KCL GPRIS Risk Report 2022- Beyond the Horizon: Boldly Into Future Past

Foreword by the President BEYOND THE HORIZON

by Julia Hoffmann I ran for president of the Geopolitcal Risk Society because at my time at King’s, I have always been amazed by the incredibly astute and innovative thoughts and ideas I have had the pleasure of hearing around campus. Even though running this society, especially in times of covid, has not always been easy, I feel gratified and more notably, immensely grateful when I look at this year’s risk report. This annual publication not only gives students a chance to independently form opinions on current and future affairs, but also to find their political voice and build their confidence in making shrewd and ever better analysis and predictions for the future of global politics. I am exceedingly proud of how many students have grasped this opportunity and profoundly impressed by the work they have accomplished. For this, I want to thank the contributors who not only took the time out of their busy schedules to help us make this publication possible, but also critically reflected and engaged with the prompt they were given.

Speaking of making RISK 2022 possible, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to our editor-inchief, Michael Liu. Not only has Michael poured hours upon hours into editing and formatting this year’s risk report, but he has also captured the current political climate with this year’s theme, Beyond the Horizon: Boldly into the Future Past. As a contributor myself, I struggled at first to understand what Michael was alluding to with this prompt. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he had put into words the impression I have had since the beginning of the pandemic. While it seems like so much around us is changing so quickly, it still does not feel like we are moving forward or doing what every history student will tell you is the reason they study history: learning from past mistakes. While this risk report might not directly change this, I know that every one of the contributors reflected on these ideas and will become the change we need.

Or maybe I am completely off with my interpretation. And that is the beauty of the risk report: it gathers the voices and visions of different people to make the whole better than its parts.

At this point, I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to my entire team, our vice president, Archishman Goswami, treasurer, Alexei Hoey, events coordinator, Dragos Ene, and postgraduate representative, Magnus Høyer-Humberset. All of you have made this, at times difficult experience, so much easier and fun and I will only ever look back on my time as president of the Geopolitical Risk Society with smiling fondness.

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Foreword by the Editor-In-Chief BOLDLY INTO THE FUTURE PAST

by Michael Liu As slightly more than two years have passed since the beginning of the pandemic, it would not have been unreasonable to expect geopolitics to calm down, and world affairs to regain a semblance of normalcy. After all, the initial disruptions wrought by Covid are now being dealt with through concerted efforts at substate, state and transnational levels, even if the epidemic has not been completely resolved and not all parts of the world have managed to return to normal life. Yet events in the past month have completely shattered expectations. Within the span of a few days of Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine, the world witnessed unprecedented developments. Germany raised its defence budget overnight to meet NATO’s specification of 2% of GDP, signaling a decisive turn away from its long accommodation of pacifist voices. Neutral Switzerland is now not so neutral with its sanctions against Russia. Sweden and Finland are now mulling joining NATO. China, though largely still in embrace with Russia, has distanced itself and offered a mediating role.

While much of the world was in shock over the Russian invasion, perhaps it should not be forgotten that the greatest shock may be the one experienced by the Kremlin. For the first time, post-Soviet Russia has truly miscalculated at the highest strategic levels, after scoring a streak of successes persuading the world it was a great power to be reckoned with through its seizure of Crimea, intervention in Syria, and rather adventurous and creative information operations. In many ways, the current crisis in Ukraine is both a product of history, and history in the making.

The Kremlin’s desire to bend Ukraine to its will was borne out of its own genuine conviction that Russia is the prime bearer of Slavic civilization with roots in the medieval Kievan Rus then centred on modern Ukrainian territory, a notion the Kremlin has popularized to legitimize its rule. This powerful narrative was essentially deployed by Putin to justify keeping Ukraine within Russia’s sphere of influence by force, and Putin indeed has professed to be a keen reader of history. Yet being a reader (and an appropriator) of history has not stopped Putin from miscalculating immensely, no less thanks to Ukraine’s heroic resistance.

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If I have gone at length into the issue of Putin’s miscalculation, it is because I think it highlights something which Putin did not consider sufficiently, and which our contributors have highlighted brilliantly in their pieces. It is the fact that human affairs are deeply interactive. The world is not a static canvas which we paint and modify at will. As Nick Reynolds and Dr Jack Watling have strikingly elucidated in a recent RUSI article, Putin and his associates assessed political will and morale in Ukraine to be mixed, amidst regional distrust in Zelensky’s government and corruption amongst many other issues. It is likely that they held a similar view of the West more generally, as internal strife within the West was targeted by Russian disinformation and tensions within NATO were apparent in the run-up to invasion. Where the Kremlin erred was in thinking that things would remain this way with an invasion. Putin and his associates forgot that the shock generated by their own actions could change the texture and color of the canvas of global affairs entirely, rather than simply imprinting themselves onto the existing state of affairs. A holistic strategic calculation needs to account not just for how the world is, but how new action has its own consequences.

Our contributors have done a wonderful job to show how geopolitical risk as such bridges the past, present and future. For the first time, we have had pieces dedicated to analyzing how history can inform risk analysis, centred around what contemporary uses of history for political purposes in the Russia-Ukraine and China-Taiwan angles can tell us about the present and future. Notwithstanding how what we do at the present is also essentially history in the making, equally enlightening are the contributors’ pieces on new emerging technologies in warfare, the promises and realities of the Abraham Accords, perspectives on terror and counter-terror strategies, the character of information warfare, and the future trajectory of great power competition. Let us also not forget about the twists and turns of the Iran nuclear deal, where this year’s contributors have worked on separate but connected pieces to elucidate the varying perspectives of its multiple actors.

Together, the combined effort and musings of our contributors have taken us boldly into the future past, demonstrating how human actors are dealt cards by the past, but also have the agency to change and subvert the rules of the game altogether.

The culmination of the 2022 Risk Report would also not have been possible without the hard work and timely assistance rendered by the executive team at GPRIS. I’d like to thank Julia Hoffmann and Archishman Goswami, our president and vice-president, for assembling the team together and crafting the vision for this year’s risk report; Alexei Hoey, our treasurer, for putting the funds in place that would enable us to create the risk report and hold it in person for the first time in two years; and Dragos Ene and Magnus Høyer-Humberset, our events and postgraduate officers, for bringing the in-person event and outreach to you, our dear audience. It is our hope that you will enjoy perusing this report as much as we did making it a reality!

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Vienna won’t wait forever Julia Hoffmann is a second-year International Relations student. As she is half-German and half-Chinese, she has always been interested in geopolitics and foreign affairs. Her main interests are the wars of the 20th century and the reorganization of the international order in the 21st century and beyond.

For this year's risk report, she tracks the past, present and future developments of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

“#JCPOA #ViennaTalks are at a crucial moment. We are nearing the end after ten months of negotiations. The result is still uncertain. Key issues need to be fixed. But all delegations are fully engaged.” - Enrique Mora, the European Union representative to the Iran Nuclear Deal talks tweeted. [1] Although this tweet might seem eerily reminiscent of 2015 remarks by John Kerry that “substantial progress had been made in key areas although there are still important issues on which no agreement has yet been possible”, Mora tweeted this statement only a couple of days ago. [2] he virtual indistinguishability of these two statements despite their 7-year gap raises some potent questions like: What are they talking about in Vienna now? Are these negotiations any different than those in 2015? And finally, have we moved forward in the matter or are we starting once again but 5 steps behind?

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Past: the deal is made Although Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, it continued developing its nuclear technology in secret from the 1970s on [3]. This was revealed in 2002, when an exiled Iranian dissident group released information on two undeclared Iranian nuclear facilities [4]. Under threat of being referred to the UN security council for its breach, Iran agreed with the EU 3 (Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) to suspend its uranium enrichment program and to resume full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [5]. However, when hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, he rejected this arrangement and announced to the IAEA that Iran would resume developing its nuclear technology – allegedly only for energy purposes – despite these warnings [6]. In turn, the UN security council passed six resolutions which gradually imposed sanctions on Iran's enrichment facilities [7]. Things threatened to escalate when Obama revealed the existence of yet another secret enrichment facility in 2009, and both the US and Israel seriously considered military actions against Iran [8].

To prevent this escalation, the US and Iran engaged in secret negotiations which were kept from the rest of the UN security council members. Building on these talks, several rounds of formal negotiations attended by the foreign ministers of Iran, the EU, Germany, China, France, the UK, the US, and Russia finally yielded tangible results in November 2013 with the Joint Action Plan [9].

In accordance with this agreement, Iran was granted a $7 billion reprieve from existing sanctions and assured no further sanctions would follow. In exchange, Iran rolled back its nuclear facilities and stockpile, agreed to daily access for the IEAE, and promised to stop enriching uranium.

Importantly, this interim deal left the door open for further negotiations which came to fruition in 2015 with the Iran nuclear deal framework. Essentially, this agreement restricted the number of centrifuges at Iran’s disposal, reduced its nuclear stockpile of uranium, and banned the production of highly enriched uranium [10]. To monitor Iran’s activities, IAEA agents were given full access to all of Iran’s declared and undeclared nuclear sites. In return, the other signatory countries agreed to lift their nuclear-related sanctions and the UN weapons embargo after five years of good behaviour from Iran [11]. Apart from Israel, the deal garnered broad acclaim from the international community and nuclear experts alike [12].

Present: the deal implodes In November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States and in May 2018, he announced that the US would withdraw from the JPCOA [13]. Despite the IAEA declaring "no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009" [14], Trump rested his case for withdrawal on the deal’s limited timeframe of ten years and the absence of controls on Iran’s ballistic missile development and its financial support for violent groups in the Middle East. Yet, many experts credit this decision to Trump’s populist antiIran campaign promises, his attempts at a tougher stance on North Korea, and the influence of his P a g e 6 | 68

hawkish cabinet members, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton [15]. Trump’s announcement was met with broad criticism from his European partners and most of the global community [16]. Iran called out the US’ “opportunistic interests” while the EU “deeply regrets the announcement by US President Trump to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” [17]. The biggest support for Trump’s actions came from Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rivals [18].

Since the US’ unilateral exit from the deal, Iran announced in 2019 that it would continue enriching uranium beyond the agreed limit and increase its supply of centrifuges, and finally declared it would exit all obligations from the agreement in the wake of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani [19]. While continuing to withstand pressure from Trump to abandon the Iran Nuclear Deal and join in on US sanctions, the EU powers triggered the Joint Commission’s dispute mechanism which allows for a review of Iran’s noncompliance [20]. If the dispute is not resolved within this mechanism, the issue can be referred to the UN Security Council whereupon the reimposition of multilateral sanctions is likely. This mechanism is currently being used to renew dialogue between Iran and the rest of the JCPOA signatories – with an exception of the US.

Future: the deal is re-made?

Since then, there have been eight rounds and ten months of the Vienna talks 2.0. Despite uncertainty, political turnover, and major delays along the way, at the beginning of the eight round of negotiations, participant countries are cautiously optimistic [21]. As always in politics, ongoing problems persist and stifle negotiations. Iran remains resentful of the US’ one-sided abandonment of the deal’s 2015 version and demands a guarantee that this will not happen again.

President Biden remains unwilling to make any such guarantee [22]. Furthermore, there is disagreement between negotiators on what to do about the nuclear stockpile and infrastructure P a g e 7 | 68

Iran advanced after the US’ exit. As a result, states are uncertain what to do about and there is disagreement about what to do about Iran’s advanced nuclear infrastructure [23]. To further complicate matters, Iran’s presidency is now occupied by an anti-Western hard-liner while Republicans continue rejecting any form of the nuclear deal as negotiated by the Democrats.

These factors are exacerbating a process already strained by the deal’s point of no return by which time the deal’s non-proliferation benefits would be rendered void [24]. Yet, even without the full details of the new deal, comments like those of Enrique Mora give cause for optimism. However, where the world was promised a “longer, stronger” deal, this one seems to do no more than reinstate the previous agreement [25].

As Iran draws closer and closer to developing a nuclear bomb, time is of the essence in these negotiations. In 2015, Iran and the US were able to put their differences aside to reap the mutual benefits of rapprochement. With no viable alternatives in sight, the US and Iran must once again come together, put their differences aside, and come to an agreement for the benefit of the world at large. Although it might be hard to accept that the US’ withdrawal has done nothing but set back negotiations and erode trust, to prevent a spiral of escalation, the US must go the extra mile in negotiations with the realization that a stunted JPCOA is still preferrable to an Iran nuclear bomb. On the other hand, even in absence of any American guarantees, a new nuclear deal is the only path that will lead to more sanctions relief for Iran while also being a positive step in building a constructive partnership with the West. Ultimately, the best thing both sides can do is learn the importance of multilateralism from this mess and hopefully not repeat the same mistakes again.

References [1] Fazeli, Yaghoub. "Iran Nuclear Talks ‘Nearing End’, Outcome ‘Still Uncertain:’ EU Coordinator".

Al Arabiya News, 2022. https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2022/02/22/Iran-nucleartalks-nearing-end-outcome-still-uncertain-EU-coordinator-.

[2] Borger, Julian. "Iran Nuclear Talks: Kerry Says 'Substantial Progress' Made Towards Deal, But Gaps Remain". The Guardian, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/irannuclear-talks-kerry-progress-deal-sanctions?CMP=gu_com.

[3] Sundberg, Camilla. "The Defensive Iran: Rethinking Realism In The Case Of Iran’S Nuclear Programme". E-International Relations, 2013. https://www.e-ir.info/2013/08/10/the-defensiveiran-rethinking-realism-in-the-case-of-irans-nuclear-programme/.

[4] "Remarks By Alireza Jafarzadeh On New Information On Top Secret Projects Of The Iranian Regime’s Nuclear Program | Iran Watch". Iran Watch, 2002. https://www.iranwatch.org/library/ncri-new-information-top-secret-nuclear-projects-8-14-02.

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[5] Traynor, Ian. "Tehran Agrees To Nuclear Freeze". The Guardian, 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/08/politics.eu.

[6] Traynor, Ian. "EU Warns Iran: No Talks If Nuclear Freeze Ends". The Guardian, 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/03/eu.iran.

[7] "UN Security Council Resolutions On Iran". Arms Control Association. Accessed 16 March 2022. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Security-Council-Resolutions-on-Iran.

[8] Traynor, Ian, Julian Borger, and Ewen MacAskill. "Barack Obama Condemns Iran Over Secret Nuclear Plant". The Guardian, 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/25/iran-secretunderground-nuclear-plant.

[9] "The Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) At A Glance". Arms Control Association.

Accessed 16 March 2022. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-at-a-glance.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Kaye, Dalia Dassa. "Israel's Iran Policies After The Nuclear Deal". Rand Cooperation, 2016. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE207.html.

[13] Landler, Mark. "Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned (Published 2018)". New York Times, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nucleardeal.html.

[14] "IAEA: No 'Credible Evidence' Iran Worked On Nuclear Bomb After 2009". Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, 2018. https://www.rferl.org/a/iaea-saw-no-credible-evidence-iran-was-working-onnuclear-weapon-after-2009/29201840.html#:~:text=The%202015%20report%20%22stated %20that,a%20statement%20on%20May%201.

[15] Beauchamp, Zack. "Trump’S Withdrawal From The Iran Nuclear Deal, Explained". Vox, 2018. https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/8/17328520/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-withdraw.

[16] Lipin, Michael. "Why EU Powers Rejected Trump’S Call To Leave Iran Nuclear Deal". VOA, 2020. https://www.voanews.com/a/middle-east_voa-news-iran_why-eu-powers-rejected-trumpscall-leave-iran-nuclear-deal/6182445.html.

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[17] "World Reacts To US Withdrawal From Iran Nuclear Deal". Anadolu Agency, 2018. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/world-reacts-to-us-withdrawal-from-iran-nuclear-deal/1140043.

[18] Ibid.

[19] "Iran’S Breaches Of The Nuclear Deal". The Iran Primer, 2019. https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2019/oct/02/iran%E2%80%99s-breaches-nuclear-deal.

[20] Hickey, Samuel. "A Quick Guide To The JCPOA Dispute Resolution Mechanism - Center For Arms Control And Non-Proliferation". Center For Arms Control And Non-Proliferation , 2020. https://armscontrolcenter.org/a-quick-guide-to-the-jcpoa-dispute-resolution-mechanism/.

[21] "Iranian FM On Vienna Talks: We’Ve Never Been So Close To Such A Deal". Al Mayadeen English, 2022. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iranian-fm-on-vienna-talks:-wevenever-been-so-close-to-such.

[22] Tirone, Jonathan. "The Sticky Issues Holding Up A New Iran Nuclear Deal". Bloomberg Quicktake, 2022. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-23/the-sticky-issues-holdingup-a-new-iran-nuclear-deal-quicktake. [23] Ibid.

[24] "The Iran Nuclear Deal At Six: Now Or Never". International Crisis Group, 2022. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iran/230-irannuclear-deal-six-now-never.

[25] Federman, Josef. "Out Of The Global Spotlight, A Revived Iran Nuclear Deal Appears Imminent". Los Angeles Times, 2022. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-02-23/impending-iran-nuclear-deal-revival.

Image credits: https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2021-0620T154002Z_1960098908_RC2F4O9PMUR2_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-NUCLEAR-TALKS.jpg? resize=770%2C513; https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/assassination-iranian-scientist-won-thalt-iran-s-nuclear-program-n1249524

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JCPOA 2.0 or no JCPOA 2.0 that is the question Emma Visentin is a 24-year-old recent graduate of the Master in International Security Studies (MISS), jointly organized by the University of Trento and the S. Anna School of Advanced Studies (Italy). She became passionate about non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control in 2019, and, since then, it became one of her main research interests. Her MA Thesis, as a matter of fact, dealt with EU actorness in foreign policy. More specifically, it evaluated the evolution of the EU’s performance as an actor in the international nonproliferation regime. Her other academic interests include conflict analysis, the African continent and the Middle East, topics on which she has written several articles in the last year.

On April 15th, 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), often known by its namesake, the “Iran Deal”, was signed in Vienna after a decade-long string of engagement and drawbacks. The parties included the P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), the European Union, and the recipient, the Islamic Republic of Iran [1]. The core aim of the Treaty was to halt the ongoing Iranian proliferation for military purposes. At the same time, it maintained Iran’s “inalienable right” to researching and producing nuclear energy for peaceful usage, as it is provided by the NPT In art. IV [2] [3].The main risk, from the point of view of Western countries, was that a nuclear-armed Iran would surely shatter the already fragile current balance of power in the Middle East, starting a domino effect with potentially disastrous consequences [4] [5]. Accepting the Treaty, Iran pledged not to “ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons” as long as the JCPOA was standing [6]. In exchange, all existing economic sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme would have been lifted. As a matter of fact, the 159-page JCPOA is much longer than traditional arms control agreements, and its provisions include stringent timelines (such as the capping of U-235 enrichment at 3.67% for 15 years and limitations on uranium stockpiles), specific equipment caps and their type (limits to mining and extracting quantities of uranium and limited number of centrifuges and reactors). Moreover, it P a g e 11 | 68

mandated an extension of IAEA safeguards, such as the entry into force of the Additional Protocol (AP), significantly expanding the IAEA’s access to locations and information in the country [7].

The “Iran deal” was, at that time, as profitable as possible under the circumstances for both parties. It was largely satisfying for Iranians, as it addressed sanctions that had further crippled key economic sectors for Teheran (including, oil, banking sector and agriculture exports) for more than fifteen years, while respecting the treaty-based international principle of the usage of nuclear technology for peaceful use [8]. At the same time, it relieved the international community from constantly watching their back from the imminent threat of Iranian proliferation and the consequent race to arms in the Middle East. Ideally, it also opened the way to future, less on edge, negotiations tackling through diplomatic means the role of Iran in the Middle East and current security issues in the region. The heart of the matter can be clearly identified as this. The overall declared goal was to stabilize the region in the nuclear domain for the time being by preventing the emergence of a new nuclear armed power. This also meant that the JCPOA was not a deal specifically designed to address Iranian adventurism and its ambition to establish itself a regional power in the Middle East [9].

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The deal was praised by many, including its signatories, who described it as “historic”, as a “breakthrough” and a “new chapter in international relations” [10] [11] [12]. However, overall reactions were mixed. Firm opposers were the Republican party in the US and the two major regional actors, Israel and Saudi Arabia. They both strongly disagreed with the deal on the ground that it was excessively short-sighted (“critically flawed”) solely focused on the nuclear proliferation and sub-optimal as it left leaving out other security issues, while at the same time offering Iran too much room for manoeuvre in exchange for too little [13] [14] [15]. For a brief time, the deal seemed successful. Iran was declared to be in compliance with international obligations over 16 times and the threat seemed to have subsided. Still, Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States changed the situation. Gone was the environment that had brought the deal into existence. The US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, citing violations on the Iranian side and consequently reintroducing sanctions directed at the Iranian nuclear programme through the “snapback” option provided for in the Treaty [16]. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Europeans, who attempted to uphold their end of the agreement so difficultly negotiated, this effectively determined the death of the JCPOA 1.0, which is still formally in place but has remained an “empty shell” [17] [18].

In May 2019, Iran declared it was not bound by limits on heavy water and enrichment uranium stockpiles [19]. The cycle began again. Now in the eight rounds of negotiations, re-started soon after the election of President Biden and of the conservative Raisi, the future of the deal hangs in the balance. But the situation in 2022 is much different than the one in 2015. Today, Iran is much P a g e 13 | 68

closer to having its own nuclear arsenal, having had the time required to further advance its nuclear programme as the JCPOA turned into an ‘empty shell’ for the last four years. As a matter of fact, Iranian officials have confirmed that they have been able to enrich 25 kgs of U-235 at about 60%; for reference, around 15 to 20 kg of 90% enriched uranium are sufficient to arm a nuclear weapon. The vast majority of the effort is expended to enrich uranium up to 20%: Iran has been signaling that they are confident they have the technical expertise to easily close the gap between 60% and 90%. More so, Teheran has continued to progress in the pursuit of “the bomb” in spite of the beginning of negotiations, which casted doubts about Iran’s real desire to comply to a future agreement [20]. The same two alternative approaches as in 2015 present themselves: either accept a less-than-perfect deal with the primary objective of non-proliferation for the time being and reduce Iran’s incentive to pursue nuclear weapons, or forgo such a deal entirely because it would not be comprehensive enough for constraining Iran’s broader geopolitical

ambitions, and bear with the consequences. Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy only had the fallout of accelerating the programme. Stakes are much higher than they were in 2015 and the Iranians have gained more leverage, forcing into negotiations their demands for the revival of the JCPOA 2.0, with the firm sticking point of Iran seeking provisions for the protection of its economy in case the US should exit the deal again [21] [22].

Clearly, attempting to reach a deal is an uphill road for both parties and the outcome is likely to be a “watered-down” deal which will be disappointing for the detractors of JCPOA 1.0, due to Iran’s conservative administration being less prone to make more concessions than Rouhani and also to a change in circumstances, which has adapted Iranians to live under much stronger sanctions than before [23]. Nevertheless, it would be, once again, the most viable solution and likely the one that will be pursued until the exhaustion of all diplomatic means. The collapse of negotiations would P a g e 14 | 68

benefit no one, while risking to upset the balance in an already unstable area. Not the Iranians, who will be subjected again to the UN sanctions that had been lifted, and not even Western countries, who would be forced to explore other options, such as military strikes, that could backfire in the long run as destroying facilities would almost certainly assure only a setback of a few years before Iran’s nuclear programme will be up-and-running again [24] [25]. On the other hand, even a weaker JCPOA 2.0 would offer more gains in the proliferation domain, such as the establishment of a verifiable mechanism to keep Teheran under control and to penalize Iran in case international obligations are not met [26]. Careful optimism has animated the latest rounds of talks, but no significant steps forward have been yet made. And Iran’s breakout time – the time needed to build a nuclear weapon – has been calculated in a few months if not restricted, making the potential impact of a failure abysmally high.

References [1] Parisa Hafezi. 2015. “Iran Deal Reached, Obama Hails Step towards ‘More Hopeful World.’”

U.S. Reuters. July 14, 2015. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclearidUSKCN0PM0CE20150714.

[2] China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran. 2015. “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.” Https://Www.europarl.europa.eu/Cmsdata/122460/Full-Text-of-The-Iran-NuclearDeal.pdf.

[3] United Nations. 1970. “INFCIRC/140 - Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/infcircs/1970/infcirc140.pdf. [‌ 4] Javed, Hafez, and Muhammad Ismail. 2021. “Iran’s Nuclear Deal (JCPOA): Threats and Opportunities for the Regional Peace and Security.” Chinese Political Science Review, February. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-020-00174-x.

[5] Barnes-Dacey, Julien. 2022. “New Momentum? The US, Iran, and the Fate of the JCPOA.” ECFR. January 13, 2022. https://ecfr.eu/article/new-momentum-the-us-iran-and-the-fate-of-thejcpoa/.

[6] China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran. 2015. “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.”

[7] Davenport, Kelsey. 2021. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance” Armscontrol.org. March 2021. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-at-a-glance.

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[8] Davenport. 2021. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” [9] Robinson, Kali. 2021. “What Is the Iran Nuclear Deal?” Council on Foreign Relations. January 4, 2021. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-iran-nuclear-deal.

[10] Reuters Staff. 2015. “Iran’s Zarif, EU Say Nuclear Deal Is New Chapter of Hope.” Reuters, July 14, 2015, sec. News Pro. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-iran-dealidUSKCN0PO0UV20150714.

[11] Deutsche Welle. 2015. “Gabriel Heads off to Forge Business Links with Iran.” DW.COM. July 19, 2015. https://www.dw.com/en/gabriel-heads-off-to-forge-business-links-with-iran/a-18593967. ‌[12] Hafezi. 2015. “Iran deal reached” [13] Lobianco, Tony, and Sophie Tatum. 2015. “GOP 2016 Hopefuls Slam Iran Nuclear Deal.” CNN. July 14, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/14/politics/2016-candidates-iran-deal/index.html.

[14] Kershner, Isabel. 2015. “Iran Deal Denounced by Netanyahu as ‘Historic Mistake.’” The New York Times, July 14, 2015, sec. World. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-israel.html.

[15] Hafezi. 2015. “Iran deal reached” [16] Reuters Staff. 2018. “Instant View: U.S. Withdraws from Iran Deal.” Reuters, May 8, 2018, sec. Editor’s Picks. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-instantview-idUSKBN1I92UA. [17] Adebhar, Cornelius. 2021. “Where’s Europe on the Iran Nuclear Deal?” Carnegie Europe.

February 2021. https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/83879.

[18] Alcaro, Riccardo. 2021. “Four Scenarios for the Iran Nuclear Deal.” IAI Istituto Affari Internazionali. November 29, 2021. https://www.iai.it/it/pubblicazioni/four-scenarios-iran-nucleardeal. [‌ 19] El-Ghobashy, Tamer, Michael Birnbaum, and Carol Morello. 2019. “Iran Announces It Will Stop Complying with Parts of Landmark Nuclear Deal.” The Washington Post, May 9, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-to-take-steps-to-reduce-its-commitment-tolandmark-nuclear-deal/2019/05/07/90cc3b1c-70fe-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html.

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[20] Davenport, Kelsey. 2021. “Iran’s Nuclear Growth Puts Deal at Risk” Www.armscontrol.org.

December 2021. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-12/news/irans-nuclear-growth-puts-dealrisk. [‌ 21] Vakil, Sanam. 2022. “JCPOA Talks: Deal or No Deal?” Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank. January 19, 2022. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/01/jcpoa-talks-deal-or-nodeal.

[22] Sadeghi, Saheb. 2021. “Iran’s Key Demands for the Revival of the JCPOA.” Middle East Institute. October 14, 2021. https://www.mei.edu/publications/irans-key-demands-revival-jcpoa.

[23] Alcaro. 2021. “Four Scenarios” [24] Litwak, Robert S. 2022. “Iran’s Nuclear Challenge and the Military Option: Nonproliferation Precedents and the Case for Containment | Wilson Center.” Www.wilsoncenter.org. January 22, 2022. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/irans-nuclear-challenge-and-military-optionnonproliferation-precedents-and-case.

[25] Divsallar, Abdolrasool. 2022. “A Military Strike on Iran Is the Worst Non-Proliferation Strategy.” Middle East Institute. January 10, 2022. https://www.mei.edu/publications/militarystrike-iran-worst-non-proliferation-strategy.

[26] Barnes-Dacey. 2022. “New Momentum?”

Image Credits: Img. 1: United States Department of State; Img. 2: Evan Vucci/AP; Img. 3: EU Vienna Delegation/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

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The Israel-Iran Dimension: Explosive Effects of an Imploding Nuclear Deal Raphael Middleburgh is an MA Student reading International Conflict Studies. His academic interests range from the role of civil society in the Israel-Palestine conflict, to Chinese Grand Strategy. Raphael currently serves as a staff writer at King’s College London Geopolitical Risk Society.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of action (JCPOA) was signed in 2015, by China, France, Germany Iran, Russia, the UK, the US, and the EU. Iran agreed to limit its nuclear development programme, in exchange for sanctions relief [1]. In its aftermath, the Israeli government and many politicians in the US argued that it did not contain the threat of a nuclear Iran sufficiently, and demanded a “longer and stronger deal” - one ensuring that sunset clauses would become permanent, a halting of Iran’s ballistic missile programme, the release of American political prisoners, and the ceasing of Iranian funding of terrorist groups in Lebanon [2]. Trump quit the initiative in 2018, and imposed heavy sanctions on Iran, prompting a reaction from Iran that involved the growth of Uranium stockpiles, and an acceleration of Uranium purification activities, in addition to non-cooperation with UN inspections [3].

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Since then, Israel has embarked on campaigns of covert sabotage against Iran’s nuclear programme, bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities and assassinating its nuclear scientists [3]. In one prominent case, on April 11th, 2021, an Israeli-orchestrated explosion damaged several centrifuges at an Iranian nuclear facility, undermining efforts to revive JCPOA talks [3]. These episodes may serve as a testament to the fact that Israel did not perceive Iran’s proliferation agenda as constrained in the aftermath of the JCPOA’s collapse and was impelled to take matters into its own hands. They may also suggest that Israel views a renewed deal with suspicion and has more faith in its ability to conduct offensive operations against its enemy than the prospect of a deal that guarantees Israeli security on longer than a temporary basis.

This mentality may be warranted, as Iran currently stands at the precipice of possessing a nuclear weapon. The breakout time – the time required for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade Uranium to achieve this outcome – stands at a matter of weeks, and reduces with every passing moment [4]. Another rejuvenation of the deal has been in the process of negotiation since February 2022. However, Iran and the Western signatories accuse each other of foot dragging, in addition to being noncommittal and unwilling to compromise [5] [6]. Moreover, early in March 2022, Russia made demands from the US, for last-minute guarantees that Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine would not extend to its trade and military relations with Iran. The American government views these terms as unacceptable, and they threaten to scuttle negotiations in their entirety [7]. Even if negotiations continue, however, the closer Iran becomes to achieving its goals, the more bargaining power it possesses in negotiations. This is because the international community’s capacity to subvert Iran’s campaign diminishes, and the likelihood that Iran’s will is realised increases. As it is, senior figures in Israel’s defense establishment believe that Iran has made enough progress in its programme to render any agreements reached stopgap measures rather than sustainable solutions to curbing the Iranian agenda [8]. One could argue that it is unlikely that Iran will cease its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, given that, according to one estimate, P a g e 19 | 68

only 20% of Iran’s economic issues are products of international sanctions [1]. One may be tempted to argue that Iran’s engagement with the enterprise of non-proliferation diplomacy is simply lip service to assert legitimacy on the international stage.

But what, exactly, would be the ramifications of Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon, for the region’s peace, security, and prosperity? The Stability-Instability Paradox theory states that bilateral conflicts between two state actors possessing nuclear weapons are unlikely to escalate to a high intensity conflict, due to the perceived threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. This is notwithstanding the increase in the probability of low intensity warfare, such as proxy wars [2], since emergent nuclear states feel emboldened to engage in sub-state conflicts, complacent that aggression will only escalate within limits [5]. Applying the concept to this situation would suggest that, if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, it could be prompted to use further force against enemy regimes such as Israel [6], through accelerating initiatives to arm factions that seek to do so, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Assad’s Syria.

A failed JCPOA would also yield an end to Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly and catalyse an arms race in much of the Arab world. With Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE all having expressed desires and planned to build arsenals [4], perhaps a nuclear Middle East would simply usher in a new status quo, where states’ nuclear capabilities balance each other out, and Israel retains its position of influence, if it maintains its relative nuclear supremacy. Contingency measures must be drawn for all such geopolitical realities. It appears, that the US Military is already taking such action [9, 10]. For even if both sides of the aisle show flexibility over the nuclear deal, and an agreement is reached that becomes enshrined in international law, the JCPOA is unlikely to be an indefinite cast iron guarantee for Iran to not become a nuclear power. Since the JCPOA almost certainly would not guarantee a non-nuclear Iran, it is overwhelmingly likely that Israel will continue to have to resort to aggression or coercion to keep Iran’s military capabilities in check for the foreseeable future.

References [1]. Azodi, S. Solhdoost, M. 2021. ‘An escalating Israel-Iran Conflict Could Sink the JCPOA.’ Atlantic Council [2] CGSRS Nuclear Iran and the Potential Threats to the Stability of the Middle East [3]. Azodi, S. 2021. ‘Israel’s ‘Shadow’ War with Iran Risks Playing Out in the Open.’ Atlantic Council [4] Vick, K. 2015. ‘The Middle East Nuclear Race is Already Under Way.’ Time

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[5] Betts, R. K. Sagan, S. Waltz, K. 2007. ‘A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster?’ Journal of International Affairs. 60(2). PP. 135-150 [6] Nader, A. 2013. Iran After the Bomb: How Would a Nuclear-Armed Tehran Behave? Rand Corporation. P. 11 [7] Esfandiari, G. 2022. ‘Will Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Derail the Iran Nuclear Deal?’ Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty [8] TOI STAFF, 2022. ‘Israeli Defense Official Says Iran Faces ‘No Deterrent’ to its nuclear goals.’

The Times of Israel [9] Bob, Y. J. 2022. ‘A guide to final stretch of Iran nuclear negotiations-analysis.’ The Jerusalem Post [10] Jerusalem Post Staff. 2022. ‘US Preparing ‘Options’ Against Iran if nuclear talks fail.’ The Jerusalem Post Image credits: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/former-iaea-official-israeli-strike-on-irannuclear-wont-solve-problems-658611; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-60250816

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The New Era of Information Warfare Cameron is a first year International Relations BA student at King’s College London and is from the United Kingdom. His interests focus on intelligence and military strategy, as well as emerging threats.

Previously Cameron has examined the geopolitical tension in the Arctic Circle, and how likely war would be to take place there and if so, what it may look like. Next he plans to research and report on other areas of tension of the past, present, and future. Beyond the academic, Cameron is a rock n’ roll lover and art addict. At weekends he enjoys a trip to Tate Britain or Camden Town.

As a consequence of the rapid evolution of information technology in previous decades, information warfare has become even more prevalent in political and military strategy. While this method of warfare is not new, as more personal information is created or stored online than ever before there is a greater security risk from information warfare. This threat has the potential to become more commonplace should there be insufficient regulatory changes or no new defensive policies to combat information warfare.

Information warfare is traditionally defined as “controlling one’s own information space, protecting access to one’s own information, while acquiring and using the opponent’s information, destroying their information systems and disrupting the information flow” [1]. More recently information warfare has focused in particular on the characteristics in the latter half of this definition; actors obtaining and utilising in a variety of ways their opponents’ information as a result of the increasing information flows relative to previous eras. The distinguishing characteristic, however, of this new era of information warfare is the information has begun to include more personal information, reflecting the surge of personal information in the datasphere since 2011 [2].

Information’s well-known importance for success in conflict offers explanation for why personal information is being used in this way. Conventionally, information has been a way of “improving decisions [in a] role as old as warfare itself” [3] whereas now, as states seek more indirect and effective methods of warfare, information has grown into a weapon in its own right. Once the P a g e 22 | 68

personal information of millions of people has been obtained, and otherwise invisible patterns and trends in populations have been identified and analysed, the way in which this new extent of information may be weaponised is almost limitless. Personal information, for example, may be used towards the “destruction of authority and credibility of government officials using disinformation [and] by manipulating media and public opinion the attacker can shift public’s perception to unfolding critical national events” [4]. Social media manipulation was found in all 81 countries researched in a 2020 survey by the Oxford Internet Institute, which included private and state-backed ‘cyber troops’ spreading computational propaganda “to shape public attitudes” [5].

This new era of information warfare where personal information is used in this way presents a huge risk to the security and independence of nations and their ideologies, especially democracy.

Perhaps the most well-known example of ‘new-era’ information warfare was the 2016 US Presidential Election, where there was “ample evidence to suggest that the Russian government was developing and implementing capabilities to interfere in the 2016 elections, including undermining confidence in U.S. democratic institutions and voting processes” [6]. Amongst other techniques used, Russia utilised personal information to spread misinformation and propaganda more accurately and effectively on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as targeting voter registration software to obtain more personal information on U.S. citizens. Nonetheless, while the report concluded Russia did not alter any votes directly and could not find if collusion had taken place, it is logical to suggest, through its targeted propaganda and misinformation, that Russia demonstrated the potential for personal information to be used in interference campaigns in any case.

Another notable example of ‘new-era’ information warfare is the events relating to TikTok and its Chinese owners ByteDance in 2020. Trump’s intention to ban TikTok and also WeChat came about through concerns mostly over how US app user’s personal information was being stored and P a g e 23 | 68

subsequently used by the Chinese government and, to a lesser extent, the spread of CCP propaganda and misinformation campaigns against the US through the apps [7]. Furthermore, app user’s personal information included "network activity, location data, and browsing and search histories" [7] - all incredibly useful information for the Chinese government to build an accurate picture of the US. The Trump administration’s reasoning for banning TikTok and WeChat, however, was assumed upon laws in China which require Chinese businesses to provide their user information to the government on demand. On the other hand, WeChat suggested there was racism involved. Yet, this ambiguity is a characteristic of information warfare, and although the threats are known, cyberspace makes it far more difficult to track, and hence, prove the actions and intentions of one’s enemy.

Looking to the future, the crisis in Ukraine has led to the potential risk for cyber warfare between Russia and NATO on a level not seen before. There is the potential, in this new era of information warfare, that either side may choose to utilise the personal information of the other’s citizens to disrupt and destroy critical infrastructure, as well as spread misinformation more effectively. How exactly this will play out is unknown, but the case remains; in this new era of information warfare, states must improve protection of personal data to prevent it being utilised against them.

It is unfortunate this new era of information warfare affects innocent individuals because of their governments’ failures to keep regulation and protection in time with the pace of technology. The UN has stated such changes in information and cyber warfare “carry very significant risks for human dignity, autonomy and privacy and the exercise of human rights in general, if applied without effective safeguards” [8] According to research, “six-in-ten U.S. adults say they do not think it is possible to go through daily life without having data collected about them by companies … 81% of the public say that the potential risks they face because of data collection by companies outweigh the benefits … [and] when asked whether they think their personal data is less secure, more secure or about the same as it was five years ago, 70% of adults say their personal data is P a g e 24 | 68

less secure” [9]. Furthermore, Nuala O’Connor notes the U.S. has “a patchwork of sector-specific laws that fail to adequately protect data” [10] in contrast to other developed countries around the world, such as GDPR in the EU. Although the amount of personal information utilised in the 2016 US Election interference by Russia was small, it still created huge concerns for the legitimacy of the elections and leadership. In the future, with more personal data the same may be repeated but on a more destructive scale. Improvements in defensive policy, such as tighter regulation of the amount of personal information collected and stored by companies as well as misinformation policing, would enable threats from information warfare to be combatted more effectively than currently achieved. Therefore, in order to prevent this new era of information warfare from developing further and becoming more influential and dangerous, governments, not just in the U.S., must urgently work towards protecting personal information even more than they are currently.

As a result of the exponential growth of the datasphere since 2011 [11], states and other actors have begun to use personal information against opponents in order to influence their election outcomes and target critical infrastructure in ways and on scales not witnessed before. This ‘new era’ of information warfare in the “data age” [12] is characterised by using personal information to fuel misinformation and propaganda campaigns, such as in the 2016 US Election, and to build accurate and otherwise invisible pictures of nations to make future attacks more effective.

Combatting information warfare in this new era requires governments to improve and strengthen personal data protection laws and regulations. However, until then, information warfare will develop into an even more covert and effective method of political coercion with potentially disastrous consequences. Urgency is exceptionally required now with the enhanced threat of cyber-warfare in relation to the crisis in Ukraine, ongoing at the time of writing.

References [1] NATO. 2016. Media - (Dis)information - Security. Brussels: Defence Education Enhancement Programme.

[2] IDC. 2018. The Digitization of the World: From Edge to Core. Needham, MA: Seagate.

[3] Libicki, Martin, and Jeremy Shapiro. 1999. “CONCLUSION: THE CHANGING ROLE OF INFORMATION IN WARFARE.” In Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in Warfare, edited by ZALMAY M. KHALILZAD and JOHN P. WHITE, 439-454. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation.

[4] Lee, Sangho, Jung-Ho Eom, Bonghan Lee, and Jin-Hyuk Choi. 2012. “A Conceptual Study on Knowledge Based Personal Information Gathering Methods for Conducting Psychological Warfare

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in Cyberspace.” In Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology, edited by Geuk Lee, Daniel Howard, Dominik Ślęzak and You Sik Hong, 287-293. Berlin: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

[5] Bradshaw, Samantha, Hannah Bailey, and Philip N. Howard. 2020. Industrialized Disinformation 2020: Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation. Oxford: University of Oxford.

[6] U.S. Senate. 2020. Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. Washington D.C.: U.S. Senate.

[7] Paul, Kari. 2020. “Trump's bid to ban TikTok and WeChat: where are we now?” The Guardian, 29 September.

[8] OHCHR. 2021. OHCHR and privacy in the digital age. Accessed March 14, 2022. https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/digitalage/pages/digitalageindex.aspx. See also UN Human Rights Council. 2021. Annual report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General. Annual Report, Human Rights Council.

[9] Auxier, Brooke, Lee Rainie, Monica Anderson, Andrew Perrin, Madhu Kumar, and Erica Turner.

2019. “Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information.” PEW RESEARCH CENTER, 15 November.

[10] O'Connor, Nuala. 2018. Reforming the U.S. Approach to Data Protection and Privacy. Council on Foreign Relations.

[11] Martin, Alexander. 2021. “Nine cyber attacks on UK's transport sector missed by mandatory reporting laws.” Sky News, 31 August.

[12] IDC. 2017. Data Age 2025: The Evolution of Data to Life-Critical. Needham: Seagate.

Image credits: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/08/12/countering-disinformationimproving-the-alliances-digital-resilience/index.html; https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/eu-steps-up-efforts-to-counterdisinformation-during-covid19-crisis

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Military AI – Beyond the Focus on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) Matthias Klaus has just graduated in Risk Analysis at KCL and now studies AI Ethics at Cambridge. As a former soldier, Matthias is very interested in the potential risks and benefits of AI in the context of military security and seek to become an expert in it. His hobbies are his family, reading, sports, video games and table top, if he ever has the time.

The rapid development of AI in recent years has also left its mark on the military sector. The Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Libya featured the extensive use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones [1]. The most attention was directed at the Turkish Bayraktar TB-2 [2] and the Israeli Harpy, which is one of the first drones capable of operating fully autonomously [3]. These conflicts and systems are often interpreted as signs of what future warfare can look like, and predict an increasing proliferation of Fully Autonomous Weapon Systems [4]. However, focusing on frontline assets to investigate and assess the effect of AI on the battlefield is misleading, as their effectiveness relies on both a successful systemic integration into one’s own forces as well as a lack of similarly integrated countermeasures on the opponent’s side [1].

This is not to say that LAWS will not play an important role in future conflicts, but both their effectiveness and the success of military action in general will rather depend on the employment of AI in the higher echelons of power. In this regard, the term “digital battlefield” has risen to prominence [5], describing how all assets of armed forces, ranging from individual soldiers to tanks and aircraft, will be linked up digitally to exchange information in real-time. This system-ofsystems approach has become an essential part of any modern military planning, as it allows for rapid reaction to changes on the battlefield and seizing the initiative. At the same time, it will result in an influx of data at command posts, threatening to overwhelm conventional decisionmaking processes which to this day often includes military personnel using text markers and little P a g e 27 | 68

flags on large maps to illustrate the state of affairs and plan accordingly. In order to keep pace with the increasing speed and amount of data, AI is be used to aggregate and process data into information, in order to generate an accurate overview over the battlefield [6]. And from there, AI could further be employed to generate courses of action and battle plans to react to the developing situation and seize initiative by exploiting fleeting windows of opportunity [7].

Apart from these strategic advantages, some have argued this could also contribute to better compliance with International Humanitarian LAW (IHL). Recent years have seen a plethora of reports of supposedly precision strikes going horribly wrong, with civilians being mis-identified as legitimate targets [8]. An AI is not susceptible to tiredness, fear or anger; it is expected to constantly and unemotionally outperform its human counterparts in terms of speed and accuracy.

Therefore, it is being argued that AI could actually benefit compliance with IHL [9].

However, these potential benefits of AI are faced with a number of risks. First, while the human planners are supposed to use AI for developing battle strategies, they might overly rely on the technology to perform these tasks. While this tendency is understandable, as it allows them to arrive at conclusions much faster, it can result in an atrophy of their individual capabilities. This phenomenon is known as de-skilling and could result in trouble in cases the technological enabler would ever fail [10].

This is closely linked to the second risk, which deals with the psychological issue of automation bias. It is defined as the human tendency to trust into the results of automated tasks exactly because they are being performed by supposedly impartial and effective machines [11]. It prevents the human operators from questioning the solutions of the AI, which bears the risk of accepting results which would have been flagged if a human had produced them. And as AI is not inherently faultless and can work based on compromised algorithms or biased data, this can become dangerous [12]. De-Skilling exacerbates this problem, as lacking skills to adequately P a g e 28 | 68

perform a task arguably translates into lacking skills to detect poor decision-making as well. In military contexts, this could not only lead to military failures, but actually also violate IHL with attacks resulting in disproportionate collateral damages.

Besides these practical considerations, there is also a more ethical question pertaining to the morality of having an AI suggest or even order courses of actions resulting in human casualties.

While not as directly involved in lethal action as LAWS, AI in military decision-making will have eventually larger-scale effects than individual weapon systems. After all, the intelligence behind the employment of any weapon system or strategy is what will ultimately be accountable for the outcome. There are already fields where algorithms are involved with decisions about human lives - in the medical field they are used to calculate the benefits of assigning limited treatments to persons based on a variety of factors [13]. But while this example revolves around using algorithms to decide who to save with limited resources, the military context uses it to decide on who to kill. This reversal of portents is important, as it highlights the risks of human commanders ordering lethal attacks suggested by AIs without questioning them, or even the capability to do so.

The International Humanitarian Law (IHL) requires lethal actions in warfare to be necessary, proportional and taken with adequate precaution [14]. Given the “black box” phenomenon of modern ML AI, meaning the opacity of how the algorithm arrives at its conclusions [15], legal risks arise as well as it cannot be demonstrated that due care concerning these principles were exercised.

In sum, AI in military decision-making offers highly attractive strategic advantages, enabling fast decisions and decisive action while ideally complying with IHL better than under purely human control. However, due to heuristics and biases human operators might lose critical skills themselves, which would render human control over the AI suggestions less effective.

Furthermore, this is topped off by ethical and legal concerns about the issue of AIs recommending lethal actions towards humans, echoing the arguments made against LAWS already. As the advantages offered to any military seem overwhelming and arguably also inevitable with the P a g e 29 | 68

constantly rising influx of data on modern battlefields, the mentioned risks should be taken into account nonetheless. Future Battle Management Systems need to involve procedures to ensure that these risks will be dealt with rigorous education and training of military staff operating them.

Echoing the general calls for algorithmic accountability [16] and ethical and legal frameworks for AI [17], AI for the military decision-making needs to be designed from the very beginning with these risks in mind. While it could be argued that AI as a software could always be updated when glitches occur, due to the black box it will be difficult to find the issue at hand ex ante. And while taking precautions may never fully eliminate these risks, diligence and scrutiny along every step of the AI’s life cycle are the best way forward when adapting the technology. In a way, it could be argued that the successful adoption of AI in the decision-making process would like yet another example of a military high-reliability organization.

References [1] Heiko Borchert; Torben Schütz; Joseph Verbovszky (2021): 'Beware the Hype. What Military Conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh (Don't) Tell Us About the Future of War.' Defense AI Observatory. Available online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351614718_Beware_the_Hype_What_Military_Conflicts_ in_Ukraine_Syria_Libya_and_Nagorno-Karabakh_Don't_Tell_Us_About_the_Future_of_War, checked on 2/15/2022.

[2] Kasapoglu, Can (2020): 'Turkey Transfers Drone Warfare Capacity to Its Ally Azerbaijan.' The Jamestown Foundation. Available online at https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-transfersdrone-warfare-capacity-to-its-ally-azerbaijan/, updated on 2/15/2022, checked on 2/15/2022.

[3] Israel Aerospace Industries (2022): 'Fire and forget : Harpy is an autonomous weapon for all weather.' Israel Aerospace Industries. Available online at https://www.iai.co.il/p/harpy, updated on 2/15/2022, checked on 2/15/2022.

[4] Sprengel, Frank Christian (2021): 'Drones in hybrid warfare: Lessons from current battlefields.'

Hybrid CoE Working Paper 10. ISBN (print) 978-952-7282-81-6. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, checked on 2/15/2022.

[5] Siegel, Neil G.; Madni, Azad M. (2014): 'The Digital Battlefield: A Behind-the-Scenes Look from a Systems Perspective.' In Procedia Computer Science 28, pp. 799–808. DOI: 10.1016/j.procs.2014.03.095.

[6] McKendrik, Kathleen (2017): 'The application of Artificial Intelligence in operations planning.'

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%20Proceedings/STO-MP-SAS-OCS-ORA-2017/MP-SAS-OCS-ORA-2017-02-1.pdf, checked on 3/3/2022.

[7] Fazekas, Ferenc (2021): 'AI and Military Operations’ Planning.' In Anna Visvizi, Marek Bodziany (Eds.): Artificial Intelligence and Its Contexts. Cham: Springer International Publishing (Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications), pp. 79–91.

[8] Horton, Alex (2021): 'Air Force inspector general will review Kabul drone strike that killed 10 civilians.' In The Washington Post, 9/21/2021. Available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/09/21/drone-strike-inspector-general/, checked on 3/3/2022.

[9] Margulies, Peter (2019): 'The Other Side of Autonomous Weapons.' In Eric Talbot Jensen, Ronald T. P. Alcala (Eds.): The impact of emerging technologies on the law of armed conflict. New York: Oxford University Press (The Lieber studies, Volume 2), pp. 147–174.

[10] Joh, Elisabeth E. (2019): 'The Consequences of Automating and Deskilling the Police.

Discourse.' In UCLA Law Review. Available online at https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?

ID=7340840730841270710980850191240720730090590200400240051270821170920311161220 96065028023120035124013123097071121120087124011119025029008051018122076116112081 10303506401606902909006907611902008809000609307402911611812502109612409709711610 2066126013&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE, checked on 3/3/2022.

[11] Strauß, Stefan (2021): 'Deep Automation Bias: How to Tackle a Wicked Problem of AI?' In Big Data and Cognitive Computing 5 (2), p. 18. DOI: 10.3390/bdcc5020018.

[12] Ntoutsi, Eirini; Fafalios, Pavlos; Gadiraju, Ujwal; Iosifidis, Vasileios; Nejdl, Wolfgang; Vidal, Maria‐Esther et al. (2020): 'Bias in data‐driven artificial intelligence systems—An introductory survey.' In Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery 10 (3), e1356.

DOI: 10.1002/widm.1356.

[13] Yamasaki, Kunitoshi; Hosoya, Ryuichi (2018): 'Resolving Asymmetry of Medical Information by using AI: Japanese People's Change Behavior by Technology-Driven Innovation for Japanese Health Insurance.' In : 2018 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET). 2018 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET). Honolulu, HI, 8/19/2018 - 8/23/2018: IEEE, pp. 1–5.

[14] ICRC (2020): 'Artificial intelligence and machine learning in armed conflict: A human-centred approach.' In International Review of the Red Cross 102 (913), pp. 463–479. DOI: 10.1017/S1816383120000454.

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[15] Zednik, Carlos (2021): 'Solving the Black Box Problem: A Normative Framework for Explainable Artificial Intelligence.' In Philosophy & Technology 34 (2), pp. 265–288. DOI: 10.1007/s13347-019-00382-7.

[16] Wieringa, Maranke (01272020): 'What to account for when accounting for algorithms.' In Mireille Hildebrandt, Carlos Castillo, Elisa Celis, Salvatore Ruggieri, Linnet Taylor, Gabriela ZanfirFortuna (Eds.): Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. FAT* '20: Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Barcelona Spain, 27 01 2020 30 01 2020. New York, NY, USA: ACM, pp. 1–18.

[17] O'Sullivan, Shane; Nevejans, Nathalie; Allen, Colin; Blyth, Andrew; Leonard, Simon; Pagallo, Ugo et al. (2019): 'Legal, regulatory, and ethical frameworks for development of standards in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous robotic surgery.' In The international journal of medical robotics + computer assisted surgery : MRCAS 15 (1), e1968. DOI: 10.1002/rcs.1968.

Image credits: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2020/05/05/game-of-drones-how-newtechnologies-affect-deterrence-defence-and-security/index.html#gallery-1; https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/oct/15/dangerous-rise-of-military-ai-drone-swarmautonomous-weapons

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Cross-Straits Relations: Crossed Memories Jordan is studying for an MSc in Global Affairs. Previously he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages and has spent time living and working across Spain, Germany and China. He is interested in taking an interdisciplinary approach to analysing issues concerning China, Russia, East and Central Asia. Particular examples include Chinese soft power projection, the impact of the Belt and Road initiative, the geopolitics of Taiwan, and contemporary Sino-Russian relations and resultant impact on Central Asia.

Across the world, history is rising to the fore. In particular, historical revisionism or the selective application of history for political purposes constitutes a trend spanning East and West, democracy and autocracy [1]. Nowhere could the appropriation of historical memory crystallise more overtly or impactfully into political crisis today than in the relationship between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.

China’s Politics of Memory History has long occupied a prominent position in Chinese society. The cyclical motif of dynastic development and decay meant that successors were responsible for documenting the official history of their fallen predecessors; in this way, the politicisation of history has well-established roots. The fate of China’s grand historian, Sima Qian, illustrates the dangers of challenging authority: for diverging from the emperor’s own opinion, he suffered castration [2]. Two millennia later, certain parallels appear through restrictions on academic freedom, systematic erasure of archives [3], and legislation criminalising deviant opinions as “slander” [4].

This subjugation of history to political imperatives is a central feature of today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC). Scholar Zheng Wang contends that in China today “the political usage of historical memory has reached new levels that are probably unparalleled in human history” [5]. The CCP’s recent Sixth Plenum, for example, passed a “Resolution on History” which consolidated Xi Jinping’s political control and historic status within the Party [6].

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Among today’s nations, this manipulation of history is by no means a phenomenon unique to the Chinese leadership. However, the extent of the CCP’s political control, consolidated by sweeping censorship, marks its practices almost as a blueprint for creating and embedding a singular, incontestable historical narrative. Through patriotic education campaigns and selectively airbrushing unflattering episodes of Chinese history from memory, the CCP seeks to erase nuance, promote a streamlined interpretation, and portray itself as the indispensable heroic actor.

Assessing the Century of Humiliation The “century of humiliation” forms a central pillar of the CCP’s historical narrative. This term describes China’s suffering at the hands of foreign powers between the 1840s and 1940s, beginning with defeat by Britain in the First Opium War and culminating in the Second SinoJapanese War. The concept is embodied in the Chinese mantra 勿忘国耻 (never forget national humiliation) [7] and it is from this basis that Xi Jinping’s aspiration to “great rejuvenation” [8] gains impetus and evokes powerful emotions.

It should be stressed that an analysis of how this narrative has been instrumentalized by the CCP need not diminish the very real suffering of Chinese people during this era. Gun-boat diplomacy presaged a series of events that saw China concede territory and reparations through the imposition of unequal treaties. The scale and intensity of suffering perhaps reached its peak through the Japanese invasion spanning the 1930s and 40s. The Japanese occupation was characterised by chilling brutality; not only were millions of Chinese massacred and made refugees in their own country [9], but Japanese war crimes spanned systematic rape, enforced prostitution [10], and experimentation on human subjects [11].

The “century of humiliation” is a narrative, therefore, construed of genuinely catastrophic events.

But while a significant part of the story, it is not the sole component. Chinese leaders have

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ensured that events conducive to this narrative gain salience, while other episodes are scrubbed from the records or left unacknowledged.

Selective Forgetfulness Conveniently forgotten from the telling of China’s victimisation by imperialists, is the country’s own imperial expansion. For example, the Qing empire forcibly annexed China’s current westernmost province Xinjiang in the mid-eighteenth century, massacring those in its way [12]. Historian Justin Jacobs details how Chinese officials in the early twentieth century delved explicitly into previously trialled “imperial repertoires” of foreign powers to govern Xinjiang [13], and that these practices continued under the CCP [14]. Tibet and Taiwan were likewise conquered during the Qing dynasty [15]. By burying its own imperial practices, the CCP strives to conceptualise China exclusively as a victim of oppression.

It is a further inconvenient truth that the Japanese invasion, the nadir of China’s humiliation, was to some degree a fortuitous development for Mao Zedong. Japanese encroachment and the ensuing occupation were what enabled the CCP to swell its ranks and develop into a capable force in the first place, culminating in the demise of the Nationalists and Mao’s declaration of victory in 1949 [16]. The historical record even reveals Chairman Mao’s remarks in 1972 to Prime Minister Tanaka, renouncing China’s need for apology and acknowledging the pivotal contribution of Japanese invasion to Communist victory. [17]

China’s history is much more complex than the 勿忘国耻 narrative that the Communist Party seeks to instil through patriotic education campaigns, homogenising school curricula [18] and influencing P a g e 35 | 68

the direction of cultural institutions [19]. The CCP invokes this narrative to galvanise a nationalism that positions the Party as saviour of the Chinese people, legitimising its policies as guarding against repetition of such tragedies. This version of history is increasingly being connected to China’s future, as modern-day issues are perceived through the lens of national humiliation [20].

Taiwan’s place in the narrative The status of Taiwan today is a volatile flashpoint precisely because it has been directly linked to the “century of humiliation”. In 1895 China was forced to cede the island to Japan following defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. Thus, “reunification” with Taiwan can be articulated as a symbolic step toward reversing historical wrongs, linked explicitly by Xi Jinping to China’s “national rejuvenation” [21].

Although Taiwan’s future is portrayed decisively as intrinsic to Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, this claim is predicated on dubious historical ground. For one, Taiwan has never been part of the PRC. In fact, there has been de facto political separation between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan for most of the past 126 years. Remaining a Japanese colony until 1945, the island then faced decades of martial rule under Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist regime to finally emerge and transition into a multiparty democracy today, a historical experience fundamentally different to the mainland [22]. Looking back further, Taiwan was never controlled by the Ming dynasty, nor cohesively incorporated by the Qing. While the Qing dynasty gained control of the island, leaders did not view Taiwan with fondness or importance, reportedly offering the previous Dutch occupiers the opportunity to buy it back; nor did the Taiwanese embrace mainland rule, staging rebellions throughout the period [23].

Despite this far from unequivocal backdrop, the CCP’s unrelenting emphasis on national humiliation positions reclaiming Taiwan as a paramount goal, and one ardently supported by most of the Chinese people. While leaders embed this narrative to foster a unifying CCP-centred nationalism, there is risk and evidence that between Party and people, the tail may sometimes wag the dog [24]. Especially in the event of escalating tensions over Taiwan, whether intentional or accidental, fervent nationalism could constrain the CCP’s array of political, strategic and tactical options, forcing it to bear higher risks or costs than desirable.

Take recent developments which tentatively augur a shifting approach from the international community. A collection of Eastern European countries has been upgrading ties with Taiwan [25].

Most notably, Lithuania has drawn Chinese ire for permitting the opening a representative office in Vilnius with “Taiwanese” in its official title [26]. The US recently invited Taiwan to participate in its Summit for Democracy [27] and signs indicate the European Union is actively pursuing deeper engagement with Taiwan [28]. While one should not overstate the significance of these changes, the hypersensitivity of China’s hard-line stance, as evidenced through the vociferous Chinese P a g e 36 | 68

reaction elicited by relatively minor details such as naming conventions, means they cannot be overlooked either.

The selective embedding of historical memories has established widespread conviction in China that pro-Taiwan sentiments equate to an anti-China stance. If further international actions are perceived as antithetical to Beijing’s pursuit of “reunification”, the Chinese population will surely make their voice heard. Facing this volatile nationalism, Xi Jinping could be left with no option but to act assertively on the Taiwan issue or risk losing legitimacy and undermining the CCP’s crafted role as guarantor of national sovereignty. The story is far from a foregone conclusion, but such a scenario would pose a huge risk to regional and global stability.

References [1] Fisher, Max. “In a Race to Shape the Future, History Is Under New Pressure.” New York Times, January 5, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/world/history-revisionism-nationalism.html [2] Gracie, Carrie. “Sima Qian: China's 'grand historian'.” BBC. October 8, 2012. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19835484 [3] Bland, Ben. “China rewrites history with new censorship drive.” Financial Times, September 4, 2017. https://www.ft.com/content/4ffac53e-8ee4-11e7-9084-d0c17942ba93 [4] Myers, Steven Lee. “Shutting Down Historical Debate, China Makes It a Crime to Mock Heroes.”

New York Times, November 2, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/world/asia/chinaslander-law.html [5] Wang, Zheng. “The Past’s Transformative Power.” The Wilson Quarterly 44, no. 4 (September 2020). https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/_/the-pasts-transformative-power [6] Panda, Jagannath. “After Sixth Plenum, China Belongs to Xi Jinping.” The National Interest, November 27, 2021. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/after-sixth-plenum-china-belongs-xijinping-196920 [7] Wang, “The Past’s Transformative Power”.

[8] Allison, Graham. “What Xi Jinping Wants.” The Atlantic, May 31, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/what-china-wants/528561/ [9] Hilton, Isabel. “China’s War with Japan 1937-45 by Rana Mitter: Fragments of other histories beginning to emerge.” The New Statesman, 4 July, 2013.

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https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/07/chinas-war-japan-1937-45-rana-mitterfragments-other-histories-beginning-emerge [10] Cang, Wei. “Nanjing exhibition tells 'heartbreaking' stories of 'comfort women'.” China Daily, 22 September 2021. https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202109/22/WS614a82eba310cdd39bc6a94b.html [11] Mitter, Rana. “The Manchuria Crisis Revisited.” Project Syndicate. September 16, 2021. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-selective-memory-of-manchurian-incidentby-rana-mitter-2021-09 [12] Perdue, Peter. (2005). China Marches West: the Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia . Harvard University Press, p.284.

[13] Jacobs, Justin. (2016). Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State. University of Washington Press, pp. 17-48.

[14] Jacobs, Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State, pp. 169-194.

[15] Hung, Ho-fung. (2016) From Qing Empire to the Chinese Nation: an incomplete project.

Nations and Nationalism. [Online] 22 (4), 660–665.

[16] Nobu, Iwatani. “How the War with Japan Saved the Chinese Communist Party.” Nippon. July 27, 2021. https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00722/ [17] Brown, Kerry. (2017). China’s World: What Does China Want? I.B. Tauris, p.121.

[18] Wang, “The Past’s Transformative Power”.

[19] Johnson, Ian. “At China’s New Museum, History Toes Party Line.” New York Times, April 3, 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/04museum.html [20] Chen Weiss, Jessica. “‘Ours Will No Longer Be a Nation Subject to Insult and Humiliation’.”

New York Times, September 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/28/opinion/sunday/china-xi-foreign-policy.html [21] Sacks, David. “What Xi Jinping’s Major Speech Means For Taiwan.” Asia Unbound (blog), Council on Foreign Relations, July 6, 2021. https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-xi-jinpings-majorspeech-means-taiwan

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[22] Dawley, Evan. “Was Taiwan Ever Really a Part of China?” The Diplomat, June 10, 2021. https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/was-taiwan-ever-really-a-part-of-china/ [23] van der Wees, Gerrit. “Has Taiwan Always Been Part of China?” The Diplomat, December 1, 2020. https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/has-taiwan-always-been-part-of-china/ [24] Palmer, James. “China Really Isn’t Joking About Taiwan.” Foreign Policy, December 5, 2016. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/05/china-really-isnt-joking-about-taiwan/; The Economist. “How nationalism is shaping China’s young.” January 21, 2021. https://www.economist.com/specialreport/2021/01/21/how-nationalism-is-shaping-chinas-young [25] Hille, Kathrin and Milne, Richard. “Central and eastern Europe turn to Taiwan as China relations cool.” Financial Times, September 22, 2021. https://www.ft.com/content/50e8b6c0-e9134464-b7ed-a89e22a71274 [26] Kramer, Franklin and Binnendijk, Hans. “The China-Lithuania Rift Is a Wake-Up Call for Europe.” Foreign Policy, September 22, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/22/chinalithuania-taiwan-eu-nato/ [27] Bush, Richard and Hass, Ryan. “The Biden administration is right to include Taiwan in the Summit for Democracy.” Order from Chaos (blog), Brookings Institution, December 1, 2021. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/12/01/the-biden-administration-is-rightto-include-taiwan-in-the-summit-for-democracy/ [28] Benner, Thorsten. “Europe Is Doubling Down on Taiwan.” Foreign Policy, November 8, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/08/europe-is-doubling-down-on-taiwan/ Image credits: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-taiwan-china-us-relations-china-taiwanrelations-chinas-provocative-move-in-taiwan-strait-before-biden-xi-call-2829873

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Russia and Ukraine: History Bites Back

Marcell Lehoczky is a second year History and International Relations student who is mostly interested in security, international law and the interrelation between History and contemporary International Relations.

With a large European power making territorial claims to save its supposedly oppressed minority population in a neighbouring country, one might genuinely wonder whether it is 1938 or 2022 [1].

The parallels of Putin’s and Hitler’s regime are numerous, from purges to the propaganda machine of the state, something that even Ukraine’s official Twitter account has hinted towards [2]. Yet while Hitler and the Sudeten crisis may seem to be the clearest historical parallel one might reach for when analysing this conflict, history runs deeper. Vladimir Putin is not only on the quest for Ukraine but for something much more profound. Like many Russian and Soviet leaders before him, his goal is to make history, not only to achieve what he believes to be the rightful place of Russia as an imperial power but to secure Russia’s “historical future as a nation” [3]. The historical significance of the Russian invasion of Ukraine cannot be understated as it will throw the international system into a new era of conflict and uncertainty.

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Eight years after invading Crimea and the Donbas region in Ukraine, Russia has launched a further invasion, aiming for the “denazification” of the country and to establish a strictly neutral Ukraine that is heavily demilitarised. But how did the situation reach such a boiling point? Why did Russia, a country that signed the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine in 1994[4], launch a full-scale invasion 28 years later? Many Western thinkers and politicians doubted that Putin would ever launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Yet, two weeks into the conflict, fighting has only intensified with reported total casualties now reaching 10,000.

But after analysing the historical background of the issue, as well as Putin’s weakening domestic grip on power, the real surprise is how few people really believed war would break out in Europe again, for the first time this century.

Russia’s and Ukraine’s tangled history The roots of this conflict run deep and show how the misrepresentation of history can lead to powerful and dangerous narratives. Vladimir Putin has gone to the extremes by saying that Ukraine was “created by Russia” [5] while the pursual of Novorossiya is further proof of the historical myths that Putin’s regime has created and used. Putin’s view of Russia’s rightful place in the world, with imperial powers and a joining together of the Russian sphere, is reminiscent of tsarist narratives that justified the invasion of neighbouring countries for centuries [6]. The danger of this conflict not only concerns Ukraine but the Baltics and the Caucuses, two areas where Russian claims have caused insecurity for decades.

While Russia may be struggling in its war in Ukraine, the historical myth that legitimises the conflict is much harder to break. The presence of large Russian minority populations is often used as justifications for Russian territorial claims, while attempts to secure greater independent room for manoeuvre on Ukraine’s part, such as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s independence [7], are flatly rejected by Moscow. Putin’s rhetoric has increasingly reminisced about 19 th century goals to P a g e 41 | 68

unite all Slavic peoples under Russian authority or hegemony [8]. His invocation of Catherine the Great, as well as the erection of a militaristic statue of Vladimir the Great outside the Kremlin, have been a common rhetorical tool for Putin to legitimise Russia’s actions through history [9].

The goal of becoming an imperial power is dangerous, especially from the Ukrainian perspective, where a combination of political, historical and religious rhetoric presents Putin as the second iteration of Vladimir the Great – a vision that erases the border between Ukraine and Russia by invoking Slavic civilisational discourse and considers Ukrainian democracy in the Western liberal fold to be intolerable [10].

Putin’s desire for history Not only do the two countries’ histories intertwine in a complex maze, but Putin’s action also has clear historical precedents and follows a long line of Russian leaders who have turned to force to maintain their regime and to self-justify their autocratic measures. As outlined by Timothy Snyder, the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale, Russian leaders have for centuries used the “politics of eternity” [11] to create an unstable domestic atmosphere built around an almost cultlike leadership figure, and Putin is no exception. Fear mongering and misinformation has been Putin’s favourite tool for the indoctrination of the public since the outbreak of the war, with Russia authorising new legislation outlawing independent journalism, putting Russia into an information black hole [12]. These domestic actions allow Putin to follow dangerous and false historical narratives by disconnecting Russia’s population from independent news and by glorifying Putin.

Furthermore, Putin has continuously vilified the West, citing Russia’s security and indeed its entire existence as a reason for intervention in Ukraine. This is one of the favourite tools for a politician of eternity, such as Putin, since his portrayal of the conflict paints him as the only legitimate representative of the Russian people while also creating a perpetual cycle of imagined threats coming from the West, such as how NATO defensive systems are, according to Putin, offensive weapons that can be aimed at Russia [13]. This follows a long historical trend, which Putin is aware of, that builds on Russia’s perpetual insecurity and past suffering at the hands of Napoleon, Hitler or the USA. Showing the West as inherently and perpetually evil creates a self-justifying mechanism that Putin has used to keep his grip on power, trying to convince Russian people that he, and him alone, can save Russia from the West. State censorship and propaganda are a welltested method of furthering such politics and have been used to justify genocidal policies, such as in Serbia during the Yugoslav wars. There too, Slobodan Milosevic, in a post-Soviet country, used the myth of Serb martyrdom and the threat of the West to fuel a fervent nationalism, one that eventually descended into the worst crisis in Europe after World War Two. Nonetheless, Russia’s war in Ukraine has taken much longer than initially planned for, with Putin outlining a 72-hour plan until Ukrainian capitulation and yet, more than two weeks into the conflict, most major cities remain in Ukrainian hands [14]. This, along with Russian supply line P a g e 42 | 68

issues as well as low morale within the army, should lead to some optimism within the West.

However, to avoid further escalation and to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war, Western leaders must be extremely prudent. With US President Joe Biden’s lack of explicit threat of retaliation in the case of nuclear war, the nuclear deterrent’s power has been brought into question, emboldening Putin to make threats of nuclear war that have been unheard of for 30 years [15].

Looking back at history, economic sanctions can be effective, but a strong and unwavering display of support is needed to help guide this conflict to the negotiation table and to help dispel the historical narratives that have falsely justified this war.

References [1] Ruane, Michael E. 2022. "Putin’s attack on Ukraine echoes Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia."

The Washington Post, February 24. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/24/hitler-czechoslovakia-sudeten-putinukraine/.

[2] Ukraine. 2022. Twitter Post. February 23. https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1496716168920547331?cxt=HHwWhoC-oZ_bs8UpAAAA. [3] Fisher, Max. 2022. "Putin’s Case for War, Annotated." The New York Times, February 24. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukraine-speech.html.

[4] Sanger, David E. 2022. "Putin Spins a Conspiracy Theory That Ukraine Is on a Path to Nuclear Weapons." The New York Times, February 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/us/politics/putin-ukraine-nuclear-weapons.html.

[5] Schwirtz, Michael, Maria Varenikova, and Rick Gladstone. 2022. "Putin Calls Ukrainian Statehood a Fiction. History Suggests Otherwise." The New York Times, February 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/world/europe/putin-ukraine.html.

[6] Andrejsons, Kristaps. 2022. "Russia and Ukraine Are Trapped in Medieval Myths." Foreign Policy, February 6. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/06/russia-and-ukraine-are-trapped-inmedieval-myths/.

[7] Zecher, Jonathan L. 2022. "How the Ukraine war is dividing Orthodox Christians." The Conversation, March 7. https://theconversation.com/how-the-ukraine-war-is-dividingorthodox-christians-178319.

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[8] Chotiner, Isaac. 2022. "Vladimir Putin’s Revisionist History of Russia and Ukraine." The New Yorker, February 23. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/vladimir-putins-revisionisthistory-of-russia-and-ukraine.

[9] Krapfl, James. 2022. "How Catherine the Great may have inspired Putin’s Ukraine invasion."

The Conversation, March 14. https://theconversation.com/how-catherine-the-great-mayhave-inspired-putins-ukraine-invasion-178007.

[10] Snyder, Timothy. 2022. "Putin’s rationale for Ukraine invasion gets the history wrong." The Washington Post, February 25. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/25/vladimir-great-putin-ukraine/ [11] Snyder, Timothy. 2018. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. New York: Tim Duggan Books. Accessed November 2019.

[12] Izadi, Elahe, and Sarah Ellison. 2022. "Russia’s independent media, long under siege, teeters under new Putin crackdown." The Washington Post, March 4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/03/04/putin-media-law-russia-news/.

[13] Andrejsons, Kristaps. 2022. "Russia and Ukraine Are Trapped in Medieval Myths." Foreign Policy, February 6. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/06/russia-and-ukraine-are-trapped-in-medievalmyths/.

[14] Lombardo, Olivia. 2022. "Timothy Snyder, Arne Westad offer insight on ongoing war in Ukraine." Yale Daily News, March 8. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/03/08/timothysnyder-arne-westad-offer-insight-on-ongoing-war-in-ukraine/.

[15] Ferguson, Niall. 2022. "The Fates of Ukraine and Putin Turn on 7 Forces of History."

Bloomberg, March 9. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-09/niallferguson-ukraine-invasion-struggles-could-be-the-end-for-putin.

Image credits: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/13/russia-is-looking-to-find-a-pretext-toattack-ukraine-us; https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/11/moscow-vladimir-the-greatstatue-public-outcry

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Russia-Ukraine, China-Taiwan in Perspective: What can we expect from Xi’s ambitions?

Leonard Crettol was born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland and is a second year student in International Relations at King’s College London.

Leonard’s interests lie in great power politics and international law and how these two interact with each other. Leonard also likes to learn about diplomatic practice and mediation, with a particular interest in conflict resolution.

Can the current Russian invasion of Ukraine trigger a historical moment with significant implications for the world order, comparable to that following the ‘Fall of Berlin Wall’?

Some might see in Beijing’s recent unequivocal support for Moscow’s stance on NATO expansion a sign that both countries are joining their forces to challenge an American-led international order that has too long favoured the West and its vision of global politics. Indeed, a military intervention in Ukraine opposed merely by feeble economic and financial sanctions could well embolden China in its expansionary ambitions in the East and South China Seas. A Chinese annexation of Taiwan, for example, would clearly signal the end of American preponderance in the Indo-Pacific 1.

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Geopolitically, a return to balance of power and to regional spheres of influence seems likely should such an unfolding of events happen, if not already the case.

At the time of writing, not only has Putin sent troops to “maintain peace” in the Donbass region, but he has also started what is Europe’s worst crisis since the Second World War. Whether this invasion would encourage Beijing — who has traditionally been wary of military escalation with the US — to act more aggressively is the crux of the matter. While both countries share a common interest in challenging American preponderance, both nonetheless have their own unique set of interests and preferred methods to achieve them. Beneath the appearance of unanimity, for Beijing especially tough questions need to be asked.

Parallels and differences between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping with respect to their expansionary ambitions In 2021, the Chinese air force violated Taiwan’s air defence identification zone – a sign of increasing assertiveness on China’s part. While Beijing has always been unambiguous about its ‘One-China policy’, advancements in its military and strategic capabilities have given it newfound confidence. Moreover, since the “Anti-secession Law” of 2005 authorizes under certain conditions “the State Council and the Central Military Commission to decide on and execute non-peaceful means [Article 8]” 2 to achieve reunification; concerns about a potential military annexation are legitimate, even if words have not turned to deeds yet. There is speculation that the situation in Ukraine could present this opportunity.

Some commonalities do exist between the situation in Ukraine and that in Taiwan. On Taiwan, Xi, like Putin, also bases his desire to annex Taiwan on historical claims of ‘Chinese unity’. But beyond nationalism, there might be another reason why China would like to take control of the island.

Taiwan’s success as a prosperous multi-ethnic and multilingual population that evolved from former dictatorship to democracy could be perceived as a threat by the CCP 3. Moreover, the US has military bases spread across the Indo-Pacific region, including a small presence in Taiwan 4.

Just like Xi fears American pre-eminence in the Indo-Pacific, Putin has always felt threatened by NATO's expansion eastwards, and notably by the potential adherence of Ukraine in this organisation. One may caveat though that Putin’s invasion is a rather counter-productive strategy since it has pushed countries like Sweden and Finland — which had never expressed the will to join NATO — to muse potential membership. Still, both Putin and Xi want to push the US out of their respective sphere of influence and the annexation of Taiwan could be a first step in this direction for Xi. Nevertheless, there remain significant discrepancies between these two contexts. Firstly, economic relations between Beijing and Taipei are not quite the same as those between Moscow and Kiev.

Taiwan is one of the biggest investors in China: “in 2020, the value of cross-straits trade was P a g e 46 | 68

US$166 billion.” 5. Another sign of this interconnectedness is the number of companies whose production centres are in China but with headquarters in Taiwan - TNCs like Foxconn and TSMC are good examples of this. While economic interdependence is of course no guarantor of peace, it may still complicate plans for full-scale invasion by increasing the risks of disruption, including to China’s own technological sector in an age of modern warfare, such that an invasion may be seen only as a last resort.

Looking at Sino-Taiwanese trade, the significant economic stakes should inhibit any prospects of a full-scale invasion, unless Taipei formally declares independence. However, it is difficult to envisage Taiwan crossing this red line since it has stakes in maintaining the status quo which allows it to function as an independent country, despite not being formally independent 6.

Prospects of Invasion Military intervention with boots on the ground in Taiwan is an extremely difficult endeavour to pull off, notably due to the difficulties of an extensive amphibious operation. In a potential scenario envisaged by Chinese military strategists [7], China launches missiles to destroy Taiwan’s aerial defence, then uses its air force to bombard Taiwan, and finally debarks on the island with troops.

However, given that “successive U.S. administrations have publicly committed themselves to support Taiwan against Chinese aggression and have regularly sold arms to the island’s armed forces” [8], it is projected that if Taiwanese show a minimal degree of resistance, the US will intervene. The crisis will then escalate, with China ultimately backing down in case the US threatens nuclear action. This scenario has been envisaged by Chinese military strategists because China does not have parity in terms of nuclear power with the US (hence why it has recently built P a g e 47 | 68

up its nuclear arsenal and capacities). Even if the crisis does not escalate to a nuclear confrontation, this would still be the hardest scenario for China because it involves an all-out war with the US. China’s objective is precisely to avoid this since it lacks both general military experience and familiarity with complex landing, and also because it could risk facing the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, supported by regional allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and Vietnam. For China, the ideal scenario is that Taiwan would surrender without putting up a real fight. In this case, it assumes that grey-zone actions or threats of armed action would make Taiwan capitulate, or make concessions at the very least 9.

Although Beijing wants to conquer the island without a major military conflict, the People’s Liberation Army is preparing for a war involving an American intervention 10. Despite efforts by Chinese propaganda to discredit American commitment to defend Taiwan through the lens of American withdrawal from Afghanistan, China’s military experts are aware that the US might intervene 11. One should not forget that the retreat from Afghanistan, albeit chaotic, was coherent with the strategic shift to the Indo-Pacific. This shift is embodied by “President Biden’s vision to more firmly anchor the United States in” what is “the most dynamic region in the world” 12.

Furthermore, America’s ability to intervene in far-flung areas cannot be questioned. While the ambiguous legacies of Iraq and Afghanistan have tainted much political discourse on US power, one should not forget that the US was one of the few – if not the only – global power that had the might to initiate interventions in far-flung regions and sustain them for years in the first place. And while Ukraine is not of major strategic importance, Taiwan clearly is. Indeed, Taiwan is the US’ first line of defence against China for several reasons. First, if Taiwan becomes Chinese, China will be able to project its power more assertively in the Pacific, notably regarding nuclear capabilities 13. Having an unconstrained access to the Pacific, China could further challenge the US primacy at sea. Second, if Taiwan falls, Japan – whose relations with the PRC are already tense – will certainly feel threatened due to its geographical proximity 14. Third, economically, Taiwan is a major partner of the US and the biggest producer of microchips – a critical product for many industries.

The

impact

of

Russia’s

invasion

on

Xi’s

ambitions

regarding

Taiwan

“If Putin succeeds in invading Ukraine, the temptation for Xi to attack Taiwan will rise” 15 wrote Gideon Rachman a month ago. Today, although Putin will certainly be successful militarily, his strategy over Ukraine has failed thus far to accomplish its main aims of rolling back NATO and Western influence, demonstrating the friction and unpredictability that are characteristic of war. It is unclear whether Xi will be inspired to follow the same path. Moreover, the Chinese President is not like his Russian counterpart. Although Xi also wishes to tweak an international order that, in his view, no longer represents the actual geopolitical realities, Xi and the Chinese are generally P a g e 48 | 68

known to avoid massive risks and prefer predictability and stability [16]. As Rühlig contends: “China’s increasing investments around the world (…) increase China’s interests in peace” 17, unlike a “Russia [which] is currently more willing to take military risks than China” 18. Moreover, concerned with ripple effects from Putin’s invasion, notwithstanding Chinese ties with Ukraine and China’s desire to stabilise relations with the West 19, Beijing is now pushing to resolve this crisis diplomatically 20, effectively distancing itself from the Kremlin’s position.

True to its usual cautiousness, Beijing will most likely observe the US’ response to the situation in Ukraine. A firm and coordinated response to Putin’s invasion has the potential to deter Xi 21. For now, Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is expected to be met by severe consequences. Profound economic costs and international isolation are unravelling 22. Additionally, high military casualties are a plausible consequence of the unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian resistance 23.

If these consequences materialise, China might think twice and refrain from undertaking a similar path 24. While events are still developing, Chinese hesitation to mitigate the effects of sanctions on Russia likely reflects its recognition of changing geopolitical dynamics and its unwillingness to strain relations with the wider world for the time being.

References 1 Gideon Rachman, “Russia and China’s plans for a new world order”, Financial Times, January 23, 2022. 2 The Official Position of the Republic of China (Taiwan) on the People's Republic of China's AntiSecession (Anti-Separation) Law, 2005-03-29, in the General Policy Archives (1994-2008) of the Mainland Affairs Council for the Republic of China (Taiwan) 3 Alexandre Jubelin hosts Antoine Bondaz, “Taiwan est-elle chinoise ? Les États-Unis, la Chine et l’enjeu stratégique taiwanais”, Le Collimateur, November 23, 2021. 4 Jack Detsch, “Pentagon Quietly Puts More Troops in Taiwan”, Foreign Policy, November 18, 2021. 5 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan), “Cross-Strait Relations”, 2021. 6 Alexandre Jubelin hosts Antoine Bondaz, “Taiwan est-elle chinoise ? Les États-Unis, la Chine et l’enjeu stratégique taiwanais” 7 PLA Academy of Military Science (AMS), "The Science of Military Strategy", China Aerospace Studies Institute, 2013.

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8] Andrew Scobell and Lucy Stevenson-Yang, “China Is Not Russia. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine.”, United States Institute of Peace, March 4, 2022. 9 David Lague and Maryanne Murray, “T-DAY: The Battle for Taiwan”, Reuters, November 5, 2021. 10 Antoine Bondaz, “Les Européens ont un rôle à jouer dans la prévention d'un conflit dans le détroit de Taïwan”, Fondation pour la recherche stratégique , March 8, 2021. 11 Alexandre Jubelin hosts Antoine Bondaz, “Taiwan est-elle chinoise ? Les États-Unis, la Chine et l’enjeu stratégique taiwanais” 12 The White House, “FACT SHEET: Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States”, February 11, 2022. 13 Alexandre Jubelin hosts Antoine Bondaz, “Taiwan est-elle chinoise ? Les États-Unis, la Chine et l’enjeu stratégique taiwanais” 14 Ibid. 15 Rachman, “Russia and China’s plans for a new world order” 16 Elizabeth Economy, “Xi Jinping’s New World Order Can China Remake the International System?”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2022. 17 Tim Rühlig, “A “New” Chinese Foreign Policy Under Xi Jinping?”, Institute for Security and Development Policy, March 2, 2018. 18 Rachman, “Russia and China’s plans for a new world order” 19 “Factbox: China's business and economic interests in Ukraine”, Reuters, February 23, 2022. 20 Eleanor Olcott, James Kynge, and Roman Olearchyk, “China ready to ‘play a role’ in Ukraine ceasefire”, Financial Times, March 1, 2022. 21 “Biden face aux crises internationales” Leçon de géopolitique du Dessous des cartes, ARTE, February 16, 2022.

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22 Gideon Rachman, “Putin, Ukraine and the madman theory of diplomacy”, Financial Times, February 7, 2022. 23 Ibid. 24 Edward White, Nastassia Astrasheuskaya, and Kathrin Hille, “Ukraine crisis tests Xi Jinping’s pivot to Vladimir Putin”, Financial Times, February 21, 2022.

Image credits: https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/03/05/ukraine-has-changed-how-taiwanesesee-themselves; http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-06/29/content_9843041.htm

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US-China Competition in 2022 and Beyond Jonas is a second Year History Student from Switzerland. His main interests are grand strategy, security and defence, including areas such as US-China relations and their domestic policies and the geopolitical implications of arms development. In addition, he is interested in Chinese, European and American history, classical liberal political philosophy and political realism.

The year 2021 saw a rise in tensions between the United States and China, as both countries enacted trade, defence and diplomatic policies characterised by increased distrust and hostility. [1] This trend will almost certainly continue for the foreseeable future and the year 2022 will be consequential in shaping great power competition. Nevertheless, it is probable that, despite significant developments and growing tension in the background, the year will not be one of major escalation as both countries will prefer relative stability in order to focus on domestic issues.

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China is likely to continue its antagonistic rhetoric toward the United States and its allies to divert attention from a plethora of domestic problems. Combined with an increasingly confrontational external environment, one can be forgiven for speculating that these problems could also compel the nation’s leadership to go beyond mere rhetoric and act more aggressively in attempting to secure its geopolitical objectives in the mid to long term, as it may perceive China’s relative power peaking and its window of opportunity closing. China is approaching population decline as 200 million working adults will become senior citizens in the next three decades, leading to a medical and social security spending of 30% of GDP by 2050. [2] Its total factor productivity declined by 1.3% every year on average between 2008 and 2019 and some studies suggest that GDP growth rate is now close to 2%, which is comparatively low by Chinese standards. [3] The country’s debt amounts to 290% of its GDP and it is currently dealing with a deeply troubled property sector which accounts for around 29% of its GDP. [4] In addition, President Xi Jinping’s recent clampdown on private enterprise, particularly in the technology sector, erased an estimated $1.5 trillion in shareholder value and China’s zero-covid strategy means that large parts of its economy are continually disrupted. [5] These considerable economic problems have the potential to harm the CCP’s legitimacy in the eyes of a dissatisfied population, which could lead to a more aggressive military policy to divert attention from stagnation. More importantly, they are likely to significantly limit the resources China has at its disposal to achieve its geopolitical objectives in the future.

Meanwhile, China is facing an increasingly hostile external environment due to countless human rights abuses, COVID-19 and aggressive policies which led to more trade barriers on its goods, over a dozen countries leaving the Belt and Road initiative and the United States campaigning globally against Chinese technology companies and their digital influence. [6] With China’s general rise on the world stage, it was in China’s interest to postpone any serious confrontation with the Unites States that could prove to be disruptive. However, now the prospects of economic decline and strategic encirclement by a coalition of increasingly determined rivals could mean that Beijing is seeing its window of opportunity to secure its geopolitical objectives closing. [7] Indeed, Chinese president Xi Jinping called on senior CCP officials to present an image of a more ‘credible, loveable and respectable’ China to the world, which is an implicit admission that growing global scepticism complicates the country’s plans for great rejuvenation. [8] Thus, it is not unreasonable to suspect Beijing may act much more boldly in the coming decade to bolster the CCP’s legitimacy by distracting from domestic issues and to regain economic momentum by consolidating what it considers to be its exclusive spheres of influence abroad. However, as will be discussed later, this is not likely the case for now for a variety of reasons, although in the long future Beijing could certainly be more assertive. In any case, how China is going to reconcile its domestic issues and increasing strategic encirclement with its growing desire for pre-eminence on the world stage will affect great power competition in 2022 and beyond.

On the other side of the Pacific, the United States will be continuing the process of reconfiguring its military capabilities for modern great power competition and counteracting global Chinese economic influence which will exacerbate tensions, at least in the long run. The new United States P a g e 53 | 68

National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy is due to be released early this year which, inferring from the interim strategic guidance of March 2021, will be framed in terms of a global struggle of democracy against authoritarianism. [9] While this may be mere rhetoric, such a framing of US-China relations is likely to reduce the space for diplomacy and cooperation where interests overlap, as it adds a moral dimension to the conflict that raises the stakes but is inherently unresolvable. [10] Late last year, Biden signed into law the National Defence Authorization Act for the fiscal year 2022 which further erodes US-China relations. [11] The legislation includes a Pacific Deterrence initiative that sets aside $7.1 billion as well as a congressional support statement for Taiwan’s defence. [12] Moreover, the passing of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act on December 23rd 2021, which outlaws the import of goods from Xinjiang suspected to be produced in full or in part by forced labour, means that US-China relations start the new year under strain. [13]

Similarly, the United States has announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing human rights abuses in Xinjiang as the reason. In response, Chinese officials accused the United States of creating divisions and provoking confrontation. [14] Furthermore, in June 2021 at the G-7 Summit, the United States launched its Build Back Better World (B3W) plan, which is a geo-economic counterforce to China’s Belt and Road initiative. The plan is supposed to provide around $40 trillion for infrastructure development in developing countries by 2035 and will likely lead to a heating up of great power competition in 2022 and beyond.

However, while the contours of great power competition have increasingly been solidified, it is probable that the year 2022 itself will not see any major escalations or shifts in the state of affairs as both Beijing and Washington will want to focus on domestic matters. China will host the 2022 winter Olympics in February where it will seek to demonstrate its prestige, stability and mastery of COVID-19. [15] In mid-fall, China will hold the 20 th Communist Party Congress where Xi Jinping expects to gain another five-year term as president. While the pressures on China are great, as

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aforementioned, one can nonetheless expect Xi to desire stability and a quiet runup to the party congress in order not to complicate his domestic political goals. [16] Washington will be distracted by the mid-term elections, especially since the Republican party is set to gain a substantial number of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

[17] There is a possibility that Biden will use strong language to project a tougher stance against China to shore up his anti-China credentials. However, domestic issues such as inflation or climate change policy and the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will likely be of more importance to the election. Most importantly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is preoccupying the US national security apparatus and foreign policy at the moment. Escalating tensions with China is therefore not in Washington’s interest. Another indication that 2022 could be a relatively calm year for the US-China competition is that both the United States and China agreed in a virtual meeting between its leaders last November to settle into a zone of ‘mutually tolerable friction’. [18] While Washington and Beijing are on a trajectory toward intense rivalry, 2022 will likely not see any major escalation or even armed conflict. Barring an unforeseen event, both the United States and China will be navigating heightened but manageable levels of tension in 2022.

References [1] Srinivas Mazumdaru, “Where is the US-China relationship headed in 2022?”, Deutsche Welle, https://www.dw.com/en/where-is-the-us-china-relationship-headed-in-2022/a-60225028.

[2] Hal Brands, Michael Beckley, “China is a Declining Power – and That’s the Problem”, Foreign Policy, September 24, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-unitedstates/.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Robert A. Manning, “Is China's power peaking? And other top national security questions for 2022”, The Hill, December 29, 2021, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/587599-ischinas-power-peaking-and-other-top-national-security-questions.

[5] Zanny Minton Beddoes, “Rivalry between America and China will shape the post-covid world”, The Economist, November 8, 2021, https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/theworld-ahead/2021/11/08/rivalry-between-america-and-china-will-shape-the-post-covid-world [6] Brands, Beckley, “China is a Declining Power”.

[7] Ibid.

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[8] Stephen McDonell, “Xi Jinping calls for more 'loveable' image for China in bid to make friends”, BBC, June 2, 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57327177.

[9] President Joseph R. Biden, “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance”, The White House, March, 2021, p.7, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf [10] Christopher S. Chivvis, “Biden’s Forthcoming National Security Strategy: Making It Real”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 10, 2021, https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/11/10/biden-s-forthcoming-national-security-strategymaking-it-real-pub-85734.

[11] Sumathi Bala, “Asia’s top risk in 2022 will be U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan, says political risk analyst”, CNBC, January 4, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/05/us-china-relations-overtaiwan-will-be-asias-top-risk-in-2022-analyst.html.

[12] “President Biden signs $770 billion defense bill”, CNBC, December 27, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/27/president-biden-signs-770-billion-defense-bill.html.

[13] 117th Congress Public Law 78, U.S. Government Publishing Office, December 23, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6256/text.

[14] Robin Brant, “US diplomats to boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics”, BBC, December 7, 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59556613.

[15] James Stavridis, “The U.S. and China in 2022: A Year of Living Quietly?”, Bloomberg, December 28, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-28/the-u-s-and-chinain-2022-a-year-of-living-quietly.

[16] Demetri Sevastopulo, “Tom Mitchell, Xi-Biden agreement on nuclear talks clouded by ‘deep distrust’”, Financial Times, November 17, 2021, https://www.ft.com/content/968c299c-83b4-42e58d65-8078beec6c7c.

[17] Harry Enten, “Why the 2022 midterms look like the opposite of 2018”, CNN, December 12, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/12/politics/midterm-election-2022-republican-wave/ index.html.

[18] Goh Yan Han, “US-China relations to settle into ‘mutually tolerable friction zone’ in 2022: Forum”, The Straits Times, January 6, 2022, https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/us-chinarelations-to-settle-into-zone-of-mutually-tolerable-friction-in-2022-forum.

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Image credits: https://www.thinkchina.sg/new-battleground-china-us-competition-internationalorganisations; https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/2/20/photos-2022-beijing-olympicsclosing-ceremony

The Abraham Accords: Peace in Our Time?

Nahla Mohamed a third year BA History and International Relations student at KCL. She is Egyptian-Sudanese and lived in Cairo, Egypt for most of her life before coming to London to study at King's. Her academic interests centre around Middle Eastern politics and history, with particular sub-interests within this including the interaction between religion and politics in the Middle East and how this interaction shapes the nature of contemporary Middle Eastern states.

In the second half of 2020, the world’s attention was captured by the historical signing of the Abraham Accords, a series of normalisation agreements forged between Israel and four Arab (and Islamic) countries: UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. These deals gained historic significance from the fact that they represented the first normalisation of relations by Arab states with Israel since the examples of Egypt and Jordan, in 1979 and 1994 respectively. The accords represented a last gasp effort by Trump’s administration to leave a legacy of foreign policy success in the Middle East in light of its controversial legacy. As such, the agreements were framed by the Trump administration, as well as many Western diplomats and analysts, as hailing a new period of peace and stabilisation in the Middle East, since they supposedly represented a major step towards peacefully addressing the region’s most important issue, the Arab-Israeli conflict. Interestingly, the accords appeared to overturn the sequence of normalisation which had been set by the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which required that Israel must withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state before normalisation could occur. Now it appeares that normalisation of interstate relations would occur first without necessitating an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories [1]. The only deal which set any significant constraints on Israeli behaviour was the UAE deal, which required Israel to suspend its plans to annex 30% of the West Bank.

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Proclamations of progress aside, one should be cautious not to overestimate the dividends brought by the accords, as they either neglect important issues or introduce new dynamics in a manner not necessarily conducive to peace in 3 main areas.

Firstly, the Abraham Accords are wholly insufficient as peace deals, given their exclusion of the Palestinian voice. The deals were concluded without any Palestinian input, and Palestinian political representatives have been highly critical of them, deeming them a ‘treacherous stab to the Palestinian cause’ [2] because they have removed an important negotiation card, the issue of Arab normalisation, from the Palestinians’ grasp [3]. Given that the deals were forged with no Palestinian input, they overlook a crucial set of issues which continue to mire the Israel-Palestine crisis and ‘remain an open wound’ for Arab publics - namely the siege of the Gaza Strip, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and the lack of a solution to the refugee crisis [4].

Consequently, the accords are strained by continued sympathy amongst the Arab publics for the Palestinian cause, which Arab governments have ignored entirely as the public backlash towards the deals in Bahrain and Sudan demonstrate [5]. This means that the normalisation encompassed in the deals is at best partial, since true normalisation with Israel can only come when it is accepted by a wider Arab public, including the Palestinian people. The non-resolution of the aforementioned set of key issues (the refugee crisis etc.) will perpetuate the ‘festering trauma’

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caused by these issues, and make true normalisation and effective peacebuilding difficult to achieve [6].

Second, the Abraham Accords are likely to allow Israel to act more belligerently and become even less willing to compromise with the Palestinians. As aforementioned, the signing of the Abraham Accords has withdrawn one of Palestine’s major sources of leverage in their negotiations with Israel, and further weakening their ability to extract concessions from Israel amidst the enormous political and military differential between Israel and Palestine. Moreover, Israel is likely to draw strength from fractures in the Palestinian front that have occurred as a result of the Accords, insofar as they set back reconciliation efforts between the Hamas government in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank [7]. Therefore, despite the perception held by some that the normalisation deals will motivate Israel to act with more restraint to appease its new Arab allies, normalisation will likely encourage Israel to act more belligerently. This was signified by Israel’s actions after the accords were signed: in September 2020, directly after the Emirati and Bahraini deals had been signed, there was a major spike in Israeli military incursions into Palestinian territory and in the demolition of Palestinian homes by Israeli forces [8]. This signifies that the forging of the deals has eased the pressure on Israel to treat the Palestinian cause more seriously and allowed them to act in a way that will further destabilise the region.

Third, the signing of the Abraham Accords itself signifies rising regional instability. This is because for the Arab states, the major incentive to sign the deals was their desire to gain a strategic advantage over other regional powers in the context of a highly tense regional situation. Key regional players such as the UAE and Bahrain have been feeling rising insecurity in light of the US shifting focus away from the Middle East, which appears to have emboldened regional challengers to the status quo, most notably Iran and its allies [9]. This has motivated them to take more ‘extreme’ measures to protect their security and their regional pre-eminence against the threat posed by these ‘revisionist powers’, as can be seen most clearly in the case of the UAE, whose major gain in the immediate aftermath of the accords was the prospect of obtaining American F-35 fighter jets which previously only Israel enjoyed access to. Both Western and Arab analysts have argued that the Arab states who have recently normalised with Israel are joining forces with Israel based on a common cause of concern, namely the changing geopolitical environment in light of US disengagement [10]. This shared sense of insecurity, manifest in the Abraham Accords, will likely exacerbate regional tensions by motivating regional actors to undertake actions that will further increase regional instability. For example, Samuel Ramani has argued that should a deal allowing the UAE to gain access to F35 fighter jets go through, it could destabilise the region by reducing Israel’s military advantage [11], and create more military competition between the UAE-Saudi alliance and their regional enemies. Moreover, the signing of the deals will likely exacerbate this insecurity by deepening regional divides rather than mitigating them as it will likely create a schism between those who have normalised with Israel, and those such as Turkey who still remain steadfast in their opposition to official normalisation [12]. There is also the risk that the attempts of UAE and its allies to gain a strategic advantage over their enemies by signing these accords will P a g e 59 | 68

will reinforce Iran’s narrative regarding the UAE and its allies, which presents them as imperialist lackeys of the US and Israel [13].

Therefore, the Abraham Accords do not guarantee a simple breakthrough in the path towards peace in the Israel-Palestine crisis as simplistically advertised by the Trump administration and perceived by the majority of the Western world. In fact, the deals do little to address this historic conflict, and rather appear likely to exacerbate regional instability rather than reduce it for reasons described above. Analysts such as Kenneth Pollack argue that the Abraham Accords will likely be seen in retrospect as a ‘harbinger of worse to come’ in the same way that Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, was seen as an ominous prelude to World War I [14].

References [1] Hellyer, H., 2022. Without the Palestinians, Israeli Normalization Is Still Beyond Reach . [online] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available at: <https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/09/15/without-palestinians-israeli-normalization-is-stillbeyond-reach-pub-82702> [2] Al Jazeera, 2022. Arab normalisation with Israel in 500 words. [online] Available at: <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/23/the-normalisation-of-ties-between-israel-and-arabcountries> P a g e 60 | 68

[3] Youssef, A., 2022. Can the ‘New Normalizers’ Advance Israeli-Palestinian Peace? . [online] United States Institute of Peace. Available at: <https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/06/cannew-normalizers-advance-israeli-palestinian-peace> [3] Hellyer, ‘Israeli Normalization’ [4] Al Jazeera, ‘Arab normalisation’ [5] Hellyer, ‘Israeli Normalization’ [6] Al Jazeera, ‘Arab normalisation’ [7] Hellyer, ‘Israeli Normalization’ [8] Pollack, K., 2022. It's Not a Peace Deal. It's a Powder Keg.. [online] Foreign Policy. Available at: <https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/21/its-not-a-peace-deal-its-a-powder-keg/> [9] Ibid [10] Ibid [11] Ramani, S., 2022. Why the United States Shouldn’t Sell Jets to the UAE . [online] Foreign Policy. Available at: <https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/30/why-usa-shouldnt-sell-f35-jets-touae/> [12] Al Jazeera, ‘Arab normalisation’ [13] Ibid [14] Pollack, ‘Powder Keg’ Image credits: https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/the-abraham-accords-one-year-later-canthey-change-the-middle-east/; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-explained-questions-b1849285.html

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The Risk of a ‘Gender Lens’ Approach Roha Aslam is a student at Kings college studying International Relations, with a specialism tailored towards South Asian studies covering specific topical interest on counter terrorism and nuclear proliferation in the region.

Terrorism as a result from radicalisation and violent extremism poses an ongoing threat to contemporary European security [1]. The underlying issue with addressing this phenomenon partially comes from an inadequate and incoherent attempt at understanding terrorist profiles [2].

It should be emphasised that there is no singular terrorist profile that can encompass the different types of people that join extremist groups [3]. In fact, the lack of acknowledgement regarding the diversity of motivations prevalent in extremist groups is one of the biggest shortcomings in policy aimed towards countering terrorism. Emphasis ought to be placed on the necessity of taking a holistic and comprehensive stance in viewing both men and women’s motivations and contributions to extremist groups. Thus far, academia has produced gendered explanations and categorised both men and women through conventional and stereotypical roles. This had led to misconceptions regarding who can and cannot be a terrorist and what roles they may or may not assume.

While it is acknowledged that men perpetrate the vast majority of the violence seen in global politics [4], a better understanding of women’s motivations through a less sexualised - and more holistic lens - is fundamental for formulating more effective anti-radicalisation policies. In particular, stereotypical media narratives that strip women of their agency and reduce their motivations to sexual deviancy and biology need to be debunked.[5] A complete re-evaluation of both gender roles is in order, as they reinforce each other. There have currently been limited attempts to use a gender lens and apply it to anti-radicalisation, and the organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) highlights that a holistic gender analysis can aid a better insight into an individual’s motivations [6]. Through understanding motivations policymakers can not only

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effectively comprehend what vulnerabilities extremist groups may target to invoke radicalisation, but they can also seek to use women as deterrents in radicalisation.

While the overall threat of terrorism has declined in recent years, the risk that jihadist terrorism poses remains a concern to European nations [7]. Europol’s 2017 report highlighted that more than 5,000 individuals travelled from the EU to Syria and Iraq [5]. Within this number the International Centre for Counter Terrorism (ICCT) reported that 17% of these individuals were women [7]. The seriousness of women’s participation in terrorist groups is far less acknowledged than men. It is apparent that when stories of women’s violence are presented in the media, analysts sometimes become preoccupied with attempting to explain away the possibility that women make an active decision to partake in violent activities [8]. This has resulted in the perpetuation of false gender perspectives. For example, the most consistently and historically deployed narrative attached to women’s violence is the ‘whore narrative’ [9]. This account seeks to diminish women’s active agency in joining extremist groups by arguing that women’s motivations revolve around sexual dysfunction and erotomania [10]. It attaches to it orthodox roles of women being ‘jihadi brides’ or loving mothers. For example Maureen O’Hara, who engaged in terrorist activities with the IRA, was characterised as an ‘outstanding figure, red hair and looks [employed] to lure British soldiers over to drink[11].’ By reducing women down to their biology, such narratives simply see women as life givers and not life takers [12]. There are three common misconceptions that this narrative disseminates. The first is that women assume non-violent roles; the second is that women are secondary actors or recruits due to this non-violent nature; and lastly that women join extremist groups due to personal reasons that are associated with their biology [13].

Policymakers need to grapple with the reality that there is evidence for women joining extremist groups that go beyond both biological and personal narratives. For example, Noreen Leghari was P a g e 64 | 68

the first Pakistani female suicide bomber recruited by male IS (Islamic State) members [13].

Although she was arrested before she had a chance to engage in an attack, the delegation of front line roles to women highlights the transition from them assuming traditional to active roles [14].

This example does not stand in isolation, there have been patterns of female terrorists assuming combat-based roles across Syria, Palestine and Indonesia [15]. In 2016 it was reported that an Indonesian domestic worker - Ika Puspitasari -acted as a jihadi recruiter and formed her own cell by recruiting IS members while also planning out her own suicide attack on a tourist hot spot in Bali [16]. By focusing on male perpetrators, we risk overlooking female contributions to violence and missing opportunities for careful CT (Counter-Terrorism) and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) policy designs and engagement. Trends witnessed both in Indonesia with JI and Pakistan with the Tahreek-e-Taliban that have displayed women’s involvement in more combatantbased roles [17]. While there are doubts around how diverse IS have been in assigning women non-traditional roles, CT can no longer deduce the chances of women’s active choice to partake in violence as negligible. With IS’s increased presence in South-East Asia there are major security concerns for many nations. It can be likely that more women will attempt to wage violent attacks and countries should be prepared for this with vigorous CT strategies that incorporate holistic understandings of gendered roles.

Due to the constant underestimation of women assuming combat-based roles in extremist groups, terrorist organisations have increasingly utilized this ignorance in policymaking to their advantage by using women to pass security checks that men cannot clear as easily [15]. Religious attire such as the hijab, burqa and abaya are often exploited by female terrorists to conceal weapons or materials for extremist organisations [17]. For example in 2014 Boko Haram deployed its first female suicide bomber in an attack on a military barracks in Gombe State in June 2014. Since then, it has become renowned for the terrorist organisation which has the largest involvement of women suicide bombers [18]. In an article later published by Omona and Ogbodo-Iwuagwu (2014, June 15), it was reported that; “women are always allowed to pass free at security’s checkpoints without undergoing any checks because they believe that they cannot engage in such criminal P a g e 65 | 68

activities, but the Gombe Incident should be an eye opener to everybody so both male and female should be check thoroughly so that we don’t experience what happened in Gombe [19].” Thus, it is fundamental for policymakers to break away from the non-violent notion they attach to female terrorists, place men and women on equal footing, and move towards appointing more women in the security sectors to avert this threat. By engaging with an inadequate understanding of the extent to which women decide to actively contribute to violence in global politics, we risk impeding how governments and civil societies can formulate effective CVE strategies [20].

As mentioned, there is substantial risk with underestimating a women’s active participation and agency in terrorism and the implications this could have on effective CT and CVE programs. It could risk ignoring women in key intervention opportunities and could also result in weak research and data assessment regarding the motivations and roles they undertake in extremist organisations [20]. Moreover, the danger of not integrating women into the security sector would correlate with poorer law enforcement, as it has been demonstrated that female law enforcement officers tend to form better relationships with the community they police [21]. Having a secure and safe dynamic is crucial to P/CVE strategies. David Cook has repeatedly emphasised both the acceptability and prevalence of women waging jihad in Islamic terrorist groups but also that women are also becoming more visible in more secular terrorist organisations [22]. As a result, states like Indonesia and Pakistan have both recognised the growing necessity to incorporate women into social services and security sectors to aid with anti-radicalisation. For example, AmnONisa in Pakistan and Aman Indonesia are two organisations rooted in empowering and educating women as part of CVE strategies [23]. These initiatives focus on educating women to use them as assets in identifying the first signs of radicalisation in their own children and the wider community[24]. A woman's bond with her children and her community is the first time we should reconsider female biology through a permissive lens for CT policies. However, even within this, there are apparent societal and cultural limitations which often impact how involved women are within their family dynamics[25]. For example Sara Mahmood notes that certain Afghan and Pushtun tribes do not like to include women in private family dynamics, which in turn hinders their ability to note any radical changes in the behaviours of their children[26]. While this serves as a prominent flaw in policymaking, where applicable, women should be empowered and reintegrated into society and security sectors.

It is pivotal for states and policymakers to evolve alongside the shifting dynamics of terrorist organisations to account for both conventional and unconventional situations. There needs to be more emphasis placed on the reassessment of gender roles for both men and women, and a departure from media narratives and stereotypical accounts that perpetuate incorrect and restrictive views. The gender lens approach runs the risk of limited and weak CT/CVE programmes, and having more gender nuanced and holistic evaluations is crucial for policy making going forward [27].

References P a g e 66 | 68

[1] [2] [3] [5] [6] [7] [11] [12] [21] [22] [23] Orav, Anita, Rosamund Shreeves, and Anja Radjenovic. 2018. "Radicalisation And Counter Radicalisation: A Gender Perspective". Briefing.

European Parliamentary Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS-Briefing581955-Radicalisation-gender-perspective-rev-FINAL.pdf.

[4] Srobana, Bhattacharya (2019). “Gender, insurgency, and terrorism: introduction to the special issue.” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 30:6-7, 1077-1088, DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2019.1649833 [8] [9] Gentry, Caron E. 2008. "Reduced To Bad Sex: Narratives Of Violent Women From The Bible To The War On Terror". International Relations 22 (no. 1), 5-23.

[10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [20] [24] [25] [26] [27] "Negating Stereotypes: Women, Gender And Terrorism And Indonesia And Pakistan". In Perspectives on the Future of Women, Gender, and Violent Extremism, edited by Audrey Alexander. Washington D.C.: The George Washington University Program on Extremism, 2019. Accessed March 6, 2022. https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Negating%20Stereotypes-%20Women %20Gender%20and%20Terrorism%20in%20Indonesia%20and%20Pakistan.pdf.

[17] Pearson, Elizabeth. "Wilayat Shahidat: Boko Haram, The Islamic State, And The Question Of The Female Suicide Bomber". In Boko Haram Beyond the Headlines, edited by Jacob Zenn. 33-52.

New York: Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point, 2018. https://ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Boko-Haram-Beyond-the-Headlines_Chapter2.pdf.

[18] M. BIZOV, OLIVIA. 2014. "DEVIANT WOMEN: FEMALE INVOLVEMENT IN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS". PhD, Mercyhurst University.

Image credits: https://www.e-ir.info/2015/12/06/the-women-of-daesh-thinking-about-a-decadeof-research-on-women-gender-and-terrorism/; https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/1/15722746/terrorism-gender-women-manchester-isiscounterterrorism

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