In Geopolitics This Week
Global Defence Revenues Rise Despite Pandemic, Use of Humour in Public Diplomacy, Mongolian Soft Power on the Korean Peninsula, and other stories.
Monday, July 12th
India Losing Out to Chinese Influence in Sri Lanka
The island nation of Sri Lanka sits in the Indian Ocean, just southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea, a geographic area which overlooks important trade routes between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Given the increasingly competitive international landscape in Southeast Asia, the geostrategic value of Sri Lanka is drawing the country into the simmering regional competition between India and China.
As India harbours genuine concern about the implications of China’s economic ascendence, the country is increasingly making overtures toward the United States in a bid to balance against China. Beijing, for its part, is stretching forth across the region through multiple proposed economic corridors, using its newfound wealth to build on its recent development achievements. In particular, Sri Lanka’s membership of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has caused alarm in New Delhi, where policymakers, having refused participation in China’s BRI, view the ambitious infrastructure plans with suspicion. And India’s suspicions seemed to have been validated when, in 2017, the Sri Lankan government was forced to hand over the Hambantota Port project to a Chinese company on a 99-year lease in order to cover its spiralling debt.
Since then, ties between Sri Lanka and China have only deepened. In January of this year, the Sri Lankan government approved a Chinese energy project on islands in close proximity to the Indian coastline, no doubt unnerving policymakers in New Delhi. And in February, the Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary, Admiral Jayanath Colombage, let it be known that he considered BRI a “great prospect” for Sri Lanka.
For India, which is still grappling with the pandemic, the present geopolitical landscape does not look favourable. Another BRI member, Pakistan — an ally of China and an archenemy of India — has also sought to boost trade and investment relations with Sri Lanka during a visit this February. India’s reluctance (or inability) to invest in domestic port networks, which would boost trade and investment across the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, have given China an opportunity to step in. To balance against this threat, New Delhi is turning to the United States.
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Global Defence Revenues Rise Despite Pandemic
The global economy is estimated to have contracted roughly 3.3 percent in 2020, according to figures provided by the International Monetary Fund. The scale and speed of this economic downturn — mostly brought about by responses to the outbreak of Covid-19 — has been unprecedented, and the crisis has had the effect of undermining global financial stability, with many industries remaining at a standstill in many parts of the world.
But the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic doesn’t seem to have affected the revenues of the global defence industry to the same extent that it has commercial industries. While the pandemic has been especially tough on the commercial aerospace and tourism industries, the same could not be said about the productivity of the global defence industry. Particularly surprising has been the ability of defence companies to adapt to the production slump of commercial aircraft.
That the defence industry appears largely unaffected by the pandemic is derived from a new report published by Defence News, compiling together a list which ranks one hundred of the most profitable defence firms in the world. The report finds that revenues in the world’s largest defence firms in 2020 was $551 billion, up roughly 5 percent from $524 billion in 2019. US defence firms were found to be most lucrative, making up six of the top 10, and eleven of the top 25 in the overall ranking.
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Tuesday, July 13th
Eurosceptic Alliance Consolidates to Fight Against a Federal Europe
At the beginning of the month, leaders of conservative political groups across Europe signed a joint declaration on their vision of a future for the European Union. The declaration criticises what it considers overreach by the EU bureaucracy, calling for national governments in Europe to harness more sovereign powers.
The declaration, titled the Joint Declaration on the Future of the European Union, represents somewhat of a rebuke to the Conference on the Future of Europe, which commenced earlier this year. More significantly, the Eurosceptic declaration demonstrates a mobilisation by conservative political groups across the EU as they prepare to collectively oppose efforts by European federalists to transform the European Union.
Conservative and populist parties in sixteen European countries signed the declaration. The signatories included leaders from across Europe, such as Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the Polish Law and Justice Party, Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italian League, and others. The declaration states that European cooperation should be based on a respect for the traditions, history, culture, and Judeo-Christian heritage of European nations.
The signatories of the declaration are suggesting a path forward for Europe in which sovereign power is handed back to EU member-states, thereby weakening Brussels’ hand in their affairs. While the alliance will have their eyes fixed on the next European Parliament election, strong domestic showings for these parties in national elections could bring momentum going forward.
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Use of Humour in Public Diplomacy
One fragment of international affairs that rarely fits neatly into established theoretical assumptions or frameworks of interpretation is humour. While humour has long seen use in politics and propaganda, the advent of social media has brought about dramatic changes in the way humour is used as part of public diplomacy. Short, memorable and easily distributable messages have become a popular way of communicating foreign policy to citizens, as well as waging narrative wars against adversaries.
Indeed, information told through humour is some the most widely circulated and memorised information that we are exposed to. Research has demonstrated that individuals better recall political humour than even the news. What makes humour such an effective tool for public diplomacy is that the accuracy or truthfulness of humorous claims are not closely scrutinised, making them harder to challenge. In effect, humour can become a kind of breeding ground where controversial ideas, conspiracies, and political attacks survive and thrive.
Through humour, states typically frame events in ways that advance their state interests, whether this takes the form of deflecting unwanted criticism or challenging the narratives of others to achieve foreign policy goals. The strategic use of humour allows states to deliver a serious message that is simple, accessible, memorable, and able to capture the attention of both news media and the public.
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Wednesday, July 14th
Tensions Remain Over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
In March this year, Egypt and Sudan signed a military pact that will see deeper engagement on matters of security between the two countries. Perhaps the most significant factors behind this military engagement relates to each participants conflicts of interest with their neighbour Ethiopia. Ethiopia continues to fill the reservoir, but its neighbours feel compelled to act against the dam in the face of a potential catastrophe at home.
The three neighbouring countries have had longstanding disputes regarding the ownership and flow of the Blue Nile. The latest manifestation of this dispute over water resources has been going on since 2011, when Ethiopia began the construction of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Egypt in particular is posturing to demonstrate a credible military threat against the dam — whether that presence is a show of strength in negotiations or as a springboard for a future military operation remains to be seen. There has also been a significant Ethiopian military presence at the site of the dam since construction began, a presence that is likely to remain for the foreseeable future as a deterrent to Egypt and Sudan.
While there has been marginal progress in working out a compromise diplomatically, the issue has ultimately not been resolved, with considerable disagreement on the amount of time in which the reservoir should be filled (a short time-frame for filling the reservoir would devastate the Egyptian economy). The continued flow of water from the Blue Nile — which meets the White Nile in Khartoum, Sudan — is a matter of life or death for the Egyptian government. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry GERD said his country is facing an “existential threat posed by the construction of a giant entity on the artery that gives it life.”
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One Approach for Getting the US Out of the Middle East
As the United States is set to finally leave Afghanistan, there is plenty to speculate about what, if any, sort of American presence remains in Afghanistan following the withdrawal. Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, Doug Bandow, argues that the withdrawal from Afghanistan ought to be the beginning of a far broader move to encourage regional parties to tend to their own security structures.
Bandow seems to advocate for a future US posture in the Middle East to be based around a strategy of offshore balancing. He notes that Afghanistan should really be only the start of a wider withdrawal because in places like Iraq and Syria, the US military is fighting Iranian‐backed militias in Iraq “for no good reason.” He takes the view that sanctioning and occupying parts of Syria and continuing to aid Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen have been policies detrimental to US interests.
To Bandow, the US military experience fighting in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan echoes the views of political scientist Eugene Gholz, who argues that US policy in the region has been particularly harmful because the presence of the US military undermines US interests by contributing to instability. As Gholz notes, the US presence in these countries has has manifested into a “power imbalance” leading to a scenario where “states that align with the US feel they can rely on US military might, while those deemed hostile must fear the possibility of invasion and regime change.” The result is that the behaviour of both allies and adversaries changes: partners start to act with impunity, adversaries seek out new avenues of resistance.
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Thursday, July 15th
NATO Transformation of Air and Missile Defence
NATO is in a period of transformational change. The NATO structure, in mirroring the National Defense Strategy of the United States, now looks to meet the challenges of an era of great power competition. That competition will primarily come in the form of conflict with China and Russia, with the stage global in scale, and involving everything from adversarial states to various sub-state actors.
With that in mind, the Royal United Services Institute has published a paper assessing one aspect of NATO’s transformation: the recalibration of NATO air and missile defences. Their analysis emphasises NATO’s need to surmount several capability and capacity challenges. The paper identifies shortcomings potentially preventing NATO from mounting a credible defence against multi-tiered salvos from Russia. NATO, the authors note, will have to implement initiatives based on the Capstone Concept, which (for the United States at least) aims to leverage the all the capabilities of national power in concert with the US Joint Forces to ensure that the United States is “immune to coercion.’’
NATO’s forthcoming future warfighting capabilities look to be focused on interoperability and joint combat just as the United States military approaches an operational joint all-domain command — a complex cloud network which will afford the US the capability of responding to a call for destruction from an infantryman with any of its other capabilities, whether that be artillery, rocket artillery, naval gunfire, close-air support, or other means of delivering hard power. The US aims to retain the ability to operate effectively across all domains in any potential theatre-level conflict.
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Britain Approaching Operational Drone Swarm Capabilities
The Chief of Britain’s Royal Air Force, Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, suggested at the Global Air Chiefs’ Conference in London that the UK is ready to declare a multidomain combat cloud capability. Wigston said that the UK is now "at the point where our combat cloud, called Nexus, can begin to be introduced operationally.”
A ‘combat cloud’ is a decentralised, cyber-resilient information network which functions across air, land, sea, and space domains. It essentially allows for the flow of real-time information for military forces across all domains, bringing about a significant achievement in the speed and connectedness of intelligence.
Interestingly, Wigston also revealed that the Royal Air Force is near a point where swarming drone technology is operational:
That success, in little over a year, points to the operational utility of swarming drones. I aim to declare it operational in an equally short period of time, with more than one squadron, such is its impact. And we will spirally develop it year by year, moving swiftly where the technology allows and the threat invites. […] Our drone test squadron, 216 Squadron, has proved beyond doubt the disruptive and innovative utility of swarming drones under our Alvina program. Working with our defense science laboratory and specialist industry partners, I can say that we have exercised swarms of over 20 ultralow-cost drones operating together against threat systems to brilliant effect.
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Friday, July 16th
Mongolian Soft Power on the Korean Peninsula
Small states have historically had very little say in geopolitical outcomes. By looking at the actions of smaller international players through the lens of Joseph Nye’s “soft power,” it is possible for a the researcher to untap the potential for understanding exertions of power by smaller states.
Mongolian policy toward the longstanding conflict on the Korean Peninsula is one such demonstration of a geopolitically minor power which is able to accomplish desired outcomes with limited means. Mongolia’s role in the Peninsula has emphasised the use of soft power in its diplomatic approach, particularly through peace mediation initiatives, and has over time cultivated mutual understanding between conflicting parties.
As its Third Neighbour policy has matured, Ulaanbaatar’s relationship with Seoul has deepened ties in several fields, particularly in politics, economics, and culture. The two nations host an annual ministerial meeting as a means of exchanging foreign policy positions, and South Korea is among Mongolia’s largest trading partners. Culturally, Mongolia remains a top tourist destination for Koreans, while Korea also hosts the largest Mongolian diaspora abroad.
The nations maintain positive ties even today. Mongolia’s diplomatic efforts have proved that small nations can effectively employ soft power means foreign policy goals. Mongolia’s mediation efforts through the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue have been a positive contributor to thawing the frozen conflict with North Korea, and the country has worked to revive diplomatic channels in search of a solution to tensions.
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Iranian Threats Don’t Match Iranian Actions
While Iran might often present itself to international audiences as a powerful Islamic Republic, in reality, writes Hilal Khashan, it is a weak country. This assessment is largely due to two key factors: that its military hardware is obsolete; and that its economy is in a dire state. Iran has in many ways succeeded in transforming its capabilities into valuable military assets in a turbulent region, but this should not be confused with strength.
Despite the fiery statements that often come from Iranian officials, the government is careful not to overplay its hand internationally. Tehran is well aware that acting on its threats may lead to consequences that provoke a response they’d rather avoid. For instance, the killing of Qassem Soleimani by a US drone in 2020 was followed by a rhetorical declaration of war by Tehran, but the retaliation to the assassination of such a high-level official was relatively feeble.
Tehran can be said to understand the unwritten rules of the environment it inhabits, and it abides by them. Sometimes a part of its policy may be to use threats in order to make itself appear more powerful, but on the whole, any such threats may be grossly exaggerated given the state of its armed forces.
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