Geostrategic magazine – 13 febbraio 2023

I MONDI DAI THINK TANK (IN AGGIORNAMENTO)

• Quando finirà la guerra in Ucraina? Gli esperti offrono le loro previsioni (Defense News, Joe Gould, Bryant Harris, Sebastian Sprenger and Tom Kington). Germany’s promise early this year to send tanks to Ukraine marked the country’s latest concession and provided a cap to the gradual escalation in the kind of equipment allies were supplying. When will the war in Ukraine end? Experts offer their predictions
• Cooperazione transfrontaliera tra le autorità locali e regionali dell’Ucraina e degli Stati del Gruppo di Visegrad (GLOBSEC,  Yuliia Fetko). Cross-Border Cooperation Between Local and Regional Authorities of Ukraine and the Visegrad Group States
• Priorità economiche nell’Ucraina del dopoguerra (CASE, Dmytro Boyarchuk). https://www.case-research.eu/files/?id_plik=7438
• L’Ucraina ha bisogno di carri armati. L’Australia dovrebbe inviarne alcuni (The Interpreter, Dave Sharma). As Russia’s war on Ukraine approaches its first anniversary, two conclusions are apparent. Ukraine needs tanks – Australia should send some
• Lezioni dalla guerra dei “meme” in Ucraina (Brookings, Sarah Kreps, Paul Lushenko, and Keith Carter). In 1927, the political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote about political propaganda as “the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols.” Underlying Lasswell’s work were two sets of insights. One is that the mass public played a key role in political outcomes, such as success and failure in war. Second, that those public attitudes could also be manipulated. Scaling to the mass-level, however, required simplicity. This included the use of symbols and slogans that were memorable, such that they could frame “pictures”—or, cognitive shortcuts—that the public recalled when engaging elected officials to shape certain policies. Lessons from the meme war in Ukraine
• Russia-Ucraina. Evoluzione della guerra, 12 febbraio 2023 (ISW, Kateryna Stepanenko and Frederick W. Kagan). Russia has partially regained the ability to conduct successful information campaigns in support of strategic objectives and even discrete operational aims. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 12, 2023
• Come Mosca ha trasformato l’Estremo Oriente in una colonia di materie prime per Pechino (ICDS, Vadim Shtepa). In December 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin took part, via videoconference, in the commissioning ceremony for the Kovykta gas field, the largest one in Eastern Siberia. Its recoverable reserves stand at 1.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, but they are almost entirely hoarded for Chinese consumers. With that client in mind, the “Power of Siberia” gas pipeline was built to pump about 27 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually. How Moscow Turned Its Far East into Beijing’s Raw Material Colony
• Il russo Prigozhin è una minaccia o una risorsa per Putin? (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Tatiana Stanovaya). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought unprecedented infamy to Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, both at home and abroad. He is both praised and demonized, while debate rages over how close he really is to President Vladimir Putin, what privileges he enjoys, and even whether he harbors presidential ambitions. Any success for Prigozhin is seen as proof of his might and glittering future, while every failure is seen as a sign of his imminent downfall. For now, neither version is entirely realistic. Man vs. Myth: Is Russia’s Prigozhin a Threat or Asset to Putin?
• Spesa spaziale russa per il 2023 (The Jamestown Foundation, Pavel Luzin). By 2023, Russia’s budgetary planning for civilian and military space programs was presumed to have changed compared with previous years due to the breakdown in space cooperation with the United States and Europe (with the exception of the International Space Station); the failures of Russia’s military space assets during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine; and the economic troubles of the space corporation Roscosmos, suffering from sanctions and low economic efficiency. Russian Space Spending for 2023
• Adesione alla NATO, guerra in Ucraina: quali sono le nuove sfide di sicurezza per Svezia e Finlandia? (IFRI). A conference with Esa Pulkkinen, Permanent Secretary of the Finnish Ministry of Defense, and Peter Sandwall, State Secretary to the Swedish Minister of Defense, held at Ifri on February 9, 2023.  (Replay) Accession to NATO, war in Ukraine: what are the new security challenges for Sweden and Finland?
• Europa. Spesa per la difesa: Chi fa cosa? (ICDS, William Runkel, Tony Lawrence). Despite recent upsurges in defence spending, Europe’s defence capacity, brought into sharp focus by Russia’s war in Ukraine, remains in a sorry state. Decades of underinvestment have finally begun to catch up with the continent: critical capabilities are missing, wartime stockpiles are low, and readiness levels are poor. The western donor coalition will also need to replace at least 30 billion euros’ worth of arms and equipment it has so far (as of November 2022) provided to Ukraine. Ukraine’s reconstruction will need to be funded even as European states continue to struggle to reverse the impact of the war and the COVID-19 pandemic on their own economies. Meanwhile, possible US pre-occupation with China will compel European states to build the means to take greater responsibility for their own security. Defence Spending: Who Is Doing What?
• L’amministratore delegato di TotalEnergies: L’Europa dovrebbe approvare i propri sussidi verdi per competere con gli USA (Atlantic Council, Katherine Walla). Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States is becoming a “land of excellence” when it comes to green energies and infrastructures, said Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and chief executive officer of French oil major TotalEnergies. TotalEnergies’ CEO: Europe should pass its own green subsidies to compete with the US
• La visione post-Erdoğan dell’opposizione turca: opportunità e limiti (SWP, Edgar Şar). Nearly a year after its formation, the Nation Alliance, consisting of six opposition par­ties (“Table of Six”), finally started to act like a full-fledged electoral alliance against the ruling bloc under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Post-Erdoğan Vision of Turkish Opposition: Opportunities and Limitations
• Siria: crisi umanitaria e catastrofe (RIAC, Ivan Bocharov). On January 9, 2023, the UN Security Council extended the cross-border mechanism for the supply of humanitarian aid to the north-western regions of Syria. According to Resolution 2672, the mechanism has been extended for six months, until July 10, 2023. Voting took place the day before the expiration of Resolution 2642, adopted in July 2022. Resolution 2672 was adopted unanimously, amid rather difficult humanitarian conditions for Syria. Syria: Humanitarian Crisis and Disaster
• Dopo l’accordo nella regione etiope del Tigray, cosa ostacola una pace duratura? (IPI, Hilary Matfess and Anne Lauder). A peace deal between Tigrayan forces and the Ethiopian government signed in November 2022 raised hopes that the war in northern Ethiopia—one of the world’s deadliest conflicts in recent years—was finally drawing to a close. Since the war erupted in November 2020, it has claimed at least 600,000 lives according to some estimates, and has left Tigray in ruins, with many Tigrayans struggling to obtain basic needs and medical care. Yet, despite the peace agreement and some tepid movement toward implementation, the situation remains tense, and there is much that stands in the way of lasting peace in the region. After Agreement in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, What Stands in the Way of Lasting Peace?
• Stabilità a quale costo? Lo sviluppo guidato dal contrabbando nella città libica di Kufra (Chatham House, Tim Eaton). The Libyan city of Kufra is an important trade hub for goods crossing its borders with Sudan and Chad. Since 2011, human smuggling has come to play a complex role in Kufra’s economic development and overall stability, providing counter-intuitive findings for international policymakers. Stability at what cost? Smuggling-driven development in the Libyan city of Kufra
• Cosa è emerso dall’incontro Lula-Biden? (Atlantic Council, Caroline Arkalji). US President Joe Biden welcomed Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the White House on Friday by noting that “both of our democracies have been tested of late.” As the two nations rekindled relations with Lula’s trip to Washington a little more than a month after he returned to the presidency, the January 8 riots in Brazil and their similarities to the US insurrection on January 6, 2021, topped the agenda. But the symbolism and the substance of this visit go beyond democracy. What came out of the Lula-Biden meeting?
• I Paesi amazzonici possono salvare la foresta pluviale? (CFR, Diana Roy). The Amazon Rainforest plays a critical role in global climate health, but accelerating deforestation continues to raise alarm. How are the region’s governments responding?  Can Amazon Countries Save the Rain Forest?
• Washington e il sud-est asiatico nel 2023 (FULCRUM, Zack Cooper). Last month, the U.S. House and Senate swore in new members and began the 117^th Congress. The biggest change, of course, is that Republicans now hold a small margin in the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi, the senior House Democrat, stepped down from her role as Speaker and was replaced by Republican Kevin McCarthy. The Senate will not change hands, since the three Independent Senators will caucus with 48 Democrats, allowing them to retain control of the chamber. Washington and Southeast Asia in 2023: How Devolving Power to Line Agencies Might Make a Difference
• L’era delle coalizioni: la natura mutevole degli allineamenti in Asia (ISEAS, Zack Cooper). The era of coalitions is upon us. In recent years, the world has witnessed the growing importance of coalitions like the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States), AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Chip 4 (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States), and many more. The rise of coalitions might seem to be a blip in the historical record, but it is no accident. Instead, coalitions are the natural response to three shifts in the international order: from unipolarity to multipolarity, from alliances to alignments, and from multilateralism to minilateralism. This essay explains how these three changes incentivise coalition-building and why this new era of coalitions will present opportunities for some countries while confronting others with serious strategic challenges. 2023/7 “The Era of Coalitions: The Shifting Nature of Alignments in Asia”
• Le relazioni tra Cina e Filippine navigano in acque più tranquille, per ora (The Strategist, Nick Danby). On 4 January, Chinese President Xi Jinping clasped hands with his Philippine counterpart under very different circumstances from the last time he welcomed a Philippine leader to Beijing. China–Philippine relations sail on calmer seas—for now
• Cosa rende vulnerabile il potenziamento navale dell’Indonesia? (Defense News, Mike Yeo). The Indonesian Navy’s modernization efforts are at risk from budget shortfalls and industrial inexperience, according to experts. ‘Hodgepodge of tech’: What makes Indonesia’s naval buildup vulnerable?
• Indonesia. Il governo Widodo riconosce che sono stati commessi gravi reati in materia di diritti umani (FULCRUM, Max Lane). On 11 January 2023 at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, the Indonesian government officially acknowledged that gross violations of human rights had taken place in Indonesia between 1965 and 2003, and expressed its regret. Prior to President Joko Widodo’s brief statement, Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD explained the main points of the report from the Team for the Non-Judicial Resolution of Past Gross Human Rights Violations (PPHAM). The PPHAM has issued its Executive Summary and recommendations.  Widodo Government Acknowledges Gross Human Rights Happened: The Unstoppable Erosion of a Fundamental Taboo
• La Malesia segue l’Indonesia sulla strada dell’egemonia autoritaria (Dan Slater, East Asia Forum). Indonesia and Malaysia have always been similar enough to make direct comparisons promising, but different enough to make direct comparisons problematic. Ever since Indonesia democratised and Malaysia did not after the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, divergence has been the clearer pattern. But in the wake of Malaysia’s November 2022 elections, convergence is becoming the bigger story. Malaysia follows Indonesia on the road from authoritarian hegemony
• L’eredità di Musharraf: la pace con l’India e la fiducia dell’Occidente nel Pakistan (RUSI, Kamal Alam). During his tenure Pakistan’s former president fortified the country’s relationship with the West and came close to securing an enduring peace with India. Musharraf’s Legacy: Peace with India and Western Reliance on Pakistan
• Come procedono i piani di modernizzazione navale del Pakistan? (Defense News, Usman Ansari). Even as Pakistan’s currency plunges and the country pursues a bailout package to avoid default, the country’s naval officials say its maritime modernization programs remain on track. How are Pakistan’s naval modernization plans coming along?
• Visione a medio e lungo termine della Corea del Nord (IFANS). From the 8th Party Congress onward, North Korea’s official discourse has mostly focused on shaping a five-year plan that would guide the country’s domestic and foreign affairs until the next round of the Party Congress. IFANS
• Come il nuovo accordo tra Vietnam e Indonesia influenzerà le dispute nel Mar Cinese Meridionale (Defense News, Mike Yeo). A recent agreement between Indonesia and Vietnam over maritime boundaries in the South China Sea will likely smooth over the occasionally tense relationship between the two South East Asian nations. How a new Vietnam-Indonesia deal will affect South China Sea disputes
• Cosa aspettarsi dal partenariato strategico globale tra Vietnam e Corea del Sud (FULCRUM, Huynh Tam Sang). Vietnam–Korea relations have a long history. Records of early interactions between the two peoples date back to the 13^th century when Vietnamese Prince Ly Long Tuong of the Ly Dynasty migrated to Korea and joined forces with the ruling Goryo Dynasty of Korea to fight against two Mongolian invasions. From the 16^th to the 19^th century, Korean and Vietnamese envoys exchanged poems during tributary missions to Ming-Qing China. During the colonial period, patriotic intellectuals and revolutionaries from Korea and Vietnam conducted exchanges and published books on the history of their nations “to learn lessons and to enlighten their peoples” while sharing “sympathies as enslaved peoples”. What to Expect from the Vietnam–South Korea Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
• Big Tech vs Autorità di regolamentazione: Una tendenza globale a lungo termine (RIAC). Over the past few years, government efforts to regulate tech giants around the world have marked global long-term trends. The authors of this working paper take a closer look at recent key changes in Big Tech regulation both at the international level and in individual jurisdictions of the EU, USA, China and Russia, examining the different ways in which governments have tried to strike a regulatory balance between freedom and security, as well as between digital ecosystem development and healthy competition. This paper also includes an analysis of Big Tech’s response to regulatory pressure and discusses the potential options available to develop universal international norms and rules for the industry. Big Tech vs Regulators: A Long-Term Global Trend (russiancouncil.ru)