Political Reform - Atlantic Council

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

Volodymyr Dubovyk, Associate Professor, Odesa Mechnikov National University: I did not have high expectations for the summit and did not think it was likely to become a breakthrough moment in Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership, so I cannot say I was particularly disappointed. At the same time, it is clear that the wording of the final communique was not good. It was reminiscent of the vague language used in Bucharest back in 2008, and reflected the widely acknowledged lack of agreement among NATO allies over Ukrainian membership. Some of the passages from the communique, such as the references to interoperability between Ukraine and the alliance, gave the impression that the dramatic events of the past year and a half had not happened at all.

Having said that, my main concern was that tension over the NATO membership issue could damage ongoing military, political, and financial support for Ukraine in its war of liberation. This did not happen. There was some evidence of emotions flying high, with President Zelenskyy’s angry tweet on the way to the summit provoking a defensive reaction from some allies, but the overall mood was one of constructive cooperation and partnership.

Iuliia Mendel, former press secretary to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians demonstrate their commitment to Ukrainian democracy and independence every day as they defend the country along the front lines of the war with Russia. This NATO summit was an opportunity to send a positive signal to them that their sacrifices are acknowledged and appreciated. Unfortunately, the summit communique was too vague to send a clear message.

Instead of decisive action, I saw a lot of bureaucratic discussion. This was frustrating, especially as an invitation would not have meant immediate Ukrainian accession to NATO. It would not have triggered Article 5 or plunged NATO into a war with Russia. Ukrainians find this approach hard to stomach. For us, NATO is a matter of national survival, not a box-ticking exercise.

There are two main reasons for the diplomatic compromises we witnessed in Vilnius. Firstly, some Western leaders are still concerned that issuing Ukraine with an invitation to join NATO could lead to an escalation and expansion of the current war. Secondly, there are also legitimate reservations over Ukraine’s readiness for membership, particularly in terms of the country’s domestic reform agenda.

Despite the disappointment of the Vilnius summit, I remain confident that Ukraine has earned the right to join NATO and will achieve membership sooner or later. Nevertheless, there is no denying that an important opportunity to demonstrate international support for Ukraine has been missed.

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

For this reason, it is crucial that Ukraine’s nascent reconstruction strategies incorporate local leaders and mayors as primary actors charged with directing and managing redevelopment initiatives. Although any Ukrainian “Marshall Plan” will certainly prioritize financing redevelopment projects and infrastructure repair, Ukrainian officials and the country’s international partners should also work to establish new relationships that empower leaders at the local level.

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Numerous plans to address Ukraine’s future economic and political engagement with transatlantic and other recovery institutions are already underway. During the recent Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, public and private leaders from over 60 countries pledged significant financial resources to address humanitarian needs and outline investments in Ukraine’s battered economy.

Kyiv had earlier presented a draft Recovery and Development Plan at the 2022 Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland. This plan outlined the need for approximately 850 reconstruction projects set over ten years with total costs estimated at $750 billion dollars.

In January 2023, the European Commission also unveiled its Multi-Agency Donor Coordination Platform, which is designed to streamline future Ukrainian international recovery assistance and establish clear, transparent, and accountable financial standards. While such initiatives help secure much-needed funds, Ukraine and its allies must also seek to utilize these global opportunities and engage Ukraine’s local leaders as vital partners in their country’s recovery.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

Expanding on Ukraine’s decentralization experience is not only a pragmatic wartime imperative necessary for distributing equipment and supplies; it will also build upon established reforms necessary for Ukraine’s democratic consolidation. Beginning in 2014 as part of the many sweeping reforms enacted after the Euromaidan Revolution, political decentralization has been an important way of reducing Soviet-style centralization in Kyiv while combating corruption.

Over the past nine years, Ukraine’s mayors have started to gain experience developing and managing public policies and directly responding to constituent needs. Over this period, more than 10,000 informal local councils were merged into officially recognized municipalities and granted formal administrative oversight and financial regulatory powers. Up until Russia’s 2022 invasion, decentralized economic and political reforms introduced unprecedented positive changes in quality of life for millions of Ukrainians; the share of citizens living below subsistence levels fell from 52% to 23% between 2015 to 2019.

Ukraine’s continued success in creating resilient local governance systems will require cooperation with national political leaders with clear expectations outlined in legal commitments. Meanwhile, examples of renewed political centralization in response to wartime demands have highlighted possible fault lines between local and national figures. This trend threatens to exacerbate tensions if left unchecked.

In the city of Chernihiv, located approximately 90 miles north of Kyiv, Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko was removed by courts following an investigation by Ukraine’s National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) into the alleged use of a municipally-owned car by the mayor’s wife to evacuate from the city during the opening days of the war. Mayor Atroshenko himself stayed in Chernihiv to oversee the defense of the city which withstood a siege and partial occupation in spring 2022.

In the city of Rivne in western Ukraine, rumblings grow of Mayor Oleksandr Tretyak potentially being removed in relation to an NAPC investigation into the payment of bonuses to city officials in 2020. At the same time, Mayor Tretyak claims he has come under increasing pressure to move limited city budget money to the region’s civil military administration, something he has so far refused to do, claiming that the city has already fulfilled all budgetary support requirements. These examples have fueled speculation over the direction of wartime centralization and should give pause to local authorities and regional civic leaders.

Any future national reconstruction policy will be best served by building upon Ukraine’s localized leadership assets and incorporating local councils, mayors, and officials in decision-making processes. By directing incoming aid at the local level, global partners can help expand technical, strategic, and administrative capacities and ensure resources are used effectively across targeted issues. Ukraine’s dedication to continued decentralization reforms is not only necessary to achieve reconstruction goals but is also a critical component of the country’s mission to develop transparent democratic systems from the ground up moving forward.

Zachary Popovich is a senior program associate at the International Republican Institute. Michael Druckman is the resident program director for Ukraine at the International Republican Institute.

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Nobody will have failed to notice that while Putin has continued to talk tough, he failed to crush the Wagner uprising and instead struck some kind of deal with Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his mutinous troops. Putin demonstrated a readiness to compromise despite the fact that Wagner fighters reportedly shot down a number of Russian aircraft and killed numerous Russian airmen. This indicated an apparent lack of concern for the lives of Russian servicemen at a time when tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have already been killed as a result of Putin’s fateful decision to invade Ukraine.

The brief Wagner uprising also revealed a remarkable shortage of Russian military strength and fighting spirit on the home front. Wagner troops were able to seize one of Russia’s largest cities, Rostov-on-Don, without a fight. Perhaps even more significantly, they were cheered and supported by crowds of locals. Wagner forces then advanced to within 200 kilometers of Moscow virtually unopposed before choosing to turn back.

Meanwhile, there was no surge in street-level or elite support for Putin. Instead, pro-war propagandists fell largely silent as rumors swirled of establishment figures fleeing Moscow. For a brief period, Russia looked to be leaderless and defenseless. The immediate danger has now passed, but these stunning developments have changed attitudes toward Putin and his regime in fundamental ways.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

It would appear that history repeats itself. Just as in 1990 very few foresaw the looming collapse of the USSR, Russia now once again looks suddenly fragile. Unsurprisingly, this is regarded as good news in Ukraine, where any sign of Russian instability is welcomed. Attitudes elsewhere are not so clear-cut. Many international observers are openly alarmed by the potential demise of the Russian Federation in its current form. They worry about the fate of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, and also question the legitimacy of the many new states that could potentially emerge from the wreckage of Putin’s Russia.

These concerns mirror attitudes during the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Indeed, it is often forgotten that US President George Bush H. W. Bush came to Kyiv in the weeks before Ukraine’s August 1991 declaration of independence to argue against such a move in his “Chicken Kiev” speech. Many of today’s leaders share these fears over the potential disintegration of Russia. Nevertheless, the Wagner revolt has demonstrated that the Putin regime may well collapse due to its own internal weaknesses, regardless of the Western world’s wishes.

Elements of the international community, including in the West, also cling to the idea of reaching some kind of compromise and returning to business as usual with Russia. While it is obvious to almost everyone in Ukraine and in nearby countries including Poland and the Baltic states that Russia will only stop when it is decisively defeated, there are still many observers elsewhere who believe they can turn back the clock to 2021 or even 2013. They fondly recall a time when Vladimir Putin was the respected leader of a economically strong nation at the heart of global affairs, and dream of returning to this state of affairs. Such thinking is dangerously delusional.

In reality, there can be no way back to international respectability for Putin. As a result of the disastrous invasion of Ukraine, he will be an enemy of the entire Western world for as long as he remains in power. Crucially for the future of his regime, Putin is also clearly no longer able to guarantee domestic security or protect the interests of the Russian elite on the international stage.

As the international community assesses the fallout from the Wagner revolt, it no longer makes sense to be afraid of a new Russian collapse. On the contrary, the time has come to begin preparing for the possibility of a post-Putin Russia. Western policymakers should now be thinking seriously about how to make any future transition as smooth as possible. This means preparing for the emergence of a democratic Russia, and also exploring what a breakup of the current Russian Federation into a number of smaller states would mean for international security.

When similar processes were underway in the early 1990s, the international community prioritized stability above all else, paving the way for the eventual rise of a revisionist Russia under Putin. This time, a new Russian collapse should be managed in order to bring about a sustainable shift toward democracy. The experience of the past three decades has demonstrated that this is the only way to secure a durable peace. Today’s Western leaders must learn from the mistakes of their predecessors in order to avoid repeating them.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a member of the Ukrainian parliament with the European Solidarity party.

The minilateral moment in the Middle East: An opportunity for US regional policy?

Jean-Loup Samaan — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 13:00:00 +0000

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In a new Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative issue brief, “The Minilateral Moment in the Middle East: An Opportunity for US Regional Policy,” the Atlantic Council’s nonresident senior fellow Jean-Loup Samaan analyzes how regional powers are reconsidering the multilateral balance of their foreign policy arrangements, and the emerging implications for US Middle East policy.

Over the past three years, the Middle East has experienced major intra-regional changes. After a decade of fierce competition between two blocs—one led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the other by Qatar and Turkey—both parties now seem willing to cooperate. One of the key features of this new regional environment, according to Samaan, has been the growth of so-called minilateral initiatives that regroup several countries on an ad hoc basis.

Samaan also addresses how powers outside the region have embarked on a similar path of building relationships with countries in the Middle East. Russia’s recent attempt to build a similar framework with Turkey and Iran, he argues, provides evidence of how minilateralism is increasingly considered an effective instrument of regional diplomacy.

About the author

Jean-Loup Samaan

Nonresident Senior Fellow
Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs

Senior Research Fellow
Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore

Samaan serves as a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. Prior to that, Samaan was a policy analyst at the Directorate for Strategic Affairs of the French Ministry of Defense from 2008 to 2011, research advisor at the NATO Defense College from 2011 to 2016, and associate professor in strategic studies detached by the US Near East South Asia Center to the UAE National Defense College from 2016 to 2021.

Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative

The Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative (SMESI) provides policymakers fresh insights into core US national security interests by leveraging its expertise, networks, and on-the-ground programs to develop unique and holistic assessments on the future of the most pressing strategic, political, and security challenges and opportunities in the Middle East.

MENASource Jun 22, 2023

How regime security is set to dominate Saudi-UAE interaction over economic competition and political rivalry

By Robert Mason

The Middle East has been a critical area of Saudi and UAE interaction and cooperation, especially at the onset of the 2011 Arab Spring.

Economy & Business Middle East

MENASource Jun 20, 2023

The way for the US to ensure Gulf security is through partnership, not policing

By David Mack

As the United States continues to work with the Gulf on security, expect blips. Despite that, Washington can get this partnership back on course.

Defense Industry Defense Policy

IranSource May 16, 2023

The Arab League thinks readmitting Syria will push out Iran. They’re wrong.

By David Daoud

The logic of drawing Bashar al-Assad back into the Arab League is unsound, founded on the faulty premise that there remains such a thing as an independent Syrian regime to woo back from Tehran.

Iran Middle East

The post The minilateral moment in the Middle East: An opportunity for US regional policy? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The next European Union member is…

Atlantic Council experts — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 14:22:51 +0000

July 1 marks ten years since Croatia joined the European Union (EU)—and no country has done so since. It’s the longest duration without a new member for the EU and its predecessor institutions going back to 1973. Below, the Europe Center’s Frances Burwell explains the current complex political debate within the EU over enlargement, then eleven experts share their insights on potential new members—official candidates as well as a couple wild cards.

Hard lessons about EU enlargement

During the ten years since the last enlargement of the EU, some hard lessons have emerged for the existing twenty-seven member states. Contrary to expectations, these lessons have little to do with the reform of EU institutions and processes. Instead, they are rooted in political vulnerabilities in both “old” Europe and “new” Europe. Above all, the existing member states fear the emergence of new members—and especially a large new member, such as Ukraine—with serious rule-of-law failings, à la Poland or Hungary.

When the EU decided to grant Ukraine and Moldova candidacy status in June 2022, it was a political decision motivated by the desire to show unity in the face of Russian aggression. Neither country would have qualified for candidacy status under normal circumstances, nor would the existing member states have been willing to make such an exception. But both countries have worked hard, and the question now is when to open negotiations on specific regulations. Prospective members from the Balkans present a more mixed picture, with some governments making progress and others even seeming unconvinced of the value of membership. As the EU enlargement debate begins to heat up, keep in mind four key lessons:

The institutions can adapt. Every enlargement round has been accompanied by calls for institutional reform and treaty change. No way, it was said, can the EU operate at fifteen, at twenty-five, or twenty-seven. Yet, the EU institutions continue to function. Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic and in response to the invasion of Ukraine, the EU has made more difficult decisions more quickly than at any time in its history.
The accession process offers too many opportunities for existing members to settle historical scores with potential members, slowing the process. Too often, this is due to niche historical grievances exploited by member state politicians; see Bulgaria’s efforts to slow down the accession of North Macedonia or Spain’s failure to countenance Kosovo’s bid.
Rigorous benchmarking of regulations does not prevent democratic backsliding. The twelve mostly postcommunist states admitted in 2004 and 2007 had to meet much higher standards of regulatory cohesion than earlier entrants. Yet today, members of the class of 2004 Poland and Hungary face charges that they have strayed from basic EU values on the rule of law, especially regarding the judiciary and media. Other member states have also had questions raised about the state of their democracies.
The biggest lesson of them all is that politics is the key element in the accession process. What will be the reaction of the radical left and extreme right that has become such a factor in EU domestic politics? Will ratification of each accession by existing members be too high of a hurdle? Ukraine and Moldova have benefited from politics so far, but as the accession process moves forward and membership seems closer, the politics—especially among the current member states—will only get harder.

—Frances Burwell is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

United Kingdom

Albania: Strong momentum to overcome rule-of-law concerns

Albania was granted EU candidate status in June 2014. The EU grouped Albania’s accession bid with North Macedonia’s (which was stalled due to a dispute with Greece over naming issues), and it wasn’t until July 2022 that Albania had its first intergovernmental conference with the EU to actually launch negotiations officially.

Albania’s greatest progress toward accession thus far has been its substantial judicial reform, which is unprecedented in its ambition in the Western Balkans. The reform, which implemented serious vetting of the judiciary, led to the dismissal of more than 60 percent of judges and prosecutors across the country who were found to have criminal ties, concealed wealth, or otherwise unprofessional behavior.

Despite this initiative, Albania still has a long way to go on rule-of-law reform to meet EU standards. With so many judges and prosecutors dismissed, there is a serious shortage of officials available to deal with continued criminal cases. And while the reform is strong on paper, international assessments find Albania to still suffer from significant corruption (even compared to other Western Balkans countries) and needs to strengthen its record on indictments in high-level corruption cases, prioritize anti-money laundering initiatives, and increase transparency in consolidating property rights.

But Albania has the drive to continue with these reforms: EU membership remains incredibly popular and is supported by nearly 96 percent of Albanians according to a 2022 Euronews Albania poll. The same poll showed that more than 35 percent of Albanians think the country will join the EU by 2027. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has consistently expressed his willingness to keep the country on track to meet EU reforms and he has been transparent in his appeal for pre-accession EU funds to enable the country to meet EU benchmarks. Within the region, he’s an ardent supporter of regional cooperation opportunities such as the Berlin Process and Open Balkan Initiative that would allow for the movement of people and trade throughout the region as a good exercise to prepare for future EU membership.

Although Albania had a late start in the EU accession process, its substantial judicial reforms, clear messaging from its leader on the value of EU membership, and overwhelming popular support for the effort have given it unique momentum within the region to continue on its path toward joining the bloc.

—Lisa Homel is an assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bumpy accession progress leaves an opening for Russia and China

Twenty years ago, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was promised EU membership at the Thessaloniki Summit. The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU entered into force in June 2015, and BiH applied for membership in February 2016. Candidate status was granted six years later, in December 2022, as result of a new geopolitical situation in Europe, propping up the EU’s renewed engagement with the Western Balkans as vital for European security.

The long and bumpy EU integration process, lack of sustainable reforms in the country, dysfunction in the government, ethnic divisions, weak economic development, and systemic corruption of ethno-political elites controlling institutions have increased apathy and skepticism in BiH. EU membership is supported by half of the population, but when it comes to expectations of citizens, 35 percent believe that the country will never join the EU. The risk of competing visions for the future of the country is increasing, and the EU’s strategic competitors, Russia and China, are gaining more space. Young people have opted for the easier way to join the EU, through massive emigration into Western Europe. Migration and brain drain have become new security challenges, as BiH is among the countries that have lost the largest share of their population since the early 1990s (33 percent).

The new government in BiH has prioritized EU integration, and the main focus should be on implementing the fourteen priorities of the European Commission, dealing mostly with the functionality of the government focusing on the rule of law and judiciary reform and by creating a clear division of competencies between different levels of government. To be successful, the EU’s higher focus on fundamentals and stricter conditionality and accountability should be paired with earlier access to structural funds to promote socioeconomic convergence and a gradual phasing-in of candidate countries in various sectors of the EU market.

—Valbona Zeneli is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Georgia: Backsliding and Russian influence put the EU in a bind

In June 2022, the European Commission decided not to grant Georgia candidate status, unlike Moldova and Ukraine. Instead, the Commission granted it a “European perspective” and provided twelve recommendations for issues that the country must tackle first. Despite widespread agreement in the West that the government has been backsliding in key indicators such as independence of the judiciary and state institutions, the Commission’s June 2022 decision was questionable because Georgia has completed far more of the legislative and technical requirements for candidate status than Ukraine or Moldova and has a vibrant, if tenuous, democratic system. In a March 2023 International Republican Institute poll, 89 percent of the Georgian population said it supports the country joining the EU. Widespread public protests erupted that month when the government attempted to introduce a foreign agent law, modeled on a similar Russian law, that was undemocratic and in direct conflict with the Commission’s recommendations. The government withdrew the bill in response.

The EU now finds itself in a bind, as the Georgian government has not implemented many reforms addressing the most serious problems and its commitment to this Western course is somewhere between fickle and self-sabotaging. The EU is in a position where if it grants candidate status now, it risks rewarding a government that is backsliding in terms of democratic reform. Conversely, if it refuses to give candidate status, it risks consigning Georgia to a bureaucratic gray zone where it could find itself increasingly unable or unwilling to counter Russian influence. However, so far, the country remains an imperfect but spirited and pluralistic democracy with a population deeply committed to a European future.

—Laura Linderman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Kosovo: Progress is stalled as the Serbia standoff continues

Kosovo signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU in 2015 and submitted its application for candidate status in 2022. Although 85 percent of Kosovars want to join the EU, Kosovo faces the unique obstacle of not being able to advance further in EU accession because five EU member states do not recognize its independence (Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain). A key precondition set by the EU for Kosovo to move forward has been the conclusion of the normalization agreement with Serbia, which has effectively stalled since 2015. A recent European proposal on normalization agreed to in principle by both sides is also on the brink of failure due to tensions in Kosovo’s Serbian-majority north.

The deterioration in the security situation and Kosovo’s stagnant EU accession process undermines the country’s recent progress in democratic reforms and in tackling corruption. The lack of clear EU prospects for Kosovo and the Western Balkans in general—especially many years of delays in approving visa liberalization for Kosovo (it comes into force in January 2024)—have fueled frustrations with the EU and brought anti-EU narratives to the mainstream of public discourse.

—Agon Maliqi is an independent analyst and researcher from Kosovo working on security and democracy issues in the Western Balkans.

Moldova: Corruption and Transnistria remain challenges

In June 2022, the European Council announced it would grant Moldova and Ukraine candidacy status—almost eight years to the day since Chisinau earned an association agreement with the EU in 2014. Candidacy was a major symbolic boon for Moldova, which had endured a maddeningly stop-start progression toward EU reforms and candidacy. But pro-European president Maia Sandu has her country on the right track: She is tough enough to enact real reforms and as a former International Monetary Fund official, has the right combination of technocratic and diplomatic skills to lead Moldova toward Europe.

Yet Moldova faces major roadblocks to pass through before its eventual accession. The EU’s June 2022 announcement carried with it nine political conditions before accession talks, compared to seven for Ukraine. With a population of less than three million people, Moldova lacks the capacity of Ukraine but faces similar challenges of outside influence. Chisinau continues to battle corrupt politicians and oligarchs who consistently threaten to blow Sandu’s reform drive off course. Moldova will also likely need to solve the fate of Transnistria, the Russia-dominated statelet that broke away in 1992. EU countries will rightly want to strengthen border controls with a Russian client statelet.

Greater EU diplomatic engagement with Chisinau and technical support for market and judicial reforms can help shore up Moldova’s capacity to make meaningful progress on EU conditions. Additional Western sanctions on Shor, Plahotniuc, and their proxies can mitigate their malign influence in Moldovan politics and help consolidate the country’s democracy.

—Andrew D’Anieri is assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Montenegro: A stable political coalition is necessary for progress

Montenegro started negotiations for EU membership eleven years ago. So far, Podgorica has opened all the chapters but has only closed three. The negotiations came to a halt in 2018 when Brussels made it clear that progress in the EU accession process would be directly conditioned by advancements in the rule of law and democratic institutions. Since the former regime of President Milo Đukanović turned Montenegro into a so-called captured state, with a corrupt judiciary and police and where organized crime thrived, the EU accession process has de facto been slowed down, if not halted.

The process of forming a new government is underway in Podgorica. The winning party in the recent elections is the Europe Now Movement (PES). The main challenge for PES leader Milojko Spajić, the likely prime minister in the future government, will be to form a stable coalition capable of executing necessary reforms which would unlock Montenegro’s path to the EU.

The biggest problems in Montenegrin society are organized crime and corruption. They cannot be resolved without appointing new prosecutors and judges and adopting and implementing reforms in the judiciary and police. While Russia’s influence in Montenegro exists, it is limited. The pro-Russian sentiment among certain segments of Montenegrin society, which dates back to the eighteenth century, is often mistakenly interpreted as a result of Russian influence rather than historical heritage.

Public support for Montenegro’s accession to the EU consistently ranges between 70 and 80 percent, indicating that this is one of the few issues in the country with a fairly broad consensus. Therefore, the implementation of the so-called EU agenda is a crucial tool in forming a new government and creating a stronger parliamentary majority.

—Maja Piscevic is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and representative of the Center in the Western Balkans.

North Macedonia: Amid delays, public support for EU membership is plunging

North Macedonia’s perspective on EU membership has drastically shifted in the past two decades, replacing initial enthusiasm with caution and diminished optimism. Despite obtaining candidate status in 2005, the country has endured eighteen years of uncertainty, waiting for the European Commission recommendations to translate into official negotiations from the European Council. The Prespa Agreement, considered a significant compromise five years ago, failed to deliver on its promise of faster progress toward EU membership, further dampening hopes.

In November 2020, Bulgaria’s blockade on North Macedonia’s EU accession negotiations, demanding constitutional changes for the Bulgarian minority, worsened the situation. The opposition’s refusal to join votes for the necessary constitutional changes, requiring a two-thirds parliamentary majority, has led to an impending political crisis. Trust has eroded, significantly undermining the EU’s credibility compared to sentiments held two decades ago.

To tackle this challenge, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed an effective strategy: immediate and generous allocation of pre-accession funds to facilitate North Macedonia’s transformation and benefit other Western Balkan countries. However, the specific amount of funds remains unspecified, leaving room for uncertainty.

The forthcoming Balkan Barometer report from the Regional Cooperation Council reveals a diminishing perception of EU membership in North Macedonia, once a fierce supporter. In 2019, 70 percent of citizens viewed EU membership as a positive development, but the 2023 Balkan Barometer shows that only 50 percent of respondents consider it a positive prospect, with 34 percent neutral and 13 percent negative.

These survey findings serve as a wake-up call for North Macedonian leaders, EU officials, and US policymakers. Urgent measures are necessary to address citizens’ concerns and doubts. Open dialogue, trust-building, and effective communication about the advantages and opportunities of EU membership are crucial. Specific challenges must be tackled, aligning the EU integration process with citizens’ expectations. Mere promises and kind words will not suffice to reverse the current gloomy narrative. Boosting the local economy through investments and improving standards of living would be a highly welcomed step, revitalizing the path to EU membership and restoring faith in the process, ultimately bringing back hope to the citizens for the once-promised European future.

At this critical juncture, Bulgaria must refrain from employing vetoes or placing undue pressure on North Macedonia and should foster a constructive and cooperative relationship free from unnecessary obstacles. Additionally, the EU member states should collectively exert pressure on Sofia, urging responsible actions based on European values towards its neighbor.

—Ilva Tare is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and was most recently a broadcaster with EuroNews Group.

Serbia: ‘Sitting on two stools’ means no movement toward EU

For most Serbs, EU membership increasingly seems like a mirage, and certainly the prospect does not have the power and gravitational pull that it had in the years immediately following the wars of Yugoslav succession. Serbia officially applied for membership in December 2009, and all governments since that time have professed pro-EU sentiments. But over the last decade, Serbia has not made progress on reforms necessary for accession and has continued its reputation as trying to “sit on two stools” (claiming commitment to a Western course while remaining closely tied to Russia). Moreover, the current leadership has been deft at looking to other sources of support and investment (China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Gulf states) for visible development projects even as the EU provides the overwhelming amount of its foreign assistance. And in certain areas, such as press freedom, Serbia has a way to go to achieve EU standards.

So even as 65 percent of Serbs support EU reforms, only 43 percent are actually in favor of joining the EU. The fate of Russia’s attack on Ukraine may have an impact on the leadership and public opinion in Serbia, but for now, there is great “EU fatigue” and a lack of confidence that membership in the union is anywhere near. Finally, relations with Kosovo will be key to Serbia’s prospects in the EU, and recent events have not been encouraging there, despite the best efforts of the transatlantic community.

—Cameron Munter is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and Europe Center and a former US ambassador to Serbia.

Turkey: Rule of law and Cyprus hamper a long-stalled process

Turkey’s EU accession history goes back a long way, starting in 1959 when it applied for associate membership to what was then known as the European Economic Community (EEC). Turkey officially applied for full membership in the EEC in 1987, and Turkey became eligible to join the EU in 1999. The same year, during the Helsinki European Council, the EU recognized Turkey as a candidate and official negotiations for accession began in 2005. However, progress has been slow and to date, only sixteen of thirty-five accession chapters have been opened, and only one has been completed. A total of fourteen chapters are blocked due to the decisions of the European Council and Cyprus. Meanwhile, the war in Syria led to a refugee crisis for the EU—with Turkey on the front line. In the 2015 and 2016 EU summits, burden-sharing in migration management was a major topic between Turkey and the EU. As a result, currently Turkey hosts almost four million Syrian refugees under temporary protection status.

The most important step for overcoming this period and helping to normalize relations was the Turkey-EU summit in March 2018, in Varna, Bulgaria, which was beneficial to reestablishing confidence in Turkey-EU relations. But just three months later, the General Affairs Council stated that “Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union. Turkey’s accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill and no further chapters can be considered for opening or closing and no further work towards the modernization of the EU-Turkey Customs Union is foreseen.”

The 2022 enlargement report released by the European Commission offered an assessment of where things stand now: “The Turkish government has not reversed the negative trend in relation to reform, despite its repeated commitment to EU accession,” the report reads. “The EU’s serious concerns on the continued deterioration of democracy, the rule of law, fundamental rights, and the independence of the judiciary have not been addressed.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who just won another term to rule for the next five years, is pushing for membership less than he did in his prior twenty years leading the country. However, Erdoğan recently called for increased communications for Turkey’s EU membership. According to a 2022 poll by the German Marshall Fund, 59 percent of Turks support EU membership. The big issues Turkey needs to overcome before being admitted are the rule of law and a resolution to the Cyprus dispute with the EU. Despite these issues, Turkey has stepped up recently to de-escalate tensions with Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially after Turkey’s devastating earthquake early this year, which led to a warm earthquake diplomacy between the two countries.

—Alp Ozen is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY program.

Ukraine: As reforms advance, accession talks could begin this fall

The dramatic events of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity made clear to the world the Ukrainian people’s desire to pursue the path of European integration. Now, the Ukrainian people are fighting an existential war to protect that vision against a full-scale Russian invasion.

In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine was officially granted EU candidacy status in June 2022. Brussels set out seven conditions before accession talks could begin. In June 2023, the EU reported that Ukraine had satisfied two of these conditions, made good progress in one other area, and made some progress in the remaining four. The two conditions already met relate to the judiciary and media, while Ukraine must still pass laws regarding the Constitutional Court, anti-corruption efforts, anti-money laundering efforts, de-oligarchization, and the protection of minority rights in order to align its legislation with EU standards.

Ukraine could begin accession talks as soon as this fall, once all seven conditions are fulfilled. That process will be a long and technical one, but Ukrainian officials and the Ukrainian people have demonstrated their strong commitment to the process. The February 2023 visit to Kyiv by von der Leyen and fifteen EU commissioners to meet with their Ukrainian counterparts underscored the leaders’ commitment, while the people’s commitment was resounding in a recent poll finding that 92 percent of Ukrainians want the country to join the EU by 2030, with all regions of the country squarely in support: 88 percent, 94 percent, 93 percent, and 91 percent in the east, north, west, and south, respectively.

—Benton Coblentz is a program assistant with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, where he facilitates the center’s work on Ukraine and the wider Eurasia region.

United Kingdom: A post-Brexit reexamination of the relationship is underway

Few slogans have been as effective in British politics as “Get Brexit Done,” which helped carry Boris Johnson to victory in the 2019 general election after three years of uncertainty about whether or not the United Kingdom would actually leave the European Union. However, the mood in Britain suggests that Brexit—if understood to mean a stable, fixed, relationship with the bloc outside the EU—is anything but done.

Two trends are pushing toward a reexamination of the relationship. Firstly, a growing number of Britons regret the decision to leave by a margin as wide as 60 percent to 40 percent. In addition, as many as 20 percent of those who voted to “leave” now signal to pollsters that they would have chosen to “remain” instead. Secondly, the opposition Labour Party, a “remain” spirited party, is now seeing poll leads as high as 25 percent. The chances are that Britain will be led by a Labour government by the end of 2024, with strong public support for a closer relationship with the EU.

That doesn’t mean Britain is on the verge of rejoining the EU. Opposition leader, and probably soon-to-be prime minister, Keir Starmer has committed the party not to rejoin the EU’s single market or customs union, which are the arrangements as far as trade is concerned, but to push for better ties beneath that. The EU and its supporters in the United States need to start paying attention to what Labour is saying. David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has proposed a “security pact” between the EU and the United Kingdom as a first step to rebuilding the relationship.

This should be encouraged but more needs to be done. With the European economy in general in such a bad way, Washington should encourage Britain and the EU to go for the most ambitious form of new relationship politically possible within Starmer’s constraints—with economics and trade at the heart of it. Throttled trade benefits nobody, and the failure of Brexit in practice means the EU can afford to be generous. No other EU country is keen to copy what made the United Kingdom “the sick man of Europe.”

—Ben Judah is director of the Europe Center’s Transform Europe Initiative and the author of “This is Europe.”

The post The next European Union member is… appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Pavia joins i24NEWS to discuss President Kais Saied’s ongoing crackdown on key opposition figures.

Atlantic Council — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 19:51:56 +0000

The post Pavia joins i24NEWS to discuss President Kais Saied’s ongoing crackdown on key opposition figures. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Pavia joins i24NEWS to discuss Europe’s approach towards Tunisia and the concerning democratic backsliding within the country.

Atlantic Council — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 19:50:34 +0000

The post Pavia joins i24NEWS to discuss Europe’s approach towards Tunisia and the concerning democratic backsliding within the country. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Beyond the battlefield: Why we should invest in Ukraine’s democratic future

Peter Erben, Gio Kobakhidze — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 12:31:50 +0000

With all eyes on Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive aimed at liberating the country from Russian occupation, there is also much talk throughout Ukraine and beyond on what happens next. This will be one of the main issues on the agenda at this year’s Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC), which the United Kingdom and Ukraine will host jointly in London in late June. The forthcoming conference will bring together leaders from the international community, international financial institutions, the private sector, and civil society to mobilize international support for Ukraine’s postwar economic and social stabilization.

International support will unquestionably continue to be critical for Ukraine’s ability to withstand and prevail in the face of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression, as it will be for Ukraine’s further recovery and reconstruction. In this vein, it is crucial to acknowledge that Ukraine’s commitment to democratic resilience, both during the war and in the post-war phase, is essential to maintaining and expanding these much-needed investments.

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Prior to the February 2022 full-scale invasion of their country, Ukrainians already had a long history of fighting hard for their rights and freedoms. During the decades following the Soviet collapse, independent Ukraine saw significant progress toward mostly free and fair elections and other basic human rights. The nation also decentralized political and budgetary powers, brought greater transparency to government spending, overhauled its banking sector, and made headway on improving the governance of state-owned enterprises, many of which are slated for privatization.

Despite the horrors of the Russian invasion, a number of current indications suggest Ukraine is ready for further progress. The Ukrainian military is now one of the most powerful in Europe. An influential civil society and a relatively free press are among the stronger pillars of this vibrant democracy. The technology sector is thriving and is helping to dismantle what had been a stifling bureaucracy, one of many hangovers from the Soviet Union. But much work remains.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

Today, military victory is obviously Ukraine’s top national priority. At the same time, any Ukrainian will tell you that one of the many realities separating them from Russia is that Ukrainians have a clear military objective and, unlike Russia, know what they are fighting for: freedom. The steps needed to achieve this freedom will extend beyond the battlefield and will include further advances in decentralization, political pluralism, press freedoms, adherence to the rule of law, anti-corruption, human rights, and democratic elections.

It will, for example, be critical for Ukraine to ensure free and fair elections when the country returns to party politics following the end of armed hostilities with Russia. For this to happen, time will be needed to ensure that necessary legislative amendments are passed in an open manner; that political competitors have reasonable and equitable access to the media; that the electoral infrastructure is ready; that financial reporting for political contestants resumes; and that voter registration lists are up to date. As the international community gathers to plan support for Ukraine’s recovery, it is essential that Ukraine’s allies stand ready to support this critical aspect of the nation’s future.

Just as Ukraine has surpassed all expectations in its courageous fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion launched 16 months ago, the nation must also outperform reform expectations once it defeats Russia’s military. After all, this embodies what the nation is fighting for. Further reform measures are also critical as a means of securing continued and expanding support from the country’s international partners, including for recovery and reconstruction.

Ukraine’s heroic resistance to Russia’s war of aggression is the story of a progressing democracy’s resistance to autocracy. The free world is providing military, economic, and humanitarian support for Ukraine because most view Ukraine’s struggle as their own. In this sense, Russia’s full-scale invasion is not only a criminal assault against a sovereign country, but against democracy everywhere. The world needs to see Ukraine’s recovery in the same light as a chance to advance shared democratic values.

Peter Erben is Principal Advisor at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) (global) and Senior Country Director at IFES Ukraine. Gio Kobakhidze is Deputy Country Director at IFES Ukraine.

Stephen Grand — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 16:00:14 +0000

DOWNLOAD PDF

The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left—the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.”

King Farouk of Egypt, 1948

In a new Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative issue brief, “How Monarchies End”, Atlantic Council’s Nonresident Senior Fellow Stephen R. Grand flips the analytical script on the spate of notable publications covering “how democracies die.”

Grand examines what happens when autocratic rule corrodes and what pushes it to ultimately crumble. Under what circumstances do kings and queens, emperors and caliphs, cease to rule — either because their throne is transformed into a more ceremonial post or because they lose power entirely? For the eight remaining Arab monarchs, the downfall of their former global peers offer critical insights and parallels.

The issue brief examines these topics and provides strategies for managing challenges to power, as well as a series of lessons for Arab monarchs to consider.

About the author

Stephen R. Grand

Nonresident Senior Fellow
Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs

Executive Director, Network for Dialogue
Instituto Affari Internazionali & PAX

Grand was director of the Project on US Relations with the Islamic World (housed within the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings), where he wrote the book Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Else- where Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy (2014). Other prior positions include director of the Middle East Strategy Group at the Aspen Institute, director of programs at the German Marshall Fund, professional staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and founding executive director of the Civic Education Project. He has also served as a visiting or adjunct professor at Georgia State University (current), Utrecht University, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, American University’s School of International Service and Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative

Public Event Wed, April 12, 2023 • 1:00 pm ET

MENASource May 19, 2023

Experts react: Assad gets warm reception at Arab summit. Where does that leave the US and its allies?

By Qutaiba Idlbi, Gissou Nia, Michel Duclos, Emadeddin Badi

Atlantic Council experts react to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s attendance at the Arab League summit in Jeddah and explain its significance below.

Human Rights Middle East

MENASource May 10, 2023

Saudi Arabia should consider the ‘Just Do It’ strategy for normalizing ties with Israel

By Richard LeBaron

Acting on one’s terms when pursuing national interests is always a better strategy. Saudi Arabia is completely capable of dealing with Israel on its own.

Israel Middle East

New Atlanticist Apr 21, 2023

Is Saudi-Iran reconciliation threatening the future of Israeli normalization?

By Sarah Zaaimi

The recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran could signal a sea change in Arab-Iranian relations and pose practical hindrances to Arab-Israeli normalization.

Iran Middle East

The post How monarchies end appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ecuador’s president just invoked ‘mutual death’ to avoid impeachment. Here’s why it matters.

Atlantic Council experts — Wed, 17 May 2023 19:11:08 +0000

Death is not the end, apparently. Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso on Wednesday invoked a rare constitutional mechanism called “muerte cruzada,” or “mutual death,” to dissolve the National Assembly before an imminent impeachment vote on embezzlement allegations. Lasso will now rule by decree for six months until new presidential and legislative elections are held. Below, experts from the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center share their insights on four big questions around what this means for the country of eighteen million people and why it matters for the region and beyond.

1. At an Atlantic Council event in Washington less than six months ago, Lasso declared that Ecuador “has fully returned to democracy.” What is the impact of this decree on Ecuador’s democratic institutions?

Ecuador’s constitution is unique in that it allows the president to dissolve congress in three instances. In this case, Lasso’s reasoning is that his actions are warranted under the third instance: “political crisis and internal commotion.” From his perspective, this is true since congress began impeachment proceedings to remove him from office on May 16. From the opposition’s viewpoint, represented by Rafael Correa, a former Ecuadorian president who currently lives abroad, it is Lasso who is creating internal commotion. Importantly, the decree ensures that new elections must be held for president and congress. Already, Ecuador’s armed forces and national police have been clear that personnel will respect the constitution, which does allow for dissolving congress under Article 148.

—Jason Marczak is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

It is very important to clarify that this movement by Lasso to activate the “muerte cruzada” is defined by Article 148 of Ecuador’s constitution. It will basically dissolve the National Assembly and call for new elections in six months’ time. This election includes the president and vice president positions. He will not acquire total governing powers. The only laws that he can expedite during these six months are executive decrees on economically urgent laws that have to be sanctioned by the constitutional court.

—Felipe Espinosa is the executive president of Cámara de Comercio Ecuatoriano Americana (AMCHAM).

The decision made by Lasso once again highlights the significant challenge of protecting democracy in Latin America. While the decision is in accordance with Ecuador’s constitution and a response to internal political complexity, the effective functioning of democracy relies on a balanced distribution of power. Governing through decrees diminishes one of the crucial checks on power—the National Assembly.

—Fernando Larraín is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

2. Is there anything Washington can or should do to respond?

Ecuador has become one of the United States’ closest partners in the hemisphere over the last few years. In December 2022, just days before Lasso met with US President Joe Biden at the White House, Congress approved the bipartisan United States-Ecuador Partnership Act—historic legislation given its singular focus on advancing the bilateral relationship in areas such as economic and commercial ties, the environment, and security. Congress has since then taken additional action. In March, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and James Risch (R-ID) have again led legislation focused on the bilateral partnership with the introduction of the Innovation and Development in Ecuador Act of 2023, which would include Ecuador in the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act.

The last six months have again reinforced the focus on Ecuador among many in Washington. What is needed now is continued support and vocal messages across the US political spectrum reinforcing the importance of the democratic process and for stability in Ecuador at a time in which the streets may erupt at any point.

—Jason Marczak

The United States should have a continuous policy toward the region to enhance democratic values and institutions. Only economic prosperity in the region will guarantee that the people there view the rule of law and other long-term institutions as the solution instead of populist offerings. Poverty and inequality are never good advisors, more so when you talk about values with people struggling to make a day-to-day living. This mandate requires a long-term commitment of the United States to its allies in Latin America, through economic and social programs and support for trade.

—Felipe Espinosa

3. How do you see Lasso’s “rule by decree” tenure playing out?

Lasso’s decision to govern by decree is poised to embark on a challenging journey, with its overall impact yet to be determined. Upon invoking Article 148 today, he also introduced his first decree law, effectively reducing taxes and offering much-needed relief to Ecuadorian families. Additionally, Lasso is likely to push forward with labor reform and investment reform, both of which have long been stalled in congress. These reforms have the potential to bring positive impacts to Ecuadorian families by addressing crucial aspects such as hourly employee compensation, part-time work, and fair wages. While these reforms are likely to take place, the road ahead will be tumultuous.

As expected, many members of congress do not align with Lasso’s decision to govern by decree, and it is likely that supporters of the impeachment will voice their discontent on the streets of Ecuador, potentially leading to protests similar to those witnessed in June and July of last year. The possibility of such protests, capable of paralyzing the Ecuadorian economy, adds complexity to Lasso’s governance under the “rule by decree” strategy. Navigating this challenging environment may overshadow the potential benefits these reforms can bring.

—Isabel Chiriboga is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

4. Why does this matter for the United States? What are the implications for broader hemispheric stability?

Ecuador’s stability matters far beyond the country’s borders given its role as an important US partner. Ecuador made a clear decision a few years ago to strengthen its relationship with the United States. The hemisphere is thus looking at how that decision affects the country’s trajectory at a time of growing competition with China.

—Jason Marczak

Over the years, Ecuador has emerged as a strong US partner in the hemisphere, maintaining a close alignment with the United States amid shifting government ideologies across the region. However, the ongoing political crisis in Ecuador, fueled by pressing concerns such as inequality, insecurity, and the government’s struggle to address the basic needs of its citizens, raises concerns about the relevance of the United States in the region. Once seen as an example of economic stability, Ecuador will now face uncertainty as it approaches presidential elections in six months. In general, the United States finds itself with diminishing influence in Latin America. This situation creates an opportunity for broader Chinese influence to gain traction in the region. As Ecuador’s political landscape evolves, it becomes crucial for the United States to reassess its approach and take meaningful steps to maintain and strengthen its ties with Latin American countries.

—Isabel Chiriboga

It is worth noting that Ecuador’s neighboring countries are grappling with greater internal political challenges, suggesting that the impact of this decision may not extend beyond Ecuador’s borders. Nevertheless, we can expect months of uncertainty, which will inevitably influence investment decisions and the financial market in Ecuador as governance dynamics are affected. In the upcoming months, Ecuador will undergo a political process where the focus may shift from addressing citizen concerns to matters of political power.

—Fernando Larraín

The post Ecuador’s president just invoked ‘mutual death’ to avoid impeachment. Here’s why it matters. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Chile’s right is in the driver’s seat for creating a new constitution. Can it succeed?

Ignacia Ulloa Peters — Tue, 16 May 2023 23:27:06 +0000

The clock is ticking for Chile’s new constitution—again. Chileans took to the polls this month to elect a constitutional council, a fifty-one-member group tasked with discussing and approving a new national charter. The council will have just five months to deliberate the document after it first convenes, presenting it publicly by November 7 and putting it up for a national plebiscite on December 17. But will it be able to create a constitution that voters will approve after the failed first attempt last September?

Despite many observers’ initial beliefs that the new constitution would align with the governing coalition’s left-leaning political ideologies, the final tally of the May 6 vote showed a strong swing to the right, with nearly two-thirds of the available seats going to center-right and far-right candidates.

The far-right Republican Party, led by former presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, secured twenty-three of the available seats, granting the party veto power over constitutional articles. Alongside the eleven seats won by traditional right and center-right parties, the collective influence of right-leaning council members exceeds the crucial threshold of thirty-one votes (or 60 percent) required for approving constitutional clauses. While an alliance between the Republican Party and other right-leaning factions remains uncertain, there is a strong likelihood of these groups working together.

So, will the council agree on a new constitution? Hopefully yes. But it will also need to deliver one that is then approved by the majority of voters. In short, it is in the Republican Party’s best interest that the draft constitution does not solely embody conservative values. Absolute veto power and the ability to approve clauses by allying with traditional and center-right members of the constitutional council means that the elected members could create the constitution they want. But if the document they produce ends up being rejected in December, the party loses its opportunity to lead the process, a prospect that is unlikely to happen again.

Moreover, voters are watching this closely as a test case for how Republicans might govern. The optics of the party successfully delivering a democratically accepted legal charter would grant the Republicans a distinct advantage over left-leaning parties and could be regarded as the cornerstone for their campaigns in the upcoming 2024 mayoral and 2026 presidential elections. These factors make it imperative that the Republican Party remains open to compromise.

The right-wing members of the new constitutional council have an opportunity that should not be missed.

The results of the election also present a dilemma for left-leaning Chilean President Gabriel Boric and his administration, particularly as their approval rating continues to decrease. How do they continue to govern considering the country’s legal charter will almost certainly be more right-leaning than they anticipated? Will they continue working to build alliances with the right or reinforce their existing posture?

In a region that is struggling with the challenges of polarization, democratic backsliding, corruption, and violence, Chile’s positive trajectory in the constitutional reform process demonstrates the importance of fostering consensus. The first attempt at reform by a left-leaning constitutional convention, deemed the world’s most progressive constitution, was rejected by voters. A shift toward unity would serve as a powerful testament to the strength of Chile’s institutions and Boric’s commitment to democracy, transparency, and representation. Failing to do so could stagnate the constitutional reform process and impede Chile’s advancement as a democratic and economic frontrunner in the region. Such a scenario would not only diminish investor confidence, but also foster distrust in the regulatory environment that has thus far enabled businesses to operate confidently in the country.

On the other hand, more than three years after the Estallido Social took to the streets, Chileans have become increasingly detached from the constitutional reform process. After the first attempt at reform was rejected in 2022, the Chilean Senate and Chamber of Deputies appointed a panel of experts to compose a revised proposal. This will next be reviewed and approved by the constitutional council, thus limiting the involvement of the general population in the document’s drafting process.

Similarly, the issues that Chileans identified as the country’s most pressing problems in 2019—such as pension and health care systems—have fallen off the radar in favor of crime, inflation, immigration, and drug trafficking. With these day-to-day issues taking the spotlight away from systemic concerns, people in Chile have shifted their attention away from the constitutional process.

The constitutional council will meet for the first time on June 7 and will begin discussing the fourteen-chapter draft proposal written by the expert commission. On December 17 the final document will once again be presented for a national plebiscite, enabling Chileans to cast their votes and determine the approval or rejection of the new constitution.

The right-wing members of the new constitutional council have an opportunity that should not be missed. Delivering a non-polarizing constitution that is approved in December is in everyone’s best interest but will not be achieved unless the majority members compromise on conservative values to create a constitution that works to the benefit of every member of society.

Ignacia Ulloa Peters is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

The post Chile’s right is in the driver’s seat for creating a new constitution. Can it succeed? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

As Sudan’s transition to democracy accelerates, reforming the security forces must be a top priority

Benjamin Mossberg — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 20:21:53 +0000

Sudan’s political factions are negotiating the formation of a new transitional government, a major step toward a civilian-led government that is long overdue nearly eighteen months after a military coup led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Once the parties do form a new government—talks are continuing past a previously announced April 11 target date—perhaps its most critical task will be to clarify what role Sudan’s security forces will have in the country going forward.

To ensure that Sudan’s transition to democracy succeeds, its leaders must put limits on the power of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). For a successful political transformation, the SAF, led by Burhan, and the paramilitary RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, must be governed by the rule of law and work to protect democracy and human rights in Sudan. Absent meaningful reform to rein in the existing power of the security services, institutional tension between the services could spark a wider conflict that would destabilize the country and threaten the transition to democracy.

Reform of the security services will not be easy, and it is the subject of ongoing debate as the factions try to strike a deal on a transitional government. But there are steps Sudan’s leaders and those who support Sudan’s transition to democracy can take now.

The struggle for reform

Sudan’s military has played a major role in the political landscape of the country since its independence in 1956. Omar al-Bashir came into power in a military coup and, following thirty years of autocratic rule, was removed in 2019 by another military coup. Following his ouster, civilian and pro-democracy leaders called for fundamental reforms of the security sector, but Sudan continues to struggle with attempts at reform.

During the transition to democracy since 2019, the SAF and RSF have both cooperated and competed with one another for power in the country. For example, in an October 2021 coup ousting Sudan’s civilian leadership led by then-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdock, the SAF and RSF joined forces with an array of Sudan’s armed movements and marginalized groups. At the same time, the RSF and SAF compete with each other behind the scenes to retain as much economic and political power, influence, and control as possible.

Managing the tension between the SAF and RSF will be a paramount concern for Sudan’s leadership as it seeks to avoid future conflict between the security forces that could trigger greater violence. This is a key element to establishing peace, security, and sustainable development in the country while allowing for the development and modernization of Sudan’s security institutions.

Meaningful security sector reform must address the role of the SAF and the professionalization and integration of the RSF into the SAF. It must also place the security services firmly under civilian control and oversight. In the security sector, reforms to Sudan’s legal framework must include formally establishing the role of the security forces and a single national army trusted by local communities across Sudan, especially in the conflict areas of the country.

Another critical step is untangling the military institutions from the economy. This will be very difficult and will require careful planning, as the SAF and RSF currently dominate nearly all facets of political, economic, and media power in Sudan—and work to protect this influence. Civilian authorities should seize the moment and take steps to address the challenges of security sector reform in Sudan during the transition to civilian leadership. The Bashir regime created a vast array of expensive, corrupt, and ineffective security forces accused by critics of operating outside of the law, committing human-rights abuses, and creating an economy that directly benefits the security institutions—preventing more robust economic reform and development. To set the country on a better path, Sudan’s civilian leaders must enact reforms that begin to disentangle the military from the construction, telecommunication, aviation, and banking sectors.

Steps Sudan’s military and civilian leaders should take

In concert with the new civilian leadership, the military must commit to reform that helps modernize and develop the SAF. This includes ensuring that the SAF is tasked with protecting civilians and is accountable to the country’s civilian leadership. The SAF needs to be respected and not feared by those it is assigned to protect.

Civilian and military leaders must adopt legislation that addresses the specific gaps in Sudan’s transitional documents. Using the legal framework, civilian authorities should work with the military leadership to scale down the size of the SAF, find meaningful economic opportunities for former fighters, identify core priorities for its mission, and deploy a military that is able to meet the needs of the country. Sudan’s authorities should also identify funding to create and support a broad disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration strategy that avoids a sole focus on the reintegration of militia fighters and includes appropriate financial oversight.

Outside of these efforts, civilian authorities must look for ways to reform Sudan’s economy that help to disentangle the vast array of companies linked to the security services, create opportunity to improve the business environment, and send the signal to investors, banks, and credit rating agencies that Sudan is open for business. Civilian authorities must take steps to increase transparency and accountability in the illicit gold trade to disrupt illicit financial flows to Sudan’s militias, including the RSF.

As Sudan’s economy faces uncertainty due to elevated food, fuel, and transportation prices, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank must balance the need for economic reforms in the country with the imperative to not destabilize a new civilian-led government. This government will need to walk a difficult line to implement reforms that address economic mismanagement by the SAF, the rising cost of living, and stubbornly high prices for basic goods that have further complicated efforts to secure international funding and support for the economy.

Steps the United States should take

The United States can help Sudan’s transition to democracy and help facilitate security sector reform. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act included the Sudan Democratic Transition, Accountability, and Fiscal Transparency Act of 2020, elevating Sudan on the foreign policy agenda and sending a signal to Sudan’s new leadership that the United States is ready to support Sudan as it enacts difficult reforms. This law is an effective messaging tool, encourages a coordinated US government response to support the civilian leadership, and can direct public reporting on sensitive issues, support a sanctions regime, and show the private sector that Sudan is not open for business as usual. Policymakers can use this legislation to support Sudan’s economic reforms, stability, and oversight of the security and intelligence services in the short term while seeking to hold human-rights abusers, spoilers to the transition, and those seeking to exploit Sudan’s natural resources accountable for their actions.

Working with other countries, the United States can also play a leading role to encourage international financial institutions to carefully leverage the approval of World Bank projects, consider withholding IMF disbursements, and institute public reporting to ensure that economic and security sector reforms remain on track. The diplomatic community must continue to apply coordinated pressure on Sudan’s authorities to ensure that they follow through on their verbal commitments and work with key external actors—including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt—to encourage them to be meaningful contributors to Sudan’s democratic progress.

Sudan’s transition to democratic leadership provides another critical opportunity for security sector reform in the country. As the transitional government moves forward, Sudan’s civilian leadership can show investors, banks, and its people that greater connectedness to the global economy, a modern security apparatus, and a commitment to fighting corruption is in its long-term interest. Doing so would solidify a path toward a peaceful and democratic Sudan.

Benjamin Mossberg is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. Previously, he led US Treasury Department efforts to combat corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing, and financial crimes on the African continent.

The post As Sudan’s transition to democracy accelerates, reforming the security forces must be a top priority appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption interim report

Eric Lofgren*, Whitney M. McNamara, and Peter Modigliani — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:49:18 +0000

Co-chairs: The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD,
& The Hon. Deborah Lee James

Commission director: Stephen Rodriguez

Program director: Clementine G. Starling

Commission staff: Mark J. Massa, Delharty M. Manson II, and Jacob Mezey

Download PDF

Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption: Interim Report Launch

Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James discuss a new report on the challenges the United States faces in maintaining its technological and military advantage over its adversaries and what adaptations Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense sector should make to increase the pace of innovation adoption.

Defense Industry Defense Policy Defense Technologies National Security

Commissioners

The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD, Board Director, Atlantic Council; 27th Secretary of Defense; Co-Chair, Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption
The Hon. Deborah Lee James, Board Director, Atlantic Council; 23rd Secretary of the Air Force; Co-Chair, Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption
Ambassador Barbara Barrett, Board Director, Atlantic Council; 25th Secretary of the Air Force
General James E. Cartwright, USMC (ret.), Board Director, Atlantic Council; 8th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Frank A. Finelli, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
The Hon. Michèle Flournoy, Co-founder and Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors; Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, US Department of Defense
Scott Frederick, Managing Partner, Sands Capital
The Hon. James “Hondo” Geurts, Distinguished Fellow, Business Executives for National Security; Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, US Department of Defense
Peter Levine, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Defense Analyses; Former Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, US Department of Defense
The Hon. Ellen M. Lord, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, US Department of Defense
Major General Arnold L. Punaro, USMC (ret.), CEO, The Punaro Group; Member, Advisory Council, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Nick Sinai, Senior Advisor, Insight Partners; Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Josh Wolfe, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Lux Capital
The Hon. Robert O. Work, Senior Counselor for Defense and Distinguished Senior Fellow for Defense and National Security, Center for a New American Security; 32nd US Deputy Secretary of Defense

Industry commissioners

Steven Escaravage, Executive Vice President and AI Lead, Booz Allen Hamilton
Wendy R. Anderson, Senior Vice President, Palantir Technologies
Prashant Bhuyan, Founder and CEO, Accrete AI
Mark Brunner, President, Primer Federal, Primer AI
Colin Carroll, Director of Government Relations, Applied Intuition
Adam Hammer, Counselor, Schmidt Futures
Chris Lynch, CEO, Rebellion Defense
Mara Motherway, Senior Vice President, Peraton
Michael Niggel, CEO, ACT1 Federal
Doug Philippone, Co-founder, Snowpoint Ventures

Foreword
Overview

Recommendations:

Introduce a new capability portfolio model
Consolidate program elements
Reset reprogramming authorities
Modernize DoD to align with the 21st century industrial base
Strengthen alignment of capital markets to defense outcomes
Incentivize tech companies to do business with DoD
Modernize budget documents
Establish bridge fund for successfully demonstrated technologies
Scale the Space Development Agency model
Modernize DoD’s requirements system

Conclusions and next steps
Biographies
Acknowledgements
List of acronyms

Foreword

The US Department of Defense (DoD) needs to accelerate the adoption of cutting-edge technology from the leading edge of the commercial and defense sectors. Doing so will enable the Pentagon to deliver high-impact operational solutions to the Warfighter in a much timelier manner. That is why we are co-chairing the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, which has released this interim report.

In our time serving in the Defense Department, we have found that the United States does not have an innovation problem, but rather an innovation adoption problem. That is to say, our Nation leads in many emerging technologies relevant to defense and security—from artificial intelligence and directed energy to quantum information technology and beyond. But the DoD struggles to identify, adopt, integrate, and field these technologies into military applications.

The persistence of this challenge is not for lack of trying. The Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office has cut through bureaucratic constraints to accelerate even the most complicated major acquisitions. The Defense Innovation Unit stands out for expanding the range of firms involved in innovation for national security purposes. Army Futures Command has accelerated modernization in ground forces through its cross-functional team model. The new Office of Strategic Capital has a promising new approach to engaging capital markets in support of national security goals.

But the growing national security challenges facing our country and the threat they pose to the rules-based international order require actionable reform across the DoD. We and a group of distinguished Commissioners, with decades of service between us in government, the private sector, and capital markets, believe that time is running out to do so. The United States faces simultaneous competition with two nuclear-armed, autocratic great-power rivals. Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and China’s revanchism not only spur urgent geopolitical considerations, but also cast into sharp relief the US industrial base’s ability to produce and field innovative technologies at scale.

To address the DoD’s innovation adoption challenge in light of the urgency of the geopolitical environment we face, this interim report advances ten policy recommendations for Congress and the Pentagon, focusing on the three key areas of reforming acquisition; overcoming barriers to innovation; and revising specific Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution structures.

To that end, the DoD should adapt the way it conducts its acquisition programs to provide additional flexibility in the year of execution, and Congress can authorize that flexibility. We recommend that five DoD program executive offices be empowered to operate in a portfolio model so that they can more easily shift funding among possible products that meet their mission needs. Congress should appropriate money to DoD with fewer but larger discrete budget line items and reset reprogramming authorities so that acquisition professionals have greater flexibility.

To better leverage innovation in the commercial sector, Congress should restore at least the traditional ratio of procurement funding to other defense spending, and the DoD should more intentionally engage a much broader innovation base. Allocating a higher percentage of the DoD’s budget to procurement will clearly signal a larger market to nontraditional defense firms.

Additionally, the deputy secretary of defense, with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) as a direct report, should take a leadership role in aligning and harnessing stakeholders within the Pentagon and the existing defense industrial base for the twenty-first century. The DIU should be resourced and empowered to broaden the defense ecosystem by robustly engaging start-ups, nontraditional vendors, and capital market players.

The DoD must develop approaches to more rapidly validate its needs for commercial capabilities, rather than waiting years after identifying a key capability to write a requirement and submit a budget request. The DoD should both reform the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) to operate more swiftly and develop a military need validation system outside of JCIDS for mature commercial capabilities. Congress and the DoD should expand both eligibility for, and the award size of, Small Business Innovation Research grants. To provide additional mechanisms for rapidly matching key capabilities with funding, they should also provide funds to procure capabilities successfully demonstrated in exercises.

As the 2022 National Security Strategy states, we are living through a “decisive decade,” a sentiment shared by the previous administration as well. Congress and the DoD must seize this opportunity to enact near-term changes that will help get our service members the capabilities they need to defend our country and its interests.

The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD

27th US Secretary of Defense

The Hon. Deborah Lee James

23rd US Secretary of the Air Force

* Eric Lofgren served as a project author until February 2023, when he transitioned to a position in government service. All of his contributions were made before his transition to that role.

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

Overview

Mission statement

Accelerate the DoD’s ability to adopt cutting-edge technology from commercial and defense sectors and deliver high-impact operational solutions to the Warfighters.

Enterprise challenges

The DoD faces the following enterprise challenges in adopting defense innovations:

1. Outdated R&D model

The DoD’s requirements and acquisition processes were designed for a time when the DoD was the largest funder of global research and development (R&D). By 2020, however, the federal government’s share of national R&D had fallen below 20 percent, and yet its processes have not adapted to this new leader-to-follower reality. Today, while the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), national and service laboratories, and universities continue to innovate, many of the most critical technologies are driven by the commercial sector. The DoD struggles to adopt commercial technology at a relevant speed. Innovations from noncommercial R&D organizations are infrequently tied to a commercialization and adoption pipeline. Traditional prime contractors orient their independent R&D (IRAD) toward near-term defense requirements that are prescriptive relative to solutions rather than broadly defining warfighter gaps that allow applications of advanced technologies. As a result, the DoD is unable to effectively apply leading technologies to its weapon systems.

2. Long timelines and inflexible execution

Too often, the DoD delivers systems to meet requirements defined more than a decade earlier. It is difficult to insert new technology to effectively respond to dynamic adversary threats, technological opportunities, advances in warfighting concepts, or macroeconomic and supply-chain disruptions, especially within fiscal years. Hardware-centric models ineffectively integrate rapid software updates.

3. Fewer companies providing defense solutions

The DoD’s industrial base has shrunk by 40 percent over the past decade, due to both consolidation and exit. This decline stems from multiple causes, including a pivot to fewer more-complex major systems, long timelines, complex regulations, and the high compliance cost of doing business with the DoD. Many start-up, commercial, and international businesses are unable or unwilling to enter the DoD ecosystem. As a result, reduced competitive pressure has increased costs and decreased adoption of innovation.

4. Valleys of death

The DoD spends billions annually on research and prototypes, yet only a small percentage transitions to production contracts with revenue to sustain operations and scale output. Consequently, one must question why the DoD continues to fund so many defense research organizations when most technology innovation comes from the commercial sector. Long timelines for contracts and funding, program constraints, and a disconnected ecosystem are among the transition challenges for companies that have developed viable products or services.

5. Hamstrung workforce

The DoD acquisition workforce is subject to a bureaucratic culture of excessive compliance and oversight, a challenging environment for innovation. Creative problem-solving and measured risk-taking are not often rewarded, and too few individuals with an industry background agree to take senior leadership roles at the DoD.

6. Program-centric acquisition

Defining requirements, securing budgets, and acquiring capabilities are done for hundreds of individual programs. The DoD invests a significant percentage of its funds in complex major systems for which prime contractors offer closed, propriety solutions. This impedes interoperability and responsiveness to changes in operations, threats, and technologies. Open-system architectures with well-defined interface control documents are rarely adopted, which constrains the ability to insert innovative technology.

7. Cumbersome reporting from DoD to Congress

Budget justification documents run dozens of volumes and tens of thousands of pages. Document format, detail, and supporting information is inconsistent among military services and agencies. This impedes Congress’s ability to understand program objectives in a timely manner. In turn, Congress does not trust that delegated decisions will consistently result in more rapid technology adoption.

8. Limited understanding of emerging technology

The DoD struggles to effectively leverage critical emerging technologies (like biotechnology and quantum information technology) due to a lack of understanding of their state-of-the-art applications among those who generate requirements and draft requests for proposals. As these technologies mature, the DoD is challenged to have meaningful conversations about how to adopt, leverage, and defend against these technologies.

Top recommendations

To address these challenges, the Commission recommends that DoD leaders, congressional defense committees, and other executive branch agencies take the following ten high-priority actions to accelerate DoD innovation adoption:

Introduce a new capability portfolio model
Consolidate program elements
Reset reprogramming authorities
Modernize the DoD to align with the twenty-first century industrial base
Strengthen alignment of capital markets to defense outcomes
Incentivize tech companies to do business with the DoD
Modernize budget documents
Establish bridge fund for successfully demonstrated technologies
Scale the Space Development Agency model
Modernize the DoD’s requirements system

Recommendation 1: The DoD and Congress empower and resource five Program Executive Officers (PEOs) to operate via a new capability portfolio model in 2024.

Addresses challenges 2, 4, and 6.

Congress authorizes in the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and/or the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)) implements via a memo empowering five PEO portfolios to operate via a new capability portfolio model. Component acquisition executives from the Departments of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and a defense agency will each select a PEO portfolio.
Service requirements organizations capture portfolio requirements in a concise, high-level document that provides overarching, joint, enduring capability needs and key mission impact measures that focus on warfighter-informed needs and mission outcomes. The Joint Staff validates the portfolio requirements within thirty days. The portfolio requirements document enables leaner program requirements and shapes future research and prototypes.
Selected PEOs negotiate with congressional defense appropriations staff the consolidation of at least 20 percent of the smallest budget line items within their portfolios. This enables reprogramming flexibility to meet evolving, warfighter-informed requirements. These merged budget accounts must provide Congress with sufficient visibility of major elements within each.
Selected PEOs develop a set of portfolio strategies, processes, road maps, contracts, infrastructure, and architectures to enable programs to leverage for greater speed and success. Portfolio contracting strategies will look beyond individual contracts or programs to promote a robust industrial base by enabling continuous competition, iterative development, supply chain risk mitigation, greater participation of nontraditional companies, commercial service acquisition, and economies of scale.
Selected PEOs may lay out plans to decompose large programs into modular acquisitions; leverage common platforms, components, and services; and maximize use of commercial solutions and DoD research. Portfolios will scale and align prototyping, experimentation, and testing infrastructure. They will invest in a common suite of engineering tools, platforms, and strategies to enable interoperability, cybersecurity, and resiliency.
PEOs require portfolio leaders to actively engage the DoD’s R&D community, industry, and academia to communicate joint-warfighter portfolio needs and business opportunities, scout technologies, engage companies, and drive novel solutions to address portfolio needs.
Congress appropriates at least $20 million to each portfolio per year for three years to enable PEOs to implement the new model with appropriate staff, analytic tools, and strategies. The five PEOs work out the details for others to adopt. In time, the department will realize savings and return on investment through greater program efficiencies and mission impact.
PEOs provide the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and Congress a short annual report to share insight into the new portfolio model progress, including issues, successes, and inputs to scale adoption.

Success measure: By the end of 2023, five PEO portfolios are identified to operate via the new portfolio model. By the end of 2024, these portfolios begin operating with clear direction, leadership support, and initial implementation plans.

Notional example: A command-and-control PEO shapes a portfolio strategy that invests in a software factory and enterprise services as a common infrastructure, with smaller programs tapping a diverse vendor base to regularly and iteratively deliver a suite of applications that work together seamlessly.

Recommendation 2: Acquisition executives propose consolidated program elements to congressional staff and negotiate what can be included in the FY 2024 Appropriations Act joint explanatory statement.

Addresses challenges 2, 6, and 7.

The deputy secretary of defense (DepSecDef) directs acquisition executives to propose a list of program elements (PEs) and budget line items (BLIs) to consolidate. This will simplify budget submissions and enable greater flexibility within the year of execution to respond to rapid changes in warfighter needs and technology advancement within capability or mission portfolios.
- Determine criteria for consolidation, such as BLIs and PEs under $20 million, software-defined technologies, and supply chain-affected efforts.
- Determine constructs for consolidation, such as capability areas, mission areas, and organizational alignment.
Reduce BLI and PE count from more than 1,700 today in the investment accounts by at least 200 BLI and PEs each year, starting with the FY 2024 markup, for three years to enable cost-schedule-performance trade-offs, including the prototyping and fielding of novel systems that meet defined capability or mission areas.
Allow PEOs, warfighters, and other DoD stakeholders to provide input to acquisition executives. Senior leadership in the resourcing process should propose the items to be consolidated and negotiate with congressional staff in advance of FY 2024 appropriations.
Identify line items that enable opportunistic efforts to insert technologies into existing weapons programs without requiring a new start. Identify best practices for broadly justifying activities within a capability set.

Success measure: The number of BLIs in the investment accounts is reduced by at least 200 in time for the passage of regular appropriations in FY 2024.

Notional example: A PEO identifies a novel technology from DARPA or industry to integrate into one of its programs to improve performance and accelerate capability delivery. With investment funds spread across fewer budget accounts, the PEO is able to reprogram funds from a lower-priority development within the year of execution.

Recommendation 3: Congressional appropriations committees reset reprogramming authorities to historical norms in their FY 2024 joint explanatory statements.

Addresses challenges 2 and 7.

Appropriations committees write into FY 2024 joint explanatory statements the following changes:
- Current reprogramming thresholds will be maintained, but above-threshold actions will revert from congressional prior approval to the historical norm of congressional notification with a thirty-day window for briefing or rejection. This streamlines the process and enables greater reprogramming while still providing Congress “veto authority” to block reprogramming actions they oppose. Prior approval will remain in place for items omitted, deleted, or specifically reduced; general transfer authorities; or above threshold new starts.
An alternative approach: Raise reprogramming thresholds from the lesser of $10 million or 20 percent to at least $40 million for Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation (RDT&E) and $100 million for procurement appropriation titles. Historical norms for reprogramming thresholds were $15 million for RDT&E and $40 million for procurement yet were progressively lowered to this historically low threshold. This change would revert thresholds to account for decades of inflation.
- Letter notifications for new starts will be “for the fiscal year,” not “for the entire effort.” This enables programs greater flexibility to start small programs while Congress retains the right to veto any new starts it opposes.

Success measure: Recommended language is included in the FY 2024 Appropriations Act joint explanatory statement by the time regular appropriations are passed.

Notional example: An acquisition program is “early to need” for procurement funds due to delays in finalizing development. Another program desperately seeks additional funds to accelerate and scale production of its weapon system. Service leadership decides to reprogram $50M in procurement funds between the programs to optimize investments.

Recommendation 4: Congress directs the DoD to elevate the DIU to a direct report to DepSecDef and resource it effectively to align and harness the nontraditional defense industrial base for the twenty-first century no later than six months of the enactment of this act.

Addresses challenges 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8.

Re-align DIU as a direct report to DepSecDef with the necessary staffing and resources to engage start-ups, nontraditional vendors, and capital market players in aligning capability requirements to harness solutions from the twenty-first-century industrial base per the 2022 National Defense Strategy.
- DIU’s expanded role should complement existing efforts in USD(R&E) and USD(A&S) in terms of traditional industrial policy and technology scouting, respectively, by better connecting the nontraditional industry and its resources, intelligence, and technologies to the needs of the warfighter.
  - DIU, USD(R&E), USD(A&S), and service partners should regularly integrate their efforts, in communicating to the industrial base the department’s needs, planned investments, and business opportunities. In addition, they should share among themselves what is being discovered in industry that aligns with the department’s missions.
  - In its expanded role, DIU should be resourced to regularly engage with acquisition organizations (PEOs, program offices), science and technology (S&T) organizations (labs, DARPA), and combatant commands to share the insights it gets from nontraditional industry players throughout the DoD. Additionally, DIU will communicate back to industry where it can align its technologies to the needs of the warfighter as communicated by acquisition organizations and combatant commands.
  - Prioritization for expanded staffing for DIU should be for new billets from the services over funding for contractors. The billets would be priority assignments, selected from relevant PEOs and service acquisition executives (SAEs).
  - DIU should track the intelligence, insights, and inputs it receives from industry trade associations, venture capitalists (VCs), private equity firms, primes, nontraditional defense companies (NDCs), Other Transaction (OT) Consortia, and innovation hubs. This information should be interoperable with USD(R&E)’s existing repository of research and intelligence for the department’s needs.
- DIU, USD(A&S), and SAEs charter a team, including joint warfighter perspectives, to streamline processes, reviews, and documents for acquiring commercial solutions. The team will reinforce “buy before build” commercial practices in the early phases of programs by baking it into acquisition strategy templates and program reviews. It will also collaborate with defense industry, capital markets, and Congress to develop a broader set of rapid funding tools and approaches to demand signals consistent with the speed of commercial innovation cycles. It will publish an initial commercial pathway or guide by December 2023, with a comprehensive version in 2024.
  - Joint Staff and service requirements organizations develop a rapid “military need validation” process, involving feedback from the warfighter, for commercial solutions in lieu of traditional Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) requirements documents. This new process will enable hundreds or even thousands of commercial solutions to be validated by empowered, distributed officials, and not subject to the JCIDS process managed by the Joint Staff and the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC).
  - The Defense Acquisition University and related organizations should modernize guidance and training for commercial acquisition, to include:
    - Collaborating with industry, traditional and otherwise, in the early phases of an acquisition program to inform concepts, alternatives, and designs. The focus should be on feeding into mission objectives, not market research for system specifications.
      - Contracting strategies focused on commercial solutions (e.g., Commercial Solutions Openings, Other Transactions, Federal Acquisition Regulation Parts 12 and 13).
      - Testing, experimentation, exercises, rapid deliveries, and iteration.
      - Scaling programs like DIU’s Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program.

Success measures: Higher number of DIU projects that transition to a program of record; increased number of vendors entering the federal market and competing for contracts; better alignment of capital market investment and lending to DoD missions; alignment of DoD R&D and prime IRAD funds to help a wider number of entrants across the Valley of Death; increased transparency with the industrial base on DoD’s priorities; a commercial pathway, guidance, and training enabling workforce to rapidly and successfully acquire commercial solutions; increased transparency and collaboration within the department on tech-related initiatives and intelligence; resources saved and efficiencies gained from central repository information from traditional and nontraditional industrial base like market intelligence, technology landscape analysis and due diligence on vendors.

Notional example: Expanded engagement with nontraditional industrial base helps DIU identify the commercial sector’s leader in autonomous software for ground vehicles and through the streamlined, well-defined process for rapid acquisition, the Army begins adopting it across its fleet of logistics vehicles on CONUS bases.

In their quarterly engagement, the US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) talks to DIU about its desire to procure better mission planning tools at the edge. DIU identifies and provides three viable commercial options for demonstrations. Before presenting them to MCWL, DIU leverages VC firm relationships to get existing due diligence on the potential vendors and discovers one of them draws components of its chips from China. DIU finds an alternative.

In its engagements with capital market players, DIU discovers there are several critical bottlenecks in the quantum computing supply chain due to either a severe lack of redundancy or routing through adversary nations. DIU flags this to R&E, the Office of Strategic Capital, and A&S Industrial Policy to determine how to address this. As part of this, DIU and OSC engage with capital market players to inform them this is now a department priority, helping to direct capital market funding toward these enabling technologies critical to the US broader tech competition vis-à-vis China.

Recommendation 5: Strengthen existing capital market programs and create new pathways for mission-critical technologies.

Addresses challenges 1, 3, 4, and 8.

US capital markets represent a critical yet underutilized strategic advantage for the DoD. To better leverage vast capital market resources for defense innovation and mission outcomes, the DoD should broaden programs through which capital market-backed companies can participate and create new pathways for DoD program offices to leverage capital market funding for mission-critical technologies.

Congress directs in legislation the Small Business Agency (SBA), in coordination with the General Services Administration (GSA), to enhance the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants program no later than six months after enactment.

To better scale SBIRs, the SBA should:

Generate direct to Phase III SBIR grants in which early successful performers in Phase I can be fast-tracked to more-flexible contract vehicles, for which performers have exemptions from SBA size standards for procurement; no limits on dollar size of procurement; the right to receive sole-source funding agreements; and the ability to pursue flexible ways to add value to an end user, whether that be research, R&D, services, products, production, or any combination thereof.
Direct the SBIR offices of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to pilot a Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) program to help bridge the Valley of Death between Phase II and Phase III SBIR grants, no later than twelve months after designated. Service pilots would replicate the STRATFI program in that SBIR funding ($15 million) would receive matched funding from customers ($15 million) and private funding (up to $30 million).

To increase competition and widen the aperture of firms competing for SBIR grants, the SBA should:

Remove the barrier preventing companies with more than 50 percent backing by VCs or other capital market players to compete for SBIR grants. Small businesses often rely on VC funding to cover the costs of operating as they work to commercialize their products and generate sufficient revenue to sustain their business. This is particularly true in the case of software development, where highly skilled software engineers are the single most expensive operating cost. Placing strict limitations on the ability of these small businesses to compete for SBIR grants is contrary to the SBIR program goal of supporting scientific excellence and technological innovation.
Remove the barrier preventing companies that meet the requirements of being a small business, but are publicly traded, to compete for SBIR grants. Small, high-tech R&D firms go public to continue their ability to raise funds for their capital-intensive technologies. By disallowing them from competing for SBIR grants, the DoD is limiting technology competition among some of the most technology-proficient corners of the industrial base.

To drive deep tech adoption, OSC should develop tools for leveraging external capital market funding for pilot projects to service R&D organizations in FY 2024, with a formalization plan in conjunction with the president’s FY 2025 budget request.

OSC to be given expanded authorities to access capital markets to develop revenue, investment, and credit approaches for defense programs contracting with small-, mid-, and large-cap companies. As an initial step, direct $15 million of external capital market funding to the R&D organization of each military branch to pilot projects that identify two
novel use cases in one or more of R&E’s deep-tech priority areas of quantum technology, biotechnology, or advanced materials that could be leveraged to achieve service-specific missions. The period of performance would be eighteen months. Service end users would provide matched funding of up to 25 percent of total outside funding to pilot these projects.
This would assist in directing capital market funding to the DoD’s mission, providing additional R&D funding and incentives for deep-tech companies to commercialize their technologies, and creating optimization loops that connect technology to warfighter use cases that can help turn basic research into relevant products and services. Lastly, exposure to deep-tech applications would allow service end users to better understand emerging technologies’ applications to future defense requirements. This will help accelerate the well-aligned adoption of these capabilities to meet services’ unique missions at the speed of relevance.
R&D leads will report to DIU’s director and USD(R&E) no more than 180 days past the period of performance on the pilot’s utility, lessons learned, and challenges DoD would face if technology were to be adopted at scale.

Success measures: Meaningful increase in capital market funding for defense-related companies; increased number of companies crossing Valley of Death and program offices integrating commercially developed technology to speed innovation milestones; increased number of production contracts from nontraditional vendors, with more vendors competing for each contract; increased touchpoints between cutting-edge tech and the warfighter/end users; and the identification of specific tech adoption challenges that can be addressed ahead of requirements process for more-seamless tech adoption and integration.

Notional examples: 1) A majority VC-backed company demonstrates a novel capability that provides an advantage over a near-peer adversary and is fast-tracked to SBIR Phase III, through which the firm begins production at scale and crosses the Valley of Death. 2) A publicly traded deep-tech company that qualifies as a small business, now allowed to compete for SBIR grants, begins to develop the foundation of a quantum network for the US military. 3) The army discovers through a biotech pilot project that an advanced material it hoped to put into a program of record does not provide meaningful benefit for the cost and pursues another alternative. 4) The navy uses its OSC pilot to buy hours of time on a quantum computer provided over the cloud, through which the navy discovers the quantum computer’s utility in improving logistics and maintenance. However, the navy does not know how to manage the data being generated and needs an extra data scientist to oversee the process. The navy begins to generate a data governance process, forms a new billet to manage it, and begins determining the best acquisition pathway in anticipation of purchasing quantum computing as a service.

Recommendation 6: Congress, OSD, and SAEs increase incentives and reduce barriers for leading technology companies to do business with the DoD by September 2024.

Addresses challenges 1 and 3.

Increase incentives

Production Contracts. The DoD and Congress in future defense budgets rebalance the ratio of RDT&E and Procurement funding to historical norms over the past thirty years. From 1990 to 2019, the ratio was 39 percent to 61 percent, respectively. This would provide more than $20 billion in additional procurement funds to acquire production quantities faster, leverage commercial R&D, and fuel a broader market for leading technology firms. Increasing production and lowering barriers to entry will attract venture capital firms and bring private research and development funding to the defense market. As most of USD(R&E)’s fourteen critical technologies are commercially driven, this rebalance would enable faster fielding of warfighter priorities.
Set Precedent. USD(A&S) and SAEs report the number of large contracts (i.e., more than $50 million) awarded to start-ups and NDCs annually to measure and convey the trends of the DoD investing in these companies beyond small SBIR awards.
Innovation Funds. USD(R&E) and services include start-ups and NDCs as part of selection criteria for congressionally directed innovation funds.
Show Support. USD(A&S) and SAEs scale the direction, goals, and guidance for working with small and disadvantaged businesses to include technology start-ups and NDCs. Include NDCs as part of the small-business integration working group being established for FY23 NDAA Section 874.
Broaden Access to Capital Markets. Congress and USD(A&S) modernize the use of Defense Production Act Title III and credit loan authorities available to other agencies and departments to dynamically access capital, embrace commercial terms, and strengthen the domestic industrial base capabilities, based on lessons learned from COVID and the war in Ukraine. This use could include purchase commitments and loan guarantees, similar to how the Export-Import Bank works with US companies overseas, to increase incentives and reduce risk for companies seeking to scale production of critical technologies.

Decrease barriers

Congress should raise the cost accounting standards (CAS) threshold to at least $100 million; revise the commercial item exemption in 48 CFR 9903.201-1(b)(6); and make related CAS reforms as recommended by the Section 809 Panel to reduce compliance costs, which are the biggest barrier to entry in defense.
DoD, GSA, and Office of Management and Budget invest in modernizing SAM.gov and related DoD websites that publish contract opportunities to improve user design, alerts, DoD-industry collaboration, processes, and status. Many find SAM.gov onerous to use.

Fully resource and drive the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to streamline processes, increase staffing, and pursue novel approaches to reduce the large backlog of individual and facility security clearances that impose long delays on contractors to begin work or scale.
USD(A&S) and SAEs assign visible leaders for SBIR, OT (including OT Consortia), Middle Tier of Acquisitions, and Commercial Solutions Openings to champion adoption; set vision; simplify processes; curate leading strategies; and improve guidance, training, structures, and direction to continuously improve adoption. Update policies and guidelines to ensure efforts conducted under OTs count for past performance and small disadvantaged business goals to incentivize industry and government use.
USD(A&S), USD(R&E), and services establish a team to map and improve processes to scale successful research and prototypes into new or existing acquisition programs. This includes requirements, acquisition, budget, contracting, engineering, and testing, among others.

USD(A&S) and SAEs establish a working group, to include primes and NDCs, to explore how to incentivize primes to better leverage technology start-up companies. The objective is to fuel disruptive defense innovation from novel tech companies and leverage the primes to scale integration and production of weapon systems to create an enduring battlefield advantage.

Success measure: USD(A&S) reports an increase in the number of new companies in the industrial base by 5 percent, offsetting the recent trend of 5 percent decrease annually. At least ten NDCs are awarded contracts of more than $50 million that address validated defense requirements. Defense primes significantly increase partnerships, subcontracts, and acquisitions of start-ups and NDCs to integrate their technologies into weapon systems.

Notional example: A leading technology company with viable solutions for defense that historically avoided defense contracts is now receptive (with board support) to pursue contracts given the higher CAS thresholds, reduced unique compliance requirements, and improved clearance processes.

Recommendation 7: USD comptroller proposes streamlined budget justification and chief digital and artificial intelligence officer (CDAO) modernizes supporting details in congressionally accessible information system for the president’s FY 2026 budget request.

Addresses challenge 7.

USD comptroller proposes a format for streamlining budget justification documents in the investment accounts, focusing on cogent six-page program overviews at the BLI/PE level (R-1 and P-1) with hyperlinks to supporting details.
- Seek implementation for the president’s FY 2026 budget request.
CDAO leads the effort to create a query tool and dashboard tied to Advana’s backend data that delivers insight down to the existing level of justification material, allowing for more frequent updates.
- This tool should be capable of replicating Financial Management Regulation Volume 2B, Chapters 4 and 5 presentations.
- Prototype early access to congressional staff with the president’s FY 2025 budget request, in addition to the traditional format.
- This tool should seek to incorporate budget execution data such as quarterly DD1416s and contract obligations as data integration improves.

Success measure: Congressional staff use the new information system for their budgetary and program analysis; staff desires expansion into other accounts, including Operations and Maintenance and Military Personnel.

Notional example: Congressional staff can find up-to-date information on DoD program activities without having DoD officials provide the information directly to a committee.

Recommendation 8: Tying experimentation to acquisition outcomes: Scaling and accelerating successful demonstrations

Addresses challenges 1, 4, and 8.

The DoD and industry invest significant time, funding, and resources to conduct operational exercises that experiment and demonstrate emerging capabilities and technologies in an operationally relevant environment. Even after a major exercise in which senior commanders agree on the success of demonstrated capabilities and demand to acquire these at scale, there is often a two- to four-year lag time for DoD to formally define requirements, secure funding, and shape acquisition and contract strategies. For example, even successful capabilities selected by USD(R&E)’s Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) still must go through the Program Objective Memorandum and Deputy Secretary’s Management Action Group processes to begin scaling.

Congress to pilot providing $250 million to scale operationally relevant technologies demonstrated at operational exercises that address the preeminent challenge of deterring the People’s Republic of China, such as RDER. The funds will facilitate the acceleration and scaling of novel capabilities into the hands of the warfighter at the speed of relevance, help vendors cross the Valley of Death, and incentivize new nontraditional companies to work with the DoD. This will significantly shorten the traditionally long lag times for successful vendors to receive funding while the DoD finalizes requirements, funding, and contracts. The associated funds would be particularly useful for the technology needed to integrate military forces that will revolve around digital tools and other foundational “middleware” technologies that sometimes fall in the seams of traditional major hardware-centric acquisition.

The fund should:

Be allocated in FY 2024 spending bill to specific programs or initiatives no later than 180 days from completion of the exercise on discovered solutions.
Be limited to five or fewer high-potential capabilities to ensure they are properly resourced to meaningfully scale.
Be directly allocated to an acquisition organization, such as a program executive office, to rapidly acquire capabilities that have demonstrated success in order to address priority operational risks or opportunities.
Use Defense Production Act Title III or adapt authorities available to other agencies and departments to provide credit guarantees or other funding approaches in support of technology and capability providers.

Success measures: Increased number of technologies and capabilities demonstrated successfully that are transitioned at scale to the warfighter; increased number of vendors incentivized to demonstrate at exercises.

Notional example: A company demonstrates a swarm of small undersea intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drones at the Rim of the Pacific 2024 exercise. The firm is awarded a low-rate initial production contract within sixty days and deploys its capability with the navy in 2025.

Recommendation 9: USD(A&S) and acquisition executives propose realigning existing organizations to adopt the Space Development Agency (SDA) model, and Congress grants additional enabling authorities to those organizations in FY25 NDAA.

Addresses challenges 2 and 4.

USD(A&S) and SAEs charter a small team to build out a model, structure, key elements, and a framework replicating the SDA and lessons learned from rapid acquisition.
- SDA provides an early model for preemptive disruption within the Space Force. The disruptive units should focus on current technologies from the labs and industry that can be quickly fielded and scaled within existing rapid acquisition authorities. Mature defense and commercial capabilities, along with broader portfolio requirements, can shape a streamlined process. This model builds upon successful organizations like the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Big Safari, and Special Operations Command’s acquisition and SOFWERX organizations.
Service leadership identifies priority capability areas that are ripe for disruption—ones where the current operational model is outmoded for the digital age and/or where novel technologies offer radically different operational capabilities at greater speed and scale to achieve mission priorities.
Each identified service and defense agency employs an SDA model to a priority capability area and repurposes organizations, funding, and resources to implement.
- Identify the right charismatic leader who embodies these characteristics: high technical acumen, proven product manager, well-defined vision, extensive personal network in warfighting and industry communities, commitment to a five-year tenure, and an intangible “wild card” quality. Provide statutory protections to extend top cover beyond the length of time of political appointees for the new organizations to disrupt entrenched mindsets on major systems, operations, and force structures employed for decades.
DoD leaders continually discuss and iterate on the new model with key stakeholder organizations across the DoD and congressional defense committees.

Success measure: Congressional buy-in, with a small set of targeted projects identified for each organization and underway in FY 2024 to prepare for rapid scaling in FY 2025 with capabilities initially fielded by FY 2027.

Notional example: Navy leadership, in its commitment to autonomous systems, bundles PEO Unmanned and Small Combatants, Task Force 59, Unmanned Task Force, and the director of unmanned systems into a new naval autonomy organization with authorities and flexibilities similar to SDA and related rapid-innovation organizations.

Recommendation 10: Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VCJCS) and services establish a team to collaboratively modernize JCIDS and service requirements processes by September 2024.

Addresses challenges 2, 4, and.

The DoD’s JCIDS is a complex, disjointed bureaucracy across Joint Staff and the services. The DoD requires a streamlined, tailored requirements framework and processes that iterate operational needs and threats with technology solutions, while also aligning requirements, acquisition, and budget systems.

VCJCS and services charter a team or multiple teams to modernize DoD’s requirements enterprise to include:

Design a requirements framework that better incorporates bottom-up capability requirements from the warfighter and addresses joint strategic capability concerns. It must align service/agency and JROC core processes while allowing some tailoring and flexibility.
Enable a requirements system that breaks from the mindset of locking down all requirements up front to a dynamic model that enables software-intensive commercial solutions and emerging technologies that meet changing or evolving warfighting needs to iteratively shape capability developments.
Overhaul, streamline, and tailor requirements documents based on capability size, urgency, product vs. service, and hardware vs. software. Develop new process to rapidly validate the military utility of a commercial solution instead of the traditional JCIDS.
Aggressively streamline capability requirement development, coordination, and approval timelines from operational commands, through component commands, and Joint Staff. Impose tripwires for exceeding six months for software and twelve months for hardware to get senior leader involvement.
Develop enduring overarching requirements for capability portfolios. Include a set of mission impact measures to focus investments and acquisitions to continuously improve.
Retire the outmoded DoD Architecture Framework and focus on application programming interfaces per DepSecDef’s data decree, architectures, and standards to enable interoperability. Strike the right balance between enterprise, service, and portfolio orchestration with flexibility for program and industry solutions.
Modernize the analysis of alternatives processes to enable a more streamlined and iterative approach that values prototypes, experiments, minimum viable products, and commercial solutions with warfighter and other user feedback over lengthy headquarters staff analysis.
Better integrate threat and technology assessments early and throughout the process.
The team must include external change management experts and collaborate with industry (traditional and nontraditional) and the DoD S&T community to get their input and feedback on providing options to inform DoD requirements.
Develop a career path, structure, and improved training for DoD requirements managers.
Publish new policies, guidance, and templates in dynamic online formats instead of five-hundred-page PDFs.
Congress directs the Government Accountability Office to assess the DoD’s requirements management processes, policies, and practices to include timelines; alignment to the DoD
budget and acquisition processes, mission outcomes, portfolio management; and harnessing commercial technologies.
The Senate Armed Services Committee and/or House Armed Services Committee hold hearings with the VCJCS and the service chiefs on modernizing DoD requirements processes to enable greater speed, agility, and innovation.

Success measure: Joint Staff and service stakeholder organizations collaboratively develop a modern approach to managing defense requirements. The new requirements system integrates the key elements outlined above by September 2024.

Notional example: The Air Force establishes an uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) portfolio requirements document that aggressively streamlines all future UAS requirements, bakes in interoperability standards, and enables many novel commercial solutions.

Conclusions and next steps

This interim report is focused on providing elected officials and senior DoD leaders with actionable recommendations that can be enacted promptly. The Commission discussed and acknowledged broader, strategic matters that will take time to flesh out and implement. These include establishing a more fulsome capital market engagement strategy, harnessing a modern workforce, and exploring digital transformations of enterprise systems to enable broader reforms and opportunities. The Commission’s final report, which is planned for September 2023, will expand upon these ten recommendations to include a broader set of reforms to strengthen defense innovation adoption. It will include case studies that highlight successes in adopting dual-use technologies within short time frames. After all, living through the “decisive decade” means that Americans deserve decisive capabilities to provide for the common defense, in this decade.

Biographies

The Hon. Mark T. Esper, PhD

Board Director and Co-Chair of the Commission, Atlantic Council; 27th US Secretary of Defense

The Honorable Mark T. Esper is a partner and board member of the venture capital firm Red Cell Partners and a board director at the Atlantic Council. He was sworn in as the 27th Secretary of Defense on July 23, 2019, and served in that capacity until November 9, 2020. He previously served as acting secretary of defense from June 24, 2019, to July 15, 2019. Esper was confirmed as the 23rd secretary of the US Army in November 2017.

In the private sector, Esper was vice president for government relations at the Raytheon Company.

He earlier served concurrently as executive vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center and as vice president for European and Eurasian affairs from 2008 to 2010. From 2006 to 2007, He was chief operating officer and executive vice president of defense and international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association.

In addition to his work in the private sector, Esper served in a range of positions on Capitol Hill and in the Defense Department. He served as legislative director and senior policy advisor to former Senator Chuck Hagel. He was a senior professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Governmental Affairs committees, policy director for the House Armed Services Committee, and national security advisor for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. During the President George W. Bush administration, he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy at the Pentagon. He was national policy director to the late Senator Fred Thompson for his 2008 presidential campaign and was a Senate-appointed commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. 

Esper began his career in the US Army. He is a 1986 graduate of the United States Military Academy and received his commission in the infantry. Upon completion of Ranger and Pathfinder training, he served in the 101st Airborne Division and participated in the 1990-91 Gulf War with the “Screaming Eagles.” He later commanded a rifle company in the 3-325 Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy. He retired from the army in 2007 after spending ten years on active duty and eleven years in the National Guard and Army Reserve. After leaving active duty, he served as chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation think tank.

He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Among his many military awards and decorations are the Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star Medal, the Kuwait Liberation Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal-Saudi Arabia, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. Esper holds a PhD from the George Washington University.

The Hon. Deborah Lee James

Board Director and Co-Chair of the Commission, Atlantic Council; 23rd US Secretary of the Air Force

The Honorable Deborah Lee James is chair of the Defense Business Board and board director at the Atlantic Council. Previously, she served as the twenty-third secretary of the US Air Force and was responsible for the affairs of the Department of the Air Force, including the organizing, training, equipping, and providing for the welfare of its nearly 660,000 active-duty, National Guard, Reserve, and civilian airmen and their families. She also oversaw the Air Force’s annual budget of more than $139 billion. James has thirty years of senior homeland and national security experience in the federal government and the private sector.

Prior to her Air Force position, James served as president of Science Applications International Corporation’s (SAIC’s) technical and engineering sector, where she was responsible for 8,700 employees and more than $2 billion in revenue.

For twelve years, James held a variety of positions with SAIC, including senior vice president and director of homeland security. From 2000 to 2001, she was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Business Executives for National Security, and from 1998 to 2000 she was vice president of international operations and marketing at United Technologies. During the Bill Clinton administration, from 1993 to 1998, James served in the Pentagon as assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs. In that position, she was senior advisor to the secretary of defense on all matters pertaining to the 1.8 million National Guard and Reserve personnel worldwide. In addition to working extensively with Congress, state governors, the business community, military associations, and international officials on National Guard and Reserve component issues, James oversaw a $10 billion budget and supervised a one-hundred-plus-person staff. Prior to her Senate confirmation in 1993, she served as an assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs.

From 1983 to 1993, James worked as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee, where she served as a senior advisor to the Military Personnel and Compensation Subcommittee, the NATO Burden Sharing Panel, and the chairman’s Member Services team.

James earned a BA in comparative area studies from Duke University and an MA in international affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Eric Lofgren

Professional Staff Member, Seapower and Acquisition Lead, US Senate Committee on Armed Services; Author, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Atlantic Council

Eric Lofgren is a professional staff member and the seapower and acquisition lead for the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services. His work on this Commission was completed while he was a research fellow at the Center for Government Contracting in the George Mason University (GMU) School of Business, where he performed research, wrote, and led initiatives on business, policy, regulatory, and other issues in government contracting.

He manages the daily blog Acquisition Talk and produces the Acquisition Talk podcast, on which he interviews leading experts in the field. Lofgren was an emergent ventures fellow at GMU’s Mercatus Center. Prior to joining GMU, he was a senior analyst at Technomics Inc., supporting the Defense Department’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office. He has also supported government analyses for the Government Accountability Office, Naval Sea Systems Command, Canada Public Works, and the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Cost and Economics.

Whitney M. McNamara

Vice President, Beacon Global Strategies; Author, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Atlantic Council

Whitney McNamara is a vice president at Beacon Global Strategies. Prior to that, McNamara worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, where she served as the S&T portfolio lead at the Defense Innovation Board, whose mission is to provide the secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense, and other senior leaders with recommendations on emerging technologies and innovative approaches that DoD should adopt to ensure US technological and military dominance.

Before that, McNamara was an emerging technologies policy subject matter expert supporting the Department of Defense’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). Prior to that, she was a senior analyst at national security think tank the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, focusing on emerging technologies, future operating concepts, and informationized warfare in the context of long-term technological and military competition with great powers.

Peter Modigliani

Defense Acquisition Lead,MITRE Corporation; Author, Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Atlantic Council

Peter Modigliani is a defense acquisition leader within the MITRE Corporation enabling the DoD and intelligence community to deliver innovative solutions with greater speed and agility. He works with acquisition and CIO executives, program managers, the Section 809 Panel, congressional staffs, industry, and academia to shape acquisition reforms, strategic initiatives, and major program strategies.

Modigliani champions digitally transforming the acquisition enterprise to modernize and accelerate operations. He launched MITRE’s digital acquisition platform, AiDA. Prior to MITRE, Modigliani was an Air Force program manager for C4ISR programs and an assistant vice president with Alion Science and Technology, supporting the Air Force Acquisition Executive’s Information Dominance division.

Stephen Rodriguez

Senior Advisor and Study Director of the Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Stephen Rodriguez is a senior advisor with the Forward Defense program at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and founding partner of One Defense, a next-generation strategic advisory firm that leverages machine learning to identify advanced software and hardware commercial capabilities and accelerate their transition into the defense industrial base. He is also a venture partner at Refinery Ventures, an early-scale fund investing in dual-use technologies across the country. Rodriguez began his career at Booz Allen Hamilton supporting its national security practice.

In his capacity as an expert on game-theoretic applications, he supported the US intelligence community, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security as a lead architect for wargames. He subsequently was a vice president at Sentia Group, an artificial intelligence company, and served as chief marketing officer for NCL Holdings, an international defense corporation. Rodriguez serves as a board director or board advisor of ten venture-backed companies—Duco, Edgybees, Hatch Apps, HighSide, Omelas, Uniken, Ursa Major Technologies, Vantage Robotics, War on the Rocks, and Zignal Labs—as well as the nonprofit organizations Public Spend Forum and Training Leaders International. He is also senior innovation advisor at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Clementine G. Starling

Director, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Clementine G. Starling is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program and a resident fellow within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In her role, she shapes the Center’s US defense research agenda, leads Forward Defense’s team of nine staff and forty fellows, and produces thought leadership on US security strategies and the evolving character of warfare. Her research focuses on long-term US thinking on issues like China’s and Russia’s defense strategies, space security, defense industry, and emerging technology. Prior to launching Forward Defense, Starling served as deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security team, specializing in European security policy and NATO.

From 2016, she supported NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division at two NATO summits (Brussels and London) and organized and managed three senior Atlantic Council task forces on US force posture in Europe, military mobility, and US defense innovation adoption. During her time at the Atlantic Council, Starling has written numerous reports and commentary on US space strategy, deterrence, operational concepts, coalition warfare, and US-Europe relations. She regularly serves as a panelist and moderator at public conferences. Among the outlets that have featured her analysis and commentary are Defense One, Defense News, RealClearDefense, the National Interest, SpaceNews, NATO’s Joint Air and Space Power Conference, the BBC, National Public Radio, ABC News, and Government Matters, among others. Starling was named the 2022 Herbert Roback scholar by the US National Academy of Public Administration. She also served as the 2020 Security and Defense fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. Originally from the United Kingdom, Starling previously worked in the UK Parliament focusing on technology, defense, Middle East security, and Ukraine. She also supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, championing for the United Kingdom to remain within the European Union. She graduated with honors from the London School of Economics with a BS in international relations and history and is an MA candidate in security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Mark J. Massa is an associate director in the Forward Defense program. His work focuses on nuclear deterrence strategy and policy. He holds an MA in security studies and a BSFS in science, technology, and international affairs from Georgetown University.

Delharty M. Manson II is a program assistant in the Forward Defense program. His work focuses on defense innovation and operational concepts. He holds a BA in public policy from the College of William & Mary.

Jacob Mezey is a program assistant in the Forward Defense program. His work focuses on nuclear security, space security, and defense innovation. He holds a BA in history from Yale University.

Acknowledgments

This interim report was written and prepared with the support and input of its authors, Commissioners on the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, and the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

This effort was conducted under the supervision of Commission Director Stephen Rodriguez, Forward Defense Director Clementine Starling, and Forward Defense Associate Director Mark J. Massa. Thank you to Julia Siegel and Christian Trotti for earlier contributions. Special thanks to Atlantic Council CEO Fred Kempe and Barry Pavel for their support of this effort.

This effort has been made possible through the generous support of Booz Allen Hamilton as the Foundational Sponsor as well as sponsorship from Accrete AI, ACT1 Federal, Applied Intuition, Palantir, Peraton, Primer AI, Rebellion Defense, Schmidt Futures, and Snowpoint Ventures.

Foundational sponsor

List of acronyms

ATR: Above threshold reprogramming
BLI: Budget line item
CAS: Cost Accounting Standards
CDAO: Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer
DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
DepSecDef: Deputy Secretary of Defense
DIU: Defense Innovation Unit
DoD: US Department of Defense
FFRDC: Federally Funded Research and Development Center
GSA: General Services Administration
IRAD: Independent research & development
JCIDS: Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System
JROC: Joint Requirements Oversight Council
MCWL: US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory
NDAA: National Defense Authorization Act
NDC: Nontraditional defense companies
OSC: Office of Strategic Capital
OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense

OT: Other transaction
PE: Program elements
PEO: Program executive officer / office
RDER: Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve
RDT&E: Research, development, testing, and evaluation
S&T: Science and technology
SAE: Service acquisition executive
SBA: Small Business Agency
SBIR: Small Business Innovation Research program
SDA: Space Development Agency
SOCOM: US Special Operations Command
STRATFI: Strategic Funding Increase
UAS: Uncrewed aerial system
USD(A&S): Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment
USD(R&E): Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
USD: Under Secretary of Defense
VC: Venture capital / venture capitalist
VCJCS: Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

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How can Latin America halt its democratic backsliding? And how can the US help?

Antonio Garrastazu and Casey Cagley — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 19:41:53 +0000

Democracy is under assault, and the problem is particularly acute in Latin America, which has suffered a greater democratic decline than any other region over the past twenty years. Even in relatively stable democracies such as Colombia, flaws within the system can be exacerbated by external shocks such as natural disasters or economic crises—and exploited by would-be autocrats.

Strengthening democratic institutions is critical to reversing the trend of democratic decline across the region. While these democracies struggle, international partners can help. That’s because the assistance these partners are already sending has an impact on each country’s democratic health. All aid either hinders or helps democratic development, and donors should be intentional about aligning all forms of assistance to make sure that the assistance supports countries’ democratic development. Thus, the United States and other democracies that send aid to Latin America and the Caribbean have a vital role to play in the region’s future. They must make a renewed push for assistance to the region.

Recently updated indexes and projects that summarize countless social, institutional, and political metrics across countries—including the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, the Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2023, and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2022—convey a clear message. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance’s Kevin Casas-Zamora sums it up best in the organization’s 2022 Global State of Democracy Report: “Democracy is under both literal and figurative assault around the world.”

As this week’s Summit for Democracy—which the United States is co-hosting with Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Zambia— gets underway, these reports highlight in increasingly urgent terms the regression of democratic governance around the world, including in most of Latin America.

For example, Colombia held three broadly free and fair electoral processes last year, and the rule of law is relatively strong. Many in Bogotá and other big cities have access to judicial, health, law-enforcement, and other state institutions. However, elsewhere in the country, the situation is different: Rural municipalities do not have the resources to provide the same level of education or health care as capital cities, and basic infrastructure is lacking. Public safety is even weaker. With its unequal application of democratic norms and protections, Colombia has been labeled a “flawed democracy” by the Economist Intelligence Unit. It’s not alone: Two-thirds of countries in the region (including Brazil and Mexico) qualify as flawed democracies or “hybrid regimes.” Only three are full democracies and the remaining four of the countries scored are fully authoritarian.

Across Latin America, weak institutions perpetuate corruption, inequality, poverty, and insecurity, and they standardize illicit economies. This provides a breeding ground for populist leaders on both the left and right to turn the situation to their advantage by exacerbating political polarization and popular distrust of the government. Weak rule of law is a constant trait of fragile democracies or hybrid regimes. Populist El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, for example, suspended civil liberties and arrested thousands of suspected gangsters with no due process. In the presence of weak institutions, criminals and corrupt officials can buy their way out of accountability. Gangs can shake down business owners with impunity. A lack of leadership and inclusion, including political parties’ own undemocratic behavior, is also a constant regionwide.

The factors contributing to the region’s democratic decline are well-known. What is less acknowledged is how these democratic deficits undermine the quality of life for millions of citizens and how they hinder government responses to new challenges and crises. From COVID-19 to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, shocks have already tested the region’s governments, and they were found wanting. Three threats in particular have the potential to further destabilize Latin America’s democratic progress:

Climate change and natural disasters have already started to upend economic and social conditions. Much of southern South America has suffered from record heat waves this year, fueling record forest fires in parts of Chile. A heavy rainy season has exacerbated a major Dengue fever outbreak in eastern Bolivia and caused devastating floods in Brazil. Meanwhile, the Paraná River—a major transportation artery and irrigation source—has fallen to such a low level that shipping has struggled; and Uruguay declared a national emergency in October last year due to crop failures caused by drought. Poor environmental governance both contributes to these phenomena and hinders mitigation and adaptation efforts. Governments’ inabilities to respond effectively contribute to poverty, dislocation, and migration across the region. To strengthen their democracies, governments must be able to channel citizen demands more nimbly and mobilize resources to mitigate these environmental or climate shocks .
Latin America and the Caribbean struggle with food insecurity and price shocks. Energy prices and inflation add to severe cost-of-living pressures for many across the region. A new report from the Pan American Health Organization shows that over 22 percent of the Latin American and Caribbean population cannot afford a healthy diet, with rates reaching over 50 percent in the Caribbean. Many governments provide subsidies for certain foodstuffs, fuel, and other critical imports, but high inflation and soaring debt payments will challenge governments’ abilities to keep this up. This can rapidly lead to popular unrest: For example, in 2019, a simple public transportation fare hike triggered massive protests in Chile. A similar increase in gas prices in Panama resulted in over a week of protests over fuel, food, and medicine, and Suriname saw protests this month after the government announced it would cut electricity and fuel subsidies.
Most regional governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are also under extreme financial stress, which limits their abilities to respond to new crises. The resource boom—fueled by Chinese growth and consumption—that propelled massive social spending and slashed poverty around the region ended years ago. As budgets were tightening, COVID-19 struck the region harder than most others and forced governments to expand deficit spending as economies closed for months at a time. Several states ended the pandemic with bulging debts and lower credit ratings, meaning that they now have less flexibility when it comes to confronting the next shock. And while Latin America’s economy grew nearly 4 percent in 2022, that growth is projected to slow in 2023 as the US Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates and the value of the dollar continues to rise, with damaging spillover effects for regional economies.

The most effective way to prepare for and mitigate against these external shocks is by strengthening democratic institutions—ensuring greater transparency, democratic participation, and government responsiveness. The United States and other democracies that help the region in dealing with these external shocks have a vital role to play in helping Latin America reverse the trend of democratic decline and prepare for coming challenges that could exacerbate democratic decay. This role extends to the diplomatic, development, and private sectors, which should support partners with best practices and resources that incentivize transparency, civic participation, free trade, and countering the influence of malign foreign actors such as China, Iran, and Russia. As US Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power recently wrote, “everywhere they provide assistance, democratic countries must be guided by and seek to promote democratic principles—including human rights, norms that counter corruption, and environmental and social safeguards.”

Voters have delivered major course corrections in Brazil, Colombia, and elsewhere in the past year, with newly installed leaders vowing to tackle inequality. But beyond these democratic processes, there’s more that governments will need to do to fully shore up vulnerable institutions. Investing in initiatives that strengthen civil society, political party systems, and open government will help give citizens a stake in the system, improve the function of institutions, and reduce the space for incursion by would-be autocrats.

Power has rightly called for a development strategy that “addresses the economic grievances that populists have so effectively exploited, that defangs so-called digital authoritarianism, and that reorients traditional democracy assistance to grapple with modern challenges.” As the United States and its partners convene for the Summit for Democracy, creating a vision for strengthening democracy in all US assistance to Latin America should figure among the Biden administration’s highest priorities.

Antonio Garrastazu is the senior director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Republican Institute.

Casey Cagley is a resident program director at the International Republican Institute.

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The real definition of victory for Ukraine

Victor Pinchuk — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 12:51:16 +0000

For centuries, Ukrainians have fought for their independence. The current war is a continuation of this historic struggle. Today, Ukrainian heroes are dying for the cause of independence; it is this very cause that Russia is trying to deny and destroy.

How can we define independence? Of course, it means a country that is truly sovereign and controls all of its territory, but for Ukraine it means something more. For Ukraine, true independence will only be achieved when the country is secure and anchored in the West, its natural geographic, political, and strategic home. Genuine independence will only come with Ukraine as a member of the European Union and NATO.

EU and NATO membership are integral components of victory and must already become reality right at the moment the war ends. Ukraine’s international friends must provide sufficient weapons to create the circumstances where this becomes possible. But beyond military aid, they should also support Ukraine’s geopolitical goals. They must do so with a grand vision rather than incrementally. They must be ready for Ukrainian EU and NATO membership as soon as the fighting stops.

The terrible war we are currently experiencing is not primarily a fight over territory. This is true for both Russia and Ukraine. Russia’s main goal is not to take and annex a certain number of square miles from Ukraine. Russia wants to annihilate Ukraine as state; to make Ukrainians as a nation disappear.

For the Russian Empire, a free Ukraine poses an existential threat. Russia cannot tolerate the emergence of a post-Soviet, post-communist, Orthodox, Slavic country that is a successful, prosperous, free democracy and market economy. So the empire wants to drag us back to the past through war.

For Ukrainians, there is now a chance that their country will finally win its centuries-long fight for independence and become truly free. In past centuries, Ukrainians demonstrated the same bravery we see today, but they were alone in their fight against the empire. Today, the whole civilized world stands with Ukraine.

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In order to be independent, Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be restored in line with the country’s internationally recognized 1991 borders. A tribunal for war criminals and reparations must also be established. But this will not create a truly independent Ukraine. For that to happen, Ukraine requires two more key steps.

First, Ukraine must receive credible security guarantees from the West that will prevent Russia from attacking again. Without such guarantees, there will be no real end to the war and no victory, just a pause. The second vital step is the radical reform of Ukraine’s institutions. This means the rule of law, democracy, and independent institutions. Freeing Ukraine from Russian occupation will not bring victory unless the country is also freed from the bad practices of the past.

Let’s address these steps one by one. The war has demonstrated that Ukraine needs NATO membership. Therefore, Ukrainian NATO membership must be an integral element of any lasting settlement. It is possible that security guarantees similar to NATO membership could serve as a pathway to this goal, if provided either by NATO itself or a coalition of countries.

In order to place radical institutional reforms on an irreversible path, Ukraine needs the country’s EU membership to be finalized or imminent by the end of the war. EU membership is not a substitute for reforms, but a necessary incentive for them. It is for Ukrainians to conduct reforms, while the EU role is to assess them and decide on integration. Experience has shown that the EU accession process is a uniquely powerful tool for radical institutional reform. And EU membership is the best insurance against a return to bad practices.

If these two goals are achieved, financial resources will flow to Ukraine. This will not only be in the form of international assistance and reparations, but also in terms of private investment. A free and secure Ukraine will enjoy very strong growth that will benefit all involved.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

Many of Ukraine’s international friends agree the country’s security and institutional reforms are the first priority after victory. They acknowledge that EU and NATO membership should be on the agenda, but only after victory. I strongly disagree. These steps cannot wait until after victory; they are essential components of victory.

For Ukraine, true victory means security and reform. It means NATO and EU membership, or at the very least, iron-clad security guarantees along with key practical components of EU integration in place. Without these steps, there will be no victory.

The EU must strengthen its existing commitment to Ukrainian membership and implement it with unprecedented speed and political will. NATO accession must be on the agenda of the coming July 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius.

This will not be simple. Current EU and NATO regulations make speedy accession difficult. But at key moments in history, merely following the rules is insufficient. With the right political leadership, existing rules can be adjusted and new standards adopted to meet the needs of the moment.

Never in the history of the EU has a country served as such an inspiration for Europe or sacrificed so much for Europe. Never in the history of NATO has a country fought so bravely and sacrificed so many lives to defeat a deadly threat that also endangers NATO.

Now is not the time to ask yourself how much more can be done within the existing limits. Instead, the real question is: How do we get this right? If this is not the time to change existing practices and procedures, when is the right time?

My message to Western leaders is simple: If you get Ukraine right, you will not only save lives. You will also show the whole world that the Western alliance and the European Union are the future. And for you, too, this will be a real victory.

Victor Pinchuk is a businessman, philanthropist, and the founder and member of the board of Yalta European Strategy. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board. The Victor Pinchuk Foundation is a donor to the Atlantic Council.

Atlantic Council experts — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 12:00:00 +0000

How the war in Iraq changed the world—and what change could come next

Twenty years on from the US invasion of the country, Iraq has fallen off the policymaking agenda in Washington, DC—cast aside in part as a result of the bitter experience of the war, the enormous human toll it exacted, and the passage of time. But looking forward twenty years and beyond, Iraqis need a great deal from their own leaders and those of their erstwhile liberators. A national reconciliation commission, a new constitution, and an economy less dependent on oil revenue are just some of the areas the experts at the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative highlight in this collection of reflections marking two decades since the US invasion.

What else will it take to transform Iraq into a prosperous, productive regional player? What can the United States do now, with twenty years’ worth of hindsight? And just how far-reaching were the effects of the war? Twenty-one experts from across the Atlantic Council take on these questions in a series of short essays and video interviews below.

Oula Kadhum on what March 20, 2003 was like for a young Iraqi

How the Iraq war changed…

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The cause of democracy in the region

When the United States invaded Iraq two decades ago, one of the public justifications for the war was that it would help spread democracy throughout the Middle East. The invasion, of course, had the opposite effect: it unleashed a bloody sectarian conflict in Iraq, badly undermining the reputation of democracy in the region and America’s credibility in promoting it.

Yet the frictions between rulers and ruled that helped precipitate the US invasion of Iraq persist. The citizens of the region, increasingly educated and connected to the rest of the world, have twenty-first-century political aspirations, but continue to be ruled by unaccountable nineteenth-century-style autocrats. Absent a change, these frictions will continue to shape political developments in the region, often in cataclysmic fashion, over the next two decades.

The George W. Bush administration’s failures in Iraq severely set back the cause of democracy in the region. In the perceptions of Arab publics, democratization became synonymous with the exercise of American military power. Meanwhile, Iraq’s chaos strengthened the hand of the region’s autocrats: as inept or heavy-handed as their own rule might be, it paled in comparison to the breakdown of order and human slaughter in Iraq.

Citizens’ frustrations with their political leaders finally erupted in the Arab Spring of 2010 and 2011, but their protests failed to end autocracy in the region. Gulf monarchs were able to throw money at the problem, first to shore up their own rule and then other autocracies in the region. The Egyptian experiment with democracy proved short-lived; Tunisia’s endured far longer but also appears over. More broadly, the region has seen democratic backsliding in Lebanon and Israel as well.

The yawning gap between what citizens want and what they get from their governments remains. The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators show that, on aggregate, states in the region are no more politically stable, effectively governed, accountable, or participatory than two decades ago. Unless political leaders address that gap, further Arab Spring-like protests—or even social revolution—are probable.

Having apparently gotten out of the business of invasion and occupation following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States could play a new and constructive role here. It could both cajole and assist the region’s political leaders to improve governance for their citizens.

The United States exacerbated political tensions in the region two decades ago; now it has an opportunity to help ameliorate them.

—Stephen R. Grand is the author of Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us About the Prospects for Arab Democracy. He is a nonresident senior fellow with the Council’s Middle East programs.

State sovereignty

Since the seventeenth century, more or less, world order has been based on the concept of state sovereignty: states are deemed to hold the monopoly of force within mutually recognized territories, and they are generally prohibited from intervening in one another’s domestic affairs. The invasion of Iraq challenged this standard in three important ways.

First, the fact of the war represented a direct attack on the sovereignty of the Iraqi state, which undermined the ban on aggressive war. While the Bush administration cast the invasion as a case of preemptive self-defense, it was widely seen as a preventive war of choice against a state that did not pose a clear and present danger. Moreover, the main exceptions to sovereignty that have developed over time, such as ongoing mass atrocities or United Nations authority, were not applicable in Iraq. Thus, the United States dealt a major blow to the rules-based international system of which it was one of the chief architects. This may have made more imaginable later crimes of aggression by other states.

Second, the means of the war, and especially the occupation, powered the reemergence of the private military industry. Driven by the need to sustain two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US armed forces became dependent on military contractors, which sometimes involved authorizing paid civilians to kill. The US effort to (re)privatize warfare brought back into fashion the use of private military force, generating a multibillion-dollar industry that is here to stay. Over time the spread of private military companies could unspool the state’s exclusive claim to violence and hammer the foundations of the current international system.

Third, the consequences of the war led to the spectacular empowerment of armed nonstate actors in the region and beyond, who launched a full-frontal assault on the sovereignty of many states. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, of course, emerged amid the brutal contestation of power in post-invasion Iraq and pursued its “caliphate” as an alternative (Sunni) political institution to rival the nation-state. While the threat has been contained, for now, in the Middle East, it is only beginning to gather force on the African continent. In addition, because Iran effectively won the war in Iraq, it was able to sponsor a deep bench of Shia nonstate groups which have eroded state sovereignty in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq itself.

The US invasion of Iraq left us a world with less respect for state sovereignty, more guns for hire, and a dizzying array of well-armed and determined nonstate groups.

—Alia Brahimi is a nonresident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and host of the Guns for Hire podcast.

Abbas Kadhim on the opportunities missed

US-Turkish ties

By launching a war on Turkey’s border, against Turkish advice, in a manner that prejudiced Turkish interests, the United States in 2003 upended a strategic understanding that had dominated bilateral relations for five decades.

During and immediately after the Cold War, Turkey and the United States shared a strategic vision centered on containing the Soviet Union and its proxies. In exchange for strategic cooperation, Washington provided aid, modulated criticisms of Turkish politics, and deferred to Ankara’s sensitivities regarding its geopolitical neighborhood. With notable exceptions (e.g., Turkish opposition to the Vietnam War and US opposition to Turkey’s 1974 Cyprus operation), consensus was the norm and aspiration of both sides. After close collaboration in the Balkans, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan from 1991 to 2001, though, Ankara became increasingly alarmed about the prospect of a new war in Iraq.

Bilateral relations deteriorated sharply after the Turkish parliament voted against allowing the United States to launch combat operations from Turkish soil. The war was longer, bloodier, and costlier than its planners had anticipated. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (known as the PKK and designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in 1997) ended a cease-fire in place since the 1999 capture of its founder, Abdullah Öcalan, and gained broad new freedom of movement and action in northern Iraq. US military aid to Turkey ended, while defense industrial cooperation and military-to-military contacts dropped. In July 2003 US soldiers detained and hooded a Turkish special forces team in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, on suspicions that they were colluding with insurgents. This event, coupled with Turkish anger over the bitter conduct and conclusion of the prewar negotiations, helped fuel a sustained rise in negative views about the United States among the Turkish public.

Sanctions and the war in Iraq damaged Turkish economic interests, though these would rebound from 2005 onward. The relationship of the US military to the PKK—first as tacit tolerance of PKK attacks into Turkey from northern Iraq despite the US presence, and later with employment of the PKK affiliate in Syria as a proxy force against the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)—rendered the frictions of 2003 permanent. That US forces train, equip, and operate with a PKK-linked militia along Turkey’s border today is fruit of the Iraq war, because US-PKK contacts were brokered in northern Iraq, and US indifference to Turkish security redlines traces back to 2003.

The story of US-Turkish estrangement can be told from other perspectives: that Ankara sought strategic independence for reasons broader than Iraq, that President Erdoğan’s anti-Westernism drove divergence, that the countries have fewer shared interests now. There may be truth in these arguments, though they are based largely on speculation and imputed motives. Yet they, too, cannot be viewed except through the lens of the 2003 Iraq War, which came as Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party was assuming power and greatly influenced his subsequent decision-making.

Many effects of the Iraq War have faded, but the strategic alienation of Turkey and the United States has not.

—Rich Outzen, a retired colonel, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY and a geopolitical analyst and consultant currently serving private-sector clients as Dragoman LLC.

China’s rise

As George W. Bush took office in 2001, managing the US-China relationship was regarded as a top foreign policy concern. The administration’s focus shifted with 9/11 and a wartime footing—which in turn altered Beijing’s foreign policy and engagement in the Middle East.

A high point in US-China tension came in April with the Hainan Island Incident. The collision of a US signals intelligence aircraft and a Chinese interceptor jet resulted in one dead Chinese pilot and the detention of twenty-four US crew members, whose release followed US Ambassador Joseph Prueher’s delivery of the “letter of the two sorries.”

But after the September 11 attacks, the United States launched the global war on terrorism, and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became the all-encompassing focal points. While that relieved pressure on China, the US decision to invade Iraq raised serious concerns in Beijing and elsewhere about the direction of global order under US leadership.

American willingness to attack a sovereign government with the stated goal of changing its regime set a worrisome precedent for authoritarian governments. Worries transformed into something else following the global financial crisis in 2008. Chinese leaders became even more wary of US leadership, with former Vice Premier Wang Qishan telling then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson after the financial crisis, “Look at your system, Hank. We aren’t sure we should be learning from you anymore.”

The war in Iraq was especially troubling for Chinese leaders. Few believed that the United States would engage in such a disastrous war over something as idealistic as democracy promotion in the Middle East. The dominant assumption was that the war was about maintaining control of global oil—and using that dominance to prevent China from rising to a peer competitor status. The so-called “Malacca Dilemma” became a feature of analysis in China’s strategic landscape: the idea that any power that could control the Strait of Malacca could control oil shipping to China, and therefore its economy. Since then, China has developed the world’s largest navy and invested in ports across the Indian Ocean region through its Maritime Silk Road Initiative. Its defense spending has increased fivefold this century, from $50 billion in 2001 to $270 billion in 2021, making it the second-largest defense spender in the Indo-Pacific region after Japan, and higher than the next thirteen Indo-Pacific countries combined.

Since the Iraq war, the Middle East has become a much greater focus in Chinese foreign policy. In addition to building up its own military, China began discussing security and strategic affairs with Middle East energy suppliers, conducting joint exercises, selling more varied weapons systems, and pursuing a regional presence that increasingly diverges or competes with US preferences.

Would China’s growing presence in the Middle East have followed the same trajectory had the United States not invaded Iraq? Possibly, although one could argue that the same sense of urgency would not have animated decision makers in the People’s Republic of China.

—Jonathan Fulton is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and host of the China-MENA podcast. He is also an assistant professor of political science at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. Follow him on Twitter: @jonathandfulton.

The country’s readiness to meet climate challenges

Over the course of the last two decades, Iraq has become one of the five most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. It has been affected by rising temperatures, insufficient and diminishing rainfall, intensified droughts that reduce access to water, sand and dust storms, and flooding. Iraq’s environmental ministry warns that the country may face dust storms for more than 270 days per year in the next twenty years.

While not the sole cause of environmental mismanagement in Iraq, the muhasasa system of power sharing has exacerbated and contributed to a culture of corruption and political patronage that has undermined efforts to protect the environment and to sustainably manage Iraq’s natural resources. Muhasasa is an official system that allocates Iraqi government positions and resources based on ethnic and sectarian identity. It may have been a good temporary compromise to promote stability in the early 2000s, but today it is widely viewed as a harmful legacy of the post-invasion occupation period.

In the context of protecting the environment, the muhasasa system has led to a situation where some government officials are appointed to their respective positions without the necessary skills or qualifications to manage resources efficiently or effectively. Forced ethnosectarian balancing has encouraged natural resource misuse for political or personal gain to the immediate detriment of average Iraqis. While muhasasa was intended to promote political stability and prevent marginalization of minority groups, in practice it has contributed to a culture of corruption and nepotism, and undermined efforts to promote good governance and sustainable development.

To address its acute climate challenges, Iraq needs to move away from the sectarian-based power sharing and toward a more inclusive, merit-based system of governance. It must strengthen its environmental regulations, commit itself to sustainable development, and better manage its natural resources for the country and as part of the global effort to mitigate climate change. The international community has a role to play here through supporting technical assistance, capacity building, and providing financial resources to help address these concerns along the way.

—Masoud Mostajabi is an associate director of the Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council.

Iran’s regional footprint

From the outset of the invasion of Iraq, the United States’ decision was built on several dubious premises that the administration masterfully overhyped to build support for its aspirations of removing Saddam Hussein by force. The last two decades have tragically shown the consequences of this decision—with high costs of blood and treasure and a serious blow to American credibility. But from a strategic standpoint, one particular miscalculation continues to create blowbacks to US regional security interests: top US policymakers willfully ignored the need for an adequate nation-rebuilding strategy, leaving a power vacuum that an expansionist Iran could fill.

With the removal of the Baathist regime, Iran finally saw the defeat of a rival it could not best after eight years of one of the region’s bloodiest wars. This cleared the path to influence Iraqi Shia leaders who had long relied on the Islamic theocracy next door for support. Even as some Shia learning centers in Najaf and Karbala challenged (once again) Qom, new opportunities of influence that never existed before opened up for Iran.

By infiltrating Iraq’s political institutions through appointed officials submissive to its regime’s wishes, Iran succeeded in two goals: deterring future threats of Iraqi hostilities and preventing the United States from using Iraqi territories as a platform to invade Iran. Through its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Qods Force, Iran trained and supplied several militia groups that later officially penetrated Iraq’s security architecture through forces called Popular Mobilization Units, which have repeatedly carried out anti-American attacks. Nevertheless, those groups would eventually prove valuable to the United States in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)—yet even then Iran succeeded in appearing as the protector of Iraq’s sovereignty by immediately equipping the Popular Mobilization Units, unlike the delayed US response that arrived months later.

Regionally, Iran’s military leverage and political allies inside Iraq provided it with a strategic ground link to its network in Syria and Lebanon, where the Qods Force ultimately shifted the political power dynamics to Iran’s advantage, especially as they crucially strengthened engagement in recruiting volunteers to support Bashar al-Assad’s fighters in Syria. Through the land bridge that connects Iran to the Bekaa Valley, Iran has helped spread its weapons-trafficking and money-laundering capabilities while reinforcing an abusive dictatorship in Syria and a crippled state in Lebanon.

Twenty years ago, the United States went to liberate Iraq from its oppressive dictatorship. What it left behind is a void in governance and an alternative system that fell far short of what the United States wanted for Iraq. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime continues to base its identity on anti-Americanism while it gets closer to its political and ideological ambitions. With US sanctions having so far failed to halt Iran’s network of militia training and smuggling—and the attempt to revive the nuclear deal stalled, despite being the main focus of US Iran policy—the question remains: How long will the United States tolerate Iran’s regional ascendancy before it intensifies its efforts toward restraining it?

—Nour Dabboussi is a program assistant to the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs.

How governments counter terrorist financing

Without the experience of the war in Iraq, US and transatlantic economic statecraft would be less agile and less able to prevent terrorist financing. However, more work and continued international commitment is needed to ensure Iraq and its neighbors are able to strengthen and enforce their anti-money-laundering regimes to protect their economies from corruption and deny terrorists and other illicit actors from abusing the global financial system to raise, use, and move funds for their operations.

The tools of economic statecraft, including but not limited to sanctions, export controls, and controlling access to currency, became critical to US national security in the wake of 9/11 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sanctions and other forms of economic pressure had been applied against the government of Iraq and illicit actors prior to 2003. However, economic pressure and the use of financial intelligence to combat terrorist financing became increasingly sophisticated as the war progressed. Since 2001, the State Department and Treasury have designated more than 500 individuals and entities for financially supporting terrorism in Iraq. Following the money and figuring out how terrorist networks raised, used, and moved funds was a critical aspect in understanding how they operated in Iraq and across the region. Information on terrorist financial networks and facilitators helped identify vulnerabilities for disruption, limiting their ability to fund and carry out terrorist attacks, procure weapons, pay salaries for fighters, and recruit.

Sanctioning the terrorist groups and financial facilitators operating in Iraq and across the region disrupted the groups’ financial flows and operational capabilities while protecting the US and global financial systems from abuse. Targets included al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, among others. For example, the US Treasury recently sanctioned an Iraqi bank moving millions of dollars from the Revolutionary Guard Corps to Hezbollah, preventing terrorists from abusing the international financial system.

Notably, the fight against terrorist financing set in motion the expansion of the Department of the Treasury’s sanctions programs and helped the US government refine its sanctions framework and enforcement authorities and their broad application.

Equally important, the US government’s efforts and experience in countering the financing of terrorism increased engagement and coordination with foreign partners to protect the global financial system from abuse by illicit actors. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the inter-governmental body responsible for setting international anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards, strengthened and revised its standards, recommendations, and red flags to account for what the international community learned from the experience of combatting terrorist financing in Iraq. The United States and partner nations provided, and continue to provide, training and resources to build Iraq’s and its neighbors’ capabilities to meet FATF standards and address terrorist financing and money laundering issues domestically.

—Kim Donovan is the director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

—Maia Nikoladze is an assistant director at the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

The United States

Perhaps no event since the end of the Cold War shaped American politics more than the invasion of Iraq. It is fair to say that without the Iraq war neither Donald Trump nor Barack Obama would likely have been president.

Weirdly, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is still almost a forbidden topic in GOP foreign policy circles. After the Bush years, a kind of collective-guilt omerta about the Iraq war took hold among Republicans. It was as if US-Iraqi history had started in 2005, or 2006, with Democrats and a few Republicans baying for a needed defeat. It never came. The 2007 surge, as David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy came to be known, was the gutsiest political call by an American leader in my lifetime.

It happened also to be right when very little else about the war was: There were, of course, no weapons of mass destruction found. Iran did expand its power, massively. Iraq did not offer an example of democracy to the region: rather, it horrified the region. It became linked to al-Qaeda only after the invasion. The White House refused to take the insurgency seriously until it was very serious. Iraq pulled attention away from Afghanistan. And of course there were 4,431 Americans killed.

By 2016, the narrative favored by Republicans had become that the execution of the war was flawed. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, was the villain in this story: But for Bremer’s incomprehensible decision to disband the Iraqi army and institute de-Baathification in early 2003, so the story went, the Iraq war could have succeeded. But in retrospect these decisions were defendable. Bremer was erring on the side of satiating the Shia majority, not the Sunni minority, and trying to reassure them that a decade after they were abandoned in 1991 the United States would deliver them political power. And the one real success of the Iraq war, beginning to end, is that the United States never faced a generalized Shia insurgency.

The other villain was Barack Obama, who played in the sequel. (Obama largely owed his electoral victory to the Iraq war, brilliantly using Hillary Clinton’s vote for the invasion to invalidate her experience and judgment and thus the main argument for her candidacy.) In this version of events, Obama’s precipitous decision to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2011 contributed to the country’s near-collapse three years later under the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). This was basically accurate. The withdrawal of US forces eliminated a key political counterweight from Iraq, and the main incentive for then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to hedge his sectarianism and friendliness with Iran. This accelerated political support for Sunni rejectionist movements like ISIS.

Both the Bremer narrative and the Obama narrative allowed George Bush’s Republican party to avoid revisiting the core questions of American power: intervention, exceptionalism, and its limits—precisely the same questions that had featured prominently in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

This was the broken market that Donald Trump exploited: that Republican voters’ views on Iraq after 2008 looked much like Democratic voters’, but the Republican establishment’s views did not. And it was no accident, in the 2016 presidential primaries, that the two candidates most willing to criticize the interventionism of the 2000s, Trump and Ted Cruz, were the ones who did best.

This debate remains critical. More than any other decision, Bush’s war created the contemporary Middle East. Above all that includes the unprecedented regional dominance of Iran, the power of the Arab Shia, and the constraints on American power in buttressing its traditional allies. That imbalance, combined with a decade-long sense that America is leaving the region and wants no more conflict, has led Sunni Arab states to look for their security in other places.

Especially in the wake of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which if anything has sharpened foreign policy divisions, the Republican party and the United States need a dialectic, not a purge; a discussion, not a proscription; and a reasonable synthesis of the lessons of Iraq. People want to vote for restraint and realism, as much as or more than they want to vote and pay for interventionism and idealism. Was the Iraq War a mistake? Let us start this debate there, and produce something better.

—Andrew L. Peek is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He was previously the senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and the deputy assistant secretary for Iran and Iraq at the US Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

Andrew Peek on the historical context of the 2003 invasion

US foreign policy

The US decision to invade Iraq twenty years ago was, to use the words of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, a wily French statesman and diplomat of the Napoleonic era, “worse than a crime; it’s a mistake.”

While Saddam Hussein was a monster, and had ignored numerous United Nation-mandated commitments, the US-led effort in 2003 to topple him as president of Iraq was strategically unnecessary. It became the center of a failed mission in nation-building—one that has proved disastrous for US interests in the greater Middle East and beyond.

Iraq was at the center, but it was only one of four failed American interventions in the region. The others were Afghanistan, Libya, and, to a lesser extent, Syria. The operation to take down the Taliban was fast and efficient, but consolidation of a post-Taliban Afghanistan never occurred. Part of the reason for that was the United States’ war of choice in Iraq, which began less than eighteen months after Afghanistan. That sucked up most of the resources and attention for the rest of that decade. But the other reason for US failure in Afghanistan was that we were beguiled by the same siren song that misled us in Iraq: that we could overcome centuries of history and culture and create a stable society at least somewhat closer to US values. Failure on such a scale is not good for the prestige and influence of a superpower.

But that is not the end of it. There is also the domestic side. The misadventures in the greater Middle East were a failure not just of the US government but of the US foreign policy elite. It was a bipartisan affair. Neoconservative thinking dominated the Republican Party throughout the aughts, while liberal interventionism prevailed in the Democratic Party. They were all in for the utopian policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

While the failures in the greater Middle East were widely understood even before the unnecessarily embarrassing 2021 departure from Afghanistan, there has never been a public reckoning. There was nothing like the Church Committee, which in the mid-1970s shined a very harsh light on US failures in Southeast Asia. Few prominent thinkers or officials have publicly acknowledged their failed policy choices. And the same figures who led us into those debacles are still widely quoted on all major foreign policy matters.

This has had the consequence in the United States of providing ground for the growth of neoisolationist thinking. In running for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump was not wrong in pointing out the failures of elites in both parties in conducting foreign policy in the greater Middle East. Since then, populists on the right have used this insight to undermine the credibility of foreign policy experts. And like generals fighting the last war, they have applied their “insight” from the Middle East to the latest challenges to US interests, such as Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

In this reading, US support for Ukraine is comparable to US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and will result in failure. There is no analysis—simply dismissal—of the dangers that Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine poses to US security and economic prosperity. No recognition that, as Putin has stated numerous times, he wants to restore Kremlin political control over all the states that used to make up the Soviet Union—which includes NATO and European Union (EU) member states. In other words, he seeks to undermine NATO and the EU.

Furthermore, there’s no understanding that despite the presence of American troops, the United States’ local allies in Iraq and Afghanistan could not win—but without one NATO soldier on the battlefield, Ukraine is fighting Russia to a standstill. Indeed, Ukraine has destroyed between 30 percent and 50 percent of Moscow’s conventional military capability. These analogies with the Iraq war ignore the reality that if Putin takes control of Ukraine, the United States will likely spend far more in financial resources and perhaps American lives in defending its NATO allies.

These failures of understanding are not simply or mainly a consequence of US errors in the Middle East. Utopian thinking in the United States and especially Europe was a natural consequence of the absence of great-power war since 1945. Especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, people on both sides of the Atlantic got comfortable with the notion that Russia was no longer an adversary. And isolationism also has a long pedigree in US society. So it would be vastly oversimplifying to blame the confusion of today’s neoisolationists exclusively on US failures in the Middle East. But the strong US response to the challenge of a hostile Soviet Union was possible because a bipartisan approach on containment was endorsed by leaders of both parties. After the United States’ misadventures in Iraq, such endorsements carry less weight today. In US foreign policy as elsewhere, we still do not know what the ultimate impact of the decision to invade Iraq will be.

—John Herbst’s 31-year career in the US Foreign Service included time as US ambassador to Uzbekistan, other service in and with post-Soviet states, and his appointment as US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006.

What Iraq needs now

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William F. Wechsler on the future of Iraq

A reconciliation commission to rebuild national unity

One of the most devastating shortcomings of the 2003 Iraq invasion was the dismantlement of state institutions and the weakening of the Baghdad central government. That structural vacuum of power and services forced Iraqis back into tribal, religious, and ethnic allegiances, contributing to the nation-state’s fragmentation and exacerbating divisive sectarian discourses and intercommunity tensions. A quota-based constitutional system only served to institutionalize and legitimize the ethnosectarian distribution of power.

Conflicting groups grew further apart over the past two decades and became more motivated by accumulating political positions, hefty oil incomes, and territorial and symbolic gains rather than collectively seeking to rebuild their balkanized nation. Iraqi youth, on the other hand—who campaigned in the name of “We Want a Homeland” [نريد_وطن#] during the 2019 Tishreen (October) protests—seem to have understood what political elites might be missing: the necessity for national reconciliation and memorialization.

The bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra in 2006 unleashed the chaos trapped inside Pandora’s box and resulted in violent Sunni-Shia confrontations, which pushed the country to the brink of civil war. Today, political elites, aware of the fragility and precariousness of the political consensus, pretend the time of friction is over. My firsthand work in Iraqi prisons and camps, and the research projects I led in the country’s conflict zones off the beaten path, such as west of the Euphrates, in Zubair, and in rural areas in the Makhoul Basin, prove the absolute contrary.

A flagrant example of the sectarian ticking bomb that persists in Iraq is the mismanagement of the Sunni populations in the aftermath of the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Many pretended that ISIS fighters came from some fictional foreign entity and refused to face the fact that most of them, including their leader, were Iraqi-born and raised, which I observed as an eyewitness working with the International Committee of the Red Cross during the ISIS war in Nineveh and Salahuddin. Many people who were accomplices of the atrocities even engaged in rewriting the narrative altogether after 2017 in the name of national unity.

A number of Sunni populations in Iraq were mystified by their sudden loss of power with the toppling of Saddam Hussein and were in disbelief that the Shia they stigmatized as shrouguis—literally, “easterners,” a derogatory reference used by Sunni elites to refer to Shia Iraqis from the southeast—became the new lords of the land. Instead of engaging in meaningful mediation and reconciliation to work through these social changes, the majority parties preferred to bury their heads in the sand. This tendency led them to allow militia groups to displace and isolate the Sunni inhabitants of a key city like Samarra, to submerge under water the citizens of northern Kirkuk and Salaheddin, or to conceal the evidence incriminating Tikrit Sunnis during the Speicher massacre, in which ISIS fighters killed more than a thousand Iraqi military cadets, most of them Shia.

These are not isolated examples in a chaotic political and constitutional system in which many communities feel persistently misunderstood, including Kurds, Assyrians, Mandaeans, Baha’is, Afro-Iraqis, Turkmen—and even the Shia themselves. The only possible and plausible pathway for the country to be one again in the next twenty years is to engage in an excruciating but indispensable reconciliation process, through which responsibilities are determined, dignity is restored, and justice is served.

—Sarah Zaaimi is the deputy director for communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs.

A new constitution

Iraq needs a new constitution. A good constitution spells out the framework and structure of government. It provides essential checks and balances to prevent dictators from coming to power. It helps protect the people’s rights. It has measures to prevent gridlock or the collapse of a functioning government.

Judged by these standards, the 2005 Iraqi constitutionis only a partial success.

However, complaints have built up since 2005: over the muhasasa system under which the established political parties divide up ministerial appointments; over the failure of Iraq’s government or other institutions to deliver basic services like electricity and water; over perceptions of excessive Iranian meddling in Iraq’s politics; and over the inability of the government to provide meaningful employment for millions of young Iraqis—or to foster a private sector capable of doing so. These grievances came to a head in the 2019 Tishreen protests in which more than 600 Iraqis died.

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 in part to bring democracy to Iraq, so it is ironic that Iraq’s 2005 constitution was the product of mostly Iraqi political forces unleashed by the failure of the United States to ensure a democratic transition. It was expected that the Kurdish political parties, which had worked closely with the United States for years, would insist upon a federal republic to ensure their autonomy from a central government whose long-term character and leanings in 2005 were far from settled. Beyond this, however, the small number of Americans actually involved in advising the key Iraqi players in the constitutional process—in the room where it happened—actually had relatively little experience in constitutional mechanics or modern comparative constitutional practice. The American sins of commission during the first two years after Iraq’s liberation were replaced by sins of omission during the crucial months of negotiation of the 2005 constitution.

Genuine constitutional reform in Iraq is not likely to be accomplished directly through the parliament, given the interests of Iraq’s political parties and the parliament’s need to focus on legislative responsibilities. Instead, Iraqi civil society—including scholars, lawyers, religious and business leaders, and retired government officials and jurists—should initiate serious discussions about constitutional reform. Many of these voices were not heard when the 2005 constitution was adopted. Their effort can be far more open and transparent than the process was in 2005.

Foreign governments should have a minimal role, limited to supporting and encouraging Iraqi-led efforts, without trying to broker a particular outcome. International foundations, institutes, universities, and think tanks can offer outside expertise, particularly in comparative constitutional law and other kinds of technical assistance. But the overall effort needs to be Iraqi-led, with input from a broad spectrum of Iraqi voices.

While civil society discussions in Iraq could begin with considering amendments to the 2005 constitution, US experience may be relevant. The US Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787 to consider amendments to the Articles of Confederation decided to completely redesign the government, resulting in a Constitution that, with amendments, has been in force in the United States for more than 230 years. Sometimes it’s better to start over.

Iraq’s path to constitutional reform is not clear today, but there is a path nevertheless. Incremental reform is possible, but reform on a larger scale may achieve a more lasting result. The more promising outcome could be for a slate of candidates to run for office with the elements of the new constitution as their platform. A reform slate is not likely to gain an absolute majority, but if its base of support is broad enough, it may be able to gain support in a new parliament needed to send a revised constitution to the Iraqi people for their approval. A new constitution, done right, could propel Iraq towards a better future.

—Thomas S. Warrick led the State Department’s “Future of Iraq” project from 2002 to 2003, served in both Baghdad and Washington, and was director (acting) for Iraq political affairs from July 2006 to July 2007. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Thomas S. Warrick on the need for Iraqi-led constitutional reform

An economy diversified away from oil

The post-2003 political order, based on the muhasasa system of sectarian apportionment, came with the promise of a complete break with the past. The 2005 constitution, drafted by the new order, promised: “The State shall guarantee the reform of the Iraqi economy in accordance with modern economic principles to insure the full investment of its resources, diversification of its sources, and the encouragement and development of the private sector.”

As with other bold promises made, the economic promise was broken as soon as the constitution came into effect, as the political order pursued a decentralized and multiheaded evolution of the prior economic model, and persistently expanded the patrimonial role of the state as a redistributor of the country’s oil wealth in exchange for social acquiescence to its rule.

Over the last twenty years the economy developed significant structural imbalances, and was increasingly bedeviled by fundamental contradictions. Essentially, it was dependent on government spending directly through its provisioning of goods and services as well as public services, and indirectly on the spending of public-sector employees. However, this spending was almost entirely dependent on volatile oil revenues that the government had no control over; yet the spending was premised on ever-increasing oil prices.

The political order had the opportunity to correct course and honor the original promise during three major economic and financial crises, each more severe than the last and all a consequence of an oil-price crash: in 2007 to 2009, due to the global financial crisis; in 2014 to 2017, due to the conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham; and in 2020, due to the emergence of COVID-19. Yet, paradoxically, the political order doubled down on the policies that led to these crises as soon as oil prices recovered.

On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the political order—buoyed by the bounty of high, yet unsustainable, oil prices—is planning a budget that is expected to be the largest ever since 2003, to seek legitimacy from an increasingly alienated public. These plans will only deepen the economy’s structural imbalance and its fundamental contradictions, and as such could likely lead to even greater public alienation if an oil-price crash triggers yet another economic and financial crisis. Even if oil prices were to stay high, however, the country’s demographic pressures will in time create the conditions for a deeper rolling crisis.

—Ahmed Tabaqchali is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. An experienced capital markets professional, he is chief strategist of the AFC Iraq Fund.

Andrew Peek on the current state of Iraq and the US-Iraq relationship

An inclusive vision, representative of all its people

One of the enduring legacies of the 2003 invasion has been its deleterious effect on the many diverse ethnic and religious minority communities that make up the social fabric of Iraq. Yet it is that diversity and rich heritage that could now unlock a brighter future for the nation, if the political system can recognize and represent it.

Marginalized by an institutionally inscribed political system and few representative seats in parliament, Iraq’s minority communities have found themselves peripheralized by the state—and in the imaginations of the country’s future. Many have emigrated and now reside in diaspora, changing the ethnic and religious heterogeneity of Iraq.

Calculating the cultural toll of war goes beyond the destruction of shrines and artifacts, and the looting of museums and buildings: One of the biggest social and cultural losses for Iraq has been the exclusion of minority communities from the nation-building processes. This is a tragic state of affairs for Iraq, whose uniqueness, strength, and richness stems from its ancient histories and cultures, its religious, artistic, and musical traditions, and the languages that have contributed to its heritage and development. That heritage deserves to be protected and celebrated.

Until the day the muhasasa system is dismantled, and a new Iraq built on meritocracy can thrive, minority communities must be safeguarded and included in Iraq’s future. Yet, this can only be achieved through the protection of minorities’ rights in Iraq’s political life, and genuine and concerted effort to increase parliamentary seats and legal representation of minorities. Investment in areas destroyed by terrorism and conflict, more reparations for communities whose livelihoods and homes have been ruined, and more boots on the ground to protect communities and religious shrines should be a priority.

Twenty years of destruction, corruption, violence, and the subsequent emigration of many communities cannot be erased. Yet the twentieth anniversary of Iraq’s occupation ought to serve as a point of reflection for the kind of Iraq that Iraqis want now. There is certainly much hope in a new generation of Iraqis calling for new national visions, an end to muhasasa, more civil rights, and expanding economic opportunities.

Yet all of Iraq’s communities must be part of this conversation. A more inclusive Iraq that applauds its diversity and takes pride in difference could be the driving force needed to unify the nation.

—Oula Kadhum, a former nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, is a postdoctoral research fellow at Lunds University in Sweden and a fellow of international migration at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom.

Oula Kadhum on the reforms needed to reposition Iraq in the next twenty years

A new US Iraq policy focused on youth and education

As the global community reflects on the twentieth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq and looks to the future, it is time for foreign policy toward Iraq to move beyond its traditional, security-heavy approach.

While security threats persist, including a potential resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and should be a priority, US aid to Iraq has historically been ineffective and financially irresponsible. Humanitarian assistance, meanwhile, tends to focus on short-term issues like the response to COVID-19 and assisting displaced individuals. And while such aid can be beneficial, continuing with the traditional avenues of support is not a sustainable solution to rebuild Iraq. The United States and the international community must begin to focus on long-term solutions that address human security, development, infrastructure, education, and the economy. At the center of all these issues are two key variables that must be the focal point of policy: education and the youth population.

A 2019 UNICEF report estimates that a staggering 60 percent of Iraq’s population is under the age of twenty-five. Learning levels and access to education in Iraq remain among the lowest in the region. The great challenges these two facts pose can also be seen as a unique opportunity: to place its large youth population at the epicenter of Iraq’s future through policy that increases the number of educators and trains them, ensures sanitary and competent learning conditions, and increases access to education.

The benefits of a long-term investment in Iraq’s education system and youth population go beyond simply educating its citizens: It would be the first step in unlocking the human potential of Iraq. More education means more qualified professionals; more doctors would increase the quality and access to healthcare, an increase in engineers will ensure that the country’s infrastructure continues to develop, and additional business leaders and entrepreneurs will assist in growing the economy.

To truly rebuild Iraq, the United States and the international community can no longer view the country as only a security issue. Rather, this moment must be seen as an opportunity to empower bright Iraqi youths, who hope to lead in rebuilding their own country—providing them with a fair shot of again being a cradle of civilization.

—Hezha Barzani is a program assistant with the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative. Follow him on Twitter @HezhaFB.

Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Fuad Hussein reflects on the twentieth anniversary of the invasion

What the United States can do now

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Recommit to the cause of Iraqi freedom

It’s hard to believe that it has been twenty years since the US invasion of Iraq. As I sat waiting to launch my first mission on March 20, the war’s historical significance was not my primary thought. How I found myself flying on the first night of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was. That thought was accompanied by the tightness in the pit of my stomach that I always got before launching into the unknown.

We didn’t debate the case for the war among ourselves. It has been discussed thoroughly since, and I don’t claim to have any new insight to offer on that topic. We were focused on not letting down our fellow Marines and accomplishing our mission: to remove Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and replace it with a democracy that would give the people of Iraq the freedom that people everywhere deserve as their birthright.

Did we succeed? We certainly succeeded in rapidly destroying the Baathist regime and its military, the third largest in the world. The answer to the second question is less clear. On my second and third tours in Iraq, I saw the chaos from the al-Qaeda-fueled insurgency in 2005 and 2006 and the dramatic turnaround following the al-Anbar “Sunni Awakening” in 2006-2007. From afar, I watched the horrors that the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham inflicted on its people after US troops withdrew without a status-of-forces agreement.

Today, Iraq is rated “not free,” scoring twenty-nine out of one hundred in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2022 report. Although not up to Western liberal democracy standards, this is an improvement over 2002, when it received the lowest score possible and was listed as one of the eleven most repressive countries in the world. Moreover, Iraq’s 2022 score is vastly better than most of its neighbors: Iran scored fourteen, Syria scored one, and Afghanistan scored ten.

Despite Afghanistan being widely seen as “the good war” of the two post-9/11 conflicts, where the casus belli was clear, today it is Iraq, and not Afghanistan, that gives me hope that twenty years from now, on the fortieth anniversary, we will see our efforts to promote democracy in Iraq come entirely to fruition. We owe it to the 36,425 Americans killed and wounded there, the thousands of veterans who took their own lives, and the many more still struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder to stay engaged in Iraq and the region to try and make sure that they do.

—Col. John B. Barranco was the 2021-22 Senior US Marine Corps Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. These views are his own and do not represent those of the Department of Defense or Department of the Navy.

Balance confidence and humility

I officially swore into the military at Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, on April 4, 2003, during the early stages of the US “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq. Having decided to join the Air Force following 9/11, the lengthy administrative process I’d endured to get to this point had been agonizing. I recall going through the in-processing line at Officer Training School on April 9, when an instructor whispered to us: “Coalition forces have taken Baghdad, stay motivated.” The thought that immediately went through my mind was: “I’m going to miss the wars.”

I had made the choice to pursue special operations and still had two years of training ahead of me. At the time, the war in Afghanistan seemed like it was nearing completion, and the swift overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq had me convinced that, by the time I was ready to deploy, there would be no fighting left. Little did I know that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with their expansions across the Middle East and Africa, would end up consuming a large majority of my twenty years of service, take the lives of many of my special operations teammates, and impact the health and well-being of a generation of US service members and their families.

It’s impossible to know how the war in Iraq shaped other US endeavors in the region. Did it take our focus from Afghanistan and put us on a path of increased escalation and investment there? Did it set conditions for the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham to take root many years later, setting off another expansive counterterrorism campaign?

More broadly, did it allow adversaries the time and space to study US capabilities and ultimately inform their strategies for malign influence? I often think of this today when I’m asked about what’s going to happen with the Russian war in Ukraine, or how prepared the United States is to defend Taiwan.

The United States needs the confidence to confront global challenges to peace and prosperity, but also the humility to know we get things wrong, and mistakes involving direct military intervention can be catastrophic. Given the escalatory risks associated with the security challenges in the world today, our pursuit of a balance of confidence and humility has never been more important.

—Lt. Col. Justin M. Conelli is the 2022-23 Senior US Air Force fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

William F. Wechsler on the current political discourse around Iraq

Recognize the successes as well as the failures

“Was the invasion of Iraq worth it?”

I’ve spent a great deal of my military and postmilitary career answering questions about Iraq, but this one—from a brigadier general in the audience—caught me off guard. It was 2018, seven years after the formal withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, and I found myself in front of a roomful of Army officers giving a talk on the future of US-Iraq security cooperation. By that time, such talks had become a little frustrating. The fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (aka the Islamic State group) demonstrated that Iraqi forces could rise to the immediate challenge; however, the conditions that led to their unceremonious collapse in 2014 had not much changed. As a result, there remained many questions about the best way to continue the security partnership to prevent future catastrophe.

The question I got that day, however, had little to do with how to partner with Iraqi forces. A co-presenter from Kurdistan jumped in immediately to answer the brigadier general’s question: the US invasion had removed Iraqi Kurdistan’s most significant threat—Saddam Hussein—and had provided opportunities for economic and political development it would not have had otherwise. Sensing a trap, I nonetheless walked right into it. While Iraqi Kurdistan was certainly in a better position, I pointed out that was not consistently so for the rest of Iraq. The US invasion had unleashed a sectarian free-for-all that allowed Sunni extremists, Shia militias, and their Iranian sponsors to fill the vacuum of oppression Saddam’s departure had left. Moreover, this vacuum had empowered Iran to challenge the United States and its partners regionally. So my answer was no, toppling Saddam likely did not outweigh the costs.

In previous years, the questions had been more policy-focused. For example, when I arrived at the Pentagon’s Iraq Intelligence Working Group in August 2002, the first question asked was how Iraq’s diverse ethnic and confessional demographics would affect military operations and enable—or impede—victory. By early 2003, the questions were about the larger effort to construct a new political order. Before long, we were asking how the confluence of Islamist terrorism, sectarian rivalries, and external intervention drove resistance to efforts to reconstruct Iraq.

In 2012, I became the US defense attaché in Baghdad, just after the last US service members withdrew. At first, the question I heard in this capacity was how to continue the reconstruction project with a limited military and civilian presence whose movement was often severely restricted in a sovereign, sometimes uncooperative, Iraq with frequent interference from Iran. Before I left, al-Qaeda had metastasized into the Islamic State group and the question became how to cooperate to prevent the group’s further expansion and liberate the territory it had seized. Meanwhile, Iran’s influence with the Iraqi government continued to grow.

In retrospect, the conditions I described in 2018 were accurate (and still largely hold today), but I wish I had given a more considered response. What I wish I had said was that a better question than “was it worth it” is: what have we learned about past failures to assess future opportunities? A prosperous Iraq that contributes to regional stability was not possible under Saddam. Now Iraq is an effective partner against Islamist extremists, and the Iraqi people, if not always their government, are in a position to push back on Iran in their own way, exposing Tehran for the despotic government it is. Moreover, Iraq’s hosting of discussions between Saudi Arabia and Iran was a catalyst to their recent normalization of relations.

The point is not to rationalize failure. Rather, the question now is: what have we learned from those failures to effectively capitalize on the success we have had, and how can we take advantage of the opportunities the current situation presents?

—C. Anthony Pfaff, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative and a research professor for strategy, the military profession, and ethic at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Tony Pfaff on the future of US-Iraq relations

Remember the price of hubris

For me, the memories of those first days and weeks in Iraq remain quite clear. I remember calling my family from a satellite phone on the tarmac of Baghdad International Airport to let them know I was alive, late night meetings with Iraqi agents in safe houses, wrapping up Iraqi high-value targets, the fear amid firefights and the carnage on streets strewn with dead and mutilated bodies, and a confused Iraqi population that at the time did not know what to make of US forces who claimed to be liberating them from the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Upon arrival in Baghdad in early April, there were few signs of the resistance that would haunt the United States for decades to come. Yes, there were still combat operations underway, but that was against Iraqi military and paramilitary units. So, as we tracked down Iraqi regime targets one by one—members of the famed “deck of fifty-five cards” that US Central Command had dreamed up and distributed like we were trading baseball cards—we saw this as part of a new beginning.

Yet soon after, the wheels began to fall off. Orders came from Washington policy officials with absolutely zero substantive Middle East experience both to disband the Iraqi military and purge the future government of Baath party officials, which immediately put tens of thousands of hardened military officers, conscripts, and officials out of work and on the street. The CIA presence on the ground protested, but to no avail. I had never seen Charlie, my station chief, so angry, including face-to-face confrontations with senior figures in the Coalition Provisional Authority. Charlie—the most accomplished Arabist in the CIA’s history—sadly predicted the insurgency that was about to come. If only Washington had listened.

I rarely think of Iraq in terms of big-picture strategy. As a CIA operations officer, I was a surgical instrument of the US government, and I gladly answered the bell when called upon to do so. I am proud to have served with other CIA officers and special operations personnel who performed valiantly. I suppose I can defend the invasion on human rights grounds. It seems we forget that Saddam was one of the great war criminals in history, and Iraq has been freed from his depravity. Yet two numbers are haunting: 4,431, and 31,994. Those are the number of Americans killed and wounded in action, per official Department of Defense statistics.

War is a nasty business, and many times a terrible price is paid for hubris. The casualty figures noted above paint a stark picture of the historic intelligence failure that the analytic assessment that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was. The CIA in particular suffered a credibility hit that has taken decades to recover from.

—Marc Polymeropoulos, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, served for twenty-six years at the CIA before retiring in 2019.

Thomas S. Warrick on the lessons to learn from the Iraq War

The post How the war in Iraq changed the world—and what change could come next appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Karim Mezran in The National Interest: Four Possible Scenarios for Tunisia’s Political Crisis

Atlantic Council — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 13:58:17 +0000

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Karim Mezran in Arab Digest: No End in Sight: Libya’s Consolidated Criminal Networks

Atlantic Council — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 16:19:58 +0000

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How Putin’s fear of democracy convinced him to invade Ukraine

Michael John Williams — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 20:22:59 +0000

Throughout the past year, the Kremlin has sought to blame the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on decades of post-Cold War NATO expansion. Many international commentators have accepted these Russian claims uncritically and have argued that the West must accept a high degree of responsibility for provoking what has become the largest European conflict since World War II.

In reality, Putin has always known that NATO poses no credible security threat to Russia itself. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO’s force posture and the US military presence in Europe have greatly declined, reducing any potential military threat to Russia. What really scares the Russian elite is the spread of democracy. Today’s war can be traced directly back to the pro-democracy revolutions that rocked the former Soviet neighborhood in the early 2000s, all of which were bottom-up political movements that called for more accountable government while demanding the rule of law.

The revolutions of the early twenty-first century were aftershocks of the democratization wave that began in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. As post-Soviet countries like Ukraine and Georgia struggled to establish more genuinely democratic forms of government in the early 2000s, Russia under Putin’s leadership was turning decisively away from democracy toward autocracy and illiberalism. This set the stage for an ideological struggle that would eventually lead to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as Russia attempted to crush the growing democratic threat in its former imperial heartlands.

In the late 1980s, the Communist system in Eastern Europe began to crumble under the weight of its own internal contradictions and thanks to the role of civil society in Poland and other countries across the region. This democratization drive was people-centered and soon spread to the Soviet Union itself, which collapsed in 1991. A new wave of democratization emerged at the turn of the millennium with the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan all taking place within the space of six years.

Each of these revolutions served as a potential model for neighboring populations that were also suffering from the same kind of chronic corruption and lack of political accountability. By studying and adopting the tactics of the activists who led these grassroots pro-democracy movements, they could push back against their own ineffective and autocratic political systems. This represented a serious threat to Putin’s increasingly authoritarian regime in Russia. The Kremlin responded by dubbing the uprisings “color revolutions” and attempting to discredit them as artificially orchestrated Western vehicles for regime change.

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The idea of revolutionary ideologies proving contagious is nothing new. Revolutions that succeed in changing the political order in one country have always had the potential to inspire calls for similar change among neighboring populations. In the nineteenth century, liberal revolutions were seen as a threat to the dominant conservative monarchical system of government across Europe. This led to the Concert of Europe, which saw the continent’s major powers cooperate to prevent the spread of the liberal revolutionary movement.

When Vladimir Putin looked west during the early years of his reign, it wasn’t NATO expansion that worried him. He was scared by the sight of ordinary people in Russia’s neighborhood attempting to topple their autocratic governments. As more countries in the region sought to liberalize, Putin instituted a set of laws to suppress Russian civil society and stifle any attempts to push for reforms on the domestic front.

The rising tide of democratization close to Russia’s borders in the 2000s was not only a threat to Russia’s internal stability; it also posed external challenges. This shift toward more democratic government across the region was helping to consolidate the rules-based system that had gradually begun to replace the old European balance of power in the decades following World War II.

This approach to international relations presented obvious challenges to Putin, who favored a world where great powers could dominate their weaker neighbors. The Russian dictator would have much preferred a return to the power dynamics of the nineteenth century Concert of Europe. Instead, he found himself confronted by a new “Concept of Europe,” meaning a system where all states are respected, regardless of strength or size. This directly undermined Putin’s vision of Russia’s privileged place in international relations as one of a handful of great powers with the right to a voice in global affairs.

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Over the past two decades, concerns over the growing threat posed by a new wave of democratization fueled Putin’s growing obsession with Ukraine, which he came to regard as the key battlefield in the ideological struggle for the future of Europe. Viewed from the Kremlin, Ukraine was a contested space where Russian illiberalism was in direct confrontation with liberal democracy. The Russian dictator appears to have convinced himself that Ukraine’s embrace of European democracy could eventually prove fatal for Russia itself.

Crucially, Putin stubbornly refused to recognize the agency of the Ukrainian people. Instead, he continued to insist that the country’s two post-Soviet revolutions and subsequent reform movements were driven by external pressure from the United States and the European Union. This was wishful thinking to spare the blushes of a rejected Russia. While the West was indeed supportive of Ukraine’s transformation, the desire for change always came primarily from the Ukrainian people.

As the full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its second year, this Ukrainian hunger for a democratic future is more evident than ever, as is the country’s wholesale rejection of Russian authoritarianism. The weapons provided by Ukraine’s international partners have helped inflict devastating casualties on Putin’s invading army, but they would be useless without the soldiers to operate them. Luckily for Ukraine, the country can count on hundreds of thousands of highly motivated men and women who are prepared to defend their country’s European choice against Russia’s brutal assault.

Putin hoped his invasion would deal a decisive blow to Ukraine’s dreams of European integration and force the country permanently back into the Kremlin orbit. He expected to conquer Kyiv in a matter of days and planned to extinguish Ukrainian independence entirely. Instead, he has achieved the exact opposite. Today’s Ukraine is more united than ever around the idea of a liberal democratic future as part of the Western world. As the Russian military now knows to its cost, this is a vision Ukrainians are ready to fight for.

Michael Williams is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.

jbatchik — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 22:04:58 +0000

IN THIS EPISODE

What is the future of Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union? How much integration between the EU and Ukraine can we expect in the coming months to years? Is membership in the EU in the near, medium, or even long-term future for Ukraine, and what will have to happen in order to achieve that?

Ahead of the EU-Ukraine summit following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ben Judah speaks with Europe Center Distinguished Fellow Gérard Araud on the relationship between the EU and Ukraine for a special Atlantic Debrief.

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How the international community can help restore Sudan’s democracy

Sami Abdelhalim Saeed — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 19:18:22 +0000

The 2019 Sudanese revolution was a uniquely inspiring moment for the world. The road to Sudan’s new dawn was paved by the extraordinary courage and tenacity of its citizens to liberate themselves from dictatorship and civil war, address historical wrongs, and rebuild their state on the principles of democracy and justice.

The international community then committed to supporting Sudan’s transition toward democratization, reconstruction, and sweeping reforms across politics, economics, and the security structure to meet the aspirations of the country’s people after the revolution.

Yet the transitional process began to unravel almost immediately after the overthrow of the government of Omar al-Bashir on April 11, 2019, amid turmoil and instability. The Transitional Military Council—the military junta that took power after Bashir’s ouster—and the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC)—a coalition of civilian and rebel groups—agreed on the Constitutional Charter and on the formation of a Sovereignty Council to lead the country during the transition to democracy through fresh elections. The Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) between the transitional government and rebel groups in October 2020 appeared to be cementing those gains toward peace and democracy.

On October 25, 2021, however, a military coup upended that progress. Now, as the international community and domestic Sudanese actors, including the military and civilian groups, work toward a restoration of democracy, a number of challenges confront them. How they address them could either make or break the dreams of the young Sudanese behind the 2019 revolution.

A fresh start

The United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), African Union, and Intergovernmental Authority on Development have helped restart dialogue and have initiated a road map for transition. On December 5, 2022, the army, FFC, other political forces, civil society organizations, and some youth resistance committees signed a framework agreement to establish a civilian government to manage a democratic transition for two years, ending with free and fair elections.

Planning for general elections after a short transitional period must incorporate creative arrangements that account for the multiple political, security, and economic crises that Sudan faces.

The prospects for elections in Sudan must be discussed within the framework of the transition process as a whole. A crucial decision to be made by the political actors is the timing and sequencing of the election in relation to other transitional tasks, including peace-making and implementation or revision of the JPA, transitional justice, dismantling the power structures of the previous regime, economic reform, and constitution-building.

The election dilemma

The relationship between elections and constitution-building is particularly important. If elections are to be held, the question is to what? There must be some body—with a defined constitutional structure, powers, roles, and terms of office—that is being elected, and which once elected can fulfil its mandate.

Holding credible elections means more than the elections themselves being free and fair. It also means that the parameters defining the body to be elected must be broadly accepted and legitimate. Without that, losers of the election will challenge the legitimacy of the elected institutions, while the winners will push their victory to extremes and potentially have no limits in power. It’s an invitation to instability.

There is no scope for elected institutions under the 2019 Constitutional Charter. In August 2022, the Steering Committee of the Sudanese Bar Association (SBA) proposed a new draft constitution as a framework for restoring the democratic path and regulating the procedures of the transitional period. This draft did not provide provisions for holding elections. All its institutions are appointed, not elected. This is because, until now, it has always been assumed that the transition will culminate with elections, rather than elections being part of a broader transitional process. The requirement for elections to be held at the end of the transitional period is specified in Article 13 of the JPA.

This is unusual. Often elections happen at some point in the middle of a transition process. In many cases, transitional institutions—such as a constituent assembly—are elected under a transitional constitution, and a final or permanent constitution is then developed by that elected body.

Elections or Constitution: What comes first?

The requirement that elections will happen only at the end of the transition places a huge burden on unelected transitional institutions to develop a permanent constitution before elections can take place.

Holding elections after the transitional period, and not in the middle of it, also means the transitional period has to be relatively short. Elections, which are vital to public legitimacy and to the establishment of normal institutionalized politics, cannot be postponed indefinitely. At some point the people of Sudan must decide on who and how they will be governed.

Yet there is reason to be concerned that there might not be enough time to develop a permanent constitution, based on a sufficient consensus, before the planned end of the transitional period.

There are only three (non-attractive) possible solutions:

Amend transitional constitutional documents, to allow for elections to transitional institutions, before the end of the transition process, with a permanent constitution to be developed after the election—although that is against Article 13 of the JPA.
Rush permanent constitution-building, to get a constitution in place before the scheduled end of the transition, with necessary compromises on the quality of document and on the extent to which the process can be fully inclusive.
Delay elections indefinitely until after the completion of permanent constitution-making, which may result in the ebbing away of the legitimacy of transitional institutions and raise the risk of extra-constitutional military intervention.

Whatever the case, the signatories to the Framework Agreement have begun to hold stakeholder conferences to discuss four fundamental issues necessary for signing the final political agreement: security sector reform, transitional justice issues, the regional case of eastern Sudan, and the issue of amending the JPA.

It is important to make use of these ongoing consultations to discuss extending the transitional period to accommodate institutional and legislative reforms and the necessary logistical preparations for elections. The international community, including UNITAMS, can help transfer technical expertise, international experiences, lessons learned, and resources to assist a democratic transition and plan elections, and to support sustainable peace and stability in Sudan.

Aside from the constitution, Articles 12 and 13 of the JPA establish other preconditions for the holding of credible elections. They include:

arrangements for international monitoring
implementation of the agreed-upon plan for the voluntary return of the displaced and refugees
the conduct of the population census, “in an effective and transparent manner before the end of the transitional period, with international support and oversight”
the enactment of a Political Parties Law
the formation of the Electoral Commission

Similar preconditions are also specified in the draft constitution presented by the SBA. Additionally, it is necessary to conduct a campaign to make voters aware of the new constitution and of the electoral system.

This is a lot to do, and Sudan is starting from a low baseline. If the transition period is to be just two years, Sudan will require considerable technical support, and investment of resources, to meet the requirements of the JPA and the SBA’s draft transitional constitution.

Role of the international community

Since the formation of the transitional government in August 2019, a broad international campaign has been launched to support the democratic transition in Sudan. My organization, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), has joined this effort by providing technical support to the transitional government, especially in supporting the formation of the Electoral Commission and the Constitution Making Commission, and in enacting laws related to these commissions. This support from international institutions must continue and be consistent with the political changes that occur.

There is a mandate for such support. Security Council Resolution 2425 of 2020, establishing UNITAMS, gave the UN mission in Sudan a mandate to provide assistance related to the transition and peace. Given the scale of the task and tight deadline, such financial and programmatic support must be provided urgently. Much of the preparatory work, both on elections and on the constitution, can be started now, for example the formation of working groups and technical committees.

There is also precedent for this support. The Electoral Assistance Mission in Iraq was formed within the larger Iraq mission, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution No. 2576 (2021), to provide advice, support, and technical assistance to Iraq in planning, preparing, and conducting elections and referendums. Similarly, the European Union delegation assisted Jordan (2016) and Lebanon (2022). The African Union deployed, in May 2019, a team of observers and a team of technical experts ahead of the elections in Malawi.

The threats that may result from holding elections amid challenging security conditions—including the weaknesses and divisions within the state’s security institutions—cannot be overlooked. In addition to financial and logistical assistance, an international assistance mission should provide a qualified, trained, and experienced security force.

No time to waste

It is necessary to start soon and move fast to help build political consensus around the design of the process and the sequencing of the transition.

Failure to reach a political agreement on the electoral processes, on the constitutional structures that give rise to elections, and on legal rules regulating elections, may cause political tension, which could disrupt the elections and undermine the democratic transition.

The opportunities currently available to the Sudanese people to discuss issues of democratization, including the issue of organizing free and credible elections, with the help of the international community, might not last forever.

The international community needs to provide substantial support for the coming elections in Sudan at the end of the transitional period. This is vital for security, peace, and political stability in Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Failure to do so would create security, political, and social risks that are difficult to count—or predict.

Sami A. Saeed is the head of the Sudan program at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. He previously served at the United Nations as a legal advisor in the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan from 2006–2020.

AfricaSource Apr 11, 2022

The days of elite deals in Sudan should be over

By Cameron Hudson

It is not too late for Washington to correct the course on Sudan and help stave off another democracy-delaying elite pact.

Africa Politics & Diplomacy

How the international community can help restore Sudan’s democracy ” class=”gta-horizontal-featured–img” />

AfricaSource Sep 27, 2022

Here’s what a Marshall Plan for the DRC could look like

By Jean-Paul Mvogo

The development progress the DRC witnessed in the 1970s is now lost. A massive economic assistance program equivalent to the Marshall Plan may be necessary to recover what’s been lost.

Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo

How the international community can help restore Sudan’s democracy ” class=”gta-horizontal-featured–img” />

AfricaSource Oct 7, 2022

How Niger’s safety net helps its most vulnerable citizens thrive amid crises

By Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou and Mamta Murthi

The World Bank’s Wadata Talaka safety-net partnership program with Niger aims to empower women in the country and protect its human-capital gains in the face of overlapping shocks.

Africa Climate Change & Climate Action

The post How the international community can help restore Sudan’s democracy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Wartime Ukraine must maintain course from Russian past to European future

Andrew D’Anieri — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 20:18:47 +0000

As Ukraine fights for its survival against invading Russian forces, the struggle for the country’s future is also unfolding far from the front lines. While Ukraine holds off Putin’s troops and endures Moscow’s terror campaign against civilians, efforts to modernize the country continue. By pursuing important reforms even in wartime, Kyiv is paving the way for a Euro-Atlantic future while distancing itself from the Soviet past.

Indications of Ukraine’s European trajectory remain evident despite the horrors of Russia’s ongoing invasion. The tiny state-owned Ust-Dunaisk port complex sits in an inlet in southwestern Ukraine where the Black Sea meets the Danube River, roughly thirty miles northwest of Snake Island. There are no roads traversing the small canals from the nearby village of Vylkove to the port, which serves as a key cargo loading point for transport between seafaring vessels in the Black Sea and river ships on the Danube.

In what was the first seaport privatization of its kind in Ukraine, the State Property Fund recently auctioned off the Ust-Dunaisk port and its Danube River berths in Vylkove and nearby Kiliya for $5.5 million. Ukrainian fertilizer company Elixir won the auction against seven other bidders, more than tripling the price from the $1.6 million opening bid.

The bidding war for Ust-Dunaisk points to a larger trend in Ukraine’s maritime exports. Russian forces currently occupy much of the Ukrainian coastline and have imposed a blockade of Ukrainian ports that has made maritime trade virtually impossible for almost a year. While a grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in summer 2022 partially opened Odesa’s major ports once again, the Russian Navy continues to harass commercial vessels entering and exiting Ukrainian waters.

As a result, shipping companies are increasingly turning to the Danube River to export Ukrainian grain. In 2022, grain shipments through the Danube grew 42 times year-on-year to 6.1 million tons, while overall cargo nearly tripled to 14.5 million tons, reaching the full capacity of Ukraine’s three Danube ports.

With demand growing rapidly, companies are now racing to build shipping capacity on the Danube. Ukrainian agribusiness company Nibulon, which has traditionally operated mainly out of Black Sea port Mykolaiv, is working to expand its Danube River capacity in the port of Izmail to be able to process 300,000 tons of grain per month. As Ukrainian companies adapt to wartime market conditions, so too have the government’s privatization authorities. Plans are underway to privatize the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskiy Seaport just up the coast from Ust-Dunaisk by the end of the winter season.

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Ukraine’s port privatization push is part of a broader initiative to renew privatization efforts following suspension in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion. Rustem Umerov was appointed as the new head of Ukraine’s State Property Fund in September 2022. He has vowed to simplify the privatization process and make it more accessible to foreign investors. If successful, this should help the country to partially offset the catastrophic economic impact of the war while laying the foundations for a revival in the Ukrainian economy once the fighting is finally over.

At the same time, significant concerns remain regarding Ukraine’s commitment to privatization. Since the invasion began, the Ukrainian authorities have invoked wartime laws to nationalize a number of strategically important companies. While these measures reflect the gravity of the situation in the country, they also raise questions over Ukraine’s future economic direction.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

Even if the relaunched privatization push proves effective, huge challenges still lie ahead for Ukraine as the country looks to achieve a decisive break from the discredited past. Meaningful judicial reform is only just beginning to take shape and is vital for the country’s future. Encouragingly, President Zelenskyy now appears more willing to listen to calls from Ukraine’s international partners to clean out corrupt courts. With Ukraine heavily reliant on military and financial aid, these calls will certainly be more difficult to ignore in the months ahead. Ukraine’s partners will also be encouraged by the Zelenskyy administration’s response to recent corruption allegations, which led to a flurry of dismissals and resignations.

Post-war Ukraine will need to tackle a range of other major modernization tasks while dramatically reducing the state-owned share in the country’s banking sector. The list of necessary reforms is long and painfully familiar to anyone who has been engaged in Ukraine’s notoriously patchy efforts since the country’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Nevertheless, some veterans of Ukraine’s reform drive believe the incredible sacrifices of the past eleven months have made the prospect of further backsliding intolerable and opened a window of opportunity for once-in-a-lifetime progress. The Ukrainian authorities must not miss this chance.

We may never know exactly why Vladimir Putin chose to invade Ukraine, but fear of the country’s emergence as a fully-fledged European democracy was clearly a factor. Putin has long viewed Ukraine’s successful transformation as an existential threat and a potential catalyst for democratic change inside Russia itself. As Moscow continues its genocidal war to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and subjugate the Ukrainian people, it is more important than ever to maintain the commitment to a European future that so many Ukrainians are currently fighting for. This means implementing economic and governmental reforms whenever possible, even in the most trying of wartime circumstances.

Andrew D’Anieri is assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Follow him on Twitter @andrew_danieri.

Kleptocratic regimes—kleptocracy means “rule by thieves”—have exploited the lax and uneven regulatory environments of the global financial system to hide their ill-gotten gains and interfere in politics abroad, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. They are aided in this task by a large cast of professional enablers within these jurisdictions. The stronger these forces get, the more they erode the principles of democracy and the rule of law. Furthermore, the international sanctions regime imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine has little hope of long-term success if the global financial system itself continues to weaken.

The West still has a long way to go to rein in the authoritarian kleptocrats who have thrived on the institutional dysfunction, regulatory failure, and bureaucratic weakness of the transatlantic community for far too long. We need to rethink not just how we combat kleptocracy, but also how we define it. Policy makers need to understand that authoritarian regimes that threaten transatlantic security are closely linked to illicit financial systems. As it stands, our thinking about how foreign corruption spreads is too constrained by stereotypes about kleptocratic goals and actions.

Outdated mental images of kleptocracy hobble the West’s response

Most transatlantic policy makers have in mind the first wave of kleptocracy, which primarily flourished in the late twentieth century. Its rise was intertwined with that of transatlantic offshore finance, which prompted a race to the bottom in financial regulation and a rise in baroque forms of corruption across the post-independence “Third World.”

The corrupt autocrats of the Cold War era flaunted the wealth they stole from their own people. These kleptocrats, many of whom are still spending large today, usually did not weaponize their corruption to influence the foreign policies of the United States or its allies. They were content to offshore their ill-gotten gains in US, UK, and EU jurisdictions with lax oversight over these types of transactions.

But this mental image of the kleptocrat is outdated: These kinds of kleptocratic leaders are not extinct, but they are curtailed. It is no longer a simple matter for first-wave kleptocrats to access the global financial system. Many of the regulatory loopholes exploited by these classic kleptocrats have either already been addressed or are in the process of being closed.

The second wave of kleptocracy, which emerged since the 2000s, is more sophisticated, authoritarian, and integrated into the global financial system than its predecessor. Second-wave kleptocrats intend to use the global financial system for strategic gains—either for self-gain and/or to reshape it in their image—instead of just hiding or securing the money they have stolen. Most notably, this evolution accelerated in Russia under President Vladimir Putin before February 2022, with the agendas of oligarchs and kleptocrats being subordinated to and intertwined with the plans of an ambitious state authoritarian.

Alongside this weaponized corruption, there has arisen in the West a coterie of enablers among the policy makers targeted by second-wave kleptocrats.

The second wave of kleptocracy is more sophisticated, more authoritarian—and more dangerous

Though our understanding of the threat posed by illicit finance has grown ever more sophisticated, our conception of a kleptocrat remains frozen in the mid-to-late 2000s: halfway between David Cronenberg’s 2007 London Russian gangster movie Eastern Promises, which depicted ties between the Russian state and overseas mafia groups, and the 2011 case of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president of Equatorial Guinea, in which the US Justice Department seized a Gulfstream jet, yachts, cars, and Michael Jackson memorabilia. Both depictions—one fictional, one real—describe the world of ten years ago, when the second wave of kleptocracy was still relatively new.

So what does kleptocracy look like today?

The natural resources tycoon

The tycoon is a figure who has “assimilated” into the global financial system and been recognized as a legitimate businessperson because they provide a consistent source of fossil fuels to the United States and its allies. They view the transatlantic world above all as a market, but they cannot deviate too far from loyalty to the regime in the country from which they extract natural resources. As a result, the kleptocrat as natural resources tycoon has a strongly supportive relationship with the regime, which turns a blind eye to their criminal techniques. These tycoons often “donate” parts of their revenue to leadership figures. Several Russian oligarchs would seem to fit this typology, such as Gennady Timchenko, if many of the allegations against him are true.

The private corporation subordinated to authoritarian objectives

Private corporations can be a vector for state-sponsored weaponized corruption, especially if the state is controlled by a one-party authoritarian regime at odds with the United States, its allies, and the liberal international order. US officials remain suspicious of one private corporation’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party. Even though the corporation is officially privately owned, 98.99 percent of this corporation’s stock is officially owned by a trade union committee representing employees (with the remainder held by the corporation’s founder). However, all trade unions in China are required to be part of a CCP-run labor federation. A British parliamentary inquiry into the potential security risks of Chinese technology companies noted that, even if they were not directly led by the CCP, they tended to maintain very strong links, including receiving billions of dollars’ worth of funding from the Chinese government.

The Western enablers

A respected mainstream democratic politician was the leader of a major bloc in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In this capacity, he led other PACE members to vote down a resolution based on a 2013 Council of Europe report that condemned Azerbaijan’s human rights record. However, it was later revealed that the enabler’s actions had been influenced by extravagant bribes from Ilham Aliyev’s regime in Azerbaijan.

These cases of second-wave kleptocracy show why, despite a decade of transatlantic anti-corruption activism and the sanctions imposed on the Kremlin’s cronies and war chest, the kleptocrats are still winning even as their objectives have evolved.

Chronically underregulated industries fuel the problem

As regulations have caught up to the first wave of kleptocracy, foreign kleptocrats are increasingly switching to different channels for illicit finance.

Changes in US regulations since 2001

Oct ’01

USA PATRIOT Act passes into law and becomes effective. Title III greatly enhances AML regulations.

The Magnitsky Act is signed into law developing a sanctions mechanism against corruption and kleptocracy in Russia.

Dec ’12

Jul ’16

FinCEN implements GTOs for the first time.

The Global Magnitsky Act is signed into law, extending Magnitsky jurisdiction beyond Russia.

Dec ’16

Dec ’17

The Global Magnitsky Act goes into effect.

The 2020 AML Act passes, greatly extending AML regulations across multiple industries, and encompasses the Corporate Transparency Act.

Jan ’21

Dec ’21

The Biden Administration releases its national anticorruption strategy, outlining new defenses it aims to develop against weaponized corruption.

The US Depts of Justice and Treasury form the KleptoCapture unit as part of the G7 and Australia’s REPO task force to enact sanctions against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mar ’22

Changes in UK regulations since 2001

Dec ’01

The European Parliament ratifies 2AMLD. Despite coinciding with the USA PATRIOT Act, it aims to strengthen the existing provisions of the 1991 1AMLD.

The European Parliament ratifies 3AMLD. The extension of AML regulations to money services businesses and other industries is part of reforms to the UK and EU’s AML regulatory landscape recommended by FATF.

Oct ’05

Oct ’13

The UK National Crime Agency (NCA) is formed. Economic Crime Command is the NCA branch that deals with financial crime.

The European Parliament ratifies 4AMLD. It introduces new reporting and CDD requirements.

May ’15

Apr ’17

Criminal Finances Act is passed in the UK parliament. It introduces UWOs as a new tool for law enforcement against foreign kleptocrats.

The European Parliament ratifies 5AMLD. Despite its eventual departure from the EU, Britain adopts matching legislation.

Jul ’18

Dec ’19

The Money Laundering (Amendment) is passed in the UK parliament. It extends greater CDD requirements into more industries, such as for crypto exchanges and arts trades.

The Economic Crime Bill passes in the UK parliament and a new kleptocracy cell is established in the NCA. These reforms are meant to assist with global sanctions against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mar ’22

Changes in EU regulations since 2001

Dec ’01

The European Parliament ratifies 2AMLD. Despite coinciding with the USA PATRIOT Act, it aims to strengthen the existing provisions of the 1991 1AMLD.

The European Parliament ratifies 3AMLD. The extension of AML regulations to money services businesses and other industries is part of reforms to the UK and EU’s AML regulatory landscape recommended by FATF.

Oct ’05

Jan ’10

EUROPOL is reformed into an EU agency, extending some of its authority in investigating money laundering operations across the EU.

The European Parliament ratifies 4AMLD. It introduces new reporting and CDD requirements.

May ’15

Jul ’18

The European Parliament ratifies 5AMLD. Despite its eventual departure from the EU, Britain adopts matching legislation.

The European Union establishes the EU “freeze and seize” task force. The task force works with the G7 and Australia REPO task force to enact sanctions against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mar ’22

Dec ’22

The European Parliament ratifies the European Magnitsky Act, granting the European Commission the power to place sanctions on human rights abusers and kleptocrats.

Central to both the failure of transatlantic regulation and the strategies of second-wave kleptocrats are chronically underregulated financial industries: private investment firms, art dealerships, real estate agents, and luxury goods providers. The global arts trade industry was estimated to be worth $65 billion in 2021, with the United States, the UK, and the EU accounting for at least 70 percent ($45.5 billion) of worldwide sales.

As of 2020, the total value of assets under management in the global private investment industry was estimated at $115 trillion, more than $89 trillion of which was in the US, UK, and EU.

In 2020, the global value of residential real estate was an estimated $258.5 trillion, with North America and Europe together composing at least 43 percent of that value (approximately $111.155 trillion).

The cryptocurrency market is the newest. It is also less stable than other financial industries, so its relative size and value fluctuates more dramatically.

Weaponized corruption in action

The 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal was the largest political scandal in Malaysian history and the most publicly known case of kleptocracy in the world before the release of the Panama Papers in 2016.

From 2009 to 2015 as much as $4.5 billion was stolen from Malaysia’s state-owned investment fund—designed to boost the country’s economic growth—into a variety of offshore accounts and shell companies.

The stolen funds were channeled through multiple jurisdictions, including in the British Virgin Islands and the Dutch Caribbean country of Curaçao, before being passed through US-based private investment firms.

The US Department of Justice believes the funds were “allegedly misappropriated by high-level officials of 1MDB and their associates, and Low Taek Jho (aka Jho Low).”

Instead of being used for economic development in Malaysia, the funds were used to buy real estate in California, New York, and London; paintings by Monet and Van Gogh; and stakes in luxury hotel projects in New York and California, as well as laundered into the film industry as funding for the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street.

The film’s production further resulted in the exchange of fine art purchased with dark money, such as pieces of art by Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat that were gifted to actor Leonardo DiCaprio because of his starring role in the film. (DiCaprio returned the paintings to US authorities upon learning how they were acquired.)

The scandal implicated Malaysia’s then-prime minister Najib Razak, alleged to have channeled approximately $700 million into his own personal bank accounts, along with several people close to him.

Photos: Reuters

A large amount of the stolen wealth remains in US real estate and fine art, which the Department of Justice is continuing to recover on behalf of Malaysia. As of August 2021, more than $1.2 billion had been recovered. Yet, given the number of private investment firms, real estate traders, film producers, and arts dealers that were involved in the 1MDB-related illicit finance, it is highly likely the stolen funds have been dispersed across a variety of industries. With better financial intelligence sharing between US, UK, and Dutch authorities, these suspicious dark money flows might have been identified before the money was moved across US financial institutions.

What needs to happen to take on the second-wave kleptocrats?

The US, UK, and EU need a more structured relationship to develop anti-corruption policies. We propose a new mechanism for the transatlantic community to harmonize its necessary response: a Transatlantic Anti-Corruption Council to coordinate anti-corruption policies between the United States, the UK, and the EU. It could connect the various US, UK, and EU agencies and directorates that work on corruption and kleptocracy-related issues, and organize them into expert groups focused on illicit finance, tax evasion, acquisition of luxury goods, and more. Recent cases of weaponized corruption have exploited the lack of regulatory coordination and financial intelligence sharing between transatlantic jurisdictions to evade detection and to corrupt transatlantic democratic and financial institutions. The TACC can work on closing these gaps—but it is only the beginning of a larger transatlantic strategy against weaponized corruption.

The anti-corruption policy to-do list

United States

In the United States, much of the problem stems from a lack of legislation enabling more comprehensive law enforcement and regulatory compliance within these underregulated industries. The United States should:

Follow through on the US legislative national anti-corruption strategy. Many of the existing flaws in the US regulatory sphere were correctly identified and should be addressed accordingly. This includes the strategy’s commitment to increasing regulation on the private investment industry, including on firms managing assets totaling less than $100 million.
FinCEN, the US FIU, is chronically understaffed, underbudgeted, and relies on outdated technology. Even if legislative reform was passed and/or executive action taken to extend BSA/AML obligations to more financial institutions, FinCEN would be hard-pressed to fully investigate reports it received and to enforce its authority in cases in which financial crime was present.

United Kingdom

The UK, on the other hand, already has much of the legislation it needs to address anti-money-laundering (AML) deficiencies and sanctions evasion occurring in its jurisdictions. It needs to implement that legislation—and address the close connections between the City of London and British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. The UK should:

Share legalistic principles and good practices of unexplained wealth orders (UWOs) with allies. UWOs have already proven to be very effective in bringing more investigative power to bear on to foreign kleptocrats based in the United Kingdom
Reduce regulatory mismatches between the primary UK jurisdictions and the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, especially with beneficial ownership registries and sanctions compliance
Improve verification standards for companies registered in Companies House to identify shell companies
Fully implement and enforce existing transparency and national security laws, especially the National Security and Investment Act

European Union

Much like the UK, many of the EU’s problems stem less from a lack of legislation than from the implementation of those policies. The EU faces additional hurdles in ensuring that all its member states harmonize their AML policies. The EU should:

Increase compliance requirements for private investment firms managing assets totaling less than €100 million
Fully implement the 6th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (6AMLD) across EU jurisdictions. The establishment of an EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority will be essential for harmonizing regulations across the European Union (EU).

6AMLD measures should also be applied to overseas autonomous territories like Aruba.

Increase enforcement of laws that prohibit the spread of corruption in foreign territories, particularly for cases that involve spreading corruption to fellow EU member states

Transatlantic community

The transatlantic community should:

Work closely with the United States in its national anti-corruption strategy. The strategy’s success will be heavily dependent on the degree of cooperation between US allies and the Biden administration in its implementation.
Match regulatory legislation on both sides of the Atlantic. This will permit better coordination of sanctions between allies and reduce tensions between the United States and its allies when the United States relies on extraterritorial action.
Create channels for financial intelligence units and private sector actors in transatlantic jurisdictions to share information about suspicious clients, transactions, and transfers. The Europol Financial Intelligence Public Private Partnership (EFIPPP) may be a good platform for increased intelligence sharing.
Establish the Transatlantic Anti-Corruption Council (TACC). Its main purpose would be to coordinate legislation on improving anti-money laundering/Know Your Customer (AML/KYC) policies, share good governance policies (such as beneficial ownership registries) to harmonize regulations, crack down on sanctions evasion, and share financial intelligence on transnational financial criminals to shut down their operations.

The TACC should also regularly convene expert working groups on, at a minimum:

trade-based illicit finance,
market-based illicit finance,
bribery and other enabling forms of corruption,
acquisition of luxury goods by kleptocrats,
asset returns,
tax evasion,
terrorist financing, and
future threats.

Financial intelligence working groups should similarly cover individual cases of financial crime at the tactical level. At the executive level, primary stakeholders in the TACC should be

the Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice, and USAID on the US side,
the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO); His Majesty’s Treasury; and the Home Office on the UK side, and
the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs; Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union; and Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers on the EU side

The late United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan once said: “If corruption is a disease, transparency is a central part of its treatment.” Annan spoke in a time before the crisis of weaponized corruption rose to prominence, but his words ring clearer now that foreign kleptocrats are spreading their malign influence by means of the money they stole from their own people. The United States and its allies must choose the partners with which it engages more carefully. Otherwise, it may find that some of its partners are in fact proxies for strategic competitors of the transatlantic community who will undermine the West’s security and the integrity of its democracies from the inside.

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New Atlanticist Nov 9, 2021

How to get Biden’s democracy summit right

By Daniel Fried, Rose Jackson

Two of the Council’s democracy experts say the upcoming Summit for Democracy needs to take aim at autocrats’ tools by focusing on anti-corruption and tech standards, and elevating civil society.

Civil Society Corruption

New Atlanticist Apr 5, 2022

How the world’s parliaments can team up against Russian aggression

By Francis Shin and Riho Terras

An interparliamentary alliance against Kremlin aggression would maximize global efforts to coordinate sanctions and keep the pressure on Moscow.

Corruption Economic Sanctions

UkraineAlert Oct 26, 2022

The West needs a more united approach to sanctioning Putin’s elite

By David Clark

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now in its ninth month, it is time for a coordinated approach to sanctioning Putin’s elite that reflects the seriousness of the threat they pose to global security, writes David Clark.

Conflict Corruption

The post Authoritarian kleptocrats are thriving on the West’s failures. Can they be stopped? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Fresh challenges threaten to reverse Ukraine’s judicial reform progress

Mykhailo Zhernakov, Nestor Barchuk — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 14:12:14 +0000

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was fueled by fears that the emergence of a democratic and European Ukraine could act as a catalyst for similar change in authoritarian Russia. So far, Ukrainians have defied the odds and inflicted defeat after defeat on Putin’s invading army. However, far from the battlefield, the judicial reforms that hold the key to Ukraine’s transformation into a nation governed by the rule of law are at risk of unraveling.

Judicial reform was identified as one of Ukraine’s top reform priorities when the country received official EU candidate nation status in summer 2022. Within the judicial reform agenda, key institutional focuses are the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Justice (HCJ). The former is responsible for the selection of judges, while the latter deals with appointments, dismissals, and disciplinary issues.

It is fair to say that Ukraine made significant progress last year when MPs passed two important draft laws on the reform of the HCJ and the HQCJ following much prompting from Ukrainian civil society and the country’s international partners. However, this progress is now under threat.

In line with current legislation, Ukrainian judges are responsible for appointing the largest quota of members to the HCJ. There are concerns that they will not do so by the end of January, which would prevent the HCJ from becoming operational for several months and make it impossible to impose disciplinary measures against judges accused of collaborating with the Russian occupation forces. Moreover, the judicial reform component of European integration would be postponed for at least a year.

Ukraine’s judges have a long and troubling history of sabotaging judicial reform, but civil society representatives complain that the government has yet to take this threat seriously. This could have far-reaching consequences. Once selected, the HCJ and HQCJ will be tasked with filling somewhere between 2500 and 3000 vacant positions, representing almost half of the Ukrainian judiciary. If these two bodies remain under the influence of vested interests within the judiciary, Ukraine’s rule of law problems will potentially persist for decades to come.

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The G7 Ambassadors to Ukraine have already called for clarity on the issue of judicial appointments. It is important for President Zelenskyy to address this issue as both a central pillar of Ukraine’s democratic transformation and a security measure to reduce opportunities for Russian influence in the country.

This fall, RFE/RL journalists reported that Bohdan Lvov, who heads the influential Commercial Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court of Ukraine, has held Russian citizenship since 1999. The President of the Supreme Court soon expelled Lvov from the Supreme Court. However, Lvov may be able to return to his position with the help of the controversial Kyiv District Administrative Court, a court with extensive jurisdiction that has long been accused of anti-Ukrainian rulings. Despite calls for President Zelenskyy to react, he has yet to do so.

There are similar concerns over the Kyiv District Administrative Court itself, whose president Pavlo Vovk was recently sanctioned by the US. Almost two years ago, Zelenskyy sent a draft law to parliament to disband the court. However, this draft law is gathering dust and has yet to be considered by MPs. This is particularly troubling as journalists and Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksii Danilov have claimed that the Kyiv District Administrative Court was engaged in February 2022 in efforts to create a legal framework for the return to power in Ukraine of fugitive ex-president Viktor Yanukovych.

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The latest challenge to Ukraine’s judicial reform comes from an unexpected source: the country’s international partners. The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe recently issued an urgent opinion on the draft law for the reform of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court that some experts have attacked as potentially disastrous.

In its latest opinion, the Venice Commission has reversed a number of earlier recommendations. Previously, it had highlighted the problem of political appointments to the Constitutional Court and recommended that any appointments should take place only after the introduction of a transparent and competitive selection procedure. For this purpose, an independent commission should be created to check candidates for integrity and political impartiality.

However, the Venice Commission now states that the decisions of this monitoring body should not be binding. The Venice Commission also reversed its support for the participation of civil society representatives in the selection process. Instead, the Commission recognizes that including government representatives in the selection process may lead to politicization, but argues that this can be permitted in light of the “special circumstances” currently facing Ukraine. Without additional safeguards, this means that only government-friendly candidates can be appointed to the Constitutional Court.

Ukrainian MPs are now preparing to vote on a revised law that incorporates the Venice Commission’s latest recommendations. If passed, it will hand the current Ukrainian government instruments to potentially secure a majority of Constitutional Court judges for at least nine years.

Efforts to support Ukraine as it fights against Putin’s invasion are both welcome and necessary, but enabling any one political force to gain control of the Constitutional Court could seriously undermine the country’s democracy and future European integration. This can be seen in the negative experience of numerous Central European EU member states. In order to keep Ukraine’s judicial reforms on track, Ukraine’s international partners must push for a Constitutional Court selection process that will guarantee independent candidates. This is crucial in order to secure the kind of free and fair future Ukrainians are currently fighting for.

Defeating Russia on the battlefield will prove futile if post-war Ukraine remains stuck with the same corrupt system. While military matters are naturally the number one priority, it is also crucial to prevent backsliding on existing reforms in order to lay the foundations for a better Ukraine. The existential nature of the current conflict and the clear objective of European integration create greater leverage for historic reforms than at any other time in Ukrainian history. It is up to both the current authorities and Ukraine’s international partners to make sure this momentum is not lost.

Mykhailo Zhernakov is chair of the board of the DEJURE Foundation. Nestor Barchuk is international relations manager of the DEJURE Foundation. They tweet @DEJURE_UA.

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – As Sweden assumes the presidency of the European Union in 2023 and looks to complete its accession to NATO, how does Stockholm aim to address the growing instability and change that lies ahead?

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Just weeks after the October formation of a new center-right coalition government, Sweden will take over the presidency of the European Union (EU) in January. And Minister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billström says that under Sweden’s leadership, the bloc “needs to be stronger.”

Billström explained Wednesday at an Atlantic Council Front Page event co-hosted by the Council’s Europe Center and Transatlantic Security Initiative that the EU needs strengthening on several fronts. First, as shown by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the EU must work with NATO to build a “robust defense” and “credible [deterrent]” against aggression on the continent. “The EU and NATO should augment, not compete, with each other,” he argued.

Another task is consolidating democratic values, which can be done by keeping the EU’s door open to Ukraine, Moldova, and countries in the western Balkans, Billström explained.

And in response to today’s climate and economic crises, Billström said Sweden will push the EU to address climate change and improve trade ties with the United States, which he called “the most important trade relationship in the world.” Billström pointed to the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, which met this week outside Washington, as a “chance to create a common transatlantic playing field” with rules and regulations. “We should resolve our differences,” on trade and technology, Billström said. “The bigger picture is too important to let trade disputes between friends hamper cooperation.”

Finally, Billström argued that the EU will have to “find new ways of handling China,” which he said is a major EU “competitor.” During its EU presidency, Sweden aims to “strengthen EU unity on China,” improving the country’s preparedness for reacting to China’s assertiveness—and any challenges to the global order that might arise from China’s “dangerous relationship” with Russia. For example, “we look with very worried eyes towards the rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Billström said.

Below are more highlights from the discussion at the Atlantic Council—which Billström said was the best place to lay out Sweden’s new foreign policy as it is an “institution that truly embodies the transatlantic spirit”—moderated by Foreign Policy’s Amy Mackinnon.

An EU agenda “centered” around Russia’s aggression in Ukraine

Sweden recently put forward a new military-support package for Ukraine worth about $300 million, which Billström noted is “more than all the previous packages taken together.” The package will give Ukraine “the air defenses that it desperately needs and [ramped up] humanitarian support,” he explained. Even with that, “we need to send more,” he added.
That also applies to the EU, as “more needs to be done and Europe as a whole must step up and contribute more,” Billström explained. “This would be one of our top priorities as we take over the presidency of the European Union.”
Supporting Ukraine’s efforts to defend its sovereignty is “paying off” in big ways with the Ukrainian army’s recent victories, Billström argued. But Europe needs to “realize what this war is all about,” he cautioned: Russia’s challenge to the “status quo, driven by imperialist ambition.” The war in Ukraine, he added, “may be the first of several tests for the rules-based international order” that is key for global “security and prosperity.”
Sweden, Billström explained, will respond by “reaching NATO’s goal of 2 percent [of gross domestic product on] defense spending by 2026 at the latest.” And during Sweden’s EU presidency, Stockholm will push EU countries that are also members of NATO to fulfill their defense-spending promises. “Defense will be costly, yes. But the alternative will be even more costly.”

NATO is still “indispensable”

Sweden and Finland responded to Russia’s war by moving to join NATO, and twenty-eight of thirty NATO members have now ratified the two countries’ membership to the Alliance. “NATO is more important than at any other time since the Cold War,” Billström said.
Turkey has yet to ratify the memberships amid disputes over the presence in Sweden of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an internationally designated terrorist organization that has fought the Turkish government. Last week, Sweden extradited one man, but Turkey wants more. “We are step by step, fulfilling these commitments,” Billström argued. “it’s being done by… extraditing people, by seeing to it that the PKK, a terrorist organization, cannot be active and work on our territory.”
On the other hand, Sweden wants to see from Turkey “a big emphasis on… the cooperation of crime-fighting authorities” as, according to Billström, some people commit crimes in Sweden and flee to Turkey “to avoid justice.”
But, he noted, there are “good foundations” built under a joint memorandum signed at June’s NATO summit to ensure “a functioning relationship” between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden. That foundation includes a permanent joint mechanism to oversee the fulfillment of the memorandum. “We do expect there to be a ratification by Turkey,” Billström said.
Billström pointed to a rise in Russian “disinformation and campaigns directed [at] Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO memberships.” However, he added, “there is no hope of that succeeding.” With public support for NATO membership rising, “Swedish citizens realized that outside of NATO, we will face a much harder and more difficult situation when it comes to security in the Baltic region,” he said.

Neighborhoods near and far

While Billström declined to give any updates on the investigation into explosions along the Nord Steam 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines, he did acknowledge that the events reinforced the need for revising its approach to sourcing energy and other necessities given “the danger of our neighborhood.”
He added that there are efforts underway to “cooperate with other countries” in “building resilience against situations” such as today’s food and energy crises. The new Swedish government created a new position of a minister for civil defense, in the pursuit of resilience.
Billström explained that Sweden’s security policy will require “engaging with the close neighborhood.” Once Finland and Sweden officially become NATO allies, “all the Nordic and Baltic countries will share the same security platform,” paving the way for a “comprehensive approach” to defending northern Europe. Germany and Poland, which have Baltic Sea coasts, will also be “very important” partners with their vast defense capabilities, Billström added.
“But that doesn’t mean that we don’t understand the need to look further afield,” Billström added, saying that Sweden also has its eyes on its trade and security relationships in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. “We need new coalitions of nations reaching beyond traditional allies to those that share an interest in the preservation [of] the rules-based international system,” he said.

Katherine Walla is an assistant director of editorial at the Atlantic Council.

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Melinda Haring: Ukraine’s unquenchable thirst for freedom inspires me

Melinda Haring — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 20:58:24 +0000

“Does she ever write about anything other than Ukraine?” my sister-in-law secretly asked my husband. “It’s so obscure.”

Nope, and for good reason.

As I prepare to leave the Atlantic Council and join the Superhumans Center, a Ukrainian charity that will build the first prosthetics hospital in Ukraine, I owe hundreds of people money, dinner, and mostly eternal gratitude. Thousands more have trusted me with their secrets and stories. I hope I didn’t screw them up too much.

To those who have made the last eight years awesome, thank you.

Yevhen Hlibovytsky, my tutor, driver, fellow nosy social scientist, and beloved friend, your spirit infuses my work and love of country. I can’t wait to show you the eccentric parts of America. There are a lot of them! Duzhe, duzhe dyakuyu.

When I became the editor of UkraineAlert in 2015 I was woefully under-qualified. Dr. Alina Polyakova convinced John Herbst to hire me over a more pedigreed man. Peter Dickinson, Christian Caryl, Uri Friedman, Amanda Abrams, and Larry Luxner, you reshaped my underdeveloped stories and encouraged me countless times.

My co-conspirator, editor, and debating partner Jacob Heilbrunn makes every piece 1000 times better, but please do not tell him. And while we are on that subject, please don’t tell John Herbst that I didn’t write any of the titles that gave the communications team heartburn. That was my brilliant husband. Thank you, Daniel!

Ambassador John Herbst, you are the Atlantic Council to me. You made the fight fun, the debate delicious, and every conversation convivial, and you made me a better person. I will be in your debt until they bury me in Kyiv.

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Before I sally forth, I relish the chance to explain why Ukraine has captivated me for more than fifteen years.

It was not love at first sight. In 2006, I went to Ukraine as part of a disastrously organized election observation mission. I found Kyiv forbidding but was quickly put on a train to Crimea to observe in Simferopol, an ugly but otherwise unremarkable post-Soviet city. The leaders of our election team soon vanished and we were left with two older gentlemen from the Canadian diaspora, who graciously volunteered to hastily assemble maps and organize our mission.

I took the work seriously and I almost got into a fistfight as a result. When I saw violations, I duly noted them. At one polling station, a large man was voting outside of the ballot box. Voters have a right to privacy, and in a place like Crimea that overwhelmingly votes for one party, privacy is key.

As a diligent election observer, I took a picture of the man. He came at me demanding to know what I was doing. A crowd quickly gathered as the situation escalated. I insisted I had the right to take photographs and note violations. The head of the precinct, with the unnatural burgundy hair you only see in the former Soviet Union, called Kyiv for guidance. “Unfortunately, this young woman has the right to take pictures,” she announced with a scowl. The crowd heaved a disappointed sigh and dispersed. As we exited the polling station, I was shaken and scared the big man might be waiting for me. What a country.

I never intended to come back. At the time, I had landed a dream job at Freedom House. I was giving Saudi Arabia hell for its gross and innumerable human rights violations, but my boss was impossible and the task felt hopeless. I feared it would take Saudi Arabia decades to change.

Fast forward. My boyfriend at the time landed a Fulbright scholarship to Kyiv and was having the time of his life. I was miserable and decided to join him. I soon found a job in Ukraine teaching English. The initial Skype interview went swimmingly and the Ukrainian trainer was both charismatic and lovely. At first, I only intended to stay for six months and then enter boring middle-aged American life. Instead, I found my calling and have never looked back.

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Sergiy Gusovsky, one of Kyiv’s most beloved restaurateurs and among the finest people you could wish to meet, often remarks that once a Westerner falls for Ukraine, they are hooked for life. That’s exactly what happened to me.

In January 2007, I made the big move to Ukraine. It was beyond cold. Even with my ankle-length wool coat and eighteen Alaskan winters under my belt, I could barely take it.

The American English Center rented space in ordinary schools. I taught mostly college students daily from 4pm to 10pm. The beginner students couldn’t understand a word I said, but the advanced students got me and were soon demanding harder and harder words. Hour after hour, we talked about Ukraine’s social structures, the economy, the country’s endlessly frustrating politics, its painful history, and society’s ridiculous expectations of women. There was no subject that was off limits.

Within six months, I had decided I never wanted to leave. Kyiv is the world’s most underrated city. Not only is it extraordinarily beautiful, especially during the spring months, but the spontaneous and generous nature of everyday life also appealed to me. The Kyivite focus on the here and now is the inverse of Max Weber’s Protestant ethic which I had imbibed far too deeply by age 18. Being in the Ukrainian capital helped me rediscover by natural equilibrium.

Plus, it was dirt cheap. My $400 per month apartment overlooking the golden domes of Pechersk Lavra Monastery was a sensational place to live. Meanwhile, Kyiv’s location at the center of Europe enabled me to visit 10 countries in six months. Leaving wasn’t an option.

Although I did eventually move back to the US, I never really left. Ukraine has remained with me. For the past eight years, I have been privileged to lead and build the biggest, loudest, and most effective program on Ukraine in North America at the Atlantic Council together with Ambassador John Herbst.

I often find myself answering the same peculiar question: “Why are you, a girl with a German surname and no discernible connection to Eastern Europe, so taken with Ukraine?”

Normally I give a canned answer. I grew up in Kenai, a small village in Alaska with a Russian Orthodox Church. When I was in the sixth grade, the Berlin Wall fell and Russians poured into Alaska. Regional flights were set up between the Russian Far East and Alaska, and the local business community got very excited about linking the two frontier lands. Closer to home, Miss Tatiana appeared in my school and I began studying Russian. I became mesmerized by the language and by the sight of golden samovars.

Recently I’ve realized that the true answer to this question is actually deeper. Much deeper.

Ukraine’s unquenchable thirst for freedom and justice inspires me endlessly. Even when the picture there looks hopeless, which it often does, my courageous warrior friend Vitaliy Shabunin reminds me to take the long view. “There are thousands of people like me. We are going to change Ukraine. It’s only a matter of time,” he says. May it be so, Vitaliy, and may it be so soon!

Thank you for your love, your trust, and your support over the last eight years! Все буде Україна!

Melinda Haring is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. She tweets @melindaharing.

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How can Ukraine defeat Putin’s energy blitz?

Using precision strikes on energy facilities, Moscow hopes to leave more than 10 million Ukrainians without power or heat as temperatures in the region fall below freezing. How can the United States and Europe best help return Ukrainian energy back to normalcy? What equipment does Ukraine need the most?

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Alice Albright, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, joins for a high-profile conversation exploring her mission as head of one of the most prominent development organizations at a time marked by international challenges.

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Europe in crisis

War in Ukraine

In February 2022, Moscow launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine after a months-long military build-up, threatening the country’s sovereignty and its future. This existential moment for the country follows the 2014 Maidan revolution, a nexus for Ukraine’s Europe-focused foreign policy and reform efforts. The ensuing Russian invasion and occupation of Crimea, aggression in Ukraine’s east, and Kremlin disinformation efforts, cast a shadow over Ukraine’s independence.

Ukraine’s growing defense tech prowess can help defeat Russia

While Russia relies on the brute force of artillery bombardments and human wave tactics, Ukraine is waging an innovative form of warfare that utilizes a range of highly creative tech solutions, writes Mykhailo Fedorov.

UkraineAlert May 9, 2023

Putin’s embarrassing one-tank parade hints at catastrophic losses in Ukraine

By Peter Dickinson

Putin has transformed Victory Day into a celebration of Russia’s resurgence as a military superpower, but this year’s embarrassing one-tank parade underlined the catastrophic scale of Russian losses in Ukraine, writes Peter Dickinson.

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UkraineAlert May 27, 2023

Exploring the secrets of Ukraine’s successful wartime diplomacy

By Yuna Potomkina

Over the past 15 months, Ukraine has built an international coalition of partners prepared to arm the country against Russia’s invasion. This unprecedented diplomatic success offers important lessons, writes Yuna Potomkina.

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John Culver: When the real crisis for the CCP starts

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Experts react: What this wave of protests means for the future of the Chinese Communist Party

Atlantic Council experts — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 21:05:31 +0000

They’re spreading like wildfire. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) restrictive policies to limit COVID-19 have sparked a wave of protests from Xinjiang province to Beijing to Shanghai. And the protesters are looking for much more than an end to severe lockdowns; some are also pushing for Xi Jinping to step down and for the party to stop censoring dissent. How is the CCP likely to scramble to save face—and will its efforts even work? Our experts give their takes on what the future holds.

Jump to an expert reaction

Michael Schuman: Xi’s unpalatable choices: Ease up or crack down

David Shullman: Expect even more repressive policies across the board

Kenton Thibaut: Beware comparisons to 1989. This is mostly about COVID.

Anonymous: Chinese voices amplify protests online as officials crack down

Matthew Kroenig: China’s internal-security struggles point to weakening international power

Hung Tran: With China’s economy disrupted, leaders will need to relax macroeconomic policies

Jeremy Mark: What investors are seeing in the zero-COVID hit to China’s economy

When the real crisis for the CCP starts

China’s Communist Party (CCP) is boxed in by its zero-COVID policy (ZCP). It’s much more than a branding that served CCP political goals until Omicron variants hit them. The CCP doesn’t have the health infrastructure to do what the US government or some Western European governments did—fail at many public-health measures but ride it out and push vaccinations while accepting large numbers of deaths. If they “let it rip,” a collapsed healthcare system (with sick or dead doctors and nurses) and 1.6 million dead (primarily those over age sixty who remain largely unvaccinated) could be an optimistic result.

Part of the current wave of new lockdowns is a failed ZCP easing a few weeks ago after the Twentieth Party Congress. The CCP’s only practical way out is to import or license and manufacture Western mRNA vaccines and compel or encourage vaccination, especially of the elderly. But even if they decided to do that today, that solution won’t produce results for months—or even another year. And the CCP would have to admit that their policies and reliance on domestic vaccines had failed, which they are loath to do.

Politically, they have a vast stick, far more sophisticated, layered, and pervasive than during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. In some ways, this is the situation for which Xi and his predecessor built the hardened party-state. But like even the biggest bank, they can’t survive a run in the form of major, persistent protests everywhere all the time. The crowds I’ve seen up to now are small—hundreds, up to a thousand—but given the consequences the protesters face, they are clearly the brave tip of the iceberg.

A practical course would include selective crackdowns now and easing over time. The Spring Festival starts on January 22 next year, so that will be a key test—if they prevent travel on a large scale, their security nightmare will deepen, but travel could create superspreader events nationwide. That would unfold just before the National People’s Congress in March, which is held to install the new premier and State Council to complete the leadership arrangements unveiled at the Party Congress last month.

So the CCP needs to stop the most visible of the protests, especially in Beijing and Shanghai, but start to offer people hope: Rely more on masks, isolating the sick, and even China’s less-effective vaccines; announce plans to import/license the latest Western therapies, ease lockdowns by shifting the criteria, and ride it out.

The key things to look for are leadership divisions. This comes at a very interesting time—after Xi won his third term, but before the new premier and State Council are announced in March. I subscribe to Lucian Pye’s 1980s writings for RAND on the nature of CCP factionalism. The ingredients for factions are always there, embedded in the nature of the CCP and Chinese system. But they are latent until crisis, and then mere guanxi connections crystalize into something much more significant—power networks arrayed toward particular leaders based on calculations of power and survival (political and literal, perhaps).

The crisis so far is not sufficient for factions to form among elites, especially so soon after Xi’s complete victory in October. But there’s a perfect storm potential where the regime relies on the stick; doesn’t provide hope or a plan to get out of ZCP hell; and protests spread, build, and are sustained. For watchers in the United States, discerning when factional formation is happening will be much harder today than in 1989, when then CCP General Secretary Zhao Ziyang’s split was public, on global TV, and on the front page of People’s Daily for weeks. Instead, discerning it will take a tea-leaf reading of who shows up where during the Lunar New Year, the comments made by departing figures like Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, or any public emergence of former party chiefs Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, who implicitly criticized Xi via his ZCP policies. If there’s going to be a major 1989-scale political crisis, it will have to start at the top, not from the grassroots. If grassroot events show Xi’s opponents that there’s a need and opportunity, that’s when the real crisis for Xi and the CCP would start.

I haven’t seen the People’s Armed Police (PAP) in the video clips of protests—there is a lot of dubious footage floating around, but all I’ve seen are local cops and health workers pushing back protesters. When we see the PAP in Beijing, Shanghai, or other major cities, that will demarcate an intensifying crisis. It’s a huge anti-riot force, but anti-riot should not be the regime’s preferred solution—they can’t be everywhere, as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) understood in 1989.

Speaking of the PLA, the anticorruption campaign Xi launched ten years ago has put him in an excellent position to be able to rely on the PLA for domestic turmoil in a manner Hu could not. I see the military as a wholly subordinate force, more integrated into domestic stability operations than ten years ago, and completely broken as an independent political actor—there’s no prospect of an Egypt/Hosni Mubarak scenario in China today. If you see the PLA rolling into cities, that means the regime is ready to kill people to stay in power, but their initial goal would be to avoid that by cowing them. No competent regime pushes their military, no matter how loyal, into repeated confrontations with the people—it’s a card they can only play a few times before the guns could start to swing the other way.

—John Culver is a nonresident senior fellow at the Global China Hub and former US national intelligence officer for East Asia.

Xi’s unpalatable choices: Ease up or crack down

The protests against Xi’s zero-COVID policy represent the greatest challenge to his power since he first claimed China’s helm a decade ago. At the heart of the problem is the very authoritarian system the regime touts as being a superior form of governance. The zero-COVID policy, though meant to protect public health, was enforced with arbitrary severity by local officials with little accountability. Xi is left with unpalatable choices: ease the policy and risk both damage to his political standing and an uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak or crack down and possibly incite greater resistance. For now, the leadership is signaling it will keep zero-COVID in place but modify it to eliminate some of its excesses, but it’s not at all clear whether that will satisfy a frustrated public.

The measures announced so far to ease—or “optimize,” as the regime calls it—the zero-COVID policy are generally tweaks to the existing system, such as reductions in certain quarantine periods. I think the government is going to have to introduce more fundamental changes to really make a difference. As long as the pandemic strategy relies on arbitrary detentions and business closures, people’s lives and livelihoods will continue to face disruptions, and public discontent could continue to rise. Furthermore, as long as the leadership demands that infections must be kept at or near zero, local officials will still feel pressured to take whatever steps they can to suppress the virus on their watch. And that means continued abuses.

—Michael Schuman is a nonresident senior fellow at the Global China Hub and a contributing writer to the Atlantic magazine.

Expect even more repressive policies across the board

While public protests are not uncommon in China, it is the size and geographic spread of unrest across multiple cities emerging from a shared frustration with a central government policy—in this case, strict ZCP measures—and instances of broader anger at the government and at Xi Jinping himself that are highly unusual and no doubt concerning for Xi and other leaders. The party-state is typically highly effective in using its tools of censorship and social control to prevent protests in localities over labor, environmental, and other issues from becoming shared grievances against the central government.

This does not mean we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the Communist Party. But the question now becomes whether the playbook of a relatively restrained police crackdown, stepped-up propaganda and censorship efforts, and selective arrests employed thus far will be effective in quelling protests. And, if protests do not fizzle on their own (including as a result of poor weather expected in Beijing and Shanghai), what will Chinese leaders directing the party-state’s massive “stability maintenance” architecture do to ensure things do not spiral out of control? If unrest grows, with tens of thousands protesting across major cities, it is not implausible that Xi may step up use of China’s internal security apparatus—including the PAP—to restore order and to head off the sort of internal factional leadership challenge John Culver references above, in ways almost certain to involve significant casualties. Beyond the potentially awful human toll, this result would likely set the groundwork for even more repressive policies across the board as the party-state’s rule becomes more brittle and reliant on the threat of brute force and information control to maintain power.

There is also a “competing models” element to this in the damage to China’s global narrative about the superiority of its model. Clearly these protests are not compatible with Xi’s claims that China’s successful management of COVID-19, in comparison to the United States and other developed democracies, has demonstrated the effectiveness of China’s authoritarian system in comparison to democracy and more broadly puts the lie to the argument frequently (and increasingly) repeated by Chinese officials that the Chinese people overwhelmingly approve of party rule and its approach to governance.

—David O. Shullman is the senior director of the Global China Hub and a former US intelligence official focused on East Asia.

Beware comparisons to 1989. This is mostly about COVID.

There are four critical points to consider when tracking these protests from afar.

First, China’s campaigns on global social media platforms are distinct from activities on domestic social media—and even are undertaken by different entities. The global social media campaigns on these issues are aimed at information suppression and preventing news from spreading, either to the domestic population or to the diaspora and broader audiences through Chinese citizens getting information out from China. Domestic social media campaigns are focused on censoring discussions and critiques of zero-COVID and suppressing news of protests, while amplifying neutral news of the fire in Xinjiang province to prevent rumors from spreading. Calls for regime change during some protests were real, but I’d be reluctant to say that it was a primary theme. At the same time, it’s difficult to say how widespread any online calls for regime change are on Chinese social media, as anything like that is automatically censored. For example, anything you post about Xi, Tiananmen Square, etc., is automatically blocked.

Second, these protests should not be viewed as “sudden” or spontaneous. The protests mostly center on public frustrations over the draconian measures of zero-COVID, which have been building over the past several months. China’s censorship machine has been working overtime in the past half year to take down essays, comments, news, etc. on domestic social media platforms documenting events of public ire, desperation, and hopelessness over the lockdown measures. Preventable deaths are especially sensitive, which is why the news of the Urumqi fire served as a catalyst for this round of protests. For example, an incident in September, when a bus carrying residents to a quarantine facility overturned and killed twenty-seven people, was heavily censored and repressed after it sparked intense public backlash online.

Third, the protests seem to be involving a broader coalition (students, workers, rural people) than is normal in most protests. The vast majority of protests focus on local issues and local government, leading the central government to mostly remain insulated from serious challenges to its legitimacy. But because zero-COVID is a central policy, criticism is more likely being targeted at the top. This can reach dangerous territory for the CCP. All the major crackdowns of the past—Tiananmen, the Falun Gong movement, etc.—involved causes that mobilized large numbers of people and challenged the legitimacy of the central government (rather than being just local in scope). Zero-COVID is potentially such a driver.

Fourth, we still need to remain cautious about drawing direct parallels to 1989, as some are doing. China implemented intense reforms after the Tiananmen Square massacre and has nearly perfected its repression mechanisms. Also, zero-COVID is still an acute issue, and most of the angry crowd energy would be dispelled quickly if the regime makes even modest shifts to the policy, which it can do if the heat rises too much. The CCP may also be allowing protests to a certain extent as a kind of pressure-release valve, before an internal red line may be triggered to implement crackdowns. Additionally, today’s CCP does not have obvious factions like there were in 1989. Xi has loyalists installed at the central and provincial levels of government, and it is perhaps less likely that these elites would support the protesters in the way that moderates did in 1989. At the same time, Chinese elite politics in the Xi era are notoriously opaque, and we should be circumspect in drawing too many broad conclusions.

—Kenton Thibaut is the resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Chinese voices amplify protests online as officials crack down

The recent zero-COVID protests in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xinjiang carry the momentum of previous demonstrations, such as the Beijing Sitong Bridge protest and the current Zhengzhou Foxconn clashes. The sudden outpouring of protests already surpasses the scale of those resisting Xi’s third term in the Twentieth Party Congress last month. Chinese voices are actively amplifying the protests on Western social media platforms, and overseas students are also putting up posters and organizing demonstrations.

On Monday, officials reportedly cracked down on residents in the protest area by having security forces check phones for foreign apps and VPN usage. Some organizers may have used WeChat and everyone has a COVID-19 app that tracks location information. Thus, some protestors will likely be taken away for disobeying gathering restrictions.

Although the protests are still ongoing, they are unlikely to lead to foundational reforms of the Chinese government or any significant easing of pandemic restrictions in their current form. Shijiazhuang eased testing requirements this month, leading to speculation about the end of the nation-wide zero-COVID policy, only to reinstate them days later. The vaccination rates of the elderly are low enough to forestall a quick reopening. Furthermore, further rent-seeking by COVID-19 testing and enforcement stakeholders may also prevent opening up. Nevertheless, the protests are a striking display of the emotional, physical, and economic toll experienced by Chinese people under these stringent lockdowns.

—Anonymous

The author was granted anonymity to speak freely and safely about sensitive matters.

China’s internal-security struggles point to weakening international power

It is unlikely that these protests will result in the near-term fall of the CCP, but it reminds the world that regime instability is a persistent weakness of dictatorships—like Xi’s China—in great power competition. In my study of democracy versus autocracy over 2,500 years of great power rivalry, I found that autocracies often struggle to compete internationally because they are preoccupied with challenges to internal security. Indeed, today China spends more on internal security than on its military, whereas US spending is 2:1 in the opposite direction. These competitions throughout history often resulted in the collapse of the autocratic competitor; these protests remind the world that the US-China competition might very well conclude with a CCP regime collapse.

—Matthew Kroenig is the acting director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a former US Department of Defense and intelligence community official.

With China’s economy disrupted, leaders will need to relax macroeconomic policies

Protests against the strict implementation of the zero-COVID policy have spread among big cities and major university campuses across China and have been met with police measures. This, and the fact that COVID-19 infection rates have reached record daily levels of more than forty thousand cases, means that economic activity will likely be disrupted and in more locations, further depressing growth for the remainder of the year. China’s authorities will have to ease at least some of the draconian measures of the zero-COVID policy to calm public sentiment and, more importantly, will have to relax macroeconomic policies to support the economy. There is room for China’s monetary policy to be eased further, beyond this year’s reserves requirement ratio cuts to 7.8 percent and specific packages designed to help the real estate sector.

—Hung Tran is a nonresident senior fellow at the GeoEconomics Center.

What investors are seeing in the zero-COVID hit to China’s economy

The economic shockwaves from the protests so far appear confined to production of Apple’s iPhone 14 at a Foxconn Technology Group factory in Zhengzhou, where workers rioted over COVID-19 lockdowns and other indignities. But the unrest does not bode well for an economy struggling to recover from the worst downturn in more than forty years. Zero-COVID policies have decimated demand for retail goods, entertainment, and travel; weakened business investment; worsened a troubling property crisis; and caused many foreign investors to reconsider their commitment to China. Youth unemployment in the cities is creeping up toward 20 percent, adding to the anger in the streets.

Some investors—especially foreign institutions that always appear ready to give the Chinese government the benefit of the doubt—have taken heart from Beijing’s stated commitment to loosen COVID-19 restrictions. But they are also witnessing confusion on the ground among the officials charged with implementing that policy. The economic malaise can only deepen in the face of continuing anger in the streets and mixed messages from China’s rulers.

—Jeremy Mark is a nonresident senior fellow at the GeoEconomics Center and former International Monetary Fund official and Asian Wall Street Journal correspondent.

The post Experts react: What this wave of protests means for the future of the Chinese Communist Party appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Presentation at Atlas Network’s Liberty Forum

jstoren — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 15:37:50 +0000

The Freedom and Prosperity Center spoke at the 2022 Liberty Forum in New York, New York. Hosted by the Atlas Network, a key financial partner of the Center, the Forum featured over five hundred activists and policymakers from around the world.

Senior Director Dan Negrea gave an overview of the Center’s goals and accomplishments since its launch in June 2022. Deputy Director Joseph Lemoine followed with an interactive presentation detailing the methodology and results of the inaugural Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, while Assistant Director Yomna Gaafar discussed the Freedom and Prosperity Reform Grants, given in partnership with the Atlas Network to innovative policymakers around the world.

The team presented their video on their 2022 Reform Grantees, produced in conjunction with Thinking Out Loud. Each grantee- Center for Development and Enterprises Great Lakes in Burundi, Centre for Civil Society in India, Foundation for Economic Freedom in Philippines, and COMEXI in Mexico- was featured in the video along with their reform project.

“These grants bring Burundi labor markets crucial resources for creating opportunity for all people living in this country.”
Manirakiza Aimable, Center for Development and Enterprises Great Lakes

The Center finished their presentation answering questions from the audience and inviting them to apply for the next round of reform grants.

The post Presentation at Atlas Network’s Liberty Forum appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Fireside chat with Distinguished Fellow Shuja Nawaz and Ghias Khan, President and CEO of the Engro Corporation

Shuja Nawaz & Ghias Khan — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 22:31:46 +0000

Shuja Nawaz: Thank you very much Emily, and thank you to the organizers, particularly the Atlantic Council and SAIS, for having invited me to join this session. I am delighted to be with Ghias Khan, the President and CEO of Engro Corporation. I’m delighted because I hope to learn a lot from him along with the rest of you, and find solutions to many problems that this conference has already identified. Now it has been said about Pakistan that it is perhaps one of the most overdiagnosed countries in the world. Everyone knows what’s wrong and everyone wants to do something about it, but for some reason it doesn’t get done. I think Ghias Khan is in a position to change that. He’s in a position because of his location. So, I thought it would be interesting to hear from him first a little bit about where Engro is situated within the Pakistani context and how that then can relate to Pakistan’s relations with the United States as well as other parts of the world. So can you tell us about Engro which the original name doesn’t fully capture the width and the breadth of your activities.

Ghias Khan: Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Rahim and greetings to everyone over here. It is an absolute pleasure to be in DC for this event. To be partnering with of course Johns Hopkins, the University of Lahore, and of course the Atlantic Council, so thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to be at this event. Thank you very much Shuja sahab for that kind introduction. I will do my best to make sure that whatever we share today, whatever I say today, is useful in context of the dialogue that we have been having and some fascinating conversations that we’ve had over the past two days. I think that keeping in view the topic, it is important for me to give a little bit of background of where Engro comes from, because it is very relevant to the discussions that we’ve been having for the past two days.

I’ll take you back into the late sixties, that’s when Esso from the United States came to Pakistan, discovered natural gas, and put up a fertilizer plant. Esso later on became Exxon Chemicals. And it was in the late eighties when Exxon decided to exit from all of its fertilizer businesses and then ended up selling its stake in Exxon Pakistan to the employees who worked in Exxon at that time, and this was in 1991. And that’s how Engro was born. It was the first management buyout in the country where the management led by late Shaukat Raza Mirza, put together a consortium backed by financial institutions, I believe IFC was one of them, and bought the shares of the company from Exxon. And then over the next thirty years the company has gone from just being a very small size fertilizer company to a diversified conglomerate. We now have interests in better chemicals, and energy, and infrastructure in food, and in telecommunication infrastructure. So the point I want to mention over here, which is worth mentioning in this event, is that all the learnings that we got from Exxon being our partner, played a huge role in the growth of the company. And it is worth mentioning because that is a very common feature that Pakistanis have experienced with American partners as opposed to others, and this is deeply appreciated because everything that we learned as an organization from Exxon became the platform on which this company has then built itself to where it is today.

Moreover in the late nineties, when the sponsor shareholders of Engro changed, so Mr. Hussain Dowd, who’s the current chairman of the company, who has been the chairman since 2006, he led the Dowd Group in a quiet majority or a sponsor shareholding in Engro, and what’s equally worth mentioning is that Dowd Hercules was the company which was used, or which acquired the shares in Engro. And again that is a joint venture between the Dowd Group and Hercules which is an American company. So that was the background, now in terms of where we are today, in our fertilizer business because that’s the original business, we have a capacity of around 2.2 million tons, and just by way of comparison, thirty years ago this was about 250 thousand tons. We’ve got a PVC Polyvinyl Chloride, a caustic facility in partnership with Mitsubishi that’s located in Pakistan, in Karachi, in port Qasim. We’ve got partnerships with the Royal Opac, a Dutch company in for an LPG and a Chemical terminal and an LNG terminal. We’re partnered with FrieslandCampina, as you may have heard in the previous discussion, in the dairy business. We’ve got a rice processing plant. Three years ago we established a tower-sharing business, to the likes of American towers. Just to make you familiar with that business. We’ve got, you know the company is really planning on doing a lot more. Our core focus really is towards solving some of the most pressing issues that Pakistan is facing right now which Moeed articulated really well. You know, solving for our external account, whether it’s through import substitution or whether through exports is really the core focus. We’ve had tremendous success in the businesses that we’ve done. And another thing that we are now looking to do is to expand our presence beyond Pakistan and working with some of the partners that we’ve been quite successful with within Pakistan and now looking to establish international presence.

Shuja Nawaz: Thank you. I’d like to go into some of the specifics that you’ve mentioned about Engro and its operations maybe a little later. But keeping to the higher level initially, can you give us your sense of the US-Pakistan commercial relationship over the last sixty odd years. You’ve already taken us back to the Clinton years when Engro came into being, but what has been the characteristic of this relationship in your view?

Ghias Khan: So we’ve got about eighty companies, which are US companies which are operating in Pakistan right now. You’ve got the likes of Coca Cola, PepsiCo, KFC, you know, Pizza Hut, and you know in terms of other consumer sector, Proctor and Gamble, oil companies, so there’s a host of companies that are represented in Pakistan, and they’re doing well. And I say this because I’m also the president of the overseas investment chamber of commerce. So there are about two hundred odd multinational companies that are part of that platform. And over the last few decades, these companies have done very well.

But you know, you raise an important point that how has this relationship evolved? And I believe the unfortunate part is that it has taken a backseat to the government to government, and the defense to defense relationship that has sort of overpowered everything else when it comes to US-Pakistan relationships. And I think that’s a point Moeed covered really well in his talk. There is a lot more that we can do, and I also want to talk about the people connection here. So we’ve got roughly about seven- to eight-thousand odd students who are always studying in universities in America. 5 percent of your doctors, foreign doctors, are of Pakistani origin. If you look at what we call “training grounds” in Pakistan, you know organizations like CitiBank, so there’s a lot of talent that has been produced through those companies, whether it’s CitiBank, whether it’s Proctor and Gamble, and those people have gone and done bigger things in other parts of the geography. So I think the relationship between US companies and Pakistani companies has been very productive, it has been positive, it has added value to both sides, but unfortunately we have not been able to take it to the next level. We have not been able to grow it further. And that is why we are here.

In some ways, a point that was made earlier in the panel discussion about the indifference of the United States towards Pakistan, I think that is an opportunity, I don’t think about that as a negative. Pakistani companies should be provided a level playing field, that’s all that we’re looking for. We’re not looking for any handouts as a country, we’re looking for a level playing field. A point that was made by the CEO of TRG yesterday, Mohammad, that it takes him five times more effort with customers if the outsourcing opportunity is to Pakistan versus Philippines, or versus China, and it’s all because of the image that unfortunately Pakistan carries with some of the business community here. So if we are to rewrite the policy framework between the US-Pakistan relationship, then this is an opportunity for us to keep business first. Because if Pakistani companies are given a fair opportunity to work, I believe there are opportunities in Pakistan which will make commercial sense for various companies in the United States.

Shuja Nawaz: But when you describe the US investors that have done well in Pakistan, most of them tend to be in the consumption area of the economy. Why not in export orientation? What’s holding that back?

Ghias Khan: So I think the first question that we’ll need to ask ourselves, and unfortunately that’s just the lay of the land and again as Moeed pointed out, we’re not exactly trading with our neighbors right? So when you expect, if you were to expect the US to come and establish export-oriented businesses, we have to give them markets where they can export to. So I think that’s a fundamental point, but having said that, I think there are still opportunities out there. So agriculture is one. We’ve got the entire Middle East, the Kingdom, as well as other countries who are looking to secure themselves as far as food is concerned. We’re in dialogue. I was at a summit recently held in Riyadh, and they’re extremely eager for Pakistan to be one of the solutions as far as their food security is concerned. You heard about the problems that the agriculture sector in Pakistan is facing in the previous discussion. But that is an opportunity for US companies to come to Pakistan and then serve a larger market, if not India or China or Afghanistan, but why not the Middle East?

And then of course, it’s up to us, the private sector in Pakistan, to work with US counterparts and then to take that forward to the government for the change of laws and regulations that may be required. So, I think if we look deeper, I’m not going to go into more opportunities or more details, but this relationship can move from just a consumption driven sort of investments within Pakistan to exports as well. But what we need to keep in mind is the fact that it’s the commercial interests of US companies which will remain supreme. If we do have to open up our borders for the consumption oriented businesses to come in, then so be it. There will be technology transfer, there will be development of human resources, something that we’ve seen, I think Engro is a very good example of that. So we should not shy away from consumption driven businesses, I think that’s the first step. We are a market of 220 million people, and I think that’s one of the things that we should bring forward to US investors. Once we do that I think more opportunities will follow.

Shuja Nawaz: It’s interesting that Engro is in some industries that are seen as detrimental to the environment, like coal. Is it possible for Engro to get into the same mold as Mr. Adani across the border in India where he is capitalizing on his access to coal and using the energy in order to produce solar panels? Is that a possibility where greater opportunities could exist, or partnerships, with the United States and perhaps with China?

Ghias Khan: Great question you’ve asked. Allow me to answer it because there are multiple dimensions to it. So number one, just keep in mind that we as a country have contributed only 0.4-0.45 percent in terms of carbon emission, even though the population is around 2-2.5 percent of the global population. The question is not whether Engro or Pakistan have started using local coal since 2019, the regret is why didn’t we do this earlier. And why do I say that? I say this because had we started in the mid-nineties, we would have ended up saving $5 billion a year in terms of imports, those precious dollars. And if I look at the current account deficit over the past ten years, it has been $5 billion. So, just like the US, we are also very clear. Our sovereignty comes first. I want to be very very clear about that because the impact that importing 70 percent of the energy has had on Pakistan’s economy has been catastrophic. And hence in the list of priority, I would say that economic sovereignty is number one, and for that using local resources is important.

Coming to the second point, because we need to play our part in terms of exports, and when I say we, I’m talking about Pakistan, not Engro. We also need to understand, what does it take to become globally competitive. And following the right standards in terms of ESG is not a “nice to have,” it’s become an imperative, and hence if we are to sell our products and services to the rest of the world, we have to be mindful of those standards. So what I’m trying to tell you is that we have to make a balance, that we have to strike a balance, between what we need to do to achieve that economic sovereignty and then what we need to do in order to compete at a global level.

Shuja Nawaz: So what are some of the future industries that you see where there is scope for collaboration, especially the US?

Ghias Khan: So I think the low-hanging fruit is definitely in agriculture. We’ve got history to prove that, right, and again I’ll take Engro as an example where a fertilizer plant was set up, and that brought about a green revolution in Pakistan. Now obviously the mode in which we can improve the yields and the interventions that will be required will be very different. Whether it’s on the seed, whether it’s in terms of giving access to financing to farmers through technology solutions. Whether it’s building those coal chains, whether it’s giving more market access, there are a number of interventions that are required. But so, agriculture is the low-hanging fruit where both countries can collaborate. I was very happy to hear Ambassador Bloom also make the same comment. Because he has also identified, last week at an event, agriculture as the industry where Pakistan and US businesses can potentially work together. The other is IT services, which Amer spoke about yesterday. We’ve got 150 million people below the age of thirty. Pakistan is the fourth largest English speaking country in the world. There is tremendous room for growth. Not just for Pakistani businesses in terms of setting up export-focused IT services outfits, but I think it’s also important to mention that it’s also very useful for US companies to diversify their base. And Pakistan can be a very credible geography for them to establish another supplier base when it comes to IT services. So these are the two which are absolute low-hanging fruits where the businesses in the US and in Pakistan can work together and bring about the necessary legislative changes to help these industries grow.

As we look forward a bit, there are a couple of other real opportunities. We’ve got a lot of lithium reserves in Afghanistan, we’ve got copper reserves in Pakistan, and those are the two minerals that are really required, inputs that are required, key inputs for making batteries. Do keep in mind that India and China will be consuming about 50 percent of the electric vehicles in the world. So here is a real business opportunity. And what I really want to emphasize over here is that we’re not talking about handouts. We are talking about commercially viable opportunities for US businesses to consider in Pakistan, as long as they can wipe the slate clean, whatever’s happened in the past, and we’re very eager to do that as well. And a message needs to go out to those US businesses that Pakistan is open for business. Because at least I’ve had a number of interactions with a lot of companies over here, where they’ve liked the project, they’ve liked the company that they’re working with, but Pakistan’s been an issue. And that is the only thing we need to address over here or request the US government to address. That it’s not about having a very elaborate policy, the indifference can continue, as long as you have a level playing field with that indifference

Shuja Nawaz: Let me go back to something that you said earlier when we were talking of US-Pakistan trade. You say Pakistan doesn’t trade with its neighbors. Well, economics 101 says trade with your neighbors. So what is the business community in Pakistan doing to change that situation?

Ghias Khan: Look, the business community, as much as I’ve experienced, is advocating for trade. But it’s a complex subject, right? When you’re neighbors with India, Afghanistan, China, and then with the US looking over, it’s not an easy subject, it’s not an easy problem to solve. And I’m not a foreign policy or a national security expert, but I can tell you that if trade opens up with India, net-net we will be the beneficiaries. Because there are lots of businesses in Pakistan who will have access to a billion people, some of our businesses will struggle, but that’s part in parcel of the game. It will help us sort of narrow down to our competitive advantages, comparative advantages also, and then focus on those. So the business community is advocating it, but then again, this is a larger national security and foreign policy question which I don’t have the expertise for.

Shuja Nawaz: Well, we do. And so let me refer you to some work that has been done by the Atlantic Council. Over the last decade plus we’ve had people share their research with us including Mossain Khan who used to be in charge of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF. And that research indicates that if Pakistan and India go back to trading at the same levels as they did at the time of partition in 1947, trade between India and Pakistan would be of the order of $40-100 billion. Then we had a study published by Ishrat Hussain, in which he did a sector by sector analysis, and it showed which sectors in Pakistan would benefit, and in almost all cases, Pakistan would benefit first. Because for international policy, for trade, for economics, it is as you said, enlightened self interest that guides and should guide decision making. So perhaps this is an area where I would like to hear more about interaction between you the businessman, and you representing the international investors of Pakistan, and the government of Pakistan. What have you done or are you planning to do to change their mindset on opening borders to travel as well as to trade?

Ghias Khan: So, we would like to go one step at a time. So there is a lot that we are propagating to change within Pakistan. Fundamentally, we are propagating for privatization, deregulation in the key sectors, energy being the biggest of them. Obviously for those people who are not aware, Pakistan is engulfed with a circular debt when it comes to the energy sector, which is a big drain on our already limited fiscal pool. Considering our tax to GDP is only 10 percent.

Shuja Nawaz: Let me just interject for the audience. The circular debt of Pakistan will hit 4 trillion rupees in 2025, that’s just around the corner.

Ghias Khan: So, obviously in terms of priority, the business community also has its set of priorities that it gives to the Pakistani government, privatization, deregulation of key sectors particularly energy, is one of them. Representing the multinational companies in Pakistan through the OICCI, ease of doing business is the other. And then a taxation regime which is fair. So there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in that area also. But as a company, as a business body, whenever we’ve gotten the opportunity, we do push for trade, but like I said, this of course is a sensitive subject and lots of stakeholders involved.

Shuja Nawaz: When investors look at Pakistan, they look at an economy in a state of disarray, an economy that is growing fat on subsidies. You’ve mentioned the public sector enterprises for instance, which include both civil and military enterprises. They require something like a trillion rupees of grants a year, and about 664 billion rupees in subsidies every year. So what is stopping the government from privatizing? Every government talks about it, but if you’re going to create the atmosphere for investors to come in, isn’t this an opportunity?

Ghias Khan: Yes, and we’ve had really good results of it as well. If you go back to the nineties and look at some of the examples in the banking sector, whether it was Habib Bank, United Bank, or MCB, they were all privatized and look where they are today. They progressed a lot further and now are fueling the growth of both the corporate and the consumer sector. There is an example of the telecommunication sector where PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Limited) used to be a monopoly, it got privatized, the market got deregulated, and today you’ve got four players, and at the end of the day it’s the customers who are benefitting from it, also the government in the shape of higher tax.

Clearly there are examples, even in the case of, I would say, K-Electric in Karachi. It got privatized and service delivery to consumers of Karachi has improved. So this is a formula which has worked time and again, not just in Pakistan, but all over the world, so we need to do it. Now why do politicians become a little shy of it? Because it leads to private investors coming to those businesses who want to bring about efficiency, and it leads to potential right-sizing of those organizations and some measures that will perhaps be perceived as unpopular in the short term as far as the World Bank is concerned. And unfortunately, these are the things that weigh-in on the minds of the politicians when they come into power as opposed to the longer-term benefit of the country. So, I would say that it’s a short-term gain for long-term loss. As a result of which, deregulation and privatization in particular, privatization in particular has been put on the back seat.

Shuja Nawaz: I think you’ve put your finger on it, because politicians think in terms of the next election and it’s the statesmen who’s thinking in terms of the next generation, and maybe Pakistan is looking for the statesmen and stateswomen to make these changes.

Ghias Khan: And it’s not just privatization and deregulation. I think there are other issues of documentation of the economy and expansion of the tax base, and increasing our tax to GDP to at least 15 percent. And again, those require a set of changes and regulations which may not be very popular in the short term. So I think the need of the hour is to, and you know, I’m going to use the same term which has been used multiple times, to have that consensus on some basic measures that we need to progress as far as our economy’s concerned. Now, whether you call it charter of economy, or any other word, that becomes really critical. When it comes to deregulation, privatization, increasing the tax base, increasing our tax to GDP, documentation of the economy, increasing exports, building off special economic zones. These aspects of the economy should be completely separated from politics. So that whoever comes into power follows through with the same plan because it’s essential for Pakistan to now make that shift and do whatever is right for us as a country, as an economy, in the longer term.

Shuja Nawaz: And from what you’re describing, they run up against a major obstacle which has been identified as elite capture in Pakistan and in other countries where both civil and military elites basically decide on what’s good for them and then proceed. So how can we change basic policies, say you talked about agriculture, how can improvements be made in irrigation for instance, and bring in foreign investments for that? How can improvements be made in agricultural production for export-oriented goods and materials? What is being done there, and what more needs to be done, particularly from the private sector?

Ghias Khan: I have three roles to play. One is whichever business Engro runs, make sure it runs well. Represent the country at these forums, and then go vote. And I’ll stop there, right, what the government needs to do and how it needs to handle the civil-military relationship and all, is way beyond my scope, and I think it’s a good idea for us to do what we’re meant to do, and those are the three things that I’ll sign up for.

Shuja Nawaz: But if I heard you correctly, you said you vote.

Ghias Khan: Absolutely. Who, I won’t tell.

Shuja Nawaz: In this country we are a week away from voting, and I’ve already voted, so I’m slightly ahead of you on that. As voters, I think the business community owes it to itself to help change what is not being changed. Where successive governments have made promises that they’ve failed to keep. So as a result you have cartels, like the sugar cartel. Energy also, you have favored players. You talked of import substitution, that is the same that afflicts a lot of countries. Turkey, for instance, since I study the military, Turkey had enormous import substitution in the defense industry, and then they discovered it was costing them multiple times what they could import those things for and so they stopped it.

But Pakistan persists. I was given an example by former chairman of POF who said that in those days, the G-3 rifle, there was a washer that they were making themselves that costs 25 rupees, and they could have imported it from Malaysia for 5 rupees, but because they wanted autarky, they chose to. So there are different reasons for security and strategic reasons that import substitution takes place. So my question I keep coming back to this is, as partners in the Pakistan political and social scene, what can the business community do much more to become more organized and to turn back the clock on some of these activities?

Ghias Khan: So, what we need to understand, and it’s easy to use these terms like elite capture and cartelization and all, but we have to understand one thing very clearly. Which is that capital will flow to those opportunities which give the best risk adjusted return. Now if there is a government policy which allows you to set up an independent power project and make a 15, 17, 18 percent dollarized return, then expect capital to flow to that opportunity. Don’t blame the investor who is investing in that opportunity. If you have to blame, blame planning, long-term planning of energy, blame the people who have written the policy, don’t blame the investor. Because investors will put their money in an opportunity which gives the best return, similarly for fertilizer or automobile.

So what we’re trying to propagate as a business community, coming to your question, is to convince the government to come up with policy frameworks which allow investment to go in the productive sectors. And I think that’s where Pakistan is lacking. Because if you look at the taxation regime of the manufacturing sector in Pakistan, it is well over 50 percent. At the same time, if you look at real estate and if you hold it for four years, it’s zero on capital gains. So, clearly, where is the money going to flow? The money is going to slow the unorganized sector or the unproductive sector, and that should not come as a surprise. So, at the end of the day, the responsibility lies with the state to come up with policy frameworks which work for the economy and the country in the longer term and attracts capital to the productive sector enhancing export and what have you. While and once we have those policies in place you will see capital flow to those opportunities. Unfortunately, what we end up doing is we start blaming investors and elites and what have you, cartels. There is a competition commission in place, there are agencies in Pakistan to catch white collar crime, let’s not confuse these two things. But if there is a written down approved policy which allows companies to invest and make an “x” return, then that’s how it will be. It’s the job of the government to fix the policy framework in a way that investment goes into the productive sector.

Shuja Nawaz: And I think a lot of people in Pakistan would agree with what you’re saying. The question still remains, and I think you’ve identified it yourself about unproductive expenditures.

Ghias Khan: If I may come back to what you’re saying, sorry, maybe I didn’t completely, we’re in the fertilizer business. Let me give you a few examples. We’re going to the government and saying take away our subsidy. Take away our subsidy and remove any sort of pseudo price controls on the price of fertilizer. We can compete with imported fertilizer and completely deregulate the sector. We’re developing a power project in Pakistan right now which is where we plan to sell power produced through a hybrid wind and solar project which we’ll sell directly to customers. So, in terms of the stance that at least Engro is taking and that a lot of other businesses are taking, we’re going to the government and propagating for deregulation. So that’s very much happening.

Shuja Nawaz: I think that answers my question because that is part of what voting means, that you’re using your influence within Pakistani society. When you talk to potential American investors or other foreign investors who are interested in looking at Pakistan, what are the two or three things they say matter most to them when they look at the country?

Ghias Khan: So, ease of doing business, security, and currency stability. I would say, and the security situation has improved a lot in the last few years and that concern is probably the lowest amongst the three. But foreign investors who are obviously investing in the country in dollars get concerned with the pace of devaluation. Because obviously as someone who’s sitting in the US has multiple options of investing in different geographies. When you talk about Pakistan, and if the currency has lost about 40 percent of its value in the last twelve months, that’s obviously a very, very challenging aspect. And the third would be the ease of doing business in terms of our taxation policies, in terms of repatriation of dividends, in terms of provincial and federal laws and so on and so forth. So these are the three major concerns.

Shuja Nawaz: What about political stability?

Ghias Khan: I think that political stability does play a part, but when surprisingly, when a lot of investors are looking at Pakistan they’re looking at a developing market. And what we are defining as political instability, it’s happening in a lot of other countries. So I think the investors are smart enough to deal with an environment which has political instability in it. But political instability should not flow into economic instability all the time as it does in Pakistan’s case. So, if we have the basic economic principles and rights, then I think investors will be able to handle the political instability. It’s the economic stability that matters more.

Shuja Nawaz: Thank you. I’m looking at the clock, and before Emily comes to the stage and pushes us off, I think this may be a good place to stop our conversation, although the conversation will probably continue in the corridor after this session ends. I’m very grateful to you for your frank and forthright answers, and I’m very grateful to the audience for having stayed with us beyond lunch, and not having fallen asleep on us which is what often happens in the first post-lunch session. But again, my thanks to the University of Lahore, SAIS, and to the Atlantic Council, for inviting us to have this conversation.

This fireside chat took place on Tuesday, November 1st at the 2022 Conference on the Future of the US-Pakistan Relationship, hosted jointly in Washington, DC by the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, the Engro Corporation, the University of Lahore, and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

View the fireside chat here

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

Public Event Mon, October 31, 2022 • 8:30 am ET

Conference on the future of the US-Pakistan relationship

In partnership with Engro Corporation, University of Lahore and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center hosts a conference on the future of the US-Pakistan relationship. This 2 day conference runs from October 31-November 1, 2022.

Economy & Business Energy & Environment Pakistan Politics & Diplomacy

SouthAsiaSource Nov 7, 2022

What Pakistan can learn from Chinese growth

By Ali Hasanain

As the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor enters its second phase, each side needs to review how they can improve the program’s effectiveness for mutual benefit.

China Economy & Business

SouthAsiaSource Nov 3, 2022

Keynote address of Masood Khan, Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, at the 2022 Conference on the Future of the US-Pakistan Relationship

By Masood Khan

Masood Khan, Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, joined the Atlantic Council’s 2022 conference on the future of the US-Pakistan relationship to give the keynote address.

Economy & Business Pakistan

SouthAsiaSource Oct 24, 2022

US National Security Strategy: Takeaways for Pakistan

By Syed Ali Zia Jaffery

To ignore Washington’s new National Security Strategy just because it does not mention Pakistan would be incredibly shortsighted for Islamabad, primarily because whatever the United States plans to do—directly and indirectly—will affect it.

National Security Pakistan

Reflections on the 2022 Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan and regional security

Nilofar Sakhi — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 18:38:00 +0000

The Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan, launched in 2017, is a regional platform on Afghanistan involving the special envoys of Russia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, China, and Pakistan. Its mandate is to facilitate political reconciliation between the then-internationally backed Kabul government and the Taliban, establish peace, and ensure regional security. Moscow assumed the lead in this process based on its national concerns and interests in Afghanistan, most notably on two key issues. The first issue was centered around the potential threats due to the spread of instability, violence, and extremism in Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia. The second was related to the growing inflow of Afghan heroin to the Russian market. Geopolitical interests related to Moscow’s opposition to any US or Western security presence in Central Asia undergirds Russia’s motives to lead such processes.

April 2017 saw the first round of consultations with Russia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in attendance. Five years later, on November 16, 2022, all of these countries—minus Afghanistan—were invited. While there is merit in this omission of the Taliban, it demonstrates that Moscow’s policies regarding Afghanistan remain unclear. It also highlights Moscow’s uncertainty about the Taliban’s stance and relationship with Washington, especially given the Taliban’s failure to gain internal and external legitimacy.

However, there are ways that Afghans representative of human rights, politically unaffiliated with the Taliban, or otherwise not associated with the regime could have been included in this latest round of consultations.

A quick look back shows that Moscow and the Taliban initially seemed to envision a partnership that could agree on several issues. For example, the Taliban expected Russia to be the first to recognize them, and Moscow expected that the Taliban would cooperate in combating terrorism and insurgency. However, these expectations have yet to be met by both sides. In addition, the Taliban has failed to meet regional countries’ demands to establish an inclusive government and ensure women’s rights to pursue work and education.

The failings of all parties leave many questions unanswered. How effective was this process in addressing regional security, and did it bring any semblance of political reconciliation as it was meant to do? Processes such as these are essential for the region, as they bring countries together for dialogue and consultation on issues of concern. However, the countries involved in this consultation have yet to address, let alone resolve, fundamental issues related to regional security and a political settlement for Afghanistan.

Fundamental issue #1: All parties interested in Afghanistan and its regional security should be involved in multilateral processes.

The Moscow process intentionally omitted Western countries. This exclusion could create the possibility of a two-bloc approach—with an Eastern bloc dominated by Russia, China, and Iran, and a second bloc dominated by Western powers. While all of these regional countries have stressed and pushed the Taliban to adopt inclusive Afghan governance and adhere to the protection of women’s rights, concerns remain that an Eastern bloc could compromise Afghanistan’s human rights and inclusive governance—something that can bring the country into the middle of a two-bloc crisis. Given that regional countries’ most significant concern are the security risks that Afghanistan under the Taliban presents, this scenario should be seriously considered. The second risk is that a potential other (Western) bloc would engage in constant negotiations for its interests without settling on an explicit agreement or outcome for peace and security.

A successful platform needs to maintain patience, demonstrate inclusivity, and provide a space for all parties to present their ideas and concerns. For example, one common concern of all countries in the region is related to the potential security threat and radicalization that could emerge from Afghanistan. The commonly held perception is that these threats are reduced by simply engaging with the Taliban. However, the group has ideological and tactical relationships with transnational terrorist groups in the region, and the rifts among them are always short-lived. The Taliban’s survival and sustainability depends on their association with their counterparts and insurgent groups with whom they share a common ideology and goal. Therefore, it would not be pragmatic to treat the Taliban as a reliable counterterrorism partner for regional countries or the West.

Fundamental issue #2: The security of the countries in the region is interconnected, and each country’s domestic political and economic conditions will determine the regional security architecture.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran are going through severe political and economic crises domestically. These developments guide their policies of engagement with the world outside, including relationships with others in the region. These countries tend to align with regional and global powers that promise support and assistance in tackling crises. Notable examples are how Iran looks to Russia, or how Pakistan looks to China. Such alignments determine the formation of partnerships and relationships and significantly impact peace and stability in Afghanistan. If the Moscow process claims to address regional security, it must facilitate an intensive regional platform for countries to address and negotiate their interests. The conclusion should move beyond insincere “lip service” and ensure a pragmatic path to conflict resolution.

Fundamental issue #3: It is time to assess the top-bottom multilateral processes.

If Moscow is genuine in seeking and assuring political settlement and stability in Afghanistan, then why is the broader participation and representation of people from Afghanistan missing in this process? Without a recognized government, civil representation could advocate for Afghans’ aspirations and demonstrate a mechanism based on inclusivity, something the countries involved in the Moscow process have expressed interest in.

The time is ripe for the situation in and around Afghanistan to change. The direness of the crisis requires a major shift in how multilateral dialogues on Afghanistan’s peace and reconciliation and regional security issues are formatted. Since security is a shared interest of all countries in the region, it requires an integrative negotiation process that is inclusive of all pertinent actors who can put forward all relevant issues.

Only then can an international consultative process on Afghanistan culminate in clear and mutually beneficial agreements and conclusive solutions.

Dr. Nilofar Sakhi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

SouthAsiaSource Oct 20, 2022

The lionesses of Kabul & Tehran in Khorasan

By Davood Moradian

Afghan and Iranian women continue to be denied their basic human rights, and this shared struggle is built on an overlapping Iranian-Afghan history and civilizational space known as the Iranian plateau.

Afghanistan Human Rights

Report Sep 27, 2022

Afghanistan under the Taliban: Regional recalibrations, challenges, and ways forward

By Hameed Hakimi

Despite the spectacular and unprecedented events following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the global spotlight steadily shifted away from the country.

Afghanistan Economy & Business

SouthAsiaSource Sep 26, 2022

To support Afghan women activists, prioritize local knowledge over numbers

By Sophie Mae Berman and Yelena Biberman

Though Afghan women have been included in certain peacebuilding efforts, these experiences were largely tokenist and minimally empowering.

Afghanistan Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

Beijing’s foreign-policy decisions aren’t determined by its political calendar

Mark Parker Young — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 21:47:53 +0000

Do Chinese leaders really react more strongly to external provocations in the runup to sensitive political events, such as last month’s Twentieth Party Congress or the National People’s Congress scheduled for March?

Milestones like this party congress, party plenums, or even leaders’ informal conclaves at the Beidaihe resort do heighten Beijing’s determination to control domestic narratives and security in advance of these gatherings. Thus, it is logical to assume that this sensitivity also shapes Beijing’s responses to crises and challenges from abroad. But in practice, there is little connection between the timing of these events and the strength of Beijing’s responses to external provocations.

Global policymakers contemplating the timing of their own major decisions that affect China have nothing to gain by deliberately poking Xi on the eve of a political event. But they shouldn’t distort their timetables out of a misplaced fear of provoking a disproportionate reaction.

Case in point: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan. Analysts warned that the party congress that followed just months later would affect Beijing’s reaction to the visit but were hard-pressed to predict how. Some observers speculated that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping would feel pressure to respond more forcefully to burnish his image while others predicted he would instead temper his response to minimize instability during a sensitive period. In the end, Beijing’s military exercises, punitive economic measures, and rhetorical responses were consistent with its longtime strategy of gradually but steadily increasing pressure on Taipei. There was little evidence that domestic pressure had affected Beijing’s response in either direction.

Three interrelated factors explain why Beijing’s domestic sensitivity in the runup to events like the Twentieth Party Congress doesn’t translate to significantly sharper reactions to foreign provocations such as Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan: Xi’s unassailable authority, his grip on foreign policymaking, and his character as a decisionmaker.

Unquestioned authority—and supreme narrative-shaping

Xi’s dominant political position, which was solidified last month as he packed top posts with loyalists at the party congress, allows him to respond to foreign-policy challenges based on his preferences and strategic calculations without fearing the reaction from CCP elites. Xi’s successful effort to make his personal authority a core tenet of the party’s guiding ideology has robbed disgruntled elites of the ability to oppose his policies without also exposing dangerous cracks in the basis of the party’s legitimacy. Thus, even after Xi’s handling of contentious issues such as the trade war with the United States, Taiwan policy, or COVID-19 containment measures created openings for criticism, there is no evidence that the leader’s control has been dented or challenged.

Xi’s ability to control popular sentiment is more difficult to gauge, but the party’s relentless efforts to control the domestic information environment give him a potent tool to deflect criticism. Xi’s control over domestic narratives through the information environment can be seen in the aftermath of skirmishes between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Indian forces in 2020. During one of the skirmishes, the PLA suffered its first combat deaths in decades (which Beijing officially acknowledged months later); but Beijing successfully suppressed unwanted discussion about the clash, and there was no sign that public pressure altered the CCP’s approach to the border clashes. While China’s disputes with India have far less political and emotional resonance with the public than disputes with Taiwan or the United States, the complete dearth of domestic pressure following PLA soldiers killed in action demonstrates Xi’s ability to shape domestic narratives.

The impact of centralized decision making

Xi’s insistence on remaining “chairman of everything” and claiming sole leadership of the CCP’s key national security-related organs means that Beijing’s major foreign policy decisions require his approval and then carry his personal imprimatur. This probably constrains the range of permissible debates among other leaders and officials and motivates them to compete to implement Xi’s guidance most effectively, rather than to promote the boldest policy proposals. Thus, officials are incentivized to echo and reinforce Xi’s views and inclinations, which are often calculating and careful.

Guided by calculation, not sentiment

Xi’s response to foreign-policy challenges has been guided by his calculation of long-term interests rather than personal sentiment or resentment about ill-timed provocations from abroad. Under Xi, Beijing’s foreign policies generally have adhered to coherent and consistent strategic principles. Those principles have sometimes been misguided and those decisions have sometimes derived from miscalculations, but they have not been capricious.

For example, in the months leading up to the Nineteenth Party Congress in 2017, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile hours before Xi presided over the first Belt and Road Forum, which gathered leaders from Russia and Central Asia and was an important part of Xi’s first-term legacy. Then in September, Kim again upstaged Xi by conducting a nuclear test hours before Xi addressed the leaders of countries that are part of the BRICS grouping of developing economies—and just a month before the Nineteenth Party Congress.

Yet whatever ill will Xi may have felt proved no obstacle to the subsequent careful rapprochement between Beijing and Pyongyang. Kim visited China repeatedly between 2018 and 2019, with the first trip happening just after the close of China’s National People’s Congress; Xi visited Pyongyang a year later. His appraisal of China’s strategic imperatives trumped any resentment he may have felt about Kim’s missile and nuclear activities—activities that probably are the most deliberate foreign attempts to undermine Xi’s political choreography that the Chinese leader has ever faced.

Policymakers: Watch Xi’s calculus, not his calendar

This all suggests that the salience of China’s political calendar in influencing Beijing’s responses to crises and challenges from abroad varies by issue and decisionmaker. Most decisions about major foreign-policy provocations will land on Xi’s desk, and he will likely respond based on a long-term calculus. He is unlikely to feel pressure to either lash out to placate domestic audiences or shy away from confrontation merely to preserve stability during a sensitive period.

However, the implications are different when China’s reaction to a policy falls within the purview of second-tier decisionmakers, who are much more exposed to criticism from peers if they fail to prevent embarrassing incidents during a sensitive period. A Chinese ambassador posted to a country that Beijing considers to be of peripheral importance, for example, may have substantial leeway to shape policies or commercial arrangements and will be motivated to avoid embarrassment. Actors at this level may be more likely to quietly offer inducements or issue threats to foreign counterparts before major political events in Beijing.

One corollary is that events like the Twentieth Party Congress probably cast a much longer shadow over domestic policies than foreign policies. Domestic policymaking and implementation are much more decentralized and open than foreign policy, providing politicians and bureaucrats with more opportunities to contrast their policies with those of peers before major personnel decisions. That diffusion of authority for local policy decisions means that a provincial party secretary can flaunt their zealous enforcement of zero-COVID protocols and economic officials can debate the remit of monetary versus fiscal institutions in ways that rival PLA service chiefs and theater commanders cannot.

The fundamental point is that the effect of political events on policy is contextual. The current configuration of power has placed strategic foreign-policy decisions in the hands of a calculating leader who is largely insulated from domestic pressure. So long as this dynamic persists, international policymakers seeking to anticipate Beijing’s moves should focus on Xi’s strategic calculus rather than the increasingly stage-managed rituals on his calendar.

Mark Parker Young is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and a principal analyst at Mandiant.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

The post Beijing’s foreign-policy decisions aren’t determined by its political calendar appeared first on Atlantic Council.

How the West can help build Kazakh democracy

Benton Coblentz — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 19:25:00 +0000

This month, Kazakhs head to the polls to vote in a snap presidential election. Although the eventual winner of that election is not in doubt, the global reaction to it will have repercussions far beyond election night.

The snap poll, which is intended to offer a semblance of progress toward a competitive political environment in Kazakhstan, is the latest step in President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s makeover of the country’s politics—an effort to both strengthen Kazakhstan’s position on the world stage and shore up the regime’s domestic foundations.

In January, protests over rising fuel prices quickly spilled into all the country’s major cities. The regime was only saved after Tokayev called in supporting forces from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russian-led military alliance, and ordered the shooting and arrest of protesters whom he later denigrated as drug smugglers and terrorists.

Tokayev’s moves to establish a measured democratization in the wake of January’s unrest have staved off further large-scale protests. Leaders in Astana likely feel stuck: A return to greater authoritarianism would only cause the pre-January fissures in society to fester, while a rapid liberalization, they believe, would threaten an immediate reprisal of the chaos of January.

Since Kazakhstan became an independent state in 1991, it has been a target in the sights of Russian foreign policy. Kremlin aggression has been a consistent threat to Kazakhstan’s national sovereignty and even territorial integrity. But after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Astana distanced itself from Moscow, refusing to recognize Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory and harboring Russian citizens seeking to dodge the draft.

It is no coincidence that Tokayev is pursuing domestic liberalization at the same time. After the Kremlin invaded Ukraine, Western democracies have revealed themselves to be a competent counter to Moscow’s influence.

Ukraine secured Western support in no small part due to its burgeoning democratic institutions. Thus, authoritarian institutions have become a liability for Kazakhstan, jeopardizing Astana’s ability to leverage the West in opposing Moscow’s attempts to re-establish a sphere of influence in the region. As such, the liberalizing reforms of Tokayev are a step not only toward democracy but also toward the West and away from Russia.

Tokayev’s reforms carry symbolic weight because they promise to open a severely closed political system, but their practical effects are limited. The snap presidential election, for example, is supposed to be interpreted as the birth of a competitive political environment in Kazakhstan. In practice, however, the elections leave the opposition without time to organize and consolidate support, all but assuring Tokayev’s re-election and doing more to consolidate Tokayev’s authority than bring in any real competition.

If Tokayev’s reforms go no further, they risk falling short of their full potential as a geopolitical tool by alienating Western capitals, whose support is increasingly conditioned on serious democratic progress.

For leaders like Tokayev, close partnership with China presents an enticing counterbalance to both Russia and the West. The political model that China champions does not grant political freedom to the people, but it does preserve the elite in power and might unlock exponential economic growth.

China is also making efforts to court Kazakhstan, as Chinese leader Xi Jinping offered greater cooperation and support for Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity during his recent trip to the country.

In the process of exiting one imperial orbit, however, Astana does not seem eager to enter another. While Tokayev’s strategic ambiguity does not close the door to a closer alliance with Beijing—or a return to Moscow’s fold—it does open the window to Western alignment. But as long as Kazakhstan’s democratization stands incomplete, however, the West removing its support is an option; that would force Astana to choose between two autocratic spheres of influence.

Western engagement over the coming months and years is going to be crucial. After the snap presidential elections, Tokayev will find his domestic position stronger than ever. He’ll have the chance to halt or even reverse the changes he’s made to liberalize the country. But the West’s credibility and engagement provide a crucial incentive for Tokayev to continue his reforms and secure both democracy and sovereignty for Kazakhstan.

High-level visits to the country and economic partnerships could demonstrate Western interest in further engagement. Western countries can facilitate investment in the country and offer technical assistance for Kazakhstan’s leading private industries.

Western engagement should be Kazakhstan-specific and avoid viewing the country only through the lens of the wider Central Asian region. During that process, Western leaders should make clear what kind of democratic progress they would need to see in order to increase their engagement. Western diplomats should make clear that engagement is predicated on Kazakhstan’s reforms, and further partnership should be predicated on continued liberalization.

If Western attention is not forthcoming, the forces in Astana advocating for greater autocracy will only gain strength. They will argue that their fears have been realized, as elite power will be threatened by democratic forces without any geopolitical benefits to show for the effort.

It is up to Western leaders, then, to understand the situation that Kazakhstan’s leaders find themselves in and operate accordingly. They should support what nascent efforts exist and provide incentives to ensure continued liberalization. Western engagement and understanding with Kazakhstan will help to demonstrate the value of Tokayev’s moves, set clear expectations for what reforms are to accomplish, and spur the development of a Kazakh democracy.

The story of democracy in Kazakhstan has yet to be written, and at this critical moment, the West has a unique opportunity to determine whether Kazakhstan sees either the birth of a fledgling democracy or retrenchment to autocracy.

Benton Coblentz is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The post How the West can help build Kazakh democracy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Germany steps up in the Western Balkans. Will the EU follow its lead?

Damir Marusic, Maja Piscevic, Jörn Fleck — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 21:41:49 +0000

On Thursday, the prime ministers of the six Western Balkan countries convened in Berlin to sign three important agreements—on mutual recognition of ID cards, university diplomas, and professional qualifications—as part of a revitalized “Berlin Process.” The signing is a meaningful step in rebuilding momentum for regional economic cooperation and integration, and it is a signal that European Union (EU) countries are once again focusing on the Balkans in the shadow of Russia’s ruinous invasion of Ukraine. That attention is paying dividends. And it couldn’t come at a more important time.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised to put the EU enlargement process back on track, vowing to make the Western Balkans’ future a foreign-policy priority for his government. “The stability and prosperity of your region cannot be detached from the stability and prosperity of Europe as a whole,” Scholz said at the summit.

Enlargement hit a roadblock in 2019, when France blocked opening negotiations for Albania and North Macedonia, with President Emmanuel Macron demanding reform of the enlargement process before considering new members. This occurred just after North Macedonia had settled its long-running name dispute with Greece, expecting to have these compromises unlock its EU path. As soon as new EU procedures were drawn up and adopted and Macron dropped his objections, Bulgaria blocked the opening of North Macedonia’s candidacy for arcane reasons related to language and history—only to relent this past May when France finally brokered a compromise. Thursday’s summit was a serious attempt to build on this breakthrough.

The EU enlargement agenda needs all the help it can get. Though there has been a lot written about how the EU is stepping up to the moment by granting Ukraine and Moldova candidate status in the shadow of Russia’s aggression, the reality is much less sunny. Many countries in the EU have long been committed to slow-rolling the process. And in private conversations with political and civil-society leaders across Europe this year, we have heard concerns voiced about how little has really changed. Indeed, there is a sense that with Ukraine and Moldova, the EU is making promises it has no ability to keep.

The Western Balkans countries’ unmet promise of EU membership was first extended at Thessaloniki in 2003. While it’s true that necessary democratic reforms, including on media freedoms and the rule of law, have stalled across the region, it’s also true that EU member states have shown a real political hesitancy on enlargement—and people on the ground in the Balkans can feel it. “They pretend that they want to let us in, and we pretend to reform,” is a frequent refrain from dispirited activists across the region. Many enlargement advocates across the EU fret that a similar mistake was made earlier this year in raising unrealistic hopes in Kyiv and Chișinău.

Berlin’s lead role

In this context, renewed German engagement in the Western Balkans is to be applauded and welcomed. Given that actual accession is still many years away even in the most optimistic scenarios, Scholz has focused his energies on reviving efforts at establishing a Common Regional Market (CRM) to implement the “four freedoms”—the freedom of movement for goods, capital, services, and people—across the region’s economies, firmly based on EU standards. Doing so will go a long way toward preparing the region for full membership, the thinking goes. It will also provide tangible benefits to the region’s citizens by creating a more attractive destination for Western capital, especially as global supply chains struggle to adapt to political imperatives for near- and friend-shoring. The agreements signed this week represent a meaningful step in re-establishing the initiative, which had foundered over disputes between Serbia and Kosovo at a Berlin Process summit in Sofia in 2020.

The Berlin Process was launched by then German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2014 at a time when hopes for enlargement had first started to fade. It has been criticized for talking big but delivering little. Early efforts at establishing the CRM yielded an agreement guaranteeing free cellular roaming across the region—and little else. Transformative infrastructure investments, an important plank of the initiative, failed to meaningfully materialize and suffered from delays in matching funds to projects.

But the Berlin Process’s annual summit schedule did generate a previously scarce commodity: a shared political consciousness and familiarity among the region’s leaders. When tensions and disputes halted progress on CRM in Sofia (with Kosovo refusing to sign agreements that allow Serbia to persist in not recognizing its statehood) three of the region’s six countries—Serbia, North Macedonia, and Albania—forged ahead on realizing the four freedoms among themselves.

In launching the Open Balkan initiative last year, the three have made progress in signing several agreements. Implementation of measures that would allow citizens the freedom to work in any of the three participating countries is currently held up in North Macedonia’s parliament. But expedited customs “green lanes” for the transportation of goods among the three have been opened, and tourism and cultural exchange has increased. The thaw between Serbia and Albania has been most pronounced, but relations between Serbia and North Macedonia have also markedly warmed.

A cottage industry sprung up among think tanks and civil society, with people arguing over whether Open Balkan represented a dangerous alternative to European-mediated efforts such as the Berlin Process, or whether it was a healthy sign that the region was maturing and taking initiative on its own. In their efforts to reboot the Berlin Process, the Germans have admirably steered clear of this ultimately academic debate. They have renewed their efforts at using the institutional weight of the EU to make progress with all six countries. If a subset of the countries gets ahead of the pack on their own initiative, all the better—as long as their integration efforts are fully in line with European standards.

Politics at the fore

In our conversations in Berlin this autumn, we were told that the big lesson learned from previous rounds has been the importance of political engagement, especially on the European side. No longer can progress on European integration be treated as a dry technocratic problem, a question of sequencing reforms in just the right way. Political commitment from the region’s leaders will be met, and tested, by reciprocal political goodwill at the highest levels on the European side. Getting things done will depend on both sides doing their part. The personal engagement by Scholz, both in the run-up and at the summit, is a testament to this new approach.

And that level of engagement will be necessary for tackling issues on the horizon. The coming winter’s privations will likely strain the impoverished region’s economies. EU leaders, aware of how poorly the Balkans were integrated into the continent’s COVID-19 response (and the residual bitterness that experience has engendered), are keen not to repeat the mistake. Immediate food and energy needs were discussed in Berlin this week, as were ambitious plans for financing the region’s transition to a more sustainable, greener energy mix.

The agreements signed this week are a long-overdue and important step in the right direction. Follow-through will be very important. The next Berlin Process summit will be held in Tirana, and the 2024 edition in Vienna. And progress will not just be measured in how well the region is integrating, but also on resolving outstanding disputes, especially between Serbia and Kosovo. “It is high time to overcome regional conflicts that have continued for far too long—conflicts that divide you and hold your countries back on your European path,” Scholz said on Thursday. Serbia’s reluctance to fully align itself with the EU’s common foreign policy on Russia is another bone of contention. Expect political pressure to pile on Belgrade even as Europe opens its coffers to help the region through a difficult time.

The most hopeful sign is that Europe seems to have embraced political engagement. The Berlin Process will succeed if it is used as a problem-solving and action-forcing tool in the region. The changes must be seen to be happening, not just felt after the fact. Visible summitry is an important component of success, but it alone is not a magic formula. Much work remains to be done.

Damir Marusic is a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center who works on the Council’s Balkans Forward Initiative.

Maja Piscevic is a nonresident senior fellow at the Europe Center and representative of the Council in the Western Balkans.

Jörn Fleck is the acting director of the Europe Center.

The post Germany steps up in the Western Balkans. Will the EU follow its lead? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Roberts Discusses Xi’s Speech at China’s 20th Party Congress in The China Project, DW, and Global Finance

everges — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 18:31:00 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On October 21, IPSI Senior Fellow Dexter Tiff Roberts published an article in The China Project on Xi’s speech at the opening of the 20^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He highlighted Xi’s emphasis on security and discussed the implications of this on the economy. Roberts offered additional insights on Xi’s speech in DW on October 17 and Global Finance on October 31.

Fellow

Dexter Tiff Roberts

Global China Hub Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

China Chinese

The post Roberts Discusses Xi’s Speech at China’s 20th Party Congress in The China Project, DW, and Global Finance appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Winning the peace through democratic progress in post-war Ukraine

Peter Erben, Gio Kobakhidze — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 17:02:12 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, punctuated recently by Ukrainian advances and Russian drone attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure far beyond the front lines, is not only a criminal assault against a sovereign country, but against democracy everywhere. Ukraine is unfortunately no stranger to Russian aggression and occupation, but this has not stopped the nation from moving closer to the European family of democracies.

Ukraine has long been an example for democratic progress in the wider region. This is perhaps Vladimir Putin’s greatest fear, lest the autocrat’s own misruled people notice the consolidation of Ukrainian democracy and seek similar change inside Russia itself. As Ukraine’s armed forces continue to liberate the country, it is critical that Ukraine’s military success is buttressed by continued democratic progress.

The legacy of the current war will be determined by Ukraine’s and the international community’s ability to honor the sacrifices of those Ukrainians killed in the war by accelerating the nation’s democratic development. Post-war democratic progress must be multifaceted and include further advances on decentralization, political pluralism, freedom of the press, adherence to the rule of law, anti-corruption, human rights, and democratic elections. These efforts will be key to realizing Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions and maintaining international support for critical economic and military assistance.

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Ukraine has rarely been out of the news in recent years, but the headlines seldom show that the country has made significant democratic strides since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. This was a watershed moment that drove Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power for his turn away from Ukraine’s European, democratic path.

Ukrainian democracy has advanced amid occupation and continued aggression by an authoritarian neighbor who fears that Ukraine’s progress will serve as a catalyst for similar demands inside Russia. Vladimir Putin sees democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and legitimate elections on his borders as existential threats to his own personal survival. Ukraine has come to embody all of these threats.

While Ukraine’s post-war democratic recovery and progress must indeed be multifaceted, one aspect will need particular attention: post-war elections. Competitive and honest elections are essential to democracies. For some nations, they are a means to a democratic transition. For others, they are a bellwether for the health of long-standing democratic traditions, systems, and institutions.

Ukraine’s most recent transitions of power, namely the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2019 and local elections in 2020, were regarded by international observation missions as demonstrating significant progress. Moreover, these elections and the electoral reforms that preceded them were recognized by the European Parliament, Freedom House, and the annual Democracy Index produced by The Economist as core indicators of the nation’s advancement. These achievements in political pluralism further enhanced Ukraine’s standing as an example of what is possible for the region and beyond.

While Ukraine should be commended, continued vigilance is essential to ensure that the nation can sustain and even expand its success after the war. Safeguarding, institutionalizing, and expanding Ukraine’s electoral progress is pivotal to realizing the nation’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions, and is a foundational prerequisite for all other democratic reforms. Progress in this area will strengthen international confidence in Ukraine and prove that democracy is sustainable even in wartime and during the post-war recovery period.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

Ukraine must not only win the war, but also win the peace. The integrity of its post-war elections will be closely watched for a range of performance indicators such as whether lawmakers advance pending electoral reforms in a timely and inclusive manner. These reforms include enhancements to the unified election code, a new political party law, and restoration of political party financial reporting, a key condition that previously led to Ukraine-EU visa liberalization.

Attention will also be paid to the level of transparency and timeliness around transitions from military to civil administrations throughout Ukraine, and the development of a mechanism along with clear and objective criteria for canceling elections due to security concerns. Likewise, it will be crucial to make sure any restrictions on individuals and groups running in elections and joining election commissions are reasonable, objective, and timely.

Post-war Ukraine must maintain the positive progress achieved following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. This includes guaranteeing stability within the country’s independent electoral institutions and making sure the election management body is able to complete its full term. New election technologies must prioritize integrity and security, while the enfranchisement of Ukraine’s internally and externally displaced communities will also be important.

Ukraine faces a torrent of elections in the post-war period. The road ahead will be arduous, but Ukraine must not go it alone. Ukraine has reminded the free world of who we are and what we believe in. It has also reminded us of what we must fight for and what we must fight against. To achieve an even stronger Europe based on the rule of law, human rights, and democratic values, Ukraine’s partners must redouble support not only for Ukraine’s military goals, but also its democratic ambitions. This increased support must happen now in order to lay strong foundations for continued democratic progress after victory.

The most prominent theme of the panel was the challenge involved in shifting the intelligence community from a mission focused on counterterrorism to collection and analysis for great-power competition. Bingen noted that twenty years focusing on counterterrorism had “atrophied” the intelligence community’s capabilities when it came to operating in more contested environments. Kroenig observed that, during the War on Terror, the intelligence community had become very skilled at exquisite data collection and targeting of individual high-value targets. He argued that great-power competition required a shift in focus from data collection to more strategic analysis.

A whole-of-nation approach

Harnessing the aggregate power of the United States to compete with China and Russia has become an increasingly significant focus for policymakers. The panelists contended that HPSCI’s approach to intelligence should reflect this. Bingen remarked that policymakers frequently struggle because they only see half the picture, either intelligence on adversaries (the “red team”) or on US capabilities (the “blue team”). Emphasizing that information must be more broadly distributed across committees, Harman and Turner suggested that lawmakers would be better off having access to both “blue” and “red” team information.

Importance of bipartisanship

The panelists heartily agreed that a bipartisan approach on the intelligence committee would be vital for effectively conducting its work. The emerging bipartisan consensus in Washington on prioritizing competition with China might serve as a catalyst for future bipartisanship on HPSCI. Nye and Harman both praised Turner for fostering such a spirit in his time on HPSCI, noting that an advantage of HPSCI historically has been its bipartisan ethos.

Harnessing OSINT and new technology

New technology and the rise of open-source intelligence (OSINT) are dramatically changing how the intelligence community should operate. Nye underlined how the Biden administration’s release of intelligence before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine shows how intelligence can be part of information operations. The war in Ukraine is an example of OSINT being actively harnessed by both warfighters and the public to assist in warfighting and shaping the information environment. Harman noted that publicly available commercial satellite imaging has become a highly beneficial source of intelligence. New technologies like machine learning and automated language translation should be better harnessed, according to Bingen, to allow intelligence analysts to make sense of the mass of data now available to them from these sources.

Reforming classification and attracting the intelligence workforce of tomorrow

The panel agreed that an ongoing challenge that the HPSCI needs to address is the over-classification of information. Harman remarked that, while in Congress, she had championed legislation aimed at increasing first responders’ access to relevant intelligence and improving information flow between local, state, and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Over-classification and the glacial-paced security clearance process are major also obstacles to harnessing and recruiting new personnel. Harman suggested a system of partial clearance be created so individuals with relevant skills could still be consulted by the intelligence community. Nye and Turner observed that they have repeatedly heard from college-age constituents that the lengthy security-clearance process was a major impediment to pursuing a career with the intelligence community.

You can re-watch “Intelligence Community and Intelligence Community Reform” here. For more information about the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense practice or to read our latest reports, op-eds, and analyses, please visit the website here. You can also sign up for updates from Forward Defense to hear the latest on the trends, technologies, and military challenges shaping tomorrow.

Aidan Poling is a Young Global Professional in the Forward Defense Practice and second-year master’s student in the Georgetown Security Studies Program.

The post Congressional oversight of intelligence for great-power competition appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The United States will also benefit from Ukraine’s European integration

Dmytro Lyvch, Yuliia Shaipova — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 22:10:28 +0000

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is already widely recognized as a watershed moment in modern European history. Clearly, the pre-war European security system is no longer viable and new approaches are required. As Ukrainian troops continue to liberate their country from Russian occupation, a consensus is emerging that the future stability of the continent will depend on Ukraine’s further integration into the European Union.

This integration process was already underway prior to the outbreak of hostilities in early 2022 but has been turbo-charged by Putin’s decision to launch the biggest European conflict since World War II. Ukraine’s deepening cooperation with the EU has a range of obvious advantages for Europe itself and could also prove beneficial for the United States.

Prior to the onset of Russia’s invasion on February 24, Ukraine appeared to have little prospect of achieving a breakthrough toward the country’s stated goal of eventual EU membership. However, the shock waves of Moscow’s brutal attack transformed the geopolitical situation and created a new reality that placed Ukraine’s relationship with the wider European community at the heart of the continent’s security strategy.

In the early days of the Russian invasion, President Zelenskyy signaled his intention to defy the Kremlin by officially applying for EU membership. This was an important gesture that helped to frame the war as a fight for independence against a resurgent Russia that refused to accept Ukraine’s departure from the Kremlin orbit.

While Moscow sought to crush Ukrainian statehood and reverse the verdict of 1991, Ukraine’s European aspirations symbolized the country’s resistance to Russian authoritarianism. This helped focus the minds of politicians across the continent. In June, Ukraine was duly granted official EU candidate nation status.

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The intensification of Ukraine’s relationship with the EU has reshaped the wider geopolitical landscape in a number of ways. For example, with Ukraine and Moldova now both recognized as EU candidate nations, the existing Eastern Partnership format comprising Ukraine and Moldova together with Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, and Azerbaijan no longer makes sense. As a result, Brussels is in the process of rethinking the EU’s entire Neighborhood Policy for the region.

The changes currently taking place create the potential for a more stable European neighborhood in the post-war period. This would be welcomed in both Brussels and Washington DC. Ukraine’s former position in the geopolitical gray zone on Europe’s eastern flank left it vulnerable to Russian imperial interference and made the country a constant source of instability. Clarifying Ukraine’s status as a member of the Western world is in EU and US interests. In addition to reducing the scope for future Russian aggression, a fully integrated Ukraine can make a meaningful contribution to the EU’s own security and defense policy.

The EU and US also share common goals when it comes to the reform agenda in Ukraine. Both seek to strengthen the rule of law and establish capable Ukrainian institutions while consolidating the country’s democracy. US support for Ukraine’s further EU integration can serve as a powerful engine for these reforms.

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The reforms anticipated by the EU and US are very much in line with the vision of a European future embraced by the vast majority of Ukrainians. Polls conducted since the start of the Russian invasion consistently show overwhelming Ukrainian public support for European integration and EU membership. This creates historic opportunities for change that can be seized with the help of Ukraine’s Western partners.

The United States can support Ukraine’s European integration by cooperating closely with the EU to develop joint policies toward Ukrainian reforms that provide consistency and avoid any overlaps or loopholes. This approach should include a range of incentives and potential costs that will help keep reform efforts on track and prevent backsliding.

US officials can also play an important advocacy role in Europe promoting the benefits of closer cooperation with Ukraine. While the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin has transformed perceptions of Ukraine and its place in Europe, there remains significant skepticism within the EU on the issue of Ukrainian integration. The United States can help shape this evolving debate by emphasizing the advantages of an integrated Ukraine for transatlantic ties and European security.

As Ukraine seeks to move from candidate country status to EU member state, it may also make sense for the United States to tailor financial and technical aid in order to enhance this process and aid integration. Likewise, monitoring policies can also focus on the reform road map developed to bring the country closer to EU standards. This approach would bring welcome clarity to the role of Ukraine’s international partners in the country’s reform process.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is by far the greatest threat to Europe since the end of the Cold War. Unless Vladimir Putin is decisively defeated, the consequences for European security will be grave. However, if Ukraine is able to secure a military victory, it could pave the way for a new era of European stability and prosperity. This is clearly in the interests of all EU member states, and it is also an attractive prospect for the United States.

Dmytro Lyvch is an advisor to the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Chair of EasyBusiness NGO, and Co-Founder of the Centre for Economic Recovery. Yuliia Shaipova is a Ukrainian parliamentary advisor and Team Lead at the Centre for Economic Recovery.

Of course, the results of the upcoming Congress cannot be determined with metaphysical certitude. The world will have to wait for the latest big reveal, like always, to see if Xi still rules the roost. Perhaps more importantly, the global community will find out who else will sit on the all-powerful Standing Committee of the party’s Politburo with him,¹ to gauge how much control he will command in coming years. However, barring unforeseen circumstances, world leaders should expect to see Xi at global forums for at least five more years.

The implications of Xi’s continued grip on power are tremendous for both China and the world. The decisions he makes in Beijing will reverberate well beyond China’s borders to influence the global economy, the development of technology, international governance, and war and peace. At this stage in China’s political cycle, the world would usually ask: Who will rule China? This year, the important question is: What will Xi do with his power?

Return of one-man rule

To appreciate the importance of the twentieth Congress, it is critical to understand how dramatically Xi has altered the way China is governed. Beginning in the 1980s, the Communist Party fostered a system of collective leadership, in which power was shared within the party and between the party and state apparatus. This system was developed to include regular, peaceful transitions of power from one leadership team to another at congresses held every five years. Top leaders stayed in their official posts for no more than ten years. The system was a reaction against the turmoil of the first three decades of the People’s Republic. Mao ruled as more than a dictator—he was practically a Communist demigod; his every word was gospel. However, allowing one person to wield such immense power proved catastrophic for China. Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958-61), an ideologically motivated attempt to catapult a poverty-stricken China into the ranks of the rich by mass movements, left some 30 million Chinese dead from famine. He followed that up in 1966 with the Cultural Revolution, a campaign to uproot the stubborn vestiges of an old, corrupt China (and solidify Mao’s own political position), which resulted in a decade of widespread violence and economic paralysis. By the time of Mao’s death in 1976, China was exhausted, desperately poor, and dangerously isolated.

The reformers who eventually succeeded Mao, led by Deng Xiaoping (a victim of the Cultural Revolution himself), reacted against the trauma of one-man rule. “It is not good to have an over-concentration of power,” Deng said in a 1980 speech on this subject. “It hinders the practice of socialist democracy and of the Party’s democratic centralism, impedes the progress of socialist construction, and prevents us from taking full advantage of collective wisdom.”²

The Communist Party still dominated—that was the unfortunate lesson of the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989—but within the party and state, space opened for greater debate on policy. That allowed for a wider range of expertise to influence the policy process and earned the Chinese state a reputation as a “technocracy”—a finely tuned, generally pragmatic, and usually predictable policymaking machine. It is impossible to separate China’s tremendous economic success from the emergence of this collective governance system.

Xi has thoroughly altered this system. He has sidelined other major figures in the governing order and claimed their power for himself. For instance, in the past, the premier, the number two position in the ruling hierarchy, took responsibility for economic matters. The current person in that post, Li Keqiang, was widely expected to take on this role when Xi’s leadership team first took control in 2012. However, under Xi, Li has become a marginal figure. Xi has grasped control over the policymaking process across all sectors by dominating high-level commissions of top leaders on various areas of policy and by promoting allies and loyalists into key positions throughout the party and state apparatus.³

Xi’s grip on policy has been further enhanced by the relentless promotion of his personality cult. Xi is presented to the Chinese people (and from there, the world) as a brilliant theoretician who possesses the wisdom to achieve the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and resolve the most complex problems facing the international community. Xi’s ideas, encapsulated in Xi Jinping Thought, echo Mao’s Little Red Book in the way they have become the source of extensive study and fawning reverence. Xi’s mere utterance can send officials and bureaucrats scampering to decipher and implement his wishes.

To a great degree, what Xi wants, Xi gets. As a result, Chinese policymaking has become increasingly dependent on the decisions and desires of a single individual. That has already rendered the direction of Chinese policy less predictable.

Anticipating the course of Chinese policy has thus become a matter of identifying Xi’s priorities—whether national, ideological, or personal. In a sense, the current system of Chinese governance is exactly what Deng and his fellow reformers intended to avoid. China and its vast population have again been set adrift on the whims of a single individual.

The future of zero-COVID

Attempting to read Xi’s mind is a dangerous (and thankless) task. Yet any attempt to assess the direction of Xi’s China must give it a whirl. Fortunately, after a decade in charge, Xi has left a lengthy record of speeches, initiatives, and actions that offer a foundation from which to peer into the future of Xi’s agenda. Of course, as with the stock market, past performance cannot determine what might come with certainty. Xi could break with his own precedents and shift course in the face of new challenges and circumstances, or he could come under enough pressure internally or externally to compel him to revise his agenda. At the same time, he has expressed a slate of ideas and beliefs that can help the beleaguered China watcher more comfortably envision the course upon which he could take the country. The fact that Xi is more ideologue than pragmatist also makes it somewhat safer to assume his past practice will continue into the future.

Still, there remains some expectation (or hope) both within China and elsewhere that Xi will change aspects of his policies once he secures his coveted third term. This thinking holds that Xi will have greater flexibility in policy choices once his own authority is locked on track. This possibility is discussed most often in relation to Xi’s most prominent program: zero-COVID.

Xi’s insistence that his government keep COVID cases at or near zero has prevented a major pandemic on the scale suffered in most other countries. However, the continuation of the zero-COVID policy nearly three years since the epidemic’s initial outbreak in Wuhan has suppressed economic growth, badly damaged small businesses, and fomented widespread public frustration. Speculation has persisted for some time that Xi might be willing to ease the strict pandemic controls—which include recurring lockdowns of major cities, long quarantines for travelers, and repetitive testing—after the upcoming Congress. That expectation is based on the assumption that Xi has insisted on maintaining zero-COVID for personal political motivations. After having touted zero-COVID as a great success both at home and abroad, Xi became “boxed in” by a political narrative that ties him intimately with the approach.⁴ This has made it difficult for him to change course from a political perspective, especially ahead of the Congress. A major outbreak before Xi’s anointment would simply be too embarrassing for him to risk. With the Congress behind him, the argument goes, Xi will be freed to adjust or even lift zero-COVID to address pressing economic concerns.

Yet there are equally good reasons to suspect zero-COVID is here to stay, at least in some form. Five years ago, there was similar chatter that Xi would return to liberal economic reform once he claimed his second term. Instead, he moved further from that path. Xi may calculate that that political narrative in which he defeated the virus where other, mere mortal leaders failed will continue to be too useful to his stature to lift zero-COVID, even after the Congress. He also seems to believe that abandoning the policy would have negative political consequences for the Communist Party more broadly, A late July 2022 Politburo meeting concluded the policy needed to be addressed within a political perspective. After all, the party markets itself to the Chinese public as infallible; ditching zero-Covid could appear an unacceptable admission it has erred.

There is also a possibility that Xi is committed to zero-Covid because he believes it is best for China, or his vision of what China should be. The assumption underlying much of the debate about zero-COVID is that the leadership wants to find an off-ramp but has not managed to do so. There are some members of the political and business elite who would support a loosening of the COVID strictures. However, Xi has continually reiterated that zero-COVID is the best policy for China, even as its economic and social costs mount, and the approach appears to present possible political downside as well. The two-month lockdown of Shanghai earlier this year provides a telling example. Despite these problems, Xi has shown a consistent tendency to tighten the state’s grip over society to advance his ideological agenda of a refashioned China and to solidify his personal grip on party and state. Zero-COVID has been and can continue to be a convenient tool to achieve his goals. For instance, while business leaders may be troubled by the growing isolation of China due to restrictions on travel and quarantines for travelers, Xi may see these measures as a way to limit foreign influence—a physical cordon on dangerous outside ideas and information to match the digital Great Firewall. Note that Beijing reduced the quarantine period for incoming travelers in June but has not eased restrictions on Chinese nationals’ outbound travel, introduced in May. Furthermore, Xi may find the enhanced monitoring of the populace and empowerment of local, community-level officials in the name of pandemic prevention useful to tighten state control over society. That suggests zero-COVID, or a form of it, may become a fact of life in China. It is likely that a number of its restrictions and rules will be retained to the benefit of Xi’s surveillance state but to the detriment of personal privacy.

The future of economic policy

Another element in the debate about zero-COVID is the current miserable condition of the Chinese economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts gross domestic product (GDP) will expand a mere 3.3 percent in 2022. Zero-COVID is a major contributing factor to this slowing growth. Its persistent lockdowns and restricted travel have suppressed consumption, supply chains, and small business, especially in the service sector. The assumption among many China experts is that at some point, Beijing will have to loosen COVID controls to alleviate the deepening economic problems.

However, Xi appears to be deviating from past practice in regard to the importance of economic growth as a policy goal. China watchers have been conditioned over the past three decades to assume the Chinese leadership will prioritize economic development over all other issues. The Communist Party has long marketed the country’s high growth rates as a mark of its competence and legitimacy. Further, the party’s obsession with social stability prompted officials to fear the joblessness and discontent caused by weak economic conditions. Amid zero-COVID, however, Xi has signaled that economic development may no longer be the party’s No. 1 priority. In recent months, even as Li, the premier, has exhorted local officials to resurrect economic growth, the party has also been willing to accept economic sacrifices in order to maintain the zero-COVID stricture.

That could be part of a much broader and critical shift in the direction of Chinese policy. Going forward, the pursuit of economic development may be balanced, or even downgraded, relative to political, security, and social concerns.⁵

Such a shift has major implications for China’s economic relations with the rest of the world. It explains why Xi has replaced the long-standing, guiding principle of “reform and opening up” with a new mantra of “self-sufficiency.” Xi will almost certainly continue to stress the need to reduce China’s vulnerabilities to the outside world by substituting imports with homemade alternatives. As Xi once said: “The essence of the new development dynamic is realizing a high level of self-reliance.”⁶ Xi will therefore persist in his efforts to develop Chinese technologies through state-led industrial policies with their heavy subsidization of local high-tech industries, despite their massive waste of resources and underwhelming results thus far.

That suggests two important trends for economic policy in Xi’s third term. First, he will continue to prioritize economic security over economic efficiency—in other words, he is willing to sacrifice growth for political objectives. Second, Xi’s economic agenda will also foment greater competition with the United States and other advanced economies in cutting-edge technologies—most of all semiconductors. Chinese policymakers will persist in pursuing tactics, such as forced technology transfer and subsidization, that are a cause of trade friction with Washington. Overall, Xi’s economic policies will have the effect of limiting the further integration of the Chinese economy into the global economy, likely increasing disputes with trading partners, encouraging foreign governments to impose restrictions on business investment and trade with China, and capping the ability of Chinese companies to go global.

Xi’s penchant for political control will influence the course of economic policy in other ways as well. He has partially reversed domestic economic liberalization, and instead, he is reasserting a level of state influence over the private sector. The most visible manifestation of that trend has been the imposition of greater regulation on many sectors of the economy over the past two years. That campaign constrained the ability of some companies, especially in technology, to expand, or, in the case of private education services, even survive. Global investors wonder if the harsh crackdown has finally run its course. But that is the wrong question to ask. Xi has displayed a wariness of private enterprise distinct from his recent predecessors. He has spoken of the need to “prevent the disorderly expansion and unchecked growth of capital,”⁷ and he appears to fear that the growing wealth and influence of private companies and entrepreneurs could present a threat to the Communist Party’s dominance. Xi may intend to subordinate the private sector to the interests of the state and party. Under Xi, the Communist Party adopted a policy to enhance its control over the management of private companies. Xi has also elevated the narrowing of income disparities, between both income groups and regions of the country, to priority status in Beijing’s economic agenda with his campaign for “common prosperity.” Although the policy platform to achieve “common prosperity,” remains a vague work-in-progress, the prominence placed on this idea is a signal that Xi disapproves of the unfettered expansion of personal wealth generated through entrepreneurship and private enterprise. Such an attitude is detrimental to economic development since it discourages entrepreneurial activity and innovation. As in all countries, however, pressuring the rich makes for good politics, and Xi seems to revel in such populist exploits. Though Chinese officials have stressed that “common prosperity” is not a code for soaking the wealthy, its main achievement thus far has been arm-twisting major private firms to divert more profits into charitable causes. Expect Xi to persist in these populist causes as a method of bolstering his credentials as a “man of the people.”

Xi and Taiwan

All the factors discussed above add up to slower growth, and a problem for the Communist Party. The leadership will no longer be able to justify their repression with the promise of economic benefit. The party’s implicit social contract with the public—let us rule and we will make you rich—could break down. Xi must instead find other sources of “performance legitimacy,” or other measures of the party’s right to rule, and new endeavors to rally support for and redirect frustration away from the Communist regime.

It has become fairly obvious over the course of Xi’s term that he is attempting to capitalize on nationalist causes as a substitute for economic development and the new source of party legitimacy. Much of Xi’s public discourse focuses on achieving national rejuvenation. This goal goes beyond simply gaining wealth to restoring China’s greatness on the world stage. Inevitably, such appeals to nationalism lead to the issue of Taiwan. Claiming Taiwan has long been a top priority for the People’s Republic, but Xi appears to be elevating the issue even higher on Beijing’s to-do list. Further, he is doing so in potentially dangerous and destabilizing ways. Beijing has not held any serious dialogue with Taipei since the current Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-wen, took office in 2016. Instead, Xi has chosen to increase diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan in an attempt to prevent Tsai from extending her government’s international stature and ties to other countries, especially the United States. Since mid-2020, Xi has launched a concerted campaign of military intimidation by routinely sending squads of jets buzzing near the island and holding drills in the surrounding waters. Beijing has intensified efforts to isolate Taiwan’s government on the international stage. For example, China employed economic coercion against Lithuania after the Baltic nation strengthened ties with Taipei. China’s protests reached a fever pitch in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in early August 2022. Accusing Washington of undermining the idea of “one China,” Beijing threatened the United States with unspecified countermeasures and staged extensive military exercises surrounding Taiwan, creating the effect of a blockade for the first time.

All parties are blaming one another for this escalation. Yet it is undeniable that the Xi administration has purposely chosen a more hostile, militant approach to the Taiwan question. Xi’s posture could be driven by a fear that the island is being drawn ever more tightly into the United States’ orbit and away from China’s. A debate has erupted among foreign policy analysts over whether Washington is fanning those fears, inadvertently or otherwise, by its persistent displays of support for Taiwan’s democratic government. As is the case with much of Xi’s foreign policy, however, his assertive approach has created the very situation he intends to prevent. Rather than convincing Tsai to submit, Xi reinforced Taiwan’s determination to gain greater international support, and prodded other governments, including the United States, to express and provide that support. In August 2022, for instance, the administration of US President Joseph R. Biden opened formal trade negotiations with Taiwan.

It does not appear that Xi perceives or accepts the counterproductive nature of his Taiwan policy. He seems committed to coercion, viewing this as his best method of preventing Taiwan’s drift toward Washington. One reason could be that appearing “tough” on Taiwan bolsters his domestic political stature. Another could be that other options are unappealing. If he is unwilling to make compromises with the Tsai administration, he may see dialogue as a dead end.

Once Xi secures his third term, the big question is how much pressure he will bring to bear on Taiwan. Beijing’s reaction to the Pelosi visit offers contradictory clues. On the one hand, Beijing’s military exercises crossed red lines, most of all in the People’s Liberation Army’s decision to blockade the island. This move suggests Xi may be aiming to create a “new normal” in the Taiwan Strait, in which the Chinese military exerts greater control in the waterway and intensifies its harassment of Taipei’s government. On the other hand, Beijing restrained its military from taking certain risks during those exercises. For instance, no planes entered Taiwan’s airspace. That indicates that Xi, fearing actual conflict, may place limits on how drastically he wishes to alter the status quo.

Either way, the emerging cycle of reaction and counterreaction is potentially creating a downward spiral into heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Barring some unforeseen and tectonic shift in policy in Washington and Taipei, Beijing’s more assertive attitude to the Taiwan issue will likely continue in Xi’s third term. This raises the frightening prospect of conflict over Taiwan, either accidentally—such chances increase with the intensity of Beijing’s military harassment—or by design. The centralization of power in Xi Jinping raises the possibility that he could decide a military solution to the Taiwan problem is necessary perhaps to bolster his own political position. With the highest ranks of the Chinese government stacked with loyalists, he could encounter little internal opposition to such a drastic course of action.

That is speculation, of course, but the direction of Xi’s Taiwan policy is transforming the risk of war over the fate of the island from an outside possibility to a more urgent danger to the security and stability of East Asia.

Xi and the world

The more aggressive position on Taiwan is part of a much wider shift in China’s foreign policy under Xi’s guidance. When Xi took power a decade ago, the United States was still China’s partner. Since then, Xi has transformed Washington into China’s chief adversary. The finger-pointing goes both ways as to which side is to blame. Xi’s government admits to no responsibility for soured relations, but it is indisputable that Xi’s policies have played an outsized role in causing the US-China rift. His predatory industrial programs, aggressive pursuit of contested territorial claims in the South China Sea, and his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which persists despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have all contributed to strained relations.

Xi is not likely to become any friendlier. He appears to believe the United States is determined to suppress China’s rightful ascent into a global power. The Chinese political and academic elite seem to be convinced that the US is in inexorable decline, and Washington is trying to “keep China down” in order to cling to its wobbly hegemony. This thinking permeates many of Xi’s foreign and economic policies. His “self-sufficiency” drive is meant to protect China from what he sees as Washington’s nefarious designs to use the United States’ economic heft and technological advantages to restrain China’s economic advance. His partnership with Putin is designed to decrease his economic reliance on the West and enlist Moscow as a partner in his quest to undermine the US-led world order. Xi’s latest diplomatic projects, the Global Security Initiative and Global Development Initiative, aim to replace the norms and rules of the current liberal order with a system more favorable to autocratic regimes and the expansion of Chinese power. Barring a dramatic turn in US policy to capitulate and align with Beijing’s interests, none of these efforts to overthrow Pax Americana are likely to change in Xi’s next term. The more powerful Xi becomes, the more they may intensify.

To many inside and outside of China, Xi’s anti-US sentiments have set the stage for a dangerous gamble. Still relatively poor and far behind in technological development, China needs friendly relations with the United States and its allies and partners in Europe and the Asia-Pacific to continue to achieve economic progress. However, Xi probably does not see it that way. An adversarial relationship with the United States is, in many respects, beneficial to Xi’s political standing, especially at home. The narrative of Xi’s personality cult is that he is the man with the will and the wisdom to attain the “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation. Too long a victim of the West, China will now seize its moment to overcome its enemies and restore its greatness. This epic drama requires a villain and the United States (along with its allies, especially Japan) can play that role nicely. It is clear that Xi wants the Chinese public to despise and distrust the United States. Chinese media has become a constant anti-US propaganda machine, painting Washington as resolutely hostile, and US society as violent, racist, and unjust. By pushing such messaging, while raising the Great Firewall ever higher to constrain the flow of outside information into the country, the Chinese state is attempting to reshape and control Chinese public opinion about the United States. Xi, as the star of this show, is often portrayed as standing firm against the big, bad Americans, finger-wagging the US president, for example, on Taiwan. Around the world, too, Xi can portray China as a better alternative to the (supposedly) decaying and irresponsible United States, and himself as the statesman to usher in a new era. By pursuing this course, Xi aims to rally other nations already hostile to Washington and transform himself into the leader of a new global order, with China at its apex.

This narrative may serve Xi’s political interests, but it does not bode well for his relations with Washington since it makes serious dialogue or compromise almost impossible. The main goal of Beijing’s current diplomacy appears to be gaining compliance from other governments to align with Xi’s goals, and it often degenerates into threats, warnings, and demands. Much of the fiery rhetoric may, again, be directed at a domestic audience to bolster Xi’s credentials as a diehard defender of the nation. It may also be motivated by Beijing’s growing conviction of the inevitability of its rise and belief that eventually, even the most recalcitrant nations will have to submit. Whatever the cause, five more years of Xi’s foreign policy almost certainly means five more years of increasing conflict with many of the world’s major economic and military powers. This includes not only the United States and its allies, but also emerging nations that feel threatened by Beijing’s aggressiveness, such as India and Vietnam.

Conclusion

In his decade at China’s helm, Xi Jinping has brought about drastic changes in Beijing’s governance, economic agenda, and foreign policy. There is little evidence at this point that he intends to alter course. Instead, there is more reason to believe that the more entrenched Xi becomes in his position, the more aggressively he will pursue his agenda at home and abroad. The only caveat is whether current poor conditions in China—a slowing economy, the strains of zero-COVID, and greater tensions with the international community—have weakened him enough to allow other factions with the Communist Party to place officials into senior positions who can check his power and alter his policy program. That will not be known until the upcoming Congress. Such an outcome is certainly possible. Yet policymakers around the world would be wise to approach the twentieth Party Congress with the assumption that Xi stays in charge and in control.

Working under this assumption means the world’s China watchers will need to adjust the way in which they understand the process of policymaking in Beijing. To an increasing degree, Beijing’s decisions will be Xi’s decisions. Determining what the Communist government will or will not do is becoming a process of figuring out what fits with Xi’s personal political calculations and ideology. As shown by zero-COVID or “wolf warrior” diplomacy, Xi will make policy choices that may be beneficial to his own political standing, or helpful for his vision for China’s future, but harmful to the country in many other respects. In a system heavily dominated by Xi loyalists, the degree of policy debate may narrow, creating “echo chamber” conditions that shield Xi from the real impact of his choices and the information he requires to make sound decisions.

It is also likely that Xi’s third term will see a continuation, and possibly an intensification, of the trends already underway in Chinese policy. In foreign affairs, that means greater hostility to the United States and its global allies, closer relations with Russia and other autocratic regimes, more aggressive pursuit of regional territorial claims and other interests, and heightened tensions over Taiwan. With the economy, Xi will almost certainly remain cool to liberalization and persist with state-led industrial programs, the fixation on self-reliance, and heavier control of the private sector. In general, Xi’s third term will likely see rising nationalism and continued decoupling from the world in business, information, culture, education, and even personal exchanges.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question about Xi’s third term is: what happens five years from now, when China is again due for another leadership shuffle? Having flushed the party’s collective governance system down the political toilet, Xi has created uncertainty over how leaders will be selected and how the country will be governed in the future. Can the system of collective rule be reestablished? Or will Chinese politics become a contest of competing strongmen?

A case can be made that Xi, by holding onto power, has merely restored China to its usual norm. The era of collective leadership can be seen as a brief aberration in a political environment more often dominated by an individual. At the same time, many in the political and business elite in China likely remain wary of a reversion to the days of Mao, when the fate of the nation rested in the unreliable hands of a single leader. Perhaps pressure will mount in coming years to restore greater balance within Chinese governance. Or perhaps Xi will manage to quash any further resistance and rule for life. After four decades of walking a fairly predictable path, Xi is sending China into the unknown.

Global China Hub

Report May 11, 2022

China’s faltering “zero COVID” policy: Politics in command, economy in reverse

By Jeremy Mark, Michael Schuman

Could Beijing’s doubling down on the “zero COVID” policy undermine the narrative of China’s superiority in responding to the pandemic—and the image and stature of Xi’s rule?

China Coronavirus

Report Jul 28, 2022

Cooperation with China: Challenges and opportunities

By Michael Schuman, David O. Shullman

Cooperation with China should focus on areas where our interests still align and where we can keep Beijing grounded in the international system. Like-minded allies and partners must pair such efforts with commitments to defend against China’s violations of international norms, impose costs on irresponsible behavior, and strengthen themselves and current global institutions to compete effectively and uphold liberal values.

China Economy & Business

New Atlanticist Oct 3, 2022

Why China’s leadership must respond to the country’s property crisis

By Jeremy Mark

The country’s rapidly metastasizing property downturn threatens to engulf heavily indebted developers, homeowners, financial institutions, and local governments.

China Economy & Business

1 For an explanation of how the congress works, see “Raising the Curtain on China’s 20^th Party Congress,” https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/raising-curtain-chinas-20th-party-congress-mechanics-rules-norms-and-realities-power.

2 Deng Xiaoping, “On the Reform of the System of Party and State Leadership,” Aug 18, 2980, in The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Vol. 2 https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/on-the-reform-of-the-system-of-party-and-state-leadership/

3 Nis Grunberg, testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Jan. 27, 2022. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-01/Nis_Gr%C3%BCnberg_Testimony.pdf

4 Jeremy Mark and Michael Schuman, “China’s Faltering ‘Zero-COVID’ Policy: Politics in Command, Economy in Reverse,” Atlantic Council, May 11, 2022 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/chinas-faltering-zero-covid-policy-politics-in-command-economy-in-reverse/

5 Howard Wang, “’Security Is a Prerequisite for Development’” Consensus Building Toward a New Top Priority in the Chinese Communist Party,” Journal of Contemporary China, Aug. 7, 2022 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10670564.2022.2108681

6 Xi Jinping, “Understanding the New Development Stage, Applying the New Development Philosophy, Creating a New Development Dynamic,” Quishi, July 8, 2021 http://en.qstheory.cn/2021-07/08/c_641137.htm

7 Xi, “Understandng the New Development Stage.”

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#BritainDebrief – Is Britain’s government broken? | A Debrief from Gabriel Pogrund

Ben Judah — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:01:00 +0000

Is Britain’s government broken?

As Liz Truss’s new government continues to struggle with economic policy and sinking poll numbers, Senior Fellow Ben Judah spoke to Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor at the Sunday Times, on how Britain got to this point.

Why did Liz Truss insist on maintaining unpopular economic policies despite rising popular resentment? Is Labour benefitting from the fall in popularity of Truss’s government? Does Truss retain support among the Conservative party base?

You can watch #BritainDebrief on YouTube and as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

MEET THE #BRITAINDEBRIEF HOST

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Ben Judah

Economy & Business European Union

Europe Center

Providing expertise and building communities to promote transatlantic leadership and a strong Europe in turbulent times.

The Europe Center promotes the transatlantic leadership and strategies required to ensure a strong Europe.

The post #BritainDebrief – Is Britain’s government broken? | A Debrief from Gabriel Pogrund appeared first on Atlantic Council.

#BritainDebrief – What was the Queen’s diplomacy? | A Debrief from Professor Philip Murray

Ben Judah — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 23:45:07 +0000

What was the Queen’s diplomacy?

As the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II draws to a close, Senior Fellow Ben Judah spoke with Professor Philip Murray, Director of History and Policy at the Institute for Historical Research, to discuss the legacy she leaves behind.

What role did the Queen play in the end of the British Empire? How did the Queen’s involvement shape the Commonwealth of Nations? What can we expect from King Charles III and his relationship with the Commonwealth?

You can watch #BritainDebrief on YouTube and as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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Ben Judah

Economy & Business European Union

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Providing expertise and building communities to promote transatlantic leadership and a strong Europe in turbulent times.

The Europe Center promotes the transatlantic leadership and strategies required to ensure a strong Europe.

The post #BritainDebrief – What was the Queen’s diplomacy? | A Debrief from Professor Philip Murray appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Roberts Reviews China Books

everges — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 19:58:11 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

On September 22, IPSI Senior Fellow Dexter Tiff Roberts published, “At stake in the U.S.-China rivalry: The shape of the global political order,” in The Washington Post. This is a book review of three China books: Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism, by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way; Xi Jinping: The Most Powerful Man in the World, by Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges; and Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control, by Josh Chin and Liza Lin.

Fellow

Dexter Tiff Roberts

Global China Hub Indo-Pacific Security Initiative

China Chinese

The post Roberts Reviews China Books appeared first on Atlantic Council.

#BritainDebrief – What did Gorbachev believe? | A Debrief from Dr. Vladislav Zubok

Ben Judah — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 22:34:52 +0000

What did Gorbachev believe?

Following Gorbachev’s passing, Senior Fellow Ben Judah spoke with Vladislav Zubok, Professor of International History at LSE and author of Collapse, on how Gorbachev saw Lenin, Europe and Ukraine. Did Gorbachev look to Lenin for inspiration? Was the Soviet collapse inevitable because Gorbachev was simply too naïve about economic management? What did Gorbachev feel about Ukraine and Putin’s foreign policy towards Kyiv?

You can watch #BritainDebrief on YouTube and as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

MEET THE #BRITAINDEBRIEF HOST

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Ben Judah

Economy & Business European Union

Europe Center

Providing expertise and building communities to promote transatlantic leadership and a strong Europe in turbulent times.

The Europe Center promotes the transatlantic leadership and strategies required to ensure a strong Europe.

The post #BritainDebrief – What did Gorbachev believe? | A Debrief from Dr. Vladislav Zubok appeared first on Atlantic Council.

#BritainDebrief – What future for the Scottish Lib Dems? | A Debrief with Alex Cole-Hamilton

Ben Judah — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 22:15:30 +0000

What future for the Scottish Lib Dems?

As Nicola Sturgeon recently declared her intention to hold a second independence referendum without Westminster’s consent, Senior Fellow Ben Judah spoke with Alex Cole-Hamilton, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, to discuss the future of the union. Can the Scottish Lib Dems benefit from the recent wins that their English counterparts have had lately? How will the Scottish Lib Dems tailor their electoral strategy under a Truss premiership?

You can watch #BritainDebrief on YouTube and as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

MEET THE #BRITAINDEBRIEF HOST

Fellow

Ben Judah

Economy & Business European Union

Europe Center

Providing expertise and building communities to promote transatlantic leadership and a strong Europe in turbulent times.

The Europe Center promotes the transatlantic leadership and strategies required to ensure a strong Europe.

Daniel Fried: Gorbachev could have taken Putin’s road. But he wanted better.

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What legacy does Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, leave behind?

dmalloy — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 01:33:27 +0000

The last premier of the Soviet Union has died.

A complicated figure who succeeded in ending the Cold War but failed to save his own country from collapse, Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91, will likely be remembered more fondly abroad than at home. That’s especially the case as Russia increasingly turns away from the brand of democracy he sought to promote during the Communist empire’s twilight years.

Atlantic Council experts with hands-on experience working with—or even living in—Gorbachev’s Soviet Union weigh in on what his legacy means for the world.

Click on a link to jump to an entry:

Alexander Vershbow: Gorbachev was smart enough to learn from his mistakes

Thom Shanker: Without Gorbachev, Reagan wouldn’t have won the Cold War

Paula Dobriansky: Gorbachev supported a peaceful end to the Soviet empire

John Herbst: Gorbachev was no saint, but showed just enough restraint

Gorbachev could have taken Putin’s road. But he wanted better.

There was plenty of bad in Mikhail Gorbachev’s life’s work. He served the USSR, the evil empire built on lies and mass death. His own decisions included attempts to repress the national and democratic independence movements in the Baltics.

And yet.

Gorbachev, who has died after a long illness at the age of 91, could have drowned the forces of national independence—in Poland and elsewhere in Central Europe in 1989 and in the Baltics in 1991—in blood, or tried to. He could have summoned the dark power of Russian fascism, as we see Vladimir Putin doing against Ukraine.

But he did not. He wanted something other than Stalinist violence and mass repression, something better than the gulag. He tried to make his country, the Soviet Union, a better place—more honest, more open, more decent, and thus more successful by standards other than those of reactionary tsars and Communist commissars.

Gorbachev was a reformer, not a revolutionary like Poland’s Lech Walesa or even Gorbachev’s successor in the Kremlin, Boris Yeltsin, both of whom tried and succeeded in overthrowing their country’s existing order, with good results in Poland and mixed results in 1990s Russia. Gorbachev had a different ambition: He seemed to acknowledge the rot—political and economic—that was corroding the Soviet system by the 1980s and wanted to save the USSR by reforming it. He aimed to draw on the discarded strategies of past Soviet reformist ideas that he could argue, to his comrades and perhaps himself, were socialist and Soviet but would modernize the country, making it competitive with the West.

For this strategy to work, he needed a better relationship with the West and especially the United States. So he reached out to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He refrained from crushing Poland’s Solidarity movement when it swept into power in 1989 and from reinvading Czechoslovakia when dissident Vaclav Havel became its president and from using the 300,000-plus Soviet troops in East Germany to prop up the Berlin Wall.

Gorbachev wanted something different. Something better.

What he wanted was not possible. Soviet Communism could not be reformed. The Soviet empire could not be maintained, even with Gorbachev’s implicit promises of giving it a human face. So his efforts failed, and the USSR collapsed.

Gorbachev was neither liberator nor liberal. But the consequences of what he set out to achieve, of the reforms he put in motion, made better things possible for Russia, for Ukraine, and for the peoples of the many “captive nations” who had a window to liberate themselves and took it.

Putin’s violence at home and abroad shows us the road Gorbachev might have taken, the road Josef Stalin would have taken. Gorbachev couldn’t bring himself to take that road. He was too decent, in the end. Decency, a sense of limits, and a sense of right and wrong are nothing to sneer at or take for granted.

Rest in peace, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and was the coordinator for sanctions policy during the Obama administration, assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia during the Bush administration, and senior director at the National Security Council for the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Gorbachev was smart enough to learn from his mistakes

Mikhail Gorbachev, who rose to power as a loyal functionary in the Soviet system, showed the world—and his own people—that a different kind of country was possible: a more open, democratic one that places the freedom and welfare of its own people ahead of maintaining a repressive empire at home and in Eastern Europe. Although he unleashed forces that he was ultimately unable to control, history will always recognize Gorbachev’s pivotal role in peacefully ending the Cold War, unifying Germany, and significantly reducing nuclear and conventional weapons.

I was director of the State Department’s office of Soviet Union Affairs during Gorbachev’s final three years in power, right up until the failed coup in August 1991. For me, a child of the Cold War, this was a very exciting time, and every day brought changes that would have been unthinkable under the Soviet system: an end to censorship and the establishment of independent media; filling in the dark pages of Soviet history (which included the publication of the Secret Protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact splitting up Soviet and Nazi influence across Eastern Europe); the establishment of rival political parties and competitive elections; and the emergence of private businesses (including even McDonald’s and Pizza Hut).

Prominent dissident Andrei Sakharov and others who had been languishing in the GULAG labor camp system returned to Moscow and became political leaders in the newly democratic Soviet parliament. Thousands of Jewish refuseniks, after waiting for decades, were allowed to emigrate to Israel or the United States. Gorbachev, the Communist Party leader, declared that individual liberty and human rights were universal values, not just Western ones. He now welcomed Western ideas and assistance—seemingly recognizing that an open economy and a vibrant civil society were the keys to his country’s own future, not just something to please or mimic the West.

Of course, Gorbachev never fully escaped his Soviet upbringing. During the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, his government initially suppressed information rather than practicing glasnost, one of his keystone ideals. And when Lithuania declared independence in 1990, his initial response was to use military force to block its path. But unlike today’s Russian leaders, Gorbachev was smart enough to learn from his mistakes; understanding the power of freedom, he made the right choice in accepting the break-up of the Warsaw Pact and, two years later, the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union itself.

For these decisions, Gorbachev is now vilified and demonized in Russia as Putin seeks to discredit democracy, restore the Russian empire, and re-subjugate Ukraine to Russian domination. But having spoken with Gorbachev during my time as US Ambassador to Russia, I know he remained proud of those decisions to the very end. Someday, future generations of Russians will also appreciate his legacy.

—Alexander “Sandy” Vershbow is a distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and Eurasia Center. He served as the deputy secretary general of NATO and as US ambassador to Russia, among other roles.

Without Gorbachev, Reagan wouldn’t have won the Cold War

^{(Note: This is an excerpt of a full piece that can be found here.)}

When I asked Gorbachev about the many obituaries of US President Ronald Reagan, his former US adversary, that included repeated accolades about Reagan winning the Cold War, Gorbachev paused, then spoke again in that recognizable (and sometimes caricatured) southern Russian accent of his native Stavropol.

“He had the foresight and the wisdom and the commitment to step over all of that, and start changing relations with the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev said. “We had the same wish, and we were able to do that.”

But, Gorbachev repeated, “He, himself, could not have changed the situation alone.”

The late Soviet leader was the essential partner, basing his new thinking on Soviet policy around the idea that cooperation with Washington, not confrontation, was the key to pushing ahead with his reforms at home. In the months before revolution swept Eastern Europe and the Berlin Wall came down, Gorbachev would not give his blessing to quashing protests with force. After all, cutting loose the increasingly unmanageable Warsaw Pact would ease a huge strain on the Soviet budget.

In the end, his decisions amounted to a strategic Kremlin retreat from Eastern Europe and led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union itself. Gorbachev did that, not Reagan.

—Thom Shanker is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.

New Atlanticist

Aug 31, 2022

Without Gorbachev, Reagan wouldn’t have won the Cold War

By Thom Shanker

Victory and success, the late Soviet leader once said, can only be found when all parties feel they have won something.

Democratic Transitions Politics & Diplomacy

Gorbachev supported a peaceful end to the Soviet empire

While Gorbachev came up through the Communist Party hierarchy of the Soviet Union, upon coming to power he recognized that the system was not working. He genuinely believed that, through glasnost and perestroika, he could reform the dysfunctional and failing economy and eliminate the brutal repression of the Communist system. His policies, intended to advance “socialism with a human face” instead of salvaging the Communist system, triggered democratic revolutions at home and in the near abroad.

Significantly, when the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe started to collapse, he did not use force to save them. Still, in Latvia and Lithuania, he will be long remembered as having dispatched tanks to suppress the opposition. But Gorbachev will also be remembered as having ultimately supported a peaceful transition and end to the Soviet empire, including the historic reunification of Germany and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

—Paula Dobriansky is the vice chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She served as director of European and Soviet affairs on the National Security Council during the Reagan administration and later as under secretary of state for global affairs.

Gorbachev was no saint, but showed just enough restraint

I received the news of the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev in Vilnius, where praise for the last Soviet leader is much sparser than in Washington or the capitals of Western Europe. Indeed the reaction here is a good reminder that politicians, or even statesmen, are rarely visionaries and never saints.

Gorbachev is held in high esteem in many Western capitals because he presided over the largely peaceful demise of the Soviet Union, an enterprise that his American partner, Ronald Reagan, correctly (and controversially) labeled the evil empire. Gorbachev can be credited for recognizing that the Soviet system had created a stagnant economy and an unresponsive political class, ensuring further stagnation. He set out to fix this by reforming the economy (perestroika) and introducing a policy of information openness (glasnost) that kicked a large hole in the elaborate censorship mechanism in order to allow a much franker discussion of Soviet failures and possible fixes. No visionary, Gorbachev did not realize that Soviet power was ultimately sustained by an elaborate system of lies. And glasnost served as acid that quickly ate away at that crucial pillar of the regime, first in the outer reaches of the Soviet Empire—the Warsaw Pact nations—then in the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union, and finally in Russia itself. The result, within fewer than seven years of his coming to power in Moscow, was the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the implosion of the Soviet Union. But this was never his intention.

From the standpoint of his Western counterparts, Gorbachev’s response to the eventual demise of the Soviet Union was his finest hour. While neither anticipating nor seeking an end to Soviet power, he did not unleash his military or intelligence services to stop Hungary and then other countries from leaving the Warsaw Pact, or to reverse the decision by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his counterparts from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to dissolve the Soviet Union. Had he done so, the casualties would have been enormous, and the Soviet Union could have limped along for years. Analysts correctly point to the violence provoked by the dissolution of Yugoslavia and conclude that Gorbachev’s restraint at that crucial juncture avoided violence on a much larger scale. For this, Gorbachev is properly praised. Watching Putin’s aggression against Georgia and war crimes in Ukraine, we can see how the ending of the Soviet Union could have been far bloodier.

Yet Gorbachev was no saint. While he did not send his troops into Hungary or the KGB to arrest the leaders who signed the Belovezha Accords dissolving the Soviet Union in December of 1991, he did use troops in January of that year to crack down on Lithuania’s move toward independence. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielus Landsbergis justly calls out Gorbachev for “the simple fact that his army murdered civilians to prolong his regime’s occupation” of Lithuania.

Gorbachev rose to the top of the vicious Soviet system. That would not have been possible if, as then Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko said at the time, Gorbachev’s velvet glove did not conceal an iron fist. But we can still be thankful that at the most critical moment, Gorbachev realized that the time of the iron fist was past.

—John Herbst is the senior director of the Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The post What legacy does Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, leave behind? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Russia’s Ukraine War is forcing the Belarus opposition to rethink strategy

Alesia Rudnik — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 22:00:34 +0000

More than four hundred representatives of the Belarusian opposition gathered in Vilnius on August 8-9 for an event that highlighted a mood of increasing militancy as the movement responds to the new realities created by Russia’s ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

The conference in the Lithuanian capital was timed to mark the second anniversary of nationwide protests which rocked Belarus in the wake of the country’s August 2020 presidential election. With strong backing from Moscow, Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka was eventually able in suppress the 2020 protest movement. However, he now finds himself heavily dependent on the Kremlin and has been forced to play a supporting role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine that few Belarusians welcome.

Lukashenka’s status as junior partner in Putin’s Ukraine war has helped to reinvigorate the Belarusian opposition while also forcing its leaders to rethink strategy. The 2020 protests succeeded in attracting mass participation but the movement proved no match for the unprecedented repressive measures unleashed by Lukashenka. Despite the violence of the regime response, opposition leaders remained committed to peaceful and lawful protests.

Decisions taken recently in Vilnius highlight how Belarusian opposition leaders are now addressing the effectiveness of peaceful protests and exploring their options in light of the war in Ukraine. A key outcome of the conference was the formation of a transition cabinet including a number of more militant figures who had previously been relegated to the fringes of Belarus’s anti-Lukashenka movement.

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The new transition cabinet follows on from the creation of an anti-war movement to unite all Belarusians in support of Ukraine, which was announced by Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya during the first days of the Russian invasion. This initiative sought to unite Belarusians in Belarus itself with members of the diaspora and opposition figures in exile.

Others have already gone further in their opposition to Belarusian participation in Putin’s war. The most effective domestic opponents so far have been the railway partisans, a group of Belarusian activists who sabotaged the country’s rail network to prevent the transit of Russian troops and military equipment to Ukraine. Their activities proved hugely embarrassing for Lukashenka and led to legislative changes in late May that made attacks on rail infrastructure potentially subject to the death penalty.

Belarusian volunteers are also fighting for Ukraine in a number of units including the Belarusian Regiment of Kastus Kalinouski. Many of these volunteers believe a Ukrainian victory will open the way for a free Belarus. They also recognize that if Putin achieves his goal of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood, this would condemn their own country to a new era of Russian domination.

The growth of both the railway partisan movement and Belarusian volunteer participation in Ukraine has helped spark a broader debate over the need to embrace a more direct approach to opposing the Lukashenka regime. Other more militant groups such as the Supraciu (“Resistance”) movement and the ByPol organization of former Belarusian police officers have also seen their profiles rise in recent months against the backdrop of the Ukraine war. A recent independent opinion poll by Narodny Opros found that Belarusians view ByPol and the Belarusian Regiment as being five times more relevant for the opposition movement than recognized opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

The recent shift within the ranks of the Belarus opposition towards a more militant stance was evident in the composition of the transition cabinet created in Vilnius, which will feature input from ByPol, Supraciu, Cyberpartisans, and the Pahonia Regiment. The cabinet member responsible for defense and security is Valery Sahashchyk, a former Belarusian army officer who is best known for a video address calling on members of the Belarusian military to change sides.

There is an understanding among members of the Belarusian opposition that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has placed their country’s fragile independence in grave danger. Lukashenka has already allowed Putin to invade Ukraine via Belarus. He has also permitted the use of his country as a platform for air raids and missile strikes against Ukrainian targets. Opponents of the Lukashenka regime now fear that Moscow may seek to officially consolidate its current informal control over Belarus.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches the six-month mark, it is clear that the war is having a profound impact on the political climate in neighboring Belarus. Members of the Belarusian opposition are rethinking their former commitment to exclusively non-violent protest and are now increasingly acknowledging the need to prepare for more active forms of resistance.

At present, this change in tone is most immediately evident in the activities of groups like the railway partisans and the volunteers who have travelled to Ukraine to fight against the Russian invasion. If the mood of militancy continues to spread to the wider opposition movement, it will likely be met with harsher domestic repression. Ultimately, the fate of the Lukashenka regime may hinge on the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

Alesia Rudnik is a PhD Fellow at Karlstad University in Sweden and a Research Fellow at Belarusian think tank The Center for New Ideas.

The week before the Moscow August coup in 1991, George Soros asked my late friend Professor Oleh Havrylyshyn and me to spend a week in Kyiv and meet all the economic policymakers. I was shocked by what I heard. We met with Emelianov again, who was now chief economic advisor of Soviet Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk and coyly claiming to support the transition to a market economy. I was not convinced, largely because he did not appear to understand what a market economy was.

We talked to many other people in Kyiv. Their dominant view was that Ukraine’s only real economic problem was Russia. If Ukraine could just cut its links with Russia, the country’s economic problems would be solved. Nobody seemed to care about the details of marketization, liberalization and privatization, with the sole exception of a junior economist from the democratic Rukh political party who had a decent economic understanding and even spoke English. Depressed, I passed through Russia to Sweden the day before the Moscow coup. Oleh Havrylyshyn, who was a highly patriotic Ukrainian, wanted to do what he could and remained in Ukraine to serve as deputy minister of finance.

In the summer of 1993, I went to a World Economic Forum event in Kyiv with some hesitation. Ukraine had no economic policy. Shortages were devastating and the country was experiencing devastating hyperinflation of 10,000 percent. The government ministers of the time clearly knew that they were lost, so most of them did not even appear at the event as announced. The few foreigners present were just astounded, though I was not. This was the low point. Something clearly had to change.

In July 1994, Leonid Kuchma was elected president. I liked what I saw. Kuchma talked straight and seemed radical. I got in touch with Soros and told him that I would be happy to work with Kuchma. A few days later, Soros called me and said that he had got an appointment with Kuchma. Would I like to come along? Of course, I told him. We met with Kuchma in Kyiv. Soros offered our services. Kuchma replied, “I am ready.” Afterwards, Soros told me, “You do what you think is necessary. I pay.”

I had expected this answer and had prepared a team who flew in three days later. After eight weeks of hard work, the new Ukrainian government concluded its first IMF program which swiftly killed the problem of hyperinflation. Apart from Kuchma himself, our greatest collaborators in the Ukrainian government were Economy Minister Roman Shpek and NBU Governor Viktor Yushchenko. Our group expanded to 27 people, predominantly wonderful young Ukrainians. Unfortunately, fall 1994 was the high point. By the end of 1997, we quietly departed.

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In December 2004, I danced in the streets of Kyiv with a million Ukrainians during the Orange Revolution as the country experienced a watershed moment in its modern history. In the aftermath of this momentous geopolitical turning point for Ukraine and the wider post-Soviet region, I co-chaired a UN-sponsored commission on reform proposals together with Professor Oleksandr Paskhaver.

Looking back, I am still proud of the report we produced. We promoted it by all means, but the only member of the new post-Orange Revolution government who was really engaged was Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk. The other senior politicians were only interested in becoming prime minister, it seemed. Future Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy told me, “Don’t you understand? They are all victors. Why should they listen to anybody?” How right he was.

The main problem after the Orange Revolution was chaos at the highest level, but there were many other issues. The European Union played no real role and offered no sense of direction. The number of senior Ukrainians who spoke English and had international experience remained tiny. Economic ideology was largely absent. The few at the top wanted to prosper personally. Also, it all seemed too easy. The Orange Revolution had proceeded peacefully like a fairytale. Ukraine’s economic growth in 2003 was 12 percent. Why worry?

Despite the political disappointments that followed the 2004 uprising, it remains a hugely significant event in Ukraine’s national story. The most important long-term benefit of the Orange Revolution was to be a strong and vibrant civil society. This has had a profound impact on Ukraine’s subsequent nation-building progress.

The Orange Revolution also marked the end of Kremlin-style central government censorship and ushered in a new era of media freedoms. The Ukrainian media landscape is still far from ideal and continues to suffer from excessive oligarch influence, but no subsequent Ukrainian government has been able to reassert the kind of control exercised by the authorities before the Orange Revolution.

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Ten years later, millions of Ukrainians once more took to the streets to defend their democratic future. Although the 2014 Revolution of Dignity might superficially appear similar to the Orange Revolution, it was to prove a far graver confrontation that ultimately sparked direct Russian military intervention.

The Russian invasion caused a severe economic crisis in the first half of 2014. Fortunately, by now Ukraine had ample human capital with many young people who had received an excellent education abroad. This was strikingly different to the situation in the early 1990s or even in 2004, when an absence of internationally experienced Ukrainians had hindered the country’s efforts to reform and advance.

Ukraine was also able to sign an Association Agreement with the EU, which offered both access to the vast European market and a detailed roadmap for further reforms. Skillful and forceful reformers were invited to join the government and many good reform laws were adopted. This process abated prematurely in 2016 before reviving briefly in 2019. Despite many setbacks, the overall direction toward greater transparency and Euro-Atlantic integration remained clear.

The past eight years of Russian aggression against Ukraine have helped define the Ukrainian nation. This was already evident in 2014 following the seizure of Crimea and Russia’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine. The consolidation of Ukrainian national identity has become even more pronounced over the past six months since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Today, the Ukrainian nation knows that it is part of Europe. An overwhelming majority of Ukrainians want to join both the European Union and NATO. This also means that Ukrainian society is ready to carry out the vital judicial reforms that have been missing all along.

Existential challenges remain. Ukraine must still overcome Russian aggression and win the war. This is far from certain. Nevertheless, Ukraine approaches this month’s thirty-first anniversary of independence stronger and more united than many in the early 1990s would have dared to believe and ready for economic takeoff if a sustainable peace can be secured.

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

Ben Judah — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 20:42:58 +0000

What future for Hong Kong?

As the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong is marked by the ascension of John Lee to the position of Chief Executive, Senior Fellow Ben Judah interviewed Nathan Law, a Hong Kong democracy activist currently in exile in London. Was the current repression in Hong Kong inevitable under the Chinese Communist Party, or under Xi? How have Britain and the United States aid in the plight of Hong Kong against this repression? How has the UK’s visa offer to the majority of the population benefited Hong Kongers’ attempts to flee the territory?

You can watch #BritainDebrief on YouTube and as a podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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The post #BritainDebrief – What future for Hong Kong? | A Debrief from Nathan Law appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kadhim interviewed on Alhurra about the changes in the Iraq government

Atlantic Council — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 17:25:00 +0000

The post Kadhim interviewed on Alhurra about the changes in the Iraq government appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine confronts Kremlin infiltration threat at unreformed state bodies

Andrew D’Anieri — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 14:42:58 +0000

On July 17, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Ivan Bakanov, the head of Ukraine’s state security service (SBU), and Iryna Venediktova, the country’s prosecutor general. In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said the pair were being removed for allowing treasonous activity to fester at the state bodies they led.

Although concerns over pro-Russian sympathizers within Ukrainian state organs are not new, these recent personnel changes highlight the importance for Ukraine’s national security of further institutional reform. While serious questions are now being asked of the state security and prosecution services, institutions which have undergone comprehensive reform since 2014 such as the Ukrainian military and the country’s energy sector have proven highly effective during the past five months of full-scale war with Russia.

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The SBU is one of Ukraine’s most bloated state institutions. The service maintains a staff of roughly 30,000 employees, nearly as many as its American equivalent, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The sprawling size of the SBU reflects its sweeping mandate. The service combines counterintelligence, investigative, and anti-corruption roles that often overlap with the responsibilities of other state organs.

A combination of size, access to sensitive information, and lack of institutional oversight help to make the SBU ripe for corruption and infiltration by pro-Russian operatives. The threat of Kremlin agents is particularly high as many senior SBU officials began their careers in the Soviet era and are graduates of elite Moscow institutions.

The service’s wide mandate has also made it hard to rein in. Draft laws to reform the SBU have run into roadblocks in the Ukrainian parliament in part because so much needs to be changed that lawmakers cannot agree on how best to do it.

Bakanov’s lack of law enforcement experience made it even more difficult to reform the SBU. A childhood friend of President Zelenskyy’s, he was a TV studio executive before his appointment as SBU head in 2019. While loyal to the president, whispers of pro-Russian sentiments at the SBU ran rampant throughout his tenure. The day before Bakanov’s sacking, authorities arrested the former head of the SBU in Crimea, Oleh Kulinich, on suspicion of treason. Zelenskyy himself said dozens of SBU apparatchiks in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are working “against our state.”

Zelenskyy likewise called out pro-Russian forces within the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), which has also been dogged by allegations of corruption. In 2020, Venediktova’s deputy Oleksiy Symonenko effectively blocked a corruption case against deputy head of the presidential administration Oleh Tatarov by transferring it to the SBU, which critics say then buried the investigation. Anti-corruption activists have since accused Venediktova of being too close to the Office of the President.

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Allegations of corruption and Russian infiltration provide skeptics of Western support for Ukraine with an excuse to push back against the military and humanitarian aid that Kyiv so desperately needs to continue the war effort. In this sense, the Zelenskyy administration’s unwillingness to undertake real reform in the SBU and PGO poses a clear threat to Ukraine’s image in Western capitals.

At the same time, the war with Russia has also shown that reform carries tangible benefits of its own. The Armed Forces of Ukraine were thinly outfitted and poorly trained when Russia first began its military aggression in 2014. During the following eight years, Ukraine reformed its military in line with modern Western standards, introducing a decentralized command structure, civilian defense command, and NATO training methods. Military analysts agree that these reforms have contributed to the exceptional performance of the Ukrainian army over the past five months of the Russian invasion.

State energy grid operator Ukrenergo also underwent significant post-Maidan changes that have paid dividends in the uniquely challenging wartime conditions since February 2022. In the first days of the invasion, Ukrenergo actually completed a key “isolation test” that allowed the Ukrainian electricity system to disconnect from the Russian network and fully integrate with the European grid.

This remarkable success did not happen overnight. Ukrenergo officials and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development worked together for years to improve operational and procurement transparency. These added efficiencies allowed Ukrenergo to reorient Ukraine’s electrical grid to European standards and keep the power on after the February 24 invasion.

The war has made clear that reform is a national security imperative. Ukraine today faces two major threats: Kremlin aggression and domestic corruption. Defending Ukrainian territory is obviously Kyiv’s most pressing priority, but combating corruption and treason on the home front are also vital aspects of the overall war effort.

Firing officials and arresting suspected traitors, as Ukraine did last week, treat the symptoms of unreformed state institutions but do not address their root causes. With an 88% approval rating, Zelenskyy has a popular mandate and a legislative majority in parliament necessary to push ahead with major law enforcement reform. He must now do so. In 2021, a draft law that would have cut the SBU’s mandate was introduced but never voted on. It should now be updated and fast-tracked to the Ukrainian parliament.

Reforming the SBU and PGO will reinforce Ukrainian national security and buttress the country’s reputation abroad. Cohesive, efficient government administration and strong support from the West are essential as Ukraine seeks to fight off Russian aggression. Institutional reform advances these objectives and prepares Ukraine for its Euro-Atlantic future.

Andrew D’Anieri is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Find him on Twitter @andrew_danieri.

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At this stage, Ukraine’s top reform priorities remain judicial reform and the fight against corruption. In order to repair the colossal material damage caused by Putin’s war, Ukraine will require huge amounts of international investment. An effective court system and rule of law safeguards are essential if Ukraine is to attract the necessary levels of investment to finance this vast reconstruction process.

Ukraine’s most immediate reform priorities include appointing new heads of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Fundamental reform is also necessary at the Constitutional Court, Supreme Council of Justice, and the High Qualification Commission of Judges.

As it approaches these reform challenges, Ukraine should take note of positive and negative case studies elsewhere in Europe. Bulgaria and Romania, which became EU members in 2007, were both able to overcome reputations for corruption and introduce judicial reforms with the help of civil society. Meanwhile, Montenegro has achieved significant success in terms of implementing EU security and economic policy but remains far from membership due to a lack of progress toward the rule of law.

Ukraine’s efforts to reduce oligarch influence are crucial for the country’s European integration but must be undertaken within the framework of constitutional and European norms. The Ukrainian authorities should also continue to pursue economic reforms. Trade with the EU must be further liberalized, while the harmful practice of constantly revising tax regulations needs to be abandoned. Crucially, investors must receive guarantees in order to generate the kind of investments necessary to rebuild post-war Ukraine.

In addition to judicial and economic reforms, Ukraine’s European integration also means building a truly inclusive society. The recent ratification of the Istanbul Convention was an important step in the right direction for the country, but Ukraine still needs to develop additional tools that will help monitor and combat all forms of discrimination.

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The potential future benefits of Ukraine’s EU reform agenda are obvious. Indeed, the countries of Central Europe and the Baltic region all adopted similar reforms and have since experienced dramatic improvements in average quality of life. At the same time, countries like Serbia and Bosnia where resistance to reform has been strongest have experienced limited economic and social progress while remaining firmly outside the EU.

Ukrainians are currently locked in a fight for national survival. They know that without victory over Russia, their country will cease to exist. At the same time, EU candidate status offers Ukrainians something clear and specific to aim for. Crucially, the prospect of potential future EU membership gives added meaning to the country’s war effort. It provides Ukrainians with a road map toward European integration and the chance to live a better life. While Russia fights for the authoritarian past, Ukraine fights for a European future.

There may never be a better chance to achieve fundamental change in Ukraine. The unprecedented trauma and turbulence unleashed by Putin’s war have created the momentum to finally move Ukraine away from the chronic corruption of the post-Soviet era. The authorities must now seize the moment while also involving civil society in the reform process.

Ukraine’s war effort remains the absolute priority for the entire country. At the same time, building a better Ukraine is also essential in the long struggle to escape the Kremlin orbit. Ever since Ukraine regained independence in 1991, Ukrainians have viewed European integration as a civilizational choice that would lead the country away from the authoritarianism of the imperial past. Russia has responded to Ukraine’s European choice by unleashing years of unprovoked aggression culminating in the current full-scale invasion. Despite the horrors of Putin’s war, Ukraine’s dream of a European future lives on.

The bravery of Ukraine’s soldiers and the courage of the Ukrainian people have enabled the country to remain firmly on the path of European integration. Their sacrifices must not be betrayed. Instead, the authorities must pursue an ambitious wartime reform agenda that reflects the scale of Ukraine’s European ambitions. EU membership may still be a long way off, but the transformation of Ukraine is already underway and must continue.

Kira Rudik is leader of the Golos party, member of the Ukrainian parliament, and Vice President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

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It is typically illegal to smash someone’s window or to break down someone’s door, but there is an important exception. The fire brigade has legal authority to intentionally break any windows or doors as may be needed in a crisis situation in order to help save lives and to extinguish a blaze.

Ukraine’s legal system has been a smoldering crisis situation since independence. When the time comes to begin Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, Ukraine will need to establish a “legal fire brigade” that will have the authority and the resources to implement the kind of thoroughgoing change and reform of the entire legal system that will be required in order to significantly improve Ukraine’s rule of law and facilitate a successful physical reconstruction, as has been pledged at the Lugano Conference. The very real chance of progress toward EU accession provides further additional motivation.

In most Western countries, rule of law principles developed over a period of centuries. Given Ukraine’s comparatively brief three decades of independence, it should not come as a surprise that efforts to establish the rule of law have been a challenge. This is particularly so given that Ukraine emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union and inherited what was a fundamentally debased legal system.

Legal reform efforts since independence have met with some localized successes. The Prosecution Service has undergone partial reform and is no longer quite the monster it was during the early post-Soviet period. New laws have modified the government’s police powers, while some new institutions such as NABU (the National Anti-Corruption Bureau) have been created with Western support. Unfortunately, some reform efforts themselves are now in need of reform.

The judiciary remains a mess. Western insistence on judicial independence did not foresee that such increased independence in the post-Soviet period would produce segments of the judiciary that happily felt independent in the sense of being completely unaccountable. The result has been brazen judicial corruption. Meanwhile, some agencies involved in law enforcement such as the SBU have evaded review and reform altogether.

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Previous legal reform efforts have faced various hurdles. These have included the absence of political will along with numerous legal or institutional barriers to reform.

What might a “legal fire brigade” look like and what might its authorities be? Ideally, it should consist of three components: an Executive Committee; a support staff for the Executive Committee; and an Advisory Council to the Executive Committee that would consist of 10-15 Ukrainian lawyers with at least 10 years of experience in different areas of practice. This Council would be expected to help identify the chief barriers to reform and to serve as an ongoing sounding board for all proposed changes and reforms being formulated by the Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee should consist of at least two highly-placed representatives of the Executive Branch, one from the Office of the President and one from the Cabinet of Ministers, and two members of the Ukrainian Parliament. The rest of the Executive Committee should consist of a mix of persons with training and experience relevant to this project, some from Western countries who also have experience in Ukraine or in other post-Soviet countries and a parallel set of Ukrainians with experience in analogous professions or agencies.

More specifically, it would be valuable to have three experienced judges from the West, two from countries with Anglo-American common law legal systems and one from a country with a EU civil law system, and two Ukrainian judges, one a trial court judge and one with appellate, Supreme or Constitutional Court experience.

The Executive Committee, with the help of support staff and the Advisory Council, would be charged with producing a holistic plan of reforms that included drafts of proposed parliamentary legislation, proposed administrative rules and regulations, proposals for improved legal education, and proposals for creating, reorganizing or dismantling units within ministries, agencies or other institutional structures.

The project’s operational goals would include significantly reducing corruption, increasing overall legal system effectiveness, and avoiding harmful unintended consequences that arise when proposed changes are not well thought out.

The entire project would need to be funded by a consortium of countries and international organizations that will be investing in Ukraine’s reconstruction. The time frame would be three years with an additional year if required to complete some portion of the project. In order to make sense, the project would require a specific and public commitment in principle by both the executive and legislative branches of Ukraine’s government to adopt the reforms being proposed and generated by the Executive Committee.

Year to year funding for the project by Western supporters should be contingent on the Ukrainian government’s living up to its part of the bargain. This kind of systemic innovation is the only way to radically transform Ukraine’s broken legal system and provide the country with the rule of law foundations it requires in order to build a better future.

Bohdan Vitvitsky is a former Resident Legal Advisor at the US Embassy in Ukraine and Special Advisor to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General.

Second, from the perspective of many Middle Eastern governments, the war in Ukraine highlights Western double standards. They see that the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 with little of the reaction from states around the world that has accompanied Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For many Arab regimes, the invasion of Iraq was the opening salvo in the region’s two-decade-old upheaval. The invasion not only dismantled Iraq’s ruling party and state institutions, it also opened the door to the expansion of Iranian influence in Lebanon, Iraq, and beyond. The onset of the Arab Spring in 2011, and the autocratic backlash against these uprisings, plunged countries into deep crises. It also allowed Tehran to mobilize proxy forces in Syria and Yemen, so much so that former Iranian MP and current mayor of Tehran Ali Reza Zakani once boasted that Iran controlled three Arab capitals with a fourth on the way (Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus and Sanaa). For different Arab countries, especially in the Gulf, this poses an existential threat to their regimes.

A third consideration is that Arab countries have felt abandoned by the United States as they have faced the spread of Iran’s regional influence. They are no longer convinced of the United States’ commitment to maintain the rules-based global order. Gone are the days when Washington dominated a unipolar international order. Today, countries such as China, Russia, and Iran are more openly challenging the United States. At the same time, the United States has declared its intention to pivot away from the Middle East and decrease its military footprint there, leading to a regional power scramble. This has pushed Arab states to reconsider their previous reliance on a US security umbrella and pursue their interests independently of Washington. One aspect of this approach has been to remain on good terms with all the major powers, since the United States, Russia, and China all provide safeguards against Iran’s rising sway.

In the Middle East, US disengagement has led regional and global powers to fill the subsequent void. This has included Russia and to a lesser extent China, but also regional countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, not to mention Israel. They have adopted an expansive interpretation of their own national security, thereby triggering, making more likely, or prolonging conflicts across the region. In Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people have been killed, and millions displaced, as different regional actors have sought to shape political outcomes to their advantage in countries often far from their borders.

Syria is one place where the impact of the war in Ukraine may be most directly visible in terms of regional calculations. What worries many Arab states is that the war in Ukraine could upend the precarious status quo in Syria. There have been concerns voiced recently, notably by King Abdullah of Jordan during a visit to Washington, that Russia may be withdrawing some of its forces from Syria to fight in Ukraine, and repositioning others inside Syria, allowing Iran to expand its footprint in some parts of the country. In southern Syria, where Russia had guaranteed stability starting in 2018, there is increasing instability today, with more regular attacks in border areas as well as targeted assassinations of former rebels in Deraa. In this context, both the Syrian regime and Iran have been keen to reassert the strength of their alliance, as Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Tehran on May 8 demonstrated. For Iran, it is about projecting power across the region as nuclear negotiations reach a climax in Vienna.

The prospect of an expanded Iranian deployment near the Golan Heights is also causing concern in Israel. If Russian-Israeli tensions increase, this may undermine Israel’s capacity to conduct air raids against Iranian and Hezbollah positions in Syria. Until now, Russia has generally avoided firing anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli aircrafts, which Israel has interpreted as an implicit green light to continue such attacks. However, Moscow is said to have allowed the recent use of such missiles against Israeli aircraft conducting a raid against Iranian and Syrian military positions. In time, this may alter the military equation in Syria. However, whether it will prompt Israel to modify its gradual tilt toward Ukraine in the war with Russia remains to be seen.

In this fraught environment, it is not surprising that many Arab countries have favored regional deescalation. This means continuing the process that began in 2020, when three Arab states—the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco—formally agreed to diplomatic ties with Israel through what was collectively known as the Abraham Accords. US policy makers are also working to forge an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. There have been other reconciliations as well, as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt restored normal ties with Qatar in 2021, and as Turkey mended its relationships with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel in 2022.

Countries of the region have also taken note of Russia’s intimation that it might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, particularly in light of the negotiations with Iran over reviving the nuclear agreement. There are two sets of concerns for the Arab states. They worry that if the nuclear agreement is not revived and Iran builds a nuclear device, this could lead to a regional arms race. And they worry that if it is revived, the fact that it fails to address Iran’s regional activities would allow Tehran, which would benefit from an inflow of cash as sanctions are lifted, to reinforce its network of proxies throughout the Arab world.

Countries of the region are also exploiting the war in Ukraine to advance their political goals or impose favorable arrangements. Turkey, for example, has announced that it will launch a military operation to create a 30-kilometer safe zone along its border with Syria, something it was unable to do previously because of Russian mediation of a cease-fire and the prospects of European pushback. Even though it is uncertain whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will go ahead with his plan, his desire is to clear the border area of its Kurdish population, and of militants loyal to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and replace them with Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey, whose presence has become a polarizing issue in Turkey. If this were to take place, and notwithstanding the significantly different border conditions, it would open the door for other countries, such as Lebanon, which is going through a major economic and financial collapse, to revive calls for the international community to help it establish a safe zone along its borders to which Syrian refugees could be moved. Indeed, Lebanese policy makers have recently made such appeals including the country’s Prime Minister Najib Miqati.

Meanwhile, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have taken advantage of Western countries’ need for lower oil and gas prices to redesign their relationship with the United States. A high-level U.S. delegation traveled to the UAE to offer condolences after the death of its ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In July, US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., will visit Saudi Arabia and meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), something he had refused to do thus far because of the crown prince’s suspected involvement in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. This comes after leaked news that MBS and the then de facto ruler of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, had both refused to take calls from Biden, who sought an increase in oil production to offset the global increase in oil prices because of supply shortages resulting from the boycott of Russian hydrocarbons. For its part, the UAE is seeking to negotiate better access to US intelligence and targeting capabilities to prevent future attacks by the Houthis in Yemen. It would also like Washington to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist group.

What Arab governments will be especially careful to watch, however, is the economic impact of the Ukraine war on their own societies, particularly on the cost of food and basic commodities. The Ukraine war is having a detrimental effect globally on economic growth and will aggravate inflationary pressures. In the Middle East and North Africa, close to 80 percent of Tunisia, Lebanon, and Egypt’s wheat imports come from Ukraine and Russia, while energy prices have been soaring because of the cutoff of Russian oil and gas. Given the size of the vulnerable populations in the region, food crises are increasingly likely, with the concomitant impact this will have on social and, therefore, political stability. There is significant concern that the knock-on effects of rising global inflation may also lead to widespread protests. The Arab Gulf countries, for whom the increase in oil prices as a result of the Ukraine war has been a bonanza, had already taken action to address potential food security challenges. Most Arab Gulf countries implemented food security strategies in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and others, such as the UAE, went as far as dedicating a ministry to food security. The financial gains from the increase in oil prices gives them an additional buffer. As a result, the socioeconomic impacts of the war in Ukraine in these countries continue to be muted for now. In oil-importing countries such as Egypt, which is also facing a substantial economic crisis, the government has increased the number of beneficiaries of its cash transfer programs. For countries in conflict—Syria, Libya, and Yemen—or those facing economic collapse, such as Lebanon, fiscal solutions are simply not possible.

The road ahead is paved with major challenges. The impact of the Ukraine war on the Middle East and North Africa, and indeed globally, will very much depend on the conflict’s duration. If, as expected, it is protracted, this could have potentially catastrophic political and social repercussions for the Middle East.

Maha Yahya is the Director of the Malcom H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center where her works focuses on political violence, identity politics and social justice.

In-Depth Research & Reports

Jul 12, 2022

Evolving MENA power balances: What is next for US engagement in the region?

By Karim Mezran, Valeria Talbot, Jonathan Panikoff, Sanam Vakil, Maha Yahya, Mark N. Katz, Gangzheng She, and Julien Barnes-Dacey

US President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s upcoming visit to the Middle East provides an opportunity to assess what role the United States will play in the Middle East and North Africa in the future. With the war in Ukraine further diverting US attention from the region, the big question is whether the region is entering a ‘post-US’ era.

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The post The Arab World and the Ukraine conflict: The quest for nonalignment appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine edges closer to EU dream despite horrors of Putin’s war

Peter Dickinson — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 18:27:11 +0000

During Ukraine’s iconic early twenty-first century Orange Revolution, a large banner erected at the tent city in downtown Kyiv proclaimed proudly: “We are carrying out a Euro-renovation of our state. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Ukraine’s European ambitions were not initially the principal driving force behind the Orange Revolution. Instead, the 2004 people power uprising came about in direct response to the very specific circumstances of a rigged Ukrainian presidential election. Nevertheless, the aspirational and somewhat romanticized notions of Europe encapsulated in that tent city banner provide crucial context for anyone wishing to understand Ukraine’s dramatic geopolitical journey over the past three decades.

In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe served as the idealized “other” for newly independent Ukrainians and was frequently invoked to underline the imperfect realities of post-Soviet Ukraine. In an environment of economic hardship and growing inequality, the prefix “Euro” soon became synonymous with unattainable quality of all kinds. Expensive restaurants offered “Euro-cuisine,” elite real estate came with “Euro-renovation,” and virtually anything deemed superior was referred to as “Euro-standard.” It was hardly surprising, therefore, that participants in the Orange Revolution should see their attempt to establish democratic government as another example of moving toward preferable European norms.

This understanding of Europe as a source of democratic rights and the rule of law has remained central to the evolving public debate over Ukraine’s future direction ever since. While the European Union is regarded by many member states as a primarily economic bloc, Ukrainians have consistently viewed future EU membership in far grander terms as a symbol of their country’s civilizational choice.

This helps to explain the celebratory mood in war-torn Ukraine on June 23 when European leaders granted the country official EU candidate nation status. While many noted the catastrophic price Ukraine has paid for this relatively modest step forward in the country’s EU integration, others saw candidate status as a long overdue breakthrough and a significant victory for Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression.

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Ukraine’s European choice is not intrinsically anti-Russian, of course. Indeed, even as support for European integration consolidated in the years following the 2014 outbreak of hostilities between the two countries, large numbers of Ukrainians continued to express positive attitudes towards Russians. This tolerant approach survived until the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In contrast, Moscow has always viewed Ukraine’s EU ambitions as an existential threat to Russia. While Kremlin officials typically prefer to focus their public attacks on the red meat issue of NATO enlargement, the origins of today’s war can be traced directly back to Russian anger over the prospect of a relatively innocuous Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s heavy-handed intervention in October 2013 initially succeeded in derailing the planned signing of the Association Agreement. However, Moscow’s actions also sparked massive protests in Ukraine which soon spiraled into the Euromaidan Revolution and the fall of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin government. Russia responded to this setback by invading Crimea and eastern Ukraine. This in turn set the stage for the outbreak of Europe’s largest conflict since WWII in February 2022.

Russian concerns over the emergence of a European Ukraine are rooted in the Putin regime’s obsession with the collapse of the USSR. The eclipse of Soviet power remains the formative political experience for Putin personally and many members of his inner circle, who fear that Ukraine’s transformation could serve as a catalyst for the next chapter in Russia’s long imperial decline. Haunted by the people power uprisings that swept Central Europe in the late 1980s, they are now apparently prepared to pay almost any price in order to prevent Ukraine from serving as inspiration for similar democratic change within Russia itself. This hardline approach is perhaps not as surprising as it might at first appear. After all, at stake is the survival of Putin’s authoritarian regime and possibly Russia itself.

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Russia’s implacable opposition to Ukraine’s European integration lies at the heart of the current war and is the greatest single security threat in the world today. Having failed to bribe or bully Ukrainians into abandoning their European ambitions, Putin has resorted to waging a war of annihilation that seeks to eradicate Ukrainian identity and destroy the Ukrainian state itself.

Europe has responded by offering Ukraine EU candidate status, but it is not yet clear whether this welcome symbolism will be accompanied by sufficient substance. Over the coming months, the progress of Ukraine’s candidacy will go a long way to determining not only the ultimate outcome of the current conflict but also the future trajectory of the European Union as a whole. An organization founded to prevent war and unite Europe cannot hope to flourish if it fails to support a potential future member state that finds itself under genocidal attack for the crime of embracing core European values.

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is now in its fifth month but the conflict is actually far older. Ukrainians have spent the past eight years fighting for the right to a European future and face the prospect of further painful sacrifices. Russia’s violent intervention has transformed what should have been a largely bureaucratic process of economic and political reform into a bloody battle for national survival.

There was nothing inevitable about any of this. The only reason Moscow finds itself so completely opposed to Ukraine’s European ambitions is because modern Russia has chosen the path of dictatorship over democracy. This simple fact must shape the West’s response to the ongoing conflict and serve to guarantee maximum EU support for Ukraine’s further integration. Granting Ukraine candidate status is a step in the right direction, but as long as the country is stuck in the geopolitical grey zone, it will remain a target for Russian aggression and a source of international instability.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Melinda Haring (@melindaharing): Deputy director of the Eurasia Center
Petr Tůma (@PetrVTuma): Visiting fellow at the Europe Center and Czech diplomat

END OF THE BEGINNING

Despite the major moral victory for Ukraine—which applied for EU membership shortly after Russia’s invasion—Petr cautions that while he’s “convinced” Kyiv will successfully move toward accession negotiations, which is when a candidate country’s conditions for membership are set out, all the hard work is still ahead. This move “doesn’t even mark the opening of accession talks,” he told us, adding that “EU member states have to agree on accession negotiations in the same unilateral way as they did today.”
Melinda reminds us that Kyiv’s candidacy can be suspended at any time if it doesn’t make the raft of political and economic reforms, mainly to clean up corruption, that the EU requires. “Normally it takes years for countries to move from candidate to full-fledged member status, so this means that Ukraine must put its reforms into overdrive if it wants to stay a member while holding off the Russians.”

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INSIDE THE DEBATE

Petr says Kyiv’s fast-track candidacy rankled some countries in the Western Balkans such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, which itself is still waiting to achieve EU candidate status. “From what I heard from Brussels, discussions in the Council went longer than expected” because several European leaders raised these reservations, he told us, adding that Ukraine’s supporters in Brussels believe “Kyiv shouldn’t fall victim” to those complaints.
And anyone still afraid of the financial costs of Ukraine’s candidacy should remember one thing, Petr advises: Brussels will be prying open its pocketbook to rebuild Ukraine anyway. “What would flow to Ukraine in the framework of its EU candidacy will be only a fraction of what the EU should offer for post-war reconstruction” in the country.
There were also some pleasant surprises in the deliberations, Melinda said, such as a green light from Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte—whose population rejected a Ukraine-EU treaty in a 2016 referendum by a margin of around two to one. “He’s willing to take short-term political pain in exchange for doing the right thing morally,” she told us.

FRONTLINE FEARS

Still, Melinda warns us, there’s a real concern among Ukrainians that “compassion fatigue” is setting in—even in the EU’s frontline states from which she just returned. “In one humanitarian center I visited in Poland, donations are down 80 percent.”
Meanwhile, she adds, political elites in those NATO countries are increasingly wondering whether they can really bet on collective defense. “Foreign-policy elites in Vilnius are very worried about their own security, and many do not think NATO’s Article 5 guarantees are enough. They want NATO and US troops on the ground.”

The post FAST THINKING: The EU gives Ukraine a shot at membership. What’s next for Kyiv? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Preble on Net Assessment: Is Biden’s approach to Latin America a problem?

Atlantic Council — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 18:33:00 +0000

Former Co-Director, New American Engagement Initiative

On June 23, Christopher Preble co-hosted a new iteration of the Net Assessment podcast in the War on the Rocks network about the Summit of the Americas.

By all accounts, the Summit was poorly organized, and attending leaders were unimpressed with the lack of consultation before the event and with the initiatives set forth by the US during the conference. Does the planning and execution of the Summit tell us anything about the Biden administration’s foreign policy more broadly? What should our policies towards Central and South American countries be? And are President Biden and his team unwilling to make hard choices in foreign policy because the decisions will be unpopular with important domestic constituencies?

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Christopher Preble

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“Historic victory for women’s rights”: Ukraine ratifies Istanbul Convention

Iryna Slavinska — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:15:58 +0000

Ukrainian MPs voted on June 20 to ratify the Istanbul Convention, which is widely recognized as the most far-reaching international treaty addressing violence against women and domestic violence. Ratification marks another step forward in Ukraine’s European integration and underlines Ukrainian determination to continue the country’s transformation despite the huge challenges posed by the ongoing war with Russia.

The move was hailed as an “historic victory for women’s rights in Ukraine” by Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard. “This decision could not be more timely amid disturbing reports and allegations of sexual violence against Ukrainian women in Russian-occupied territories,” commented Callamard. “Prompt implementation should equip the Ukrainian authorities to deal with these atrocities, and serve to reassure the survivors and give them confidence to seek justice.”

For many Ukrainians, ratification is seen as long overdue. Ukraine signed the Istanbul Convention more than a decade ago in 2011. This landmark human rights treaty was then ratified by a long list of European countries but the process stalled in Ukraine itself.

The first attempt to ratify the Istanbul Convention came in 2016 but fell short due to a lack of support from Ukrainian MPs. Commenting on this failure, some MPs made reference to concerns among religious organizations such as the Council of Churches over the use of the word “gender” in the text of the Convention. This was particularly disappointing as Ukrainian anti-discrimination and labor laws had employed the same terminology since 2005.

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Non-ratification in 2016 sparked calls for Ukrainian civil society to engage with MPs on gender-related topics in order to address outdated stereotypes. However, the setback also highlighted disquiet within some conservative segments of Ukrainian society over changing attitudes toward gender issues and consequent fears among MPs that support for progressive legislation could ultimately cost them votes.

Despite these traditionalist concerns, some steps were taken to address the problem of domestic violence by introducing changes to the Criminal Code of Ukraine and adopting a range of other measures. Innovations included the creation of dedicated response teams within Ukrainian law enforcement focused specifically on domestic violence.

This progress was seen as welcome but insufficient. Meanwhile, many continued to press for ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Petitions addressing the president on the issue garnered considerable support, while demands to ratify the Convention became a key feature of Ukraine’s annual Women’s March and other events promoting women’s rights.

With calls growing in Ukrainian society for greater efforts to combat domestic and gender-based violence, bastions of social conservatism have been forced to acknowledge the need for more action. While some religious groups have continued to oppose ratification, recent declarations have mentioned efforts to create shelters for survivors of domestic violence.

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Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2022 dramatically altered the context underpinning the debate over ratification of the Istanbul Convention. While some sections of Ukrainian society remain suspicious of progressive approaches to family and gender issues, the need to demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to the core European values of equality and human rights has become paramount.

It is no coincidence that ratification finally took place just days before European Union leaders are due to convene in Brussels to discuss granting Ukraine EU candidate nation status. Clearly, Ukraine is eager to underline the fact that it shares the EU commitment to combating domestic violence and deserves to be recognized as a potential future member state.

Ukraine’s EU candidate bid has bolstered earlier efforts by Ukrainian civil society to promote ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Ukrainian feminists, human rights activists, lawyers, and NGOs all made vital contributions.

While geopolitical factors appear to have played a significant role in the timing of ratification, the ultimate beneficiaries will be ordinary Ukrainians. Ratifying the Istanbul Convention will help create a whole new framework reducing the potential for domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence. Ukrainian women will be better protected and perpetrators will stand a far greater chance of facing justice.

Iryna Slavinska is Executive Producer at Radio Culture.

Putin believes the emergence of a European Ukraine would spark demands for similar change within Russia itself and serve as a catalyst for the next stage in Russia’s slow but steady imperial decline. As the current invasion demonstrates, he is prepared to go to almost any lengths to prevent the loss of Ukraine.

Ukrainians overwhelmingly support EU integration and expect to receive good news from this week’s summit. At the same time, there are no illusions over the likelihood of a fast track to membership. The Atlantic Council asked a range of experts what they think EU candidate nation status would mean for Ukraine.

Miriam Kosmehl, Senior Expert Eastern Europe, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany: Ukrainians would be rightly encouraged by EU candidate status. This step is needed to revitalize reform efforts and impact political decision-making within the Ukrainian government.

The progress Ukraine has made in EU integration under the Association Agreement since 2014 gives it an excellent start because all aspects of the enlargement process feature in Ukraine’s existing commitments within the Association Agreement.

At the same time, significant rule of law and corruption challenges remain. The five bodies of the anti-corruption ecosystem established after Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity have demonstrated an ability to target corruption effectively, but they have themselves been targeted by older structures in the judiciary, the public prosecutor’s office, and the security services.

Ukrainian society is currently mobilizing tremendous resources to resist Russian aggression. It can be hoped that EU candidate nation status would help civil society to shape the political agenda, much as it did in 2014. Anti-corruption institutions remain institutionally intact despite the war but have been forced to scale down their activities. They must continue to work and receive full backing from the authorities.

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Vitaly Sych, Chief Editor, NV media house: There are a number of reasons why official EU recognition of Ukraine’s European aspirations is extremely important right now. The first reason is emotional. Ukrainians need encouraging news and a glimpse of hope in these painful times. EU candidate status would definitely qualify.

Secondly, it is a great chance to modernize the country. Accession to the EU comes with a long list of conditions that will require Kyiv to make major progress in different areas from judicial reform to personal freedoms and business regulations. The government will come under huge pressure from the Ukrainian media, civil society, and Western partners to carry out these reforms. This can help Ukraine make rapid progress, much as the push for visa-free EU travel a few years ago made it possible to adopt dozens of reforms that might otherwise not have been implemented.

Candidate status would also bring financial advantages. It would send a strong signal to the whole world that Ukraine is an attractive investment opportunity offering the possibility of strong future growth.

Ultimately, receiving EU candidate status would represent a significant milestone in Ukraine’s efforts to finally kiss goodbye to the Soviet legacy and rejoin the European family of nations. At the end of the day, that is what the current war is all about.

Olena Halushka, Co-founder, International Center for Ukrainian Victory: Granting EU candidate status to Ukraine would be a powerful symbolic step that would also have tangible practical implications for the country.

First and foremost, candidate status would represent well-deserved recognition for Ukraine’s reform progress since 2014. It would send a signal of support and boost the morale of Ukraine’s frontline defenders and those currently living in Russian-occupied regions of the country. It would also convey a powerful message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine is part of the EU family and will one day become a full member of the European Union.

Candidate status will bring with it a roadmap of reforms that will serve as powerful leverage for civil society to maintain the momentum of Ukraine’s reformist agenda. The list which was offered by the European Commission includes some important measures which are already priorities of my organization, the Anti-Corruption Action Center. This includes reforming the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges along with the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

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Taras Kuzio, Research Fellow, Henry Jackson Society: By granting Ukraine EU candidate status, the EU can push back against Russian aggression and longstanding Kremlin opposition to Ukraine’s European integration. Russia first began opposing EU enlargement after the Eastern Partnership initiative was launched in 2009. From that point onward, Russia began to regard the EU in the same hostile manner as it had traditionally viewed NATO.

Crucially, candidate status would take Ukraine out of the geopolitical grey zone between Eurasia and Europe. It would set Ukraine firmly on a European path leading away from Moscow and the Eurasian Economic Union project which Putin had sought to build around a core of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Candidate status would be both a reflection of Ukraine’s reform progress since 2014 and deserved recognition for Ukraine’s determination to defend its sovereignty and European aspirations. Ukrainians first paid in blood for their European choice during the country’s Euromaidan Revolution and are now doing so against Russian forces in what is Europe’s largest conflict since WWII.

Andy Hunder, President, American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine: The message behind EU candidate status is clear: Ukraine is coming home. Ukraine is returning to the European family of nations whose values it shares, and is moving away from the yoke of Russia’s vicious stranglehold.

EU candidate status will launch a new trajectory of GDP growth while providing a massive morale boost for post-war economic transformation and reform implementation. Such a move sends a positive message to investors that Ukraine is moving on the right track. There is no future for clean business in Russia. Instead, companies will look at Ukraine as a prime destination for post-war investment.

If Ukraine is granted EU candidate nation status, the country will undoubtedly put maximum effort into carrying out all the necessary reforms in the shortest possible time such as implementing real and effective judicial reform, rule of law, fair justice, and establishing a level playing field for the business community. We will see a comprehensive approach to creating a robust state and competitive economy.

Oleksiy Goncharenko, Ukrainian MP, European Solidarity party: For Ukraine, the decision to grant European Union candidate status would be much more than a mere technical formality. It would demonstrate that Europe stands with Ukraine and refuses to submit to Russian blackmail. It would represent the ultimate answer to the simple question of whether Ukraine has a future beyond the current devastating war.

Candidate status would also provide important new impetus for reforms in the country. This potential to drive reforms is evident from the fruitful experience of other European countries that have already passed through the candidate phase toward eventual EU membership. Meanwhile, Ukraine could expect positive economic consequences from candidate status due to the gradual impact of reforms and increased investor confidence in the future of the country.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Time for EU leaders to honor Ukraine’s long fight for a European future

Mark Temnycky — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 20:15:51 +0000

European Union leaders will gather in Brussels on June 23-24 to vote on recognizing Ukraine as an EU candidate country. The importance of this step for both Ukraine and Europe should not be underestimated. Indeed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has branded it “one of the most fateful decisions for Ukraine since 1991.”

Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration ambitions have been central to the country’s political evolution for the past two decades and have had a profound impact on the wider geopolitical landscape.

The 2004 Orange Revolution was the first major indication of Ukraine’s civilizational choice. This people power uprising saw millions of Ukrainians take to the streets in protest over efforts to rig the country’s presidential election in favor of a pro-Kremlin candidate. It was to prove a watershed moment that marked Ukraine’s rejection of Russian authoritarianism in favor of European democracy.

Almost a decade later when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych reneged on his commitment to sign a landmark Association Agreement with the European Union, millions of Ukrainians once again flocked to central Kyiv to defend their European choice. This second revolution reached a tragic climax when dozens of protesters were gunned down in the heart of the Ukrainian capital. At the time, many observers noted that these victims were the first people to die for the cause of European integration.

Sadly, the February 2014 massacre of protesters in central Kyiv was just the beginning. It was followed almost immediately by a campaign of Russian military aggression that would traumatize and transform Ukraine over the following eight years before eventually plunging Europe into the largest armed conflict since WWII.

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Vladimir Putin decided to intervene militarily in Ukraine because he recognized that the country’s European integration posed an existential threat to his own authoritarian regime. Putin saw the Ukrainian desire to embrace European democracy as a dangerous new stage in Russia’s long imperial retreat. Haunted by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ghosts of 1991, the Russian dictator was determined to crush Ukraine’s European aspirations at all costs.

Within days of the February 2014 killings in Kyiv, the Russian Federation invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Russia then launched a hybrid military campaign to seize large parts of mainland Ukraine, deploying a mix of conventional forces, mercenaries and local collaborators to establish so-called separatist republics in the east of the country. The war in eastern Ukraine resulted in over 14,000 Ukrainian deaths and forced millions to flee their homes. However, it failed in its primary objective of derailing Ukraine’s European integration efforts.

As hostilities in eastern Ukraine rumbled on from 2014 until early 2022, successive Ukrainian governments pursued crucial anti-corruption and economic reforms to meet EU standards. While progress was often slow and backsliding remained a constant threat, Ukraine was able to gradually implement the terms of the country’s EU Association Agreement and secure visa-free travel to the European Union.

This progress proved popular. Since the outbreak of hostilities with Russia, Ukrainian public support for European integration has surged. According to a February 2014 poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, 41% of Ukrainian citizens wanted their country to join the EU. Today, that figure has jumped to 80%.

Putin’s long-term military campaign against Ukraine has now entered by far its deadliest stage. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24 has already claimed tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives and left entire cities in ruins. Despite the horrors of Putin’s war, Ukrainians have not abandoned the goal of joining the EU. Just days after the invasion began, President Zelenskyy made history by submitting an official EU membership application request.

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The European Parliament and European Commission have recently confirmed their backing for Ukraine’s bid to become an EU candidate country. This candidate status would bring numerous benefits for Ukraine. It would strengthen Ukraine’s commitment to fighting corruption and provide new impetus in the struggle to reform the country’s institutions. Candidate status would also have powerful symbolic value, boosting Ukrainian morale at a critical moment in the country’s history while underlining Ukraine’s position as part of the wider European family of nations.

Securing candidate status will require unanimous support from all 27 European Union member states. This looks feasible. Many EU members have already declared their backing, with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Romania recently voicing their approval during a June 16 visit to Kyiv.

Becoming an official candidate for EU membership will be an important step for Ukraine but the journey ahead will nevertheless remain challenging. There are a number of other European countries with candidate status including Turkey, Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania. Moreover, some EU auditors have stated that the EU accession of Bulgaria and Romania came too quickly. The EU will hope to avoid a similar situation with current and future candidate countries. Finally, fast-tracking Ukraine could “create frustration and instability in the Western Balkans.”

There are additional potential roadblocks. Some members have recently opposed EU enlargement while arguing that internal reforms must be prioritized. Russia will also do everything it can to derail Ukraine’s bid for EU membership. As the Russian invasion continues, the Ukrainian economy shrinks. Experts believe it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild the country. Some Europeans may be hesitant to take on responsibility for Ukraine.

Granting Ukraine EU candidate status would send a powerful message of solidarity and support to Ukrainians. Likewise, any attempts to postpone or reject Ukraine’s candidacy would risk emboldening the Kremlin and encouraging further Russian aggression.

Few would deny that the Ukrainian people have earned the right to a European future. Indeed, through their sacrifices and heroism, they have given new meaning to the entire notion of European values. It is now up to EU leaders to recognize this achievement and grant Ukraine the status the country so richly deserves.

Mark Temnycky is an accredited freelance journalist covering Eastern Europe and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Croatia’s remarkable national journey is a source of hope for Ukraine

Vladyslav Rashkovan — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 18:16:42 +0000

I recently had a fascinating chat with my colleague, Darjan Milutinovic. We discussed a country fighting for its freedom at a time when its independence was denied by a far more powerful neighbor. This adversary launched a full-scale invasion with a much larger army and occupied a quarter of the country while destroying entire cities and committing war crimes. People experienced mass murder, torture and rape, with citizens herded into camps. The country’s economy collapsed but the people fought on, buoyed by a strong vision of a brighter future.

This sounds exactly like Ukraine’s current experience, but it is actually the story of Croatia in the early 1990s.

In 1991, Europe’s biggest conflict since WWII erupted in the Balkans when the Yugoslavian military invaded Croatia after it declared independence. Serbia opposed the secession and sought to claim Croatian lands populated by ethnic Serbs. After an initial attempt to occupy Croatia failed, a self-proclaimed Serbia-backed entity was established within Croatia occupying 26% of the country.

In 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives and regained control over the occupied regions of the country. Despite this success, the cost of the conflict was huge. From a pre-war population of four million, around 15,000 civilians and soldiers were killed or missing. More than half a million people were displaced. Economic losses were equally severe, with GDP falling by half during the first year of the conflict alone. Meanwhile, infrastructure damaged was estimated at approximately EUR 250 billion, or five times Croatia’s annual GDP.

In every single category, these figures are strikingly similar to the costs inflicted on Ukraine during the first four months of today’s ongoing Russian invasion.

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Since the end of the Balkan Wars, Croatia has made huge progress. It has undergone a transformation from war-torn country to a high-income EU member state and, after Slovenia, is now the most developed country in the region.

The celebration of Croatia’s Statehood Day this year coincided with a historic milestone for Croatia; the European Commission (EC) and the ECB published a Convergence Report which concluded that Croatia is the only non-euro EU country ready to implement the EURO from 2023. The EC also concluded that Croatia no longer suffers from macroeconomic imbalances and can be excluded from the Macro Imbalances Procedure (MIP). Croatia is now expected to join the Schengen zone and become an OECD member in the near future.

Reaching this point was not easy. For a quarter of a century, Croatian governments have had to tackle challenges including rebuilding the country, establishing a sensible monetary regime, and handling successive economic crises. Through it all, Croatia’s strong commitment to EU integration has served as a guiding light that has helped steer the country toward more prosperous times.

The parallels between Croatia’s earlier predicament and Ukraine’s current plight are immediately apparent. Both countries were forced to fight for their freedom, identity and independence against a more powerful neighbor. Thankfully, today’s Ukraine also shares the same sense of national unity and solidarity that proved so crucial in Croatia’s earlier success.

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Croatians have enormous empathy for Ukraine’s suffering because it is so painfully familiar. Indeed, this emotional bond has been evident ever since Russian aggression against Ukraine first began with the seizure of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Croatia has provided humanitarian and military aid, with individual Croatians volunteering to help defend Ukraine.

While Ukrainians are very grateful for all this material and moral support, we believe Croatia offers something even more precious: hope. Croatia’s national journey is a source of inspiration for all Ukrainians. It tells us that victory over a far stronger adversary is possible. It gives us reason to believe that occupied lands can be liberated and reintegrated. And it allows us to look with growing confidence toward a future within the European family of nations.

Ukrainians expect to receive EU candidate nation status in the coming days, but nobody in Ukraine is under any illusions over the difficulties that lie ahead. The war with Russia is far from over. Ukraine is fighting not only for its independence but for its very existence. Once this existential threat is overcome, Ukraine must then meet the demanding criteria for EU membership. This historic process may take time, but the journey made by Croatia gives us hope and inspiration.

Vladyslav Rashkovan is Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund.

A new transatlantic relationship for the Middle East and North Africa

Alexandra Kaiss — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 15:14:07 +0000

On June 7, the Atlantic Council’s (AC) North Africa Initiative hosted an event, “New Transatlantic Relations for the Middle East and North Africa,” in collaboration with US Embassy Rome and Centro Studi Americani. Moderated by Karim Mezran, director of the AC’s North Africa Initiative and resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the event explored increased Russian and Chinese presence in North Africa, as well as opportunities to leverage the US-Italian partnership to address challenges from great power activity in the region.

The event included opening remarks by William Wechsler, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs; Thomas Smitham, chargé’ d’affaires of the US Embassy in Rome; and Ferdinando Salleo, former ambassador of Italy to the United States. It featured a broad panel of experts, with Valeria Talbot, co-head of the Middle East and North Africa Centre at the Institute for International Political Studies; Khemaies Jhinaoui, former minister of foreign affairs of Tunisia and founder of the Tunisian Council for International Relations; Jonathan Fulton, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; and Dina Fakoussa-Bherens, associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Opening the discussion, Weschler emphasized the necessity of transatlantic cooperation in creating sustained policy change in North Africa, presenting a strong counterargument to the perception that the US has vacated the region. Salleo contextualized North Africa at-large, emphasizing the impact of the Ukrainian conflict on the economies of both Europe and North Africa. Smitham contended that these challenges can be addressed by greater US-Italian partnership in the region, which has grown stronger in the past year under the Italian presidency of the G20 and bilateral meetings between President Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Remarks from Keynote Speaker Yael Lempert
In her keynote speech, Yael Lempert, acting deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, addressed widespread misconceptions of US withdrawal from North Africa and the Middle East (MENA), affirming that the Biden administration has focused on affirmative engagement in the region. Through this initiative, the US is empowering North African nations to decide with whom and when they cooperate on issues. Lempert made clear that regional stability is in the best interest of nations across the globe, and that the US will continue to have a newly defined presence in North Africa that highlights the region’s human potential. She underscored this commitment through the US’s donation of 35 million COVID-19 vaccines, alongside ongoing collaboration on key issues such as climate change.

According to Lempert, the US has also been at the forefront of enacting a sustainable political vision in the MENA. The US continues to deliver transformative regional changes through the Abraham Accords, as shown by increased economic and diplomatic engagement between Israel and its once adversarial regional neighbors. In nearby Syria, the US has maintained its voice for peace by advocating for a ceasefire agreement, cross-border mechanisms, and accountability for the Assad regime. These efforts have proven to be effective in Libya, where the US and allies have upheld a 19-month ceasefire agreement that has facilitated political negotiations.

However, Lempert warned that the positive effects of such transatlantic efforts are under threat. Russia and China have both benefitted from the status-quo created by an increased US presence that enabled greater security. China has increased investment and trade, delivering opaque investments that leave countries in debt, and compromising sovereignty. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has precipitated a global food security crisis that will exacerbate existing food insecurity challenges in the MENA region. While Lempert made clear that the US remains optimistic about the region’s future, she is clear-eyed about the work that needs to be done to unlock its human potential.

North Africa’s Transatlantic Relations Panel Discussion
Citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, Jhinaoui opened the panel by stating that the MENA region is experiencing a profound geopolitical evolution. The war in Ukraine is dividing North Africa, as evidence by a recent UN vote condemning Russia’s military offensive. North African nations have been hesitant to openly criticize Russian actions, fearing the repercussions of lambasting a powerful ally. Moreover, the Ukrainian crisis threatens to divert European engagement from North Africa.

Fulton provided a China-centric lens on the region. Addressing the myth of US departure, he argued that even Chinese policymakers do not share this view. Chinese party leaders recognize the US’s power and long-standing relationships in the region, which China has yet to build itself. Fulton described China’s primary interests in the Middle East and North Africa as related to economic and political engagement with its Belt and Road Initiative. This policy has drastically changed, however, with the weaponization of trade due to the US-China trade war. The Chinese government therefore views the MENA region as an opportunity to challenge US foreign policy. Ultimately, while the US’s focus on development continues to resonate, there are increasing attempts from Beijing to discredit the US.

Dina Faoukoussa-Behrens addressed how North African countries, especially Egypt, view the US and its partners vis-à-vis China and Russia. Both regional leaders and the public were disillusioned by the US response to the Arab Spring, prompting many North African nations to turn to China and Russia. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi embodies the transition to allyship with Russia, which drawing on Sisi’s extensive military background, has led to the establishment of bilateral military partnerships between the two countries. Russia’s seemingly poor performance in its invasion of Ukraine, however, has dissuaded many in North Africa from relying on one nation. In fact, a multipolar order is in the best interest of North Africa, as it provides them a bargaining tool in future negotiations.

Focusing on how Italy can engage with European and US leaders to tackle issues in MENA, Talbot explained that there is little cohesion in Italy’s foreign policy, a void which has damaged its credibility in the region. Italy’s policy in the MENA has focused on mitigating illegal migration and terrorism, avoiding fragmentation and power vacuums, ensuring economic prosperity, and securing energy supplies. However, the war in Ukraine could create an opportunity for Italy to collaborate with regional partners like Turkey to address shared interests in Libya and elsewhere.

Main Policy Recommendations
According to the panelists, countering Russian and Chinese influence in the region must be achieved through transatlantic cooperation. With North Africa beginning to experience duress as a direct result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Fakoussa-Behrens articulated that now is the time for transatlantic allies to provide aid to the region, serving as a valuable substitute to Russia. Similarly, Fulton stressed that the US must maintain a level-handed economic approach to North African nations to appear as the preferable partner to China and Russia. Furthermore, Talbot stated that it is necessary for Italy and its allies to develop a more coherent policy in the North African region, working to advance their goals in cooperation with North African nations.

While Jhinaoui agreed with the necessity of transatlantic cooperation, he contended that transatlantic allies must tailor their policy in the region to meet the specific needs of each country, while also working to limit the socio-economic fallout of war in Ukraine. Similarly, it is necessary that the US and its allies pursue a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine alongside ending the conflict in Syria, as these issues impact engagement in North Africa. By addressing these ideas, a new partnership can be created in a way that is mutually beneficial for the transatlantic alliance and the MENA.

Alexandra Kaiss is a Young Global Professional with the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

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The Middle East and North Africa in the New Geopolitical Disorder

Otto Lanzavecchia — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 17:19:15 +0000

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is halfway through its fourth month, and its knock-on effects are aggravating pre-existing pockets of instability – especially across the MENA region. The lingering, Kremlin-triggered food crisis piles onto the pandemic and the grinding economic recovery, the climate crisis, the energy transition, and the stressed global supply chains. Not to mention the effects of the great power clash between countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Iran, each of which have competing regional aims. “This is certainly a period of great change and transitions,” noted William Wechsler, director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs. He was speaking at “The Middle East in the New Geopolitical Disorder,” a conference organized to discuss the region’s newfound centrality amidst the global political currents, live-streamed from the headquarters of the Med-Or Foundation in Rome.

During his opening remarks, Mr. Wechsler sought to explore a growing perception among MENA countries and onlookers regarding the United States disengaging from the area. According to Mr. Wechsler, this perception results from five decades of unchanging US foreign policy, with Washington working to preserve the regions’ status quo – until it didn’t, starting with the invasion of Iraq.

In 2003 the Bush administration openly transitioned from supporting to maintain the status quo to altering it , noted Mr. Wechsler. With President Obama came yet other policy changes. Events such as the Arab Spring and the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Aaction reinforced the perception of a shift of US policy. Donald Trump “was the biggest threat to the status quo ever” remarked Mr. Wechsler. “Now we have Joe Biden, who I see as the last chance for the US to act appropriately in the Middle East.”

These dynamics created a void, continued Mr. Wechsler, with several actors such as China and Russia sensing its existence and rushing to fill it in the past decade. This was also made possible because of the unusual fragmentation of Arab countries. As he recalled, in the past a would-be external power would have had to deal with an Arab leader attempting to represent the entire “Arab Nation”.

Today these Arab actors are relatively weak from a geopolitical point of view, he argued, which makes the present an unusual moment in history and allows for non-regional actors expanding their reach. Hence the strength projection of the likes of Iran, Turkey and even some European powers (albeit somewhat unsuccessfully), as well as Russia – again, after the US had driven it out of the region. And, finally, a new player: China, which has entered the Mediterranean region in its own way, prudently avoiding conflict and seeking to strengthen economic ties.

However, the perception of US disengagement is simply not grounded in reality, said Mr. Wechler. In truth, Washington is far from disengaged: it remains the largest naval and aerial power in the region, it boasts a massive intelligence platform, it operates on the diplomatic level and leverages economic ties. Setting aside the Western hemisphere, more than half of the US’ existing free trade agreements are struck with MENA countries. All these elements speak of a long-term, long-lasting commitment, overshadowed by the United States’ domestic politics and fatigue to long-lasting conflicts.

Perhaps owing to its pivot to the Indo-Pacific, Washington was nevertheless expecting the EU to weigh in more on MENA affairs. That didn’t happen. The Russian invasion of Ukraine provided an opportunity whereby the European bloc could have reacted with a unanimous and strong voice to the ongoing events, said Professor Riccardo Redaelli, director of the Center for Research on the South and Mediterranean System at the Catholic University in Milan. But Brussels has maintained a seriously passive and inattentive stance towards the wider Mediterranean, which highlighted its limits as a geopolitical actor. “History’s slap,” said the expert.

There’s an irony to the EU’s blunders given that it is now scrambling to reduce Russian energy imports by sourcing them from MENA countries instead. The Mediterranean Sea itself has become a hotbed of unresolved geopolitical woes, and energy issues will likely worsen the situation. “Take the eastern Mediterranean, for instance: it hosts enormous energy resources, but many believe it will be the eye of the perfect storm, having stimulated many of the tensions that have hampered joint security and energy efforts,” explained Alessia Melcangi, associate professor at Sapienza University in Rome and nonresident senior fellow for Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

The Mediterranean does have a lot going for it, which helps to explain its newfound centrality. Aside from energy, it encompasses one percent of the world’s water, and yet it’s home to 15% of maritime trade. Entire countries are dependent on said trade, as the food crisis dramatically exemplifies – and one can only imagine the breadth of the potential social crises, which in turn may trigger northbound migratory fluxes. All the more reason for the EU to focus back on the area, remarked Karim Mezran – director of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa program, who was moderating the debate – while highlighting the need for new EU-wide involvement.

“We need a new European project for the Middle East: a partnership in which we promise money to autocrats so that they pretend to conform to our values does not work,” stated Mr. Redaelli. “If we look closely at what is happening in Ukraine, we can see that many of its underlying causes are related to the wider Mediterranean area,” added Marco Minniti, president of the Med-Or Foundation and former Italian Minister of the Interior, stressing how all of this could have direct effects on European stability. “The Mediterranean food crisis can turn into a social one, which can generate political tensions, which may cause humanitarian crises, which can be wielded by cynical actors to create pressure.”

The region’s importance for the EU makes it reflexively important for the US, too. That, along with China’s growing presence, should be reason enough for Washington to consider increasing its focus on the area. Mr. Wechsler, too, voiced his belief that there is “an opportunity for the US to influence the situation in the Middle East.” He also noted that President Biden’s upcoming visit to Riyadh, which is supposed to mend strained ties, is a sure step in the right direction.

Otto Lanzavecchia is a journalist at Formiche.net

The post The Middle East and North Africa in the New Geopolitical Disorder appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kadhim quoted in CNN on the step-down of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s entire group of 73 lawmakers in Iraq

Atlantic Council — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 13:56:00 +0000

The post Kadhim quoted in CNN on the step-down of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s entire group of 73 lawmakers in Iraq appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Vladimir Putin’s dark journey from economic reformer to war criminal

Anders Åslund — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 17:53:02 +0000

Vladimir Putin’s 22-year reign has been marked by a steady decline in the goals he has set for himself and his country. He initially embraced progressive notions of domestic reform and international integration, but has since led Russia deeper and deeper into authoritarian isolation. His recent comments comparing himself to Peter the Great and boasting of plans to seize Ukrainian lands represent a new low in this depressing journey from would-be reformer to war criminal.

It is tempting to assume that Putin was always an unapologetic authoritarian and an enthusiastic imperialist but during the early years of his reign, he often championed sensible reforms while promoting initiatives to modernize and diversify the Russian economy.

Soon after he was first appointed president in 2000, Putin published an essay claiming that he wanted Russia to reach Portugal’s level of GDP per capita by the end of his two terms in office. This was a realistic and pragmatic economic target, as Portugal was then the poorest EU member state. However, two decades later in 2021, Portugal’s GDP per capita in current USD was twice as high as Russia’s.

Despite the damage suffered by Portugal during the 2010 euro crisis, Russia has actually fallen further behind the Portuguese economy. This should come as no surprise. The Russian economy has stagnated since 2014 when the West imposed its first round of sanctions following the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. After almost a decade in the doldrums, Putin now appears to have given up entirely on Russia’s economic development. He is not even planning for any growth until 2030.

Until the end of his first presidential term in 2004, Putin spoke extensively about the need for the rule of law and other systemic reforms. In 2002, Russia adopted far-reaching judicial reforms along with a new civil code and a liberal tax code, while also allowing private ownership of agricultural land. In effect, Putin completed the progressive economic reforms begun by the Yeltsin administration during the 1990s.

These policies paid dividends. Russia enjoyed a period of uniquely strong economic expansion during the early years of the Putin era, with annual growth rates of around seven percent from 1999 to 2008. In truth, Putin had arrived at a laid table with prepared reforms, while his economic success also owed much to a sustained commodity boom. Nevertheless, it was still possible to argue that Putin was steering Russia toward a future governed by the rule of law.

During this early period, Putin also called for far-reaching international integration, making Russia’s membership of the World Trade Organization a key goal. However, he gradually lost interest in this initiative. Despite strong Western support, Russia did not join the WTO until 2012. By that point, Putin had already begun embracing isolationist policies protectionism and import substitution.

When did the turning point come? Some say it was Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, which poisoned Putin against the West. Others argue that Putin’s early flirtation with a more reformist agenda was merely political pragmatism as he consolidated his position at home and abroad. With the benefit of hindsight, it now appears obvious that Putin’s background as a KGB officer and his alleged ties to organized crime were decisive in shaping his reign. During the second half of the 2000s, this toxic baggage increasingly took over.

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In truth, the warning signs of a return to authoritarianism were there from the very beginning. The first indication was Putin’s suppression of independent Russian television in 2000, which saw the Kremlin take over Vladimir Gusinsky’s NTV and Boris Berezovsky’s ORT. In May 2001, he established direct control of Gazprom, Russia’s wealthiest state company.

With the arrest of leading Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in October 2003, Putin initiated the renationalization of Russia’s most successful private companies. This revival of state dominance was mirrored throughout the Russian economy, with the security services and Putin’s personal favorites often the beneficiaries.

Despite the changing political climate in Russia, for many years Putin continued to publicly advocate for academic openness and innovation. This is no longer the case. Instead, the Kremlin now promotes ideas of isolation and orthodoxy. Meanwhile, the language of scientific and technological development has become increasingly reminiscent of the Brezhnev era Soviet Union. Unsurprisingly, many of Russia’s leading scientists and entrepreneurs have chosen to leave the country and pursue their careers in freer environments.

With any sense of optimism about the future gradually fading from view, Putin has become dependent on the propaganda power of an idealized past. He has rehabilitated the Soviet era and transformed the Red Army role in the defeat of Hitler into a victory cult that now serves as an unofficial state religion. Most of all, he has sought to justify his increasingly dictatorial rule by identifying enemies and waging wars of aggression.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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Putin has used various excuses to justify his aggressive foreign policies. On different occasions, he has claimed to be protecting Russian citizens in Georgia, preventing NATO expansion, defending Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and liberating Ukraine from Nazis. While these narratives may have worked inside Russia, they have had limited success in convincing outside audiences.

The current invasion in Ukraine has exposed the limitations of Putin’s expensively assembled disinformation apparatus. With Moscow now struggling to shape international perceptions of Putin’s wars, he appears to have switched to open intimidation. Since the invasion began in February 2022, Kremlin officials and regime propagandists have frequently issued thinly-veiled threats of nuclear war.

Meanwhile, Putin himself has abandoned his earlier denials and embraced the archaic rhetoric of imperial expansion. Speaking at a recent Moscow event to mark the three hundred and fiftieth birthday of Russian Czar Peter the Great, Putin eulogized Peter’s conquests in the Great Northern War and praised him for “returning” historically Russian lands. “It seems that it has fallen to us, too, to return (Russian lands),” Putin commented in a clear reference to the current war in Ukraine.

Putin’s reliance on nuclear blackmail and his absurd search for legitimacy in the imperial past reflect his failure to build an attractive modern state. After more than two decades in power, he is unable to deliver a coherent vision of a brighter future. Instead, Putin’s earlier talk of reform and innovation has been completely eclipsed by the repressive logic of his authoritarian kleptocracy. All that remains is imperialism.

Many Western leaders fear what might come after Putin. They worry about the possible break-up of the Russian state or the rise of an even less predictable dictator in his place. However, few scenarios are more alarming than a continuation of Russia’s current descent into full-scale fascism under an increasingly isolated and unhinged Putin. He is already the greatest single threat to global security and will likely remain so until he loses power. The West should not be afraid of pursuing this objective.

Anders Åslund is a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum and author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy.”

Atlantic Council — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 17:59:00 +0000

By the Freedom and Prosperity Center

On June 7, an article co-authored by Mathew Burrows was published by the Wilson Center’s New Security Beat, which discussed the dangers of a growing cohort of youth who feel disillusioned by political failures.

“Failing to examine youth engagement trends may be a serious blind spot— and thus a threat to democracy. It is a question that merits closer examination. When youth disengage, they are often saying they don’t have a high level of confidence or trust in existing economic, political, or social entities,” said Burrows and his co-author, Steven Gale of the US Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning.

“They may also want to “opt out” because they perceive that their generation is not being heard or treated fairly. Whatever their reasons, youth disengagement will ultimately have negative impacts beyond democratic engagement with potential shockwaves on social stability, the well-being and mental health of individuals (youth and their families), and individual and country-level economic productivity and quality of life.”

The post Burrows in New Security Beat: Youth disillusionment as a danger to democracy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Do countries need freedom to achieve prosperity?

Dan Negrea, Joseph Lemoine, Matthew Kroenig, Joel Kesselbrenner — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 17:36:54 +0000

Do countries need freedom to achieve prosperity?

Introducing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

The Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries and to explore the nature of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

Freedom and Prosperity Center

Freedom and Prosperity around the world

See how scores have changed over time

Explore the data

downloaD data set

Executive Summary

The Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center aims to increase the prosperity of the poor and marginalized in developing countries—and to explore the nature
of the relationship between freedom and prosperity in both developing and developed nations.

To aid in this task, this report introduces the new Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes.

The Freedom Index measures economic, political, and legal freedoms for nearly every country in the world, using the latest available data when the index was constructed at the end of 2021. The Prosperity Index measures economic wellbeing and human flourishing for the same countries and time period. In addition, we collected historical data to allow us to track and analyze change over time. We constructed the same indexes going back in five-year increments for the years 2006, 2011, and 2016; 2006 is the earliest date for which data on our indicators are available.

To be sure, there are limits to any data-collection effort. The world changes quickly, and the data we collected at the end of 2021 may not still represent current realities in every case. Russia, for example, is less free today than when we collected the data, due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his related crackdowns at home. In addition, we needed to choose indicators that could be applied across all countries and over time, but these generalized measures may not always fit neatly with the unique circumstances in every country. Still, despite these limitations, we believe that these indexes provide new and valuable information on global freedom and prosperity.

Going forward, we plan to update the indexes annually. The methodology to produce the indexes is straightforward and transparent, and is described in detail in the appendix.

We have built on the work of several comparable country indexes. Many of these measure one aspect or another of freedom or prosperity. Some combine freedom and prosperity indicators and produce a single index. Our approach in designing the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes was different in a few ways.

We defined freedom comprehensively. Many existing indexes measure economic, political, and legal freedoms separately, whereas we combine all three in our Freedom Index.
We defined prosperity comprehensively. We also take a broad view of what constitutes a prosperous country. We go beyond material measurements like income per capita and healthcare. We argue that a truly prosperous country should also score well on the quality of the environment, its treatment of minorities, and the general happiness of the population.
We constructed separate indexes for freedom and prosperity. By creating two distinct indexes, we hope to give researchers a better opportunity to analyze the relationship between freedom and prosperity. We also offer policymakers and other thought leaders clearer benchmarks for reforms and tracking results over time.

The indexes demonstrate that there is a strong relationship between freedom and prosperity. This report draws on the trajectory of the results over time, and other historical evidence, to argue that freedom tends to result in prosperity. In other words, freer countries tend to be more prosperous, and we have reason to believe that improvements in freedom will, over time, lead to greater and more durable prosperity.

The report also shows that autocracies generally do not deliver prosperity for their people. All countries rated Prosperous in our index (except for Singapore and Israel) also rank as Free. All countries in our Free category fall in either the Prosperous category or in the upper half of the Mostly Prosperous category. Both China and Russia rank lower in the Prosperity Index than Free countries do.

These findings lead us to recommend that governments, international organizations, private-sector companies, philanthropic organizations, and others concerned with prosperity promote economic, political, and legal freedoms.

The center will use the indexes and supporting data for its own research, and will also make them available for other researchers. All the research and resources used to produce the indexes and this report are publicly available. The Freedom and Prosperity datasets are accessible on the center’s website. The indexes will be updated annually, allowing thinkers and doers to track progress over time. Through our work and the work of others, we hope to make the world freer and more prosperous.

Summary and key takeaways

We hope that scholars and practitioners can use these data to conduct a wide range of analyses and to forge practical recommendations. In this section, we present some of our own preliminary analysis to explore the central question of this project: what is the relationship between freedom and prosperity? To be sure, this has been the subject of enormous scholarly debate, and we will not be able to resolve this question in a single report. Still, this analysis brings new data to bear on this question. The data and analysis in this report indicate that freedom and prosperity are correlated, and provide further support for the thesis that freedom contributes to prosperity.

Prosperity is highly correlated with freedom

A central finding of this report is that prosperity and freedom are highly correlated. The correlation coefficient between the indexes is 0.81. High values of Freedom are associated with high values of Prosperity, and low values of Freedom are associated with low values of Prosperity. The R² statistic shows that 66 percent of the variation in prosperity around the world can be explained by freedom (Table 5).

The strong relationship between freedom and prosperity can also be seen in simple descriptive statistics. With the exception of Israel and Singapore, every country in the Prosperous category is also in the Free category. Israel and Singapore (due to the latter’s high levels of economic freedom) occupy the two highest positions in the Mostly Free category (Table 4).

Moreover, no Free countries in 2021 are Mostly Unprosperous or Unprosperous; they are either Prosperous or Mostly Prosperous. The forty-one countries that comprise the top category of the Freedom Index also all rank in the top fifty for the Prosperity Index, except for Romania (fifty-one in the Prosperity Index) and Cabo Verde (eighty-one).

In addition, all Unfree countries in our Freedom Index rank in the Mostly Unprosperous or Unprosperous categories in our Prosperity Index—except for Cuba, which scores above fifty on Minority Rights and Health.

Continuing with the descriptive statistics, we find that citizens in Free countries are five times richer in per capita income ($36,142) than citizens in Mostly Free countries ($7,246) (Table 3). They are six times richer than citizens in Mostly Unfree societies ($5,791).

Table 3: Descriptive statistics across Freedom Index categories

Category	Country counts	Freedom Index			Population covered			GNI per Capita (US$)			Health Score
Category	Country counts			Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
Global	174	56.7	55.7	7,686	100%	13,312	5,070	62.2	67.2
Free	41	83.2	82.3	1,131	15%	36.142	32,290	87.5	89.9
Mostly free	67	60.8	59.7	2,824	37%	7,246	7,246	60.6	65.9
Mostly unfree	55	39.7	40.5	3,570	46%	5,791	5,791	49.1	47.1
Unfree	11	18.3	18.9	157	2%	2,775	2,775	43.7	42

Table 3 Continued: Simple statistics across Freedom Index categories

Category	Country counts	Environment Score			Happiness Score			Minority Rights Score			Prosperity Index
Category	Country counts			Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
Global	174	45.4	46.1	62.2	56.1	79.1	87.6	51.2	49
Free	41	80.7	89.2	79.4	78.4	94.6	95.9	76.9	79.1
Mostly free	67	38.7	41.6	52.1	52.4	85.3	88.9	48.2	47.7
Mostly unfree	55	30.4	27.1	47.0	45.3	66.7	70.0	40.0	38.3
Unfree	11	29.4	29.5	27.5	22.6	47.6	45.6	30.5	31.3

The quality of life is also different in Free and Unfree societies. As can be seen in Table 3, Health, Environment, Happiness, and Minority Rights improve as a country moves toward greater freedom. The average Health score jumps from 60.6 to 87.5 when moving from the Mostly Free to the Free category. The average Environment score drops by more than 50 percent when moving from the Free group to the Mostly Free group. People in Free countries are almost three times happier than people in Unfree countries. For Minority Rights, the gap is smaller between the Mostly Free and Free groups (nine points), but the score drops significantly as freedom decreases, with gaps of almost twenty points between Mostly Free and Mostly Unfree, and again between Mostly Unfree and Unfree. These results suggest that more freedom is associated with a better life for the average person.

Table 4: Overlap between freedom and prosperity categories

This table shows the percentage of countries in each overlapping category. Shown in parentheses is the number of countries.

Evidence suggests that freedom contributes to prosperity

In this section, we examine whether freer countries tend to become more prosperous over time. Scholars have long debated the direction of the relationship between freedom and prosperity. The insight that freedom promotes prosperity goes back at least to Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, which argues that laws and institutions that protect the liberty of individuals to pursue their own interests result in greater prosperity for the larger society.

Others argue the relationship goes in the opposite direction. Barrington Moore, for example, argues that a country cannot sustain democracy without a thriving middle class. People acquire property and material wealth first, and then demand a voice in government, including the freedoms to protect their wealth. This hypothesis goes all the way back to Aristotle, who posited that a large, prosperous middle class may mediate between rich and poor, creating the legal foundation upon which political freedom may function. A century ago, Max Weber extended this line of thought, proposing that the middle class defends its economic power by enshrining it in laws and institutions.

A third possibility is that there is a positive feedback loop; freedom begets prosperity, which, in turn, begets more freedom.

The idea that institutions are the key to long-run economic growth is well established in contemporary economic theory. Institutions provide the rules of the game. Rules that incentivize entrepreneurship, hard work, long-term planning, and broad access to economic opportunities tend to produce wealthier societies. Rules that stifle innovation, discriminate against certain segments of society, and do not guarantee that individuals will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors and creations tend to produce poorer societies.

In theory, both democratic and autocratic countries could put in place sound economic institutions to produce long-run growth. But, in practice, democracies are much more likely to do so. Dictators often establish rules that maximize their political control and benefit themselves and their supporters, to the detriment of broader segments of society. On the other hand, because democratic leaders are drawn from, and represent, broader cross sections of society, they tend to put in place institutions that benefit wider swaths of that society.

We will not be able to definitively resolve this complex debate in a single report, but we do bring new data to bear on these questions. We believe that our data and associated analysis provide evidence that freer countries tend to become more prosperous.

In an effort to disentangle this relationship, we examined the strength of the correlations between freedom and prosperity over time. Using the same methodology, we re-created the 2021 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes for 2016, 2011, and 2006. We examined whether measures for freedom in prior years are associated with levels of prosperity in subsequent years. After all, changes in prosperity do not happen overnight. If freedom drives subsequent prosperity, then we should see the correlations between freedom in prior years more strongly associated with levels of prosperity in subsequent years.

This is what we found. Indeed, as one can see in Table 5 and Figure 6, the longer the time lapses between our measures of Freedom and Prosperity, the stronger the association. A country’s level of Prosperity today is better explained by its level of Freedom in 2006 than by its current Freedom. In this analysis we are concerned with the general trend over time, not the absolute differences from year to year. The correlation and R2 statistics are higher the further one goes back in time, indicating a stronger fit between past Freedom and future Prosperity. The 2006 Freedom Index, the earliest measure of Freedom calculated for this report, is most strongly associated with levels of Prosperity in 2021. While the relative differences may seem small, they are in a consistent direction. This rough test does not provide definitive proof that advances in freedom produce subsequent prosperity, but it is suggestive of such a dynamic and worthy of further investigation.

Table 5: Historical correlations

Prosperity 2021
Freedom Index Year	R2	Slope	Simple Correlation
2021	0.656	0.762	0.810
2016	0.662	0.771	0.814
2011	0.673	0.809	0.821
2006	0.677	0.834	0.823

Note: The table is based on the results of simple ordinary least squares regression, in which Prosperity Index 2021 is the dependent variable and time series of the Freedom Index are the explanatory variables.

We also tested the alternative hypothesis. Are past levels of Prosperity more strongly associated with current levels of Freedom? While there is a relationship, it is weaker than the link between Freedom and subsequent Prosperity. For example, the R2 statistic between Prosperity in 2006 and Freedom in 2021 is 0.613, while the same statistic for Freedom in 2006 and Prosperity in 2021 is 0.677. Freedom in a given year is more strongly associated with subsequent prosperity than the reverse. This simple test suggests that the relationship is driven more by a country’s level of freedom shaping its subsequent level of prosperity than by the reverse.

As we plan to update the data annually, we look forward to conducting further analysis on the direction and magnitude of the relationship between freedom and prosperity, and we encourage others to do the same.

We also analyzed the countries with the biggest score changes in the Freedom Index between 2006 and 2021. If our hypothesis is correct, we should expect big shifts in the independent variable (Freedom) to be associated with meaningful changes in Prosperity.

Two countries stand out for big changes in freedom over this period, and we found that their prosperity levels changed in the same direction.

Bhutan had the biggest jump in Freedom of any country between 2006 and 2021, and also showed an increase in Prosperity. In 2008, Bhutan experienced a transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, including the establishment of an elected legislature. Bhutan’s Freedom Index score reflects these changes, with a 74-percent increase in Legal Freedom and a whopping 166-percent increase in Political Freedom between 2006 and 2021. Bhutan’s income score increased by 91 percent, and there was a 35-percent increase in its Environment score.

Venezuela, by contrast, is the country that lost the most freedom and prosperity between 2006 and 2021—a result with roots in Hugo Chávez’s increasing political repression and embrace of socialist and populist economic policies as he consolidated power. The country dropped more than 42 percent in its overall Freedom score. The fall in its Political Freedom score was most pronounced—a 68-percent drop. On the Prosperity Index, Venezuela’s score plummeted 24 percent from 2006 to 2021. The country was once among the wealthiest and most developed in Latin America, but now scores poorly on Health, Income, and Happiness.

Divergent development paths for formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe

As our next test, we look to the divergent paths of countries’ political and economic transitions after the end of the Cold War. The fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1989–1990 period can be viewed as a kind of natural experiment. Before the fall, these countries had similar levels of freedom and prosperity. Some countries, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania, chose democracy and free markets. Others, such as Belarus and Russia, came to be ruled by autocratic regimes over the following years. What was the result of these choices on the trajectories of their subsequent economic development?

These six countries had divergent economic paths between 1995 (the first year for which all countries had comparable data) and 2020. As we can see in Table 6, the countries that chose freedom are between seven and nine times wealthier today, while the countries that remained autocratic are only between three and five times richer.

Table 6: Increase of GDP per capita in selected former communist countries (1995–2020)

	GDP per capita (current US$)
	1995	2020	Multiplier
Estonia	3,134	23,027	7.3
Latvia	2,330	17,726	7.6
Lithuania	2,168	20,234	9.3
Romania	1,650	12,896	7.8
Belarus	1,323	6,424	4.9
Russia	2,666	10,127	3.8

The data from our Freedom and Prosperity Indexes show similar results, as can be seen in Table 7. Russia (ranked eighty-eighth) and Belarus (ranked eighty-second) underperform in the Prosperity Index relative to their freer neighbors.

Divergent development paths for people living under communist and democratic governments

Table 7: Scores of selected former communist countries

	Freedom 2021		Prosperity 2021
	Score	Rank	Score	Rank
Estonia	87.2	14	65.6	36
Latvia	81.7	25	62.6	42
Lithuania	81.8	24	63.9	39
Romania	76.3	36	59.8	51
Belarus	39.4	139	50.0	82
Russia	41.2	135	49.0	88

We can draw similar conclusions by looking at World War II as the starting point for a new development period. For decades after World War II, China, Germany, and Korea were divided. Some people lived in communist countries, while others lived in countries with free markets and with political regimes that either were democratic from the beginning (West Germany), evolved into a democracy (South Korea and Taiwan), or had a wide range of freedoms (Hong Kong).

This provides us with another natural experiment. Did people living in freedom become more prosperous over time?

We begin with Germany. According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data, democratic West Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 1950 was only about 1.5 times larger than that of communist East Germany ($4,280 vs. $2,796). But, by the reunification of Germany in 1990, West Germany’s per capita income had grown to be 3.6 times larger ($19,441 vs. $5,403) than that of East Germany.

Let us now turn our attention to the Korean Peninsula. North and South Korea were both exceptionally poor in 1950. While both countries lacked political freedom from the end of the Korean War until 1980, they selected very different paths regarding economic freedom. South Korea’s dictators chose capitalism and secure property rights, while North Korea’s leaders selected a state-planned communist economy. By 1980, South Korea’s per capita income ($1,589) was more than double that of North Korea ($768).

Starting in the 1980s, South Korea transformed itself into a democracy, while North Korea remains a dictatorship. The addition of political freedoms in South Korea resulted in an even larger divergence in the economic paths of these two nations. United Nations data for 2021 show GDP per capita of $31,947 for South Korea and $639 for North Korea. Today, people living in the free South Korea are fifty times wealthier than those living in the unfree North Korea.

North Korea is not ranked in our indexes because it does not provide sufficient data. South Korea ranks thirty-fifth and Free in our Freedom Index and twenty-fifth and Prosperous in our Prosperity Index.

How does this story look when examining Chinese people living under different political and economic systems? The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949. China has never had political freedom, although it started instituting liberalizing economic reforms in the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping. Until its takeover by the PRC in 2020, Hong Kong was either under British control or an autonomous PRC region, enjoyed some democratic freedoms, and ranked among the freest markets in the world. Taiwan was established as a dictatorship at the end of World War II, but adopted free markets. It started transitioning to democracy after 1975. What were the results of these institutional choices?

The PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong were all poor in 1961, with GNI per capita of $76, $163, and $437, respectively. But, their different levels of freedom resulted in different levels of prosperity by 2020. Free Taiwan and Hong Kong were able to break out of the middle-income trap, while unfree China, at least to date, has not. The middle-income trap, a measure created by the World Bank in 2006, refers to a situation in which a developing country moves from the poor to the middle-income category, but gets stuck below the high-income threshold—currently calculated by the World Bank as $12,695 GNI per capita. In 2020, per capita income in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong was $10,055, $25,055, and $46,324, respectively. These differences are also clear in our indexes. Taiwan ranks Free and Mostly Prosperous, while China ranks Mostly Unfree and Mostly Unprosperous. We have chosen not to rank Hong Kong because it is now under the control of the PRC.

Autocracies are generally not prosperous

Some might think that an autocratic ruler can guarantee stability and push through needed economic reforms. They might point to Singapore as an example of a prosperous non-democracy. But, such examples are few and far between.

Authoritarian leaders like to centralize power, and dislike strong economic institutions that may check their power. While authoritarian leaders may sometimes make good economic decisions, they frequently make catastrophically bad ones. For example, the collectivization of agriculture led to mass famine in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, in Mao Zedong’s China, and in Kim Il-Sung’s North Korea. More recently, and less dramatically, bad financial decisions by Turkey’s leaders led to high inflation and currency collapse, while in Kazakhstan the long-lasting kleptocracy of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his family led to social unrest. Even if a country has a wise authoritarian leader who makes consistently good decisions, like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, there is no guarantee that his successor will be equally wise. Moreover, a model that might work for a small city-state like Singapore does not easily apply to larger countries.

Autocracies are also subject to rapid and dramatic reversals along the path toward greater prosperity. Venezuela, for example, a country rich in natural resources and with a democratic tradition, adopted authoritarian and socialist policies in the early 2000s. As a result, Venezuela lost two-thirds of its GDP from 2014 to 2019. This is comparable to the 60-percent drop in GDP Syria experienced during its civil war. Bad authoritarian leaders curtailing freedoms can devastate a country as much as a civil war.

Unfree societies do not depend on rules and institutions but, rather, on authoritarian decisions. These decisions may, at times, redirect capital and people toward more productive outlets and have a positive impact in the short term. But, over the long term, if these decisions are not accompanied by greater freedoms, these autocrats are likely to undermine any progress they achieve.

Likewise, the authoritarian tendency to accumulate power makes leaders reluctant to allow free markets, which, when properly regulated, reflect the decisions of numerous economic agents and are a sounder path to economic development than the decisions of an autocrat or central bureaucracy.

Figure 7: Comparative rankings in the components of the Prosperity Index

Note: We use the rankings of China and Russia and the average rankings of all countries included in the Free category. The five axes represent the five indicators forming the Prosperity Index. The center point represents a rank of one hundred and seventy-four, the worst possible performance. The outer line represents a rank of one, the best possible performance on each indicator.

China

China is often cited as a model of successful economic development, but our indexes do not bear this out. After seventy-three years of Communist Party leadership, China ranks one hundred and fortieth in the Freedom Index and one hundred and fourteenth in the Prosperity Index.

To be sure, China’s economic growth has been impressive in many ways, but it is still far from achieving broad-based prosperity. Looking at the components of the Prosperity Index, China ranks only fifty-seventh on the Income score, with a GNI per capita just over $10,000. This puts it squarely in the middle-income range, well below other Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. While elites in China’s coastal cities are wealthy and there are far fewer Chinese living in poverty than in the past, the country’s interior remains largely poor.

China’s low position on the Prosperity Index is also explained by its Minority Rights rank of one hundred and sixty-seven out of one hundred and seventy-four (Figure 7). This score, part of our comprehensive view of prosperity, reflects China’s brutal policies in Tibet and genocide in Xinjiang.

There are also real questions about whether China’s state-led capitalist model can continue to deliver income growth. Xi Jinping prioritizes political control over economic growth, and has been backtracking on liberalizing reforms, as seen in his crackdowns on the Chinese tech sector. Moreover, China’s past path to growth was driven largely by exporting cheap manufactured goods and major infrastructure investments by the CCP.

To break out of the middle-income trap, however, China will need to become a true innovation leader and develop a consumer-based market. It is unclear whether it can make that transition without more freedom.

Furthermore, China has many other structural deficiencies, including high levels of pollution, massive corruption, a shrinking of the working-age population as a result of the failed one-child policy, excessively harsh yet ineffective COVID-fighting policies, and an international community that is becoming more fearful of economic dependence on China. The CCP announced in March 2022 that China’s GDP growth target for the year was “around 5.5 percent,” the lowest in thirty years. But, just a month later, the International Monetary Fund projected a 4.4 percent growth rate and some economists predict growth rates of under 4 percent. Even Xi Jinping has admitted that slow growth in China is “the new normal.”

Russia

Russia is a prototypical example of a Mostly Unfree and Mostly Unprosperous country. It ranks one hundred and thirty-fifth on the Freedom Index and eighty-eighth on the Prosperity Index. This is the result of more than seven decades of communism and two decades of authoritarianism after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 (with a brief period of experimentation with freer markets and political pluralism in the 1990s).

Russia enjoyed strong economic growth in the early years of the 2000s, thanks largely to high oil prices and more open markets. Russia, like China, is a middle-income country with a GNI per capita of approximately $10,000. Russia is similar to China on many metrics of Prosperity, with the exception of Minority Rights (one hundred and forty for Russia), where China ranks even worse. The data for our analysis were collected before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Vladimir Putin clamps down on Russian society during the war, we expect Russia’s freedom and prosperity to decline further in the coming years.

Oil-extracting autocracies

The major exception to our finding that autocracies cannot produce prosperity comes from oil-rich states, like the Gulf monarchies. Oil revenues have allowed these autocracies to provide their citizens with some of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

Gulf monarchies

The Gulf monarchies, with the exception of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), all fall into the Mostly Unfree category.

Due to their ability to generate large revenues from oil extraction, however, these countries rank highly in one of the key prosperity indicators, GNI per capita. Their scores on our Prosperity Index, however, suffer because they rank poorly in other prosperity indicators like Environment and Minority Rights.

While Gulf monarchies have seen record income from high oil prices over the preceding decades, the world may be moving away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner forms of energy. To succeed in such an environment, oil-producing states will need to liberalize their economies and allow their people more freedoms.

Some Gulf monarchies are already taking limited steps in this direction. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the government has recently granted women greater rights and further opened to foreign investment.

United Arab Emirates

The UAE has been leading the way toward more freedom in the Gulf region. It outperforms all the other Gulf monarchies in both freedom and prosperity. While its Political Freedom measures are quite low, it does allow a wide range of Economic and Legal Freedoms. Indeed, taken together, these freedoms are sufficient to move the UAE into the Mostly Free category—the only country in the Gulf to receive this distinction. These greater freedoms have also resulted in superior economic performance. The UAE bests its neighbors to rank as the thirty-fourth most prosperous country globally in our index.

Singapore

Singapore is often mentioned as the leading example of how autocratic systems can provide economic prosperity. Our Freedom Index reveals, however, that the secret to Singapore’s success is quite straightforward. While Singapore ranks poorly on Political Freedom, it has among the highest levels of Economic and Legal Freedoms. Indeed, Singapore ranks as a Mostly Free country, and barely falls short of our threshold for fully Free.

Singapore demonstrates, therefore, that this model can work, but its example may be sui generis: Singapore is a small city-state. Indeed, there is much evidence that small countries open to international trade can prosper. But, it would not be easy to run a larger country in such a centralized manner.

In addition, Singapore has been governed, so far, by fairly wise autocrats who have continually prioritized economic and legal freedoms. Given that political power in the country is concentrated, however, there is always the risk that future leaders would choose to rein in these freedoms. While it may seem foolish to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, there are many examples of autocratic leaders doing just that if they feel that it is necessary to protect their political power. Allowing more political freedom in Singapore would provide guardrails against arbitrary changes to Singapore’s successful economic model, and better ensure its future prosperity.

Methodology and FAQ

2021 methodology

In depth Methodology

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes?
The Freedom Index measures economic, political, and legal freedoms for nearly every country in the world. The Prosperity Index measures economic wellbeing and human flourishing for the same countries. The indexes can be used to inform policymakers about real-world reform opportunities in developing countries.

2. What time period does the report cover?
The 2021 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes use the most recent data available. Most of these data are from 2021. Where data from 2021 are not available, data from the most recent year available are used instead.

In addition, we collected historical data to construct the indexes for the years 2006, 2011, and 2016. This allows us to track national trajectories over time, even in the first year of the indexes. Going forward, we plan to update the indexes annually.

3. How are the data collected?
The Freedom Index and the Prosperity Index are constructed on a diversified data and analytical basis, comprising different databases produced by the American Economic Journal, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the Credendo Group, the Fraser Institute, Freedom House, the Fund for Peace, the Heritage Foundation, NASA, Transparency International, the United Nations, the V-Dem Institute, the World Bank, and the World Justice Project.

4. What do the scores capture?
The Freedom Index and Prosperity Index are two separate indexes that rank 174 countries around the world according to their levels of freedom and prosperity. The Freedom Index measures Economic Freedom, Political Freedom, and Legal Freedoms. The Prosperity Index measures Income, Environment, Health, Minority Rights, and Happiness.

For more details on the construction of the indexes, please refer to the Methodology section.

5. How does the scoring system work?
All measurements in the indexes are weighted equally and the score for each index is the simple average of its parts. Scores range between zero and one-hundred, with higher values indicating more freedom or prosperity. Where appropriate, raw data are converted to a 0-100 scale.

6. What are the different scoring categories?
Countries on the Freedom Index are divided into four categories based on their overall score: those above a 75-point score (Free), those with scores between 50 and 74.9 (Mostly Free), those with scores between 25 and 49.9 (Mostly Unfree), and those with score from 0 to 24.9 (Unfree).

The same categorization is used for the Prosperity Index: those above a 75-point score (Prosperous), those with scores between 50 and 74.9 (Mostly Prosperous), those with score between 25 and 49.9 (Mostly Unprosperous), and those with scores from 0 to 24.9 (Unprosperous).

7. How is the ranking constructed?
We rank Freedom and Prosperity separately, and countries are ranked according to their score. Scores range between zero and one-hundred, with higher values indicating more freedom or prosperity.

8. Where can I view past years’ scores?
All the data are accessible on this website and can be downloaded.

9. Is there a link between Freedom and Prosperity?
We find that freedom and prosperity are highly correlated. The correlation coefficient between the indexes is 0.81. High values of Freedom are associated with high values of Prosperity, and low values of Freedom are associated with low values of Prosperity.

We find that the strength of this relationship increases the further one goes back in time. A country’s level of Prosperity today is better explained by its level of Freedom in 2006 than by its current Freedom, suggesting a relationship that is worthy of further investigation.

10. What makes the indexes different from other existing indexes?
There are several existing indexes that measure freedom and prosperity around the world, and our research built on these efforts. But the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes are unique.

We define freedom comprehensively. Existing indexes measure economic freedom, political freedom, and legal freedoms separately, but no other index combines those measures to offer a comprehensive measure of freedom. It is our belief, supported by scholarship and historical evidence, that countries with all three types of freedom, working together in a manner that is mutually reinforcing, are best able to secure durable development.

We define prosperity comprehensively. We go beyond material measurements like income per capita and healthcare. We argue that a truly prosperous country should also score well on environmental performance, treatment of minorities, and the general happiness of the population.

We constructed separate indexes for freedom and prosperity. By creating two distinct indexes, we hope to give researchers a better opportunity to analyze the relationship between freedom and prosperity. We also offer policymakers and other thought leaders clearer benchmarks for implementing reforms and tracking results over time.

11. How do you prevent political bias?
The methodology used to produce the indexes is straightforward and transparent. We provide all the information to replicate them.

We did our best to collect the most reliable information available. The objective of these indexes is to provide standardized measures that can be applied to every country. One might argue that the methodology or the data collected is irrelevant to certain types of political situations or specific countries. That might be the case in some instances, but rarely so. Moreover, there is an inherent tension between generalizable and specific knowledge. We self-consciously opted for the former. We would encourage other researchers to explain how our indexes illuminate or obscure country-specific dynamics.

12. What are the limitations of the indexes?
Ensuring comparability of the data across a global set of countries was a central consideration. When selecting sources to be included in the indexes, coverage was the determining factor. In the rare case of missing data for a certain year, we have replaced the missing data with data from the closest available year. All these instances are described in the dataset.

Data were collected over the past year, using the most recent information available. They might not reflect the latest political or economic developments. These indexes should not necessarily be taken as an accurate reflection of the most recent current events. We will, however, update the indexes over time to capture real-world changes on an annual basis.

Authors

Staff

Dan Negrea

Senior Director

China Economy & Business

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

Technical Advisers

Staff

Joseph Lemoine

Deputy Director

Freedom and Prosperity Center

Africa Economy & Business

Former staff

Joel Kesselbrenner

Freedom and Prosperity Center

Economy & Business Inclusive Growth

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McCord in NYTimes: Uvalde, Buffalo and the Semiautomatic Weapons That Terrorize Us

Atlantic Council — Wed, 25 May 2022 18:35:00 +0000

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Darnal in Inkstick: The Global South and the war in Ukraine

Atlantic Council — Wed, 25 May 2022 12:48:00 +0000

New American Engagement Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On May 25, Aude Darnal was quoted in the monthly edition of “Adults in a Room,” a series from Inkstick Media in collaboration with the New American Engagement Initiative. This month’s installment focused on the Global South’s perspectives on the war in Ukraine.

“The new multipolar world, in which non-Western states will legitimately have greater power, commands a restructuring of the global order and its institutions. This calls, therefore, not for greater pressure from the West but rather for the creation of mutually beneficial partnerships and the United States and its Western allies to respect international norms and pursue policies that will make them attractive partners for the rest of the world.”

Former staff

Aude Darnal

Africa Conflict

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Putin’s Mariupol Massacre is one of the 21st century’s worst war crimes

Paul Niland — Wed, 25 May 2022 01:10:47 +0000

The Battle of Mariupol is over and Russia is busy proclaiming the liberation of the city. In reality, Mariupol has been murdered. This formerly bustling metropolis of almost half a million people now lies on the brink of extinction, pummeled into submission by a vicious campaign of Russian annihilation. The estimated 100,000 remaining residents of Mariupol find themselves reduced to living among the rubble without medicines, running water or electricity.

With Russia in control of the city, there is no way of knowing the final death toll or assessing the true scale of the catastrophe that has befallen Mariupol. During the final weeks of the fighting, Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko estimated more than 20,000 civilians had been killed and noted that this was twice the number of deaths recorded in the entire two-year Nazi occupation of the city during WWII. “Putin is a bigger evil than Hitler and we must stop him,” commented Boychenko.

Global audiences have grown used to the apocalyptic scenes in Mariupol and are no longer shocked by the destruction of an entire city. In order to grasp the full extent of Putin’s crime, it is vital to remember Mariupol as it was before the outbreak of war.

Mariupol was always a special city with a diverse population included a large ethnic Greek community. Located on the Azov Sea in southern Ukraine, it was warm and sunny for most of the year. Though the air was thick from the heavy industry located in the heart of Mariupol, local residents tended to be proud of their city and fiercely loyal.

War first came to Mariupol in spring 2014 when Moscow attempted to seize control of the surrounding Donbas region during the initial stages of the ongoing eight-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The city was taken over by Russian forces but this occupation proved mercifully brief.

Following liberation, Mariupol gained in significance as the largest city in the Donbas still under Ukrainian control. Located just a few kilometers from the front lines of the simmering conflict with Russia, it became an administrative and economic focus as well as a showcase for the higher living standards and greater personal freedoms offered by Ukraine.

While regions of eastern Ukraine under Russian occupation withered and stagnated, Mariupol flourished. This city was a mirror providing a stark contrast to the atrophy of the Russian-controlled parts of the Donbas. After 2014, Mariupol welcomed a shiny new office of government interaction where people could go to marry and register births without the suffocating and corrupt old-style bureaucracy that Ukraine used to be famed for. Hipster cafes and bars popped up across town, along with sleek co-working spaces and IT hubs. A new highway linked the city to neighboring regions in southern Ukraine.

Mariupol was also a beneficiary of Ukraine’s successful decentralization reforms. The move towards giving local communities more say over how they live their lives and spend their budgets created genuine political competition between people who wanted to serve their communities and not just plunder them. This was strikingly different to the authoritarian model of paternalism promoted in Russia and Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

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Though almost every single building in Mariupol has now been razed to the ground, it is the people who really matter. The personal stories of Mariupol residents deserve to be heard.

By chance, I recently met some refugees who had made it out of the city. Together with a friend, we helped a family of three during the very last stage of their 1200km journey to temporary shelter in western Ukraine. The mother explained how she had escaped Mariupol with her 12-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son. They had made their way across Ukraine together, carrying their few most precious possessions with them including religious icons and a favorite teddy bear.

These survivors used the single word “hell” when attempting to describe what they had lived through in Mariupol. Once they had arrived at their accommodation and completed the check-in process, the mother came to the realization that she had finally brought her children to safety. Overcome with emotion, she let a few tears go before composing herself again. Similar scenes have been repeated countless times over the past few months. This is happening in Europe in 2022.

Those who made it out of Mariupol safely have wept tears of relief for their survival and tears of grief for those they left behind. They are also mourning the death of their hometown. The Mariupol you now see on your TV screens is a crime scene where tens of thousands of civilian lives have been extinguished.

This is not the Mariupol that survivors remember. Their memories are of a beautiful and vibrant place with a strong sense of community where families worked hard to build their dreams. As the location of one of the largest steelworks in Europe, the city was home to some very hard people who routinely did dangerous work and deserved to be respected. This traditional toughness was one of the reasons why Mariupol was defended so valiantly, despite the Russian terror unleashed upon it.

Eurasia Center events

After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

Eastern Europe NATO Security & Defense Ukraine

The Kremlin propaganda machine is now attempting to portray the destruction of Mariupol as a Russian victory. Instead, the long defense of Mariupol against overwhelming odds should be remembered as a powerful example of the Ukrainian heroism that has captured the world’s imagination.

The Ukrainian troops who held the vast Azovstal industrial complex for months did so knowing that they faced almost certain death or captivity. They fought on anyway, safe in the knowledge that their stand was pinning down whole units of the Russian army which would otherwise be unleashed elsewhere in Ukraine.

Mariupol must also be remembered as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the twenty-first century. The atrocities committed by Russian troops throughout Ukraine have horrified global audiences and have sparked an international war crimes investigation along with accusations of genocide. Even in this grim context, Mariupol stands out. Putin ordered the destruction of the city despite knowing hundreds of thousands of civilians were unable to flee.

The calculated nature of the onslaught was most immediately apparent in the targeted bombing of Mariupol Drama Theater, which was being used as a makeshift shelter by over 1,000 civilians. Despite large lettering placed on the ground outside the theater spelling out the word “CHILDREN,” Russia hit the building with a devastating and deliberate blast. Current estimates indicate that around 600 civilians were killed in that one attack alone.

Mariupol was destroyed in order to send a chilling message to all Ukrainians of the fate awaiting anyone who refuses Putin’s invitation to join the so-called “Russian World.” The fact that Mariupol was an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking city that had traditionally backed pro-Kremlin political forces only appears to have hardened Putin’s resolve to punish the city for its defiance.

After Mariupol, there can be no more illusions regarding the possibility of a compromise peace with Putin. A city that was once marked by the smells of heavy industry and seaside breezes is now enveloped in the stench of decomposing bodies trapped beneath the rubble. Unless Putin is decisively defeated, more towns and cities across Ukraine will suffer the same fate. The next city in line for such devastation is Severodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast. Others will surely follow. After Mariupol, no European leader can claim they were not forewarned.

Paul Niland is the Founder of Lifeline Ukraine.

Insofar as “sovereignty” means freedom from external control, Putin’s statement is Orwellian-level nonsense. This chilling document was correctly interpreted by many as a declaration of war on Ukrainian statehood. It was subsequently made required reading for all members of the Russian military.

Events on the battlefield have since exposed the absurdity of Putin’s core arguments. If he has any lingering doubts regarding the reality of the Ukrainian nation, he need only consult the Russian soldiers who lost the Battle for Kyiv and were forced to retreat entirely from northern Ukraine after suffering catastrophic losses. Indeed, it is hard to think of a more comprehensive debunking of the whole “one people” myth.

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Putin’s attempts to deny Ukrainian identity are easily dismissed but his insistence on the purported illegitimacy of modern Ukraine is worth exploring in further detail as it raises some interesting questions regarding the true causes of today’s war.

The foundational principle around which the Founding Fathers created the United States was the notion that those who govern can derive their legitimacy from only one source, namely the people they seek to govern. This idea of government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” as expressed by President Lincoln at Gettysburg in 1863, has come to be recognized as the basic principle underpinning all modern democratic systems.

The ideas of democratic rule and free elections have become so popular around the world that even totalitarian states often include the label “Democratic” in their respective country’s names, as is the case with the North Korean “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” Similarly, dictatorships such as Putin’s Russia still feel the need to stage faux elections in order to maintain the pretense of democratic legitimacy.

Much to Putin’s chagrin, modern Ukraine does not share his own regime’s lack of legitimacy. Far from it, in fact. In December 1991, Ukrainians took part in a nationwide referendum on independence from the Soviet Union that saw over 90% of voters back the creation of an independent Ukraine. Crucially, clear majorities supported independence in every single Ukrainian region including Crimea (54%) and the two regions that make up the Russian-occupied Donbas, Luhansk (83%) and Donetsk (76%). The vote was widely acknowledged as free and fair, setting a democratic standard that would gradually become the norm in Ukraine during the coming decades of independence.

Ukraine’s most recent election cycle in 2019 reflected the continuing consolidation of the country’s democracy. Despite running as a complete outsider with no political experience whatsoever, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was able to secure a landslide election victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko in April 2019 and become Ukraine’s sixth president. Three months later, his newly established political party made history once again with a record win in Ukraine’s parliamentary election. Zelenskyy’s success reflected the highly competitive nature of Ukraine’s political system while underscoring the genuine legitimacy that the country’s democratic culture helps to bestow upon this state.

In the past few months, the courage and commitment demonstrated by millions of Ukrainians in the face of foreign invasion have vividly reaffirmed the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood. The country has responded to Russia’s invasion with an unprecedented wave of national mobilization that has seen huge numbers volunteer for the armed forces and many more make breathtaking sacrifices in support of their nation’s defense. This remarkable show of unity and resilience has inspired the watching world while making a mockery of Putin’s ramblings.

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By comparison, Russia’s post-Soviet development could hardly be more different. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, nobody was offered the opportunity to vote in a referendum on whether they wished to be part of the Russian Federation. When Chechnya attempted to break away from Russia in the early 1990s, Moscow waged two bloody wars to crush that independence movement.

Since coming to power at the turn of the millennium, Putin has had his political opponents murdered, jailed or exiled. He has steadily reversed the limited democratic gains of the 1990s and now completely controls the entire political system along with the media. All forms of dissent are outlawed. The crackdown on alternative voices in Putin’s Russia has become so surrealistic that people are now routinely arrested for holding up blank placards in public spaces.

Despite the country’s slide into authoritarianism, Russia still officially goes through the motions of regular election cycles in order to renew Putin’s mandate to rule. However, the increasing absurdity of these choreographed campaigns merely serves to underscore the illegitimacy rather than the legitimacy of the entire regime.

This places Putin’s efforts to portray Ukraine as illegitimate in an entirely different light. By almost any measure, President Zelenskyy enjoys far more personal legitimacy than Putin, while democratic Ukraine is an infinitely more legitimate state than autocratic Russia.

Putin is well aware of this fact. He also understands that if a democratic Ukraine is allowed to gain strength and prosper, it will likely inspire Russians to seek similar changes in their own country. In other words, he regards the existence of a free and democratic Ukraine as an existential threat to the future of his own autocratic regime.

This helps to explain why Putin has chosen to gamble everything on the destruction of the Ukrainian state. From the Russian ruler’s perspective, independent Ukraine is an intolerable reminder that democratic legitimacy is entirely possible in the Slavic heartlands of the former USSR. Unless Ukraine is destroyed, Putin fears Russia itself may enter a new era of collapse that will continue the process begun in 1991.

Bohdan Vitvitsky is a former Resident Legal Advisor at the US Embassy in Ukraine and Special Advisor to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General.

Atlantic Council — Tue, 17 May 2022 17:50:00 +0000

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Independent Ukraine’s first president Leonid Kravchuk dies aged 88

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 12 May 2022 21:24:32 +0000

Ukraine’s first post-Soviet president Leonid Kravchuk passed away on May 10 at the age of 88 following a long illness. Active in Ukrainian politics for most of his adult life, Kravchuk is best remembered for his prominent role in the events leading up the 1991 Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kravchuk joined the Ukrainian Communist Party in the 1950s and rose through the ranks to become leader of Soviet Ukraine in July 1990. He is widely credited with having helped convince the communist parliamentary majority in Kyiv to accept demands for Ukrainian independence during the historic days of late summer 1991.

Following his election as independent Ukraine’s first president in December 1991, Kravchuk negotiated the Belovezh Accords with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich, marking the formal abolition of the USSR.

Kravchuk’s record as president of independent Ukraine was mixed, with economic woes contributing to his defeat in the country’s 1994 presidential election. The subsequent peaceful handover of power to his successor, Leonid Kuchma, was an important milestone in the consolidation of Ukraine’s democratic political culture.

After stepping down as president, Kravchuk remained active in Ukraine’s national life. He was a member of parliament until 2006 and courted controversy for his ties to pro-Kremlin politicians. In 2020, Kravchuk became Ukraine’s representative in peace negotiations with Russia over the Kremlin’s undeclared war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Throughout his career, Kravchuk was known as a shrewd figure whose formidable political skills allowed him to navigate the unlikely transition from high-ranking Soviet official to leading figure in Ukraine’s independence movement. It was famously said of Kravchuk that he did not need to carry an umbrella as he could “slip between the raindrops.”

As Ukrainians mourned the passing of the country’s first post-Soviet president, the Atlantic Council invited a range of experts to share their recollections of Leonid Kravchuk and reflect on his place in Ukrainian history.

Daniel Fried, Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council: I got to know President Kravchuk long after his presidency during the period following the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. When we met in Kyiv and Warsaw, he spoke of the need for Ukraine to transform itself, as Poland and the Baltic states had done after they regained their independence but as Ukraine had not done after 1991. He was right, but he was also late.

As president, Leonid Kravchuk led Ukraine to post-Soviet independence but not to a democratic, free-market, European national identity. In the 1990s, with Russia relatively benign and the US and Europe ready to start putting into practice the vision of a Europe whole and free through growing its core institutions of NATO and the EU, Ukraine as a society did not seem ready to embrace a future with the West. At the same time, the West didn’t seem ready to regard a European future for Ukraine as achievable. Sadly, the moment passed.

By the time Ukraine had embraced a European future after the 2004 Orange Revolution and 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Putin had revealed himself as determined to reconquer as much of the old Russian Empire as he could reach. I understood from our many conversations that President Kravchuk knew this. He was determined to match his earlier achievement in fostering Ukraine’s independence by championing its internal transformation and, on that basis, solidifying its Europe identity and future.

Ukraine is now fighting to maintain its independence. When it achieves this, as looks likely, Ukraine will have to turn to the next task and focus once again on Kravchuk’s last great goal: building a country worthy of the sacrifice and courage of the Ukrainian people. Leonid Kravchuk’s championing of Ukrainian independence was a great deed and he understood the next challenges facing the country.

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Miriam Kosmehl, Senior Expert Eastern Europe, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany: Naturally, Leonid Kravchuk will primarily be remembered as the first president of post-Soviet Ukraine, after more than 90 percent of Ukrainian voters supported independence in December 1991.

It was Kravchuk who then met with Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Belarus’s Stanislav Shushkevich to dissolve the Gorbachev-led Soviet Union. I am not sure Kravchuk will be remembered as positively as Shushkevich, who became an outspoken critic of his successor Alyasandr Lukashenka, but he was a different personality as a former party official. At any rate, Kravchuk’s role in those difficult times should not be underestimated. He was a clever party politician but by no means a stubborn ideologue. He sensed the wind of change and the window of opportunity, and was able to draw undecided people to his side.

While he contributed to the establishment of democratic traditions in Ukraine with the peaceful transfer of power following his defeat in the 1994 presidential election, Kravchuk did not always choose his partners wisely during his subsequent political career. Some may accuse him of not getting more out of negotiations over the surrender of Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal that resulted in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. However, critics must also recognize that the pressure from Moscow and Washington was enormous and he had little room for maneuver.

It is particularly tragic that Kravchuk has died at a time when the independence he helped build is threatened by Putin’s war of aggression. This reflects the fact that unlike Ukraine, Russia remains trapped in the past and has failed to progress towards a more positive sense of modern statehood.

Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum: I first met Leonid Kravchuk in Davos in January 1991. He was a jovial, mild and humble person who appeared a very unlikely second secretary for ideology of the hardline Communist Party of Ukraine. Kravchuk won by being underestimated and kind, usually with a mild smile on his lips.

In the course of 1991, he transformed himself from high-ranking Ukrainian communist to a leading Ukrainian nationalist. Coming from a small village in western Ukraine, he spoke perfect Ukrainian. The saying went that Kravchuk did not need an umbrella because he walked between the raindrops.

His three greatest successes occurred in December 1991. Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence; Kravchuk was elected Ukraine’s first president; and together with Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich, he dissolved the Soviet Union. Coincidentally, Shushkevich died one week before Kravchuk, also aged 88.

Kravchuk’s worst side was his economic policy. Due to his training in Marxist-Leninist political economy he had no clue on economic matters and led Ukraine into the hyperinflation and chaos of the early 1990s. Fortunately, he accepted early presidential elections in 1994, which he unexpectedly lost to Leonid Kuchma. To his credit, Kravchuk accepted his loss and set a fine precedent for the peaceful democratic transition of power in independent Ukraine. Afterwards, Kravchuk played the role of elder statesman honorably and was always appreciated at national and international events. He was active until the very end. He will be missed.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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Diane Francis, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council: I first interviewed Leonid Kravchuk in early 1992, just six months after the dawn of Ukrainian independence. We spoke again in 2015 following the Revolution of Dignity and Russia’s seizure of Crimea and part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Despite the 23-year gap between these two conversations, much remained the same. Ukrainians were still concerned about the threat to their statehood coming from Moscow.

Kravchuk told me that Ukraine had been held hostage by Russia ever since independence and had effectively been occupied by the Russians in terms of the economy, investment and trade. “They took away the best assets. They occupied Ukraine step by step gradually then eventually at very the top. It used to be that they controlled only trade and the economy but then it became the political and military leadership. Putin’s policy is to conquer Ukraine and keep it a slave.”

We shook hands and Kravchuk told me that Ukrainians must never give up their country. Now he’s gone and they are still fighting.

Taras Kuzio, Research Fellow, Henry Jackson Society: Leonid Kravchuk has earned himself a place in Ukrainian history as the godfather of Ukrainian independence. Coming from western Ukraine in a state with a communist political tradition, Kravchuk was in the right place at the right time. He was able to successfully traverse the Soviet system and navigate widespread Russian resistance to Ukrainian independence, something which former dissidents and members of the oppositionist independence movement would not have had the political skills to do.

Kravchuk made three key contributions to Ukrainian independence. He mobilised parliament to overwhelmingly adopt the declaration of independence in August 1991; he persuaded southern and eastern Ukraine to support the December 1991 referendum on independence; and he convinced Boris Yeltsin to dismantle the USSR.

Kravchuk will also be remembered for peacefully transferring power when he lost the 1994 presidential election. This firmly established Ukraine on its path of democratisation. Vichna yomu pamyat!

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Patrick Quirk, David O. Shullman — Fri, 06 May 2022 16:39:06 +0000

Although a welcome development, the recent US and European escalation of arms shipments to Ukraine is insufficient to curb Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs on expanding illiberalism.

That’s because the Kremlin isn’t alone: Both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping view the expansion of democracy as a threat to their grip on power and key to the advancement of US and allied influence around the world. Disrupting democracy and strengthening authoritarianism globally are therefore central elements of their strategic competition with the United States.

Before Putin’s brazen invasion of Ukraine, both he and Xi had long recognized that interference in open societies to advantage illiberal friends is preferable to and far less costly than military invasion. There is no shortage of examples: In Ethiopia and Kenya, for instance, Beijing has invested in training the ruling parties on the same strategies and tactics the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to stay in power. It has also poured money into countries such as Cambodia and Serbia without demanding progress on human rights or democratic development, reinforcing authoritarian trends there. For its part, Russia actively uses a range of online information operations to advantage illiberal populist allies abroad—from bolstering euroskeptic actors in the Netherlands to promoting a Kremlin-friendly narrative in government-controlled media in Hungary.

Chinese and Russian efforts to undermine democratic institutions and bolster illiberal leaders also frequently complement one another. Russian disinformation campaigns and efforts to exacerbate societal divides are often more effective in countries that are increasingly dependent on Chinese investment and convinced by its promotion of an authoritarian development model. While these efforts are typically undertaken independently, there is mounting evidence of coordination, particularly on propaganda and disinformation.

The Kremlin’s evident failings in Ukraine will likely spark fear among Putin, Xi, and their elite support networks that this could snowball into more democratic successes in their neighborhoods. As this perceived threat escalates, so too will the dedication among the leaders of Russia and China to advance illiberalism and undercut democratic movements. Beyond its immediate periphery, Beijing’s protection of its expanding global interests will increasingly result in efforts to prevent inconvenient political transitions. Its recent deal with the Solomon Islands allowing it to send security forces “to assist in maintaining social order” is only a harbinger of things to come. Meanwhile, Russia’s war has injected new life into the NATO alliance and broader transatlantic relationship.

Funding freedom

The United States needs to strike while the iron is hot to establish deeper collaboration with allies to shore up democracy. There are two steps that can keep the West ahead of Putin and Xi as they shift their promotion of authoritarianism into overdrive.

First, the United States must secure the resources necessary to protect democracy from Beijing and Moscow—in Eastern Europe and beyond. While President Joe Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2023 budget rightfully includes increases for the Pentagon (bringing its budget to $773 billion) to enable US armed forces to address simultaneous threats from China and Russia, the challenge from Moscow and Beijing is not a unidimensional military one. From Ukraine to Taiwan, Central African Republic to El Salvador, Putin and Xi use a multiplicity of political, economic, and diplomatic tactics to exert influence and undermine fledgling and established democracies.

Democracy has not faced as significant a challenge from expansionist authoritarianism in decades—yet the US budget to protect and promote democracy by non-military means is a mere $3.2 billion, or less than one-quarter of the cost of a single aircraft carrier.

Congress must address this discrepancy between today’s threat profile and the resources at the disposal of the United States. Swiftly passing legislation such as the bipartisan Democracy in the 21^st Century Act, introduced late last year by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chris Coons (D-DE), would be a good place to start: The bill provides forty million dollars to a “Fund to Defend Democracy Globally.” These modest funds could go a long way toward girding vulnerable democracies against adversaries’ attempts to undermine institutions, discredit elections, spread disinformation, and co-opt elites.

Second, the United States also must capitalize on Europe’s newfound recognition of the protracted contest it faces with both Russia and China, having watched Beijing’s craven response to the tragedy in Ukraine. They must collectively amplify a powerful allied narrative about the need to protect democracy and punish adversaries who seek to undermine it. This is essential at a time when Beijing is trying to redefine the very meaning of democracy, claiming the concept as its own while gleefully cataloging the failures of US democracy and promoting its own repressive system of governance.

The United States has done well to rally European and key Asian allies against Russia, bringing them together to levy sanctions, transfer arms, and present a joint diplomatic front. This same grouping can do more to support and fund democratic activists and critical journalists working to expose opaque deals between their own governments and the CCP and the Kremlin. Electoral processes, the lifeblood of any democracy, must also be shored up against Russian and Chinese interference and corruption.

Democratic allies also need stronger partnerships with platforms and regulators to share best practices on combating disinformation. China’s brazen campaign amplifying Russian lies about the horrors unfolding in Ukraine underscores their joint challenge to the global information ecosystem.

Joining forces against autocracy

To achieve maximum strategic impact ahead of an expected uptick in authoritarian pressure on democracies, developed democracies must play to their strengths. The United States and its allies should together determine how national aid agencies, diplomats, development finance institutions, and democracy promotion and civil society organizations can combine forces and split responsibilities to bolster critical institutions and democratic actors in countries targeted by China and Russia.

To its credit, the Biden administration has updated the shopworn sanctions playbook by going big—targeting Russia’s foreign currency reserves, for instance—rather than using the meager measures deployed after Putin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas in 2014. The United States should build on this by exploring forceful penalties other than sanctions that are sufficiently consequential to alter the behavior of adversaries.

At the moment, Russia and China are employing the equivalent of hypersonic weapons to undermine democratic processes, while the United States and its allies are fighting with something akin to Cold War-era rifles. To defeat Putin and confront the long-term challenge both he and Xi pose together, the democracies of the world need to arm Ukraine but also redouble their arsenal in support of democracy.

Patrick W. Quirk is senior director for strategy and research at the International Republican Institute and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Previously, he served on the US Secretary of State’s policy planning staff.

David O. Shullman is senior director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council. Previously, he served as deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia on the National Intelligence Council.

The post Putin and Xi are accelerating their push against democracy. Here’s how the US can fight back. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Iraq: Implementing a way forward

C. Anthony Pfaff, Ben Connable, Masoud Mostajabi — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 10:00:00 +0000

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A new report, Iraq: Implementing a Way Forward, authored by Atlantic Council staff and fellows C. Anthony Pfaff, Ben Connable, and Masoud Mostajabi lays out findings and recommendations to assist the Iraqi government and its international partners in improving political, social, economic, and security conditions to enhance national stability, stabilize Iraq’s democratic processes, and promote broad-based, Iraqi-generated economic growth. The report draws on two years of engagement with experts from Iraq, the United States, and Europe through a US-Europe-Iraq Track II Dialogue convened from March 2020 through December 2021.

Convened by the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung with support from DT Institute, the Dialogue consisted of a series of workshops to identify policies to help address Iraq’s political, socioeconomic, and security challenges. Dialogue participants included former and current high-level officials and experts, all of whom are committed to a better future for Iraq.

The report covers areas including:

Fostering legitimacy
Economic reform and equitable distribution of resources
Strengthening national identity
Mobilizing youth
Establishing monopoly on use of force
Optimizing international assistance

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The Iraq Initiative provides transatlantic and regional policy makers with unique perspectives and analysis on the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing Iraq as the country tries to build an inclusive political system, attract economic investment, and encourage a vibrant civil society.

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In-Depth Research & Reports May 10, 2021

Europe needs to take a lead on Iraq

By Christian Koch

In a new report Dr. Christian Koch argues that Europe has already invested in Iraq’s stability and, going forward, should lead in policy areas demanding immediate and continued attention. Deliberate policy coordination and a European willingness to significantly increase its burden-sharing would be a tangible contribution to the Biden administration’s stated goal of rebuilding alliances and partnerships.

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Issue briefs and reports Feb 16, 2021

Iraq: A road map for recovery

By C. Anthony Pfaff

In a new report, Iraq: A roadmap for recovery, Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff outlines some of the most important discussions, findings, and recommendations of the dialogue.

Arabic English

In-Depth Research & Reports Dec 14, 2020

Iraq’s energy security strategy: A path to diversity and energy independence

By Abbas Kadhim and Sara Vakhshouri

A paper co-authored by Dr. Abbas Kadhim, director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council, and Dr. Sara Vakhshouri, founder and president of SVB Energy International, outlines immediate and medium-term practical measures to tackle Iraq’s most pressing issues, in its quest to attain energy independence.

Energy & Environment Iraq

The post Iraq: Implementing a way forward appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Back to the future in Pakistan?

Shuja Nawaz — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 20:33:50 +0000

The populist Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, who promised a “Naya (New) Pakistan” Pakistan, has been removed from office by a vote of no confidence in parliament, the first ever in Pakistan’s fraught political history. He is succeeded by Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz Group. Ironically, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari of the Pakistan People’s Party proclaimed “welcome back to ‘Purana’ (Old) Pakistan!” This change maintains a streak that no Pakistani prime minister has ever completed his or her full five-year term. Khan’s government has been replaced by an alliance of parties of different political stripes, glued together by their desire to oust Imran Khan. Most of them are dynasts. Most of them have been ruling the country off and on before Khan broke their oligopoly of power as the disruptive Trumpian outsider. But, in the end what put paid to his tenuous hold on power was not so much the political opposition but the withdrawal of support from the powerful Pakistan army chief General Qamer Javed Bajwa, whose intelligence agencies had enabled Khan’s victory in the 2018 elections and who now publicly took a “neutral” position.

This emboldened the opposition and led to an open break within the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf of Imran Khan, already fractured by internal dissent. The Khan-military misalliance was doomed to fail as he increasingly asserted himself on the basis of his perceived appeal to Pakistani youth, retired military, and even among younger military officers belonging to a generation that knew Khan as the cricket hero who won the World Cup for Pakistan in 1992. Khan, the aging pop idol, captured the imagination of the country’s dominant demographic, its youth. With a median age of 23 years, most of the population of over 220 million is in the youth category.

Imran Khan confused his 2018 victory, aided by the military, with a genuine electoral mandate. Yet, his was a coalition government dependent on allies, who in the end deserted him. Earlier, with financial and political support from wealthy businessmen patrons like Jehangir Tareen and Aleem Khan, he cobbled together a winning combination of so-called “electables” who were themselves members of and professional turncoats in Pakistani politics, well known for always jumping on the winning party’s bandwagon. In the process, Khan alienated his hardcore PTI supporters. He came into power without a cohesive or coherent program, relying instead on slogans that harkened back to the State of Medina and promising an Islamic welfare state similar to the one Prophet Muhammad established. He personally represented a break with the dynastic politics of the past (though his party was riddled with dynasts) and his personal reputation of being uncorrupt helped him win over the youth and urban elites. But very soon he became the target of accusations that he allowed his newly acquired third wife, a spiritual guide whom he consulted before he married her, to conduct bribery directly and through her friends and former husband and his family. The Covid 19 pandemic and global inflation, among other things, added to his economic woes. He handled the Covid situation very well. But Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves went on a serious downslide, down to two months of imports. The $6 billion IMF program was effectively suspended. Foreign Direct Investment declined. Domestic inflation reached 15 percent for fuel and food. Deficit financing to fund his welfare schemes in electioneering before the next set of national polls became a drain on resources. He faced rising fiscal and current account deficits and the Pakistani rupee tumbled against the dollar. The global Covid pandemic and worldwide inflation resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine exacerbated his economic woes.

Khan struggled against these odds to maintain his hold on power, even as his relationship with the military deteriorated. He added to his difficulties by presenting a narrative of victimhood in which he was the target of American moves to remove him from power, citing a report by his ambassador in Washington DC about a threat from a senior State department official. This “letter” that he brandished in public, without disclosing its contents, became his proof of a conspiracy against him as a champion of Islam. Relations with the United States suffered even more. The ensuing uproar alarmed even the army, leading the army chief to declare publicly the importance of Pakistan’s relations with the United States.

The cliche in Pakistan that most civilian governments peddle is “We are on the same page“ with the army. Sometimes the military reciprocates in this charade. The reality is that they may be on the same page but are reading different books. Khan’s fate was sealed when he broke with Bajwa.

They had been drifting apart on a number of issues. Economics and trade was one issue. Bajwa saw regional connectivity, including trade with India, as critical to economic growth and growing the economic pie (with more resources available for its defense). Khan chose to cut ties with India and play to the populist Islamist gallery on the disputed territory of Kashmir. Similarly on the US relationship, the army wanted to maintain and grow that relationship since it prefers advanced Western equipment and training. The proximate cause of the split was the replacement of Khan’s apparent favorite Director General of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, by Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed Anjum in November 2021. Imran Khan wanted to keep Hameed at ISI for some time to ensure his own re-election and there were rumors rampant that he wanted Hameed to replace Bajwa when Bajwa’s second term ended in November 2022. Khan embarrassed Bajwa by retaining Hameed for a while. He said he wanted to interview the candidates that Bajwa put up. Eventually Hameed left and Bajwa’s original choice was appointed DGISI. But the damage to the relationship had been done. Khan added to the confusion by sharing publicly that he had not yet focused on an extension for Bajwa in November this year, feeding the idea that Bajwa may have sought another extension. Not a smart move to win or retain the favor of his own patron!

Bajwa resisted the lure of an open confrontation with the prime minister in this political brinksmanship and maintained a stoic silence in public while briefing journalists and opinion leaders in private about his concerns. One such session included an elucidation by Bajwa of the damage done to foreign relations by Khan’s Trumpian disregard for facts and shoot-from-the-hip style of diplomacy that had angered friends and patrons like Saudi Arabia and China. Khan’s acolytes continued to belabor the complaint that US President Joseph Biden had failed to telephone call after taking over the White House.

Against this backdrop, the opposition took the battle to parliament and with the help of breakaway segments of Khan’s coalition launched a vote of no confidence that Khan tried to deflect with an unconstitutional move to disband parliament. The Supreme Court overturned Khan’s gambit to retain power. Khan lost the confidence vote in parliament but failed to show up himself, getting most of his party loyalists to resign their seats. This move in itself may well allow the new government, if it so chooses, to stage quick by-elections, build on their current momentum and consolidate their hold on power.

Now, Khan is relying on street demonstrations to show his strength. But without the institutional backing of the powerful army, he faces an uphill task as a new Ancien Regime tries to pull the country of its economic hole. Khan will be taking a huge risk by creating street unrest and inciting the urban youth and middle class against the army. If the economy continues to tumble and political and social unrest grows, the situation may become ripe for a military intervention again. Not something that most thinking Pakistanis nor even sagacious military commanders desire, given their experience of past military rule.

A better scenario would include a serious effort to rebuild the economy, revive the IMF program, reinvigorate foreign direct investment, and then have a vigorous political campaign in which Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif can point to his successes and Imran Khan can make his case for reinstatement. Prime Minister Sharif has a reputation for getting things done in the Punjab. He now has an opportunity to perform on a larger stage. His first speech in parliament gave the right signals of unity not division and bringing along the less powerful provinces. Meanwhile, Pakistanis will be keeping an eye on the army, under a new chief, to provide security for a free and fair elections, without putting its fingers on the scale of public opinion.

Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Fellow, South Asia Center, Atlantic Council, Washington DC. Author recently of The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighborhood (Penguin Random House, and Liberty Books, Pakistan, 2019, and Rowman and Littlefield 2021). www.shujanawaz.com

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

Experts react Apr 12, 2022

Experts react: A new leader emerges from Pakistan’s political turmoil. Now what?

By Atlantic Council experts

We reached out to several Pakistan-based experts for their thoughts on new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and what comes next in the pivotal South Asian nation.

Civil Society Democratic Transitions

SouthAsiaSource Mar 24, 2022

As no-confidence vote looms, Pakistan’s democracy faces key stress test

By Fahd Humayun

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan faces a no-confidence motion in the country’s National Assembly (the lower house of its Parliament).

Elections Pakistan

SouthAsiaSource Mar 17, 2022

Tempting the fates

By Shuja Nawaz

On March 9, 2022, India accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan’s eastern city of Mian Channu. The situation came within a hair’s width of plunging the nuclear-armed neighbors into a full-scale war.

India Missile Defense

Melcangi quoted in the Italian Institute for International Political Studies on the rapidly deteriorating condition of Tunisia’s democracy

Atlantic Council — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 13:15:00 +0000

The post Melcangi quoted in the Italian Institute for International Political Studies on the rapidly deteriorating condition of Tunisia’s democracy appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Mezran quoted in Formiche on the role of Operation Irini in Libya peace efforts amidst political instability

Atlantic Council — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 18:42:00 +0000

The post Mezran quoted in Formiche on the role of Operation Irini in Libya peace efforts amidst political instability appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Preble on Net Assessment: Keeping the right secrets secret

Atlantic Council — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 23:03:00 +0000

Former Co-Director, New American Engagement Initiative

On March 31, Christopher Preble joined his co-hosts of the Net Assessment podcast to discuss information security, both in the US government and private sector, asking the question of whether we are striking the right balance between keeping government secrets secret and ensuring that private information about customers and users is well protected.

“Chris and Zack are joined by special guest co-host, Emily Harding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The three review the Biden administration’s latest responses to the crisis in Ukraine before turning to the issue of information security, both in the U.S. government and in the private sector. What information is, and should be, classified? And are we striking the right balance between keeping government secrets secret, and ensuring that private information about customers and users is well protected?”

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As no-confidence vote looms, Pakistan’s democracy faces key stress test

Fahd Humayun — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:32:58 +0000

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan faces a no-confidence motion in the country’s National Assembly (the lower house of its Parliament). The motion, which is expected to be tabled on March 25, 2022, will likely be followed by a vote on the prime minister’s future within a week. The move is a result of concerted efforts by opposition parties to unseat Khan. Some members of the prime minister’s own party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), meanwhile have said they too intend to cross the aisle and vote in favor of the motion.

This is not the first time in the history of Pakistan’s democracy that a prime minister has faced a vote of no-confidence, but Imran Khan could be the first to be ousted through one. Infamously, no prime minister in Pakistan’s history has ever completed their full term, either. Should Khan survive the upcoming vote, he might still have a shot at doing so.

The government’s poor performance has helped unite Pakistan’s opposition parties

Last month, Khan announced that he was reducing petrol prices and power tariffs to provide public relief amidst skyrocketing inflation and a steep devaluation of the Pakistani rupee. But the announcement failed to stop the country’s two main opposition parties—the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)—from calling for the government’s ousting. The ruling party has also been criticized for its unpopular choice of chief minister in Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, where poor administrative control together with reports of nepotism and corruption has eroded political support and galvanized an internal revolt within the ruling party.

Pakistan’s powerful military prefers indirect influence to a coup

Political strife in Pakistan has historically been a catalyst for the military to intervene in politics. Pakistan has had three military coups over the course of its seventy-four year history, and has spent half its existence under direct military rule. The last military dictatorship ended in 2008 and heralded a return to democracy marked by competitive multi-party elections, yet the military remains a powerful actor in Pakistan’s politics. The Army for its part has rejected allegations of political interference, and has publicly asked the country’s opposition as well as the media to refrain from dragging it into politics. That said, many still believe the Army’s support was critical in helping Khan catapult to power in the country’s last general election in 2018. The military is also believed to maintain influence over key political decisions, evident most recently in the divisive appointment of the country’s intelligence services chief. In recent days, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa also met with the prime minister. While ongoing political intrigue has fueled some speculation that the Army may be withdrawing its tacit support for Khan, behind-the-doors meeting between the two suggests that Army may be looking for ways to avert a major collision that could spur further political and economic instability.

Populist rhetoric has exacerbated the crisis

Prime Minister Khan and his ministers are using populist appeals in an attempt to weather the political storm. These appeals range from accusing the opposition of being part of a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the current government, to criticizing the West for trying to dictate Pakistan’s foreign policy, to invoking religious nationalism to rally Khan’s supporters. The prime minister’s decision to slash power tariffs and petroleum prices, while locally popular, is likely to be at odds with an agreement that his government has undertaken with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the country’s widening fiscal deficit. The Opposition, in turn, has used the IMF bailout to accuse the prime minister of selling Pakistan’s sovereignty to the West. Indeed, staving off pressure from the IMF while fending attacks from the Opposition will be a difficult balancing act for Khan. In a bid to win and maintain support, both the ruling party as well as the Opposition are likely to step up their use of populist rhetoric, even if it risks economic and political uncertainty.

In the balance: Free and fair elections

Should Prime Minister Khan lose the House’s confidence after the motion is tabled tomorrow, a new National Assembly session will be convened followed by an election for a new leader of the House. It remains to be seen whether the opposition will be able to remain united behind a consensus candidate for the position of prime minister, and indeed whether a stable coalition can make the transition into government or if fresh elections will have to be called. Pakistan’s last two general elections were mired in controversy and allegations of rigging. Indeed, opposition parties in Pakistan maintain that if Khan continues in power and is allowed to choose a new chief of army staff before the country’s next election (currently slated for October 2023), those elections may also not be impartial. The PTI, for its part, has come under criticism for having introduced controversial changes to the country’s Elections Act, which both the opposition and the Election Commission of Pakistan have argued are detrimental to the health of a clean and transparent electoral process.

Uncertainty is the only certainty

The Opposition needs 172 votes in Pakistan’s 342-member National Assembly to unseat Khan, and believes that together with PTI dissidents they may have just enough to make that happen. The prime minister, meanwhile, has warned the opposition that it will “lose this match badly.” The outcome of the vote will be consequential either way. Should Khan survive, he is likely to ratchet up accountability of the Opposition. He will also have to tackle rising prices quickly while consolidating control within his own ranks. Should the Opposition prevail, current leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif has said that political parties intend to form a national government that excludes the PTI. The political uncertainty borne of such a move will not be without implications for a fragile economy, especially if Khan takes to the streets and launches nationwide protests. Irrespective of the prime minister’s fate following the vote, the ability of Pakistan’s delicate democracy to withstand impending political turbulence will determine just how far it has come as well as the miles it still has to go.

The writer is a PhD candidate at Yale University and incoming Assistant Professor at Tufts University’s Department of Political Science. Twitter: @fahdhumayun

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

SouthAsiaSource Mar 17, 2022

Tempting the fates

By Shuja Nawaz

India Missile Defense

SouthAsiaSource Mar 16, 2022

Exploring non-traditional export markets: Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics

By Hasan Abbas

Huge potential exists for Pakistan to increase its exports to the Central Asia region.

Central Asia Economy & Business

SouthAsiaSource Mar 15, 2022

A terror redux in Pakistan?

By Neha Ansari

The recent surge in terror attacks may be a harbinger for another wave of militancy in Pakistan, which it will have to fight alone.

Pakistan South Asia

The EU needs Ukraine

Paul Grod — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 20:48:06 +0000

Today, as Russia wages war on Ukraine, the European Union has risen to the occasion and rallied to support the Ukrainian people. Ukraine has unified the EU like never before by giving it a renewed sense of purpose.

This emphatic EU reaction is entirely appropriate as Putin’s war is a direct attack on Ukraine’s European choice and on the values that the EU itself has long claimed to champion. Europe must now seize the historic moment and recognize that the ultimate response to Russian revanchist aggression is EU membership for Ukraine.

The best way to understand the EU-Ukraine relationship, without an in-depth examination of Ukraine’s 1000-year history, is to look back to the decisive days of late November 2013. Ukraine was on the verge of signing a much-anticipated association agreement with the European Union when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suddenly performed a dramatic U-turn under extreme pressure from the Kremlin.

Yanukovych’s attempt to abandon European integration and turn the country towards Russia sparked enormous protests across Ukraine. This movement was referred to by many as the “Euromaidan Revolution” in reference to Ukraine’s European choice and the central square (“maidan”) in Kyiv which served as the focal point of the protests.

Millions of Ukrainians took part in the revolution, standing for months in sub-zero winter temperatures despite the ever-present threat of violence from gangs of government thugs and riot police. The confrontation reached a bloody climax in late February 2014 with dozens of protesters gunned down in central Kyiv. In the aftermath of the massacre, Yanukovych’s remaining allies deserted him and he fled to Russia.

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Ukrainians in their millions risked their personal safety and economic security in order to join the Euromaidan protests because they believed in the country’s civilizational choice of a European future. Eight years on, they are once again demonstrating incredible bravery and giving their lives in defense of the same European values that drove the 2014 revolution.

The Ukrainians who are currently defending their country against Putin’s war of destruction epitomize the core European values of peace, dignity, tolerance and human rights. They are showing a readiness to fight for these values that is resonating with audiences elsewhere in Europe who have come to take such things for granted and are now being reminded that freedom is not free.

In 2019, Ukraine enshrined its commitment to membership of the European Union in the country’s constitution. This national goal was reiterated in the first days of the current war when President Zelenskyy signed Ukraine’s official application for EU membership. This application has since received resounding support from the European Parliament.

The time has now come for Brussels to openly embrace Ukraine’s membership bid. While EU leaders have recently spoken encouragingly of Ukraine’s place within the “European family,” the response to Ukrainian calls for fast-track membership during a March 10 EU summit in Versailles was disappointingly underwhelming.

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After Vilnius: What’s next on Ukraine’s path to NATO?

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The future of the EU depends on its readiness to act in accordance with the principle that any European country which shares European values can become part of the European Union. Continuing to stall on Ukrainian membership would represent a victory for Putin’s use of military force that would only encourage further acts of aggression along the EU’s eastern flank and elsewhere in other European regions such as the Balkans.

Policies of appeasement have clearly failed. European leaders must now abandon their earlier fears of provoking Putin and actively pursue Ukrainian integration. As the current war has illustrated, nothing is more provocative to Putin than the geopolitical isolation of Ukraine.

The EU is stronger today because of the increased unity generated by opposition to the war in Ukraine. The courage and resolve displayed by millions of Ukrainians has underlined the enduring importance of the values at the heart of the EU’s own mission and highlighted the fragility of the peace that European integration has done so much to make possible.

Put simply, the European Union needs Ukraine. It needs Ukraine in order to demonstrate its own commitment to European values and its opposition to the authoritarian alternative being advanced by Vladimir Putin.

Perhaps most of all, the EU needs Ukraine because no other country so clearly embodies the principles of democracy and peaceful coexistence underpinning the grand project of a united Europe. If EU leaders reject Ukraine at this historic moment, that project will soon find itself without the firm foundations it currently enjoys.

Paul Grod is the President of the Ukrainian World Congress.

Atlantic Council — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 18:48:00 +0000

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Workshop on freedom and prosperity in Asia

Atlantic Council — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 17:40:11 +0000

On February 16, 2022, the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Project, in collaboration with the Centre for Civil Society in India, hosts the fourth and last in a series of virtual workshops on strengthening economic freedom, rule of law, and representative government in different regions across the world.

This workshop focuses on Asia and convenes a small group of former senior officials, civil society leaders, and scholars from across the region and from the United States to discuss the credibility of the project’s message and how to communicate it to stakeholders in the region.

Participants

Here are the key takeaways:

Why the message is needed

East and Southeast Asia are experiencing significant debate about the state’s role in a post-pandemic economic recovery, and many want the state to assume a greater role in governance and the promotion of economic transformation. The pandemic has increased popular skepticism around liberal democratic values and institutions. Supply chain issues and food insecurity have inspired a greater desire for economic protectionism, and the general sense of instability surrounding the Covid-19 crisis has led to greater acceptance for authoritarian governments, which are seen as more stable and protective. Simultaneously, there has been an erosion of trust in representative democracy—people are willing to accept new laws that diminish their civil liberties if they promise greater stability. These post-pandemic conditions make it difficult for think tanks to push for liberalization and openness.

The West’s ability to equate freedom with prosperity was an important strength in the Cold War; however, due to perceived flaws in Western democracies today, this equation no longer seems clear to many Asian audiences. As populations become more disillusioned with democracy, China’s growing influence in the region and the spread of Chinese investment and culture have led many regional leaders to cite Beijing as an attractive model.

The implications of getting the freedom and prosperity message right in Asia are significant. Messaging in Asia resonates far beyond the Indo-Pacific, with broader consequences and strategic impact. For example, African leaders often cite Asian countries as their models, giving the decisions of Asian countries added weight. Countries around the world will be watching to see how debate about the role of the state in East and South Asia plays out.

Framing the Message

There have been successes and failures in promoting messages around freedom and prosperity in Asia. Many countries are eager to join international free trade agreements but are skeptical of economic liberalization at home, and international statements in defense of democracy often co-exist with domestic political repression.

First and foremost, messengers should tailor their arguments to their listeners. Many countries in Asia continue to experience significant societal cleavages based on race, religion, and identity, and arguments based on ideology are often discounted in favor of identity-based arguments. Effective messaging must embrace local cultural, religious, or philosophical frameworks. Emphasizing the three freedoms within the context of religion in Muslim societies, for example, may increase local receptiveness.

Messengers should also draw on history to communicate the need for greater freedoms. Many Asian countries have experienced communism, Islamic autocracies, and authoritarianism at various periods in their existence. Unlike some Western populations, these Asian societies have a recent memory of living without basic freedoms that can shape their wariness of authoritarianism today.

Messaging about economic freedom, rule of law, and representative government will be most effective if publics understand the direct impact of these structures on their lives. Accompanying graphs and charts with case studies, anecdotes, images, and simple infographics will make complex ideas more relatable. Those who experience short-term pain in the name of free markets — such as the removal of subsidies—need to hear about the long-term benefits of policy decisions on their lives, such as the amount of money they will save in taxes from ending subsidies.

Messengers should market their arguments to elite audiences as well. Many liberal thinkers and politicians in the region promote only some types of freedom; those who advocate for rule of law may not support economic openness, and vice versa. Elites must be convinced that increased freedoms across all domains will result in a more prosperous society. Potential steps include packaging clear talking points for politicians and providing impactful data to journalists to demonstrate the benefits of increased freedoms.

Effective messaging should also consider the gradient between free market and interventionist systems. Messengers should be cautious about always dismissing state interventions as ineffective—East Asia is currently seeing the rapid reinvention of managed economies, providing a number of strong models that promote freedom while addressing inequality. Messengers should emphasize that a strong state is not necessarily off the table, so long as it is accompanied by societal freedoms that help the private sector and spur long-term investment.

Finally, messaging derives its credibility from the credibility of the messenger. Many messengers around the world, and particularly in Asia, are better positioned to deliver this message than those in the West. India has enormous credibility as a democratic messenger but often does not realize its full potential. Other Asian countries also have a role to play in their own region and beyond. Western partners should understand when it may be most effective to step back and allow Asian messengers to take the lead.

What can be done

Messaging about the benefits of freedom and democracy must be accompanied by real action. The credibility of this message is tied to its demonstrated benefits, and publics will be unlikely to support democratic systems if they do not see a tangible positive impact on their lives. Established democracies need to demonstrate that they can deliver steady growth by reducing inequality at home and ensuring the widespread distribution of benefits and opportunity across society.

Western democracies also need to make reforms at home to improve the credibility of messaging abroad. Leaders should consider what changes will make the liberal democratic model even more credible, particularly in the face of growing competition from the “China model” across Asia.

For media inquiries, please contact press@atlanticcouncil.org.

Driven by our mission of “shaping the global future together,” the Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes US leadership and engagement in the world, in partnership with allies and partners, to shape solutions to global challenges.

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A new-look prime minister’s office is an opportunity to achieve ‘Global Britain’

Francis Shin and Alex Urwin — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 22:06:25 +0000

The specter of political instability looms over Britain. Faced with domestic political pressure, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appointed a new chief of staff to consolidate operations in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office. It is imperative that this reorganization does not neglect Johnson’s ‘Global Britain’ agenda, a commitment to openness and to restoring the country’s stature as a leading international player. The fall of Kabul and the Russian invasion of Ukraine only underscore why Britain’s leader must ensure that his restructured office strengthens the country’s chances of achieving those global goals.

In the immediate term, Ukraine will clearly remain the focus. Beyond that, it’s time to revisit Johnson’s much-postponed trip to India, engage more one-on-one with US President Joe Biden, and make a concerted effort to repair relations with France. The prime minister’s reconstituted office, however, ultimately needs to drive a persistent, long-term effort to operationalize its ‘Global Britain’ vision.

Here are three key recommendations to get there: Ensure that the prime minister takes the National Security Council (NSC) seriously; enable his access to the best foreign-policy expertise; and equip the NSC’s secretariat smartly. None of these is overly radical or demands significant additional funds from the Treasury.

Restore the NSC’s original relevance: Johnson must do what his predecessors David Cameron and Theresa May did since the inception of the NSC in 2010—chair the council’s meetings every week. Where the prime minister is present, so too are key ministers, embedding regular foreign-policy thinking at the top level of government. This rhythm of prime minister-chaired NSC meetings will also ensure the body is not entirely reactive to crises, effectively incentivizing longer-term contingency and strategic thinking. This is vital to avoid a repeat of international policy failures like Afghanistan.
Get bright, outside minds: Current officials have made clear that recent foreign-policy successes, like those in Ukraine, are largely thanks to a small but highly competent cadre of experts marshaled by John Bew, Number 10’s chief foreign policy adviser. Bew must be empowered to bring in additional voices from the United Kingdom’s highly developed academia-think tank world. Britain can look across the Atlantic at the United States as an example: National Security Adviser (NSA) Jake Sullivan and US Agency for International Development head Samantha Power were brought into government while serving in posts at Yale and Harvard respectively. When Bew moves on, his position should be formalized so other strategists can maintain this momentum, even as the NSA continues to serve as a counterweight to them.
Small and sprightly: If the heavyweight policy development resource sits with the departments and the capacity for novel idea generation sits with Bew and his team in Number 10, the NSC secretariat must perform a coordinating role. At its best—and as was intended in 2010—the secretariat should be a small and highly capable team of experts, with knowledge across the broad foreign policy, intelligence, and defense spectrum. They can integrate all relevant views, enabling the NSA to provide cohesive policy recommendations to the prime minister. Several officials we spoke to noted a movement away from this model, with an increasingly large secretariat often stepping into the policy development space, duplicating thinking, and creating a barrier to advice fed to Number 10. Again, the United States offers a valuable precedent. George W. Bush’s NSA Brent Scowcroft ran a small, specialized team with a clear remit to consolidate views and create a cohesive policy for the president. Britain should aim for something similar.

These proposed measures aren’t exhaustive. There is also a compelling case for better resourcing the wider foreign network, as economic and political conditions allow.

Still, these limited recommendations will not be straightforward to implement. The prime minister and Number 10 are naturally more focused on the short term, driven by crises and electoral cycles. Foreign policy is rarely a vote winner (or loser), so convincing the prime minister to dedicate time to proactive foreign policy thinking via the NSC could be difficult. Similarly, some we spoke to cautioned against institutionalizing a system based on the successes of an individual: Bew.

A look beyond Britain also makes clear that this task will not be easy. French President Emmanuel Macron dedicates a huge amount of time to foreign policy and his office holds substantial power over defense issues. Yet Macron’s foreign-policy approach, which has been described as “hyperactive, disruptive,” has delivered varying levels of success. Meanwhile, the US system demonstrates how significant presidential attention does not always ensure that the United States gets the foreign-policy outcomes it desires.

Yet these challenges shouldn’t paralyze attempts for Britain to ensure meaningful prime ministerial influence over foreign policy. As Afghanistan showed and the Ukraine crisis underlines, the costs of neglect are simply too high. Following our recommendations may not always prevent strategic mistakes—Germany had been debating this issue long before the Ukraine crisis—but integrating relevant perspectives while emphasizing scenario analysis and contingency planning can minimize the risk. Ensuring a new-look prime minister’s office does not neglect foreign policy would be a good place to start.

Francis Shin is a research assistant in the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Alex Urwin is a Master’s student at Columbia University who has previously worked in the British prime minister’s office.

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Khoury in the Arab Center Washington DC: Yemen: The Failure of International Diplomacy

Atlantic Council — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 20:48:00 +0000

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Mezran quoted in Formiche on constitutional change and political reforms across the Middle East

Atlantic Council — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 15:51:00 +0000

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Mezran quoted in Formiche on Libya’s transitional government and parliamentary crisis

Atlantic Council — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 20:01:00 +0000

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With Putin poised to invade, Zelenskyy must prioritize Ukrainian unity

Kira Rudik — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 23:06:58 +0000

For the past three months, Ukraine has been in the global spotlight amid mounting fears that Vladimir Putin is preparing to launch a dramatic escalation in his eight-year undeclared war against the country. Russia has encircled Ukraine to the north, east, and south with over 120,000 troops while demanding guarantees that the West block Kyiv’s NATO membership bid and effectively condemn the country to the geopolitical wilderness.

With Putin’s thinly-veiled threats raising the prospect of Europe’s largest conflict since WWII, the international community has responded by engaging the Kremlin in an intense diplomatic dialogue while providing Ukraine with urgent deliveries of defensive weapons. Meanwhile, journalists from around the world have flooded into Kyiv as Ukraine has become the leading international news story.

It would be reasonable to assume that Ukraine’s own domestic political agenda has also recently been dominated by the looming threat of a full-scale Russian invasion. However, this is not the case. Instead of mobilizing the country’s many different political forces to unite in confronting the Kremlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spent much of the past few months pursuing divisive policies that risk weakening the country while strengthening his own grip on power.

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One area of concern is the failure to make meaningful progress in much-needed judicial reform. Despite multiple public commitments to advance this key reform, Zelenskyy has been unable to move the long-stalled process forward. The most recent setback came in early February with a third consecutive failed attempt to approve a new anti-corruption prosecutor despite the fact that all the requisite procedural steps were finalized months ago. Critics blame this lack of progress firmly on the Office of the President.

President Zelenskyy’s anti-oligarch law is another indication of a power consolidation that threatens to undermine political competition by granting the president-controlled National Security and Defense Council powers to determine exactly who is an oligarch. Aspects of the law relating to media ownership have grave implications for freedom of speech. Once its comes into force in May 2022, the legislation will potentially allow Zelenskyy to muzzle the Ukrainian media.

There are already alarming signs of unwelcome interference in the information sector. While efforts to combat Russian disinformation are broadly recognized both within Ukraine and by the international community as necessary, there have also been attempts to target individual journalists following criticism of Zelenskyy. Criminal cases against a number of TV channels have also raised eyebrows.

By far the most dangerous development in recent months has been the growing political tension between the current authorities and the country’s opposition forces. In January 2022, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko was charged with treason in relation to the trade in coal from Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine during his time in office.

Poroshenko is Zelenskyy’s main political rival and is widely tipped to run against him in 2024. While specific details of the charges against Poroshenko have yet to be made public, the prosecution of a key competitor for the presidency has been widely condemned as politically motivated.

Other politicians have also been targeted by the authorities. The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) recently questioned members of the parliamentary grouping tied to former parliamentary speaker and Zelenskyy critic Dmytro Razumkov. Following criticism of Zelenskyy by Holos party, I was recently summoned for questioning by the SBI over party-related activities dating back to 2020.

Eurasia Center events

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The timing of these developments is particularly concerning. Why would the president of a nation under siege from a military superpower turn on his domestic opponents? Whatever the motivations behind President Zelenskyy’s policies, his recent actions undermine national security at what is a critical moment for Ukraine.

By taking steps that bring his commitment to Ukraine’s democratic development into question, Zelenskyy also risks weakening the international community’s resolve to support the country against Russian aggression. Ukraine’s international partners have always maintained that their continued backing reflects support for the historic democratic transformation underway in the country. In this moment of acute danger, it is more crucial than ever to demonstrate the credibility of Ukraine’s democratic credentials.

I believe now is the time for all political forces in Ukraine to unite against the threat of a full-scale Russian invasion. We must put aside political squabbles and personal rivalries while we face the challenge presented by Putin and his ultimatums. The national interest must come before any individual agendas.

Unless we are united, Ukraine will not be strong enough to defend itself. Every Ukrainian politician must ask themselves two key questions before making any decisions: Will this unite or divide Ukrainian society? Will this strengthen or weaken the country?

Ukraine has made historic nation-building progress in recent years, but this journey is far from over. Russia is clearly determined to reverse Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic choice and is seeking to intimidate the international community with the threat of a major European war.

For Ukraine and the wider democratic world, the stakes in the current confrontation could hardly be higher. With the country’s survival as an independent state under threat, Ukraine urgently needs national unity.

Kira Rudik is leader of the Holos party and a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

Atlantic Council — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:25:00 +0000

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Afghanistan needs a political roadmap to reduce economic hardship

Omar Samad — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 20:34:08 +0000

For the fourth time in almost half a century, the people of Afghanistan are experiencing acute poverty. Among the causes are the sudden loss of livelihoods and income as a result of crippling international sanctions, frozen financial assets, and a man-made recession imposed on the country’s aid-dependent economy after the fall of Kabul last August.

However, as the world lends a hand through the United Nations and international aid organizations and by bypassing the Taliban administration, preventing an imminent humanitarian catastrophe cannot be achieved just by throwing more money at the problem or isolating the new regime. Instead, a durable and Afghan-owned solution will need a two-pronged policy approach involving the Taliban and key Afghan and foreign stakeholders through enhanced engagement and a political action plan to address key shortcomings, but also broaden the scope and impact of governance.

While the multibillion-dollar humanitarian effort currently underway is essential and must reach destitute communities and families for as long as necessary in an effective and accountable manner, it is neither a sustainable model nor a long-term solution for a country of more than thirty-five million people struggling to find peace and stability after four decades of conflict.

Raising an unprecedented sum of eight billion dollars under United Nations (UN) auspices this year to feed Afghans and offer essential services is a momentous undertaking that is appreciated by Afghans. That said, this cannot be a substitute for seeking a permanent solution to the unfolding crisis.

A parallel effort is also needed on the political front to overcome governance barriers, build trust, and strengthen domestic resilience as well as develop a consensus on the way forward, thus reducing or eliminating the impact of the sanctions regime.

Doing so would partly alleviate the severe external financial and banking restrictions brought upon the fragile Afghan system since the abrupt palace-triggered coup that led to the fall of the “republic” and recapture of Kabul by the Taliban last August. It may also change the dynamics that have dictated relations between the world’s major donors and Kabul’s Taliban rulers – some of whom are still on UN and US terrorism blacklists.

Foreign aid comprised over 40 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP in 2020, with budgetary aid specifically representing more than 70 percent of the government’s budget prior to the fall of Kabul. Today, Afghanistan receives no bilateral or multilateral foreign aid.

Two-track engagement is needed

A two-track Afghan-led effort is needed to, on one hand, stave off the worst effects of sanctions on more than 60 percent of the acutely malnourished and 95 percent of the impoverished population, and on the other hand, address key human/women’s rights concerns, political representation shortcomings, and governance challenges facing the country after forty-three years of war and displacement.

Afghanistan’s first mega humanitarian shockwave was felt between 1978 and 1992, during the Soviet occupation and communist rule when more than one third of the population (estimated then at around fifteen million) were displaced, and more than one million people died. The second blow was felt during the post-communist factional power struggle that centered in and around Kabul and resulted in serious loss of lives and another wave of displacement. The third crisis hit Afghans during the first round of Taliban rule in the mid-1990s, highlighted by armed resistance, implantation of terror groups such as al-Qaeda, and an ostracized Taliban regime.

New political overtures

Encouraged by circles within the Taliban, signs are emerging that the country’s domestic political actors are engaged in a new round of subtle trust-building aimed at agreeing to a political roadmap leading to a more representative and acceptable political order. Different ideas have been put forth for discussion in the past few days, all of which are advocating for wider intra-Afghan consultations but have yet to agree on the process and mechanisms to reach a shared outcome.

While the Taliban have met twice with an exiled resistance front led by Ahmad Massoud in the past six months (with no apparent results), there are ongoing consultations with Kabul-based politicians such as ex-President Hamid Karzai, former Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, ex-mujahideen leader Gulbudin Hekmatyar, ethnic political and civil society leaders, and through smaller-scale intra-Afghan exchange channels such as the Oslo conference last week that act as exchange and trust-building platforms.

While the objective is to initiate Afghan-owned talks that involve the Taliban and other stakeholders that allow for an exchange of ideas and proposals concerning governance, human rights, and constitutional and economic challenges facing the country, the process is still young and does not include all relevant forces yet. Key proposals and recommendations so far include:

Formalizing a national consultation process.
Broadening the scope and representation of relevant socio-political and ethnic constituencies under a single umbrella or Shura (council).
Agreeing to work on a legal document or draft a new constitution.
Considering legitimization mechanisms for consultations and decision making, be it a Shura, a Loya Jirga, or some form of plebiscite at the national level.
Prioritizing key issues such as human rights, access for all genders to education and employment, minority rights, and enhancing governance standards and capacities.
Addressing violations or allegations of abductions, curtailment of freedom of expression, and human rights abuses.
Assessing best options for enhancing domestic and international legitimacy leading to recognition via an Afghan-led mechanism or UN-sponsored international conference model.

On the economic side, while efforts are underway to build a viable humanitarian-financial corridor, new technical solutions are being floated inside and outside Afghanistan to improve the impact of aid and combat hunger and poverty irrespective of Taliban involvement. They include:

Gradually injecting liquidity into the economy by relaxing legal banking and foreign exchange restrictions.
Creating a trust fund to administer existing civil service salary payments and backpay.
Making strategic use of frozen assets to keep the currency stable and inflation under check.
Enabling trading and small-scale investment opportunities.
Supporting the commercial and small business sector.
Enhancing accountability and sustainability by reducing future excessive aid dependency.

While some look at the international community to be the sole driver of change and adjustment, as US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West said last week, it is Afghans who will need to decide on the process and mechanisms that work best, pointing to the Jirga as an option.

Afghans in general are aware that inside the country the Taliban are in the driver’s seat, but the vehicle cannot go far without having other major constituencies onboard as part of a new social contract. The first test on the political front will be Taliban readiness to engage and pursue a consultative process leading to a national roadmap, a mechanism and governance benchmarks, and specific solutions and alternatives on the economic side involving all key stakeholders.

We owe such a process to millions of Afghans who are needlessly suffering and being victimized.

Omar SAMAD is a former Afghan Ambassador to France and Canada, Government Advisor and spokesperson. He is currently a non-resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council and CEO of Silkroad Consulting LLC.

The South Asia Center serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal point for work on the region as well as relations between these countries, neighboring regions, Europe, and the United States.

New Atlanticist Jan 20, 2022

Pakistan’s ‘Praetorian’ state is a troubling model for a Taliban-led Afghanistan

By Ben Acheson

If the Taliban emulates Pakistan’s Praetorian model, it will further erode all work done to grow a healthy Afghan civil society and develop civilian institutions.

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SouthAsiaSource Jan 12, 2022

The Afghan Taliban aren’t likely to give up the TTP. Here’s why.

By Fahd Humayun

This week, a commander of the anti-Pakistan terrorist outfit Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was killed by sniper fire in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Afghanistan’s new ruling dispensation under the Afghan Taliban is unlikely to have had a hand in the hit, despite Islamabad’s insistence that the new regime take action against the outlawed terrorist group.

Afghanistan Indo-Pacific

SouthAsiaSource Dec 14, 2021

Will Afghanistan become another Somalia, Yugoslavia, or Medellin?

By Javid Ahmad

With no regional consensus on the way forward, the mixed dangers of Afghanistan morphing into another Somalia, or breaking into a loose confederacy of statelets like the former Yugoslavia, or becoming the next drug-replete Medellin is not a distant possibility.

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Biometrics at the border: Balancing security, convenience, and civil liberties

Seth Stodder, Thomas S. Warrick — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 15:22:31 +0000

FORWARD DEFENSE

ISSUE BRIEF RELEASE

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Technological advances in biometrics—which include everything from fingerprints to facial recognition—hold the key to unlocking safer, more efficient US border operations.

In the aftermath of the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, and following the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), inaugural Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Robert Bonner set the “twin goals” of border security and facilitation of lawful travel and trade. In this issue brief, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Seth Stodder and director of the Future of DHS Project Thomas Warrick argue that DHS must safely integrate biometrics into US border operations to reach these goals in an evolving security environment.

A new era of border security

For centuries, border agencies worldwide have leveraged biometric data to track the movement of people across geographies. Now, in alignment with clear mandates, governing bodies have access to advanced facial recognition capabilities that make cross-border travel more efficient, seamless, and secure. For example, US CBP’s Traveler Verification System (TVS) pilot program is already in place at ports, crossings, and transportation hubs across the United States—operationalizing comprehensive biometric entry and exit processes—and similar systems are being deployed around the world.

Government agencies and private industry are beginning to use [biometrics] to develop and deploy “smart borders,” to both increase security and process lawful trade and travel faster than before.

Seth Stodder & Thomas S. Warrick

At the nexus of technology and human rights

Yet, despite the success demonstrated by the TVS pilot and similar programs, the Biden administration faces hesitation and distrust from Americans in expanding biometric data collection. Concerns include:

Fear of a surveillance state – Autocratic states weaponize biometrics to achieve persistent surveillance, fueling valid calls for data-use safeguards. Congressional action must provide essential checks against this misuse of data and technology.
Data protection standards – CBP must be capable of protecting against cyber hacks, an issue broadly applicable to federal government and resolved through strong governance, oversight, and cybersecurity funding.
Accuracy and bias issues – Biometric algorithms must rate high in accuracy and low in bias, as CBP’s TVS pilot does. Nonetheless, transparency and continued supervision is vital.

These considerations can be managed with appropriate regulations, oversight, and funding.

Recommendations & next steps

CBP’s use of biometrics at the border is an essential tool in achieving the “twin goals” of security and facilitation. Recommended steps forward include the following:

The Biden Administration should continue with CBP’s facial-biometric programs and move to finalize permanent expansion.
CBP should continue improving facial recognition algorithms in coordination with the Transportation Security Administration’s Pre-Check program. CBP should continue its pilot version of Simplified Arrival for vehicle traffic at land borders.
DHS should carefully consider and adopt most of the recommendations of the Homeland Security Advisor Council’s Biometrics Subcommittee. DHS should empower its Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans to lead the development of DHS-wide policies on biometrics.
DHS and CBP should expeditiously move to spend funds and expand biometrics capabilities at the borders. Congress should appropriate additional funds for operations of biometrics systems.

With strategic technological investment and deliberate safeguards, CBP can evolve to keep pace with growing traffic at US borders.

Generously sponsored by

About the authors

Fellow

Seth Stodder

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Coronavirus Cybersecurity

Fellow

Thomas S. Warrick

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative

Forward Defense Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs

National Security Terrorism

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Biometrics at the border: Balancing security, convenience, and civil liberties

Homeland security experts discuss how US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can leverage biometrics to improve operations at US entry points with Forward Defense and its Future of DHS Project.

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Providing recommendations to assist US national security officials as they transform the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect the homeland from coronavirus, threats to democracy, and other future threats.

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