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한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском In the weeks leading up to the appointment of Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister, there was one word in particular to hang on the lips of those at the Elysée Palace – “coalitation”. The portmanteau of “coalition” and “cohabitation”, “coalitation” serves to refer to the situation of acute governmental deadlock in which France finds itself, more than two months after the snap parliamentary elections called by Emmanuel Macron failed to land any party an absolute majority of seats. Under the Fifth Republic, France has known three cohabitations following parliamentary elections won by the opposition to the president’s party. The first was between the socialist president François Mitterrand and conservative prime minister Jacques Chirac from 1986 to 1988; the second, between president Mitterrand and Édouard Balladur from 1993 to 1995, and the third between president Chirac and socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin from 1997 to 2002. Under such circumstances, the president took on a secondary role, including tasks such as appointing the prime minister or presiding the council of ministers, while the prime minister and national assembly set the political agenda. However, the current situation is very different, recalling more the paralysis of the Fourth Republic than any of the duos listed above. While the presidential camp lacks even a relative majority, none of the parties or coalitions from the recent legislative elections come close to securing one either. Michel Barnier will therefore have to rely on a new coalition or new ad hoc agreements to get his legislative proposals passed and avoid being censured. The French neologism coalitation is therefore more appropriate to describe the situation in which Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier find themselves. A notion of performance In addition, such a state of affairs is not without recalling expressions used in the labour world, such as ‘remote working’, ‘presenteeism’, ‘management’ and ‘coworking’. In the 1980s, the expressions ‘management’ and ‘managers’ became widely used terms in France to describe the challenges of optimising resources and managing people in organisations. This period marked the proliferation of neologisms, particularly of English origin, in the business world. It highlighted the importance of individual and collective performance, helping French companies compete in an increasingly global market. By the 1990s, expressions like “New Public Management” and “New Managerialism” emerged in English-speaking countries. These terms were particularly applied to setting performance targets – especially financial ones – in organisations originally serving the public interest, such as health and education sectors. An expression used by Macron? The term “coalitation” was first coined by advisers to the President of the Republic. We can read its use as an attempt to downplay the lack of a presidential majority and to ease the transition into the upcoming cohabitation. This strategy can be seen as a way for the President to maintain the upper hand despite his party’s defeat in the parliamentary elections. It functions as a semantic tool that allows Macron to frame this cohabitation in a modern and new way, setting it apart from previous ones. But the links between this term and management-inspired neologisms also reflect Macron’s profile as a “politician manager” and his managerial approach to politics. An advocate of free enterprise and entrepreneurship, often associated with the “start-up nation” concept, Emmanuel Macron embodies a political philosophy directly influenced by the business world. His terms in office have stood out through their use of team-building seminars, the use of consultants from private firms, and staff reshuffles following unmet performance targets. Inability to renew? Back home, the seemingly contradictory term also echoes the president’s fondness for the expression of “En même temps” (“At the same time”) that has become part of the Macron brand. The adverbial phrase sees him lay out a position, only to deconstruct it and espouse its contrary proposition. Critics say it shows the centrist president’s inability to adopt a stance, opting instead for a verbal fudge of saying one thing, then its opposite and ultimately, nothing at all. The neologism coalitation also embodies a new form of the Macronist “at the same time” philosophy by emphasising the need to find common ground between opposing programmes and political forces. For supporters of the president, this term highlights the relevance and timeliness of an approach developed by Emmanuel Macron. In this context, Michel Barnier’s profile as a negotiator and moderate can be seen as a reaffirmation of this strategy. Historically, however, the use of such neologisms has sometimes served to mask the challenges of ineffective or risky strategies. Some researchers have questioned whether introducing expressions like ‘management’ and ‘manager’ into the French vocabulary truly changed how companies and social relations worked, emphasising the sometimes artificial nature of these approaches. The same applies today to the term “coalitation” as this neologism seems to illustrate Emmanuel Macron’s struggle to offer a new way of doing politics despite the promises made on the night of his re-election. Macron France French Politics PM Barnier Politics

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Why Australia, Japan, and South Korea Have Other Concerns While heated debates in Europe have focused on how to respond if Donald J. Trump is re-elected to the White House, discussions in Australia, Japan, and South Korea reveal a greater sense of confidence in Washington’s commitments. The fear that the United States would withdraw its nuclear assurances is much less pronounced in the Indo-Pacific than in Europe. This serenity appears primarily grounded in a shared understanding that a bipartisan consensus is driving the US commitment to contain China’s rise – a goal that requires reliable allies across the Pacific. At the same time, US allies want to maintain the regional status quo and are willing to support Washing­ton’s efforts. Trump’s potential return does little to change these structural incen­tives. Instead, Pacific allies fear challenges to the East Asian regional order, challenges that are also relevant for Europe’s security and prosperity. European and Pacific US allies share similar concerns about a potential second Trump administration: allies everywhere fear that Trump would once again pursue a trans­actional approach to US foreign policy. Disputes between allies would play out in public, unsettling domestic populations, delighting adversaries, and endangering the perceived credibility of the common defence policy. Given Trump’s penchant for cosying up to autocrats, both European and Pacific allies worry that Washington will either trade away key shared interests to extract questionable concessions from dictators or, if negotiations fail (again), that Trump will drag them into unwanted conflicts. However, beyond these shared concerns, policymakers in Canberra, Seoul, and Tokyo seem to be more confident. They believe they know how to manage Trump’s ego and can offer him lucrative deals. Furthermore, they assume that a second Trump adminis­tration will remain engaged in the Western Pacific, necessitating the presence of reli­able partners to maintain influence and contain China. These assumptions do not lead to fewer concerns, but to less fundamental concerns in trans-Pacific relations. However, European allies express fear that Trump may seek to undermine or even ter­minate NATO, which would result in the withdrawal of US nuclear assurances. Even in South Korea, public debate about its own nuclear weapons is primarily focused on the perceived threat from North Korea, rather than on concerns within the alliance. It is primarily the changed regional bal­ance of power and China’s ambitions that worry the trans-Pacific allies. On the one hand, the extensive competition between the US and China gives rise to the expectation that Washington will remain engaged and that the security relationship and extended nuclear deterrent in the Pacific will remain stable. On the other hand, this com­petition demonstrates to Pacific allies that the actions of the current and subsequent US administrations will have a decisive impact on the evolution of the balance of power and the regional constellation in the decades to come. There is therefore concern that a transactional second Trump adminis­tration could undermine protracted joint efforts to maintain order, laying the ground­work for eventual Chinese dominance in this strategically important region. A changing military balance of power Regional and global economic, political, and technological developments are shift­ing the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region in very different ways than in Europe. After all, the starting position is completely different: Russia’s economy is only one-tenth the size of the EU’s, and Europe lacks political resolve and operational military capabilities rather than resources per se. The critical questions are whether the United States would defend Europe in a geographically limited crisis, whether the Western European nations would go to war for their Eastern European allies, and whether the current forces are adequate to deter or repel Russian aggression. In contrast, China’s economy is almost two and a half times larger than the com­bined economies of Australia, Japan, and South Korea – a difference that roughly mirrors the disparity in military spending. While Europeans have consciously delegated their security to Washington, US allies in the Western Pacific have limited options for developing their own conventional capa­bilities to counterbalance China. Hence, the US allies are primarily concerned with China’s determination to re­shape regional dynamics. Under Xi Jinping, Beijing has pursued a more confrontational foreign policy designed to advance China’s regional interests and diminish, if not eliminate, US influence across the Pacific. China has proved willing to underpin its combative diplomacy through both costly economic measures and the rapid modernisation of its armed forces. It is still assumed that the US will continue to play the lead­ing military role for the time being, as Washington retains superiority in conventional and nuclear capabilities as well as in many other areas. However, China is rapidly catching up and asserting its regional claims, making it increasingly difficult for the United States to effectively project power so far from its own shores. This is why allies fear that China could dominate the Asia-Pacific region in future. Against this backdrop, many see Taiwan’s future as the harbinger of the region’s pos­sible development. If Beijing were to con­trol this central component of the first island chain, it would gain both military and political leverage over the East and South China Seas – both of which are stra­tegically important. To signal its resolve, Beijing frequently conducts demonstrations of military power such as in the airspace separating the mainland from Taiwan. The trans-Pacific allies suspect that China could (soon) leverage both conventional and nuclear capabilities to present them with a fait accompli, thus gaining control over Taipei before the US could intervene. This would also damage Washington’s credibility as the guardian of regional order. Whether Beijing would indeed wage war against the United States over Taiwan, or whether it merely seeks to alter the military balance of power by exposing Washington, Taipei, and regional US allies to unacceptable escala­tion risks remains unclear – but the very fact that China keeps its intentions ambigu­ous raises worst-case fears. Nuclear threats In recent years, Beijing has been engaged in a major expansion of its nuclear arsenal. According to US forecasts, China could double the number of its nuclear warheads from the current estimate of 500 nuclear warheads by 2030. While Russia and the United States would still dwarf China’s nuclear forces numerically, Beijing appears to be aiming for the same qualitative league of strategic nuclear weapons systems as possessed by Washington and Moscow. The exact motives behind China’s nuclear build-up remain controversial. Yet the types of weapons and the pace of their development suggest that Beijing would at least like to weaken Washington’s escalation dominance in a crisis. Such developments could theo­retically strengthen the mutual nuclear deterrent between China and the US. On the one hand, it could reduce the risk of a global war. On the other hand, for Washing­ton’s Pacific allies this means that their protective power could no longer credibly threaten nuclear escalation and effectively deter Beijing. As a result, they would be outgunned in a conventional war with China. North Korea’s foreign policy, coupled with its nuclear build-up is a further cause for concern. According to estimates, Pyong­yang could currently have 90 nuclear war­heads at most at its disposal. However, it has significantly diversified its delivery systems. North Korea emphasizes a nuclear doctrine with which it could drive a wedge between the Pacific allies by threatening South Korea with tactical nuclear strikes and the US with strategic nuclear strikes. In addition, Washington and its allies perceive North Korea’s threshold for using nuclear weapons to be very low, as they assume that Pyongyang is also trying to deter con­ventional attacks in this way. Finally, the policy changes Moscow has implemented are intensifying regional con­cerns with respect to the future behaviour of China and North Korea. Russia maintains important military facilities in North-East Asia, militarises the Kuril Islands, and con­ducts strategic air and naval patrols with China across the Western Pacific. Moscow’s focus, however, is clearly on Europe. Never­theless, Australia, Japan, and South Korea fear the concrete consequences of Russia’s cooperation with Beijing and Pyongyang. It is clear that this cooperation fuels Moscow’s war in Ukraine. In the worst-case scenario, closer military cooperation could result in more coordination and opportunistic be­haviour to exploit each other’s conflicts or challenge the US and its allies with addi­tional crises. What is more likely, however, is not a trilateral front, but a triangular dy­namic that remains susceptible to mistrust, power calculations, and priority setting by the respective rulers – and which can none­theless boost existing challenges to regional security and non-proliferation. Moreover, the outcome of Moscow’s on­going war of aggression in Ukraine could set risky precedents for revisionist agendas in East Asia. At this point, China and North Korea could learn from Russia’s nuclear rhetoric how allies can be unsettled and deterred from going “too far” in supporting Ukraine. Converging interests and (radical) alternatives The challenges in the Asia-Pacific region could have a more serious impact on the regional and global order than the conflicts in Europe. They are therefore already influ­encing the balance of interests and thus the room for manoeuvre of the actors involved. First, there is a bipartisan consensus in Washington that American influence in the Pacific must be preserved. Most see the larger Indo-Pacific as the strategic centre of gravity, perceive US influence in the region as key to sustaining America’s preeminent position in international relations, and conclude that containing China is a must. Thus, even in a highly partisan political environment, the status of Taiwan and its treaty alliances with Australia, Japan, and South Korea remain essentially of unques­tioned importance to the United States. Second, Washington needs its allies in the Western Pacific. As the military gap with China narrows, the US military must rely on the critical bases, logistical support, and complementary capabilities of regional allies. Consequently, Australia, Japan and South Korea host significant US military forces, facilitating rapid deployment and sustained operations in the region. The US is not only seeking to strengthen bilateral security cooperation and can also work with Australia and Japan as indispensable partners for regional formats – such as the Quad that includes India – to pool resources to contain Beijing’s ambitions. Conversely, given China’s considerable economic power, any attempt to constrain its technological or financial capabilities requires wide-ranging cooperation. It is thus unsurprising that the Biden adminis­tration has actively sought to garner sup­port across the Indo-Pacific region to foster economic partnerships, supply chain resili­ence, technology transfers and research collaborations. Third, allies in the Western Pacific are prepared to contribute to more effective military action. Many European govern­ments, on the other hand, take US security measures for granted and are reluctant to divert funds from social and other purposes to their armed forces. Australia, Japan, and South Korea each have extensive trade rela­tions with China, having tied their prosper­ity to Beijing. To ensure that this beneficial balance can be maintained, Canberra, Tokyo, and Seoul have reliably invested in allied deterrence and defence. Australia and South Korea have done and continue to do so, even under governments that are more sceptical about relations with Washington. Fourth, although US allies in the Western Pacific greatly benefit from the current strategic arrangements, they have alter­native (even if not attractive) options avail­able – and Washington is acutely aware of this reality. On the one hand, policymakers in Washington suspect that if mistrust of US commitment were to reach an intoler­able level, its Pacific allies might decide to bandwagon with China. As Australia has no territorial dispute with Beijing, and Japan and South Korea have only one limited territorial dispute respectively with China, their concerns are more economic and po­liti­cal in nature. A different regional archi­tecture, though significantly less attractive, would not directly threaten their funda­mental interests and, therefore, would probably be tolerable. On the other hand, Japan and South Korea have the technical capabilities and sufficiently limited regional institutional ties – in Seoul also significant domestic political support – to constrain China’s coercive capabilities by acquiring their own nuclear weapons. In the absence of US reassurance, they could combine the two alternatives and side with Beijing from behind their own nuclear shield. Given these four fundamentals, there is relative confidence in Canberra, Tokyo, and Seoul that the US will continue with its secu­rity architecture in – and therefore with its extended nuclear deterrent for – the Western Pacific, whether or not Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Moreover, both Trump and his supporters have repeatedly struck a confrontational tone toward China, emphasising their wil­lingness to increase US power projection through military means. Counter-balancing by the United States and its allies Amid a shifting politico-military landscape and aligned US and allied interests in pre­serving the status quo, a concerted effort to counterbalance China’s military expansion is evident. These efforts are extremely ex­pensive. The sunk costs of this effort strongly suggest to all concerned that, regardless of who occupies the White House, the major strategic question facing the future admin­is­tration will likely be how to effectively con­tain China while both maintaining stra­tegic deterrence against Russia and avoiding the escalation of potential crises. For now, the United States seems to pursue a four-pronged strategy that involves developing additional nuclear capabilities, building up conventional options, enhancing allies’ capabilities, and expanding security co­operation. First, planners and pundits in Washington are assessing how to make better use of US nuclear options. While a major nuclear modernisation effort is underway, a grow­ing number of experts and politicians have concluded that the US arsenal needs to be expanded. In addition, the legislative branch has been pushing the Pentagon to pursue additional nuclear options, such as a nuclear-armed cruise missile (SLCM-N). The Trump administration already called for this in 2018 and would likely continue to pursue it, if it returns to power. More­over, some in the hawkish Republican camp are even calling for the first use of such low-yield nuclear weapons to be con­sidered in order to offset China’s operational advantages and prevent an invasion of Taiwan – but it is unclear how much weight such voices could carry in a second Trump term. Second, and more importantly, the US government is building up its conventional capabilities. Although many Democrats criticised the Trump administration’s 2019 decision to abandon the legal prohibition on deploying intermediate-range missiles, the Biden administration has pursued this same course. As a result, US armed forces will soon be deploying such missile systems to their European and Pacific bases; a planned relocation to the US base in Wies­baden was recently announced. For Asia, it has already been announced that the Dark Eagle hypersonic system will be fielded on Guam. In order to equalise the conventional balance of power with China, however, the various other US medium-range systems would have to be stationed on allies’ terri­tory. Given the high probability that Beijing would respond with harsh economic retalia­tion, it remains unclear whether – or under what conditions – Canberra, Tokyo, or Seoul would agree to such deployments. Third, the US government has been work­ing with its allies in the region to im­prove their own military capabilities. First, Australia, Japan, and South Korea continue to develop their national capabilities, par­ticularly where long-range strike capabilities and strategic naval assets are concerned. Sec­ond, the US government seeks to strengthen its allies’ early warning and missile defence capabilities. It is especially relevant that Washington appears to have shifted its posi­tion to weigh deterrence challenges more heavily than proliferation concerns. Indicative of this is the unprecedented technology transfer involved in providing Australia with stealthy nuclear-powered submarines. This transfer requires an un­paralleled level of verification to make it transparent that Canberra does not divert some of the highly enriched uranium needed for submarine propulsion to build its own nuclear weapons. Another example is the US decision from 2021 to lift all restrictions that had long been placed on South Korea’s missile development programs. Equally important is the widespread sale of Toma­hawk cruise missiles in recent years, includ­ing to Australia and Japan. Finally, while bilateral alliances with Washington continue to be characterised by patron-client relationships, Washington appears committed to empowering regional powers not only by helping enhance their capabilities, but also by expanding security cooperation and allies’ roles therein. For instance, the Biden administration wants Japanese shipyards to regularly overhaul US warships, which allows for their constant presence in East Asia. It also upgraded bi­lateral consultations which carve out a South Korean role in US nuclear operations. Further, it is pursuing technology transfers in advanced military capabilities that will buttress Australia’s strategic reach. Although these alliance initiatives bear the hall­marks of the Biden administration, they fit the “burden-sharing while preserving influ­ence” mantra. This tactic characterised Trump’s term in office and is currently aspired to by broad segments of the Repub­lican Party. Thus, while officials and experts in Australia, Japan, and South Korea expect communication and coordination mishaps, procedural quibbles, funding challenges, and implementation delays, these individ­uals strongly believe that bipartisan US sup­port for these measures will remain strong. Nevertheless, concerns abound Although some of Trump’s domestic sup­porters would welcome any reduction in US commitments abroad, a second adminis­tration would have to face the reality that abandoning extended nuclear deterrence remains fundamentally at odds with its primary goals. Abandoned by their long-time protector and facing massive threats, former allies would likely seek to appease China, and could acquire nuclear arsenals independently. Such developments would run counter to the interests of any US ad­ministration, including a Trump White House. Fears of nuclear abandonment are therefore not the dominant concern, leav­ing plenty of room for allies’ other worries. The Pacific allies invest relatively heavily in national and joint deterrence, and defence. But they are also worried about Trump’s penchant for pressuring allies to make con­cessions. Most in Seoul, for example, expect at least a repeat of the tough cost-sharing negotiations of the first term. Trump and his supporters have been vocal about demand­ing increased financial contributions from Seoul for the US troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula, frequently coupled with threats to withdraw some or all of those forces, references to the trade imbalance, and downplaying the threats posed by North Korea. Congressional support ensures the presence of US soldiers, but the White House has considerable leeway in determin­ing the size and mandate of these deployments – and many expect Trump to use security commitments to extract economic concessions from allies. Conversely, some in Canberra and Tokyo worry that a Trump administration would seek to renegotiate various military procurement agreements to shore up US financial gains – but few believe that existing agreements would be revoked in the course of such disputes. Another fear in Australia, Japan, and South Korea is that a second Trump admin­istration will reduce or abandon the Biden White House’s various regional security cooperation initiatives and want all rela­tions to again go through Washington first. On the one hand, Trump and his advisers may be pleased with the burden-sharing benefits associated with these new forms of cooperation and continue to pursue them. On the other hand, a GOP-led administration might seek a return to the traditional centralising “hub-and-spokes” system in order to exert more control over allies. The allies therefore fear that without US leader­ship, these intergovernmental initiatives are likely to stagnate, and competition among protégés for the attention of the common patron will be reignited. This might apply particularly to the very practical, but politi­cally sensitive, trilateral partnership be­tween Japan, South Korea and the United States. Less pronounced than the aforemen­tioned fears are concerns about Trump’s “deal-making” tendencies, such as being abandoned in a costly crisis or entangled in a regional conflict. Ambiguity surrounding Trump’s policies vis-à-vis China, North Korea and Russia reflect general uncertainties about future developments in Europe and East Asia as well as Trump-specific inconsistencies. With regard to China, most expect confrontational security and eco­nomic policies, while a few fear that Trump will seek a grand bargain with Xi. Trump has kept his stance on the status of Taiwan ambiguous: he could either reject all sup­port for Taiwan or, if faced with Chinese intransigence, decide to explicitly commit to defending Taipei. While the former would expose US allies to potential Chinese coercion, the latter could lead to an open military conflict with Beijing – and many allies do not trust Trump’s resolve in such a crisis. Regarding North Korea, most hope that Trump’s failed summitry with Kim Jong Un served as a sufficient lesson. How­ever, some worry he may seek to prove that personal relationships facilitate agreements that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. For example, he could again try to persuade Kim Jong Un to stop his nuclear build-up by offering economic incentives (thus effec­tively breaking sanctions). As a quid pro quo for Seoul, Trump could go so far as to quietly accept South Korean nuclear pro­liferation. Finally, concerning Russia, many fear that Trump might propose a deal to Putin to freeze the conflict in Ukraine, an approach from which Xi could draw con­clusions for revisionism in East Asia. Implications for Europe As Trump is prone to miscalculations and erratic behaviour, caution is required when trying to predict his future policy after re-election. Nevertheless, it is important to understand why Australia, Japan, and South Korea are less concerned about US nuclear assurances. Three conclusions can be drawn from this analysis for Europe. First, even if Trump is re-elected, fundamental changes in Washington’s relations with its Pacific allies are unlikely – which is good news for Europe. For one thing, European economic success depends on the absence of open conflict between China and the US. For another, stable relations in the Asia-Pacific are indirectly a boon to NATO, since US security provision in Europe is heavily dependent upon the success of its more important commitments across the Pacific. Nevertheless, considerable uncertainties remain due to structural challenges as well as Trump’s political agenda and per­sonal idiosyncrasies. However, the pressure from Washington on Europe to adapt its China policy is likely to increase under a second Trump administration, especially as it is likely to be almost exclusively com­posed of China hardliners (China hawks). Second, in the face of these risks, Europeans should recognise that Washington and the Pacific allies will expect economic-political rather than military contributions from Europe. It would therefore be advan­tageous if European governments could use their weight within the global economic system to support the US in containing China’s military expansion. If Europe now helps to influence Beijing’s technological and financial capabilities, it could imply European willingness to impose sanctions on China in the event of war. This would also send a strong signal against revisionism in East Asia. Given Trump’s unpredictability, steps that seem costly today may prove worthwhile in retrospect if regional stability in Asia is severely damaged. Last but not least, one valuable lesson can be gleaned from understanding why US allies in Asia hold more optimistic expec­tations about a potential second Trump administration. Ultimately, the source of their optimism lies in Washington’s depend­ence on its allies and their readiness to take on greater responsibility. Arguably, this particular equation is primarily a result of exogenous factors – such as the region’s strategic importance und China’s ambitions. But it should also now be clear to Europe’s decision-makers, experts and public that the more they invest in their own capabil­ities to influence regional security policy, the less they will have to worry about Washington’s vacillations. Dr Liviu Horovitz and Elisabeth Suh are researchers in the International Security Research Division. This paper is published as part of the Strategic Threat Analysis and Nuclear (Dis-)Order (STAND) project.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Signatories were supposed to execute arrest warrant against the Russian president, but the successful visit undermined the Court's jurisdiction. Russian President Vladimir Putin paid an official visit to Mongolia earlier this week. As the Asian country is a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant against Putin for alleged war crimes related to the conflict in Ukraine, Mongolia should technically have carried out the arrest of the Russian leader. Instead, Putin was warmly welcomed upon landing in the country, with a guard of honor and a grand reception in Genghis Khan Square in the center of the capital, which was adorned with the flags of both countries. Mongolia’s stance has drawn criticism from Ukraine, but there has been no explicit condemnation from the West. As a result, the successful trip to an ICC signatory country has opened a gap in the credibility of the Court’s discretion in third countries and could set a precedent for giving the green light to further trips by the Russian president. In an interview with Brasil de Fato, the deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics at Moscow State Pedagogical University, Vladimir Shapovalov, noted that the position Mongolia took was a “quite adequate reaction,” which reaffirmed its independence and sovereignty in the international arena. At the same time, the political scientist highlighted that “the ICC cannot be seen as an objective legal body”. According to him, the Court is “a simulacrum created by the Western world, by the collective West, to promote and achieve its objectives”. During the meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh, Putin highlighted the development of bilateral relations between the countries, stressing that “in the first seven months of this year, trade turnover increased by more than 21%.” “In addition, trade agreements between our two countries are now almost entirely made in currencies other than the dollar and the euro,” he added. The visit to Mongolia was Putin's first trip to a country that recognizes the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court since the arrest warrant was issued in March last year. The charge against Putin concerns the alleged deportation and illegal transfer of children from Ukraine to territories annexed by Russia during the war. A similar arrest warrant was issued for the Russian Federation's Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. The reason for the indictment dates to May 2022, when Putin signed a decree on a simplified procedure for orphans from Ukraine to obtain Russian citizenship. Precedent for the G20 in Brazil? Putin's visit to a country that is a signatory to the ICC brings to mind the dilemma of Brazil - which is also a signatory to the Rome Statute - since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has already expressed his desire for the Russian president to participate in the G20 summit, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro in November. Lula even presented a document to the UN International Law Commission with a legal framework to support the possibility of Putin's visit, but, at the same time, the leader said that the Russian president himself must evaluate the consequences of his visit. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that Putin had not yet made a decision on the G20. “No decision has been made on this issue yet. Our Sherpa continues to work actively with his colleagues. We are defending our interests there, but the president has not yet made any decision,” Peskov said. For political scientist Vladimir Shapovalov, the Mongolia case “really creates a serious precedent and of course this opens up a field for future state visits” for the Russian president. However, there is a complicating factor for Putin's eventual presence at the G20, which is the interference and pressure from other states during the event in Rio de Janeiro, considering that the G20 is largely composed of all the countries that make up what Russia calls the “collective West”. In other words, a multilateral conference with a large presence of countries that antagonize Russia is more complex for a Putin visit than a bilateral visit. “As far as Brazil and other countries are concerned, the situation here is ambiguous. We must take into consideration several factors, understanding that providing unconditional security guarantees to the Russian president is the country’s top priority. If such conditions are guaranteed, a visit to this or that country may make sense. If such guarantees do not exist, it is better for Russia to receive visits from other leaders,” Shapovalov says. In this sense, the leaders of Brazil and Russia have already set a date for a meeting on Russian soil together with other leaders from the Global South. The BRICS Summit, which will take place in Kazan from October 22 to 24, has confirmed the presence of President Lula. This event may provide the next signs about Putin's chances of visiting Brazil. “Mongolia is a sovereign country” For political scientist Vladiimr Shapovalov, Mongolia's position of ignoring the International Tribunal is related to the country's independent and sovereign position in the world, but at the same time reveals a tendency towards strengthening relations with Russia and China rather than the West. “First of all, it is important to emphasize that Mongolia is a sovereign, neutral country. It does not join any military alliances or military-political blocs and seeks to promote a multi-vector policy. However, we see that the current visit proves that the course of strengthening relations with Russia is clearly becoming predominant. It is important to note that the priorities here are very well defined. For Mongolia, Russia, along with China, is one of the key partners,” he says. Regarding Mongolia’s position on the war in Ukraine, Shapovalov points out that the Asian country “takes the same position as most countries in the ‘global majority’.” “That is, Mongolia distances itself from supporting this or that country, does not participate in Western sanctions to any extent. And Russia appreciates this position and expresses gratitude to the Mongolian side for its courage and readiness to follow its national interests, not the interests of the West,” he adds. Mongolian authorities justified their refusal to comply with the international court's arrest warrant by claiming that the country is energy dependent, importing 95% of its petroleum products and more than 20% of its electricity from its closest neighbors. According to government sources cited by Politico magazine, these supplies are essential for the country's survival. In addition, the publication highlighted the country's history of neutrality in its diplomatic relations. "Mongolia has always maintained a policy of neutrality in all its diplomatic relations," says the source. Between Russia and China Mongolia’s refusal was not a surprise, since the country has never condemned Russia for the war in Ukraine and has strong historical ties with Moscow. During the Soviet period, the Asian country remained a kind of “satellite state” of the socialist bloc. Furthermore, the Soviet Union fought alongside Mongolia against the Japanese in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1939, a landmark battle in the history of defending Mongolia's territorial integrity. The 85th anniversary of this battle was celebrated during Putin's visit. And during World War II, Mongolian troops also served the Soviet army in the fight against Nazism. Vladimir Shapovalov points out that in the post-Soviet period, unlike, for example, North Korea, Mongolia “began to pursue a multi-vector policy,” in which not only Russia and China, but also the United States and the European Union countries participated. According to him, the Asian country’s relations developed quite actively on several fronts. “Mongolia is not the type of country that follows Russia, or China, but it is a country that, precisely because it is located between Russia and China, has made an effort to diversify the vectors of its movement and, at a certain point, even bet on the US, on strengthening its friendship with the US,” he says. The Asian country, which has always maintained good relations with the West, has always been known for respecting the norms of the international system and its main institutions. Putin's visit, however, shows that Mongolia is willing to challenge the authority of the International Criminal Court, prioritizing its national interests. “All this shows that Mongolia is taking a very active course of strengthening its interaction with Russia. In fact, a trilateral interaction, together with Russia and China. I do not think this means that Mongolia will now abandon its Western vector, refusing to have relations with the United States. But it does mean that Mongolia is taking more active steps towards Russia and China, towards the countries that it calls itself the ‘global majority’, as opposed to the West,” he argues. “The decision adopted by Mongolia is not only a decision that sets a precedent and discredits the ICC as a body that claims to have agency, but it is a decision that very clearly establishes the significant changes that are currently occurring in the world on a global scale,” added the political scientist. US reaction The analyst also notes that the US reaction “was very restrained” and there was no explicit condemnation from the White House regarding Mongolia’s reception of the Russian president. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States “understands the difficult situation Mongolia finds itself in, but we nevertheless remind the country of the importance of meeting its international obligations.” “We understand the position Mongolia finds itself in, sandwiched between two much larger neighbors, but we think it is important that they continue to support the rule of law around the world,” Miller said, adding that the United States will continue to support Mongolia. Ukraine's reaction was more severe. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tikhy called the Mongolian authorities' refusal to execute the International Criminal Court's warrant "a severe blow to justice" and threatened Mongolia with retaliation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reacted to the Ukrainian diplomat's remarks, calling the statements of Ukrainian officials "rude." The foreign minister said that "the ICC issue is being artificially exaggerated," adding that the West resorts to double standards in this area. Lavrov cited as an example the way in which ICC judges were criticized for merely “suggesting” that Israel’s leadership be included on the court’s list of convicts. He also recalled how the United States threatened the ICC with sanctions for trying to investigate the US bombings in Afghanistan. For political scientist Vladimir Shapovalov, this case reveals that international organizations are largely instrumentalized by Western interests and are "a form of instrument of containment, expansion, pressure and influence of the West in the world." "And this is how it has been, at least in recent decades, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Now we see that the role of these organizations, their influence and their authority, is significantly diminishing," he concludes.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Lebanese families have been fleeing the country’s south in the thousands amid escalating tensions and an Israeli bombardment that has so far killed hundreds. Their fear, echoed by many onlookers, is that Israel will accompany the airstrikes with something that has the potential to have far worse consequences: a ground invasion of south Lebanon. The rational behind such a move, from the Israeli government’s perspective, is that a ground offensive may be its best chance to push Hezbollah fighters beyond the Litani River in the middle of the country. This would achieve an Israeli war goal of securing its northern borders and allowing an estimated 60,000 residents who have been forced to flee northern Israel to go back to their homes. Irrespective of motive, a ground invasion and potential occupation is more than wild speculation. Israel has placed thousands of soldiers on standby close to the Lebanon border for such an eventuality. Nor is such a move without precedent. As a scholar of Lebanese history, I know Israel and Lebanon have been here before. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in the middle of the latter’s civil war, imposing a siege on the capital Beirut. The results were catastrophic for the whole region. Not only did the ground invasion result in the death of thousands of civilians, the occupation of Lebanon plunged an already fragile nation into lasting political and economic chaos and led to the birth of Hezbollah, the very group that threatens northern Israel today. Refuge and armed resistance The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 had its roots in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, much as the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel does today. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was accompanied by the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” for the Palestinians. In the violent birth pangs of a Jewish state on land inhabited by, among others, Arab populations with deep ancestral ties to villages, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled. Many refugees entered Lebanon, where in 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization was born. By the mid-1970s, the armed resistance group had recruited and trained over 20,000 fighters who actively participated in launching attacks on Israel from Lebanese soil. By 1982, Lebanon was already seven years into its civil war, with violence flaring between Lebanese Christians and Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims. On June 6, 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, a future leader of the country, launched Operation Peace for Galilee and invaded Lebanon with the purpose of eliminating the PLO. More than 40,000 Israeli troops with hundreds of tanks entered Lebanon from three points: by land across the border into south Lebanon; by sea from the coast of Sidon; and by air as the Israeli forces bombed the Beqaa Valley, Beirut and its Palestinian refugee camps. For two months, Beirut was under siege, with water and electricity cut off. As a result of the heavy bombardment and lack of access to basic needs, an estimated 19,000 Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian civilians and combatants died, of which 5,500 were civilians from West Beirut. The Lebanese authorities appealed to the United States, France, Italy and the United Kingdom for help. These countries formed the multinational peacekeeping force, which was designed to restore peace in Lebanon, assist the Lebanese armed forces and evacuate PLO fighters to Tunisia. By August 1982, the multinational force had successfully relocated PLO fighters and began pulling out of Lebanon. They were called back, however, as violence flared. After the assassination of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel on Sept. 14, 1982, the Christian Phalangist militia entered the two Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and killed over 2,000 Palestinian civilians. The Israeli government later set up the Kahan Commission of Inquiry to look into the killings, which concluded that Israel was indirectly responsible for the massacres. The birth of Hezbollah All of this history remains relevant to the current situation in the region. Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon, its siege on Beirut and the massacres that followed all led to the birth of Hezbollah. While members of Lebanon’s marginalized Shiite community in the south had long sought to mobilize through pan-Arab political parties and militias, it was Israel’s invasion that galvanized members of the community to ultimately create Hezbollah in 1985. As former Israeli Defense Minister and Prime Minister Ehud Barak noted in a 2006 interview: “It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.” Israel’s invasion also soured Lebanon’s relations with the West. Many Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims considered the multinational force – especially the United States – to be a failure and even an accomplice to Israel. From 1982 onward, Americans and other Westerners became a target. In the following decade, more than 80 Americans and Europeans were taken hostage by Hezbollah fighters. Some were tortured for months; others died in custody. And on Oct. 23, 1983, a terrorist attack targeted the American barracks in Beirut, killing over 300 people, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. Minutes later, a second suicide attack killed 58 French paratroopers. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the two attacks; some of its members are thought to be among those who officially founded Hezbollah in February 1985. Aiding Hezbollah recruitment Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon failed to accomplish its goals of stemming attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon. If anything, it had the opposite effect by turning many Lebanese against Israel and creating the conditions in which Hezbollah could recruit. Although Israel retreated from Beirut in August 1982, it continued to occupy south Lebanon until 2000. During that period it unlawfully detained many Lebanese suspected of resisting the Israeli occupation. Some were detained without charges in inhumane conditions, while others were illegally transferred into Israel. With such a backdrop, Hezbollah’s legitimacy in the eyes of many Lebanese grew – as did its support. So much so that in 1989, at the end of the Lebanese civil war, the authorities signed an agreement that, although not referencing Hezbollah directly, asserted Lebanon’s right to resist the Israeli occupation in the south. This clause was interpreted by Hezbollah as legitimizing its armed fight against occupation. After occupation ended in 2000, Hezbollah had to reinvent its role, claiming that it would continue fighting against Israel until the liberation of the disputed Shebaa Farms, the Golan Heights and occupied Palestine. In 2006, Hezbollah entered Israeli territory for the first time, killing three soldiers and kidnapping two, demanding the release of Lebanese prisoners in exchange. In retaliation, the Israel Defense Forces attacked Lebanon by air, sea and land, with Israeli ground forces entering Lebanon and carrying out a number of operations on Lebanese territory. A subsequent war saw no such prisoner swap but resulted in the deaths of about 1,100 Lebanese civilians and 120 Israelis, mostly soldiers. History repeating? Until Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there had been hopes that decades of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel could be on the cusp of turning. In October 2022, Lebanon and Israel signed a maritime border agreement brokered by the U.S – interpreted as the beginning of normalizing relations between two countries technically at war. But the magnitude of the human crisis in Gaza and the series of events that followed in Lebanon have ended such hopes for now. Hezbollah’s vow of solidarity with Hamas has resulted in a running series of tit-for-tat attacks with Israel that have escalated over the past year. The attack using booby-trapped pagers that targeted Hezbollah fighters and killed several civilians across Lebanon on Sept. 17, 2024, has set off a chain of events that have now seen nearly 500 Lebanese killed and Hezbollah extend the geographical scope of its missile attacks in Israel. Its long-range ballistic missiles can reach 250-300 kilometers (155-186 miles) and have reached Haifa and the city’s Ramat David Airbase. The next step in this deadly escalation could well be a ground invasion. But in 1982, such an operation resulted only in catastrophic results for all concerned – and set in place the conditions for decades of hostilities across the Lebanon-Israel border. A similar offensive today would almost certainly have similar results – especially for the people of Lebanon.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Photo credit: Flickr/Sailing Nomad - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ Ambassador Frederic Gateretse-Ngoga, Farea Al-Muslimi, Lisa Boström and Veera Tuomala In recent months, the Red Sea has drawn global attention, particularly due to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, as well as the deal between Ethiopia and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland on access to the Gulf of Aden, which sparked a dispute with Somalia. The rising tensions and increasing military responses risk worsening conflicts in a highly volatile region. The renewed focus on the Red Sea, however, also provides an opportunity to redouble commitment to multilateralism and enhance the collective action needed to address threats facing the region. This blog post gives an overview of current issues in the region and possible ways to address them, building on the outcomes of a panel discussion at the 2024 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development. Geopolitical competition in the Red Sea region The Red Sea has become a major flashpoint for global and regional contestation, with local, regional and global conflict dynamics deeply intertwined. Regional and global powers are constructing naval bases and military installations around the Red Sea to enhance their power projection, fuelling existing tensions and exacerbating ongoing conflicts. This has aggravated already dire humanitarian conditions, contributing to fragility across the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. In Sudan, competition between Gulf states is widely considered a driving factor behind the civil war. In Somalia and Yemen, external influences have fuelled internal disputes and aggravated tensions, undermining state-building efforts and incurring particularly devastating consequences in Yemen. Climate change and a scramble for scarce natural resources and critical commodities, including water, agricultural land and food supplies, may reinforce this dynamic. Gulf states, in particular, have invested billions in agriculture and manufacturing in the Horn of Africa in recent years to secure food production and tap into the region’s burgeoning labour markets. Regional insecurity escalates Insecurity in the Red Sea region reached a critical point in early 2024 when the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in response to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, further threatening regional and international stability, upending trade and disrupting global markets. In response, the United States and the United Kingdom carried out airstrikes against targets in Yemen, while the European Union took a more defensive approach with the launch of Operation ASPIDES to protect vessels. This escalation delayed peace negotiations in Yemen, weakening the fragile trust needed to agree on an extended ceasefire and a roadmap to peace. The Houthi attacks also further compounded humanitarian challenges, disrupting the flow of essential goods and humanitarian aid to the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region more widely, thus worsening shortages and human suffering. In Sudan around 26 million people, more than half the population, are suffering acute food insecurity. In Yemen, around 22 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with about 17 million facing acute food insecurity. Instability on both coasts has also increased migration across the Red Sea. The number of migrants from the Horn of Africa arriving in Yemen has nearly tripled in recent years, with tens of thousands making the dangerous crossing annually in search of better economic opportunities. Additionally, the rise in piracy off the coast of Somalia has exacerbated regional insecurity, with reports of coordination between the Houthis and the Al-Shabaab armed group in the Horn, increasing the risk of human trafficking and forced migration. Opportunities to strengthen multilateralism, cooperation and collective action The barriers to effective cooperation in the Red Sea region are significant but not insurmountable. Historical rivalries and political instability have eroded trust among countries in the region, and the diverse priorities and strategic interests of these countries complicate collaboration. Despite these challenges, the region holds immense potential for growth and development. The strategic location and resources of countries on both shores, if harnessed constructively and collectively, could spur economic prosperity and regional stability. However, the region can realize its potential and accelerate socio-economic development only through inclusive growth, innovation and addressing long-standing developmental challenges. In this regard, prioritizing economic and regional integration is critical to unlocking the region’s vast potential. Indeed, the geographical proximity between the Horn of Africa and Yemen across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait has brought about initiatives such as the Bridge of the Horns, proposed in 2007 between Djibouti and Yemen, which represented a bold vision for a more integrated, peaceful and prosperous region. While the project did not materialize, it is symbolic of the potential for deep and mutually beneficial economic, cultural and political ties across the Red Sea. While there are currently no operational overarching mechanisms or forums for multilateral cooperation around the region, the establishment in 2020 of the Red Sea Council—formally the Council of Arab and African States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden—could fill this gap. Once operational, it could help to mitigate tensions and foster cooperation towards a shared vision for the region. Moving forward There are several areas where enhanced cooperation is achievable and could benefit the Red Sea region as a whole. For example, establishing joint coastal patrols and information-sharing mechanisms could significantly enhance maritime security and combat piracy, smuggling and terrorism along the vital maritime corridor. Developing regional trade agreements and infrastructure projects could boost economic growth and interdependence, reducing the likelihood of conflict. Collaborative efforts to address climate change, manage shared water resources and protect marine ecosystems could promote sustainability and reduce resource-related tensions. Coordinating humanitarian responses and development programmes could address the root causes of instability, such as poverty, food insecurity, and poor access to education and healthcare. Finally, establishing platforms for dialogue and mediation could help to resolve disputes peacefully, preventing the escalation of conflicts. By focusing on these areas, the countries of the Red Sea region could move towards a more cooperative, stable and prosperous future. Strengthening cooperation through robust multilateral frameworks is vital to addressing the factors that underpin regional insecurity as well as to promoting sustainable development. Regional solutions should be led by the region, rather than relying on external entities whose priorities and resources are currently focused elsewhere. Countries on both coasts of the Red Sea need to view each other as partners for common goals and stability, prioritizing cooperation to connect their needs and interests effectively. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres notes in the New Agenda for Peace, rebuilding consensus around shared norms and developing new ways for states to act cooperatively is crucial to addressing collective challenges and meeting shared objectives. SIPRI is pleased to share a series of guest blog posts from partners of the 2024 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development. This blog builds on a panel discussion at the Forum on the topic ‘Red Sea Security in a Time of Disorder’, which was organized by CMI–Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Introduction Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Indian politicians believed that rapprochement with the US could best be achieved through strengthening ties with Israel. Consequently, India quickly established diplomatic relations with Israel, leading to significant developments in various fields, particularly in security and military areas. As a result, the Palestine issue became a marginal concern for India. However, the relationship has gained significant attention in the Arab world with the onset of Operation al-Aqsa Flood, which this paper will explore. First: Key Aspects of India’s Position on Operation al-Aqsa Flood In the early hours of Operation al-Aqsa Flood on 7/10/2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted a strong condemnation of the Palestinian side, echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetoric. It was later revealed that this statement was made without consulting the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, which released a more measured response the following day. This was followed by a series of actions aligned with the policies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Notably, Indian authorities, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, imposed restrictions, including arrests, on demonstrators showing sympathy for Palestinians facing a genocidal war in the Gaza Strip (GS). Similar actions were observed in other states, including the capital, Delhi, suggesting that this was an Indian official policy. In contrast, Hindu right-wing extremists were permitted to express support for Israel’s war and accuse Palestinian sympathizers of being jihadists and unpatriotic, despite widespread sympathy for Palestinians on social media. At the media level, despite the reluctance of official authorities, particularly the Ministry of External Affairs, and their tendency to take ambiguous stances on the issue, mainstream media has generally maintained a professional and somewhat sympathetic tone towards the Palestinians. Second: Unrestricted Collaboration It was notable that India’s partnership with Israel remained unaffected despite Israel’s crimes against humanity against the Palestinians. In fact, this partnership, particularly in military manufacturing, appears to have a direct impact on Israel’s war efforts. Some drones used by Israeli forces were jointly manufactured with the Indian company Adani. Additionally, munitions originating from India were found in the field, with further discoveries made when Spanish authorities intercepted an Indian ship attempting to bypass the Houthi embargo in the Red Sea. India’s military cooperation with Israel is well-established, having previously participated in the Israeli Blue Flag exercises. Beyond military and security cooperation, India is also deeply involved in the economic sector. Following the withdrawal of Thai workers from Israel’s agricultural sector after 7/10/2023, which severely impacted the Israeli economy, India stepped in to address the labor shortage by sending 100 thousand workers to Israel, where work is already in progress, in an environment that is dangerous, to say the least. Third: Duality of Positions Regarding India’s performance in international organizations, it has generally aligned with the majority of global countries and adhered to the “two-state solution,” notably omitting any reference to East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. This represents a significant shift in India’s position. However, at the bilateral level, India continues to steadily develop its relationships across various fields. This is interpreted as a gesture of gratitude to Israel, which was the only country to supply India with weapons during the Kargil War with Pakistan. India has also sought to avoid antagonizing the US administration by not adopting a policy that contradicts the US stance on Ukraine and Palestine. It is noteworthy that some Arab positions, particularly those of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are in alignment with India’s stance. Fourth: The impact of the Recent General Elections on the Indian Government’s Stance on the Palestine Issue It seems that the decline in the ruling party’s performance in the Indian general elections held in May 2024 did not affect its stance on the Palestine issue. This can be attributed to the persistent determinants that have shaped this position from the outset. Key among these are India’s desire to strengthen its relationship with the US, particularly in the context of countering China through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), commonly known as the Quad, and its aim to enhance economic performance by attracting foreign investment. Additionally, there is ideological alignment between the ruling party and the Zionist movement. Most notably, the Arab push towards normalization and the establishment of relations with Israel has alleviated any pressure on India to reconsider its policies regarding Israel. Consequently, India finds itself in a favorable environment that aligns with its current position. Conclusion India’s policy has focused on strengthening ties with Israel at various levels, while maintaining formal and limited relations with the Palestinian Authority. Its approach to the Palestine issue has been through the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Unlike Russia and China, which have established relations with Hamas and hosted Palestinian delegations in the name of reconciliation, India has not taken this route. The Indian press often deliberately conflates Palestinian resistance with terrorism, despite the fact that India has not officially designated any Palestinian movements as terrorist organizations. A ceasefire that aligns with Israel’s acceptable conditions, which India views as a potential alleviation of the “Palestinian headache,” would be in line with the policy of the current Indian government. This administration appears receptive to any solution supported by the US and the Arab countries. Such a stance enables India to uphold its partnerships with Israel, the US and its Arab allies while avoiding ethical dilemmas related to the beliefs held by some Indian elites regarding India’s historical anti-colonial stance and its support for the Palestine issue. The possibility of India following the example of Russia and China by establishing open relations with Palestinian resistance movements seems unlikely. India’s entry into the Arab world has been facilitated through countries that hold negative attitudes towards these movements, and India may be cautious not to antagonize both the US and the Arab leaders who have normalized relations with Israel.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском The Pacific Islands Forum this week adopted a Pacific Policing Initiative which marshalls Australian resources to meet Pacific needs. A Parliamentary inquiry is looking at proposals from a range of sectors to collaborate on the region’s priorities. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with his counterparts at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting this week, he will be greeting many old friends. In February, Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape became the first Pacific leader to address Australian Parliament. New Solomon Islands prime minister Jeremiah Manele visited in June and new Tuvalu prime minister Feleti Teo in July. Right now, a proactive approach is being taken by a Parliamentary inquiry looking at Australia and the Pacific. The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT) is holding hearings on how Australia can respond to the priorities of Pacific Island countries. Judging from submissions, there’s wide enthusiasm for what’s possible. The committee has received 84 submissions covering a range of topics. For example, Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue’s (AP4D) submission focuses on supporting Pacific youth, civil society and media, enhancing women’s peace and security and improving maritime safety, drawing on three years of consultations. Recognising that short-term transactional approaches are counterproductive, it advocates for long-term investment that genuinely engages with Pacific priorities. What is striking about the submissions is the whole-of-nation enthusiasm for engaging with the Pacific across a range of sectors such as science, culture, technology, and civil society. This includes the Australian Academy of Science working to establish a Pacific Academy of the Sciences and the National Reference Laboratory contributing to capacity projects. Other examples include the National Archives of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive helping preserve the Pacific documentary and cultural heritage, and Australian technology leader CyberCX on the transformative impact of investments in digital infrastructure. Australian civil society is responding to Pacific needs through community-led initiatives. People-to-people links and partnerships are contributing to provide better water and sanitation, reduce HIV infections, enhance the quality of education, improve child and youth protection, advocate for women’s rights, promote disability equity, and contribute to community development. This includes leveraging cultural and family connections to strengthen relationships with the Pacific. There are many examples of Australian bodies working with their Pacific counterparts, such as the Federal Court collaborating with Pacific courts to support justice and the rule of law, the Australian Human Rights Commission helping establish and support Pacific human rights institutions, and Standards Australia providing technical support to Pacific counterparts. And there are many areas where Pacific priorities are common priorities, like the Australian Maritime Safety Authority working with senior maritime officials on issues like search and rescue and maritime spills—and, above all, advocacy and cooperation on the existential threat to Pacific Islands from climate change. The inquiry provides a rich vein for continuing to foster stronger regional ties through collaborative efforts. An example of how this can be brought to fruition came this week when a Pacific Policing Initiative was adopted at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting. The initiative has three parts: specialist police training centres of excellence in Pacific countries, a police training and coordination hub in Brisbane, and a new Pacific Police Support Group ready to deploy in response to regional emergencies and major events. It builds on the Australian Federal Police’s long engagement in the region. As well as the outcome, the process of creating the initiative was equally important. The initiative was designed by the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police, a multilateral body founded in 1970 to bring together regional police chiefs to exchange information and drive regional policing agreements. That means that its genesis is from Pacific priorities around transnational security challenges, including seeing an increase in drug trafficking and transnational crime. While Australia will be the lead funding body contributor, Tonga’s prime minister announced it as “a Pacific led, Pacific owned initiative that reinforces the existing regional security architecture.” This is what it looks like for Australia to support Pacific regionalism as advocated in the latest paper from AP4D: where Australia perceives itself as a fully integrated part of the Pacific Islands region, not just as a partner or an advisor. Given the resources that it has, Australia can be tempted to establish separate arrangements which sit outside of formal structures. By contrast, the new policing initiative was announced by Prime Minister Albanese as “a Pacific led initiative, very importantly. This is something that has arisen from the Pacific family to look after the Pacific family, ourselves.” While Australia’s money and capacity has value, Pacific Island countries contribute knowledge, networks, and experience that are critical to understanding and working effectively within the Pacific Islands region. Australia needs to respond to Pacific priorities. A whole-of-nation approach—involving government, parliament, national institutions, and a range of actors responding to Pacific needs—is key to Australia positioning itself as an invested part of the Pacific.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском To What Extent has it Increased and how has This Been Achieved? Abstract In February 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has to date continued for more than two years. In response, Western countries imposed increasingly strict sanctions. The Russian Armed Forces lost a significant quantity of armaments and by the autumn of 2022, the government faced the challenge of increasing sharply the production of weapons and munitions. Julian Cooper analyses the extent to which the challenge has been met, reviewing the available quantitative evidence in detail. His analysis confirms that there have been significant increases in the output of systems and munitions used extensively in the war. The author explores the means by which defence industry output has been increased and draws conclusions as to the nature of the Russian economic system and the institutional legacies of Soviet times. On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine and this has been ongoing for over two years. In response, Western countries imposed increasingly severe sanctions in an attempt to constrain the development of the Russian economy and limit the ability of its industry to produce weapons. This is done by restricting access to imported high technology and dual-use goods, production equipment, components and materials. It soon became evident that the invasion had not gone according to Russia’s original expectations of a rapid operation. Instead, a protracted conflict developed with heavy losses in both human and material terms for both sides. The Russian Armed Forces lost a significant quantity of armaments, in particular tanks and armoured vehicles, artillery and air defence systems, fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. By the autumn of 2022, the Russian government faced the challenge of increasing sharply the production of weapons and munitions vital to the successful completion of the operation which, though not acknowledged in Russia, had become a war. This article explores the extent to which Russia has been able to meet this challenge at a time when its defence industry is experiencing sanctions and a range of economic constrains, not least a shortage of labour exacerbated by a partial mobilisation of personnel to serve in the armed forces. The article comprises four parts. The first looks at the methods of measuring the output of the Russian defence industry. The second examines the available quantitative data in physical terms. The third section seeks to explain how it has been possible for Russia to increase significantly the output of some types of weapons and munitions in a relatively brief period of time. Finally, some conclusions are drawn as to Russia’s ability to adapt its defence industry to wartime conditions, and prospects for the future. Measuring the Output of the Russian Defence Industry In Soviet times, the production of weapons, munitions and other military-related goods was shrouded in almost total secrecy. This relaxed to some extent after the end of the Soviet Union, but to this day, Russia’s official statistical agency, the Federal Service for State Statistics, generally known as Rosstat, does not openly publish data on the military output of the country’s defence industry. However, this secrecy has its limits as the defence minister and other senior officials of the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD), in particular the deputy minister responsible for arms procurement, do release data on the output of some weapon systems, annual targets for the state defence order, and information on implementation, as will become clear later in this article. However, since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea, the volume and level of detail have diminished and even more so since February 2022. In addition, President Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, the minister for industry and his deputies also reveal details from time to time, as do the heads and other leaders of corporate structures producing military goods, such as Rostekh, Roscosmos, the United Aircraft Corporation (OAK) and the United Shipbuilding Corporation (OSK). A study of the data covering many years indicates that on the whole, the data released is reliable, with misrepresentation but no evident falsification. But one has to be alert to changes in the definitions employed, in particular whether the figures given apply to the output of new systems only, or to the total procurement of new, modernised and repaired older systems, an issue that has become significant since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Earlier works of the present author have sometimes focused on detailed analyses of quantitative data of this nature.1 In recent times, some observers have questioned the reliability of this type of information. An April 2024 CSIS report on Russia’s defence industry declared that, ‘While … the official data and statements from the Russian MOD are most likely exaggerated, and therefore should be taken with a grain of salt, they demonstrate the Kremlin has placed renewed emphasis on strengthening the domestic defence industrial sector’.2 While exaggerated statements are indeed often made, the degree of scepticism expressed is overstated in relation to the data. Undoubtedly, great care is needed in its analysis, but it still provides, as accepted by the authors of the CSIS report, a good overall picture of the general trend of development of military production. There is also an additional check on this, namely Rosstat’s regular reports of changes in the output of the manufacturing industry in rouble terms.3 Again, careful analysis is required with an informed knowledge of the industrial classification used, but the overall trends revealed reflect those provided by the quantitative data available from other sources. At a time when quantitative data on various aspects of the Russia economy is being strictly limited by the Russian authorities, not least on budget spending and foreign trade flows, it is better to have imperfect and fragmentary data than none at all. Measuring the Output of Military Goods in Physical Terms Reports of the output of military goods often appear in Russian media, though the data tends to be fragmented, often lacking precise definition and timescales. There are also similar reports of the output of civilian goods manufactured by defence industry companies. This section examines this evidence in detail from 2019, three years before the start of the Ukraine war, until the end of 2023, and plans for 2024, paying particular attention to the types of military goods that have played a significant role in the current combat. Every year in December, the Russian MoD reports on some of the new weapons procured during the year and plans for the following year. This evidence is presented in Table 1, in the Appendix section at the end of this article. From the table, it can be seen that since 2020, plans for the deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBMs) have not been fully implemented, probably because of the failure to develop the Sarmat heavy missile to a point when it can be put into service. The acquisition of Borei-class strategic nuclear submarines has proceeded fairly smoothly and modernised/new Tu-160 strategic bombers are gradually entering service. These developments and the MoD’s procedure for reporting plans and outcomes leave no doubt that in Russia, the development and procurement of strategic nuclear systems remains the highest priority regardless of the war. Taking into account the military technology priorities of the war, it is probably best to consider the production of weapons on a sector-by-sector basis. Clearly, the war has given rise to a greatly increased demand for equipment and munitions for the ground forces, some types of combat aircraft and UAVs, certain types of missiles, air defence systems and electronic warfare systems. Demand for new naval vessels has been less urgent with the exception of nuclear submarines. Aircraft For the aircraft industry, the trend is clear. The production of some types of planes and helicopters found to be of value in the war has increased. However, data from 2020 onwards refers to both new aircraft and modernised older ones, making it very difficult to establish the number of the former. In the case of combat systems, the evidence indicates increased production of a few models, for example the Su-35S and Su-34, considered vital to the war and in one case, the Su-57, considered important for status reasons. Table 2 summarises the available data for 2019–23. The Su-57 is Russia’s first ‘fifth’ generation aircraft, although all serially built examples so far have an engine that is not really one of that status. It is a matter of great pride to the Russian leadership, although it has played only a modest role in the war. In the view of a leading Russian military specialist, the very costly and complex fifth generation aircraft ‘as yet are still absolutely not suited to real combat use …. The loss of a fifth-generation plane is on the one hand, a large financial loss, and a significant reputational loss’.4 Helicopters As for helicopters, it is very difficult to establish the number built for use by the armed forces in recent years. The building of civilian helicopters has been quite seriously affected by sanctions but this appears not to be the case for the main combat systems, the Ka-52/52M and the Mi-28NM. The Russian Air Force signed a contract for the former in August 2021, with 15 to be delivered in 2022 and another 15 in 2023. A new contract for an undisclosed number was signed in the summer of 2022. In July 2023, then Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the volume of production of the Ka-52/52M had doubled compared with the preceding year, suggesting there were 30 planned for 2023.5 Serial production of the Mi-28NM started in 2020 and in that year a contract was signed for 98 units under the state armament programme to 2027.6 Shoigu also said in July 2023 that production of the Mi-28NM had increased three-fold from 2022, which in the view of a leading specialist on Russian aviation, Piotr Butowski, probably meant a target of up to 50 in 2023.7 One analyst concluded after a detailed study of the evidence that the armed forces received a total of 110 helicopters in 2022 against a plan for the year of 71, and actual deliveries of 48 in 2021, with a possible total of up to 125 units supplied in 2023.8 UAVs The evidence for the number of drones built is not easy to interpret as it depends on the type and scale of UAV that is being counted. There is no doubt that the number produced has increased sharply since 2020 when less than 1,000 were made. It appears that in the year 2022 the number increased to only a modest extent but then surged in 2023, reaching more than 20,000.9 This total almost certainly excludes the small first-person-view (FPV) type drones, now in large-scale use at the frontline on both sides and being assembled at quite a few locations in Russia, with components mainly imported from China. The two main types of Russian UAV that have had an impact on the battlefield are the Orlan family of reconnaissance drones, developed and built by the Special Technology Centre in St Petersburg, and the Lancet loitering system of Zala Aero, part of the Kalashnikov Concern. Both companies have been active in acquiring a range of Western components for their UAVs. The widely used Orlan-10, for example, has a small petrol engine built by Saito, a Japanese company.10 Naval Equipment The production of new naval equipment has not been a priority during the war apart from the building of nuclear submarines, the output of which is shown in Table 1. The handover of new naval vessels has been somewhat erratic, with the tendency to bunch in certain years. This has been partly because the building of surface ships in recent years has been disrupted to some extent by problems of engine supply. The building of Project 11356 frigates was abandoned when Ukraine stopped supplying power units. Ukrainian engines were also to be fitted to Project 22350 frigates, but in this case Russia managed to replace the engine and reduction gearing, permitting the hand over in 2023 of the Admiral Golovko.11 Project 21631 small missile ships originally had German engines but the supply ended in 2014. It was first decided that a Chinese engine would be used instead, but it was not suited for a naval ship, resulting in long delays before a domestically built alternative was developed.12 Similar problems appeared for Project 22800 Karakurt-class small missile ships, and at one point it appeared that they could end up with Chinese power units. However, those proved not to be adequate and a Russian replacement was found but not before there were delays in completing ships under construction.13 Project 22160 patrol boats were originally designed to have German MAN diesel engines and the first boat handed over in 2018 was fitted with one, but later ones, with some delay, had new Russian-built power units.14 Ground Forces Munitions Turning to the production of weapons and munitions for the ground forces, the availability of reliable quantitative evidence is more problematic, as it is often fragmentary, lacking definition and with growth figures between periods without adequate specification of dates. Table 3 summarises the available evidence. Tanks The data on the output of tanks has not been easy to assess. There are three categories: newly built ones, in recent times the T-90 and a few T-14 Armata; modernised older tanks, T-72 and T-80; and old tanks removed from storage, the T-54, which have undergone what the Russian MoD calls ‘capital repair’. Since the start of the war in 2022, any total given by the MoD is an aggregate figure covering all three. Main tank producer Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) builds the T-90 and Armata, plus the modernised T-72, while modernised T-80 tanks are built by Omsktransmash, an affiliate of the UVZ holding company. Work on the renovation of older tanks is undertaken by Russian tank repair works, the output of which is hardly ever revealed.15 The Russian MoD said that in 2021, its ground forces were to receive more than 240 new and modernised T-72B3M, T-80BVM and T-90M Proryv tanks.16 The number of new T-90M was reported to be set at 70 units, with the remaining 170 tanks being modernised.17 This provides a base for assessing more recent data. In 2023, a total of 1,530 new, modernised and refurbished tanks were produced, which, according to the MoD, is a 3.6 times increase from the preceding year. This suggests an output of about 425 units in 2022, 1.8 times the 240 of 2021. Interestingly, in March 2023, deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, declared that 1,500 tanks would be made in that year,18 followed a few days later by Putin, who said over 1,600 new and modernised tanks would be produced.19 Observers were quick to note that the total must include older tanks withdrawn from reserves, but were puzzled as to how many new tanks would be built. Military specialist Roman Skomorokhov, in a review of potential industrial manufacturers of tanks, concluded that in the short term, UVZ was the only manufacturer able to build new tanks, with a possible output of 500–600 a year at best.20 It is unlikely that UVZ has managed to build such a large number of tanks, especially when part of its production shop for tanks is being used to build small volumes of complex Armata systems. According to one anonymous source within Rostekh, the capacity of UVZ in October 2022 was 200–250 tanks.21 The work of Omsktransmash building modernised T-80s must be taken into account as well. In 2017, the factory received a contract to modernise 62 units of T-80BV to T-80BVM level and delivered 31 in 2018 and another 31 in 2019.22 In August 2020, there was a new contract for the modernisation of more than 50 T-80BVM tanks but no information has been revealed on its completion date or on the scale of additional contracts.23 However, in the autumn of 2023, Aleksandr Potapov, general director of UVZ, to which the Omsktransmash factory belongs, revealed that the MoD had called for the resumption of the serial production of T-80 tanks from scratch, an activity not undertaken since the 1970s.24 It is not known whether that has been implemented. Meanwhile, there have been several reports of the delivery to the front of batches of modernised T-80BVM. This suggests that in 2023, Omsktransmash and UVZ may have produced around 350 new and modernised tanks out of the total output of 1,530, meaning around 1,200 old tanks have undergone capital repair. This accords well with an IISS estimate of 1,180–1,280 units based on it monitoring the work of storage bases in Russia using commercial overhead imagery.25 As for the new T-14 Armata, Aleksei Krivoruchko, MoD deputy defence minister, said in August 2021 that the army would get 20 of them by the end of the year, with serial production set to start in 2022.26 There were reports in 2023 that it had been sent to the front to see action but there was little visible evidence to support this.27 There was speculation that it was found too complex and costly to risk using in real combat conditions and this was confirmed in early 2024 by the general-director of Rostekh, Sergei Chemezov, who said that it was not being used in the ‘special military operation’ zone because of its high cost and noted that it was cheaper for the army to buy T-90 tanks.28 Not surprisingly, this generated some scathing press comment about Russia’s preference for costly ‘parades’ and ‘white elephant’ tanks of no use in combat.29 Armoured Vehicles There are similar difficulties in assessing the output of armoured vehicles. The term usually covers infantry fighting vehicles (BMP) and armoured personnel carriers (BTR). However, sometimes it is extended to include armoured vehicles of the airborne forces like the BMD-4M and older Soviet systems such as the MT-LB. Many of these vehicles have been accumulated in the reserve stores of the MoD. Before the war, the annual output of armoured vehicles appears to have been modest, but it was stepped up quite rapidly in the second half of 2022 and more intensively in 2023, when, according to Shoigu, a total of 2,518 units of new, modernised and repaired machines was acquired. The new ones will have been BMP-3s built by the Kurganmashzavod company, which also produces modernised BMP-2 and now batches of repaired BMP-3. From the late summer of 2022, the factory has been working a six-day week in 12-hour shifts. It claimed that in the first half of 2023, it produced 95% of the total armoured vehicle output achieved in 2022 and planned to increase output by another 30% in the second half of 2023.30 New BTR-82A armoured personnel carriers are produced by the Arzamas Machine-building Factory of the Voennaya-Promyshlennaya Kompaniya (also known as Military Industrial Company). The earlier model, the BTR-80, is modernised by a repair factory to become the BTR-82AM. In 2020, the MoD ordered a total of at least 460 of both types, including 130 new BTR-82A. In addition, it planned to repair and refurbish 330 old BTR-80 units from reserves.31 In 2021, another order was made for more than 300 BTR-82A and BTR-82AM.32 In late 2021, it was announced that in spring 2022, state testing was to begin for the Bumerang armoured transporter first seen in 2015. It is not known if this happened, but in March 2023, there were sightings of a few Bumerang being transported to near the warzone. However, there were no reports of its use in combat and it may well be that this new system, like the Armata tank, was considered to be too complex and costly to be put into service in the war.33 Artillery Unfortunately, detailed information on the volume of production of artillery systems is not available. Occasionally, the MoD does report a total figure for missile systems and artillery (raketnye kompleksy i artilleriya). In 2018, a total of more than 120 units was reported, which included Kornet and Khrizantema-SP anti-tanks systems, Msta-SM howitzers, Iskander-M, and Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles. In 2020, the number increased to 551 units and in 2023, showed a very significant increase to more than 4,250 units.34 There are large stocks of old artillery systems so this total probably includes many that were restored for use during the year. The production of artillery is undertaken by several enterprises, with the largest producers consisting of: Perm Motovilikhinskiye Zavody, making a range of systems including 152-mm howitzers Msta-B and D-20, and 120-mm self-propelled systems Nona-S, Nona-SVK, Vena and the 240-mm Tyul’pan; and Volgograd Titan-Barrikady, making launch systems for the Iskander-M and the Bereg and Bastion shore naval artillery complexes.35 In addition, there is the Ekaterinburg Factory No. 9 imeni Kalinina, under Rostekh, producing barrel artillery systems, including the Soviet-era towed D-30A howitzer and guns for T-72 and T-90 tanks; Uraltransmash making the Msta-S 152-mm self-propelled howitzer widely used in the war; and UVZ making the 152-mm self-propelled Malva, developed by the Burevestnik Central Scientific Research Institute.36 Munitions and Missiles A final category of systems produced for the armed forces is munitions and missiles, sometimes summarised in Russian sources as means of destruction (sredstva porazheniya). This includes explosives, cartridges for small arms, artillery shells of various calibres, bombs, mines, missiles for multiple rocket launchers (MLRS), anti-tank systems, air defence systems and operational systems such as the Iskander-M. Given the wide range of products made by different branches of the defence industry, assembling data is extremely difficult, but munitions are clearly of such importance for Russia’s war effort that the topic merits treatment in some detail. To begin, it is probably easiest to start with the branch usually termed in Russian as munitions and special chemicals (boepripasy i spetskhimiya), which produces cartridges, shells, explosives, fuel for missiles and other chemicals. The munitions industry in Russia has been problematic since 1992. During the 1990s and early 2000s, there was little investment in the sector, and production volumes shrank rapidly, resulting in some enterprises closing down. Production equipment aged steadily, and many experienced personnel left the sector. A fundamental problem has been the vast spare capacities maintained in order to rapidly expand production in the event of a war. This appears to have been the case until recent times. According to the specialist on defence matters, Viktor Murakhovskii, more than 70% of capacity was for mobilisation. If state support for this was inadequate, enterprises would become loss making.37 For this reason, quite a few munitions plants were made so-called federal ‘treasury’ (kazennyi) enterprises, with guaranteed budget support regardless of their economic performance, thereby enabling them to keep reserve capacities. Many munitions enterprises are under the state corporation Rostekh and its holding Tekhnologiya Mashinostroeniya (Tekhmash), with its management company Tekhnodinamika. In late 2021, Rostekh had more than 30 enterprises and institutes engaged in the development and production of a wide range of munitions.38 In late 2022 and early 2023, there was mounting evidence of official concern that the domestic munitions industry was not adequately meeting the demand of the armed forces engaged in the war. Then Minister of Trade and Industry and Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov acknowledged that for a long time the munitions branch of the defence industry had been producing in limited quantities simply to top up stocks. He claimed, however, that in 2022, the volume of output of some munitions had increased from three to 10 times but more needed to be done.39 This prompted a number of military journalists to openly discuss the fact that very high rates of use of some munitions, notably those for artillery systems, had run down stocks necessitating prompt action to maintain supplies.40 At the end of December 2022, there was some decisive action to bring order to the munitions industry. A presidential edict was issued for 14 of the most prominent companies of the branch, including several treasury enterprises, to be transferred to the Rostekh state corporation for conversion into joint stock companies with 100% federal ownership. This was followed by a government order for its implementation. The list included the Kazan, Perm and Tambov (Kotovsk) powder factories and leading munitions producers such as the Kazan factory of precision machine building, Samara Kommunar works, Dzerzhinsk Zavod imeni Sverdlova and Avangard of Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan.41 The aim was clearly to improve their management and modernise them as quickly as possible, drawing on the considerable experience of Rostekh in turning round failing enterprises. Whether this move will enhance the industry’s ability to meet the urgent needs of the war remains to be seen. In May 2023, it was reported that Tekhmash had more than 50 enterprises, suggesting a quite sizeable expansion to meet increased wartime needs.42 From about September 2022, there were reports of factories switching to multi-shift work and hiring additional workers including at the Perm powder works. It is probably significant that soon after, it was also reported that the military production division (the Special Design Bureau (SKB)) of the nearby Motovilikhinskie Zavody, which builds MLRS, was doing the same.43 A major concern has been the production of large-calibre artillery shells, in particular 152 and 122mm shells for artillery systems, 125 and 115mm for tank guns and 120 and 82mm for mortars. The production of artillery shells involves division of labour, with some enterprises producing explosives or shell casings and others doing both. Leading producers include Dzerzhinsk Zavod imeni Ya M Sverdlova, with a branch in Biisk united with Biissk Oleumnyi Zavod. The factory is a basic producer of large calibre fragmentation munitions and also a leading producer of HMX (octogen) and hexogen. The Kopeisk Zavod Plastmass builds munitions as its basic activity, while the casings for them are made by Kirov Zavod Sel’mash, a large multi-product enterprise of Tekhnodinamika. Some enterprises involved in the production of large-calibre shells underwent enlargement in recent years. The Verkhneturinskii Mekhanicheskii Zavod (VTMZ) of Tekhnodinamika built a new shop to make artillery shell casings for field and tank artillery. It was estimated that it would result in a 150% increase in production for the state defence order after the shops were in full operation by the end of 2021.44 Kopeisk Zavod Plastmass created a new automated shop for the assembly of 100 to 152mm munitions for tank, field and ship guns before the war started, which was designed to secure a 150% increase in output. The plan was for the shop to be completed and put into action by 2023.45 Both these cases raise an interesting question: did Rostekh receive signals prior to the war that some expansion of capacities was desirable? Another type in high demand has been missiles for MLRS. The main developer and manufacturer of MLRS has long been the Tula NPO Splav imeni A N Ganicheva, which also produces missiles for them. Its products include the Grad, Uragan and Smerch systems and modified variants, the Tornado-G and Tornado-S. In July 2020, the CEO of Rostekh opened a new shop at Splav for the production of munitions for MLRS, but reports did not indicate its capacity.46 In early 2024, the factory was visited by Defence Minister Shoigu and it was reported that new capacity introduced into service in 2023 had made possible a fourfold increase in the production of munitions for MLRS.47 Another class of munitions is those for the mobile ballistic missile system Iskander-M (9K720). This operational–tactical system, which has a range of warheads including a nuclear option, was developed by the Kolomna Scientific Production Corporation Design Bureau of Machine Building. Missiles for it are developed by the Ekaterinburg OKB Novator and produced by the Votkinsk Machine-Building Factory. Sources did not indicate the volume of production of the Kalibr sea-launched cruise missile, also developed by OKB Novator. Russia has a distinct class of equipment for the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops (RChBD). In 2023, this amounted to 150 units of equipment, including the TOS-1A Solntsepek heavy thermobaric rocket launch system produced by Omsktransmash.48 When visiting the factory in April 2024, Shoigu was informed that the volume produced in 2023 had grown by 2.5 times by increasing capacity and round-the-clock work.49 According to Shoigu speaking in February 2024, the volume of production of munitions for it has been increased by 12 times.50 The producer has not been identified. In April 2024, a new longer-range system, the TOS-3 Drakon, was reported to be on the eve of final testing prior to serial production.51 Another class of munitions often used in Ukraine are bombs launched from aircraft. Data is lacking on the volume produced but developments are sometimes discussed in the media, including the work of certain enterprises, although their identity is not always revealed. In March 2024, Shoigu visited enterprises in Nizhegorodsk Oblast producing bombs and shells for artillery and tanks. One factory, clearly distinguishable as Dzerzhinsk Zavod imeni Y M Sverdlova, a very large producer of shells and bombs, was producing the heavy aviation bomb FAB-500 and reported significant increases in the scale of output, a doubling of the FAB-1500 output, and, in February 2024, the start of ‘mass production’ of the three-tonne high-explosive FAB-3000 which dates back to Soviet times and is intended for destroying highly protected targets, both industrial and military.52 The Dzerzhinsk factory is also bringing back into use from reserves the most powerful of all Soviet/Russian conventional artillery shells, the Tyul’pan 240-mm mortar, in use in the war against very heavily fortified structures.53 It was claimed in March 2024 that the enterprise, which in 2023 was taken into Rostekh, had over the past year achieved a fivefold increase in the volume of production of artillery shells and aviation bombs by bringing conserved capacities back into use and installing new equipment.54 Civilian Goods Finally, a brief look is taken at the output of civil and dual-use goods of importance to the economy during the war, some manufactured by companies of the defence industry. Table 4 presents evidence of the changing output of some important civilian goods from 2019–23. The table shows the impact of sanctions in 2022 and 2023 but also perhaps in some cases the fact that priority for military production has caused diminished focus on civil goods or, in the case of rail freight wagons built by UVZ, reduced output because of the transfer of some capacity to basic military goods, tanks and armoured vehicles. The building of civilian passenger aircraft has been very seriously affected by sanctions which have deprived almost all aircraft that were built earlier of their power units. To some extent, the same applies to helicopter and ship production. Sanctions probably also account for the reduced output of trucks, excavators and also integrated circuits, the production of which is to some extent dependent on imported materials and gases. But the machine tool industry that was already reviving after the sanctions imposed in 2014 has shown new growth, with increased output of both metal-cutting and metal-forming machines in both 2022 and 2023. Russia remains dependent to a significant extent on imported machine tools, but now these are supplied mainly by Chinese companies rather than those of Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan or the US. In 2021, 69% of imported metal-cutting and - forming machine tools came from ‘unfriendly’ countries, which dropped to 39% in 2022, while China’s share increased from 22% to 46%.55 Paths to Increasing the Output of Military Hardware The data assembled raises an interesting question: how has it been possible for the Russian defence industry to increase the output of some weapons and munitions to a significant extent in a relatively brief period of time? This is a topic that requires additional research but a number of paths can be identified. One factor has clearly been the policy turn in the autumn of 2022 to change the institutions responsible for leading and managing the work of the defence industry. Before that, fulfilling the state defence order for new weapons and the modernisation and repair of older systems had been the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, working with Rostekh, Rosatom, Roskosmos and other corporate bodies involved in military work, and with the MoD as the principal customer, actively monitoring the implementation of contracts. Overall responsibility for policy was in the hands of the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) with the president of Russia as its chair. Since the war, there have been significant changes. In 2022, there was not a single VPK meeting with Putin as chair; indeed, he has not chaired a VPK meeting since 2017. Instead, Putin had three meetings with representatives of the defence industry, the first in September 2022 with a number of enterprise leaders, the second in December of the same year, and the third in May 2024 with some enterprise leaders and new ministers.56 The focus of the VPK has always been the state defence order for weapons, not other aspects of supplies to the armed forces, such as uniforms, food, fuel, lubricants and medicines. With the adoption of partial mobilisation, it quickly became clear that the rapid build up of deliveries of these non-weapon items presented a serious challenge. This almost certainly accounts for the decision by Putin in October 2022 to create a new structure to ensure that all necessary supplies for the special military operation were produced and delivered. A Coordination Council of the government was formed with the aim of meeting needs appearing in the pursuit of the war, including the delivery and repair of armaments, uniforms, medical–sanitary provision, repair and reconstruction work and logistics. The council is chaired by the prime minister and its participants are representatives of all the main ‘power’ ministries – MoD, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Rosgvard, Federal Security Service, Foreign Intelligence Service, the Main Directorate of Special Programmes (responsible for ensuring the survival of the government in the event of war by creating and managing secure bunkers, so-called ‘special objects’), and some other federal ministries.57 The Coordination Council met six times in 2022, nine times in 2023 and once in the first two months of 2024. It discussed a wide range of issues relating to the production and delivery of equipment to the forces engaged in the war with the participation of the relevant government agencies and the leaders of departments of the government’s own central office.58 It appears to be a body that monitors production and deliveries and decides on prompt action if problems are identified. Another official monitoring the work of the defence industry and the implementation of the state defence order is Dmitrii Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council and first deputy chair of the VPK. He was appointed to the post by Putin in December 2022 with the job of leading a working group to monitor the production and delivery of armaments to the armed forces. There have been visits by Medvedev and sometimes the working group to quite a few defence enterprises, including UVZ and Omsktransmash, to examine tank building. He has also visited producers of munitions and missile and in March 2024, visited Tambovskii Porokhovoi Zavod (Tambov Gunpowder Plant), a major producer of explosives, where the working group discussed investment plans.59 Given that Medvedev is independent of the government and the MoD, it is possible that Putin felt the need for another set of eyes and ears to check on both and report directly to himself. Not surprisingly, the monitoring of arms production is also a concern of the MoD and its minister, Shoigu (replaced in mid-May 2024), who has quite often visited companies considered vital to the war and national security more generally. In early 2024, he visited the Ekaterinburg Uraltransmash works for the production of artillery systems, where he sharply criticised the chief designer for delays in bringing new models into production.60 He also visited the Dubna Raduga design bureau of the Tactical Missile Corporation (KTRV) responsible for a range of air-launched cruise missiles. There, he called for longer-range missiles and increased production.61 In March 2024, it was clear Russia was concerned about the production of munitions. As noted above, Shoigu visited the Dzerzhinsk Zavod imeni Sverdlova and shortly after, as reported by the MoD, the ‘defence enterprises in Altai krai’.62 As is often the case, the local media were more forthcoming. They reported that in the same month, he also visited Biisk Oleumnyi Zavod, which produces explosives and is affiliated to the Dzherzhinsk works, and a major producer of munitions, Biisk Sibpribormash, a large volume supplier of a range of shells, bombs, cartridges and missiles for MLRS. At the former, he made clear his dissatisfaction with its rate of building new production facilities to double its capacity, and at the latter, he was informed that the volume of output had increased 3.5 times from 2022, about 300 new machine tools had been installed and an additional 1,600 workers taken on.63 In 2023, his visits included the Arsen’ev Progress works to check on the production of Ka-52M combat helicopters.64 While there has been some stability in the staffing of leading posts in the defence industry, the same cannot be said of the MoD in relation to logistics and securing the delivery of equipment and munitions to the front. Since the war started in February 2022, there have been four different deputy ministers for logistics, or ‘material and technical supply’ as it is known in Russia. First there was Dmitrii Bulgakov, in post for 12 years until dismissed in September 2022. He was replaced by Mikhail Mizintsev, the chief of the National Management Centre for Defence, but he resigned in April 2023 and was replaced by Aleksei Kuz’mentsev, appointed from the troops of the National Guard but with a background in logistics. He was in post for less than a year and in March 2024 was replaced by Andrei Bulygin, whose MoD career from 2011 was in logistics.65 When Russia decided to boost the output of certain weapons and munitions, some companies rapidly introduced multi-shift work and under the mobilisation conditions imposed on the defence sector, workers had little choice but to adapt to more demanding working regimes, often working weekends or during public holidays. At the end of 2022, workers in large enterprises of the defence industry of the Sverdlovsk region were working a six-day work week, of up to 12 hours per day, compensated by increased pay.66 This policy option is advantageous in that it probably required modest changes in the production equipment installed. It also appears that in quite a few cases, output was also increased by bringing into use spare capacities and making more intensive use of production shops. In addition, some civilian enterprises were engaged in supplying components to defence companies: according to Manturov, 850 companies are now participating in this.67 A path not often discussed openly but possibly very important in some branches of the defence industry is the bringing into operation of reserve mobilisation capacities. As this author has discussed in detail in a 2016 publication,68 Russia inherited from the Soviet Union a very elaborate system of mobilisation preparation in the event of war with the creation and maintenance of large reserve capacities at many industrial enterprises, stockpiles of materials and components and state mobilisation reserves of weapons, munitions, production equipment, fuel and other goods considered vital in a war or other national emergency. The system underwent reform in the 1990s and 2000s, to some extent reducing its scale and focusing it on a more limited set of defence-related companies considered essential to the country’s military capability. It has remained shrouded in secrecy. The evidence suggests that the enterprises most likely to retain mobilisation capacities were those producing munitions, missiles, ground forces equipment and certain types of aircraft and air defence systems. During the war there have been occasional explicit references to bringing mobilisation capacities into operation. In December 2022, at a meeting of the Coordination Council, Premier Mikhail Mishustin noted that during the previous two months, the government had adopted a number of normative acts for the introduction of ‘special measures’ in the economy for securing a steady flow of deliveries relating to the special military operation. They had opened up the possibility for the lead executors of the state defence order to use the entire production and technological potential, ‘including the partial or full de-conservation of mobilisation capacities and objects’.69 Another path of increasing the volume of deliveries to the armed forces is probably the release of so-called ‘emergency reserves’ (neprikosnovennykh zapasov). These reserves, part of the general mobilisation system, include many goods considered vital in a war or emergency, including foodstuffs, medicines, fuel and materials, but also materiel and systems of armament for the armed forces. The nature and volume of these reserves, managed by the Federal Agency for State Reserves, has always been a matter of extremely strict secrecy and those relating to the armed forces are rarely discussed openly.70 An exception was in 2022 when an issue of the MoD journal Vooruzhenie i ekonomika published an article on the role of the reserves, making it clear that they include stocks of weapons and other military equipment created in peacetime in order to secure the mobilisation and strategic deployment of the armed forces, especially during the early period of a war.71 It is stressed that older weapons, though often less effective than new ones, can still have military value, so keeping them in reserve, plus having munitions for them, remains important. The authors suggested that the funding of emergency reserves of armament and other material means should be at least one third of the amount of funding devoted to procurement under the state defence order.72 Interestingly, a January 2024 Ukrainian intelligence assessment of Russian missile and artillery ammunition production noted that ‘they are now trying to maintain a certain strategic reserve. As a rule this is about 30%’.73 After initial serious setbacks when the expected rapid success of the invasion of Ukraine failed to materialise, and once the Ukrainian counter-offensive also did not bring decisive results, Russia proved to be resourceful in adapting to a different form of warfare, attritional rather than a war of manoeuvre. Indeed, as has been argued by Alex Vershinin, Russia has probably adapted to a protracted war of attrition more successfully than Ukraine and its NATO allies.74 The Soviet Union produced, in the main, relatively simple, low-cost but rugged equipment in large quantities and maintained substantial stocks in the event of war. The Soviet leadership, civil and military, was well aware that Western countries, especially the US, produced more costly, higher technology conventional weapons. This thinking lived on in post-communist Russia and stocks were retained though on a smaller scale. The production of new weapons for a long time was focused on upgrades of Soviet systems but from about 2010, attempts to develop some new, higher technology systems began to increase and the country’s political, military and industrial leaders clearly took pride in these very expensive new developments as symbols of Russia’s regained status as a great power. At the same time, as discussed above, the basic elements of the Soviet system of mobilisation to prepare for war were also kept intact though reduced in scale. In Vershinin’s words, ‘Wars of attrition are won by economies enabling mass mobilisation of militaries via their industrial sectors. Armies expand rapidly during such a conflict, requiring massive quantities of armoured vehicles, drones, electronic products, and other combat equipment. Because high-end weaponry is very complex to manufacture and consumes vast resources, a high-low mixture of forces and weapons is imperative in order to win’.75 In May 2024, a new Russia government was approved, with significant changes in personnel concerned with defence and arms production. Sergei Shoigu was appointed secretary of the Security Council and Putin’s deputy leader of the Military-Industrial Commission, replaced as defence minister by Andrei Belousov, previously first deputy prime minister and a career economist with no direct experience of the military. He was replaced as first deputy premier by Denis Manturov, previously industry minister overseeing the defence industry; this position is now occupied by Anton Alikhanov, previously governor of the Kaliningrad Oblast. Putin gains two assistants in the Presidential Administration responsible for oversight of the defence industry: Aleksey Dyumin, previously governor of the Tula region, where the major concentration of defence industry companies is; and Nikolai Patrushev, formerly Security Council secretary, who will monitor the shipbuilding industry.76 Dyumin has been appointed to both the Coordination Council and the VPK.77 These changes indicate a determination to maintain the war effort, spend the military budget in a cost-effective manner, and ensure that needed weapons and munitions are produced and delivered to the forces in an effective manner. This is a government for a protracted war of attrition. Conclusion Since the start of the war, Western perceptions of Russia’s capabilities have undergone gradual change. At first there was much talk of military incompetence, an economy likely to falter and perhaps eventually collapse as sanctions mounted, and armed forces rapidly losing equipment and facing a munitions famine. But as Ukraine’s counter-offensive failed to make much progress and Russia’s forces dug in for a long war, attitudes began to change, and this was accompanied by an awareness that Russia’s economy was performing with greater vigour than expected, notwithstanding sanctions, achieving 3.6% growth in 2023.78 By the second half of that year, it also became apparent that weapons and munitions were still being supplied to Russian troops at the front in increasing quantity, a reality confirmed by the analysis of this article. There should be no surprise that Russia has come through the war as it has. After all, as Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes wrote in June 2014 during the first round of Russian combat with Ukraine, Russia is resilient: ‘Much is made of the alleged weakness of today’s Russian economy. This notion that the Russian economy is somehow fragile is the backbone of the sanctions argument. But inefficiency – which definitely does characterize Russia’s economy – is not the same as fragility. The very features of the Russian economy that account for its inefficiency and lack of competitiveness in the global economy are also its strengths in term of robustness to shocks’. Rather than considering the country as ‘a cockroach of an economy’, they conclude, ‘perhaps a more appropriate metaphor is Russia’s own Kalashnikov automatic rifle – low-tech and cheap but almost indestructible’.79 But there is an additional dimension to the Kalashnikov economy that merits serious attention: it is an economy that can be quickly mobilised to increase military production if the country’s leadership decides that is what is required. This is precisely what happened when Putin and the military leadership realised that there would not be a rapid end to the fighting. The defence industry and its main suppliers in other branches of the economy were very quickly switched to a wartime regime, which in Russian conditions was relatively easy, as most of the companies are state-owned and can readily be ordered to increase production, adopt multi-shift regimes of work, and enlarge capacities with budget funding guaranteed. The administrative structures for managing military production were adapted to the new conditions and the implementation of orders was very closely monitored. If inputs were found to be in short supply, reserve stocks were drawn down and imports secured by one means or another. However, contrary to a view often expressed by observers, Russia does not have a ‘war economy’. In the words of Vladimir Inozemtsev, it has an economy ‘adapted to war’ – the state-controlled defence sector operates within the framework of a functioning market economy.80 The government and the military focused efforts on military hardware considered essential to the conduct of the war, with lower priority for equipment required by the forces but not seen as being in urgent demand. The only real exception appears to have been the ongoing modernisation of the country’s strategic nuclear capability. In principle, there would seem to be no reason why this mobilised defence effort cannot be maintained for quite a long period of time. Budget allocations to the military have sharply increased in 2024, a large part of this additional funding probably going to the defence industry and investment in additional capacities identified as essential. While provisional intentions for 2025 and beyond suggest reduced funding for the military, as argued elsewhere, this could easily change in the federal budget for 2025–27, the drafting of which has started in July 2024.81 It is not without irony that advanced Western economies may now find the need to look closely at Russia to understand how to adapt to an age when a style of warfare typified by attrition may become more common than previously expected.   Notes 1 See, for example, Julian Cooper, Russia’s State Armament Programme to 2020: A Quantitative Assessment of Implementation 2011-2015 (Kista: Swedish Defence Research Agency, 2016), , accessed 30 March 2024. 2 Maria Snegovaya et al., ‘Back in Stock? The State of Russia’s Defense Industry After Two Years of the War’, CSIS, April 2024, p. 6. 3 See Rosstat, ‘Indeksy proizvodstva po Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Godovye dannye s 2015 g’ [‘Indexes of Production for the Russian Federation. Annual Data from 2025’], renewed 31 January 2024, , accessed 1 August 2024. 4 Roman Skomorokhov, ‘Ubiitsy idut za Su-57 ili Kto na nas s pyatym?’ [‘Killers are Going After the Su-57 or who is Coming After us With the Fifth?’], Top War, 26 February 2024, , accessed 26 February 2024. 5 BMPD, ‘Modernizirovannyi boevoi vertolyot Ka-52M’ [‘Modernised Combat Helicopter Ka-52M’], 23 July 2023, , accessed 25 July 2023. 6 Nikolai Grishchenko, ‘Nachalos’ seriinoe proizvodstrvo udarnykh vertoletov Mi-28NM’ [‘Serial Production of Mi-28NM Attack Helicopters has Started’], rg.ru, 30 September 2020, , accessed 4 February 2024. 7 BMPD, ‘Modernizirovannyi boevoi vertolyot Ka-52M’ [‘Modernised Combat Helicopter Ka52M’]. 8 Dmitrii Levichev, ‘Skol’ko my vypuskaem boevykh samoletov i vertoletov’ [‘How Many Combat Aircraft and Helicopters do we Produce?’], proza.ru, 30 December 2023, , accessed 10 January 2024. 9 Arms Trade, ‘General armii Valerii Gerasimov provel brifing dlya inostrannykh voennykh attashe’ [‘Army General Valerii Gerasimov Gave a Briefing to Foreign Military Attachés’], 21 December 2023, , accessed 1 August 2024. 10 Nikolay Staykov, ‘Catching Spiders: Russia’s Drone Companies and Sanctions Evasion’, The Insider, 19 February 2024, , accessed 19 February 2024. It can easily be established that the Saito engines are of a type fitted to model aircraft and therefore not subject to sanctions. 11 BMPD, ‘Progress v proizvodstve korable’nykh gazoturbinnykh dvigatelei V Rossii’ [‘Progress in the Production of Ship Gas Turbine Engines in Russia’], 30 November 2020, , accessed 5 April 2024. 12 BMPD, ‘Sdacha malogo raketnogo korablya “Vyshnii volochek” zatyagivaetsya iz-za problem s Kitaiskim dvigatelyami’ [‘Hand Over of Small Missile Ships ‘Vyshnii Volochek’ is Being Delayed Because of Problems With the Chinese Engines’], 7 February 2018, , accessed 10 May 2024. 13 BMPD, ‘Eshche o probleme dizel’nykh dvigatelei dlya malykh raketnykh korablei proekta 22800’ [‘Once Again on the Problems of Diesel Engines for Small Missile Ships of Project 22800’], 22 October 2018, , accessed 10 May 2024. 14 Mil.Press Flotprom, ‘Aleksandr Karpov: Kolomenksii dizeli khorosho pokazali sebya na patrul’nom korable proekta 22160’ [‘Aleksandr Karpov: Kolomensk Diesels Have Shown Themselves Well on Project 22160 Patrol Boats’], 9 July 2019, , accessed 10 May 2024. 15 See Julian Cooper, ‘How Many Operational Tanks Does Russia Have and will the Number Soon Increase?’, unpublished paper, University of Birmingham, May 2023, , accessed 25 May 2024. 16 TASS, ‘Sukhoputnye Voiska VS RF V 2021 godu poluchat svyshe 240 noveishykh tankov’ [‘The Russian Armed Forces’ Ground Forces Will Receive Over 240 New Tanks in 2021’], 11 September 2021, , accessed 20 May 2024. 17 Ivan Potapov, ‘V Pol’she nazvali chislo tankov u Rossii’ [‘In Poland Number of Russian Tanks Given’], 27 September 2021, , accessed 18 May 2024. 18 SCRF, ‘Zamestitel’ predsedatel’ Soveta Bezopasnosti Rossiikoi Federatsii D. A. Medvedev otvetil na voprosy Rossiiskikh zhurnalistov i pol’zovatelei sotsial’noi seti “Vkontakte”’ [‘Deputy Chair of the Rf Security Council D a Medvedev Answered Questions of Russian Journalists and Users of the Social Network Vkontakte’], 25 March 2023, , accessed 20 March 2024; Dary’a Fedotova, ‘Vyyasnilsya sostav tankovoi armady, o kotoroi rasskazal Dmitrii Medevedev’ [‘Has Been Explained the Composition of the Tank Armada Which Medvedev Spoke of’], MK.ru, 23 March 2023, , accessed 10 March 2024. 19 Komsomol’skaya Pravda, ‘Putin zayavil namereniyakh Rossii proizvesti bolee 1,6 tysachi tankov za god’ [‘Putin Declared the Intention of Russia to Produce More Than 1,600 Tanks a Year’], 25 March 2024, , accessed 1 August 2024. 20 Roman Skomorokhov, ‘Kto dast’ Rossiiskoi armii bronyu’ [‘Who Gives Russia’s Army Armour’] Top War, 1 April 2023, , accessed 1 April 2023. 21 Georgii Aleksandrov, ‘Dulo dryan’ [‘The Barrel is Rubbish’], Novaya Gazeta, 31 October 2022, , accessed 1 November 2022. 22 Top War, ‘“Omsktransmash” polnost’yu vypolnil goskontrakt po postavke OBT T-80BVM’ [‘Omsktransmash Has Fully Met Stat Contract for Delivery of T-80BVM Main Battle Tank’], 12 December 2019, , accessed 19 December 2019. 23 Interfax.ru, ‘“Omsktransmash” po kontrakt s Minoborony RF modernizruet bolee T-80BV’ [‘Omsktransmash is Upgrading over 50 T-80BV Tanks under a Contract with the Russian Defence Ministry’], 26 August 2020, , accessed 10 March 2024. 24 Evgenii Kuprienko, ‘V Omske vozobnovyat proizvodstva tanka T-80’ [‘T-80 Tank Production to Resume in Omsk’], Superomsk, 11 September 2023, , accessed 10 March 2024. 25 Defence analysts Yohann Michel and Michael Gjerstad conclude that at current attrition rates, Russia will be able to sustain its assault on Ukraine for another two to three years or maybe even longer. See Yohann Michel and Michael Gjerstad, ‘Equipment Losses in Russia’s War on Ukraine Mount’, IISS, 12 February 2024, , accessed 12 February 2024. 26 Gazeta.ru, ‘V Rossiiskuyu armiyu do kontsa 2021 goda postupyat 20 tankov T-14 “Armata”’ [‘By End of the Year Russian Army Will Get 20 T-14 Armata Tanks’], 10 August 2021, , accessed 12 March 2024. 27 See, for example Top War, ‘Istochnik podtverdil primenenie tanka T-14 “Armata” v zone SVO podrazdelenyami “Yuzhnoi” gruppirovki voisk’ [‘A Source has Confirmed the Use of a T-14 Armata Tank in the Zone of the Special Military Operation by Subdivisions of the “Southern” Grouping of Troops’], 19 July 2023, , accessed 19 July 2023. 28 Ivan Potapov, ‘Chemezov ob”yasnil otsutstvie T-14 “Armata” v zone SVO’ [‘Chemezov Explained the Absence of T-14 “Armata” in the SVO Zone’], Lenta.ru, 4 March 2024, , accessed 4 March 2024. 29 See, for example, ‘“Tanki dorozhe zhiznei?”. Glava “Rostekha” priznal, chto tank “Armata” iz-za dorogovizny okazalas’ “belymn slonom” i ne budet uchastvovat’ v voine. Eto vyzvalo nasmeshki i kritiku v Z-soobshchestve’ [‘Tanks More Valuable Than Lives. Head of Rostekh has Acknowledged That the Armata Tank Because of its Cost has Turned out to be a ‘White Elephant’ and Will not Participate in the War’], Republic, 5 March 2024. 30 Anton Valagin, ‘Kurganmashzavod ustanovil rekord po postavkam BMP-2M i BMP-3’ [‘Kurganmashzavod Sets Record for Deliveries of BMP-2M and BMP-3’], RG.ru, 11 July 2023, , accessed 12 March 2024; Ria.ru, ‘“Kurganmashzavod” narastit vypusk boevykh mashin pekhoty eschche na 30 Protsentov’ [‘Kurganmashzavod to Increase Production of Infantry Fighting Vehicles by Another 30%’], 11 July 2023, , accessed 15 March 2024. 31 Kirill Ryabov, ‘Rezul’taty proizvodstva BTR-82A(M)’ [‘Results of the Production of BTR-82A(M)’], Top War, 2 March 2021, , accessed 10 March 2024. 32 Alexander Karpov and Alena Medvedeva, ‘“Effektivnaya ognevaya podderzhka”: Kak modernizirovannye bronetransportyory BTR-82A usilyat sukhoputnye voiska Rossii’ [‘“Efficient Fire Support”: How Modernised BTR-82A Armoured Personnel Carriers Will Strengthen the Russian Ground Forces’], RT in Russian, 28 February 2021, , accessed 11 March 2024. 33 Ria.ru, ‘Voennyi predstavitel’ anonsiroval gosispytaniya bronemashiny “Bumerang”’ [‘Military Representative Announced the State Testing of the Armoured Vehicle Bumerang’], 25 November 2021, , accessed 27 February 2024. The Reporter, ‘V zonu SVO napravlyaetsya noveishie bronetransportery “Bumerang”’ [‘The Newest Boomerang Armoured Personnel Carriers are Heading to the SVO Zone’], 1 March 2023, , accessed 27 February 2024. 34 MoD RF, p. 122, ; Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade, ‘V Rossiiskie voiska za god postavleno svyshe 1,7 milliona edinits tekhniki’ [‘Over 1.7 Million Units of Equipment Were Delivered to the Russian Troops in One Year’], 27 December 2023, , accessed 25 February 2024. 35 Gleb Aleksushin, ‘Rossiiskie zavody stroyashchie artilleriyu - chem my raspolagaem’ [‘Russian Factories Building Artillery - What so We Possess’], Mify i tainy istorii [Myths and Mysteries of History], 3 December 2022, , accessed 25 February 2024. 36 Rostekh, ‘Rostekh zavershili kontsentratsii artilleriyskikh zavodov po sistema-pushki-vystrel’ [‘Rostec has Completed the Concentration of Artillery Factories According to the Gun-shot System’], 28 June 2023, , accessed 1 August 2024; UVZ, ‘V Rossii zavershili ispytaniya samokhodnogo artilleriiskogo orudiya “Mal’va”’ [‘In Russia the Testing of the Self-propelled Artillery Gun Malva has Been Completed’], 18 May 2023, , accessed 1 August 2024. 37 Sergei Val’chenko, ‘Ekspert nazval glavnye problemy Rossiiskii boepripasnoi otrasli’ [‘Expert has Named the Main Problems of Russia’s Munitions Branch’], 29 May 2022, , accessed 1 August 2024. 38 Rostekh, ‘Key Companies’, , accessed 21 October 2021. Note: site is no longer accessible. 39 Artem Feoktistov, ‘Manturov: Porokhovaya i boepripasnaya otrasli nuzhdayutsya v kratnom roste ob”emov proizvodstva’ [‘Manturov: Gunpowder and Ammunition Industries Need Multiple Growth in Production Volumes’], Gazeta.ru, 3 January 2023, , accessed 4 January 2023. 40 See Rob Lee, ‘Viktor Murakhovsky, Rybar and Ilya Kramnik posted about Russia’s artillery ammo issues. They suggest Russia produces/refurbishes 300k rounds per year (and had 2.6 million tons in storage in 2013) but was often firing 100k over the span of a couple of days.’, X post, 5 January 2023, , accessed 10 January 2023. 41 President of the Russian Federation, ‘Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 30.12.2022 No.987’ [‘Edict of the Russian President of 30 December 2022 No.987’], 30 December 2022, , accessed 5 March 2023; Government of the Russian Federation, ‘Rasporyazhenie Pravitel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 31.12.2022 No. 4390-r’ [‘Order of Russian Government of 31 December 2022’, 31 December 2022, , accessed 5 March 2023. 42 Ria.ru, ‘Rossiya v 20 raz narastila vypusk boepripasov dlya reaktivnoi artillerii’ [‘Russia has Increased Production of Rocket Artillery Ammunition by 20 Times’], 17 May 2023, , accessed 10 February 2024. 43 Yulian Rozhkova, ‘Iz-za uvelicheniya gosoboronzakaza Permskii porokhovoi zavod planiruet nanyat’ 350 sotrudnikov’ [‘Due to the Increase in State Defence Orders, the Perm Gunpowder Plant Plans to Hire 350 Employees’], 59.ru, 3 September 2022, , accessed 5 March 2023; Olga Yakuncheva and Marina Kuznetsova, ‘Oboronnye predpriyatiya Prikam’ya chastixhno perershli na kruglosutochnuyu rabotu’ [‘Defense Enterprises of the Kama Region Have Partially Switched to Round-The-Clock Work’], 59.ru, 19 September 2022, , accessed 5 March 2023. 44 Rostekh, ‘Rostekh otrkyl na Verkhneturinskom zavode novyi tsekh po proizvodstvodstvu korpusov snaryadov’ [‘Rostec Opened a New Workshop for the Production of Shell Bodies at the Verkhneturinskii Plant’], 1 July 2021, , accessed 5 March 2024. 45 Rostekh, ‘Rostekh zapustit novyi avtomatizirovannyi tsekh po proizvodstvu boepripasov’ [‘Rostec to Launch New Automated Ammunition Production Facility’], 22 September 2021, , accessed 5 March 2024. 46 Interfax.ru, ‘Novyi tsekh po proizvodstvu snaryadov dlya RSZO otkrylsya na Tul’skom “Splav” - vlasti regiona’ [‘New Workshop for Production of MLRS Shells Opened at Tula’s Splav - Regional Authorities’], 24 July 2020, , accessed 5 March 2024. 47 Aleksandr Tikhonov, ‘Ministr Oborony RF… proveril khod vypolneniya gosoboronzakaza predpriyatiyam OPK v Tul’skoi Oblasti’ [‘Minister of Defence of RF Expert has Checked the Fulfilment of State Defence Order at Enterprises in Tula Oblast’], Krasnaya Zvezda [Red Star], 2 March 2024, pp. 1–2. 48 Krivoruchko, ‘S uchyotam vozrosshikh potrebnosti armii’ [‘With Account of Growing Needs of the Army’], Krasnaya Zvezda [Red Star], 29 January 2024, pp. 1–3. 49 MoD, ‘Ministr Oborony RF proveril vypolnenie gosoboronzakaza predpriyatiem OPK v Omskoi oblasti’ [‘Minister of Defence RF has Checked the Fulfilment of State Defence Order at Enterprises in Omsk Oblast’], 19 April 2024, , accessed 19 April 2024. 50 Aleksandr Tikhonov, ‘Reshitel’no deistvuem na vsekh napravleniyakh’ [‘Decisive Action in All Directions’], Krasnaya Zvezda [Red Star], 28 February 2024, pp. 1-2. 51 Kirill Ryabov, ‘Tyazhelaya ognemetnaya sistema TOZ-3 “Drakon” nakanune ispytanii’ [‘Heavy Thermobaric System TOZ-3 “Drakon” on the Eve of Testing’], Top War, 11 April 2024, , accessed 11 April 2024. 52 Varvara Kosechkina, ‘Rossiiskii zavod nachal v tri smeny vypuskat’ trekhtonnye superbomby.na chto oni sposobny?’ [‘Russian Plant Starts Producing Three-Ton Super Bombs in Three Shifts. What are They Capable of?’], 21 March 2024, , accessed 21 March 2024. 53 Sergei Ptichkin, ‘Boepripasy dlya oruzhiya “sudnogo dnya” poshli v seriyu’ [‘Ammunition for Doomsday Weapon Enters Production’], RG.ru, 28 March 2024, , accessed 30 March 2024. Note: the article does not identify the factory but from the photograph of Shoigu inspecting the munitions, it is clear that it was taken when he visited Dzerzhinsk works in March 2024. 54 Dzerzhinsk Vremya [Dzerzhinsk Time], ‘Sergei Shoigu proveril vypolnenie gosoboronzakaza v Dzerzhinske’ [‘Sergei Shoigu Checked the Fulfilment of the State Defence Order in Dzerzhinsk’], 22 March 2023, , accessed 12 March 2024. Note: Zavod imeni Sverdlova (then Zavod No. 80) was a leading munitions producer during the 1941–45 war, producing half of all explosives, 147 million artillery shells and 5.6 million aviation bombs. See Alexandra Vikulova et al., ‘Dzerzhinksii zavod No. 80 imeni Ya. M. Sverdlova’ [‘Dzerzhinskii Zavod No. 80 Named After Ya M Sverdlov’], , accessed 22 March 2024. 55 ‘Importozameshchenie v deistvii’ [‘Import Substitution in Action’], RITM Mashinostroeniya [Rhythm of Machine Building] (No. 7, 2023), p. 34, , accessed 1 August 2024. The evidence suggests that most of the imports from sanctioning countries were in the first half of 2022, probably ordered before sanctions were imposed. The development of the machine tool industry is discussed in detail in Julian Cooper, ‘The Machine Tool Industry of Russia at a Time of War and Sanctions’, Post-Communist Economies (Vol. 36, No. 5, 2024). 56 President of Russia, ‘Vstrecha s rukovoditelyami predpriyatii OPK’ [‘Meeting With CEOs of Defence Industry Companies’], 20 September 2022, , accessed 20 February 2024; President of Russia, ‘Soveshchanie s rukovoditelyami organizatsii OPK’ [‘Meeting With CEOs of Defence Industry Organisations’], 23 December 2022, , accessed 20 February 2024; President of Russia, ‘Vstrecha s rukovoditelyami predpriyatii OPK’ [‘Meeting With CEOs of Defence Industry Companies’], 25 May 2024, , accessed 25 May 2024. 57 President of Russia, ‘Perechen’ poruchenii po voprosam obespecheniya potrebnostei, voznikayushchikh v khode provedeniya spetsial’noi voennnoi operatsii’ [‘Instructions on Meeting the Needs of the Special Military Operations’], 19 October 2022, , accessed 15 March 2024. 58 For the reports of meetings, see Russian Government, ‘Coordinating Council under the Government of the Russian Federation for Ensuring the Needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Other Troops, Military Formations and Bodies – Documents and Events’, , accessed 18 March 2024. 59 For meetings from October 2022 to March 2024, see Security Council of the Russian Federation, ‘News and Information’, , accessed 18 March 2024. 60 Iz.ru, ‘Shoigu raskritikoval rukovodsto “Uraltranmash” za sroki vypuska tekhniki’ [‘Shoigu Criticised the Management of Uraltransmash for the Timing of its Equipment Output’], 31 January 2024, , accessed 1 August 2024. 61 KTRV, ‘Sergei Shoigu s rabochim vizitom posetil golovnoe predpriyatie KTRV’ [‘Sergei Shoigu Made a Working Visit to the Head Enterprise of KTRV’], 12 January 2024, , accessed 1 August 2024. 62 Russian Ministry of Defence, ‘Ministerstvo Oborony RF Sergei Shoigu proveril vypolnenie gosoboronzakaza na predpriyatyakh oboronno-promyshlennogo kompleksa v Altaiskom krae’ [‘Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu Checked the Fulfilment of the State Defence Order at Enterprises of the Defence Industry in Altai Krai’], 30 March 2024, , accessed 30 March 2024. 63 Ibid.; ‘Posle vizit Shoigu v biisk stala ponyatna prichina smeny rukovodstva na oleumnom zavode’ [‘After Visit of Shoigu to Biisk it Became Clear Why the Leadership of the Oleum Factory was Changed’], 30 March 2024, , accessed 1 August 2024. Sibpribormash has an interesting past; it was based on two munitions enterprises built very rapidly in 1970 as a response to the border conflict with China. See Arsenal Otechestva, ‘“Sibpribormash” - polveka v stroyu’ [‘Sibpribormash – Half a Century in Service’], 5 May 2021, , accessed 25 February 2024. 64 For visits reported on the MoD website, see . 65 See, for an overview of these developments, Anastasia Korochkina, ‘Putin Tretii Raz S Nachala “Spetsoperatsii” Smenil Zamministra Oborony Po Matobespecheniyu’ [‘Putin has Replaced the Deputy Defense Minister for Material Support for the Third Time Since the Start of the “Special Operation”’], Forbes Russia, 11 March 2024, , accessed 12 March 2024. 66 TASS, ‘Vypolnyayushchie gosoboronzakaz zavody Urala pereveli na shestidnevku rabochuyu nedelyu’ [‘Those Fulfilling State Defence Orders at Factories of the Urals Have Switched to a Six-day Working Week’], , accessed 20 January 2024. 67 Military News, ‘K proizvodstvu voennoi tekhniki v RF seichas privlecheny 850 grazhdanskikh predpriyatii - Manturov’ [‘850 Civilian Enterprises are Currently Involved in the Production of Military Equipment in the Russian Federation - Manturov’], 13 May 2024, , accessed 13 May 2024. 68 See Julian Cooper, ‘If War Comes Tomorrow: How Russia Prepares for Possible Armed Aggression’, Whitehall Report, 4-16 (August 2016). 69 Russian Government, ‘Zasedanie Koordinatsionnogo soveta po obespecheniyu potrebnostei Vooruzhennykh Sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii, drugikh voisk, voinskikh formirovanii i organov’ [‘Session of the Coordination Council for Securing the Needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Other Troops and Military Formations’], 27 December 2022, , accessed 29 December 2022. 70 See Cooper, ‘If War Comes Tomorrow’, pp. 27–32. 71 A A Zaitsev, V I Molokanov, M V Fateev, ‘Rol’ I mesto neprikosnovennykh zapasov material’nykh sredstv v sisteme Vooruzheniya Vooruzhennylh Sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii’ [‘The Role and Place of Emergency Reserves of Material Means in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation], Vooruzhenie i ekonomika [Armament and Economics] (Vol. 61, No. 3, 2022), pp. 133–34. 72 Ibid., pp. 139–40. 73 Uliana Bezpalko and Daria Dmytriieva, ‘Russians Motivated to Fight for Money, 1,000-1,100 People Join Army Every Day - Defense Intelligence Representative’, 15 January 2024, , accessed 20 January 2024. 74 Alex Vershinin, ‘The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine’, RUSI Commentary, 18 March 2024. 75 Ibid. 76 President of Russia, ‘Prezident odpisal ukazy o naznachenii chlenov pravitel’stva Rossiiskogo Federatsii i direktorov sluzhb’ [‘The President Signed Decrees on the Appointment of Members of the Government of the Russian Federation and Directors of Services’], 14 May 2024, , accessed 14 May 2024; Anastasiya Maier and Aleksei Nikol’skii, ‘S takim vyzovami stolknetsya novyi ministrov oborony Belousov’ [‘What Challenges Will Face New Minister of Defence Belousov’], Vedomosti, 14 May 2024, , accessed 14 May 2024; Viktoria Polyakova and Yulia Ovchinnikova, ‘Patrushev v administratsii prezidenta naznachili kuratorom korablestroeniya’ [‘Patrushev Appointed as Shipbuilding Supervisor in Presidential Administration’], RBC, 14 May 2024, , accessed 14 May 2014; Victoria Polyakova and Julia Ovchinnikova, ‘Kreml’ ob”yasnil novye naznacheniya Oreshkina i Dyumina’ [‘The Kremlin Explained the New Appointments of Oreshkin and Dyumin’], RBC, 14 May 2024, , accessed 14 May 2024. 77 President of the Russian Federation, ‘Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 11 yun’ 2024 no.480’ [‘Edict of the President of the Russian Federation of 11 June 2024 No. 480’], 11 June 2024, , accessed 11 June 2024; President of the Russian Federation, ‘Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 11 yun’ 2024 no.477’ [‘Edict of the President of the Russian Federation of 11 June 2024 No.477’], 11 June 2024, , accessed 11 June 2024. 78 Rosstat, , accessed 20 April 2023. 79 Clifford G Gaddy and Barry W Ickes, ‘Can Sanctions Stop Putin?’, Brookings, 3 June 2014, , accessed 10 February 2024. In relation to the current war, Richard Connolly has also argued that Russia has a ‘Kalashnikov economy’, ‘quite unsophisticated but durable, built for large-scale use and for use in conflicts’. See Andrew Roth, ‘“A Lot Higher Than We Expected”: Russian Arms Production Worries Europe’s War Planners’, The Guardian, 15 February 2024. 80 Vladislav Inozemtsev, ‘Kak rossiiskaya ekonomika prisposobilas’ k voine’ [‘How the Russian Economy Adapted to War’], Important Stories, 14 May 2024, , accessed 14 May 2014. In the present author’s view, the US Treasury’s claim in July 2024 that Russia is completing ‘transition to a full wartime economy’ is an overstatement. See US Department of the Treasury, ‘As Russia Completes Transition to a Full War Economy, Treasury Takes Sweeping Aim at Foundational Financial Infrastructure and Access to Third Country Support’, press release, 12 July 2024, , accessed 15 July 2024. 81 See Julian Cooper, ‘Another Budget for a Country at War: Military Expenditure in Russia’s Federal Budget for 2024 and Beyond’, SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security (No. 2023/11, December 2023), p. 22, , accessed 20 June 2024. Appendix Table 1: Ministry of Defence Annual Reports of Intentions and Implementation, 2019–24 (units)   P: planned procurement A: actual procurement 1. Planned and actual procurement data for 2019 includes new aircraft only; from 2020, explicit from 2021, implementation includes both new and modernised aircraft. 2. Data from 2019–21 includes tanks and armoured vehicles, but for 2022, planned procurement adds ‘artillery arms’. It is not known whether this also applies for 2023. 3. For 2020, the source gives three divisions of Yars plus one Avangard, but the number of missiles in a division can vary. The MilitaryRussia.ru blog gives 11 divisions (9 Yars and 2 Avangard). For 2021, the source gives two divisions of Yars plus one Avangard, while MilitaryRussia.ru gives 11 divisions (9 Yars and 2 Avangard). See MilitaryRussia.ru, ‘RS-24 Yars / Topol-MR - SS-X-29 / SS-29 / SS-27 mod.2 SICKLE-B’, last updated 10 June 2024, , accessed 20 June 2024. No up-to-date entry on Avangard is available. Sources: Russian MoD, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Vooruzhennykh Sil RF v 2018 godu’ [‘Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2018’], and equivalent reports for each year 2019 to 2023, official reports based on the presentations of the MoD and other senior officials to the December enlarged board meetings of the MoD of each year, 5 June 2024. Table 2: Production of Combat Aircraft and Trainers, 2019–23 (units)    Sources: For data from 2019 to 2022, see BMPD, ‘Postavki boevykh samoletov v Vooruzhennykh Sily Rossii v 2022 godu’ [‘Delivery of Combat Aircraft to Armed Forces of Russia in 2022’], 11 January 2023, , accessed 3 March 2024. For 2023 data, Su-57: TASS, ‘Istochnik: peredavaemye VKS v 2024 godu seriinye Su-57 poluchat dvigatelei vtorogo etapa’ [‘According to a Source: Serial Su-57 Delivered to the Air Force in 2024 Will Have Engines of the Second Stage’], 28 December 2023, , accessed 3 March 2024; Su-35S: BMPD, ‘Novaya partiya istrebitelei Su-35S postavlena VKS Rossii’ [‘A New Batch of Su-35s Fighters has Been Delivered to the Russian Air Force’], 9 May 2024, , accessed 3 March 2024; Su-34M: on the assumption that eight aircraft are needed to complete a contract, see BMPD, ‘VKS Rossii poluchili tret’yu v 2023 godu partiyu frontovykh bombarsirovshchikov Su-34M’ [‘Russian Air Force has Received the Third Batch in 2023 of Su-34m Frontal Bombers’], 22 November 2023, , accessed 4 March 2024; Su-30MS2 and Yak-130: the author believes four Su-30MS2 were delivered but as there was another delivery in December, the estimated total is six. In 2023, there were two deliveries of Yak-130, with each batch usually consisting of two trainers. See BMPD, ‘VKS Rossii postavleny novye istrebiteli Su-30SM2 i uhceboboevye samolyoty Yak-130’ [‘Russian Air Force Supplied with New Su-30sm2 Fighters and Yak-130 Trainer-Combat Aircraft’], 2 December 2023, , accessed 4 March 2024. Table 3: Production of Equipment for the Ground Forces, 2019–24 (units)     * New, modernised and repaired. ** Author’s estimate. 1. Artillery systems, self-propelled howitzers, MLRS, means of artillery reconnaissance and counter-battery struggle. These appear to include new, modernised and repaired arms. 2. All types, including means of remote mining and robot demining systems. 3. Small arms, grenade launchers, portable anti-tank and air defence systems. 4. Also know in Russian as sredstva porazheniya (means of destruction). 5. Includes Tsirkon, Kalibr and Uran cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles. 6. Grad and Uragan MLRS. Sources: Tanks and armoured vehicles: For 2019 data, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2019 godu’ [‘Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2019’], ; for 2020 data, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2020 godu’ [‘Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2020’], . Tanks: for 2021 data, Vasilii Kuchushev, ‘Arsenal-2021. Chem v etom godu popolnilas’ Rossiiskaya armiya’ [‘Arsenal 2021. What the Russian Army has Received This Year’], 22 December 2021, , accessed 2 March 2024; in 2023, Shoigu stated 1,530 tanks were produced, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2023 godu’ [‘Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2023’], ; for the period from February 2022–end 2023, Shoigu said that production increased 5.6 times, with a 3.6 times increase for BMP, and a 3.5 times increase for BTR, . Armoured vehicles: for 2021, there were a total of 900 tanks and armoured vehicles, this value was calculated after subtracting 240 tanks, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2021 godu’ [‘Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2021’], ; for 2023, Shoigu stated that there were 2,518 BMP and BTR, . Vehicles (mainly military trucks): for 2021, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2021 godu’ [Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2021’], ; for 2023, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2023 godu’ [Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2023’], . Missile and artillery: for 2023, Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade, ‘V Rossiiskie voiska za god postavleno svyshe 1,7 milliona edinits tekhniki’ [‘Over 1.7 Million Units of Equipment Were Delivered to the Russian Troops in One Year’], 27 December 2023, , accessed 2 January 2024. Engineering equipment: Aleksei Krivoruchko, ‘S uchyotam vozrosshikh potrebnosti armii’ [‘With Account of the Growing Needs of the Army’], Krasnaya Zvezda [Red Star], 29 January 2024, pp. 1–3. Portable weapons: Ibid., pp. 1–3. Electronic warfare systems: Ibid., pp. 1–3. Kh-101 cruise missiles: Jack W Watling and Gary Somerville, ‘A Methodology for Degrading the Arms of the Russian Federation’, RUSI Occasional Papers, June 2024, p. 8 (Reports on Russian missile production seen by the authors in February 2024). All munitions, missiles and aviation munitions, missiles: Ibid., pp. 1–3. Munitions: for data on artillery shells for 2023 and 2024, and MLRS rockets, Watling and Somerville, ‘A Methodology for Degrading the Arms of the Russian Federation’, p. 7 (Russian MoD reports on munitions production seen by the authors in February 2024). New and restored large-calibre munitions: Dmitrii Levichev, ‘Skol’ko snaryadov my proizvodim dlya nashei armii’ [‘How Many Shells do we Produce for Our Army?’], Pozaru.ru, 18 March 2023, , accessed 5 March 2024. For the period of February 2022–end 2023, there was a 17.5 times increase in production of artillery munitions, MoD RF, ‘Itogi deyatel’nosti Voruzhennykh Sil RF v 2023 godu’ [‘Results of Activity of Armed Forces of RF in 2023’], . Table 4: Output of Selected Civilian Goods in Unit Terms, 2019–23 (units)     Sources: For data from 2019–22 except civilian ships, see Rosstat, ‘Proizvodstvo osnovnykh vidov produktsii v natural’nom vyrazhenii (godovoi dannye) so 2017 god - v sootvestvii OKPD2’ [‘Production of Main Types of Products in Physical Terms (Annual Data Since 2017 – in Accordance With OKPD2)]’, 11 October 2023, , accessed 1 March 2024; for data on rail freight wagons, 2020, see ‘Proizvodstva gruzovykh vagonov’ [‘Production of Rail Freight Wagons 2020–23’], , accessed 10 February 2024.ournal

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Picture: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/ China now has strategic partnerships with 53 of the 54 African countries; investments range from industry to agriculture After holding bilateral meetings with 25 African heads of state in less than a week, China's President Xi Jinping announced on Thursday (5) the project to implement ten partnership actions with the continent that will be financed by the Chinese government to the value of 360 billion yuan (US$ 51,4 billion). According to the Chinese president, the projects should affect various areas of infrastructure and the transfers should be carried out by 2027. He has been meeting with presidents of African countries in Beijing since Monday (2), before and during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC, in English), which began on Wednesday (4) and runs until Friday (6). In the current edition, China has decided to sign strategic partnerships with all the African countries with which it has diplomatic relations – or 53 of 54. Raising the level of partnerships is a growing practice in Chinese foreign policy to strengthen ties with countries, mainly in the so-called Global South. The total investment will be divided into a credit line of 210 billion yuan (around US$ 29,8 billion), 80 billion yuan (US$ 11,3 billion) in assistance, and 70 billion yuan (US$ 9,9 billion) of investment by Chinese companies in Africa. Regarding health cooperation, it was planned for the joint creation of an alliance of hospitals and medical centers. China has promised to send 2,000 health workers to the continent and launch 20 programs for health facilities and malaria treatment. According to the WHO, in 2022 Africa had 94% of the world's malaria cases (233 million) and 95% of the deaths caused by the disease (580,000). In agriculture and food, China will provide African countries with 1 billion yuan (around US$ 142,1 million) for emergency food assistance, the construction of standardized agricultural “demonstration areas” of more than 6,600 hectares, the sending of 500 agricultural experts and the creation of a “China-Africa agricultural scientific and technological innovation alliance.” In this sector, the Chinese president said that “two-way investments will be encouraged for new businesses of Chinese and African companies”, to help them gain added value and create at least 1 million local jobs. Common security is the tenth area of cooperation announced. Xi said China will offer 1 billion yuan to train 6,000 military personnel and 1,000 police officers, “and invite 500 young [African] military officers to visit China”. It also announced the creation of a digital technology cooperation center to start 20 digital projects and 30 infrastructure connectivity projects in Africa. This week, the presidents and heads of state of Libya, Mali, Comoros, Togo, Djibouti, the Seychelles, Chad, Malawi and Mauritania signed an agreement to upgrade diplomatic relations with China to the level of strategic partnership. Other countries, such as Nigeria and Cameroon, have adopted what is known as comprehensive strategic partnerships. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a “new era comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” with the Asian giant, which is now the highest relationship with China among African countries. In addition, two documents were signed, the “Beijing Declaration on Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future for the New Era” and the “Beijing Action Plan (2025-2027)” of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. The long name of this Beijing Declaration is part of the country’s diplomatic terminology and is the highest used for a partnership with an entire region. Right to modernization On Thursday (5), Wang Yi, China's foreign minister held a press conference with his counterpart from Senegal, Yassine Fall, and from the Republic of Congo, Jean-Claude Gakosso, to comment on the partnership, results and prospects. Wang Yi emphasized the need to build multilateralism with Africa. “We must always listen to Africa's voice [...] without being condescending.” The Beijing document argues that Africans “are qualified to serve as heads of international organizations and institutions.” African countries, in return, highlighted in the document their appreciation that China was the first country to support the African Union's entry into the G20. China welcomes the fact that more African countries are joining the BRICS, since in addition to South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia joined the group last year. At the press conference, Wang Yi also called for China and Africa to face together challenges such as “small gardens and high fences”, about the U.S. strategy of protectionism against China. Referring to cooperation with the continent, Wang Yi said the country does not want to “play geographical games, or confront blocs”. “We want to reach a consensus in the international community [...] everyone has the right to modernization.” For his part, Yassine Fall emphasized China's commitment to increasing the supply of exports from African countries to China, the elimination of customs barriers for the least developed countries – which include 33 African countries – and financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises. Translated from Portuguese to English by: Ana Paula Rocha

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Let's imagine for a moment that any given day, in the evening hours, an upset (even unbalanced) person were to stop his car in front of the least protected and safest U.S. Embassy in the world, the one on Havana's Malecon, and open fire on the venue until his automatic rifle ran out of bullets. Let's continue imagining that the Cuban authorities, parsimonious and self-important, caught the offender and four years passed without a word on what had happened. Then one fine day, the Granma newspaper announces that the terrorist had been acquitted for alleged insanity at the time of the act and that it had taken them four long years to figure it out. Could anyone foresee what the reaction of the United States would be? Obviously, this story is fictional; it does not coincide with reality. What is contradictory - and even laughable- is that the United States lists Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism”, for a second time, as of January 2020. At this very minute that is the first and highest barrier that prevents our countries from considering a return to the path of a respectful relationship. Organizations and politicians linked to the most conservative sector in the United States have played an important role in the most persevering approaches to Cuba and have promoted for years a new relationship between the two countries, which contrasts with the usual aggressiveness and intransigent public stance of the Republican Party since 1959. The closest thing to lifting a ban on the sale of food and medicines to Cuba occurred back in the year 2000, implemented by the Republican George W. Bush, when at the same time, his administration was bringing back the Plattist ideology of intervention, at which time they even chose a pro-consul who would supervise “the Cuban transition”, once the revolutionary government had collapsed: Caleb McCarry A few years later we would get to see McCarry himself, a member of the staff of then US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Corker, promote dialogue with the Cuban government during a visit to the supposed main enemies of the United States in the region, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, meet with the Cuban foreign minister and president, and thus join those from the conservative sector who are betting on a more constructive relationship with Cuba. In a speech in 2011, the Cuban American senator for Florida, Marco Rubio emotionally pointed out Carlos Gutiérrez, at that time Secretary of Commerce of the United States, also of the Bush administration, as one of the references to which the so-called Cuban exile should look to in order to corroborate his undeniable success. A few months after the opening launched by Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro in December 2014, it would be Carlos Gutiérrez himself who would walk freely along the halls of Cuba's emblematic Hotel Nacional and join the conservatives who are betting on a transformation of ties with the island. In what he himself describes as a radical change of posture, this new attitude of Gutiérrez would take him to Cuba on numerous occasions until he headed the US-Cuba Business Council, an organization that, as part of the US Chamber of Commerce, promotes economic relations between the two countries. “I have lost many of my friends in Miami”, he would declare years later to the alternative media Belly of the Beast. Equally noteworthy was the activism of Sonny Perdue, Governor of Georgia (2003-2011), who in June 2010 would lead a delegation of 43 businessmen to Cuba, and who six years later would become Secretary of Agriculture in the Trump administration. “We would love to have Cuba as a customer” Perdue would declare at his confirmation, ratifying his support for allowing U.S. exports to Cuba. The absence of “merits” for the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, cynically coordinated with the then right-wing government in Colombia and energetically rejected by the current one, confirms its political and sanctioning content as the measure serves as an effective component of the package of sanctions that the United States calls “policy of maximum pressure towards Cuba”. The damage that such a designation does to the credibility and national interest of the United States and to the population of the island, which it claims to support, is profound and sustained. Its effects start in Washington but do not stop there; they are evident in the refusal of different entities to enter into economic and financial relations of any kind with Cuba, some of them even located in the territories of Havana's allies. The treacherous nickname of “terrorist”, as an integral part of the intensified sanctions policy, is partly responsible for the current wave of migration that is being carried out by a share of despairing Cubans. Together with the other nationalities present there, this complicates the operation of the southern border of the United States, an issue that has become a matter of life and death for the Republican leadership and, according to recent surveys, the main interest of the American electorate for the presidential elections of 2024. One of the Republican champions against disorderly migration has been the current governor of Texas Gregg Abbott, who with his policies has even challenged the founding principles of the U.S. federal union and has generated problems with neighboring Mexico. However, Abbott was another of those who showed up in Havana in 2016 to demonstrate his interest in a better relationship. Devoid of all political preconceptions, Abbott spoke in Havana of the inevitability of the end of the “embargo”, of the importance that a change of policy would have for Texas in general and for the southern port of Houston in particular. He did not mention migration because the Cuban migration was not a problem for Texas then. Other conservative politicians would stroll through Havana exhibiting a discourse of coexistence: Richard Lugar, Jeff Flake, Tom Emmer, John Boehner, and even the economic advisors of the Trump Organization, which, by the way, seems to keep alive one of its commercial firms in the Cuban property registry. The visits of the U.S. agribusiness lobby have also been constant over the years headed by numerous executives and businessmen of absolutely republican affinity. Right now it could be said that even defenders of the MAGA tendency are to be found among the latter, all interested in an improvement of the economic ties with Cuba. Few media outlets have objectively reported the impact of Cuba's inclusion on the criticized list and the human toll taken by the policy of maximum pressure on the Cuban population. One of them has been the popular conservative show “Full Measure” hosted by U.S. anchor Sharyll Atkisson. At a time when the United States is competing aggressively with other leading global powers, the anti-Cuban stance substantially affects the national interest of the United States, taking into account that the more belligerent the United States is, the greater the Cuban need to open itself financially and economically to other partners, not always to Washington's liking. The evidence of the damage caused to the Cuban economy by the disastrous combination of Trump's measures with the Covid-19 pandemic, has made President Joe Biden prefer, at least in his first four years in office, to maintain the Republican agenda of maximum pressure towards Cuba and wait to see if, by an act of providence, he could be the first American president of the modern era to set foot in Havana, without the presence of a revolutionary government in place. The expert on Cuban issues William LeoGrande does not give him much hope. In a recent article he describes the Cuban economy as famished, but the Cuban government as solid and far from an unexpected breakup or collapse, which contradicts the optimistic speech of Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Brian Nichols, in Madrid. LeoGrande clarifies that Cuba was not a failed state when Biden assured it was in 2021 and neither is it now, that despite all the economic difficulties and the unprecedented intensification of the “embargo,” the government remains united and unwavering. “With a cohesive ruling elite, a loyal military, and no organized and effective opposition, there is no plausible shift toward a sudden regime transition in Cuba in the foreseeable future,” he asserts. The eventual arrival in 2024 of a more conservative administration to the White House, headed by Trump himself, and the possible incorporation of Senator Marco Rubio to that administration, will surely make them bet on prolonging the economic losses that the U.S. tolerates as a result of its deep limits to the relationship with Cuba. It will continue to curtail the travel rights of Americans and interfere like a Big Brother with the business interests of its citizens, all to comply - once and for all- with the Mallory Memorandum of April 1960. The greatest pressure for regime change in Cuba comes precisely from the closest state, Florida, which, contradictorily, would benefit the most from a more functional treatment of Havana. With a roster of politicians led by Governor Ron DeSantis, Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, who have acted out of electoral interests, without realizing that a pragmatic relationship with the island is in the best interest of the Union and also of its voters . As much as some blame the Cuban government for the current wave of migration to the United States, there is one real fact that cannot be ignored. In 2014, as President Barack Obama deployed his new policy of rapprochement with Cuba, the island was flourishing, Cubans were hopeful about the changes there, and migration levels to the United States could be considered optimal. Controlling illegal migration across the southern border of the U.S. and Mexico will continue to be a priority of the Republican Party. How much better would this situation be if conservatives were to promote a normalization of relations with Cuba, give back to its citizens the constitutional right to travel wherever they want and allow their businessmen to make money on the island, which it so badly needs? It has been concluded that in the case of the Central American countries, the solution to migration lies in greater U.S. investment there, which will open up greater employment opportunities and give people the hope of being able to progress without having to migrate. So, is it really expected that continuing to squeeze Cuba will control the exodus across the southern border? It would be smarter to give the green light to U.S. companies to take advantage of the opportunities in the investment portfolio and compete with European hotel chains in Cuba, to facilitate the new Cuban businessmen's financial procedures so that they can make their way in the face of the new opening of the Cuban government and, even, from the closed concept of U.S. national security, to prevent others from doing so. Undoubtedly, Cuba will have to be respected as an independent and sovereign country. Knowing fully that we are not talking about an associated free state, way beyond the historical strategic and hegemonic pretensions of the U.S. Empire over the years in relation to the island. Establishing a constructive relationship of coexistence with the island of Cuba, even with a government that does not please Washington, would be of great importance for the stability of the southern part of the United States. Law and Order, a precept equally upheld by U.S. conservatives over the years, would win hands down, as evidenced by the effective anti-drug collaboration between the two countries that the United States acknowledges in its latest annual report on the subject, despite a scenario that muddles all contact. I am inclined to believe that relationships are possible if the necessary quota of seriousness and pragmatism is applied to the process. A little known example is that of the frequent coordination between authorities on both sides of the territory occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base, the military enclave resulting from the archaic Platt Amendment, which the Cuban government has for years denounced as illegal and inadmissible. The politicized and unwarranted inclusion of Cuba in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, issued unilaterally by the State Department, is there to prevent anything from blossoming. Correcting that mistake would be the first of all steps.