The Great Power Competition Volume 5: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region 9783031404511, 3031404513

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Adib Farhadi Mark Grzegorzewski Anthony J. Masys Editors

The Great Power Competition Volume 5 The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region

The Great Power Competition Volume 5

Adib Farhadi · Mark Grzegorzewski · Anthony J. Masys Editors

The Great Power Competition Volume 5 The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region

Editors Adib Farhadi University of South Florida Tampa, FL, USA

Mark Grzegorzewski Security Studies and International Affairs Embry Riddle University Daytona Beach, FL, USA

Anthony J. Masys College of Public Health University of South Florida Tampa, FL, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-40450-4 ISBN 978-3-031-40451-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1 © 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 Paper in this product is recyclable.

Foreword

Since its inception in 2018, the Great Power Competition (GPC) Conference Series has been a project of passion for Dr. Adib Farhadi, Dr. Randy Larsen, and many others at the University of South Florida (USF), College of Arts and Sciences. Their dedication, vision, and passion for this conference series and the wider Great Power Competition Initiative have resulted in an extraordinary level of scholarship and research while providing our leaders with solid counsel and advice. As Executive Director of the Global and National Security Institute at USF, Florida Institute for Cybersecurity, and former Commander of the United States Central Command, it is my great pleasure to write the foreword for this fifth volume of the Great Power Competition book series. The Great Power Competition Volume 5: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region provides an encompassing global analysis of the largest war in Europe since World War II. Through the seasoned perspectives of its many authors, this book demonstrates the far-reaching implications of the war in Ukraine and highlights that now, more than ever, what happens in one corner of the globe impacts everyone, everywhere. The foundation for much of the information in this volume comes from the sixth Great Power Competition Conference, held at the University of South Florida on December 8, 2022. This conference also marked the inaugural involvement of the newly established Global and National Security Institute (GNSI). We are very excited to support the efforts of Drs. Farhadi and Larsen to build upon their success with the GPC initiative and tackle even greater challenges. The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region analyzes several key themes that emerged from the conference, including the fighting spirit of the Ukrainian soldiers, who continue to defend their homes, their families, and their freedom; the lack of the same fighting spirit in the Russian forces; and the re-emergence of the power of partnerships and shared challenges. The Russian military has performed so poorly as to embarrass Vladimir Putin and Russia’s leadership. On the other hand, Ukrainian forces have shocked the world with their tenacity and ability to withstand the invasion and to turn it around in the

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opposite direction. Their success, in large measure, is a direct result of the unrelenting support of much of the global community, including NATO. The re-emphasis on the importance of alliance and collective defense structures is a key takeaway from the invasion. NATO is our asymmetric advantage in the war, and as creaky and slow to act as it is, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization remains the principal reason why Russia has not been successful in Ukraine. American assistance has also been a cornerstone for Ukrainian success. At the conference, Ambassador Marshall Billingslea discussed the reasoning for America’s stalwart support—calling it a “quintessentially American thing to do.” The poor performance of the Russian military in this war has catalyzed another, more sobering thought: with few tools remaining in their arsenal to make and win this war, the Russian threat of the use of a tactical nuclear weapon has risen dramatically. In the USA, we have been influenced in our thinking on nuclear weapons because we’ve been the only nation, to date, to employ them in war. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we unilaterally discarded our huge arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. The Russians did not. In fact, we have a position in Europe today that is the complete inversion of what existed in the 1980s. Conventional European forces, including NATO, are superior to the Russians. On the other hand, Moscow never got rid of its tactical nuclear weapons, and it appears they’ve now come to realize their strongest hand may be the nuclear one. It’s a conclusion that leads me to believe there is a very good chance that this conflict, or the next one, will involve a nuclear element. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the bellwether events of our lifetime. I hope you’ll find Volume 5: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region to be an informative and challenging starting point for your research journey. Florida, USA

General (Ret.) Frank McKenzie Executive Director Global and National Security Institute; Executive Director Florida Institute for Cybersecurity; Former Command United States Central Command

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to extend their sincerest gratitude to the entire University of South Florida and National Defense University Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Strategies for their work on the Great Power Competition Conferences Series and the resulting edited volume. They would like to express their appreciation to General (Ret.) Frank McKenzie, Executive Director, Global and National Security Institute, Executive Director, Florida Institute for Cybersecurity, and Former Command, United States Central Command, for his continued and enthusiastic support for the initiative. A most heartfelt thanks to Sarah White, Jeanie LeGendre, Andrew Roberts, Arman Mahmoudian, and the contributing authors for making this book possible. Dr. Adib Farhadi would like to thank his wife, Elaha, children, Adam, Sophia, and mother, Maliha, for their support, patience, and love, not only in regard to this project but in everything that life brings.

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Contents

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Evolving Crises and Economic Power Politics in the Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) Region . . . . . . . . . Adib Farhadi

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Regional Ambivalence Towards Russia and Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anna Borshchevskaya

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Great Power Competition Following the Ukraine War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Douglas Davis and Michael O. Slobodchikoff

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Russia’s 2022 Cyber-Enabled Warfare Against Ukraine: Why Russia Failed to Perform to Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Grzegorzewski

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Navigating the Middle Ground: The Central Region’s Middle Powers’ Response to the Russo-Ukrainian War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nicholas J. Kramer

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Iran’s Drone Industry and Its Military Cooperation with Russia in Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Eric Lob The War in Ukraine: The Turning Point of Russia-Iran Relations . . . . . . 141 Arman Mahmoudian Putin’s Playbook: The Development of Russian Tactics, Operations, and Strategy from Chechnya to Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Christopher Marsh Impact Analysis of the War in Ukraine on Non-traditional Security: An Examination of the Emerging Risks to the Sustainable Development Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Anthony J. Masys

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Russia’s Backyard: China and Central Asia after the Invasion of Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Alvaro Mendez Intelligence in Ukraine: Success, Failure, or Signaling Revolutionary Change? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 David Oakley Moral Injury in Refugee Communities: The Connection Between Displacement and Disorientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Garrett W. Potts and Lily M. Abadal The Energy War: How Europe Turned the Tables on Russia . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Leif Rosenberger Ukraine’s National Recovery: Opportunities and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . 283 Leif Rosenberger and Marcus S. Snow To the Bastion: NATO’s Return to Europe Leaves Its Troubled Southern Flank Open for Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Tad Schnaufer II How CENTCOM Can Exploit Russia’s Failure in Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Thomas R. Searle The Invasion of Ukraine and the Global Food Crisis of 2022: Responding to Food Supply Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Marcus S. Snow When Great Powers Are Not So Great: Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 Thomas J. Volgy

Contributors

Lily M. Abadal Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida, Florida, USA Anna Borshchevskaya The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East, Washington, USA G. Douglas Davis Troy University, Troy, AL, USA Adib Farhadi College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida, Florida, USA Mark Grzegorzewski Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida, USA Nicholas J. Kramer United States Central Command, Tampa, USA Eric Lob Political Science, Florida International University, Miami, USA Arman Mahmoudian University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA Christopher Marsh National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs, Fort Liberty, NC, USA Anthony J. Masys College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA Alvaro Mendez LSE Global South Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK David Oakley Joint Special Operations University, Tampa, FL, USA Garrett W. Potts Department of Religious Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida, Florida, USA Leif Rosenberger Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, US Tad Schnaufer II Global and National Security Institute, Tampa, FL, USA xi

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Thomas R. Searle Joint Special Operations University, Tampa, FL, USA Michael O. Slobodchikoff Troy University, Troy, AL, USA Marcus S. Snow Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute PKSOI, Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, USA Thomas J. Volgy School of Government and Public Policy College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, US

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Evolving Crises and Economic Power Politics in the Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) Region Adib Farhadi

Abstract This introductory chapter sets the stage for the following essays by outlining key themes in this volume and introduces the uncanny parallels between the 1979 former Soviet Union (USSR) invasion of Afghanistan and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The chapter argues that the U.S. and the wider international community should identify and apply key lessons learned from four decades of conflict in Afghanistan to ongoing efforts in Ukraine; namely, the need for greater “strategic patience” and “soft power” engagement to sustainably aid Ukraine against Russia, particularly during future post-conflict recovery. Within the context of the Great Power Competition (GPC), these key lessons should also be applied to the pivotal Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) region. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened an already fragile CASA region, creating a fertile environment for increased influence, coercion, and the leveraging of economic inducements by U.S. rivals, who seek control of this resource-rich region. To counteract the growing power imbalance in CASA and to compete more effectively in the modern GPC, the U.S. should further strengthen existing regional alliances and develop novel “soft power” engagement strategies in CASA to preserve and promote U.S. interests and those of our partners in the region. Keywords Great power competition · Afghan War · China · Russia · Ukraine · Central Asia-South Asia · National security

1 Introduction In August 2021, the world watched in disbelief as the Taliban took back the capital city of Kabul following two decades of U.S. war efforts. A mere seven months later, on the heels of the harrowing U.S. withdrawal, the international community witnessed Russian tanks streaming towards the capital city of Kyiv, as Russia commenced A. Farhadi (B) College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida, Florida, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_1

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what it dubbed “a special operations mission” in Ukraine. This “mission” quickly escalated into one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts in recent history, with over 200,000 dead, 12 million displaced, and approximately 18 million people left in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The conflict forced the U.S. and its allies to act through immediate economic sanctions against Russia and the deployment of billions of dollars in aid to assist in Ukraine’s defense. Despite valiant efforts by the Ukrainians—with NATO’s support—the bloody war rages on today, with no end in sight. The highly volatile nature of the conflict has confronted the U.S. and its allies with unprecedented challenges in effecting action that will defend allied interests without escalating the war further. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also bore a startling resemblance to the devastating 1979 Christmas Eve invasion of Afghanistan by the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). In both cases, local populations stood bravely against overwhelming invading forces. The U.S. stood staunchly with the Afghan people just as it stands today with the Ukrainian people, against what it considers an “unprovoked attack” by Russia against a much weaker neighbor. Four decades ago, the U.S. provided the Afghan people with humanitarian assistance and supplied the Mujahedeen Freedom Fighters with modern weaponry, such as the surface-toair Stinger missile, that neutralized Soviet air superiority and eventually led to the expulsion of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989. Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian War, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than $75 billion in overall assistance, including $40 billion in high-tech military equipment (Masters and Merrow, 2023). Perhaps the most glaring parallel between these two invasions is the immense cost to human life. Millions of Afghans and Ukrainians have been displaced or killed, including countless innocent women and children. From 1979-89, Afghanistan suffered at least 2 million deaths, 1.5 million maimed (among whom were more than 300,000 children), and approximately 7.5 million refugees (Noorzoy 2012). Today, Ukraine and the European countries struggle with the ongoing issue of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and a mounting refugee crisis. Over “eight million people have fled Ukraine, triggering Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. Nearby countries have taken in millions of displaced people, while international organizations have sent tens of billions of dollars in aid….experts worry that host countries are growing fatigued” (Roy, 2023). Adding to the mounting humanitarian crisis, is an escalating global food and energy shortage, with vulnerable regions such as Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) hardest hit. While Western experts generally agree that Russia may not have the capabilities to reach a decisive victory in Ukraine, an end to the war is likely still far off. CIA Director William Burns stated that “Putin’s bet right now is that he is going to be tougher than the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and the Americans,” and experts fear that Russia will continue to seek incremental territorial gains if only to maintain its victory narrative at home (Bowen, 2022). A key lesson learned from Afghanistan, is that despite protracted U.S. and international community intervention, the nation never fully recovered from the 1979 Soviet invasion that devastated it. After a fervent victory against the former Soviet Union in 1989, Afghanistan devolved into a bloody civil war that eventually

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led to the 2001 terror attacks and America’s longest war. Then, in 2021, the U.S. War in Afghanistan ended almost as tragically as it began, with hundreds of lives lost during U.S. evacuation efforts alone. Considering the stark parallels between the two Russian invasions — the U.S. should take a hard look at its historical approaches to wartime assistance and post-conflict recovery strategies and any unwanted outcomes. By abandoning a fragile Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet Union expulsion, the U.S. failed to sufficiently stabilize the post-conflict nation, to stave off civil war and circumvent the global destruction that followed. However, parallels between the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine point to opportunities as well. When this war does finally end, Ukraine will face the daunting task of rebuilding itself, with the aid of the U.S. and the international community. Considering the potential humanitarian and global implications, the U.S. faces a critical policy juncture: to simply repeat past strategies or reexamine its historical approach to post-war recovery, reconstruction, and development. Repetition will likely lead to unwanted outcomes like those that currently plague the U.S. in the wake of its military withdrawal from Afghanistan, including loss of global influence and trust, forfeiture of hard-fought gains, diminished influence in the pivotal resource-rich region, and the heavy toll placed on the Afghan people, left in the throes of an escalating humanitarian crisis. Alternatively, if lessons learned from Afghanistan are earnestly applied to Ukraine’s post-war recovery and reconstruction, the U.S. and its allies may avoid similar tragic outcomes. Multivalence in diplomatic approach is currently on full display in the resource-rich CASA region. From within the modern GPC framework, seemingly disparate actions by U.S. rival powers can, in fact, be viewed as working in tandem to fulfill a shared agenda against the U.S. and its allies. Russia and China’s wider objectives have already begun to manifest as divisions in otherwise globalized economies. Davis and Slobodchikoff note, “Moscow prepared for the Ukraine War by supporting extremist candidates, using polarizing social issues, and sowing doubt in Western democratic institutions. These efforts sought to break the Western consensus and create conditions where there would be discord among allied states in NATO, which would create divisions among Western allies to Russia’s benefit when conflict did break out” (2022). Though Russia was not successful in dividing NATO per se, the invasion of Ukraine has brought to the surface ideological rifts between “western” and “eastern” governance values and principles—further jeopardizing U.S. positioning in the region and on the international playing field. All the while, the invasion of Ukraine continues to threaten the current power balance between the U.S., China, and Russia by forcing the U.S. to either take a stand or appear weak on the international playing field—despite diminished outcomes of Russian war efforts thus far (Aljazeera Conference 2022). An emerging power imbalance in CASA continues to shift opportunities and influences away from the West as Russia and China expand their influence in the region and act to diminish U.S. presence further. Opportunities to initiate strong U.S. reengagement through demonstrable partnerships in the region are slipping

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away at an alarmingly fast rate, and if not countered quickly, will be gone forever. While Russia’s invasion continues to weaken regional populations and economies, China waits with open arms to offer vulnerable, fragile nations tangible economic partnerships through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Now, more than ever, U.S. “soft power” strategies should aim to outmaneuver Russia and China’s combined overt efforts to offset the global balance of power and secure sustainable partnerships. What lies in the balance is access to natural resources such as lithium that are critical to U.S. national security and the American way of life. Thus, critically assessing Russia’s and China’s long-game strategies in the pivotal CASA region is key to effectively meeting challenges to U.S. and allied global interests within the context of the modern GPC. To better understand the far-reaching implications of the ongoing Ukraine conflict and the potential impacts on U.S. interests, subject matter experts from around the globe have contributed to The Great Power Competition Volume 5: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Central Region, to share their wide-ranging knowledge, experiences, and perspectives on these crucial issues. Through pointed inquiry, the seasoned authors in this volume explore the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from diverse angles, including economic, humanitarian, security, geopolitical, and logistical dimensions. The results are vital insights and practical prescriptions that can inform U.S. and international policymakers as they prepare for a new era of great power competition. Key takeaways highlight the need for expanded U.S. engagement in resource-rich CASA to counteract a growing and dangerous power imbalance and compete more effectively with rival powers in the region. To meet these challenges, the U.S. should expand its current foreign policy by deploying a nuanced combination of hard and soft power engagement strategies, to further strengthen current partnerships and establish new relations that will protect and promote U.S. interests and those of our regional partners. This first chapter in the volume introduces the uncanny parallels between the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and argues that the U.S. should utilize lessons learned from four decades of intervention in Afghanistan to approach postwar reconstruction efforts in Ukraine more strategically. The chapter sets the stage for the following essays by outlining key themes presented in the book, such as the evolving global crises resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (including food and energy shortages and a weakened global economy); growing alliances between U.S. rival powers in a weakened CASA region; and the future of the Great Power Competition in CASA amid the race for critical resources. The scope of this introductory chapter is thus limited and not intended as a comprehensive analysis of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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2 Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: An Evolving Global Crisis As people ultimately stand at the heart of every conflict, a discussion on the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should begin with its critical impacts on people. The war has caused a massive humanitarian crisis, widespread food and energy shortages, and growing divisions in otherwise globalized economies; all of which have the potential to threaten the current international order. As Colonel Marcus Snow of the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute notes in chapter, “The Invasion of Ukraine and the Global Food Crisis of 2022: Responding to Food Supply Shocks,” Ukraine and the surrounding region are an essential global source of commodities such as food, fertilizer, cooking oil, and gas production. With the disruption of these exports, “an enormous supply shock” has increased the cost of food around the globe, with developing regions, like CASA, most negatively impacted (2023). Snow further suggests that although traditional aid and diplomatic actions such as the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BGSI) have helped ensure the safe passage of grain and food supplies and provided some relief, “with many resources exhausted, the risk of a future food crisis remains concerning” (2023). Africa faces some of the most ruinous effects of the food crisis arising from the war, including record-high costs for crucial fertilizer and grain imports. In addition to devastating people’s lives, this global crisis creates opportunities for rival powers to seek influence in these impacted regions and to tilt the equilibrium of power and influence in their favor. Regarding the wider global economic impacts of the war, Brian Jenkins, senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation, cautions that a key issue is the ensuing pressure of “de-globalization,” including the erosion of international trade alliances. Jenkins writes, “The new geo-political environment will affect future corporate decision-making. Cost savings will be more closely scrutinized against risk. De-globalization means increased prices, at least in the short run, adding to inflationary pressures” (Jenkins, 2023). Such divisions, initially spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the vulnerabilities of a globalized system, have been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which continues to drive and deepen additional economic divisions. The war in Ukraine has also fast-tracked the global energy crisis. “Natural gas prices hit multi-year highs [in 2022] with oil nearly $140 a barrel, not far from an all-time record, turbocharging a post-pandemic inflationary spiral that caused a costof-living crisis in many countries” (Gaffen, 2022). Experts anticipate a continued and likely escalating energy shortage to cause a widespread global scrambling for alternative sources. As Leif Rosenberger of the US Army War College notes in his chapter, “The Energy War: How Europe Turned the Tables on Russia,” “a third of European countries faced absolute shortages of natural gas [in 2022] because of record low inflows of Russian gas.” (2023). Though Russia continues to leverage its vital energy exports across Europe to maintain strategic positioning, Rosenberger argues that Russia misjudged the tenacity of the European Union. Yet, while the European Union is apparently on the road to recovery, the impacts of food and energy

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tenuity are still keenly felt in the already vulnerable CASA region, where wheat shortages, ongoing political turmoil, decades of internally displaced persons, and violent extremism have created an intensely fragile environment—ripe for economic power politics, exploitation, and coercive tactics (Kurilla GPCC 6, 2022). As Potts and Abadal argue in their chapter, “Moral Injury in Refugee Communities: The Connection Between Displacement and Disorientation” (2023), the global crises set off by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine extend well beyond traditional aid disbursement and resource deficits. The psychological ramifications for displaced persons and communities often create a dangerous ripple effect throughout refugee populations and the surrounding communities that endure for generations (2023). The injury suffered by displaced persons, such as Ukrainian and Afghan refugees, creates a greater risk of substance abuse, crime as a means of survival, ethnic prejudice, and isolation (2023). Mitigating such dangerous long-term societal outcomes should be equally considered during international relief and policy planning. While the U.S. and its allies have provided critical emergency relief to victims in Ukraine through traditional aid, novel strategies to stave off the long-term, peripheral ramifications in the region should also be prioritized. The devastating U.S. 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan has served to amplify pre-existing food and energy shortages. The ripple effect of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees invites increased resource exploitation in the CASA region by U.S. rivals. During his keynote address at the sixth Great Power Competition Conference, General Erik Kurilla, Commander of U.S. Central Command, suggested, “We must invest heavily in partnerships like never before and shift our focus to our main competitor, China. We should, and indeed have, changed our policy focus to strategic competition” (GPCC 2022). General Kurilla also offered hope for a new brand of U.S. engagement in CASA, following two decades of employing tactical methods in Afghanistan, stating, “The region is an ideal location for U.S. innovation and experimentation if the U.S. begins to consider untested ideas and branch out into new ways of thinking and new lenses for viewing the region—including tribal and economic viewpoints. Force is no longer the primary effective tool; partnering is now essential” (2022). As the region continues to suffer from the combined destabilizing effects of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the war in Ukraine, such a strategic U.S. approach in CASA has never been more urgent.

3 Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Rival Power Alliances in the CASA Region Over the past several decades, the international political system has become increasingly oriented towards geopolitical competition, in which would-be hegemons leverage economic inducements and security alliances to garner critical resources and influence. The international climate of unchallenged U.S. dominance is swiftly changing as revisionist powers like China and Russia gain traction through economic

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development projects. CASA, a geostrategic landscape in which untapped critical resources and political vulnerabilities flourish side by side, presents a pivotal battleground for such economic power politics. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened an already fragile CASA region, creating a fertile environment for increased influence, coercion, and leveraging of economic inducements. As U.S. rival great powers strengthen their influence and alliances to contend with U.S. economic sanctions, the U.S.’s presence in CASA, which was already diminished by its 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, shrinks further. In his chapter titled, “To the Bastion: NATO’s Return to Europe Leaving its Troubled Southern Flank Open for Competition,” Dr. Tad Schnaufer II, from USF’s Global and National Security Institute, highlights NATO’s diminished presence in the Middle East and North Africa in recent months, beginning with the “turbulent withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Schnaufer writes, “The increased troop deployments to NATO’s eastern members in response to the Ukrainian War and the addition of the 800-mile Finnish border with Russia have caused the alliance’s limited resources to go north and east, leaving a vacuum in the south for other powers to fill” (2023). According to Iliya Kusa from the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, “The war in Ukraine has pushed China to become more active in expanding its influence in Oceania and Central and South Asia, while the United States and the E.U. are burdened with hawkish policies toward Russia and domestic social and economic difficulties” (Kusa 2022). Considering the shared aims of rival powers to thwart U.S. regional influence and global hegemony and to gain preferential access to critical resources, U.S. strategies in the CASA region should be seriously re-evaluated. This section examines how the shifting relational dynamics between China, Russia, and Iran could impact U.S. interests in the region. China One of China’s key strategies in the Great Power Competition, with the potential to further offset U.S. influence in the CASA region, is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI can be viewed as more than just a well-devised economic infrastructure connectivity project, but a highly integrated venue for implementing China’s wider strategic aims to shape a new world order. Beckley and Brands recently noted, “To grasp the Chinese challenge, we must grasp its ideological dimensions. If Woodrow Wilson and his followers wanted to make the world safe for democracy, the PRC’s (Peoples Republic of China) rulers wanted to do the same for autocracy. For them, autocracy is not simply a means of political control or a ticket to self-enrichment, but a set of deeply held ideas about the proper relationship between rulers and the masses” (2023). With its widely destabilizing effects, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine naturally serves to advance China’s overarching objectives in the fragile CASA region, by creating greater immediate “need” in already struggling countries. In less than a decade, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown from 9.6 trillion in 2013 to 14.8 trillion in 2021, and economists estimate that this figure will nearly double by 2026 to 24.9 trillion due to BRI connectivity (Statista 2022). Central to the function of the BRI, though perhaps less obvious, is the diminishing of democratic (Western liberal) governance ideals, to weaken U.S. hegemony, influence, and

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control. Thus, the PRC strives to shape the world through its highly integrated BRI network to achieve unrestrained global influence and power. China’s stated plan is to build economic infrastructure, interdependence, and connectivity while “staying out” of participating countries’ domestic policies. Ultimately, China is offering largescale economic and financial assistance without social or political contingencies, making it an attractive option for countries that are both democratic and those that are not. Official documents from the PRC outline the BRI’s central objectives based on five cooperation priorities: 1) Policy coordination—Promotion of intergovernmental cooperation, multi-level intergovernmental macro policy exchange, and communication mechanism. 2) Facilities connectivity—Improvement of connectivity of infrastructure construction plans and technical standards systems. 3) Unimpeded trade—Reduction of investment and trade barriers, promotion of regional economic integration. 4) Financial integration—Coordination and cooperation in monetary policy, set-up of financing institutions. 5) People-to-people bonds—Cultural and academic exchange and dialogue, media cooperation (2015, par. 13). Furthering China’s ambitions in the Middle East and the wider region, on December 9th, 2022, President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh, alongside Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammad Al Sharqi of the UAE, and GCC Secretary General Nayef Falah Al Hajraf, among other key regional actors, for the inauguration of the first China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit (Mubarak 2023). The leaders gathered to discuss collaboration across various vital sectors, including “petrochemicals, IT, and nuclear technology, and to open the door for Chinese companies like Huawei to enter the regional market” (Mubarak, 2023). Considering the startling capacity of the BRI to further Beijing’s revisionist vision with its reach across critical sectors, the U.S. simply cannot afford to lose additional competitive footing in this pivotal region. The peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brokered by China in March 2023, significantly strengthened China’s position and influence in the region against a perceived declining U.S. presence. In a 2022 Rand report, Treyger et al. suggested that “China is manifestly uninterested in endeavors that would maintain U.S. influence and strengthen its partnerships in the region, seeking instead to undermine them…in the context of U.S.-China competition, the Middle East, overall, represents an opportunity for Beijing to increase its influence in a traditional region of U.S. dominance and access key energy resources that it needs for economic growth” (2023, p. 150). This peace deal represents Beijing’s first major diplomatic effort in the region involving a U.S. rival (Iran) and key U.S. ally (Saudi Arabia), and demonstrates the deft use of soft power to garner influence. Following the recent deal, Saudi Arabia hosted a series of high-level peace talks in August 2023 to discuss a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine. Analysts suggest that “Saudi willingly wants to diversify its friends and not rely on the U.S. It has been successful doing that. It’s reached out to China, Russia. It’s trying to build relations with Turkey, with Iran” (Gavlak 2023). Saudi has made strides in recent months to solidify its influence and partnerships, in

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part, it’s speculated, due to a diminished U.S. presence in the region since the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. During his address at the Sixth GPC conference, Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control, suggested that Beijing will seek “as many financial entanglements as possible in the region to stave off U.S. sanctions internationally. China may be more concerned regarding imports, and therefore, will aggressively push for access to raw materials across the region” (GPCC 6, 2022). For instance, China’s growing need for new sources of lithium to meet consumer demands has brought it increasingly closer to the war-torn, resource-rich nation of Afghanistan. In fact, not long after the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, China’s Foreign Minister publicly stated, “China hopes to push the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative with the development strategies of Afghanistan, support the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan, and share China’s development opportunities” (The Economic Times, 2022). Such an announcement should come as no surprise given Afghanistan’s geostrategic location and current lack of U.S. engagement. Afghanistan’s immense wealth of undeveloped natural resources (lithium) and potential for infrastructure projects render it an ideal focal point for future BRI development. A majority of China’s regional projects are infrastructure projects in transportation (ports, roads, railways), energy (pipelines, power grids, hydropower dams), and information technologies and communications (fiber-optic networks, data centers, satellite constellations). In addition, “soft” infrastructure projects are underway, such as creating special economic zones and negotiating free trade agreements, currency swap agreements, and reduced tariffs (Rolland 2019). Experts note that outside of official statements and objectives, the BRI is an overt “effort to develop an expanded, interdependent market for China, grow China’s economic and political power, and create the right conditions for China to build a high technology economy” (Jie & Wallace 2021). Right now, BRI engagement in different sectors includes (1) Energy—37%; (2) Transportation—27%; (3) Metals—12%; (4) Real Estate—5%; (5) Utilities—3.25% (GFDC 2022). In terms of Beijing’s leveraging of the war in Ukraine to garner regional influence, Alvaro Mendez, Senior Research Fellow and Director of the LSE Global South Unit, in his chapter, “Russia’s Backyard: China & Central Asia after the Invasion of Ukraine,” suggests that shifting dynamics in the region since the war present serious challenges to U.S. interests. He notes that while Beijing’s recently proposed 12-point peace plan for Ukraine “drew harsh criticism from the West, Kazakhstan is saying the plan is worthy of support, showing that the PRC is influencing the politics of these countries” (2023). The plan, proposed by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 24, (2023), is noted below, and briefly states: 1. Respecting the sovereignty of all countries. Universally recognized international law, including the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, must be strictly observed.

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2. Abandoning the Cold War mentality. The security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others. The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs. 3. Ceasing hostilities. Conflict and war benefit no one. All parties must stay rational and exercise restraint, avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions, and prevent the crisis from deteriorating further or even spiraling out of control. 4. Resuming peace talks. Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis. All efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be encouraged and supported. 5. Resolving the humanitarian crisis. All measures conducive to easing the humanitarian crisis must be encouraged and supported. Humanitarian operations should follow the principles of neutrality and impartiality, and humanitarian issues should not be politicized. 6. Protecting civilians and prisoners of war (POWs). Parties to the conflict should strictly abide by international humanitarian law, avoid attacking civilians or civilian facilities, protect women, children, and other victims of the conflict, and respect the basic rights of POWs. 7. Keeping nuclear power plants safe. China opposes armed attacks against nuclear power plants or other peaceful nuclear facilities and calls on all parties to comply with international law, including the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS), and resolutely avoid man-made nuclear accidents. 8. Reducing strategic risks. Nuclear weapons must not be used, and nuclear wars must not be fought. The threat or use of nuclear weapons should be opposed. 9. Facilitating grain exports. All parties need to implement the Black Sea Grain Initiative signed by Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and the U.N. fully and effectively in a balanced manner and support the UN in playing an important role in this regard. 10. Stopping unilateral sanctions. Unilateral sanctions and maximum pressure cannot solve the issue; they only create new problems. China opposes unilateral sanctions unauthorized by the UN Security Council. 11. Keeping industrial and supply chains stable. All parties should earnestly maintain the existing world economic system and oppose using the world economy as a tool or weapon for political purposes. 12. Promoting post-conflict reconstruction. The international community needs to take measures to support post-conflict reconstruction in conflict zones. China stands ready to provide assistance and play a constructive role in this endeavor (FMPRC 2023). In response to China’s plan for peace, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, “China’s been trying to have it both ways—it’s, on the one hand, trying to present itself publicly as neutral and seeking peace while at the same time, it is talking up Russia’s false narrative about the war… there are 12 points in the Chinese plan. If they were serious about the first one, sovereignty, then this war could end tomorrow” (Kine, 2023). However, it is worth noting that while the U.S. may not agree with the

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plan in its entirety or trust Beijing’s motives, a direct response to China’s plan has yet to be issued by the U.S. or NATO at the time of this publication. Iran and Russia The growing alliance between Russia and Iran, including an expansive new agreement for increased cooperation nearly finalized, presents serious challenges to U.S. interests in the CASA region. According to Emil Avdaliani, Director of Middle East Studies at the Georgian think-tank, Geocase, “Relations between the two historic rivals have long been viewed as failing to reach their potential, but Iran’s tilt toward Moscow during the war in Ukraine has shifted the dynamic. Indeed, the two Eurasian powers have finally managed to find common ground on critical global and regional questions” (2023). That common ground largely involves increased interdependence between Russia and Iran spawned by U.S. sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Eric Lob, Associate Professor and Political Science Graduate Program Director, at Florida International University, points out in his chapter, “Iran’s Drone Industry and Its Military Cooperation with Russia in Ukraine,” “Iran’s Drone Industry and Its Military Cooperation with Russia in Ukraine,” Iran will play a major role, alongside China, in how Ukraine’s war impacts influence dynamics in the CASA Region. For example, Iran’s continued contribution of numerous large payload drones to Russia has “been a boon to its expanding drone industry. On October 18, 2022, the day after Russia struck Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure using the Shahed-136/Geron-2, a military official in Tehran claimed that 22 countries wanted to purchase Iranian drones (Tehran Times 2022 AS CITED in Lob 2023).” More critically, this is the first time that Iran has exported advanced military drones. While Lob notes that any violations of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which was enacted in 2015 to uphold the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program, could result in “snapback” multilateral sanctions against the regime (2023) the potential for an Iran, China, and Russia power alliance looms large as Iran continues to profit from the war by leveraging large drone sales in the region. Iran may also leverage Russia’s growing dependence to negotiate the implementation of stalled infrastructure connectivity projects. The International North–South Transit Corridor (INSTC), launched in the early 2000s by Iran, Russia, and India, to connect the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran, is one such critical BRI project. Avdaliani notes that “in light of the war in Ukraine, the corridor has gained new relevance. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Tehran in July 2022, and both sides pledged to pursue completion of the corridor… so far, expanding use of the corridor has already led to a doubling of cargo transportation; [and] from January to March of 2023, cargo shipments exceeded 2.3 million tons” (2023). The “new relevance” in this case may be viewed in part as a new urgency to increase trade that circumvents U.S. sanctions. Like China and Russia, Iran seeks to shift the global balance of power to afford more flexibility regarding economic alliances, expansions, and trade negotiations. Before the Ukraine invasion, Russia had been the dominant party, with its superior wealth of military and natural resources. However, widespread sanctions

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against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine have altered the power balance in bilateral relations. Russian efforts have become increasingly reliant on support from Iran. Droin and Grajewski state, “To offset the effects of sanctions and policies of ostracization, the two countries have strived to build their own international networks of solidarity. They worked, either jointly or in parallel, on two axes: they shifted to the East and took advantage of other countries’ discontent with the current international order” (2023). The two countries are now actively seeking to exploit grievances against the West in regions outside of their own geographical locations as well, such as Africa and Latin America (Droin and Grajewski 2023). “Tehran also has key shared interests with New Delhi, in Afghanistan, and on regional connectivity, including through the port of Chabahar strategically located on the Indian Ocean, where India has built two terminals” (2023). Further, Russia and Iran continue to maintain bilateral relations with India and Pakistan, despite growing international condemnation of Russia. Russia has become India’s most important supplier of arms and oil since 2022 (Droin and Grajewski 2023). In July 2023, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with Iran newly admitted, met online for a summit hosted in New Delhi, India. During the meeting, China’s Xi Jinping urged allied members including Russia and Iran to stand in solidarity against Western sanctions. Xi is quoted as saying during the meeting, “We must be highly vigilant against external forces fomenting a ‘new Cold War’ and creating confrontation in the region, and resolutely oppose any country interfering in internal affairs and staging a ‘color revolution’ for any reason” (CBS 2023). As of August 2023, the SCO is comprised of member states, Russia, China, India, new member- Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Observer States, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia and six “Dialogue Partners,” Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. According to Mendez, a critical consideration regarding shifting power and influence dynamics in the region, is the perspectives of Central Asian states, who generally mistrust hegemons and seek “respect” above all else from their international partners. In such a case, the U.S. may, in fact, be better equipped for long-term soft power engagement than its rivals. The U.S. can capitalize on established regional partnerships to compete effectively with rival powers. As the war continues to destabilize the region, the U.S. cannot afford to cede future opportunities for increased engagement in CASA to a rising China—as a “next best partner.” In her chapter, “Regional Ambivalence Towards Russia and Ukraine,” Anna Borshchevskaya, Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East, adds another unique layer, asserting that while the U.S. has “recalibrated its foreign policy trajectory towards great power competition…[when] Western analysts and policymakers look at competition with Russia, they tend to see it as mainly unfolding in Europe (and in the Indo-Pacific when it comes to China). The Russian state, however, is pursuing a global battle, and it is winning in the global south” (2023). Borshchevskaya further suggests that to mitigate such a power imbalance; the U.S. must create effective counter-narratives against China and Russia that highlight the

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realities of imperialism and autocratic governance. Alongside devising such counternarratives, the U.S. must actionably demonstrate its steadfastness as a long-term partner.

4 The Future of Great Power Competition: CASA and the Race for Critical Resources The previous two sections highlighted how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added pressure to an already fragile region by piling new stressors on top of preexisting food and energy shortages and a growing refugee crisis. This pressure has, in turn, created an ideal environment for exploitation. As rival powers continue to strengthen their influence and develop regional alliances—inching closer to control of undeveloped critical resources in the region—the U.S. has diminished its presence in CASA since its withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The timing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, has not only served to divert the attention of the U.S. and allies from vital engagement in the region but forced weakened states to accept less preferable economic and security partnerships simply to survive. While Davis and Slobodchikoff of Troy University, in their chapter, “Great Power Competition Following the Ukraine War,” do not anticipate a war between the great powers as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they do concur that “the conflict will complicate American and NATO’s foreign relations by weakening Western access to critical resources” (2023). This may prove especially true in Afghanistan, which holds vast reserves of critical minerals such as lithium and from which the U.S. continues to distance itself while China moves closer to formalizing economic partnerships (Farhadi, 2023). Admittedly, the dramatic power shift in Afghanistan following the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal stifled any prospects for immediate U.S. economic re-engagement in the war-torn country; however, the protracted lack of U.S. engagement, beyond transactional humanitarian aid, has left room for both China and Russia to seek greater influence through much needed sustainable infrastructure development projects. “The modern great power competition in the CASA region, then, can be viewed as a competition for access to a finite supply of critical and rare earth minerals. Afghanistan quickly becomes ground zero for its wealth of untapped natural resources. As rival powers China and Russia already have a distinct advantage, the U.S. could be summarily excluded from the massive economic development already underway in CASA” (Farhadi, 2023). For the present, China is poised to benefit most in the region from Russia’s actions in Ukraine, both in terms of access to resources and increased trade through its massive BRI, with Russia facing indefinite embargoes and crippling sanctions by the West. While the U.S. has stated its intentions to turn its attention to strategic competition with China, it may miss the opportunity entirely unless it reconsiders the geostrategic importance of Afghanistan.

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As geopolitical competition between the “West” and authoritarian rivals in the “East” is increasingly centered on economic influence in the region, soft power strategies to increase such sway are fast becoming the most critical weapons on this pivotal battlefield. Before the war in Ukraine, China was Ukraine’s top foreign trade partner. Ukraine “joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2014, and a BRI trade and investment center opened in Kyiv in 2018. Chinese companies have been investing in Ukraine’s ports. COFCO, China’s state-owned agribusiness giant, invested US$50 million in Mariupol—now a frontline city in Donetsk province—besieged by pro-Russia separatists since 2014—to triple its agricultural transshipment capacity. Chinese companies also have been involved in projects to dredge the Ukrainian ports of Yuzhny (north of Odessa) and Chernomorsk (south of Odessa)” (DevonshireEllis 2023). Future reconstruction efforts in Ukraine seem preemptively poised to favor China. In the end, the very real possibility that resource-rich CASA—weakened further by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—may be overshadowed by a growing China, Russia, and Iran alliance remains a worrying prospect, which demands serious reevaluation of U.S. foreign policy strategies in the region. Ideally, this would mean continuing to shift U.S. policy orientation away from “tactical” missions in CASA towards increased “strategic” soft power engagement. As General Frank McKenzie, former Commander of US Central Command, stated during his address at the 2023 Seventh Great Power Competition Conference, “There is, in fact, a way to do both things: confront China and maintain a presence in the [region]. To do so will require more agility of thought and action than we have shown to date” (GPCC 7, 2023). However, the window of opportunity may be closing as China, Russia, and Iran continue to advance their narratives against the West, capitalize on a severely weakened regional environment, and offer quick-fix inducements and security alliances to further narrow the gap left by the U.S. in 2021.

5 Conclusion In many ways, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has served the wider aims of U.S. rival powers to offset the equilibrium of global power, by creating a weakened environment in the pivotal, resource-rich CASA region. However, these rival powers may lack deep-rooted partnerships based on mutual respect. The United States’ ability to sustain strategic partnerships in the region has also been called into question in the wake of the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan—with a growing concern that the U.S. will shift its focus away from the vulnerable region. As China continues to expand its influence in CASA, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. should strengthen longstanding partnerships and forge new ones based on mutual respect, while expanding soft power strategies to maintain competitive geopolitical footing and protect its long-term interests in the region.

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With its wealth of critical resources, CASA remains a pivotal playing field for great power competition and novel strategic cooperation. Economic influence, information, messaging, and power are inextricably linked in the current era of the GPC— particularly in the realm of natural resource development. This is especially evident now, as U.S. near power rivals strengthen alliances in the region and act in concert against Western interests, capitalizing on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Only through renewed soft power engagement in the pivotal region, can the U.S. at once maintain a strong presence in CASA and preserve its current positioning in the modern GPC. Finally, the U.S. has amassed an arsenal of knowledge based on its own experience and history in the CASA region. Vital lessons have been garnered from hard-won successes and agonizing failures during four decades of intervention in Afghanistan. Now, the U.S. can capitalize on these vital lessons to approach foreign intervention and post-war reconstruction efforts in Ukraine more strategically. A critical factor in the deadly devolvement of Afghanistan following the 1979 invasion and later expulsion of the former USSR, was a lack of “strategic patience” in aiding a nation in crisis. As the Cold War U.S. tactical mission against the former Soviet Union ended, Afghanistan was essentially abandoned during a critical post-war recovery period. Today, the U.S. faces a strikingly similar situation. Post-war Ukraine will require “strategic patience” to avoid relegating the Ukrainian people, who have already suffered immeasurably, to the same fate as the shattered Afghans, who continue to suffer impossibly after four decades of conflict.

References Aljazeera Center for Studies (2022) Redrawing Spheres of Influence: The Dynamics and Implications of the Russian-Ukrainian War. We Conference. March 28–29. https://studies.aljaze era.net/en/events/speakers-ajcs-conference%C2%A0russian-war-ukraine-destabilising-intern ational-order-and-hastening Avdaliani, E. (2023) Russia & Iran converge in attempt to build a new Eurasian order. Stimson. April 11. https://www.stimson.org/2023/russia-iran-converge-in-attempt-to-build-anew-eurasian-order/. Beckley and Brands (2023) China’s Threat to Global Democracy. Journal of Democracy, Volume 34, Number 1, January 2023, pp. 65–79 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Borshchevskaya, A. (2023) Regional Ambivalence Towards Russia and Ukraine. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Bowen, A. (2022) Russia’s War in Ukraine: Military and Intelligence Aspects. Congressional Research Service. September 14. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode= R47068 CBS News (2023) Key takeaways as China urges solidarity with Russia, India and other Shanghai Cooperation allies. July 4. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-china-ukraine-war-putin-xijinping-iran-india-shanghai-cooperation-organization/ CNBC (2023) Ukraine seeks progress towards peace at Saudi Arabia talks. August 6. https://www. cnbc.com/2023/08/06/ukraine-seeks-progress-towards-peace-at-saudi-arabia-talks.html

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Cramer, M. (2020) Mass Murder in Afghanistan: 40 Years of Conflict. The Institute of World Politics. December 18. https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2020/12/18/mass-murder-in-afghanistan40-years-of-conflict/ Davis, D. & Slobodchikoff, M. (2022) Great-Power Competition and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. AIR UNIVERSITY. August 1. https://www.airuniver sity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/3111129/great-power-competition-and-the-russian-invasionof-ukraine/ Davis, D. & Slobodchikoff, M. (2023) Great Power Competition Following the Ukraine War. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Devonshire-Ellis, C. (2023) China Retains Position As Ukraine’s Top Trade & Potential Investment Partner. China Briefing. March 17, 2023. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-retainsposition-as-ukraines-top-trade-potential-investment%20partner/#:~:text=China%20has%20r etained%20its%20status,US%241%20billion%20a%20month. Droin, M. & Grajewski, N. (2023) Iran, Russia, and the challenges of “Inter-Pariah Solidarity.” War on the Rocks. July 11. https://warontherocks.com/2023/07/iran-russia-and-the-challengesof-inter-pariah-solidarity/ Farhadi, A. (2023) Lessons Learned from Afghanistan: The Heavy Price of Treating LongTerm Strategic Issues with Short-Term Tactical Approaches. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Gaffen, D. (2022) How the Russia-Ukraine war accelerated a global energy crisis. Reuters. December 15. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/year-russia-turbocharged-global-ene rgy-crisis-2022-12-13/. Gavlak, D. (2023) Observers say ukraine peace talks point to growing saudi prominence. VOA online. August 6. https://www.voanews.com/a/observers-say-ukraine-peace-talks-point-to-gro wing-saudi-prominence/7213590.html Green Finance & Development Center (2022) What is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? Accessed on 10/1/22. https://greenfdc.org/belt-and-road-initiative-about/ Jenkins, B. (2023) Consequences of the War in Ukraine: The Economic Fallout. Rand. March 7. https://www.rand.org/blog/2023/03/consequences-of-the-war-in-ukraine-the-economic fallout.html#:~:text=The%20war%20in%20Ukraine%20was,to%202.2%20percent%20in%202023. Kine, P. (2023) U.S. dismisses China’s Ukraine peace proposal as an attempt to distract. The proposal itself falls short of what Beijing had promised. Politico. February 24. https://www.politico.com/ news/2023/02/24/united-states-china-ukraine-00084384 Kurilla, E. (2022) Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Implications for the Central Region. Great Power Competition Conference (GPCC). December 8th. Tampa, FL. Kusa, I. (2022) China’s Strategic Calculations in the Russia-Ukraine War. Wilson Center. June 21. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/chinas-strategic-calculations-russia-ukraine-war Lob, E. (2023) Iran’s Drone Industry and Its Military Cooperation with Russia in Ukraine. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Masters, J. & Merrow, W. (2023) How Much Aid Has the U.S. Sent Ukraine? Here Are Six Charts. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukrainehereare-six-charts. Mckenzie, F. (2023) Current Rise of the Great Powers. Great Power Competition Conference. March 8–9. Tampa, FL. Mendez, A. (2023) Russia’s Backyard: China & Central Asia after the Invasion of Ukraine. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China (2023) China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis. February 24. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_6 62805/202302/t20230224_11030713.html

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Mubarak, H. (2023). The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Arab World, One Year After. Wilson Center. March 16. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/russian-invasion-ukraine-andarab-world-one-year-after. Noorzoy, S. (2012) Afghanistan’s Children: The Tragic Victims of 30 Years of War. Middle East Institute Accessed on August 26, 2023. https://www.mei.edu/publications/afghanistanschildren-tragic-victims-30-years-war Potts, G. & Abadal, L. (2023) Moral Injury in Refugee Communities: The Connection Between Displacement and Disorientation. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Rosenberger, L. (2023) The Energy War: How Europe Turned the Tables on Russia. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Roy, D. (2023) How Bad Is Ukraine’s Humanitarian Crisis a Year Later? Council on Foreign Affairs. February 22. https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/ukraine-humanitarian-crisis-refugees-aid Schnaufer II, T. (2023) To the Bastion: NATO’s Return to Europe leaving its troubled Southern Flank Open for Competition. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Snow, M. (2023) The Invasion of Ukraine and the Global Food Crisis of 2022: Responding to Food Supply Shocks. In: Farhadi, Masys & Grzegorzewski (eds.) The Great Power Competition Volume 5: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Springer Publishing. Statista (2022) Gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices in China from 1985 to 2021 with forecasts until 2027. Accessed on 9/30/22. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263770/grossdomestic-product-gdp-of-china/ The Economic Times Online (2022) Willing to extend China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. July 29. https://economictimes.indiatimes. com//news/international/world-news/willing-to-extendchina-pakistan-economic-corridor-toafghanistan-chinese-foreign-minister-wangyi/articleshow/93218325.cms?utm_source=conten tofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst Treyger et al. (2023) Assessing the Prospects for Great Power Cooperation in Europe and the Middle East. Rand Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA597-3.html United Nations. Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (2023) Shanghai Cooperation Organization. https://dppa.un.org/en/shanghai-cooperation-organization#:~:text=The%20SCO%20curr ently%20comprises%20eight

Dr. Adib Farhadi is an Assistant Professor of Peace & Conflict and Faculty Director of the Executive Education Program at the University of South Florida. His research focuses on the intersection of geoeconomics, geopolitics, and religion & conflict, with a particular focus on the Great Power Competition in the “Silk Road” Central Asia–South Asia (CASA) region. Dr. Farhadi also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of The Great Power Competition peer-reviewed book series and leads the Great Power Competition Initiative—a collaborative program between USF and the National Defense University Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies, aimed at providing a broader understanding of the geopolitical challenges facing the United States in the 21st Century. Formerly, Dr. Farhadi served in senior positions for Afghanistan and has extensively advised and contributed research for the United States government, the United Nations, and other international organizations. He is a frequent presenter on religion, conflict and peacebuilding, great power competition, sustainable development, countering violent extremism (CVE), and the geoeconomics of the Middle East and CASA region.

Regional Ambivalence Towards Russia and Ukraine Anna Borshchevskaya

Abstract This chapter traces responses across the Middle East to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It argues that while superficially the region sided with the West, a deeper look at diplomacy and trade shows that the region overall was careful not to antagonize Russia and preferred not to condemn Russia directly for its illegal invasion, nor did it join sanctions. Trade with Russia has grown, especially for Turkey and the UAE, while the region also by and large bought into the Kremlin narratives and framing of the war. As a result, the West could not isolate Russia globally and Russia was able to use the Middle East to circumvent Western isolation and continue to finance the war on Ukraine. The West needs to craft a comprehensive strategy that should include discrediting the Kremlin in the eyes of the region, among other tools. Analysts tend to see great power competition with Russia unfolding in Europe, but Russia looks at this competition globally. The Middle East remains an arena great power competition between the US, Russia (and China). Keywords Russia · National security · Ukraine war · Turkey · Sanctions · Great power competition · Middle East

1 Introduction In order to focus on China, President Biden came into office seeking a “stable, predictable relationship with Russia.”1 This was always an unrealistic expectation, and when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he created the greatest

1 Soldatkin, Vladimir & Marrow, A. (2021 13 October). Putin sees potential to work with Biden on energy, security and more. Reuters.

A. Borshchevskaya (B) The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East, Washington, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_2

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challenge to the liberal global order since 1945. Both Russian and Western intelligence expected Kyiv to fall in a matter of days.2 Both were wrong. By the end of the year president Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan made it clear that the US will not be entering the conflict directly but would continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. Most other Western leaders share this view. Putin for his part continues to frame the war as Russia’s existential struggle, where the West attacked Russia using Ukraine.3 Meanwhile, Russian military activities continued to destabilize Georgia and Moldova throughout the year, actions that supported concerns that Moscow’s long-term aims go beyond Ukraine. In fact, Russia’s actions highlight its disregard of the international order, specifically the most basic belief that every state should respect another’s territorial integrity. This view was reiterated on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the Russian war as “an affront to our collective conscience [and a] violation of the United Nations Charter and international law….Russia’s attack on Ukraine challenges the cornerstone principles and values of our multilateral system.”4 The U.S. has recently recalibrated its foreign policy trajectory towards great power competition. Yet, when Western analysts and policymakers look at competition with Russia, they tend to see it as mainly unfolding in Europe (and in the Indo-Pacific when it comes to China). The Russian state, however, is pursuing a global battle. And it is winning in the global south. Reactions to the invasion in the Middle East highlight this point. Syria and Iran have openly sided with Russia—and Iran has contributed to Russia’s war efforts. Meanwhile Middle Eastern allies and partners to the US responded in a variety of ways to the invasion, but overall, the region reacted with ambivalence, rather than taking a firm stand on the war. The Kremlin plays on these sentiments and finds ways to stay afloat. Despite superficial condemnations at the UN and other international forums, the region engaged in diplomatic ballet rather than firmly condemning Russia’s invasion. Moreover, the Arab world and Turkey have deepened commercial ties with Russia as compared to the year before the invasion. 2

Sciutto, J. & Williams, K. (2022, February 25). “US intelligence assessed that the city could fall soon after the invasion. CNN.; In March 2022, CIA director Bill Burns also told lawmakers that Moscow’s strategy was centered on “seizing Kyiv within the first two days of the campaign. See, Greg Myre, “A frustrated Putin is likely to ‘double down’ in the coming weeks, CIA says, “March 8, 2022 NPR https://www.npr.org/ 2022/03/08/1085155440/cia-director-putin-is-angry-and-frustrated-likely-to-double-down.; Perhaps the most striking example of the Kremlin’s expectation of victory in Ukraine was the accidental publication by Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti of on February 26, 2022, celebrating Russia’s victory in Ukraine, declaring for instance, “Ukraine has returned to Russia,” which suggests preparations for a quick victory. RIA quickly deleted the article but the episode was widely reported in the West. See for instance Ukraine crisis: Russian news agency deletes victory editorial—BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240; After the initial failure to take Kyiv in the early days of the war, the Russian military recalibrated its strategy, which also suggested a lesson learned from an initial expectation of taking Kyiv in days. 3 President of Russia. (2023 21 February). Presidential Address to Federal Assembly.” Kremlin.ru. 4 United Nations in Ukraine. (2023 22 February). Remarks of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly Emergency Special Session on Ukraine United Nations in Ukraine.

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Perhaps one underlying factor is that the Kremlin narratives resonate in the region on a deeper level than policymakers understand. As a result, Russia was able to find additional avenues to circumvent Western sanctions, especially when it came to energy sales, and thus was able to continue financing the war. Western policymakers have often painted Russia as having lost ideologically and economically as a result of the invasion, but at the time of this writing this was only true in the liberal free world. Russia’s position in the Global South is more nuanced as it continues its fight to change the fundamental rules of the international system that the US put in place after World War II and replace it with a multipolar (or polycentric) world, as the Russians often describe it.

2 UN Votes On the surface, most of the international community has condemned Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine. In March 2022, the UN General Assembly met for its first emergency session in twenty-five years which led to a vote demanding Moscow withdraw forces from Ukraine. Many described the vote as historic5 : 141 votes in favor, 5 against, and 35 abstentions. Only Belarus, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea—and Russia itself–- voted in Russia favor.6 Similarly, most countries condemned Russia in the October 2022 vote.7 However, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, and when it came to the Security Council, only two Middle East countries—Kuwait and Turkey—supported the Resolution condemning the Russian invasion on February 25, 2022. Several countries abstained, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which held a rotating seat on the Security Council. Most Middle Eastern countries also abstained from the UN vote in April to suspend Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq.8 In their explanations of votes, many regional leaders repeatedly called for “peaceful negotiations” over the course of the year, rather than directly condemning Russia. To give a few examples, immediately after the invasion, the Arab League issued a statement that did not directly 5

Pamuk, H. & Landay, J. (2022 2 March). U.N. General Assembly in historic vote denounces Russia over Ukraine invasion. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/un-general-assembly-set-censure-russia-over-ukraine-inv asion-2022-03-02/ 6 European Union External Action Website. (2022 2 March). UN General Assembly demands Russian Federation withdraw all military forces from the territory of Ukraine. europa.eu.; Leshchiner, D. et al., (2022 March 2). The UN Resolution on Ukraine: How Did the Middle East Vote? The Washington Institute.; UN News. (2022 12 October). Ukraine: UN General Assembly demands Russia reverse course on ‘attempted illegal annexation.’” UN News. 7 UN News. (2022 12 October). Ukraine: UN General Assembly demands Russia reverse course on ‘attempted illegal annexation.’” UN News. 8 UN News. (2022 7 April). UN General Assembly votes to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. UN News.

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condemn Russia. Rather, the statement expressed “great concern” on the situation in Ukraine and called for “all efforts to resolve the crisis through dialogue and diplomacy.”9 Iraq expressed mere “regret” over the “deterioration of the situation and the escalating tensions between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.” Turkish president Erdogan described Putin as a “friend” and accused Ukraine’s supporters of escalating the conflict, while praising Turkey’s more “constructive” approach towards Russia.10 Even Israel, which was the only country to establish a field hospital in western Ukraine, initially did not condemn Russia directly, and only did so after rebuke from Washington. Rather, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called for a “responsible and measured approach in March 2022.”11 At year’s end, UAE Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab, their deputy permanent representative to the UN, said about Ukraine, “In order to be credible and sustainable, any processes that aims to bring us closer to peace must be inclusive, and any actions that undermine the prospects for constructive dialogue must be avoided by all parties.”12 The Russian government had violated the most fundamental tenants of the postWorld War II global order, but the region did not take a firm stand to defend it. In private, some at least worried about the precedent of allowing Russia to get away with blatantly violating the sovereignty of its peaceful neighbor, but the concern of antagonizing Russia outweighed these worries. Without a clear, direct and public condemnation of the invasion, the implied message to the Kremlin was that it could continue to press on with the war. To be sure, a bigger issue always stood in the background of the UN-related issues. The United Nations failed to act in its intended purpose—to prevent the very war the Kremlin had unleashed. Of course, no one seriously expected the UN to do so in February 2022. But its failure—given the magnitude of the war—was another step that undermined the liberal world order, an illustration for the world of how far the original intent of this organization had fallen from reality. Adding insult to injury at year’s end, Russia retained its seat as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

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Zaida, M. (2022 28 February). Arab League following Ukraine developments with ‘great concern.’ Arab News. 10 Erdogan, R. (2022 6 February). Twitter. 11 Kaufman, E. Liebermann, O. & Hansler, J. (2022 28 March). Lawmakers are starting to grumble about Israel’s lack of action in Ukraine. CNN Politics.; For more details on the evolution of Israel’s approach to Ukraine, see Anna Borshchevskaya, Non-equilateral triangle. Why Israel is hesitant about supplying Ukraine with air defense systems, The Insider, November 15, 2022, https://theins.ru/en/opinion/anna-borshchevskaya/256998. 12 Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations. (2022 27 September). UAE Statement at the UN Security Council Meeting on Ukraine. uaeun.org.

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3 Deepened Commercial Ties Russia’s invasion had a global economic impact. In 2022 Russia had emerged as the world’s most sanctioned country, surpassing Iran and North Korea.13 Export and monetary sanctions had disrupted global supply chains. And to be sure, sanctions had impact. The Congressional Research Service has highlighted that, “Russia’s financial sector faces losses of hundreds of billions of dollars, the Russian military is having difficulties procuring key components for its war effort …hundreds of U.S. and international companies have exited the Russian market; and Russian oil is selling below market prices.”14 Yet, at year’s end, Russia’s economy contracted far less than many predicted, by 2.1%.15 There are many reasons for this outcome, and increased commercial ties with the Middle East is part of the answer. Middle Eastern states did not join Western sanctions on Russia. And since the start of Russia’s invasion, many Russian oligarchs have fled to the region, primarily to the UAE and Turkey, which provided a safe haven for billions of dollars of their wealth.16 Crucially, the Russian government had continued to sell oil and increase overall commercial ties to the region. Indeed, Russia’s oil production has fallen less than experts predicted, a “modest decline of about 0.3 mb/d since its invasion of Ukraine, much less than the 2.5–3.0 mb/d decline anticipated in the International Energy Agency’s April 2022 Oil Market Report.”17 Russia’s continued ability to sell energy and otherwise deepen trade relations was a major reason why Russia could continue to finance its war effort in Ukraine. Among Middle Eastern states, Turkey and the Arab Gulf (especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE) have emerged as crucial to Russia’s increase commercial ties to the region. This is all the more ironic since Turkey, a NATO member, played a key role in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative, as part of a wider effort to curb the effects of the Ukraine invasion on the global food markets. Still, other countries in the region also played an important role.

3.1 The Gulf States As The Economist documented, a “robust and extensive” shadow economy of energy shipping and financing infrastructure has emerged over the course of 2022. It includes 13

Bella, T. (2022 8 March). Putin turns Russia into world’s most-sanctioned country, beating out Iran, North Korea after Ukraine invasion. The Washington Post. 14 Congressional Research Service. (2022 13 December). The Economic Impact of Russia Sanctions. Congressional Research Service. 15 BBC. (2022 20 February). Russia’s economy shrinks by less than expected. BBC. 16 Faiola, A. (2022 1 April). How Russian oligarchs are finding safe havens in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates. The Washington Post. 17 Nagle, P. & Temag, K. (2022 16 December). Oil prices remain volatile amid demand pessimism and constrained supply. World Bank.

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the Gulf, China, and India.18 Over the course of 2022, Gulf Arab states have resisted U.S. pressure to help isolate Russia and to pump more oil to help replace lost Russian supply. By late 2022, the OPEC+ group drew ire from Washington when the group decided to cut oil output by 2 million barrels per day. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby accused Saudi Arabia of strong-arming other oil producing countries to agree to the major oil cut. “The Saudi Foreign Ministry can try to spin or deflect, but the facts are simple,” Kirby said, adding that the kingdom knows the decision will “increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions” against Moscow.19 Yet, Saudi officials continued insisting that their decision was made for purely economic reasons. Saudi Arabia also has been importing significant amounts of low-cost Russian fuel oil to burn at its power plants while freeing up more crude for exports, and according to Reuters began importing diesel from Russia in February 2022.20 Saudi Arabia was not alone. Most recent reports indicate that the UAE “has been taking more cargoes of Russian crude oil,” while “Russia has been selling both crude and refined products at discounted prices.”21 And in May 2022, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov came to Oman and announced a commitment to the OPEC+ output agreements.22 Nor was Russia’s trade with the Gulf limited to energy. According to Russian customs data analysis by Washington DC-based Free Russia Foundation, the UAE was still exporting drones to Russia at the end of 2022,23 while “non-oil trade between Russia and the UAE grew by 57% in the first nine months of 2022.” In particular, exports of electronics increased sevenfold, to $283 million, and at year’s end Russia was still exporting drones to the UAE.24 In December, Emirati Trade Minister Thani bin Ahmed al-Zeyoudi pledged to “push trade to even greater heights.”25 In March

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The Economist. (2023 29 January). How Russia dodges oil sanctions on an industrial scale. The Economist. 19 Northam, J. (2022 13 October). The White House accuses Saudi Arabia of aiding Russia and coercing OPEC oil producers. NPR. 20 Reuters. (2023 7 March). UPDATE 1-Russia begins diesel exports to Saudi Arabia -traders, Refinitiv data. Reuters. 21 Reuters. (2023 6 March). Exclusive: Russian crude oil heads to UAE as sanctions divert flows. Reuters. 22 Foreign Ministry of Oman. (2022 11 May) Oman’s Foreign Minister holds talks with Russian Foreign Minister. Foreign Ministry of Oman.; Arab News. (2022 11 May). Oman, welcoming Russian FM, says committed to OPEC+ agreement. Arab News. 23 Free Russia Foundation. (2023 January). Effectiveness of U.S. sanctions targeting Russian companies and individuals. Free Russia Foundation. 24 Financial Times. (2023 1 March). West presses UAE to clamp down on suspected Russia sanctions busting. Financial Times. 25 Matthews, S. (2023 2 March). “UAE is ‘country of focus’ as US looks to target Russia’s economic partners. Middle East Eye.

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2023, the Russian government announced it was preparing visa-free travel agreements with 17 countries, which include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Syria.26

3.2 Turkey Turkey has emerged as another key trade partner with Russia. According to Turkey’s official TurkStat, Russia’s role in the country’s foreign trade significantly increased because of its war against Ukraine. Turkish imports from Russia doubled as compared to 2021, from approximately $29 billion (USD) in 2021 to $58.85 billion in 2022. Indeed, Russia emerged as the top country of imports for Turkey in 2022. Since Turkey did not join Western sanctions, it was able to take on a role of what some described as a “trade platform” between Russia and the West.27 The Wall Street Journal reported that Turkish firms have exported a total of at least $18.5 million worth of items, to Russia, “including plastics, rubber items and vehicles, to at least 10 Russian companies sanctioned by the U.S. for their role in Russia’s assault on Ukraine… The Turkish companies sent at least three shipments of American-made goods, according to the data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in February 2023 that Turkey is not exporting products that could be used in Russia’s war effort. He added that Turkey is not violating US and EU sanctions, and that sanctions are not being violated via Turkey.28 Moscow now retains full control of only one route for Russian gas to Europe, and it is Turkstream, a natural gas pipeline that, directly connects Turkey to the largest gas reserves in Russia,29 and in late 2022, Putin suggested that Russia could create a major gas hub in Turkey by redirecting supplies intended for the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea after an explosion on the pipeline earlier in the year30 Putin said, “Turkey has proven to be the most reliable route for gas supplies to Europe, thanks to your firm position in support of building TurkStream.”31 Moreover, in late 2022, Putin and Erdogan discussed creating of a gas hub where the EU could purchase Russian gas through Turkey. As Erdogan claimed, “Europe is currently thinking 26

Essaid, S. (2023 6 March). Russia to add Gulf countries to visa-free travel list. Al-Monitor. Buyuk, H. (2023 31 January). Turkey’s Foreign Trade Deficit Spikes, Imports from Russia Double. Balkan Insight. 28 Hayatsever, H. & Pamuk, H. (2023 20 February). Turkey not exporting items for use in Russia war effortl—Foreign Minister. Reuters. 29 Turkstream website. https://turkstream.info/project/ 30 Gotev, G. (2022 13 October). Putin puts ‘gas hub’ plan to Erdogan, hints at sabotage attempt against TurkStream. EURACTIV.com.; Entous, A., Barnes, J., & Goldman, A. (2023 7 March). Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say. The New York Times. 31 Gotev, G. (2022 13 October). Putin puts ‘gas hub’ plan to Erdogan, hints at sabotage attempt against TurkStream. EURACTIV.com. 27

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about how to ensure energy supplies in the coming winter period. We, thank God, do not have such a problem. Moreover, at our last meeting with Putin, we agreed to create a gas hub in Turkey.”32 The US government expressed concern publicly in early 2023 that Russian companies continue to ship oil worldwide and use intermediaries while importing U.S. and European technology in countries that have not imposed sanctions on Russia. “We are specifically concerned about increases in trade with Russia in the kind of goods that can be used on the battlefield and those who are aiding designated Russian entities,”33 Elizabeth Rosenberg, the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said in March 2023. Turkey and the Gulf region have emerged as especially important in this regard. “UAE, along with countries like Turkey, is providing a critical economic lifeline to the Kremlin, which could help its war effort. Many of the missiles and drones deployed by Russia rely on western component parts,” Rosenberg said.34

3.3 Iraq, Egypt and Other Arab States Outside the Gulf and Turkey, Russia continued commercial activity throughout the Middle East. When it comes to Russia-Iraq relations, bilateral trade has risen 40% from January to August 2022, to $313 million. While the total volume is small, the upward trajectory after the invasion of Ukraine is noteworthy.35 Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov came to Iraq in 2002 and in early 2023 to discuss business, especially energy issues, including Lukoil and Gazprom, and implementation of the corresponding resolutions of the Russian-Iraqi commission on trade, economic and scientific cooperation.36 Upon the meeting’s conclusion Lavrov said: In current circumstances, with illegal restrictions imposed by the US and their satellites, it is critical to preserve legitimate economic relations from illegal Western pressure, as many countries in the region are doing when, instead of using the dollar, converting to payments, including payments for oil supplies, in currencies of other trustworthy countries that care about their reputation as participants in international economic transactions.37 32

Al Mayadeen. (2022 19 October). Erdogan: EU will be able to purchase Russian gas via Turkey Al Mayadeen. 33 Remarks by Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Rosenberg for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Association of Women in International Trade, U.S. Department of the Treasury. (20,232 March). 34 Byrne, J. et al., (2022 August). Silicon Lifeline: Western Electronics at the Heart of Russia’s War Machine. RUSI. 35 Russia Briefing News. (2022 6 November). Russia-Iraqi Trade Up 40% In 2022. Russia Briefing News. 36 Frantzman, S. (2023 6 February). What is Russia’s Lavrov doing in Iraq?—analysis. Jerusalem Post. 7. 37 TASS. (2023 6 February). Russia, Iraq have to protect their cooperation from illegal Western sanctions—Lavrovl—Russian Politics & Diplomacy. TASS.

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Russia also continued to pursue energy ties with Iraqi Kurdistan, where in previous years Russia’s energy giant Rosneft had agreed to construct a pipeline to Turkey, which significantly expanded Moscow’s reach into the Middle East energy sector.38 More to the point, ties with Iraq—both Baghdad and the KRG—are also important for Moscow from a geopolitical perspective. Given Russia’s existing strategic position in Syria, additional inroads in Iraq could potentially allow Russia to carve out a strategic corridor. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Russia continued with construction to build Egypt’s El Dabaa nuclear power plant.39 Indeed, the West has not sanctioned Russia’s stateowned nuclear energy monopoly Rosatom, which builds nuclear power stations around the world, Egypt included.40 In addition to energy cooperation, In the first half of 2022, trade between Egypt and Russia has increased slightly by 2.2%, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).41 In January 2023 Russia announced it is working on a way to settle payment for gain exports to Egypt in rubles instead of dollars, which is especially important given that Egypt is Russia’s largest wheat buyer. Indeed, Russia’s central bank, The Bank of Russia, announced on 18 January 2023 that it had set an official exchange rate for the ruble against nine foreign currencies; in addition to the Egyptian pound, these include the UAE dirham and the Qatari riyal.42 Beyond Iraq and Egypt, Russia’s exports to Morocco reportedly doubled in the first half of 2022, nearly $1.2 billion,43 while Russia and Algeria held talks to boost military cooperation.44 A recent letter by a bipartisan group of US senators called for sanctions on Algiers, given Algeria’s growing ties with Moscow, especially arms deals.45 In response Lavrov said the US “attacked the wrong person” and confirmed Algeria’s rapprochement with Russia.46 Thus, Russia appears intent on deepening ties with Algeria. And in the context of the dire economic situation in Lebanon, Moscow

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Borshchevskaya, A. & Wahab, B. (2018 14 June). In Search of a New Patron, the KRG Turns Back to Moscow The Washington Institute. 39 Hosny, H. (2022 7 November). Egypt, Russia commence second phase of nuclear power plant construction Al-Monitor. 40 Sebastian, C. (2023 6 March). Why the West hasn’t gone after Russian nuclear energy. CNN. 41 Al-Aees, S. (2023 22 January). Trading EGP on Moscow Exchange will have positive impact on Egyptian economy: Official. Daily News Egypt. 42 Tabhika, K. (2023 24 January). Switching trade with Russia from dollars to roubles ‘could boost Egyptian economy.’ The National. 43 Rahhou, J. (2022 4 September). Russia’s Exports to Morocco Double in First Half of 2022. Morocco World News. 44 The Defense Post. (2023 27 February). Algeria and Russia Aim to Boost Military Ties. The Defense Post. 45 Haboush, J. (2022 29 September). Bipartisan letter to Blinken calls for sanctions on Algeria after Russia arms deal. Al Arabiya. 46 Aamari, O. (2023 4 February). Sergey Lavrov Confirms Depth of Russia’s Alliance with Algeria. Morocco World News.

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is working to build good will in Lebanon by donating wheat and oil products to Beirut.47 Rhetoric certainly matters in politics, and lack of a direct condemnation of Russia’s invasion from the region was bad enough. But on a practical level, the commercial ties Moscow was able to improve with the region after its invasion had allowed Russia to retain resources to continue to finance and wage war on Ukraine. From a pragmatic standpoint, the West could not isolate Russia globally at the time of this writing. The region’s willingness to deepen these commercial ties with Russia showed the limits of what economic sanctions could do to deter Russia, as well as the limits of Western diplomacy in enlisting Middle East allies in partner in a joint effort to isolate and deter Russia.

4 Kremlin Narrative Resonates Commentators have declared over the course of 2022 that Ukraine won the narrative on the war against Russia, but this has only been true among liberal democracies. In the Middle East, the Russian narrative overall has resonated. The region does not see the global dimension to the Russian invasion, rather it tends to see it as a far-removed from the European war. It also tends to see the West as hypocritical, in a sense that it helped Ukraine far more than it helped its allies in the region. Time and again, in private conversations with Arab interlocutors, this author heard echoes of the Kremlin’s favorite propaganda lines: Russia was provoked by NATO enlargement; Russia-Ukraine history is “complicated”; and America, which invaded Iraq without cause, has no standing to criticize Russian action in Ukraine. While regional leaders tend to be more circumspect in public, Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s former permanent representative to the UN, explained recently in an article when speaking about the global South, that “in their heart of hearts, many leaders of these countries do not buy the ‘black-and-white’ story that the West is selling on the conflict: Ukraine and the West are completely virtuous; Russia is completely evil.”48 Egyptian writer, Amr Salah, writing for Carnegie, writes that support for Putin, is rooted in societal polarization and competing narrative over whether strongman rule or democracy is a better form of governance. He adds, “… the official Western responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine represent another element in building support for Putin among Arab populations. For Putin’s supporters, Western responses to the Ukrainian crisis reveal double standards and contradict the prevailing Western discourse on the Arab crises.”49 47

Al Arabiya. (2022 13 October). Russia to donate 25,000 tons of wheat to Lebanon: Minister. Al Arabiya. 48 Mahbubani, K. (2023 18 February). Time for the West to Rethink Goal of Total Defeat for Russia in Ukraine. South China Morning Post. 49 Salah, A, (2022 16 June). Why Does Some of the Arab Public Support Putin’s War in Ukraine? Carnegie Endowment.

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Years before the Ukraine invasion, Russia Today (RT) Arabic and Sputnik emerged as major sources of legitimate regional news. The Middle East media landscape overall has provided fertile ground for these outlets, more so than in the Western world. In the Middle East, RT and Sputnik have relied heavily on social media allowing the Kremlin to exploit the growing Arabic-speaking youth bulge to lay the foundation for long-term influence. Furthermore, RT and Sputnik have provide substantial coverage of major regional issues in Syria, Iran, Egypt, Israel, the Gulf, and the West, along with Russia’s internal politics.50 After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian state-run media have retained full access to airwaves in the region, enabling the Kremlin to propagate its narrative on the war via regional media.51 And Moscow knows its audience in the Middle East well. It routinely frames the war as a Russian challenge to the US-led hegemonic order, an argument that plays well in many Arab capitals. For example, the Arabic news aggregator Nabd frequently reposts RT Arabic articles. Polling among Arab states and Turkey has leaned towards positive perceptions of Russia. A recent European Council on Foreign Relations poll for example showed a stark difference between public opinion in Turkey and opinion in the West regarding Russia. The survey showed that most Turkish citizens view Russia as a “necessary partner” or “ally” rather than a rival or adversary. On the war, almost half say a settlement should be found “as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine giving up territory.”52 Arab News-YouGov found in Spring 2022 that among the Gulf states, only 22% of respondents sided Ukraine. Some experts suggested that they are echoing the views of their governments, also see the war as a European conflict.53 And my colleague David Pollock’s Washington Institute poll in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait found that “while around three-quarters in each country actually voice a negative view of Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, most would probably not support active measures against Russian interests—or are in favor of American ones”.54 A battle for narratives historically was always an inseparable part of warfare. It was also closely linked to morale and will to fight. That Kremlin narratives resonate in the Middle East among Western allies and partners is an example of Russia gaining in the battle against the US-led global order Moscow is waging in Ukraine. In the backdrop of low morale within the Russian military, there is another battlefield unfolding—for the hearts and minds of the global south, and here the Kremlin’s morale does not 50

Borshchevskaya, A. & Cleveland, C. (2018 19 December). Russia’s Arabic Propaganda: What It Is, Why It Matters. The Washington Institute. 51 Sherman, A. (2022 3 March). Russia-tied cable news station RT America closes amid Ukraine invasion. CNBC.; Oweidat, N. (2022 18 April). The Russian Propaganda in Arabic Hidden from the West The Washington Institute.; Borshchevskaya, A. & Cleveland, C. (2022 9 May). Is the West Losing the Battle of Narratives in the Middle East? The Washington Institute. 52 Ash, T., Krastev, I., & Leonard, M. (2023 22 February). United West, divided from the rest: Global public opinion one year into Russia’s war on Ukraine. European Council on Foreign Relations. 53 Fouad, L. (2022 30 May). Poll finds that Arab street has no stance on Russia-Ukraine conflict. Arab News. 54 Pollock, D. (2022 30 April). Russia’s Move on Ukraine Polls Poorly in Arab Gulf. The Washington Institute.

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need a boost. The will to fight (along with resources) is a key ingredient in who wins in protracted warfare. To discredit Russia ideologically outside the liberal world, the West needs to discredit its narratives on Ukraine in the Middle East.

5 Conclusion The West deserves a lot of credit for making sure that Ukraine does not lose on the battlefield but is having more trouble framing Russia as a global pariah. Russia’s ability to make greater inroads in the Middle East after invading Ukraine—and the region’s receptivity to Russia—is a case in point. President Zelensky and senior Ukrainian officials called for complete victory at the end of 2022, meaning the reconquering of every inch of Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea.55 Polls in 2022 indicated that the vast majority of Ukrainians want to fight until they achieve complete victory against Russia and believe they can win.56 But the West has not come up with a clear vision of how Ukraine is going to win, and it remains unclear what a Ukrainian victory would look like. Ukraine is facing long-term protracted warfare. Protracted warfare puts Ukraine at a disadvantage. To reverse this trend the liberal world needs to turn Russia into a global pariah. Only then will Russia start losing its ability to wage war. Western analysts have focused over the course of the year on Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine, but what is less mentioned is that the assault on Kyiv had come close to succeeding, and at year’s end Russia controlled 17% of Ukraine’s territory, about ten percent more than at the start of the invasion. As Graham Allison, a professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School has summarized, if the second year of the war goes on as the first year did, Russia will control almost onethird of Ukraine by February 2024.57 While China presents a longer-term challenge to the US than Russia, Russia is not going away anytime soon. Even a severely weakened Russia will remain important, especially in the global energy market. The Middle East understands this point and does not want to choose between great powers. From the region’s perspective Russia will remain a permanent feature of geopolitics. Therefore, the US will need to walk and chew gum at the same time—it will need to focus on both Russia and China. To that end the West needs to do a better job in isolating Russia from its global economic and military lifelines. This entails putting together a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond sanctions alone. This strategy should look at competition with Russia through a broader aperture, beyond Europe 55

YouTube. (2023 24 February). Ukraine’s president pledges push for victory on war anniversary. YouTube. 56 Reinhart, R. (2022 18 October). Ukrainians Support Fighting Until Victory. Gallup,; Tyshchenko, K. (2022 11 August). Poll shows 98% Ukrainians believe in Ukraine’s victory, 91% approve of Zelenskyy. Ukrainska Pravda. 57 Allison, G. (2023 23 February). A Report Card on the War in Ukraine. Foreign Policy.

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alone. It should include a successful global information narrative that shows Russia (and China) for what they are, states consumed by imperial grandeur, a vision that is ultimately a losing one compared to what the West has to offer. The West should also recognize that the Middle East is a vital arena of great power competition—as it had been for several hundred years—and it cannot win the competition of this century without an active presence there. Russia, for one, understands this and is excelling at it.

References Aamari, O. (2023 4 February). Sergey Lavrov Confirms Depth of Russia’s Alliance with Algeria. Morocco World News. Al Arabiya. (2022 13 October). Russia to donate 25,000 tons of wheat to Lebanon: Minister. Al Arabiya. Al Mayadeen. (2022 19 October). Erdogan: EU will be able to purchase Russian gas via Turkey Al Mayadeen. Al-Aees, S. (2023 22 January). Trading EGP on Moscow Exchange will have positive impact on Egyptian economy: Official. Daily News Egypt. Allison, G. (2023 23 February). A Report Card on the War in Ash, T., Krastev, I., & Leonard, M. (2023 22 February). United West, divided from the rest: Global public opinion one year into Russia’s war on Ukraine. European Council on Foreign Relations. BBC. (2022 20 February). Russia’s economy shrinks by less than expected. BBC. Bella, T. (2022 8 March). Putin turns Russia into world’s most-sanctioned country, beating out Iran, North Korea after Ukraine invasion. The Washington Post. Borshchevskaya, A. & Cleveland, C. (2018 19 December). Russia’s Arabic Propaganda: What It Is, Why It Matters. The Washington Institute. Borshchevskaya, A. & Cleveland, C. (2022 9 May). Is the West Losing the Battle of Narratives in the Middle East? The Washington Institute. Borshchevskaya, A. & Wahab, B. (2018 14 June). In Search of a New Patron, the KRG Turns Back to Moscow The Washington Institute. Buyuk, H. (2023 31 January). Turkey’s Foreign Trade Deficit Spikes, Imports from Russia Double. Balkan Insight. Byrne, J. et al, (2022 August). Silicon Lifeline: Western Electronics at the Heart of Russia’s War Machine. RUSI. Congressional Research Service. (2022 13 December). The Economic Impact of Russia Sanctions. Congressional Research Service. Entous, A., Barnes, J., & Goldman, A. (2023 7 March). Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say. The New York Times. Erdogan, R. (2022 6 February). Twitter. Essaid, S. (2023 6 March). Russia to add Gulf countries to visa-free travel list. Al-Monitor. European Union External Action Website. (2022 2 March). UN General Assembly demands Russian Federation withdraw all military forces from the territory of Ukraine. europa.eu. Faiola, A. (2022 1 April). How Russian oligarchs are finding safe havens in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates. The Washington Post. Financial Times. (2023 1 March). West presses UAE to clamp down on suspected Russia sanctions busting. Financial Times. Foreign Ministry of Oman. (2022 11 May) Oman’s Foreign Minister holds talks with Russian Foreign Minister. Foreign Ministry of Oman.; Arab News. (2022 11 May). Oman, welcoming Russian FM, says committed to OPEC+ agreement. Arab News.

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Fouad, L. (2022 30 May). Poll finds that Arab street has no stance on Russia-Ukraine conflict. Arab News. Frantzman, S. (2023 6 February). What is Russia’s Lavrov doing in Iraq?—analysis. Jerusalem Post. 7 Free Russia Foundation. (2023 January). Effectiveness of U.S. sanctions targeting Russian companies and individuals. Free Russia Foundation. Gotev, G. (2022 13 October). Putin puts ‘gas hub’ plan to Erdogan, hints at sabotage attempt against TurkStream. EURACTIV.com. Haboush, J. (2022 29 September). Bipartisan letter to Blinken calls for sanctions on Algeria after Russia arms deal. Al Arabiya. Hayatsever, H. & Pamuk, H. (2023 20 February). Turkey not exporting items for use in Russia war effortl—Foreign Minister. Reuters. Hosny, H. (2022 7 November). Egypt, Russia commence second phase of nuclear power plant construction Al-Monitor. Kaufman, E. Liebermann, O. & Hansler, J. (2022 28 March). Lawmakers are starting to grumble about Leshchiner, D. et al, (2022 March 2). The UN Resolution on Ukraine: How Did the Middle East Vote? The Washington Institute.; Mahbubani, K. (2023 18 February). Time for the West to Rethink Goal of Total Defeat for Russia in Ukraine. South China Morning Post. Matthews, S. (2023 2 March). “UAE is ‘country of focus’ as US looks to target Russia’s economic partners. Middle East Eye. Nagle, P. & Temag, K. (2022 16 December). Oil prices remain volatile amid demand pessimism and constrained supply. World Bank. Northam, J. (2022 13 October). The White House accuses Saudi Arabia of aiding Russia and coercing OPEC oil producers. NPR. Pamuk, H. & Landay, J. (2022 2 March). U.N. General Assembly in historic vote denounces Russia over Ukraine invasion. Reuters. Pollock, D. (2022 30 April). Russia’s Move on Ukraine Polls Poorly in Arab Gulf. The Washington Institute. President of Russia. (2023 21 February). Presidential Address to Federal Assembly.” Kremlin.ru. Rahhou, J. (2022 4 September). Russia’s Exports to Morocco Double in First Half of 2022. Morocco World News. Reinhart, R. (2022 18 October). Ukrainians Support Fighting Until Victory. Gallup. Remarks by Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Rosenberg for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Association of Women in International Trade, U.S. Department of the Treasury. (20232 March). Reuters. (2023 6 March). Exclusive: Russian crude oil heads to UAE as sanctions divert flows. Reuters. Reuters. (2023 7 March). UPDATE 1-Russia begins diesel exports to Saudi Arabia -traders, Refinitiv data. Reuters. Russia Briefing News. (2022 6 November). Russia-Iraqi Trade Up 40% In 2022. Russia Briefing News. Salah, A, (2022 16 June). Why Does Some of the Arab Public Support Putin’s War in Ukraine? Carnegie Endowment. Sciutto, J. & Williams, K. (2022, February 25). “US intelligence assessed that the city could fall soon after the invasion. CNN.; Sebastian, C. (2023 6 March). Why the West hasn’t gone after Russian nuclear energy. CNN. Sherman, A. (2022 3 March). Russia-tied cable news station RT America closes amid Ukraine invasion. CNBC.; Oweidat, N. (2022 18 April). The Russian Propaganda in Arabic Hidden from the West The Washington Institute. Soldatkin, Vladimir & Marrow, A. (2021 13 October). Putin sees potential to work with Biden on energy, security and more. Reuters.

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Tabhika, K. (2023 24 January). Switching trade with Russia from dollars to roubles ‘could boost Egyptian economy.‘ The National. TASS. (2023 6 February). Russia, Iraq have to protect their cooperation from illegal Western sanctions—Lavrovl—Russian Politics & Diplomacy. TASS. The Defense Post. (2023 27 February). Algeria and Russia Aim to Boost Military Ties. The Defense Post. The Economist. (2023 29 January). How Russia dodges oil sanctions on an industrial scale. The Economist. Turkstream website. https://turkstream.info/project/ Tyshchenko, K. (2022 11 August). Poll shows 98% Ukrainians believe in Ukraine’s victory, 91% approve of Zelenskyy. Ukrainska Pravda. UN News. (2022 12 October). Ukraine: UN General Assembly demands Russia reverse course on ‘attempted illegal annexation.’” UN News. UN News. (2022 7 April). UN General Assembly votes to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. UN News. United Nations in Ukraine. (2023 22 February). Remarks of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly Emergency Special Session on Ukraine United Nations in Ukraine. YouTube. (2023 24 February). Ukraine’s president pledges push for victory on war anniversary. YouTube. Zaida, M. (2022 28 February). Arab League following Ukraine developments with ‘great concern.’ Arab News.

Great Power Competition Following the Ukraine War G. Douglas Davis and Michael O. Slobodchikoff

Abstract The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in February 2022 created a new era of great power competition and geopolitical struggle. The conflict is drawing assets and attention from Washington and Moscow, opening the world to opportunities for China and other states to gain influence. Beijing is the conflict’s primary beneficiary as it has increased its source of energy and raw materials, while the West and Russia have incurred significant costs. The economic burden is falling on European, African, and Middle Eastern states. India will maintain its neutrality and maintain its military ties to Russia. The states not directly affected by the conflict are unlikely to be drawn into the Western side. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will further complicate American foreign relations and make it more difficult to gain international support for its positions. Washington will need to re-vise its strategic approach to deal with additional factors and allow it to advance in more difficult circumstances. Keywords Ukraine · Great power competition · China · Geopolitics · Russia · National security

1 Introduction The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in February 2022 created a new era of great power competition and geopolitical struggle. Moscow’s military had been building up along the border for months and Western intelligence agencies warned of an imminent attack for weeks. Russia was expected to go into eastern Ukraine, but few believed that an initial invasion would include an attempt to take Kiev. Instead, Russian forces attempted to take the Ukrainian capital while simultaneously entering G. Douglas Davis (B) · M. O. Slobodchikoff Troy University, Troy, AL, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. O. Slobodchikoff e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_3

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the Donbas and Luhansk regions. The goal was to remove Volodymyr Zelenskyy from power and replace him with someone who would support Moscow’s security needs and agree to territorial concessions that could end the conflict. Moscow’s initial invasion plan failed and instead of a quick victory, Russia found itself mired in a long-enduring conflict. This destroyed its relationship with the West and ended all efforts at rapprochement and created the conditions for a new Iron Curtain between NATO member states and Russia. US-Russian relations ground to a halt and even in areas in which two states cooperated previously, such as joint efforts to support the international space station. Moscow and Washington had engaged in much effort to create joint projects but the Ukrainian invasion ended this collaboration. Europe is again divided between great powers who are on opposing sides of a continental ground war. This was the first time since World War II that great powers were involved in a European conflict. The situation between Moscow and Washington is extremely reminiscent of the Cold War era. Following World War II, the two allies who defeated the Germans became strategic rivals and were dominated by two different ideologies. The first was that of liberal democracy, which was adhered to by the United States and its allies. The second was of communism, which was adhered to by the Soviet Union and its allies. The former war allies’ relationship had transformed into a geo-political rivalry where each sought to gain as many states to accept their ideology as possible. As states chose between east or west, they became military partners in the great struggle between democracy and communism. Washington saw Moscow as the great enemy and sought to contain communist ideology from spreading and defeating the ideology of liberal democracy. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a euphoria spread to both sides and there was hope of a renewed relationship. Both Moscow and Washington vowed to cooperate with each other and enter into a new era of peace and prosperity. In fact, George H. W. Bush stated that we would see a new Europe whole and free in this new era. There was a genuine belief that geopolitical rivalry and competition was an antiquated relic and that the new world order would bring cooperation and prosperity for all. However, this new era of cooperation did not last. Events such as the expansion of NATO, the war in Yugoslavia, and the enlargement of the European Union served to isolate Moscow from Washington. While there were many efforts initially at bringing in Russia into the Western fold, Moscow resented the fact that it no longer had a seat at the table, and was treated more as a junior partner than a great power (Slobodchikoff 2014; Davis and Slobodchikoff 2018, 2022). It should be noted that while many policy makers in the West had stated that the era of geopolitics and great power competition was over after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the war in Ukraine showed that great power competition had not disappeared, it had merely receded from US policy maker’s minds following the end of the Cold War. We now examine the great power competition between Russia and the United States over Eastern Europe following the end of the Cold War.

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2 Great Power Competition in Eastern Europe Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president, attempted to integrate Russia into the West. However, Yeltsin believed that rather than capitulate and fully integrate into the world order established by the United States, Russia was a great power that deserved a seat at the table and the ability to negotiate with the United States in order to create a new global order. The United States was not willing to negotiate a new world order. Instead, policymakers were convinced that the Soviet Union had lost the Cold War and that Russia must accept the global order is it is and integrate into the world order as a vanquished foe. According to Jack Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, the US and the Soviet Union negotiated an end to the Cold War, and that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a different event. He argues that policymakers should have made that distinction clear because if they were to conflate those two events, then it looks as though the Soviet Union was defeated by the United States and the Cold War, which he argues is not accurate (Matlock 2010). If Moscow freely relinquished its hold on Eastern Europe through negotiations and a partnership with Washington, then it did not lose the Cold War and should have more international status. Russia wanted the same international status as the Soviet Union, but when the USSR divided into multiple states, the overall power capability changed and this lowered Russia’s international status. There was disunity between Russian ambitions and its recognized status that would create complications for future relations. Moscow became increasingly resentful of American policy in Eastern Europe and Russia began to become more belligerent with its neighbors and across the region. In Eastern Europe, Moscow’s actions antagonized those states, creating a view that Russia was a resurgent power that sought to maintain influence and some control in Eastern and Central Europe and the Baltics (Davis and Slobodchikoff 2018). This many states and leaders to see Russia as a major threat and the best option available to small, weak states was NATO membership (Karlsbergs 2021). Such policies led to a feedback loop in which relations increasingly worsened and became tense. The invasion of Ukraine was a culmination of frustration between Moscow and Washington over their visions of the world and the world order. However, contrary to the period of the Cold War, this devolution of relations occurred not because of ideology, but rather because of geopolitics and power politics. During the period leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow used asymmetric tactics against Washington and the West. Most of these asymmetric tactics involved psychological warfare. The Russian psychological approach to conflict where nonmilitary actors are strategically incorporated into its war effort has received much attention. The so-called Gerasimov doctrine combines information warfare, cyberattacks, and psychological warfare with military actions to prevail in war. Called hybrid warfare in the West and non-linear war within Russia, Moscow has come to realize that a broad range of actors are an essential and critical part of modern warfare.

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Journalists, diplomats, academics, economists, computer hackers, transnational criminal organizations, social media outlets and other groups outside the military participate and play important roles in advancing the national strategic agenda. Working in concert, each of these actors can interact with different Western populations to delegitimize governments and weaken their military. Russia seeks to accomplish its strategic objectives without needing to use hard military force. A free and open society that relies on freedom of speech and the press is vulnerable to outside actors who can deploy resources that give them the ability to directly market their positions on official and social media. The liberties taken for granted within the West can be targeted to sow confusion, proliferate misinformation, exacerbate existing societal divisions, and blur the lines between truth and fiction. Moscow has often used trolls to flood social media with misinformation and sow confusion and dissent in Western democracies. They intervene in social discourse to create or aggravate pre-existing divisions and wreak havoc with the political systems they have targeted. Moscow prepared for the Ukraine War by supporting extremist candidates, using polarizing social issues, and sowing doubt in Western democratic institutions. This effort sought to break the Western consensus and create conditions where there would be discord among allied states in NATO, which would create divisions among Western allies to Russia’s benefit when conflict did break out. They thought this tactic would foster divisions and lead to arguments among the allies that would delay or weaken sanctions, and would lead to a lessening the response of the Western democracies to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. Moscow has worked for years to create confusion and discord across Europe and the West to give it a public diplomacy advantage in the event of conflict. In the current war in Ukraine, Moscow spent years preparing the battlefield and creating conditions which would let it be successful in carrying out its long-term strategy. However, Moscow’s strategy did not take into account that the Western democracies were prepared to combat the Gerasimov doctrine with its own version of hybrid warfare. Instead, Moscow faced a united front of democracies willing to levy heavy sanctions against Putin and the oligarchs supporting him. Even small states who in normal times would lack the domestic support to make tough stands against Russia are pressing forward with the sanctions and helping to isolate Putin. Moscow’s nonmilitary actors have failed to produce the discord and have been out-maneuvered by the West, and certainly by Ukraine itself—forcing Moscow to figure out how to combat its own strategy. In other words, the West has out-Gerasimoved the Gerasimov Doctrine. Ironically, the return of great power competition in Europe masks true great power competition. In terms of demography, Russia and much of Western Europe are declining powers (Slobodchikoff and Davis 2021). While the United States and Russia are preoccupied fighting a proxy war in Ukraine, China and India are carefully watching the situation with their own views of challenging the global order. We now turn to an examination of some of those challenges.

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3 Changing Periphery The areas where great powers compete for control and influence in the developing world are changing due to the Ukraine conflict. As Russian forces invaded, they were able to occupy and control less ground than what they planned. Forces were withdrawn from Kiev and redeployed to the east. In addition, Russia strengthened its invasion forces by adding personnel, both professional, private, and mercenary forces, from regions in the Middle East and North Africa where they had been deployed. As a result, states that have maintained a close relationship with Moscow for domestic security—such as Syria, Libya, and Armenia—have fewer Russian forces protecting them. In some cases, the Russians were able to adjust their protection to rely more on air-power, but the depletion of forces has jeopardized some dependent populations. This personnel change has created a geo-political struggle to gain influence within the territory Russia has left. The Ukraine war creates openings for other actors to move into these regions where Russians are reducing their presence. In the Levant, both Israel and Turkey have become more aggressive in Syria and have undertaken operations that would have been riskier had Russia maintained its full ground military presence. Further, Turkey has used its ability as a NATO member state to block NATO from accepting Finland and Sweden as new member states. Similarly, the Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh are increasingly vulnerable to Turkish influences. The largest question concerns the international impact on Libya. The United States and Europe have stepped back from Libya while Russia, Turkey, and Arab states are engaged in a power competition over influence in this country. Moscow’s intervention in Libya has been ad hoc as it moved into areas abandoned by the West; Russian presence, therefore, serves as a means to give it additional influence within the broader Middle East. The geo-strategic vulnerabilities created by Russia’s re-deploying its troops from these regions to Ukraine has so far generated additional military activity from Turkey and Israel, yet the other great powers have not sought to directly exploit this opening. The United States, China, the EU, and India are relying on their existing networks present within the region rather than introducing new forces. Turkey’s NATO membership allows it to take additional risks in exploiting the Russian movement of forces to Ukraine. Likewise, Israel’s relationship with Washington allows it to be more aggressive in attacking Iranian and Hezbollah fighters and weapons than it would as an isolated state. The present incentives to avoid a direct military conflict have limited the competition and Turkey and Israel’s new movements have been careful to avoid targeting Russians. Whether through error or miscalculation, the danger is that a militarized conflict between Russia and Turkey would mean a war between NATO and Moscow. Likewise, any combat involving Israel would bring Washington into the struggle. The risk is that an American ally could find itself in a shooting war with Russia that would deteriorate into a great-power war. It is easy to recognize that a great-power conflict could emerge directly from the events in Ukraine, but there is additional threat. The Russian movement of forces

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from the Middle East to Ukraine creates the possibility for a war with an American ally that could lead to a great-power war. China maintains a smaller Middle Eastern military presence and is very unlikely to be drawn into a great-power conflict in the region. However, the Ukrainian war increases the possibility of a new great power conflict as American allies move to take advantage of the removal of Russian troops in the Middle East. At this time, China’s regional military presence is limited to its naval forces and training missions and it is not likely to be drawn into this conflict.

4 China’s Game The Chinese are well-placed to benefit from the Russian invasion of Ukraine by becoming more aggressive in East Asia. While the West is focused on Eastern Europe, China is gathering its strength to make strategic geopolitical gains. Beijing has provided a market for Russian exports currently sanctioned by the West and China has a stronger supply of oil and natural gas. Western sanctions have not hurt Russia’s economy, as originally conceived, and the ruble which collapsed as the war began has recovered. As China has consumed Russian energy, this has allowed Moscow to stabilize its economy and permit the war to be fought indefinitely. While the world was focused on the Ukraine War, China had greater room to maneuver within its own region. The United States and its NATO allies have offered Ukraine help by donating vast weapon supplies to such an extent that the domestic stock is endangered. The longer the war between Kiev and Moscow goes on, the fewer weapons the United States and its close allies will have to provide to its East Asian allies. China desires to control Taiwan and the Ukrainian conflict makes it less likely that Washington will be able to provide military aid to Taipei. The cost– benefit calculations for Beijing make conflict less costly and increase the probability of war. We do not argue that this makes war inevitable, but Russian aggression against Ukraine makes Chinese aggression against Taiwan more probable. While invading Taiwan is the primary fear within the West, China has other opportunities to change the status quo. China can extend its territorial claims and continue to build islands to foster its military power. One outcome that would be problematic for Washington is if China were able to expand the geographic range of its anti-navel ballistic missile. This change, which is not a direct act of war, threatens the American military Pacific presence and would weaken Washington’s ability to project power in East Asia. Washington is focused on limiting Russia’s success within Ukraine, and China can take advantage of this conflict by making strategic changes that would undermine the United States ability to protect its Asian allies. Beijing has a clear strategic interest in moving American troops from its borders and region. If China succeeds and Washington pulls back, the Chinese military will have the ability to move outside its region and establish a long-term global presence. In the short term, the largest strategic victor of the Ukraine War is not Russia, nor the West, but Beijing. Even if

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China does not invade Taiwan, it is well-positioned to further challenge the United States in Asia and become a stronger, more powerful great power.

5 Economic Element—Burdening Europe, the Middle East, and Africa The Russian approach to war has been called Fourth Generation warfare, hybrid warfare, and non-linear war. Moscow sees Western democracy as a direct threat to its ruling elite and, therefore, as against its national interest. Putin’s fear is that a revolution forcing him from office will be instigated within Russia as it happened in color revolutions of Georgia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan and so Moscow seeks to insulate itself from foreign influence while using psychological operations to undermine foreign adversaries. Russia recognizes that it does not have the military power to accomplish its security goals by employing them in the classical sense. Thus, it has broadened its concept of war to include psychological, diplomatic, economic, informational, and socio-political elements. If Moscow is successful in deploying these elements, it can accomplish its goals against the West without having to resort to direct conflict. It also uses different methods within each adversary because it targets the local vulnerabilities—and these vary across the West—and does not have a consistent course it takes in all states. The tactics employed in one theatre are not used in others and this makes its maneuvers appear unpredictable. Russia’s military invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine are not likely to be repeated in its struggle with NATO and the West. The Russian military strategy suggests that its division from the West will be long-term and fought on many levels—such as economic, cultural, informational, and political. One important element of the Gerasimov analysis is that a state of war exists well before any shots are fired. Moscow already sees conflict with the West as an active cultural war. It sees this contest no longer as temporary, but permanent— which means that Russia fully understands that its division from Europe and the United States are going to endure for the foreseeable future. The key to Russia’s strategy is to use the resources at its disposal in a way that provides benefits to its allies and imposes severe costs on its opponents. Russia has two resources that it can leverage as a tool in its conflict with Ukraine and the West: oil and agricultural products. We have already discussed how China benefits through its access to Russian energy, but there is an additional resource advantage Beijing gains that few recognize. One effective way to create long-term economic chaos is to use the Black Sea blockade of Ukraine as a means to prevent its agricultural products and fertilizer from reaching world markets. Kiev is responsible for ten percent of global wheat trade, fifteen percent of corn, fifteen percent of barley, and two-thirds of all sunflower meal. Together, Russia and Ukraine produce eighty percent of the world’s sunflower oil (IATR 2022). In addition, the four largest fertilizer exporters are Russia, Canada, China and Belarus, only Canada is on within

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the Western alliance. The agricultural market was already problematic due to Covid restrictions and eleven states have agricultural export restrictions—the global shortages caused by the Ukraine war are likely to increase these trade limitations. Moscow and Beijing have also implemented export bans on fertilizer or components used to manufacture them. The inability to fertilize will lower crop yields. The trade bans work to increase panic and generate additional price spikes. The countries that have the greatest important-dependent populations will see their populations food supply contract and suffer hunger and possible famine. This may create a pathdependent crisis leading to additional export constraints and expanding the potential crisis further. China is positioned to benefit as Russia separates itself economically from the West as Beijing is the world’s largest agriculture importer (IATR 2020). Since Ukraine’s agricultural shipments to its partners are prevented by the Black Sea blockade from reaching their destination, they now must take a more expensive route to reach the Baltic Sea. This network, however, is currently being used to ship weapons to Ukraine. The Russian goods that were previously destined for Europe or the West are not re-directed to China who stands to gain more food security through the Ukrainian War. While food shortages are likely to emerge globally, one state has improved its access to global agriculture. The costs are going to be disproportionally born by the West and its allies in the Middle East and Africa. While it is impossible to assess the specific consequences food shortages will have on international relations, there are a couple of simple predictions that are likely to come. The negative costs are likely to be experienced by Arab and African states who will become increasingly unable to feed their populations (Gutiérrez-Moya et al. 2021; D’Odorico et al. 2014). Since European population is aging and it has a strong social-welfare state, it is probable that more refugees will attempt to move from poor states into the EU. The impact could be greater than the 2015 refugee crisis. This will further aggravate the budget deficits and place increasing pressures on European governments to stop the immigrants. This is in the midst of European states already struggling to provide for the existing Ukrainian refugees. The surreal combination where female Ukrainian refugees compete with male-majority African and Arab immigrants for European social spending will generate a crisis for Europe. While no one is talking about this, one foreseeable outcome of the Ukraine-Russian war will be increased immigration from Africa and the Middle East into Europe. A second consequence is that wars may occur between small states with vulnerable food supplies. While it is difficult to make specific individual state forecasts in a general overview, it is likely that shortages may increase incentives for governments to use their military to try to gain access to food supply. It is likely that small wars will emerge as a direct consequence of the food shortage generated by the UkraineRussian War. These conflicts will further incentive migrants to try to settle in Europe to escape conflict and gain reliable access to food. A long-term consequence will be that Europe will face increasing pressures on its budget as it struggles to maintain its generous social-welfare state. Not only will it have to add Ukrainian refugees, but it will also face additional migration from Africa and the Middle East. Europe will have to focus more on internal problems and will be

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increasingly difficult to act as a protagonist and to manage the international system. It will also be more possible to be forced to intervene in local conflicts that result from shortages. Europe is likely to decline as a great-power through the indirect effects of the Ukrainian-Russian War. Most African, Latin American, and Asian states view the Ukraine conflict differently from the West and desire a diplomatic resolution. The war has imposed costs on their societies through increases in food and energy costs. While the West is focused on Ukraine, terrorists and organized crime units have made gains and this has also worsened their ability to provide domestic security. As a result, they are frustrated that Europe and the United States do not sufficiently recognize the consequences this war has generated in their societies. As a whole, these countries do not desire a military end to the conflict but are open to the West making concessions that would offer Russia security guarantees in exchange for ending the conflict. At this point the West is focusing on its own concerns and is ignoring the costs imposed on African, Asian, and Latin American publics. Europe and the U.S risk alienating even their allies unless they can address and help mitigate the damages the war has imposed on developing states. The West may lose credibility and Beijing is likely to make even more inroads in these countries. This is a serious risk to Western prestige that needs to be better understood within its leadership circles.

6 India’s Power: Sideline Observer While the world is really focused on China and Russia and their challenge to the global order especially following the invasion of Ukraine, there is another major power that should be watched. India has been steadily gaining power, has become a regional hegemonic in South Asian, and is poised to become a major power player in all of Asia. While China is beginning a slight decline in terms of demographic power and ultimately economic power, India is rising demographically and economically. Typically, India is viewed as an ally of the United States, mostly due to the fact that it is a democracy and its support is taken for granted. However, during the Cold War, India was mostly aligned with the Soviet Union and was famous for its nonaligned movement. In other words, India stressed the fact that it was not beholden to any other power and shows its own foreign policy. However, when it came time to vote at the UN to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, India chose to abstain. This worried Washington tremendously. It had taken New Delhi’s support for granted, and had painted narrative of the Ukraine conflict being a conflict between authoritarianism and democracy. India’s vote challenged that notion. India’s democratic institutions are less important to its foreign policy than Westerners had realized and this led to some strategic miscalculations. India has a vast population, by some accounts it will overtake China as the world’s most populous country in the next four years. It has multiple resource needs and would not take a moral stand against a conflict if it engendered access to critical resources. India is trying to avoid divisions that would complicate its international

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relations (Davis 2013). Instead, it is maintaining its relationship with Russia. Scholars examining Indian foreign policy have often discussed the closeness between India and Russia especially in defense (Slobodchikoff and Tandon 2022). Slobodchikoff and Tandon (2022) closely examine of India’s treaties with China, Russia, and the United States, and find that India should be classified as a revisionist power. In fact, India has closer relations with China than the United States. It should be noted, however, that New Delhi and Beijing still have a significant border dispute, and despite having closer relations with Beijing than Washington, New Delhi is still wary of China’s growth and actions within East Asia. Washington needs to properly ascertain India’s growth and great power status, and needs to work with New Delhi to balance Beijing’s growing influence. However, by focusing on events in Ukraine, Washington does not seem able to adequately multitask and build an effective relationship with New Delhi to preserve its own hegemony while balancing against Chinese hegemony. India is unlikely to be shamed into joining the Western alliance, but is likely to be motivated primarily by its own strategic interests. In the longer term, India’s power will grow to rival that of China and possibly the United States. However, India has shown little inclination of wanting to take up the mantle of being a great power in the world, and seems content with letting other powers challenge the current global order. This may change in several years, but at this point, New Delhi is content with having a weaker United States and more of a multipolar world order instead of the current unipolar order.

7 Conclusion We do not predict a war between great powers emerging as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the conflict will complicate American and NATO’s foreign relations by weakening Western access to critical resources. The war’s primary beneficiary is China who has been able to maintain its trade relationships and access to resources while gaining additional resources from Russia that have been removed from Western markets. We will see agricultural shortages as Ukrainian and Russian grain ceases to be available in the West. The primary states to suffer food shortages are those with poor populations dependent on imports—such as Algeria and Egypt. We foresee a possible refugee crisis affecting Europe. While shortages are affecting Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, China’s agricultural sources will actually grow and will become more secure. The outcome will create economic conditions that will further weaken the West and its allies. These conditions make it more likely that states not directly affected by the conflict will maintain their neutrality as much as possible to avoid becoming subject to an export restraint from Russia or its allies. India is unlikely to become a protagonist to advance Ukraine’s interests nor is it likely to challenge Moscow’s military aggression. The security and resource conditions in its own region require India to balance its foreign policy carefully to maintain as much strength as possible—this requires India

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to maintain its supply of critical resources and not undertake any action that would jeopardize them. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will further complicate American foreign relations and make it more difficult to gain international support for its positions. Washington will need to re-vise its strategic approach to deal with additional factors and allow it to advance in more difficult circumstances. We cannot expect our past policies to be effective in the future unless we modify them to reflect risks and cost-benefits to our partner countries. The world is more complicated today and our task has become more difficult. Nevertheless, we have the resources to successfully navigate these difficulties if we can face the challenges honestly.

References D’Odorico, P., Carr, J., Laio, F., Ridolfi, L., & Vandoni, S. (2014). Feeding humanity through global food trade. Earth’s Future, 2, 458–469. Davis, G. D., & Slobodchikoff, M. O. (2022). Great-Power Competition and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. Davis, G. D., & Slobodchikoff, M. O. (2018). Cultural Imperialism and the Decline of the Liberal Order: Russian and Western Soft Power in Eastern Europe. Rowman & Littlefield. Davis, G. Doug. (2013). “Iran and India: An Assessment of Contemporary Relations.“ Digest of Middle East Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, spring 2013, pp. 140–143. Gutiérrez-Moya, E., Adenso-Díaz, B. & Lozano, S. (2021) “Analysis and vulnerability of the international wheat trade network.” Food Security. 13, 113–128 International Agricultural Trade Report April 2022, Foreign Agricultural Service: United States Department of. The Ukraine Conflict and Other Factors Contributing to High Commodity Prices and Food Insecurity. United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, DC: 2020). International Agricultural Trade Report, Foreign Agricultural Service: United States Department of. China: Evolving Demand in the World’s Largest Agricultural Import Market. United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, DC: 2020). Karlsbergs, Janis (2021). “The Defense of the Baltic States: It is Better to be Prepared for a War that Never Comes than to Rely on a Peace that did not Last.” In Slobodchikoff, M. O., Davis, G. D., & Stewart, B. (Eds.). (2021). The Challenge to NATO: Global Security and the Atlantic Alliance. U of Nebraska Press. (pp. 191-210). Matlock, J. F. (2010). Superpower illusions: How myths and false ideologies led America astray— And how to return to reality. Yale University Press. Slobodchikoff, M. O. (2014). Building hegemonic order Russia’s way: order, stability, and predictability in the post-Soviet space. United Kingdom: Lexington Books. Slobodchikoff, M.O. and Davis, G.D. “The Demographic Threat.” In Slobodchikoff, M. O., Davis, G. D., & Stewart, B. (Eds.). (2021). The Challenge to NATO: Global Security and the Atlantic Alliance. U of Nebraska Press. (pp. 227–260). Slobodchikoff, M. O., Davis, G. D., & Stewart, B. (Eds.). (2021). The Challenge to NATO: Global Security and the Atlantic Alliance. U of Nebraska Press. Slobodchikoff, M.O., Davis, G.D. 2017. “Roots of Russian Soft Power: Rethinking Russian National Identity.” Comparative Politics Russia. 8(2):19-36. Slobodchikoff, M. O., & Tandon, A. A. (2022). India as Kingmaker: Status Quo Or Revisionist Power. University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12330581.

Russia’s 2022 Cyber-Enabled Warfare Against Ukraine: Why Russia Failed to Perform to Expectations Mark Grzegorzewski

Abstract The security community was shocked as the presumed great cyber power, Russia, was unable to execute effective cyberspace operations at the outset of the Ukraine war in the spring of 2022, and then, throughout the rest of the year. This chapter argues this failure was due to several factors, ranging from an inability to agree on what is “cyber,” to the failure to pair cyberspace effects with kinetic action, to Russia’s unwillingness to burn niche cyber capabilities and accesses. While each of these elements individually hampered Russia, the convergence of these factors amplified the problem, especially when overlaid with Russia’s unwillingness to recognize that Ukraine altered the security environment since 2014. Loosely using the analogy of a baseball competition, this chapter details how a country must holistically compete in warfare, and explains that although it may have great individual capabilities, the military and intelligence organizations are only as effective as the product of their capabilities. Keywords Great power competition · Cyber war · Russia · Ukraine · National security

1 Introduction In any team competition, it takes much more than a great player to win. To be successful, it takes selfless teammates and wise and informed leadership. It also takes understanding where you are in the competition (e.g., are you in 1876 major league baseball using a flat bat or in 2022 automatically placing a runner at second base at the start of every extra inning?) and determining whether your opponent is playing the same game. Moreover, it takes recognizing that other teams have a say on the outcome of the competition. These elements of competition are analogous

M. Grzegorzewski (B) Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_4

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to missions undertaken in cyberspace.1 Each of the elements and their interactions must be fully appreciated within the system they operate. In this chapter, loosely using the analogy of a sports competition, these elements are examined to explain Russia’s lack of multi-domain synthesis pertaining to their 2022 Ukraine invasion. Currently, countries seem to specialize in one area of cyberspace action, either espionage, cyber-enabled information operations, or offensive cyberspace operations. This is likely due to resource constraints, different security environments, differing technical proficiencies, and a host of other factors. Sketching out this specialization argument, a country can excel at cyberspace espionage (e.g., China), cyberspace-enabled information operations (e.g., Russia), or offensive cyberspace operations (e.g., Israel), yet no one country, including the U.S., excels in all these missions concurrently. Each of these aims require a different mix of capabilities and mastery of attack surfaces (e.g., information space versus logical network component space) to be effective. In the public discourse on cyberspace operations and activities, what is often missing is the focus on the intended effect. Rather, what the discourse tends to reflect is the sensationalist capabilities of a niche tool or the clever plan executed by the perpetrator. For instance, while a 2016 Russian hack-and-leak operation (i.e., cyber espionage plus cyber-enabled information operations) provided salacious details on political opponents, the American public tended to focus on how the information released confirmed what they already thought (i.e., American politics is corrupt). This focus misses the point. Russia’s 2016 objective was to influence Americans and cognitively challenge them, perhaps to mistrust their government or to distrust traditional source of information sources, ultimately resulting in exacerbating political divisions. That was Russia’s intended effect. With proper focus, the important question becomes why a state employs a particular capability, as opposed to other capabilities, to achieve a desired outcome.2 The answers to those questions reveal much more about adversaries and their target selection, for instance how they see themselves, how they view their security environment, and what vulnerabilities they think are worthy of exploitation. With the proper framing, we can look to cyberspace operations and activities likely not as strategic threats but as countries signaling to one another their interests and registering indignation with events in the international system. In what follows, I start by discussing the missing “cyber war” in Ukraine, offering the brief rebuttal that cyber was missing due to our inability to agree on what is “cyber war,” resulting in a conceptual bias and blindness. Next, in “What is Russia competing for in Ukraine?” I move to discussing why Russia is fighting in Ukraine and how its perception of the security environment shaped the environment. In the following section, “Establishing the Strike Zone,” I discuss the rules of the competition, and 1

Analogies are powerful ways to illustrate complexity and create effective understanding. However, when their logic is stretched too far, they can lead to erroneous conclusions. This chapter advocates staying within the analogy’s terms of reference to effectively understand the failure of Russian cyberspace operations in Ukraine. 2 Hodgson, Q. E., Ma, L., Marcinek, K., & Schwindt, K. (2019). Fighting Shadows in the Dark: Understanding and Countering Coercion in Cyberspace. RAND.

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whether the U.S. and Russia can even agree on the nature of the competition. Part of this discussion informs the reader how previous experiences influence the way countries view the nature of the competition. In “Past Performance May Not be Indicative of Future Results,” I then discuss the context of the Ukraine invasion and how Russia used an outdated mental model of Ukraine resulting in its inability to recognize that the environment had shifted. After setting the context, in “Dysfunctional Front Office,” I advance the claim that cyber-enabled warfare is a team-based competition, meaning capabilities must support each other across domains to compete. Next, in “Playing away games are hard!” I examine how Ukraine bolstered its cyber defenses since Russia’s 2014 invasion and the likely impact on Russian cyber operations. Before concluding, in “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future,” I discuss problems in measuring Ukraine’s cyber defenses and the need to use effective measures to inform defensive countermeasures.

2 The Missing “Cyber War” It is important to reflect on what is meant by war. First, war is not fought and won exclusively in one domain. Using the term cyber war, is like referring to a war where airpower was employed and calling the war an “air war” or where sea power was employed and calling it a “sea war.” Nobody expects a war to be won in just one domain. War, ideally, is best executed through multidomain battle, meaning executing effects through two or more domains (i.e., land, sea, air, space, cyber) for optimal impacts. Second, cyber war is not actually “war” in any true sense of the term. War is armed violence between states. Cyber is a domain of persistence and exploition as an alternate to war. Armed violence typically results in people being injured or killed. Rarely has anyone died from cyber effects. Rather, cyber effects (delay, disrupt, degrade, destroy, manipulate) typically can be reversed.3 After a cyberattack, you can restore a fried server or other information communication technology. In war, you cannot kill a human with a hellfire missile and then bring that human back from the beyond. When speaking about “cyber”, we need to be specific and not confuse the conversation with reckless terminology, otherwise our predictions of and responses to cyber-enabled warfare will consistently miss the mark. As the literature on cyber explains, it is not easy to successfully execute a cyberspace operation.4 Many variables must align, and must stay aligned, to successfully execute a mission. As more information technology (IT) systems are upgraded or patched, targets removed or file paths changed during basic maintenance, or the systems made more resilient against attacks, the effects from cyberspace operations need not be successful nor permanent.5 In that vein, cybersecurity expert Herb Lin adds “the alteration of a cyber target by one-bit, can completely change the response 3

Kallberg, J. (2022). Ukraine: Russia will not waste offensive cyber weapons. The Cyber Wire. Slayton, R. (2017). Why Cyber Operations Do Not Always Favor the Offense. Belfer Center. 5 Lubicki, M. (2021). Cyberspace in Peace and War (Second Edition). Naval Institute Press. 4

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of the target to the weapon.”6 That means, hypothetically, a cyber operation’s timeline could be determined by the cyber capability, assuming one knew that an adversary’s vulnerability was about to be patched and thus one’s own capability would become obsolete. Coupled with the fact that increased connectivity and networking cuts both ways, meaning complexity can work both for the attacker and the defender, the complexity of cyberattacks has increased over time, thereby making successful operations even harder.7 This change has led to cyber effects tending to be localized rather than widespread (and strategic).8 To combat against digital threats, such as offensive cyberspace operations and/or cyberspace espionage, organizations typically strengthen hardware and software systems, though the wetware (i.e., the human) may need to also be strengthened against insider threats and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. To strengthen against threats in the physical domain, organizations will typically harden the minds of the population against threats like cyber-enabled information operations, though targeting hardware and software systems could also have psychological effects. Since 2014, Ukraine made these changes to harden itself from Russia’s cyber operations and activities. Thus, while many Russian “cyber war” actions did not cause the intended effect, it was not for a lack of trying.

3 What is Russia Competing for in Ukraine? Russia views the conflict in Ukraine in existential terms. Although no documentation exists to confirm their claims, Russia holds they were made promises after the Cold War that NATO would not expand to Ukraine and up to Russia’s borders. For years, John Mearsheimer has warned about the security dilemma wherein a NATO enlargement, although for security seeking purposes, would make Russia feel both less secure and challenge its regional power status.9 From Russia’s perspective, one can understood why it would view NATO enlargement (which is seen by Russia as a U.S. puppet) as a threat. With this in mind, Russia saw a pre-emptive invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as a way to keep Ukraine from expanding into NATO’s orbit and placing the American military on its borders. To justify the invasion to their public, Russia has spun fantastic tales about how Ukraine was always part of Russia,10 how

6 Lin, H. (2022). Russian Cyber Operations in the Invasion of Ukraine. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(4), 31–46. 7 Lubicki, M. (2021). Cyberspace in Peace and War (Second Edition). Naval Institute Press. 8 Mandhana, N. (2023, March 29). Ukraine War Shows Difficulty of Large-Scale Cyberattacks, NSA Director Says. The Wall Street Journal. 9 Mearsheimer, J. (2014). Why the Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault: the liberal delusions that provoked Putin. Foreign Affairs, 93, 77. 10 Dickinson, P. (2021). Debunking the myth of a divided Ukraine. Atlantic Council.

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Ukraine is run by Nazis,11 and how the U.S. is using Ukraine as a bio-weapons testing site.12 While Russia has improved its military capabilities in recent years, it is not a world-class fighting force. In fact, Russia allocates one-ninth of the U.S. defense budget to its defense.13 While Russia has recently boosted its defense budget, the quality of its forces remains substandard. This lack of professionalism in Russia’s armed forces is best exemplified by Russian soldiers recently abandoning their posts during the war.14 Desertion issues may be exasperated due to poor morale among Russians forced to serve a compulsory one-year tour within the military (annually, 30 percent of Russia’s military is made up of conscripts15 ). Given these limitations, Russia’s conventional military cannot compete with the U.S. or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). As a result, Russia must fight asymmetrically and irregularly to compete.16 This includes partnering with criminal actors, pariah states (e.g., North Korea17 and Iran18 ), and employing unconventional capabilities. It also means for Russia to gain an initial advantage in a war, it must surprise and shock its enemies (udar 19 ) before they have the chance to comprehend what is occurring.20 Despite Russia’s military shortcomings in Ukraine, there was still widespread concern of Russia’s employment of cyber capabilities in the early days of the 2022 invasion. By mid- to late-2022, it became clear many predictions about Russian cyber effects against Ukraine were not materializing, and many security experts claimed Russia’s cyber effects in Ukraine failed. This was mostly a true statement, but only if one started counting cyber effects against Ukraine in 2022. Since 2014, Russia has used Ukraine as its cyber/information environment test bed. It has executed cyber espionage, cyber-enabled information operations, and offensive cyberspace operations against Ukraine and largely been recognized as achieving its desired effects 11

Smart, C. (2022, July 2). How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis. The New York Times. 12 Chappell, B. & Yousef, O. (2022). How the false Russian biolab story came to circulate among the U.S. far right. National Public Radio. 13 Korsunskaya, D. (2022 November 22). Analysis: Surge in Russia’s defence and security spending means cuts for schools and hospitals in 2023. Reuters. 14 Schreck, A. & Stepanenko, V. (2022, October 4). Retreating Russians leave their comrades’ bodies behind. Associated Press News. 15 Zwack, B. (2016). “Chapter 11: Russia” in Charting a Course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration. National Defense University Press. 16 Thornton, R., & Miron, M. (2022). Winning Future Wars: Russian Offensive Cyber and Its Vital Importance. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(3), 117–135. 17 Smith, J. (2022 November 4). Explainer: Russia and North Korea forge closer ties amid shared isolation. Reuters. 18 Lieber, D., Faucon, B., & Amon, M. (2023 March 27). Russia Supplies Iran With Cyber Weapons as Military Cooperation Grows. Wall Street Journal. 19 Thornton, R., & Miron, M. (2022). Winning Future Wars: Russian Offensive Cyber and Its Vital Importance. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(3), 117–135. 20 The United States Army Special Operations Command. (2016). Little Green Men”: A Primer on Modern Russian. Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013–2014. The Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies (ARIS) project.

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in these endeavors. Clearly, something else changed in the security environment by 2022.

4 Establishing the Strike Zone Cyber norms in international affairs are weakly established. Indeed, perhaps the only norm that may be commonly accepted is that cyber operations and activities tend to fall below the threshold of war.21 In fact, “cyber” tends to be de-escalatory, and usually represents a state’s outward expression of disapproval, meaning offensive cyber operations and cyber-enabled information operations are expressions of state behavior and meant to signal adversaries, but not to be impactful enough to cause strategic clashes.22 Adding to the lack of clarity over what constitutes “cyber” are the differing framings of the term by closed and open societies.23 To closed authoritarian regimes, like Russia, attempting to control their information space, information (and cyber) sovereignty is connected to physical sovereignty, meaning any information that challenges the values, spirituality, and state-controlled truth is a threat to the regime. Indeed, a closed off country may view itself as targeted by information warfare, whereas in open countries the same action is regarded as information freely flowing.24 In this way, in closed societies, state propaganda is not seen internally as necessarily harmful but rather a way to keep one’s information space under control while keeping out subversive information. This means that to Russia, the very idea of employing “cyber” means something different when compared to the U.S. Russia views “cyber” primarily in terms of information control and influence, and therefore it primarily operates in and through cyberspace to engage in “information confrontation.”25 Russia’s primary aim in cyberspace operations is to “create persistent narratives that end up causing members of the target society to question themselves.”26 This is a much more holistic view of cyberspace operations than the U.S. position, and indicates that Russia does not separate espionage, influence, and offensive operations into distinct cyber silos.27 Rather, each of those efforts to Russia are “cyber” (plus electronic warfare). As such, it should be no surprise that the U.S. and Russia cannot agree 21

Kostyuk, N. & Gartzkehttps, E. (2022). Why Cyber Dogs Have Yet to Bark Loudly in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Texas National Security Review. 22 Thornton, R., & Miron, M. (2022). Winning Future Wars: Russian Offensive Cyber and Its Vital Importance. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(3), 117–135. 23 Maschmeyer, L., & Dunn Cavelty, M. (2022). Goodbye Cyberwar: Ukraine as Reality Check. CSS Policy Perspectives, 10(3). 24 Jonsson, O. (2019). The Russian Understanding of War. Georgetown University Press. 25 Grzegorzewski, M. & Marsh, C. (2021). Incorporating the Cyberspace Domain: How Russia and China Exploit Asymmetric Advantages in Great Power Competition. Modern Warfare Institute. 26 Mullaney, S. (2022). Everything Flows. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(4), 193–212. 27 Microsoft. (2022). Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War. Special Report: Ukraine.

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on what constitutes cyberspace sovereignty. The two sides are not playing the same game. The U.S. is using cyberspace operations and other elements of power against foreign military targets to externally compete and persist in cyberspace against legitimate military targets whereas Russia is targeting the U.S. population to undermine its competitor’s social fabric from within. This demonstrates a critical part of strategic competition, meaning we are not even engaged in a mututally agreed upon competition. Perhaps due to this confusion, some in the Russian government literally believe the West is already engaged in a non-kinetic war with Russia, and this view may have long-term deleterious effects on Russia’s cyber forces.28 As Gavin Wilde astutely notes, when you constantly see your country at war, “cyber forces built for perpetual struggle likely lack the surge capacity necessary during wartime.”29 An illustration of the differing views over the information space and the need to control information can be found recently in Ukraine when one of the first acts Russian troops committed when capturing Berdyansk, Ukraine was to turn off all Ukrainian news broadcasts.30 In addition, to physically taking control over this Ukrainian information platform, Russia also “launched a number of disinformation campaigns using compromised accounts of high-profile Ukrainians, including military officials and public figures” and employed “100,000 social media accounts spreading fake news related to the invasion.”31 Due to different unique historical experiences (destructive wars and invasions, NATO’s enlargement, and perceived Western insults32 ), Russia reacts differently than the U.S. to any perceived intrusion into its information space. Russia’s perception of reality is amplified by a regime that is paranoid, contriving enemies and their attendant capabilities, and leaders primarily focused on its own survival rather than the health of the state. Given that the parameters of cyber-enabled warfare are still being established within Russia’s security services, not to mention the rest of the world, it is not surprising that Russia did not achieve blindingly quick success, or udar, in Ukraine in 2022. Forecasts that Russia would achieve shock-and-awe in Ukraine simply through cyberspace operations before the Ukraine invasion did not materialize. In fact, fears that “cyber” would neutralize Ukraine overestimated the impact of offensive cyberspace and cyber-enabled information operations, since these effects are 28

Thornton, R., & Miron, M. (2022). Winning Future Wars: Russian Offensive Cyber and Its Vital Importance. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(3), 117–135. 29 Wilde, G. (2022). Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Russia’s Unmet Expectations. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 30 Microsoft. (2022). An overview of Russia’s cyberattack activity in Ukraine. Special Report: Ukraine. 31 Kostyuk, N. & Gartzkehttps, E. (2022). Why Cyber Dogs Have Yet to Bark Loudly in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Texas National Security Review. 32 Zwack, B. (2016). “Chapter 11: Russia” in Charting a Course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration. National Defense University Press.

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transitory,33 and a population’s information space can be hardened over time against information operations.34 Given that cyberspace effects are often reversible with time, disrupting the data flow to Viasat satellites35 or degrading Ukraine’s communications infrastructure,36 could not by itself achieve Russia’s strategic objectives. At the least, it would momentarily confuse or disrupt Ukraine. To achieve the type of effects dreamed of prior to the invasion would have required sufficient resources to customize particular toolkits and these effects would have needed sufficient planning and pairing with kinetic activities. Russia had neither the capability nor the capacity to execute these multi-domain attacks, otherwise they would have been deployed during the initial invasion. The Russian government likely did not prioritize cyber effects in planning, and as a result might have unnecessarily burnt niche tools in not considering how to employ them for maximum impact.37 This is likely due to the relatively new nature of employing cyber capabilities in wartime and incorporating them into traditional military planning,38 and is a critical capability loss for a country known for developing high quality cyber capabilities39 (while concurrently having trouble identifying the right vulnerabilities to exploit and apply the right resources to infect the right systems40 ). Ultimately, when not properly planned and synchronized, cyberattacks waste valuable exploits and burn accesses. For Russia, it caused them to turn from achieving aims via cyberspace to resorting to more traditional military capabilities, such as missiles, to execute missions in Ukraine. To achieve mission objectives in what the U.S. would label multidomain warfare, Russia needed to synchronize its cyberspace operations with at least one other domain. That it could not or did not fight across domains may indicate problems with its strategy. Another possibility is that Russia was reluctant to take down the Ukrainian cyberspace infrastructure since it too was dependent upon that very infrastructure after invading.41 As mentioned, seizing strategic objectives likely requires pairing cyberspace effects and kinetic effects, and, as has been noted elsewhere, 33

Libicki, M. (2021). Cyberspace in Peace and War, 2nd Edition. Naval Institute Press. Rand. Roonemaa, M. (2017). Global lessons from Estonia’s tech-savvy government. The UNESCO Courier. 35 Ikeda, S. (2022). Ukraine Satellite Internet Service Hit by Cyber Attack, Intelligence Agencies Investigating. CPO Magazine. 36 Menn, J. (2023 February 25). Impact of Ukraine-Russia war: Cybersecurity has improved for all. Washington Post. 37 Kaminska, M., Shires, J., & Smeets, M. (2022). Cyber Operations during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: Lessons Learned (so far). In European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative Tallinn Workshop (ECCRI 2022). European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative. 38 Lin, H. (2022). Russian Cyber Operations in the Invasion of Ukraine. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(4), 31–46. 39 Cattler, D. & Black, D. (2022). The Myth of the Missing Cyberwar: Russia’s Hacking Succeeded in Ukraine—And Poses a Threat Elsewhere, Too. Foreign Affairs. 40 Wolff, J. (2022). How do we know when cyber defenses are working? Brookings Tech Stream. 41 Carmack, D. (2022). US Must Implement Lessons on” hybrid” Conflict from Ukraine War. Heritage Foundation. 34

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coordination amongst the Russian military services and across domains was not just disjointed in cyberspace but also across Russia’s military and security forces.42 Therefore, what was witnessed in Ukraine was not just a failure to coordinate cyberspace operations but a general failure to coordinate all instruments of military power.43 In sum, forget multidomain warfare. Russia could not even successfully execute single domain warfare.

5 Past Performance May Not Be Indicative of Future Results Cyber effects by their very nature are hard to perceive and quantify.44 They are secretive and stealthy, meaning an adversary’s desired effects or intentions may not be known to the victim.45 What qualifies as a cyberattack is also not standardized as there are multiple ways to categorize cyber activity within the cybersecurity community. Given the conceptual and operational confusion, it is possible the security community misunderstood or overvalued Russian offensive cyberspace operations. From the cases we do know about involving Russia harassing its neighbors via cyberspace, Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine (2014), these countries were the exception rather than the rule. Each of these countries were formerly part of the Soviet Union and still have large ethnic Russian populations within them. And each of these countries Russia understood culturally, and it knew the infrastructure systems running in those countries, often because they were Soviet built.46 These circumstances gave Russia an advantage that they might not enjoy elsewhere outside of the former Soviet Union.47 Estonia, which was the first highly publicized use of Russia’s “cyber” in 2007, was essentially distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks and web defacements by Russian “patriotic hackers,” which were later revealed to be Russian ethnic hackers plus the cybercriminal Russian Business Network, thereby giving Russia plausible deniability.48 These low-level cyberattacks aimed both to register discontent with

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Garamone, J. (2023). What Happens in Ukraine Matters to the World, Austin Says. U.S. Department of Defense. 43 Jones, S. (2022). Russia’s Ill-Fated Invasion of Ukraine: Lessons in Modern Warfare. Center for Strategic and International Studies. 44 Cyber Defense Labs (2022). Bryan Faith, Cyber Defense Labs: “it is very hard to quantify what you cannot see and do not have metrics to measure.” Cyber Defense Labs. 45 Rid, T. (2022 March 18). Why You Haven’t Heard About the Secret Cyberwar in Ukraine. New York Times. 46 Sutela, P. (2014). The Underachiever: Ukraine’s Economy Since 1991. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 47 Bredenkamp, N. A., & Grzegorzewski, M. (2021). Supporting Resistance Movements in Cyberspace. Special Operations Journal, 7(1), 17–28. 48 Sullivan, B. (2014). First sanctions, then hack attacks? Would Russia unleash hackers against the West? SecureWorld.

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the Estonian government about the moving of the Bronze statue and as a cyberenabled information operation to spread politically motivated messages to influence the Estonian public towards their government. Another specific example of Russia employing cyber is its 2008 invasion of Georgia.49 Russia’s conventional invasion was defended on the grounds that Russia was protecting ethnic Russians in Abkhazian and South Ossetia. The Russian military campaign saw hackers, both native and foreign, engage in several actions via cyberspace including DDOS attacks against Georgian networks in the weeks preceding the invasion, likely to slow down war preparations; a cyber-enabled information operation primarily via web defacement to influence, and weaken support of, the Georgian population by appealing to the righteousness of the Russia invasion; and a possible offensive cyberspace operation targeting an oil pipeline’s programmable logic controller,50 likely to signal to Georgia its vulnerability to Russia attacks, to include disrupting energy supplies. Russia also coupled these actions with special operations forces distributing Russian passports in the newly occupied Abkhazian and South Ossetia. The lesson learned from the Georgia episode was that virtual applications and proxy forces could have real world effects in a military campaign. In 2019, Russia again attacked Georgia when they executed a cyber-enabled influence operation, underscoring the evolving nature of Russian cyberspace capabilitires against states in its orbit. A third addition to the catalogue of noteworthy Russian cyberattacks is its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Russia achieved quick success as the Ukrainians never anticipated that Russia had so well seeded the information environment in eastern Ukraine.51 Ukraine, which was formally part of the Soviet Union and has a large Russian-speaking population, was certainly an ideal target to influence. Yet, to be successful, it required years of preparation of the battlefield by Russia. Without preparing the cognitive realm, Russia would not have been able to quickly activate opposition groups within eastern Ukraine to achieve strategic objectives before anyone could respond. This case also demonstrated how hybrid war could be executed in conjunction by special operations forces with a cyber-enabled influence campaign. Since 2014, Ukraine has remained Russia’s sandbox for both technical and psychological operations. As Dmitri Alperovitch notes, “…hackers affiliated with the Russian government have interfered in Ukraine’s elections, targeted Ukrainian government agencies and private-sector companies with destructive malware, and carried out cyberattacks against electric utilities that caused widespread power outages.”52 Notable offensive cyberattacks and information campaigns included the

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Willett, M. (2022). The Cyber Dimension of the Russia–Ukraine War. Survival, 64(5), 7–26. Robertson, J. & Riley, M. (2014). Mysterious’08 Turkey Pipeline Blast Opened New Cyberwar. Bloomberg. 51 Bredenkamp, N. A., & Grzegorzewski, M. (2021). Supporting Resistance Movements in Cyberspace. Special Operations Journal, 7(1), 17–28. 52 Alperovitch, D. (2022). How Russia Has Turned Ukraine into a Cyber-Battlefield. Foreign Affairs. 50

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Ukraine power grid attack (2015), Kyiv electrical substation attack (2016), NotPetya (2016), and information operations from 2014 to the present. Interestingly, of the two attacks targeting Ukrainian electrical systems in 2015 and 2016, plus the attack in July 2022, there was a diminishing rate of return as the original attack took down power for almost 6 hours,53 the second attack for a little over 1 hour,54 and the third attack did not even register as a successful cyber fire.55 While each of these attacks selected differed targets and the exploits were not the same, there appears to be some organizational learning by Ukraine to harden their systems and make them more resilient, as well as developing standardized procedures to respond to these attacks. When cybersecurity defenders continuously witness attacks against one type of target from the same actor using similar tactics and techniques, over time they likely improve their practices by gaining experience and using that experience to create knowledge about how the threat actor typically operates. While Microsoft reports that in the 2022 Russian campaign against Ukraine, “high concentrations of malicious network activity… frequently overlapped with high-intensity fighting during the first six-plus weeks of the invasion,”56 the degree of multidomain coordination across time and space in Ukraine is dubious. Even Microsoft admits this supposed Russian alignment and coordination may be more correlation than causation.57 Rather, “Russia has probably achieved some unity of purpose with certain cyber and kinetic fires, primarily through loose alignment and more rarely via close coordination.”58 Given that we have no way of intuiting Putin’s cyber-enabled war strategy, another possibility is that we are drawing the wrong inferences from the cases we observe. Conceivably, another option is that Russia is playing a different game in which their focus in cyber-enabled influence operations is to “eliminate objective truth, inhibit the ability to report on a situation, destabilize the society, weaken morals and confidence, and destroy empirical knowledge.”59 The objective of this competition is to constrain its opponents set of choices (known during the Soviet times as “reflexive control”) and pressure them into choosing Russia’s preferred choice. This strategy of polluting the information environment and undermining trust likely illustrates the type of competition Russia’s is engaged in. Russia knows it cannot win a direct war with NATO or the U.S., so instead they aim to degrade adversaries resolve 53

Zetter, K. (2016). Inside the cunning, unprecedented hack of Ukraine’s power grid. Wired. BBC News. (2017). Ukraine power cut ‘was cyber-attack.‘ BBC News. 55 Bateman, J. (2022). Russia’s Wartime Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Military Impacts, Influences, and Implications. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 56 Microsoft. (2022). Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War. Special Report: Ukraine. 57 Microsoft. (2022). An overview of Russia’s cyberattack activity in Ukraine. Special Report: Ukraine. 58 Bateman, J. (2022). Russia’s Wartime Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Military Impacts, Influences, and Implications. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 59 Mullaney, S. (2022). Everything Flows. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(4), 193–212. 54

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and commitment. This is a much longer-term competition, as opposed to the shortterm compeition metric of whether a Russian mission engaged a target successfully through cyberspace. All this is to say, we do not have agreement on what is “cyber” or a clear picture into Russia’s cyber way of war. Not making matters easier, there are not as many overt Russian “cyber” cases to examine, so we likely overweigh the ones we do know about. Put simply, any Russian cyber operations sample is skewed by the relatively low number of observable cyberspace cases, and because of the limited number of cases we can draw upon, the impact of those findings may have either been exaggerated or misinterpreted. Two cases speak to this claim, NotPetya and Triton. At the time, NotPetya was the most expensive cyberattack in history. Using the stolen (from the National Security Agency) Eternal exploits, Russia inserted malware into Ukrainian tax accounting software that contained an unexploited vulnerability.60 Coincidentally, days before the NotPetya attack, Microsoft quietly pushed out a patch to that Microsoft vulnerability allowing users in the U.S. to protect against the Eternal exploits used in the NotPetya attack.61 Unfortunately, many Ukrainians, and in fact the rest of the world, did not have the time to install this critical patch. As a result, in 2017, NotPetya was the most destructive cyber operation ever executed.62 In fact, it was so destructive that after encrypting data on victims’ machines and rendering it unusable in Ukraine,63 it then spread beyond its borders, circling the globe, and effecting Russian systems that had not applied the Microsoft patch. The aim of this Russian cyberspace operation was to “frighten those doing business with Ukraine.”64 On one level, this aim was achieved. On another level, this operation went far beyond the aim, and should be recategorized as a strategic failure. The operation captured the attention of the public, as it impacted supply chains, demonstrated the callousness of Russia in wantonly executing cyberattacks, and displayed Russia’s disregard for collateral impacts. Stated another way, this was the Russians executing a devastating cyber effect resulting in massive blowback from the operation, which adversely impacted Russia’s standing in the world. Triton is another good example of a Russian cyber operation that went beyond its aim and arguably did more harm than good. The attack, which for months went unidentified, aimed to “inflict lasting damage on the petrochemical companies and send a political message.”65 The malware, dubbed “the world’s most murderous

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NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (2022). NotPetya (2017). Cyberlaw Wiki. 61 Krebs, B. (2017). ‘Petya’ Ransomware Outbreak Goes Global. Krebs on Security. 62 Greenberg, A. (2018). The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History. Wired. 63 Council on Foreign Relations. (2022). NotPetya. Cyber Operations. 64 HYPR. (2022). NotPetya. Security Encyclopedia. 65 Perlroth, N. & Krauss, C. (2018 March 15). A Cyberattack in Saudi Arabia Had a Deadly Goal. Experts Fear Another Try. New York Times.

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malware,”66 was discovered before two emergency shutdown systems at a Saudi petrochemical plant would have failed to prevent a gas release and deadly explosion. Investigators, after ruling out physical and human error, dug into the networks and found code that compromised the plant’s safety systems. In a region already known for being on edge, whether between Iran and Saudi Arabia or Israel and Hesbollah, this operation added one more dangerous layer by employing this malware to “deliberately target systems that functioned to prevent life-threatening accidents and serious physical damage.”67 In the event of an explosion at the Saudi petrochemical plant, the effects of this malware and the immediate inability to label a perpetrator, would have been akin to throwing a match on dry kindling. Again, the recklessness and callousness of this Russian cyber operation, to shut down a Saudi petrochemical plant’s safety shut-off system, could have led to catastrophic events in the region. This was an escalation from previous Russian efforts to probe and scan critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict. Russia once again made a lot of noise, burned a valuable exploit and access, added a new wrinkle to their relationship with the Saudis, likely further turned international opinion against them, and earned more international sanctions. Success would have meant holding the petrochemical company at risk and sending a political message at a time of Russia’s choosing. This was a potentially terrifying attack, not a strategically successful attack.

6 Dysfunctional Front Office Russia is a country run by oligarchs. Putin is technically in charge of the country, but he only retains that support through the oligarchs and the security services continued support. Rather than being completely a top-down driven autocrat, Putin must weigh competing interests to stay in power. In weighing competing interests, Putin disperses power throughout the system, meaning no one actor or agency can challenge his rule. Within the security services, Putin does not centralize operations and instead delegates a large amount of operational freedom. This creates an environment of entrepreneurialism, not one of unity. Ideally, the Russian security services would achieve optimal outcomes by synchronizing their efforts, sharing capabilities and intelligence, and supporting each other’s missions. This is not the case within Russia’s bureaucracy. Rather, in Russia, cyber operations are commonly referred to as an “ad-hocracy,” meaning there is competition between organizations,

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Giles, M. (2019). Triton is the world’s most murderous malware, and it’s spreading. MIT Technology Review. 67 TrendMicro. (2019). New Critical Infrastructure Facility Hit by Group Behind TRITON. TrendMicro.

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and this disconnected organizational entrepreneurship is celebrated by the regime.68 As will become evident, uncoordinated cyber operations by these organizations are both a boon and a curse. Regarding benefits, not knowing what a particular organization is executing allows for plausible deniability should the hand of the actor be shown. It also allows for greater organizational experimentation in and through cyberspace, as well as career pathways that stress deep expertise in the organization rather than wide expertise across the security services. Conversely, this lack of wide expertise and sharing of information across the community is exactly what leads to friendly (cyber) fires, such as when the GRU and FSB found themselves operating on the same DNC server in 2016.69 Rather than supporting each other in missions, these organizations are competing against one another, essentially cannibalizing the same targets. Therefore, it goes without saying that Russia does not have a unified cyber command as the United States does. Rather, Russian cyber operations are carried out by independent agencies and what little coordination occurs happens at “the Presidential Administration level, with Russia’s Security Council (which is dominated by the FSB) an integral part of the process.”70 Despite the illusion of coordination, Russian cyber operations do not have a uniform system of reporting and accountability, and they lack command-and-control approaches tailored to the cyber domain.71 In the U.S., USCYBERCOM coordinates cyber efforts across the military and within the context of national strategy. This is missing in Russia as many cyber actors have overlapping mission sets and act independently. Russian cyberspace operations (i.e., espionage, offensive cyberspace operations, and information operations) are executed by 3 primary actors, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie (GRU) or Chief Intelligence Office, Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB) or Federal Security Service, and Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR) or Foreign Intelligence Service. As President Vladmir Putin is formerly a KGB (now FSB) officer, many of his current decisions are informed by the FSB. In turn, the FSB because of its close connection to Putin, feels emboldened to take the lead in cyberspace. The FSB likely maintains the edge in offensive cyber tradecraft, technology, experience, and talent when compared to the GRU, and understandably does not want to burn its toolkits and accesses over

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Sherman, J. (2022). Untangling the Russian Web: Spies, Proxies, and Spectrums of Russian Cyber Behavior. Issue Brief, Atlantic Council Cyber Statecraft Initiative, September. 69 Volz, D. (2016 December 29). FBI analysis fingers Russian spy agencies for U.S. election hacks. Reuters. 70 Soldatov, A. & Boroganhttps, I. (2022). Russian Cyberwarfare: Unpacking the Kremlin’s Capabilities. Center for European Policy Analysis. 71 Soldatov, A. & Boroganhttps, I. (2022). Russian Cyberwarfare: Unpacking the Kremlin’s Capabilities. Center for European Policy Analysis.

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to a military operation.72 The GRU, particularly the military intelligence unit Sandworm,73 primarily executes offensive cyberspace operations in support of military operations. The GRU is notoriously noisy and reckless in cyberspace due to it being a military organization rather than a clandestine intelligence organization. The third main cyber actor, the SVR, engages in intelligence and economic espionage outside of Russia and the former Soviet States. Added to this mix are “patriotic hackers” and cybercriminals (e.g., Conti, Beregini, and Killnet74 ) who nominally take direction from the Russian government. This guidance essentially stresses to hit targets outside of Russia to drain the resources of Russia’s enemies. To date, Russia’s cyber actors’ efforts have not amounted to a strategic success but rather a series of spectacular, yet mainly transitory, effects against Ukraine. As mentioned, while the FSB could execute offensive cyberspace operations in Ukraine based on preexisting accesses, they have instead chosen to employ their cyberspace capabilities for intelligence collection.75 If Russia had a USCYBERCOM-equivalent, perhaps it could isolate cyber effects against specific vulnerabilities, while leveraging other cyber-capable forces for offensive missions. As it stands now in Ukraine, some Russian cyber-capable security organizations are left protecting their accesses while the GRU searches for vulnerable targets to execute. This is a clear mismatch. Another possibility is that since Russia’s miliary is dependent on Ukraine communication infrastructure, the GRU has limited its usage of offensive cyberspace operations against those targets.76 Prior to the war, Russia had new military communications equipment that it was ready to deploy to the battlefield.77 However, this new equipment was in short supply, and as the war has dragged on, Russia fears using this new communication equipment and it being captured by the U.S. and NATO. Based upon this calculation, Russia may have decided to keep this new military communication equipment in reserve and rely upon the Ukrainian communication infrastructure. In addition to relying on the Ukrainian communications infrastructure, some Russian units have chosen to employ Chinese made communications,78 which 72

Wilde, G. (2022). Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Russia’s Unmet Expectations. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 73 Vicens, A.J. (2023). Russia’s Sandworm hackers blamed in fresh Ukraine malware attack. Cyberscoop. 74 Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (2022). CYBER THREAT BULLETIN: Cyber Threat Activity Related to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Cyber Threat Bulletin. 75 Bateman, J. (2022). Russia’s Wartime Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Military Impacts, Influences, and Implications. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 76 Kaminska, M., Shires, J., & Smeets, M. (2022). Cyber Operations during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: Lessons Learned (so far). In European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative Tallinn Workshop (ECCRI 2022). European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative. 77 Landau, S. (2022). Cyberwar in Ukraine: What You See Is Not What’s Really There. Lawfare. 78 Lewis, James A. (2022). Cyber War and Ukraine. Center for Strategic & International Studies.

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are notorious for their vulnerabilities, thereby opening Russian forces up to possible exploitation of their communications. Further undermining their own efforts, the Russians also bombed Ukrainian 3G and 4G cell towers, towers that they too were dependent on, forcing them to move to radio communication frequencies that did not support encrypted communications.79 Russians then switched to cell phones operating on the Ukrainian’s phone network, which in turn allowed the Ukrainians to geolocate Russians’ calls.80 With this dysfunctional bureaucratic environment, the decision-making and information flows within the Kremlin certainly should be questioned. Putin, the autocrat, clearly has not received the intelligence he needs but rather the intelligence he desires. As a result, the Kremlin centrally planned the Ukraine invasion,81 overestimated the strength of the Russian military, underestimated the power of Ukrainian nationalism, the resolve of Western and NATO unity, and the ability of energy-importing countries to shield themselves from Russia’s weaponization of energy.82 Taken together, Putin viewed the Russian ad-hocracy as an advantage in wartime, and yet these organizations running their own uncoordinated operations have not achieved Russia’s war objectives. In most things in life, to include warfare, it takes a whole team to effectively compete. Russia has several great players on the (battle) field, but they are playing for their own narrow bureaucratic aims rather than playing a team effort in support of Russia’s national military objectives.

7 Playing Away Games are Hard! Since Russia’s 2014 invasion, Ukraine has improved its defenses. While partnerships are part of the story in defending Ukraine against Russia, it takes the Ukrainian people to lead and execute military operations. Since 2020, Ukraine has been introducing new hardware and software to strengthen themselves against Russian cyber intrusions.83 The Ukrainian government has also brought in outside technical experts to bolster the country’s cybersecurity, while the Ukrainian military has adopted NATO battlefield tactics, including combined arms maneuver, promoted a new generation of military leaders, and purged Ukrainian military officers seen as pro-Russian.84 Perhaps most importantly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has undertaken government corruption reforms against oligarchs deemed to have too much

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Landau, S. (2022). Cyberwar in Ukraine: What You See Is Not What’s Really There. Lawfare. Bronk, C., Collins, G., & Wallach, D. (2022). Cyber and Information Warfare in Ukraine: What Do We Know Seven Months In? Rice University Baker Institute for Public Policy. 81 Soldatov, A. & Borogan, I. (2022). Russian Cyberwarfare: Unpacking the Kremlin’s Capabilities. Center for European Policy Analysis. 82 Walt, S. (2023). What Putin Got Right. Foreign Affairs. 83 Willett, M. (2022). The Cyber Dimension of the Russia–Ukraine War. Survival, 64(5), 7–26. 84 Detsch, J. (2023). How Ukraine Learned to Fight. Foreign Affairs. 80

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power over the government.85 In the spirit of the anti-corruption drives, Zelenskyy has also fired dozens of government officials either accused of financial corruption86 or of collaborating with Russia.87 Although there is much work to be done in restoring the faith that the Ukrainian people have in their government, these initial steps have demonstrated to the middle- and lower-classes that they have a stake in Ukraine’s future. Since 2014, the U.S. government has provided $20.3 billion to Ukraine in security force assistance.88 In addition to dollars, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has provided mentoring, training, and doctrinal assistance in the art of resistance/unconventional warfare to Ukrainian Special Forces.89 This includes helping Ukraine stand-up a resistance company in each of three brigades and providing training on the employment of switchblade drones. Finally, for the past eight years, USSOCOM provided the Ukrainians support with military information support operations (MISO) to counter Russian disinformation. USCYBERCOM also provided support in countering cyberspace threats. In fact, USCYBERCOM sent hunt forward teams to Ukraine to pursue and remediate threats in their systems.90 This meant U.S. cyber operators were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with their Ukrainian counterparts as they went through identifying vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s information systems. In addition to hunt forward operations, USCYBERCOM also shared information and threat intelligence with Ukraine to support their defense.91 As noted earlier, successful cyber operations often require long lead times to collect intelligence and target preparation.92 As a consequence, the presence of hunt forward teams may have disrupted Russia’s cyber operational tempo in Ukraine. Lastly, GEN Paul Nakasone recently testified to Congress that not only was USCYBERCOM helping to defend Ukraine’s cyberspace, but they were also executing offensive cyberspace operations (presumably against Russia) in support of Ukraine.93 Additionally, thanks to the U.S. intelligence community downgrading and declassifying information, intelligence sharing with Ukraine has grown since Russia’s 2014 85

Inman, P. (2022). Zelenskiy’s reforms were too slow for us, but too fast for Putin. The Guardian. Popeski, R. (2023). Ukraine’s Zelenskiy: More changes coming to fight graft in government. Reuters. 87 Inskeep, S. & Mann, B. (2022). Ukrainian officials fired after probe shows their workers collaborated with Russia. National Public Radio. 88 U.S. Department of Defense. (2022). $725 Million in Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine. U.S. Department of Defense. 89 Fiala, O. (2022). Resilience and Resistance in Ukraine. Small Wars Journal. 90 Cyber National Mission Force Public Affairs. (2022). Before the Invasion: Hunt Forward Operations in Ukraine. U.S. CYBER COMMAND. 91 Cyber National Mission Force Public Affairs. (2022). Cyber National Mission Force discloses IOCs from Ukrainian networks. U.S. CYBER COMMAND News. 92 Lin, H. (2022). Russian Cyber Operations in the Invasion of Ukraine. The Cyber Defense Review, 7(4), 31–46. 93 Martin, A. (2022). US military hackers conducting offensive operations in support of Ukraine, says head of Cyber Command. Sky News. 86

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invasion, despite legitimate concerns that the Ukrainian government had been infiltrated by Russia’s security services.94 In February 2022, U.S. law enforcement also supported Ukraine as the Justice Department shut down the Cyclops Blink botnet.95 The malware that connected the botnet originated from the Sandworm team (GRU), and installed a back door allowing infected devices to be accessed and controlled remotely by the botnet owners. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), somewhat controversially given civil rights concerns, was able to reverse engineer the malware and access victim’s devices to disrupt the Russia-backed botnet before it was used.96 Finally, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided support ranging from technical advice to providing emergency communication devices to officials in key sectors.97 Beyond U.S. government support, Ukraine also partnered with the private sector. Given that cyberspace is a commercial space first, it was critical for Ukraine to bring in this sector since they have different approaches and insights when compared to nation-states. Further, the private–public divide is often one exploited by malicious actors, so proactively building partnerships ahead of a conflict allows for a “dynamic alignment of disparate technical capabilities, expertise, and authorities for collaborative threat visibility and defensive action.”98 Among the private sector actors supporting Ukraine is SpaceX’s Starlink. This non-state actor’s capability has been invaluable to Ukraine, especially after Russia’s early attack on the Viasat satellite communication systems. It is important to note that although the Viasat attacks were disruptive, they were not a strategic success. For the attack to be successful, it would have to enable the military objective of occupying Ukraine and eliminating its elected government.99 This would likely have required pairing the Viasat attack with kinetic action. Since the start of the war, some of Starlink’s contributions include “enabling the control of Ukrainian drones, helping besieged Ukrainian troops in Mariupol stay in touch with their commanders, and facilitating Zelenskyy’s communications with world leaders and the global public.”100 In fact, Starlink has worked a little too well for Ukraine, as SpaceX recently restricted the use of its product to Ukraine since they were using it to control drones targeting Russia.101 Claiming Ukraine was 94

Carmack, D. (2022). US Must Implement Lessons on” hybrid” Conflict from Ukraine War. Heritage Foundation. 95 Smalley, S. (2022). DOJ’s Sandworm operation raises questions about how far feds can go to disarm botnets. Cyberscoop. 96 Eichensehr, K. (2022). Ukraine, Cyberattacks, and the Lessons for International Law. American Journal of International Law, 116, 145–149. 97 Willett, M. (2022). The Cyber Dimension of the Russia–Ukraine War. Survival, 64(5), 7–26. 98 Atkins, S. (2022). A web of partnerships: Ukraine, operational collaboration, and effective national defense in cyberspace. Atlantic Council. 99 Lewis, James A. (2022). Cyber War and Ukraine. Center for Strategic & International Studies. 100 Bateman, J. (2022). Russia’s Wartime Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Military Impacts, Influences, and Implications. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 101 Roulette, J. (2023, February 9). SpaceX curbed Ukraine’s use of Starlink internet for drones -company president. Reuters.

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weaponizing their product by spotting and targeting enemy positions and dropping bombs, SpaceX insisted to Ukraine that Starlink could only be used for humanitarian purposes, such as providing broadband internet to critical Ukrainian sectors. A second private actor, Amazon, has supported Ukraine by transferring the government’s data to the cloud three days after the Russian invasion.102 Ukraine’s data protection law mandated that Ukrainian government services must run on local services within the country’s borders.103 Once the invasion began, most of Ukraine’s data was vulnerable to aerial destruction by Russian forces. Realizing the data’s importance and vulnerability, the Ukrainian government moved to amend the law just as Russian forces invaded. Russia consequently attacked Ukrainian data centers both physically, with cruise missiles, and virtually, with wiper attacks.104 The amended law allowed Ukraine to evacuate its data with the support of Amazon Web Services (AWS) using its snowball services which allow for a “transport solution that uses secure appliances to transfer large amounts of data into and out of the AWS cloud.”105 Amazon’s ability to transfer this critical data “added defensive depth and resilience far beyond that which Ukraine could have achieved independently.”106 A third important actor from the private sector has been Microsoft, which has served as the unofficial cybersecurity vendor for Ukraine during the war. As Black Hat and DEFCON founder Jeff Moss recently noted, there are three camps in the cyber world today.107 There are those parties that think the Internet should be free and open. There are those that think information flows correspond to national sovereignty. And there are those stuck in-between these poles and are being forced to choose a side in a rapidly narrowing middle ground. Microsoft has apparently decided to go with the first camp. Microsoft announced in December 2022 that it would provide digital support to Ukraine free of charge in 2023, which normally would cost $100 million.108 In total, from February to December 2022, Microsoft’s has provided more than $400 million in support to Ukraine. Since the invasion in 2022, Microsoft has not provided driver and software downloads for its products inside of Russia, only recently quietly allowing Windows 11 updates for Russian users, while still complying with European Union, United Kingdom, and U.S. sanctions.109 Yet another way in which Microsoft has unofficially 102

Landau, S. (2022). Cyberwar in Ukraine: What You See Is Not What’s Really There. Lawfare. Microsoft. (2022). Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War. Special Report: Ukraine. 104 Microsoft. (2022). Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War. Special Report: Ukraine. 105 Amazon Web Services. (2023). Migrate Petabyte-Scale Data to the Cloud. Project on AWS. 106 Beecroft, N. (2022). Evaluating the International Support to Ukrainian Cyber Defense. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 107 Observer Research Foundation. (2022). Emtech And Scope Of Cyber: Is This A Game Changer? YouTube. 108 CEE Multi-Country News Center (2022, December 21). Leonid Polupan is the new Country Manager of Microsoft Ukraine. Microsoft News. 109 Alcorn, P. (2023). Intel Quietly Resumes Russia Support, Unblocks Software Downloads (Updated with Microsoft Comment). Tom’s Hardware. 103

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chosen sides is by denying the Russian government the ability to redirect users from Microsoft’s Bing search engine to Russian state media content.110 Other Microsoft efforts in support of Ukraine include employing machine learning and executing new techniques in end-point security, threat intelligence, and information sharing to “successfully identify and stop further [Russian] attacks without prior knowledge of the underlying malware.”111 Finally, Microsoft has called out Russian disinformation campaigns, for instance stating that Russia “establish [ed] a narrative of the war favorable to Russia, including making the case that the United States was secretly producing biological weapons inside Ukraine.”112 Lastly, there is a Ukrainian cyber resistance.113 Commonly referred to as the IT Army of Ukraine, this mostly indigenously composed group of volunteer hacktivists, allegedly 400,000-strong,114 has taken to coordinating their attacks via social media and Telegram channels to nominate and attack strategic Russian targets, such as banks, the power grid, and railway system.115 In addition to crowdsourcing targets, the Ukrainian government has setup a fundraising site to support the IT Army’s efforts.116 Contrary to those who fear cyber resistance movements, these primarily offensive hackers117 have mostly not turned into reckless vigilantes, further escalating the conflict with Russia. Rather, these actors, appearing to operate independent of centralized state-backed guidance, creates a situation in which Russia does not know who to retaliate against. The IT Army has targeted Russia with hack and dump operations, notably striking state-owned entities such as Gazprom, the Russian Central Bank, the Ministry of Education, and the Russian Orthodox Church.118 In an effort to control escalation, Ukraine has worked to put more restrictions on the IT Army by incorporating them into a reserve element in the traditional Ukrainian armed services.119 This effort will eventually standardize the IT Army by promoting

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Brandt, J. & Pita, A. (2022). How is Russia conducting cyber and information warfare in Ukraine? Brookings podcast. 111 Bateman, J. (2022). Russia’s Wartime Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Military Impacts, Influences, and Implications. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 112 Microsoft. (2022). Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War. Special Report: Ukraine. 113 Pascoli, S. & Grzegorzewski, M. “Technology adoption in unconventional warfare.“ The Cyber Defense Review 6, no. 3 (2021): 61–74. 114 Lonergan, E. (2022). The Cyber-Escalation Fallacy: What the War in Ukraine Reveals About State-Backed Hacking. Foreign Affairs. 115 Fendorf, K. & Miller, J. (2022). Tracking Cyber Operations and Actors in the Russia-Ukraine War. Council on Foreign Relations Net Politics and Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program. 116 Greenberg, Andy. (2025). Ukraine’s Defense—and Hacktivists—Have Raised Over $4 M in Cryptocurrency, Wired. 117 Soesanto, S. (2022). The IT Army of Ukraine: Structure, Tasking, and Ecosystem. Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zürich. 118 Ling, J. (2022). Ukraine’s Online Volunteers Go After Russian Targets, Foreign Policy. 119 Waterman, S. (2023). Ukraine Scrambles to Draft Cyber Law, Legalizing Its Volunteer Hacker Army. Newsweek.

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accountability, coordination, and ensuring that Ukraine’s mission, values, and goals are adhered to. Unsurprisingly, when an adversary does not understand its opponent, and it prepares for the opponent it wants to face, it often faces difficulties. Receiving biased intelligence prepares organizations for the wrong challenges. It also means the operational picture of the environment is so skewed that a force will bring the wrong capabilities to bear at the wrong fight at the wrong time. As already emphasized, war is not fought in one-domain. It is fought across domains. It would be like observing a sports competition, and marveling at the pitching but forgetting all about the need to hit and defend. Warfare is a team effort where each participant employs their capabilities to enable their teammates success. Further, it is about each actor bringing the right capabilities to the fight at the right time. If you are a specialist in hitting, when it is time to hit, practicing your swing in the on-deck circle will have no impact on the outcome. You must sequence and properly employ your talents at the right time as you stand in the batter’s box and await the pitch. This is analogous to the FSB likely having important cyber exploits in Ukraine but unwilling to use them since it fears burning those sources for intelligence value. There was a time to burn FSB cyber exploits, during the initial invasion, and yet the FSB chose to admire how good their access was while the Russian military single-handedly fought Ukrainian guerillas on the way to Kiev.120 Playing away games are hard. Competing against yourself makes it harder.

8 “It’s Tough to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future” ~ Yogi Berra It is hard, if not impossible, to predict the future. Often, the more observable cases we have, the better the predictions will be based upon past behavior. This method of improving predictions works if the past cases resemble current and future cases. When past inputs no longer resemble the present, faulty assumptions are applied when making predictions. This is made even more problematic when strategists conflate distinct cyberspace actions (e.g., cyber espionage with offensive cyberspace operations) and apply misunderstood cases to a changed environment. With Russia, many interpreted their relatively small sample of observable cyber events to make predictions that were either inflated or inappropriate to the situation in Ukraine.121

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Raghavan, S. (2022 March 15). How Kyiv’s outgunned defenders have kept Russian forces from capturing the capital. Washington Post. 121 Kagubare, I. (2022). Russia’s cyber forces ‘underperformed expectations’ in Ukraine: senior US official. The Hill.

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What the Ukraine war has displayed to the security community is that cyber operations, at least so far, are not a decisive capability in war. As Jacklyn Schneider notes, tanks, guns, and bombers still matter.122 While in future conflicts cyber operations may integrate better with other capabilities, domains, and services, as of 2022 the primary advantage of cyber capabilities in war is espionage, and cyber-enabled information operations.123 This need not be viewed negatively. In fact, cyber operations and activities are the scalpel needed in today’s world where powerful countries default to employing an imprecise buzzsaw at the first sign of trouble. As a result, going forward, countries may continue employing cyberspace capabilities to gather intelligence about other state’s intentions, to signal displeasure, and to control escalation.124 We also need to credit the defense. Cybersecurity is informed by adversary offensive actions. This means it is often not anticipatory but reactionary. Prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, much of the thinking in the cyber community was that offense has the advantage in a cyber-enabled conflict.125 This thinking should evolve after Russia’s 2022 failure in Ukraine. Since 2014, Ukraine has prioritized developing cyberspace partnerships, both with governments and the private sector.126 Conceivably, two of the most important partnerships for Ukraine were with USCYBERCOM and USSOCOM. USCYBERCOM undoubtedly deserves much credit for helping Ukraine defend its hardware and software systems against Russian exploits, while USSOCOM has assisted in making the Ukrainian population more resilient against Russian cyber-enabled information operations. This is an undervalued contribution. Cybersecurity typically does not “score points” for the defender but it does keep the offense off the scoreboard. Cyber-enabled warfare is a team-based competition. It is not won by one service or by one capability or in one domain. It is about learning from what does not work, adjusting, and properly integrating and employing new solutions into existing procedures. Had Russia not settled into a frozen conflict in 2014, thereby giving Ukraine time to learn about Russian cyber tactics, techniques, and procedures, it is likely Ukraine would be in a much worse position today. Thus, the ever-changing present makes it tough to make predictions about the future.

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Halpern, S. (2022). The Threat of Russian Cyberattacks Looms Large. The New Yorker. Eichensehr, K. (2022). Ukraine, Cyberattacks, and the Lessons for International Law. American Journal of International Law, 116, 145–149. 124 Lubicki, M. (2012). Crisis and Escalation in Cyberspace. 125 Slayton, R. (2016). What is the cyber offense-defense balance? Conceptions, causes, and assessment. International Security, 41(3), 72–109. 126 Lewis, James A. (2022). Cyber War and Ukraine. Center for Strategic & International Studies. 123

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9 Conclusion In the ultimate baseball competition, the 1946 World Series was played by the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox. The Cardinals were a consistent winner, with the organization racking up many wins the years prior. In the National League between 1941 and 1945 they finished in first place three times (and in second place twice). The Cardinals had a brilliant front office, a legendary farm system, excellent coaching, and a loaded line-up, including future hall of famers Stan Musiel and Enos Slaughter. The Red Sox, meanwhile, also had fantastic players, including future hall of famers Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr. Williams, the greatest hitter ever, was primarily concerned with his own hitting stats and getting his at-bats (similar to the FSB). He certainly left much to be desired as a teammate and leader.127 The Red Sox organization was also known for its inconsistent organizational approach and management. In fact, in representing the American League in the 1946 World Series, it was the first time in almost 30 years the Red Sox had played for the championship. The notoriously stubborn Williams played injured throughout the World Series, refusing, just as the GRU, to change his approach when the circumstances changed. During Williams’ tenure, this would be the Red Sox only brush with a championship. During Williams career, the Cardinals organization would win 3 championships as they continuously adjusted their strategies to remain relevant. Cybersecurity and cyberspace operations and activities are analogous to team sport. Players must make sure they are playing the right game. This may sound simple, but as discussed, “cyber” means different things to different actors at different times. If cyber-based actors are playing the same game, they must understand where they are in the competition. In this competition, they must determine if are they measuring success in similar ways, and realize if they have different strategies to succeed. In baseball, team success depends on the objective. If you are a young and talented team, the objective is to make the playoffs in your first year together. If you are a talented, veteran team, success is measured by whether you win the league pennant or the World Series. In cyber operations and activities, success is also measured differently. Some measure success by whether it leads to kinetic actions, while others take a longer-term metric of how it shapes the environment.128 If success is measured differently, adversaries must evaluate the opponent based upon the strategy they employ and not mirror image how they would measure “winning” in and through cyberspace. The security community also cannot get too enamored with individual actors. The GRU and FSB are powerful actors within the Russian cyber ecosystem. However, as the 2022 Ukraine invasion demonstrates, the GRU and the FSB, via cyberspace, could not coerce the Ukrainian government to concede. The FSB either chose not 127

Bradlee, Jr., B. (2013). The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams. Little, Brown & Company. Beecroft, N. (2022). Evaluating the International Support to Ukrainian Cyber Defense. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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to share operational intelligence with the GRU or the FSB decided to keep its cyber accesses in place for its own intelligence collection. If these actors do not enable each other and make their operations more effective, they are playing for themselves rather than a team-based competition. These organizations become the Rex Sox with Ted Williams, focused on individual performance, rather than the Cardinals organization that prioritized team play, leading them to win multiple single-season competitions. Individuals in team-based competition rarely win by themselves. Rather, individual actors are remembered as greats that could not compete (and win) at the highest levels of team-based competition. As we begin 2023, Russia finds itself a great unidimensional competitor, unwilling to alter its strategy in the Ukraine war. If Russia continues down this path, it will be recalled for what it could have achieved in Ukraine but did not. Russia will be remembered as a great competitor that was unable or unwilling to adjust to the new environment, while also synchronizing its strategy with other capabilities to effectively compete and win in the ultimate team-based competition, interstate warfare.

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Navigating the Middle Ground: The Central Region’s Middle Powers’ Response to the Russo-Ukrainian War Nicholas J. Kramer

Abstract This chapter discusses the state behavior of Middle Eastern and Central Asian middle powers—Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Israel, and Kazakhstan—in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western efforts to impose costs on Russia in response. Prior to the war, these middle powers could be lumped into two broad categories based on their foreign policy pursuits: revisionists and hedgers. Those foreign policies continue despite the war and the pressure exerted by parties to the hostilities to align with one side. So far, most analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian war focuses solely on the dynamics of Russia, the United States, NATO, and Ukraine, and pays little attention to extra-regional state behavior. This myopic focus on the European theater has led to an inflated assessment of the West’s ability to impose costs for revanchism and, further, triumphalism about the strength of the rules-based international order. This chapter offers a correction to those assessments and instead focuses on Middle Eastern and Central Asian middle powers’ behavior toward the Russo-Ukrainian war. Their behavior foreshadows an emerging unorganized, unaligned group of countries and casts doubt on the West’s ability to marshal a coalition and impose costs for other actors’ aggression. Keywords Central Region · Great Power Competition · Russia · Ukraine · Middle East · National Security · United States

1 Introduction On February 24, 2022, despite publicized warnings from the United States’ (U.S.) intelligence community and the White House, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine under what Vladimir Putin called a “special military operation.” For the countries of Europe, the invasion was a shock and caused a comprehensive reevaluation of European defense priorities, dependencies on Russian gas, and the rapprochement N. J. Kramer (B) United States Central Command, Tampa, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_5

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Europe had enjoyed with Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.1 The response from the countries that comprise the Middle East and Central Asia, or the Central Region2 (used interchangeably hereafter), presents a stark contrast to their European counterparts. Those countries’ responses to this second egregious breach of Ukraine’s sovereignty and Russia’s unbridled aggression have been far more muted.3 Somewhat surprisingly, compared to the Arab countries of the Levant and Gulf, a few countries in Central Asia have taken the strongest and most overt stance—but still subdued and within bounds—against their one-time colonizer and still-important economic and security partner.4 There is little doubt that the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia are heavily weighing their future relationships with Russia as they negotiate calls and pressure from Europe and the United States to condemn the invasion and align against Russia. Each country has substantial security and economic interests that Russia could impact should they align with the West. For example, the policymakers of Europe and the United States might chafe to hear that the Arab states of the Levant and Israel view Russia as a partner in stabilizing Syria, but from their perspective, Russia’s presence halted the flow of refugees to their countries and reduced instability along their borders.5 Additionally, Israel would be reluctant to do anything that might provoke Russia to challenge Israeli access to Syria’s air space and complicate its “campaign between the wars” against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.6 Moreover, Russia is the second largest gas producer in Organization of Petrol Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC +) and the Gulf states would be loath to risk retribution from 1

Scholz, O. (2022, December 5). The Global Zeitenwende: How To Avoid A New Cold War In A Multipolar Era. Foreign Affairs. January/February 2023. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/ olaf-scholz-global-zeitenwende-how-avoid-new-cold-war; Foy, H. (2023, February 27). Arming Ukraine: how war forced the EU to rewrite defense policy. The Financial Times. https://www.ft. com/content/1b762ff1-2c7f-40a1-aee9-d218c6ef6e37. 2 The name Central Region comes from the U.S. military’s geographic division of the world among what are called geographic combatant commands (GCC) and U.S. Central Command’s (USCENTCOM) area of responsibility. The Central Region and USCENTCOM’s area of responsibility is comprised of Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I have chosen to include Turkey in the Central Region because it is a significant country for the Middle East despite not being included in USCENTCOM’s area of responsibility. 3 Ibish, H. (2022, March 6). Middle East Is Frenemy Territory For U.S. And Russia. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/middle-east-is-frenemy-territ ory-for-us-and-russia/2022/03/04/df59d250-9b88-11ec-9987-9dceee62a3f6_story.html. 4 Kassymbekova, B. Marat, E. (2022, April 27). Time To Question Russia’s Imperial Innocence. PONARS Eurasia. https://www.ponarseurasia.org/time-to-question-russias-imperial-innocence/. 5 Arab News. (2022, November 3). King Abdullah Receives Russian FM, Stresses Need To Stabilize Southern Syria. Arab News. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2193211/middle-east. 6 Abrams, E., Weiss, G. (2022, April 8). Why Israel Has Been Slow To Support Ukraine. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/article/why-israel-has-been-slow-support-ukraine; Dalia, D.K. (2023, February 27). Israel’s Dangerous Shadow War With Iran: Why the Risk of Escalation Is Growing. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israels-dangerous-shadow-wariran.

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Russia given their visions for economic diversification and projections of trends in oil markets.7 The Central Asian states, on the other hand, would be directly opposing their historical security guarantor and the state on which they rely heavily for their economies, irrespective of Russia’s threatening rhetoric justifying the war.8 Despite these countries’ legitimate interests, these countries have still charted a separate path and have remained unaligned. Navigating the pressures from the parties to the war does not yet constitute a coherent third way like the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War, but is purposefully avoiding alignment with either the West or Russia, or China for that matter, and is pursuing their interests. Reflections on this behavior are lacking so far in the commentary about the RussoUkrainian war. The preponderance of analysis focuses solely on the dynamics of Russia, the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Ukraine, and pays little attention to state behavior outside the European theater.9 This geographically narrow analysis typically focuses on the cohesion of the transAtlantic relationship and the joint U.S. and European response after Russia’s invasion. Western commentary sometimes refers to a “global coalition” and suggests the war has had wide-reaching ramifications.10 There is frequently some suggestion that the U.S.-led, rules-based international order is stronger today than prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that a message is being sent to would-be adversaries which ultimately bolsters deterrence against similar acts of aggression.11 However, assessments that focus solely on countries responding to an acutely proximate threat and therefore exclude the opinions and actions of Asian, African, or South American states regarding the war—states home to roughly 85% of the 7 Ulrichsen, K. C. (2022, March 22). The GCC And The Russian-Ukraine Crisis. Arab Center Washington DC. https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-gcc-and-the-russia-ukraine-crisis/. 8 Scepanovic, J. (2022, June 13). The Sheriff And The Banker? Russia And China In Central Asia. War On The Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/the-sheriff-and-the-banker-russiaand-china-in-central-asia/; Mankoff, J. (2022, October 11). As Russia Reels, Eurasia Roils. War On The Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2022/10/as-russia-reels-eurasia-roils. 9 Schuman, M. (2022, February 24). Is Taiwan Next? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/int ernational/archive/2022/02/vladimir-putin-ukraine-taiwan/622907/. 10 Sly, Liz. (2023, February 23). A Global Divide On The Ukraine War Is Deepening. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/22/global-south-russia-wardivided/; U.S. Department of State – Office of the Spokesperson. (2023, February 18). Secretary Antony J. Blinken With German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba At the Munich Security Conference. U.S. Department of State. https:// www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-german-foreign-minister-annalena-baerbock-andukrainian-foreign-minister-dmytro-kuleba-at-the-munich-security-conference/; U.S. Embassy Caracas. (2023, February 24). Remarks By Vice President Harris At The Munich Security Conference. U.S. Embassy in Venezuela. https://ve.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-atthe-munich-security-conference/. 11 Hanson, N. (2022, January 10). Whatever Russia Does in Ukraine, China Will Be Watching. The National Interest. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/whatever-russia-does-ukraine-china-will-bewatching-199301; Lin, B., Culver, J. (2022, April 19). China’s Taiwan Invasion Plans May Get Faster And Deadlier: Russian Mistakes Offer Some Warnings For Beijing’s Ambitions. Foreign Policy. https://foreig npolicy.com/2022/04/19/china-invasion-ukraine-taiwan/.

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world’s population—likely inflate the amount of cohesion and will in the international community to counter aggression and impose costs for norm-breaking.12 As recently stated in a piece in the Economist: Only a third of the world’s population lives in countries that have both condemned Russia for its invasion and also imposed sanctions on it, […]. Most of them are close allies of America. The rest tend to see the war as a contest between autocrats and hypocrites.13

So, while the joint European and U.S. response to reject Russia’s revanchist behavior has been commendable, countries outside of the European theater see the war rather differently. States external to Europe are more concerned with self-interest and domestic issues, and far less with the maintenance of the U.S.-led international order.14 This chapter offers a moderating correction to previous overstated analysis. The core argument of this chapter is that Middle Eastern and Central Asian middle powers are deftly navigating the middle ground between the war’s participants to purposefully avoid alignment while simultaneously influencing the course of the war and taking advantage of its outcomes. More broadly, this behavior—outside of the European theater by middle powers—is vital to understanding the current state of the rules-based international order and the West’s ability to perpetuate that regime. The discordance in the international system over the war suggests that the state of the rules-based international order is more ambiguous than most Russo-Ukrainian war analysis suggests and, furthermore, that that lack of cohesion calls into question the West’s ability to impose meaningful costs for aggression, whether in the Central Region or elsewhere. This chapter begins by defining the term middle power. It then frames the regional context of the Central Region on the eve of the war. Subsequently, it analyzes the behavior of specific countries in the Middle East and Central Asia—Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Israel, and Kazakhstan— toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Western response. The chapter concludes with implications for the international system and future cost imposition efforts for aggression.

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Menon, S. (2023, February 9). Out of Alignment: What the War in Ukraine Has Revealed About Non-Western Powers. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/out-alignment-warin-ukraine-non-western-powers-shivshankar-menon. 13 The Economist – Briefing. (2023, February 18). Ukraine’s fate will determine the West’s authority in the world. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/02/18/ukraines-fate-willdetermine-the-wests-authority-in-the-world. 14 Walt, S. M. (2023, February 23). The Conversation About Ukraine Is Cracking Apart. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/28/the-conversation-about-ukraine-is-crackingapart/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921; For a multi-country global poll on the Russo-Ukrainian war see: Ash, T.G., Krastev, I., Leonard, M. (2023, February 22). United West, Divided From The Rest: Global Public Opinion One Year Into Russia’s War On Ukraine. European Council on Foreign Relations. https://ecfr.eu/publication/united-west-divided-from-the-rest-global-public-opi nion-one-year-into-russias-war-on-ukraine/.

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2 Middle Power Theory and Why Middle Powers Matter The term middle power, or second tier state or even intermediate power, comes from classical realism and is at its simplest an attempt to stratify states based on relative power in the international system from great powers to small powers.15 Despite these terms’ realist roots, they have broad acceptance across international relations theories, as both the liberal and constructivist schools have found uses for them.16 Contemporary use of the term middle power developed toward the end of World War II as certain states—namely Canada and Australia—tried to carve out a role for themselves and enhance their influence in the emerging bipolar world.17 Since then, countries like South Korea have joined Canada’s and Australia’s ranks in describing their foreign policies as being that of middle powers.18 But what does it mean to be a middle power and how would one measure it? Despite the common usage of the term in diplomatic circles and academia, and the flourishing scholarly debate on and research of middle powers since the end of the Cold War and the unipolar moment, there is no consensus on the precise criteria that constitute a middle power.19 The establishing factors usually include a state’s function, capacity, and/or behavior.20 Function relates to a state’s role in the international system, particularly in the maintenance of the rules-based international order.21 Capacity, or hierarchy, refers to a more traditional measure of a state’s power such as gross-national product, military capacity, industrial capacity, and population size, as well as less quantifiable aspects such as national will, and align with the realist theory.22 A state’s behavior typically refers to active diplomacy, coalition-building, niche diplomatic efforts like leadership on climate change or human rights, and even support of the rules-based international system.23 For example, Jeffery Robertson writes, “a middle power ought to be considered as a state with an interest in and

15 Eduard Jordaan (2017) The Emerging Middle Power Concept: Time To Say Goodbye? South African Journal of International Affairs, 24:3, 395-412. https://doi.org/10.1080/10220461.2017. 1394218. 16 Robertson, J. (2017). Middle-Power Definitions: Confusion Reigns Supreme. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 71:4, 355-370. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2017.1293608. 17 Shin, D. (2015, December 14). A Critical Review of the Concept of Middle Power. E-International Relations. https://www.e-ir.info/2015/12/04/a-critical-review-of-the-concept-of-middle-power/. 18 Robertson, J. (2017). Middle-Power Definitions: Confusion Reigns Supreme. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 71:4, 355-370. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2017.1293608. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Chapnick, A. (1999). The Middle Power. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 7:2, 73-82. https:// doi.org/10.1080/11926422.1999.9673212. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid.

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capacity (material resources, diplomatic influence, creativity, etc.) to work proactively in concert with similar states to contribute to the development and strengthening of institutions for the governance of the global commons.”24 But even as scholarship coalesces around those three categories of broad measurement, what specific metrics should constitute those categories remains contested. The functional category is most controversial because it excludes countries that resist the rules-based international order and can crosscut the other two categories.25 Within the categories of capacity and behavior there also remains debate: capacity is not easily measured whether referring to economic resources or military capability.26 The failed predictions of Russia’s swift victory in Ukraine is a recent example of the perils of assessing relative military capability.27 And the kind of behavior in the international system a middle power exhibits is similarly questionable: are only states that are good international citizens considered middle powers as Robertson has argued?28 What about states that act in concert with other actors to rewrite the rules of the international system and carve out a sphere of influence for themselves? Are Turkey and Iran not middle powers despite their selective opposition to the rulesbased order? Intuitively, would both countries not be stratified as roughly on par with Canada in terms of power, especially given their consequence in the international system? For the purposes of this chapter, a middle power is more in line with the classical realist understanding of the term. The term middle power means a state with the capacity (economic resources, diplomatic influence, military power, etc.) to be consequential to the international system and uses that capacity to influence the system. Whether that behavior is positive or negative for the current rules-based international order, or hegemonic state, is immaterial. This definition, like the others, has the liabilities of being broad and lacking concrete metrics. However, it is exclusive enough to limit the number of states that can hold the moniker, while remaining broad enough to take a variety of sources of national power into consideration. Further, the definition removes any subjective discussion of “good” or “stabilizing” behavior from the term, which allows the inclusion of states in opposition, selectively or wholesale, to the rules-based international order. These states are important to analyze because “regardless of the label … second-tier states will hold increasingly strategic positions, making them capable of shaping the politics, economics and security of their regions” in the coming decades.29 24

Robertson, J. (2017). Middle-Power Definitions: Confusion Reigns Supreme. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 71:4, 355-370. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2017.1293608. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Risen, J., Klippenstein, K. (2022, October 5). The CIA Thought Putin Would Quickly Conquer Ukraine. Why Did They Get It So Wrong? The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/rus sia-ukraine-putin-cia/. 28 Jordaan, E. (2017). The Emerging Middle Power Concept: Time To Say Goodbye? South African Journal of International Affairs, 24:3, 395-412. https://doi.org/10.1080/10220461.2017.1394218. 29 Robertson, J. (2017). Middle-Power Definitions: Confusion Reigns Supreme. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 71:4, 355-370. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2017.1293608.

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But why focus on middle power behavior of the Central Region regarding the war? Put simply, oil. Over 50% of the world’s proven oil and natural gas reserves is in the Central Region and despite the world’s efforts to transition toward more renewable power sources, the stark reality is that the global economy still runs on oil and gas.30 All commercial shipping and militaries depend on gas.31 Gas heats European homes during the winter as has been poignantly highlighted by the war in Ukraine.32 The Central Region is also home to countries that play significant roles in international politics and are noteworthy U.S. and Russian partners. Saudi Arabia is the largest OPEC producer and can directly impact the world economy by increasing or reducing production.33 Saudi Arabia is also a longtime U.S. partner.34 Qatar and Israel are each important U.S. partners, both diplomatically and militarily, and significant to the world economy.35 Turkey is a key NATO ally that, as of the last few decades, often plays a spoiler role.36 There are also large, technologically advanced militaries in the Central Region that could provide support to either side in the current conflict.37 These states have the capacity to impact the Russo-Ukrainian war’s direction and duration in significant ways and the international system. Beyond these geopolitical reasons, the two theaters are intimately connected and what happens in one often bleeds into the other. This connection, though well established in recent years by the migration flows to Europe from the Syrian and Afghan 30

BP. (2021). Statistical Review Of World Energy – 2021: Middle East’s Energy Market In 2020. BP https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-eco nomics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2021-middle-east-insights.pdf. 31 Jacoby, M. (2022, February 27). The Shipping Industry Looks For Green Fuels. Chemical & Engineering News. https://cen.acs.org/environment/greenhouse-gases/shipping-industrylooks-green-fuels/100/i8. 32 De La Garza, A. (2022, March 16). Heat Pumps Are A Weapon In The E.U.’S Energy Face-Off With Russia. Time. https://time.com/6157947/heat-pumps-europe-russia/. 33 U.S. Energy Information Administration – Independent Statistical Analysis. (2023, February 7). Energy & Financial Markets: What Drives Crude Oil Prices? U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/finance/markets/crudeoil/supply-opec.php. 34 U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. (2022, May 11). Bilateral Relations Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations With Saudi Arabia. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/us-relations-with-saudi-arabia/. 35 U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. (2021, January 20). Bilateral Relations Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations With Israel. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state. gov/u-s-relations-with-israel/; U.S. Department of State – Office of the Spokesperson. (2023, November 20). Fact Sheet: The United States and Qatar: Strategic Partners Advancing Peace and Security. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-qatar-strategic-par tners-advancing-peaceandsecurity/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%2DQatar%20Strategic%20Dialogue% 2C%20last%20held%20in%20November%202021,50%20 years%20of%20bilateral%20ties. 36 Republic of Turkey – Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2022). Turkey-NATO Together for Peace and Security Since 60 Years. Republic of Turkey – Ministry of Foreign Affairs. https://www.mfa.gov.tr/ turkey-nato-together-for-peace-and-security-since60-years.en.mfa. 37 Essa, A. (2021, April 8). Arms sales: US Remains World’s Top Supplier As Middle East Spending Spikes. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/middle-east-arms-sales-us-top-sup plier.

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wars—as well as Islamic State terrorist attacks in European capitals—is often overlooked, but relevant again in this context.38 For example, the commander responsible for Russia’s brutal air war in Syria, General Sergei Surovikin, was put in charge of the stalled Russian invasion in Ukraine in October 2022 until his demotion in January 2023, and immediately shifted Russian strategy to a punishing air campaign.39 The Syrian citizens of Hama, Homs, Idlib, Deraa, Aleppo, and other formerly opposition-held areas are familiar with what Ukrainians are enduring.40 Additionally, fighters from the Middle East region are showing up on the battlefield in Ukraine. The Wagner Group, a private Russian paramilitary company, was reportedly recruiting former U.S.-trained Afghan special operations forces to fight for Russia in Ukraine.41 Convicted Central Asian migrant workers have returned home to their funerals after dying on the front lines with Wagner, having had their sentences commuted in Russia on condition of joining the paramilitary company to fight in Ukraine.42 The two theaters are closely connected. To reiterate, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Israel, and Kazakhstan meet the definition of middle powers in the Central Region.43 Of the seven identified middle powers, two—Turkey and Iran—are revisionists, and each were exerting their relative

38

The United Nations Refugee Agency. (2023) Refugee Crisis in Europe. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/refugee-crisis-in-europe/; Higgins, A., de Freytas-Tamura, K. (2015, November 19). Paris Attacks Suspect Killed in Shootout Had Plotted Terror for 11 Months. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/ world/europe/paris-attacks.html. 39 Fisher, M. (2022, October 22). General Sergei Surovikin: Who is Putin’s hard-line new commander in Ukraine? BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63217467. 40 Najjar, A. (2018, June 27). Damage Caused By The Syrian Civil War: What The Data Says. Toward Data Science. https://towardsdatascience.com/damage-caused-by-the-syrian-civilwar-what-the-data-say-ebad5796fca8. 41 Condon, B. (2022, October 31). Russia Recruiting U.S.-Trained Afghan Commandos, Vets Say. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-russia-ukraine-iran-europe-taliban30e2b1ffc7c5ecf2847b654f862723b8. 42 Putz, C. (2022, March 5). Ethnic Central Asians Among Those Killed With The Russian Army In Ukraine. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/ethnic-central-asians-among-those-kil led-with-the-russian-army-in-ukraine/; Pannier, B. (2023, January 31). Central Asia in Focus: Russia’s Central Asian Casualties of War. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. https://pressroom. rferl.org/a/32248205.html. 43 Notably absent from this list is Pakistan; certainly, a country of its population size, geographic location, and regional status as the owner of the only “Muslim Bomb” support its inclusion as a middle power. While Pakistan has played a significant regional role in the past, it is currently too wracked by its own political instability, unstable economy, and impacts from devastating flooding to be consequential on the world stage. That is not to say Pakistan is playing no role in the Russo-Ukraine war – it is reportedly providing artillery munitions through the United Kingdom to Ukraine – but rather that it lacks influential external engagement capacity currently. For insight into Pakistan’s economic state see: Saifi, S., Horowitx, J. (2023, February 2). Blackouts

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power before the war to carve out spheres of influence in their surrounding region.44 Today, they are using the war to gain even more influence. Of the middle powers in the Central Region, their behavior has been the most consequential for the war since its start in February 2022. By contrast, the other countries—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Israel, and Kazakhstan—pursued hedging strategies to mitigate the uncertainty in the region that existed prior to the war. That behavior continues even given the war and despite Western calls to align against Russia. Both categories of middle powers, revisionist and hedgers alike, are taking advantage of the war and its impacts on the international system to advance their own foreign and domestic policy agendas while remaining unaligned. Before describing each state’s behavior regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war, it is worth framing the uncertainty in the region prior to Russia’s invasion. That uncertainty still exists and has implications for how these states are behaving given the new uncertainty introduced by the war.

3 Framing the Uncertainty in the Region Increasing uncertainty in the Central Region exists due to the U.S. led rules-based international order’s relative decline.45 A substantial body of literature has developed in recent years dealing with the U.S.-led liberal order’s transition to a less concentrated, multipolar order.46 Some scholars predict the emergence of four orders— liberal, Chinese, Russian, and Islamic—within an overarching international system of laws and institutions.47 Regardless of the ultimate system that develops, there is broad academic consensus that the emerging order will be multipolar, more regional,

And Soaring Prices: Pakistan’s Economy Is On The Brink. CNN Business. https://www.cnn.com/ 2023/02/02/economy/pakistan-economy-crisis/index.html; The Economist – Asia. (2022, July 28). Pakistan May Be Able To Avoid A Full-Blown Economic Crisis. The Economist. https://www. economist.com/asia/2022/07/28/pakistan-may-be-able-to-avoid-a-full-blown-economic-crisis. For Pakistan’s involvement so far in the war see: Gosselin-Malo, E. (2022, October 6). Pakistan, Ukraine, And The Race For Third-Party Ammunition. The Drive – The War Zone. https://www.thedrive. com/the-war-zone/pakistan-ukraine-and-the-race-for-third-party-ammunition; Chaudhury, D. R., (2023, February 11). Pakistan To Supply Arms To Ukraine Via German Port Now. The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/pakistan-to-supply-armsto-ukraine-via-german-port-now/articleshow/97808726.cms?from=mdr. 44 Mankoff, J. (2022). Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security. New Haven: Yale University Press. 45 Fulton, J. (2022). Systemic Change and Regional Orders: Asian Responses to a Gulf in Transition. The International Spectator. https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2022.2107843. 46 Fulton, J., Li-Chen, S. (2019). External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies. London: Routledge. 47 Flockhart, T., Korosteleva, E.A. (2022). War In Ukraine: Putin And The Multi-Order World. Contemporary Security Policy, 43:3, 466-481. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2022.2091591; Flockhart, T. (2016). The Coming Multi-Order World. Contemporary Security Policy, 37:1, 3-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2016.1150053.

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and less Western.48 The contours of this emerging order are already present in the Central Region, which has become a dual hierarchical order in which one country is the security hegemon, and another country is the economic hegemon.49 ,50 In both the Middle East—particularly the Gulf region—and Central Asia, China is the top trading and the dominant external economic partner by most measures.51 Meanwhile, the U.S. is the security guarantor in the Arabian Gulf and Russia the security guarantor in Central Asia. There are two reasons for this transition in the Middle East: China’s rise, and the U.S. pivot to the Indo-pacific.52 The feeling among regional leaders is that the U.S. is no longer reliable as a security guarantor, causing some to diversify their security partners.53 Over the last decade the Middle East has been rocked by the Arab uprisings and regional leaders’ subsequent responses. Longtime American partners like Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak were cast aside by the U.S. in favor of the protesters’ demands, to the shock and dismay of other regional autocrats with a tradition of U.S. partnership.54 In Syria, the U.S. chose a narrow intervention to combat only the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while its regional partners pursued regime change against Assad.55 In more recent memory, the Trump administration announced a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Syria and then abruptly reversed course.56 The U.S. reacted timidly to the Iranian-executed but Houthi-claimed attack

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Fulton, J., Li-Chen, S. (2019). External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies. London: Routledge. Ibid. 50 Jackson, V. (2017, December 7). Whose Rules, What Rules? A Contest For Order In The AsiaPacific. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/whose-rules-rules-contest-orderasia-pacific/. 51 Bishara, M. (2022, December 7). China, The US And A New Scramble For The Gulf. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/7/china-the-us-and-a-new-scramble-forthe-gulf; The China Briefing Team. (2021, May 20). China and Central Asia: Bilateral Trade Relationships and Future Outlook. China Briefing. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-and-cen tral-asia-bilateral-trade-relationships-and-future-outlook/. 52 Fulton, J., Li-Chen, S. (2019). External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies. London: Routledge.; Scepanovic, J. (2022, June 13). The Sheriff And The Banker? Russia And China In Central Asia. War On The Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/the-sheriff-and-the-banker-russia-and-china-incentral-asia/. 53 Quero, J. & Dessì, A. (2021). Unpredictability In US Foreign Policy And The Regional Order In The Middle East: Reacting Vis-À-Vis A Volatile External Security-Provider. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 48:2, 311-330. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2019.1580185. 54 Ibid. 55 Quero, J. & Dessì, A. (2021). Unpredictability In US Foreign Policy And The Regional Order In The Middle East: Reacting Vis-À-Vis A Volatile External Security-Provider. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 48:2, 311-330. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2019.1580185. 56 Barnes, J., Schmitt, E. (2019, October 16). Trump Orders Withdrawal of U.S. Troops From Northern Syria. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/us/politics/mark-espersyria-kurds-turkey.html. 49

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on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure at Abqaiq and Khurais fields.57 American reaction to the Houthi missile and UAS attacks on Abu Dhabi and Dubai in January 2022 was similarly muted.58 Even after the targeted killing of Quds Force Commander Qassem Solumanei, which the region cheered, the U.S. failed to respond forcefully to the Iranian retaliation, even though it reportedly injured one hundred U.S. service members at Al Asad air base in Iraq.59 ,60 Across multiple administrations, the U.S. has made clear to its Middle Eastern partners that it will not be derailed from its primary foreign policy concern: a rising China. The Gulf has also taken notice of the U.S. response in the war in Ukraine and is exasperated by the scale and speed at which the U.S. responded to Ukrainian calls for help in comparison to its absent or lackluster response to their own calls for much more limited assistance.61 Further exacerbating the U.S. position in the Middle East is that the U.S. is not filling the region’s need for economic diversification. Gulf leaders have recognized their economic dependence on petrol is unsustainable and it is time to diversify their economies away from oil dependence.62 For example, three Gulf nations have all put forth visions—New Kuwait 2035, Saudi’s Vision 2030, and Abu Dhabi 2030— for their economies that diminish their reliance on oil and diversify toward tourism, technology, defense, finance, and real estate.63 Interestingly, Chinese foreign direct investment is an important player for these visions even as China remains the Gulf’s single largest importer of oil.64 The U.S., on the other hand, has pressured its Gulf partners to forego Chinese technology, like Huawei’s 5G technology, despite 5G’s importance to diversifying their economies.65 It should not come as a surprise, given the regions’ economic needs and the U.S.’s foreign policy shift, that the regions’ foreign policies would not also change course. 57

Pamuk, H. (2019, December 19). Exclusive: U.S. Probe Of Saudi Oil Attack Shows It Came From North – Report. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-attacks-iran-exclusive/ exclusive-u-s-probe-of-saudi-oil-attack-shows-it-came-from-north-report-idUSKBN1YN299. 58 Gambrell, J. (2022, January 24). UAE And U.S. Intercept Houthi Missile Attack Targeting Abu Dhabi. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-01-24/uae-interc epts-ballistic-missiles-abu-dhabi-yemen-war. 59 Fassihi, F. (2020, January 8). In Iran, Rejoicing Over Retaliation, then Relief at No U.S. Counterstrike. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/world/middleeast/iranians-retali ation.html. 60 Ibid. 61 Dadouch, S. (2022, March 27). Qatar, Saudi Arabia Say The West Mobilizes Support For Ukraine But Falls Short In The Middle East. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ 2022/03/27/qatar-saudi-arabia-say-west-mobilizes-support-ukraine-falls-short-middle-east/. 62 The Economist – Leaders. (2023, February 9). Arab Petrostates Must Prepare Their Citizens For A Post-Oil Future. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/02/09/arab-pet rostates-must-prepare-their-citizens-for-a-post-oil-future. 63 Fulton, J., Li-Chen, S. (2019). External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies. London: Routledge. 64 The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2022, December 7). The Gulf Looks To China. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/12/07/the-gulf-looks-to-china. 65 Cornwell, A. (2019, September 12). U.S. Flags Huawei 5G Network Security Concerns To Gulf Allies. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-security-usa-gulf/u-s-flags-huawei-5gnetwork-security-concerns-to-gulf-allies-idUSKCN1VX241.

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Central Asia’s leaders have likewise realized China’s importance to their countries’ economic development and have joined China’s economic flagship Belt and Road Initiative, tying them to China through trade, infrastructure, and debt. As old leaders loyal to Russia are replaced by new leaders with greater economic ambitions for their countries than being a vassal of their former Soviet colonizer, they have sought to open and diversify their economies with investment from China being a major supporter.66 Xi Jinping first announced his Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 while in Kazakhstan, demonstrating that country and region’s importance to China.67 Turkmenistan was the final Central Asian state to upgrade its relationship with China to one of “strategic partner” in 2023, a process begun in 2011 with Kazakhstan.68 To further cement the importance of the Central Asian and Chinese relationship, Xi Jinping’s first travel outside of China after two years of absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic was to Kazakhstan, followed by Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting.69 China and Central Asia have also established the C + C5 forum, which is outside the CSTO and SCO, to focus on areas of mutual economic interest; it will meet for the first time this year.70 In both the Middle East and Central Asia, political leaders’ realization of their domestic economic visions is heavily tied to China and its economic growth and stability. These growing economic interests create a natural pivot point for future security and diplomatic relationships as appears the case with a possible Chinese military base in UAE and the recent Saudi-Iran détente negotiated and guaranteed by Beijing.71 At the same time that China has eroded Russia’s economic dominance in Central Asia, the war in Ukraine is undermining Russia’s role as Central Asia’s security guarantor. Russia’s poor performance, threatening rhetoric, and lack of attention to 66

Bradsher, K. (2022, September 16). In the ‘Great Game’ of Central Asia, China’s Leader Seeks the Advantage. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/world/asia/china-xicentral-asia.html. For more information on China’s ambitions in Central Asia see: Pantucci, R., Petersen, A. (2022). Sinostan: China’s Inadvertent Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. and Markey, D.S. (2020). China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 67 Perlez, J. (2013, September 7). China Looks West As It Bolsters Regional Ties. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/world/asia/china-looks-west-as-it-strengthensregional-ties.html. 68 Peng, N. (2023, January 10). Berdimuhamedov’s China Visit Pushes Forward China-Central Asia Relations. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/berdimuhamedovs-china-visit-pushesforward-china-central-asia-relations/. 69 AP News. (2022, September 12). Xi To Visit Central Asia In 1st Trip Abroad Since Pandemic. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-asia-xi-jinping-beijing-469f64 b5d696c22a47710ece1d46f424. 70 Idib. 71 Strobel, W. P. (2021, December 9). U.A.E. Shut Down China Facility Under U.S. Pressure, Emirates Says. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-a-e-confirms-it-haltedwork-on-secret-chinese-port-project-after-pressure-from-u-s-11639070894; Cloud, D. S., Ramzy, A. (2023, March 11). China-Brokered Deal Between Iran, Saudi Arabia Marks a New Middle East. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-brokered-deal-between-iran-saudi-ara bia-marks-a-new-middle-east-d1eaf94e.

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Central Asia are creating an opening for other powers.72 Further, Russia is beginning to look like a threat to Central Asian sovereignty and territorial integrity, causing some countries to question their security relationship.73 Putin and Russian lawmakers have made loosely veiled threats toward the region and justified the invasion of Ukraine with the need to protect a broader Slavic brotherhood.74 A substantial number of ethnic Russians live in northern Kazakhstan, and Russia has a history of questioning Kazakhstan’s right to exist as a state much like Russian leaders have questioned Ukraine’s.75 Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure are a direct message to all former Soviet colonial states: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics built the infrastructure Russia is now destroying in Ukraine, and Russians increasingly see that infrastructure as a gift to those former Soviet states that can be destroyed if a state falls out of alignment with Russia.76 ,77 Moreover, Russia’s involvement in Ukraine has meant it has been unable to play its traditional role in the region. Ongoing border clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic flared this past summer and fall, and Russia was absent in mediating the dispute.78 Russia appears increasingly unreliable as a security partner and in some cases even presents a sovereignty threat for Central Asia’s leaders. While the Central Region is being pushed toward other security partners, its subregions are being pulled by the gravitational weight of China’s rise. This is the major regional context that confronted middle powers in the Middle East and Central Asia on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and after. It has provided space for middle powers to act counter to their traditional security guarantors and thus avoid alignment in the war. Further, the regional context has provided leeway for revisionists and hedgers alike to take advantage of the war. That latitude provided hedgers with the flexibility to reach out to new and diverse partners. The revisionists on the other hand have seized that space to present themselves to the world as alternative paths—one as a viable pole in an emerging multipolar world and the other simply as anti-Western. 72

Alimova, Y. (2022, July 20). Central Asian Leaders Meet Amid Russia’s ‘Declining Role’ In Region. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/central-asia-russia-declinebrick-interview/31952425.html. 73 Idib. 74 Szymanski, M., Strachota, K. (2022, September 30). Erosion Of The Post-Soviet System In Central Asia. Centre for Eastern Studies. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/ 2022-09-30/erosion-post-soviet-system-central-asia. 75 Pannier, B. (2020, December 16). An Old Refrain: Russian Lawmakers Question Kazakhstan’s Territorial Integrity, Statehood. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/russialawmakers-question-kazakhstan-territorial-integrity-statehood/31003732.html. 76 Idib. 77 Baunov, A. (2023, January 22). Putin Is Launching An Assault On The Last Vestiges Of Soviet Identity. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/c24ebf22-9d81-4b2f-bb1b-0f8 80afdfcde?shareType=nongift. 78 Al Jazeera News – Water. (2022, May 1). Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan Agree New Ceasefire After Border Clashes. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/1/kyrgyzstan-accuses-tajiki stan-of-amassing-troops-near-border.

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4 The Central Region’s Middle Powers’ Behavior 4.1 The Revisionists The revisionist powers of the Middle East—Turkey and Iran—are undermining Western enforcement of the rules-based international order by implicitly offering themselves as an alternative. Since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Turkey has supported Ukraine with overt military assistance while still convening negotiations and increasing trade with Russia—balancing East and West while raising its regional profile. Iran, on the other hand, aligned with Russia by helping Russia militarily and deepening relations. Both countries are demonstrating to the world an alternative path, albeit in their own way. Turkey is offering itself implicitly as a power between, but not of, East and West, while Iran is offering itself simply as anti-Western. Furthermore, both are demonstrating the diffusion of power in the international system by defying great powers’ objectives—blunting attempts at cost imposition and acting as spoilers in the war. Since Erdogan came to power in Ankara, Turkey centered itself in regional affairs and advanced a revisionist project for Eurasia.79 As Iliya Kusa of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center writes, “[Erdogan] has sought to make Turkey a regional Muslim superpower capable of designing and guiding a new ‘post-Western’ security architecture in greater Eurasia and one of the first non-Western powers to shape the new multipolar world order.”80 Turkey has deftly balanced its reaction to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, and to the U.S.-led response, to expand Turkey’s influence, positioning it as a mediator between east and west.81 Further, it has put its own military capabilities on display against Russian forces on the battlefield and in so doing has proven the value of its security partnership vice Russia’s to the rest of the world– in particular, to its ethnic Turkic brethren of Central Asia.82 In support of the West, Turkey has openly supplied military aid to Ukraine and acted to counter Russia’s invasion. And while Turkey’s monetary contribution to Ukraine’s cause pales in comparison to that of the U.S. and EU, it has still been consequential. Most notably, Turkey has overtly provided Bayraktar drones, among other military hardware, which reportedly played an important role in the sinking of

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Kusa, I. (2022, June 13). Turkey’s Goals In The Russia-Ukraine War. The Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/turkeys-goals-russia-ukraine-war. 80 Ibid. 81 Wilks, A. (2022, November 15). As Russia’s War In Ukraine Drags On, Turkey’s Role Expands. Al Jazeera News. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/15/how-turkey-positions-itself-during-the-war-inukraine. 82 Djumaeva, G. (2023, February 9). Will Organization Of Turkic States Become The Leading Platform of Central Asia. Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting. https://cabar.asia/en/willorganization-of-turkic-states-become-the-leading-platform-in-central-asia?_utl_t=ln.

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the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva on April 14, 2022.83 Turkey’s Bayraktar drones also had devastating effects earlier in the war against Russian forces and were effective in repulsing the assault on Kiev.84 Most recently, Turkey has pledged to send Cold War era cluster munitions to Ukraine to help break the stalemate of trench warfare that has set in.85 Turkey is a member of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) established to support Ukraine with lethal aid donations, which has met every quarter since April 2022.86 Furthermore, Turkey has leveraged its geographic position to inflict pain on Russia. Within days of the war starting, Turkey closed its straits to military vessels, preventing Moscow from reinforcing its Black Sea fleet.87 Turkey also blocked Russian aircraft from using its airspace as it transited forces from Syria to the war in Ukraine.88 Turkey has acted as a spoiler to Russian objectives in Ukraine in very provocative ways. Yet Turkey has balanced these provocative acts with spoilers toward the West. Turkey maintains its policy of not adhering to sanctions imposed without approval of the United Nations security council, so it is not enforcing Western sanctions on Russia.89 Trade between Russia and Turkey has actually grown during the war in gas, tourism, and, due to export controls, hard-to-find electronics.90 Most visibly in 83

Kramer, A. (2022, February 3). Turkey, a Sometimes Wavering NATO Ally, Backs Ukraine. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/europe/ukraine-turkey-russiadrones.html; Hambling, D. (2022, April 14). Ukraine’s Bayraktar Drone Helped Sink Russian Flagship Moskva. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/04/14/ukraines-bayrak tar-drones-helped-destroy-russian-flagship/?sh=79dd0fed3a7a; Wilks, A. (2022, November 15). As Russia’s War In Ukraine Drags On, Turkey’s Role Expands. Al Jazeera News. https://www.aljazeera. com/news/2022/11/15/how-turkey-positions-itself-during-the-war-in-ukraine; Tringham, K. (2022, October 3). Turkey Launches First Ada-Class Corvette For Ukraine. Janes Defense News. https:// www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/turkey-launches-first-ada-class-corvette-for-ukraine. 84 Phillips, D., Schmitt, E. (2022, March 11). Over Ukraine, Lumbering Turkish-Made Drones Are an Ominous Sign for Russia. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/us/pol itics/ukraine-military-drones-russia.html. 85 Detsch, J., Gramer, R. (2023, January 10). Turkey Is Sending Cold War-Era Cluster Bombs To Ukraine. Foreign Policy Magazine. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/10/turkey-cold-war-clusterbombs-ukraine/. 86 Garamone, J. (2022, June 15). More Than 50 Nations Pledge to Help Build Ukraine’s Defense. DOD News. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3064765/more-than-50-nationspledge-to-help-build-ukraines-defense/. 87 Gumrukcu, T. (2022, March 1). Turkey Urges Respect For Black Sea Straits Pact After Closing Access. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-urges-respect-blacksea-straits-pact-after-closing-access-2022-03-01/. 88 Reuters. (2022, April 23). Turkish Air Space Closed To Planes Carrying Troops From Russia To Syria, Broadcaster Reports. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkish-air-spaceclosed-planes-carrying-troops-russia-syria-trt-cites-minister-2022-04-23/. 89 Daily Sabah. (2022, March 1). Turkey Has No Intention Of Joining Sanctions Against Russia. Daily Sabah. https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkey-has-no-intention-of-joiningsanctions-against-russia. 90 Malsin, J. Kivilcim, E. (2023, February 5). Ukraine War Makes Unexpected Winner of Turkey’s Erdogan. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/tukey-erdogan-putin-russia-ukr aine-war-11675614201.

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its defiance of Western desires, Turkey delayed Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO for months, before finally relenting after gaining compromises from the U.S. and Europe.91 ,92 Some commentators believed Turkey was holding out for certain concessions, namely condemnation of the YPG by Swedish officials and movement on an F-16 purchase from the U.S.93 Regardless of its motivation, Turkey has been an effective thorn in the side of the NATO alliance and the lone outlier for trans-Atlantic unity. At the same time, Erodgan has skillfully positioned himself as the mediator between East and West. Erdogan has maintained close contact with Putin, talking with him regularly.94 Turkey was critical in brokering the grain deal in July of 2022 between the United Nations, Ukraine, and Russia, and then essential to salvaging it that November.95 Ankara has hosted preliminary truce negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, as well as talks on international security between the United States and Russia since the start of the war.96 Turkey has played a spoiler role to both Russia and the West, while also positioning itself between them in a positive light. Iran, on the other hand, has offered its services to Russia to assist in blunting the costs imposed by the West for the invasion. From November to December 2022, Iran supplied drones and training, and has reportedly proposed the potential future provision of missiles.97 All have been vital to Russia’s ongoing strategy of punishing Ukrainian infrastructure from the air since the ground war stalled and then flipped to Ukraine’s favor in August 2022.98 According to a report from the Royal United Services Institute, Russia’s air strategy shifted in June 2022 to one of bombardment of

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Outzen, R. (2023, January 27). What Turkey Really Wants From Sweden. The Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/what-turkey-really-wantsfrom-sweden-nato-pkk/. 92 Reuters. (2023, March 30). Turkish parliament ratifies Finland’s NATO accession as Sweden kept waiting. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/turkish-parliament-app roves-finlands-nato-accession-2023-03-30/. 93 Outzen, R. (2023, January 27). What Turkey Really Wants From Sweden. The Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/what-turkey-really-wantsfrom-sweden-nato-pkk/. 94 Idib. 95 Ebel, F., Karatas, Z. (2022, November 2). Turkey says grain shipments in Black Sea will resume with Russia’s agreement. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/ 02/grain-deal-ukraine-turkey-russia/. 96 Reuters. (2023, November 14) CIA Chief In Ankara Meeting With Russian Counterpart, U.S. Official Says. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/cia-chief-ankara-meeting-with-russian-cou nterpart-white-house-official-says-2022-11-14/. 97 Warrick, J., Nakashima, E., Harris, S. (2022, October 16). Iran Plans To Send Missiles, Drones To Russia For Ukraine War, Officials Say. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ national-security/2022/10/16/iran-russia-missiles-ukraine/. 98 Peck, M. (2022, October 5). Russia’s Artillery Is Faltering In Some Parts Of Ukraine, And Moscow Is Using Iran’s Drones To Fill The Gap. The Business Insider. https://www.businessinsi der.com/russia-uses-iranian-drones-to-make-up-for-artillery-faltering-2022-10.

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Ukrainian infrastructure to break Ukrainian will and deter Western support.99 From June to September, Russia’s land attack cruise missiles dropped noticeably as stockpiles dwindled.100 Russia turned to Iran for assistance and in September Ukrainian forces recorded the first use of Iran’s Shaheed 136 loitering munition by Russian forces.101 Since then, the Shaheed 136 and Mohajer 6 have remained staples of Russian long range strike capability and surveillance.102 Additionally, Russia is using Iran’s cheap drones to deplete Ukraine’s more expensive air defenses, increasing the cost of the war to Ukraine and its Western backers.103 Iran also reportedly sold thousands of drones to Russia for both long range attack and reconnaissance, and the two countries also reportedly agreed to build a factory in Russia to produce 6000 drones of a variant of the Shaheed 136 with a faster engine.104 Furthermore, dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members were reportedly observed in Crimea training Russian forces on the drone’s use.105 According to recent reporting, the defense relationship is mutually beneficial as Russia appears to be supplying Iran with cyber capabilities alongside requests for elite Russian attack helicopters and aircraft.106 Since 1979, Iran has pursued an anti-Western foreign policy that—while it has become less ideological and more pragmatic over time—still maintains its regional hegemonic designs.107 Unlike its conventional, direct assistance to Russia, Iran’s foreign policy in the Middle East has largely been pursued through proxies, and is commonly referred to by Tehran as the “Axis of Resistance.”108 Iran seeks to banish Western influence from the Middle East and establish itself as the regional hegemon.109 As such, Iran has been heavily sanctioned by the U.S. for its activities 99

Bronk, J., Reynolds, N. Watling, J. (2022, November 7). The Russian Air War and Ukrainian Requirements for Air Defense. Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. https://static.rusi.org/SR-Russian-Air-War-Ukraine-web-final.pdf. 100 Idib. 101 Idib. 102 Idib. 103 Esfandiary, D. (2023, February 17). Axis of Convenience: Why Iran’s Partnership With Russia Endures. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/axis-convenience. 104 Sangar, D., Barnes, J., Schmitt, E. (2022, December 28). U.S. Scrambles to Stop Iran From Providing Drones for Russia. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/ 28/us/politics/iran-drones-russia-ukraine.html; Nissenbaum, D., Strobel, W. (2023, February 5). Moscow, Tehran Advance Plans For Iranian-Designed Drone Facility In Russia. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/moscow-tehran-advance-plans-for-iranian-designed-dronefacility-in-russia-11675609087. 105 Idib. 106 Lieber, D., Faucon, B., Amon, M. (2023, March 27). Russia Supplies Iran With Cyber Weapons as Military Cooperation Grows. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-sup plies-iran-with-cyber-weapons-as-military-cooperation-grows-b14b94cd. 107 Tabatabai, A. M. (2020). No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid.

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in the Middle East and its ambitions for an advanced nuclear enrichment cycle.110 To counter U.S. sanctions, Iran developed what it calls a “resistance economy” to allow it to acquire indigenous production and expertise while maintaining access to markets and advanced technology through illicit means.111 To that end, under the Trump administration’s severe sanctions on Iranian oil, a ghost shipping fleet emerged to avoid sanctions and transport Iranian oil to market.112 Under the sanctions on Russia’s oil sector, this fleet has grown, as has the “grey market” for purchase of sanctioned oil.113 According to industry analysts this “shadow” fleet carrying sanctioned oil accounts for approximately 10% of the global tanker fleet, or roughly 600 tankers.114 Further, an estimated 25–35 additional vessels are being sold into the “shadow” fleet each month.115 According to U.S. intelligence officials, beyond deeper defense ties, Iran’s resistance economy is where the Russians see their relationship with Iran growing.116 Despite an antagonistic past, both Russia and Iran are anti-sanction and anti-Western, and the war has enhanced the attractiveness of a marriage of convenience along these lines.117 Iran could help Russia get its sanctioned oil to market. Additionally, as Western sanctions and export controls take effect, Russia needs access to semiconductors and microchips to maintain its advanced weaponry production. Reporting indicates that, as Russian microchip supplies have dwindled, they are being pilfered from household appliances to produce missiles and drones.118 Iran has the technological capability to assist Russia in maintaining access to these critical elements of its arsenal production and its economy. There is no doubt that the revisionist middle powers of the Middle East have played key roles in the war in Ukraine, but Iran’s role may prove more noteworthy. Both powers have increased the lethality of the war, extended its duration, and acted as spoilers in the war. Turkey’s support to Ukraine, while relatively small, has still been consequential for Russian war objectives, just as Iran’s support to 110

U.S. Department of State. Iran Sanctions. https://www.state.gov/iran-sanctions/. Bozorgmehr, N. (2022, January 18). Tehran Boasts Of ‘Economic Resistance’ Against U.S. Sanctions. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/71eccbdd-5bf7-4f1c-bd49-fafdf2 50f389. 112 Cook, C., Sheppard, D. (2023, February 7). Iran’s ‘Ghost Fleet’ Switches Into Russian Oil. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/955389bf-d01b-4acb-bd15-b764425a8a18. 113 Ibid. 114 Horowitz, J. (2023, March 1). A Mysterious Fleet Is Helping Russia Ship Oil Around The World. And It’s Growing. CNN. https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/ 01/business/russia-oil-shadow-fleet/index.html. 115 Ibid. 116 Thomas, K. (2022, December 9). Russia and Iran Military Ties Deepening Into Partnership, Biden Administration Warns. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-andiran-military-ties-deepening-into-partnership-biden-administration-warns-11670614091. 117 Esfandiary, D. (2023, February 17). Axis of Convenience: Why Iran’s Partnership With Russia Endures. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/axis-convenience. 118 Whelan, J. (2022, May 11). Sanctions Forcing Russia To Use Appliance Parts In Military Gear, U.S. Says. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/11/russiasanctions-effect-military/. 111

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Russia has been substantial for Ukraine and the West. However, Iran and Russia are forging an anti-Western partnership that spans defense and economic cooperation and has implications for cost imposition for revanchist behavior. Access to Iran’s resistance economy and illicit networks makes attempted Western cost imposition on Russia less impactful. The fleet of ships carrying sanctioned oil to a growing “grey market” indicates that countries are developing methods to avoid the West’s primary tool for imposing costs for behavior considered outside the rules-based order. It remains to be seen how long the Russian economy can withstand Western sanctions and export controls, but there are already indications that its economy is muddling through, and that its defense industry is finding work-arounds.119 These illicit costblunting methods give other adversaries the means and a model to avoid a sanctions regime, and more flexibility to transport oil as either an importer or an exporter under sanctions. Finally, both Turkey’s and Iran’s conduct highlights ongoing regional and global trends, mainly the diffusion of power and move toward a multipolar system. Through the war, Turkey has offered itself implicitly as a potential pole in a coming multipolar world. The other four potential regional leaders—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran—have not shown that they can go toe-to-toe with both the West and the East, while simultaneously positioning between the two as a mediator. Alternatively, Iran has offered itself simply as a useful member of any anti-Western bloc that may develop in the future. Both Turkey and Iran have demonstrated their hardware on the battlefield and in so doing offered themselves as substitute security partners for countries considering options beyond the traditional “greats” represented in the Russo-Ukraine war by Russia and the U.S. This is especially the case with Turkey in Central Asia. Russia’s equipment and its forces’ poor showing has Central Asian militaries questioning the value of the Russian security relationship.120 The Organization of Turkic States may be the vehicle through which the Central Asian states choose greater integration with Turkey and Russia’s position in Central Asia is further eroded.121 But the revisionists are not the only states in the Central Region navigating these trends adroitly, so are the hedgers.

4.2 The Hedgers The second grouping of middle powers in the Middle East and Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE—are pursuing hedging strategies 119

The Economist – Finance & Economics. (2022, December 29). In 2022 Russia kept the economic show on the road. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/12/29/ in-2022-russia-kept-the-economic-show-on-the-road. 120 Hedlund, S. (2023, January 26). Central Asia Is Coming Into Its Own. Geopolitical Intelligence Services. https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/central-asia-russia-ukraine/. 121 Djumaeva, G. (2023, February 9). Will Organization Of Turkic States Become The Leading Platform of Central Asia. Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting. https://cabar.asia/en/willorganization-of-turkic-states-become-the-leading-platform-in-central-asia?_utl_t=ln.

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vis-à-vis the war and regional and global trends. These states’ behavior portends a purposeful, yet unorganized, group of unaligned countries—countries that will not choose West or East but navigate a middle ground between them.122 Their rejection of longtime partners’ pressures coupled with the outreach to other powers is an indication of this emerging group. It is an indicator of the power diffusion occurring regionally and at the system level and suggests that any future Western alliance building and management—and cost imposition for acts of aggression for that matter—may prove difficult. Kazakhstan has bucked Russia’s traditional role as its security guarantor and reached out to Europe and China to balance its relationship with Russia. Its behavior is surprising given its reliance in January 2022, just a month before Putin’s invasion, on the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Russian troops to stabilize Takoyev’s power in, at the time, Nur-Sultan.123 But since the Russian invasion, Kazakhstan has complied with Western sanctions on Russia,124 has rejected Putin’s sham referendums and annexations of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts,125 has accepted hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing Putin’s mobilization effort,126 moved troops to its border with Russia due to Russian threats,127 and turned to China at the Shanghai Cooperation Council meeting in September 2022 to reinforce its sovereignty against veiled Russian threats.128 Further, Kazakhstan has banned its citizens from fighting in the war in Ukraine, which could make its migrants to Russia think twice about joining the Russian war effort.129 Kazakhstan is also taking

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Menon, S. (2023, February 9). Out of Alignment: What the War in Ukraine Has Revealed About Non-Western Powers. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/out-alignment-warin-ukraine-non-western-powers-shivshankar-menon. 123 Putc, C. (2022, January 6). CSTO Deploys to Kazakhstan at Tokayev’s Request. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/csto-deploys-to-kazakhstan-at-tokayevs-request/. 124 The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2022, October 3). Kazakhstan Commits To Complying With Sanctions On Russia. The Economist. https://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=202471803. 125 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – Kazakh Service. (2022, September 26). Russian Ally Kazakhstan Says It Won’t Recognize Referendum Results From Ukraine. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-ukraine-referendums-recognize-russia/ 32052907.html. 126 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – Kazakh Service. (2022, October 4). Kazakh Interior Minister Says 200,000 Russians Have Entered Country Since Mobilization. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-200-000-russians-enter-country-mobilization/ 32064860.html. 127 Hedlund, S. (2023, January 26). Central Asia Is Coming Into Its Own. Geopolitical Intelligence Services. https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/central-asia-russia-ukraine/. 128 Auyezova, K. (2022, November 30). As Putin Retreats In Ukraine, He Is Also Losing Kazakhstan. The Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/as-putin-retreatsin-ukraine-he-is-also-losing-kazakhstan/. 129 Jerusalem Post Staff. (2022, September 22). Central Asian Countries Ban Citizens From Participating In Ukraine War. The Jerusalem Post. https://www.jpost.com/international/article717865.

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advantage of Europe’s decoupling from Russian oil and gas to increase its delivery to Europe, albeit through Russian pipelines.130 Kazakhstan has balanced its undermining of the Russian war effort and economy with some actions beneficial to Russia. Kazakhstan, like all the Central Asian states, has abstained from every United Nations General Assembly vote on Ukraine, avoiding directly condemning Russia at the UN.131 Kazakhstan is not a member of the UDCG and has not provided military aid to Ukraine, though it has very publicly delivered humanitarian aid to Ukraine.132 Moreover, despite Kazakhstan’s compliance with Western sanctions, it has allowed the re-export of scarce electronics to Russia and has even increased exported quantities of those commodities since the imposition of export controls.133 Kazakhstan has therefore deftly balanced its rejection of Russia while also reaching out to China and Europe. While Kazakhstan’s rejection of Russia has been a recent policy shift in response to the war in Ukraine, the UAE has been reading the dynamics in the international environment for years in advance of the current conflict and has been taking deliberate steps to diversify its foreign policy away from the U.S.134 In defiance of alignment with the U.S., the UAE has taken advantage of the war to further ingratiate itself to other powers, namely Russia.135 The UAE has long been a hub for Russian oligarchs and Dubai is a well-known financial hub for laundering Russian money.136 As a result, the UAE has been put on the Financial Action Task Forces “gray list” and placed under enhanced supervision for money laundering.137 Now, reportedly, the 130

Auyezova, K. (2022, November 30). As Putin Retreats In Ukraine, He Is Also Losing Kazakhstan. The Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/as-putin-retreatsin-ukraine-he-is-also-losing-kazakhstan/. 131 Tiezzi, S. (2022, March 3). How Did Asian Countries Vote On The UN’s Ukraine Resolution. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/how-did-asian-countries-vote-on-the-uns-ukr aine-resolution/. 132 The Astana Times – International. (2022, March 9). Kazakhstan is Ready to Provide Humanitarian Assistance, Says President Tokayev. The Astana Times. https://astanatimes.com/2022/03/ kazakhstan-sends-humanitarian-aid-to-ukraine-video-repatriation-flight-departs-from-polands-kat owice-with-kazakh-citizens-evacuated-from-ukraine/#:~:text=The%20aid%20included%2017% 20kinds,appeal%20from%20the%20Ukrainian%20government. 133 Burna-Asefi, S. N. (2023, February 27). Just Passing Through: Kazakhstan’s Parallel Trade Predicament. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2023/02/just-passing-through-kazakhstansparallel-trade-predicament/. 134 Krieg, A. (2022, June 3). The UAE’s New Leader Is Turning the Tiny Kingdom Into a Major Power Player. Time Magazine. https://time.com/6183527/uae-mohammad-bin-zayed-al-nahyangeopolitics/. 135 Krieg, A., Hedges, M. (2022, March 18). With Friends like This: The UAE emerges as key enabler of Putin’s Russia. https://www.andreaskrieg.com/post/with-friends-like-this-the-uae-eme rges-as-key-enabler-of-putin-s-russia. 136 The Economist – Finance & Economics. (2023, January 29). How Russia Dodges Oil Sanctions On An Industrial Scale. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/ 01/29/how-russia-dodges-oil-sanctions-on-an-industrial-scale. 137 Chadha, S. (2022, March 8). Explained: Why Dubai Is On A FATF Gray List And What It Means For India. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/explai ned-why-dubai-is-on-a-fatf-gray-list-and-what-it-means-for-india/articleshow/90068564.cms.

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UAE is also helping transit sanctioned Russian oil to market, further blunting the West’s cost imposition.138 The UAE also sided with Saudi Arabia and Russia in the October OPEC + decision to defy a U.S. request to delay cutting oil production.139 The October decision blunted the impact of Western sanctions on Russia’s oil sector and was received as a betrayal of the relationship in the United States.140 The UAE followed up the decision with a trip to Moscow cloaked as a mediation attempt, presumably to pacify Western policymakers upset over the OPEC + decision.141 The UAE’s actions have not gone unnoticed and the West is actively pressuring the UAE to crack down on these illicit activities.142 Nonetheless, the UAE’s choices demonstrate a trend of jettisoning its relationship with the United States and replacing it with considerable outreach to Russia, and China for that matter. Saudi Arabia, however, has been reluctant to openly move away from the United States as a major partner, until recently, but is clearly drifting from the U.S. orbit. That October OPEC + pronouncement rocked Western leadership and caused an uproar among the U.S. legislature, some calling for cutting Saudi Arabia off from U.S. military equipment despite the still-present threat from Houthi missiles and UAVs.143 Saudi Arabia tried to calm these voices by announcing $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine immediately following the decision and outrage, but that attempt largely fell flat among U.S. leaders.144 Additionally, Saudi Arabia has tried to rehabilitate its reputation in the U.S. after the Khashoggi slaying by using its influence with Putin to negotiate a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.145 Saudi Arabia has not joined the UDCG however and has not overtly provided lethal 138

The Economist – Finance & Economics. (2023, January 29). How Russia Dodges Oil Sanctions On An Industrial Scale. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/ 01/29/how-russia-dodges-oil-sanctions-on-an-industrial-scale. 139 Ghaddar, A., Lawler, A. Edwards, R. (2022, October 5). OPEC + Agrees Deep Oil Production Cuts, Biden Call It Shortsighted. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-headsdeep-supply-cuts-clash-with-us-2022-10-04/. 140 The New Arab Staff. (2022, October 7). US Democrats urge Biden to drop Saudi Arabia, UAE support after OPEC oil production ‘betrayal’. The New Arab. https://www.newarab.com/news/usdemocrats-urge-biden-drop-saudi-arabia-uae-support. 141 Emirates News Agency. (2022, October 10). The President of the Country Visits Russia. Emirates News Agency. http://wam.ae/ar/details/1395303090518. 142 Fleming, S., Foy, H., Schwartz, F., Politi, J., Kerr, S. (2023, March 1). West Presses UAE To Clamp Down On Suspected Russia Sanctions Busting. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/ content/fca1878e-9198-4500-b888-24b17043c507; Politi, J. (2023, March 2). US Launches New Crackdown On Russian Sanctions Busting. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/193 41a0a-56a2-4e57-a807-a57c365f1eb1?shareType=no%20ngift. 143 Zengerle, P. (2022, October 10). Senior U.S. Senator Wants ‘Freeze’ On Saudi Cooperation, Blasts Riyadh. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/senior-us-senator-wants-freezesaudi-cooperation-blasts-riyadh-2022-10-10/. 144 Saudi Press Agency. (2022, October 15). HRH Crown Prince Makes Phone Call to President of Ukraine. Saudi Press Agency. https://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=239 2443#2392443. 145 Yaakoubi, A. (2022, September 25). Analysis: Saudi Prince’s Ukraine Mediation Signals ‘Useful’ Russia Ties, Analysts Say. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/saudi-princes-ukrainemediation-signals-useful-russia-ties-analysts-2022-09-23/.

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military aid to Ukraine, despite having stockpiles of U.S. hardware. But its opportunistic decision in the October OPEC + meeting in defiance of U.S. desires to the contrary in combination with a closely timed state visit from Xi Jinping, likely signal the early stages of a new direction for Saudi Arabia.146 The United States is likely to be the security partner of choice for several years to come for both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but neither is strongly in the U.S. camp anymore, and both have demonstrated a willingness to act in defiance of their previously paramount bilateral relationship. As evidence, Riyadh recently joined the SCO as a dialogue member,147 welcomed a Chinese brokered deal with Iran to normalize relations,148 and both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi signed memorandum of understandings with Huawei within the last 12 months, among other acts of noncooperation.149 The Qataris on the other hand, having just experienced an attempt at regime change and a blockade during the 2017–2021 Gulf Rift, are more aligned with the West and are likely empathetic to Ukraine’s cause.150 But despite Qatar’s empathy and closer alignment with the U.S., it is nevertheless balancing that support with the maintenance of its relationship with Russia while also deepening its relationship with Europe. In recent years, the small, petrol rich state has gone all in with the U.S. as a security partner—hosting the largest U.S. airbase in the Middle East,151 mediating between the U.S and the Taliban,152 being named a major non-NATO ally,153 and 146

Hamasaeed, S., Starr, J.E. (2022, December 15). After Xi’s Visit, Are the Saudis Moving on from the United States? United States Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/ 12/after-xis-visit-are-saudis-moving-united-states. 147 Reuters. (2023, March 29). Riyadh Joins Shanghai Cooperation Organization As Ties With Beijing Grow. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/riyadh-joins-shanghai-cooperation-organi zation-ties-with-beijing-grow-2023-03-29/. 148 Cloud, D. S., Ramzy, A. (2023, March 11). China-Brokered Deal Between Iran, Saudi Arabia Marks a New Middle East. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-brokereddeal-between-iran-saudi-arabia-marks-a-new-middle-east-d1eaf94e. 149 Press Release. (2023, March 2). Du UAE and Huawei Sign MOU On 5.5G Strategic Cooperation. Zawya. https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/companies-news/du-uae-and-huawei-signmou-on-55g-strategic-cooperation-ko3xboup; Al Jazeera. (2022, December 8). China, Saudi Arabia Cement Ties With Deals Including Huawei. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/ 8/saudi-crown-prince-meets-chinas-xi-in-push-to-deepen-ties. 150 Cafiero, G. (2022, March 25). How Do The Approaches Of Qatar and UAE Differ On Ukraine? Doha News. https://dohanews.co/how-do-the-approaches-of-qatar-and-the-uae-differ-on-ukraine/. 151 Taylor, A. (2019, August 21). As Trump Tries To End ‘Endless Wars,’ America’s Biggest Mideast Base Is Getting Bigger. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/astrump-tries-to-end-endless-wars-americas-biggest-mideast-base-is-getting-bigger/2019/08/20/47a c5854-bab4-11e9-8e83-4e6687e99814_story.html. 152 Akkad, D. (2021, September 13). How Qatar Became The US-Taliban Mediator - And What Happens Next. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/qatar-us-taliban-how-bec ame-mediator-talks. 153 The White House. (2022, March 10). Memorandum on the Designation of the State of Qatar as a Major Non-NATO Ally. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/ 03/10/memorandum-on-the-designation-of-the-state-of-qatar-as-a-major-non-natoally/#:~:text= 2321k)%20(the%20%E2%80%9CAct%E2%80%9D,Export%20Control%20Act%20(22%20U.S. C.

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being the third largest purchaser of U.S. military hardware in the Central Region.154 Not surprisingly, Qatar is reportedly an unpublicized attendee of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, yet it still holds significant economic investments in Russia and, so far, has been reluctant to risk those by outright aligning with the U.S. and Europe; Qatar also took part in the OPEC + decision to cut oil production.,155 ,156 ,157 The Russo-Ukrainian war has offered Qatar an opening to fill the fuel void after Europe decoupled from Russian gas.158 While the U.S. has largely filled that void in 2022 and 2023, Qatar became the second largest exporter of natural gas to the European Union in 2022.159 By 2026, Qatar’s recently signed natural gas deal with Germany will be in effect, and Qatar will not only be a major natural gas supplier to Asia but also to Europe.160 Qatar is adeptly steering a course between the U.S., Europe, and Russia. Israel, unique among its fellow regional hedgers, is on a tightrope between the U.S. and Russia. As another reportedly unpublicized attendee of the UDCG from the Central Region, Israel has provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine and the outgoing Minister of Defense Benny Gantz offered Israel’s warning system for its cities to

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Wezeman, P.D., Kuimova, A., Wezeman, S.T. (2022, March). Trends In International Arms Transfers, 2021. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. https://www.sipri.org/sites/def ault/files/2022-03/fs_2203_at_2021.pdf. 155 Mehta, A. (2022, April 25). From Jordan To Japan: US Invites 14 Non-NATO Nations To Ukraine Defense Summit. Breaking Defense. https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/from-jordan-tojapan-us-invites-14-non-nato-nations-to-ukraine-defense-summit/; Reuters. (2022, May 24). Qatar Investment Authority Cannot Exit Russian Market. U.S. News. https://money.usnews.com/invest ing/news/articles/2022-05-24/qatar-investment-authority-cannot-exit-russian-market. 156 DeYound, K., Lamothe, D. Cadell, C., Hudson, J. (2022, April 26). U.S., Allies Promise To Keep Backing Ukraine In Its War With Russia. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost. com/national-security/2022/04/26/us-ukraine-allies-weapons/. 157 Ismay, J. (2022, April 26). A New U.S.-Led International Group Will Meet Monthly To Focus On Aiding Ukraine. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/world/europe/lloydaustin-ukraine-contact-group.html. 158 Krauss, C. (2022, December 9). Qatar Extends Its Natural Gas Dominance at Russia’s Expense. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/business/energy-environment/qatargas-oil.html. 159 Cessac, M. (2022, December 22). How Dependent Is Europe on Qatar For Its Gas Supplies? Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/12/22/how-dependent-is-europe-onqatar-for-its-gas-supplies_6008665_19.html. 160 Deutsch Welle. (2022, November 11). Qatar Signs Gas Export Deal With Germany. Deutsch Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/qatar-signs-gas-export-deal-with-germany/a-63923323.

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provide alerts against incoming ballistic missiles, rockets, and UAVs.161 ,162 ,163 ,164 However, that offer was at the end of his tenure, and it remains questionable whether the new Netanyahu administration will pursue it. Despite Israel’s strong ties to the U.S. and its advanced defense sector, Israel has not provided any Israeli military equipment overtly to Ukraine.165 Lethal aid to Ukraine is likely a red line that Israel will not cross, as it would put its campaign against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria at risk by complicating the air space it shares with Russia166 — Netanyahu has made public statements to this effect.167 Reportedly, however, Israel has provided Ukrainian authorities information on Iran’s UAVs.168 Regardless of who is in power, Israel is likely to stay strategically on the sidelines of the war unless Russia’s relationship with Iran somehow significantly complicates Israel’s shadow war with Iran. In these ways, the hedgers in the Central Region have navigated between the great powers to deftly resist pressure to choose a side—a clear indication of the diffusion of power in the international system—while concurrently demonstrating the emergence of an unorganized and unaligned group of countries. Kazakhstan made overtures to Europe and China while subtly defying Russia. Qatar negotiated to replace Russian gas and in so doing gained European dependence and gratitude. The UAE and Saudi Arabia sided with Russia bolstering its position against sanctions in defiance of Western pressure. Meanwhile, Israel has stayed on the sidelines despite the relevance of its defense technologies for Ukraine and pressure from the West. There is no coherence to this group of countries’ choices other than the focused pursuit of their respective national interests. The countries of the Central Region 161

Siegal, T. (2022, October 24). Gantz Talks To Ukrainian Counterpart About Israel’s Offer Of Missile Warning System. The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-talks-to-ukrain ian-counterpart-about-israels-offer-of-missile-warning-system/. 162 DeYound, K., Lamothe, D. Cadell, C., Hudson, J. (2022, April 26). U.S., Allies Promise To Keep Backing Ukraine In Its War With Russia. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost. com/national-security/2022/04/26/us-ukraine-allies-weapons/. 163 Ismay, J. (2022, April 26). A New U.S.-Led International Group Will Meet Monthly To Focus On Aiding Ukraine. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/world/europe/lloydaustin-ukraine-contact-group.html. 164 Ahronheim, A. (2022, April 26). Israel Taking Part In US-Led Ukraine Defense Summit. The Jerusalem Post. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-705155. 165 Fabian, E. (2022, July 2). Israel to send new batch of defensive equipment to Ukraine. The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-send-new-batch-of-defensive-equipmentto-ukraine/. 166 Ibid. 167 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty – Ukraine Service. (2023, February 2). Netanyahu Open To Providing Military Aid To Ukraine, Including ‘Iron Dome’ Missile Defense System. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-netanyahu-israel-military-aid/32251955. html; Times of Israel Staff. (2023, February 1). Moscow Warns Israel That Supplying Ukraine With Arms Will ‘Escalate’ Conflict. Times Of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/moscow-warns-isr ael-that-supplying-ukraine-with-arms-will-escalate-conflict/. 168 Obel, A. (2022, October 13). Israel Said Providing Kyiv with Intel on Iranian Suicide Drones. The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-providing-kyiv-with-intel-on-iranian-sui cide-drones/.

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are more concerned about their economic futures than they are about the RussoUkrainian war. Domestic concerns, or internal crises, are more likely to hold these countries’ attention than geopolitical contests or distant wars.

5 Conclusion Commentators and analysts should be cautious about drawing definitive conclusions in what appears to be the early stages of a protracted conflict; nonetheless the preceding analysis suggests that despite trans-Atlantic unity against the Russian war in Ukraine, harmony and will outside the European theater are wanting. That considerable lack of cohesion casts doubts on the state of the rules-based order and the West’s ability to impose costs for aggression. Looking at the Russo-Ukrainian war through the lens of the Central Region—a region intimately connected with and consequential to the European theater’s security and stability—its middle powers have thus far been less than cohesively compelled to action by this breach of sovereignty. Instead, the portrait painted by the response of the Central Region is one of self-interest and self-promotion, balancing relationships, and purposeful, if unorganized and uncoordinated, unalignment. Further, these states’ conduct to this point in the war suggests that agreement to punish future aggression is not as strong as the prevailing Western narrative would suggest. While Europe and the U.S. united to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, the response of the Central Regions’ middle powers has been far less unified, and multiple countries are actively working to undermine cost imposition efforts. A number of the region’s middle powers have increased trade with Russia,169 blunted the impact of sanctions and export controls,170 and, in one case, come to 169

Akman, B., Bartenstein. (2023, February 3). US Raises Pressure on Turkey and UAE to Curb Russia Trade Ties. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-0203/us-warns-turkey-on-export-controlled-goods-sent-to-russia; Taplin, N. (2023, March 30). Turkey Epitomizes the West’s Russia Sanctions Dilemma. The Wall Street Journal. https:// www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-epitomizes-the-wests-russia-sanctions-dilemma-5b20a451; Wittels, J. (2023, March 17). Top Oil Exporter Saudi Arabia Loads Up on Russian Diesel. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-17/top-oil-exporter-saudi-arabialoads-up-on-russian-diesel#xj4y7vzkg; Burna-Asefi, S. (2023, February 27). Just Passing Through: Kazakhstan’s Parallel Trade Predicament. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2023/02/just-pas sing-through-kazakhstans-parallel-trade-predicament/. 170 Mathews, S. (2023, March 2). UAE Is ‘Country Of Focus’ As US Looks To Target Russia’s Economic Partners. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/UAE-country-focusUS-effort-target-sanctions-evasion-russia; Akman, B., Bartenstein. (2023, February 3). US Raises Pressure on Turkey and UAE to Curb Russia Trade Ties. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg. com/news/articles/2023-02-03/us-warns-turkey-on-export-controlled-goods-sent-to-russia; Taplin, N. (2023, March 30). Turkey Epitomizes the West’s Russia Sanctions Dilemma. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-epitomizes-the-wests-russia-sanctions-dilemma-5b2 0a451; Wittels, J. (2023, March 17). Top Oil Exporter Saudi Arabia Loads Up on Russian Diesel. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-17/top-oil-exporter-saudiarabia-loads-up-on-russian-diesel#xj4y7vzkg; Burna-Asefi, S. (2023, February 27). Just Passing

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Russia’s aid with military hardware, training, and even what increasingly looks like defense production.171 Even longtime U.S. partners like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have undermined Western cost imposition efforts.172 This lack of accord forecasts future difficulty in coalition building and management, and calls into question the West’s ability to impose costs for future aggression, especially on an economically significant and globally interdependent state actor. These trends and middle power behavior in the Central Region—and likely state behavior in other parts of the world too if only included in assessments—should be corrective. It suggests current triumphalist narratives are misplaced and judgments require moderating, lest Western leaders overestimate and miscalculate the extent of their own power and influence, as Russia has done in Ukraine. Acknowledgements I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Dr. Christopher Marsh and Dr. Mark Grzegorzewski for the opportunity to contribute this chapter. Further thanks go to Andrea England Kramer for her continued support and scrupulous revisions. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or U.S. Government.

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Through: Kazakhstan’s Parallel Trade Predicament. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2023/ 02/just-passing-through-kazakhstans-parallel-trade-predicament/. 171 Sangar, D., Barnes, J., Schmitt, E. (2022, December 28). U.S. Scrambles to Stop Iran From Providing Drones for Russia. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/ 28/us/politics/iran-drones-russia-ukraine.html; Nissenbaum, D., Strobel, W. (2023, February 5). Moscow, Tehran Advance Plans For Iranian-Designed Drone Facility In Russia. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/moscow-tehran-advance-plans-for-iranian-designed-dronefacility-in-russia-11675609087. 172 The Economist – Finance & Economics. (2023, January 29). How Russia Dodges Oil Sanctions On An Industrial Scale. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/ 01/29/how-russia-dodges-oil-sanctions-on-an-industrial-scale; Wittels, J. (2023, March 17). Top Oil Exporter Saudi Arabia Loads Up on Russian Diesel. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2023-03-17/top-oil-exporter-saudi-arabia-loads-up-on-russian-diesel#xj4y7vzkg; Rapoza, K. (2023, April 7). Is The UAE Next To Leave The U.S.’s Orbit. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/ sites/kenrapoza/2023/04/07/is-the-uae-next-to-leave-the-uss-orbit/?sh=6f65f6cc3a29.

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Scholz, O. (2022, December 5). The Global Zeitenwende: How To Avoid A New Cold War In A Multipolar Era. Foreign Affairs. January/February 2023. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ger many/olaf-scholz-global-zeitenwende-how-avoid-new-cold-war Schuman, M. (2022, February 24). Is Taiwan Next? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/int ernational/archive/2022/02/vladimir-putin-ukraine-taiwan/622907/ Shin, D. (2015, December 14). A Critical Review of the Concept of Middle Power. E-International Relations. https://www.e-ir.info/2015/12/04/a-critical-review-of-the-concept-of-middle-power/ Siegal, T. (2022, October 24). Gantz Talks To Ukrainian Counterpart About Israel’s Offer Of Missile Warning System. The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-talks-to-ukrainiancounterpart-about-israels-offer-of-missile-warning-system/ Sly, Liz. (2023, February 23). A Global Divide On The Ukraine War Is Deepening. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/22/global-south-russia-war-divided/ Strobel, W. P. (2021, December 9). U.A.E. Shut Down China Facility Under U.S. Pressure, Emirates Says. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-a-e-confirms-it-halted-work-onsecret-chinese-port-project-after-pressure-from-u-s-11639070894; Cloud, D. S., Szymanski, M., Strachota, K. (2022, September 30). Erosion Of The Post-Soviet System In Central Asia. Centre for Eastern Studies. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commen tary/2022-09-30/erosion-post-soviet-system-central-asia Tabatabai, A. M. (2020). No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press. Taplin, N. (2023, March 30). Turkey Epitomizes the West’s Russia Sanctions Dilemma. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-epitomizes-the-wests-russia-sanctions-dil emma-5b20a451 Taylor, A. (2019, August 21). As Trump Tries To End ‘Endless Wars,’ America’s Biggest Mideast Base Is Getting Bigger. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/astrump-tries-to-end-endless-wars-americas-biggest-mideast-base-is-getting-bigger/2019/08/20/ 47ac5854-bab4-11e9-8e83-4e6687e99814_story.html The Astana Times – International. (2022, March 9). Kazakhstan is Ready to Provide Humanitarian Assistance, Says President Tokayev. The Astana Times. https://astanatimes.com/2022/03/kaz akhstan-sends-humanitarian-aid-to-ukraine-video-repatriation-flight-departs-from-polandskatowice-with-kazakh-citizens-evacuated-from-ukraine/#:~:text=The%20aid%20included% 2017%20kinds,appeal%20from%20the%20Ukrainian%20government. The China Briefing Team. (2021, May 20). China and Central Asia: Bilateral Trade Relationships and Future Outlook. China Briefing. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-and-centralasia-bilateral-trade-relationships-and-future-outlook/ The Economist – Asia. (2022, July 28). Pakistan May Be Able To Avoid A Full-Blown Economic Crisis. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/07/28/pakistan-may-be-able-toavoid-a-full-blown-economic-crisis The Economist – Briefing. (2023, February 18). Ukraine’s fate will determine the West’s authority in the world. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/02/18/ukraines-fate-willdetermine-the-wests-authority-in-the-world The Economist – Finance & Economics. (2022, December 29). In 2022 Russia kept the economic show on the road. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/ 12/29/in-2022-russia-kept-the-economic-show-on-the-road The Economist – Finance & Economics. (2023, January 29). How Russia Dodges Oil Sanctions On An Industrial Scale. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/ 01/29/how-russia-dodges-oil-sanctions-on-an-industrial-scale The Economist – Leaders. (2023, February 9). Arab Petrostates Must Prepare Their Citizens For A Post-Oil Future. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/02/09/arab-petros tates-must-prepare-their-citizens-for-a-post-oil-future The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2022, December 7). The Gulf Looks To China. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/12/07/the-gulf-looks-to-china

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The Economist Intelligence Unit. (2022, October 3). Kazakhstan Commits To Complying With Sanctions On Russia. The Economist. https://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=202471803 The New Arab Staff. (2022, October 7). US Democrats urge Biden to drop Saudi Arabia, UAE support after OPEC oil production ‘betrayal’. The New Arab. https://www.newarab.com/news/ us-democrats-urge-biden-drop-saudi-arabia-uae-support The United Nations Refugee Agency. (2023) Refugee Crisis in Europe. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/refugee-crisis-ineurope/ The White House. (2022, March 10). Memorandum on the Designation of the State of Qatar as a Major Non-NATO Ally. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/ 2022/03/10/memorandum-on-the-designation-of-the-state-of-qatar-as-a-major-non-natoally/#: ~:text=2321k)%20(the%20%E2%80%9CAct%E2%80%9D,Export%20Control%20Act% 20(22%20U.S.C. Thomas, K. (2022, December 9). Russia and Iran Military Ties Deepening Into Partnership, Biden Administration Warns. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-and-iranmilitary-ties-deepening-into-partnership-biden-administration-warns-11670614091 Tiezzi, S. (2022, March 3). How Did Asian Countries Vote On The UN’s Ukraine Resolution. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/how-did-asian-countries-vote-on-the-uns-ukraineresolution/ Times of Israel Staff. (2023, February 1). Moscow Warns Israel That Supplying Ukraine With Arms Will ‘Escalate’ Conflict. Times Of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/moscow-warns-israelthat-supplying-ukraine-with-arms-will-escalate-conflict/ Tringham, K. (2022, October 3). Turkey Launches First Ada-Class Corvette For Ukraine. Janes Defense News. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/turkey-launches-firstada-class-corvette-for-ukraine U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. (2021, January 20). Bilateral Relations Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations With Israel. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/u-s-rel ations-with-israel/ U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. (2022, May 11). Bilateral Relations Fact Sheet: U.S. Relations With Saudi Arabia. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/ u-s-relations-with-saudi-arabia/ U.S. Department of State – Office of the Spokesperson. (2023, February 18). Secretary Antony J. Blinken With German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba At the Munich Security Conference. U.S. Department of State. https://www. state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-german-foreign-minister-annalena-baerbock-andukrainian-foreign-minister-dmytro-kuleba-at-the-munich-security-conference/ U.S. Department of State – Office of the Spokesperson. (2023, November 20). Fact Sheet: The United States and Qatar: Strategic Partners Advancing Peace and Security. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-qatar-strategic-partners-advancing-peace% 20and%20security/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%2DQatar%20Strategic%20Dialogue%2C%20last% 20held%20in%20November%202021,50%20years%20of%20bilateral%20ties U.S. Department of State. Iran Sanctions. https://www.state.gov/iran-sanctions/ U.S. Embassy Caracas. (2023, February 24). Remarks By Vice President Harris At The Munich Security Conference. U.S. Embassy in Venezuela. https://ve.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-vicepresident-harris-at-the-munich-security-conference/ U.S. Energy Information Administration – Independent Statistical Analysis. (2023, February 7). Energy & Financial Markets: What Drives Crude Oil Prices? U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/finance/markets/crudeoil/supply-opec.php Ulrichsen, K. C. (2022, March 22). The GCC And The Russian-Ukraine Crisis. Arab Center Washington DC. https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-gcc-and-the-russia-ukraine-crisis/ Walt, S. M. (2023, February 23). The Conversation About Ukraine Is Cracking Apart. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/28/the-conversation-about-ukraine-is-cra cking-apart/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921

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Warrick, J., Nakashima, E., Harris, S. (2022, October 16). Iran Plans To Send Missiles, Drones To Russia For Ukraine War, Officials Say. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost. com/national-security/2022/10/16/iran-russia-missiles-ukraine/ Wezeman, P.D., Kuimova, A., Wezeman, S.T. (2022, March). Trends In International Arms Transfers, 2021. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. https://www.sipri.org/sites/def ault/files/2022-03/fs_2203_at_2021.pdf Whelan, J. (2022, May 11). Sanctions Forcing Russia To Use Appliance Parts In Military Gear, U.S. Says. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/11/rus sia-sanctions-effect-military/ Wilks, A. (2022, November 15). As Russia’s War In Ukraine Drags On, Turkey’s Role Expands. Al Jazeera News. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/15/how-turkey-positions-itself-dur ing-the-war-in-ukraine Wittels, J. (2023, March 17). Top Oil Exporter Saudi Arabia Loads Up on Russian Diesel. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-17/top-oil-exporter-saudi-ara bia-loads-up-on-russian-diesel#xj4y7vzkg Yaakoubi, A. (2022, September 25). Analysis: Saudi Prince’s Ukraine Mediation Signals ‘Useful’ Russia Ties, Analysts Say. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/saudi-princes-ukraine-med iation-signals-useful-russia-ties-analysts-2022-09-23/ Zengerle, P. (2022, October 10). Senior U.S. Senator Wants ‘Freeze’ On Saudi Cooperation, Blasts Riyadh. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/senior-us-senator-wants-fre eze-saudi-cooperation-blasts-riyadh-2022-10-10/

Iran’s Drone Industry and Its Military Cooperation with Russia in Ukraine Eric Lob

Abstract Based on an extensive analysis of open-source data and materials, this chapter examines the emergence and evolution of Iran’s drone industry and its transfer of the technology inside and outside of the Middle East. The chapter argues that, before the U.N. arms embargo against Iran expired in October 2020, the Islamic Republic used drones for domestic counterinsurgency and exported them to predominantly quasi- or non-state partners and proxies in the region. Before 2020, Iran witnessed how the drones of its regional rivals, namely Turkey and the UAE, with first-mover advantage turned the tide of nearby conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Islamic Republic was also involved on the same or opposing side. Consequently, and since 2021, Iran has been more active and assertive in the global military drone market, as evidenced by Tehran’s export of combat drones to the Ethiopian government during the Tigray War (2020–2022), alongside Ankara and Abu Dhabi. More recently, the Islamic Republic’s activeness and assertiveness in this market have culminated with its transfer of the technology to Russia to surveil and strike military and civilian targets in Ukraine. Like Turkey, Iran has on its own and through its rivals, learned lessons of drone usage across conflicts rather than simply within them and has leveraged the technology to advance extra-regional foreign policy ambitions. Keywords Great Power Competition · National Security · Iran · Russia · Drones · Ukraine

1 Introduction While much of the focus has been on Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and regional activities, growing attention has been paid to its surveillance and combat drones, which are also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). These drones have increasingly been at the forefront of the arms race between the core states of the E. Lob (B) Political Science, Florida International University, Miami, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_6

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international system, including the United States and China (Bahgat and Ehteshami 2021: 186). At the same time, Iran and other middle powers in the Middle East, such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have competed in this race by manufacturing, operating, and exporting less expensive drones to countries inside and outside of the region (Roblin 2021). In the process, Iran and its regional rivals have projected power and earned profits, showcased technology and enhanced prestige, and strengthened alliances and influenced conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. Compared with their American and Chinese counterparts, the drones of Iran and its rivals are technologically inferior. However, they offer more affordable alternatives and similar tactical advantages to state and non-state actors inside and outside of the Middle East, with budgetary constraints and weak-to-non-existent airpower. The drones are cheaper than conventional or manned military aircrafts, with less time and resources required to train pilots. Moreover, they are easier to operate and can stay in the air and hover over the battlefield longer, without having to refuel or land, relieve tired pilots and crew members or risk getting them captured or killed. The drones are also sufficiently small and quiet to avoid being detected by personnel on the ground and can circumvent and overwhelm air defenses by jamming radar systems and launching swarm and suicide attacks. As such, they can affordably and effectively help allies, partners, and clients gather intelligence and select and strike targets (Parakilas 2020; Jewish Insider 2022). For these reasons, the drones have proliferated in conflict zones of the Middle East and elsewhere with greater frequency. Based on an extensive analysis of open-source data and materials, this chapter examines the emergence and evolution of Iran’s drone industry and its transfer of the technology inside and outside of the Middle East. The chapter argues that, before the U.N. arms embargo against Iran expired in October 2020 (Karimi 2020), the Islamic Republic used drones for domestic counterinsurgency and exported them to predominantly quasi- or non-state partners and proxies in the region (Hanna 2021). Before 2020, Iran witnessed how the drones of its regional rivals, namely Turkey and the UAE, with first-mover advantage turned the tide of nearby conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Islamic Republic was also involved on the same or opposing side. Consequently, and since 2021, Iran has been more active and assertive in the global military drone market, as evidenced by Tehran’s export of combat drones to the Ethiopian government during the Tigray War (2020-present), alongside Ankara and Abu Dhabi. More recently, the Islamic Republic’s activeness and assertiveness in this market have culminated with its transfer of the technology to Russia to surveil and strike military and civilian targets in Ukraine. Like Turkey, Iran has on its own and through its rivals, learned lessons of drone usage across conflicts rather than simply within them and has leveraged the technology to advance extra-regional foreign policy ambitions (Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 2). The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. The second section examines the emergence and evolution of Iran’s drone industry since the 1980s. The third section explores the conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, where Iran was involved on the same or opposing side as Turkey and the UAE, but, unlike them, did not supply drones due to the U.N. arms embargo and other factors. The

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fourth section analyzes the Tigray War (2020–2022), which marked the first time Iran delivered drones to a state actor, apart from Syria and Venezuela. The fifth section investigates Iran’s transfer of drones and other military technology to Russia for use in Ukraine. The final section concludes.

2 Iranian Drones: A Brief History Iran’s manufacture, operation, and export of drones began well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Iran first produced and used drone technology during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), beginning in 1986 (Ajili and Rouhi 2019). During the war, Iran manufactured and utilized a basic drone called the Mohajer1—which contained limited reconnaissance and combat capabilities—to conduct surveillance over Iraqi lines (Rubin 2019; Tasnim News 2021). Since then, Iran has developed at least 33 types of drones (Bahgat and Ehteshami 2021: 81), ranging from smaller suicide ones to larger ones with a flight duration of longer than one day, a carrying capacity of several hundred kilograms of military cargo, and a wingspan conducive to conducting swarm attacks (Tasnim News 2021). After the war during the early 1990s, Iran first manufactured the Ababil-2 multipurpose drone, which contains reconnaissance, combat, and suicide capabilities (Tasnim News 2022). During the Afghan civil war in the 1990s, Iran used early models of the Mohajer in Afghanistan for reconnaissance missions. On July 20, 2019, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) utilized the Mohajer-4, which was first unveiled in 2011, to surveil U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz (Global Security n.d.)—a mission also undertaken by the long-range and low-technology Ababil-2 in 2012 (Tasnim News 2022, see also Eslami 2021). Before the U.N. arms embargo against Iran expired in October 2020 (Karimi 2020), the Islamic Republic used surveillance and attack drones for domestic counterinsurgency and exported them to predominantly quasi- or non-state partners and proxies in the region (Hanna 2021), except for Syria and Venezuela. Domestically and regionally, Iran has used the Mohajer-6 mid-range surveillance and attack drone and its predecessors for counterinsurgency operations. In July 2019, the IRGC Ground Forces first utilized it in this capacity against Kurdish militants in northwest Iran (Frantzman 2019; Rubin 2019; Tasnim News 2019). After the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured Mosul in June 2014, Iran increasingly deployed the Mohajer-4 against the organization, which has its own drone capabilities, in Iraq and Syria, as evidenced by the downing of the drone in Kirkuk and Deir ez-Zor in 2015 (Rubin 2019; Bahgat and Ehteshami 2021: 82, 190–91; Tasnim News 2022). Between 2017 and 2019, Iran used military drones to attack ISIS in Syria and the Kurdish Democratic Party (PKK) in Iraq (Eslami 2022: 5n7). Inside the Middle East, Iran has delivered drones and/or their components, designs, and training to its proxies and partners. They include the Syrian government, Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas, the Yemeni Houthis, and the Iranian-backed militias of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), such as Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq,

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the Badr Organization, and Kata’ib Hezbollah (Ostovar 2019; Hanna 2021; Tasnim News 2022)—the commander of which was killed in the same U.S. drone strike that assassinated IRGC major-general Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020 (Crowley et al. 2020; Eslami and Vieira 2022). These partners and proxies have used Iranian drones, technology, and training to attack American and allied assets (e.g., the Saudi oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais on September 14, 2019), as well as extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and Iraq (Hanna 2021; Ward and Fassihi 2022). At a military parade marking the PMF’s seventh anniversary on June 26, 2021, the organization displayed several Iranian drones, including at least three Mohajer-6 s that were armed with precision-guided munitions (Binnie 2021; Nadimi and Knights 2021; Tasnim News 2021). Outside of the Middle East, Iran has sought out buyers for drones beyond its predominantly quasi- or non-state partners and proxies in the region. As will be further described below, in the summer of 2022, Russia acquired from Iran the Mohajer-6 and Shahed series (129, 136, and 191) of reconnaissance and attack drones to surveil and strike Ukrainian targets and counter American, Turkish, and other drones during the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine (Nakashima and Warrick 2022; Trofimov and Nissenbaum 2022). In August 2021, and as will be further described below, Iran reportedly delivered two Mohajer-6 s to the Ethiopian government for use in the Tigray War (2020–2022). In Latin America, Iran has transferred to Venezuela the technology to produce the Mohajer-6 and Shahed-171 reconnaissance and combat drones (Tasnim News 2021; 2022). During the presidency of Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) in late 2001, Iran made similar arrangements with Venezuela to produce the Mohajer-2 surveillance drone, which was developed in the early 1990s (Rubin 2019; Tasnim News 2022). Iran and Venezuela further cooperated on this technology toward the end of the presidencies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–13) and Chávez in 2012 (Beckhusen 2012; Tollast 2020). In 2007, the year the U.N. arms embargo against Iran was first imposed, Tehran supposedly sold kits to Caracas to assemble the Mohajer-2, the predecessor of the Mohajer-6 (Ward and Fassihi 2022). In November 2020, approximately one month after the U.N. arms embargo against Iran expired, the Islamic Republic purportedly transferred to Venezuela the technology for the Mohajer-6 (Iran International 2020). On November 19th, a drone resembling the Mohajer-6 was sighted during a televised speech by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro (2013-present) (Sanchez 2020; Tollast 2020; Ward and Fassihi 2022).

3 Iranian Involvement and Regional Drones in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh Before the U.N. arms embargo against Iran expired in October 2020, Iran witnessed how the drones of its regional rivals, namely Turkey and the UAE, with first-mover advantage and the tactical advantages they offered turned the tide of nearby conflicts.

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The latter included those in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Islamic Republic was also involved on the same or opposing side. On its own and through its rivals, Iran learned lessons of drone usage across conflicts rather than simply within them.

3.1 Syria Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Turkey has diplomatically and militarily supported rebel forces and intervened directly against Syria, Russia, and Iran, along with Kurdish and other groups, resulting in the Turkish occupation of northern Syria since August 2016. In 2020, Turkey used the medium-altitude and longendurance Bayraktar TB2 and other drones in northwestern Syria to surveil and strike the Syrian Army’s troops, tanks, armored vehicles, ammunition depots, and Russian-supplied air defense systems (Bal 2020; Hacaoglu 2020; Karnozov 2020; Waters 2020; Forestier-Walker 2020; Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 6–7). Although these systems shot down several Turkish drones, their surveillance and strikes were deemed by military experts to be an operational success and a tactical game changer (Fighter Jets World 2020; Syrian Arab News Agency 2020; Avia Pro 2020; Petkova 2020; Gatopoulos 2020a; Drone Wars UK 2022).

3.2 Libya During the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–20) and despite a U.N. arms embargo against all the parties involved, Turkey delivered military aid to the U.N.-recognized and Islamist-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in the form of arms and ammunition, troops and mercenaries, and vehicles and drones (Ghanmi 2019; Liam 2019; Egypt Today 2019; Al Jazeera 2020a; BBC News 2020; Forestier-Walker 2020). Iran also supported the GNA, which received military assistance from not only Turkey, but also Qatar while they both opposed Iran in Syria (Rodriguez 2020; Middle East Monitor 2020). Between 2019 and 2020, Turkish drones, specifically the TB2, destroyed the supply lines of General Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) and prevented it from taking Tripoli from the GNA (Jewish Insider 2022; Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 7–8). Haftar and the LNA reportedly received covert military aid from Israel, alongside Iran’s other regional rivals, the UAE and Saudi Arabia (Reuters 2019; Al Jazeera 2019; Mannocchi 2019; TRT World 2019; Alharathy 2020b; Melman 2020a; Ramani 2020). In Libya, as in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine—which will be further described below—Turkey and Russia backed opposing sides (Libyan Express 2019a; Libyan Express 2019b; Assad 2021, Alharathy 2020a; Emmons and Cole 2020; Philip 2020). In Libya, the TB2 destroyed at least nine Russian Pantsir-S1 antiaircraft systems, which shoot missiles at planes and can be mounted on vehicles,

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though the Pantsir downed at least 12 drones (Witt 2022). The TB2 also faced off against the LNA’s other advanced air defense systems that were purportedly financed and provided by the UAE, manufactured by an Israeli firm, and transferred through Egypt (The New Arab 2020; Melman 2020a). In addition to delivering the Israeli air defense systems and demonstrating the lower self-sufficiency of the UAE, the latter sought to counter the GNA’s Turkish drones by supplying the LNA with Chinese CAIG Wing Loong II drones. They were operated by the LNA from the UAE-run Al-Khadim Libyan air base, armed with four laser-guided Blue Arrow-7 (BA-7) missiles, and caused civilian casualties and other collateral damage (Human Rights Watch 2020; Al Jazeera 2020b).1 After the LNA’s Wing Loong IIs destroyed at least six of the GNA’s 12 TB2s in 2019, Turkey replaced them by delivering more to the GNA (Military Africa 2019; South China Morning Post 2019; Delalande 2019). Between 2019 and 2020, at least 23 or 24 TB2s were shot down or lost at the hands of the LNA (Al Marsad 2020; Kay 2020; Drone Wars UK 2022). During this period, at least six Wing Loong IIs were shot down by TB2s and Turkish laser weapon technology (Army Recognition 2019; Lost Armour 2020).

3.3 Nagorno-Karabakh During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasus, Turkey was Azerbaijan’s main military and diplomatic supporter due to their historical, cultural, linguistic, and political affinities (Middle East Eye 2020; Zaman 2020; Witt 2022). Officially, Iran remained neutral during the conflict and sought to mediate and deescalate tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia (Tehran Times 2019; Islamic Republic of Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2020a; Islamic Republic of Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2020b). However, Iran tacitly provided Armenia with mostly economic assistance and allegedly some military aid inside and outside of the ethnic enclave of Karabakh (Cornell 2011/2015: 321–22; Herszenhorn 2012; Balayev 2013: 69; Vatanka 2013). Despite purportedly backing Azerbaijan militarily in the past, Tehran increasingly supported Armenia to act as a geopolitical counterweight against Turkey (which blockaded Armenia during the conflict) and Israel (Asbarez.com 2011; PanArmenian.net 2011; Kucera 2013). Tehran attempted to maintain secrecy around this policy to avoid antagonizing Iranian More accurately, Azeri Turks in northwest Iran (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2020; Ziabari 2020; Deutsche Welle 2020). Regardless of Iran’s assistance and intentions during the conflict, Turkey’s TB2 helped Azerbaijan decisively defeat Armenia in 2020 by targeting with precisionguided munitions (bombs, rockets, and missiles) Armenian troops, trenches, and mostly Russian-made tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces, and air defense 1

In addition to Israeli air defense systems and Chinese Wing Loong IIs, the UAE reportedly supplied the LNA against the Islamist-backed GNA with other aircraft, over 100 armored vehicles, and more than $200 million in aid (Mannocchi 2019).

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systems (Rehimov 2020; Trevithick and Newdick 2020; Soylu 2020; ForestierWalker 2020; Bensaid 2020; The Cyber Shafarat 2020; Tollast 2020; Jewish Insider 2022; Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 5; Witt 2022). Although Azerbaijan had several TB2s shot down that year, it broadcasted or displayed footage of the devastating drone strikes against Armenian targets on social media and digital billboards, as part of a state propaganda and information warfare campaign (PanArmenian.net 2020; Armenia News 2020; The Economist 2020; Gatopoulos 2020b; Forestier-Walker 2020; Witt 2022). As early as 2016, if not before, Azerbaijan and Armenia deployed drones against each other and shot them down (PanArmenian.net 2016; Rahimov 2016; Parakilas 2020). However, by 2020, the TB2 helped turn the tide of the conflict in Azerbaijan’s favour, and its widespread use of Turkish and Israeli reconnaissance and combat drones—which were vastly superior to those built by Armenia— was crucial to determining the outcome (The Economist 2020; Gatopoulos 2020b; Forestier-Walker 2020; Sabbagh 2020). Throughout the conflict, Azerbaijan relied heavily on drones to surveil and strike Armenia’s forces, and inflicted significant losses on its troops, tanks, artillery pieces, and air defense systems, even while the latter shot down some Azerbaijani drones (Forestier-Walker 2020; Kofman and Nersisyan 2020; Bulos and Yam 2020; Gressel 2020; Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 8–9).

4 Iranian Drones and Other Military Aid to Ethiopia During the Tigray War After losing its other allies and partners in the Horn of Africa (HOA) in 2016 and with the aim of maintaining a foothold there, Iran, alongside its regional rivals, delivered military aid to Ethiopia during the Tigray War. After President Joe Biden came into office in January 2021, tensions escalated between Ethiopia and the United States over the latter’s push for a ceasefire agreement and peace talks between the Ethiopian government and Tigray Defense Forces (TDF). These tensions were exacerbated by Washington’s threats of economic sanctions and other punitive measures against Ethiopian officials and commanders for purportedly perpetrating ethnic cleansing and potential genocide in Tigray—even if the TDF also allegedly committed war crimes (Gramer and Lynch 2021; Keynoush 2022). That year, relations between Ethiopia and its largest arms supplier, Israel, also became strained due to Tel Aviv’s reported refusal to supply Addis Ababa with kamikaze combat drones and other weapon systems during the war (Tehran Times 2021; Keynoush 2022). In addition to issuing statements about not wanting to participate in ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, Israel seemed reluctant to become overly involved in the conflict to avoid antagonizing not just the United States, but also the TDF, the leaders of which had been the ruling elite of the country until 2018. In the process, Tel Aviv appeared to be hedging between both sides of the war to maintain political and economic ties with Ethiopia, as well as to continue

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protecting Ethiopian Jews and facilitating their immigration to Israel for ideological, sociopolitical, demographic, and humanitarian reasons (Jewish Insider 2022). The tension and distrust between Ethiopia and the United States and Israel ostensibly created an opening for Tehran to pursue further rapprochement with Addis Ababa through military aid and other means during an increasingly existential war. In June 2021, the TDF rebels turned the tide of the conflict by retaking their capital of Mekelle and advancing toward Addis Ababa. Since the first day of Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency on August 3rd, Iran purportedly delivered two Mohajer-6 s and other military aid to Ethiopia. While the Iranian drones and aid were technically permissible under international law, with the expiration of the U.N. arms embargo against Iran in October 2020, they further strained relations between Washington and Addis Ababa. More importantly for the embattled Ethiopian government, the drones helped it repel the rebels from Addis Ababa and force them to withdraw northward back toward Tigray in late December 2021. To this end, Ethiopia also reportedly received combat drones and other military and economic assistance from Iran’s regional rivals. As in Libya, the UAE provided the Ethiopian government with between 10 and 12 Wing Loong IIs—some of which were supposedly supplied directly by China to Ethiopia. As in Libya and Azerbaijan, Turkey delivered to Addis Ababa at least four TB2s, some of which allegedly caused civilian casualties and other collateral damage (Bearak et al.. 2022; Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 13). The TB2s came as part of a military pact or defense agreement that Ankara and Addis Ababa signed in August (Plaut 2021; Getachew 2021; Sabbagh 2021; Zwijnenburg 2022). The Iranian, Emirate/ Chinese, and Turkish drones gave Ethiopia the largest and most diverse drone fleet in Africa, with Nigeria ranked second (Gatopoulos 2021; Radio Farda 2021; Walsh 2021; Al-Monitor 2021; Harter 2022; Keynoush 2022; Mwai 2022). The fact that Tehran provided Addis Ababa with only two Mohajer-6 s compared with the four and 10–12 drones supplied by Turkey and the UAE underscored their first-mover advantage and superior capabilities in the global military drone market and Iran’s limited share of it. Aside from their common aspirations to bolster global arms sales and despite their pronounced differences in more proximate conflicts in countries and territories like Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, the intervention of Iran, Turkey, and the UAE on the side of the Ethiopian government demonstrated their converging interests in keeping it in power in an increasingly multipolar international system. Since the outset of his presidency, Raisi differentiated himself from his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani (2013–21), by pursuing a more assertive, interventionist, and militaristic policy toward Ethiopia. By contrast, Rouhani reduced Iran’s presence in the HOA and elsewhere on the continent to assuage the concerns of the United States and the latter’s regional allies and partners, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, that perceived this presence as expansionist and a security threat, particularly as it pertained to the conflicts in Yemen and Gaza (Lefebvre 2012: 117–33; 2019: 133–50; Manjang 2017: 46–60; Bagheri and Lob 2022: 171). Even after the outbreak of the Tigray War toward the end of his presidency on November 3, 2020, Rouhani continued to rely exclusively on soft power, notably religious and cultural diplomacy,

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to maintain ties with Ethiopia (Hawzah News 2018; Mehr News 2020; Borna News 2020; Keynoush 2022). By delivering the armed drones to Ethiopia, Raisi sent a strong message that the country and others in Africa could count on Iran in times of need—even if the drones possessed a lower ceiling, range, and endurance than those of the UAE/China and Turkey. Geopolitically, Iran’s drones comprised a means of extending influence and securing profits in Ethiopia, Eritrea (which was on the same side of the conflict), and other African countries. The drones also signaled to Addis Ababa’s regional adversaries, Egypt and Sudan—which were engaged with Ethiopia in a dispute over dam projects and water rights in the Nile River—about the risks of rapprochement with Israel within the framework of the Abraham Accords (Pahpad.com 2021; Keynoush 2022). Similarly, Tehran used its delivery of combat drones to Addis Ababa, and Tel Aviv’s refusal to do so to weaken Ethiopia-Israel relations and undermine the Accords. Toward this end, Tehran suggested that Tel Aviv could abandon its Arab allies during their regional conflicts, much like it had done to Addis Ababa during the Tigray War (Tehran Times 2021). Nevertheless, Iran’s insinuation that Israel betrayed the Ethiopian government by having contact with the rebels was disingenuous given their former status as the country’s ruling elite, and Tel Aviv’s secret operations to rescue Ethiopian Jews (and those who claimed to be and/or were accused of war crimes) from Tigray (Tov 2021; Middle East Eye 2021; The Times of Israel 2021). Further adding complexity to the conflict, Israel supposedly supplied Ethiopia with surveillance drones (Aerostar Tactical and WanderB), while Iran, Turkey, and the UAE equipped it with armed ones (which could also perform reconnaissance) against the rebels—leading to tactical gains, but also rising civilian casualties and collateral damage. If this scenario was definitely true, it would likely mark the first time that Iran and Israel provided drones, if not military aid more generally, to the same side of a conflict in Africa or elsewhere (Roblin 2021; Jewish Insider 2022; Jefferey 2022).

5 Iranian Drone Transfers and Military Cooperation with Russia in Ukraine On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and escalated the Russo-Ukrainian War that had begun in 2014. The invasion has caused tens of thousands of deaths on both sides, millions of Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and rising commodity prices and global food shortages (UNHCR n.d.; International Organization for Migration 2022; International Displacement Monitoring Centre 2022; UNHCR 2022; Barbaro 2022; The Economist 2022). Since at least April 11th, the United States and its allies, including NATO member states, supplied Ukraine with thousands of anti-tank and anti-air weapon systems (Chan-kyong 2022). Before the invasion between 2018 and 2019, Ukraine purchased Javelin anti-tank missiles and other weapons from the United States (Mills 2021), as well as TB2s from Turkey

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to mainly conduct reconnaissance against Russian-backed separatists in the east (Associated Press/VOA News 2020; Mills 2021; Khurshudyan et al. 2022b). On April 12, 2022, Iran supposedly smuggled to Russia anti-tank missiles and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) through undercover networks in Iraq (Slawson 2022). Between June and July, Russian officials reportedly visited Iran at least twice to examine its combat drones at Kashan Airfield and consider acquiring them (Bertrand 2022a). During that time and before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Iran to sign an energy agreement with it on July 19th, Tehran downplayed transferring drones and other military equipment to Moscow during the war in Ukraine, insisted on remaining neutral, and urged both sides to find a peaceful resolution (Frantzman 2022). In August and alongside its Turkish drone fleet, Ukraine reportedly received via Poland hundreds of combat drones that were manufactured by the Taiwanese defense company, Drones Vision (Everington 2022). Between August and September, and alongside other military aid, Ukraine acquired an unspecified number of ScanEagle and Puma reconnaissance drones, along with Vampire counter-drone missiles, from the United States (Baldor and Lee 2022; Thomas 2022), and heavylift drones from the United Kingdom (Brown and Ahmedzade 2022). At some point after the Russian invasion, Ukraine also received from the United States hundreds of Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade suicide drones with a range and endurance of 10–40 km and 15–40 min (Eslami 2022: 3; Khurshudyan et al. 2022b). In August, Russia purportedly purchased 46 drones of different models from Iran, and Ukrainian officials confirmed that these drones were being deployed in combat operations in Ukraine against possible targets like U.S.-supplied M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Rocket Artillery System) (Stepanenko et al. 2022). Between September and October, U.S. intelligence and Ukrainian officials claimed that Iran had provided hundreds of attack drones to Russia—which Iranian officials continued to deny (Beaumont 2022a; Kennedy et al. 2022; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran 2022; Motamedi 2022; Al Arabiya English 2022). On November 5th, Tehran admitted to transferring drones to Moscow before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and continued to deny that such transfers occurred or persisted after the invasion (The Guardian/Reuters 2022; Pourahmadi and Tanno 2022). At the same time and at the outset of the conflict, the United States denied Russian allegations that it had deployed surveillance drones to assist the Ukrainian navy against Russia (Hodge and Cotovio 2022). Based on U.S. declassified intelligence and in addition to the Mohajer 6, some of the drones that Iran supposedly supplied to Russia and trained it to operate were Shahed-129 attack drones (Bertrand 2022b). The Shahed-129 is a single-engine, medium-altitude, and long-endurance drone with reconnaissance and combat capabilities. It has an estimated endurance of 24 hours and a maximum range of approximately 1700 km, with a ground control station (Taghvaee 2017). The Shahed-129 was designed by Shahed Aviation Industries, an aerospace company that specializes in military drones and is affiliated with the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation (HESA) and the IRGC Aerospace Force (IRGCASF) (Rawnsley 2014; Taghvaee 2017; EUR-Lex 2022). It has similar dimensions and capabilities as the U.S. MQ1 Predator (Dillon 2017), which has been used in Afghanistan,

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Bosnia, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen, at times against Iranian allies and assets. Since 2014, the Shahed-129 has been deployed in Syria against rebel groups, ISIS extremists, and coalition forces and partners (Cenciottid 2014; Gettinger 2016; Rawnsley 2017; Taghvaee 2017; Dillon 2017a; U.S. Central Command 2017; Dillon 2017b; Trevithick 2019). It has also been utilized along Iran’s eastern border with Pakistan against Baluch or Jundallah separatists (Siddiqui and Shah 2017; The Express Tribune 2017; BBC News 2017; Taghvaee 2017). The Shahed-129 was reportedly reverse engineered from an Israeli medium-sized and multi-payload Hermes 450 that crashed in Iran (Tabrizi and Bronk 2018). It is complemented by Shahed Aviation Industries’ Shahed-171 Simorgh jet-powered flying wing drone and the smaller Saegheh turbofan-piston-powered flying wing drone—which are both modeled after the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel that Iran captured in 2011 and reverse engineered afterward (The Guardian 2016). The fact that some of Iran’s drones are based on Israeli and American designs complicates its discourse and rhetoric regarding independence and self-sufficiency that have been prominent since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. On September 13, 2022, the Ukrainian military claimed it had downed a Shahed136 suicide or kamikaze drone that Russia had acquired from Iran and deployed in Ukraine (Defense Express 2022a; Dangwal 2022; Force Index/Military Watch Magazine 2022; Gambrell 2022). The Shahed-136 is manufactured by HESA with American and European components, which, once again, complicate the Islamic Republic’s narrative of independence and self-sufficiency (Milmo and Kirby 2022; Defense Express 2022b). These components also demonstrate Iran’s ability to circumvent U.S. and international sanctions that have been imposed against it. They have prompted Washington to increase economic sanctions and export controls and pressure private companies to disrupt Tehran’s technological supply chain (Sanger et al. 2022; Bryen 2022; McLeary 2023; Psaledakis and Mohammed 2023). The Shahed-136 is designed to overwhelm air defense systems by being launched in multiples or batches of five or more during swarm attacks and to strike ground targets from a distance, with an estimated range of 1800–2500 km (Barrie 2022; Newdick 2022b). In the process and with an explosive warhead and optical sensors on its nose, the low-flying and self-detonating Shahed-136 acts as a long-range and crude cruise missile of sorts. In August 2022, about six months after Russia had invaded Ukraine, Iran’s partners and proxies in Syria reportedly deployed the Shahed-136 against the U.S. military base at Al-Tanf in territory in the Syrian desert controlled by the opposition (Harris et al. 2022). Between September and October in northern Iraq, and as was the case with the Mohajer-6, the IRGC Ground Forces used the Shahed-136, along with artillery and missiles, to attack the bases of Kurdish separatists who supported the popular protests against the Iranian government after its so-called morality police had allegedly killed a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini for improperly wearing the headscarf or hijab (Mehr News 2022). Before or while using the Shahed-136 in Ukraine, Russia modified or enhanced the steering and navigation features of the drone and changed its name to Geran-2 (Barrie 2022; Harris et al. 2022; Bryan 2022; Portnoy 2022). Russia denied acquiring the Shahed-136 and other drones from Iran, and insisted they were produced locally. Such

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statements may have indicated that Moscow manufactured and/or modified these drones on its own soil (TASS Russian News Agency 2022). Since September 2022, Russia used the Shahed-136/Geran-2 against military and civilian targets in Ukraine, which claimed to have shot down more than 220 out of nearly 400 of these drones between September 13th and October 20th (Al Jazeera 2022; Beaumont 2022a; Hird et al. 2022; Motamedi 2022; Harris et al. 2022)—a figured that increased to 340 by November 30th (Reuters 2022d). After Kyiv first confirmed Russia’s deployment of Iranian drones in Ukraine in September, it announced its intentions to downgrade diplomatic relations with Tehran (Ljunggren 2022). In September, the Shahed-136/ Geran-2 attacked military targets in Crimea, as well as Kharkiv in the east and Odessa in the south (Trofimov and Nissenbaum 2022). In October, except for possibly a military base in Bila Tserkva and as will be further described below, the drones struck power stations and residential buildings and other civilian targets in Kyiv in the center of the country (Malsin and Coles 2022). In response, Ukraine deployed MiG 29 fighter jets to down some of the drones (Defense Express 2022c; Newdick 2022a). On October 6th, after Iranian political and security officials visited Moscow, Iran agreed to send surface-to-air missiles and more drones to Russia (Reuters 2022a). Between October 10th and 12th and following the bombing of the Crimea Bridge against Russia, an estimated 117 Shahed-136/Geran-2 participated in strikes involving approximately 75 missiles against Ukrainian power stations and civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities (The Times of Israel 2022; Barrie 2022). On October 17th, and despite being engaged by air-defense systems and small-caliber rounds, the drones directly struck similar targets, killing at least eight civilians and causing extended blackouts in Kyiv and other cities, as well as hundreds of surrounding towns and villages (Ukrinform 2022a; CBS News 2022; Barrie 2022; Khurshudyan et al. 2022a). In total, the Russian missile and drone attacks crippled an estimated 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and capacity ahead of winter (Newdick 2022b). Between mid-September and mid-October, and alongside the civilian casualties, electrical outages, and collateral damage of falling wreckage, the attacks cost Ukraine over $28 million in defense spending, with a German medium-range infrared homing IRIS-T missile valued over twenty times higher than the average Shahed drone (Boffey 2022; Tiwari 2022). To reduce this spending and save resources for Russian high-precision missiles, Ukraine deployed against the Shahed drones, which were valued at $20,000, fewer, if any, surface-to-air missiles and fighter jets that cost millions of dollars and caused collateral damage in the form of friendly fire and falling debris over densely populated cities. Instead, and while waiting for more advanced air defense systems from the United States and other countries (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and Patriot missile defense systems), Ukraine cost effectively created mobile units called drone hunters to detect and destroy the drones at night with pickup trucks, thermal sensors, and machine guns (Miller and Galouchka 2022). On October 18th, the day after the Russian drone attacks against Kyiv and other cities, the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany called for an investigation into the possible violation of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR)

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2231 by Iran for selling and supplying drones to Russia for use in the Ukraine war— an accusation that Tehran repeatedly denied (BBC News 2022; France24 2022). The validity of the investigation—which could be torpedoed by a Russian veto on the Security Council—could be questioned on the grounds that the Iranian drones’ payload did not exceed the 500 kg minimum stipulated by UNSCR 2231 (even if their range surpassed the 300 km minimum) and that the latter was an extension of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which the United States had unilaterally withdrawn in 2018. For this reason, the United States had been unable to pressure the UN to extend the arms embargo against Iran after October 2020—an impetus for the increased Iranian drone transfers to countries like Venezuela, Ethiopia, and Russia. After the provision of UNSCR 2231 restricting ranges and payloads is set to expire in October 2023 and the threat of triggering snapback sanctions is reduced, Iran may supply Russia with longer-range and more lethal drones and missiles like the Arash-2 suicide drone and the Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) (Iddon 2023). On October 20, 2022, Iran supposedly sent advisers and trainers to Crimea to provide technical support for Russian drone attacks against Ukrainian civilians, power stations, and other critical infrastructure (Madhani and Miller 2022; Wright 2022). On November 24th, Ukraine’s top security official confirmed that its military had killed several of these advisers and trainers and would continue targeting them (Borger 2022a).2 As indicated above and as Russia sustained losses to Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and south, even after deploying the Shahed-136/Geran2 there, it shifted its strategy toward laying siege to civilians in the center of the country and depriving of them of electricity, water, and other basic goods ahead of winter. While such a strategy was ostensibly designed to terrorize Ukrainian civilians and erode their support for the war, it seemed to have the opposite effect by sparking their outrage and strengthening their resolve, despite having to confront deteriorating living conditions. In response to Russian missile and drone strikes on power plants and other critical infrastructure, Ukrainian officials and citizens sought to restore electricity and limit consumption, relocated to areas where the grid remained intact, used emergency generators and candles and gas cylinders as a temporary measure (which also raised the risk of fires), and established electrified shelters that offered heat, water, and food until power returned (Borger 2022b; Hunder and Balmforth 2022; Reuters 2022e). In early November and as alluded to above, Iranian and Russian defense officials reportedly finalized a deal for Tehran to transfer the designs and components of combat drones to Moscow so it could manufacture hundreds of them on its soil through its own assembly line and as a means for Iran to potentially avoid more sanctions (Warrick et al. 2022). Between November 15th and 17th, and after withdrawing from Kherson (a launchpad for Iranian/Russian drones alongside Crimea), Russia deployed hundreds of missiles and drones, including the Shahed-136/Geran-2, that 2

On the flip side, Russia has demanded that NATO withdraw instructors, servicemen, and mercenaries or foreign volunteer fighters from Ukraine as a precondition for peace talks (Reuters 2022f).

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killed and injured Ukrainian civilians and damaged power stations and other critical infrastructure in the south and east of the country (Stern and Dixon 2022). Afterward, and according to the British Ministry of Defense, Russia reportedly ran out of Shahed-136/Geran-2 and relied instead on older cruise missiles from which nuclear warheads had been removed to continue striking Ukraine (Reuters 2022b; Miller and Galouchka 2022). On November 23rd, Russia launched dozens of these missiles into Ukraine and killed more of its civilians and further damaged its energy infrastructure (Tondo and Borger 2022; Luxmoore 2022). Combined with the previous attacks in October, the Russian drone and missile attacks in November crippled Ukraine’s energy capacity and left millions of Ukrainians without power for days, as temperatures dropped to freezing and below freezing levels, and fears rose of a difficult winter ahead (Guy et al. 2022; Parker and Chatterjee 2022; Borger 2022c; Shelley et al. 2022; Luxmoore 2022). As the weather became colder and the situation more dire, European countries delivered generators, blankets, and other equipment and supplies to Ukraine while the United States offered to assist it with the repair, restoration, and resiliency of its energy infrastructure (Ellyatt 2022; Reuters 2022c). On December 5th, explosions occurred at two airbases (Engels-2 and Dyagilevo) deep inside Russian territory that damaged aircraft and killed and injured personnel. The explosions were followed by an attack on a Russian airfield in Kursk the next day and were purportedly caused by Ukrainian combat drones with an estimated range of 1000 km (Harding 2022; Beaumont 2022b; Holden 2022; Lister et al. 2022; Mirovalev 2022). Beginning on December 10th, Russia responded by launching more Iranian drones and cruise and ballistic missiles into Ukraine, culminating with largescale attacks on New Year’s Eve and Day. While many, if not most, of these drones and missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian armed forces and air defenses, some of them struck critical infrastructure and civilian targets, leading to more blackouts and casualties (Grove 2022; Aggarwal 2022; Myre 2022; Bachega and Kirby 2022; Koshiw 2022; Balmforth and Polityuk 2022; Luxmoore and Gershkovich 2022; Malsin 2022; Coles and MacDonald 2022; Sauer 2022; Stern and Ebel 2022; Garanich and Valentyn 2023). In contrast to Turkey and the UAE and without being a member of a regional security alliance, Iran became the obvious or natural supplier of drones and other military aid and technology to Russia in Ukraine, particularly after the United States withdrew from the JCPOA, reimposed sanctions against Iran, and escalated tensions with it. Militarily, there appears to exist a quid-pro-quo arrangement between Tehran and Moscow. On one side, Iran is helping Russia compensate for its depleted ballistic missile arsenal and limited surveillance and combat drone capability to complement its dwindling supply of Orlan-10 reconnaissance drones in Ukraine. On the other side, Moscow may bolster Tehran’s weak air force by potentially delivering the Sukhoi Su-35 multi-role fighter aircraft (Amwaj.media 2022; Eslami 2022: 1–5, 8). Despite tensions between the United States and Turkey over democratic backsliding, the Gülen movement, and Kurdish issue, Ankara is a NATO ally and has been on the opposing side of conflicts against Russia. As in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and since February 2022, the Turkish-Russian rivalry has most recently emerged in Ukraine, where the TB2 has featured prominently in the Ukrainian campaign

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to resist and repel the Russian invasion and occupation (Zaman 2022; Corcoran 2022; Venckunas 2022; Gault 2022; Karadsheh and Sariyuce 2022; Rossiter and Cannon 2022: 5, 10–11). Toward this end and alongside attack drones from the United States and other countries, Ukraine has deployed the TB2 to target and destroy Russian bases, ships, troops, tanks, armored vehicles, military convoys, surface-to-air missiles, and fuel tanks—prompting Moscow to acquire combat drones from Tehran (Eslami 2022: 3–4; Khurshudyan et al. 2022b). Compared with Turkey and Iran, the UAE has displayed less self-sufficiency by reportedly flying missions and launching airstrikes on behalf of the Ethiopian government using the CAIG Wing Loong II that China directly supplied to Ethiopia and/or indirectly did so through the UAE (Al-Monitor 2021; Roblin 2021). In addition to purchasing the Wing Loong II from China, the UAE has signed deals to purchase drones from the United States since 2013. That year, the UAE started to show greater self-sufficiency by producing a drone called the Yabhon United 40 through the Emirate company Adcom Systems and exporting it to Algeria, Egypt, and Russia (Mustafa 2013; Kirkpatrick 2015; Times Aerospace 2021). Though less self-sufficient than Iran and Turkey, the UAE has delivered drone technology to Russia and cooperated with it in conflict zones like Libya while seeking to balance relations with Washington and Moscow before and during the Ukraine war. For Abu Dhabi, supplying drones to Russia would disrupt that balance by alienating or antagonizing the United States and would be complicated by the fact that the UAE tends to export drones from China, which has maintained a somewhat ambiguous position toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ranging from neutrality to support (Wintour 2022a; Bourgeois-Fortin et al. 2022; Ukrinform 2022b; The Conversation 2022; Ramzy 2022). In late February 2022, several days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China refused its request for advanced drones to avoid exacerbating economic and geopolitical tensions with the United States (Eslami 2022: 2).

6 Conclusion Since the U.N. arms embargo against Iran expired in 2020, the Islamic Republic has increased the production, operation, and export of drones to countries inside and outside of the Middle East. Through its drone program and like its regional rivals, Iran has projected power, secured profits, reinforced alliances, and impacted conflicts in the region and beyond. Before 2020, Iran used drones for domestic counterinsurgency and exported them to predominantly quasi- or non-state partners and proxies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran witnessed how regional drones, which possessed first-mover advantage and superior capabilities, turned the tide of nearby conflicts in which Tehran was also involved on the same or opposing side. Consequently, and since 2021, Iran has been more active and assertive in the global military drone market, as evidenced by Tehran’s export of the Mohajer-6 to the Ethiopian government during the Tigray War, alongside Ankara and Abu Dhabi, as well as its transfer of the Shahed and other drones to Russia during the Ukraine war.

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Since September 2022, Iranian drone transfers and other military aid to Moscow for use in Ukraine have been highly fluid and consequential. As Iran’s tensions with the United States have intensified and its relations with Russia have improved, its drone transfers to Moscow before and during the Ukraine war have been a boon to its expanding drone industry. On October 18, 2022, the day after Russia struck Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure using the Shahed-136/ Geron-2, a military official in Tehran claimed that 22 countries wanted to purchase Iranian drones (Tehran Times 2022). With a gross domestic product (GDP) of over $1.7 trillion in 2021, Russia’s economy and status as an upper middle-income country loom large compared with other state clients of Iranian drones (The World Bank n.d.). These clients include Venezuela with a GDP of $482.4 billion in 2014 and an unclassified income level, and the low-income countries of Syria and Ethiopia with GPDs of $21.4 billion in 2018 and $111.3 billion in 2021, respectively (The World Bank n.d.). As indicated above, while Ethiopia acquired two Mohajer-6 s from Iran, alongside Turkish TB2s and Emirate/Chinese Wing Loong IIs, Russia purchased hundreds of Iranian drones of different models. With Ethiopia, Iran and its regional rivals helped a middle power turn the tide of a civil war in the Global South that received limited media coverage in the West. By contrast and with Russia, Iran has helped a great power impact an anti-systemic and interstate conflict in Europe that has attracted international media attention and involved the military assistance of the United States and NATO. At the same time, Iran’s drone transfers to Russia could come at a cost for the Islamic Republic and create suboptimal outcomes for it. If Tehran were deemed to have violated UNSCR 2231 for transferring drones and missiles to Moscow during the Ukraine war that exceeded a certain range and payload, it could be further subjected not just to unilateral sanctions by the United States, but also multilateral snapback sanctions by the international community. Among other economic challenges and despite rising petroleum prices, the sanctions and embargoes imposed against Iran and Russia before and during the latter’s invasion of Ukraine have forced them to compete as oil exporters to China by undercutting prices and reducing revenues (Batmanghelidj 2022). Resolutions and sanctions aside, the fact that Tehran has supplied Moscow with drones to strike civilian targets in Ukraine while ruthlessly repressing protestors and increasing uranium enrichment at home does not bode well for the Islamic Republic in terms of global public opinion and risks further isolating the country and solidifying its status as an international pariah or roque state. Ideologically, Iran’s military aid to Russia as a foreign invader and occupier of Ukraine has complicated and contradicted its narrative about resistance. That said, Tehran has applied the concept of resistance to NATO’s expansion around Russia as the underlying cause of the war. Domestically, Iran’s drone transfers to Russia have caused dissent within its political elite and could continue to do so moving forward (Wintour 2022b). Despite these issues, it is difficult to envision Tehran halting its drone transfers to Moscow given their abovementioned geopolitical and economic advantages, including the momentum generated for its military drone industry in a market with an estimated value of $11.25 billion in 2021—a figure expected to reach $26.12 billion in 2028 (Fortune Business Insights n.d.).

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Thomas, J. (2022, August 24). New Counter-Drone System Shows U.S. Has Ukraine’s Back ‘Over the Long Term’, Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/new-counter-drone-system-shows-ushas-ukraines-back-over-long-term-1736715. Times Aerospace (2021). Adcom adds to Algerian force. https://www.timesaerospace.aero/features/ defence/adcom-adds-to-algerian-force. Tiwari, S. (2022, October 20). 1st Evidence! Germany’s ‘Much-Touted’ IRIS-T Defense System Used By Ukraine ‘Clashes’ With Russian Missile. The EurAsian Times. https://eurasiantimes. com/1st-evidence-germanys-much-touted-iris-t-defense-system-used/. Tollast, R. (2020, December 7). Iran ramps up arms transfers to Venezuela and plans regional strife. The National. https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/iran-ramps-up-arms-transfers-tovenezuela-and-plans-regional-strife-1.1122432. Tondo, L. & Borger, J. (2022, November 23). At least six die in Ukraine as dozens of missiles target civilian infrastructure. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/23/strikeon-ukrainian-hospital-maternity-ward-zaporizhzhia-kills-newborn-baby. Tov, M. H. (2021, November 7). Israel secretly brought in dozens of Ethiopians from War-Torn Tigray, Then Discovered Most weren’t Jewish. Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/. premium.HIGHLIGHT-israel-secretly-brought-dozens-of-ethiopians-then-discovered-mostweren-t-jewish-1.10362179. Trevithick, J. (2019, June 29). F-15E Shot Down ‘Predator-Sized’ Drone That Attacked Coalition Forces In Syria. The War Zone. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11314/f-15e-shotdown-predator-sized-drone-that-attacked-coalition-forces-in-syria. Trevithick, J. & Newdick, T. (2020, September 28). Everything We Know About The Fighting That Has Erupted Between Armenia And Azerbaijan. The Warzone. https://www.thedrive.com/thewar-zone/36777/everything-we-know-about-the-fighting-that-has-erupted-between-armeniaand-azerbaijan. Trofimov, Y. & Nissenbaum, D. (2022, September 17). Russia’s Use of Iranian Kamikaze Drones Creates New Dangers for Ukrainian Troops. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/art icles/russias-use-of-iranian-kamikaze-drones-creates-new-dangers-for-ukrainian-troops-116 63415140. TRT World (2019, December 5). How Khalifa Haftar’s secret ties with Israel fuel chaos in Libya. https://www.trtworld.com/africa/how-khalifa-haftar-s-secret-ties-with-israelfuel-chaos-in-libya-31941. Ukrinform (a) (2022, October 17). Energy facilities in Ukraine’s north, center damaged by Russian strikes – Ukrenergo. https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3594782-energy-facilitiesin-ukraines-north-center-damaged-by-russian-strikes-ukrenergo.html. Ukrinform (b) (2022, May 25). Zelensky: Ukraine is fine with China’s position on war with Russia. https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3491830-zelensky-ukraine-is-fine-with-chi nas-position-on-war-with-russia.html. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (n.d.). Operational Data Portal: Ukraine Refugee Situation. https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine. UNHCR (2022, May 23). UNHCR: Ukraine, other conflicts push forcibly displaced total over 100 million for first time. https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2022/5/628a389e4/unhcr-ukraineother-conflicts-push-forcibly-displaced-total-100-million.html. U.S. Central Command (2017, June 20). Press Release: Coalition shoots down armed UAV in Syria. https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/121 9863/coalition-shoots-down-armed-uav-in-syria/. Vatanka, A. (2013, January 15). Tangle in the Caucasus: Iran and Israel Fight for Influence in Azerbaijan. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2013-01-15/ tangle-caucasus#:~:text=Fearing%20Baku’s%20intentions%20to%20fuel,in%20an%20inco nclusive%20cease%2Dfire. Venckunas, V. (2022, March 2). Ukraine receives new batch of Bayraktar TB-2 drones from Turkey. Aerotime Hub. https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/30352-ukraine-says-it-received-new-batchof-bayraktars-from-turkey.

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Walsh, D. (2021, December 20). Foreign Drones Tip the Balance in Ethiopia’s Civil War. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/world/africa/drones-ethiopia-warturkey-emirates.html. Ward, E. & Fassihi, F. (2022, July 28). Iran Ramps Up Drone Exports, Signaling Global Ambitions. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/world/middleeast/iran-drone-exp orts.html. Warrick, J., Mekhennet, S., & Nakashima, E. (2022, November 19). Iran will help Russia build drones for Ukraine war, Western officials say. The Washington Post. https://www.washingto npost.com/national-security/2022/11/19/russia-iran-drones-secret-deal/. Waters, G. (2020, June 18). The Syrian Regime’s Combat Losses in Spring 2020, and What Lies Ahead. Middle East Institute. https://www.mei.edu/publications/syrian-regimes-combat-lossesspring-2020-and-what-lies-ahead. Wintour, P. (2022, February 27). Ukraine: what will China do? There are signs it is uneasy about Putin’s methods. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/ukr aine-what-will-china-do-there-are-signs-it-is-uneasy-about-putins-methods. Wintour, P. (2022, November 7). Row brews in Iran over use of its drones in Ukraine war by Russia. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/07/row-brews-in-iran-over-useof-its-drones-in-ukraine-war-by-russia. Witt, S. (2022, May 9). The Turkish Drone that Changed the Nature of Warfare. The New Yorker. https://www-newyorker-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.newyorker.com/mag azine/2022/05/16/the-turkish-drone-that-changed-the-nature-of-warfare/amp. Wright, G. (2022. October 20). Ukraine war: Iranian drone experts ‘on the ground’ in Crimea – US. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63329266. Zaman, A. (2020, September 28). Turkey backs Azerbaijan against Armenia as war looms over Caucasus. Al-Monitor. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/09/turkey-russia-erdogandispute-armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno.html. Zaman, A. (2022, January 27). Turkish drones boost Ukrainian spirits amid fears of Russian invasion. Al-Monitor. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/01/turkish-drones-boost-ukrainian-spi rits-amid-fears-russian-invasion. Ziabari, K. (2020, October 8). Iran on edge as Azeri minority backs Karabakh war. Asia Times. https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/iran-on-edge-as-azeri-minority-backs-karabakh-war/. Zwijnenburg, W. (2022, January 11). Turkish Drones Join Ethiopia’s war, Satellite Imagery Confirms. Peace Organization PAX. https://paxforpeace.nl/news/blogs/turkish-drones-join-eth iopias-war-satellite-imagery-confirms.

The War in Ukraine: The Turning Point of Russia-Iran Relations Arman Mahmoudian

Abstract Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has emerged as a significant turning point in Russia-Iran relations. Before the Ukrainian conflict, Russia, being one of the few major powers friendly towards Iran, held a dominant position, making Iran more of a dependent partner. However, post-invasion, Moscow’s increasing reliance on Iranian armaments, notably kamikaze drones, positioned Iran as the main arms supplier to Russia. This shift has created a mutual dependence, forging a “balance of reliance” between the two countries. In this scenario, while Iran’s defense sector caters to Russia’s wartime needs, Moscow intends to compensate Tehran with what it desires most: advanced fighter jets and anti-missile defense systems. This potential exchange epitomizes a “cross-functional” partnership where each nation’s strengths address the other’s vulnerabilities. Therefore, it can be posited that the Ukraine conflict has transitioned Russo-Persian ties from a state of “imbalanced partnership” to one of “interdependent cooperation.” Keywords Russia · Iran · Russo-Persian relations · Ukraine · Interdependence · Balance of reliance · Asymmetric partnership · Interdepended cooperation · Russo-Ukrainian war

1 Introduction Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a turning point in the trajectory of the current international order, influencing events like NATO’s enlargement, energy market volatility, increased U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe, and strengthened ties between Russia and China. However, the most profound outcome of the war in Ukraine has been the formation of a united front among many democratic nations against Russian aggression. This stance has isolated Moscow, restricting the Kremlin’s access to much of the international market and global supply chain. In response, Russia has sought to expand its ties with anti-Western nations, including A. Mahmoudian (B) University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_7

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Iran, to counteract Western sanctions. For the Russians, a receptive Tehran provided a lifeline, airlifting numerous kamikaze drones to aid Moscow. Iran’s consistent support has elevated it to the primary arms supplier to Russia, shifting the dynamics of Russo-Persian relations significantly. In the past, Iran was a comparatively minor player in its partnership with Russia, leaning on Russian support without substantial leverage. Now, with its growing arms exports to Russia, Iran has attained a pivotal position. The war in Ukraine has ushered in a new balance of reliance between these two nations. While the war’s impact on their bilateral relationship is significant, this isn’t the first instance of external influences shaping Russia-Iran ties. Historically, these relations have often been molded by third-party influences. The history of IranRussia relations exemplifies a “love-hate” dynamic. Over time, both nations have oscillated between allyship and rivalry, driven largely not by internal perspectives or domestic factors, but by third-party influences and external elements. They’ve aligned against mutual threats and diverged when one party’s relationship with a third nation seemed adversarial to the other. For instance, the inception of modern Russo-Persian relations in 1501 was shaped by mutual concerns over the Ottoman Empire, prompting collaboration against Turkish expansion. In contrast, from the 1910s to the early 1940s, Iran’s growing ties with Germany, perceived as a threat by Russia, culminated in multiple Russian invasions of Iran. Given this historical backdrop, a comprehensive understanding of the Ukraine war’s impact on RussoPersian relations requires an examination of how external factors have traditionally influenced their ties. This chapter will delve into the history of their interactions, highlighting the role of foreign elements, and then focus on the current ramifications of the Ukraine conflict on Iran-Russia relations.

2 Background Study on Russo-Persian Relations Since the re-establishment of central authority in Iran by the Safavids in 1501, marking the first time post the Muslim Conquest of Persia (633–654), Russo-Persian relations have navigated several distinct phases. These include cooperation, enmity, an imbalanced partnership, brief moments of friendship, periods of hostility, renewed cooperation, and an evolution into a semi-interdependent partnership. To fully grasp the nuances of this complex relationship, it’s vital to delve into the nature of each of these stages, providing a comprehensive historical backdrop.

2.1 Cooperation (1465–the 1640s) The earliest known interaction between what is today’s Iran and Russia dates back to 1464 when Ivan the Great (Ivan III) was in search of allies for an anti-Ottoman coalition. Given that the Aq Qoyunlu tribal confederation, which held dominance in the west and northwest of Iran, faced threats from the Ottomans expanding eastward,

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Ivan perceived them as a potential ally. Consequently, he sent his envoys to the confederation,1 and their mutual threat perception forged the first cornerstone of early Russo-Persian relations. In the early 1500s, trade became a pivotal factor in deepening Russo-Persian relations. The Ottoman advances in the Caucasus cut off Iran’s trade routes with Western nations. This situation prompted the Safavid Empire to pivot towards Russia as a trading partner, replacing the Western nations they previously engaged with. Consequently, as Iran faced trade restrictions with the West, it bolstered its commercial ties with Russia. This shift was further facilitated by Russia’s conquests of Kazan and the Northern Caucasus, which revitalized the ancient Volga trade route. This expansion directly linked Russian trade to Iran through the Gilan province.2 Bilateral trade reached a new peak in the mid-1550s when the Russo-Persian trade center at Astrakhan was established.3 From the 1550s to the mid-1610s RussoPersian relations continued to expand, revolving around two significant elements: trade and mutual threat perceptions of the Ottoman Empire.4 However, in 1612, the dynamics shifted with the finalization of the Treaty of Nasuh Pasha between Iran and the Ottomans. Iran’s victory over the Ottomans diminished the Safavids’ dependence on Russian military aid. Moreover, as a stipulation of the treaty, Iran was required to adopt a neutral stance in the Russo-Ottoman War, effectively leaving Russia isolated in its confrontations with the Turks.5

2.2 Enmity (1650–1820s) The dissolution of the Russo-Persian anti-Ottoman alliance marked a shift in bilateral relations, transitioning from friendship to hostility. This change set the stage for five successive generations of Russo-Persian conflicts. The inaugural conflict between the two nations emerged in 1653 when Russia sought to fortify its position along the Koy Su River. They established new garrison posts and attempted to levy trade taxes on merchants. In retaliation, Iran’s Shah Abbas II dispatched a significant military force to dismantle the Russian fortifications.6 The conflict in 1653 did not escalate into an all-out war, primarily because both countries faced threats from third 1

Sefat Gol, M., & Hosseini Taghiabad, S. M. (2020). From Attempts to Form a Coalition to Worsened Relations; Transformation in Iran and Russia Relations in the Seventeenth Century. Central Eurasia Studies, 13(1), 91–116. https://doi.org/10.22059/jcep.2020.297111.449900. 2 Kortepeter, C. M. (1966). Ottoman Imperial Policy and the Economy of the Black Sea Region in the Sixteenth Century. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 86(2), 86–113. 3 Ferrier, Ronald (1986). “Trade From the Mid-14th Century to the End of the Safavid Period”. The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 412–490. 4 Matthee, R. (2013). Rudeness and Revilement: Russian–Iranian Relations in the Mid-Seventeenth Century. Iranian Studies, 46(3), 333–357. 5 Ibid. 6 Matthee, Rudolph P. (1999). The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177.

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parties. At the time, Iran was under threat from the Mongol Empire, while Russia was contending with the Polish. As a result, the two nations chose diplomatic negotiation as a peaceful resolution.7 The second Russo-Persian war ignited in 1722 when Afghan rebels brought the Safavid Empire to the brink of collapse. Concurrently, fearing Ottoman intervention amidst the turmoil in Iran, Peter the Great directed the Russian army to seize control of Derbent, Baku, and the provinces of Mazandaran, Gilan, Shirvan, and Astarabad. Though Russia’s campaign ended victoriously in 1723, hostilities persisted until the Treaty of Ganja in 1735. This agreement saw Russia return most of the annexed territories to Iran, with the Safavids acknowledging pro-Russian Vakhtang VI as the King of Georgia.8 The Third Russo-Persian War began in 1795, when Agha Mohammed Khan, the founder of the Qajar Dynasty, marched his Army toward Azerbaijan and Georgia to reestablish the Persian domain in the region. Although the assassination of Agha Mohammed Khan completely disrupted the Qajar Army, allowing the Russian army to re-occupy the lost positions and advance into Iran’s mainland,9 the death of Russian Empress Catherine II ended the war since her successor, Paul I, decided to withdraw Russian troops from Persia. Paul I’s withdrawal from Persia was later reversed by his son, Tsar Alexander, who occupied the Persian vassal state in Georgia, the kingdom of Khartli-Kakheti, to which Iran’s King Fath Ali Shah reacted by demanding the Russians retreat. Alexander considered this demand a declaration of war and responded to it by launching full-scale military invasions, marking the beginning of nine years of war between two nations starting in 1804. The fourth Russo-Persian war ended in 1813, resulting in Persia ceding the North of the Aras River, 220 km2 of its territory, to Russia.10 In this context the Iranians, humiliated by their defeat in the last war, saw the death of Alexander in 1825 as an opportunity to reclaim what they had lost in the fourth war. Hence, in 1826, Qajar launched a full-scale invasion against the Russian Empire in the Caucasus.11 Despite initial Persian victories, shortly after the Russian military turned the tide of war, defeated Iran, and forced Qajar to accept the treaty of Turkmenchay, which forced the Qajars to cede Erivan, Talesh, and Nakhichevan to the Russian Empire.12 The outcomes of these last two wars underscored to Iran the futility of triumphing over Russia, leading to a significant shift in the dynamics of Russo-Persian relations and ushering in a new phase of their intertwined histories. 7

Ibid, 180. Behrooz, M. (2013). Revisiting the Second Russo-Iranian War (1826–28): Causes and Perceptions. Iranian Studies, 46(3), 359–381. 9 Ledonne, J. (2008). Russia’s Eastern Theater, 1650–1850 Springboard or Strategic Backyard? Cahiers Du Monde Russe, 49(1), 17–45. 10 N. Dubrovin. IctopiR voNny i vladyqectva pycckix na Kavkaze, volumes 4–6. SPb, 1886– 88. 11 Behrooz, M. (2013). Revisiting the Second Russo-Iranian War (1826–28): Causes and Perceptions. Iranian Studies, 46(3), 359–381. 12 Ibid, 377. 8

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Asymmetric Partnership (1830–the 1910s)

Throughout the 1830s, Iran’s Qajar dynasty faced dual threats, both domestically and from abroad. Domestically, there were instability and unrest in central provinces like Kerman and Yazd., On the foreign front, the British advancement into what is now Afghanistan resulted in the loss of Herat from Persian control. Grappling with British imperialism and internal dissent, the beleaguered Qajar dynasty sought assistance from the Russian Empire. This pivot fundamentally altered the balance of their bilateral ties, drawing Iran significantly into Russia’s sphere of influence. The asymmetric relationship grew in the 1880s when, aided by Russia, the Qajar dynasty established the Persian/Iranian Cossack Brigade. This brigade not only facilitated a military collaboration but also embedded Russian military officers, advisors, doctors, and educators into Iran’s administrative apparatus, giving Moscow unprecedented influence over Tehran.13 The apex of this asymmetric partnership reached a new peak in 1908, when Iran faced a semi-civil war between the Monarchy loyalists and the constitutionalists, during which Iran’s king, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, beseechedTsarn Nicolas II to deploy the Russian imperial army to support the Persian Cossack Brigade against the constitutionalist.14 While the Russian-backed monarchists initially prevailed, by 1911, the tide turned in favor of the constitutionalists, who subsequently exiled Shah Qajar. Given the Ottoman Empire’s backing of the constitutionalists, their ascendancy strengthened the Ottoman’s influence in Iran. This bolstered presence rang alarm bells in Moscow, sparking Russo-Ottoman rivalry in Iran.15 The onset of World War I in 1914 saw the Russo-Ottoman tensions in Iran escalate into a broader conflict. Concerned about the Central Powers gaining a foothold in Iran, AngloRussian forces invaded the country. This military intervention marked a profound shift in the Russian Empire’s role in Iran, transitioning from protector to occupier, thus ending the era of their imbalanced partnership. However, the 1917 Russian Revolution abruptly halted the Persian Campaign, ensuring that the antagonistic phase of Russo-Persian relations wasn’t immediately rekindled.

2.4 Brief Friendship (the 1920s) The Bolsheviks, who believed nations which the imperialists had oppressed were a suitable target for exporting communism after their takeover, started to warm ties with Iran, and on February 26, 1921, the Soviet Union signed a “Treaty of Friendship” with Iran, forging a brief Russo-Persian friendship. In accordance with the treaty, 13

Rabi, U., & Ter-Oganov, N. (2009). The Russian Military Mission and the Birth of the Persian Cossack Brigade: 1879–1894. Iranian Studies, 42(3), 445–463. 14 Foran, J. (1991). The Strengths and Weaknesses of Iran’s Populist Alliance: A Class Analysis of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911. Theory and Society, 20(6), 795–823. 15 Ibid, 814.

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the Kremlin annulled various commercial and territorial concessions that the tsarist government demanded from Iran. In exchange, Moscow implemented the inclusion of two articles which prohibited the formation or residence of individuals, groups, and armed forces that were hostile to the other party, and granted Moscow the right to send troops to Iran in the event that a third party tried to pursue a policy of usurpation by using Iran as a base of operations against Russia.16 The treaty presented a major reset in Russo-Persian ties, indicating the Soviets’ commitment to fostering a more equitable and collaborative relationship with Tehran. The most significant gestures in the agreement were Moscow’s decisions to relinquish various concessions that the tsarist regime had previously extracted from Iran. These concessions spanned across commerce, territory, and other domains, marking a departure from the exploitative policies of the past.In addition, in 1927, the Soviet Union signed a “Treaty of Guarantees and Neutrality” with Iran. According to this treaty, the contracting parties committed to abstaining from aggression against one another and not entering into blocs or alliances directed against each other’s sovereignty. However, with Stalin’s expansionist policies in the pre-war period and Iran’s increasing ties with Nazi Germany during the 1930s, the relationship began to sour. This brief Russo-Persian friendship came to an end with the 1941 occupation of Iran by the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States.17

2.5 Hostility (1940–1990s) In 1942, following the successful occupation of Iran in collaboration with the United Kingdom and the United States, the Soviet Union entered into the Tripartite Treaty Alliance with Iran’s newly enthroned Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah. The treaty clarified that the presence of allied troops would not amount to a military occupation that would inhibit the Persian government from performing its duties. Additionally, Allied Powers committed to withdrawing military forces no later than six months after, “all hostilities between the Allied Powers and Germany and her partners have been suspended, due to an armistice or peace, or whichever comes first.”18 Yet, in direct contravention of the treaty’s provisions, Soviet forces in the northern provinces hindered the entry of Iranian government officials and obstructed the export of Iranian agricultural products to other regions. Concurrently, under Soviet influence, a drive for enhanced provincial autonomy surfaced in Iranian Azerbaijan. This movement evolved into a separatist push spearheaded by the communist ’National Government of Azerbaijan,’ leading to the Iran Crisis of 1946.19 16

Imam, Z. (1983). Soviet Treaties with Third World Countries. Soviet Studies, 35(1), 53–70. F. Eshraghi. (1984). The Immediate Aftermath of Anglo-Soviet Occupation of Iran in August 1941. Middle Eastern Studies, 20(3), 324–351. 18 Thorpe, J. A. (1978). Truman’s Ultimatum to Stalin on the 1946 Azerbaijan Crisis: the Making of a Myth. The Journal of Politics, 40(1), 188–195. 19 Ibid, 190. 17

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While Soviet forces eventually withdrew from Iran under American pressure, allowing the central government to regain control, the Kremlin’s breach of the treaty and its efforts to undermine Iran’s territorial sovereignty deeply scarred Perso-Soviet relations. The situation worsened in 1955 when Iran contemplated joining what would eventually be known as the Baghdad Pact. The Soviet Union responded with threats, alluding to the 1921 treaty’s Article 6. Consequently, Moscow suspended trade talks with Iran in October 1955, curtailed cultural exchanges, and downplayed its attendance at the Iranian National Day celebrations. However, the Shah of Iran, confident in US backing, dismissed the USSR’s objections. In retaliation, the Soviets leveraged their state-run radio stations to flood broadcasts with criticisms of the Baghdad Pact, later renamed CENTO.20 Alarmed by these developments, the Soviets urgently sought a written agreement from Iran, stipulating that Iranian territory would not be used as a launchpad for aggression or for the establishment of foreign missile bases. As anticipated, the Shah of Iran declined both requests, choosing instead to provide a unilateral assurance through a formal declaration. While the Soviets initially rebuffed this offer, they eventually accepted it in 1962.21 In a public address in 1962, the Shah declared his refusal to let any nation use Iranian soil to launch an attack against the Soviet Union,22 following this declaration, Iran and the USSR struck an agreement wherein Moscow pledged to support Iran in establishing a substantial steel manufacturing unit in Isfahan. Later, in 1970, the Shah agreed to sell gas to the Soviet Union, and the two pipelines were drawn from the South to Astra and from there to the Soviet Union. Additionally, the Shah began buying military items from the Eastern Bloc, such as SAM missiles.23 In light of these developments, early bilateral relations throughout most of the 1970s remained harmonious. However, Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 changed that dynamic, just as Russia’s 1917 revolution had done previously. Following Pakistan, the Soviet Union was quick to recognize Iran’s new government, primarily due to shared antiAmerican sentiments. However, the eruption of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980 changed the situation for the worse, as the Soviet Union was a strategic ally of Iraq’s Saddam. The first event was the advent of Iran’s victories in the war against Iraq. The second event was the arrest and trial of the leaders of Iran’s Tudeh Communist Party. Moscow became vociferous in its demand for an end to the war, especially following Iran’s success in the Jerusalem/Qods operation and their subsequent territorial incursions

20

CENTO. (1979). Strategic Studies, 2(3), 9–10. Alvandi, R. (2014). Flirting with Neutrality: The Shah, Khrushchev, and the Failed 1959 Soviet– Iranian Negotiations. Iranian Studies, 47(3), 419–440. 22 U.S Department of State’s Office of Historian. (1962). 247. Memorandum of Conversation, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961–1963, VOLUME XVII, NEAR EAST, 1961–1962. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v17/d247 23 Cossa, Ralph A. (1990).”Iran: Soviet’s Interests and US Concerns,” The Institute for National Strategic Studies, Washington, D.C, pp.111. 21

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into Iraq.24 At the same time, Russia began to equip Iraq, which caused Iran to pursue and arrest the Tudeh’s party leaders. In February 1983, the leader of the Tudeh Party, Nuruddin Kianuri, was arrested and eighteen Soviet diplomats were expelled from Iran. In response, Soviets accused Iran of acting in line with the CIA’s anti-Soviet manner.25 Throughout the mid-1980s, the Kremlin persistently criticized the Iranian administration, even as it strengthened diplomatic and economic ties with Saddam Hussein. This diplomatic camaraderie peaked in 1985 with Saddam Hussein’s visit to Moscow. As the Iran-Iraq war raged on, Soviet-Iranian relations soured further, especially since the Soviet Union was Iraq’s primary arms supplier. Tensions between Iran and the Soviet Union climaxed in February 1986 after Iran successfully executed Operation Dawn 8, capturing the strategic town of Al-Faw. Following this, the Soviet Union intensified its support for Saddam Hussein, heralding a renewed phase in their partnership. Between 1986 and 1988, the USSR supplied Iraq with a significant arsenal, including 800 T-72 tanks, 300 aircraft, and hundreds of Scud B missiles.26 In this context, the hostility between the two nations continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the sixth phase of Russo-Iranian relations—cooperation.

2.6 Cooperation (1990–2020s) The dissolution of the Soviet Union marked a pivotal moment in Russo-Persian relations. The emergence of independent nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus, following the territorial fragmentation of the USSR, established a "buffer zone" between Iran and Russia. This change ended the direct land border they shared for over five centuries. Historically, most conflicts have arisen between neighboring nations. Thus, the cessation of their shared boundary significantly diminished mutual threat perceptions between Iran and Russia, eliminating a major source of potential friction between them. Another influential aspect in the evolving Russo-Persian dynamic was the geopolitical shifts in the region. During the 1990s, while Russia grappled with NATO’s swift expansion, Iran found itself increasingly alienated by the West. This mutual sense of encroachment by Western powers provided a practical foundation for Iran and Russia to set aside their mutual mistrust and intensify their diplomatic ties. Iran’s stance in support of Russia’s territorial sovereignty during its conflict in Chechnya in the mid-1990s, coupled with their joint efforts to resolve the Tajikistan civil war, established a new chapter of cooperative relations between the Russian Federation 24

Mahmoudian, Arman. (2021). Russia and Iran’s Relations in Iraq, London School of Economy. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/07/02/russia-and-irans-relations-in-iraq/ 25 Jahanpour, F. (1984). Iran: The Rise and Fall of the Tudeh Party. The World Today, 40(4), 152–159. 26 Mahmoudian, Arman. (2021). Russia and Iran’s Relations in Iraq, London School of Economy. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/07/02/russia-and-irans-relations-in-iraq/

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and the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, Iran’s alignment with Russia’s policy during the Bosnian War (1993–1995) facilitated the strengthening of ties between the two nations, despite U.S. reservations. Another pivotal moment materialized in January 1995 when Moscow and Tehran inked an agreement, with Russia committing to complete the Bushehr nuclear power plan. Nevertheless, the blossoming of bilateral ties was not without its obstacles. In 1995, after discussions between U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Moscow consented to refrain from selling military aircraft to Iran.27 Complicating matters further, in 1997, Russia expelled an Iranian diplomat, alleging he tried to smuggle missile technology to Iran.28 After Putin assumed power in 2000, Russo-Persian relations experienced a revival. Putin dismissed the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement, signaling his intention to resume arms sales to Iran and finalize the Bushehr power plant project. On October 2, 2001, Russia and Iran formalized their commitment through an agreement, with Moscow pledging to supply Iran with weapons worth $122 million annually. By 2003, trade between Russia and Iran surged to approximately $1.4 billion.29 The onset of the Medvedev presidency in 2008 brought fresh challenges to RussoPersian ties, as Medvedev was inclined to foster relations with the West. In line with Western sanctions on Iran, Dmitry Medvedev, on September 22, 2010, issued a decree titled “Measures related to the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution No. 1929.” This decree barred the export of tanks, armored vehicles, large-caliber artillery, warplanes, helicopters, warships, and the S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran. Moreover, it prohibited Russian individuals and entities from offering financial services linked to Iran’s nuclear program.30 However, the rapid downturn in Russo-Iranian relations halted in 2011 with the onset of the Syrian civil war, which threatened the mutual strategic ally of both nations – Syria’s Assad. Consequently, both countries sought to bolster their ties. This move was further cemented by the election of Hassan Rouhani in 2013. A semi-reformist, Rouhani advocated for deescalation with the West. His election reignited Russia’s interest in strengthening ties with Iran, driven by the Kremlin’s concern of potentially losing Iran to Western influence. During this period, collaborative efforts regarding Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria took center stage in Tehran-Moscow interactions, accelerating the growth of their bilateral relations. So much so that in 2014, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister,

27

Broder, John M. (2000). Despite a Secret Pact by Gore in 95’, Russian Arms Sales to Iran Go On, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/13/world/despite-a-secret-pact-by-gorein-95-russian-arms-sales-to-iran-go-on.html 28 Freedman, Robert O. (2000). “Russian-Iranian Relations in the 1990s”. Meria Journal, Vol. 4(2), pp. 3–7. 29 Mehr News Agency. (2003). Iran-Russia Trade Volume Inched Up to $1.37b in 2003. https://en. mehrnews.com/news/5846/Iran-Russia-Trade-Volume-Inched-Up-to-1-37b-in-2003 30 The Office of President of Russia. (2010). “Executive order on measures to implement UN Security Council resolution 1929 on Iran.” http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/8986

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labeled Iran as a “natural ally.”31 Russia’s military intervention in Syria moved RussoPersian relations to a higher level of cooperation, as Russian aircraft and Iranian troops were again fighting against a common enemy.32 In light of the growing military cooperation, in April 2015, Russia’s Putin lifted the ban on supplying S-300s to Iran, and in 2016, it became known that Russia had completed the contract for the supply of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran. In 2018, when President Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal and resumed sanctions on Iran, Tehran felt the need to move even closer to Russia. Thus, in 2018, an Interim Agreement was signed, forming a free trade area between the Eurasian Economic Union and its member states on the one hand, and the Islamic Republic of Iran on the other. In this vein, in June 2019, the Russian-Iranian permanent commission on trade and economic cooperation was formed.33 In addition to establishing a structure to boost bilateral trade to secure trade, both nations agreed to make most transactions in their own national currencies. Therefore, in 2018, settlements in national currencies amounted to just over 40%, while in 2019, according to various estimates, they exceeded 50%. Also, in May 2022, Moscow and Tehran started bilateral discussions on the possibilities of making financial transactions via Iran’s Shetab and Russia’s Mir payment systems.34 The US’s exit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the deepening alliance against shared threats in Syria undoubtedly bridged the gap between Iran and Russia. However, February 2022 introduced an even more pivotal catalyst for their burgeoning proximity – Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.

3 Transformation to a Semi-interdependent Partnership 3.1 Military Cooperation The intensification of Russo-Persian relations gained momentum when the Ukrainian Armed Forces not only effectively neutralized Russia’s advance towards central Ukraine but also began reclaiming parts of their occupied territories from Russian control. The scenario deteriorated further when Western nations initiated a comprehensive campaign to supply Kyiv with military equipment, simultaneously cutting off 31

Kozhanov, Nikolay. (2015).”Are the Russians and Iranians Friends?.” Fair Observer. https:// www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/are-the-russians-and-iranians-friends-12812/ 32 Mahmoudian, Arman. (2022). The Russo-Persian Cooperation in the Syrian Civil War: A New Battleground in the Great Power Competition. In: Farhadi, A., Masys, A. (eds) The Great Power Competition Volume 2. Springer, pp. 185–204. 33 Yeaw, Wescott.(2022). “Russia-Iran Joint Economic Energy Commission to begin.” Foreign Brief. https://foreignbrief.com/daily-news/russia-iran-joint-economic-energy-commission-tobegin/ 34 Financial Tribune (2022). Iran Can Join Russia’s Mir Payment Network by Early 2023, Minister Says. https://financialtribune.com/articles/business-and-markets/115504/iran-can-joinrussia-s-mir-payment-network-by-early-2023

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Russia’s access to military-related technologies. Within this framework, Iran became particularly appealing to Russia, given Tehran’s demonstrated prowess in producing cost-effective missiles and drones. Initially, the conflict in Ukraine influenced the economic dimensions of RussoPersian ties. For example, during the summer of 2022, Iran and Russia broached the topic of establishing an “oil exchange system,”35 wherein the Russian Federation would channel its oil to Iran. In turn, Tehran, anticipating relief from sanctions after brokering a new deal with the West, would then market Russian oil globally using Iranian tankers. However, as prospects of reaching a new Western agreement dimmed, Tehran pivoted fully towards the Russian market. This shift brought about the sale of drones and other military equipment as a new norm. Within this framework, one could posit that beyond financial incentives, Iran had multiple rationales – both political and ideological – to bolster Russia’s military endeavors. From Iran’s perspective, the Ukraine conflict was merely a subset of a broader narrative: the overarching power struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs. Thus, a Russian triumph in Ukraine would implicitly signify an American setback. We should also keep in mind that another factor may have influenced Tehran’s decision-making system—the psychological factor. Simply, being a major supplier36 of arms and weaponry to major great powers, such as Russia, brings great prestige to a country that was overrun only a couple of decades ago by great powers. It is not a coincidence that shortly after the activation of Iranian drones in Ukraine, Ayatollah Khamenei proudly touted Iran’s military achievements, referring to Iran’s “fearful” drone industry as a “national honor.”37 Further, when Putin visited Iran in July 2022 to meet with Iran’s leadership; the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the Russian aggression against Ukraine “preventive,”38 signaling Tehran’s solidarity with Moscow in contrast to its government neutral position with the ritual of calling for a “peace settlement.” Although we are not aware of the details of the meeting, it is safe to assume that both leaders enacted major agreements during that summit, since after that meeting Iran began to supply kamikaze drones to the Russian Federation, officially entering into the Russo-Ukrainian conflict on the side of Russia, and making Iran the second

35

Reuters. (2022). Russia, and Iran discuss swapping supplies for oil and gas, goods logistics. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-iran-discuss-swapping-supplies-oil-gasgoods-logistics-2022-05-25/ 36 Rome, Henry. (2023). “Making Iran’s Support for Russia More Costly.” The Washington Institute for the Near East Policy. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/making-iranssupport-russia-more-costly 37 The Middle East Media Research Institute (2022). Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: ‘Now They [Westerners] Are Calling The Iranian Drones Very Dangerous’ And Asking ‘Why Are You Selling Them And Giving Them To Others? Well, This Is An Achievement Of The Iranian Elite – It Is An Honor For The Country’. https://www.memri.org/reports/iranian-supreme-leader-ali-kha menei-now-they-westerners-are-calling-iranian-drones-very 38 Azizi, Hamidreza. (2022).” The Ukraine War: The View from Iran.” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs. https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-ukraine-war-the-view-from-iran/

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nation after Belarus to take Russia’s side. Providing Russia with drones is a particularly significant contribution to the Russian war machine, since the Russian defense complex has paid more attention to developing high-precision missile systems, especially hypersonic weapons, air defense systems, and armored weapons, than to the development of its UAV fleet.39 This is a vacuum that Tehran has sufficient capabilities to fill. Since then, Iran has sold an indefinite number of kamikaze drones (commercially named Shahed-131) to Russia. The Iranian drones have become a significant asset to the Russian military since they have been essential in targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure facilities.40 Despite their relatively high success in damaging Ukraine’s facilities, the drones have not had game-changing effects on the overall path of the war since kamikaze drones are incapable of attacking dynamic and mobile targets across the front line. Thus, they would not enable Russia to neutralize the Ukrainians growing counteroffensive. However, the lack of direct impact on the battleground does not render drones insufficient as they are still serving Moscow on three fronts: 1—Hurting Ukraine; 2—Running successful propaganda for the domestic users; and 3—Undermining the morale of the Ukrainian people. Given the relative success of drones, and Russia’s ongoing struggle to advance its offense on the ground, it seems Moscow has increased its reliance on Iran’s defense industry by acquiring roughly hundreds of the Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar short-range missiles, which hit targets at a distance of 300–700 km.41 In this context, British outlets have reported that in early 2023, Iran transferred approximately 100 million bullets and 300,000 shells to Russia.42 However, the flow of weapons is not one-sided as the Kremlin has been sending Iran various weapons from Ukraine as well. According to Western officials, a range of Ukrainian light and semi-heavy weapons such as Javelin anti-tank missile launchers, or Stinger anti-aircraft systems, have fallen into the hands of Russian troops, while Ukrainian units were forced to withdraw. In this context, Western officials claimed that Russia had given Iran some of the US and NATO-made captured weapons. Further, Iran is now trying to produce similar weapons, or create new weapons systems, to counter American weapons through reverse engineering methods.43 It 39

Petroshova, Svetlana. (2022).” Revealed the wrong side of the military cooperation between Russia and Iran [Packpyta iznanka voennogo cotpydniqectva Poccii i Ipana],” PedakciR gazety. https://www.mk.ru/politics/2022/08/31/raskryta-iznanka-voennogo-sotrudnic hestva-rossii-i-irana.html 40 Ukrainian Military Center.(2022).“Russians began to use Shahed-131 kamikaze drones”. mil.in.ua. 13 October 2022. https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russians-began-to-use-shahed131-kamikaze-drones/ 41 Washington Post. (2022); “Iran plans to send missiles, drones to Russia for Ukraine war, officials say”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/16/iran-russia-missiles-ukraine/ 42 The Jerusalem Post (2023.) “Iran sent Russia over 100 million rounds of ammo, plans to send more - report”. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-733767 43 Bertarnd, Natasha. (2023). “Russia has been sending some US-provided weapons captured in Ukraine to Iran, sources say.” CNN Politics. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/politics/russia-iranukraine-weapons/index.html

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remains challenging to discern Russia’s rationale behind transporting its spoils of war to Iran. One possibility is that delivering captured weaponry is Moscow’s method of compensating Tehran. Alternatively, rather than being a form of "payback", these weapons could be new points of study, with Russia anticipating that Iran will either replicate them or instruct the Russian military on more effective countermeasures by exploiting their vulnerabilities. If it’s the latter, then Moscow has undoubtedly selected an adept partner in Iran. After all, Iran’s defense industry has previously engineered the Tofan anti-tank guided missiles, modeled after the American BGM71 TOW missile, and has crafted long-range drones inspired by Lockheed Martin’s American Sentinel drones. If it’s the former scenario, one could reasonably suggest that, considering what Iran has thus far shipped to Russia, the seized weapons only represent a fraction of a potential repayment. The precise benefits Iran might reap in exchange for its armament contributions to Russia remain ambiguous. While monetary compensation would undoubtedly benefit Iran’s faltering economy, the relatively low cost of Iranian products, coupled with the international criticism stemming from drone exports, suggests that financial gains might not be Iran’s primary motivation for emerging as Russia’s leading arms provider. Put simply, the Kremlin can offer more tantalizing incentives, like cutting-edge military hardware. There’s a plausible likelihood that, in exchange for Iran’s military contributions, Russia might furnish advanced weaponry to Iran, including the Su-35 combat aircraft, a piece of equipment the aging Iranian Air Force is keen to procure. While Russian representatives have remained ambiguous about such an arrangement, their Iranian counterparts have been more forthcoming. As an illustration, the Iranian Air Force Commander, Hamid Vahedi, openly declared in an interview with the Iranian news agency Borna that acquiring Su-35 fighters was under consideration.44 U.S. officials, including John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House, have already backed this speculation, stating, “Russia seeks to cooperate with Iran in areas such as weapons development and personnel training, and in exchange, Moscow is offering Tehran an unprecedented level of military and technical support, which would establish their relationship into a full-fledged defense partnership.”45 However, since the onset of the war in Ukraine, the growth in Russo-Iranian relations hasn’t been limited to just the exchange of military equipment and technology. Bilateral security cooperation in the Middle East has also intensified. The mounting casualties faced by the Russian Army, coupled with a noticeable reluctance among Russian citizens to enlist, has significantly strained Russia’s military manpower. This predicament has led Moscow to compensate by reallocating a substantial portion of

44

Radio Farda (2023). “Purchasing SU-35 air fighters is Iran’s Air Force Agende ”. https://www.radiofarda.com/a/iran-seeksto-buy-su-35-fighters-from-russia/32018794.html 45 The Associate Press. (2023). US: Russia, Iran moving toward full defense ‘partnership’. https:// apnews.com/article/putin-iran-government-and-politics-drones-933e27218934e7476d1a1524fc8 ebf4c

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its forces from Syria.46 The Russian withdrawal from Syria will create a vacuum of power in the region that Iran has already begun to fill by deploying Iranian forces and Shia militias to replace Russian troops in Syria.47 This shift would provide Iran with a significant opportunity to expand its influence over Syria’s Assad, since, in light of the decline of Russia’s presence, the Assad regime is more dependent than ever on Iran. Additionally, since developments both on the battleground and the diplomatic stage suggest no clear end to the conflict in Ukraine,48 it may be safe to argue that for now Iran is the principal foreign support of the Assad camp in Syria, which only increases the political value of Iran for Syria. This provides Iran with a window of opportunity to catch up with Russia in the race to become the top-influential actor in Syria. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tehran was lagging behind Moscow, since Russia had obtained the most prominent construction and investment agreements in Syria.49 This caused many Iranians to be worried that while Iran paid the price of keeping Assad in power by losing hundreds of soldiers in Syria, Russia was the one that collected the spoils of war. Now, thanks to the growing absence of Russia, Tehran might find itself in a position to benefit from the Syrian regime though additional compensation, especially by obtaining rights of exploration in Syria’s mineral mines and oil fields, which Iran has had its eyes on for a long time.50 Although the growing Russian absence has tactical benefits for Iran, it does have the potential as well to undermine the achievement of Russo-Persian security cooperation in the region. Simply, Russia’s mighty air force provided the pro-Assad forces with significant ariel support; without it, the rebels in the north of Syria might take advantage of the situation and launch another offensive against Assad, putting both Iran’s influence and Assad’s regime at risk.51 Given Iran’s escalating military support to Russia, it’s reasonable to posit that the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has reshaped the nature of Russian-Iranian military cooperation. What was once an imbalanced partnership with Russia holding the reins has evolved into a more interdependent relationship. Russia equips Iran with advanced aircraft and anti-missile systems—capabilities Tehran cannot achieve independently. Conversely, Iran furnishes Russia with what it critically needs: large quantities of cost-effective, potent offensive weaponry. Yet, military cooperation isn’t the 46

Karoun Demirjian, (2022) “Russia Begins to Mobilize Military Reinforcement for Ukraine as Casualties Mount, Pentagon Says,” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nationalsecurity/2022/03/25/russia-reinforcements-georgia-ukraine/. 47 Mahmoudian, Arman. (2022). “Russia-Ukraine war: Implications for the RSII coalition,” Trends Research and Advisory, https://trendsresearch.org/insight/03-06-2022/ 48 Peter Weber, (2022). “U.S and Britain Reportedly Believe the Ukraine War Could Last 10– 20 Years, Become a Russian Quagmire,” The Week, https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/101 0797/us-and-britain-reportedly-believe-the-ukraine-war-could-last-10-20. 49 Sarah Dadouch, “After Backing Assad, Iran and Russia Compete for Influence,” Washington Post, May 20, 2021, https://wapo.st/3MjJdUq 50 Ali Alfoneh, “Iran Eyes Share in Syria’s Reconstruction,” The Arab Weekly, February 10, 2019, https://thearabweekly.com/iran-eyes-share-syrias-reconstruction. 51 Mahmoudian, Arman. (2022). “Russia-Ukraine war: Implications for the RSII coalition,” Trends Research and Advisory, https://trendsresearch.org/insight/03-06-2022/

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sole dimension of Russo-Persian ties witnessing significant shifts. Their economic engagements have also seen notable evolutions.

3.2 Economic Cooperation Yet, despite this growth Iran’s exports to Russia, bilateral trade is still largely irrelevant and insignificant, at least in comparison to Russia’s trade with Europe, which was roughly 270 billion euros in 2022.52 In addition to having a relative sense of freedom from fear of being sanctioned, Iran has another unique advantage. Iranians have been living under internationally imposed sanctions for decades, rendering them adept at bypassing such sanctions. In light of this, Tehran can be a great mentor53 to the Kremlin, to assist Russia in learning to make international transactions outside of the SWIFT payment system or buying necessary goods through intermediaries. Additionally, Iran and Russia have been discussing plans for establishing a joint payment system that can process bilateral transactions.54

4 Obstacles Ahead of Russo-Persian Relations 55

To make matters worse, oil is not the only product that Russia is outpacing Iran in, in terms of exports to Asia. Moscow is also pushing Iran out of steel, bitumen, and other petrochemical-related markets.56 Capturing Iran’s market share in East Asia presents Russia with a nuanced situation. While it endows Moscow with a pivotal revenue stream, it simultaneously risks undermining Iran’s primary exports at a time when the country is grappling with a profound economic crisis. Such a move could potentially incentivize Tehran to contemplate renewed engagement with the West, aiming to finalize a nuclear agreement, lift sanctions, and reintegrate into the global energy marketplace. Moscow hasn’t been oblivious to the potential reactivation of the Iran Deal. When it became evident that the Ukrainian conflict would likely extend beyond Russia’s initial projections, apprehensions regarding Iran’s reentry to the energy scene began to surface in 52

Sea News. (2023). Russia – EU Trade Turnover in January-November 2022. https://seanews.ru/ en/2023/01/20/en-russia-eu-trade-turnover-in-january-november-2022/ 53 Karnitsching, Mattew. (2022).” Iran teaches Russia its tricks on beating oil sanctions.” Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-russia-cooperation-dodging-oil-sanctions/ 54 Mahmoudian, Arman. (2023). “Russia’s financial defense mechanism against Western sanctions,” Trends Research and Advisory, https://trendsresearch.org/insight/russias-financial-defense-mechan ism-against-western-sanctions/ 55 Lawler, Alex. (2023).” Analysis: Russian sanctions shift oil price-making power to Asia from Europe” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-sanctions-shift-oil-price-mak ing-power-asia-europe-2023-03-14/ 56 Ibid.

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Russian leadership. This sentiment was evident on March 7, 2022, when Vladimir Putin cautioned his administration, noting: “They are poised to reconcile with Iran and promptly finalize all requisite documentation(to renew the Iran nuclear deal).”57 Putin’s warning was taken seriously by his administration, as on March 8th, 2022, when negotiations between Iran and the P5 + 1 over the reimplementation of the JCPOA reached its new peak, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, made a surprise statement demanding assurance from the US that Washington’s growing sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine would not block Russia’s, “trade and economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran.”58 Lavrov’s sudden and unorthodox demand led many to speculate that by making such a request Russia is trying to sabotage negotiations and prevent the return of Iran to the energy market. Later, Russia’s ambassador to Iran, Levan Dzhagryan, attempted to justify Lavrov’s request by claiming that Iran owed Russia large sums of money and that it was reasonable for Russia to receive assurances that Iran’s payments would not be blocked by Western sanctions.59 Eventually, on March 15th, Russia claimed that it had received “written guarantees” from the US that sanctions exempted Russo-Iranian cooperation.60 However, Russia never published the written assurances, nor did the US ever verify such a claim. Given the fact that Iran has the second-largest gas61 reserve and fourth-largest oil reserve,62 Tehran’s return to the petrol market would result in a significant decline of both oil and gas prices which would be a devastating change of event for Russia since Moscow already has been selling its oil and gas with a lower price of actual market value. Financially-speaking, it would be barely feasible for the country to adjust its discounts with the market, which so far been Russia’s method in keeping Asian petrol markets.

57

Iran Front Page (2022). “Putin: US Trying to Reconcile with Iran and Venezuela to Counter Russia,” https://ifpnews.com/putin-us-trying-to-reconcile-with-iran-and-venezuela-to-counter-rus sia/. 58 Erlanger, Steven. (2022).”Iran Nuclear Deal Nears Completion, But Russia Poses Complication,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/world/europe/iran-nuclear-deal-rus sia-ukraine.html. 59 Etemad (2022) “We Are Afraid of No One, We Are a Nuclear Power,” https://bit.ly/3MiIlzD. 60 Parisa Hafezi, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis, “Russia Says It Has Written Guarantees on Iran Nuclear Deal,” Reuters, March 16, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/russiasays-it-has-written-guarantees-iran-nuclear-deal-2022-03-15/. 61 Fawthrop, Andrew. (2021). “Profiling the top five countries with the biggest natural gas reserves,” NS Energy. https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/biggest-natural-gas-reserves-countries/ 62 World o Meter: Oil Reserves by Country. https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-cou ntry/

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5 Conclusion While it’s premature to suggest the recent growth in Russo-Persian collaboration, post the Ukraine War, is leading to an alliance, it’s evident that the Moscow-Tehran relationship has evolved. Before Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, the sanctions on Iran created a dynamic where Russia played a predominant role, especially in supplying Iran with arms. This made Russia indispensable to Iran, with Iran playing a more dependent role to Russia. Yet, the Ukraine conflict reshaped this dynamic, as Russia increasingly relied on Iran for drones and weaponry, elevating Iran as a pivotal arms supplier and reestablishing equilibrium in their ties. Furthermore, the drawnout Ukraine conflict, with its considerable casualties, prompted Russia to reduce its military presence in Syria. This potentially jeopardized Moscow’s regional achievements. Iran quickly stepped in, increasing its military presence in Syria, positioning itself as Russia’s key ally there. Hence, considering Iran’s crucial role in backing their mutual ally, the Assad regime, and given Russia’s regional interests, Iran has become not just a principal arms supplier, but also Russia’s chief security ally in the Middle East, particularly in the Levant. Their collaboration isn’t restricted to military and security domains; sanctions have also spurred their economic partnership. Presently, Russo-Iranian ties are characterized by two isolated nations capitalizing on each other’s strengths and weaknesses, even as they compete in various markets. Iranians, adept at navigating sanctions, are now advising Russia on evading these international constraints. Yet, the defining feature of this economic partnership phase is the strategic advantage Iran now possesses. If a new Nuclear Deal reintegrates Iran into the global oil and gas sectors, it would significantly alter Russo-Iranian dynamics. Russia has been selling its oil at substantial discounts. If Iran’s vast oil and gas resources re-enter the market, it could lead to a steep price decline, pushing Russia to offer even steeper discounts, which could strain its economy and, in turn, its military endeavors. External elements play a dual role in Russo-Persian ties, strengthening them in some instances while weakening them in others. China, for instance, could drastically reshape Russo-Persian dynamics. Beijing has the resources to supplant Iran as Russia’s primary arms supplier. Also, being a key energy market for both, China’s decisions can influence their energy competition. So, while the Ukraine conflict shifted Russo-Persian relations from a one-sided collaboration to a more balanced partnership, China’s stance on the war could propel these relations into another phase, possibly defining Iran as either a central pillar in the Eastern alignment or merely an ally in the Middle East.

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28. Yeaw, Wescott.(2022). “Russia-Iran Joint Economic Energy Commission to begin.” Foreign Brief. https://foreignbrief.com/daily-news/russia-iran-joint-economic-energy-commission-tobegin/ 29. Financial Tribune (2022). Iran Can Join Russia’s Mir Payment Network by Early 2023, Minister Says. https://financialtribune.com/articles/business-and-markets/115504/iran-can-join-russias-mir-payment-network-by-early-2023 30. Reuters. (2022). Russia, and Iran discuss swapping supplies for oil and gas, goods logistics https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-iran-discuss-swapping-supplies-oil-gasgoods-logistics-2022-05-25/ 31. Rome, Henry. (2023). “Making Iran’s Support for Russia More Costly.” The Washington Institute for the Near East Policy. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/mak ing-irans-support-russia-more-costly 32. The Middle East Media Research Institute (2022). Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: ‘Now They [Westerners] Are Calling The Iranian Drones Very Dangerous’ And Asking ‘Why Are You Selling Them And Giving Them To Others? Well, This Is An Achievement Of The Iranian Elite – It Is An Honor For The Country’ https://www.memri.org/reports/iranian-sup reme-leader-ali-khamenei-now-they-westerners-are-calling-iranian-drones-very 33. Azizi, Hamidreza. (2022).” The Ukraine War: The View from Iran.” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs. https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-ukraine-war-the-view-from-iran/ 34. Petroshova, Svetlana. (2022).” Revealed the wrong side of the military cooperation between Russia and Iran [Packpyta iznanka voennogo cotpydniqectva Poccii i Ipana],” PedakciR gazety https://www.mk.ru/politics/2022/08/31/raskryta-iznanka-voennogo-sotrud nichestva-rossii-i-irana.html 35. Ukrainian Military Center.(2022).”Russians began to use Shahed-131 kamikaze drones”. mil.in.ua. 13 October 2022. https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russians-began-to-use-sha hed-131-kamikaze-drones/ 36. Washington Post. (2022); “Iran plans to send missiles, drones to Russia for Ukraine war, officials say”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/16/iran-russia-mis siles-ukraine/ 37. The Jerusalem Post (2023.) “Iran sent Russia over 100 million rounds of ammo, plans to send more - report” https://www.jpost.com/international/article-733767 38. Bertarnd, Natasha. (2023).” Russia has been sending some US-provided weapons captured in Ukraine to Iran, sources say.” CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/politics/russiairan-ukraine-weapons/index.html 39. Radio Farda (2023). “Purchasing SU-35 air fighters is Iran’s Air Force Agende ” https://www.radiofarda. com/a/iran-seeks-to-buy-su-35-fighters-from-russia/32018794.html 40. The Associate Press. (2023). US: Russia, Iran moving toward full defense ‘partnership’ https:// apnews.com/article/putin-iran-government-and-politics-drones-933e27218934e7476d1a1524 fc8ebf4c 41. Karoun Demirjian, (2022) “Russia Begins to Mobilize Military Reinforcement for Ukraine as Casualties Mount, Pentagon Says,” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nat ional-security/2022/03/25/russia-reinforcements-georgia-ukraine/. 42. Mahmoudian, Arman. (2022). “Russia-Ukraine war: Implications for the RSII coalition,” Trends Research and Advisory, https://trendsresearch.org/insight/03-06-2022/ 43. Peter Weber, (2022). “U.S and Britain Reportedly Believe the Ukraine War Could Last 10–20 Years, Become a Russian Quagmire,” The Week, https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/ 1010797/us-and-britain-reportedly-believe-the-ukraine-war-could-last-10-20. 44. Sarah Dadouch, “After Backing Assad, Iran and Russia Compete for Influence,” Washington Post, May 20, 2021, https://wapo.st/3MjJdUq 45. Ali Alfoneh, “Iran Eyes Share in Syria’s Reconstruction,” The Arab Weekly, February 10, 2019, https://thearabweekly.com/iran-eyes-share-syrias-reconstruction. 46. Mahmoudian, Arman. (2022). “Russia-Ukraine war: Implications for the RSII coalition,” Trends Research and Advisory, https://trendsresearch.org/insight/03-06-2022/

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47. Mahmoudian, Arman. (2022). How is Russia’s parallel currency system going?. https://respon siblestatecraft.org/2022/10/12/how-is-russias-parallel-currency-system-going/ 48. Financial Tribune. (2022). Iran-Russia Trade at $4 Billion. https://financialtribune.com/articles/ domestic-economy/116385/iran-russia-trade-at-4-billion 49. Sea News. (2023). Russia – EU Trade Turnover in January-November 2022 https://seanews. ru/en/2023/01/20/en-russia-eu-trade-turnover-in-january-november-2022/ 50. Karnitsching, Mattew. (2022).” Iran teaches Russia its tricks on beating oil sanctions.” Politico https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-russia-cooperation-dodging-oil-sanctions/ 51. Mahmoudian, Arman. (2023). “Russia’s financial defense mechanism against Western sanctions,” Trends Research and Advisory, https://trendsresearch.org/insight/russias-financial-def ense-mechanism-against-western-sanctions/ 52. Lawler, Alex. (2023).” Analysis: Russian sanctions shift oil price-making power to Asia from Europe” Reuters https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-sanctions-shift-oilprice-making-power-asia-europe-2023-03-14/ 53. Iran Front Page (2022). “Putin: US Trying to Reconcile with Iran and Venezuela to Counter Russia,” https://ifpnews.com/putin-us-trying-to-reconcile-with-iran-and-venezuelato-counter-russia/. 54. Erlanger, Steven. (2022).”Iran Nuclear Deal Nears Completion, But Russia Poses Complication,” New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/world/europe/iran-nuclear-dealrussia-ukraine.html. 55. Etemad (2022) “We Are Afraid of No One, We Are a Nuclear Power,” https://bit.ly/3MiIlzD. 56. Parisa Hafezi, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis, “Russia Says It Has Written Guarantees on Iran Nuclear Deal,” Reuters, March 16, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/rus sia-says-it-has-written-guarantees-iran-nuclear-deal-2022-03-15/. 57. Fawthrop, Andrew. (2021). “Profiling the top five countries with the biggest natural gas reserves,” NS Energy https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/biggest-natural-gas-res erves-countries/ 58. World o Meter: Oil Reserves by Country https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-bycountry/

Putin’s Playbook: The Development of Russian Tactics, Operations, and Strategy from Chechnya to Ukraine Christopher Marsh

Abstract To better understand the reasons for and methods of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 one needs to look at Putin’s entire period in power—from August 1999 to the battlefields of present-day Ukraine. During the more than two decades in question, the former KGB officer learned how to wage war—partly by drawing upon methods from Russia’s past, partly by adapting Western models of war, and even partly through innovation and learning. From Chechnya in the fall of 1999 to the present fighting in Ukraine, Putin has been attempting new methods and making them his own—adding to his playbook, if you will, just as a coach does who studies and learns from repeated engagements with opponents. Only this playbook is one of assassination, genocide, and regime toppling, all with the goal of resurrecting remnants of the Russian Empire. This chapter surveys Putin’s wars, attempting to analyze the tactics, operations, and strategies that he employs. Such an analysis is intended to shed light on how Putin wages war so the U.S. can better counter his moves, from the diplomatic realm to the battlefield. Keywords Great power competition · Russia · Ukraine · National security · Central region

1 Introduction On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II when his forces invaded the sovereign country of Ukraine. With approximately 140,000 troops arrayed along Ukraine’s border with

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, or the Department of Defense. C. Marsh (B) National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs, Fort Liberty, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_8

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Russia and Belarus—and a third axis of advance coming from the south from Russianannexed Crimea—more than half of Ukraine’s territory was encircled by Russian forces (and this does not include airborne troops that were fully prepared for their role in the invasion). Indeed, in the weeks and months leading up to the invasion, Putin’s war machine was being assembled while the Kremlin denied any belligerent intentions, arguing right up to the days before the actual invasion that these military forces were simply engaged in an exercise and that the West was in “hysteria.”1 In the early hours of that fateful day in late February, Kyiv’s and indeed much of the world’s fears became reality, as Russian forces illegally and without provocation invaded Ukraine. Rather than being an extreme and unusual act for Putin, the invasion of Ukraine was in fact the culmination of more than two decades of increasingly emboldened military action by Russia’s dictator. His belligerent behavior began almost immediately upon his rise to power. In fact, the more power he has accumulated in his hands, the more belligerent he has become. Within weeks of being named President Boris Yeltsin’s prime minister in August 1999, bombs ripped through apartment buildings in Moscow followed by similar attacks in two other Russian cities. When the dust settled, more than 300 people were dead and more than 1000 were injured, spreading a wave of fear across the country that set the stage for the launching of the Second Chechen War. While this may read like a story of retaliation, there is widespread speculation—and accumulating evidence—that the apartment bombings were a “false flag” operation conducted by the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Bureau.2 While not in line with Chechen behavior up to or following that time, this event generated great sympathy among Russians for a renewed attack on the secessionist republic. What followed over the next nearly quarter of a century was an evolution of Putin’s playbook, as he tried out different tactical actions, operational approaches, and strategic engagements within Russia’s “near abroad,” the territories of Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine so far, but also with an eye on Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Belarus.

2 The Second Chechen War Over the course of more than two years, Moscow decimated the Republic of Chechnya, leaving it in rubble. But it was not the utter destruction of Chechnya— which was massive—that brought Chechnya’s acquiescence to Kremlin rule. Rather, it was the cooption of a Sufi cleric, the Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov (father of Ramzan Kadyrov, the current president of the Republic of Chechnya). Putin recognized that the radical form of Wahhabist Islam fueling the flames of separatism in Chechnya 1

Isachenkov, V. (2022, February 15). Russians scoff at Western fears of Ukraine invasion. https:// apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-colin-powell-joe-biden-business-vladimir-putin-d9246bee4d6a ee4fdd27aa9e1e738f0c. Accessed 23 April 2023. 2 Litvinenko, A., and Y. Felshtinsky. (2007). Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within. London: Gibson Square Books.

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was not home-grown, but rather an import from the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, to be precise). Indeed, the Chechen separatist movement began as a purely secular nationalist movement under former Soviet Air Force General Dzhokhar Dudaev and his supporters. But after Dudaev’s targeted killing in 1996, more radical members of the movement ascended to the helm of the separatist cause, including Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basaev, and the self-proclaimed “emir of the Caucasus” Ibn al-Khattab.3 AlKhattab was killed in 2002 by a poisoned letter delivered by a courier in a covert operation planned by the FSB—another tactic that Putin would employ against several of his enemies. Al-Khattab was a proponent and scholar of radical Islamist ideology. Putin was wise enough to understand that if he could make a deal with a more moderate Muslim leader who would be willing to be installed in power, then many Chechens would side with this person. Given his religious credentials and fighting experience (he had fought against Russia in the First Chechen War), the Sufi Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov made a good choice. The strategy worked, and though Kadyrov would be assassinated in 2004 by the same radicals he was there to replace, Moscow was able to hold onto Chechnya and despite assessments by outside observers must be seen as a successful COIN operation.4 Putin’s first move once in power, therefore, was to set his house in order. The tactics, operations, and strategies he used eventually included mass destruction, high civilian casualty numbers, false flag operations, the poisoning of HVTs (high value targets), and the cooption of local leaders who can move into positions of power and engage in localized rule under Putin’s thumb. Chechnya was where Putin added many of these tactical plays to his ever-growing playbook. With independence-minded Chechnya brought to heel, Putin perhaps felt secure for a bit, but only for a limited time. As Putin was bringing Chechnya under control, the United States suffered the 9/11 attacks, and then engaged first in operations in Afghanistan to eradicate Al-Qaeda’s safe-haven before moving on to deal with the unfinished business in Iraq beginning in March 2003. Russia went from sympathizer of the US after the 9/11 attacks to leery observer of American military might playing out across the globe. The fact that NATO members—and aspiring members—were joining in these multinational operations just added fuel to the fire for Russia and those who feared NATO, and increasingly the West more broadly. Meanwhile, much was happening in Russia’s near abroad. In the Baltic region, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were working hard to join Western economic and security structures, primarily the EU and NATO, joining both institutions in 2004. Farther south, some in Ukraine and Georgia were also aspiring to follow the Baltic example. In Georgia in November 2003, a series of demonstrations over disputed parliamentary elections led to the ouster of former Soviet foreign minister and then president of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze and his kleptocratic government, marking 3

Murphy, P. (2004). The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror. London: Brassey’s. 4 Here I am referring to studies that label Russia’s COIN operation in Chechnya a failure. See, for example, C. Paul, C. Clarke, and B. Grill (2010). Victory has a thousand fathers: Sources of success in counterinsurgency. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

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the end of the Soviet-era leadership in the country. The climactic moment of the revolution was when demonstrators, led by Western-educated Mikheil Saakashvili, stormed the Parliament with red roses in their hands. A year later a similar “color revolution” (as such popular revolutionary movements have come to be called) played out in Ukraine where protesters assembled in subzero weather to protest the run-off election for president between Viktor Yushchenko (who was recovering from Dioxin poisoning from earlier that fall, with suspicions being that it was due to an operation led by Russia’s security services5 ) and Viktor Yanukovych, Putin’s man in Ukraine. Peaceful protesters wearing orange claimed the elections were rigged by the authorities and that the elections were fraught with massive corruption, voter intimidation, and general electoral fraud. The movement’s campaign of civil resistance (thousands of protesters demonstrating daily) was highlighted by a series of acts of civil disobedience, sit-ins, and general strikes organized by the opposition. Finally, after a second run-off election, Yushchenko was declared the winner and another color revolution was successful. Putin’s efforts and his supported candidate had failed to stem the tide of democracy in his own near abroad. The Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine—coupled with the Baltic Republics’ joining the EU and NATO—all appeared to Moscow as meddling in Russia’s backyard. American and Baltic security and democratic victories in Ukraine and Georgia came at the cost of Russian insecurity, and the Baltic Republics were the first place Putin began to play the Russian identity card, first pushing for citizenship rights for ethnic Russians living in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and eventually even pushing for the Russian language to be added to the list of official EU languages (due to the fact that Russian-speakers comprised a significant proportion of the Baltic populations). Putin had identified a cultural and social cleavage that he could play upon to push back against what he increasingly perceived as US encroachment into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

3 The Munich Security Conference and Estonia The year 2007 was a turning point in many regards, both in terms of Putin’s exploitation of the ethnic Russian cleavage and in his outspoken opinion regarding the global employment of American military might. In early February of 2007, Putin delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he chastised the US for its international behavior. “One state,” he said—“the US—has overstepped its national borders in every way. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?” Certainly not Putin, who continued by stating that the US had reneged on its pledge not to expand NATO “even one inch” to the East. Putin finally questioned the purpose of NATO’s existence itself and its expansion: 5

(2004, December 11). Yushchenko and the poison theory. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ health/4041321.stm. Accessed 23 April 2023.

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I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?6

Putin was adding another page to his playbook—rewriting history and employing disinformation (dezinformatsiya7 in Russian) to weave a particular narrative. As a point of fact, Manfred Wörner—NATO Secretary General in 1990 at the time of German reunification, was only referring to the stationing of NATO troops on East German territory after reunification. The so-called “promise,” moreover, was not included in any written agreement, nor did it relate to the future of NATO and new member-states. As with all mis- and disinformation, this claim contained seeds of truth. But Putin was primarily appealing to his domestic audience at this venue (though Andrew Michta claims that the speech must be seen as nothing less than a “declaration of war on the West”).8 Putin’s Munich speech proved very popular at home and fed the growing anti-American sentiment across Russia. By Spring 2007 Putin was adding another page to his playbook—inflaming ethnic cleavages among Russians and local populations in post-Soviet states. This episode began over the decision of the Tallinn city government to relocate a Soviet war monument to a more remote location in a military cemetery. This move made sense to the Estonian government, since the entire period of Soviet rule over the Estonian nation was deemed illegal, and Estonia was a free and independent state and could do what it wanted with such monuments. Estonia simply relocating the monument to a military cemetery in another part of the capital city led to two nights of riots (known as the “bronze nights,” in reference to the bronze soldier statue that was moved), a week-long siege of the Estonian embassy in Moscow, and cyberattacks on Estonian governmental and civic organizations. Again, dezinformatyia was put into high gear and what amounted to a municipal parks decision culminated in a cyber disruption. Putin made sure that messages were spread that created tension between the ethnic Estonians and the Russian-speaking population of the country, many of whom lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union and were looking for a reason to speak out against the situation that left them as second-class citizens in independent Estonia. The episode was not limited to inciting the local population with disinformation. The Kremlin added another page to its playbook—offensive cyberspace operations by proxy. Russia targeted the websites of Estonian institutions, including the Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, and newspapers, and broadcasters. Most of the attacks that had any influence on the public were distributed denial of service type attacks. 6

V. Putin (2007, February 10). Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034. Accessed 21 April 2023. 7 Shultz, R., and R. Godson (1984). Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s. 8 Michta, Andrew A. (2022, August 7). China, Russia and the West’s Crisis of Disbelief. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-russia-and-the-wests-crisis-america-dem ocracy-fight-military-threat-disarmament-cold-war-putin-xi-response-11659892566. Accessed 21 April 2023.

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Some observers determined that the onslaught against Estonia’s cyber domain was of a sophistication not seen before, and the case is studied intensively by many countries and military planners as the first internet war (although at the time it occurred, it was the second-largest instance of state-sponsored cyberwarfare, only superseded by China’s “Titan Rain” attack against the United States9 ). Rather than retaliate against the attack (which could not be directly attributed to the Russian government or military), Estonia and NATO did two things. First, they established the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) and then developed the Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, a report that outlines the body of international law that is considered applicable to the cyber realm.

4 Georgia: The 5-Day War While the Munich Speech may have been a declaration of war, and the bronze statue incident was the first cyberwar, Putin was preparing for his first expeditionary war (i.e., an actual war beyond Russia’s borders). Such an assessment can be made based on how quickly and relatively well-organized his 5-day war against Georgia in August 2008 was. While no longer president—Dmitry Medvedev was in that post at the time while Putin was serving as Prime Minister—Putin took the reins of power to handle military affairs. The whole affair apparently began with a visit a month prior—in July 2008—by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Georgia where she stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution of the separatist conflicts ongoing in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while reaffirming American support for Georgia’s NATO bid. Many observers believe that Rice’s visit left Saakashvili and his government with the mistaken impression that in a one-on-one fight with Russia, Georgia would have significant US support. Regardless, shortly after Secretary of State Rice’s visit to the country, regular exchange of gunfire between Georgian and South Ossetian security forces began. Just when and how the major hostilities between the two sides started is contested, but most international observers concluded that the Georgian government’s decision to target Ossetian militia positions with artillery fire on the evening of August 7th was the proximate cause of the war. Putin, who was attending the opening of the Olympics in Beijing at the time, rushed back to Moscow to direct the military operation himself—an operation that he later admitted was preplanned.10 On the morning of August 8th, Operation Clear Field was launched with the goal of seizing the South 9

Titan Rain. (n.d.). Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/cyber-operations/titan-rain. Accessed 23 April 2023. 10 Felgenhauer, P. (2012, August 9). Putin Confirms the Invasion of Georgia Was Preplanned. Eurasia Daily Monitor, 9(152). https://jamestown.org/program/putin-confirms-the-invasion-of-geo rgia-was-preplanned/. Accessed 13 April 2023.

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Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, bringing Georgian and Russian peacekeeping units into direct conflict with each other. Putin then ordered Russian military units to cross the border into Georgia to reinforce the Russian and South Ossetian forces there. The next day, Russian forces also entered Abkhazia and assisted the Abkhaz forces in taking the Kodori region. The Russian military, however, moved beyond defending the status quo and entered Georgia proper, as well as striking targets all over the country (including in the capital of Tbilisi). It is also worth pointing out that Putin used his recent page from his playbook— and information operations, during the Russia-Georgia war. In fact, this is considered one of the first wars in which both were integrated into the overall military campaign. Moscow employed hackers to both disrupt Georgian communications and the country’s efforts to gain international sympathy and support. Georgia was far from crippled by the attacks against its command-and-control nodes, however, as Georgian citizens and soldiers used cell phones as an intelligence asset to send alerts and even photos to forces informing them of the incoming Russian troops and equipment. For their part, Moscow’s military objective was clear—destroy or neutralize Georgia’s military capabilities. As a result of the war, 74 Russian soldiers lay dead, while more than double that number of Georgian soldiers had perished.11 Perhaps more importantly, Georgia’s air and naval forces and air-defense systems were severely degraded. Reportedly, Russian forces captured or destroyed a significant portion of the Georgian Army’s arsenals. Russian forces seized up to 150 units of Georgian heavy weaponry, including 65 T-72 tanks (44 in operational condition); 15 BMP armored fighting vehicles, and a few dozen armored personnel carriers, vehicles, and SAMs systems.12 No Western power intervened to defend or assist Georgia, and Medvedev announced a cessation of hostilities on August 12, although Russian forces continued to take actions to demilitarize Georgia. French president Nicolas Sarkozy, acting on behalf of the European Union, mediated a cease-fire whereby Russia agreed to withdraw to its pre-war positions and Georgia agreed to do the same. Russia, however, was slow to act. By August 26, Putin recognized the full international independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia—citing the Kosovo precedent. Subsequent agreements secured the right for Russia to possess military bases in these territories and eventually Russia argued that it was not obligated to withdraw its forces to pre-war positions. The Russia-Georgia war was critical for a few reasons. First, it was Putin’s first time engaging militarily a foreign force. While he was able to draw upon his playbook to employ cyber and information operations, his forces did not perform as well as he and his commanders had anticipated. According to many reports—including 11

Galeotti, M. (2023). Russia’s Five-Day War: The Invasion of Georgia, August 2008. Oxford: Osprey, 61. See also M. Galleotti (2022). Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine. Oxford: Osprey, 120–141. 12 Galeotti, M. (2023). Russia’s Five-Day War: The Invasion of Georgia, August 2008. Oxford: Osprey.

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most likely Russian after-action reports—Russian forces did not perform as well as expected. In fact, they performed rather poorly against what the Kremlin felt was a greatly inferior force. Additionally, Putin learned something about military diplomacy—once you take ground, there is really no one who can make you give it back.

5 Military Reform and Russia’s Special Operations Forces Command Russia’s lackluster performance in the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 led almost immediately to what would become known as the “New Look” military reforms. This major structural reorganization of the Russian Armed Forces was announced in October 2008 and began in early 2009 under Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov. The stated aims of the reforms were to reorganize the structure and the chain of command of the Russian army, to reduce it in size, and build the army around a three-link system (military district—operational command—brigade). While these reforms are critical and deserve our attention, due to limitations of space and the fact that these reforms have been the subject of some excellent analysis,13 I focus here on the reforms of Russia’s special operations forces (SOF). This includes various spetsnaz (voiska spetsial’nogo naznacheniya) units—particularly focusing on the standing up of the Russian Special Operations Forces Command and Special Operations Forces (sily spetsial’nalnykh operatsii, or SSO).14 Russia began reforms between 2008 and 2012 that culminated in the establishment of Russia’s own Special Operations Forces Command, but this fact was only made public in 2013. The first piece of the puzzle was the establishment in 2009 of the Directorate of Special Operations (Upravlenie Spetsial’nykh Operatsii) centered on a unit based out of a training center in Solnechnogorsk, near lake Senezh. One of the founding fathers was the then Chief of the General Staff General of the Army Anatoly Kvashnin. This unit had seen significant combat in Chechnya during the Second Chechen War. The second piece of the puzzle was the establishment of a second center in Kubinka-2, also on the outskirts of the Moscow region. This center was directly under the control of the GRU and hence it retained its spetsnaz designation, being named the Center of Special Designation (Tsentr Spetsial’nogo Naznacheniya). It came to be known as Kubinka. Then finally, on 1 April 2012, upon the initiative of 13

Grau, L. and C. Bartles (2016). The Russian way of war: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office. See also R. McDermott (2012). The Reform of Russia’s Conventional Armed Forces: Problems, Challenges, & Policy Implications. Washington, DC: Jamestown Foundation. 14 For a more detailed analysis of Russia’s special operations units, see C. Marsh (2017). Developments in Russian Special Operations: Russia’s Spetsnaz, SOF and Special Operations Forces Command. Kingston, ON: Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. https://publications.gc. ca/site/eng/9.831086/publication.html. Accessed 13 April 2023.

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Gen. Makarov, the Directorate of Special Operations was renamed the Special Operations Forces Command (Komandovanie sil spetsial’nalnykh operatsii, or KSSO). Then on 15 March 2013 Kubinka was joined to the special operations forces. As early as 2012 Makarov had been talking about forming a KSSO, with plans for up to nine special-purpose brigades and expansion of the existing system of military intelligence special forces (GRU Spetsnaz).15 Intensive physical plant development at both Kubinka and Senezh then began, including infrastructure for basing and military training. Senezh also houses a sniper training school, and both seem to have diver training facilities, though Kubinka apparently includes a special naval operations directorate that controls several special naval operations departments and squads. There is also a cold weather/mountaineering training center at Mount Elbrus named “Terskol,” in Kabardino-Balkaria, that is used by Russian special operators for training.16 As for the manning of these units, although Russia has spetsnaz units it could have just pulled from, they did not just rename spetsnaz as SOF. Rather, they selected the very best from their regular army, particularly their reconnaissance units, having them first serve with spetsnaz units, and then having them undergo specialized training. Only then did they get designated as Russian special operations forces, or SSO.17 Rather than being a page in his playbook, Russia’s KSSO and SSO should be seen as—to quote a former USSOCOM commander—an “exquisite capability.”18 Putin acquired this capability apparently with every intention of using it. They did so with the full intent of using the SSO in missions for which their conventional forces and perhaps existing spetsnaz units were incapable of acting independently. But that does not mean that they cannot and/or have not operated alongside spetsnaz and conventional forces. Indeed, the SSO have. The most notorious operations they have been involved in have been the seizure of Crimea and the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

15

McDermott, R. (2016, April 26). Putin’s Secret Force Multiplier: Special Operations Forces, Eurasian Daily Monitor. 13(81). https://jamestown.org/program/putins-secret-force-multiplier-spe cial-operations-forces/. Accessed 13 April 2023. 16 Mikhailov, A. (2016, April 20). Boitsy Chetvertogo Izmereniya, Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. http://www.vpk-news.ru/articles/30319. Accessed 10 October 2017. 17 Nikolsky, A. (2015). Little, Green and Polite: The Creation of Russian Special Operations Forces. In (eds.) C. Howard and R. Pukhov, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (3–22). Minneapolis: EastView. 18 GEN Richard Clarke (2020). Special Operations Forces Vision and Strategy. MacDill AFB: USSOCOM. https://www.socom.mil/Documents/SOF%20Vision%20and%20Strategy.pdf. Accessed 21 April 2023.

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6 Euromaidan and the Annexation of Crimea Beginning on 21 November 2013, large protests, demonstrations, and overall civil unrest spread throughout Ukraine. The center of the affair was Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square. The protests were sparked when President Viktor Yanukovych suddenly changed his mind and decided not to sign the European Union—Ukraine Association Agreement, apparently choosing closer political and economic ties to Russia and Eurasia. The Ukrainian parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) had overwhelmingly approved the decision to sign the EU Agreement, but Putin was putting pressure on Ukraine in a variety of ways to get them to not ratify the agreement. The EU Agreement was very popular with the masses, and the protests rapidly spread and eventually broadened in scope, with calls for Yanukovych to resign. The people assembling at Maidan were protesting what they saw as widespread corruption, abuse of power, and the influence of oligarchs. Yanukovych attempted to have his henchmen disperse protesters on 30 November, which resulted in extreme violence and only further exacerbated the situation. Though the protests had spread to other cities, repeated assaults on what had grown into a protest base with makeshift barricades only further enflamed the situation, and soon the government introduced severe anti-protest laws. Clashes between police— including the dreaded Berkut anti-terror units—became worse and worse until finally Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement on 21 February 2014 to install an interim government, enact constitutional reforms, and hold elections. Yanukovych and his ministers fled. Though the following day the parliament officially removed Yanukovych from office and installed an interim government, the country was in utter turmoil. In Kyiv, there wasn’t even a police force on duty.19 Putin knew what the power vacuum in Kyiv and the turmoil across Ukraine meant—another color revolution (although this one was going by the name “revolution of dignity,” not by any color or flower). Though they undoubtedly had played important counterterrorism roles prior to this, the invasion of Ukraine in late February 2014 was the real debut of Russian SOF. On 27 February 2014, the military occupation of Crimea by “little green”—and polite—men began. In fact, their involvement began at least several days beforehand, most likely on the 24th (we know, for example, that the 45th Airborne Spetsnaz Unit from Kubinka was airlifted to Sevastopol on that day). The 27th, however, is the official date of Crimea “rejoining” the motherland and commemorating the role of Russian SOF. The plans for the practically bloodless seizure of Crimea were based largely on those drawn up by the General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate, relying heavily on GRU intelligence. The GRU had completed its intelligence preparation of the battlefield, was constantly monitoring Ukrainian forces on the peninsula, and intercepting their communications.20 According to Galeotti, the GRU didn’t just provide intelligence and cover for the “little green men” who were able to quickly seize control 19

Sakwa, R. (2015). Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands. London: I.B. Tauris. Bradenkamp, N., and M. Grzegorzewski. (2021). Supporting resistance movements in cyberspace. Special Operations Journal. 7(1): 17–28.

20

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of all strategic points on the peninsula—many of those very operatives were current or former GRU spetsnaz.21 Others were members of the naval spetsnaz, primarily from the 431st Independent Special Purpose Naval Reconnaissance Point, based out of the Black Sea Fleet.22 In a matter of a few days, Russian forces were able to seize power, block, disarm and even win over significant portions of the Ukrainian military and then to legitimize its presence, all the while conducting information operations and working to integrate the region into the Russian Federation.23 In many ways their method was a covert unconventional warfare operation. After identifying sympathetic locals (mostly disenfranchised ethnic Russians), they put together a proxy force comprised of a variety of groups—local hooligans, want-tobe political leaders, and even Russians from Russia. Then when the moment was right, “unidentified men in black uniforms” seized government buildings, including the Crimean parliament. An “emergency session” of the parliament was then held and Sergei Aksyonov was chosen as the new prime minister of Crimea. Aksyonov claimed the men were part of Crimea’s self-defense forces and under his personal command (but they were most likely Russian special operators under Kremlin’s control). SOF operators seized other strategic infrastructure, including the headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy in Sevastapol, the headquarters of the Tactical Aviation Brigade in Belbek, and the Marine Battalion in Feodosia. Spetsnaz personnel were also involved in several of these operations.24 The rest is history—Crimea then voted to join the Russian Federation, and the Russian Duma voted to accept Crimea into the Russian Federation. Finally, Russian forces seized all military bases, etc. on the peninsula. Within a few short weeks, an entire territorial objective had been seized and politically integrated into the Russian Federation, almost with no shots fired, the acme of Sun Tzu’s prescription for warfare. But Putin’s ambitions were far from sated.

7 Eastern Ukraine and the “Novorossiya Campaign” Juxtaposed to the quick and nearly bloodless seizure of Crimea, which can be seen as a successful special operation from Putin’s point of view, the battle for eastern Ukraine is part of a protracted military campaign that continues in a new guise

21

Galeotti, M. (2014, July 7). Putin’s Secret Weapon, Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/ 2014/07/07/putins-secret-weapon/. Accessed 21 April 2023. 22 Galeotti, M. (2015). Spetsnaz: Russia’s Special Forces. New York: Osprey, 56. 23 U.S. Army Special Operations Command (2016). “Little Green Men”: A Primer on Modern Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine, 2013–2014. Fort Bragg, NC: U.S. Army Special Operations Command. 24 Nikolsky, A. (2015). Little, Green and Polite: The Creation of Russian Special Operations Forces. In (eds.) C. Howard and R. Pukhov, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (3–22). Minneapolis: EastView.

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even to this day. If we are to study what Putin has attempted to achieve militarily— whether success or failure—we cannot overlook the Novorossiya campaign and the continuous fighting in the Donbas between 2014 and the present. Between February 2014 and May 2015, supporters of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) officially announced the “freezing” of the “Novorossiya” project. Oleg Tsaryov, chairman of the Novorossiya movement, said that the activities of the Joint Parliament of Novorossiya are frozen because the confederation did not comply with the Minsk II accords. At the start of January 2015, the separatist forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) began a new offensive on Ukrainiancontrolled areas, resulting in the complete collapse of the Minsk Protocol ceasefire claiming over 9000 soldiers by summer 2015. From February 2014 to May 2015, spetsnaz, SOF, conventional forces, and Private Military Companies (PMCs) participated in the fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine against Ukrainian government security forces, and probably operated outside of that area as well. Both spetsnaz units and Russian SOF were deployed in the region, along with conventional forces, though it is unclear exactly who was doing what. Given their mission sets, it is highly likely that both spetsnaz and SOF were organizing local insurgent forces, engaging in train and equip missions, and serving as military trainers in general. Additionally, it would be naïve to think that they were not also engaged in direct action missions. One group they have been working with is led by Igor Girkin, who is in Ukraine under the alias Igor Strelkov (from the Russian word for “shooter”). Strelkov made no efforts to hide the fact that he was engaged in unconventional warfare, with the goal of triggering an armed uprising and separatist movement that would ultimately allow eastern Ukraine to join Russia.25 This retired FSB colonel led a group of more than 50 fighters, many of whom had been active in Crimea before showing up in eastern Ukraine. While not all had formidable fighting experience, the majority did, with several members even coming from the elite spetsnaz GRU.26 Immediately following the seizure of Crimea, separatist movements emerged in eastern Ukraine, particularly Donetsk and Luhansk, along with the proclamation in April 2014 of the People’s Republic of Donetsk and the People’s Republic of Lugansk. This came immediately on the heels of the announcement of the “Novorossiya Project.” As Putin himself phrased it as part of his information operations campaign: I would like to remind you that what was called Novorossiya (New Russia) back in the tsarist days—Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa—were not part of Ukraine back then. These territories were given to Ukraine in the 1920s by the Soviet government. Why? Who knows. They were won by Potyomkin and Catherine the Great in a series 25

Lavrov, A. (2015). Civil War in the East: How the Conflict Unfolded Before Minsk In (eds.) C. Howard and R. Pukhov, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (204–205). Minneapolis: EastView. 26 Lavrov, A. (2015). Civil War in the East: How the Conflict Unfolded Before Minsk In (eds.) C. Howard and R. Pukhov, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (204). Minneapolis: EastView.

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of well-known wars. The center of that territory was Novorossiysk, so the region is called Novorossiya. Russia lost these territories for various reasons, but the people remained.27

This was more than a political statement or part of an information operation—it was the launching phase of a military campaign, one which I label the Novorossiya campaign. The goal was to use unconventional warfare methods in the region to mobilize the ethnic Russian population, train, arm, and equip them, and the guide them in a “war of liberation” from Ukraine, all the while maintaining persistent (if not plausible) deniability of Russian government and military involvement. It failed to achieve its objectives before Moscow suspended the project in late May of 2015. But its long-term effects were perhaps visible in the 2022 invasion (and justification for the “special military operation” itself). The first phase, and this phase very much predates the launching of any military action (and would equate to what we call shaping operations), was to infiltrate Ukrainian political and military structures, not just in the eastern Ukraine region, but in all of Ukraine—including in the government and the military. Along with this phase were inform and influence activities aimed at developing sympathy for the plight of ethnic Russians in Ukraine and dissuading those who would support war with Russia. This phase not only predated the initiation of military operations, but it also continued throughout them, and indeed continued up to the day of the invasion in 2022. The second phase began with the initiation of military operations, starting with the seizure of Crimea, discussed above. At this point spetsnaz and SOF presumably began to organize and enable proxy forces in target regions, with Russian forces operating covertly in Ukraine. This is where more little green men were spotted along with those in sterile uniforms claiming to not be from the Russian Federation Armed Forces, despite sometimes very convincing photographic evidence identifying them as precisely that28 (again, followed with persistent deniability). This phase was crucial for organizing those who would do most of the fighting and would put a local face on the conflict. The second part of this phase began in June 2014, when Russian conventional forces began to assemble along the Russian-Ukrainian border, including motorizedrifle brigades, artillery units, and armored brigades. This was mostly a show of force but could have been a preparatory move for a possible invasion had things in eastern Ukraine gone differently. Another aspect of this phase was the beginning of internationally organized negotiations in Minsk to arrive at a ceasefire agreement. Of course, this agreement would be nothing more than a delaying move on the part of Russia, allowing spetsnaz and SOF more time to organize, train, and equip the proxy 27

Taylor, A. (2014, April 18). “Novorossiya,” the Latest Historical Concept to Worry about in Ukraine. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/04/ 18/understanding-novorossiya-the-latest-historical-concept-to-get-worried-about-in-ukraine/. Accessed 15 October 2017. 28 Leonard, P. (2014, April 29). This shadowy commander is the face of insurgency In Eastern Ukraine. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/insurgency-eastern-ukraine-2014-4. Accessed 23 April 2023.

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forces. This became compromised by the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner in July 2014. As the fighting continued, more and more conventional forces began appearing in the target regions of eastern Ukraine, even while Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and Putin were meeting in Minsk to negotiate a second ceasefire agreement. Then in late May of 2015 the “Novorossiya Project” was closed, apparently with Moscow giving up on a quick victory in the east and settling for a frozen conflict that left the region neither fully under the control of the Ukrainian government nor a part of Russia—yet.29 From the end of the “Novorossiya Campaign” until the Russian invasion in 2022 Moscow continued to support separatists in the Donbas. In fact, the day before the invasion Putin recognized the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic as sovereign independent countries, which quickly voted to join the Russian Federation, of course.

8 Syria: Russia’s Training Ground Russia surprised the world in September 2015 when without warning it launched an intervention into the civil war in Syria. In a matter of weeks, Russia went from supplying some weapons, equipment, and naval infantry to an outright intervention on behalf of Assad and his regime. Both spetsnaz and SOF were involved in the operations, though according to Galeotti, Russia’s elite units were kept from getting involved in major combat operations, with that mission falling to conventional combat units.30 That left special operators to deal with the other two core missions—battlefield reconnaissance (which in Syria especially involved guiding Russian artillery fires and air strikes) and special security missions. Of course, it would be naïve to think that spetsnaz and SOF were not involved prior to the intervention, providing ISR and perhaps even some training of Assad regime forces.31 The Russian news media even highlighted the achievements of their “train and equip” mission in Syria. As they stated, “our military experts and advisors have achieved significant success in the training of the Syrian military.”32 Additionally, they provided enhanced security for the Russian embassy and other facilities. The “Zaslon” (screen) force, for example, deployed some of its men in their usual role of VIP protection, hostage rescue, and reinforcing embassy security, though 29

Dergachev, V. and D. Kirillov. (2015, May 20). Proekt ‘Novorossiya’ Zakrit: Samoprovozglashennye respubliki ob’yavili o zakritii proekta ‘Novorossiya’,” Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta. ru/politics/2015/05/19_a_6694441.shtml. Accessed 13 April 2023. 30 Galeotti, M. (2016, March 21). The Three Faces of Russian Spetsnaz in Syria. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2016/03/the-three-faces-of-russian-spetsnaz-in-syria/. Accessed 13 April 2023. 31 Ramm, A. (2016, February 3). Pervie Pobedy Rossiiskikh Instruktorov – Chast’ I. Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. 32 Ramm, A. (2016, February 3). Pervie Pobedy Rossiiskikh Instruktorov – Chast’ I. Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer.

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they are also known to conduct security force assistance training. This spetsnaz unit does not report to the GRU but reports directly to the Foreign Intelligence Service. As Russia began its intervention in Syria, Russian SOF and spetsnaz were involved in securing the Hmeimim airbase at Latakia and the Tartus naval facility on the Syrian coast. They were then subsequently involved in providing some limited reconnaissance to assist in the targeting of airstrikes.33 According to one source, most targeting packages came from the Syrians (which may help explain the concentration not on the Islamic State and its forces but on other rebel groups posing a more immediate threat to the Assad regime). At the peak of the deployment, there was a detachment of approximately 250 GRU spetsnaz soldiers, probably drawn from several units, including Naval Spetsnaz from the 431st Naval Reconnaissance Point. There was also a team of SOF operators from the KSSO, reportedly mainly snipers/counter-snipers and scouts.34 Conducting force protection missions in an environment like Syria is as dangerous as operating in any conventional battlefield. According to Galeotti, spetsnaz may have already been in Damascus as a contingency in the event of a regime collapse. This seems to be the case in terms of trainers, who were there to train local military on the equipment they were being provided. For Western forces operating in an environment like Syria, this is almost always a SOF mission, but it is unclear whether the Russian trainers were SOF, spetsnaz, or conventional forces.35 Again, one spetsnaz unit that was most likely there was Zaslon, which makes perfect sense since they are tasked not just with VIP protection and security, but also with “clean up” operations in events such as regime collapse. This is reportedly precisely what they did in Iraq immediately upon the fall of the Hussein regime, removing sensitive materials and documents that Moscow did not want to fall into US hands. According to Galeotti, who reportedly had a conversation with a serving officer before the drawdown in Syria began, the officer pointed out that “this is the kind of war for which the Spetsnaz have been training for thirty years”—referring to the Soviet experiences in Afghanistan, which very much set the tone for their operations in Syria. The officer concluded by adding, “if we wanted to fight the war [in Syria], we’d be using spetsnaz.”36 Galeotti took this to mean that there was no willingness on the part of the Kremlin to deploy SOF and spetsnaz in the kind of “tip of the spear” assault and interdiction missions for which they train, and is also taken to mean that Moscow had no intention of being sucked into a ground battle in Syria. 33

Gibbons-Neff, T. (2016, March 29). How Russian special forces are shaping the fight in Syria. Washington Post. 34 (2015, October 1). Rossiya otpravila v Siriyu spetsnaz i morskikh pekhotintsev, TSN. http:// ru.tsn.ua/svit/rossiya-otpravila-v-siriyu-specnaz-i-morskih-pehotincev-497202.html. Accessed 10 October 2017. 35 Ramm, A. (2016, February 3). Pervie pobedy Rossiiskikh instruktorov – Chast’ I. Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. 36 Galeotti, M. (2016, March 21). The Three Faces of Russian Spetsnaz in Syria. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2016/03/the-three-faces-of-russian-spetsnaz-in-syria/. Accessed 13 April 2023.

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Instead, the numbers of SOF and spetsnaz have been kept relatively low and they apparently remained focused on their ISR, training, and security missions. The Syrian case is an interesting one, for it is the first time that Russian forces engaged in military operations outside the near abroad. Indeed, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov commented on it thus in the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda: other than operations in Cuba in 1962, “we practically had no experience of deploying the army and armed forces at such a distance, on the territory of a country that does not border” our own.37 Indeed, during the course of the intervention, the command of 90% of divisions and over half of brigades and regiments underwent battle-testing in the deserts and cities of Syria. Moreover, the Russian military gained significant insight into US military tactics, according to a US intelligence general officer.38 While perhaps not part of the initial objective, this certainly was a benefit reaped by Moscow during their operations in Syria. According to journalist Damien Sharkov, the real reason Russia got involved in the Syrian civil war was not to support its long-time Soviet-era and post-Soviet-era ally, Bashar al-Assad, but to test its latest equipment and military hardware, as well as its commanders and officer corps.39 Here Putin learned that he could become involved in conflicts far away from Russia’s borders and the West wouldn’t even protest.

9 Ukraine 2.0: Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine As mentioned in the introduction, the launching of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 unleashed the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II. With approximately 140,000 troops arrayed along Ukraine’s border with Russia and Belarus, encircling more than half of Ukraine’s territory, and with avenues of advance from the north (coming from Gomel), the northeast (aimed in the direction of Kharkhiv), the southeast (toward Mariupol), and from the south (Russian-occupied Crimea). These forces had been moving into position since the spring of 2021, and by the time of the invasion the fighting force included numerous battalion tactical groups (BTGs), armored divisions, and artillery batteries, along with supporting logistics. Indeed, in the weeks and months leading up to the invasion, Putin’s war machine was being put into place while the Kremlin denied any belligerent intentions, arguing right up to the days before the actual invasion that these military forces were preparing for “military exercises.” The response to US and NATO warnings that Russia was actually preparing to invade were met by the Kremlin with the response that it was Western paranoia, and by Kyiv with a response of “we have our own intel sources.” 37

Sharkov, D. (2018, January 15). Russian military used Syria war to train forces and learn US combat moves, says general. Newsweek. 38 Sharkov, D. (2018, January 15). Russian military used Syria war to train forces and learn US combat moves, says general. Newsweek. 39 Sharkov, D. (2018, January 15). Russian military used Syria war to train forces and learn US combat moves, says general. Newsweek.

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In the early hours of that fateful day in late February, Kyiv’s and indeed much of the world’s fears became reality, as Russian forces illegally and without provocation invaded Ukraine. While many analysts—both inside and outside Russia—expected the Russian forces to crush a weak Ukrainian resistance in a matter of 36–72 h, leaked Russian war plans put the estimate at 15 days.40 Apparently, the initial goal was to take Kyiv (or at least decapitate the regime); expand control of the Donbas out to Kharkhiv in the north and to Mariupol in the south and from Crimea to Odesa, and then eventually to expand to Transdniestria in the west (the Russian-controlled break-away region of Moldova). Needless to say, things did not go according to plan. From the US side, however, it began by doing exactly what Putin wanted it to do: the U.S. offered Ukrainian President Zelensky an emergency evacuation. This would have left a power vacuum in Kyiv and broken the military chain of command or allowed the Kremlin to install a puppet regime à la Crimea 2014.

10 “I Need Ammo, Not a Ride” With these fateful words, all of Putin’s plans for his “special military operation” in Ukraine went out the window. He was sure that the comedian-turned-politician would run for his life, not stand and fight the mighty Russian armed forces. Putin was gravely mistaken. Zelensky quickly transitioned from a mediocre president besieged by numerous political challenges into a war hero and international symbol of resistance to Russian aggression. On the day of the invasion, Putin’s ruse became clear, as all the world witnessed Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its neighbor. It also became clear that Putin had been engaging in deception operations (or maskirovka) and disinformation (dezinformatsiya) the whole time, tactics he would employ repeatedly throughout the war. The ruse Putin conducted is known as obman in Russian deception operations terminology.41 The surprise (vnezapnost’) invasion was anything but to the outside world, but apparently even caught many of Russia’s soldiers off-guard, as they believed that that they were in fact preparing to engage in military exercises, not fighting fascist and neo-Nazi forces that had taken control of the country and were subjecting Ukraine’s ethnic Russian population to all sorts of atrocities (dezinformatsiya).

40

Musumeci, N. (2022, March 2). Ukraine revealed secret battle plans left behind by Russian troops and claimed they showed Russia planned a 15-day war. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsi der.com/ukraine-revealed-secret-battle-plans-left-behind-by-russian-troops-2022-3. Accessed 23 April 2023. 41 Glantz, D. (1989). Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War. London: Frank Cass. See also: Bouwmeester, H. (2017). Lo and Behold: Let the Truth Be Told—Russian Deception Warfare in Crimea and Ukraine and the Return of ‘Maskirovka’ and ‘Reflexive Control Theory’. In P. Ducheine and F. Osinga (eds.). Winning Without Killing: The Strategic and Operational Utility of Non-Kinetic Capabilities in Crises (pp. 125–154). New York: Springer.

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In launching its invasion, rather than declaring a war, the Kremlin did something quite strange at first glance (and almost completely overlooked by the Western media): it labeled its action a “Special Military Operation” (spetsial’naya voennaya operatsiya”), or more simply a “special operation” (spetsoperatsiya). In fact, it was never referred to in official Russian sources or the Russian media as a “war” (voina) in the opening weeks of the war, and by March 4 it was even declared illegal to do so, or to be openly against the “special operation.”

11 Lies, Law, and Why Words Matter There is great significance to the messaging Vladimir Putin and his information warfare operatives were employing in the opening phase of the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Was Putin just playing semantics, or was he trying to employ strategic messaging, and if so, what was he trying to message? There are at least a few possible explanations for Putin’s choice of wording and his insistence on its continued usage (and the outlawing of referring to the whole affair as a “war”). The first and certainly the main reason that Putin and his supporters (including Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov) constantly employ these terms is their refusal to acknowledge that they are engaged in an act of aggression against the Ukrainian state and its people. Instead of being a war—or the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a state of the territory of another state (the United Nation’s litmus test for an armed conflict), the fighting is a “special operation” aimed at ridding Ukraine of fascists and neo-Nazis and preempting a NATO attack against Russia. The fact that Putin and his Duma outlawed being openly against the special operation—which includes referring to it as a war—with penalties leading up to 15 years in prison, is significant. But the framing of the conflict as a “special operation” allows Russians the cognitive space to support Ukrainians while accepting the use of Russian military force. An early poll found that many Russians expressed sympathy for Ukrainians, however they believed the special operation was to help Ukraine rid itself of such malign actors as neo-Nazis. The resistance being faced in Ukraine was attributed to a small number of bad people, while others are shown on Russia’s state media channels welcoming Russian soldiers there to liberate them. Russians polled early in the war (in the most rigorous manner possible given the situation at the time) more often than not (63% compared to less than half that number) believed the Kremlin’s propaganda or were afraid to answer truthfully (7%). As one 53-year-old village woman said to a pollster when asked if she thought the military actions in Ukraine constituted a war or were just a special military operation, “I answer you today and tomorrow the police will come and take me won’t they?”

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Another 58-year-old urban male responded, “Speaking my mind on this subject is now against the law. So I’ll abstain. I’d love to [answer] but I don’t have a right to.”42 There may be another and perhaps more significant reason why the conflict cannot be referred to as a war by Russia: doing so would legitimize Ukraine’s status as an independent and sovereign state. After all, wars are armed conflicts between two or more nation-states (or they are “civil wars”, a term which would be even more dangerous for Putin to employ). A special operation, however, can include military operations such as counterinsurgency—when a state seeks to quell an unruly part of its territory. Thus, Putin’s special military operation is not an act of aggression against a neighboring state but rather a military operation to quell a part of Russia itself—a domestic military affair and of no consequence to the outside world. This may have been the message behind the lies and the law coming out of Moscow early in the war. The idea that Ukraine is part of Russia and not a separate country is something the Kremlin’s propaganda machine has been churning out for years now. In his March 18, 2014 speech marking the annexation of Crimea, Putin declared that Russians and Ukrainians “are one people.” Then in the summer of 2021 Putin published a 5000word essay in which he went so far as to question the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state itself. He not only argued that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially one people, but Putin also stated that much of modern-day Ukraine occupies historically Russian lands, matter-of-factly stating that “Russia was robbed” of Ukraine during the Soviet collapse. Just days before the invasion of Ukraine, in a televised address to the Russian population, Putin once again stated that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction. To solidify the lie, former president Dmitry Medvedev has taken to VK and other social media stating that Ukraine will disappear because no one “needs” Ukraine. Such verbal attacks against the Ukrainian state are direct assaults against Ukraine’s legitimacy and sovereignty—and must be taken seriously as part of Putin’s larger narrative construction. As this author stated at a talk on irregular warfare held at Fort Bragg’s JFK Special Warfare Center and School in December 2021, such a narrative construction would seek to frame any military operation against Ukraine as righting an historical wrong and reuniting the nation. If Ukraine is not even an independent state, which the Kremlin has been saying for years now, the use of the term special military operation makes sense. In such a scenario, the fighting would not be an armed inter-state conflict under the guidelines of UN Charter and constrained by the Geneva Conventions, but rather a domestic counterinsurgency operation (which is considered a special operation not just by US Special Operations Command but by most militaries around the world). Thus, it is a domestic military operation, meaning that from the Kremlin’s point of view, Russia has already absorbed Ukraine back in—all that remains is for that narrative to become consonant with facts on the ground. From such a perspective, Putin has been laying the cognitive groundwork for the elimination of Ukraine’s independent existence 42

(2023, April 22). Voennaya tsenzura: Kak izmerit’ strakh i kak tsenzura vliyet na rossiyan? https:// www.chronicles.report. Accessed 21 April 2023.

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for quite some time—long before Russian military forces began to assemble for “exercises” along Ukraine’s border in the summer and fall of 2021.

12 “All is According to Plan” Nearly one month into the military operation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov went on television in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and said that “all was going to plan,”43 which must be added to the list of the Kremlin’s flat out lies. What plan would include an armored column being bogged down for days north of Kyiv, the suffering of heavy causalities, Russian conscripts disabling themselves so they did not have to fight, and the loss of 5 general officers in only weeks of fighting (currently at 14 as of this writing)? And surely the Ukrainian nation’s stiff resistance to Russia’s special operation was not part of their war plan either. While many outside observers agreed with Putin’s prewar assessment—that the war would be over rather quickly (while others added that the situation would rapidly transition into a resistance movement44 )—the Ukrainian state and its people (along with outside volunteers), have been doing more than fighting a battle of resistance. They have been engaged in a multi-front war against a much larger and initially better-equipped force. Their retaking of Kyiv and its surrounding region (oblast’) looked a lot more like combined arms maneuver than a special operation. But the Ukrainians—despite an impressive and growing arsenal provided through Western security assistance—remains largely outmanned (thanks to Moscow’s mass mobilization of 300,000 soldiers—though perhaps as many as half of them fled the country rather than show up for service). There is more to war than sheer numbers, however. There is also will—and here the Ukrainians have shown themselves to have significantly greater will than the Russian forces that invaded their homeland. Ukrainian will is something Putin grossly underestimated and is proving decisive on the battlefield. In fact, Ukrainian forces—if you follow social media—seem to even have good morale. Putin can say that his attack on Kyiv was a feint and that his objective all along was the liberation of southeast Ukraine/the Donbas region. But his messaging tells the truth. Putin sought nothing short of the complete absorption of the Ukrainian state into the Russian Federation. Words matter, and his lies cannot cover up what his plan has been all along—a plan that has now turned into an utter and complete military fiasco for the Kremlin. In Ukraine Putin went right to his playbook. Instead of employing special operations forces, he made the whole thing a special operation, which means it was not a 43

Kremlin spokesperson on Putin’s objectives in Ukraine. (2022, March 22). https://www.cnn.com/ videos/world/2022/03/22/russia-spokesman-dmitry-peskov-russian-invasion-amanpour-vpx.cnn. Accessed 21 April 2023. 44 Petit, B. (2022, February 18). Can Ukrainian resistance foil a Russian victory? War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2022/02/can-ukrainian-resistance-foil-a-russian-victory/. Accessed 21 April 2023.

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special operation at all. He invoked maskirovka and dezinformatsiya to degrees not seen before (how do you hide 140,000 forces and accompanying materiel? In plain sight!); he attempted to replace Ukraine’s leadership with a friendly regime, only Zelensky was not willing to cooperate; he went in with overall superiority of force, as in Chechnya. Likewise, he has decimated cities and targeted population centers. He was even going to launch the invasion of Ukraine with a false flag operation, but the US called him out on it.45 And he tested the West, gambling that all we would do is impose sanctions—and knowing that the world would not unite behind this (here I have in mind China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Modi). But several things have not gone Putin’s way. First, there is the high morale and will to fight of resistance forces in Ukraine. Secondly, the skill of the fighters in Ukraine, from tactics to operations. Third, the level of security assistance coming from the West. Fourth, rather than divide the West and NATO, the war has significantly united the Atlantic alliance and resulted in its further expansion. Finally, there is the performance of the Russian armed forces. At this point the VDV (Russia’s airborne units) and the Wagner Group seem to be the only units capable to facing Ukrainian forces, and they are quarrelling with each other. As for Russia’s mobilized forces and Wagner Group prisoner-soldiers, the city of Bakhmut has just turned into a meat-grinder for them.

13 Conclusion Putin’s first order of business after coming to power was to get his own house in order, so to speak. Once that was accomplished with the settling of the Chechen war, he turned to Russia’s global strategic concerns, or grand strategy if you will. Here is where NATO expansion (not “enlargement”) comes into play. Actual expansion— particularly into the Baltics and now Finland—and proposed expansion (i.e., Georgia and Ukraine) have encroached upon what Russia considers its sphere of influence. This area is perceived by Russia as its buffer zone, so that a NATO invasion would have to be played out in those countries first. The idea of prepositioning forces and materiel is a huge strategic risk for Russia, not to mention local military forces along their western flank. Putin’s wars have involved Estonia, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, and that is only so far. Leaked intelligence has Moldova and Belarus up at night, not to mention other suspected targets, from the Baltic republics to Central Asia. Over the past nearly quarter of a century we have witnessed an evolution of Putin’s playbook, as he tried out different tactical actions, operational approaches, and strategic engagements within Russia’s “near abroad,” the territories of Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine so far, but also with an eye on Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Belarus. 45

Madhani, A., L. Cook, and S. Fraser. (2022, February 3). US says new intel shows Russia plotting false flag attack. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-belarus-jensstoltenberg-43c9151532de706a2edec5684dfcf07d. Accessed 23 April 2023.

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21. Madhani, A., L. Cook, and S. Fraser. (2022, February 3). US says new intel shows Russia plotting false flag attack. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-belarusjens-stoltenberg-43c9151532de706a2edec5684dfcf07d. Accessed 23 April 2023. 22. McDermott, R. (2016, April 26). Putin’s Secret Force Multiplier: Special Operations Forces, Eurasian Daily Monitor. 13(81). https://jamestown.org/program/putins-secret-force-multip lier-special-operations-forces/. Accessed 13 April 2023. 23. Michta, Andrew A. (2022, August 7). China, Russia and the West’s Crisis of Disbelief. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-russia-and-the-wests-crisis-ame rica-democracy-fight-military-threat-disarmament-cold-war-putin-xi-response-11659892566. Accessed 21 April 2023. 24. Mikhailov, A. (2016, April 20). Boitsy Chetvertogo Izmereniya, Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. http://www.vpk-news.ru/articles/30319. Accessed 10 October 2017. 25. Murphy, P. (2004). The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror. London: Brassey’s. 26. Musumeci, N. (2022, March 2). Ukraine revealed secret battle plans left behind by Russian troops and claimed they showed Russia planned a 15-day war. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-revealed-secret-battle-plans-left-behind-byrussian-troops-2022-3. Accessed 23 April 2023. 27. Nikolsky, A. (2015). Little, Green and Polite: The Creation of Russian Special Operations Forces. In (eds.) C. Howard and R. Pukhov, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (3–22). Minneapolis: EastView. 28. Petit, B. (2022, February 18). Can Ukrainian resistance foil a Russian victory? War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2022/02/can-ukrainian-resistance-foil-a-russian-vic tory/. Accessed 21 April 2023. 29. R. McDermott (2012). The Reform of Russia’s Conventional Armed Forces: Problems, Challenges, & Policy Implications. Washington, DC: Jamestown Foundation. 30. Ramm, A. (2016, February 3). Pervie Pobedy Rossiiskikh Instruktorov – Chast’ I. Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. 31. Sharkov, D. (2018, January 15). Russian military used Syria war to train forces and learn US combat moves, says general. Newsweek. Sharkov, D. (2018, January 15). Russian military used Syria war to train forces and learn US combat moves, says general. Newsweek. 32. Shultz, R., and R. Godson (1984). Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s. 33. Taylor, A. (2014, April 18). “Novorossiya,” the Latest Historical Concept to Worry about in Ukraine. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/04/ 18/understanding-novorossiya-the-latest-historical-concept-to-get-worried-about-in-ukraine/. Accessed 15 October 2017. 34. Titan Rain. (n.d.). Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/cyber-operations/titanrain. Accessed 23 April 2023. 35. U.S. Army Special Operations Command (2016). “Little Green Men”: A Primer on Modern Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine, 2013–2014. Fort Bragg, NC: U.S. Army Special Operations Command. 36. V. Putin (2007, February 10). Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034. Accessed 21 April 2023.

Impact Analysis of the War in Ukraine on Non-traditional Security: An Examination of the Emerging Risks to the Sustainable Development Goals Anthony J. Masys

Abstract The war in Ukraine has had spillover effects that have sent shocks across the spectrum of non-traditional security domains: health security; economic security; food security; water security; energy security; environmental security; human security. With the increased transnational flow of people, goods, money and information as products of ‘globalization’, the security landscape has changed in terms of the ‘globalization’ of risks, vulnerabilities and fragility. For example, beyond the critical infrastructure and humanitarian impact in Ukraine itself, the impact of the war is being felt on a global scale including critical impacts on food systems and energy supply. The UNDP (2022) highlights the risks the war in Ukraine has had on food security, energy security, economic and health security across Africa. These nontraditional security implications map to risks across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) ecosystem. This chapter examines the non-traditional security implications and the risks to SDGs stemming from the war in Ukraine. Emerging from the analysis is the inherent fragility that resides within our societal systems as it pertains to systemic risks and resilience to shocks. Understanding this mapping between nontraditional security and SDGs highlights leverage points and cross cutting influences that investments in non-traditional security can have in supporting global peace and prosperity. Keywords Non-traditional security · Sustainable development goals (SDG) · Systemic risks · Humanitarian crisis

1 Introduction In an increasingly interconnected and globalized world, events such as the COVID19 pandemic are a wake-up call to the ever more complex and systemic nature of risks (UNDRR, 2022). The direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic have revealed A. J. Masys (B) College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_9

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and reinforced inherent vulnerabilities across societal systems, borders and scales. Human security and national security have been challenged through the closure of borders, economic disruptions and failures, strained and overwhelmed health systems, and failure of supply chains (UNDRR, 2022). As reported in Masys (2022a) and noted in the World Bank Report (2020): The global fragility landscape has worsened significantly in recent years, impacting both low and middle-income countries. Violent conflicts have increased to the highest levels observed over the past three decades. The world is also facing the largest forced displacement crisis ever recorded. Rising inequality, lack of opportunity, discrimination, and exclusion are fuelling grievances and perceptions of injustice. Climate change, demographic change, migration, technological transformations, illicit financial flows, and violent extremism are often interconnected, posing risks that transcend borders. Many countries also suffer from chronically poor governance. These factors can increase vulnerability to shocks and crises and can create regional and global spillovers.

As described in Masys (2022b), the threats and risks to human security emerging from both man-made and natural disasters are well documented in the literature. Shocks (whether man-made or natural disasters) stress-test our ‘human security’ ecosystem and societal systems often resulting in failures at various scales thereby posing serious threats nationally, regionally and globally. Human Security focuses on the importance of everyone’s right to freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom from indignity. With this in mind, conflicts such as the war in Ukraine are an example of spill-over effects with impacts regionally and globally. Human Security resonates with non-traditional security as a key referent within a complex security ecosystem (Fig. 1). As described in Masys (2022b), the non-traditional security landscape includes. • • • • • • •

Health Security Food Security Water Security Energy Security Economic Security Environmental Security Human Security.

Shocks to the societal systems, whether exogenous or endogenous can act as threat ‘triggers’ that can initiate a cascading security threat within a nation and across borders. For example, extreme weather events can create or exacerbate political instability and violence and create destabilizing effects causing mass migration creating additional spillover risks and security challenges. This is particularly relevant considering the projected impacts of climate change on human security (Masys, 2022a). Such complex security challenges within a complex risk network structure and behaviour can result in cascade-like events revealing the lack of preparation, insufficient vulnerability analysis and response capability. More importantly it can reveal an organizational/national mindset that is rooted in a linear cause-effect mental

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Earthquake Extreme weather

Disease Avalanche Landslide Floods

NATECH Conflict Political Terrorism Social

Security

Economic

Critical Infrastructure Human Trafficking Weapons

Cyber

Transborder Criminal networks Drugs

Fig. 1 Security ecosystem Masys and Lin (2018: 11)

model rather than one that embraces complexity, interdependency and interconnectivity within a landscape characterized by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity (VUCA) (Masys, 2022b). The increased transnational flow of people, goods, money and information as products of ‘globalization’ has changed the security landscape in terms of the ‘globalization’ of risks, vulnerabilities and fragility. This stems from the inherent complexity, interconnectivity and interdependencies across societal systems. Understanding these ‘networked’ systemic risks is key to support designing for resilience, mitigation/prevention, preparedness, response and recovery activities. For example, beyond the critical infrastructure and humanitarian impact in Ukraine itself, the impact of the war is being felt on a global scale including critical impacts on food systems and energy supply and the costs associated with both thereby also creating economic hardship that challenges human security. IRGC (2018) states that ‘external shocks to interconnected systems, or unsustainable stresses, may cause uncontrolled feedback and cascading effects, extreme events, and unwanted side effects, implying that the potential for cascading disruption is a growing and critical concern for many facets of daily life’. The impacts of such shocks can be realized across the spectrum of non-traditional security domains: health security; economic security; food security; water security; energy security; environmental security; human security. UNDP (2022) highlights the risks the war in Ukraine has had on food insecurity, energy insecurity, economic and health insecurity across Africa. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated unequivocally that “the war’s impact on food security, energy and finance is systemic, severe, and

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speeding up.” Additionally, the war in Ukraine has had devasting impact on women and girls worldwide, widening gender gaps and increasing rates of food insecurity, malnutrition and energy poverty (UN, 2022). These non-traditional security implications stemming from the war in Ukraine map to risks across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) ecosystem.

2 Sustainable Development Goals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 in an effort to provide a roadmap and vision to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The 17 SDGs (Fig. 2) are an integrated agenda/framework recognizing that investments/shocks in one area have impacts across the goals. As articulated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ‘“They are a to-do list for people and planet, and a blueprint for success,” he added of the 17 goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years’ (UN, 2015). The inherent interdependency and interconnectivity across the 17 SDG as detailed in (Coenen et al., 2022; Laumann et al. 2022; Dawes 2022; Le Blanc 2015) points to the requirement for a networked/ systems view of the SDG as they relate to and are influenced by various shocks and investments.

Fig. 2 SDGs. UN (2015)

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3 Analysis of Systemic and Transborder Risks As described in Masys (2022b), ‘Analysis of vulnerabilities associated with nontraditional security requires the discipline of the systems approach which embraces a shift of mind: ‘in seeing interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains and seeing processes of change rather than snapshots’ (Senge, 1990). Systems thinking thereby is an appropriate approach for communicating such complexities and interdependencies. There exists a disproportionality of ‘causes and effects’, in which as Urry (2002: 59) remarks, past events are never ‘forgotten’, they are seeded (manufactured) in the actor network (Masys, 2012; Masys et al., 2014; Masys, 2021)’. This is particularly relevant in the emerging security issues stemming from the ‘shock’ associated with the war in Ukraine. Systemic analysis and vulnerability analysis approaches and methods have been covered in detail in Disaster Forensics (Masys, 2016a) and Xu and Masys (2016) and Masys (2016b) leveraging Actor Network Theory. As noted in Goldin and Mariathasan (2014: 66) and captured in the disaster forensics approach ‘…systemic analysis must examine nodes, pathways, and the relationships between them, because catastrophic changes in the overall state of the system can ultimately derive from how it is organized- from feedback mechanisms within it and from linkages that are latent and often unrecognized’. From the analysis of UN reports and the open literature, leveraging a Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz, 2007), data was captured and consolidated pertaining to the impacts of the war in Ukraine. Gephi, a network analysis and visualization software was used to explore the relational influence the war in Ukraine has had on societal systems thereby highlighting key nodes and clusters stemming from centrality measures. An SDG mapping was then applied to the impact analysis thereby giving insights into the risks posed by the war in Ukraine and pointing to systemic fragility across the SDGs.

4 Nontraditional Security Implications The 2023 WEF Global Risk report clearly highlights how endogenous and exogenous events influence national and global safety and security including triggers leading to social tensions and unrest. As described in WEF (2023: 9) ‘Compounding crises are widening their impact across societies, hitting the livelihoods of a far broader section of the population, and destabilizing more economies in the world, than traditionally vulnerable communities and fragile states. Building on the most severe risks expected to impact in 2023—including “Energy supply crisis”, “Rising inflation” and “Food supply crisis”—a global Cost-of-living crisis is already being felt’. Under such triggers, an emerging ‘polycrisis’ can evolve stemming from disruptions and shocks to national, regional and global systems. As reported in WEF (2023), ‘the return to a “new normal” following the COVID-19 pandemic was quickly

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disrupted by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, ushering in a fresh series of crises in food and energy—triggering problems that decades of progress had sought to solve’. Of particular interest is the key role Russia/Ukraine play as a global ‘food basket’ as well as Russia’s dominance as an energy provider. Disruptions to both have global significance.

5 Energy Security The war in Ukraine has had detrimental effects within its borders but has also spilled over affecting geopolitics and energy markets. The fragility of societal systems is certainly illustrated recognizing that as cited in a recent Chatham House Report (Benton et al, 2022: 10–11) ‘Russia is responsible for about 10% of global energy production and is a major exporter of all fossil fuels, accounting (by volume) for around 15% of global coal trade, 10% of global oil trade and 8% of global gas trade in 2020. The EU imports 90% of its gas consumption, with Russia providing 41.1% of the bloc’s imports of natural gas (and 35% of total EU consumption), as well as 26.9% of imported oil (25% of consumption)’. This inherent fragility associated with energy dependencies has resulted in a rethink by global leaders regarding their energy plans and a scramble to create greater resiliency (Tollefson, 2022). With disruptions to direct and indirect delivery of energy to dependent countries coupled with the increasing fuel prices, the non-traditional security implications are manifest significantly affecting the most vulnerable countries.

6 Food Security National and global food security is certainly connected to the war in Ukraine as both Russia and Ukraine are considered “Global Breadbaskets”, with significant net export of agricultural commodities, including various cereals and oilseeds. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2022), in 2021, the two countries accounted for almost 30% of global wheat exports and 78% of global sunflower oil exports. Additionally, Russia is a major stakeholder in the global fertilizer market. As major suppliers to many countries (including LowIncome Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCs), any disruption to the supply chain risks further contributing to food insecurity, social unrest and humanitarian crisis. The significance of the war in Ukraine regionally and globally manifests itself as the seams of societal functional fragility and vulnerability pertaining to food security. As noted in (Lin et al., 2023: 2):’ The United Nations has warned that the combination of COVID-19 pandemic and RussiaUkraine crisis has led to the biggest food crisis after the World War II, i.e., as many as 1.7 billion people are in hunger and poor, the level of which is at a new high at present. There is a concentrated structure in the global grain market, with Russia and Ukraine supplying about

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30 percent of wheat and barley. A total of 36 countries, including some of the world’s most vulnerable and impoverished, import more than half their wheat from them. Because of this, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia quickly derailed global food supplies and led to high prices. It pushed millions into extreme poverty and worsened hunger and malnutrition and there were 222 million people in 53 countries and territories suffering from severe food crises and in need of emergency assistance.

With increasing global food prices and availability issues, ‘millions more around the world will be pushed into hunger because of the shutoff of critical wheat and fertilizer production and exports’ (Howard, 2022). As noted in the FAO (2022) report as a result of the significant role played by both Ukraine and the Russian Federation in food exports to the world, FAO has identified a series of risks associated with food and agriculture markets; macroeconomics; and emerging humanitarian crisis.

7 Environmental Security The war in Ukraine, like all military conflicts, have serious negative consequences on people and the environment (Fernandez-Lopez et al., 2022; Sikorsky et al., 2022). Violence has long been known to have negative environmental impacts such as damage to industrial infrastructure, contamination of soil and water sources, air quality and potential radioactive contamination (Rawtani et al., 2022). With this in mind, the implications of the war pose an environmental security risk locally and regionally.

8 Health Security The humanitarian crisis and refugee crisis stemming from conflicts and the resulting health security impacts are well documented. Still recovering from the pandemic, the emerging flood of refugees exposes vulnerable populations to COVID-19 as well as other infectious diseases. Factor in as well a refugee population facing ‘…noncommunicable health challenges, ranging from diabetes to cancer, that could demand greater varieties of complex health services and medical capabilities in quantity to sufficiently address’ (Su et al., 2022: 244) coupled with a mental health crisis associated with the refugees entering Poland and other EU safe havens and we see a perfect storm with a strained/ broken health system coupled with food, energy and water security issues and challenges.

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9 Fragility With African countries still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine in terms of economic regression, significant loss of productivity, worsening inequalities, planetary pressures, and in some cases security challenges is creating shocks to the aspirations of the African Union agenda regarding meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. These are well described in UNDP (2022). Figure 3 consolidates the insights derived from the analysis and illustrates the influence of the war in Ukraine and the complexity and interdependencies across the non-traditional security landscape.

Fig. 3 Influence of the war in Ukraine on non-traditional security

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10 Influence on SDGs The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant effect on SDG (UNDRR, 2022). With the world still recovering from the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine created a regional and global crisis with risk consequences that impact the non-traditional security domains thereby impacting the national/regional and global SDGs. As described in Roger (2022) ‘all of the Goals are interconnected, with an impact on one affecting many of the others, so the negative impacts on the SDGs caused by this war go far beyond what can be assessed at this point’. From the influence of the war in Ukraine on non-traditional security (Fig. 3), a mapping of the influence across the SDG ecosystem is depicted to illustrate the complexity, interdependencies and interconnectivity (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Influence of the war in Ukraine on SDGs

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11 SDGs Food, Poverty, Health, Economic Growth, Inequality, Gender Inequality Within Ukraine Rogers (2022) argues that ‘…the long-term development setbacks for Ukraine will be significant. … poverty and inequalities will rise, and the country’s economy and the environment will be devastated. The Government of Ukraine estimates suggest that at least $100 billion worth of infrastructure, buildings, roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and other physical assets had already been destroyed by the end of March’. Of note, there exists a ‘…greater threat to realizing the promise of the SDGs—especially in Ukraine, where all indications point towards a dramatic reversal in nearly all indicators due to the Russian invasion’. The interdependent nature of the SDGs (Coenen et al., 2022; Laumann et al., 2022; Dawes, 2022; Le Blanc, 2015) is clearly reflected by the UNDP (2022b) report, whereby ‘71 million people in the developing world have fallen into poverty in just three months as a direct consequence of global food and energy price surges. … “Unprecedented price surges mean that for many people across the world, the food that they could afford yesterday is no longer attainable today,” says UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner. “This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed and with that, the threat of increased social unrest grows by the day.” Within Ukraine, scenario modelling reported by the UNDP (2022c) points to an emerging SDG/development crisis whereby up to 90 percent of the population could be facing poverty and extreme economic vulnerabilities in the event of protracted war, setting the country—and the region—back decades and leaving deep social and economic scars for generations to come. Supply chain disruptions increases pressure on resources and food access in particular to those less developed countries that depend on the Russia/Ukraine breadbasket. The risks associated with food insecurity spills over to exacerbating the widening gender gap in food insecurity, which grew from 1.7% in 2019 to more than four% in 2021, with 31.9% of women moderately or severely food insecure compared to 27.6% of men; thus globally and across regions, women are more food insecure than men (FAO et al., 2022). Couple with this the complex interdependencies between gender disparity, food insecurity, economic growth and health insecurity, and we see a perfect storm manifesting across the SDGs. As reported in UN (2022: 9) ‘women-headed households in Ukraine were already more food insecure prior to the war, with 37.5% of women headed households in conflict-affected areas experiencing moderate or severe levels of food insecurity compared to 20.5% of male-headed households. Households in vulnerable situations, for example, those including older women, single mothers, women living with disabilities and workers in informal employment, were more likely to express greater concerns about food security and the cost of living’. Such inequality linked to food insecurity is also reflected in the UNDP (2022) report associated with the war’s impact in Africa.

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Further linking food insecurity and health insecurity to inequality, UN (2022) reports that ‘…Amid conflict and crises, entrenched gender inequalities often lead to women and girls eating less and last, as a negative coping mechanism, deepening hunger, malnutrition and poverty’. As depicted in Fig. 4, the mapping of non-traditional security impacts associated with the war in Ukraine to risks associated with the achievement of SDGs nationally, regionally and globally shows an inherent complexity and interdependency. It highlights the fragility in our societal systems but also points to leverage points whereby investing on non-traditional security has spillover effects to support the peace and prosperity goals of the SDGs. Anticipatory innovation (Masys, 2022a) thereby can be leveraged. As reported in Masys (2022a) and described by Reez (2021), traditional mindsets and practices are inadequate to deal with disruptions characterized by VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) conditions. As we have seen from this analysis regarding non-traditional security and SDGs, linear thinking is inadequate for working in the VUCA environment. Here anticipatory innovation can be a gamechanger in addressing shocks to societal systems stemming from the spillover effects of regional conflicts. This requires a mindset that embraces the application of futures thinking. Even though foresight tools are increasingly integrated into policymaking, governments often lack a practical understanding of how to anticipate uncertain futures but also how to act on them today to achieve desired outcomes (Tõnurist and Hanson, 2020). As reported in Masys (2022a) and described in Tõnurist and Hanson (2020: 31) ‘Anticipation does not mean predicting the future, but rather it is about asking questions about plausible futures so that we may act in the present to help bring about the kind of futures we decide we want…It is a capacity connected to engaging with alternative futures, based on sensitivity to weak signals, and an ability to visualize their consequences, in the form of multiple possible outcomes …’. Considering the lessons learned from the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (UNDRR, 2022), anticipatory innovation in support of exploring shocks and fragility in our societal systems emerges from the intersection of futures thinking (exploring the possibility space), systems thinking (understanding the non-traditional security and SDG landscape) and design thinking (a problem-solving approach that is human centred, possibility driven, option focused and iterative).

12 Conclusion Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked global politics, markets and societal systems associated with non-traditional security. The impacts have exacerbated the humanitarian, development, and peace (HDP) nexus challenges. Understanding the inherent fragility, interdependencies and interconnectivity across the non-traditional security and SDG landscape can help in the design of global resilience strategies in order to future proof the most vulnerable populations from shocks (be they man-made or natural disasters). The mapping illustrated provides insights into high leverage

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intervention strategies. With this in mind, anticipatory innovation (Masys, 2022a) was introduced to support solution navigation through the intersection of futures thinking, systems thinking and design thinking.

References Benton, TG., Froggatt, A., and Wellesley, L.,Grafham, O., King, R., Morisetti, N., Nixey, J., Schröder, P. (2022) The Ukraine war and threats to food and energy security. Cascading risks from rising prices and supply disruptions. Chatham House Report. https://www.chathamhouse. org/2022/04/ukraine-war-and-threats-food-and-energy-security Charmaz, K. (2007) Constructing Grounded Theory 2nd Edition. London. Sage Publications Ltd. Coenen, J.,Glass, L-M., Sanderink, L. (2022) Two degrees and the SDGs: a network analysis of the interlinkages between transnational climate actions and the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability Science (2022) 17:1489–1510 Dawes, JHP (2022) SDG interlinkage networks: Analysis, robustness, sensitivities, and hierarchies. World Development 149 (2022) FAO (2022) Impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on global food security and related matters under the mandate of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). https://www. fao.org/3/nj164en/nj164en.pdf FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2022. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable. Rome, FAO. https://www.fao.org/3/cc0639en/cc0639en.pdf Fernandez-Lopez, C., Posada-Baquero, R., Ortega-Calvo, J.J., 2022. Nature-based approaches to reducing the environmental risk of organic contaminants resulting from military activities. Sci. Total Environ. 157007. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157007. Goldin, I., Mariathasan, M. (2014) The Butterfly Defect: How Globalization creates systemic risks, and what to do about it. Princeton University Press. Howard, JA. (2022) Facing up to our converging climate and food system catastrophes. Advances in Food Security and Sustainability, Volume 7. IRGC (2018). Guidelines for the Governance of Systemic Risks. Lausanne: International Risk Governance Center (IRGC). Laumann, F., von Kügelgen, J., Thiago Hector Kanashiro Uehara, Barahona, M. (2022) Complex interlinkages, key objectives, and nexuses among the Sustainable Development Goals and climate change: a network analysis. Lancet Planet Health 2022; 6: e422–30 Le Blanc, D. (2015) Towards Integration at Last? The Sustainable Development Goals as a Network of Targets Sustainable Development Sust. Dev. 23, 176–187 (2015) Lin, F., Li, X, Jia, N., Feng, F., Huang, H.,Huang, J., Fan, S.,Ciais, P., Song, X-P. (2023) The impact of Russia-Ukraine conflict on global food security . Global Food Security 36 (2023) 100661 Masys, A.J. (2012) ‘The emergent nature of risk as a product of ‘heterogeneous engineering- A relational analysis of the Oil and Gas Industry safety culture’ in S. Bennett (Ed) Innovative thinking in risk, crisis and disaster management, UK: Gower Publishing. Masys, A.J., Ray-Bennett, N., Shiroshita, H and Jackson, P. (2014) High Impact/ Low Frequency extreme events: Enabling Reflection and Resilience in a Hyper-connected World. 4th International Conference on Building Resilience, 8–11 September 2014, Salford Quays, United Kingdom. Procedia Economics and Finance 18 (2014) 772–779. Masys, A.J. (2014) Dealing with Complexity: thinking about networks and the comprehensive approach. In A.J. Masys (ed) Networks and network analysis for Defence and Security. Springer Publishing. Masys AJ (ed) (2016a) Disaster forensics: understanding root cause and complex causality. Springer. Masys AJ (ed) (2016b) Exploring the security landscape- non-traditional security challenges.

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Masys, A.J. (ed) (2021) Sensemaking in Security. Springer Publishing. Masys, AJ (2022a) Transforming Future Defence Capabilities through Anticipatory Innovation. NATO Symposium STO-MP-MSG-197. Masys, AJ (2022b) Non-Traditional Security: A Risk Centric View. In Masys, A.J. (ed) (2022) Handbook of Security Science. Springer Publishing. Masys, A.J. and Lin, L. (ed) (2018) Asia/Pacific Security Challenges-Managing Black Swans and Persistent Threats. Springer Publishing. Rawtani, D., Gupta, G., Khatri, N., Rao, PK., Hussain, CM., (2022)Environmental damages due to war in Ukraine: A perspective Science of the Total Environment 850 (2022) 157932 Reez, N. (2021) Foresight-based leadership. Decision making in a growing AI environment. In G Jacobs et al., (ed) International Security Management: new solutions to complexity. Springer. Rogers, A. (2022) The war in Ukraine and its impact on the SDGs and global human development. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/war-ukraine-its-impact-sdgs-global-human-dev elopment-adam-rogers/ Senge, P. M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. London, UK: Century Business. Sikorsky, E., Barron, E., Hugh, B., Femia, E.F., Parthemore, C., (2022) Climate, Ecological Security and the Ukraine Crisis: Four Issues to Consider, p. 5. Su, Z.,McDonnell, D., Cheshmehzangi, A., Ahmad, J., Segalo, S., Pereira da Veiga, C., Xiang, Y-T. (2022) Public health crises and Ukrainian refugees Brain Behavior and Immunity 103 (2022) 243–245 Tollefson, J (2022) WHAT THE WAR IN UKRAINE MEANS FOR ENERGY, CLIMATE AND FOOD. Nature | Vol 604 | 14 April 2022 Tõnurist, P. and A. Hanson (2020), “Anticipatory innovation governance: Shaping the future through proactive policy making”, OECD Working Papers on Public Governance, No. 44, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/cce14d80-en. UN (2015) https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/sustainable-developmentgoals-kick-off-with-start-of-new-year/ UN (2022) Global Gendered Impacts of the Ukraine Crisis on Energy Access and Food Security and Nutrition. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/Policy-paper-Globalgendered-impacts-of-the-Ukraine-crisis-en.pdf UNDP (2022) Rapid Assessment by the Regional Bureau for Africa, UNDP: The impact of the war in Ukraine on sustainable development in Africa. https://www.undp.org/africa/publications/imp act-war-ukraine-sustainable-development-africa UNDP (2022b) Global cost-of-living crisis catalyzed by war in Ukraine sending tens of millions into poverty, warns UN Development Programme. https://www.undp.org/european-union/pressreleases/global-cost-living-crisis-catalyzed-war-ukraine-sending-tens-millions-poverty-warnsun-development-programme#:~:text=71%20million%20people%20in%20the,of%20the%20C OVID%2D19%20pandemic. UNDP (2022c) The Development Impact of the War in Ukraine: Initial projections. https://www. undp.org/publications/development-impact-war-ukraine-initial-projections UNDRR & UNU-EHS (2022). Understanding and managing cascading and systemic risks: lessons from COVID-19. Geneva, UNDRR; Bonn, UNU-EHS. https://www.undrr.org/public ation/understanding-and-managing-cascading-and-systemic-risks-lessons-covid-19 Urry J (2002) The global complexities of September 11th. Theory Culture Soc 19(4):57–69 WEF (2023) The Global Risks Report 18th Edition. https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risksreport-2023/ World Bank Report (2020) World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020– 2025 (English). Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group. Xu, T. and Masys, A.J. (2016) Critical Infrastructure vulnerabilities: embracing a network mindset In A.J. Masys (ed) Exploring the Security Landscape- non-traditional security challenges. Springer Publishing.

Russia’s Backyard: China and Central Asia after the Invasion of Ukraine Alvaro Mendez

Abstract This chapter explores the complex geopolitical transformations occurring in Central Asia against the backdrop of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. It critically assesses Moscow’s declining influence juxtaposed with the growing clout of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the region. The intricate balancing act of Central Asian states is examined through the concept of multi-vectorism, a strategy used by these nations to diversify foreign alliances and resist domination by any single power. The key argument is that the crisis in Ukraine presents a unique window for Beijing to reinforce its position in Central Asia, a claim supported by the region’s reticence to endorse Russia’s intervention and its progressive alignment with the Chinese leadership. The broader implications of these power shifts on the global stage, including potential challenges to the US and its allies, are also scrutinized. The chapter is structured to provide an overview of China’s evolving relations with Central Asia post-1991, a detailed appraisal of each Central Asian republic’s ties with the PRC, an exploration of the consequent US national security and foreign policy challenges, and concludes with strategic recommendations for the US and its allies in navigating this shifting geopolitical landscape. Keywords Central Asia geopolitics · Russia-Ukraine crisis · China’s emerging dominance · Multi-vector foreign policy · US global influence

1 Introduction Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine has had far-reaching global consequences and has led to significant shifts in international relations. One region that has experienced the impact of this upheaval is Central Asia. Russia’s once-dominant role in the region after the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 is in rapid decline due to the events in Ukraine. Historically, Central Asia has been contested by outside great powers, with Moscow viewing the area as falling A. Mendez (B) LSE Global South Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_10

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within its sphere of political and military influence as if by default. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) also sees the region as pivotal to its national interests, but up till now has prioritized trade and investment opportunities while preferring to maintain a balance of power with Russia. After the USSR’s collapse, the United States also developed close ties with the newly independent Central Asian states in order to promote democratic values and market-based economic reforms. Support from Washington helped encourage the region’s transition to independence and wider engagement with the international community. In consequence, some of these states even allowed a US military presence, particularly after 9/11. This began to change in 2014, however, when Kyrgyzstan asked the Obama Administration to vacate the Manas Transit Centre in order to improve ties with Russia. This air mobility hub had been supporting military operations in Afghanistan since 2001. It was a decision which reflected the continuing competition for regional influence amid a shifting geopolitical landscape. It is worth mentioning that no US President has ever visited the region. Central Asian countries are a thought-provoking enigma. Although perceived as states having only moderate regional influence and limited international recognition, they have successfully negotiated broader relations with neighbouring Great Powers without sacrifice of sovereignty. Nor have they fallen entirely under Moscow’s control despite their nearness to Russia and their significant ethnic links with it. Similarly, their close proximity to the PRC and deep trade and diplomatic ties with it have not precluded maintaining their independence and resisting Chinese domination (for the time being). In this they show that despite small size and unimportance in world politics, they have plenty of agency and exercise it effectively in their regional context and sometimes beyond. Some scholars have interpreted their foreign policy approach as exhibiting the typical characteristics of small or weak states utilizing multi-vectorism as a strategy (Baldacchino and Wivel, 2020; Sim and Aminjonov, 2022). This is a form of statecraft that enables countries like the ones in Central Asia to diversity their foreign relations, in order to avoid a more powerful country from gaining a dominant position (Contessi, 2015). In my view, a multi-vector foreign policy can be effective only if multiple viable options are available to a country. Regrettably, Russia has been the hegemon and sole bandwagoning option for these Central Asian nations for most of their brief existence. But China has chipped away at Moscow’s hegemony in recent years, and the Russian intervention in Ukraine has dealt a significant blow to Russia’s influence in Central Asia. In this chapter, I argue that the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is furnishing a unique opportunity for the PRC to establish itself as the dominant power in Central Asia. China’s ascendancy is already on display and may explain why none of the five Central Asian countries have thrown their support behind Moscow, as might have been expected before the intervention (Umarov, 2022). After the war started, Moscow lavished real attention on Central Asia; official Russian records show that Putin made a total of nine overseas trips after the conflict began, of which five were to Central Asia (Kremlin, 2023). Putin’s main goal on these trips was to garner moral

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and possibly material support for Russia’s policy in Ukraine, but despite all efforts, the region has offered little solace, if any. Russia’s soft power in Central Asia is slipping: polls indicate that most Central Asians blame Moscow for their current economic problems. The mainstay of Russia’s influence remains the relations of trust with the several political elites; nevertheless, as the Central Asian elites are gradually changing, so the public is demanding more local leadership, on foreign policy issues as well (Sharfili et al., 2022). Unless Russia changes its approach, its influence in Central Asia is likely to dwindle away in the foreseeable future (Umarov, 2022). Some Central Asian leaders have even confronted Putin publicly: Emomali Rahmon, President of Tajikistan, for example, who loudly told him at a regional meeting in Kazakhstan in October 2022, “We want respect. Nothing else. Respect.” He went on to complain that Russia had been treating his country and the whole Central Asian region as a backyard (Kika, 2022). I contend that this would not have happened before the crisis in Ukraine and if not for China consolidating its economic domination in the region. The geopolitical implications of its rising influence are significant both at the regional level and for global power dynamics. A more assertive China in the region can reshape trade and investment patterns, alter the balance of power in other key strategic regions, and potentially contribute to challenging US global influence. This chapter is structured as follows. In the next section, I will provide an overview of China’s relationship with Central Asia since the region became independent in 1991, to set the stage for my analysis of Beijing’s rising influence in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. In the section thereafter, I will furnish a briefing for each of the five republics on their relations with the PRC. In the penultimate section of this chapter, I will turn to the national security and foreign policy implications for the United States. Finally, I will conclude by offering some recommendations for how the US and its allies might respond to these challenges.

2 China and Central ASIA—Strategic Proximity One thing about which Beijing was clear from the beginning is that this was Russia’s backyard; so, it would have to manage its own ambitions to keep the balance with Moscow. Accordingly, the PRC focused more on the economic and trade elements of its foreign policy with the region while leaving most of the politico-military aspects to Russia. I will survey overall relations between China and Central Asia. It is a story that is intertwined with both domestic and foreign policy, and is commonly referred to in China as “peripheral policy” (Blank, 2012). Clearly understanding the importance of diplomatic recognition since its founding in 1949, China reacted within days to the dissolution of the USSR by recognizing the independence of the five new Central Asian republics and establishing diplomatic ties with them in January 1992. Analysts believe Beijing’s despatch in cementing mutual recognition in these countries’ early days was a move signalling respect for

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their independent choice of development path (Hall, 2014). It was a symbolic gesture which helped Beijing build up guanxi (trust and cooperation) with the region. Once these diplomatic ties were established, Beijing pursued the negotiation of borders, which began bilaterally as early as 1992 (Clarke, 2003). Beijing believed such recognition would help reduce Western influence in the region, the better to assert their presence and interests (Pradhan, 2018). The PRC believed stable and cooperative relations with its new neighbours was crucial to its security against regional unrest (Fatima and Adnan, 2017). Beijing was particularly worried that cross-border trade could encourage separatist movements among the estimated 9–10 million Muslims living on the Chinese side of the border, mostly in Xinjiang, so high-ranking policymakers visited some of the new Central Asian countries as early as 1994 to seek assurances that they would not help any separatists attempts (McMillen, 2005b). Other geopolitical factors have been driving the PRC’s attentiveness to Central Asian countries. The PRC spotted their energy riches (Chen and Fazilov, 2018) and became interested because of its economy’s need for long-term security of energy supply (Lal, 2006). Other analysts have argued that, about this time, China even scouted out any defence technology these countries may have inherited from the Soviet Union which the Chinese might acquire at lower cost than they would incur by developing everything in-house from scratch (McMillen, 2005a). To stabilise the region further, Beijing created the Shanghai Five Forum in 1996 compassing Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The Forum was originally set up as a regional security bund to address border security and counterterrorism and to interdict illicit drugs and organised crime regionally. Over time, its mission has crept on to cultural exchange, economic cooperation, and at last to the founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001, which is a collective security intergovernmental organisation ambitiously spanning Asia (Chung, 2006). The SCO is made up of eight members: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. There are also four observers: Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia, who are interested in becoming full members. Finally, there are six “Dialogue Partners”: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. In 2021 Iran began the process of becoming a full member of the SCO. Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have recently been granted Dialogue Partner status, further expanding the SCO’s influence and reach (UN, 2023a). In 2022 President Erdogan of Turkey made the significant announcement of his country’s intention to achieve full membership in the SCO. If successful, Turkey would become the only NATO member within the organization (Donnellon-May, 2022). China’s strategic importance was highlighted by Liu Yazhou, a former highranking official in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) who in 2010 labelled Central Asia a “rich piece of cake given to today’s Chinese people by Heaven” (Liu, 2010; Pantucci et al., 2022). Lately, the region has been rising in priority for the PRC, as evidenced by President Xi Jinping’s launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Kazakhstan in 2013 (Mendez et al., 2022). By expanding its political and economic influence in Central Asia, Beijing intends to enhance its power

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in its periphery and to reshape the economic and security dynamics of that region. The BRI’s emphasis on infrastructure development and connectivity across Eurasia will reshape trade and investment patterns and alter geopolitics. This is crucial because if the BRI does not work in Central Asia, it will not work anywhere else. One thing is for sure:—Xi Jinping wants to eat that cake.

3 Five Countries—Five Stories: China and Central Asia To fathom China’s relations with Central Asia, one must bear in mind that it is divided into five distinct countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Even though they share similarities in culture, history, geography, and economic structure, their transition from the Soviet central planning system varied widely (Fingar, 2016). Kyrgyzstan for instance, was the quickest to embrace liberalization, while Turkmenistan was the least reformed of all the former Soviet republics (Marat, 2012). For this reason, analysts must take care to appreciate the nuances of each country’s bilateral relations with China. This requires some understanding of the political, economic, and cultural factors that shape each country. In the following section, I will provide a brief overview of how the five countries have been engaging with the PRC on a bilateral basis, and I will focus specifically on recent developments. The US and Russia will be mentioned when appropriate, as they have also been part of the equation. In this section, the reader will be able to identify a number of variables that in my opinion are facilitating China’s ascendancy to a hegemonic political and economic partner of the Central Asian republics in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine. These variables merely reinforce, however, China’s clear intention of becoming Central Asia’s greatest power. As a result, these five states are reassessing their external relations and seeking to diversify their foreign policy options, accelerating a power withdrawal into which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is moving. Some of these factors were in play before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but have gained greater significance since then. They include: (1) the long-term erosion of Russia’s influence; (2) the Central Asian countries’ own recalibration of foreign policy priorities; and (3) the disruption of trade routes between China and Europe.

3.1 Kazakhstan and China Kazakhstan established diplomatic relations with China on January 3, 1992 (Hall, 2014), and has since become a key partner of Beijing. Analysts argue that from the outset, Kazakhstan has pursued a multi-vector foreign policy, a pattern characterized by the development of “foreign relations through a framework based on a pragmatic, non-ideological foundation” (Hanks, 2009, 259). In the early days, multi-vectorism was more of a necessity for Kazakhstan, but now it has become a powerful tool

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allowing the country to show some effective independence from Russia (Bohr et al., 2019; Sim and Aminjonov, 2022). Multi-vectorism is of course easier to achieve if an eager partner like the PRC lies next door, willing to extend economic and diplomatic support. Kazakhstan is becoming more and more important for the PRC, especially since President Xi announced the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) there in 2013 (Mendez and Alden, 2021). Geographically, Kazakhstan serves as a vital gateway for the land routes of the BRI. Xi has consistently underscored the country’s significance, as witness his making it the first destination of his first foreign trip in September 2022, since the start of the Covid pandemic (Zheng, 2022). In 2015, too, Kazakhstan joined the Asian Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), China’s version of the World Bank. It is currently Central Asia’s biggest member of the AIIB and has been the recipient of significant funding from the Bank (AIIB, 2023). I believe Kazakhstan’s ever greater nearness to China is enabling it little by little to distance itself from Moscow, starting with its neutrality over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 (Vanderhill et al., 2020). And after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kazakhstan has continued to keep its distance from the Kremlin as a way of balancing its foreign policy; for instance, on 23 February 2023 the UN adopted a resolution demanding that Moscow leave Ukraine. Kazakhstan abstained along with a few other countries, including China (UN, 2023b). The question arises whether it did so to align with Beijing, or to remain true to its multi-vector policy. This is significant, especially given that President Putin visited Kazakhstan in October 2022 and reportedly lobbied for the country’s support on Ukraine (Bugajski, 2022).

3.2 Kyrgyzstan and China Kyrgyzstan established diplomatic relations with China on January 5, 1992 (Hall, 2014). It has also been a crucial partner for the PRC from the outset. Like other Central Asian states, it opted for a multi-vector policy to balance between regional and outside powers while avoiding any excessive dependence on any one power. Kyrgyzstan’s relationship with China is intricate and unique compared to other Central Asian nations. It is recognized for its relatively democratic political system, vibrant civil society, and robust culture of protest. The Kyrgyzstani public’s sometimes dim views of Chinese companies and workers, as well as concerns about national identity and sovereignty, elite influence, accountability, and corruption, play a significant role in shaping the dynamics of this relationship, and have a real impact on the cooperation and conflicts that arise between China and Kyrgyzstan (Jones, 2023). Kyrgyzstan has always had a bottomless infrastructure dearth; accordingly, it used to receive large-scale funding from China to build power plants, electrical grids, and roads. Yet Beijing has extended no major funding since 2014 (van der Kley and Yau, 2021). Once a favoured recipient of loans by China’s policy banks, particularly the Ex-Im Bank of China, it endorsed the BRI after launch, but knew it was peripheral to the Initiative, as the natural route through to Europe was via Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan

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joined and has been a member of the AIIB since 2016, receiving lately some modest funding from that Bank (AIIB, 2023). The Ukraine crisis has been a game-changer, with the potential to make Kyrgyzstan the BRI’s new gateway to Europe (to the detriment of Kazakhstan), due to the necessity of companies’ avoiding Russia when sending/receiving products to/from Europe to avoid possible sanctions and hefty insurance premiums. This may explain Xi’s private meeting with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov during the SCO Summit in Uzbekistan in September 2022, reportedly to discuss construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, also known as the CKU Railway (Wu et al., 2021). Originally conceived in the mid-1990s, this project has become a top priority of the PRC, in that it can efficiently transport cargo and goods from its underdeveloped western side. The CKU Railway was not deemed a significant transportation route before the Ukraine crisis, but now its strategic location has made it a viable alternative to the BRI’s New Eurasian Land Bridge (NELB), previously the preferred route for transporting Chinese cargo to and from Europe via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, and Poland (Mendez et al., 2022). It is too early to know if the interest in using the country as the new gateway for the BRI on its way to Europe will become a fixture, but it was recently reported that the CKU project is under way already (Piedra and Kumar Gupta, 2023). It has also been reported that Japarov has been distancing himself from Putin, as by remaining neutral, but critical of his Ukraine adventure (RFERL, 2022a). About the recent February 2023 UN resolution asking Russia to leave Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan abstained, just like Kazakhstan and China (UN, 2023b).

3.3 Tajikistan and China Tajikistan established diplomatic relations with China on January 4, 1992 (Hall, 2014). It has a crucial role in China’s dealings with Central Asia, thanks to its strategic position on the region’s “high ground.” Its historical significance as a fulcrum in the 19th-century competition for the world’s geostrategic “heartland” has added to its importance (Gleason, 2012). Tajikistan is the poorest country in the region and has struggled with corruption and its people’s lack of basic liberties. At the end of the Cold War, these internal issues were aggravated by the impending departure of foreign troops from neighbouring Afghanistan (Olcott, 2012). After the events of September 11, 2001, Western military engagement in Afghanistan amplified Tajikistan’s vital importance. Its territorial nearness and the significant Tajik population in Afghanistan made it a key factor in the foreign policy calculations of global players like China, Russia, and the US (Gleason, 2012). Historically, the country has had a very close relationship with Russia, a connection going back to the USSR. This includes deep military cooperation and financial aid (often in exchange for political favours). Tajikistan hosts Russia’s largest non-naval base overseas. Moscow’s rationale is to contain Afghanistan’s violence

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(Rezvani, 2020). It has been reported that Moscow has been mobilizing to the Ukrainian front some of these troops from this installation (RFERL, 2022b). Tajikistan’s poverty has kept it on the lookout for development opportunities (USAID, 2023). As a land-locked country with very poor connectivity, investments and exports are hindered by prohibitive land transport costs. In this respect, the BRI has been very appealing to Tajiks since its launch in 2013. Tajikistan has been a member of the AIIB since 2016 and has received not inconsiderable funding from it and from the Chinese policy banks. These resources have helped scale-up Tajik investment in roads and rail and encouraged neighbouring states to do the same, the better to increase the competitiveness of its inland and cross-border transportation (World Bank, 2020). Chinese loans have helped the country boost its economy and made it easier to get some distance from Russia; but not too much, as the country is heavily reliant on Moscow as well. Beijing has taken advantage of its financial leverage to ask for return favours (just like Russia). This has been particularly evident in military cooperation since 2016, when China shifted its military strategy in greater Central Asia so as to guard the Xinjiang border from external interference, while also heightening its military presence. Experts believe Beijing has had a small military installation in Tajikistan since around 2016 to conduct joint patrols of the border (Rolland, 2019). Security experts think the base continues to operate to this day; though neither China nor Tajikistan officially acknowledges its existence (IISS, 2022). Historically, Tajikistan’s international relations have been fraught with tensions, particularly in dealings with Kyrgyzstan. In September 2022 there were border clashes, and 81 men were killed. Putin tried to intervene by calling on their Presidents to back off (Volpicelli, 2022), but Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, historically an ally of Moscow, pushed back and even confronted Putin publicly for getting involved in Tajikistan’s internal affairs (Uyezov, 2022). Such a bold rebuke would have been unthinkable before the Ukrainian crisis. I believe the Russian invasion will increase tensions with these countries, particularly owing to the progress of the CKU Railway, which bypasses Tajikistan altogether as it passes through Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to continue to Europe via Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, using multi-modal transport (Mendez et al., 2022). It is plausible that Beijing would have planned these railways to bypass Tajikistan to keep the country dependent on China. On the recent February 2023 UN resolution asking Russia to leave Ukraine, Tajikistan, like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China, abstained (UN, 2023b).

3.4 Uzbekistan and China Diplomatic relations were formalized between Uzbekistan and China on January 2, 1992 (Hall, 2014). Uzbekistan is the second largest country in Central Asia after Kazakhstan. China and Russia are Uzbekistan’s primary political and economic partners, who have been engaged since about 2005 in what is called “normative competition” (Fumagalli, 2007, 253). Before then, the country had good relations with

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Washington, particularly after 9/11 when it allowed the US to establish a military base to give logistical support for operations in Afghanistan (Walsh, 2005). Relations deteriorated in 2005 due to internal political affairs and external pressure from Moscow, and the US was evicted from the country (IISS, 2005). Ostensibly, the trigger was US criticism of the Uzbek government’s human rights violations against its own citizens earlier that year (IISS, 2005); however, some analysts believe the expulsion was actually initiated by the Uzbek then-President, Karimov, who wanted to align more closely with Moscow. It was from that time that Russia became the hegemon in Uzbekistan (Fumagalli, 2007). In recent years China has ramped up its challenge to Russian influence here by signing significant investment deals and becoming the country’s most critical export market. Nevertheless, both great powers have kept close ties with Uzbekistan, albeit with different intensities of economic influence (Dadabaev, 2018). Over the last decade, the bilateral China trade has increased seven-fold, and China has become the primary source of foreign investment in the country. Important infrastructure projects, such as the Central Asia-China gas pipeline and the Angren-Pap railway tunnel, were planned before the launch of the BRI, and these projects have heightened Uzbeks’ desire to cooperate with their neighbours. So, there is a sense of gratitude toward China by policymakers in Tashkent (Dadabaev, 2018), probably explaining why they have been inclined to favour China in the last few years (Biryukov, 2019). Located at the heart of Central Asia, Uzbekistan is optimistic about the BRI and its benefits, expecting it to open up trade routes to the Persian Gulf. The primary objective is to construct transport infrastructure connecting it to Europe and the Middle East. Uzbekistan is not so much seeking free trade agreements as looking to transition from labour-intensive to capital-intensive production through joint economic ventures with China. Russia’s action in Ukraine accelerates the prospects for deeper cooperation with the PRC. This is particularly so because of the aforementioned CKU Railway, which will put the country right in the middle of the emerging overland nexus between China and Europe (Mendez et al., 2022). When the February 2023 UN resolution asking Russia to leave Ukraine was voted on, Uzbekistan, like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China, abstained (UN, 2023b).

3.5 Turkmenistan and China Turkmenistan established diplomatic ties with the PRC on January 6, 1992. It has chosen a position of neutrality and avoids formal engagement in multilateral organizations. The country’s weak economic condition, high dependence on a single export good (natural gas), and a single export market (China), together with its traditionally non-aligned foreign policy, make the country highly susceptible to external influence. Not surprisingly, then, Russia and China have played important roles in Turkmenistan’s history, especially given that it has vast amounts of energy. In the wake of the BRI China has utilized energy diplomacy to cement cooperation with the country (Amineh and Van Driel, 2018).

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In late January 2021 Turkmenistan beat other gas suppliers in the region, including Russia, to become China’s main energy partner. For Turkmenistan this was a major achievement (RFERL, 2023). The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently stated that the war in Ukraine is unlikely to impact Turkmenistan’s policy of neutrality (EIU, 2023). But China is trying its best to get it to warm up politically (they are already on intimate trade terms). In January 2023 Xi hosted Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhammedov on a State Visit, in the course of which the two Presidents declared the ChinaTurkmenistan relationship would be raised to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. President Xi stressed that the two sides needed to expand energy cooperation as a priority. Natural gas cooperation is the cornerstone of China-Turkmenistan relations, and greater cooperation in this serves the strategic long-term interests of both countries. In the recent February 2023 vote on the UN resolution asking Russia to leave Ukraine, Turkmenistan was absent, presumably indicating its neutral stance on the conflict (UN, 2023b).

4 China’s Growing Hegemony in Central Asia—Washington and Beijing This section is about the national security and foreign policy implications for the United States of China’s rising influence in Central Asia. The discussion will address its potential impact on regional stability, the balance of power in strategic areas, and US-China relations more broadly. By assessing implications, we may better understand the geopolitical dynamics of the region and consider prospective strategies for responding to China’s inroads. Assessment begins by comparing the engagement of China and the US with Central Asia. Proximity of course matters, but political will matters too. China’s leaders worked to win the support of Central Asian leaders through a combination of respectful conduct, favourable terms of trade and finance, and a handsoff approach to internal affairs. The Central Asians found this appealing because, unlike Russia, China did not impose restrictive trade policies or covertly influence political outcomes. And, unlike the United States, China did not push Central Asian leaders to conform to a specific schedule on a plan for internal reforms (Olcott, 2013). The differing approaches were evident in practice. No US President has ever visited Central Asia, and US Secretaries of State also visit infrequently; the last one being Mike Pompeo in 2020, when he visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in February (U.S Department of State, 2023). Some hoped in 2021 that President Biden might break the taboo, but it does not appear likely at this time. Secretary of State Blinken arrival in Kazakhstan in 28 February 2023 should created an excellent opportunity to begin engaging with the region more actively than in the past. as he is scheduled to visit all five Central Asian countries (RFERL, 2023a). Starting the regional tour in Kazakhstan is strategically important, since it is one of the countries closest to

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Moscow in Central Asia, and the only one in the region that shares a border with Russia, making it highly significant. The reason for high-ranking US officials’ neglecting Central Asia is not remoteness, as witness US President Barack Obama’s four nearly yearly visits to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2014 (U.S Department of State, 2020). Speaking of remoteness, President Xi has visited more countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Washington’s backyard, than Obama, Trump and Biden combined. This proves that remoteness is not really the issue (Alden and Mendez, 2023). Martha Brill Olcott, a prominent analyst, argues that it is also not due to American policymakers’ busy schedules: as a diplomat from the region told her in 2013, “It’s not like the president of China isn’t also a busy man” (Olcott, 2013). She contends the real reason is that U.S. leaders are reluctant to give recognition to or to “reward” these undemocratic leaders, particularly as it would arouse criticism from vocal opponents in Congress (Olcott, 2013). In contrast, in 1994 former Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng embarked on a tour of the region (Macwilliam, 1994), and in 1996 Jiang Zemin became the first Chinese President to travel to Central Asia (Rashid, 2000). Hu Jintao also visited. The bestknown trip was President Hu’s to Turkmenistan in December 2009 to inaugurate a gas pipeline to China by turning on a valve (RFERL, 2010). The Presidents of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan were all present at that event. Since taking office in March 2013, President Xi has travelled numerous times to Central Asia, too many to count. That year alone, he visited all the countries in Central Asia excepting Tajikistan, which he visited the following year in 2014. He continued to travel to the region up until Covid closed international travel. Xi chose a Central Asian destination for his first trip overseas after the pandemic,—first going to Kazakhstan, then to Uzbekistan in September 2022 (FMPRC, 2023).

5 China’s Hegemony in Central Asia: Geopolitical Challenges to the US In this penultimate section I draw from the foregoing narrative to highlight some of the national security challenges Washington is likely to experience in Central Asia as a direct result of the Ukraine crisis, which is helping the PRC establish hegemony in the region. I identify the most important ones as three.

5.1 Return of US Military Bases to Central Asia: Very Unlikely if not Impossible Central Asia is a critical region where several great powers are competing for influence, the United States among them. Following the 9/11 attacks, the US established

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a significant military presence in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan; specifically, it had permission to build an air base in Uzbekistan, known as K2, to provide logistical support for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (Walsh, 2005). However, in 2005 the US was given notice to vacate the premises within six months, supposedly as a result of criticizing the Uzbek government’s human rights abuses in that year (IISS, 2005). Analysts believe the real reason was that the Uzbek President at the time had decided to realign with Russia (Fumagalli, 2007). The US completed the withdrawal by early November 2005 (Akbarzadeh, 2007). The US also had a military presence in Kyrgyzstan, where it was authorized in December 2001 to establish the Manas Transit Centre, an air mobility facility to support military operations in Afghanistan. In 2014 Kyrgyzstan asked the Obama Administration to vacate the hub. It wanted to improve relations with Russia which had by earlier agreement written off $500 million of Kyrgyzstan’s debt in exchange for permission to extend the lease until 2027 on one of its more important military bases abroad (Putz, 2022). The US has been trying for years to get back into the region and establish a military base there once again (Umarov, 2022). I predict that if China becomes the hegemon, any attempt to re-enter the region to establish a US military presence will prove extremely difficult, if not impossible.

5.2 China’s Military Rise in Central Asia China’s military trajectory in the global South, particularly in Africa, has given indications that Beijing is keen to expand its military presence abroad. In 2015 the PRC announced its decision to open a military base that it called a “logistical support facility” in Djibouti, a microstate with a population of 974,000 and a land area of 23,000 km2 , located in a strategic position at the intersection of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean, outside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea (Cabestan, 2020). The base was opened in 2017; and while it is not the only military installation in the country, as Japan, France, and the US also have bases there, experts believe China’s military proactiveness heralds an important change in its behaviour that might contradict its principles of non-interference and non-intervention (Hirono et al., 2019). This trend is likely to increase as the PRC takes a more prominent position in the world. China “will find itself inexorably pulled into the messy reality of foreign politics” (Miller, 2017, 242). It is also believed that Beijing will soon have a naval base in West Africa, in Equatorial Guinea (Tanchum, 2021). A recent report by the Rand Corporation, published at end of 2022, argues that the PRC is also likely to open military installations in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar and Pakistan in the foreseeable future (Garafola et al., 2022). Given that Russia already has military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (Putz, 2022), and that credible analysts believe the PRC has a small military installation in Tajikistan already (Rolland, 2019; IISS,

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2022), I would argue that the probability of China building a military base in Central Asia is high, particularly if it takes over the hegemony from Russia.

5.3 Return to Multi-levelled Hegemonic Competition (with New Actors) Is China’s emergence post-invasion as the hegemon in Central Asia a “done deal”? I do believe that Chinese hegemony is being solidified in the current conditions, yet foreign policy is never black or white and there are plenty of alternative scenarios that could play out. Among them is a return to the dynamics in play at the end of the Cold War, which is called a “multi-levelled hegemonic competition” (Deyermond, 2009, 151). The difference this time is that the three big powers, the US, Russia, and China, will be contending with emerging countries from the global South. These actors may lack global reach but could play a regional role for which the US in particular is not necessarily prepared. A good example of this is Turkey’s renewed interest in Central Asia. Central Asians are set to expand cooperation with Turkey as Turkey expands the scope of its diplomacy in the region (EIU, 2022) via the Organization of Turkish States, formerly known as the Council of Turkic Speaking States. The organization has five members, three of which are from Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan). Turkey plans to admit Turkmenistan soon (it is already an observer) (EIU, 2022). Despite facing economic challenges at home, Ankara sees plenty of geopolitical potential in the region. These developments will challenge the US, as Turkey announced in September it is seeking full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the China-led political, economic and security organization, which would make Turkey the only NATO country belonging to the SCO (Donnellon-May, 2022).

6 Conclusion I must end this chapter by noting that it was beyond the scope of the paper to provide a detailed history of China and Central Asia; therefore, I refer my readers to several works which offer a comprehensive history of Central Asia and its countries’ diplomatic ties with China, as of other notable actors like Russia and the US (see: Khalid, 2021; Blank, 2012; Clarke, 2003; Denoon, 2017; Gleason, 2012; McMillen, 2005a, 2005b; Mackerras et al., 2005; Mackerras, 1991, 2001; Marat, 2012; Keller, 2020; Fatland, 2020; Karrar, 2010). The geopolitical challenges to the US presented herein will not be easy to overcome. China’s presence is changing the dynamics of the region. Beijing even proposed a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine in mid-February 2023. While it drew

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harsh criticism from the West, Kazakhstan is saying the plan is “worthy of support” (RFERL, 2023b); showing that the PRC is influencing the politics of these countries. I offer four interrelated recommendations that may help shore up Washington’s position in the region. Reliability—It must be seen as a reliable partner. The US must prove to the Central Asians that they can be a reliable partner. Washington has a monumental challenge in convincing them that it is not fickle and deceitful, especially after the debacle of the Afghanistan withdrawal. In addition, the US will have to convince them that the advantages of any partnership outweigh the blowback from displeasing Beijing and possibly Moscow and others (like Ankara). This is a difficult task, because over the past decade the Central Asian people have been made sceptical of US willingness to counterbalance Russia and China in their region. Washington must prove otherwise, that it has more to offer, even by way of political will, than the region’s states would lose by displeasing Moscow and Beijing. Inventiveness. Washington has to be inventive. Given the long odds against securing any base in the region, Washington will have to be inventive enough to engage Central Asia in other ways. US military experts have hinted the cultivation of human intelligence (Demirjian, 2022). I doubt this will work on its own, as it will aggravate the sense of mistrust the US has already created in the region. I would advise policymakers to engage countries in the region by other means, like providing infrastructure finance, which is what China is doing. This sort of funding evinces a long-term desire for cooperation transcendent to the vagaries of security imperatives. Show and earn respect—Central Asian countries do not trust hegemons. Full stop. Whether the hegemon speaks Mandarin, English or Russian matters little to these peoples; all hegemons show lack of respect and recognition. The US should pay heed to the words of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon who told off Putin at a regional meeting in Kazakhstan in October 2022 with the words: “We want respect. Nothing else. Respect.” If Central Asia comes under Chinese hegemony, neither are they likely to get the respect they want—there are plenty of lessons which the US could learn and opportunities it could exploit from observing the unfolding interaction of Beijing with the global South.

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McMillen, Donald H. 2005a. “Soviet Union relations with China.“ In Dictionary of the Politics of the People’s Republic of China, edited by Colin Mackerras, Donald H. McMillen and Andrew Watson, 297-298. London: Routledge. McMillen, Donald H. 2005b. “Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.“ In Dictionary of the Politics of the People’s Republic of China, edited by Colin Mackerras, Donald H. McMillen and Andrew Watson, 349-351. London: Routledge. Mendez, Alvaro, and Chris Alden. 2021. “China in Panama: From Peripheral Diplomacy to Grand Strategy.“ Geopolitics 26 (3):838-860. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2019.1657413. Mendez, Alvaro, Francisco Javier Forcadell, and Kateryna Horiachko. 2022. “Russia–Ukraine crisis: China’s Belt Road Initiative at the crossroads.“ Asian Business & Management 21 (4):488-496. doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41291-022-00195-1. Miller, Tom. 2017. China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road. 1st ed. London: Zed Books. Olcott, Martha Brill. 2012. Tajikistan’s Difficult Development Path: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Olcott, Martha Brill 2013. China’s Unmatched Influence in Central Asia. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (18 September 2013). https://carnegieendowment.org/2013/09/18/china-sunmatched-influence-in-central-asia-pub-53035. Pantucci, Raffaello, and Alexandros Petersen. 2022. Sinostan: China’s Inadvertent Empire: Oxford University Press. Piedra, Javier M., and Pravesh Kumar Gupta. 2023. China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway back to life. Asia Times. (23 January 2023). https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/china-kyrgyzstan-uzbeki stan-railway-back-to-life/. Pradhan, Ramakrushna. 2018. “The Rise of China in Central Asia: The New Silk Road Diplomacy.“ Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 11 (1):9-29. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/ s40647-017-0210-y. Putz, Catherine. 2022. Russia Voices Aim to Increase Combat Readiness at Bases in Central Asia. The Diplomat. (30 August 2022). https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/russia-voices-aim-toincrease-combat-readiness-at-bases-in-central-asia/ Rashid, Ahmed. 2000. CHINA FORCED TO EXPAND ROLE IN CENTRAL ASIA. The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst. (19 July 2000). https://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-art icles/item/7187-analytical-articles-caci-analyst-2000-7-19-art-7187.html. Rezvani, Babak. 2020. “Russian foreign policy and geopolitics in the Post-Soviet space and the Middle East: Tajikistan, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria.“ Middle Eastern Studies 56 (6):878-899. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2020.1775590. RFERL. 2010. Chinese President Visiting Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty. (9 June 2010). https://www.rferl.org/a/Chinese_President_Visiting_Uzbekistan_Kaza khstan_/2066013.html. RFERL. 2022a. Kazakh President Says His Country Supports The Territorial Integrity Of All Countries. Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty. (11 November 2022a). https://www.rferl.org/a/ kazakhstan-toqaev-territorial-integrity-russia-ukraine/32127062.html. RFERL. 2022b. ‘Up To 1,500’ Russian Troops Redeployed To Ukraine From Tajik Base, Investigation Reveals. Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty. (14 September 2022b). https://www.rferl. org/a/russia-troops-tajik-base-redeployed-ukraine/32033791.html. RFERL. 2023. China’s Xi Calls For Greater Cooperation With Turkmenistan On Natural Gas. Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty. (6 January 2023). https://www.rferl.org/a/turkmenistan-china-nat ural-gas-cooperation/32212027.html. RFERL. 2023a. Blinken Arrives in Kazakhstan at Start of Asia Trip. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. (28 February 2023a). https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-us-blinken-meeting/ 32291409.html. RFERL. 2023b. Kazakhstan Says China’s Peace Plan For Ukraine ‘Worthy Of Support’. Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty. (26 February 2023b). https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-chinese-peaceplan-kazakhtstan-support/32288725.html.

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Rolland, Nadege, ed. 2019. Securing the Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Evolving Military Engagement Along the Silk Roads, NBR Special Report. Seattle, Washington: The National Bureau of Asian Research. Sharfili, Yunis, Chin-Lin Kao, and Bermet Derbishova. 2022. Russia’s War in Ukraine and Its Impact on Central Asia. The Diplomat. (24 October 2022). https://thediplomat.com/2022/10/ russias-war-in-ukraine-and-its-impact-on-central-asia/. Sim, Li-Chen, and Farkhod Aminjonov. 2022. “Statecraft in the Steppes: Central Asia’s Relations with China.” Journal of Contemporary China:1–16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564. 2022.2136937. Tanchum, Michael. 2021. China’s new military base in Africa: What it means for Europe and America. Euroopean Council on Foreign Relations. (14 December 2021). https://ecfr.eu/article/ chinas-new-military-base-in-africa-what-it-means-for-europe-and-america/. U.S Department of State. 2020. “Presidential and Secretaries Travels Abroad: Barack Obama.“ Office of the Historian, Last Modified 18 January. https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/ travels/president/obama-barack. U.S Department of State. 2023. “Presidential and Secretaries Travels Abroad: Mike Pompeo. “ Office of the Historian. https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/travels/secretary/pompeomichael-r. Umarov, Tamur. 2022. Russia and Central Asia: Never Closer, or Drifting Apart? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (23 December 2022). https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/ 88698. UN. 2023a. Shanghai Cooperation Organization. UN Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. (2023a). https://dppa.un.org/en/shanghai-cooperation-organization. UN. 2023b. UN General Assembly calls for immediate end to war in Ukraine. UN News. (23 February 2023b). https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/02/1133847. USAID. 2023. “Tajikistan: Economic Growth and Trade.“ United States Agency for International Development. https://www.usaid.gov/tajikistan. Uyezov, Olzhas. 2022. ‘We want respect’: Putin’s authority tested in Central Asia. Reuters. (18 October 2022). https://www.reuters.com/world/we-want-respect-putins-authority-testedcentral-asia-2022-10-18/. van der Kley, Dirk, and Niva Yau. 2021. How Central Asians Pushed Chinese Firms to Localize. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Vanderhill, Rachel, Sandra F Joireman, and Roza Tulepbayeva. 2020. “Between the bear and the dragon: multivectorism in Kazakhstan as a model strategy for secondary powers.“ International Affairs 96 (4):975-993. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaa061. Volpicelli, Gian. 2022. Putin urges Kyrgyz, Tajik leaders to de-escalate border tensions. Politico. (18 September 2022). https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-kyrgyzstan-tajikistan-de-escalateborder-tensions/. Walsh, Nick Paton. 2005. Uzbekistan kicks US out of military base. The Guardian. (8 August 2005). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/01/usa.nickpatonwalsh. World Bank. 2020. South Caucasus and Central Asia: The Belt & Road Initiative Tajikistan Country Case Study. World Bank, Washington, DC: World Bank. Wu, Shang-su, Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hong Liu, and Gong Xue. 2021. “Chinas railway diplomacy under the Belt and Road Initiative.“ In Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative, edited by Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hong Liu and Gong Xue. Edward Elgar Publishing. Zheng, Sarah. 2022. Xi in Kazakhstan for First Foreign Trip in Over Two Years. Bloomberg. (2022). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-14/xi-lands-in-kazakh stan-for-first-foreign-trip-in-over-two-years?leadSource=uverify%20wall.

Intelligence in Ukraine: Success, Failure, or Signaling Revolutionary Change? David Oakley

Abstract The role of intelligence, the focus of intelligence and the culture of intelligence organizations are shaped by the strategic environment. For example, the 9/ 11 attacks not only changed the structure of the U.S. intelligence community, but significantly altered its focus. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and ensuing conflict is altering how intelligence is defined, collected, and employed. These changes will not only affect the role of intelligence organizations but their relationship with those it serves. Intelligence practitioners must appreciate the implications of these changes and how their relationship with policymakers and the citizenry might evolve.

We all believe the Intelligence Community did a really excellent job of predicting the invasion, alerting the world as to what was going on, what the disposition of Russian troops were, the involvement of Belarus – all of that. What we missed, was the will to fight of the Ukrainians and the leadership of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and we also missed that in Afghanistan. —Senator Angus King.1 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a watershed moment for the world of intelligence.—Dr. Amy Zegart.2

1 “On Ukraine, ‘A Significant Issue that We Missed’-King Urges Intelligence Community to Better Assess Will to Fight.” Angus King, May 10, 2022. https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/on-ukraine-a-significant-issue-that-we-missed_king-urges-intelligence-community-tobetter-assess-will-to-fight. 2 Amy Zegart, “Open Secrets_Ukraine and the Next Intelligence Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, February 2023.

Disclaimer The views within this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views/policy of the United States Government or the Department of Defense. D. Oakley (B) Visiting Research Fellow, King’s Intelligence and Security Group, Department of War Studies, King’s College London, London, England e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_11

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1 Introduction Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has drawn a significant amount of attention from practitioners, writers, and scholars for what it signals about the future of intelligence. From the use of intelligence to highlight Vladimir Putin’s intention and garner international support, to the role of non-government open-source investigators or analysts in identifying Russian troop movements, propaganda efforts, and potential humanitarian violations; the Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to be altering how intelligence is defined, collected, and employed. There is little doubt the current conflict in Ukraine highlights important shifts in the role of intelligence, but it is also creating issues and confusion regarding how intelligence is defined and over what constitutes an intelligence practitioner. Although some might criticize these concerns as mere “navel gazing,” the confusion being created will affect how intelligence is perceived, its role in policymaking, and its relationship with the public. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been applauded as both an intelligence success and failure for the United States intelligence community (referred to as “intelligence community” throughout the rest of the chapter).3 For example, the use of intelligence, beginning in October 2021, to bring attention to Putin’s future invasion plan is viewed as a “novel” and successful use of intelligence.4 Where some applaud the intelligence community’s performance assessing Putin’s intentions, its assessment of Ukrainian will and Russian performance has not enjoyed similar praise.5 The mixture of intelligence successes and failures (or perceived intelligence successes and failures), the assigned responsibility for them, and the actions taken in response will affect how policymakers view the intelligence community and the intelligence profession. 3

Agreeing on a universal definition of intelligence in not as simple or straight forward as it might seem. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/what-is-intelligence. The ODNI site defines intelligence as “information gathered within or outside the U.S. that involves threats to our nation, its people, property, or interests; development proliferation, or use of weapons of mass destruction and any other matter bearing on the U.S. national or homeland security;” National Security, 50 U.S.C. states that “the term ‘intelligence’ includes foreign intelligence and counterintelligence.” It further breaks down the definitions by stating “the term ‘foreign intelligence’ means information relating to the capabilities, intentions, or activities of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations, or foreign persons.” “The term “’counterintelligence” means information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations.” See https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-1999title50-section401a&num=0&edition=1999#:~:text=%C2%A7401a.,foreign%20organizations% 2C%20or%20foreign%20persons. This chapter uses the ODNI definition of intelligence. 4 Huw Dylan and Thomas J. Maguire, “Secret Intelligence and Public Policy in Ukraine,” Survival, No. 64, Issue 4 (2022). As Dylan and Maguire point out although the scale and consistency of the use was unique, intelligence has been used in similar ways in the past. For example, the Kennedy Administration’s use of U2 photographs to show Russian build-up in Cuba and the use of intelligence to make a case for the invasion of Iraq (although much was later disproven) are examples. 5 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Hearing to Receive Testimony on Worldwide Threats, 117th Cong., 2nd sess., 2022, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/ doc/22-40_05-10-2022.pdf.

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The role of intelligence, how intelligence is perceived, and the culture of intelligence organizations are all shaped by the strategic environment.6 The modern intelligence community originated with the 1947 National Security Act and its initial organization and purpose was in response to the Pearl Harbor attacks and the burgeoning Cold War. Its evolution over its first five-decades was the result of shifts in the strategic environment, both international and domestic.7 The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 drastically altered the strategic environment, affecting the identity and role of the intelligence community.8 In the 1990s, the strategic environment was shifting. Internationally, some were arguing the United States’ victory in the Cold War was evidence of the supremacy of “liberal democracies.”9 Domestically, policymakers were looking for the “peace dividend” to result in reduced national security budgets and there was even legislation proposed to abolish the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).10 In this environment, the intelligence community shifted its focus towards supporting military operations while the Executive, Congress, and other interested institutions grappled with how the intelligence community should evolve for the post-Cold War world. The post-Cold War environment and the “peace dividend” it brought were fleeting. The September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks resulted in the first significant intelligence reform in over half a century while wars in Afghanistan and Iraq brought a dominant operational focus to the intelligence community. The 9/11 attacks and “War on Terror,” not only influenced the immediate mission of the intelligence community, but the subsequent two decades of counterterrorism and associated wars reshaped its culture and identity.11 Although the U.S. tried to shift away from the Global War on Terror (GWOT) for over a decade, its chaotic August 2021 departure from Afghanistan marked the end of an era.12 The GWOT era not only resulted in the 6

Jeffrey P. Rogg, “The Spy and the State: The History and Theory of American Civil-Intelligence Relations,” PhD diss., (The Ohio State University, 2020). Rogg’s thorough and excellent research on the history of “civil-intelligence relations,” argues that Intelligence evolved in response to any number of interacting factors and influences, from the threat environment to existing legislative structures to the aspirational principles of American civil society.” Rogg continues with this topic in a forthcoming book that will be published by Oxford University Press. 7 For example, 1975 Church and Pike Committees influenced how intelligence was perceived domestically and resulted in more engaged congressional oversight that led to the formation of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). 8 David P. Oakley, Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post-Cold War Relationship (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2019), 6. 9 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York, NY: Free Press, 2006). 10 U.S. Congress, Senate, S.236—End of the Cold War Act of 1991, 102nd Cong., 1991–1992, https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/236/text. 11 Douglas London, The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence (New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, 2021); Jeffrey P. Rogg, “The Spy and the State: The History and Theory of American Civil-Intelligence Relations,” PhD diss., (The Ohio State University, 2020). London and Rogg both do a good job capturing how intelligence agencies evolve/change. 12 “Asia Rebalance 2025.” CSIS, https://www.csis.org/programs/international-security-program/ global-threats-and-regional-stability/asia-rebalance-2025.

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reorganization of the intelligence community, but changed how policymakers, the military, intelligence professionals, and the U.S. population viewed the role of intelligence and its relationship with it. America’s departure from Afghanistan occurred while Putin was setting the conditions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.13 Despite the fact that foreign policy and the bureaucracies responsible for executing policy never “shift on a dime,” the late summer/early fall of 2021 marks an important transition point for the U.S. Intelligence Community. The departure of the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan formally marked the end of the post-9/11 wars which saw an increasing subordination of the intelligence community to military operations for two decades.14 The role of intelligence to publicly reveal Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine and gain support highlights a shift in the use of intelligence, while the role of various “intelligence actors” in the early days of the 2022 Ukraine war highlights a significant reframing of what is considered an intelligence practitioner. Although there are writers who correctly argue that Ukraine is signaling a “revolution in intelligence affairs,” there has not been enough discussion on what this means for the intelligence community, the intelligence profession, or its relationship with those it serves.15 As the U.S. continues to shift its focus towards “great power competition” and as the strategic environment changes because of technology, pandemics, climate change, the rise and fall of state and non-state actors, etc.; the role and expectations of intelligence in this shifting environment will also change. Ukraine provides an initial case study to explore how some of these changes could affect intelligence. This chapter proceeds by first providing background on Russian actions towards Ukraine from spring 2021 until its invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022, and the state of Russian/U.S. relations during this period. This context is important because it provides the reader an appreciation of the events that shaped U.S. decision-making and choices over how it employed intelligence as part of foreign policy. After establishing this context, the chapter then turns to considering the role of intelligence leading up to the Ukraine invasion and during the invasion. The role of intelligence and the performance of intelligence organizations in Ukraine have been important topics among scholars, pundits, and politicians. While the use of intelligence to illuminate Putin’s intentions and to build support among other nations has been successful, the failure to identify the incompetence of Russia’s military, to predict the bravery of Ukraine’s leaders, or to appreciate the commitment of Ukraine’s citizens has raised congressional concerns, especially in the aftermath of similar analytical “predictions” in Afghanistan. Beyond the event peculiar critiques and praise of intelligence, the invasion of Ukraine provides a glimpse into the evolution of intelligence and the possible future 13

James Risen. “U.S. Intelligence Says Putin Made a Last Minute Decision to Invade Ukraine.” The Intercept, March 11, 2022. https://theintercept.com/2022/03/11/russia-putin-ukraine-invasionus-intelligence/. According to reporting, Putin did not make the call to invade until the last minute. 14 David P. Oakley. Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post-Cold War Relationship (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2019). 15 Amy Zegart, “Open Secrets_Ukraine and the Next Intelligence Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, February 2023.

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role of intelligence. Capturing and exploring what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine tells us about the future of intelligence is the purpose of this chapter and the focus of its final section. While other authors provide valuable perspectives on intelligence in Ukraine, the rise of OSINT through the war, and the declassification of intelligence to call out behavior or shape opinion, few consider what the use of intelligence in these ways and the discussions/debates it spurs means for the intelligence community. The fascination with OSINT has also raised important questions regarding whether OSINT should be considered an intelligence discipline, not because open source information should be ignored, but because it already falls within other intelligence disciplines.16 The push for increased open source capability in the intelligence community and the questioning of OSINT as a separate discipline are important topics for the intelligence community to ponder. Although this chapter is informed and benefits by the previous discussions/debates, it is different because it focuses on how evolving views of OSINT and the use of intelligence affects how intelligence is defined and who is considered an intelligence practitioner. Specifically, how does the role of non-governmental actors conducting intelligence like functions and this activity being referred to as “OSINT” affect perceptions of the intelligence community and how it evolves?

2 Spring/Fall 2021: Prelude to an Invasion In March 2021, as Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, battled its third coronavirus outbreak, fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops in Eastern Ukraine was increasing.17 This increased fighting occurred as Russia conducted its largest military buildup along its western border since its 2014 invasion of Ukraine.18 Russian leaders argued the build-up was a defensive measure in response to either the Defender-Europe exercise or because of the threat Ukraine posed; not the initial phase of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.19

16

Joseph Hatfield, “There is No Such Thing as Open Source Intelligence,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2023.2172367. 17 Maria Varenikova. “Kyiv Enters a Three Week Lockdown.” New York Times, March 19, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/world/kyiv-enters-a-three-week-lockdown.html? searchResultPosition=21; Kramer, Andrew E. “Fighting Escalates in Eastern Ukraine, Signaling the End to Another Cease-Fire.” New York Times, April 30, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/world/europe/ukraine-russia-fighting.html?searchResult Position=33. 18 Mykola Bielieskov. “The Russian and Ukranian Spring 2021 War Scare.” CSIS, September 21, 2021. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-and-ukrainian-spring-2021-war-scare. 19 Mykola Bielieskov. “The Russian and Ukranian Spring 2021 War Scare.” CSIS, September 21, 2021. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-and-ukrainian-spring-2021-war-scare.

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Russian military movement and other Russian foreign policy challenges had plagued the Biden administration since it entered office on January 20, 2021. Twoweeks after assuming the helm of Commander-in-Chief, Biden “extended the New Start Treaty with the Russian Federation for five years.”20 New Start, or the “Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,” was initiated during the Obama Administration’s first term and was focused on reducing the offensive nuclear capability of both the U.S. and Russia.21 Despite extension of New Start, which subsequently Putin suspended during his annual parliamentary address in February 2023, the broader Russian/US relationship remained tattered in early 2021.22 On March 15, 2021, as fighting was increasing in the Donbas region, and a month before the Russian military build-up near the Ukraine border was called out by U.S. officials, the intelligence community declassified its “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections” assessment.23 The report highlighted that Russia once again tried to influence the outcome of a U.S. presidential election through information operations.24 The declassification of this report came almost seven months after the U.S. Senate released the fifth and final volume of its report on “Russian Active Measure Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election.”25 The 2020 assessment stated there was no evidence that Russia tried to access election systems, but it did highlight Russian influence in trying to re-elect Donald Trump. 20

Anthony J. Blinken. “On the Extension of the New START Treaty with the Russian Federation.” U.S. Department of State, February 3, 2021. https://www.state.gov/on-the-extension-of-the-newstart-treaty-with-the-russian-federation/. 21 “New Start Treat.” U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/new-start/. 22 Steve Gutterman. “What to Watch for in Putin’s February 21 Address.” Radio Free Europe, February 20, 2023. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin-speech-state-nation-ukraine-war/ 32280035.html; Faulconbridge, Guy. “Russia’s Putin Issues New Nuclear Warning to West over Ukraine.” Reuters, February 21, 2023. HYPERLINK "sps:urlprefix::https" https://www.reuters. com/world/putin-update-russias-elite-ukraine-war-major-speech-2023-02-21/. 23 Julian E. Barnes. “Intelligence Chiefs Warn of Russian Troops Near Ukraine and Other Threats.” New York Times, April 20, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/politics/intelligence-worldwide-threats.html?search ResultPosition=56. 24 “Foreign Threats to the 2020 Federal Elections.” National Intelligence Council, March 10, 2021. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf. Although the intelligence community assessed that Russia did not appear to use “persistent cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure,” it did highlight the use of “proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives—including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden—to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration.” 25 ‘Senate Intel Releases Volume 5 of Bipartisan Russia Report.” U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, August 18, 2020. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releasesvolume-5-bipartisan-russia-report; U.S. Congress, Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, 116th Cong., 2nd sess., 2020, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-select-committee-intell igence-united-states-senate-russian-active-measures.

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Although fighting increased in Eastern Ukraine and this violence coincided with Russia’s build-up of forces on its border, there was already an estimated 87,000 troops positioned near Ukraine when the build-up began. The increased troop levels, which Russia claimed were due to “readiness checks,” only raised the number of troops an estimated 13,000 to 33,000. A significant number, but it highlights that Russia already had a more significant footprint in the area prior to the spring buildup.26 In May 2021, Russia claimed its exercises were over and started reducing the number of troops closer to the 87,000 that were present prior to the March–April build-up.27 As Russia was slightly reducing its forces near the Ukrainian border, U.S. and Russian officials announced that Biden and Putin would meet in Geneva in June 2021 for a summit to “restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship.”28 Both Biden and Putin spoke positively about their meeting during post-summit press conferences, but there were mixed reports on the significance of Ukraine in the discussions.29 Biden remarked during his press conference that he “communicated the United States’ unwavering commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”30 Putin tried to distance the summit from the Ukraine issue, stating that it was “touched upon,” but not in “great detail.”31 During the press conference he brushed off questions about Ukraine becoming a NATO member and also described Russia as “acting absolutely appropriately to counter threats that are emerging against 26

Mykola Bielieskov. “The Russian and Ukranian Spring 2021 War Scare.” CSIS, September 21, 2021. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-and-ukrainian-spring-2021-war-scare. 27 Scott Neuman. “Russia to Pull Troops from Ukraine Border, Defusing Crisis.” NPR, April 22, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989859549/russia-to-pull-troops-from-ukraine-borderdefusing-crisis. 28 Jen Psaki. “Statement by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on the Meeting Between President Joe Biden and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.” The White House, May 25, 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/25/statement-bywhite-house-press-secretary-jen-psaki-on-the-meeting-between-president-joe-biden-and-presid ent-vladimir-putin-of-russia/; http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65655. 29 Amanda Macias. “Watch live: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks after meeting with Biden.” CNBC, June 16, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/16/watch-live-russian-president-vladimir-putin-speaks-aftermeeting-with-biden.html; https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/16/watch-live-biden-holds-press-confer ence-after-meeting-with-putin.html. 30 Joseph Biden. “Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference.” The White House, June 16, 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/06/16/remarks-bypresident-biden-in-press-conference-4/; https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/rus sia-ukraine-war-oral-history-00083757. Although most of the press coverage of the summit focused on the broader U.S./Russia relationship, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan later stated that part of “the motivating impulse for making the proposal for the summit in Geneva was to try to create an alternative path that would involve Russia deescalating around Ukraine and us trying to inject some stability—not just into the U.S.-Russia relationship, but stability into the broader Ukraine situation. When President Biden met with President Putin in Geneva, obviously the top story around that visit was the ransomware attacks and cyber, but a healthy amount of the discussion behind closed doors was about Ukraine.”. 31 “News conference following Russia-US talks.” President of Russia, June 15, 2021. http://en.kre mlin.ru/events/president/news/65870.

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us.”32 For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that any agreement reached over Ukraine at the conference was not acceptable since Ukraine was not involved in the discussion.33 The Geneva Summit led to the Strategic Stability Dialogue that focused on arms control issues between Russia and the U.S. in July and September of 2021 and both sides agreed to continue discussions on security issues.34 The shared commitment towards “reducing the risk of armed conflicts” was short-lived as Russia started to build up its forces once again along the border with Ukraine.35 Two weeks prior to the second Strategic Stability Dialogue meeting in Geneva, Russia completed its “largest strategic exercise,” with it Belarussian allies.36 ZAPAD 2021 reportedly involved more than 200,000 troops from Russia and Belarus and was described as a “joint strategic exercise,” focused on repealing an attempted overthrow by Western powers.37 Although the ZAPAD exercise was not a new event, ZAPAD 2021 was the largest exercise since the Soviets conducted ZAPAD 1981 four decades earlier.38 The size of the exercise raised concern in both Europe and the United States.39 32

Abraham Mahshie. “Putin downplays troop buildup, dodges question on Ukraine NATO entry.” Yahoo, June 16, 2021. https://news.yahoo.com/putin-downplays-troop-buildup-dodges-195 600720.html. 33 “Biden-Putin Summit Over, Putin and Biden Cite Gains, but Tensions Are Clear.” New York Times, December 07, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/16/world/biden-putin. 34 Steven Pifer. “U.S.-Russia Relations, one year after Geneva.” Brookings, June 16, 2022. https:// www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/06/16/u-s-russia-relations-one-year-after-gen eva/; Bugos, Shannon. “U.S., Russia to Continue Strategic Dialogue.” Arms Control Association, December 21, 2021. https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2021-12/us-russian-nuclear-arms-controlwatch. 35 “U.S.-Russia Presidential Joint Statement on Strategic Stability.” The White House, June 16, 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/16/u-s-russiapresidential-joint-statement-on-strategic-stability/. 36 Chris Bott, “ZAPAD 2021 Brief,” Proceedings, Vol 147, Issue 9 (September 2021): 1,423. 37 Giangiuseppe Pili and Fabrizio Minniti, “Understanding Russia’s Great Games: From Zapad 2013 to Zapad 2021.” RUSI, June 07, 2022. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/understanding-russias-greatgames-zapad-2013-zapad-2021; “Russian Military Exercises,” Congressional Research Service, October 04, 2021. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11938. 38 “Russia holds the largest military exercise in Europe for 40 years,” The Economist, September 13, 2021. https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/09/13/russia-holds-the-largest-military-exercise-ineurope-for-40-years. 39 Eugene Rumer. “Even a Major Military Exercise Like Zapad Can’t Fix Some of the Biggest Security Challenges Facing Russia,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 21, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/09/21/even-major-military-exercise-like-zapad-can-t-fixsome-of-biggest-security-challenges-facing-russia-pub-85397; Banco, Erin, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico, February 24, 2023. https://www.pol itico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oral-history-00083757. General Mark Milley remarked in 2022/2023 that the number of troops in ZAPAD 2021 was unusual for that exercise series and this raised concern at the time. Milley met with the top Russian military

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In July 2021, between the Geneva Summit and the first meeting of the Strategic Stability Dialogue, Putin published an article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” where he argued that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” and that “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.”40 He claimed that anti-Russian external powers were interfering in Ukraine for their own interests and “radicals and neo-Nazis were open and more insolent about their ambitions.” The Ukraine government and oligarchs, more concerned with personal riches and power, enabled the radicals and neo-Nazis. According to Putin, Ukrainian citizens were the ones victimized by self-interested parties. In Putin’s telling, it was a benevolent Russia who “has never been and will never be ‘anti-Ukraine,” who wanted what was best for Ukraine’s citizens.41 As Putin made the case that only Russia cared for the Ukrainian people, the U.S. was getting ready to enter its final month of a nearly twenty-year war in Afghanistan. In a little over a month, images of the Taliban retaking Kabul and Afghanistan citizens clamoring to depart the country on U.S. transport planes would resurface painful memories of the 1975 fall of Saigon. The perceived failure of the intelligence community to predict the rapid fall of its Afghan partner after billions of dollars and years of training raised important questions not only about the reliability of intelligence, but also the dependability of a U.S. partnership.42 In the aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and with a significant number of Russian forces still postured on Ukraine’s border, U.S. General Mark Milley met with Russian General Valery Gerasimov in Helsinki, Finland on September 22, 2021. Details on the meeting were sparse at the time, with the official U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) statement saying the meeting was “aimed at improving military leadership communication between the two nations for the purposes of risk reduction and operational de-confliction.” With ongoing operations in Syria, the troubling immediate results of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the build-up of Russian forces near Ukraine, the two generals had plenty to discuss.

commander, General Valery Gerasimov, on September 22, 2021, for talks “aimed at improving military leadership communication between the two nations for the purposes of risk reduction and operational de-confliction”. 40 Vladimir Putin. “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” President of Russia, July 12, 2021. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181. 41 Vladimir Putin. “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” President of Russia, July 12, 2021. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181. 42 David Priess. “Afghanistan, Policy Choices, and Claims of Intelligence Failure.” Lawfare, August 26, 2021. https://www.lawfareblog.com/afghanistan-policy-choices-and-claims-intellige nce-failure.

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3 Good Work Intelligence!/Another Intelligence Failure! In early November 2021, CIA Director William Burns travelled to Moscow to convey U.S. alarm over Russian troop movements near Ukraine’s border.43 The trip was the result of a crescendo of concern that had been rapidly building since September when U.S. defense intelligence officials came to General Milley with a map that displayed a significant increase in Russian capability along the border with Ukraine.44 The apprehension among policymakers and military leaders grew significantly from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) briefing in September to Burns’ November visit to Moscow.45 According to Burns, the trip “was to lay out in an unusual amount of detail exactly why we were concerned that Putin was preparing for a major new invasion, and then to be very clear what the consequences would be.”46 Burns did not meet with Putin during the trip because Putin had sequestered himself in Sochi to avoid the latest covid outbreak in Moscow.47 The Moscow trip occurred a week after the G-20 meeting in Rome. The event, and Putin’s absence, provided Biden an opportunity to discuss his concern over Russian actions and intentions with “key allies.”48 On the “margins” of the G20 meeting, President Biden shared with Emmanuel Macron-the French President, Angela Merkel—the German Chancellor, and Boris Johnson—Great Britain’s Prime Minster information on Russia’s activity near Ukraine.49 Shortly before Burns 43

Natasha Bertrand, Jim Sciutto, and Kylie Atwood. “CIA director dispatched to Moscow to warn Russia over troop buildup near Ukraine.” CNN Politics, November 5, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/ 2021/11/05/politics/bill-burns-moscow-ukraine/index.html. 44 Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico, February 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oralhistory-00083757. 45 Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico, February 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oralhistory-00083757. NSA Director, General Paul Nakasone, stated that “by the 11th of October, I’m convinced the Russians are going to invade Ukraine. The preponderance of intelligence was different than anything we’d ever seen before”. 46 Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico, February 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oralhistory-00083757. 47 Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico, February 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oralhistory-00083757. 48 Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico, February 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oralhistory-00083757. 49 Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi, and Alexander War. “Something was Badly Wrong: When Washington Realized Russia was Actually Invading Ukraine.” Politico,

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departed for Moscow and while the G-20 was meeting in Rome, newspapers were publishing articles highlighting that videos of Russian troop movements towards Ukraine had been posted on social media.50 This public footage reinforced concerns being privately expressed in Europe and the United States that the Russian build-up was the initial phase of a planned invasion. This concern would lead to the use of intelligence to build public and allied support, although not novel, it was at a level never seen.51 In early December 2021, the Biden administration declassified information that showed Russia was moving forces in preparation for an early 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The provision of this information was part of a declassification strategy that would go on for over two months and highlight more than just Russian troop movements. The use of once classified information to shine light on Putin’s ruses and deceptions was focused on winning support and creating difficulties for him. Putin’s decision to invade might have already been made, but the Biden Administration was not going to make it easy for him to execute.52 The use of intelligence to call out Putin’s intention in hopes of discouraging an invasion, while also gaining support from other nations, was seen as a shrewd use of intelligence. Even if it did not deter the Russian invasion, it did help coalesce support against Russian behavior among partners, allies, and private citizens. Although it would be difficult to prove that Russia’s poor performance is a result of their actions being anticipated and called out, to paraphrase Lois Brandeis, bringing activity into the “sunlight” has a “disinfectant” value.53 In this case, the “disinfectant” helped rally support against Russian activity and caused some countries to reframe how they view Russia.54 Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was partially driven by a desire to counter North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) influence in the region. Paradoxically,

February 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/24/russia-ukraine-war-oralhistory-00083757. 50 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russian-troop-movements-near-ukraine-border-pro mpt-concern-in-us-europe/2021/10/30/c122e57c-3983-11ec-9662-399cfa75efee_story.html. 51 Julian E. Barnes and Adam Entous. “How the U.S. Adopted a New Intelligence Playbook to Expose Russia’s War Plans.” Washington Post, February 23, 2023; Dilanian, Ken, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, and Dan De Luce. “In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid.” NBC News, April 6, 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassifiedintel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014. 52 Ashley Parker, Shane Harris, Michael Birnbaum, and John Hudson. “13 Days: Inside Biden’s last-ditch Attempts to Stop Putin in Ukraine.” Washington Post, February 25, 2022. https://www. washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/25/inside-biden-putin-ukraine/. 53 Louis Brandeis. “Other People’s Money.” University of Louisville Louis Brandeis School of Law Library. https://louisville.edu/law/library/special-collections/the-louis-d.-brandeis-collection/ other-peoples-money-chapter-v. 54 Isabel Muttreja and Bernhard Blumenau. “How Russia’s invasion changed German foreign policy.” Chatham House, November 15, 2022; Pifer, Steven. “The Russia-Ukraine War and its Ramifications for Russia.” Brookings, December 08, 2022. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ the-russia-ukraine-war-and-its-ramifications-for-russia/.

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his actions did more to bring current allies together while also convincing some non-NATO members that it was time to join the alliance.55 The praise of the intelligence community was fleeting once the focus shifted from its success in analyzing Putin’s intentions and building support to its failure to properly identify the will of the Ukraine population and the capability of the Russian military.56 Prior to the invasion, the intelligence community told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) that “Kyiv was going to fall in three or four days and that the war would last two weeks.”57 During a May 10, 2022 hearing of the SASC, Senator Angus King asked Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and Lieutenant General (LTG) Scott Berrier, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director, if they were considering the question of “how to assess will to fight.”58 Senator Angus and DNI Haines both acknowledged the difficulty in assessing morale and the importance in trying to identify morale. Congressional questions regarding whether and, if so, how intelligence community analysts assessed the Ukrainian “national will to fight,” resulted in the 2023 Intelligence Authorization Act requiring the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report on this topic.59 Closely linked to underestimating the will of the Ukrainian population was the overestimation of Russia’s military capability and capacity which multiple senior military leaders noted during congressional testimony.60 Congress chastising the intelligence community for overestimating military performance is not rare, with a similar congressional critique occurring following the 1991 Desert Storm 55

Rene Nyberg. “Russian Collateral Damage: Finland and Sweden’s Accession to NATO,” Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, June 10, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88096; “Sweden’s Road to NATO,” Government Offices of Sweden, February 28, 2023. https://www.gov ernment.se/government-policy/sweden-and-nato/swedens-road-to-nato/. 56 Nomaan Merchant and Matthew Lee. “U.S. intelligence agencies review what they got wrong on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” PBS News Hour, June 04, 2022. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nat ion/u-s-intelligence-agencies-review-what-they-got-wrong-on-russias-invasion-of-ukraine; Lillis, Katie Bo and Natasha Bertrand. “US intelligence community launches review following Ukraine and Afghanistan intel failings.” CNN Politics, March 13, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/ politics/us-intelligence-review-ukraine/index.html. 57 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Hearing to Receive Testimony on Worldwide Threats, 117th Cong., 2nd sess., 2022. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/ doc/22-40_05-10-2022.pdf. 58 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Hearing to Receive Testimony on Worldwide Threats, 117th Cong., 2nd sess., 2022. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/ doc/22-40_05-10-2022.pdf. 59 U.S. Congress, House, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 117th Cong., 2nd sess., 2022, https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr8367/BILLS-117hr8367rh.pdf. 60 Barbara Starr, Ellie Kaufman, and Jeremy Herb, “Top US general in Europe says there ‘could be’ an intelligence gap in US that caused US to overestimate Russia’s capabilities.” CNN Politics, March 29, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/politics/tod-wolters-intelligence-gap-us-russia-ukraine/ index.html; Nomaan Merchant, “US Misjudged Ukraine’s Will to Fight Russia, Officials Admit,” The Peterborough Examiner, March 10, 2022. https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ts/news/ world/us/2022/03/10/us-misjudged-ukraines-will-to-fight-russia-officials-admit.html.

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war when the expectations of significant U.S. casualties did not transpire. Although Desert Storm was a clear military victory, congressional leaders who once questioned what became a popular post-conflict war were now asking why intelligence got it wrong by overestimating Iraqi resistance pre-conflict.61 As the intelligence community and Congress grappled with successes and failures leading up to the Russian invasion and the first few weeks following it, private citizens throughout the world were pitching in to counter Russian aggression. From commercial imagery helping to identify Russia’s build-up of forces in the fall of 2021, to the exploitation of Russian soldiers’ social media accounts to identify troop movements, soldier moral, deception operations, and humanitarian violations, the contribution of private companies, citizens, and organizations to counter Russian aggression and support Ukraine was, and continues to be, remarkable.62 These individuals, from diverse backgrounds and located throughout the world, have shone a light on Russian actions and helped nurture support for Ukraine. They are not merely supporting Ukraine in countering Russia’s invasion, but capturing evidence of atrocities that can be used to hold Russia accountable in the future.63 For example, OSINT for Ukraine’s Project Mariupol documents war crimes in Ukraine to ensure awareness of and future accountability for Russian actions. 61

David P. Oakley, Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post-Cold War Relationship (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2019), 47. 62 Leo Schwartz. “Amateur open-source researchers went viral unpacking the war in Ukraine.” Rest of World, March 07, 2022. https://restofworld.org/2022/osint-viral-ukraine/; Jordan G. Teicher. “Are these Satellites Images War Propaganda.” The New Republic, March 31, 2022. Mariel Borowitz. “The War in Ukraine Shows How Important Private Satellite Companies Have Become—Especially in Times of Conflict.” The New Republic, August 22, 2022. https://newrepublic.com/article/165910/maxar-ukraine-russia-satellite-imageswar-propaganda; https://www.fastcompany.com/90779187/the-war-in-ukraine-shows-how-import ant-private-satellite-companies-have-become-especially-in-times-of-conflict. Although much of the overhead imagery is from private companies, many of these companies have relationships with governments and also provide these governments imagery. According to an interview with Jack O’Connor in one of the articles, the commercial imagery relationship with U.S. government was present from the beginning because “they [U.S. government] were cutting the defense budget, and they wanted to retain the capabilities in the industry.” The use of commercial imagery by government is different than the use of commercial imagery by private sleuths, but it does highlight how the private citizens are enjoying access to information and capability that originally just resided in the government. For a good read on how open source information is affecting intelligence analysis, recommend David Gioe and Ken Stolworthy. “Democratised and Declassified: The Era of Social Media War is Here.” Engelsberg Ideas, October 24, 2022. https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ democratised-and-declassified-the-era-of-social-media-war-is-here/. 63 Lila Carree. “The Role of Technology in The Exposition of War Crimes in Ukraine: How The Use Of Cutting-Edge Technologies And Open-Sources Investigations Can Expose Human Rights Violations.” London School of Economics, February 02, 2023. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2023/02/02/the-role-of-technology-in-the-exposition-ofwar-crimes-in-ukraine-how-the-use-of-cutting-edge-technologies-and-open-sources-investiga tions-can-expose-human-rights-violations/; Deb Amos. “Open Source Intelligence Methods are Being Used to Investigate War Crimes in Ukraine.” National Public Radio, June 12, 2022. https:// www.npr.org/2022/06/12/1104460678/open-source-intelligence-methods-are-being-used-to-inv estigate-war-crimes-in-ukr.

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This organization, composed of young Ukrainians living abroad, created an “interactive map” that captures “all confirmed and potential war crimes and crimes against humanity.”64 Another example is the New York Times’ “Visual Investigation Team” that uses open sources such as “satellite images, cellphone videos, social media posts and other visual elements to investigate.”65 In December 2022, this Team published articles and a video story that showed how one Russian Regiment killed dozens of citizens in Bucha, Ukraine in March 2022. The Team spent eight months piecing together videos, interviews, phone records, and other open source information to identify the Russian atrocities and their victims.66 Even if the analysis from OSINT Ukraine and the Visual Investigation Team never finds its way into a human rights tribunal, theirs and others documentation is resulting in “record low” views of Russia and Putin.67 It is also changing the role of the citizen in national security and therefore the relationship between the citizen and the state. Also, much respect to the international online #OSINT community, many of whom may not realize how much of their geolocation & vetting of videos & satellite imagery is integrated into the broader work of the intelligence community. —Tweet by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.68

4 Intelligence Definition? Intelligence Practitioner? Despite significant chatter about the “intelligence revolution” that Ukraine is signaling, there has been little discussion regarding what this revolution means for how we define intelligence or who we consider an intelligence practitioner. The Ukraine invasion and the intelligence discussion it has generated are creating challenges in how we define intelligence and how we think about the intelligence profession. There is little doubt that the proximate value of Ukraine for the intelligence community is to identify how intelligence organizations should adapt to the current strategic environment to ensure value and relevancy for consumers. Although this immediate need is important, it is also necessary to consider how decisions made 64

“Project Mariupol: A Gateway to Evidence.” OSINT for Ukraine. https://www.osintforukraine. com/projectmariupol. 65 “How the Times Uses Visuals to Investigate the News.” The New York Times, September 07, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/article/nyt-visual-investigations-team.html. 66 Yousur Al-Hlou, Masha Froliak, Dmitry Khavin, Christoph Koettl, Haley Willis, Alexander Cardia, Natalia Reneau, and Malachy Browne. “Caught on Camera, Traced by Phone: The Russian that Killed Dozens in Bucha,” The New York Times, December 22, 2022. https://www.nyt imes.com/video/world/europe/100000008299178/ukraine-bucha-russia-massacre-video.html and https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/video/russia-ukraine-bucha-massacre-takeaways.html. 67 Richard Wike, Janell Fetterolf, Moira Fagan, and Sneha Gubbala. “Ratings for Russian Drop to Record Lows.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/ratings-forrussia-drop-to-record-lows/. 68 Rubio, Marco. Twitter Post. February 26, 2022, 9:55pm. https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/ 1497767438812917761?lang=en.

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and paths taken will affect how the role of intelligence, and therefore the intelligence profession, evolve. The role of intelligence, focus of intelligence, and the culture of intelligence organizations are all shaped by the strategic environment.69 For example, the ongoing covid pandemic is affecting what we perceive as a security threat and therefore what should be the focus of the intelligence community.70 The changes to the intelligence community can be evolutionary as the intelligence community’s gradual attention shift towards climate change shows or it can be more radical as the changes to the intelligence community following 9/11 displayed.71 Similar to the threat posed by pandemics, climate, or terrorism changing the intelligence community, conditions in the strategic environment such as shifting political priorities at the end of the Cold War or the introduction of new technologies influence how the intelligence community evolves.72 The information age and subsequent data revolution has led to a persistent call for increased OSINT capability in the intelligence community. The Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to be a catalyst to hasten these changes while altering how we view intelligence. The push for increasing the intelligence community’s use of open source information has been around for at least three decades.73 In 1992, the CIA established 69

Jeffrey P. Rogg, “The Spy and the State: The History and Theory of American Civil-Intelligence Relations,” PhD diss., (The Ohio State University, 2020). Rogg’s thorough and excellent research on the history of “civil-intelligence relations,” argues that Intelligence evolved in response to any number of interacting factors and influences, from the threat environment to existing legislative structures to the aspirational principles of American civil society.” Rogg continues with this topic in a forthcoming book that will be published by Oxford University Press. 70 Lisa Monaco. “Pandemic Disease is a Threat to National Security: Washington Should Treat it Like One.” Foreign Affairs, March 03, 2020. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/pandemicdisease-threat-national-security; White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: White House: 2022). “Pandemic” is mentioned thirty times in the 2022 National Security Strategy. 71 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: White House: 2022). “Climate” is mentioned sixty-three times in the 2022 National Security Strategy. The focus on climate change as a strategic security issue has increased over the last decade. In 2009, the CIA established the “Center on Climate Change and National Security,” and despite being disbanded in May 2015, climate change has remained an important issue considering the publication of the “National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change” in 2021. 72 In some regards, the presence of OSINT private practitioners is resulting in similar concerns as the “CNN Effect” did in the 1990s. In both cases the government loses control of information but is also able to leverage the information for their own understanding or to shine a light on others misbehavior. See https://web.archive.org/web/20051112051729/http://www.cdi.org/adm/834/transcript. html http://www.cdi.org/adm/834/transcript.html for more information on the CNN Effect. 73 Hamilton Bean, No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2011). See Hamilton Beans book for a good overview of the intelligence community’s relationship with open source; https://www.cia. gov/readingroom/sites/default/files/FBIS_history_part1_0.pdf, 7. While the Open Source Center was unique because it focused on exploiting multiple types of open source information, the presence of an open source component in the intelligence community was not novel. In 1941, nearly ten months prior to Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt established the Federal Broadcast Monitoring Service “for the purpose of monitoring broadcasts from Europe.” FBMS would eventually become

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the Community Open Source Program Office to handle the rapid growth of open source information.74 Four years later, the Aspin-Brown Commission report pushed for analysts to have more access to “pertinent open source data bases” so they could exploit the amount of open source information available for analysts.75 Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, both the 9/11 Commission and the WMD Commission recommended the establishment of an open source organization “to make open source information available across the community.”76 In 2005, the DNI established the Open Source Center (changed to Open Source Enterprise in 2015) to “advance the intelligence community’s exploitation of openly available information” and also created the position of Assistant Deputy DNI for Open Source.77 Despite discussions and bureaucratic initiatives, the intelligence community has continued to struggle with the role of OSINT for the past two-decades, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other recent conflicts have created momentum for change. In August 2022, a group of former intelligence community professionals founded the OSINT Foundation to “promote open-source intelligence tradecraft, elevate the discipline, and develop the practitioner community to advance the national security

the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) in 1947 and FBIS would fold into the Open Source Center in 2005. See Bean’s book and FBIS history for good background on FBIS. 74 Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Capabilities, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence, by Les Aspin and Harold Brown, 88. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-INTELLIGENCE/pdf/GPO-INTELLIGENCE-12. pdf. 75 Hamilton Bean, No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2011), 24; Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Capabilities, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence, by Les Aspin and Harold Brown, 88–89. https://www.govinfo.gov/ content/pkg/GPO-INTELLIGENCE/pdf/GPO-INTELLIGENCE-12.pdf. 76 Hamilton Bean, No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2011), 6; Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, Report to the President of the United States, by Laurence H. Silberman and Charles S. Robb, 23. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/ wmd_report.pdf. 77 “ODNI Announces Establishment of Open Source Center.” Office of Director of Director of National Intelligence, November 08, 2005. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/ Press%20Releases/2005%20Press%20Releases/20051108_release_content.htm. Announcement said “based at the CIA, the Center will advance the Intelligence Community’s exploitation of openly available information to include the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos and commercial imagery. The Center’s functions will include collection, analysis and research, training and information technology management to facilitate government-wide access and use;” Hamilton Bean, No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2011), 37; Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Open Source Enterprise. Intelligence Community Directive 301. Washington, D.C.: ODNI, 2006. https://irp.fas.org/dni/icd/icd-301.pdf.

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of the United States.”78 The majority of the OSINT Foundation’s leadership and advisory board are former intelligence community professionals and its mission focuses on improving OSINT in the intelligence community, but the organization is open to “any US citizen who has an interest in OSINT.” Despite its flexible membership, the organization makes clear that its definition of OSINT is limited to the intelligence community and the label “OSINT practitioner,” only applies to members of the intelligence community. Limiting “OSINT” and “OSINT practitioner” to intelligence community members is an understandable decision to uphold professional standards and to avoid “OSINT” from becoming a catchall term or confusing what constitutes an intelligence professional. While the OSINT Foundation has narrowly defined OSINT to include a government nexus, the definition is expanding because of private researchers/investigators, their self-identification as “OSINT practitioners,” and their development of a global OSINT community. The OSINT debate remained largely an internecine intelligence community struggle for the first three decades, but a growing community of private OSINT practitioners is starting to influence its direction.79 The role of private citizens generating OSINT in Ukraine and the ensuing discussion is resulting in a rethinking of how “intelligence” is defined, who is considered an intelligence practitioner, and the relationship between the citizen and the intelligence community. Organizations such as Bellingcat and Molfar or individuals like Alabama college student Justin Peden, better known as Intelcrab, are using their expertise, tools, resources, and analytical skills to uncover Russian activity and inform the global community of Russian deception and atrocities.80 Their work is not only helping people on the ground in Ukraine, but generating evidence that can be used to hold Russia accountable in the future.81 There is no doubt the work of these non-state actors is valuable; after all, it was Bellingcat, who in 2014, publicly identified Russian responsibility for downing Malaysian Airline Flight 17. This event brought awareness to Bellingcat’s work and the value it brings. It was also Bellingcat’s first entree´ to the Russian-Ukraine conflict. Today, Bellingcat’s services include tracking “civilian harm” in Ukraine using crowd-sourcing techniques and networks.82 The services 78

For information on the organization see https://www.osintfoundation.com/osint/FAQ.asp; https:// www.mercyhurst.edu/news/ridge-college-operations-director-named-founding-member-of-osintfoundation; https://federalnewsnetwork.com/inside-ic/2022/07/new-osint-foundation-aims-to-pro fessionalize-open-source-discipline-across-spy-agencies/ 79 For example, see https://osintfr.com/en/home/. 80 See Jack Hewson. “A Private Company is Using Social Media to Track Down Russian Soldiers.” Foreign Policy, March 02, 2023. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/02/ukraine-russiawar-military-social-media-osint-open-source-intelligence/; https://intelcrab.com; https://foreignpo licy.com/2023/03/02/ukraine-russia-war-military-social-media-osint-open-source-intelligence/ 81 Belllingcat Investigative Team. “Hospitals Bombed and Apartments Destroyed: Mapping Incidents of Civilian Harm in Ukraine.” Bellingcat, March 17, 2022. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/ 2022/03/17/hospitals-bombed-and-apartments-destroyed-mapping-incidents-of-civilian-harm-inukraine/. 82 “Bellingcat’s Path to Tracking Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.” CBS News, May 15, 2022. https:// www.cbsnews.com/news/bellingcat-history-60-minutes-2022-05-15/.; “Civilian Harm in Ukraine,” Bellingcat,. https://ukraine.bellingcat.com/?range=2021-09-17&range=2023-03-29.

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Bellingcat and others provide are not only valuable, but governments are probably unable to provide many of these services due to a lack of resources, regulations, restrictions, or access. But is it intelligence and, if so, what are the implications for the intelligence community and its members? Although their contribution has been mostly positive and highlights the value of publicly available resources, the growth of private OSINT is creating challenges for the intelligence community. These individuals self-identify as OSINT practitioners and media have started referring to them as “Twitter spies,” “intelligence analysts,” or “open source intelligence researchers.”83 The acceptance of their status as OSINT practitioners by the media not only ascribes a certain level of legitimacy but creates confusion among the public over what defines intelligence and what constitutes an intelligence practitioner. This confusion will eventually affect civilian-intelligence relations and potentially raise the question of why secret intelligence organizations are necessary in a democracy. Grappling with this question can strengthen a democracy, but the debate is problematic when it involves a public not fully informed about the limitations of OSINT or the value and role of other intelligence disciplines in national security. There is also a question of accountability of these private OSINT practitioners. For example, in 2017 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recommended that the Ukrainian “National Police” “promptly and effectively investigate alleged violations in connection to the “Myrotvorets’ website.”84 This recommendation stemmed from allegations that Myrotvorets, which has been referred to as “OSINT,” had “been publicly posting data of thousands of people, including media professionals, NGO activists, labelling them as supporters of armed groups and ‘terrorism’.”85 83

For various labels see https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/23/twitter-opensource-intelligence-ukraine/; https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/the-osint-analysts-feastingon-ukraine.html; https://www.wired.com/story/nord-steam-explosions-mystery-osint/. 84 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine. New York, NY: UN Headquarters, 2017. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/ default/files/Documents/Countries/UA/UAReport19th_EN.pdf; See “UN Calls for Investigation of Ukrainian Digital Blacklist.” Medium, September 20, 2017. https://medium.com/dfrlab/un-callsfor-investigation-of-ukrainian-digital-blacklist-14fec836753f; For Myrtovrets website, see https:// myrotvorets.center. The organization describes itself as a “non-government center for research of signs of crimes against the national security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity, and the International law information for law enforcement authorities and special services about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers”. 85 “Myrotvorets OSINT website team create map of Donbas fighters from Russia.” Yhiah Information Agency, July 23, 2016. https://www.unian.info/war/1433152-myrotvorets-osint-website-teamcreate-map-of-donbas-fighters-from-russia.html Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine. New York, NY: UN Headquarters, 2017. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/ default/files/Documents/Countries/UA/UAReport19th_EN.pdf; The “Ukraine 2021 Human Rights Report” reported that the site continues to post personally identifiable information. Although the guilt of these individuals is uncertain and some have been charged with crimes, what is certain is that many are being identified without any legal due process. For more details see https://www.state. gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/313615_UKRAINE-2021-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf.

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Beyond accountability, there is the issue of the private OSINT community being exploited as a propaganda pathway, something intelligence community leaders are concerned about since it is impossible to verify the analytical standards applied by all members of this community.86 Some might argue that the accountability and propaganda issues are present no matter what the private OSINT community is called, while true, the conflating that occurs by christening these private citizens “OSINT practitioners” poses risk for civilian-intelligence relations. By ascribing the label “intelligence” it is creating the impression of professional standards, rigor, and accountability. While some might self-impose standards, rigor, and accountability; it is not true of all. Defining “intelligence” is becoming more problematic with private citizens and organizations marketing themselves as open source intelligence practitioners. This is resulting in a confusion between the “understanding” generated through government intelligence organizations and “understanding” generated through private research. On the surface, this distinction might seem irrelevant because the activity of both government and private entities involves compilation of data and subsequent analysis. Although some of the processes or techniques might be similar and the outcome each type strives to achieve is better understanding, the seeming use of “intelligence” to describe any private entity conducting activities in the pursuit of understanding broadens the term to a degree where it loses value while also creating issues over who is and who is not an intelligence practitioner.87 The difficulty in defining intelligence is not new as Mark Stout’s and Michael Warner’s 2018 article, “Intelligence is as Intelligence Agencies do?” eloquently captures. In the article, Stout and Warner explore the difficulty in defining intelligence and argue the “core functions” of intelligence evolve over time. They raise important questions about intelligence and identify the struggle to define intelligence and the contestability in any definition of intelligence. While the article aptly captures the difficulty in defining intelligence, their range of “intelligence” is limited to government organizations. In their argument, “intelligence is what the boss says it is.”88 Although this might frustrate some, limiting “intelligence” to government activity or activity directed by government is an important bounding to avoid confusion over what constitutes intelligence, an intelligence activity, or an intelligence professional. Related to the issue OSINT poses in defining intelligence is the issue it presents for defining the intelligence profession. Although the new breed of open source practitioner is unpaid, OSINT communities have started to emerge and organizations like Bellingcat have developed online “workshops” to train new “online 86

“A Conversation with Dr. Stacey Dixon, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 13, 2022. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazon aws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220413_Conversation_Stacey_Dixon_3.pdf?VersionId=zusu_C 3XMIj4rD5ej._UZuo4gjXxSM9a. 87 The Webster definition of “intelligence” includes multiple definitions such as “the act of understanding” which could fit non-government organizations. 88 Mark Stout and Michael Warner, “Intelligence is as Intelligence Does,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 33, No. 4 (2018), 522.

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open source investigators” or OSINT practitioners (depending on your definition).89 The establishment of communities, standards, and training highlights a quasiprofessionalization of these amateur OSINT practitioners that creates challenges for the intelligence community. The increase of private citizens and organizations presenting themselves as intelligence practitioners, raises the question—what is an intelligence practitioner? If individuals using open source information to conduct analysis are considered OSINT practitioners, does this mean that any individual who conducts research and analysis is an intelligence practitioner? Are investigative journalists’ intelligence practitioners? Are academics intelligence practitioners? Like removing a government nexus from the definition of “intelligence,” stripping away the government affiliation from what defines an intelligence practitioner seems problematic. The ability of anyone who conducts research and analysis to claim the title intelligence practitioner is confusing. The absence of criteria and professional standards “erodes” the intelligence profession because anyone who conducts research and puts forth “analysis” can claim to be an OSINT practitioner.90 This becomes particularly problematic if the “OSINT” analysts are not striving for the principles of objectivity and independence.91 Most importantly, what is gained by referring to their activity as OSINT or the individuals as OSINT practitioners? Non-state actors conducting research and analysis, both good and bad, is not new so why is it being re-labeled OSINT?

5 Conclusion: How the Strategic Environment Shapes Intelligence Defining intelligence and the intelligence practitioner is growing more complicated with private citizens and entities contributing to the collective understanding of the environment at levels before unseen. The notoriety of private investigators during the Russian invasion of Ukraine are altering how the population views intelligence. In a similar fashion, the increased declassification and subsequent public release of intelligence to generate support and counter disinformation is challenging notions of who constitutes a consumer.92 Both realities are altering the relationship between the 89

Giancarlo Fiorella. “First Steps to Getting Started in Open Source Research. Bellingcat, November 09, 2021. https://www.bellingcat.com/workshops/; https://www.bellingcat.com/resour ces/2021/11/09/first-steps-to-getting-started-in-open-source-research/ 90 I credit Jeff Rogg with raising this issue during a conversation regarding civil-intelligence relations. 91 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Analytic Standards. Intelligence Community Directive 203. Washington, D.C.: ODNI, 2006. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICD/ICD% 20203%20Analytic%20Standards.pdf. 92 Recommend recent article by Huw Dylan and Thomas J. Maguire, “Secret Intelligence and Public Policy in Ukraine,” Survival, No. 64, Issue 4 (2022). Although this chapter does not cover the use of intelligence, Dylan’s and Maguires article, and their distinction between public intelligence and private intelligence as influence is useful in considering how intelligence has been employed

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population, the security state, and its intelligence community. The Russian invasion of Ukraine did not introduce these complications, but it is hastening changes to the intelligence community that will not only affect internal operations and structure, but potentially its relationship with the American people. While the intelligence community is right to embrace open source information to better understand the environment, the continued use of the term “OSINT” is not only creating internal issues but is also creating external confusion regarding what is intelligence and what is an intelligence professional. The intelligence community cannot control the language private citizens use to describe their activity, but it can mitigate confusion by altering its own lexicon and ensuring consistency in application. Most importantly, the intelligence community must appreciate how their actions in response to the strategic environment are shaping the future intelligence community and its relationship with those it serves. The use of intelligence and information in Ukraine and the role of non-governmental “OSINT practitioners” in the conflict have implications for the future of intelligence and the intelligence community. Further research on these implications is important.

in Ukraine to shine light on Russian actions/intentions (public) and to convince partners/allies (private).

Moral Injury in Refugee Communities: The Connection Between Displacement and Disorientation Garrett W. Potts and Lily M. Abadal

Abstract This chapter demonstrates the role that displacement can play in generating moral injury (MI) within refugee communities. To better understand the consequences of displacement, it considers how individuals’ identities and values are formed through their local communities. While there are many reasons that displacement ought to be understood as a potentially morally injurious experience (PMIE), particular attention is given to the negative effects of disorientation, which are associated with displacement. The chapter uncovers multiple facets of disorientation, such as despair, confusion, and apathy. Understanding the morally injurious consequences of displacement marks an important first step toward better serving refugee communities, particularly those citizens of Ukraine who have been forced to flee their homes in the wake of Russian aggression.

1 Introduction Moral injury (MI) is a multifaceted form of trauma that can result from participating in or witnessing acts that conflict with an individual’s moral or ethical values. It has been labeled a “bio-psycho-social-spiritual syndrome” with wide-ranging impacts that vary primarily based on context (Carey & Hodgson, 2018). MI is often seen in individuals who have experienced traumatic events, such as soldiers who have witnessed or participated in acts of violence during combat. These acts are often referred to as potentially morally injurious experiences (PMIEs) that establish conditions ripe for experiencing the full-fledged syndrome of MI. However, the violence witnessed as a soldier during combat is merely one of many possible contexts where G. W. Potts (B) Department of Religious Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida, Florida, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. M. Abadal Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida, Florida, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_12

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MI can be experienced. This syndrome can arise in virtually any domain where situations may create an internal struggle with one’s most deeply held values and convictions. While the MI construct was initially applied to the military domain, cases of MI are now observed beyond the bounds of active-duty service members and veterans. For example, MI has been found among healthcare workers who battled against feelings of burnout, hopelessness, and fatigue while serving patients during the COVID-19 pandemic (Mantri et al., 2021). Most recently, MI has been identified in business communities where spiritual, psychobehavioral, and existential wounds are frequently caused due to failures in leadership that create vicious institutions which sacrifice their prosocial commitment to stakeholders (Abadal & Potts, 2022). These examples mark essential efforts to expand the application of the MI construct. MI research is still relatively new compared to different but related syndromes like burnout and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Consequently, when it comes to the implications of MI in specific contexts, many domains have not yet received due consideration. One such domain that is particularly relevant for this volume on the Great Power Competition and the Russian aggression against the people of Ukraine is the experience of MI in refugee communities. Refugees are individuals who have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict, persecution, or natural disasters. These experiences can have a profound impact on an individual’s beliefs about the world as well as their spiritual values and moral commitments, resulting in a range of PMIEs in their homeland and wherever they migrate to next. With this background in mind, in this chapter, we will consider how individuals’ identities and values are formed through their local communities. This allows us to understand the consequences of refugee displacement better. We will then introduce displacement as a PMIE experienced by refugees within the context of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Next, we discuss the effects of displacement and MI among refugees with a particular focus on disorientation. Finally, we consider two dire concerns that leaders working to support the well-being of refugees ought to consider—their high susceptibility to moral paralysis and suicidal ideation.

2 Identity, Community, and Meaning-Making In order to fully understand why MI results among displaced refugees, we must first consider how human beings are formed as moral beings. This will be necessary for explaining why community—especially community bound by shared language, values, and geography—is essential to forming an individual’s identity and, consequently, their moral purpose. In what follows, we will turn to two scholars who have awakened the modern world to humanity’s socially dependent nature—Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre. First, we turn to Charles Taylor. Taylor’s prolific philosophical corpus is primarily inspired by the famous German philosopher Friedrich Hegel’s (1977) social theory articulated within his work on

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the Phenomenology of Spirit, among other essential volumes. Taylor and Gutmann (1994), like Hegel, emphasize the nature of the self as social—one that develops in dialogue with others and requires recognition from the community in which it is situated to gain the self-understanding necessary for human flourishing. Consequently, Taylor argues that we must acknowledge the “dialogical” nature of our humanity and our self-identity (Taylor, 1992). As much as we like to celebrate freedom and autonomy as it pertains to the selfconstruction of human identity in the West, the nature of persons as “dialogical” demands an understanding of the role that others necessarily play in this process (Taylor, 1992). Humans are dialogical insofar as we come to make sense of the world, the possibilities that exist for us in it, and our “horizon of meaning” through lived encounters with others in specific social contexts, so Taylor (1992) argues. As it turns out, therefore, our place in the world, and the people who inhabit that space with us, means that “some of the things I value most are accessible to me only in relation” to those moral communities that have become “internal to my identity” (Taylor, 1992, p. 34). Proximity to those one is in relation with is a necessary condition for maintaining one’s identity, the sense of purpose and meaning bound up with it, and those things that one comes to value in the world. In this way, the notion of the dialogical self should be understood as a corrective of modern conceptions of the self’s identity formation happening mainly in opposition to community (Taylor, 1989). With the dialogical self in mind, Taylor and Gutmann (1994) articulate the epistemological necessity of community and recognition within one’s community as a “vital human need” (p. 26). In an illuminating and groundbreaking essay on recognition theory, Taylor and Gutmann (1994) suggest, “nonrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being” (p. 25). What is clear is that Taylor places an epistemological priority on an encounter with individuals in one’s community for identity formation. Others within our community, therefore, play an essential role in an individual’s self-recognition and identity formation. Taylor finds that interruptions to this process of recognition and identity formation trap individuals in a reduced mode of being that result in harmful or even oppressive distortions to one’s self-understanding. This idea that human beings are, in fact, dialogically formed has significant consequences for our moral lives. Suppose Taylor and Gutmann (1994) are right to argue that our identity is not solely established through self-construction but also through our exchanges with those who make up our communities. In that case, we must further consider how those values that make up our identity are also socially dependent. This is the crucial insight that the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre contributes to our discussion about the connection between identity, community, and the process of moral meaning-making. MacIntyre (2007) explains how the development of our practical rationality, which enables us to morally reason, is contingent upon formative practices and healthy social institutions. In other words, people develop values and good dispositions (i.e., virtues and skills) through formative practical activities that are sustained by healthy social institutions.

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For MacIntyre, the protection of practical formation within healthy social institutions is imperative for preserving the traditions that guide our understanding of the life worth living—a project that always happens within specific social contexts. When these communities of memory fall apart, individuals lose the ability to participate in living traditions that help them frame their “quest for the discovery and achievement of the good” (MacIntyre, 2016, p. 36). Thus, he argues based on our nature that “this project [of setting out on a quest for the good life] has to be embodied” within “those traditional forms of human community” that enable us to exercise and extend our capacity for moral reasoning and our discernment of what is good (MacIntyre, 2016, p. 36). Moral formation, MacIntyre maintains, comes through participating in the practices of a well-established tradition and cultivating the virtues in accordance with what specific traditions teach us about the good life. While many essential practices and institutions must be protected within a society to promote the flourishing of all its members, let us consider only one example here that helps to clarify MacIntyre’s argument about the formation of morality within traditional communities of memory. Consider the role of public education at the local and national levels. Educational institutions introduce students to many different practices and traditions that help them grow in virtues and skills while also learning to discern the shape of the good life. In classes such as literature and history, for example, meaning is mediated through narrative. Through reading and storytelling, children come to know and understand what behavior contributes to the common good and what destroys it. They deliberate with their peers and instructors about what should be imitated and avoided, what incurs honor, and what results in social exclusion. In short, they undergo a formation in what it means to be a good member of their local and national community by engaging with others across various periods. Many historical and literary figures surveyed will have occupied the same geographic context. They can offer unique stories or lessons that the local and national society believe capture what it means to embrace one’s identity as a member of one’s living community of memory. Any disruption to the health of such institutions results in an erosion of the very narrative foundation that is required for students to learn to value and derive meaning from their place of origin. As we shall see in the following sections, this negatively impacts their sense of belonging in the world. Without giving too many more examples, we can already see the importance of individuals’ specific social contexts and communities for preserving traditional narratives that help frame their identity and values. Narrative is mediated through language, and language is developed, shared, and maintained through geographic proximity. Relocation, even when voluntary, often results in the slow death of one’s native tongue and the stories communicated through it. Similarly, formative practices of all kinds are predicated upon buildings and spaces that embody shared communal values. In this way, space is not merely functional. Instead, it is a medium through which values are communicated and reinforced. Ultimately, human beings are situated among people and places. Though values are often conceptualized in transcendent, immaterial terms, they are mediated and communicated through embodied

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practices, relationships, and physical spaces. Therefore, the health of one’s community and one’s ability to maintain a place in it has a significant bearing on one’s identity and moral imagination.

3 Displacement and Moral Injury As discussed in the previous section, human beings develop moral identities dialogically. This happens through the practices, narratives, rituals, and traditions of the social institutions to which they belong. But what happens when the individual is stripped away from the ‘we’ that helps make sense of the ‘I?’ We contend that in these moments, one experiences a potentially morally injurious experience (PMIE). Forcible displacement—as has been the case for so many Ukrainian refugees since the start of Russia’s aggression in the region—inherently disrupts the socially constructed identity of the self, which is rooted in particular places and communities with their established values, shared goals, and beliefs. Put another way, refugees suffer the loss of their moral foundation, which is made incarnate through the people and places of their homes. Undoubtedly, this loss is morally injurious as it deprives people of communal deliberations that help them maintain a clear vision of their meaning and purpose, which is necessary for their flourishing and their discernment of the good life. Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon (2019) discusses this reality, claiming we must “take seriously the embedded nature of the embodied self as a nexus of complex events and forces that make up who we are from moment to moment and day to day” (p. 18). Being a citizen of Kyiv, for example, brings to mind particular networks and communities that make up one’s social life and define one’s identity. Apart from these networks and communities, the self lacks adequate content to undergo the necessary process of identity formation discussed above, and any sudden or unexpected upheaval of these networks and communities can damage the identity formation of the self that has already taken place. Another reason that displacement is so morally injurious involves the impact that horrifying acts of political violence in one’s geographic context have on one’s social imaginaries and impression of feeling at home in the world. Even if one is not removed from one’s geographic context or totally plucked from one’s moral communities, places and networks of human community undergo fundamental shifts during wartime conflicts that uproot one’s former perceptions of these very things. One’s formerly tacit social context that grounds their world of meaning becomes a morally problematic object of evaluation and examination (Wiinikka-Lydon, 2019). Let us reflect further on this by continuing with our example of what it means to be a citizen of Kyiv. It is imperative to highlight the fundamental changes that have occurred for residents since the conflict in Ukraine began. Bloodstained soil, blownup school buildings, and corpses of community members have rewritten impressions of life together at home. Taken-for-granted values in the city that have been upheld by its social institutions, such as the dignity of a neighbor’s life, have been transgressed.

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When picturesque images of home become overwritten by morally problematic acts of political violence, PMIEs loom around every corner. Wiinikka-Lydon’s sustained treatment of the political violence experienced during the Bosnian War in the 1990s helps depict the PMIEs that prompt these fundamental changes for refugees. He notes: An important consequence of these acts was to taint the imaginary of home and land with blood and horror. Where once one’s hometown could bring to mind images of friends, families, and networks, in addition to the difficulties of any locality called ‘home,’ these strategies could rewrite those impressions so that home could inhabit a place of terror in shared social imaginaries. It could make it harder to inhabit or return and re-inhabit such spaces, alienating one from the actual material geography that provided the basis for one’s moral community. The strategy of ethnic cleansing, a term coined during the war, was not only to eliminate groups from a political geography but also to make it difficult for them ever to return. Strategies targeting the local moral worlds, then, could make it appear impossible that one could ever have a community that could support the moral life in such areas (Wiinikka-Lydon, 2019, p. 126).

Similar to the conflict in Bosnia, Russia’s aggression in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine ought to be seen as a deliberate strategy targeting the disintegration of local moral worlds. As such, Russian aggression has rewritten impressions of home, disrupting social imaginaries by making it appear nearly impossible that refugees could ever again inhabit these places as the moral communities they once were before the morally injurious acts of political violence began. Because of these consequences, we argue, again following Wiinikka-Lydon (2019), that cases of MI stemming from political violence and leading to displacement impact not only individual identities and their concomitant social imaginaries but also whole societies. When destabilizing acts of political violence occur, societies undergo a transformation in their “moral architecture” that alienates them from visions of “shared life” together as a community where virtues can be exercised toward the pursuit of the common good in accordance with long-standing social traditions (Wiinikka-Lydon, 2019, p. 9). Horrifying acts of political violence can, in other words, dissolve the social contexts that allow for the pursuit of goodness together as a moral community, and “a world no longer capable of goodness is an alien world where one is no longer sure what horizons are worthy of one’s effort” (Wiinikka-Lydon, 2019, p. 10). Individuals need good societies as much as societies need good individuals to flourish. One of the greatest tragedies of political violence resulting in displacement is that it can undermine both: Political violence can undermine the moral intelligibility of one’s world. Violent conflict does not just destroy lives and buildings. It destroys that which makes meaningful lives and community possible. Experiences of war like these can leave a residue of doubt and even despair about the possibility of a restored moral ability and a world capable of supporting a meaningful moral life. It is, in other words, a moral harm that has a lasting impact on how one perceives oneself and others, and on the ability for one to actively aspire to the visions of goodness and the images of personhood that are central to the moral dimension of life, and so are central to one’s existence (Wiinikka-Lydon, 2019, p. 2).

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Wiinikka-Lydon’s statement above succinctly captures what we have tried to show in this section. Namely, we have argued that political violence leading to displacement can result in MI by facilitating the erasure of social imaginaries, which are necessary for forming and preserving one’s identity and values. This results in the very dissolution of society that Taylor and Gutmann (1994) warn will dangerously “reduce one’s mode of being” in ways that bring about “oppression” and “harm” (p. 25).

4 Disorientation: A Salient Consequence of Moral Injury for Refugees Along with MI incurred from displacement comes significant biological, psychological, social, and spiritual consequences. Though these consequences are too numerous to outline here, Wes Fleming’s recent article (2022) on the moral emotions associated with MI provides a practical framework with which we can continue our discussion. It will be helpful to explain the purpose of Flemings’s work in this article before delving into the specifics. As Fleming (2022) articulates, the article “introduces an infographic tool called The Moral Injury Experience Wheel, designed to help users accurately label moral emotions and conceptualize the mechanisms of moral injury (MI)” (p. 1). The wheel is divided into four primary sections, each identifying a primary emotion resulting from a specific type of PMIE. In each section, a host of secondary moral emotions accompany the primary emotions. In what follows, we will further explain the primary emotions and major sections of the wheel. Then we will turn to his treatment of secondary emotions—particularly those secondary emotions that will be relevant to our discussion about displacement and disorientation. Fleming (2022) describes four primary moral emotions that a victim of MI may experience: shame or guilt, anger, disgust, and disorientation. Disgust is experienced when individuals “witness excessive violence, death, or immoral acts” (Fleming, 2022, p. 13; Also see Currier et al., 2019). Anger results when an individual experiences “a betrayal by a legitimate authority” (Fleming, 2022, p. 13; Also see Currier et al., 2018; Shay, 2014). Shame or guilt occurs when an individual’s MI results from a personal transgression or moral betrayal (Fleming, 2022; Also see Koenig et al., 2019 and Litz et al., 2009). Finally, disorientation happens when individuals face “unavoidable, irresolvable moral conflict” (Fleming, 2022, p. 13; Also see Currier et al., 2015a, 2015b, 2015c; Molendijk, 2018). While much of the secondary literature has explored anger, shame, and guilt as consequential of morally injurious events, disorientation has not received as much attention. This is likely the case because most of the research on MI concerns veterans exposed to traditional combat events. In the course of those events, it may be more common to experience the anger that results from betrayal or the shame that results from a personal moral transgression. Indeed, these seem to be the most salient and debilitating moral injuries for veterans. However, the experience of the refugee is

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quite different from the veteran, and a more extended consideration of disorientation is warranted here. In what follows, we will further explore the construct of disorientation as it has been understood in philosophical and clinical literature and then consider some of the most salient secondary emotions associated with experiences of disorientation. Doing so will better position us to understand disorientation and how it may specifically relate to the plight of the refugee and the loss of identity that accompanies displacement. Defining Disorientation The most recent philosophical treatment of disorientation is detailed by the philosopher Amy Harbin. As she explains, disorientation involves, experiencing serious disruption such that we do not know how to go on. To become disoriented is, roughly, to lose one’s bearings in relation to others, environments, and life projects. Experiences of disorientation prompt sustained uncertainty: Who am I now? What should I do? How should I relate to others? As disoriented, we can feel out of place, uncomfortable, uneasy, and unsettled. Disorientations are typically spurred by major life shifts to which we do not know how to respond (Harbin, 2016, p. xi).

We can contrast this with being oriented. When an individual is oriented, they are rooted, grounded, and have a clear sense of moral direction. They will feel confident and secure in their agency, the power to make decisions, and the values that direct them. As Harbin explains, disorientation occurs in response to a myriad of events that all human beings will experience throughout their lives. In other words, disorienting experiences are not uncommon or rare. The loss of a job can cause disorientation. Suffering the death of a spouse or parent can cause disorientation. Confronting new cultures, ideologies, and ways of life can cause disorientation. We may even explain disorientation as an existential crisis in which some pivotal experience or realization makes us question the values and beliefs we thought were secure and certain. Tine Molendijk’s (2018) defines it in this way, as the “loss of one’s previous certainties about wrong and right; it is the loss of one’s moral frame of reference and one’s moral self-perception” (p. 7). In short, disorientation involves the felt loss of one’s moral bearings, in some way and to variant degrees. Though it may sound counterintuitive, in some instances, these disorienting experiences yield positive outcomes. For example, let us consider a student in a servicelearning course at a university who encounters an impoverished community within their city while on a class trip. The student is shocked to learn that destitute people are living within twenty miles of her apartment—people struggling to find the means to provide for their families, living without electricity, and the modern conveniences that she and her friends never stop to think about. As a result, the student might question her former political views, her beliefs, and how she regularly spends her time. She may wonder how she lived for so long, ignoring these social issues. The encounter is, quite literally, disorienting. As a result, she is inspired to better understand the causes of social inequity and poverty, contributing to a stronger, deeper sense of moral purpose, resolve, and orientation. That is, being challenged and questioning her values can lead to greater clarity, nuanced understanding, and orientation

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toward the common good. We would be hard-pressed to describe such instances as being consequential of having experienced MI. In fact, we could easily describe this set of experiences as enlightening for the student. However, not all disorienting experiences are of the sort that was described above. Many particularly traumatic experiences of disorientation do not lead to greater clarity, depth, and a renewed sense of purpose. As Harbin (2016) cautions, such experiences “can and do interfere with wholehearted, decisive action. They can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents. They can unhinge us from positive moral orientations we have lived out in the past” (2016, p. xx). Indeed, they may muddy moral vision and never succeed in clearing it back up, leaving individuals in a state of perpetual aporia. Imagine someone fighting to keep their head above water as waves crash over them again and again. There is no reprieve—nothing safe to hold onto. This is like the internal struggle of someone who has experienced the disorientating consequences of MI. In what follows, we will explore the emotional facets of this phenomenon more specifically, using the Moral Injury Experience Wheel created by Wes Fleming as our guide. The Emotional Facets of Disorientation Fleming identifies over a dozen secondary emotions related to disorientation. Though Fleming does not define secondary emotions, they can be understood as those that accompany some primary or fundamental emotional experience. The secondary emotions Fleming identifies are not necessarily fixed to their primary emotions in some definite, finite way. As he explains, “While primary moral emotions and their relationships to PMIEs were grounded in empirical studies, secondary emotions and their arrangement on the wheel were and continue to be determined by input and feedback from combat-exposed Veterans showing features of MI” (2022, p. 12). In other words, the secondary emotions that Fleming identifies are the result of data received from veterans with confirmed MI. It is worth noting that while the data giving rise to the secondary emotions Fleming identifies was collected exclusively from veterans, it is still applicable to our discussion of refugees. The PMIEs, which elicit the primary emotions of shame/guilt, disgust, anger, and disorientation, are not exclusively tethered to experiences of combat. It is entirely possible, for instance, that the victim of a violent car wreck would experience the same sort of disgust as a soldier who witnessed an explosion. Both might struggle with the image of dismembered or disfigured bodies, etc. What elicits the experience of disgust is “witnessing excessive violence, death, or immoral acts” (Fleming, 2022, p. 12). In order to evaluate the secondary emotions that correlate with disorientation, we will divide them into three categories or dimensions—despairing emotions, confused emotions, and apathetic emotions. It is important to note that these categories are for our own evaluative purposes and not categories that Fleming himself utilizes in his research. Though these secondary emotions are intimately connected, they are distinct and provide unique insights into how the disorientation consequential of MI impacts victims. Each of the three dimensions of disorientation that are indicative of the emotional experiences of refugees is identified in Table 1, and further discussion about them follows.

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Table 1 Three emotional dimensions of disorientation Facets of disorientation

Associated experiences of refugees

Despairing emotions

Feelings of helplessness, futility, powerlessness, and/or despair

Confused emotions

Feeling confused, perplexed, and/or lost

Apathetic emotions

Feelings of apathy, disillusionment, the sense that life is absurd, surreal, and/or meaningless

First, let us consider the despairing secondary emotions. As Fleming explains, disoriented individuals will have feelings of helplessness, futility, powerlessness, and/or despair (Fleming, 2022). These emotions, we think, speak to the ‘unavoidable’ dimension of a disorienting event. When there doesn’t seem to be a choice or a way out of the moral conflict, it is easy to begin doubting one’s moral agency. Feeling completely out of control and incapable of altering the circumstances causes a loss of hope—a loss that can eventually evolve into despair. One can imagine several instances in which such disorienting emotions could arise. Victims of natural disasters who lose loved ones, their homes, and other possessions can experience complete and utter powerlessness against the forces of nature. Sometimes, even despite preparation, loss and damage are unavoidable. Refugees find themselves in a similar position— completely out of control and subject to the whims of global politics. There is no way their actions can render their homes safe, especially when enemy airstrikes are targeting non-combatants. There is no option but to escape to safety in a foreign land or to remain in a place that no longer feels like home. The second set of secondary emotions Fleming identifies—confused emotions— seems particularly associated with the ‘irresolvable’ dimension of disorientation. In the face of problems or dilemmas with no clear answers, individuals may feel confused, perplexed, and/or lost. These emotions seem to associate most directly with the intuitive understanding of disorientation. When individuals are disoriented, they lack the direction needed to sustain moral identity and, as a byproduct, the clarity needed to forge a path forward and make moral decisions. In the absence of clear orientation, individuals may feel like their foundation is lost—the very foundation they leaned upon to know how to move through the world. Here, again, we can see the likely struggles that a refugee will face. Forced to leave their homes, their people, and their nation, where can they find solid ground to stand? How do you plan to rebuild if you are not sure you can return home? How do you sustain community when your neighbors, friends, and family are scattered among a handful of countries, provinces, and cities? How do you share your story and find comfort among people who do not speak your language? As discussed in the previous section, space and proximity to those with shared values are essential to our meaning-making as human beings. Since refugees are deprived of these foundations, they will almost certainly feel lost. Finally, the third group of secondary emotions includes apathy, disillusionment, and the feeling that life is absurd, surreal, or meaningless. This group of emotions

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reveals the ‘loss of purpose’ that grows from continued confrontation with the irresolvable and the unavoidable. If no answers to these moral dilemmas surface and trauma continues to mount, it is easy to question the very basis of reality, order, and meaning in suffering. Indeed, for the refugee who has lost so much, it is easy to deduce that the world is an irrational, senseless, and dark place. How can there be so much suffering? How could the world be so cruel? In fact, with the destruction of one’s moral landscape—people, churches, homes, schools, businesses, and traditions—comes the deconstruction of identity. If human beings are, as MacIntyre and Taylor contend, dialogical and community dependent, then it is no wonder that feelings of apathy and absurdity take hold in their absence. Why Disorientation is the Most Salient Consequence of Moral Injury for Refugees We have chosen to specifically consider disorientation as a consequence of displacement because we contend that disorientation is the most salient consequence of MI among refugees. We have come to this conclusion because, for the refugee, the loss of their home is not the result of their actions. Rather, they are forced into displacement for fear of their lives. There does not seem to be a clear betrayal by a recognized moral exemplar that produces anger, as may be the case for a soldier who witnesses their superior order immoral actions. Likewise, there is no clear personal transgression that would elicit feelings of shame or guilt. In other words, the refugee does not violate their own moral system. Finally, though some refugees may witness extreme acts of violence or be amidst mass destruction in their flight from their homeland, this is not always and necessarily the case. Thus, disgust may not always accompany the refugee’s experience. However, it is always the case that the refugee will be disoriented—experiencing the confusion, loss, despair, or apathy that accompanies being stripped of significant people, places, traditions, and rituals that comprise an individual’s moral landscape. Leaving all this behind, often indefinitely, uniquely accompanies forced displacement in a profound way. The hope and means to rebuild a new landscape of meaning are impeded by language barriers, hostility, and lack of economic utility in a new land. Refugees are, quite literally, in search of refuge and community; they are uniquely displaced and, as a result, disoriented.

5 Two Dire Concerns for Refugees The continued persistence of negative moral emotions associated with MI and the effects of disorientation present two dire concerns for Ukrainian refugees. In what follows, we encourage leaders working to support the well-being of refugees to consider their high susceptibility to moral paralysis and suicidal ideation. First is the threat of moral paralysis. As shown in the previous section, disorientation is a likely consequence of forced displacement. Given this experience of disorientation, refugees may no longer see a point in trying to be good or virtuous in the absence of purpose, clear values, or confidence in some moral order. Though

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not tying it to MI specifically, Harry Frankfurt sheds light on the fact that values are essential in ethical decision making. In Necessity, Volition, and Love, he says, “Suppose that someone has no ideals at all. In that case, nothing is unthinkable for him; there are no limits to what he might be willing to do. He makes whatever decisions he likes and shapes his will as he pleases” (Frankfurt, 1999, p. 114). He explains, “For a person without ideals, there are no volitional laws that he has bound himself to respect and to which he unconditionally submits. He has no inviable boundaries. Thus, he is amorphous, with no fixed identity or shape.” (Frankfurt, 1999, p. 114). Frankfurt’s insights shed light on what we lose in a state of prolonged disorientation: moral identity. Without clear values, individuals cannot act for some good; their ability to practically reason is fractured. For, the belief that action x is good is logically prior to performing action x because it is good. Thus, the MI of forced displacement is, quite literally, the deconstruction of moral identity. Annas also reflects on this in Intelligent Virtue (2011). For Annas, it is impossible to imagine a courageous person who does not value acting courageously or an honest person who does not value honesty. Our values drive and motivate virtuous behavior. As Annas explains, the different virtues can, and should in a good life, be unified by the person’s living their life in accordance with a unified conception of goodness, one to be discovered and exercised by the person’s practical reasoning, which unifies the acquisition and expression of the virtues. The virtues are, then, unified into an integrated commitment to goodness and are exercised in the living of a good, flourishing life. (p. 115).

We can certainly describe this “integrated commitment to goodness” as being oriented or morally grounded. Clarity of values—like acting courageously or honestly—is a necessary condition for acting in accordance with those values. So, again, we see disorientation as a threat to “ideals to aspire to, precisely because of the commitment to goodness which they embody” (Annas, 2011, p. 109). Both Annas and Frankfurt highlight the importance of values in moral identity, moral reasoning, and the maintenance of virtue—values that are hazy and confused due to forced displacement. It is important to note that we are not arguing here that refugees are unable to act virtuously. That would be a gross and horribly inaccurate generalization. What we are arguing, though, is that because of forced displacement, refugees can be robbed of moral identity and clarity that was instantiated in their community—the narratives, traditions, rituals, and source of belonging essential for cultivating and maintaining values that allow individuals to act for some good. This is precisely why, we argue, forced displacement is a PMIE—it has the ability to fundamentally disrupt or damage character through weakening and blurring the values necessary for sound practical reasoning. In short, displacement can be morally paralyzing precisely because it is disorienting. In addition to this moral paralysis that we have just described above, despair, confusion, and disillusionment correlate strongly with suicidal ideation among refugee populations. A study conducted at a refugee settlement in Moyo, Uganda showed that over 19% of refugee households reported suicide attempts (Bwesige &

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Snider, 2021). When exploring the factors contributing to these attempts, many family and community members indicated “isolation,” “family separation,” “loss of meaningful activity,” “hopelessness,” and “absence of livelihood opportunities” as causes (Bwesige & Snider, 2021, p. 225). Another study of Bhutanese refugees also revealed similar contributing factors, finding that “thwarted belongingness” correlated heavily with suicidal ideation (Ellis et al., 2015, p. 50). Perceptions of thwarted belongingness were caused by several factors, including language barriers, separation from loved ones, and fundamental changes in community structure in their new, host countries (Ellis et al., 2015). These studies, of course, demonstrate the intimate relationship between meaning, purpose, community, and moral orientation. In other words, cultural identity and moral identity are intimately linked, placing refugees at increased risk for suicidal ideation.

6 Conclusion In this chapter, our aim has been to show the role that displacement can play in generating MI syndrome within refugee communities, particularly with regard to disorientation and other associated emotions. This marks an important first step toward better serving refugee communities, such as those citizens of Ukraine who have been forced to flee their homes in the wake of Russian aggression. The combination of displacement and disorientation can lead to a sense of moral confusion and uncertainty in refugee populations. We have shown how this can be especially true if they are exposed to violence or other traumatic events while they are displaced. It will be important for future research on MI in refugee communities to consider how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other institutions can provide support and resources to help individuals cope with the trauma of displacement and disorientation. This may include counseling and therapy to help individuals process their experiences and work through their feelings of loss, guilt, and shame. It may also involve providing resources such as education and job training to help refugees rebuild their lives and find a sense of purpose and meaning in their new communities. Overall, we hope that demonstrating the potential for MI in refugee communities will promote further consideration of the importance of addressing the psychological, social, spiritual, and emotional needs of Ukrainians and other refugees who have been displaced. By providing support and resources to help refugees cope with the trauma of displacement and disorientation, we can help to mitigate the negative consequences of these experiences and support individuals as they rebuild their lives in their new communities. Future research on displacement and MI should include the role that religion and transcendent sources of meaning play in the retention of moral identity and purpose. We suspect that meeting religious and spiritual needs might significantly increase resilience and shield refugees from disorienting emotions in the face of PMIEs. If meaning transcends the material, then it can be more readily transferred in the wake of displacement. At the same time, the loss of sacred spaces and the inability to

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practice certain religious rituals may leave some refugees bereft as they migrate to new lands. The fact that the world—particularly the West—is becoming increasingly secular renders these questions especially poignant. Thus, examining the role that religion plays more generally, as well as the role that specific religious traditions play in promoting resilience during experiences of disorientation, is a promising area for future exploration. Furthermore, significant research ought to be conducted to explore how to best provide sources of meaning, hope, and community to refugees. Though some focus has gone to providing economic opportunity and government welfare to those seeking asylum, there has not been enough consideration about how refugees can be supported in maintaining the communities and practices that provide existential purpose and meaning in their lives. As we have shown, the importance of doing so is not only essential for their ability to pursue moral goodness, but also for their psychological safety and well-being. So much of the work currently being done in this area defaults to local religious communities that may not have particularly sophisticated or systematic approaches to addressing these issues. Considering the global crisis displacement has become, it seems that systematic approaches to rebuilding landscapes of meaning for refugees would be appropriate.

References Abadal, L. M., and Potts, G. W. (2022). A MacIntyrean account of chronic moral injury: assessing the implications of bad management and marginalized practices at work. Front. Sociology 7, 1019804. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1019804 Annas, J. (2011). Intelligent virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bwesige, M. M. & Snider, L. (2021). Despair and Suicide-Related Behaviours in Palorinya Refugee Settlement, Moyo, Uganda. Intervention (Amstelveen, Netherlands), 19(2), 224–232. https://doi. org/10.4103/INTV.INTV_12_21 Carey, L. B., and Hodgson, T. J. (2018). Chaplaincy, spiritual care, and moral injury: considerations regarding screening and treatment. Front. Psychiatry 9, 619. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018. 00619 Currier, J. M., Holland, J. M., Drescher, K., & Foy, D. (2015a). Initial psychometric evaluation of the moral injury questionnaire—military version. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 22(1), 54–63. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.1866 Currier, J. M., Holland, J. M., & Malott, J. (2015b). Moral injury, meaning-making, and mental health in returning veterans. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 71(3), 229–240. https://doi.org/10. 1002/jclp.22134 Currier, J. M., McCormick, W., & Drescher, K. D. ( 2015c). How do morally injurious events occur? A qualitative analysis of perspectives of veterans with PTSD. Traumatology, 21(2), 106. https:// doi.org/10.1037/trm0000027 Currier, J. M., Farnsworth, J. K., Drescher, K. D., McDermott, R. C., Sims, B. M., & Albright, D. L. (2018). Development and evaluation of the expressions of moral injury scale—military version. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 25(3), 474–488. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2170 Currier, J. M., Foster, J. D., & Isaak, S. L. (2019). Moral injury and spiritual struggles in military veterans: A latent profile analysis. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32(3), 393–404. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/jts.22378

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Ellis, B. H., Lankau, E. W., Ao, T., Benson, M. A., Miller, A. B., Shetty, S., Lopes Cardozo, B., Geltman, P. L., & Cochran, J. (2015). Understanding Bhutanese refugee suicide through the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 85(1), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000028 Fleming, W. H. The moral injury experience wheel: An instrument for identifying moral emotions and conceptualizing the mechanisms of moral injury. J Relig Health (2022). https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10943-022-01676-5 Frankfurt, H. (1999). Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harbin, A. (2016). Disorientation and Moral Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hegel, G. W. F., Miller, A. V., & Findlay, J. N. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Koenig, H. G., Youssef, N. A., & Pearce, M. (2019). Assessment of moral injury in veterans and active-duty military personnel with PTSD: A review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10, 443. https:// doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00443 Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003 MacIntyre, A. (2007). After Virtue: A study in moral theory, third edition. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. MacIntyre, A. 2016. Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mantri, S., Song, Y. K., Lawson, J. M., Berger, E. J., and Koenig, H. G. (2021). Moral injury and burnout in health care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 209, 720–726. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000001367 Molendijk, T. (2018). Toward an interdisciplinary conceptualization of moral injury: From unequivocal guilt and anger to moral conflict and disorientation. New Ideas in Psychology, 51, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2018.04.006 Shay, J. (2014). Moral injury. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 31(2), 182–191. https://doi.org/10.1037/ a0036090 Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, C. (1992). Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, C., & Gutmann, A. (1994). Multiculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wiinikka-Lydon, J. (2019). Moral injury and the promise of virtue. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The Energy War: How Europe Turned the Tables on Russia Leif Rosenberger

Abstract This study is about the energy war between Russia and Europe. The battlefield is the international energy market. Russia exploits instability in the boom-andbust energy cycle by cutting back its exports of natural gas to Europe. Russia also takes steps to insulate itself against sanctions with financial buffers. At first Europe is too vulnerable and overly dependent on imports of Russian gas. But Europe’s resiliency pays off as it turns the tables on Russia. It lines up alternative sources of energy and reduces its demand for Russian gas. A breakthrough in LNG technology is especially decisive. Fate also rewards Europe with warm weather. But there’s no time for Europe to celebrate or be complacent. Next winter may be colder and China’s demand for energy is likely to rise as it abandons its zero covid policy. That said, Europe is off to a good start. The EU is looking for new energy markets, improving its energy efficiency, and investing in new energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russia has now lost Europe as its main export market for its gas. The Chinese market will soften the blow. But it will take a decade before the Russia is able to replace Europe’s infrastructure. Russia’s energy industry will also struggle without western energy technology. Keywords Russia · Europe · U.S. · Joe Biden · Energy war · Oil · Gas · Liquified natural gas (LNG) · Supply · Demand · Instability · Sanctions · Robert Jervis · Cognitive dissonance · Leon Festinger · Misperception · Miscalculation · Boom and bust · Putin · Jean Monnet · Energy blackmail · Showdown · Weather · Alternatives · Renewables · Vulnerabilities · Over-dependent · Solidarity · Resiliency · Coercion · At-risk · Shortages · Backfire · Short-lived · Embargo · Price cap · Complacency · Households · Industry · Algeria · Norway · Pipelines · Infrastructure · China · Zero-covid policy · Diversify · Efficiency · Invest · Green energy

L. Rosenberger (B) Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, US e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_13

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1 Introduction The energy war between Russia and Europe began in the context of the international energy market. This marketplace has a boom-and-bust energy cycle and is therefore extremely unstable. Russian President Vladimir Putin knows how to operate in this chaotic battlefield. In 2014 Putin attacked Crimea and consolidated Russian political/military gains in Donbas. As we study Russian strategy, there are two strategically important questions: First, why did Putin just settle for Crimea and Donbas in 2014? Second, why didn’t Russia invade all of Ukraine back then? The economic context provides some insights. For starters, Putin knows that that Russia’s energy reliant economy is a one trick pony. As a result, Russian military power is situational and depends on the price of energy. Back in 2014 the boom-andbust energy cycle created low energy prices. That meant the Russian economy was weak. A weak Russian economy could handle Russian interventions in Crimea and Donbas because these operations were relatively small, affordable and low risk. But a weak Russian economy in 2014 could not sustain a long, costly war of attrition in Ukraine. Instead, Putin bided his time and patiently wait for energy prices to soar in the boom-and-bust energy cycle. At that moment, high energy prices turned Russia back into a militarily superpower. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was then more timely, more affordable, more viable and a more promising war of attrition.

2 Applying Theory to Practice Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Jessica D. Blankshain, and David A. Cooper—three scholars at the Naval War College—cite Amherst College Professor Alexander George’s cognitive models of national security decision-making in a recent book they wrote.1 These cognitive models help us understand Putin’s behavior in terms of Putin’s instrumental beliefs and the timing of Putin’s actions.2 Instrumental Beliefs: In terms of the utility and role of different means for advancing his interests in Ukraine, Putin weaponized natural gas in an effort to coerce Europe to abandon its support for Ukraine. Timing of Actions. In terms of choosing the right time for the energy war, Putin patiently waited until 2021 when high energy prices strengthened the Russian economy enough to sustain a long, costly war of attrition in Ukraine. Putin also timed his last cut-back on supplies of natural gas to Europe as winter approached. These factors helped Putin win the first phase of the energy war. However, Russia’s early success was short-lived. The EU was resilient. Although Hungary broke ranks, EU solidarity generally held. In fact, Europe’s decisive response exceeded expectations. EU leaders crisscrossed the globe and lined up new sources of energy. European

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households and industry reduced their demand for Russian gas. A breakthrough in liquified natural gas (LNG) technology was especially decisive. And fate rewarded Europe with warm weather. As a result, the EU’s hard pivot away from Russian gas was successful. Europe no longer needs much Russian gas.

3 No Clear Way to Offset Russian Losses Now let’s turn to Russia’s future. Russia has now lost Europe as its main export market for its gas. To make a bad situation worse, Putin has done so without a clear way to offset his losses. Putin’s best option would be a pivot toward China. But ending energy trade with Europe is not like growing onions somewhere else. There is no quick-fix replacement button. It will take 10 years for Russia to build costly new gas pipelines from Russia to China to replace European pipelines. On the military front of the Great Power Competition, the US would appear to be the “odd man out” in the strategic triangle among the US, Russia and China. But the economic front is different. When it comes to trade, the West is a lot more important to Beijing than Russia. How much more? China’s trade with the West ($1.62 trillion) is over 9 times the size of China’s trade with Russia ($190 billion).3

4 Why Was Germany so Vulnerable? Now let’s turn to Europe. A good place to start is with Germany, the economic powerhouse in Europe. In retrospect, two strategic questions come to mind. Why did Germany put itself at so much risk? Why was it so vulnerable to Russian blackmail? The short answer is German chancellors hoped the German-Russian energy partnership could be just as special as the German–French partnership. A little history is important to understand how this happened. As part of the Treaty of Versailles Peace Treaty following World War I, the allies opted to keep the German economy weak. The allies thought it would be impossible for a weak German economy to have a strong military. How did this work out? It led to German resentment, the rise of Hitler and World War II. The great French statesman Jean Monnet had a better idea. Instead of economic coercion, Monnet argued for German participation in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and economic interdependence with France. The French and Germans would bond and economic interdependence would turn French and German enemies into friends. Not a bad way to keep peace and security in Europe for 70 years. Professor Ulrich Krotz at the European University Institute in Italy points out that relations between France and Germany went through three grand periods since 1871:

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• Hereditary enmity (up to 1945), • Reconciliation (1945–63) and • “The Special Relationship” embodied in Franco-German Friendship (since 1963).4 If shared prosperity worked between Germany and France, why not try the same thing with Germany and Russia? Why not have a special relationship between Germany and Russia? Actually, German-Russian energy cooperation worked for a long time. In fact, Russia was a reliable exporter of energy to Germany throughout the Cold War. There was mutual benefit. If so, why did it fail?

5 Applying More Theory to Practice The short answer is Putin was no Jean Monnet. That said, two cognitive models help us to understand why German chancellors were blind to Russian economic coercion when it was “hiding in plain sight.” • Gvosdev, Blankshain, and Cooper—our three Naval War College scholars— cite Colombia Professor Robert Jervis’ research. Jervis says policymakers often make decisions based on their perceptions rather than the facts. They disregard inconvenient pieces of information that contradicts that preferred worldview.5 • MIT Professor Leon Festinger’s model of cognitive dissonance tracks with this idea. In real life people often cling to their existing beliefs and preconceptions, often rationalizing away the new information as insignificant or explaining it away so as to preserve their existing attitudes and mind-sets.6 Using these models, Jervis would say the Germans misperceived Putin’s intentions. Festinger would say the Germans suffered from cognitive dissonance. The Germans dismissed signs that Putin’s determination to restore the Soviet empire would outweigh economic interdependence between Germany and Russia. Others say shared prosperity between Germany and Russia might have worked if the West did more for Gorbachev. But Putin was also no Gorbachev. Putin harbored anger and hostility toward the west. He calls the end of the Soviet empire the greatest catastrophe in the 20th Century. Putin also hated NATO expansion to Russia’s doorstep.

6 Why Boom and Bust Energy Instability? If national security decisionmakers are ever going to stabilize the unstable boom and bust cycle in the global energy market, it’s important to understand why both the boom and the bust have been happening since 2014.

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For starters Europe struggled with trying to understand and navigate through the energy boom and bust cycle. For instance, why were energy prices so low in the boom phase of the energy cycle? And what needs to be done to stabilize energy prices and mitigate the bust phase of this resource war that Europe is now experiencing? Back in 2014 US political leaders and many economists were quick to take credit for low energy prices. US and European consumers could buy cheap gasoline. Many consumers argued that it was time to celebrate. They wanted a victory parade. But in economics and international business, appearances can be deceiving. For instance, shale oil producers in the United States would ultimately learn a bitter lesson about the cyclical nature of the international energy market. The more energy they produced, the more energy prices fell and the more their profits got squeezed. The point is that low oil prices created the worst slump that the global oil industry had faced since 1986.7 Oil companies in the United States were fighting for survival. Worst of all, oil companies were forced to cut capital spending to the bone and lay off thousands of their employees.8 The U.S. corporate approach of cutting costs and capital spending would come back to haunt Europe with a lack of energy by the early the 2020s.9 This short-sighted corporate mismanagement would create conditions for a dramatic rise in Europe’s energy crisis that began in mid-2021—eight months before the shooting war in Ukraine in February of 2022. Instead of this chaotic boom and bust cycle, there should have been more energy cooperation and price stability. On the supply side, lower energy prices in part reflected booming U.S. energy production. The real “game changer” was the discovery of unconventional energy. The global energy market was then “swimming” in one trillion more barrels of oil that was not included in the world oil supply a few years before then. This new oil supply mostly broke down into three types of unconventional extraction of oil: Brazil’s deep-water oil, U.S. shale oil, and Canada’s oil sands. On the demand side, there continued to be a sluggish global economy. For instance, Japan, Germany, and Italy were all suffering from near economic contraction. China’s growth was rapidly slowing down and was a far cry from its double-digit growth before then. Since there was still not nearly enough aggregate demand after the global financial crisis to generate strong economic growth, the Federal Reserve (Fed) increased the money supply via quantitative easing. Wall Street somehow misperceived that all of this money would be inflationary (despite data to the contrary) and would weaken the US dollar. As a hedge against their fears of a weak dollar and inflation Wall Street bought lots of oil on the futures market. Back in 2014 the world had plenty of oil. Thanks to breakthroughs in energy technology, the new game changer was a new supply of unconventional oil (i.e., shale oil in the United States, oil sands in Canada, and deep-water oil in Brazil). The low oil prices reflected an oil glut outweighing weak demand for oil. Wall Street especially worried about inflation after the global financial crisis when the federal government (Fed) bought a trillion dollars’ worth of global assets to boost weak global demand. That spooked Wall Street, which took a leap of faith (rather than due diligence) and felt the Fed was creating runaway inflation. As a hedge against

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their fears about inflation, Wall Street investors bought vast quantities of oil in the futures market as a hedge against inflation. That distorted the market and drove oil prices sky-high. But Wall Street guessed wrong. Runaway inflation never happened in 2014. The Fed’s growth of the money supply was nowhere near the huge shortfall in aggregate demand that the global economy faced after the global financial crisis. When this new reality became a painfully obvious mistake on Wall Street, there was a hysterical sell-off. Oil prices nosedived. Once it became obvious Wall Street had guessed wildly wrong about inflation, the new worry was deflation and weak demand in Japan and the Eurozone, and a rapid Chinese economic slowdown. That, in turn, weakened the global demand for oil. As discussed earlier, the combination of rising oil supplies, weak oil demand, financial shifts on Wall Street, and a strong U.S. dollar put downward pressure on oil prices.10 The results were vicious price wars between global oil companies. As we look back at the boom in the global oil market, it’s clear that the world saw a surge in oil and gas investment starting at the turn of the century. That surge peaked in 2014, the same year Russia attacked Crimea. What drove this investment boom? That investment boom was driven by two factors. On the cyclical side there was buoyant demand and high energy prices. On structural side technological innovation in fracking unconventional deposits drove a U.S. shale oil and gas revolution. While consumers liked the low prices, the result was financial instability in the global energy sector.11

7 Booms Sow the Seeds of Busts As the IMF points out, booms sow the seeds of their busts. Instead of steady as she goes investment, global oil and gas investment was sharply cut.12 As we try to explain the boom-and-bust energy cycle, two questions come to mind: • How did Europe go from low-cost energy to a high-cost energy crisis? • And how vulnerable were energy markets before the Russian shooting war worsened the trend in high gas prices? Take Germany. For a country that prides itself on being well organized, Germany was totally disorganized in the way it managed and poorly timed its transition to renewable energy. But other European countries took their cue from the musclebound European powerhouse. • First, energy producers slashed capital spending and overall investment.13 They especially divested rapidly from fossil fuels. Had there been a rapid rise in renewables, then renewables could have offset the rapid divestment in fossil fuels. But there was no sensible offset. Quite the contrary. Renewables failed to scale up fast enough. In fact, investment in renewable energy lagged far behind the UN target of net zero emissions by 2050 by about $1 trillion a year.14

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• Second, European economists also underestimated rising demand for gas after the pandemic. And given the interruptions in renewable (wind, hydro, solar) energy production, it was only logical that European consumers and industry would turn to natural gas as a buffer to the long wait for renewables. The demand for natural gas in OECD countries far exceeded the supply of natural gas. In OECD countries, the share of natural gas in power generation rose from 23 to 30% during the same period. The global share of natural gas in total primary energy production soared from 16% in 2010 to 22% in 2021.15 If we fast forward to 2022 it’s clear that the world has gone from energy abundance back in 2014 to energy scarcity today. European energy prices have soared 14-fold (from the third quarter 2019 to the third quarter of 2022). These high gas prices have also driven high inflation and dragged down GDP growth in Europe.16

8 Toward International Energy Stability Instead of this chaotic boom and bust energy cycle, the international community must promote more energy cooperation and price stability. The time to set up institutions to avert energy instability is long overdue. The international community needs to create a bank as a lender of last resort for oil companies. However, a bank that bails out oil companies in distress is not all that is needed. We also need an early warning system for the oil industry. If international strategists want to foster stability in the world, they need a clear understanding of the forces that determine the supply and demand for energy. Such an understanding will help them shape national policy on matters with potentially unprecedented consequences. What is needed from world leaders is an unprecedented level of cooperation in the formulation of a long-term international energy strategy. One consequence of failure could be resource-driven conflicts that might have been avoided had policymakers understood the nature and extent of world oil supply and demand and taken decisive steps to deal with it. The real danger is to relegate the world oil supply to the backwater of strategic studies. Strategists need to understand that world energy supply and demand is a global challenge that bears most heavily on the peace and prosperity of the international system. World leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to move this global issue to the top of their agendas. If they fail, their successors may have to deal with the problem “when it comes to visit” once again as a major and enduring energy war in the not-too-distant future.

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9 Russia Gets Ready for the Energy War As a result of energy mismanagement, Europe was not ready for an energy war with Russia. In contrast, Russia spent many years getting ready to launch an energy war. Russia built financial buffers to insulate itself and soften the blows from expected sanctions from the West. Take food. The Kremlin opted for an import substitution strategy that applied countersanctions on food imports. Prior to the pandemic that reduced Russian food imports by one-third to just $ 24 billion. That signal inspired Russian farmers to increase agricultural production and made Russia more self-reliant in food production. Not surprisingly, the Russian farming sector boomed. Prior to the pandemic Russian wheat production was the highest ever on record—and Russia earned a record $24 billion in agricultural exports in 2019, over twice what it made from arms exports.17 Far from being an economic basket case and collapsing, the Russian economy became more resilient and resurgent. Putin learned a bitter lesson from the simultaneous external shocks of low oil prices and economic sanctions against Russia. That meant Russia would build an economic fortress and be less vulnerable in the future. Russia would have financial buffers that would cushion the economy during phase one of the energy war with Europe. This economic strategy worked, at least for a while. All three levels of the Russian government ran a budget surplus in 2018 and 2019.18 Russia boosted its foreign reserves by 50% between the end of 2015 and the end of November 2019. Russia’s foreign reserves rose to $570 billion—the 4th largest in the world.19 Russia now had enough foreign reserves to enable it to survive without borrowing for at least one year and Russia also took advantage of higher oil prices after 2014. Russia’s finance ministry funneled excess revenues from taxes on oil exports into a giant Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). Russia’s SWF rose to $125 Billion or 7.3% of GDP.20

10 Global Support for Russia is Growing In addition to Russia’s energy ties with China, global support for Russia has been growing. As the chart below shows, the number of countries actively condemning Russia over the past year has fallen from 131 to 122. The number of neutral countries has risen from 32 to 35 (representing more than 30% of the global population). Some previously West-aligned countries, including Colombia, Turkey and Qatar, have moved into this category as their governments have sought to reap economic benefits from engaging with both sides. There has also been a large shift in stance among countries that lean towards Russia, whose number has increased from 29 to 35.21

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But while this support has helped Russia along the way, we will see how Putin’s economic squeeze on Europe is ultimately counter-productive. Perhaps the best insight comes from William Shakespeare in Hamlet. Putin would ultimately “hoist himself on his own petard” (i.e., hurt his own energy industry by being too coercive with his longstanding energy partner in his pursuit of elusive geopolitical gains). Putin’s willingness to weaponize energy should not have come as such a surprise to Germany. Putin’s gas brinkmanship dates back to 2004, when Gazprom cut deliveries to Belarus, in a battle for control of a transit pipeline into Western Europe. In 2009, as Ukraine sought NATO membership under a pro-Western president, Mr. Putin ordered a sharp reduction in gas flows through the country; after Ukraine elected a pro-Russian president a year later, the Kremlin rewarded him with a 30% cut in

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natural gas prices. Even before Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine in February 2022, Putin had been squeezing supplies of gas to the EU, which had been reliant on Moscow for 40% of its gas imports.22 Soon after February’s invasion in February of 2022, Putin reduced exports in the summer of 2021, and Russia did not refill Gazprom-owned storage sites in Europe. European countries-imposed sanctions on Russia.23 But as the following chart shows, the EU’s 40% dependency on Russian gas shaped their attitudes toward sanctions.24

Many EU countries were reluctant to target important sectors such as energy because of their high dependence on Russian gas supply. Given their sense that sanctions were a double-edged sword, they didn’t want to start biting the hand that fed them. As a result, many EU countries continued to tread carefully with their sanctions.

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11 Russia’s Repeated Cutbacks of Gas to Europe Russian president Vladimir Putin used his grip on a large chunk of the world’s energy supplies to inflict economic pain on Europe as part of his wider war strategy in Ukraine. Even before the 24 February invasion, Russia’s aim was to make the supply of gas to Europe as unpredictable as possible and thus undermine economic confidence and EU resolve on sanctions. Toward this end, Gazprom, Russia’s giant energy company, made a number of cutbacks: • In September 2021, Gazprom, the Russia’s energy giant, cut back on gas exports to Germany and the rest of the EU. • In July 2022 Gazprom announced that it would cut gas exports to Germany once again. Data from Nord Stream 1 showed flows were reduced to about 20% of the pipeline’s capacity.25 • Then on 31 August Russia launched its biggest weapon. Russia totally stopped the flow of gas to Europe through Nord Stream 1.26

12 Russia Halts Gas Exports to Poland and Bulgaria Putin’s willingness to eventually halt gas exports to all EU countries should not have come as much of a surprise after Russia totally halted gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland on 27 April 2022. From a political perspective, Russia’s decision to target Poland and Bulgaria was not a shock. Poland’s hawkish rhetoric towards Russia and unyielding support for Ukraine, which it is supplying with heavy weaponry, made it a target of Russian retaliation. In contrast, Putin saw Bulgaria as a weak link. Bulgaria’s ruling coalition was divided regarding its response to the invasion of Ukraine. Putin no doubt thought a cut-off of gas to Bulgaria could cause additional instability and further erode public trust in the government.27

13 Negative Economic Impact on Europe Finland’s economy minister Mika Lintilä said the region could be on the verge of the energy sector’s version of the Lehman Brothers bank collapse in 2008.28 As the following chart shows, Russian economic coercion had a negative impact on both the availability of natural gas as well as its affordability.29

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About a third of European countries faced absolute shortages of natural gas because of record low inflows of Russian gas. But most Europeans also suffered from other economic hardships (such as high inflation and/or unemployment).30 Altogether, these Russian cutbacks of natural gas had a devastating impact on European economies. Gas prices rose over 11 times higher. The cost of a megawatt hour of gas went from e25 to just over e340 in August.31 That pushed inflation to 40-year highs.32 Berenberg Bank calculated that Europe’s dependence on imported gas had a huge economic impact on EU economies. • For every sustained e100/MWh increase in the price of gas, EU members would need to pay gas exporters an extra e380bn a year. • That was the equivalent to 2.4% of Europe’s GDP or 4.5% of household consumption. Not surprisingly, consumer confidence dropped to the lowest level since records began in 1974 in the UK and it plunged to a near record low in the eurozone. Consumers braced for the biggest hit to living standards in a generation as wages fail to keep pace with prices.33

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14 Questions Over EU’s Hard Pivot Therefore, it was an open question: Would the EU be able to stand up to Putin? Just how successful would EU’s hard pivot from Russian gas be? With so many balls in the air, success was certainly not certain. Would Europe line up enough new sources of natural gas? How extensive would the EU’s ability be to substitute alternative sources of energy to replace natural gas? There would be trade-offs between social and financial risks: • Would governments use fiscal subsidies to soften the blow and shield consumers from rising gas prices? • If so, could the EU find the right balance? • Would that be enough to avert social unrest? • Would too much financial support boost consumption of gas, reduce global supply and send gas prices soaring even more? The EU also had to think about the weather: • What kind of winter was expected? • Would EU stockpiles on gas get it through a cold winter? Finally, national security starts at home. How strong would the demand response be? • Would households voluntarily reduce their demand for natural gas? • Would industry have to ration or opt for black-outs? • Would conservation efforts make a difference? The ERU also had to dis-aggregate the needs of 27 EU states: • Which of the 27 EU countries would be hit the hardest? • Which industrial sectors in Europe would be hit the hardest? • Given national diversities, would EU solidarity prevail or fray?34

15 The Showdown The showdown between Russia and Europe occurred the first week of September 2022. As cited earlier, Russia launched its biggest weapon on 31 August Russia totally stopped the flow of gas to Europe through Nord Stream 1. That meant the only natural gas Russia was sending to Europe flowed through pipelines through Ukraine and the Turk Stream pipelines. This natural gas amounted to about a fifth of the total amount Russia had been sending in June. But Putin was willing to close these pipelines as well. Putin played up this threat at an economic forum in Vladivostok on 7 September 2022. Putin warned that Europe would “freeze, freeze” if the EU were to proceed with a $60 price cap on Russian

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gas, saying Moscow would retaliate by “not suppling anything at all if it is contrary to our interests. No gas, no oil, no coal, no fuel oil, nothing,” he said.35 Russian officials were watching and waiting for what they believed would be the inevitable collapse of European resolve as the economic pain bites. In an interview with the Russian state-run news agency Tass, Russian energy minister Nikolai Shulginov said “I think that the coming winter will show how real their belief is in the possibility of refusing Russian gas,” “This will be a completely new life for the Europeans. I think that, most likely, they will not be able to refuse.” In short, Putin expected European unity against Russia would crumble under the weight of high gas prices.36

16 Would EU Leaders Stand Up to Putin? Would Putin’s blackmail work? Would EU leaders “cave in” to energy coercion and renege on their commitment to Ukraine? EU leaders sent a clear response. Guess again Vladimir. Not on our watch. We have mobilized for war and made a hard pivot away from your unreliable natural gas.37 How did an ex-KGB officer like Putin badly underestimate the resilience and resolve of the EU? Colombia Professor Robert Jervis reminds us that even the most intelligent human beings have cognitive limitations.38 To compensate for their cognitive limitations, they often rely on cognitive shortcuts. For example, MIT Professor Leon Festinger might talk about Putin’s cognitive dissonance.39 Putin was determined to maintain cognitive consistency and wishful thinking about prospects for energy coercion against the EU in the face of psychologically uncomfortable new information about EU resilience and resolve to support Ukraine.

17 EU Starts Winning Instrumental beliefs like this blinded Putin and his enablers to EU’s ability to mobilize a hard pivot away from Russia gas imports. The EU had totally turned the tables on Russia. Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, announced that Russian gas was rapidly decreasing in importance as it found new sources of supply. • Russian natural gas had fallen from 40% of EU gas imports before the war to just 9% in early September 2022. • Gas storage at EU facilities rose to 82%, well ahead of the 80% target the bloc set for the end of October.40

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18 Rising EU Confidence As a result, confidence was growing in European capitals that Europe could get through the winter without severe economic and social dislocation or energy rationing. Von der Leyen said the EU had “weakened the grip that Russia had on our economy and our continent.”41 Von der Leyen became confident enough to declare victory in December 2022: “We have managed to withstand Russia’s energy blackmail… the result of all this is that we are safe for this winter.”42 Admittedly, LNG was a more costly replacement and more expensive for consumers and businesses than natural gas exports from Russia. These consumers and businesses were understandably concerned about skyrocketing energy costs. But this affordability issue was a separate question from whether there is enough gas available for Europe to fully replace Russian supply.43 In this regard, European governments were also showing confidence in already prioritizing fiscal relief for consumers with respect to both heating and electricity costs with massive subsidies and transfer payments. European governments were cushioning the blow of higher gas prices for households and companies. EU governments spent about 3% of national income on energy subsidies, according to think-tank Bruegel.44 As 2023 started, European gas storage facilities were roughly 85% full compared with an average of 70% at the same time of year during the past five years.45 The European price of natural gas was down by more than 75% from its peak and hovering at around e75 per MWh in the first week of January. That was still three times normal levels and much higher than in the US, but a price that many households and industries felt was manageable.46 Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said that with European gas demand down 10%, European gas prices needed to stay low in order to divert LNG shipments away from Europe in order not to overwhelm storage facilities.47 The chart below shows the recent collapse in European natural gas prices. Prices fell from a high of more than US$100/mmBtu in late August to about US$40/mmBtu in October. The fall is due to the near-total build-up of natural gas reserves in storage. By November European storage was 95% full. That gas reserve level falls during the winter. But it has fallen less than usual because of increase of supply and decrease in demand. As a result, the filling level by March 2022 was around 55% which is much more than the 26% in the same month of 2022 reserves. The EU had gotten to the point where there is plenty of gas but nowhere to store it in November.48

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19 How Did the EU Turn the Tables on Russia? European leaders turned the tables on Russia by crisscrossing the globe and lining up new sources of energy. See chart below. EU leaders visited Algeria, Qatar, Senegal, Congo, Norway, Azerbaijan and Canada and negotiated deals to replace Russian supplies.49 Germany especially leaned heavily on Norway and the Netherlands, which agreed to extend the life of its biggest gas field to combat the energy crisis.

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Germany’s dependence on Russian oil fell from 50% before the energy war began to 10% by September 2022.50

Europe has also reconstituted its energy supply mix in a way that should be deeply worrying for the Kremlin.51 Renewables developers have accelerated the continent’s green push takes up the energy security mantle. Coal suppliers are winning too, for now at least.52 EU sanctions also stopped purchases of seaborne Russian crude oil and all oil products on 5 December 2023 and 5 February 2023. In short, all EU energy producers have helped the cause to move away from Russian energy coercion. EU officials held meetings with officials in Nigeria on increasing natural gas exports to Europe, and Japan has agreed to divert some surplus exports. In addition, liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers in the US and elsewhere were winning with new supply deals. High energy prices and the fear that Russia could cut off natural gas exports to Europe led to discussions around LNG as a potential solution to the region’s energy security. The US negotiated with Qatar, the world’s largest natural gas exporter, to divert some of its existing LNG exports from Asia to Europe.

20 The EU’s Amazing Turnaround If we look back to September, it’s clear the EU orchestrated an amazing turnaround. Back then, Putin warned that Europe would “freeze, freeze” if the EU were to proceed with a price cap on Russian gas, saying Moscow would retaliate by supplying “no gas, no oil, no coal, no fuel oil, nothing.” To sum up, Europe turned the tables on Russia. Gas storage in Europe is more than 95% full as of Nov. 19, surpassing the EU’s 80% target level and, more

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importantly, complementing demand destruction caused by unreasonable prices and energy-saving measures. As a result, a resilient Europe avoided acute shortages and blackouts during winter and now in late March. Europe’s dependence on Russian gas has also declined from 40% pre-invasion to less than 20% of its total imports.53

21 Initial LNG Pessimism To fully appreciate this turnaround let’s do a short case study of LNG. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, EU leaders were pessimistic about LNG making up for Europe’s dependency on Russian gas for the following reason. LNG needed to ship to specialized regasification terminals. The combined regasification capacity of all EU terminals was roughly 170bn cu meters per year. Given the fact that the EU imported almost 100 cu meters of LNG in 2021, its regasification terminals have a notional additional capacity of about 70bn cu meters. Unfortunately, that was less than half of the 155bn cu meters of gas provided last year via Russian pipelines.54 Then on 25 May 2022 US President Joe Biden, offered to increase the supply of LNG by an additional 15 cubic meters. President Biden said that the US would work to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe this year, targeting an additional 15bn cu meter (compared with a total of 22bn cu meters in 2021). The White House described the initiative—which is designed to help Europe to reduce its dependency on Russian gas as quickly as possible.55 However, that would do little to fill the gap. The point is it appeared to be very difficult to replace such a large quantity of gas. And insufficient infrastructure also made it appear difficult to fill the gap.56 See chart below that shows why there was not enough LNG to fill the gap in 2021.57

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22 The Situation Changes But then things in the fall of 2022. Putin’s plans to stoke fears of a European freeze come winter (2022–23) backfired. While Russia needed to sell the EU its natural gas, Europe no longer needed these supplies. Gas was becoming a buyer’s market. Professor Sonnenfeld’s analysis of underlying supply patterns reveals that, contrary to common belief, Europe is securing enough gas and LNG liquefied natural gas from global markets to fully substitute for lost Russian supplies already. What is more, it can fully replace every bit of Russian gas without any need for demand destruction or even substitution away from gas. Since the invasion of Ukraine in February, EU sourcing of Russian gas has plummeted from 46 to 9%. This pivot came partially through increased piped gas from Norway and Algeria.

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Even more noteworthy, the dramatic increases in shipped LNG imports from the US and elsewhere replaced the lost Russian vaporous gas from the targeted pipelines.

23 The LNG Game Changer While some say fate giving Europe warm weather should get the lion share of the credit for turning the tables on Russia, I would argue that the revolution in LNG deserves a lot of credit as well. In this regard, Professor Sonnenfeld calculated that new LNG supply surge to the EU approached 40% of total global LNG supply. He concedes that it was easy to overlook this LNG revolution because it was still very new. But his review of every large LNG development project, liquefaction terminal and production field showed that in this past year alone, more than 100bn cubic meters of additional LNG supply was expected to be brought online. This was a 20% increase in total LNG supply. These new additions to global supply were enough to fully replace Europe’s dependence on Russian gas from the Nord Stream and Ukrainian transit pipelines.

24 How Was It Possible to Scale Up LNG So Fast? • Europe has been successful in acquiring floating storage regasification terminals (FSRUs), mobile LNG terminals that can be installed quickly. • By next winter Europe expect six FSRUs to be online in Germany, and an additional two in Italy, along with one recently installed in the Netherlands. • The new LNG capacity will allow for greater throughput of LNG from tankers onto the European grid, allowing overall LNG imports to increase significantly. In Germany, Europe’s biggest consumer of Russian gas, there is a rush to build terminals on the North Sea coast to receive shipments of LNG. LNG, which arrives by seagoing tanker from producers including the United States and Qatar, was once considered an expensive alternative to Russian gas delivered by pipeline. Now it is seen as the most readily available source of fuel to make up for the shortfalls.58 To sum up, all of Professor Sonnenfeld’s indicators suggest that contrary to fears of a supply crunch, Europe has secured enough gas and LNG from global markets to fully replace supplies from Russian gas.59

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25 The Demand Response Equally important was a study by Economics Professor Ben Moll of the London School of Economics that included evidence that higher gas prices (Giles) were encouraging households and companies to cut their gas consumption and find alternatives to Russian supply at low costs. This also showed that European economies to be more resilient than feared.60 “The demand response was much larger, and the economic costs were much smaller than many observers predicted earlier last year, in particular industry CEOs and lobbyists who predicted economic Armageddon if Russian energy were to stop flowing,” Moll says.61

26 Russia’s Coercion Loses Its Potency By September 2022, it was clear that Putin’s energy coercion strategy was losing its potency. Putin overplayed his hand when he closed Nord Stream 1 on 31 August. That action was supposed to be the Kremlin’s big weapon that would cause gas prices to soar. But even the market dismissed Russia’s announcement.62 In many ways closing Nord Stream 1 was Putin last big weapon. Putin also had limited energy ammunition left.63 Putin learned that the potency of energy as a weapon only worked well when the EU was unprepared for an energy war.64 In fact, Putin’s energy coercion backfired. Russia’s best option at this point is to soften the blow is to pivot toward China. But Putin is discovering that the ending energy trade with Europe is not so easily replaced. The China option is simply not going to happen in a way that makes up for losses in Europe65 ; The single pipeline connecting Russia to China only carries 10% of the capacity of Russia’s European pipeline network. And China is not rushing to build any new ones.66 Beyond those practical difficulties, there are also likely to be limits to China’s appetite for more Russian energy. One of the abiding principles of Chinese energy policy for the past two decades has been supply diversification. Beijing will see Europe’s pain today as not just an opportunity to buy cheap resources, but also as a cautionary tale of over-reliance on Russia.67 The China option will also come with a hefty price tag as many billions of dollars would have to be spent on infrastructure to link Russian gas fields to China.68 It will also take 10 years for Russia to build costly new gas pipelines from Russia to China to replace his energy exports to Europe. In addition, Putin has set its own energy industry on a perilous trajectory.69 Russia lacks the energy technology to be successful without western oil and gas technical expertise. And that option is long gone.

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27 Russia’s Long-Term Decline There is no question that Europe and Russia both face difficult challenges. But if we take the long view, Russia is on balance declining more than the EU as an energy superpower due to the structural problems plaguing this sector. Earlier in this study, we noted that Russia had taken steps to insulate itself with financial buffers. As a result, Russia was ready for the energy war. In contrast, Europe was unprepared. Europe never saw this energy war coming. Europe’s cognitive consistency was economic interdependence. Europeans dismissed the geopolitical consequences of Putin harboring anger and hostility to the west over a) the end of the Soviet Union and b) NATO expansion to Russia’s doorstep. However, Russia’s “victory” has been short-lived. This is partly because Russia’s strategy was counter-productive by zeroing out 80% of Russia’s its own gas exports to the EU in September 2022. That only left 20% of Russia’s gas exports to Europe through the Turk Stream and Ukraine pipelines.

28 Warning Signs for Russian Oil Up until now, we have not talked much about Russian oil because Russia got far more geopolitical leverage with Europe due to Europe’s over-reliance on Russian gas. Oil is also a much more flexible commodity than natural gas, and Putin’s hand is stronger here.

29 The Price Cap and Embargo But there are still plenty of warning signs for Russia. The first warning sign Moscow must confront is the price cap initiative led by the US that sets a top price of $60 per barrel for Russia crude oil, and was endorsed by the Group of 7 countries, Australia and the EU. The second warning sign is an embargo that prohibits EU countries from buying most Russian crude as of 5 December 2022. Some of the hardline countries like Poland and Estonia wanted to punish Russia with a far lower price cap. But that move would prompt the Kremlin to slash production and the global oil price would soar once again in the boom-and-bust cycle we have cited earlier in this study. In contrast, the US approach seeks to gradually limit Russia’s oil revenues while also providing enough financial incentive to keep the cruse flowing onto the global market, thus avoiding oil shocks.70

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30 The “Goldilocks” Level Interestingly enough, the US led price cap of $60 dollars per barrel limit roughly matches what buyers are said to be paying for Russian crude, a discount of almost $20 a barrel from the Brent crude oil price. The US bet is that despite bluster from the Kremlin, Russia will keep pumping oil, and major customers for Russia crude, like refiners in China and India, will see the benefit in the combination of low prices and a relatively stable global oil market. To sum up, the $60 price is a “Goldilocks” level, not so high as to give Russia even more revenue than it is currently receiving, or so low as to discourage Moscow from producing oil at all.71 Moscow is also becoming dependent on a smaller pool of customers, weakening its bargaining power. India and China are helping to keep far more oil flowing than western policymakers and analysts expected a few months ago. Yet those countries now have more leverage to continue extracting favorable terms from Moscow. (Justin Jacobs). The West’s $60 a barrel of oil price cap has been heavily criticized and it’s unlikely China and India will go along with the plan. But even if they don’t accept the plan, they’ll likely use its existence as leverage to lower their purchasing price in their own negotiations with Moscow and thus steep discounts. For the US and Europe that may even be a preferable outcome to a major downward disruption in supply. Scarce global supply that would send crude prices soaring again, just like before the recent energy war between Russia and Europe began.72 But the postwar exodus of western oil majors and oilfield services firms from Russia’s oil patch is of a completely different level from previous rounds of sanctions that had put fairly narrow restrictions around western operators in the country.73 The Kremlin’s fight with ExxonMobil over the future of Sakhalin-1, a highly complex project in Russia’s far east, is an example of the difficulties facing the future of Russian energy. (Justin Jacobs) The Kremlin is trying to force Exxon to continue operating Sakhalin-1 in large part because Russian firms do not have the technical capabilities to operate the field. Russia is suffering economically because output from the Sakhalin-1 field has dropped from 220,000 b/d to 10,000 b/d.74 With the EU contributing, by some counts, 54% of Russia’s revenues from fossil fuel exports for the first 6 months of the war, the oil embargos have diminished both Russia’s export earnings and its ability to fund its military operation in Ukraine.75 Yale Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld calculates that Putin is now losing about $100 billion a year from lost gas sales to Russia annually. Putin has very little export capacity and faces difficulty building more given icy conditions and challenges to Arctic shipping.76 There are already tentative indications of a fall in the volume of Russian oil exports since October 2022 and a decline in oil and gas receipts in August 2022. Even Russia’s own Finance Ministry is expecting a decline in oil production volumes of 7–8% in 2023 versus 2022. Production of Russian coal, another major energy export, could fall by between 6 and 17% in 2022 due to a European import ban in effect since August

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and to falling demand in Russia for industrial steel in construction and aluminum in automobile manufacturing.77 Additionally, Harvard Research Professor Li-Chen Sim persuasively argues that three structural limitations inherent in Russia’s energy sector will become more apparent with time. First, Russia’s oil industry is in long-term decline. For example, its reserves are dwindling: In 2020, they were 7% lower than levels recorded in 1991, whereas the U.S. and Saudi Arabia increased their proven reserves by 114% and 14%, respectively, over the same period. Sim explains how this hurts Russia’s chances for longterm development since the oil sector accounts for most of the combined oil-and-gas contributions to federal budget revenue (50%) and GDP (20%).78 Second, limited storage capacity means that a fall in exports will inevitably result in production shut-ins. Sim explains how maintaining pressure at Russia’s many small, ageing oil fields to enable them to be restarted in future would be a costly and painstaking undertaking.79 Third, Sim agrees with Yale Professor Sonnenfeld that Russia’s infrastructure was purpose-built to service customers in Europe. Consequently, there is no existing pipeline that can redirect western Siberian gas from Europe to Asia. Construction of such a dedicated gas pipeline is still pending final agreement by Russia and China “in the near future. Therefore, there is little chance for gas flows to begin before 2030.80 And finally, Sim also notes that Russia lacks enough ships to transport its own oil and gas because it has traditionally relied on European vessels, which will become virtually inaccessible if these commodities are purchased below the $60 price caps.81

31 European Energy Opportunities If Andy Marshall were still the Director in Net Assessments, he would probably want to know which factors would improve European security and which ones would worsen European security?82 On the positive side, the EU is off to a good start. The EU has created a viable REPowerEU Plan with factors that promise to improve European energy security by moving away from Russia’s energy coercion83 : • First, the EU is diversifying its sources of energy. It has created an EU Energy Platform to co-ordinate purchases and transportation of LNG. It has set up an external energy engagement strategy for liaison and co-ordination with suppliers abroad. It now requires energy storage facilities to be filled to 80% by November. • But as cited earlier, the new LNG infrastructure has been and will continue to be a game changer as more and more infrastructure goes online. Europe has been successful in acquiring floating storage regasification terminals (FSRUs) and mobile LNG terminals that can be installed quickly. By next winter six FSRUs will be online in Germany, and an additional two in Italy, along with one recently installed in the Netherlands. The new LNG capacity allows for greater throughput

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of LNG from tankers onto the European grid, allowing overall LNG imports to increase significantly. • Second, the EU is investing in green energy. It is raising the 2030 green power target from 40 to 45%. It is simplifying permitting process for renewable energy. It is mandating solar power on residual buildings by 2029. It is targeting the production of 10 million tons of domestic hydrogen and 10 million tons of imports by 2030. And it is targeting 35 billion cu meters of biomethane production by 2030. • Last but not least, the EU is strengthening its energy efficiency and savings. It is increasing 2030 energy efficiency target from 9 to 13%. It is implementing “Save Energy Communication” to incentivize behavioral change. It is proposing tax incentives for member states for efficiency measures. And it is preparing contingencies for cut-off of non-protected energy customers.84

32 European Energy Challenges While the EU deserves three cheers for turning the tables on Russia, this turnaround has come at a its turnaround at an enormous price that will haunt Europe in the short and medium term. By the end of October 2022, the EU spent around $105 billion in frantic efforts to increase storage levels. At the micro level, households endured a 90% increase in energy bills compared to the previous year. Governments across Europe have agreed or are under pressure to subsidize consumers, which will result in higher levels of public debt. In addition, Europe’s industry is in crisis. Energy importer Uniper reported a $40 billion net loss in the first nine months of 2022, one of the largest in German corporate history. Steel, fertilizer, chemical and automotive manufacturing plants are drastically cutting production or shutting down due to high energy costs and slowing demand.85 IMF also says the war in Ukraine has created new headwinds, including curtailment of gas flows from Russia and higher energy prices. German GDP growth has slowed from 2.9% in 2021, to an estimated 1.2% in 2022 and an almost flat 0.8% in 2023. Surging energy costs are feeding into an overall German inflation rate that reached almost 8% in 2022.86 IMF says uncertainty in the German economy is extremely high, with risks to the baseline growth forecast skewed downward and risks to the inflation forecast skewed upward. In response to surging energy prices, the government is expanding income support for vulnerable households, cutting fuel taxes, and providing liquidity support to firms.87 If we look at EU economies, the EU economic strength will enable the economic giant to continue to spend vast sums, incurring debt in the process, to outbid other customers in order to ensure adequate gas supply over the next few years. The bad news is fears of a “deindustrialization of the German economy” and a general blow to Europe’s competitiveness have already surfaced.88 Finally, next winter could be cold and China’s decision to end its zero-covid policy means Chinese demand for

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energy will rise. That means there is no time to celebrate or be complacent. Europe is not out of the woods. Energy security is job one for the European economy in 2023.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Jessica D. Blankshain, and David A. Cooper, Decision-making in American Foreign Policy: Translating Theory into Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2019. Alexander George, Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings, United States Institute of Peace, 1993. Fareed Zacharia, Global Public Square, CNN, 26 March 2023. Ulrich Krotz, Three eras and possible futures: a long-term view on the Franco-German relationship a century after the First World War, International Affairs (March 2014) 90#2. pp. 337–350. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1976). Leon Festinger, Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957. Nicole Friedman, “Oil’s Descent Deepens as Demand Fears. Grow?” The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2014. Christopher Adams, Michael Stothard and Ed Crooks, “Battered Energy Groups Brace for Spending Cuts,” Financial Times, 25 January 2015. Leif Rosenberger, The Strategic Importance of the International Oil Market, SSI, Army War College, June 2015. Jesse Colombo, “Nine Reasons Why Oil Prices May be Headed for a Bust,” Barrons, June 9, 2014. Andrew Hill, “Davos 2015: Oil Chiefs Feel Chill Wind of. Uncertainty over Price,” Financial Times, January 21, 2015. Ed Crooks, “Discoveries of New Oil and Gas Reserves Drop to 20Year Low,” Financial Times, February 15, 2015; and Andrea Pescatori and Martin Stuermer, From Abundance to Thirst, IMF, Dec 2022. Jamie Smyth and James Wilson, “BHP Cuts Shale Investment Amid Drop in Oil Price,” FT, January 21, 2015. See International Energy Agency (IEA) studies in 2020s. Ibid., Pescatori and Stuermer, op. cit. See Henry Foy, Russia: adapting to sanctions leaves economy in robust health, FT, 29 January 2020 and Natasha Dodd and Anya Andrianova, Putin’s Response to new round of US sanctions is more economic isolation, Fortune, 19 April 2021. Henry Foy, Russia: adapting to sanctions leaves economy in robust health, FT, 29 January 2020. Elvis Picardo, et al. and 10 Biggest Countries with the Biggest Foreign Reserves, Investopedia.com21 June 2022. Natasha Dodd and Anya Andrianova, Putin’s Response to new round of US sanctions is more economic isolation, Fortune, 19 April 2021. EIU, Ukraine Country Report, Global Support for Russia is Growing, 3 March 2023. Chris Giles, Russia’s energy weapon fails to fire as required, FT, 16 January 2023. Ibid., Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Ukraine March 2022 Country Report, Chart EU leaders tread carefully with Russia sanctions, 24 February 2022. Stanley Reed, Russia Cuts Natural Gas Flow to Germany Yet Again, NYT, July 27, 2022.

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26. David Sheppard, Russia halts gas flows to Europe through Nord Stream 1, FT, 31 August 2022. 27. EIU, Ukraine: Country Report, Russia halts gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland, April 27, 2022. 28. Ben Hall et al., Europe sounds full mobilization after Kremlin shuts key gas pipeline, FT, 9 September 2022. 29. Chart – 30. EIU, Ukraine: June 2022 Country Report: EU unveils plan to move away from Russian energy, 25 May 2022. 31. Giles, op.cit. 32. Ben Hall, op.cit. 33. Ben Hall, op.cit. 34. EIU, Europe’s Bleak Midwinter, 17 August 2022; and Eddy, op. cit. 35. Ben Hall, op.cit. 36. Eddy, op.cit. 37. Eddy, op.cit. 38. Jervis, op.cit. 39. Festinger, op.cit. 40. Editorial Board: FT View, EU must stand together in the energy war against Russia, Financial Times, 13 September 2022. 41. Ben Hall, op.cit. 42. Giles, op.cit. 43. Sonnenfeld, op.cit. 44. Giles, op.cit. 45. Ibid., 46. Ibid., 47. Ibid., 48. EIU, Ukraine: December 2022 Country Report, Plenty of gas, but nowhere to store, 10 November 2022, p.38. 49. Melissa Eddy, Erika Soloman, and Anton Troianovski, Europe Says Putin’s Gas Power is Weakening, New York Times, 7 September 2022 and Ben Hall, op.cit. 50. Eddy, op.cit. 51. Jacobs, 52. Ibid., 53. Sim. 54. EIU, Ukraine: Country Report, Can LNG boost EU energy security? February 16, 2022. 55. EIU, Ukraine, European gas supply still vulnerable despite US LNG offer, March 31, 2022: 56. Ibid., 57. Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Ukraine March 2022 Country Report, Can LNG boost EU energy security? 16 February 2022. 58. Stanley Reed, Russia Cuts Natural Gas Flow to Germany Yet Again, New York Times, 27 July 2022. 59. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, While Putin doubles down in Ukraine, his gas gambit is failing, FT, 10 October 2022. 60. Giles, op.cit. 61. Ibid., 62. Jacobs, op.cit. 63. Editorial Board, FT View, op.cit. 64. Jacobs, op.cit. 65. Ibid., 66. Sonnenfeld, op.cit. 67. Jacobs, op.cit. 68. Ibid., 69. Ibid.,

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70. Stanley Reed, An EU embargo of Russian oil and the G7’s price cap take effect, New York Times, 5 December 2022. 71. Ibid., 72. Jacobs, op. cit. 73. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 75. Li-Chen Sim, Russia vs Europe: Who Is Winning the Energy War? Russia Matters, Belfer Center, Harvard University, November 23, 2022. 76. Sonnenfeld, op.cit. 77. Eddy, op.cit. 78. Sim, op.cit. 79. Ibid., 80. Eddy, op.cit. 81. Sim, op.cit. 82. Factors that improve or worsen European security come from EIU, How Europe’s crisis will— and won’t—be worse next winter, 14 December 2022. 83. EIU: Ukraine Country Report, EU unveils plan to move away from Russian energy, May 25, 2022. 84. Ibid., 85. Ibid., Sim, 86. IMF Executive Board Concludes 2022 Article IV Consultation with Germany, July 20, 2022). 87. Ibid., 88. Sim, op.cit.

Ukraine’s National Recovery: Opportunities and Challenges Leif Rosenberger and Marcus S. Snow

Abstract The time to plan for Ukraine’s recovery is while war is still raging. The war caused extensive and, in some areas, severe damage. Kyiv School of Economics says infrastructure costs are $100 B. President Zelensky says 10-year recovery plan will cost $750 B. There’s a lot to like in President Zelensky’s national recovery plan. The challenge is to turn a good plan into concrete achievements. Ukraine’s EU Candidacy paves the way for EU organizing funding. To attract investors, Kyiv needs a more market friendly economy. Ukraine needs to develop market laws and institutions, stabilization, liberalization, and privatization to pace and sequence this transition. Corruption is also a major obstacle to attracting more investors. Kyiv is making some progress to curb corruption and attract donors. But Chatham House is still critical of its pervasive corruption. Keywords Ukraine · Russia · Reconstruction · Economic damage · Infrastructure costs · President Zelensky · 10-year national recovery plan · Ukraine’s EU Candidacy · Organizing funding · Investors · Donors · Economic transition · Transformation · Market friendly economy · Market laws and institutions · Stabilization · Liberalization · Privatization · Macro-economics · Fiscal and monetary policy · International trade and finance · Microeconomics · Currency convertibility · Pace and sequence of economic reforms · Corruption Executive Summary • • • •

The time to plan for Ukraine’s recovery is while war is still raging. The war caused extensive and, in some areas, apocalyptic damage. Kyiv School of Economics says infrastructure costs are $100 B. President Zelensky says 10-year recovery plan will cost $750 B.

L. Rosenberger (B) · M. S. Snow Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute PKSOI, Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. S. Snow e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_14

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• • • • •

There’s a lot to like in President Zelensky’s national recovery plan. The challenge is to turn a good plan into concrete achievements. Ukraine’s EU Candidacy paves the way for EU organizing funding. To attract investors, Kyiv needs a more market friendly economy. Ukraine needs to develop market laws and institutions, stabilization, Liberalization, and privatization to pace and sequence this transition. • Corruption is also a major obstacle to attracting more investors. • Kyiv is making some progress to curb corruption and attract donors. • But Chatham House is still critical of its pervasive corruption.

1 Introduction: The Time Is Now As the Ukraine military executes a counter-offensive against the Russian military in October 2022, some observers say postwar military planning needs to wait until war’s end. They argue that postwar planning and reconstruction would only be a distraction from the current battle rhythm and the future is uncertain. But uncertainty is no excuse not to plan. In fact, delaying planning and civilian reconstruction is arguably a mistake. Think back to World War II. Months of combat lay ahead in Europe and the Pacific when the U.S. and its partners met at Bretton Woods, N.H., in July 1944. They had the foresight to plan the global order that would follow the war. They visualized and then created such institutions as the IMF, the World Bank and the UN long before they could see final victory. Thus, the lesson learned from World War II was the time to plan for Ukraine’s recovery was while war was still raging. In retrospect, planning for the postwar environment was a potent symbol of Western unity. But that pleasant scenario was not inevitable. Delaying this planning would have meant mishandling actions which could have spelled disaster for Ukraine and European security. Foresight is also important at tactical and operational levels. When guns fall silent, people are still vulnerable. So advance planning is essential to save lives. Planning to rebuild Ukraine and its place in Europe is not idle speculation. It has real effects. Consolidating social, economic, and political gains are vital to sustain postwar success. Planning is critical to hold down costs, limit waste and help the Ukrainian people realize a brighter future. In fact, it’s important to start reconstruction now in order to safeguard a seamless web between the war economy and the postwar economy. Otherwise, the longer-term financial burden on donor countries would be even higher. Significant areas of the country are largely free from fighting. Rebuilding these areas now offers hope to a country blighted by death, destruction and fear. In addition, leaving them depressed would only discourage the return of refugees and prolong Ukraine’s dependence on foreign aid. Western support for reconstruction projects will also help the war effort by allowing the Ukrainian government to focus on providing basic services and keeping its troops supplied.

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While it makes little sense to rebuild a structure that will just be shelled again, this has not stopped the Ukrainian government from starting to rebuild in parts of the country where fighting has ended. There is a continual race to restore vital services, rebuild housing and salvage productive capacity in the Ukrainian economy. Having a light at the end of the tunnel is a huge morale boost for Ukrainians, especially for people in the occupied territory. Having a sense that the future will be better will make it easier to survive these dark days. There is enormous willingness among much of the international community to support the war effort. There is also enormous willingness for them to invest in the rebuilding of Ukraine. But enthusiasm fades, so now is the time to tap into this passion as a force multiplier while it lasts. Thus, there is plenty Ukraine’s allies can do now: • Repairing or bridging broken spans with modular bridge kids, expedient road repairs, and other temporary vital infrastructure can help move millions of pounds of grain out of the country. • Farmers and agribusiness need support for planting this year as well as stronger storage facilities, such as temporary grain silos. Where feasible, residential areas need reconstruction accelerated: • Prefabricated housing for those internally displaced by the war and for returning refugees is needed to restore some normality. • In areas where violence has sufficiently subsided, outside experts can help de-mine key routes and corridors to facilitate recovery of essential services. • Large numbers of Ukrainians can’t return to their homes until these routes and areas are secure.

2 Russia Degrades Ukraine’s Economy Russia’s attack on Ukraine included degrading Ukraine’s economy. Russia’s rocket attacks on the huge grain silo of Mykolaiv and the theft of grain stocks demonstrate this. Putin refused humanitarian corridors, blocked grain exports and attacked factories, plants and social infrastructure along with roads, ports and railways. Ukraine’s GDP is expected to contract by 45% in 2022 and 99% of the companies in the country have reported losses. Roads, railways, grain elevators, telecommunication networks, real estate, schools and hospitals have been damaged, destroyed or seized by Russian forces. Maritime transports were shut down. Millions have fled the country and millions more have been displaced. A running tally by the Kyiv School of Economics puts key infrastructure loss at about $100 billion. Over 7 months of fighting has brought staggering levels of destruction, from bridges to homes, hospitals, and shopping malls. With millions of Ukrainian citizens displaced and the country’s infrastructure in ruins, Ukraine will be unable to support itself for year, possibly decades to come.

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An impoverished or dysfunctional state the size of and importance of Ukraine on Europe’s border would be vulnerable to future aggression and a source of economic and political instability. Preventing such an outcome will require the democratic world to finance much of the country’s reconstruction, just as the US did in Europe after WWII with the Marshall Plan.

3 The Cost of War The war in Ukraine has caused extensive and, in some areas, apocalyptic damage. While some regions, particularly in the western part of the country, have escaped with relatively minor damage, the heavily industrialized eastern portion of Ukraine has seen levels of destruction reminiscent of scenes from the First World War. This is especially true in in areas where front lines were relatively static allowing for extended artillery and missile bombardments and of course heavy tit-for-tat ground fighting. Some of this devastation predates the Russian February offense. Thousands of homes and businesses have been damaged or destroyed and the Ukrainian road, bridge, and rail network has been severely compromised. Indeed, 80% of the assessed physical reconstruction costs from the war are attributed to housing, transport networks, and commercial plant needs. Much of the damage is geographically concentrated in front line areas and logistical nodes. The western Donetsk and Luhansk areas as well as urban centers in Zaporiza and Kherson are examples of the damage caused by the relatively slow moving and brutal slug fests that have highlighted much of the fighting. As one would expect, the combatants favored striking high value targets which included critical and expensive to replace infrastructure. Figure 1 illustrates the concentration of the damage in the eastern region. It should be noted that the most damaged areas are also Ukraine’s industrial and mineral rich heartland.

4 Physical Damage 4.1 Damage Assessment To gauge the damage caused by the war to date, the World Bank sent assessment teams to capture its scope and scale. Through 1 June 2022, the teams assessed approximately $97 billion in damage with the housing, transport, and industrial sectors hit the hardest. Ukraine’s eastern oblasts were the hardest hit with Donetska, Luhanska, and Kharkivska suffering the most. Indeed, close to 60% of assessed damage occurred in those three oblasts. Destruction has been particularly acute in urban housing with over 800,000 homes and apartments being affected, almost 40% of which are destroyed beyond repair.

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Fig. 1 Extent of damage by region as of June 1, 2022.World Bank assessment team. Aside from the concerted assault on Kyiv, the eastern mineral rich industrial areas were the scene of the most intense fighting

4.2 Losses Due to the War In addition to battle related damage, the World Bank team assesses aggregate loss remediation of almost $252 billion—that is, restoring economic activity lost as a result of the war. As an example, widespread land contamination due to mines and dangerous ordnance has significantly impeded economic activity. Large parts of Ukraine require land decontamination to return to normalcy.

4.3 Total Damage and Loss Altogether, the World Bank estimates that total reconstruction and recovery needs are about $349 billion. It should be noted that this cost does not consider damage inflicted after 1 Jun and does not take into account the lost economic activity that will occur as recovery and reconstruction timelines extend into years. Moreover, this World Bank assessment does not address the human capital lost via displacement, fighting, wounded, disabled, or dead (Figs. 2, 3, and 4).

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Fig. 2 Total damage as of June 1, 2022: US $97 billion. World Bank assessment team. The Housing, Transport, and Commerce and Industry Sectors Sustained over 80%of the damage

Fig. 3 Total losses as of June 1, 2020: US $252 billion; World Bank assessment team. Land decontamination is a significant obstacle to recovery and includes a deliberate campaign of prioritized assessment, surveying, and clearance of mines and removal of unexploded ordnance

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Fig. 4 Total needs as of June 1, 2022: US $349 billion; World Bank assessment team

5 President Zelensky’s National Recovery Plan Ukraine’s National Recovery Plan is comprehensive, coherent and rightly ambitiousto the tune of $750 billion over 10 years and an objective annual GDP growth rate over 7%. Well-structured and logically arrayed, the UNRP provides context, major objectives, guiding principles and implementation approach, establishes the National Recovery Council to coordinate efforts, and provides the NRC with a vision and tangible imperatives and objectives. The NRP further identifies 15 executable national programs to achieve its recovery and growth targets and assigns a timeline and budget for each. Each of the 15 programs are further broken down into individual projects, with estimated funding need, performance criteria, related initiatives, time horizon and economic sector being addressed. There is a lot to like in this plan. The UNRP begins not only by recognizing how much damage from the conflict but also highlighting Ukraine’s historically poor economic performance vs. its Central European peers. Indeed, the plan that follows is about more than just fixing what was broken, but rather, building and restructuring institutions and economic modes of production which have been misaligned and stagnant since the days of inept Soviet central planning. Indeed, UNRP strikes an undeniably optimistic tone of a nation freed from Soviet style economic paradigms eager to embrace EU models of freer markets and transparency. There is room for this optimism. Ukrainian GDP growth is largely occurring in the western part of the country and not in areas or sectors of historical growth.

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Modernizing the economy has occurred for some time and the recovery plan will only accelerate this. Some background is in order. Ukrainian industrial output has historically been in the iron and coal rich eastern oblasts. Much like industrial complexes in the US such as Detroit and Pittsburgh, the proximity of energy supplies, input ores, and suitable water transport made heavy industry in Donetsk and along the Azov coast a natural choice. The Soviet Union embraced the physical and mineral gifts of the region, and the eastern oblasts of Ukraine grew into a significant center of production for the Soviet state. It is no coincidence that those very regions host large ethnic Russian populations as generations of Soviet technicians, engineers, miners, machinists, administrators, and others flocked (or were assigned) to what was a growing center of industry. In a story familiar to many Americans who grew up in the Rust Belt, these once thriving areas are no longer the growth areas they once were. The UNRP recognizes this and as Americans do not prioritize the rebuilding of the steel works in Bethlehem, the Ukrainians are not prioritizing pouring their recovery funds in revamping Soviet era machine shops. Rather, they are emphasizing revamping the legal, financial, and regulatory structure which allows capital to choose where best to go. Figure 5 highlights the westward growth trend in Ukraine. Even as early as 2013 when this data was collected, urban areas in western Ukraine were growing both in population and economic production. The eastern oblasts, in stark contrast, all show a shrinking population, a shrinking economy, or both. While Ukraine in general suffers from economic growth issues and a dismal demographic outlook, what bright spots there are reside in the western half of the country. The exception appears to be Crimea, but since 2014 it has been occupied and data is hard to validate. Interestingly, the UNRP places Resiliency as the first of three objectives for the plan, the other two being Recovery and Modernization and Growth. This is telling as aspects of the plan foretell a sundering and overhaul of existing regulatory systems, economic structures, trade patterns, and modes of industrial operation. Resiliency considering the dramatic changes called for in the plan is rightly placed as the premier objective. Resiliency often comes at the cost of efficiency. Maximally efficient economic systems are not always resilient, but they are more secure. This leaves planners room to place efficiency below economic, social, and environmental resilience. This may manifest in what might be considered protectionist policies, an increased emphasis on regulatory oversight, and of course a national security focus. The plan also lays out several guiding principles which inform the various recovery programs and projects. The first principle is to “Start now, ramp up gradually” which is to say, get moving with what you can now where you can, even when the conflict is ongoing. This follows a number of successful reconstruction efforts dating back to the French recovery efforts early in WWI. The next principle is to “grow prosperity in an equitable way”. Again, another effective principle from past reconstruction efforts which seeks to ensure that uneven recovery efforts do not plant the seeds for future social agita. “Integration into the EU” is next and is perhaps the most daunting as it implies the execution of a series of

Fig. 5 “Cities in Europe and Central Asia”. UKRAINE. World Bank; Advisory Service and Analytics (ASA) work developed by the Urban, Social, Rural and Resilience Global practice (GPSURR)

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very concrete actions and perquisite conditions such as adherence to the Copenhagen Criteria and elusive institutional capacity building. Next is “Build back better (for the future)” which acknowledges that Ukraine cannot simply repair damage to dying industries but rather must prioritize recovery in areas of future growth, to include a digital and green economy. Ukraine has dying but profitable legacy industries in the east and growing and profitable sectors in the west, especially in the large urban centers. Ukraine has an opportunity to not build back but build new for the future needs. No need to re-build legacy industry; better to build infra of the future). The last principle aligns well with the previous four: “Enable private investment and entrepreneurship”. With an emphasis on small to medium sized business and creating the conditions to both allocate internal capital and attract foreign direct investment, adherence to this principle implies the establishment of trusted oversight mechanisms to ensure transparency and attract capital. It acknowledges the role of agile private equity over the dated and moribund state-owned enterprise model of the past.

6 Transforming the Plan into Concrete Achievements Now that we have (a) explained why we need to plan a recovery and start rebuilding in wartime, (b) assessed the overall damage and costs from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and (c) explained the promise of President Zelensky’s National Recovery Plan, the challenge is to turn a good plan into success on the ground. A number of questions come to mind. First, will enough donor money come from the International Community to implement the $100 billion infrastructure needs for the first year of the recovery? Second, will there be enough donor money and investment dollars from the private sector for President Zelensky’s $750 billion economic recovery plan for the first decade? Third, even if all the money comes as planned, how will the reconstruction be organized?. There is good reason to fear a disorganized melee of countries and international institutions all caring about their brand, their influence, and the visibility of their money. The risk is one of paralysis if no streamlined, centralized process to coordinate both donors and spending is agreed upon. The Ukrainian government has increased this risk with a scheme to match individual donors with specific regions or cities in Ukraine. No one would be served by such an organizational mess. Logic dictates that the money should flow through two entities: • The Ukrainian government, which alone can identify the country’s needs • An agency of donors that can reassure them their money is being well spent. The only good place for that agency is as part of EU, which inevitably should take the lead because Ukraine is located in the EU’s backyard. Ukraine’s EU Candidacy paves the way for EU organizing funding.

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7 Needed: A Coherent Economic Transition To be an attractive place to invest their money, the foreign investors want to know if Ukraine has a coherent strategy that makes the transition from a bloated public sector economy to a market friendly economy. At the moment, Ukraine has not developed a coherent economic transition strategy. To make matters worse, there is no textbook or school solution these days for a coherent economic transition strategy. Without a coherent transition, donors will hold back because they will assume there Ukraine has no plans to orchestrate an economic transition to a market friendly economy. So, to modestly fill the gap, we have created a coherent one that at least explains the economic challenges and opportunities of trying to roll out the pace and sequencing of one. It will be up to the Ukraine government to test the waters. Finally, investors in the private sector are not just looking at whether the government has a coherent economic transition strategy. The answer to how much money will come from investors will also turn on whether or not the donors and investors can trust the Ukraine government. Based on Ukraine’s history of endemic corruption, not much money would come.

8 A Market Friendly Economy for Ukraine To promote economic stability as well as sustainable economic growth, we recommend a market friendly economic strategy for Ukraine. What’s the big picture vis-à-vis the Ukrainian government and markets? The Ukraine government should concentrate its interventions on areas in which markets prove ineffective. Otherwise, the market takes the lead. The World Bank cites four main aspects of the relationship between governments and markets1 . First, investing in people requires an efficient public sector. Markets alone generally do not ensure that people, especially the poorest, receive adequate education, health care, nutrition, and access to family planning. Second, an enabling business climate is essential for the private sector to flourish. Climate needs to include laws and institutions which support competition, adequate infrastructure, and market friendly institutions. Competition fosters innovation, the diffusion of technology and the efficient use of resources. Third, successful economic development requires the integration of countries with the global economy. While the pandemic raises questions about supply chain management, the openness to international flows of goods, services, capital, labor, technology, and ideas spurs economic growth.

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9 Previous East European Reforms: Lessons Learned No one knows when the war in Ukraine will be over. When that moment occurs humanitarian assistance and disaster relief will be the immediate concern. But free market planning still has to happen. The problem is there is no way of knowing how much of the free market will be left and how much of the Soviet era mindset will still be plaguing the economy. In short, there are many unanswered questions. That said, Ukraine’s situation is not unique. Ukraine’s economic challenge is actually reminiscent of common economic challenges and opportunities which Ukraine’s East European neighbors faced back in 1991. Understanding the nature and extent of these economic challenges and opportunities for East European economies back in 1991 will arguably help Ukraine avoid pitfalls and formulate a more sustainable market friendly economic strategy. The following is a drill down into the past to help Ukraine’s future. While each East European country chose their own economic reforms after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the most valuable lesson learned relates to the interaction between the state and the market in fostering stable and sustainable economic development. Economic success is most likely when East European public sector complements the markets. In contrast, dramatic failures occurred in Ukraine when a bloated state and the market collided and created financial crises. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 East Europeans were euphoric. Armed with their new political freedom, they bravely set put to sweep away the old discredited socialist economies and replace them with sparkling new free market economies. Widespread popular support helped the economic reformers push through startling changes. The three leading reformers—Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republics—freed most prices, lowered their trade barriers, opted for currency convertibility and opened the doors to foreign investors. Even Bulgaria and Romania enthusiastically embraced free markets and political freedom in word, if not yet entirely in deed. Unfortunately, the euphoria back in 1991 was gone a year later. Gone two was the dream of prosperity coming to this region anytime soon. In its place was the grim reality of a socialist economic legacy that would be anything but easy to transform. Disagreement and bitterness grew throughout Eastern Europe as hopes faded for a quick transition to a market economy. The problems East European faced by September 1992 were far more difficult than anything they could have imagined a year earlier. While scores of small businesses sprung up throughout the region, Eastern Europe as a whole experienced a deep recession, with GDP falling about 8% in 1991 in the five reforming countries.2 Industrial output in these five East European countries fell even faster, by 17% in 1991.3 The fall in output led to a fast rise in unemployment. In Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the number of jobless more than doubled during 1991.4

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The UN Economic Commission for Europe compared Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the Great Depression between 1929 and 1933.5 Unemployment rose from about 3.4% when the economic reforms began in 1989 to almost 20% by 1992.6 In addition, inflation was still far from being under control and was destructively 25% in Hungary in 1991. East European economies also faced other challenges. For instance, East European economies were also devastated by the abrupt rise in energy costs since the Soviet Union began demanding market prices for its oil. The overall collapse of trade with h Soviet Union and the former East Germany hurt East European economies too. And as if things weren’t bad enough, Poland—the boldest reformer in all of Eastern Europe back in 1992—was rocked by a series of banking and corporate scandals. The bleak picture led Morgan Stanly to describe 1992 as Eastern Europe’s “year of living dangerously.”7 This growing pain in 1992 made the whole process of transforming these economies politically more difficult. Certainly, few East Europeans anticipated how long and complex would be the task of turning socialism into capitalism. Despite the complexities of the process, the transition to a market-oriented economy involves certain basic elements. This paper discusses these basic elements of economic transition in Eastern Europe and the difficult issues surrounding these elements.8 In particular, the paper addresses the appropriate speed with which the elements of reform should be implemented as well as the question of what to do when, or what is called the sequencing of the reforms. Most economic reformers would agree that the required economic reforms are so interlinked that even identifying the best sequencing is extremely difficult. It would be desirable, therefore, to do everything at once. But as a practical matter, some reforms take longer than others to implement. So, like it or not, choices have to be made regarding sequencing.9 Choices also must be made regarding the pace of reforms. In other words, should we follow Jeffrey Sachs and pursue rapid “shock therapy,” or follow Roland Paris in his book at War’s End and pursue gradual transition? The transition process has many elements (such as institution building and attitudinal changes in Ukraine) that simply don’t lend themselves to rapid transition, while others such as privatization of state-run banks and monopoly businesses must occur relatively fast if a market friendly economy is ever to get off the ground. In any discussion of speed and sequencing of economic reforms, the transitional costs of moving from a state-run economy to a market friendly is to be addressed.10 These transitional costs depend on the expectations of the Ukrainian people and the credibility of the transition process itself. Unfortunately, unrealistic expectations of the Ukrainian people regarding the ease and length of the transition are undermining the credibility of government transition policy in Ukraine. The euphoric consensus that supported a dash to the free market faded and calls for a slower transition to a free market grew, both within the governments and among opposition parties. Unfortunately, the history of partial and slower transition away from socialism in Eastern Europe prior to 1989 was a history of stagnant, inefficient, non-competitive economies.11

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Ukraine’s only hope of achieving prosperity anytime soon depends on “how politically deaf and determined the country’s reformers will be over the next year or two. 12 Economic reforms must be comprehensive and rapid enough (in those areas where speed of implementation is possible and prudent) to create a public constituency whose interest in a new market friendly economy is bigger than that favoring the old state-run system. Inevitably, therefore, the issues come down to when to do what and how fast to do it.13

10 The Sequencing of Economic Reforms While some scholars argue that all the economic reforms must be initiated immediately and simultaneously, this approach is a political and practical non-starter for most Ukrainians. A more realistic approach is to adopt the economic reforms in a logical, economically sound sequence, which in turn minimizes the social shock. The phasing of Ukrainian reforms can be divided into four broad sequential categories: • • • •

Macroeconomic stabilization. Redefining the role of the state. Liberalizing the economy. Restructuring ownership and privatization.14

Most reformers would agree that macroeconomic stabilization is a prerequisite for most other economic reforms. Successful stabilization come from balancing total domestic production so as to keep prices relatively constant and predictable. This is especially important in Ukraine. At war’s end there will inevitably be shortages which push up domestic inflation. To make matters worse, there is also global inflation which means a double whammy pushing prices up. Only after this inflationary pressure is checked is it responsible to initiate an economic liberalization plan. Should the liberalization plan begin without a solid stabilization plan in place, prices could skyrocket. This runaway inflation could be destabilizing, triggering social turmoil and political reversals. An effective stabilization plan consists of tightening fiscal and monetary policies.15 • On the fiscal side, any sizeable budget deficit should be reduced. Austerity measures to accomplish this task include reducing government subsidies to sick and inefficient industries. • On the monetary side, the growth of the money supply should be curbed, and commercial interest rates should be set at a rate equal to or above the inflation rate of public investment. And since the Ukraine foreign exchange rate of the hryvnia against the U.S. dollar has been overvalued in a world market sense, the foreign exchange rate of the

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hryvnia should be devalued and pegged to the U.S. dollar. In short, overall macroeconomic stability must be created before liberalization can start. Otherwise, suppressed inflation will merely be replaced by runaway inflation. The early Polish and Yugoslav stabilization programs in 1990 showed that inflation can be reduced, at least in the short run. Poland’s monthly inflation during the sixmonth period from March through August 1990 was about 4%, compared to 30% in the last months of 1989. Similarly, Yugoslavia’s inflation fell from 64% in December 1989 to 10% for the six-month period from March through August 1990. Of course, initiating a stabilization plan is a lot easier than sustaining one. This is particularly true when it comes to limiting wage increases. For instance, in January 1990 Poland implemented a tax to discourage wage increases while Yugoslavia froze nominal wages for six months at the start of its stabilization program. Wages fell in Yugoslavia about 45% from November 1989 to February 1990, but rose 25% in the three months after the wage freeze was lifted in June of 1990, which in turn caused inflation to jump in the third quarter of 1990. Similarly, wages fell in Poland 47% in the first half of 1990, but rose again in the second half of the year.16 The experiences of Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia also showed external stabilization measures can improve their competitiveness in the world marketplace. For instance, in 1990 Hungary devalued its currency 15%. Poland and Yugoslavia also devalued sharply in early 1990. Warsaw devalued by 46% and Belgrade devalued by 20%. In all three countries, exports rise significantly after the devaluations.17 While nobody should underestimate the difficulty of implementing these macroeconomic stabilization programs, they can often be done relatively quickly. Take Poland, for instance. On January 1, 1990, Poland made dramatic changes in prices, the exchange rate, as well as in fiscal and monetary policies.

11 Redefining the Role of the Ukrainian State But macroeconomic change is one thing. Changing attitudes and the role of the state is far more complex. In Ukraine, the amount of change needed is enormous. Just think of how long it has taken the market-oriented economics in the West to function relatively efficiently. Western economies rely on institutions and laws established over a century or more. These include market-oriented accounting and banking rules, tax codes, pension and unemployment systems, labor laws, bank, and financial market supervision and finally property and contract law and the courts to enforce them. Although Ukraine broke away from the old Soviet Union over three decades ago, Ukrainians have just begun to think about these complex laws and institutions. And yet they are the essential bedrock of a market friendly governance. And so, Ukraine must create, virtually from scratch, a network of modern laws and institutions, without which a truly market friendly economy cannot function. The legal and institutional changes take time to work through the parliamentary process because they involve no less than a complete restructuring of the

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economy. For instance, domestic factors of production—including labor services, land, machines, tools, buildings, raw materials as well as financial capital—must be transferred from state ownership to private hands. Only when these inputs can be bought and sold in the marketplace will the economy begin to remove the economic distortions that keep it non-competitive. Similarly, parliaments must legalize the right to own private businesses, private property, commercial banks, and financial markets. These legislative and institutional changes to a market friendly economy are interrelated and cannot easily be handled in a piecemeal way. For instance, let’s suppose the Ukrainian parliament passes legislation that allows workers to be hired and fired at public as well as private enterprises. Most economists would argue that such a law is necessary to improve the allocation of labor resources in the economy. But a law compensating laid off workers must be in place and the money dispersed if these unemployed people are not going to suffer unduly. In addition, enterprise managers must also have the right to raise or lower wages to attract good workers to efficient and promising businesses and to trim the payroll if recessionary cycles occur. But in order to attract better workers to higher paying jobs, there must be more labor mobility than presently exists in Ukraine. Due to Russian destruction of civilian targets a severe housing shortage in Ukraine currently makes such mobility impossible. And that housing shortage will, in turn, will continue until recent controls are lifted, thereby giving private builders a financial incentive to construct new housing units. Furthermore, builders will not do anything until commercial banks are legalized, up and running and equipped with enough liquidity to make loans on commercial terms. Lastly, legislative and institutional changes must include legislative and institutional legislative and institutional changes must include bankruptcy laws as well as anti-trust legislation. The former permits sick, inefficient industries a free exit and easy abandonment of capital. Anti-trust legislation is necessary to (a) break up many of the oligarchies, (b) increase competition and (c) lower prices, thereby raising the purchasing power and standard of living for consumers.

12 Toward Price Liberalization Once essential legal and institutional changes are in places, Ukrainian prices should be de-controlled. Price reform involves dismantling the complex system of centrally controlled prices and allowing them to reflect relative scarcities. Even with tough macroeconomic stabilization plans in place, price reforms tend to result in large increases in the official prices of “necessities” such as staple food, meat, and energy that were heavily subsidized under central planning.18 While curtailing the heaviest subsidies on agricultural and energy prices is politically unpopular, it is also essential to remove some of the most pronounced distortions in the economy.19 Unfortunately, domestic price reform by itself tends to encourage domestic oligarchies to raise prices excessively. Therefore, the freeing of prices needs to be

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accompanied by the development of competition policies to offset oligarchy price hikes. Most importantly, a sensible set of relative prices will only occur if prices are “imported” from the world economy through trade liberalization.20 Free and open international trade involves dismantling the state monopoly of foreign trade and reducing import restrictions.21 Moreover, important measures were introduced to liberalize East European exports.22

13 Toward Trade Liberalization Again Meanwhile, for the past six months, the ongoing war with Russia has severely affected the international trading system, preventing it from recovering from the shocks caused by COVID-19 pandemic. At war’s end, every effort needs to be made to revive Ukraine’s connection to the international trading system. Turning to the international financial side, the Russian invasion of Ukraine put downward pressure on the Ukrainian hryvnia against the dollar. The official exchange rate of the hryvnia fell from about 29 hryvnia/dollar to about 36 hryvnia/dollar. More importantly, the banks don’t want to convert hryvnia into a hard currency. At war’s end, Ukraine needs to take decisive steps toward reviving currency convertibility. Currency convertibility involves the removal of restrictions on the use of domestic currency for international transactions. Currency convertibility is critical to Ukraine’s transition to a market friendly economy for three reasons. First, when combined with trade liberalization, currency convertibility on current account introduces world prices into the domestic economy and it curbs the power of domestic oligarchies. By doing so, it also allows Ukraine to specialize efficiently according to comparative advantage. Second, currency convertibility on the current account (goods and services) in the balance of payments is an effective element in economic stabilization. When goods and services are exchange at a fixed rate, the exchange rate becomes an “anchor” for stabilization (or a disinflationary instrument). Finally, convertibility on capital account (investment flows) as well as current account in the balance of payments are important elements in encouraging the import of foreign capital, technology and management skills to modernize the economy. If Ukraine is ever to attract foreign investors of any magnitude, foreign investors need currency convertibility in place.23 • Convertibility on current account allows foreign investors to repatriate interest, profits, and dividends. • Convertibility on capital account allows them to purchase foreign assets initially with foreign exchange and in the end convert it back again if and when they decide to sell their investment. Without convertibility, foreign investment in Ukraine will be minimal at best.24 Some economists argue that currency convertibility and trade liberalization shock the economy with excessive transition costs. They say foreign competition, though

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ultimately necessary, can be too sudden to allow domestic enterprises to adjust. These economists point to the general collapse of output and employment when East Germany was merged with the West German economy. What these economists neglect to say is that the fall in output and employment in the former East Germany would have been significantly reduced had the East German currency not been so unrealistically overvalued at the time of German economic and monetary unification. The overvalued East German currency explains why the collapse in economic activity in the former East Germany was much greater than in Poland which carefully undervalued its currency when it implemented currency convertibility.

14 Privatization Some reformers used to believe that market economies could be created merely by freeing prices. They conceded that private enterprise was desirable. But they saw no reason to rush. But most reformers now believe that you cannot have capitalism without capitalists.25 They also know that liberalization and privatizing state enterprises are inseparable. Freeing prices produces signals that tell the economy how its resources can best be used. But unless those resources (and above all the productive assets) are privately owned, those signals will be ignored.26 Privatization is also essential for other reasons as well. For instance, when the state owns an enterprise, the mangers of the enterprise face no financial discipline because a soft state budget can always bail out inefficient state enterprises.27 In contrast, private entrepreneurs have an obvious reason not only to preserve the value of their assets, but to enhance their value.28 Of course, establishing the procedures to transfer these state assets to private hands is complex and politically sensitive. Are the workers entitled to a share of the assets? If so, how much? How much should the old managers of the factories get? Do the people really want to reward these old communist elites? One thing is for sure. Somebody must run these new commercial businesses that has some capitalist knowhow and skill. If so, that means Western businessmen should be brought into the businesses. But do the Ukrainians really want foreigners to buy up their country? Probably not to any great extent. While economic questions are involved here, ultimately questions of fairness are just as important. A market price for the business and a first-rate management team is important, but inequities in the initial distribution of assets could be socially disruptive and politically destabilizing. How then do reformers evaluate these assets in the current state of flux in Ukraine? All agree that to create private ownership, there must first be a market – otherwise how are you going to evaluate the assets to be privatized? One answer to this chicken and egg dilemma is simply to conclude that the assets of these economies in transition really cannot be evaluated, and should therefore be given away to the citizens, whom

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in a socialist economy presumably own them anyway. That’s virtually what the Czech and Slovak Republic decided to do in 1992 with the biggest and quickest privatization ever seen up until that time.29 Still the question of which enterprises to privatize first must also be addressed. Ideally, the large inefficient state enterprises should be privatized first. But these enterprises are also the most difficult to deal with in a political sense. That’s why the tendency is to privatize the service sector first. The main thing is to get as many state enterprises as possible dislodged from the public sector. Once totally on their own, these new private enterprises need to focus on producing quality products at a low cost for the world market. In addition, these newly privatized companies need to rely on loans from newly created commercial banks. The sooner all the enterprises in the country are freed from government subsidies (or central bank lending soft loans to them on a noncommercial basis), the sooner the country will see its standard of living rise toward Western standards. And finally, most of the companies that cannot attract commercial bank loans and that are chronically unprofitable need to go bankrupt so that residual factors of production can be reallocated to those more promising companies desperately in need of financial resources.

15 The Pace of Economic Reforms The emerging democracies in Eastern Europe all claimed to be moving toward market friendly economies. But each of these countries differed sharply on the means and speed with which they were proceeding.30 Initially at least Poland and Yugoslavia were the two East European countries on the fast track toward market-oriented economies. Unfortunately, the civil war destroyed the reform process in that unhappy place in the early 1990s.31 Hungary and Czechoslovakia opted for a more gradual path toward capitalism, although each country started to increase their pace a bit. Generally speaking, the slow track countries feared that moving full speed ahead risked popular unrest as voters lost their jobs or suffered sharp drops in their purchasing power. In January of 1990, Poland and Yugoslavia opted for a fast track or big bang transition to capitalism.32 Their tough stabilization plans aimed at imposing fiscal discipline and regaining financial control over their economies. They also hoped to create free market incentive for their factors of production as well as for their goods and services. In many ways, the stabilization programs in Poland and Yugoslavia scored significant economic success. For instance, their inflation rates plummeted, their currency values stabilized following sharp devaluations, their budget deficits turned into budget surpluses and their hard currency reserves grew.33 In other words, their economic gains occurred very quickly.

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Unfortunately, these economic successes in Warsaw and Belgrade were attained at a very high social cost. In both countries, industrial output fell, unemployment rose and real incomes declined, notwithstanding some growth in the private economy. Some unemployment and a decline in the standard of living in moving from socialism to capitalism is unavoidable. But the social shock could have been softened in both Warsaw and Belgrade had the Poles and the Yugoslavs made all the necessary legislative changes and built the appropriate free market institutions (preparing the free market battlefield). The point is that building appropriate free market legislation and institutions is mechanically difficult and time consuming. In contrast, a stabilization plan is sometimes politically socially and culturally difficult but is relatively easy in a mechanical sense.34 In legislative and institution building reforms, Yugoslavia had a head start in capital markets. But Yugoslavia was slow in enacting banking, property, and labor legislation, even before civil war broke out. Similarly, Poland found creating market institutions slower process than opting for a stabilization plan. For instance, Poland did not pass a law to privatize large state enterprises until July of 1990. In short, mustering the political will for economic reform legislation was no easy matter. Catch-22 sometimes occurs when a country like Poland decides that the stabilization plan is too austere and it opts to make some financial corrections (such as easing credit, higher subsidies, running high budget deficits or revaluing the currency upwards so that consumers can but more imports. Such a financial retrenchment may be politically attractive to populists. But financial retrenchment recreates the very market dislocations that the stabilization plan was seeking to curb in the first place. Worse still, it sorely tests political support for economic reform legislation. And what initially might have begun as an understandable technical correction can easily degenerate into a fundamental rejection of market reforms. This pattern of a big bang approach followed by financial retrenchment can be avoided if East European economies opt for a more gradual path to capitalism. While social shocks can theoretically be avoided with an economically logical sequential approach, the practical problem in the real world is to sustain the momentum of the transition to capitalism. Too often, a country will start on this slow and incremental path only to equivocate and finally stop the process altogether. Some Eastern European countries simply have a very low pain threshold. Some, like Czechoslovakia, were reluctant to swallow any bitter economic reform pill immediately after the Velvet Revolution of November 1989. Since then, Czechoslovakia picked up the pace of reform while Poland retrenched.35 Perhaps the country that best typified the gradual economic reform strategy was Hungary. Historically, Budapest had lots of experience in soft-core economic reform and they had notable success in attracting foreign investment.36 So, a lot of people thought Hungary would be the pacesetter in pushing through hard-core or radical economic reforms. But Hungary has been very cautious and not at all eager to match the pace set by the Poles.37

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In fact, the IMF which helped finance the Hungarian economy, was very critical of Hungary for its “slow boat to China” approach. The IMF put increasing pressure on Hungary to tighten its monetary policy, slash subsidies and raise prices in an attempt to create a more integrated and economically logical program.38 To some extent, IMF was successful in getting Budapest to move off the starting blocks. But generally, the Hungarians had an emotional preference for a slower pace of institutional reform. They wanted to spread the social pain over as long a period as possible. This was particularly true when it came to privatization. Many Hungarians criticized uncontrolled privatization as sellouts to either former communist managers or sellouts to foreign investors. This gradual path to capitalism appears to be the model which Romanians and Bulgarians would follow at some point in the future. Of course, any difficult questions such as privatization, liberalization and stabilization had to be deferred until their volatile political disorder was stabilized. But Romanian and Bulgarian leaders continued to extol the virtues of free markets as the ultimate goal and began to pick up the pace of economic reform themselves. Why did all the East European advocates of gradual reform keep one foot on the brake? Fear. They worried that rapid economic restructuring risked widespread labor unrest and severe recession. They therefore preferred to move a bit slower because it reduced short-term economic and social disruption. Unfortunately, this gradual approach had a serious downside. As stated earlier, it risked equivocation because it allowed time for groups opposed to reform to coalesce into effective blocs. By and large, these were the communist beneficiaries of the old command economy who saw their vested interests being eroded. So, they worked to sabotage any change and cling to the economic status quo. On the international front, gradualism can result in a country losing out in the fierce competition for critical foreign direct investment funds. In a broader sense, the slow boat to China approach risked upsetting any chances the country might have for integrating its economy into the world economy. What would cause the gradual school advocates in these countries to lift their foot off the brake and accelerate the pace of economic reforms? If fear of losing out in the competition for Western capital among the different East European countries begins to offset more immediate fears of rising unemployment and plummeting standards of living, then some acceleration in economic reforms may occur. In a broader sense, the desire of these East European countries to join a wider EU could also be a positive inducement for an accelerated pace. But any kind of all-out rush to free market economies in Eastern Europe in all areas of economic reform is highly unlikely. Each government will probably preserve a sizeable publicly owned sector. That even includes Poland. Prague also claims that it wants to retain a large public sector. In comparing the fast-track economic reform strategy with the gradual strategy, a number of things stand out. The full speed ahead school believes that economic reform is really an all or nothing proposition. They admit that the big bank causes more short-term social pain in terms of falling real income and rising unemployment. But they believe such a short-cut is worth it.

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In contrast, the “slow boat to China” gradual school argues that gradualism minimizes social pain and social costs. Gradualists want to avoid the risks to political stability from too hasty reform. So, they tend to focus on one issue at a time, which in turn can sometimes slow down the pace of reform to a crawl, or what some say is marginal incrementalism.39

16 The Importance of Anti-corruption Reforms Now let’s turn to Ukraine’s economic future. Will money come to Ukraine so that President Zelensky can turn a good plan into concrete achievements on the ground? Earlier, we explored what Ukraine must do to create a market friendly economy that will attract foreign investors. Whether Ukraine can attract enough financial support turns on whether donors can trust Ukraine. In other words, the other great obstacle to donor confidence is the country’s record of corruption. That record warrants skepticism among potential donors. Before the war, Ukraine ranked 122 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. Estimates in 2021 showed that Ukraine’s budget was losing $37 billion a year due to corruption and transparency problems. Not surprisingly, a report by the European Court of Auditors in September 2021 found that “grand corruption” and oligarchies’ success at “state capture” harmed the democratic process and hindered free market competition and growth. That said, Ukraine has made significant progress in transparency, including through the digitalization of city planning and public procurement, and monitoring of public officials’ assets and lifestyles, corruption remains a challenge. In addition, bank reform has begun as well as public procurement reform. Ukraine also has a vibrant civil society that is active in pushing for more anti-corruption reforms. Progress toward integrity notwithstanding, there is still much more to do. Transparency is not self-reinforcing. Therefore, it is essential that the Ukrainian state improves enforcement of clean governing, taxation, and spending standards. The Ukraine government itself included a detailed legislative and enforcement roadmap in its reconstruction plan. And the EU’s granting of candidate status to Ukraine was made on the explicit understanding of specific further progress such as fully staffing new anti-corruption entities. During unprecedented times of conflict in the past three months, Kyiv has returned to relying on oligarchs for government funding of both immediate assistance and future reconstruction, which opens the door for oligarchs to be able to promote their self-interest through the government. For donors and foreign companies to invest in Ukraine, the business environment will need to be strengthened through judiciary reforms, tax enforcement, securing private property rights, and most importantly, enforcing the rule of law. A critical piece to disincentivizing corruption will be the West monitoring whether assistance is reaching its intended target or ending up in the hands of oligarchs.

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17 Conclusion: A Window of Opportunity for Better Governance If all goes well, a window of opportunity will open for President Zelensky that will lead to a market friendly economy as well as more integrity, legitimacy and mutual trust between Ukraine and the International Community. If Zelensky can surround himself with the most professional people, the Ukraine president will be in a position to sweep away the oligarchs and institutional incompetence and malpractice that have frustrated reforms in the past. It’s in this context that the EU must see Ukraine’s ultimate application for EU membership. As a wartime hero, there will never be a better chance for President Zelensky to capture the national spirit of the Ukrainian people to “upgrade” its governance and make the transition to a market friendly economy. The task is now to map out a viable path into EU membership for a free Ukraine. Our study argued that the time to plan and start rebuilding Ukraine’s economy is while war is still raging. Admittedly, the challenge is daunting. The war caused extensive and, in some areas, apocalyptic damage. The Kyiv School of Economics says infrastructure costs for the first year of recovery will be upwards of $100 billion. And President Zelensky says the recovery plan for the first decade will cost $750 billion. There’s a lot to like in President Zelensky’s national recovery plan. The challenge now is to turn a good plan into concrete achievements. Will the money come? That turns on how the reconstruction effort will be organized. If the bankrolling effort is an organizational mess the first year, that will turn off donors. Assuming the EU can provide adult supervision, Ukraine needs to make the transition to a market friendly economy. A history of Soviet era socialism is still a major obstacle to attract foreign investors. Our study explains how Ukraine can attract investors by developing market-oriented laws and institutions as well stabilization, liberalization, and privatization to pace and sequence this transition to market friendly economy. Despite significant obstacles, to include horrific war damage and a history of pervasive corruption, Ukraine stands at an historic crossroads where a path to a bright future is open. If Ukraine can seize this moment favorable to positive change, they may indeed prove naysayers wrong.

Notes 1. 2.

3. 4.

World Bank, World Development Report 1991: The Challenge of Development, Oxford University Press, Washington, DC, 1991. For a good counter-argument on the origins of the booming private sector in Poland and why the official statistics on falling living standards and rising unemployment may be misleading he Wall Street Journal (WSJ), December 24, 1990 and the New York Times (NYT), December 31, 1990. Economist, A Survey of Business in Eastern Europe, Financial Times (FT), September 21, 1991. The Conference Board, Eastern Europe in Transition, February 1990.

306 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

L. Rosenberger and M. S. Snow FT, December 2, 1991, page 2. FT, December 23, 1991, page 2. For a long-term bullish view of the region, see Albert G. Holzinger, Eastern Europe: A New Frontier, Nation’s Business, April 1990; Richard C. Longworth, Central Europe: Potential for Prosperity, Europe, July/August 1990, Hudgins, Edward and David Seay, For Eastern Europe, and Agenda for Economic Growth, Backgrounder, March 13, 1990. Susan M. Collins and Dani Rodrik, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the World Economy, Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC, May 1991. Stanley Fischer and Alan Gelb, “The Sequencing of Reforms, Issues in Socialist Economy Reforms, pp. 29–34; and John Michael Montias, “The Sequencing of Reforms, Challenge, September/October 1990. For more detailed discussions of alternative strategies of transition in Eastern Europe, see Rudiger Dornbusch, Priorities of Economic Reform in Eastern Europe, unpublished manuscript, 5 December 1990, David M. Kemme, Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Issues and Strategies, November 1990; Horst Siebert, The Transformation of Eastern Europe, Kiel Institute, January, 1991; and Stanley Fischer, Eastern Europe’s Transition, Challenge, September/October 1990. See East of Eden: Survey of Eastern Europe, Economics, August 12–18 1989. Economist, Survey, September 21, 1991, pp. 28 and 30. Vittorio Corbo, et al., eds., Reforming Central and East European Economies: Initial results and Challenges, The World Bank, 1991, pp. 65–79. World Bank, World Development Report 1991: The Challenge of Development, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1991, p. 146. On stabilization, see Ibid, pp. 83–97. Alan H. Gelb and Charles W. Gray, The Transformation of Economies in Central and Eastern Europe: Issues, Progress, and Prospects, World Bank, Washington, DC, 1991, p. 12. Ibid, p. 15. Ibid, pp. 17–18. Ibid. Josef C. Brada, Integrating Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union into the World Economy, unpublished manuscript, 1991; and US Congressional Budget Office, How the Economic Transformation in Europe Will Affect the United States, December 1990, pp. 39–58. Corbo, op.cit, pp. 207–214. IMF, World Economic Outlook, May 1991, Washington, DC, pp. 34–36; and OECD, Economic Outlook, 50, December 1991, Paris, pp. 53–55. Task Force on institutional Changes, Strategies for Facilitating European and Soviet Transformation, The Atlantic Council, 1990; Larry Q. Nowels, Western Assistance to East European reconstruction and Development, in Congressional Research Service, CRS Report: Revolution in Eastern Europe, March–April 1990; Peter Van Ham, Western Economic Statecraft in an Era of Communist Reform, How Can the West Help? Bulletin of Peace Proposal, June 1990, G, Peter Lauter, Who’s Helping? The World and I, May 1990. FT, Survey: Foreign Exchange, April 29, 1991. Corbo, op.cit, pp. 229–291. Barbara Lee and John Nellis, Enterprise Reform and Privatization in Socialist Economies, World Book Discussion papers, 1990; US News and World Report, Unfinished Revolutions, US News and World Report, May 21, 1991; The Economist, May 11, 1991, pp. 11–12. On why the inefficient East European state enterprises continue to be unproductive, see David M. Kemme, Changes in Technical Efficiency and the Economic Slowdown in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Washington, DC. National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 1989. Economist, May 11, 1991, pp. 11–12. For an excellent discussion of the Polish privatization and the government’s options in this area, see FT, August 1990; and FT, June 14, 1990, and October 17, 1990; for a discussion of how corporate shares are distributed, see NYT, July 14, 1990; On Czech privatization plans, see

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30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38.

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FT, September 4, 1990; FT, October 17, 1990; and WSJ, October 26, 1990. For a discussion of Hungarian privatization, see Keith Crane, Privatization in Hungary, June 7, 1990, unpublished manuscript; and FT, October 17, 1990. For a good overview of how each of these East European economies is different, see The Economic Systems of the East European countries at the start of the Nineties, Inter-Economics, March–April 1990. World Bank, Yugoslavia: The Dilemma of Reform Amidst political Turmoil, Transition, Volume 1, No. 8, November 1990. For a broad treatment of ethnic problems undermining East European economic development, see Francis T. Miko, East European National and Ethnic Relations in the 1990s, in Congressional Research Service, CRS Report: Revolution in Eastern Europe, March–April 1990; and Newsweek, The long Shadow, May 7, 1990. For discussions of Poland’s fast track strategy, see Jeffrey Sachs and David Lipton, Poland’s Economic Reform, Foreign affairs, Summer 1990; Stanislaw Wellisz, The Case of Poland, Challenge, September/October 1990; WSJ, December 24, 1990; WSJ, June 5, 1990 and NYT, July 29, 1990. For discussions on Yugoslavia’s fast track strategy prior to the recent civil war, see Zivko Pregl, Program of Economic Reform in Yugoslavia, typescript, Belgrade, February 12, 1990; and Janez Prasnikar and Zivko Pregl, Economic Development in Yugoslavia in 1990 and Prospects for the Future, a paper prepared for the American Economic Association Conference, Washington, DC, December 28–30, 1990. World Bank, Stabilization Efforts in Poland and Yugoslavia – Early Lessons, transition, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 1990. For a discussion of cultural and social obstacles to economic reform in Eastern Europe, see “A Peak into Eastern European Minds, The World and I, May 1990. For a comprehensive discussion of the Czech economy, see Jim Prust and the IMF Staff Team, The Czech and Slovak Federal Republic: An Economy in Transition, Occasional Paper 72, IMF, Washington, DC, October 1990; and Karel Kyba and Jan Svejnar, Czechoslovakia, Recent Economic Development and Prospects in American Economic Review, May 1991; and Peter Martin, Scenario for Economic Reform adopted, in Report of Eastern Europe, 19 October 1990. For a discussion of Hungarian reforms prior to 1989, see Michael Bleaney, Hungary: The Reform Model, in Do Socialist Economies Work? 1988 and Gabor Revesz, Perestroika in Eastern Europe: Hungary’s Economic Transformation, 1945–1988, Boulder, CO, Westview, 1990. For a discussion of previous attempts at economic reform in other East European countries, see Andrze Korbonski, The Politics of Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe: The Last Thirty Years, Soviet Studies, January 1989; and UN, Symposium on Economic Reforms in European Centrally Planned Economies, Vienna, 24–29 November 1989. See Blue Ribbon Commission, Hungary in Transformation to Freedom and Prosperity, Hudson Institute1990, and Karoly Oklicsanyi, The Economic Program for National Renewal, Report on Eastern Europe, December 14, 1990. Criticism of Hungary for rejecting all of the Polish style shock reforms, shying away from radical liberalization, and generally lacking the necessary boldness to make a successful transition to a market-oriented economy can be found in FT, September 10, 1990, FT, May 18, 1990; NYT, July 9, 1990 and NYT, December 31, 1990. Peter Murrell, Big Bang versus Evolution, Plan Econ Report, June 19, 1990.

To the Bastion: NATO’s Return to Europe Leaves Its Troubled Southern Flank Open for Competition Tad Schnaufer II

Abstract Within a span of a few months, the involvement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region changed drastically. The turbulent withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, shifted the alliance’s priorities away from NATO’s southern flank. The region to NATO’s south has always been a source for intra-alliance tensions and after a series of lackluster interventions, NATO has scaled back involvement. Those misadventures coupled with a Russian aggressive war on its borders have caused NATO to devote fewer and fewer resources to the south. Furthermore, with the recent admission of Finland to the alliance, their security concerns will only magnify the pull of the alliance’s strategic interests back to Europe. The awaited membership of Sweden will increase this effect while further exasperating conflicts among the differing national interests of the allies. Increased troop deployments to NATO’s eastern members in response to the Ukrainian War and the addition of the 800-mile Finnish border with Russia have caused the alliance’s limited resources to go north and east leaving a vacuum in the south for other powers to fill. Since 2021, the US-led alliance has had to shift from the counter-insurgency wars of Iraq and Afghanistan to great power competition with Russia and China in the east and south. This situation will push NATO to limit out-of-area operations and use other non-military means to extend influence in the south. Keywords NATO · Middle East · North Africa · Türkiye · Turkey · United States · Russia · China · Ukraine · Competition · Alliance · Southern Flank · Great Power Competition

T. Schnaufer II (B) Global and National Security Institute, 4202 E Fowler Avenue, CGS 401, Tampa, FL 33620, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_15

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1 Introduction The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) southern flank has fallen out of focus, again. During the Cold War, the region south of NATO stretching from Morocco to Afghanistan did not act as the main theater for the standoff between east and west. That region did not have the same security concerns that embroiled most of the alliance’s resources in Central Europe. The challenges on the southern flank have caused indecision and division for the allies. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO had the available resources to look at out-of-area operations and duly turned south.1 In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the regions to the south of Europe, mainly the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the Sahel, unseated Europe as a priority for NATO’s resources. Without a major threat facing the alliance on mainland Europe, NATO deployed tens of thousands of expeditionary forces around the region in support of its operations such as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan (2003–2014) and its NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I). For over a decade, NATO’s counter-terrorism operations dominated its dialogue and force projection. At the same time, these missions have caused some of the deepest post-Cold War divisions among the allies, notably the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 air campaign in Libya. Over time, events have brought the allies back to their European bastion to address threats closer to home. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea reminded the allies that an aggressive neighbor still remained to the east. Russia would soon involve itself in the Syrian Civil War and, in part, cause a refugee crisis affecting the alliance at home. From 2014 onward, NATO has slowly returned to facing its forces east. A series of recent events have finalized that. Within a span of a few months, NATO’s momentum shifted away from its out-of-area operations. The turbulent withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, drastically altered the alliance’s priorities away from NATO’s southern flank. NATO’s misadventures in the region coupled with a Russian aggressive war on its borders, has pushed NATO members to devote fewer and fewer resources to the south. Furthermore, with the addition of Finland and Sweden to the alliance, their geography will pull the alliance’s interests to the concerns of Russia and the artic. The increased deployments to NATO’s eastern members in response to the Ukrainian war leads to a deeper commitment with the addition of the 800-mile Finnish border with Russia. This situation means that the alliance’s limited resources are going north and east leaving a vacuum in the south for China and, to a lesser degree, Russia to exploit. Lastly, as the leading nation of the alliance, the United States, has shifted from the counter-insurgency wars of Iraq and Afghanistan to near peer-competition. NATO will have to follow suit. The introduction of Chinese economic and military power into the region has only increased the need for this change in strategy. The instability of the region and the mass exodus of people fleeing conflict, natural disasters, and famine will keep NATO’s southern flank an area of focus. 1

Note: Areas beyond the North Atlantic Region defined in the Washington Treaty of 1949.

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To further explore why NATO has reoriented its focus to the east and lowered its role in the south, this chapter will review NATO’s history in the region, the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and what NATO’s withdrawal means for great power competition on its southern flank. The chapter will conclude with possible ways forward for the United States and its NATO allies.

2 The Historical Development of NATO’s Divisive Southern Flank The signing of the Washington Treaty in 1949 formally created the NATO alliance. The twelve original members included two North American nations (Canada and the United States) as well as ten European nations (Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom). The geographic expanse of the alliance naturally caused individual allies to have keen security interests that differed from their new partners. At that time, the allies collectively focused on rebuilding after the devastation of World War II while containing Soviet advances in Central and Eastern Europe. Only a few members had security interests to the alliance’s south namely France, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. Their concerns about the south influenced the text of the Washington Treaty. The cornerstone Article V of the treaty states, “The parties agree an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North American shall be considered an attack against all of them… (NATO 1949)” This ‘all for one, one for all’ article provides the foundation for the defensive alliance, but contains geographic constraints on where the alliance guarantees apply. In the quote above, Europe and North America are noted as the areas of the North Atlantic Region, but many of the allied controlled islands or territories sat in a gray zone. For example, did the Portuguese islands of the Azores fall under NATO’s protection? Article VI of the original treaty text clarifies the areas under Article V protection as, … the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian departments of France, on the occupation forces of any party in Europe, on the islands under the jurisdiction of any party in the North Atlantic area north of the Topic of Cancer or on the vessel or aircraft in this area… (NATO 1949)

Interestingly, the geographic area defined in Article VI did not include such places as the United States’ territory of Hawaii or the United Kingdom’s Falkland Islands as both are located south of the Topic of Cancer.2 Plus, Hawaii is not in the Atlantic basin. In terms of NATO’s southern flank, the treaty did cover France’s Algerian territory and the Portuguese Azores.3 Though the bulk of NATO’s resources stood in Europe, the pull to the south would grow with its first expansion. 2

Note: Hawaii did not become a US state until 1959. Note: With Algeria’s independence in 1962, NATO formally recognized that the clause referencing the French departments of Algeria as no longer applicable.

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The security concerns around the Mediterranean did not escape NATO leaders and, in part, lead to NATO’s first expansion. Following World War II, the United Kingdom had to withdraw the majority of its military involvement in the Greek civil war and the Mediterranean basin generally because of its poor financial situation. This left the United States to pick up the task before the Soviet Union could fill the vacuum (Lindley-French 2006). To support this endeavor, the United States established the Sixth Fleet based out of Naples, Italy. The Sixth Fleet still operates today as the major allied naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1952, Greece and Türkiye joined the alliance broadly pulling its security focus to the south. These two nations command the strategic waterways leading to the Black Sea (Home of the Soviet and later Russian fleets). This new geographic reality provided NATO the ability to block the Soviet Black Sea Fleet from entering the Mediterranean in times of war. Additionally, the United States would build military bases in Greece, Türkiye, and Italy to help secure Mediterranean and the surrounding areas (Lindley-French 2006). Although, the areas of NATO’s southern flank required attention during the Cold War, most of the engagement in the region involved national interests rather than collective alliance interests leading to tensions among the allies. The alliance’s collective interests remained focused on the standoff with the Soviet Union in Central Europe. In 1955, West Germany joined NATO and set the stage for the rest of the Cold War. NATO maintained a static defensive posture on mainland Europe oriented to the east with the focal point on the famed Fulda Gap. NATO guarded the south with a strong naval presence in the Mediterranean, but the focus remained in the east particularly as the south became a source of recurring divisions between the allies as they pursued national interests over allied interest.

2.1 Rifts Between Friends Throughout the Cold War, NATO’s southern flank sparked multiple diplomatic rifts between the allies. The Soviet Union often tried to use these tensions to weaken NATO. In 1848, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston declared the importance of national interests driving alliance formation and maintenance, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow (Palmerston 1848).” As the quote suggests, just because nations are allied, does not mean they share all the same security interests. The allies’ conflicting national interests in the region caused clashes over events from the Suez Crisis to supporting Israel in the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. Many of the national interests in the region derived from colonial or post-colonial ties that often met with criticism from other allies. For example, the French fought a costly war to maintain control of Algeria from 1954 to 1962. US Senator John F. Kennedy criticized the conflict and called for Algerian independence in a 1957 speech (Riedel 2019). The United Kingdom would slowly lose control of many its

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Middle East protectorates over the course of the Cold War.4 Although these colonial issues divided the alliance, the 1956 Suez Crisis would prove a defining moment in allied relations and for the southern flank. When the United Kingdom and France joined Israel to retake control of the Suez Canal from Egyptian forces, they met fierce condemnation from enemies and allies alike. Both the United States and the Soviet Union railed against the aggressive action of the declining colonial powers and the young state of Israel. The Soviets worked to further the divide between the allies where possible. The United States cut off emergency loan payments to the United Kingdom in response to the operation, thus ending the UK’s ability to finance the Suez operation. France still had sizable forces fighting in Algeria and only had limited resources and forces to commit. These conditions along with the diplomatic pressured caused the withdrawal of forces from the Suez. In the aftermath, the United Kingdom shifted its foreign policy to align with the United States, while France shifted to a more independent policy underwritten by mistrust of the United Kingdom and the United States (Keohane 2016). This rift between the allies would have lasting effects that led to the French development of nuclear weapons independent of the United States or the United Kingdom. The French would even withdraw French forces from NATO’s command structure in 1966 as relationship continued to soar (Shea 2009). France was not the only ally to withdraw its forces from NATO’s command structure because of conflicting interests. Greece did the same in 1974 because of the ongoing crisis in Cyprus. The Greek government withdrew to protest the failure of NATO to stop Türkiye’s invasion of Cyprus (Hoagl 1980). The 1974 Cyprus Crisis saw conflict between NATO members, Greece and Türkiye, as they fought for control of the island. As one author noted, “This situation created a fertile atmosphere for the Soviet influence on the island (Balci 2012).” Beyond Cyprus, other crises in the south divided the allies. Divisions over the allies’ individual relationships with Israeli during its crises and wars throughout the Cold War also caused consternation within the alliance. In 1973, many of the allies refused to host or support US planes headed to Israel to support it in the Yom Kippur War. The specter of Arab nations cutting of oil supplies to Europe and the diminishing of relations with many of the countries in the south kept the allies from supporting the United States’ resupply operation (Gelb 1973). In 1982, Spain joined the alliance. Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the North Africa Coast added some further interests in south, but did not alter the focus east. Spain had maintained close relations with the United States throughout the Cold War, but did not join the alliance until its government reformed after the death of its dictator Francisco Franco. NATO’s southern flank proved to be an area of contention for the allies. The Soviet Union exacerbated many of the divisions between the allies formed over issues in this region. The Soviets also looked for ways to increase influence in the region to challenge the alliance. 4

Note: The United Kingdom’s protectorates in the Middle East included: Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Oman.

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2.2 Soviet Competition to the South As the European Theater in the Cold War stagnated in a nuclear standoff, the Soviet Union explored means to increase its power projection across NATO’s southern flank. As NATO handled many of the challenges discussed in previous sections, the Soviet Union looked to exacerbate tensions among the allies as seen with the Cyprus Crisis. Additionally, the Soviet strategy for the southern flank had its foundation on finding opportunities to expand influence and prop-up friendly communist regimes. This section will highlight a few of the larger Soviet operations in the region. The formation of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) in 1967 established the only communist country in the Arab world. Over the next decade, South Yemen’s government continued to grow closer to the Soviet Union (Cigar 1985). The first Soviet naval visit to the new country took place in 1968. South Yemen location allowed the Soviets to challenge the influence of the French based out of Djibouti and the United Kingdom based out of Oman. As the Soviet Union cultivated its relationship with South Yemen it broadened its presence across South Yemen’s military, economy, education, etc. Starting in 1967, the gross majority of South Yemen’s military arms and equipment came from the Soviet Union. The Soviets also, maintained around 1000 advisors in the country at any one time. In 1979, the two countries signed a 20-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. The partnership with South Yemen provided the Soviet Union critical benefits including, …the access Moscow has to military facilities in South Yemen, which is strategically located astride the narrow strait of Bab Al-Mandab, between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. South Yemen provides valuable support facilities and anchorages to the Soviet Navy-including nuclear submarines. Aden, in fact, is the port most frequently visited by the Soviet fleet in the Indian Ocean. [starting in] November 1978, Soviet IL-38/MAY aircraft have also flown reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare missions…to monitor Western naval operations in the region…The Soviets also use South Yemeni facilities to transship arms to African states and movements. (Cigar 1985)

Soviet military installations in South Yemen allowed them to influence the Ethiopian revolution of 1974 and the later Ethio-Somali War of 1977–78. In Ethiopia the Soviets Union provided a large air and sealift of armaments and supplies (Weiss 1980). The outcome of the war continued Soviet influence in Ethiopia while the United States supported Somalia. With the treaty of friendship with South Yemen in 1979, the Soviet Union looked to create a communist puppet regime in Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan would grind on for nearly ten years. This war would cost the Soviets tens of thousands of soldiers (Gibbs 2000). Despite all the forces on the ground in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union failed to gain control partly because, the Cold War world was dominated by the superpower rivalry but not by the superpowers. Moscow and Washington saw themselves as the puppeteers pulling the strings. More often than not, however, they were manipulated by clients who had their own agendas. (Cordovez and Harrison 1995)

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This concept of local actors playing major powers either off each other or simply just acting in their own interests would play out in the period after the Cold War. With the challenges faced by the Soviet Union during this war, the United States and its allies should have taken detailed notes because they would find themselves occupying the same country a decade after the Soviet withdraw. The opportunistic strategy utilized by the Soviet Union along NATO’s southern flank has influenced the current Russia strategy in the region. The Soviet Union looked for openings to increase their influence and used what means they had to make it happen. The Russian federation would use this strategy in the with the insertion of Wagner mercenaries in several MENA countries in the 2010s and 2020s (Ehl 2023).

3 Major Post-9/11 Operations and Divided Interests in the South In the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO’s priorities changed from the stagnant defense of Western Europe to the out-of-area missions. This led to NATO’s involvement in the Yugoslav Wars of that 1990s. In that decade, NATO looked to increase its influence along its southern flank. In 1994, it created the Mediterranean Dialogue to further build relation with nations bordering the sea.5 Ten years later with a similar aim NATO created the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative to further partnerships across the region (Chivvis 2016). In the Post-Cold War, the southern flank stretched from Morocco to Afghanistan as shown in Fig. 1. This figure shows the NATO’s current southern flank.6 With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, NATO instigated Article V of the Washington Treaty for the first and only time. This action directly inserted ground forces from NATO members into Afghanistan. The United States along with the United Kingdom led the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in late 2001. Two years later, NATO took the lead of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission. ISAF’s primary goal was to establish a security environment to develop an Afghan government and security force that could exert authority over its sovereign territory. In December of 2014, the ISAF handed over control over to the Afghan security forces ending the mission (NATO 2022a). At its height in late 2010 through mid-2012, ISAF composed of ~ 130,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Roughly 90,000 of those troops came from the United States while the rest of NATO contributed around 35,000 (NATO 2012). This first phase of the war in Afghanistan united the allies and show their commitment to endure years of conflict far from the North Atlantic Region. The unity among the allies forged by the 9/11 attacks would quickly be undercut by another invasion in the region.

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Note: Mediterranean Dialogue participants include Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. 6 Note: NATO’s southern flank defined by the author.

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Legend NATO Members NATO Applicant Southern Flank Competitors

Fig. 1 Map displaying NATO’s current southern flank as March 2023 (Map created with ArcGIS software)

Just as the war in Afghanistan got underway, the United States and its coalition of the willing prepared to invade another country on NATO’s southern flank, Iraq. The United States face harsh criticism from France and Germany for the invasion. Although, eight NATO members joined the United States from the invasion (Gordon 2003). To make matters worse, Türkiye’s parliament voted against an authorize for the United States to deploy troops along Iraq’s northern border. This rejection caused considerable consternation among US leaders and planners as a northern front for the invasion was now out of question (Boudreaux and Zaman 2003). US and NATO officials had to navigate the split in the alliance over Iraq so that support for Afghanistan continued. Despite the opposition by several members of the alliance, in 2004, NATO established the NATO Training Mission in Iraq (NTM-I) which lasted until 2011. NATO later reincarnated the operation with the NATO Mission Iraq in 2018. This mission looked to support the fight against ISIS and continues today. In 2011, NATO embarked on Operation Unified Protector in Libya’s civil war. This NATO operation’s official mission included three tasks, “an arms embargo, a no-flyzone and actions to protect civilians from attack or the threat of attack (NATO 2011).” This operation flipped the division within the allies caused by the 2003 Iraq invasion. The United Kingdom and France supported it to maintain stability

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and minimize a refugee crisis, while some allies like Germany and Poland opposed intervention. The United States did not take a hardline either way, but the allies did not have the capabilities to carry out the mission without US military support (Hallams and Schreer 2012). Russia opposed the use of military means claiming that NATO airstrikes resulted in ‘civilian casualties’ and stated, “that any use of force by the coalition in Libya should be carried out in strict compliance with [UN] Resolution 1973 (NATO 2011).” Russia’s Prime Minister at the time, Vladimir Putin, denounced NATO’s air campaign and the UN resolution as “a medieval call for a crusade (Barry 2011).” In that same year, the Syrian Civil War also began. This conflict would have a series of changing fronts and a complex mix of actors. In 2015, Russia directly intervened in the conflict on the side of the ruling Assad regime. In this year over 1.3 million refugees tried to enter Europe. A record number for that time. Part the reason for the influx of refugees came from the Russian involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Whether intentional or not the conflict caused people to flee the region and head to Europe straining government resources (McGee 2021). The reaction to the refugee crisis divided the alliance as countries like Germany and Norway welcomed them, but Hungary and Poland did not. The frontline allies for the refugee crisis also had to respond with increased military presence at their borders.7 This caused contention about allied burden-sharing and the responsibly of each ally take in a relative proportion of the refugees. Also, in 2015, NATO started its Resolute Support Mission (RSM). This operation follows the completion of the ISAF mission and handing over primary security responsibility to the Afghan Government Forces. The RSM mission focused on the training of Afghan security forces. The number of troops on the ground fluctuated around 15,000 with half of those coming from the United States. RSM came to a rapid close with the withdraw of forces in August of 2021. The United States unilaterally declaring the withdraw from Afghanistan met calls betrayal from some NATO leaders (Kirby 2021). One German Official remarked about the withdraw, “It is the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we’re standing before an epochal change (DW 2021)”. This survey of NATO’s larger southern flank operations and crises in the post-9/ 11 era highlighted the differing interests among the allies for each and the unfortunate outcomes that people of the region see mainly in a negative light. Ambassador (retired) Phillip Kosnett, explained how this negative image needs to be reversed, I think a big part of it is there’s a very common view in Middle East and Africa that the Americans invade countries whenever the mood strikes them for their own purposes, sometimes leaving things in disarray. Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember when NATO got rid of Gaddafi in Libya hoping and hope is not a plan that something resembling a stable democracy would emerge… and Libya is pretty far from a stable democracy… we have a lot of work to do to rebuild our influence in much of the world. (Kosnett 2022)

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Note: Countries on the frontline of the refugee crisis of 2015–2016 included Greece, Italy, Türkiye, and Spain.

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Despite the highlighted differences tensions among the allies on these operations and their lackluster outcomes, a few positive NATO operations should be mentioned. NATO’s airlift operations in response to the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the African Union Darfur peacekeeping mission in Sudan (2005–2007) had positive effects for both (NATO 2009). Although these two operations met with success and support across the alliance, they sit in the shadow of the looming mixed record of NATO interventions in the south and the intra-alliance divisions they caused. In 2015, the conflicted national interests of the allies pushed their leaders to discuss a way to address all the allies’ security concerns with a 360-degree approach (NATO 2009).

3.1 NATO 360-Degree 2014 saw Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for the conflict in the Donbas. These events elicited a large NATO response and shifted its priorities to east. In 2017, NATO created four multinational battle groups staged in the Baltic States and Poland. This coupled with an increase to the Baltic Air Policing mission, moved limited allied resources and troops to the east. The rotation of the four battlegrounds continued and NATO greatly expanded their numbers in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (NATO 2022b). As the alliance started to pour resources into its eastern flank, allies along the southern flank raised concerns as the alliance shifted focus. Their calls to keep resources in the south developed into the discussion and implementation of NATO’s 360-degree approach to deterrence and defense. In 2015, in response to the renewed eastern focus of the alliance, the allied leader began to discuss a full 360-degree approach. At the Warsaw Summit in 2016, Alliance leaders noted, “Our efforts to enhance the Alliance’s role in projecting stability will be guided by enduring principles, including a 360-degree approach… (NATO 2017)” This pull between east and the south has split the alliance based on geographic interests. Two separate internal groups of allies have formed to address these issues: the Southern Quartet and Bucharest nine.8 These two groups have actively called for the alliance as a whole to address their security concerns (Calmels 2020). To address security concerns to the south, the alliance established the NATO Strategic Direction South (NSD-S) hub in Naples. This hub was designed to, increase NATO’s understanding of the regional dynamics of North Africa, the Middle East, the Sahel, Sub-Sahara and adjacent areas. Through a network of local experts and organizations in the region, common challenges can be analyzed and opportunities for cooperation can be identified. This cooperation contributes to the shared goal of promoting stability and security. (NATO 2012)

The overall concept for the NATO approach to the southern flank involves projecting stability to those nations. If NATO has stable southern flank neighbors, 8

Note: Southern Quartet include France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Bucharest Nine include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

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in theory, it would lessen refugee and terrorist concerns. As noted, NATO looks to forward the hub’s mission, but not through major military deployments like those in Afghanistan. The alliance does not have the resources to increase its southern operations as its focus remains bolstering the allies near Russia and Ukraine.

4 To the Bastion! Russia Invades Ukraine The Russo-Ukraine war has galvanized NATO’s priorities and orientation to the east. The war has pushed NATO to expand its eastern presence with four new battlegroups added to the ones already in the Baltics and Poland. Additionally, the war has pushed neutral Finland and Sweden to join the alliance (NATO 2022b). This major pull east has affected NATO vision for its southern flank while given it a clear united one for the eastern flank. Ambassador (retired) Kosnett noted on NATO unity post invasion, nobody has done more to rebuild NATO solidarity than Putin after the You know the tensions between the United States and Western Europeans over the last few years, and the failure in Afghanistan… there are many other countries in Asia in the Middle East and Africa that you know, have chosen to at least stay neutral in the conflict. (Kosnett 2022)

The war has motivated the allies deploy military forces to the east and spend more on deterrence and defense. The allies have committed to beef up defense spending and carry their fair share of the military needs in Europe. German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has already committed a one-time spending packet of e100 billion to revamp the German military and renewed the pledge to spend more than two percent of its GDP per year (Stent 2022, 27–28). Seventeen other allies have pledged to increase their defense spending as a percentage of GDP in response to Russia’s actions. Many of these allies have also published the projected year they will reach proposed spending goals (Kirk-Wade and Balakrishnan 2022). Despite the unity created around the threat in the east and defense spending, divisions still remain in the alliance as noted, there are certain countries that the Russia sees as potential weak points. Hungary is one. Türkiye is another. So… those are areas where the Russian Government is trying to exploit tensions, fissions, differences in interest, and so forth. (Goldberg 2022)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a triple fold effect. It has caused the enlargement of NATO with the applications of Finland and Sweden, with Finland officially joining the alliance in April 2023. The invasion has pulled NATO resources and its focus back to Europe and to the east. Lastly, it has caused a stalemate in Europe opening NATO’s southern flank for competition.

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4.1 NATO’s Growing Pains and Conflicting Interests The war in Ukraine has reinvigorated NATO and pushed two formally neutral countries to join the alliance. As NATO expands its membership, the allies will have a hard time finding common ground. The alliance could start to alienate some allies and break down consensus. With the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the alliance will grow to 32 members. This massive defensive alliance with immense military, political, and economic power should herald good news to an unstable world, but expansion comes with critical drawbacks. The economic theories of alliances and the theory of collective action outline how the enlargement of a group causes increasingly diverging interests among its members. Along similar lines, as an alliance grows its members find it harder to hold each other accountable. According to the thoeries, this lack of accountablity allows smaller members to shirk alliance responsibilities unless larger allies provide incentives or threats of abandonment (Olson 1965). As noted in Olson’s Theory of Collective Action, the larger the organization, the more challenging members find it to work toward and achieve common interests. Olson theorized, Indeed, unless the number of individuals [countries] in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals [countries] will not act to achieve their common or group interests. (Olson 1965)

Varying interests make it difficult for a group to hold a united front on issues. To continue to increase membership in the alliance would likely only exacerbate the issues noted by Olson. The ability of one ally to use consensus voting against other allies to stall votes could become standard practice. For example, Türkiye has used this concept to oppose Finnish and Swedish membership in NATO. Türkiye has made a list of demands it wants met before it votes to allow Finland and Sweden to join this alliance (Erlanger 2022). These tactics to pressure allies may become more common as the alliance grows and common interests and threats fade. when they [Türkiye] had leverage, they would use it. So, they have a bigger beef against Sweden than they do against Finland. Related to what the Turks consider Swedish indulgence of the PKK and other terrorist groups. But it’s not. It’s not a surprise that they are using this opportunity. What Erdogan is not doing is he is not blocking or attempting to block Swedish and finish membership in NATO as a favor to Putin, he’s doing it for his own reasons. And yeah, out of both political and economic opportunism. (Kosnett 2022)

Bringing in Finland and Sweden will further complicate NATO’s relationship with Russia because Finland’s admission doubles NATO’s shared border with Russia. This will increase costs for NATO to defend the new border, likely with rotational deployments similar to those in the Baltic States. Moreover, their addition to the alliance will increase the security needs in Europe and limit resources going south.

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4.2 Russia and China Move South With NATO holding up in its European bastion and the United States lowering its involvement in the Middle East, the vacuum of control left across NATO’s southern flank remains open. Both Russia and China have used various methods to increase their influence in the region. Russia has focused on more hard power approaches with deployments of troops and Wagner mercenaries while China has focused on economic and trade means primarily through their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The US has lost interest in the region’s main resource, crude oil, as it now can supply itself through fracking leaving Russia and China an open door. Russia has employed a similar strategy to the region as did the Soviet Union. Russia has looked for opportunities in friendly or weak states to inject its troops or the Wagner Group. Russia has committed military forces to the Syrian Civil War since 2015, based out of the Russian naval facility in Tartus. Wagner Group has operated in Libya. Not long after the French pullout of Mali, Wagner Group reportly took their place. With the recent coup in Niger ousting the French, this scenario may play out again. China launched the BRI in 2013 to develop a global network of infrastructure and trade projects it could influence. The gross majority of nations along NATO Southern Flank participate in China’s BRI. Just less than half of NATO members themselves engage in the initiative. In 2017, China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti strategically located on the Bab al-Mandab Strait. This Chinese military base is located only a few miles from the US, French, and Italian military bases in Djibouti. China has explored other locations in the Middle East for future bases that would further secure sources of its crude oil imports. As China and to a lesser degree, Russia maneuver along NATO’s Southern Flank, questions remain how the region will fair. The United States and many of its allies have drained their resources whether financially, militarily, or political will in the region for over 20 years. The additional burden placed on the alliance by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further limited those resources. This situation has left room for increased influence of competing powers to NATO’s south.

5 Conclusion Despite its 360-security concept, NATO has reoriented primarily to the east. The alliance’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) composing of eight multinational battle groups stationed along NATO’s eastern flank from Estonia to Bulgaria shows where priorities lie. EFP has over ten thousand allied soldiers under its auspices (NATO 2022b). As Finland joins the alliance it will likely gain its own battle group. This amount of allied participate overshadows allied efforts in the south. As allies on the southern flank remind their allies of security concerns there, resources are

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limited. The alliance should take some lessons learned from its checkered history of involvement before it reengages with its southern flank. In 1986, one author pointed to three key lessons learned over the Cold War for engagement on NATO’s southern flank, the lessons to be learned from the experiences of the past few years should be to (1) stay at sea, (2) use power sparingly and convincingly, (3) coordinate with the NATO allies. (Rudney 1986)

Each of these three points still apply today. The suggestion to stay at sea, would keep the alliance from injecting ground forces into a crisis while maintaining a strong naval presence in the Mediterranean. The United States and its allies have had a poor record of success when they deploy troops to the region as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. This lesson implies that NATO should look past military options to extend influence in the region. NATO may find more success using its diplomatic arm or partnering with the European Union for an economic approach while limiting the use of military means to solve the region’s challenges. The second point use power sparingly and convincingly complements the first lesson on the use of force. If all other options have been thoroughly exhausted, NATO should use overwhelming force with limited objectives. Extended and protracted military engagements or occupations have met with failure in the region. The turbulent Afghanistan withdraw highlighted the third point about coordinating with the NATO allies. Its critical for allies to form a united front on issues and address them as such. Unilateral actions have only divided the alliance leaving fissures that competitors could exploit. The United States and its allies may focus actions through smaller regional organizations, when possible. Large organizations like NATO, the United Nations, or the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have too many members with diverging strategic interests to make decisive decisions. The misalignment of interests in these organizations has caused members to form smaller groups of likeminded countries that hold similar interests. For example, in the last couple of decades we have seen the creation of AUKUS agreement, the Quad (USA, Australia, India, Japan), Visegrad Group, Three Seas Initiative, Southern Quartet, Bucharest Nine, etc. These smaller alliances and organizations allow faster and more direct action because all members are on the same page and desire the same outcomes. Compare this to NATO which cannot act unless it has consensus from all 31 members. Without a revisionist Russia its questionable what unifying force would cause all 31 members’ national interests to align. Russia’s invasion will likely fade from the public focus as the war drags on and Russia reels from military losses, economic downturn, and continued sanctions. Postwar Russia may be drastically weaker economically and militarily than it was when it invaded in February of 2022. This means that for all the worries from NATO members, it will only last in the short term. NATO will lose the unifying cause of an aggressive Russia as it limps away from this conflict. That situation will lead to decreasing defense spending and an unfocused alliance with mixed priorities and even more members. Furthermore, the invasion has turned more of the spotlight on

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Europe in the short term, but a rising China will continue to pull the attention of the United States back to Asia. This geopolitical situation will leave the massive alliance with divided priorities and limited resources to devote to its southern flank. NATO will resort to using the Mediterranean Sea as a buffer to keep its European bastion safe while extending only limited influence along its southern flank allowing for Chinese and Russian encroachment.

References T. Balci, The Cyprus Crisis and the Southern Flank of NATO (1960–1975). International Review of Turkish Studies. (2012) E. Barry, Putin Criticizes West for Libya Incursion. The New York Times. (2011) A. Bellamy, P. Williams, The new politics of protection? Côte d’Ivoire, Libya and the responsibility to protect. International Affairs. (2011) R. Boudreaux, A. Zaman, Türkiye Rejects U.S. Troop Deployment. Los Angeles Times. (2003) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-02-fg-iraq2-story.html#:~: text=In%20a%20stunning%20rejection%20that,U.S.%20troops%20on%20Turkish%20soil. C. Camels, NATO’s 360-degree approach to security: alliance cohesion and adaptation after the Crimean crisis. European Security 29(4) 416–435. (2020) C. Chivvis, NATO’s Southern Exposure: The Real Threats to Europe—and the Alliance. Rand Corporation. (2016) https://www.rand.org/blog/2016/04/natos-southern-exposure-the-real-thr eats-to-europe.html N. Cigar, South Yemen and the USSR: Prospects for the Relationship. Middle East Journal. (1985) 39(4), pp. 775–795. D. Cordovez, S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: the inside story of the Soviet withdrawal. Oxford University Press. (2005) DW, Afghanistan takeover sparks concern from NATO allies. (2021) https://www.dw.com/en/afg hanistan-takeover-sparks-concern-from-nato-allies/a-58880292 D. Ehl, More than mercenaries: Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa. DW. (2023) https://www.dw. com/en/more-than-mercenaries-russias-wagner-group-in-africa/a-64822234 S. Erlanger, Analysis: What Türkiye Wants to Let Finland and Sweden into NATO. New York Times. (2022) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/22/world/europe/finland-sweden-Türkiye-nato.html Guardian, France and Germany Unite against Iraq War. (2003)https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2003/jan/22/germany.france L. Gelb, U.S. Jets for Israel Took Route Around Some Allies. The New York Times. (1973) https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/25/archives/us-jets-for-israel-took-route-aro und-some-allies-jets-for-israel.html D. Gibbs, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion Request. International Politics. (2000) D. Goldberg, 6th Great Power Competition Conference. Global and National Security Institute. (2022) https://youtu.be/jRzAE8cgDJY?t=5888 P. Gordon, The Crisis in the Alliance. The Brookings Institute. (2003) https://www.brookings.edu/ research/the-crisis-in-the-alliance/ K. Greenhill, Migration as a Weapon in Theory and in Practice. Military Review (2016) https:// www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/documents/Soc-Media/MR-Illegal-Imm igration-Greenhill.pdf M. Grey, Russia, Libya and Weaponizing Human Migration. U.S. Army War College. (2020) E. Hallams, B. Schreer, Towards a ‘post-American’ alliance? NATO burden-sharing after Libya. International affairs 88(2), 313–327 (2012)

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J. Hoagl, Greece Threatens to Cut Ties to NATO. The Washington Post. (1980) https://www.washin gtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/01/greece-threatens-to-cut-ties-to-nato/76ba0fc5-b9374ab4-8d33-146630b7aadd/ D. Keohane, NATO, the EU, and the Curse of Suez. Carnegie Europe. (2016) https://carnegiee urope.eu/strategiceurope/64859 J. Kirby, NATO allies are preparing for a future without America’s “forever wars.” Vox News. (2021) https://www.vox.com/22639474/afghanistan-nato-europe-refugees-germany-uk E. Kirk-Wade, S. Balakrishna, Defence spending pledges by NATO members since Russia invaded Ukraine. UK Parliament, House of Commons Library. (2022) https://commonslibrary.parlia ment.uk/defence-spending-pledges-by-nato-members-since-russia-invaded-ukraine/ P. Kosnett, 6th Great Power Competition Conference. Global and National Security Institute. (2022) https://youtu.be/jRzAE8cgDJY?t=5463 J. Lindly-French, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: The Enduring Alliance. Routledge. (2006) L. McGee, Afghan withdrawal leaves allies to face harsh reality of US’s departure from world stage. CNN. (2021) https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/politics/biden-afghanistan-weakens-thewest-globally-intl-cmd/index.html NATO, About the NATO Strategic Direction-South Hub. (2021) https://thesouthernhub.org/about NATO, CIMIC in the TRIDENT Series of Exercises. (2017) https://www.jwc.nato.int/articles/ cimic-trident-series-exercises#:~:text=%E2%80%9COur%20efforts%20to%20enhance%20t he,focusing%20on%20NATO’s%20added%20value NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty. (1949) https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120. htm NATO, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF): Key Facts and Figures. (2012) https://www. nato.int/isaf/placemats_archive/2012-08-01-ISAF-Placemat.pdf NATO (2022a) NATO and Afghanistan. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_8189.htm NATO (2022b) NATO’s military presence in the east of the Alliance. NATO. https://www.nato.int/ cps/en/natohq/topics_136388.htm NATO (2009) NATO’s Operations 1949 – Present. NATO https://shape.nato.int/resources/21/ NATO%20Operations,%201949-Present.pdf NATO, Operation Unified Protector Final Mission Stats. NATO. (2011) https://www.nato.int/nato_ static/assets/pdf/pdf_2011_11/20111108_111107-factsheet_up_factsfigures_en.pdf NATO, Pakistan earthquake relief operation. NATO (2010) https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/top ics_50070.htm#:~:text=NATO%20airlifted%20close%20to%203%2C500,devastating%208% 20October%202005%20earthquake. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Harvard University Press (1965) V. Palmerston, Treaty of Adrianople – Charges Against Viscount Palmerston. UK Parliament. (1848) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1848/mar/01/treaty-of-adrianoplecharges-against#S3V0097P0_18480301_HOC_8 B. Riedel, Algeria and America: A Complicated Past, an Uncertain Future. The Brookings Institute (2019) R. Rudney, On the Southern Flank: A Reassessment of NATO’s Mediterranean Strategy. SAIS Review. 6(2), 163–175 (1986) J. Shea, 1967: De Gaulle pulls France out of NATO’s integrated military structure. NATO (2009) https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_139272.htm A. Stent, 2022. Germany and Russia: Farewell to Ostpolitik?. Survival 64(5) 27–38. K. Weiss, The Soviet involvement in the Ogaden war. Center for Naval Analyses. (1980)

How CENTCOM Can Exploit Russia’s Failure in Ukraine Thomas R. Searle

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Charles Dickens

Abstract For CENTCOM, this is the best of times, and the worst of times. It is the best of times because China, Russia, and Iran face more severe challenges than they have in years. It is the worst of times because the resources available to CENTCOM continue to shrink. And the Russo-Ukraine war is compounded both trends. Fortunately, the Russo-Ukraine war offers CENTCOM new opportunities to advance U.S. interests and thwart U.S. competitors. First, the success of Ukrainian forces and the failure of Russian forces proves the U.S. is a vastly better security partner than Russia. Second, the speed and effectiveness of U.S. assistance, in the face of Russian threats, disproves the “abandonment” narrative so often heard in the CENTCOM AOR. Third, Russia’s dismal performance also discredits China as a security assistance partner since its equipment and approach are so similar to Russia’s, and China’s slow and limited support for Russia, its major “no limits” partner, pales in comparison to U.S. support for a minor partner like Ukraine. Furthermore, the prominent role of European states in supporting Ukraine reinforces CENTCOM’s narrative that when regional nations band together, under the umbrella of U.S. coordination, they can develop regional solutions to regional problems, and successfully oppose hostile global powers like Russia and China. The war in Ukraine has thus provided CENTCOM with incontrovertible proof to advance U.S. narratives, counter anti-U.S. narratives, discredit strategic rivals, and empower small and medium sized partners in the region. CENTCOM must fully exploit this unique opportunity. Keywords Great power competition · Russia · Ukraine · National security · China

For U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), 2023 is both the best of times, and the worst of times. It is the best of times for three reasons: first, the U.S. looks stronger T. R. Searle (B) Joint Special Operations University, Tampa, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_16

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than it has in many years; second, U.S. strategic competitors such as Russia, China, and Iran, look much weaker than they did a few years ago,1 and third, U.S. strategic goals in the CENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR) are less ambitious than they have been in decades.2 It is also the worst of times because the Biden Administration has followed the two previous administrations in “deprioritizing” the Middle East and continuing the policy of shrinking resources devoted to the region.3 The ongoing war in Ukraine has enhanced all of these trends. It reinforces the “best of times” because: Ukraine’s success has made the U.S. a more attractive partner; Russia’s failure has dramatically weakened it as a U.S. competitor; and the focus on Ukraine has further decreased the attention the U.S. administration devotes to events in the CENTCOM AOR. It reinforces the “worst of times” because it has dramatically increased the resource demands for U.S. European Command putting additional pressure on CENTCOM to secure and advance U.S. interests with even fewer resources. The challenge facing CENTCOM is how to take maximum advantage of the new opportunities presented by the “best of times” within the resource limitations imposed by the “worst of times” given that the war in Ukraine has simultaneously created new opportunities and decreased available resources. This chapter provides recommendations on how CENTCOM can exploit the new opportunities within its resource constraints. Let’s start by briefly considering the current Russo-Ukraine War in terms of U.S. competition with Russia in Europe. From the perspective of Russian and U.S. interests in Europe, Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a spectacular blunder. It was probably the most self-destructive foreign policy decision by any major nation since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, almost 45 years ago. As a reminder, here is a short list of some of the obvious and spectacular own-goals Putin scored by invading Ukraine. Putin wanted to divide and weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but instead his invasion united, strengthened, and expanded NATO.4 Putin wanted Ukrainians to see themselves as Russians, but instead his brutal invasion and the war crimes committed by his troops convinced Ukrainians they have nothing in common with Russians, and even filled them with a burning hated of Russia and everything Russian.5 Putin wanted to impress and frighten the world with the power of the Russian military, but instead his inept invasion proved the Russian military to be a second-rate force that should not impress or frighten anyone.6 Putin wanted to show that the U.S. was an unreliable and ineffective ally, but instead his invasion proved 1

Kaminski, M. (2023 20 January). LETTER FROM DAVOS: America in Decline? World Thinks Again. Politico. 2 For example, the 2023 State of the Union address never mentions any nation in the CENTCOM AOR. President Joe Biden. (2023 7 February). State of the Union Address. The White House. 3 Bertrand, N. & Seligman, L. (2021 22 February). Biden deprioritizes the Middle East. Politico. 4 NATO Press Release. (2023 8 February). Secretary General in Washington: NATO Allies are united like never before. NATO website. 5 Mirovalev, M. (2023 24 February). Ukrainians on first anniversary of Russia’s war. Al Jazeera. 6 Zagorodnyuk, A. (2022 13 September). Ukrainian victory shatters Russia’s reputation as a military superpower. Atlantic Council.

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that U.S. intelligence was extremely accurate and that, from Javelins to HIMARS to satellite communications, the U.S. could and did provide the assistance that rescued Ukraine.7 Putin thought European dependence on Russian coal, oil, and natural gas gave him a permanent and vast source of revenue as well as a lever to force European compliance with his demands, but instead, Europe has rejected Putin’s demands and radically cut its use of Russian hydrocarbons proving Russia’s lack of leverage and indicating a permanent drop in Russians energy export earnings.8 The short list above covers only a few of Russia’s failures, but the conclusion is clear, 1 year after Putin launched his full-scale invasion, Russia’s position in Europe is dramatically weaker than it was, and it continues to decline as the war progresses. By contrast, the U.S. position in Europe has spectacularly improved since Putin launched his ill-advised full-scale invasion of Ukraine.9 The results in the CENTCOM AOR, however, are less dramatic and less positive than those in Europe. One easy way to compare the impact of Russia’s invasion on the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) AOR with the impact on the CENTCOM AOR is in diplomacy and specifically voting in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In the year since Putin’s full-scale invasion began, four special resolutions on the Ukraine War have gone before the UN General Assembly. In the EUCOM AOR, every country voted against Russia (and with the U.S.) on every resolution. The only exceptions were Russia and Belarus (they naturally voted for the Russian position) and Armenia and Azerbaijan (they demonstrated total neutrality/indifference by abstaining or being absent for all four votes). By contrast, the CENTCOM AOR remains a highly contested diplomatic space. Two countries, Israel and Afghanistan, voted against Russia all four times. (The Afghan delegation at the UN was appointed by the pre-Taliban government.) One country, Syria, voted for Russia all four times. In a spirit of neutrality/indifference, one country, Pakistan, abstained from all four votes while another, Turkmenistan, was absent for all four votes. The rest split their votes with five (Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) voting for Russia sometimes and abstaining on other votes while the rest (Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen) voted against Russia sometimes and abstained on others.10 As the UN votes suggest, Putin’s blunders have substantially, and perhaps permanently, weakened Russia in Europe, but the impacts on the CENTCOM AOR are still to be determined. How can CENTCOM move the nations in its AOR toward the European view of Russia and the U.S.?

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Al Jazeera Staff (2023 24 February). Five key ways the US has supported Ukraine’s war effort. Al Jazeera. 8 Sonnenfeld, J. & Tian, S. A Year after the Invasion, the Russian Economy Is Self-Immolating. Yale Insight. 9 Daalder, I. (2023 15 February). Consequences of Putin’s war go beyond its implications for Russia. Politico. 10 Haddad, M. (2023 16 February). Where does your country stand on the Russia-Ukraine war? Al Jazeera.

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1 Recommendation 1: A New Narrative to Reframe the War in Ukraine Like everyone else, governments in the CENTCOM AOR are busy with their own problems and prone to see new events, like the war in Ukraine, through the lens of their prior concerns. For example, on their own, governments that were worried by the shrinking U.S. military presence in the CENTCOM AOR are likely to see the war in Ukraine as another distraction drawing U.S. resources away from them. CENTCOM should provide a new narrative to help governments in the CENTCOM AOR reframe their understanding of the first year of the Russo-Ukraine war. Fortunately, there is a very compelling narrative based on events in Ukraine 2022 and it goes something like this. In February of 2022 Russia started the largest war in Europe since 1945. It should have been a quick and decisive victory for Russia, but it was not. Let’s take look at the two sides before the war and what happened during the war to find out why Russia did not win and what Russia’s failure means. On the Russian side in February 2022 there was a strong and experienced leader, Vladimir Putin, who had been either President or Prime Minister of Russia for more than 20 years and had grown up in the Soviet intelligence service (the KGB). He was a recognized expert in the use of force to achieve his international goals. He inherited a broken Russian military back in 1999, but he spent decades and enormous resources transforming the Russian military into one of the best equipped, best trained, best led, largest, and most powerful military forces in the world.11 When Putin launched his army across the Ukrainian border in February 2022, he sent Russia’s best troops, armed with all the latest Russian equipment, after a long training period to prepare for the invasion, and the force was led by the best officers in the Russian military with extensive combat experience in Syria and elsewhere.12 On the opposing side, in February of 2022, Ukraine was led by Volodymir Zelenskyy, a television comedian who had run for President promising to negotiate peace with Russia, not fight a war. When he was elected, he was extremely popular, but Zelenskyy’s incompetent administration quickly disappointed Ukrainians. By late 2021, less than one quarter of Ukrainians approved of Zelenskyy’s performance as President. He was not seen as a strong leader, he had no expertise in military affairs, and no one thought he was a match for Putin.13 The Ukrainian military was not seen as a match for the Russian military either. Ukrainian forces were in even worse condition in 2014 than the Russian military was when Putin first became President in 1999. The Ukrainian resistance to separatist 11

For example, in 2021 Business Insider India ranked the Russian military as second only to the U.S. in its world rankings. Staff (2021 13 July). RANKED: The world’s 20 strongest militaries. Business Insider India. 12 Gatehouse, J. & Leung, A. (2022 26 February). Ukraine has will, but Russia has might: How their military forces match up. CBC News. 13 Minakov, M. (2021 November). Just Like All the Others: The End of the Zelensky Alternative?, Focus Ukraine, A blog of the Kennan Institute, Wilson Center.

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movements in eastern Ukraine in 2014 was led by ultra-nationalist Ukrainian militias who had more in common with ancient Viking berserkers than with twenty-first century military power.14 When the 2022 invasion began, the Ukrainian military had received very few modern Western weapons and was mainly equipped with old Soviet-era weapons that were obviously worse than the newer versions the Russians had. Because Zelenskyy had denied that an invasion was coming, the Ukrainian military had done no special training and very little repositioning to prepare for an invasion.15 The Ukrainian Army did have almost 8 years of fighting separatists in the Donbas, but the separatists were second-rate forces content to occupy trenches like those in World War I.16 Fighting them was completely unlike facing a full-scale invasion by the best units in the Russian Army. Before the invasion began, outside observers knew all these things and expected a quick Russian victory. And the Russians would have had a quick victory if they had invaded in 2014, as they did in the battle of Ilovaisk, in August of that year.17 Back then the fight was Big Russia vs Small Russia, i.e., the Russian military against a smaller version of itself with worse equipment, worse leadership, and worse intelligence. But the invasion came in 2022, not 2014. During the interim, U.S. and Western assistance quietly transformed Ukraine’s mediocre but motivated military from a bad copy of the old Soviet army into a modern fighting force that made it impossible for Russia to defeat Ukraine quickly. Further assistance from 2022 on has made it impossible for Russia to defeat Ukraine at all. The impact of U.S. and Western assistance is obvious. Thanks to U.S. intelligence sharing, the Russians invasion came as a shock, but not much of a surprise to Ukraine. Thanks to the transformation of Ukrainian forces after 2014, Ukraine fought the initial invasion to a standstill with old Soviet gear and a small number of modern manportable weapons. The material assistance from NATO countries after the invasion began was initially the same old Soviet equipment Ukraine already had. However, with U.S. advice and 8 years of U.S. training, old Soviet gear was good enough to stop the Russian offensive on the ground, in the air, and at sea. Once U.S. equipment started to appear in Ukraine, the Russians were doomed. A few Harpoon missiles quickly drove the Russian navy off the sea. A few HARM missiles kept the Ukrainian Air Force in the fight months after their MiG 29s should have been eliminated by Russia’s S-400s. A few HIMARS were enough to negate Russia’s vast advantage in artillery. The intelligence the U.S. shared with Ukraine was so superior to Russian intelligence that Ukraine was able to find and attack Russian weaknesses in places like Kharkiv while Russia was not able to surprise the Ukrainians. 14

Newman, J. (2022 7 December). Thousands of soldiers from Ukraine’s Azov regiment gather to watch a Viking longboat burn at ceremony in memory of their fallen comrades. Daily Mailonline. 15 Zabrodskyi, M., Watling, J., Danylyuk, O., & Reynolds, N. (2022 30 November). Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022. Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. 16 Hughes, C. (2021 16 December). Inside Ukraine’s First World War-style trenches 150ft from huge Russian ‘invasion’ force. Mirror. 17 Shramovych, V. (2019 29 August). Ukraine’s deadliest day: The battle of Ilovaisk, August 2014. BBC.

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The facts are indisputable. U.S. advice, training, and intelligence were enough to enable the Ukrainians to fight the Russians to a standstill with a smaller, worse equipped force than the Russians. With more U.S. advice and small quantities of Western equipment, Ukraine launched offensives that drove back the Russians. And in the process, U.S. advice and assistance transformed Zelenskyy’s stubbornness from the fatal flaw that should have destroyed his nation into a heroic virtue that will inspire generations of Ukrainians for the next 100 years. This proves U.S. advice and equipment are enough to enable a mediocre, but motivated military to defeat Russia’s best equipment, operated by Russia’s best troops, led by Russia’s best officers. Can you (nation in the CENTCOM AOR) risk settling for Russian advice and equipment rather than Security Force Assistance from the U.S.? You certainly do not want to choose Russian assistance if there is any chance you will encounter an opponent with U.S. assistance. This new narrative is perfect for CENTCOM’s role in building partner capacity,18 since that is what worked so well for Ukraine. The new narrative also moves the discussion away from the number of U.S. combat forces in the region and CENTCOM’s (sometimes controversial) role directing unilateral U.S. combat operations. It is also perfect for CENTCOM’s new narrative about regional security cooperation among regional partners19 because the European allies and partners of the U.S. played a vital role in supporting their fellow Europeans in Ukraine. For example, Poland is not a major economic or military power like Germany, France, or the UK, but it has played a major role in supporting Ukraine militarily, diplomatically, handling refugees, etc. It has done so both inside and outside NATO structures and has often been in the lead rather than waiting for the U.S. to lead. Few nations in the CENTCOM AOR can fill the role of a Germany or France, but several of them could step up to be a Poland, and Poland’s example could be quietly highlighted and praised as an example of the positive role medium-sized nations can play in regional security. Note that Russian messaging reinforces the new CENTCOM narrative by focusing on U.S. support for Ukraine as the explanation for Russian failures. CENTCOM can reinforce the new narrative with phrases like: “Putin himself admits that U.S. advice and equipment are the reasons he can’t beat Ukraine.” Note also that this recommended narrative does not emphasize the prominent themes in U.S. messaging about the Ukraine war to U.S. allies in Europe and East Asia such as: Russian war crimes, Russian violation of international norms, and the possibility that Russian victory over Ukraine will encourage both Russia and China to launch military operations elsewhere. Those themes resonate in Europe and East Asia but have not resonated with the audience in the CENTCOM AOR. The proposed

18

Saab, B. (2022 13 September). CENTCOM’s Got a New Mission. It Needs More Support. DefenseOne. 19 Kube, C. (2022 7 September). U.S. military is developing plans to open a new testing facility in Saudi Arabia: The facility would test new technologies to combat drones, and comes amid increasing security cooperation between Arab states and Israel against Iran. NBCNews.

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narrative might reframe the war better for the audience in the CENTCOM AOR than the other themes have.

2 Recommendation 2: Build on the Reframed View of the War to Discredit the Abandonment Narrative There has long been an abandonment narrative in the CENTCOM AOR claiming that the U.S. will eventually leave and abandon its friends when they are most in need of assistance. This narrative stresses the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1970s, from Lebanon in the 1980s, from Somalia in the 1990s, and most recently, from Afghanistan in 2021. The claim is that, in all these places, when the going got tough, the U.S. abandoned its friends and went home. The implication is that friends of the U.S. must always prepare for the day when the U.S. will abandon them, and the best way to prepare is to compromise with U.S. foes, particularly those that are resident in the region and hence will never leave, such as Iran and the Taliban. The war in Ukraine provides a powerful counter narrative. The U.S. could have abandoned Ukraine and cut a deal with Russia. In fact, cutting a deal with Russia might have been the “smart” move since Russia is a major oil exporter and its GDP is almost ten times Ukraine’s. Moscow could have rewarded Washington handsomely for abandoning Ukraine. But instead, the U.S. (and the West) are accepting all the hardships Russia can impose and have stood by Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine will always be a neighbor of Russia, and the Ukrainians had every reason to fear being abandoned and to cut a deal with Russia, but they did not, and they are now admired by the entire world for their courage and skill. If the audience presses on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, then the reply is probably to point out that the U.S. did not abandon Afghanistan, the U.S. lost patience with the Afghan government. For almost 20 years the U.S. fought on behalf of the Afghan government, and supported that government, but it failed to follow U.S. advice, failed to improve, and failed to prepare to operate as Ukraine does, with U.S. assistance, but without direct participation by U.S. forces. Finally, the U.S. lost patience and withdrew its forces. The U.S. intended to continue to support the Afghan government, but that government chose to surrender rather than continue the fight without U.S. combat forces. Do you (nation in the CENTCOM AOR) think your situation is like the Ghani government in Afghanistan (with U.S. troops fighting your battles), or like the Zelenskyy government in Ukraine (fighting your own battles with your own troops and some U.S. support and assistance)?

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3 Recommendation 3: Build on the Reframed View of the War to Discredit Russia There are competing explanations for Russian failure in Ukraine, such as the fact that the Russians started the war with a bad war plan.20 However, this begs the question: if the Russians wrote a bad war plan for their own war against a neighboring country they have known for centuries, how can you trust them to help you write a good war plan for an enemy they do not know? Russian failures have also opened them to ridicule which should be exploited. For example, before the invasion, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov bragged that he commanded the second-best army in the world, but it turns out he only commands the second-best army in Ukraine. Jokes like this help make Russia an unattractive partner and mentor. Admittedly, Russian weapons and equipment are better than nothing, and have helped the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria fight against enemies who lack heavy weapons, but if Russian trainers cannot teach Russian troops to use Russian weapons effectively in Ukraine, how will they do better training and advising non-Russian troops? Ukraine made better use of outdated versions of those same weapons because the Ukrainians had U.S. and Western training and advice instead of Russian training and advice. Do you (nation in the CENTCOM AOR) want to bet your future that the Russians can train your troops better than they can train their own troops? There is also an opportunity here to highlight Russia’s reliance on Iranian hardware. After all, Russia pretends to be a global leader in military technology. Can that possibly be true if it must rely on Iran for its military technology?

4 Recommendation 4: Build on the New Assessment of Russia, and China’s Lukewarm Support for Russia, to Discredit China The new CENTCOM narrative naturally extends to Chinese security force assistance since everyone knows the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), including its navy and air force, have very close relationships with their Russian counterparts, buy large amounts of Russian equipment, and sell Chinese-built equipment that was reverse-engineered from Russian equipment. Who would be confident that Chinese advice and equipment will be any better than Russian advice and equipment? Before the war in Ukraine, Chinese ground and air forces were generally ranked behind Russia’s army and air force and because the Chinese and Russian militaries are

20

Zabrodskyi, M., Watling, J., Danylyuk, O., & Reynolds, N. (2022 30 November). Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022. Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

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so closely linked, the Chinese reputation should decline just as dramatically as the Russian reputation has. Furthermore, nations in the CENTCOM AOR should be reminded that in February of 2022, just days before Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine, Russia and China signed documents claiming their partnership had “no limits.” And yet, now that Russia is finding unexpected difficulties in Ukraine, China is limiting its assistance to Russia. Where the U.S. and the West are giving whole arsenals of weapons to Ukraine for free, China has been much slower and less generous in its support to Russia, in spite of their “no limits” partnership. How much support can nations in the CENTCOM AOR, who are not “no limits” partners of China, expect from China if they find themselves in difficulties? Clearly, the war in Ukraine has proven the U.S. to be a much better friend than China. Even if China dramatically changes policy in the future and provides Russia all the assistance Putin requests, the fact will remain that U.S. assistance arrived in time to save Ukraine and if Chinese assistance ever comes, it will come too late to prevent Russia from being humiliated.

5 Tailoring These Messages for Specific Audiences To reframe the Russo-Ukraine war and exploit that reframing to the benefit of the U.S. and the detriment of Russia and China, one must develop a clear understanding of different audiences in the CENTCOM AOR. We will start our study of the CENTCOM AOR by considering why those countries reacted differently to Putin’s folly than European countries did. Then we will examine subgroups within the CENTCOM AOR and provide additional recommendations for messages tailored to specific audiences.

6 Why the War in Ukraine Looks Different to Nations in the CENTCOM AOR The first thing to consider is that the government in Moscow has always enjoyed a much better reputation in the CENTCOM AOR than it has in Europe. During the Cold War, Moscow’s allies in the CENTCOM AOR, such as Syria and Iraq, freely chose to work with Moscow. They were grateful for Moscow’s assistance and retained close relations with Moscow after the Soviet Union collapsed.21 On the other hand, Europe was home to NATO, an anti-Moscow military alliance throughout the Cold War. Even Moscow’s Cold War European allies, such as the Warsaw Pact countries, were nations occupied by Soviet forces at the end of World War II. These nations

21

Ismael, T. & Kreutz, A. (Fall 2001). “Russian-Iraqi Relations: A Historical and Political Analysis,” Arab Studies Quarterly (Vol. 23, Issue 4).

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were resentful and distrustful of Moscow and took the first opportunity to break military ties with Moscow and join NATO, to protect themselves from Moscow.22 There was a parallel situation with the Soviet Republics. Many of the Soviet Republics in Europe, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and even Ukraine and Belarus, pushed for independence and contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.23 By contrast, the former Soviet Republics that are now in the CENTCOM AOR—the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—did not campaign for independence and instead had a more-or-less unwelcome independence forced on them by the dissolution of the USSR. The collapse of the Soviet Union (1991–1992) dramatically decreased Moscow’s power and influence throughout the world, including in the CENTCOM AOR. This decrease in Moscow’s influence was matched by a simultaneous and even more dramatic increase in the U.S. presence in the CENTCOM AOR in response first to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and then to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. However, in the decade before Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s position in the CENTCOM AOR began to improve. Presidents Barak Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden all worked to decrease the U.S. presence in the CENTCOM AOR while at the same time, Vladimir Putin was trying to reestablish Russia as a major power in the Middle East. States in the CENTCOM AOR responded to these developments by gradually decreasing their reliance on the U.S. and improving relations with Russia.24 Nowhere was this more obvious than in Syria where President Obama announced that “Assad must go”25 but Russia—along with Iran and Hezbollah—saved the Assad regime26 and successfully defied both the U.S. and the Syrian opposition. By 2021 it seemed clear that the U.S. presence in the region was shrinking and had not yet reached bottom. On the other hand, Moscow’s presence was growing, and it was not clear when it would peak. Furthermore, China seemed to also be expanding into the vacuum left by the shrinking U.S. presence, and Iran, arguably the biggest winner from the U.S. war in Iraq, seemed to be expanding its influence as well. In such circumstances, the prudent move for nations in the CENTCOM AOR was to shift the balance in their relations away from the U.S. and toward Russia and other rivals of the U.S. These developments were potentially destabilizing, but also appealing to many nations who welcomed a more “multipolar” world where they could play different potential patrons off against one another. All of this made 2021 an extremely difficult time to accomplish CENTCOM’s task of protecting and 22

NATO Official Web site, “What was the Warsaw Pact?”, NATO Declassified. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. The Collapse of the Soviet Union. Milestones: 1989–1992. 24 Rumer, E. & Weiss, A. (2019 24 October). A Brief Guide to Russia’s Return to the Middle East. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 25 Wilson, S. & Warrick, J. (2011 18 August). Assad must go, Obama says,” Washington Post. 26 Blanford, N. (2015 18 September). Russia and Iran both propping up Assad. A balancing act? The Christian Science Monitor. 23

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advancing U.S. interests in the region and countering the interests of U.S. rivals. The challenge was compounded by the seemingly chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban conquest of Kabul. Naturally, these dynamics played out somewhat differently in different places so let’s investigate different regions separately. For convenience, the CENTCOM AOR is discussed in four sections: Israel and the Arab States, Central Asian States, Iran and Syria, and finally, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tailored messages will be recommended for each section.

7 Israel and the Arab States Israel and the Arab states are more sympathetic to Putin’s narrative on Ukraine than European states are. Larger, more powerful Arab states, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, understand Putin’s desire for a sphere of influence in his region, since they too feel both a moral right and an economic and security need to influence their smaller neighbors. Europeans, on the other hand, are less sympathetic to spheres of influence and favor collective organizations like the European Union (EU) where smaller states have more protection from larger neighbors. Israel and the Arab states are also more sympathetic than Europeans to Putin’s view that Ukraine should not be a separate nation. Arab receptiveness to questions about Ukrainian legitimacy gain added traction from the fact that most Arab leaders are over 60 years old and hence grew up during the Soviet era when Ukraine was ruled by Moscow. They have paid much less attention to Ukraine since its independence than their European counterparts have, and this may increase their receptivity to Putin’s “one people” narrative about Russia and Ukraine. It is also important to note that Europeans feel intensely threatened by the prospect of a Russian victory over Ukraine whereas Israelis and Arabs do not. This is partly because Europeans, and particularly Eastern Europeans, are close to Russia and Ukraine and predict that a Russian victory in Ukraine will encourage Russia to invade them next.27 Israel and the Arab states, on the other hand, are far enough away from Russia that they do not fear Russian invasion. They do, however, see the Russian military presence in Syria as a check on Iranian recklessness and ambition there, and see Russia as a potential source of security assistance if the U.S. and other Western nations are unable or unwilling to provide it. From their perspective, a defeat in Ukraine might force Russia to withdraw from Syria, allowing Iran to act more aggressively, and leave Russia unable to provide security assistance.28 Thus Israel and the Arab states feel, in some ways, more threatened by a Russian defeat than by a Russian victory in Ukraine. 27

Ciesnik, S. (2023 2 November). ‘We will be in danger if Russia wins’: Security concerns drive Poland’s support for Ukraine. France24. 28 Yahya, M. (2022 12 July). The Arab World and the Ukraine conflict: The quest for nonalignment. Atlantic Council.

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Israel and the Arab states are also receptive to Putin’s view that the fighting in Ukraine is not specific to Ukraine but part of a decades-long contest between Russia and NATO, whereas Europeans generally reject Putin’s narrative. This difference in outlook centers on the degree of agency they believe former Warsaw Pact nations and Europe’s former Soviet Republics have. To the Europeans, these places gained real legitimacy and independence on the world stage with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. Europeans see the NATO membership of places like Poland and Estonia as an accurate reflection of the wishes of the people and leaders in those countries. To Israel, and particularly to the Arab states, the meaning of the change from membership in the Warsaw Pact to membership in NATO and the EU is less clear. Did Poland have more agency in joining NATO than it had in joining the Warsaw Pact? Even if Poland did drive the change, does the change represent the will of the people, or an expedient switch from a weak patron to a strong patron, or (as Putin claims) a change in patrons imposed from the outside by the U.S. and EU at the expense of Russia? The answers are not obvious in Israel or the Arab States. Those with long historical memories recall that Egypt was once sponsored by the USSR but switched to U.S. sponsorship in the 1970s without a change in leadership, or any radical change in popular attitudes toward to U.S. and USSR. The Arabs and Israelis wonder why the change would be different in eastern Europe than it was in Egypt. All these differences between European and Arab attitudes help explain why Europeans are remarkably united in their sympathy for Ukraine and their hostility toward Russia whereas Israel and the Arab states prefer neutrality. From an Arab perspective the Russo-Ukraine war looks a lot like Neville Chamberlain’s assessment of the 1938 crisis between Czechoslovakia and Nazi Germany: “a quarrel in a faraway land between people of which we know nothing.”29 This preference for caution and neutrality is reinforced by the fact that, prior to the conflict, Russian influence had been expanding in the CENTCOM AOR, and U.S. influence had been waning. The smart move before February 2022 was to hedge between the U.S. and Russia, and so far, the Arab states have not seen enough reason to abandon that hedging in favor of a policy of consistent condemnation of Russia. This is especially true in the current war because even if Ukraine survives the war, it will have limited post-war resources to reward the friends who supported it or punish the enemies who did not support it. On the other hand, win or lose, Russia will still have significant resources after the war and Putin is a vindictive man with a long memory. He will work very hard to get even with those who cross him. Why make yourself Putin’s target?

29

Chamberlain, N. (1938 27 September). Chamberlain addresses the nation on peace negotiations. BBC Archives.

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7.1 Oil Oil and natural gas pose an interesting conundrum in relations between Russia and the oil-producing Arab states. On the one hand, as oil producers, they are in competition with each other to find customers for their product and any sale by Russia is, by definition, a sale not made by an Arab oil producer. On the other hand, as oil producers, they also share a common interest in higher long-term oil prices.30 The competitive aspect of this relationship was highly visible early in the COVID crisis when Saudi-Russian competition led to an unprecedented collapse in world oil prices. Prices technically went negative with companies paying anyone who would take excess oil off their hands.31 Since then, however, OPEC+, led by the Saudis and the Russians, has been remarkably cooperative and collaborative in its efforts to keep oil prices high. The combination of the fracking revolution and the prospect of peak oil demand in the 2030s also raises special concerns that CENTCOM cannot address but must consider. For generations, everyone assumed oil prices would rise indefinitely since long-term global economic growth was increasing demand faster than oil and gas exploration increased supply. However, changes to the supply and demand picture have reversed those expectations. On the supply side, the fracking revolution dramatically increasing the amount of oil that could potentially be brought to market.32 On the demand side, concerns over global warming, advances in non-carbon energy sources, and commitments by major oil consumers to decrease the amount of oil and natural gas they use have slowed the rate of demand growth. Most observers estimate global demand for oil and natural gas will peak in the next decade and then begin to decline.33 These changes suggest oil prices will peak in the foreseeable future and then slowly decline along with global demand. A long-term future that includes lower oil and gas prices and lower sales guarantees declining oil revenues and forces oil-driven economies to maximize current revenue and use the money to reorient their economies toward other sectors. This is exactly what Saudi Arabia has been doing and aligns Saudi and Russian interests since both want to maximize current oil and natural gas revenues.34 The geopolitical impact of these changes has been increased by the fact that the fracking revolution has been driven by the U.S. and has eliminated the U.S. as a major oil importing country while rapid growth in oil and gas demand in China has made it, by far, the world’s leading oil and gas importer. This has weakened economic ties between the oil exporting Arab states and the U.S. while tightening their relations 30

Krauss, C. (2022 14 September). Ostracized by the West, Russia Finds a Partner in Saudi Arabia. New York Times. 31 Lee, J. (2020 June 16). How negative oil prices revealed the dangers of the futures market. CNBC. 32 Bartash, J. (2019 22 March). Fracking revolution that’s made the U.S. the top global oil producer is boosting the economy—and keeping emissions down. MarketWatch. 33 Paraskova, T. (2023 30 January). BP Believes Oil Demand Will Peak Near 2030 As Shift To Renewables Accelerates. OilPrice.com. 34 Marsi, F. (2022 7 October). Is OPEC ‘aligning with Russia’ after production cuts? Al Jazeera.

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with China. U.S. complaints about military operations in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the murder of Journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi security personnel have further increased friction35 while Chinese indifference toward these issues has made it even more attractive as a partner. The war in Ukraine has disrupted oil supplies in the short term and probably accelerated the movement away from oil in the longer term. Many major importers of Russian oil and gas responded to Russia’s invasion by decreasing or ending those imports while Russia responded to sanctions by cutting its exports to nations that supported Ukraine. These actions set off a scramble by oil and gas consuming countries to find alternatives to Russian supplies while Russia scrambled to find replacement customers for its oil and gas. These sudden shocks to global oil and gas markets caused prices to spike in the short term but encouraged oil and gas importing countries to speed their transition away from reliance on these sources of energy. OPEC+, led by the Saudis, expected the war to cause a global economic slowdown that would depress demand, causing them to cut production to keep prices up in the face of slumping demand.36 The OPEC+ decision to cut production and hence raise oil prices strained relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, especially since the cut was announced shortly before the 2022 Congressional elections in the U.S., when the Administration would have preferred lower or stable prices for U.S. consumers. Interpreting this as the Arab oil producers siding with Russia against Ukraine and the West is probably an exaggeration, given that the Arab oil producers had solid economic reasons for wanting high prices.37 However, the size and timing of the production cuts showed at least an indifference to the preferences of the Biden Administration and the close relationship between the Saudis and Biden’s predecessor (Donald Trump) reinforced the unhelpful notion that the Saudis were supporting Republicans over Democrats in U.S. politics.38

8 Recommended CENTCOM Messaging to Israel and the Arab States The U.S. government is specifically designed to make it difficult for either party to advance a partisan agenda. As a result, Israel and the Arab states need good relations with both parties. If a nation makes the mistake for becoming too closely aligned 35

Emmons, A., Chávez, A., & Lacy, A. (2019 21 November). Joe Biden, in departure from Obama policy, says he would make Saudi Arabia a ‘pariah.’ The Intercept. 36 Northam, J. (2022 5 October). Russia and Saudi Arabia agree to massive cuts to oil output. NPR. 37 Marsi, F. (2022 7 October). Is OPEC ‘aligning with Russia’ after production cuts? The United States has accused OPEC oil-producing nations of siding with Russia after a decision to cut oil output. Al Jazeera. 38 Gause III, F.G. (January/February 2023). The Kingdom and the Power: How to Salvage the U.S.-Saudi Relationship. Foreign Affairs.

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with one party, and seen as hostile by the other party, then that nation’s long-term interests will suffer since it will gain little when its favored party is in power, and potentially lose much when its disfavored party is in power. Gently and politely, CENTCOM should point this out to any nation that seems to be making the mistake of becoming a partisan issue in U.S. politics. On the challenges of the current Ukraine crisis, Israel and the Arab States should be reminded that they did not welcome Saddam Hussein’s attempt to annex Kuwait in 1990 or the efforts of ISIS to redraw borders by force. Russia’s invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory needs to be understood in the same light as another unacceptable effort to redraw national borders by force. Israel and the Arab States must condemn Russia’s actions the same way they condemned those by Saddam and ISIS. Neutrality in the war must mean Russia’s return to the internationally recognized 2013 borders, i.e., Russian withdrawal from Crimea, because anything less puts every international border into question just as Russia’s attempt to eliminate Ukraine as a sovereign nation imperils the sovereignty of every nation. Arab States will counter that what Russia is attempting in Ukraine is just like what the U.S. did in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the U.S. is hypocritical to cry foul when Russia follows the U.S. example. CENTCOM must not take the bait and must avoid being drawn into an unproductive effort to re-litigate U.S. actions from 20 years ago. Instead CENTCOM should focus Arab attention on two facts: (1) if the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine are interestingly similar, then the Arabs are hypocritical not to criticize Russia with the same vigor they criticized the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq; and (2) just as Arab sympathies were with the Iraqis in 2003, they should be with the Ukrainians in 2023. The Arab states should be reminded that Russia is not their friend. A key feature of the war in Ukraine has been the dramatic increase in military cooperation between Russia and their arch enemy, Iran. Russia is actively working to increase the threat Iran poses to them by providing fighter jets and other high-end military equipment that Iran could not otherwise acquire.39 Russian success will only strengthen Iran whereas Russian failure will weaken Iran. Which outcome is in their interest? It should also be pointed out that Russia no longer has an independent role in global oil policy because sanctions and war costs force Russia to sell every barrel it can, at whatever price it can get, and this situation will persist for many years to come. The war in Ukraine has already gone on for a year and both sides are now fighting harder than ever, so the war will likely go on for several more years. The punitive sanctions on Russia, and Russian economic distress, will likely continue for many years after the war ends. This means Russia is locked in its current, desperate economic situation for many years and probably cannot afford to withhold oil from the market before 2030, at the earliest. As a result, OPEC can set oil policy without consulting Russia. Israelis should also be reminded of the increasing collaboration and interdependence between Russia and Iran, how much a Russian victory would strengthen Iran, 39

Czulda, R. (2023 8 February). What Iran’s Purchase of Russian Jets Means for Regional Security. Stimson.

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and how much a Russian defeat would weaken Iran. Furthermore, Israelis should be reminded that Putin is accusing the Jewish president of Ukraine of being a Nazi proving that Putin is driven by a dangerously flawed understanding of history. Why would any Israeli trust Putin’s assessment of Ukraine’s place in the world when he is claiming Jews are Nazis? Russia has also been providing cyber weapons to Israel’s greatest threat, Iran40 as well as promising fighter jets and other weapons to Iran.41 Iran will use these weapons to threaten or attack Israel and as Russia deepens its ties with Iran, the threat to Israel increases. Admittedly, Russian military presence in neighboring Syria creates unique risks for Israel if it has bad relations with Russia. It also provides unique opportunities if Israel can maintain good relations with Russia. (For example, strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syrian without interference from Russian air defense systems.) However, it is not clear how large a presence Russia can maintain in Syria, and for how long. Israel’s long-term interests lie with the U.S. and the West, and Israel should be encouraged to accept this fact and gradually distance itself from Russia, as its votes in the UN General Assembly already have.

9 Central Asian States The former Soviet Republics of Central Asia are more hostile to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine than their U.N. voting would suggest. These five states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) were not fighting for independence in the early 1990s, but after 30 years as independent nations, they have developed a taste for independence and are not anxious to cede power and authority back to Moscow. In fact, disentangling themselves from Moscow and achieving ever greater independence has been a goal of these states for decades.42 When they look at the fighting in Ukraine, they have the same “we could be Russia’s next target” apprehensions as Eastern Europeans. Russian politicians reinforce those fears by calling Central Asian States “artificial” and hinting that Russia might annex majority-Russian portions of Kazakhstan just as it annexed parts of Ukraine.43 At the same time, most Central Asian States are much more vulnerable to Russian pressure than Israel and most Arab states. Central Asian economies are still closely tied to Russia, and Putin has used that leverage in the past. For example, an estimated two million Uzbek citizens live and work in Russia and their remittances are a vital

40

Lieber, D., Faucon, B., & Amon, M. Russia Supplies Iran with Cyber Weapons as Military Cooperation Grows. Wall Street Journal. 41 Czulda, R. (2023 8 February). What Iran’s Purchase of Russian Jets Means for Regional Security. Stimson. 42 Umarov, T. (2022 16 September). Kazakhstan Is Breaking Out of Russia’s Grip. Foreign Policy. 43 Mirovalev, M. (2022 17 September). How Ukraine makes Putin’s regional project crumble. Al Jazeera.

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source of revenue for the Uzbek economy.44 The other Central Asian States are in a similar position, and Putin has used mass arrests of guest workers as a technique to pressure Central Asian States in the past.45 The Central Asian States also retained close security ties to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For example, Russian troops are stationed in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.46 The 2021 departure of the U.S. from Afghanistan and the Taliban triumph forced Central Asian States to tighten their security ties with Russia. Another important security connection is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) which Russia established in the 1990s with three Central Asian States (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) along with Armenia and Belarus. In January 2022, when unrest in the capital threatened to bring down the regime in Kazakhstan, Russia used the CSTO as the mechanism to legitimize its intervention. This success seemed to herald increased relevance for the CSTO and arguably marked the peak of Russian power in the post-Soviet era.47 For the Central Asian States, Russian difficulties in Ukraine create an opportunity to loosen their ties with Russia, and they are taking advantage of it.48 The war in Ukraine is also turning public opinion in Central Asian States against Russia49 and while these states are not democratic, anti-Russian sentiment makes it easier for autocratic governments to distance themselves from Russia. People in these regions remember how the defeat of Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and greater independence for the Central Asian States. They wonder if Russian defeat in Ukraine can contribute to another loosening of Moscow’s grip and further enhance their political independence from Moscow.50

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Lillis, J. (2022 16 November). Russia lures Uzbek migrants to fill war-related labor shortages. Eurasianet. 45 Staff. (2019 24 December). Russia: Police Round Up Migrant Workers: Racial Profiling, Beatings in Detention. Human Rights Watch. 46 Staff. (2022 14 September). ‘Up To 1500’ Russian Troops Redeployed to Ukraine From Tajik Base, Investigation Reveals. Radio Free Europe. 47 Mirovalev, M. (2022 17 September). How Ukraine makes Putin’s regional project crumble. Al Jazeera. 48 Umarov, T. (2022 16 September). Kazakhstan Is Breaking Out of Russia’s Grip. Foreign Policy. 49 Mirovalev, M. (2023 17 February). ‘I was naive about Russia’: Central Asians on the Ukraine war: Central Asian states keep close ties with Moscow, but younger citizens of former Soviet nations are questioning traditional alliances. Al Jazeera. 50 Mirovalev, M. (2022 17 September). How Ukraine makes Putin’s regional project crumble. Al Jazeera.

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10 Recommended CENTCOM Messaging to the Central Asian States The Central Asian States are landlocked nations located roughly as far from the U.S. as geographically possible within the northern hemisphere. After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the geographic fact that these states are close to Russia and China, and also very far from the U.S., will limit U.S. influence. However, the same distance that limits U.S. influence also eliminates the U.S. as a threat to the independence of these states, whereas proximity to Russia and China makes Russia and China ongoing threats. China has long been gaining influence in the Central Asian States and it will be the main beneficiary of Russia’s waning influence. In fact, Xi Jinping has used threatening statements by Russian politicians as an opportunity to provide security guarantees to Kazakhstan, directly exploiting Russian errors to expand Chinese influence.51 CENTCOM cannot change geography but can quietly encourage Central Asian States to continue their preferred policy of distancing themselves from Russia. Kazakhstan in particular has shown remarkable independence. Mere months after Russian troops put down a rebellion inside Kazakhstan, it refusing to recognize the independence of separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions even though Russia recognized them.52 At the same time, CENTCOM should encourage the Central Asian States to be leery of China lest they trade arrogant overlords in Moscow for equally arrogant overlords in Beijing. CENTCOM should encourage them to see the U.S. as an alternative to Russia and China and a way to increase their independence from both Russia and China while acknowledging that the size and proximity of Russia and China mean that those nations will always factor in the calculations of Central Asian States.

11 Iran and Syria Other chapters in this volume address Iran, but Iran and Syria are such important and unique parts of the CENTCOM AOR that they must be addressed here as well. Russia and Iran have been collaborating for years to evade U.S. sanctions on both countries. Their collaboration has increase dramatically since Russia began its fullscale invasion of Ukraine because the cost for Russia have gone down and the benefits of collaboration have gone up. The costs to Russia from violating sanctions on Iran have gone down because the post-invasion sanctions on Russia leave few additional ways Russia can be punished for collaborating with Iran. The benefits to Russia 51

Bartlett, P. (2022 14 September). Xi vows to back Kazakh ‘sovereignty’ in Central Asia power play. Nikkei Asia. 52 Mirovalev, M. (2022 24 June). Ukraine war: Is Kazakhstan going cool on Russia? President Tokayev publicly refused to recognize Moscow-backed separatist regions in Ukraine. Al Jazeera.

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have increased because Russia needs additional weapons and ammunition to fight its long, large-scale war in Ukraine, and Iran is one of the few places Russia can acquire weapons and ammunition. Iranian combat drones have been particularly effective in Ukraine and Russia is buying hundreds of them to help advance its war effort. In return, Russia is planning to provide Iran with SU 35 fighter jets, Iran’s first postSoviet combat aircraft and a dramatic improvement in the capabilities of Iran’s air force.53 In short, the Ukraine war has been a disaster for Russia, because it lost more valuable partners and must settle for closer relations with Iran. However, the war has been a boon for Iran because Russia is now a much better partner than any of Iran’s options before February of 2022. As the war in Ukraine drags on, the partnership between Russia and Iran will probably get deeper and closer, since neither one has better options. If, as expected, sanctions on Russia continue for years after the fighting in Ukraine stops, the tightening of Russia-Iran relations will continue for the foreseeable future and will make Iran a more dangerous adversary for CENTCOM.54 The removal of Vladimir Putin from power would provide a good excuse to immediately end sanctions on Russia, but that is the only sudden change that might rapidly eliminate sanctions and potentially weaken the links between Russia and Iran. Russia’s difficulties in Ukraine will increase uncertainties and hence decreases the likelihood of a lasting peace settlement in the Syrian civil war until those uncertainties are resolved. Russia has been one of the main players in the Syrian civil war (along with Turkey, Iran, various regional Kurdish groups, various Sunni terrorist groups, the U.S., Israel, the Assad regime, etc.). As the fighting in Ukraine consumes an ever-increasing share of Russia’s financial and military resources, there will be less available for Syria, and Russia’s role there will decrease. How will other players respond to the vacuum created by Russia’s shrinking role? Russia has supported the Assad regime, as has Iran, and Iran may feel the need to increase its support to Assad as Russian support wanes. However, even with shrinking Russian support for Assad, and without a significant increase in Iranian support, the enemies of the Assad regime are too weak to win major battlefield victories against the regime and retake large parts of Syria. What is at stake are local advantages that are desperately important to the local players, but of limited value to larger outside players. The U.S. has little desire to increase their investment in Syria and most of the players mentioned above have little or no excess capacity to advance their interests in Syria. The exception is Turkey which has long wanted greater control over a swath of Syria along the border with Turkey. In fact, Turkey’s vision is to evict the Kurds currently living in Syria close to the Turkish border and resettle Arab Syrian refuges currently living in Turkey into the areas vacated by the Kurds.55 This would 53

Czulda, R. (2023 8 February). What Iran’s Purchase of Russian Jets Means for Regional Security. Stimson. 54 Timofeev, I. (2022 15 August). Is It Possible to Lift Sanctions Against Russia?—No. Modern Diplomacy. 55 Stewart, M. (2022 7 December). What’s at stake if Turkey invades Syria, again. Middle East Institute.

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be massively destabilizing for the region, since the displaced Kurds would create humanitarian and other challenges wherever they wound up, but it would solve two Turkish problems by removing the Syrian refugees from Turkey and eliminating sanctuaries from which anti-Turkish Kurdish armed groups could attack Turkey.56 The Russian presence in Syrian has been one of the factors discouraging Turkey from invading northern Syria, evicting the Kurds, and resettling Turkey’s Syrian refugees there. As the Russian presence and influence decrease, the chance of a Turkish invasion increases. In addition to the ongoing civil war inside Syria, it has also become a convenient conduit for Iranian support to anti-Israel Hezbollah fighters and hence the site of regular Israeli strikes against Hezbollah assets and Iranians assisting Hezbollah.57 Since Russia fields better air defenses than Iran or Syria, Russian attitudes toward Israeli strikes inside Syria have an impact on how risky those strikes are for Israel and hence, how often and effectively Israel will strike targets inside Syria.

12 Recommended CENTCOM Messaging and Actions Regarding Syria and Iran to Exploit the War in Ukraine At the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, CENTCOM is in a continuous competition with Iran throughout the CENTCOM AOR and that competition will become more challenging and intense as Iran receives more weapons and economic benefits from Russia. On the other hand, the Russian presence in the CENTCOM AOR is likely to shrink, and their forces are likely to be less active as Russian resources and attention focus on Ukraine. It is too early to tell how exactly this turn of the kaleidoscope will change all the details of the picture in the CENTCOM AOR, but four recommendations are certainly appropriate. First, CENTCOM should use the close ties between Iran and Russia to drive wedges between Russia and Iran’s foes (most of the nations in the region). Second, CENTCOM should use Iran’s growing capabilities to encourage Iran’s adversaries to seek closer relations with the U.S. Third, CENTCOM should support U.S. European Command’s efforts to deter or limit destabilizing Turkish adventures in Syria. Finally, and independent of the war in Ukraine, CENTCOM must never relax its vigilance where Iran is concerned.

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Stewart, M. (2022 7 December). What’s at stake if Turkey invades Syria, again. Middle East Institute. 57 Chatterjee, P. (2023 19 February). Five killed in Israeli strike on Damascus, Syria says. BBC News.

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13 Pakistan and Afghanistan Since the establishment of CENTCOM in 1983, U.S. relations with Pakistan have been complex and contentious. There are at least three permanent, unresolvable sources of friction between the U.S. and Pakistan. First, Pakistan is officially the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” It was founded and derives its raison d’être as a haven for the Muslim religious minority in South Asia and hence Pakistani politics is inextricably tied to Islam. The U.S., on the other hand, is a majority non-Muslim nation founded on the separation of church and state, i.e., founded on the belief that religion should be irrelevant to politics. Second, Pakistan is locked in permanent and existential conflict with its larger neighbor, India, whereas the U.S. wants good relations with both Pakistan and India, and if forced to choose, the U.S. would probably prioritize relations with India over relations with Pakistan. Third, Pakistan is enormously proud of its nuclear weapons and sees them as vital to national survival whereas the U.S. sees Pakistani nuclear weapons as something the world would be better off without. Any one of these would make U.S./Pakistan relations complex but together they make contention almost unavoidable. For two decades (2001–2021) the U.S. had thousands of troops in neighboring Afghanistan, forcing the U.S. and Pakistan to work together, but the relationship was often tense. The Pakistani public has a natural sympathy for Islamic militants, including the Taliban. In polls taken after the fall of Kabul, more than twice as many Pakistanis were “happy” with the Taliban’s 2021 return to power than “unhappy.”58 In the face of extraordinary pressure from the U.S. after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pakistan grudgingly permitted, facilitated, and enabled U.S. operations in Afghanistan. But Pakistanis resented U.S. pressure, felt that they did too much to help the Americans and hurt their Taliban friends, and felt the U.S. failed to appreciate their assistance and did not give Pakistan a fraction of the support it deserved in return for its assistance. The most popular politician in Pakistan today is the ferociously anti-American former Prime Minister, Iran Khan, who routinely blames all Pakistan’s difficulties on the U.S. and finds a receptive audience across Pakistani society.59 On the other hand, U.S. officials, press, and public routinely criticize Pakistan for not doing more and resented the support the U.S. gave Pakistan. For more than a decade it has been hard to find a U.S. discussion of Pakistan that did not include the word “duplicitous,” or some similar term applied to Pakistan.60 On the U.S. side, a generation of military and diplomatic personnel have also grown-up resenting Pakistan for its support for the Taliban, Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary inside Pakistan, and the Americans who died in Afghanistan. The end of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan in 2021 eliminated a major source of contention between the U.S. and Pakistan over their incompatible views on the 58

Gallup & Gilani Pakistan. (2021 14 September). 55% of Pakistanis are happy with the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Gallup Pakistan daily poll. 59 Staff. (2022 20 October). Imran Khan appears to be more popular than ever. The Economist. 60 Brookes, A. (2011 23 September). Mullen mauling shows patience wearing thin with Pakistan. BBC News.

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Taliban, but it also decreased the need for the two nations to work together. The contours of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship after the fall of Kabul had yet to emerge when global attention shifted to the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine, and what quickly became the largest land war in Europe in almost 80 years. For Pakistan, with its continuous cycle of humanitarian, economic, and political crises, the war in Ukraine has been yet another catastrophe. The jump in oil and food prices in 2022 caused by the war are shocks Pakistan could not easily absorb on top of its other difficulties that year: political turmoil (the Prime Minister was removed by a vote of no-confidence but demands early elections), floods of “biblical” proportions, and renewed attacks inside Pakistan by extremists who no longer have foreign troops to fight in Afghanistan.61 Naturally, Pakistani politicians encourage the public to feel they are the victims of “a series of unfortunate events” in the phrase made famous by Lemony Snicket. After all, Pakistan did not launch the 9/11 attacks, did not cause global warming, did not invade Ukraine, did not tell the U.S. and the EU to sanction Russia for the invasion, etc. Of course, a less generous reading of events would say that Pakistan should have exercised more control over the Taliban and Al Qaeda before 9/11, should have forced the Taliban to compromise with other Afghan factions to build a lasting peace the international community would support, should have developed a better plan to prevent and recover from floods, should have built political and economic institutions that were less fragile and more resilient, etc. For Afghanistan, the prospects are grim. Even if it does not become a terrorist safe haven from which attacks are launched on other countries, the Taliban government lacks a viable long-term economic plan, and shows no indication of being able to execute such a plan if it had one. The Taliban government rules Afghanistan but has failed to earn recognition by any of the 190+ countries in the United Nations, indicating that it is uniquely unappealing among all the dreadful governments in the world. The war in Ukraine (and post-war reconstruction of Ukraine) will only make things worse for Afghanistan by increasing global food and fuel prices and drawing away scare foreign aid money.

14 Recommended CENTCOM Messaging and Actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan For the past two decades, the U.S. did and said too much in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is probably time to spend a decade or two doing and saying little in either place. With that in mind, when dealing with Pakistan, the focus should probably be on listening a lot, while saying and doing very little. When speaking, the main talking points should be.

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Afzal, M. (2023 13 January). Pakistan: Five major issues to watch in 2023. Brookings.

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(1) The lesson of 9/11 is that Pakistan cannot trust the Taliban and the company it keeps. True, after the attacks, the U.S. did many things that Pakistan did not appreciate. The U.S. did so much that Pakistanis might be right to consider themselves the real victims of 9/11. But 9/11 was exactly what Al Qaeda wanted, and the Taliban gave Al Qaeda a home, and Pakistan enabled the Taliban. By facilitating 9/11, the Taliban proved that the cost for Pakistan of supporting the Taliban was catastrophic while the benefits were tiny. If Pakistan continues to make bad cost/benefit decisions and keeps providing excessive support to groups it cannot trust, then Pakistan is on the road to another avoidable catastrophe like what happened after 9/11. (2) Beware of Great Power sponsors. The U.S. is the most generous Great Power sponsor in history enabling its friends (Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.) to succeed in ways that would have been unimaginable for the subjects of European empires or the allies of the USSR. But the U.S. followed its own path after 9/ 11 and it was a path that did not necessarily work out well for Pakistan. The Chinese Communist Party is not nearly as generous as the U.S. and Pakistan should be warry of its dependence on the Chinese Communist Party because that dependence could become extremely costly in all sorts of ways that no one can predict today. (3) Hating America might be fun and popular, and blaming every problem on the U.S.A. might even win elections in Pakistan, but is it a viable strategy? Pakistani democracy, in all its chaotic inefficiency, is much more like politics in the U.S. and Ukraine than it is like politics in Russia or China. In the current global competition between democracy and authoritarianism, Pakistan’s only real home is on the democratic side, not the authoritarian side. (4) India is a Pakistani focus, but outside CENTCOM’s mandate, so when India comes up in conversation, the best response might be to stress that China might seem like a great ally against India. However, China’s issues with India are newer, smaller, and less important to China than Pakistan’s issues with India are to Pakistan. And China’s support to its friends in need has proven to be quite limited. For example, just days before the Russians invaded Ukraine, Russia and China signed a long statement claiming their partnership had “no limits” and yet, when Russia got into difficulties in Ukraine, China’s help has been extremely limited. In fact, China does not even consistently vote for the Russian position in the U.N. General Assembly. If Pakistan finds itself in difficulties with India similar to those Russia has found in Ukraine, how much help can Pakistan expect from China? Concerning Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine in no way alters the need for CENTCOM to focus on identifying and addressing any transnational terrorist threats coming out of that unfortunate country.

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15 Conclusion The Russo-Ukraine war is outside the CENTCOM AOR, and the nations inside the CENTCOM AOR would prefer to ignore the war and focus on local and regional concerns. However, CENTCOM should use the war in Ukraine to advance key CENTCOM narratives. First, the transformation of the Ukrainian armed forces between 2014 and the present proves that the U.S. is a vastly better security partner than Russia. The proof of U.S. superiority and Russian inferiority is obvious to all from the course of events. In 2014, before Ukraine started working closely with the U.S. (and other Western partners), Ukrainian armed forces were no match for Russia. But by 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion, U.S. (and other Western partners) improved Ukrainian capabilities to the point where the smaller and lesswell-equipped Ukrainian forces could halt Russia’s all-out offensive with minimal material assistance from the U.S. (and other Western partners). When the U.S. (and other Western partners) started providing significant material support (howitzers, HIMARS, HARM, HARPOON, etc.) Ukraine was able to take the offensive and drive the Russians back. Even Vladimir Putin acknowledges that security force assistance from the U.S. (and other Western partners) has made it impossible for Russia to achieve his goals on his timeline.62 Second, the speed and effectiveness of the assistance provided by the U.S. (and other Western partners) discredits the popular notion that the U.S. is unreliable and will abandon its friends and partners when things get tough. Contrary to the “abandonment” narrative so often heard in the CENTCOM AOR, the U.S. did not abandon Ukraine when things got tough. Instead, the U.S. (and other Western partners) stepped up and rescued Ukraine even in the face of nuclear threats from Russia. Third, Russia’s fiasco in Ukraine discredits Russia as a security assistance partner since the poor performance of the best Russian troops, using the newest Russian equipment makes it hard to believe Russian trainers can make non-Russians highly effective with the export version of that same gear. Fourth, Russia’s dismal performance also discredits China as a security assistance partner since it is such a close ally of Russia, and its equipment and approach are so similar to Russia’s. China’s lack of support for Russia further discredits it as a partner since China was not there for its major “no limits” partner, Russia, when Russia needed help whereas the U.S. was there for a minor partner like Ukraine. Finally, the prominent role of other European states in supporting Ukraine also proves that regional powers can band together for mutual security without requiring an overwhelming U.S. presence. The U.S. facilitated their cooperation, but a large part of Ukraine’s success has been due to Europeans finding European solutions to European problems. With limited U.S. assistance, the nations in the CENTCOM AOR can likewise find regional solutions to regional problems. If medium sized 62

Ellyatt, H. (2022 16 August). Putin slams U.S., claims it wants to drag out war in Ukraine and provoke China. CNBC.

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nations, like Poland; and small nations, like Latvia; can make a difference in Europe, then small and medium sized nations can also make a difference in the CENTCOM AOR. The war in Ukraine has thus provided CENTCOM with incontrovertible proof to advance U.S. narratives, counter anti-U.S. narratives, discredit strategic rivals, and empower small and medium sized partners in the region. CENTCOM must fully exploit this unique opportunity.

The Invasion of Ukraine and the Global Food Crisis of 2022: Responding to Food Supply Shocks Marcus S. Snow

Abstract Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set the wheels in motion for the Global Food Crisis of 2022. As epicenters of world food, fertilizer, cooking oil, and gas production, the removal of Russian and Ukrainian exports created an enormous supply shock sending food prices soaring. The least resilient and food insecure nations were hit the hardest. The rise in prices prompted an increase in alternative sources of supply, but only after several difficult months. The gap was partially filled by exhausting existing food and cash reserves as well as extending credit. On the diplomatic front, the signing of the BSGI also proved instrumental by allowing at least a portion of blockaded food supplies to be exported. For its part, the US government response was dramatic: extending aid, resources, and credit. That said, with many resources exhausted, the risk of a future food crisis remains concerning. Food supply shocks are best understood through a pricing perspective and resiliency efforts best assessed by their ability to place downward pressure on food prices. The Food Supply Shock model provides a useful tool for planners to understand, shape and assess their actions. Rather than being proscriptive, planners can assess actions and activities based on how they can address the pricing issue, and thus open an array of creative and non-standard solutions. Traditionally, USG efforts have relied on the Diplomatic and Development aspects of foreign policy to address food insecurity. This is understandable given the nature of the task to build resiliency in fragile states. That said, Defense has an important and underappreciated role in preparing for the next food supply shock. It’s unique suite of defense stability tasks can provide significant downward pressure on food prices. Keywords Food insecurity · Resiliency · Ukraine · Russia · Invasion · Sea lanes · Wheat · Grain · Sunflower oil · Cooking oil · Fertilizer · Supply shock · Supply chain · Food crisis · Black Sea · Ports · Security assistance · Security cooperation · Stability · Stabilization · Famine · Instability · Piracy · Shipping · Sanctions · World food program · FEWSNET · USAID · Import dependency · Gulf of Guinea · Global fragility act · Food prices · Fragile states · International monetary fund (IMF) · USAID · President’s emergency plan for adaptation and resilience M. S. Snow (B) Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_17

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(PREPARE) · U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) · Feed the future · Roadmap for global food security · Food import financing facility (FIFF) · Debt · Commodity prices · Horn of Africa · Chicago board of trade · Natural gas · Interagency conflict assessment framework (ICAF) · Maritime · Anti-piracy · Risk · Benin · Tanzania · USS Hershel “Woody” Williams · Embassy

1 Introduction Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb of 2022 was a disaster on multiple fronts. The trauma and damage inflicted on the Ukrainian people are well-known and documented. The disruption to oil and gas flows imperiling the safety and productivity of European economies is also well understood. Less well known, and perhaps the most fatal, was the global food supply shock which resulted in the severe food crisis in the summer of 2022 and whose ill effects endanger the lives of millions even now. Before the war, Ukraine and Russia were among the world’s most significant producers of food staples and fertilizer exporters. Many of the poorest and most food-insecure nations heavily depended on Russian and Ukrainian wheat, cooking oils, and fertilizers. Indeed, Russia and Ukraine were the discount food suppliers to many of the globe’s neediest people. The war initially turned off that supply and then reduced it to a fraction of its former volume. Prices soared to levels that made food virtually unaffordable to many. The food prices settled down by the end of summer as trade agreements and alternate sources fought to fill the supply gap-albeit at a higher price. The pre-war discounts were off the table, replaced by higher cost sources and lower volumes. All of this became a gut punch to struggling nations. Food availability is always an important issue, compounded when nations are less resilient. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine blocked or prevented food exports which in turn made this issue more serious. To offset market shortfalls, many countries were forced to exhaust what food, cash, and credit reserves they had to see through the worst of the supply shock. The United States and the international community have stepped up admirably to address the worst effects of the supply shortage. Still, the situation is precarious, and many existing mitigation resources have been depleted. The threat of broad famine in the summer of 2022 has largely receded, but it must be acknowledged that we dodged a bullet. Weak financial and food reserves as well as insecure supply chains leave many nations one more supply shock away from starvation or instability. Perversely, the most numerous victims of the war in Ukraine may very well be in Africa as malnutrition works its evils. The stability of critical nations in Africa and our Global Fragility Act (GFA) partner nations is at risk. The US response ought to be as robust as the problem is profound. To soften the blow of supply shocks like the one triggered by the invasion of Ukraine, the United State maintains a solid set of institutions and programs to encourage resiliency building in developing or at-risk nations. US efforts are primarily implemented through just two of the three “D’s” of foreign policy (Diplomacy, Development, and Defense).

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Diplomacy, through the Department of State, strengthens international institutions which provide financing and broker the international cooperation needed to solve problems. Development, through USAID, provides not only immediate aid relief but promotes the conditions for enduring resiliency at the local level. USAID and the Department of State lead the US response, however, Defense has a significant and overlooked contribution to building resiliency and alleviating food insecurity. The US military can play a crucial role as well. An array of stability tasks are available to military planners that can make a significant impact on reducing food insecurity. The military is uniquely positioned to reduce the cost of food by assessing and removing the risks and obstacles which drive up its price. The US military can ensure freedom of navigation, secure lines of supply, train security forces, remove bad actors, and share intelligence. Indeed, there are a variety of creative military stabilizations solutions available to military planners across the Joint force. In short, the military can help get a sack of wheat from point A to point B safer and more cheaply than it could otherwise—whether we do it or enable our partners to do it. The invasion of Ukraine and subsequent supply shock should serve as a wakeup call for planners across the US government. While the worst of the crisis has subsided, it is no time for complacency. It is a call to better understand the background of the crisis, to learn the dynamics of food supply shocks, and to understand how to apply scarce resources towards building resiliency and stability. To this end, the paper is broken into two broad parts. Part I provides the background needed to understand why the food crisis of 2022 happened. It reviews the pre-war role of Ukraine and Russia in food supply and the dependency many nations had on this supply. It then looks at the supply shock following the Ukraine invasion, its impact on global food prices, and the toll it has taken on vulnerable populations. Lastly, it looks at where we are now and the international response to the date of this publication. Part II explores ways to address the problem, describes the dynamics of food insecurity, and provides a conceptual framework. It looks a food supply shock model and indicates the effect of external assistance on nations in a state of crisis. This section also identifies some sticky wickets for planners to keep in mind—that is— economic conundrums where the unintended consequences of otherwise reasonable actions that may contribute to adverse effects. Finally, we will examine ways the military can respond and complement USAID and Department of State efforts. The invasion of Ukraine shone on a spotlight on the precarious state of global food insecurity and revealed key vulnerabilities that led to a supply shock. This destabilizing challenge must be understood, resiliencies developed, and the full range diplomatic, development, and defense tools applied to the task.

2 Part I: Understanding the Food Crisis of 2022 • Situation Pre-War • Invasion of Ukraine: Supply Shock and Food Crisis

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• Where things stand now

2.1 The Situation Pre-War Russia and Ukraine are global heavyweights in the supply of export cereals and fertilizer. Prior to the war, over 20% of the world’s export cereals departed from Ukrainian and Russian ports on the Black Sea and passed through the Dardanelles straights.1 Understanding the scale of the world’s food supply traversing the Black Sea shipping lanes is imperative. To appreciate this scope, the following charts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) are revelatory. Production The first chart below details the Russian (yellow) and Ukrainian (green) shares in selected crop production over the last 5 years. In short, Ukraine and Russia produced over half of the world’s sunflower seed oil (an essential cooking oil), over 20% of the world’s barley, and nearly 20% of the world’s wheat.2

From FAO’s “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict,” 10 June 2022 Update Food Exports More importantly, Russia and Ukraine produce far more than they consume and comprise an even larger share of exports than their already significant share of production. Below you can see that Russia and Ukraine export over 25% of the global wheat

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supply, nearly that much in barley, and about 15% of the world’s maize.3 The figure below illustrates the 2021 share of global exports in wheat, barley, and maize held by Russia (yellow) and Ukraine (green).

From FAO’s “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict,” 10 June 2022 Update Cooking Oil Exports The story of cooking oil production is even more dramatic. Russia and Ukraine account for nearly 70% of the world’s sunflower seed oil and a significant share of rape seed and rape seed oil. These oils are widely used for cooking, and food manufacturing and many nations are highly dependent on Russian and Ukrainian sunflower oil. Unsurprisingly, shortages of sunflower oil led to surging prices in alternative vegetable oil prices.4 The chart below indicates Russia’s (yellow) and Ukraine’s (green) share of global exports in seed oils.

From FAO’s “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict,” 10 June 2022 Update

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Fertilizer Exports Aside from serving as a primary source of food staples, Russia is a critical contributor to the global fertilizer supply, the same commodities which allow other nations to maximize their food production. As seen below, Russia (yellow) is among the top exporters of the three primary export fertilizer commodities.5

From FAO’s “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict,” 10 June 2022 Update Black Sea Shipping Lanes The enormous volume of food, fertilizer, and seed oil (not to mention oil and gas) exported by Russia and Ukraine must go somewhere, and it essentially must travel through the Black Sea. The graphic shows ship traffic lanes prior to the war.6 As you can see, shipping is heavily concentrated along two main lanes, with a large concentration in the west coming from Odesa and along the western coast and an eastern concentration coming from Novorossiysk and the Kerch straights. The Russian Naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea is well positioned between the two and can protect Russian and/or interdict Ukrainian shipping. NAVSEA III Black Sea shipping traffic lanes.

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Import Dependency-Fertilizer To appreciate the importance of the Black Sea exporters’ importance in fending off food insecurity in at-risk nations, consider the oversized role that Russia and Ukraine play in supplying some of the most fragile states. The charts below illustrate the dependency that existed before the Russian invasion. Seven nations fill over 50% of their fertilizer needs from Russia, and five GFA nations (Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mozambique, and Benin—in yellow) are highly dependent on Russia.7 This does not mean that alternative sources are not available, but it does mean that Russia provides the most affordable price for these nations, and finding new sources will add time delays and increase costs.

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From FAO’s “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict,” 10 June 2022 Update Import Dependency: Wheat Even more alarming is the number of food-insecure nations dependent on Russia and Ukraine for their wheat. Twenty-Six nations get more than 50% of their wheat from the two Black Sea combatants, including three GFA countries. East Africa, particularly, was extraordinarily dependent on wheat from the Black Sea, with Eritrea and Somalia importing an enormous share of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine.8

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From FAO’s “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict,” 10 June 2022 Update Food Insecurity Pre-War As of Jan 2022, food-insecure nations heavily dependent on Russian fertilizer and Ukrainian wheat and vegetable oil were already experiencing instability. With low cash reserves, a poor current account balance, higher than average food prices, drought, and a population already using a large part of their income for food staples, many of the poorest nations were already teetering on the edge of calamity and, therefore especially vulnerable to higher food prices. Sadly, the number of those facing

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acute food insecurity has soared from 135 to 345 million since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.9 The illustration below from the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) gives a sense of the food insecurity situation at the end of 2021 and the estimated need for 2022. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, FEWSNET estimated that 105 million people would require humanitarian food assistance in 2022.10

2.2 Invasion of Ukraine: Supply Shock and Food Crisis The Russian invasion of Ukraine sent shock waves around the world. None were quite as harmful as the impact of the war on global food prices. Indeed, the bulk of the human suffering resulting from Putin’s ignoble invasion may have fallen on the heads of destitute groups in Africa, where soaring food prices sent millions into famine. While it is hard to say at the moment with any clarity, it is not speculative to predict that more children will die in Africa from the invasion of Ukraine than will be the case in Ukraine. Bullets and bombs kill retail. Famine is a wholesale murderer. To appreciate which countries the global food crisis hurt the most, the chart below illustrates the number of people in acute food insecurity in hotspot countries. It highlights the early warning from the United Nations (FAO-WFP) on acute food insecurity during the worst period.

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Hunger hotspots FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity June to September 2022 outlook Food Insecurity Worsened Food insecurity is a complex problem stemming from several factors: climate effects, high energy costs, internal conflicts, mismanagement, lack of diverse food sources, and even rapid growth and development. Many nations, particularly in the conflict zone and the drought-stricken Horn of Africa, were especially vulnerable to acute food insecurity before the war. Supply shocks created by the war in Ukraine lower near-term global food availability and dramatically raise prices. More stable countries can pay more for food and are inconvenienced by the higher prices. Price fluctuations have a more significant impact on fragile and at-risk countries.

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Many of the poorest nations in Africa were highly dependent on food staples (cereals) and fertilizer from ships that passed through the Black Sea, whether their cargos were Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Russian in origin. The chart below shows which countries were affected the most by the closure of the Black Sea.11

Famine Early Warning Systems Network Sanctions Cut Exports The chart below shows how Western sanctions reduced various Russian export commodities during three different periods during the crisis. Note that Russian exports are down as well. While sanctions exempt foodstuffs and agricultural inputs, the international community does not want to be seen dealing with Russia. For their part, Russia uses export restrictions as a weapon particularly with fertilizers and wheat.12

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Pricing as an Indicator Problems with supply chain management can cause prices to soar. For instance, the removal of 20% of the world’s wheat export supply sent prices to new heights, doubling in weeks. LNG based fertilizer prices nearly tripled, and sunflower oil doubled. Let’s turn to how pricing is a key indicator highlighting how much progress (or lack of progress) is being made in the global food crisis. The war impacted prices in two distinct ways. First, it sidelined or destroyed agricultural production in Ukraine; less food was produced. Next, it severely disrupted the food supply chain; less food was exported. Of the two, the supply chain disruption was the most severe—quite a feat considering the large areas of prime Ukrainian farmland that was rendered unusable. Despite the production limitations, Ukrainian grain is still backlogged at ports and storage sites. Production Damaged A June 2022 damage assessment of Ukraine by the World Bank (chart below) found that over 20% of the funds needed for recovery would be for land decontamination.13 That is the removal of mines, unexploded munitions, and battle damage cleanup required to make land usable. Farmlands constitute the largest areas to be decontaminated. A further 5% of the recovery funds needed were assessed due to direct damage to agricultural capital and infrastructure.14

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Total needs as of June 1, 2022: US$349 billion; World Bank assessment team Of note, this damage assessment was published on 1 Jun 2022—after the extensive damage from the initial invasion, but before the September counteroffensive and subsequent fierce fighting n Kharkiv, Kherson, and Bakhmut. Nor does this assessment consider Russia’s missile campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure. Still, it gives an idea of the scope of the damage done to Ukraine’s agricultural productive capacity. Most interesting is that while production was hindered, it was not the critical factor in limited grain exports. Instead, damage to the transportation network and blockading key ports was the primary source of export reduction. The Ukrainian transportation network was assessed as slightly more damaged than the land contamination and remained the leading sector damaged in the assessment period. Grain was still grown, but it had difficulty getting to ports, and when it got there, it found overfilled storage facilities and no ships able to leave the port. More than any other factor, the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports prevented food from getting to where it was most desperately needed. With the Black Sea turned into a mined warzone, grain, cooking oil, and fertilizer exports ground to a halt. It cut both ways, as Russian cargo ships found it too risky. Lloyd’s of London would not insure the vessel in a war zone. This reduced the number of ships to those few willing to ship food without insurance.

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Sea Lanes Threatened The threat of sea mines and possible direct attack by belligerent forces threatened the major global artery, the Black Sea. Even now, the war has imposed a significant risk premium on the price of shipped goods, leaving few viable alternatives for moving available grain.

Overland Routes Weren’t Enough The sharp reduction in the maritime shipment of food meant that the developing world needed to find alternative routes. In terms of supply chain management, alternative routes were far less attractive. Rail and road networks support only 10% of pre-war export levels at a higher cost. Differing rail gauges and inadequate storage and transfer facilities make overland routes unfeasible in the near future. Costly, time-consuming infrastructure buildout is needed.

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Warnings of Disaster At its height, the food crisis elicited dire warnings of famine. Prior to the BSGI, Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports left an estimated 25 million tons of grain backed up in silos, and there were grave concerns that it would spoil if not exported.15 Indeed, the Department of State released a statement that Russia was weaponizing food and endangering the world’s access to critical food resources.16 WFP projected that, due to the disruptions and price spikes from Russia’s invasion, the number of acute food insecure people could increase by 47 million in 2022.17 Moreover, FAO simulations projected an increase in the number of undernourished people globally could increase by between 7.6 and 13.1 million people in 2022/23 because of the ripple effects of the conflict.18

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2.3 Global Response As noted, the Food Crisis peaked in the summer of 2022 but has since improved. Several factors went into mitigating the worst of the crisis. The Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) was one of the more important actions which brought the crisis down from its peaks. Brokered by the United Nations, the BSGI allowed Ukrainian and Russian ships to export food again. US aid efforts led by USAID helped alleviate some of the worst suffering, as have other international aid and relief efforts. Finally, the price spike spurred increased production elsewhere and, with some delay, gave hope that additional supplies of food from alternate sources would be able to refill quickly, emptying grain reserves. Black Sea Grain Initiative Shortly after the war started, the Black Sea became a war zone. Shipping effectively halted. Under pressure from its export markets, Russia proved amenable to talks to end its blockade of Ukrainian ports and allow grain and fertilizer to flow. With help from the United Nations and with Turkey serving as an inspector, a deal was brokered in July of 2022, allowing Ukraine to resume food exports. Millions of tons of grain were able to be exported through the Black Sea. Part of the BSGI included direct shipments to the most food-insecure nations. The BSGI initially ran for 120 days but was renewed this November again. The FAO credits the BSGI with reducing food prices every month that it has been in effect. Due to the success of the BSGI, there is concern that Russia may withdraw or refuse to renew it, which would create a new supply shock all over again. US Response Led by USAID The US Government’s response to the Food Crisis has been robust. In addition, the US Government maintains a long-term development focus. USAID has committed over $10.5 billion in aid in response to the global food security crisis. Much of this has been immediate humanitarian assistance and direct food aid. With the acute drought in the Horn of Africa on top of the Ukrainian war, USAID has more than doubled its funding commitments in FY22. After the BSGI was signed, USAID supported shipping 210 k tons of Ukrainian grain directly to those in urgent need. This complements the Agriculture Resilience Initiative (AGRI) in Ukraine to bolster agricultural production and exports. The initiative focuses on delivering critical farm inputs, improving the supply chain, and increasing access to financing for the agriculture sector. Considering the extraordinary circumstances, USAID and USDA drew out the entire balance of $282 million from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust to purchase and ship US food to countries suffering from severe food insecurity.19 With an eye towards long term, sustainable results, the US Feed the Future Initiative harnesses several agencies of the US Government and works to solve food insecurity in several areas. It has targeted getting fertilizer into the hands of communities that need it most and supporting farmers with alternative fertilizer strategies. Beyond

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emergency assistance, the program emphasizes increasing agricultural capacity and resilience by working with small farm holders to protect their food security and improve their resiliency to supply shocks.20 Within the Feed the Future framework, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) provides loans, equity financing, and other services that help expand businesses and build credit in emerging markets. This enables small farmers to access affordable insurance, crop inputs, and training to maximize yields. Through financing, farmers can increase their earnings and expand production even in the face of shocks.21 The President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), a climate resiliency initiative, provides long term development assistance to at-risk farmers to better respond to droughts and manage resilient farms. This summer’s food supply shock added tremendous impetus to longer term programs like PREPARE. Feed the Future works with vulnerable communities to access import tax waivers on vitamin and mineral premix and equipment. This reduces the cost of fortified foods in the country and helps to safeguard nutrition for communities. At the height of the Food Crisis this summer, Secretary of State Antony Blinken led efforts to galvanize global efforts to combat food insecurity. He convened a UN ministerial meeting to prompt action on the global food crisis and called for countries and stakeholders to join a new Roadmap for Global Food Security. It is still to early too know what concrete actions will come of this, but the attention on the subject is encouraging. Financing the Gap In late September of this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a new temporary Food Shock Window under its emergency financing instruments. This allows additional access to emergency financing for countries that might not otherwise be able to obtain it. To further assist with obtaining financing during acute food price shocks, the FAO proposed a Food Import Financing Facility (FIFF) to help ease immediate food import financing costs. The importance of this type of financing cannot be understated. Nations with poor current account balances, low foreign currency reserves, and poor credit are not able to obtain credit through normal market processes. They are “bad bets” from a credit and lending perspective. Their poor financial condition (self-induced or otherwise), make them exceptionally vulnerable to food shocks as they cannot compete for food imports in a rapidly escalating food price environment. It should be no surprise, but nations with healthier financial profiles can endure a food bidding war. Alternatively, those with unhealthy financial profiles find themselves without a chair when the music stops. This is where financing support comes in; whether through the IMF, through USAID, or any of a variety of financing regimes created by international organizations. External financing regimes allow fiscally unsound nations to obtain credit for food when they would not otherwise be able to. Not only are at risk nations afforded

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the extension of needed credit, but they are given these at below market rates (for their credit profile). The upside to this is that it allows precious food to reach distressed populations who would otherwise be in grave jeopardy without it. The downside is that it can build dependency, fiscal irresponsibility, and layer additional debt burdens on already strapped economies. On balance, the negatives of below-market financing regimes are outweighed by the humanitarian positives of famine reduction and a resultant less malnourished population.

2.4 Where Things Stand Now Fortunately, the global food crisis is now less severe. A good indicator of improving food security is the decline in the spot price for wheat and other agricultural commodities. That said, current food price levels remain elevated above norms over the last decade. It is not too bold to say that we dodged a bullet in the summer of 2022. Food insecurity remains precarious. The time to prepare is now. It will also take some time for resiliency programs to fully take effect. Moreover, the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa, internecine conflicts, persistently high fertilizer costs, the exhaustion of food and cash reserves, and the unresolved war in Ukraine place many areas at risk. They remain one supply shock away from famine and gross instability. Food Prices To appreciate the rise and fall of food insecurity, the chart below illustrates the spot price of wheat futures over the last 2 years as quoted on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). It is an excellent way to understand the recent history of the global food crisis and helps us understand where we are with food prices. Of course, wheat is not the only staple food commodity in play, but its pricing is largely indicative of overall food pricing and thus is a useful measuring stick. Note that prices edged up in the months prior to the Russian invasion and were already higher than prior year pricing. The war in Ukraine caused an immediate spike in prices as buyers reacted to the real and perceived loss of grain shipments and fertilizers that originate in that vital agricultural corner of the world. Prices soared both because of the feared loss in production in Ukraine’s farmlands, but also ports and shipping lanes were shut down due to naval action and sea mines as well as the inability of shippers to purchase insurance.

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You can see the equally dramatic drop in prices as buyers considered: (a) Ukrainian battlefield victories preserved significant parts of their agricultural heartland, (b) international assessment teams were able to accurately survey the war damage in those productive areas, and (c) Russia was pushed to the negotiating table to first, cease hostile actions against food shipments and then, enter into the Black Sea Grain Initiative to allow the grain to flow. Interestingly, Russia was pressured not only by the West but also by their African and Middle Eastern grain customers, who were alarmed and threatened by the loss of grain imports. Perhaps most instrumental was Turkey, a regional economic and military powerhouse, which saw its food prices soar by nearly 400%. While the US was unwilling to take direct action, and western NATO members were unable to, Turkey possessed the will and capability to take stern action against Russian interests. As a result, wheat prices have returned to those found at the beginning of the year—much lower than the summer peak, but still elevated over historic norms.

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Key Input Pricing: Natural Gas It is also important to understand how prices in the global food supply are interconnected with prices in the oil and gas industry. To highlight this interconnection, we’ve included a chart which illustrates the spot price of natural gas over the last 2 years as quoted on the Ney York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Natural gas is a key fertilizer feedstock and directly impacts future food production volumes and pricing. Fertilizer accounts for 44% of food commodity cost,22 and natural gas accounts for “90% of the variable costs in fertilizer production.23 Shocks to NG and, thus fertilizer have a wide impact on future food prices. This chart has some differences from what we saw with wheat prices. First, we see that while natural gas prices skyrocketed with the invasion and decreased following the Black Sea Grain Initiative, they were further affected by the Nord Stream pipeline explosion. They have since returned to more normal but elevated levels as alternative (but more expensive) sources come online. Aside from the possible cold winter for many Europeans, the higher natural gas prices bode ill for fertilizer costs and, thus, higher future food costs.

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Production and Exports are Still Down The various causes of the global food crisis we cited earlier sharply reduced Ukraine’s grain exports. The chart below shows a sharp fall in the volume of Ukrainian grain exports between pre-war and wartime environments. Also, despite the Black Sea Grain Initiative, production and exports are severely down in 2022.

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3 Part II The Food Shock Model and the Role of the Military • Creating a Pricing Framework – Understanding Pricing – Food Shock Model – Sticky Wickets (Catch-22’s) • Increasing Resiliency: The Role of the Military

3.1 Food Insecurity: A Pricing Perspective As we move from the global food crisis towards strengthening global food security, it is important to understand the underlying economic dynamics at play. In this regard, the production of food staples is demand-driven, like all commodities. Production

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can and will meet demand, but severe supply shocks introduce two critical caveats for low-income countries. First, price is the key demand signal. Producers are highly responsive to price signals and will grow more (or less) food staples as prices fluctuate. High prices are a sublimely elegant mechanism to achieve more food production. With higher production, prices tend to settle back down to previous levels. This occurs daily, with food production slowly expanding as the population rises and food costs slowly winding downwards over long periods. The next caveat in the face of a severe supply shock is the time lag between the new demand signal (higher prices) and increased supply (via increased production). Unlike the supply of the proverbial widget, food staples have a multi-month time delay from sowing to reaping…and then add shipping. It is the period between the increased demand signal (price goes up) and the eventual increase in supply wherein lies the rub. Nations interested in feeding their population (that is to say, most but not all of them) have three choices: one, maintain adequate storage infrastructure and supply (to include alternative food staples) to see them through the high prices, two, maintain adequate foreign reserves or lines of credit to purchase food staples at the inflated prices, or three maintain a robust domestic production capacity sufficient to cover minimal needs. Regarding the first choice, nations lacking robust food storage infrastructure are disadvantaged to be price takers. With empty or insufficient silos, they lack the capacity to navigate supply shocks. They are forced to exhaust scarce foreign currency reserves or stretched credit lines to buy essential food staples at inflated global spot prices. Adequate food reserves allow countries to purchase futures contracts at a time, quantity, and cost of their choosing. Ideally, more than three months of supply are needed to weather the worst supply shocks. For some high-income countries, maintaining the sufficient financial capacity to outbid their neighbors remains a compelling and reasonable option. After all, severe supply shocks are few and far between, and the costs of maintaining market inefficient local production or extensive and expensive food storage facilities may exceed the premium paid during the relatively short periods of high food prices. Indeed, three to six months of exceptionally high prices for food staples may very well be the value option compared to decades of domestic agricultural subsidies. Lastly, maintaining an adequate domestic production capacity for food staples remains viable, though it is no panacea. Clearly, many nations (even the US) favor subsidizing their agricultural sectors. Aside from producing enough to fend off starvation, food staples can be valuable exports increasing national revenues. What’s not to like? For one, planting food crops may mean forgoing higher revenues derived from cash crops or diverting resources from more productive economic activities; revenues which can buy cheaper, higher quality food staples from more agriculturally efficient neighbors or global suppliers. Of note, when food prices are at their highest, there is a devilish temptation for states to export food staples amid a crisis to maximize state revenues. A Machiavellian leader might think, why give away something so valuable to the destitute in my country when I can sell it at a premium to outsiders with the financial wherewithal to do so?

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Prices Follow Markets Because food staples are commodities, prices tend to be essentially fungible such that even nations that can produce their supply of food are affected by increased food prices. Local production is a traditional and effective tool for staving off the worst aspect of food insecurity, but that does not mean that they are immune from the pricing function. The food produced becomes more marketable and valuable as an export. Given the fractured markets and geographies of much of Africa, increased pricing means that more food is exported from those areas adjacent to ports to other countries willing to pay higher prices. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that parts of a nation may be experiencing a food crisis while other parts actively export food to neighboring countries. This isn’t necessarily the result of bad actors within a state. Rather, it is the natural consequence of the pricing function—moving commodities towards easy to access markets with the ability to pay the going market rate. Poor regions far from ports and good roads are unable to pay the market price plus the transport and risk premium without external subsidies. The pricing mechanism does not address the consumers who simply cannot afford higher prices. Unlike virtually everything else on the market, food staples are extraordinarily inelastic in price; consumers will give their last dollar not to starve. Unfortunately, the last dollar of household income comes shockingly fast for millions of families in the lowest income states. The result is that the poorest are simply outbid on food staples. High prices are inconvenient to most but potentially lethal to the poorest.

3.2 Food Supply Shock Model To better understand the dynamics at work in the global food crisis, it helps to review a model of the mechanics at play. The Food Supply Shock Model provides a simplified illustration of some major factors. This simple model looks at the price of staple foods over time. To the bottom left is the pre-supply shock food price (generally). A blue line along the chart indicates the pre-shock price levels for comparison. Above that is a notional “National Resiliency Line.” This red line represents the capacity of a nation to replace, buy, or finance food imports during a supply shock. This line varies for each nation and over time as finances, grain storage levels, credit rating, and development progress change. Once food prices exceed the National Resiliency Line, internal resources are presumed to be exhausted, and the nation is in a food crisis. It simply cannot pay for more food and needs external assistance from food aid, subsidies, or loan guarantees. The supply shock will keep sending prices up rapidly. The higher prices send a powerful demand signal to producers to increase production, and they will start to do so. Growers will plant more for future harvests, and suppliers with grain reserves will release them, given the premium price they fetch. The process of increasing

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supply isn’t quick, however. A food supply shock can send a nation into a food crisis for months or longer. As new supply becomes available, prices are driven down.

Source “Food Supply Shock Model: Snow, Marcus, PKSOI, Dec 2022 A new post-shock price is settled but often higher than the pre-shock price. In the Ukrainian supply shock, for example, there is still risk associated with the future of the BSGI and concerns about the recovery of Ukrainian agricultural production. There are also concerns about the future pricing of fertilizer. What that means is that all things being equal, the post-Shock price is closer to the National Resiliency Line than the Pre-Shock Price. That is, the next supply shock will send at-risk nations into crisis sooner and more deeply than before. The period following a supply shock is especially vulnerable for at-risk nations. The solution, of course, is to take action to raise the National Resiliency Line and reduce pricing both before and after a food crisis. Determining National Resiliency Line Determining a National Resiliency Line is a complex task beyond the scope of this paper. Given the myriad variables, questionable data, and difficult to quantify effects of efforts to increase resiliency, it won’t ever completely be known. It is better to view it as a fuzzy conceptual line.

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This is even more so when you consider it is not the actual national line but rather a regional line. In truth, many nations in food crises have regions that are doing quite well, while others may be in severe distress. This is, in part, why Pricing was chosen. It is easily quantifiable, and the ability of a nation to buy or finance purchases is a matter of considerable transparency. That said, several areas can help tell the story of where a nation stands in its resiliency. For example, the ability to fund or finance food in an emergency is critical to resiliency. The robustness of grain reserves and the internal distribution network are also fundamental.

3.3 Sticky Wickets (Catch-22s) Inevitably, any complex problem entails responses that undermine or counteract other solutions. Initiatives meant to solve one aspect of a problem can exacerbate another aspect. Some refer to this as a double-edge-sword, and economists refer to it as the law of unintended consequences. Sadly, there are no easy answers, just effects that must be carefully considered.

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Sanctions Boomerang An unfortunate side effect of the sanctions imposed on Russia is their adverse effects on heavy food—and energy-dependent nations struggling with food insecurity. The Russian sanctions deliver a double gut punch to struggling countries. Western sanctions limit the supply of oil and gas on the global market. This drives prices up. Oil plays a critical role in the transportation of agricultural products through the global supply chain. Thus, any increase in fuel cost necessarily raises the price of foodstuffs for the poorest households. Transportation is not the only connection between the oil and gas industry and food. Fertilizer is essential to maximize yield and, thus, the volume of food production. The oil and gas industry produces fertilizer. When the price of fertilizer rises, food production falls, and food prices rise. In this regard, natural gas is the key input into the creation of much of the world’s fertilizers. Indeed, absent natural gas based fertilizers, global food production would plummet catastrophically. It is not a stretch to say that absent natural gas based fertilizers, the current world population would be unsupportable. Fertilizers are the unsung heroes of the green revolution. The sustained price hike in LNG, driven in large part by the sanction regime against Russia, is keeping the cost of growing food unsustainably high. As mentioned previously, oil and gas exports are down, raising food shipping costs and precluding other nations from producing more LNG based fertilizers. Cereals and fertilizer exports are also down considerably as private firms are skittish about dealing with the sanctioned and pariah state of Russia. Russian ships are uninsurable, and Lloyd’s of London is unlikely to pick up Russian commodities. To be sure, goods still flow at a reduced pace and are more expensive to boot. Western sanctions had a limited impact on Russia early in the war. The West thought sanctions on Russian energy would also be a double-edged sword and hurt consumers. More recently, newer Western sanctions on Russian energy exports started to have a more severe impact on the Russian economy, weakening the Russian war machine. If the law of unintended consequences is shown anywhere, it is with sanctions. It is still unclear how badly oil and gas sanctions harmed Russia’s balance sheet, but the supply shock of the cuts made life more miserable in the poorest countries. The negative stigma associated with sanctions on Russia carried over to non-sanctioned items, dropping net exports of wheat and fertilizer. Leaving aside their dubious efficacy as a tool of coercion, the collateral damage of sanctions on Russia has been malnourishment and starvation in Africa. The moral implications of warfare-purposefully killing other humans—are rightly well considered and fretted upon. The moral implications of sanctions—which have much the same effect—are an afterthought. Green Initiatives Another area perversely contributing to the global food crisis is the numerous Green initiatives meant to mitigate climate change. Reducing poverty and starvation must,

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at least temporarily, outweigh reducing oil and gas production. In a grim reminder of the law of unintended consequences, green policies designed to reduce the damage wrought by climate change, raise the price of food, and exacerbate famines. Production limitations on LNG, for example, raised fertilizer costs and had the same effect as the sanctions on Russia. Decommissioning vast swathes of Dutch and German farms removes some of our planet’s best and most agriculturally productive land from contributing to the global food supply. Green initiatives meant to help have not always factored in the other side of the balance sheet. That is: lost productive capacity coupled with increased production and transport costs yield soaring food prices and exacerbate food insecurity. Make no mistake—this isn’t a call to end green initiatives, but rather a call to examine the unintended consequences of driving up prices on the key feedstock for the current global fertilizer supply. There are several promising carbon capture initiatives which bypass natural gas and create fertilizer such as biochar. Optimistically, this is a “sticky wicket” which may very well have a technical solution in the near future. Insulating Versus Supply Shock Weakens Ukraine As markets find ways around the dramatic loss of Ukrainian and Russian exports, those two nations become less relevant to the global food supply. Indeed, given the instability of the Black Sea region, buyers, being risk adverse, will seek to secure more reliable sources of supply. As nations insulate themselves against future supply shocks from the Black Sea, this will make Ukraine decreasingly important to the global food supply. That will mean lost revenues, production, and a prolonged and incomplete recovery. The fantastic Ukrainian farmland will not have changed one iota, but the risk associated with being in a bad neighborhood will reduce the value of Ukrainian imports. That is, so long as Russian remains a malign actor. Local Production Trades One Risk for Another A natural response to massive supply shocks such as that experienced this summer is seeking national self-sufficiency. That is to say, if a country cannot rely on imports, then it must provide for itself. This is compelling on the surface, but some sharp rocks are beneath these waters. Firstly, by localizing production, a nation transfers supply risk from a global market to a regional one. A nation that is over reliant on domestic production is at risk that a single regional drought, for example, could wipe out its food supply. It is a case of putting all your eggs in one basket. Multiple suppliers spread the risk of calamities out. Thus, as one diversifies an investment portfolio, diversification of food suppliers matters even more. Next, a program stimulating local production necessarily shifts assets from more productive to less productive sectors. Subsidies, by their nature, move resources to activities a free market would not usually support at the intended levels. This means less net wealth production. Now, subsidies are often used to soften the blows to areas that market neglect or require collective underwriting to unstick, but their overuse can lead to gross inefficiencies.

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Many nations cannot feed themselves but possess significant economic reserves to weather virtually any storm. Were they to divert resources from, say, productive manufacturing or tech sector to smallholder farming, the country would suffer grievously. Imagine Singapore or China following such a path. While agricultural subsidies in search of diversification are cogent risk reducing strategies, subsidies to achieve food independence are not. Another will-o-wisp is the displacement of cash crops for food crops. In marginal cases, this can make sense, but given the purchasing power of cash, higher revenue generating crops are almost always preferable. Wealthy nations can always buy their way out of a food crisis; developing nations cannot. As always, an allowance should be made for diversification, including an overreliance on a single export commodity like some cash crops. That shifts the supply shock risk to another sector. Over Globalization In contrast to everything written above, more than overly market efficient solutions ALSO create weakness to supply shocks (economics is dismal). A hyper efficient trading system has little slack, little in the way of reserves (think “just in time” philosophy), and it is better suited to highly developed and highly redundant economies trading in highly replaceable product sets. When it comes to essential food staples: secure, redundant, reliable, and diversified are the King, Queen, and Royal Court of the match. The key is to ensure just enough domestic production to preclude the worst effects of a food shock. This is the case even when domestic production is the more expensive option. If, for example, domestic production costs are 110% of the delivered global market price, the 10% subsidy becomes, in effect, an insurance premium. This “insurance premium” protects a nation against external supply shocks. It should be noted that this applies only to that portion of the food supply that are essential staples.

3.4 Resiliency: Ready to Soften the Blow in Future Crises The world community cannot be flatfooted for the next crisis. World leaders need to anticipate future crises and have resiliency plans to be implemented to soften the blows when another food and or gas crisis occurs. Fortunately, the United States has significant capabilities in this area. State, and USAID in particular, are addressing ways to increase local food production in afflicted areas, build crop resiliency and diversification in the face of climate change, provide emergency food shipments, and are working with international financial institutions to provide below-market financing options to keep grain supplies coming. Still, it is not enough. Defense has a compelling and essential role in amplifying the efforts of Diplomacy and Development. The Defense mission for this is Stabilization.

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The Military Role in Reducing Food Prices In this regard, the ability of the US DoD to positively affect the pricing variable in food security is both significant and perhaps underutilized. The key is in decomposing the market price paid by the end purchaser and attempting to identify those variables related to risks, perils, and inefficiencies which the DoD is adept at reducing. It must be understood that the military’s role does not need to be overwhelming. The World Bank estimates that every percentage point increases in global food prices push 10 million people into extreme poverty.24 Even small price reductions can have an outsized positive impact. This should occur through the engagement continuum—before, during, and after an acute crisis. For example: • What portion of the final market price of a bag of wheat is attributable to the additional insurance paid by the shipping company to traverse areas with a known or perceived threat of piracy or state threats of physical violence and interdiction? • What portion goes to pay additional fuel, crew, and maintenance costs for ships making circuitous routes around areas of known o perceived risks? • What portion of the cost is to offset losses due to graft and theft at port or inland storage sites? • What portion of the cost is due to wastage or spoilage due to poor transfer or storage facilities? • What portion is due to inefficient offloading, transferring, and onward movement costs? • What portion is due to the opacity of risk intelligence (compelling shipping firms to make suboptimal routing and shipping choices)? Thus, if the spot price of a food commodity as it is loaded on a ship in a port were subtracted from the market price of that same commodity as paid by a consumer in food crisis area, we’d be left with the cost of moving the product from point A to point B. Suppose we further break down the cost of shipping into its components. In that case, we’ll find that many of the variables identified in the preceding paragraph can be reasonably estimated or even known and then addressed in detail. This should be news to no one. Certainly, the shipping insurance industry has been working on identifying these costs for several centuries. Indeed, it has long been known that much of the virtue of Pax Britannica and Pax Americana was in reducing these costs. That said, because it’s so well known, it should be an all the more compelling reason for the US and its NATO partners to use defense assets and its array of stabilization tasks to greatly reduce food prices in the poorest and least resilient nations. It should be noted that while the military is not the primary instrument of the US government to address food insecurity, its role can be instrumental. Given that food insecurity is often driven by small changes in pricing, even actions that shave a few percentage points of price increases can have a significant positive effect. Consider that in some of the most food insecure areas, food spending can account for more than half of household spending. Further consider that in such a stricken area, the

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household income may only be $1000, yr.—with half of that going to food staples. Even a slight reduction in food costs has an outsized impact on household well-being compared to what families in wealthier countries would feel. A wide variety of joint stability activities are open to the US military throughout the competition continuum to help alleviate the global food crisis. Military planners seeking to make the most significant impact on the global goods crisis will conduct country and even sub-national price decomposition analyses in food insecure areas in close cooperation with their USAID and State partners, identify the variables the joint force can most affect, and then synchronize joint component and interagency efforts. The Global Fragility Act (GFA) framework provides the geographic focus, the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF) provides a US government common operating picture, and the SAR provides an operational framework. Military planners can then assign joint force components tasks to address each of the variables driving food costs up. As explored in the basic price decomposition earlier, some stabilization tasks become apparent. Maritime tasks such as freedom of navigation and anti-piracy leap out as activities that readily reduce the risk premium attributable to the final market price of imported goods. Indeed, a wide variety of maritime component tasks positively impact reducing the cost of shipping. Maritime ISR and threat intelligence sharing with shipping firms, insurance companies, and local security forces can be highly effective in helping reduce risk premiums. According to one estimate by Stable Seas, the cost of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea alone was close to $2 billion in 2021.25 That is almost 20% of the US commitment to international aid and development. A penny saved is a penny earned and preventing losses like this can go a long way toward mitigating food insecurity. The following illustration highlights in red the areas where piracy is most active.

2020 Maritime security index, piracy and armed robbery, stable seas26

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Security Assistance and Security Cooperation tasks supporting port security, facilities improvements, and security force capability development also reduce risk premiums and prevent loss. Given the volume of intra-regional shipping, littoral shipping security and freedom of navigation can be as important as securing the trans-oceanic lanes. Similar tasks align with air and land force component activities, especially in the Security and Security Cooperation spheres. Assessing, securing, and improving inland supply routes and airports to critically impacted areas are vital and can be whickered into country campaign plans. Demining, route clearance, area assessments, and security force assistance all come into play. Scarce funding sources can best be applied to creating a more secure and robust food supply chain. If we revisit the Food Supply Shock Model, we can visualize the role played by military stabilization activities. The various price-reducing activities raise the National Resiliency Line and reduce the area of the crisis zone. Given that supply shocks such as that experienced with the invasion of Ukraine carry a residual level of risk, military stabilization actions can mitigate those risks and lower the post-shock price point. To what degree they do this is hard to say, but stabilization activities place downward pressure on prices. Positioning a critical assets such as the expeditionary sea base USS Hershel “Woody” Williams, in the Gulf of Guinea is an excellent example of maritime stabilization actions which increases area security, reduce the cost of shipping, and ultimately place downward pressure on import pricing. Indeed, the Williams is a floating, mobile, food price-reducing asset when it applies itself to anti-piracy, law enforcement support and training, ISR sharing, and otherwise making the maritime and littoral environment safe and secure for local and international commerce.

Security cooperation and security assistance programs which provide littoral patrol craft, training, and support facilities such as was done recently in Benin27 and Tanzania28 are other excellent examples where the US military can exert downward

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pressure on food prices. These are anecdotes of effective actions. A comprehensive approach is needed with an eye towards tracking the pricing results of military activities. Much of the pricing data is available through the US embassies, and much of the effect can be determined through price surveys at various ports, by USAID or various contracted assessment sources as needed. Did the visit of the USS Williams reduce prices? Probably, but a survey would need to be done. If shippers see the effects of the US Williams as ephemeral, then, pricing may not have changed. It is reasonable to assume that military security cooperation and stabilization activities as they are now do exert downward pressure on pricing. To ensure these activities are not desultory, however, interagency planning and assessments are required. To illustrate the effect of military stability, security cooperation, and security assistance tasks have on reducing prices, imagine a supply chain model for food distribution to vulnerable populations. Now imagine the inefficiencies in each node and each link such as security threats, poor transportation infrastructure, corruption etc. Finally, think on how security forces play a role in reducing those risks and how the US and partner militaries can make a positive impact in reducing the risks and inefficiencies which drive up costs. Supply chains generally follow the most efficient and least risky path from a pricing perspective. Secure, efficient supply chains with few nodes and high volume afford the lowest cost to move an item from Point A to point B. Unstable, inefficient, arduous, risky, low volume, or numerous links in the supply chain add costs or preclude shipment altogether. The additional cost of shipment is a premium added to the price of the good at the final destination. As noted, in the case of food staples, this premium can make food unaffordable to consumers. Poor transport infrastructure, storage facilities, and material handling add to costs. Bribes, wastage, theft, security costs, and insurance add to the price premium paid by consumers. The chart below provides a picture of the thought model outlined above. A notional five node supply chain is shown: port of export to the port of delivery to a bulk storage site to a distributions point and final to the consumer. The costs are incurred both at and in the link between each of these nodes. The large red arrows show some common factors found in food insecure environments which increase supply chain costs. Military activities can counter or at least mitigate many of the factors driving up costs. The large green arrows illustrate some military activities which lower supply chain costs.

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Regardless of the Joint Force Component Stabilization task, various creative, non-standard solutions can be imagined through a food price reduction lens. Risk reduction through security improvements, partner security capability improvements, and threat neutralization come to mind. Activities that improve the efficiency of the supply chain (port assessments, port improvements, road, rail, storage, and transfer) also top the list. Finally, supporting interagency partners with deep wells of functional experience and leveraging partner nation militaries can have a tremendous multiplier effect when tackling the compound problem of food insecurity.

4 Conclusion Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set the wheels in motion for the Global Food Crisis of 2022. As epicenters of world food, fertilizer, cooking oil, and gas production, the removal of Russian and Ukrainian exports created an enormous supply shock sending food prices soaring. The least resilient and food insecure nations were hit the hardest. Ultimately, the rise in prices prompted an increase in alternative sources of supply, but only after several difficult months. The gap was partially filled by exhausting existing food and cash reserves as well as extending credit. On the diplomatic front, the signing of the BSGI also proved instrumental by allowing at least a portion of blockaded food supplies to be exported. For its part, the US government response was dramatic: extending aid, resources, and credit. That said, with many resources exhausted, the risk of a future food crisis remains concerning. Traditionally, USG efforts have relied on the Diplomatic and Development aspects of foreign policy to address food insecurity. This is understandable given the nature

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of the task to build resiliency in fragile states. That said, Defense has an important and under appreciated role in preparing for the next food supply shock. It’s unique suite of defense stability tasks can provide significant downward pressure on food prices. Food supply shocks are best understood through a pricing perspective and resiliency efforts best assessed by their ability to place downward pressure on food prices. The Food Supply Shock model provides a useful tool for planners to understand, shape and assess their actions. Rather than being proscriptive, planners can assess actions and activities based on how they can address the pricing issue, and thus open an array of creative and non-standard solutions. Lastly, the military contribution to build and maintain resiliency to and during the next food supply shock is significant. This is even more the case when military stabilization and security cooperation and security assistance efforts support the existing efforts of USAID and the Department of State. Though it is not the lead agency, Defense cannot sit idle—it brings too many invaluable capabilities to the table.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict.” Information Note, 10 June 2022 Update. ibid, p. 6. ibid, p. 10. ibid. ibid. NAVSEA III maritime shipping warning, https://sealagom.com/navarea/3/. Accessed 6 Jan 2023. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict.” Information Note, 10 June 2022 Update, p. 12. ibid, p. 11. USAID, https://www.usaid.gov/food-security. Accessed 15 Dec 2022. Famine Early Warning Systems Network. “Assessment of 2022 food assistance needs as of 31 Oct 2021.” https://fews.net/. Accessed 14 Jan 2023. Famine Early Warning Systems Network. “Acute Food Insecurity, estimates through Jan 2023.” https://fews.net/. Accessed 15 Jan 2023. Glauber, Joseph and Laborde, David. “How sanctions on Russia and Belarus are impacting exports of agricultural products and fertilizer.” IFPRI, 9 November 2022, https://www.ifpri. org/blog/how-sanctions-russia-and-belarus-are-impacting-exports-agricultural-productsand-fertilizer. Accessed 10 December 2022. The World Bank, “Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment”, August 2022, https://doc uments.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099445209072239 810/p17884304837910630b9c6040ac12428d5c. ibid. Secretary of State Blinken Statement, 23 June 2022. US Department of State, Press Statement, 23 June 2022.

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17. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. “2022 Hunger Hotspots. FAOWFP early warnings on acute food insecurity: June to September 2022 Outlook”. Rome, p. 28. 18. ibid, p. 29. 19. Feed the Future. https://www.feedthefuture.gov/. Accessed 17 Dec 2023. 20. Feed the Future. https://www.feedthefuture.gov/article/4-ways-the-u-s-government-is-respon ding-to-the-global-food-security-crisis/. Accessed 17 Dec 2023. 21. Feed the Future. https://www.feedthefuture.gov/article/qa-with-dfc-chief-development-off icer-andrew-herscowitz-how-the-u-s-governments-development-finance-arm-helps-commun ities-respond-to-crises-and-conflict/. Accessed 17 Dec 2023. 22. Gnutzmann, Hinnerk and Spiewanowski, Piotr. “Fertilizer Fuels Food Prices: Identification Through the Oil–Gas Spread” 29 September 2016. 23. Wild, Royston, “Fertilizer Prices Spike Again As Russia Cuts Natural Gas Supply”, Forbes, 5 Sep 2022. 24. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. “2022 Hunger Hotspots. FAOWFP early warnings on acute food insecurity: June to September 2022 Outlook”. Rome, p. 27. 25. Stable Seas. “Pirates of the Gulf of Guinea: A Cost Analysis for Coastal States”, 7 Dec 2021, p. 65. 26. Stable Seas. “2020 Maritime Security Index, Piracy and Armed Robbery”, https://www.sta bleseas.org/_files/ugd/1e2140_03f3aba5241f4a4ba1d5f08d47a755c4.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2023. 27. Gardner, Christopher, “US Partnering with Benin to combat piracy in the Gulf of Guinea”, Dec 14, 2022. 28. US Embassy Tanzania press release, “US donates high-speed patrol boats in Tanzania”, US Embassy in Tanzania, 16 Dec 2022.

When Great Powers Are Not So Great: Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War Thomas J. Volgy

Abstract The Russo-Ukrainian war is still unfolding, and academics clearly understand that analyzing an event that is ongoing is a dangerous exercise. Nevertheless, the war has already provided a series of lessons salient for considering the future of great power competition. In this effort I address three such lessons and offer suggestions as well about what the lessons may augur for the ongoing conflict between China and Taiwan and the great power competition surrounding that conflict. Of the three lessons perhaps the most important one is that both policymakers and academics tend to overestimate the strength of major powers. I claim that this is due not to intelligence assessments about raw capabilities, but importantly, we fail to take into consideration the extent to which such assessments are conditioned by governmental effectiveness and control over corruption. Not taking these factors into account had suggested at the start of the war that Russian capabilities were so overwhelming compared to Ukraine’s that the conflict should have ended early and quickly. Yet, once these two conditioning factors are taken into account it helps to explain why overwhelming capabilities (on paper) failed to achieve predicted results. I contend that this is not an issue specific to the Russian Federation; any assessment of great power competition must take into account not only relative capabilities but as well governmental effectiveness and control over corruption in the deployment of those capabilities. I suggest two other lessons as well from the war. One is about the “power” of trade relationships in deterring conflict. I suggest that despite substantial trade interdependencies between the Russian Federation and especially European NATO members, such interdependencies did little to deter Russia from initiating the war. In fact, the only major role I find for this consideration is that reductions in trade relationships between Ukraine and Russia may have helped trigger the belief in the Kremlin that Ukraine was moving towards the West and may have accelerated consideration of the war option. Finally, I suggest that alliances may be more resilient than expected when security threats become visible to the alliance. It would have been understandable had the Kremlin anticipated that NATO, weakened by internal disagreements, the British exit from the EU, and the barrage of criticism levied at T. J. Volgy (B) School of Government and Public Policy College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, US e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Farhadi et al. (eds.), The Great Power Competition Volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40451-1_18

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NATO by then-President Donald Trump, would not respond with a clear and strong voice to the invasion of Ukraine. That it did has not only altered the conduct of the war and its possible outcome, but as well raises important issues about the alliance context in which major powers compete with each other. Keywords Great power competition · Russia · Ukraine · China · National security

1 Introduction Most pundits, international relations (IR) scholars, and foreign policymakers1 expect major power2 competition to continue and to intensify in the coming years as American unipolarity supposedly declines while Chinese strength increases3 and numerous states contest the value of the present liberal world order. China, however, is not the only major power to contest either American global leadership or the extant global order. The Russian Federation has, in fact, been substantially more aggressive in that contestation, and especially recently in the Middle East, through its opposition to NATO’s presence and enlargement in Europe, and through its invasion of Ukraine. While there is much agreement that such competition will continue in the foreseeable future, there has also been an underlying assumption by at least IR scholars that the most likely forms it will take will be primarily economic, sociocultural and political in nature rather than through major, coercive clashes directly and indirectly between major powers.4 That assumption has been found wanting following the invasion of Ukraine (the largest land war in Europe since the second world war) by the Russian Federation; in turn, the invasion has triggered speculation that China may, in the very near future, exercise a similar coercive strategy towards unification with Taiwan (e.g., Sevasopulo 2022). Are there major lessons to be learned about great power competition from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict? As I write, the fog of war continues, and it is dangerous to analyze the effects of an ongoing situation that is far from being resolved. Analysis of this particular case is further complicated by the propaganda war being fought by both sides across official and social media, exaggerating victories, minimizing losses, and 1

For one illustration spelling out concerns over great power competition, see the latest U.S. security doctrine from the White House at: https://whitehouse.gov/wp-cont/uploads/2022/10/Biden-HarrisAdministrions-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf. 2 I use the term major powers rather than great powers to denote those states that have the capacity and willingness to engage continuously in international politics beyond their own regions. For one approach to classifying major and regional powers, see Levy (1989), and Volgy et al. (2011). 3 Neither Chinese increases in strength, nor American decline are inevitable, and the relative balance between these two powers should continue to favor the U.S. for some considerable time in the future (e.g., Moyer et al. 2022), and especially in the military realm. 4 For examples of scholarship showing decline in the use of violence between states, including major powers, see Goldstein (2011), Pinker (2011). Questions raised about the decline of war thesis are illustrated in Gleditsch et al. (2013), and Braumoeller (2019).

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creating false impressions of new military steps to be taken. It is clear, however, that Ukraine would not have survived without substantial Western assistance, support that underscores the great power competition underneath the war between combatants. The U.S. alone has, through the first year of the war provided over $22 billion dollars5 in military assistance (Master and Merrow 2022) to Ukraine while its NATO allies’ combined military contributions appear to add another fifteen percent to the U.S. contribution (Antezza et al. 2022). While the war has, so far, been strictly fought between Ukrainians and Russians, U.S. and NATO assistance has been crucial to the conflict, underlining the extent of major power competition between the U.S. and the Russian Federation, and indirectly between the U.S. and China6 as well. In that context, I suggest three salient lessons regarding major power competition, both between the U.S. and Russia, and presumably as well for continued competition between the U.S. and China: the first is a lesson about how to assess the actual strength of major powers; a second is about overestimating the power of trade relations in precluding conflicts; and the third is about underestimating the strength of alliances in the face of increased hostilities from major power competitors.

2 Lesson One: The Missing Ingredients in Assessing Major Power Strength Major Powers are states that have unusual military and economic capabilities (opportunity) with which to pursue global objectives (including seeking to fashion the nature of the global order), have the willingness to persistently engage in those activities, and demonstrate a willingness to pursue their objectives beyond their own regions (Levy 1989; Volgy et al. 2011). Some states have the opportunity to become major powers but are not willing to pursue a global role (e.g., the U.S. prior to World War II), while others may seek a global role but lack the resources needed to do so. Once they become major powers states may engage in competition with each other over conflicting policy preferences and as well as over differences in how the global order should be structured. A key to major power competition is the relative strength7 of major powers that engage in contestation with each other. Typically, IR scholars have measured the 5

Compared to approximately $5.5 billion in U.S. military assistance to Israel and Egypt combined, and nearly twice the total military assistance provided to all countries in 2020 (U.S. Agency for International Development, at https://www.foreignassistance.gov/). 6 Including much verbal support, at least in the earlier stages of the war for the Russian side by policymakers in Beijing, but also through increasing trade with Russia and with help blocking numerous resolutions opposing Russia in the United Nations (Scobell and Swanstrom 2022). 7 I am deliberately avoiding here the term “power” in favor of state strength; while strength is measurable, power involves far more than strength (for an enduring definition of power in the literature, see Dahl 1957), albeit strength is one key to understanding how much power a state possesses.

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strength of major powers by comparing their relative military spending,8 and/or through a composite index of military, economic, and demographic data (identified as national material capabilities)9 , while power transition scholars tend to focus on economic indicators such as GDP (e.g., Kugler and Tammen 2012).10 There are significant trade-offs involved with each of these approaches, yet one substantial weakness of all of them is that they measure the building blocks of strength but not the extent to which states differ in their abilities to extract and apply these capabilities as they pursue their interests in international politics. State strength should entail more than raw capabilities; the extent to which states are efficient in utilizing their military and economic attributes condition their state strength. Previous, we have argued (e.g., Thompson et al. 2022 Chap. 6) that two considerations matter: the effectiveness of state bureaucracies in utilizing their resources; and the state’s control over corruption, which otherwise further degrades capabilities at the state’s disposal. Perhaps nowhere do these considerations matter as much as when states attempt to use major coercive instruments to attain their objective and must apply myriad resources at their disposal to successfully bring to conclusion a war they had initiated. Russia’s capacity to successfully prosecute the war in Ukraine presents one major lesson about major power competition: the strength suggested by bulk coercive resources does not meaningfully reflect their actual use. Consider what those bulk resources looked like at the start of the 2022 Ukrainian invasion: the Russian Federation’s active military forces outnumbered Ukraine’s by a factor of more than 4 to 1. Controlling the skies over Ukraine should have been relatively easy as Russian aircraft outnumbered Ukraine’s by a factor of over 17 to 1. Russian spending on its military the last year before the war erupted had dwarfed that of Ukraine by a factor of approximately 10 to 1 (Fig. 1), as did the relative size of its economy (Fig. 2). Yet, Russia’s initial invasion broke down, its occupation of territory has been problematic, its air capabilities could not control the skies over the territory it tried to capture, and Ukrainian forces—after a year of fighting—have at times ceased the initiative in the eastern part of Ukraine as winter descended on the war zone. By the start of 2023 Ukrainian leaders were (perhaps too optimistically) talking about victory over the Russian Federation. China, Russia’s major ally, was growing

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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) publishes annually the most comprehensive statistics on military spending for states. Its data are available at: https://www. sipri.org/databases. 9 The Correlates of War (COW) index (CINC) of national material capabilities includes data on military expenditures, military personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population and total population (see https://correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/national-material-capabi lities/. 10 Not all scholars use one of these options. Moyer and colleagues (Moyer et al. 2022) create a measurement strategy that also integrates diplomatic and economic activity into a power index; Lee and Thompson (2018) differentiate between global versus region powers by using a nuanced measure of global reach to assess the standing of major powers, utilizing a state’s relative share of sea and air power to link capabilities to contestation over the global commons.

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skeptical of Russian competence and some Chinese officials predicted that Russia would emerge from the conflict as a “minor power”.11 A substantial contributor to this abysmal military performance is due to the assistance to Ukraine that has been forthcoming from the U.S. and its allies. This is not surprising since Russian military strength, despite its military build-up over the last two decades (Fig. 3) still remains highly imbalanced compared to the U.S.12 (Fig. 4) However, the eventual assistance provided to Ukraine by NATO fails to explain the spectacular failures evidenced even in the early days of the Russian campaign. Reports from those early days of the war indicate that the Russian military expected a triumph within days of the invasion, and “officers were told to pack their dress uniforms and medals in anticipation of military parades in the Ukrainian capital” 11

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/10/beijing-fears-russia-becoming-minorSee power-under-crazy-putin-ft-a79911. 12 And this imbalance is even greater if one considers the additional capabilities of NATO allies.

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(Schwirtz et al. 2022). In contrast to expectations, Russia’s attempts at taking Kyiv and its aim of decapitating early Ukraine’s political leadership were catastrophic. Nor was it able to secure early on the airspace over much of Ukraine, despite a tremendous degree of superiority on paper over the Ukrainian air force. What accounts for the discrepancy between what appears to be dominant military capabilities versus abysmal performance in using those capabilities? I contend that two dimensions condition the value of state strength: the efficiency of state bureaucracy and its relative control over corruption. Regarding the effectiveness of the Russian state, note some of the reporting from the war (Schwirtz et al. 2022): • The Russian military relied on old maps and bad intelligence for using its missiles in the early days, leaving Ukrainian air defense intact; • Russia’s military was unable to adapt even while enduring major losses: while their planes were being show down, Russian pilots continued flying “as if they faced no danger;”

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• Structural rigidities meant that the military needed up to 72 hours to update intelligence estimates and secure approval to attack new targets—by which time the Ukrainians left the targeted space; • Russia seized more ground than it could defend, “leaving thousands of square miles in the hands of skeleton crews of underfed, undertrained and poorly equipped fighters;” • Cyberwarfare was inefficient: the Russian hacking unit (Sandworm) took approximately nineteen months to prepare an attack on a power station that caused just a six-hour power shortage; • “Normal” troops were supplemented by mercenaries (Wagner group), the National Guard, and a unit from Chechnya, each of which was lacking coordination with the military: “no unified command…no single headquarters…no single concept…no unified planning;” • Additional mobilization to supplement Russian troop strength led to chaotic attempts to fulfill quotas while hundreds of thousands of potential draftees fled the country (Vorobeva 2022), highlighting ineffective bureaucracies and difficult principal-agent issues.13 These examples are illustrative of the relative competence/efficiency of state institutions, and especially the efficiency of military and intelligence bureaucracies. Yet it is not just ineffective state performance that has degraded basic Russian capabilities; equally salient has been the inability and/or unwillingness of the Russian state to exert substantial control over corruption practices.14 Again, note some of the war reporting (Beliacovak 2022; Schwirtz et al. 2022; Schwirtz et al. 2023; Shinkman 2022; Crany-Evnas and Ivshina 2022): • Despite official investments of hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize Russia’s armed forces, much of its equipment was poorly manufactured and in short supply: tires and vehicles fell apart making convoys sitting targets; soldiers had to use crowdfunding for clothes, crutches, and other basic supplies; • Russian troops were eating expired rations, likely because logisticians either sold replacements or never used dispersed funds to buy them in the first place; • One major military base—the supposed beneficiary of billions of rubles in upgrades—received virtually none of the work as the designated funding disappeared and forced the contractor and military personnel at the base to disguise the facility and prevent visitors from going inside so that the ruse would not be discovered;

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Fig. 5 Governmental effectiveness, major powers compared, 2021. Source World Bank

• Columns advancing on Kyiv in the early days of the war halted because they ran out of fuel, much of which had been sold on the black market at staging site in Belarus; • Approximately one third of all deployed Russian vehicles—according to U.S. intelligence—failed on their own, due to lack of maintenance at their home bases; • “Ratnik” body armor, critical for protecting Russian ground forces, did not reach their destination as they were stolen from warehouses and sold online, while Russian soldiers arriving in Ukraine had body armor with rotten fabric and rusted plates; • Many technological innovations designed to improve the precision of strikes “never materialized due to graft, embezzlement and fraud” (Beliakova 2022). It is clear from these examples that Russian investments into its military strength had been substantially degraded by not only its governmental ineffectiveness but also its lack of control over corruption practices. A very important lesson from the Ukrainian war is that estimating the relative strength of a major power competitor must take into account not only the size of its economy and its outlay of funding for the military, but just as important, the manner in which it is able to translate such resources into utilizing its strength. The examples I note above are consistent with data regarding both Russian bureaucratic efficiency and its lack of control over corruption.15 Figure 5 illustrates Russian governmental effectiveness compared to other major powers in 2021, according to the World Bank’s index of effectiveness. Its score trails dramatically that of all the other major powers, and typically by at least a ratio of 10 to 1, despite efforts to improve on this dimension over time (Fig. 6). 15

While this is the case for the Russian Federation, I suspect that the strength of the Soviet Union (there are no data available for the USSR) was similarly diminished by less than effective governance and limited control over corruption during the Cold War. Anecdotally, this author’s interviews with Soviet civilian and military officials in Moscow at the tail end of the Cold War suggested that U.S. estimates of Soviet strength were overblown as governmental inefficiencies and corrupt practices substantially degraded billions of rubles in the effort to keep pace with the West.

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Fig. 6 Governmental effectiveness, Russia and China compared, 1996–2021. Source World Bank

A similar, but perhaps even worse picture emerges when comparing Russian control over corruption with those of other major powers. As Fig. 7 illustrates, compared to other major powers Russia’s performance on the World Bank index in 2021 is deeply in negative territory, reflecting all too well the anecdotal reporting from the war. As Fig. 8 indicates, the Kremlin’s fight against corruption started from a large, negative base, and while showing some improvement, had stagnated over the last five years of World Bank reporting. The combination of ineffective bureaucracies and high levels of uncontrolled corruption create substantial damage to a state’s resources and their utilization, especially during times of major combat against a determined enemy. Previously, our work has estimated that once controlling for these two considerations, the actual strength of a state may diminish by up to 50% of its potential strength (Thompson et al. 2022, Chap. 6). No wonder then that the initial Russian invasion did so badly

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Fig. 8 Control over corruption, Russia and China compared, 1996–2021. Source World Bank

on the battlefield, even prior to the major infusion of resources from the U.S. and its allies on the Ukrainian side.16 Is the Lesson Applicable to US–China Competition and the Possible Invasion of Taiwan? As the war in Ukraine continues to unfold, there has been ripe speculation about the extent to which U.S.-Chinese competition could also erupt into an attempt by China to use force to unify with Taiwan. To what extent is the lesson about state competence and corruption applicable to U.S.-China competition and the possible invasion of Taiwan? There is no direct, easy analogy between the two cases. Chinese economic capabilities are far more formidable than Russian economic strength, and the Chinese build-up of its military capabilities appears to be more robust than those of the Russian Federation, although its spending on the military has been somewhat less (Fig. 14, Appendix). Unlike the Russian case, the Chinese military has not seen significant combat in over forty years, making its effectiveness on the battlefield a point of uncertainty for both sides in the major power struggle. Additionally, American guarantees to Taiwan (and the domestic politics in the U.S. around support for Taiwan) are far more substantial than they were with Ukraine at the start of the

16

Two caveats should be raised at this point. First, I am not suggesting that Ukrainian resistance was more successful because its governmental apparatus was more efficient and less corrupt. In fact, the World Bank index for 2021 indicates that in 2021, immediately before the invasion, Russian governmental effectiveness was greater than in Ukraine, albeit its level of corruption was higher (Fig. 13 in the Appendix). There is an entirely different story to be told about the extent to which a country, invaded by what appears to be a much stronger state, can effectively resist, but that is not within the scope of this effort, which is focused on major power competition. Second, and related to this point is the obvious one: weaker states (e.g., North Vietnam versus the U.S.) can, with sufficient will and sacrifice successfully resist much stronger ones and simply enumerating strength does not automatically predict to victory in war.

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war.17 Finally in terms of alliance relationships, NATO is a far stronger entity than the emerging Quad Four in Asia. Yet, the lesson of degraded state strength caused by governmental inefficiencies and corruption should be applicable to this case of major power competition as well. Several points are worth noting: first, as illustrated in Fig. 5, China possess substantially more governmental effectiveness than does the Russian Federation, albeit its effectiveness continues to trail significantly those of the U.S. and the other major powers that are not Russia. At the same time, it has been less successful in overcoming systemic corruption (Figs. 7 and 8). Second, the relationship between China and Taiwan is at first glance somewhat comparable to that between Russian and Ukraine with respect to military spending and the relative size of their economies.18 Taiwan spends roughly 5% of financial resources spent by China on its military, and there is a similar imbalance in terms of the size of their economies. What appears to be different are the differences between the two regarding control over corruption and the effectiveness of their respective governments. As Fig. 9 illustrates, Taiwan outperforms China on governmental effectiveness by a factor of nearly two to one, and its index approximates those of Western major powers. Control over corruption is even more imbalanced between the two: China’s control is only about 4.5% of that exercised by Taiwan.19 These two constraints on their respective military capabilities suggest that China’s strength is substantially degraded compared to Taiwan’s.20 These differences, of course, may not be sufficient to allow Taiwan to successfully resist China by itself if the latter decided to invade, but it does suggest that compared to the Ukrainian-Russian imbalance, Taiwan may be an even more formidable opponent for the PRC than Ukraine has been against the Russian Federation. And if we add to the balance sheet the relative military capabilities in the theatre by the U.S. and its allies (including Japan and South Korea), Chinese strength may not be enough to use war as a successful means of unification. Although the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a case that is far from being identical to the Chinese aspiration towards Taiwan, the Ukraine war’s lesson suggests two consequences as well for major power competition over Taiwan. First, as the U.S.China competition continues to intensify, it behoves both scholars and policymakers 17

For example, President Biden vowed that American forces would directly defend Taiwan if China’s military invaded. See https://www.axios.com/2022/09/19/biden-us-forces-defend-taiwanchina-military-attack. 18 But not, of course, the battlefield conditions around Taiwan compared to the battlefield conditions operating in Ukraine. The former would most likely revolve around naval and air forces. Yet, those types of sea and air battles require at least as much coordination (governmental effectiveness) and extensive use of quality resources (control over corruption) as do land battles. 19 For a closer look at how corruption practices have changed in China resulting from official crackdowns, see Ang (2021). 20 There has been substantial corruption in the Peoples Liberation Army, especially around recruitment of military personnel and promotion of high-ranking officers, suggesting that battlefield decisions could seriously suffer from lack of competent leadership (e.g., Peck 2021). For corruption in the Chinese Navy, see Yang (2020).

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1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Govt. Effectiveness

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Fig. 9 Government effectiveness and control over corruption, China and Taiwan, 2021. Source World Bank

to assess each major powers’ relative strength in the context of their governmental effectiveness and control over corruption. In China’s case substantial strides have been made to increase governmental competence, although the PRC lags far behind those of other major powers (except for Russia). Should such improvements continue, Chinese investments in its military, economic, and political capabilities should look more formidable.21 However, it appears that less progress has been made by Beijing to control corruption in its political system, making it more difficult to compete with the U.S., even as its capabilities continue to increase. The U.S. is, of course, not immune to degradation of its capabilities through either corruption or governmental ineffectiveness. Its scores on both dimensions have been incrementally decreasing, and the verdict is still very much in doubt about how divided government for the next two years will further limit its effectiveness. It is also plausible that both the U.S. and (especially) China will have learned this lesson from the Ukraine war. If so, it is likely that Chinese policymakers will continue to stress their war on corruption as they seek to compete more aggressively with the U.S. Meanwhile, U.S. policymakers may have learned the same lesson from Russian failures, although I lack a crystal ball with which to predict how the White House could possibly minimize the negative effects of partisan animosities and divided governance.

21

Recent simulation exercises suggest that it is unlikely that the Chinese military would be able to successfully invade Taiwan against both Taiwanese and U.S. resistance (Cancian et al. 2023)

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3 Lesson Two: Perhaps Trade Interdependence Is Insufficient to Constrain Major Power Conflict? IR scholars have invested heavily in the Kantian triad (e.g., Russett and Oneal 2001) in order to understand the dynamics stimulating pacific relations between states: democracies don’t fight each other; trade interdependencies yield pacific relationships; and joint membership in complex intergovernmental organizations promote cooperation between states. Of these three dynamics, trade relations have been the most contentious in terms of their implications for conflict reduction.22 Russia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and agreed to abide by its practices in 2012, two short years before it first interfered militarily in Ukraine. China had entered the WTO a decade earlier, and there was much hope that by joining both states were becoming embedded in a complex network of trade relationships consistent with globalization processes that would promote pacific relations between active trade partners. In the Russian case, there had been substantial interdependencies between that state and the European Union prior to its 2022 war with Ukraine: over 80% of Russian gas was exported to Europe and in turn Europe was reliant on Russia for 46% of its total gas supply, along with similar levels of dependence on Russian metals and fertilizer (Sonnenfeld and Tian 2023). Immediately before the 2022 war in Ukraine Russia was the EU’s fifth largest trade partner and the EU was Russia’s first trade partner, accounting for over 37% of the Russian Federation’s total trade in goods with the world (European Commission 2022).23 Furthermore, trade relations for Russia had been vital to its economy: by 2021 its trade was equal to 52% of its GDP.24 Thus, the trade relationships between Russia and the states of the EU prior to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 would suggest that if trade interdependencies and high volumes of trade have a dampening effect on conflict between trading partners then Russia should not have invaded, or, once it had invaded, the states within the EU should not have increased their conflict towards the Russian Federation. Yet, the invasion constituted a dramatic increase in conflict intensity from the ongoing, simmering conflict already on the ground in the Donbass since 2014, and triggered strong responses from Western Europe and North America, including strong economic sanctions against Russia and very substantial military support for the Ukrainian regime. 22

The literature on trade, conflict, and peace is quite extensive and will not be reviewed here. For examples regarding the pacifying consequences of trade, see Keohane and Nye (1977), Russett and Oneal (2001), Bennett and Stam (2004), Hegre et al. (2010); for examples in the literature arguing for the conflict inducing aspects of trade, see Waltz (1979), Gilpin (1987), Mearsheimer (2001), Barbieri (2002), Li and Reuveny (2011). Goldsmith (2013) provides systematic evidence that trade interdependence may not eliminate conflict onset between states, albeit high volumes of trade may reduce the probability of conflict escalation. 23 Although, according to the World Bank, China was already Russia’s single largest country trading partner prior to the outbreak of the Ukrainian war. 24 Data are from The World Bank, retrieved at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD. GNFS.ZS?locations=RU.

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It is precisely this type of increase in intensity that some research suggests would be unlikely among high volume trading partners (e.g., Goldsmith 2013) 25 The case then suggests an important second lesson: major power political and military competition may not be dampened by either economic interdependencies or high volumes of exchanges between trading partners, and especially when conflicts involve large territorial disputes and potential security threats.26 It is plausible that the Kremlin had calculated that major European powers would be reluctant to punish Russia after the invasion, given their trade interdependencies. Alternatively, Russian policymakers may have calculated that they could substitute trade partners relatively easily. It is also plausible that West European powers may have also assumed, prior to the invasion, that the Kremlin would not be willing to risk the impact of breaking its economic interdependence with the EU. If so, both sides were incorrect. One could argue that the Ukrainian invasion constitutes a deviant case from which it is difficult to generalize to the larger population of cases of potential conflict between competing major powers that are also major trading partners. Yet, these economic relationships were unable to prevent the unfolding of the largest land war in Europe since the second world war. Given its intensity and the repercussions for major power relations, it is difficult to dismiss the war with the label of being a “deviant case”. Two other issues are also suggested by the patterns regarding trade relationships. First, economic interdependencies are not givens, and can be changed by policymakers. As Sonnenfeld and Tian (2023) note, once the war began, EU states were able to reduce their dependence on Russian gas from 42 to 9% and are now purchasing more liquefied natural gas than they have ever purchased Russian gas. Furthermore, they have increased storage capacity, enough to permanently replace Russia’s gas exports by 2024.27 Second, the Ukrainian war case suggests that perhaps it is decreases in trade relations that may actually exacerbate conflicts. The Kremlin’s paranoia about the Ukrainian “turn” towards the West may have been substantially reinforced by Ukrainian changes in trade patterns. As Fig. 10 illustrates, in 1996 Ukraine’s trade

25

In fairness, I should note that Goldsmith’s work directly focuses on dyads in ongoing conflicts, which in this case would be the Ukrainian-Russian dyad rather than the EU-Russian or U.S.-Russian dyads. In the case of the Ukrainian-Russian dyad, there appeared to be substantial reductions in trade relationships (as I note below) not only prior to 2022, but also prior to 2014, consistent with Goldsmith’s arguments and data. 26 In Russia’s case, threats to its security from NATO expansion; from the NATO side, Russian security threats to European states with substantial Russian populations, or even to NATO’s security architecture. 27 The process of switching trade partners as a natural resource producer has proven to be less successful for Russia. It has been able to redirect only ten percent of its gas sales to China since the latter lacks the necessary pipeline capacity. At the same time the oil market has turned to favouring buyers over sellers as oil supplies have increased; both China and India have been buying excess oil but with discounts of up to 50 percent (Sonnenfeld and Tian 2023).

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Fig. 10 Ukranian trade with Russian “region” as a percent of trade with Europe, 1996–2020. Source World bank

was overwhelmingly with Russia and its allies.28 1998 started a period of substantial decline in those trade relationships and by 2012, two years before the taking of Crimea, it had decreased to less than half of the trade between Ukraine and the EU. By 2020, it was down to 10%. Are There Implications Here for Major Power Competition Over the ChineseTaiwanese Dispute? There are, as with the previous lesson, critical similarities and differences between the two cases. First, Taiwanese trade with China at present represents roughly 25% of all Taiwanese trade, a level substantially higher than Ukrainian trade with the Russian Federation immediately prior to the 2022 war. And unlike with Ukraine, its exports to China between 2015 and 2021, have increased by over 90%. Unlike the Ukrainian case, the trade pattern between the two should not indicate to Beijing that Taiwan is seeking to reduce its relationship with China. Second, and while trade remains an important component for Chinese economic well-being, it appears that the Chinese economy has diminished its reliance on trade over time. Chinese trade as a percentage of Chinese GDP had continuously increased from 1970, reaching 64% by 2006; since 2006 there has been a steady decline in trade salience, reaching 37% by 2021, which is the second lowest level of trade dependence of all major powers on the global market.29 Clearly, it has outperformed the Russian Federation in reducing the salience of its trade for its economic wellbeing (Fig. 11), plausibly making it less vulnerable to trade sanctions from competing major powers.30 28

Trade with the Russian “region” is calculated as trade with Russia and its allies in Europe, the Caucuses, and Central Asia, including most of the former Soviet Republics that have not applied for membership in the EU. 29 Except for the U.S. at 25%. 30 That major trade sanctions against China are being entertained, should China decide to coercively seek unification with Taiwan, is reflected in the public statements of former NATO secretary-general Anders Rasmussen who called on “European leaders to publicly commit to cutting off China’s access to the global economy if it makes a move on Taiwan” (Allen-Ebrahimian 2023).

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Yet, it is far from being invulnerable to trade sanctions directed at it by major powers.31 For instance, its highest level of exports flow to the U.S. at 17% of its total trade and exports directed to the U.S. and the EU combined make up over 40% of all Chinese exports.32 A strong sanctions regime, successfully implemented, as suggested by former NATO officials (Allen-Ebrahimian 2023) could have substantial consequences for the Chinese economy. Would the extant economic interdependence between China, the EU and the U.S. deter China from initiating a war of unification against Taiwan? Comparing the trade status of the Russian Federation with China, note that Russian exports to the EU, as a percent of all its exports were—before the start of the Ukrainian war—more than 70% greater than Chinese exports to the EU, yet such interdependence did not deter the Kremlin from initiating the war with Ukraine, even in the face of threatened sanctions from the West. It is clear from the Ukrainian experience that, should domestic politics inside China pressure Beijing’s policymakers to contemplate a coercive option to pursue unification with Taiwan, or a looming security threat posed by the continued independence of Taiwan come to the forefront for policymakers in Beijing, these present, ongoing trade linkages may not function as successful deterrence against Chinese determination to use force against Taiwan. Part of the failure to deter the Russian invasion through the threat of sanctions may have been due to estimates in the Kremlin that potential Western opposition to its actions would be minimal since the alliance was too divided to run the economic risks of sanctioning the Russian state and jeopardizing those economies that were dependent upon Russian energy resources. Part of the failure may have been also due to Russian estimates that it had, through a realignment of its economy, the building up of its financial reserves, and the courting of markets outside of Europe would combine to create sufficient resilience to manage even major sanctions from the West. Similarly, Chinese policymakers have reconfigured their economy to reduce their reliance on trade, albeit the Chinese economy is more deeply intertwined with the global market and its trading partners than the Russian Federation33 . The U.S. and its allies have already warned the Chinese (e.g., Brunnstrom and Martina 2022) that an attack on Taiwan would bring about a coordinated sanctions regime against Beijing. What is less clear is whether Chinese (and Western) policymakers believe that the economic costs for the U.S. and its allies would be prohibitive if they act through sanctions to try to seriously degrade China’s economy, thus making the threat less credible. Additionally, as China has pivoted towards having a more robust trading relationship with states in Asia and the Asia–Pacific, these changes raise the question of whether the U.S. could coordinate the type of sanctioning 31

For an analysis of the possible impact of major trade sanctions on the Chinese economy, see Bo 2022. 32 Data from World Integrated Trade Solutions at: https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/ Country/CHN/Year/2020/TradeFlow/EXPIMP. 33 For an argument that both China and the West, including the U.S. could withstand a major set of sanctions against China, see Rogoff 2022. As of this writing it is still unclear how much the sanctions regime imposed on the Russian Federation has hurt its economy (Nelson 2022, Northam 2022).

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strategy with Asian states that it has with its European allies, especially since Asian states have become economically more reliant on China than have European states on the Russian Federation. Overall then, given the experience with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, high levels of trade relations between China and most other major powers (and the threats to create comprehensive sanctions against China) may not be sufficient presently to create a deterrent should China desire to use force to unify with Taiwan. Part of the problem may be assessing the extent of damage actually caused to the Russian Federation as a result of the sanctions regime, and particularly in terms of their longterm consequences. Should those prove to be as debilitating as some economists have argued, then perhaps policymakers in Beijing will be far less likely to entertain similar consequences for their economy and their political well-being. Still, that part of the story and that part of the lesson will not unfold for at least another year or two.

4 Lesson Three: Alliance Durability Increases Under Security Threats Given wholesale verbal attacks on America’s NATO allies by then President Donald Trump and the consternation such attacks caused them, it should come as little surprise that part of the Kremlin gamble over the Ukrainian invasion may have been based on Russian assessments that NATO was in shambles and a coordinated and strong response to Russian coercion would not be forthcoming.34 If so, then this assessment proved to be as incorrect as the Kremlin’s prediction of early success in its “special operation.” Not only did the alliance hold, but the response of its members to the Russian invasion likely surpassed expectations, even within the alliance. Except for two of its members,35 the alliance spoke generally with one voice. Differences between the U.S. and its European counterparts were minimally visible,36 European anger and frustration over Brexit did not diminish British and European cooperation, Germany upgraded its military commitments to the alliance, and NATO even agreed to expand further to include Sweden and Finland. Sometimes the alliance looked like a dance of family members who are a bit wary of each other,37 yet coordination prevailed, including boosting the alliance’s rapid reaction force, increasing its presence in Eastern Europe, and creating a new strategic concept consistent with the military threat posed by the Russian Federation. 34

Even after the defeat of Donald Trump by Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential elections, the lingering uneasy over relations with the U.S. continued (e.g., Bennett 2022). 35 I count here Hungary, which has very limited military capabilities, and Turkey. 36 It probably mattered that President Biden worked diligently prior to the invasion to overcome many of the problems his predecessor created for the alliance. 37 See for example the dance around the commitment of providing tanks by Germany and the U.S. (Bose et al. 2023; Sanger et al. 2023).

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Cumulatively, these actions were described by NATO’s secretary general as “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War” (PBS 2022). The alliance has proven—to date—to be quite resilient, despite myriad potential and actual divisions. Turkey’s demands over Swedish membership further strained relations; independent French initiatives towards the Kremlin were denounced by some alliance members; German policymakers at times appeared to waffle over commitments publicly made; the hawkishness of Polish policymakers sometimes erupted into verbal attacks on German cautiousness (and German history) while at times British policymakers appeared to be too aggressive in promoting the Ukrainian cause. Most difficult had been the thin line between strong support for Ukraine and actions that could provoke a direct military confrontation between the Kremlin and NATO. Yet, and despite deteriorating relationships under the Trump Administration, the alliance has proven cohesive in the face of Russian aggression next to NATO’s borders. The increased cohesion among NATO allies translated to other contexts as well. The Russian invasion constituted both in words and deeds an attack not just on Ukraine but also on the norms governing the extant world order. We should expect then that in response U.S. allies would rally around the extant liberal world order. Voeten’s work (e.g., see Bailey et al. 2017) on voting in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has produced for scholars an invariant, single dimension reflecting relative support for what Voeten identifies as the liberal world order.38 This single dimension allows for both cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons for all states that are members of the UN. Using his data Fig. 1239 illustrates changes in support of the liberal world order among the four strongest Western European states in NATO. Comparing their average votes over nine sessions of the UNGA with their votes following the invasion of Ukraine (2022) shows, consistent with expectations, an average increase of over 10% in their support of the extant world order, with all but Germany reaching their highest support on this voting dimension across the last ten years sampled. Whether such an increase in support will last past the end of this conflict, or even through the conflict, remains to be seen. However, it further underscores that at present, the U.S.-led part of the European alliance appears cohesive not only in dealing directly with Russia, but as well over the larger set of norms involved with the liberal world order. How Does Alliance Resilience Translate to the China-Taiwan Case? The hub and spoke alliance system that had developed in the Asia–Pacific region is dramatically different from the NATO alliance that had been created for European

38

Data are available at: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/ DVN/LEJUQZ. 39 See also Fig. 15, Appendix.

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Fig. 12 UK, France, Germany, and Italy Compared on UNGA Liberal World Order Support. Source Voeten

security.40 Superimposed on the hub and spoke system is the emergence of the Quad Four41 : a multilateral network of cooperation between the U.S., Australia, India and Japan, working on security, economic, and health issues; most recently the group has increasingly engaged in the coordination of the four states’ naval capabilities, including conducting joint naval exercises. As some have argued (e.g., Wilkins 2022), in the place of an Asian NATO, the U.S. has been seeking to “network the original model through the acquisition of non-treaty strategic partnership with key states…while also welcoming European engagement” in what the author dubs a hub and spoke “plus” model of security coordination. As described, these alliance relations are far more complex and convoluted than 40

For discussions of why such differences arose historically, and some of the consequences of these differences, see Ikenberry (2004), Izumikawa (2020). 41 Formally known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

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the NATO format in Europe, creating perhaps greater uncertainties about alliance coordination should China invade Taiwan. In the Ukrainian case, as I had suggested above, the Kremlin may have misinterpreted NATO’s resolve, especially given the turbulent relationships between the U.S. and its partners during the tenure of the Trump Administration. Alliance warnings to Russia proved to be of little deterrent value amid such uncertainties. Once the war started, the alliance’s cohesive approach to Russia became pivotal in helping Ukrainian resistance on the battlefield, further limiting Russian successes. In the Taiwanese case, China faces off against two alliances and one superpower: the hub and spoke system and the Quad 4 in Asia, warnings from the NATO alliance that have included both sanctions and possible military involvement, and evolving U.S. guarantees to protect Taiwan. In vacuum, these potential alliance-based threats to China would appear to simply generate low levels of certainty and would be of little deterrent value: the alliance network in Asia is riddled with unknowns,42 NATO’s effectiveness outside of Europe is uncertain, and historically the U.S. has been quite circumspect in indicating how much it is willing to do to preserve Taiwanese independence. However, the vacuum has been shredded by the Ukrainian experience: alliances turned out to be more cohesive than expected, and a careful management of relationships with Ukraine has not resulted in a direct spillover of the war into alliance territory, suggesting that alliance pressures on China’s policymakers, given the events in Ukraine, may be more formidable then would be expected otherwise. Ironically, the lack of successful deterrence of Russia in Ukraine through alliance pressure had led to extensive negative economic and battlefield consequences for Russia once the war began, and thus, what has played out in Ukraine may have led to increased alliance credibility over the Taiwan case.

5 Conclusion As I write, the Ukrainian war continues unabated: both Russians Ukrainings are claiming additional victories; intelligence sources are predicting new offensives from both Russian and Ukrainian sides in the coming weeks; drone attacks have now reached Moscow from Ukraine; as soon as NATO allies have committed to sending tanks to Ukraine, Kyiv pressed them further by requesting long-range missiles and fighter jets from NATO; in the face of little progress, another round of military leadership changes have been initiated by the Kremlin (Cooper et at. 2023); there appears to be no willingness on either side to seek a peaceful conclusion to the conflict. 42

India has been reluctant to directly engage Chinese aspirations, except over disputes concerning the Chinese-Indian border; Japan has not militarily engaged China since the end of World War II and its very recent assertive security posture has yet to meet the test of its domestic politics (The Economist 2023); Australian assertiveness towards China has fluctuated along with its own domestic politics.

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Under such circumstances it is quite difficult to draw lessons and consequences from a war that is still far from being resolved. Nevertheless, I have argued that three important lessons emerge from the conflict regarding major power competition. First, any analysis of major power strength must take into consideration not only the size of a major power’s military and its spending on defense, but as well and crucially the analysis should assess how effectively the state is able to use those resources at its disposal. Unless researchers and policy makers alike take into account the relative effectiveness that the state exhibits in the use of its capabilities and take into account as well the state’s control over corruption, they will substantially overestimate the actual strength of major powers as they pursue their objectives using coercive instruments of policy. This has been a major lesson emerging from the Ukrainian conflict regarding U.S.-Russian competition; however, it is also salient for considering China’s possible decision to seek the forceful unification of Taiwan,43 and for the increasing competition between the U.S. and China. The second lesson revolves around the salience of trade relationships and trade partnerships in curbing conflict between major powers. Extensive trade relations between the Russian Federation and the EU were not sufficient to either curb the Kremlin’s desire to invade Ukraine, nor did it deter the U.S. and Western European states from initially threating and then imposing extensive sanctions on the Russian Federation. There is some evidence that over time the Russian Federation (and as well China) had sought to decrease both the salience of trade for its economy and to rearrange its trade partners. Yet these actions were insufficient to minimize a significant amount of the harm the sanctions have imposed on the Russian economy.44 In the case of U.S.-China competition, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could lead to similar sanctions, albeit their effects could be more consequential—given the extensive trade relationships with China—then even the sanctions aimed at Russia had on those European states that were Russia’s trading partners. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that such trade interdependencies would be more successful, in and of themselves, in deterring China’s willingness to unify with Taiwan by force. The third lesson learned from the Ukrainian war is that under security considerations alliances may prove to be more resilient than anticipated. As the Ukrainian war exploded, the NATO alliance, despite persistent quarrels, solidified, held, and even sought further expansion as Russian attempts to exploit its divisions failed. How this lesson carries over to U.S.-China competition and the possibility of Chinese coercive moves towards Taiwan is difficult to assess given the considerably greater complexities and uncertainties involved with alliances in East and South Asia and the Asia–Pacific regions. However, Beijing’s policymakers should not underestimate the cohesiveness of the alliance surrounding it if it contemplates a war with Taiwan. The alliance structure in Asia may appear to be more ambiguous than the NATO structure 43

How seriously American policymakers consider that likelihood is difficult to estimate although both some members of Congress and military personnel are predicting such a clash within two years (Reuters 2023). 44 There appears to be a fair amount of consensus that the long-term effects of the sanctions will be even more debilitating for the Russian economy (Hopkins and Kurmanaev 2022).

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involved with the Ukrainian invasion, but given the events unfolding in Europe, my guess is that China is reading a similar lesson from the Ukrainian war.

Appendix: Additional Data on Control Over Corruption, Governmental Effectiveness, and Support for the Liberal World Order See Figs. 13, 14 and 15.

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Fig. 13 Control over corruption and government effectiveness, Russia and Ukraine compared, 2021. Source World bank

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Fig. 14 Russian and Chinese military spending and size of GDP, compared to the U.S., in percentages, 2021

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2 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019 2019-2020 2020-2021 UK

France

Germany

2022

Italy

Fig. 15 Support for the liberal world order, UNGA voting, 2012–2022, selected states. Source Voeten

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