ARTICLES OF THE DAY

May 27th, 2022

RUSSIA TODAY ................................................................................................................................................. 2

WALTER SCHEIDEL, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ............................................................................................................. 4

FIONNUALA NÍ AOLÁIN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ...................................................................................................... 9

NILLY KOHZAD, THE DIPLOMAT ..................................................................................................................... 13

MOHAMMADBAGHER FOROUGH, THE DIPLOMAT ........................................................................................ 16

MAIMUNA ASHRAF, SOUTH ASIAN VOICES .................................................................................................... 19

 Fyodor Lukyanov: Biden talks the talk, but is the US committed
to meeting its international security obligations?
Asia is now the most interesting arena of world politics, and regional powers are looking for signs that
America’s words will be backed up by action
U S President Joe
Biden’s visit to South
Korea and Japan this
week was his first in East Asia
since taking office. The
importance of this trip is
undeniable. Washington is
working hard to bring together
what is commonly called ‘the
collective West’.
Due to the fighting in Ukraine,
Europe – in the Western sense
– is currently united. This
leaves Asia, where the
willingness to line up in one
direction is less pronounced.
The measures against Russia
have been unequivocally
supported by Tokyo and
Seoul, while only Singapore
has joined them from the
members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). India does not
want to follow America’s
direction, despite the visible
pressure.
The issue of Ukraine is
important to Asian states,
especially in light of its impact
on the global economy.
Nevertheless, it is natural that
events in Eastern Europe are
not as exciting for Asia as they
are for Europeans and some
Americans. The focus in that
part of the world is on Beijing,
and the US is trying to build a
policy of mobilizing its Asian
partners against Russia, with
China in mind, but without
provoking the latter
prematurely. This is a difficult
task.
Russia Today
At a press conference in
Tokyo, Biden answered yes to
the question of whether
America intends to defend
Taiwan in the event of an
attack by Beijing. This caused
an uproar. American
commentators, both official
and unofficial, insisted that he
made ‘a slip of the tongue’.
The White House’s
interpretation is that he was
talking about assistance on the
Ukrainian model – supplying
the island with weapons so it
can defend itself.
Biden is prone to verbal
gaffes, but in this case it did
not look like one at all. Both in
form and in substance. There
is a lot of talk in Washington
about what the Chinese need
to understand clearly:
America will not be an
indifferent observer if Beijing
plans to repeat in Taiwan what
Russia did in relation to
Ukraine.
The argument now is that
firmness is required when it
comes to China.
Firmness is a good thing, but
the deliberate ‘complexity’
(one might even say
‘intentional vagueness’) of US
policy on Taiwan makes its
manifestation almost
impossible.
The strategic ambivalence
towards Taiwan (closely
cooperating in all areas, but
recognizing it as part of
China) goes back to the early
1970s, when Richard Nixon
and Henry
recognized
Kissinger
communist
Beijing as the legitimate
representative of China, while
denying this recognition to
nationalist Taipei. It was
indeed a historic U-turn that
contributed significantly to
the United States’ eventual
victory in the Cold War. It
also allowed both sides (the
Americans and Chinese) to
strike key economic deals
while avoiding conflict for
half a century.
But now, things are taking a
dangerous turn. The strategic
confrontation between
Washington and Beijing is not
only an accomplished fact, but
also a doctrinal one.
The competition is complex,
but as is the case with US-
Russia relations, there is an
explosive subject at its center.
We have Ukraine, they have
Taiwan. And here we have an
almost unsolvable dilemma.
Officially, the US emphasizes
its commitment to the One-
China policy, but offers
security guarantees to what it
recognizes as part of another
state. It is not clear how to
combine these two mutually
exclusive positions. Hence the
efforts to disavow the words
of the president, who clearly
meant exactly what he said.
Looking at this struggle, the
Chinese leadership might
think that the Americans are
confused by their desires and
intentions and are not
confident enough in their
position. Which would only
encourage action, from the
perspective of Beijing.
The very regional partners
Washington wants to
encourage to unite are also
confused. For Japan, South
Korea, Singapore, the
Philippines, and others,
Taiwan is an indicator of
America’s determination to
fulfill its security
commitments. But it’s not a
reliable indicator, precisely
because of its ambivalent
status and, therefore, the
extremely high risk involved.
However, Washington will
still be judged on it. And if the
Americans fail to take action,
the rest of the holders of its
promises on security
guarantees will think twice.
This doesn’t mean they will
make a U-turn on their
policies towards China, but
that their willingness to
engage in American strategic
initiatives will fade.
The problem for the US is
that, despite its interest in
strengthening alliances, it is
stingy with positive proposals.
For example, urging India and
China to join the boycott of
Russia is accompanied not by
beneficial economic offers,
but by warnings about the
‘price’ of being on the ‘wrong
side of history’. The Indo-
Pacific Economic Agreement,
announced by Biden in
defiance of China, is a
framework which fails to offer
the sort of expanded access to
the US market which would
interest its participants.
Be that as it may, in the overall
sense, Asia has become the
main and most interesting
arena of international politics.
Especially for Russia, since
the European scene has been
closed to us for an indefinite
period, and the formation and
success of our new foreign
policy now depends on
relations with our Eastern
partners.

Does a Better Future Lie in the Prehistoric Past?
Walter Scheidel, Foreign Affairs
J ust how new can a new
history of humanity hope
to be? Scholars have long
agreed on the overall contours
of human social evolution. For
most of their existence,
humans were few in number,
lived in small groups, and
spent much of their time
foraging and hunting. Once
the climate stabilized after the
end of the last Ice Age, around
12,000 years ago, novel ways
of feeding and organizing
humanity finally became
possible, from farming and
herding to cities and states.
People, domesticated crops,
and livestock multiplied and
were drawn into an ever-
tighter symbiosis. Before
long, social hierarchies and
structures of control
proliferated. Kings, priests,
and scribes learned how to
lord it over the masses. Such
early civilizations laid the
foundations for the world
today.
The Dawn of Everything, a
recent bid to rewrite human
history from the late
anthropologist David Graeber
and the archaeologist David
Wengrow, does not dispute
the outlines of this story.
Instead, the authors sift the
grain of the past to offer a
tantalizing tale of complexity
and hope. Graeber and
Wengrow argue that the
emergence of hierarchical
societies and freedom-
quashing states was not
inevitable. People have long
cherished their freedoms and
experimented with a wide
variety of social and political
arrangements. The book
Deep Takes
trawls the depths of human
history, meandering from
Neolithic Ukraine to the
Sumerians of Mesopotamia to
the Harappan civilization of
the Indus River basin to the
Olmec, Yurok, and Wyandot
peoples of the Americas and
on even to the European
Enlightenment. The pathways
of history, the authors insist,
were actually rather tangled,
full of twists and forks and
detours. The world may now
consist of deeply unequal
societies and states that can
exert once unimaginable
degrees of control over their
citizens, but it didn’t have to
be this way—and maybe it
doesn’t have to be this way in
the future.
The authors imagine that once
properly appreciated, the
richness of the human
experience and the
contingency of historical
outcomes will inspire people
in the present to reconsider
their own options. After the
great financial crisis of 2008,
the battered masses failed to
shake up the late-capitalist
order and forge a more
righteous path. That came as a
disappointment to Graeber, an
anticapitalist scholar with
anarchist sympathies, known
for his spirited critiques of
debt and “bullshit jobs.” A
seasoned activist, he was
involved in the Occupy Wall
Street movement in 2011,
which eventually fizzled out
after months of grabbing
headlines.
But if Graeber couldn’t
maintain an occupation of the
present, perhaps the past
would make a more obliging
subject. He set out to show
that grassroots democracy—
the freedom for people to
associate, deliberate, and
decide how to lead their
lives—had long been common
around the world before
uncompromising bureaucrats
came on the scene to snuff it
out. And better still,
rediscovering those buried
traditions could inspire people
today to give it another try,
armed with the knowledge
that civilization and popular
self-determination had once
thrived side by side.
Graeber joined forces with
Wengrow, a well-known
archaeologist of the ancient
Middle East, to get the ball
rolling. They completed their
project only days before
Graeber’s untimely death in
September 2020, just as it was
becoming clear that the
revolution had once again
been postponed. Central
banks, scientific
breakthroughs, and Zoom
were taming the effects of
COVID-19, which hopeful
pundits had initially talked up
as a possible catalyst for
progressive political
transformation. What
remained, just as it did after
the 2008 financial crash, was a
lingering craving for change,
or at least for an uplifting
vision of a better world.
Graeber and Wengrow seek to
address that desire with a
seductive story in which
human agency rules supreme.
In the process, they sideline
powerful material drivers of
social change—such as
ecology, demographics, and
technology—to offer readers a
welcome escape from modern
anxieties about global
warming, immigration, and
job-stealing robots.
Materialistic explanations of
the past might interfere with
their goals, since such
interpretations might persuade
people that they are pinned
down by forces and
circumstances beyond their
control. Self-styled myth
busters, Graeber and
Wengrow eagerly lay the
foundations for a new, more
upbeat myth, one of ancient
human self-determination
ready to break free once again.
The result is a dizzying mix of
subtle feints, playful
conjectures, and strategic
silences, far less revolutionary
than promised, yet strewn
with snares for inexpert and
unwary readers.
CITIES WITHOUT KINGS
Conventional narratives of
human social evolution tend
to skip over the many
thousands of years that
separated Ice Age hunter-
gatherers from the first literate
civilizations, such as Egypt in
the time of its glamorous
pharaohs and mighty
pyramids. The authors seek to
train attention on this
neglected period of human
history—a worthy goal. They
contend that prehistoric
foragers were not simply
ancestral versions of the tiny
bands that hang on today in
remote corners of the planet.
Back when everyone hunted
and gathered, the world’s
prime real estate was theirs for
the taking. Feasting on the
abundant game, seafood, and
wild plants of the early
Holocene, they were free to
come together in large
collectives and also free to
disperse. Hunter-gatherers
didn’t just drift through the
centuries; they left their mark.
Seasonal gatherings enabled
them to tackle grand projects.
Eleven thousand years ago,
for instance, foragers quarried
and hauled huge stone pillars
to erect ceremonial structures
at Gobekli Tepe, in present-
day Turkey.
This flexibility to shift
between different lifestyles
and group sizes survived long
after people began to cultivate
crops in different parts of the
globe, anywhere from 12,000
to 5,000 years ago. For
millennia, foragers
experimented with food
production without fully
submitting to its harsh
strictures, stepping in and out
of agriculture in lives of “play
farming,” as Graeber and
Wengrow somewhat
patronizingly put it. Modest
human populations and easy
access to wild resources
allowed these societies to
keep viable exit options open
until ongoing population
growth made abandoning
agriculture impossible.
Hunter-gatherers didn’t just
drift through the centuries;
they left their mark.
Graeber and Wengrow
conclude that the simplistic
models of social evolution
that draw a straight line from
forager bands to tribes and
chiefdoms to ever-larger
states are too crude to be of
much value. With impressive
élan, they delve into “what
happens if we accord
significance to the 5,000 years
in which cereal domestication
did not lead to the emergence
of pampered aristocracies,
standing armies, or debt
peonage, rather than just the
5,000 years in which it did.”
For instance, the rise of cities
didn’t necessarily augur the
emergence of rigid hierarchies
and institutions of social
control. In around 7,000 BC,
thousands of people lived in
densely packed housing in one
of the earliest known large
communities, Catalhuyuk
(also in present-day Turkey).
Curiously, scholars have not
found any evidence of ruling
elites at the site or of the
practice of agriculture.
Later urban centers that relied
on cultivated crops did not
automatically come with the
conventional package of
kings, priests, and
bureaucrats. Some did just
fine without monarchs, most
notably the enigmatic Indus
Valley civilization, which
stretched over much of
modern-day Pakistan and
northwestern India in the
second millennium BC, and
Teotihuacán, a grand
metropolis of a whopping
100,000 residents in central
Mexico that flourished during
the first five centuries AD. In
both cases, archaeologists
have found little evidence of
kingship or social
stratification, and commoners
seemed to enjoy high-quality
housing. Autocracy may have
spread far and wide, but it was
never universal. Forms of
representative governance
persisted in many parts of the
world.
In 1519, Hernán Cortés’s
conquistadors chanced on
Tlaxcala, in central Mexico, a
republic run by a council that
convened popular assemblies
to deliberate about public
affairs. Graeber and Wengrow
rightly insist that the
Americas before the arrival of
Christopher Columbus
deserve the attention of
historians; the pre-Columbian
New World should not be
consigned to anthropologists
and archaeologists alone.
More broadly, the authors are
at their best when they
question the scholarly and
popular fixation with
monumental splendor and
powerful states. Even if the art
produced by the Mayas in the
“post-classic” era, after AD
900, was less sophisticated
than that of the “classic”
period, which stretched from
the third to the ninth century,
would anyone, they ask,
prefer to live under a ruler of
the classic era, “who, for all
his patronage of fine arts,
counted tearing the hearts out
of living human bodies among
his most significant
accomplishments?”
Everybody needs a periodic
reminder that the societies
whose works yielded the
fanciest museum exhibits and
the most spectacular tourist
sites were not always the most
appealing.
MAKING A RULE OUT OF
EXCEPTIONS
The range of the authors’
curiosity makes the book very
much worth reading. But
quicksand lurks underneath.
Graeber and Wengrow are
unhappy about the course of
history: “There is no doubt
that something has gone
terribly wrong with the
world,” they write. Fully
aware of how historical
outcomes converged over
time toward growing state
power and social inequality,
they nevertheless prefer to
dwell on cherry-picked cases
that, it seems, bucked the
trend. They don’t resolve the
resulting tension between
individual examples and the
overall direction of human
development, granting the
exceptions far more
significance than the rule.
That habit, in turn, makes it
needlessly difficult to explain
historical transitions. They
warn against assuming that
advanced forager societies
were always poised to
embrace agriculture. That
may be—but if none of them
had ever crossed that
threshold, there would never
have been any farmers at all.
Making light of
connection between an early
adoption of farming and the
subsequent emergence of
large-scale societies and
states, they fail to note that the
latter invariably appeared in
areas blessed with the most
useful food crops, including
the Middle East, northern
China, Mexico, and Peru. The
spread of nutritious crops that
grew on a predictable
schedule and could be taxed
and stored by landlords and
rulers facilitated state
formation and strengthened
hierarchies. Even though this
nexus could not be any
clearer, Graeber
Wengrow dismiss it as “so
broad as to have very little
explanatory power.”
The few cases of early cities
without documented
autocracies that Graeber and
Wengrow find are so poorly
known that they can hardly be
said to add up to a
“surprisingly common
pattern” of communities
scaling up without elite
control. But in the absence of
systematic and reliable
evidence, anything goes. Six
thousand years ago, early
grain farmers set up large
oblong settlements in western
Ukraine. Scholars have no
idea what belief systems
motivated these farmers. No
matter: in some present-day
Basque communities, people
picture their social relations in
circular terms, as a loop of
connections among equals.
Suddenly, Graeber and
Wengrow draft those faraway
Basque villagers in their effort
to reconstruct the mentalities
of the ancient site builders and
even cite them as “proof” that
“highly egalitarian
organization” was possible
back in the Neolithic age.
the
For reasons they never quite
explain, Graeber and
Wengrow spend a large chunk
of their book inveighing
against the concept of the
state, which they are
determined to banish from
ancient history. For them,
statehood implies sweeping
ambitions and capabilities that
are commonly associated with
modern states, such as a claim
to a monopoly on violence.
Apparently, if early kingdoms
did not measure up to modern
nation-states, they should not
count as states at all. Yet that
is a nonissue entirely of the
authors’ own making, caused
and
by their insistence on an
anachronistically maximalist
definition of the state that is
not normally applied to
premodern societies. Several
generations of scholarship on
how to establish the key
attributes of early states fall by
the wayside.
With equal confidence, the
authors declare that “seeking
the origins of the state is little
more than chasing a
phantasm.” Never mind that
they themselves are doing
exactly that: they channel the
ghost of the German
sociologist Max Weber when
they explore the interplay of
three different sources of
social power (control over
violence, control over
information, and charismatic
politics) in the emergence of
stronger political systems. Yet
they leave readers in the dark
about the factors behind the
gradual but inexorable growth
of hierarchy, which include
easily taxable crops, the
struggle over resources fueled
by population growth, and, in
some cases, mounted warfare.
Except for a belated and
somewhat grudging
acknowledgment of the
anthropologist James Scott’s
2017 book, Against the Grain,
relevant scholarship is ignored
rather than rejected, as if it did
not exist.
Graeber and Wengrow claim
that this snubbing of
alternative viewpoints is
necessary to avoid
overburdening their readers.
True, big global history is not
for pedants and must be
selective to remain accessible.
But that does not mean that
entire schools of thought can
simply be swept under the rug.
The authors always find the
time to beat up straw men,
whether it is unnamed “social
scientists” who are never right
or popularizers such as Jared
Diamond, Steven Pinker, and
Yuval Harari, who are miscast
as representatives of
mainstream historical
thinking. They boast impishly
of taking “the toys back from
the children” when
dispatching their rivals, a
claim that speaks for itself.
Yet no amount of rhetorical
posturing can conceal the fatal
weakness of their approach.
Even as Graeber and
Wengrow keep asking how
the human species became
“stuck” in a hierarchical way
of life, they don’t seem to
realize that their aggressive
antimaterialism makes it
much harder for them to
answer their own question.
After all, if the innate human
desire to live in free and more
equal arrangements was such
a strong historical force, why
had “lords and kings and
would-be world emperors . . .
popped up almost
everywhere” long before the
age of European colonization?
A GOOD YARN
Stymied by this inconvenient
conundrum, Graeber and
Wengrow beat a tactical
retreat to a much narrower
question: Did history
necessarily have to turn out
the way it did? For the most
part, they don’t put up much
of a fight, obliquely conceding
that the Old World was
probably doomed to
hierarchies and thuggish
autocrats with the advent of
grain cultivation and the
appearance of early states. In
the Americas, too, the Aztecs
and the Incas established
grimly oppressive and violent
empires.
In the authors’ telling,
northern America (present-
day Canada and the United
States) held out the only real
alternative. Cereal farming
made just limited inroads and
became even less popular
after the demise of Cahokia, a
massive settlement
established in the eleventh
century outside present-day
St. Louis. The center of a
precocious grain-based state
run by a powerful elite that
kept its people on a tight leash
and orchestrated intimidating
atrocities, Cahokia crashed
spectacularly in the fourteenth
century.
If people want to change the
world, they have to build on
what it has become, not on
what it might once have been.
Graeber and Wengrow spin a
good yarn from this. They
imagine that in a deliberate
“backlash” against the
Cahokian model, some
indigenous societies not only
turned away from farming and
state building but also
developed powerful concepts
of freedom and equality,
which, transmitted by
Iroquois interlocutors to
European colonizers, inspired
Enlightenment discourses on
those themes.
Historians of ideas will have
their say about this web of
conjectures. In any event, it
does not actually support the
notion that northern America
somehow broke the familiar
mold of social evolution. The
region’s low population
densities had always made it
relatively easy for societies to
abandon farming and turn to
foraging and hunting. Those
populations shrank even
further as Old World diseases
and settlers wreaked havoc
from the sixteenth century on.
In other parts of the world,
thousands of years had passed
between the onset of crop
domestication and the
emergence of states. From that
perspective, precolonial North
America, where farming had
begun rather late and maize
had been an even later import,
was not obviously lagging
behind. That part of the world
was unpromising terrain for
conventional forms of state
formation, and so the failure
of such processes is not
particularly remarkable. And
before long, European
conquest snuffed out whatever
the next chapter of the story
might have been. All in all,
there simply isn’t any reason
to assume that the collapse of
Cahokia had somehow opened
up an alternative path for
human development—unless
readers follow Graeber and
Wengrow in elevating ideas
and free choice as the
principal drivers of historical
change and discarding
everything else as background
noise.
If their approach fails to yield
convincing explanations of
history, does it at least serve
their second goal, to inspire
activism today? Can their
reimagining of the dawn of
today’s flawed societies help
foster new, better ones?
Graeber and Wengrow think
so, but for no good reason.
The further foragers,
gardeners, and herders have
receded into the past, the less
relevant their experiences
have become. People today
have little to learn from
ancestors who, roaming a lost
world of wide open spaces and
abundant wildlife, were able
to dodge bullies and walk
away from drudgery
whenever they chose. Those
ancestors did not inhabit a
planet of eight billion people
bound together by
unprecedented
interdependencies, a world
that needs to keep running just
to stay in place. Today, people
shouldn’t have to fall back on
ancient “play farmers” and
kingless cities to envision a
better future: if they want to
change the world, they have to
build on what it has become,
not on what it might once have
been.
 The Child Victims of ISIS
Repatriating the Residents of Syria’s Detention Camps
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Foreign Affairs
T
hree years ago, a global
coalition of countries
led by the United
States retook most of the
territory in Iraq and Syria
controlled by the Islamic
State. Once ISIS was defeated
on the battlefield, the world
moved on. Left unanswered
was the question of what to do
about the people, including
thousands of children, who
had come from abroad, either
voluntarily or through
coercion, to live under ISIS
rule and were now abandoned
by their governments.
Many of the women and
children, and a small number
of men, ended up in two
detention camps in the middle
of the desert in northeast
Syria, where they remain
today, with no way out. Some
of the camps’ residents had
been willing adherents to
ISIS, whereas others were
victims of trafficking and
online grooming. Still others
were taken as children to join
ISIS or lived in ISIS-
controlled territory and were
displaced, co-opted, or
coerced into the control of the
group.
The larger of the two camps,
Al Hol, was initially built for
Iraqi refugees in 1991; the
smaller, Roj, was established
in 2014, also to house families
fleeing Iraq. Both camps
expanded in earnest in 2019,
after the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF)
conquered Baghouz, the last
holdout of ISIS in Syria.
Estimates of the camps’
population vary, but the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
puts the combined total at over
60,000 people, with more than
80 percent being women and
children. In Al Hol, 50 percent
of the population is under the
age of 12 (an estimated 30,000
children), and at Roj, it is 55
percent, according to the
charity Save the Children.
Both camps are defined by
their sheer lawlessness and
insecurity. Children living
there experience a gamut of
harms, including violence,
hunger, sickness, and the lack
of any education.
Fifty-nine countries have
nationals in detention either at
Al Hol or Roj. Although the
majority are Syrian and Iraqi,
more than 11,000 are from
other countries across the
world. But many of those
countries, including a number
of democracies, are refusing
to allow their people to return
home. Rather than dealing
with the thorny problem of
repatriating and holding
accountable those people who
traveled to Iraq and Syria to
join ISIS, they are essentially
dumping their citizens on the
SDF, which is both ill
equipped to manage the needs
of a traumatized population
and recognized by no country
as a legitimate authority. This
tolerance for mass arbitrary
detention, particularly of
women and children, flies in
the face of an international
legal system that is supposed
to protect children’s rights.
The Al Hol and Roj camps
stand as a symbol of the
world’s collective failure to
think about humanitarian
needs and human rights after
the fall of ISIS. Failing to
close these detention sites will
gravely undermine stability of
the broader region with
consequences that could
reverberate far beyond.
Children raised in abject
misery and oppression may
likely feel alienated from
society, making them perfect
targets for recruitment by
terrorist groups. Countries
may be refusing to repatriate
their citizens in the name of
protecting against terrorism,
but in so doing, they are
setting in motion a new cycle
of suffering and alienation.
HELL ON EARTH
None of the tens of thousands
of women and children held in
the Al Hol and Roj camps
have been subject to any legal
process to determine what
role, if any, they played in
ISIS or under what
circumstances they came to be
living under ISIS control.
Most of the children are under
the age of 12. Children do not
get to choose their parents or
decide where they are born,
but each child in these camps
is suspected of having an
affiliation with terrorism
based on the presumed
parentage of their often-
unidentified fathers. Few of
these children have identity
papers. Some have birth
certificates issued by ISIS
during its time in power, but
these documents give them no
recognized legal standing.
The stories behind how their
mothers came to be living
under ISIS rule vary, but some
high-profile cases illustrate
the complexities.
Consider Shamima Begum.
Born in the United Kingdom
to Bangladeshi parents, she
was a teenager living in
London when she was
groomed by extremists online.
In 2015, at the age of 15, she
traveled with three friends
from the United Kingdom to
Syria, where she married an
alleged ISIS fighter and gave
birth to two children who died
before she turned 18. In 2019,
the British government
revoked her citizenship and
announced that she was
permanently banned from
reentry. Now stateless, she
lives in Al Hol, where her
third child died of pneumonia
at less than three weeks old.
The United Kingdom has
branded Begum a sympathizer
of ISIS and a threat to national
security with no
acknowledgment of her status
as a child when she was
recruited online and traveled
to a conflict zone. Under
relevant British law, she was
the victim of statutory rape
once she moved to Syria and
was living under ISIS control.
The fact that she holds
minority religious and ethnic
status in the United Kingdom
makes the stripping away of
her citizenship even more
troubling.
The experience of Begum and
her children is hardly an
anomaly. The camps are
decidedly unhospitable for
children or anyone else. First
off, the camps are guarded and
have no exit. The tents
collapse in strong winds; the
grounds flood with rain and
sewage. Hygiene is almost
nonexistent. The little
drinking water available is
often contaminated. Latrines
are overflowing, and mounds
of garbage litter the grounds.
Food, water, health care, and
essential nonfood supplies are
provided by humanitarian
groups and organizations,
such as Médicins Sans
Frontières, that are straining
under the responsibility. They
report that the camps are rife
with untreated illness.
While conditions for these
children worsen, their home
countries offer formalistic
reasons why neither a passport
nor repatriation can be
provided. For countries that
were members of the global
coalition against ISIS, there is
a certain irony to having the
capacity to deploy significant
military and intelligence
resources to the region while
claiming that it is impossible
to provide the necessary
documents and safe passage
home for hundreds of
children. The excuses are
deeply unconvincing when the
same countries are also
helping to construct what are
essentially prisons that
operate to detain their young
citizens indefinitely and
without trial. For example,
Canada has done extremely
limited repatriation. One five-
year-old orphan named Amira
was brought home from Al
Hol to Canada in October
2020, thanks to nonstop
pressure from her uncle and
the UN. Her parents, both
Canadian, and her three
siblings were killed in an air
strike in Syria. Meanwhile, 46
other Canadian women and
children are still languishing
in the camps.
The Al Hol and Roj camps
stand as a symbol of the
world’s collective failure.
The daily realities for boys
living in detention are
particularly harsh. The boys
who are at Al Hol and Roj
camps are culled and
separated from their mothers
when they cross the arbitrary
threshold of ten years old. At
that age, they are moved to
overcrowded detention
quarters or “rehabilitation
centers” that lack bedding,
have inadequate sunlight, and
have poor access to latrines
and showers. Malnourishment
is rife. Boys held in these
facilities suffer from scabies
and other skin conditions.
They are vulnerable to
tuberculosis and COVID-19,
as well as at increased risk of
HIV because of their
increased vulnerability to
sexual violence. They are also
suffering from untreated war
injuries, including missing
limbs.
The situation for boys is
particularly dire in al-Sina’a
prison, which is not far from
Al Hol and houses men
suspected of ISIS ties as well
as boys transferred there after
they turn ten. In January, ISIS
launched an attack on the
prison, using a truck bomb to
blow up one of the prison’s
walls. The assault turned into
a ten-day battle, which
required U.S. military
intervention to bring under
control. In the end, a handful
of ISIS leaders managed to
escape while dozens of ISIS
fighters were killed.
Approximately 140 SDF
fighters died, and scores of
young boys were caught in the
crossfire, with many still
unaccounted for. Since the
attack, the SDF has restricted
humanitarian groups’ access
for security reasons, and many
of the boys experienced
physical injuries as well as
sustained trauma.
This warehousing of
adolescent boys away from
their mothers is not only
abhorrent but also illegal, as it
violates the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child. It is
a form of gender
discrimination that would be
widely denounced if it were
directed at girls, underscoring
how young boys in the region
are rarely viewed as victims of
terrorism. Instead, they are
presumed dangerous by virtue
of their sex and are stripped of
protections for the same
reason.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
The only meaningful solution
to the nightmare at Al Hol and
Roj is to ensure that their
foreign residents are sent
home. There has been some
small progress on this front.
The United States has brought
home its own 27 nationals and
provided the logistical and
security support to secure
transportation from the Iraqi
border and flights home so
other countries can do the
same. Uzbekistan has also
stepped up, repatriating 521
people from the camps and
integrating and rehabilitating
them once home. The Uzbek
effort gives the lie to the
argument, advanced by some
countries, that a lack of
consular presence in northeast
Syria prevents repatriation. It
also demonstrates the extent
to which repatriation requires
the support of specialized UN
agencies such as UNICEF,
which drew on its expertise to
facilitate integration and to
provide support for the long
haul.
Some European countries,
such as Germany and
Denmark, have moved from
seemingly absolutist positions
against repatriation to
bringing home a significant
number of women and
children in the past year, with
no ill effects. But most other
countries remain unwilling to
do the right thing. The
holdouts include Canada and
Norway, two countries that
provided political and
financial support to the
Children in Armed Conflict
agenda at the UN, which
through a 1997 General
Assembly Resolution created
a stand-alone office focused
on protecting children in
conflict zones from harm. But
their actions suggest that they
consider these protections
aimed only at children from
other countries and other
conflicts, not their own
people.
Bringing home women and
children in dribs and drabs is
taking too long. Every day in
the life of a child in these
inhumane circumstances
makes reintegration more
difficult. To speed things up,
the UN and the countries
committed to repatriation—
above all, the United States—
should reward those countries
that return their nationals with
consistent political and
financial support while
naming and shaming those
that do not.
HUMAN DECENCY
As the world waits for the
laggard countries to change
their policies, there are steps
that more pragmatic-minded
states can take to protect the
children. The first concerns
the large number of people in
the camps who cannot be
returned to their countries of
origin for fear of
persecution—such as
Uyghurs. One option for this
population would be for a
coalition of like-minded
countries, supported by
specialized UN entities, to
send them to other countries
that agree to take them. Such a
scheme would require the
countries committed to
repatriation to take on the hard
work of establishing clear
processes for transfer and
resettlement. Should this
prove impossible in the short
term, then this group may
need to be resettled in
northeast Syria in better living
conditions. A coalition of
countries committed to
solving this problem,
supported by expert UN
entities—most suitably, the
International Organization for
Migration (IOM)—could
build homes and
infrastructure, setting up
communities where large
groups of people could
meaningfully and safely live
out their lives.
Also needed is an assessment
of the return and amnesty
practices for the still-
unaccounted-for Syrian
detainees whom the SDF has
allowed to leave the camps.
Many of these people resettled
in other areas of northeast
Syria, whereas others returned
to territory controlled by the
Syrian government. They
appear to have secured their
release through informal and
opaque agreements, often
simply by paying bribes to
SDF guards. From both a
security and rule-of-law
perspective, it is essential to
know what deals they made
with either the Syrian
government or the SDF. It is
also essential to put in place a
system for following up on the
well-being of these families,
including the risks of
radicalization and returning to
ISIS.
A process is also needed for
providing recognized legal
documents for children in the
camps. To get off the ground,
such a system would require
the support of not only
committed countries but also
the SDF. To have legitimacy,
it should be carried out by the
UN organizations with the
most relevant experience,
namely including UNICEF,
IOM, and the UN Refugee
Agency. Every individual in
the camp must be provided
with a form of civil
documentation. If
accompanied by adequate
resources and security support
to keep personnel safe, the UN
should also provide DNA
testing where countries
require it to confirm parentage
or nationality. Registration
may look like a pedantic
formality, but it is the only
conduit through which these
children can obtain legal
status, recognition, and
ultimately, protection under
the law.
This warehousing of boys
away from their mothers is not
only abhorrent but also illegal.
Many of the camps’ residents
likely meet the threshold for
international protection,
including refugee status,
because they can prove they
have been persecuted. A good
example is the Yazidi women
and children living in the
camps. It is possible that
specialized agencies such as
the UN Refugee Agency
could assist in applying this
protection to those who
qualify, as the SDF is not a
recognized state that is bound
by the 1951 Refugee
Convention, which allows
refugees the possibility of safe
third-country resettlement.
Finally, countries will need to
make a massive humanitarian
investment to provide the
basic semblance of a dignified
life to children in these camps.
Donors should provide
adequate medical care,
rehabilitation, psychological
support, and schooling.
Working with such UN
agencies as UNICEF and the
Office of the High
Commissioner for Human
Rights, they should also
develop child-centered
deradicalization programs that
treat the totality of children’s
needs and those of their
families. In some cases, hard
decisions based on the best
interest of the child may
require removing a child from
the care of a parent, but in
general, separation should be
a last resort, used only after
other means of maintaining a
family bond have been
exhausted.
Northeast Syria is a tinderbox,
waiting to explode again. For
now, the rest of the world is
preoccupied with Ukraine, but
it ignores these camps at its
own peril. As long as they
exist, they will remain not just
a humanitarian disaster but
also a security problem. There
is a grave danger that in
depriving these children of a
childhood and deeming them
as undeserving of legal
protections, the seeds for
sustained violent conflict in
the region are being replanted.
A generation of children is
being lost, condemned for the
sins of their fathers.
 ‘It Doesn’t Matter If We Get Killed,’ Afghanistan’s Hazaras
Speak Out
Hazaras targeted in repeated attacks in Taliban-led Afghanistan share their deep concerns and dreams of
Nilly Kohzad, The Diplomat
n western Kabul’s Dasht-
I e-Barchi neighborhood,
21-year-old Zahra peeks
out of the window of her small
home to feel the cool breeze of
the outside world on her
cheeks.
Stuck mostly at home, she
spends her days reading
novels and writing stories of
her own, the only activities
that have helped keep her sane
since the Taliban takeover last
August.
“I come from Ghazni, and we
are Hazaras, but I am away
from my family right now
because of my studies. I’m
living with relatives here in
Kabul,” she says.
As an ethnic Hazara, Zahra
says it’s difficult to see her
people suffer endlessly. The
Hazaras are one of
Afghanistan’s many ethnic
groups, but one that has faced
generations of violence and
persecution.
o soothe herself, Zahra often
expresses her pain by reciting
poetry.
“I am Hazara, my neck was
cut off in Zabul
my hand said goodbye to me
in Deh Mazang
my Quran was burnt to flames
in Al Zahra
my geography turned to ashes
in Sayed Al-Shuhada
my pen broke in Mawood, and
I left my legs in Champions
Club
a better future.
Yes, I am Hazara – I am a
thousand pieces
and every piece of me is
buried in this land”
Like Zahra, much of the
younger generation of Afghan
women find themselves stuck
at home, confused as to how to
continue their lives as the
Taliban intensify gender-
based restrictions, and scared
for what the future means for
society’s most vulnerable. For
Hazaras, who have long been
targeted, captured, and killed,
this uncertainty and fear is
twofold.
Who are the Hazaras of
Afghanistan?
Hazaras are considered an
ethnic minority in
Afghanistan, although there
has never been a thorough
census of the country’s
population. The last,
incomplete, census was
conducted in 1979. Their
Asiatic features and Persian
dialect distinguish them from
other Afghans in the country.
They belong to the Shia
branch of Islam, whereas
Afghanistan is a Sunni-
majority nation.
“They are the largest religious
minority in Afghanistan, and
an ethnic minority as well.
Their history is one of
persecution, with the latest
attacks coming from ISIS-K
[ISK, the Islamic State
Khorasan]. The return of the
Taliban has been a disaster for
them,” Knox Thames, former
special envoy on minority
issues at the State Department,
tells The Diplomat.
“They are a long-suffering
community, repeatedly
repressed and attacked
throughout their history,” he
adds.
For 26-year-old Sara, this
couldn’t be more true. An
ethnic Hazara also living in
Kabul’s predominantly Shia
Dasht-e-Barchi
neighborhood, she and her
family have personally
witnessed targeted attacks and
killings in the neighborhood.
“These incidents happen a lot,
and sometimes our family and
friends are caught in the
middle. One of my relatives
died in the Dasht-e-Barchi
hospital attack. Also, the last
incident at Abdul Rahim
Shaheed High School was
very close to us. My brothers
were studying there, and it
shook us very much.”
She is referring to last month’s
targeted attack on school
students that killed at least six
people and injured 11 others.
A Vulnerable Community
Both under the previous
Ashraf Ghani administration
and now under Taliban rule,
Shia Hazaras have mostly
been left unprotected as back-
to-back attacks rocked their
community to the core.
“We didn’t have security
before the Taliban and we
don’t now either,” says Zahra.
“Since 2011 and 2012 many
incidents and mass killings
have targeted Hazaras and it’s
hard to specify and identify
which groups are behind these
crimes. Unfortunately, these
mass killings continue today,”
Sara says.
The month of Ramadan this
year proved to be deadly as the
Hazara community fell victim
to explosions in Kabul,
Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kunduz
province. Many attacks have
occurred in schools, hospitals,
and the latest attacks have
been directed toward Shia
mosques, where Hazaras go to
pray.
“Most Hazaras are scared,
they don’t feel safe in their
own homes. People used to go
to the mosque a lot, but no one
has the courage to go anymore
because there is a possibility
of a terrorist attack there,”
says Sara.
Thames says it’s very
unfortunate that a vulnerable
community like the Hazaras
have been left to fend for
themselves. From his point of
view, they are one of the
world’s most vulnerable
communities for potential
mass atrocities.
“Part of the tragedy for the
Hazaras is that they fully
invested in the vision of
Afghanistan that the United
States and the international
community promoted for 20
years,” he says.
During the last two decades,
Hazaras have persevered
despite the institutional,
systematic, and social barriers
and challenges they face.
Success in education has
enabled Hazaras to climb the
social ladder and gain
influence in a country that has
often sidelined their voices.
“They generally did not form
militias, but instead took
advantage of education and an
open political process to
advance their community.
Now, they are at the mercy of
the Taliban and ISIS-K, which
is terrifying for them. Many
are looking to flee if there is a
place they can go. The future
is uncertain and bleak,” says
Thames.
“No One to Support Us”
Like Zahra and Sara, Khatera
is another young Afghan
Hazara woman living in
constant worry. She keeps
herself busy by sewing and
designing traditional Afghan
dresses, a skill she learned
from her older sister.
Although Khatera has a
political science degree, she
designs dresses to make extra
cash during these uncertain
times.
“Things are strict these days,
but I like to post my designs
on social media. I like posting
photos in front of old
monuments or mosques, my
friends tell me to be careful,
but the Taliban have not
caught-up on social media yet,
they’re not quite there yet.”
Khatera opens up about being
part of the Shia Hazara
community and argues that
there is a lot of negligence on
the part of the Taliban, and the
repeated attacks in Dasht-e-
Barchi stand as proof.
“My mom is Hazara, and I am
Shia on both sides. I really
believe the Taliban are racist
toward Hazaras because they
want Hazaras to be under their
control and they want to keep
the status quo,” she says.
“Dasht-e-Barch suffers a lot
of insecurity. People protested
and expressed their concerns
about this, but no one
supported them. People have
always resisted but leaders are
busy thinking of their own
benefits, corruption, and
money. Even the media
downplays the Hazara issue,
there is a big disparity in
numbers.”
Sara chimes in, saying, “It
might be because the Hazara
people do not have anyone
lobbying for them or
representing them. In the past
government, there were a few
Hazara representatives but
unfortunately, we did not see
any special assistance from
them. I think the most
important thing for us would
be if the Hazara Genocide can
be officially recognized. That
we find the root problem of
these attacks so that it can be
prevented and so we don’t
have to witness such attacks
ever again.”
Many Hazara activists and
members of civil society are
calling for the recognition of a
Hazara Genocide. In August
last year, the United States
Holocaust Museum issued a
statement warning of a serious
risk of genocide and mass
killings against the Hazaras.
“I personally don’t think
anyone supports Hazaras, it
doesn’t matter if we get killed,
stopping this doesn’t give
anyone any sort of benefit,”
says Sara. “Most people
blame the Taliban for this
situation, even if they are not
behind the attacks today, they
are responsible for protecting
the people, but they do not do
that either.”
The Taliban have condemned
attacks claimed by ISK but
deny claims that they
themselves are the
perpetrators of similar crimes.
But while Afghanistan
grapples with how to deal with
the marginalization of its
Hazara population, it faces
another major issue: the
economy. These days, all
Afghans are mostly concerned
about is where to get their next
meal as babies and children
die from malnourishment,
according to a United Nations
report.
Who Can Bring About a
Change?
Activists and human rights
defenders believe there are
many organizations that have
the leverage to bring the
Hazara issue to the forefront
of minority issues and push
the Taliban to undertake
reforms.
“There is an important role for
the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation to play in
pressing the Taliban to protect
Hazaras from violence. The
Taliban will not listen to the
United States or the West, but
they might listen to OIC
members,” says Thames.
But until institutions like the
OIC initiate a push for change,
Hazaras in Afghanistan will
continue to live in deeply
insecure conditions.
“I would like for the
international community to
force the Taliban to include
other ethnic groups within
their framework and allow
Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras
to be part of the government
too,” says Khatera.
Sara, on the other hand, hopes
that the Taliban will collapse
entirely. “I want a new
government to take the place
of the Taliban, one that is
inclusive and cares about the
wellness of the people,” she
says. “I want my country to be
safe.”
Whether or not these pleas of
hope and change make it to the
desks of policymakers and
international organizations is
unknown. What is known is
that life for the Hazara
community will continue to be
one punctuated by suffering.
In the meantime, Zahra, Sara,
and Khatera will continue to
recite poetry, sew dresses, and
live behind the shadows of
fear and frustration.
“I want these cages and chains
to break open” says Zahra. “I
want Hazaras to be saved from
this bondage. I want us to have
a good life.”
 America’s Pivot to Asia 2.0: The Indo-Pacific Economic
Framework
As long as IPEF lacks clear incentives, it will be hard to transform the framework into meaningful action.
Mohammadbagher Forough, The Diplomat
O
n his Asia trip, U.S.
President Joe Biden
announced on
Monday that Japan, India and
10 other countries have
committed to join the U.S.-led
Indo-Pacific Economic
Framework (IPEF). Those
countries include Australia,
Brunei, Indonesia, South
Korea, Malaysia, New
Zealand, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand, and
Vietnam. Not included, at
least for now, are Taiwan,
three ASEAN member states
(Cambodia, Laos, and
Myanmar) and China
(obviously). But the door to
their future membership
remains (at least theoretically)
open.
Through IPEF, the United
States hopes to economically
engage the Indo-Pacific and
counter China’s increasing
economic and political
influence in the region. With
around 60 percent of global
population, the region is going
to be the main driver of
economic growth in the world
in the next few decades.
According to the White
House, the region “supports 3
million American jobs” and is
“the source of nearly $900
billion in foreign direct
investment in the United
States,” while U.S. FDI in the
region totaled around $969
billion in 2020. What’s more,
the United States is the
“primary exporter of services
to the region.”
In short, U.S. (and many
global) policy and economic
elites see the course of this countries signed the Regional
century’s geopolitics and Comprehensive Economic
geoeconomics to be Partnership (RCEP), the
determined in this region. largest free trade deal in the
world. All ASEAN countries
and some close U.S. allies
From Pivot 1.0 to Pivot 2.0 (Australia, Japan, New
Zealand, and South Korea)
In 2011, then-U.S. President
joined RCEP. It entered into
Barack Obama, on a trip to
force on January 1, 2022.
Asia, introduced the U.S.
Pivot to Asia, which had both
geopolitical components
On the other hand, Japan and
(such as increasing the U.S.
others negotiated and revived
military presence in the
the TPP (or what was left of it
region) and geoeconomic ones
after the U.S. withdrawal) and
(such as the Trans-Pacific
called it Comprehensive and
Partnership, or TPP). Through
Progressive Transpacific
the TPP, Obama wanted the
Partnership (CPTPP). It was
United States, not China, to
ratified in 2018. The United
write “the rules of the road in
States has ruled out the
the region” or “write the rules
possibility of rejoining this
of the global economy” in this
FTA, however. Instead,
century. Obama hoped the
Washington has argued that
TPP would be materialized by
the region needs to move
December 2012; as it turned
beyond it. Enter IPEF, the
out, negotiations lasted until
second coming of the U.S.
2015.
Pivot to Asia.
In their 2016 electoral
While the Pivot’s geopolitics
campaigns, both Hillary
developed substance (through
Clinton and Donald Trump
the likes of the Quad and
opposed the TPP due to anti-
AUKUS), the U.S. Indo-
globalization (i.e. anti-FTA)
Pacific policy lacks
sentiments in the United
geoeconomic heft. IPEF aims
States. President Trump then
to fill this gap. According to
torpedoed the TPP
the White House, the goal of
immediately after taking
the IPEF is to tackle:
office in 2017. Since then, the
U.S. Indo-Pacific policy has 21st century economic
been increasingly lopsided, challenges ranging from
defined more by geopolitical setting the rules of the road for
formations (such as the Quad the digital economy, to
and AUKUS) than ensuring secure and resilient
(geo)economic initiatives and supply chains, to helping
trade pacts. make the kinds of major
investments necessary in
In the meantime, in 2021, after
clean energy infrastructure
around 10 years of
and the clean energy
painstaking negotiations,
transition, to raising standards
China and other Indo-Pacific
for transparency, fair taxation,
and anti-corruption.
Obama’s legacy of the Pivot is
almost impossible to miss in
IPEF. His discourse about the
TPP’s objective (“writing the
rules of the road”) resonates
clearly in the quote above. In
this sense, IPEF is the United
States’ second attempt at a
Pivot to Asia. U.S.
policymakers have noticed
that the United States is left
sitting on the outside of the
Indo-Pacific’s two main trade
blocs (RCEP and CPTPP).
How to Interpret IPEF and Its
Challenges
In what follows, I offer seven
observations about the visions
behind and the challenges
ahead of IPEF.
First, it is important to
determine what IPEF is not. It
is certainly not an FTA like
RCEP and the CPTPP. It has
not involved, nor has it
promised to involve in the
future, negotiations to remove
tariffs or increase market
access. For now, IPEF is best
understood as a vision, a
signal, a statement of purpose,
or an attempt by the United
States to catch up with the
Indo-Pacific’s evolving
history, geography, and
(geo)economics.
Second, IPEF’s ultimate
vision is to reinstate U.S.
“economic leadership” in the
Indo-Pacific region and
enable the United States – as
both Obama and Biden have
envisioned – “to [re]write the
rules of the road” for the
Indo-Pacific, and global,
economy.
Third, a major contradiction
here is that “rules of the road”
require a framework with
binding commitments based does not meet the same fate as
on specific rules and BDN and B3W.
regulations. This specificity is
Fifth, from the list of excluded
normally formalized through
countries (China and its close
FTAs with clear rules and
ASEAN partners such as
dispute settlement
Myanmar, Cambodia, and
mechanism. IPEF does not
Laos), it is hard not to infer
offer any of that. Even before
that IPEF’s trajectory has
this trip, the Biden team had to
been – and will likely be –
water down IPEF to attract
defined more by the United
more countries to it.
States’ geopolitical objectives
than global economic
dynamics. Another layer of
The White House has argued
complexity for the U.S. is that,
that this aspect of IPEF is a
since 2011, the Pivot to Asia
“feature,” not a “bug,” as it
has been constantly derailed
gives more flexibility to the
by geopolitical emergencies
participants to act upon the
elsewhere, such as in the
components that are
Middle East or now in
completed without having to
Ukraine.
wait for all of IPEF to be
completed. While this is a Sixth, the most herculean
theoretically beautiful thought challenge for the United
process, we do not have many States is to persuade IPEF
– in fact, any – historical members to disentangle their
precedents of such a loosely economies from China’s. It is
defined framework creating worth remembering that other
enough obligations and than the U.S., each and every
incentives to create history- country that has joined IPEF
changing momentum. previously joined China in
signing an actually binding
Fourth, the conceptual
FTA, namely, RCEP. For
baggage of IPEF (setting
them, that was much more of
“rules,” “standards,” and
a commitment than joining
“principles”) has already
IPEF.
appeared and been tested in
both the Blue Dot Network
(BDN) launched in 2019 by
This challenge becomes even
the Trump administration and
greater given that IPEF, in
the Build Back Better World
trying to set standards and
(B3W) initiative launched in
principles, will inevitably
2021 by the Biden
create obligations while
administration. BDN was
“lacking incentives.” It
defined as “a mechanism to
remains to be seen if, how, and
promote robust standards […]
why IPEF partners should not
for quality infrastructure
be “skeptical” and should
projects” and B3W as an
work against their own
initiative to promote “high
economic interests (i.e.,
standards and principles” in
economic engagement with
areas that overlap with IPEF’s
China) in the absence of IPEF
issue areas. Both B3W and
incentives (such as access to
BDN were defined in terms of
the U.S. market).
countering China and its Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI). Seventh and finally, for IPEF
Neither has so far produced to succeed, U.S. policymakers
much tangible substance and should try to do two things
momentum. The United States simultaneously: They should,
should watch out that IPEF first, get their domestic act
together by properly as IPEF (and B3W and BDN)
addressing the U.S. with already existing FTAs,
population’s anti- such as the Japan-led CPTPP,
globalization sentiments and which are the results of years
economic concerns; and, of painstaking negotiations.
second, merge initiatives such Only then can the United
States use its economic might,
soft power, and geopolitical
leverage to start writing – or
better, co-writing with
partners – the rules of the road
for the global economy.
 Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons for South Asia
Maimuna Ashraf, South Asian Voices
T
he transformation in
military affairs is
rooted in the analyses
of previous armed conflicts—
each involving a different
kind of revolution that
trimmed flawed traditional
war-patterns and identified
new operational concepts and
technologies for integration in
military doctrines. The
ongoing Russia-Ukraine
conflict is also being
thoroughly examined to draw
lessons about the contours of
modern war, help delineate
prospective challenges, and
build requisite civilian and
military capabilities. While a
series of debates have
surfaced about countries
reevaluating their strategies
and capabilities in light of the
Russo-Ukrainian war, this
article focuses on the lesson
that India and Pakistan’s
strategic community and
decision makers could be
mining from this war and
reflects on the parallels and
contrasts with crises and
strategic dynamics in South
Asia.
South Asia’s geostrategic
landscape is defined by
recurrent crises, outright wars,
territorial disputes, and
mutual mistrust. These
challenges are reinforced by
triangular India-China-
Pakistan strategic dynamics,
which has contributed to
overlapping threat perceptions
and the introduction of
multifaceted capabilities.
Unlike the Russia-Ukraine
scenario, this conflict-prone
region is underpinned by
nuclear deterrence that has
helped diminish each
adversary’s war-waging
potential and prevent limited
military engagements from
escalating into all out
conventional war. The
conventional asymmetry
between India and Pakistan
has also not been as acute and
decisive as the military
capability differential
between Ukraine and Russia.
Despite these differences,
substantial lessons can be
applied to the trilateral
deterrence equation of this
region. These lessons can
broadly be contextualized as
both operational and tactical
and aimed at improving
operational strategies,
cognitive warfare, and
military technological
developments.
Logistics
The Russian Army’s
operations in Ukraine have
been severely hampered by
floundering logistical support
and poor maintenance of
military hardware and
equipment. Russian supply
lines have been sabotaged at
several places and are being
aggressively targeted by
Ukrainian forces. Any future
conflict in South Asia is likely
to involve several thousand
troops, tanks, artillery and
mechanized forces being
employed by India and
Pakistan across hundreds of
kilometers of geographically
varied and difficult terrain.
Pakistan’s north-south
geography, however, offers it
a natural advantage with
shorter supply lines and
forward defensive positions
close to the border. Pakistan
continues to further
consolidate its logistics
network by improving road
connectivity, mechanization,
and its hardware.
Pakistan’s forces can also be
quickly re-positioned to
critical theaters of operation
during a conflict.
Consequently, India will have
to achieve air superiority and
conquer air defenses against
Pakistan early in a conflict for
its IBGs to maneuver
unhindered.
On the flip side, India’s
Proactive Military
Operations/Limited War
Doctrines—i.e., Cold Start—
was spurred by a desire for
quick mobilization,
preparation, and employment
to deny the adversary the time
and space to respond.
However, India’s
redeployment of its army
divisions and Integrated Battle
Groups (IBGs) facing
Pakistan to the Line of Actual
Control (LAC) amidst a
military standoff with China
means there is now near parity
between Indian and Pakistani
forces with the latter being
able to deploy all its offensive
and defensive forces to meet
any Indian threat. Pakistan’s
forces can also be quickly re-
positioned to critical theaters
of operation during a conflict.
Consequently, India will have
to achieve air superiority and
conquer air defenses against
Pakistan early in a conflict for
its IBGs to maneuver
unhindered.
Air Defense and UCAVs
Russia’s attack on Ukraine
has reinforced the efficacy of
strong air defenses and armed
or unarmed drones to protect a
country’s vital military and
civilian assets and deployed
forces from an air attack.
Although the Ukrainian air
force is vastly outmatched by
the Russian air force, Russia
has been unable to gain
control over Ukraine’s skies.
The inadequate air patrols by
Russian aircraft and
helicopters against Ukrainian
troops has enabled Ukraine to
get into tactically effective
attacking positions. Since the
opening salvos of war,
Ukrainian and Western
supplied air defence Systems
(i.e. Stinger anti-aircraft
missiles) have been inflicting
heavy losses on Russian air
capability, with claims of
Ukrainian forces shooting
down helicopters, Unmanned
Combat Aerial Vehicle
(UCAV) drones and fighter
aircrafts including the Russian
SU-35. The war has also
brought about greater
realization of the need for
effective short-range air
defense against armed drones.
The Turkish TB2 UCAV—
which is “wreaking havoc” on
Russian troops, artillery,
tanks, and air defense
systems—cannot be
effectively detected by long-
range defense systems.
Likewise, the switchblade
armor killing small drone,
referred as the Kamikaze, has
reportedly been effective
against Russian tanks.
Conversely, Russians are also
using armed drones and
helicopter gunships to destroy
Ukrainian air defenses,
command and control targets,
and military hardware and
storage and supply sites, in
addition to targeting TB2 and
other Ukrainian armed drones.
In South Asia, India and
Pakistan are likely to continue
investing in modern integrated
air defense networks to deny
enemy air superiority—
India’s recently acquired S-
400 and Pakistan’s inducted
HQ-9P. Given the various
types of air defense missile
systems, coupled with
Airborne Warning and
Control Systems (AWACS),
Electronic Warfare, Artificial
Intelligence, cyber and
directed energy weapons, ISR
platforms and armed drone
capabilities by India and
Pakistan, a future conflict is
likely to depend on how both
countries will use these
capabilities in synergy in real
time conditions. The war in
Ukraine will also incentivize
the acquisition of loitering
munitions and drone-swarms
(intelligent, smaller, low-cost
expandable agents)—such as
the larger XQ-58 Valkyrie and
Gremlins smaller attack
drones—in South Asia,
particularly for India as China
is developing anti-drone
capabilities. Likewise, the
inferred lesson will require
India and Pakistan to deploy
short-range air defense
systems to protect their
ground forces.
Precision Strike/Counter
Force Capabilities
Russia’s biggest instrument of
attacking Ukrainian military
targets are short range ballistic
missiles, cruise missiles,
standoff weapons, artillery—
claims of over 2,000 missile
strikes across Ukraine. Yet,
Russia has not been able to
exploit its advantage in
artillery to the desired impact
due to its flawed operational
strategy, as the Russian
Battalion Tactical Groups—
which include “artillery,
infantry, tanks—and are
designed to attack quickly
with lot of firepower”—were
not supplied with sufficient
infantry troops to provide
protection in the event of
attack. The United States
supplied anti-tank guided
missiles (ATGM), Javelin, is
causing massive blow to the
Russian tanks by destroying
the tank’s built-in reactive
armor that absorbs missile’s
impact. Along with 2000
Javelin ATGMs, Ukraine was
also aided with 3,600 Next-
Generation Light Anti-tank
Weapon (NLAW) missiles.
Together they are potent to
mitigate the damage inflicted
by Russian units. Reportedly,
Russia has lost almost 650-
1,200 tanks and over 3,000
armored vehicles so far
including armored personnel
carriers and infantry fighting
vehicles.
The war in Ukraine will also
incentivize the acquisition of
loitering munitions and drone-
swarms (intelligent, smaller,
low-cost expandable
agents)…in South Asia,
particularly for India as China
is developing anti-drone
capabilities.
While India has been heavily
investing in developing IBGs
over the past decade, Pakistan
enjoys a clear edge over India
in self-propelled artillery
which is vital for IBG-based
operations—as this supports
in continuing the momentum
of such operations as well as
modern armor and combined
arms operations. However,
India is expediting its efforts
to bridge this gap through
building a Rocket Force, and
is also pursuing capabilities
for Non-Contact Warfare that
will derive its strength from its
emerging counter-force
potential—based on
conventionally armed
supersonic and hypersonic
cruise missile development
(BrahMos triad and Nirbhay)
and long-range artillery. Thus,
a future conventional conflict
in South Asia will possibly
include large-scale use of
smart (guided) artillery at long
ranges in support of tanks and
infantry to quickly decimate
the enemy and achieve
decisive results on the
battlefield. To this end, both
India and Pakistan are actively
inducting long-range Rocket
Artillery systems (including
the Pinaka, A-100, Fatah-1,
and the BM-30 Smerch).
Anti-Access/Area Denial
Capabilities
The sinking of the Russian
Black Sea Fleet’s cruiser
Moskva by Ukrainian R-360
Neptune subsonic anti-ship
cruise missile, has cast new
light on the significance of
relatively inexpensive anti-
ship Anti-Area Access Denial
capabilities (A2/AD) that can
be employed to deter and
defeat a superior naval
force—provided the requisite
ISR and target acquisition
information is made available.
This has generated debate on
how Chinese A2/AD and anti-
ship ballistic and cruise
missiles can keep U.S. aircraft
carrier battle groups at bay, or
how Taiwan might use such
technologies in the event of a
conflict with China. While
both India and Pakistan have
been acquiring and
developing similar naval
A2/AD capabilities, the
former is the largest operator
of BrahMos cruise missile that
is the primary anti-ship
weapon on Indian surface
ships. Pakistan has recently
developed Harbah subsonic
anti-ship cruise missile and is
equipping its surface fleet
with new YJ-12 supersonic
and P-282 hypersonic
missiles. Pakistan has also
tested the Zarb land based
anti-ship missile system
which is similar to the
Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship
missile.
What is lacking in the
Russian-Ukrainian conflict is
the impact of air power on
naval operations and large-
scale deployment of surface
warships in equal measure as
the Ukrainian navy was no
match for Russia’s Black Sea
Fleet. More notable is the
absence of any submarine
warfare in this conflict. South
Asia is likely to see large-
scale naval operations
involving surface, submarine,
anti-ship and anti-submarine
warfare (naval aviation)
forces as both India and
Pakistan are modernizing and
expanding their naval
capabilities in all domains,
including their sea-based
nuclear deterrents.
Doctrine, Strategy, and
Combined Arms Operations
In the words of Stephen
Biddle, “combined arms
tactics impose very high
orders of complexity…while
effective if implemented
properly, they demand high
levels of skill from both troops
and leaders.” The unexpected
substandard performance of
Russian forces in the field has
raised questions on the
Russian military’s morale,
training, and leadership.
Equally important is the near
absence of the effective
execution of a Combined
Arms Doctrine that could
translate Russian numerical
predominance in armor,
artillery, infantry, helicopters,
aircraft, and missiles. In South
Asia, India and Pakistan have
continued to devise, test, and
polish their conventional war-
fighting doctrines through
numerous exercises involving
their respective land, air, and
naval forces. These exercises
involve various elements of
three-services for achieving
synergy and optimum
utilization of available
technologies and capabilities.
India and Pakistan also
regularly participate in
military exercises with
friendly countries that help in
fine tuning interoperability
and greatly assist in
identifying the strengths,
weaknesses, and opportunities
for further growth. This aspect
has been lacking for Russia
which primarily conducted
exercises with China.
Finally, the Russia-Ukraine
war shows that even a robust
military force and plans may
falter if the aggressor
underestimates the resolve of
a comparatively weaker but
determined adversary.
Modern warfare is not just a
clash of technology and
military capabilities, it is also
a contest of leadership, tactics,
and morale that will determine
the outcome of conflict.
Ultimately, the Russia-
Ukraine conflict has
demonstrated that the
outbreak of conventional
conflict remains a potent
option between states. While
past crisis have demonstrated
deterrent value of nuclear
weapons in preventing
vertical escalation, which is
likely to be relevant for the
foreseeable future,
conventional deterrence has
gained greater traction in
recent years, particularly with
India reevaluating its
strategies to address a two-
front war challenge and
“[prepare] itself for long term
conventional war-fighting
roles”. Like the Russian-
Ukraine conflict, a South
Asian military conflict, if
occurs, can quickly transform
into a battle of attrition.
Besides this, the key lesson
from Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine is the need to develop
comprehensive and integrated
crisis management
capabilities by devising a
clear-eyed appraisal of
military and politico-
economic measures that
addresses the full-spectrum of
crises—before, during, and
after conflict. Finally, the
Russia-Ukraine war shows
that even a robust military
force and plans may falter if
the aggressor underestimates
the resolve of a comparatively
weaker but determined
adversary. Modern warfare is
not just a clash of technology
and military capabilities, it is
also a contest of leadership,
tactics, and morale that will
determine the outcome of
conflict.