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28 Dec, 2023

- Peering Into the Crystal Ball: 10 National Security Predictions for 2024

- Iran Threatens to Take Red Sea Disruption to New Waters

- The Promise and Peril of Geopolitics

- 5 Ways Women Made a Difference in 2023

- The Year of the Israel-Hamas War

- The Year’s Best Profiles

- A Grim Year for the Chinese Economy

Situation Report

Peering Into the Crystal Ball: 10 National Security Predictions for 2024

rgramer1   5:00PM, 28 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Robbie and Jack here. Hope everyone got a nice holiday break and spent time with their family, friends, and loved ones relaxing and, more importantly, nagging them all to subscribe to Foreign Policy. (Hey, the best things in life aren’t free.)

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: A look ahead at some of the biggest national security headaches of 2024 and our predictions on what the new year could bring in the world of foreign policy. (Spoiler alert: There’s some doom and gloom to come.)

So, What Comes Next?

By all accounts, 2023 was an absolutely insane year. There was the spy balloon incident; Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s untimely demise; the Israel-Hamas war, which shook the foundations of an already shaky Middle East; Russia’s war in Ukraine, which continued to rage; a fast-unraveling conflict in Sudan; Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive against Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. We could go on, but let’s not.

Looking ahead to 2024 and there are plenty of things in the world to keep national security wonks up at night. Then there are elections in Taiwan, India, the European Union, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia, and, oh, we almost forgot, the United States as well.

Here at SitRep, we’ve decided to make some predictions about what’s to come in 2024, big and small, based on interviews over the past few weeks and months with dozens of government officials, lawmakers, and foreign-policy experts. (We’d also like to stress that, in many instances, we hope our predictions are wrong.)

Some may come true, some may not, and either way our readers can call us out on how off the mark we were in about a year. (So mark your calendars.)

But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? So, without further ado, here is the “SitRep: Crystal Ball” edition of what we think awaits us in the scary near-future.

1. U.S. elections results. Let’s start with the easy one: What will happen in the U.S. presidential election? Political pundits are famously very bad at predicting election results, and then getting paid to do more of it in the next cycle, so we decided we’re going to join in on the fun. We predict that after a grueling and exhausting Biden-Trump rematch, U.S. President Joe Biden will narrowly eke out a win for a second term, in yet another election cycle marred by disinformation that will muddy the waters on what’s fact and what’s not, with more shouts about “stolen votes.” Meanwhile, we predict that Republicans will regain control of the Senate by two or three seats, and Democrats will gain narrow control of the House by under 10 seats, setting the stage for another complex, messy, political headache of a divided government.

2. North Korea will conduct its seventh nuclear test. U.S. efforts to restart any real dialogue with North Korea have failed, and all the while North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is slowly but surely expanding his country’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities despite punishing international sanctions. North Korea conducted six explosive nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, and we predict that 2024 is the year that it notches a seventh, in what will constitute another major diplomatic crisis on the Korean Peninsula and a reminder that decades of U.S. pressure to get Pyongyang to abandon its quest for the bomb have all failed.

3. More coups in Africa’s “Coup Belt.” There have been six coups in West Africa in recent years as ailing and fragile democracies succumb to military takeovers amid a war against Islamist terrorist groups, which are gaining ground across the Sahel. The United States and Western allies, namely France, banked most of their hopes on Niger as their last best hope for a bastion of democracy and stability to partner with on counterterrorism operations … until Niger fell to a coup in July. We predict that the next domino to fall will be Chad, the West’s next “last best hope” counterterrorism partner in the region. Chad’s leader, Mahamat Idriss Déby, son of the late Chadian leader Idriss Déby, seized power after his father’s death in 2021 in something that resembled a coup itself. Now, his grip on power is shaky, and it’s unclear if he can beat the odds of escaping yet another coup in Africa’s Coup Belt.

4. Sudan’s military leader will get ousted. And speaking of coups… The conflict in Sudan has taken a grim turn in recent weeks, even if attention on the dire crisis there is being eclipsed by the Israel-Hamas war. We predict that Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and de facto head of the country, will be ousted by elements of his own military after embarrassing setbacks and defeats against the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Most recently, the Sudanese city of Wad Madani, once a relatively stable bastion of peace and humanitarian operations, fell swiftly to the RSF in a major blow to the SAF. Regardless of Burhan’s prospects for staying in power, Sudan has become one of the world’s worst (and most tragically overlooked) humanitarian crises, and that isn’t likely to change in 2024.

5. A stalemate in Ukraine. Thanks in part to sluggish support and political impasse from the United States and other Western allies, Ukraine didn’t have enough guns, equipment, or ammo to punch a hole in Russia’s well-fortified defensive lines in eastern Ukraine during its 2023 counteroffensive. But neither do Russian forces have the capability, morale, training, or effective fighting prowess to make significant gains in any counter-counteroffensives of their own. We predict that 2024 will look a lot like the bloody but static World War I battles of 1915 and 1916, with heavy artillery bashing entrenched positions, more deadly battles that yield little territorial gains, and little to show for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ill-fated war besides a higher death toll on both sides.

Construction workers climb onto the roof of a destroyed church in the village of Bohorodychne in the Donetsk region on Jan. 4, after Ukraine recaptured control of the town amid the Russia-Ukraine war. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

6. More funds unlocked for Ukraine. Ever since Russia launched its latest invasion of Ukraine, Western officials have been grappling with what to do about the $300 billion in assets from Russian oligarchs that regulators have frozen. Some countries have long called for seizing those funds and sending them to Ukraine, while others worry about the precedent that sets in protecting sovereign assets in the eyes of international law, even when it comes to Russia. We predict that 2024 is the year there’s a breakthrough on this roughly two-year debate and the United States and European allies find a legal pathway to siphon all those frozen funds to Ukraine (especially after U.S. funds for Ukraine got ensnared in a thorny political battle in Congress and more European Union funds were blocked by Putin’s most reliable ally in the EU, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.)

7. The Israel-Hamas war won’t expand to a (full) second front. One of the biggest fears in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is that Hamas’s better-equipped, more battle-hardened ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, will fully dive into the war against Israel. We predict that even as Israel and Hezbollah trade limited pot shots on the northern border, this won’t happen, thanks in part to the deterrent effect of the ongoing U.S. aircraft carrier presence in the Mediterranean, and all the overwhelming firepower that comes with it, which will make Hezbollah and its backers in Iran hold off from diving headfirst into the fight.

8. More dangerous maneuvers in the South China Sea. With the Taiwan Strait at a lower simmer since then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan, which prompted (or perhaps coincided with) a bevy of Chinese exercises, the main military tit-for-tat in the Indo-Pacific has moved to the South China Sea. There, China has spent a decade building up artificial islands, very real airfields, and a fright for all in the region.

Lately, Chinese vessels have repeatedly harassed Philippine resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed area off the west coast of the archipelago. The Philippines, which has taken an increasingly hawkish tack on China since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took over as president in 2022, grounded a U.S. World War II-era ship on the shoal in 1999 in an effort to claim it. And China has harassed resupply vessels with dangerous maneuvers and water cannons in an effort to scare Manila away. SitRep expects the trend to continue in 2024, as the U.S. Defense Department has also complained of increasing recklessness by Chinese ships and planes, not just at the Second Thomas Shoal but throughout the whole area of operations.

9. Sweden actually finally joins NATO. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Finland and Sweden rushed to shrug off their history of nonalignment and join NATO. NATO countries welcomed both with open arms—or at least most of them did. Finland got in, but Sweden has not yet, thanks to an 18-month filibuster by Turkey. (All NATO countries need to greenlight a new member before it can happen.) Hungary, run by Russia’s ally, has dragged its heels on Sweden’s NATO accession, too. This has become a massive diplomatic headache for the alliance. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan linked Sweden’s accession to a U.S. deal to approve sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. Congress has blocked that deal over anger at Erdogan but also wants Sweden in NATO ASAP. We predict that U.S. and Turkish negotiators will work with Sweden to overcome that impasse in 2024 and NATO will finally expand from 31 to 32 members.

10. Global health community goes on the offensive against malaria. Let’s end on a happy note. Malaria remains a top cause of child mortality worldwide, but recent scientific breakthroughs have led for the first time ever to malaria vaccines. There are now two malaria vaccines being slowly rolled out across disease-vulnerable countries in Africa. (An estimated 619,000 people died of malaria in Africa in 2021, many of them children.) While supply shortages made rolling out these vaccines on a massive scale difficult in 2022 and 2023, we predict that the global health community can overcome those bottlenecks in 2024 and make real, tangible, verifiable progress toward achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of eliminating malaria by 2030.

Snapshot

An Israel Defense Forces artillery unit, using a self-propelled artillery howitzer, fires toward Gaza near the border in southern Israel on Dec. 11. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

Put on Your Radar

Here’s a rundown of some big events coming up in 2024 to plan for.

Jan. 13: Taiwan holds its presidential election in a cycle that will have outsized importance for the self-governing island’s future relationship with China.

Jan. 15-19: Global elites gather for the world’s premiere gabfest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Feb. 14: Indonesia holds its presidential election in what will be the world’s largest single-day elections.

Feb. 16-18: World leaders and national security experts gather in Munich for the annual Munich Security Conference.

April-May: India, the world’s largest democracy, holds general elections over the course of several weeks.

July 9-11: NATO leaders will convene in Washington for a major NATO summit.

Sept. 24: World leaders will begin convening in New York for the U.N. General Assembly high-level week, as part of the General Assembly’s 79th session.

Nov. 5: Election Day in the United States. Need we say more?

Argument

Iran Threatens to Take Red Sea Disruption to New Waters

James Palmer   12:13PM, 28 Dec, 2023

This screen grab, captured from a video, shows Yemen’s Houthi fighters’ takeover of the Galaxy Leader cargo ship off the Red Sea coast near Hudaydah, Yemen, on Nov. 20.

So risky has the Red Sea become since Houthi militants started their attacks on shipping that, since late November, over 350 container ships—plus all manner of tankers, bulk carriers, car carriers, and other merchant vessels—have diverted to other routes. That means massive logistical challenges that involve not just new charts and more fuel but getting crews and cargo to alternative staging posts. Because shipping is extraordinarily efficient, most won’t notice a thing. But if the attacks on shipping continue, we’ll start paying for the service. And we would do well to anticipate Houthi-like campaigns in other waters.

Not a day passes without more turbulence in the Red Sea. Since Christmas Eve, the inlet that links countries including Egypt and Saudi Arabia has seen multiple Houthi attacks, including against a Swiss-owned container ship and a Norwegian tanker.

Drama in the Red Sea is, of course, nothing new, going all the way back to the biblical book of Exodus. Yet today’s users of the Red Sea can’t hope for divine intervention. To be sure, the U.S. military has launched Operation Sea Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping, and since Christmas Eve the force has, among other things, shot down 12 attack drones and five missiles launched by the Yemen-based, Iran-backed Houthis. But counterfire from Western navies in response to Houthi attacks doesn’t yield the sort of chartable sailing environment shipping lines need. It may help solve the problem in the long-term, but it does little right now.

What’s more, it’s unclear which ships can expect escort. The French Navy seems to prioritize French-flagged vessels, but—as I have often discussed in Foreign Policy’s pages—most vessels sail under a flag of convenience, are owned in one country and managed in another, have foreign crew members, and carry cargo between altogether other places.

What qualifies as a U.S., or French, or Norwegian vessel in the Red Sea can be deeply uncertain. And shipping—and most importantly, the insurers—is all about reducing risk. That means the largest shipping lines have instead begun diverting their ships to other routes. By Dec. 24, some 280 box ships had already been rerouted, as had lots of tankers, bulk carriers, car carriers, and other merchant vessels. (By Dec. 27, Maersk and CMA CGM had announced they would gradually returning to the Red Sea—but if the situation continues to deteriorate they can divert again.)

That means a sudden procession of ships taking the much longer route via the Cape of Good Hope on South Africa’s southwestern coast. “Shipping companies are extremely busy right now,” Cormac McGarry, a maritime analyst at consultancy Control Risks, told Foreign Policy. “They’ve been working over Christmas, changing routes. The first thing that happens when you divert is the legal aspect—a clause in shipping contracts allows shipping lines to divert if there’s a war risk. And then you have to decide where to divert your ships to.” The Cape of Good Hope route, which the Suez Canal’s construction once made redundant for long-distance cargo, is suddenly en vogue again.

As large parts of the global public now know, traveling via the Cape of Good Hope rather than the Suez Canal adds an additional 10 to 12 days of sailing—and a completely different route for captains and their top lieutenants to chart. But that’s perhaps the easiest part. “Planning a new route doesn’t take much time when working with electronic charts, but rounding the Cape does bring new considerations,” a senior officer who works on the largest types of container ships told Foreign Policy.

Those new, and thorny, considerations include getting crews and cargo to where they need to be—because, in many cases, ships’ current crews are scheduled to finish their rotations and other seafarers are waiting to take over. “If you’re going around South Africa, you may need to stop somewhere during the journey for bunkering and change of crews,” McGarry pointed out. “And if you’re changing a crew out of somewhere in southern Africa rather [than] somewhere around Suez, you need to change where they fly to and from.”

McGarry said ordinarily ships might change crews and cargo near the canal; now, the changes will need to occur in places such as Mombasa, Kenya; Durban, South Africa; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; or Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands. Just before Christmas, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam were reporting a massive spike in ship arrivals; in the case of Dar es Salaam, the sudden rush had resulted in a 16-day wait to refuel. “ [Diversion] can be done, and the shipping lines are doing,” McGarry said. “But it brings additional costs.”

Those costs are there whatever route the ships take: Journeys through the Red Sea bring hefty war risk premiums, and the Cape of Good Hope route brings additional fuel costs, not to mention the costs of rerouting crews and cargo. Several shipping lines have already imposed surcharges for their services. The delays and extra costs may, in fact, merely be the first chapter in the geopolitically connected turbulence facing global shipping and, as a result, the globalized economy.

The Red Sea turbulence is also bringing trouble to nearby countries. With ships spending as little time as possible in the Red Sea, countries such as Sudan and Eritrea—whose only ports are located on the Red Sea—will struggle to get ships to call at their ports. Egypt, the custodian of the Suez Canal, is already suffering. And with less traffic through the canal, shipping to Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Italy, and Turkey will become especially cumbersome.

Iran, in fact, seems to have concluded that the Houthis’ experiment in the Red Sea has been so successful that it bears repeating in the Mediterranean. “They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, [the Strait of] Gibraltar and other waterways,” Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the coordinating commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told Iranian media on Dec. 23, apparently referring to the international community.

Spare a thought for the world’s seafarers and shipping logisticians—there’s no holiday break for 2024’s troubled waters.

Essay

The Promise and Peril of Geopolitics

Lori Kelley   11:58AM, 28 Dec, 2023

Alexander Dugin is a bit of a madman. The Russian intellectual made headlines in the West in 2022, when his daughter was killed, apparently by Ukrainian operatives, in a Moscow car bombing likely meant for Dugin himself. Dugin would have been targeted because of his unapologetic, yearslong advocacy for a genocidal war of conquest in Ukraine. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” he screeched after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first invasion of that country in 2014, adding: “This is my opinion as a professor.” Even at his daughter’s funeral, Dugin stayed on message. Among her first words as an infant, he claimed, were “our empire.”

True or not, the comment was a window into the rabid nationalism that shapes Putin’s foreign policy. It was also a window into a much-misunderstood tradition: geopolitics. Often used simply as a synonym for power politics, geopolitics is in fact a distinctive intellectual approach to international relations that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—and one whose insights and perversions have profoundly shaped the modern age.

Dugin made a name for himself in the 1990s by arguing that a down-and-out Russia could reclaim its greatness by rebuilding a Eurasian empire to compete with the United States. This was a bizarro-world version of the thesis advanced in 1904 by Halford Mackinder, a British geographer who argued that the coming era would be defined by clashes between Eurasian aggressors and offshore balancers. Mackinder’s article helped establish the discipline of geopolitics. As Dugin’s rantings and Putin’s crimes demonstrate, it influences intellectuals and leaders even today.

Geopolitics is the study of how geography interacts with technology and the ceaseless struggle for global power. It came to prominence in an era of titanic clashes to rule the modern world by controlling its central theater, Eurasia. And if geopolitics seemed passé in the post-Cold War era, its relevance is surging now that vicious strategic rivalry has been renewed. Yet understanding the arc of the 20th century and the strategic imperatives of our era requires understanding that there is not one tradition of geopolitics but two.

There is a democratic tradition of geopolitics, represented by Mackinder and his intellectual brethren, that is grim but hardly evil because it aims to understand how liberal societies can thrive in a ferociously anarchic world. And there is the autocratic school of geopolitics, symbolized by Dugin, which is often poison pure and simple. The autocratic school is well represented in the policies of Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Democratic policymakers must rediscover their own tradition of geopolitics if they are to shape the emerging age.

If economics is the dismal science, geopolitics isn’t much cheerier. The field emerged in the 1890s and 1900s—a time when competition between empires was intensifying, revolutions in transportation and communication were making the world a single battlespace, and strategists were trying to divine the imperatives of survival in a dangerous, interconnected world. The study of geopolitics has always placed a special focus on Eurasia, a supercontinent whose fate was becoming central to the fate of freedom around the globe.

As Mackinder explained in his article, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” technology was making Eurasia’s geography a hothouse of conflict. The spread of railways was hastening the movement of armies and previewing an epoch in which ambitious states—particularly fast-modernizing autocracies—could seek hegemony from one edge of that landmass to another. Once those states subjugated a resource-rich supercontinent, they would turn their attention to building navies without peer.

Mackinder’s grim forecast was that continental powers—he worried most about Russia—would try to rule Eurasia en route to ruling the world. So an offshore, liberal superpower—for Mackinder, the United Kingdom—must thwart this global despotism by keeping Eurasia divided: It must hold endangered “bridge heads” around its margins while harassing aspiring hegemons on land and at sea.

The democratic school of geopolitics saw a supercontinent run by illiberal powers as a nightmare to be avoided, whereas the authoritarian school saw it as a dream to be achieved.

Alfred Thayer Mahan was Mackinder’s American alter ego. An evangelist of sea power, he spent his intellectual career encouraging the United States to build a canal across the Central American isthmus, construct armadas of battleships, and amass unassailable maritime strength. But like Mackinder, Mahan eyed the supercontinent nervously: In an age of steam, Eurasian consolidation could threaten countries an ocean away. Perhaps tsarist Russia would bust through the Middle East and South Asia to warmer waters and broader horizons. Or perhaps Japan and Germany, after dominating their home regions, would look farther across the seas.

If Mackinder believed preeminent land power led to preeminent sea power, Mahan believed that controlling dangers within Eurasia required controlling the waters around it. So he set his sights on a maritime alliance between the United States and Britain, in which two ocean-going democracies would police the seas and preserve a global system suitable to their traditions of liberty. In “unity of heart among the English-speaking races,” he wrote in 1897, “lies the best hope of humanity in the doubtful days ahead.”

The third member of the geopolitical pantheon was Nicholas Spykman, a Dutch American strategist who made his mark amid the global chaos of World War II. Spykman modified Mackinder: The sharpest challenges came not from a desolate Russian “heartland” but from dynamic, industrialized “rimland” nations—Germany and Japan—that could cut deep into Eurasia while also striking across its adjoining seas. And if the railroad fascinated Mackinder and the battleship transfixed Mahan, it was the bomber that vexed Spykman. Once totalitarian states seized Europe and Asia, he believed, their long-range airpower would control the New World’s oceanic approaches, while blockades and political warfare weakened the United States for the kill. The country’s strategic frontiers thus lay thousands of miles from its coastlines; only by ruthlessly playing the balance of power within Eurasia would Washington avoid an isolation that might prove fatal.

Today, analyzing these thinkers feels depressing, even retrograde. Mahan proudly called himself an “imperialist”; Mackinder labeled China the “yellow peril.” All accepted the dual determinism on which geopolitics rests: that geography powerfully shapes global interactions and that the world is a harsh, unforgiving place. “[S]tates can survive only by constant devotion to power politics,” Spykman wrote in 1942—an attitude that led some to accuse him of promoting a soulless American militarism.

That was unfair. Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman were trying to navigate an era of global confrontations made more terrifying by new technologies and the dawn of new, more virulent forms of tyranny. All three men were ultimately concerned with whether democratic societies—those that honored “the freedom and rights of the individual,” as Mahan put it—could survive the challenge from those that practiced “the subordination of the individual to the state.” So all three were trying to determine what strategies—and what “combinations of power,” in Mackinder’s phrasing—could underpin a tolerable global order and prevent Eurasian consolidation from ushering in a new dark age.

This democratic school of geopolitics saw a supercontinent run by illiberal powers as a nightmare to be avoided. The authoritarian school saw it as a dream to be achieved.

Nash Weerasekera illustration for Foreign Policy

If geopolitics leavened by traditions of liberty was an Anglo-American creation, geopolitics with a harsher, autocratic ethos arose in continental Europe. The latter tradition originated with Swedish academic Rudolf Kjellen and German geographer Friedrich Ratzel in the late 19th century. These thinkers were products of Europe’s cramped, cutthroat geography, and they channeled some of the time’s most toxic ideas.

Kjellen and Ratzel were influenced by social Darwinism: They saw nations as living organisms that must expand or die, and they defined nationhood in racial terms. Their school of thought prioritized the quest for Lebensraum, or “living space,” a term Ratzel coined in 1901. Although this tradition sometimes drew inspiration from the success of the United States in conquering and settling a continent, it blossomed most fully in countries, such as imperial Germany, where expansionist visions and illiberal, militaristic values went hand in hand. And as the history of the subsequent decades would demonstrate, geopolitics with this reactionary, zero-sum bent was a blueprint for unprecedented aggression and atrocity.

The epitome of this approach was Karl Haushofer, a World War I-era artillery commander who took up the cause of German resurrection after that country’s defeat in 1918. For Haushofer, geopolitics was synonymous with expansion. Germany had been mutilated by the Allies after World War I; its only response was to explode “out of the narrowness of her present living space into the freedom of the world,” he wrote. Germany must claim a resource-rich, autarkic imperium across Europe and Africa. He believed that other oppressed, have-not countries—namely Japan and the Soviet Union—would do likewise across the remainder of Eurasia and the Pacific.

Only by consolidating what Haushofer called “pan-regions” could the revisionist states outmatch their enemies; only by working together could they prevent those enemies, namely Britain, from playing divide-and-conquer. The goal of this geopolitics was a Eurasia ruled by an autocratic axis. What Mackinder had warned about, Haushofer—who borrowed liberally from his work—was determined to realize.

There was no pretension that this could be accomplished without mayhem and murder. The world, Haushofer wrote, needed “a general political clearing up, a redistribution of power.” Small countries “have no longer a right to exist.” Haushofer would endorse Germany’s murderous acquisition of “living space” in the late 1930s and early 1940s—he even helped inspire this ghastly campaign.

Haushofer had counseled Adolf Hitler while the latter was imprisoned in the 1920s. Central arguments of Hitler’s treatise, Mein Kampf—such as the importance of eliminating European rivals and the need for resources and space in the east—were pure Haushofer, historian Holger Herwig argued. Hitler’s advocacy of a vast Eurasian land empire as the answer to Anglo-American sea power drew, likewise, on Haushofer’s ideas. History’s most brazen land grab owed to Hitler’s megalomania, pathological racism, and epic thirst for power. It was also underpinned by a geopolitics of evil.

Clashes of countries are clashes of ideas. And one way of interpreting the 20th century is that the democratic school of geopolitics defeated the autocratic one.

In World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, radically revisionist states ran versions of Haushofer’s playbook. Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union seized vast tracts of Eurasia and contested its neighboring oceans. In areas they controlled, they sometimes governed with homicidal brutality. Yet they were ultimately defeated by global coalitions that were helmed by liberal superpowers and guided by the democracies’ best geopolitical insights.

One way of interpreting the 20th century is that the democratic school of geopolitics defeated the autocratic one.

Per Mackinder, these offshore powers cultivated onshore allies to keep Eurasian predators from overrunning the supercontinent and turning their attention fully toward the seas. As Mahan had foreseen, the United States and Britain forged an alliance to control the Atlantic and bring Washington’s overwhelming power to bear. And as Spykman recommended, the United States would eventually commit to keeping Eurasia fragmented by establishing alliances spanning its Atlantic and Pacific rimlands and—in true power political fashion—using reformed enemies, Japan and Germany, to contain an erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union.

Indeed, there were moral compromises aplenty in these struggles. The Western democracies forged devil’s bargains with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in World War II and Chinese leader Mao Zedong in the late Cold War. They used tactics—blockades, firebombing, coups, and covert interventions—that could only be justified by their contribution to some higher good. “All civilized life rests … in the last instance on power,” Spykman wrote. The democracies wielded power ruthlessly enough to prevent the world’s worst aggressors from ruling its most vital regions.

The reward for these victories—which culminated with the strategic defeat and dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991—was a thriving liberal order and a sense that perhaps globalization and democratization had rendered geopolitics passé. Alas, the world has now entered a new era of rivalry, in which autocratic challengers are weaponizing old geopolitical ideas.

Consider Putin’s neoimperial program. Beginning in the 1990s, Dugin gained renown within Russia’s security elite by arguing that the country was existentially threatened by a hegemonic “Atlanticist” coalition. Like Haushofer, he found recourse by inverting Mackinder: Moscow’s best strategy was to make a “great-continental Eurasian future for Russia with our own hands,” Dugin would write in 2012. By reclaiming former Soviet republics and forging ties with other dissatisfied states, Russia could build a bloc of Eurasian revisionists. “The heartland of Russia,” he had written in 1997, was the “staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution.” Although the ties between Putin and Dugin have often been exaggerated in the West, the writings of the latter aren’t a bad guide for what the former has done.

Putin’s Russia has vivisected neighboring countries—Georgia and Ukraine—that sought to escape its grip while using poisoning, strategic corruption, and other tactics to suborn and subordinate other post-Soviet states. It has stoked political instability in the West—another tactic Dugin advocated to break down that community—while trying to build up Eurasian institutions that could serve, in Putin’s words, as “one of the poles of the modern world.” Meanwhile, Putin has forged quasi-alliances with China and Iran in hopes of making Eurasia a redoubt for autocratic, anti-American powers. Putin, again drawing on Dugin, has said Russia must create a “common zone” stretching “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” The Eurasian supercontinent, he said, is a haven for the “traditional values” Russia defends and a source of “tremendous opportunities” it must exploit.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was meant to accelerate this program by conquering the country that links the spacious Eurasian heartland to the dynamic European rimland. Here, Putin pursued Dugin’s “great-continental Eurasian future” for Russia with the bloody ethos the latter prescribed. Torture, rape, murder, castration, mass abductions, and systematic efforts to erase the Ukrainian national identity mark the return of a geopolitics of Eurasian expansion, inflected with the cruelty of a tyrannical regime.

Chinese statecraft is also following a familiar arc. By undertaking the biggest naval buildup since World War II, Beijing is developing the strength to take Taiwan and control what Spykman called the vital “marginal seas” of the Western Pacific. Achieving that goal would make China supreme within Eurasia’s most vibrant region. It would also help make it, in Xi’s words, a “great maritime power” by freeing it to invest in a blue-water navy with bases around the globe. Mahan, surely, would take note.

A twist on Mackinder informs Chinese strategy, too. Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, as well as several programs that have succeeded it, are meant to wrap countries from Southeast Asia to Southern Europe and beyond in Chinese influence—economic, technological, diplomatic, and perhaps someday military. If it works, China will have a commanding position vis-à-vis a Europe trying to cling to the periphery of a Sino-centric supercontinent and possibly even relegate the United States to second-tier status in a system managed by Beijing. “Access to Eurasia’s resources, markets, and ports could transform China from an East Asian power to a global superpower,” scholar Daniel S. Markey wrote in his book China’s Western Horizon. Xi’s China has resolved, as People’s Liberation Army Gen. Liu Yazhou recommended in 2004, to “seize for the center of the world.”

Yet if Chinese statecraft employs the insights of Mahan and Mackinder, its implications are more in line with the autocratic tradition. Chinese diplomats have promised to “reeducate” Taiwan’s population after the island is united with China, a threat that evokes memories of some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. China’s Eurasia would be an authoritarian pan-region to make Haushofer proud. Autocracy will be secure because democratic impulses are stifled; Beijing and Moscow have worked together, sometimes through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to thwart potential color revolutions in Central Asia and hunt down dissidents who flee across international frontiers. Meanwhile, the modernization of tyranny continues with Beijing’s active assistance: China’s Digital Silk Road fortifies illiberal governments by equipping them with state-of-the-art surveillance gear.

The clearest example of how expansion interacts with repression is found within China’s own borders. Xi’s government has turned the Xinjiang region into a humanitarian horror show by herding Uyghurs into concentration camps and enforcing relentless digital repression. Beijing must use the “organs of dictatorship” and show “absolutely no mercy,” Xi directed in 2014. Geopolitics infuses the rationale for this policy: “Xinjiang work possesses a position of special strategic significance,” Xi has said, because the region sits astride critical transportation routes to China’s Eurasian hinterland. It’s a premonition of the atrocities that could proliferate with Chinese power.

The heirs of Haushofer are seeking a Eurasia safe for illiberalism and predation. The democratic world needs to revive its own geopolitical lineage to meet the test.

Don’t take this too literally; Washington doesn’t need a Mahanian fleet of battleships right now. Innovation modifies rivalry’s rhythms, if not its essence: Today’s competitions feature new capabilities and new domains of warfare that make it easier to strike enemies across vast distances than ever before. Yet some realities endure: The stability of global order requires averting a malign hegemony at its center. The democratic school of geopolitics thus offers a mental map—and a set of principles—to navigate a world that is always changing yet never as novel as we think.

First, geopolitics and liberal values aren’t antithetical. Mastering the former is essential to defending the latter. The liberal world exalts reason, morality, and progress, whereas the geopolitical tradition stresses struggle and strife. But the precondition for the West’s liberal order was the creation, in two world wars and a cold war, of combinations of power that crushed or contained freedom’s most fearsome foes. Given that the world no longer seems as safe from catastrophic war or autocratic ascendancy as it appeared only a few years ago, the flourishing of liberal values will require fluency in power politics once again.

Students of geopolitics would also understand a second insight: It is better to balance early than to balance late.

Students of geopolitics would also understand a second insight: It is better to balance early than to balance late. Spykman wrote his defining works in the early 1940s, when Eurasia was nearly overrun by the Axis. That nadir of liberal power informed his calls for a strategy to prevent the next war by keeping the Eurasian equilibrium from crumbling anew.

Thanks to the historic achievements of the strategy Spykman inspired, the West can now balance Russia deep in Eastern Europe by providing vital aid that keeps Putin from steamrolling Ukraine. Washington and its allies can check Beijing’s power in the Taiwan Strait instead of the Central Pacific. The military and diplomatic demands of sustaining these positions are heavy—yet surely less than the demands of balancing from a weaker position once the revisionists have gotten a head of steam.

Holding forward positions requires heeding a third principle: Geopolitics is alliance politics because fights for Eurasian supremacy are contests in coalition-making and coalition-breaking. As Spykman, Mackinder, and Mahan grasped, overseas powers—even superpowers—can regulate Eurasia’s affairs only with help from front-line allies. Aspiring hegemons, conversely, can subdue their neighbors only by isolating them from support from abroad.

The Eurasian balance thus hinges on whether the United States preserves the sovereign military advantages necessary to intervene around the Old World’s periphery. But even that won’t matter if Washington doesn’t adapt and fortify the alliances and security networks that give it access, influence, and added capabilities on faraway continents—against adversaries that use coercion, bribery, election interference, and other tactics to pry those coalitions apart.

As Mackinder would remind us, the type and location of those partners also count. The struggle against China is primarily a maritime matter. But—and this is a fourth lesson—land power and sea power complement each other, even if their relative merits are endlessly debated. Unless Washington wants to face an undistracted foe in the Pacific, it will need friends, such as Vietnam and especially India, that create dilemmas along China’s vulnerable land borders.

Neither Vietnam nor India is an ideal partner, which underscores a fifth principle: Strategy, for the United States, is the art of blending democratic solidarity with sordid compromises. The liberal democracies that ring Eurasia’s Atlantic and Pacific margins are the core of Washington’s coalition. But holding the balance has always involved illiberal actors and illiberal acts.

Containing this generation of revisionists will entail buttressing an arc of friendly—or simply ambivalent—authoritarians from Singapore to Saudi Arabia to Turkey. And don’t be shocked if intensifying rivalry causes Washington to engage in covert skullduggery, economic sabotage, and proxy warfare. Fights for supremacy lead relatively respectable democracies to do some ugly things.

They shouldn’t, however, forget a sixth precept: Eurasian struggles aren’t mono-dimensional, or mono-regional, affairs. Mahan, Mackinder, and Spykman all saw Eurasia as a huge, interconnected theater. More recently, some analysts have taken the more reductionist view that Taiwan is the only place that really matters to the United States and that military might is the only type of power that truly counts. The consequences of losing a war to China in the Western Pacific would surely be epochal. But that’s not the only problem the free world faces.

The outcome of today’s non-hypothetical war in Ukraine will shape the strategic balance from the Baltic to Central Asia, as well as the balance of advantage between the Eurasian autocracies and the liberal democracies opposing them. That’s why calls to cut Ukraine loose are rarely heard from Washington’s most vulnerable allies in the Western Pacific.

Moreover, as Mackinder wrote in his 1904 article, China can expand inward as well as outward: By pushing into Eurasia, it would “add an oceanic frontage to the resources of the great continent.” And as Spykman might add, political warfare—the use of trade, technology, and other nonmilitary tools—can soften up enemies as surely as warfare itself. So these thinkers would grasp that containing Beijing’s economic and technological influence is as important as checking its military power—and that Washington can’t simply focus on one part of Eurasia to the exclusion of the rest.

Much of this makes a grim outlook for the future. But if a democratic school of geopolitics requires expertise in the cold calculus of power, it cannot be limited to it. A final insight, then, is that global crises are opportunities for creation.

During the 20th century, Eurasian challenges evoked unprecedented cooperation among the world’s democracies. In throwing back programs of aggression, they also laid the foundations for the liberal order that brought unprecedented prosperity and well-being to so much of the globe. A coalition that succeeds in the present rivalries will, likewise, be one in which a globe-spanning group has addressed the era’s most pressing challenges by pulling together—militarily, economically, technologically, and diplomatically—as never before. “A repellent personality” has the virtue of “uniting his enemies,” Mackinder wrote. The goal of a democratic geopolitics should be to provide the security that permits another era of creation today.

Roundup

5 Ways Women Made a Difference in 2023

Anusha Rathi   11:26AM, 28 Dec, 2023

In our turbulent and divided world, there is one unifying constant: Women and girls bear the brunt of conflict. Across most of the globe, they are excluded from war  and peace–level decisions. And yet, they suffer disproportionately when things fall apart. They are at home with small children and elderly relatives when bombs start to fall. Their bodies are instrumentalized as weapons of terror. They scramble for food, water, and fuel when male relatives are called up for fighting. And they pick up the pieces when their communities become collateral damage.

It is in part because of these experiences that women are often among those most committed to dialogue and bringing an end to violence. This year showcased women’s vulnerabilities—and their unique peacemaking powers. Here are five ways women made a difference in 2023.

1. Women on the Front Lines in Ukraine

The women of Ukraine have remained steadfast since Russia invaded their country nearly two years ago. More than 60,000 women serve in the military, while millions more ensure social cohesion and spearhead the humanitarian response on the home front.

Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian Women’s Fund pivoted from an organization dedicated to preventing gender discrimination and promoting equal opportunities for women into a wartime relief agency. The fund issued rapid response grants and mobilized its vast network of Ukrainian women’s organizations to provide emergency assistance to families fleeing the war. Between March and November of 2022, the fund’s grants to coalitions, partnerships, and civil society organizations totaled almost $750,000, according to its website. These female-led organizations arranged transit to evacuate families from areas of hostility, created shelters for displaced people, distributed humanitarian aid, and organized medical and psychological support for people traumatized by the horrors of war.

The Ukrainian Women’s Fund is currently engaging women’s rights organizations in discussions and planning for Ukraine’s recovery strategy. “Women who are protecting the country from inside, they know how to be crisis managers now,” Natalia Karbowska, the fund’s director of strategic development, said in an interview with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. That skill will be needed for the country when it starts its recovery, she said.

The Ukrainian National Action Plan to implement the U.N. Security Council’s “Women, Peace and Security” resolution, first adopted in 2016  and updated in 2022 to focus on amplifying women’s leadership in post-conflict recovery and transitional justice initiatives, received a boost from the Biden administration in October with $2 million in supplemental funding.

2. Sudanese Women Fighting for Survival

Despite being sidelined by the gender constraints of Islamic law, in which women are legally required to obey their husbands, women have actively helped keep other women alive amid the conflict in Sudan.

After fighting broke out in April between forces loyal to two rival generals, women were targeted for sexual assault and rape. Their homes were occupied. They struggled to find places to safely give birth as the country’s health care system collapsed. And they—and their children—surged to the nation’s borders, eager to seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Even before the most recent civil strife, Sudanese women had been embattled. Women’s groups had consistently been excluded from power—despite the fact that they played a key role in the grassroots movement that toppled the country’s former military dictator, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019. Back then, female protestors reported that they were beaten; had their heads shaved; and were forced to undress, photographed, and blackmailed. But although the groups of protestors hoped to have a say in reconstructing Sudanese civil society, al-Bashir’s oppressive regime gave way to renewed gender oppression by military commanders.

This year, more than 49 female-led organizations and initiatives formed the Peace for Sudan Platform to support humanitarian aid as well as female-led collective advocacy for an end to the conflict. Women became key providers of support services and emergency relief, operating in the shadows and expanding the margin of possibility through the smart use of technology. Women’s groups in this network organized on the ground through WhatsApp. They launched campaigns to provide health care to displaced pregnant women and distributed hygiene kits.

From abroad, female Sudanese doctors used WhatsApp to provide telehealth services in online clinics. Other women helped high-profile Sudanese activists escape their home country, setting them up with papers and support overseas. “Sudan’s women’s movement has morphed from fighting for rights to fighting for lives,” Neha Wadeker wrote in Foreign Policy.

3. A Pen and a Prize for Peace

On Oct. 6, in the midst of a massive crackdown on female activists by Tehran’s rulers, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Recognizing her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” the Nobel committee lauded Mohammadi’s more than 30 years of activism, despite “tremendous personal costs,” which have included 13 arrests, five convictions, and a total of 31 years of prison sentences and 154 lashes. At the time of the Nobel announcement, Mohammadi was serving a 10-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison, where she continued to document and share stories of state-sponsored sexual assault and battery of female activists and prisoners. In August and October the criminal court found Mohammadi guilty in new trials, adding over two years to her sentence. She reported that new charges were once again brought against her in November.

Outside the walls of her captivity, Mohammadi’s work has been resonant. A brutal campaign of official repression put an end to the massive street protests that erupted in 2022 after a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the country’s morality police. Yet resistance continues online and through acts of civil disobedience, with some women still refusing to wear a headscarf. The regime has responded to perceived threats with added police patrols, hardened warnings, a stricter headscarf law, and mass arrests.

On the day Mohammadi’s family received the Nobel Prize on her behalf, Mohammadi began a hunger strike in prison in solidarity with Iran’s Baha’i religious minority. In her Nobel Prize lecture, delivered by her children, Ali and Kiana Rahmani in Oslo on Dec. 10, Mohammadi wrote she was just one among “the millions of proud and resilient Iranian women who have risen up against oppression, repression, discrimination, and tyranny.”

4. Dialogue for an End to Bloodshed

One day after Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, terrorists affiliated with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, carried out a surprise attack within Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages. Vivian Silver, the 74-year-old co-founder of Women Wage Peace, Israel’s largest grassroots peace movement that was founded in the embers of the 2014 Gaza war, was originally believed to be among the hostages. On Nov. 13, her family learned that she was among the dead.

Silver, a Canadian Israeli feminist, had dedicated decades of her life to Israel-Palestine peace. She opposed the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in place since 2007, and regularly traveled to the border to pick up sick Palestinians and drive them to Israeli hospitals for treatment. She brought Israeli and Palestinian artisans together to collaborate.

Just three days before the Oct. 7 attack, Silver gathered in Jerusalem with hundreds of other activists from Women Wage Peace and its Palestinian partner group, Women of the Sun. They marched to a rally at the Tolerance Museum, then traveled to the shore of the Dead Sea, where they pulled up seats to a symbolic negotiating table. Together, they called for a peaceful, political agreement to the region’s longstanding conflict—a “Mothers’ Call” for an end to “the vicious cycle of bloodshed.”

“We are not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine,” Yael Braudo-Bahat, the co-director of Women Wage Peace, said to Foreign Policy. “We are pro-peace.”

Women of the Sun, founded by Reem Hajajreh, sent aid to women in Gaza until the banks closed. Even while its own movement in the West Bank is increasingly restricted due to rising settler violence, the group works for an inclusive and sustainable peace.

Marwa Hammad, Women of the Sun’s fundraising coordinator and one of the cofounders, works actively with Women Wage Peace to train women to run in local elections, and she plans to restart her group’s trauma healing program after the war. Before Oct. 7, she held Zoom workshops with women from the West Bank and Gaza. The war interrupted those conversations, but not the organization’s dedication to building peace.

“I think that the presence of the woman should be [in negotiations],” Hammad told Foreign Policy. “I think no woman would choose the war. It would be the last that they would choose.”

Women of the Sun and Women Waging Peace were recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

5. Awakening Humanity Amid Rampant Brutality

For nearly two decades, the eastern provinces of the  Democratic Republic of Congo have been awash in violence as more than 130 non-state armed militias clash with the Congolese army in a fight over land and critical resources including cobalt and gold. The war has displaced 6.9 million people and increasing lawlessness has left women and girls vulnerable to sexual violence, leading to what the U.N.’s refugee agency called a shocking “epidemic” of gender-based violence.

Yet women have emerged as the country’s most promising agents of peace.  Activists such as Liberata Buratwa, who runs a network of female peace monitors, have demanded accountability and security from the Congolese army even as women are excluded from political life and official peacebuilding efforts.

“We want peace, and we’ll keep fighting for it,” said Buratwa in a recent interview. “We are continuing to contact the authorities so that peace can return and we can go home.”

Others, such as Pétronille Vaweka, senior mediator for Engaged Women for Peace in Africa (FEPA), have ventured into rebel-held areas to plead with leaders for dialogue. “I know what [the rebels] do, but we have no other choice than to approach them,” Vaweka told U.N. Peacekeeping this month. “I try to awaken humanity in every person.” FEPA has trained a network of 100 women in negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution.

These grassroots movements are driving real change. Women represented 40 percent of civil society and community representatives and 30 percent of facilitation teams at a round of  regional peace talks last year.

As 2024 dawns, Mohammadi’s words continue to ring true: “Women will not give up. We are fueled by a will to survive, whether we are inside prison or outside.”

The Year of the Israel-Hamas War

Jennifer Williams   7:00AM, 28 Dec, 2023

Hamas killed some 1,200 people when it attacked Israel on Oct. 7. It also sparked a conflagration in the Middle East that has reverberated around the world, upending diplomatic efforts years in the making, calling into question much of the conventional wisdom about the underlying dynamics of the conflict and the region, creating or exacerbating political schisms in the United States and Europe, and opening rifts both new and old among global powers.

Israel’s devastating military response in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians so far and caused a humanitarian catastrophe for the rest of the territory’s 2.2 million residents, nearly half of whom are under age 18. The staggering death toll and scale of human suffering in Gaza has shocked much of the world, prompting outcry from human rights groups, humanitarian organizations, and multilateral bodies such as the United Nations. Yet those organizations have also struggled to be effective and remain relevant in the face of unyielding positions and powerful independent actors.

The Biden administration, led by a president with a deep emotional affinity for Israel, has chosen to entangle the United States in yet another major war where the desired end state is murky at best and the likelihood of victory is anything but certain. Already heavily involved in assisting Ukraine in its war with Russia to the tune of billions of dollars in military and other aid, Washington is now trying to do the same for Israel in its war with Hamas.

U.S. President Joe Biden has framed both wars as being part of the same broader struggle between the forces of democracy and autocracy, arguing that it is in the United States’ interest to stand on the side of democracy everywhere. Yet not everyone is buying his rhetoric.

Republican members of the U.S. Congress have balked at his attempt to link funding for Ukraine, which some have begun to question, with funding for Israel, which enjoys much stronger support among the Republican Party. Many in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of what they see as the Biden administration’s blank check for Israel and an inability—or unwillingness—to curb Israel’s military excesses or push it toward a cease-fire. Countries in the global south, many of which feel a closer historical and ideological connection with the Palestinians than with Israel, are also skeptical of Biden’s framing.

In the Middle East, the religious and ideological connections that Israel’s neighbors share with the Palestinian cause formed long ago, though they have been strengthened by Iran’s effort to create a so-called “axis of resistance” to Israel through its creation and backing of various proxy groups, from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen to a wide array of groups in Iraq and Syria. This web of Iranian influence and support gained new importance and scrutiny after Hamas’s attack as the world waited to see whether, and to what extent, these proxy groups would join the fight against Israel and expand the battlefield far beyond the borders of Israel-Palestine.

Throughout all of this, Foreign Policy has endeavored to provide our readers with the expert analysis, informed opinion, and reliable reporting that you need to understand the conflict. You can find all of our coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at this link, but here we’ve selected five standout pieces that we think represent some of our best work and showcase the diverse viewpoints and different aspects of the conflict.

1. What Was Hamas Thinking?

By Tareq Baconi, Nov. 22

Why Hamas decided to launch its unprecedented attack on Israel when it did, knowing that it would almost certainly trigger a devastating Israeli military response, is one of the central questions about this war. Tareq Baconi, the president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network and the author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, argues that the attack fits with a broader strategic shift Hamas made over the last several years “to transition away from acquiescence to its containment to a more explicit challenge of Israeli domination—and thereby overturn the equilibrium that had become entrenched over the course of 16 years.”

2. America Is a Root Cause of Israel and Palestine’s Latest War

By Stephen M. Walt, Oct. 18

There are many historical events that one could choose as the starting point of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians—Theodor Herzl’s 1896 book, The Jewish State; the 1917 Balfour Declaration; the Arab revolt of 1936; the 1947 U.N. partition plan; the 1948 Arab-Israeli War; or the 1967 Six-Day War, just to name a few.

FP columnist Stephen Walt chooses to begin in 1991, “when the United States emerged as the unchallenged external power in Middle East affairs and began trying to construct a regional order that served its interests.” Starting there, he identifies five key episodes or elements that helped bring about the tragic events that have unfolded since Oct. 7, and he explains how those background factors matter not just for the current Israel-Hamas war, but also for the nature of future global order.

3. Israel’s Hostage Families Feel Abandoned by Israel

By Yardena Schwartz, Oct. 20

Hamas’s kidnapping of more than 200 people in Israel during its attack plunged thousands of the hostages’ loved ones into a nightmare from which many have yet to awake. “Now, as Israel retaliates for the most painful attack in its history, those families find themselves at the center of a national dilemma,” writes journalist Yardena Schwartz, who spoke to several of the hostages’ family members and friends. “Israelis want their leaders to eliminate Hamas, which has until now been allowed to thrive in their backyard. Yet, as Israel pounds Hamas with airstrikes, many fear that Israeli hostages could be killed in the crossfire.”

People take part in a demonstration against Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip in São Paulo on Oct. 22.Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images

4. Why the Global South Is Accusing America of Hypocrisy

By Oliver Stuenkel, Nov. 2

The international reaction to Hamas’s attack and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza has not been uniform. While many Western countries, most notably the United States, have condemned Hamas, staunchly supported Israel’s right to defend itself, and largely refrained from publicly criticizing Israel’s blitzkrieg assault on Gaza or pushing for a cease-fire, other countries, particularly in the global south, have been more vocal in condemning Israel’s military tactics in Gaza as well as its long-standing occupation of the Palestinian territories, which has fueled the ongoing conflict.

Oliver Stuenkel, an associate professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, argues that “[m]any in the developing world have long seen a double standard in the West condemning an illegal occupation in Ukraine while also standing staunchly behind Israel,” and he warns that this perceived double standard threatens to undermine Washington’s efforts to build broader global support for Ukraine in the war against Russia.

5. How Will This War End? How Can the Next One be Prevented?

By Zaha Hassan, Daniel C. Kurtzer, Omar M. Dajani, Diana Buttu, Peter R. Mansoor, Daniel Levy, Ehud Olmert, Eugene Kontorovich, and Elliott Abrams, Dec. 7

Ending a conflict as complex as this one—with its seemingly unending cycles of violence and long history of failed attempts at diplomacy—as well as preventing war from breaking out again in another few months or years will require new thinking. To that end, FP asked a range of experts two specific questions:

1. What will Gaza look like one year from now?

2. What single policy could any actor in this conflict pursue that would make it less likely that this war will end like so many others, with the same security threats remaining and key political grievances unresolved?

Their answers offer valuable insights into the political dynamics and roadblocks standing in the way of peace, and how some of the world’s foremost experts on this conflict are thinking through how to overcome these challenges.

Roundup

The Year’s Best Profiles

danephron   6:00AM, 28 Dec, 2023

One of the most ambitious stories that Foreign Policy published this year was a profile of a Palestinian official in the West Bank, Hussein al-Sheikh, who clearly has ambitions to become the next Palestinian president. It ran in July, months before the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the bloodiest war between the two sides in their troubled history. But the story of Sheikh was also the story of the war to come: a chronicle of repression, corruption, and spasms of horrific violence.

Political profiles are meant to elucidate powerful figures. The good ones do more than that. They place the figures in a broader context, then explore what their idiosyncrasies might mean for the people around them—and why it matters. Profiles published in Foreign Policy in the past year focused mainly on people vying for power or working for change. Here are five profiles worth revisiting.

1. The Palestinian Leader Who Survived the Death of Palestine

by Adam Rasgon and Aaron Boxerman, July 31

Hussein al-Sheikh is a member of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and its main liaison with Israel. The position has allowed him, on occasion, to make the Israeli occupation more tenable for some Palestinians. It has also helped entrench the occupation, now in its seventh decade, and turn his own people against him.

Like many Palestinian leaders, Sheikh spent years in Israeli prisons. He entered politics during the era of the Oslo peace agreements in the 1990s—but eventually became tainted by the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. As Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turns 88, Sheikh seems to be aiming to replace him.

2. Is Selcuk Bayraktar Turkey’s Crown Prince-in-Waiting?

by Halil Karaveli, Oct. 5

Under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the past two decades, Turkey has become a bulwark of religious conservatism. But in order for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to outlive him, it must appeal to a broader base that includes secular nationalists.

Which is why Selcuk Bayraktar is increasingly seen as the future of the AKP. He has no real experience in politics or diplomacy. But Bayraktar runs the Turkish aerospace group Baykar and is the chief purveyor of a political philosophy that is gaining ground in the country—techno-nationalism. He also happens to be married to Erdogan’s daughter.

3. Can Avinash Persaud Convince Capitalists to Embrace Green Growth?

by Lee Harris, June 17

Avinash Persaud was a banker with J.P. Morgan who drove a flashy Ferrari and believed that economic development was a moral imperative. That is, until one day when he quit his job, went to work as a climate envoy for the prime minister of Barbados, and bought a G-Wizz, an electric car so small that it’s not allowed on the highway.

In his new role, Persaud is trying to fix a lopsided global financial system—to help poor countries industrialize without destroying the planet. And, no, he’s not nagging anyone to shut off coal.

Igor Girkin sits inside a glass defendant’s cage during a hearing to consider a request on his pretrial arrest in Moscow on July 21. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AFP via Getty Images

4. Putin’s Paranoia Has Turned on Russia’s Far Right

by Kristaps Andrejsons, July 25

Igor Girkin was the kind of guy that Russian President Vladimir Putin could count on to do his dirty work. A former colonel in the Federal Security Service, Girkin served as commander of the so-called separatist forces in the Ukrainian Donbas region in 2014. He forced the Crimean parliament at gunpoint to hold an independence referendum that year, allowing Russia to annex the peninsula. And he gave the order for troops to fire on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing all 298 people on board.

But since criticizing the military’s handling of the war in Ukraine, Girkin has become one of Putin’s domestic enemies. His arrest earlier this year for inciting people to commit “extremist activities” signaled a broadening of Putin’s repression. Domestic enemies were usually confined to pro-democracy liberals, such as Alexei Navalny. But the coup attempt by the Wagner Group in June prompted the Russian leader to view far-right figures as a threat as well.

5. ‘We Don’t Want to Lose Our Second Motherland’

by Luke Johnson, Sept. 30

When Russia’s war on Ukraine finally ends, rebuilding the country will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and require project management on a massive scale. Ukraine already has a government agency dedicated to the task and a reconstruction czar to oversee it: Mustafa Nayyem.

Nayyem was a Ukrainian anti-corruption journalist, an activist, and a reformist lawmaker before the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. His family immigrated in the 1980s from Afghanistan, where Russian soldiers had also ravaged the country. In Ukraine’s case, the international community has already pledged tens of billions of dollars for reconstruction. “When there is big money, there are big risks,” Nayyem told Foreign Policy, referring the potential for corruption.

5 Top Reads

A Grim Year for the Chinese Economy

James Palmer   6:00AM, 28 Dec, 2023

It’s been nothing but grim news for the Chinese economy this year. A hoped-for COVID-19 recovery never materialized after years of repression left the public wary of spending, giving it a case of what economist Adam Posen dubbed “economic long COVID.” (Hear him discussing that idea on FP Live.) Real estate giants have been on the brink of collapse all year. Even the Communist Party has reluctantly acknowledged the scale of the problems it faces, although officials claim that things can only get better. And Chinese dictator Xi Jinping needs someone to blame for everything going wrong.

The sharp slowdown has hit hard in a country that has experienced three decades of uninterrupted high growth. (It would have been four, if not for the interruption of the protests and killings of 1989.) Like the European “30 glorious years” of the postwar era, the notion that each year would be better than the next came to be taken for granted; those days are over.

Here are five perspectives on the Chinese economic crisis—and the impact that it’s left on the public.

1. The Chinese Communist Party Wants the Property Bubble Back

By Robert Foyle Hunwick, Jan. 10

The Chinese growth story has been about property and construction—especially for an urban middle class that was given its homes by the state in the 1990s and watched their value rocket. For years, the government tried to deflate the property bubble, but now it’s desperate to reinflate it. “With unreliable and government-fiddled stock markets, 70 percent of Chinese wealth is held in real estate,” writes British author Robert Foyle Hunwick, an expert on crime in China, “while land sales remain the main source of income for those same corrupt provincial administrators.”

Corruption helped fuel the real estate market as officials bought up valuable property, but it was also a massive source of corruption itself. Real estate deals were greased by bribery, and local leaders grew fat off the proceeds. Everyone else got sucked in, too, and may be left holding the bag. When it comes to presales, for instance, which are the mortgages that most Chinese homebuyers take out on as yet unbuilt apartments, “there’s a local legal twist to it that has caused further headaches: In China, the lender can go after the borrower, as well as developers, if they wish to reclaim any unpaid debt.”

2. How China’s Education System Trapped a Generation

By Helen Gao, June 22

China’s youth unemployment has reached such high levels this year that the government stopped publishing the statistics. For a generation of college graduates raised in cutthroat educational competition against their peers, the discovery that promised rewards have vanished has been traumatic. As Gao, a writer and reporter in her 30s, describes it, “When I read news about state crackdowns on the private sector, I feel a sense of déjà vu. The industries under assault—private tutoring, property, tech, and finance—employed the country’s best and brightest.”

Young Chinese have turned instead to “lying flat”—giving up on the rat race and working the minimum that they can in order to survive. As Gao says, she was taught to sneer at the slackers among her peers, but now she thinks they had the right idea all along. “As my generation’s once-bright prospects fade, the truth comes out: We thought we had left school behind when we graduated. It turns out school has followed us into adulthood and makes us its pupils still.”

A man sits in front of a store in Rudong, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, on April 27. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

3. Xi’s Policies Have Shortened the Fuse on China’s Economic Time Bombs

By Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Sept. 6

China’s economic problems run deep, writes political economist Zongyuan Zoe Liu, from sluggish consumption to a demographic crisis to a housing bubble. But Xi’s policies have taken existing fault lines and deepened them. “Economically, Xi has been a bull in a china shop. His economic policies have often shifted focus but always emphasize the party’s overarching control across nearly all dimensions of China’s economic and financial activity.”

Xi’s obsession with top-down control has wrecked the chances of thoughtful reform. While there was once room for policy experimentation at a local level that could be scaled up later, today the pressure to appeal to the man in charge is stronger than ever. “Chinese policy thinkers attempted to compensate for the absence of prudent economic strategy under Xi by ceaselessly leaping from one grand idea to the next under the banner of national rejuvenation,” Liu writes.

4. China Prefers Guns to Butter

By Jacqueline N. Deal and Michael Mort, Sept. 7

As the economic crisis bites and cities struggle to pay pensions or welfare, there’s one institution that rarely goes short in Xi’s China: the military. Defense spending has kept soaring upward in the hope of winning a confrontation with the United States—or out of fear that Washington might strike first.

“Of course, the history of PLA [People’s Liberation Army] entanglement in China’s domestic economy makes it difficult to discriminate between defense investment for military purposes and internally oriented stimulus spending (i.e., make-work),” Deal and Mort, who run a Washington, D.C., consultancy, note, but “in the event that China continues to fail to transition to sustainable consumption-based growth, Beijing will be left with one of the biggest hammers in the world, and recalcitrant parties abroad may all look like nails.”

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary slowdown in spending—but the economic crisis hasn’t. “PLA investment stalled during the height of COVID on the mainland in 2020 as Chinese shipyards switched from building PLA Navy vessels, a traditional cost center, to building commercial ships—potentially because constructing warships requires tighter working conditions than constructing bulk carriers, and health concerns were paramount. But the spending increases appear to have resumed by last year and to be outstripping GDP growth once more,” they write.

5. Maybe China’s Economy Isn’t So Doomed

By Bob Davis, Oct. 17

Amid all the bad news, some analysts remained bearish on China’s long-term prospects, pointing to the way the country had successfully ridden out previous crises, such as the global crash of 2008 or the peer-to-peer lending scandals of 2015-2018. Veteran China economy reporter Bob Davis took a long look at the optimists. “The optimists’ case relies on a close examination of Chinese economic data but also reflects the view that while President Xi Jinping and the rest of the Chinese leadership are hard-liners politically, they are economic pragmatists who want to follow in the tradition of Deng Xiaoping, who led China’s opening to the West,” Davis writes.

There’s certainly been a tendency to read any downturn in China as doom for the Chinese Communist Party—and it’s worth remembering that states survive recessions, or even depressions, all the time. “Every time the Chinese economy stumbles, there is a tendency to say that finally the end is near,” Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad told Davis. “The optimists’ view might be too optimistic, but it provides some grounding, so we don’t get too carried away every time the Chinese economy stumbles.”

27 Dec, 2023

- India’s Top Diplomat Visits Russia

- 4 Trends to Watch in South Asia Next Year

- Russia Is Divvying Up Prigozhin’s Empire Among Putin’s Cronies

- The Year Geopolitical Competition Returned to Africa

- Foreign Policy’s Best Articles on Geopolitics and Strategy

- FP Live Looks Back at 2023

- Alliances Are Back at the Center of Power

- The Most Notable Obituaries in 2023

World Brief

India’s Top Diplomat Visits Russia

emilytamkin   7:00PM, 27 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s trip to Russia, Israel’s expansion of its ground campaign in central Gaza, and deadly storms in Australia.

Russia Hails Relationship With India as Jaishankar Visits

Indian Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday. Despite Western attempts to isolate Russia in response to its war in Ukraine, India has dramatically increased its purchase of Russian oil since the conflict began.

“Everything is in your hands,” Putin said, according to the New York Times, “and I can say that we are successful because of your direct support.” Putin also invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Russia. Ahead of the meeting, Jaishankar said the officials would “focus on bilateral cooperation in different spheres,” while Lavrov said that both countries are invested in “building an international political and economic system that would be open and fair for everyone.”

Following the discussions, Lavrov hailed India’s “responsible approach” to world affairs, including the war in Ukraine. Jaishankar, for his part, called Russia a “valued and time-tested” partner. New Delhi has historic diplomatic ties with Moscow and has long relied on imports of Russian arms. (During Jaishankar’s visit, the two countries reportedly made “tangible progress” on plans for the joint production of military equipment.)

On Tuesday, India and Russia also discussed the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, which is being built in southern India with assistance from Russia. The two countries came to an agreement on the future construction of power-generating units for the plant, which is expected to become fully operational in 2027 after years of construction.

Since the outset of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India has walked a tightrope with its partners, striving to keep Russia close while also bolstering its relationship with the United States. In 2023, this seemed to work: Modi was feted with a state visit at the White House in June and is ending the year with an invitation to visit the Kremlin.

However, the United States has also accused India of involvement in an assassination plot of a U.S. and Canadian citizen; the charges followed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations in September that India was behind the assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada. Modi has tried to downplay what this will mean for U.S.-India relations, telling the Financial Times that a “few incidents” would not derail the partnership.

Modi will be focused on something else in the new year in addition to the United States and Russia: India has a general election in 2024, when voters will decide whether they’re impressed by Modi’s balancing act abroad and his political performance at home.

Today’s Most Read

- Right-Wing Populism Is Set to Sweep the West in 2024 by John Kampfner

- A Future Look Back at Israel’s War on Hamas by Daniel Byman

- The United Nations Completely Failed in Lebanon by Anchal Vohra

What We’re Following

Israel expands campaign in central Gaza. Israeli forces have expanded their ground campaign into central Gaza, including into urban refugee camps. The ground expansion follows heavy bombardment of the area. Meanwhile, Gaza’s main telecommunications provider has described a “complete interruption” of services in the territory.

The United States said on Tuesday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan were meeting with Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs and the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, to discuss the possibility of shifting focus to particular Hamas targets and improving humanitarian conditions in Gaza, among other things.

The meetings come as Israel insists that the war will continue for months. Israel also announced Tuesday that it would no longer grant automatic visas to United Nations workers, saying that applications will be processed case-by-case. “For too long, international officials have been deflecting blame onto Israel to cover up the fact that they are covering up for Hamas,” said Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy.

On Wednesday, Tzivka Fohgel, a far-right Israeli lawmaker, said on an Israeli public radio station that Israel must establish settlements in northern Gaza to succeed against Hamas.

Deadly storms in Australia. At least 10 people were killed in storms that ravaged eastern Australia on Christmas and Boxing Day, including a 9-year-old child. Tens of thousands of people in the state of Queensland are still without power. The storms came more than a week after the dissipation of Cyclone Jasper, which caused major floods in parts of the state. Repairs from the cyclone and subsequent storms could cost billions of dollars.

Flooding and winds from the thunderstorms also hit the states of Victoria and New South Wales. Australia is currently experiencing an El Niño weather event, which is associated with cyclones and wildfires. Forecasts show that there will be more thunderstorms, although conditions are also expected to improve over the coming days. The U.N. has warned that environmental disasters are expected to get worse unless dramatic action is taken to tackle the climate crisis.

AstraZeneca buys Chinese firm. AstraZeneca, Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company, is buying Gracell Biotechnologies, a Chinese cancer therapy firm, for $1.2 billion. The move reflects a push further into cancer research and treatment, which already makes up roughly one-third of AstraZeneca’s business—as well as a push into China.

AstraZeneca is also striking deals with China-based firms: Before the purchase of Gracell, there was a deal to develop a weight-loss pill with Eccogene, a Chinese biotech company, in November. Over the summer, it was reported that AstraZeneca was considering listing its local business in China on the Shanghai or Hong Kong stock exchange, which the Guardian describes as a way “to avoid being caught up in the fallout” of U.S.-China tensions. The company did not comment on the speculation.

Odds and Ends

A 21-foot bronze statue of the singer Shakira was unveiled in her hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia, on Tuesday. The statue appears to show her shaking her hips. Shakira’s parents, William Mebarak and Nidia Ripoll, and the mayor of Barranquilla attended the unveiling on Tuesday, and Shakira posted a photo of her parents in front of the giant version of herself on her Instagram.

South Asia Brief

4 Trends to Watch in South Asia Next Year

Audrey Wilson   4:00PM, 27 Dec, 2023

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief, and happy holidays. Last week, we looked back at the biggest developments in South Asia in 2023, from India’s lunar landing to setbacks endangering democracy across the region. Below, we identify four key trends to watch in 2024.

1. Political Transition Without Change

Five South Asian countries will hold elections in 2024, and most will likely return incumbent parties to power. Bhutan is not one of them: The first-round vote in November knocked out the ruling party, and two other parties will participate in a runoff on Jan. 9. (One of the remaining parties led Bhutan’s government between 2013 and 2018.)

Sri Lanka’s election, scheduled to happen before September, is still too early to call. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe hopes that his country’s economic improvements this year will help catapult him to victory, but many Sri Lankans still resent his ties to his unpopular predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was ousted in 2022.

The region’s other elections look more certain. With Bangladesh’s largest opposition party boycotting elections on Jan. 7 due to concerns about vote rigging, the ruling Awami League party will likely return to government for a fourth straight term. In Pakistan, harsh crackdowns on the opposition, including the jailing of leader Imran Khan, have advantaged the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party—which led the last governing coalition before the current caretaker government took over in August—ahead of election day on Feb. 8.

In India, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to win a third straight term in April, buoyed by popular Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as a weak and divided opposition. Most voters in India would applaud an incumbent victory. But in Bangladesh and Pakistan, where popular opposition parties have been weakened by repression, incumbent parties winning could set the stage for fresh political tensions.

2. Steps Toward Greater Connectivity

South Asia is notorious for being one of the world’s least connected regions. But 2024 could be the year it finally turns the corner. Bhutan disclosed plans this year for a new cross-border rail project with India. Bangladesh, India, and Nepal are working on a new electricity-sharing initiative. And in September, India signed on to a plan for a massive transnational transport project, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.

Bangladesh, with the opening of a large undersea tunnel, and Pakistan, with its inking of a China-funded railroad deal, each took big steps to strengthen connectivity at home. Even Taliban-led Afghanistan got in on the act, with the regime expressing a desire to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

What becomes of these big plans in 2024 will depend on several factors. One is security. China worries about terrorism risks in Afghanistan and Pakistan; if they increase, investment plans could lose momentum. Continued war in the Gaza Strip could spoil India’s plans in the Middle East. Another key factor is the ability to line up necessary financing, especially for the ambitious India-Bhutan railroad plan, which includes new roads and an airport.

Finally, with India’s projects, there is also the risk of bureaucratic delays—an obstacle with previous cross-border infrastructure initiatives.

3. India’s Global South Test

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to the media at the G-20 summit in New Delhi on Sept. 10.Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images

A year ago, South Asia Brief predicted that 2023 would be India’s year of opportunity. With a surging economy and the G-20 presidency, it was poised to step up its global profile. It did that and more, thanks to its historic lunar landing and its hosting of other major global events, including the Cricket World Cup and a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

In 2024, India will come back down to earth—no longer leading the G-20, the forum that allowed it to officially play the role of bridge between the developed world and the global south—one of New Delhi’s top foreign-policy priorities. Next year, India will look to continue this outreach, but without the benefit of the G-20 leadership platform.

A useful way to gauge New Delhi’s success will be its degree of high-level diplomacy with global south countries—including with smaller, less strategically significant states. Here, India will bump up against China, which also projects itself as a global south leader and enjoys wider influence than India—especially in Latin America, where India has a more modest presence.

Because Beijing’s ties with the West aren’t as strong as New Delhi’s, India can potentially make a more convincing claim to be a bridge to the global south. But it will need to work through potential diplomatic challenges with Western countries following allegations from the United States and Canada about extrajudicial killings in 2023.

FP’s Most Read This Week

- The West’s 3 Options to Combat the Houthi Attacks by Bruce Jones

- What a Russian Victory Would Mean for Ukraine by Adrian Karatnycky

- Ukraine Braces for Political Disaster in 2024 by Oz Katerji

4. The Russia Factor

Most conversations about influential outside actors in South Asia start with China. But 2024 could be the year that Russia makes a bigger play in the region.

For much of this year, Russia was India’s top supplier of crude oil, and it sent its first shipments to Pakistan. In September, Sergey Lavrov became the first Russian foreign minister to visit Bangladesh; in November, three Russian naval ships docked in a Bangladeshi port. Russian naval officers participated in joint exercises with their Bangladeshi counterparts.

Russia is keen to project influence beyond its borders to show that it isn’t weakened or isolated by its war in Ukraine. South Asia is a logical target not only because it’s a friendly neighborhood, but also because Russia can push back there against stepped-up U.S. engagement in the region—which is fueled by intensifying competition with China.

Against this backdrop, one country to watch in 2024 is Nepal, where this year the government expressed strong support for more cooperation with Moscow, including Russian investment in its hydropower sector. With China signaling increased interest in investing in Afghanistan, Kabul may also receive more attention from Russia next year, too.

A deeper Russian footprint in South Asia would intensify already-robust great-power competition in the region, with challenging diplomatic implications for South Asia’s many nonaligned states.

Correction, Dec. 28, 2023: A previous version of this newsletter mischaracterized the current government in Pakistan. Pakistan is being led by a caretaker government until elections on Feb. 8.

Argument

Russia Is Divvying Up Prigozhin’s Empire Among Putin’s Cronies

James Palmer   11:58AM, 27 Dec, 2023

People visit a makeshift memorial for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in central Moscow on Oct. 1.

On Aug. 23, the business jet carrying Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed about 60 miles north of Moscow, killing everyone on board. With Prigozhin’s death, people and organizations within the Russian government are now maneuvering to obtain control of Wagner’s network of relationships and assets on the African continent.

The Wagner Group, a nominally private military firm, had operated in several African countries since 2017, participating in conflicts in Mali, Libya, Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Wagner provided services to African regimes—including combat operations, security and training, and disinformation campaigns—in exchange for diplomatic support and resources.

The use of mercenaries allowed Russia to expand its geostrategic reach at a low cost to Moscow. Although Russia has publicized the economic opportunities it supposedly offers to Africa in areas such as agriculture, hydrocarbons, energy, transport, and digitization, it actually invests little on the continent.

Economically, Russia has overpromised and underdelivered; the economic factors are less important to Moscow than being able to maintain international connections. Yet the Wagner Group in Africa was largely self-funding, covering its own operational costs through cash and mineral concessions. Until recently, mercenaries also provided a veneer of deniability to Russian operations abroad.

Looking at the history of mercenary forces, most prominent in European history in 16th- and 17th-century warfare, can tell us what might come next for Wagner’s and Russia’s future. As in modern Russia, early modern heads of state hired mercenaries as a way of displacing the costs of raising and administering troops. Mercenary officers fronted the costs of raising and equipping troops themselves as a form of outsourcing, reducing the financial pressure on heads of state. In contrast to the stereotype, these mercenaries were often subjects of the heads of state who hired them, as Prigozhin was Russian. Like the Wagner Group, in modern terms these mercenaries were both state-funded and private.

Military historians and political theorists use the term fiscal-military state to refer to governments that sustain large-scale warfare through resource extraction as well as fiscal innovation such as the creation of a national debt or public credit. The classic example is the United Kingdom after the 1690s; in this argument, financial developments empowered Britain’s rise to great-power status. In Wagner’s case, this innovation takes the form of shell companies and the clandestine movement of resources. The part of the Wagner Group that was most visible—the fighters in Ukraine—was only one element of an immense, ramifying network of companies that controlled billions of dollars in resources.

As analyst Julian Rademeyer told Deutsche Welle in February, “Wagner itself has developed over time as an organization that’s gone from being a purely private military contracting entity into a multiplicity of business alliances and relations, and a network of companies. Some of them front companies across the countries in which they operate on the African continent.” Wagner’s organizations function like a shadow fiscal-military state.

The Wagner Group funded its activities in Africa with another early modern strategy: contributions. Contributions are a form of taxation set up by an army in an occupied territory. Military historians have referred to this practice as the “tax of violence.” Although the costs of the tax of violence are high, they are also consistent. Unlike simple plundering, contributions are ideally collected in a regular manner—essentially an extortion racket imposed on the local populace. Contributions can fund an army’s operations; more broadly, they can fund an entire state. During the latter part of the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedish army funded the Swedish state in this way. According to one historian, the Holy Roman Empire lost that war because it could no longer do this.

Wagner’s African operations were much greater in global extent, and more sophisticated, but they operated on the same principle. In Sudan, the Russian firm M-Invest, which was under the control of oligarchs including Prigozhin, owns gold mines; Sudan’s mineral assets include manganese, silicon, and uranium. Wagner subsidiaries own gold mines and logging rights in the Central African Republic. In Syria, Wagner shell companies were paid in oil.

Relative to the size of the Russian state budget, the African resources that Wagner controlled were not particularly lucrative. However, like Swedish contributions during the Thirty Years’ War, they allowed Wagner to self-finance its operations. Although relatively little African gold flowed back into Russia itself, African resources enabled Russia to act in Africa under the cover of Wagner’s independence because those resources were not restricted by sanctions.

One option for the Russian government is to bring this sprawling assemblage directly under state control, including absorbing Wagner’s fighters into the Defense Ministry. Another option is to do what older mercenary companies called “reforming” a company or regiment: dissolve Wagner and parcel its soldiers out to other units.

The mercenary armies Redut and Convoy were deliberately shaped or created as government-controlled alternatives to Wagner. Redut was founded in 2008, but it had already been reorganized in 2022 by the deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency, who placed a relative of his at its head; after heavy losses, it was taken over by the Defense Ministry. Convoy, on the other hand, is relatively new and smells blatantly of AstroTurf: It was founded in Crimea in 2022 and is funded by a largely state-owned bank as well as an oligarch who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s deputy defense minister, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, looks as though he will take over Prigozhin’s relationships with African leaders, this time on behalf of the state.

Yet these groups and people lack Prigozhin’s established personal relationships and African experience, as well as his charisma, his populist appeal, and his ability to command loyalty among his men. Ordinary Wagner fighters did not see service in Wagner as opposed to service in a more government-aligned army. On the contrary, many of them are veterans of the Russian army or switch between service in it and in Wagner. For these men, Wagner was another way to serve Russia.

The convicts in Wagner saw Prigozhin as the man willing to work to restore their honor to them by making them soldiers. Despite its cruelty, or because of it, the Wagner Group had a strong appeal to some people. The Russian government’s attempts to discredit Prigozhin by depicting him as a wealthy man who was motivated by “gold and bling” show a clumsy ignorance of what is likely to appeal to an ordinary soldier. The type of man who is likely to enlist in Wagner, like his counterparts in 17th-century Europe, is more likely to see a showy display of bling as proof that a man is powerful, strong, and successful—not immoral.

However, if organizations within the Russian government itself succeed in taking over the Wagner Group’s assets in Africa, this could represent a strengthening of Russian state power. In a July article for Foreign Policy, I compared Prigozhin to the famous mercenary general Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634). Like Wallenstein, before his death Prigozhin had become uncomfortably independent from the head of state he supposedly served, including holding foreign negotiations on his own. Although I was correct in my belief that Putin would have Prigozhin killed, in hindsight I was wrong to overlook the central importance of the Wagner Group’s African operations to the maneuvers probably being carried out within the Russian government. Like Wallenstein’s assassination, Prigozhin’s has strengthened the central government’s control over the armed forces.

If Russian state organizations can obtain Wagner’s African assets, this may be a partial reversal of the conditions I described in my earlier article. At that time, I interpreted the Russian state as weakening, since so many state functions were co-opted by nonstate agents. In an opinion article for Al Jazeera, Russia expert Gulnaz Sharafutdinova noticed something similar: “Under Putin, the political system in Russia has been further infiltrated by patronage networks that have increasingly undermined state institutions and taken over their functions. It is on the basis of this informal power system … that Prigozhin accumulated his vast wealth” and power.

In this context, the timing of Prigozhin’s death is interesting. Prigozhin was killed two months to the day after his aborted putsch—long enough to make Putin look weak but too short to realistically look as if he was lulling Prigozhin into a false sense of security. However, Prigozhin’s death also came a month after he made a speech telling his men to prepare for something large in Africa. (Several Russian government figures, including Yevkurov, traveled to Africa before Prigozhin’s death.) Prigozhin may well have been killed not just as punishment for treason but also to bring the Wagner Group’s lucrative African operations under direct state control—and as rewards to stay loyal.

5 Top Reads

The Year Geopolitical Competition Returned to Africa

sashapsuk   7:00AM, 27 Dec, 2023

Africa is no stranger to geopolitical competition. From the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 to the Cold War, external powers have long sought to colonize, carve up, and exploit the continent. Once again, regional and global powers are focusing on Africa to extend their military and economic influence and to gain an edge over their rivals—whether in terms of diplomatic clout or access to land and natural resources.

As French influence in its former West African colonies wanes, a string of coups in the Sahel region put Niger—a country rarely covered in the international media—front and center this year. The military takeover raised the question of whether neighboring African countries, especially Nigeria, would take the lead in managing a crisis and possibly intervening, rather than looking to external superpowers.

The outbreak of a full-fledged civil war in Sudan in April exposed the rifts between regional powers that usually see themselves as allies as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia (and Egypt) backed opposing sides in the conflict and the fighting threatened to engulf the broader region.

The killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin in August after his Wagner Group staged a failed mutiny in Russia two months earlier led to questions about the mercenary group’s future in Africa, where it has carved out zones of influence from the Central African Republic to Mali and has often acted as a proxy for Russian interests.

Meanwhile, resource-rich and strategically located Mauritania, long viewed in the West as something of a backwater, became the object of intense interest and competition after the coup, in Niger, with everyone from China to Saudi Arabia to NATO seeking closer relations with Nouakchott.

And as the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—continued to push for an alternative to the Western-led economic order, talk of de-dollarization and a new international reserve currency grew as the bloc expanded to include several new members, including Ethiopia and Egypt, which are set to join at the start of the new year.

Below are five of Foreign Policy’s top reads on these issues from the past year—and an edition of our weekly newsletter covering the continent, Africa Brief.

1. How Sudan Became a Saudi-UAE Proxy War

By Talal Mohammad, July 12

Sudan’s descent into civil war left two regional powers on opposing sides of the conflict, with Saudi Arabia supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces and the United Arab Emirates backing the rebel Rapid Support Forces. As scholar Talal Mohammad writes, the Saudi and Emirati positions are a sign that “[a]s emerging Middle East hegemons, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are now at odds—each seeking to control Sudan’s resources, energy, and logistics.”

“For the UAE, any RSF gains create leverage to weaken Riyadh’s grip over the Middle East—which would be a win for Abu Dhabi,” Mohammad writes.

2. Will Nigeria Reclaim Its Role as a Regional Power?

By Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, Aug. 2

The strong reaction by regional body ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) in the wake of Niger’s coup left many observers asking whether Nigeria, the region’s largest power, would intervene or lead a multilateral force. It didn’t happen in 2023—but as analyst Afolabi Adekaiyaoja argues, a crisis on the border “provides an opportunity for a president with the smallest mandate among elected presidents since the country’s return to democracy in 1999 with a chance to shore up his reputation. Unlike Nigeria’s increasingly powerful state governors, he actively leads on foreign policy.”

3. Niger’s Coup Is a Turning Point for Africans

By Howard W. French, Aug. 8

A coup in Niger at a time when French military presence in West Africa is receding and U.S. influence is waning put the onus of responsibility for managing a regional crisis on Niger’s neighbors. FP’s Howard W. French writes that the regional response to the coup demonstrated that “Africans will ultimately make or break their continent’s geopolitical landscape—and foreign interlopers, however muscle-bound they may appear, are ultimately fated to play a secondary role.”

A demonstrator holds a Russian flag in Bangui, on March 22 during a march in support of Russia and China’s presence in the Central African Republic.Barbara Debout/AFP via Getty Images

4. Why the Wagner Group Won’t Leave Africa

By John Lechner and Marat Gabidullin, Aug. 8

A former Wagner commander and his co-author, analyst John Lechner, argue that the demise of Prigozhin won’t mean the end of Russian mercenary activities in Africa because “the Russian state needs Wagner more than Wagner needs the state.” The Kremlin’s footprint on the continent bolsters its global influence—not to mention its war chest, funded in part by African gold and other natural resources.

5. Why Everyone Is Courting Mauritania

By Samuel Ramani, Sept. 21

The coup in Niger left Mauritania looking like the “sole bastion of relative political stability in the Sahel region” as well as a promising investment option. As Samuel Ramani writes, everyone is now paying attention to the country. The “competition revolves around Mauritania’s natural gas reserves and the green energy potential presented by its vast desert terrain—not to mention its strategically valuable position on the Atlantic coast,” he writes.

Plus: Why the BRICS Aren’t Crumbling in Africa

By Nosmot Gbadamosi, Aug. 23

Although talk of de-dollarization hasn’t caught on everywhere, many African countries—facing dollar-denominated debt in a time of rising interest rates—are drawn to the idea of a new global reserve currency and an international diplomatic club that is not run by the West. “Many African leaders view the dollar’s dominance over the global financial system as impeding their nations’ economic growth,” FP’s Nosmot Gbadamosi writes in this edition of Africa Brief.

Roundup

Foreign Policy’s Best Articles on Geopolitics and Strategy

Stefan Theil   7:00AM, 27 Dec, 2023

In a year marked by wars, crises, and the policy debates surrounding them, much of Foreign Policy’s coverage was understandably focused on the current state of the world. But we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t also ask our writers to step back and look beyond the news. Here are five of the sharpest articles looking at the geopolitical picture from 20,000 feet.

1. 6 Swing States Will Decide the Future of Geopolitics

By Cliff Kupchan, June 6

Instead of the usual debates pitting a global north against a global south, a more useful view of the non-Western world would focus on how key middle powers are changing global balance of power. These swing states should be the focus of U.S. strategy, Cliff Kupchan argues in a widely read essay.

2. The Battle for Eurasia

By Hal Brands, June 4

Hal Brands has written a series of magisterial essays on geopolitics and strategy for Foreign Policy, with more to come in 2024. In this article, he takes the long view and describes the global realignments that define the post-post-Cold War age.

Foreign Policy illustration/Getty Images

3. No, the World Is Not Multipolar

By Jo Inge Bekkevold, Sept. 22

Debunking conventional wisdom, Jo Inge Bekkevold argues that the world is still very far from having true centers of power other than the United States and China—and that misunderstanding the nature of the global system will lead to faulty and dangerous strategies.

4. Is There Such Thing as a Global South?

By C. Raja Mohan, Dec. 9

Raja Mohan takes an analytical scalpel to the notion of a global south. He argues that no such category exists, not least because of widely divergent interests and ideologies among the 120-some countries usually put into this bucket. Pretending otherwise denies agency to those individual countries and muddies debates, Mohan writes, but he isn’t holding his breath for the idea to go away.

5. Lessons for the Next War

By FP contributors, Jan. 5

For the cover story of our Winter 2023 print issue, Foreign Policy asked 12 experts to distill the most important lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine that might help prevent, deter, or—if necessary—fight the next war. As confrontation heats up in East Asia and elsewhere over the coming years, these lessons could make the difference between war and peace.

Q&A

FP Live Looks Back at 2023

Ravi Agrawal   6:00AM, 27 Dec, 2023

Every December, FP Live dedicates one episode to looking back at the year that was. 2023 has been a particularly turbulent year in global politics. If the ongoing war in Ukraine wasn’t enough, Hamas shattered any illusions of stability in the Middle East with its attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Add to that climate-related disasters, debt crises, and high inflation, and you have a hectic 12 months of events to chew on.

I sat down with one of FP’s most popular columnists, Stephen Walt, for his take on the year’s biggest developments. Walt is a professor at Harvard University and one of the world’s leading scholars of realism. Subscribers can watch the full interview in the video box atop this page. What follows is a condensed and lightly edited transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: Stephen, welcome back. Here’s to two grumpy men trying to make sense of 2023.

Stephen Walt: I’m trying not to be too grumpy, but it’s difficult.

RA: We’ll try.

This time last year, when we looked ahead at 2023, I got you to make some predictions. I imagined that one year later, we’d look back and find you had gotten everything wrong. But you didn’t. For example, when I asked you about a risk the world was underweighting, you replied with this: “I worry that in supporting Ukraine and in hoping for the best outcome, we are understating the possibility that a year from now, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is still in power, the Russian military is actually doing well, the Ukrainian forces are at the end of their strength, and this suddenly looks like a much different conflict.”

Is that what happened in 2023?

SW: To a first approximation, that’s exactly what happened. I’m sorry to say that, because it’s not a prediction I wanted to see occur, but it is, in fact, what happened. 2023 has gone badly for Ukraine by any indicators. They lost the battle for Bakhmut at some considerable cost to them. (There was also some cost for the Russians, but they have much deeper reserves than the Ukrainians do.) The vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to achieve its tactical or strategic objectives. And then there’s the prospect of diminishing external support for Ukraine.

Things are not looking good for Ukraine at all. We’re seeing signs of dissent within the Ukrainian government that have been largely muted for the past couple of years. Even [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky has now called for the Ukrainians to focus more on defensive preparations rather than renewed offensives, which is an indication that they understand they’re increasingly beleaguered.

RA: What mistakes have they made that have led us to this point?

SW: There were several mistakes. Opinion has shifted back and forth rather dramatically. People initially thought Russia was going to win easily, then succumbed to overoptimism when things didn’t go Russia’s way at first. In fact, when the Ukrainians were doing well, a number of people, including the [then-]chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said that was the time to start getting serious about a negotiation.

Looking back, you could argue that the United States should have taken the possibility of a negotiated settlement more seriously early on. We now know that there were negotiations in March 2022 that were making some progress that might have ended the war very quickly. That opportunity was squandered.

Then when the Ukrainians did well in the fall of 2022, that might have been another opportunity to press for some kind of cease-fire or agreement.

Finally, the third error was to believe that the Ukrainian offensive was going to succeed and make dramatic gains, possibly even a breakthrough against some very well-entrenched Russian defenses. If you looked at what the Ukrainians actually had, the amount of time and training they’d been able to receive and the formidable nature of the Russian defenses, it was never very likely that they were going to succeed. That unfortunately squandered a lot of Ukrainian military strength and has left them in a position now where they have to fight on the defensive and hope for the best.

RA: One year ago, when I asked you about the Middle East, you said that the United States and Israel would have a “difficult relationship,” and they have. What no one predicted was that Hamas would blow things up the way that it did. How much did that surprise you?

SW: It surprised me completely. A number of people had pointed out that the Abraham Accords and the renewed push for some kind of normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia was leaving one critical factor, the Palestinian issue, out of the equation. People were pretending it had gone away and was no longer going to cause trouble. Of course, we were all wrong. Perhaps the person most famously wrong was National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who unfortunately published an article in Foreign Affairs, roughly a week before Oct. 7, saying the Middle East had never been quite as peaceful.

RA: This was in the print edition, which was later updated online after Oct. 7.

SW: Yes, that’s exactly right. But that was just an indication that nobody really saw this coming. There’s been lots of finger pointing in Israel about the intelligence failures and other political failures that led to the tragedy that befell them on Oct. 7. We’re now seeing the profound ripple effects of this war on conflicts elsewhere, on America’s global image, and on the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

The only point I’d correct is that I said there would be frictions between the United States and Israel. There have been some, but since the conflict broke out, the Biden administration has basically been 100 percent behind Israel. They have made some rather cosmetic gestures to try to get some moderation, but without much effect. There may be anger within the administration that the Israelis aren’t listening, but you’re not seeing much daylight in public between the White House and the Netanyahu government.

RA: If you had to grade the Biden administration’s response to events in the Middle East after Oct. 7, how would you assess its performance? Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University professor, gave the Biden administration an F-minus. Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon wrote in Foreign Policy that [President Joe] Biden faced a really tough situation and, all things considered, he did about as well as you could expect. Where do you stand on this?

SW: The American posture of a full embrace of Israel—increased military aid while they’re prosecuting a war where civilians are suffering enormously in full view of the rest of the world—has been enormously damaging to the American image in the world. As a number of people have pointed out, the contrast between our response in Ukraine and our response in Gaza is not lost on others.

The other difficulty here is that this war is now being prosecuted to no good purpose. There’s little chance that Israel is going to wipe out Hamas or, if it does manage to deal with Hamas, there will be another resistance movement that will emerge. You’re not going to be able to expunge the Palestinian desire for their own state by bombing civilians. Bombing civilians tends to promote greater resistance. It doesn’t lead people to decide that they want to simply accept their fate.

We’re seeing enormous humanitarian suffering, but to no good strategic purpose. When this is finally over, we’re still going to be left with the larger political problem of how the 7.5 million Palestinians and the 7.5 million Jewish Israelis are going to share—or coexist within—the same territory. To do that, as everyone has known for 30 or 40 years, you need a two-state solution. In order to get a two-state solution, you would need a sea change in U.S. policy, where the United States puts a lot of pressure on both sides to get a deal that involves a rebuilt Palestinian Authority, something the Netanyahu government opposes. But that sea change in American policy is not going to happen for all of the reasons that Rashid Khalidi, Aaron David Miller, and Steve Simon all know, and it has mostly to do with American domestic politics. There is a solution here, but it’s not a solution we are likely to see, certainly not anytime soon.

RA: With the two wars that we’ve been discussing, are we seeing strains on the global order as we know it? You mentioned that it is not lost on the rest of the world how the United States and the West have responded to Ukraine and Gaza in very different ways. I’m guessing you’re referring there to what is known as the so-called global south, which has really emerged as a group with more clout in terms of how they organize themselves and how they collectively seem to be asking for certain things at global convenings.

SW: The principal strain—and you see it with both Ukraine and Gaza—is a deeper awareness of hypocrisy. The rules-based order that the United States has touted is now perceived as being full of holes.

The first time I really observed this was at the Munich Security Conference last year where the gulf between how Westerners and people from the global south were talking about the war in Ukraine was quite striking. It’s not that people from the global south were defending Russia’s invasion or were sympathetic to the Russian position. They just didn’t see that conflict as the be-all and end-all where the future of freedom was at stake. Their view was that there were lots of equally important conflicts elsewhere that the West was paying relatively little attention to. Selective attention troubled them.

A few weeks ago, it was reported that there are 7 million displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, most of them displaced by violence. This is barely noticed in American newspapers, devoting page after page of coverage to Ukraine or to Gaza. A tragic civil war is taking place in Sudan and, again, getting relatively little attention from the outside world.

So, there’s this sense of selective attention. And then there’s a perception of hypocrisy. We talk about democracy, we talk about human rights, but if you look at U.S. practices it doesn’t live up to those standards. Both of those have contributed to a growing sense that the Western notion of world order that we’ve been trying to defend—and that the Biden administration has been particularly vocal about claiming that it stands for—is looking pretty tattered right now.

RA: Around the time of the U.N. General Assembly, Gordon Brown, a former British prime minister, published a piece in FP arguing that multilateralism as we know it is broken. And he made the case that we need to fix it because if you have a global crisis like another pandemic or an asteroid hitting the earth, you need a place like the United Nations that could deal with it in a way that’s equitable to all countries. You need the World Bank. You need the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. If these things didn’t exist, we’d reinvent them. But to do all of this, the United States needs to rejuvenate multilateralism. In other words, that over the last year it’s really prioritized regional arrangements, bilateral arrangements, smaller groups like the G-7, which American policymakers rely on a fair bit these days. But it’s not prioritizing the United Nations. In 2023, it became clearer that the United Nations seems utterly broken and divided, and in some senses, the need for it is greater than it’s ever been.

SW: That is unfortunately a tragic paradox. I like the way you put it: never needed as much, but also never as ineffectual. Some of that reflects the broader geopolitical trends. The division between the United States and China makes that problem worse. The tacit alliance between China and Moscow and their united opposition to what they see as a U.S.-led unipolar order as well. That reflects the legacy status of some U.N. institutions, most notably the Security Council, whose permanent members reflect a balance of power that is 75 years out of date, where almost everyone understands it needs to change, and no one can agree on how to change it. You have an institution that is no longer fit for purpose but can’t easily be modified. It’s hard to sketch out a process by which you would start rebuilding or reshaping some of those institutions to make them more relevant.

Given that, it’s not surprising that China starts to try to develop parallel institutions to the ones that exist and that the United States falls back on the institutions where it has great influence. We suddenly want to rely very heavily on NATO, where we feel like we have lots of influence. We want to rely on the G-7, having thrown Russia out. Temporarily, we’ll rely on like-minded countries. We like to rely on bilateral ties with other countries because in almost all circumstances, those are countries that are not as strong as we are. All of these things contribute to the fragmenting of the existing global order, and I don’t see anything that’s likely to reverse that process, even though I agree with the former prime minister that a return to somewhat greater multilateralism would be useful.

One of the big events in 2023 that we didn’t talk about at all a year ago was artificial intelligence. Suddenly this technological achievement, which had been in the works for a while but hadn’t been fully appreciated, burst forth, and people became immediately aware of the potentially revolutionary implications in a variety of industries for society more generally, certainly on the battlefield and in a variety of ways. When you start thinking about how human beings are going to try to manage this technology, which has to be done on a global scale, you can’t just manage it in one country because this is a technology that others are going to be developing in a variety of ways. I am pessimistic because humanity’s track record at limiting or channeling technological development, particularly when it’s decentralized and when it’s happening very rapidly, is not particularly good. The global community, if such a thing still exists, really needs to tackle this task. And yet it’s hard to imagine what institutions would be appropriate for tackling it or how they could get a leash on this potential monster before it’s already out and having a big impact. We didn’t see it coming, but we’re going to be talking about it for a long time.

RA: Indeed. As you mentioned, the tension between trying to compete but also regulate at the same time is playing out in real time around the world. FP’s summer print issue focused on artificial intelligence.

I’m going to take us to discuss China in a minute. But what else strikes you as a story or a trend that has stayed with you in the last year?

SW: 2023 was the warmest year on record. COP28 was surrounded by a bit more controversy than normal. It’s always been a politically contentious forum, but this year seems to be heightened a bit more, partly by some of the statements made by the head of COP28, Sultan [Ahmed] al-Jaber. He appeared to question some of the science behind climate change. The fact that it was held in Dubai was seen by some as at least indicative that it was not likely to make much progress in weaning the planet off of fossil fuels.

We have this interesting juxtaposition of greater evidence of the importance of climate change and the damaging effects it’s had here in the United States. It’s increasingly clear that climate change is going to have very far-reaching and destructive effects on human society. Yet the one global institution we have for trying to address this doesn’t appear to be working particularly well. That, to me, is a very big story for 2023 and one that, again, we’ll be talking about for a long time to come.

RA: Indeed. You mentioned Sudan. You mentioned the DRC. What do you think is the most under-covered story in 2023? Come on, I will take the criticism.

SW: I’ll say two, and they’re kind of connected. One is, in 2023, we saw additional evidence that the question of migration and refugees is just central to a lot of what’s happening in politics here in the United States. We refer to it as the border crisis. Suddenly, American aid to Ukraine is being held up in part because the Republican Party wants a particular set of deals on the so-called border crisis here. There is a geopolitical issue, American support for Ukraine, that is being linked to a migration issue. We also see it all over the world.

The emergence and the continued presence of populist parties in different places is in part a reaction to the migration crisis. Geert Wilders’s political success in the Netherlands in part reflects this concern that foreigners are somehow getting into Europe and that’s going to have terrible cultural effects. It seems to me that that always lands on page 10 or 11 of the newspaper and not page one, unless there’s a particular issue happening in the U.S. Congress.

RA: You were going to mention one more. What was the other one?

SW: I was going to say there’s this interesting story, a good-news, bad-news story on what I might call populist nationalism. On the one hand, you could point to the Polish elections and say here was a case where a country moved away from a very rigid nationalist populism in the direction of more of a multilateral, rules-based, and EU-oriented position. That was good news. The elections in the Netherlands you might see as bad news; the election in Argentina, depending a little bit on how the new government behaves, might be seen as a sign of things going in the wrong direction. We still have the U.S. election to come next year. Again, my conclusion is populist nationalism of the sort we’ve seen for a decade or more is not going away. It may not be taking over, but it’s a fact of life in our politics, and not just here in the United States, but in many other democracies as well.

RA: We’ve managed to have a pretty lengthy discussion without talking about China at any great length. Looking back at 2023, what surprised you about the way China’s economy has performed, and the way its politics have delivered?

SW: I’m not sure it’s been surprising to me. Many people have predicted for a long time now that the Chinese economy was going to slow. 2023 was the year a lot of these things came together. Some of it was self-inflicted, such as [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s decision to emphasize political control over economic growth and the market. Some of it is demographic: As people have predicted for a long time, an older population and a declining workforce was going to have a drag effect on the Chinese economy. There’s been some internal disarray, too—the foreign minister being removed without a good explanation being provided.

The dramatic slowdown of the Chinese economy, and the fact that it didn’t have a big post-COVID rebound, surprised many people. That has led to two further developments: one, something of a Chinese charm offensive toward the outside world, attempting to convince global businessmen to keep investing in and trading with China, as well as an attempt to mend some of the relations that may have been strained with Australia and with some European countries as well. We finally saw this culminate in a tactical adjustment between the United States and China when Xi and Biden met in San Francisco. I don’t think there was any rapprochement or even détente there. Both sides were clearly staking out positions and recognizing they’re going to remain rivals. But there was something of an attempt to lower the temperature a little bit. That also reflects the Chinese sense that, for the moment, they’re maybe not quite as triumphant as they may have felt a decade ago and that it was time for them to cool their jets—without abandoning some of their larger strategic ambitions.

5 Top Reads

Alliances Are Back at the Center of Power

Stefan Theil   6:00AM, 27 Dec, 2023

When future students of international relations look at our era’s power shifts, they will note the reemergence of great-power conflict, the return of large-scale war to Europe, and the rise of new powers in the developing world.

But they will also notice the many shifts as countries rearrange their relations with each other in an increasingly unstable world. After two decades of relative peace and economic globalization, there is a renewed focus on security and the age-old instruments of diplomacy that states use to achieve it: alliances and other arrangements with like-minded powers.

Old alliances are being revitalized and expanded—just look at NATO. New axes are emerging, such as Russia and China’s ever closer embrace. And in an act of rebalancing worthy of an international relations textbook, various bilateral and multilateral security pacts are solidifying in the Indo-Pacific to address Beijing’s growing military might. These include the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, as well as the two-year-old Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact, known as AUKUS.

The increasing role of alliances and other power blocs in the global system is also a testament to the failure of big multilateral institutions to live up to expectations. Superpower competition and other disputes within its bodies have made the United Nations increasingly ineffective, while other, more inclusive organizations, such as the G-77, have struggled to find a common denominator among competing interests and disparate ideologies. Instead, as Foreign Policy noted on the cover of the Fall 2023 issue of our magazine, “powerful blocs are getting things done.”

Here are five of our most noteworthy articles on alliances and power blocs from 2023.

1. NATO’s Next Decade

By FP Contributors, July 6

Which Russia scenarios should NATO prepare for? Should Ukraine become a member? Can the bloc survive the possible return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency after the  2024 election? Foreign Policy asked nine experts to outline the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

2. The China-Russia Axis Takes Shape

By Bonny Lin, Sept. 11

Russia’s war in Ukraine has tightened Beijing and Moscow’s embrace, but there are many other reasons why this still-informal alliance is taking shape. Continued convergence of the two revisionist powers against the U.S.-led West is the most likely course, Bonny Lin writes.

BRICS leaders and representatives, including delegates from the six nations invited to join the alliance, pose for a family photo at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on Aug. 24. Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images

3. BRICS Expansion Is No Triumph for China

By C. Raja Mohan, Aug. 29

In August, the BRICS forum—initially comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—invited six new members to their club, igniting a frenzy of speculation that the group would turn into a powerful anti-Western bloc. C. Raja Mohan explains why this view is outlandish, as is the notion that China and Russia have used BRICS to make significant gains among the countries of the global south.

4. Never Say Never to an Asian NATO

By Michael J. Green, Sept. 6

There are good reasons why past attempts to form NATO-like security alliances in Asia failed. With China’s rise as a revisionist military power, however, the logic of greater collective security in the region is becoming increasingly compelling, Michael J. Green writes.

5. The Nimble New Minilaterals

By C. Raja Mohan, Sept. 11

As an alternative to constricting alliances and ineffective multilateralism, small groups of countries are increasingly cooperating on specific issues and shared interests—often voluntarily, and rarely as a formal bloc. Minilateral groups such as the Quad and AUKUS could be the future of diplomacy, especially in Asia and the Pacific.

Roundup

The Most Notable Obituaries in 2023

Jennifer Williams   6:00AM, 27 Dec, 2023

2023 saw the deaths of several influential figures in world politics, from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. As always, Foreign Policy was there to provide in-depth, thoughtful analysis and commentary about their lives and legacies.

Here are four notable FP obituaries from 2023.

1. Pervez Musharraf Dragged His Country Down

By Mosharraf Zaidi, Feb. 5

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former president who took power after a military coup in October 1999 and led the country until 2008, was a charismatic and deeply polarizing figure.

“As president, his straight-talking, unvarnished style was welcomed by Pakistanis unaccustomed to that kind of candor from a public official. For Pakistan’s rising urban middle class, he became a patron of music, television, film, and fashion,” Mosharraf Zaidi writes. “But for the rest of the country—the vast majority—Musharraf’s rule was a time of violence, diminished control over their own lives, and the absence of democratic representation.”

“Musharraf’s military colleagues in Pakistan often praised him as daring, forthright, and brave—yet the primary legacy he leaves behind will feature none of those adjectives. Pakistan’s 10th president since independence will be remembered instead as a divisive, constitution-shredding military dictator who set Pakistan back decades.”

2. The Scandalous Life and Career of Silvio Berlusconi

By Barbie Latza Nadeau, June 12

The arc of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s life and career—from cruise ship singer to real estate and media mogul to Italy’s longest-reigning post-World War II leader—reads more like something dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter than the story of a real person.

Berlusconi served as prime minister three times: from May 1994 to January 1995, from June 2001 to May 2006, and from May 2008 to November 2011. And, as journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau writes, “His tenure was peppered by tax fraud accusations, sex scandals, whispers of mafia involvement, and gaffes. He was convicted of bribery, tax evasion, and having sex with an underage call girl—convictions that mostly were overturned during Italy’s generous appellate process. At least twice, his eventual acquittals were the result of his own government changing the laws.”

Berlusconi’s larger-than-life persona and flamboyant lifestyle might make for good entertainment, but his impact on Italian politics, media, and culture is no laughing matter. “For many, it might be tempting to think of him as a pathetic joke,” Nadeau writes, “but he was far too wealthy and powerful for that.”

3. Li Keqiang Lived and Died in Xi Jinping’s Shadow

By James Palmer, Oct. 27

“From 2012 to 2022, [former Chinese Premier] Li [Keqiang] was nominally the second-most powerful man in China,” writes FP’s James Palmer. “In practice, though, he was entirely eclipsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Li’s legacy will be judged largely in the shadow of Xi’s.”

Palmer traces Li’s promising rise as a “bright young technocrat” and pragmatic economic reformist who at one point in the 2000s was seen as a potential successor to former Chinese President Hu Jintao, followed by Li’s systematic sidelining as Xi’s cult of personality and political power grew.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980. Steche/ullstein bild via Getty Images

4. Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

By Michael Hirsh, Nov. 29

“Henry Alfred Kissinger, one of the most influential statesmen in American history, died on Nov. 29 at age 100 after a long and tumultuous career in which he helped author some of the greatest triumphs—as well as some of the most tragic failures—of U.S. foreign policy.” Thus begins FP columnist Michael Hirsh’s balanced obituary chronicling the life and career of a man whose impact on global politics as well as international relations scholarship will continue to be felt—and hotly debated—long after his death.

“In the view of some biographers, Kissinger ranks in stature with George Kennan, the principal author of America’s successful Cold War containment strategy, as well as with other hallowed architects of the post-World War II global system,” Hirsh writes. “Yet Kissinger also came to be reviled, especially by liberals, for practicing what they regard as a cold-blooded projection of American power that contributed to countless deaths.”

26 Dec, 2023

- Ukraine Strikes Russian Warship

- 5 Predictions for China in 2024

- A Future Look Back at Israel’s War on Hamas

- Right-Wing Populism Is Set to Sweep the West in 2024

- The United Nations Completely Failed in Lebanon

- Industrial Policy’s First Cracks Are Starting to Show

- The Best Conversations of the Year

- What 2023 Taught Us in the Russia-Ukraine War

- Our Best Long Reads From 2023

World Brief

Ukraine Strikes Russian Warship

emilytamkin   7:00PM, 26 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Russia’s admission that a warship was hit by Ukraine, nearly 2 million people crowding into the south of Gaza while Israel vows months more of war, and a controversy over stained glass windows in France.

Russian Warship Damaged in Black Sea

Russia said Tuesday that one of its warships was damaged by a Ukrainian attack on a Black Sea port in Crimea. The Ukrainian Air Force said previously that it had destroyed the ship, the 360-foot-long Novocherkassk; Ukrainian Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk shared footage of what appeared to be an explosion at the port.

One person was killed in the attack and several others injured, the Russian-backed head of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov told the BBC. Several buildings were damaged, but port transport operations are apparently functioning normally. According to the BBC, there is speculation that the ship was used to carry Iranian-made Shahed drones, used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Oleshchuk wrote on Telegram that the Novocherkassk “went the way” of the Moskva, another Russian Black Sea ship that sank last year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “grateful” to the Ukrainian air force “for the impressive replenishment of the Russian submarine Black Sea fleet with another vessel,” and he pledged that the “occupiers will not have a single peaceful place in Ukraine.”

Ukraine said last month that it had destroyed 15 Russian navy ships and damaged 12 more in the Black Sea since the war began in February 2022. However, Russia has been able to hold much of the territory it occupied this year, and Ukraine’s Western partners have described Kyiv’s attempted counteroffensive as “sobering.”

The U.S. Congress recessed for the holidays without approving billions of dollars more in lethal and economic aid for Ukraine, even though previous assistance had almost run out. Many Republican lawmakers, particularly allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump, are openly questioning why they should continue to support Kyiv. The European Union did not provide another aid package for Ukraine, either; Hungary vetoed a 50 billion euro package this month.

And despite the destruction of the Novocherkassk, the week did not bring only good tidings for Ukraine: After battling for months to defend the eastern city of Marinka, Ukrainian officials conceded they had stepped back to the city’s outskirts. “The situation is exactly the same as it was in Bakhmut,” Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny said. “Street by street, block by block, and our soldiers were being targeted. And the result is what it is.”

What We’re Following

2 million people squeeze into southern Gaza. Almost 2 million people are crowded into the south of Gaza as of Tuesday: 1.7 million are registered to shelters, and a few hundred thousand are sleeping out in the open, on roads, or otherwise exposed. The Israeli military ordered still more people to evacuate south last Friday, this time from central Gaza, where at least 60,000 people were already displaced.

Israel’s army chief, Herzi Halevi, vowed that the Israel-Hamas war would continue for “many more months,” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the conflict on Monday as “not close to being over.” Netanyahu also said he did not believe the remaining hostages held by Hamas would be freed from Gaza without military pressure. Israeli forces accidentally killed three Israeli hostages earlier this month.

The war has already killed an estimated 20,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry. A United Nations official told the BBC that there is no reprieve in Gaza from Israeli air strikes, and that people who are severely injured cannot receive treatment as the hospitals are “overloaded.”

Throwing tradition out the window? A plan endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron to replace the stained glass windows of Notre-Dame with more contemporary art has been decried as “vandalism.” More than 120,000 people have signed a petition calling for the retention of the original windows; the building is being restored after devastation in an April 2019 fire.

The window innovation detractors say new designs would ruin the cathedral’s architectural harmony. “The stained glass windows in Notre Dame designed by Viollet-le-Duc were created as a coherent whole,” reads the petition, created by Didier Rykner, founder and editor of La Tribune de l’Art magazine. “It is a genuine creation that the architect wanted to be faithful to the cathedral’s gothic origins.”

The Macron-backed plan was to have six of the seven windows replaced by contemporary stained-glass windows, which would be chosen in a competition. Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich reportedly wrote to the Élysée to encourage the state to commission new windows. The six windows that would be taken out of the building were unharmed by the fire and would be on display in the new Notre Dame Museum.

Attack in Nigeria. At least 160 people were killed and 300 people wounded in attacks on villages in central Nigeria, local officials said Monday. The army initially reported just 16 people dead. Monday Kassah, head of the local government in Bokkos, Plateau State, told the AFP that armed groups locally known as bandits launched attacks on at least 20 communities.

Plateau State Gov. Caleb Mutfwang condemned the violence as “barbaric, brutal, and unjustified,” and governor’s office spokesperson Gyang Bere vowed to take proactive measures to protect civilians. However, Amnesty International criticized the government following the attacks, writing on X that “the Nigerian authorities have been failing to end frequent deadly attacks on rural communities of Plateau State.”

Odds and Ends

Oh, rats! According to the Royal Automobile Club, breakdowns by animals entering vehicles have reached record levels in the United Kingdom, with the club being summoned for 303 animal damage incidents in the first 11 months of 2023, more than during the same period for any other year on record.

In more than half the cases the culprits were rats, which proved adept at causing damage by chewing fuel hoses and breaking headlights, although foxes and squirrels were also to blame on occasion.

China Brief

5 Predictions for China in 2024

James Palmer   4:00PM, 26 Dec, 2023

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief, and happy holidays.

The 2020s so far feel like China’s lost decade: The economy is slowing down, young people are disillusioned and jobless, and their parents are watching the value of their property crumble. An insecure but still dominant President Xi Jinping sits at the top of everything. It’s been a difficult year for Beijing, and the next one isn’t looking much happier. Below, we rounded up five predictions for China in 2024.

1. A Taiwan Mini-Crisis

People cheer while waiting for the Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te during a campaign rally in Pingtung, Taiwan, on Dec. 21.Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

Taiwan holds a presidential election on Jan. 13, and the year could start with a small crisis in the straits. Current Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te, who serves under President Tsai Ing-wen and is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), holds a narrow lead in the polls. His election would ire Beijing; he is an advocate for a more independent Taiwan and strongly opposed to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Although Lai has said he won’t call for formal Taiwanese independence or drop the Republic of China name—a red line for Beijing—he has also said that Taiwan’s sovereignty is “a fact” and reminded his fellow candidates that by Beijing’s standards, they are all pro-independence.

A Lai victory would likely prompt aggressive moves from Beijing, including naval maneuvers and airspace intrusions. Reports last week about comments made by Xi  to U.S. President Joe Biden about reunification with Taiwan when they met in November stirred some panic in Washington, but an invasion remains highly unlikely. It would be risky and difficult, especially when China is struggling with other crises.

Even a victory for Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) on Jan. 13 may cause some problems. The KMT is more pro-China than the DPP, but it would hardly hand the keys to the island over to Beijing. Chinese officials might overestimate the significance of a KMT election win, seeing it as a sign of China’s influence in Taiwan. Although 17 percent of Taiwanese voters said in a recent survey that China is their main concern, more than twice that number picked the economy.

2. Growing Property Woes

Housing prices in China have teetered on the brink for years, and 2024 could be the year they finally go over the edge. The crisis among property developers this year was bad enough, reaching firms once considered to be relatively safe, such as Country Garden. There are many more failed real estate projects out there, but the thing that the Chinese government really fears is a dip in housing prices; after all, 70 percent of Chinese household assets are invested in property.

The government has fiddled with data and threatened commentators in what seems to be an effort to stop people from talking about how bad the Chinese economy is really doing. There is now a big discrepancy between official housing price indexes and what real estate will actually fetch on the market; prices are sliding by at least 15 percent in many cities and by as much as 30 percent in Beijing.

As these trends spread, even the official numbers may have to better acknowledge reality, which would cause a much wider crisis of confidence.

3. Political Leadership Shake-ups

A couple of high-level Chinese leaders fell in 2023, namely Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Defense Minister Li Shangfu. The full story of both dismissals remains opaque, but the politics of the CCP’s top leadership feels volatile going into the new year—despite Xi packing the top posts with loyalists last year.

That is hardly surprising: Xi is competent at party politics, but his rule has been bad for China, especially in the past three years. Mandatory adoration can’t stop him from feeling insecure—or from recognizing that many people blame him for the state of the country. That insecurity also affects the rest of the leadership, whose lives, wealth, and freedom depend on Xi’s whims. All this tension is likely to produce dramatic politics next year.

For all the talk of factions and allies, CCP politics in some ways resembles the dynamics of organized crime; when the knives come out, friendships don’t matter. If there ever is a significant move against Xi, it may come from the people he’s promoted and sponsored.

4. Youth Disillusionment

A woman rests on a table at a job fair in Beijing on June 9.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Last week, Associated Press reporter Dake Kang shared a pair of Weibo messages to his account that captured the public mood change in China in the last three years. In June 2020, a stranger messaged him, “Get the fuck out of China.”  This month, the same account wrote simply, “I’m sorry.”

Many young people in China have taken the same path in the past few years. Nationalistic education primed them for the feelings of pride and triumph that came with an apparent victory over COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, when China returned to relative normality while the rest of the world took shelter. That feeling merged with greater hostility toward the West, especially the United States, with pandemic conspiracy theories taking hold that blamed the United States.

But frustration with China’s zero-COVID policy in 2021 and 2022, mixed with the economic crisis, have left the public, and especially the young, feeling very differently. One sign of this shift is that Chinese public opinion of the United States has risen sharply—a coded way of expressing discontent with Beijing’s course. In 2024, pessimism about the future, already clear at the beginning of the decade, is only likely to get worse.

The deflation of popular nationalism and dire economic prospects for young graduates seem to be contributing to a rise in depression among 18-to-24-year-olds in China. Youth disappointment and anger exploded in December 2022, when China experienced its largest mass protests in years against the zero-COVID policy. That isn’t likely next year, but cynicism and a desire to flee to other countries—among those with the resources to do so—will continue to fuel so-called runology in 2024.

One of the main reasons for the CCP’s swing into crushing dissidents a decade ago was the belief that the party was losing young people. The government’s response to this new bitterness will be to insist on more displays of compulsory patriotism and greater censorship of online spaces. (2023 is ending with another set of gaming restrictions.) There is little ability to offer young Chinese the kind of future they want.

FP’s Most Read This Week

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- The West’s 3 Options to Combat the Houthi Attacks by Bruce Jones

- Ukraine Braces for Political Disaster in 2024 by Oz Katerji

5. No Collapse in U.S.-China Relations, but No Recovery Either

The successful summit between Xi and Biden in San Francisco in November, which both sides seem to have regarded as a victory, provided a temporary cooling-off period for a relationship that was heading downhill for years. Significantly, that has included a resumption of high-level military talks between Beijing and Washington. In Chinese state media, anti-U.S. rhetoric remains relatively muted—although still a constant.

Don’t expect that to last. Structural tensions between the two powers are intense enough that some new crisis will inevitably cause China to revert to so-called wolf warrior mode, especially since it’s such an easy way for Chinese diplomats to advance their own careers. But the posture is not likely to reach the heights of 2020; China has enough other problems to avoid risking too much trouble for a while.

There are always concerns that anti-China rhetoric in Washington will gum up the relationship during an election year. But the truth is that U.S. voters don’t seem to care about China at the ballot box. The real danger may be Chinese attempts at election interference, likely geared toward specific politicians in areas with high numbers of ethnically Chinese voters—but possibly following a pro-Donald Trump line.

Analysis

A Future Look Back at Israel’s War on Hamas

danephron   2:59PM, 26 Dec, 2023

Smoke plumes billow during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Oct. 12.

Let’s conduct a mental exercise. It’s Oct. 7, 2025, two years after Hamas’s devastating terrorist attack that killed around 1,200 people, and Israel’s Gaza Strip policy is in ruins. Hamas emerged from the rubble of the war in 2023 and again controls Gaza, with its prestige in the West Bank and elsewhere greatly enhanced. Israel’s international standing, including in Washington, is in tatters. At home, Israel’s political and social divisions are even more pronounced than before the war, effectively paralyzing the country. Perhaps most troublingly, Iranian proxies are more aggressive than ever before, with regular rocket attacks into northern Israel by Hezbollah and with Houthi fighters in Yemen menacing Israeli shipping.

This kind of exercise is known as a pre-mortem, a technique first proposed by the psychologist Gary Klein to reduce the risk of failure and recommended by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman as a way of countering overconfidence. The idea is simple. Imagine that a plan or policy currently being pursued ends up failing horribly. Now ask what went wrong. The result is a list of potential pitfalls that leaders can study today to craft better policies.

I learned about some of these potential failure points on a recent trip to Israel with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where we interviewed security officials and other senior figures. For Israel in Gaza, the pitfalls could stem from underestimating Hamas itself, unwittingly strengthening the group, weakening domestic cohesion, failing to transition from war to governance in Gaza, and undermining Israel’s relationship with the United States.

Underestimating Hamas’s Resilience

Israel seeks to destroy Hamas, killing its leaders and much of its military rank and file. Of the roughly 25,000-strong Hamas force that existed before Israel invaded Gaza, Israel claims to have killed around 7,000 cadres as of mid-December, including many key operational leaders.

Yet Hamas will prove exceptionally difficult to destroy completely, and it could well regrow in Gaza. Israel can estimate Hamas’s strength by assessing numbers in Hamas formations, monitoring funerals and death announcements, and counting dead combatants. However, as one Israeli expert told me, “I would be very skeptical about [Israeli estimates regarding] the number of Hamas fighters killed.” Troops in combat are not likely to carefully catalog enemy dead and may easily count all males of fighting age as presumed combatants. In addition, some people in Gaza may take up weapons because they are being attacked, thus adding to Hamas’s overall numbers.

Hamas is also deeply embedded in Gaza. It has controlled the strip since 2007: A generation has grown up under its control. It works closely with Gaza’s clans and has a power base in the Gaza refugee community. Well before 2007, it ran schools, hospitals, and mosques, giving it a presence in almost every aspect of society. This stands in sharp contrast with groups like the Islamic State, which was a relative newcomer to the areas it conquered and whose fighters were often foreigners with few connections to the local population.

With these deep roots, Hamas can easily regrow, even if the vast majority of its fighting apparatus is destroyed. To prevent this, a different polity must take Hamas’s place and ensure that the group does not reappear once Israeli pressure eases.

Strengthening the Resistance Narrative

Hamas is more than an organization: It also embodies what it calls “resistance,” using violence to end the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and eventually to destroy Israel—a credo embraced by many Palestinians as well as Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran, and other regional actors.

The Oct. 7 attack electrified many Palestinians and much of the Muslim world, with approval of the attack soaring to above 80 percent in the West Bank. (Perhaps not surprisingly, those in Gaza, whose family members are dead and whose homes are destroyed, are less enthusiastic.) Israel’s aggressive response and the high levels of civilian casualties have further vindicated Hamas’s methods among many in the region. In Gaza, this means Hamas or any other resistance group has fertile soil in which to grow—an important long-term factor, as almost half of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are under 18. Outside Gaza, this narrative generates support for Iran and other enemies of Israel, and it makes it harder for friendly states in the Arab world such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to openly work closely with Israel, despite their hostility to Hamas.

A Crisis of Faith

The Oct. 7 attack forced many Israelis out of their homes in the south near the Gaza border. The near-constant rocket and mortar fire in northern Israel from Hezbollah has displaced tens of thousands more. A total of 250,000 Israelis are now living away from home, either in hotels paid for by the government or with family. Giving these people the confidence to return to their homes is an Israeli priority.

But restoring confidence will prove difficult, both militarily and psychologically. Israel must be able to defeat or deter both Hamas and Hezbollah. But “defeat” and “deter” are elusive concepts, and Israel must convince its own people that they are safe. That is difficult given the fiasco of Oct. 7, when Israeli intelligence failed to detect and warn of the attack and Israeli troops failed to defend communities near Gaza.

In the south near Gaza, restoring confidence will require a comprehensive and visible defeat of Hamas; in the north, it would necessitate Hezbollah moving more of its elite Radwan units farther from Israel’s borders to ensure there would be no surprise attack. Israel also might need to station large numbers of forces on every front and provide each populated area with greater self-defense capabilities. Such measures are expensive and are particularly hard for Israel because its military force depends on reservists, making it difficult to sustain a large army in a long war.

Making all this worse, there is a crisis of faith in the political system. Before Oct. 7, Israel was a highly divided society, with sharp splits between religious and secular communities, Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, and Jews from European countries versus Jews from Arab countries. The Netanyahu government further polarized the country by bringing far-right figures into the government and by undermining judicial independence. Already, some right-wing people are claiming Hamas attacked because it saw Israel as weak due to anti-government protests. Israelis might support higher taxes to fund the military, an extension of service for reservists, and other painful measures—but not if these proposals are seen as part of the partisan jockeying.

The Hezbollah Dimension

A potential disaster for Israel could occur if a full-scale war breaks out with Hezbollah. The Lebanese group has far more fighters who are more skilled and more experienced—and a rocket and mortar arsenal that dwarfs that of Hamas and includes precision-guided munitions. So far, Hezbollah has launched limited attacks on Israel to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas. Israel has responded by increasing its military presence along the border and conducting small-scale attacks designed to push Hezbollah away from its border and, through a limited use of force, demonstrate Israeli resolve. These exchanges of fire could easily spin out of control, and Israel might even decide that it needs to attack Hezbollah in order to end the threat it poses. Indeed, it might have initiated such a war were it not for U.S. pressure.

The Transition Failure

At some point, Israel will end high-intensity military operations in Gaza, either because it has largely destroyed Hamas or because the cost in lives and shekels—and its own international standing—proved too high. At that point, to avoid becoming an occupying power over a hostile population, prevent chaos on its Gaza border, and stop Hamas from regrouping, Israel will need to hand off at least some governance in Gaza to a Palestinian entity. This might be the Palestinian Authority (PA), which rules in the West Bank with Israeli support, or perhaps a group of unaffiliated technocrats.

Here Israel’s options are poor. The PA is corrupt and deeply unpopular, Israel’s West Bank policies have undermined the PA’s credibility, and the Hamas attack and Israel’s response have further eroded its popularity. The PA cannot manage security in the West Bank without substantial Israeli help, and Gaza would be a far bigger challenge. Yet there are no better options.

A Failure to Manage the U.S. Relationship

International criticism of Israel’s campaign is mounting. Israel depends on the United States for munitions (particularly necessary for a campaign against Hezbollah). The United States also offers much-needed financial support and is vital for deterring Iran and stopping groups like the Houthis in Yemen, which have tried to attack Israel. So far, U.S. President Joe Biden has generated tremendous goodwill in Israel with his heartfelt and strong support after the Oct. 7 attack.

Yet the relationship could easily go awry. Biden is trying to manage a fractious Democratic Party, much of which opposes his strong support for Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is already playing politics with his critical relationship with Washington. The United States has pressed Israel to reduce civilian casualties in its military operations and avoid an escalation with Hezbollah, while many Israelis believe that they need to destroy Hamas completely, even if many Palestinian civilians die in the process. These political and strategic gaps could split the United States and Israel, leaving the latter more isolated internationally and without the military support it needs.

What Can Be Done Now?

Some of these challenges cannot be overcome without creating additional problems and stresses. Israelis I talked to recognize that killing Palestinian civilians increases support for Hamas’s narrative and undermines Israel’s international standing. But they feel that, to destroy Hamas, they have no other option but to pursue an aggressive military campaign that inevitably leads to many civilian deaths. Similarly, to avoid a war with Hezbollah, the United States urges restraint, but an approach that keeps the status quo ante will not persuade Israelis to return to their homes in the north.

This list of potential problems, however, also suggests that Israel will need to scale back its objectives. It may need to settle for regular raids on and deterrence with Hamas and a chaotic situation in Gaza, even as it builds up its defenses in order to reassure its people. Israel must also plan for the long term, recognizing that it cannot be perpetually at war and must preserve its relationship with the United States.

Argument

Right-Wing Populism Is Set to Sweep the West in 2024

cameronabadi   11:02AM, 26 Dec, 2023

From Taiwan and Finland in January to Croatia and Ghana in December, one of the largest combined electorates in history will vote for new governments in 2024. This should be a cause of celebration and a vindication of the power of the ballot box. Yet this coming year is likely to see one of the starkest erosions of liberal democracy since the end of the Cold War. At their worst, the overall results could end up as a bloodbath or, marginally less bleakly, as a series of setbacks.

At first glance, the stats are impressive. Forty national elections will take place, representing 41 percent of the world’s population and 42 percent of its gross domestic product. Some will be more consequential than others. Some will be more unpredictable than others. (You can strike Russia and Belarus from that list.) One or two may produce uplifting results.

However, in the United States and Europe, the two regions that are the cradles of democracy—or at least, that used to project themselves as such—the year ahead is set to be bracing.

It is no exaggeration to say that the structures established after World War II, and which have underpinned the Western world for eight decades, will be under threat if former U.S. President Donald Trump wins a second term in November. Whereas his first period in the White House might be regarded as a psychodrama, culminating in the paramilitary assault on Congress shortly after his defeat, this time around, his menace will be far more professional and penetrating.

European diplomats in Washington fear a multiplicity of threats—the imposition of blanket tariffs, also known as a trade war; the sacking of thousands of public officials and their replacement with politicized loyalists; and the withdrawal of remaining support for Ukraine and the undermining of NATO. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the return of Trump would be manna from heaven. Expect some form of provocation from the Kremlin in the Baltic states or another state bordering Russia to test the strength of Article 5, the mutual defense clause of the Western alliance.

More broadly, a Trump victory would arguably mark the final dismantling of the credibility of Western liberal democracies. From India to South Africa and from Brazil to Indonesia, countries variously called middle powers, pivot countries, multi-aligned states—or, now less fashionably, the global south—will continue the trend of picking and choosing their alliances, seeing moral equivalence in the competitive bids on offer.

The greatest effect that a Trump return could have would be on Europe, accelerating the onward march of the alt right or far right across the continent. Yet that trend will have gained momentum long before Americans go to the polls. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are looking over their shoulders as the second wave of populism affects the conduct of government.

The wedge issue that is threatening all moderate parties is immigration, just as it did in 2015, when former German Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed in more than 1 million refugees from the Middle East in what is now seen as the first wave of Europe’s immigration crisis. This time around, the arguments propagated by the AfD (the far-right Alternative for Germany party), Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, and similar groups across the continent have permeated the political mainstream.

The past 12 months have seen European Union decision-making constantly undermined by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary, particularly further support for Ukraine. For the moment, he stands alone, but he is likely to be joined by others, starting with the newly returned Prime Minister Robert Fico in Slovakia. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has struck a tacit deal with Brussels, remaining loyal on supporting Ukraine (against her instincts and previous statements) in return for effectively being given carte blanche in Italy’s domestic politics.

In September, Austria seems almost certain to vote in a coalition of the far right and the conservatives. A country that has (ever since the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1955) prized its neutrality and been keen to ingratiate itself with Moscow has already been uncomfortable giving full-scale support to Kyiv. We can expect that support to soon be scaled back.

One of the few countries with a center-left administration, Portugal, will see it join the pack of the right and far right when snap elections are held in March. The previous incumbent, the Socialist Party’s outgoing Prime Minister Antonio Costa, was forced to quit amid a corruption investigation.

The most explosive moment is likely to occur in June, with the elections to the European Parliament. This reshuffling of the Euro-pack, which happens once every four years, was always seen in the United Kingdom as an opportunity to behave even more frivolously than usual. In 2014, the British electorate, in its inestimable wisdom, put Nigel Farage and his U.K. Independence Party in first place, setting in train a series of events that, two years later, led to the referendum to leave the EU.

Having seen the damage wrought by Brexit, voters in the remaining 27 EU member states are not angling for their countries to go it alone. However, many will use the opportunity to express their antipathy to mainstream politics by opting for a populist alternative. Some might see it as a low-risk option, believing that the European parliament does not count for much.

In so doing, they would be deluding themselves. It is entirely possible that the various forces of the far right could emerge as the single biggest bloc. This might not lead to a change in the composition of the European Commission (the diminished mainstream groupings would still collectively hold a majority), but any such extremist upsurge will change the overall dynamics across Europe.

Far-right parties in charge of governments will see themselves emboldened to pursue ever more radical nativist policies. In countries in where they are junior members of ruling coalitions (such as in Sweden), they will apply further pressure on their more mainstream conservative partners to move in their direction.

Conversely, countries that saw a surprising resurgence of the mainstream in national elections this year are unlikely to see that trend maintained. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s success in staving off the right was achieved only by cutting a deal with Catalan separatists. This led to protests by Spanish nationalists and a situation that is anything but stable.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s victory in Poland was at least as remarkable because the far-right Law and Justice party (PiS) government had used its years in government to try to skew the media and the courts in its direction. Expect PiS gains in June.

The most alarming result of 2023 was the return to prominence, and the verge of power, of Geert Wilders. The Dutch elections provide a how-not-to guide for mainstream politicians. The willingness of the center-right party of the outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte to contemplate a coalition with Wilders’s Party for Freedom emboldened many voters who had assumed their vote would be disregarded.

In Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, the so-called firewall established by the main parties to refuse to govern with the AfD is beginning to fray. Already, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is working with them in small municipalities. Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader, has dropped hints that such an option might not be out of the question at the regional level.

If the AfD gains the largest number of seats in the June European Parliament elections (opinion polls currently put it only marginally behind the CDU and ahead of all three parties in Scholz’s so-called traffic light coalition), then the momentum will change rapidly. It could go on to win three of the states in the former communist east—Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg—next autumn. Germany would enter unchartered territory.

These dire predictions could end up being overblown. Mainstream parties in several countries may defy the doom merchants and emerge less badly than forecast. Given recent trends, however, optimism is thin on the ground.

There is one election, however, due to take place in the latter part of 2024 that could produce not just a centrist outcome, but one with a strong majority in its parliament. Britain, the country that left the heart of Europe, the island that until recently was run by a clown, could emerge as the lodestar for modern social democracy. The irony would be lost on no one.

Analysis

The United Nations Completely Failed in Lebanon

cameronabadi   7:41AM, 26 Dec, 2023

An Indonesian soldier serving with the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) waves the U.N. flag at Israeli soldiers in the village of Adaisseh, Lebanon on August 3, 2010.

Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 may have also changed its relationship with its northern neighbor forever. Some 80,000 Israelis from northern Israel have left their homes since the start of the war against Hamas, fleeing missile attacks by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—and in fear that Hezbollah could carry out a similar attack to the one made by Hamas, only at a much larger scale. That has put pressure on the Israeli government to destroy Hezbollah and its arsenal. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has warned of war, saying Israel would “act with all the means at its disposal” unless the international community compels Hezbollah to withdraw.

The Israeli government also regularly reminds observers that it was never supposed to come to this. U.N. Resolution 1701, which has been in force since 2006, was supposed to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah as well as the demilitarization of the region south of the Litani River, which is located about 20 miles from the demarcation zone between Lebanon and Israel known as the Blue Line.

“If 1701 had not failed, we wouldn’t be in the current situation,” Jonathan Conricus, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, told me as sirens bellowed in Tel Aviv, and I could hear several loud boom sounds, even over the phone. “It’s a long and sad story of failure,” he said of the resolution. “On paper, it would have been able to prevent the third war with Lebanon,” he said, referring to the potential war now feared. “On paper, it would have removed Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.”

In 1978, Israel launched the first of two invasions of Lebanon to push the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) north of the Litani River—and also to limit infiltrations and attacks. In the aftermath of that invasion, the United Nations created an Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to confirm Israeli withdrawal and restore international peace and security. Israelis, however, returned in 1982, and in 2006 another conflict broke out, this time between Israel and Hezbollah.

At the end of that 34-day conflict, the U.N. updated UNIFIL’s mandate under Resolution 1701 and tasked it with establishing “an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL,” between the Blue Line and the Litani River.

But since 2006, Hezbollah has instead fortified southern Lebanon, particularly towns and villages along the 120-kilometer-long (about 75-mile-long) demarcation line. It has built unauthorized firing ranges, stocked rockets in civilian infrastructure, built tunnels into Israel, and repeatedly stopped UNIFIL from accessing certain areas. The fact that southern Lebanon is mostly populated by Shiites—many of whom support Hezbollah—has created a security and intelligence buffer for Hezbollah.

UNFIL blames a limited mandate. It has been sent under the authority of Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter—which allows it to investigate any dispute that may endanger international peace and security—rather than Chapter VII, which empowers the troops to enforce the resolution with military action.

“We have been sent here under UNSC’s [U.N. Security Council’s] Chapter VI, which means we can do only what the Lebanese government asks us to do,” a senior official with the U.N. told Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity, considering the sensitivity of the matter. “UNSC’s Chapter VII is when, basically, the UNSC tells the host country you can’t handle the situation, and so we are sending a force to do it.”

Sources in Israel and within the U.N. told Foreign Policy that UNIFIL could have achieved more had the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) wanted it to. The text of Resolution 1701 states that UNIFIL troops will “assist” the —meaning that UNIFIL functions at the pleasure and request of the Lebanese government, which must grant the troops yearly extensions.

“We have never denied that there are weapons in that area [between the Blue Line and the Litani River], but we would go in and support the Lebanese army if they called us and said they found a cache of weapons and needed our help in removing it,” added the U.N. official. “But they have never asked us.”

The latest report of the U.N. secretary-general on the resolution admits that the LAF has denied UNIFIL access to patrol key areas “on the grounds that they were either private roads or areas of strategic importance to the Lebanese Armed Forces.”

The IDF calls this collusion between Hezbollah and the LAF, and the IDF spokesperson’s office told Foreign Policy that since Oct. 7, several attacks against Israel were launched from near LAF and U.N. posts in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese army’s support to Hezbollah gives Israel what it sees as a justification to attack all of Lebanon, but the LAF itself has assisted Hezbollah not only out of a sense of camaraderie against a supposed foreign threat—Israel, after all, has invaded Lebanon multiple times—but also out of fear of a civil war between Hezbollah supporters among the Shiites and other groups in the tiny nation.

Furthermore, a limited U.N. mandate and dependence on the LAF are not the only reasons that Hezbollah managed to dig its heels in the south despite the presence of thousands of peacekeepers.

“Over the years, Hezbollah systematically dismantled 1701; it neutered UNIFIL by bullying its troops or physically attacking them while it entrenched itself in civilian locations, and as the Lebanese state became weaker it enhanced its dominance over the Lebanese Armed Forces,” added Conricus, the IDF spokesperson.

The U.N. secretary-general’s report this year acknowledged several attacks against its peacekeepers, but did so without directly blaming Hezbollah. It is widely understood that Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon—and that nothing happens there, certainly when it concerns UNIFIL’s peacekeepers, without Hezbollah’s knowledge or orders.

Israelis also suspect that the more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 nations who were expected to demilitarize southern Lebanon are deterred by such attacks and lack the will to challenge Hezbollah, especially when they are not fighting for their own country but rather in a distant conflict far away from their homelands.

Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of Alma Research and Education Center, an Israeli think tank, lives about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the border with Lebanon. “The UNIFIL says they don’t have the mandate. Let’s say a solution is found and they have a new mandate that authorizes them to go home to home and take out Hezbollah’s rockets. Will they do it? They won’t, because Hezbollah will kill them,” she told Foreign Policy over the phone from Upper Galilee, a region near the border. “The Lebanese army won’t do it because Hezbollah are his brothers and sisters,” she added. “We have only one option.”

Members of the Israeli government say the goal is to end Hezbollah’s presence and destroy its infrastructure on the border and at this stage, Israel is trying to achieve this through diplomatic channels.

“We are turning to every normal country, be it the United States, France, Arab countries—anyone who could somehow influence the situation and has some influence in Lebanon,” Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told news agency Reuters.

U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein is reportedly proposing a deal to resolve long-standing territorial differences on the Israeli-Lebanese border and achieve peace. But Hezbollah has ruled out any deal, for now. Naim Qassem, the deputy chief of the group, said the Lebanese front would remain open as long as the aggression against the Gaza Strip continues. Lebanese experts interpret this as at least a partial willingness to talk once the endgame in Gaza is clearer and talk of a more sustainable deal between Israelis and Palestinians is being discussed.

“What Hezbollah will do comes down to one question—what does Iran want?” said Sami Nader, a Lebanese political expert. “In my view, Iran wants a seat at the table whenever final settlement is being discussed.”

UNIFIL, meanwhile, says it hasn’t failed and takes some of the credit for 17 years of relative quiet on the border. “This accomplishment is due to the work of peacekeepers—in particular, our liaison and coordination mechanisms that have helped de-escalate a number of situations over the years, but also the commitment of the parties,” Kandice Ardiel, the mission’s deputy chief of strategic communications and public information, told Foreign Policy via WhatsApp.

UNIFIL has undoubtedly had an important mediating role in compensating for the lack of diplomatic relations between Israel and Lebanon. But both the Israelis and the Lebanese feel that the relative quiet of the past decade and a half was due not to UNIFIL’s successes, but rather Israel and Hezbollah’s aversion to a full-scale war in the face of its failures. Now, Israel says it has been compelled to rethink that stance.

Correction, Dec. 26, 2023: A previous version of this article inaccurately described U.N. Resolution 1701 and the Blue Line, a demarcation zone between Lebanon and Israel.

5 Top Reads

Industrial Policy’s First Cracks Are Starting to Show

cameronabadi   7:00AM, 26 Dec, 2023

U.S. President Joe Biden’s economic policies don’t seem to have the makings of a reelection platform. Despite low unemployment and falling inflation, his campaign team has already mostly retired so-called Bidenomics as a slogan because the underlying economic record hasn’t proved popular with the American public.

However, the place of Bidenomics in economic history already seems secure. The Biden administration has overseen a shift away from the era of free trade and globalization in favor of a renewed focus on industrial policy and controls on trade and investment. The Inflation Reduction Act used subsidies and tax breaks to boost the production of electric vehicles at home. The CHIPS and Science Act similarly subsidized semiconductor firms, while export controls aimed to prevent China from dominating the technology.

These policies are part of a global trend: The barriers between international commerce and domestic politics are breaking down. The results are mostly predictable, for better and for worse. Domestic subsidies have spurred an uptick in manufacturing in the United States just as they have elsewhere. But global trade and cross-border investment have fallen from previous highs. The Biden administration has backed away from its most confrontational rhetoric about China; mentions of decoupling have given way to talk of so-called de-risking.

The White House has also sought to mend ties with allies in Europe and Asia that felt mistreated by growing protectionism. Meanwhile, China has struggled to overcome economic stagnation after years of overinvestment in its domestic real-estate sector produced a bubble that finally seems on the verge of bursting.

For such reasons, critics argue that the industrial-policy era already contains the seeds of its eventual decline. The question, of course, is how long its reign will last. The beginnings of an answer can be found below, in Foreign Policy’s top reads on industrial policy from 2023.

1.  America’s Zero-Sum Economics Doesn’t Add Up

By Adam Posen, March 24

Western commentators have become so accustomed to describing the negative sides of globalization that it has become easy to lose sight of its positives. This essay by Peterson Institute of International Economics President Adam Posen, which appeared in the spring edition of our print magazine, offers a bracing reminder of what the turn toward industrial policy has jeopardized.

Posen admits that the trend toward protectionist economic measures was a defensive response to years of unfair Chinese economic policy. “There is no question that many Chinese policies, including economic ones, are aggressive,” he writes. The essay reminds readers that there are multiple potential responses to the challenge posed by China—and that industrial policies of the sort that the West has pursued lately could backfire.

“Washington may feel frustrated with the lack of quick wins here, but that is no reason to take that frustration out on the rest of the world,” Posen writes. “In fact, doing so will make U.S. security worse by hindering the technological progress necessary for resilience and by eroding the United States’ influence on third countries.”

2. The World Will Regret Its Retreat From Globalization

By Eswar Prasad, March 24

In many ways, emerging-market countries were the great beneficiaries of globalization—indeed, it is the reason that they may have “emerged” in the first place. Free trade allowed their manufacturing sectors and their middle classes to expand, and it enabled them to gain access to richer countries’ technology and know-how. Consumers worldwide benefited from the resulting increases in productivity and the eventual competition between companies in the developed and developing worlds.

Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad’s essay, which also appeared in FP’s spring print issue, describes how emerging markets may now end up as losers of the new turn toward industrial policy. “As countries retreat from globalization and begin to look increasingly inward, there could be wide-ranging implications for both economic and geopolitical stability,” he writes. “Just as with the surge in globalization, however, the consequences of this pullback are proving to be unevenly distributed, with low- and middle-income countries bearing the brunt.”

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with dignitaries and employees at U.S. technology company ViaSat in Carlsbad, California, on Nov. 4, 2022.Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

3. The Risks of the CHIPS Act No One’s Talking About

By Howard W. French, March 1

Although widespread industrial policies mark a shift from the era of globalization, they are nothing new in the broader context of economic history. The U.S. CHIPS Act, which subsidizes domestic manufacturing, resembles a strategy widely used by countries in the early stages of their development. But those that stick with industrial policy beyond that initial jump-start often come to regret it: “China has had very mediocre results in identifying the most important frontiers of economic activity for the future,” FP’s Howard W. French writes.

French goes on to consider why the history of industrial policy has been so inauspicious and whether there is any reason to think that history will now be overcome. “A traditional answer, not without a solid basis in logic, is that governments and bureaucrats are poor at assessing both the complexity of markets and rapidly changing technology horizons,” he writes. “Perhaps most importantly, unlike businesspeople who must raise capital privately, those who formulate and execute grand industrial policies using public money don’t risk losing their shirts. That danger is an incredible tonic, and we haven’t figured out how to replace it.”

4. Biden’s Turn Against Trade Makes It Hard to Win Friends

By Edward Alden, June 22

It is to Biden’s credit that he achieved significant bipartisan consensus at home for restoring a major role for government in the economy. But no such consensus exists internationally, especially among U.S. trading partners that see themselves on the losing side of the resulting policies, FP’s Edward Alden writes.

“The Reagan model of cutting tariffs and reducing regulatory obstacles had the virtue of letting the chips fall where they may,” Alden writes. “In championing a different model, the Biden team has struggled to address the concerns of trading partners who fear private investment will now flow away from their economies to the United States as companies around the world chase the enormous new subsidies on offer.”

5. Does Japan’s Economy Prove That Neoliberalism Lost?

By Michael Hirsh, Sept. 23

East Asia is a long-running laboratory for industrial policy, but Western analysts have typically assumed that the results of that experiment were negative. In that way, the West’s ongoing policy shift also involves a reassessment of old economic debates about the efficacy of government intervention in the economy.

FP’s Michael Hirsh surveys these controversies amid recent headlines about Japan’s return to economic growth, describing how former economic apostates are now being vindicated. “New empirical data from the last few years indicates that many of East Asia’s industrial policy investments from decades ago have paid off big time,” he writes.

“Younger economists such as Ernest Liu of Princeton University have debunked some of the old biases against industrial policy—mainly that it lacks the reliable information necessary to target appropriate sectors—by showing that new measures of market distortions can supply just that.”

Roundup

The Best Conversations of the Year

Tal Alroy   7:00AM, 26 Dec, 2023

At least once a week, FP Live hosts discussions that delve deep into the most pressing topics in world affairs. This year, guests have included military generals on Kyiv’s wartime strategy and Russia’s military advancement, former Israeli officials and Palestinian voices on the Hamas attack and ensuing conflict that have rattled the world, and some of the top policymakers in the White House.

Also featured were historian and author Heather Cox Richardson on reasons to remain hopeful about American democracy; chief economist and advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden Heather Boushey, who crafted the U.S. approach to inequality, growth, and job creation; and Larry Summers, who talked about the challenges facing the global economy. Other topics included how governments can manage the rise of artificial intelligence, U.S.-India relations, the climate challenge, and much else.

Here are five discussions worth rewatching or—if you’re an FP insider—reading.

1. Ehud Barak on the Israel-Hamas War

There is perhaps no other person alive who has Ehud Barak’s range of experience for what war in Gaza looks like—and how Israel’s wartime decisions are received worldwide. Barak led the army when Israel first pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 1994 after the Oslo Accord negotiations. In 2000, during the Second Intifada, a major Palestinian uprising, Barak held the dual roles of defense minister and prime minister. Then, in a later stint as defense minister at the end of 2008, Barak led what was called Operation Cast Lead—a three-week conflict with Palestinian paramilitary groups that has been Israel’s largest ground operation in Gaza to date.

Shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel, Barak spoke with FP’s editor in chief on FP Live. He explained how the army is thinking about dismantling Hamas’s operations and acknowledged that Israel would likely lose the support of public opinion and governments around the world within several weeks of its military operation commencing.

2. Joseph Wu on Taiwan’s Foreign Policy

Taiwan has governed itself independently since 1949, but Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory—and has vowed to one day take control. FP’s Ravi Agrawal spoke exclusively with Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu about his country’s efforts to deter a Chinese invasion and the lessons Taipei is learning from observing Russia’s war in Ukraine. The two also discussed the country’s relationship with the United States, tensions in the Taiwan Strait, semiconductors, and much else.

3. Katherine Tai on the White House’s Trade Policy

In the last couple of years, the world seems to have embarked on an era of industrial policy. From the United States to China, India, Europe, and beyond, major economies are turning inward, favoring domestic expansion over free trade and the global flow of goods.

To understand Washington’s part in fostering a new era of industrial policy, FP Live spoke with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the Biden administration’s top official tasked with mapping out and implementing the White House’s trade policy. She countered international critics who said the United States is fostering unfair competition and talked about de-risking the U.S. relationship with China.

4. Colin Kahl on America’s Defense Strategy

As undersecretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl was one of the Biden administration’s senior-most policymakers, tasked with formulating and coordinating the White House’s national security strategy.

Just before leaving his position at the Pentagon during one of the lowest points in the U.S.-China relationship, Kahl sat down with Agrawal. He talked about how the White House thinks about deterrence and the long-term challenge of China. He also pushed back against criticisms that the Biden administration has slow-rolled aid to Ukraine. “We are all in,” he said, adding that “Russia has already lost, by every measure.”

5. Samantha Power on Development Diplomacy

From supporting the Ukrainian military to providing food security in parts of Africa, the Biden administration relies on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to help devise its development strategy and prioritize where its aid money goes. USAID Administrator Samantha Power is tasked with figuring out how to distribute America’s global aid and development budget. Power is also a member of Biden’s National Security Council and a former ambassador to the U.N., so she wields considerable influence in the White House.

Ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, Samantha Power joined Foreign Policy to discuss USAID’s priorities for UNGA, Russia’s sidelining of the U.N. Security Council, and how the Biden administration relies on both smaller groups and multilateral organizations like the United Nations to craft and implement its foreign policy.

5 Top Reads

What 2023 Taught Us in the Russia-Ukraine War

Stefan Theil   6:00AM, 26 Dec, 2023

As Russia’s war against Ukraine enters its third winter, the scenarios for its outcome are still unclear. With neither side making substantial territorial gains in more than a year, there is much debate about whether the conflict has entered a stalemate—and who is to blame for Ukraine not advancing more quickly. At the same time, the fighting remains highly volatile in other ways, as Ukraine’s effective defeat of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in 2023 has shown.

The more crucial fight, it seems, is political. With Russian forces unable to gain any significant ground since summer 2022, President Vladimir Putin is betting on Western exhaustion. Already, weapons deliveries to Ukraine have slowed to a trickle as the U.S. Congress debates and delays the next allotment of aid. Along with Berlin, Washington has held back on delivering key weapons systems, such as the longer-range missiles that would allow Ukraine to hit important Russian targets farther behind the front, including in occupied Crimea.

Rightly or wrongly, Ukraine and its supporters believe that Western aid is calibrated to allow the Ukrainians not to lose and not to win.

Putin likely has his eyes on the U.S. election in November 2024. Should former President Donald Trump return to the White House for a second term, Ukraine could lose its most significant source of military aid, sanctions against Russia could quickly crack, and Kyiv could be pushed to hand substantial parts of its territory and population to Moscow—while likely still facing the Kremlin’s designs to control the country.

To help understand where we are in the conflict and the implications going forward, here are five of Foreign Policy’s best articles from 2023 on the war in Ukraine.

1. The Case for Supporting Ukraine Is Crystal Clear

By Michael McFaul, Nov. 16

With U.S. military aid to Ukraine almost depleted and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives delaying any vote on additional deliveries, Michael McFaul makes a strong argument that the aid is not only crucial for Ukraine, but also serves critical U.S. interests.

2. What a Russian Victory Would Mean for Ukraine

By Adrian Karatnycky, Dec. 19

With Kyiv’s counteroffensive stalled and the U.S. Congress deadlocked over continued military support, some analysts are raising the specter of a Ukrainian defeat. Judging by what Russia is saying and already doing, that would lead to terror on a scale not seen since the darkest days of the 20th century.

3. Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Is More Successful Than You Think

By Oz Katerji and Vladislav Davidzon, Oct. 20

After Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive failed to produce a spectacular breakthrough, there has been much talk of a stalemate. That, however, obscures important Ukrainian successes in and around Crimea, where the Russian fleet has been pushed out of the western Black Sea. Ukraine’s naval victory will have strategic impacts in 2024 and beyond.

A Ukrainian soldier of the 65th Mechanized Brigade walks on a road near the front-line village of Robotyne, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, on Oct. 1.Roman Pilipey / AFP via Getty Images

4. Negotiating With Russia Is Still a Bad Idea

By Raphael S. Cohen and Gian Gentile, Oct. 9

The further one gets away from the front line, the louder the calls for a negotiated end to the war—with various rationales ranging from not wanting to push the Russians too far to supposed war fatigue in the West. Once you scratch below the surface, however, the case for negotiating with Russia quickly falls apart, Raphael S. Cohen and Gian Gentile write.

5. Lessons for the Next War

By FP contributors, Jan. 5

For the cover story of our Winter 2023 print issue, Foreign Policy asked 12 experts to distill the most important lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine that might help prevent, deter, or—if necessary—fight the next war. Drawing conclusions from a fast-evolving war is tricky, but we think our authors’ prescriptions held up remarkably well. Judge for yourself how they did.

Roundup

Our Best Long Reads From 2023

Chloe Hadavas   6:00AM, 26 Dec, 2023

At Foreign Policy, we’re proud that we can bring readers not just the latest China scoop, but also a 4,000-word deep dive on Washington’s China hawks. That we can cover the nuances and implications of FTX’s downfall, but also the long history of offshore finance in the Bahamas, where the disgraced fintech company set up shop.

Our long reads help readers contextualize the news, question assumptions about the global order, and reimagine some of the world’s biggest problems. Read on for five of our favorites of 2023.

1. Democracy Isn’t Just About Voting

by Priya Satia, March 11

As Americans have grown concerned about the fate of their republic, many have started to question whether voting and elections guarantee democracy. In this essay, historian Priya Satia seeks to discourage that equation, which, she argues, is a vestige of colonial thought.

Even monarchies, Satia writes, can respond to democratic opinion: Just look to kingdoms in precolonial India, where democratic expression often held monarchs accountable before British colonialism rearranged the dynamic between ruler and ruled. Examining this history can push us to reconsider what a real democracy looks like. “Indeed,” Satia writes, “a too-narrow preoccupation with elections has caused many societies, especially Western ones, to devalue forms of public deliberation and collective action essential to security against oppression.”

2. Washington’s China Hawks Take Flight

by Robbie Gramer and Christina Lu, Feb. 15

In 2013, after Xi Jinping was elected president of China, the world was optimistic that a new era of closer U.S.-China relations had begun. Now, as one expert put it, Washington’s engagement with Beijing is “deader than a doornail.” What went wrong over the past decade? And how did the China hawks take over Washington?

Foreign Policy reporters Robbie Gramer and Christina Lu explore these questions in their deep dive on how U.S. engagement with China turned into estrangement—and where the bilateral relationship might go from here.

Alex Nabaum illustration for Foreign Policy

3. A New Multilateralism

by Gordon Brown, Sept. 11

It is hardly controversial to say that the world’s multilateral institutions are broken. In recent decades, the post-World War II organizations that once promoted peace and reduced poverty have increasingly become toothless. And, former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown argues, they can’t be replaced by regional and bilateral relationships: “Clubs, large or small, will not give the world the stability it needs,” he writes.

What the world needs, Brown writes, is a new multilateral order. Here, he lays out a plan for Washington to take the lead in reinvigorating these institutions in a multipolar world. “The existential challenges that we now face … are creating a rare global moment when the bedrock shifts beneath our feet and the international architecture has to be remade once again,” Brown writes.

4. The Long Shadow of Oppenheimer’s Trinity Test

by Jack Detsch and Anusha Rathi, July 21

As Washington plans to invest up to $1.5 trillion in nuclear modernization, Foreign Policy revisited the New Mexico desert, where the nuclear age began. In this reported feature, FP’s Jack Detsch and Anusha Rathi look back on the fallout of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Trinity test explosion and examine the risks of a new era of nuclear brinkmanship at a time when nuclear weapons have become much more destructive than they were almost 80 years ago.

“Even if the Biden administration doesn’t want an arms race,” Detsch and Rathi write, “it may already have one on its hands.”

5. The Hidden History of the World’s Top Offshore Cryptocurrency Tax Haven

by Adam Tooze, Jan. 15

For decades, the Caribbean has been “a Frankenstein laboratory of global capitalism,” FP’s Adam Tooze writes. There’s a reason FTX, formerly one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, moved its headquarters to the Bahamas before its fall from grace. In this essay, Tooze delves into the history of the Bahamas as a center of offshore finance, weaving a fascinating story of how big money came to a region of extreme wealth inequalities that, as he puts it, “was once a battlefield of geopolitical tension and now faces the historic challenge of climate change.”

25 Dec, 2023

- The Year Policymakers Woke Up to AI

- The Books FP Loved This Year

- New Geopolitical Words We Learned in 2023

- Was 2023 the Year of the Global South?

5 Top Reads

The Year Policymakers Woke Up to AI

Rishi Iyengar   7:00AM, 25 Dec, 2023

To get a sense of the capabilities, contradictions, and chaos that have defined artificial intelligence in the past year, one only needs to look to the technology’s most high-profile champion.

California-based company OpenAI set the tone for 2023 in November 2022 by rolling out ChatGPT, the versatile chatbot that thrust AI into the public conversation and spurred a global race to develop more powerful models. The company ended the year by abruptly firing its talismanic CEO, Sam Altman, only to bring him back five days later with a new board of directors and seemingly consolidated power at the helm.

ChatGPT and the feeding frenzy that followed perturbed policymakers around the world. Governments in the United States, Europe, and China all moved quickly to try to place regulatory guardrails around artificial intelligence, and multilateral efforts at the G-7 and G-20 meetings, the United Nations, and the United Kingdom’s AI Safety Summit sought to broaden them.

There is good reason to be concerned. AI has the potential to reshape economics, society, and democracy around the world, as well as significant military applications—some of which are already in use. The race to develop artificial intelligence is not only taking place between companies, but also countries.

The starkest warnings have come from those making the technology. Altman—like many in the AI industry—has oscillated between being an evangelist and a doomsayer, calling for more regulation in Washington and beyond. For much of 2023, he was also the industry’s most prominent diplomat, meeting leaders from India, Australia, and the Middle East. That, in turn, has prompted consternation about how much influence large companies wield over the technology’s development and oversight.

Meanwhile, China has outlined its goal of becoming a global leader in AI by the end of the decade and has made significant progress on several fronts. Many of Washington’s recent major foreign-policy moves—such as extensive curbs on semiconductors and outbound tech investment—are aimed at slowing Beijing’s progress. There are some signs of a willingness to engage on mitigating global harms, including discussions between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November.

The big questions about AI in 2024 are whether regulations can be effective and adaptable enough to keep up with rapidly evolving capabilities—and ultimately whether countries around the world can even agree on those guardrails. With national elections in many of the world’s biggest democracies next year, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

1. AI’s Gatekeepers Aren’t Prepared for What’s Coming

By Paul Scharre, June 19

Although the early focus on AI competition was on the industry itself, the conversation quickly expanded to how the transformative technology will impact geopolitics, which countries are best poised to take advantage of the moment, and what determines who comes out ahead.

Foreign Policy’s summer print issue was an early attempt to understand those debates, anchored by a lead essay by Paul Scharre, the executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Scharre argued that governments cannot afford to sit on the sidelines while big companies supercharge AI models to do bigger and better—or worse—things.

Many of Scharre’s predictions and prescriptions have come to pass, with several national and transnational regulatory efforts coming together in recent months. But 2024 will bring new challenges for regulators, including the possibility of AI making it easier to conduct malicious cyberattacks or helping to build bioweapons. Given how quickly such risks can evolve, it’s important to have a solid foundation.

2. What the U.S. Can Learn From China About Regulating AI

By Matt Sheehan, Sept. 12

One of the biggest questions around AI is “Who’s winning?”—particularly between the United States and China. In another essay for FP’s summer print issue, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Matt Sheehan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace highlighted why that may be the wrong question, and how both countries should focus on reining in the technology and avoiding “AI accidents” between them.

In this later piece from September, Sheehan argued that Beijing’s stringent AI regulations can provide some lessons for Washington. Chief among them is the willingness to iterate and adapt quickly to the technology rather than aiming for umbrella legislation. “China has picked out specific applications that it was concerned about and developed a series of regulations to tackle those concerns,” Sheehan wrote. “That has allowed it to steadily build up new policy tools and regulatory know-how with each new regulation.”

3. Every Country Is on Its Own on AI

By Bill Drexel and Michael Depp, June 13

Given the paradigm-shifting nature of artificial intelligence and the technology’s potential for catastrophic mishaps, it isn’t surprising that much of the geopolitical discourse has compared it to nuclear weapons. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was among the voices calling for a global AI governance regime modeled after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the body created in 1957 to ensure nuclear nonproliferation.

Although that model could provide some guidance, there are a few reasons it isn’t a perfect fit for AI regulation, as Bill Drexel and Michael Depp of CNAS argued in June. AI is more wide-ranging in its applications and moving too fast for a regime like the IAEA to be truly effective. “Treaties and multilateral agreements tend to move much more slowly than AI,” Drexel and Depp wrote. As 2023 comes to a close, a few multilateral efforts that decidedly don’t resemble the IAEA have begun to take shape, but there’s a long road ahead.

Matt Chase illustration for Foreign Policy

4. The AI Regulation Paradox

By Bhaskar Chakravorti, Aug. 4

As AI regulation gathers momentum around the world, it’s worth asking who the loudest voices at the table are and what impact that has on everyone else. In August, Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, highlighted how AI could exacerbate disparities in how big tech companies dedicate resources to content moderation outside the West.

The companies must tend to the “squeakiest of wheels” in the United States and Europe that are calling for AI regulation and account for the bulk of company profits, Chakravorti argued, potentially leaving gaps in much of the global south that could prove dangerous going into a pivotal election year in which disinformation and hate speech could proliferate more than ever.

5. Inside the White House-Backed Effort to Hack AI

By Rishi Iyengar, Aug. 15

We’ve published a lot this year about the dangers of artificial intelligence and the fight to contain its harmful effects, but Foreign Policy got a rare peek behind the curtain into how that is playing out in practice.

In mid-August, I traveled to Las Vegas for one of the world’s biggest hacker conferences, where eight major AI companies teamed up with the U.S. government to open up their models to a so-called red teaming exercise. The goal was to push those models to do harmful things, such as teaching a user how to stalk someone or generate misleading facts.

The ease with which many of the 2,000-plus attendees succeeded—albeit in a controlled environment—highlighted the stakes of getting regulation right and why the White House has taken such a large role. Expand that scenario to the rest of the world, with hundreds of languages and cultural contexts, and it turns into a more daunting proposition.

Roundup

The Books FP Loved This Year

Chloe Hadavas   6:00AM, 25 Dec, 2023

In 2023, Foreign Policy continued to expand the scope of our Books section. We published essays on a wide variety of new titles—novels, histories, and of course, classic foreign-policy releases—that combine criticism, reporting, and personal narrative.

Read on for some of our favorite reviews of the year.

1. Trysts With Sri Lanka’s Ghosts

by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Jan. 7

The memory of the 1983-2009 civil war haunts present-day Sri Lanka—as Shehan Karunatilaka, the author of the Booker Prize-winning The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, knows well. In the novel, which takes place seven years into the war, the titular character is a dead photographer who has a week to navigate a bureaucratic In Between and reach something called The Light. But Maali’s interests lie elsewhere: He wants to ensure that a box of politically sensitive photographs that he took while he was alive end up in the right hands.

It’s a “merciless, madcap version of the afterlife,” V.V. Ganeshananthan writes—but also one that opens a window into a country racked, then and now, by historical and political wrongs. In her beautifully rendered review, Ganeshananthan—herself the author of a novel set during the Sri Lankan civil war—serves as a guide to the intricacies of the period and Seven Moons’ real-world analogs, as well as Karunatilaka’s skill in connecting the personal to the political. “Karunatilaka underlines how we are haunted not just by the ghosts of lost others but by the ghosts of lost selves—the better people we might have been,” Ganeshananthan writes.

2. How the European Project Fell Apart

by Jan-Werner Müller, Oct. 29

“Anyone old enough to have lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall is likely to feel melancholic reading Timothy Garton Ash’s Homelands: A Personal History of Europe,” Jan-Werner Müller writes. The British historian and journalist’s latest book—part memoir, part history—traces the triumphs and failures of liberalism and European integration over the past 50 years, while also considering what it means to be a “political writer” responsible for the first draft of history.

As war rages on in Europe’s eastern flank and anti-liberal populism gains steam across the continent, Garton Ash’s book is “as good an antidote as any for those despairing of Europe and an impassioned defense against those who seek to destroy it,” Müller writes.

Janelle Barone illustration for Foreign Policy

3. The Fabulous Mythmaking of Imelda Marcos

by Sheila S. Coronel, Oct. 7

Should dictators—and their families—be forgiven? This is the question at the heart of Filipino writer Nathan Go’s debut novel, Forgiving Imelda Marcos. As members of the Marcos family have returned to power in the Philippines—decades after Imelda and her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos, were ousted after a 1986 revolt—a new generation of Filipinos has started to produce books, art, and theater that seek to restore the memory of the Marcos dictatorship.

Go’s novel, Sheila S. Coronel writes, is part of this “still-fledgling effort to shed light on the dark era of dictatorship.” In her review, Coronel—a Filipina journalist who reported on the abuses committed by the Marcoses in the 1980s—weaves Go’s narrative with her own experiences to offer insight into why the Philippines readily welcomed back a family that “used their power to hack public memory, elude justice, and silence dissent.” Despite the Marcoses’ efforts, Coronel writes, “memory—and trauma—cannot be completely erased.”

4. How the Fed Became Everything (and Everything Became the Fed)

by David Wessel, April 30

The U.S. Federal Reserve has always had an outsize influence on the global economy. But, journalist David Wessel writes, “the global financial crisis and the pandemic underscored just how it has effectively become the central bank and lender of last resort to the whole world.”

This transformation provided plenty of fodder for two recent books by Fed reporters: Jeanna Smialek’s Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age of Crisis and Nick Timiraos’s Trillion Dollar Triage: How Jay Powell and the Fed Battled a President and a Pandemic—and Prevented Economic Disaster. In his review, Wessel, a veteran Fed reporter, examines the nuances of both accounts and shows how they “peel back the curtain on key figures making decisions that affect the entire global economy.”

5. Britain’s Racism Isn’t America’s

by Angela Saini, July 30

Recent U.S. debates on race have influenced the rest of the world—and this isn’t always a good thing, according to Tomiwa Owolade in his new book, This Is Not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter.

In her review of Owolade’s polemic, journalist Angela Saini examines why the United States has shaped the contours of anti-racist activism and conversations on race in the United Kingdom. Saini, who has written a book on race science, questions whether this is as harmful as Owolade believes it to be. After all, Saini writes, while racism doesn’t take the same form in Britain and the United States, the two countries “built their racial ideologies on exactly the same bedrock.”

Roundup

New Geopolitical Words We Learned in 2023

Anusha Rathi   6:00AM, 25 Dec, 2023

Oxford University Press’s word of 2023 was “rizz,” which the publisher defines as “someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness”—a shortened version of charisma.

But geopolitics entered the world of buzzwords, too, and delivered a string of expressions that found enthusiastic use in the corridors of power and think tanks, not to mention the real world. There was the ubiquitous “de-risking,” but also “AIS gaps,” “subsea infrastructure,” and “maritime terrorism,” which similarly became words that the well-informed citizen should know.

The runner-up to rizz in Oxford University Press’s selection was reportedly “Swiftie,” and such is Taylor Swift’s global power that Swifties include British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. But not even the American megastar has managed to divert the world’s attention away from the dark geopolitical clouds in the Black Sea and the Taiwan Strait, or at the Finnish border.

Indeed, in 2023, geopolitics came to dominate the news agenda. The year began with the swearing-in of Brazil’s returning president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the subsequent storming of government buildings by supporters of the outgoing—and defeated—Jair Bolsonaro. Lula’s return to power and his swift outreach to Russia failed to deliver a new geopolitical term, though the anti-Western fraternity involving leaders eager to distance themselves from West indisputably deserves one—BRICSit, perhaps?

Another geopolitical development already underway did, however, deliver a new term: AIS gaps. As Foreign Policy readers will know from my columns throughout the year, gaps in merchant vessels’ automatic identification systems (AIS) occur regularly as a result of bad weather or mechanical errors, but during 2023, AIS gaps have become part of daily life in the world of shipping.

Ships carrying goods to and from Russia regularly turn off their AIS so as not to be spotted, which violates international shipping regulations and puts other ships at risk, but what can anyone do? The world doesn’t have maritime police. AIS gaps will be there as long as countries are at loggerheads.

2023 also brought de-risking into the mainstream. The term was picked up by countless academics but used rather less among the people executing this strategy of reducing exposure to various countries—especially China. The reason that de-risking established itself with such force during 2023 was, of course, that people realized that decoupling from China is not possible or even desirable.

During 2023, lots of Western companies announced plans to reduce operations in China, but even such a partial departure is complicated. Moving parts of the manufacturing process to a different country is like selling one’s house and buying a new one—times 1,000.

Then there was BRICS+, the constellation that emerged after the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) decided to invite another six countries, including Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, to their group. BRICS+, in fact, symbolizes a new kind of geopolitics. The group’s members don’t have a great deal in common, and they certainly don’t share the same deep values that form the basis of Western groupings. But they’re pragmatic and team up with allies for mutual benefit. Iran and South Africa can trade with each other and engage in other cooperation—and like the other BRICS+ countries, they’re in the group not because it represents anything unique, but because it’s a counterbalance to the West.

Subsea infrastructure was another geopolitical phrase that countless people discovered this year. Subsea infrastructure is an unsung hero of modern societies, operating day in, day out, without ordinary citizens worrying about it or even realizing it exists. But in 2023, many ordinary citizens heard of subsea infrastructure because it experienced mysterious malfunctions in different places.

First, the two undersea telecommunications cables connecting Taiwan’s Matsu Islands to the main island were severed by Chinese commercial vessels, leaving the islands isolated from the rest of the world. Then two undersea cables connecting Sweden, Finland, and Estonia were damaged, most likely by a well-connected Chinese container ship called NewNew Polar Bear, and the nearby Balticconnector pipeline was damaged around the same time. Last year, the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines were crippled by a mysterious blast—that some now attribute to Ukrainian operatives. Now subsea infrastructure everywhere has become the subject of activities that appear geopolitically motivated.

Then, starting at the end of November, Yemen’s Houthis provided the year’s final geopolitical word of the year: maritime terrorism. Though the term is not entirely new—remember the USS Cole and Somali pirates?—the Yemeni militia demonstrated that a nonstate actor can attack global shipping using statelike skills and equipment by carrying a string of attacks on merchant vessels it deemed were linked to Israel in the Red Sea. Such maritime terrorists are not like the privateers of previous centuries, because while they’re linked to a sponsor government, they operate on their own and are ideologically motivated. Money is not their objective.

That makes maritime terrorism a decidedly frightening scenario for global shipping, because other groups, whether supported by protector governments or not, are likely to want to imitate the Houthis. And because shipping is fundamentally global, with all manner of countries linked to a vessel through its flag, crew, owner, or manager, a militia can target a ship on the basis of any of those links.

These groups don’t even have to be very conscientious in establishing the details: By declaring a random vessel to be linked to the country it wants to target, a nonstate group will strike fear in vessels representing other nationalities, too. Just consider the prospect of a water-based Wagner Group.

Happy New Year!

5 Top Reads

Was 2023 the Year of the Global South?

Audrey Wilson   6:00AM, 25 Dec, 2023

The global south seemed to be top of mind for policymakers and diplomats this year, from the halls of the United Nations to leaders’ podiums. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called his country the “voice of the global south,” hosting a virtual summit by that name to start the year that elevated the perspectives of dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In Vietnam in September, U.S. President Joe Biden exchanged the Cold War-era phrase “Third World” for “global south” as he spoke.

For some commentators, the new politics of the global south recalls the heyday of the Non-Aligned Movement, first convened in Indonesia in 1955. The comparison may seem particularly apt when it comes to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Since February 2022, many countries in the global south have avoided criticizing Moscow, including by abstaining from or voting against U.N. resolutions to condemn aggression against Kyiv—and continuing to import Russian oil and gas despite Western sanctions.

In September, more than 18 months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to the U.N. General Assembly, in large part seeking to bolster wider international support for his cause. At the time, FP’s Howard W. French wrote that many developing countries simply had other priorities: “Increasingly, the poor are saying to the rich that your priorities won’t mean more to us until ours mean much more to you.”

Two major meetings underscored the shifting role of the global south in world politics this year: the BRICS summit held in August in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the G-20 leaders’ summit hosted by New Delhi in September. In Johannesburg, the bloc—comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—announced it would add six new members, giving it a bigger share of the world’s GDP than the G-7 in terms of purchasing power parity. Whether the BRICS expansion will lead to more power or less cohesion remains to be seen, but the bloc has at least succeeded in making de-dollarization a talking point.

Meanwhile, Modi used the G-20 summit—and India’s leadership of the group this year—to expand the agenda to include issues of significance to the global south, such as trade, climate change, and migration. He touted the event and the resulting consensus declaration as a success for New Delhi, scoring increased World Bank funding aimed countries in the global south. But tensions and differences within the group were apparent, especially on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The war in Gaza that began in October marked another shift, as countries in the global south pointed to Western support for Israel’s collective punishment of the Gaza Strip after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 as hypocritical—particularly considering the West’s insistence on a so-called rules-based global order. In November, Julien Barnes-Dacey and Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations argued that the United States and its allies are bound to lose such a “battle of narratives.”

With the global south now commanding the world’s attention, the fluidity and the imprecision of the term—once relegated to academia—have also become more clear. Even as analysts question the very concept, what is certain is that the global south will remain a central figure in diplomacy and summitry in 2024.

Below are some of Foreign Policy’s top pieces on global south politics and debates this year.

1. The World Isn’t Slipping Away From the West

By Comfort Ero, March 8

More than a year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Comfort Ero, the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, reflected on an increasingly common question: Why have so many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America sat this one out, offering limited support to Kyiv?

It’s tempting to say that the West is losing the global south. But that is too simplistic, Ero argues, writing that Western countries should look to recent history to better understand what motivates countries with different perspectives: “It’s no wonder that many officials from countries in the global south feel that the West is demanding their loyalty over Ukraine—after not showing them much solidarity in their own hours of need.”

“[N]early all the officials I’ve spoken with seek to define their national policies on their own terms—reflecting their own sovereign interests—rather than framing them as part of a West-Russia contest,” Ero writes.

2. 6 Swing States Will Decide the Future of Geopolitics

By Cliff Kupchan, June 6

In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky courted the support of Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia—so-called middle powers that, along with other leaders of the global south, including South Africa and Turkey, “have more power today than ever before,” Eurasia Group Chairman Cliff Kupchan writes.

These six “swing states” have already shaped optics around Russia’s war in Ukraine, namely by refusing to fall in line with Western plans for military aid to Kyiv and sanctions against Moscow. The United States needs to “up its game” with regard to these six powers and the global south more broadly, Kupchan writes. “We now have more drivers on every geopolitical issue. That makes predictions of geopolitical outcomes, already a fraught endeavor, even harder.”

3. Can the G-20 Be a Champion for the Global South?

By Darren Walker, Sept. 8

The Group of 20 includes many countries from the global south, but its wealthiest members long wielded the most influence at the table. As India hosted the annual G-20 leaders’ summit in September, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker argued that the group was now “poised to usher in an unprecedented era of not only influence, but also economic justice, for the global south.”

Walker writes that India used its year-long G-20 presidency to highlight issues that disproportionately affect countries in the global south, particularly sovereign debt, and to amplify voices from this global majority. Significant divisions remain among the G-20, but India’s leadership is part of the “establishment of a new standard” led by developing countries, he argues.

“With their upcoming G-20 presidencies, Brazil and South Africa have the chance to build on the momentum created by their predecessors,” Walker writes.

People take part in a demonstration against Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip in São Paulo on Oct. 22.Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images

4. Why the Global South Is Accusing America of Hypocrisy

By Oliver Stuenkel, Nov. 2

The war in Gaza exposed a new challenge to the West from the countries of the global south: accusations of hypocrisy. “Many in the developing world have long seen a double standard in the West condemning an illegal occupation in Ukraine while also standing staunchly behind Israel, which has occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967,” Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations professor in São Paulo, writes.

Stuenkel argues that this perceived inconsistency could damage Western claims of a so-called rules-based global order, especially as civilian casualties rise and calls for a cease-fire grow. “The longer the Israel-Hamas war goes on, the greater the risk to Western credibility in the global south becomes,” he writes.

5. Is There Such a Thing as a Global South?

By C. Raja Mohan, Dec. 9

As the term “global south” has gone mainstream, so to speak, FP’s C. Raja Mohan writes that it has become a “convenient shorthand” in debates over issues as diverse as climate policy and Russia’s war in Ukraine—putting the global majority in a “single category with supposedly similar interests.” But Mohan raises a pointed question: Is there even such a thing as a global south?

Mohan points out several analytical flaws with the concept, which he calls “old wine in a new bottle.” He explains that countries of the global south have divergent economic interests and development paths, and that the group itself has much too fluid boundaries. Given these issues, is “global southism” worthwhile as an explanatory framework? Mohan doesn’t think so, but he acknowledges that it may be here to stay.

“Despite my and others’ calls to retire the category global south, it is unlikely to disappear from the international relations vocabulary anytime soon,” Mohan writes. “For many in the West, it is a way of othering the rest; for the chattering classes in the rest, it is a way of channeling deep reservoirs of resentment against continuing Western dominance.”

24 Dec, 2023

- World War I’s ‘Silent Night’

- Does Santa Own the North Pole and Other Holiday Questions

Essay

World War I’s ‘Silent Night’

Anusha Rathi   7:00AM, 24 Dec, 2023

British and German troops photographed together during a temporary truce on Christmas Day during World War I in 1914.

The war would be over by Christmas. That was what everyone said, when Britain, France, and Germany went to war in August 1914. Maybe that’s why, by the start of December, with no victory in sight, there was a pause in the fighting along parts of the Western Front stretching from Belgium through France. And maybe that’s why, when singing broke out in the trenches on Christmas Eve, soldiers on both sides decided to risk a walk up into no man’s land and even, in one recorded case, a soccer kickabout. Troops on both sides sang “Silent Night” as snow began to fall.

The truce was never formally declared by any power. Although Pope Benedict XV had called for a cease-fire earlier in the month, it had been rejected by all parties. France and Belgium had little appetite for a truce with an invading army. And in a war between global, multiethnic empires, there was little agreement about the timing or the meaning of a Christmas truce for soldiers who were Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Hindu, or Shinto. Even for Eastern Orthodox troops on the Eastern Front, Christmas would be a few weeks later.

German soldiers gather around a Christmas tree during World War I.HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Instead, there were spontaneous truces along the front lines. While both sides engaged in singing, many Germans had reportedly decided not to take any action from Dec. 25 to 27. In France, near Laventie, German soldiers started putting up Christmas trees along their trenches on the 23rd and their officers requested a meeting with their British counterparts. In their book, Christmas Truce, Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton report that the German officers “proposed a private truce for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day” that the British officers accepted. Similar informal arrangements were made up and down the front lines, with different results in different sectors.

The informal nature of the truce meant that not everyone participated. This is partly why the truce has now attained a mythical quality—many who were on the front did not experience it and so doubted that it had taken place. Even where peace seemed to prevail, officers worried that “the truce will probably go on until someone is foolish enough to let off his rifle.”

Across the Western Front, the Christmas truces came to an end at different points. By the 27th, rain had resumed and the soldiers were once again knee-deep in mud. Along some parts of the line, fighting resumed in January. But one soldier wrote home that part of the front near Ploegsteert in Flanders didn’t really see any action from the Christmas Truce until mid-March. The Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 definitively shattered the peace. Attempts for an Easter truce in early April were largely ignored.

The Christmas Truce that took place in the first December of World War I has transcended historical curiosity to become a feature of popular memory. Pop songs, TV shows, and even ads have all made reference to the events of December 1914. Why has it adhered in this way? What has it come to symbolize, more than 100 years on?

“Christmas Eve, 1862,” an illustration by artist Thomas Nast from Harper’s Weekly, January 1863 edition.Heritage Art/via Getty Images

Regular truces were a typical part of pre-modern warfare. Staged battles left time for clearing the field, burying the dead, and regrouping. Informal encounters between soldiers did not always lead to fighting, and impromptu Christmas truces occurred in the U.S. Civil War and the South African War in 1899. In a way, the Christmas Truce appeals because it seems to point to the last moment of an older form of warfare. Given the horrors of the war to come, it seems poignant in its innocence.

The popularity of the Christmas Truce of 1914—even though it was not repeated for the rest of World War I—was not just as a token of nostalgia, though. It was also responsible for creating something new: the idea that there should be a Christmas truce.

One of the enduring legacies of World War I was the shift from an approach to humanitarian principles and human rights that was “episodic, empathic, and voluntary” to, as one scholar put it, a “permanent, professionalized, and bureaucratic” responsibility of states operating in a transnational network. Alongside these developments in humanitarian organizing, truces moved out of the realm of improvised, informal agreements between soldiers. Instead, they were called for and negotiated by states and transnational peace organizations. And they did so with the Christmas Truce of 1914 as a model.

For instance, in 1965, in the midst of the escalating Vietnam War, the Viet Cong proposed a Christmas cease-fire. Meant to parallel the cease-fire that had accompanied the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebrations earlier in the year, it was embraced back at home and internationally by the peace movement. The truce was arranged with some skepticism on the ground. Even more so given the previous year’s Christmas Eve bombing of a hotel where many U.S. officers were staying. The truce was agreed to and formally communicated to both sides.

American soldiers set up a Christmas tree in a spare mortar pit at the Duc Lap Special Forces camp during the Vietnam War in 1969.Bettmann Archive/via Getty Images

A newspaper report from the cease-fire explicitly echoed the coverage of the 1914 truce. “It was quiet—the guns of war were stilled by a Christmas truce for the first time in almost a year,” the paper reported. “And from the top of the hill, the words of ‘silent Night’ wafted down” as the men rested their rifles on their foxholes and contemplated what the Viet Cong forces made of the song.

At the end of the 48-hour pause, both sides accused each other of violating the cease-fire. Radio Hanoi reported that “in complete disregard for their proclaimed Christmas truce, the U.S. imperialists Sunday sent many flights of aircraft.” The U.S. argued that these were reconnaissance flights, rather than bombing raids, and that the “Communists had launched at lease 60 small attacks.”

What the soldiers of World War I accidentally stumbled on was a new form of propaganda. Christmas cease-fires build morale among the troops, but also more widely. A key feature in the rhetoric of war is convincing your side that the opposing side is not just wrong, but bad. Truces and cease-fires play into this: The side proposing the cease-fire paints itself as humane. Violations of the cease-fire are fodder for arguments that the violators are inhumane.

Soldiers on the Western Front in France welcome Christmas mail during World War I.IMAGO/piemags via Reuters Connect

In foreign policy, the Christmas Truce endured because it turned out to be good for both international and domestic public relations. But as a result of this realization, Christmas cease-fires also became more top-down. While the soldiers were responsible for organizing spontaneous truces along the front lines in 1914, the Christmas truces of the Vietnam War and other more recent conflicts have been ordered by leaders, often in response to international pressure. In Vietnam, despite suspicion among U.S. troops that the Viet Cong “took advantage of the truce” to rearm and resupply its forces in the south, the Christmas truce was often implemented. While this provided respite and a chance for point-scoring in the media, some U.S. soldiers were left asking, “What good would it do?”

And they asked that with good reason. Christmas—and other religious holidays—have been just as likely to mark the beginning of a campaign, taking advantage of the enemy’s hope for some respite. George Washington crossed the Delaware River on Christmas 1776, surprising the British-allied Hessian troops in Trenton. During the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong took advantage of the Lunar New Year in 1968 to attack while many of South Vietnam’s soldiers were on holiday leave. And then-U.S. President Richard Nixon broke the expected Christmas Truce tradition in 1972 when the U.S. launched its largest B-52 raid on North Vietnam in the course of the war. The Yom Kippur War in Israel began on the Jewish holiday in 1973. Operation Ramadan in the Iran-Iraq War launched to coincide with the holy month in 1982.

This explains the unease of the leadership in December 1914. In Laventie, one group of British soldiers was about to withdraw from the trenches on the 26th when a German deserter, taking advantage of the truce, crossed to warn them that an attack was imminent. The British soldiers fired artillery at the German trenches and then lay in wait for the attack. But it never came. And the Germans, put on alert by the artillery fire, similarly had spent the night in anticipation of a British attack.

In fact, while the 1914 Christmas Truce saw soldiers sharing tobacco and wine, Christmas puddings and songs at scattered locations along the trenches in Belgium and France, the Germans dropped their first aerial bomb on Britain, at Dover on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, the British used seaplanes to attack the Imperial German Navy, stationed in the harbor of Cuxhaven.

British and German troops pose together during a temporary truce on Christmas Day during World War I in 1914. Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

The 1914 Christmas Truce in particular has been read in popular culture as a moment when soldiers rejected their officers’ orders and rejected the nationalist propaganda that they had been exposed to, which demonized their opponents. The Christmas Truce appeals to the idea that ordinary people would get along if only they weren’t ordered to fight each other by their governments. In 1914, soldiers ignored officers and took risks to make human connections with people they were supposed to hate.

Christmas truces have subsequently become a regular prop in international diplomacy. In conflicts ranging from the Philippines to Colombia, Sudan to Ukraine, it’s hard not to see the Christmas Truce as having retained its mythical status precisely because of its usefulness as propaganda. Perhaps it would be better to remember the Christmas Truce as one poem concluded in January 1915: “God speed the time when every day/Shall be as Christmas Day!”

Q&A

Does Santa Own the North Pole and Other Holiday Questions

cameronabadi   6:00AM, 24 Dec, 2023

A 1941 illustration shows Santa Claus holding his naughty and nice list.

Approximately 525 million children around the world will be celebrating Christmas—and most will be expecting presents under their Christmas tree courtesy of Santa Claus. Santa, of course, is the mythic symbol of the Christmas season. But he’s also a significant economic figure, operating a productive workshop in the North Pole together with a team of elves to build toys for kids across the globe.

In what economic jurisdiction is Santa’s workshop located? What sort of labor relationship does he have with his elves? And what is the current state of the global reindeer economy?

Those are a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: First, I wanted to ask about the North Pole, which is where Santa operates together with his elves. I was wondering: What exactly is the economic status right now of the North Pole? Is it subject to any country’s economic laws? You know, what sort of jurisdiction is it? Is it in any country’s exclusive economic zone? Or does Santa just kind of have dominion over this territory?

Adam Tooze: The fact that we’re asking this question at all is a sign of the times, really, because 100 years ago, the North Pole was totally inaccessible. Countries were racing each other to actually reach it with daring expeditions, many of which came to grief. Nowadays, with climate change, the entire zone of the Arctic has become open and up for grabs, really, and is the subject of really intense competition between Russia, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Canada. And the legal terms of this are supposed to be sorted by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which has been ratified by all of those states, other than the United States. What that specifies is that you have a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea zone and then a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, and then if you can claim a contiguous shelf, continental shelf, much more territory. And the drama of the Arctic is that these claims, unsurprisingly, if you think about the top of an orange and you’re slicing it, they tend to intersect as you go straight out. And the real drama is that in February 2023, the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf recognized a prior claim to the North Pole and at least part of the fabulously named Lomonosov Ridge to [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia, which currently has the standing legal claims ratified by the U.N. to the North Pole. Canada and Denmark also have claims that could be in contention to contest this. But it has to be said that one would rather the whole thing was maybe declared Santa Land and we could have enough of this dispute, because it’s otherwise looking pretty ugly.

CA: Let’s turn to reindeer, which, in addition to elves, is probably the other essential ingredient of the Santa story. So what is the state of the reindeer herd economy in the polar region right now? And when it comes to reindeer sledding, in particular, have there been any important developments there?

AT: The Sámi people of the Arctic have been herding reindeer in the modern sense for about 500 years. They originally were purely itinerant and would live in symbiosis with the wild reindeer herds. But for about half a millennium, they’ve now been cultivating the reindeer. Mainly, it has to be said, and unfortunately, for their meat and their antlers, but also as a source of attraction. Reindeer are kind of phenomenal creatures. They’re smaller and heavier than caribou that folks in North America may know, but they have extraordinary adaptations to winter weather. They’ve got giant splayed hooves, which means that they can move over soft snow, and they’re very good at swimming. And the most astonishing thing about them is their heavy coats. So they have two coats, an outer one which has long hollow hair, which gives aerating insulation, about 5,000 hairs per square inch on the outer layer. And then the inner coat, which is wooly and fine, they have up to 13,000 hairs per square inch. And the effect of this is that a full-sized reindeer can sit in snow and the snow doesn’t melt around the warm animal’s body. They can give birth in extreme temperatures. Their nostrils are adapted so that they don’t freeze up. They have ways of eating snow which allow them to hydrate in extreme weather, but they are really driven to migrate as a result of their adaptation. They don’t do very well in warm temperatures, which is why climate change is such a threat to these populations. They are and have always been routinely used for pulling sleighs, sledging. They are not, however, as well-developed as the dog technology. Dog sleighs are a much more developed technology.

CA: So finally, I wanted to ask about the relationship between Christmas and Germany. Obviously, we’re sitting here in Berlin right now, and Germany is often a topic on this podcast, and in reflecting on Christmas, it struck me that the traditions associated with Christmas—all of them from the Christmas tree to the sentimental spending of time with family and the nostalgia associated with the holiday—it’s all especially intense here. And I’m curious if Christmas in some ways really derived from Germany? Or whether German politics made a decision to cultivate Christmas here in a special way? And whether it’s really all traced back to German bourgeois national culture, everything that we think about and associate with Christmas.

AT: Yeah, I was in fact teaching as part of an end-of-term class at Columbia a really fascinating book by a historian called Joe Perry, which is literally called Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History. And he tells a really fascinating story about the emergence of our modern conception of Christmas as this sentimental moment. He sees it emerging in Germany in the early 1800s, really in the post-Napoleonic period, and then it migrates from there by way of figures like Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort to Victorian Britain, which is one of the great taste-making capitals of the world at the time. But I mean, the book is fascinating as a cultural history because, as he points out, the first quintessential description of a modern Christmas, as we understand it, with a tree and the presents and the excitement and the parents kind of manipulating the kids’ emotions all around, this is The Nutcracker. And “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” which we think of as a ballet scored by Tchaikovsky. But it was actually written by the German romantic folklorist, if you like, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and it was published in 1816, a year after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo. And if you think about it in those terms, the entire story takes on a different vein because like, who is the Mouse King really in the story? And you suddenly realize that Marie is constantly struggling with her little brother who actually lives in a world of toy soldiers, which were essentially just replicating the Napoleonic campaigns, which finished a year before. So the whole thing takes on a much more contemporary feel. And if that, as it were, is the script for what a bourgeois family Christmas looks like—with fancy presents under a tree and a world of fantasy that the kids are ushered into, for the theology, the kind of weird hybrid Christian piety that associated with modern Christmas, which has some elements which are sort of disturbingly superstitious, and which we nevertheless embrace as a kind of moment of family harmony in which women in particular are absolutely essential, there again, you go to German texts from the same period.

So I think it’s little wonder, really, if you add all of those components together, that, by the early 19th century, the holiday really had become very closely associated, including its emotional dynamics, with Germany. And then the juggernaut of capitalism takes hold of it. And from the mid-19th century onward, it becomes one of the key marketing drives of the German toy industry, which is genuinely one of the major employers in small manufacturing of central Germany, notably of Thuringia—they’re the people who do all the fancy woodworking. And by 1900, about 80 percent of the toys imported to Britain, which is the richest European market of the time, they come from Germany, off the back essentially of this association of sentimental bourgeois childhood, this weird mélange of Christianity and commerce with the German Christmas spirit.

23 Dec, 2023

- Our Podcasts, Ourselves

- The Shows FP Staffers and Columnists Loved in 2023

Roundup

Our Podcasts, Ourselves

danephron   7:00AM, 23 Dec, 2023

The year 2023 was a difficult one for the podcast industry. Hundreds of producers have been laid off, and some of the most critically acclaimed shows have been canceled. A drop in advertising revenue accounts at least in part for the retrenchment, but it’s not the whole story. When the popularity of podcasts soared in the United States, the corporate world invested heavily. Nearly a decade later, the margins have disappointed these profit-driven behemoths.

Despite the downturn, Foreign Policy’s podcast lineup is expanding. It includes shows about espionage, diplomacy, economics, and climate change. Some are interview-driven, while others are scripted narratives. All of the shows line up with FP’s overall mission: to help our subscribers better understand how the world works. As the end of 2023 approaches, we asked our audio producers to choose their favorite podcast episodes from the past year. Below is what they came up with.

1. Grading Biden’s Middle East policy

Foreign Policy Live

Interview shows work best when the host is innately curious and also empathetic, tough, focused, and steeped in the material. On FP’s flagship podcast, Foreign Policy Live, editor in chief Ravi Agrawal is all of those things as he engages with some of the most interesting figures in world affairs. Agrawal has interviewed a series of experts and officials since the war in Gaza erupted in October, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former U.S. negotiator Aaron David Miller. But the one that stands out is his conversation with Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and the author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance.

2. Trillion-Dollar Sticker Shock? Let’s All Get Over It.

Ones and Tooze, Episode 95

Addressing crises around the world, from climate change to poverty, will require spending many trillions of dollars. Yet the “t” word remains taboo among politicians. On this episode, co-hosts Adam Tooze and Cameron Abadi discuss the benefits of public spending on a massive scale and why governments need to embrace it. Their show, Ones and Tooze, examines one or two data points each week that shape the world.

3. How Men Are Trying to End Gender-Based Violence in South Africa

The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, Season 4, Episode 3

This show on women entrepreneurs around the world puts women at the center of each episode. But in this one, men are the focus—specifically male allies in South Africa who have made it their mission to address gender-based violence. South Africa often ranks among the most dangerous countries in the world for women. The episode examines the broader impact of sexual violence on women, not just physically and psychologically but also economically.

4. In Cod We Trust

The Catch, Season 3, Episode 1

This season of our show on the perils of overfishing takes host Ruxandra Guidi to an island off the coast of Norway, where locals walk around with rifles to ward off polar bears. Norway’s fishing industry has been affected by a range of geopolitical and environmental issues, including the war in Ukraine and climate change. As in previous seasons, Guidi focuses on one particular sea creature: the cod fish.

5. Top Negotiator for Hollywood Writers Traces Steps That Led to a Deal With Studios

The Negotiators, Season 3, Episode 4

The Hollywood writers’ strike this year hampered production of movies and television shows for months and ended up being one of the longest in the industry’s history. This episode features an extended interview with Ellen Stutzman, the assistant executive director of the Writers Guild of America West and the union’s chief negotiator. Many of the guild’s demands were met during months of grueling talks. On each episode of The Negotiators, a collaboration with Doha Debates, a mediator or troubleshooter tells the story of one high-level negotiation.

Roundup

The Shows FP Staffers and Columnists Loved in 2023

Lori Kelley   6:00AM, 23 Dec, 2023

At Foreign Policy, our columnists and staff are focused on helping our readers to understand the people, events, and forces shaping our world, whether it’s the Israel-Hamas war, the rise of AI technology, the reshaping of global alliances, or climate change and the green energy transition.

But it’s not all work and no play around here. When we’re off the clock, we also like to kick back and enjoy some quality entertainment—an enlightening politics podcast, a thrilling historical drama, or even a fun reality TV show. And we figured that if you’re reading Foreign Policy, you’ve probably got some similar tastes to us foreign-policy geeks—so we asked FP columnists and staff to share the TV shows, movies, and podcasts they particularly enjoyed this year. Here are their recommendations.

Transatlantic (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

Transatlantic is loosely based on the real story of Albert Hirschman, a noted German American economist who, along with the intrepid American journalist Varian Fry, helped organize a clandestine, and extraordinarily risky, effort to smuggle mostly Jewish intellectuals, dissidents, and artists out of Vichy-controlled Marseille in 1940.

The series, which was inspired by the novel The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer, is a fictionalized and somewhat romanticized account of this effort. Among other matters, it features a romance between Hirschman and an incredibly courageous, well-to-do American woman, Mary Jayne Gold, who is one of Hirschman’s principal financial supporters. That romance, which the series plays up, was probably apocryphal. Nevertheless, it is one that will have World War II buffs simply glued to the screen.

—Sumit Ganguly, FP columnist

Generation Jihad (podcast)

AVAILABLE ON ALL PODCAST PLATFORMS

Generation Jihad, Bill Roggio’s podcast spinoff from his well-established Long War Journal blog, provides informative, real-time blowback wisdom on the ongoing global war against jihadism. Since launching in March 2020 with a brutal analysis of the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan, Generation Jihad—which, like Long War Journal, is supported by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies—has cast a gimlet eye on the threat of Islamist extremism.

From al-Shabab to al Qaeda, from West Africa to Southeast Asia, former U.S. Army soldier Roggio—along with colleagues and guests who have included retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served briefly as former U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security advisor—examines the implications of policies, military operations, and minutiae that may not warrant mention in mainstream media reporting, such as jail breaks and leadership squabbles, but that add context for understanding and demystifying the overarching conflict of our time. Since Oct. 7, the podcast’s focus has been on the Israel-Hamas war.

Roggio brings gruff charm to deadly serious stuff. For more about him, listen to his guest turn on The Boardwalk podcast, where three former U.S. military intelligence guys discuss all things related to the war in Afghanistan.

—Lynne O’Donnell, FP columnist

Suits (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX, PRIME VIDEO, AND PEACOCK

My wife and I recently found ourselves in a TV-watching holding pattern. While we wait for Shrinking, The Bear, and Only Murders in the Building to return, we could not find a show that stuck. These being dark times, we wanted something light.

Somehow, we landed on Suits, a decidedly flimsy legal dramedy about the fictitious New York City law firm Pearson Hardman. There has got to be better television out there than this show, but oddly, my wife and I are drawn to it. Admittedly, there is not much of a discernible foreign-policy aspect to it—or at least in the first eight episodes of the first season, which is as far as we’ve gotten—other than the fact that it was filmed in Toronto and the former Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex, is one of the show’s lead actors. Despite the fact that I have a British side of the family, I pay no attention to the travails of the royals, but as far as Meghan goes, she is fine in the show.

Being from the New York metropolitan area, it bums me out when Toronto is used as the stand-in for New York City, and within 30 seconds of seeing the first exterior shot of the very first episode, I grumpily sighed and said, “That is not ‘the City’; that is totally Toronto.” The producers barely tried to hide the telltale signs that they were filming in the Great White North, such as the wrong color taxis and trolley tracks.

Still, I can’t wait to find out what happens next inside Pearson Hardman.

—Steven A. Cook, FP columnist

The Rest Is Politics (podcast)

AVAILABLE ON ALL PODCAST PLATFORMS

Often, with podcasts, it is easy to explain why you like them—usually, it is because they are instructive. You learn from them. But with The Rest Is Politics, it is less clear.

In it, two British political animals, Alastair Campbell from the Labour Party and Rory Stewart from the Conservative Party, sit down and blabber on for half an hour about things happening in Westminster and the wider world. They hop from one subject to the next. They do not go deep; sometimes they even get it wrong.

Why, then, is this podcast so irresistible?

Because it is a pleasant conversation between two people from opposite parties (or formerly from those parties—both men were kicked out for not toeing the official line), which is rare nowadays. Because they both hate Brexit as well as the political class currently in power and its behavior, but they have not lost their belief in politics. Both the extroverted Campbell and the more stoic Stewart, a former minister, are political romantics. They have ideas, and they like to discuss them. They do this with enthusiasm, moderation, and a good sense of humor. Sometimes they agree; sometimes they don’t. But guess what? It doesn’t matter, just as in the good old days. The secret of The Rest Is Politics, I guess, is that it keeps alive the hope that one day things will be better.

—Caroline de Gruyter, FP columnist

Revolutions (podcast) and History That Doesn’t Suck (podcast)

AVAILABLE ON ALL PODCAST PLATFORMS

One of the problems I run into most frequently in Washington’s foreign-policy community is recency bias—or, to put it less charitably, an obliviousness to any history that falls outside the narrow post-World War II experiences of U.S. policymakers. That’s why Washington is currently having a debate about great-power competition that is shaped almost entirely by Cold War analogies. But even if technology or norms have changed, we can learn a lot from the struggles of the past and how leaders and citizens handled both domestic and foreign-policy dilemmas.

Thus, I’m recommending two of my favorite history podcasts: Revolutions by Mike Duncan, which takes an in-depth look at historical struggles for greater (or lesser!) political, economic, or social changes in the Euro-Atlantic world, and History That Doesn’t Suck by Greg Jackson, a survey of U.S. history. Both are great listens with fascinating stories that give context for some of the big historical moments that shaped the modern world. The next time you want to make a historical analogy, why not take a listen to one of these podcasts and draw from the Spanish-American War, the Haitian Revolution, or the life and times of the French revolutionary and journalist Gracchus Babeuf?

—Emma Ashford, FP columnist

Was tun, Herr General? (podcast)

AVAILABLE ON ALL PODCAST PLATFORMS

My entertainment recommendation has to be the podcast Was tun, Herr General? (“What to do, General?) Yes, it’s a German offering, and yes, it’s in German. It features two episodes each week, always with retired Lt. Gen. Erhard Bühler of the Bundeswehr as the guest. In every episode, host Tim Deisinger asks Bühler to summarize the latest from Russia’s war in Ukraine and related developments, asks him a few questions about it, and then asks Bühler questions from listeners. It’s an extremely simple concept—and highly educational. Bühler is extremely knowledgeable, of course, but he’s also very good at explaining all manner of military activities.

Thanks to Bühler and Deisinger, I always feel up to date and well informed about the war—and a well-informed citizenry is the only basis on which Western countries can make wise decisions about how to support Ukraine. Every country needs a podcast like this—especially the United States.

—Elisabeth Braw, FP columnist

About a Boy: The Story of Vladimir Putin (podcast)

AVAILABLE ON ALL PODCAST PLATFORMS

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine left many in the world perplexed. Even though Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, no one expected him to launch a full-scale invasion. Since February 2022, many governments and scholars have been struggling to understand how Putin actually thinks and how far to go in support for Ukraine.

Julia Ioffe’s About a Boy opens a window into Putin’s childhood and the circumstances that built his character. He was born into a country that was grieving the loss of 27 million of its people in World War II and the deprivation the Soviets had to live through in the aftermath. He hails from a generation that grew up in the dvor, or courtyards, of cramped urban housing in the Soviet Union, where along with others he jostled for space and learned the ropes of life in an unforgiving climate. Ioffe brilliantly draws on the experiences of her father, who also grew up in a dvor, to translate Putin the boy and the values he carried with him as he grew up and became the most powerful man in Russia.

—Anchal Vohra, FP columnist

The Heavy Water War (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON PRIME VIDEO

If you, like me, watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer this year, found yourself diving into World War II and nuclear weapons history, and are curious to watch a parallel story unfold, then The Heavy Water War will be just what you’re looking for. Originally broadcast in 2015, the six-part Norwegian miniseries (titled Kampen om tungtvannet in Norway and The Saboteurs in the United Kingdom) covers Nazi Germany’s nuclear weapons program during World War II and the subsequent heroic collaboration between Norwegian and British intelligence to thwart the Nazis’ plans.

Set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Norway in the 1940s, The Heavy Water War traces a number of storylines (with actors speaking Norwegian, German, and English) that converge with the Allied sabotage of Nazi efforts to produce heavy water (essentially, water with a heavier hydrogen isotope), a key ingredient in Germany’s efforts to develop an atom bomb. The show is riveting, international, and moving, shedding light on a piece of World War II history that I personally never learned in school.

—Rylie Munn, social media editor

Saltburn (movie)

IN THEATERS AND AVAILABLE ON PRIME VIDEO

If you’ve seen the black comedy Saltburn, you’re probably taken aback—revolted, even—by this recommendation. But hear me out.

The film follows the story of Oxford University student Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan) and his friendship with a fellow student, the charming and wealthy Felix Catton (played by Jacob Elordi). Felix invites Oliver to his family’s estate for the summer, and hijinks ensue.

This is a movie about polite society turned upside-down, in which all of our traditions and expectations are contemptuously dismissed in favor of the pursuit of immediate material wealth. Social niceties permit certain heinous acts to be carried out and only lightly reprimanded. We will have decorum, after all. And, certainly, a man of Oxford carries himself in a fundamentally dignified way, yes?

Does any of this sound eerily like the world as we’ve experienced it over the last several years?

None of this is exactly a spoiler; it’s apparent early on that Keoghan’s Oliver is drawn to Elordi’s Felix in complicated ways, one of which is his immense wealth. “Saltburn” is the name of the Catton family’s English estate and also sounds a bit like the process your mind may undergo over the course of this film. What starts out as an opulent, richly colored fever dream through the infinite wealth of the English upper crust slowly devolves into something far darker than you could imagine. Sort of like the global events of 2023.

—Drew Gorman, deputy copy editor

Red, White & Royal Blue (movie)

AVAILABLE ON PRIME VIDEO

“Don’t cause an international incident.” Simple instructions, no? It takes a lot to sever ties between two of the world’s closest allies: the United States and the United Kingdom. But in the world of Red, White & Royal Blue, based on the bestselling novel by Casey McQuiston, that last straw comes in the shape of America’s first son Alex Claremont-Diaz and Britain’s Prince Henry.

Enter an enemies-to-lovers saga that plays out on an international diplomatic stage. When a high-profile scuffle at Buckingham Palace pits the White House’s golden boy against London’s favored prince, the two countries force both men to fake a friendship to avoid the devolution of global cooperation. Between campaign fundraisers and charity benefits, Alex and Henry quickly forget the weight of their public images for the romantic feelings they share for each other. But is the world, and the countries’ tangled histories with LGBTQ+ rights, ready for what they have to say?

If only all foreign-relations squabbles could be solved with lake house retreats, polo games, and a kiss.

—Alexandra Sharp, newsletter writer

Mother Country Radicals (podcast)

AVAILABLE ON ALL PODCAST PLATFORMS

Adulthood, I have learned, is effectively an endless stream of chores. But all that cooking, cleaning, and laundry folding becomes much more bearable when done to the tune of Beyoncé—or a good podcast. My favorite auditory distraction of the past year has been Mother Country Radicals, a 2022 docu-podcast from Crooked Media and Audacy that chronicles the rise, fall, and legacy of the Weather Underground, a leftist militant group that was active in the United States during the 1970s.

Mother Country Radicals is no ordinary history podcast. Hosted by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, the son of militants Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn—who famously declared war on the U.S. government—the show has a personal touch that affords it great nuance in examining the moral ambiguities of revolutionary violence. Ayers Dohrn was born underground while his parents were fugitives from the FBI. He harbors deep respect for his parents’ convictions but also enduring resentment for the ways their commitment to a larger political struggle led them to neglect the people around them, especially their children.

The series—which won the 2022 Shorty Award in the true crime and documentary category—is eminently binge-worthy. (I admit to canceling plans with friends to finish it.) Ayers Dohrn maintains remarkable objectivity in his telling of history without ever compromising emotional honesty, particularly when exploring fraught ethical questions about what productive solidarity looks like in a world of conflict and inequality. The Weather Underground may now be defunct, but the dilemmas its short history raises are timeless.

—Allison Meakem, associate editor

Drag Race Germany (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON MTV AND PARAMOUNT+ IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND AND ON WOW PRESENTS PLUS INTERNATIONALLY

RuPaul’s Drag Race is an Emmy Award-winning reality TV show in which drag queens compete for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar. Hosted by RuPaul, arguably the most famous drag queen in the world today, the original U.S. version of the show debuted in 2009 and is now entering its 16th season. Sometimes referred to as the “Olympics of drag” (though not to be confused with the Drag Olympics), the series is a staple of gay pop culture that has brought the underground art of drag performance to mainstream audiences around the world.

The show has spawned several spinoffs, including RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race, as well as international versions in Australia/New Zealand (jointly billed as “Down Under”), Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and now Germany.

Drag Race Germany’s first season just came out in September, and it is an absolute blast to watch. Hosted by German drag performer and LGBTQ+ activist Barbie Breakout, actor and activist Gianni Jovanovic, and American fashion designer and model Dianne Brill, the show features 11 contestants from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland who battle it out in hilarious and frequently absurd challenges that test their skills in fashion and design, makeup artistry, acting, singing, dancing, comedy and improv, and, of course, lip-syncing. The winner receives the title of Germany’s Next Drag Superstar, along with 100,000 euros, a crown and scepter, and a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics.

Along the way, viewers get to learn all kinds of fun and interesting tidbits about German culture and especially German LGBTQ+ culture. There’s also some politics thrown in: In episode four, the runway category is “Night of a Thousand Angies,” in which the queens have to present drag-exaggerated versions of famous looks worn by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The result is one of the funniest, most ridiculous runways the Drag Race franchise has ever had.

—Jennifer Williams, deputy editor

90 Day Fiancé (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON MAX, HULU, PRIME VIDEO, AND SEVERAL OTHER STREAMING PLATFORMS

90 Day Fiancé, a reality TV show about Americans finding love with foreigners, debuted on the cable channel TLC in 2014. The title refers to the length of a K-1 visa, the so-called fiancé visa, which allows Americans to bring their international partners into the United States to marry and obtain permanent residence. This year, the series found legions of new fans on the streaming service Max. And why wouldn’t it? What’s higher stakes than mixing love with the foibles of the U.S. immigration system?

As a former K-1 visa holder, I still recall the strangeness of the application process, which entailed showing up at the U.S. Consulate in Sydney on the one day when all the appointments had been made by Australians who happened to have fallen in love with Americans. As each of us shuffled to a bulletproof window to explain the contours of our long-distance relationships to a consular officer, it was impossible not to overhear gossipy details. One woman connected with her husband-to-be playing online poker; another, at a guitar collectors conference in Nashville.

The drama of 90 Day Fiancé—will they make it down the aisle, or even through the airport, without breaking up?—was nail-biting enough. But I think it has been exceeded by a spinoff, 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days. Instead of foreigners traveling to the United States, in this series Americans travel to meet their love interests abroad. A lot of predictable things happen to them, and I say this as someone who is now an American. A Midwesterner who finds himself in a remote Amazonian town boasts to his Brazilian girlfriend about the running water he can offer her back home. Americans are dismayed when there’s no air conditioning in a rural home in Kenya and by how small a Dutch apartment is. A woman from Connecticut drinks too much of the local liquor in Albania. Before a traditional Filipino pig roast, a Florida man thrusts an iPhone armed with Google Translate at an older relative of his paramour’s to explain why he won’t be eating the feast held in his honor. (He’s skeeved out by undercooked pork.)

Much of it is disastrous, and some of it is troubling. But Before the 90 Days also reveals a fascinating glimpse into how ordinary people in different countries live—and serves as a reminder that falling in love the world over requires an alchemy not yet bottled.

—Amelia Lester, executive editor

Jubilee (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON PRIME VIDEO

Set in 1940s Bombay (now Mumbai), this series brings together old-timey Bollywood drama with the India-Pakistan partition and a subsequent Cold War propaganda battle over the subcontinent fought across Indian movie screens and radio waves in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). While that may seem like a lot to pack into 10 episodes, those various strands are woven together in an interesting manner by creator Vikramaditya Motwane (of Sacred Games fame) and are somewhat loosely based on true events, making for some fun Google rabbit holes for geopolitics and cinema nerds alike.

—Rishi Iyengar, staff writer

Old Enough! (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

This might be embarrassing to admit so publicly, but one of the shows that I’ve most enjoyed watching this year is Old Enough!, a Japanese reality show that follows young children as they bravely run simple errands on their own for the first time.

On Netflix, viewers can watch as the cherubic children, who are sometimes as young as 2 years old, tackle daunting challenges: remembering the route to the local supermarket, learning to ride a bus, or struggling to pick a heavy cabbage. Even when the children encounter hurdles—and, in some cases, burst into tears out of frustration—they courageously push on, conquering their fears and returning home to proud parents who were often even more anxious than the kids were.

Beyond the undeniable adorableness of the show, there’s something incredibly heartwarming about watching children learning to overcome obstacles and independently navigate the world. Old Enough! is remarkably easy to binge-watch, and I hope that it brings joy to others looking for a charming escape this holiday season.

—Christina Lu, staff writer

Welcome to Wrexham (TV show)

AVAILABLE ON HULU

I know this would get me exiled in most countries if I uttered these words out loud but: I’m not a big fan of soccer. Still, Welcome to Wrexham is the perfect wholesome escapist balm, whether you’re a sports fan or not. The docuseries follows two A-list actors, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, as they buy a fifth-tier soccer team in the Welsh city of Wrexham. Both the team and the town are down on their luck and hungry for wins and redemption.

It’s a compelling portrait of how sports can bring a community together, complete with delightful tangents about the town’s inhabitants, history, and culture. While the two actors are in effect producing the documentary about themselves, it doesn’t come across as self-serving—and as the first season picks up, they justifiably step to the side and let the town take center stage. You’ll find yourself binging the two seasons as you get sucked into rooting for the underdog Red Dragons—both the men’s and women’s teams—and learning firsthand why lower-tier European soccer league fandom can be so addicting. And as an early holiday gift, it’s already been renewed for a third season.

—Robbie Gramer, staff writer

El Planeta (movie)

AVAILABLE ON MAX, HULU, PRIME VIDEO, AND SEVERAL OTHER STREAMING PLATFORMS

How can one live with dignity in the aftermath of a financial crisis? That question lies at the heart of El Planeta, a striking 2021 black-and-white Spanish comedy by filmmaker Amalia Ulman. Perhaps with style, the film seems to answer—and an eye to the absurd. The mother and daughter at the heart of El Planeta, played by Ullman herself and her real-life mother, have both of those qualities: Unemployed and facing an impending eviction, they stroll through the depressed coastal city of Gijon, Spain, where the Argentine-born Ullman grew up, decked in fur coats and Dior. Outside the walls of their cramped apartment, they’re the model of old European grandeur. Inside, they lie in a shared bed cooing over memories of their dead cat.

Despite their unfortunate circumstances, the duo’s day-to-day cares are minor: They sip coffee, fumble at romance, and try on clothes for a wedding they’ll never attend. El Planeta is a film of facades—of white lies, public appearances, and, of course, good old-fashioned scamming. (How else would they keep up the pretense of a glamorous life?) Yet somehow, artifice isn’t chilling in Ullman’s film; its 82 minutes are held together and propelled by the warmth of a carefully rendered familial relationship, and the deep—and very real—anxiety of knowing financial ruin awaits.

—Chloe Hadavas, associate editor

22 Dec, 2023

- U.N. Security Council Passes Gaza Aid Deal

- No, Putin Is Not One of the Year’s ‘Winners’

- The Trouble With a Cease-Fire

- Western Hemisphere Relations Move From Idealism to Realpolitik

World Brief

U.N. Security Council Passes Gaza Aid Deal

Alexandra Sharp   7:00PM, 22 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a United Nations resolution to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza, Angola leaving OPEC, and Japan easing weapons export restrictions for the United States.

Cries Grow for More Aid to Gaza

The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution on Friday demanding that more aid be allowed to enter Gaza. The United States and Russia both abstained from the vote after days of deadlock and U.S. veto threats.

The resolution dropped a previous call to suspend hostilities, instead recommending that “urgent steps” be taken to allow unhindered humanitarian access into the war-torn Gaza Strip. The draft’s text, largely supported by Arab countries, originally called for a “cessation” in hostilities that was then watered down to say “suspension” at the United States’ urging. But that, too, was eventually removed after Washington decided not to commit to any cease-fire demands.

The United States remains Israel’s staunchest ally despite growing criticism of its war operations and alleged indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians. According to a Gallup poll published Friday, Israelis’ approval of U.S. leadership hit a record-high 81 percent this year, up from 65 percent in 2022.

The United States worked closely with the United Arab Emirates, which first submitted the draft resolution, and Egypt to come to a working compromise. Although Cairo is not a current member of the Security Council, it was heavily involved in U.N. discussions due to its role overseeing the Rafah border crossing into Gaza as well as its help mediating a pause in fighting and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

A U.N. report published Thursday highlighting “catastrophic hunger and starvation” in Gaza also pushed the Security Council to pass the resolution. It detailed how 1 in 4 Gazans are starving and the risk of famine is increasing, blaming insufficient humanitarian assistance. Although Israel has allowed some food and medical aid into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, limits on fuel imports and continued bombardments have worsened Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis.

“I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza—and at this speed,” said Arif Husain, the chief economist for the U.N. World Food Program.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) widened their offensive into central Gaza on Friday. Senior military officials said Israel’s air force destroyed a long-range missile launch site in Juhor ad-Dik, which they alleged was responsible for “recent launches into Israeli territory,” possibly including Hamas’s strikes against Tel Aviv on Thursday. The IDF also ordered residents of al-Bureij to move south immediately ahead of Israeli bombardments.

A shift in fighting toward central Gaza does not appear to be diminishing Israeli attacks across other parts of the region. Locals reported heavy shelling and airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza this week, which Israeli forces say houses Hamas operations. And fighting wrought further destruction in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah as Palestinian civilians struggle to find shelter. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 53,300 others wounded since war began on Oct. 7, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported.

Today’s Most Read

- The West’s 3 Options to Combat the Houthi Attacks by Bruce Jones

- Washington Tries to Correct Course on Sudan’s Civil War by Robbie Gramer

- The Red Sea Crisis, Explained by Christina Lu

What We’re Following

Luanda’s oil row. Angola announced on Thursday that it will leave OPEC, arguing that the oil cartel no longer serves the central African country’s interests. Angola, which seeks to increase crude oil production to boost its economy, decried the OPEC+ decision in November to cut output quotas for 2024. Luanda’s departure from the bloc caused oil prices to drop by 2.4 percent on Thursday and hinted at fracturing OPEC unity.

Angola joined OPEC in 2007, and it produced roughly 4 percent of the bloc’s oil. Now analysts are wondering if Nigeria, another OPEC member and the most populous country in the group, will also leave. Nigeria has also been trying to raise its crude output. However, “[d]espite being Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria has no functional refinery, so it can’t just produce more fuel to bring down the high cost of gas,” Nigerian journalist Pelumi Salako wrote for Foreign Policy.

Both Ecuador and Qatar have also left OPEC in the past decade, and Indonesia suspended its membership in 2016.

Landmark reversal from Japan. In a policy pivot, Japan announced on Friday that it will relax export restrictions to sell Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to the United States. The sale will help Washington grow its military stockpiles as it struggles to garner congressional support to send more aid to Ukraine. Japan has largely restricted weapons exports since World War II, with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first easing some export restrictions in 2014.

Tokyo hopes the decision will “contribute to Japan and the Indo-Pacific region’s peace and stability,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Friday. Regional experts believe that relaxing decades-old export laws will help counter Chinese and North Korean aggression, with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan applauding the move, saying it will help U.S. forces “maintain a credible deterrence and response capability” in the region.

Khan’s continued campaign. Pakistan’s Supreme Court granted former Prime Minister Imran Khan bail on Friday for charges accusing him of leaking state secrets. It is unlikely that he will be released while serving a three-year sentence for corruption, among other crimes. The court also refused to reverse a decision disqualifying Khan from running in next February’s national election.

Still, the legal rulings have not dwindled Khan’s electoral ambitions. The former leader, who remains one of the most popular prime ministers in the nation’s history, submitted his nomination papers on Friday. Earlier this week, he delivered a speech from prison—with an artificial intelligence-generated voice—as part of his campaign efforts. Islamabad banned the country’s TV stations from broadcasting the message.

Odds and Ends

Not even an hour after elusive artist Banksy confirmed the authenticity of a new piece in south London on Friday, two men stole the installation. Banksy’s latest project was a stop sign with three drone-like military aircraft on it. The thieves could face severe consequences if caught stealing or selling the artwork. The anonymous artist is not thought to be behind its removal.

Argument

No, Putin Is Not One of the Year’s ‘Winners’

Anusha Rathi   4:10PM, 22 Dec, 2023

This is perhaps the most dire moment for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with the military situation on the battlefield seemingly stalemated, Western political support wavering under the weight of political dysfunction, and war in the Middle East diverting resources and attention.

Nevertheless, many reflexive cynics in the Western press are going too far in crediting Ukraine’s adversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin, with one Wall Street Journal columnist even declaring Putin one of the “winners of the year.” We cannot fall into the trap of thinking that all is good for Putin, and we cannot jettison effective measures to pressure him. Just this week, the New York Times even suggested that the exit of more than 1,000 multinational companies from Russia has backfired by enriching Putin and his cronies.

All the evidence suggests there are, in fact, ample costs of the business exodus. Economic data clearly shows that the Russian economy has paid a huge price for the loss of those businesses. Putin continues to conceal the required disclosure of Russia’s national income statistics—obviously because they are nothing to brag out.

Transferring nearly worthless assets does not make Russia or Putin cronies wealthier. While Putin expropriated some assets of Asian and Western companies, most firms simply abandoned them, eagerly writing down billions of dollars in assets. They were rewarded for doing so as their market capitalization soared upon the news of their exits. Russia is not only suing foreign companies for leaving, as ExxonMobil’s and BP’s departures ended the technology needed for exploration, but Russian oil giant Rosneft even sued Reuters for reporting on it. The massive supply disruptions shuttering Russian factories across sectors were described in on-the-ground reporting by the Journal, which resulted in the arrest and now nine-month imprisonment of the heroic journalist who documented the truth.

Consider the following economic statistics we have verified.

Talent flight. In the first months after the invasion, an estimated 500,000 individuals fled Russia, many of whom were exactly the highly educated, technically skilled workers Russia cannot afford to lose. In the year-plus since, that number has ballooned to at least 1 million individuals. By some counts, Russia lost 10 percent of its entire technology workforce from this unprecedented talent flight.

Capital flight. Per the Russian Central Bank’s own reports, a record $253 billion in private capital was pulled out of Russia between February 2022 and June 2023, which was more than four times the amount of prior capital outflows. By some measures, Russia lost 33 percent of the total number of millionaires living in Russia when those individuals fled.

Loss of Western technology and knowhow. This occurred across key industries such as technology and energy exploration. For example, Rosneft alone has had to spend nearly $10 billion more on capital expenditure over the last year by its own disclosure, which amounts to roughly $10 of additional expenses for every barrel of oil exported, on top of difficulties continuing its Arctic oil drilling projects, which were almost solely dependent on Western tech and expertise.

Near-complete halt in foreign direct investment into Russia. Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Russia has come to a near-complete stop by several measures. There has been only one month of positive inflows in the 22 months since the invasion, compared with approximately $100 billion in FDI annually before the war.

Loss of the ruble as a freely convertible and exchangeable currency. With global multinationals fleeing in such droves, there was little to stop Putin from implementing unprecedented, strict capital controls on the ruble post-invasion, such as banning citizens from sending money to bank accounts abroad; suspending cash withdrawals from dollar banking accounts beyond $10,000; forcing exporters to exchange 80 percent of their earnings for rubles; suspending direct dollar conversions for individuals with ruble banking accounts; suspending lending in dollars; and suspending dollar sales across Russian banks. No wonder ruble trading volumes are down 90 percent, making Russian assets valued in rubles virtually worthless and unexchangeable in global markets.

Loss of access to capital markets. Western capital markets remain the deepest, most liquid, and cheapest source of capital to fund business and risk-taking. Since the start of the invasion, no Russian company has been able to issue any new stock or any new bonds in any Western financial market—meaning they can only tap the coffers of domestic funding sources such as Putin’s state-owned banks for loans at usurious rates (and still increasing, with the benchmark interest rate at 16 percent). And with multinational companies having fled, Russian business ventures have no alternative sources of funding and no global investors to tap.

Massive destruction of wealth and plummeting asset valuations. Thanks in part to the mass exodus of global multinational businesses, asset valuations have plummeted across the board in Russia, with even the total enterprise value of some state-owned enterprise down 75 percent compared with prewar levels, according to our research, on top of 50 percent haircuts in the valuation of many private sector assets, as cited in the Times.

These are just some of the costs imposed on Putin by the withdrawal of 1,000-plus global businesses; it does not consider the deleterious impact on the Russian economy of economic sanctions, such as the highly effective oil price cap devised by the U.S. Treasury Department. More than two-thirds of Russia’s exports were energy, and that is now sliced in half. Russia, which never supplied any finished goods—industrial or consumer—to the global economy, is paralyzed. It is not remotely an economic superpower, with virtually all of its raw materials easily substituted from elsewhere. The war machine is driven only by the cannibalization of now state-controlled enterprises.

Based on our ample economic data, the verdict is clear: The unprecedented, historic exodus of 1,000-plus global companies has helped cripple Putin’s war machine. At such a dire moment for Ukraine, it would be a mistake to be too Pollyannaish—just as it would be a mistake to be too cynical.

Argument

The Trouble With a Cease-Fire

Stefan Theil   3:26PM, 22 Dec, 2023

Seeing the imagery coming out of Gaza, it’s no wonder that 153 out of 193 states in the United Nations General Assembly and two-thirds of Americans support a cease-fire. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health reports that more than 20,000 Palestinians—many of them civilians—have died so far, and the numbers are climbing. As of the end of November, some 60 percent of the homes in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed. Fuel, medicine, and food are all in short supply. Given all of this, who would not want such devastation to end?

Strategically, however, calls for a cease-fire—as opposed to a short pause in fighting, such as the one-week truce proposed by Israel and rejected by Hamas this week—are a mistake. These calls from the international community are, for starters, unlikely to change Israeli policy. But more importantly, they actually end up making what is already an undeniably bad situation even worse. That is because successful cease-fires require both sides to believe that such a cessation serves their interests. After a week in Israel talking to senior Israeli military and security officials and everyday Israelis, I can say that this is simply not the case right now.

Even before the Oct. 7 attacks, the Israeli electorate was growing more skeptical of a peaceful two-state solution. One of the perverse ironies of the Oct. 7 attacks is that some of the communities hardest hit by the atrocities—the kibbutzim deeply rooted in Israel’s socialist past—were also some of the most staunchly pro-peace voices in Israeli society. Today, buildings across Israel are filled with photographs of the hostages and streets are filled with posters that, roughly translated, declare “together to victory.” In a society that was so recently reeling from deep polarization and mass protests, Israelis from across the political spectrum are now fully united at least in one respect: their desire for the destruction of Hamas.

Much of this broad commitment to Hamas’s destruction stems less from seeking revenge or even appeasing anger (although there is, to be sure, some of this in play as well), but rather an even more basic and powerful emotion: fear. Prior to the attack, Israeli security officials regarded Hamas as a second-tier threat, ranking below Iran and its premier proxy, Hezbollah. While Israel expected Hamas to launch rockets or occasionally kidnap Israelis, Israeli security officials never believed Hamas could conduct an attack at the scale or complexity of Oct. 7.

The attacks that morning shattered many Israelis’ sense of security in profound ways. Hamas operatives killed, raped, and tortured Israelis—both soldiers and civilians—in a brutal but highly methodical fashion. According Israeli military officers I interviewed, captured plans indicate that Hamas meticulously planned its assault, down to naming the owners of individual houses and even identifying who owned dogs. Captured weaponry suggests that Hamas planned to advance up to 30 kilometers into Israel and hold the territory for days. For context, Tel Aviv is a mere 60 kilometers from the Gaza border.

Indeed, the wounds of Oct. 7 remain fresh. More than 200,000 Israelis—from the Gaza border and from the Lebanese border—remain internally displaced. Over 10,000 rockets have been fired into Israel since the war began; hundreds of rockets are fired into Israel weekly, including into major cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Since Oct. 7, 260,000 Israelis have applied for gun permits, and approvals have increased thirtyfold from a similar time period prior to the conflict. And with a currently mobilized army of a half-million in a country of fewer than 10 million, practically everyone has a family member either at or ready for war. Given that Hamas promised to repeat the Oct. 7 attack until Israel’s annihilation, it is no wonder that Israelis nearly uniformly want, as one Israeli politician put it to me, to “finish the job” this time around.

Against this backdrop, to Israelis, the international calls for a cease-fire ring hollow. Some seem tone-deaf. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, even claimed that Israel never had a right to self-defense, because Gaza is “under belligerent occupation,” ignoring both the immediate reality of the Oct. 7 attacks and the broader context that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Other calls for a cease-fire smack of blatant hypocrisy. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—who is one of the most prolific jailers of journalists in the world and is also engaged in his own crackdown on Kurdish militant groups—quickly proclaimed Israel “a war criminal to the world.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is conducting an increasingly genocidal campaign in Ukraine, now wants to “stop the bloodshed” in Gaza. And Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may decry the “crimes against Palestinians” but will torture and kill those who dare protest his regime and its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

It’s not merely that the calls for a cease-fire will likely go unheeded, however. They are likely having a perverse effect. As Israel senses the window for action closing, it increases the pressure to go fast and destroy Hamas infrastructure while it still can, rather than conduct a slower, more deliberate campaign to root out Hamas networks. The popular slogan heard at protests around the world—“from the river to the sea”—fuels Israel’s sense that it is locked in an existential battle. When countries face existential threats, they will go to any length to guarantee their security and are less—rather than more—likely to act with restraint.

Even if the calls for cease-fire are ultimately successful, the outcome will not be a pretty one. Israel, fearing a repeat of Oct. 7, will fortify its border with Gaza, turning it into something more akin to the Demilitarized Zone in Korea—with more walls, obstacles, and minefields—than its current state. Reconstruction will become significantly more difficult, as Israel will restrict what aid enters Gaza, again tempered by the fear that Hamas will use everything from concrete to fuel to rebuild its military infrastructure. Israel would also likely ban the 18,000 Gazans who previously worked in Israel, given the fears that some of them could have been a conduit of Hamas’s intelligence-gathering efforts, further stifling the chances that the Gazan economy bounces back from the conflict. Military operations would not cease, either. Hamas would still try to attack Israel; Israel would still strike Hamas and other military groups in return. Ultimately, these conditions would lay the seeds for yet another, potentially even bloodier Gaza war.

What, then, can the international community do to ease the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population? First, it should pressure Israeli operations to become more precise in their use of force. To date, Israel’s operations have included at least 29,000 airstrikes—not to mention significant amounts of artillery and ground operations. Israeli analyses of these strikes, as well as the relatively high rates of friendly fire between Israeli military units (believed to be up to 20 percent of Israeli casualties), suggest that, at the very least, Israel has loosened its rules of engagement for this war. Tightening these rules would save lives among both the Israeli military and Palestinian civilians.

The international community should also push for increased humanitarian aid for Gaza. While Israelis accuse Hamas of stealing aid for its own purposes, at least some of it gets through to Gaza’s population. In particular, with winter coming, and many of Gaza’s buildings destroyed, the international community should look to provide temporary housing to Gaza’s population. Of course, such housing is contingent upon having relatively safe places to put it, so the international community should also push Israel to create safe havens in spaces it has already cleared of Hamas militants.

Finally, the international community should force a hard and necessary conversation with Israel the day after the war ends. If there is to be any silver lining in all the death and destruction in Gaza, then it should be that this war opens the aperture for a more lasting political solution, rather than a continuous cycle of violence that has plagued the region ever since the Israeli withdrawal from the strip in 2005. Should Israel succeed in its war aims and drive Hamas out, it’s incumbent on Israel—as well as the international community—to provide the space for a liberal Palestinian nationalist movement to take Hamas’s place. That, in turn, requires Israel to make real concessions, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well.

That is the trouble with cease-fires: They are short-term fixes amid the lasting problem of war. Given all the blood that has already been spilled, the international community must ensure that this war results not in some sort of temporary truce, but a lasting peace.

Latin America Brief

Western Hemisphere Relations Move From Idealism to Realpolitik

Allison Meakem   8:00AM, 22 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief, and happy holidays.

The highlights this week: We look back at some of the year’s biggest stories, including the Western Hemisphere’s diplomatic wager on Venezuela, progress on tropical forest protection in the Amazon, and successful efforts to shore up democracy in Brazil and Guatemala.

Knitting Back Ties

Latin America’s 2023 is ending on a dramatic note. On Wednesday, the United States conducted a high-profile prisoner swap with Venezuela, exchanging a close business associate of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for 10 Americans who had been detained in the country. Caracas also committed to freeing 20 Venezuelan political prisoners, the White House said, and handed over into U.S. custody the fugitive defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis, also known as “Fat Leonard,” who has been at the center of a Pentagon bribery scandal.

The deal, which followed talks, is indicative of a broader trend in regional politics. In 2023, Latin American countries led by both left-wing and right-wing presidents restored their ambassadors to Venezuela after a yearslong diplomatic nonrecognition strategy that failed to weaken Maduro’s autocracy. The United States also shifted its Venezuela strategy from diplomatic and economic isolation toward engagement.

The general thaw is related to at least two other major patterns in Western Hemisphere relations. The first is Brazil’s reemergence as a proponent of Latin American regionalism under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The second is Washington’s recalibration of its long-standing punitive sanctions policy toward Caracas.

Rekindled talks among Venezuela, the United States, and Latin American neighbors have centered on Maduro’s desire for sanctions relief as well as the other nations’ desires for restored economic ties, a competitive 2024 presidential election in Venezuela, and reduced outward migration from the country.

The negotiations follow a failed regime change strategy that reached its zenith in 2019, when governments around the world officially recognized a top opposition figure as the rightful leader of Venezuela and many hoped that Maduro would fall. So-called “maximum pressure” U.S. sanctions that the Trump administration imposed on Venezuela’s oil sector pummeled the country’s economy; some 7 million people have left Venezuela since 2015, but Maduro remained.

Now, interlocutors are trying a different tack. In October, Maduro pledged to work toward holding free presidential elections in 2024. Days later, the United States announced the suspension of some broad sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, gas, and gold sectors. Colombia and Brazil were particularly active in negotiations, pushing Maduro toward his electoral guarantees. Lula has traditionally been friendly with Maduro’s socialist political movement and spoke from a position of camaraderie that a historically more antagonistic Washington could not.

Lula’s diplomacy reflects his commitment to regional engagement since taking office on Jan. 1. (Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, spurned ties with Maduro.)

Many of Lula’s ambitions for regional engagement have so far yielded only modest gains: An early summit among South American nations featured considerable bickering, and a hoped-for trade deal between customs union Mercosur and the European Union did not materialize. But concrete results were visible, too. In addition to securing Maduro’s commitments, at December’s Mercosur summit—chaired by Brazil—four development banks unveiled a $10 billion plan to invest in regional infrastructure.

Washington’s shift from isolation to engagement with Caracas was driven in part by shared regional concerns over migration and sanctions’ toll on civilians. But it had other motivations as well. A chief negotiator for Venezuela’s political opposition said U.S. overtures to the country were also impacted by a desire to rein in Caracas’s drift toward non-Western partners, including Russia and Iran. And sanctioning the country with the world’s largest oil reserves became costly amid concerns about global energy security sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

It’s too early to know whether U.S. and Latin American engagement toward Venezuela will bring all of the hoped-for fruits—particularly free and fair elections next year. As of late Thursday, leading opposition presidential candidate María Corina Machado remained banned from running. A partial U.S. sanctions snapback could be in store.

But some positive results are already visible. There was this week’s prisoner swap. And when Maduro threatened to annex part of neighboring Guyana earlier this month, a dialogue mediated by Brazil and regional bodies walked him back from the brink.

This year might be understood as heralding a shift from idealism to realpolitik in Washington’s engagement with its one of its biggest regional adversaries and in Latin American countries’ relations with their spurned neighbor. In 2023, actors across the Western Hemisphere realized that democratic transformation or regime change in Venezuela was not going to happen via “maximum pressure.”

FP’s Most Read This Week

- Pakistan’s Army Chief Comes to Washington by Michael Kugelman

- America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose by A. Wess Mitchell

- The Relentless Growth of Degrowth Economics by Jessi Jezewska Stevens

More Stories We Followed This Year

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara (right), and National Indigenous Foundation President Joenia Wapichana (left) pose during the celebration of Amazon Day at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Sept. 5.Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

Forest protection. Global climate negotiations are influential in shaping countries’ emissions trajectories. So, too, are elections. That much was clear in the Brazilian and Colombian portions of the Amazon rainforest in 2023, where levels of deforestation fell sharply following the inaugurations of presidents who had pledged to stem it.

In Brazil, primary forest loss across the Amazon fell 59 percent in 2023, according to watchdog Amazon Conservation. In Colombia, it fell 67 percent. Deforestation is one of the leading sources of carbon emissions in South America, and Amazon forest loss leads to the disruption of regional ecosystems.

This year also saw a first-time diplomatic push by Brazil to encourage rainforest protection in neighboring South American countries via a so-called “Amazon summit.” The event failed to deliver a concrete new target shared by all eight countries in attendance, but it elevated conservation as a regional priority.

There was progress beyond Brazil and Colombia, too. After Bolivia’s rate of primary forest lost jumped by 32 percent in 2022, Amazon Conservation data showed the country’s Amazon deforestation slowed in 2023, according to Reuters. The same report found destruction also fell in Peru.

A view of the city of Monterrey, Mexico, on March 13. Billionaire Elon Musk recently confirmed Tesla’s plans to build a new electric car factory in the city.Julio Cesar Aguilar/AFP via Getty Images

Nearshoring in Mexico. Washington’s efforts to shift supply chains of goods purchased by U.S. consumers away from China to places closer to home bore major dividends for Mexico this year. Companies looking to move their China-based manufacturing elsewhere sought alternative countries with cheap labor and a preexisting industrial base. Mexico’s location and free trade agreement with the United States made it a strong candidate.

This year, Mexico surpassed China as the United States’ number one trade partner. In the first nine months of the year, foreign direct investment in Mexico was 30 percent higher than in the same period in 2022, according to government data. The nearshoring activity has led to the establishment of new factories in the northern industrial hotspot of Monterrey. Mexico is on track for an estimated 3.5 percent GDP growth for this year, one of the highest rates in the region.

Still, many analysts say that Mexico is not doing enough to take advantage of its nearshoring opportunity. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has made unpredictable regulatory decisions and expanded state control over key areas of the economy, such as energy.

What’s also unclear is how China’s role in Mexico’s nearshoring boom will play out. Many of the firms putting manufacturing facilities in Mexico are still shipping in materials from China, leading some analysts to say that Mexico is becoming a so-called connector nation between the United States and China rather than an independent production hub of its own.

Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arévalo arrives at the Palace of Justice in Guatemala City on Dec. 12.Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images

Democracy disrupted—and defended. The status quo changed little this year in the region’s hardened autocracies, including Nicaragua and Cuba. Some democratic countries saw dramatic but constitutional political ruptures, such as Ecuador’s August (and October runoff) snap elections following former President Guillermo Lasso’s dissolution of Congress. Meanwhile, Peruvian lawmakers’ attempts to purge members of the country’s judiciary sounded alarms among watchdogs.

But 2023 also saw two major and apparently successful pushes to shore up democracy. In Brazil, international actors and members of the country’s Supreme Court fought back against efforts by Bolsonaro and his supporters to reject the results of a 2022 presidential election that gave rhetorical fire to the Jan. 8 invasion of the Brazilian capital complex. Less than a year later, election deniers have been tried and sentenced, and Bolsonaro is barred from running for office for eight years for spreading lies about the integrity of the vote.

In Guatemala, when elite-aligned members of the country’s judiciary launched multiple attempts to keep anti-corruption President-elect Bernardo Arévalo from taking office following his August victory, pro-democracy activists staged nationwide protests. Foreign interlocutors—especially the United States—also turned up the diplomatic and financial pressure on those seeking to block Arévalo. He appears poised to be sworn in on Jan. 14, 2024.

As the cases of Brazil, Guatemala, and Venezuela showed this year, transnational pro-democracy activism is alive and well in Latin America. It often doesn’t yield immediate results, but it has proved a powerful force in the region over time.

21 Dec, 2023

- Hamas Refuses Israeli Cease-Fire, Hostage Swap Deal

- Four Days in 2023 That Shook the World

- The Red Sea Crisis, Explained

- The Case for a Bigger, Bolder NATO

World Brief

Hamas Refuses Israeli Cease-Fire, Hostage Swap Deal

Alexandra Sharp   7:00PM, 21 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a failed cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, Congolese candidates denouncing an extended election, and a mass university shooting in the Czech Republic.

Ongoing Talks

Hamas rejected an Israeli offer on Wednesday to implement a weeklong cease-fire if the militant group releases 40 hostages, according to Egyptian officials mediating the talks. Hamas said it will only consider freeing hostages after a cease-fire goes into effect and Gaza receives more humanitarian aid.

The 40 hostages would include all 19 women and two children still in captivity as well as older men in need of urgent medical care. Hamas alleges that three Israeli hostages, including both remaining children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Israel said it has not confirmed that the three people are dead.

Representatives of Palestinian Islamic Jihad—an Islamist militant group active in Gaza that, along with Hamas, participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and took hostages—are expected to also participate in talks in Cairo in the coming days. They are insisting that Israel release all of its thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including high-level militants, in exchange for handing over the remaining hostages.

At the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, nations continued to haggle over a resolution calling for a pause in fighting. The vote was scheduled for Monday but was delayed numerous times due to the United States threatening to use its veto power if the draft’s “cessation” language isn’t changed to a “suspension” in fighting, alongside other demands. Washington wants a truce that “doesn’t do anything that can actually hurt the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. However, Blinken pushed Israel to scale back its military actions in Gaza on Wednesday, urging for “more targeted operations” rather than the full-scale war currently underway.

Israeli forces uncovered an alleged Hamas command center in Gaza City on Wednesday. Israel believes the underground network of tunnels was used to transport weapons, militants, and supplies. Hamas military infrastructure was also “located in the direct vicinity of commercial stores, government buildings, civilian residences, and a designated school for deaf children,” an Israeli statement said.

The Israel Defense Forces intensified attacks across northern Gaza on Thursday, and Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on Oct. 7. And as of Wednesday, there are no more functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.

“More than ever, a humanitarian ceasefire is needed now to reinforce and restock remaining health facilities, deliver medical services needed by thousands of injured people and those needing other essential care, and, above all, to stop the bloodshed and death,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Today’s Most Read

- Ukraine Braces for Political Disaster in 2024 by Oz Katerji

- What a Russian Victory Would Mean for Ukraine by Adrian Karatnycky

- Could Hamas Become a Global Threat? by Colin P. Clarke

What We’re Following

Calls for a rerun. Voting continued for a second day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Thursday after polling stations battled hourslong delays, long lines, and other logistical nightmares. Nineteen candidates are vying to be the nation’s next president, including incumbent leader Félix Tshisekedi. However, five opposition hopefuls united late Wednesday to condemn the country’s extended election day, arguing that the decision was unconstitutional. They called for the elections to be rerun.

Congo’s electoral commission hopes to begin releasing some of the election results on Friday, with a provisional outcome expected by the end of the year. Tshisekedi is slated to win a second, and final, term. Nearly 44 million people registered to vote, but turnout numbers are predicted to be lower following an election day marred by operational hurdles.

Steps toward friendship. Top military leaders from the United States and China met via videoconference on Thursday for the first time in more than a year. Gen. Charles Brown, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Chinese Gen. Liu Zhenli discussed “the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations, and maintain open and direct lines of communication,” according to a U.S. readout.

The meeting followed U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreeing to reopen high-level military talks during San Francisco’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit last month. However, “[d]espite signs of renewed engagement, both Xi and Biden remain committed to their current confrontational course, which means the prospects for stabilization remain distant at best and foolhardy at worst,” China expert Craig Singleton told FP’s Robbie Gramer last month.

Rare gun violence. At least 15 people were killed in a mass shooting at Charles University in Prague on Thursday. Police said the shooter, a 24-year-old student at the university, was “eliminated,” and they are investigating his motive. Before the attack, the gunman also killed his father in their family home in Kladno, outside of Prague. Local authorities do not suspect any links to extremist groups.

The attack was one of the Czech Republic’s worst mass shootings in its history. Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed his “deepest condolences” for the victims and their loved ones on X, announcing that he would cut short his trip to Olomouc in order to attend an extraordinary government meeting on the situation.

Economic protests. Argentine President Javier Milei faced significant public unrest on Wednesday when thousands of people took to Buenos Aires’s streets to protest his economic shock policies. In an effort to decrease public spending, Milei last week announced cuts to subsidies, the closure of multiple government ministries, and a devaluation of the peso by more than 50 percent to the U.S. dollar.

This is Milei’s first major test since coming to power on Dec. 10, and he tried to preempt it last week by announcing new restrictions on demonstrators. Although some people are protesting, Milei’s political and economic reform promises found sizable support in a country plagued by high inflation, staggering poverty, and political corruption. However, “the paradox of populism is that it often identifies real problems but seeks to replace them with something worse,” history professor Federico Finchelstein wrote in Foreign Policy.

Odds and Ends

Ninety seconds could make or break your future—or so a group of South Korean teenagers are arguing. On Tuesday, aspiring college students sued the government after their college admissions exam ended a minute and a half early. They are asking for $15,400 per student, or the cost of a year’s studying to retake the exam, considered one of the hardest tests in the world.

Situation Report

Four Days in 2023 That Shook the World

Jack Detsch   5:00PM, 21 Dec, 2023

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Jack and Robbie here. We laughed, we cried, but mostly, we watched the music die. But amid the tumult, congratulations to the United States: Today, 48 percent of U.S. citizens have a passport, up from just 5 percent in 1990.

Word-of-mouth remains the best way to expand Situation Report, so if you’re finding this newsletter valuable, we’d appreciate you forwarding it to a colleague who might also find it useful. (New readers can sign up here.)

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: four days in 2023 that shook the world, five 2023 personnel choices that could move and shake Washington, and one British defense secretary who has many identities.

Four Days in 2023

It’s the end of the world as we know it. Do we feel fine? (Author’s note: not really.)

If the last decade saw the tectonic plates of the American-led international system starting to buckle, 2023 might have been the year when the world began to burst at the seams.

The year started with Ukraine optimistic about taking another Kharkiv- and Kherson-like bite out of Russian-occupied territory on its soil with U.S. weapons flowing in. But 2023 is ending with the counteroffensive stalled, Ukraine running out of ammo, and the West openly questioning whether the United States will still support Kyiv at all.

The year began with the Middle East in relative tranquility, with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan calling the region quieter than it had been in two decades, and Israel on the verge of normalizing relations with even more Arab states. 2023 is ending with Israel stuck in a bloody, block-by-block siege of the Gaza Strip that has displaced 1.8 million people—80 percent of the enclave’s population—after the militant group Hamas punched through the border and seized hundreds of hostages.

The year started with the U.S. military shooting a Chinese spy balloon out of the sky, and it ended with U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping making nice in California.

Dizzy yet? Yeah, us too. Don’t worry, because we’ve boiled down one of the craziest years on record into four days that changed everything.

Oct. 7. They came in gliders. They came in trucks. They came over fences—and sometimes through them.

With no warning, the militant group Hamas tore apart families in kibbutzim, shot passersby on highways, and killed concertgoers in the desert in a surprise, complex raid on Oct. 7 that shook the Middle East—and the world—to its foundations and sent a newly sleepy region into a war that could sprawl beyond the borders of Israel and the Palestinian enclaves.

By the time Israel had fended off Hamas’s attack, the death toll was roughly 1,200 Israelis and foreign citizens, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had decided on a costly ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to destroy the group.

More than two months later, the Middle East has undergone seismic shifts. Nearly 22,000 Palestinians have died in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its ground invasion, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, as Israel has launched thousands of unguided bombs into one of the most densely packed areas in the world. Nearly 2 million people are displaced. And there has been a regional ripple effect, too. The United States is even leading a maritime task force to patrol the Red Sea after repeated attacks on merchant ships by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group, which is linked with Tehran.

The United States is pushing for the fighting to stop, or at least die down significantly, so more aid trucks can get into Gaza. Israel insists it won’t stop until the estimated more than 100 hostages still in Hamas’s custody are freed. And the fighting has taken up all of the oxygen in the room for Ukraine.

June 8. In early June, Ukraine launched its highly anticipated counteroffensive. If you asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he would have told you that he wanted to start this campaign to roll back Russian forces much sooner—if only he had the bullets.

And by the time the weapons got there and Ukraine’s push began in earnest in mid-June, Russia had built rings of fortifications along the 600-mile front line, including deep trenches, firing stations, dragon’s teeth to stop Western-provided tanks, and layer upon layer of minefields that Russian troops reseated almost every night.

Without the surplus of Western weapons that Kyiv wanted—including long-range precision weapons—the Ukrainian advance only gained ground in fits and starts. And with the losses, the Ukrainians’ ambitions receded, too. First they wanted to advance Melitopol, a midsize Russian-occupied city near the Sea of Azov, where Ukrainian guns could more easily target occupied Crimea. With that goal out of reach, Ukrainian military chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny honed his sights on Tokmak, a Russian-held rail hub. And by November, with Ukrainian troops only 125 miles further south from where they’d started five months earlier, Zaluzhny publicly concluded that there would most likely “be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

And if Ukrainians feared they weren’t getting the support that they needed at the start of the counteroffensive, they’d be really in trouble by the end of it. That all came to a head in October, when the Biden administration floated a new $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine, with U.S. support just months from running out—but the aid package has yet to pass Congress due to a major impasse over security funding for the U.S. southern border.

Will we look at the counteroffensive as a mere stumble on Ukraine’s path to victory or the moment that sealed Kyiv’s defeat? Time will tell.

Did anything else happen in this part of the world? The European Union fell far short of its goal of producing 1 million 155mm artillery shells in 2023. Russian President Vladimir Putin left the New START nuclear arms reduction deal in February. Finland joined NATO, while Sweden got a promise it could join from Turkey, which still hasn’t come through.

Oh yeah, and Wagner Group honcho Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane was shot down on the way back to Russia after he launched a putsch against Putin.

Feb. 4. And Prigozhin’s plane wasn’t the only newsworthy thing to be shot out of the sky this year. For a week at the end of January, everyone stopped what they were doing to watch a mysterious big white object move across the skies of North America.

At first, no one knew what it was. Then the Biden administration confirmed that it was one of a fleet of Chinese spy balloons, and it had been hovering suspiciously near many of the United States’ most sensitive nuclear missile sites.

It stayed over the United States until Feb. 4, when it was safely away from populated areas and F-22 fighter jets could shoot it down just off the coast of North Carolina, giving beachgoers a Saturday to remember.

In the wake of the great balloon incident, the United States and China did very little talking—that is, until November, when Biden and Xi met in Woodside, California, just south of San Francisco. Now there is renewed hope that diplomatic and military hotlines between Washington and Beijing that have been dormant for months can come back online.

July 26. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

An almost perfectly straight geographic line of coups started snaking across Africa about three years ago with a 2020 mutiny in Mali that forced the president to cede power. Chad, Guinea, and Sudan followed suit in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022, and by April 2023, the two rival generals in Sudan who had promised a transition to peace were again at war, forcing a Delta Force-led evacuation of U.S. diplomats in the dead of night.

The U.S. counterterror footprint in Africa was now heavily dependent on Niger, a major U.S. drone base and a nerve center for intelligence networks in the heart of the continent. But by late July, Niger’s presidential guard had other plans.

The Biden administration hoped for a democratic transition that would bring Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum back into power, but those hopes would soon fade. In September, French President Emmanuel Macron—who was backstopping the Pentagon’s “mowing the grass” strategy with military muscle on the ground—said that French troops would leave.

The Pentagon has consolidated 1,100 U.S. troops away from the capital and started drone strikes again from Agadez, a city about 500 miles away. U.S. diplomatic engagement is now muted. And without the help of the French, can they hold out forever on lily pads in the desert?

We Got Personnel

Some of the more impactful personnel changes this year.

Hold up. The biggest personnel story in Washington in 2023 was actually about people not getting promoted. That was after Sen. Tommy Tuberville decided in March to put holds on more than 450 top Defense Department military nominees, including the would-be leaders of the military’s seven uniformed services, over a Pentagon policy giving servicemembers money to travel out of state to seek abortions.

But the pressure on Tuberville, a former Auburn football coach who prefers being called “coach” to “senator,” began to mount, including from within the Republican Party. By early December, Tuberville released about 425 of his remaining holds. (However, roughly 10 three- and four-star promotions are still on hold).

Disorder in the house. It took Rep. Kevin McCarthy 15 different ballots to become the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in January, the most votes to choose the top member of the lower house since the Civil War. It took far less than that for a group of far-right Republicans—led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, an ally of former President Donald Trump, to get rid of McCarthy—with the help of the Democrats in the lower chamber, sealing one of the shortest tenures in the job in U.S. history after McCarthy accepted a controversial deal to avoid a government shutdown.

It took House Republicans three more weeks to find a new leader. Rep. Steve Scalise couldn’t get through. Neither could Rep. Jim Jordan. Eventually, they settled on Rep. Mike Johnson, who was in the middle of only his fourth term in office, to be the new speaker. The job had been vacant for 22 days.

Johnson’s election, and the turmoil surrounding it, leave U.S. military aid to Ukraine in doubt. Though nominally pro-Kyiv, Johnson, who drew controversy for suggesting that his new job was ordained by God, has held up the prospect of more U.S. support to Ukraine over more funding for border security.

The job nobody wants. With a very short list of also-rans to choose from, NATO extended the mandate of Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg by a year in early July, putting the former Norwegian prime minister at more than a decade in the alliance’s top job. But that was only after everyone else was either ruled ineligible or said no. Then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte didn’t seem to want it, and neither did Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister (Stoltenberg’s immediate predecessor, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was also a Dane).

Stoltenberg is unlikely to get his tenure extended a fifth time, and Rutte, who has since been voted out of office, has expressed newfound interest in the job.

On the Button

Here’s a rundown of some of our favorite stories of the year.

Can ChatGPT explain geopolitics? We asked the latest generative artificial intelligence system to analyze Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. Here’s how it fared against a college student.

Are U.S. gun-makers responsible for violence in Mexico? There’s much talk of border security swirling around Washington these days. Almost none of it acknowledges a grim truth: Mexico’s sweeping cartel violence is made in America, in more ways than one. Cartels are arming themselves with weapons in the United States thanks to the unique U.S. approach to gun control (or lack thereof) and easy access to U.S. weapons. Read more here on how Mexican citizens are paying the price for America’s gun policies.

How the U.S. fumbled Sudan’s hopes for democracy. Sudan overthrew its dictator and began a precarious path to democracy … until it all went awry. The conflict in Sudan is growing grimmer by the day, even if it doesn’t garner nearly as much attention as Ukraine or the Israel-Hamas war. Many lay at least partial blame at the feet of the United States and other Western powers. Here’s why.

The Somali underdogs taking on terrorists. Jack got a rare firsthand look at U.S. counterterrorism operations during a visit to Somalia with top U.S. defense officials earlier this year and examined how the forever war against the deadly al-Shabab terrorist group in the Horn of Africa is evolving.

The witness. Our colleague Amy MacKinnon sat down with one of the world’s most prominent Uyghur human rights activists, Nury Turkel, to discuss China’s sweeping crackdown on its ethnic Uyghur Muslim population—a crackdown that the U.S. government has labeled a genocide. In Turkel’s view, one of the most chilling dimensions of Beijing’s campaign against Uyghurs is how the world has been unable—and in many instances, unwilling—to stop it. This is a cautionary tale for other humanitarian crises and conflict zones around the world.

The panda party’s almost over. Our global tech reporter Rishi Iyengar took a quick break from writing about AI and the global semiconductor race to focus on something closer to home for Washingtonians: pandas. More specifically, the beloved pandas at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo being returned to China, and how that sheds light on the grim relationship between the United States and China these days. (China controls the global panda population and distributes them to zoos around the world solely on loan.) Here’s to hoping this Cold War 2.0 thing gets resolved soon so we can get back to exchanging pandas.

Snapshot

Smoky haze from wildfires in Canada diminishes the visibility of the Chrysler Building on June 7 in New York City. New York topped the list of most polluted major cities in the world the night before as smoke from the fires continued to blanket the East Coast. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Quote of the Year

“I don’t work here. I’m doing the news.”

—Traffic jacket-clad BBC presenter Ben Boulos had a quick retort after being mistaken for a factory employee in Birmingham, England, on Wednesday. We feel you, Ben.

This Week’s Most Read

- Why China Is Stepping Up Its Maritime Attacks on the Philippines by Elisabeth Braw

- The Return of the Monroe Doctrine by Tom Long and Carsten-Andreas Schulz

- The Relentless Growth of Degrowth Economics by Jessi Jezewska Stevens

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Two lives. If new British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps has nine lives, he’s used at least two of them up. The former Tory party chairman fessed up—a long time ago—to taking a second job under the fake name Michael Green, dubbing himself a “multimillion-dollar web marketer” before he ran for office. He’s also posed under the business aliases Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox.

Explainer

The Red Sea Crisis, Explained

Christina Lu   4:58PM, 21 Dec, 2023

A Houthi helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea on Nov. 20.

Moses may have parted the Red Sea, but now, thanks to a wave of Houthi missile attacks, shipping companies are departing it in droves.

So far, the Iran-backed Yemeni group has launched at least 100 missile and drone attacks against a dozen ships in the Red Sea, according to U.S. officials, and threatened to target all vessels heading toward Israel, whether or not they are Israeli-owned or operated. To avoid suffering the same fate, major energy and shipping companies, including BP and Maersk, have halted their operations there—rattling energy markets and driving up global oil prices and soon everything else. The Red Sea is what connects Asia to Europe, in terms of cargo ships, so disruptions are felt around the world.

The Houthi attacks “have created worries for global freight markets, for the flows of energy commodities, other commodities, goods,” said Richard Bronze, the head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects, a research firm. “It’s a really critical shipping route, so any disruption risks adding delays and costs, which have a sort of knock-on effect in many corners of the global economy.”

Washington is reportedly mulling striking the Houthi base in Yemen, just days after announcing a multinational task force to safeguard navigation in the Red Sea. But the pledge did little to deter the Houthis, who instead vowed to ramp up their attacks and target U.S. warships if Washington executed attacks in Yemen.

As the threat of escalation looms over wary shipping companies and energy markets, Foreign Policy broke down the Red Sea crisis—and what it could mean for global trade.

You lost me at Houthis.

Backed by Iran, the Houthi rebel group controls vast swaths of northern Yemen, following a yearslong effort to gain power that ultimately plunged the country into a devastating civil war in 2014. After years of fighting between the Iran-armed Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition, at least 377,000 people had been killed by the end of 2021, 70 percent of whom were children younger than 5, according to U.N. estimates.

Experts say the Houthis’ Red Sea attacks are part of a bid to shore up domestic support and strengthen the group’s regional standing, while the Houthis’ popularity has only grown since they began waging these attacks. As part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthis have vowed to attack ships transiting the Red Sea until Israel ends its bombardment of Gaza. They’re Iran’s JV team, but they can make a splash at times.

“They seek to accomplish a more prestigious status in the region, as a resistance movement integral to the Iranian Axis of Resistance,” said Ibrahim Jalal, a nonresident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. The Houthis also “want to be framed as a disruptive actor that’s capable of also offering security by halting attacks,” he said.

By attacking ships heading toward Israel, Iran, through its Houthi proxies, is essentially doing what Washington and the West does with economic sanctions—turn the screws. “What they’ve done is very architecturally similar to Western secondary sanctions,” said Kevin Book, the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, an energy consultancy. “They have essentially tried to make it so that anyone who has nexus to, or trades with, Israel is subject to attack or risk of an attack.”

Why is the Red Sea so important?

Tucked between Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan, the Red Sea is an entryway to the Suez Canal and one of the world’s key global trade corridors, overseeing some 12 percent of global trade and nearly one-third of global container traffic. With as many as 19,000 ships crossing through the Suez Canal annually, the inlet is a strategic pressure point in the energy and commodity trade.

“There’s always been a lot of interest in oil and freight chokepoints because they may be relatively small geographically but they have global impact,” Book said. “Adversaries of the U.S. and Western allies sometimes seek to capitalize on those chokepoints because it can exert such a significant influence over global dynamics.”

Worried by the Houthi attacks, a growing list of major energy companies and shipping firms—including BP, Equinor, Maersk, Evergreen Line, and HMM—have rerouted their ships or suspended operations in the Red Sea. Rather than steaming through the narrow sea, at least 100 ships have instead traveled around the bottom of southern Africa—a detour that can extend ship journeys by thousands of miles and delay freight by weeks.

For now, that will just mean delays, higher costs, and continued disruptions—not the complete upending of global trade. The attacks have “been enough to make certain shippers hesitant to continue using the Red Sea,” said Bronze of Energy Aspects. “But we’re not at a stage where all shipping is being halted or rerouted or that there’s any sort of likelihood of that scale of disruption.”

How is Washington responding?

Washington, which currently has at least three destroyers stationed by the Red Sea, has shot down countless Houthi drones and intercepted missiles launched at transiting ships. To ensure freedom of navigation, Washington also announced this week that it mobilized 10 other countries to form a new task force called Operation Prosperity Guardian.

The operation is set to include Bahrain, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, and the United Kingdom, U.S. officials said, although details are still murky and there remains ongoing confusion about what it will look like. Italy, for example, has said it is sending a frigate to the Red Sea under its long-standing plans—not as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, Reuters reported. According to the Associated Press, several other countries also agreed to take part in the task force but preferred to remain anonymous. (Many Arab countries don’t want to be seen as defending Israel just now.)

That “underline[s] how tricky it’s been to assemble this coalition and perhaps the limited enthusiasm for many countries for being too visible in confronting this threat and in standing sort of shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. on this issue,” Bronze said.

Apparently undeterred, the Houthis have vowed to continue the fight. “Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our military operations will not stop unless the genocide crimes in Gaza stop and allow food, medicine, and fuel to enter its besieged population, no matter the sacrifices it costs us,” Mohammed al-Bukaiti, a senior Houthi official, posted on X, formerly Twitter.

That could mean continued uncertainty for energy and shipping companies, many of which are waiting for more robust reassurances and greater stability until they feel comfortable resuming operations in the Red Sea.

“From a shipping company or a tanker company perspective, I think it’s probably safe to say that they’re going to err on the side of caution until they have some sense that the underlying risks have changed,” said Book of ClearView. Maersk, for instance, acknowledged that its shipping diversions would disrupt operations but stressed that the safety of its crews is paramount.

More fireworks could soon come. Washington is reportedly considering military strikes targeting the Houthis’ base in Yemen if the task force fails to thwart future attacks. The Houthis have threatened to strike U.S. warships in response, potentially paving the way for future escalations.

The United States could also snap back previously levied sanctions on key Houthi figures as a dissuasive measure—but Saudi Arabia isn’t sold on that idea, since Riyadh is trying to negotiate an end to the yearslong quagmire in Yemen and worries that heavy-handed U.S. tactics could complicate its withdrawal.

What exactly is Saudi Arabia’s calculus here?

After years of involvement in the Yemen war, Riyadh wants out. Saudi Arabia has been working to extricate itself from that war and to make peace with both Tehran—the two powers normalized relations in March—and the Houthis.

As Saudi Arabia and the Houthis inch closer to securing a peace agreement, experts say Riyadh has adopted a cautious approach, wary of taking any steps that could jeopardize its fragile detente with Tehran or derail peace talks. But continued escalations in the Red Sea could throw a wrench in Riyadh’s plans.

“If the U.S. were to attack targets in Yemen, not only could it threaten the truce that Saudi Arabia has struck with the Houthis, but it could interfere with that detente between Iran and the kingdom,” Book said. And that could threaten what is still one of the world’s biggest oil producers and exporters at a time when crude oil is already trading north of $70 a barrel.

“If that were to happen,” Book said, “then risks to production could come back, and that would change the picture, potentially adding more upside risk to the crude price.”

Argument

The Case for a Bigger, Bolder NATO

Stefan Theil   9:32AM, 21 Dec, 2023

As NATO prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, the bloc’s original architects would have been stunned by its broad membership and growing agenda today. In helping design the new alliance for the purpose of containing the Soviet Union in Europe after World War II, the U.S. diplomat George Kennan argued that NATO should take its name literally and include only North Atlantic countries—excluding Mediterranean states such as Greece, Italy, and Turkey. His rationale was that only countries on the Atlantic seaboard could be effectively supplied by ship in the event of war with the Soviets, whereas including others would remove all limits to the bloc’s commitments and be unworkable. To ensure that Article 5 of its founding treaty—the collective defense clause—was ironclad, NATO kept a laser-sharp focus on military preparedness for much of its history.

Today, NATO has 31 members (though when Sweden joins, it will be 32) and more than 30 partner countries across the world. Its agenda has expanded to issues beyond territorial defense, such as cybersecurity and counterterrorism. Last year, the bloc established the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, a 1-billion-euro (about $1.1-billion) fund for emerging and disruptive technologies.

Yet as the toolbox of statecraft has expanded in response to security challenges, NATO has retained a narrow focus on military objectives. And even in this area, it has been constrained in delivering on its goals. Defense ministers, for example, can make commitments at NATO meetings, but finance ministers may not find the required resources at home. For European countries, dual membership in NATO and the European Union has diffused responsibility and led to significant underinvestment in military preparedness. Too many European leaders still hope that Washington or Brussels will take care of it.

With the return of war to Europe and the Middle East, as well as great-power competition to the world, NATO’s vision and scope need to be broader. The alliance faces not only Russian aggression, but also the challenge from China and other autocratic, revisionist actors seeking to upend the global order. Security today involves a comprehensive toolbox, including economic sanctions and industrial policy, and needs to bring the relevant actors into the fold.

Consider the current state of play. Last month, 31 foreign ministers met at NATO headquarters in Brussels to discuss a range of security issues, from Russia’s war against Ukraine to the long-term challenge of China. Yet the only major decision achieved at the two-day gathering was a brief three-paragraph statement on Ukraine that echoed previously agreed-on language. The Israel-Hamas war and its effects across the Middle East, which was top of mind for many of the participants, was barely addressed at all, even though many European NATO members will be directly affected.

The allies’ ambition should therefore be to make NATO the premier forum not only for trans-Atlantic military cooperation, but also for better coordination among the world’s democracies. Europe and the United States should leverage NATO to buttress international order alongside their Indo-Pacific partners. To that end, the institution should globalize its agenda and find ways to work more closely with its partners outside the Euro-Atlantic region.

Currently, too many issues that are central to the security of NATO allies are dispersed across multiple forums, contact groups, and bilateral channels. NATO is charged with collective security for Europe and North America. The EU also has a mutual defense clause for its members and has moved forward on defense cooperation and funding. Both blocs have intensified their security outreach to countries in the Indo-Pacific. That, in turn, overlaps with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—comprising Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—as well as the Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact. Also involved is the G-7, which has evolved from a talking shop to a forum where the leading democracies deliberate on economic sanctions and technology policy. The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council has a similar remit—but neither it nor the G-7 can make binding decisions. All this overlap produces confusion and lack of focus, restricting the ability of NATO members to develop an effective strategy, let alone make efficient decisions in times of conflict.

To remove these political detours and bureaucratic obstacles, it would make sense for many of these discussions and decisions to take place in a single forum—or at least, for the various strings to come together in one place. And that would be NATO, which has the strongest record on addressing collective security. Issues to be integrated with military defense would include economic sanctions, export controls, industrial policy, technology policy, foreign investment screening, outbound investment controls, secure supply chains, and trade measures.

For a start, there should not just be regular meetings of NATO defense and foreign ministers. Ministers responsible for finance, trade, commerce, and technology should convene within NATO as well. All these areas are vital for national security.

In addition to globalizing its agenda, NATO should also expand the participants in these discussions to include Indo-Pacific partners, such as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. Leaders of these four countries attended NATO’s annual summits in 2022 and 2023, but instead of cooperating on an ad hoc basis, it would be better to establish standing open invitations to NATO summits and ministerial meetings.

The bloc could also establish a council of NATO members and Indo-Pacific states—akin to the NATO-Ukraine Council—where those partners could convene meetings and be on equal footing with the NATO allies. Over time, additional partners could also be invited.

These changes require a shift in mindset within NATO. The bloc is rightly regarded by many as the most successful military alliance in history, but it could also be the most effective international institution for foreign-policy coordination and implementation. However, its primary focus on the Article 5 collective defense guarantee has developed into inherent institutional caution and constraint.

Yet not all security challenges trigger Article 5—and even then, the defense clause does not set off an automatic response. Article 5 states only that if armed attack occurs against a NATO member, each ally commits to assist the attacked country with “such action as it deems necessary.”

On the one hand, NATO’s focus on Article 5 has made the alliance an undisputed success, with every square inch of territory backed by the full weight of the alliance, which includes potential nuclear retaliation. In all of NATO’s long history, the bloc invoked Article 5 only once: after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. On the other hand, the emphasis on Article 5 has also constrained the bloc’s potential for more nimble political action.

NATO would benefit from greater strategic flexibility to address security policy issues. A useful historical analogy is the shift in U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, when Washington moved from the doctrine of massive retaliation to so-called flexible response. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration defined its deterrence and containment policy in terms of overwhelming response to any encroachment by the Soviet Union or the communist bloc. But this outsized commitment made foreign policy too rigid and limited: After all, not every nail around the world required a nuclear hammer. Thus, the Kennedy administration devised a more agile approach, including military and nonmilitary options for a particular crisis in proportion to the specific situation.

NATO already has the institutional mechanism for a broader approach to security. Article 4, for example, provides for political consultations whenever a member considers its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” threatened. This is both a broader remit and a lower threshold, allowing security threats short of a military attack to be addressed. It would be the institutional basis for the alliance to incorporate key tools of security policy, such as economic sanctions and export controls.

NATO also has a basis for addressing issues such as industrial and technology policy as means to develop defense and security capabilities. Under Article 3, allies have committed to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack” through “self-help and mutual aid.” NATO should facilitate better coordination on defense investment and ensure that the allies maintain a long-term technological competitive edge over their adversaries.

A broader and more global NATO would help overcome the hobbled, overly complex decision-making processes among the Euro-Atlantic allies and their partners in the Indo-Pacific. That said, there should be no illusion that an institutional setup alone can escape the primacy of politics.

Organizations such as NATO are what their members make of them. Blaming them for failure or inaction is like blaming Madison Square Garden when the New York Knicks play badly, as the late U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke once quipped.

But a simplified and better-designed institutional setup would go a long way in facilitating sounder, more efficient decision-making during unavoidably turbulent times.

Table of Contents

Foreign Policy: 28 Dec, 2023

28 Dec, 2023

Peering Into the Crystal Ball: 10 National Security Predictions for 2024

Iran Threatens to Take Red Sea Disruption to New Waters

The Promise and Peril of Geopolitics

5 Ways Women Made a Difference in 2023

The Year of the Israel-Hamas War

The Year’s Best Profiles

A Grim Year for the Chinese Economy

27 Dec, 2023

India’s Top Diplomat Visits Russia

4 Trends to Watch in South Asia Next Year

Russia Is Divvying Up Prigozhin’s Empire Among Putin’s Cronies

The Year Geopolitical Competition Returned to Africa

Foreign Policy’s Best Articles on Geopolitics and Strategy

FP Live Looks Back at 2023

Alliances Are Back at the Center of Power

The Most Notable Obituaries in 2023

26 Dec, 2023

Ukraine Strikes Russian Warship

5 Predictions for China in 2024

A Future Look Back at Israel’s War on Hamas

Right-Wing Populism Is Set to Sweep the West in 2024

The United Nations Completely Failed in Lebanon

Industrial Policy’s First Cracks Are Starting to Show

The Best Conversations of the Year

What 2023 Taught Us in the Russia-Ukraine War

Our Best Long Reads From 2023

25 Dec, 2023

The Year Policymakers Woke Up to AI

The Books FP Loved This Year

New Geopolitical Words We Learned in 2023

Was 2023 the Year of the Global South?

24 Dec, 2023

World War I’s ‘Silent Night’

Does Santa Own the North Pole and Other Holiday Questions

23 Dec, 2023

Our Podcasts, Ourselves

The Shows FP Staffers and Columnists Loved in 2023

22 Dec, 2023

U.N. Security Council Passes Gaza Aid Deal

No, Putin Is Not One of the Year’s ‘Winners’

The Trouble With a Cease-Fire

Western Hemisphere Relations Move From Idealism to Realpolitik

21 Dec, 2023

Hamas Refuses Israeli Cease-Fire, Hostage Swap Deal

Four Days in 2023 That Shook the World

The Red Sea Crisis, Explained

The Case for a Bigger, Bolder NATO