In Geopolitics This Week
Russia Mobilizes its Reserves, Water Scarcity Threatens Nuclear and Hydropower Plants, The United States to Lift Arms Embargo on Cyprus, and other stories.
Russia Mobilizes its Reserves
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia will mobilize 300,000 reservists with military experience, marking a significant escalation in the war. The mobilization measures will help Russia hold the territory it controls in Ukraine in the medium to long-term, but will be insufficient to conduct any major offensives deep into Ukrainian territory in the coming weeks.
The decree signed by Putin grants Moscow broad authority to expand the mobilization at a later date. As such, the stated 300,000 newly mobilized personnel should be viewed as a minimum goal that will likely be expanded at some point in the future. In addition to the mobilization, Russia is preparing to annex the regions in Ukraine currently under its control in an attempt to deter further Ukrainian attacks. Related to this was Putin’s threat to resort to the use of nuclear weapons if attacks are made on newly-annexed territories.
Russia's mobilization measures and annexation procedures will aid Moscow's ability to continue the war into next year, but will come at the cost of greater domestic instability. Moscow likely intends to use the annexations to justify mobilization and ramp up nuclear rhetoric, hoping to reduce the flow of material support from the international coalition backing Ukraine. However, Ukraine’s main military and economic backers have firmly indicated that they would not recognize the referendums and would maintain their support for Ukraine.
Despite the mobilization, Russia’s main objectives are likely to remain unchanged. Moscow will continue its attempts at degrading the ability of Ukraine and its backers to continue the war by fuelling war fatigue and economic pain. Further escalation is also a possibility, as Russia can choose to increase attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in a bid to incur further costs to Kiev. While the use of chemical or nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out, it remains improbable that Russia will resort to such measures as they would be unlikely to ensure a political victory for Moscow in the war.
Russia will need weeks to organize, train and transfer the new units to the front line. The 300,000 reservists are an insufficient increase in manpower on their own to significantly alter the state of the battlefield. Russia's latest announcement would bring its deployed troop levels to roughly 500,000, still below their Ukrainian counterparts. This suggests Russia is seeking to largely hold onto the territory it currently occupies in Ukraine.
Water Scarcity Threatens Nuclear and Hydropower Plants
For years, the energy sector has viewed access to water a given, and water itself as an abundant resource. But as we move into a new era of renewable energy, the vast amounts of water required to power green energy projects may prove more difficult to source. In recent months, extreme droughts across Asia, Europe and the United States have raised awareness about the significance of water security for many states.
This summer saw China hit by its most severe heatwave in six decades, exacerbating a drought that has impacted the production of food and goods, and impacted energy supplies and transport links in much of the country. In Europe, a number of major rivers across the European subcontinent have seen their water levels at or near historic lows. The Rhine, for instance, is an important shipping route for commodities, including grains, minerals, coal and oil products. Yet weeks of high temperatures and little rainfall this summer has reduced the Rhine's water levels, causing delays to shipping and pushing up freight costs.
In the United States, several hydropower operations are located along rivers with rapidly-falling water levels, with Montana, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, California, Arkansas and Oklahoma as the states most affected by rising temperatures and more intense droughts. As temperatures rise and water levels fall, hydropower is expected to be the most directly affected form of energy generation globally. A WWF study has forecasted that 61 percent of all global hydropower dams will be in river basins with very high or extreme risk to droughts, floods or both, by the year 2050.
Similarly, the drought in Europe has raised concerns for nuclear power plant operators that rely on water from rivers to cool their reactors. Water from the Rhone and Garonne rivers is typically used to cool nuclear rectors in France, and rising water temperatures and lower water supplies mean that nuclear power output will increasingly be reduced during severely hot periods. Beyond effects on energy production, historically low water levels in Europe have restricted shipping capabilities, dried up fertile soil and reduced summer crop yields.
The United States to Lift Arms Embargo on Cyprus
Washington has decided to lift a decades-old arms embargo on Cyprus based on the condition that Nicosia continues to block Russian warships from entering its ports. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly determined that Cyprus has met the conditions that allow for the export, re-export and transfer of US defence equipment to the country for the fiscal year 2023.
The Mediterranean island has been divided between the Republic of Cyprus and a breakaway state set up after Turkey launched an invasion in 1974 in response to a coup sponsored by Athens. The arms embargo on Cyprus was then imposed by the United States in 1987 in order to bring about a negotiated settlement to a conflict involving US allies Cyprus, Turkey and Greece. While the embargo was intended to prevent an arms build-up on the island and push the countries toward a diplomatic agreement, it has prompted Cyprus to procure weapons from countries such as Russia to meet its security needs.
The move by Washington offers an opportunity for the United States to reach an agreement with Cyprus over the transfer of Cypriot Russian-made military systems and ammunition to Ukraine. In the short term, this would provide Kiev with a replenishment of weapon systems that its troops already knows how to operate, furthering Washington's goals in degrading Russian military power. In the long-term, this is an opening for Washington to pry Cyprus away from Moscow’s influence, improve the capability of Cyprus’ military forces to better balance against a rising Turkey, and enhance the interoperability of Cypriot and US military forces in the Eastern Mediterranean.