Day: January 25, 2024

Turkey’s general assembly, where President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling alliance holds a majority, voted 287-55 to approve the application that Sweden first made in 2022 to bolster its security in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Sweden’s accession requires the formal approval of all 31 member states including Hungary, but approval by Turkey was widely considered the biggest remaining hurdle to overcome.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite Moscow’s war in Ukraine, said on Wednesday he would urge lawmakers to approve Sweden’s accession at the first possible opportunity.

Parliament is not in session. The opposition Socialist party said this week it would call for an extraordinary session to approve Sweden’s NATO entry bid, stranded in the Hungarian legislature since mid-2022 despite repeated pledges by Orban to support it.

“I have no doubt that one of the opposition parties — who have consistently gone against Hungarian interests — will call for the (extraordinary) meeting, but this will likely fail,” Laszlo Kover, a founding member of Orban’s ruling Fidesz, told news website index.hu.

“I do not feel any particular urgency,” he said. “Moreover, I do not think there is an extraordinary situation.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged Orban on Wednesday to ratify Sweden’s NATO accession.

Despite Orban holding an iron grip on Fidesz, government ministers have repeatedly blamed the delays on grievances about Sweden’s bid among ruling party lawmakers, hardly any of whom have ever rebelled against Orban.

By Ian Lesser

The October 7 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s ensuing offensive in Gaza have sent the Middle East back into a state of turmoil. This will have important security and diplomatic implications not only for the Middle East but also for the broader Euro-Atlantic region. Moreover, as it underscores the ongoing relevance of terrorism and counter-terrorism, the current war will likely impinge on transatlantic relations at a time when the US and Europe are striving to re-focus on deterring great-power conflict in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

Analysis

The horrific attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and the devastating war it has unleashed in Gaza hold the potential to reshape the strategic environment in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The evolving conflict also underscores the wider security challenges facing Europe and the US, with implications for the future of deterrence, crisis management and burden-sharing. The consequences are potentially far-reaching at a time of shifting global dynamics and critical elections on both sides of the Atlantic.

A hybrid attack

The attack by Hamas and elements of Palestinian Islamic Jihad was extraordinary in terms of its scale, with some 1,200 Israelis and others killed and roughly 240 taken hostage, but also in terms of its hybrid nature. The attack combined elements of terrorism with irregular warfare and an ongoing information campaign. Sophisticated planning and deception were accompanied by straightforward, violent rage. The massive failure of warning and intelligence on the Israeli side will no doubt be researched and debated for years to come. The 7 October experience –and in a very different sense the early lessons from Ukraine– illustrate the dynamic relationship between technology and the human factor, between offence and defence in war. Faith in technology and established patterns of deterrence cannot make up for systemic failures when decisionmakers are simply ‘looking the other way’. Like Russia’s war in Ukraine, but on a much smaller scale, the Gaza crisis also highlights the enduring power of ruthlessness as a factor in international security.

A new wave of terrorism?

Leaderships on both sides of the Atlantic will now have to reckon with a potential new wave of terrorism driven by events in Gaza and their aftermath. In the 1970s and 1980s, Europe was the epicentre of Palestinian terrorism. The more recent experience of terrorism inspired by radical Islamic ideology has been more global. The 11 September and successive attacks in Europe, from Madrid to Brussels, from London to Nice and elsewhere, have driven public perception of the threat. But most attacks and victims of terrorism have been in the ‘south’: in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. There is now a strong indication that the Gaza experience could produce a new wave of attacks in Europe and North America inspired in some fashion by the conflict, the Palestinian cause and jihadist ideology. Even as transatlantic partners grapple with the demands of a conventional war in Europe’s East, they will have to focus on the threat of terrorism on their own territory or aimed at their nationals and institutions abroad. The task of force protection for deployed contingents is also likely to become more demanding in places like Syria, Iraq, the Gulf and the Western Balkans.

If the crisis in Gaza devolves into a protracted urban battle, as seems likely, or if it spreads to Lebanon, transatlantic partners may also have to confront a new iteration of the foreign fighter phenomenon that was a feature of the battle against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. This would pose operational challenges. It would also pose ongoing challenges for society and policy in an already highly charged political environment across Europe. Gaza may not be as porous as Syria or Iraq, although the potential exists for infiltration from Egypt. But Lebanon would be another and more complicated story, with the potential for Iranian and even Russian facilitation of recruitment and logistics.

Trade and infrastructure at risk

Maritime security will be a growing concern and a leading element of evolving NATO and EU strategy looking south. Attacks by Houthi militias based in Yemen, and directly from Iran, have disrupted navigation in the Red Sea and access to the Suez Canal. There is a very real possibility of such attacks spreading to the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in the event of large-scale conflict involving Hezbollah in Lebanon. Shipping, offshore energy platforms and undersea cables would be at risk. The substantial US, European and other naval forces gathering for commerce protection in the region –and the prospect of direct action against launch sites for drones and anti-ship missiles– may deter further attacks. But the prospect of imposing visible, symbolic costs on perceived allies of Israel may prove irresistible to the various non-state groups deploying these weapons or willing to use small vessels for interdiction. Some, like Hezbollah, possess the ability to strike targets as far away as Cyprus. NATO allies certainly have the resources to address these threats. But the near-term economic and environmental risks cannot be ignored. In addition to the roughly 12% of world trade passing through the Suez Canal, allies will be concerned about the security of energy platforms (Israel has reportedly shut-down some offshore production as a precaution). Greece, Turkey and Cyprus will no doubt worry about the consequences for tourism, including the cruise industry.

Protracted conflict and instability in the Eastern Mediterranean can also impose longer-term opportunity costs. The region’s potential as a centre for future energy production, including renewables and new electricity interconnections, trade and digital infrastructure linking Europe, Asia and Africa will depend critically on regional stability and manageable geopolitical risks. Initiatives such as IMEC (India – Middle East – Europe Economic Corridor) and the EU’s Global Gateway are unlikely to be viable unless some minimal security conditions are met. This reality underscores the growing interdependence of geopolitics and geo-economics on the European periphery.

An Iran strategy on the brink

Broadly speaking, the Biden Administration and the EU have been on the same page with regard to their Iran strategy. Yet diplomacy around Iran’s nuclear programme has not managed to put the JCPOA back on track and Tehran’s enrichment activities proceed apace. On both sides of the Atlantic there has been a hardening of views on Iran, driven by human-rights and foreign-policy concerns. The Gaza crisis and the potential for escalation involving Iran in a more direct fashion will make a measured approach to the use of force against Iran and its proxies more difficult to sustain. The US is already striking at Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. European and US naval forces are engaging the Houthis in Yemen. Iran-related maritime threats in the Eastern Mediterranean would almost certainly draw a European as well as a US response.

At the same time, the Gaza attack and its aftermath is likely to fuel a sharper debate about the potential for terrorism carried out under an Iranian nuclear umbrella. This was always part of the argument in more hawkish strategic circles. The prospect of unconstrained Iranian nuclear development alongside a resurgence of terrorism and irregular warfare emanating from the Eastern Mediterranean and its hinterlands could shorten the odds of an Israeli and/or US strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even short of this scenario, regional developments are likely to put Iran policy higher on the transatlantic security agenda.

The myth of US disengagement

In recent years, it has become fashionable to decry US disengagement from the Middle East. This is assumed to be driven by a mix of political disillusionment, a changing energy economy and more pressing requirements elsewhere, above all in the Indo-Pacific. Departures from Afghanistan and Iraq have reinforced the image. But with these specific exceptions –Afghanistan is arguably part of a very different regional equation– there is little evidence of disengagement per se. Despite increasingly complicated relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia, the US remains a pivotal diplomatic actor, as the Gaza hostage negotiations make clear. In security terms, the US remains an overwhelmingly important actor, witness the deployment of two carrier battlegroups to the region after the Gaza attack. These deployments are a very visible show of support for Israel in the Gaza conflict, but they are even more relevant as a deterrent to Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and elsewhere. The standing US military footprint in the Gulf may be smaller than in past decades. Yet the US naval and air presence in the Mediterranean has increased. Access to Incirlik airbase in Turkey remains important and activity at Souda Bay in Crete has increased substantially. The bulk of US air and missile defences in Europe are either afloat or ashore around the Mediterranean.

Can Europe hedge?

Is this US commitment to the Mediterranean dimension of European and Middle Eastern security durable? The chaotic state of US politics and election year uncertainties make this a fair question. Even the Biden Administration with its strong orientation towards Europe and transatlantic security has had difficulty funding defence support to Ukraine and Israel. Another Trump Administration or something like it would surely be highly disruptive to alliance relationships on a global basis. The US presence in the Mediterranean and the Middle East would be part of this troubled burden-sharing equation.

Alongside independent (actually, shared) stakes in freedom of navigation and counterterrorism, there will be a perception –not inaccurate– that Europe’s southern flank is an area where the EU can and should do more. Unlike the highly demanding tasks of deterrence and defence vis-à-vis Russia or power projection in the Indo-Pacific, it is possible to imagine an approach to security in the Mediterranean and the Levant in which Europe is the leading actor. EU member states already have the capacity for crisis management and power projection around the region. These are places Europe can reach and where Europe can act. The political cohesion and command arrangements to support this, and the material and logistical ability to sustain it are another question. But if the EU aspires to greater strategic autonomy and a larger geopolitical role, the most relevant and practical tests may be in the south. Hybrid threats emanating from the south and the return of counterterrorism as a strategic priority may also reopen the debate over what counts in the burden-sharing equation. Intelligence, domestic security establishments and other elements not normally present in conventional measures of defence spending could feature in a less orthodox approach to burden-sharing.

Conclusions

Strategic priorities after Gaza

NATO’s revised Strategic Concept and regional defence plans launched at the Vilnius summit offered an opening for more explicit thinking about Alliance strategy looking south. The EU’s Strategic Compass also identified issues and tasks of special relevance to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In both cases, policymakers and planners will struggle to reconcile a more specific southern strategy with the pressing demands of deterrence and defence vis-à-vis a major nuclear-armed adversary in the East. And for the US, in particular, all of this must be addressed against the backdrop of a growing and unstable strategic competition with China. The diffuse nature of the security environment looking south –Africa will bring its own complexities– has always complicated transatlantic strategy towards the region. This was the case during the Cold War. It remains the case today. That said, the Gaza crisis and related developments highlight the need for more explicit approaches in several key areas.

First, counterterrorism is back as a priority. Few terrorist risks are existential in the strict sense. But they may be politically existential, especially against a backdrop of critical elections on both sides of the Atlantic. The potential role of state sponsors links the terrorism challenge to wider geopolitical tensions. Even at a time of conventional war in Europe, leaders and publics will rightly insist that Alliances and institutions pay increased attention to warning and response in this sphere.

Secondly, maritime security will be a critical area for action. At a time of growing uncertainty about international trade and energy security, the global economy does not need new sources of risk. New assets are not necessarily required for this task, but rather political commitment and a multilateral approach. This is one area where security actors in the West and in much of the ‘global south’ should agree and can act together. Third, the ongoing crisis and looming security and humanitarian needs underscore the significance of closer NATO-EU cooperation in the Mediterranean. Beyond issues of military mobility, cyber security and countering disinformation valid across theatres, strategy South offers special prospects for cooperation. The mix of hard and soft security challenges and the fact that European and US capabilities are relatively balanced here, presents an important opportunity at a time when both institutions are searching for new approaches.

• About the author: Ian Lesser is Vice-president of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and a member of its executive team. He is also serves Director of the Brussels office and leads the organization’s work on transatlantic relations involving the Mediterranean and Turkey. His expertise includes US foreign policy and European and Middle Eastern security.
• Source: This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

By Saima Nawaz

Pakistan faces multifaceted challenges, spanning an economic downturn, high unemployment and political turbulence. The major ingredients in Pakistan’s economic and social malaise are the Pakistan Democratic Movement coalition government’s election year policies, such as exchange rate caps and import controls, and delays in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility program.

Growth dipped sharply to -0.2 per cent in 2023, down from 6.1 per cent in 2022. The drop was primarily due to sluggish growth in industrial and services sectors. This recession translated to greater unemployment, which reached a record high of 8.5 per cent in 2023, surpassing the 6.2 per cent observed in 2021.

The interim government formed after the ouster of former prime minister Imran Khan  has failed to create economic stability in the country. Unnecessary delays to the 2024 elections — announced only after intervention by the Supreme Court — and political chicanery further added to the economic and political uncertainty.

One positive for the interim government was the successful negotiation with the IMF for a US$3 billion Stand-By Arrangement, restoring creditor confidence and supporting external sector needs. The IMF Executive Board approved US$700 million in January 2024, bringing total disbursements to US$1.9 billion.

The government that emerges after the elections, now set for 8 February 2024, will face numerous challenges. Addressing the increasing uncertainty and distrust in the electoral process among political parties and the public will be key to fostering political stability.

Fiscal imbalances, high debt payments and balance of payment gaps will pose significant hurdles to the new government’s economic revival agenda. The government must also tackle rising unemployment, especially among the youth, and historically high inflation that is responsible for the significant increase in poverty, in order to secure social prosperity. 

Pakistan’s high vulnerability to climate change demands serious attention. Globally, Pakistan is ranked the fifth most vulnerable to climate change. The devastating impacts of climate shocks and floods in 2022, with an estimated total loss of US$15.2 billion, emphasise the urgency of mitigation and adaptation strategies.

A stable and well-functioning democracy is a prerequisite to initiating structural reforms and institutional overhauling. Pakistan should pursue a five-pillar approach to revamp its economic model and achieve a growth target growth of 7–9 per cent in 2024. These measures would pave the way for long-term reforms.

The government should reduce wasteful expenditure across all sectors and in the 200 state-owned enterprises that suffered losses exceeding 500 billion rupees (US$1.8 billion) in 2020. Fiscal management must be considerably improved by adhering to established rules and regulations governing public finance management to manage debt servicing costs, which exceed 7.3 trillion rupees (US$2.5 trillion) in 2024. Poor fiscal management has resulted in inadequate investment in human capital development and other needs.

The complex tax system must be simplified by reducing excessive documentation requirements, lowering compliance costs and improving the efficiency of tax administration to incentivise economic activity. The system of granting exemptions and concessions through regulations known as Statutory Regulatory Orders should be abolished. Any exemptions and concessions should be subject to evaluation with a sunset clause.

The government should also foster a fair and competitive environment to encourage private sector investment, enhance productivity and drive innovation and growth. This includes reducing the red-tape costs resulting from the widespread use of Non-Objection Certificates and other permitting requirements. The estimated annual cost of such bureaucracy to the economy is around 39 per cent of GDP. This discourages investments and lowers productivity, which ultimately reduces GDP growth. The government could begin to reduce red tape by simplifying the regulatory framework to allow markets to develop in all sectors of the economy, especially the agriculture, real estate, financial and automotive markets.

Pakistan should seek new partnerships with international financial institutions, particularly the IMF, to secure financial support for a reform agenda. This will enhance global confidence and attract foreign direct investment. During negotiations with these institutions, prioritising expenditure rationalisation over tax rate increases is crucial to reviving the economy.

Job creation, especially for the youth, requires facilitating private sector engagement in productive activities. But success will also depend on implementing broader reforms. Allowing greater financial inclusion and technology will help Pakistan to harness its e-commerce potential.

Pakistan needs to address the quality of its labour by investing in the development of skills, education, health and mindset. Widespread access to the internet and equipping youth with advanced information and communications technology skills are essential for Pakistan’s global competitiveness. There is a need to revisit the role of technical vocational institutions to ensure they meet future work requirements. The labour market can also be strengthened by redefining the social protection strategy to focus on graduation-based programs rather than expanding unconditional cash transfers.

Alongside these reforms, Pakistan must replace its ineffective ‘bricks and mortar’ economic model with a holistic model based on structural reform and market orientation. While reforms require political and social capital to be expended, their long-term benefits for the nation far outweigh these burdens. The new government must brand 2024 as a year for reform.

• About the author: Saima Nawaz is Associate Professor at COMSATS University Islamabad, Pakistan.
• Source: This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2023 in review and the year ahead.

By Connor O’Keeffe

The situation in the Middle East is growing more and more dangerous for the Americans stationed there. Two Navy SEALs are dead after being lost at sea off the coast of Somalia while searching a boat that was allegedly carrying weapons bound for Yemen. And many US troops have suffered concussions and other brain injuries in rocket attacks in Iraq and Syria. President Joe Biden and his advisors are reportedly convinced that it is only a matter of time before US troops are killed directly.

The Biden administration also suggests American deaths will give them no choice but to carry out direct attacks against Iran—the exact approach Biden himself has admitted isn’t working against Yemen.

But the danger is greater than Biden is letting on.

In 1996, the Israeli government conducted a military operation across its northern border in Lebanon. The campaign, called Operation Grapes of Wrath, aimed to defeat the militant group Hezbollah. The Israeli strategy will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the war in Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) dropped leaflets warning the people of numerous south Lebanese villages to evacuate by the following afternoon. Shortly after the deadline, Israel began shelling and bombing homes, ambulances, and all other sorts of civilian infrastructure within the villages.

The shelling was met with international criticism, to which the Israeli spokesperson responded, “We gave the residents advance warning to clear out so as not to get hurt. All those who remain there, do so at their own risk because we assume they’re connected with Hezbollah.”

But that excuse was later revealed to be a lie. The IDF was deliberately striking civilian targets in an attempt to “cause a flow of civilians north, toward Beirut [the capital], thus applying pressure on Syria and Lebanon to restrain Hezbollah,” in the words of the Israeli Air Force.

That strategy was upended on April 18, 1996, when Israeli forces shelled a United Nations facility outside of the village of Qana that was full of local civilians. The optics of a direct strike on women and children sheltering from the violence was too much. Israel entered into talks and, a week later, agreed to a ceasefire.

In the end, 154 Lebanese civilians were dead and 351 were wounded.

About two thousand miles away in Germany, a graduate student from Egypt watched the carnage closely. Days after the Qana strikes, twenty-seven-year-old Muhammad Atta signed “his last will and testament” to symbolize, in the words of Scott Horton, “his willingness to die in the fight against those he blamed for the war.” And who did he blame? The United States.

Atta and his peers, later known as the Hamburg cell, were convinced that Grapes of Wrath would never have happened without all the money and equipment supplied by the US government.

The following year, Atta and his best friend traveled to Afghanistan to volunteer their services to Osama bin Laden. As Horton reflects, “Their potential must have been obvious to al Qaeda; upper-middle-class graduate students studying engineering in Germany would have easy access to the United States.”

Four years later, Muhammad Atta led the team of hijackers that killed almost three thousand Americans on September 11, 2001. He personally flew the first plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Now, over twenty years later, militants in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria have already demonstrated that they, too, blame the United States for the manner in which Israel is waging its war in Gaza. And because the level of civilian death is so much higher in this war—with almost ten thousand children killed so far—that ought to worry us.

When libertarians say what’s happening in the Middle East is not our war or that our involvement goes against America’s interest, it’s not that we’re complaining that there isn’t much to gain. It’s because we recognize how much the American people have to lose.

• About the author: Connor O’Keeffe (@ConnorMOKeeffe) produces media and content at the Mises Institute. He has a master’s in economics and a bachelor’s in geology.
• Source: This article was published at the Mises Institute

It would be funny if it weren’t so potentially tragic — and consequential. No, I’m not thinking about Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign but a related development: the latest decisions from the European Union (EU) about Ukraine.

As 2023 ended, European nations failed to agree on a $54-billion package of assistance for Ukraine at a time when that country was desperately trying to stay afloat and continue its fight against Russian occupation forces. Bizarrely, the failure of that proposal coincided with a surprising EU decision to open membership talks with that beleaguered country.

In other words, no military aid for Ukraine in the short term but a possible offer of a golden ticket to join the EU at some unspecified future moment. Ukrainians might well ask themselves whether, at that point, they’ll still have a country.

One person, right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is largely responsible for that contradictory combo. He singlehandedly blocked the aid package, suggesting that any decision be put off until after European Parliamentary elections in early June of this year. Ever the wily tactician, he expects those elections to signal a political sea change, with conservative and far-right forces — think of them as Donald Trump’s allies in Europe — replacing the parliament’s current centrist consensus. Now an outlier, Orbán is counting on a new crop of sympathetic leaders to advance his arch-conservative social agenda and efforts to cut Ukraine loose.

He’s also deeply skeptical of expanding the EU to include Ukraine or other former Soviet republics, not just because of Russian sensitivities but for fear that EU funds could be diverted from Hungary to new members in the east. By leaving the room when that December vote on future membership took place, Orbán allowed consensus to prevail, but only because he knew he still had plenty of time to pull the plug on Ukraine’s bid.

Ukrainians remain upbeat despite the aid delay. As their leader Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted about future EU membership, “This is a victory for Ukraine. A victory for all of Europe. A victory that motivates, inspires, and strengthens.”

But even if Orbán’s resistance were to be overcome, a larger challenge looms: the European Union that will make the final determination on Ukraine’s membership may not prove to be the same regional body as at present. While Russia and Ukraine battle it out over where to define Europe’s easternmost frontier, a fierce political conflict is taking place to the west over the very definition of Europe.

In retrospect, the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU in 2020 may prove to have been just a minor speedbump compared to what Europe faces with the war in Ukraine, the recent success of far-right parties in Italy and the Netherlands, and the prospect that, after the next election, a significantly more conservative European Parliament could at the very least slow the roll-out of the European Green Deal.

And worse yet, a full-court press from the far right might even spell the end of the Europe that has long shimmered on the horizon as a greenish-pink ideal. The extinguishing of the one consistent success story of our era — particularly if Donald Trump were also to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election — could challenge the very notion of progress that’s at the heart of any progressive agenda.

Orbán’s Allies

For decades, Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Party for Freedom, has regularly garnered headlines for his outrageous statements and proposals to ban Islam, the Quran, and/or immigrants altogether. In the run-up to the November 2023 parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, it looked as if he would continue to be an eternal also-ran with a projected vote total in the mid to upper teens. In addition to the usual obstacles he faced, like the lunacy of his platform, he was up against a reputed political powerhouse in Frans Timmermans, the architect of Europe’s Green Deal and the newly deputized leader of the Dutch center-left coalition.

This article was published by FPIF and originally published in TomDispatch.

Many are inclined to say that “Russia is attacking Russia because that is the nature of Russia,” Vasily Zharkov says; but such an essentialist explanation fails to explain why Moscow has behaved differently at different times. In fact, he says, Russia is attacking Ukraine because of what Russia has become over the last three decades.

The Vilnius-based Russian scholar argues that the neo-imperialist tradition the Russian Federation inherited from the late Soviet past has developed in three areas and that these have now come together to explain why Vladimir Putin is doing what he is doing in Ukraine (moscowtimes.ru/2024/01/19/imperiya-moskvi-noveishie-tehnologii-i-arhaicheskaya-ideologiya-a118967).

First of all were changes in the ideology of the country where the new rulers placed a bet on a conservative revolution, “’a return to sources,” a shift that Moscow generally received the backing of the West. But this turn emphasized certain imperial dimensions which have now come home to roost.

Second, there were important structural changes, Zharkov says. “The economic reforms in Russia in the early 1990s presupposed a harsh centralized approach to the administration of the country,” and that transformed Moscow into an imperial metropolis which “exploited the rest of the country as territory it controlled.”

For Moscow, the rest of Russia has played the role of “an internal abroad.” The city is “an enclave of the First World living by stealing from the territory of the rest of the county which has remained in the Third World. A move by a resident of a Russian province is equivalent to emigration to developed countries of the West.”

Over the last three decades, Zharkov continues, Moscow has become much more like a metropolitan center than even what it was in Soviet times. “Russian regions serve as colonies for the golden ‘ten million’ Muscovites … and there is a colonial administration that controls and exploits the resources of the rest of today’s Russia.”

And third, Moscow itself has come to be dominated by the military and bureaucratic apparatuses which are no longer supervised by the CPSU but by second and third tier people from the past who were not excluded from rule by any lustration but began to act as they had always wanted to.

According to Zharkov, “big business and the institutions of civil society developed exclusively with the permission and the underlying support of the military-bureaucratic apparatus which became much more powerful than it had been in the Soviet past.” And this regime learned how to use new communications technology to keep the people in line.

These three changes have “created an amazing formation— ‘the Moscow empire’” – and it should have come as no surprise that it would behave as an empire toward Ukraine and its other neighbors and the West as well, Zharkov says. Hence, the current invasion of Ukraine and its imperialist challenges to the world.

In the longer term, of course, “this empire is doomed to collapse,” he argues. But precisely because that is the case, this has played “an evil joke” on Russians. Their “faith in the inevitability of the victory of the forces of democracy and progress over authoritarianism and the archaic has weakened out resolve to fight against a monster that won’t give up without a fight.” 

Russians and everyone else need “to stop see the Moscow Empire simply as a revenant from the past. Its current form is deeply integrated into the modern economy of capitalism and has a completely modern character” very much at odds with much of Russian history. That suggests it will last longer than many want and it will end only when the West changes as well. 

The United States on Wednesday condemned the Iranian regime’s use of the death penalty to “punish people for what we believe to be just exercising their human rights,” as the State Department put it, TURAN’s Washington correspondent reports.

“The U.S. will continue to take actions to support the people of…

Irish MP Michael O’Flaherty has become the new Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights instead of Dunja Mijatovic. He was elected to this position on January 24 at the plenary session of the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization (PACE) in Strasbourg.

Note that 104 deputies…