In Geopolitics Today - Monday, July 26th
Turkey Makes First Delivery of Armed Drones to Ukraine and Brazil’s Choice in the US-China Competition
Turkey Makes First Delivery of Armed Drones to Ukraine
Ukraine has confirmed that the Ukrainian Navy has accepted the delivery of its first Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 drone After completing the appropriate tests for operational readiness, the drone will be deployed with the 10th Naval Aviation Brigade in Mykolaiv. The delivery is part of a $69 million contract signed in 2019 to deliver six of these TB2 drones to Ukraine.
Much to the chagrin of Russia, Turkey and Ukraine have worked to strengthened their military relations recently. The ties provide an eager customer to Turkey’s sprawling arms production capacities, while Ukraine is able to deploy advanced weaponry against Russian-backed separatists. Another avenue of cooperation has been evident in the US-backed Three Seas Initiative, which aims to economically isolate the economies of Eastern European countries from Russia by creating a north-south economic axis running from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
The Bayraktar TB2 is a medium-altitude long-endurance drone capable of surveillance and reconnaissance tasks as well as combat missions using guided missiles. The drone can maintain continuous flight for up to 27 hours and has a maximum take-off weight of 650 kilograms. The successful delivery of the first such drone to Ukraine follows another recent victory for Turkish arms exporters as Poland agreed to purchase some 24 of these Bayraktar drones.
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Brazil’s Choice in the US-China Competition
From the perspective of US policymakers, Latin America has already become a staging ground for the wider confrontation with China. While the US was pouring its resources into over two decades of costly interventions in the Middle East, China has been cultivating economic ties with countries in South America.
Throughout this time, Washington assigned a peripheral importance to Latin American countries, and this posture has allowed China to become the main trading partner of Brazil and Argentina — the two largest economies in South America. China is now the main importer of eleven of Brazil’s fifteen most exported commodities. And while the US provides a larger amount in foreign direct investments to Brazil, China has far surpassed the US in infrastructure investments. Trade and investment ties between Brazil and China expose just how deep the relationship has grown, with much of Brazil’s infrastructure development conducted by Chinese companies.
As competition with China increases, the US has applied pressure to Brazil, requesting partners disavow ties with Beijing in favour of those with Washington in what amounts to a binary decision. A clear example of this was Washington’s unrelenting pressure on Brazil and other countries to reject Huawei as a candidate in the 5G network bidding process. Such a move would ruin relations with Beijing and serve as detrimental to the economic development of Brazil, so the pressure from Washington is difficult for Brazilian policymakers to carry out.
The best strategy for Brazil going forward would involve a balanced relationship with both the United States and China, but how that is to be achieved is difficult to say. Regardless, Brazil and other Latin American countries will feel increasingly pressured to choose between Washington and Beijing.
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