Diplomacy & Crisis News

The announcement that Saudi Arabia and Iran have restored diplomatic ties after seven years of tensions could result in significant changes in the Middle East. It not only stands to reset one of the region’s most violent rivalries but also exemplifies how China has become an influential player in regional affairs. Indeed, the joint statement issued from Beijing on March 10 committed both countries to respect each other’s sovereignty and to not interfere in each other’s internal affairs, to reopen their embassies in Tehran and Riyadh within two months, to revive a bilateral security pact, and to resume trade, investment, and cultural exchanges.

Occurring during a time of heightened fears of open conflict between Israel and a soon-to-be nuclear Iran, and after years of militant competition between Tehran and Riyadh across the region, this nascent rapprochement is undoubtedly positive. Yet the reactions in the United States and Israel suggest that the outcome—and perceptions of it—are more complicated. To its credit, the Biden administration welcomed the détente and stated that Riyadh had kept Washington informed of the talks’ progress. Yet the fact that it was Beijing that brought the Saudis and Iranians together—merely three months after Chinese president Xi Jinping was lavishly received in Riyadh in sharp contrast to U.S. president Joe Biden’s frosty reception six months earlier—has evidently smarted Washington.

Still, fears of American decline are overblown. China cannot (and is, in fact, not interested in) replacing the United States in the Middle East. The United States remains the region’s apex security provider, not only in terms of selling the most weapons to the region but also in terms of its on-the-ground military presence. But while Washington has squandered its time and resources toppling governments in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan and sanctioning Syria and Iran to ruin, China has forged ahead by investing in infrastructure and relationships. The Middle East is large enough for both China and the United States, and rather than panicking about every Chinese action, Washington would be better served by actually trying to compete with Beijing beyond the military sphere.

Moreover, despite Beijing’s growing importance to the Middle East, it is not China, but the United States, that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are asking to defend them. In this light, Israel’s anxiety that a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement will work against its interests is misplaced. Far from being “a fatal blow to the effort to build a regional coalition against Iran,” as former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennet tweeted, a reduction in regional tensions is good for Israel. Having the Saudis (and Chinese) press Iran on taking actions that enhance regional peace and stability can only help Israel, as Iranian intransigence will result in its international isolation. Moreover, this reconciliation—regardless of how meaningful it ultimately will be—has not duped Riyadh into believing that its many years of problems with Iran are behind it.

A decade ago, the late Saudi king Abdullah urged the United States to “cut off the head of the [Iranian] snake,” and that was before Iran had developed the sophisticated nuclear weapons capabilities that it has today. And it was only in September 2019 that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plotted and then executed a targeted drone attack on Saudi oil facilities that halved the kingdom’s oil production. In 2022, ballistic missiles and drones launched by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen were raining down on Saudi and Emirati cities with increasing regularity.

Just yesterday, one day before Saudi Arabia and Iran decided to allegedly bury the hatchet, Riyadh offered to normalize its relations with Israel in exchange for the United States guaranteeing Saudi security and aiding the Saudi nuclear program. One cannot help but ask why the U.S. military should commit to defending Saudi Arabia in exchange for something the Saudis are already doing and have a strong national interest in continuing. Yet it is also evident that “American weakness” is not what is pushing the Saudis to reduce tensions with Iran. The Saudis live in a dangerous region—occasionally made more dangerous by their own hands—and they will continue to diversify their relationships and seek security where they can.

In fact, even a U.S. security guarantee would not pull the Saudis decisively back into the U.S. camp, solve all the problems afflicting the Saudi-U.S. relationship, or end Riyadh’s efforts to reach a new security architecture with Iran. Instead, it will only codify the United States’ responsibility to defend Saudi Arabia, tying America’s soldiers to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s high tolerance for risk, and additionally comprise the United States by further involving it in the kingdom’s human rights abuses at home and abroad. It would also further stack the deck against Iran by formally throwing the weight of one of the world’s two superpowers behind Tehran’s foremost Islamic rival, thereby increasing the impetus for the Iranians to develop nuclear arms. If the United States is truly interested in supporting stability and competing with China in the Middle East, it needs to carefully extract itself from the region’s morass, not dive deeper in.

Adam Lammon is a former executive editor at The National Interest and an analyst of Middle Eastern affairs based in Washington, DC. The opinions expressed in this article are his own. Follow him on Twitter @AdamLammon

Image: Claudio Divizia/Shutterstock.

During the Cold War and well into the twenty-first century, some governments, military analysts, academics, and even novelists anticipated a third world war that could involve a global nuclear holocaust growing out of a crisis between Russians and Americans. A failure of deterrence between the two sides, however unlikely, could have unleashed unprecedented destruction that would have put at risk the entirety of human civilization. As one writer put it, the survivors would envy the dead—an outcome that never happened because President Ronald Reagan, building on the policies of presidents from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter, seized the moment to work with the Soviet Union, a policy embraced by his successors, including President Joe Biden. But, as he has pointed out, the Russian response to the U.S.-led Western support of Ukraine has increased the risk of a broader conflict.

Russia’s conflict against the people of Ukraine, now in its second year, is a war about political legitimacy and human rights. It is being fought across the globe by civilian and military “warriors” armed with ideas, economic strategies, and kinetic weapons. It is a conflict in which the very existence of liberal democracy and the international rules-based order is at stake. Who prevails in this war will determine whether international law, consensual government, and human decency will thrive and succeed in a region that is now free but was once part of the former Soviet Union.

This slow-rolling version of a new global conflict, as opposed to a nearly instant global apocalypse, is already in progress in Eastern Europe. Russia’s war against Ukraine is not only a series of tactical military engagements—Vladimir Putin is also fighting a war against the very foundations of the existing European system of states that once invited him to join, and the heritage of Western civilization. His concept of “Eurasianism” would replace a European order built on political democracy and market economics with one imposed by a Russian autocracy based on a twenty-first-century version of the former Russian empire. Unlike China, which has built financial institutions that could integrate into the Western economy, the Russian leader never developed the tools to allow for a broader economic integration with the rest of Europe. Instead, he isolated the Russian economy in a financial structure that he controls but is stagnant. This is both a power struggle and a war over values. Putin sees the democratic West as not only holding Russia back from rebuilding its former greatness, but also offering to the world a decadent set of political and moral guidelines and guardrails.

Unfortunately, Putin is not alone in his willingness to put aside the values of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment in favor of authoritarianism, imperialism, and autocracy. China, which the Biden administration and the Pentagon define as a pacing threat, is also attempting to expand its global influence and military power in order to reduce American influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Their recent surge of surveillance gathering balloons and other hostile intelligence collection activity is part and parcel of its current national security strategy. While Russia has placed its kinetic hitting power at the front end of its war against the West, China has preferred to develop strategic dependencies on Beijing via the Belt and Road Initaitive to the control of global infrastructure. As China’s military power increases, alongside the growing influence of its economic globalization, some of its leaders seek to position it once again to a position of global primacy akin to the Middle Kingdom—an outlook that the United States needs to keep in mind as we try to engage with them on global challenges, like climate change and food security.

In addition to China, Russia’s war against Ukraine is also supported by Iran and North Korea. They share a common dislike for the United States and its European and Asian allies, based not only on strategic calculation, but also on values antithetical to democratic pluralism. Their leaders identify themselves with unabashed ambitions for autocratic rule and military expansion, and are equally dismissive of human rights and accountability for abuses of power. Like all autocracies and authoritarian regimes, when challenged by dissident forces within their own societies, they place blame for their failures on foreign influence. In addition, Iran and North Korea support terrorism and subversion of other regimes and, in the latter case, issue repeatedly bellicose nuclear threats against neighboring states and others. But China’s reliance on a coalition that includes Iran and North Korea greatly threatens China’s current partnership with countries like Israel.

However, the current war over ideas does not only depend on the behavior of foreign state or non-state actors, relative to the interests of the United States and other Western democracies. The war of ideas is also being waged within Western democracies themselves. Proponents of anti-democratic ideas are finding willing audiences in the United States and elsewhere because of the ubiquitous means of global communication made available by modern technology. Some “apps” even offer seductive political content and messaging that can divide people against one another based on ideology, nationality, ethnicity, or other characteristics. A flood of divisive philosophical sewerage spills over from the basements of hatemongers into the higher reaches of foreign offices. The ability to create nearly instantaneous mobs of rage over misdescribed or otherwise sensationalized versions of events can create civil strife that places political order in imminent jeopardy. Terrorists no longer are limited to blowing up buildings. With modern technology, they can blow up national consensus on the most precious values that separate barbarians and autocrats from legitimate democratic leaders.

In sum: Vladimir Putin’s war against Western civilization, under the banner of reborn Eurasianism, is, in theory and in practice, a rearward march into a worse world. The current struggle is being fought within and across the boundaries of states, including the clash between the best ideas about civil society and the worst distortions of history’s lessons. It is important to remember that bad ideas can destroy just like smart bombs, which is why the Biden administration must keep its contacts with Russia open and its nuclear modernization program going.

Lawrence Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Stephen Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State, Brandywine.

Image: Shutterstock.

The forthcoming 2022 National Military Strategy’s (NMS) organizing principle is “strategic discipline.” Its “Theory of Success is to exercise Strategic Discipline to continuously calibrate Joint Force weight of effort between campaigning and rapidly building warfighting advantage to deter now and reduce future risk.” The inherent challenge with implementing this NMS is that strategic discipline requires senior military leaders to make hard choices and accept risk. They must go against the intrinsic incentive to prioritize their “watch” versus that of their successors. Strategic discipline contradicts leaders’ natural inclination and requires a truly strategic perspective that gives the future force a vote. This type of prioritization is an attribute that pundits claim is often lacking in national strategy documents. The 2022 NMS recognizes the Joint Force can't do everything well and won't try. Instead, it outlines clear, classified guidance for high thresholds of areas when and where the Joint Force will not assume risk; everywhere else it will. 

While leading the Joint Staff’s development of the 2022 NMS and attempting to ensure it drives future budget choices, I found it helpful to figuratively “run to the sound of the guns.” Young Army leaders in combat arms branches are taught this enables them to direct troops and assets to influence the battle from the critical place. Positioning themselves where they can observe key developments and direct fire and maneuver against enemy forces enables tactical leaders to make important decisions to prioritize how, when, and where to best overcome enemy advances and accomplish the mission. During the drafting of the NMS, we had to practice this same technique at the strategic level. We ran into friction points regarding differing perspectives on critical threat-related matters and uncertainty regarding the impact of the ongoing war in Ukraine. To resolve those conflicts, “tunning to the sound of the guns”—instead of shying away from the differences, always holding to our original position, or embracing least common denominator consensus positions—proved more effective. 

As anyone who has led similar efforts will attest, the development of important national military documents tends to pit strong-willed combatant commanders, service chiefs, policy leaders, and their staffs against each other. Adjudicating between their arguments can be a knife fight because the ultimate language either makes or breaks each organization’s future resource fight. Thus, informed by where they “sit,” leaders and staff members want important documents to prioritize certain threats and missions. Others recognize that they are the economy of force effort but attempt to have their command’s tasks added on as barnacles to various sections. It’s the military’s version of congressional “pork barrel” spending. It primarily benefits the “local interests” of one command by translating into more resources down the road while deluding the finances, manpower, and time available for the most important missions.

Time for Strategic Discipline

To avoid such diffusion of Joint Force resources, and despite the desire to be inclusive, we recognized that the NMS couldn’t be a consensus document, or it would be worthless. It had to make difficult choices and prioritize key missions over others. It does so, in the chairman’s words, by “biasing the future over the present.” General Mark Milley’s guidance is that the Joint Force will do that by emphasizing “strategic discipline” in calibrating between strategic ways of “Building Warfighting Advantage and Campaigning,” generally rebalancing toward the former versus the latter. 

The Joint Force has campaigned against near-term threats from violent extremist organizations for the past two decades. It has recognized for more than a decade the urgent need to modernize and prioritize preparation for a great-power war, part of what is meant by building warfighting advantage. The time has come for the pendulum to swing toward building warfighting advantage (a service-centric responsibility) while not neglecting the current campaigning necessary to deter adversaries as well as assure allies and partners (a combatant command mission). 

As then-director of the Joint Staff J-5, Vice Admiral Lisa Franchetti pointed out to the NMS development team, despite the decade-long recognition of a need to rebalance toward the Pacific and China that the Joint Force has struggled to prioritize accordingly. There is limited evidence of “strategic discipline” over that period. Nor has there been much in the way of building a warfighting advantage against great powers. Yet we realized the continuing and dire need for it. Thus, “strategic discipline” became the 2022 NMS’ organizing principle and central idea. I leveraged Franchetti’s insights with the NMS Council of Colonels working group, indicating that the military did not want to find itself in the same predicament in another ten years.

Running to the Sound of the Guns

As my team developed the 2022 National Military Strategy (NMS), we “ran to the sound of the guns” in a figurative and unconventional manner—and the strategy is better off for it. We obviously were not locked in mortal combat with the enemy as we outlined the NMS’ sections or penned its words. For us, running to the sound of the guns meant embracing the tension of different viewpoints on important issues. We came to realize that running to—instead of away—from such tension was where the figurative “money” was to be made.

Running away from the friction would have been easier. By running away, we could have tried to ignore the friction, include all the input we received, or allowed the NMS to be a consensus document. But seeking out the friction, asking “why” it existed, and what was behind each side’s recommendations was figuratively “running to the sound of the guns” in a way that made the NMS better. The friction points, where the “sound of the guns” was loudest, are where the decisive points were. It was in trying to decipher differing views that we could usually find a more creative, accurate, or just plain better solution. 

By so doing we positioned ourselves—like tactical leaders who’ve moved to the “sound of the guns” and can best influence the battle—to leverage the strongest assets we had for the greatest gain. On the battlefield, the most critical assets can be those that are the most lethal, like cannons, tanks, attack aviation, close air support, and armed drones. Other times, it may be the intelligence asset which provides the enemy’s location. Still other times it’s the logistics supply chain that provides much need ammunition, fuel, food, water, or other supplies. On other occasions, engineers that open a way through the obstacles may be most important. Our strongest assets were superb and contrasting input from the services, combatant commands, and Joint Staff. 

I didn’t always view the input of those outside the core writing team as our strongest assets. After a couple of times working through contrary opinions that caused us to rethink whether we had it right, it dawned on me: such mental gymnastics was often the key to success. We needed contrasting input to such tough questions as: Which country posed the greatest threat and in what ways? What other threats were worth mentioning? How could various threats be mentioned without diluting the Joint Force’s effort? How focused could the NMS be without causing the Joint Force to be surprised by a future threat? What was the Joint Force most likely to face from various threats? (The answers to these questions are classified, so I don’t address them here.)

Wrestling with difficult questions, and the dissenting opinions and contradictory input to answer those questions, was only one form of friction. Being ready for chairman touchpoints was another, completely different type. The team made sure we always had products ready to show our progress and several key questions ready should we be called to the chairman’s office on fifteen minutes’ notice. That was our effort to plan ahead for success and avoid the internal friction that comes from a lack of preparation. It ensured we were able to ask and receive the guidance we most needed at each point to continue developing the NMS within the chairman’s intent. 

Before these meetings, we dealt with what some would have deemed as the “too little guidance” friction point by leveraging Milley’s existing public record of speeches and posture testimony instead of wringing our hands. We then read between the lines and connected the strategic dots to move forward until we received confirmation of our direction or guidance steering us along a different azimuth. The chairman’s repeated public emphasis on the importance of modernization, not just of technology-centric platforms but also of novel concepts, is one area in this category. As Milley often champions, it is the side that best anticipates the character of future war and integrates new concepts with emerging capabilities and leader-directed training that enters the next war with an advantage. It doesn’t stop there. Strategy is iterative. The side that adapts most rapidly during wars retains or regains the advantage. We took this and developed three of our ten Joint Force tasks based on this guidance. Though Milley never told us to do that directly, he had indirectly. Guidance from our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings subsequently enabled proper prioritization when gathering input from the services (including the Coast Guard and the National Guard Bureau), the combatant commands, the Joint Staff Directorates, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and the State Department.

Developing the NMS while the Office of the Secretary of Defense was still writing the National Defense Strategy (NDS) presented its own friction-like challenges. How could we work with our “higher headquarters” in parallel, without lagging far behind? We had conducted an NMS speaker series for almost a year (fall 2020 to summer 2021) prior to our official kick-off in August 2021. We had guidance that at times seemed to contradict what we saw developing in the NDS. We handled these friction points by having a representative on the NDS team; a robust, prior, ongoing, and trusted set of relationships between our staff and the team from the Office of the Secretary of Defense; periodic sharing of drafts; attending each other’s working groups, Operational Deputies, Tanks, and Deputy Management Action Group (DMAG) meetings; and by deferring to NDS language in some cases. In other cases, as with other friction points, we arbitrated between arguments by returning to the organizing principle of strategic discipline and the chairman’s guidance. 

Trying to finalize the NMS during the ongoing war in Ukraine presented a final friction point as well as important questions that the team needed to address. Would the commander-in-chief send the U.S. military to intervene with boots on the ground? Even if not, how much had the war changed the security environment as defined in the NMS? Had defense priorities changed in order of relative importance? Did major lethal aid contributions from the United States demonstrate or contradict strategic discipline? We handled this friction point by asking the hard questions of the strategy, even if it would require major changes. We also showed Milley how we had updated the draft NMS based on the war in Ukraine and prioritized or aligned it with the then Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, the NDS, and his own guidance.

Concluding Outcomes

The National Military Strategy anticipates a great power conflict while pursuing ways to deter it. It attempts to remedy past failures to improve future readiness. It points us toward an approach that prioritizes warfighting preparedness and provides a risk management framework across both time and space. By prioritizing a single organizing principle, we avoided a least common denominator strategy. In other words, we avoided seeking a comfortable consensus in favor of strategic coherence. And by iterating with stakeholders throughout, we learned that contradictory input not only makes strategy development difficult, but it also provides opportunities “to run to the sound of the guns” and refine those ideas, ultimately producing a better strategy.

Colonel Bryan Groves is the Commanders’ Initiatives Group (CIG) Chief at U.S. Army Forces Command. Previously, during the development of the 2022 NMS, Bryan was the Strategy Development Division Chief on the Joint Staff (J-5). His team was responsible for stewarding its development, with primary input from the Services and Combatant Commands, on behalf of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.

Image: DVIDS.

With the war in Ukraine in its second year, it is easy to pass over the fact that in other parts of the former Soviet Union conflict, both hot and cold, has been ongoing since the early 1990s, mostly at Russia’s instigation. By exploiting a string of unrecognized states and provinces Moscow has maintained influence in its so-called “near abroad” for a generation after its empire’s collapse.

But, like Ernest Hemmingway’s quote on bankruptcy, the end has been coming first gradually, then suddenly. Russia’s geopolitical insolvency, actual but almost inconspicuous for a generation, is now emphatically laid bare everywhere, and Ukraine has been the catalyst.

The ouster late last month of Russian oligarch Ruben Vardanyan as state minister of the contested territory of Karabakh in the South Caucasus is the latest, startling demonstration of Russia’s departure from the scene. Parachuted to the region in November to stabilize the Kremlin’s crumbling control over the Armenian separatist-run enclave within Azerbaijan, the removal of Vardanyan will likely presage a peace agreement that has eluded the region for decades, precisely because it has been against Russian interests to advance one.

Just how fast Moscow’s great power shrinkage has accelerated in a region such as the Caucasus is stark. Merely two years ago Russia seemingly bestrode the place, single-handedly negotiating a ceasefire agreement in 2020 between ex-Soviet states Azerbaijan and Armenia following their vicious forty-four-day war. A U.S. attempt to end the conflict had fizzled; European Union efforts seemed supine. It was in Moscow with Vladimir Putin present that the leaders of both combatant countries signed the deal. In a shock to international observers, they even consented to Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh. This represented the first Russian boots on Azerbaijani soil since Soviet times.

Despite a five-year remit, Russia’s new military presence smelled permanent; but in the last twelve months that near-certainty has vanished. Armenian-Azerbaijan border skirmishes with the worse casualties since 2020 were not halted by Russian peacekeepers but rather by American pressure. The European Union has done the heavy lifting on peace talks, with negotiators reaching further and faster than ever before on interminable issues, from border demarcation to the exchange of landmine maps for prisoners. Most important of all, the EU has made headway in facilitating the first-ever direct talks between Azerbaijan and the Armenian separatists, paving the way to a potential agreement hinged around an enhanced minority status within a sovereign Azerbaijan.

With Russia becoming a bystander, Vardanyan was exported from Moscow to shake the tree. Installed as Karabakh “state minister” over the heads of the Armenian government, the traditional guiding hand of separatist politics, Vardanyan spoke openly of fighting Azerbaijan, waged a public war of words with the Armenian prime minister, and raised the stakes by opening gold mines in the territory and exporting their contents. Some of his supporters in the Karabakh “parliament” even called for the enclave to become a territory of the Russian Federation. The intention so clearly was to fan flames that only the Kremlin would then be able to extinguish.

At any other point over the last thirty years, the imposition on the Karabakh political scene of this Armenian-born businessman—who made billions in Russia, where he had lived since 1985—might have stuck. But at no other point in those thirty years would it have been necessary for Russia to place one of their own into this position to maintain influence. Evaporating fear of Moscow’s power, so clearly wanting in Ukraine, made it necessary for an intervention while at the same time removing its effectiveness.

Vardanyan’s fall is proof of the region’s liberation from Moscow’s oversight. The oligarch’s role triggered previously unthinkable criticism of Russia from both Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders at last month’s Munich Security Conference. “Ask him, ‘Who sent you to Karabakh and why? Why did you cause a split within the Karabakh authorities [with the Armenian government]?’ Of course, the Russians sent him. Who else could send him?” said Gagik Melkonian, a senior advisor to Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan. The day before, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said at the Conference: “We are ready to start practical communications with Karabakh’s Armenian community…But we can only move forward with it when Ruben Vardanyan, a Russian citizen, organized crime oligarch, and a person who laundered money in Europe, leaves your territory.”

Now, Vardanyan is out, and peace talks will resume. The chances of Russia’s peacekeepers lasting beyond the remainder of their five-year mandate look vanishingly slim. Armenians are considering the previously unspeakable, even of cutting off Russian energy supplies and connecting with those of their petrostate former archenemy Azerbaijan. Azerbaijanis are speaking of reconciliation with those who they allege committed war crimes against them a generation ago.

None of this would surely be happening had Moscow been able to sustain its regional deep freeze. But it could not. Now, with Russia’s last stand in the Caucasus over, a roadblock to peace is removed. The signs of the thaw are everywhere.

Mat Whatley is a British army veteran. He is also the former head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Donetsk, Ukraine, the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia, and an OSCE spokesman in former Yugoslavia.

Image: Pavel Byrkin/Shutterstock.

If Russia is victorious in Ukraine, the Black Sea will again be a Russian lake, with its littoral states at Moscow’s mercy. All of democratic Europe’s efforts to replace Gazprom supplies with Azerbaijani gas and other suppliers in the region will have come to naught.

But if Russia falls short of outright victory in Ukraine?

Enter Hungary, Europe’s new gas station. For the last year, Hungarian prime minister Victor Orbán has been bolstering Hungarian credentials around the Black and Caspian Seas, appearing in forums as diverse as the Organisation of Turkic States and the Eurasian Development Bank. Orbán is working overtime to establish Hungary as a key conduit for expanded gas resources coming from southern Europe. In late October 2022, Georgia and Hungary signed a strategic cooperative agreement. In January 2023, Hungary and Azerbaijan came together for their own strategic partnership. Most recently, the foreign ministers from Budapest and Tashkent reached their own accord. Serbia remains game to transit Russian energy to Hungary; a cross-border interconnection is in the works. Further southeast, Hungarian politicos were in Sofia meeting pro-Moscow officials in President Ruman Radev’s caretaker government last August.

To Hungary’s southwest, its massive MOL Group has been transporting increasing amounts of liquified natural gas from Croatia’s regasification terminal on Krk Island. An interconnector between Hungary and Slovenia is planned, as is the introduction of bidirectional capacity between Austria and Hungary. Doubling down, gas operators in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Hungary penned an MOU for a bidirectional gas corridor. All roads lead to Budapest.

Taken together, Orbán is riding Europe’s collective shift away from Russian energy to make Hungary a key gas transit hub. As Hungary’s prime minister, it’s his prerogative to bolster Hungary’s economy with transit revenue, low energy prices, and a diversified supplier portfolio. But while he works to increase gas supplies from southern Europe, Orbán is locking Hungary into a long-term, energy-based client relationship with Moscow.

A case in point: the Paks II nuclear powerplant today generates nearly 50 percent of Hungarian consumers’ energy needs. This plant is exclusively serviced by Russian energy giant ROSATOM. As such, in January 2023, Orbán firmly declared that Hungary will veto any proposed EU sanctions on Russia’s nuclear energy industry. Another case: Hungary plans to eliminate its Russian gas dependence—by 2050.

The energy comes with strings. Or rather, it comes with iron chains. Budapest hosts twice the number of Moscow’s diplomatic corps than are in Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw combined. Orbán not only adamantly refuses to send arms to the Ukrainian military, but has worked overtime to hold up EU aid packages to Kyiv.

All indicators suggest that Orbán intends to keep Russian energy sources on tap for decades to come—in exchange for seemingly selling the Kremlin a base for European mischief and a permanent veto in Brussels.

Despite all these developments, Brussels appears unalarmed. Indeed, there are elites throughout EU Member States who callously wish the war would “just go away.” And on the other side of the Atlantic, Putin’s proxy is the European darling among Trumpian Republicans. Their disconnect between the Russo-Ukrainian War, Hungary’s open support for Russia, and U.S. energy security is puzzling, especially given the interconnectivity of global energy markets. CPAC adherents and fans of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson identify with Orbán’s social conservatism, align with his anti-immigration stance, and grin approvingly at his “stick-it-to-the-EU” rhetoric. Are passing culture wars worth the price of the collective security of the United States and our allies?

Viktor Orbán is Vladimir Putin’s man in Brussels and beyond, despite the threats to NATO. As he links up with fellow authoritarian-trending travelers along these gas routes, Orbán’s multiple acts of Russian allegiance should ring alarm bells in Western capitals. Is anyone listening?

Richard Kraemer is the president of the US-Europe Alliance and a senior non-resident fellow at the European Values Center for Security Policy in Prague, Czech Republic.

Let the challenges begin. The recent decision by Mexican legislators to cut the budget and staff of the thirty-three-year-old National Electoral Institute (INE) has sparked widespread protests and garnered front-page coverage worldwide. “Plan B,” which was recently approved by the Mexican Senate, includes provisions that could undermine the independence of the INE and limit its ability to carry out its work effectively. This decision is a concerning development for Mexico’s democracy, which has long relied on the agency to promote transparency, accountability, and free and fair elections. After President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s decision to publish the electoral reform in the official gazette on March 1, the electoral reform entered into force on March 3, 2023.

Specifically, the law would give the Mexican government greater control over the INE’s budget and staffing decisions, undermining the agency’s independence. The law would also establish new social media and online campaigning regulations that some critics have argued could limit freedom of speech and the ability of opposition parties to reach voters and participate in the electoral process.

During the 2018 elections, the INE implemented several measures to promote transparency and accountability in the electoral process. For example, the agency developed a new system for tallying votes that allowed results to be reported in real-time. It also implemented new campaign financing regulations that limited the amount of money that candidates could spend on their campaigns. Additionally, the INE conducted a comprehensive voter education campaign to increase voter turnout and ensure that voters were informed about the issues and candidates in the election. 

But this progress could be at stake for the next presidential election cycle, which officially starts on September 2 of this year, and coincides with the United States’ own election cycle. Importantly, the Mexican constitution states that there can be no changes to the Mexican electoral law in the 90 days leading up to the date when the electoral season officially kicks off. Therefore, any attempts by the opposition and civil society to push back against the reform must happen in the next six months. The Mexican Supreme Court is poised to continue playing an important role in promoting the integrity and independence of the electoral process in Mexico and in ensuring that the agency can carry out its work effectively, especially as the window for challenges to the reform is purposefully short. 

It is critical for the international community—especially the United States—to continue supporting and assisting the INE and civil society organizations on the ground. One important way to do so is through financial and technical assistance—via non-profits that support free and fair elections worldwide, like the International Foundation for Electoral Systems—by working with local partners. The United States, via USAID or the Department of State, can als assist with funding for election monitoring and technical assistance to help the INE carry out its work effectively. And the U.S. Congress can earmark appropriations that tick these boxes. 

Ultimately, promoting free and fair elections in Mexico will require a sustained commitment from all stakeholders to protect the independence of the agency and other sister institutions and to ensure that the electoral process is transparent and accountable. The recent developments surrounding the electoral reform bill highlight the urgent need for continued vigilance and action to protect democracy in Mexico, especially given our shared border. By assisting, whether financial or technical, promoting the development of a robust and independent civil society, and supporting the work of the Mexican Supreme Court, we can help ensure that Mexico’s democracy remains strong and vibrant. The recent protests and front-page stories about the INE’s budget cuts and staff reductions highlight the urgency of this issue, which is now official in all but the two Mexican states with upcoming local elections, and why it matters not just to Mexico but to the entire world.

Maria Fernanda Bozmoski is deputy director for programs at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. @MariaBozmoski

Image: Shutterstock.

Relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have thrived over recent decades, deepening links in energy, trade, politics, and culture. The GCC states play a crucial role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and westward expansion, owing to its favorable geographic position and proximity to the Red Sea. The Sino-Gulf monarchies’ economic exchange is not limited solely to energy and chemicals (although it is a central dimension in the relationship), nor operates in one direction. Instead, it has become a bidirectional process that has diversified and deepened at either end to include the development of renewable forms of energy, construction of infrastructure, and transport. In addition, it has also begun to move into other, more advanced, value-added forms of economic activity, including investments in finance, tourism, and the digital economy. At the same time, the PRC has also invested in port development and industrial parks along the coastline of the Arabian Peninsula as part of its Maritime Silk Road Initiative ambitions.

But with the Persian Gulf’s reemergence as an arena of great power competition, the United States takes a concerned view of the PRC’s entry into the region. Much of Washington’s current stress stems from efforts to curb China’s growing global economic, technological, and geopolitical influence. Intensifying full-spectrum rivalry—involving military, trade, financial, and technical power—will increase the risk that the GCC states become the focus of American and Chinese attempts to align with their respective policies and not with their rival’s.

GCC monarchies are thus in a delicate position, where they must strive for greater autonomy by reducing their susceptibility to strategic great power competition. Nonetheless, the speed with which the U.S.-China rivalry has intensified has created an incredibly precarious situation for the GCC states’ foreign policy.

Different Approaches

The GCC governments face a new geopolitical and commercial calculus, with new pressures on managing their national security and economic development. The Biden administration has not hesitated to pressure the GCC monarchies, since it perceives certain aspects of their cooperation with China (especially in technological innovation) as damaging to American national security. The GCC states themselves are aware of increasing American concerns about China and do not want to get caught in a conflict between the two. Nevertheless, the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China pressures the GCC monarchies to side with one of the two powers. These states are trying to navigate between their most important ally and defense guarantor on the one hand, and their increasingly important economic partner and a rising regional player on the other.

While maintaining their strategic alliance with the United States, some Gulf countries also seek to hedge themselves against the threats by establishing ties with other powers, such as China, to protect themselves from the increasingly vulnerable geopolitical balance of power. This hedging policy—a fixed element in their political toolkit—aims to use China as an additional source of political, economic, and even military support, all of which can be levered to pressure the United States to adjust its policy. However, despite doubts about Washington’s commitment to their security, Gulf states recognize that there is no substitute for the U.S. military presence in the region.

Unsurprisingly, although the Gulf states share a common skepticism of Washington’s future commitment to the region, their attitudes vis-à-vis China and great power rivalry differ significantly. These views can be divided into three groups: the “hedging states” (Saudi Arabia and the UAE), the “balancing states” (Qatar and Oman), and the “cautious states” (Kuwait and Bahrain). The strategies pursued by each state will eventually test the region’s security and stability, possibly dividing the GCC.

The Biden administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and review America’s military presence in the rest of the Middle East—whether it be by cutting U.S. military support for the Saudi-led offensive against Houthi rebels in Yemen, or moving ships, forces, and weapons systems out of other Gulf countries towards the Pacific theater—has come at the expense of American presence in the region. Yet at the same time, in the age of great power rivalry, Washington cannot play the role alone of the policeman in the Persian Gulf in the way it has in the past—it has other priorities. The United States must find a way to reduce its military presence in the Persian Gulf while at that same time driving GCC states to step in and fill these gaps. This means Washington needs its Gulf partners to be capable of defending themselves, rather than remain militarily and logistic dependent on U.S. support in every regional conflict. For instance, the eight-year-long military campaign in Yemen and the fight against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels has displayed Gulf state deficiencies.

More importantly, although this approach is oriented towards encouraging the GCC states to defend themselves against foreign threats, it also allows them greater autonomy in maneuvering in the great power competition: GCC states will be free ot further develop economic and technological collaboration with China without threatening the overarching strategic-security partnership with the United States as long as those measures do not provide Beijing with an undue strategic foothold in the region.

American Options

Given all this, what are the options facing the Biden administration, and what should be the next step in relations with the GCC states?

If the GCC states want to maintain their strategic-security partnership with the United States, they must align with Washington in its rivalry with Beijing The Biden administration expects that its allies in the Gulf may have to make stark and brutal choices between the two great powers instead of attempting to play off both sides. A renewed American commitment to regional engagement might help to tip the balance. As such, a strengthening of the strategic-security partnerships will influence how the GCC monarchies’ decisionmaking.

The U.S. strategic-security partnership (arms sales and regional security guarantees) is the tiebreaker and game changer in stabilizing relations with its Gulf partners and competing with China for regional influence. This “trump card” creates a military umbilical cord that binds and aligns the GCC states with Washington. The Gulf states recognize that there is no substitute for U.S. military presence in the Gulf to block Iranian aggression. Hence, the extent to which the U.S. will remain committed to the GCC states security should be a function of the nature and degree of strategic proximity of their relationship with China. Nevertheless, it takes two to tango, and the GCC states must show they are responsible partners and loyal. In contrast, the Biden administration needs to as it seeks to reconfigure its reliability in everything related to its regional security obligations.

Dr. Mordechai Chaziza holds a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University and is a senior lecturer at the Department of Politics and Governance and the division of Multidisciplinary Studies in Social Science, at Ashkelon Academic College (Israel). Dr. Chaziza is the author of China and the Persian Gulf: The New Silk Road Strategy and Emerging Partnerships (2019), China’s Middle East Diplomacy: The Belt and Road Strategic Partnership (2020), and The New Silk Road Grand Strategy and the Maghreb: China and North Africa (2022).

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March 8 is celebrated around the world as International Women’s Day. It’s an especially fitting occasion to reflect on the success of a woman who is quickly becoming one of the world’s most important political figures: Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

Meloni's success transcends gender. Not only is she the G7’s only female leader, but according to Morning Consult’s “Global Leader Approval Ratings,” the Italian prime minister boasts the highest level of domestic approval out of all G7 political leaders. Meloni is the only leader in the group to have the support of the majority of her co-nationals, with a 54 percent approval rating that dwarfs that of her international counterparts.

President Joe Biden enjoys the support of only 42 percent of the American public, with a majority of the American people sharing a negative opinion of his presidency thus far. Further north, things are even gloomier for Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has a mere 39 percent approval rating and the disapproval of 55 percent of Canadians surveyed.

Things aren’t any better for German chancellor Olaf Scholz or British prime minister Rishi Sunak. The former enjoys a paltry 36 percent approval rating, with nearly 60 percent of Germans surveyed expressing a negative opinion of the Chancellor. Less than a third of Brits have a favorable opinion of Sunak. Scholz and Sunak look like superstars, however, when compared to Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida: only 23 percent of those surveyed reported a positive opinion of the man, with more than 60 percent of the Japanese public sharing negative views.

Finally, French president Emmanuel Macron, who struts across the international stage as the self-styled leader of Europe, is the G7 leader most disliked by his own citizens, with nearly 70 percent of the French public holding an unfavorable impression of the man. Macron’s unpopularity was evident in the recent parliamentary elections, in which Macron lost the legislative majority.

Meloni’s strong popularity with Italians comes from her political tenacity and coherence as well as staying in touch with everyday concerns. She is generally recognized as a self-made person and—being herself from a storied working-class neighborhood—as a champion of the lower and middle classes. She is also very strong-minded on matters of national interest, and in foreign policy, she is taking an unusually unequivocal geopolitical stance for an Italian prime minister: firmly anchored in the Western alliance and hard-nosed on China and Russia.

Today, Meloni is not only the most popular leader in the G7; her youth, talent, and popularity suggest her stature on the international scene will continue to grow for years to come, which is something that cannot be said with confidence of her colleagues. Not bad for the “underdog”—as she referred to herself in her inauguration speech—who has relied on her own determination and ability to make a name for herself. On this International Women’s Day, therefore, let us praise the emerging leadership of this woman who has already become one of the most prominent and promising leaders in international politics.

Alexander Alden is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former Department of State, National Security Council, and Department of Defense official.

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Hezbollah’s endorsement of Suliman Frangieh for the Lebanese presidency was a long-anticipated event, which became official during a televised speech by the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, on Monday evening. Nasrallah declared, “the candidate we support is Suliman Frangieh.”

There was no ambiguity among the Lebanese people about the pro-Iranian Shite movement’s preference for Frangieh as Michel Aoun’s successor, whose mandate ended in October 2022. However, it was also clear which political parties and actors would vehemently oppose this decision.

There is already growing dissent among some groups about Hezbollah’s endorsement of Suliman Frangieh, which they view as unacceptable. The opposition is not necessarily aimed at Frangieh himself, but rather the process of how he is being presented, which is perceived as a “take it or leave it” style of politics. Speaking to me, Najat Saliba, a new member of parliament, expressed her disapproval of Frangieh’s endorsement and the manner in which it is being carried out, saying, “This is using force to impose a candidate on everyone. I think the democratic process requires that the person announces his candidacy for the presidency. He has not done so. If Hezbollah wants this person as a candidate, they should let him advance his candidacy and let democracy prevail.” According to Najat, the approach being used is not the normal procedure used by democratic countries to elect presidents. “The use of force is obvious here, and the intentions are not aimed at building a country and respecting democracy. It is the opposite; it is imposing their own candidate in the form of a dictatorship.”

A spokesperson for Lebanese Forces (LF), an opposition political party, has responded to Nasrallah’s speech and clarified his party’s position on the issue of the presidency. The spokesperson stated, “It has been clear from day one that Hezbollah supports Mr. Frangieh, so the declaration came as no surprise. Therefore, we do not feel the need to respond to Nasrallah’s declaration, but we want to emphasize that it confirms our concerns and positions.” The spokesperson criticized Nasrallah for not sending his MPs to the parliament since September 29, which was the date of the first session to elect a president. Instead, he wasted eleven sessions and more than four months of blank ballots, obstructing the course of the constitution and preventing the election of a president. The spokesperson suggested that Nasrallah should have sent his MPs to vote for Mr. Frangieh earlier, rather than waiting until now to make the endorsement public.

When asked if there were any circumstances under which the LF could view Frangieh as a viable option, the party spokesperson responded by stating that “we tend not to argue about the persona of Mr. Frangieh, since we believe it is not individual who will really govern, but rather the program and the alliances he can forge. And although we have developed good relations with him, Mr. Frangieh is unfortunately aligned with Hezbollah’s program, which we totally oppose.” The spokesperson added that the majority of the Lebanese people also oppose Hezbollah’s program, as evidenced by the last elections last May.

If Frangieh wishes to become the next president, he would need the support of a major Christian bloc in parliament, which he currently lacks. It is possible that Hezbollah is banking on the situation becoming so desperate that the opposition will eventually concede, hoping to salvage some sort of victory.

Such a scenario has occurred previously: in 2016, the LF’s leader, Samir Geagea, endorsed Michel Aoun through the Maarab Agreement in exchange for a number of concessions. That endeavor ultimately failed. Since then, the LF has learned its lesson and is holding the line against making any deals with candidates that receive the blessing of Hezbollah. Geagea himself has repeatedly said his party would reject Frangieh entering office.

Like Michel Aoun, Suleiman Frangieh was an old rival of the LF from the Lebanese Civil War. However, in 2018, thanks to meditation by Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Beshara Boutros Rai, both individuals and their respective parties reconciled. This, however, did not mean the two have a common vision for the country: the LF is still insistent that no pro-Hezbollah president should enter the presidential palace, and stressed it will boycott such proposals.

The LF is not alone in its disapproval, albeit for different reasons. 

In response to Nasrallah’s speech, a parliamentarian from the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Salim Aoun (no relationship with Michel Aoun), tweeted that his party is aligned with either side.

Until recently, Hezbollah and FPM were close allies. They signed a memorandum of understanding in 2006—the Mar Mikhael Agreement. At the time, Hassan Nasrallah and then-FPM leader Michel Aoun met to forge an alliance that would bring both parties greater prestige and resources. Now, the two have unofficially separated due to Hezbollah’s endorsement of Frangieh. The current leader of FPM, Gebran Bassil, has presidential ambitions of his own, and has refused to go along with endorsing Frangieh.

In Lebanon’s sectarian system, the top posts are typically divided among the country’s different religious confessions. The presidency belongs to the Maronite Christians. In a manner of speaking, the position has become a seat for the voiceless. This time, however, there is a candidate who may become president but has no Maronite Christian backing. Of course, in the unforeseeable world of Lebanese politics, anything is possible. But as of now, the response to Frangieh is a resounding no.

Adnan Nasser is an independent foreign policy analyst and journalist with a focus on Middle East affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Adnansoutlook29.

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As the U.S. intelligence community ramps up its warnings that China is considering arming the Russian war machine in Ukraine, many the world over are worried.

They believe what Tobias Ellwood, an influential British member of parliament, and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a retired British Army colonel and fellow at Cambridge University, have written in the British press: that this is the beginning of a new Cold War. Unequivocally, they write, this is the start of a new phase: double or quits.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that China is in late-stage negotiations to supply Russia with kamikaze drones—a supplement to the Iranian Shaheed drones Russia has already made extensive use of in its war in Ukraine. The newspaper also reports that a China-affiliated cut-out firm plans to deliver the blueprints and training to allow Russia to produce Chinese drones—about 100 per month—on the equivalent of a license.

CIA Director William J. Burns has insisted that the United States has no evidence of current arms deliveries from China to Russia, nor does it know that a decision to supply Russia has been officially made. But the fact that Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, visited Moscow on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, many say, makes his country’s intentions very clear.

Many have seemingly forgotten that before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin held a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China, where the two men declared their countries’ “friendship without limits.” That has not been repudiated at any time since Russia launched its war days after the Xi-Putin meeting.

While it might be possible to confect a story of limited Chinese patience with Russian imperialism—spinning Chinese abstention in votes at the United Nations and Chinese leaders cautioning their Russian counterparts over the possibility of nuclear use—this would be a distortion of the facts. China is in Russia’s corner in Ukraine—and has been from the very beginning.

For the past year, China has happily bought Russian commodities—both oil and gas—in defiance of international sanctions. Chinese firms have also skirted international sanctions on both financial products and high technology, building a sophisticated machine of false companies, phoney intermediaries, and jurisdictional loopholes to ensure that the Russian war machine gets its fix of Chinese technology.

What has been successfully done for North Korea over the past eighty years—immense Chinese support camouflaged and sandbagged—is now beginning to be done for Russia. This connection will only intensify as the Russian economy runs into longer-term structural problems caused by deficit financing, capital controls, the closing of foreign markets for Russian hydrocarbons, technology shortages, artificial deflationary measures, and more.

Russia is increasingly dependent on China for capital and resources, and far from seeing this as a needs-must operation, or an opportunistic example of exploiting a weaker partner, the Chinese state is effectively propping up Russia for geopolitical reasons.

All this despite what Chinese officials declare when they talk to the Western press.

There is a vital lesson to learn here: what China says, especially through media outlets based in democracies, is not identical to what it wants—or even what it does. What China says to the West is very different from what its leaders say in Chinese to their own people.

Chinese state media is resolutely behind Russia’s invasion; its correspondents embed with Russian forces, interview Russian propagandists and government officials, and spread a view of the world entirely analogous to Vladimir Putin’s most paranoid fantasies. The world of Chinese state media is one in which the state blames the United States and NATO for forcing Russia into this war—a war that must be won in order to defeat the “American way of geopolitics” and usher in the “multipolar world” of Russian and Chinese dreams.

Whatever Chinese diplomats say to the Western public, their leaders are promoting a Russian victory in Ukraine—above all else, to teach the Americans a lesson.

As Foreign Policy’s James Palmer writes, “Anti-U.S. sentiment in Chinese state media has ramped up since the spy balloon crisis began. Much of it has focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Chinese outlets portray as a righteous response to NATO aggression.”

This is the true face of China’s policy towards Ukraine, in which aid to Russia is morally justified and can be used as a ratchet to punish an American ally and prove American and European geopolitical efforts worthless.

As I write in my recent book, autocracies work together to prop up their shared views of the world—to make the world safe for tyranny. China was always going to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by whatever means it had available. This is something policymakers should have expected from the beginning.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has vowed that China will face tremendous consequences, including sanctions, if it does indeed directly arm Russia. It is his job to ensure that, in this likely event, he keeps his word and ensures that American policy does not wriggle out of doing what may soon be grimly necessary.

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a Director at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington DC and Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute U.S. Army War College.

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A new and more dangerous nuclear era has now dawned. The United States is now approaching a geostrategic environment in which not a single nuclear warhead, anywhere in the world, is covered by an arms control treaty. Indeed, new treaties are needed to strengthen strategic stability and deterrence in this new era.

As recently described by Senator Debra Fischer of Nebraska and Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado, two top leaders in Congress on nuclear matters, five major developments promise to undermine strategic stability and credible deterrence for the United States and its allies.

These include: (1) Russia’s continued and multiple threats to use nuclear weapons in Moscow’s war against Ukraine; (2) China’s breathtaking projected increase in nuclear weapons deployments including the building of 360 new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos, placing China’s ICBM launcher count above that of the United States; (3) the Iranian government, which controls the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, being on the cusp of building nuclear warheads as it enriches uranium well within the range of having weapons-grade material; (4) North Korea’s massive increase in missile testing; and (5) Russia’s on and off again compliance with the New START Treaty that is set to expire in 2026 if not renewed or replaced.

Note also the connection between the current armed conflicts in the world and these four “brothers in mayhem,” as one could describe China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The war against Ukraine is solely Russia’s design, while the other three either send Russia armaments or financial assistance including drones and missiles.

China and Russia now routinely exercise their militaries together including in the South China Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Arctic, working together to intimidate Japan, Australia, and the Republic of Korea, as the region also worries about the invasion or blockade threats to Taiwan.  

Similarly, the deployment and launch of hypersonic weapons by Russia or China from the Arctic, when taking into account ice shrinkage for part of the year, would bring such missile threats to within a few minutes of the continental United States.

Meanwhile, Iran makes war against Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf, with guerilla war and hosting terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, while building a massive missile inventory. Now it seeks to build armament factories in Syria and Russia to avoid supply chain delays.

And North Korea, despite famine, launched more ballistic and cruise missile tests (fifty-four) in the past year than in the previous five years combined, all in the service of its continued invasion designs on the Republic of Korea and its international criminal enterprises.

In response to all four regional nuclear threats, the administration and its allies in Europe and Asia have generally joined together to propose more arms control.

Just this week, for example, the United States told Russia that it is ready to sit down and discuss New START and the future of arms control.

The United States has said the same to China, although the Chinese Communist Party has so far rejected any discussions out of hand, occasionally asserting discussions can take place only when the United States reduces its nuclear arsenal to no more than the (unknown) level of China’s deployed weapons.

The United States appears ready to continue talking with North Korea about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, although the North continually asserts its nuclear forces are to stay to counteract the “hostile” policy of the United States toward Pyongyang.

As for Iran, the United States has made major concessions on trade and related sanctions, and continues to hope that the moribund Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action can be restored, bringing an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

The common thread among all of these efforts is the lack of any serious pushback against what these countries are doing. Serial violations of every nuclear arms deal have been documented by the U.S. Department of State for decades, starting as far back as the 1972 SALT nuclear arms Treaty, and yet Russia has not paid any serious price. 

It is clear that arms control has failed to constrain the nuclear capabilities of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. When combined, formal arms control agreements apply—at best—to an estimated 33%-50% of the approximately 6,600 nuclear weapons held collectively by the four states. And that limiting function may decline to zero over the next decade, just as China’s nuclear force expands and New START expires, further eroding what transparency and predictability remain in the world’s nuclear arsenals.

Peter Huessy is the President of Geostrategic Analysis.

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