Caucasus during the Stalinist collectivization campaign. Journal of Contemporary History, 51(2), 234–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0022009414562821 Popova, T. (2022). Russian crimes in Chechnya and Ukraine are identical - Anzor Maskhadov. Russian crimes in Chechnya and Ukraine are identical - Anzor Maskhadov. https://www. ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3475873-russian-crimes-in-chechnya-and-ukraine-are-identicalanzor-maskhadov.html. Radney, I. (2023). Armenia and Azerbaijan: That other war – Public Books. In: Public Books. https://www.publicbooks.org/armenia-and-azerbaijan-that-other-war/. Accessed 20 Mar 2023. Ratelle, J.-F. (2022). The North Caucasus and the Russian War in Ukraine – PONARS Eurasia. In: The North Caucasus and the Russian War in Ukraine – PONARS Eurasia. https://www. ponarseurasia.org/the-north-caucasus-and-the-russian-war-in-ukraine/. RBC, R. (2023). RBC tells about cons and pros of mass relocation of Russians to Armenia. In: RBC tells about cons and pros of mass relocation of Russians to Armenia. http://arka.am/en/news/ economy/rbs_tells_about_cons_and_pros_of_mass_relocation_of_russians_to_armenia_/. Accessed March 27, 2023. Reynolds, M. (2005, January). Myths and mysticism: A longitudinal perspective on Islam and conflict in the North Caucasus. Middle Eastern Studies, 41(1), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 0026320042000322707.

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Chapter 9

The Landmass Pressure: Russia

The war in Ukraine, along with Russia’s grand strategy, finds its roots in the country’s historical instability, explained through geography and social history. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was referred to as “the greatest political catastrophe” of the twentieth century by Russian President Vladimir Putin (2005). Although this may sound exaggerated to people from outside Russia, those who have lived there have a different perspective. In the 1990s, they saw their government in Moscow, which had been a rival to the USA for nearly 50 years, eventually lose its position and never fully recover. Russia fell into poverty and social disillusionment. The dissolution of the union was so tragic that it still shapes Russia’s identity today. But before discussing Russia’s strategy, we need to understand its geopolitical imperatives: this makes it possible to understand both the triggers and the constraints in Moscow’s strategy today.

9.1

Russia’s Geopolitical Imperatives

The geography of Russia is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The vast majority of Russian territory is located between latitudes 50 and 70. Russia is the largest nation state in the world. On the one hand, Russia’s size makes it challenging to conquer the entire country. However, its population is spread out, while the center of Russia is located in the west, close to European superpowers and the North European Plain. Despite having the ninth-largest population in the world, considering that it has by far the largest land area of any nation, Russia has one of the lowest population densities in the world: eight people per square kilometer (National Geographic Learning, 2007). Considering the country’s typically cool climate, and the fact that vegetation and human life are mostly located below 60 degrees latitude, Russia’s agricultural heartland is in the southwest, close to its borders with Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, and Ukraine.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_9

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Understanding the Drivers and the Dynamics of Russia’s Geography

The indefensibility of Russia is its defining feature. In contrast to the core of most states, the core of Russia is limited to the medieval Grand Principality of Muscovy in the North West of the country. There are no rivers or oceans and no mountains mark its borders. As a result, it must rely solely on the relatively hostile climate and its forests for defense. This is why Russian history is a series of survivor stories. Traditionally, the invasions came from two main directions. The first is from the steps, from the wide open grasslands that connect Russia to Central Asia and beyond. This is the path that the Mongols used. The second is from the North European plain, which brought Russia everything from Teutonic Knights to the Nazi war machine. Russia has historically expanded in three stages to deal with its vulnerable borders and the threat of invasion. First, Russia expanded away from the invasion corridors to establish a redoubt rather than toward them to establish buffers. Russia went westward under Ivan III in the late fifteenth century, establishing itself somewhat in the Pripet Marshes. This cut Russia off from the Kyiv region. However, the majority of Russia’s expansion during this time period was north to the Arctic and northwest to the Urals. Only a small portion of this territory can be considered useful for defending the core of what Russia was back then. The majority of territories were taiga or actual tundra and were sparsely populated. However, at the time, for Russia, it was the only easily accessible land. It was also a natural organic outgrowth of the original Muscovy region, which was densely forested. The second phase of expansion was much more aggressive and risky. Under Ivan IV, Russia finally moved toward the Mongol invasion route in the mid-sixteenth century (Halperin, 1983). Russia pushed to the south and east, deep into the steps, until it reached the Urals in the east and the Caspian Sea, as well as the Caucasus Mountains in the south. As part of this expansion, Russia seized several strategically important locations, including Astrakhan on the Caspian, Tatar land, and Grozny, which was transformed into a military outpost at the foot of the Caucasus. With this expansion, Russia had finally achieved a measure of conventional security, holding the northern slope of the Caucasus (Kidirniyazov, 2017). The new land provided a reasonable defense against Asia Minor and Persia, while the millions of square kilometers of steps gave birth to another defensive strategy that Russia would later embrace: buffers. At the same time, Russia has also transformed politically: Ivan IV became the first Tsar of Russia from Grand Prince of Moscow, suggesting the empire to come. In the eighteenth century, the third expansion phase dealt with the final invasion route from the West. The Russian state expanded westward under Peter and Catherine the Great, conquering Ukraine to the southwest and pushing on to the Carpathian Mountains. It also shifted Russia’s border to the west, incorporating Baltic territories and securing Russia’s Baltic Sea flank. Muscovy and Russia’s Tsardom became known as the Russian Empire. Catherine the Great also considered

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expanding into South East Asia, going toward the Indian Ocean. She was perhaps the first Russian leader to understand that once the land expansion is complete from a security standpoint, Russia must expand to warm water ports that have open ocean access so that the empire can begin to counter the security and economic problems that a purely land empire suffers. However, aside from the Carpathians on its Southwest border (in today’s Ukraine), Russia did not achieve truly defensible borders. Expansions to the Baltic and Black Seas did not eliminate the external threat posed by the Cossacks and Balts of old. Instead, the expansion meant that external threats became internal threats. Russia also expanded so rapidly that maintaining the empire’s social and military cohesion became an ongoing challenge (which remains today). All of this is done to create some semblance of security by establishing buffer zones. Russia cannot count on natural features to protect it. The Pripet Marshes or the Pinsk Marshes, now at the border between Belarus and Ukraine were small and could in many cases simply be avoided (MacMillan, 1991). There is no one who might wish to attack from the Arctic and forests slowed the Mongols’. However, the geographical terrain around Muscovy meant that while invasions could be slowed down, they could never be definitely stopped. Russia is inherently vulnerable because it is a land power (Friedman, 2014). That leaves buffers: as long as a country controls territory separating itself from its enemies, even if it is territory easy for a hostile military to transit, it can drain out any invasion through attrition and attacks on supply lines. Therefore, the key strategic goal for Russia has been to make it more difficult for invaders to reach Moscow by pushing Russia’s borders as far west as possible and, when national borders could not be expanded, by creating buffer zones between Russia’s core and Europe. At the height of the Soviet Union, Moscow enjoyed an extensive buffer zone that stretched well into Central Europe. Consider that in 1989, St. Petersburg was about 1000 miles or 1600 kilometers from NATO troops (Taylor & Black, 2000). Today, that distance is about 200 miles (320 kilometers). Considering Russia’s core has remained the same throughout centuries, with most of its population in its northwestern regions, Russia’s first and most important geopolitical imperative is securing its western border. To achieve it, Russia must maintain control over two crucial buffer zones: Belarus and Ukraine. Russia also has a strategic goal of dominating the Baltic States (Ustinova, 2021). Russians should ideally maintain substantial forces on the North European Plain and be anchored in the southern Carpathian Mountains for the sake of the nation’s defense. At the same time, the Caucasus’ rough terrain offers Russia a defensive position in the south. As a result, the Kremlin must maintain control over Chechnya in North Caucasus. This is the second most important imperative for Russia. By using a sizable coercive force in the region and cooperating with local allies, Russia has been able to crush secessionist movements and control militancy in the North Caucasus (Kidirniyazov, 2017). There is no physical barrier separating Russia and Kazakhstan further east. Thus, by keeping both a military and economic presence in parts of

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Central Asia, Russia has been able to project power into Asia while also securing its southern borders.

9.1.2

Decoding Russia’s Key Imperatives and Objectives

To protect its core—the country’s most populous area—Russia must be able to secure two imperatives: control over the buffer zones west of the country and control over the North Caucasus. However, creating and controlling buffer zones comes at a cost: it converts external threats into internal threats. At the same time, Russia’s expansion since the eighteenth century created a new problem: maintaining the empire’s social (Smith & Blackwell, 1975) and military cohesion became an ongoing challenge. That, however, is a matter of empire management. Muscovy’s geopolitical problem was ultimately defined by a multidirectional threat. The steppes were a constant threat, but so was the West, where the North European plain allowed for a few natural defenses and larger populations could deploy substantial infantry. And could use naval power to land forces against the Muscovy region, as the Swedes did. The forests, as well as the sheer size of Russia’s holdings and its climate, provided some protection (Stratfor, 2012b). While defense capabilities have evolved, with the land forces and navy now having a partner in the air forces, Russia continues to face threats from at least two directions, caught in a perpetual juggling act: East versus West, internal versus external. Maintaining buffers requires not only a sizable standing military for defense but also an important internal security and intelligence network to enforce central control. To keep the buffers safe and internal stability within Russia proper, any institution that is key to the state’s survival must be controlled as well. Establishing and maintaining power through buffers not only makes Russia seem aggressive to its neighbors but also forces it to conduct purges against its own institutions. Consolidating internal power through increased control over internal institutions is key to maintaining the stability of the Russian state. Therefore, Russia’s secondary imperatives refer to keeping the country together and maintaining its politics and economy stable (Chernikova & Prokoshin, 2020). The geography of Russia poses an obvious challenge to its government because of its vastness and its diverse population, climate, natural resources, and infrastructure. Three-quarters of Russia’s people live in what once was the Muscovy area, between the border with Europe and the Ural Mountains, a region that makes up about a quarter of Russia’s entire territory. The “Asian Russia,” which stretches from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, makes up about three-quarters of the nation’s total area. In the southern part of this region, close to the borders with Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China, the remaining 25% of the population resides (Trifonova, 2013). There is a tremendous amount of open space with little to no population further north, where the climate is much more hostile to inhabitants.

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Few rivers exist in Russia, and those that do flow mostly west, making domestic transportation challenging. Russia relies on railways to overcome these inherent disadvantages, emphasizing the significance of the western and southern regions. The government’s first challenge is to make sure this scattered population stays together and limits the risks of disintegration while also making sure no external force challenges its borders. Another challenge for Russia, due to its vast size, is the lack of effective transportation, which makes it difficult to move troops and has led to the creation of large and costly standing armies. The country’s rivers are not conducive to trade routes, and constructing infrastructure to connect different parts of the country is thus highly difficult. The Russian Federation is made up of 85 federal subjects, ranging in size from independent cities to republics and autonomous regions. Russia consequently has highly regionalized economies with unequal wealth and prosperity distribution (Shetov et al., 2019). Wealth is concentrated in the west, particularly in Moscow and the Central Federal District. During prosperous times, economic inequalities can be concealed, while the stress on high-earning districts is generally manageable. During times of economic stress, the central government faces increased social pressure from the poorer interior districts. The climate, transportation network, and Russia limit the ways in which the military can defend the country in terms of logistics and deployment (Smirnov, 2022). Perhaps more importantly, climate and transportation are critical to Russian agriculture. The amount of food available to the Russian people is determined by the size of the crops and the efficiency of the transportation network. In Russia, getting crops from farmlands to markets is difficult, which complicates supporting a large urban population away from farmlands (Trukhachev, 2016). Russia can produce enough food to feed itself, but it cannot efficiently transport what it produces from farms to urban centers, and even when it can, the cost of transportation makes the food unaffordable to the majority of the population. Most of the population is living in urban areas and, in the countryside, most live around small towns. The further away you live from a major urban area, the more expensive it is for anything (including food) to reach you, due to high transportation costs. A particular area that is most disadvantaged is the Southern and Western border areas, considering that these areas are far away from major urban centers. (Vanchikova et al., 2022). Most of the populations in Russia’s Southern and Western border zones tend to be conquered peoples. So the conquered people tend to distribute themselves according to economic rationalities, while the need for food to be transported to the Russian core goes against such rationalities. This is how the population distribution in Russia also creates a political problem for the government. When faced with the choice of accepting urban starvation or forcing economic destitution on food-producing regions by ordering the sale of food in urban centers at prices far below market prices, Russian leaders have historically opted for the latter (Joseph Stalin is likely the best example of a leader who made every effort to force an urban industrialized population (Tsirel”, 2010)—at the expense of food-producing regions). However, because most food-producing regions are made up of conquered territories, feeding economic hardship to the Russian empire’s (and later the

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USSR’s) conquered minorities only stressed the need for a tightly controlled security apparatus. As a result, Russia’s geography shaped the kind of political and economic system could govern the country: whenever the centralized government weakened, the nationalist movements in the regions, the peasant uprisings and the fact that the urban areas could no longer be supplied with food led to instability. This was not only proven by centuries of history, but this was also the case in the early `1990s. Without a strong center, neither urbanization nor industrialization would have been possible; the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union would have been unthinkable. The Empire’s and Russia’s natural tendency is to disintegrate (Smirnov, 2018). To remain united, the country and the empire needed a centralized bureaucracy responsive to autocratic rule in the capital, as well as a vast security apparatus that compelled the country and the empire to remain united. A stable and powerful Russia is characterized by a powerful central administration that is able to control the country’s inherently powerful centrifugal forces. On the contrary, an unstable Russia features a weakened administrative apparatus with institutions that are not much controlled by the central power and are instead left to do their own management. Whenever Russia was powerful, a strong, central tsarist figure was the image of a highly controlled administration by the central authority. Whenever Russia weakened, the deep state disintegrated, leaving room for poorer economic performance, and increased social problems. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Russia’s economic growth has been similarly uneven since the end of the Cold War. After the USSR disintegrated—an expression of the modern Russian empire, the 1990s were not for economic growth in Russia, but for its survival. They explain much of Russian internal fears and provide limits and guidance for the government’s action. While most state-owned businesses were privatized at a discount, the majority of Russians lived in or close to poverty. The Russian financial crisis of 1998 and the protests that followed are a mark of what Russians fear most. However, those were the events that brought on a major change for the country: an economic and political restructuring (Benini & Czyzewski, 2007). A more powerful leader was welcomed because the masses were ready for one. Vladimir Putin entered the scene and set out to rebuild the government after fixing the economy. Since then, Russia’s growth has been dependent on the growth of the energy sector and the export of energy resources, which has in turn increased government spending and consumer spending. When energy prices were high, this functioned reasonably well. But as they decline, Russian revenue also does. Consequently, there will inevitably be regular economic downturns. For instance, from 2015 to 2017, people protested issues like unemployment, wage arrears, government program cuts, lower real wages, bankruptcy, and general resentment over their declining standard of living (Benetts, 2017). Although the demonstrations were small, Putin saw in them a long-term danger: the potential for the state to destabilize. The first western sanctions, imposed after Russia invaded Crimea, posed a threat to the Russian economy for the first time since the late 1990s, which meant that the Kremlin had to not only maintain control but

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also demonstrate to the masses that the government is capable of meeting their needs. The Kremlin achieved this by establishing a two-tiered economic structure. The Putin regime runs state-owned businesses in one tier, which he controls through his “inner circle,” while free market regulations apply to the other tier. The state-sponsored companies make about a fifth of the Russian economy and are run by the oligarchs, which, together with the regional administration, constitute what the public distrusts most. While the Russian people continue to support Putin and may even trust him, they see oligarchs and local administrations as the most corrupt. This works well for the Russian president. He needs to weigh the needs of the Russian people against those of his inner circle while looking to secure his control and keep the whole political system stable. On the economic front, the Kremlin has prioritized the energy sector in the country’s economy and had some important energy companies under its direct control. As President Putin gained enough popular support, he also consolidated his power by reorganizing a few of the state security organizations. To bring various domestic security forces under the direct command of the president, in 2018 he established the National Guard. The troops’ stated objectives are to maintain public order, fight extremism, protect government property and supplies, assist in border protection, and regulate the arms trade. Additionally, he placed supporters of his government in key positions. For instance, between 2017 and 2018, he replaced 16 generals with officials of his choosing from the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies, and Elimination of Consequences of National Disasters, the bodies in charge of handling civil defense, public unrest, and protests (Warsaw Institute, 2019). The dismissals mostly affected the Caucasus, the Far East, and Moscow-accessible cities, where there had been reports of rising unrest at the end of 2017. In reality, he consolidated power and created a control network that allowed him to understand the sources of instability in the country’s regions. Just like all successful leaders of the Russian Empire (or the USSR) before him did. The second factor influencing Russian behavior is demographics. Russia is experiencing a demographic crisis, and its population will decline over the next few decades. Between 1992 and 2010, the country experienced negative to zero population growth (Adamson & DaVanzo, 1997). Each woman had 1.2 to 1.6 children during this time period. With a rate of 0.1 to 0.2 percent in the years that followed through 2014, the country’s population growth missed a positive growth. Because fertility rates are still around 1.6–1.7 births per woman, which is less than the replacement rate of 2.0, the population will eventually continue to decline (World Bank, 2022a). Russia is under pressure to achieve its geopolitical goals before the country’s military and economic capacity to support an expansion of its buffer zones deteriorates.

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Russian Grand Strategy: Navigating Complex Challenges and Uncertainties

Modern Russia, much as tsarist Russia or the USSR, must consider vulnerabilities coming from three separate border regions: Asian Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the European Peninsula in developing its grand strategy. Therefore, to understand Russia’s priorities stemming out of its geopolitical imperatives, we need to consider the way Russia thinks about each of these border regions from a geographical, historical, political, and economic standpoint.

9.2.1

Asian Siberia: A Threatless Border Region for Russia?

Siberia is likely the most difficult region to defend due to its climate and geography. But it is also the most difficult to attack. There is only one rail line connecting Siberia to the rest of Russia, making military positioning difficult, if not impossible. The Trans-Siberian Railroad runs east–west, with the Baikal Amur Mainline looping around Baikal Lake. The railroad is Russia’s main lifeline in the region, and it is the only asset that would be vulnerable in the event of an attack. However, the region’s sheer size, combined with its climate, makes it difficult to attack. The weather would make any invasion difficult, and the region’s vastness would make holding it extremely difficult, calling into question its relevance. Furthermore, an attack beyond it, toward the West, is impossible due to the Urals. The Russian southern border, east of the border with Kazakhstan, is mountainous, and there are almost no north–south roads running deep into Russia. Those that do exist are easily defended and tend to be in sparsely populated areas. The period without mud or snow on the Southern Siberian border lasts less than three months out of the year. Overland resupply of an army is impossible after that period. An Asian power attacking Siberia would be difficult to imagine, if not impossible. That was the primary reason why the Japanese chose to attack the USA rather than the Soviet Union in 1941. In this region, the only way to attack Russia is by sea, which the Japanese did in 1905 (Miasnikov, 2015). It may then be possible to get some terrain in the coastal provinces of Primorsky Krai or Vladivostok. However, given the necessary infrastructure costs, exploiting the resources of deep Siberia is prohibitively expensive. However, Siberia does allow a significant encounter between China and Russia. The rough terrain has made it difficult for the two countries to explore ways to cooperate. Moreover, history has made Moscow cautious of its Asian ties until recently, when it started thinking about diversifying its energy business away from Europe. Russia began selling natural gas to China at the end of 2019 through the Power of Siberia pipeline, which supplied approximately 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas in 2021 and is expected to reach its full capacity of 38 bcm in 2025. In December 2022, the major new Siberian gas field was launched, and its production is

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expected to feed into the Power of Siberia pipeline carrying Russian gas to China. Kovykta gas field has recoverable reserves of 1.8 trillion cubic meters and is reported to be the largest in eastern Russia (Reuters, 2022b). Russia also intends to build another major pipeline, the Power of Siberia 2, through Mongolia in order to sell an additional 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year. This is good news for Mongolia, a country that has been struggling during the last few years with difficult economic problems. In December 2022, antigovernment protests erupting in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar highlighted the structural problems the country has been facing while also underlining its borderland reality. However, its problems speak of the vulnerabilities and features of the area and the way Moscow and Beijing coordinate. Landlocked Mongolia is enclosed between the two regional superpowers, China and Russia. Geographically, its vast steppes are the most striking feature. The majority of the nation is a plateau, but in the west, the Altai Mountains rise to more than 14,000 feet (4300 meters), and the southern border of the nation is bordered by the Gobi Desert. The nation may have once served as the capital of a sizable Eurasian empire, but for much of its recent history, it has been ruled by either China or Russia. The Soviet Union had six military divisions in Mongolia as recently as 1968, effectively relegating the nation to buffer zone status until the Soviet Union was defeated in 1992. It was both a blessing and a curse for Mongolia. Although the nation attained independence, it was also economically destitute because it imported all of its energy and roughly half of its consumer goods from the Soviet Union. Additionally, it was exposed to Chinese scheming. Beijing acknowledged Mongolia’s independence in 1945, but there was worry that more nationalistic, younger Chinese functionaries, who already viewed Mongolia as a part of China, would push for annexation. The goal of Mongolia’s foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has been to strike a balance between a “good neighbor” policy with China and Russia and a “third neighbor” policy to forge ties with other nations like the USA, Japan, South Korea, India, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Therefore, Mongolia has made an effort to separate itself from Chinese influence, but this is easier said than done. There is a serious demographic issue because “traditional” Mongolian lands inhabited by ethnic Mongolians are located within China’s borders. Mongolia has the lowest population density in the world, with only three million people living there, with a third of them in the capital (Stratfor, 2012a). This is significant for a nation like Mongolia, which has a particular kind of economy. It must import a large portion of its food because agriculture only makes up 15% of its economy. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 90 percent of the nation is at risk of desertification, and crop and livestock productivity are still low (FAO, 2022). Large-scale deposits of coal, copper, gold, uranium, and rare earth elements in the nation have, however, attracted significant foreign investment in recent years, mostly from China, who also purchases about 80% of Mongolia’s exports, which mainly consist of copper, coal, and gold (Purevdorj, 2020).

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However, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have disrupted even this relationship, as well as the promised infrastructure projects into Eastern Europe. According to data from the central bank, coal exports made up more than half of Mongolia’s export earnings in the first ten months of this year, but the pandemic years and China’s zero-COVID policy have caused economic instability. The decline in exports brought on by border closures and increased international prices for imported food and fuel caused inflation to increase from 2–3% in the spring to 15% today (Hassen & Bilali, 2022). The fact that many demonstrators for December 2022 assert they are unable to make ends meet is therefore not surprising. Business owners complain about the government’s high taxes, and people who depend on social assistance claim they don’t receive enough money to support themselves. That Mongolia is also experiencing a debt crisis is not by accident. In accordance with a central bank report released in June 2022, the public debt of the nation was equal to 70% of its GDP. The total debt ratio, including extraneous spending, is predicted by the World Bank to reach 92 percent in 2021. Early in October 2022, the central bank acknowledged that things might only get worse. Not to mention its relations with Russia. About 95% of Mongolia’s energy requirements (fuel and power) are met by Russia, which gives Moscow disproportionate influence there even during normal times and at normal prices (Silk Road Briefing, 2023). Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Russians have emigrated to Mongolia in order to avoid being drafted, further destabilizing an already unstable economy. The majority of them are members of ethnic minorities like Buryats, Kalmycks, and Tuvans who reside in Siberia’s northern Mongolian region and are afraid for their lives in a conflict they do not view as their own (Cuesta et al., 2022). Mongolia is unique in the fact that it is geographically far away from Moscow, and while it is facing primarily economic problems that have to do with its proximity to and dependency on China, it is also influenced by the Russian war in Ukraine. The Russian decision to invade Ukraine has shifted Moscow’s focus from Europe to Asia, which has transformed Mongolia into a key borderland. However, given the geography and the demographic features of the region, Mongolia’s case also highlights how Asia and Siberia are not and will not be major strategic concerns for Moscow.

9.2.2

The Central Asian Region: The Calm Borderland?

Starting on the Northwestern Mongolian border and transitioning southwest through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Russia is defended by the Tian Shen Mountains, an extension of the Himalayas. Russia controls the lowlands along the mountainous border swung west along the Afghan and Iranian borders to the Caspian Sea. However, with the exception of a small region on the Afghan border, the lowlands were harsh desert, making them impassable for a large military force.

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A section of the Afghan border was more porous, leading to long-term Russian concern about the threat in Afghanistan, whether foreign or indigenous. The Caspian Sea protected Russia’s border with Iran, and on its western shore began the Caucasus Mountains, which Russia shared with Iran and Turkey but were difficult to cross in either direction. The Caucasus region ends at the Black Sea, completely defending Russia’s southern border. These regions were far more useful to Russia than Siberia; in Central Asia, geography aided rather than hindered the Russian Empire and, later, the USSR. Since the late eighteenth century, Moscow has ruled over Central Asia. Russia’s dominance in the region has survived two major regime changes: the transition from the czarist empire to the Soviet Union in 1917, and the transition to the Russian Federation following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Even after gaining independence, the five Central Asian countries remained under Russian control. Even Kazakhstan, the most powerful of the five and who has pursued a flexible foreign policy, attempting to establish relations with both the USA and China while maintaining close ties with Russia, remained primarily under Moscow’s sphere of influence. Much of this was due to the Central Asian states’ inability to resist Russian influence. Furthermore, despite the 1990s’ economic turmoil, Russia remained a military power. Following Vladimir Putin’s election as President in 2000, Russia embarked on economic revitalization, primarily through energy and commodity exports. These developments were critical to Russia’s ability to maintain its influence in Central Asia (and other parts of its near abroad, such as the Caucasus). The absence of any other power to challenge Russia certainly helped. China has attempted to push into the region through its Belt and Road Initiative, but it has been limited by domestic political-economic factors (particularly given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to personalize an institutional autocracy). Moreover, China’s limited military power projection capabilities also make it difficult for the Central Asian republics to see much strategic value in aligning themselves with China. As for the USA, Central Asia is probably the only region in the world where Washington has little sway. The region’s countries have largely addressed the Russian war in Ukraine through business pragmatism. Since the war has started, Kazakhstan has worked with both Russia and the West—mostly with the Europeans in trying to secure new energy deals (Matussek, 2023), while sustaining its good ties with China, one of its most important trade and investment partners. A key aspect between pertaining to the Chinese and Kazak partnership is their cooperation in building new infrastructure, which Kazakhstan has been very much keen to grow (Avdaliani, 2023). The way the Kazakh government in Almaty is negotiating its position points to the fact that the country is preparing to take upon a leadership role in the region, should Russia no longer be able to control the region, considering the war in Ukraine. Since it is the largest economy in the area and has long been linked to Moscow on a linguistic, cultural, and economic level, it has a great interest in protecting itself and its southern neighbors from the consequences of the waning of Russia’s geopolitical influence (Bokhari, 2022). At a time when every nation in

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the region is going through significant domestic change due to the 2020–2022 pandemic, Russian war in Ukraine seems to be considered as an inflection point with regard to the regional affairs. Only a few weeks prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kazakhstan experienced violent unrest that was eventually put under control. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, who succeeded his longtime predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev just three and a half years ago, has since been working to consolidate his position of authority and introduce political and economic reforms. Nazarbayev, who has ruled the nation since the days of the Soviet Union, maintained his hold on power even after stepping down as president by serving as head of the Security Council. As Kazakh security forces worked to put an end to the unrest, he was fired from his position at the beginning of this year. Since then, the government has been working carefully to enact reforms to appease the populace while upholding stability (Seliga, 2022). Similarly, Uzbekistan has been taking steps to open up its civil society and address economic problems (World Bank, 2022a, b). In Ashgabat, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, the son of the previous president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who ruled Turkmenistan for 15 years, was elected as the nation’s new leader in March of last year. Some reforms are also anticipated from the new president (Putz, 2023). There is still uncertainty in Kyrgyzstan, which has experienced three political uprisings (in 2005, 2010, and 2020) (Dombay, 2023). Then there is Tajikistan, a country with a non-Turkish majority that has been ruled by Emomali Rahmon since shortly after gaining its independence and is perhaps the most reliant on Russia for security in the area as evidenced by the 7000 Russian troops stationed there (Pannier, 2022b). While Central Asian states cautiously observe the waning of their former ally to the northwest, they are also gravely concerned about their southeastern flank. The Taliban are now in charge of Afghanistan after the USA withdrew last year. The Taliban regime has the potential to disrupt the ongoing domestic transitions because it borders three of the five Central Asian countries and is close to the areas of the region that are the most densely populated. In an effort to prevent any spillover into their countries, the majority of Central Asian countries have adopted a policy of pragmatic engagement with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders (Pannier, 2022a, b). The Kremlin withdrew from Afghanistan not too long ago. Early in 1989, Russia had no idea that it would lose control of Central Asia in the following three years. However, Moscow continued to have an influence over the area for almost three decades. Geography helps Russia in the region as long as it isn’t entering a new conflict. While a conflict in the neighborhood is something Moscow learned to avoid since the late 80s, engaging into a war with the West is similarly dangerous. The longer the war in Ukraine, the higher the risk for Moscow to lose some of its traditional influence into the region.

9.2

Russian Grand Strategy: Navigating Complex Challenges and Uncertainties

9.2.3

171

Europe: Russia’s Final Frontier

Russia’s Western frontier runs from West of Odessa north to the Baltic Sea. This European frontier is Russia’s most vulnerable point. Historically, the southern point of this border varied from time to time. But where the border was drawn was critical. The Carpathians form an arc from Romania through the western Ukraine into Slovakia. During the USSR, Moscow controlled the center of the arc in Ukraine. The Carpathians in Romania, where the plain divided Russia from the mountains, were farther than Russia’s border, though. Moldova or Bessarabia is the name of the region between the Romanian border and the Dniester River; when Romania controlled it, Moscow viewed that as a threat to Russian national security. When Moscow is in charge, the Russians are free to anchor in the Carpathians (Stern et al., 1988). It can act as a buffer zone when it is independent, as it is at the moment as the Republic of Moldova, historically, between 1939 and 1941, during the German-Russian alliance. But the possibility of an attack coming from Romania has always existed for Moscow. Additionally, Moldova gave Moscow the power to rule over the Ukrainian coastline and Odessa, its most significant port. For this reason, after the USSR fell apart, Russia needed to make sure it maintained its sway over the nation. After the first bloody conflict between two former USSR republics ended in a frozen peace in 1992, Russia deployed troops to Transdniestria to accomplish this. However, the greatest danger to Russia lies much farther north, between the northern edge of the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea. This chasm, which stretches from Krakow in the south to Elblag in the north, runs west of Warsaw and is less than 300 miles wide at its narrowest point. The Russian imperial border prior to World War I was roughly where the North European continent is at its narrowest point. Behind this line, at the time, the three Baltic nations and eastern Poland were under Russian control. Russia considers this gap dangerous because the north German planes expand in a triangle-like pattern to the east of this point. Russian forces are progressively weakened as the triangle widens. As a result, a force coming in from the West through the plain will encounter an expanding geography that will weaken Russian forces. Attackers can reach Moscow if they focus their efforts and make a break for it. The traditional Russian fear is that, in the absence of any natural barriers, the further east the Russians move, the wider the front will be and the more advantageous it will be for the attacker. Following the establishment of the Empire, Russia was attacked along this axis by Napoleon, Wilhelm II, and Hitler. Wilhelm II did not drive hard into Russia because he was focused on France (Afflerbach, 1998), but Napoleon and Hitler both did and were almost toppling Moscow in the process. Therefore, in the event of an assault and solely from a military perspective, Russia has three choices along the North European plain. The first is to draw an enemy force into Russia using its depth in geography and climate, then subdue it, as it did with Napoleon and Hitler. After the fact, this appears to be dissolution, but the attackers always manage a narrow escape and completely destroy the surrounding area. It’s

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fascinating to imagine what might have happened in 1942 if Hitler had continued his drive across the plain of northern Europe toward Moscow rather than switching to a southern assault on Stalingrad (Taylor, 2013). The second option is to engage an invading force at the frontier with a sizable, immobile infantry force and try to bleed them to death, as Russia attempted to do in 1914. On the surface, this seems like a good option because Russia traditionally has had more manpower than its adversaries in Europe. Even if this were still the case, due to the unstable social conditions in the country, where a weakening of the security apparatus could result in the regime’s collapse and in a soldiers’ revolt, as it did in 1917, this becomes, in practice, a risky choice. As the Soviets did during the Cold War, the third option is to move the Russian/ Soviet border as far west as it is feasible to create yet another defense against attack. Considering that it fosters strategic depth and expands economic opportunities, this is undoubtedly a desirable option. However, by extending the security state into central Europe and drastically boosting defense, this is a move that also disperses Russian resources. All this has arguably been highly costly for the Soviet Union’s and contributed to its collapse in 1992 (Kalashnikov, 2012). While Russia can’t afford another push toward the West as it clearly no longer affords a collapse, it needed to change its strategy toward Europe. After the fall of the Soviet Union, members of the former Warsaw Pact joined NATO and the European Union, along with the three Baltic states. The fall of the Soviet Union and the ensuing political and economic chaos rendered Russia powerless in the 1990s. However, the Kremlin considered this expansion to be a significant threat to Russia’s security. This is what Vladimir Putin saw when he came to power in the early 2000s—it is this reality that shaped Russia’s current strategy toward Europe.

9.3

Understanding the War in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine was never meant to be just in Ukraine. In a public broadcast on February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a lengthy speech in which he declared, in essence, a formal cold war with the West (Reuters, 2022a, b). He also made it clear that an independent Ukraine should not exist. There is no easy answer to why Russia decided to invade Ukraine in 2022. Just as there is no easy answer to why Russia seems not to be affected by the Western sanctions, complexity can provide some explanations. In fact, the current military operation is a continuation of the political warfare Russia has engaged in against the West since the early 2000s.

9.3

Understanding the War in Ukraine

9.3.1

173

About Ukraine and Its Place in the World

Ukraine literally translates “On the Edge” (Friedman, 2013). The only mountainous areas that the country displays are on its borders: the Ukrainian Carpathians and the Crimean Mountains, which account for almost five percent of its area. The rest of the country’s landscape occupies the southwestern portion of the East European Plain (or the Russian Plain), which has an average elevation of about 780 feet (175 meters) above sea level. This landscape makes the rivers the main feature of the Ukrainian terrain. The most important is the Dnieper River, which concentrates most of the country’s hydroelectric dams, has many tributaries that allow the buildup of big reservoirs, and dominates the country’s central part. The Dnieper is also the longest river in the country (it covers 980 km or 609 miles in Ukraine), draining almost half of it. The Dniester is the next longest river in the country, and like the Dnieper, it flows into the Black Sea. The only river that doesn’t flow into the Black Sea, instead flowing into the Azov Sea, is the Donets River, a tributary of the Don, which, flowing through southeastern Ukraine, is an important source of water for the Donets Basin (Donbas). The rivers are most important as a source of water supply, making the country one of the world’s top food (especially cereals, but not only) suppliers. Not only do they sustain specific soil fertility conditions, but they also allow for an effective navigable network that leads to the Black Sea basin and, from it, to the rest of the world. This is also one way to understand the legend about Ukraine always being ruled by someone else. The story goes that Ukraine was shaped by Norsemen—or people of the North, that having gone south, met native tribes who met them with a peculiarly strange phrase: “Our land is great and rich, but there is no law in it. Come to rule and reign over us.” (Friedman, 2013). While that is largely debated (and likely not true), the fact is that merchants, rather than warriors, settled Kiev, at the point where the Dnieper narrows (Reid, 2015). Despite the richness of its soil, or perhaps because of this richness, Ukraine has found itself more often as part of other empires or states than as a state of its own. The flat, wide, country, was made for conflict in ways that others weren’t—because it was easy to conquer parts of the territory and have rivers or forests as natural defense. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ottoman, Russian, and Polish empires each had a part of today’s territory of Ukraine. In the nineteenth century, it was split between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Only in the twentieth century did Ukraine become a country of its own: first for a brief period of independence following the end of World War I, between 1918 and 1920 (even if some portions of current Ukraine belonged to Poland, Romania, and Russia), and later, after the USSR disintegrated, Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. In searching for its soul, after becoming an independent state, Ukraine had to find the values that united the people living on the flat land of the country. The key question reverberates around the country’s memory of the USSR—this is what Ukraine shares with Russia. While some hold the time that the country has been

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under the USSR—the longest ruler of Ukraine in centuries—as a good time, others do not, which, in effect, has made the question of affiliation key to the country’s strategy and even to its identity. Before the war, the European Union was something that most people in the west wanted to join. People in the east wanted a closer relationship with Russia. However, from 1991 until 2022 is the longest period of Ukrainian independence in centuries. So, while the internal debate has been about the country’s foreign policy ever since it became independent, all Ukrainians appear to value their independence (Jaffery, 2023). Moreover, since 2014, when Russia took Crimea, their attachment to the West, and the USA in particular, has grown, while their attachment to Russia has decreased (Younis, 2023). From Russia’s vantage point, Ukraine may never be truly independent. To Russia, Ukraine is key because it provides an open route to whoever manages to control it and engages in defeating it, just as the Germans did in World War II. Such memories, along with the socio-economic realities, made Russia consider invading in the first place. But the war hasn’t ever been just about Ukraine—it was about Russia and Russia’s fears. The conflict in Ukraine is about Russia reshaping its relationship with the West and, in the process, ensuring Russia a future. In 2022, the world entered the first global economic warfare. The military invasion in Ukraine has started it, but the end of it will not be the end of the economic warfare we find ourselves in. Since the war ended operations in Ukrainian ports, Russia has been open about its intentions toward the West. The West has reacted by imposing economic sanctions against Moscow. Make no mistake: Russia wasn’t surprised by the Western reaction. Moscow has prepared this war, and Germany has been key in such preparations. Understanding Russia’s strategy in Europe, looking at the German case, could provide some solutions for the West to fight back. Taking a step back to understand how we got here is a must.

9.3.2

The Russian Urgency

Russia invaded Ukraine for geostrategic reasons. Geography and history demand that Russia keep a buffer zone that it influences so that it is protected from the West, and Ukraine is a key state to keep in the buffer zone. Moscow perceives the Western influence Eastwards, including in Russia, as a modern invasion that challenges the Russian regime in Moscow. Putin began his career during the Cold War. He remembers that the West had better living standards than the USSR. These stronger socioeconomic conditions allowed the West to win the Cold War against the USSR. Human development and the hope for a better life are what have ultimately driven the countries in Eastern Europe to align with the West in the post-Cold War era. In the collective mindset of Eastern Europeans, NATO is the protective shield against Russian aggression, while the EU is the socio-economic guarantee for a better, more

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prosperous life. This is what makes Ukrainians, Moldovans, and Georgians want to join the EU. Furthermore, the promise of a better life has led Russians to want to build a country that resembles Western states. In the early 2000s, a sizable proportion of Russians believed the EU might be an option for them as well (Sulamaa & Widgren, 2004). The EU, in the collective imagination, could save Russia from an economic crisis, as it did in the 1990s. Not to mention that Russian youth in the early 2000s were enamored with the European way of life and desired to bring it back home. All they wanted to do was to replace the drab, gray atmosphere of the late 1990s with the posh, colorful hope they encountered while traveling in the West. Energy exports may have fueled Russian socioeconomic development over the last two decades; for Russian citizens, the last two decades allowed them to see European brands displayed in newly constructed shopping malls similar to those in the West. And, more importantly, they were affordable. Life was similar to that of the West, at least in the major cities. Russia’s exposure to global economic cycles increased as it entered the energy market. The European economic crisis of the 2010s made Moscow shiver. Russia’s socioeconomics remained fragile, and disparities between urban and rural areas remained significant; the Kremlin needed to contain social problems in order to keep Russia stable (Maitra, 2014). If there are no socioeconomic problems at home, the Russian regime will remain unopposed and unlikely to change. But that is currently impossible for Russia, and Putin is well aware of this. It’s not so much the growing Western influence in Russia’s buffer zone that bothers him as the consequences of such influence at a time when Russia is economically weak. What is most concerning is that the West may be able to provide a better model for economic growth, one that is appealing to the Russian people once again. With the global pandemic of the last two years further undermining economic security, Putin must have anticipated that Russian stability would be jeopardized. Russian action against the West became urgent for Moscow.

9.3.3

The Complex Background

But, in order to take action against the West, the Kremlin first had to investigate what makes the West successful in the first place. How was it constructed? Why has it surpassed the Soviet Union? Russian responses—Putin’s responses—to these questions help us better understand his strategy. To win the Cold War, the USA established a trade network that allowed it to establish economic and political ties with the ultimate goal of strategically increasing its influence and, as a result, isolating the Soviet Union. The USA has been on a mission to create a safe, globalized world that empowers weaker but like-minded countries and fosters global trade for all, not because of its goodwill, but in exchange for influencing and directing everyone’s security policies in order to better combat Moscow.

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The Marshall Plan was critical to the US strategy because it ensured a peaceful Western Europe that could grow into the most powerful influencer against the Soviet Union (Kaygusuz & Ryzhov, 2017). Germany—Western Germany was at the heart of the United States’ European strategy. The key element was tying Germany militarily and economically to the rest of Europe. In other words, the USA needed to ensure that German and French interests were aligned, because tensions between France and Germany had been one of the causes of previous wars since 1871 (Kaplan, 1961). Simultaneously, the rearmament of West Germany as a NATO member state was critical if the Soviet Union was to be contained. However, if Germany was to be rebuilt, its economy needed to be stimulated. The German economic miracle followed. Furthermore, the establishment of the European Community, which later became the European Union, posed a direct challenge to the USSR and its system, as well as its economic and political relations with its republics and satellites in Eastern Europe (Schmidt, 1997). Because growth and development were real for ordinary citizens, German dynamism made the best propaganda for the common market and European integration. When the USSR fell apart and the Cold War ended, the security policy that the USA had maintained as part of its Cold War strategy ceased to function. While NATO expanded its political functions and expanded eastward, in the absence of the USSR, NATO lost much of its military relevance, and member states lost sight of a common military goal. Globalization, trade, and investment benefited everyone, including Russia. The early 1990s were filled with optimism in the West: economic interdependence was supposed to automatically bring peace and prosperity. This was the motto and reasoning behind the EU’s Eastward expansion, as former Soviet satellites joined the European community. Despite the socioeconomic problems that Eastern Germany was experiencing, the reunified Germany had the potential to become the de facto economic leader of the European Union. Germany became a model for countries in both Western and Eastern Europe. The strong foundational competitive advantages developed by Western Germany during the Cold War, as well as its geographical features and location, established Germany as Europe’s trading powerhouse. It may be able to benefit from both the expanding common market and the low labor costs available in the new EU member states and the EU neighborhood. The early 1990s were filled with pain and socioeconomic crisis in the East. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia’s leaders were forced to make difficult decisions about what to fund and what to leave to rot (Uliukaev, 1997). What about food production? What about the rail lines? What about the missile forces? What about the air forces? What about the educational system? What about the energy and health sectors? Despite the fact that many of these sectors had strategic value, there simply weren’t enough funds to fund them all, and important pillars of the national economy began to falter. The questioning resulted in hyperinflation and unemployment, as well as an overall unstable environment in which everything appeared to have lost funding (Clarke, 1999). This is the context in which Putin rose to power, backed by both the country’s business and intelligence elites. The Kremlin’s priority was to rebuild a stable

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country; Putin’s priority was to survive politically, which would eventually reflect a stable economy and society. In consolidating his power, Putin recognized the people’s need for order and stability, as well as Russia’s limited resources. The Kremlin needed to keep funding the intelligence services that Russia used to engage the rest of the world. Putin needed to make them his own in order to keep power (Petro, 2011). The Kremlin was also aware that Russia’s most pressing issue was a lack of demographic diversity. The socioeconomic mismanagement of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Yeltsin resulted in a drop in Russian birth rates. Russia’s reconstruction was a race against time; it was critical. As a result, priorities were critical: every other measure of Russian power, from military to economic, was operating on borrowed time. Choices had to be made quickly in order to ensure Russia’s victory. This is why Russian growth and resurgence have been on the table since Putin’s arrival (Shinar, 2016). But, more importantly, it is because of this that the Cold War mentality never left Russia. In the process of rebuilding his country, Putin realized he needed to fight back against the West, and capturing Germany remained crucial.

9.3.4

Russian Tactics and Germany

Russia has prepared the current war long in advance. Because Putin understood so well what made the West win and the USSR lose the Cold war, he knew had to act similarly to the West if he was to have any chance to win back what the USSR lost since the 90s. During his first presidential term, Putin focused internally, recentralizing power over the Russian regions, centralizing the economy and the political system, and cracking down on militancy in the Russian Caucasus. Putin implemented an autocratic regime, following the examples of previous successful Russian leaders. Once Russia was stable, Putin was able to focus on Russia’s near abroad. To make sure that countries closer to Russian borders are not forming partnerships with the West and falling under Western influence, the Russian leadership has historically used two primary tactics in countering such a situation. The first tactic is to mobilize Russia’s military to push out foreign influence directly or indirectly by forging military alliances with former Soviet states (like Kazakhstan and Belarus) (Borisov, 2021). The second tactic is more sophisticated. It looks to create alliances of convenience in Europe, which would eventually help Russia divide the pan-European unity. Through such alliances, Russia would also gain economic, financial, and technological advantages while looking to decrease Western ability to influence its periphery. This strategy is consistent with the Kremlin’s Cold War mantra, which has been that if Europeans and European unity, as well as their ability to project influence toward the East, can be neutralized, then American influence in Europe can be purged. This is why, since Ronald Reagan, American presidents have explicitly or implicitly opposed any expansion of trade and energy links between Europe and

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Russia. However, as the Cold War ended and the Americans had no say in European security or energy policies, Russia saw a wide open window for implementing its strategy (Dimitrova, 2010). Simultaneously, Russia had learned from the Cold War that effective alliances must take the form of a network based on both political and economic dependencies. As a result, Russia has adopted some of the methods and tactics that the USA used to win the Cold War. To increase its influence throughout Europe, Germany was, to Russia, the key country to approach—just as Western Germany was for the USA during the Cold War days. After its reunification in the 90s, Germany’s focus had become the European Union. The EU is strategic to Berlin as it has been the foundation of Germany’s relationship with France since the end of the WWII. At the same time, while Germany grew into the second-largest exporter in the world and it exports to many countries, Europe has been its most important customer since the late 90s. The free-trade zone that is the foundation of the European Union is the foundation of German economy, considering that the German industrial plant has substantially outstripped both its domestic consumption and production. Germany needed an united Europe—and this is why Germany was the country Russia feared most and was most interested in. Germany was also a country Russia knew well. Eastern Germany had been under USSR control since the end of the WWII—Russia knew about the socio-economic problems Berlin was facing in the Eastern lands as many were its own doing and resembled the problems it had back home. At the same time, Russia understood German politics like no other country (Frijters et al., 2002). Considering the USSR domination over Eastern Germany and the way the USSR has done covert work during the Cold War, Moscow could still make use of its old links in Berlin. The Kremlin knew that if there was any country in the western world where it could (and should) successfully conduct political warfare, that was likely to be Germany. Furthermore, Putin has a personal connection to Germany: he was stationed in Dresden during his KGB days (Bowlby, 2015). He became personally involved in improving bilateral relations between the two countries in the early 2000s. He used his fluency in German to form a strong friendship with then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who saw an economic opportunity to strengthen ties with Russia at the time. After all, Russia was not only an energy producer at the time, but also a potential market for German technology and a location for significant German investment. During Schroeder’s presidency, trade between the two countries increased dramatically, and Russia provided Germany with special advantages as an energy partner (Pieper, 2022). Energy was critical in all sectors, and natural gas was the most important energy consumed when it came to Russia’s strategy to expand its influence into Europe. The infrastructure built during the Cold War supplied roughly one-quarter of Europe’s natural gas and oil consumption (Sullivan, 2022). Such reliance has already ensured that Europe will listen to Russia. In the early 2000s, the EU had not yet expanded eastward, but accession plans indicated that it would. At the same time, natural gas is distinct among industrial commodities. Due to its gaseous nature and the large quantities required to power large industries, it can only be transported efficiently

9.3

Understanding the War in Ukraine

179

via pipelines. Once pipelines are built and industrial plants are supplied with natural gas, switching to another energy source becomes extremely difficult and expensive. Increasing Europe’s reliance on Russian gas was critical: Europe would have to defer to Russia as Russia becomes increasingly important to European economic stability. To do so, Russia needed Germany on its side: it was the largest economy, the largest energy consumer Russia could have, and a country with a significant (if not the most significant) say in shaping the EU regulatory framework and economic policies. Not to mention Germany’s role in identifying key infrastructure EU projects and ensuring adequate funding for them (BBC, 2006). According to Putin’s plan, Germany has begun to support Russia’s position in Europe on politically strategic issues. Schroeder’s Germany was the only Western government that did not back Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004–2005. This behavior was ultimately motivated by Germany’s increasing economic and energy need to maintain ties with Russia (Katchanovski, 2008). As his friendship with Putin grew, Schroeder bought a country estate outside of Moscow and sought Putin’s help in adopting two Russian children. Even though Schroeder was no longer elected chancellor in 2005, his friendship with Putin remained strong (Kirschbaum, 2014). The former chancellor accepted a position with Russian state natural gas firm Gazprom to lead the Nord Stream project, a pipeline designed to strengthen Russia’s energy leverage over Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. Putin’s strategy of using personal relationships to strengthen Russia’s position in Europe no longer worked with Angela Merkel. Merkel came into office concerned about Germany’s economic development and keeping Europe together so that Germany could remain stable. She didn’t seem to have much time or interest in understanding Russia’s plans for Europe. A natural gas pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine resulted in a brief suspension of Russian gas deliveries to Europe, including Germany, just a few months after Merkel took office (Pavel Polityuk, 2009). Russia’s goal in cutting energy supplies was to force Europe to support Russian policy in Ukraine and reject Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Instead, the incident sparked widespread interest across the continent in diversifying petroleum sources and reducing total demand. The European Union adopted ambitious alternative energy and conservation programs, as well as anti-greenhouse-gas plans. The Europeans appear to have decided to seek alternative natural gas sources in order to reduce their reliance on Russian gas and Russian pipelines through Ukraine. For example, a pipeline project called Nabucco, which was proposed in the early 2000s and was supposed to bring gas from Azerbaijan, became hotly debated in Brussels. It was supposed to pass through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary before arriving in Austria’s Central European hub (Guzman, 2014). It never happened because Russia introduced a competing project, South Stream, which derailed discussions to the point where construction was no longer feasible. Given European and German concerns about the Ukrainian route, Moscow proposed two natural gas pipelines: Nord Stream, which would run under the Baltic Sea from St. Petersburg to Germany, and South Stream, which would run under the Black Sea from near Novorossiysk to Bulgaria. The combination of the two would have

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increased Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas from 25% to 35% of total consumption (Gotev, 2017). At the time that Russia proposed them, in 2007, neither made economic sense. Building long underwater pipelines to Europe—a region with which the former Soviet Union shares a land connection—seemed counterintuitive, given that landlines typically cost less than a third of their underwater counterparts. Not to mention that Russia’s natural gas export prices had tripled since 2000, and Moscow was flush with cash. However, the Russians did not plan these projects with profit in mind. From a commercial standpoint, their terms were amusing: Russia lacked the technological ability to build the lines, but Moscow insisted that the Europeans foot the bill while they own the project once completed. The Russians’ goal at the time was to persuade Europe, particularly Germany, to talk to them. And, while it made little sense to engage in negotiations over either of the two projects, the lines of communication were established. South Stream died quickly, given the costs of what would have been the world’s deepest undersea pipeline. This was not a loss for Russia because the discussion also killed Nabucco’s feasibility. At the same time, Nord Stream was gaining traction; once discussions began, the project became a business case, and Russia followed commercial law to the letter. Germany, acting in its own economic interests, supported the project’s implementation, despite opposition from Eastern European states such as Poland and Romania. Things went well in Germany, despite the fact that the project was led by former Chancellor Schroeder. Nord Stream AG hired former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen as a consultant in August 2008 to help expedite the application process for construction permits in Finland. The project was completed in 2011 (Reuters, 2021). Just in time for the German government to announce in May 2011 that the entire fleet of German nuclear power reactors would be shut down by 2022 (Breidthardt, 2011). This decision laid the groundwork for the German-Russian partnership that Moscow desired. Germany relied on nuclear power for roughly one-third of its electricity needs in 2011; the closure of the entire nuclear sector opened up a fourway power game for the German economy’s future. The German plan called for renewable energy to replace the entire nuclear industry. However, this was not economically feasible or practical. Nuclear power costs less than one-third the price of wind power and one-twentieth the price of solar power. Thus, replacing one-third of Germany’s total power generation with renewable energy within a decade came at a prohibitively high economic cost and was clearly not feasible or possible (Traber et al., 2021). This freed up Germany’s other three supplier options. The first is France, which has a pro-nuclear population and has supplied Germany with nuclear energy since it began to shut down its own reactors. However, nuclear power in France is prohibitively expensive. The second country is Poland. The Polish advantage at the time was coal, a fuel that has gradually been phased out throughout Europe since the 1990s. However, Germany has strongly criticized Poland’s politically incorrect choice for this fuel source, among other things (Taylor, 2021).

9.3

Understanding the War in Ukraine

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Russia is the game’s third participant. The Russians regard Germany as their most important trading partner and source of foreign investment. Their strategy was straightforward. They would replace half of the electricity that nuclear power has provided Germany up to 2011 with the Nord Stream pipeline, which bypasses all transit states between Russia and Germany and is expected to be operational in 2012. The plan for Nord Stream 2 was simply to have complete leverage over Ukraine and have all the gas required by Germany delivered directly to Germany. This option made it less likely that Germany’s supply would be cut in the event of a Russian conflict with Ukraine, Belarus, or Poland. At the same time, as supplies from Russia have been secured, Germany’s industry has become increasingly dependent on natural gas, making it difficult for Germany to consider cutting Russian natural gas supplies (Von Der Burchard, 2022). Russia sought a German-Russian alliance in order to neutralize Poland and, by extension, all of Europe. It is no coincidence that anti-Russian policies have become increasingly difficult to implement in the European sphere of influence since 2012—there was simply no interest for Germany, the de facto EU leader, to carry them out. It is also no coincidence that relations between the USA and Germany have since cooled. The USA required Germany to maintain neutrality in its relations with Russia in order to counter Russian influence in Europe. The close German-Russian partnership gave the Russians a free hand in all things European, not just energy policy. For example, the EU strategy for the Danube region, launched in 2010, was supposed to support the development of the shipping route connecting the Black Sea to Europe, including by making the river fully navigable through additional continental canals such as the Danube-Bucharest canal (Danube Strategy Report, 2017). The proposed European strategy ran counter to Russia’s Black Sea strategy. If the Danube had been fully navigable, Europe would have had more leverage against Russia at a time when the conflict in Ukraine has blocked or rerouted commercial flows from the Black Sea on land (making them much more expensive). This is why the existing energy dependency between Germany and Russia is only part of the wider problem that the West has in the current economic warfare. The energy dependency makes it difficult for the West to impose significant sanctions on Russia in the short term. Without the Russian gas, the German economy would have crumbled—and with it, European stability. But the German determination showed it can work toward more independence, with Berlin deciding to cut down its gas supplies from 2024 (Hill, 2023). However, not the same can be said about oil supplies to Europe, or even LNG. This is why Russia is still able to use its energy exports to cash in and fuel its economy. In due time, solutions will be found to this dependency, even if costly new infrastructure will need to be built to accommodate new energy sources such as LNG (Euronews, 2023). However, the complex network that Russia has built within Germany (and Europe in general), covering both politics and economics, becomes the key element of the current conflict. Russia has good contacts and good knowledge about Western economic life. The Kremlin has invested years learning about Europe’s weak points. Russia began the current economic warfare when no shipment could leave the

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Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, fully knowing the European weak points and vulnerabilities.

9.4

A Developing War

The Western sanctions imposed since February 2022 seek to reduce Russia’s capacity to fund the conflict in Ukraine and end it. To achieve this goal, the sanctions must, in fact, weaken the Russian economy. However, it is the Russian public that is the judge of how weak the economy is. It is the public that would be most affected by the poor economic conditions and increase pressure on the Kremlin to change its strategy in Ukraine. To evaluate the way that the sanctions are working, an analysis of the Gallup polling data for the last 15 years (2008–2022) was done while also correlating the results with information coming from open media sources internationally. A lot has been written about traditional Russian resilience. Historical studies have proven that the Russian people are willing to endure extreme pain in defense of their nation. And this is precisely what the Kremlin said it is doing with regard to Ukraine: defending the Russian nation. For Russia, Ukraine is a key buffer state. It can’t afford for the West to have it.

9.4.1

An Analysis on the Limits of Russia’s Resilience

To make certain that its strategy is successful with regard to Ukraine, Moscow prepared the economic groundwork for the war well in advance. Not only was its strategy for Europe focused on building strong economic ties that would be difficult to break, but since 2014, Moscow has also focused on decoupling its internal economy from the world (as much as it could). Just think that during the last decade, the Russian national wealth fund (Zolotova, 2019) grew, while the government didn’t spend much of it yet. Russia not only saved for tough times, making sure it had financial reserves to spend, but also made sure to support local businesses. At first glance, the most recent polling data (from 2022) may seem odd—they paint a more stable and better society than in 2021, despite the country being at war with the West. However, if we consider Russia’s geopolitical imperative with regard to Ukraine, a key buffer zone for Moscow, as well as Russia’s economic strategy, it all adds up. Of the total respondents to the 2022 poll, 57.2% are satisfied with their standard of living, a record high for Russia. In the past, 2014 registered the second highest result, with 55.1% of people being satisfied with their life standard. However, the percentage of those saying that their lives got better has not increased much compared to responses during the last five years. Instead, there were significantly fewer persons for whom life standards worsened in 2022. While 46.8% said their

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A Developing War

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standard of living worsened in 2021 and 43% in 2020, only 33% saw their standard of living worsening during the last year (Gallup World Poll, 2023). Such results may be explained by the pandemic; after all, the percentage of respondents saying their standard of living worsened (or got better) is similar to that in 2018 and 2019. But that doesn’t fully explain why there are significantly more people feeling satisfied with their living standards in Russia. It is however notable that the number of people not having money for food or shelter has dropped to lower levels than the average for the last 5 years. This is due to the socioeconomic policies that Russia has implemented starting in January 2022. The support measures were aimed at families with children and particularly aimed to help low-income households (Kommersant, 2022). Moreover, the support measures are securing the more disadvantaged classes of the population. They are meant to keep the non-urban areas’ population’s support of the government at high levels, even if the population in places like Moscow or St. Petersburg is upset due to sanctions that have had most of the Western brands leave the country. All this shows that Russia had planned for a difficult year and adapted to it. This explains why the sanctions weren’t disastrous either. There are, however, several reasons why Russia could be so well prepared. First, Russia experienced a first wave of sanctions, so there was certainly another one that would follow. Second, a large part of the population is dependent on the state budget. According to Rosstat, approximately 33% of the Russian population, excluding state employees, receives state social benefits (RBC News, 2023). This also points to a major weakness of the Russian economy in the years to come. Because many sectors rely on government payments, poor economic activity and social instability will necessitate more financial influence and assistance from the state. The state, in turn, is the target of the sanctions. Implementing new policy to help the vulnerable population only works on the short term—on the longer term, Russia hopes to diminish the negative effects of the sanctions by investing in local infrastructure and seeking new international partners to do business with. It is therefore noteworthy that the satisfaction levels with regard to all public services—public transportation, the quality of roads, quality of water and healthcare, city satisfaction in general have all grown during 2022 compared to previous years. This is not by chance. A lot of internal projects have been prioritized by state and private companies alike, considering the sanctions. Gazprom, for instance, is now busy building internal gas infrastructure for the rural areas in Russia. Even if Moscow knows it needs to support economic activity—building new infrastructure or modernizing the old is good both for local businesses and for enhancing defense and military capabilities. The Kremlin has increased public investment and refocused on internal economy since 2014. The focus on the internal development of the economy also explains the fact that the locals perceive city economy as well as the labor market in the area they live to get better during the last five years. However, it is notable that economic conditions and local labor market have worsened in 2015 compared to previous years. This may be explained by the sanctions that the West imposed after Russia took Crimea. The same may follow in 2023—a year after the first pack of sanctions

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was imposed. After all, there are some projects that the Russian government had to review in December due to budgetary problems, even if plans were approved and set to be implemented since June last year (Kommersant, 2023). Indeed, the internal economy can only support minimal growth and stability levels in the long term, so there is still the fear that further sanctions may bring forth more pain. Having the experience of 2014, this is a source for many Russian citizens to worry about what comes next. In fact, recent polls show that more people experienced negative feelings (worry, anger, stress) during 2022 than the previous years. This is all-natural, given the war is next door—but also taking into account the hurdles that may come, considering the war getting into a new year. Russia can’t risk a full decoupling from the global economy. Given the Russian society’s dependency on state money, there is a clear link between poor economic performance and potential insecurity. This is why Russia seeks to establish ties with non-Western countries. Russia sees China to be one of its key allies. Beijing has been as distant as possible toward the issue of the war in Ukraine, but keeping the doors open for Moscow. The Kremlin took that opportunity and tries to improve relations. The Russian population support for the Chinese leadership has grown during the last years—compared to dropping support for Western leadership. Also, a consequence of the way the Russian government has prepared for the war, the trust in the national institutions—the military, the police, the financial institutions, and the judicial institutions has been on a growing trend since 2014. The national government and national leadership enjoy high trust rates, comparable to those of 2014. Interestingly, respondents perceived even a drop in corruption in government and businesses during 2022, reinforcing the idea that most Russians feel secure at home. In fact, even if the number of those undecided persons about leaving or moving has increased in 2022 and reached to 4.5% of the respondents, 89,2% say they would not consider moving from Russia any time soon (Gallup World Poll, 2023). All this indicates that Russia is in for a long war in Ukraine. It has thoroughly prepared for this and, at least since 2014, has focused its efforts on building up the country’s internal economy. This way it has become more resilient to Western sanctions—which it was prepared for. However, there is a limit to the strategy: the moment that Russia would not have enough resources to support the large part of the population that depends on state money, popular support for the regime would likely drop. This is why sanctions must be tracked based on their effect on the ability of the Russian state to support the most vulnerable of the Russian population.

9.4.2

Russia’s New Foreign Policy Vectors and the Tactics for the Long War

The way a country enters a war and how it exits the same war rarely go as planned. In general, a country enters war over a specific cause or location and does so assuming

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A Developing War

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it can swiftly achieve its military objectives. More often than not, however, war creates instability and power jostling that has spillover effects into other areas. The war in Ukraine has proven no exception. Russian moves outside the Ukraine battle box point to a longer war rather than a negotiated settlement in the near future, despite the desire on both sides (Russia and Ukraine or Russia and the West) to end the conflict sooner rather than later, all while both seek minimal compromise (which is difficult to achieve, to say the least). The extension of the military operation in Ukraine, combined with the tightening of sanctions, calls into question the hope and the prospect of a rapid restoration of economic and logistical ties between Russia and Europe. The longer the conflict lasts, the more difficult it is to imagine Western companies returning to Russia and European countries restoring political ties to pre-conflict levels. However, the end of the war does not guarantee that sanctions will be lifted and foreign goods will flood back into the Russian market. No matter how or when the war ends, the economic conflict between the West and Russia will last much longer. This is because firms returning to a country they left or even just sending “just” their capital back into the country takes time (even if Russia manages to convince them) and requires a number of conditions, such as protection for investors, stable logistics flows, and the ability to make secured payments. In this regard, the Kremlin needs to act in order to ensure it avoids isolation. This is why Russia has increased its diplomatic activities in other regions of the world besides Europe, visiting countries with which it hopes to establish good trade and security relations. While sustaining its grand strategy, Russia is establishing new vectors for its foreign policy. Since the early days of the Ukraine conflict, Russia has been engaged in alliance building efforts. Russia needs to maintain economic activity and vitality despite being the target of the West’s economic warfare and the Kremlin is aware that doing so requires outside partnerships that support the government’s budget and funds despite the desire for self-sufficiency (Colibasanu, 2022a, b). The Kremlin needs to have access to financial resources in order to redistribute money and promote the growth of industries and areas where market competition is unable to do so. This means that Russia must continue to be an export-oriented nation. Additionally, Russia needs to continue to have access to imports because high-tech industries, mechanical engineering, and civil electronics still heavily rely on them. Moscow is also evaluating and improving an import substitution program for high value-added products, which has so far yielded only modest results. Additionally, structures for parallel imports via third countries have been developed. As a result, it is not surprising that Moscow is actively working to strengthen economic and trade ties with countries that can either be the main buyers of Russian goods or help solve the import problem by acting as intermediaries, all while continuing the kinetic war in Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian economy has opened up quite a lot to the world: it has increased the export of natural resources, allowed international companies to invest in production facilities, and joined international initiatives

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and organizations such as the WTO. Therefore, it was expected that the tightening of trade sanctions and the exit of companies would increase pressure on the Kremlin. But, according to the Russian authorities, the Russian economy turned out to be more resilient to external challenges than experts expected in the short term. Russia’s GDP in 2022 decreased by 2.1%, which was significantly better than expected with a reduction of 5.6% from 4.7%. The Bank of Russia also changed its estimate for how the country’s GDP will change in 2023 from a drop of 1% to a rise of 1%, instead of a drop of 1–4%, which was the estimate from October. In addition, in January–September 2022, investment activity in Russia increased in annual terms by 5.9% and in the third quarter, by 3.1% in real terms, which was facilitated by the flow of investments in the context of the structural transformation of the economy as well as the implementation of the policy of import substitution (RBC, 2022). However, Russia’s main problem persisted: its trade is still relatively concentrated; for a very long time, China and the European Union were its two main trading partners. The European Union made up about one-third of the structure of Russia’s foreign trade, with China playing a significant role in the Asia-Pacific region. But the nature of trade is not significantly different; Russia supplies both with oil, gas, and oil products in addition to purchasing machinery, equipment, and high-tech equipment. Moscow continued to interact with the rest of the world, but it failed to demonstrate a significant change in the dynamics of trade. This is why Russia has treated the war as an opportunity to diversify its trade relationships. Russia has two distinct geographical perspectives in pursuing its economic diplomacy, considering its objectives. First, Russia regards the former Soviet Union space as being most important, taking into account that it is formed of countries that can facilitate Russia’s indirect access to the EU market. Moscow knows market restructuring is difficult and takes time, so it is important for the Kremlin to ensure the supply of high-tech products and components, on which it still depends. According to the European Union calculations, Russia is reliant on Europe for its high-tech imports: about 45% of Russian imports of high-tech goods come from the European Union, and only 11% from China (European Union External Action, 2022). That Russia is pursuing this vector for its economic diplomacy has become obvious as the trade statistics for 2022 were released. The trade turnover between Georgia and Russia in 2022 exceeded $2.4 billion, which is 52% more than in 2021 (TASS, 2023). Armenia reports a nearly 50% increase in exports to Russia, which makes one wonder about the role Armenia plays in supplying the Russian Federation with foreign goods needed by its economy (ArmenPress, 2023). The volume of exports from Kazakhstan to Russia in 2022 amounted to $8.8 billion, which is 25% more than the values of the previous year (E-Cis Info, 2023). Exports of European goods to Russia’s neighbors (namely, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan) grew by 48% over the same period (to €20.3 billion) (RBC, 2023). This geographic perspective pertains to Russia strategy to consolidate its position in key buffer areas. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), where Russia is the de facto leader, plays a critical role within this strategy. It is notable that, in the midst of

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A Developing War

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the Ukraine war, Putin still dedicates time to developing and overseeing the main guidelines for macroeconomic policy of the member states of the Eurasia Economic Union for 2022–2023 (Kremlin.Ru, 2022). Furthermore, an expansion of the EAEU is on the agenda. Negotiations with the Republic of Indonesia on concluding a freetrade agreement have started, while simultaneously conducting similar negotiations with Iran, Egypt, the UAE, and China (Russia Briefing, 2023). Attempts to persuade Uzbekistan to join are also visible—on July 12, Tashkent and the EAEU signed a document on additional areas of cooperation (KUN.uz, 2022). Russia has also targeted the Caspian Sea region as a space for more cooperation, particularly in the field of energy (Zolotova, 2022). The second geographic perspective for Russia in pursuing its economic diplomacy is establishing good ties with Turkey, the connecting country not only to Europe but beyond, especially for the energy sector goals Russia has. Moscow uses Turkey and its infrastructure to reach out to the European market, including by using Turkey’s geographic proximity and its relations with North African countries. In January–September 2022, the trade turnover between Russia and Turkey amounted to $47 billion, which is twice as much as in the first nine months of 2021, where Turkey actually remained one of the few ways to supply gas to Europe (Interfax, 2022). North African countries buy more diesel fuel and other oil products from Russia than they normally consume, at a time that Europe is buying less oil and oil products from Russia because of sanctions. In January 2023, Morocco imported two million barrels; Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria also increased imports (Horner, 2023). While this may be pure speculation or rumor mill-based analysis (Kasraoui, 2023), there may be a connection between this and the fact that European energy imports from North African countries have increased during 2022 with no new projects coming online (Munshi et al., 2022). In addition to keeping supplies flowing to the EU through intermediaries—a first vector of Russian economic diplomacy—Moscow grows its ties with countries that have proven a high demand for its energy products. China and India are key to this vector. Since the war in Ukraine began, Russia has continued to set records for oil deliveries to India (Verma, 2023). While there are reports saying that part of the energy sent to India has also been reexported to Western countries (Chin & Sharma, 2023), India’s consumption has been on a growing trend during the last decade, which is expected to continue in the following years, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA, 2021). Moscow has also reached out to China, into establishing new energy projects in Central Asia and beyond, given the Chinese consumption potential (Nugent, 2023). Moreover, this geographic perspective refers to Moscow’s focus on expanding cooperation with the BRICS countries (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) (Colibasanu, 2022a, b). Russia has used the BRICS framework to provide discounts and lower prices for energy products. This partially explains the increase in Indian energy trade and the fact that Russia became the leader in the supply of crude oil to China (BBC, 2022). Brazil also agreed on the supply of diesel fuel from Russia at lower prices (Blum et al., 2022). For the Kremlin, the value of BRICS is deepening ties with countries that can expand the geography of potential partners. The economies of all three nations are

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sizable, and none of them has firmly sided with one side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict during 2022. The USA has strategic interests in all three, which restricts the scope to which it can impose secondary sanctions and alienate these nations. Russia’s work with BRICS laid the groundwork for an economic alliance structure that not only supports its economy in the short term, helping it deal with Western sanctions, but also serves Russia’s goals in the long term, providing for alternative markets to the European one. Finally, the third vector for Russia refers to finding and strengthening all political components that help the Kremlin cause security problems to the USA. On the short term, this is a tactic to make sure US attention is distracted from the battlefield in Ukraine. On the long term, it aims at creating a network for cooperation similar to the one the USA created after World War II and which helped Washington win the Cold War. This focuses on and leverages the Kremlin’s ability to conduct political dialogue in the parts of the world where Russian presence was previously recorded, even against the backdrop of a military operation. This idea includes both the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, with which Russia makes deals to build nuclear power plants, and the countries of Latin America, where Russia’s presence bothers the USA, even though the USA sees limits to Russia’s presence in the region as a whole. For example, most Latin American countries did not join the sanctions and condemnation of Russia at the UN and other international structures from the start of the Ukrainian crisis, while a few countries (Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua) came out in support of Russia. Trade and economic ties between the Russian Federation and Latin America are still not very important (RIA Novosti, 2022). However, Russian companies are very interested in importing goods from Latin America, especially agricultural goods, and are also ready to sell goods to the region (RIA Novosti, 2023). The development of this diplomatic vector is meant to allow Russia to suggest to the West and the USA in particular that Russia is not paralyzed in fighting in Ukraine, even if the war continues. This also raises the possibility that Russia could widen the conflict to include other painful areas for the West, raising the possibility for NATO or the US alliances in the Asia Pacific to be further tested. While Russia announced that a new concept for its foreign policy is in the works, Moscow appears to be in no hurry to make it public. While the media has announced that the new concept will outline the “need to do away with the West’s international dominance,” Russia’s diplomacy is still testing the waters at the time of writing (March 2023). For the moment, according to the vectors for its economic diplomacy—as they are put in practice, Moscow appears to prioritize three categories of countries for forging relations with: (1) the transit countries between Russia and Europe (former Soviet Union countries but also other connectors), (2) the alternative markets that come along with establishing a working BRICS platform; and (3) the political supporters, in key regional contexts like Asia Pacific and Latin America. Each of these categories has a different priority in addition to being part of a particular vector. Russia needs to appear it is in no hurry to end the war, while the longer the war takes, the more it is pressed to end it; and so, priorities are developed and other tactics may follow as the war develops.

9.4

A Developing War

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Chapter 10

The Nodes and the Re-Shifts: The Borderlands in Transition

Much of this book has been written as the Ukrainian war unfolded in Eastern Europe. What was initially thought to be an invasion that would result in Russia taking Kyiv in a few days (Epstein & Davis, 2022) transformed into a war of attrition, and, according to the research done for the book, Russia appears to be prepared to sustain a long-term conflict, given its imperatives. Moreover, the global economic war that Russia started (when it blocked the Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea) has the potential to reshape the way the world trades and invests globally. The conflict between Russia and the West goes well beyond the geographic confines of Ukraine. Considering the momentum—as the conflict is extending at the global level from an economic perspective, affecting security alliances throughout the world, it may be yet too early to address its effects. This is the reason why, considering the geopolitical and geoeconomics analytical tools, the following section addresses the main questions that the world needs to consider next, during and after the conflict in Ukraine. The answers to these questions are found in specific scenarios that nation-states pursue, given their imperatives. They are tied to the so-called re-switches that the world will face during the next decade.

10.1

The European Frontier or the New Containment Line?

The first question refers to the immediate NATO and its Eastern European frontier. From the Baltic Sea in the north to Bulgaria in the south, the borderlands between Russia and Europe have long been a point of contention for various empires and regional powers. Members of the former Warsaw Pact, along with the three Baltic states, joined NATO and the European Union after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, Russia was left powerless as a result of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the ensuing political and economic chaos. The Kremlin nonetheless saw this expansion as a serious danger to Russia’s security.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_10

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The Strategic Surprise in Eastern Europe

Since the early 2000s, NATO and the USA on a bilateral level strengthened defense ties with nations along NATO’s eastern edge as a result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. New agreements for the rotation of Western troops in Central and Eastern European nations as well as the establishment of new NATO integration centers were prompted by the Ukrainian crisis. Additionally, NATO expanded its Rapid Reaction Forces while creating a new Spearhead Force. There is a developing alliance system that includes, among other countries, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Baltic States. Russia sees a threat in the increased NATO presence in its neighborhood, especially the presence of the USA. This is how, even though the Ukraine crisis may have taken some by surprise, it definitely was expected. The current conflict has roots in the Maidan uprising of 2014 and the annexation of Crimea that followed, as well as in 2004, when Russia realized it was falling behind the West in Ukraine, or really, all the way back to the end of the Cold War and beyond. What’s new is that, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, the threat of war in the area is being taken seriously, which has significant ramifications for NATO, Ukraine, and the rest of Eastern Europe. At the same time, Russia decided that the invasion would happen in 2022 rather than later due to the international context, which began with the announcement that the USA would leave Afghanistan and ended with the global pandemic. Russia’s strategy to Ukraine was to use it to split the West. In contrast to Germany, which is heavily reliant on Russian hydrocarbons, Poland, also an EU and NATO member, is terrified of Russian advancements on an existential level. Russia hoped that the two countries would react differently when Ukraine was attacked. At the same time, with all brewing global crisis, while the United Kingdom, another European power, left the European Union and the USA has been concentrating on internal issues, Russia figured 2022 was as good a time as any to highlight European and trans-Atlantic weaknesses. Russia has so far succeeded in the opposite. NATO has increased the number of ships and fighter jets it has sent to Eastern Europe as well as its military presence there. While France sent troops to Romania under NATO command, the USA and the United Kingdom have both increased their respective levels of presence in the area. In order to join NATO forces in the Black Sea, Spain and the Netherlands have also dispatched ships and fighter jets. Everyone contributed by sending aid to Ukraine and helping the Ukrainian military to resist the invasion. Even Germany is in agreement. Even before the war started, on February 15, a German military aircraft carrying reinforcement troops landed in Lithuania (Sytas, 2022). A year later, Germany said it would deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine—after much deliberation and pressure from allies. The first delivery will reportedly include 14 modern Leopard tanks and ammunition. Berlin will also allow allies to reexport their own tanks made in Germany, and it will give Ukrainian forces ammunition and training (Die Bundersregierung, 2023). According to reports, Germany asked the USA to send 30 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine (Ward & Seligman, 2023).

10.1

The European Frontier or the New Containment Line?

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On the economic front, considering that the Nord Stream pipelines are no longer functional and Russian gas deliveries to Europe have been cut to the minimum, the USA has been pressuring other nations to use liquefied natural gas to make up for any natural gas shortages from Russia. (So far, Qatar, Australia, and Japan have agreed to lend a hand.) Additionally, the possibility of an invasion by Ukraine roused Western nations outside of NATO. Sweden and Finland decided they want to join the alliance. For the past months, both have coordinated with NATO. While Sweden has increased its military presence on the island of Gotland, the region that is closest to Russia, Finland has improved its military readiness. Similarly, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, the Russian threat has rekindled worries among NATO members and non-members alike. In other words, Russia’s most recent attempt to retake the borderlands it abandoned at the end of the Cold War is bringing its alleged adversaries closer. And at their center is NATO, an alliance that many thought (and Russia hoped) had lost its purpose.

10.1.2

The Potential for Russia to Invade NATO(?)

It is obvious that many nations are concerned about the possibility of war. But the conflict has brought up important strategic issues for Romania and Poland, who are operational allies of Washington on the front lines. The first concern refers to the actual nature and the evolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Some strategists believed, from the very early days of the war, that a southern invasion route, connecting Odessa to Crimea and giving Russia control of all non-NATO ports on the Black Sea, would be Russia’s main invasion route. This is still possible, considering the aerial attacks on the energy infrastructure during February–March 2023, which have also targeted the Odessa port region. Less likely was considered that Russia would choose the invasion route through the north (Le Monde, 2023). In NATO wargaming exercises, these routes could be extended into the Alliance borders. A northern invasion would necessitate active defense against Russian forces from Poland, while a southern invasion would necessitate amphibious and mountain warfare from Romania (O’Hanlon, 2022). All of these call for various strategies, tools, and forms of coordination and cooperation between Warsaw and Bucharest. The second concern is how likely an invasion into a NATO country really is. Moscow declared that in response to Western intrusion, it must fight back. After all, NATO took in the Eastern European nations that Russia had hoped it wouldn’t at the end of the Cold War. Moscow’s demands gave the impression that Ukraine and Eastern Europe posed a special threat to Russia, which would disappear if NATO simply left the area. Regardless of whether it is true or false, Russia’s message was clear: Eastern European nations are equally as vulnerable and they are as much as a target as Ukraine. Naturally, these nations have dealt with Russian assertiveness in all of its guises before, and none of them are eager to re-enter the orbit of Moscow. They initially joined NATO and the EU for this reason, and as a result of their membership, Russia

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is actively attempting to regain influence in the regions it considers to be its borderlands: the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Therefore, the war in Ukraine had an important effect on these countries. The Eastern European countries realized they were more of a front line and that they would have to make their own strategic decisions. Moscow views them, like Ukraine, as a part of its buffer zone rather than a borderland where East and West meet. These countries—even after choosing to join NATO—are considered by Moscow as part of the area that it should control. Therefore, they need to act as full-fledged members of NATO while considering Russia to their main security threat. To pursue their own strategic agenda, they have increased spending on defense and security in case Russia decides to attack them for years. Both Poland and Romania have increased defense spending to reach 2% of their GDP before other countries in Europe were considering it (McKinsey, 2022). Both of them have pursued strategic partnerships with the USA, forging bilateral military ties with the US military. The average person in these countries, however, did not really perceive the Russian threat, at least not until the current Ukraine crisis, which has persuaded many that defense and security are now more important than ever. However, this was broadly understood at strategic levels by the governments. This is more significant than it might seem. Focusing on resilience to Russian hybrid warfare, making sure the population doesn’t fall prey to disinformation campaigns, economic interference, etc. has been a cornerstone of Eastern European strategy. However, this approach is a largely proactive and restrained approach that must forgo assertiveness. Active front-line defense requires a completely different mindset. These states must always defend both themselves and the NATO (and EU) frontier, not just when called upon to do so. This mindset will probably spread. When it comes to defense issues, urgency and assertiveness translate into the development of vital infrastructure that benefits the energy, transportation, and health sectors. The European nations that want the front line to hold need to do more than just invest in these developments; they also need to change their policies fundamentally in terms of the military, diplomatic, economic, and political spheres. This is not something pertaining to the front line only, but to the entire Alliance. The change of mentality, the mindset re-switch within NATO is what drives the Eastern front line to become the new containment line.

10.2

NATO: Back to the Future with Its New Strategic Concept?

The second question pertains to whether NATO is supporting the changes that translate the Eastern frontier into a new containment line. Moreover, this question refers to the way NATO reconsiders its role and its relationship to Russia during and after the war in Ukraine. NATO’s new Strategic Concept, published at the 2022 summit in Madrid (NATO, 2022a) shows what’s in store for the alliance in the coming decade. In a word, the concept is: realignment.

10.2

NATO: Back to the Future with Its New Strategic Concept?

10.2.1

201

The New Linguistics for Strategy

Even though the accompanying Military Strategy text, which describes how member states can support the alliance’s goals in practical terms, is classified, the Strategic Concept text is open to the public. The text, coupled with the information that is currently available in the media, indicates that the next ten years will emphasize defense and deterrence, highlighting NATO’s original mission as a military alliance. (Though it might seem obvious, keep in mind that NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept (NATO, 2010) emphasized the potential political role the alliance could play in European affairs.) The new concept explicitly describes Russia as a strategic threat, in contrast to the previous one, which referred to Russia as a strategic partner for Euro-Atlantic stability. Given that the text was published during a time of war, this is not particularly surprising. Similar language was used in other documents made public during the 1999 Kosovo War and the Korean War. In fact, the latter is regarded as a turning point in NATO history as it resulted in increased American support for the alliance’s efforts to counter the Soviet Union and the reorganization of a rapidly expanding alliance under centralized command, all of which would be pillars for the duration of the Cold War. The 2022 Strategic Concept similarly suggests a more expansive framework for the alliance, reinstating its military role while maintaining its political role, adopting a more global perspective, integrating China, and talking about security issues important to the economic sphere. More importantly, it suggests a new force model that, like the one proposed in 1952, is likely to result in the military reorganization of the alliance (NATO, 2020). The document discusses how NATO intends to increase its military capabilities and cooperation, as well as the creation of the NATO Command Structure for the Information Age. The language suggests both a further military advance and the creation of a platform that can support international operations in the military, political, and economic spheres. The Strategic Concept, which aims to “significantly strengthen deterrence and defense for all Allies. . . [and] enhance our resilience against Russian coercion,” is in fact built around the new force model. In order to achieve this, information that is readily accessible to the general public, such as the content of a speech given by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (NATO, 2022a, b, c) after the summit, suggests that NATO intends to increase its presence in the east, which may entail growing and changing the name of the 40,000-strong NATO Response Force. At the same time, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps’ new force model for NATO’s eastern and southern flanks envisions a time when thousands more soldiers stationed in their home nations will be available for deployment. Additionally, Stoltenberg stated that the current NATO Response Force, which consists of about 40,000 soldiers, will be upgraded to a future force of about 300,000 soldiers kept on high alert, with 44,000 kept in high readiness.

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The Practical Translation into Alliance

All this means that, for the first time, all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a deterrence and defense role, and that all these forces will be consolidated under one command framework, though it’s unclear how alliance members plan to reach that number. According to the publicly available justifications, the new force model calls for this new force to be held at a “notice to act” of 24 hours, while the majority of the NATO Force Structure will hold at a “notice to move” of 15 days. In comparison with the current arrangement, where some forces require 180 days’ notice before moving, this is a remarkable improvement that essentially makes the alliance more adaptable and dynamic. Heavy machinery will also be positioned close to NATO borders as part of the new strategy. All of this suggests that NATO’s member states are more determined than ever to rebuild its military might. For NATO allies, it will be expensive to build up a force of this size and scope. Thus, according to Stoltenberg, the NATO defense investment pledge of 2% of each ally’s GNP is now “more of a floor than a ceiling.” Several European NATO members have already committed to raising their respective defense budgets, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Importantly, though, nearly the entire continent of Europe is struggling with high inflation and post-COVID economies, so future financial limitations will determine whether these pledges are successful. They depend on American leadership in some ways as well, though it’s unclear whether America fully shares Europe’s worries. Late in March 2022, a classified copy of the US National Defense Strategy was provided to Congress; it appears to place a higher priority on China and the Indo-Pacific region than on Russia and Europe. (This is likely the reason NATO’s Strategic Concept emphasizes Russian and Chinese ties and claims they pose a threat to European security.) The NDS provides information on how the USA will view NATO’s new force model and future force. The American future force will be based on three principles, according to information that is publicly available about the strategy: “integrated deterrence” and credible combat powers, successful campaigning in the gray area, and “building enduring advantage” by utilizing new, emerging, and disruptive technologies. And for the first time, the NDS suggests that allies should play a bigger part in assisting the USA in achieving its strategic objectives and overcoming its challenges, particularly in and around the European theater. All of this emphasizes how difficult it will be to keep the forces of the USA and its allies interoperable. Washington’s message is crystal clear: Europe will need to start shouldering some of the burden of ensuring its security. Thus, NATO will be stronger and more resilient. While the USA has previously urged Europe to take this action on a number of occasions, the current state of the world at war benefits the USA because NATO allies are strongly motivated by Russian military operations to maintain NATO and strengthen national defense capabilities. Aside from Washington, having sufficient forces to prevent, participate in, and react quickly to any crisis in or near the Euro-Atlantic region forms the cornerstone of NATO’s future.

10.3

The Challenge: Is the Western Alliance Standing Together?

203

With a 360-degree strategy built on the three core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security, the new Strategic Concept reaffirms NATO’s commitment to collective defense. All of this illustrates how complex the environment in which NATO is operating at the moment. The Strategic Concept calls for NATO to continue working on developing its political role, calls for a digital transformation that enhances cyber and emerging and disruptive technologies, and upholds the rules-based order—all of which go beyond the purview of a purely military alignment. This is because the Strategic Concept implicitly acknowledges the global economic war in which the world is currently engaged. Simply put, the world is more complex today than it was in the 1950s, and the alliance will need to remain competitive across a range of domains if it is to maintain its edge. The new concept specifically calls for this.

10.3

The Challenge: Is the Western Alliance Standing Together?

The key to the unity of the Western Alliance is the support that the public has for the alliance, which ultimately comes from the way the Ukraine war is affecting the daily life of the Western population. This has been the bet that Russia has made— attacking Ukraine would have not triggered sanctions that were too harsh for its own economy, but instead were hurting the European economy more. After years of sanctioning Russia following its annexation of Crimea, Moscow knew that, in order to have an impact, new sanctions would have been needed to tackle Russian energy supplies to Europe. But, upon Moscow’s calculation, such an option would have been complicated— if not impossible. The Ukraine crisis in 2022 came as Europe was dealing with soaring gas prices and internal divisions over how to reduce its usage of fossil fuels over the long term. The Kremlin knew this—and it has made the most of this chance to test the West. Moscow wanted to see if NATO and the European Union would stick together, and if so, what their response would be.

10.3.1

The European Factor: From EU Cohesion to European Security

It has been difficult to reach an EU-wide consensus to impose sanctions on all Russian energy flows. The 27 EU members must unanimously support such sanctions. Russia supplies more than a third of the gas used in Europe. Some nations, including the Baltic States, Bulgaria, and Austria, receive more than 70% of their gas from this vast neighbor to the east, while others, like Hungary, rely on Russia for both their oil and gas needs. Furthermore, it is difficult to find substitute suppliers

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who could quickly meet Europe’s needs (Flanagan et al., 2022). Brussels’ ability to be aggressive toward Russia’s energy sector is thus constrained. The pandemic made it hard for Europe to find Russian energy substitutes. However, in 2021, Europe first tested its energy resilience. It has been compelled to work quickly to make sure it has enough stored gas to get through the winter because of the supply chain crisis, which was followed by the energy crisis (Kneebone, 2023). No matter how promising, investments in cutting-edge technologies, such as hydrogen or batteries, will only pay off in the long run. Europe needs to make the most of its current contractual agreements and the current energy infrastructure if it wants to prevent further economic disruption. It was 2021 when energy prices in Europe first began to soar, and many entities and experts within the EU and the USA have charged Russia with manipulating the market. Although Moscow has denied the accusations, the Ukraine crisis has only made matters worse. As a result, the USA joined efforts to find Europe alternative gas suppliers. Since January 7, 2022, when the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met EU’s Josep Borrell, and Kadri Simson, the EU’s Energy Commissioner in Washington, the USA and the EU have coordinated their efforts to find alternative energy sources for the European nations. It has been discussed that the EU’s liquefied natural gas imports from Norway, Qatar, Azerbaijan, and Algeria will increase, and indeed flows have begun to arrive in Europe since the start of the Ukrainian conflict. Although LNG is not a perfect substitute for Russian gas, it has certainly turned useful during 2022–2023 to the German economy. Germany’s energy consumption has rebounded from the pandemic, and despite Berlin’s ardent support for green energy, it restarted coal production in response to the energy crisis. More than half of its electricity was produced using conventional, nonrenewable energy sources in the third quarter of 2021. Germany has increased its investments in renewable energy, but natural gas, which is mostly imported from abroad, cannot yet be replaced by wind and solar. Germany only produces 3% of the gas it uses, and more than a third of the gas it imports was from Russia. According to recent data from utility industry group BDEW, only 15–17 percent of Germany’s electricity was produced by burning natural gas before the war started in Ukraine, and about half of all households in Germany relied on gas supplies for heating during the winter (BDEW, 2021). Germany had to either increase its coal-fired generation at home or import more power from neighbors to make up the difference when it loses some of its gas imports, for whatever reason and from whatever source. After the war started in Ukraine, Germany got serious about finding alternative sources of energy to Russia. LNG was thought to be a solution and in October 2022, Germany passed the country LNG acceleration law (Bundesjustizamt, 2022). The construction of eight floating terminals and four permanent onshore terminals was prioritized. The 45 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas that formerly flowed directly from Russia was anticipated to be replaced by the floating terminals alone. In contrast, the permanent ones would offer a comparable import capability. A few other places in Europe have the port infrastructure to accept LNG, like Britain, northwestern Europe, Poland, and the Mediterranean, but the latter two locations are still young in their development. Before considering the construction of the new

10.3

The Challenge: Is the Western Alliance Standing Together?

205

terminals, the little LNG Germany imports mostly comes through the Dutch Gate Terminal, which can handle just 12 billion cubic meters per year.

10.3.2

The Hungarian Challenge

While Germany went on board with the USA and has been a key supporter for Ukraine, Russia could benefit from its good relations with Hungary in the EU. Hungary was most reluctant to energy sanctions against Russia. In fact, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in April 2022 that Hungary would pay in rubles for its energy if Russia requested it, after Russia announced in April 2022 that Gazprom stopped sending gas to Bulgaria and Poland after they missed the deadlines Russia set for paying in rubles (Dunai, 2022). At the time, it was unclear whether Moscow was set to cut off energy supplies to European states and which country it planned to cut off next. Its deadlines were unknown to the general public, as they depended on the details of contracts and negotiations between Gazprom and its customers. It was clear that Moscow couldn’t afford to deprive itself of too much revenue, even if the invasion seemed to go well at the time. Moscow initially offered what looked to be a compromise for its European partners: Energy importers would open two accounts with Gazprombank, which was not under sanctions, and European buyers would pay euros into a first account, after which the bank could convert them into rubles and deposit the money into a second account (Euractiv, Reuters, 2022). Then, the sum would be wired to Gazprom. But the offer was also strategic. Moscow knew that it would create disagreement among European states and potentially weaken the Western alliance—one of its fundamental goals in Ukraine. The proposal was essentially splitting the EU members into three groups. One was formed of countries like Belgium, Spain, and Romania that import little or no gas from Russia and could thus refuse to compromise. The second includes countries such as Poland that were only partially dependent on Russian gas and could have contracts that would expire relatively soon if not already expired. These countries were already looking for new suppliers, but could also consider accepting a compromise in the near term. The third group comprises big buyers like Germany and Italy that were struggling to replace imports quickly and that could take the deal if the threat of cutting supplies posed problems for their economies. As they were looking at replacing gas suppliers and finding alternative sources of gas, time and adaptability were essential. Hungary is a little bit of an exception. In the recent history of the EU, Budapest has developed into a significant Russian ally. The EU has faced socio-economic issues since 2008 and an unprecedented refugee crisis since the early 2010s. As a result of Western Europe’s unprecedented problems, assistance and financial support for Eastern European nations that were still new to the bloc declined. Meanwhile, there has been a rise in nationalism, populism, and euroscepticism across Europe (Fortunato & Pecoraro, 2022). Long before Russia invaded Ukraine, most European nations had begun to worry about their energy security. In the midst of these issues,

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Hungary began interacting more with Russia, which could offer energy security and unrestricted investment. Of course, this drew Brussels’ criticism, which Prime Minister Viktor Orban used it to gain support at home by portraying himself as a defender of independence and sovereignty against a constantly encroaching Europe. Currently, roughly 75 percent of Hungary’s natural gas imports and 65 percent of oil imports come from Russia (AFP, 2022). This means that import prices are a matter of political stability. Budapest capped energy prices last fall to protect domestic consumers from rising oil prices. The government provides tax benefits and subsidies, and the costs of the price freeze are currently divided between the big players, the small retail petrol stations, and the government. One can understand why the government is reluctant to sanction Russia. But Hungary’s alignment with Russia goes beyond energy. Its geopolitical imperative, and the strategy that comes from it, is to maintain internal security while seeking to expand its influence and project power beyond its current borders. This demands a balance between its alignment with the West and its relations with Russia. Two major historical events are responsible for Hungary’s strategy. The first and most important is the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, which ceded parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as nationstates in the region were taking shape. Since then, Hungary’s goal was to establish influence and eventually gain back the land it considered unjustly lost. During the Cold War, Budapest wasn’t strong enough or independent enough to reclaim these lands, but since the conflict has ended, it has made a concerted effort to cater to Hungarian communities there that vote in Hungarian elections. The second is the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The uprising was repressed by the Soviets after an intense summer of insurgent fighting, and after the USA proved unwilling to counter Soviet action, it ultimately failed. Most Hungarians perceive the event as simply proving that America can’t be trusted. Even so, Hungary became a NATO member as it recognized the West’s superiority over Russia, and it joined the EU once it understood the economic benefits of membership. Yet, it never fully trusted either organization, and it never fully disavowed its relations with Russia. All this explains Hungary’s strategic position toward Russia. Additionally, when Prime Minister Orban anticipated a conflict with Russia, he thought the West would either be powerless to protect Ukraine or crumble in the face of Russian might. Like others, he anticipated that Western assistance would be minimal that Russia would swiftly annex Ukraine and that a new political and institutional order would emerge in Europe. So, it made sense for him to move away from the West and get closer to Russia. Moreover, Budapest depends on Russian energy, so even though it has been absorbed by Western institutions, it still needs a good working relationship with Moscow—and vice versa. Russia didn’t place any conditions on its investments in and business ties to Hungary. That relations with the West have been deteriorating lately made the Hungary-Russia romance all the more advantageous. All of which helps to explain Hungary’s response to the invasion of Ukraine. It hasn’t condemned Russia the way others have, choosing instead to focus its remarks

10.3

The Challenge: Is the Western Alliance Standing Together?

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on protecting Hungarian communities in Eastern Europe, while being somewhat instrumental in getting Ukrainian refugees to the rest of Europe (something it was loath to do in other immigration crises when the refugees were coming from the Middle East and North Africa). Budapest did the bare minimum to help NATO beef up the eastern flank and allowed NATO to move through and be stationed in the country, but it banned the shipment of weapons and equipment to Kyiv coming from NATO member states and US allies. (Here again domestic politics is in play. During campaign season, the government understood there was a chance that Russia would win, and thus saw an opportunity to expand its influence in Transcarpathia while ensuring the country’s energy security.) Despite the clear advantages, Hungary’s plan isn’t as effective as it seems. The only tangible benefit is that it receives discounted Russian gas when everyone else is scrambling, despite the fact that the outcome of the war is becoming less and less certain. But as circumstances change, even this advantage might be in doubt. Some derogations have been granted to Hungary by the EU because of its geographic location and special economic structure. But the country has faced increasing inflation—43.3% food inflation in February 2023 (vs 44% in January), while energy inflation stands at 49% during the same month (European Commission, 2023). With the money it receives in the form of special taxes from large corporations, the state subsidizes basic consumption, but this cannot be a long-term strategy. Due to Hungary’s tense relationship with Brussels and the EU’s lack of help, Prime Minister Orban is becoming more and more pessimistic about the course of the war and his own position. He says that what he fears most is that NATO would become involved in the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, what he really fears is losing the Hungarian people’s support for his government and for neutrality. If Ukraine falls, Russia will take control of NATO’s eastern border, which Poland, Hungary, and Romania all share. In the event that NATO is defeated, Russia’s next move will probably go through Hungary because of its relatively flat terrain. Therefore, NATO would have to send troops to Hungary to block Russia. Hungary is a small player in the conflict in Ukraine, but if Russia wins, advances into Central Europe, and creates a new power dynamic, Hungary will be a key battleground, and Orban’s friendship with Putin won’t matter much. Hungary is secure as long as the conflict in Ukraine persists—but this is equally difficult for Hungary’s government if it doesn’t side with the West. Keeping good ties with Russia no longer translates into economic benefits—turning to the West, Hungary could benefit from the EU funding (some of which was cut during 2022 particularly due to the country’s foreign policy). Ultimately, the socio-economic pressures may trigger a re-switch in Hungary’s foreign strategy. At the end of the day, the power of the West stands in its better economic conditions, supporting the Alliance’s member states’ political stability.

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The Northern Borderland: How Fast for NATO Enlargement?

On March 1, 2022, Finnish lawmakers began debating whether their country should join NATO. The move came after more than 50,000 people in Finland signed a petition calling for a referendum on accession. The country officially applied to join NATO on 18 May 2022. On 5 July 2022, NATO signed the accession protocol for Finland to join the alliance and NATO member states need to ratify its accession (Henley, 2023). The same has happened with Sweden, its close ally, which is also reconsidering its status in light of the war in Ukraine (Ekblom, 2023). This is perhaps the most notable effect of the war in Ukraine. While Russia wanted to weaken NATO, the war had the opposite effect—the Alliance became aspirational again for non-member states neighboring Russia. When Finland joins the Alliance, the 1340-kilometer (833 miles) border with Russia will become a new NATO-Russia border, something that was impossible several years ago.

10.4.1

Finland and Sweden: NATO Accession and Different Perspectives

Finland’s historical refusal to join the alliance resulted from what many know as Finlandization, a term used to describe the country’s official neutrality during the Cold War. The country’s status was first established by a 1948 treaty with Moscow in which Finland agreed to remain neutral in the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union, and the Soviets agreed not to invade and turn the country into a satellite state, as happened to many Eastern European nations at the time. Finland’s imperative was to avoid conflict with its neighbor, having lost territory to the Soviets in two wars in 1939 and 1944 (Kangaspuro, 2017). As part of the arrangement, Finland agreed to stay out of NATO. Over time, it established good relations with the Soviet Union, and neutrality eventually evolved into Finland adapting its domestic and foreign policies to suit the Soviets while also maintaining ties with the West. Since the end of the Cold War, Finland has remained friendly with Russia, but it no longer adjusts it behavior to accommodate its neighbor. With a weak Russia to its east, it has much more room for maneuver. It has also developed closer ties with Sweden, which has long had an adversarial relationship with Russia. They fought wars for centuries over control of the Baltic Sea region, and in 1809, the then-Kingdom of Sweden lost the Finnish portion of its territory to Russia. Since then, it has avoided engaging in military conflict with the Russians. It remained neutral during the two world wars, pursued a non-alignment policy, and declined to join NATO. Still, it sees Russia as the main challenger to its imperative to maintain control of the Gulf of Bothnia coast, where its capital, Stockholm, is located.

10.4

The Northern Borderland: How Fast for NATO Enlargement?

209

Both Finland and Sweden joined the European Union in 1994 and have an interest in keeping the Baltic Sea—their main trade route to Europe and the world—open for maritime traffic. They therefore cooperate with NATO members in the region, but only in such a way that doesn’t irritate Russia. Also in 1994, Finland and Sweden joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. The initiative was essentially meant as a way for former Soviet Union countries to participate in NATO activities without acquiring membership. Those who support the program see it as a way to deepen security ties between NATO and non-NATO members, especially in unstable or conflict-prone regions. Sweden and Finland’s participation in the program was a compromise, satisfying both pro- and anti-membership camps within their countries. In the 1990s and early 2000s, few objected to the arrangement; Russia, for one, was preoccupied with its economic problems after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But over time, Russia became a resurgent power and looked to secure its buffer zones. 2008 was a turning point: Its invasion of Georgia forced NATO to prioritize security of the Baltic states and the Baltic Sea, which had implications for Sweden and Finland. NATO concluded that the Swedish island of Gotland was essential to its defense of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and thus temporarily deployed surfaceto-air missiles on the island to secure control of the southern Baltic Sea. Another turning point came in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. For Sweden, it was further evidence that it needed to bolster its defenses. That year, Sweden and Finland decided to deepen cooperation between their militaries, and in 2015, their governments acknowledged the extensive ties between their armed forces. Around this time, public support for NATO accession was relatively high. Still, both governments separately concluded that seeking membership could trigger a backlash from Russia and thus decided not to pursue it. But since 2014, their relationships with Moscow have diverged. In Sweden, reports of incursions into its waters and airspace as well as cyberattacks all apparently linked to Russia have caused tensions between Moscow and Stockholm. More recently, in January 2022, several reports of drones flying over sensitive areas of Swedish territory—the royal palace at Drottningholm, a water treatment center near Norsborg and nuclear power stations—were all linked to Moscow, leading to calls to consider NATO membership. The situation has been somewhat different in Finland. It hasn’t experienced the same incursions on its territory and infrastructure, so the debate around NATO has focused on questions over its political sovereignty and identity. Opponents argued that membership would weaken Finno-Russian relations, which have been carefully cultivated since the mid-1940s. It could also jeopardize trade between the two countries as well as Finland’s energy supplies, about 60 percent of which come from Russia. Sweden, on the other hand, doesn’t rely heavily on Russia for energy or trade. Since the war in Ukraine began, however, the Finnish public has been warming to the idea of membership. Polls showed record-high support for NATO accession, and several protests against the Russian invasion occurred. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated NATO’s openness to Finland and Sweden joining the

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alliance prior to their decision to join, in January 2022, as Russia’s plans for Ukraine were discussed between NATO and their partners (NATO, 2022a, b, c). In fact, both countries have deepened cooperation with the alliance, including working with the Nordic Defence Cooperation initiative and participating in NATO exercises in the Baltic region. Attitudes toward membership differed due to the perceptions of the Russian threat—Finland and Sweden’s relationships to war have been different (Claesson & Carlander, 2022). Sweden has not experienced a war on its territory in more than 200 years—which may explain why public support for NATO membership has historically been higher here than in Finland. Finns, meanwhile, are conscious of their relatively recent history of conflict with the Soviet Union and want to avoid hostilities at all costs—which may explain why many supported NATO membership only after seeing Russia attack another neighbor. They have had different reasons to remain neutral, and different reasons to reconsider their neutrality. Russia’s invasion in Ukraine brought them together. However, if the decision isn’t all that surprising given the circumstances, the reaction from Russia is—and it reveals much about Moscow’s limitations. Also surprising is the response from Turkey, which is opposed to Swedish and Finnish accession, even as their potential admission revives the alliance by enforcing the containment line from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

10.4.2

Russia’s Reaction

Russia and Sweden don’t have much to do with each other, but Finland and Russia do. They share a massive border and have been friendly for years, thanks in part to Finland’s neutrality during the Cold War. This was made possible through a treaty they signed in 1948. In exchange for neutrality, the Soviet Union promised not to invade or turn Finland into a satellite state. At the time, it was imperative for Finland to maintain the integrity of its borders, lest it lose any more territory to Russia. As a result, Finland and Russia have developed a fairly close relationship. Trade and investment have increased since the Cold War, particularly between southeastern Finland and northwestern Russia, while transit and transport have also grown. Economic ties suffered when Russia annexed Crimea, after which Finland joined in on EU sanctions against Moscow, but even then, some 60 percent of Finnish natural gas still came from Russia. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Helsinki has grown increasingly wary of Russia’s aggression since 2008 and has, like Sweden, enhanced its cooperation with NATO accordingly. For its part, Russia has already said that it will take “retaliatory steps” over Finland’s accession. It even briefly cut gas supplies (BBC, 2022). In some ways, it has been hedging its bets in the event this day ever came. Since 2014, it has been modernizing infrastructure and investing in the settlements of northern Murmansk. On Feb. 28, just a few days after the invasion of Ukraine started, the regional government announced the beginning of another stage of construction and

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modernization and that about 3 billion rubles ($44 million) were allocated for the works in 2022 (AKM, 2023)—a first for a region that hasn’t gotten much attention over the past decade. NATO accession talks have made the Kremlin’s plans more urgent. On April 13, 2022, President Vladimir Putin tasked the Defense Ministry with handling these modernization efforts, ordering that they be finished by 2024. The Murmansk region, where about 724,000 people live, is the location of Russia’s northern navy’s main base, which consists of five military camps and 12 settlements with a population of roughly 150,000 (Staalesen, 2021). Considering the total budget for the program is estimated at 78 billion rubles (and since it had been allocated before sanctions took effect), it is likely that the Northern Fleet will be beefed up. Another option for Russian retaliation is economic. Cutting energy supplies is something that Russia will consider judiciously—Moscow needs the money, and it can’t afford to look indifferent to the plights of the 30,000 Russians who live there. Hence why Russia acted measuredly on May 14, 2022, in cutting electricity supplies to Finland citing payment delays, which opens the door for negotiations later. However, the Finnish decision-makers have prepared themselves for the possibility that Russia fully cuts supply to Finland (Aalto University Research Report, 2022). In the worst case scenario, Finland would need to have a rationing protocol implemented. Finland currently receives about 10 percent of its electricity consumption from Russia, but it has been working on shoring up its own production. And though 60 percent of its natural gas comes from Russia, natural gas accounts for only about 5 percent of Finland’s total energy consumption. The country’s main sources of energy are nuclear power (roughly 33 percent of total consumption), hydropower (22 percent), and biomass (17 percent). A more effective way to hurt the Finnish economy is for Russia to “weaponize” St. Petersburg. The port there dominates regional shipping, helping to handle Finnish cargo that Helsinki cannot accommodate. More, most of Finland’s foreign investment in Russia is concentrated in St. Petersburg. The Russian government could increase pressure on the Finnish companies operating in Russia, thus making them rebrand their business, sell their key assets, or even renounce their business in Russia. In an extreme scenario, Russia could nationalize Finnish assets before investors begin the long and arduous process of divesting from a fairly integrated economy. However, Moscow would be reluctant to do so since it may also lose other investors who may reconsider their investments in a country that’s willing to nationalize private assets.

10.4.3

The Turkey Factor

Whatever Russia decides, it certainly has the time to consider its options. For a country to join NATO, it needs to receive a formal invitation. And though NATO leadership has been openly inviting both Sweden and Finland to join, a formal invitation depends on the consensus of current members.

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Enter Turkey. The day after Finland announced it would join NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he opposed expansion, citing concerns over the presence of “terrorists” in both Finland and Sweden. Turkey has long complained that Sweden doesn’t consider the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist organization (Chatterjee, 2022). Ankara has condemned the fact that the Swedish foreign minister criticized Turkish operations in northern Syria and met with members of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the PKK’s Syrian arm, in 2020. Ankara has also criticized Finland for joining military sanctions against Turkey. The sanctions were imposed by the USA after Ankara purchased the Russian S-400 missile defense systems, and though they are mainly about limiting American military sales to Turkey, they also limit credit that would benefit Turkey’s military industry, something that cuts into the European-Turkish development of advanced weapon systems (Macias, 2020). In general, NATO and its allies have been concerned that integrating the S-400 into allied systems could compromise NATO’s security and have limited their technological sales and cooperation with Turkey. Finland and Sweden both have enhanced their security partnerships with NATO, participating in joint exercises and, by doing so, establishing common interoperability infrastructure. Even with the tense relations between Turkey and Finland and Sweden, Ankara’s reaction to their accession surprised NATO and its member states. The US State Department spoke to Ankara nearly immediately after Erdogan came out against expansion. Turkey has long complained of insufficient cooperation from NATO in its fight with the PKK and blocked a NATO defense plan for the Baltic region in 2019 over the bloc’s refusal to label the YPG as a terror group in its official documents. But it also took a step back in 2020 after NATO met some of its conditions and supported the Baltic defense plan (Rolander, 2023). But Turkey’s posture shouldn’t be all that surprising. Ankara has maintained a balanced strategy over Ukraine, looking for a middle ground. While it has supplied Ukraine with drones and has shut its straits and airspace to Russian military ships and aircraft, Turkey was criticized for doing too little, too late, so as not to upset Russia, which could easily retaliate against Turkish interests in northern Syria. All that makes Turkey willing to maneuver so that it accommodates some of Russia’s behavior. Its negotiating posture within NATO allows it to ensure some small gains for itself, further growing its posture as a regional power.

10.5

Georgia and the Republic of Moldova: The Careful Mid-way?

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine moved west toward the important port city of Odessa in March 2022 (without much advancement), worries grew that Moscow would soon turn its sights on Moldova, which is to the west of Ukraine. These

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worries grew after the rally in a Moscow stadium in March 2022 intended to commemorate eight years since Russia annexed Crimea, where participants sang patriotic songs like “Made in the USSR,” which begins with the line: “Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it’s all my country.” Georgians may have also expressed concern over the incident. Georgia, the only Caucasian nation aspiring to join the EU and NATO (a region also mentioned in “Made in the USSR”), has similar worries to the Republic of Moldova (Moldova), but for different reasons. Georgia doesn’t have a border with Ukraine, but it still remembers very clearly when Russia invaded and effectively seized control of two separatist regions in 2008. Georgia and Moldova stepped up their efforts to forge closer ties with Brussels after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. This is especially true given that South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia and Trans-Dniester in Moldova both have breakaway regions that receive support from Russia. To establish closer economic ties with the European Union, which is a top priority for all three countries given their historical dependence on the Russian economy as former Soviet states, the two countries and Ukraine formed the Association Trio in May of last year. They also applied for accelerated EU membership a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Due to the war in Ukraine, Brussels is now more willing to consider their accession than it was previously since Russia still occupies a portion of their territories. Although membership is a long way off, Moldova and Georgia are hoping the bloc will assist them in managing the influx of Ukrainian refugees. They are attempting to strike a balance between Russia and the West because they are concerned that they will be Moscow’s next target. For instance, in an effort to avoid appearing overly aligned with the Western camp, they have declined to impose the same sanctions that Western nations imposed after the war started. Georgia and Moldova, however, have different motivations for taking this route and take opposing views on the conflict in Ukraine.

10.5.1

Georgia’s Cautiousness

Georgia’s fate is closely related to what happens in the rest of Eurasia because of its location and its features: it is a small nation sandwiched between two much more powerful nations. Georgia feels threatened when a regional power on either side of this vast region seeks to increase its influence, as Russia is doing right now, and will look to form an alliance with the regional power’s rivals. Georgia can only hope to fend off Russian advances by requesting economic, military, and political support from the USA, EU, and NATO. However, because of their other priorities, they have been hesitant to assist, which has forced Georgia to cooperate with Russia in order to keep them at bay. The 2008 Russo-Georgian War showed that Russia was determined to reclaim its buffer zones. The fact that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were essentially under Russian control at the end of the frozen conflict highlighted Russia’s resurgence as a regional power. Approximately 8000 Russian soldiers are presently stationed in the

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two provinces, according to reports (Anjaparidze, 2022). In response to both territories’ 2008 declarations of independence, Tbilisi implemented an isolation policy. People in both breakaway regions can apply for Russian passports at consulates opened after Moscow recognized their independence—though these passports are not recognized by either Tbilisi or the international community, making travel outside Russia impossible for people living here. In 2011–12, Tbilisi offered “status-neutral” travel documents to residents of the two regions, but the take-up was minimal given that the people’s loyalties were already firmly established. Though Georgia hasn’t given up on its EU and NATO aspirations, it has slowly started to reengage with Russia over the past decade. In 2012, it launched a normalization process with Moscow, in part to encourage tourism and trade. Their relationship has since grown. Russia is currently Georgia’s most important export market, and Russian wheat and foodstuffs account for more than 75 percent of Georgian imports. Revenue from tourism, remittances, and trade with Russia accounts for about 9 percent of Georgia’s gross domestic product (Georgia Today, 2022). Still, hostilities deriving from Russia’s invasion haven’t faded completely. In fact, some factions in Georgia argued that the normalization process should have been suspended in 2021 when tensions along the breakaway regions’ borders with Georgia escalated before elections. Anti-Russian sentiments increased after Russia’s most recent invasion of Ukraine when many Russians (reportedly in the 30,000 range so far) fled to Georgia because of increasing repression and economic problems at home. Most Georgians draw a distinction between Russia’s government and the Russian people, but reportedly, there were calls on social media not to welcome the Russian migrants. The Georgian government, meanwhile, is in a tough position. Considering the strong economic ties between the two countries, Georgia can’t join the West in imposing severe sanctions on Russia. Some in Georgia even called for the country to join Russia’s equivalent to the SWIFT banking system to help the Russian economy survive its exclusion from SWIFT. But Georgians have also held rallies in support of Ukraine outside the Georgian parliament and collected humanitarian aid to be sent to Ukraine. Moscow, however, doesn’t appear interested in invading Georgia again. In fact, it’s in Russia’s interest to maintain good relations with Georgia to block Western influence there and quash the notion that the South Caucasian country is part of the Euro-Atlantic community. Thus, Tbilisi needs to be careful not to cozy up to the West too much in order not to upset Moscow. As recently as March 1, 2022, the chair of the ruling Georgian Dream Party, Irakli Kobakhidze, said his country would not apply for EU membership until 2024, noting that a hasty move toward joining the bloc could be counterproductive (CivilGe, 2022). The Georgian parliament also denied an opposition proposal to invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to address parliament in 2022 (Georgia Reports, 2022). The best thing Georgia can do is to not attract Russian attention. To do so, however, it needs to maintain its own internal stability, which will be harder to do the longer the war in Ukraine drags on. And this eventually may create friction in its

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relationship with Moscow. Knowing this, the government thought one way to keep things stable was to increase control over those that could create trouble: the local NGOs that, funded from the West, may openly challenge Russia. In the process, Georgian governing parties has likely thought that controlling some of the civil society would also be beneficial for their own—through such control, they could likely further consolidate their power. However, things didn’t turn the way that the government parties had hoped. However, the government parties’ expectations were not fulfilled. On March 7, 2023, in the evening, throngs of protesters poured into the streets of Tbilisi to oppose the first reading of a bill that would have required NGOs and civil society organizations to register as receiving foreign support if at least 20% of their funding came from abroad. After two days of widespread protest, Georgian Dream, the main party that supported the legislation and the ruling coalition, was compelled to back down and rescind the “foreign agents” bill. The Dream Party declared they would no longer pursue its passage at this time after two days of protests. The law was formally rejected by the parliament on March 10. It can be reintroduced after 30 days with revisions to the original draft, but it is unlikely that will happen (Bodner, 2023). The issue’s core is whether Georgia is aligned with Russia or the West. The bill’s backers and the Russian media claimed it was necessary to ensure greater transparency for the nation’s political governance and that it closely resembled the US lobby act. The US law serves as a deterrent against corruption for lobbying activities and requires willful violation for prosecution, whereas the Georgian law would be expected for basic NGO operations. Additionally, Georgian law has a 20% threshold, whereas US law requires reporting of foreign funding regardless of how much of the overall budget it represents. The Speaker of the Russian Duma noted that the proposed laws for Georgia on foreign agents would have given the Georgian government control over the inflow of foreign funds into the country. Over $50 million is annually donated by the US government and related aid programs to NGOs and civil society organizations in Georgia that are heavily involved in local politics and political parties. The US government had previously declared that funding choices would need to be made if the law was passed (Dolbaia & Snegovaya, 2023). The law was seen by the protesters as evidence of the current administration’s pro-Russian bias. They claimed it was too similar to a Russian law of a similar nature from more than ten years ago, which was later used to silence the opposition and the media who spoke out against the Kremlin. Officials from the EU and the USA openly support the protesters’ right to demonstrate. More than 80% of the population supports EU/Western relations, so protests that started as “anti-bill protests” quickly turned into pro-European demonstrations. At the time of writing, it is unclear at this time whether the demonstrations in Tbilisi will go on. After the government declared its intention to reverse the legislation on March 8, protesters went back out into the streets. The crowds’ mood was happier, but until people are confident that the parliament won’t bring the bill back in a new version, the possibility of protests won’t be completely eliminated. Additionally, there’s a chance that protests are being planned by outside

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parties, in which case they might carry on. Further destabilization in Georgia is a good excuse for Russia to portray the West into a negative, aggressive light.

10.5.2

Moldova’s Wariness

Meanwhile, the Republic of Moldova has been more eager to gain Western support. The small, landlocked country wedged between Romania and Ukraine in southeastern Europe’s lowlands has long held opposing loyalties. Throughout history, numerous powers have vied for control of this territory, which has been used as an invasion route between the Balkans and Russia on numerous occasions. It was caught between the Russian and Ottoman empires in the nineteenth century, and between the Russians and the West after the Cold War ended. It fought a war with Russianbacked separatists in Trans-Dniester in the early 1990s, resulting in Moscow’s de facto control of the region. Russia also wields significant economic power in the country, owing to Moldova’s reliance on Russian energy. Despite the fact that Romania has built some infrastructure to deliver European gas to Moldova, the country’s distribution network is still controlled by Gazprom, which means that European gas can only travel as far as Russia allows. Moldova’s electrical grid was only synchronized with the Continental European Grid on March 16, 2022, the same day as Ukraine’s (European Commission, 2022). Furthermore, Moldova’s poor financial situation and the prevalence of the gray economy make it simple for Russian companies to maintain a strong foothold in the Moldovan market. There are both European and Russian banks there, and the country’s access to steel and other industrial materials coming from and through Trans-Dniester allows Russian companies to enter EU markets at a lower cost and in a more covert manner (Clingendael, 2022). All of these factors make it difficult for Moldova to break off relations with Russia. Politics in Moldova, like in Ukraine and Georgia, is highly polarized, with pro-Russian and pro-European factions. Strong pro-Russian camps dominated politics until 2021, when a pro-European government took power in Chisinau, Balti, and the autonomous region of Gagauzian. Prior to 2023, the country never seriously considered NATO membership, but it is now considering joining the EU, in part due to demographics: Its population has shrunk by one-third in 15 years, due in part to declining birth rates and in part to many people leaving for a better life in the European Union. Joining the bloc may persuade some to remain. However, the war in Ukraine has introduced new challenges. In the first months of 2022, the country of 2.6 million people has taken in 360,000 refugees, at least 120,000 of whom remain in Moldova (Frontex, 2022). The EU delivered 15 million euros “to help manage the immediate crisis,” and Romania and others have also helped. However, the Moldovan economy has remained weak. Record energy prices, with gas prices tripling, and soaring inflation exceeding 30% have weighed

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heavily on the economy, further straining public services and infrastructure. The macroeconomic situation has deteriorated as a result of growing public deficits, with GDP contracting by 5.9% in 2022 (SEE NEWS, 2023). Meanwhile, Russian influence in the country appears to be growing. According to a 2022 BS-AXA-Center poll, half of the respondents refused to say whether Russia or the West was to blame for the war, with about 39 percent blaming Russia (Lacris, 2022). These internal divisions will only deepen as the war’s socio-economic toll increases. Consequently, the government must take the opposite approach to that of Georgia. Chisinau required all the assistance the West can provide in order to manage its internal challenges and limit the reach of the pro-Russian camp. However, it has no plans to join Western sanctions against Russia. However, its stability has been increasingly tested since spring 2022. The only way to deal with the problem was to press the West for more funding. So far, Western countries have complied. Earlier this week, Romania, Germany, and France announced the establishment of the “Moldova Support Platform,” which was funded by the EU. The initiative seeks international funding to assist Moldova in dealing with its numerous challenges, including the influx of refugees, energy, finances, border management, and corruption. Chisinau is also negotiating financial assistance with the International Monetary Fund. Partnerships like this help to give the impression that Moldova is somewhat protected from Russian aggression. However, a war of words troubled Moldova in the beginning of 2023. It started when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a Russian coup plot against Moldova on February 10 (Brzozowski, 2023). Two days later, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that Ukraine sent intelligence to her government, according to which the Russians had a plan to destabilize the country by organizing protests and by employing “violent actions.” It would have been the perfect cover for inciting a coup in a country that is prone to violent protest-induced governmental change. In fact, Moldova had been on high alert even before Zelenskyy’s warnings. Earlier in February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov—in a not-so-veiled threat—accused the West of “having its sights” on Moldova as a country that might “follow Ukraine’s path.” Even before that, Sandu enraged Moscow in January by implying Moldova might consider joining NATO. Two influential Russian lawmakers responded by saying Moldovan membership in NATO could lead to the country’s destruction (Ernst, 2023). Following the threat, Sandu requested that the parliament pass draft legislation to provide the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Information System with tools to combat risks and threats to the country’s security more effectively. News of the coup added to the already high anxiety in Moldova and triggered a change in government. Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita resigned and was replaced by Sandu’s security adviser and National Security Council secretary—a signal that the government was prepared to operate from a mandate to protect Moldova from Russian threats (Tanas, 2023). This is no small thing for a country usually committed to a policy of neutrality. Sandu and the new prime minister promptly issued

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statements on the shortcomings of neutrality and a potential constitutional change to join a “larger alliance”—that is, NATO. These kinds of statements, meanwhile, have stirred up domestic partisan activity. Pro-Russia factions are expected to object, while nationalist factions seek to double down on their own agenda, which includes petitions to the EU to add Moldovan oligarchs and other sympathetic politicians to sanctions lists. Moscow has responded to Moldova in kind. On February 21, 2023, President Vladimir Putin canceled a 2012 foreign policy decree that committed Moscow to peacefully resolving the border crisis of Transnistria (Necsutu, 2023). The region is a narrow strip of land in eastern Moldova that has been controlled by a Russianbacked government since a war in 1992 fought between Transnistrian separatists and Moldova. And for 30 years, some 2000 Russian soldiers have been stationed there. (The separatist region is said to host the largest weapons depot in Europe—about 20,000 tons of ammunition and military equipment, albeit likely from the Soviet era.) In 2012, Moscow agreed to help find a way to peacefully resolve the conflict, but that was at a time when Russia was seeking closer relations with the EU and the USA. Clearly, that is no longer the case. In other words, Transnistria is a European region in which Russia has citizens to protect and military assets already in place to protect them. This is why fears are well-founded that Russia’s escalation in Ukraine could embroil Moldova. And it explains the exchanges between Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova during the same month. On February 23, 2023, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine was planning an operation to invade Transnistria. Moldovan media reported that the claim was merely Russian psyops. Still, Kyiv went out of its way to say it would act to help Moldova if Russia ever attacked. These statements paint a picture of escalation that Russia would benefit from. Moscow’s frontal attacks in Ukraine haven’t been especially successful, so logic dictates the execution of a flanking maneuver. Belarus—helmed by a staunchly pro-Russia government—and Moldova are the only places in which Russia could launch such a maneuver. The cancellation of the Moldova decree, then, is meant to force Moldova to accept Russian dominance and influence. It does not indicate an attack, but it does make it clear that one is a very real possibility. Imagine a scenario in which Moldova got militarily involved in the Ukraine war and opened a second front. Considering how quickly Kyiv responded to a potential Russian threat in Moldova, Ukraine could spare some soldiers along with weapons they received from the West to fight in Ukraine. This would allow Kyiv to ask for even more Western help. The USA and its allies may not want the conflict to escalate further—in fact, NATO has already urged Ukraine to use its arsenal for defensive operations, not for offensive ones—but if Moldova were attacked, and if Ukraine rushed to its aid, they would have little choice but to continue their support. For Russia, sustaining an offensive in both eastern Ukraine and southern Ukraine, where the country borders Transnistria, would be a logistical nightmare. Opening a new front might be worth the effort so long as it doesn’t spread itself too thin, doesn’t lose territory it has gained, and doesn’t upset the USA so much that it needs to intervene directly. Ideally, it would lead to negotiations. The fact that US President

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The Balkans: The Stable Troubled Borderland?

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Joe Biden mentioned Moldova in a recent speech in Warsaw shows that a new front is the last thing Washington wants. With that in mind, Russia may determine it is better served by opening a new front in Belarus rather than Moldova. If Russia dominates Moldova, it would imperil NATO’s southern reach and would thus draw in the USA. Belarus would be easier to ignore. Meanwhile, the tension inside Moldova has benefited its pro-Europe governing party. The coup rumors helped Sandu and her party consolidate their position. Had it not been for the warning Ukraine delivered to Moldova, Sandu’s government would have likely fallen by the end of the month due to protests driven by general discontent with the country’s poor economic performance. Installing a new government during what appears to be a security crisis has allowed Sandu to avoid further political instability. The mere prospect of a Russian threat against Moldova allowed the government to establish better relations with the West, giving Sandu direct access to Western leaders like Biden with whom she met during his visits to Munich and Warsaw. Engaging with the US and EU leaders directly makes it more likely for Moldova to obtain security guarantees and funding to improve its economy. Moreover, Russia’s cancellation of the 2012 decree has freed Moldova up from the negotiation process Russia had forced it into. De facto, the negotiating format set forth by the decree was already doomed; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine essentially put an end to the “5 + 2” setup in which Moscow and Kyiv, in addition to the Organization for Security and Economic Cooperation in Europe, sat next to each other as “mediators” and “guarantors” vis-a-vis Chisinau and Tiraspol, with the USA and European Union reduced to “observers.” It could no longer function, and Moscow’s cancellation only confirmed as much. If anything, through this cancellation Russia acknowledged its weakened position. For Ukraine, an unstable situation in Moldova buys much-needed time. It could help Kyiv negotiate more help from the West, and it could forestall another Russian offensive. At the time of writing (beginning of March 2023), it is possible that none of this will come to pass, but the potential can’t be ruled out. For Russia, opening a new front, either in Belarus or Moldova, would give it a strategic advantage. If current anxieties lead to the destabilization of either country, Poland or Romania could be next. Moldova, like Georgia, will try not to bend too far in either direction. In both countries, stability is dependent on the way the war in Ukraine advances.

10.6

The Balkans: The Stable Troubled Borderland?

As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, the Balkans, a mountainous area in southeast Europe that stretches from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, has become a new front in the ongoing global economic war. Even though the region gets a lot of its energy from Russia and is therefore vulnerable to Russian political influence, its political

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and economic stability depends on the EU. The majority of Balkan states have already joined the EU and NATO, and those that haven’t are working to do so. Before the war in Ukraine, which has only made the region’s ethnic and political tensions worse, these countries were already prone to having unstable economies. However, the energy crisis that the war brought about has forced these nations to reevaluate their political and economic allegiances, even though their future will be largely shaped by forces beyond their control. The energy sector is at the center of the issue. Since the majority of Balkan countries (with the exception of Greece) rely on Russia for the majority of their energy, how they decide to shape their relations with Moscow provides insight into their economic warfare strategies.

10.6.1

Energy Dependency and Balkan Politics

The value of Russian imports doubled in 2022 compared to 2021, overtaking imports from Germany, the country’s largest trading partner before the invasion. Russia is Bulgaria’s main source of crude oil—accounting for about 55% of total Russian imports (Attinasi et al., 2022). Additionally, Bulgaria is a significant exporter of oil products to Ukraine, with a significant portion of those products coming from the Lukoil refinery in Burgas, Bulgaria, a city on the Black Sea. Up until the end of 2024, Bulgaria is exempt from the EU’s ban on importing Russian oil, so Lukoil Neftochim is still allowed to import and refine massive amounts of oil. Energy Minister Rosen Hristov in Bulgaria said in August 2022 that the government would reopen talks with Russia on gas supplies, which Moscow had abruptly halted at the end of April after Bulgaria refused to pay in rubles. Indeed, data from the Bulgarian Statistical Institute suggest that Bulgaria still imported natural gas from Russia in 2022, spending €1.1 billion, an increase of more than €100 million from 2021 due to higher prices. However, Bulgaria imported 60% less natural gas from Russia in quantity (Nikolov, 2023c). In 2022, to avoid breaking Western sanctions at the time, Sofia decided to cooperate with Romania on an interconnector that transported Romanian gas to Bulgaria and with Greece on an interconnector that transported liquefied natural gas from the USA, no matter what, from Russia. Rerouted LNG from Greece, according to government calculations, is roughly 50% more expensive than gas from Russia. It’s difficult to verify whether that is true or not, but even if it were, Bulgaria has been working to diversify away from Russia when it comes to natural gas. In February 2023, the Bulgarian energy minister and his Greek counterpart signed an agreement to create a working group of the two countries to study the possibilities of implementing the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline project (Nikolov, 2023b). While right now the pipeline would mainly deliver Russian oil to the refinery in Burgas, considering that Bulgaria has until 2024 before its current exemption from the EU embargo on Russian oil runs out, the pipeline would help Bulgaria get oil from places like North Africa or the Middle East, while avoiding the Black Sea straits (Morris, 2022).

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Bulgarian-Russian relations have been historically stable and Bulgaria has yet to implement sanctions against Russia dating back to 2014 (Nikolov, 2023a). However, Sofia’s strategic choice has to do with its imperative of making sure it doesn’t get into Turkey’s sphere of influence. Its fear is that if Russia wins in Ukraine, and Moscow and Ankara would become the two major deciding capitals in the Black Sea, Bulgaria will fall to Turkey’s area of influence. To avoid that, it needs to keep itself anchored to the West and to do so, it needs to stand by NATO and the EU. Bulgaria’s choice has some influence, however minor, on the political cohesion of the EU, which is crucial if Brussels wants to reduce its overall reliance on Russian energy. Bulgaria’s moves and troubles have had repercussions throughout the region. In 2022, Serbia and Hungary were concerned that their own deliveries, which rely on the same pipeline network as Bulgaria, would be impacted when Russia cut off supplies to Bulgaria in April. Belgrade has been attempting to diversify its sources of gas supply to spread its risks. Serbia will receive energy from Azerbaijan on “favorable terms,” according to a memorandum of understanding signed in June 2022, confirmed in August 2022 following a phone call between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. That requires the construction of an interconnector between Serbia and Bulgaria. The project is already in motion, but won’t be finished until 2023. Belgrade has also attempted to obtain LNG from Greek and Croatian terminals, the majority of which is imported from the USA, at prices comparable to those paid by Bulgaria and other European nations. At the end of July 2022, Serbia also declared that it would establish a working group to address the energy crisis and collaborate with North Macedonia and Albania on strategic projects. It also stated that it wanted to speed up the interconnector project with Romania. Although the construction of interconnectors takes time, they are long-term solutions to strategic issues that will help Belgrade become more allied with the West in general and the EU in particular (Zawadewicz, 2023).

10.6.2

The Regional Key: Serbia’s Complexity

Serbia’s government announced that it could stop importing Russian crude on November 1, effectively joining the Western sanctions regime, in response to the possibility of becoming a more energy-diverse country. It’s interesting that the declaration came after the ambassador of Russia to Serbia said earlier in the month that Moscow was considering establishing a military base in Serbia. It goes without saying that it caused a great deal of worry in Serbia, with the president even claiming that Serbia doesn’t need “anyone’s military bases.” Moscow has not responded, and it appears that tensions between Moscow and Belgrade have increased. Serbia voted in favor of a UN resolution in March 2022 denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and in favor of Russia’s exclusion from the UNHRC in April. Serbia additionally supported the UN General Assembly resolution in October 2022

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that denounced Russia’s attempt to annex four regions of Ukraine. Serbia has “clearly decided against the war in Ukraine,” according to the deputy prime minister of Serbia who made the statement August 2022. He urged Russia’s foreign minister to respect Serbia’s position and stop referring to Serbia as supporting the conflict even though Serbia had decided not to join sanctions in February. Because it was the first time the Serbian government had publicly criticized Russia’s stance there, the statements were widely covered by the Serbian media. But they were not the only ones. In March 2023, the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed that relations with Russia have reached their lowest levels by saying he could not “swear” that Serbia won’t join sanctions against Russia, hinting that Serbia’s siding with the West is possible (Dragojlo 2023a). Days after the conflict in Ukraine started, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced his country would not impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine—because Moscow did not sanction Belgrade in 1990 and has supported Serbia’s territorial integrity by not recognizing Kosovo’s independence. A year later, things are no longer similarly clear. Serbia’s multifaceted foreign policy is a result of the need for geopolitical balance between the major powers. As a result, Belgrade has maintained positive ties with the EU, Russia, and China while keeping a safe distance from the USA, which the public still views as the aggressor in the NATO intervention in the 1990s. Serbia has had to warm up to the USA due to its declining influence and the economic issues that China, Russia, and to a lesser extent, the EU, are experiencing. The conflict in Ukraine appears to have approved Serbia’s plan. Belgrade is currently placing its bets on the West as its relationship with Russia deteriorates for this reason. There are too many parallels between Kosovo’s fate and that of Donetsk and Luhansk for Belgrade to support Russia in its demand for their independence. Supporting Russia in Ukraine would be the same as endorsing the independence of Kosovo, which is unacceptable to Belgrade. Belgrade is compelled to prioritize its relations with the West because Serbia’s economy is heavily dependent on the EU. Perhaps more significantly, Serbia understands that Russia may decide to use the Balkans to flank the West, which best explains its response to Russia’s request for a military base. By forcing the division of defensive forces and presenting fresh opportunities for attack, the Balkans would give the Kremlin another crucial line of attack. On the other hand, it would also pose a long-term threat to the stability of Europe. And Belgrade, as well as Moscow and Washington, are aware of this. The USA and the EU have been engaged in diplomatic activity in the area, either by facilitating talks between Kosovars and Serbs to come to an understanding on issues like government-issued identification cards and license plates in northern Kosovo, discussing how they can support the local economies, or keeping an eye out for any potential resurgence of instability. As early as February 24, 2022—the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine, the European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR) said it increased the number of peacekeepers in the country (some 500 soldiers comprising four companies) as a “precautionary measure” (Reuters, 2022b)—less as a direct response to

10.6

The Balkans: The Stable Troubled Borderland?

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Ukraine and more as a way to get ahead of destabilized international security. Rumors about an additional deployment of troops at short notice abound, often citing unnamed EU officials. Bosnia isn’t the only country in the region hosting peacekeeping forces. In Kosovo, the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) includes roughly 4000 troops. They are put on alert whenever there is trouble (protests and/or roads blocked) in the Northern Kosovo regions bordering Serbia, just as the Serbian military is also put on heightened alert, while rumors of the Serbian army marching towards the border between Serbia and Kosovo are spread in the local social media (Rujevic & Bahri, 2022). While Serbia will not recognize the independence of Kosovo, there were a number of steps taken that have the two states normalizing their relations during 2022. The EU is even hopeful that 2023 will have Serbia and Kosovo recognizing each other’s documents like passports, diplomas, or license plates and that Serbia would not block Kosovo’s membership to international organizations (Reuters , 2023). Such a decision would mean that both sides would need to placate domestic nationalist critics. In reality, it means Russia is considered so weak that it is no longer able to support protests against either government’s decision—and therefore can’t fuel further instability. The Balkans are famously unstable. For instance, Bosnia is divided into two independent countries: the Bosniak and Croat-majority Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-majority Republika Srpska. The Dayton Agreement in 1995 set up its government with the idea that it would be the best way for three resentful ethnic groups to share power after the war. However, ill will continues, and little has changed since then. The only thing the Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs who still reside in the nation seem to have in common is their desire to leave for Western Europe, where they can pursue their dreams of making a decent living, as the economy continues to deteriorate. They accuse politicians of not doing enough to maintain national stability. They might be right. Politicians rarely talk about social and economic problems. Instead, they like to point fingers and stir up their nationalist and separatist bases. In fact, EUFOR’s decision to send in more troops comes just a few weeks after ethnic tensions flared up again, mostly because Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the tripartite presidency, called for an independent Republika Srpska. The Serb Republic isn’t the only concern. In 2022, Croat political parties have threatened to boycott elections in October if the electoral law isn’t amended to increase Croats’ presence in national institutions (Reuters, 2022a). The Croatian National Assembly, an umbrella organization that represents most Bosnian Croat political parties, threatened to launch legal procedures to create its own entity if its conditions are not met. Instead, with no reform of the electoral law, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt, used the so-called Bonn powers to amend the country’s Electoral Law and Constitution just a few minutes after the polls closed in October—so that a larger crisis be avoided.

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On February 22, 2022, just after the EU discussed the situation in Bosnia, Croatia called for the next EU summit in March to discuss the political impasse in the country. The problem is that discussing doesn’t really solve the matter. Instead, the opponents of the West are taking all such summits as good excuses to increase their own rhetoric. Just as the EU foreign ministers were discussing the situation in Bosnia, Dodik accused the USA and the Europeans of favoring Bosnia’s Muslim majority, the Bosniaks, in a way that destabilizes the country in the long run. The way the changes to the Electoral Law were announced—through the High Representative for Bosnia Herzegovina also raises new concerns about how the country is ruled from abroad—something that will further fuel internal distress and instability (Djolai, 2022). Thus, the conflict in Ukraine is relevant to this situation. Moscow has long made remarks resembling those made by Dodik, and it has a significant amount of influence in the Balkans. Dodik and Russian President Vladimir Putin get along well, and the Russian Embassy in Sarajevo has repeatedly stated that Russia would “react” if Bosnia ever moved toward joining NATO. This is related to why Kosovo’s recent request to join NATO is important. More significantly, Russia is Bosnia’s largest investor and the only source of natural gas for the nation. Not to mention the lengthy strategic alliance between Russia and Republika Srpska, which included regular training of the republic’s security forces in addition to providing Dodik with political support. Russia even pledged in December 2021 to assist Bosnian Serbs in their disputes over the country’s power-sharing (Savic, 2021). Russia’s recognition of the independence of the two separatist republics’ in Eastern Ukraine marked the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Dodik’s belief that it is time for Russia to acknowledge that the independence of Republika Srpska could be the catalyst for a new Balkan crisis. He has stated that he approves of the Russian invasion and that Bosnia’s decision to sign the EU statement denouncing it is regrettable. It’s possible that he’s inflaming tensions for internal political reasons— elections were to be held in October 2022 and since then he has been relatively silent. But given Bosnia’s precarious political and economic situation, if Russia decides to fuel trouble in the region, this would be a place to start. The outcome of the kinetic conflict in Ukraine and how the Balkan states respond to pressure from the global economic conflict will determine the region’s future. The decision of a major power about whether or not to open a new flank in the Balkans has a big effect on the stability of the region. This is why statements from local politicians and those coming from regional powers’ ambassadors must be taken seriously. As the war in Europe moves into a new and more complicated phase, these kinds of statements could change how strategies are set up.

10.7

10.7

The South: What African Perspectives?

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The South: What African Perspectives?

In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on May 24, 2022, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union and Egypt would work closely to address the impact of the Ukraine war on food security (WEF , 2022). During an African Union summit a few days later, she reiterated that the bloc was committed to helping the continent deal with the issue. The Commission’s stated goal in working with African states on the emerging food crisis is to end “unhealthy dependencies.” But European leaders are also hoping to gain support within Africa for the sanctions imposed on Russia in order to isolate the Russian economy as much as possible. For African nations, however, the priority is food supplies. Africa’s biggest suppliers of wheat are Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian grain is especially critical for North Africa, as well as for the Middle East. Most countries in these regions have already seen a decline in wheat supplies. The war—and specifically the resulting increases in prices for energy and raw materials—has also affected other sectors of African economies at a time when production and supply chains were already strained because of the pandemic. Similar issues are being experienced nearly everywhere, what makes Africa and its numerous underdeveloped countries— many of which are prone to internal conflict—different is that its populations are particularly fragile and vulnerable to price fluctuations. In North Africa, states are struggling with internal security challenges due to high unemployment rates and weak governance. Countries in the Sahel and Central Africa are experiencing a number of problems stemming political and economic instability. Here, military coups are common, and fighting between national armies, jihadist forces and other militias (including Russian paramilitary forces) often define the security environment. The Horn of Africa, meanwhile, is still troubled by ongoing conflicts in Sudan and Somalia and by worsening food insecurity. South Africa is struggling to maintain its stability as it faces not only high inflation caused by soaring energy prices but also power shortages and natural disasters like flooding in KwaZulu-Natal. The country is the most important destination for migrants from other African countries. The number of migrants coming to South Africa increased from around two million in 2010 to over four million in 2019 (Moyo, 2021). Though the figure dropped during the pandemic, it was expected to rise again as the pandemic subsided. But considering the country’s current economic problems, it’s unlikely South Africa will be as attractive a destination for African migrants as it once was. Thus, Africa has generally weakened as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have unfolded. Since African countries are generally young states with weak governments and economies dependent on external assistance, their foreign policies are generally unassertive and heavily influenced by their donors. The current global circumstances, however, offer African states an opportunity to make themselves heard by choosing a side in the conflict between Russia and the West—in exchange for economic support.

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African Perspectives

The West—specifically, the USA and the European Union—is pressing African nations to support its agenda. Brussels can certainly invoke Africa’s various dependencies on Europe to motivate these countries to back its position. But Europe is not as significant a partner for African countries as it once was, while other players are taking on a bigger role. China is funding infrastructure and various other projects. Russia is promising new investments—its foreign minister recently traveled to Algeria to discuss a pipeline project—while Russian paramilitary organizations are increasingly active on the continent (Arredondas, 2022). Turkey is expanding its role here too. African nations on the whole have been less than eager to support the West’s position on Ukraine. Many have a unique perspective on the war that differs from those of other nations around the world. Europe has not seen a military conflict on this scale since the end of World War II. But Africa has experienced several largescale and bloody conflicts in that time. The conflict in Ukraine, and the toll it’s taken on civilian lives, simply isn’t as shocking in Africa as it is for those living in the West (even the massacre in Bucha didn’t seem to garner the same attention in Africa as it did in Europe and North America). In addition, looking at the way Europe has reacted to the events in Ukraine, some in Africa may accuse Europe and the West of hypocrisy considering their minimal responses to more violent conflicts in African countries. There are also historical considerations. African states tend to associate Western European countries with their colonial pasts, while Russia is usually associated with the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the Soviets supported many African independence movements. Ukraine is known to Africans as part of the former Soviet Union, and in that sense, the conflict there is seen as an unresolved matter stemming from the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, Russia wasn’t a significant player in Africa as Moscow didn’t specifically seek investment or closer trade ties with the continent. But over the past decade, it has started bolstering ties with countries that were disillusioned with Western powers and generally plagued by internal violence. Russia is a leading supplier of weapons to the region, selling both to governments and to nongovernmental groups, while Russian private military contractors like the Wagner Group continue to expand their presence. On the Ukraine issue, Russia’s message to Africa (and others) is that it had to protect its interests against Western incursions into its buffer zone. This argument is consistent with African perceptions that the conflict is a remnant from the Cold War era. And in many ways, there remain unsettled matters from the Cold War in Africa as well. Some Cold War era leaders remain in power, while others have been replaced by like-minded leadership. The West’s message on Ukraine, meanwhile, doesn’t resonate with a continent that perceives the West as the aggressor against the weak. Moreover, the discrimination faced by Africans who were living in Ukraine at the time of the invasion didn’t help sell the Western or Ukrainian case (Dovi, 2022).

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As for the sanctions imposed on Moscow, Africa generally sees sanctions as a tool that the West uses selectively, and not necessarily effectively, against states that don’t toe the Western line. Sanctions imposed on African countries are perceived as punitive measures against weak and poor nations that have struggled to develop. They haven’t been effective at inspiring real change within African nations and has served only to push them further away from the West. All these arguments have made African countries more sympathetic toward Moscow—though not necessarily pro-Russian.

10.7.2

The Western Commitment

Meanwhile, the states that have condemned the war, such as Kenya, which has close ties to both the USA and the UK, are doing so not in support of the West but in support of the international rule of law and the principle of non-aggression between states. There’s room for the West, and for Europe in particular, to establish serious policies to back up its commitment to Africa and remove widely held suspicions that the West is courting the continent only because of its need for allies against Russia and is otherwise uninterested in Africa’s development. These policies could include assistance on urgent matters like the food crisis and the supply of raw materials, as well as helping African states develop their economies, improve their governance systems and increase their overall stability by assisting in the fight against terrorism. The first step, however, is to understand where Africa is coming from and why many on the continent sympathize with the Russians. It was not today’s Russia that backed the liberation of African states during the Cold War but the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part. It’s essential therefore that Ukraine and Europe find the right way to communicate their message to African leadership with this in mind. It’s also essential to show unity. Many European countries are facing internal problems of their own, and some EU member states have adopted different approaches from their bloc allies to Ukraine and Africa. African leaders know that the Europeans will be hard to work with so long as these divides exist. But they also know that if the West is united and committed to a strategic goal, it will deliver. So far, African states have accepted whatever help the West was willing to provide—on health care, education, building institutions, etc.—while also working with others such as China on infrastructure. They will try to get as much as they can from all players interested in working with the continent. However, if the West is looking to influence Africa, it will need to build durable ties. Brussels will likely need to stop prioritizing the views of Western European states—the former colonial rulers of many African countries—as it works to establish a strategy for Africa. Emphasizing instead the perspectives of post-communist Eastern European states, which have some shared experiences with African nations, could become the foundation of lasting ties between Europe and Africa.

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Nikolov, K. (2023c). Russia became Bulgaria’s largest importer in 2022. In: www.euractiv.com. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/russia-became-bulgarias-largest-importer-in2022/. Accessed 12 Mar 2023. O’Hanlon, M. E. (2022). Strengthening the US and NATO defense postures in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In: Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/strengthen ing-the-us-and-nato-defense-postures-in-europe-after-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Reuters R. (2022a). Bosnian Croats say may push for own region unless election law changes. In: Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-croats-say-may-push-own-regionunless-election-law-changes-2022-02-19/. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Reuters R. (2022b). EU boosts Bosnia force after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In: Reuters. https:// www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-boosts-bosnia-force-after-russias-invasion-ukraine-202202-24/. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Reuters R. (2023). EU hopeful that Kosovo and Serbia will reach deal this month. In: Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-hopeful-that-kosovo-serbia-will-reach-deal-thismonth-2023-03-09/. Accessed 12 Mar 2023. Rolander, N. (2023). Analysis | Why Turkey is still blocking Sweden from joining NATO. In: Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/17/why-turkey-is-stillblocking-sweden-s-nato-accession/0b9b1982-c4e1-11ed-82a7-6a87555c1878_story.html. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Rujevic, N., & Bahri, C. (2022). What’s behind the tensions between Kosovo and ethnic Serbs? – DW – 12/27/2022. In: dw.com. https://www.dw.com/en/whats-behind-the-tensions-betweenkosovo-and-ethnic-serbs/a-64093299. Accessed 12 Mar 2023. Savic, M. (2021). Putin backs Bosnian Serbs against ‘liberal’ west, Dodik says. In: Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-03/putin-backs-bosnian-serbs-against-lib eral-west-dodik-says. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. SEE NEWS R. (2023). Moldova’s economy shrinks 5.9% in 2022. In: Moldova’s economy shrinks 5.9% in 2022. https://seenews.com/news/moldovas-economy-shrinks-59-in-2022-817721. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Staalesen, A. (2021). Russia’s Murmansk region sees population decline, even as military towns grow – ArcticToday. In: ArcticToday. https://www.arctictoday.com/russias-murmansk-regionsees-population-decline-even-as-military-towns-grow/. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Sytas, A. (2022). German troops arrive to reinforce Baltics amid tensions over Ukraine. In: Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-troops-arrive-reinforce-baltics-amid-tensionsover-ukraine-2022-02-14/. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Tanas, A. (2023). Moldovan government quits amid economic turmoil, Russia tensions. In: Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moldovan-prime-minister-announces-government-resig nation-2023-02-10/. Accessed 22 Mar 2023. Ward, A., & Seligman, L. (2023). U.S. closer to approving ‘significant number’ of Abrams tanks to Ukraine. In: U.S. closer to approving ‘significant number’ of Abrams tanks to Ukraine – POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/24/u-s-approving-abrams-tanksukraine-00079218. Accessed 12 Mar 2023. WEF R. (2022). Ursula von der Leyen’s speech to Davos 2022 in full. In: World economic forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/ursula-von-der-leyens-speech-to-davos-2022-infull/. Accessed 23 Mar 2023. Zawadewicz, B. (2023). Closer to the West? Serbia’s foreign policy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In: OSW Centre for Eastern Studies. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/oswcommentary/2023-02-27/closer-to-west-serbias-foreign-policy-after-russian-invasion. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.

Chapter 11

The Geopolitical Node: The Black Sea and Beyond

At the time of writing, in early 2023, international trade is still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the energy and monetary problems both have caused. At the same time, the Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to have transformed into an attrition war. Therefore, scenario building includes the potential for Russia to disintegrate politically but also the potential for Kyiv to lose the Ukrainian Black Sea shore to Moscow. In short, uncertainty is growing high, with little hope that the Black Sea will become peaceful soon. The episodes of change in 2022, involving Turkey and its Black Sea trading partners show how countries are adapting—and struggling to adapt—to these new challenges. Turkey appeared to halt the transit of sanctioned goods through its territory to Russia and Belarus, according to executives of Russian logistics companies quoted in the Russian business paper Kommersant on March 9, 2023. According to the executives, Turkish customs officials cited a government directive to halt transit, but no formal public government announcement of any change in Türkiye’s transit policy on goods bound for Russia or Belarus had been made by the time of writing (March 12, 2023). According to Kommersant, there are also broader restrictions on the transit of goods destined for Russia and Belarus through Turkey, with only the export of Turkish-produced goods permitted. Earlier, in December 2022, Lloyd’s List, a global shipping publication, reported that the G-7 and the EU intervened in negotiations between Turkey and the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs over insurance guarantees (Meade, 2022), which Ankara had requested for oil shipments passing through the Bosporus strait. Turkey issued a notice two weeks before it implemented restrictions requiring all tankers from Russia and Kazakhstan transiting Turkish waters to provide letters of confirmation from their P&I clubs attesting that insurance coverage will remain in place under any circumstances throughout their stay. (Notably, the notice was issued too late to make it anything but impossible for insurers to comply with.) The measure follows G-7 and EU sanctions that were put in place on December 5 and allow insurance only for Russian oil shipments that have been © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Colibășanu, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Borderlands, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33940-0_11

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purchased at or below $60 a barrel. Turkey claims this makes it impossible for port authorities to use conventional insurance verification systems. Ultimately, this has led to congestion in the Black Sea and the Bosporus, creating even more uncertainty in the shipping industry. To avoid creating more uncertainty in the markets, the G-7 and the EU had awarded a grace period on oil cargoes from Russia that loaded before December 5, while Russia said it would wait until the end of the year to ban companies selling oil using the price cap (Smith & Wilson, 2022). Neither the West nor Russia seems to have taken seriously Turkey’s ability to suspend traffic in the Bosporus, a historical source of its regional influence.

11.1

Navigating the Waters

Since the war in Ukraine started, Turkey has been accommodating both sides, positioning itself as a mediator between the West and Moscow. Before the embargo placed on Russia for its invasion, the EU received about two-thirds of its oil imports from Russia by sea, most of which must first pass through the Bosporus. Put simply, both sides need Turkey, and any threats to hold up traffic in the Bosporus can—and have—concerned Russia and the West. Geopolitical balancing acts aside, the situation was caused by something Turkey had little to do with: the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions, which have been difficult for businesses to adapt to. This is especially so for companies that did business with both Russia and Ukraine, many of which had to hire consultants to help them navigate the legal waters, as well as companies that depend overwhelmingly on the Black Sea for shipment and delivery. Unsurprisingly, maritime traffic in the Black Sea dropped dramatically after the war started. Liner shipping services—transporting goods and cargo from one destination to another by ships on a regular schedule—were among the first to fall. Ukraine has been completely cut off from the market since February due to security concerns. Nine out of 10 global container liners have suspended their operations in the Black Sea region. In Russia, liner shipping services were at a loss for all its ports. Before the war, Germany was Russia’s largest partner, with a monthly average of 114 voyages. That number has fallen to 32 since the war began. However, liner business with Turkey remained constant at around 70 voyages per month, and connections with China increased from 29 to 50 voyages (UNCTAD, 2023). Cargo ships departing from the northern shores of the Black Sea have also dropped since February. Departures from Ukraine’s ports dropped from 100 per week to 10 per week, recovering only after the Black Sea grain initiative went into effect. (They are still 35 percent below prewar traffic.) Ships departing from Russian ports also decreased. As a result, the number of calls in the Turkish ports dropped as fewer ships going from Ukraine and Russia were looking to pass through the Turkish straits in the first months after the war.

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There has since been an increase in Romanian port calls, particularly from Constanta, where cargo can then be shipped to the rest of Europe and the world. It was these ships that called on the Turkish ports, later in the year, to pass through the Bosporus (Ernst, 2022). Other Ukrainian shipments have gone from Ukraine through the Romanian Danube port of Sulina into the Black Sea. As Romanian ports grew congested, Bulgarian ports became an alternative.

11.1.1

An Inland Shift

There were also shipments coming from Ukrainian river ports through the Danube that were then carried on land, by rail or truck, to their destinations. This increased not only traffic but also congestion at customs points. Romania has put together a logistics hub in the northeastern town of Suceava to accommodate incoming Ukrainian truck shipments and will likely have to erect another one in the coming months (Romanian Government, 2023). However, Romania’s non-membership in the Schengen zone means that all Ukrainian shippers entering the country need to fill out paperwork and prepare documentation for the Schengen area. These kinds of hubs are meant to help shippers do their paperwork while relieving some of the pressure from the already crowded customs points into and out of Romania on their way to actual Schengen members and destinations elsewhere. This is one of the reasons that the European Commission supports the admission of Romania and Bulgaria into Schengen; not being able to help Ukraine conduct business with the world will likely make for a troubled neighbor and new security threats that the EU doesn’t want to have. This is also the reason that both Romania and Bulgaria have announced various infrastructure projects to accommodate the growing traffic. With the Black Sea becoming a de facto war zone in 2022, maritime shipment in the region has been affected by vessel insurance premiums, leading to more landbased shipping. The Danube has become more important as one of the cheapest ways to get trade going between the region and Western Europe. While Russia’s liner shipping connectivity index dropped in 2022, Ukraine’s index is zero, meaning liner shipping fully stopped (UNCTAD, 2023). Perhaps more important, the European revised military mobility plan focuses largely on increasing Europe’s intermodal transport connection, which would create faster harbor-rail-road transport for military assets. Military mobility would need to be ensured by digitalizing paper-based national border clearances for troops and material (Steven et al., 2022). Incidentally, the revised plan also mentions enhancing Western Europe’s rail connections to Ukraine and Moldova, according to reports quoting unnamed EU officials (Tenzer, 2023). An integrated transport system would make sense for economic and defenserelated reasons. The enlargement of the Schengen area means northwestern Europe would be connected to the southeast by land, which would lower shipping costs for all trade entering the EU, particularly trade coming from Ukraine into Europe

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through Romania and Bulgaria. All this runs counter to Russia’s strategy, fueling rumors that it is using its connections in Austria to ensure a veto on Schengen enlargement, which the EU is slated to discuss on December 8, 2022.

11.1.2

Beyond the Black Sea

But even if Russia succeeds, the best it can do is buy time. The changes underway in global trade patterns have less to do with state policy tactics and more to do with business practices. The Black Sea shipping problems were largely “popular” because of what they meant for Ukrainian food exports through the Black Sea. India, for example, expanded its wheat exports to East Asia in the early months of 2022 (though it later banned exports in an effort to ensure it has enough for domestic consumption), and Brazil has increased its exports to China. The EU has secured more corn imported from Brazil and the USA next year in case Ukrainian corn doesn’t come through. Russia has increased the usage of the so-called North–South Transport Corridor, sending its goods (including food) through Azerbaijan and Iran to the Middle East and beyond. (The war has also changed the energy sector. The EU is considering building new liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and Germany has secured a 15-year agreement with Qatar.) Consequently, the maritime shipping industry is changing. In the latest “Review of Maritime Transport,” the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said that maritime trade growth would fall from 3.2 percent in 2021 to 1.4 percent in 2022 before rising to 2.1 percent in 2023–27—well below the historical average of 3.3 percent (UNCTAD, 2023). This is, of course, due to the war in Ukraine, but it is also due to the pandemic and the uncertainties surrounding the outcome of both. And in light of the fact that Russia can’t seem to win the war in Ukraine outright, Moscow’s strategy is to prolong it long enough to undermine Ukraine’s economy and sap its morale through strikes on civilian infrastructure—all while exhausting Ukraine’s partners. This means that energy exports from Russia to Europe will not only decline but could also be suspended. Inflation will remain problematic for months to come. Maritime shipping, then, would fall, while sustained demand, however moderate, would increase road and rail shipping. Rivers like the Danube and other transport infrastructure will become essential for sustaining socioeconomic stability. Even if Europe continues to struggle to fill its gas storage sites in 2023, the current shifts in the Black Sea and global trade will drive the next challenges that Europe will face, including building an integrated infrastructure system able to accommodate Ukraine after the war. Either that or it will fail and fragment under new growing threats at its borders.

11.2

The South China Sea: Echoes to Another Global Geopolitical Node

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Russia has had a quiet but significant role in the South China Sea over the past 20 years. Even though it has close ties with Beijing, the Eurasian power has been steadily arming rival claimant states like Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia, while also trying to build strong defense ties with the Philippines and Indonesia.

11.2.1

Russia’s Strategy: Ramifications in the South China Sea

In addition to being the top defense supplier to Southeast Asia (Lintner, 2022), Russia has played a significant role in the development of offshore energy resources (Onishi, 2018) in both the South China Sea and the so-called North Natuna Sea off the coast of Indonesia (Strangio, 2021). While Russian counterparts opportunistically sought to fill in any significant investment gaps, Western energy companies avoided conflict with China by frequently reducing investments in contested areas. The Eurasian power has steadily sought significant strategic agreements across Asia, starting with its $21 billion investment in Vladivostok in the run-up to the 2012 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit (IBTimes, 2012). The $400 billion, 30-year energy agreement signed in 2014 by Beijing’s China National Petroleum Corporation and Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom marked the “diplomatic” beginning of Russia’s pivot to Asia (Luhn & Macalister, 2014). Russia has successfully increased trade with a large portion of Asia over the past ten years in an effort to diversify its primarily European economic partnerships. Russia’s trade with Europe ($106 billion) exceeded its trade with Asia ($38 billion) by almost three times in 2001. Russia’s two-way trade with Asia reached $273 billion in 2019, nearly matching its two-way trade with Europe ($322 billion) (Tan, 2022). In response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Europe cut back on trade and investment while Asia embraced closer strategic ties with Moscow. Russia’s outreach was especially well received in Southeast Asia (Heydarian, 2022). Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar— its traditional allies in Indochina —stepped up their defense cooperation with Moscow. Over the past two decades, Vietnam alone has spent $7.4 billion on Russian weapons, including cutting-edge fighter jets and submarines. Importantly, the two largest countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia, looked into extensive defense agreements with Russia (Vezeman, 2019). In response, Moscow sent its first-ever defense attaché to the Philippines, and Russian warships started frequenting Manila Bay. Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, made history by becoming the first head of state to visit Moscow twice while actively pursuing significant energy and defense agreements with the Eurasian superpower (Heydarian, 2019).

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Additionally, Russian energy firms increased their presence in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and supported Indonesia’s own energy exploration efforts off the Natuna Islands coast. As a result, in an interesting turn of events, Moscow found itself arming and supporting China’s maritime adversaries throughout Southeast Asia. Russia tried to lessen the pressure on Beijing by routinely holding joint military exercises with China, spanning the East China Sea, Central Asia, and the Far East. Moscow largely agreed with Beijing’s position on both the American naval presence in the region and the 2016 The Hague arbitration tribunal ruling that invalidated the majority of China’s expansive South China Sea claims. An enterprising Russia has positioned itself as a dependable “third force” to both the West and China, taking into account Southeast Asian countries’ innate propensity for strategic diversification. Beijing has largely tolerated its supposed ally’s strategic buccaneering in its own maritime backyard because it wants to keep Moscow on its side, especially in the midst of a raging New Cold War with the West. But this precarious situation could be drastically changed by President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, which has made Russia the country facing the most international sanctions. The majority of Southeast Asian countries have been appalled by Moscow’s invasion in Ukraine, which led to their fateful vote in favor of the UNGA resolution denouncing the invasion (Tiezzi, 2022). Describing the crisis as a “existential issue,” Singapore, the region’s most developed nation, has imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia. Others have done the same. The increasingly complex Western sanctions won’t just make it difficult for Moscow to reach major defense and energy agreements; additionally, the country’s growing reliance on China may cause it to withdraw strategically from the South China Sea. Beijing will probably exert pressure on Moscow to refrain from arming and supporting its adversaries in the South China Sea and elsewhere as it grows to be the more powerful partner in the Sino-Russian relationship. This would further mean that China will be well-positioned to assert its own “sphere of influence” in Southeast Asia in general and the South China Sea in particular, at the expense of Russia, echoing Moscow’s policy. For Europe, the geopolitical node in the South China Sea is distant—but all ramifications of the Ukraine crisis in Asia, especially those that imply a change in strategy from China, are likely to trigger the US reaction, which, in return, would have a direct impact on Europe. To better understand such a scenario, along with its potential, we need to refer to the classical theories on geopolitics and apply them to both the South China Sea and the Black Sea, considering the (relatively new) concept of “geopolitical node.”

11.2

The South China Sea: Echoes to Another Global Geopolitical Node

11.2.2

239

Keeping the Balance: Nodes and the Core Borderland

The term “node” is used in many different fields to describe various kinds of connections or points of attachment. It describes a point or location where things intersect, connect, or branch off. The word “node” originates in the Latin word “nodus,” which means “knot” or “knob.” In mathematics, a note is the location where two or more curves intersect or where a curve crosses itself. In graph theory, in a network or graph, a node is a point or vertex that is connected to other nodes by edges. In biology, the point where a leaf attaches to a stem or where a branch divides into two is known as a node. In physics, a node is a point of zero amplitude in a wave, like the place where the axis of a standing wave crosses. In computing, whether it’s a computer network, a distributed computing system, or even a blockchain, a node is the basic building block of a network. In general, nodes are essential components of any network, because they enable communication between devices or systems. Using these definitions to make an analogy in geopolitical terms, considering nation-states as complex systems, a geopolitical node would be a place or point on the globe where the interests of at least two states—two regional or global powers meet. Because of its location and connections, it would have strategic importance in world affairs. Given that this is a definition based on analogy, we may add that a geopolitical node is also a key point for the intersection or connection between nations, regions, or major trade routes that sustain interdependencies between entities around the globe, thus having the potential to influence or shape global events. Therefore, there are several factors that contribute to making a certain location a geopolitical node. First, it should be situated at a critical juncture between major trade or transportation networks. Second, it should provide or sustain access to key resources. Provided that both of these conditions are met, such a place should also have military significance. Last but not least, it would have cultural and historical relevance, considering the social aspect of the above intersections. In their theories, both Mackinder and Spykman point to potential geopolitical nodes without necessarily calling them that. Mahan discusses the fluidity of the world, considering the importance he gives to naval power. In fact, by adding another geographical layer to their theories and considering the interconnectivity of the world today as well as the multiple facets of influence, it becomes obvious that the Black Sea and the South China Sea are currently the most important geopolitical nodes in the world. The Black Sea has been the meeting point for empires and is still key to European regional stability. It is the note of the Old World that grew into the New World, leaving its characteristics intact. It facilitates contact between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and remains today a metaphor of both conflict and cooperation. Also today, the Black Sea is the node most affected by the war in Ukraine—a de facto war zone, an ultimate borderland for Europe, the one place where the axis of the multiple

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European destabilization (or stabilization) waves is standing. A developing metaphor for the future of Europe and the future of Eurasia altogether. The Black Sea naturally connects, through the core borderland of Central Asia, with the South China Sea, the most recent and fastest-growing geopolitical node in the world. The South China Sea is strategic for the world as it is home to a third of maritime trade by value, according to UNCTAD. This is mostly due to China’s resurgence as a global economic powerhouse during the last few decades. Meanwhile, during the last ten years, in preparation for the war in Ukraine, Russia has actively sought alternative markets to Europe and increased its presence in the South China Sea. At the same time, a key vector of the Russian new foreign policy concept appears to be Moscow’s drive to grow the importance of BRICS as a global trade platform while developing political and economic relationships in those key regions of the world for the USA. In looking to disengage from Afghanistan and the Middle East, the USA announced its “Pivot to Asia” strategy, pointing to the most important region for the USA in both political and economic terms. Washington’s relationship to China, the interdependency between the two, and the tensions that grow out of it have evolved in such a way that they have shifted geographical perspectives. Europe is no longer the center of the world, as it was for centuries. In many ways, we are back in time, when the British geographer Mackinder argued that technological innovation, particularly railway infrastructure, would enable a heartland power to control the population and resources of what he called the World Island (Europe, Asia, and Africa). In other ways, we are looking at Mahan theory from the perspective of new geographical layers contributing to sea power, referring to the undersea infrastructure that is determining sea power in invisible but palpable ways. The USA, which remains the classical global maritime and land power, is facing two competitors. The first is the obvious: a resurgent Russia, a regional European land power that is looking at ways to stretch its reach beyond Europe. The second is a new kind of Eurasian competitor in China, which is both continental and maritime. The core borderland, where they all meet, remains Central Asia. In this sense, Afghanistan has been the perfect metaphor for how empires clash and coordinate, until today. In a geographic diagonal, the nodes of the Black Sea and the South China Sea are balancing off one another as they interact through the strategies that the USA, Russia, and China build for shaping their futures. The longer the conflict in Ukraine lasts, the more uncertainty there is in the Black Sea waters, and the more pressure there is on China, on the shores of the South China Sea, to join the global economic war. A graphic image of the world would be that of a pair of scales formed by the two geopolitical nodes, the Black Sea and the South China Sea, pivoting around the Central Asian core borderland, in a constant weighting mode for the next move that the three global contenders (the USA, Russia, and China) will make. Our world is fraying at the edges, beginning in the European borderlands, with the potential to stretch into Asia. As supply chains are reformulated, with competition for critical raw materials growing, and as technological restructuring fragments cyberspace, the borderlands, and of them, the geopolitical nodes become the epitome of tomorrow.

11.2

The South China Sea: Echoes to Another Global Geopolitical Node

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Chapter 12

Conclusions

The borderlands of Europe have long been places of cultural exchange and conflict. These regions, from the rugged coastline of the Iberian Peninsula to the windswept steppes of Eastern Europe, are where the past and present collide in unexpected ways. Borderlands are frequently studied in geopolitics because they are where nations and political systems intersect, interact, and often clash. As such, they can be hotbeds of political and military conflict, as well as a place for complex negotiations and diplomatic maneuvering. Furthermore, borderlands are frequently areas where different economic and social systems influence one another, resulting in the formation of distinct hybrid cultures and identities. Borderlands dynamics are critical for policymakers and military strategists, as well as anyone interested in understanding the complex and interconnected nature of global politics. There are a lot of studies about the history and politics of European borderlands, as well as a lot of studies about what a borderland is from a cultural, anthropological, and geographical point of view. However, there is no theoretical study that looks at what a borderland is from a geopolitical point of view. This is especially significant because, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe’s eastern borderland has become the world’s most important region to monitor in order to understand the global balance of power. Furthermore, as the kinetic war in Ukraine continued, the global economic war impacted all trade and investment routes. This book claims that the tectonic shifts in the geopolitics of our times originate in Europe’s extended borderlands—the continent’s peripheral regions connecting it with Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It is in these areas where the early signs of the current global economic war first appeared. These challenges had long been visible across Europe’s periphery, and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated them. The book puts forward a specific methodology for studying these borderlands which goes beyond historical analysis. It employs the heuristic method for understanding regional power relations in conjunction with an in-depth socio-economic analysis of the nation-states lying on the edge of Europe. This approach also introduces two novel concepts: the core borderland and the geopolitical node.

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The core borderland refers to “the common denominator” for borderlands, as they are featured in the theories developed by the great geopolitical thinkers John Halford Mackinder, Nicholas Spykman, and Alfred Mahan. It is a place that, considering its location, its socio-economic features, and the sustained interest both major and middle powers have in ensuring its stability (—for without stability, they would enter a war) could, under specific conditions, reshape all the other borderlands on a particular region or continent. Theoretically, such a “core borderland,” if put under pressure from the outside or the inside, could make the whole international system unstable, since the interests of major powers are tied to its fate. The Eurasian continent’s core borderland is made up of the area in Central Asia where influences from the West—Europe, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Iran all meet, just as those of these countries’ ancestors did in history. In a nutshell, Afghanistan is the Eurasian core borderland. This concept explains why, at different points in time, all world powers were focused on stabilizing Afghanistan. It also explains why it could never be completely controlled. The case of Afghanistan as a core borderland is investigated in the book for understanding the repercussions of its destabilization. Most recently, the power vacuum in Central and Southwest Asia left by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has triggered changes in global affairs that are especially relevant for Europe and its borderlands. Russia’s resurgence has started long ago, but the timing of its invasion in Ukraine is not casual—it follows the pandemic and the years of sustained withdrawal of the USA from the Greater Middle East. At the same time, the vacuum left has given way for other powers in the European neighborhood to consolidate their position. The next question is whether a new great game is in the making for Afghanistan and the wider region—and if so, what does it entail? The question of how China is benefiting—if at all, from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, has wider implications for Europe, considering Chinese ambitions to build a new Belt and Road in Eurasia. Further investigation into the potential for the new great game over influencing Central and Southwest Asia to bring forward competition between mid-tier powers like Pakistan and Iran highlights further risks for European security. Going westward, the potential for further distress in the European borderlands appears to be tied to the core borderland through the (apparently increasing) power vacuum that, while common for most of the border regions, is also making room for renewed competition between resurgent regional powers. Looking at the challenges that the Greater Middle East faces today and considering Iran, at the crossroads of the Islamic World, straddling South and Central Asia, the Middle East, and the South Caucasus, the next question refers to Tehran’s strategy for the future. This is why the book also investigates, in a separate chapter, Iran’s ability to shape the Middle East and the Caucasus in an effort to expand its power in the European borderlands. The way Iranian interests intersect with Turkey’s in the Greater Middle East and in the South Caucasus is influencing the way that Russia advances its strategy in these regions. At the same time, Turkey—the “connector” between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, is also trying to grow its regional posture, while troubled by internal and external pressures.

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The impact that the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and most recently, the devastating earthquake has had on Turkey’s strategy has repercussions over Turkish plans in both the Middle East and in the Mediterranean, all having direct implications for Europe. This topic, along with that of Turkey’s strategic relations to Russia is detailed in the book, with a focus on understanding not only Turkey’s imperatives and constraints for its strategy but also its challenges for the future. Europe is directly affected by the way Turkey assembles its strategy and grows into a resurgent power. Moreover, the way Turkey and Iran both expand their influence, while tackling internal challenges is tied to both European/Western and Russian strategy. Investigating the North and South Caucasus brings in the nexus of Russia– Turkey–Iran question together, asking those strategic questions with regard to the way the three regional powers are thinking about the future. While Iran and (to a certain extent) Turkey are concerned about the immediate challenges in the Greater Middle East, Russia’s war in Ukraine and its strategy toward Europe and the West have immediate implications for the European borderlands. Explaining Russia’s rationale and its tactics leaves one question unanswered: how will Russia really work with China? Will Moscow be able to build new trade corridors and new alliances? How resilient is it really? While research in this book is likely just beginning to answer this question, it provides direction toward Russia’s strategy in the making—to be used by both businesspeople and policymakers in seeking to understand the current global economic war. This is how the other theoretical concept comes into play: the geopolitical node of the Black Sea. Examining how the waves of change originating in the core borderland—with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan (started well before 2021) and the socio-economic transformations brought forward by the pandemic brought pressure on the European borderlands, led us to see how the Black Sea plays a key role for European security and, in fact, for the world. As the war in Ukraine started, the Black Sea became, for the first time in decades, a war zone in Europe. This changed the way the shipping industry and insurance operated not only in the region but also throughout the world, considering the importance of the Black Sea for the world trade routes. With all major players interested in controlling some part of the Black Sea and with the proximity of war, it quickly became a crowded, but yet functional sea. The geopolitical node is, therefore, the area in the borderlands that keeps tensions at a minimum, even when conflict is high. While signaling conflict, such a node is a platform where all powers intersect, a place of coordination during war times and cooperation during peacetimes. The Black Sea accommodates everyone even now— when it is a war zone. The Black Sea region, however, has signaled war was coming since before 2008. The region hosts the new NATO containment line while accommodating Russia’s talk to the West through trade arrangements such as the grain deal mediated by Turkey, allowing Ukrainian grain to be shipped from the Ukrainian ports to the world. It emphasized both complexity and conflict. While the Black Sea geopolitical node is becoming increasingly tense and as Russia is formulating its new foreign policy—to accompany its new adaptive

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strategy of setting up political and economic alliances—the potential for new trade and investment corridors to come online is growing. The North–South Corridor is likely the most talked about—Russia plans to have Iran facilitate trade transit to and from Russia through its territory and convince India to finish building a port hub on Iranian soil for the Russian merchandise to be shipped to the world. The Arctic Route is also discussed. Both include the idea that Russia will shift its focus to Asia, looking to trade more with Asian countries than with European countries. This is why, again, the China question is highlighted. The new great game has, therefore, the potential to spread beyond the core borderland into the geopolitical nodes of Eurasia. Beijing has been cautious about siding with Russia in the war in Ukraine—and has been careful about fully siding with the West as well. While the media has discussed the Chinese strategy to be tied to its dependency on the American market and Beijing’s trade conflict with Washington, details point out to a more complex picture. Moreover, an investigation of the global trade shifts along with the discussion on the way China relates to the Eurasian core borderland and European borderlands highlights another geopolitical node in the South China Sea. Russia has invested in building ties with the countries in the region, considering its strategy of growing its alliance network. However, the South China Sea is not only part of the wider Arctic Route of Russian trade but also key to China. All this invites another question, referring to the potential for instability at the other end of Eurasia, in the waters of a sea that is, as the Black Sea, not close to the continent’s core borderland, but is equally influenced by the current power vacuum surrounding it. This is likely the most important question for the years to come—if not the months to come, considering the speed of change triggered by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. As the globe has entered an uncertain and complex phase since 2022, the study of geopolitics is expected to provide a solid foundation for answering future concerns. To accomplish so, it requires contemporary notions as well as critical debate of current events and recent history. This is the goal of this book: if nothing else, it ought to initiate additional debate about Europe’s—or, more accurately, Eurasia’s— future. It also provides another systematic technique for looking at the world's increasing concerns, by aiming to first comprehend the problems in the borderlands, looking at their core and the crucial geopolitical nodes where they intersect.