Geostrategic magazine (23 October 2024)

From global think tanks

The analyses published here do not necessarily reflect the strategic thinking of The Global Eye

BRICS

(Brookings) As BRICS member states and their outreach partners gather in Russia for their first summit since the group’s expansion, Brookings experts outline their expectations for the summit, how different countries view the grouping, and its potential impact on the international order. – What can we expect from the 2024 BRICS summit? (brookings.edu)

Bulgaria

(Margarita Assenova – The Jamestown Foundation) In Bulgaria, the seventh round of parliamentary elections in three years is projected to produce a heavily fragmented parliament again and a slim prospect of forming a government for a full mandate. Russian propaganda has specifically targeted pro-Western political parties in Bulgaria while boosting the chances of the main pro-Russia Revival party to come second in the upcoming election. Widespread allegations about a vote-buying scheme conducted by US-sanctioned oligarch Delyan Peevski could taint Bulgaria’s electoral process. Vote-buying would secure Peevski enough seats in parliament to play the king-maker role in a future governing coalition. – Bulgaria Continues to Experience Chronic Political Disarray – Jamestown

China

(Jennifer Bouey, Rakesh Pandey, Agnes Xiangzhen Wang – RAND Corporation) China’s role in international development has grown along with its global ambition. However, the lack of standardized reporting and limited transparency often challenge policymakers’ and researchers’ efforts to understand China’s global health projects and their impact. To address this challenge, a RAND team built the China’s Health Assistance Projects Overseas (CHAPO) and an associated web tool that enables interactive visualizations of China’s health aid by recipient country and year, with descriptions for each project. The CHAPO web tool highlights projects that include China’s medical teams, which are the long-running flagship of China’s health aid, as well as the growing number of non–medical team projects. Researchers can download the public CHAPO dataset, which contains the data the web tool displays and additional data fields, to conduct their own research on the motivations and impacts of these projects. Details of the database are documented in a technical manual, also available for download. – Mapping China’s Health Assistance Projects Overseas | RAND

COP 29 (Azerbaijan)

(Chatham House) Azerbaijan hosts the UN’s 29th climate Conference of the Parties (COP29), from 11 to 22 November, at a critical moment for multilateral efforts to address climate change. Climate impacts are worsening, yet action is inadequate to the scale of the crisis. Most urgently, vastly more money – in the trillions of dollars – must be mobilized to support developing countries’ climate responses. Delivering an agreement on increased climate financing is the key task for COP29, and for Azerbaijan in guiding the summit’s negotiations. – Azerbaijan’s climate leadership challenge | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank

International Humanitarian Law 

(Maya Brehm, Eirini Giorgou – Just Security) Vast amounts of conventional arms and ammunition – from pistols, machine guns, bombs, and artillery shells and other explosive weapons to fighter jets and tanks – continue to flow, overtly and covertly, into some of the most brutal armed conflicts today. In many places – such as Israel and the occupied territories, Mali, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, to mention but a few – this influx of weapons fuels war; violence, including sexual and gender-based violence; and humanitarian crises. The booming arms trade, especially with parties to armed conflicts, has a bloody price. The widespread availability of arms exacts an unacceptable human toll: lives are lost or permanently altered by injury or trauma, and livelihoods destroyed. Poorly regulated and irresponsible transfers increase the risk that weapons are used to commit or facilitate violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) or other crimes. In turn, this hinders post-conflict reconstruction, recovery, and reconciliation, as well as human and socio-economic development in the long term. – International Humanitarian Law in Arms-Transfer Decisions (justsecurity.org)

Iran – Europe

(Matthew Levitt, Sarah Boches – The Washington Institute) In his latest update on national security threats against the United Kingdom, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum revealed that since January 2022, authorities contended with twenty Iranian-backed plots targeting UK citizens and residents. In these plots, he added, “Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies—from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks.” In fact, this is a trend seen across Europe. In September, investigators in Germany and France revealed, Iranian agents—who were acting through European drug traffickers living in Iran—hired European criminals to carry out surveillance of Jews and Jewish businesses in Paris, Munich, and Berlin over the past few months. Once arrested, one French criminal conceded that he was paid one thousand euros to take photographs of a target’s home in Munich in April. According to the French domestic intelligence service DGSI, “The Iranian services have adapted their modus operandi and now more systematically prefer to use people from criminal circles” to carry out their attacks abroad. Drawing on a dataset developed by one of the authors (Levitt), trend analysis clearly demonstrates that in the wake of a foiled 2018 Iranian bomb plot outside of Paris, which led to the arrest and conviction of an Iranian diplomat for his role in the plot, Iranian operational leaders, specifically IRGC and MOIS, have increasingly leveraged criminal networks as proxies to carry out attacks abroad to provide distance between Tehran and the operations abroad. The Washington Institute has produced an interactive map drawing on this dataset which depicts Iranian external operations—assassinations, abductions, intimidation and surveillance plots—around the world and shows a marked increase in Iranian operational activity in Europe, with many of these plots involving criminal recruits. – Iranian External Operations in Europe: The Criminal Connection | The Washington Institute

Maldives – India

(Radhey Tambi – Centre for Air Power Studies) After the election of Maldives’ President, Dr Mohamed Muizzu, in October 2023, analysts and security experts from the region and beyond minimised New Delhi-Malé ties to a ballot. The sceptics were partially true as the incumbent President rode on the ‘India Out’ campaign during the elections in 2023. However, the first state visit of Muizzu to India after the initial hiccups suggests that it is not easy to classify Maldives’ foreign policy either in favour of or against India. Neither would it be a cakewalk for the Maldives to put all its eggs in one basket by choosing India or China. However, after the rocky beginning under the Muizzu administration, the relationship seems to be settling down, and a shift has been noticed from limited engagement to firm commitment. Development, diversification, and decentralisation have emerged as the guiding star of the India-Maldives ties. It remains to be seen how the goodwill generated during the visit, with the MoUs signed, agreements undertaken, and the vision document jointly comprehended, will traverse through the next four years of the Muizzu administration and take the relationship forward amid the drifting regional and global politics. – Reflections on Muizzu’s First State Visit to India – CAPS India

Mediterranean, Middle East, and the Gulf 

(Neil Quilliam – Chatham House) Western political leaders were quick to argue that Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on 17 October presented an opportunity for a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages. US President Joe Biden immediately called on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize the moment to negotiate, now that Israel has achieved one of its war aims. – Sinwar’s death does not make Hamas–Fatah reconciliation more likely, whoever his successor may be | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank

(David Makovsky – The Washington Institute) The United States has a short window to advance crucial goals in Gaza and Lebanon, including efforts to draw in Gulf support, establish a legitimate post-Hamas entity, and urge Beirut to start reasserting its sovereignty. – How Blinken Can Seize Opportunity After the Deaths of Sinwar and Nasrallah | The Washington Institute

Morocco 

(Michaël Tanchum – Middle East Institute) A leader in renewable energy in the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco is developing a dynamic green energy ecosystem that is beginning to incorporate renewable power into major sectors of its economy. Moving forward, renewable energy and the green energy ecosystem hold significant potential to drive the creation of employment opportunities for its growing population. Indeed, the expansion of green industrial manufacturing and agricultural production in Morocco could become the engine of sustainable human development more broadly. This case study explores current and planned efforts to expand the kingdom’s renewable energy sector and green energy ecosystem, assessing the opportunities and challenges in using these new green industries as a driver of long-term employment, particularly among women, youth, and rural populations. – Renewable Energy and Morocco’s New Green Industries: How Morocco’s Green Energy Ecosystem Can Expand Women and Youth Employment through Sustainable Development | Middle East Institute (mei.edu)

Poland 

(John C. K. Daly – The Jamestown Foundation) Poland announced plans to build fortifications on its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad oblast and Belarus, with construction of the “Eastern Shield” defensive line to be completed by 2028. Poland is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) top military spender by percent of its GDP and is one of the leaders among the states of NATO’s eastern flank, who are preparing for a potential escalation of Russia’s war beyond Ukraine’s borders. Poland’s determination to safeguard its sovereign territory against Russia will hopefully both hearten Ukraine’s resistance and reinforce to other European partners the importance of continuing to support Ukraine against Russia. – Poland to Build Fortifications on Eastern Border by 2028 – Jamestown

Russia

(OSidharth Kaushal – RUSI) On 24 September 2024, Russia conducted a test of the RS-28 Sarmat heavy liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which was likely a catastrophic failure. Satellite imagery showed heavy damage to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome as well as fires in the woods surrounding the test site. This commentary will assess the potential causes of the test failure as well as its ramifications. – Russia’s Sarmat Test Failure: Implications for the Strategic Balance | Royal United Services Institute (rusi.org)

(Paul Globe – The The Jamestown Foundation) Russia is now facing a problem that did not exist in Soviet times and one that in the years since 1991, Moscow has denied exists now: the appearance in Moscow and other major cities of ethnic ghettos consisting of members of Central Asian migrants. This development is linked not only to the transformation of slums into ghettos as poorer immigrants replace the indigenous population but also about social attitudes and government policies that have driven the migrants to band together to defend themselves. All signs point to an intensification of Moscow’s anti-immigrant campaign and the exacerbation of rising crime and violence in Russia due to xenophobia, all of which come at a time when Russia faces severe labor shortages. – Moscow’s Anti-Migrant Campaign Accelerating Formation of Ethnic Ghettos in Russia – Jamestown

South Korea

(Joseph Dempsey – IISS) South Korea’s debut of its largest ballistic missile to date highlights its growing capacity to deter North Korea. However, Seoul remains secretive about the missile’s capabilities and role. – South Korea’s Hyunmoo-5 breaks cover (iiss.org)

Sri Lanka 

(R M Manivannan – ASPI The Strategist) The economic and political upheavals Sri Lanka has faced in recent years, including its 2022 debt default and the mass protests that ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, serve as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by poor governance and rampant inequality. – Sri Lanka’s long road to recovery | The Strategist (aspistrategist.org.au)

USA – China

(Keith Crane, Timothy R. Heath, Alexandra Stark, Cindy Zheng – RAND Corporation) Although U.S.-China trade tensions have waxed and waned for decades, they have remained persistently high since 2017. In this report, the authors assess the effectiveness of more-restrictive U.S. economic policies adopted toward China and pursued between 2017 and 2024. These policies include those aimed at addressing the U.S. dependence on imports from China, preventing U.S. technologies from being transferred to China, and supporting investment and production in domestic industries that are deemed critical for U.S. national security and technological leadership. The authors identify two main goals of these recent policies: promoting fairer trade and defending U.S. economic interests. In their policy review, they find that U.S. economic policies achieved limited progress in promoting fairer trade but a higher degree of success in defending U.S. economic-related interests. Finally, the authors present several policy recommendations to better achieve these two goals related to trade, industry, controls on technology, economic diplomacy, foreign investment, and diversification of supply chains away from China. – The Effectiveness of U.S. Economic Policies Regarding China Pursued from 2017 to 2024 | RAND

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