Category: Posts by authors

Informal Groupings in EU Approach to Conflicts and Crises

EU foreign and security policy is often made by informal groups of member states rather than the EU institutions. In a new article, which is part of a special issue on differentiated cooperation in EU foreign policy, Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré studies these informal groups with respect to the cases of Kosovo, Libya, and Syria.

Informal groupings of member states are not a novelty in EU foreign policy. In the past, these groupings were generally conceived as attempts to solve the shortcomings of the collective logic on which EC/EU foreign policy was based and the ensuing lack of unified leadership. After decades of progressive Europeanisation, the Lisbon Treaty should have not only further centralised member states’ foreign policies but also filled this leadership vacuum through the new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Nevertheless, informal groupings continued to steer EU approach to conflicts and crises, often by interacting with non-EU actors in institutionalised international cooperation settings without receiving a formal mandate from EU institutions and/or the other member states. How can we explain their emergence and various types in EU foreign policy?

The informal groupings considered are phenomena typical of the EU. In federal regimes and in international organizations alike, it has become a common practice for ad hoc coalitions of states to informally engage in differentiated efforts in international affairs. Nevertheless, these subnational actors do not generally engage in international settings dealing with matters under the exclusive jurisdiction of central governments, namely security-related issues.

At the same time, these informal groupings do not simply derive from the existence of overlapping international organizations in international security arrangements. They have a level of embeddedness in the EU formal institutional framework which is unprecedented in the interaction between ad hoc military coalitions and international/regional organisations. Moreover, member states participating in these informal groupings generally commit time and effort to sustaining EU policies on specific foreign policy issues in addition to those already devised by other member states and the EU as a whole.

These groups are not simply implementing branches of pre-determined EU policies. They often support, if not lead, the preparation, drawing up and evaluation of relevant EU policies on specific dossiers. Lastly, while national governments generally use ad hoc military coalitions for their immediate responses to imminent conflicts and crises, the informal groupings considered are persistent over time, as is epitomised by the informal group which has been participating in the Quint ever since 1994.

Nonetheless, to date, there is no systematic knowledge about informal groupings in EU foreign policy. Understanding their emergence and significance for EU foreign policy is particularly relevant in an international system marred by hard security concerns. This is even more so if one considers that external crises and conflicts are becoming increasingly multifaceted and transnational, and hence less solvable by EU member states individually.

My article argues that the emergence of informal groupings can be ascribed to conflicts among EU member states and the weakness of EU capacity for responding to conflicts and crises. At the same time, the article claims that the combination between the level of conflict intensity among EU member states and the EU level of capacity over time and across policy issues determines the development of specific informal groupings, and hence of specific manifestations of differentiation in relation to EU foreign policy. Kosovo, Libya and Syria represent three typical cases of the emergence and various manifestations of informal groupings.

Indeed, the Western Balkans’ Berlin Process and the P3+2 format in Libya indicate that when the member states generally agreed on a collective effort but lacked the capacities to address a specific policy issue, informal groupings have complemented the EU activities in international cooperation settings. While generating instances of combinative differentiation, they tempered the lack of effective policy co-ordination marring EU foreign policy.

At the same time, the Quint, the Berlin Process on Libya, and the International Syria Support Group show that when a high level of conflict intensity within the EU coupled with a high level of capacity, informal groupings manifested themselves as instances of cooperative differentiation in EU foreign policy. Nonetheless, when high intensity conflicts among EU member states have occurred and the EU has lacked the capacities to address specific issues, informal groupings have essentially replaced EU formal institutions. The Contact Group, the Friends of Libya Group and the Friends of Syria Group demonstrate that these groupings gave rise to forms of competitive differentiation within EU foreign policy.

One may wonder whether over time member states’ preferences for informal groups might reverse the progressive trend of centralisation of their foreign policies in the European integration process. As the informal groupings considered are an unprecedented phenomenon in both federal regimes and international organization, they inevitably raise an important theoretical challenge for the European integration of core state powers.

At first sight, these groupings seem to be positive devices rendering EU foreign policy more efficient and hence strengthening the EU stance in the international arena. Indeed, these distinctive patterns of interaction among member states may make EU foreign policy decision-making processes quicker and increase the likelihood that member states will devote their resources to achieving EU objectives in international politics.

Nonetheless, they cannot be considered a panacea for the urgent need to reform EU governance. Not only can informal groupings as they stand serve only short-term purposes but they are likely to sustain governance action in multiple segmented patterns thus hampering the overall consistency of EU foreign policy. In addition,  informal groupings are likely to decrease the already limited legitimacy of EU foreign policy. In fact, although their activities also have externalities on member states that are excluded from them, informal groupings lack mechanisms to ensure their accountability.

Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute (EUI). She is the author of ‘Informal groupings as types of differentiated cooperation in EU foreign policy: the cases of Kosovo, Libya, and Syria’, which is available here.

How Putin’s Increasingly Risky Decisions Shape Russia’s Wars

When invading Ukraine in early 2022, the Putin regime failed in its goals, predictably facing massive Ukrainian and Western resistance. Did the regime simply miscalculate or is it also becoming more accepting of risk? Confirming the latter, a recent article by Jonas J. Driedger shows how increasing risk acceptance has significantly shaped Russia’s offensive wars since the mid-2000s.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, it went up against a much more formidable opponent than in 2014, when Russia had annexed Crimea and started its semi-covert war in Donbass. Back then, Ukraine had been in political turmoil, its armed forces were poorly trained and ill-equipped, virtually nobody outside the Kremlin had expected the attack, and the West struggled to respond to the speed of events.

But in 2022, Ukrainian society was united and staunchly patriotic, its armed forces well-trained and ready, and the West had threatened massive retaliation months before the invasion took place. This different reality in 2022 was easily observable and could be corroborated by a wide array of publicly available information.

So why did the Putin regime decide to attack anyway?

In a recent article Jonas J. Driedger uncovers a key component of the Russian decision: By 2022, the Russian elite had become much more willing than it previously had to accept risks for itself, the Russian state, and for Russian society. In other words: Putin and those around him are observably becoming more reckless, and this process has been going on for a while.

For example, in 2022, Russia did not seek a credible pretext, broke international agreements and predictably faced a committed international backlash from the West.

Back in 2008, Russia also invaded another neighboring state, Georgia. But it only did so after Georgian troops had shelled secessionist territory. As there were Russian troops stationed there, Russia used this attack to claim both self-defense and humanitarian intervention, minimizing international backlash following the invasion.

The Russian regime also risked much more domestic backlash in 2022 than before.

In 2022, Russia unleashed an all-out invasion with massed troops, broadcasting the event to its own population, even though polling before the invasion had shown that Russians were worried about the fates of their loved ones in the case of a war with Ukraine.

This was not the case in 2014, where the regime denied use of Russian troops and annexed Crimea through an incremental operation, allowing the regime to avoid casualties and perceptions among Russians that it had tried and failed in a military operation.

Lastly, in 2022, the regime was also more willing to accept the risk of getting bogged down in the conflict, publicly announcing that the invasion would “de-militarize” and “de-nazify” Ukraine. Committing to the goal of all-out military victory, it became entangled in a grueling war of attrition.

In sharp contrast, in 2014 the regime undertook various measures so that it would not face exactly such a scenario during the Donbass War. By outright denying its role, using secret service personnel, mercenaries, criminals, and troops without uniforms, Russia was in a much better position to change plans if the situation called for it. In 2022, when facing staunch Ukrainian resistance, the regime did not double down. Rather, it wound down its goal of a pro-Russian “New Russia” (Новороссия) on Ukrainian territory, opting to exert influence through the much smaller pseudo-independent “People’s Republics” in Donbass and Luhansk.

All these findings flow from an analysis of all military operations that the Putin regime has undertaken against other states, zeroing in on observable trade-offs between risks and war-related goals using congruence and comparative analysis on policy documents, speeches, expert literature, and various interviews with Russian, Ukrainian, and Western policymakers. The article also checks for the role of miscalculation by juxtaposing relevant information available to Russian decisionmakers with the design of the operations, concluding that the finding of increased risk acceptance is robust.

The article also contributes to other areas of research. First, it provides a template to engage and measure risk acceptance in other cases, contributing to the explanation of other historically crucial cases and the further development of theories on the various interlinkages between risk acceptance and war onset. Second, the article questions the widely held assumption that risk acceptance is a historically rare and thus theoretically negligible factor. Third, the findings tentatively corroborate arguments based on prospect theory, which stipulate that leaders are biased toward recouping or avoiding perceived losses, driving both risk acceptance and war decisions. Indeed, the Putin regime waged all of its four offensive interstate operations against neighboring states that were seemingly shifting allegiances to the West.

Various findings of the article are relevant for policymaking vis-à-vis Russia. As the article finds that the regime’s risk acceptance has grown since the mid and late 2000s, the article cautions against a sole reliance on short-term, leader-specific factors and corroborates the significance of long-term developments, such as the role of increasingly autocratic institutions within Russia, or that of growing ties between Russia’s neighbors and US-led institutions, such as NATO.

However, on a cautiously optimistic note, the article also finds even the 2022 invasion still evinces limits of Russian risk acceptance. Albeit ineffectively, the Russian regime accepted trade-offs that jeopardized apparent war goals, for example, by using fewer troops than were warranted to placate anti-draft sentiments within Russian society. Additionally, while the regime has accepted further risks during the war through the unpopular partial mobilization of late-2022, the data suggests that the Russian regime can still be deterred or possibly also bargained with.

Jonas J. Driedger is the author of “Risk acceptance and offensive war: The case of Russia under the Putin regime”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here.

Public Use of Intelligence in Strategic Perspective

In a new article, Ofek Riemer and Daniel Sobelman study how the public use of intelligence increasingly serves strategic purposes. Disclosing intelligence poses a number of risks, which makes this trend all the more remarkable.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has been the systematic intelligence revelations of otherwise highly classified intelligence regarding Moscow’s military plans. Both in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in the months that followed, Western intelligence revelations have been unusual in their frequency, quantity and quality.

Thus, nearly two decades after the historic intelligence debacle in Iraq, the United States and Britain have been accurate in their intelligence assessments and data regarding Russia’s designs for Ukraine. The two countries have been remarkably open and specific in their intelligence revelations. These recent intelligence revelations received considerable international attention, in large part because unlike in Iraq, they actually proved to be accurate. While the scope and granularity of these intelligence revelations may have been unprecedented, the publicization of classified intelligence data is appears to be increasingly prevalent in international affairs.

This fact notwithstanding, the authorized disclosure of solid intelligence for strategic ends—as opposed to unauthorized leaks, the use of dubious intelligence, or intelligence revelation in the service of domestic-political purposes—remains understudied. The stream of Western intelligence exposures regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine is an opportunity to cast light on the “legitimate” employment of genuine and solid intelligence as a strategic instrument in international relations. When governments reveal, or threaten to reveal, intelligence in a purposeful effort to change the strategic calculations of other actors and make them act contrary to their original preferences, they engage in a strategy that we define and conceptualize as “coercive disclosure.”

The revelation of intelligence is counter-intuitive and often resented by intelligence practitioners. After all, intelligence is intuitively perceived as an asset that must be carefully guarded to provide its possessor with a comparative advantage if conflict breaks out. To make matters worse, intelligence disclosure runs the risk of compromising one’s resources and methods, potentially placing it at a disadvantage if conflict indeed breaks out. Yet intelligence disclosure is prevalent in international politics. For instance, for over a decade now, Israel has been almost systematically revealing top secret intelligence information about Hezbollah’s deployment in Lebanon. This would have been unthinkable in the past, but in today’s hyper-mediatized environment, the rules of the game seem to have changed.

The strategic use of intelligence ultimately represents actors’ perennial quest for leverage in international politics. In this respect, intelligence is essentially analogous to more traditional resources and assets that states employ to impact the strategic calculations of other actors. In other words, similar to the way in which a state can be vulnerable to another actor’s superior military or economic prowess, one can find itself vulnerable to another actor’s superior intelligence capabilities and penetration, and hence to strategic manipulation.

In this regard, it bears remembering that all actors have secrets: international politics entail compromises between one’s public image, commitments, and stated ideology, on the one hand, and one’s political interests and constraints, on the other hand. This basic feature of international politics renders actors vulnerable to manipulation. On top of that, some actors secretly engage in particularly egregious acts whose revelation could land them in serious trouble. In such cases, governments that have gained unique visibility into their opponents’ secrets can harness their intelligence in the service of influence and coercion.

Flowing from this, we argue that states can, and do, employ genuinely credible intelligence—as opposed to distorted, dubious, and erroneous intelligence—as a coercive weapon. That is, states employ their intelligence and visibility into others’ secrets in a deliberate effort to reshape their strategic calculations and constraints, without having to resort to armed force. Additionally, intelligence disclosure can be used to mobilize domestic and international audiences and make others align with a certain narrative and alter their policies accordingly. Put differently, the public revelation of intelligence could result in third-party pressure on the target of coercion.

Thus, intelligence disclosures carry the potential of preventing opponents from realizing strategic and operational goals, by disrupting their operations and by otherwise forcing them to divert resources and adjust to the fact that their secrets had been openly exposed. It can also bring indirect pressure on targets by mobilizing domestic constituencies, and it could enable the discloser to shape a coherent narrative and frame its opponents’ behavior in a certain manner.

To demonstrate the workings of coercive disclosure we investigated two recent cases in which governments purposefully leveraged solid intelligence in order to coerce opponents into shifting their policies. The first case was Saudi Arabia’s gruesome assassination of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, in 2018, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi’s assassination made international headlines not because a journalist had been murdered in a premeditated fashion, but because the Turkish authorities possessed incriminating graphic intelligence, which, among other things, linked the Saudi Royal Court to the assassination. Such undeniable intelligence included visual evidence and audio recording of the preparations and actual implementation of the killing.

Absent such intelligence, Riyadh would have likely adhered to its initial claim that Khashoggi had left the consulate building unharmed—a claim that U.S. President Donald Trump seemed eager to accept. Leveraging its evidence, Ankara gradually coerced Saudi Arabia and President Trump to acknowledge (most of) the truth. By constantly signaling that it held further intelligence in reserve, Ankara gradually and repeatedly forced Riyadh to abandon its initial denials. Rather than simply revealing its intelligence, it turned it into coercive leverage, thereby bringing pressure on Saudi Arabia directly, but also indirectly through the United States, whose president sought to bring the affair to a quick closure.

The second episode involving coercive disclosure pertains to Israel’s still-ongoing efforts, which began in 2017, to force Hezbollah to abandon its efforts to manufacture precision-guided missiles in Lebanon. To bring international, but especially domestic pressure on Hezbollah, Israel repeatedly resorted to the publicization of high-resolution intelligence on the deployment of Hezbollah’s “precision project.” Israel used high-profile international forums, such as the United Nations General Assembly, to disclose the whereabouts of secret workshops and facilities, in an effort to bring third-party pressure on the group and disrupt its operations.

Ofek Riemer and Daniel Sobelman are the authors of “Coercive disclosure: The weaponization of public intelligence revelation in international relations”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here.

Back to the Future? UN peacebuilding in a Multipolar World Order

In the current international environment characterized by multipolarity and rising geopolitical competition, what role the United Nations (UN) can play in peacebuilding? In a new article, Fanny Badache, Sara Hellmüller and Bilal Salaymeh try to provide some answers and uncover the role of the UN in a multipolar world order.

Peacebuilding is the flagship activity of the United Nations (UN). It was defined by Boutros Boutros-Ghali – former Secretary-General – in his ‘Agenda for Peace’ as the “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace”. As of October 2022, the UN deploys 12 peacekeeping operations led by the Department of Peace Operations and 24 field missions led by the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (special envoys and special political missions).

The mandate that member states confer to the UN determines its peacebuilding approach. In our article, we examine what major powers see as the role of the UN in peacebuilding. We analyze peace-related speeches at the UN Security Council from 1991 to 2020 by three types of actors: France, UK, and US as western permanent members; China and Russia as non-western permanent members; and Brazil, South Africa, and Turkey as non-western non-permanent members.

To examine the role conferred to the UN, we distinguish between conflict management and conflict resolution. We then analyze both the types of tasks the UN is legitimized to carry out as well as the approach through which it should carry out these tasks. In conflict management, the main tasks of the UN are to help the parties find a settlement and to monitor that settlement once it is reached in view of stabilizing the situation. The main approach to peacebuilding is state-centric in that it should strictly uphold the sovereignty and consent of the host state. On the other hand, in conflict resolution, the main tasks of the UN are to support wide-ranging peacebuilding programs addressing the root causes of conflict in view of building a long-term positive peace. The main approach to peacebuilding takes a societal rather than a state focus. While the idea is still to work with the respective governments, it also foresees an important role for other actors, such as civil society.

What tasks for the UN in peacebuilding?

We found that UN member states differ in terms of their conceptions of the peacebuilding tasks the UN should engage in. France, the UK, and the US see the UN’s role in conflict resolution tasks that overlap with a liberal peacebuilding approach, such as democratization, good governance, and human rights promotion. China and Russia mostly stress conflict management tasks, such as finding a political settlement, demilitarization and demining. While they sometimes mention conflict resolution tasks, they underline more “value-neutral” areas, such as economic reconstruction, security sector reform, and rule of law. Among the rising powers, South Africa is the only one who refers more often to conflict resolution tasks (in particular rule of law and reconciliation). Brazil and Turkey mostly refer to conflict management tasks, in particular the provision of good offices to stabilize the security situation.

Despite these differences in countries’ conceptions of the UN’s role, we can see that some peacebuilding tasks such as mediation, security sector reform, and fostering the rule of law are underscored by both traditional and rising powers. These tasks could thus constitute the common denominator for future UN peacebuilding efforts.

What approach of the UN in peacebuilding?

The main fault line among the member states studied rests in their conception of the UN’s approach to peacebuilding. France, the UK, and the US underscore a conflict resolution approach which consists of working with governments, but also societal groups. To the contrary, China and Russia constantly underline that peacebuilding activities (whatever they are) should be done in cooperation with national authorities only and in full respect of state sovereignty and the principle of non-interference. As regards to rising powers, their discourse on the approach is more nuanced. Like Western powers, they advocate for the UN to work with local communities and civil society actors beyond governmental actors. Yet, at the same time, similar to China and Russia, they insist on the need to foster national ownership in the peacebuilding process by building national capacities. Their narrative is particularly centered on the need to avoid dependency (and conditionality) upon international aid and to adopt context-specific approaches.

Conclusion

So, what kind of UN peacebuilding are we likely to see in a multipolar world order? Our research shows that states see a role for the UN in terms of tasks beyond mere conflict management as long as it is conducted with the respect of national sovereignty and in cooperation with state authorities. We can thus expect that future debates in the UN Security Council will be more about the extent to which peace interventions are intrusive in states’ internal affairs and prescriptive in terms of values and norms they promote. We thus concur with other scholars that it is likely that the UN will engage less in multidimensional peacebuilding endeavors and concentrate its efforts on managing conflicts through more focused missions. In a sense, it is possible that “the future of peacebuilding is its past”.

Fanny Badache, Sara Hellmüller and Bilal Salaymeh work at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland. They are the authors of “Conflict management or conflict resolution: how do major powers conceive the role of the United Nations in peacebuilding?”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here.

Disarmament and the production of less violent and more responsible nuclear states

Nuclear weapons states regularly underline their commitment to disarmament. Building on feminist scholarship, Carolina P. Panico argues in a recent article that this renders nuclear possession actually more acceptable.

On March 16, 2021, the UK announced changes to its nuclear weapons policy, significantly increasing its overall nuclear stockpile cap. While the previous self-imposed cap set a target of no more than 180 warheads in the stockpile by the mid-2020s, the new limit now sits at 260. The announcement comes with the reassurance that the UK remains committed to a world free of nuclear weapons and continues to support the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the rules that come with it. What is interesting, however, is that the UK invokes its commitment to disarmament at the very moment it seeks to expand and modernize its nuclear arsenal.

Although the NPT establishes that the five nuclear states must take steps to disarm in good faith, the disarmament discourse must not be taken for granted. One may think that the scenario outlined above is nothing but a reflection of the rules-based order in operation. After all, the NPT sets disarmament as an end goal. However, this position fails to appreciate how the system of thought revolving around disarmament can modify our perception of what is right and wrong in the context of nuclear politics. Article VI, the disarmament proposition of the NPT, is usually seen with great enthusiasm and described as a focal point for collective responsibility towards nuclear disarmament. In a recent article, I present a different story about Article VI. I argue that it makes possible the very thing it is supposed to prevent; it renders nuclear possession more acceptable.

The article advances three core points. First, I examine the ideas accompanying our understanding of disarmament, such as peace, non-violence, anti-war, and explain that these meanings change the way we see the act of possessing nuclear weapons. I compare the nuclear case to feminist critiques of ethics, arguing that invoking disarmament adds a layer of responsibility and peaceful purposes to the nuclear discourse, producing less violent and more responsible possessors.

Second, the disarmament principle allows the nuclear powers to justify possessing their weapons on the grounds of responsibility. To support this claim, I compare the disarmament principle to the norms around non-combatant immunity, which allow states to justify killing civilians in war based on the “good” intentions of “not targeting” or “not intending to harm them.” Under the laws of war, killing is acceptable so long as soldiers follow the prescriptions of the Geneva Conventions accordingly. In nuclear politics, the continued possession and rebuilding of nuclear arsenals is justified if one demonstrates a commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons, which reiterates responsible behavior.

Third, I draw attention to how the persistence of nuclear weapons in global politics is associated with a process of repetition and reiteration of responsibility through the disarmament discourse. More importantly, I argue that so long as we have states performing in a way that replicates dominant understandings defining what passes as “normal” in nuclear politics, in which responsibility is key, nuclear possession will remain a more acceptable practice.

While I remain optimistic that it is possible to eliminate nuclear weapons, my work sheds light on some obstacles preventing us from moving forward with disarmament initiatives. It encourages thinking disarmament in a way that avoids recycling the tightly controlled requirements that constitute the current nuclear order. It is important to note that despite presenting a critique of the NPT and its normative apparatus, I am not advocating for abandoning the treaty. On the contrary, my article suggests that even though the treaty is at the heart of the nuclear problem, the reworking of power structures that arise from its normative framework will lead to transformation. With the TPNW now in force, the findings presented in the article can help develop implementation strategies while encouraging thinking the TPNW as a tool to shift dynamics rendering possession a more acceptable practice.

Uncovering stories that help us understand what makes nuclear weapons such a persistent feature of global politics is an integral part of the process of disarming. It is only through a deepened understanding of the origin and structure of nuclear order that one will be able to grasp and seize possibilities for change, therefore, reorganizing such knowledge as effective sites of resistance.

Carolina P. Panico is a Doctoral Candidate and Graduate Teaching Fellow at the University of Auckland, Department of Politics and International Relations. She is the author of “Making nuclear possession possible: The NPT disarmament principle and the production of less violent and more responsible nuclear states”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here. Her Twitter account is: @CarolPantoliano

Ethiopia’s Descent into War

In a recent article Harry Verhoeven and Michael Woldemariam explore the genesis of Ethiopia’s current civil war and demonstrate that evolving US foreign policy approaches toward a vital African “anchor state” for security and development were a critical catalyst.

Since November 2020, tens of thousands of Ethiopian soldiers, rebels and citizens have died in one of Africa’s most lethal conflicts. UN estimates put the number of Ethiopians facing “an extreme lack of food” in the Tigray region at 2.5 million and another 6.5 million are acutely food insecure elsewhere on the territory. This descent into famine and state disintegration of a country that has served as an “anchor” of Western strategy in the Horn of Africa for decades raises many questions. Prominently is what role did the foreign policy of the United States, long Ethiopia’s foremost external partner, play in the crisis’ genesis?

Based on extensive interviews with Ethiopian elites, officials in the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense and other national security organs, and European and Middle Eastern allies, Verhoeven’s and Woldemariam’s article makes three important contributions.

First, the paper documents US government backing for Abiy Ahmed’s domestic consolidation of power. Following his selection as Ethiopian PM in April 2018, Abiy Ahmed enjoyed near unequivocal support from Washington to aid the expansion of his authority, and enable the wide-ranging reforms in the economy, security services and party-state he appeared to be pursuing. US Embassy Addis played a central role in developing and advancing this policy, including by packaging it for political appointees in the Trump administration.

Yet the troubling side-effects of this approach were ignored, even as growing evidence emerged that such policies might weaken state capacity to deliver public goods as well as broader state-society relations. The article documents the recurring failure of US officials to raise concerns when the PM pursued actions that were essential to consolidating power but destabilizing at the same time—the creation of the Prosperity Party, postponement of national elections, and crackdown on political opposition in July 2020 being notable examples. There was also little effort to encourage a transition roadmap or national dialogue. US officials dismissed metastasizing violence and growing criticisms from various population groups and social forces in Northern, Eastern and Southern Ethiopia as the sour grapes of the country’s displaced old guard or the opportunism of ethno-political barons.

Second, the article documents how the pursuit of this counterproductive policy must be situated in the long-arc of US-Ethiopia relations and competing global and regional geostrategic imperatives. By the time Abiy became PM, US ties with this most important of African allies were in trouble. Washington had found security cooperation with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) increasingly challenging. The EPRDF’s ideological proximity to the Chinese Communist Party and Ethiopia’s economic dependence on Beijing was the source of added anxiety. And the EPRDF’s explicit illiberalism had become ever more unpalatable due to a rising tide of popular resistance that was eroding the country’s stability. Against this backdrop, the new PM positioned himself as a pro-American reformer who could revitalize a fraught partnership. Such spin worked. In August 2018, US Embassy Addis dubbed Ethiopia’s Abiy-led transition “a once in a generation opportunity” to rebalance the relationship in manner that better suited US interests. The dizzying array of liberalizing reforms in the early months generated a reservoir of goodwill in Western circles. But this alone cannot explain the scale and consistency of Washington’s embrace of the PM, since “democracy” and “human rights” were not Trump administration priorities and Abiy’s equivocation on these issues soon became apparent.

Instead, the new PM was understood to subscribe to three, inter-related geostrategic imperatives deeply ensconced in the Trump administration worldview: turning Ethiopia away from China; generating commercial opportunities for American businesses in Africa’s second most populous state; and encouraging proximity between Ethiopia and America’s Middle Eastern allies, especially the UAE, which was a pivotal actor in the emerging Abraham Accords and US strategy in the broader Middle East. Such priorities appeared useful in Washington, but they blinded US policymakers to a sober assessment of their interests in Ethiopia and the Horn and how the new course of action might undercut these.

Third, the paper evidences the complex impact of US foreign policy on the decision making of Ethiopian actors. Ethiopians of course had agency and exercised it decisively and often shrewdly. This was especially the case with the new Premier. But the net effect of US engagement was to diminish the possibility of an Ethiopia-wide political settlement and catalyze conflict. The mechanism at work was one of moral hazard, whereby American support incentivized increasingly risky power consolidation moves by the PM and dangerous counter-measures from opponents like the TPLF and Oromo opposition forces. The coup de grace was the Tigray war, which despite ample warnings US officials did little to prevent. They then provided political cover for the PM’s decision to use force, with allies such as Eritrea and the UAE. It was only once the war had spun out of control that the Trump administration begin to cautiously recalibrate its support for Addis, a shift accelerated by the Biden administration after January 2021.

This careful documentation of recent Ethiopian history and US foreign policy also carries broader implications. The politics of enablement that characterized US policy toward Ethiopia between 2018-2020 seemingly echoes the routinized and institutionalized patterns of US relations with many other anchor states—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and even several of Abiy’s predecessors. But the parallels only go so far. US policy vis-a-vis Ethiopia in recent years was a less a reflection of enduring patterns of diplomacy than a bold gambit to fundamentally remake US-Ethiopia relations. That this effort backfired was in large part due to some wishful thinking and the pursuit of geostrategic imperatives at the expense of Ethiopian stability. This fact carries major lessons and warnings for the management of US alliances in an era of so-called Great Power Competition.

Harry Verhoeven and Michael Woldemariam are the authors of “Who lost Ethiopia? The unmaking of an African anchor state and U.S. foreign policy”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here. 

Russia’s Lego Approach to Space Warfare

Russia has been acquiring and demonstrating anti-satellite and counter-space at a rapid clip. What drives all these Russian efforts? Jaganath Sankaran shows in a recent article that Russians believe they need to respond to the unbridled American weaponization of space and that high-precision aerospace weapons will be a decisive factor in future conflicts.

In November 2021, the Russians conducted a hit-to-kill direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test, striking a defunct Tselina-D satellite and creating more than 1,500 pieces of space debris. Gen. James Dickinson, head of U.S. Space Command, called the Russian ASAT test an attempt to “deny access to and use of space” to the United States and undermine strategic stability. Russians quickly retorted that it was America that sought comprehensive military superiority. Russians cast the test as a proportionate and defensive attempt to restore deterrence against the United States. They accuse the U.S. of being duplicitous and silent about its ASAT efforts. They dismiss all criticisms of their ASAT efforts as “propagandistic information attacks.”

Russia has been acquiring and demonstrating anti-satellite and counter-space at a rapid clip. For example, in January 2020, Russia’s Kosmos-2542 and Kosmos-2543 satellites performed complex coordinated maneuvers in the vicinity of a military reconnaissance satellite, the KH-11. Six months later, in July 2020, the Kosmos-2543 satellite fired a high-velocity projectile showcasing a potential weapon designed to bombard another satellite and incapacitate it quickly. In 2017, three Russian “nesting doll” satellites—Kosmos-2519, Kosmos-2521, and Kosmos-2523—engaged in high-velocity orbital maneuvers. The Russian have also developed ground-based laser and jamming weaponry to target satellite systems.

What drives all these Russian efforts? Russian military literature reveals two primary motivations behind its anti-satellite and counter-space programs. First, Russians believe they need to respond to the unbridled American weaponization of space. They assert that the “U.S. keeps on conducting the full range of research” that will eventually lead to the deployment of “real space weapons within the shortest time frame.” Russia believes it has to do the same to keep up with American technological advancements.

Second, Russian analysts suggest that state-of-the-art U.S. and NATO high-precision aerospace weapons, supported with satellite-based targeting and navigation, will be a decisive factor in future conflicts. Russians offer recent NATO operations against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya as evidence that political-military operations can now be conducted without engaging the adversary’s army. Russian military leaders speculate that such campaigns, executed using high-precision weapons, may have made it possible to strike a fatal blow to Russia. The argument goes that Russian anti-satellite and other counter-space weapons will “deter aggression” by the U.S. and its allies “reliant upon space” to execute an aerospace strike against Russia. And if such a deterrent fails to hold, these weapons might offer Russian leaders the ability to target critical military satellites. Irrespective of the accuracy of these Russian assertions, the vast majority of Russian analysts continue to display a severe “fear of Western technological superiority.”  While these fears may reflect a worst-case scenario, they influence Russia’s space weapons and arms-control policies.

The U.S. and its allies will need to manage these Russian fears and the consequences. Managing space security will require a prudent combination of unilateral defensive and multilateral cooperative measures. Unilateral measures that reduce the vulnerability of satellites and increase their resiliency are vital. An immediate priority is to avoid the continued acquisition of legacy and expensive satellite systems that present “large, big, fat, juicy targets.” Instead, cheaper and more distributed satellite constellations enable both dispersions of critical space assets and rapid reconstitution in an adversary attack. The Space Development Agency (SDA), established in 2019, is developing cheaper satellites that would be more resilient to disruptions or attacks. These SDA satellites can complicate an adversary’s anti-satellite efforts.

Additionally, dialogue with Russia to institute cooperative behavioral norms and arms control arrangements is essential. In a welcome move, the Biden administration has unilaterally committed not to conduct “destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missile testing.” The commitment was justified in explicit terms of establishing norms. The White House Fact Sheet notes: “the United States seeks to establish this as a new international norm for responsible behavior in space…[and] called on other nations to make similar commitments and to work together in establishing this as a norm, making the case that such efforts benefit all nations.” Now, the focus should be on gaining such commitments from Russia, China, and other states.

Finally, when geopolitical conditions permit, policymakers in the U.S., Russia, and China need to explore arrangements to restrict advanced aerospace weaponry, possibly with an instrument similar to the INF Treaty. Achieving meaningful future restrictions on these weapons will be the challenge that needs to be faced to achieve space security and strategic stability.

Jaganath Sankaran is the author of “Russia’s anti-satellite weapons: A hedging and offsetting strategy to deter Western aerospace forces”, Contemporary Security Policy, which is available here.

Russian great power identity in the debate on “killer robots”

Russia prominently opposes new regulations for autonomous weapons systems (AWS), or so-called “killer robots” which can select and attack a target without human intervention. In a new article, Anna Nadibaidze explores the deeply rooted identity-related factors underpinning the Russian position in the global debate on AWS held at the United Nations.

Reports about the use of weapons systems with autonomous features, specifically the Russian-produced KUB loitering munition, in the war in Ukraine have strengthened the already existing concerns about the role of military autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI) in warfare. Only a few days before these reports came in, the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapons systems was meeting in Geneva to discuss potential ways forward on the regulation of AWS. The Russian delegation has blocked any kind of substantive progress by constantly claiming to have been “discriminated” against by the measures taken by the EU following Moscow’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout the years of the GGE sessions, which have been taking place within the framework of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) since 2016, Russia has been vocal about its belief that technological developments in the areas of AI and robotics do not make it necessary to adopt any kind of new regulation on AWS because the latter are sufficiently regulated by current international law.

Given that the CCW operates by consensus principles, de facto giving a veto power to all states, Russia’s agreement to develop a potential new instrument is needed to move forward in the debate, which has had only a discussion mandate so far. Approximately 30-40 states parties, along with several civil society organizations, are arguing for the necessity of a new legally binding regulation on AWS. Can Russia’s position be reconciled with theirs?

Great power identity in Russia’s position on AWS

In order to understand whether Russia could potentially agree to developing a new legally binding instrument, it is vital to examine its position in depth and from different perspectives.

Russia is one of the key developers of weapons systems with autonomous features and has shown strong interest in integrating higher levels of autonomy and AI as part of the modernization of its armed forces. From the rationalist perspective, the Russian position in the GGE debate is associated with strategic interests and quest to gain strategic advantage without any international restrictions.

While I do not dismiss these arguments, I argue for a more thorough investigation of Russia’s position and exploring deeply rooted factors, namely the Russian leadership’s self-perception as a historical great power, which has been a prominent feature of Russian foreign policy, especially since Vladimir Putin came to power.

My analysis of statements that the Russian Federation delivered to the CCW from 2014 to 2022 demonstrates that two integral principles of Russian great power identity have been guiding its position in the global debate on AWS. First, Russia promotes a multipolar world order based on many centers of power. Second, it seeks to ensure recognition of its perceived parity with other great powers and its equal participation in global affairs. These principles feature not only in the literature about Russian foreign policy, but also in its language used in statements on AWS at the CCW meetings.

Russian discourse on the global governance of AWS displays worries about the “politicization” of the debate and fears that the discussion would be monopolized by some states without taking into account others’ (Russian) interests and opinions. Russian statements display worries about the adoption of a polarized definition of AWS, for instance, when stating, “it is unacceptable to artificially divide weapons into ‘bad’ and ‘good’ ones based on the political preferences of certain States”.

The Russian conception of human control, a key element in the AWS discussion, is based on sovereignty. Russia believes that every state should decide on its definition of human involvement in the use of force and weapons systems. While it “does not doubt the necessity of maintaining human control over the machine”, it finds it unacceptable to be imposed with universal definitions and argues for “specific forms and methods of such control” to “be left to the discretion of States”.

Moreover, the Russian position presents technology in a positive light, not agreeing with what it perceives as “alarmist assessments” about fully autonomous weapons inevitably emerging. Russian delegations have constantly pointed out the benefits of military autonomy and warned against making hasty decisions which could “undermine the ongoing research in the field of peaceful robotics and AI”.

What does this mean for the future of the GGE debate?

As I show in my article, Russia’s position on AWS is deeply rooted and is not only guided by strategic costs/benefits analyses. It is facilitated by the Russian leadership’s strong belief about Russia being a great power in the post-Cold War multipolar world, on par with other great powers and deserving recognition, especially in topics touching upon international security.

With current ongoing tensions, the Russian leadership increasingly perceives any action from states it classifies as “unfriendly nations” as attempts to isolate Russia from global governance, or so-called “Russophobic” actions.

These identity-related factors make the Russian position on AWS more intractable and harder to resolve, especially for campaigners using humanitarian-based arguments to raise concerns about the development of “killer robots”, for instance their threat to human rights and human dignity. With its self-perception of a great power and guarantor of global security, Russia is likely to be more open to security-based arguments such as those pointing out the risks of AWS to strategic stability.

In Russia’s view, the CCW represents the perfect balance between humanitarian concerns and national security interests, while the consensus voting rule fits with its broader concerns with being able to have its say. It is therefore unlikely to accept an independent process outside of the CCW, as suggested by several civil society organizations in light of the stalled process at the GGE, or any process which would strip it of its veto power. If an independent discussion were to take place, Russia’s self-perception as a great power and the importance that it attributes to being seen as indispensable in multilateral negotiations is likely to lead it to criticize the process and accuse its organizers of disrupting global security.

Anna Nadibaidze is a Ph.D. Research Fellow at the Center for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark and researcher for the European Research Council funded AutoNorms project. She is the author of “Great power identity in Russia’s position on autonomous weapons systems”, Contemporary Security Policy, and the report “Russian perceptions of military AI, automation, and autonomy”, published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Why authoritarian states participate in liberal international interventions

Do troop contributions lead to democratic change in troop contributing countries as some argue? This is not necessarily the case as Martin Welz argues in a recent article on Chad’s contributions to international interventions.

Troop contributions of authoritarian states pose an empirical puzzle. For the participation in international interventions indicates the support for a liberal-cosmopolitan order that entails the protection of human rights on the international level, while authoritarian regimes deny such rights to their own citizens. The nascent research on this puzzle has produced contradictory findings. Some assume that the participation of authoritarian states in international interventions eventually leads to the implementation of a liberal-cosmopolitan order in such countries in the medium and long term. Others challenge that perspective and speak of a “myth of democratic peacekeepers” or go as far as to argue that troop deployment in fact impedes democratic change.

The article of Martin Welz adds substance to the latter finding through a study of Chad’s troop contributions during the reign of President Idriss Déby who came into power in 1990. The central argument is that Déby, who lacked domestic legitimacy and presided over a little-institutionalized state until his death in 2021, used the participation in international interventions for his own purposes, namely to stay in power. Déby made himself an indispensable ally of France (and to a lesser extent of the United States) and helped them to further their interests in the wider Sahel. He benefitted threefold from his alignment with France and his active stance in international interventions. First, he received large-scale funding that he could feed into his patronage network and strengthen the military; second, he could reduce tensions within the military by sending parts of it abroad; and finally and most importantly, he secured the support of major external actors that helped silencing national and international critique. In 2019, the French government even rescued the Chadian president, once rebels advanced toward the capital.

Indeed, the financial benefits for Déby were significant. France alone allocated €12 million per year for structural cooperation. In addition, donations and other forms of aid worth €53 million was available to be provided through the French forces which had a larger base in Chad. Particularly joining the G5 Sahel Joint Force and the Multinational Joint Task Force—two coalitions that seek to fight al-Qaida, Boko Haram, and their affiliates—was beneficial for Déby (and his fellow African presidents). Donors were willing to spend more on these mechanisms than they would have been prepared to offer if they had acted on a purely bilateral basis. Another source of foreign funding was the reimbursements paid by the United Nations for the peacekeepers. The 1,090 Chadian troops deployed in peacekeeping operations in 2014, for example, meant a reimbursement of an estimated US$17.4 million. These funds not only benefitted the military itself, but also Déby’s regime in two respects. On the one hand, Chadian troops became better equipped and trained, which helped the Chadian leader in his fight against domestic rebels and other challengers. On the other hand, these funds could be fed into the patronage network, thus resembling a kind of “rentier peacekeeping.” In the slipstream of military assistance, Déby’s Chad received large amounts of development aid, given its support for the Western agenda against terrorism.

Secondly, Déby’s benefitted from the participation in military operations as this allowed him to reduce tensions within the military and appease some parts of it. Sending troops abroad helped Déby to ensure that the military itself would not turn into a threat for his rule. Such a threat was looming since Déby had provided some positions within the military to his group, the Bideyat. This move mitigated some internal tensions within the group, yet it was costly and led to rivalries with other segments of the security apparatus.

Third and most important, Déby’s international reputation increased—as did the dependence on him. Even though oil revenues had generated funds to improve the military’s capabilities and secure Déby’s regime from within (Chad became a large oil exporter in the 2000s) external threats had been abound early in Déby’s rule. Chad had suffered from insecurity in its neighboring states and from a proxy war that had been partly fought on its soil on the one hand and French politicians had vigorously demanded the implementation of democratic norms in Chad on the other. It was the eventual alignment with France, the United States, and their counter-terrorism agenda that led to a situation in which Déby’s rule became significantly less challenged from abroad. Chad’s active participation in international interventions and Déby’s willingness to assume casualties—particularly in Mali, where his troops fought alongside France—were the main factors that brought that change. The Chadian president could translate the external recognition, visible, for example, through several visits of French presidents, into a stronger domestic position that overshadowed concerns about the legitimacy of his rule. At Déby’s funeral in April 2021 Macron dignified Chad’s late president as a “friend” and “courageous” soldier.

However, the international support for Déby and the dependence on his troops had a downside: it came at the expense of democracy and respect for human rights. The Chadian civil society was frequently frustrated with the unconditional support Déby had received from his international backers. Western governments ignored calls from national and international NGOs to hold Déby’s regime accountable for the human rights abuses and antidemocratic practices the president and his regime committed in Chad. The authoritarian rule was effectively strengthened. Déby was just too important—and it looks like same is true for his son, who succeeded him after his death.

Martin Welz is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is author of “Omnibalancing and international interventions: How Chad’s president Déby benefitted from troop deployment”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here.

The Indo-Pacific and the decline of the rules-based order

The combination of antagonistic nationalist currents within East Asia and US resistance against the emergence of a post-Cold War order scuttled decades-long efforts to effectively institutionalize an Asia-Pacific region. Facing ever increasing rivalries over how to fill the ensuing void, Christian Wirth and Nicole Jenne analyse  in a recent article how foreign- and security-political elites embarked on strategies for safeguarding the “rules-based order” across the enlarged “Indo-Pacific.”

The past two decades have seen a lot of talk about the need to preserve what many in Europe and the US call the liberal international order and whose institutions and norms have governed international politics since 1945. Particularly in the neighbourhood of rising China, what has now become known as “rules-based order”, we are told, needs to be defended.

Yet, it is hard to defend, let alone bring back, something that has never existed.

Contrary to the framing of the rules-based order, the institutions and norms that undergird the international order of the Asia-Pacific region since the 1950s, remain predicated on a system of military alliances between the United States and its East Asian partners; a system that had been designed to contain the now inexistent Communist bloc.

Unless juxtaposed to authoritarian China, the system where East Asian regional states form the “spokes” converging on the US “hub” neither bears a particularly strong imprint of liberal values, nor has its static conception been flexible enough to adapt to the socio-economic conditions of the globalized world as it emerged in the 1990s.

In this sense, the institutions of the Asia-Pacific rules-based order share some commonalities with the remainders of its former nemesis, the institutions and norms undergirding the Chinese state. It has become precarious and increasingly costly to maintain.

Especially in the past decade, US and its East Asian allies have seen themselves compelled to drastically increase defence expenditures and enhanced centralized control over expanding national security interests in the name of safeguarding the rules-based order. While the US and its allies have increased their military capacities and strengthened their determination to share the euphemistic “burden” of upholding international stability and security, this burden has itself been increasing.

But how did we get this far? Has a post-Cold War order not been emerging?

Our study finds that the costs for maintaining “order” and “stability” have been ballooning after three decades of efforts at imagining and promoting the institutionalization of a post-Cold War order across the Asia-Pacific largely failed. While Southeast Asian governments successfully developed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) framework, early efforts on the part of Australian and Japanese leaders to enmesh East Asian states, including China, as well as the US, in Asia-Pacific wide frameworks faltered.

The obvious reasons therefore have been diverging views about the future of regional order among East Asian elites and governments. Yet, instead of leading the rebuilding of order in the wake of the monumental changes in the early 1990s, US decisionmakers have contributed to the deepening of the problem of order. Anxious about the possible emergence of an Asian bloc, potentially replacing the hub-and-spokes bilateralism, they have been seeking to neutralize East Asian initiatives for advancing regional multilateralism. Crucially, they also refused to lead such efforts themselves.

This lack of pro-active order-building has increased the predicament for US allies in East Asia.

Torn between their deepening economic dependence on China and strengthening military ties with the US, Australian and Japanese elites have once again pioneered efforts to expand the regional sphere. With the hope of retaining their status and forestall the perceived ascent of China’s regional hegemony, they embraced the idea of an Indo-Pacific region. The Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations followed their lead.

Thus, the study finds that, albeit directed against China for preserving the US-led rules-based order of the Asia-Pacific, the expansion of the region to South Asia signifies a dilution also of US power and influence. Numerous actors, such as ASEAN, India, and even the European Union, have jumped on the wagon and pronounced their own views on the Indo-Pacific.

The enlarged Indo-Pacific region provides a larger set of possibilities to cooperate for the majority of states who have sought to find a middle ground between the US and China. Mostly following pragmatic foreign policy practices, they recognize that enlisting on either side in the Sino-Allied struggle offers at best short-term benefits while increasing political and economic risks.

Although this amorphous Indo-Pacific meta-region is unlikely to become formally institutionalized any time soon, it signifies the gradual superseding of hub-and-spokes bilateralism. The US (and its allies) are not alone anymore in defining this strategic space. At the same time, the enlargement of the imagined region dilutes China’s (and India’s) influence. Thus, the ensuing order will remain a mix of conflict and cooperation.

Facing such a fluid “international order”, thinking in Indo-Pacific dimensions can help decision-makers bear the uncertainty over the future of relations between states and remove much of the perceived insecurity caused by tunnel views of linearly shifting power and anxiety about the decline of a liberal or rules-based order that never existed in the imagined form.

Dr. Christian Wirth is Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. Dr. Nicole Jenne is Associate Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Institute of Political Science, and a researcher at the Centre for Asian Studies (CEA-UC) of the same university. They are the authors of “Filling the void: The Asia-Pacific problem of order and emerging Indo-Pacific regional multilateralism”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here.