In Geopolitics Today - Monday, May 24th
Belarus reroutes flight to arrest activist-in-exile, Yemeni fighters down Chinese-built Saudi drone, and exactly how helpless Is Europe?
Belarus Reroutes Flight to Arrest Activist-in-Exile
On Sunday, Ryanair Flight 4978 (Athens–Vilnius) was intercepted over Belarus by a Belarusian fighter jet, and subsequently diverted by Belarusian air traffic control to Minsk National Airport. Aboard the flight was Roman Protasevich, a 26 year old activist who — as a ‘senior’ figure in the Polish-based media group NEXTA — played a prominent role in the protests that shook Belarus following last year’s controversial elections.
Airport staff were initially reported to have said that the plane was rerouted due to concerns of an on-board bomb threat, but this claim appears to have been false, and the flight seems to have been the target of a covert operation to snatch Protasevich. According to a witness cited by Reuters, upon hearing of the imminent diversion to Minsk, Protasevich immediately gave some of his luggage to his girlfriend, and as the plane landed in Minsk, he and his girlfriend were removed from the plane and promptly arrested.
The aftermath of the incident has seen fierce condemnation of the Belarussian authorities. Officials from across the EU took to Twitter to denounce the move by lambasting the government for such an ‘unprecedented’ move and urging action against Belarus. Some of those most vocal in this regard were none other than Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda. But what these high-ranking officials may not be aware of, sadly, is that an event like this is anything but unprecedented.
For instance, when in 1954 Israel forced a Syrian passenger plane to land in order to gain hostages which it then hoped to exchange for captured Israeli soldiers. Or when in 2010, the US diverted a France-Mexico flight to Canada in order to detain and transfer a suspect to the US. Or when Turkey did the same to a Syrian passanger plane in 2012. Or when in 2013, the plane carrying the Bolivian President Evo Morales was grounded as the US government searched for whistleblower Edward Snowden. Or when in 2016, Ukraine grounded a plane with military jets only to discover the man they were looking for was not on board.
I could go on, but you get my point — abhorrent as state abductions of individuals are, unprecedented they are not.
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Yemeni Fighters Down Chinese-Built Saudi Drone
Yemeni army forces have reportedly shot down a Chinese-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) belonging to the Saudi-led military coalition over Yemen's northern province of al-Jawf. Spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said their air defence forces targeted the Chinese-made CH-4 combat drone with an unspecified surface-to-air missile.
The aircraft was said to be on a reconnaissance mission over al-Maraziq in the Khabb wa ash Sha'af district early Sunday morning. Saree said that it would not be a “picnic” for anyone to enter the Yemeni airspace because the country's armed forces protect it. The day before, a senior member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council threatened to intensify attacks against Saudi Arabia and its allies if they continue their attacks on Yemen. If the timeline of the events corresponds to the reporting, the threat leveled at the Saudi-led coalition was not an empty one, as images of the downed drone have been shared through media.
Saudi Arabia — backed by the US, UK, and other regional allies — launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah. But Yemeni armed forces have gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, which has left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in a quagmire. On top of failing to secure its objectives, the Saudi-led war effort has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, displaced millions of people, and utterly destroyed Yemen's infrastructure.
That a Chinese-made UAV is used as part of the Saudi-led coalition forces is in itself interesting to note, but the more consequential takeaway is the susceptibility of the UAV to what are relatively poorly-armed militia.
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Exactly How Helpless Is Europe?
A longstanding belief during the Cold-War — as well as the years that have followed the dissolution of the USSR — is the idea that Europe cannot look after its own security problems and must therefore rely on the United States for protection. And although defence experts and politicians have since occasionally flirted with the idea of a Europe that is strategically autonomous, it has had little success in attracting broader appeal or gaining any EU-wide momentum in a political sense.
Stephen Walt, an American professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, questions why such a view seems so pervasive, even when evidence to the contrary is found in abundance.
In his view, Europe needs a new bargain with the United States to go forward hand-in-hand into the challenges posed by the 21st century. As he notes, “if Europe agrees to align with the United States in the emerging Sino-American security competition, then Washington could agree to leave some U.S. troops in Europe and remain an active member of NATO.“ Under such a bargain, he recognises a future where a European could assume the role of NATO’s allied command for Europe, a role which would see the US military no longer play the leading role in the defence of Europe.
From the perspective of the United States, Walt posits that Americans ought to welcome such an arrangement too because the United States faces expensive demands at home and abroad. The result, according to Walt, would be a Europe that no longer cries out for protection as they are able to do much more to handle their own security problems.
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