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Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

Russia’s current economic situation is surprisingly similar to Ukraine’s, although almost all trade between Russia and Ukraine has ceased. After two years of around 4 percent economic growth in 2023 and 2024, Russia is expecting growth of merely 1.5 percent this year, while official inflation is 10 percent. Since October 2024, the Central Bank of Russia has maintained an interest rate of 21 percent while complaining about stagflation.

The Russian and Ukrainian economies are both suffering from their extreme focus on the military sector. Including Western support, Ukraine’s military expenditure amounts to about $100 billion a year, which is no less than 50 percent of Ukraine’s GDP, with 30 percent coming from the Ukrainian budget in 2024. Meanwhile, Russia’s 2025 military expenditure is supposed to be $170 billion or 8 percent of GDP. Unlike the Ukrainians, the Russians complain about the scale of military spending. This makes sense. The Ukrainians are fighting an existential war, while Russia’s war is only existential for Putin.

Contrary to common perceptions, Russia does not have an overwhelming advantage over Ukraine in terms of military expenditure or supplies. Russia does spend significantly more than Ukraine, but much of this is in reality stolen by politicians, generals, and Putin’s friends. Furthermore, Western sanctions impede the Russian military’s ability to innovate. In contrast, Ukraine benefits from innovation because its economy is so much freer, with hundreds of startups thriving in areas such as drone production.

Russia is now entering a fiscal crunch. Its federal expenditures in 2024 amounted to 20 percent of GDP and are likely to stay at that level in 2025, of which 41 percent goes to military and security. However, the Kremlin has financed its budget deficit of about 2 percent of GDP with its national welfare fund, which is expected to run out by the end of the current year. As a result, Russia will likely be forced to reduce its public expenditures by one-tenth.

Low oil prices could add considerably to Russia’s mounting economic woes and force a further reduction in the country’s public expenditures. However, Israel’s attack on Iran may now help Putin to stay financially afloat by driving the price of oil higher.

Economically, this is a balanced war of attrition at present. Ukraine’s Western partners have the potential to turn the tables on Russia if they choose to do so. Ukraine has successfully built up a major innovative arms industry. What is missing is not arms but funds. The West needs to double Ukraine’s military budget from today’s annual total of $100 billion to $200 billion. They can do this without using their own funds if they agree to seize approximately $200 billion in frozen Russian assets currently held in Euroclear Bank in Belgium. This could enable Ukraine to outspend Russia and achieve victory through a combination of more firepower, greater technology, and superior morale.

Anders Åslund is the author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy.”

The 2025 Group of Seven (G7) Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, on June 15-17 will take place amid a growing recognition of the importance of digital resilience. This is especially apparent in Canada, the summit’s host country and current G7 president. Following his election win, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the creation of a new Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation. This bold step positions Canada to champion a digital resilience agenda at the summit that unites security, economic growth, and technological competitiveness while strengthening the resilience of its partners and allies.

The G7 must seize this opportunity to advance a coherent, shared framework for digital policy, one that is grounded in trust, reinforced by standards, and aligned with democratic values. To do so, it can build on some of the insights from the Business Seven (B7), the official business engagement group of the G7. The theme of this year’s B7 Summit, which was held from May 14 to May 16, in Ottawa, Canada, was “Bolstering Economic Security and Resiliency.” The selection of this theme emphasized the importance of defending against threats and enhancing the ability of societies, governments, and businesses to adapt and recover.

In the spirit of that theme, the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center, in partnership with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative and the Europe Center, convened a private breakfast discussion alongside the B7 in Ottawa on May 15. The roundtable brought together government officials, business leaders, and civil society representatives to discuss how digital resilience can be strengthened within the G7 framework. The participants laid out foundational principles and practical approaches to building digital resilience that support economic security and long-term competitiveness. As G7 leaders gather for the summit in Kananaskis later this month, they should consider these insights on how its member states can work together to bolster their digital resilience.

1. Develop a common language for shared goals on digital sovereignty

When developing a common framework, definitions (or taxonomy) are critical. Participants emphasized that shared vocabulary is a prerequisite for meaningful cooperation. Discrepancies in how countries define concepts such as digital sovereignty can lead to fundamental misunderstandings in critical areas such as risk, which creates friction and confusion.

For example, a G7 country might frame sovereignty in terms of national control over infrastructure while another country, such as China, defines it as regulating the digital information environment. In that case, this misalignment will hinder cooperation from the outset. Specifying precise definitions of each government’s goals, including “trust,” “resilience,” and “digital sovereignty,” would enable governments and industry to align on priorities and respond more effectively to emerging standards. This definitional clarity is crucial for policymaking and a prerequisite for compliance, implementation, and interoperability across borders.

2. Build on existing multilateral and regional frameworks

Participants stressed the importance of building on existing progress toward digital resilience, both in and out of the G7, rather than discarding it in pursuit of novelty. The G7 and its partners already possess a strong foundation of digital policy initiatives. Key milestones such as the Hiroshima AI Process, launched under Japan’s 2023 G7 presidency, established International Guiding Principles and an International Code of Conduct for the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, which included frontier models. Prior to the Hiroshima AI Process, several consecutive G7 Summits committed to developing the data free flow with trust framework, which prioritizes enabling the free flow of data across borders while protecting privacy, national security, and intellectual property.

Beyond the G7, participants cited European Union (EU) partnerships as examples of forward-leaning policy environments that balance innovation with safeguards. These included the EU AI continent action plan, which aims to leverage the talent and research of European industries to strengthen digital competitiveness and bolster economic growth, as well as Horizon Europe, the EU’s primary financial program for research and innovation.

With these partnership frameworks already in place, G7 leaders should build on existing work and avoid seeking to design unique solutions that may become time-consuming—particularly when it comes to gaining political buy-in. Even in areas like AI and the use of data, where policymakers have observed rapid changes since last year’s summit, the B7 discussion participants emphasized that governments can leverage work they’ve already completed in designing and implementing existing standards. If prior technical standards and regulations are inapplicable or insufficient, policymakers can still learn lessons from an in-depth assessment, including by taking note of where they’ve fallen short of their goals.

3. Start new initiatives with small working groups and pilot projects

Ensuring digital resilience requires managing inevitable trade-offs between national security, economic vitality, and open digital ecosystems. As one participant remarked, “the digital economy is the economy,” so policies shaping cyberspace must consider both national security and economic impacts. The G7 provides a platform for frank discussions among allies and partners about how to get these trade-offs right. But waiting for buy-in from all like-minded partners risks missed opportunities in the short term.

Participants noted that by starting with smaller forums, policymakers can build consensus that can lead to real progress. Pilot projects and working groups among smaller clusters of G7 countries could build momentum and inform scalable solutions. Participants emphasized that despite the contentious nature of some of the issues surrounding digital resilience, such as protectionism and market fragmentation, G7 governments are operating with a shared set of values. These values can motivate collaboration across the G7 on the many areas of common ground they already share, but they can also provide the basis for projects among smaller groups within the G7 to get new ideas off the ground.

A pivotal summit for digital resilience

As G7 leaders meet in Kananaskis and work toward a common framework that balances digital security and economic growth, a few key lessons can be garnered from this B7 meeting. G7 member states should prioritize developing a common taxonomy and building on the progress made on digital resilience both inside and outside the G7, all while remaining responsive to shifting geopolitical dynamics.

Disagreements among member states should be viewed not as a barrier, but as evidence of a maturing policy landscape. Constructive tension can drive refinement so long as partners are clear about their priorities. The G7’s unique value lies in its ability to forge alignment among diverse actors. False consensus only delays progress. It will take transparency, specificity, and trust to move the digital resilience agenda forward.

Sara Ann Brackett is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative.

Coley Felt is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.

Raul Brens Jr. is the acting senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.

The world needs a maritime ‘elite league’ to combat rogue shipping

Elisabeth Braw — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:00:00 +0000

Key Takeaways

In April 2025, the International Maritime Organization approved an agreement reducing the shipping sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, making shipping the “first industry to legislate to decarbonize.”
That this happened without—and potentially despite—the United States signals that the mostly apolitical system that has regulated shipping since the 1950s is subject to the same geopolitical tensions weakening the postwar order.
With several large states undermining the organization, countries interested in curtailing the rise of shadow vessels and the associated risks of accidents and environmental damage should band together to keep their waters places where the highest standards apply.

A small group of nations established the International Maritime Organization in 1948 to create a modicum of global governance. Since then, IMO (as insiders call it) or the IMO (as most others call it) has fulfilled its task of functioning as a global parliament and secretariat for matters relating to ocean safety. Yet, like all other multilateral organizations, IMO depends on its member states’ goodwill and compliance. Today several large member states undermine the organization, and the United States left its negotiations over greenhouse gas reduction. IMO will continue to function as a steward of global ocean safety. But to achieve better maritime order, states should also join forces in coalitions of the willing or a maritime “elite league.” Countries in such formations could, for example, introduce stricter pollution or protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance rules.

Like many other organizations within the United Nations (UN), and the UN itself, IMO was established in the years immediately following World War II. Even with a Cold War rapidly forming, the world’s nations knew that they would need to share the oceans and that improving maritime safety was in everyone’s interest. Convening in Geneva in 1948, sixteen pioneering nations—ranging from Canada to Pakistan and including one country, Poland, from the emerging Soviet-led East bloc—formed the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO). ¹

The Convention on the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization stipulated that the new organization would provide “machinery for co-operation among Governments in the field of governmental regulation and practices relating to technical matters of all kinds affecting shipping engaged in international trade, and to encourage the general adoption of the highest practicable standards in matters concerning maritime safety and efficiency of navigation. It would also “encourage the removal of discriminatory action and unnecessary restrictions by Governments affecting shipping engaged in international trade so as to promote the availability of shipping services to the commerce of the world without discrimination.”²

The IMCO’s mission was to facilitate safe and fair global shipping. It did so based on consultations and consensus-focused decisions by its members. The convention stipulated that “the functions of the Organization shall be consultative and advisory” and that the organization should “provide for the drafting of conventions, agreements, or other suitable instruments, and to recommend these to Governments and to intergovernmental organizations, and to convene such conferences as may be necessary.”³ That gave the IMCO’s secretariat no decision-making powers—decisions were to be made by the member states—and certainly no enforcement power.

In successfully founding the IMCO, the sixteen nations had proven that a shared maritime organization was possible even among nations that shared virtually nothing else. They were soon joined by a steady stream of other countries, with early joiners including nations as different as Austria and Myanmar.⁴

Mission: Facilitate safe and fair global shipping

The organization proved valuable. As Cold War power dynamics became more entrenched, global shipping continued to function, with ships able to call at any chosen port regardless of the port state’s geopolitical leanings, the ship’s flag state, or the ship’s country of ownership. Along the way, IMO’s members adopted a string of conventions that enhanced shipping safety, including the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter in 1972, Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) in 1974, and the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage in 1971 with an amended version in 1992.⁵ The latter forms the basis of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, a London-based multilateral organization that administers two compensation to victims of oil spills. Another marquee agreement—the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation—was adopted in 1990.⁶

In 1982, having decided that the name IMCO was bulky and confusing, member states renamed the organization the International Maritime Organization. It has continued to oversee the safety of global shipping, and the cargo traveling by sea has continued to grow. In 1980, ships transported 3.7 billion tons of cargo on international voyages; by 2023, the volume had grown to 12.3 billion tons.⁷

Today IMO is the world’s default maritime organization, though crucially it is not the custodian of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), known as the constitution of the oceans. One hundred and seventy-six of the world’s nations now belong to IMO; the only ones that do not are landlocked countries that have very low gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (such as Burkina Faso, $887), a tiny population (such as Liechtenstein, 39,850 residents), or both.⁸ Taiwan, which has a large maritime industry but is barred from joining the United Nations system as China considers it a renegade province, is also not a member. The IMO Assembly, which approves IMO’s activities and budget and elects IMO’s executive organ, includes all the organization’s member states and meets every two years

Guy Platten, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, said, “What IMO has achieved has been remarkable, things like the MARPOL Convention [the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships] and so many other conventions and instruments. The decision-making process does take time, and it’s quite tortuous at times, but the whole idea is that the organization tries to work on a consensus. That means compromises, but it’s pretty effective.”⁹ It has indeed been effective. Even though the 176 member states have widely divergent views and priorities, IMO has managed to become a global protector of safe shipping, albeit a slow-moving one that lacks enforcement powers. Instead, like other UN agencies, it relies on its member states to follow the rules to which they have committed themselves.

Geopolitics, greenhouse gases, and an abrupt US exit

In April 2025, the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee convened in London to negotiate an agreement reducing the shipping sector’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The emissions account for about 3 percent of GHG emissions, and IMO member states had been debating and discussing stricter emission rules for several years. Intense negotiations at the April meeting eventually resulted in an agreement that “will progressively lower the annual greenhouse gas fuel intensity of marine fuels, and a greenhouse gas pricing mechanism requiring high-emitting ships to pay for their excess pollution.”¹⁰ The agreement is to be “mandatory for large ocean-going ships over 5,000 gross tonnage, which emit 85% of the total [carbon dioxide] emissions from international shipping.”

The agreement was adopted by a majority of member states (sixty-three, including the twenty-seven European Union (EU) members, the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, China, Norway and Singapore) voting in favor. Sixteen countries (including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia) voted against it, and twenty-five countries (including Argentina and Pacific Island states) abstained.¹¹ The agreement must be formally adopted by a two-thirds majority in October 2025; if that happens, it will enter into force in 2027.¹² However, an unusual event occurred during the negotiations. On instructions from Washington, the US delegation abruptly departed; the US government also sent a note to the other member states, urging them to reconsider their “support for the GHG emissions measures under consideration.” According to two people close to the process who spoke to the author, the US government privately put further pressure on countries to reject the agreement or abstain. Referring to the greenhouse gas emission proposal, the US démarche added, “Should such a blatantly unfair measure go forward, our government will consider reciprocal measures so as to offset any fees charged to U.S. ships and compensate the American people for any other economic harm from any adopted GHG emissions measures.”¹³

Brian Adrian Wessel, the director general of the Danish Maritime Authority and leader of the Danish negotiating team, said, “Geopolitics entered IMO with these negotiations. There was a coalition of oil-exporting states led by Saudi Arabia and a group of sanctioned states comprising Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea that opposed the agreement, and then the US de facto joined them in trying to block it. So it was left to the rest of the member states, including the EU and China, to work together to find a solution.”¹⁴

He added, “IMO stood its ground with a significant majority vote. In this day and age, a multilateral agreement on green transition is not a given in any way. The first maritime regulation on greenhouse gas emission, passed with a vast majority, that’s historic.”¹⁵

Platten said, “This is the first time in around fifteen years that an IMO agreement went to vote. It was quite a moment to be in the plenary hall when that happened. But nonetheless, we have an agreement now, which makes shipping the first industry to legislate to decarbonize, putting a carbon price for the first time, and some reward elements to it as well. What other industries have done anything like that? The answer is none whatsoever.”¹⁶ He continued, “IMO is one of the last UN bodies which is still functioning as a multinational body. I think that’s because shipping needs to be globally regulated. It cannot do anything else.”¹⁷

IMO is one of the last UN bodies which is still functioning as a multinational body. I think that’s because shipping needs to be globally regulated.

Guy Platten, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping

The deterioration of the global maritime order

The US departure from the negotiations, however, reflected a wider reality. The global maritime order, which nations and the maritime industry have painstakingly constructed over the last century, faces serious travails. To be sure, commitment to maritime treaties has never been complete. Some shipowners and flag states have been indifferent or reckless when it comes to pollution by their ships and, especially in recent years, countries have regularly violated UNCLOS. That was the case with the 1980s Tanker War between Iran and Iraq; the shadow maritime war targeting Iranian and Israeli merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz; the Houthis’ attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea; and China’s maritime harassment of civilian vessels in the South China Sea.

But nations and companies have largely adhered to IMO’s overwhelmingly technical conventions. One reason for this compliance is that better safety practices benefit everyone. Another is that any ship calling at a port is subject to port state control, the maritime equivalent of a safety inspection, which means that independent inspectors register any rule violations. Owners and flag states must address these deficiencies before ships can continue their journeys.

As the rules-based international order continues to deteriorate, commitment to IMO rules is also slipping. Even though the MARPOL Convention bars ocean pollution (whether involving oil or other substances) by merchant vessels, the world’s growing shadow fleet willingly and systematically accepts a disproportionate risk of oil spills.¹⁸ In May 2023, the shadow tanker Pablo exploded off the coast of Malaysia, causing oil spills in local waters, and other shadow vessels have spilled oil elsewhere.¹⁹ Despite such dangerous incidents, IMO has been unable to ensure compliance with its rules—even though its member states include several “flags of extreme convenience” (my term) that primarily flag shadow vessels. Insisting on compliance is made yet more difficult by the fact that shadow vessels don’t call at ports of Western countries, where post state controls are typically fully implemented, but instead sail straight to their destination or perform ship-to-ship transfers before returning to their ports of origin. “It’s very tempting to start saying, if they don’t play by the rules, why should we then play by the rules?” Wessel noted.²⁰

Response options for nations committed to maritime governance

IMO member states could introduce proposals aimed at curtailing dangerous shadow vessel practices or, for that matter, proxy group attacks on merchant shipping. Indeed, some IMO member states are teaming up to at least bring attention to systematic violations. “We try to work closely together where we see such issues, whether it’s in Asia or in our own neighborhood, and then take it into the IMO,” Wessel said.²¹Interview with the author, April 22, 2025.²² Yet most attempts at strengthening rules or creating new ones are likely to be unsuccessful, as nations benefiting from the practices would vote against the measures and encourage other countries to do the same.

“What IMO can do is act as a facilitator,” Platten said. “Everyone wants safe shipping, and that’s what IMO regulates. People make grand statements at IMO, whether it’s on the Ukraine issue or anything else, but ultimately it’s a technical body that decides on regulation for shipping. It’s never at its best when there’s political grandstanding. It’s much better when it gets on with things as it did with the greenhouse gas agreement, which is people working late, late, late into the night to try and find some landing ground.”²³

Within IMO, a significant number of countries around the world are indisputably committed to maintaining and enhancing maritime governance. By definition, shipping encompasses the whole world, and IMO remains irreplaceable as the forum through which the world’s nations can maintain standards. However, it can no longer be assumed that all members want to enhance the global maritime order.

The fact that IMO depends on its global membership for any action, and that leading nations now openly undermine the maritime order, means there is a gap in global maritime governance. It’s clearly in no country’s interest to impose more governance on itself while other countries use the world’s oceans impeded by fewer rules, but countries could team up in self-selecting groups to enhance maritime rules in their waters.

For example, while UNCLOS’s right to innocent passage is sacrosanct, countries affected by the shadow fleet could collectively adopt pollution rules that go beyond MARPOL. The countries that could initiate such an undertaking include coastal states in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, as well as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and other countries whose territorial waters and exclusive economic zones shadow vessels regularly traverse.

As the shadow fleet has also led to systematic subversion of maritime incident insurance (known as the P&I club system), coastal states in different parts of the world now share the seemingly intractable problem that suspected shadow vessels sail through their waters with insurance barely worth the paper on which it is written. They, too, can team up to adopt stricter insurance rules. Adopting stricter pollution rules, P&I insurance rules, or both would enhance maritime safety without detracting from IMO. In that way, they would resemble initiatives by NATO member states that have a regional focus and take place outside NATO but don’t undermine the Alliance. They include, most prominently, the Joint Expeditionary Forces, which encompass ten northern European countries.²⁴

Sailing in safer waters

The International Maritime Organization serves the world’s nations and the shipping industry well, but it is undermined by growing geopolitical tensions and decreasing commitment to global rules and institutions. While IMO can continue serving a crucial function as the world’s default maritime convener, nations committed to the maritime order can enhance safety in their waters by forming coalitions of the willing that share, for example, stricter rules on pollution or P&I insurance. That would make sailing in their waters more expensive. It would also, however, help nations committed to the maritime order establish a maritime “elite league” in whose waters all maritime participants would know that the highest standards apply.

About the author

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Elisabeth Braw

Senior Fellow

NATO Resilience & Society

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1 “Member States,” International Maritime Organization, last visited April 25, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/ERO/Pages/MemberStates.aspx

2 “Convention on the International Maritime Organization,” International Maritime Organization, last visited April 25, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/Convention-on-the-International-Maritime-Organization.aspx

3 “Convention on the International Maritime Organization,” International Maritime Organization, last visited April 25, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/Convention-on-the-International-Maritime-Organization.aspx

4 “50 Years of Review of Maritime Transport, 1968–2018: Reflecting on the Past, Exploring the Future,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2018, https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/dtl2018d1_en.pdf

5 “International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage,” International Maritime Organization, last visited May 12, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/International-Convention-on-the-Establishment-of-an-International-Fund-for-Compensation-for-Oil-Pollution-Damage-(FUND).aspx

6 “List of IMO Conventions,” International Maritime Organization, last visited May 12, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/ListOfConventions.aspx

7 “50 Years of Review of Maritime Transport, 1968–2018”; “Review of Maritime Transport 2024,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2024, https://unctad.org/publication/review-maritime-transport-2024

8 “Member States,” International Maritime Organization, last visited April 25, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/ERO/Pages/MemberStates.aspx; “GDP Per Capita (Current US$)—Burkina Faso,” World Bank Group, last visited May 12, 2025, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=BF; “Population, Total—Liechtenstein,” World Bank Group, last visited May 12, 2025, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=LI

9 Interview with the author, April 14, 2025.

10 Vibhu Mishra, “Countries Reach Historic Deal to Cut Shipping Emissions,” UN News, April 11, 2025, https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162176

11 John Snyder, “The ‘Great’ Compromise: IMO Agrees to Global Carbon Price for Shipping,” Riviera Maritime Media, April 14, 2025, https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/the-great-compromise-imo-agrees-to-global-carbon-price-for-shipping-84527; “IMO Approves Net-Zero Regulations for Global Shipping,” International Maritime Organization, April 11, 2025, https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/pages/IMO-approves-netzero-regulations.aspx

12 Mishra, “Countries Reach Historic Deal to Cut Shipping Emissions.”

13 Jonathan Saul, Michelle Nichols, and Kate Abnett, “US Exits Carbon Talks on Shipping, Urges Others to Follow, Document Says,” Reuters, April 9, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-exits-carbon-talks-shipping-urges-others-follow-document-2025-04-09

14 Interview with the author, April 22, 2025.

15 Interview with the author, April 22, 2025.

16 Interview with the author, April 14, 2025.

17 Interview with the author, April 14, 2025.

18 Elisabeth Braw, “From Russia’s Shadow Fleet to China’s Maritime Claims: The Freedom of the Seas Is under Threat,” Atlantic Council, January 23, 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/from-russias-shadow-fleet-to-chinas-maritime-claims-the-freedom-of-the-seas-is-under-threat/

19 “Oil Suspected from Pablo Wreck Washes Ashore in Indonesia,” Maritime Executive, May 5, 2025, https://maritime-executive.com/article/oil-suspected-from-pablo-wreck-washes-ashore-in-indonesia; Braw, “From Russia’s Shadow Fleet to China’s Maritime Claims.”

20 Interview with the author, April 22, 2025.

23 Interview with the author, April 14, 2025.

24 “The Joint Expeditionary Force,” Joint Expeditionary Force, last visited May 12, 2025, https://jefnations.org/.

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UN probe: Russia’s ‘human safari’ in Ukraine is a crime against humanity

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 29 May 2025 21:46:50 +0000

Russia is guilty of committing crimes against humanity in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to a new report by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. The report comes following an extensive investigation into a campaign of Russian drone strikes on Ukrainian civilians over a ten-month period beginning in July 2024, with the probe focusing on an area of southern Ukraine stretching more than 100 kilometers along the right bank of the Dnipro River around the city of Kherson.

Members of the UN Commission determined that Russia was engaged in the deliberate targeting of civilians and concluded that the drone attacks were “widespread, systematic, and conducted as part of a coordinated state policy.” The report detailed how civilians were targeted “in various circumstances, mainly when they were outdoors, both on foot or while using any type of vehicles,” and noted that on a number of occasions ambulances had been struck by drones in an apparent bid to prevent them from reaching victims and providing vital medical assistance.

During the ten-month period covered by the United Nations probe, Russian drones killed almost 150 Ukrainian civilians in and around Kherson, while leaving hundreds more injured. The constant threat of attack has created a pervasive climate of fear throughout the region, with people afraid to leave their homes. Terrified locals say they feel hunted and refer to the drone attacks as a “human safari.”

In addition to daily drone strikes, Russia has sought to maximize the psychological pressure on residents of the Kherson region via social media channels. UN investigators reported that video footage of drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians is regularly disseminated on Russian Telegram channels, some of which have thousands of subscribers. This video footage shows drone strikes along with the resulting deaths and destruction in the style of video games, often accompanied by background music. Meanwhile, menacing messages posted on Telegram call on Ukrainians to flee the region. “Get out of the city before the leaves fall, you who are destined to die,” read one message quoted in the UN report.

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This is not the first time UN investigators have accused Russia of committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine. A March 2025 UN report reached a similar conclusion regarding the Kremlin’s large-scale program of detentions and deportations targeting Ukrainians living under Russian occupation. “The evidence gathered led the Commission to conclude that the enforced disappearances against civilians were perpetrated pursuant to a coordinated state policy and amount to crimes against humanity,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued a number of arrest warrants for senior Russian officials in relation to alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine including the targeted bombing of civilians and critical civilian infrastructure. The most high-profile ICC arrest warrant is for Vladimir Putin himself, who is wanted for his alleged involvement in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.

At least 20,000 Ukrainian children are believed to have been kidnapped since the start of the full-scale invasion and taken to Russia, where they are subjected to indoctrination to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage and impose a Russian national identity. The nature and scale of these mass abductions may qualify as an act of genocide according to the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

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Russia’s deadly “human safari” drone campaign against the civilian population in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region is part of the Kremlin’s strategy to make the area unlivable. The city of Kherson was occupied by the advancing Russian army during the first days of the full-scale invasion and was officially annexed by Russia in September 2022. However, Kherson and the surrounding area were liberated by the Ukrainian military soon after. The scenes of joy that accompanied the liberation of Kherson were deeply humiliating for Putin, who had personally proclaimed the city to be “forever” Russian just weeks earlier.

This setback forced Putin’s invading army to retreat across the Dnipro River, creating a major physical obstacle for the Russian invasion and limiting the occupied zone of Ukraine to the eastern half of the country. Nevertheless, Moscow continues to insist that Kherson and the surrounding region are now part of the Russian Federation and must be handed over within the framework of a future peace deal.

Ukraine has completely ruled out any such concessions. This is hardly surprising. While some temporary territorial compromises may prove possible during peace negotiations, Ukraine’s stance on Kherson is unlikely to change. After all, allowing the renewed Russian occupation of Kherson would be suicidal for Kyiv. It would present Russia with a priceless foothold across the Dnipro River that could be used as a gateway to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and complete the conquest of the country.

For now, Russia appears to have little chance of seizing Kherson militarily or of acquiring the city at the negotiating table. Instead, Moscow seems to be intent on terrorizing local residents and forcing them to flee. Putin claims that the population of the Kherson region are Russians, but he has no qualms about his soldiers using drones to hunt and kill them mercilessly. This tells you all you need to know about Putin’s cynical posturing as the protector of the Russian people in Ukraine.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

To combat the Taliban’s institutionalization of gender apartheid in Afghanistan, international actors and civil society groups should document both the regime’s human rights abuses and the system of lawmaking and law enforcement that produces them. Documentation strategies should be geared toward supporting ongoing cases at international courts and catalyzing further accountability processes. An international investigative mechanism, modeled on the United Nations’ (UN) International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism for Syria (IIIM), can help to hold the Taliban accountable for implementing gender apartheid and the specific rules and tools they use to maintain that system.

From constitutional order to rule by executive fiat

Prior to the Taliban takeover, the legitimacy and legality of the Afghan state were vested in the 2004 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which served as the supreme law of the country for seventeen years.

The Constitution was preceded by a Constitutional Loya Jirga or “grand council,” held in 2003, and was approved by consensus in January 2004. It provided an overarching legal framework for the relationship between the Afghan government and Afghan citizens and stipulated a set of constitutional principles and rights, such as separation of powers, due process of law, freedom from persecution, and freedom of expression.

In the new order created by the Taliban, by contrast, there is no constitution or equivalent supreme law. Laws and regulations are issued by the Taliban’s leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, by his leadership council, and by a host of public officials and religious authorities in an ad hoc manner. Sometimes they take the form of written decrees, such as the “Virtue and Vice” law, but often they are only issued verbally. For example, officials from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice set the law in declarations and conference speeches, while clerics do so in sermons—bypassing any formal process of lawmaking and ignoring basic requirements that laws must be general, prospective, clear, and stable.

Lawmaking and law enforcement as instruments of control and oppression

In the absence of a constitutional framework that anchors the legal order, regulates the exercise of state power, and protects the rights of citizens, Taliban law draws on a range of other sources. They include extremist religious ideology rooted in a rigid—and contested—interpretation of Sharia law, which has been influenced by the Deobandi school of thought, as well as patriarchal tribal norms and practices.

These sources inform and justify the system of control and oppression of women that has emerged and expanded under Taliban rule, which includes bans and restrictions on women’s education, employment, and a range of fundamental rights and freedoms. While the system is built on a multiplicity of verbal and written decrees and directives, the Taliban is aware that its effectiveness depends on more systematic codification and consolidation. This may explain the broad remit of the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law, which, inter alia:

Bans women from travelling without a male guardian and denies them access to parks, gyms, and other public spaces.
Requires women to cover their faces and bodies in public; for example, Article 13(8) stipulates: “If an adult woman leaves her home for an essential need, she must cover her voice, face, and body.”
Declares that women’s voices are awrah (private), which means that women should not be heard in public.

The law’s sweeping, vague language gives the Taliban broad discretionary powers to interpret its provisions, creating ample space for abuses. Article 17, for example, requires media outlets to adhere to religious guidelines, prohibiting any content that may be deemed contrary to Sharia law, without clarifying what that means in practice. Taliban forces are tasked with ensuring compliance with the law—especially by women—and violations are punished with warnings, fines, flogging, and imprisonment. Article 17 gives them broad surveillance and enforcement powers: “Taliban forces are present in markets, streets, universities, offices, and public transportation to ensure that people, particularly women, comply with the imposed laws.”

Such provisions of the “Virtue and Vice” law have further strengthened the core characteristics of law enforcement under the Taliban. An array of authorities—Taliban officials and forces, imams, and other religious figures—are exercising broad discretionary powers to enforce a growing number of vaguely defined rules in arbitrary ways, free from due process constraints and safeguards such as judicial review. Any attempt to resist or circumvent the regime’s bans and restrictions is met with a brutal response, often involving punishment on the spot. Human rights groups have publicized several cases of female activists being detained, disappeared, or killed for protesting Taliban laws. They have documented cases of women getting arrested for secretly teaching young girls and have reported on women being flogged for minor infringements and entire families being ostracized or punished for resisting Taliban edicts. The “Virtue and Vice” law reinforced this brutal system of arbitrary law enforcement with new written edicts that Taliban authorities could use to justify human rights abuses.

Pushing back on gender apartheid: Documentation and accountability strategies

Afghan women are already living in a system of pervasive control and oppression that is best described as gender apartheid. Left unchecked, the Taliban will further institutionalize and entrench that system, making it even more difficult to challenge and reverse in the future. International actors—including international organizations, concerned states, human rights groups, and Afghans in the diaspora—must take appropriate steps to prevent that outcome.

Documentation and accountability strategies offer a path forward. Documenting human rights abuses is critical but given their widespread and systematic character, it must be complimented with documentation of Taliban lawmaking and law enforcement—the rules and practices that produce these abuses. And it must involve structural investigations to show how egregious abuses of power and human rights violations are not byproducts of the system of gender apartheid in Afghanistan but are rather its very means and ends, central to maintaining the system.

Building robust documentation can support ongoing accountability processes and initiatives, such as the case against the Taliban at the International Criminal Court for gender persecution as a crime against humanity. It can also strengthen an anticipated case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In January, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and Canada announced that they intend to sue the Taliban at the ICJ for gross violations of women’s rights, invoking the interjurisdictional clause of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

The experiences of other countries affected by widespread and systematic repression and human rights abuses suggest that documentation efforts can open other, potentially unforeseen pathways to accountability—when such efforts are scaled up and institutionalized. Afghanistan needs an international investigative mechanism modeled on the IIIM for Syria. The Syrian IIIM was established by the UN General Assembly—bypassing the Security Council—and has contributed to a spike in universal jurisdiction prosecutions of Syrian offenders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

An IIIM for Afghanistan can serve both as a catalyst and repository for gender apartheid documentation. It can also help build structural investigations and prepare criminal cases for prosecution when jurisdictions are able and willing to take up such cases in the future. This would create a vital resource and build momentum for the growing movement to criminalize gender apartheid in international law and ensure that its architects are held to account.

Wesna Saidy is a poet and researcher with a degree in law and political science, focusing on human rights and gender justice in Afghanistan. She is a fellow at the Civic Engagement Project focusing on documentation.

Iavor Rangelov, PhD, is a research fellow at the London School of Economics and has extensive experience with documentation, justice, and accountability strategies in the Balkans, Central Asia, East Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

This article is part of the Inside the Taliban’s Gender Apartheid series, a joint project of the Civic Engagement Project and the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project.

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The father of ‘soft power,’ a supreme intellect, and an eternal optimist: The Atlantic Council remembers Joseph Nye

Atlantic Council — Tue, 13 May 2025 17:38:26 +0000

Joseph S. Nye Jr., the public servant and professor who coined the term “soft power” to describe US cultural influence around the globe, died on May 6. Nye served on the Atlantic Council’s board of directors from 2014 until his passing. He was an active contributor to the Atlantic Council’s work, including an essay for our New Atlanticist section in August drawing from his memoir, A Life in the American Century. He concluded the article by striking an optimistic note:

“Some historians have compared the flux of ideas and connections today to the turmoil of the Renaissance and Reformation five centuries ago, but on a much larger scale. And those eras were followed by the Thirty Years’ War, which killed a third of the population of Germany. Today, the world is richer and riskier than ever before.

I am sometimes asked whether I am optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the United States. I reply, ‘Guardedly optimistic.’ The United States has many problems—polarization, inequality, loss of trust, mass shootings, deaths of despair from drugs and suicide—just to name a few that make headlines. There is a case for pessimism. At the same time, we Americans have survived worse periods in the 1890s, 1930s, and 1960s. For all its flaws, the United States is an innovative and resilient society that, in the past, has been able to recreate and reinvent itself. Maybe Generation Z can do it again. I hope so.”

Below, members of the Atlantic Council community reflect on the impact Nye made on both our work and the wider world.

Click below to jump to an expert reflection:

Chuck Hagel: “He brought clarity to so many complicated issues”

Jan Lodal: He “changed our language to better communicate important diplomatic concepts”

Paula Dobriansky: “His policy advice and brilliant ideas will endure”

Daniel Fried: “He acted and advocated in the best American tradition of wanting to apply US might in the service of right”

“In a dangerous and turbulent time in global affairs, he remained an optimist”

Just recently, our CEO Fred Kempe applied the “Joe Nye rule” as a guide to the Atlantic Council’s geostrategy work. He advised that our regular, private Strategy Consortium convenings bring together the caliber of strategic thinkers who will entice people like Joe Nye to remain engaged.

We are deeply saddened to learn of Nye’s passing and that his participation in our convenings will no longer be possible. He was a longstanding Atlantic Council board director and a regular participant in our private Strategy Consortium meetings for many years, most recently in December 2024 on the topic of anticipating a future Trump administration national security strategy. He also contributed to our strategy work in other ways, authoring forwards for our Atlantic Council Strategy Papers series and articles for our website.

He was a towering intellect and a resolute and courteous commentator on global affairs. He brought penetrating insights to our meetings and did not shy away from expressing disagreement, but always in a generous way, intending only to elevate the discussion and improve the quality of the work.

In a dangerous and turbulent time in global affairs, he remained an optimist about American power, alliances, and global engagement. Even though he is no longer with us, Nye’s strategic clarity, civility, and optimism will continue to inspire the Atlantic Council.

—Matthew Kroenig is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Council’s director of studies.

“He brought clarity to so many complicated issues”

We have lost an exceptional human being. He brought clarity to so many complicated issues over the years. We all learned from him and benefitted from his wisdom and knowledge and unpretentious style. He’ll be missed by many.

—Chuck Hagel is a member of the Atlantic Council international advisory board, a former US secretary of defense, and a former US senator from Nebraska.

He “changed our language to better communicate important diplomatic concepts”

Joe’s contributions to his students, his family, and world peace and security were unparalleled. His impact will be felt indefinitely.

Joe was also a magnificent personal friend and colleague. We survived numerous hikes to the top of the mountains in Aspen after the exhilarating discussions he had organized for the Aspen Strategy Group. He asked me to take over the group when he had to step down, which I was honored to do. I then imposed on him to join my team as assistant secretary for international security affairs under Bill Perry in the Clinton administration. He was the best ever in that storied office.

Joe actually changed our language to better communicate important diplomatic concepts—”soft power” being perhaps the most memorable. He was a devoted husband to his dear wife, Molly, and a great art dealer from whom we obtained twelve paintings that grace our walls and remind us daily of Joe. We will miss him greatly.

—Jan Lodal is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, a former principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy, and a former senior staff member of the National Security Council.

“His policy advice and brilliant ideas will endure”

Joe Nye was an extraordinary scholar, intellect, professor, and public servant. He was a prolific writer whose books, articles, and op-eds advanced innovative ideas and provided cogent analyses of complex national security issues. Described as a “towering figure in international affairs,” he produced writings that have had a profound impact on policymakers both at home and abroad. He was widely known for having conceived the “soft power” approach in US foreign policy, which promotes American power through influence, persuasion, and diplomacy.

Joe’s service at the Pentagon as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs and as chair of the National Intelligence Council was distinguished and results-driven. During his tenure at the State Department as deputy to the under secretary for security assistance, science, and technology, he chaired the consequential National Security Council interagency group on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

I have long admired Joe’s achievements in foreign policy and public service. On a more personal level, I was also proud to have been his colleague and friend. He touched my life in so many ways. While at Harvard for my master’s and Ph.D. degrees, Joe was not only my professor there, but a wonderful mentor. One of his many admirable qualities that I loved was his desire to have a good lively policy debate. He always brought opposing points of view into a discussion and relished a vibrant exchange of opinions. His calm demeanor in the midst of bureaucratic squabbles or crises was exemplary.

I will miss him terribly, but I am gratified that his policy advice and brilliant ideas will endure. He was indeed a giant in international affairs and leaves a remarkable legacy.

—Paula J. Dobriansky is the vice chair of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a former US under secretary of state for global affairs.

“He acted and advocated in the best American tradition of wanting to apply US might in the service of right”

Joe Nye was the rare combination of government foreign policy practitioner with political thinker and public scholar of the first order. He has been called a “neo-liberal.” But that term, like its twin “neo-conservative,” is more of an epithet than a useful guide. Roughly put, Nye believed that the rules-based international system that the United States created and led for three generations after World War II was a good thing—that it had more potential to generate prosperity, avoid world war, and advance American values and thus American interests than the competition. Because the competition in the twentieth century was fascism and communism, Nye’s judgment was a sure thing.

But Nye’s optimistic view now seems eclipsed by the dark neo-nationalism espoused by many in the United States and indeed across Europe. When some in the Trump administration, including US President Donald Trump, call for seizing Greenland, they seem to argue that only physical control of (and raw power over) territory can secure US interests, that there is no place for cooperation between nations to achieve goals that benefit both. That’s not a new view; it’s a mere repackaging of old European, great-power imperialism that brought disaster in its time and could bring disaster in ours. Such thinking would reduce the United States to a mere grasping, greedy superpower, a larger version of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, seeking to dominate through force and fear.

Nye’s views are now, more than ever, worth considering. He was no naif about the need for power in the international arena. But he acted and advocated in the best American tradition of wanting to apply US might in the service of right. When he spoke of such things, he meant it: artful, creative, committed, and realistic in the best sense. What a compelling and inspiring legacy he leaves behind.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US ambassador to Poland.

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Gazans fear famine amid Israel aid block: ‘I don’t want to be a number’

Arwa Damon — Mon, 12 May 2025 16:37:00 +0000

Humanitarian aid into Gaza is being blocked by a democratically elected nation state, Israel, and is fully supported by the world’s self-declared greatest democracy, the United States. Indeed, the imagery and stories coming from the Palestinian enclave leave one feeling like we exist in the realm of the inhumane absurd.

For more than two months now, nothing has entered Gaza. Not a single grain of rice or bag of flour. The only thing standing between Gaza’s 2.2 million starving people on the brink of famine and three thousand trucks packed with humanitarian aid is Israel.

“It’s a humanitarian catastrophe. Catastrophe on the true meaning of the world. We never could have ever imagined this.”

The voice note comes from one of the social workers assisting with the International Aid Network for Relief and Assistance, my non-profit organization that works in Gaza.

“We had been distributing rice, a serving of rice just to try to ease the hunger in the bellies of the children at the camps we work in,” she continues.

“But we had to stop now because there’s no rice left.”

I am not disclosing the names of those quoted, due to safety concerns in the aftermath of Israel’s targeting of humanitarian aid workers. Although even with the precaution of anonymity, one colleague remarked: “Israel knows who we all are anyway.”

It has been more than two months since Israel broke the ceasefire deal, resumed its bombing campaign of Gaza, and declared that no aid would enter the Strip. Well before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Israel controlled everything that entered or exited Gaza, even at the Rafah crossing at its border with Egypt.

The Israeli cabinet has started deliberations on resuming aid operations but under a framework that would “by-pass Hamas”, which would perhaps make sense if Hamas controlled the aid, only it doesn’t.

I have been to Gaza four times since the launch of the war in Gaza, on humanitarian missions with INARA, and would have gone on my fifth mission in February had Israel not denied me entry. I am hardly the only one, there has in fact been a troubling increase in denials of humanitarians and medics on missions to Gaza over the last three months.

I have been to warehouses, out in the field on distributions, and in sector meetings. Israel has long maintained that humanitarian aid entering Gaza is “controlled by Hamas.” The humanitarian community has categorically stated over and over that Hamas does not control the aid, despite allegations that the militant group has stolen some of it. But it is worth noting that if Hamas has been stealing or hoarding aid, it’s not from humanitarian organizations’ warehouses or distribution points.

This framework and its mechanisms would see private security contractors, or the military, establish “Israeli hubs” for distribution. The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) issued a statement on behalf of all its partners slamming this plan.

“It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement,” UNOCHA said in a statement.

“Humanitarian action responds to people’s needs, wherever they are.”

Most of us have set up distribution points close to the communities we serve, or, similar to our work at INARA, we deliver directly into the camps we work with. The population of Gaza is not mobile. Cars and buses don’t function; there is no fuel. People have to walk or take donkey carts to get anywhere. It’s not logical to expect someone to walk hours to get to a set distribution point in an active military zone and then haul an up to fifty-kilogram food parcel back to their tent.

Even assuming that someone was able to get the food box back to their tent, what are they supposed to cook with? Gaza has gone without cooking gas for months People try to gather wood, some are even burning books and trash to light a fire to cook on, but they are often unable to source enough. This is why functional community kitchens is so critical, but we have no idea how or if they will even be supplied.

But this is not a battle space that is ruled by logic. Equally ludicrous is Israel’s claim that “there is plenty of food in Gaza.”

There isn’t. The World Food Program does not state that its warehouses are empty, bakeries do not shut down, and children do not claw at scraps of food at the bottom of a pot when food is plentiful. What has been distributed to community kitchens will be depleted in the next few days.

It is no secret that Israel has weaponized humanitarian aid to ostensibly pressure Hamas, and the government itself has stated that it’s basically enforcing a “starve or surrender” policy.

Rule 53 of International Humanitarian Law specifically states, “The use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare is prohibited.”

Israel is countering this by citing Article 23, which states that consignments may be prevented if there are concerns they may not reach their intended target or benefit the enemy. This is again based on the false premise that Hamas controls the aid. If this were the case, aid organizations like ours would have been unable to deliver assistance when Israel was permitting entry. We especially would not have been able to deliver during the ceasefire, when Hamas re-emerged onto Gaza’s streets.

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There already is an International Criminal Court warrant, issued back in November of last year, for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which includes among the alleged crimes “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.”

Last week, the International Court of Justice began its deliberations on Israel’s restrictions on aid and aid operations at the request of the UN General Assembly. The deliberations will likely take months. Israel boycotted the sessions and called the whole thing a “circus”.

Israel recently rejected a Hamas offer of a five-year deal that would see it cede political power, countering with a forty-five-day ceasefire proposal and the provision that Hamas agree to disarm, which Hamas in turn rejected.

While ceasefire talks sputter, Israel is doubling down. The government just approved a “conquest” plan to expand its operations in Gaza, calling up additional tens of thousands of reservists, and enraging the Israeli population, who are growing increasingly incensed with their government’s refusal to do what it takes to get back to a ceasefire that will see the remaining hostages released. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been demonstrating on a regular basis, demanding that their government not continue to endanger the hostages’ lives.

For Palestinians, time is running out— a warning that has been echoed at some of the highest ranks of international organizations, including the World Health Organization.

“We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit,” Deputy Director General Michael Ryan told reporters at the WHO’s headquarters. “It’s an abomination .”

When I speak to Palestinians in Gaza, I hear the strain in their voices—the subtle tremors as they fight not to crack under mounting hunger after a year and a half of military bombardment.

“Arwa,” they say. “I don’t want to be a number.”

Arwa Damon is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and president and founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance (INARA), a nonprofit organization that focuses on building a network of logistical support and medical care to help children who need lifesaving or life-altering medical treatment in war-torn nations.

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France’s foreign minister on Europe’s role in the ‘new era of multilateralism’

Daniel Hojnacki — Fri, 02 May 2025 15:32:18 +0000

Watch the full event

Public Event Thu, May 1, 2025 • 3:00 pm ET

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Europe and the new world order

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT—French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot will share his vision of Europe’s role for the future of transatlantic relations.

Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

“Multilateralism will survive whether or not the US quits multilateralism, and so someone will fill the void,” said French Minister for Europe and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot at an Atlantic Council Front Page event on Thursday. China, he warned Washington, is already preparing to “become the new hegemon of this new era of multilateralism” if the United States were to “decide to let them play this role.”

Speaking against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs that have upended the global trading system and strained relations with US allies, Barrot cautioned the United States from pulling back from the multilateral system it helped build. Instead, he said, “a better route” would be “reforming, reshaping multilateralism.”

He said this would require being willing to “share the power in order not to lose it” by expanding representation in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and international financial institutions. It will also require being “ready to build coalitions of the willing to overcome obstruction” in international institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank. “This is the new era of multilateralism,” he said, a route “that Europe is hoping to take alongside the United States of America.”

The French foreign minister also laid out his vision of European strategic autonomy. While Europe should be committed to the rules-based international order, in a more “brutal world,” he said, “you’re going to need to be much stronger, much less dependent on other regions” to uphold the values of freedom and democracy. “We see our strategic autonomy as a way to defend” the rules-based multilateral model.

Below are more highlights from Barrot’s remarks and discussion moderated by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe.

Ukraine negotiations

Barrot praised the US-Ukraine critical minerals agreement signed Wednesday, calling it “a very good agreement for Ukraine and also for the US.”
Barrot noted that by signing the agreement and by earlier agreeing to a US-proposed thirty-day cease-fire, Kyiv had met the Trump administration’s demands in Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations. Meanwhile, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not shown “any signal, any sign of willingness to comply with the requests” of the Trump administration. “Right now, the main obstacle to peace is Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Barrot said that Europe understands that the United States is “counting on us to bear the burden” of providing security guarantees to Ukraine after the war ends. But he added that this “coalition of the willing” led by France and the United Kingdom will “need to be honest” with the United States “once we’ve done our homework” and know what capabilities only Washington can provide to deter Russia from further aggression against Ukraine.

Iran nuclear talks

Barrot said France has been coordinating with the United States “from day one” on the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, whose nuclear program he called a “major threat to our security interests.”
He said that there is “no military solution to this issue” of Tehran’s nuclear program and that it can only be resolved diplomatically. He added that if there is no deal “sufficiently protective of our security interests” by the summer, then France will “not hesitate to reapply all the sanctions” it lifted against Iran a decade ago when Tehran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Trade and tariffs

The Trump administration’s tariffs “are not good news, are not a good idea,” Barrot said. He added that the tariffs “will make us Europeans, as well as Americans, poorer” and warned that the United States’ and Europe’s adversaries would “benefit massively from this trade war if we choose confrontation over cooperation.”
Barrot recalled jokingly telling US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the “one positive aspect” of the tariffs is that by lowering NATO members’ gross domestic products (GDP), it would make it easier to meet the Alliance’s 2 percent of GDP defense spending target.
Since the Trump administration announced blanket tariffs on most countries in the world last month, Barrot says that he “cannot count the number of countries that are knocking at the EU’s door to strike a trade deal or even to become a candidate,” noting that “it’s not only Iceland and Norway that seem to be interested.”

Reshaping multilateralism

France’s position on reforms for the UNSC, Barrot said, is that a permanent seat should be given to India, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and two African countries.
In pushing for greater representation for Global South countries at the UNSC and international financial institutions, Barrot added, “some of them are no longer developing countries” and are now “major powers.” This means “they should have a seat at the table, but they should also behave as major powers,” he said.
While Barrot said he takes Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s claims that Beijing is a champion of multilateralism “with lots of grains of salt,” Barrot added that be believes China will “consider filling the void at the World Health Organization” and other global institutions where China “see some pullback” from the United States.
Barrot said that he thinks “there can be a trade agenda with China” for Europe, but he added that discussions with Beijing “cannot only touch upon trade.” Noting China’s support for Russia, North Korea, and Iran, he said that if China wants a trusting relationship with Europe, “it will have to show also that it takes our security interests into account.”

Daniel Hojnacki is an assistant editor on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council.

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How the US retreat from the UN endangers the future of internet governance

Konstantinos Komaitis — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 18:40:55 +0000

This month, an obscure and mundane United Nations (UN) process became the political battleground for the future of internet governance.

The Commission for Science, Technology, and Development (CSTD) is a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council and is tasked with providing high-level advice on science, technology, and innovation policy issues. The Commission is the primary body responsible for overseeing the follow-up to the World Summit of Information Society (WSIS), the UN process that for the past two decades has guided the nexus between the internet and development and has legitimized the internet’s multistakeholder model. The CSTD is responsible for monitoring implementation efforts, gathering input from countries, and organizing sessions to assess WSIS’s global progress.

The WSIS, which the UN created twenty years ago, enshrined the principle that internet governance should be multistakeholder and bottom up. The collaborative nature of the internet’s management has been instrumental in its rapid expansion, its resilience, and its economic success. WSIS has also shaped national policies, prompting governments to embrace inclusive and collaborative forms of governance, creating an environment in which businesses, civil society, engineers, and academia help shape internet policies and help manage the internet’s critical resources. This year, the entire WSIS architecture is under review by the UN, and the CSTD meeting the week of April 7-11 was one of the checkpoints.

Under normal circumstances, CSTD sessions are colorless affairs. Member states (and a few other stakeholders) gather for a week-long meeting in Geneva that includes long speeches, panel discussions, and a two-day negotiation process that concludes with the adoption of two resolutions: one on WSIS and one on science, technology, and innovation.

This year, however, things were different. What used to be a pretty predictable process—in which the participating countries coordinated to promote human rights, the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs), gender equality, and ways to address climate change—is no more. For the first time in the CSTD’s twenty-year history of reviewing the WSIS, the United States called for a vote, instead of working with the other governments, including its own allies, towards a consensus. And, even though the United States lost the vote thirty-three to one, the damage was done.

In calling for a vote, the United States opened a can of worms. For the past two decades, the CSTD has produced a resolution that is consensus-based. Over the years, the resolution has become long and dense, but its main attribute has been that it has always reflected a spirit of collaboration and the willingness of member states to work together toward the final outcome. Moreover, the United States has long been a driver of this consensus-based approach by insisting on language that was geared towards inclusive governance. This year, however, the United States appears to have come into the meeting with the intention not to collaborate. Instead, it challenged the resolution because it included references to the SDGs, climate, and gender. In its intervention, the United States stated that it

“has made clear that we will no longer affirm the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a matter of course, and this process should not link itself with programs like these that are inconsistent with state sovereignty. Regarding general references to climate change, we suggest the WSIS process focus on its actual goal of ensuring digital technologies can usher prosperity for people around the world. We strongly support protecting women and girls, defending their rights and promoting women’s empowerment, but cannot endorse any work or programming that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that stigmatize or demean people because of their race or sex.”

Similar actions are happening across the UN, not exclusive to the CSTD. It is a significant departure from US policy in recent decades, and it is worth looking at in more detail for its broader implications.

A new agenda

By denouncing the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda, the United States believes that it is supporting its national interests and sovereignty. In reality, however, it is shutting the doors to collaboration with all the countries that have made the sustainable development agenda a core part of their foreign policy. It is isolating itself in the UN space and potentially ceding control to China and Russia while endangering the entire WSIS architecture, specifically the multistakeholder model. Although the United States did point out during the meeting that “we must protect . . . the multistakeholder model,” in the end, US actions spoke louder than its words.

For countries in the global majority, the multistakeholder model means little if the internet and other emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are not linked to the development goals. For countries in the global majority, which have asserted that the multistakeholder model is another expression of the West’s dominance in the governance of the internet, the United States turning its back on the development agenda likely confirms their suspicion.

China understands this well and, over the past few years, it has worked hard to establish itself as the champion for the development agenda in the UN system. In fact, China now appears to be one of the strongest voices for the SDGs. Only last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a twenty-million-dollar contribution to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, which provides substantive support to the CSTD, aiming to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Countries in the global majority are taking note of this seismic shift. As developing countries are waking up to the reality that their biggest and long-standing friend and ally is abandoning them in its foreign policy retrenchment, leaving them behind faster than anyone anticipated, they are looking elsewhere for comfort and assistance. China appears eager to step up—in exchange for votes within the UN. The signs of the Group of Seventy-Seven developing countries gravitating toward China have been apparent for quite some time now, but the United States’ new foreign policy will likely push the group faster and more decisively toward the world’s second largest economy.

This reversal of US policy on the SDGs is creating a whole new set of dynamics. The Western alliance is gradually losing its influence, resulting in its messaging around the internet and the need for multistakeholder governance to also be losing impact. The United States’ ability to influence how countries react, who they follow, and how they will ultimately vote is diminishing, as we saw both during the Global Digital Compact negotiations and the CSTD vote. For China and Russia, whose intention has always been to use the UN to exert control over the internet, this goal is increasingly within reach.

Since the early days of WSIS, the United States has advocated for the internet as a means for advancing development goals through inclusive and collaborative governance. For years, the US government has been a strong advocate for the inclusion of civil society in internet governance discussions, giving voice to a swath of organizations advocating for human rights, gender equality, and other social issues. It was a strategy aimed at promoting the internet’s bottom-up, inclusive, and collaborative governance model across the world, through coalitions and relationships that were based on a shared vision for an internet that was democratic and supportive of all people. This vision has been the driver for the United States becoming a pioneer of innovation and of using the internet to empower people while bringing development and ensuring economic growth.

Which model will prevail?

The decision, therefore, for the United States to shift its UN strategy couldn’t come at a worse time. Currently, there is a sense of unease among nonstate actors and other Western governments as to whether the United States will continue to steer the international community toward supporting the open and global internet, or whether the “China model,” which is based on closed and top-down government control as well as a complete disregard for human rights, will prevail.

There is no denying that the governance of the internet and digital technologies is changing fast. The number of multitakeholder gatherings involving governments alongside civil society, businesses, and engineers is shrinking while the number of multilateral processes is increasing both in volume and importance. Now is not the time for the United States to take a step back from the multilateral system or to abrogate its support for the SDGs. The United States should be building coalitions and encouraging collaboration across governments to ensure that our digital future is not sketched through the lens of authoritarian ideologies; it must double down on a digital policy that is fostering an open, collaborative, and inclusive internet governance environment.

If US officials expect that ditching the SDGs will paralyze the United Nations or will steer sustainable development away from its current course, then they are deeply mistaken. China seems more than prepared to step in to fill any leadership gaps created by such disconnection. By stepping away, the United States is not asserting its position; on the contrary, it is opening the doors to China and Russia to determine the rules of the international order.

Konstantinos Komaitis is a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Democracy + Tech Initiative at the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab). He previously served as a senior director at the Internet Society, where he led initiatives on connectivity, regulation, and internet governance, including the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition.

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Ukrainian victims of war crimes need new approaches to justice

Nadia Volkova, Eric Witte, Arie Mora — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 20:13:34 +0000

In recent months, international media coverage of Russia’s Ukraine invasion has focused primarily on the Trump administration’s efforts to end the fighting and broker a peace deal. But even as negotiations get tentatively underway, Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s civilian population on a daily basis. Regular missile and drone attacks represent only a small portion of the crimes Russia stands accused of committing in Ukraine.

So far, efforts to hold the perpetrators legally accountable for more than a decade of crimes dating back to the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 have proved insufficient. It should now be apparent that Ukraine and the country’s partners need to seek new approaches in order to deliver meaningful justice to victims and end the cycle of Russian impunity.

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Ukraine’s domestic legal system has been overwhelmed by the scale and the gravity of the war crimes allegations against Russia. For example, since the onset of the full-scale invasion in 2022, more than 156,000 investigations into potential war crimes have been opened. As of March 2025, only around 150 verdicts had been reached, mostly in absentia.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has taken some bold steps to help secure justice for Ukraine, most notably charging Russian President Vladimir Putin for his involvement in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. While this is certainly welcome, the ICC can only be expected to handle a small number of cases involving the most senior Russian officials.

Meanwhile, recent US cuts to international assistance threaten to impact existing efforts to hold Russia responsible for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. This has underlined the need to explore alternative formats that can help Kyiv overcome existing gaps in capacity-building.

One possibility would be to broaden the mandate of a proposed special tribunal to prosecute Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression. Ukraine and its partners recently agreed to establish a tribunal in hybrid format with international and domestic components operating under the auspices of the Council of Europe.

While there is significant international support for efforts to put Russia’s military and political leaders on trial for the crime of aggression, the potentially political nature of this charge has raised some concerns. Expanding the mandate of a future tribunal to include other serious crimes could help garner more support and address any reservations regarding political legitimacy.

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Another possibility would be to expand international partnerships within Ukraine’s domestic legal system to enhance its ability to address alleged Russian war crimes. This hybrid approach would build on existing practice that has seen a number of countries providing investigators, prosecutors, forensic specialists, and other experts in recent years.

Foreign investigators and prosecutors could be formally inserted into specialized units at the investigative and prosecutorial level to work alongside their Ukrainian colleagues. This would significantly increase capacity, while also potentially improving the quality of investigative efforts. Further down the line, it may prove possible to introduce foreign judges in a similar manner.

This approach could draw on past experience and current international efforts, including those related to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Central African Republic (CAR). If tailored to meet the specific requirements of the Ukrainian justice system, this could serve as an improvement over the well-meaning but somewhat scattershot efforts of Ukraine’s partners to date.

Some skeptics have suggested that any new justice mechanisms for Ukraine would compete with the ICC in terms of jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Advocates counter that new mechanisms could in fact coexist with the ICC, complementing rather duplicating the work being done in The Hague.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has voiced support for the work of the CAR Special Criminal Court and recently endorsed the idea of a hybrid mechanism for the Democratic Republic of Congo. If applied effectively, this approach could make it possible for Ukraine to prosecute the kind of mid-level perpetrators who are beyond the mandate of the ICC.

Adopting new approaches to the issue of accountability for alleged war crimes committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine can bring hope for justice and lay the foundations for a sustainable peace. A strengthened Ukrainian justice system could also play an important role in the country’s postwar progress on the path toward EU membership and further Western integration.

Nadia Volkova is the founder and head of the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG). Eric Witte is an independent international justice consultant who has worked at the International Criminal Court and Special Court for Sierra Leone. Arie Mora is an advocacy manager at the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG).

A mission without a mandate

As its name stipulates, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara was initially established in 1991 by Security Council resolution 690 to prepare for a referendum in which the people of Western Sahara would choose between independence and integration with Morocco. However, the mission failed to deliver on its mandate and only served to maintain a state of paralysis throughout the years. It is essential to clarify that while the MINURSO monitors the ceasefire, which still holds for nearly thirty-five years between Morocco and the Polisario Front separatists, it is in no way an active peacekeeping mission, and Morocco continues to administer de facto over 80 percent of the Western Saharan disputed territories since the Spanish exit in 1975. MINURSO staff remained spectators, even during the rare skirmishes that were reignited along the sand wall, when Morocco decided to retake the strategic Guerguerat crossing in November 2020 to open trade routes with Mauritania.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations Secretary-General envoy to Western Sahara, was set for defeat from the start. Since 2022, de Mistura has felt out of place in a fast-moving international context, shifting in favor of Morocco.

First, the United States recognized Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in conjunction with re-establishing diplomatic ties between Morocco and Israel in December 2020, knocking down the chessboard in a fragile geopolitical context where MINURSO had maintained the status quo between Morocco and Algeria.

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Then came the coup de grace by the two former colonizers of Morocco and Western Sahara, who are at the source of the current superfluous borders, when Spain sided with Morocco in 2022. France followed in 2024, and over twenty-nine countries decided to open diplomatic representations in Western Sahara as a sign of support for the Moroccan stance.

The Italian diplomat himself indicated in October 2024 his intention to step down, alluding to his inability to mediate between a Morocco emboldened by overwhelming international support and an Algeria obstinate in supporting the mirage of Sahraoui self-determination until the very end. In his latest faux pas, Staffan de Mistura proposed the partition of Western Sahara, suggesting that the envoy and the MINURSO are neocolonial instruments from the past, wasting a sixty-one million dollar annual budget, funded in majority by the United States.

Another flagrant example of MINURSO’s irrelevance is how the disputed Western Sahara borders have been, for decades, uncharted territories for terrorist activities from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and, more recently, a fertile ground for Iranian and Russian influence. Besides gathering intel and filing situation reports, the Mission has done very little to address the flourishing drug and human trafficking business in the disputed territories, leaving this task to the Moroccan and Algerian military.

The diversion of humanitarian aid destined for Sahrawis in the camps in Tindouf, Algeria, also continues to raise concerns, especially with evidence showing that much of the aid is subject to corruption and reselling in open markets like Nouadhibou in Northern Mauritania.

The impracticality of a Sahraoui referendum

Several founding myths surround the Western Sahara file, making a referendum a preposterous and impractical solution—a reality that Western allies like the United States started grasping in recent years.

Contrary to other conflicts, where Indigenous people claim the right to self-determination based on their distinct cultural identity, the Saharaoui people are not native to North Africa. The Arab tribes of Beni Hassan, who trace their ancestry to the Yemeni tribe of Maqil, started moving westward to the Maghreb around the thirteenth century, invited by the Almohad empire of Morocco that needed to reinforce its rule by balancing the Amazigh tribe with the Arab warrior populations. If anything, the Hassani people were the ones who pushed the Indigenous Amazigh tribal confederation of Sanhaja out of the Sahara after the massacre of Char Bouba War in the seventeenth century.

The Hassani people today are transnational communities inhabiting large sections of Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara—hence the impossibility of carrying out a census of who gets to participate in a referendum. To complicate things further for the MINURSO, the Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail had established the “Guich System”, a feudal system where these very Hassani tribes were used to counter Amazigh rebellions in exchange for land up to the nineteenth century. The descendants of these fighters still live around the capital, Rabat, Marrakech, and Sidi Kacem, and still assert their Sahraoui roots.

In the Moroccan-administered portion of the territory, the central state had additionally provided generous incentives, including double salaries and subsidized gas and essential subsistence items, since the seventies for those willing to relocate to the Sahara, and two generations at least have been in the disputed land. Even in the five refugee camps in Algeria, where about 173,600 individuals still live, it is extremely hard to determine who is a Saharaoui and who came to Tindouf as a result of a multitude of other conflicts in the Sahel. Due to all these complexities, the MINORSO has consistently failed since its establishment to come up with voter lists that would be acceptable to all parties, thereby nullifying the prospects of a referendum and the relevance of a UN Mission entrusted to organize it.

What many Sahraoui people want

In a recent field study in July 2024 to Dakhla, Laayoun, and Boujdour, I covered nearly four hundred miles and spoke to dozens of civil society activists, journalists, officials, and ordinary Sahraoui people from my own tribesmen of Oulad Dlim. Most interviewees in the Moroccan-administered portion of Western Sahara (about 1.1 million inhabitants according to the September 2024 census) expressed extreme fatigue from five decades of conflict and a desire for normality and prosperity. They seemed more hopeful for a sustainable resolution through the Moroccan federal advanced regionalization plan proposed in 2006, which preserves their cultural identity and gives them sovereignty over local governance and natural resources under the Moroccan flag.

It was interesting to observe the shift in the Moroccan strategy toward the Sahara conflict, transcending the purely security approach under Driss al-Basri in the 1990s, beating and arresting demonstrators, to a vision focusing on regional development, a dynamic tourism sector, and the looming hope of the $1.2 billion Dakhla Atlantic harbor megaproject—the cornerstone of the kingdom’s Atlantic Initiative. This recent economic boom made some interlocutors confident in the future, although many stated that Morocco hasn’t provided any details of how the autonomy plan will work in practice and how much control they will have over their natural resources. It’s important to note that the research didn’t include Sahrawis in the camps, who may remain attached to self-determination after five decades on a different trajectory.

For the past thirty-four years, MINURSO has consistently deceived the Sahrawi people by failing to deliver on its mission, promoting a laissez-faire culture, and holding hundreds of thousands hostage to complicated geopolitical calculus. Now, the time is up, and the Sahrawi communities can no longer afford another fifty years of political stalemate. The parties to the conflict, along with US and trans-Atlantic allies, will need to defund, dismantle, and terminate it so the autonomy plan can start taking shape.

In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan said that “borders are not just lines on a map; they are a reflection of power dynamics,” and today’s dynamics are calling for greater accountability for UN programs like the MINURSO and for out-of-the-box decisive solutions under Trump’s leadership.

Sarah Zaaimi is a resident senior fellow for North Africa at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs, focusing on the Western Sahara conflict. She is also the center’s deputy director for media and communications.

The post Why it’s time to terminate the UN’s dysfunctional mission in Western Sahara appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Lipsky interviewed by CNN on US isolation in the global trade war

irosales — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 17:26:12 +0000

Watch the interview here

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Lipsky quoted in New York Times on why there is no one coming to save the global economy if the situation unravels

irosales — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 16:34:41 +0000

The post Lipsky quoted in New York Times on why there is no one coming to save the global economy if the situation unravels appeared first on Atlantic Council.

No one is coming to save the global economy

Josh Lipsky — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 15:46:59 +0000

US President Donald Trump has launched a global economic war without any allies. That’s why—unlike previous economic crises in this century—there is no one coming to save the global economy if the situation starts to unravel.

There is a model to deal with economic and financial crises over the past two decades, and it requires activating the Group of Twenty (G20) and relying on the US Federal Reserve to provide liquidity to a financial system under stress. Neither option will be available in the current challenge.

First, the G20. The G20 was created by the United States and Canada in the late 1990s to bring rising economic powers such as China into the decision-making process and prevent another wave of debt crises like the Mexican peso crisis of 1994 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997. In 2008, as Lehman Brothers collapsed and financial markets around the world began to panic, then President George W. Bush called for an emergency summit of G20 leaders—the first time the heads of state and government from the world’s largest economies had convened.

What followed was one of the great successes of international economic coordination in the twenty-first century—the so-called London Moment, when the G20 agreed to inject five trillion dollars to stabilize the global economy. With this joint coordination, the leaders sent a powerful signal to the rest of the world that they would not let a recession turn into a worldwide depression.

Nearly twelve years later, at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the same group of leaders convened to work on debt relief, fiscal stimulus, and—critically—access to vaccines.

Now we face the third major economic shock of the twenty-first century. But this one is fully man-made by one specific policy decision. It could, of course, be undone by a reversal of that decision, which if it kicks in at midnight tonight will send US tariff rates from 2.5 percent last year to over 20 percent this year—the highest in a hundred years. But as I have said since November, Donald Trump is serious about tariffs, they are not only a negotiating tool, and that means many of them are likely here to stay.

There will be no “London Moment” this time around. The United States can’t call for a coordinated response to a trade war it initiated—one that is predicated on the idea that the rest of the world is taking advantage of the United States. Some countries actually have an incentive to see the situation in financial markets worsen, in the hope that it puts pressure on the Trump administration to relent. Others may want to make bilateral deals, but a coordinated effort between China, Europe, Russia, and Brazil is off the table. This will make for an especially tense G20 finance ministers meeting in ten days, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent meets his colleagues for the first time at the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC. Bessent can expect to face pointed questions from his counterparts on why the United States is reverting to the very protectionism that led to the creation of the Bretton Woods system eighty years ago.

The United States can’t call for a coordinated response to a trade war it initiated.

The second—and more powerful—actor in the global economy has been the US Federal Reserve. In the global financial crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve slashed rates to zero, injected trillions into the US economy through quantitative easing, and issued swap lines around the world to help countries access dollars when they most needed it.

This time around, Chair Jerome Powell has signaled to the White House the so-called “Powell Put” is a long way off. On Friday, Trump posted on social media, “This would be a PERFECT time for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to cut Interest Rates.” This makes sense if you believe tariffs will indeed cause higher prices and put economic stress on millions of US citizens. But Powell said the same day that “we don’t need to be in a hurry.” He wants to see how the crisis unfolds. In a different situation, if the markets had fallen by 20 percent because of, say, a virus or a terrorist attack on the United States, then the Fed would likely have reacted very differently.

Powell, however, understands that a trade war built on high US tariffs could prove to be stagflationary—the dreaded combination of higher prices with slower growth. A stagflationary environment isn’t necessarily the time for pre-emptive rate cuts since lower rates might further fuel inflation. Powell also wants to send the signal that this policy could be undone by the White House—or, of course, by Congress—and show his colleagues in Washington that they can’t rely on the Fed to fix a problem of their own making.

The situation is going to become incredibly complicated for the Fed in the weeks ahead. Economic conditions in the United States could deteriorate quickly. Other central banks, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Canada, may start cutting rates. That’s because they are primarily worried about weaker economic growth, not inflation from higher import costs.

This will leave the US Federal Reserve with higher rates than the rest of the world—and Trump will likely grow increasingly frustrated with a Fed chair whom he has clashed with over and over again since he appointed Powell back in 2017. Trump is likely to feel that the Fed is undercutting him in his trade war while other central banks are supporting their political leadership. The truth will be more nuanced.

Don’t expect the pressure to get to Powell.

Powell has exactly one year left on his term, and he appears committed to leave a legacy as a Federal Reserve chair who fiercely protected the institution’s dual mandate and independence. So, while there may be an economic pain point where the Fed has to step in—it’s further away than both Trump and the markets are hoping.

In the past week analysts have been trying, understandably, to compare the market reaction to what happened during the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. But the reality is that these are both poor barometers for the situation. In both previous economic crises this century, the toolkit of international coordination and central-bank firepower were deployed to stabilize the situation. This time, the same tools won’t fix what’s being broken.

Josh Lipsky is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a former adviser at the International Monetary Fund.

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Why NATO’s Defence Planning Process will transform the Alliance for decades to come

Angus Lapsley and Pierre Vandier — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000

The NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) is little known outside defense ministries. But today this process is driving the most consequential shift in European and Canadian defense in the last two generations.

The planning cycle, which comes to a head this summer, involves allies adopting capability targets that will shape national defense policies for the next two decades. If allies succeed in focusing their investments and policies to pursue this challenge, it will strengthen NATO’s ability to shield its members, even if Russia and other authoritarian states continue to challenge the Alliance.

So what has changed and why does it matter?

NATO’s successes over the last seventy-six years are the result of constant adaptation, and the Alliance is now going through its most profound changes since the end of the Cold War.

The challenges in the Euro-Atlantic region over the last twenty years—such as terrorism and regional instability—have not gone away. But the Alliance has needed to reprioritize the threat of conflict with a revisionist, risk-taking, militarily capable, and nuclear-armed Russia, which has committed itself to a war economy and increasingly appears enabled by the technological, industrial, and economic support of China, Iran, and North Korea. NATO is not at war, and its deterrence is holding. But, as Secretary General Mark Rutte recently made clear, “we are not at peace either” and NATO needs to be ready for what is coming its way.

NATO allies need to rediscover some of the disciplines and structures of the Cold War era—in particular how to fight together at scale, fight at home, and manage deterrence. This means something closer to Cold War levels of effort in terms of finance, people, technology, and industrial planning. It is a return to the Alliance’s original DNA.

However, the Cold War offers only a partial template. The Alliance’s geography is more complex than it was then (if also more coherent with the accession of Sweden and Finland). Thirty years of globalization have created a very different world. The strategies that Russia and its partners employ, as well as NATO allies’ social and industrial conditions, are very different. All these shifts are happening while technological developments are changing the character of modern interstate competition and conflict very quickly. In the secretary general’s words, NATO must be “faster and fiercer.”

Therefore, the Alliance needs to draw from the past, make the most of its considerable strengths, and be inspired by the future. Striking this balance is at the heart of the NDPP.

Laying the foundation

Since the early 1950s, NATO has had three collective foundations for its defense.

The first are the political commitments embodied in the Washington Treaty, particularly Article 3 (the promise by allies to invest in their own defense) and Article 5 (the promise to come to one another’s assistance).

The second is a common command structure under the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), responsible for planning and commanding collective deterrence and defense operations. Since 2002, NATO has also had the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), responsible for shaping and transforming the force for the future. Between them, they develop the planning, force design, doctrine, interoperability, training, and exercising that make it possible for national forces to fight as a coherent whole.

The third is a collective process for agreeing on and delivering the military means that the Alliance needs to fulfill the core tasks to which it periodically agrees in its Strategic Concepts. (The most recent Strategic Concept, agreed to in 2022, set out three core tasks: deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security.) This process aims to be broadly fair among the allies, ensure that all are protected, and deliver an operational result that is bigger than the sum of its national parts. This is the role of the NDPP and its antecedents.

Operational planning—the responsibility of SACEUR through Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and its subordinate geographic and domain commands—is a military discipline but always under the political control of allies in the North Atlantic Council. Such planning aims to achieve specific goals using the military resources available at any given time.

Defense planning, by contrast, looks further into the future and at a wider range of scenarios. By definition, it is both a civilian and military process, engaging national governments in choices about what they want to achieve and what resources—financial, human, and industrial—they are willing to allocate to do so. Ultimately, those decisions are made nationally; NATO has no power to compel its members to raise taxes, spend on defense, or conscript their citizens. But the NDPP provides a collective framework in which the thirty-two allies agree on what they should each deliver, and by when. Operational planning and defense planning are complementary in purpose.

Building a new way

Why is this cycle of the NDPP so different from its predecessors?

The first reason is that this cycle reconnects operational planning and defense planning in a way that has not been the case since the end of the Cold War. Over the last thirty years, the NDPP asked allies to maintain forces for the contingency of collective defense while, in practice, the emphasis of operational planning and activity was on expeditionary operations outside of NATO territory. The former looked for heavier combat-capable forces with their own enabling capabilities; the latter for lighter and more deployable forces, often enabled by the United States. In many ways, allies’ force structures today reflect the tension between these two pulls.

As a result of decisions made by NATO leaders at the Madrid summit in 2022, this NDPP cycle makes the development of forces for collective defense the clear priority. Moreover, because NATO again has a military strategy for deterrence and collective defense, and a set of operational plans for putting that strategy into effect, this cycle can be based on a far more granular military demand signal. Instead of building forces for a range of potential scenarios across multiple theaters, allies are being asked to focus primarily on fulfilling roles earmarked to them under the operational plans. For example, an ally might be asked to provide a fully deployable corps allocated by SACEUR to a particular geographically defined role, with other allies asked to provide supporting forces or host-nation support.

The NDPP will still ask allies to retain some forces capable of out-of-area projection. Flexibility to deal with the unexpected is an essential element of defense planning, and NATO looks at its neighborhood with a 360-degree perspective. But this reconnection of operational and defense planning allows for the NDPP to become a more powerful instrument for transformation. As allies develop the interoperable forces requested by the NDPP and declare them to the NATO force structure, SACEUR will be able to exercise them more realistically against new operational plans, verify readiness, and drive improvements in interoperability and effectiveness through constant testing and learning. This pressure will feed into national procurement decisions, as allies give greater consideration to geography and interoperability with partners in specific regions or roles.

This is why, although the NDPP is formally co-led by a combination of Allied Command Transformation (ACT, housed under SACT) and the Defence Policy and Planning Division of the NATO International Staff, this cycle has featured much closer involvement from Allied Command Operations. The basic template for what is asked of allies, known as the Minimum Capability Requirement, was co-developed by both strategic commands. The ability to turn operational plans into precise requirements is a critical ACT function that leverages expertise and ensures consistency with operational plans. The result is a dynamic relationship between operational and defense planning. The NDPP cycle allows for in-depth revision of military requirements every four years to account for the evolution of these plans. Similarly, SACEUR can adjust plans based on a closer understanding of what allies deliver today and what they will develop in the short and medium terms.

The second big shift in this cycle is toward the demands of collective defense against a nuclear-armed peer adversary. NATO’s forces need to be larger, be better protected, have more firepower, be able to prevail in all five domains (land, air, sea, cyber, and space), be able to coordinate and harness all of that in a fully integrated way, and be able to operate across a NATO territory that is a lot larger than it was during the Cold War. NATO forces must also be able to both bring these effects to bear early enough to prevent a war from breaking out and, if war breaks out, to fight for long enough and in the right places. All of that needs to be possible in an environment where the Alliance would almost certainly be subject to attempts at nuclear coercion, as well as sophisticated attempts to disrupt its information environment and the security of the territory (including maritime territory) through which its logistics and enablement flow. There will be no rear-area sanctuary and no neat distinctions between sub-threshold (i.e., cyber and hybrid attacks), conventional, and nuclear operations.

In other words, collective defense is more complex and more demanding—not just of militaries, but of governments and societies more widely—than the kinds of military operations NATO has participated in over the past twenty-five years or so, as difficult as many of those operations were.

Russia is not ten feet tall, and NATO’s planning assumptions are careful to be realistic about the size and nature of the threat Russia could mount against the Alliance. NATO does not seek to mimic or match the way Russia fights. The Alliance’s assumptions are based on the conviction that deterrence—putting enough doubt into the adversary’s mind regarding whether it would prevail when attempting to threaten, coerce, or attack NATO—is the best and most cost-effective strategic approach when faced with a resolute, capable, and nuclear-armed adversary.

Advancing capabilities

Allies also already have formidable capabilities available to them. This includes home defense forces, which were less relevant in the era of expeditionary operations but are critical to territorial defense, as well as outstanding modern warships, submarines, fighter aircraft, special forces, and cyber capabilities. Over the last two years, allies have declared as available to SACEUR more than half a million service personnel at high readiness for the purposes of putting NATO plans into effect. NATO’s nuclear forces, particularly those of the three nuclear allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, and France—make a vital contribution to ensuring deterrence twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, and are all undergoing important modernization.

However, it is clear that urgent investment is needed to ensure that existing plans, as well as additional requirements that the NDPP captures (for example, support to NATO’s nuclear forces), are adequately resourced for the Alliance to keep pace with Russian military modernization and expansion. The Alliance must be able to counter in those areas in which Russia has sought to build up asymmetric advantage. In particular, allies will need to grow

their air-defense capabilities to meet the full spectrum of missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) threats;
their ability to strike deep into enemy territory, overcoming the range of anti-access/aerial denial (A2/AD) and electronic-warfare challenges that poses;
their logistics and enablement capabilities to ensure that forces can be deployed and sustained when and where they are most needed for deterrence;
modern communications systems that allow decision-makers to act decisively and effectively across all domains of operation; and
the ability to fight larger land formations (divisions and corps) in complex high-intensity operations.

Overall, the Alliance aims to build about one-third more frontline capability than it has today, with significantly more of that capability held at readiness for warfighting against a peer opponent. Within that demand signal, the priority is the capabilities NATO needs to deter—those things that really alter an adversary’s decision-making calculus.

However, this larger and more complex demand signal is not just about frontline forces. As important is that allies have in place the foundations to support those forces in a larger-scale and potentially longer-lasting conflict. This means stocks of weapons and spare parts, fuel, and food. It means enabling capabilities such as engineering, medical services, and signals. And it means being able to move, sustain, and support forces that might have come from the far side of the continent or across the Atlantic. Investment in host-nation support by flank states—such as accommodation, training facilities, and storage for munitions and fuel—is once again a critical part of burden sharing. Meanwhile, priorities for other allies will include the means to move forces, such as heavy lift trucks, railway wagons, and roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ferries.

Much of this vital support function will involve working with civilian authorities and industry, and relying on assured access to civilian capabilities—disciplines that NATO knew well during the Cold War and in which allies are now reinvesting. NATO’s logistics and enablement (including medical logistics and enablement) will likely be contested even before a conflict starts, targeted through sabotage, cyberattacks, and strike operations. This pushes allies toward building more resilience through collective logistics and allocating more forces to protection.

Third, the revamped NDPP is driving allies to embrace the potential military edge that rapid adoption of new technologies and innovation can provide. It does this by emphasizing the delivery of desired effects—for example, the ability to suppress enemy air defenses—and thus pushing nations to incorporate innovative solutions to meet their targets. ACT actively supports initiatives that strike an optimal balance between cutting-edge technologies and traditional military capabilities. This approach seeks to enhance operational efficiency on the battlefield while ensuring cost-effectiveness. In doing so, ACT, in coordination with Allied Command Operations (ACO), will be able to develop an updated force mix, which will support future defense planning cycles and drive nations to innovate.

Moving at the speed of tech

In every era, nations try to balance investment in proven military technologies with the need to adapt to the threats and opportunities of new technology and its tactical application. However, the pace at which change happens is not constant over time. At the moment, it is accelerating for three reasons.

First, we are experiencing a period of intense innovation by the private sector—notably in the tech sector, but also in space—often with revolutionary implications for military capabilities. In many cases, the volume and pace of technology research and development in the private sector exceed anything that allied militaries are doing.

Second, we are in a period of intense interstate competition between large states that are investing heavily in technology. This includes some of NATO’s strategic competitors, including China with its military-civilian fusion strategy and investments in a number of emerging technology areas that are on a par with those of NATO allies. We are also seeing an increase in the number of states around the world with the means to drive technological innovation in their militaries. Ukraine and Israel are good examples of medium-sized countries with tremendous capacity for innovation.

Third, war itself shows what works and can rapidly change perceptions of the mix of capabilities required for success. The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are doing just that. Russia is also learning quickly, bringing new capabilities to the battlefield with innovation cycles as short as twelve weeks.

The pace of military technological change is simply accelerating. NATO helps allies in a number of ways, including its Rapid Adoption Action Plan for innovation, the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) technology incubator, ACT experimentations, and the NATO Innovation Fund. But planning and procurement processes need to keep up and become faster, more agile, and more flexible.

This does not mean giving up on more traditional capabilities. As current conflicts demonstrate, successful militaries need a mix of capabilities. There is often no substitute for sufficient mass of artillery, protected mobility for infantry, air-defense capabilities, and other capabilities. As SACEUR has noted, if one side turns up with a tank, the other side had better have a tank. There are no areas of capability in which NATO will need less in the future, and the Alliance will need more of some traditional platforms. Many of these platforms can be made more effective and will need to be better protected by the application of emergent technologies. At the same time, NATO can leverage new technology to address immediate capability shortfalls or reduce the need for conventional mass by increasing precision or effectiveness. New technologies can also provide an advantage by creating pressure on adversaries’ vulnerabilities. There is rarely a simple trade-off between old and new.

The application of technological advances in some areas—such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, space, and autonomous systems—are also having more profound transformational impacts on defense. They can allow for the collection and exploitation of data on a previously unimaginable scale, and the recreation of the effects of mass—for example, in fires, surveillance, or logistics—in very different ways.

This presents a great opportunity for allies to achieve effects more reliably, at larger scale, and more efficiently. But it also presents risks if adversaries are able to move further and faster to exploit these technologies.

Transforming the approach

Within a twenty-year framework with regular revisions that allow allies to factor the effects of innovation into their acquisition and development plans, the NDPP can help in three main ways.

First, it is increasingly clear that forces enabled by up-to-date communications and information systems—the digital backbone of modern defense—are now indispensable. Interoperability at large scale is even more critical than before. NATO will not criticize any ally for investing in getting these basics right.

Second, whereas NATO has historically tended to express its ask of allies in terms of numbers of platforms or personnel, it increasingly seeks evidence of an ability to achieve a particular effect, recognizing that the “how” is likely to involve constant innovation. This is a critical evolution in the defense planning process. For example, NATO might have a template for an armored brigade, with a certain number of tanks, artillery pieces, rocket launchers, infantry fighting vehicles, and reconnaissance units. However, an ally might look at the conditions and terrain in which the NATO plans require it to be able to fight and conclude that a different mix of vehicles, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and fires—perhaps exploiting UAV technologies—is better able to achieve the required effects. That mix will evolve continuously, sometimes month to month. In that case, provided that the proposition can be verified though ACT modeling and simulation tools, the NDPP can take it as the answer.

Third, as NATO communicates the NDPP demand signal to industry, the Alliance needs to recognize that this goes far beyond traditional defense industrial actors. It also means engaging the allied innovation ecosystem, helping it understand the requirements that NATO has at the Alliance level. The scale of transformation and growth that NATO requires of allies means that the Alliance has, in effect, become a market creator, helping to give industry long-term perspectives about what it should deliver.

As NATO works with allies on how they intend to meet the capability targets to be set in June 2025 at its summit in The Hague, allies are already presenting a range of transformative approaches that the NATO force will adopt in the next few years.

For example, the United Kingdom—which leads the NATO forward land forces in Estonia—is developing “Project ASGARD,” a software-driven reconnaissance and strike complex enabled by combat UAVs and drones that aims to increase reach and lethality.

ACT, in conjunction with regional allies, is developing a maritime surveillance system for the Baltic that uses uncrewed vessels to extend presence and awareness.

A number of allies are looking to incorporate the highly successful, Ukrainian-developed Sky Fortress system into their own air defense. Sky Fortress uses a network of acoustic sensors to accurately track and engage cruise missiles and other air threats.

All of these changes are happening now and are bringing a different range of industrial partners into the picture, especially those from the civilian tech sector. NATO’s message to allies over the next decade will be clear. More of this is needed, and faster.

Maintaining the core

However, there are ways in which this NDPP cycle has not changed from its predecessors.

First, it requires commitment by all allies. The effort will not always look the same. The demands on a flank ally, ready to receive and sustain deployed forces, are different than those on an ally that is deploying them and managing long logistics chains. But fair burden sharing remains a core principle.

Nor can one ally—the United States—continue to bear the main burden of providing such a wide range of capabilities for the defense of the Euro-Atlantic area, given growing alternative demands on the US force. That is why this NDPP cycle will ensure there are no areas in which the US share of capability targets is disproportionate. By the end of the decade, the NDPP will have significantly reduced the overall share of such targets borne by the United States.

Second, for all the scope for efficiencies through smarter, more agile, and more collaborative procurement—and for all the advances that innovation and technology offer—there is no way of avoiding the need for greater and more sustained investment in defense when the threat is rising after an era of relative stability. Two-thirds of NATO allies reached the target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense in 2024. But it is clear that the combination of needing to grow the overall force, modernize and stay relevant in the technological race, and, in some cases, address the effects of long periods of under-investment will push most allies much closer to requirements beyond 3 percent of GDP. That represents the lower end of the range of European allies’ defense spending during the Cold War. NATO leaders will address how to express this changed level of requirement at the summit in June in The Hague.

Third, this cycle must be underpinned by a serious push to increase not just defense industrial capacity in the Alliance—already tested by the immediate needs of supporting Ukraine—but also the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of industry and its ability to absorb emerging technologies at pace. This explains why NATO is putting so much focus on industrial strategy. As ever, the key levers for change are national, but NATO can help by being as clear as possible with allies and industry about the demand signal over time, identifying opportunities for collaboration among allies, promoting standardization and interoperability, and helping allies chart their way through fast-changing commercial landscapes such as the space sector. NATO’s Defence Production Action Plan, developed by the national armaments directors, sets out an overall approach.

Fourth, NATO is looking to help allies as they find the people they need to meet growing demand. The personnel models that allies employ vary considerably, reflecting national circumstances and traditions. NATO does not tell nations how they should approach sensitive questions such as the relationship between citizens and the state. However, there is much that allies can learn from each other as they experiment with the reintroduction of limited conscription, expansion of reserve forces, and schemes for attracting and retaining highly skilled personnel. Ensuring the full participation of women in NATO’s force is also a critical challenge. Ultimately, with some 3.4 million people serving in uniform, NATO has the numbers. The challenge is ensuring that it has people with the right skills, experience, and training available in the right place and at the right time.

Drawing on history

The NDPP is at the heart of shaping daunting change that will require deep and sustained commitment from allied governments. All need to step up in terms of money, industry, people, and the courage to embrace technology-driven innovation.

The good news is that NATO has been here before and delivered. In the 1970s, allies acknowledged that there was a widening disparity in conventional capabilities between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and they responded with what was then called the Long-Term Defence Programme. The May 1978 meeting of defense ministers, which approved this plan, issued a communiqué that could almost read as current, talking of the need to improve readiness, increase spending, increase reserves, address complex air and electronic warfare threats, ensure sea control and effective command and control, modernize nuclear forces in the face of growing Russian theater forces, and underpin all this with better logistics. The ministers agreed on the joint procurement of a fleet of E3 airborne warning and control systems (AWACs).

That program delivered. By the mid-1980s, NATO’s posture and forces were considerably strengthened, not least through a series of major US and European technological and industrial programs that provided platforms NATO still uses today and were exported globally. Russia was successfully deterred and eventually unable to continue competing. Defense spending rose and also contributed to a strong period of economic growth in Alliance nations, helping lay some of the foundation for the technological strengths of their modern economies.

Today we are at a similar point in our history—with NATO even deciding to procure a new airborne early-warning capability. European allies were critical to the transformation that occurred during the Cold War, at that time coordinating as the Eurogroup. They will be so again, supported by the increases in defense spending now seen across the Alliance (up almost 20 percent in 2024 for non-US allies). NATO’s efforts to support Ukraine and strengthen its own deterrence and defense need to be seen as responses to long-term structural realities, not to a passing phase of crisis.

About the authors

Angus Lapsley is the assistant secretary general for defence policy and planning at NATO, and the former director general for strategy and international in the UK Ministry of Defence.

Admiral Pierre Vandier is NATO’s supreme allied commander transformation, and the former chief of staff of the French Navy.

Note

NATO Allied Command Transformation and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division are financial supporters of the Atlantic Council.

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UN report: Russia is guilty of crimes against humanity in occupied Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 21:46:38 +0000

A United Nations probe has concluded that Russia is guilty of committing crimes against humanity in the occupied regions of Ukraine. The investigation focused on the Kremlin’s large-scale program of detentions and deportations targeting Ukrainian civilians living under Russian occupation, and confirms earlier reports regarding the terror tactics being employed by Putin’s invasion force.

The March 19 report by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found that “the enforced disappearances against civilians were perpetrated pursuant to a coordinated state policy and amount to crimes against humanity.” The report details a climate of lawlessness throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine, with anyone viewed as a potential threat to the occupation authorities liable to be detained before disappearing into a network of detention facilities in the occupied regions or deported to the Russian Federation.

Similar evidence of mass detentions was uncovered throughout all the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, indicating what UN officials referred to as a “systematic attack against the civilian population.” Victims included local officials, journalists, civic activists, military veterans, and religious leaders. While exact figures are unknown, the UN report states that large numbers of Ukrainian civilians have been targeted in a “widespread and systematic manner.”

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The war crimes accusations leveled against the Russian authorities in occupied Ukraine extend far beyond the detentions highlighted by UN investigators. The most widely publicized charges relate to the mass abduction and ideological indoctrination of vulnerable Ukrainian children. Russia is believed to have kidnapped tens of thousands of young Ukrainians and placed them in camps or foster homes, where they are often subjected to brainwashing programs designed to rob them of their Ukrainian identity and transform them into Russians. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in these mass abductions.

Throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine, the authorities are working methodically to remove all symbols of Ukrainian statehood and erase any traces of Ukrainian national identity. The Ukrainian language has been suppressed along with Ukrainian literature, history, and cultural heritage. Schools now teach a Kremlin-approved curriculum that glorifies Russian imperialism while demonizing Ukraine. Any parents who attempt to resist the indoctrination of their children risk losing custody.

Ukrainians living under Russian occupation are being pressured into accepting Russian citizenship. Those who refuse to take Russian passports are denied access to basic services such as healthcare and pensions, and are unable to register their property with the occupation authorities. This so-called passportization campaign recently entered a new phase, with the Kremlin announcing that anyone who fails to acquire Russian citizenship within the next six months will be subject to potential deportation from their own homes.

Eurasia Center events

Director, Economic Statecraft Initiative

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

Fears over the future fate of Ukrainians in occupied regions of the country were heightened recently by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s apparent endorsement of sham referendums staged by the Kremlin in 2022 to justify the seizure of Ukrainian lands. “There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” he told Tucker Carlson in an interview that set off alarm bells across Europe.

The furor over Witkoff’s comments was hardly surprising. Russia’s fig leaf referendums in occupied Ukraine had been roundly rejected at the time by the vast majority of the international community, including many of Russia’s traditional supporters. “The United States will never recognize these illegal attempts to seize territory that does not belong to Russia,” the US State Department declared.

The September 2022 ballots lacked even a basic semblance of legitimacy, with voting taking place at gunpoint. Indeed, in many instances, the captive population were visited in their homes by election officials accompanied by armed soldiers. Such Kafkaesque scenes are nothing new for the Kremlin, which has been staging similarly farcical “referendums” to justify acts of international aggression since the Stalin era. Prior to Witkoff, however, no senior Western official had attempted to offer their stamp of approval.

The new UN report detailing Russian crimes against humanity in occupied Ukraine is particularly timely. Peace talks initiated by US President Donald Trump in recent weeks have focused largely on the possible partition of Ukraine, with negotiating teams working to determine potential boundaries. But while Trump talks of “dividing up the lands,” millions of lives are also at stake. It is therefore crucial to highlight the horrors unfolding in Russian-occupied Ukraine and the crimes being committed by the Kremlin. While it may not be militarily feasible to liberate these regions at present, safeguarding the basic human rights of Ukrainian residents living under Russian occupation should be an important aspect of any negotiated settlement.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Economic threats to Canada’s national security
An unexpected threat: Overdependence on trade with the United States
Lack of economic power consolidation by Canada’s federal government
Mapping Canada’s economic statecraft systems: Sanctions, export controls, tariffs, and investment screening

Economic threats to Canada’s national security

Cyberattacks on Canada’s critical infrastructure

Canada’s critical infrastructure has become a target of state-sponsored cyberattacks. In 2023, Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE)—a signals intelligence agency—said that Russia-backed hackers were seeking to disrupt Canada’s energy sector. Apart from accounting for 5 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), the energy sector also keeps the rest of Canada’s critical infrastructure functioning. CSE warned that the threat to Canada’s pipelines and physical infrastructure would persist until the end of the war in Ukraine and that the objective was to weaken Canada’s support for Ukraine.

Beyond critical infrastructure, Canadian companies lost about $4.3 billion due to ransomware attacks in 2021. More recently in February 2025, Russian hacking group Seashell Blizzard was reported to have targeted energy and defense sectors in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Russia and other adversarial states will likely continue targeting Canada’s critical infrastructure and extorting ransom payments from Canadian companies.

Theft of intellectual property

Canadian companies have become targets of Chinese state-sponsored intellectual theft operations. In 2014, a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor stole more than 40,000 files from the National Research Council’s private-sector partners. The National Research Council is a primary government agency dedicated to research and development in science and technology. Apart from undermining Canadian companies, theft of Canada’s intellectual property, especially research on sensitive technologies, poses a threat to Canada’s national security.

Chinese influence on Canada’s academic sector

Adversarial states have taken advantage of Canada’s academic sector to advance their own strategic and military capabilities. For example, from 2018 to 2023, Canada’s top universities published more than 240 joint papers on quantum cryptography, space science, and other advanced research topics along with Chinese scientists working for China’s top military institutions. In January 2024, Canada’s federal government named more than one hundred institutions in China, Russia, and Iran that pose a threat to Canada’s national security. Apart from calling out specific institutions, the federal government also identified “sensitive research areas.” Universities or researchers who decide to work with the listed institutions on listed sensitive topics will not be eligible for federal grants.

Trade weaponization by China

Trade weaponization by China has undermined the economic welfare of Canadians and posed a threat to the secure functioning of Canada’s critical infrastructure. For example, between 2019 and 2020, China targeted Canada’s canola sector with 100 percent tariffs, restricting these imports and costing Canadian farmers more than $2.35 billion in lost exports and price pressure. In Canada’s 2024 Fall Economic Statement, which outlined key measures to enhance Canadian economic security, the Ministry of Finance announced its plans to impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports to combat China’s unfair trade practices. These included tariffs on solar products and critical minerals in early 2025, and on permanent magnets, natural graphite, and semiconductors in 2026.

However, the imposition of 25 percent tariffs by Washington on both Canada and China could result in deepening trade ties between the two. Canada exported a record $2 billion in crude oil to China in 2024, accounting for half of all oil exports through the newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline. Increased trade with China would increase Canada’s exposure to China’s coercive practices, and would be a direct consequence of US tariffs on Canada.

An unexpected threat: Overdependence on trade with the United States

A new and unexpected threat to Canada’s economic security emerged from the United States when the Trump administration threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods (except for the 10 percent tariffs on energy imports). The United States is Canada’s largest export market, receiving a staggering 76 percent of Canada’s exports in 2024. Canada relies on the United States particularly in the context of its crude oil trade, shipping 97.4 percent of its crude oil to the United States.

Canada had already started working on expansion to global markets through pipeline development even before Washington announced tariffs. It has succeeded in the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline in May 2024, which has enabled the export of Canadian oil to Asia. Canada is reviving talks on the canceled Energy East and Northern Gateway pipelines—the former would move oil from Alberta to Eastern Canada, and the latter would transport oil from Alberta to British Columbia for export to Asian markets.

In addition to oil trade, another area where Canada is highly dependent on the United States is in auto manufacturing. Behind oil exports, motor vehicles account for the largest share of Canadian exports to the United States, resulting in exports valued at $50.76 billion (C$72.7 billion Canadian dollars) in 2024. With 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods, the automotive industry is expected to take a hit, especially as components cross the border six to eight times before final assembly.

Figure 1

The United States invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on Canada with the stated objective to curb fentanyl flows to the United States. The measure has plunged US-Canada relations into chaos and could result in a trade war between the two long-standing allies. In response, Canada might reroute oil shipments to China through existing pipelines and increase trade with China in general. Further economic integration with China would increase Canada’s exposure to economic threats emanating from China, including trade weaponization and anti-competitive practices.

Because of US tariffs, Canada could also face challenges in strengthening the resilience of its nuclear fuel and critical mineral supply chains. In the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, Canada outlined key measures for its economic security that heavily incorporated US cooperation. This included plans to strengthen nuclear fuel supply chain resiliency away from Russian influence, with up to $500 million set aside for enriched nuclear fuel purchase contracts from the United States. Canada also aims to strengthen supply chains for responsibly produced critical minerals, following a $3.8 billion investment in its Critical Minerals Strategy, which relies on the United States as a key partner. Given the tariffs, Canada will need to diversify its partners and supply sources quickly if it wishes to maintain these economic security goals.

Could the US-Canada trade war upend defense cooperation?

Recent tariff escalation between the United States and Canada has raised questions about the future of military cooperation between the two countries. Apart from being members of the North Atlantic Treasury Organization (NATO), the United States and Canada form a unique binational command called North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). NORAD’s mission is to defend North American aerospace by monitoring all aerial and maritime threats. NORAD is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, has a US Commander and Canadian Deputy Commander, and has staff from both countries working side by side.

NORAD’s funding has been historically split between the United States (60 percent) and Canada (40 percent). However, the Department of Defense (DoD) does not allocate specific funding to NORAD and does not procure weapons or technology for NORAD, although NORAD uses DoD military systems once fielded. The US Congress recognized the need to allocate funding to modernize NORAD’s surveillance systems after the Chinese spy balloon incident in February 2023. While US fighter jets shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon after it was tracked above a US nuclear weapons site in Montana, the incident exposed weaknesses in NORAD’s capabilities. After the incident, former NORAD Commander Vice Admiral Mike Dumont stated that NORAD’s radar network is essentially 1970s technology and needs to be modernized.

A year before the incident, the Canadian government had committed to invest $3.6 billion in NORAD over six years from 2022 to 2028, and $28.4 billion over twenty years (2022-2042) to modernize surveillance and air weapons systems. However, Canada has fallen short on delivering on these commitments.

In March 2025, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada made a $4.2 billion deal with Australia to develop a cutting-edge radar to detect threats to the Arctic. The radar is expected to be delivered by 2029 and will be deployed under NORAD. Canadian military officials have stated that the US military has supported the deal, signaling that the deterioration of economic relations has not (yet) had spillover effects for the defense cooperation.

However, Prime Minister Carney has also ordered the review of F-35 fighter jet purchases from US defense company Lockheed Martin, citing security overreliance on the United States. Under the $13.29 billion contract with Lockheed Martin, Canada was set to buy 88 fighter jets from the US company. While Canada’s defense ministry will purchase the first sixteen jets to meet the contract’s legal requirements, Canada is actively looking for alternative suppliers.

As the trade war continues, Canada will likely enhance defense cooperation with the European and other like-minded states, possibly to the detriment of the US defense industry and the US-Canada defense cooperation.

Figure 2: US-Canada overlapping memberships in security organizations and alliances

Source: Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative research

Lack of economic power consolidation by Canada’s federal government

Canada has a range of economic tools and sources of economic power to respond to emerging economic threats and mitigate vulnerabilities; however, it currently lacks economic power consolidation. Unlike the United States, where the federal government can regulate nearly all economic activity, Canada’s Constitution Act of 1867 grants provinces control over their “property and civil rights,” including natural resources. Section 92A, which was added to the constitution in 1982, further reinforced the provinces’ control over their natural resources. Meanwhile, the federal government has control over matters of international trade including trade controls. However, when international trade issues concern the natural resources of provinces, tensions and disagreements often arise between provinces and the federal government, and the lack of economic power consolidation by the federal government becomes obvious.

This issue manifested when the United States announced 25 percent tariffs on Canada in March 2025 as Canada’s federal government and the Alberta province had different reactions. Canada’s main leverage over the United States is oil exports. Refineries in the United States, particularly those in the Midwest, run exclusively on Canadian crude oil, having tailored their refineries to primarily process the heavy Canadian crude. Since 2010, Canadian oil accounted for virtually 100 percent of the oil imported by the Midwest. Threatening to hike levies on crude oil exports could have been Canada’s way of leveraging energy interdependence to respond to US tariffs. However, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stated that Alberta, which is Canada’s largest oil producer and top exporter of crude oil to the United States, would not hike levies on oil and gas exports to the United States. Being unable to speak in one voice as a country even during a crisis is a direct consequence of Canada’s regional factionalism, characterized by each province looking out for their own interests.

The United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, which entered into force during the first Trump administration in July 2020, may have also contributed to diminishing the economic power of Canada’s federal government. Article 32.10 of USMCA requires each member of the agreement to notify other countries if it plans to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with a nonmarket economy. Thus, if Canada were to sign an FTA with China, the United States and Mexico could review the agreement and withdraw from USMCA with six months’ notice. After the USMCA was signed, Canadian scholars wrote that this clause would effectively turn Canada into a vassal state of the United States, with the authority to make decisions on internal affairs but having to rely on the larger power for foreign and security policy decisions. Five years later, it looks like the USMCA has put Canada in a difficult position, being targeted by US tariffs and not having advanced trading relations with other countries.

Figure 3: US-Canada overlapping memberships in economic organizations and alliances

Source: Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative Research

Mapping Canada’s economic statecraft systems

To secure Canada’s critical infrastructure and leverage its natural resources to shape favorable foreign policy outcomes, Canada’s federal government has a range of economic tools and the ability to design new ones when appropriate. Canada’s economic statecraft tool kit is similar to those of the United States and the European Union and includes sanctions, export controls, tariffs, and investment screening. Canada has imposed financial sanctions and export controls against Russia along with its Group of Seven (G7) allies. It has levied tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, in line with US policy, and recently created investment screening authorities to address concerns about adversarial capital.

Financial sanctions

Similar to the United States, Canada maintains sanctions programs covering specific countries such as Russia and Iran, as well as thematic sanctions regimes such as terrorism. Global Affairs Canada (GAC), which is Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, administers sanctions and maintains the Consolidated Canadian Autonomous Sanctions List. Canada’s Finance Ministry, the Department of Finance, is not involved in sanctions designations, implementation, or enforcement, unlike in the United States, where the Department of the Treasury is the primary administrator of sanctions.

The Parliament of Canada has enacted legislation authorizing the imposition of sanctions through three acts: the United Nations Act; the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA); and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (JVCFOA).

The United Nations Act enables GAC to implement sanctions against entities or individuals sanctioned by the UN Security Council. When an act of aggression or a grave breach of international peace occurs and the UN Security Council is unable to pass a resolution, Canada implements autonomous sanctions under SEMA; this act is Canada’s primary law for imposing autonomous sanctions and includes country-based sanctions programs. It is also used to align Canada’s sanctions with those of allies. For example, GAC derived its powers from SEMA to designate Russian entities and individuals in alignment with Canada’s Western allies in 2022. Meanwhile, the JVCFOA allows GAC to impose sanctions against individuals responsible for human rights violations and significant acts of corruption, similar to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act in the United States, with sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Once GAC adds entities and individuals to the lists of sanctions, Canadian financial institutions comply by freezing the designated party’s assets and suspending transactions. GAC coordinates with several government agencies to enforce and enable private-sector compliance with sanctions:

FINTRAC: Canada’s financial intelligence unit (FIU)—Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC)—is responsible for monitoring suspicious financial activities and collecting reporting from financial institutions on transactions that may be linked to sanctions evasion. FINTRAC is an independent agency that reports to the Minister of Finance. FINTRAC works closely with the US financial intelligence unit—Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)—on illicit finance investigations and when sanctions evasion includes the US financial system. For example, FinCEN and FINTRAC both monitor and share financial information related to Russian sanctions evasion and publish advisories and red flags for the financial sector in coordination with other like-minded partner FIUs.

OSFI: The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) is a banking regulator that issues directives to financial institutions regarding compliance and instructs banks to freeze assets belonging to sanctioned individuals and entities. FINTRAC also shares financial intelligence with OSFI on sanctions evasion activity under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA). OSFI shares intelligence with Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the national police service of Canada, if there is evidence of sanctions evasion or other financial crimes.

RCMP: Once OSFI notifies RCMP about suspicious activity, RCMP investigates whether the funds are linked to sanctions evasion or other financial crimes. If it finds evidence of a violation of sanctions or criminal activity, RCMP obtains a court order to seize assets under the Criminal Code and the PCMLTFA.

CBSA: Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is responsible for blocking sanctioned individuals from entering Canada. CBSA also notifies OSFI if sanctioned individuals attempt to move cash or gold through border crossings.

All four agencies work with GAC and with one another on sanctions enforcement. GAC sets sanctions policy, FINTRAC analyzes financial intelligence and shares suspicious activity reports to inform law enforcement investigations, OSFI enforces compliance in banks, RCMP investigates crimes and seizes assets, and CBSA prevents sanctioned individuals from entering Canada and moving assets across borders.

While financial sanctions are part of Canada’s economic statecraft tool kit, Canadian sanctions power does not have the same reach as US sanctions. The preeminence of the US dollar and the omnipresence of major US banks allows the United States to effectively cut off sanctioned individuals and entities from the global financial system. Canadian sanctions are limited to Canadian jurisdiction and affect individuals and entities with financial ties to Canada, but they do not have the same reach as US financial sanctions.

Nevertheless, Canadian authorities have been able to leverage financial sanctions to support the G7 allies in sanctioning Russia. For example, in December 2022, under SEMA, Canadian authorities ordered Citco Bank Canada, a subsidiary of a global hedge fund headquartered in the Cayman Islands, to freeze $26 million owned directly or indirectly by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has been sanctioned by Canada and other G7 allies. In June 2023, Canadian authorities seized a Russian cargo jet at Toronto’s Pearson Airport pursuant to SEMA.

Figure 4

Export controls

Canada participates in several multilateral export control regimes, including the Wassenaar Arrangement, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, and Australia Group. When multilateral regimes fall short in addressing Canada’s foreign policy needs, Canada leverages its autonomous export control list, which is administered by GAC under the Export and Import Permits Act. The Trade Controls Bureau under GAC is responsible for issuing permits and certificates for the items included on the Export Control List (ECL).

Canada Border Services Agency plays a crucial role in the enforcement of export controls. CBSA verifies that shipments match the export permit issued by GAC. It can seize or refuse exports that violate GAC export permits through ports, airports, and land borders. CBSA refers cases to the Royal Canada Mounted Police (CRMP) for prosecution if exporters attempt to bypass regulations.

Separately, FINTRAC monitors financial transactions that might be connected to the exports of controlled goods and technologies. If FINTRAC detects suspicious transactions, it shares intelligence with GAC and other relevant authorities. Canada’s method of leveraging financial intelligence for enforcing export controls is similar to that of the United States, where FinCEN has teamed up with the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security to detect export control evasion through financial transactions.

While in the United States the export controls authority lies within the Commerce Department, Canada’s equivalent, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), does not participate in administering export controls. That responsibility is fully absorbed by GAC.

While Canada has mainly used its export control authority in the context of sensitive technologies, Canadian politiciansand experts have recently been calling on the federal government to impose restrictions on mineral exports to the United States in response to US tariffs. The United States highly depends on Canada’s minerals, including uranium, aluminum, and nickel. Canada was the United States’ top supplier of metals and minerals in 2023 ($46.97 billion in US imports), followed by China ($28.32 billion) and Mexico ($28.18 billion). Notably, President Trump’s recent executive order called Unleashing American Energy instructed the director of the US Geological Survey to add uranium to the critical minerals list. Canada provides 25 percent of uranium to the United States. If Canada were to impose export controls on uranium, the US objective of building a resilient enriched uranium supply chain would be jeopardized.

However, Canada could not impose export controls on the United States without experiencing significant blowback. Export control is a powerful tool. While US tariffs would increase the price of imported Canadian goods by at least 25 percent, Canada’s export controls would completely cut off the flow of certain Canadian goods to the United States. It would be destructive for both economies, so Canada will likely reserve this tool as a last resort and perhaps work on finding alternative export destinations before pulling such a trigger.

Canada employs restrictive economic measures against Russia

In response to Russia’s unjust invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Canada imposed financial sanctions and export controls against Russia in coordination with G7 allies. To date, Global Affairs Canada has added more than 3,000 entities and individuals to its Russia and Belarus sanctions lists under SEMA. Assets of designated individuals have been frozen and Canadian persons are prohibited from dealing with them. Apart from financial sanctions, Canada imposed export controls on technology and import restrictions on Russian oil and gold. Canada also joined the G7 in capping the price of Russian crude oil at $60 per barrel and barred Russian vessels from using Canadian ports.

To enforce financial sanctions against Russia, FINTRAC joined the financial intelligence units (FIUs) of Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States to create an FIU Working Group with the mission of enhancing intelligence sharing on sanctions evasion by Russian entities and individuals. Separately, Canada Border Services Agency’s export controls enforcement efforts included the review of more than 1,500 shipments bound to Russia (as of February 2024), resulting in six seizures and fourteen fines against exporters. CBSA continues to work closely with the Five Eyes intelligence alliance to share information about export control evasion.

To disrupt the operation of Russia’s shadow fleet, Canada proposed the creation of a task force to tackle the shadow fleet in March 2025. Such a task force could be useful in addressing the various environmental problems and enforcement challenges the shadow fleet has created for the sanctioning coalition. However, the United States vetoed Canada’s proposal.

Figure 5

Tariffs

Canada’s approach to tariffs is governed primarily by the Customs Act, which outlines the procedures for assessing and collecting tariffs on imported goods, as well as the Customs Tariff legislation that sets the duty rates for specific imports (generally based on the “Harmonized System,” an internationally standardized system for classifying traded products). The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for administering these tariffs. Additionally, the Special Import Measures Act enables Canada to protect industries from harm caused by unfair trade practices like dumping or subsidizing of imported goods, with the Canadian International Trade Tribunal determining injury and the CBSA imposing necessary duties. The minister of finance, in consultation with the minister of foreign affairs, plays a key role in proposing tariff changes or retaliatory tariffs, ensuring Canada’s trade policies align with its broader economic and diplomatic objectives.

Canada has frequently aligned with its allies on tariff issues, as demonstrated in 2024 when, following the US and EU tariffs, it imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to protect domestic industries. However, Canada has also been proactive in responding to US tariffs, employing a combination of diplomatic negotiations, retaliatory tariffs, and reliance on dispute resolution mechanisms such as the World Trade Organization and USMCA. In the past Canada was also quick to align itself with allies such as the EU and Mexico, seeking a coordinated international response, as was the case in 2018 when the United States imposed a broad tariff on steel and aluminum.

Similar to the United States, Canada offers remission allowances to help businesses adjust to tariffs by granting relief under specific circumstances, such as the inability to source goods from nontariffed countries or preexisting contractual obligations. The Department of Finance regularly seeks input from stakeholders before introducing new tariffs. In 2024, a thirty-day consultation was launched about possible tariffs on Chinese batteries, battery parts, semiconductors, critical minerals, metals, and solar panels, though it has yet to result in any new tariffs.

Canada’s primary weakness regarding tariffs is its lack of trade diversification. The United States accounts for half of Canada’s imports and 76 percent of its exports. This dependency severely limits Canada’s ability to impose tariffs on the United States without facing significant economic repercussions. Canada’s relatively limited economic leverage on the global stage also complicates efforts to coordinate multilateral tariff responses or to negotiate favorable trade agreements. Furthermore, Canada’s lengthy public consultations and regulatory processes for implementing tariffs hinder its ability to leverage tariffs as a swift response to changing geopolitical or economic circumstances.

Figure 6

Investment screening

Canada’s investment screening is governed by the Investment Canada Act (ICA), which ensures that foreign investments do not harm national security while promoting economic prosperity. The ICA includes net benefit reviews for large investments and national security reviews for any foreign investments which pose potential security risks, such as foreign control over critical sectors like technology or infrastructure.

The review process is administered by ISED, with the minister of innovation, science, and industry overseeing the reviews in consultation with Public Safety Canada. For national security concerns, multiple agencies assess potential risks, and the Governor-in-Council (GIC) has the authority to block investments or demand divestitures.

Criticism of the ICA includes lack of transparency and consistency, particularly in national security reviews, where decisions may be influenced by political or diplomatic considerations. To better mitigate risks to security, critical infrastructure, and the transfer of sensitive technologies, experts have argued that the ICA should more effectively target malicious foreign investments by incorporating into the review process the perspectives of Canadian companies on emerging national security threats. In response to these concerns, Bill C-34 introduced key updates in 2024, including preclosing filing requirements for sensitive sectors, the possibility of interim conditions during national security reviews, broader scope covering state-owned enterprises and asset sales, consideration for intellectual property and personal data protection, and increased penalties for noncompliance. In March 2025, further amendments were made to the ICA, expanding its scope to review “opportunistic or predatory” foreign investments. These changes were introduced in response to the United States’ imposition of blanket tariffs on Canadian goods.

Figure 7

Positive economic statecraft

Apart from coercive/protective tools, Canada maintains positive economic statecraft (PES) tools such as development assistance to build economic alliances beyond North America. For example, Canada is one of the largest providers of international development assistance to African countries. After Ukraine, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were the top recipients of Canada’s international assistance. Canada’s PES tools lay the ground for the federal governments to have productive cooperation when needs arise. Canadian authorities should leverage PES tools to enhance the country’s international standing and increase economic connectivity with other regions of the world. This is especially important amid the US pause on nearly all US foreign assistance. Canada could step up to help fill the vacuum in the developing world created by the Trump administration’s radical departure from a long-standing US role in foreign aid.

Canadian authorities have already taken steps in this direction. On March 9, Canadian Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen announced that Canada would be providing $272.1 million for foreign aid projects in Bangladesh and the Indo-Pacific region. The projects will focus on climate adaptation, empowering women in the nursing sector, advancing decent work and inclusive education and training. Earlier, on March 6, Global Affairs Canada launched its first Global Africa Strategy with the goal of deepening trade and investment relations with Africa, partnering on peace and security challenges, and advancing shared priorities on the international stage including climate change. Through this partnership, Canada plans to strengthen economic and national security by enhancing supply chain resilience and maintaining corridors for critical goods.

Conclusion

Canada’s federal government maintains a range of economic statecraft tools and authorities to address economic and national security threats. While regional factionalism and provincial equities can hinder the federal government’s ability to leverage the full force of Canada’s economic power, threats to Canada’s economic security, including tariffs from the United States, may prove to further unite and align the provinces. The federal government and provincial premiers should work together to meet this challenging moment, consolidating Canada’s sources of economic power and moving forward with a cohesive economic statecraft strategy to protect the country’s national security and economic security interests.

Canada’s leadership and engagement in international fora including the G7, NATO, Wassenaar Agreement, among others, as well as its bilateral relationships, make it well-placed to coordinate and collaborate with Western partners on economic statecraft. Information sharing, joint investigations, multilateral sanctions, and multilateral development and investment can extend the reach of Canada’s economic power while strengthening Western efforts to leverage economic statecraft to advance global security objectives and ensure the integrity of the global financial system. Canada also has a solid foundation for building economic partnerships beyond the West through development assistance and other positive economic statecraft tools.

About the authors

Staff

Kimberly Donovan

Economic Statecraft Initiative GeoEconomics Center

Digital Currencies Economic Sanctions

Staff

Maia Nikoladze

Associate Director, Economic Statecraft Initiative

Economic Statecraft Initiative GeoEconomics Center

Digital Currencies Eastern Europe

Staff

Lize de Kruijf

Program Assistant, Economic Statecraft Initiative

Economic Statecraft Initiative GeoEconomics Center

Dutch Economic Sanctions

The authors would like to thank Nazima Tursun, a young global professional at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative, for research support.

The report is part of a year-long series on economic statecraft across the G7 and China supported in part by a grant from MITRE.

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Housed within the GeoEconomics Center, the Economic Statecraft Initiative (ESI) publishes leading-edge research and analysis on sanctions and the use of economic power to achieve foreign policy objectives and protect national security interests.

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Milliken joins i24 News to discuss the UN staff member who died in Houthi custody

Atlantic Council — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 17:40:47 +0000

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Charting the path for women’s economic security in the G20

Alisha Chhangani, Jessie Yin — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 15:50:28 +0000

This Saturday is International Women’s Day, so it’s a good time to take stock of how the world’s largest economies are actually doing on gender equality. The picture that emerges is not exactly cause for celebration—but does highlight where the Group of Twenty (G20) needs to focus its attention.

As a forum specifically created to address shared economic challenges, the G20 is critical for accelerating progress on issues of women’s economic empowerment and security. The group’s efforts are especially relevant since compounding crises in recent years have exposed existing economic inequalities. Research shows that working women experienced worse effects from the COVID-19 recession—unlike previous economic downturns that predominantly affected men. In September 2021, women were 2.4 times more likely than men to report losing paid work in order to care for others. Pursuing gender-inclusive policies is critical for achieving collective prosperity and sustainable development.

The United States is set to take over the G20 presidency in 2026. If the United States puts gender empowerment high on the agenda, it can help deliver growth both at home and around the world. Despite recent efforts in the G20, there is still a lot of work to be done to address inequalities and promote progress for women.

Here are five charts that demonstrate these persisting economic gaps:

The Women Peace and Security (WPS) Index measures progress on gender equality on thirteen indicators across three dimensions—inclusion, justice, and security. These indicators include maternal mortality rate, intimate partner violence, employment, and financial inclusion. While most G20 countries have made progress since the start of the index in 2017, the story looks different when we take a closer snapshot.

From 2021 to 2023, almost all G20 countries experienced significant backsliding, according to the WPS Index. This regression was primarily driven by the uneven recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered global economic recessions and was further compounded by conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. These crises exposed and exacerbated existing economic inequalities, with women often bearing the brunt of the negative impact. According to research from 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic set gender parity back by a generation, with weak recovery making it even more difficult.

Notably, this decline was not limited to emerging economies. Advanced economies such as the United States, Canada, and European G20 members also recorded substantial downgrades in gender equality indicators. In these advanced economies, women faced increased unpaid domestic burdens, higher rates of unemployment, and diminished access to childcare services. Even countries with robust social safety nets and gender equality frameworks proved vulnerable to systemic shocks. This all underscores that the G20’s collective commitment to gender equality requires stronger, crisis-resistant policy instruments specifically designed to protect women’s economic security.

In 2018, the IMF noted that no advanced or middle-income economy achieved less than 7 percent in the gender labor force participation gap. Six years later, only France and Canada have managed to reduce that rate to below 7 percent within the G20.

The gap in labor force participation can reflect social and cultural norms, but it can also represent the structural barriers that women face in the labor market, including access to quality education or equitable hiring practices. Gender inclusion in the labor force is important because when a country has a more diverse pool of talent and fully taps into its available human capital, it generates better economic results for everyone, including increased GDP growth, reduced income inequality, and improved overall economic productivity.

Yet within formal employment, wage disparities between women and men have remained a persistent driver of inequality. In the United States, women earn only eighty-four cents for every dollar earned by a man, and globally, the gender pay gap is still approximately 20 percent. In fact, the United States ranks among the bottom five G20 countries when it comes to gender-based wage inequality.

On average around the world, women reinvest more of their income in their families, influenced by the care burden that many women shoulder for children or the elderly. Pay inequality directly impacts these families’ financial stability, housing options, educational opportunities, and quality of life. Progress to narrow this gap has been frustratingly slow. While equal pay has been widely endorsed in principle, implementing it effectively has proven challenging.

For the G20 specifically, addressing wage inequality represents both an economic imperative and a moral obligation. Studies consistently show that reducing gender wage gaps boosts GDP, increases tax revenue, and enhances business performance through greater diversity.

Only 12.3 percent of finance ministers and central bank governors across over 185 countries are women. This is more than 10 percent lower than the average proportion of women represented in cabinet members globally. This disparity is driven by a few factors, such as male dominance in the study of economics, barriers that prevent women from being promoted, and social perceptions of women’s abilities.

The G20 fares a little better than this global percentage with three female central bank governors and five female finance ministers. However, overall economic empowerment and security for women will be tougher to achieve when gender parity and inclusivity are still lacking in global economic leadership. The G20 should be the forum where the world’s major economies can convene and commit to achieving gender-balanced economic results.

The path forward

Addressing these gender gaps would have positive economic impacts globally. Women’s participation in the formal labor force increases economic diversification and drives income equality. Moody Analytics estimated that closing the gender gap could boost the global economy by seven trillion dollars. While there’s no silver bullet solution that would be able to fix these disparities overnight, there are a series of policies that could help, such as improving educational opportunities or equitable hiring practices.

There is a risk that women’s economic empowerment will not be a key focus for the G20. Leading the group next year, the United States has an opportunity to guide the global conversation by showing how investing in women creates resilient economies that benefit everyone.

Alisha Chhangani is an assistant director with the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center.

Jessie Yin is an assistant director with the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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Prospect of peace talks sparks fresh debate over Russia’s frozen assets

Ivan Horodyskyy — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 23:40:34 +0000

It was always likely that the fate of the $300 billion in frozen reserves of Russia’s Central Bank would become a key issue in negotiations over Ukraine’s future. With the new White House administration initiating fresh diplomatic efforts, these assets have now emerged as a potential bargaining chip in the broader push for a settlement.

Although the details of the negotiation process that began recently in Riyadh remain opaque, reports are already circulating about various potential formulas for using these funds. According to insiders, one proposal suggests allocating a portion of the reserves to support reconstruction in the approximately one-fifth of Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russian forces. In practice, that would mean the return of the frozen assets to Russia.

Kyiv would strongly oppose any such move, as it would be seen as contradicting both Ukraine’s national interests and the interests of the victims of Russian aggression. This underlines the high stakes as negotiations evolve and the opposing sides debate the fate of Russia’s frozen assets.

Since February 24, 2022, reserves of the Russian Central Bank have represented the largest frozen pool of Russian sovereign assets. Kyiv has consistently called for their full transfer to fund the Ukrainian war effort and compensate for war damage inflicted by Russia. G7 countries have repeatedly reaffirmed their stance that the frozen assets will remain immobilized until Russia pays for the damage it has caused in Ukraine.

This position has effectively placed responsibility on Ukraine and Russia to negotiate a political settlement including war reparations. Over the past three years, significant work has been undertaken to elaborate legal grounds for the confiscation of the frozen Russian assets in Ukraine’s favor, but no decisive action has been taken to seize them outright.

Instead, as a temporary measure, Ukraine has received interest accrued on these funds, which were placed in deposit accounts in 2024. Additionally, G7 leaders agreed to provide a $50 billion loan to be repaid in the coming years using proceeds from the frozen reserves. This arrangement represents a substantial achievement. It has also fueled speculation that the Russian assets will remain untouched until the loan is fully repaid, which could take 10 to 15 years.

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The start of peace talks in Saudi Arabia, spearheaded by the United States, has shifted the political calculus surrounding the use of the frozen Russian funds. Potential proposals to channel them into Ukraine’s reconstruction, including reconstruction projects in Russian-occupied territories, would mark a striking departure from previous policy. While this would no doubt be framed as a pragmatic step toward resolving the conflict, many would see it as a major concession to Moscow.

At first glance, this approach may appear designed to set a balance between competing interests. In reality, it risks undermining the very principles on which the international response to Russia’s aggression has been built.

Since 2022, there has been broad consensus that Russia, as the aggressor state, bears full responsibility for the consequences of the war, including the obligation to compensate for all damages, irrespective of the circumstances under which they occurred. This has been reaffirmed in a UN General Assembly resolution, one of Ukraine’s key diplomatic achievements at the United Nations.

Any compromise that allows Russia access to its frozen reserves, even indirectly, would set a dangerous precedent for the division of responsibility over war-related damages. While some might argue that the money ultimately belongs to Russia and that partial access does not amount to a strategic loss for Ukraine, this perspective ignores a fundamental reality: These frozen assets were supposed to serve as leverage to compel Russia to accept its legal obligations, including reparations. Allowing Moscow to regain control over even a fraction of the frozen assets would weaken that leverage and allow the aggressor to benefit at the expense of its victims.

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The core issue remains clear. Any model for unlocking Russian sovereign assets must prioritize justice for Ukraine and the victims of Russian aggression. Allocating these funds to be used by the aggressor state without a formal reparations agreement would contradict the principles of accountability.

Since May 2022, Ukraine has consistently advocated for the creation of an international compensation mechanism based on the vision that victims of aggression must be the primary beneficiaries. The fate of the frozen Russian $300 billion has always been at the center of this process, as these funds were considered the main source for financing reparations. Under a framework led by the Council of Europe and supported by a coalition of international partners including the United States, a Compensation Fund could serve as the primary instrument for distributing these assets to those who have suffered direct harm from Russia’s aggression.

While the mechanism requires further refinement, supporters believe this format is the best path toward ensuring meaningful redress. The recently established Register of Damage for Ukraine, which is tasked with registering all eligible claims to be paid out through a Compensation Fund, is an initial step in this direction, demonstrating a tangible commitment to prioritizing victim compensation.

Transferring Russia’s frozen reserves to a future Compensation Fund appears the most logical and legally sound course of action. Moreover, the European Union, which administers $210 billion of the $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank reserves, reportedly backs the move. Without this transfer of assets, the entire idea of a reparations mechanism for Ukraine would be undermined.

While the operational details of any future decisions can be refined through multilateral negotiations with the participation of Ukraine and the EU, the guiding principles appear clear. These should include the use of frozen Russian assets to serve the interests of Ukraine as the victim of aggression. The primary purpose of these funds should be direct compensation for war damages suffered by Ukrainian individuals, businesses, and institutions. Meanwhile, any decision on their use must be grounded in principles of justice, ensuring that responsibility for war-related damages is not shifted onto Ukraine, and that a victim-centered approach remains at the core of the process.

Ivan Horodyskyy is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project and director of the Dnistryanskyi Center for Politics and Law.

The Islamic Republic has not yet softened its position on the nuclear file, even after being weakened by a series of killings of leaders across its proxy network and by the degrading of a chunk of its air defenses and missile capacities. While Iranian decisionmakers have recognized the reality that the 2015 text of the JCPOA is long dead, they have clung to the vision of resurrecting a new deal premised on the basic bargain of temporary nuclear constraints in exchange for sanctions relief, using the JCPOA as a reference point or framework.

Some Iranian officials have taken to the airwaves to hint that there may be willingness to discuss nonnuclear concerns, but those who are the real decisionmakers on these issues—the supreme leader and commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—have shunned talks over its missile and drone programs and other regional files. Their stances speak louder than the propagandists trying to give an impression to Western constituencies and others that such fundamental change is possible. History has shown that it is not.

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In February, the supreme leader himself delivered public remarks warning against negotiations with the Trump administration: “One shall not negotiate with a government like this,” he said. “Negotiating is unwise, unintelligent, not honorable.” Already this has triggered hardened rhetoric from Iranian officials, such as President Masoud Pezeshkian, who had previously made more conciliatory comments towards the Trump administration. Since Khamenei’s speech, the Pezeshkian administration has experienced further headwinds with the impeachment of Economy Minister Abdolnaser Hemmati as well as the resignation of Vice President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif, who has long been seen as the face of the Islamic Republic’s engagement with the United States.

But Khamenei’s warning last month was not the sweeping ban he laid down in September 2019, when he said, “the policy of maximum pressure on the Iranian nation is of little importance, and all the officials in the Islamic Republic unanimously believe that there will be no negotiations at any level with the United States.” The Islamic Republic under Khamenei will likely never truly walk away completely from the negotiating table, as its political weaponization is a valuable tool to buy time for the regime and divide the United States from within and from its allies. This does not necessarily mean there will be direct and public diplomacy with the Trump administration at this juncture. However, Khamenei’s latest comments seem to leave some room for diplomacy in that they do not necessarily rule out indirect discussions. Such discussions could take place through various channels of communication that Tehran has long maintained with Washington, including through Arab regional interlocutors and European governments. Russia has also reportedly agreed to serve as an intermediary. Still, the obstacles are significant.

For now, on substance, Iran and the United States are talking past each other about “deals.” Iran is still speaking in the language of the JCPOA. But US officials appear to have something different in mind. In a recent interview, Trump publicly disavowed the JCPOA formula, complaining about its short-term duration. This was followed by his national security advisor expressing a willingness to talk to Iran as long as Tehran wants to give up its entire nuclear program. The US secretary of state hinted at a similar demand, noting that in the past, “efforts that Iran has undertaken diplomatically have been only about how to extend the time frame” for its nuclear program and to continue to enrich, sponsor terrorism, build long-range weapons, and “sow instability throughout the region.”

Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-2 (NSPM-2) included related pledges, vowing to “deny Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon and end the regime’s nuclear extortion racket.” NSPM-2 also employed mandatory language stating that the US ambassador to the United Nations will “work with key allies to complete the snapback”—or restoration—”of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.” This language evokes past US demands for zero enrichment or reprocessing in Iran, which the first Trump administration endorsed. Triggering snapback would also restore previous UN Security Council resolutions, inked before the 2015 JCPOA, which included demands for Iran to suspend “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities . . . and work on all heavy-water related projects.”

NSPM-2 likewise declared that it is US policy that “Iran be denied a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles,” among other measures to counter Iran’s malign behavior beyond its nuclear program. These US positions are reminiscent of the 2003 Libya disarmament deal, in which the country pledged to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs, including nuclear, and to adhere to the Missile Technology Control Regime. However, this is a fundamentally different paradigm from the JCPOA, which allowed Iran to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent purity and did not touch its missile program.

In fact, Iran’s supreme leader has warned that US officials “intend to systematically reduce Iran’s nuclear facilities, similar to how they did with a North African country”—a hint at Libya—”ultimately leading to the shutdown of Iran’s nuclear industry.” In 2011, Khamenei (referring to Libyan dictator Muammar Ghaddafi) said that “this gentleman wrapped up all his nuclear facilities, packed them on a ship and delivered them to the West and said, ‘Take them!’” He added, “Look where we are, and in what position they are now.” In 2023, after talks about reviving the JCPOA stalled, Khamenei reiterated that “there is nothing wrong with the agreement [with the West], but the infrastructure of our nuclear industry should not be touched.”

Despite forty-six years of failed diplomacy, outside observers have been insisting Iran is ripe for a durable diplomatic arrangement with the United States. Some supporters of negotiations with Iran have also been wishcasting that Trump suddenly adopted the Obama administration’s Iran policy based on an overreading of the new president’s rhetoric and the absence of certain officials, such as former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who took a hardline stance, from the policymaking process. But this is a false narrative, one that even some Islamic Republic officials like to promote while arguing that Trump was suckered into an Iran policy that was not his own, despite him expressing disapproval of the JCPOA during his first presidential campaign, well before his national security team was assembled.

There is no public evidence to date that the maximum Tehran is prepared to give—a JCPOA-style arrangement—will meet the minimum the Trump administration is prepared to accept. If current positions hold, this sets the stage for a showdown, not a deal, in the near term, necessitating the development of a robust pressure architecture to further sharpen Tehran’s choices.

Jason M. Brodsky is the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). His research focus includes Iranian leadership dynamics and Iran’s military and security apparatus. He is on X @JasonMBrodsky.

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To rejoin the G7, Russia should meet several important conditions

Robert D. Hormats — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:55:23 +0000

On February 13, US President Donald Trump said that Russia should be invited to rejoin the Group of Seven (G7) summits of Western leaders. “I’d love to have them back,” he said. “I think it was a mistake to throw them out.”

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed the invitation, saying that the G7 “has lost much of its relevance.” But Russian President Vladimir Putin did not say no. Peskov’s statement aside, Putin may view eventually returning to the G7 as a desirable goal, more than a decade after Russia was tossed out of the group for its seizure of Ukrainian territory in 2014. Putin may see this prospect as a major victory that would reduce his isolation, enhance his global stature, and give him another venue for sowing disunity among Western nations.

But inviting Russia to rejoin the G7 before Kyiv, Washington, and the wider West achieve a favorable settlement on Ukraine and related security issues would pose serious problems for Ukraine and the West and provide significant advantages for Putin.

As a former White House and State Department official for five presidents of both parties, I can recognize the potential benefits from a US dialogue with Russia, and even a Trump-Putin summit. And if that were to succeed in meeting the requirements of Ukraine and the West, it could set the stage for reconsidering Moscow’s G7 membership. But given Putin’s statement on Thursday insisting that Russia must keep the Ukrainian territory it has seized and claims to have annexed as part of any peace agreement, reaching a successful deal will be extremely difficult. It can only happen if Putin, recognizing that his economy and domestic morale are deteriorating, is willing to make significant concessions that produce a positive, just, and durable outcome for Ukraine, Europe, and the broader West. And he hardly seems in the mood for that—yet.

During the Cold War, US-USSR dialogues and presidential summits took place from time to time. Not all were successful, but some did succeed in reducing tensions or producing constructive compromises. And generally, the best of these were quite well prepared.

But these are not ordinary times, and a satisfactory outcome now will be very difficult to achieve. I would encourage such meetings now only if the White House is assured of good preparation and sees a reasonable chance of significant progress toward a favorable outcome.

In that same vein, I would also encourage Trump to reconsider any possibility of Russia rejoining the G7 until Washington and Moscow constructively resolve a number of critical military and security issues—starting with Russia accepting significant concessions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. If Russia doesn’t, Trump should instead use the G7 to achieve the purposes for which it was originally intended—to strengthen Western unity and cooperation.

Why Russia was kicked out of the G7

Before considering any further action on Russia’s G7 membership, it is important to recall why Russia was ousted in the first place and why it should have to comply with tough conditions if it wants to be reinstated. I was a White House planner and presidential advisor (colloquially referred to as a sherpa) for the very first G7 Summit, in 1975 in Rambouillet, France, and for roughly a dozen more afterwards. During much of this period I also served as a senior advisor to the National Security Council.

The G7 was originally established as a summit to bring together leaders of the largest Western democracies to discuss common economic challenges. It evolved over time to become a forum for discussing political issues, as well. Attending these summit meetings as a US sherpa, I was impressed with how well they functioned and the numerous common economic and political strategies that emerged.

The group became the G8 in 1997, after G7 leaders agreed to invite Russia to join. At the time, this was controversial. But there were faint signs that Russia under its democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, whose governing team included some reformers, was moving to implement market-oriented economic and even democratic policies. Moreover, there were signals that Yeltsin was willing to strengthen cooperation with Western nations. So the decision was made to go ahead and invite Russia.

Then US President Bill Clinton and his colleagues felt that bringing Moscow into the group might further encourage cooperation with the West and give additional support to democratic practices in Russia—for which Yeltsin’s election was seen by some as an early positive sign.

For a while, other Western sherpas and I worked relatively well with Russian sherpas as we coordinated these summits. Russia sent some of its very best and most effective diplomats to represent the country. And at G8 summits, US and Western leaders worked constructively on several issues with Russian leaders. There were numerous and often productive dialogues. Many, of course, were quite candid. They were normally useful in clarifying and narrowing differences. We were hopeful that, over time, Russia and the original G7 would find more common interests and objectives, and enhance their cooperation.

At the end of 1999, Yeltsin resigned, and later on Vladimir Putin became president of the Russian Federation. He worked well and constructively with his Western G8 colleagues for several years, including hosting a G8 meeting in St. Petersburg in 2006. Hopes were growing that the decision to add Russia was beginning to bear fruit. Even during the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008, a period of heavy bilateral tensions, conversations in the G8 proved to be tense but in most areas continued on a relatively even keel. And in 2009, after Barack Obama became president, the United States attempted a “reset,” and there was little if any pressure to oust Russia from the G8.

All this came to an end in 2014. Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Obama and his Western G8 colleagues concluded that Putin’s action was deeply contrary to the spirit of cooperation that underlay the original G7 and that continued Russian membership would be a sign that the West was indifferent to Moscow’s belligerent actions.

Membership dues

Reinviting Moscow under current conditions, without firm and enforceable commitments to resolve outstanding issues to the satisfaction of Ukraine, Europe, and the West, would be seen as condoning Russia’s actions against Ukraine. But if Trump does choose to go forward, he should set terms that would benefit Ukraine and the West in ways that are consistent with the principles and spirit of the original G7. It is also worth noting that there are six other members of the G7, including four in Western Europe, and they would have to agree to Russia’s reinstatement, too.

Preconditions, as part of a larger peace agreement, that Russia end the war in Ukraine on terms satisfactory to Kyiv and agree to strong Western security arrangements for Ukraine and the rest of Europe should be part of any deal on G7 membership. This arrangement is logical given the reason for Moscow’s ouster from the group. Russia was originally expelled from the G7 in 2014 precisely because of its belligerent actions in Ukraine, so its readmission to the group should be linked with terms preserving Ukraine’s unity and security. If Trump wants Russia back in the G7, he has the opportunity to use his frequently cited negotiating skills and close relations with Putin to obtain such terms from Russia and to sell the rest of the G7 members on the idea.

If, however, no such deal is doable, Trump also has a golden opportunity to use the present G7, as originally intended, to engage in a positive dialogue with US allies on economic and political cooperation. It should aim for sustained unity on support for Ukraine, as well as common objectives on countering threats and internal interference from Russia and other countries adversarial toward the West.

Divisions in the West are growing. Adding to the G7 a country that has taken actions strongly hostile to Western interests and aims to divide it further is hardly the answer to this problem. Trying to reach a favorable deal for Ukraine, the United States, and the West as a precondition for Russian membership is a better course and is a crucially important test of broader Russian intentions—which so far seem to be moving in the wrong direction. I wish Trump success in negotiating such a deal. While the Obama administration could not accomplish its desired reset, Trump has the opportunity to produce one. But he can do so only if the Kremlin is willing to meet the several necessary and credible conditions and commitments noted above. And if Russia fails this test—which, given Putin’s recent statements, it appears that it will—it is even more important for Trump to forge common ground in the G7 on these and other issues.

Effective economic and political cooperation were fundamental tenets of the G7 from the beginning—and even in some periods in the G8 when Russia was a member. They were very much to the United States’ advantage and helped support global stability, as well. If Trump uses the G7 in the right way, he can strengthen his hand in further negotiations with Putin and strengthen US leadership overall in enhancing the security and prosperity of the West in both Europe and the Pacific. But readmitting Russia to the G7 prematurely without extremely strong conditions agreed to and implemented by Moscow would do neither.

A summit or another kind of dialogue with Moscow, which now seems to be in the planning process, might be useful, as such communications sometimes were during the Cold War. But I would strongly suggest holding off on any suggestion of an invitation to Putin to join the G7 until the results of these dialogues or summits are made clear, and only if Western leaders decide that the commitments Putin makes are satisfactory to Kyiv, the rest of Europe, and all members of the G7—along with firm arrangements to make sure Russia honors such commitments.

Robert D. Hormats is a former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment at the US Department of State, a former senior staff member on the US National Security Council, a visiting lecturer at Yale University, and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Board of Directors.

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Could the EU “blocking statute” protect the ICC from US sanctions?

Lize de Kruijf — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 20:31:41 +0000

On February 6th, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC)”, escalating the United States’ ongoing opposition to the Court’s activities. The sanctions come in response to the ICC’s investigation into alleged crimes involving US personnel and certain allies, including Israel, which the administration claims have been undertaken “without a legitimate basis”. This move has sparked global dissent, with over 80 countries joining together in a statement reaffirming their “continued and unwavering support for the independence, impartiality and integrity of the ICC.” For the Netherlands, the ICC’s host country, the sanctions present a particular challenge.

As the host country, the Netherlands is responsible for ensuring the operational independence of the Court. Under the “Headquarters Agreement” between the ICC and the Netherlands, the country must cooperate with the ICC and ensure its business continuity. However, the new US sanctions targeting ICC personnel could severely disrupt the Court’s operations—particularly if Dutch banks suspend financial services to the ICC out of fear of violating US sanctions.

In response, the Dutch government has engaged in discussions with Dutch banks to explore under what conditions they would continue processing transactions for the ICC under these new sanctions. Reports indicate that the banks are seeking substantial guarantees to maintain their business with the Court.

One proposed solution is invoking the European Union (EU)’s “blocking statute”, which prevents EU-based businesses from complying with US sanctions that have extraterritorial reach. This statute allows EU companies to resist US laws that conflict with European legal protections and provide a framework for seeking compensation if harmed by US sanctions. The blocking statute was notably used in 2018 when the EU sought to bypass US sanctions on Iran following the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal. However, applying this legislation to protect the ICC would be an unprecedented use of this tool and likely come with unique challenges.

Nevertheless, various parties have expressed an ardent desire for the EU to invoke the blocking statute. The President of the ICC, Judge Tomoko Akane, has stressed that the EU blocking statute is one of the Court’s most essential tools for surviving any sanctions, urging, “to preserve the Court you must act now.” Dutch Justice Minister, David van Weel, also noted that “the Netherlands is too small” to protect banks on its own and that this issue needs to be addressed at a European level. In response, the Dutch Cabinet, following direction from Parliament, has agreed to advocate for the statute’s activation at the European level.

Given the EU’s longstanding support for the ICC, it is reasonable to assume that the EU will seek to protect the ICC in some form. There are a few less “nuclear” alternatives it may encourage first. Dutch banks could minimize their exposure to the ICC by restricting their services to a minimum—only holding cash and processing basic transactions for the ICC—or ICC servicing could be consolidated with one smaller bank. However, if the situation escalates, the EU may be forced to invoke the blocking statute, particularly if the US Senate revisits the previously blocked “Illegitimate Court Counter Act.” This bill sought to expand sanctions on the ICC to include not just those who “directly engaged in” unfavorable investigations but also those who “otherwise aided” the Court. While this bill was narrowly blocked due to concerns over its potential negative impact on American businesses, Democratic Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer indicated that a revised bipartisan version could be “very possible”.

It is therefore worth exploring what the blocking statute scenario would look like, because while it offers a strong legal defense, it may not be a panacea. Even if invoked, it could prove difficult to fully block all US sanctions, particularly when third-party countries and multinational companies with operations in both the US and the EU are involved.

The Netherlands, with its robust financial sector, faces a unique challenge, as several Dutch banks —such as ING, Rabobank, and ABN AMRO—are deeply integrated into the US financial system. While the blocking statute would shield Dutch banks operating within the EU from US sanctions, those with operations in the US remain subject to US law. This creates a dual compliance challenge: Dutch banks must balance their operations in the EU (protected by the statute) with their US operations (still subject to US sanctions).

Whichever way they turn, these banks will face unpleasant consequences. Complying with US sanctions could undermine the ICC’s financial operations, potentially halting essential payments to the Court. Additionally, compliance with US sanctions could expose these banks to long-term reputational risks, as they may be seen as aligning with US policy against the ICC, an institution widely supported by the international community. On the other hand, refusing to comply could lead to penalties or the loss of access to the US financial system. Dutch banks will need to navigate this conflict carefully, weighing the risks of becoming entangled in a geopolitical standoff.

As this situation unfolds, much remains uncertain. However, one thing is clear: US sanctions on the ICC have the potential to create significant diplomatic and economic tensions within the longstanding US-EU alliance, with the Netherlands caught in the middle. How the EU, the Netherlands, and Dutch banks respond will likely shape the future of the ICC and may have lasting implications for international diplomacy and the future of international law.

Lize de Kruijf is a project assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative.

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US sides with Russia against Ukraine and Europe at the United Nations

Shelby Magid — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 21:59:17 +0000

As the world marked the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a diplomatic clash at the United Nations illustrated the dramatic divide that has emerged between the United States and Europe since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump just over one month ago.

The cause of the clash was a disagreement over the wording of rival UN resolutions marking the anniversary of the Russian invasion. The resolution initiated by Ukraine and supported by most Western nations explicitly identified Russia as the aggressor, while a version promoted by the United States adopted a more neutral tone and emphasized the need for peace.

The United States voted against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine, siding with a handful of states including Russia, Belarus, and North Korea. The resolution passed thanks to backing from 93 nations including Ukraine and America’s traditional European allies.

The significance of this US realignment was widely noted. “If you want a measure of the scale of the transatlantic rift, consider this: I am told that yesterday was the first time since 1945 that the US voted with Russia and against Europe at the UN on an issue of European security,” commented BBC News diplomatic correspondent James Landale.

Hours later, the US successfully spearheaded a resolution at the UN Security Council calling for a “swift end” to the conflict and urging a “lasting peace between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.” Notably, Russia was not named as the aggressor. This marked the first adoption of a Security Council resolution on Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Russia holds veto power in the Security Council and has effectively prevented the body from passing any resolutions on the invasion of Ukraine until now. Clearly, the Kremlin approved of the change in tone from US diplomats.

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While only United Nations Security Council resolutions are binding, the UN General Assembly is widely seen as a key diplomatic battleground. Ukrainian diplomats duly celebrated the adoption of their resolution. “Sometimes it is not easy to fight for the truth. But in the end, it is the truth that makes history,” wrote Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. Meanwhile, the US-led Security Council resolution earned praise from the Kremlin, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov welcoming it as an indication that the causes of the war were being better understood in the West.

Speaking after the United Nations votes, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that the United States position on the resolutions reflected President Trump’s emphasis on ending the war. “We didn’t feel it was conducive, frankly, to have something out there at the UN that’s antagonistic to either side,” he commented.

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While many Americans back Trump’s push for peace in Ukraine, the decision to vote alongside Russia and other authoritarian powers has sparked concern and some bipartisan condemnation. “I was deeply troubled by the vote at the UN today which put us on the same side as Russia and North Korea. These are not our friends. This posture is a dramatic shift from American ideals of freedom and democracy,” commented Republican senator John Curtis. “Siding with Russia and North Korea over freedom and democracy? Unconscionable. Dangerous. Weak,” offered Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar.

Trump has repeatedly stated that his goal is peace in Ukraine. His team insists the recent UN maneuvers were aimed at creating a less confrontational climate and setting the stage for meaningful negotiations. Critics counter that any serious peace process must recognize the root causes of the war and acknowledge the central role played by Russia’s imperial ambitions. Refusing to name Russia as the aggressor may prove popular in Moscow, but this does not change the reality of Russia’s actions. On the contrary, it risks fueling the Kremlin’s sense of impunity.

This week’s efforts to avoid offending Russia at the United Nations will add to existing concerns that the Trump White House is siding with the Kremlin against Ukraine and the rest of the collective West. While a strong case can be made for seeking to engage Russia, it is unclear why an administration eager to project strength appears so willing to make concessions to an authoritarian dictator while pressuring the victim of Russian aggression. Few UN votes go down in history, but the intense interest in this week’s resolutions reflects a far deeper sense of international alarm over what many see as the transformation of US foreign policy under Donald Trump.

Shelby Magid is deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Ian Brzezinski, Ryan Arick — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:35 +0000

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Key takeaways

Russia is the most direct and significant threat to the security of NATO member states—and since Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 this threat continues to grow. It now encompasses the war in Ukraine, the militarization of the Arctic, hybrid warfare, and violations of arms control treaties.
While NATO holds a significant advantage over Russia in military and economic power, an effective and unified strategy is needed to counter Russia’s aggression and fully harness the Alliance’s collective capabilities.
To effectively counter Russia, NATO must defeat Russia in Ukraine, deter Russian aggression against NATO allies and partners, contain Russian influence beyond its borders, and degrade Russia’s ability and will to accomplish its revisionist agenda. That will require, among other actions, a significant increase of support and commitment to Ukraine’s defense against Russia, and a more robust Alliance force posture including the modernization of its nuclear deterrent, the permanent stationing of brigade elements along NATO’s eastern frontier and increased defense industrial capacities.

Russia is “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.” So states the NATO Strategic Concept promulgated at the Alliance’s Madrid Summit in June 2022, just four months after Russia’s massive escalation of its invasion of Ukraine.¹ The concept and NATO declarations not only underscore the illegality and brutality of that ongoing attack but also highlight Moscow’s use of nuclear and conventional military aggression, annexation, subversion, sabotage, and other forms of coercion and violence against NATO allies and partners.

Ever since its invasion of Georgia in 2008, Russia’s aggression against the Alliance has steadily intensified. This led NATO leaders at their 2024 Washington Summit to task the development of “recommendations on NATO’s strategic approach to Russia, taking into account the changing security environment.”² The Alliance’s “Russia strategy” is due for consideration at NATO’s next summit at The Hague in June 2025.³ This issue brief reviews Moscow’s actions affecting the security of the Euro-Atlantic area and presents the enduring realities, objectives, and actions that should constitute the core of an effective NATO strategy to counter the threat posed by Russia.

Intensified and globalized Russian aggression

Russia’s objectives go far beyond the subordination of Ukraine. Moscow seeks to reassert hegemony and control over the space of the former Soviet Union, diminish the power of the democratic community of nations, and delegitimize the international rules-based order. Moscow aims to subjugate its neighbors and to weaken—if not shatter—NATO, the key impediment to its European ambitions.

Toward these ends and under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, Russia:

Has illegally occupied Moldova’s Transnistria region since the early 1990s.
Invaded Georgia in 2008, has continued to occupy portions of that country, and recently increased its influence, if not control, over the nation’s governance.
Invaded Ukraine in 2014 and significantly escalated this ongoing war in February 2022.
Militarized the Arctic by increasing its military presence in the region, including through reopening Soviet-era bases and building new facilities to buttress Russian territorial claims over Arctic waters.
Leveraged trade and energy embargoes and other forms of economic pressure to intimidate and coerce its European neighbors.
Conducts an escalating campaign of active measures short of war against NATO allies and partners, including information warfare, election interference, sabotage, assassination, weaponized migration, cyberattacks, GPS jamming, and other actions.
Expanded its conventional and nuclear military capabilities, an effort that was part of President Putin’s preparations to invade Ukraine.
Violated, suspended, and abrogated international arms control agreements, including New START Treaty, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Open Skies Agreement, and others.⁴

Enduring realities

A NATO strategy to counter Russia’s aggression is long overdue. Its absence cedes to Russia the initiative, leaving the Alliance too often in a reactive, if not indecisive and passive, posture in this relationship. An effective strategy requires recognition of nine enduring realities:

First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a failure of deterrence. The weakness of the Alliance’s response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s failure to respond forcefully to Russia’s months long mobilization of forces along Ukraine’s frontiers in 2021, and NATO’s acquiescence to Putin’s exercise of nuclear coercion emboldened and facilitated Putin’s actions against Ukraine. As a result, the credibility of the Alliance’s commitment to defend resolutely its interests and values has been damaged.

A destroyed Russian tank remains on the side of the road near the frontline town of Kreminna, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Luhansk region, Ukraine March 24, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

Second, Russia is at war, not just against Ukraine. It is also at war against NATO. The Alliance can no longer approach the relationship as one of competition or confrontation considering the military invasions, active measures, and other forms of violence and coercion Russia has undertaken against NATO allies and partners.⁵ As former US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun has written, “Quite simply, Putin has declared war on the West, but the West does not yet understand we are at war with Russia.”⁶ By failing to recognize this reality, NATO has ceded escalation dominance to Russia as evidenced by its limiting of support to Ukraine and its inaction against repeated Russian aggression and provocations. The Alliance must recognize and act upon the reality that Moscow has pushed the NATO-Russia relationship into the state of war.

Third, NATO faces long-term conflict with Russia. Putin cannot be expected to abandon his ambitions, even if defeated in Ukraine. Ever since Putin’s speech before the February 2007 Munich Security Conference in which he railed against the international order and NATO’s expanding membership, Russia’s campaign to subjugate its neighbors and to intimidate, divide, and weaken the Alliance has been unceasing and relentless. Nor can the Alliance assume that Putin’s successor will significantly diverge from the objectives and policies that drive Russia’s actions today. Peaceful coexistence with Russia is not attainable in the short to medium term and will be difficult to attain in the long term.

Quite simply, Putin has declared war on the West, but the West does not yet understand we are at war with Russia.

—Stephen Biegun, former US Deputy Secretary of State

Fourth, Russia will continue efforts to increase the size and capability of its armed forces. While Russian land forces have suffered significant losses in its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has reconstituted that force faster than expected. Russia’s land forces were estimated to be 15 percent larger in April 2024 than when Russia attacked Kyiv in February 2022.⁷ Earlier this year, Russia announced new ambitious plans to restructure and expand its ground forces to 1.5 million active personnel.⁸ Moreover, the Russian air force and navy have not been significantly degraded by the war against Ukraine. Russia’s air force has only lost some 10 percent of its aircraft. While Russian naval ships have been destroyed in the Black Sea, Russian naval activity worldwide has increased.⁹ Similarly, Russian nuclear forces have been unaffected by the conflict in Ukraine. Russia retains the world’s largest arsenal of deployed and nondeployed nuclear weapons and continues to develop new models of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM), hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, nuclear-powered subsurface drones, antisatellite weapons, and orbital space weapons.¹⁰ With some 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) being directed to its military, Moscow is investing to increase its defense-industrial and research and development capacities.¹¹ Russia’s industrial base produces more ammunition than that produced by all NATO members and is fielding new high-tech weapons systems, such as the nuclear-capable multiple warhead IRBM Oreshnik Russia, which was demonstrated in combat against Ukraine last November.¹² In April 2024, NATO SACEUR General Christopher Cavoli testified to the US Congress that:

“Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent and a defense industrial complex capable of generating substantial amounts of ammunition and material in support of large-scale combat operations. Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal and angrier with the West than when it invaded.”¹³

Fifth, Moscow’s aggressive actions short of war will continue and escalate. Putin has yet to face a response from the Alliance that will dissuade him from further exercising information warfare, cyber warfare, energy and trade embargoes, assassination, GPS jamming, sabotage, fomenting separatist movements, and other forms of hybrid warfare. These actions are intended to intimidate governments; weaken the credibility of the Alliance’s security guarantee; create and exacerbate internal divisions; and divide allies, among other objectives. Left unchecked, they threaten to undermine the Alliance’s ability to attain consensus necessary to take decisive action against Russia.

Sixth, Moscow’s exercise of nuclear coercion will continue as a key element of Russia’s strategy and should be expected to intensify. Threats of nuclear warfare are a key element of Putin’s strategy to preclude NATO and its members from providing Ukraine support that would enable it to decisively defeat Russia’s invasion. This repeated exercise of nuclear coercion includes verbal threats from President Putin and other senior Russian officials; the launching of nuclear capable ICBMs; the use of a nuclear capable IRBM against Ukraine, the first use of such a system in a conflict; nuclear weapons exercises; and the deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus, according to both Russia and Belarus.¹⁴ NATO allies have repeatedly rewarded this coercion by expressing fear of nuclear war; declaring that NATO forces will not enter Ukraine; restricting NATO’s role in assisting Ukraine; limiting the flow of weapons to Ukraine; and restricting their use against legitimate military targets in Russia. Rewarding nuclear coercion encourages its repeated exercise and escalation. It risks leading Russia to conclude it has attained escalation dominance. A key challenge for NATO going forward will be to demonstrate that Russia’s threats of nuclear strikes are counterproductive, and the Alliance cannot be deterred by nuclear coercion.

NATO leaders stand together for a photo at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July 2024. REUTERS/Yves Herman

Seventh, Moscow is conducting a global campaign of aggression to weaken the democratic community of nations and the rules-based international order. Over the last two decades, Russia has exercised its military, informational, and economic assets to generate anti-Western sentiment across the globe, including in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific region. This has included military support to authoritarian, anti-Western regimes well beyond Europe, including Venezuela, Syria, and Mali. The most concerning element of Russia’s global campaign is the partnerships it has operationalized with China, Iran, and North Korea. Russia’s “no limits partnership” with China enables Putin to mitigate the impacts of Western sanctions on his war economy. Both Iran and North Korea have provided Russia with weapons and ammunition, and North Korean soldiers have joined Russia’s fight against Ukraine. In return, Russia has supplied missile and nuclear technologies, oil and gas, and economic support to these nations that enables them to stoke violence across the Middle East, threaten the Korean Peninsula, and drive forward Beijing’s hegemonic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.

Eighth, an effective Russia strategy will require a coordinated leveraging of all the instruments of power available through the Alliance, its member states, and its key partners, including the European Union. This includes the application of diplomatic, economic, ideological, informational, and other elements of power—none of which are the Alliance’s primary capacity, military power—that can be marshaled through its members states and multinational institutions, such as the European Union, where the Alliance and its member states have influence and authority.

Ninth, NATO significantly overmatches Russia in military and economic power.
NATO Headquarters estimates the combined GDP of Alliance member states to be $54 trillion, more than twenty-five times Russia’s estimated GDP of more than $2 trillion.¹⁵ The combined defense budget of NATO members amounts to approximately $1.5 trillion,¹⁶ more than ten times that of Russia’s publicly projected defense budget of $128 billion for 2025.¹⁷ This imbalance of power favoring the Alliance will be enduring and makes the execution of an effective Russia strategy not a matter of capacity, but one of strategic vision and political will.

Core objectives

To counter the direct and significant threat posed by Moscow, a NATO strategy for Russia should be structured around four core objectives:¹⁸

Defeat Russia in Ukraine: NATO must defeat Russia’s war against Ukraine. This is its most urgent priority. Failure to do so—and failure includes the conflict’s perpetuation—increases the risk of a wider war in Europe and will encourage other adversaries around the world to pursue their revisionist and hegemonic ambitions. Russia’s decisive defeat in Ukraine is essential to return stability to Europe and to reinforce the credibility of the Alliance’s deterrent posture.

Deter aggression by Russia: A key Alliance priority must be the effective deterrence of Russia aggression against the Alliance. A robust conventional and nuclear posture that deters Russian military aggression is far less costly than an active war. Deterrence must also be more effectively exercised against Russia’s actions short of war. Failure to deter aggression in this domain can undermine confidence in the Alliance and increase the risk of war.
Contain Russia’s influence and control: The Alliance must actively contain Russia’s efforts to assert influence and control beyond its borders. The Alliance must assist Europe’s non-NATO neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and in Central Asia to strengthen their defenses and resilience to Russian pressure. NATO and NATO allies should also work to counter and roll back Russia’s influence and engagement around the globe.
Degrade Russia’s capabilities and determination: A core objective for the Alliance should include weakening Russia’s capacity and will to pursue its hegemonic ambitions. Denying Russia access to international markets would further degrade its economy, including its defense-industrial capacity. Active engagement of the Russian public and other key stakeholders should aim to generate opposition to Putin and the Kremlin’s international aggression.

Achievement of these objectives would compel the Kremlin to conclude that its revanchist ambitions, including the diminishment or destruction of NATO, are unachievable and self-damaging. It would diminish Russia’s will and ability to continue aggression in Europe and weaken the impact of Russia’s partnerships, including with China, Iran, and North Korea. In addition, achieving these objectives would return a modicum of stability to Europe that in the long-term would enhance the prospects for NATO’s peaceful coexistence with Russia.

Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded.

—Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Recommended actions

A NATO strategy to defeat, deter, contain, and degrade Russian aggression and influence should effectuate the following actions by the Alliance, its member states, and partners:

Defeat Russia in Ukraine and accelerate Ukraine’s accession into the NATO alliance Defeating Russian aggression against Ukraine requires its own strategy, which should feature five key elements: adopting Ukraine’s war objectives, including total territorial reconstitution (i.e., the Alliance must never recognize Russian sovereignty over the territories it illegally seized from Ukraine); maximizing the flow of military equipment and supplies to Ukraine, free of restrictions on their use against legitimate military targets in Russia; imposing severe economic sanctions on Russia; deploying aggressive information operations to generate opposition in Russia against Putin’s aggression; and presenting a clear, accelerated path for Ukraine to NATO membership. NATO membership, and the security guarantee it provides, would add real risk and complexity to Russian military planning. NATO membership for Ukraine is the only way to convince the Kremlin that Ukraine cannot be subject to Russian hegemony and would provide security conditions needed for Ukraine’s rapid reconstruction and economic integration into Europe.
Fulfill and operationalize NATO’s regional defense plans. To establish a credible and effective deterrent against Russian military aggression, NATO allies must:
- Build and deploy the requisite national forces. Military plans are no more than visions in the absence of required capabilities. NATO’s European and Canadian allies need to generate more forces, with requisite firepower, mobility, and enabling capacities. In short, given European allies’ obligations under NATO’s new regional defense plans, they must act with urgency.
- Strengthen transatlantic defense industrial capacity. High intensity warfare, as seen in Ukraine, consumes massive amounts of weapons stocks, much of which have to be in a near constant state of modernization to match the technological adaptations of the adversary. Today, the Alliance has struggled (and often failed) to match the defense-industrial capacity of Russia and its partners. NATO’s defense industrial base must expand its production capacities and its ability to rapidly develop, update, and field weapons systems.
- Increase allied defense spending to the equivalent of 5 percent of GDP. To facilitate the aforementioned requirements and to address emerging challenges beyond Europe that could simultaneously challenge the transatlantic community, NATO allies need to increase the agreed floor of defense spending from 2 percent to 5 percent and fulfill that new commitment with immediacy. NATO members cannot allow themselves to be forced to choose between defending against Russia and another geopolitical challenge beyond Europe.

Terminate the NATO Russia Founding Act (NRFA). Russia has repeatedly and blatantly violated the principles and commitments laid out in the Founding Act. Russia’s actions include having invaded Ukraine both in 2014 and in 2022, using nuclear coercion and escalatory rhetoric to pressue the Alliance, and deploying nonstrategic nuclear weapons to Belarus, as both Russia and Belarus have affirmed. Consequently, NATO should formally render the NRFA defunct, including the Alliance’s commitments to:
- Adhere to the “three nuclear no’s” that NATO member states “have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members, nor any need to change any aspect of NATO’s nuclear posture or nuclear policy – and do not foresee any future need to do so.”¹⁹
- Abstain from permanently stationing “substantial combat forces” in Central and Eastern Europe.²⁰

Update NATO’s nuclear force posture. In response to Russia’s modernization of its nuclear arsenal, exercise of nuclear coercion, and adjustments to its nuclear strategy that lowers the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons, the Alliance must update its own nuclear posture. The objectives should be to provide NATO with a broader and more credible spectrum of nuclear weapons options. An updated force posture would improve NATO’s ability to manage, if not dominate, the ladder of conflict escalation, complicate Russian military planning, and thereby weaken Moscow’s confidence in its own military posture and its strategy of nuclear “escalation to de escalate.” Toward these ends, the Alliance should:
- Increase the spectrum of NATO’s nuclear capabilities. This should include a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) and a ground-launched variant. The breadth and number of NATO nuclear weapons exercises, such as the yearly Steadfast Noon, should be expanded and further integrated with exercises of conventional forces.
- Expand the number of members participating in the Alliance’s nuclear sharing agreements. Doing so will expand the tactical options available to NATO and underscore more forcefully Alliance unity behind its nuclear posture.
- Broaden the number and locations of infrastructure capable of hosting the Alliance’s nuclear posture. The Alliance’s nuclear posture still relies solely on Cold War legacy infrastructure in Western Europe. Given the threat posed by Russia, NATO should establish facilities capable of handling nuclear weapons and dual capable systems, including nuclear weapons storage sites, in NATO member states along its eastern frontier.

Reinforce NATO’s eastern flank. Russia’s assault on Ukraine and its growing provocations against NATO member states and partners underscore the need to further reinforce the Alliance’s eastern frontier. To date, NATO’s deployments along its eastern flank amount to more of a trip-wire force rather than one designed for a strategy of defense by denial. To give greater credibility to the Alliance’s pledge not to “cede one inch” when considering a potential attack by Russia, NATO should:
- Establish a more robust permanent military presence along the Alliance’s eastern frontier. NATO is expanding its eight multinational battlegroups deployed to Central and Eastern Europe. But each of these deployments should be further upgraded to full brigades that are permanently stationed there. These elements should feature robust enabling capacities, particularly air and missile defenses and long-range fires. If the United States is expected to sustain a presence of 100,000 troops in Europe, the least Western Europe and Canada can do is to forward station some 32,000 troops combined in Central and Eastern Europe.
- Conduct large-scale, concentrated exercises on NATO’s eastern flank. The Alliance has commendably reanimated its emphasis on large-scale joint military exercises. However, those exercises have yet to be concentrated on NATO’s eastern flank. Doing so would enhance readiness, reassure the Alliance’s Central and Eastern European member states, and demonstrate resolve and preparedness in the face of Russian aggression.
- Upgrade the Alliance’s air defense and ballistic missile defense systems to more robustly address Russian threats. In its attacks on Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated with brutality its emphasis on missile and long-range drone strikes against military and civilian targets. As part of its efforts to upgrade its air and missile defense capacities, NATO should direct the European Phased Adaptive Approach to address threats from Russia.²¹

A Grad-P Partizan single rocket launcher is fired towards Russian troops by servicemen of the 110th Territorial Defence Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, on a frontline in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer

Expand the NATO SACEUR’s authority to order deployments and conduct operations along NATO’s eastern frontier. The Alliance’s regional defense plans are said to provide SACEUR with greater authority to activate and deploy NATO forces before crisis and conflict situations. Due to the aggressiveness of Russia’s ambitions, NATO should consider further expanding those authorities as they relate to the deployment and missions of forces along the Alliance’s eastern frontier. The actions of a deterrent force can be even more important than the magnitude of their presence.
Augment the Alliance’s posture in the Arctic. Russia has heavily militarized the Arctic, upgraded the status and capability of its Northern Fleet, and deepened its military cooperation with China in the region while the Kremlin continues to assert Arctic territorial claims that conflict with those of NATO allies. While NATO has been increasing the tempo of its Arctic operations and improving its Arctic capabilities, Russia continues to pose a significant threat in the region and possibly outmatches the Alliance in the High North. To further reinforce deterrence against Russian aggression in the Arctic, the Alliance should:
- Develop a comprehensive NATO strategy to defend its interests in the High North. Such a document would underscore the Alliance’s commitment to the region and help foster allied investments in infrastructure, capabilities, and training needed to defend and deter Russian threats in the High North.
- Establish a NATO Arctic Command and Joint Force. The Arctic poses a unique set of geographic and climatic challenges requiring tailored operational capabilities. A command and air-ground-naval force focused specifically on the High North would provide the Alliance a dedicated and tailored deterrent to counter Russian aggression in the Arctic.²²

Bolster deterrence against Russian actions short of war by strengthening resilience and through more assertive and punitive counteractions. NATO and NATO member states’ failure to respond robustly to Russia’s hybrid warfare—whether it is information warfare, cyberattacks, sabotage, assassinations, or other forms of aggression — has resulted in Russia’s intensification and escalation of these actions. The transatlantic community must strengthen its resilience against such attacks but also take stronger punitive measures against Russia if it is to persuade Russia to cease these attacks. While much of what needs to be done falls beyond the remit of NATO’s military capabilities, greater consideration should be given to how military assets can be leveraged to gather intelligence about Russian activity and provide a military dimension to the transatlantic community’s response to such provocations. For example, when a Russian ship fired a warning shot directed at a commercial Norwegian fishing boat within Norway’s exclusive economic zone or when Russia pulled out Estonian navigation buoys from the Narva River,²³ an immediate show of force from NATO could have been an appropriate response.
Strengthen the deterrence and resilience capacities of non-NATO nations in Europe and Russia’s periphery. Recent elections in Georgia, Moldova, and Romania reflect the intensity of Russia’s determination to claw back control and influence over the space of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. A key priority of a Russia strategy should be to strengthen efforts by the Alliance, its member states, and key institutional partners, such as the European Union, to reinforce the resilience and defense capabilities of non-NATO nations in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. NATO’s programs, such as the Defence and Related Security Capacity Building Initiative, warrant even greater emphasis and resources, particularly in those regions.
Intensify Russia’s economic and diplomatic isolation. The current set of measures taken against Moscow in these realms have failed to sufficiently degrade Russia’s war economy and its ability to sustain its invasion of Ukraine and provocations elsewhere in the world. A key priority for NATO and its member states should be to significantly escalate economic sanctions, including the exercise of secondary sanctions to eliminate Moscow’s ability to generate international revenue from energy exports and attain critical technologies needed by its defense industrial sector.
Increase efforts to generate internal Russian opposition to the Kremlin’s revanchist objectives and greater support for democratic principles and governance. Russia has undertaken aggressive campaigns to influence the politics of NATO allies and partners. In the recent elections of Moldova and Romania, Russian intervention nearly effectuated regime change. For too long, the transatlantic community has remained on the defensive in this realm. NATO and its member states need to shift to the offensive and weaponize the power of truth to illuminate the brutal realities of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the corruption of Russian officials, and other realties of Russian governance. NATO allies must more actively support Russian stakeholders—particularly civil society—that are more aligned with transatlantic values. This is critical to degrading the political will of the Russian state to continue its aggressions.
Modulate dialogue with Russia, limiting it to what is operationally necessary. The Alliance should formally disband the NATO-Russia Council—which last met in 2022—until Moscow has demonstrated genuine commitment to a constructive relationship. Nonetheless, the Alliance should establish and/or maintain lines of communication between the NATO secretary general and the Kremlin, as well as between Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and the Russian General Staff, to enable crisis management and provide transparency needed for military stability. This would not preclude NATO allies from dialogues with Russia deemed necessary, for example, to assist Ukraine or pursue arms control measures.

The bottom line

As noted, NATO possesses an overmatching capacity to defeat Russia in Ukraine, deter Russian aggression, contain Russian influence beyond its borders, and degrade Russia’s ability and will to accomplish its revisionist agenda. Today, there is no better time to achieve these objectives by fully marshaling the Alliance’s assets and potential. Moscow cannot undertake an all-out military attack on NATO without risking the viability of Russia’s armed forces and thus its regime. The accomplishment of these objectives would provide stability to Europe’s eastern frontier and establish the best foundation for an eventual relationship with Moscow that is minimally confrontational, if not cooperative and constructive. However, this will take political will and resources. Russia today is determined to prevail in Ukraine, expand its military capabilities, and further leverage its partners, particularly China, Iran, and North Korea, to defeat the community of democracies and, particularly, the Alliance. Russia already envisions itself as being at war with NATO.

About the authors

Fellow

Ian Brzezinski

Senior Fellow

Central Europe Defense Policy

Staff

Ryan Arick

Associate Director

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

NATO Security & Defense

Explore the program

1. The specter of world war

Welcome to 2035: What the world could look like in ten years, according to more than 350 experts

Andrea Ratiu — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Welcome to 2035

What the world could look like in ten years, according to more than 350 experts

By Mary Kate Aylward, Peter Engelke, Uri Friedman, and Paul Kielstra

Explore findings on…

2. Conflict with China and Russia

3. The China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis

4. Nuclear proliferation and use

5. The future of US power

6. The endgame in Ukraine

7. Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace

8. The outlook for multilateral institutions

9. The chances of democratic depression

10. Gender and the global future

Another devastating world war, potentially bringing China and the United States into direct conflict. The spread and even the use of nuclear weapons. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza failing to ultimately produce favorable outcomes for Kyiv and Israeli-Palestinian peace. A more multipolar world without robust multilateral institutions. A democratic recession further devolving into a democratic depression.

These are just some of the future scenarios that global strategists and foresight practitioners pointed to when the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security surveyed them, in late November and early December 2024 following the US elections, for its third-annual survey on how they expect the world to change over the next ten years.

Not all the projections were pessimistic. Fifty-eight percent of those who participated in our Global Foresight 2025 survey, for example, felt that artificial intelligence would, on balance, have a positive impact on global affairs over the next ten years—an increase of 7 percentage points from our Global Foresight 2024 survey. Roughly half of respondents foresaw an expansion of global cooperation on climate change.

But the grimmer forecasts were in keeping with a dark global outlook overall, with 62 percent of respondents expecting the world a decade from now to be worse off than it is today, and only 38 percent predicting that it will be better off.

The 357 survey respondents were mostly citizens of the United States (just under 55 percent of those polled), with the others spread across sixty countries and every continent but Antarctica. Respondents skewed male and older, and were dispersed across a range of fields including the private sector, nonprofits, academic or educational organizations, and government and multilateral institutions.

So what do these forecasters of the global future anticipate over the coming decade? Below are the survey’s ten biggest findings.

Atlantic Council Strategy Paper Series

Feb 12, 2025

The Global Foresight 2025 survey: Full results

In the fall of 2024 after the outcome of the US presidential election, the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security surveyed the future, asking leading global strategists and foresight practitioners around the world to answer our most burning questions about the biggest drivers of change over the next ten years. Here are the full results.

Africa China

1. Forty percent of respondents expect a world war in the next decade—one that could go nuclear and extend to space

For the first time in our annual survey, we asked respondents whether they expected there to be another world war by 2035. We defined such a war as involving a multifront conflict among great powers. And the results were alarming, with 40 percent saying yes.

While this was a new question, our Global Foresight 2024 survey surfaced a similar concern, with nearly a quarter of respondents pointing to war between major powers as the greatest threat to global prosperity over the next ten years.

The finding tracks with worries expressed by other experts amid major wars in Europe and the Middle East, growing tensions between the United States and China, and increasing cooperation among China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Surveying this treacherous global landscape this past summer, for example, the historian and former US diplomat Philip Zelikow assigned a 20 to 30 percent probability to the prospect of “worldwide warfare” and warned of a “period of maximum danger” within the next one to three years.

Judging by our respondents’ answers, another world war might feature nuclear weapons. Forty-eight percent of respondents overall (and 63 percent of those predicting World War III) expected nuclear weapons to be used in the coming decade by at least one actor.

Such a conflict also may play out in outer space. Forty-five percent of respondents overall (and 60 percent of those predicting World War III) expected the next decade to include a direct military conflict fought, at least in part, in space.

And it could be devastating to the global economy. Twenty-eight percent of respondents identified war among major powers as the single biggest threat to global prosperity over the next ten years.

2. Tensions with China and Russia are potential vectors for major conflict

By definition, a world war would involve more than two belligerent nations. But across multiple questions in the survey, respondents forecast a future in which today’s strategic competition and geopolitical tensions between the United States and China in particular could sharpen into something more dangerous.

Survey respondents, for instance, were significantly more inclined than a year earlier to foresee a military conflict over Taiwan, which could draw in the United States in support of the island and against China. Sixty-five percent of all respondents somewhat or strongly agreed that China will try to retake Taiwan by force within the next decade, and only 24 percent somewhat or strongly disagreed. In our Global Foresight 2024 survey, that split was 50 percent to 30 percent. Among those predicting the breakout of another world war, the proportion was even higher: Seventy-nine percent believed China will attempt to forcibly retake Taiwan over the next ten years.

Expand to read expert insight by Markus Garlauskas

Though this year’s survey findings may seem worrisome at first because respondents see increasing risks of war, I find them reassuring. The change from last year shows a greater awareness of the nature of the threats we face in the Indo-Pacific, particularly the risk of confronting simultaneous conflicts with multiple adversaries and nuclear attacks.

That a clear majority of respondents now expect Beijing to try to take Taiwan by force in the coming decade is actually a hopeful signal to me. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been clearly building up military forces suited for offensive operations and has repeatedly stated that he will not renounce the use of force to bring Taiwan under control. Meanwhile, polls suggest that the vast majority of the people of Taiwan are disinclined to be ruled by Beijing, favoring either the status quo or outright independence.

This would seem to set Beijing and Taipei on an inevitable collision course. Yet there is also good reason to believe that China overwhelming Taiwan is not inevitable, in part because invasion would be a far more difficult operation than is commonly recognized. It will take the increasing sense of threat of force identified by the survey to prompt Taiwan and the United States to make the investments necessary to increase their preparedness for deterring and defeating such use of force.

This growing awakening on the part of the United States and its allies can become the basis for a call to action for the populations, governments, and militaries of these countries. The United States has typically waited until war was thrust upon it before preparing comprehensively. Now is the time to act, to prepare, ideally to deter such aggression, and to be ready to hold firm if deterrence fails and we face either a short, sharp war or a protracted one.

—Markus Garlauskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

A US-China confrontation is not the only potential pathway to a multifront conflict among great powers. Forty-five percent of respondents somewhat or strongly agreed that Russia and NATO will engage in a direct military conflict within the next ten years—a significant increase from the 29 percent who felt this way in our Global Foresight 2024 survey. Among respondents expecting another world war within the next decade, 69 percent anticipated a direct clash between Russia and NATO.

3. Just under half of respondents expect China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to be formal allies within a decade, potentially in a world featuring China- and US-aligned blocs

Other geopolitical dynamics forecast by survey respondents could serve as the kindling for whatever spark ignites a wider war or, alternatively, emerge as byproducts of such a conflict.

Forty-seven percent of respondents predicted that, by 2035, the world will largely be divided into China-aligned and US-aligned blocs; among that group, nearly 60 percent expected the China-aligned bloc to include Russia, Iran, and North Korea as formal allies, presumably with China leading the alliance.

Overall, just under half of our survey respondents (46 percent) agreed that the emerging axis of Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea will be formal allies in 2035. While this was the first time we asked this question regarding all four countries, in our Global Foresight 2024 survey 33 percent of respondents thought Russia and China would be formal allies in ten years’ time.

Many respondents appeared to associate these potential developments with the prospect of a world war. Among respondents who foresaw both the world being divided into China- and US-aligned blocs and China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea becoming formal allies, 62 percent also anticipated another world war over the next decade; among other survey respondents, that figure was far lower at 33 percent.

Expand to read expert insight by Melanie Hart

Economically, there is movement underway toward a US-and-allies versus China-aligned bloc structure, but this movement is still nascent. How far it goes will largely depend on whether the United States can overcome its domestic political reticence to actively shaping the global economic order and once again begin negotiating market-access trade deals.

Beijing seeks a global system in which other nations must abide by its wishes and there are no constraints—legal, normative, or otherwise—limiting Beijing’s own actions. Beijing is using global commerce to enforce this approach. For nations that depend on trade or investment with China, Beijing is increasingly willing to shut off the flow of goods and capital to enforce its demands in other issue areas. Beijing is also using those partners as consumption dumping grounds, exporting excess capacity across a wide array of goods (such as steel and electric vehicles) at rock-bottom prices, which addresses over-supply in the China market but drives local producers out of business. This is leading many nations to reduce their exposure and vulnerabilities to Beijing’s market interference. Many of those nations increasingly view Western, US-centric supply chains as a more attractive option.

As this shift unfolds, it could lead to new economic blocs—for example, a new multilateral trading structure in which the United States and its allies are at the center of a global trading bloc that China is not allowed to join. However, that will depend on Washington shaking off its trade malaise and figuring out how to negotiate new trade deals that create new, formal structures centered on US and allied rules of the road. China is busy creating its own options—such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in Asia—but the United States is hanging back. Without more assertive US-led action on the trade front, the biggest risk is that China will form a new, massive global economic bloc and write the rules to benefit itself at our expense, while the United States and its allies watch from the sidelines.

As for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, these four nations are partners with a clear shared interest—namely, their desire to undermine the United States and the liberal international order—but they are not true allies. China’s need for integration with the global economy is likely to limit the degree to which today’s partnership evolves in the future into a more formal alliance similar to the alliance the United States enjoys with its NATO partners.

The Chinese Communist Party has staked its regime legitimacy—its pitch for the Chinese people’s continued support—largely on its ability to deliver economically. Unfortunately, the party has also decided that the reforms required to deliver next-level economic growth are too risky, as they would require the party to cede more internal political control over the nation’s economy, legal system, and society. As long as Chinese leaders are unwilling to do that, they will lag behind the West in technology innovation, and they will depend on access to Western companies, universities, and markets to help fill that gap. That dependence limits China’s willingness to sign up for a comprehensive alliance with Russia, Iran, or North Korea, because Beijing does not want to join those nations in an economic wilderness that cuts Chinese companies off from the world’s leading technology powers.

—Melanie Hart, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub

4. The proliferation and use of nuclear weapons is a growing risk, with nearly half of respondents expecting a nuclear weapon to be used by 2035

Since the dawn of the Atomic Age and particularly since the latter part of the Cold War, nuclear nonproliferation efforts have sought to prevent additional countries from acquiring the world’s most destructive weapons, with varying success. And after the United States did so in 1945, no country has used nuclear weapons in war. But according to our survey respondents, the coming decade could bring very concerning developments on both these fronts.

Iran is the most likely—but not the only potential—new nuclear-weapons power on the horizon

In our latest survey, 88 percent of respondents expected at least one new country to obtain nuclear weapons in the coming decade, a slight uptick from 84 percent in the Global Foresight 2024 edition. As in our previous survey, just under three quarters of respondents predicted that Iran will go beyond its current threshold status and join the nuclear-weapons club within the next ten years, making it the survey’s most-cited candidate to become a nuclear-weapons state in the future.

The coming years could bring a range of policy responses to this anticipated development, from strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities to a new round of nuclear negotiations with Tehran. Perhaps in recognition of these scenarios, more than a third of respondents expected Israel to have engaged in a direct war with Iran by 2035.

Expand to read expert insight by Alan Pino

Is Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon inevitable or at least highly likely in the next decade? Far from it. Whether Iran acquires a nuclear weapon will depend on policy choices made by Iran, Israel, and the United States regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.

Currently, Iran still officially disavows an intent to produce a nuclear weapon, but there has been much more talk among Iranian officials during the past year of the need for one as pressure on Iran has increased due to Israeli military actions against Tehran’s “resistance axis” and Iran itself.

Iran’s military and economic weaknesses have intensified an ongoing debate between moderates and hardliners in Iran over the direction of the country’s foreign and nuclear policy. Moderates want to negotiate a freeze on Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions and an opening of trade and investment with the West and Arab Gulf states. Hardliners argue Iran must double down on its expansionist regional policies, its threshold status as a military nuclear power, its growing ties to Russia and China, and its hardline stance toward the United States and the West to rebuild deterrence and resilience.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will have to make the call on which policy to pursue, and uppermost in his mind will be which approach—or mixture of the two—best ensures the survival of the Islamic Republic, his overarching priority.

Israeli officials continue to monitor Iran’s nuclear program closely and have reiterated warnings that Israel will resort to military force if Iran seeks to acquire a nuclear weapon. Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been emboldened by its military successes over the past year, including the destruction of Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s military capabilities and Iran’s air defenses, as well as the weakening of Iran’s missile-production capabilities. Senior Israeli officials probably believe conditions are ripe to destroy or set back Iran’s nuclear program without major threat of retaliation, given the Islamic Republic’s current vulnerability, but also seem to recognize that Israel would need US military support to do lasting damage.

The Trump administration is committed to restoring its previous maximum-pressure campaign of sanctions against Iran to compel it to agree to a new nuclear deal and curbs on its malign regional behavior. Trump’s transition team reportedly discussed the possibility of a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities given that Iran now has enough highly enriched uranium for several bombs and that sanctions could take a long time to work. They may have leaked this option to frighten Iran into agreeing to negotiations, but clearly the Trump administration is signaling a willingness to go beyond sanctions and diplomacy to achieve its objectives.

With Iran’s axis of resistance shredded, and Iran itself weakened militarily and economically, the United States has an extraordinary opportunity—working with Israel, Arab allies, and European countries—to use economic and diplomatic pressure backed by the threat of military force to secure an agreement that walks Iran back from the nuclear brink and curbs its destabilizing regional policies.

—Alan Pino, former US national intelligence officer for the Near East

What is new is the jump in the percentage of respondents expecting other countries to get these weapons. In our Global Foresight 2024 survey, for example, a quarter of respondents thought South Korea would acquire nuclear weapons. In our most recent survey, that figure was 40 percent. The percentage of respondents expecting Japan—the only country ever subject to a nuclear-weapons attack, where the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are a prominent national presence—to acquire nuclear weapons also increased ten percentage points over 2024, from 19 percent to 29 percent. (Notably, while the percentage of respondents anticipating a nuclear Iran in ten years’ time remained steady year over year, so did the roughly 40 percent of respondents expecting nearby rival Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons as well.)

North Korea and Russia are considered the most likely to launch a nuclear-weapons attack

Forty-eight percent of respondents expected nuclear weapons to be used in the coming decade, up from 37 percent in our previous survey.

Expand to read expert insight by Matthew Kroenig

This finding demonstrates that nuclear weapons have returned to the center of geopolitics. For years after the end of the Cold War, many assumed that nuclear weapons were obsolete relics from the past. The Obama administration made eliminating nuclear weapons a top priority. At the time, Washington assessed that there was virtually zero chance of a nuclear war among states and the greatest nuclear threats came from terrorism or accident.

Now, nearly half of our respondents assess that nuclear weapons will be used in the coming decade. This shows that nuclear weapons are not twentieth-century curiosities but the ultimate instrument of force and essential tools of great-power competition. China is engaging in the most rapid nuclear buildup since the 1960s, Russia is issuing regular nuclear threats, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal continues to grow, and Iran’s dash time to the bomb is now measured in weeks.

This means that the United States will need to once again strengthen its strategic forces to deter adversaries and assure allies. By doing so, I hope the United States can prove our respondents wrong and ensure that the world’s most powerful weapons are never used again.

—Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Roughly one-quarter of respondents predicted that Russia will use a nuclear weapon by 2035, with around the same percentage saying the same regarding North Korea, amid reports of near-Russian nuclear use early in its war against Ukraine and concerns about crumbling deterrence on the Korean peninsula. Both cases represent significant increases relative to our previous survey, when only 14 percent expected Russia to employ a nuke and 15 percent believed North Korea would do so.

5. The United States is still likely to be dominant militarily in 2035—but with relatively less economic, diplomatic, and soft power as it navigates a multipolar world

Three-quarters of respondents in our latest survey agreed that the world in 2035 will be multipolar, with multiple centers of power, in line with the findings in our previous survey.

A slightly smaller percentage of respondents—71 percent—expected the United States to remain the world’s dominant military power by that time. A majority (58 percent) envisioned the United States being the world’s dominant technology innovator a decade from now.

On other measures of power—economic, cultural, and diplomatic—respondents predicting US dominance in 2035 were in the minority, if only ever so slightly in the case of economic power, in which 49 percent of respondents expected the United States to be dominant.

Between our latest survey and the previous year’s, confidence in US dominance over the next decade dropped across several measures of power, particularly diplomatic and military clout. Those forecasting US dominance in ten years’ time declined from 81 percent to 71 percent for military power, 63 percent to 58 percent for technological innovation, 52 percent to 49 percent for economic power, and 32 percent to 24 percent for diplomatic power. (The Global Foresight 2024 survey did not ask about future US dominance in cultural or soft power, which 35 percent of respondents expected in our most recent survey.) Slightly more respondents (12 percent) relative to our prior survey (7 percent) forecast that the United States will be dominant in none of these areas by 2035.

A bright but more uncertain future for US alliances

While a majority of respondents (61 percent) expected the United States to maintain its security alliances and partnerships in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East in 2035, this figure was markedly down from our previous survey (79 percent), with much of the shift seeming to stem from those answering that they “don’t know” (26 percent in the Global Foresight 2025 edition relative to 12 percent in the 2024 edition).

Responses on the future of US military dominance and alliances appear correlated. Among those who expected the United States to retain such dominance by 2035, 67 percent believed that it would maintain its network of alliances. Among those who did not think the United States would be the world’s dominant military power in a decade, only 46 percent believed that the country would preserve its alliance network.

In our Global Foresight 2024 survey, just under a third of respondents expected Europe to have achieved “strategic autonomy” within the next decade by taking more responsibility for its own security and thus relying less on the United States. In our latest survey, however, almost half of respondents (48 percent) expected Europe to achieve “strategic autonomy” over the next ten years—a notable increase as President Donald Trump presses European countries to substantially increase their defense spending.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements about the state of alliances and partnerships in 2035:

The dangers of a diminished United States

Those who anticipate a diminished United States over the next decade may link such a scenario to worse outcomes for the world. Among respondents who said that by 2035 the United States will be the dominant power in none of the domains listed in the survey, for instance, only 24 percent believed that the world will be better off in a decade’s time. Among other respondents, 40 percent expected the world to be better off ten years from now. Similarly, among those who didn’t expect US dominance in any domain of power in a decade, 62 percent envisioned a world war occurring over that timeframe. For the rest of the survey pool, 38 percent anticipated another world war.

Expand to read expert insight by Matthew Kroenig

In the United States, declinism is a national pastime with a poor track record. In the 1970s, many thought the Soviet Union was on a trajectory to overtake the United States as the world’s leading superpower. In the 1980s, economists projected that Japan would unseat the United States as the world’s leading economy. In the 2010s, many thought it was inevitable that China would become the world’s largest economic power.

All of those predictions turned out to be incorrect.

The United States is now a rising power, claiming 26 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), its largest share in two decades. Meanwhile, China is declining; Xi Jinping’s desire to assert Chinese Communist Party control over all aspects of Chinese society is stifling Chinese growth, and his aggressive foreign policy is undercutting the global economic engagement strategy that fueled China’s rise. Europe’s share of global GDP has fallen from a quarter in the 1980s to roughly 15 percent today. Russia’s GDP is smaller than Italy’s and Spain’s. To whom then is the United States supposedly ceding all of this power?

Is the United States in decline? I wouldn’t bet on it.

—Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

6. Many respondents are pessimistic about the war in Ukraine ending on terms favorable to Ukraine

Amid a push by the incoming Trump administration to bring the war in Ukraine to an end three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, and as Ukraine and Russia each seek to secure the best possible terms in any future negotiated peace deal, respondents were split on the likely outcome of the conflict. Forty-seven percent predicted that Russia’s war against Ukraine will end on terms largely favorable to Russia and 43 percent forecast that it will result in a “frozen conflict.” Only 4 percent expected the war to end on terms largely favorable to Ukraine.

Our previous survey a year earlier, which asked a different and more detailed question about Ukraine in ten years’ time, reflected more optimism, with 48 percent of respondents predicting that Ukraine would emerge from the war as an independent, sovereign state in control of the territory it held before Russia’s escalated assault on the country in 2022.

Expand to read expert insight by John Herbst

Expectations about the future change in the wake of historic developments and perceptions of those developments. Perhaps the single most important factor in determining the outcome of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is US policy.

Simply put, a strong US policy providing Ukraine the weapons to drive Russian forces largely out of Ukraine and rallying the political West to supply Ukraine’s economic needs would lead to a clear defeat for Russian President Vladimir Putin that would return much of occupied Ukraine to Kyiv’s control, and with a US-led effort would vouchsafe Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity via NATO membership. Alternatively, a US decision to cut off aid to Ukraine would likely lead to a disaster that would ensure Kremlin political control of the country, produce a direct threat to NATO, and encourage aggression by US adversaries in the Far and Middle East.

US President Joe Biden gave substantial support to Ukraine, but he stopped well short of giving Ukraine the arms and permission to take back most of the country. Trump has stated that he wants Ukraine to survive and would not abandon the country, but he is seeking a durable peace that requires compromise from Ukraine as well as Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has indicated a readiness to compromise; Putin has not. Recognizing this, Trump and his team have identified Putin as the recalcitrant party and have spoken of major economic measures—tougher sanctions, transferring the $300 billion in frozen Russian state assets to Ukraine—to persuade Russia to negotiate. Respondents to the survey pay attention to the major factors affecting this war, including the Trump angle. But respondents to surveys are not seers, and survey questions are not written to explore the insights that seers might provide.

What therefore might we expect to happen with the war this coming year? First, Trump will roll out a peace initiative that likely includes four elements already public. Two are hard for Zelenskyy: territorial concessions (at least de facto) and no NATO membership for Ukraine for twenty years minimum. And two are hard for Putin: the demilitarized zone enforced by European troops and arming Ukraine to the hilt to prevent future Russian aggression. We can expect Putin to try hard to get Trump to drop those last two points before and then during the talks. But if Putin is persuaded that Trump will arm Ukraine with far more advanced weapons if Russia is unyielding, he might agree to terms that he intends to violate. Trump’s hopes for a Nobel Peace Prize depend on him insisting that Russia compromise to the point of ensuring a viable and stable future for Ukraine, and being ready to confront the ever-treacherous Russian dictator if Putin violates an agreement whose terms would yield that outcome.

—John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center

7. Respondents are much more optimistic about a breakthrough in Israeli-Saudi relations than in Israeli-Palestinian peace

Ever since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks against Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza set off transformative changes in the broader Middle East, US officials have linked reviving work on normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia with renewing the push for a pathway to a Palestinian state as part of an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, with the Saudis insisting on the latter as a condition for the former.

But our survey respondents—who, notably, shared their views before Israel and Hamas reached their January cease-fire and hostage deal—were much more bullish about the prospects for Israeli-Saudi normalization in the coming decade than about the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution. Fifty-six percent envisioned Israel having normalized diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia by 2035—roughly similar to the percentage who said the same in our post-October 7, 2023, Global Foresight 2024 survey—relative to 17 percent who expected Israel to be coexisting next to a sovereign, independent Palestinian state within that timeframe. More than 60 percent of respondents predicted that when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, today’s status quo, with occupied Palestinian territories, will persist.

Expand to read expert insight by Alan Pino

In 2035, will Israel have the status quo that exists today, with occupied Palestinian territories?

Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 has taught us the dangers of thinking a status quo will continue indefinitely. Israeli leaders’ belief that Hamas had reconciled itself to the status quo in Gaza—in which Gazans received economic benefits in return for Hamas not attacking Israel—left them unprepared for the most devastating attack on the Jewish state since its war of independence in 1948.

And the war in Gaza that resulted from Hamas’s attack has brought further surprises: Israel’s almost complete destruction of Hamas as a military and political organization; the killing of most of Hezbollah’s military leaders and elimination of a majority of its vaunted rocket and missile arsenal; direct Iranian and Israeli attacks on each other’s territory, with Israel wiping out all of Iran’s most advanced air-defense systems; and the almost overnight collapse of the Syrian military and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the face of a renewed rebel offensive.

The Middle East’s geopolitical landscape has been dramatically transformed, and Iran’s image as a regional hegemon and defender of the Palestinians badly tarnished. Israeli leaders have been emboldened by Israel’s military successes and seem to believe that maintaining military dominance alone will deter the country’s enemies.

But some observers, looking ahead, ask whether the cycle of violence since October 7 is likely to repeat itself at some point if Israel doesn’t address the issue of Palestinian aspirations for independence. The Biden administration and others have called for a return to the idea of a two-state solution as necessary to forestall future cycles of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Admittedly, the current environment is not propitious for discussion of a Palestinian state. A large majority of Israelis, still traumatized by Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7, reject the idea as posing a grave risk to Israel’s security. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly refused calls from the United States to incorporate the concept of an eventual Palestinian state into Israel’s post-war strategy, and right-wingers in the current Israeli government want to annex a large part of the West Bank, keep long-term control of the Gaza Strip, and return Israeli settlements to Gaza.

But the Palestinian issue is not likely to go away. Anti-Israel militancy and violence by Palestinians is growing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Israel hasn’t totally suppressed attacks by Hamas in Gaza after more than a year of fighting. Arab publics are seething with anger over the large number of Palestinians killed and displaced by Israeli military operations in Gaza. And world opinion has increasingly turned against Israel as Palestinian casualties have mounted.

The Palestinian issue remains a roadblock to Israel becoming fully integrated into the region, a key goal of Netanyahu’s that he hopes will put a capstone on his legacy as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Responding to popular sentiment, Saudi leaders have indicated that Riyadh won’t normalize relations with Israel—an essential step to create a political and security bulwark against renewed threats from Iran—unless Jerusalem endorses a clear pathway to Palestinian statehood.

New elections will probably need to take place in Israel, bringing new leadership open to the idea of a political horizon for the Palestinians, if the current status quo is to change. The United States has an important role to play here by encouraging Israeli leaders to think about how to translate their military success into a regional strategy that includes a vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The odds of such a development seem long right now, but October 7 is a reminder that clinging to an unstable status quo can be riskier than seeking to change it.

—Alan Pino, former US national intelligence officer for the Near East

8. As global organizations become less capable of solving the world’s problems, regional groupings and the BRICS may rise in importance

Respondents foresaw many global institutions growing less effective over the coming decade. Seventy-five percent expected the United Nations (UN) to be less capable of solving challenges core to its mission by 2035 relative to today, compared with 9 percent who anticipated it becoming more capable of doing so. The figures for the United Nations Security Council are only slightly better, with 67 percent of respondents predicting less capability and 9 percent more capability. Sixty percent of respondents envisioned the World Trade Organization being less capable in a decade than it is today.

Respondents also may be skeptical about the UN’s capacity to tackle global-governance challenges such as climate change. Just under 40 percent of respondents predicted that greenhouse-gas emissions will have peaked and begun to decline by 2035, despite signs that this tipping point is already near. Only about half of respondents believed that renewable energy technologies will be the dominant form of electricity production globally by then, despite significant growth in demand for renewable energy.

The forecast was less dire for the World Bank, with 46 percent predicting less capability and 19 percent more capability, and International Monetary Fund (IMF), with 41 percent predicting less capability and 20 percent more capability. A similar if slightly more sanguine picture emerged regarding organizations consisting of the world’s leading powers. Forty-nine percent of respondents predicted less capability and 21 percent more capability for the Group of Seven (G7), while 38 percent expected less capability and 29 percent more capability for the Group of Twenty (G20).

But respondents seemed to hold out even more hope for regional blocs and the BRICS, which is now expanding its membership beyond Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Forty percent of respondents predicted that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be more capable of fulfilling its mission by 2035, while 20 percent said the opposite. For the European Union, those figures were 40 percent and 33 percent. (Respondents from EU countries were even more optimistic, with 50 percent expecting greater capability and 22 percent less capability.) For the BRICS, the numbers were 43 percent and 31 percent.

Expand to read expert insight by Josh Lipsky

The findings show in hard data what many analysts believe—that the international financial institutions, in particular the Bretton Woods institutions, remain the most functional parts of the multilateral system. That’s because they deliver real money every day to countries around the world.

But the responses also show a growing recognition that these institutions are not self-perpetuating. The tenuous consensus that allows them to go about day-to-day business is predicated on an understanding that functioning IMF and World Bank institutions serve every country (including the United States) better than dysfunctional ones. With Donald Trump’s return to office, there are questions about whether that consensus will hold. For what it’s worth: The first time Trump was in office, it did, and Trump and his team saw the value in both institutions, even if they disagreed with some policy decisions.

The one area of the findings that seems off-target is on the BRICS. The likelihood of the BRICS succeeding in fulfilling their main goals seems vastly overstated in these findings (likely a product of media reporting on BRICS expansion during 2023 and 2024). Here’s the question that is much tougher to answer: What do the BRICS actually want to achieve? What they oppose—the Western-led system—is clear. But what is their proactive agenda? Until they answer that question, the ability of BRICS to succeed as an institution will be limited at best.  

—Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center

9. Today’s democratic recession may deepen into a democratic depression

Overall, respondents appeared gloomy about the prospects for democracy around the world by 2035. Just under half envisioned the current “democratic recession” worsening and becoming a “democratic depression,” while only 17 percent anticipated a “democratic renaissance” instead. The remaining 37 percent expected the global state of democracy to remain much as it is today, with some encouraging progress but also considerable headwinds and backsliding.

Sixty-five percent of respondents also forecast that global press freedoms will decrease by 2035, with another quarter expecting them to stay about the same as they are today and very few anticipating those freedoms increasing over the coming decade.

Our question on the state of global democracy in our previous survey was not identical and therefore not directly comparable. Nevertheless, its results—24 percent expected more democracies a decade hence, 38 percent forecast fewer democracies, and another 37 percent foresaw stasis—presaged the dim outlook expressed in our latest survey.

10. Women are more pessimistic about the global future than men are

Women notably expressed a bleaker outlook across many questions in the survey related to conflict, their own rights, and US clout over the next decade.

For instance, 61 percent of female respondents predicted that nuclear weapons will be used in the coming decade, compared with 44 percent of male respondents who said the same. Women (54 percent) were also more likely than men (44 percent) to expect a democratic depression. Thirty-two percent of women pointed to women as the most likely group to have their rights curtailed in the coming decade—twice the proportion of men who gave the same answer. Women, moreover, were less likely than men to envision the United States as the world’s dominant military power (58 percent relative to 76 percent) and technological innovator (47 percent relative to 61 percent) in a decade’s time.

Expand to read expert insight by Nicole Goldin

The pessimism from women likely reflects persistent inequities in military, economic, and political representation and participation, as well as the disproportionate impacts of crises and shocks—whether those are economic (like inflation), security-related (from wars such as those in Ukraine or Gaza), the result of political turmoil or transition, or the product of natural disasters and climate events.

Compounding these situations are the challenges of child or family care and pay gaps, which limit the work and earnings of many women, and worsening domestic and gender-based violence, which devastates women’s lives in all dimensions. In the United States, the rollback of Roe v. Wade has left many women believing their rights and protection more broadly are at risk.

—Nicole Goldin, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and head of equitable development at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research

About the authors

Mary Kate Aylward, Publications Editor, Atlantic Council

Aylward was an editor at War on the Rocks and Army AL&T before joining the Council. She was previously a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Peter Engelke, Senior Fellow, GeoStrategy Initiative

Engelke is on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is a frequent lecturer to the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. He was previously a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Complex Risks, an executive-in-residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, a Bosch fellow with the Robert Bosch Foundation, and a visiting fellow at the Stimson Center.

Uri Friedman, Senior Editorial Director, Atlantic Council

Friedman is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic, where he writes a regular column on international affairs. He was previously a senior staff writer at The Atlantic covering national security and global affairs, the editor of The Atlantic’s Global section, and the deputy managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

Paul Kielstra, Freelance Analyst

Kielstra is a freelance author who has published extensively in fields including business analysis, healthcare, energy policy, fraud control, international trade, and international relations. His work regularly includes the drafting and analysis of large surveys, along with desk research, expert interviews, and scenario building. His clients have included the Atlantic Council, the Economist Group, the Financial Times Group, the World Health Organization, and Kroll. Kielstra holds a doctorate in modern history from the University of Oxford, a graduate diploma in economics from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto. He is also a published historian.

Global Foresight 2025

In this year’s Global Foresight edition, our experts share findings from our survey of global strategists on how human affairs could unfold over the next decade. Our team of next-generation scholars spot “snow leopards” that could have major unexpected impacts in 2025 and beyond. And our foresight practitioners imagine three different scenarios for the next decade.

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Can Russia be held accountable for the crime of aggression in Ukraine?

Kristina Hook — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 22:13:26 +0000

In early February, a coalition of 37 countries made an important step forward on promises to hold Russian leaders accountable for the invasion of Ukraine. This coalition, which includes every member state of the European Union, announced “significant progress” toward the establishment of a special tribunal for the international crime of aggression against Ukraine.

In a statement, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the historical significance of the moment. “When Russia chose to roll its tanks over Ukraine’s borders, breaking the UN Charter, it committed one of the gravest violations: The Crime of Aggression. Now, justice is coming,” she commented.

Russia stands accused of committing a vast array of crimes in Ukraine. Russians have allegedly engaged in the systematic targeting of Ukrainian civilians with the bombardment of civilian homes, infrastructure, churches, and schools. Alleged Russian crimes also include rape, torture, mass trafficking of adults and children, forcible disappearances, and the execution of surrendering Ukrainian soldiers.

The perpetrators who committed and abetted each of these individual crimes must face legal accountability. However, this month’s progress in the quest to establish an international tribunal is aimed at filling another glaring gap in legal accountability. Presently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is authorized to prosecute Russian nationals for the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, but it is unable to hold Russia’s leaders accountable for the decision to launch the invasion.

This inability to prosecute Russian leaders for the crime of aggression is a significant problem. After all, the attempt by Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders to subjugate Ukraine is a test case with profound consequences for the future of international security. The outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will reveal whether citizens of all countries can expect to live securely within their recognized borders without threat of invasion, occupation, and annexation.

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Enshrined in the United Nations Charter as “territorial integrity” and “state sovereignty,” the principles challenged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have stood the test of time since World War II. In the past, even when allegations were levied that a country was violating these principles, there was never any serious question that such rules protecting a country’s borders existed.

These basic rules serve as the cornerstone of today’s international security architecture. They quietly uphold every existing diplomatic, economic, and military arrangement in the world, shaping the environment around us in ways that few notice and almost everybody takes for granted. If Russia is allowed to claim victory or even succeed in holding any of Ukraine’s recognized territory, the entire world will face a shift toward a dark new period in international relations governed by the principle of “might makes right.” A global arms race will likely follow.

Russia’s invasion and attempted illegal annexation of five Ukrainian provinces in a war of conquest is widely recognized by the international community as a crime of aggression. In March 2022, for example, a United Nations General Assembly resolution supported by an overwhelming 141-5 majority condemned Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine in violation of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Critically, the crime of aggression is a leadership crime. Those prosecuted must be military or political leaders. This has fueled speculation that figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials in the Russian Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs could potentially be charged. It remains unlikely that any high-ranking Russians could be forced to stand trial in person, but even prosecutions in absentia could have serious repercussions for Russia itself and for the future framework of international security.

Eurasia Center events

Explore the Spain country scorecard

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

Significant questions remain about the legal format of a possible tribunal, as different options including a fully international tribunal or a so-called hybrid tribunal established under Ukrainian law would face different limitations. The United States has not yet prioritized support for an international tribunal. Instead, Europe is currently playing a leading role in the push for justice. The proposed legal framework will now be scrutinized closely to see if it precludes the prosecution of key leaders while they remain in office, including Russia’s head of state and other senior Kremlin officials.

Additional issues include the financing of any future tribunal and its location. Presently, The Hague appears to be the most likely option as it hosts the ICC, the International Court of Justice, and the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression, which was established by Eurojust (the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency) in 2023.

This month’s agreement on the framework for a potential tribunal was welcomed in Kyiv. The Ukrainian authorities have proven adept at leveraging international legal mechanisms to pursue justice and accountability for Russian crimes ever since Moscow first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Legal scholars have extolled Ukrainian legal efforts as exemplars of post-colonial nations securing their due rights through such institutions and “countering imperialism through international law.”

Beyond the real legal importance of this progress toward a tribunal for Russian crimes against Ukraine, an accompanying narrative corrective is no less significant. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not a faraway “border issue,” but rather a direct assault on the US-led system of international rules. It is therefore a direct referendum of US credibility on the world stage. Senior officials in the Trump administration have recently framed Russia’s invasion as an issue in which “both sides” must make concessions. Recognizing the one-sided nature of Russian criminal aggression reminds of the many sacrifices Ukraine and Ukrainians have already made in the fight to uphold the core principles underpinning international relations.

Recent announcements regarding a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression should serve as a reminder to US leaders that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains the world’s most documented war. Too much evidence exists in the public record to deny the reality of Russian crimes. Legal battles to hold Russia accountable will result in multiple highly detailed timelines of crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. Failure to bring Russia to justice for these crimes could pose serious challenges to the future of international security and to US President Donald Trump’s own historical legacy.

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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Evolution of freedom

Spain became a democratic country only fifty years ago, through a paradigmatic transition process from Franco’s autocratic regime to becoming one of the freest and most advanced modern democracies in the world. Just eight years after the approval of the democratic Constitution of 1978, Spain joined the European Union (EU), and by the year 2000 the country also became part of the European Economic and Monetary Union. The European dream (and the Maastricht requirements) led to an extremely deep and fast transformation of the country in terms of democratic freedoms and economic liberties. That is, the most important reforms in Spain took place before 1995, and thus are already accounted for at the beginning of the period covered by the Freedom Index. Although many reforms and improvements in the Spanish institutional framework have been undertaken in the last thirty years, the profound transformation of the country during the 1980s and early 1990s needs to be underscored for an adequate interpretation of the data compiled in this Atlas.

This is particularly relevant when trying to explain the evolution of the economic subindex since 1995. A close look at the different components shows that the scores on trade and investment freedom, as well as on property rights protection, have been high throughout the period, and it is the radical improvement in women’s economic freedom that single-handedly drives the overall positive trend of this subindex. Both tendencies are accurate. On the one hand, the bulk of the regulations and policies related to trade and investment are determined at the EU level, ensuring a common and extremely open environment for all member states, both within the Union’s borders and with the rest of the world. Additionally, European institutions make it very difficult for national governments to interfere in foreign investment, and very significantly reduce expropriation risks. Therefore, property rights protection is relatively high, and the mild deterioration observed in this component between 2005 and 2014 probably just captures some isolated disputes between the government and some large companies regarding subsidies to green energies that peaked in the 2008–10 period, together with the temporary uncertainty generated by the sovereign debt crisis of 2010–12.

On the other hand, the radical progress made in women’s economic opportunities, autonomy, and independence is one of the most important developments in recent Spanish economic history, and the effects have been astonishing. As Figure 1 below shows, female labor force participation increased from barely 40 percent in 1991 to 70 percent today, completely closing the gap with respect to the EU average. Educational attainment among current generations is higher for females than males, and there is no significant inequality in terms of access to the labor market for recent graduates. Nonetheless, it is clear that policies aimed at helping families and especially women in their work-life balance have not progressed accordingly and the gender gap has mutated into a very significant maternity gap. To be sure, this is a generalized problem in developed societies, but it is undeniable that some countries are able to tackle it better than others. I believe that today, this factor explains the noteworthy gap observed in Figure 1 with respect to the most advanced countries of the world (8 percentage points below Denmark or 12 below Sweden). The very substantial extension of paternity leave is certainly an important policy tool in this respect and Spain has passed a series of reforms in the area, already achieving equalization. Anyhow, it is still very common that women are pushed to part-time jobs after having the first child, which is, in most cases, not the result of a voluntary expression of their preferences, but the only option to continue their professional careers while having a family. Overall, it seems clear that, after a very successful integration of women into the labor market, Spain needs to continue implementing policies in the areas of more accessible childcare and work flexibility so mothers can develop professionally on equal terms with their male counterparts.

Figure 1. Female labor force participation rate (% of female population aged 15–64)

Source: International Labour Organization. “ILO modelled estimates database.” ILOSTAT.

The political subindex situates Spain as one of the most democratic countries of the world. The components measuring the quality of elections and civil and political rights receive very high scores throughout the 1995–2023 period, with very minor fluctuations. This is especially relevant given the political rollercoaster of the last decade, and most importantly when one recalls that Spain endured in 2017 the most serious challenge to the democratic institutional framework in decades, namely, the Catalan independence crisis. The culmination of that process was the unilateral declaration of independence by which the Catalan government tried to subvert the Constitutional order and exchange it for a different “Catalan” set of independent laws, ignoring the legal and democratic procedures to do so, without the necessary majorities in either the Catalan parliament or the national Congress in Madrid, and consciously disobeying several Constitutional Court rulings on the matter, in order to unilaterally proclaim the independence of Catalonia from the rest of the nation. The response on the political and judicial fronts was certainly firm and strong, at all times according to the legal provisions and constitutional powers granted to the different branches of power. This is well captured by the absence of any significant movements of the judicial independence component included in the Freedom Index. Nonetheless, the outcome of the process involved the imprisonment of several political leaders, which is undoubtedly an exceptional situation in developed and well-established democracies. The very recent clemency measures exercised by Pedro Sánchez’s government have generated a heated debate among the Spanish public but are probably a reasonable step to normalize the situation.

Besides the very particular situation in Catalonia, the Spanish political atmosphere shares various contemporaneous features with many other established democracies in Europe and North America. In particular, the emergence of extremist parties at both sides of the political spectrum and an increase in populist rhetoric and conduct are certainly worrisome. One of the effects of the greater political fragmentation that started in 2015 is the growing difficulties in approving laws and relevant reforms in parliament. This explains the significant upsurge in the use of emergency legislative instruments that emanate directly from the executive (real decreto ley), and are only ratified by parliament after their implementation, in a process that limits public debate and impedes the possibility of introducing amendments or changes. Originally envisioned as an exceptional instrument to be used in very restricted situations, the different governments in the last decade have turned to this tool as a way to circumvent the legislative process and overcome a situation of parliamentary weakness. To give a sense of the issue, during the fourteen years of Felipe Gonzalez’s presidency (1982–96), 130 norms of this kind were passed. Pedro Sánchez, who has held the presidency since June 2018, has already passed 167 such decrees. There is no doubt that this tendency, together with other legislative strategies like the practice of proposing omnibus laws that contain a wide variety of heterogenous and unrelated measures, erodes the legislative and controlling powers of parliament, which could explain Spain’s relatively low score on the legislative constraints on the executive component of the political subindex.

Among the components of the legal subindex, I think clarity of the law, and bureaucracy and corruption are the most relevant for understanding the Spanish situation in relation to the rule of law. Regarding the former, the quantity and ambiguity of Spanish legislation, much higher than in neighboring countries, is certainly a matter of concern. The very decentralized quasi-federal system designed in the 1978 Constitution has proven beneficial in many aspects, but has also produced undeniable overregulation, generating economic inefficiency and legal uncertainty. This problem especially affects small and medium-sized businesses, which find it really difficult to navigate the legal system and comply with all its requirements. Even more so when there is a clear lack of proper coordination mechanisms between different levels of government, as during the pandemic crisis.

The massive real estate boom of the 1990s and early 2000s produced numerous adverse economic distortions that will be addressed in the next section. The real estate boom fueled political corruption, especially among local governments in charge of granting construction permits. Upon joining the Eurozone, the very favorable economic conditions produced by lower risk perceptions and easy credit worked as a mirage, making it difficult for citizens and voters to extract the signals from the economy they needed to judge and control political leaders. Uncovered corruption scandals seemed to have few electoral consequences for the parties or individuals involved. The financial crisis painfully exposed the situation, and widespread corrupt practices became apparent, infuriating a citizenry that was suffering the severe effects of austerity policies while newspapers were filled with political scandals and excesses. There is excessive politicization of some parts of the state apparatus, especially in the regional and local bureaucracies, as well as among top public officials in supervisory or regulatory agencies. These officials, who should have detected and prevented the situation, failed to do so, probably influenced by political considerations. Demands for a substantial regeneration of the system led to the emergence of two new parties on the extreme left (Podemos) and center (Ciudadanos) of the political spectrum with a clear anti-corruption agenda. Anyhow, during the last decade, change has been very modest on this front and very few initiatives have been put forward to reduce abuses of influence by political parties on independent agencies.

Finally, the quality of bureaucracy does not seem to be much worse in Spain than in other comparable countries, but there are three factors that may generate a certain degree of inefficiency: aging public servants; the low level of digitalization, especially of publicly available data for the evaluation of public policies; and the sometimes perverse incentives associated with lifetime jobs typical in the public sector. A modernization of the administration, with a special focus on these three areas, would unquestionably be beneficial for the country. Unfortunately, the political costs of such reforms make them improbable in the near future.

Evolution of prosperity

In economic terms, from the 1970s to the mid-2000s Spain followed a solid path of convergence with the EU average. From being about 30 percent below the mean income per capita in the EU, the gap was closed to 9 percent in 2006. However, the trajectory started to diverge since the financial crisis, and today Spain’s income per capita is about 15 percent lower than the EU’s average.

It is not clear that the implicit assumption of the European Economic and Monetary Union—that if low productivity countries were stripped of the capacity to devalue their currency, they would be forced to make institutional reforms favoring efficiency gains through human capital accumulation, improved technology adoption, etc.—has worked as expected. This push from outside certainly helped Spain to drastically reform the country during the 1980s to enter the European Economic Community and then to meet the Maastricht requirements to join the euro. But once these goals were accomplished, the drop in the risk perception for the country led to high amounts of capital inflows and cheap credit, and a relaxation of the political constraints, which fueled a giant real estate bubble. Just to give an idea of its magnitude, at the peak of the boom in 2007, about two-thirds of the houses built in the EU were built in Spain, and about one in every four male workers was employed in construction-related activities.

As became apparent during the financial crisis, Spain’s fast catch-up growth was not founded on solid grounds but was based on a low productivity economic structure with severe imbalances. Some of the factors causing the low levels of productivity of the Spanish economy include: a bias toward low value-added sectors such as tourism and related services, proliferation of small firms and businesses, relatively low human capital accumulation, and a segmented labor market (temporary versus permanent workers). As a result, the recovery from the crisis was extremely painful and slower than in neighboring countries, taking the country ten years to recover the pre-crisis level of income per capita. Once again forced by external factors, some relevant liberalizing reforms were implemented following the banking bail-out by the “troika” (EU, International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank) in 2012, the austerity measures helped to contain public debt, and growth and job creation reignited for a few years until 2019.

The economic effects of the pandemic were significant, but Spain’s recovery has been surprisingly strong. Despite having a very difficult governance situation and a precarious and unstable majority in parliament, Sánchez has managed to stay in power and pass some relevant reforms in a large left-wing coalition. These include the already mentioned extension of paternity leave, a cumulative minimum salary rise of more than 50 percent with no substantial negative effects on the economy or job creation, and a new labor regulation that has improved the situation of temporary workers. Unfortunately, other much-needed structural reforms have not been pursued in the last decade, as I will point out in the final section.

The evolution of inequality has two important specificities. First, it is closely linked to labor market performance. The fundamental source of inequality in Spain is between those with permanent and relatively stable jobs and those who are endlessly switching between employment, underemployment, and unemployment. The extreme volatility of unemployment in Spain, which reached 24 percent in 1994, went down to 8.2 percent in 2007, rose again to 26.1 percent in 2013, and is today around 12.5 percent, reflects the volatile evolution of inequality observed in the data. Second, children and youth in particular suffer from this pattern, and it is very discouraging to see that Spain performs significantly worse than other OECD countries in terms of infant poverty and youth unemployment, despite some policies implemented to tackle this problem in recent years.

The treatment of minorities is inseparable from the immigration debate. From the mid-1990s to the Great Recession, Spain received more than four million immigrants, a remarkable inflow for a country with a population of around forty million in 1995. The absorption process has proven very successful by all standards, compared to other countries in Europe, due to a combination of good integration policies and a cultural factor, as a very large share of the immigrants came from Spanish speaking countries of Latin America. In general terms, social unrest associated with immigration is very low in Spain, and this is something to celebrate. But at the same time, being one of the EU’s border countries with North Africa generates a constant f low of migrants trying to cross to Spain illegally at the Moroccan border, as well as by sea in small boats, which many times ends in catastrophic loss of life. The eruption of an extreme-right political party with a hard, sometimes outright xenophobic, discourse on illegal immigration is contributing to the increasing perception of immigration as a problem in Spain, and it has proven extremely difficult to reach a consensus on adequate policies regarding the close to 400,000 illegal immigrants already in the country.

The universalization of education in Spain was a great milestone in the 1980s, but the lack of a profound modernizing reform in the last three decades has exposed numerous structural deficiencies in the system. This is a clear example of a real political topic that very much matters to the average citizen, but because it is so politically loaded, it is only used by the political elites as a political weapon, endlessly postponing necessary reform. The incentive scheme to attract good students to the educational profession, which has proven the cornerstone of the best systems of the world, has not been addressed in the numerous educational laws passed since 1990. Moreover, according to comparative data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the system is not managing to truly succeed in the two most important academic objectives: generating excellent students; and improving the situation of vulnerable students. In fact, poor students are four times as likely to repeat a school year as rich students. Additionally, the fact that educational spending is decided by regional governments generates substantial differences in levels of investment per student, creating unacceptable inequalities of opportunity among children living in different areas of the country. An interesting fact observable in the data is the high dropout rates (among the highest in the EU) in the 1995—2008 period, produced by a kind of “Dutch disease” attributable to the construction boom that pulled thousands of young Spaniards to leave school early to work in the housing sector. A few years later, they found themselves in an extremely precarious situation, combining unemployment with very low human capital. Fortunately, since 2010 Spain has managed to significantly reduce dropout rates, advancing towards convergence again with the European average.

The Spanish healthcare system is internationally recognized as one of the best of the world, with a combination of efficiency and low expenditure that has produced outstanding results in the last four decades. Moreover, the quality and excellence in some areas like transplants is a source of national pride. The relatively large shock produced by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of excess mortality was, in my view, due to the fact that Spain was one of the first countries to be severely hit, and thus was not as prepared as those who could learn which policies and measures had been effective elsewhere. The lack of integrated digital information and insufficient coordination between regional administrations and the central government, caused by excessive politicization, were arguably detrimental as well, but probably were not the main factor.

Spain has taken advantage of its unparalleled natural environment and conditions to produce green energy, especially solar and wind power, which has allowed the country to become one of the leaders in renewable energies and the green transition. Moreover, recent research has documented a clear disconnect between GDP and pollution levels in the country, evidence that environmentally sustainable economic growth is a real possibility for developed nations.

The path forward

Since the promulgation of the democratic Constitution of 1978, Spain has experienced the largest improvement in prosperity in the country’s modern history. The country’s current position in the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes corroborates this fact. Nonetheless, the reform impulse seems to have slowed in the last decade, and it is imperative that it is reinvigorated if the country is to take advantage of the opportunities lying ahead to continue improving the standards of living of its citizens. I am particularly concerned that the important windfall of resources represented by the NextGenerationEU funds—of which Spain, together with Italy, is the largest beneficiary—may translate into insufficient structural reform. The relaxation of political constraints thanks to the apparent easy availability of resources, both external and internal, could easily lead to a complacency trap, hampering the reform impetus. Given the divergent productivity trajectory of Spain vis-à-vis the EU and the growing spending and investment needs, Spain needs to ensure sustained increases in productivity for the next decade, and this will require some fundamental reforms.

Medium-term fiscal sustainability is a central area of concern, especially regarding the pension system, due to the extremely challenging demographic prospects for Spain. The flip in the population pyramid projected in the medium term will produce a dramatic rise in the proportion of the population above sixty-five years old, from the current 35 percent to 75 percent by 2050. The Spanish pay-as-you-go pension system has produced deficits since 2010, and these can only increase unless a rigorous reform is put in place. Unfortunately, this is a politically thorny issue and reforms of the system in 2021 and 2023 have gone in the opposite direction, eliminating previous restrictions to limit the system’s growth—such as demographic or economic growth considerations—and ensuring the automatic update of pensions with the price index.

First and foremost, the educational system requires a profound overhaul with the clear aim of improving its quality at all levels, with a long-term vision that necessarily requires an ample political consensus. Some central aspects of such a reform should involve: (1) the selection process for teachers and professors, in order to attract the most talented, improving their remuneration and social recognition; (2) a decided commitment to excellence, especially at the university level, extending the incentives for top researchers to return and stay in Spain; (3) a focus on improving the effectiveness of active labor market policies so they actually help to redeploy workers into sectors where the demand is rising, such as tech or clean energy; and (4) a significant expansion of educational reinforcement for students with learning difficulties and especially those from marginalized and less favorable social backgrounds.

The current political fragmentation is a strong source of concern for Spain. The two parties in the center of the political spectrum (Social Democrat and Conservative), which have alternated in power since the 1980s, now have meaningful competition coming from their respective extremes. This has led to a pernicious increase in polarization and poses serious impediments to reaching transversal agreements indispensable to push forward structural reform. The capacity to reach agreements among those with different political views, epitomized in Spain during the democratic transition, needs to become a reality again. This, however, should by no means stop governments pushing forward small incremental policies to help advance in some key areas such as education.

The reduced tensions in Catalonia nowadays cannot lead to the conclusion that territorial conflict in Spain is a problem of the past. A reform of the federal system consecrated in the Constitution should contribute to setting up clearer rules regarding the relative powers of the regions and the central government, the financing system, common public services and their minimum standards, and the establishment of the necessary coordination mechanisms to ensure the efficient collaboration of all levels of government. The current strategy of bilateral negotiations between the central government and each of the regional administrations does not seem optimal, as the national government’s dependence on small Catalan and Basque parliamentary groups is likely to produce agreements involving a reduction of interregional transfers that will inevitably be rejected by poorer regions. Once again, only a consensus among the two majoritarian parties seems to be a potentially successful path on this front.

Finally, there are non-negligible signs of institutional erosion produced by the current government’s insufficient respect for formal and implicit agreements regarding the independence of important agencies and institutions. I am not naïve on this matter. It is clear that no public agency is perfectly independent since it is led and formed by individuals who obviously have political opinions. However, the president appointing some of his former cabinet members as general attorney, Constitutional Court justice, or governor of the central bank could lead to a dangerous slippery slope of institutional deterioration if those patterns are established as a point of departure by future governments.

Toni Roldán Monés is the director of the ESADE Center for Economic Policy (EsadeEcPol) and visiting professor in practice at the School of Public Policy of the London School of Economics (LSE). Prior to joining ESADE, Roldán was a Member of the Spanish Parliament, and economics spokesman and head of policy for Ciudadanos, a centrist party. Roldán has worked as a senior political risk analyst at Eurasia Group, the European Commission, and the European Parliament.

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Fearmongering from Western Balkan leaders is no longer working on their citizens—or the EU

Agon Maliqi — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 15:01:17 +0000

If one is to believe Serbia’s infamous government-sponsored tabloids, the country is under permanent siege by a plethora of external and internal enemies. Headlines regularly denounce plots by neighbors and by Western countries, which are often alleged to be colluding with the “unpatriotic opposition” to undermine Serbia.

Just across the border in Kosovo, the ruling party’s narrative has been that of an imminent war with Serbia, especially after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and an attempted armed insurgency in the Serbian-majority north in 2023. Government officials and their media proxies have regularly framed the government’s critics—journalists, activists, and prosecutors—as being part of Serbia’s hybrid war against the country.

Rule through fear is neither new nor unique to the Western Balkans. It has been the political zeitgeist in the region for a while, in part because there have long been valid reasons to be fearful.

The region continues to have an unresolved security architecture, with most of its countries still limping toward European Union (EU) and NATO membership, which were supposed to make its contested borders irrelevant. Insecurity about the future has paved the way for secessionist ideas to resurface. In 2022, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine sent this anxiety into overdrive, as Moscow actively sought—to no avail—to expand the front and stir trouble in the Balkans, primarily via its allies in Serbia.

Yet these fears also gave regional leaders a useful tool to distract attention from poor governance and to suppress dissent. For Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who has pursued a policy of hedging between Moscow and the West, the threat of regional destabilization also serves as a bargaining chip with the latter.

Nevertheless, there are hopeful signs that people in the Western Balkans, as well as Western decision makers dealing with the region, are no longer buying into this blackmail. Throughout the region, leaders seem less able to distract their citizens from socioeconomic concerns. At the same time, the EU seems to be learning not to engage with regional troublemakers from a position of fear. Indeed, Brussels has shown that it has ample geopolitical and economic leverage to press its concerns on domestic reforms, Russia policy, and regional stability to Western Balkan nations while working to integrate them into the bloc.

Diminishing returns

The current wave of student protests in Serbia against government corruption has been the most successful and sustained opposition movement against Vučić so far. This is despite attempts to discredit the protests as sparked or supported by foreign governments. The demonstrations clearly have the government worried, as indicated by the resignation of Vučić ’s appointed prime minister. A recent poll by CRTA—a prominent pro-democracy nongovernmental organization in the country—shows that 61 percent of citizens support the protests and two-thirds believe corruption to be the country’s main problem.

In Kosovo, which holds national elections on February 9, the decision by popular Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s ruling party to run entirely on a “sovereignist” agenda with the nationalist slogan “from corner to corner”—highlighting its crackdown on Serbia’s structures in the north of Kosovo—and attacking his critics as unpatriotic, may turn out to be slightly backfiring. The two leading opposition parties, which are running on platforms emphasizing economic issues, seem to be having enough of a resurgence to complicate Kurti’s ability to form a government.

To be sure, there are still real risks of violent escalation due to miscalculation, and some degree of public angst about the potential for war remains prevalent in the region. A November 2024 regional Securimeter poll by the Regional Cooperation Council, an intergovernmental body, shows that while concern about war may be low in Kosovo (only 21 percent of citizens), it remains high in Serbia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, where more than half of those polled say they are concerned about a war breaking out. Yet region-wide, security concerns remain dwarfed by socioeconomic ones: the same poll shows poverty (49 percent), corruption (48 percent), and depopulation (36 percent) as being the top three priority concerns regionally. On top of that, a staggering 77 percent of respondents in the region identified the high cost of living and inflation as the main economic concern, followed by low wages (55 percent).

A position of strength

Part of the reason why fearmongering may no longer be paying political dividends in deflecting from citizens’ economic concerns is that, with time, the security threats have run out of credibility. Russia has failed to project meaningful power beyond its efforts in Ukraine. The West, for all its faults in mishandling the Western Balkans’ accession into the EU, proved it has the leverage and instruments for deterrence in the region. Indeed, NATO is present both within the region and around it, the EU is by far the region’s biggest trade and investment partner, and US and EU sanctions against Western Balkan nations can bite.

An attempt by Serbs in northern Kosovo to start an armed insurgency in October 2023 was quashed within a day by Kosovo’s Special Police, which was aided by NATO peacekeepers. Milorad Dodik, president of the Serb-majority Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia, has backed off his regular threats to secede from the country whenever he was threatened. Over the past year, Vučić was forced to admit that his hedging space has shrunk: Serbia purchased French warplanes, granted the EU access to its lithium resources, and now is being forced to nationalize its oil and gas industry from US-sanctioned Gazprom.

The West no longer seems to need to negotiate with Vučić from a position of fear—that is, treading carefully due to a concern that the Serbian president will turn further toward Russia or cause regional instability. Despite Vučić’s latest pro-Western moves, the European Council recently decided to keep Serbia’s accession talks effectively frozen due to concerns about democracy, relations with Kosovo, and nonalignment with the EU’s Russia policy.

This tougher stance on Serbia is a welcome departure from overly cautious EU policy toward the Western Balkans for the last ten years. While the EU has been right to fear that failing to integrate the Western Balkans would leave the bloc less secure, it was wrong to be afraid to dictate accession terms to Balkan nations given the EU’s leverage over the region.

Fear had driven the EU’s thinking about Western Balkan countries’ accession for most of the past decade. Some members were worried about the EU’s ability to absorb more Eastern countries with questionable governance standards and security postures. The EU’s far right also fueled xenophobia about the region’s Muslim-majority countries. As a result, the Western Balkans was parked in an effective containment policy, which empowered authoritarians who showed they could at least keep the peace.

Yet, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the fears of bringing the region into the EU were dwarfed by fears of keeping it out. Gray zones like the Western Balkans turned out to be a security vulnerability. There is a growing recognition within the EU that it needs to bring the Western Balkans into the bloc. However, this is coupled with an awareness that Brussels can afford to make demands of aspiring members if their accession prospects are to progress. Reflecting this balance, the new momentum for EU enlargement has now opened a window for at least Montenegro and Albania—the countries with the least amount of obstacles to membership and which are undertaking some reforms—to be part of the next accession wave.

The Western Balkans’ peace and stability will, however, remain fragile for as long as its countries remain stuck in bilateral or identitarian disputes. But over the past few years, the EU has shown that it has the leverage to resolve the disputes that stand in the region’s way. The Western Balkans present the ultimate litmus test of the bloc’s geopolitical weight. Going forward, the EU should use the leverage at its disposal without allowing fearmongering from Western Balkan leaders to deter it from its efforts to bring the region into its fold.

Agon Maliqi is an independent researcher and political analyst from Pristina, Kosovo. He was the co-founder and longtime editor of Sbunker, a think tank and blog on Western Balkans affairs, as well as a former Reagan-Fascell Democracy fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.

***

The Western Balkans stands at the nexus of many of Europe’s critical challenges. Some, if not all, of the countries of the region may soon join the European Union and shape the bloc’s ability to become a more effective geopolitical player. At the same time, longstanding disputes in the region, coupled with institutional weaknesses, will continue to pose problems and present a security vulnerability for NATO that could be exploited by Russia or China. The region is also a transit route for westward migration, a source of critical raw materials, and an important node in energy and trade routes. The BalkansForward column will explore the key strategic dynamics in the region and how they intersect with broader European and transatlantic goals.

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Libya’s de facto partition demands a solution designed for it—not for outside contenders

Hani Shennib — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:09:15 +0000

While the West continues to fixate on elections in promoting democracy worldwide, many Libyans today have become resentful. They largely perceive the elections touted by the West as part of a strategy to legitimize a government that serves foreign interests rather than fulfilling Libyans’ needs for stability and institution building. They simply do not trust that elections conducted under current conditions—characterized by a lack of constitutional foundations, profound corruption, forceful arrests, and streets dominated by militias and warlords—can lead to fair outcomes.

Meanwhile, the West and its partners, caught up in defending democracy and human rights, feel guilt over their failure to stabilize Libya following an intervention that bizarrely morphed from a mission to protect a population from Muammar Gaddafi’s wrath into one of regime change. Consequently, the coalition has yet again turned to an inept United Nations (UN)to push for democratic change through elections. However, this goal has not materialized and is unlikely to do so in the near future.

Historically, other countries have approached resolving the situation in Libya with a mindset of “what’s in it for me?,” highlighting how national and regional interests shape attempts at change—particularly in the context of Libya. This was similarly true during UN discussions on how to address Italian colonies taken by the Allies post-World War II and the intense negotiations among the United States, European countries, and Russia regarding Libya’s fate in the late 1940s. Notably, strong views were expressed by Azzam Pasha (an Egyptian diplomat who was at the time the secretary general of the Arab League) regarding Egypt’s interests in Libya. Such discussions have an eerie similarity to today’s regional and international negotiations about Libya’s future.

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Currently, the motivations for international involvement in Libya are shaped by three main concerns: 1) Europe’s alarm over the massive scale of illegal migration flowing through porous Libyan borders and its significant security and socioeconomic implications; 2) unease about the potential downward spiral of sociopolitical conditions in North African and Sahel states, which could undermine the economic interests of major corporations in the region; and 3) worry that a chaotic and fragile state may allow terrorist entities to thrive and potentially spread, escalating security threats.

In the eyes of the international community, these concerns require dealing with a central authority in Libya, regardless of the authority’s perceived legitimacy or its true value to the Libyan people and their institution building. These factors have, in part, led to a series of poorly devised proposals and roadmaps put forth by the UN and endorsed by international actors, which have resulted in little progress and worsened the divisions currently observed in Libya today.

From my observations during my frequent visits to the country and my conversations with Libyan leaders, politicians, and academics, I have identified five reasons why previous efforts put forth by the international community to shape a modern state in Libya have failed.

First, there are historical roots of division that have not yet been addressed. This is one of the reasons why the numerous attempts by multiple representatives of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) to engage Libyan actors in various stabilizing roadmaps over the last thirteen years have failed miserably. The last effort, expected to lead to elections in December 2022, went nowhere due to political wrangling between two executive bodies and two legislative ones located—by no coincidence—in the eastern and western parts of the country, reflecting the historical divisions between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. It is practically impossible to envision effective presidential and parliamentary elections occurring in the near future without acknowledging these historical roots of division.

Second, it is clear that political and security actors on the ground in both regions of Libya have exploited these divisions for their own political and financial benefit through alliances with benefactor militias, corrupt entrepreneurs, members of the nouveau riche, and cross-border smugglers. This blend of neo-militocracy and kleptocracy heavily influences political and security decisions in the executive, legislative, judicial, and security branches in Libya, ensuring that national and international distractions allow them to remain in power for the foreseeable future.

Third, after forty-two years of oppression and a dismissal of rights and democracy under Gaddafi, as well as additional fourteen years of poverty and insecurity following the collapse of state institutions in 2011, the populace is busy with surviving day by day and lacks the means necessary to express their discontent. This, along with a sense of defeat regarding their aspirations for a better life following the failed Arab Spring, renders it unlikely that any significant movement will arise from the streets of Libyan cities in the near future, creating grounds for the continuation of the status quo.

Fourth and most importantly, the emergence of more pressing global conflicts and a shift in the international community’s priorities over the past four years, particularly with a focus on Ukraine and Southeast Asia, has diminished the attention and resources devoted to Libya’s situation. That is the case despite the fact that the West is concerned about the exponential growth of Russian and Chinese influence in Libya and the African continent at large.

Last, it is clear that the populations of many developing countries, particularly in the Middle East and Africa (including Libya), perceive Western governments to have lost their moral compass and can no longer be trusted as custodians of democratic and humanitarian change. This perception has been exacerbated by the catastrophe that has befallen the Arab people of Gaza—which countries in the West either failed to prevent or openly supported. Thus, in the eyes of the Libyan people, the West’s ability to recommend, supervise, or contribute to any democratic or nation-building initiatives has become compromised. This observation reinforces a decade-long sentiment among Arabs that it is not uncommon for Western governments to support and deal with autocracies and militaries throughout the Arab world—from Algeria to Egypt to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States—contributing to their skepticism about elections and hopes for democratic change.

One of the few successes in Libya since 2020 (the year that marked the end of the civil war that divided the country into territories east and west of the city of Sirte), is that the line dividing the country has become more distinct. Today, Libya has two governments, effectively two legislative bodies, and two security entities controlling the political, economic, and daily operations in their respective regions. Ironically—despite initial unifying efforts to address the disastrous situation in the aftermath of Storm Daniel in 2023, which claimed nearly twelve thousand lives—grand reconstruction opportunities in the regions have instead led to further segmentation of decision making and project funding. Such mega-funding and the anticipated engagement of international corporations and governments has only further entrenched Libya’s split.

Thus, Libya is currently a de facto two-state entity. The elusive internationally recognized government based in Tripoli exists primarily to allow the international community and its corporations to advance their own interests, failing to address the complex realities on the ground in Libya. International players such as China, Russia, and others are moving within Libya with disregard to issues of migration or border security, and are more focused on strategic economic engagement with Africa. This further undermines European and US interests while taking advantage of the West’s inertia and lack of clear strategy and engagement in Libya.

Furthermore, Libyans have grown disillusioned with the role of the international community and the United Nations, and they no longer trust or see much value in UNSMIL. Libyans are now gradually accepting and adapting to the current de facto demarcation of the country, going along with this in almost every aspect of their daily functions. An unnatural symbiosis seems to be developing between the aspirations of the people of Cyrenaica for more regional governance—away from the centralist hegemony Tripolitania exercised since 1969—and the military autocracy led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. At the same time, the internationally recognized government in Libya’s west continues to struggle to maintain power under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah who (along with his cousin) was sanctioned for corruption by the Libyan interim government and continues to face allegations of corruption, which he denies. Recent street anger against Dbeibah, stemming from his government’s attempt at rapprochement with Israeli officials as well as an escalation of pressure from dissatisfied militia, could catalyze the collapse of the internationally recognized government. This, in turn, could prompt Dbeibah to resort to military skirmishes with the east to distract from public discontent and prolong his government’s lifespan.

This week, the UN secretary-general appointed Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, a seasoned Ghanaian diplomat, as the new head of UNSMIL, making her the tenth person to serve that position in thirteen years. The appointment came after much wrangling between the United States and Russia, again suggesting that foreign interests will likely continue to dominate conversations about resolutions for Libya.

Libya needs new ideas and a national and international will to reset a realistic path toward a modern state, premised on a recognition of its history and a mentality of “what’s in it” not just for the international community but, more importantly, for its own people, as well.

Hani Shennib is the founding president of the National Council on US-Libya Relations

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Dispatch from Davos: Trump is both symptom and driver of our new geopolitical era

Frederick Kempe — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 11:56:40 +0000

DAVOS—It’s well known that US President Donald Trump is the man of the moment. Less understood is that he’s both the product and the purveyor or our emerging era. It is one characterized by more government intervention, less common cause, more mercantilism, less free trade, and more big-power swagger.

That is my takeaway from the first week of Trump’s second presidency and my thirtieth visit to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. It remains the most consequential gathering of global political, business, and civil society elites, this year boasting more than three thousand participants from 130 countries.

In my three decades of attending the forum, never has a single individual dominated discussions like Trump did this past week.

That was true even before Trump arrived with a splash last Thursday, though only virtually, delivering his speech to a standing-room-only audience from a colossal screen. More than any of some fifty heads of state and government who spoke this week, he held the attention of his mostly skeptical audience with his self-congratulation, comic timing, derision of former US President Joe Biden, and audacious appeals to global elites for deals and deference.

Trump pronounced his comeback win “the most consequential election victory in 129 years,” ushering in “the golden age of America” that would be characterized by “a revolution of common sense.”

He goaded Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, “who is a fantastic guy,” to lower oil prices (which also would help end Russia’s war in Ukraine) and boost Riyadh’s offer of $600 billion of new US investment to one trillion dollars. “I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them,” he said.

Trump chided Russian President Vladimir Putin for his war in Ukraine, which he repeated would never have happened under his presidency. It is a “killing field” that has to stop, he said, making clear that it was Putin, and not the Ukrainians, blocking the path to peace talks.

Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping that he liked him, but Xi would have to stop his unfair trade practices and help to end Putin’s murderous war. “They have a great deal of power over that situation, and we’ll work with them,” Trump said.

He told all the CEOs in the room to make their products in the United States and enjoy some of the world’s lowest taxes—or choose not to, and that would result in tariffs against them. “Under the Trump administration, there will be no better place on Earth to create jobs, build factories, or grow a company than right here in the good old USA.”

Nir Bar Dea, CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, told me that we shouldn’t be surprised by the world’s Trump fixation. It goes far beyond Trump’s determination to trigger change to the unique circumstances that give him leverage.

That leverage includes narrow control of both houses of Congress and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It also includes the United States’ current economic dominance, with more than 25 percent of global gross domestic product and with US equities accounting for approximately 76 percent of the MSCI World Index, a benchmark for global stock market capitalization. Add to this existing leverage an emerging era of government intervention, which was hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic but has continued to unfold since then.

“At this time of modern mercantilism comes the rise of Trump,” said Bar Dea of the activist president determined to make a historic mark. “The rise of China, the unequal distribution of globalization gains and the political shifts that followed, the supply chain vulnerabilities realized since COVID, and the wars in Europe and the Middle East—all of this resulted in a total reversal of global dynamics. What people in Davos understand is that, today, what’s in this one person’s mind will be massively important.”

Bar Dea said Trump’s election coincides with “a 180-degree turn” from a post–Cold War era of expanding globalization, free trade, relative global stability, and the retreat of government influence and intervention.

That period has been replaced by global fragmentation, protectionist trends, greater instability (including wars in Europe and the Middle East), and a rising tide of government involvement in picking winners and losers.

That was already the case with the Biden administration’s embrace of national industrial policy through such measures as the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. Trump will build on that interventionist trajectory with “America first” determination.

The mood on the mountain

All that provided the context for the week in Davos, where the response of participants to the early days of Trump 2.0 ranged from celebration to dread, with a wide range of emotions in between.

The celebrants included a good number of CEOs (American and otherwise), and a smattering of government officials, who regard the tax-cutting, job-creating, energy-loving, artificial intelligence-supporting, cryptocurrency-embracing, peace deal-seeking, anti-woke commander-in-chief as just the tonic for our times.

At the same time, the dread is widespread, emerging from concerns about Trump’s “above the law” practices, represented by his pardons of some 1,500 people charged with crimes for the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. It also stems from Trump’s economic policies that lean so heavily toward punitive tariffs, and from his threats to the sovereignty of Panama (over its canal) and Denmark (over Greenland) that many here fear will only encourage autocrats like Putin who harbor territorial ambitions.

First, listen to the celebrants, who range from cryptocurrency purveyors to European business leaders yearning for more growth and less regulation to Argentine President Javier Milei, who had been the warm-up act for Trump earlier on Thursday with his anti-woke homily.

Also on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order to promote cryptocurrencies in the United States and work toward a digital asset stockpile. That followed the Security and Exchange Commission’s announcement Tuesday that it would create a task force to advance a digital asset policy overhaul, including both cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, which are pegged to the dollar.

“We see great things happening,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation. Her organization oversees a network based on blockchain technology whose purpose is to expand cross-border payments and the tokenization of real-world assets by supporting developers and communities building on the Stellar blockchain. “You’re going to see a lot more usage,” she said.

At the same time, she hopes that the industry stays focused on “utility and growth” rather than on flooding the market with new products that are more speculative in nature—like the new $MELANIA and $TRUMP coins, which she said have a place in the ecosystem but are more like “trading cards,” as they don’t really showcase the utility of the technology.

Another industry executive was less generous, telling me that Trump was encouraging “legalized grifting” through his self-interested crypto embrace. “We’ve gone too far too quickly,” he said, “from an administration that was far too unfriendly to business to one that may be too excessive in its friendliness.”

On the energy front, Josu Jon Imaz, the CEO of the Spanish energy company Repsol, said the Trump administration may bring advantages to the energy sector and deliver a wake-up call to Europe.

Imaz said Trump could even bring unanticipated climate benefits, particularly for the Global South, with the potential shifts from coal to less emissions-intensive liquefied natural gas as the United States increases production and lifts Biden administration export controls.

Regarding the European Union, Imaz said of Trump, “He’s pushing us to look at ourselves in the mirror” and recognize that it is high time to address Europe’s slow growth, excessive regulation, and high energy prices.

“Europe reacts well when we are in real trouble,” Imaz said, pointing to the shift away from Russian energy after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or the response to the pandemic. “We must react. At the same time, a weak and divided Europe is also risky for Washington and a temptation for China.”

The question of sovereignty

Those concerned about Trump’s course were less vocal publicly during the past week in Davos than they were at the beginning of his first term. However, their concerns went to the heart of what the United States has represented to them since World War II—a benevolent proponent for the common good rather than a power acting only for its own interests.

“I belong to the rather worried crowd,” former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt told me, calling Trump’s early international moves “dangerous and destabilizing.”

Bildt sees Trump’s early threats regarding Greenland and the Panama Canal as legitimizing the sorts of threats to national sovereignty that have been involved in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Does he know the consequences of what he says?” Bildt asked me. “This is dangerous stuff. It really undermines the rules-based world order. The sanctity of borders isn’t a rule. It’s the rule.”

Bildt mentioned reports that a portrait of General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who locked horns with Trump, was removed from a Pentagon wall, and he regarded it as something unprecedented in the United States and more reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Another senior European official spoke to me with deep concern about Trump’s phone call this week with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen over his desire to acquire the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland.

Having been briefed on the call, the official told me that Frederiksen at first tried to engage Trump in a conversation about greater access to Greenland’s rich resources and strategic position, but that Trump was adamant that he wanted full control. It was, the official said, “a forty-seven-minute call with plenty of expletives,” adding, “the Danes are now in crisis mode.”

What this European official really wanted, along with so many others I met with in Davos, was advice about how his country could best manage the United States’ new reality. The most frequent answer in Davos paraphrases the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, who told media at the National Press Club ahead of Trump’s first election that American voters took him seriously but not literally.

Eight years later, with Trump far more prominent on the global stage than ever before, Davos participants know he must be taken more seriously than ever before, and perhaps even more literally, as both a symptom and an architect of our changing times.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

Note: Nir Bar Dea, Carl Bildt, and Josu Jon Imaz are members of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board, and Stellar Development Foundation is a partner of the Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

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The US retreat on climate comes with steep costs for the economy and the American people

Jorge Gastelumendi — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 23:34:51 +0000

On its first day in office, the Trump administration has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on climate change. The United States’ repeated withdrawal (President Donald Trump withdrew in his first term, then President Joe Biden rejoined) will not halt the global efforts to meet the 2015 Paris goals to limit global temperature rise. The climate crisis has moved far beyond the capacity for the United States to solve it unilaterally. Nevertheless, this decision will make progress more challenging and implementation more tenuous since the United States is one of the largest emitters.

While the withdrawal is an important global signal and will make efforts to combat climate change more difficult, the new administration’s de-prioritization of climate action will have immediate and concrete consequences for Americans themselves. The country will bear a heavier burden of inaction as well as the losses of delayed national investment in adaptation and resilience if Trump succeeds in fully repealing the Biden administration’s climate investments.

This month provided a stark example of that opportunity cost. The Los Angeles wildfires killed twenty-seven people and burned through over 12,000 structures. The loss is visible and immediate. Notably, the true cost is still being calculated. Analysts are projecting economic losses of as much as $150 billion and anticipate more deaths as the ramifications of degraded air quality and smoke take full effect.

The deeper concern is that this withdrawal, coupled with Trump’s other executive orders to facilitate the fossil fuel industry and backtrack on climate investments, will have significant impacts on the American public, since increasing greenhouse gas emissions has a direct effect on increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

Hence, if in addition to these decisions, the Trump administration opts out of actively investing in disaster preparedness, its economic and financial losses will rise exponentially. In fact, it is estimated that each dollar spent on disaster preparedness and climate adaptation saves twelve dollars in recovery and response. Without climate-related action and resilience-building efforts, it will fall to the American taxpayer to cover that additional eleven dollars.

The United States is stepping back on climate at a critical moment for action. The public and private sectors need to be taking this moment to coordinate and align. But instead, the new administration is signaling, at least initially, a lack of political will that could set the country back both in terms of individual preparedness and long-term economic opportunity.

Other countries are seizing the economic opportunities of climate adaptation and resilience. Germany is set to invest at least €1.6 billion in artificial intelligence, including for climate efforts, by 2025; Japan has committed to doubling adaptation finance to $14.8 billion by 2025; and countries such as Uruguay, Denmark, and Lithuania are recognized for having scaled up the share of solar and wind energy in their electricity mix by at least 6 percentage points annually over a five-year span.

Trump’s recent executive orders mark not only a lack of commitment to climate action but also a backtracking on notable climate investments under the Biden administration. The private sector will likely no longer have the government’s support in fast-tracking adaptation initiatives. As other countries scale up incentives, this will make it more difficult for the United States to hold any competitive advantage in the long term.

In the short-term, however, it’s lives and livelihoods that are at risk. Without mitigation and adaptation, climate change is set to kill 3.4 million people each year by the end of the century. While the United States’ retreat from climate leadership has significant geopolitical implications, the more pressing concern is on the national impacts. Americans will face the consequences of inaction. They will have lower capacity to overcome climate shocks and stresses, putting their own health, finances, and well-being on the line. In fact, our Climate Resilience Center estimated that heat-related labor-productivity losses could cost half a trillion dollars annually by 2050 in the United States alone. Ignoring or denying the reality of climate change will not avoid its impacts.

Indeed, the world will feel the loss of US leadership under the Trump administration. Progress can—and must—continue, but the average American will feel the weight of these decisions on a personal, financial, and social level for years to come. Although Trump has made his climate stance clear in his first few hours back in the White House, there is time for his administration and the president himself to reassess and reinvest in a new way forward.

Jorge Gastelumendi is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center. He previously served as chief advisor and negotiator to the government of Peru during the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

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A blueprint for bringing about a new Syria

Kirsten Fontenrose — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 15:09:20 +0000

Many Syrians cheered Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its affiliate armed groups as they drove Assad regime elements and their Russian and Iranian backers out of cities and towns in Syria over the past week. But this lionization should be a wake-up call for the civilian Syrian political opposition about HTS’s influence in post-Assad Syria. The forces that opposed Assad now have a sudden and potentially short-lived opportunity to shape the future of Syria, but they will blow it if they are divided.

The first Trump administration, in which I served on the National Security Council, made considerable efforts, in partnership with countries in Europe and the Middle East, to bring together Syrian political opposition groups for talks on a new vision for Syria and on creating conditions for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, wholly opposed by dictator Bashar al-Assad. The biggest obstacle to their forging a way ahead for Syria five years ago has fled, and he has been replaced by an equally daunting obstacle, the military leader of an internationally sanctioned terrorist group with its own undisclosed vision for the future of Syria.

When Assad was finally forced out of Syria on December 8, it was because of the territorial and popularity gains made by HTS. Any hopes still nurtured by foreign governments of forming a post-Assad transitional government for Syria comprised of civilian political opposition groups alone—excluding HTS, which both the United States and the United Nations have designated as a terrorist organization—will need to be amended. Squeeze a few extra chairs around the table for HTS, the former al-Qaeda affiliate so popular in Syria right now that it would likely welcome free and fair elections. And an election would give the group’s ideology a legitimate mandate. The logical fear of watching a terrorist group regain control in Syria is leading some, like Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to suggest that supporting Assad’s regime against HTS fighters was choosing the least of two evils.

The United States has learned the hard way from experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that for reconstruction to have a shot at success, a few tenets should be adopted:

Have a single reconstruction strategy.
All donors must agree to making assistance contingent upon milestones.
Deviation from the strategy by aid donors or recipients should have consequences.
Harbor no delusions about the parties involved on the ground.

On the fourth point, it’s possible to recognize HTS’s victory and current popularity without necessarily subscribing to their self-branding. Statements from HTS about their intent to respect minorities should not be interpreted as a sign of moderation in the group’s ideology. These statements are simply a partial and incomplete reflection of related Quranic verses (Surah Al-Baqarah (2:62)), historical covenants the Prophet Mohammed made with non-Muslim communities, and his direction to Muslims and their temporal leaders to protect adherents of other faiths who have peaceful relations with their Muslim neighbors. HTS is not yet showing signs of being even as moderate as the fundamentals that define “fundamentalist Islam.”

The Taliban made similar “campaign trail” promises to protect women’s rights and minorities in order to assuage fears of its ideology among the international community as it retook power in Afghanistan in 2021—and then flagrantly betrayed them. A Taliban spokesman told a press conference in August 2021 that women “can get education from primary to higher education—that means university,” adding “we have announced this policy at international conferences.” Since then, Taliban decrees have barred women and girls from secondary and higher education.

Note that political negotiations in Yemen were upended when the Houthis gained public support for their actions in the Red Sea purportedly on behalf of Gaza, with the increased popular backing making them less willing to make concessions.

Recall protesters hoping to bring down the Lebanese government dancing in Beirut’s streets in October 2019, while Hezbollah continued to plan and operate. The net result was zero change in Lebanon. Optimism is no substitute for planning.

Also note that US President-elect Donald Trump issued a social media statement saying the United States should not get involved in Syria. Likely the only way for the civilian political opposition to Assad to return to center stage and gain advocacy from the next US administration is to quickly present a pragmatic and unified plan for a transitional government, elections, and ongoing governance. This plan should create space for HTS to participate in elections if the group transitions into a political party, defined as unarmed and non-militant. The plan should allow for members of HTS to potentially serve in leadership roles within ministries and the military. In the early days of an interim government, each day that a concrete way forward for governance of Syria is not solidified will strengthen the case for Syria’s Islamist military liberators to take full control themselves.

It will of course be difficult to persuade a victorious HTS to accept such conditions, when it is otherwise likely to dismiss the civilian opposition with a “you and what army?” and pursue a Taliban-esque way forward. Getting buy-in from the United States, the European Union, key Arab states, Turkey, Russia, and China for a plan like this—that precludes HTS and affiliates from a monopoly on the use of force—might be the only way to do so.

Bottom line for the Syrian political opposition: Be ready to speak with one voice to the international community or risk your divisions handing HTS a plurality of support, leading directly to your capitulation to extremist-led governance.

A reconstruction blueprint

When it comes to planning for the country’s reconstruction, the international community has a lot of new leverage in the wake of Assad’s flight. No entity will be able to effectively run the country without near-total dependence on foreign aid. Using that leverage to make sure the reconstruction of Syria unfolds more successfully than Iraq’s or Afghanistan’s should be the next priority.

This is the point in post-conflict scenarios where donors usually muck things up. They pursue divergent reconstruction plans that do not align. They empower competing political actors, hampering decision-making. They fund duplicative projects and leave critical gaps unaddressed. They do not tie funding to milestones, allowing bad actors to abuse and consolidate power while the money continues to flow. The last two decades in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia are catalogs of related lessons learned.

Donors should co-develop a single reconstruction strategy for Syria, then adopt pieces of the strategy for funding and management in accordance with their domestic laws and policies. (For example, the United States cannot provide material support to designated terrorists, which would preclude the United States from funding construction of government offices that would be used by HTS members.)

All donors should be asked to agree to the one-strategy approach, and to tying the flow of funding and official recognition to specific performance milestones for the new Syrian government. If pledges are not kept, the funding stops, and official recognition is withheld or withdrawn.

Any donor country that continues to fund a new Syrian government (transitional or newly elected) while it is in violation of its pledges should face sanctions. In the event of violations, China, Russia, and Iran will not feel compelled to comply with the established strategy and could continue funding the new government. This will highlight the comparatively paltry amount of foreign aid these countries provide when compared with the United States, the Gulf, and Europe. (China’s foreign grant spending is roughly one-tenth that of the United States.)

All reconstruction funds should be overseen by a commissioner elected by the donor countries, who acts as a CEO and also chairs an advisory board comprised of representatives from across Syrian demography. This consultative body discusses, debates, and provides recommendations on project prioritization to the commissioner. But the donors call the shots.

Leading with a purpose

The United States lacked a Syria strategy over the past four years, a fact often lamented by countries impacted by the conflict. Granted, US voters have little appetite for toppling more dictators, and US-led nation building in the first quarter of the twenty-first century has not gone as well as it did in the twentieth century. (It has not helped that the same countries that clamor for the United States to lead these more recent efforts have sometimes contradicted US-led objectives with their own policies and wallets.)

Yet the United States is still asked and expected to lead. This time US policymakers should heed lessons learned in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen about the dangers of donor misalignment and the difficulty of negotiating with groups that use violence for political ends. And they should listen to those who argue that no terrorist group in the modern Middle East has moderated its ideology upon assuming power.

International partners may not agree at first contact with these tenets for Syrian reconstruction; this is a job for diplomacy. For its own interests, the United States should not agree to lead or participate in any reconstruction effort that does not meet these foundational conditions.

Kirsten Fontenrose is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Previously, she was the senior director for the Gulf at the National Security Council, leading the development of US policy toward nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan.

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The IMF and World Bank did well under the first Trump administration. Will they again?

Martin Mühleisen — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:04:49 +0000

For the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2016 seemed to present an existential question. If their largest shareholder was going to be led by a tariff-wielding economic nationalist, what would it mean for the future of the multilateral financial architecture, of which they were a key part?

The answer, it turned out, was more benign than what had been feared at the time. Like its predecessors, the Trump administration quickly realized that the two institutions provided the United States with financial leverage to pursue its global objectives, including by assisting friendly countries that would otherwise depend mostly on Chinese lenders for support.

As a result, the collaboration between the two institutions and the Trump administration mostly followed established processes, including in the Group of Seven (G7) and Group of Twenty (G20), where US priorities were quietly negotiated with staff and other shareholders. The administration also lobbied Congress to keep up US financial contributions to the institutions, both for the World Bank’s regular International Development Association replenishment (subsidizing loans to poor countries) and the IMF’s New Arrangements to Borrow (which added to the IMF’s lending capacity on top of its permanent resources).

The IMF could face pressure to speak out against China’s large current account surplus.

As Trump prepares to return to office, it would be tempting to expect a similar outcome, given the market-friendly appointments for economic positions so far (which calmed down speculation about a US withdrawal from the Bretton Woods institutions as proposed by the Heritage Foundation). Compared to 2016, however, the geopolitical rivalry between the United States, China, and other autocracies has become more intense. Trump has already announced plans for new tariffs on China, and Beijing has halted exports of some rare minerals in retaliation to US chip restrictions. As a result, the next US-China trade dispute could be much larger in scope. If it spilled over into areas under the mandate of the Bretton Woods twins, then the United States could push them, especially the IMF, to provide more explicit support for its positions.

One of the key planks of a future Trump administration could be an attempt to boost domestic exports by lowering the external value of the dollar. This could affect all countries with a large current account surplus (such as Germany and South Korea), but US policy is likely to focus predominantly on Beijing’s recent manufacturing offensive. The IMF could face pressure to speak out against China’s large current account surplus, providing intellectual support for the country being designated as a “currency manipulator” by the US Treasury Department, which could lead to the imposition of retaliatory tariffs.

Going even further, the United States could also nudge the IMF to declare China a currency manipulator itself, which would put China’s trade and exchange rate pressures under a multilateral spotlight. Per its “Integrated Surveillance Decision,” the IMF would have to find that China was conducting its exchange rate policy with the sole objective of securing a “fundamental exchange rate misalignment” for the purpose of an increase in net exports. This would be a high bar to clear given the views expressed in the IMF’s 2024 External Sector Report and a recent blog post by a group of senior directors that blamed domestic policies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean for the increase in global current account imbalances.

Moreover, the United States would not find many allies on this issue among the IMF’s other shareholders, let alone emerging markets, which could lead to a divisive standoff in the otherwise consensus-oriented institution. In 2007, for example, an earlier initiative by the George W. Bush administration to label China as a currency manipulator backfired when Beijing refused to publish its annual IMF consultations for two years—until the issue was resolved by the global financial crisis.

A similar shift in intensity could also take place regarding the two institutions’ lending activities. The United States under Trump did not lean particularly heavily on the IMF to lend to specific countries, even when it came to Argentina. That was because, at first, there was broad support within the IMF for the reformist Macri government, and when economic developments turned sour, the United States was not the only country reluctant to pull the plug on an ongoing program.

Going forward, however, the next Trump White House could push the IMF more actively to provide Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump political ally, with additional foreign exchange reserves to prevent a run on the peso in case capital controls are lifted. Other leaders the administration views favorably might hope for similar support in the event of economic difficulties. The danger here is clear: unless the fund’s management and other shareholders were to resist politically motivated loans, the risks to the IMF’s balance sheet could significantly increase. Another large, failed loan to Argentina, for example, could trigger questions about the official reserve status of claims on the IMF, which is at the core of its financial business model.

On the other hand, the new administration could prove more allergic than before to helping developing countries with large outstanding loans to China, pushing more aggressively for debt restructurings before new loans are approved. Getting China to participate more actively in debt restructuring cases would indeed be beneficial for most countries, but the Trump administration should be clear-eyed about the nature of the challenge. Barring financial support from, and stepped-up trade opportunities with, the United States and other countries, few countries would go into arrears to Chinese lenders, which might be the only way to convince Beijing to provide development loans at truly concessional terms.

Both the IMF and World Bank are also likely to face greater scrutiny for their climate-related lending activities. While a wholesale reversal of existing policies may not be high enough on the new administration’s agenda, the potential choice of new personnel at the heads of both institutions could have significant implications. For example, the Trump administration could appoint a new World Bank president, which has traditionally been a US prerogative. However, it could face significant pushback if it were to remove Ajay Banga, the highly effective incumbent, in favor of a candidate modeled on his immediate predecessor, David Malpass.

At the IMF, the United States traditionally chooses a candidate for the number two position but cannot impose a change unless Kristalina Georgieva, its managing director, agrees. Given the unease over the IMF’s move into climate and development finance even within the Biden administration, this could become an early point of friction. The new administration will have a lever to request some changes in the institution, as it has to shepherd the ratification of the IMF’s 2023 capital (or “quota”) increase through Congress (which already missed the original deadline of November 15, 2024). Amid the chatter in Washington of a radical overhaul of the US government, it may even be possible that the gentlemen’s agreement between the United States and Europe of not interfering with each other’s personnel choices (which has been broken before) is up for the chopping block.

Martin Mühleisen is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a former IMF official with decades of experience in economic crisis management and financial diplomacy.

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2025 will be a decisive year for Iran’s nuclear program

Danny Citrinowicz — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 15:35:40 +0000

Since the United States’ withdrawal from the multilateral nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, Iran’s nuclear program has progressed almost unimpeded. Although Tehran is careful not to cross the line of military-grade enrichment (90 percent), the program has progressed without interruption. While Iran is suffering from sanctions imposed on it following the US withdrawal, it hasn’t paid an additional price for its flagrant violation of the JCPOA. However, after a long period of stagnation that accompanied the international community vis-à-vis Tehran’s nuclear program, it seems that there is a new diplomatic movement regarding this issue.

Next year is going to be decisive for the Iranian nuclear program for a variety of reasons, some of which are related to the JCPOA and some of which are associated with tensions in Iran and even regionally and internationally as a direct result of the campaign between Israel and members of the Axis of Resistance (specifically Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Shia militias in Iraq) that began on October 7, 2023. These events and developments will bring the Iranian nuclear program to a strategic junction in the coming year, affecting not only the nuclear file but also the Islamic Republic’s broad security strategy and its relations with the international community and the region. Iran will be forced to make a historic decision.

Since Tehran departed from the JCPOA limit of 3.67 percent uranium enrichment, Iran has learned to develop advanced centrifuges and enrich at 60 percent. In addition, Iran has expanded its enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow, is preparing for the operation of another enrichment facility near Natanz, and is continuing to return significant amounts of enriched material to the stockpiles at various levels. Despite this, Iran continues its relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—but it still needs to implement the action plan established with the agency.

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In the military context, according to the latest assessment published by the US intelligence community, Tehran has not yet made a strategic decision to move toward nuclear weapons. But even if Iran’s leadership doesn’t indicate a desire to obtain a nuclear weapon, technological work is underway that goes beyond the lines of a civilian program. With no accord in place, the international community seems to be in a deep freeze in the face of these updates. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi’s recent visit to Tehran highlights these problems. Tehran appears willing to cooperate with the IAEA only to prevent any harsh decision against by the organization’s Board of Governors—it has no real intention of working with the IAEA.

However, recent Board of Governors meetings have seen a hardening of the statements issued by the E3—Britain, France, and Germany—and the United States regarding progress of Iran’s nuclear program, especially about its unwillingness to cooperate with the IAEA’s road map. But at the same time, the Board of Governors—who are meeting this week in Vienna—have not taken a dramatic step against Iran, apparently due to the fear of pushing it into a corner, leaving Tehran no choice but to carry out threatened actions that cannot be rolled back. And so, an equilibrium was created in which Iran continues to expand its program without going beyond the red lines of enrichment and weapons. On the other hand, the West—led by the E3 and the United States—maintains the sanctions regime but does not take any dramatic steps against Iran for its progress in this program. In general, it seems that the Western powers, especially with Tehran’s involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine, have preferred to focus on other issues and practically abandoned dealing with the country’s nuclear program.

But this reality will inevitably change in the coming year. First and foremost, the snapback issue forces the parties to the original deal to formulate a strategy regarding whether or not to activate it. Any decision will have far-reaching consequences for Iran’s conduct in regard to its nuclear program. October 18, 2025 will be the last opportunity for world powers to initiate the snapback mechanism, returning all the sanctions that were lifted in the JCPOA agreement (except those already expired). Iran is already threatening that activating the exact mechanism will inevitably lead Tehran to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making this decision crucial for the future of the Iranian nuclear program. But even if the world powers give up the option to activate the snapback mechanism, this will have profound consequences for Iran and send a message that it has an open ticket to move forward with its program without any real limits.

That raises the question of returning to the JCPOA or drafting a new nuclear agreement. It seems that the current Iranian leadership, especially after the election of President Masoud Pezeshkian, understands that the path to economic relief in Iran lies only in reaching an agreement with the West that will limit the nuclear program. On the other hand, those Western countries, including the United States (soon to be led by President-elect Donald Trump), will also want to move forward in principle.

The international community and Iran are converging on a crossroads. Either they can reach a new nuclear agreement or return to the JCPOA (which would lead to the rolling back of the nuclear program in exchange for significant economic relief) or Western countries could activate the snapback mechanism (which would lead to unprecedented moves on the part of Iran, and a clash between the powers—and probably Israel—and Iran). It is important to note that rolling back the Iranian nuclear program does not erase the Iranian scientists’ extensive knowledge. In addition, the United States left the JCPOA, making it very hard to reach an agreement that will significantly roll back the Iranian nuclear program.

Furthermore, the probability of keeping the current enrichment level below the 90 percent threshold is eroded, as evidenced by the fact that Iran, by mistake or not, has already enriched very close to the 90 percent threshold. Given the vast number of centrifuges and the high level of enrichment, plus the progress of Iranian scientists in weapons research, the likelihood that red lines will be crossed simply due to the nature of the nuclear program increases with every day that passes without an agreement—regardless of whether the leadership has made an affirmative decision to seek nuclear weapons.

This reality is also related to the Israel-Iran conflict, specifically Israel’s fear of attacking Iran. In the past, the thinking was that Israel would be conscientious not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities without US backing for fear of a regional war in which Hezbollah could cause severe damage to Israel. The developments since October 7, 2023—specifically Hezbollah’s military setbacks and the severe damage caused to Iran’s air-defense capability as a result of the most recent attack by Israel—may increase Israel’s appetite.

These regional changes have led to many statements from officials in Iran that mention the possibility of Iran changing its nuclear strategy and moving toward the construction of a nuclear bomb. Now that Iran is more exposed to Israeli and even US attacks (as a result of damage to Iranian air-defense systems), and in light of Iran’s difficulties in expanding its ballistic missile stockpile, the likelihood of Iran making a strategic reexamination rises dramatically. The Iranian temptation to use the program as a deterrent to Israel and perhaps the United States following the election of Trump is increasing significantly, and the relative proximity to military enrichment and maybe even a bomb allows—and will spur—the leadership in Iran to advance to that stage of development after years of no change in Tehran’s nuclear strategy.

The constraints and opportunities that push Tehran, the connection of proven Israeli military capability in Iran, and the growing suspicion that Tehran will not hesitate to move in this direction also increase the likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

After years of stagnation with the nuclear program and Iran’s creeping progress in its program without overstepping lines, regional and international developments—but especially the snapback deadline issue—are leading Iran’s nuclear program to an unavoidable junction. The decision point of deal or no deal—with the accompanying ripple effects in either direction—is approaching, but it is already clear that in 2025, Iran’s nuclear program will be on a different path.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project working group. He previously served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence.

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How Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina approached this year’s G20

Ignacio Albe — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 22:28:48 +0000

Latin America is taking center stage in global affairs this month as world leaders visited Brazil and Peru for the Leaders’ Summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. It does so, however, as disparate national priorities among the region’s G20 members—Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico—stand in the way of articulating a common agenda. Developments in Europe and looming political change in the United States present added challenges that may thwart some of the shared, yet limited, regional objectives.

Eight Latin American countries attended this year’s G20 leaders’ summit. Besides Argentine President Javier Milei, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and newly inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, delegations from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Uruguay traveled to Rio as guest countries of the Brazilian G20 presidency. These countries face shifting international winds and are growing apart as governments respond in different ways to external developments, from growing US-China competition to the incoming US presidential administration.

Brazil’s G20 marks the third year in a row in which an emerging market is setting the G20 agenda, following the presidencies of Indonesia (2022) and India (2023). In this context, these countries have paved the way for greater harmonization of objectives between developed and developing countries, pushing for progress in key areas, including climate finance, hunger and poverty, digital public infrastructure, and reforming international financial institutions. Over the same period, Latin American G20 members have worked together to raise the importance of regional priorities, such as development and climate finance and the reform of multilateral institutions. This year, however, policy coordination has become more challenging as governments veer apart from one another in how they plan to adapt to a changing international landscape, risking a division of the region into competing groups.

Here is how the three Latin American countries in the G20 approached this year’s summit.

Brazil

Brazil faced the challenging task of balancing the disparate demands and priorities of all twenty-one permanent members of the G20 with its own priorities: social inclusion, global reform, and sustainability. The end goal, the successful signing of a (nonbinding) final declaration, was a complex task in a heavily divided world, and key Brazilian priorities such as promoting a billionaire tax to finance hunger relief faced opposition from the United States. The proposal, which was supported by France, Spain, and South Africa, was actually most vehemently opposed by fellow South American nation Argentina. Brazil ultimately succeeded in gaining consensus for a declaration that espoused its key objectives, including calls for multilateral reform, cooperation for more effective taxation of “ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” and a redoubling of efforts to end world hunger and fight climate change, among other topics.

Yet Brazilian leaders are also aware that they will have more opportunities beyond the G20 to shape the agenda. Next year, the Lula administration will host the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) and will preside over the BRICS summit. It will be an important year for international climate negotiations that coincides with President-elect Donald Trump’s first year back in office, which has raised uncertainty about the United States’ continued participation in the Paris climate accords. This sentiment was perhaps best exemplified by Lula himself, who concluded in his final remarks that leaders had “worked hard,” but that they had “only scratched the surface of the deep challenges that the world has to face.”

Mexico

Under Sheinbaum, Mexico is reemerging as a more active participant in the G20 process and the world stage. This is the first time a Mexican president has attended the G20 in six years, ending that country’s limited presidential diplomacy under former President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. During her participation, Sheinbaum signaled support for three areas of focus: gender equality, sustainable development, and digitalization. She also supported Brazil’s proposed Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty—which was a high mark of the Brazilian presidency—and presented the Sowing Life program to divert 1 percent of global military spending to sustainable development and reforestation.

Mexico’s return to international fora pleased domestic and international observers, and images of Sheinbaum in meetings with world leaders have set a clear break from her predecessor. However, Mexico’s deep ties to the US economy present a different calculus for the Mexican president when compared to Lula for 2025 and beyond, likely inspiring greater caution in her approach to the international arena, particularly as she prepares her country for potential confrontation with the incoming administration in the United States. She did nonetheless use the stage to defend the government’s controversial judicial reform. Her first major international appearance in Rio de Janeiro set the stage for how she plans to move forward in years to come.

Argentina

The main source of regional misalignment among the three Latin American G20 members came from Argentina, which in past days had made a series of symbolic gestures at the United Nations (UN) to signal the country’s new course under Milei. The country had stood out as the sole vote against UN resolutions this month on indigenous people’s rights and combating gender-based online violence. Argentina also recalled its delegation from the ongoing COP29 in Azerbaijan, raising concerns over the country’s continued commitment to the Paris agreement and the international climate regime, echoing Trump’s own withdrawal of the United States from the agreement in 2017. (Milei was also the first foreign leader to visit Trump on the Thursday following the US presidential election.)

Brazil was quick to respond through Environment Minister Marina Silva and Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin, who criticized Argentina’s move. In Brazil, there was also apprehension that these moves by its southern neighbor set a bad precedent for what may happen during the leaders’ summit. Across negotiations over the G20’s final declaration, Argentine representatives sought to block the inclusion of references to gender equality, women’s rights, a tax for billionaires, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the end, Milei decided not to block the leaders’ declaration but dissociated himself from those issues. An official involved in the negotiations told the Associated Press that Argentina adopted the statement “under intense pressure from world powers.” Other areas, such as the promotion of regional democracy, artificial intelligence governance, and the energy transition, fared better in exchanges over the communiqué. Underscoring the tensions between Brasilia and Buenos Aries, Argentina is the only country not to have requested a bilateral meeting with Lula in Rio.

Trade, Trump, and beyond

Developments in Europe are also changing diplomatic calculations in the region. For months, it was expected that the long-delayed trade deal between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur, a South American trade bloc, might finally be announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her Mercosur counterparts during the G20 leaders’ summit. Brazil’s invitation of Paraguay and Uruguay, the bloc’s other members together with Argentina (plus Bolivia, which is completing its accession process), was partially inspired by this objective. France, however, has made its opposition to the agreement clear: French Prime Minister Michel Barnier warned last week that the government is “employing all means” to block it in its current form. French President Emmanuel Macron, who faces a steep legislative battle over France’s 2025 budget and is being pressured by farmers to block the deal, met Milei in Buenos Aires this past Sunday before traveling to Rio. After that meeting Maron told reporters that Milei “was not satisfied with the deal” and that he was “not satisfied with the way Mercosur worked.” Other EU members, including Austria, Hungary, Ireland, and Poland, may also step in to block the deal. Interestingly, French officials explained that Macron played an instrumental role to convince Argentina “to contribute to the international consensus” and refrain from blocking the G20 process.

Ultimately nothing transpired in Rio, although the agreement’s main proponents, including Germany, Spain, the Mercosur countries, and the European Commission, remain optimistic that significant progress may still be reached before the end of the year. This would constitute one of the largest trade agreements in history and would bring the two regions closer at a time when fears of renewed trade wars and higher tariffs are spooking international markets. Nevertheless, there is also concern that Argentina’s withdrawal from COP29 may still be used by the deal’s detractors in the EU to block progress over environmental policy, similar to how deforestation in Brazil has fueled anti-treaty momentum in previous years. European officials, including Kaja Kallas, the leading candidate to become the next high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, have made clear their belief that if the deal fails it will create a “void” that will be filled by China.

Meanwhile, Beijing presented a clear framing for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s participation in the G20: “to champion cooperation, multilateralism,” a strategy meant to preemptively present China as an alternative to Trump’s “America First” approach to international affairs. The inauguration of the port of Chancay in Peru and the announcement of new economic cooperation agreements with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean further cemented the perception of China’s outsized competitive advantage vis-à-vis the United States in its ability to deliver tangible economic results.

As the G20 leaders’ summit concludes, its leaders should redouble their efforts to find common ground and work together, or they will face the risk of having their shared interests being swept away by rising global uncertainty and volatility.

Ignacio Albe is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

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How the G20 can help close the women’s leadership gap

Maite Gonzalez Latorre — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 21:36:37 +0000

When the heads of state and government convened today for the family photo at the Group of Twenty (G20) Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a long-standing problem was readily apparent: Too few leaders are women. This notable and regrettable absence has been the case at previous G20 summits, and yet in an important departure from past years, the G20 under the presidency of Brazil has made real and important strides to advance women’s empowerment.

Last month, the G20 Women’s Empowerment Working Group convened for its first-ever ministerial meeting. “It is not enough to talk about opportunities if we do not face the barriers that prevent women from reaching them,” said Brazilian Minister of Women Cida Gonçalves, underscoring that “female empowerment needs to include all women, especially the most marginalized.” This sentiment speaks to a critical truth: The time for action on gender equality is now. As the group prepares to finalize its declaration, it holds the potential to reshape policies and commitments across G20 nations, marking a significant step toward a more equitable future for women and girls worldwide.

The primary objective of the recent meeting was to advance the draft of the ministerial declaration. This document will outline the G20 countries’ commitments to: (1) Promote the empowerment of all women and girls; (2) achieve gender equality; and (3) eliminate all forms of violence against women. The process involved both virtual and in-person meetings in the last few weeks to refine and finalize the declaration.

Paving the way

The journey toward establishing a dedicated working group for women’s empowerment within the G20 has been gradual. It began in 2015 with the launch of Women20, an engagement group focused on gender-inclusive economic growth. This was followed by the creation of the G20 Alliance for the Empowerment and Progression of Women’s Economic Representation (G20 EMPOWER) in 2019. The culmination of these efforts came in 2023, under India’s G20 presidency, with the formation of the Women’s Empowerment Working Group. Leading up to this year’s G20 meetings in Brazil, South Africa has expressed its commitment to this working group when it takes over the G20 presidency next year. This marks the first time that a specific declaration on women’s empowerment will emerge from a dedicated G20 working group, signifying a major leap forward in addressing gender inequality across various dimensions.

Despite women constituting half of the population, their representation in positions of power remains disproportionately low. Globally, as of 2023, women occupy only 25 percent of foreign affairs ministerial positions and 12 percent of defense ministerial roles. Notably, Costa Rica (50 percent) and Chile (58 percent) have achieved gender parity in their cabinet posts, and in the Caribbean all but four countries (Anguilla, Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago) have at least one woman minister. However, women’s participation in the region’s ministerial cabinets during the most recent term of office averages only 28.7 percent, with Brazil at a mere 6.3 percent. This glaring disparity urgently calls for addressing gender inequality within decision-making bodies, and the G20 can be a useful platform to recognize and advance women’s positions of power.

The agenda ahead

To further advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, the G20 Women’s Empowerment Working Group should focus on two key initiatives.

First, the G20 should encourage member countries to adopt feminist foreign policies (FFPs). Chile’s recent implementation of an FFP, which has increased female ambassadorship from 12 percent to 30 percent in just four years, serves as an inspiring model. While FFPs vary between countries due to their self-declared nature, the example set by Chile, Canada, Spain, and others demonstrate their tangible impact and can guide other G20 nations.

Second, enhancing women’s participation within G20 working groups is crucial. This can be achieved by implementing gender parity strategies in engagement groups and leadership roles, such as rotating between male and female chairs in different G20 tracks or adopting temporary gender quotas. Although quotas have been controversial, they can be effective short-term measures to boost women’s representation. A gender-neutral approach, aiming for a fifty-fifty split or a maximum 40 percent for either gender, could be introduced gradually, starting with select working groups at the 2025 G20 meetings in South Africa. This strategy has the potential to create a “snowball effect”, encouraging broader adoption across all G20 working groups and G20 countries.

However, the G20’s efforts to implement policies promoting women’s empowerment are likely to encounter challenges. Javier Milei, the president of G20 member state Argentina, has voiced strong opposition to gender equality measures. By refusing to sign a widely supported G20 statement on female empowerment, he has created tensions that may lead to a communiqué signed by only nineteen members, excluding Argentina. Despite this, the commitment of the other G20 countries to the declaration on women’s empowerment could still elevate the conversation on gender equality.

The G20 Women’s Empowerment Working Group represents a significant opportunity to drive meaningful changes in gender equality policies across member countries and beyond. With the summit now under way in Brazil, Latin American and Caribbean countries have shown clear examples of what is possible in advancing women’s rights and representation. However, the work doesn’t end with one working group or declaration. G20 countries must commit to ongoing initiatives and policy reforms to truly lead in gender equity. By increasing women’s participation in shaping foreign policy and decision-making processes, the G20 can create more inclusive and effective global governance structures that benefit all.

Maite Gonzalez Latorre is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

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The underestimated implications of the BRICS Summit in Russia

Hung Tran — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 13:20:06 +0000

The sixteenth BRICS summit took place in Kazan, Russia from October 22 to October 24, 2024, in a way competing for public attention with the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington DC. International reactions to the summit have understandably differed. Many developing countries the gathering as a step forward in cooperation on reforming the current international economic and financial system. They feel that the existing system has failed to meet their development needs and must change. By contrast, many Western observers see BRICS as a heterogeneous group of countries with different interests—all about symbolism with no concrete actions.

It is a mistake for the West to dismiss the power of symbolism and narratives in the geopolitical competition for global influence. The BRICS summit has also produced noteworthy results that the international community should be aware of.

First, Vladimir Putin chaired a successful summit involving thirty-six countries, most of which were represented by heads of state. In doing so, the Russian president showed that he has not been isolated in the international arena by the West following his invasion of Ukraine. Instead, he has deepened relationships with Global South countries through BRICS and other initiatives such as riding the anti-colonial wave to make headways in western Africa. Equally importantly, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the sidelines of the summit. They did so mere days after announcing a pact to resolve their border conflicts, which have been a major irritant in their bilateral relationship. Their meeting helped raise the stature of the BRICS summit as a venue where important political discourse can take place.

Last but not least, with many countries reportedly wanting to join, BRICS has invited 13 thirteen nations to be partner countries-they will continue discussions with a view to formal membership. The list of partner countries—confirmed by several senior officials, but not officially specified in the Kazan Declaration—includes Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. It is unclear which of these countries will eventually decide to become formal members. Saudi Arabia, for example, was invited to join last year but has not yet decided, though its officials have attended BRICS meetings since then. The inclusion of priority countries for the West, such as Turkey (a NATO member) and four important ASEAN countries, should concern policymakers. Many developing countries have found BRICS a useful forum for a variety of reasons, including diversifying international relationships and expanding trade opportunities.

The Kazan Declaration, released at the end of the summit, covers a wide range of issues. The Declaration avoids any direct mention of the United States, hostile or otherwise. Some Western analysts had raised that doing so could make moderate members like India and Brazil uncomfortable, especially given the anti-Western tilt of the group’s expanded membership. The Declaration focuses on promoting multipolarity and a more representative and fairer international system. These goals remain the common denominator attracting many countries to BRICS.

The Declaration supports initiatives and groups developed to coordinate and promote the views of BRICS members and countries in the Global South in international fora, including the United Nations (UN) and the Group of Twenty. These groupings cover issues from sustainable development to climate finance, and call for settling the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

In particular, BRICS will intensify ongoing efforts to promote settlements of cross-border trade and investment transactions in local currencies by establishing BRICS Clear as an independent cross-border settlement and depository infrastructure. Doing so would help facilitate the use of local currencies. It will also launch the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism to promote innovative financial practices, including financing in local currencies. Many developing countries are interested in using local currencies more frequently given their limited access to US dollar funding.

The group’s decision to form an informal consultative framework on World Trade Organization (WTO) issues to engage more actively in the debates about reforming the WTO is also noteworthy. This section of the Declaration includes opposition to the use of unilateral economic sanctions and discriminatory carbon border adjustment mechanisms. Taking advantage of the fact that BRICS members constitute the largest producers of natural resources in the world, the group also pledges to jointly promote its interests throughout the value chains of mineral production against the backdrop of increased demand for critical minerals for the energy transition. The geopolitics of the energy transition could open an opportunity for mineral-rich developing countries to coordinate their mineral policies and join the superpowers in their search for reliable supply chains of critical minerals.

Overall, BRICS has attracted interest from many developing countries—now boasting nine members and thirteen partner countries. The collective share of its members’ population and gross domestic product has surpassed that of the Group of Seven (G7). However, expansion comes at a cost. Building consensus among more diverse members is increasingly complex, and expansion plans could remain a point of contention within the group. For example, Venezuela had reportedly been kept out of the list of partner countries due to Brazil’s objection.

Despite this challenge, key members of BRICS have successfully developed common positions among Global South countries in international fora in recent years. Their joint effort to demand a loss and damages fund at COP28 in Dubai in 2023 is one example. Additionally, BRICS members have collaborated with Global South countries to work for the adoption of the UN mandate in August 2024 to negotiate a UN tax convention, which covers taxation of multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. BRICS countries also consistently promote governance reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions. The more BRICS can develop and articulate common views among Global South countries, the more it can be regarded as the counterpart of the G7 (representing developed countries) at international fora and in the public domain.

Importantly, BRICS’ flagship project—promoting the use of local currencies to settle cross-border trade and investment transactions—is gradually gathering momentum. China, for example, has increased the share of the renminbi when settling its cross-border transactions from 48 percent (surpassing the US dollar) in mid-2023 to more than 50 percent in mid-2024.

In short, BRICS—or BRICS-plus as some observers and officials have referred to the expanded group—is here to stay. Other countries, including Western ones, need to figure out how to deal with it.

Hung Tran is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, a former executive managing director at the Institute of International Finance and a former deputy director at the International Monetary Fund.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

Senior Director, Africa Center

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Accelerating climate intervention research to improve climate security

Kelly Wanser and Ira Straus — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 21:03:31 +0000

Introduction

Growing near-term risks from climate change create a need for more and faster research on the most promising and rapid form of climate intervention: solar radiation modification (SRM), its methods, efficacy, and side effects.¹

In light of the rapid escalation in harms to date from climate change, sunlight reflection and other climate interventions are a growing topic of global dialogue. The United Nations and the European Union have called for more scientific research in this area, and the US government has issued a congressionally mandated report describing the research required to assess SRM’s potential to reduce climate risks.

The world’s safety, security, and the basic needs of the most vulnerable people are at risk from the increasingly catastrophic impacts of climate change. All UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios for emissions reduction project that the climate system will continue to warm over the next several decades, with impacts and risks growing further. Increased suffering and mortality, economic and environmental loss, and instability are expected. Breaching natural systems’ tipping points would risk irreversible change.

Society currently lacks sufficient ability to predict and reduce these near-term risks and impacts. This makes reducing uncertainty in their projection and expanding the portfolio of available responses an urgent matter of global safety and security.

An increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is the primary cause of climate change. The only long-term remedy is to reduce their atmospheric concentrations by eliminating emissions and pursuing the withdrawal of gases already emitted. Due to the long lifespan of GHGs and the difficulty of withdrawing them from the atmosphere, the climate is projected to continue to warm for several decades in all scenarios.

According to scientific assessments, a promising approach to rapidly reducing significant heat energy (warming) in the climate system is to slightly alter the amount of incoming or outgoing sunlight (the phenomena that causes Earth to appear luminous, sometimes called solar radiation modification, or SRM). Proposed approaches generally fall into three categories:

Reflecting sunlight from the Earth’s surface.
Reflecting sunlight or releasing infrared energy from the atmosphere.
Reducing the amount of sunlight reaching Earth.

This paper examines SRM approaches, research needs, and potential risks and benefits as a near-term climate response or “intervention” and US and international policy options on SRM. It then makes recommendations on responsibly advancing SRM research, international cooperation, and governance.

Background: A perilous setting

Catastrophic near-term climate risk

Due to greenhouse gasses and warming already present in the climate system, global warming is projected to continue rising for several decades. This is the case in every IPCC scenario for emissions reduction, with recent evidence indicating that these projections underestimate the risks. At the current rate, warming will likely cross the long-term average threshold for dangerous climate change of 1.5°C soon (also called “overshoot”) and surpass 2.0°C by 2050.

Warming causes increased weather extremes, which cause natural systems to change. This impairs the sustainability of plants and accelerates the loss of species, which in turn further changes the chemical and physical environment. It also pushes some natural systems nearer to tipping points for substantial, abrupt, and often irreversible changes that cause catastrophic damage, make rapid large-scale contributions of GHGs or warming into the system (“feedbacks”), or both. These changes are hard to predict and underrepresented in current climate models—which leads to underestimation of catastrophic risks. Some, like large-scale forest burn, Amazon “die-back,” and changes in the earth’s major oceanic circulation system, give indications of being underway already.

Climate-linked weather extremes and ecosystem changes have wide-ranging impacts on people and human systems including: health and welfare impacts of heat exposure; disease vectors; displacement; economic disruption of industries such as agriculture, transportation, and tourism; infrastructure damage such as buckling railways and failing energy grids; and coastal erosion and flooding. Most economic sectors are affected by climate change, including many with substantial climate-related risks. Climate change is happening significantly faster than human systems’ ability to adequately adapt, and human systems also face tipping points from economic and societal shocks.

“This Council [on Foreign Relations] Report builds a compelling case [for increased research on SRM] . . . It is sad that such a report is necessary, but it will be even sadder still if we do not make exploring the potential of sunlight reflection an urgent priority.”

Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, https://www.cfr.org/report/reflecting-sunlight-reduce-climate-risk.

The United States and developed countries

The United States is currently experiencing deadly, costly, and disruptive climate-linked disasters. They are occurring in the context of ongoing changes in weather conditions that threaten agriculture, livestock, and fisheries; water supplies; real estate; natural parks and protected areas; forest-adjacent and coastal cities and towns; and military infrastructure and operations.

No country is safe from the large-scale impacts of climate change. Countries like Canada that were thought to be advantaged have been devastated by fires and surface heat. Europe has faced a wide array of impacts including extreme weather conditions, which its infrastructure was not designed to support. Still, the United States and many of its allies are comparatively advantaged economically for climate adaptation and disaster recovery.

The world’s most vulnerable

Climate change has the greatest impact on the world’s most vulnerable people and regions. Many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are also its poorest and least developed. Poor and vulnerable populations in every country are the most heavily affected by food and water scarcity, cannot easily migrate, and lack resources for protective adaptation.

Climate change amplifies disparities and creates disruptions in vulnerable populations, increasing domestic and international security threats and risks. Current projections suggest that more than one billion people may be displaced by 2050—estimates that may be conservative. Billions of people face food and water insecurity, loss of livelihood, and extreme weather exposure. These circumstances increase the risk of violence and instability, fostering heightened political risks and global security threats.

Global systemic risks

The interplay between natural system changes and human responses is likely to produce large-scale unanticipated shocks. These could be economic, as extreme storms drive insurers from a market, government backstops are exhausted, and a large property market bottoms, setting off a cascade effect in financial systems and markets. They also could be nature-induced, where the collapse of a major ice sheet creates substantial, rapid sea level rise, devastating large parts of numerous coastal cities across the globe.

As these ongoing processes and escalating pressures and shocks continue, human systems will grow more taxed, less resilient, and less able to respond to subsequent developments and disasters.

“Sunlight reflection . . . could—in light of current warming trends and risk projections—make what is likely to be a lengthy transition to a decarbonized world tolerable. . . . It would be vastly preferable for the world to make progress on the science of sunlight reflection today, so that policymakers are prepared to make informed decisions tomorrow, rather than being forced to act out of ignorance on the fly when all other options have failed.”

Council on Foreign Relations Special Report No. 93, April 2022, https://cdn.cfr.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/Patrick-CSR93-web.pdf.

Addressing a major climate portfolio gap

As conditions become increasingly hazardous for human and natural systems, society faces a critical gap in the knowledge and options to evaluate and respond to near-term climate risks. Addressing this gap is now a matter of considerable urgency.

The present climate response portfolio, reducing GHG emissions, is itself jeopardized by climate-linked changes in human and natural systems that worsen the problem. Weather extremes dramatically increase demand for energy for heating and cooling. Food and water scarcity and economic disruption induce other unsustainable practices.

The current policy portfolio lacks viable means for substantially reducing warming in the climate system within a few decades, leaving enormous risk exposure and a substantial portfolio gap that is now critical to fill.

In assessments by scientific bodies in the United Kingdom, United States, and the UN, scientists evaluated promising approaches to countering climate change more rapidly than is possible through emissions reductions alone. The broadest categories of these are:

Actively removing GHGs from the atmosphere, i.e., greenhouse gas removal (GGR) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
Increasing the reflection of sunlight from Earth to space to reduce trapped heat energy, or warming, i.e., solar radiation modification (SRM).

GGR has many proposed variations, from mechanical filtration (direct-air capture, DAC) to massive-scale cultivation of plants and ocean flora to absorb carbon. GGR could directly reduce the negative effects of climate change by reducing its cause (increased GHG concentrations). However, it comes with significant technological uncertainty (for DAC), currently very high costs, and scaling uncertainties; for approaches that involve leveraging natural systems, there are very likely to be trade-offs. While likely an important climate portfolio element in this century, GGR is not projected to slow warming significantly prior to 2050 in any of the scenarios considered by the IPCC. It is not safe, or even reasonable, to assume that GGR could meaningfully reduce the catastrophic near-term risks of climate change.

In 2017, Wallace Broecker, the oceanographer who coined the phrase “global warming,” concluded—in his last statements on the subject before his death—that, given the seriousness of the warming, the present response of cutting emissions alone was insufficient. He called for focusing also on SRM research.

SRM: Background and approaches

All SRM approaches share the benefit of rapidly reducing heat energy or warming in the climate system—within months or years, once developed and implemented at appropriate scale. Research suggests that stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) might be the most feasible method in the near-term, as will be seen below, but all methods need further research.

SRM approaches do not address the GHG cause of climate change or offset all of the damage caused by excess GHG in the atmosphere. They do not directly reduce the increase in ocean acidity caused by the increased uptake of CO₂ from the air. However, SRM would address the cause of many of the impacts of climate change: excess heat energy. By directly reducing this heat energy, SRM could significantly reduce climate extremes and impacts, including GHG release from natural systems into the air and ocean, thereby reducing future climate and acidity risk.

Approaches for increasing the reflection of sunlight from the Earth’s surface include planting lighter colored crops, painting infrastructure white or using special reflective coating, covering melting snowcaps and ice sheets with reflecting beads or material, and generating foam on the ocean’s surface. All surface-based approaches face similar drawbacks: implementing at a scale sufficient to offset significant global warming is not generally considered to be feasible and involves substantial environmental side effects associated with disrupting natural surface-atmosphere interactions.

Approaches for altering sunlight reaching Earth from space include placing a large surface area (billions of square meters) of light-filtering surfaces at the L₁ Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun and the generation of a filtering layer of dust from the moon. These methods are theoretically estimated to be effective at reducing incoming heat energy but entail engineering in space at a massive scale that is not achievable with today’s technology. Even if such techniques were practically feasible, little is known about the engineering challenges associated with this approach, and it is not likely to be something that could be implemented in the near-term (e.g., within thirty years).

Promising approaches

Scientific assessments indicate that the most promising approaches for rapidly reducing climate warming are those that increase the reflection of sunlight from the atmosphere by dispersing particles (aerosols) to reflect sunlight or alter the properties of clouds. This phenomenon already is naturally occurring: Earth is cooled by the effects of particles emitted from ocean spray, dust, and ecosystems into the atmosphere. It is cooled in a less continuous way when large volcanoes emit material into the atmosphere.

An unintentional form of atmospheric SRM is also produced by particulates from pollution (e.g., SO₂ from coal burning and vehicle exhaust); these currently cool the climate to a significant but uncertain degree, estimated to be between 0.2℃ and 1.0℃. Reducing these emissions has been a priority for human health, but is also exposing us to the increased warming caused by GHGs.

Proposed approaches to SRM in the atmosphere include:

Dispersing particles to reflect sunlight directly in the stratosphere (stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI).
Brightening low-lying clouds over the ocean (marine cloud brightening, or MCB).
Inducing precipitation in high-altitude clouds to allow more ultraviolet light to escape outward (cirrus cloud thinning, or CCT).

The approaches differ in terms of duration and localization, their projected efficacy and potential side effects, and the current level of uncertainty in their projection.

Stratospheric aerosol injection

SAI involves dispersing particles or gases that turn into particles into one of the outer layers of the atmosphere, the stratosphere, to slightly increase the reflection of sunlight (about 1 to 2 percent). Particles in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) fall to Earth within days, but particles that reach the stratosphere, such as emissions from forceful volcanoes, become entrained and remain for a year or more before falling back to Earth. Observation of the cooling effects of volcanic emissions prompted consideration of SAI.

In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo released sulfate particles into the stratosphere that measurably cooled the climate by over 0.3℃ for over a year. This cooling was associated with a substantial recovery in Arctic ice mass in the year following the eruption. Such observations have led scientists to express confidence in the effectiveness of SAI for reducing warming and in its environmental safety over short periods of time at levels comparable to that 1991 eruption.

While this confidence has made SAI the primary candidate for rapid climate intervention, what is less certain—and critical to evaluate—are its possible negative side effects over longer periods or at higher levels. The most significant side effects include damage to the ozone layer, warming of the stratosphere that changes the dynamics and circulation of the atmosphere, and changes in the insulating cirrus cloud layer that lies just below the stratosphere. Other potential side effects include changes in weather patterns in particular regions and changes in incoming light and solar energy that affect plants. Relatively low concentrations of sulfates in the lower atmosphere makes impacts on human health from direct exposure unlikely. While not considered a major risk, SRM could, however, slightly worsen acid rain in places that already have high concentrations of sulfate.²

Implementing SAI in a way that optimizes benefits and minimizes risks requires understanding and projecting relevant atmospheric processes before dispersing quantities of optimally sized particles (generally small and relatively uniform) into the stratosphere in the manner suggested by these projections and monitoring the atmosphere closely. Delivering large volumes of material to the stratosphere is challenging. While less scientifically informed efforts have undertaken demonstration efforts using balloons, the more prominently considered delivery mechanism is high-altitude aircraft, which may require a new generation of aircraft capable of flying large payloads to the stratosphere. No technologies currently exist for generating optimally small particles in narrow size ranges at the scales required.

Effective evaluation, implementation, and regulatory governance of SAI would require substantially expanded atmospheric observing systems and improved climate and atmosphere models. This implies an investment of billions of dollars in both general climate and specific SAI research to assess whether approaches are viable. Costs would be in the tens of billions of dollars annually for implementation (though it may be cheaper and easier to do it poorly). This level of cost relies on existing infrastructure for stratospheric research and high-performance computing, which together limit effective execution to a small number of nations and other actors with access to advanced aerospace and computing technology.

It is not possible to adequately detect or measure SAI with the current portfolio of satellite and air observations or project its effects, leaving a considerable governance and security gap. However, platforms carrying material are observable, so security concerns are less likely to lie in identifying clandestine activity by rogue actors than in the lack of information on potential climate effects to inform an appropriate response to observed activity by a nation or other actors seeking to address catastrophic climate impacts.

Marine cloud brightening

Marine cloud brightening (MCB) would involve dispersing sea salt particles from seawater into targeted regions of low-lying clouds over the ocean to slightly increase the reflection of sunlight from the clouds.³ The concept is based on observations of the bright streaks in clouds created by pollution particles in exhaust from ships passing below. Ships’ pollution particles attract moisture from clouds, creating more and smaller cloud droplets and increasing the overall surface area of water in the clouds, making them brighter. In some cases, this also causes the clouds to last longer. The initial effect is localized to the area where the particle plume mixes into the clouds, with the effects on clouds continuing for about two to three days, as the affected air is transported downwind. The effect is strongest in marine stratocumulus clouds and under favorable meteorological conditions; in other conditions, effects can be weak or even counterproductive.

The effect of particles (aerosols) on clouds is one of the key drivers of present-day climate change. A cooling effect from cloud brightening is produced accidentally today by pollution emissions (mostly sulfates) from coal-fired power plants, transportation exhaust, smoke, and other sources. Collectively, this aerosol “shield” is estimated to cool the climate by between 0.2°C and 1.0°C, a significant level of cooling with a very high degree of uncertainty. Because aerosols only last for a few days to a week in the lower atmosphere, aerosol cooling stops shortly after aerosol emissions are removed. Clouds are extraordinarily complex, and these effects are one of the greatest areas of uncertainty in climate science.

Meanwhile, that shield is affected by successful actions to decrease particulate pollution—a drive to stem its negative impacts on health and the environment, e.g., acid rain—which, in turn, could spur a rapid increase in warming in the coming decade or two. MCB can be thought of as a cleaner, more managed replacement for the cooling currently being provided by pollution particles.

The candidate material for MCB is the tiny salt particle from seawater.⁴ Salt attracts water, making it an optimum material for forming cloud droplets. It is readily available and already present in the atmosphere in that environment, acting as one of the particles on which cloud droplets form. Sulfates from ship emissions have been evaluated less favorably, but no other candidate material has been seriously considered. Aerosolizing salt (or any solid material) at the tiny size and massive scale required is a significant engineering problem. Some progress on this problem has been made over the last decade in the United States.

In the primary candidate approach to MCB, regions of susceptible (marine stratocumulus) clouds would be targeted for brightening. Early studies suggest that brightening clouds in these areas equivalent to 3 percent or 5 percent of the ocean’s surface could offset 2°C or more of global warming. Initial simulations of MCB are consistent in showing that this would produce significant cooling over nearly all of the globe. Technical and field research are needed to determine the number of vessels required to deliver the required material, with estimates varying by an order of magnitude from several thousand to tens of thousands. Autonomous, clean-energy vessels are likely to be most efficient and would require a major manufacturing effort. Aircraft dispersal may be possible, but it is estimated to be far more costly and less efficient for continuous delivery.

Recently, scientists have begun to leverage AI techniques to explore the potential for climate cooling effects from aerosols in other types of clouds or by scattering sunlight in cloudless conditions (“marine sky brightening,” or MSB). Early findings point to potential promise for existing ships to contribute as platforms for marine atmosphere SRM.

The localized nature of MCB has led to proposals to explore its potential to reduce climate impacts such as coral bleaching and extreme storms by cooling ocean waters or to restore sea ice by cooling polar regions. A research effort and small demonstration project in Australia is exploring MCB to protect the Great Barrier Reef, but there is scant research on local applications. In general, localized approaches to cooling the ocean and atmosphere are limited by the interconnected nature of these systems: their efficient transport of heat energy circulates more heat into localized areas of cooling, offsetting MCB effects. For this reason, efforts to counter Arctic warming solely through localized MCB may be limited in effectiveness while producing unusual climate anomalies with uncertain risks.⁵

Because air and water circulate, changing the properties of clouds and producing cooling in large, isolated areas can have large effects on distant regions, which is why MCB, while implemented locally, could produce cooling globally. However, unlike SAI, this cooling would not be uniform everywhere. MCB is expected to produce variations in cooling that more significantly affect circulation patterns and weather. The greatest side effect risks are associated with these “teleconnection” effects on other regions and the difficulty in predicting and minimizing them. This includes the possibility of significantly reduced precipitation in some areas and other changes in weather patterns.

MCB is a challenging approach to SRM because of uncertainties in the magnitude of its cooling effect, the need to target favorable meteorological conditions, the potential for undesirable weather patterns, and the scale of continuous delivery. However, pollution aerosols produce an effect similar to MCB at global scales today, and research on the processes underlying MCB can help us evaluate the risks of removing this cooling influence—one of the greatest uncertainties in our projections of near-term climate. Research on cloud-aerosol effects and MCB is therefore an urgent priority.

This uncertain cooling from pollution has come to widespread attention recently with the coincidence of the enforcement of new regulations reducing sulfate emissions from ships and record global and ocean surface temperatures, elevated by an analysis by prominent climate scientist James Hansen substantially raising estimates of near-term climate risk, partly due to accelerated warming from the reduction of pollution aerosols.

Cirrus cloud thinning

Cirrus cloud thinning (CCT) would entail dispersing aerosols to induce precipitation in high-altitude clouds that block some infrared energy from leaving the atmosphere. Under the right conditions, such precipitation could “thin” the cloud, letting more infrared energy out to space.

Conversely, emissions from aircraft can, in the right conditions, produce contrails, some of which can evolve to become cirrus clouds. The warming effect on climate from the influence of these aircraft aerosols is estimated to be equivalent to the warming produced by their GHG (CO₂) emissions. Researchers have proposed optimizing the altitude and flight path of aircraft to minimize the production of “contrail cirrus” to reduce air traffic warming.

Aerosol effects on cirrus clouds are highly uncertain, with substantial research required for projecting and optimizing these effects. Overall, 3.5 percent of climate warming is attributed to airline emissions, making the potential impact of these changes modest overall but potentially substantial for the industry.

Uncertainties in contrail effects and CCT include the effects of aerosol sizes and composition, the processes controlling cirrus cloud formation and dissipation, and the influence of climate change on these processes. Because CCT and contrail reduction have the potential to rapidly reduce a fraction of climate warming, research in this area—the most underinvested SRM approach—is warranted.

“Multiple scientific assessments have concluded that, as a complement to greenhouse gas emissions reductions and CDR, the most rapid way to potentially counter some near-term climate warming is through an important class of [SRM] techniques . . . Given the above findings, we believe that scientific research should be conducted to support the assessment of:

The effectiveness of different SRM interventions to reduce climate warming;
How different SRM interventions would affect climate change and climate impacts under different greenhouse gas scenarios; and
The capabilities for detecting and attributing the impacts of various SRM interventions.”

Open letter from physical scientists, including James Hansen, regarding SRM research, February 2022, https://climate-intervention-research-letter.org.

Science and technology requirements and state of play

Limited research on SRM approaches and insufficient societal investment in climate basic research, notably in aerosol influences on clouds and climate, have left significant uncertainties about the underlying atmospheric processes tied to the feasibility and risks of SRM. Substantial research is required to inform decision-making, to help design mechanisms for governance, to understand how to best monitor and report on any potential SRM activity, and to identify optimum approaches for maximizing benefits and minimizing risks.

Governance and decision-making on large-scale environmental influences are generally informed by expert scientific assessments that review and report on available science. Such assessments of SRM were separately recommended in 2023 by the UN, the EU, and the US government. Given the limited research to date on SRM, making a robust assessment in a period of five years would require substantial, concerted research efforts.

Driven by a bipartisan direction from the US Congress, the US government’s interagency report described the research required to inform scientific assessment of the potential for SRM to reduce near-term climate risks. Needs include direct research on specific SRM approaches via computer modeling, observations, and, importantly, small-scale experimental releases of aerosols to inform models of their impacts at larger scales. Needs also include significant advances in observations, models, and climate basic science in general, including key climate drivers such as clouds’ aerosols effects, feedbacks, and tipping points—areas that have had flat or declining funding for several decades. These research needs were quantified in a recent report that recommended an investment of US$13 billion over five years in climate basic science and observations. The majority of these investments would be dual-purpose: improving the ability both to observe and project the near-term climate and to predict aerosol influences on clouds and climate.

Even incremental steps in SRM research have provided large benefits to understanding the nature of the problem and real versus perceived areas of concern. New analysis is helping to clarify the limitations of proposals to use SRM locally to restore Arctic sea ice. And in 2021, major modeling centers began the first high-fidelity global model simulations of the median pathway for GHG emissions with and without stratospheric SRM (SAI). These simulations indicated that, rather than increasing climate extremes, as many have highlighted as a concern, SRM reduced extremes in most of the world, and significantly reduced disparities in climate impacts.

Recent research indicates that SRM research and implementation are capital-intensive tasks and require advanced technology (e.g., supercomputing, stratospheric aircraft, aerosol generation expertise, and observational systems). SRM research is also surfacing gaps and limitations in climate modeling and risk analysis capabilities and flaws in interpreting their outputs.

SRM research needs to compare real-world impacts of projected climate change against those under various SRM approaches. However, projections of climate change today insufficiently represent important factors, including feedbacks and tipping points. Climate model design has affected such limitations. Also, climate change has yet to equivalently benefit from the analytical techniques used in other complex fields such as portfolio and risk analysis.

No significant technology yet exists for aerosol generation with the characteristics and scale required for SRM, and no platforms have been developed for the efficient delivery of aerosols in the stratosphere or marine environment. While critics fear a rapid “slippery slope” from research to scaled implementation, the greater risk is the delays imposed by the inherent, substantial technology barriers and costs. For example, the first research-grade spray system, which achieved scale and particle requirements, had high energy consumption and other features unsuitable for scaled use, costing several million dollars to develop a single unit. A single small-scale release study (equivalent to one ship’s plume) is estimated to cost in the low millions of dollars. Many such studies would be required to evaluate the localized effects of particles on clouds under different conditions. Technology for scaled use would require tens of millions of dollars or more in research and development and billions for the development of platform systems.

Globally, direct investment in SRM physical sciences and technology research amounts to less than $50 million annually and is growing only modestly. Investment in cloud-aerosol influences on climate, feedbacks, and tipping points remains relatively flat against 1990 levels.

This low level of investment is not justifiable. The US Planetary Defense program, for instance, receives $200 million annually to protect against the risk of an approximately 1/20,000 probability catastrophic asteroid strike within fifty years, while the odds of breaching at least one major climate tipping point in that period range from 10 percent to 50 percent. Society’s investment in research on the most promising rapid climate interventions needs to be a more reasonably proportioned fraction of the major ongoing investments in energy transition, emissions reductions, and disaster response—which are each three orders of magnitude (1,000 times) greater.

Improvements in knowledge, data, and capabilities would reduce uncertainties in analysis of whether or not SRM might reduce the worst effects of climate change and under what circumstances SRM approaches are safe. It would greatly reduce the very real risk of the inability to respond to a “ready or not” implementation amid escalating climate crises. It would support evaluation of the high near-term climate and environmental risks of changes in anthropogenic aerosol emissions. In these ways, investment in research on the climate effects of atmospheric aerosols and SRM could be among the highest return-on-investment areas in society.

Political and societal considerations

A number of societal factors influence incentives for research on climate interventions. These are likely to grow as the climate warms.

Human and economic outcomes

In physical terms, the potential for SRM to improve human and environmental outcomes and the uncertain climate effects of its pollution analogue warrant its thorough investigation as a science problem and policy matter. Because SRM would not fully offset climate change and may have harmful side effects, extensive research is required to understand SRM in the context of near-term climate change well enough to support effective decision-making.

For human welfare, SRM has the potential to reduce mortality by alleviating warming linked to climate extremes. It also has the potential to reduce direct harms from surface heat and climate-linked disasters and indirect harms that include water and food scarcity, increased tropical disease, displacement, and instability. Understanding the potential for SRM approaches to reduce these effects, and how they would be distributed, requires concerted research.

SRM could also help reduce climate-linked economic losses in many sectors of the global economy. It has the potential to prevent future economic shocks associated with large-scale disruptions and improve global economic welfare relative to a world under currently projected warming.

Political instability

Rising economic and human costs from climate change increase the potential for political instability and conflict that could be reduced by SRM. For example, reduced warming could decrease natural disasters, displacement, food scarcity, and other factors that contribute to political instability.

SRM also could reduce the political costs of decarbonization policies, such as the 2018 Yellow Vest protests of gas taxes in a wealthy country like France. The risk of this kind of backlash against policy costs can be even greater in countries of the Global South, where there is not the cushion of wealth that France has. Similarly, SRM might smooth the transition in countries with heavy debt loads that “stand to lose economically” amid climate change. As the world experiences more climate extremes, energy demand rises to meet demand for cooling, heating, and other adaptive responses—and available transition resources fall due to the escalating costs of climate impacts. Where the political costs of carbon mitigation grow higher in a warming world, reducing climate extremes through SRM could reduce political turmoil and resistance to national decarbonization efforts.

Moral and temporal hazards

Concerns persist about SRM research acting as a disincentive to reducing emissions—a “moral hazard.” This type of concern has been the primary objection and barrier to SRM research. The same concern, until relatively recently, also inhibited research on adaptation, carbon removal, and methane mitigation, delaying research, limiting evidence for decision-making, and even inducing overly optimistic estimates of their potential effectiveness.

These posited moral hazard effects are not well-supported by the evidence to date.⁶ In fact, some studies indicate that SRM research may actually motivate support for emissions reduction by sending a disaster signal to society. Evidence generated by SRM research may also reduce magical thinking about its effectiveness in consideration of its very real limitations and risks.

Misaligned financial incentives create a different concern. A handful of early-stage companies have marketed “cooling credits” based on small releases of pollution aerosols into the atmosphere. Unchecked profit incentives could motivate releases at ever-increasing scales—irrespective of the benefits or significant risks, making such credits as yet a form of fraud. Substantially more research and evidence are needed for governance and regulation of SRM and alignment of economic incentives for its use.

Lack of information can also create counterincentives or societal hazards: supporting the retention of a fixed view, free from pressure to alter it in conjunction with new evidence, reducing incentives to move away from positions that diverge from reality and that increase physical risks for others (i.e., those most at risk from climate change), and delaying research and actions that evidence suggests could help reduce harm. Given the overwhelming value and time-sensitivity of evidence with the potential to help reduce climate change impacts and risks, a new category of societal hazard is needed: “temporal hazard.”

Temporal hazard of research delay

Rapidly escalating risks from climate change create major imperatives for increasing scientific understanding of the potential for SRM and other rapid climate interventions to reduce catastrophic impacts to people and natural systems in the next few decades. A proactive, urgent approach to climate intervention research will put the world in a stronger position for reducing climate risk, potentially add new options to the policy portfolio, and promote improved understanding of the benefits and risks of intervention approaches.

In recent years, both opponents and some supporters of research have recommended extensive consultation processes and nonscience influence on research, including many of the kind that are currently associated with long delays in clean energy development. Creating burdens or incentives that slow, delay, or bias SRM research, even where not overtly rejecting it, puts the world in a weak and dangerous position with respect to escalating climate risks: a temporal hazard.

Ignorance regarding climate interventions leaves national policymakers and the international community in a weak position for responding to unilateral use of SRM for climate risk.

Objections to research and related depression of funding have inhibited the field for several decades. This limits our understanding today. As risk impacts grow, the cost of additional delay rises. Projections of the costs of climate change over the next fifty years are in the tens of trillions of dollars, even without full accounting for potential tipping points and systemic shocks.⁷ Unknown and hard-to-model factors will likely drive real costs higher than projected, as we are already seeing in the costs of unexpectedly severe and frequent climate-linked disasters.

Catastrophic risks are increased by lack of information on options to reduce actual catastrophic impacts. The scale of the risks underscores the value and urgency of research to reduce them. Should conditions deteriorate to where SRM is required to forestall tipping events, is demanded to counter impacts, or is used in desperation by some countries, the cost of incremental information foregone through delay will have proved enormously high. As nations and communities face ever-growing costs from climate change, the likelihood grows that some actor will, in desperation, try whatever means are currently available to deliver aerosols into the atmosphere—a very risky proposition with today’s level of knowledge and capability.

This is a substantial further temporal hazard that underscores the enormous value of any research undertaken in advance of reactive attempts at SRM and the cost of procedural or other delays to the research needed to inform responses. It increases the value of facilitating rather than inhibiting open research of the kind undertaken by academic and public institutions in democratic countries and made available through intergovernmental bodies. In fact, only thorough research could provide sufficient evidence to rule out SRM approaches or to inform sufficient mechanisms to govern any use of them.

Delay in research also has political costs. Yielding to political or ideological pressures to limit open scientific research into SRM would enhance the potential for misinformation, which stokes fear and increases polarization. It inhibits trust among stakeholders and, more broadly, the public’s trust in the integrity of public and scientific comment on SRM and climate policy. Scientific research efforts can themselves reduce the politicization and enhance the ability to address the issue constructively.

“We need to know the risks which [SRM] would bring, and compare them with the risks brought by climate change.”

Professor Inés Camilloni of the University of Buenos Aires, December 7, 2022, Tedx Río de la Plata, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVCsFLALGsg.

Governance and security

International cooperation and effective governance mechanisms are vital for cooperatively mitigating the risks of escalating climate change and responding to the possible use of climate interventions by independent actors. For this, it is crucial to ensure that relevant mechanisms facilitate scientific research and assessment and do not impose undue process delay or political influence that would inhibit objective scientific assessment. Mexico’s nonspecific ban on SRM activity and the contents of a public “non-use” letter from academics are recent examples of policies likely to inhibit governance-enabling research.

Great power competition adds a troubling dimension to the work of scheduling the research and developing global governance. For example, should the United States move slowly on SRM research, China could decide to fill the void, potentially leading to its dominance over forward use of SRM and to exploiting its advanced position to win considerable global soft power.

With respect to military security, SAI is not easily weaponizable. It is slow-acting, diffuse, and difficult to aim locally. It is a transboundary climate security issue—but not a significant military one. Other, localized forms of SRM, such as interventions in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), can, however, produce differentiated effects with negative outcomes for some. Today, there is substantial and escalating cloud-seeding activity around the world and interest in cloud brightening for local and regional applications. These activities can produce real and perceived effects far from where they are undertaken and their growth in the world is likely to present a challenging strategic security concern.

Global SRM, particularly diffuse SRM/SAI in the stratosphere, is likely to produce far fewer differential impacts than either localized SRM/MCB or the projected warming. This gives SRM a potential to reduce security tensions relative to other forms of climate action.

Governance considerations

Climate intervention is relevant for, and potentially largely governable within, a number of intergovernmental organizations and treaties: the UNFCCC, the Montreal Protocol operating under the Vienna Convention, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Environment Programme, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and the London Convention that functions through the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Many of these bodies are actively taking steps on scientific assessment, international cooperation, and governance considerations for SRM—some constructive, and some more obstructive.

Elements of effective governance and decision-making on SRM include:

Open, transparent, internationally cooperative scientific research.
International cooperation on scientific research, with funding and technology support for developing countries to more equitably participate in research and decision-making.
Establishment of a robust scientific assessment function to review and report on the efficacy, feasibility, risks, and benefits of different approaches, and the requirements for monitoring and reporting.⁸
Scientific input to, and international dialogue on, the requirements for SRM governance.
International governance and regulation by an international body with universal participation, equitable influence among countries, and the ability to monitor and enforce activity, such as the Montreal Protocol.⁹
Advancing consideration of SRM in the array of intergovernmental bodies relevant to this issue.¹⁰
Development of robust assessment, monitoring, and regulatory functions at the national level, particularly for those countries at the forefront of research. These can also inform international governance efforts.

Internationally, scientific cooperation is advancing with the announcement of a new Lighthouse Activity on Climate Intervention in the World Climate Research Programme, the framework under WMO, the International Science Council (ISC), and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO for international cooperation on climate research. Steps toward scientific assessment have advanced in the Montreal Protocol, limited to the stratosphere and focused on atmospheric effects, but advancing rigorous review of the science. UN reports have called for scientific assessment, and language and actions have been brought forward in many UN bodies requesting consideration of SRM.

Some have also called for a moratorium on large-scale experimentation or use of SRM. However, an impactful scale of SRM is not likely to be feasible for many years given the technical barriers, and focusing efforts on negotiating a formal moratorium would tend to inhibit the research and policy efforts needed to develop more effective governance mechanisms.

At the national level, various scientific cooperation structures and steps are visible. US bipartisan efforts on scientific research related to SRM are ongoing, although the subject remains politically delicate. The UK recently announced a program in its new science agency ARIA, and European universities have a variety of efforts in this field.

The picture is less clear elsewhere, though SRM meetings or workshops have occurred in India, Jamaica, Ghana, Pakistan, and Thailand, among other places. China has hosted modest SRM modeling efforts. Scientists in India have previously undertaken modeling research and participated in assessments. In general, SRM research around the world is limited by funding and technical constraints on climate research broadly, an acute problem in low-income and developing countries.

The position of developing and climate-vulnerable countries is complicated, as they stand to gain from successful climate intervention but face intense resource constraints and other acute areas of public concern. Positions vary, from opposition to climate intervention research and activity to requests from highly vulnerable countries such as Micronesia for more scientific information and assessment in treaty bodies on potential climate interventions.

National and global interests in SRM

Climate policies have often faced political tension between the global public good they seek to provide and public resistance to their increased costs. SRM, if viable, could be expected to reduce this tension, serving both the global climate policy interest and national socioeconomic interests. It is worth stressing this, in order to support national political will.

The United States, other Western countries, and more recently China have contributed disproportionately to the total GHG concentrations inducing climate change while benefiting from related technological progress that affords them greater capabilities to address it. They arguably bear a greater responsibility to address the climate problem faced by the world.¹¹

With its substantial climate research capacity and open science policies, the United States and its allies can help to evaluate the potential for climate interventions to reduce climate change-related damages—for themselves and for the world’s most vulnerable peoples. This exploration of alternatives could promote mutuality and reduce animosities and disputes over compensation, fostering healthier global relationships.

For the United States, such a program, undertaken openly and supportively of other countries’ interests, could also enhance its diplomatic influence and soft power. The West currently supplies the majority of data and science that informs international assessment and governance of the climate and environment. Government and academic research efforts in these countries promote open, transparent access by stakeholders around the world. By leading research on near-term climate risks and SRM, it can support open science, international scientific cooperation, international scientific assessment, and equitable, science-based international governance in forums like the Montreal Protocol, where all countries of the world have a standing. Without this leadership role, research and development will move forward in closed communities—such as within defense and commercial sectors or autocratic regimes—with less transparency and equitability and heightened risks.

The interests of vulnerable and developing countries warrant special consideration. They are often on the front line of climate change impacts, despite their limited contribution to the increased concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. The severe near-term repercussions of global warming, such as droughts, floods, and cyclones, disproportionately affect these regions. Climate interventions—and notably SRM—might be the most promising way, or only way, to provide near-term relief, avoid projected regional instability, and prevent overwhelming population displacements in coming decades.

“While many hazards may now be inevitable, for communities living in already vulnerable conditions these interventions as suggested will help traverse the breakthroughs needed in the regions of Africa and Asia where there’s rising concerns of food security and migration, and displacement of people.”

Joshua Amponsem, founder, Green Africa Youth Organization; current strategy director, Youth Climate Justice Fund; and former climate lead, UN Youth Envoy’s Office, “Climate Intervention: An Option for Global South to Reduce Near-term Climate Risk?” World Economic Forum, November 2022, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/will-climate-intervention-sustain-the-global-monopoly-order-or-define-moment-for-global-south-s-ascendancy/.

Climate interventions could promote improved well-being and economic security in the developing world. They could provide intergenerational benefits, promoting safety, welfare, and prosperity and preserving natural systems for youth and upcoming generations. By slowing down the adverse effects of climate change, climate interventions could offer humanity precious time: time for reducing emissions, for technology investments to accelerate decarbonization, for building adaptive capacity, and for pursuing other vital societal goals, from human rights to sustainable development, without disrupting the climate program.

Overall, consideration of climate interventions as part of the climate portfolio of responses provides an avenue to manage the potentially catastrophic risks of climate change more successfully and comprehensively. Research on climate intervention, as it grows, has indicated that it may actually help manage these risks more equitably, peacefully, and securely. National and global interests would align.

Recommendations

The immense security and welfare risks of near-term climate change warrant concerted research on climate interventions and development of international scientific assessment, cooperation, governance, and decision-making mechanisms for them. Immediate steps should include:

For Group of Seven members:

Undertake an ambitious agenda of research on the potential for SRM to reduce near-term climate risks in a program that delivers the information and capabilities to support robust scientific assessment within five years.
Establish a mandate for monitoring, reporting, and projecting the composition of the atmosphere.
Increase basic climate research funding to a level more commensurate with the value of better information and with the scale of other climate-related funding, with emphasis on atmospheric observations and modeling, e.g., increase US funding for basic climate and atmospheric research and observations by 70 percent to 80 percent ($2.6 billion) per year.
Support open international availability of data, models, and scientific findings.

For the global community in general:

Support international scientific cooperation on research and observations with transparent access to data, tools, and findings.
Advance scientific assessment of SRM in qualified expert bodies (e.g., the Montreal Protocol and World Climate Research Programme).
Establish a fund for developing countries’ research on the impacts of near-term climate change with and without SRM to foster more equitable participation.
Promote science-based governance, decision-making and enforcement mechanisms that function through or similarly to the Montreal Protocol.

Conclusion

Climate change poses enormous threats to global welfare and security. These threats will grow rapidly in the coming decades—but society’s ability to respond is inadequate, leaving the world exposed to globally catastrophic risks. The present climate policy portfolio leaves a critical gap: it does not mitigate near- and mid-term risks and impacts, including potentially devastating tipping events in human and natural systems.

Research on the potential for climate interventions, including SRM, to reduce climate risks as well as substantial investments in climate observations and basic science are now a critical priority for the world. Global cooperation on this research would support equitable and effective decision-making, reduce tensions, and promote the common good. Applying the ensuing knowledge, cooperatively and equitably, to promote the safety of the world’s people and natural systems is now essential for us all.

About the authors

Kelly Wanser is the executive director of SilverLining.

Ira Straus is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a councilor of the Atlantic Council.

The GeoStrategy Initiative works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to tackle security challenges.

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1 Solar radiation modification, or SRM, is the scientific term used to describe increasing the reflection of sunlight or the release of infrared radiation from Earth, or reducing inbound solar radiation from space, to counteract global warming.

2 Many of the unintended side effects of SAI with sulfate occur because of its light-absorbing properties and because it becomes acidic when combined with water. Other materials with properties with potential for minimizing these side effects have been proposed for SAI, including calcium carbonate and diamonds. With no history of presence in the stratosphere, however, uncertainties in projecting their effects are challenging to resolve.

3 The slight increase is approximately 5 to 7 percent.

4 The size proposed is 20 to 200 nanometers (nm), or about one one-thousandth the width of a human hair.

5 Local cooling has difficulty maintaining pace with surrounding warming influences that work to balance heat energy by pushing more heat into the cooler local region. This is particularly problematic for proposals to brighten clouds to cool the Arctic, because most of its warming derives from heat circulating from the equator via ocean currents, and this heat transport would be accelerated if the equator-to-pole temperature gradient were increased by cooling only the Arctic.

6 In “Presenting Balanced Geoengineering Information Has Little Effect on Mitigation Engagement,” Christine Merk and Gernot Wagner also reference earlier studies with varying but mostly similar results, and find that research is as yet sufficient for drawing strong conclusions about the effect of discussion of SRM.

7 “Unchecked climate change would be a major impediment to economic growth during the next 50 years, costing an estimated $178 trillion in net present value terms during the 2021-2070 period.” See The Turning Point: A New Economic Climate in the United States, Deloitte Economic Institute, 2022, https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/economic-cost-climate-change-turning-point.html.

8 Scientific assessment of SRM was recommended in multiple official publications by governmental and intergovernmental bodies in 2023. These included: UNEP, One Atmosphere; White House, Congressionally-Mandated Report; European Commission, “Scoping Paper: Solar Radiation Modification,” August, 2023, https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-08/Scoping_paper_SRM.pdf; and UNESCO, “Report of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) on the Ethics of Climate Engineering,” December 2023, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386677.

9 See Susan Biniaz and Daniel Bodansky, “Solar Climate Intervention: Options for International Assessment and Decision-Making,” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and SilverLining, July 2020, https://www.c2es.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/solar-climate-intervention-options-for-international-assessment-and-decision-making.pdf. A new treaty body is another option, but a less likely outcome given the long timeline, uncertainties, and political obstacles to establishing a new one.

10 These include the IPCC, UN Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the London Protocol, the Arctic Council, the Antarctic Treaty System, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and Security Council (UNSC).

11 This concept was included in official language by the UNFCCC, which states that developed countries would “take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.”

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Yade interviewed by DW on Africa’s position in UN Security Council reform

Atlantic Council — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 16:00:00 +0000

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Rama Yade

Africa Center Europe Center

Civil Society Human Rights

The post Yade interviewed by DW on Africa’s position in UN Security Council reform appeared first on Atlantic Council.

What would it mean for Africa to have two permanent UN Security Council seats?

Rama Yade — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 15:59:48 +0000

As US President Joe Biden arrives in New York this week for the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, he has his eyes cast across the Atlantic to legacy-making initiatives to strengthen relations with Africa. His UN ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, recently announced that the United States is supporting the creation of two permanent seats for Africa on the UN Security Council. The White House also tipped off reporters to Biden’s upcoming visit to Angola, fulfilling a promise by making his first trip to Africa—and drawing an implicit contrast with his predecessor, who never set foot on the continent during his time in office.

Taken together, these are landmark events in US-Africa relations and will help address the United States’ longstanding shortcomings in engaging the continent as its geopolitical rivals gain traction there. But there are significant challenges to fully developing these diplomatic efforts, which will only bear fruit if executed effectively.

Inside the Security Council

The Security Council was first established in 1945 with eleven members and now boasts fifteen—five permanent members (the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China) and ten members who rotate in on two-year terms, by vote of the General Assembly. The five permanent members each can veto actions by the Security Council, which can include sending UN peacekeepers to conflict zones.

Unfortunately, the US announcement of support for new African permanent members was accompanied by an important limitation: They would not have the all-important veto power. While the United States is not willing to propose a systemic reform that would upend the post-World War II geopolitical order by granting additional countries veto power, it is nevertheless the first among the permanent five members of the Security Council to explicitly support permanent membership for African countries. As for the Africans, they recently confirmed the importance of extending the veto power to all the new members or to remove it for all.

Interestingly, Africa played an important role in perhaps the most significant change to the Security Council: the 1971 change in the permanent member seat from the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) to the People’s Republic of China. At the time, Mao Zedong spoke of a debt of gratitude to African nations and other developing countries that “carried” his country’s bid.

An increased presence for Africa on the Security Council makes sense given the demographic rise of southern nations, many of which gained their independence in the mid- to late twentieth century, bringing the number of UN member states from 51 in 1945 to 193 today. Nowhere is that rise more pronounced than in Africa. One in four human beings will be African by 2050, and by the end of the century, it is predicted that Africa will be the most populous continent on the planet. Within the General Assembly, African nations hold 28 percent of the votes, ahead of Asia (27 percent), the Americas (17 percent), and Western Europe (15 percent).

In addition, the large number of conflicts on the continent, from Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), certainly calls for greater participation by Africans in their resolution.

Calls to increase Africa’s representation on the Security Council seem to be gaining traction more widely among UN member states. On September 22, the UN adopted the Pact for the Future, which, among other stated priorities for reform, calls for plans to “improve the effectiveness and representativeness of the [Security] Council, including by redressing the historical under-representation of Africa as a priority.”

But adding African nations to the Security Council as permanent members is far from a done deal. In order to enter into force, such a reform would require a revision of the UN Charter by agreement of two-thirds of the General Assembly, including the five Security Council states with veto power.

Moreover, it is unclear how Washington’s commitment is compatible with its previously expressed willingness to also support the permanent membership of India, Germany, Japan, and a country from Latin America and the Caribbean on the Security Council. Will the United States really advocate for adding six more permanent members?

Africa, a field of rivalry with China

In the push for permanent African Security Council seats and the news of Biden’s upcoming trip to Angola, many observers see a willingness by the United States to respond to the West’s setbacks in Africa amid a diplomatic and strategic offensive by China and Russia. An April 2024 Gallup poll confirmed that Russia is seeing an increase in popularity (up 8 percent year-on-year) on the continent. Also, China (58 percent approval) is now more popular than the United States (56 percent) across Africa.

China has been the leading trading partner of African countries since 2009. In 2023, their trade amounted to $282 billion, a thirty-fold increase in twenty years. Over this period, Chinese companies built a third of the continent’s infrastructure projects, from power plants and hospitals to presidential palaces and even the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—which, it turned out, China had reportedly wiretapped.

While these projects have come at a cost of high levels of indebtedness in Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, they have also enabled African countries to cover some of the gaps between their infrastructure needs and available financing. Egypt and Ethiopia, along with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, have also joined the BRICS grouping of emerging economies (previously Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The BRICS+6 now constitutes 46 percent of the world’s population and nearly 36 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.

For Washington, all this meant that declarations of love for Africa were no longer enough: It had to show proof. The Biden administration responded by resuming US-Africa summits, such as the remarkable one in December 2022 in Washington and by mobilizing fifty-five billion dollars in investments across the continent over three years. It also launched new projects (such as the Lobito Corridor for critical minerals), unveiled a digital transformation plan, and pushed for the creation of a permanent seat at the Group of Twenty (G20) for the African Union. And yet, China has continued to make diplomatic inroads: China-Africa forums attract many African leaders, and even UN Secretary-General António Guterres attended one such meeting in Beijing this month.

The United States is making a bold strike by announcing its support for two permanent Security Council seats for Africa, a step the African Union has formally called for since 2005. Neither Russia nor China, despite all their posturing as the best advocates for Africans, has gone so far. For years, these two countries, as permanent members of the Security Council, had championed the misnamed “Global South” without putting anything concrete on the table or ceding their own prerogatives within the most powerful body of the UN system.

Who will sit on the Security Council?

On the African side, this new reform proposal has immediately triggered a cascade of questions: Which two African states would join? How would they be chosen?

Should priority go to African countries with high economic growth? In this case, South Africa ($373 billion) and Egypt ($347 billion), are the continent’s two largest economies according to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook released in April. But for how long? Just two years ago, Nigeria was the continent’s largest economy.

But what if demographics are the determining factor? Nigeria remains the continent’s leading demographic power, with 225 million inhabitants, according to the UN Population Division, and Ethiopia (127 million) should be recognized as highly populous, too.

South Africa, the country of Nelson Mandela, has a case that goes beyond economics and demography. Its national liberation, in which most African countries have participated, resonates the world over, though xenophobic violence against some African migrants there has been a problem of late. After its first democratic elections in 1994, one of Africa’s most multiracial countries adopted one of the world’s most democratic constitutions. Until this year, South Africa was the only African member of BRICS; it remains the only African country in the G20, which it will take over the rotating presidency of in December. In 2010, South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup, using its sports diplomacy to boost its soft power. But will post-Mandela South Africa finally agree to look at Africa instead of the Indian Ocean? When will we see a pan-African strategy for the rainbow nation?

Finally, there is the DRC, a counterintuitive choice among the African contenders for the Security Council. Bordering nine countries, this huge nation is rich in cobalt, copper, zinc, gold, and platinum, which are essential to the global energy transition. The DRC is also rich in culture, boasting two hundred languages. Kinshasa, home to seventeen million people, is the world’s largest French-speaking city—ahead of Paris.

But perhaps most important to the DRC’s case is the fact that it has direct, and devastating, experience with the conflicts the Security Council tries to manage from afar. It has seen thirty years of civil wars, coups, and the impotence of the UN’s oldest peacekeeping mission, as it now grapples with the challenges posed by hosting more than 6.5 million internally displaced people. The Congo’s plight is a long tragedy that no longer seems to interest the international community. That is why the country needs a powerful lever, such as this seat on the Council would provide. It should come on one condition, however: that its political leaders live up to the challenge.

Rama Yade is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

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What Washington needs to know about the makeup of the next European Commission

James Batchik, Jörn Fleck — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 22:11:28 +0000

This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced her proposed leadership team for the next five-year term of the European Union’s (EU’s) executive. In this line-up, Washington should see a willing and increasingly capable partner, especially when it comes to defense, economic security, and US-EU trade.

The announcement of the Commission’s incoming leaders—officially called the College of Commissioners—completes an important step in the EU’s leadership transition this year. But the process is far from over. Before the next Commission and its twenty-six commissioners (one per EU member, not including von der Leyen, who is Germany’s) officially take office this fall, commissioner-designates must pass muster at the European Parliament.

Like the US Senate’s grilling of cabinet secretary nominees, the European Parliament will conduct hearings. These hearings will be no rubber stamp. The European Parliament will likely reject one or more candidates as a display of the body’s institutional power, and some nominees—including Hungary’s commissioner-designate, slated for the health and animal welfare portfolio—are already seen as unlikely to get the nod of approval. However, the initial lineup already gives a good picture of von der Leyen’s vision for her second term.

Washington, focused on in its own upcoming leadership race in November, may be loath to tune in to the politicking in Brussels. But US policymakers should care. Like in Washington, personnel is policy, and the proposed makeup of the Commission provides an opening salvo for the bloc’s policy agenda and priorities. Moreover, whoever wins in November will need to pay attention to the direction of Brussels’ policy on the issues that will most deeply impact the United States and the transatlantic relationship.

There are three primary takeaways to note from von der Leyen’s proposed Commission.

First, the Commission is getting serious about its geopolitical and defense ambitions, and the Atlanticists are ascendent. Announced over the summer, Kaja Kallas—Estonia’s former prime minister, a noted Russia hawk, and an architect of some of the EU’s initiatives to arm Ukraine—will be the EU’s chief diplomat. Joining Kallas will be Lithuania’s former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, who will hold the inaugural post of commissioner for defense and space. He will build on the EU’s defense industrial strategy and will be responsible for overseeing the Commission’s efforts to ramp up defense production with EU funds. These efforts will cost money. The budgetary portfolio will fall under Poland’s Piotr Serafin, who will be responsible for navigating the EU’s upcoming negotiations for its next seven-year budget framework. In what promise to be tough negotiations among member states, the EU will have to prove that it can put its money where its mouth has been. The EU will need to find the political will and financial muscle to reallocate resources away from traditional areas, such as agriculture and regional funds, toward shoring up a fragile and insecure Europe amid a daunting geopolitical context, from defense-industrial capacity to emerging technologies, innovation, and competitiveness.

All three nominees are also unapologetic Atlanticists who value Washington’s engagement in Europe, and they are all in on supporting Ukraine. They come from member states historically oriented toward Washington and will likely continue to bring that philosophy to their new posts in Brussels. With Atlanticists in strong foreign policy and economic roles, Washington could see an EU eager to drive a more ambitious security and defense agenda, but one that includes—not excludes—the United States in that effort, especially in the financing of defense-industrial projects.

Second, several familiar faces are returning with top jobs in the next Commission. Valdis Dombrovskis, the current executive vice-president overseeing trade, will take on the economy and productivity portfolio. Maroš Šefčovič, another current executive vice-president currently responsible for the European Green Deal and interinstitutional relations, will lead the trade portfolio. Both will be critical interlocutors for Washington on issues of trade and industrial policy—areas to which both are already well attuned. Dombrovskis, for example, was a co-chair of the Trade and Technology Council and will surely play a role in US-EU negotiations under the next Commission. Even those who are new faces in the Commission are not newcomers to Washington. France’s nominee, Stéphane Séjourné, is Paris’s foreign minister. This experience will matter for discussions with Washington, especially on trade and industrial policy. Their nominations suggest von der Leyen is serious about her prioritization of a Clean Industrial Deal and her de-risking push.

Third, Washington will likely share many of the broad priorities for the next Commission, even if the devil remains in the details. The themes running throughout the reshuffled portfolios presented this week suggest convergence with where US policy is trending. There is a strong focus on economic security, defense, and protecting Europe’s key industries and technology leadership. The portfolios von der Leyen assigned and the Commission she set up suggest she is serious about moving the bloc closer to realizing the vision of a geopolitical Commission—even if much work remains to be done to achieve it. And Washington can find much to like about her priorities. Von der Leyen’s Commission is taking more ownership and responsibility for Europe’s own defense, a frequent topic of discussion and debate in Washington. Europe’s growing apprehension toward China, and a focus on greater competitiveness and innovation, will likely require greater collaboration with the United States.

Brussels will have to back up its personnel decisions with policy. But all indications from the reveal of the next College of Commissioners should make Washington consider the EU to be an increasingly cooperative and able partner.

James Batchik is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Europe Center.

Ian Cameron and Thomas Goldstein, young global professionals with the Europe Center, also contributed to this article.

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Countering Russia’s campaign to erase Ukrainian cultural identity

Mercedes Sapuppo — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:57:26 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has included a wide range of attacks on Ukrainian heritage sites as the Kremlin seeks to erase Ukraine’s cultural identity. By September 2024, UNESCO had officially verified damage to 438 cultural sites in Ukraine including religious buildings, museums, libraries, and monuments.

Writing earlier this year, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said these attacks were to be expected. “The Russian thirst for the destruction of Ukrainian heritage comes as no surprise,” he noted. “It ties in to the campaign of assaulting Ukraine’s national identity; for assaulting the people’s knowledge of their history, origin, and culture is like cutting roots from a tree.”

Kyiv Security Forum Director Danylo Lubkivsky is one of many Ukrainian commentators to echo this sentiment. “Once the invasion began, it was immediately apparent that this was a war against every aspect of Ukrainian national identity including language, culture, and heritage,” he stated in a March 2024 article.

Russia’s assault on Ukrainian cultural identity has attracted considerable international concern, with numerous governments voicing their alarm and offering support to Ukraine. For example, the United States has recently unveiled plans to impose tough restrictions on the illicit trade in Ukraine’s cultural artifacts.

Since the full-scale invasion began, a large number of international initiatives have also emerged as part of efforts to document Russia’s war on Ukrainian cultural identity and preserve as much of Ukraine’s heritage as possible. These include monitoring work led by the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, and a number of joint initiatives together with Ukraine’s museums.

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One of the most ambitious projects aimed at the preservation of Ukrainian heritage is the Ukraine is Here platform led by Google Arts and Culture. In early September, Google officials presented the latest updates to this project, with more than one thousand new images added along with ninety new stories and several virtual galleries.

Produced through partnerships with a number of civil society groups, cultural organizations, and state agencies, this Google initiative aims to serve as a digital database of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. It includes hundreds of 3D models of churches, theaters, castles, and other historically significant buildings, along with individual items ranging from kitchen utensils to ancient armor.

Efforts to preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage are a crucial element of the broader international response to Russia’s invasion. While the front lines of the war have not witnessed any dramatic changes in almost two years, Russia continues to bombard towns and cities across Ukraine on a virtually daily basis, frequently causing irreparable damage to the country’s cultural sites.

Russia’s relentless air war makes it all the more important to keep a detailed digital record of Ukrainian national heritage assets. During a recent forum in Ukrainian Black Sea port city Odesa, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Anastasia Bondar said utilizing modern technologies such as digitization was a “key factor” in the struggle to safeguard Ukrainian culture for future generations.

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In addition to destroying the sites, monuments, and buildings that make up Ukraine’s cultural inheritance, the Russian invasion has also killed significant numbers of the country’s contemporary cultural community. As The Guardian’s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins noted in a moving tribute to Ukrainian author and war crimes researcher Victoria Amelina following her death in a Russian air strike, “Stalin erased one generation of Ukraine’s artists. Now Putin is killing another.”

More than one hundred Ukrainian cultural figures have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, according to data published by worldwide literary association PEN International. One of the youngest victims was eighteen year old Ukrainian artist Veronika Kozhushko, who was killed by a Russian glide bomb in Kharkiv in August 2024.

The destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage is entirely consistent with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longstanding efforts to deny Ukraine’s right to exist and his insistence that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). Putin frequently claims that occupied Ukrainian regions are “historically Russian lands,” and has ordered the ruthless suppression of Ukrainian national identity in all areas currently under Kremlin control.

Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian identity even extends to the abduction and indoctrination of children on an industrial scale. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Kremlin dictator on war crimes charges related to Russia’s mass deportation of Ukrainian children. Many of these children have reportedly been indoctrinated in camps designed to rob them of their Ukrainian identity.

With no end in sight to Russia’s invasion, international efforts to help preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage are more necessary than ever. While the Russian army is struggling to achieve its goals on the battlefield, the actions of the occupation authorities in areas under Moscow’s control provide clear evidence that the Kremlin remains committed to erasing Ukrainian identity and extinguishing Ukrainian statehood. Unless this is prevented, a terrible precedent will be set that will shape the global security climate for many years to come.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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Some believe that the key to ending the current war lies not in overpowering Russia, but in reinstating just enough mutual trust to put institutional mechanisms back in place. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that multiple attempts over the past decade to turn Russia from a revisionist power into a supporter of the security status quo failed miserably. Although neither Russia nor Europe has any interest whatsoever in going to war with each other over Ukraine, it is also obvious that their security interests do not overlap. It would therefore be unreasonable to end or curb European support for Ukraine at this stage.

The European Union’s current focus on achieving greater strategic autonomy is not just an answer to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Instead, it is best understood as part of a broader trend that is likely to remain one of the driving forces shaping EU thinking for many years to come.

As US hegemony declines, becoming autonomous in the area of defense and managing relations with unreliable autocratic regimes are increasingly important goals for the EU. Such aspirations are bound to run contrary to Russia’s interest in keeping Europe inherently weak and disunited in the face of hard security threats. In other words, if the EU is to achieve strategic autonomy, having a security dilemma with Moscow is unavoidable, regardless of Europe’s approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Broader geopolitical considerations will also shape the future evolution of Europe’s security outlook. These considerations further underline the importance of continued European support for Ukraine.

While the EU is clearly concerned over possible changes in the US security commitment following the country’s presidential election in November, Europe’s own security rhetoric on the key long-term threat posed by China also has the potential to aggravate transatlantic ties. The wording on Beijing in Brussels is often conspicuously different from that of American hawks, with the European Union officially calling China “a partner for cooperation, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival.”

Meanwhile, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, China is using the war to expand its influence, either as a peace broker or as an aggression enabler. Despite the fact that Russian and Chinese foreign policy approaches may be different, both countries are geared toward undermining the Western-led international order. This kind of collective threat cannot be dealt with by making concessions in Ukraine, nor can it be contained by eclectic and rather soft “partner-competitor-rival” rhetoric.

Silvester Nosenko teaches international relations at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

The EV supply chain also has serious vulnerabilities stemming from overconcentration of the upstream value chain for battery production. China’s market dominance over certain critical minerals—especially cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements refining—and battery components has made other major economies feel vulnerable to potential supply chain disruptions. These fears are heightened by the PRC’s export ban on technologies related to the refinement and processing of these minerals as well as the country’s history of sanctioning other nations by imposing de facto bans on critical mineral exports. Countries such as the United States have responded to these threats with discriminatory industrial policies of their own, potentially creating defensive spirals even among otherwise friendly nations that believe they need to secure critical mineral autonomy because they cannot count on trading partners to fulfill their battery input needs as demand for such goods accelerates.

Until now, most policy discussions around EV supply chains have either been economy-specific—for example, the US EV supply chain, the EU EV supply chain, the Chinese EV supply chain—or have focused on the ways in which these three major economies’ EV transitions threaten one another. However, the collective challenges and opportunities of the electric mobility revolution extend beyond the “big three” economies, and demand dialogue among and solutions from a more inclusive set of players.

Collaboration among G20 economies can increase supply chain resilience, provide sustainable development and employment opportunities across G20 economies and beyond, and deliver on international commitments to achieve carbon neutrality. At the same time, the EV transition raises substantial questions of economic and national security, including how to ensure dominant positions in key parts of the supply chain are not used coercively, how to encourage rapid advancement of EV technology while continuing to safeguard related innovation that has military and surveillance applications, how to rapidly build charging infrastructure (Indonesia, for example, has only 700 public charging stations), and how to protect the vast amount of data that EVs collect against improper use. And, as governments embrace industrial policies to better position their economies for this major industrial transition, they run the risk of seeding unproductive subsidies wars, generating oversupply that creates profitability problems for private industry, and hurting diplomatic relations between allies and partners.

This report advances the policy discussion by compiling trade, investment, and EV industrial policy data across the G20 to illustrate six key insights:

EV production is more concentrated—both in terms of production site and the nationality of who owns production—than production of ICE vehicles.
The rapid pace of Chinese EV export growth has the potential to threaten other G20 members’ ability to transition their legacy ICE industry to EV manufacturing.
Even as G20 countries work to build domestic EV battery capabilities, their reliance on Chinese upstream battery inputs has grown.
Rather than facilitate the development of regional manufacturing clusters, Chinese EV-related foreign direct investment (FDI) across the G20 has largely reinforced its centrality to the battery supply chain.
G20 economies are rapidly expanding EV-related industrial policies that are uncoordinated and may be operating at cross-purposes.
The build-out of EV charging infrastructure is desperately needed to boost EV adoption, but it will also stoke contention as countries disagree over procurement policies and data security.

This report recommends that the G20:

Implement a task force on the electric vehicle transition to facilitate dialogue around key, transnational issues related to EV production and wide-scale adoption. It should also examine how to ensure the benefits of the EV industry are widely shared among diverse economies and that the related decline in the legacy ICE industry is managed in a manner that avoids long-term economic displacement, poverty, and political instability.

Build on the framework introduced in the May 2023 G7 Leaders Statement on Economic Resilience and Economic Security, and commit to cooperating on critical mineral supply chain resilience, especially by agreeing to refrain from restricting trading partners’ access to critical minerals, raw or processed, or to technologies for extracting or processing these critical minerals.

Jointly monitor critical mineral production, stockpiles, and prices; and coordinate on price stabilization efforts intended to ensure diversified ownership and supply of raw and processed critical minerals.

Develop a framework to limit the profligate invocation of national security exceptions in the justification of trade, investment, and industrial policy measures related to EVs and their supply chains. Overuse of national security justifications risks undermining the rules-based, nondiscriminatory, free, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and transparent multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core to which the G20 reaffirmed its commitment in 2022.

Support and advance efforts to set shared digital privacy and safety standards for connected vehicles, especially with respect to whether and how public charging infrastructure collects, analyzes, stores, and provides access to EV data.

Facilitate ongoing dialogue about the composition and distribution of EV supply chains, including by regularly sharing information on country governments’ production and consumer supports and proactively addressing concerns about potential overcapacity and trade dumping.

The EV transition as an economic security challenge

Perhaps no single item more fully instantiates the opportunities and challenges of the emerging “economic security” consensus than an electric vehicle (EV). EVs incorporate advanced battery storage technology and substantially more semiconductors than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles¹—in addition to advanced integrated circuits to power artificial intelligence (AI) applications and sensors for autonomous driving and related safety features. Advanced steel, including electric steel, is also an important component of the EV supply chain. The push to increase battery electric vehicles’ (BEV) range and to reduce charging times also prompts EV manufacturers to continually innovate to secure efficiency gains across semiconductors, systems, and battery technology. All these technological developments rely on collecting and analyzing mountains of data produced by EVs. Moreover, while EVs will propel technological innovation, contribute to carbon neutrality, and create new sources of employment, they also present threats related to dual-use technology leakage, surveillance, and cyber sabotage and to players in the ICE supply chain who will no longer be relevant.

It is in this context that EVs—and the industrial policies governments are pursuing related to their development, manufacture, and adoption—are generating friction among major economies, including among allies. While semiconductor policy is also high on the policy agendas of most major economies, issues around integrated circuits are more easily understood through a national security lens. EV policy, on the other hand, touches on matters of security, industrial competition, climate change adaptation, infrastructure, and populist job programs. Trade-offs abound between climate and affordability goals and policy priorities rooted in security, self-sufficiency, and economic competitiveness. Initially governments viewed the EV transition as a market-making opportunity and focused public policy on subsidizing the consumer costs associated with EV adoption, but now more governments are expanding “behind the border” industrial policy subsidies to support domestic EV production as well as “at the border” tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.

The urgent need for multilateral dialogue on these issues is clear. As Chinese exports expand rapidly, G20 countries working to help legacy auto manufacturers transition to EV production cannot afford to let cheap imports prevent domestic producers from developing EV manufacturing capabilities. An uncoordinated, expansive use of industrial policy is likely to create even more economic, political, and diplomatic challenges. Subsidy wars are distortive and expensive, tariffs raise costs and frequently lead to retaliation that can spill over into other industries, and expanding charging infrastructure will stress the current rules and practices around public procurement. They also only work for wealth countries with large internal markets with the fiscal resources to subsidize their auto industries, the local markets to support them, and diversified trade profiles that can weather trade retaliation from China.

What’s more, concerns about research and development integrity, intellectual property rights enforcement, and leakage of dual-use battery and autonomous driving technologies serve to heighten existing concerns over corporate espionage, critical technology leakage, and defense supply chain integrity. And, each of these issues threatens to complicate, delay, and add to the cost of a massive transition from high-carbon to low-carbon mobility systems. Despite the urgent need for discussion, standard setting, and mutually agreed upon rules to coordinate mutually beneficial cross-border research, development, production, and trade, multilateral institutions are poorly equipped to address these multi-layered concerns. The WTO system has been badly weakened by the absence of a working appellate body and by the continued disagreement among WTO members over whether national security exceptions are justiciable.

Even if the appellate body were fully functional, the structure of WTO dispute settlement is not well suited to resolving trade challenges that arise in the context of rapid technological change. That is, governments increasingly view the EV transition as one requiring a rapid response, not necessarily to facilitate widespread consumer adoption of such vehicles, but instead to ensure that their industrial base and largest auto manufacturers can be competitive in the domestic and global EV markets. The WTO system of identifying a harm before initiating a protracted legal process of restitution offers little help to countries worried that without swift and preventive action their auto manufacturing capacity—and its substantial contribution to GDP and employment—will be decimated by cheap imports.

The emergence and growth of the EV sector presents fundamental, complex policy choices that demand a degree of global governance. Lessons learned from, and institutional arrangements designed to meet, the challenges of EVs can then be transferred to other areas that straddle today’s most pressing geoeconomic issues: climate transition, national security, economic dependence and coercion, emerging technologies, economic competitiveness, and job creation.

The G20 as a forum for EV policy dialogue

There is no shortage of commentary on electric vehicle and battery supply chains. These tend to focus on fears within the United States and the European Union (EU) of a “China Shock 2.0,” in which Chinese EV companies’ overcapacity-driven exporting undercuts the major incumbent car manufactures, drives them into irrelevance, and guts the domestic automobile industrial base. It is for this reason that the United States, the EU, and a few other G20 economies recently substantially increased tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

The promises and challenges inherent in the EV transition are not limited to G7 economies. As an increasing number of countries develop policies to address their concerns, the economic and security implications of an EV supply chain dominated by China cannot be accomplished through a series of national-level policies implemented in isolation and without consultation, coordination, and compromise.

The G20 is the country grouping best able to bring the most relevant actors to the table. Collectively, G20 countries represent 80 percent of global world product, 75 percent of global trade, and 66 percent of global population. At the same time, 18 countries plus two regional bodies is a manageable number of capitals for effective policy dialogue and coordination. The grouping is trans-regional and contains some of the most important EV consumer markets—both mature auto markets and the largest emerging ones—and producer markets, including the biggest auto manufacturers, the largest emerging EV manufacturers, and the countries where the majority of the battery supply chain (beyond mineral extraction) takes place. This makes the G20 the smallest grouping of countries that represents the largest set of governments, corporate actors, and civil society relevant to the development of the EV industry and the managed decline of the ICE industry.

Trade data illustrates the importance of G20 markets in driving the global automobile industry. The G20, inclusive of the EU, represents 86 percent of value added in global demand for all automobiles—ICE and EVs—and over 90 percent of all vehicle sales.² Table 1 provides details about the role of G20 economies as both major producers and consumers of automobiles. The data combines statistics on traditional ICE vehicles with production and sales of EVs. Most G20 countries’ automotive sectors are both substantial drivers of their broader economies and also are highly integrated globally. Only China, Japan, India, and the EU single market have less than 20 percent foreign content on a value-added basis.³

The G20 also dominates the global market for vehicles: It accounts for over 86 percent of value-added in total global vehicle demand and exports roughly 7 percent of vehicles it produces (approximately 5.3 million) to non-G20 economies. It is also practically self-sufficient as a bloc, with less than 2 percent of value added in G20 final demand for vehicles coming from outside the economic club.

As the G20 transitions to low- and no-emission vehicles, it will have to manage a shift in industrial production that will inevitably create winners and losers. Car manufacturers and suppliers that can deftly switch from producing inputs to ICE vehicles to EV inputs will enjoy substantial economic opportunities, but not all suppliers will successfully manage this transition.

The G20 is the appropriate forum where component governments can discuss, possibly coordinate, and build governance expectations for how to manage this transition in ways that minimize trade, security, and diplomacy frictions while responding to the urgency of climate change, the importance of equitable and shared growth, and the need for cooperative international trade during the mobility transition in the face of increased wariness of economic interdependence.

G20-driven solutions will require hard conversations, tough bargaining, and deft diplomatic solutions. As is discussed further below, G20 countries are geopolitically divided on how to adapt to an EV future. Many domestic policy solutions generate costs for other G20 economies. But, an EV transition without G20 coordination would be chaotic, generate substantial domestic economic costs that could jeopardize global growth as well as domestic political stability, and further erode global economic governance. An inclusive EV future that works for all will require the G20 to find shared solutions and shared expectations about how governments will work to guide their countries toward a post-carbon economy.

The current global EV supply chain: Six insights

There is no lack of research and commentary on the challenges and opportunities created by the EV transition for major economies. What has been largely missing from this conversation, however, is a focus on how the EV trade, investment, and industrial policy spaces create challenges for the G20 as a whole. Below, we examine a range of data to extract six insights into how thinking about the G20 holistically reveals policy challenges that should be addressed through comprehensive strategic dialogues within the grouping.

Insight 1: EV production is more concentrated than ICE production.

The EV market, similar to the ICE industry, is dominated by five economies: China, the EU, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. As Figure 1 reports, the top 20 auto manufacturers by annual revenue are all headquartered within these five markets. But, the emerging EV production network is much more concentrated within a few companies compared to the ICE industry. According to estimates of global market share, BYD and Tesla accounted for roughly 35 percent of the global market for plug-in vehicles in 2023. These two brands, plus VW, Geely-Volvo, and SAIC (including its joint venture with GM), manufactured 55 percent of all battery-powered electric vehicles sold in 2023.

Because EV assembly is concentrated among a few global brands, most EV imports come from just a handful of economies.⁴ Figure 2 underscores the extent of this concentration by showing exports of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from the five dominant countries to all G-20 economies in 2020 and in 2023.⁵ The number of imported BEVs across G20 economies increased by over 400 percent over this four-year period. Chinese EVs, in particular, have become an important component of imports not only in the EU and UK, but also in many other G20 economies, including Australia, Brazil, and Canada. Figures 3 and 4 illustrate that among smaller markets, there are important differences in EV import composition. Brazil and India both experienced a sharp increase in EV imports starting in 2020-21, but Brazil has become far more reliant on Chinese EV imports, while India has maintained a greater balance between Chinese, Korean, and EU imports.

Insight 2: The rapid pace of Chinese EV exports threatens EV industrial capacity in other G20 economies

G20 countries cannot afford to cede the global EV market to China. And for countries outside of the G7, they are the least able to mount an effective, unilateral defense because they have less fiscal capacity to support their auto industries, are more vulnerable to retaliation if they impose protective tariffs against Chinese EVs, and have smaller domestic markets to attract market-seeking FDI.

With the recent and rapid growth of EV exports, major exporting countries have displayed markedly different patterns in their overall growth and distribution of overseas sales. China’s EV exports, for instance, have risen sharply from a base of almost zero in 2020, with over half of its 2023 exports destined for the EU market (Figure 5). By contrast, the EU’s export trajectory has been more gradual, with EV sales more evenly distributed across G20 markets (Figure 6). The United States has seen more export volatility, with the value of its EV exports falling below its 2019 peak, largely due to declining sales to the EU and China (Figure 7).

Economies with major auto production and consumer markets are equipped to support their auto brands’ shift from ICE to EV production and to retain a substantial proportion of domestic vehicle manufacturing. They have the necessary resources and market size, even in the context of global overcapacity, but it is less certain that emerging markets will be able to weather such storms. As Figures 3 and 4 illustrate, rapid penetration of EVs into smaller and emerging economies is taking place. Research on EV adoption shows that widespread transition from ICE to EVs requires that EVs be made more affordable,⁶ and Chinese EVs are much less expensive, on average, than EVs produced in other major auto manufacturing economies. But, there are concerns that inexpensive Chinese EVs—bolstered by substantial subsidization—will displace sales of domestically produced autos and prevent local industry from transitioning from ICE manufacturing to EV manufacturing. In the past, a number of emerging markets, including Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, Mexico, and Indonesia, built their domestic car industries primarily by attracting FDI from global brand leaders. However, since Chinese car manufacturers have substantial overcapacity in China-based plants, the commercial rationale for offshoring production to these other countries is less clear. Indeed, as Table 2 reports, according to Rhodium data on Chinese FDI in the EV sector, less than 9 percent of Chinese EV-related FDI to G20 economies has been in vehicle assembly or component manufacturing. If emerging economies within the G20 were to be boxed out of the global EV manufacturing ecosystem, it could carry profoundly negative consequences because most of these countries’ GDPs are heavily reliant on the auto manufacturing industry. Approximately 4 percent of Indonesia’s GDP is attributable to the auto industry. In Mexico, the auto industry accounts for 3.6 percent of the country’s GDP and 18 percent of manufacturing output. In 2018, Brazilian officials estimated that the industry amounted to 4 percent of its GDP at and 22 percent of manufacturing output.

Insight 3: G20 economies remain dependent on the Chinese EV battery supply chain

Much of the commentary about the EV supply chain emphasizes China’s enormous market dominance in the upstream battery value chain.⁷ Chinese firms dominate every stage of the battery manufacturing supply chain—from extraction and processing to battery parts and battery packs. Figure 8 illustrates the reliance of G20 economies on China for batteries, a dependency that has increased in recent years.⁸ Figures 9 and 10 provide an even starker illustration of the growing reliance on imported Chinese batteries in emerging G20 economies like Brazil and India.

Many governments have issued policies to encourage domestic EV battery production (see Insight 5), but upstream trade in battery supply chain inputs is even more concentrated, both in terms of suppliers and buyers. As Figure 11 shows, most trade in processed minerals is highly concentrated in China, South Korea, Japan, and the EU. China is also the dominant supplier—not surprising given the fact that China controls at least 60 percent of the processed critical mineral market.⁹ Even as other countries become more important in trade of intermediate battery materials, China’s continued dominance in mineral refining is a critical chokepoint that has not been adequately addressed. Figure 12 illustrates this dynamic: South Korea has emerged as an important global exporter of battery materials, but it remains heavily reliant on China’s mineral processing input. Figures 13 and 14 show that Brazil and India’s imports of battery materials are more diversified than their imports of batteries, but this obscures how much of their battery material production is in turn dependent on Chinese processed minerals.

Insight 4: Chinese EV FDI may exacerbate concentration of industrial production and control

As previously mentioned, emerging economies have fostered domestic auto manufacturing through a combination of policies that include incentivizing FDI from major global car brands. One path to building local EV industrial capacity is by attracting FDI across the EV value chain—especially from Chinese car manufacturers that have rapidly developed high quality EVs that can compete on price and on quality. Figure 15 provides information on the value of Chinese EV-related FDI across the G20 from 2014 through 2023. It shows that Chinese FDI is aimed primarily at the battery supply chain rather than assembly and component part manufacturing. Across Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia, these investments are concentrated in mining and refining and processing of mined materials, which may help diversify the site of critical mineral production but not who owns and controls these resources. China has concentrated its investments in the EU/EEA, the United States, Canada, South Korea, and Indonesia in battery manufacturing and related materials manufacturing.

While these investments help to transfer important technology and process innovation to these host economies, policymakers debate whether such investments also help to diversify the EV and battery supply chain or simply maintain China’s ownership dominance. The issue is particularly thorny when policymakers look at Chinese investments in countries with which they have preferential trade agreements. For example, does Chinese investment in Central and Eastern Europe battery plants help the EU become less reliant on Chinese EV battery imports? Or, do such investments make them more dependent on the continued interest of Chinese companies to maintain operations—and the unencumbered flow of related goods—in their economies?

Ensuring that a local industry does not become too dominated by companies from one foreign country has emerged as a key topic in discussions related to investment screening policies. Indeed, the United States’ keen interest in Mexico developing its own investment screening mechanism is directly linked to concerns that China may attempt to use Mexico as an export processing base through which to serve the North American market while avoiding US tariffs on Chinese batteries and EVs. However, as Figure 16 illustrates, almost all Chinese investment in the EV industry has been through greenfield FDI, and most investment screening mechanisms review only cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

Insight 5: G20 EV industrial policies are increasingly in conflict

Table 3 provides an overview of the industrial policies G20 economies have developed in recent years to support their EV industry.¹⁰ It is clear that countries differ quite a bit in terms of how much they prioritize and protect domestic manufacturing of EVs versus focusing on widespread EV adoption for climate change purposes. On the extremes, Australia’s EV policies are almost entirely geared toward adoption as they no longer have a domestic vehicle manufacturing industry to protect, while Argentina has an industrial policy designed to spur development of a domestic EV industry primarily for export, doing little to underwrite a domestic market for EVs. The data reveals that most G20 economies are using industrial policy to build capacity across the entire EV supply chain rather than to specialize in one component of it, and that a substantial number of these economies are crafting policies to support exports. Some are also willing to use tariffs to protect their EV vulnerabilities, which is in stark contrast to just a few years ago when many countries kept EV tariffs low to stimulate adoption. For example, Brazil set its EV tariffs at zero from 2015 through the end of 2023, when it allowed most favored nation (MFN) EV tariff rates to move up to 35 percent. Moreover, while almost all G20 countries have industrial policies for critical minerals and their processing, there are growing concerns that uncoordinated efforts to boost domestic production will make it harder to achieve supply chain diversification. For example, because Indonesia accounts for over 60 percent of nickel mining, its ban on unrefined nickel exports means that other countries cannot effectively build up diverse nickel refining facilities due to their inability to source adequate supplies of nickel ore from refining facilities located elsewhere. As governments across the G20 race to bring more mining and refining facilities online, they risk creating price instability that can make it challenging for the industry to stay commercially viable. Declines in critical mineral pricing in 2023 illustrate how uncoordinated industrial policy can backfire by increasing supply too quickly, thereby making new mines commercially unviable.

Insight 6: The charging infrastructure build-out will create discord over procurement policy and national security

Table 3 also shares data on the number of publicly available EV charging stations each G20 member possessed in 2023.¹¹ According to the International Energy Association, charging availability in most G20 countries remains low. Argentina has only 1,300 stations, and Indonesia has 700. The paucity of stations is a binding constraint to EV adoption.¹² At the same time, EV charging is data intensive and data intrusive. Just as 5G wireless infrastructure build-outs caused consternation over trusted (and untrusted) suppliers, data security, and what constitutes a level playing field when competing for government procurement, EV charging will spark the same policy fights. And these concerns will be further heightened by government directives regarding the security of connected cars, such as the Biden administration’s recent executive order seeking to protect against national security risks.¹³ Disagreements over EV data security and privacy will no doubt spill over into trade disputes when governments can point to data security concerns as a justification to prohibit vehicle imports they deem to be insufficiently secure.

From insight to policy dialogue: A blueprint for G20 action

The insights above provide a clear argument for why the G20 needs to engage in comprehensive dialogues to manage the complex challenges and opportunities of the EV transition. While different G20 working groups touch on issues related to EVs, such as the energy transition, climate change, employment, and trade and investment, there is no group with the G20 structure that is focused on EVs directly. This should change. The G20 should implement a task force on the electric vehicle transition to facilitate working- and high-level dialogue around key, transnational issues related to the production and wide-scale adoption of electric mobility as well as how to effectively ensure the benefits of the EV industry are widely shared among diverse economies and that the related decline in the legacy ICE industry is managed to avoid long-term economic displacement, poverty, and political instability. This task force should focus its efforts around three primary objectives:

Objective 1: Foster resilient critical mineral & battery supply chains

As described above, reducing dependence on Chinese battery materials, parts, and finished products has become a central component of many G20 economies’ EV industrial policies. Relying on Chinese supply creates multiple risks. The COVID pandemic and supply chain shocks exposed the fragility of overly geographically concentrated supply chains to exogenously determined disruptions. Moreover, the Chinese government has a history of using its control over this supply chokepoint as leverage for economic coercion. For example, China likely restricted Japanese access to rare earth minerals during a dispute over territorial waters in 2010.¹⁴ More recently, in retaliation for the United States imposing increasingly restrictive export controls on advanced semiconductor and supercomputing technologies, China placed its own export controls on several critical minerals (gallium, germanium, and graphite) in 2023. Concerns over the likelihood that the Chinese government could cut off access to essential battery inputs have heightened as sanctions and export controls levied against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have reinvigorated discussions in Western capitals about economic war plans in the event of threat escalation across the Taiwan Strait and a retaliatory response from China.¹⁵

Coordinating critical mineral investment to avoid price volatility

Diversifying supply is challenging on multiple fronts and requires discussion and coordination among trade partners. First, as governments work to incentivize new mining and processing projects, there are legitimate concerns over the commercial viability of critical mineral plants over volatile price cycles. According to the International Energy Agency’s market outlook, prices for key critical minerals declined in 2023, which reduced investment in mining and processing projects. This price drop likely resulted from the swift build-up in uncoordinated industrial policies that rapidly increased supply. Commercial actors simply cannot make sound long-term strategic decisions in the face of such uncertainty. While the political and security arguments for investing in diverse sources, even if inefficient, are clear to governments, commercial actors will face market pressures to prioritize efficiency rather than maintain redundancy in their supply chains. When commercial actors can’t step in, state-backed actors can, confident their government will provide adequate price and budget supports to bolster weak commodity prices.

As a grouping, the G20 should provide an ongoing forum through which members can jointly monitor globally critical mineral production, stockpiles, and prices. Information sharing, particularly between strategic competitors such as the United States and China, will be challenging. However, providing an opportunity for governments to discuss industry trends as well as how members’ actions are affecting the long-term viability of each one’s mining and processing industries can help to address concerns quickly and multilaterally. Some have advocated for the creation of various clubs to develop allied solutions to price volatility such as price insurance or a critical minerals buying club. These smaller-N solutions may play an important role in solving the challenges of critical mineral supply chain diversification, but dialogue among all major players—even those with whom disagreement is likely and cooperation most challenging—is necessary.

Security of supply and access concerns

Because governments increasingly see access to critical minerals as a security of supply issue, the G20 should engage in dialogues intended to reassure countries they can rely on trade partners to provide continued access to these inputs. Without credible assurances that governments won’t exploit interdependency to extract policy concessions, and that they won’t hoard or ration supplies in response to extreme circumstances (similar to what happened during the pandemic), it will be hard for governments to make good on their desire to diversify supply chains through thicker trade networks and not retreat to self-reliance.

To strengthen trust in security of supply across the G20, its members should build on the framework introduced in the May 2023 G7 Leaders Statement on Economic Resilience and Economic Security and commit to cooperating on critical mineral supply chain resilience, especially by agreeing to refrain from restricting trading partners’ access to critical minerals, raw or processed, or to technologies to extract or process these critical minerals during peacetime.

Like many emerging technologies, EVs, their batteries, and their component parts and systems have both commercial and military applications. The US Department of Defense, for example, is investing in research and development to make EV technologies fit for battlefield requirements, especially around figuring out battery solutions that can be sustained in combat operations.¹⁶ In some of these areas, restricting access to such technologies for national security reasons may be justified. However, because EVs are so central to a post-carbon industrial transition, governments should be very cautious to avoid over-restricting the proliferation of technologies that can aid the speed of electric mobility adoption. For example, China retains export restrictions on technologies related to the processing of critical minerals for use in batteries, a technology that can be used for military purposes but is also of general use to the commercial EV supply chain. Similarly, as larger G20 economies roll out substantial research and development support for EV technology breakthroughs, concerns over research security may create barriers to disseminating technologies that are foundational to the EV supply chain. As a result, smaller, less wealthy countries, with modest domestic markets and fewer government resources to support research, are the ones most likely to be left behind when such technologies are tightly controlled.

The G20 should therefore hold dialogues aimed at developing a framework to limit the invocation of national security exceptions in justifying trade, investment, and industrial policy measures related to EVs and their supply chains. Overuse of national security justifications risks undermining the rules-based, nondiscriminatory, free, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and transparent multilateral trading system to which the G20 reaffirmed its commitment in 2022. Without trust that trade partners will not overuse national security exceptions to restrict or cut off trade in key components of the battery supply chain, governments will be less able to rely on trade diversification for supply chain resilience and instead be pushed toward policies of self-reliance.

In addition, the G20 should support and advance efforts to set shared digital privacy and safety standards for connected vehicles, especially with respect to whether and how public charging infrastructure collects, analyzes, stores, and provides access to EV data. Such standards could help mitigate some of the security concerns related to connected vehicles and the charging infrastructure on which they rely, which in turn, could allow for these issues to be addressed through a regulatory and standard-setting framework, rather than one based on essential security exceptions.

Objective 3: Avoid an industrial policy arms race

The G20 is an ideal forum for countries to engage in proactive dialogues about the trade-distorting effects of industrial policies. While the WTO remains the primary international institution for developing, contesting, and enforcing international trade rules, it is unable to execute these functions on a swift timeframe. The dispute settlement system is currently hampered by the appellate body not being operational—but even if the WTO dispute settlement process were fully functional, it is often unable to address unfair trade practices in time to prevent irreversible harm.

A task force could be the venue for government officials to jointly decide what kinds of industrial policies are considered acceptable and which should be avoided. It could also be a space to discuss controversial topics, such as friendshoring, strategic trade autonomy, and economic security, in a multilateral setting to determine what governments seek to achieve with these policies. To avoid an industrial policy arms race, in which countries’ desire to keep their EV industry competitive lead to ever increasing sizes of subsidies, the G20 task force should facilitate ongoing dialogue about the composition and distribution of EV supply chains; discussions should include shared information on country governments’ production and consumer supports and proactively address concerns about potential overcapacity and trade dumping.

Sticking points

Alongside the three policy objectives, there are three challenges the G20 dialogues recommended above should address and seek to resolve through diplomatic engagement:

Trade and investment restrictions are an obstacle to diversifying critical mineral supply chains: As governments contemplate increasingly aggressive use of export controls, financial sanctions, and entity listings of individuals and their businesses in support of a range of policy objectives, G20 members should consider how such actions may generate unanticipated and undesirable effects in critical mineral supply chains. For example, some in the US Congress are advocating for the use of full blocking sanctions on companies with ties to the PRC’s military. As more countries welcome Chinese FDI to enhance their domestic critical mineral capabilities, to what extent might the more aggressive use of specially designated nationals listings aggravate fragilities in critical mineral chains and generate layoffs and employment challenges in third countries?
Most G20 governments will need foreign investment and technology to build local EV capacity, which makes safeguarding national security and ownership in the industry challenging: Traditionally, governments have been keen to attract investment in emerging technology and manufacturing, as it helps generate employment and facilitate technology transfer, and enables domestic firms to move up industrial value chains. However, as governments become more attuned to overconcentration of ownership in critical supply chains, how should they balance a mandate to attract investment with a desire to prevent foreign companies from overwhelming the ability of domestic firms to develop their own capacities in industries with national security applications? Will the growing incidence of greenfield EV investment by China lead to increased review of these kinds of investments? How should governments evaluate these concerns with respect to outbound investment? Until now, the United States and the EU have been careful to omit battery technology from the list of outbound investment restrictions, but some political leaders have argued for restricting investment in such activities as well.
Location-based rules of origin concepts do not adequately address economic security concerns in a geoeconomic age: Tariff rules are built around a place-of-production concept of economic nationality. That is, what makes a battery Mexican is that it was assembled in Mexico and a certain percentage of its parts were also manufactured in Mexico. But, concerns over ownership in global supply chains complicates this place-of-production definition. As governments prioritize diversification not just of first-tier but also second- and third-tier suppliers, do rules of origin concepts need to change to address concerns that a battery assembled in a Mexican plant owned by a Mexican company generates more diversification in the battery supply chain than a battery assembled in a Mexican plant owned by a Chinese company? How would a change in the definition of economic nationality fundamentally change existing international trade law, and thereby multinational firms’ global operations?

Conclusion

The transition from ICE vehicles to EVs presents substantial opportunities for and threats to the G20 economies. While much of the policy conversation has focused on China’s dominance of the battery supply chain and related critical minerals, as well as their growing dominance in EV exports in the context of substantial domestic over-capacity, it is important for policymakers to expand dialogues beyond bilateral hand-wringing over what Chinese EV dominance means for the United States or the EU and to invite global leaders to grapple with far-reaching policy challenges that affect a broad community of nations. It is also vital that the dialogues take place not only among close friends but also among countries with differing views and preferences for how to resolve shared challenges tied to the electric mobility transition.

This policy report advances the discussion in three ways:

Establishes a reason why the G20 is an important forum for policy dialogues around the EV transition and related issues of supply chains, national security considerations, and supportive infrastructure.
Amasses data across various sources to provide intuitions about key features of the current EV trade and investment supply chain, as well as emerging trends in industrial policies designed to bolster domestic transitions from ICE to EV manufacturing.
Provides a set of core areas over which G20 dialogues should focus, along with a set of policy recommendations as well as thorny problems that will need sustained conversations to adjudicate.

As the G20 looks forward to South Africa’s 2025 presidency and the United States’ presidency in 2026, leaders will need to identify the group’s key priorities in the coming years. Attending to the multi-layered policy challenges posed by electric vehicles could generate real progress on a host of issues that are central to G20 economies and the global community: industrial transitions, supply chain resilience, climate change, national security, data privacy, critical infrastructure, trade, and investment policy. While existing G20 working groups may touch on EV policy from various angles, there is no single group that is devoted to this issue. And because EVs touch on so many of the G20’s concerns, the topic deserves a dedicated task force to promote meaningful dialogue across disparate G20 members in the service of reaching a mutual understanding of these contentious issues and agreement on how to effectively manage them.

Appendix

About the author

Sarah Bauerle Danzman is a resident senior fellow with the GeoEconomics Center’s Economic Statecraft Initiative. She is also an associate professor of international studies at Indiana University Bloomington where she specializes in the political economy of international investment and finance. From 2019 to 2020, she was a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow, working in the US Department of State as a policy advisor and foreign investment security case analyst in the Office of Investment Affairs.

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Asat quoted in Nikkei Asia on UN HCR urging China to review Xinjiang policies tied to rights abuses

Atlantic Council — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:29:47 +0000

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Asat quoted in VOA News on China’s willingness to engage with UN human rights body in Xinjiang

Atlantic Council — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:29:45 +0000

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Ukraine ratifies Rome Statute but must address concerns over ICC jurisdiction

Celeste Kmiotek — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 18:50:30 +0000

On August 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy submitted a bill to the Ukrainian parliament on ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would make Ukraine an ICC member state. Parliament duly ratified the bill on August 21, and President Zelenskyy signed it into law on August 24.

This is a positive step for accountability, and is in line with the Ukrainian government’s ongoing support for international justice efforts. Unfortunately, however, the news was marred by the Ukraine government’s reported invocation of a provision which would deny the ICC jurisdiction over war crimes committed by its nationals for seven years.

Ukraine signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but did not ratify it. In 2001, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled on the constitutionality of ratifying the Rome Statute, finding that Article 124 of the Ukrainian Constitution prohibited “supplementing the judicial system of Ukraine” and therefore was incompatible with the Rome Statute. This Article was amended in 2016, removing what was considered “the final obstacle” to ratification. In August 2019, the Deputy Head of the President’s Office indicated that ratification was a priority. A draft law was submitted to the Office of the President in September 2019, but was later withdrawn.

Despite Ukraine not ratifying the Rome Statute, the ICC has limited jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity (“core international crimes”) committed in Ukraine. Under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute, states not party to it can lodge a declaration accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction. Ukraine has done so twice: In April 2014 for crimes committed on its territory between November 21, 2013, and February 22, 2014, and in September 2015 for crimes committed from February 20, 2014 onward.

The ICC therefore has jurisdiction for core international crimes committed on Ukrainian territory from November 21, 2013. In March 2022, the ICC Prosecutor requested and then opened an investigation into the Situation in Ukraine. This investigation covers the situation as a whole and therefore extends to all perpetrators regardless of nationality. The arrest warrants issued so far have exclusively been for Russian officials, but the Prosecutor could request arrest warrants for Ukrainians if there is sufficient evidence.

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Ratifying the Rome Statute is a laudable step forward for Ukraine’s commitment to international justice. Ukraine’s Article 12(3) declarations were a sensible and critical stopgap, as became clear after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ratification adds additional depth to President Zelenskyy’s prioritization of accountability by ensuring that Ukraine maintains this commitment to justice after the war ends and by binding it to the obligations of states parties, including the provision of support and cooperation to the ICC.

Further, the bill seems to include the ratification and acceptance of the Kampala Amendments, which added the crime of aggression to the Rome Statute, without invoking the option to opt out of the ICC’s jurisdiction over aggression. The crime of aggression covers the use of force by a state against the “sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence” of another state, such as through invasion.

For states parties, whether the ICC has jurisdiction over the crime of aggression without a UN Security Council referral depends on the victim and aggressor states’ ratification of the Kampala Amendments and invocation of the opt out option. Under the Rome Statute, the Court cannot exercise jurisdiction over aggression when committed on the territory of or by nationals of a state not party to the Rome Statute, which means the ICC does not have jurisdiction over acts of aggression by Russia, which is not a state party to the Rome Statute.

Ratifying the Kampala Amendments therefore doesn’t personally benefit Ukraine in the short term, and Ukraine is still moving forward with efforts to establish a special tribunal on the crime of aggression. At the same time, it does show a good faith effort to expand the ICC’s jurisdiction over aggression regardless.

Ukraine has sparked debate by reportedly invoking Article 124 of the Rome Statute in the bill for ratification. This Article allows a state, upon becoming a party to the Statute, to declare that for seven years after the Statute’s entry into force for that state, it does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction for war crimes committed by its nationals or on its territory.

Article 124 was introduced during the Rome Conference after governments, especially France, expressed concerns that their personnel involved in UN peacekeeping missions “could be subject to politically motivated or frivolous prosecutions.” It therefore only offers protection for war crimes, not genocide or crimes against humanity. Article 124 has rarely been used. The ICC Assembly of State Parties adopted an amendment deleting it in 2015, though this has not yet entered into force.

In the Article 124 declaration, Ukraine seems to invoke only the active personality protection, which would shield Ukrainians from prosecution for war crimes committed anywhere, but not the territorial jurisdiction protection, which would shield anyone from prosecution for war crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine likewise tried to limit the ICC’s jurisdiction in its second Article 12(3) declaration to “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by senior officials of the Russian Federation” and Kremlin-controlled separatist leaders active in east Ukraine after 2014, despite a 2012 decision that rejected similar attempts.

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Ukraine’s approach presents several legal questions. First, it is not certain how Ukraine’s various declarations will interact with each other, as laid out by Dr. Kevin Jon Heller, Dr. Andreas Zimmerman, Dr. Tom Dannenbaum, and in additional discussions on X (formerly Twitter). The Article 124 declaration may supersede and thus modify or terminate the Article 12(3) declarations, or the ICC judges could decide that the Article 12(3) declarations preclude an Article 124 declaration. Alternatively, the Article 124 and Article 12(3) declarations may apply concurrently, such that Ukrainian nationals will be shielded from prosecution for war crimes committed outside Ukraine but not those committed inside Ukraine. Regardless, it does seem clear that the Article 124 declaration cannot retroactively change the ICC’s jurisdiction, so any effects would start once Ukraine’s ratification enters into force.

This leads to a second legal question of how the Article 124 declaration will affect the ICC’s jurisdiction. It is not clear if Ukraine’s Article 124 declaration can only limit the ICC’s active personality jurisdiction for war crimes without also limiting its territorial jurisdiction. Without previous examples on this exact issue, legal experts have looked to scholarship, the Rome Statute itself, and analogous ICC decisions. However, there is not yet any consensus on the issue.

Some view the active personality and territorial questions as serving distinct purposes and therefore read Article 124 as disjunctive. Others find it “highly unlikely” that the ICC would allow states to shield only their own nationals from legal scrutiny, and therefore expect that judges may view the Article 124 active personality and territorial jurisdiction limitations as a “package deal.”

Ukraine’s ratification of the Rome Statute is welcome news, but that doesn’t excuse the negative effects of the Article 124 declaration. On a practical level, Ukraine risks an adverse decision from the judges in interpreting the declaration. Namely, there is a chance the judges will rule that the declaration modifies the earlier Article 12(3) declarations and that this applies to both active personality and territorial jurisdiction. This would mean that the ICC will not have jurisdiction over Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine for seven years upon the Rome Statute’s entry into force for Ukraine, representing “a spectacular own goal.”

The Article 124 declaration also threatens Ukraine’s well-earned goodwill and “moral high ground” within the international community. President Zelenskyy has been an advocate for global justice and for the ICC itself. The declaration’s implications undermine this, indicating “a lack of confidence in the ICC’s capacity to fairly adjudicate war crimes in this conflict.” Any impunity stemming from the declaration would further erode trust in Ukraine, in line with President Zelenskyy’s own observations that Russia’s impunity in Syria played a “significant part” in its aggression against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s ratification inevitably comes with the risk that Ukrainians will be subject to prosecution for any war crimes they may commit, but Ukraine can mitigate this by holding its citizens accountable. Ukraine therefore shouldn’t need the protection Article 124 offers, and that protection certainly shouldn’t be considered so significant that it justifies the negative side effects.

Luckily, under the Rome Statute, an Article 124 declaration “may be withdrawn at any time.” The Ukrainian government has the chance to be a powerful and long-lasting champion for justice globally. To maintain its credibility and reputation, it must seriously consider withdrawing the Article 124 declaration from its ratification of the Rome Statute, accepting the ICC’s full jurisdiction.

Celeste Kmiotek is a staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. The Strategic Litigation Project works on prevention and accountability efforts for atrocity crimes, human rights violations, and corruption offenses around the world.

The UN finally advances a convention on cybercrime . . . and no one is happy about it

Lisandra Novo — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 20:47:22 +0000

On August 8, a contentious saga on drastically divergent views of how to address cybercrime finally came to a close after three years of treaty negotiations at the United Nations (UN). The Ad Hoc Committee set up to draft the convention on cybercrime adopted it by consensus, and the relief in the room was palpable. The member states, the committee, and especially the chair, Algerian Ambassador Faouzia Boumaiza-Mebarki, worked for a long time to come to an agreement. If adopted by the UN General Assembly later this year, as is expected, it will be the first global, legally binding convention on cybercrime. However, this landmark achievement should not be celebrated, as it poses significant risks to human rights, cybersecurity, and national security.

How did this happen? Russia, long opposed to the Council of Europe’s 2001 Budapest Convention on cybercrime, began this process in 2017. Then, in 2019, Russia, along with China, North Korea, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, Cambodia, Venezuela, and Belarus, presented a resolution to develop a global treaty. Despite strong opposition from the United States and European states, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 2019, by a vote of seventy-nine in favor and sixty against (with thirty abstentions), that officially began the process. Already, it was clear that the member states did not share one vision. Indeed, they could not even agree on a name for the convention until last week. What they ended up with is a mouthful: “Draft United Nations convention against cybercrime: Strengthening international cooperation for combating certain crimes committed by means of information and communications technology systems and for the sharing of evidence in electronic form of serious crimes.”

This exceedingly long name reveals one of the biggest problems with this convention: its scope. At its heart, this convention is intended to allow law enforcement from different countries to cooperate to prevent, investigate, and prosecute cybercrime, which costs trillions of dollars globally each year. However, the convention covers much more than the typical cybercrimes that come to mind, such as ransomware, and includes crimes committed using technology, which reflects the different views as to what constitutes cybercrime. As if that were not broad enough, Russia, China, and other states succeeded in pushing for negotiations on an additional protocol that would expand the list of crimes even further. Additionally, under the convention, states parties are to cooperate on “collecting, obtaining, preserving, and sharing of evidence in electronic form of any serious crime”—which in the text is defined as a crime that is punishable by a maximum of four years or more in prison or a “more serious penalty,” such as the death penalty.

Rights-respecting states should not allow themselves to be co-opted into assisting abusive practices under the guise of cooperation.

In Russia, for example, association with the “international LGBT movement” can lead to extremism charges, such as the crime of displaying “extremist group symbols,” like the rainbow flag. A first conviction carries a penalty of up to fifteen days in detention, but a repeat offense carries a penalty of up to four years. That means a repeat offense would qualify as a “serious crime” under the cybercrime convention and be eligible for assistance from law enforcement in other jurisdictions that may possess electronic evidence relevant to the investigation—including traffic, subscriber, and even content data. Considering how much of modern life is carried out digitally, there will be some kind of electronic evidence for almost every serious crime under any domestic legislation. Even the UN’s own human rights experts cautioned against this broad definition.

Further, under the convention, states parties are obligated to establish laws in their domestic system to “compel” service providers to “collect or record” real-time traffic or content data. Many of the states behind the original drive to establish this convention have long sought this power over private firms. At the same time, states parties are free to adopt laws that keep requests to compel traffic and content data confidential—cloaking these actions in secrecy. Meanwhile, grounds for a country to refuse a cooperation request are limited to instances such as where it would be against that country’s “sovereignty,” security, or other “essential” interest, or if it would be against that country’s own laws. The convention contains a vague caveat that nothing in it should be interpreted as an obligation to cooperate if a country “has substantial grounds” to believe the request is made to prosecute or punish someone for their “sex, race, language, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, or political opinions.”

Russia claimed that such basic safeguards, which do offer some protection in the example regarding LGBT activity as “extremist,” were merely an opportunity for some countries to “abuse” the opportunity to reject cooperation requests. Those safeguards, conversely, could also be abused by the very same states that opposed them. The Iranian delegation, for its part, proposed a vote to delete that provision, as well as all other human rights safeguards and references to gender, on the day the text was adopted. These provisions had already been weakened significantly throughout the negotiation process and only survived thanks to the firm stance taken by Australia, Canada, Colombia, Iceland, the European Union, Mexico, and others that drew a red line and refused to accept any more changes.

The possible negative consequences of this convention are not limited to human rights but can seriously threaten global cybersecurity and national security. The International Chamber of Commerce, a global business organization representing millions of companies, warned during negotiations that “people who have access to or otherwise possess the knowledge and skills necessary” could be forced “to break or circumvent security systems.” Worse, they could even be compelled to disclose “previously unknown vulnerabilities, private encryption keys, or proprietary information like source code.” Microsoft agreed. Its representative, Nemanja Malisevic, added that this treaty will allow “for unauthorized disclosure of sensitive data and classified information to third states” and for “malicious actors” to use a UN treaty to “force individuals with knowledge of how a system functions to reveal proprietary or sensitive information,” which could “expose the critical infrastructure of a state to cyberattacks or lead to the theft of state secrets. Malisevic concluded that this “should terrify us all.”

Similarly, independent media organizations called for states to reject the convention, which the International Press Institute has called a “surveillance treaty.” Civil society organizations including Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, Human Rights Watch, and many others have also long been ringing the alarm bell. They continue to do so as the final version of the convention adopted by the committee has failed to adequately address their concerns.

Given the extent and cross-border nature of cybercrime, it is evident that a global treaty is both necessary and urgent—on that, the international community is in complete agreement. Unfortunately, this treaty, perhaps a product of sunk-cost fallacy thinking or agreed to under duress for fear of an even worse version, does not solve the problems the international community faces. If the UN General Assembly adopts the text and the required forty member states ratify it so that it comes into force, experts are right to warn that governments intent on engaging in surveillance will have the veneer of UN legitimacy stamped on their actions. Rights-respecting states should not allow themselves to be co-opted into assisting abusive practices under the guise of cooperation. Nor should they willingly open the door to weakening their own national security or global cybersecurity.

Lisandra Novo is a staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council specializing in law and technology.

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Garlauskas quoted in VOA on Germany’s entry into United Nations Command

ylee — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 17:11:57 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On August 8, Markus Garlauskas was quoted in VOA discussing Germany’s entry into the US-led United Nations Command and highlighting its role in enhancing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Director

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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Panikoff mentioned in UNN on US-EU efforts to prevent regional war in the Middle East

Atlantic Council — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 14:28:46 +0000

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Dispatch from Rio: Can Brazil set up the G20 leaders’ summit for success?

Ananya Kumar, Mrugank Bhusari — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 20:14:51 +0000

RIO DE JANEIRO—As the Group of Twenty (G20) finance ministers and central bank governors gathered here last week, they were met with a dense haze rolling off the mountains that morphed into bright winter sunshine by day’s end. It was a fitting metaphor for the struggle, and for some of the success, of the Brazilian G20 presidency in trying to work through the complex geopolitical morass—especially the one caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—that has hung over these ministers’ meetings for the past three years.

While previous G20 meetings have been noteworthy for their disagreements, Brazil has emphasized substance and consensus over geopolitics during its G20 presidency. Felipe Hees, the Brazilian diplomat and sous-sherpa of this year’s G20 presidency, explained this strategy on July 25 at an Atlantic Council conference on the sidelines of the meeting. Brasília, he said, has sought to acknowledge fundamental disagreements on geopolitics between some members, and then to sidestep them entirely at the ministerial level. The big question now is: How long can this approach last?

So far, Brazilian officials have chosen to focus on economic development issues that already enjoy widespread support. Last week, this approach resulted in one of the few joint G20 ministerial-level communiqués in the past two years. Released on July 26, this communiqué displays G20 members’ alignment on launching the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty under the Brazilian presidency. It’s an important topic for the host country, since Brazil is the world’s leading producer of soybeans, corn, and meat, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has emphasized his country’s role in alleviating global food insecurity. At the same time, the issue has a wider resonance. At the Atlantic Council conference, Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, emphasized that “food security is a national security issue, and it should be labeled as one.”

Climate finance and the energy transition were at the forefront in Rio last week as well. Discussions focused on how to mobilize the public and private sector in achieving climate goals. At the Atlantic Council’s conference, Renata Amaral, the Brazilian secretary for international affairs and development in the Ministry of Planning and Budget, formally called for technical assistance from multilateral development banks for catastrophic weather events, such as the floods in southern Brazil this May. Immediately following the summit, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen headed to Belém, the capital city of the northern Brazilian province Pará. Located near the mouth of the Amazon River, Belém was a symbolic choice for the unveiling of the US Treasury’s Amazon Region Initiative Against Illicit Finance, which is intended to help combat nature crimes.

Another issue that garnered attention last week was wealth inequality, which the Brazilian president spotlighted in his speech on June 24. “The poor have been ignored by governments and by wealthy sectors of society,” he said. Despite disagreements on whether the G20 is the right forum for the issue, it issued the first ever ministerial declaration on taxation. While Brazil’s ambition was to move the needle on a 2 percent global wealth tax, the declaration simply said that ultra-high-net-worth individuals must pay their fair share in taxes. While this fell short of Brazil’s hopes on this issue, the meetings in Rio have done more on building consensus than the past two presidencies, which have been rife with outbursts over geopolitical issues between member states.

In 2022, the then G20 president, Indonesia, saw its plan to build international cooperation for the post-pandemic recovery paralyzed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. When finance ministers and foreign ministers met in April and July of the year, officials from Russia and from the United States and Europe walked out of the room when their counterparts spoke. Ministers failed to agree on a communiqué, and negotiations on climate and education also broke down over criticisms of the war. Ahead of the leaders’ summit in November 2022, Western leaders balked at the thought of sharing a table with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ultimately did not attend the summit. In the end, the leaders could only agree to a declaration that was a broad, noncommittal summary of approaches to addressing global challenges.

Last year, India focused its G20 presidency on depoliticizing the issue of the global supply of food, fertilizers, and fuels, as well as on addressing climate change and restoring the foundations of negotiations at the forum. Its strategy was to move geopolitics off center stage by highlighting perspectives from the “Global South,” including formally adding the African Union as a full member, and thus shaping the platform as an action and communication channel between advanced economies and emerging markets.

This was difficult. Shortly into India’s presidency, Russia and China withdrew their support for the text in the Bali statement on Ukraine. At the technical level, none of the ministerial meetings produced a joint communiqué, and New Delhi was forced to issue chairs’ statements instead. Since the leaders’ summit in New Delhi, the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023 has made the job of navigating geopolitical tensions all the more difficult for Brazil.

While the Russian and Chinese leaders did not attend last year’s leaders’ summit, the New Delhi Declaration was nevertheless bolder and more specific than its Bali predecessor. It set the agenda for the G20 for the years ahead but offered few specifics on how to achieve these goals.

Will Brazil’s strategy of sidestepping geopolitics work at the leaders’ summit scheduled for November 18-19 in Rio? Finance ministers and central bank governors can ignore geopolitics; presidents and prime ministers often cannot. If Brasília concludes technical negotiations on the various proposals ahead of the leaders’ summit, then consensus-building at the gathering will be easier, as geopolitics will remain just an elephant in the room.

If Brazil is successful, it can end the stalemate that the G20 has found itself in and remake it into a relevant economic coordination body—one that can adequately address the goals of its emerging market and advanced economy members. If Brazilian officials are not successful, however, the forum’s relevance may begin to wane.

It has been in the interest of the last few G20 presidencies to keep up the balancing act between the United States, China, and Russia. Moreover, it is likely that South Africa will follow this approach as it takes on its presidency in 2025. As many of the discussions in Rio noted, however, what happens in the US presidential elections this November could determine both the relevance and the tone of the G20 meetings going forward.

Ananya Kumar is the deputy director, future of money at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Mrugank Bhusari is assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

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Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia

Mark Temnycky — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 17:22:56 +0000

Ukrainian fencing star Olga Kharlan won her country’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 29, taking bronze in the women’s saber event. In an emotionally charged statement, Kharlan dedicated her medal to all the Ukrainian athletes “who couldn’t come here because they were killed by Russia.” According to the Ukrainian authorities, a total of 487 Ukrainian athletes have been killed as a result of Russia’s invasion, including numerous former Olympians and future Olympic hopefuls.

Kharlan’s Olympic victory has additional significance for Ukraine as she almost missed out on participating in Paris altogether due to her principled stand over the Russian invasion of her homeland. During the 2023 World Fencing Championship, Kharlan refused to shake hands with a Russian opponent in protest over the war, offering instead to tap blades. The Russian declined this offer and staged a protest of her own, leading to Kharlan’s disqualification and making it virtually impossible for her to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games.

The incident sparked a heated debate over the role of politics in sport and the continued participation of Russian athletes in international events at a time when Russia is conducting Europe’s largest military invasion since World War II. Following a considerable outcry, Kharlan was reinstated and received the personal backing of International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, himself a former fencer. Meanwhile, Kharlan’s gesture made her a hero to millions of Ukrainians.

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The controversy over Kharlan’s refusal to shake hands with her Russian opponent has been mirrored elsewhere in the sporting arena, highlighting the complex moral issues facing Ukrainian athletes as they compete internationally while their country is fighting for national survival. Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina in particular has attracted headlines for her decision to avoid handshakes with Russian and Belarusian players.

Some critics have accused Ukrainians of politicizing sport, and have argued against holding individual Russians accountable for crimes committed by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, supporters of Ukrainian protest efforts have noted the Kremlin’s frequent use of sport as a propaganda tool, and have also pointed to the often close links between some Russian athletes and the Putin regime.

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For Ukraine’s Olympic team, participation in this year’s Summer Games is an opportunity to provide their war weary compatriots back home with something to cheer, while also reminding the world of Russia’s ongoing invasion. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, many of Ukraine’s Olympic athletes have had to train in exceptionally difficult conditions. Some have been forced to relocate from areas that have fallen under Russian occupation, while all have grown used to the daily trauma of the war and the regular disruption caused by Russian air raids.

Ahead of the Paris Olympics, Olga Kharlan was widely seen as one of Ukraine’s best medal hopes. Born in Mykolaiv, she has been fencing since the age of ten. Prior to the 2024 Olympics, she had already amassed four Olympic medals in a glittering career that has also seen her win six world titles. The thirty-three-year-old Ukrainian star demonstrated her mental strength during the third place playoff in Paris, overcoming South Korea’s Choi Sebin in a dramatic comeback win.

Thanks to her new bronze medal, Kharlan now shares top spot among Ukraine’s leading Olympians with a total of five medals. She claimed her first medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 before securing further honors in 2012 and 2016. However, the Ukrainian star says her success in the French capital stands out. “This medal is totally different,” commented Kharlan in Paris this week. “It’s special because it’s for my country. This is a message to all the world that Ukraine will never give up.”

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

In this episode, Mr. Letta discusses his advocacy for the “Regatta Method” over the “Big Bang” approach for EU enlargement, emphasizing the importance of allowing each country to join when ready rather than waiting for the slowest in the region. He also elaborates on his proposed blueprint for EU enlargement success, which includes critical reforms such as on veto rules and the creation of a “solidarity enlargement facility.”

Discover the future of the EU and the vital steps needed to integrate the six Western Balkan countries into the new Single Market, as envisioned by Enrico Letta, a staunch advocate of enlargement in the Western Balkans.

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Hospital bombing was latest act in Russia’s war on Ukrainian healthcare

Olha Fokaf — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:58:08 +0000

The bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv on July 8 has sparked a wave of global condemnation, with US President Joe Biden calling the attack a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality.” Meanwhile, others have noted that this latest airstrike was not an isolated incident. “Once again, Russia has deliberately targeted residential areas and healthcare infrastructure,” commented France’s representative at the UN.

Ever since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two and a half years ago, the Kremlin has faced repeated accusations of deliberately targeting Ukrainian medical facilities. On the first anniversary of the invasion, CNN reported that “nearly one in ten” Ukrainian hospitals had been damaged as a result of Russian military actions. Underlining the frequency of such incidents, Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was one of three separate Ukrainian medical facilities to be struck by Russian missiles on July 8.

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The Russian military has killed a large number of Ukrainian healthcare professionals over the past two and a half years. Monday’s bombings resulted in the deaths of an least six Ukrainian medics. They joined hundreds of colleagues from the healthcare industry who have been killed since the invasion began. Russian military actions have also resulted in billions of dollars worth of damage to Ukrainian healthcare facilities. In many cases, this has made it impossible to continue providing essential medical support, leading to significant further human costs.

The campaign against Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is in no way exceptional and appears to align with Russian military doctrine. Similar patterns of attacks on clinics and hospitals have been identified during Russian military campaigns in Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, and beyond. Unless Russia can be held accountable for the targeting of healthcare infrastructure, it potentially opens the door for other countries to adopt similar military tactics in future conflicts.

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According to international humanitarian law, healthcare institutions and medical personnel are afforded specific and enhanced protection in conflict zones. Despite this status, Russia is accused of systematically targeting medical facilities across Ukraine. These attacks have been documented by the “Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine” project, which is run by a coalition of Ukrainian and international civil society organizations.

In addition to direct military attacks on healthcare infrastructure, research carried out by this civil society initiative has also identified a clear pattern of Russian behavior in occupied areas involving restricted access to essential healthcare services. Throughout regions of Ukraine that are currently under Kremlin control, the occupation authorities reportedly withhold medical care unless Ukrainians accept Russian citizenship and are otherwise cooperative.

It is also crucial to acknowledge the indirect impact of the Russian invasion on Ukrainian healthcare. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 has created a range of long-term challenges including unprecedented demographic changes and a dramatic increase in mental health disorders. The healthcare ramifications of Russian aggression extend beyond Ukraine’s borders, including the burden placed on foreign healthcare systems by millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

Prosecuting Russia for war crimes related to the targeting of Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is likely to be an extremely challenging and time-consuming process. Potential obstacles include slow judicial systems, difficulties in identifying individuals responsible for deliberate attacks, and problems establishing clear links between the perpetrators and the crime. Collecting evidence that meets international prosecution standards is also a complex task during ongoing combat operations.

In order to break the cycle of impunity, the international community must prioritize the investigation and prosecution of those who deliberately target healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel. This process should involve international and domestic legal systems along with the relevant UN investigative bodies.

Russia is clearly targeting the Ukrainian healthcare system and weaponizing the provision of medical services as part of a campaign aimed at breaking Ukrainian resistance and strengthening Moscow’s grip on occupied regions of the country. Unless there is accountability for these crimes, Russia’s actions will set a dangerous precedent that will lead to similar offenses in other conflict zones.

Olha Fokaf is a healthcare specialist currently serving as a consultant to the World Bank in Kyiv.

ylee — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 20:11:20 +0000

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On July 3, Markus Garlauskas appeared on CBS to discuss Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s recent meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Kazakhstan. Garlauskas explained that this partnership allows China to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and more effectively confront the US in their attempt to reshape the strategic environment and challenge the rules-based international order.

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Markus Garlauskas

Director

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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Bombing Europe’s breadbasket: Russia targets Ukrainian farmers

Hanna Hopko — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 19:07:28 +0000

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kremlin has identified Ukraine’s vast and strategically vital agriculture industry as a priority target. This offensive against Ukrainian farmers has included everything from the blockade of the country’s seaports to the systematic destruction of agricultural produce and infrastructure.

On the eve of the invasion in February 2022, the Russian Navy began blocking Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, cutting off long-established trade routes taking Ukrainian grain and other agricultural goods to international markets. This represented a devastating blow to the Ukrainian economy, while also increasing the threat of famine in countries throughout the Global South dependent on Ukrainian food supplies.

For more than two years, this attack on the Ukrainian agricultural sector has continued to accelerate. From Odesa to the Danube Delta, the southern Ukrainian port facilities that are so crucial to the export of agricultural produce have been subjected to relentless bombardment. According to Odesa Military Administration head Oleh Kiper, this has made it impossible to accumulate large quantities of grain in warehouse facilities, and is forcing the country’s agricultural exporters to operate under constant threat of attack.

Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure is also being systematically targeted across the country, with regular Russian attacks on equipment, storage facilities, and transport hubs. According to recent research, the total value of destroyed agricultural assets amounts to more than ten billion US dollars. Meanwhile, approximately two billion dollars worth of Ukrainian agricultural products have been destroyed or stolen and shipped to Kremlin allies such as Syria and Iran.

The scale of the damage done to Ukraine’s farmlands is staggering. More than one-third of the Ukrainian agricultural land dedicated to cereal production has been directly affected by the war, with about four million hectares currently unusable due to mining, munitions, or ongoing hostilities. A further eight million hectares of Ukrainian farmland is currently under Russian occupation. Beyond the front lines, Russia is also accused of deliberately setting fire to Ukrainian grain fields.

The Kremlin’s goal is clear: Russia aims to inflict irreparable damage on Ukraine’s agricultural industry, leading to economic collapse and depopulation. Ukraine has historically been known as Europe’s breadbasket, with the country’s agricultural sector serving as a key engine of the national economy. By blocking agricultural exports, destroying agricultural infrastructure, and preventing farmers from growing crops, Moscow hopes to undermine the economic foundations of Ukrainian statehood and pave the way for the country’s subjugation.

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Russia’s campaign against the Ukrainian agricultural industry also has a broader international dimension. The Kremlin is using food as a weapon to expand its influence throughout the Global South while employing a combination of blackmail and bribery. Moscow seeks to prevent Ukraine from exporting foodstuffs to countries in Africa and Asia, while at the same time looking to “replace Ukrainian grain” with Russian supplies.

In summer 2022, there were hopes of some relieve for the Ukrainian agricultural sector when Russia signed up to a UN-brokered grain deal. This apparent breakthrough sparked initial optimism, but ultimately highlighted the Kremlin’s readiness to exploit global food security concerns. The UN-backed grain agreement allowed for limited exports of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, but it soon became apparent that Moscow saw the deal primarily as an opportunity to secure further concessions. The Kremlin consistently sabotaged implementation of the grain agreement, before unilaterally withdrawing one year later when its escalating demands were not met.

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Ukraine has achieved some notable successes in defense of the country’s farming industry. Beginning in August 2023, Ukraine has managed to partially unblock the country’s Black Sea ports and resume grain deliveries through the creation of a new corridor for merchant shipping. Maritime agricultural export volumes are now close to prewar levels, underlining the remarkable resilience of wartime Ukraine.

The resumption of agricultural exports via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports represents one of the country’s most significant victories since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. This was made possible by the innovative use of Ukrainian drone technologies and the effective deployment of missiles provided by the country’s international partners, allowing Ukraine to significantly reduce the Russian Navy’s effectiveness in the Black Sea.

Despite this progress, much more still needs to be done in order to safeguard shipping lanes and allow for the free passage of agricultural produce across the Black Sea to global markets. As the trade routes that Russia is targeting lie in international waters, this is not an issue for Ukraine alone. Instead, there are implications for the wider international community, especially for other Black Sea region countries. It is important to hold Russia accountable for jeopardizing the security of vital maritime trade routes and for engaging in conduct that could be classified as piracy.

Ukraine has proven that it can fight back effectively against Russia with even limited resources. The Ukrainian military has damaged or destroyed around one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and has forced Putin to withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from occupied Crimea to Russia itself. Ukraine now urgently needs to receive fighter jets, long-range missiles, and air defenses from the country’s international partners. With the right tools, Ukraine will be able to protect its ports and agricultural infrastructure, enforce international law in the Black Sea, and safeguard the breadbasket of Europe from further Russian attack.

Hanna Hopko is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and head of the ANTS Network. She was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and served as head of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.

More senior Russian officials join Putin on war crimes wanted list

Andrii Mikheiev — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 19:31:45 +0000

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has this week issued arrest warrants for former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian army chief Valeriy Gerasimov for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the invasion of Ukraine. Both men face charges related to the bombing of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure during the first winter of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Shoigu and Gerasimov are the latest in a series of senior Kremlin officials including Russian President Vladimir Putin to be targeted with criminal charges relating to the invasion of Ukraine.

The ICC first opened proceedings into Russia’s invasion in March 2022. One year later, arrest warrants were issued for Putin himself and the Russian President’s human rights ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. Ukrainian officials say thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, with many adopted into Russian families or sent to camps where they are subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to erase their Ukrainian identity. This may qualify as an act of genocide, according to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute.

In March 2024, the ICC announced new arrest warrants for Russian Air Force long range aviation chief Sergei Kobylash and Russian Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov in connection with the bombing of Ukraine’s power grid. ICC prosecutors aim to charge the Russian commanders with the alleged commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity because they say the bombing campaign was part of a state policy of widespread attacks on the civilian population.

This week’s warrants represent a significant step forward in efforts to hold Russia legally accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine. The latest suspects are top Russian military officials and key figures alongside Putin in the leadership of the invasion. Both Gerasimov and Shoigu would be potential suspects in a future prosecution for the crime of aggression. However, the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this crime, while plans to establish a special tribunal remain at the early stages.

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News of the arrest warrants for Shoigu and Gerasimov was welcomed in Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the ICC decision “a clear indication that justice for Russian crimes against Ukrainians is inevitable.” At the same time, there is little prospect of Russian leaders standing trial in The Hague any time soon.

All member countries of the ICC are expected to hand over suspects to the court, but Russia is not a member. Predictably, Russian officials have denounced the court’s latest warrants as part of a “hybrid war” being waged against the country. Ukraine is also not a member of the ICC but has granted the court jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes committed since the start of Russia’s invasion.

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While it remains unlikely that the ICC will be able to enforce its arrest warrants, the charges do have potential practical implications including restrictions on international travel. Indeed, concerns over possible arrest for war crimes are believed to have been instrumental in convincing Putin not to attend last summer’s annual BRICS summit in South Africa. If Shoigu and Gerasimov had any plans to travel internationally, they may now be forced to rethink.

It is also significant that the latest charges include allegations of crimes against humanity. While there is no such thing as an official hierarchy of international crimes, it is generally accepted that crimes against humanity are more serious offenses than war crimes and incur graver penalties. This may help Ukraine to consolidate support for Kyiv’s peace initiatives, while also strengthening international efforts to bring Russia to justice for crimes committed during the invasion.

Russia’s bombardment of the Ukrainian electricity grid has been a particular focus for ICC investigators. This year’s arrest warrants address the period from October 2022 to March 2023, which saw the first campaign of intensified attacks. However, the bombing has continued, with Russian missile and drone strikes during the first half of 2024 damaging or destroying around half of Ukraine’s remaining power-generating capacity.

This destruction has left Ukraine facing a possible humanitarian catastrophe during the coming winter months. Officials are currently warning that the civilian population may be restricted to six hours of electricity per day at a time when temperatures typically fall well below freezing for extended periods. This underlines the urgency of challenging Russian impunity and demonstrating that senior Russian officials will be held responsible for crimes committed in Ukraine.

Andrii Mikheiev is a lawyer at the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory.

Holding Putin’s propagandists accountable for crimes in Ukraine

Kristina Hook, Anna Vyshniakova — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 13:12:25 +0000

At dawn in May 2020, a French police raid on a sleepy village near Paris ended a 26-year manhunt for one of the Rwanda genocide’s most notorious fugitives. By October 2022, 89-year-old Felician Kabuga was standing trial in The Hague for crimes without a statute of limitations: Genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, and conspiracy to commit genocide, among other human rights violations. Prosecutors singled out his role as founder of a notorious Rwanda radio station, calling this dehumanizing media a key cause of the genocide.

In early June, new developments in The Hague served as a reminder to key Russian propagandists, including one of Russia’s former presidents, that they may one day face similar charges. As allowed by Article 15 of the Rome Statute, a coalition of non-government organizations jointly submitted a formal Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into six Russian nationals involved in state propaganda. Notably, this coalition included international and Ukrainian groups, as well as one Russian NGO.

The Communication urged the ICC to investigate the Russians for criminal hate speech. The accused include Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current Security Council Deputy Chairman; Vladimir Solovyov, a popular host on Russian state-owned television channel Rossiya-1; Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Today; Dmitry Kiselyov, head of the state-owned media consortium Rossiya Segodnya; and Sergey Mardan, a popular television and radio host. The Communication also named Alexey Gromov, First Deputy to the Presidential Executive Office’s Chief of Staff, stating his role in ordering or failing to prevent over 300 examples of criminal incitement to violence from February 24, 2022 to February 24, 2024.

This initiative is arguably long overdue. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than two years ago, Russian state and state-aligned actors are accused of committing a daily litany of horrific atrocities against Ukrainians. In such a context, it is tempting to overlook the rhetoric behind these actions, but the Russia-Ukraine War illustrates the dangers of ignoring the threats made by powerful Russian media figures. Many in the Russian media have openly telegraphed eliminationist rhetoric against Ukrainians for years, setting the stage for the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. Their continuing threats against the existence of Ukraine, and against other Western countries, pose a direct threat to international security.

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Since 2022, it has become increasingly apparent that Russia’s highly sophisticated propaganda machine requires novel legal and policy responses. New dangerous and diffuse platforms for Russia’s inciting language and other disinformation continue to emerge. In addition to the kind of conventional propaganda most are familiar with, Russian actors now spread public incitement and more subtle disinformation through social media, bot farms, video games, movies, and manipulated content (including deepfakes). International law does not yet cover each of these categories, as older legal frameworks concentrate on historical understandings of propaganda in legacy media formats.

These realities pose serious challenges for anyone seeking to protect victimized groups from atrocity crimes. International law, including the United Nations Genocide Convention, prohibits all means of disseminating direct and public incitement. Still, Russia’s sophisticated networks of propaganda platforms make upholding these provisions difficult. As these challenges increase, Russian techniques of shaping subconscious dehumanization continue to evolve. This fostering of cascading radicalization within Russian society may prove even more impactful than one-time calls for violence, while being more difficult to trace and prosecute.

Some Russian efforts to stay ahead of judicial accountability are clear. Even the Russian authorities felt compelled to respond to Russian journalist Anton Kravosky’s call to drown Ukrainian children in a river (he was suspended from RT for these comments, although an investigative committee later stated he had committed no crime). After these events, some Russian propagandists became noticeably more careful, cloaking their rhetoric through allusions and metaphors. Still, even this “hidden rhetoric” often meets legal requirements for incitement and other criminal propaganda.

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The gravity of alleged Russian atrocities against Ukrainians compels international urgency to disrupt Moscow’s escalation in direct violence and associated inciting propaganda to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. Days after posting a profanity-filled acknowledgement of the NGO-led Communication to the ICC, Dmitry Medvedev followed up with a video showing all of Ukraine as “belonging” to Russia. This complete obliteration of Ukraine from world maps was the first time a top Kremlin official had overtly claimed the entirety of Ukraine as a stated goal, showing a link between words and projected actions.

The international community now faces a critical moment. It also has a unique chance to create a legal framework and enforcement mechanism capable of implementation through international cooperation. Beginning at home, Ukraine’s legal system requires amendments to systematize prosecutions in absentia for genocidal incitement. International partners must support these efforts by surging law enforcement resources to monitor the flood of calls for violence emanating from Russian media and from more shadowy Kremlin-backed propaganda platforms.

For Russian propagandists to face the criminal consequences of their conduct, international arrest warrants are indispensable. Bolstering political will for judicial accountability and opening criminal proceedings should be the two major areas of focus. To ensure accountability, Ukraine and its partners must now plan for realistic enforcement mechanisms that implement trial verdicts and deny safe havens of non-extradition. The words and actions of Kremlin propagandists have combined to fuel unimaginable atrocities in Ukraine. To protect Ukrainians and other victims, and to prevent further armed conflicts fuelled by propaganda, the international community must break the cycle of Russia’s real or imagined impunity.

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Anna Vyshniakova is a war crimes lawyer and a legal consultant, head of legal NGO LingvaLexa, and author of the book “Incitement to Genocide: How to Bring Propagandists to Justice.”

Özkizilcik quoted in Middle East Eye on Erdoğan’s relations with NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Atlantic Council — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 14:30:39 +0000

Deputy Director, European Energy Security

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From Vilnius to Warsaw: How to Advance Three Seas Goals Between Summits

Olga Khakova — Thu, 23 May 2024 19:30:27 +0000

Leaders at the ninth Three Seas Summit and Business Forum, held in Vilnius in April, raised the need for creating a permanent body that would institutionalize regional cooperation on digital, transport, and energy integration. While there is little disagreement among participating countries that such an office is needed, their views diverge on the location of this coordinating body, reporting structure, and coverage of its operating costs.

Solving these administrative problems is one of the biggest impediments to formalizing a secretariat. To ensure that the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), which convenes at the annual summits, can effectively and quickly address the unique challenges facing its thirteen Southeastern, Central, and Eastern European member states, associate states, and strategic partners in reaching common goals, its leaders must now agree on a structure.

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More than 900 participants joined this year’s summit, which every year aims to explore ways to tap members’ vast economic potential while fortifying against mounting security threats. They discussed ways to advance connectivity, economic growth, and broader security by overcoming shared regional barriers via the 3SI mechanism. However, making progress between summits requires institutionalization of the 3SI through a permanent secretariat body to maintain momentum and focus between the annual events.

How a 3SI institution could work

The secretariat could be launched and housed in a neutral, non-3SI city in Europe, preferably a financial hub, like Brussels, with a small permanent team whose operating costs would be covered by the 3SI country hosting the summit that year. The 3SI team’s initial guidance could include exchange of information between 3SI stakeholders, outreach to private investors, and the promotion of cross-border digital, energy, and transportation projects in the region, with a particular focus on the project priority list. In a sense, the secretariat would serve as a library of projects for inquiring investors. The 3SI platform can play a meaningful role in helping resolve top priority issues in the region, which were raised repeatedly at the summit, ministerial, and in private events (including those jointly hosted by the Atlantic Council, Clean Air Task Force, and Amber Infrastructure Group). These issues include:

Access to finance
Fragmented market
Supply chains risks
Russian aggression in Ukraine and the broader region
Commercialization of new technologies and innovative solutions
Workforce shortages

By addressing these challenges throughout the year (through the work between the summits), the 3SI stakeholders would create compounding benefits, securities, and efficiencies for Europe, particularly through 3SI’s unique power to connect traditionally siloed sectors and geographies and its magnifying platform for bringing attention to the top challenges in the region.

Leaning into the 3SI mission

Once a 3SI body is created, it can rapidly get to work on actualizing steps toward achieving its goals, including regional integration of resources, coordination of workforce development, optimization of external partnerships, and raising finance. Dialogue at the Three Seas summits has yielded broad consensus and support for these priorities.

Goal 1: Integrating the regions, markets, and innovation

Despite gigantic leaps in connectivity across Europe, regional integration is hampered by the lack of cross-border coordination, regulatory hurdles, supply chain risks, and market fragmentation. These gaps create diverging prices, inefficient routes, and lags in information sharing. 3SI would not be a one-fix-fits-all in resolving these issues, but the presidential-level platform has untapped potential to alleviate some of these challenges. 3SI is uniquely positioned to highlight the regional cost and security threats of insufficient energy interconnection, transportation routes, and digital integration. Priority-project lists should be frequently updated and expanded, something the secretariat can manage, to provide ample options for potential investors with projects’ bankability and other relevant details included.

Moreover, 3SI has a unique opportunity to embrace a technologically neutral approach while focusing on solutions-driven criteria: competitive pricing, carbon emissions, environmental impacts, and secure and diversified supply chains. To scale new technologies, the 3SI secretariat could support existing regional coordination on regulatory alignment to forge an easy-to-navigate investment environment. Cooperation on cyber security and kinetic threats across 3SI stakeholders can enhance protection for these technologies and infrastructure in the region.

Goal 2: Investing in a workforce that will transform the region

In addition to the work dismantling regulatory barriers, 3SI can contribute to forging an innovation ecosystem through building a talented workforce for the future. The Three Seas economies have a unique opportunity to exchange data around the current labor force and the anticipated talent gap in energy, digital, and transportation sectors. The region is already leading in science and technology education in Europe and can build on this competitive advantage by scaling the number of trained professionals through coordinating programs and forging an efficient education-to-workforce placement pipeline. The annual 3SI summits could include programming dedicated to student engagement, recruitment, and education on key opportunities in the growing sectors.

Goal 3: Optimizing collaboration with 3SI associated and strategic partners

Japan’s inclusion as a 3SI strategic partner this year is a testament to the value of global partnership on commercialization of new technologies and diversified supply chains. Several summit panels touched on driving Japanese companies’ investments in the region, particularly rail and communications sectors development.

3SI countries also have an opportunity to develop strategic priorities in support of associate members Ukraine and Moldova (complementary to the existing efforts), while exploring the potential to build additional energy and transport interconnections, as well as collaboration in the digital space.

Goal 4: Financing a secure, competitive, and low-carbon Three Seas region

An enormous barrier to achieving 3SI priorities is the trillion-dollar gap between where infrastructure stands today and where the region agrees it needs to be. National budgets are insufficient. EU funding is challenging to access and excludes some infrastructure and technologies. The Three Seas Fund, 3SI’s investment arm, can play an important role in leveraging private finance and helping match public and private capital to realize the projects. As the next round of the 3SI fund is established, attracting private equity will be crucial for reaching scale of impact. Cross-country coordination creates efficiency and minimizes risk for cross-border investments, particularly in addressing the grid infrastructure gaps and preparing roads for a safe, low-carbon transportation future.

Achieving a shared vision of the future

No similar coalition exists with focus on security and economic prosperity through integration. This shared vision of a secure, digitized, integrated, low-carbon, resilient economy is refined every year at the Three Seas Summit as new ideas are shared on stage, discussed during coffee breaks, and put to the test following the conference. With the formalization of a 3SI institution to build on the work between summits, 3SI could be an unstoppable platform for realizing the region’s rich potential and talent.

Olga Khakova is the deputy director for European energy security at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center

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Ukraine’s soccer stars aim for Euro 2024 glory amid Russian invasion

Mark Temnycky — Tue, 21 May 2024 20:44:01 +0000

The eyes of the footballing world will be on Germany this summer as the country hosts the 2024 UEFA European Championship. For Ukraine’s national team squad, the upcoming tournament is much more than a quest for sporting success. They travel to Euro 2024 knowing that their participation will help raise awareness of Russia’s ongoing invasion, and could also boost morale for the millions of Ukrainians cheering for them back home in the war-torn country.

“This summer more than ever before, our national team will be playing for all Ukrainians and for every single defender of the country,” comments Igor Gryshchenko of the Ukrainian Football Association. “Euro 2024 is also a great opportunity to remind the world that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not over and is currently escalating.”

Officials from the Ukrainian Football Association have sought to maintain contact with those currently serving on the front lines of the war. Gryshchenko says this engagement helps underline the morale-boosting role of the national football team’s success. “We see the positive impact our victories can have, generating a sense of pride and strength.”

Ukrainian national team coach Serhiy Rebrov has voiced similar sentiments. Following Ukraine’s March 2024 victory in the Euro 2024 play-off final against Iceland, Rebrov said qualification for this summer’s tournament was “for our supporters, for our country, for our people, and for our soldiers who are now protecting our freedom.”

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The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on almost every aspect of daily life, including the country’s football industry. In the days following the invasion, the Ukrainian Premier League abandoned the 2021-2022 season entirely. The league returned months later, with matches now mostly staged in western Ukraine without the presence of supporters in stadiums. Games are often interrupted by air raids.

For security reasons, the Ukrainian national team has been forced to train and play outside the country since February 2022. Ukraine narrowly missed out on a berth at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, but made it through the Euro 2024 play-offs to secure a place at the European Championship for only the fourth time in the country’s history.

Many of Ukraine’s soccer stars have become prominent supporters of the country’s war effort, providing humanitarian and military aid while also using their high public profiles to keep the invasion in the international spotlight. National team captain Andriy Yarmolenko is one of numerous players to donate significant sums, while colleague Taras Stepanenko was nominated for an award from FIFPRO, the worldwide representative organization for professional footballers, for his work aiding Ukrainians whose lives have been impacted by the Russian invasion.

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Oleksandr Zinchenko is one of Ukraine’s most recognizable faces thanks to stints with English Premier League heavyweights Manchester City and Arsenal. He was appointed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an ambassador for the country’s official UNITED24 fundraising initiative, and teamed up with fellow Ukrainian footballing icon Andriy Shevchenko to organize a star-studded charity match in London last summer to support Ukrainian humanitarian efforts.

Zinchenko has spoken about the conflicting emotions of supporting his country’s war effort from afar. “I really want to be in Ukraine,” he told BBC Newsnight in April. In common with many of Ukraine’s most prominent sports personalities, Zinchenko has concluded that he can have a bigger impact by leveraging his public profile on the international stage. “The question is where we are more helpful for our country,” he commented.

As well as individual efforts, Ukrainian footballers have also worked together to found the Stands of Heroes organization. This initiative was established to support the relatives of football fans defending the country. So far, Ukrainian footballers have assisted more than 200 families impacted by the war. “This is one way for Ukrainian footballers to help football supporters who are fighting and volunteering on the front,” said Ukrainian national team defender Yukhym Konoplya.

Despite frequent claims that sport should be kept separate from politics, Ukraine’s appearance at the European Championship will inevitably help draw international attention to the ongoing Russian invasion of the country. The Ukrainian squad will also be acutely aware of their role as ambassadors of a nation that is currently fighting for survival.

Ukraine can expect no favors at Euro 2024 and will have to overcome Romania, Slovakia, and Belgium if they are to progress beyond the group stages of the tournament. Serhiy Rebrov’s players will be motivated by the knowledge that victory on the football pitch could provide their war-weary compatriots with a much-needed morale boost.

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

H.E. Sheikha Al-Zain Al-Sabah initiated the conversation by sharing insights from her background in journalism, where she encountered diverse mindsets through storytelling. This experience highlighted her natural diplomatic skills, as navigating complex systems and creating sustainable solutions in business mirrored key aspects of diplomacy. These experiences and insights logically paved the way for her career in diplomacy.

Similarly, H.E. Hanene Tajouri Bessassi transitioned from an initial aspiration to become a physician to recognizing the diplomatic field as another form of healing. In her view, diplomacy involves listening to those in distress, diagnosing societal issues, and crafting viable solutions, thus paralleling the healing processes in medicine.

Like Al-Sabah, H.E. Amal Mudallali started in journalism, with ambitions centered on reporting at the UN. After achieving this, she ventured deeper into politics, eventually serving under two Lebanese prime ministers and later as the Ambassador of Lebanon to the UN. She emphasized the critical role of male allies in politics, where men predominantly hold power but greatly benefit from women’s collaborative and problem-solving skills.

In addition to winding career paths, all three diplomats agreed on the importance of a robust support system for success in diplomacy. Bessassi thanked her parents and husband specifically for the strength, independence, and commitment necessary to work in the diplomatic field. Echoing the sentiment on support systems, Mudallali highlighted her grandmother’s empowering role during her upbringing. She also stressed the crucial need for political backing, citing the potential difficulties and injustices faced without such support. Al-Sabah, similarly, underscored the significance of a nurturing ecosystem for achieving success. For her, the focus is on contributing back to this ecosystem and the broader community, often through mentoring other women, providing support, advice, and honest guidance on their professional journeys.

Navigating the field’s challenges

Bessassi then turned to the challenges facing women in diplomacy. She noted that despite Tunisia’s rich history of influential women leaders, gender parity remains elusive. This disparity is underscored by prevailing gender stereotypes that still hinder women’s effectiveness in all fields, including diplomacy. Bessassi argued against the perception that empathy—a trait often associated with women—is a weakness. Instead, she illustrated how empathy enhances diplomatic efforts by fostering consensus and compromise, bringing more people into the fold while working toward peace and cooperation.

The underrepresentation of women in global diplomacy was further addressed by Al-Sabah, who pointed out that women make up only 21 percent of ambassadors worldwide. She emphasized the importance of improving representation and noted that the participation of women on the panel, along with other women ambassadors in the United States from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Mauritania, represents significant progress in altering public perceptions about women in diplomacy.

Mudallali echoed these concerns with specific examples from the United Nations, where women’s representation has been backsliding; the number of women UN representatives decreased from 52 in 2020 to 46 today. She linked this trend to a global phenomenon such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as countries have become more brazen in rejecting previously held norms such as equal gender representation. She also noted the decrease in women’s participation in peace negotiations. In 2020, women represented 23 percent of negotiators in active peace processes, dropping to 16 percent in 2023. Based on analysis of real-world peace processes, agreements between negotiators are much more likely to be reached when women have a strong influence on the negotiations.

Al-Sabah added that 2023 saw a 50 percent increase in war-induced violence against women, reinforcing the necessity for women’s voices in peace negotiations. This backslide in gender representation, Mudallali argued, demands urgent attention and action in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which focuses on women, peace, and security.

Bessassi acknowledged these recent challenges nut also emphasized the power of collective effort among women ambassadors, which has the potential to catalyze global change. Mudallali shared this sentiment,expressing her feeling of responsibility to do everything possible to elevate women, believing that these challenges require structured, codified solutions. Al-Sabah concluded by underscoring the importance of integrating advocacy into diplomacy to empower women effectively. In Kuwait, for instance, the government established the Department of Human Rights within the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in part to address women’s empowerment. Internationally, too, organizations with similar aims must work together to implement Resolution 1325 to ensure countries adhere to international principles of women’s empowerment. For young women in the MENA region and beyond, seeing women in these roles not only offers a glimpse of what is possible but also instills hope and inspiration.

The future of diplomacy

Building on the theme of hope, Al-Sabah discussed a significant shift toward civic diplomacy following Israel’s invasion of Gaza, with women taking on an increased role in this space. She highlighted the courageous efforts of journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh, Plestia Alaqad, and Hind Khoudary who have used their personal cameras and cellphones to broadcast their voices are around the world. Al-Sabah stressed the urgent need for greater protection of journalists in Gaza and around the world, who face harassment and life-threatening dangers in their line of work.

Continuing the conversation, Bessassi emphasized the increasing importance of multilateralism now more than ever in addressing global challenges. She called for consistency in the international community’s approach, as the international community’s engagement on issues like the war in Gaza must avoid “double standards” to effectively address challenges in diplomacy.

Mudallali echoed the sentiments of her colleagues, concluding the panel with a call for strong advocacy for peace. She pointed out that recent global tensions have shifted the focus from collaboration to competition. By supporting women in diplomatic roles, Mudallali argued, societies will not only lift but also enhance their prospects for achieving lasting peace.

The way forward

Over a century since the first appointment of a women ambassador in 1920, women remain severely underrepresented in the predominantly male diplomacy sector. As of 2023, women account for only 20.54 percent of ambassadors worldwide, a decrease from 23 percent in 2020. The disparity is even more pronounced in the MENA region, where women make up just 10 percent of ambassadors, the lowest regional rate globally, highlighting a significant challenge for women in MENA diplomacy.

Despite these daunting numbers in MENA, there have been some encouraging signs of progress. The United Arab Emirates, for instance, has increased its proportion of women ambassadors by 5.5 percent between 2018 and 2023, reaching 12.5 percent. Additionally, a recent Arab Barometer report has shown a marked decrease throughout the MENA region over the past decade in the belief that men are better political leaders than women, suggesting growing acceptance of women in political and diplomatic roles.

However, effectively capitalizing on these openings requires systematic and sustained support. Algeria serves as a cautionary tale where a 2011 gender quota led to increased opposition to women in political leadership due to the absence of systemic improvements or societal readiness for such changes. Conversely, Tunisia witnessed an increase in openness toward women political leadership after the implementation of a similar quota and was further bolstered by President Kais Saied’s appointment of Najla Bouden Romdhane as the first female prime minister in the MENA region. These moves demonstrate that political backing and continued support of women is a crucial component to increasing women’s representation at both the political and diplomatic levels.

In addition to national efforts, international initiatives are crucial. UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for women’s equal participation in preventing violent conflicts, is particularly significant. Supporting this resolution could significantly legitimize women’s roles in conflict mediation. This is supported by data showing that peace negotiations involving women are 35 percent more likely to last for at least fifteen years. Therefore, in the midst of shifting attitudes, a global drive for greater women participation in diplomacy, and the myriad conflicts necessitating peace negotiations, reform toward gender parity in diplomacy is as pressing and timely as ever for the MENA region.

Charles Johnson is a Young Global professional in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs

Explore the WIn Fellowship

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

May 3, 2024

2024 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

WIn Fellows participate in a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

The European Parliament is still learning its lesson from corruption scandals

Sophia Athan — Thu, 09 May 2024 19:09:26 +0000

Earlier this year, the Dutch investigative platform Follow the Money reported that 25 percent of sitting members of the European Parliament (MEPs) across twenty-two European Union (EU) member states have been involved in some type of misbehavior or scandal at the national or international level. A common thread throughout the investigation was MEPs’ entanglement with foreign state actors.

The report includes the now-infamous Qatargate scandal, in which several sitting and former MEPs were arrested in December 2022 for a cash-for-influence operation. But the report also includes lesser-known cases, such as a privately funded trip for two Irish MEPs to the headquarters of Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iranian-backed, Russian-allied militant organization in Iraq, to criticize US and European military action in Iraq.

The upcoming European Parliament elections in June amplify the urgency of defending the institution against foreign meddling. To accomplish this, EU institutions should codify stricter definitions of foreign influence and interference, and they should pass future reforms as legally binding EU regulations. At the same time, EU officials must ensure that the organization’s transparency and anti-corruption reforms are crafted so that they don’t infringe on member states’ civil society organizations.

It’s not just Qatargate

Qatargate was the most prominent recent scandal to plague the European Parliament. The scheme’s primary goal was to rehabilitate Qatar’s image before the 2022 FIFA World Cup by stifling European Parliament resolutions critical of Doha and drafting speeches for Qatari ministers at EU hearings in exchange for under-the-table payments.

The case came to a head on December 9, 2022, when authorities conducted nineteen raids with eight arrests in Belgium and Italy, complete with the seizure of more than one million euros in cash. The highest-profile arrest was Greek MEP and then Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili. Her partner, Francesco Giorgi, and his boss, former Italian MEP Antonio Panzeri, were both arrested and confessed to involvement in the scandal. Throughout the investigation, authorities uncovered evidence of three hundred alleged attempts to manipulate the European Parliament, with Qatar at the center of the influence deal, which was purportedly worth four million euros.

The Parliament continues to find its current, former, and prospective MEPs embroiled in scandals with foreign governments, often involving Russia or China, especially during election years. In March, the Parliament opened an investigation into Latvian MEP Tatjana Ždanoka, who faces accusations of operating as a Russian agent since 2004. Regional news sites published numerous emails linking Ždanoka to a handler in the Russian Federal Security Service.

Additionally, the far-right Euroskeptic party Alternative for Germany, currently polling second among German voters, has made headlines for major scandals involving its top two candidates for the European elections, Petr Bystron and Maximilian Krah.

In March, reports emerged that Bystron was linked to the Russian-backed propaganda outlet “Voice of Europe,” a platform that spreads disinformation and provides financial support to pro-Russian politicians in the EU. Czech intelligence authorities claim that Bystron received “about 20,000 euros” from the site’s Kremlin-connected operator. The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office has announced preliminary investigations against Bystron for “possible bribery of elected officials.”

Voice of Europe’s news reports would blend in with typical Russian propaganda if not for the political legitimacy they gained by featuring sitting MEPs. Additionally, some Voice of Europe videos appear to have been filmed at VoxBox, the Parliament’s in-house studio, using the heart of the institution’s broadcast system to disseminate Kremlin talking points, including arguments against Ukraine’s accession to the EU and in favor of peace talks with Russia.

In addition to the investigation against Bystron, Krah has been involved in multiple scandals. In April, German police arrested Jian Guo, an aide for Krah, over accusations that he used his proximity to Krah to spy for China. That same week, the Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office announced two preliminary investigations against Krah over alleged payments from Russia and China for his work as an MEP.

Can the EU defend its own democracy?

In the wake of Qatargate, the European Parliament and European Commission moved to tighten rules to protect the EU’s democratic process. Last September, the Parliament adopted new rules requiring detailed declarations on MEP private interests, reporting on external income over five thousand euros per year, and bans on engagement with paid lobbying activity that could directly impact the EU’s decision-making processes.

The EU’s executive, the European Commission, adopted the Defense of Democracy package in December 2023 in tandem with the Parliament’s reforms to prepare for the 2024 European elections. The plan includes rules designed to increase transparency and safeguard European institutions from corruption. This rollout is the most significant package of reforms at the EU level since Qatargate, but it could benefit from stronger and stricter definitions to maximize its impact.

The road to reform

First, the EU should provide stronger definitions for the most basic terms in the defense toolkit. Chapter I, Article 2 of the Directive on Transparency of Interest Representation on behalf of Third Countries (2023/0463) fails to provide working definitions for foreign “influence” versus “interference,” a critical debate in the field, nor for the concept of “transparency.” The absence of these definitions is detrimental to the EU’s enforcement efforts, as there is little consensus across the bloc on what these categories include and exclude, or whether they can be used interchangeably. This lack of clarity is understandable in the short term. Creating a narrow definition related only to commonly used tactics may be too restrictive. At the same time, creating too broad a definition could inhibit political participation. In the long term, however, the EU must stop relying on a principle akin to US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s nondefinition of obscenity—“I know it when I see it”—and instead create specific, workable definitions for the member states to enforce.

Second, the EU must keep legal precedent in mind when creating legislation relating to civil society. In 2020, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck down a Hungarian transparency law on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The law mandated that NGOs listed as recipients of foreign funding by the Hungarian government must declare their income each year to the state and include disclaimers in all publications noting their designation. The ECJ ruled that the law taken in totality had a “deterring effect” on NGOs. The decision noted that while increasing transparency is a legitimate aim, states must establish how their additional regulations contribute to increasing transparency, which Hungary failed to do. The ECJ decision demonstrates that the EU must balance its necessity for transparency legislation without overregulating, which could lead to the inhibition of civil society.

Third, the EU should pass future reforms as legally binding EU regulations, rather than as directives, which only require member states to create legislation at the national level. The Defense of Democracy package, for instance, issued directives, meaning member states have flexibility in how they interpret and enforce each of its provisions, which increases the likelihood that it will be enforced in a variety of ways throughout the bloc. Thus, to ensure that future transparency and anti-corruption polices are equitably enforced EU-wide, it is important that they be legally binding regulations.

Taken together, these reforms to corruption-fighting legislation will help the EU’s institutions defend their reputation, integrity, and accountability, particularly in an election year.

Sophia Athan is a young global professional with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

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Zeneli featured in The National Interest on Italy’s G7 presidency

Valbona Zeneli — Wed, 08 May 2024 19:27:00 +0000

Nonresident Senior Fellow

On May 8, Transatlantic Security Initiative non-resident senior fellow Valbona Zeneli wrote an article in The National Interest discussing Italy’s G7 presidency and the future of the Mediterranean region.

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Valbona Zeneli

Europe Center Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Albanian Corruption

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The UN Libya envoy’s resignation shows why the political transition is failing

Karim Mezran — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:41:24 +0000

The most recent United Nations (UN) special envoy for Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, resigned on April 16, announcing his decision to the press shortly after reporting it to the Security Council. He had been appointed to the post only eighteen months prior, in September 2022, following the resignation of his predecessor, Jan Kubis.

Bathily’s resignation was motivated by the UN’s inability to successfully support the political transition process that it has been trying to foster in Libya for more than a decade in the wake of the country’s civil war and enduring political fragmentation. As Bathily pointed out, the reason for this inability is that Libya’s various political actors are unwilling to place the collective interest above their own personal interests. Bathily bluntly described the leaders of the country’s political factions as lacking “good faith,” rendering UN initiatives futile and ruling out the possibility of any solution to the country’s current chaotic and unstable political impasse. His resignation, and his candid assessment of the political process in Libya, demonstrate the slim prospects for UN initiatives in Libya so long as national leaders remain unwilling to collaborate.

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Bathily described the attitude of Libyan political leaders as driven by a “selfish resolve” to defend their individual interests and impede the transition process through political and administrative expedients. Bathily’s criticism is directed at the major political figures in Libya whom the UN special envoy had often described as the “big five”: General Khalifa Haftar, Mohammed Takala, Mohamed al-Menfi, Aguila Saleh, and Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. For these five political figures, the transition process doesn’t offer any incentives, but rather would severely limit their current ability to control the political system and the national economy. Particularly frustrating for Bathily, after almost two years of continuous initiatives that these internal actors systematically boycotted, the UN needed to put off a planned national reconciliation conference, which was initially scheduled for April 28 and is now postponed indefinitely due to the rival parties’ intransigence.

The reasons for Bathily’s criticisms are clear. Although a relative calm has returned to the country since the failure of Haftar’s siege of Tripoli in 2020, this calm has not facilitated the resumption of national dialogue nor the start of the necessary transition process to organize national elections. Instead, this quiet period has allowed the different political factions’ balance of power to freeze in place. They are now unwilling to give up their respective spheres of power by initiating an unpredictable transition to elections that could subvert the status quo.

The web of individual political interests, moreover, is closely linked to a variegated framework of parallel interests, including control of the economy, corruption, management of the various militias that control most of Tripolitania (although in a disorganized manner), and deep ties with organized crime, which runs trafficking of all kinds in Libya.

Bathily’s resignation thus demonstrates how the role of the UN special envoy to Libya has become frustrating and devoid of real prospects over time. In 2020, Ghassan Salame resigned after two years in office citing health reasons, although he expressed deep disappointment at how the transition process had been systematically opposed by both local actors and the foreign powers and regional actors that have been intermingling in Libya since the 2011 revolution. He was succeeded by Jan Kubis, who in turn resigned in 2021 without clearly specifying the reasons, although he had clearly determined that it was impossible to fulfil his mandate.

The question remains how and whether the United Nations intends to appoint a new special representative. Talk among insiders indicates that the next special envoy could be Stephanie Koury, currently the vice head of the UN mission in Libya, who would take up the post on an interim basis pending new guidelines from the Security Council.

But regardless of who replaces Bathily, the next special envoy will not be able to solve Libya’s longstanding political impasse as long as the leaders of the country’s factions remain unwilling to meaningfully engage with the UN’s initiatives. The country’s political stasis is unlikely to shift anytime soon.

Karim Mezran is director of the North Africa Initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

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Don’t look away: The Taliban’s mistreatment of women has global ramifications

Samira Abrar — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:54:11 +0000

The Taliban’s well-documented oppression is more than just a problem for the women and girls of Afghanistan. The country’s misrule is a signal to the world that gender-based discrimination can be ignored—even condoned. This perpetuates impunity and poses a grave risk of normalizing extremists. It’s time for those who built the international human rights system to step up and defend it.

Despite initial promises of moderation and a pledge to the United Nations (UN) when the group seized power in 2021, the Taliban has swiftly restored oppressive policies reminiscent of its previous rule in the late 1990s.

In less than three years, the Taliban has issued more than fifty edicts and directives imposing strict measures to bar women from participation in public and political life. These measures include restricting women’s access to education, employment, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, access to public spaces, health care, and access to justice.

A UN experts report said the situation may amount to “gender apartheid,” with the Taliban “governing by systemic discrimination with the intention to subject women and girls to total domination.”

Violations of international law

As reported by the UN Human Rights Council, the Taliban significantly restricts women’s participation in society and denies them avenues for seeking justice and redress. Women who speak out against these restrictions or advocate for their rights face severe consequences, including harassment, violence, imprisonment, and death. The Taliban also targets women activists, professionals, and both men and women who are supporters of women’s rights, viewing them as threats to their authority. The situation has deteriorated further in the past few months, as evidenced by recent extrajudicial arrests and forced disappearances. There has also been an alarming increase in gender-related killings (femicide).

The Taliban’s gender apartheid policies deliberately violate international legal frameworks to which Afghanistan is still bound, perpetuating a cycle of gender-based discrimination and brutality. International law on the protection of women’s rights is unequivocal. It emphasizes the fundamental responsibility of governing authorities to promote and safeguard the rights of women in all aspects of their lives.

The International Bill of Human Rights—which is comprised of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—guarantees the right to equality and nondiscrimination. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women explicitly prohibits gender-based discrimination, obligating state parties to ensure gender equality in all spheres of life. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) criminalizes gender persecution as a crime against humanity under article 7.

The ICC’s 2022 Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution broadens the scope of targeted individuals beyond direct members of a particular group to include that group’s sympathizers and affiliates. This inclusive stance is particularly relevant for Afghanistan. In schools that ban girls, staff—including male teachers—who teach girls can also be targeted. Similarly, journalists are targeted and face persecution for their coverage of violations of women’s basic human rights. Such incidents, which fall under the ICC’s purview, highlight the interconnectedness of gender-related issues and the diverse ways individuals can be affected by gender-based persecution.

The Taliban’s capital and corporal punishments target women more often than men. Despite Afghanistan’s ratification of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Taliban persists in brutally treating and punishing women. Taliban punishments, ranging from public floggings to executions, demonstrate a deliberate effort to instill fear and maintain control over women’s lives, flagrantly violating the Convention against Torture.

When the Taliban shields perpetrators from accountability, including insulating its own system, it further perpetuates a cycle of violence. Under the current regime, documentation of human rights abuses has become nearly impossible. The Taliban’s restrictions on international and local human rights organizations and media, including censorship and intimidation tactics, have severely hindered their ability to document and report these violations. The absence of comprehensive reporting on human rights abuses under the Taliban not only obscures the true extent of the violations but also allows perpetrators to act with impunity.

The broader international significance

The ongoing violations perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan, particularly on women, have sparked diplomatic condemnation from the international community. However, this condemnation exposes a deeper issue: the weakening consensus among members of the international community on how to effectively respond to such crises. One of the primary risks associated with this trend is the normalization of the extremists. Engaging with the Taliban and normalizing relations without meaningful concessions on human rights encourages the Taliban and other repressive regimes, signaling that they can flout international norms with impunity.

This impunity gravely undermines more than two decades’ worth of efforts to achieve justice, reconciliation, and sustainable peace in Afghanistan. The Taliban has not only refused to acknowledge its past atrocities but also enjoys impunity for its current actions.

The continued impunity not only denies justice to women survivors but also sends a dangerous message that violence against women can be tolerated and even condoned, with far-reaching implications. The denial of education and participation in public life hinders the development and empowerment of women and girls, perpetuating cycles of poverty, inequality, and marginalization. It also undermines fundamental principles of justice and human rights, eroding trust in the ability of international institutions to provide justice and accountability. This lack of accountability also enables the Taliban to spread extremist ideologies, creating a nurturing environment for conflict and terrorism, with dire implications for regional stability.

What the international community can do

Considering the dire situation in Afghanistan, the UN should take a lead role in establishing robust accountability mechanisms. This may entail creating an independent investigative body to monitor and document human rights abuses and violations of international law.

The UN should also change its approach to the Taliban. Instead of engaging with the regime without conditions, the UN should work with regional and global partners and directly with the Afghan people, including civil society, to develop a unified strategy that prioritizes women, human rights, and security, rather than legitimizing a regime that promotes oppression and instability. Taliban leaders’ rigid ideology means dialogue with them is futile. Moreover, targeted sanctions and travel bans on Taliban leaders should be imposed. The UN can leverage its authority and resources to coordinate efforts among member states and ensure a unified approach to the crisis within the organization.

At the same time, the international community can use diplomatic engagement to exert pressure on the Taliban to respect international human rights standards. Diplomatic recognition, aid, and other forms of cooperation should be conditioned on tangible improvements in human rights and accountability.

Human rights organizations outside Afghanistan play a crucial role in amplifying the voices of Afghan women and advocating for their rights. These organizations should mobilize support for Afghan civil society groups and grassroots organizations, particularly those championing human rights and women’s rights. By collaborating with local activists and providing resources, these organizations can help promote accountability and protect vulnerable populations—particularly women.

Samira Abrar is human rights activist currently working in the field of immigration law in the United States.

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Dispatch from Rome: Political stability gives Italy a chance to step into the spotlight

Jörn Fleck, Rachel Rizzo, James Batchik, Nicholas O’Connell — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:51:15 +0000

Historically, Italy’s political scene has been highly mercurial. But is it possible that politics in Rome is, dare it be said, boring now? Not exactly. Still, today’s political dynamics in Italy are not what international observers, or even Italians, may be used to. True, the country’s economic prospects remain weak, but Italy is living through a period of relative political stability under the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This stability makes Italy well placed to push forward its foreign policy priorities and leadership.

Stability at home translates to leadership abroad

Across the political divide, the consensus in Rome is that Meloni’s position is secure. A year and a half into her tenure, Meloni maintains strong approval ratings. She faces no real threats from the opposition or her coalition partners. Would-be rivals of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, including Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini and the League, have been outflanked. Forza Italia, led by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, is on the rise, but it still lags in the polls. Both those in power and in opposition predict that Meloni will last for the remaining three years of the legislature—barring any twists, which even now no one can write off in Italy.

An important part of this stability comes from the fact that Meloni’s foreign policy priorities are largely supported among Italy’s policymakers and fit within transatlantic priorities. Initially feared as another weak link in the European Union (EU), Meloni has shown herself to be staunchly pro-Ukraine. She is a Euroskeptic but not anti-EU. And while US President Joe Biden differs from her on several notable domestic policies, he has found an ally in Meloni. “We have each other’s backs,” Biden declared during their March 1 meeting in Washington. It’s an interesting turn given that, shortly after her election, Biden used Meloni as a warning to Democrats. She has played a delicate balancing act on China, officially leaving the Belt and Road Initiative—Italy being the only Group of Seven (G7) country to have signed on—while still maintaining economic ties with Beijing. If anything, Meloni’s domestic opposition criticizes her for a lack of follow-through, especially on Italy’s aid to Ukraine and the funds pledged for development projects in North Africa.

Uncontested leadership and support for its foreign policy priorities allow Italy’s government to be much more impactful abroad. This stability comes at an opportune time. Italy holds the G7 presidency in 2024 and for that reason is in the driver’s seat when it comes to advancing the vision of the “steering committee for the world’s most advanced democracies,” as described by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Stability and popularity also allow Rome to make its priorities for the West heard, most notably the security of the Mediterranean and Western outreach to Africa.

Recentering the Mediterranean

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and arguably before, much of the West’s attention has focused on Europe’s eastern flank—and with good reason. As a result, Rome’s focus on the Mediterranean can at times seem like a regional preoccupation, but the case for the area’s importance for the transatlantic alliance is strong.

The Mediterranean is NATO’s southern flank, and a rather weak one at that. Italian policymakers do not see Russia as just threatening NATO’s eastern flank. Russia has long played a destabilizing role in Libya, for example, funneling weapons into the country as well as deploying its own forces. This destabilizing activity directly affects Europe, impacting migration flows and propping up an important presence off Italy’s coast. Italy’s leadership in the EU’s naval Operation Aspides in the Red Sea provides a useful example of the role Italy can play in organizing its European counterparts, and Rome should seek to extend that leadership to provide greater security in the Mediterranean in the face of threats from Russia and other actors.

The Mediterranean region is also poised to play an important role in the planned India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). A major deliverable of the 2023 Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in New Delhi, this rail-and-sea infrastructure network has huge potential for countries such as India and for Italy and the Mediterranean region to be a conduit that deepens Europe’s ties with emerging new global partners. Europe could provide these partners with an alternative to deepening economic ties with China and boost sustainable infrastructure investments across the network. Italy is well positioned to carry forward this effort. But it needs to make sure this massive project stays viable and on the West’s agenda. Italy should use its current G7 presidency to garner greater Western support for IMEC, and position itself as a key partner on the European link of the corridor.

The infrastructure development race to the top

Italy’s focus on infrastructure goes beyond IMEC. Rome is paying greater attention to infrastructure development across the Global South and stands ready to build on earlier efforts by the West. In June 2022, the G7 adopted the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII) to facilitate six hundred billion dollars in infrastructure projects by 2027. The EU’s Global Gateway promises to provide three hundred billion dollars for EU-supported projects, also by 2027.

Meloni, too, has jumped into the infrastructure development space. She has made infrastructure a cornerstone of her foreign policy and of Italy’s relationship with Africa through the Mattei Plan for North Africa, unveiled in January 2024.

Rome’s Mattei Plan has several drivers that fit in with the West’s larger infrastructure push. First, the plan aims to help African countries build stability at home to limit migration abroad. Meloni explicitly stated this goal, as Italy remains a key port of entry from North Africa. Second, the plan is intended to position Italy as a European energy hub, deepening the economic link between Europe and Africa. Third, the plan fits within the G7’s larger effort to prove the West’s rules-based system is fit for purpose and to offset the influence of China through a truly nonexploitative partnership framework. Fourth, mineral-rich states in Africa will be critical to the twin green and digital transitions. The extraction and processing of these resources must be supported with sustainable practices that respect the rule of law and labor standards, and help countries move up the global value chain. Doing so will help in the West’s de-risking efforts to shift away from overreliance on China while boosting states’ long-term development.

Building relationships that are not extractive or exploitive will be key to ensuring long-term partnerships, and Italy has said it intends to take this approach with future infrastructure development. Creating public-private partnerships will also be important, since the private sector will play an integral role in the financing of said investments. But the private sector needs to be convinced that investing doesn’t come along with an unacceptable amount of risk. There is a role for the government to play in minimizing these risks, and focusing on the opportunities presented by these markets.

Italy is well suited to set up the mechanisms needed to coordinate these projects. With its G7 presidency, Italy should focus on deepening the coordination of projects such as the PGII, Global Gateway, and the Mattei Plan. The Mattei Plan specifically will require greater effort to be successful. While the plan’s framework presents a possible blueprint for increased European and G7 engagement with the Global South, in its current form it is humble both in the number of projects and the amount of financing proposed—just over five billion euros for nine projects—compared to the PGII and Global Gateway. For this project to really take off, Rome will need to find more money to invest through the Mattei Plan and expand its scope, while fully integrating it into larger investment plans.

Until recently, political chaos and economic woes have caused Italy, the EU’s third-largest economy and a G7 member, to punch below its weight. The current political calm won’t last forever, but in this period of steadiness at home, Rome can expand its leadership role abroad.

Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

James Batchik is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Nicholas O’Connell is the deputy director for public sector partnerships at the Atlantic Council.

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What should digital public infrastructure look like? The G7 and G20 offer contrasting visions.

Anand Raghuraman — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 16:59:38 +0000

The Group of Seven’s (G7) recent entry into the digital public infrastructure (DPI) debate marks an important shift in the winds of global digital governance. It’s as if the G7, which released its latest Industry, Technology, and Digital Ministerial Declaration in March, wants to send a not-so-subtle message: “We’ve arrived at the DPI party, and we’ve got some thoughts.” And indeed, they do.

For well over a year, DPI discussions have simmered in capitals around the world, drawing in policymakers, diplomats, and development experts alike. As a quick primer on DPI, think of it as the digital equivalent of laying down highways and bridges, but for the virtual world. Just as physical infrastructure drives economic growth, investing in DPI can propel inclusive development at a societal scale. Identity, payments, and data exchange platforms are often cited as the core building blocks of DPI, mirroring the multilayered structure of India’s famous homegrown technology stack.

India has been a trailblazer in deploying DPI at home and globalizing the DPI model. With its Group of Twenty (G20) presidency in 2023, New Delhi championed DPI on the world stage, securing political buy-in for the concept at the highest levels. G20 digital ministers endorsed a framework to govern the design, development, and deployment of DPI last August. And with the unanimous endorsement of G20 leaders, the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration from last November set the stage for accelerated DPI development in 2024.

However, as the G7’s foray into the DPI arena reveals, the conversation is far from over. There are still different views of what DPI is and ought to be, as well as how it should shape the way markets function. Contrasting the G7 and G20 ministerial texts on DPI reveal three important areas of contention.

Differing visions

First, there’s the question of scope and purpose: Should DPI focus on enhancing public service delivery by governments or seek to restructure markets and delivery of private services? The G7 ministerial text opts for a narrower focus, solely emphasizing DPI’s role in enhancing citizen access to public services delivered by governments, while the G20 imagines a more expansive canvas, where DPI serves as a conduit for “equitable access” to both public and private services. This distinction is not merely academic; it gets to the core of what makes DPI novel and contested.

What does it mean to use DPI to enable equitable access to private services at a societal scale? It’s an evolving concept, but the basic thrust is to leverage the design, deployment, and governance of DPI to “dynamically create and shape new markets” and advance policy goals. For example, with a market-shaping DPI in place, a system operator, often the state itself, can define technical standards for private service providers to ensure interoperability. It can cap market share to give force to its vision of competition policy. It can influence pricing and business strategies through system rules and design features, with the DPI operator playing the role of “market orchestrator.” This is a different paradigm for the digital economy than a traditional market-led model—and to DPI champions, that’s precisely the point.

Second, consider the motivations for deploying DPI: Should these include advancing competition policy objectives? When describing the objectives for deploying DPI, G7 ministers borrow from the G20 framework but make a notable omission: There is no reference to “competition” as a core rationale for DPI. This omission is fully consistent with the G7’s vision of DPI, narrowly focused on public service delivery by governments. For the G7, the task of building competitive markets for the private sector is left to national regulators and antitrust authorities, not DPI builders and operators.

By contrast, the G20’s framework invokes the role of DPI in promoting competition twice, and that’s no accident. All governments want competitive digital ecosystems, but some see overexposure to Western tech giants as compounding the risks posed by pure market concentration alone. In this context, deployment of DPI serves two related purposes: disrupting entrenched incumbent positions while increasing state capacity to offer core digital services that reduce reliance on Western tech firms.

Third, what about design principles? Should DPI require open-source tech and open standards? The G7 ministerial statement omits all specific references to open source or open standards; instead, it vigorously defends the role of the private sector in building interoperable elements of DPI, presumably using open or proprietary technologies. In comparison, the G20’s DPI framework pointedly and repeatedly emphasizes the need for open software, open standards, and open application programming interfaces (APIs). Ultimately, however, the G20 statement hedges on this question, stating that DPI can be built on “open source and/or proprietary solutions, as well as a combination of both.”

Nevertheless, speak to DPI theorists shaping G20 and Global South thinking on DPI, and it’s clear they see “openness” as a defining principle of well-built DPI, citing the role open architectures, open-source tech, and open APIs play in enabling transparency, scale, interoperability, and reduced risk of vendor lock-in. Still, fuzziness around the term “openness” and its application in some of the largest DPI systems deployed to date suggests there is much left to unpack.

How will the G7 engage with DPI going forward?

It’s clear that the G7’s vision for DPI differs from the G20’s in at least three important areas. The question that remains is what comes next: How will the G7 (or its member states) assert their point of view?

The G7’s ministerial text offers some early clues. It acknowledges that G7 members will have “different approaches to the development of digital solutions, including DPI” and notes that the upcoming G7 Compendium on Digital Government Services will collect “relevant examples of digital public services from G7 members.” The compendium would also summarize factors that have led to “successful deployment and use of digital government services, such as national strategies, investment, public procurement practices, governance frameworks, and partnerships.”

Developing the compendium is a good start. But looking ahead, G7 members will need to weigh in this year at fast-moving multilateral discussions during Brazil’s G20 presidency, for instance, or within the United Nations’ multiple DPI workstreams. In each case, G7 perspectives on corporate governance, privacy, market disciplines, and regulatory best practices will strengthen discussions and outcomes, just as the G20’s and the Global South’s focus on inclusion, competition, and openness help ground the conversation in public interest concerns. The push and pull of the different visions for DPI could yield a better outcome for all—that’s the optimistic case.

A pessimist may insist that the gaps between the G7 and G20 views on DPI are tough to bridge. And it’s true, there is a real difference between a DPI scoped for public service delivery and one intended to shape the structure of digital markets and digital services offered by the private sector. If the latter view of DPI holds, G7 member states may need to find new ways to constructively participate in global DPI discussions. This could involve promoting individual layers of the DPI stack, as the G7 is already doing with digital ID governance, and emphasizing the need for sustainable public-private partnerships for DPI build-out.

Ultimately, time will tell how the G7 chooses to lean into the global DPI debate. The only certainty is that the G7’s active engagement isn’t optional anymore—it’s essential.

Anand Raghuraman is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, where he leads research initiatives on US-India digital cooperation and publishes expert commentary on Indian data governance and digital policy initiatives. He is also director of global public policy at Mastercard.

Mastercard, through its Policy Center for the Digital Economy, is a financial supporter of an Atlantic Council project on digital public infrastructure.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Mastercard.

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Brazil’s approach to the G20: Leading by example

Hung Tran — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:36:26 +0000

More than four months have passed since Brazil took over the Presidency of the G20 from India. Judging by the outcomes of preparatory meetings leading up to the G20 Summit on November 18-19 in Rio de Janeiro, the headwind of geopolitical rivalry seems to have strengthened. The world is not only divided over the Russian war on Ukraine but also over Israel’s war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack last October. Against the backdrop of heightened geopolitical tension, these divisions have prevented the ministerial meetings from issuing joint communiques. This has prompted some analysts to call 2024 one of the most unpredictable years of the G20, with an “outside chance it could all collapse into rancor,” according to Andrew Hammond of the London School of Economics. The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will meet again on April 17-18 during the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington DC.

Despite the headwinds, Brazil’s non-aligned, cooperative, and practical approach holds out the promise of a constructive outcome for this year’s G20 meetings—especially if progress is not being measured by joint communiques (which have become irrelevant) but by agreements on concrete global initiatives. Under the overarching theme “Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet”, Brazil has worked with countries in the Global South as well as developed countries to build consensus in launching a variety of global initiatives by the time of the G20 Summit. These initiatives reflect the key concerns of the Global South but have built on previous international agreements and include practical proposals for implementation.

Brazil’s proposed initiatives

First is the push to reform the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization. Reforms to the UN Security Council—where five permanent members (P5) have veto power—have been on the international agenda for a long time. While widely acknowledged in principle, no specific proposal has gained any traction. Brazil has put forward the idea that a P5 member should not be allowed to use its veto power in cases directly relating to itself—somewhat similar to the Western judiciary practice of reclusion of judges in cases of conflicts of interest. This would have meant that Russia would not have been able to use its veto power when the Security Council discussed the war in Ukraine. Such a proposal will not get the backing of the P5, especially amid the current geopolitical rivalry. But it could gather support from many countries, and not only within the Global South—keeping pressure on P5 members to respond with counter-proposals.

Calls for reform of the IMF and World Bank have been widely shared by the Global South, reiterated most recently by China demanding a redistribution of quota and voting shares to “better reflect the weight a country carries.” The G24, representing developing countries at the IMF and World Bank, has circulated a paper proposing specific reforms. These and other ideas about quota reform are scheduled be discussed by the IMF in the year ahead.

Second, another of Brazil’s linchpins for this year is launching a Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty as a tool for reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. That initiative leverages Brazil’s position as the second biggest food-exporting country. Specifically, the alliance will not be about initiating new funds or programs but finding ways to coordinate numerous existing funds and programs to make them more useful to recipient countries and easier to solicit contributions from developed countries. It also will compile a basket of best practices in anti-hunger and anti-poverty policies to help other countries develop their own programs. In this context, Brazil will showcase its acclaimed Bolsa Familia family welfare program, which has helped significantly reduce the country’s poverty rate and has been adapted in almost twenty other nations.

Third, Brazil will launch a Task Force for the Global Mobilization Against Climate Change to spur the G20 to help create a conducive political environment for a new and robust goal on climate finance to be agreed at this year’s COP 29 in Azerbaijan as well as for countries to present their renewed and more ambitious Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) to reach net zero emissions at the 2025 COP30 under Brazil’s chairmanship. Brazil will also advance its proposed Global Bioeconomy Initiative to bring together science, technology, and innovation on the use of biodiversity to promote sustainable development. This initiative will also try to expand developing countries’ access to various fragmented climate funds including the Green Climate Fund, the Climate Investment Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and the Global Environment Facility.

Fourth, leveraging the momentum of the global corporate minimum tax (effective at the beginning of this year), Brazil wants to propose a global initiative to impose a minimum tax on the super-rich which France has endorsed. This will help Brazil rally support from Global South countries as well as others to advance the proposal.

Last but not least, in September 2023 Brazil and the United States signed an MOU for a Partnership for Workers’ Rights (in particular in the gig economy). They pledged to pass necessary national legislation to achieve that goal and hope to use it as an example to get other countries to join.

The themes across these initiatives are practicality, leading by example, and a willingness to bypass time-consuming, top-down international negotiations.

While Brazil’s proposals will not all be adopted at the G20 Summit, especially in their original versions, most probably will be with some modifications. This outcome, with or without a joint communique, would represent a serious contribution by a key member of the Global South to the global reform agenda. And it comes after the achievements of India in its Presidency of last year’s G20. If South Africa keeps up this track record when assuming the G20 Presidency in 2025 (when Brazil will chair the BRICS-10 and COP30), an important step forward will be made in establishing the leadership roles of the major countries in the Global South. They are showing the ability to rally their members and to reach out to developed countries to shape global reform efforts. And if those countries, working with their partners, can sustain the implementation of the initiatives they sponsored, that would begin to make meaningful changes in the current international political and economic system. The main risk, of course, is that geopolitical rivalry will derail cooperative efforts to address pressing global problems. It remains to be seen to what extent that will happen.

Hung Tran is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center, a former executive managing director at the Institute of International Finance and former deputy director at the International Monetary Fund.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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Russian Orthodox Church declares “Holy War” against Ukraine and West

Brian Mefford — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 13:10:18 +0000

The Russian Orthodox Church has approved a remarkable new document that spells out the Kremlin’s intention to destroy Ukraine while also making the ideological argument for a broader confrontation with the Western world. The decree was issued during a March 27-28 congress of the World Russian People’s Council, which is headed by Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill. It calls the invasion of Ukraine a “Holy War” with the explicit aim of extinguishing Ukrainian independence and imposing direct Russian rule.

Churches often issue decrees stating official positions on key issues, but rarely do these proclamations involve calls to violence or territorial ambitions. Russia is mentioned 53 times in the 3000-word document, underlining the very clear focus on the Russian state’s earthly interests. “From the spiritual and moral point of view, the Special Military Operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia,” the document states, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The decree goes on to stress Ukraine’s status as part of the wider “Russian World,” while underlining the need to extinguish Ukrainian statehood once and for all. Following the conclusion of the current war, it states, “the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter Russia’s exclusive zone of influence. The possibility of a political regime hostile to Russia and its people existing on this territory must be completely excluded.”

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The sentiments expressed in this recently approved document expand on previous statements made by Patriarch Kirill since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has frequently asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are “one nation,” and is widely viewed as a key ideological supporter of the war. Kirill’s comments have led to widespread criticism, including a warning from Pope Francis to avoid becoming “Putin’s altar boy.”

The new decree positions Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a larger spiritual struggle against the West, which it accuses of having “fallen into Satanism.” This is strikingly similar to the ideological arguments favored by Islamist radicals, who have long sought to portray the United States and other Western nations as “Satanic” as part of efforts to justify their extremist agenda. In addition to the Russian Orthodox Church, numerous senior Kremlin officials have sought to frame the war in Ukraine as an existential fight with Western “Satanism.” In a further chilling echo of the Islamist doctrine, Patriarch Kirill has also claimed Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine would have their sins “washed away.”

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Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

The Russian Orthodox Church’s endorsement of language more typically associated with religious extremism should come as no surprise. After all, the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine has been framed as a crusade from the very beginning. Following the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Putin compared the occupied Ukrainian peninsula to Temple Mount and spoke of its spiritual importance to the Russian nation. He routinely insists Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), and has labeled Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

The recent confirmation of a holy war against Ukraine and the West comes at a pivotal point in Russia’s full-scale invasion. Since February 2022, Putin’s invading army has been unable to overcome Ukrainian resistance or break the country’s will to defend itself. With little current prospect of a decisive military breakthrough, the Kremlin is now turning increasingly to terror tactics, including a sharp escalation in the bombing of Ukrainian cities and the methodical destruction of Ukraine’s civilian power grid.

By defining the invasion in explicitly spiritual terms, the Russian Orthodox Church hopes to whitewash the war crimes being committed in Ukraine and encourage more ordinary Russians to volunteer. Moscow’s recent declaration of a holy war also sends an unmistakable message to anyone in the West who still believes in the possibility of striking some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. While Putin initially sought to justify the invasion as a pragmatic response to the growth of NATO, it is now apparent that he views the war as a sacred mission and will not stop until Ukraine has been wiped off the map of Europe.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

In many ways, the G7 is already drifting toward establishing a permanent secretariat. The days in which the G7 was solely a “fly-in, fly-out” summit series ended with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as G7 members made regular contact with each other to develop global health policy and address the global economic slowdown. This dynamic was further reinforced when G7 leaders held emergency meetings to coordinate their responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, as global security continues to deteriorate, from the emergence of the “coup belt” in Africa’s Sahel region to the twin threats of the Israel-Hamas war and Red Sea crisis, the G7 must maintain political inertia to head off these dangers. Meanwhile, the current G7 contact structures are insufficient for the tasks at hand.

A permanent G7 secretariat would offer several important benefits. Firstly, with the numerous elections taking place in 2024, policy continuity after changes in government will be vital for global security. This dynamic is especially visible with the growing debates in the US Congress over aid to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. While a secretariat would not necessarily guarantee such aid, it would partially institutionalize such policies. Establishing an “institutional memory” in the G7 would enable members to develop more consistent strategies together, which will be vital to face the growing regional crises across the world. These crises, which were either instigated or exploited by the emerging Moscow-Tehran-Pyongyang axis, could even potentially benefit Beijing at the expense of G7 members if they do not maintain a steady and united approach.

Secondly, the expertise on intergovernmental and geoeconomic policy that the G7 needs is currently scattered throughout individual ministries and in international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Financial Action Task Force. Although contact groups between ministries and experts in the G7 have already emerged, these coordination platforms would strongly benefit from a permanent and centralized bureaucracy, especially under the continued oversight of an executive committee of the G7 “sherpas.” One G7 initiative that would benefit immensely from the oversight of a permanent staff is the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment, widely seen as the G7’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as the staff could coordinate more global large-scale sustainable development projects.

Thirdly, a secretariat could emerge as a policymaking body in its own right alongside the rotating G7 presidency. The G7’s occasional need to reconfigure its priorities and policies is evident through the return of its practice of external invitations, especially in the cases of outreach to leading Indo-Pacific democracies such as Australia and South Korea. Previously, these countries were invited to the 2008 and 2009 G8 summits, but due to the formation of the larger Group of Twenty (G20) forum in 2008, were not invited to subsequent G7 conferences until the 2021 summit. Oddly, Australia and South Korea were similarly not invited to attend the 2022 summit despite decisively assisting the G7 in enforcing sanctions on Russia and providing aid to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. Without a secretariat, leading partners such as Australia and South Korea must rely solely on the incumbent G7 president to receive invitations. This is a mistake, especially when both have leading roles to play in promoting security in the Indo-Pacific region. In its role as a policymaking body, a G7 secretariat could contribute to promoting standing invitations to Australia and South Korea, which could open the option to expand the G7 to a G9 with them, as proposed by Biden’s former Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

A G7 secretariat could start small. In fact, the foundations for a G7 secretariat have already emerged out of the existing G7 contact and working groups. Annual (and sometimes biannual) G7 ministerial meetings work in tandem with expert working groups on topics ranging from science and innovation to countering democratic interference. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also necessitated the establishment of the Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) task force between the G7 members and Australia to enforce sanctions on the Kremlin. REPO could set a precedent for similar sanctions enforcement groups on North Korea and other rogue states under a permanent secretariat.

Granted, the G7’s informal structure is flexible, an advantage that it has often flexed. Its recent invitations to Australia and South Korea to the 2023 and 2024 summits prove this. Nevertheless, a secretariat would not necessarily hamper the political flexibility of the institution itself. It would merely provide a base from which the group could expand operations. Such an organizational dynamic would not be novel either. For example, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations established a secretariat decades before it adopted an official charter, using the founding Bangkok Declaration to set the secretariat’s operational objectives.

Regardless, the growing convergence of autocracies like those in Russia, Iran, and North Korea poses a growing threat to global security, while China’s potential as a rising revisionist power could eventually become an even bigger policy challenge. Moreover, even though the international community has made significant progress in reducing the rate of global warming, the climate crisis remains at a critical juncture.

The G7 must outmaneuver all these risks. The establishment of a G7 secretariat would cement the existing progress the G7 has made on stabilizing the global security situation and climate action, as well as provide a platform for further decisive actions to defend the community of democracies.

Francis Shin is a research assistant in the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

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Afghan women’s rights are not a lost cause. Here’s what the international community can do.

Parwana Paikan — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 12:00:00 +0000

As the Taliban tightens its rule in Afghanistan, women face unprecedented threats to their rights and livelihoods. The Taliban’s oppressive regime, described by women of Afghanistan and international experts as gender apartheid, is a stark reminder of the fragile state of gender equality not only in the region, but globally.

Yet, the international community, defined loosely as the collection of United Nations (UN) member states, finds itself unable to emerge as a powerful and unified voice for the women of Afghanistan despite its stated commitments to gender equality. For years, international conventions and declarations have served as inspirations of hope and offered guidelines and principles aimed at safeguarding the rights of women worldwide. Now the people who wrote and advocated for these international standards must translate them into concrete actions to address the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis. These efforts should include codifying gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and prosecuting Afghanistan at the International Criminal Court. Moreover, any international engagement with the Taliban regime must prioritize ensuring its compliance with international law in its treatment of women.

International legal frameworks

Despite critical reports by prominent international organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, the standing of women and girls in the country continues to deteriorate rapidly. Women inside Afghanistan have bravely taken to the streets, and their counterparts outside the country have advocated for them in numerous international meetings, conferences, and private roundtable discussions. But these demands and protests have so far failed to garner a robust response from existing international legal mechanisms, obligations, or conventions.

Bridging the gap

The fundamental human rights that the women of Afghanistan are demanding are clearly defined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and elsewhere. These pivotal frameworks mandate governments and international institutions to actively address women’s needs and provide robust protection against any violations, especially in the complex landscapes of conflict and post-conflict situations.

UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, while nonbinding, expands upon binding conventions by clarifying women’s rights standards, even in states experiencing conflict or those not party to conventions such as CEDAW. The resolution extends its reach beyond governments and states to all parties participating in conflicts.

While UNSCR 1325 does not have direct legal enforcement mechanisms, it carries significant political weight. The resolu t ion “calls upon all parties to armed conflict to respect fully international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls” under the relevant conventions and to “bear in mind the relevant provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.” The resolution further calls upon all parties to armed conflicts to “take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict.” The resolution has promoted actions at the national, regional, and international levels. Civil society organizations, international actors, and UN bodies regularly monitor and assess progress on the implementation of the resolution and call for greater accountability mechanisms to ensure that commitments are translated into action.

As a United Nations member, Afghanistan ratified CEDAW in 2003 and adopted UNSCR 1325 in 2015, affirming its commitment to international legal obligations and the promotion of the rule of law. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan successfully submitted its periodic reports to the CEDAW committee and its status reports on the implementation of the national action plan on UNSCR 1325. Under the Taliban’s rule, Afghanistan has disregarded such established international mechanisms and is no longer abiding by any of these international obligations.

The group’s continued enforcement of oppressive policies and the lack of international accountability has reduced international standards aimed at protecting women’s rights to nothing more than empty rhetoric. Consequently, Afghan women and girls turn to the international community for robust advocacy and support, urging for their voices to be heard and for the use of all available international mechanisms on their behalf.

To date, the international community has failed to deliver. Countries with feminist foreign policies have sought to exert pressure on the Taliban regime and demand the protection of Afghan women’s rights through soft diplomatic meetings and statements. The recent statement issued by the foreign ministers of the Feminist Foreign Policy Network regarding the plight of women in Afghanistan, for example, employed significantly stronger language than their previous statements since August 2021, as they called on the international community to redouble its efforts to leverage all available legal instruments to end the systematic and egregious violations of international law against women. This call has not yet led to meaningful action.

The way forward

To effectively protect and promote women’s rights, it is imperative that members of the international community first agree to refrain from any form of engagement with the Taliban that contradicts their commitments and obligations under international law. This requires a coherent and unified approach, as well as proactive accountability measurements, to avoid contradictory behavior that would undermine the objectives of promoting women’s rights and ending violence against women in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, expecting an illegitimate group such as the Taliban to adhere to international frameworks concerning women’s rights is unlikely to yield significant results.

But the international community, in collaboration with civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and human rights groups, can take proactive measures toward ensuring accountability. One significant step would be to codify gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. By leveraging the instruments provided by binding conventions such as CEDAW, the international community could establish legal frameworks that explicitly recognize and condemn systematic gender-based discrimination and persecution. Over the past three years, there has been significant documentation of gender-based persecution in Afghanistan, including last month’s report from the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. The next step would be for state parties to CEDAW to pursue a case against Afghanistan at the International Court of Justice, either individually or through joint initiatives.

The CEDAW committee should support the re-establishment of Afghanistan’s CEDAW steering committee, technical committee, and drafting committee, both within the country and among Afghan communities in exile. While the current authorities of Afghanistan refuse to provide periodic reports, the committees of experts should be tasked with providing shadow reports.

Moreover, it is imperative for the International Criminal Court to collaborate closely with relevant states and international organizations such as UN bodies, as well as civil society organizations and other stakeholders, to garner support for its investigation into the Taliban’s treatment of women, particularly regarding crimes against humanity such as gender persecution.

The United Nations must adhere to fundamental principle before considering any form of “structured engagement” with the Taliban—a form of cooperation recommended in the independent report by UN Special Coordinator Feridun Sinirlioğlu. The UN should first prioritize the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and other relevant resolutions, ensuring that the rights and needs of women are fully integrated into its strategies and initiatives, including by facilitating direct discussions between women and the Taliban.

UN Women, in close collaboration with relevant states, must prioritize the revitalization of the focal points in Afghanistan’s UNSCR 1325 national action plan, which was established in 2017. These focal points, people who represented the relevant ministries and civil society organizations before the Taliban takeover, play a pivotal role in guaranteeing the participation of Afghan women in all dialogues. New focal points could be established under the auspices of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UN Women, or even the European Union delegation in Afghanistan. The international community must prioritize Afghanistan as a paramount concern in its policy agenda and cease engaging in actions and diplomatic meetings that inadvertently bolster the Taliban’s sense of superiority and embolden similar fundamentalist groups worldwide. The future of Afghan women and the international commitment to gender equality hangs in the balance.

Parwana Paikan is the minister counsellor of the embassy of Afghanistan in France and co-founder of Conseil des Femmes Franco-Afghan. She previously served as deputy director general of human rights and women’s international affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan.

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Leveraging generative artificial intelligence to outcompete strategic rivals

Jeffrey Cimmino, Andrew A. Michta — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 13:00:00 +0000

The Scowcroft Center’s project on twenty-first-century diplomacy

In 2022, the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security launched a project, with funding from Dataminr, to address how US diplomacy should adapt to meet twenty-first-century challenges. The first paper produced as part of this project considered the changing context of twenty-first-century diplomacy and how US diplomacy could begin to adapt. In 2023, the center hosted a workshop that brought together diplomats, scholars, technologists, and other experts to share their insights on the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence for twenty-first-century diplomacy. This paper benefited greatly from the insights of workshop participants, with the authors drawing on their analysis and recommendations.

Introduction

Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States is in a new era of strategic competition. Navigating this era successfully requires the United States to leverage diverse instruments of power—diplomatic, economic, military, etc.—to deter, outcompete, and, if need be, defeat revisionist autocratic rivals.

Much scholarly attention has focused on the potential military flashpoints of strategic competition, such as a potential invasion of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China. Given Russia’s demonstrated willingness to use force to prosecute its revanchist aims, the risk of direct military conflict between nuclear-armed rivals should not be taken lightly. Nevertheless, the military domain is but one dimension of this competition, and the United States needs to shore up its strength in other areas, including diplomacy.

The purpose of the Scowcroft Center’s project on twenty-first-century diplomacy is to produce the analysis and develop the ideas necessary to strengthen US diplomacy. This project focuses particular attention on technology’s role in bolstering the exercise of diplomacy.

The first issue brief in this series, “Twenty-first-century diplomacy: Strengthening US diplomacy for the challenges of today and tomorrow,” addressed the changing context in which US diplomacy is practiced and began to point toward ways the United States could adapt its diplomacy to the twenty-first century. This issue brief will build on this body of work by outlining the challenges and opportunities that are posed by artificial intelligence (AI) in the practice of twenty-first-century diplomacy, and offering recommendations for how to efficiently leverage AI to strengthen diplomacy. Notably, this paper will focus primarily on generative AI (GAI), the subset of AI oriented to creating new content.

As argued in this first issue brief, the diplomatic domain has been a key arena of strategic competition. China has taken steps to deepen its influence in international institutions, both to shape norms and divert attention away from Beijing’s human-rights abuses. China uses public diplomacy to cultivate favorable narratives about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including through Confucius Institutes at universities. China has also sought to bolster its “discourse power,” defined by our Digital Forensic Research Lab colleague Kenton Thibaut as “a type of narrative agenda-setting ability focused on reshaping global governance, values, and norms to legitimize and facilitate the expression of state power.” Toward this end, China has worked to increase channels for its messaging through traditional and social media, tailor content to target audiences more effectively, and embed Chinese norms and standards regarding digital connectivity.

This challenge is not limited to China: Russia also uses diplomacy to expand its global influence, especially in the Global South. For example, while a March 2022 United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine received support from more than 140 countries, there were notable pockets of opposition or abstention, including much of Africa. This was due, in part, to the diplomatic overtures Russia has made since its 2014 invasion of Crimea, including signing nineteen military cooperation agreements in sub-Saharan Africa over the last ten years and a tour of Africa by Russia’s foreign minister in the weeks leading up to the vote. It is also rooted in historical relationships going back to the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union was, for example, an early supporter of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress.

The salient point is this: Diplomacy is critical in strategic competition.

While AI has received attention for years, interest in it has erupted in recent years, in both the scholarly and popular imaginations, particularly as tools like ChatGPT have grown ubiquitous. The entirety of the US government, including the executive and legislative branches, are required to meet the challenge, and fortunately, the State Department has not sat idly by while AI has advanced.

In 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about the modernization of American diplomacy at the Foreign Service Institute, where he highlighted five pillars guiding the transformation of US diplomacy. This included building “capacity and expertise in the areas that will be critical to our national security in the years ahead, particularly . . . emerging technologies.” He noted that the United States has a “major stake in shaping the digital revolution that’s happening around us and making sure that it serves our people, protects our interests, boosts our competitiveness, and upholds our values.”

In October 2023, the White House published an Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. The executive order offers guiding principles for the development and use of AI and outlines actions for a broad array of departments and agencies. This includes calling on the secretary of state to use “discretionary authorities to support and attract foreign nationals with special skills in AI.

Also in October 2023, the US State Department released Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Strategy FY2024-FY2025: Empowering Diplomacy Through Responsible AI. The strategy begins by stating outright that the exponential increase of easy-to-use generative AI and the “once-in-a-generation opportunity” it provides the State Department must underpin the strategy moving forward. It then outlines four objectives for the department, including leveraging secure AI infrastructure; fostering a culture that embraces AI; ensuring AI is applied responsibly; and innovating. Each objective emphasizes the importance of the State Department’s staff in this monumental effort and indicates that AI will not replace employees but rather serve as a tool that will allow them to turn from rote administrative tasks to higher-level actions like personal diplomacy.

These steps demonstrate a recognition on the part of the US government and its diplomatic apparatus that it needs to get smart on AI and emerging technologies more broadly. This issue brief will support this effort by both explaining the risks and prospective benefits of AI for diplomacy, and recommending a path forward for seizing the latter.

In brief, this paper will recommend the following courses of action for the US government.

Look to GAI as a critical asset in engaging the information space;
Work with allies and partners to shape norms around AI and cooperate to dominate the commanding heights of this technology;
Leverage GAI as a tool of soft power;
Establish standards for transparency and ethical guardrails in the use of GAI; and
Reorient the State Department’s workforce to integrate AI.

Opportunities presented by GAI for diplomacy

Despite its challenges, GAI holds great promise for the future of diplomacy, and it presents a number of opportunities that should be exploited prudently. This issue brief is intended to be a summary, so this will not be an exhaustive list. Some of the opportunities presented by GAI include facilitating communication and enhancing negotiations; assisting in content distillation; and augmenting strategic communications.

GAI and negotiations. GAI has a role to play in facilitating interactions between diplomats and enhancing negotiations. Andrew Moore, chief of staff to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, noted last year that ChatGPT and similar tools are already helping diplomats prepare for negotiations. He writes, “As Nathaniel Fick, the inaugural U.S. ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy, recently quipped, briefings generated by the AI-powered ChatGPT are now ‘qualitatively close enough’ to those prepared by his staff.” He also cites the example of IBM’s Cognitive Trade Advisor, which has supported negotiators by answering questions about trade treaties that might otherwise delay talks.

Looking ahead, Moore argues that AI could play a more direct role in shaping diplomatic agreements, adding, “As more and more parties develop their own AI, we could see AI ‘hagglebots’—computers that identify optimal agreements given a set of trade-offs and interests—take on a key role in negotiations.”
GAI and content distillation. GAI has an important role to play in helping diplomats sift through vast quantities of information. This even applies to internal or even classified stores of data. As Ilan Manor, senior lecturer at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, has argued, “Instead of ChatGPT, imagine a ‘StateGPT’ able to analyze decades of internal documents generated by the State Department. Diplomats could view this internal AI to track changes in other nation’s policy priorities, identify shifts in foreign public opinion, or even identify changes in how America narrates its policies around the world.”

One caveat to this opportunity: The proliferation of AI-enabled disinformation could prove challenging to using GAI in a content-distillation capacity. Outputs generated by AI-sifted datasets should not be seen as foolproof.
AI and strategic communications. GAI’s information-analysis capabilities can be further leveraged to help with strategic communications. As Moore notes, the use of technology to solicit input from citizens is well-developed:

“More than a decade ago, Indonesia pioneered a platform called UKP4, allowing everyday citizens to submit complaints about anything from damaged infrastructure to absent teachers. Although technology can be misused for manipulation and misinformation, artificial intelligence can also serve as a powerful tool to identify these misbehaviors, creating an ongoing struggle in the race between AI that will help and AI that will harm.”

The ability to solicit input or review datasets documenting the needs and concerns of a body of citizens can be used to tailor public diplomacy campaigns. Moreover, AI can help diplomats engaged in public diplomacy to test messaging by sorting through reactions from various sources, including news and social media, to public-facing campaigns.

Furthermore, Jessica Brandt, policy director for the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution, has argued, “We can use AI-enabled sentiment analysis tools to better understand where authoritarian narratives are taking root in target societies around the world, so that we know where to focus our attention and resources.” Does it make sense to respond to a certain bit of critical information, or would doing so “actually give oxygen to something that otherwise would not get much traction?”

Given scarce resources, knowing where and when to devote energy to messaging and counter-messaging is just as important as knowing how to message. Using the nuance and know-how of diplomats and the data-distillation abilities of GAI in conjunction will be a boon to State Department efforts.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Nigerian Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Bosun Tijani during the Digital Technology Showcase at 21st Century Technologies in Lagos, Nigeria, January 24, 2024. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Pool via REUTERS

GAI and cultural diplomacy. GAI has a key role to play in strengthening US soft power, as it can support cultural diplomacy, including preserving cultural heritage through digitization of documents, audio enhancement, and content restoration.

Consider one example of the potential of GAI outside the realm of diplomacy: genealogy. FamilySearch, one of the foremost providers of digitized ancestral records, has collected billions of documents in need of transcription in order to be searchable. As one senior manager said last year, “In just a couple of hours, the computer can index more than you or I could do in a whole lifetime if we did nothing besides indexing for the rest of our lives.”

The United States is a global leader in the development of GAI technology, and it could take advantage of this to bolster its soft power by enhancing its cultural restoration and preservation efforts. As outlined above, the United States could help states index cultural documents, as well as preserve and restore important audio and video files, and items of cultural significance. For example, the United States and Cambodia first signed a cultural cooperation agreement on “preserving and restoring Cambodia’s rich cultural heritage” in 2003, and since then, the United States has helped return more than one hundred antiques and assisted with preservation efforts. The use of GAI could contribute to this agreement by helping to identify stolen antiquities, determine forgeries, and restore damaged artifacts or locations. Doing so will help the United States to form and solidify positive diplomatic relations with countries in the Global South that have been victimized by the looting and trafficking of cultural artifacts.

Challenges of GAI for diplomacy

AI holds much promise for the future of diplomacy, but it is important to be clear-eyed about the risks and challenges associated with it. In particular, GAI can be harnessed toward nefarious ends, especially in the realm of disinformation and misinformation. US officials also should be wary of AI’s limits. While it can be a major asset to diplomats, caution and a healthy awareness of where AI might fall short or have negative externalities is essential. Finally, AI, broadly, is predicated on a triad of algorithms, computing power, and data. This paper will not explore all three in a technical manner, but on the latter (data), there is a risk of distrust from diplomats and the public, absent transparency and ethical guardrails.

This section will explore each of these challenges in greater detail.

GAI and the information space. GAI can be used to amplify disinformation and misinformation, muddying the environment in which diplomats engage in public diplomacy. For example, in late 2022, Graphika, a research firm that examines social media and disinformation, uncovered a pro-China information campaign leveraging deepfake video technology in the form of fake news anchors. The videos of AI-generated avatars were distributed by pro-China social media bot accounts and disparaged the United States while portraying China as a good geopolitical actor. While these videos were not compelling to audiences and had few clicks, the utilization of this technology quickly accelerated. A year later, The New York Times reported on a pro-China YouTube network of channels that used GAI to cast aspersions on US policy. According to the report, “Some of the videos used artificially generated avatars or voice-overs, making the campaign the first influence operation known to [the Australian Strategic Policy Institute] to pair A.I. voices with video essays.” The clips covered an array of issues in a manner designed to favor China, from advancing “narratives that Chinese technology was superior to America’s, that the United States was doomed to economic collapse, and that China and Russia were responsible geopolitical players” to “fawn[ing] over Chinese companies like Huawei and denigrat[ing] American companies like Apple.” The network was sophisticated, gathering 120 million views and 730,000 subscribers across thirty channels.

Deepfakes, relying on AI to generate misleading audio and video content, proliferate on social media, in contexts involving state and nonstate actors. In volatile situations, GAI can be leveraged to distort the information environment, promote damaging narratives toward the United States, and potentially stoke violent action against US diplomats.

“The affordability and accessibility of generative AI is lowering the barrier of entry for disinformation campaigns,” Allie Funk, co-author of Freedom on the Net 2023: The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence, told MIT Technology Review. Funk, research director for technology and democracy at Freedom House, noted that the spread of AI-generated content is “going to allow for political actors to cast doubt about reliable information.”

GAI, therefore, increases challenges for diplomats operating in the information space, especially as autocratic rivals seek to leverage this technology to cast the United States in a bad light.
The limits of GAI. Diplomats should be aware of GAI’s limits and potential negative externalities. Diplomacy, especially when engaged in at a personal level, demands a high degree of skill and psychological competence. This includes understanding the idiosyncrasies that shape human-to-human engagements, and gauging potential cognitive biases shaping an interlocutor. Therefore, while GAI can augment the capacity for communication, a human touch remains essential, especially for personal diplomacy.

There also is a risk of GAI degrading institutional expertise. Quickly generating summaries of news and conversations is a value-added capacity of GAI; however, the ease with which diplomats can scroll through an AI-generated distillation may discourage them from following up with more in-depth primary or secondary sources developed by humans. AI can often be helpful for generating a top-line summary, but it should not be viewed as a substitute for cultivating a 360-degree perspective on an issue.

In addition, while GAI use for translation can facilitate communication, an overreliance on AI-driven tools may result in a loss of nuance or bad translations. A report by The Guardian in September 2023 observed, “AI-powered translation tools are particularly unreliable for languages that are considerably different from English or are less comprehensively documented.”

In one example cited by that report, an individual arriving at a US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) detention center spoke Portuguese, but no one on staff did. ICE staff used an AI-powered voice-translation tool to communicate “but the system didn’t pick up or understand his regional accent or dialect. So Carlos spent six months in ICE detention unable to meaningfully communicate with anyone.” In addition, some Afghan refugees have had substantial difficulties with AI translation tools, as Dari, an official language of Afghanistan, is not an option on many of these tools.

The lesson: while GAI is a powerful tool for facilitating communication, users of the technology should be wary of its limits, especially in life-transforming situations—or high-stakes diplomatic conversations. The State Department will need to use AI alongside its staff of technical experts and translators to ensure that it is used properly.
Data and distrust. As noted earlier in this paper, AI is built on a triad of algorithms, computing power, and data. A technical discussion of each of these elements is beyond the scope and purpose of this paper, but a discussion of ethical concerns surrounding the third element is warranted.

Data is a critical component of GAI, shaping the outputs generated by these systems. In a diplomatic context, data is vital for officials seeking to leverage AI to understand more clearly how residents of a country think, perceive, and make sense of the world around them.

Nevertheless, data also presents potential pitfalls, absent ethical guardrails. First, illegal or unethical data collection, real or perceived, can foster distrust and backlash. This could consist of illicit solicitation of private information absent consent.

Second, transparency with regard to datasets is important so that diplomats can have confidence in the outputs generated by AI, as well as a healthy awareness of where GAI might be imperfect. The inclusion or exclusion of certain datasets will inform the outputs generated by an AI system, biasing results in a certain direction that diplomats will need to be aware of in case they need to correct them. For example, if one created a GAI system intended to generate a top-line summary of US attitudes toward race in the early nineteenth century, and it only pulled from abolitionist newspapers, the output would be misleading. In addition, the State Department should seek tools that have resolved the “black box” problem, or when it is difficult or impossible to determine how a GAI model reached a particular result. Doing so will allow for a better understanding of why errors occurred and how the model can be improved to avoid them in the future. Transparency regarding both what data has been fed and how results are reached will build trust and caution in the use of GAI in diplomacy.

Recommendations for US diplomacy

Having explored challenges and opportunities related to GAI and diplomacy, the final section of this paper will offer recommendations for the United States to mitigate the challenges, take advantage of the opportunities, and position itself in such a way that it becomes a global leader in the integration of GAI and diplomacy. In doing so, the United States will strengthen a key instrument of power, better enabling it to outcompete autocratic rivals.

Toward this end, this issue brief proposes the following recommendations for the US government:

Look at GAI as a critical asset in engaging the information space. US diplomats have already started to leverage tools that enable them to attain better situational awareness of changing information environments, as noted earlier.

Moreover, elements of the State Department that directly engage publics and counter disinformation targeting the United States should see GAI as a critical tool for allocating resources. It is simply not possible to respond to every piece of disinformation proffered by a hostile state actor; the key is to respond quickly and effectively when there is the highest risk of damage. GAI can help in this regard.

European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager delivers remarks as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosts the fifth US-EU Trade and Technology Council Ministerial Meeting at the State Department in Washington, DC, January 30, 2024. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Work with allies and partners to shape norms around GAI and cooperate to dominate the commanding heights of this technology. This is another pillar of action found in the initial paper in this series. Without recapitulating its arguments, the salient point is that efforts to integrate GAI and diplomacy will be bolstered if the United States works in concert with allies and partners.

One component of this is working with allies and partners to lead in the development of GAI and innovative applications of GAI for the diplomatic domain. The US-EU Trade and Technology Council is still young and holds promise for overcoming transatlantic differences over technology; meanwhile, countries participating in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, have publicly expressed an interest in working together more closely on emerging technologies. The United States should deepen those and other efforts to work collaboratively with allies and partners to maintain technological leadership in the twenty-first century.

Another piece of this is shaping norms around emerging technologies, such as AI, and advancing a democracy-affirming approach to these technologies—in contrast to China’s efforts to export autocracy and oppression. We reiterate the call of the first paper for the United States to “export digital information infrastructure that promotes freedom, privacy, and the rule of law.” China has a leg up on the United States in Africa and other parts of the world when it comes to funding information and communication technologies. Now is the time for the United States and its allies and partners to leverage their technical know-how and wealth to become a viable alternative to countries developing their digital infrastructure and integrating AI. This includes continuing to invest in infrastructure partnerships like the Build Back Better World Partnership and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which are transparent and values-driven.

Leverage GAI as a tool of soft power. The United States generally ranks highly in assessments of soft power, but there is room for improvement. Taking the cultural diplomacy angle as an example, diplomats ought to take advantage of US technical leadership in AI to bolster its attractiveness to other countries. A concentrated cultural diplomacy campaign focused on helping countries preserve their heritage is a clear way for the United States to increase its soft power.
Establish standards for transparency and ethical guardrails. US officials should seek to mitigate potential distrust surrounding their use of GAI. Toward this end, the State Department should develop clear guidelines for how it will leverage GAI in a manner that respects privacy, regularly examines the integrity of datasets, allows for an understanding of errors, and ensures diplomats have sufficient technical know-how to engage GAI critically, understanding bias and other shortfalls.
Reorient the department’s workforce to integrate AI. This effort should be pushed at the level of the secretary, with bureau chiefs also accountable for implementing changes in their respective departments. This shift will require undertaking careful studies and applying test cases to see how AI augments the work of diplomats—and where it falls short or is limited.

Congress has a role to play in its capacity as overseer of the government’s purse strings. It should fund initiatives that enable the modernization of the department, while discouraging wasteful spending on legacy equipment and efforts that are reflective of the diplomacy of yesteryear.

The State Department must take the challenge seriously and work to demonstrate to Congress that it is developing a diplomatic workforce that can utilize and innovate using AI and a department built to support the leadership and staff in pursuit of national priorities. AI needs to be integrated into training, and requisite expertise should be sought through hiring, whether through new employees or rotational programs with the private sector. This latter approach has the added benefit of fostering public-private cooperation and infusing fresh ways of thinking into the government bureaucracy.

As noted in the first paper in this series, the State Department is making some progress in this regard. We reiterate calls in the first paper in this series for the State Department to “consider tech knowledge as part of its assessment of Foreign Service Officers and other hires throughout the department,” as well as to “incentivize tech training by making professional development in this space a consideration for promotions.”

Apart from working with the commercial sector, this space is ripe for collaboration with universities and think tanks. This could take the form of executive or management training initiatives that seek to instill both technical know-how and broader policy awareness of AI, other emerging technologies, and their intersection with diplomacy. These efforts should be undertaken with congressional support and funding and could serve as a model for collaboration in other departments and federal agencies.

Notably, in October 2023, the State Department released its Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Strategy, which both articulates a strategy for the entire department and explains briefly how the Enterprise Data & AI Council, the AI Steering Committee, and others will work in partnership to execute and modify the strategy moving forward. This includes following the model of the Enterprise Data Strategy’s data campaign approach, which has campaign delivery teams working with staff on one mission and one management priority for a six-month period. These campaigns have served as a “force multiplier” for efforts to innovate and develop the data tools the department needs. This model, with its short timelines and whole-of-department nature, can help create an AI mindset and allow staff to determine how to meld their expertise and diplomatic abilities with the computing and generative power of AI. To truly address the importance of AI in an era of strategic competition, State Department officials at the highest levels, from the secretary on down, will need to use their influence and substantial resources to propel the effort and ensure it remains top-of-mind for the entirety of the department.

Conclusion

This issue brief has outlined the opportunities and challenges for AI and diplomacy, with a focus on GAI, and it has sought to build on the initial paper in this series through its analysis and recommended courses of action to integrate AI into US diplomacy.

This paper does not include a complete analysis of AI or GAI, but it highlights the importance of AI for strengthening US diplomacy and offers a way forward for the United States to take advantage of its technical expertise in this domain. Successfully navigating a new era of strategic competition will require diverse instruments of power, including robust diplomacy. AI can help the US State Department become more agile in its exercise of diplomacy, better positioning it to pursue US national interests in an era of strategic competition with China and Russia.

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Mood darkens in Odesa amid Russian bombardment and Western hesitancy

Michael Bociurkiw — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 14:00:54 +0000

Living in an active war zone over an extended period of time can play odd tricks on the mind. A calm moment in the park can be suddenly overtaken by visions of the previous evening’s air strikes. Roller coaster-like mood swings become commonplace and loud bangs ignite the urge to flee.

This is very much the case in Ukrainian Black Sea port city Odesa, where Russian bombardments have become part of daily life. With each new air raid alert, people check social media channels to assess the projected trajectory of incoming Russian drones and missiles. This is usually followed by a frenzied exchange of texts with friends and neighbors to determine whether a dash for the nearest bomb shelter is necessary.

During the initial phases of the war, this grand port city known as an international symbol of intercultural unity and a treasure trove of cultural sites remained relatively untouched from Russian aggression, to the point that it became a temporary home to tens of thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians. A huge banner in the city center reflects this status with the message: “You are not refugees, you are guests of Odesa.” At the city’s non-profit Mriya Family Center, volunteers provide free daycare and psychosocial sessions for children along with vocational training for displaced moms wishing to start new careers. However, escalating air attacks mean Odesa has now lost its status as a sanctuary away from the horrors of the Russian invasion.

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The air strike campaign against Odesa first began to intensify last summer following Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-brokered agreement that had allowed shipments of Ukrainian grain to sail from the city’s port to global markets. Since July 2023, Russia has attacked Odesa region with over 880 drones and more than 170 missiles, according to Ukrainian Navy officials. The mood in Odesa has darkened significantly in recent weeks as Russian attacks have become more frequent and deadlier. At least 17 people, including five children, have died so far in March.

This is fueling renewed discussion among local residents and international officials over whether to stay or go. The question is no longer rhetorical: French President Emmanuel Macron recently told opposition party leaders he had sketched out a possible Russian military advance toward Odesa or Kyiv that “could lead to an intervention.” In response to the recent surge in air attacks, at least one foreign mission is pro-actively thinning its presence in Odesa for the time being.

In one of the most brazen attacks on Odesa since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin sent a missile on March 6 to within a few hundred meters of where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was meeting Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “It is a very intense experience. It’s really different to read about the war in newspapers, and to hear it with your own ears, see it with your own eyes,” Mitsotakis commented after the attack.

Russian air strikes on Odesa are not only acts of aggression against Ukraine. The Kremlin’s bombing campaign also poses a direct threat to global food security. In this context, recent developments have been encouraging. Since Ukraine broke the Russian naval blockade of the country’s Black Sea ports last summer, cargo volumes of agricultural products have reached about two-thirds of their prewar levels, leading to a stabilization of grain prices on world markets.

This begs the question: Why has the international community not responded to the Russian maritime threat with the same robustness seen when protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea? Do deliveries of consumer goods really matter more than grain shipments to world markets, especially to countries on the brink of starvation such as Sudan, to which Ukraine recently donated 7,000 tons of wheat?

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Increasingly, friends in Ukraine ask how long I think the war will last and whether the country can expect to be abandoned by weak-kneed Western allies afraid of provoking Putin. Military cemeteries such as the one at Lychakiv in Lviv are now full as war dead are carried to their final resting place, underlining the sense that not one Ukrainian family has been untouched by this war.

If anyone doubts Russia’s resolve to seize more Ukrainian land, they should carefully study former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s recent remarks to a forum in Sochi. Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of Russia’s influential Security Council, outlined his vision for the near complete destruction of the Ukrainian state, with Ukraine reduced to a landlocked rump around Kyiv and most of the country incorporated into the Russian Federation. “One of Ukraine’s former leaders once said that Ukraine is not Russia. That concept needs to disappear forever,” he commented. “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”

The darkening mood in today’s Ukraine is not limited to Odesa. As the full-scale invasion passed the two-year mark recently, increasing doubts about Western pledges to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” could be heard from politicians and civil society members. Several panelists at a high-profile forum in Kyiv on February 24 called out Western partners for failing to deliver on promises ranging from ammunition and longer-range missiles to tougher sanctions. Since then, worries have increased even further as US legislators kick the ball further down the road on the $60 billion supplemental bill for Ukraine that has yet to pass the US Congress.

There is now a growing feeling in Odesa and across Ukraine that time is running out. Unless new US aid is confirmed and the West arms Ukraine to the teeth, there may soon be nothing to prevent Russia from advancing all the way to Odesa and on to the border with Moldova. If that happens, the verdict of history, which can be extremely unkind to cowards, will be harsh for all those who failed to provide Ukraine with the support it so desperately needs.

Michael Bociurkiw is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The Democracy and Governance commitment at the Ninth Summit of the Americas marked an imperative platform for strengthening the region’s democratic values and institutions. As the experts deliberated how to incorporate those values into practice, they stressed the importance of good governance for the advancement of human rights,
anticorruption practices, sustainable development, and citizen inclusion. Partnering with regional stakeholders will be imperative for crucial issues like civic engagement, transparency, adherence to international order, and the rule of law, encouraging Latin American and Caribbean countries to continue to prioritize their work in democratic renewal.

Recommendations for advancing and institutionalizing democratic practices in the Americas:

Strengthen institutional mechanisms for democratic oversight and accountability

Establish a mechanism to monitor the state of democracy in the region. A systematic reporting system would provide a regular assessment of the health of democracy in the Americas and identify areas where progress is needed.
Create a voluntary peer review process. This would allow countries to voluntarily subject themselves to review by peer countries, providing a mechanism for feedback and accountability in a pluralistic matter.
Appoint an independent special reporter of democracy. This would create a dedicated position within the Organization of American States (OAS) to monitor and report on the state of democracy in the Americas.
Reinvigorate the Inter-American system’s programming on education, an example being the current Inter-American Education Agenda. This would provide support for education programs that promote democratic values and civic engagement.

Empower civil society and foster inclusive participation

Engage academics, civil society groups, and the private sector in efforts to advance democracy. These groups can play a valuable role in providing expertise, advocating for change, and holding governments accountable.
Develop a shared definition of what constitutes a breach of the democratic order. This would provide a clearer framework for responding to anti-democratic actions.
Invest in training for youth and marginalized people to become effective civil society actors. This would empower these groups to advocate for their rights and participate in the democratic process.
Create a mechanism for informal dialogue among legislators from across the Americas. This would provide a platform for legislators to share ideas and build relationships, which could help to advance democracy in the region.

Enhance preventive measures for backsliding and expand support for democratic initiatives

Make the Democratic Charter more preventive in nature. This would allow the OAS to take proactive steps to address threats to democracy before they escalate.
Increase funding for the OAS and related initiatives to support democracy in the Americas. This would provide the resources needed to carry out these recommendations to promote democracy.
Promote regional collaboration on democratic initiatives to share best practices, provide mutual support, and strengthen collective responses to challenges. This could include establishing regional working groups, fostering knowledge exchange, and coordinating joint initiatives.

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Wechsler quoted in Business Insider on possible solutions to the Israel-Hamas war

Atlantic Council — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 17:15:49 +0000

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Asat joins Avaaz to discuss oppressed Tibetans and Uyghurs ahead of China’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN

Atlantic Council — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:24:35 +0000

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Novo joins The National to discuss American obligations in light of South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel

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Nia quoted in The National on the assault on UNRWA and liberal humanitarianism

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Radhakrishnan quoted in Foreign Policy on ICJ ordering Israel to prevent acts of Genocide in Gaza

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Asat quoted in VOA on the limits of China’s global influence campaign

Atlantic Council — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:24:27 +0000

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Asat quoted in Tibetan Review on the Global South’s reaction to Chinese lobbying during UN review of its rights record

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Asat quoted in Radio Free Asia on international legislation to counter China’s cross-border repression

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Baker quoted in USA Today on Israel and the 1948 Genocide Convention

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What’s on Brazil’s G20 agenda? Start by looking at where India left off.

Mrugank Bhusari, Ananya Kumar, Pepe Zhang, and Valentina Sader — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:34:06 +0000

In 2009, the telenovela Caminho das Índias won Brazil’s first International Emmy award. The hit show depicted Indian and Brazilian characters coming to terms with social and economic upheaval in the rapidly modernizing countries in the 1990s and 2000s. The same year, leaders of Brazil and India met their counterparts from Russia and China in the first summit of the BRIC grouping in Yekaterinburg, Russia. At its inception, the founders of the BRIC grouping, who added South Africa the following year to become the BRICS, wanted to articulate a shared vision of economic priorities for emerging markets.

Fast forward fifteen years and Brazil and India continue to share views on key global issues. For the first time since its inception in 1999, the Group of Twenty (G20) will have four consecutive emerging economy presidencies (Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, Brazil this year, and South Africa in 2025). As G20 foreign ministers kick off their meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, expect to see the shared views of India and Brazil reflected in a high degree of continuity between their G20 agendas.

The members of the G20 collectively account for more than 80 percent of global gross domestic product, three-quarters of world trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population. Moreover, the forum remains the world’s premium platform for coordinating international policy. Over the next year, the Atlantic Council’s G20 programming and research will track how Brazil leads this group in addressing four key areas (presented below) and will work to promote continuity with South Africa’s presidency in 2025 and the United States’ in 2026.

Food security and hunger elimination

Both New Delhi and Brasília have sought to highlight the needs of emerging markets and developing economies through their agenda-setting role at the G20. Perhaps no need stands out as urgently and pervasively as food insecurity. According to the World Food Programme, 783 million people worldwide faced chronic hunger in 2023, and most are in emerging markets and developing economies.

Under the Indian G20 presidency, the New Delhi Declaration was adopted by all members at the leaders’ summit. Among other provisions, it committed members to cooperate on agriculture research, access to fertilizers, capacity-building, and market transparency to foster food security among vulnerable populations. In particular, India emphasized the export and provision of millets, aligning with the “International Year of Millets” initiated by the United Nations General Assembly. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was even nominated for a Grammy award for his appearance in a song titled “Abundance in Millets.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has doubled down on the social dimension of development, with a focus on combating poverty, inequality, and hunger. Food security is front and center in his domestic and foreign policy. As president of the G20, he has announced Brasília’s intention to launch a Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty at the leaders’ summit in November. Brazil is the world’s second-largest exporter of agriculture and is central to global supply chains—and in particular supply chains for emerging markets and developing economies. Expect to see Brazil leverage its weight in global markets to build consensus on the path forward in addressing food insecurity this year.

Climate and development finance

On climate and sustainable finance, Brazil’s G20 presidency appears poised to build on the legacy of India’s, while offering notable innovations and customizations. The four priorities of 2024’s Sustainable Finance Working Group are illustrative of Brazil’s particular interests and this G20’s overall mandate of “Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet.” For example, financial instruments for nature-based solutions are rightfully receiving greater attention than ever in Brazil, which should not be a surprise in a country that contains two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest and 15-20 percent of the world’s biodiversity.

Leveraging Brazil’s active participation in various international financial institutions, the Brazilian finance sherpas are also placing a sharp technical focus on streamlined coordination among multilateral development banks and vertical funds. The troika of India-Brazil-South Africa G20 presidencies will press on with key Global South development financing priorities, such as just transition plans and blended finance for adaptation (see Atlantic Council’s related work on this here). In addition, Brazil has a unique opportunity to bridge this year’s G20 with the UN climate change conference known as COP30, which it will host in Belem in 2025. Brazil can coordinate its presidencies of both platforms to spur continued progress in Belem on landmark accomplishments from recent COPs, including the Loss and Damage Fund announced during last year’s COP28, held in Dubai.

Digital public infrastructure

Another area of continuity and compatibility between the G20 presidencies of India and Brazil is the provision of digital public infrastructure through payments, identity, and other digital networks created by the state to digitize and upgrade the provision of public services. Through Brazil’s Pix and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), for example, both countries have seen tremendous success in building digital payments ecosystems and increasing digital and financial connectivity.

Through the payments working group, G20 member states set targets for payments modernization for central banks and multilateral institutions. These targets address the cost, transparency, and speed of global payments. In 2023, the cost of retail payments to businesses and individuals across countries exceeded the previously set 3 percent target in a quarter of jurisdictions around the world. Similarly, the average cost of remittances is more than twice the goal of 3 percent. These metrics benchmark the G20’s progress and lay out the actions that member states still need to undertake to achieve these targets by 2027 (for cross-border retail payments) and 2030 (for remittances).

Both India and Brazil position themselves as leaders among emerging markets in the provision of digital public infrastructure, and the G20 provides a platform to showcase their digital payment and identity models to the rest of the world. While both countries view the adoption of these platforms as a mechanism to increase financial inclusion and digital democratization, the wider adoption of digital public infrastructure will also present challenges. The G20 will have to come together to provide robust frameworks on data privacy, consumer protection, cybersecurity, competition, and public-private collaboration. These are going to be ongoing discussions, to be reflected in targets to come in the future.

International financial institutions

During its G20 presidency, India initiated a set of processes and frameworks through the New Delhi Declaration that committed to “pursue reforms for better, bigger, and more effective Multilateral Development Banks.” The Declaration also included provisions to improve the multilateral development banks’ capital adequacy frameworks, which could yield an additional two hundred billion dollars in lending headroom over the next decade. India’s efforts focused on the quality and quantity of financing provided by international financing institutions and were supported by the United States, the largest shareholder at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Brazil is adding to India’s priorities with a focus on governance and on augmenting the influence of emerging markets over decision-making at international financing institutions. However, divergent interests between the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, and heightened geopolitical tensions between Russia and Western economies will make meaningful progress on economic global governance difficult.

India learned as much late last year in negotiations regarding an increase in IMF quotas—or the capital a country contributes to the institution, which correlates with that country’s voting power. The United States had proposed an increase in the quotas that would leave voting shares unchanged—a proposal that drew criticism from China and other emerging market economies who feel underrepresented at the IMF. Ultimately, the countries agreed to the US-backed “equiproportional” increase in quota resources that, in effect, pushed the issue of expanding voting power in the IMF for emerging markets to a future date.

Just like the Indian G20 presidency, Brazil’s achievements in this area will likely be incremental yet important. For example, Brazil might advance innovative ideas for increasing private finance partnerships and for making measurable improvements in international financial institutions’s operations and development impact assessments. These increments will accumulate, particularly as the G20 presidency moves in 2026 to the United States, by far the largest shareholder of various international financial institutions. Reform is a current priority for the United States, as stated by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at the Atlantic Council in April 2022 and elsewhere, and the subject will be high on the agenda when G20 finance ministers meet next during the April IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC.

Mrugank Bhusari is assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Ananya Kumar is the associate director for digital currencies at the GeoEconomics Center.

Pepe Zhang is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Valentina Sader is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

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Brazil aims to advance its bid for leadership of the Global South through food security

Josh Lipsky, Mrugank Bhusari — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:11:26 +0000

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has put food security front and center of the international agenda as his country convenes leaders for the G20 in 2024 and COP30 in 2025. Brasília is positioning itself alongside Beijing and New Delhi as a leader of the Global South. But while China and India have both focused on emerging technologies and digital infrastructure, Brazil is adding to those priorities with a focus on agriculture.

Brazil’s breadbasket to the Global South

Beginning in the 1970s, both the Brazilian government and private entities invested heavily in agricultural innovations, leading to the development of more resilient crop varieties. Along with the expansion of farmland and widespread adoption of double cropping, the investments significantly enhanced agricultural productivity and gave Brazil an edge over other farming nations.

Fast forward to 2022 and Brazil has become the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products. It leads the world in soy, meat, coffee and sugar exports and is the second-largest exporter of oilcake and corn. Several large economies, emerging markets in particular, now heavily rely on Brazil to secure their food needs.

The benefits granted by MERCOSUR, a regional trade bloc within South America, make Brazil a prime source of agriculture for Argentina. Many Asian and African countries in the G20 are large consumers of soybeans, corn, and meat—all commodities where Brazil has a large market share. The United States, Mexico, and Canada in turn barely source any agriculture from Brazil as they source the majority of their food imports from one another as a result of the benefits granted by USMCA. Most European countries similarly import the majority of their agriculture from other European countries in the single market.

Across the G20 economies, China is the most reliant on Brazil for agriculture, buying up a quarter of all Brazilian exports including most of its soy and beef. Brazil’s rise as an agripower since the 1970s aligned neatly with the population boom in China and the growing concern of the Chinese Communist Party over how to secure food for its population. But the real push came in the last decade as Beijing looked for agriculture suppliers other than the United States following intensification of trade tensions.

To help Brazil increase its capacity and to reduce logistical costs, the state-owned China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) invested over $2.3 billion, amounting to about 40 percent of its worldwide investments, in Brazil’s agricultural infrastructure since 2014. A key investment is at the Port of Santos, where a terminal expansion will take the company’s own capacity from 3 million to 14 million tonnes. Further cooperation in Brazilian railways, waterways, and farmland restoration is on the agenda.

Lula’s leverage is his history

By itself, influence in the agriculture sector vis-a-vis emerging markets doesn’t provide a pathway to leadership of the Global South. Agriculture is not like semiconductors; food is an absolutely necessary resource for physical survival. Russia’s sudden blockage of the Black Sea in 2022, for instance, led to massive global grain shortages that created significant price spikes for food around the world. Moreover, the United States remains the world’s largest exporter of agriculture and for several countries in the G20, it remains the largest supplier. Lastly, although Brazil supplies about a fifth of global corn exports, it has relatively little weight in the global market for grains like wheat and rice, two critical food items for developing economies.

But Lula and Brazil nevertheless bring unique credibility with developing and advanced economies on the subject of food security.

When he first came to office in 2003, Lula launched the ‘Fome Zero’ (Zero Hunger) programme, a series of coordinated large-scale government interventions that resulted in Brazil’s removal from the United Nations’ Hunger Map in 2014. Throughout the 2000s, Lula’s Brazil also mobilized budgetary, legislative, organizational, and narrative channels to orient its foreign policy toward hunger-reduction abroad.

Since his return to power in 2023, Lula has once again made hunger a domestic priority. He has consistently raised the issue internationally. Now, his moment has come. As President of the G20, he has announced Brasília’s intention to launch a Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty at the Leaders Summit in November.

Both Brazil and the global economy have evolved since Lula was last in power. But the country possesses decades of trade and technical assistance relationships with developing economies, the know-how in the sector, and a track-record in hunger-reduction. Chronic hunger and famine remain real prospects for a tenth of the global population and developing countries will likely see Lula’s Brazil to act as a reliable representative in trying to bring together a global consensus on the path forward.

In recent years, China and India have both positioned themselves as leaders of the Global South. Now, the leader of the former is focused on his troubled domestic economy and the leader of the latter has an election on his hands. Meanwhile Lula is about to host the world twice—once for the G20 this year and then again for COP30 in 2025. If Brazil delivers tangible, material, and clearly observable benefits on food security, it will cement its position as a key leader of the Global South.

Josh Lipsky is the senior director of the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund.

Mrugank Bhusari is assistant director at the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center focusing on multilateral institutions and the international role of the dollar.

This post is adapted from the GeoEconomics Center’s weekly Guide to the Global Economy newsletter. If you are interested in getting the newsletter, email SBusch@atlanticcouncil.org

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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Tran cited in Reuters on reforming the G20 Common Framework

amagazzino — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 14:38:25 +0000

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To challenge the Islamic Republic’s propaganda agenda, the UN deputy high commissioner must delay her visit

Rose Parris Richter — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 22:26:47 +0000

An upcoming United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to Iran scheduled for February 3-5 sparked intense debate among civil society organizations. Proponents of the visit emphasize the urgent need for ongoing dialogue, asserting that maintaining communication channels is crucial to fostering positive changes in Iran’s human rights landscape. They argue that engaging with Iranian officials presents an important opportunity to advocate for tangible improvements and negotiate for stronger protection of human rights. However, critics still need to be convinced, highlighting the disappointing outcomes of previous dialogues and raising concerns about the effectiveness of continued discourse without concrete, enforceable commitments from the Islamic Republic. There is a prevailing fear that the Iranian authorities could exploit the visit to create a misleading perception of compliance, diverting attention from the crucial importance of sustained international engagement and oversight.

Impact Iran, a coalition of nineteen civil society organizations focused on promoting respect for human rights in the country, was joined by several international advocates to communicate their concerns in an open letter dated January 29 to Deputy High Commissioner Nada Al-Nashif. While they value the importance of diplomatic engagement and recognize the critical role of her office in addressing human rights, they raise concerns about the visit’s timing. Notably, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is set to convene in mid-March to scrutinize Iran’s human rights record, a session that follows closely on the heels of the high commissioner’s visit. The group fears that the visit might lend an unwarranted veneer of acceptability to Iran’s human rights record, thereby weakening the UN’s ability to hold the country accountable.

The UNHRC’s upcoming session is poised to be a pivotal moment in international human rights advocacy, as it will feature a report from the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran that will present its findings. Tasked with a rigorous independent inquiry into the alleged human rights violations related to protests and civil unrest that erupted across Iran in 2022 following news of the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini while in the custody of the country’s so-called “morality police,” the mission aims to articulate the scope and scale of violations and create a repository of evidence that could be instrumental in holding perpetrators accountable in international legal frameworks. Thus, the UNHRC braces for presentations that may profoundly influence the course of justice and shape its strategy in advocating for the protection and promotion of human rights in Iran.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, will present his findings in concert with their report. His report, informed by thorough investigations and eyewitness accounts, will shed light on the current situation and evaluate Iran’s adherence to its international human rights obligations. The rapporteur’s insights support the global community’s understanding and response to Iran’s human rights challenges.

The UNHRC will also select a new special rapporteur to monitor Iran in the late spring. Established in 2011, this mechanism is tasked with the painstaking monitoring of Iran’s adherence to human rights norms. Yet, the Islamic Republic has consistently resisted cooperation with the UN in this capacity, denying entry to three previous mandate holders despite the worsening human rights situation within the country. The deputy high commissioner’s visit offers a timely opportunity to broach the subject of increased cooperation with the Iranian authorities. Al-Nashif could leverage the meeting to negotiate terms that may foster a more collaborative relationship with the forthcoming mandate holder, thereby influencing the council’s decision-making process regarding who is best suited to fulfill this sensitive and pivotal role effectively.

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In light of this, the deputy high commissioner’s visit will likely be scrutinized by the international human rights community during and after her trip, as the rights advocates anxiously await to see how her engagement may impact the council’s critical decisions in the coming weeks and months. This is especially the case since the recent surge in executions in the country, including the execution of four ethnic Kurds who were hanged for alleged espionage after trials that were purportedly conducted without proper due process. The execution of individuals under the age of thirty, accused of plotting a bomb attack, has sparked widespread condemnation and drawn attention to the lack of fair trials and allegations of torture. The secretive nature of the judicial process and reports of physical assaults and suppression of information by security forces following the executions have raised alarm about the treatment of political prisoners.

Articulating a deep-seated unease about the visit’s potential impact, particularly in light of escalating executions and the suppression of women’s movements, the coalition led by Impact Iran warns of the possibility that the visit could serve as a tool of propaganda for the Iranian authorities, potentially undermining the UN’s unwavering commitment to human rights in Iran. Renowned figures like Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi have also called on the deputy high commissioner to align with the victims and protestors by either reconsidering her visit or assuming symbolic gestures of protest, such as forgoing the headscarf. They urge her to engage with groups beyond government officials, including individuals and families directly impacted by the regime’s draconian policies. However, civil society advocates are also careful to point out that they aren’t pushing for non-engagement but for a strategic reassessment of the visit’s timing and scope, advocating for thorough monitoring measures and unfettered access to individuals in detention.

Some note, for example, that scheduling the visit after the UNHRC session allows for a more strategic and impactful engagement. This timing would enable the Deputy High Commissioner Al-Nashif to discuss the findings of the council’s mechanisms with Iranian officials, armed with the most up-to-date information and evaluations from the UN special rapporteur and the UN fact-finding mission. Such synchronization would also ensure that the engagement is informed by the council’s discussions and resolutions, further equipping the deputy high commissioner to address Iranian authorities with clear international expectations in mind.

Moreover, the scheduled visit has stirred a broader discourse about the consistency and coherency of the UN’s strategy for promoting and protecting human rights in Iran. Critics argue that while such high-profile visits could elevate awareness, their ill-timed execution could undercut the momentum of other UN bodies and efforts. Scheduled ahead of the UNHRC’s critical evaluation, including the fact-finding mission, the visit risks sending mixed signals about the United Nation’s stance on human rights in Iran.

For the UN to maintain the efficacy and integrity of its human rights advocacy, it’s imperative to harmonize its various mechanisms to avoid providing inadvertent avenues for violators to evade their obligations. When UN bodies operate in isolation, without a cohesive strategy, their actions can be counterproductive. High-profile visits, such as that of the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Al-Nashif, should be intricately coordinated with ongoing investigations and diplomatic initiatives to avoid any semblance of legitimizing or endorsing a state’s actions prematurely.

It is critical for the various arms of the United Nations to conduct their work in a manner that is synchronized, reinforcing each other’s efforts, to ensure there are no mixed messages that could bolster a violator’s resolve. This coordination is essential to present a unified front that stands up to scrutiny and holds violators accountable with tenacity and unequivocal clarity. To maintain the integrity and effectiveness of its human rights advocacy, the UN must send a clear and consistent message: cooperation on one front does not negate accountability on another.

Rose Parris Richter is the executive director of Impact Iran, a coalition of nineteen human rights organizations committed to advocating for human rights in the country.

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Italy’s G7 presidency can be a breakthrough for the ‘West’ and the ‘Rest’

Paolo Messa, Karim Mezran — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 16:03:52 +0000

As it begins its Group of Seven (G7) presidency, Italy has an opportunity to leverage its unique historical and cultural perspective to act as a bridge-builder between the “West” and the “Rest” of the world. Indeed, it must do so, because a more inclusive and collaborative approach between these two blocs has become an imperative.

The dichotomy between the West and the Rest has come to the fore over the past few years, marked by the return of war in Europe and great power competition—embodied most clearly by the rivalry between China and the United States. Developed countries from the so-called geopolitical West have been rallying behind Ukraine and striving to consolidate the front against autocratic powers, asserting the value of rules-based international governance while reshaping their relations to fit the times. In parallel, a host of nonaligned nations have refrained from taking sides and have resisted the binary definition through which Western countries tend to see the world.

There’s a string of reasons why countries from the Rest do not see themselves reflected in the West’s approach, ranging from the purely commercial to the ideologically and historically motivated. A common critique is that the Western worldview often seems to conveniently align with Western interests, to the point that Western countries adopt double standards on adhering to the very rules they thrust upon emerging countries. The West-Rest division itself is historically rooted, and the bolstering of non-Western international fora seems to reinforce it. This includes the recent expansion of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa grouping known as the BRICS.

Time and again, this West-Rest division has hindered collective efforts to address pressing global challenges. Beyond the tensions between major powers, economic disparities and structural mismatches have created a world in which collaboration is increasingly complex. As a result, shared issues—ranging from climate change and public health crises to economic inequalities—tend to end up on the back burner, behind national interests and country-specific priorities.

In addition, global governance has become a contentious issue, with competing visions seeking do define it. The pro–global governance liberal international institutionalist view has had a difficult time lately, to say the least. Concepts that until recently were indisputable dogmas seem to be under attack, if not relegated to the backseat of international politics. These include the essential role of the United Nations and the international community’s attempts to modernize it, empowerment of regional organizations such as the European Union and the African Union, the strengthening of international law and human rights protections, and the fostering of free trade and free movement of capital and people.

A more crude and realistic approach is emerging. Conflictual geopolitical blocs organized around nuclear superpowers and their hard power are rising, at least in the short and medium terms. Western nations must adapt to this change in the international environment and be ready to act swiftly to succeed. This rapidly developing situation may force Western populations to coalesce again around a strong definition of their values, vision, and ideals, which they want to adopt and then must follow rigorously. Western nations could turn to institutions such as the G7 to organize their actions to better face the challenges brought about by competition between blocs.

The road ahead goes through Rome

From its privileged position in the center of the Mediterranean, Italy has been taking stock of these asymmetries and looking at ways to shape a different trajectory.

Rome is already working on revamping traditional power structures and fostering a new ethos—one that envisions the West not in opposition to the Rest but as partners in a shared global endeavor. Italian diplomats have pushed for a reallocation and expansion of seats on the United Nations Security Council, for example, to strengthen regional representation through a fairer geographical distribution.

These efforts have coursed through the strengthening of diplomatic networks that Italy has been fostering in recent years. A prime example is its new strategic partnership with India and the excellent personal entente that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has developed with her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, which has facilitated the African Union’s entry into the Group of Twenty (G20). Beyond New Delhi, Rome has expanded bilateral relations across the Indo-Pacific region, where rapidly emerging countries are vying to be heard at the global table.

In parallel, Meloni has spearheaded a major effort to redefine Italy’s relationship with African countries, ushering in a novel model of cooperation (which she hopes may be replicated by other European states) based on non-predatory, investment-based partnerships across industries, such as energy, infrastructure, and telecommunications, as well as in academia and the political sphere. This approach, dubbed the “Mattei Plan,” was unveiled as the centerpiece in the Italy-Africa Conference, held this week in Rome.

Cultural proximity and cross-fora cooperation between Rome and Brasilia constitute a fertile occasion to establish a deeper dialogue between the West and the BRICS, thus extending an olive branch to emerging powers, acknowledging their grievances and curbing the latter group’s drive to become an “anti-West” front.

In this sort of framework, the diversity of views can lead to more innovative approaches and nuanced solutions to complex issues such as climate change and economic inequalities. It can also expand opportunities for joint initiatives that can drive sustainable economic growth, while ensuring the benefits of growth are more equitably distributed on a global scale.

How Italy can set the agenda for cooperation

In practical terms, what should the West and the Rest work on together? As highlighted in the Mattei Plan, which features it as one of its five pillars, energy is a fruitful area for cooperation. Green energy and greentech, for example, are pathways to addressing climate change that double as a way to enhance supply chain resilience. Italy could make the case during its G7 presidency for more green energy and greentech investment in the Global South, which would allow those countries to tap into their natural resources, from fossil fuels and raw materials to solar and wind power, and develop their national industrial prowess, while diversifying the Global North’s energy supplies.

On the digital front, the avenue for cooperation is the technological “plumbing”—ranging from trustworthy telecoms infrastructure to privacy—and business-friendly international data transfer frameworks, not to mention chips and artificial intelligence tools. The latter two especially are among the most powerful drivers of growth, which still cannot materialize in the absence of an environment that’s conducive to investment—one of the main takeaways from the first Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi. In talking via international fora, national institutions must work to foster the conditions and offer guarantees so that money movers can unlock potential growth.

For this degree of cooperation to exist, recognizing and respecting cultural, structural, and political differences is paramount. Maintaining a high degree of transparency is also important to building trust and avoiding accusations of double standards. Boosted by the G7 presidency, Rome holds the right cards to foster an open environment that’s conducive to meaningful interaction, addressing disparities and promoting inclusive economic growth on a global scale.

Paolo Messa is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Karim Mezran is a resident senior fellow and the director of the North Africa Program at the Atlantic Council.

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Rich Outzen joins WION News to discuss ICJ ruling

aozen — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 13:31:47 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

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What the EU can do now to strengthen economic ties with Ukraine and Georgia

Maia Nikoladze and Yulia Bychkovska — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 19:49:57 +0000

Last month, the European Council decided to open European Union (EU) accession negotiations with Ukraine and to grant candidate status to Georgia. Regardless of how long it will take each country to meet the requirements and join the EU, the twenty-seven-member bloc should expand its existing capacity-building projects and trade ties with both of them now.

By doing so, the EU will leverage its economic power to support the fledgling democracies’ goal of balancing against Russia’s economic influence. In other words, the EU has an opportunity to demonstrate how positive economic statecraft—the use of economic incentives by a government to influence the behavior of another government—can encourage Ukraine and Georgia to further reduce their economic dependence on Russia and deepen ties with the West, even before their EU accession.

The first step will be for the EU to support additional capacity-building in Ukraine and Georgia by providing financial and technical assistance. This process will look different in each country’s case: For Ukraine, which must fight a full-scale war while making progress on meeting the EU’s accession requirements, financial and economic capacity-building will require immediate financial assistance for recovery. For Georgia, it will require training Georgian financial intelligence analysts and prosecutors on anti-money laundering and counter–terrorist financing best practices to prevent sanctions evasion through the Georgian banking system.

Ongoing projects

The EU already promotes positive economic statecraft with Ukraine and Georgia and is developing new tools that can be further expanded. For example, the EU is negotiating to establish the Ukraine Facility designed to support Ukraine, its recovery, and its path to EU accession, with plans to provide up to fifty billion euros for the period from 2024 to 2027. Even though Hungary vetoed the allocation of these funds to Ukraine in December while demanding that Brussels unfreeze Hungary’s funds, the EU will come back to this issue again next month. The establishment of this tool would show the EU’s long-term commitment to supporting Ukraine.

Moreover, the EU and Ukraine have an Association Agreement that promotes deeper economic ties through a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). To ensure Ukraine’s access to the EU’s common market, the Priority Action Plan allows for the free circulation of industrial goods, improves supply chain security, and explores the possibility of extending Ukraine access to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Like Ukraine, Georgia also has an Association Agreement with the EU, which opened the EU market to Georgian businesses and products through the DCFTA and has allowed visa-free travel for Georgian citizens since 2017. The EU is Georgia’s largest financial assistance provider and also its largest trading partner. Furthermore, Tbilisi is working on solutions for increasing cross-border e-commerce with the EU by fifty percent. The EU has also invested in capacity-building projects in Georgia and has trained Georgian prosecutors and investigators in fighting money laundering, corruption, and terrorist financing.

Expanding cooperation

The EU should continue its capacity-building efforts with Ukraine and Georgia to ensure Ukraine has the financial assistance it needs for recovery, while both countries’ banking systems meet international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards.

The most immediate action that the EU should take is to agree on the fifty billion euro financial aid to Ukraine during the special summit in Brussels on February 1. If Hungary keeps opposing the decision, the EU’s other options are to either give funding to Ukraine without Hungary’s approval or to distribute funding bilaterally. The EU’s hesitation with both options is understandable, given that they could both signal a weakening of the bloc’s unity. However, because of the unusual circumstances created by the war and Ukraine’s significance to Europe’s security from Russia, European leaders have signaled readiness to provide funding to Ukraine with or without Orbán’s support.

Moreover, as part of the EU’s positive economic statecraft strategy, Ukraine and Georgia should both be accepted into SEPA—Europe’s cross-border payment system that allows member states to make euro-denominated credit transfers in a few seconds. The SEPA zone is a significant element of the EU common market and would draw Ukraine and Georgia closer to the single market where cross-border trade is predominantly in euros. The opportunity to transact with European businesses and individuals with lower transaction costs will incentivize Ukraine and Georgia to comply with SEPA standards faster. This would also give the EU oversight of Ukraine’s and Georgia’s euro-dominated financial transactions.

This financial and technical assistance will help turn the enthusiasm on display in Ukraine and Georgia in December, when the start of accession talks was announced, into deeper and stronger connections with the EU.

Maia Nikoladze is the assistant director at the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. Follow her at @Mai_Nikoladze.

Yulia Bychkovska is a young global professional at the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. Follow her at @_YuliaB_.

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Three Seas Initiative leaders on European connectivity and Ukraine’s reconstruction

Daniel Hojnacki — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 16:59:52 +0000

Watch the panel

“We need development. And one of the most important factors for that development is connectivity,” said Polish President Andrzej Duda on January 17 at the Atlantic Council’s Three Seas Hub on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Duda spoke alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković as the heads of state took stock of the Three Seas Initiative at age nine, with an eye toward what’s next for the group at a time of war and uncertainty.

The Three Seas Initiative, established in 2015 by Duda and Croatia’s then President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, is a forum of thirteen European Union (EU) member states running north to south from the Baltic to the Black and Adriatic seas. The initiative is dedicated to advancing connectivity, security, and foreign investment in the Central and Eastern Europe region.

The initiative’s founding mission “to establish north-south access” in Central and Eastern Europe required “a visionary approach,” said Nausėda. Today, amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has led to Moscow’s isolation, “it’s very important to replace west-east access with north-south access.”

Below are more highlights from this discussion, which was moderated by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe.

Integrating Ukraine

When it comes to cooperating on projects under the Three Seas Initiative, Nausėda said, “I am looking not only at the member states of the European Union,” but also potential future members of the bloc—especially Ukraine and Moldova. The initiative’s agenda is “also about the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine,” said Nausėda, who will host the next Three Seas Summit and Business Forum on April 11 in Vilnius.

Building more infrastructure and increasing connectivity also has implications for Ukraine’s war effort. “We need excellent infrastructure, motorways, railways to deliver military equipment” to Ukraine, said Duda.

Ukraine and fellow EU candidate Moldova were made associate states of the initiative at the Three Seas Summit in Bucharest last September. Membership in the initiative is reserved for EU member states, and there is no plan to change this rule, Duda said. However, he said, “We hope Ukraine will be a full member of Three Seas Initiative because we all support Ukrainian efforts to join the European Union.”

Jumpstarting investment

Nausėda said the initiative needs to make its projects “economically interesting” to private businesses and foreign investors. “Otherwise it will be very difficult to implement these projects” only with state and EU resources, he said. “Those are also important, but they cannot cover all the financial gaps we have with the Three Seas Initiative.”
Looking at ways the initiative can attract more outside investment, Plenković said that “we should all strengthen our judiciary. We should all fight corruption.”
“It will take several multi-annual financial frameworks and investments” to attain the level of economic development of the EU’s founding members, said Plenković. “And this catching up policy is not something you can do overnight.”

Raising ambitions

The countries in the initiative “need to get more attraction also outside this region” to increase foreign investment, said Rinkēvičs. “While there is a profound interest” for cooperation within the Three Seas region, he said, “there is also an interest to attract more investment, trade relations with the outside world.”
There is also room to increase security cooperation with outside countries, including the United States, through the Three Seas Initiative, argued Rinkēvičs. “When we talk about military security, energy security, cyber security, we need to put more effort into working with our transatlantic partners,” he said.

Daniel Hojnacki is an assistant editor on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council.

Watch the full panel

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Ambassador Stefanini featured in Formiche

Stefano Stefanini — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 19:50:20 +0000

Nonresident Senior Fellow

On January 14, Transatlantic Security Initiative nonresident senior fellow Ambassador Stefano Stefanini wrote an op-ed in Formiche that analyzed Africa’s role in the G7 and how Italy could serve as an interlocutor in Western institutions for the interests of countries in the so-called Global South (original source in Italian).

Fellow

Stefano Stefanini

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

English Europe & Eurasia