ARTICLES OF THE DAY

May 31st, 2022

BRADLEY BLANKENSHIP, RUSSIA TODAY .......................................................................................................... 2

LISA CURTIS, FOREIGN AFFAIRS........................................................................................................................ 4

MICHAEL KIMMAGE AND MARIA LIPMAN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ......................................................................... 8

STEVEN RATUVA, THE DIPLOMAT .................................................................................................................. 13

TAFI MHAKAY, ALJAZEERA ............................................................................................................................. 19

MARWAN BISHARA, ALJAZEERA .................................................................................................................... 21

 ‘Strategic ambiguity’ or sheer incompetence? Blinken’s China
speech shows the US is outmatched in competition with Beijing
Washington’s top diplomat was supposed to clarify its China policy but instead face-planted, highlighting
incompetence in the US government
Bradley Blankenship, Russia Today
U S Secretary of State
Antony
outlined
Blinken
government’s China policy on
his
May 26 in a long-winded
speech that can only be
described as underwhelming
and unconvincing. The speech
was slated to take place earlier
in the month but was pushed
back, thanks to Blinken
coming down with Covid-19,
and the administration of
President Joe Biden stressed
to reporters beforehand that it
would not contain any major
announcements.
Some believed that there
would be more clarity on
certain issues, especially on
the question of Taiwan, after
Biden’s “gaffe” about a
“commitment” to “defend”
Taiwan against an attack from
the mainland took all of the
attention from his first Asia
trip as president. That was not
the case. Blinken served up
the usual rhetoric and
platitudes while ignoring the
proverbial elephant in the
room.
Other than that, the secretary
of state assured the world that
relations between the world’s
two most important and
influential countries would
remain fraught with
contradictions. And on the
“competition” Washington so
desperately seeks with
Beijing, Blinken offered few
details. One wonders whether
deliberate “strategic
ambiguity” on China policy
has become just sheer
incompetence.
The entirety of Blinken’s
speech framed the United
States as the defender of the
existing international order
and China as the one tearing it
down. Reality tells us a
different story, however. The
United States has been at war
for 228 years out of its nearly
246 years in existence;
meanwhile, China is rarely at
war.
Even when the US essentially
controlled the global security
infrastructure during the
unilateral moment, wars of
aggression have been
continual and unending. The
US has killed and displaced
millions of people in its global
conquest and ushered in an era
of immeasurable misery. The
agreed-upon international
order following WWII, found
in the Charter of the United
Nations, has been totally
ignored by Washington and its
allies since its creation.
On the contrary, China
follows international law and
adheres to customary
diplomatic standards. China
actually benefits immensely
from the existing world order
and has used it to its
advantage, leading the largest
anti-poverty campaign in
human history. In early 2021,
Chinese President Xi Jinping
announced victory in a war his
country did launch: the
eradication of poverty in
China.
Blinken accused Beijing of
unfair trade practices and the
US Congress, including
representatives from both
major political parties, agrees
with this since they
continually pass protectionist
legislation designed to
undercut China. However, the
foremost multilateral
institution tasked with
litigating these issues, the
World Trade Organization
(WTO), does not agree.
In fact, just one day after the
US House of Representatives
introduced its version of the
anti-China “America
competes” act, the WTO
issued a decision that will
allow China to impose duties
on $645 million worth of US
imports annually because of
its Antidumping and
Countervailing Duties
(AD/CVD) abuse. This isn’t
even to discuss the illegal
unilateral sanctions that
Washington applies to its
political adversaries, but are
worth at least mentioning.
Blinken assured us that
Washington does not seek a
“new Cold War” against
China – but policies by his
government suggest the exact
opposite. Objectively, actions
by Washington are at least
attempting to or raising the
likelihood of bifurcating the
world once again.
For example, the creation of
the Indo-Pacific Economic
Framework (IPEF) was
clearly meant to undercut
China by providing incentives
for Asian countries to
decouple from Beijing and
isolate China from Indo-
Pacific supply chains. The
problem is that the IPEF is not
a trade deal, probably because
the Biden administration
would never be able to pass it
through Congress, and does
not provide tariff reductions
or market access.
The US is also trying to get a
foothold with countries from
the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN),
having just hosted an ASEAN
Summit in Washington earlier
this month. During that
summit, the US pledged $150
million for development in
Southeast Asia, which is
notably a region the US
military bombed to oblivion
half a century ago.
This may seem like a lot of
money but when compared to
the fact that the US is sending
about $100 million to Ukraine
per day, it is insignificant. It
shows that the US government
doesn’t have the resources (or
political will perhaps) to
meaningfully engage with the
region in terms they desire.
ASEAN leaders
understandably aren’t
comfortable with pressure put
on them to choose sides.
Speaking of coercion, Blinken
said that Asia should remain a
region “where countries are
free to make their own
sovereign decisions.”
Meanwhile, the US and
Australia are panicking after
China and the Solomon
Islands signed a security pact,
and US fingerprints are all
over the ouster of pro-China
Pakistani PM Imran Khan.
The US apparently believes in
the freedom of choice, as long
as you pick them.
Blinken’s speech – wherein he
said things that were just
completely false or
hypocritical – could be
viewed as a reiteration of US
“strategic autonomy,” as it has
been a mainstay of the US’
China policy for some time.
Likewise, Biden’s remarks on
Taiwan could also be
interpreted as this. But it’s
hard to discern any strategic
thinking at play.
The United States is simply
not playing with a full deck
when it comes to China. Its
diplomats are outmatched. Its
political system is too slow
and obsolete to maneuver as
quickly as its adversaries.
Political deadlock is keeping
any meaningful legislation
from seeing the light of day.
And the president himself is a
babbling fool – and no, I am
not taking a pot shot at his
advanced age because he was
famous for his “gaffes” for a
long time.
 India’s Last Best Chance
Choosing the West Over Russia Could Make New Delhi a Great Power
Lisa Curtis, Foreign Affairs
ndia’s neutrality over the
I
war in Ukraine has
exposed its vulnerability.
New Delhi depends on Russia
for military supplies, and so,
even though Russia is
blatantly violating Ukraine’s
territorial sovereignty in an
attempt to re-create its
erstwhile empire, India has
opted to stay silent. It has done
so even though India, as a
former colony, knows all too
well what it’s like to be the
victim of imperialism. It has
done so even though its own
territorial integrity is
threatened by another
authoritarian power—namely,
China. India, it seems, feels
caught in a vise grip by
Moscow.
To some extent, New Delhi’s
concerns are understandable.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin has not been shy about
cutting trade with states that
condemn his invasion. But
viewed more broadly, New
Delhi’s approach is
shortsighted and risky. It
ignores the dangerous
precedent that Russia’s
reckless behavior is setting in
other parts of the world. It
provides diplomatic cover to
China—Moscow’s most
conspicuous international
backer—to also ignore
Russia’s bad behavior. And
although criticizing the
invasion might worsen
relations with Russia, refusing
to take a stand could alienate
an even more powerful
country: the United States.
The prospect of upsetting
Washington should be
particularly concerning for
Indian policymakers. The
United States has become one
of New Delhi’s most
important partners,
particularly as India tries to
stand up to Chinese
aggression in the Himalayas.
But although Washington is
not happy that New Delhi has
refused to condemn Russian
aggression, Indian
policymakers have calculated
that their country is so central
to U.S. efforts to
counterbalance China that
India will remain immune to a
potential backlash. So far,
they’ve been right; the United
States has issued only muted
criticisms of Indian neutrality.
Yet Washington’s patience is
not endless, and the longer
Russia prosecutes its war
without India changing its
position, the more likely the
United States will be to view
India as an unreliable partner.
It may not want to, but
ultimately New Delhi will
have to pick between Russia
and the West.
It should choose the West. The
United States and its allies can
offer India more—
diplomatically, financially,
and militarily—than can
Russia. They can better help
New Delhi stand up to China.
In the short term, this
reorientation may make
procurement difficult for
India’s military, but Russia’s
invasion has already
weakened Moscow’s ability to
provide India with supplies.
New Delhi, then, has little to
lose by throwing its lot in with
the United States and Europe,
and it ought to use Russia’s
invasion as an opportunity to
boldly shift away from
Moscow.
GO WEST
When it comes to the war,
India is something of an
outlier among the world’s
democracies. The United
States, Canada, almost all of
Europe, and multiple
countries in Asia and the
Pacific—including Australia,
Japan, New Zealand, South
Korea, and Taiwan—have
condemned and sanctioned
Russia for its invasion of
Ukraine. India, by contrast,
has remained neutral.
Indeed, New Delhi has
arguably even supported
Moscow. Unlike most of the
world, it has actively
increased its economic ties to
Russia since the war began.
According to The New York
Times, India’s crude oil
purchases from Russia went
from 33,000 barrels per day in
2021 to 300,000 barrels a day
in March and then to 700,000
a day in April. Indian
importers are purchasing
Russian liquified natural gas
on the so-called spot market at
reduced prices. India’s buys
are still far smaller than those
made by European countries,
but the latter states are
working to drastically reduce
their dependence on Moscow.
India, by contrast, has handed
Russia a possible lifeline. It’s
no surprise, then, that
Moscow has praised New
Delhi for, as Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov put it,
“taking this situation in the
entirety of facts, not just in a
one-sided way.”
For now, U.S. officials have
been tolerant of India’s
behavior. They understand
that the country relies on
Russian military hardware,
and they recognize that India
cannot break its dependence
overnight. But there’s a
difference between neutrality
and support, and as Russian
atrocities mount and India
continues to import large
amounts of Russian crude oil
and gas, Washington may
begin to see New Delhi as an
enabler. To preserve the
United States’ deepening
relationship with India, U.S.
policymakers will want to
ensure that India is not
facilitating Russia’s invasion.
They will also want New
Delhi to turn to other military
suppliers. If India doesn’t do
so, it will become more
difficult for the United States
to increase its transfer of
sophisticated defense
technologies to New Delhi,
since Washington cannot
expose its high-tech
equipment to Russian
systems. Under the U.S.
Countering America’s
Adversaries Through
Sanctions Act, India could
even face economic penalties
for its ties to Moscow. India
recently purchased an S-400
air defense system from
Russia, and unless U.S.
President Joe Biden decides to
waive the penalties for
national security reasons,
Indian officials could be hit
with restrictions on access to
U.S. loans from U.S. financial
institutions and prohibitions
on bank transactions subject
to U.S. jurisdictions, among
other sanctions. The White
House appeared to be on a
path to waive the sanctions,
but that was before Russia’s
February 24 invasion of
Ukraine. Now, it is no longer
clear what the administration
will do.
New Delhi has arguably
supported Moscow.
Thankfully for Indian-U.S.
relations, there are signs that
India may be starting to
reduce its military ties with
Moscow. The country has
been gradually cutting its
defense imports from Russia
over the last several years, and
Indian media recently
reported that the country has
cancelled plans to upgrade its
Russian Su-30 MKI fighter
aircraft because the war has
made it harder for Moscow to
supply New Delhi with spare
parts. This month, India halted
negotiations with Russia to
acquire ten Ka-31 airborne
early warning helicopters,
also over concerns about
Moscow’s ability to fulfill the
order. But 80 percent of the
country’s current military
stocks still consist of Russian-
origin equipment.
For India, curtailing
dependence on Russian
military gear is not just the
right move for moral reasons.
Ultimately, it will also help
advance the Indian’s military
modernization goals. As
Russia becomes poorer and
increasingly isolated, it will be
less and less able to assist the
Indian military (a fact that the
canceled orders illustrate).
That’s because Russia will
have fewer high-quality
weapons to sell, and it will
need to focus more on
replenishing its own military
stocks, particularly as it loses
access to critical Western
technologies. New Delhi,
then, should move quickly to
find other countries that
manufacture spares and
upgrades for Russian-made
equipment. And over the long
term, India should focus on
building up domestic military
production so that it becomes
less dependent on other
countries for its national
defense.
CARROTS WITHOUT
STICKS
India has refused to condemn
Russia’s invasion for reasons
beyond just its military needs.
Moscow has long offered
diplomatic support to India,
including over the issue of
Kashmir, and New Delhi is
reticent to antagonize a friend.
But in recent years, Russia has
become far less dependable.
For example, Russia has
recently made overtures to
Pakistan, perhaps India’s
biggest antagonist. Last year,
Lavrov visited Islamabad, and
he pledged that Moscow
would boost military
cooperation and construct a
$2.5 billion gas pipeline
between Pakistani cities—
Russia’s first major economic
investment in Pakistan in 50
years.
Even more alarming for New
Delhi was the release of
Beijing and Moscow’s
historic joint manifesto.
Announced on February 4,
following a meeting between
Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Chinese President
Xi Jinping, the 5,000-plus
word document heralded an
era of newly deep Chinese-
Russian relations. For India,
this partnership could not
come at a worse time. In June
2020, Beijing and New Delhi
came to blows after China
spent months deliberately
building up its forces at
several points along the Line
of Actual Control that divides
the two nations. The resulting
fight killed 20 Indian soldiers
and at least four Chinese
troops—the first deaths along
the disputed border since
1975.
Following the clash, New
Delhi turned to Moscow for
diplomatic assistance, hoping
that Russia could defuse
tensions and prevent an all-out
conflict. Indian officials
calculated that Russia had
more influence and leverage
with Beijing than did any
other country, and that it
might therefore be able to get
China to step back. And
Moscow did host a virtual
Russia-China-India trilateral
meeting of foreign ministers
shortly after the fight.
Moscow has long offered
support to India, and New
Delhi is reticent to antagonize
a friend.
But ultimately it was
Washington that backed India
with robust material and
moral support in its time of
crisis. It publicly vowed to
stand with India in the
country’s efforts to protect its
territorial sovereignty, and it
expedited the leasing of two
MQ-9B surveillance drones. It
gave winter military gear to
Indian troops. Most important,
Washington enhanced
information and intelligence
sharing with New Delhi. This
marked a turning point in
Indian-U.S. relations. Before
the clash, Indian policymakers
had actively debated whether
India could count on the
United States for support in a
conflict with China.
Washington’s response made
it clear that the answer is yes.
In the years since, ties
between the two countries
have only grown stronger. The
U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy,
released in mid-February,
made clear that India plays a
critical role in Washington’s
efforts to compete with
Beijing. The Biden
administration further
affirmed U.S.-Indian ties in
April by hosting a 2+2
dialogue between the U.S.
secretary of state, the U.S.
secretary of defense, and their
Indian counterparts. It added a
virtual meeting between U.S.
President Joe Biden and
Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi at the last
minute, further signaling the
importance of U.S.-Indian
relations.
The United States’ allies have
largely followed its lead.
British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson made a visit to India
in April to advance
negotiations on a British-
Indian trade deal and to
streamline licensing for
British military exports. Three
days later, European
Commission President Ursula
von der Leyen visited New
Delhi, where she and Modi
agreed to establish a joint
trade and technology council
and to resume negotiations on
an EU-Indian free trade
agreement.
Washington should not
pressure India to criticize
Russia.
These steps have all signaled
to India that it is welcome to
partner with the West. But if
the United States wants to
move New Delhi further into
its camp and away from
Moscow’s, it should take
additional measures.
Washington could give New
Delhi even more access to
sensitive U.S. technologies
that would enhance Indian
defense capabilities. It could
also provide incentives to U.S.
private companies to co-
develop and co-produce
additional high-tech military
equipment in India. It might
make its military gear more
affordable for India. Recent
media reports indicate
Washington may be getting
ready to take a step in this
direction by providing a $500
million Foreign Military
Financing package to
incentivize India to purchase
U.S. weapons. (Given India’s
robust defense requirements,
however, this is still a small
amount.)
What Washington should not
do is pressure India to criticize
Russia. New Delhi strongly
values having an independent
foreign policy, and so it would
bristle at being told how to act.
But U.S. officials can be clear
that they will offer India more
help, more quickly, if the
country reduces its reliance on
Russian military systems.
The United States can also
help woo India by
encouraging the Quad to
cooperate on Ukraine in
policy domains where all
members can agree. During
the 2+2 talks, for example,
Indian and U.S. officials
discussed how to deal with
global fuel and food shortages
stemming from the war.
Biden, Modi, and the Quad’s
other two leaders (the prime
ministers of Australia and
Japan) should also discuss
these brewing crises. Talking
about such issues will be
productive—every member of
the Quad has a strong
incentive in stopping
famines—while avoiding
excoriations of India for its
neutral position on the war.
India wants to be engaged, not
shamed, and so this lighter
approach is Washington’s best
bet for bringing India’s
response to the war in Ukraine
into alignment with its own.
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
For India, closely embracing
the West may be
discomforting. New Delhi has
a proud tradition of strategic
autonomy, and it prefers a
multipolar world in which it
does not have to choose
between major geopolitical
blocs. Beijing knows this and
has been happy to play into
India’s concerns. It relishes
the current situation in no
small part because it views the
conflict as an opportunity to
woo India with promises of a
multipolar world while at the
same time driving a wedge
between New Delhi and
Washington.
But India should recognize
that it would be a loser in such
a system. China and Russia’s
version of multipolarity would
make it easier for
authoritarian powers with
revisionist goals to redraw
borders, as China hopes to do
in the Himalayas. Beijing and
Moscow’s manifesto should
underscore these risks. As part
of the document, both states
criticized the U.S. Indo-
Pacific strategy—which
promises stronger cooperation
with India.
But the best way for the
country to protect itself is to
not play into China’s and
Russia’s hands. It is, instead,
to exude strength—including
by speaking out against
Russian aggression, rather
than being cowed by Moscow.
And that means New Delhi
should deepen its partnership
with the United States, the
country best positioned to
help India achieve its great-
power ambitions.
 Putin’s Hard Choices
Why the Russian Despot Can Neither Mobilize Nor Retreat
Michael Kimmage and Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs
R
ussian President
Vladimir Putin has
landed in an
unenviable position. His
country has the resources to
inflict damage on Ukraine in
perpetuity. But because the
first phase of the war has been
so costly for Russia and
because Ukraine’s military is
mounting such stiff resistance,
Russia faces serious difficulty
achieving anything
meaningful on the battlefield
without committing much
more manpower than it
currently has available.
Calling up large numbers of
reservists while putting
Russian society openly on a
war footing solves the
problem in theory. But it is
something for which the
Russian public is
fundamentally unprepared. To
date, Putin has referred to the
war in Ukraine as a “special
military operation” and held
only one mass rally in support
of the war. Full-out
mobilization, which would
make war an inescapable fact
of Russian life, would
revolutionize the regime Putin
has constructed since coming
to power in 2000. Putinism
has been a formula: the
government discouraged
people from meddling in
politics, while leaving them
mostly on their own, and the
people readily surrendered
their responsibility for
decision making. In 2014, he
could achieve his military
aims in Ukraine without
radically redefining Russian
politics. That is no longer an
option.
returned, but Putin’s
popularity declined and the
If Putin decides to mobilize,
regime’s legitimacy began to
he will be altering the deal
erode. This new chapter in
he’s made with the public and
Putin’s presidency began –
potentially destabilizing his
circa 2011 – on a sour note.
regime. As the United States
watches from the sidelines, it
may feel tempted to
In the fall of 2013, Putin was
encourage Russians to turn
preparing for the 2014 Winter
against Putin. Without having
Olympics in Sochi, a Russian
much or perhaps any real
resort town on the Black Sea.
influence on Russian public
He did not appear to have
opinion, however, the Biden
military adventures abroad on
administration can do its best
his agenda. Only a few months
to avoid costly mistakes. Most
later, though, the pro-
important will be its effort to
European Maidan uprising in
understand how and why
Ukraine and the unexpected
Russians think what they do.
flight of Ukraine’s president,
In the long-term conflict that
Viktor Yanukovych, changed
is unfolding, curiosity will be
Putin’s calculus. He had
a precious commodity.
regarded Yanukovych as his
NOTHING TO SEE HERE man and expected him to keep
Ukraine in the Russian orbit.
For the first ten years or so of
With Yanukovych gone, it
Putin’s time in power, a “no-
was a situation that Putin felt
participation pact” between
was slipping out of his control.
the Kremlin and the Russian
He annexed Crimea and
public had been in effect. It
interfered on the side of armed
was an unspoken agreement
insurgents in eastern Ukraine,
between ruler and ruled:
gradually installing the
“Don’t rock the boat, and you
Russian military and
will enjoy stability, relative
allocating to Moscow a quasi-
prosperity, and opportunities
imperial role in the Donbas.
for self-fulfillment or
enrichment.” But both parties
breached this pact in
The annexation of Crimea
December 2011. Upset by
went a long way to restoring
Putin’s return to the
Putin’s public support. It
presidency and rigged
produced a spontaneous burst
parliamentary elections,
of patriotism and confirmed a
protesters chanted, “Russia
mood of confrontation with
without Putin.” In response,
the West. But the Kremlin did
the Kremlin started chipping
not let the conflict intrude too
away at the rights and
much on the day-to-day lives
freedoms that Russian society
of most Russians, leaving a
had enjoyed until then, pitting
significant remnant of
the patriotic majority against
normalcy.
those the regime considered
excessively “modernized” and
“Westernized.” After this
clash, a version of normalcy
The United States and the EU
imposed sanctions. They
generated a sharp economic
decline in 2015, but over time
the economy steadied, and the
people were able to adjust. If
political activism against the
regime was suppressed, civil
society organizations were
still allowed to operate.
Charitable, educational, and
cultural initiatives carried on:
nongovernmental
organizations, think tanks, and
media outlets that did not
march in lockstep with the
government could do their
work. Sporadic protests (on
various grounds) were
sometimes treated brutally,
but each time a wave of
protest came it crested,
leaving no movement behind
and no reason for the Kremlin
to be seriously concerned. In
this way, Putin modified the
nature of Russian politics in
2014 without completely
recasting it.
The fighting in the Donbas
went in waves. When its
intensity faded somewhat
after 2014, foreign policy
receded from public
consciousness in Russia. The
Syrian civil war, where
Russian forces were fighting
on the side of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, seemed far
away and did not result in
large-scale Russian casualties.
Though international crises
were never absent, those who
wished to ignore them could
ignore them.
A NOT-SO-DISTANT WAR
By 2020, the Russian
government was far from
sanguine about the prospect of
dissent. Russia’s leading
opposition figure, Alexei
Navalny, bore the brunt of the
government’s mounting
anger. He was poisoned with a
Novichok nerve agent in
August 2020 and went to
Germany to convalesce. Upon
Navalny’s return to Russia in
January 2021, he was arrested.
After his arrest, his team
released one of his trademark
videos exposing the
corruption of top-ranking
elites, and this time the target
of exposure was Putin
himself. Navalny was far from
a direct threat to Putin’s
power. He was, however, a
counterweight to Putin’s
popularity, a matter of utmost
concern for the Kremlin, since
Putin’s uncontested status and
high approval rating are the
very foundation of political
stability.
Normalcy and stability may
have been illusions for the
Russian public in 2020 and in
2021. Yet they were
sustainable illusions. The war
Putin began in February of
this year shattered these
illusions. The scale of the
Russian invasion is vastly
greater than anything
undertaken in 2014, and the
break between Russia and the
West is almost without
precedent: the scale of
sanctions, the restrictions on
travel, the shutting down or
exit of Western institutions
from Russia. And so, in the
coming months, Putin will
face a punishing choice. He
could de-escalate and try to
mend relations with the West.
Or he could wage full-scale
war on Ukraine, deepening
even further the rift with
Europe and the United States.
All-out war would require at
least an incremental
mobilization. Putin could
thereby expand his battlefield
options. Here, the word
“mobilization” has two
meanings: to prepare an army
for war by calling up
reservists and specialists and
to orient Russian society
entirely toward war.
Mobilization roils domestic
and foreign affairs alike; it
tends to define politics as
aggression and aggression as
politics; and it encourages
jingoism. Were Putin to opt
for mobilization in both
senses of the word, he would
need to build a strong
justifications for militant
patriotism. He would have to
frame the confrontation even
more explicitly as a war
against the West, while
pegging Ukraine as the
enemy. (Currently,
Ukrainians are often referred
to as “brothers,” “the same
people,” while the Kremlin
claims to wage a war against
the “Nazis” among them.)
Conventional civilian life
would come to an end, not to
restart until the war ended,
whenever that might be and
however it might come to
pass.
Full-out mobilization would
make war an inescapable fact
of Russian life.
What mobilization would
enable, for Putin, is an
expanded set of war aims: an
assault once again on Kyiv, a
drive to partition to the
country into eastern and
western halves, or a concerted
effort to turn Ukraine into a
failed state, its infrastructure,
its cities, and its economy
completely destroyed.
Mobilization would
simultaneously impose
enormous political dangers on
Putin. He has based his regime
on public disengagement from
politics and foreign policy. It
would be risky in the extreme
to announce something like a
people’s war, as opposed to a
mere “special military
operation.” Mobilization
would require Russians to
actively participate in the war
and embrace its justifications
and objectives, which would
have to be clear and certain.
Up to now, the official reasons
for the war have been vague
and shifting. Nor is mass
mobilization necessarily a
controlled process. It could
radically empower the most
hawkish faction of the elites,
inflaming nationalist
sentiment in unpredictable
ways, especially if the war did
not go well.
WHO BELIEVES THIS
STUFF?
The official Russian war
narrative is as familiar as it is
fluid. Provoked by the West
and by atrocities perpetrated
by Ukraine’s government in
the Donbas since 2014, Russia
has been forced into a “special
military operation.” At the
beginning and intermittently,
the narrative has been tied to
the “demilitarization” and
“denazification” of Ukraine
and to the full independence
of the Donetsk and Luhansk
regions (or oblasts), the most
consistent causus belli. Also
emphasized is the existence of
Ukraine as a natural extension
of the “Russian world.”
Essential to these story lines is
the prediction that NATO will
attack Russia, making the
“special military operation” in
Ukraine preventive in nature.
The war lives in a liminal
place between something
circumscribed, something
much less than a war, and an
“existential struggle” against
the West, against NATO, and
against the designs of the
United States and its major
European allies.
Of course, the architects of the
“special military operation”
say it is going well. It would
be going better, the official
line implies, if the United
States and its partners were
not arming Ukraine to the
teeth, manipulating Ukraine’s
President Volodymyr
Zelensky, and through him
stoking Ukrainian nationalism
and “Nazism.” In the
Kremlin’s story, there are
many villains—not just the
United States, but also the
United Kingdom, Poland, the
Baltic Republics, and Europe
writ large.
Some Russians are antiwar,
some are eager not to hear bad
news about the war and angry
when confronted with
evidence of atrocities. Some
are nervously pro-war, and
some are resolutely pro-war,
the true believers. Most
importantly, many are
disengaged: it is Ukraine’s
war; it is the Kremlin’s war; it
is not their war. No survey
data can do justice to the
kaleidoscopic adjustments in
feeling and attitude within a
country at war. The tensions
and contradictions do not just
play out across different
groups of people. They play
out within the minds of
individuals.
What may be most pertinent to
Russian public opinion is that
the war has not been
immediately felt at home.
There have been few strikes
on military assets in Russia.
For most people, restrictions
on travel and the economic
pressure of sanctions have not
drastically changed their daily
lives. For families with
members in the military and
for the families of conscripted
soldiers the war is not far
away of course. The Kremlin
barely mentions casualties,
making it easier for many
Russians not to know. For the
vast majority of Russians, the
war is hardly all absorbing.
That is why mobilization
would pose such a challenge:
it would mean a shift from a
“special military operation” to
a “people’s war,” and with
that, the loss of the fantasy
that the war is far away. The
suffering and the casualties of
a full-scale war would need to
be met with proportional
sacrifices at home. Fear and
anger would spread across a
Russian society that for
decades had been incentivized
to shy away from strong
political emotions.
DO NO HARM
Were Putin to decide in favor
of mobilization, and were the
Kremlin to fail at the task, the
United States might be
tempted to take advantage of
the disarray. After all, the
United States wants to expel
the Russian army from
Ukraine.At least a few U.S.
government officials have
speculated about going further
and about speeding the
process of Russia’s overall
military disintegration. Some
believe it is necessary to
humiliate Russia. But the
United States as a vehicle of
antiwar or anti-Putin opinion
within Russia is not only
improbable--it is almost sure
to be counterproductive. The
United States should try to be
and to appear officially
agnostic on domestic Russian
politics, to refrain from overt
commentary and not to align
itself with opposition
movements. This has nothing
to do with fearing the
Kremlin’s political
sensitivities. The goal is to
leave the space in Russian
politics open for Russians to
move toward a post-Putin
Russia by their own devices.
Proceeding with a light touch
and with caution, the Biden
administration should
nevertheless act on Russian
public opinion in two ways. It
should do what little it can to
foster goodwill. Washington
can explain that its wishing
Ukraine well does not
translate into wishing the
Russian people ill. This might
be hard to reconcile with the
outrage many Americans feel
about the way in which Russia
has conducted its war.
Expressions of goodwill can
also be hard to get across. The
U.S. government has few
platforms for reaching the
Russian public. But the value
of these expressions is self-
evident. In no sense should the
U.S. government replicate the
zero-sum, us versus them,
East-West binaries that Putin
has deployed to explain and
justify his war.
Where President Biden’s
public rhetoric is concerned,
the cardinal rule should be to
do no harm. With the U.S. so
robustly on the side of the
Ukrainian military, Biden’s
ability to directly persuade
Russians or to garner any kind
of sympathy is modest at best.
Interestingly, Biden attempted
to send a message of goodwill
to the Russian people when he
visited Warsaw in March. In a
speech, he tried not to frame
U.S. support for Ukraine as
antithetical to the interests of
the Russian people. But a few
ad-libbed words at the end --
“For God's sake, this man
cannot remain in power,”
Biden said of Putin--
dominated discussions for
days afterward. Biden’s
message of goodwill got lost.
In Russia, it is doubtful that
any part of his speech except
his words about Putin were
televised. Given that the U.S.
aim cannot be Russia’s
unconditional surrender, talk
of defeating Russia and even
of weakening Russia is
misleading: preferable are a
set of aims related to the
sovereignty and independence
of Ukraine. As a media
strategy for Russia, talk of
defeating or weakening
Russia further deepens the
alienation from the West
experienced by the vast
majority of Russians,
including those who question
the war.
For the vast majority of
Russians, the war is hardly all
absorbing.
Finally, the Biden
administration has
remarkable resource in the
Russia diaspora. There are
now hundreds of thousands of
highly educated Russians
living in cities across Europe,
in Central Asia, in Turkey,
and in the South Caucuses.
Some have left for economic
reasons, estimating that
Russia’s financial future is
bleak. Many have left because
they could not countenance
the war. They do not
constitute a government in
exile and are unlikely to
spearhead a democratic
transition within Russia.
Because they left, they may
not be particularly welcome
even in a post-Putin Russia.
Those who left during an
earlier wave of emigration,
after the 1917 Russian
Revolution, enjoyed no
influence on the political
developments in the Soviet
Union. Very few ever
returned, and only a handful
lived to see it collapse in 1991.
Similarly, the twenty-first
century diaspora is unlikely to
be a vehicle for transforming
Russia. It, too, may never
return.
However small the diaspora’s
contributions to Russian
politics may prove to be, they
will not be without meaning.
The diaspora will sustain
patterns of cultural creativity
untethered to the Putin
regime. At a time when
Russia-West travel and trade
are diminishing, the diaspora
will serve as an economic
bridge between Russians and
the non-Russian world. It will
generate discussion and
debate that will trickle into
Russia through family and
friends and through social
media. It will embody a
Russia that is not equivalent to
the strategies and the
statements of Putin.
a
In 1990, the historian Marc
Raeff published an exquisite
exploration of a Russian
émigré alternative to the
Soviet Union. He titled it
Russia Abroad, A Cultural
History of the Russian
Emigration, 1919-1939. Raeff
was the son of Russians who
left their country after the
Bolshevik Revolution, and a
product of the European
milieu that his parents
inhabited after they had
emigrated. But in his work, he
managed to avoid both the
nostalgia and the bitterness
that often follow in the wake
of exile. Instead, he saw the
strength and the potential of a
far-flung diaspora. At first, the
emigres “did not ‘unpack’
their suitcases; they sat on
their trunks,” Raeff writes, so
sure were they that the Soviet
Union would quickly unravel.
In this hope they were
disappointed, but over time
they demonstrated “how an
exiled group can carry on a
creative existence, in spite of
dispersion and socioeconomic
or political handicaps.” That
same potential now resides in
a new version of "Russia
abroad." It should not go
untapped.
 How Pacific Regionalism Fell Apart
It was almost inevitable that fractures would emerge within the Pacific Islands Forum.
Steven Ratuva, The Diplomat
A
s if by some
conspiratorial design
to cover up the
diplomatic rifts, COVID-19
and the unfolding climate
crisis have overshadowed the
shimmering tectonic fractures
caused earlier this year by
disputes over the selection of
a new secretary general of the
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
The forum consists of 18
countries: Australia, Cook
Islands, Federated States of
Micronesia, Fiji, French
Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru,
New Caledonia, New
Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua
New Guinea, Republic of
Marshall Islands, Samoa,
Solomon Islands, Tonga,
Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The five
northern Pacific island states
of Federated States of
Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru,
Palau and Republic of
Marshall Islands (commonly
referred to as “Micronesia”)
were not happy with the
chosen candidate and decided
to exit the PIF in protest
against what they thought was
an unfair selection. This threw
Pacific regionalism into
political disarray.
More poignantly, it has
thrown into serious question
the values of Pacific
consensus and collective trust,
which have framed the
normative basis of Pacific
regionalism since the
organization was set up in
1971.
The breakup of the PIF sits on
top of other significant issues
such as big power geopolitics,
the climate emergency, the
ongoing COVID-19 crisis, as
well as turmoil in another
major regional organization,
the University of the South
Pacific.
Racialized Subregional
Framing Tectonic Shifts?
Pacific regionalism as a post-
colonial construction evolved
in different ways since the
1970s. The euphoria of
independence of the Pacific
island states between 1960
and 1980 naturally created the
need for a unifying ideology
to provide a platform on
which they could articulate a
common voice and deal with
the rigors of global politics,
trade, and manage a collective
regional agenda. A number of
regional organizations were
set up. Today there are nine
such organizations which
make up the Council of
Regional Organizations of the
Pacific (CROP); along with
the PIF, these include the
Forum Fisheries Agency,
Pacific Aviation Safety
Office, Pacific Power
Association, Pacific Islands
Development Program,
Pacific Community,
Secretariat of the Pacific
Regional Environment
Program, South Pacific
Tourism Organization, and
the University of the South
Pacific (USP). While one
would think of these
organizations as part of a
regional family, ironically,
there is a certain degree of
territoriality and competition
over resources and agendas
among them as they are often
funded by the same donors.
There are also deeper
complications that are not
often understood, especially
how Eurocentric cultural
framing has, in subconscious
ways, shaped the constructed
political terrains in the region.
In the broader anthropological
sense, Pacific societies are
part of the Austronesian
cultural system, which spans
the oceanic Southeast Asian
region and across the western,
central, and eastern Pacific as
far east as Rapanui (Easter
Island), as far south as
Aotearoa New Zealand, and as
far north as Hawaii.
Early Austronesians went as
far as South America, from
which they brought back
sweet potato (kumala in Fijian
and Tongan, umala in
Samoan, uala in Hawaii, and
kumara in New Zealand
Maori) before Columbus ever
set foot on the landmass. The
Pacific navigators traversed
the region for trading,
settlement, and other purposes
using the most sophisticated
navigational technology
known to humanity at the
time.
Things changed dramatically
with the arrival of Europeans
and colonialism not only in
terms of land grabbing and
imposition of political rule,
but also in terms of human
framing and classification, an
obsession of European
scholars since the so-called
period of European
Enlightenment in the 18th
century. The European
imagination of “lower races”
inspired writers of the time to
frame the Pacific peoples as
“noble savages” or “ignoble
savages.” In the 1830s, a
French explorer, Jules
Dumont d'Urville, drew
arbitrary lines across the
Pacific and created three
human categories:
Melanesians (black people),
Micronesians (small people),
and Polynesians (many
peoples). Despite research
showing the complex genetic
and cultural admixtures across
the Pacific, these artificial
categories were reproduced in
writings, academia, and social
discourses and Pacific peoples
unconsciously assimilated
them as part of their new
forms of identities.
The racialized d’Urville
classificatory lines were used
as a basis for the three
subregional groupings in the
form of the Melanesian
Spearhead Group (MSG)
(Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu,
the Solomon Islands, New
Caledonia, and Fiji), the
Micronesian Chief Executive
Summit (MCES) (Kiribati,
Palau, the Federated States of
Micronesia, the Marshall
Islands, Nauru, the
Commonwealth of Northern
Mariana Islands, and Guam)
and the Polynesian Leaders
Group (PLG) (Tonga, Samoa,
Tuvalu, the Cook Islands,
French Polynesia, and Niue).
The nexus between racialized
Eurocentric framing, localized
parochial political
identification, and
geographical subregionalism
shaped the tectonic plates on
which Pacific regionalism sat.
It was almost inevitable that
political fractures would
emerge when the
circumstances were right. The
February voting for the PIF’s
secretary general followed
more or less the same pattern
of racialized alignment as the
d’Urville classification, with
the six PLG leaders all voting
for the Cook Island prime
minister and five of the MCES
voting for the Marshallese
candidate, along with three
from the MSG. The deciding
votes of Fiji, Australia, and
New Zealand went along with
the PLG votes.
This manifested one of the
dilemmas of the PIF. On one
hand it operates on the basis of
cultural pretention by
advocating a reimagined form
of Pacific “cultural
consensus,” and on the other
hand it claims to be a modern
regional organization. This
hybrid strategy has created a
number of challenges in the
operation of the organization.
For instance, the selection of
the secretary general is often
based on consensus and it was
assumed that the leaders were
going to endorse the
Marshallese candidate, but
this was thwarted by power
politics as forum leaders
horse-traded and conspired to
outmaneuver each other’s
candidate.
From a total of five
candidates, three dropped out
and two, Marshall Islands
Ambassador to the U.S.
Gerald Zackios and Henry
Puna, the Cook Islands prime
minister, were left to contest
for the position. The latter
won by nine votes to eight.
This was actually the first time
ever that a vote took place, a
result of how consensus was
being undermined by political
interests. This speaks to a
broader issue of how
“consensus” can be
manipulated as a means of
projecting an image of being
culturally authentic, to
conceal the undercurrents of
political gamesmanship and
realpolitik.
In threatening to leave the PIF,
the MCES leaders had a point.
Under the informal
“gentleman’s agreement”
between the leaders, there was
meant to be a rotational
system among the three
groups and 2021 was
supposed to be the MCES’
turn to hold the secretary
general post. The idea of
regional rotation, as used in
various international agencies
and organizations, is to ensure
diversity, fairness, and equity
in representation.
Unfortunately for the PIF,
subregional self-interest and
territoriality overshadowed
this and this led to disastrous
consequences.
The issue here is that, for as
long as subregional
fragmentation exists in its
current institutionalized
forms, regionalism as a
unifying ideology will
continue to be under constant
threat. Thus it is time to
seriously rethink the idea of
subregional grouping by
firstly de-colonizing the three
Eurocentric categories that
have divided the people of the
Pacific for over a century and
substituting them with a
unifying Pacific identity on
which we can build a strong
regional foundation.
The tension in the PIF was
closely linked to the
simultaneously unfolding
crisis at the University of the
South Pacific (USP), another
regional institution. One of the
main protagonists in the USP
saga is Fiji, which has been
pushing for the removal of the
university’s Canadian vice
chancellor, Professor Pal
Ahluwalia, who wrote a report
on the mismanagement of the
institution by the previous
vice chancellor and the
current pro-chancellor, both
of whom have close ties with
the Fiji government. This
pitted the Fiji government
against other members of the
USP Council, who were
supportive of Ahluwalia, led
by the University Chancellor
and President of Nauru Lionel
Rouwen Aingimea, who is
also leader of the MCES bloc.
This inevitably led to tension
between the president of
Nauru and the Fiji
government and may have
influenced Fiji’s decision to
vote against the MCES
candidate for the PIF secretary
general.
Small Powers, Big Powers
Another major issue that
obfuscates regionalism is the
ambivalent relationship
between national sovereignty
and regional interests. The
individual island states have
found themselves preoccupied
with internal political and
economic issues and often the
bigger regional agenda is
perceived as too distant. In
many cases the resolutions
and declarations by the PIF
leaders are not actively
implemented at the national
level, and this puts a lot of
pressure on regional
organizations to make the
connections between regional
discourses and local activities.
This has been exacerbated by
COVID-19, which has forced
many countries to exert most
of their energy on domestic
issues to ensure survival.
The two big regional powers,
Australia and New Zealand,
have often been criticized for
using their economic and
political influence as donors
to sway decisions in their
favor, either as leverage
against China or to deepen
their strategic stance on behalf
of Western interests generally.
Despite the rhetoric of
generosity, more than 80
percent of the aid by Australia
and New Zealand to the
Pacific remains in their
respective countries because
the contractors hired are
largely domestic in origin.
Aid is often used as a tool to
buy political loyalty.
Outside of the major powers,
Fiji has, over the years, been
using the anti-Australia and
anti-New Zealand card to
conceal, although not very
well, its ambitions as a
subregional hegemon through
control or excessive influence
of key regional institutions
and organizations such as Air
Pacific (which was
unilaterally transformed into
Fiji Airways), the University
of the South Pacific, and other
regional entities. This too has
threatened regionalism as
other small island states see
Fiji as the major beneficiaries
of regionalism since it is host
to most regional institutions.
The other smaller island states
often see the PIF as providing
a parental role in forging
solidarity against external
powers. But this is made more
complex by the fact that the
very structure of the PIF
allows for big powers to be
part of the PIF process as
forum dialogue partners.
These countries include
Canada, China, Cuba, the
European Union, France,
Germany, India, Indonesia,
Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the
Philippines, South Korea,
Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the
United Kingdom, and the
United States. Other
countries, like Norway and
Chile, have been trying to
become members. While
officially the role of the
dialogue partners was to
“participate in a dialogue with
Forum Members… to build
understanding, support and
action on the Forum’s
regional priorities,” the
political dynamics have
become much more
multifarious over the years,
with only some fulfilling the
expectations of the forum
while some use the PIF as a
fulcrum to serve their regional
strategic interests. Some of
these countries have used their
dialogue partner status to
lobby and mobilize support
for such things as membership
in the United Nations Security
Council and other
international organizations.
While the dialogue partners
idea had a noble intention, it
has led to a situation of
implicit power disequilibrium
and manipulation, in which
big countries use it as a Trojan
horse to extend their tentacles
into the heart of Pacific
politics and development. The
relationship between the PIF
countries and the dialogue
partners is based on the donor
vs. recipient dichotomy. This
unequal relationship
reinforces the dependent
development thinking and
strategies of individual
countries and further
strengthens the stranglehold
of donors in the region.
China has used its
membership in the dialogue
partners group to pursue its
interests in earnest. As part of
its Belt and Road Initiative,
the Chinese have been active
regional lenders and in doing
so have challenged the
monopoly of Australia and
New Zealand in terms of the
amount of money they
provide in the region. This has
created geopolitical tension
and again, as in the Cold War
period, small island states find
themselves sandwiched
between contesting big
powers. But many have
strategically used their size
and smart political leveraging
to maneuver their way
between contending big
powers to maximize benefits
for themselves. For instance,
despite its very close political,
military, and economic ties
with China, Fiji has been able
to revive close economic,
political, and military ties with
the Australians (who imposed
sanctions on Fiji after the
2006 coup) through its vuvale
(family) concept. A deciding
moment in this relationship
was in August 2018, when
Australia won the bid over
China to upgrade Black Rock,
a Fiji military base in Nadi.
The Chinese would certainly
not have been amused by this.
Pacific island states know that
to maximize their interests, it
would not be a good idea for
them to put all their eggs in
one basket. They are also able
to observe, as well as play on,
the different approaches made
by the big powers. One of the
differences between Chinese
projects and those by
Australia and New Zealand is
that the latter two tend to focus
more on policy, institutional
reform, or capacity building
projects, and contractors,
largely from these countries,
are deployed to carry out
projects. This means that
most, if not all, the money
remains in the country from
which it originated. Thus, aid
outcomes are often invisible,
nebulous, and over the years,
there have been questions
raised in relation to their
actual impact on the ground.
On the other hand, Chinese aid
is infrastructure-based in the
form of public buildings,
roads, and wharves and is thus
very “visible.” The visibility
of aid makes a lot of
difference to local community
perceptions. However, over
the years, the reputation of
Chinese aid has been
tarnished by the poor quality
of technical work, a tendency
to ignore local building codes,
insensitivity to
environmentally destructive
practices, an aggressive and
manipulative style of
negotiation with local
authorities (including bribes),
and the debt-incurring nature
of Chinese “soft loan”
projects. Australia in
particular has been using
concerns over Chinese aid to
frame its Sinophobic narrative
around a possible Chinese
takeover of the region.
The Climate Emergency
The climate emergency has
been a major regional agenda
of the individual Pacific island
states, PIF, and other regional
institutions. The northern
island states of the MCES,
notably the Marshall Islands,
have been at the forefront of
the global climate crisis
campaign, energized by the
fact that many Marshallese
were victims of nuclear
testing by the United States in
the 1940s and 1950s. In 2018,
PIF leaders adopted the Boe
Declaration, which stated that
“climate change remains the
single greatest threat to the
livelihoods, security and
wellbeing of the peoples of the
Pacific.”
However, despite agreeing to
this resolution, Australia’s
position on climate change
has been lethargic as their
right-wing government is
closely connected to the
powerful mining lobby and
the anti-climate stance held by
Rupert Murdoch’s media
empire, which has been
fanning the global narratives
of doubt and opposition to the
climate movement.
Australia’s limited
commitment to reducing its
carbon footprint is a major
disappointment to the small
island states and certainly to
the world generally.
Because of the diminutive size
of atolls, seasonal cyclones,
the direct impact of sea
erosion, coral bleaching and
intrusion of sea water into
water sources, and limited
available soil, the Pacific
islands are probably the most
exposed to the calamities of
the global climate crisis. This
works both ways. Not only
does it directly affect their
wellbeing and capacity to
survive, on the other hand, it
contributes to building their
sense of resilience and ability
to adapt against all odds. The
oceanic cultures that Pacific
communities have developed
over the centuries are based on
their connection with the
surrounding ocean, which
they rely on for transportation,
food, and a sense of identity
and connections with the
ancestral world. Responses to
the climate crisis need to be
built on an understanding of
the indigenous and
community modes of
resilience and how these can
be strengthened further.
The COVID-19 Scourge
The COVID-19 crisis has
impacted the region in
significant ways. The market
economies have virtually
collapsed due to the loss of
tourism jobs and income, and
people are resorting to
traditional means of survival
through the use of exchange,
kinship reciprocity, and
traditional farming. COVID-
19 has impacted regional
communication and rendered
the PIF almost dysfunctional
as leaders are unable to meet
in person. Even newly
appointed Secretary General
Henry Puna has not been able
to travel to Fiji due to the high
incidence of the Delta variant
in the country. The PIF
Secretariat officials in Suva,
Fiji’s capital, are forced to
work at home as their offices
are closed and some have been
evacuated overseas. The daily
regional work of the PIF has
been hindered, including any
attempt to initiate face-to-face
discussions with the MCES
leaders regarding
reconciliation. COVID-19 has
simply accentuated pre-
existing challenges and made
them even more difficult to
manage, let alone overcome.
The dual impacts of COVID-
19 and the climate crisis will
change the Pacific region
forever, especially as they will
force the island states to think
long and hard about
alternative economic
strategies for the future. The
pandemic wiped out not only
the basic foundation of
regional tourism and aid-
dependent, market-based
economies, it has also led to a
rethink of strategies for
survival using traditional
social and solidarity
economies, and cultural
systems of reciprocity and
kinship links as social
protection mechanisms to
sustain wellbeing. The
region’s communities have
witnessed first-hand the
downside of total reliance on a
fragile neoliberal system, and
the need to anchor regional
markets on a strong and
resilient community-based
production system, which can
withstand the onslaught of
external forces.
The economic challenges
faced by Pacific island states
has compelled many to seek
alternative economic
resources. Looming large in
this quest is seabed mining.
Nauru, which has formed a
partnership with Deep Green,
a mining company, has called
on the International Seabed
Authority (ISA) of the United
Nations, the body responsible
for the ocean floor, to speed
up the deep sea mining
regulations. By June 2021,
ISA has already granted 19
exploration contracts, 17 of
which are in the Clarion-
Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the
eastern Pacific region. A
number of countries that are
close to the CCZ, such as the
Cook Islands, Tonga, and
Kiribati have signed contracts
with companies to carry out
explorations.
The threat this will pose to the
fragile Pacific oceanic
ecosystem can be enormous,
apart from potential disputes
over the island states’ 200
mile EEZ borders, which may
lead to more regional
instability.
Incomplete Decolonization
One continuing issue is
decolonization, especially in
relation to West Papua, an
Indonesian colony and the
French colonies of Kanaky
(New Caledonia), French
Polynesia, and Wallis and
Futuna. Indonesia’s
diplomatic overtures in the
Pacific have to some degree
stifled the enthusiastic support
for the West Papua freedom
movement among the Pacific
island states, despite the
increasing human right abuses
by the militarily powerful
Southeast Asian state. The
MSG, for instance, is now
divided, with Fiji and PNG
both toeing the Indonesian
line, leaving Vanuatu as the
main pro-independence voice
in the organization. The
application for full
membership in the MSG by
the West Papua Liberation
Movement has not been
resolved yet, despite the fact
that its New Caledonian
counterpart, the pro-
independence Kanak and
Socialist National Liberation
Front (FLNKS), joined in
1989.
New Caledonia itself has gone
through two referendums over
independence, the first in
2018 and the second in 2020
under the Noumea Accord, a
1998 agreement with the
French Republic for a 20-year
transition toward greater
autonomy. The “No” vote
won on both occasions with
56.7 percent and 53.26
percebt respectively. A third
referendum is due in
December 2021.
The Future?
Despite the challenges of
subregional fractures, regional
power disequilibrium, the
climate emergency, COVID-
19, and incomplete
decolonization, the Pacific
peoples themselves have
proven to be resilient and
highly adaptable in times of
crisis. As oceanic people,
resilience is in their cultural
DNA after centuries of living
in high-stress environments
and crossing the great ocean
using the most sophisticated
navigational tools known to
humanity at the time. It is that
resilience, that sense of
community affirmation, and
the use of social and solidarity
mechanisms for survival,
which could form the basis for
facing up to future challenges.
Rethinking a new decolonized
regional order devoid of the
subregional groupings based
on a 19th century racialized
Eurocentric view of the
Pacific is a necessity. It is a
way of conquering the
colonial ghosts of the past as
the region looks forward to the
promises of the future.
 Can the African Union be a neutral arbiter of peace in Ukraine?
The continental body is not demonstrating true neutrality with its actions.
Tafi Mhakay, Aljazeera
O
n May 22, speaking at
a joint news
conference with
German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz in Dakar, Senegal’s
President Macky Sall said he
would visit Moscow and Kyiv
in the coming weeks in his
capacity as chairman of the
African Union (AU), which he
said wanted “peace through
dialogue between the two
sides”.
“We do not want to be aligned
on this conflict, very clearly,
we want peace,” Sall
explained. “Even though we
condemn the invasion, we’re
working for a de-escalation,
we’re working for a ceasefire,
for dialogue … that is the
African position.”
But is the continental body
genuinely “neutral” over
Ukraine? Can it really foster
peace by starting a dialogue
between the warring parties
from the position of a non-
aligned entity?
We should take a look at the
actions – not the statements –
of Africa’s leaders to answer
these questions.
On March 2, 17 African states,
including Sall’s Senegal,
abstained from voting in a
crucial United Nations
resolution condemning
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
And the AU has unashamedly
snubbed two attempts by
Ukraine’s President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy to
address its heads of state. On
April 12, Zelenskyy sought an
audience with the AU heads of
state during a phone call with
Sall. But the requested
meeting did not materialise.
Later that month, AU
Commission Chair Moussa
Faki Mahamat revealed that
Zelenskyy had made a second
request to address the AU
through Ukraine’s Foreign
Minister Dmytro Kuleba. That
attempt, too, yielded no
tangible result.
Sall later promised to “get
together all the heads of state
of the African Union who
want to [meet] with”
Zelenskyy at a date yet to be
confirmed. This was a
bewildering admission by the
AU chairman that not every
African leader is willing to
meet, and acquire firsthand
information from, the leader
of the invaded party. It was an
admission that the AU would
not even try to arrange the
meeting Zelenskyy actually
wanted – which would include
all African heads of state – in
fear of offending Russia.
These are not the actions of a
truly non-aligned body that
condemns the invasion of
Ukraine but seeks to foster
peace from the standpoint of
complete neutrality.
If there were any remaining
doubts over the
disingenuousness of the AU’s
claim to “neutrality”, South
Africa’s President and
previous chair of the AU Cyril
Ramaphosa dispelled them on
May 24.
Addressing the media in
Pretoria, again together with
Germany’s Scholz,
Ramaphosa described Russia
and Ukraine as “two
belligerent entities” in a feeble
and misplaced attempt to
diminish the former’s
tremendous culpability in the
devastation being experienced
today in Europe and beyond.
He lamented the economic
fallout from Russia’s violent
actions and blamed the West
for an emerging global food
crisis, declaring that
“bystanders” are going to
“suffer from the sanctions that
have been imposed against
Russia” – repeating an
argument first put forward by
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who
in April said by sanctioning
Russia the Western elites
showed that they are ready to
“sacrifice the rest of the world
to maintain their global
dominance”.
Ramaphosa also claimed that
Africa “does have a role to
play [in the resolution of the
conflict] because it has access
to both leaders [of Ukraine
and Russia]”. However – just
as has been been the case with
the AU in general –
Ramaphosa’s government has
long been unwilling to engage
with the Ukrainian side.
On April 11, Ukraine’s
Ambassador to South Africa
Liubov Abravitova took to
Twitter to complain that
senior South African officials
have been declining her
meeting requests since the
beginning of Russia’s
invasion in late February.
“Since the beginning of the
Russian invasion, I did not
have any requested meeting
with SA government
officials,” she wrote, “45
days. My people are under
brutal attack from Russians
now.” South Africa disputed
her claim and insisted that
Ramaphosa wants to speak “to
your president”. Ramaphosa
finally had a 20-minute phone
call with Zelenskyy on April
20 – almost two months into
the war, and seven weeks after
he called Putin to get his side
of the conflict.
South Africa’s steadfast
refusal to condemn Russia’s
invasion and the diplomatic
spat with Abravitova strongly
contradict the “African
position” Sall confidently
declared in Dakar.
There are obviously sharp and
widespread divisions over the
significance and sanctity of
international law in the AU’s
leadership ranks. On the day
Ramaphosa attempted to
shield Russia from justified
global condemnation in
Pretoria, for example,
Ghana’s President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo and
Mozambican President Filipe
Jacinto Nyusi did the exact
opposite in Accra. “We both
condemn Russia’s invading of
Ukraine and have called for its
immediate cessation as its
effects, together with the
ravages of COVID-19, have
proven to be devastating to the
entire world, particularly for
those of us on the African
continent,” Akufo-Addo said.
Unlike Ramaphosa, he did not
blame Western sanctions, or
attempt in any way to
whitewash Russia’s actions:
he rightly labelled Russia’s
invasion as a massive threat to
African and universal peace.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
may have appeared
remarkably distant to the
common African man or
woman’s immediate problems
in February. And hence it
might have seemed acceptable
– or according to some even
somewhat romantic – for
some African leaders to try
and defend Putin’s actions on
the basis of anti-(American)
imperialism.
Today, however, the
widespread consequences of
Russia’s unprovoked
aggression are starting to hit
home. Many countries across
Africa rely on Russia and
Ukraine for a significant
percentage of their wheat,
fertiliser, and vegetable oil
imports. According to the
International Monetary Fund,
Africa is facing the possibility
of widespread instability as
food and energy prices rise
rapidly. Hence the redundant
diplomatic charades and
organisational confusion
engulfing the AU’s response
to Russian aggression must
come to an abrupt end.
Russia poses a clear and
existential threat to Africa’s
social, economic and political
stability. Africa must speak
truth to power collectively and
act decisively to help secure
Ukraine’s wellbeing and avert
major crises across the
continent. As the progressive
world acts against Putin,
Africa must act in tandem
with it. Electing to extend an
evidently cold and discredited
facade of neutrality
indefinitely, even as
thousands die and Ukrainian
cities are destroyed by
Russian shelling is simply
indefensible. Common
Africans (and Ukrainians)
should not have to suffer the
consequences of Russia’s
illegal and open-ended
expansionism.
Before Sall’s delegation
departs for Russia, the AU
must undergo some much-
needed, extensive soul-
searching. How will the AU
seek to negotiate peace and
defend Ukraine’s right to
territorial integrity and self-
determination if it cannot
commit itself to safeguarding
the UN Charter and
international law?
 Biden’s bluster: Strategy, vanity or gamble
President Biden seems to be borrowing more than a few pages from Ronald Reagan’s 1980s foreign policy
Marwan Bishara, Aljazeera
hat’s up with Joe?
W All of which begs the
He’s all bluster and
bravado nowadays
even though, as a good
Catholic, he knows that
vainglory is the worst of the
seven sins!
Only months after his
humiliating withdrawal from
Afghanistan, President Biden
is raising the stakes against
both world nuclear powers,
China and Russia, while
boasting of America’s
unmatched military
superiority, as if nuclear wars
are winnable. He appears to
walk away from major foreign
policy consensus on a whim,
only for the White House to
kinda walk it back.
In a major departure from the
decades-long “strategic
ambiguity” towards Taiwan,
Biden has declared this week
from Japan that the United
States will in fact come to the
island’s defense if attacked by
China. But the White House
has insisted there was “no
change of policy”.
And that wasn’t his first time.
A few weeks ago, Biden
advocated regime change in
Russia, declaring in Poland
that Russian President
Vladimir Putin “cannot
remain in power“, only for the
White House to walk back his
escalation, insisting there was
no policy change. But Biden
refused to retract his statement
that expressed his “moral
outrage”, and instead accused
Putin of war crimes, genocide
and trying to wipe out
Ukraine.
playbook.
question: Is this a case of
Biden being Biden; loose-
tongued and lacking in self-
discipline, especially as a jet-
lagged 79-year-old man
speaking to a foreign
audience? Or, has the US in
fact adopted “strategic clarity”
with regards to Beijing on
Taiwan and committed to
“regime change” in Moscow
after Putin’s invasion of
Ukraine? The difference
cannot be overstated as the
potential consequences of a
global showdown could mean
worldwide death and
destruction.
The fact that Biden made a
similar statement on Taiwan
during a televised town hall
meeting in Baltimore last
October; that he has taken a
combative tone with China
and Russia since taking office,
and that he has long held
hawkish views on foreign
policy, including when he
served in the administration of
President Barack Obama,
signals that he meant or has at
least considered what he was
saying. And, as the US
commander-in-chief, it is his
views that actually matter in
Washington when it comes to
matters of war, and which
could lead to further
escalation with both Moscow
and Beijing.
For long a Cold War liberal,
who advocated standing up to
the Soviet Union, Biden has
largely transitioned into a
liberal interventionist after the
union’s collapse, advocating
military interventions on
behalf, or under the pretext of,
humanitarian and democratic
causes, especially when it
suited him. For example, he
voted against the Gulf War in
1991 for fear of a backlash,
but then voted in favour of the
2003 Gulf War, which
eventually caused even more
of a backlash.
But he seems to have since
learned his lesson from the
many US failures in the
Middle East, changing his
mind about deploying US
troops to remake countries or
change governments. And yet,
instead of leaning inwards
towards isolationism or retreat
from the world, Biden is now
aiming upwards. He aims to
abandon the high-cost, low-
yield types of military
interventions like the ones in
Iraq and Afghanistan in
favour of lower-cost, higher-
yield global containment –
which delivers prestige abroad
and popularity at home
without sacrificing American
blood and treasure in the
world’s hot spots.
Biden summarised this point
in a critical speech on the US
withdrawal from Afghanistan
last year, when he said: “Our
true strategic competitors –
China and Russia – would
love nothing more than the
United States to continue to
funnel billions of dollars in
resources and attention into
stabilising Afghanistan
indefinitely.”
Within months of leaving
Afghanistan, Putin handed
Biden the pretext to up the
ante by invading Ukraine,
enabling him to revive,
strengthen and expand the
dwindling NATO alliance,
under US leadership. China’s
apparent complicity with
Putin’s belligerent war in
Ukraine has also enabled
Biden to strengthen US-Asia
alliances against a potential
Chinese intervention in
Taiwan.
For Biden, Russia and China
pose one and the same
geopolitical challenge
regardless of the differences
between the status of Ukraine
– an independent state – and
that of Taiwan.
To revive US alliances with
Europe and Asia, Biden has
framed the US rivalry with
Russia and China as a global
clash between democracy and
autocracy, all the while
enlisting the support of
various autocrats on
America’s side. Not only is he
rehashing Cold War mantras,
but Biden is also borrowing
more than a few pages from
President Ronald Reagan’s
1980s playbook – the same
playbook he condemned back
in 1987 as an utter failure.
Like Reagan, who understood
that Americans needed to
recover their pride without
making more sacrifices after
their humiliation in Vietnam,
Biden hopes to restore the
pride Americans lost in
Afghanistan, without further
sacrifices in faraway military
entanglements. Towards that
end, like Reagan, Biden is
supporting US allies in
Europe and expanding its
military bases, while arming
clients fighting proxy wars in
the Middle East and beyond.
Biden, like Reagan, is
projecting toughness and
increasing the defence budget
to a whopping $782bn, while
avoiding any moves that may
lead to a showdown with
Russia or Iran. Just as Reagan
supported the mujahideen
against the Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan, Biden is
supporting Ukraine in its fight
against the Russian invaders –
he is helping them fight so that
Americans do not have to. He
even promised to shield
Americans from the energy
and economic costs of the war.
But unlike Reagan, who
pursued diplomacy and arms
control in his dealings with
Moscow rather successfully,
despite its invasion of
Afghanistan, intervention in
Poland and its massive
military and nuclear buildup,
Biden seems to have all but
abandoned diplomacy and
arms control. And unlike
Reagan, who only waged a
single 36-hour war against the
tiny island of Grenada during
his entire eight-year
presidency, Biden seems to be
seriously considering war
with China over a
hypothetical invasion of
Taiwan.
It is a dangerous game of
brinkmanship. It may have
worked in the past for the likes
of Reagan and John F
Kennedy, but getting to the
brink without getting into war
is an utterly reckless gamble
when it involves nuclear states
defending their national
security. That’s why Biden
must restrain his vainglory
before it all gets out of control,
just as he needs to tame other
cardinal American sins, wrath
and greed, in favour of
corresponding virtues,
humility, temperance, and
diligence.