In Geopolitics Today - Wednesday, May 12th
Plans for European Fighter Stall, Goods Shortages Caused by the Covid Pandemic, and Great Power Competition in Unexpected Places
Plans for a European Next-generation Fighter Stall
High-level figures in German defense have admitted there is no firm financing plan for the Future Combat Air System — a proposed European 6th generation fighter aircraft — but have stated that they still plan to submit the project to lawmakers at the Bundestag for approval soon.
At issue are the next phases for the joint German-Franco-Spanish next-generation fighter aircraft, dubbed 1B and 2. The decision to proceed marks something of a point of no return given the billions of euros that will be poured into a flyable prototype once lawmakers approve the plan.
Compounding the issue is Germany’s conservative defense budget projections, which add to the uncertainty surrounding the practicability of the program. German defense officials have not indicated a willingness to getting key programs included in the budget in the short term either, as some government analysts expect the modernisation requirements to outpace available spending after 2022.
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Goods Shortages Related to the Covid-19 Crisis
While the COVID-19 crisis is winding down in many parts of the world, another problem is emerging as a consequence. In the simplest terms, differing lockdown mesasures across borders have led to drastic shortages for certain goods, and these shortages could easily turn into another crisis entirely.
In his latest article, George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures touches on a few of the shortages that the resonating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have had on the supply of goods worldwide. Anything from the prevalent microchip shortage all the way to, apparently, ketchup, has not been able to escape the reverberating effects of trade disruption caused by the pandemic.
While the introduction of video-conferencing software such as Zoom has allowed management and intellectual production to continue, the movement of material goods is not as cost-free. And this, according to Friedman, is due to three key reasons. First, demand for goods has been constrained by unemployment and caution, so there was a delay in when the shortages started and when we started to really notice. Second, as people get vaccinated or simply go about their daily lives again, demand will outstrip supply capacity. Third, the pandemic has created a displaced workforce.
In all, the rules promulgated to fight COVID-19 affected the physical production and delivery of goods — and their workers — more than it affected intellectual and white-collar work.
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How the US-China Conflict Is Playing Out in Unexpected Places
With much of the heated debate about the great power conflict between the United States and China focusing on the flashpoints of the South China Sea or Taiwan, less attention has been given to a far more likely battleground. Since strategic thought in both the United States and China has largely focused on a Sino-U.S. interstate war, an unintended consequence has been the downplaying of the odds of a clash between the two giants occuring through a foreign internal conflict.
In fact, military competition is far more likely to take the form of proxy war in which Washington and Beijing aid rival actors in a third country intrastate conflict. In this regard, the battlefield of Sino-U.S. military competition is more likely to be Venezuela or Myanmar than the often-touted locations such as the South China Sea. Proxy war such as this could even escalate in unexpected and costly ways as Washington and Beijing try to manipulate civil wars in far-flung lands they do not understand, ratchet up their commitment to avoid the defeat of a favored actor, and respond to local surrogates that pursue their own agendas.
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