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21. Towards a Fuzzy World Order: What Role for NATO

Author:
Richard Higgott and Simon Reich
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Institution:
Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Abstract:
Bi-polarity, multi-polarity, the end of globalization, or Cold War v. 2.0. New explanations of world order abound. Often, they are asserted rather than reasoned by pundits looking for their 15 minutes of fame. This paper is much more modest. It eschews grand statements about world order. Rather we demonstrate that the future is far less clear cut and predetermined. Yes, a global binary is emerging around U.S.-China competition, but it is what we describe as fuzzy bifurcation. If our analysis is accurate, then it affects the behavior of other actors differently than a tight bi-polar system. In this paper we look at the implications of a fuzzy bifurcation of world order for that most important of alliances – NATO.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

22. Rebuilding "Greater Russia" and the Invasion of Ukraine

Author:
Roger E Kanet
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Institution:
Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Abstract:
This article examines Vladimir Putin's commitment to rebuilding "Greater Russia" and its implications in the context of the invasion of Ukraine. Putin's vision involves re-establishing the former Soviet Union and extending Russian dominance beyond its borders, fueled by a belief in the historical and cultural ties between Russians and Ukrainians. The article explores Russia's assertive and unilateralist approach to international politics, its military interventions in neighboring countries, and the justifications used to expand Moscow's control over former Soviet territories. Highlighting the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and its devastating consequences, the author raises questions about Putin's long-term goals and whether they involve recreating "Greater Russia" or countering perceived threats from the West and neighboring states. The author contends that despite other factors that might play a role in influencing Russian policy, the re-establishment of Moscow’s influence/ control over as much post-Soviet territory as possible – the recreation of “Greater Russia” -- is the most important role – not NATO expansion, although it no doubt was an issue. If the Russians are successful in dominating Ukraine, other former Soviet areas – for example, the Baltics – are likely to become targets of future expansion.
Topic:
Security, Imperialism, Hegemony, Power, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

23. China's Political-Economy, Foreign and Security Policy: 2023

Author:
Center for China Analysis
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
It has now been three months since the 20th Party Congress convened in Beijing on October 15. While the Congress set Xi Jinping’s ideological, strategic, and economic direction for the next five years, much has happened since then that the Chinese leadership did not anticipate. Principal among these surprises was the spontaneous eruption in late November of public protests across multiple Chinese cities against the economic and social impact of the Chinese Communist Party’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy. These protests resulted in an unprecedented U-turn on December 8 from China’s relentless pursuit of its three-year-long national pandemic containment strategy to the Party now seeking desperately to restore economic growth and social calm. This shift has in turn generated major public pressures on the Chinese health system as hospitals struggle to cope with surging caseloads and mortalities. All of these developments stand in stark contrast to the political, ideological, and nationalist self-confidence on display at the 20th Party Congress. In October, Xi Jinping swept the board by removing any would-be opponents from the Politburo and replacing them with long-standing personal loyalists. Xi also proclaimed China’s total victory over COVID-19, contrasting the Party’s success with the disarray its propaganda apparatus had depicted across the United States and the collective West. Despite faltering economic growth, Xi had doubled down in his embrace of a new, more Marxist approach to economic policy which prioritized planning over the market, national self-sufficiency over global economic integration, the centrality of the public sector over private enterprise, and a new approach to wealth distribution under the rubric of the Common Prosperity doctrine. At the same time, Xi’s 2022 Work Report, delivered at the Congress, abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s long-standing foreign policy framework that “peace and development are the principal themes of the time” and instead warned of growing strategic threats and the need for the military to be prepared for war. As part of a continuing series on China’s evolving political economy and foreign policy, this paper’s purpose is threefold: to examine the political and economic implications of this dramatic change in China’s COVID-19 strategy; to analyze what, if any, impact it may have on China’s current international posture; and to assess whether this represents a significant departure from the Party’s strategic direction set at the 20th Party Congress last October. The paper concludes that the Party changed course on COVID-19 for two reasons: (1) it feared that not doing so would threaten its unofficial social contract with the Chinese people based on long-term improvements in jobs and living standards; and (2) that a structural slowdown in growth could also undermine China’s long-term strategic competition against the United States. This paper also concludes that the stark nature of the December 8 policy backflip, together with the Chinese health system’s lack of preparedness for it, has dented Xi Jinping’s political armor for the medium term. This setback comes on top of internal criticism of Xi’s broader ideological assault on the Deng-Jiang-Hu historical economic growth formula that Xi has prosecuted since 2017, as well as Xi’s departure from Deng’s less confrontational foreign policy posture that characterized previous decades. Nonetheless, these policy errors remain manageable within Chinese elite politics, where Xi still controls the hard levers of power. Furthermore, many of these changes on both the economy and external policy are more likely to be short-to-medium term and therefore tactical in nature, rather than representing a strategic departure from the deep ideological direction laid out for the long-term in Xi’s October 2022 Work Report. While these changes to current economic and foreign policy settings are significant in their own right, there is no evidence to date that Xi Jinping’s ideological fundamentals have changed.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Political Economy, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and Asia

24. Africa’s Quest for Reform of the United Nations Security Council: A Just Cause Curbed by Unrealistic Proposals

Author:
Niguse Mandefero Alene, Mohammed Seid Ali, and Kebede Yimam Tadesse
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
The debate around viable global governance has become increasingly topical, particularly from the perspective of countries in the Global South. Concerning Africa, despite the continent’s quest to reform the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), existing research has failed to comprehensively address the topic. Consequently, this article explores the arguments and challenges surrounding Africa’s drive to secure a permanent voice in the UNSC. It argues that despite the enduring legacies of colonialism, neocolonial interventions, and being the primary concern of the UNSC agenda, Africa’s claim for fair representation in the Council remains. The article attempts to address the research gap and contribute to the existing debate by examining why Africa has failed to be represented in the UNSC. Africa’s collective initiative towards reforming the UN system is instrumental in ensuring inclusive and sustainable global governance. Nonetheless, Africa’s insistence on immediate and full veto power for new entrants and its demand for representation merely through numbers inside the UN are unfeasible.
Topic:
Security, United Nations, Reform, Peace, and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Africa

25. The big squeeze: SPI Defence budget brief 2023–2024

Author:
Jennifer Parker, David Uren, Bec Shrimpton, and Rob Bourke
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Defence has long been seen as a necessary burden on the federal budget. However, it is assuming the status of an urgent priority in the wake of the AUKUS agreement and the far-reaching reform urged by this year’s Defence Strategic Review (DSR). Both are responding to a much more challenging geopolitical environment and the realisation that Australia doesn’t have the luxury of time to achieve readiness. This year’s Defence budget reflects the urgency of the demands upon Defence to the extent that it includes the initial spending on the nuclear-powered submarines and the first response to the DSR, despite there being only very approximate estimates for how that spending is to be scheduled and for the savings that will pay for them.
Topic:
Security, Budget, and Defense Spending
Political Geography:
Australia and Australia/Pacific

26. North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7

Author:
John Coyne and Henry Campbell
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report, North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7, is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months. It builds on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building, resilience and Australia’s north. This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as critical minerals, rare earth, equatorial space launch, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, fuel and water security, and defence force posturing. Importantly, it addresses the Defence Strategic from a northern Australian perspective. It also features a foreword by the Honourable Madeleine King MP, Minister for Northern Australia. Minister King writes, “Northern Australia is central to the prosperity, security and future of our nation and will be the engine room of Australia’s decarbonisation effort and drive towards net zero.” The 24 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.
Topic:
Security, National Security, Resilience, and Nation-building
Political Geography:
Australia and Australia/Pacific

27. De-risking authoritarian AI: A balanced approach to protecting our digital ecosystems

Author:
Simeon Gilding
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Artificial intelligence (AI)–enabled systems make many invisible decisions affecting our health, safety and wealth. They shape what we see, think, feel and choose, they calculate our access to financial benefits as well as our transgressions, and now they can generate complex text, images and code just as a human can, but much faster. So it’s unsurprising that moves are afoot across democracies to regulate AI’s impact on our individual rights and economic security, notably in the European Union (EU). But, if we’re wary about AI, we should be even more circumspect about AI-enabled products and services from authoritarian countries that share neither our values nor our interests. And, for the foreseeable future, that means the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—a revisionist authoritarian power demonstrably hostile to democracy and the rules-based international order, which routinely uses AI to strengthen its own political and social stability at the expense of individual human rights. In contrast to other authoritarian countries such as Russia, Iran and North Korea, China is a technology superpower with global capacity and ambitions and is a major exporter of effective, cost-competitive AI-enabled technology into democracies.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Authoritarianism, Cybersecurity, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
China and Asia-Pacific

28. Getting regulation right: Approaches to improving Australia’s cybersecurity

Author:
Rajiv Shah
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
As well as having a global impact, Cybersecurity is one of the most significant issues affecting Australia’s economy and national security. On the one hand, poor cybersecurity presents a risk to the interconnected digital systems on which we increasingly rely; on the other hand, well-managed cybersecurity provides an opportunity to build trust and advantage by accelerating digital transformation. Cyber threats can originate from a diverse range of sources and require a diverse set of actions to effectively mitigate them. However, a common theme is that much better cyber risk management is needed to address this critical threat; the current operation of the free market isn’t consistently driving all of the required behaviours or actions. Regulation can provide a powerful mechanism to modify incentives and change behaviours. However, securing cyberspace depends on the intersection of many factors—technical, social and economic. Current regulations are a patchwork of general, cyber-specific and sector-specific measures with a lack of cohesion that causes overlaps and gaps. That makes the environment complex, which means that finding the right approach that will truly improve overall security and minimise unwanted side effects is difficult. It’s necessary to analyse the interconnected factors that determine the net effectiveness of cybersecurity regulations. Furthermore, the pace of technological change is so fast today that, even if regulation is successful when first implemented, it needs to be appropriately futureproofed to avoid becoming irrelevant after even a few months. Recent rapid developments in artificial intelligence are an example of the risks here that will need to be anticipated in any changes to the regulatory regimes.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Australia and Australia/Pacific

29. China, climate change and the energy transition

Author:
Professor Xu Yi-Chong
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This report surveys China’s enormous energy transition to renewables. It begins by sketching the energy challenges China faces and its climate-change-related energy policies, in the context of the global geopolitics of the energy transformation. Next the report focuses on conventional energy sources (oil and natural gas), followed by electricity, and energy technologies. Although the report is intended primarily to survey developments to date, it concludes with some brief observations about the considerable energy challenges China faces in the years ahead.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Development, Energy Policy, and Energy Transition
Political Geography:
China and Asia

30. China, climate and conflict in the Indo-Pacific

Author:
Anastasia Kapetas
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This paper surveys the current reporting and analysis on climate and security to explore the implications that climate change may have for China’s ability to prosecute its security goals in the region’s three major hotspots: the SCS, Taiwan and the India–China border conflict. Those three hotspots all involve longstanding border and territorial disputes between China and other nations and may draw in various levels of US involvement should China continue to escalate tensions.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, and Conflict
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Indo-Pacific