Provider of in-depth & balanced analysis on hot issues around the world

Earlier this week, a suicide blast ruptured the relative calm that had returned to Pakistan in recent years. The attack at a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed more than 100 people and stunned many Pakistanis who thought the days of such horrific suicide bombings were long behind them. While Monday’s attack was among the worst in the country in a decade, the blast doesn’t necessarily signal a return of terrorism so much as an escalation of a problem that never really went away. The Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), denied responsibility for Monday’s blast. Instead, a TTP faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed to be behind it. But in many ways, Pakistan’s deteriorating security situation is directly linked to a resurgent TTP and the increasing fragility in neighbouring Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021. The Pakistani government had supported the Afghan Taliban for years, but the relationship began to break down after the Afghan Taliban offered shelter to TTP fighters and released thousands of terrorists from prison after taking power. The TTP not only appeared to be strengthened and energised by the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, it also drew closer to the group. Last year, the Afghan Taliban facilitated dialogue between the Pakistani government and the TTP that led to a ceasefire deal. But by November, the TTP ended the five-month truce, claiming the government had not complied with all its requests, most notably the freeing of important TTP members. The result has been a slow but steady uptick in terrorist attacks. Documented acts of terrorism hit a high of 3,923 in Pakistan in 2013, with more than 2,000 deaths. The number of fatalities plunged to 267 in 2021, but last year, started to climb again to 365. Pakistan also only registered four suicide attacks in 2021, but there were 13 last year and four already this year. The TTP has claimed responsibility for most attacks. Decade-long war on extremismPakistan had achieved enormous strides against terrorism over the past 15 years, in large part because of its significant “Rah-e-Rast” military operation in 2009 and the “Zarb-e-Azb” operation in 2014. The TTP retaliated to the latter with an attack on an army public school in Peshawar in 2014, killing more than 130 children. This prompted the army to intensify its activities, and by 2017, it had largely routed the TTP. These security operations, however, only addressed the symptoms of the problem by pushing most TTP fighters across the border into Afghanistan. Terrorist attacks in Pakistan declined, but the problem didn’t go away. Despite the development of a counter-terrorism blueprint called the National Action Plan in 2014, the government’s security operations have been too limited in scope. They do not focus on all terrorist groups, but selectively target a few, such as the TTP. The National Counter Terrorism Authority has registered 78 terrorist organisations in Pakistan, but little is known what the government is doing to counter them. The National Action Plan also does not focus much attention on preventative measures like education. Addressing the root causes of extremismNonetheless, there is growing interest in Pakistan to invest more in promoting a stronger national counter-narrative against extremist ideologies, such as the Paigham-e-Pakistan, which the government developed with the help of hundreds of Islamic scholars. Moreover, there is a growing desire in policymaking circles to address the root causes of extremism, including the grievances of locals in the region previously known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghan border and Balochistan in southwestern Pakistan. The growing insecurity in Balochistan, for instance, is in part driven by Chinese investment, which is opposed by the militant Baloch Liberation Army. The group believes the government has exploited the region’s resources and ignored its development needs. It has targeted Chinese citizens in numerous attacks. The stakes here are very high for Pakistan, which is desperate for foreign investment. As such, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has urged the government to focus on addressing the socio-economic concerns of locals, in particular young people, so they don’t turn toward extremism. The same grievances exist in the former tribal areas, where millions have suffered due to the government’s neglect. Until 2018, this region was governed under the notorious, colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation. This meant Pakistani laws did not apply and there were no local courts or political parties, allowing armed groups to thrive. The first time residents participated in any election was in 2019, more than 70 years after independence. When the government merged the tribal areas with a neighbouring province in 2018, residents believed their lives would improve. But this coincided with the resurgence of the TTP in the region, bringing new concerns about security and stability. What the state should do nowFor now, Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts are largely focused on TTP, but the country needs a broader approach. First, Pakistan needs to have its own house in order by addressing the ongoing governance challenges in the former tribal areas and Balochistan. Second, the government can no longer limit counter-terrorism operations to only a few areas. This will only increase the grievances of locals, who continue to suffer due to displacement and disempowerment. As terrorist groups are spread across the country, it is time the state tries a more holistic approach. With the TTP, it is already clear that attempting dialogue has not worked. It only provided the group more legitimacy and time for recruitment and fundraising. Instead of playing into the hands of terrorist groups, the government needs to address the structural causes of extremism, such as the marginalisation of millions living in peripheral areas, in particular highly vulnerable young people.

Migration flows from South Asia to Western Europe have a long history, the origins of which can be traced in the colonial development of the states of this region.  The end of British colonial rule in India in 1947 was accompanied by the split of the once unified territorial space of Hindustan into two national entities - India and Pakistan. During the first decades after independence, there were intense migratory movements from the former colony to the former metropolis. British migration policy determined the direction and intensity of migration flows from the Hindustan Peninsula to the United Kingdom. The first post-colonial migration flows were based on the following reasons: Britain's interest in the influx of additional labor force, mostly of low qualification; the practice (which existed before 1947) of free human movements from the colonies to the mother country; features of the immigration policy of the United Kingdom, which allowed citizens of the countries of the British Commonwealth to choose their country of residence and even have their own companies in the UK. The vast majority of migrants from India were Sikhs, people from a peasant environment (mainly middle-class farms), who served in the colonial army and police units, as well as their relatives, who did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity to leave. Prior to the adoption of The British Commonwealth Immigration Acts 1962 and 1968 by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, indians, as Commonwealth citizens, had unlimited rights to enter the territory of the former metropolis. Many of the new arrivals settled in industrial centers such as Leicester or Birmingham. Newly arrived migrants were employed in the textile and service industries. A significant part of them were employed in the services of Heathrow Airport in west London. The 1962 Act, which restricted the freedom of migration to the British Isles from the Commonwealth countries, actually already encouraged immigrants from India and other South Asian countries to settle on British territory. Soon their family members joined them. By the mid-1960s, most Indians arriving in the UK were listed as "dependants", as British government statistics described them. Dependents made up 75% of immigrants in 1965 and 80% in 1966. Migration flows from India to the former metropolis peaked in 1968, when the number of arrivals in the United Kingdom exceeded 23 thousand people. Migration flows from India intensified sharply between 1995 and 2005. Data from population censuses shows that the number of Indian migrants actually tripled between 1961 and 2001, from 166,000 to 470,000. To be fair, we note that the British, who were born in India, were also immigrants. In 2001, the Indian community in the United Kingdom numbered about 1 million people, with about a fifth of its composition coming from South Africa and former East African colonies. In 2007, the number of Indians in the UK increased to 1.3 million people. Until the early 1990s, the former metropolis remained the main haven for Indian migrants, but gradually their influx began to spread to Western and, to an increasing extent, Eastern Europe. For the period 1995–2005 about half of the migrants from India heading for Europe ended up in the UK. The rest preferred other EU countries, primarily Germany and Italy, which accounted for 18 and 12% of Indian migrants respectively. During the period under review, there was an increase, albeit slowly, in the number of Indians moving to Belgium and Sweden. Approximately 1,000 settlers per year settled in France, where the Indian community, which by the mid-2000s was about 65,000 people, largely consisted of ethnic Indians from Madagascar, the Seychelles, Reunion and Mauritius. For a better understanding of the reasons for the intensification of migration flows from India and other countries culturally related to this country, it is worth recalling the policy deliberately pursued by a number of European governments, the meaning of which was to invite skilled and relatively inexpensive labor from the “largest democracy in the world”. Thus, the temporary “green card” migration initiative that operated in Germany from 2000 to 2005 was initially focused on attracting Indian information technology specialists. In Italy, the Indian community was formed from those who initially entered the Apennines illegally, and subsequently received legal grounds for staying in the country. The vast majority of Indian migrants in Italy are from Punjab, working on dairy farms and other agricultural sectors. The development of information technology and related industrial clusters in India, the high-quality professional training of graduates from Indian institutes of technology - these and other factors predetermined the interest of the United States, Western Europe, and Australia in attracting skilled labor from India. Already in 2000, at least one third of migrants in the field of information technology in the UK represented India. In 2000–2004 more than 245 thousand migrants of this profession settled in the USA. In this kind of "migration competition" India was second only to Mexico, China and the Philippines. In the UK, in October 2004, a program was adopted to "naturalize" successful Indian students (as well as representatives of other Commonwealth countries) in the specialties: physical sciences, mathematics and engineering. The naturalization program has become an additional source of attraction to the United Kingdom of future specialists in the field of natural sciences and exact sciences from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. At the same time, this program has become a tool for managed migration to the UK. This practice is followed by the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, as well as France, Germany and the Netherlands. Demand for foreign labor with a high share of added intellectual value is ultimately determined by the characteristics of the socio-demographic structure of the population of Western European countries. The rapid “aging” of the workforce in the countries of the historical “core” of the current EU encourages the governing bodies of this organization to use such tools to attract future workers in the “knowledge economy” as educational fairs. At the same time, the use of foreign “intellectual production proletarians” is conceived as the provision of appropriate services without staying in a Western European country on a permanent basis. The movement of human capital from India and South Asian countries to Western Europe, in the understanding of local elites, has a twofold goal: 1) to increase the competitiveness of Western European economies in the world economy and at the same time 2) to deprive the countries of the South Asian region of independence in choosing national models for the development of the information technology industry. There are also restrictions even for this type of migration: the EU authorities are seriously afraid that the massive import of labor from India and other (not only South Asian) countries with a high share of added intellectual value may in the future undermine the reproduction of national scientific schools in Western European countries employed by developments in the field of information technology and their application in the economy. Finally, a group of political factors is of no small importance in the formation of the migration policy of the EU countries, in particular, dissatisfaction with the “substratum of other civilizations” in the Western European cultural environment on the part of forces supporting national populism. A significant proportion of Pakistani migrants to the UK originate from the Mirpur district in Azad Kashmir (area now under Pakistani control). The county has a long history of emigration. So, people from Mirpur worked as stokers on British ships, whose home ports were Bombay and Karachi. Subsequently, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of them settled in the United Kingdom. Post-war Pakistani migrants in the British Isles took jobs in the textile factories of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Manchester and Bradford, in the car factories of the West Midlands and its largest city of Birmingham, filled the light industry development zones in cities such as Luton and Slough. Among other groups of migrants from Pakistan, it is customary to single out Punjabis who settled mainly in Glasgow, Birmingham and Southall, an area of west London that is often called “little Punjab”. The main migration flows from Bangladesh to the British Isles occurred in the first half of the 1970s. They were a reaction to civil unrest in the newly formed state and affected primarily the Sylhet region in the north-east of the country, located directly near the Bangladeshi-Indian border. Initially, Bangladeshi migrants were employed in steel mills and textile mills throughout the UK, but after the closure of these enterprises due to the economic crisis, Bangladeshi migrants rushed into small businesses, primarily in tailoring and catering, including restaurant business. Many people from Bangladesh actively joined the network of Indian restaurants, which was rapidly developing in those years, and subsequently took over a significant part of it. The first migration flow from the relatively developed Sri Lanka (before 1972 - Ceylon) to the UK, modest in size, falls on the 1960s-1970s. Migrants arriving from the former colony were employed in the UK National Health Service, as well as in other areas of the economy where white-collar workers work, becoming employees, administrators, managers, etc. For the most part, the migrants who arrived in the British Isles were from wealthy families and well-educated. They quickly found a use for their abilities in the United Kingdom. The second wave of Sri Lankan migration to the UK occurred in the 80s and was a product of the civil war that swept the island at that time. A significant number of wealthy Sri Lankan Tamils sought refuge in the former metropolis. The migrants of the second wave were not as well-born as their predecessors, however, like many refugees to the West, they did not belong to the "lower classes" of society. Sri Lankans are employed in the traditional segment of the service sector: in shops and restaurants, and some of them even managed to open their own business. CONSEQUENCES OF THE MIGRATION CRISIS OF 2015 Significant adjustments to the intensity of the movement of people from the territories of the “global South” to the space of the “historical North” were introduced by “truncated globalization” (which further exacerbated the contradictions between the leaders of the world economy, primarily the United States, Western Europe, Japan, with on the one hand, and the rest on the other). It gave rise to both active (“passionary” anti-globalization movements and projects) and passive (intensification of migration flows towards the original “core” of the EU) response of transitional societies – the main part of the ecumene. It is believed that the main migration “corridors” from transitional societies to industrialized countries will retain their main direction in the future, especially since demographic processes in the “global South” will continue to exert migration pressure on future generations in the coming decades. India (and South Asia in a broad sense) remains the territory of origin of the largest number of international migrants: 17.5 million Indians live abroad. For the countries of South Asia, a region with significant labor surpluses, migration eases labor market strains while contributing to poverty alleviation through remittances. It is therefore not surprising that the countries of the South Asian region remain the largest recipients of remittances in the world: in 2018, in countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, remittances from abroad exceeded 5% of the GDP of these states. It is also worth noting the factor of internal migration in the countries of South Asia: for the period 2001–2011 the urban population of these countries increased by 130 million people, which became an additional incentive for external migration. The most desirable destination regions for illegal migrants from South Asia are Western Europe, North America and Oceania. Demographers note that South Asian migrants bound for Western Europe are smuggled to their destination mainly through Central Asia and the Russian Federation, but also through the Middle East towards the Western Balkans. Finally, South Asians are driven to move to Western Europe and the Gulf region by the constant risk of natural disasters, which primarily affect Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Obviously, the most socialized and adapted groups of the urban population of South Asia are ready to change their way of life. As of 2019, the largest migrant groups in the United Kingdom were immigrants from India, Poland and Pakistan. In the UK, France and Germany, there is a positive correlation between the high quality of human capital among migrants and their innovative activity. Migration flows are expected to influence the activation of the forces of national populism in Western Europe. Thus, after the migration crisis of 2015, the influence of the respective parties is rapidly growing, winning back positions from the centrists and social democrats. “People's parties” are becoming more and more successful, uniting various segments of the population, including those who are dissatisfied with the growing influx of “other civilizational substrate” into the countries of Western Europe. Thus, the policy of "traditional" parties contributes to the growth of the influence of the forces of national populism. Traditional parties justify their policy of accepting migrants by the need to integrate the labor market in the face of a growing shortage of skilled labor. According to traditionalists, the integration of the labor market has an inevitable consequence of strengthening the economic viability of society and increasing the viability of its political institutions, as well as the feeling of new arrivals of their belonging to the host society. The problem of socio-economic (as well as cultural) adaptation of migrants in the societies of Western Europe remains acute: in 2017 in the EU, the unemployment rate among migrants was 13.3%, while among the autochthonous population it did not exceed 6.9%. The coronavirus pandemic has made significant adjustments to the intensity of migration flows. As a result of the pandemic, the IMF blog writes, “migration flows suddenly stopped. The Great Lockdown is temporary, but the pandemic could reinforce general sentiments of insularity and disbelief in opening up to the outside world and have a more lasting effect on countries' propensity to accept migrants. Decline in immigration and high unemployment in destination countries will have a negative impact on the situation in its origin countries, especially the poorer ones, which are heavily dependent on the remittances that migrant workers send home”. The costs of migration also include the need to overcome geographical and linguistic barriers. Integration into the economic system of the host country implies a thorough mastery of its language, which is a precondition for the adaptation of migrants in a different cultural and social environment. So, immigrants from Bangladesh adapted well to the Apennine Peninsula because they were able to master the Italian language, which is difficult for the inhabitants of South Asia. As the Italians believe, people from Bangladesh are more industrious and less pretentious than Indians, and are ready to work in the most adverse conditions. Finally, migration from Bangladesh is economically beneficial for Italians: migrants with skills in light industry are welcome “guests” in the Apennines, since they make up a significant part of the staff of textile enterprises that manufacture products with the “Made in Italy” identification label especially valued by foreigners. Other dangers await the settlers. It is worth remembering that migrants to the West often find themselves in a “poverty trap” due to insufficient funds to pay the costs associated with migration. Nevertheless, experts believe that a one percentage point increase in migrant influx relative to total employment increases output by almost 1% by the fifth year of the resettlement in a new place. The desire of South Asians to move to Western Europe may be due to the fact that in the case of immigration to countries with emerging markets and transition societies, such a positive impact of labor productivity growth is not observed, primarily due to the difficulties of adapting to the conditions of local markets of underdeveloped countries. Migration can also create problems in the area of income distribution in the host society, since in some segments of the labor market, local workers (or people from Eastern and Central Europe who have already settled down in Western Europe) may suffer material damage, at least temporarily. Modern migration and migration policy in Western European countries continue to be influenced by the experience of previous decades. Thus, post-war migration to Western Europe from the former colonies was structured both by centuries of experience in moving along the route of the colony-mother country, and by a significant demand for relatively inexpensive labor for the needs of modernizing the economies of Western European countries after World War II. And some former colonial powers, such as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, were engaged in the movement of labor from their eastern possessions (Indonesia) to South America (Suriname). Historical memory is also invisibly present in the migration policy of France. So, in the 30s, almost a third of the population of this country was in the status of migrants, mainly they were immigrants from the countries of Southern Europe. Memories of the past, coupled with the migratory consequences of imperial existence, gave rise to the phenomenon of anti-immigrant political parties. The growth of the influence of the forces of anti-migrant populism was already observed in the 90s. Then the “National Front” quickly gained influence. As if responding to the challenge of anti-migrant populism, the right-wing government headed by E. Balladur is taking tough measures to limit the migration flow to the maximum and minimize emigration for political reasons. Subsequently, migration reforms were somewhat relaxed, but entry into France was strictly controlled, and the labor market was tightly regulated. The authorities of another colonial empire, Great Britain, acted in approximately the same way, pursuing a liberal line in relation to highly qualified migrants and implementing strict restrictive measures against refugees for political reasons. When assessing the prospects for resettlement of immigrants from India and other South Asian countries to Western European countries, it is necessary to take into account the EU factor, which has become a central element in building a new migration space in the unity of institutional rules for the movement of migrants and patterns of movement of peoples in the vastness of this integration association. It is important to keep in mind that migration is not a long-term solution to the demographic problems of the developed countries of Europe. It is assumed that most EU members, with the exception of France, Ireland and the United Kingdom, are doomed to a serious reduction in working-age populations in the coming decades. In addition, according to experts, labor markets in the EU countries are more inert and less flexible in relation to changing circumstances than in the US. Potential resettlers have to reckon with growing migration concerns in the EU's leading countries. At the same time, the attitude of receiving countries towards migration varies from country to country. Thus, in the countries of Southern Europe (Spain, Greece, Portugal), a “permissive” political culture that does not condemn migration is still influential. It is no coincidence that almost half of the migrants who have arrived in the EU since 2000 began their journey to Europe from Spain. However, even in Spain, new arrivals are viewed by public opinion not only as a socio-economic challenge, but also as a threat to cultural and ethnic identity. Since the early 1990s, the UK has been implementing a policy aimed at limiting the number of refugees and migrants as much as possible. Sometimes the authorities of the United Kingdom resort to frankly everyday motivation for their anti-migration actions, referring to the aggravation of the housing problem and the growth of social tension in London and southeast England. Nevertheless, the UK remains one of the preferred destinations for migration to Western Europe. Moreover, the very policy of the Western European states remains contradictory. On the one hand, the desire to appease public opinion results in uncompromising rhetoric against irregular migration. On the other hand, the desire to attract the skilled labor force necessary for the economy dictates an emphasis on the temporary nature of migration, which does not imply the granting of citizenship or residence permits. Nevertheless, since 2002, the number of people entering the EU has been an impressive figure - from 1.5 million to 2 million people. In other words, the conflict between the principles of the functioning of the nation-state and the guiding principles of multiculturalism defended by the settlers (as a method of managing interethnic relations in the host society) is becoming an integral part of the political development of many European countries. From now on, the confrontation between the principles of assimilation and multiculturalism becomes the axis of the entire socio-political development of the West. Until recently, multiculturalism had a strong influence on the attitude towards migrants in the Scandinavian countries, while assimilation has become clear in Greece, Austria, Poland, and Hungary. However, within the EU, the “multicultural consensus” is being increasingly tested for strength, in particular in Sweden. Similar trends are observed in the UK, France and the Netherlands. The sheer number of migrants can sometimes be misleading. Thus, the largest number of immigrants is recorded in large countries (Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom), while their highest proportions are noted in small states (Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland), which has an inevitable projection on the sphere of political relations. In addition, many countries do not keep statistics on the religious affiliation of the population, which is done in the name of the sacred principles of secularism. However, the situation is starting to change. Thus, in the UK in 2001, they began to take into account the confessional identity of the population, primarily to control migration flows from India and South Asia. At the same time, in the censuses in France and Germany, religious affiliation is not yet recorded. By the ratio of the principles of multiculturalism and assimilation, it is customary to single out several groups of European states. States that do not officially recognize the fact of multiculturalism (Germany, France, Greece, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Finland, Ireland). At the same time, Italy, Finland, Germany, and Ireland practice bilingualism in relation to compact national minorities that have been living in these countries since ancient times. This principle does not apply to migrants. States that have delegated “linguistic powers” to several languages (Spain, Switzerland, Belgium). The envisaged status for French and Flemish in Belgium and the similar legal status for Catalan and Basque in Spain are intended to stop separatist tendencies in these societies and do not apply to the linguistic means of communication of migrants. States where multiculturalism has historically existed (United Kingdom, comprising England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), but its principles do not apply to migrants. States with a detailed policy towards migrants on a secular basis (Sweden, Norway), which is subjected to extensive criticism by various socio-political forces. States that initially accepted multiculturalism but subsequently rejected it (Netherlands). On the one hand, in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the largest centers of multiculturalism, special services for helping migrants have been preserved. On the other hand, the main socio-political forces of the country and the parties expressing their interests are strongly opposed to further external migration, and not only from the “global South”. The attitude towards the principles of assimilation and multiculturalism is also manifested in the life attitudes and practical activities of various social forces. Thus, liberals and social democrats prefer the discourse of multiculturalism, while conservatives present themselves as the guardians of the values of the nation-state, Christian ethics and national culture. However, the above dichotomy acquires important clarifying characteristics and nuances when the analysis program includes the contradictory position of trade unions, on the one hand, belonging to the left side of the political spectrum, and on the other hand, forced by the logic of internal political development to counteract the migration of foreign labor and the adaptation of migrants in the host country. The attitude towards migration of the business community, conservative in its cultural orientations and attitudes, and at the same time interested in the import of foreign labor as a factor in “compensating” the insufficient demographic potential of an “aging society” and an instrument of economic growth within a particular Western European country, is also distinguished by a considerable originality. The initial unfriendly reaction of the local population to the new arrivals was dictated by fears of an exclusively economic nature, that is, the unwillingness to financially support migrants. Settlers were not then seen as a threat to national culture and national identity. However, as refugees settled in a new place, their families increased, religious buildings were built, and European politics were actively involved, the attitude of Europeans towards migrants began to change. The “clash of civilizations” (SP Huntington) in Europe intensified. The “racial riots” of 1958 in Great Britain can be considered the historical starting point for the escalation of conflicts on a civilizational basis. In this country, most migrants had the status of subjects of the British Empire, which definitely facilitated their entry into the arena of political life. Race remained at the heart of the issue of multiculturalism in the UK until at least the late 1990s. At first, no serious significance was attached to the factor of religion as a fundamentally different model of behavior in Western Europe. The spread of Islamist radicalism and terrorism, rooted, as some politicians now argue, in the Islamic value system, has become a kind of watershed. The essence of their ideas boils down to the fact that Islam is allegedly in a state of “permanent war” with the West in general and with Christianity and democracy in particular. This kind of sentiment is supported by a part of the Western European press, which regularly publishes anti-Islamic stories coming from the Middle East and Central Asia. Shifts in the positions of political parties in Western European countries on migration issues can be summarized as follows:  - there is a strengthening of the motives of national culture, the principles of assimilation and loyalty to European political values; - control over migration processes is being tightened, including increased attention to political refugees;  - the “horizontal” interaction of the migration authorities of the interested European countries in the field of control over the movement of foreigners to the EU countries is being strengthened;  - there is an actual refusal of the political elites of Western Europe from the principles of multiculturalism, as well as from the concept of "universal values";  - attempts are being made to introduce “rational” (that is, deliberately complicated) concepts of migration policy into the life of the EU countries;  - organizational resources and political powers of organizations supervising migration processes are increasing.  Such steps by the Western European elites, which do not formally abolish the principles of racial equality and the practice of religious rites by migrants, actually exclude the further development of the principles of multiculturalism. The situation of migrants is also complicated by the unwillingness of orthodox Muslim activists to compromise with the authorities of the host country in the sphere of religious rites, which undermines the position of supporters of multiculturalism in Western Europe. In the current conditions, militant opponents of multiculturalism are turning for support not only to Western European lumpen and outcasts, but also to a significant part of the middle class and anti-migrant parties that advocate Christian values. For their part, members of the Muslim community believe that the "war against terror" in the West, started in 2001, has escalated into a "war against Islam." In the smaller EU countries, fears of being “absorbed” by a foreign culture are constantly fueling radical, anti-immigrant sentiments.  It can be assumed that the events of the beginning of this century (September 11, 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, terrorist attacks in the countries of Western and Southern Europe, etc.), as well as the European migration crisis of 2015–2016 laid the foundation for shifts in the public consciousness of the population of the EU leaders that are unfavorable for migrants. The dominance of multiculturalism was replaced by the idea of the nation-state as a community bound by the unity of interests and the norms of Christian culture. At present, in the broad sections of the population of Western Europe, the idea of the ongoing erosion of the fundamental principles of the life of society, which undermines its integrity, is being strengthened. In the current reality, even highly educated migrants are beginning to be seen as a threat to the national unity of society. Such mindsets are constantly fueled by the systemic economic crisis, which calls into question the once stable notions of multiculturalism as a force capable of simultaneously ensuring the prosperity and security of Western society. CURRENT TRENDS IN MIGRATION FROM SOUTH ASIA TO THE EU The migration crisis of 2015–2016 turned the problem of migration into a central political issue in the internal life of the leading Western European countries. In the new conditions, socio-political forces and parties that advocate tough restrictive measures against the influx of migrants of other cultures into the EU receive more and more significant support in the new conditions. However, the resettlement of immigrants from South Asian countries to Western Europe continues, which is confirmed by the example of the Netherlands and Italy. Migration from India and other South Asian countries to these two countries is mostly “productive” in nature: for the Netherlands, an influx of quality labor in the information technology sector is important, while Italy needs a “demographic dividend” in the agro-industrial complex. In the Netherlands, where there is a need for qualified personnel for a rapidly growing information technology cluster, educated migrants from India have benefited from the liberalization of migration policy in important segments of the economy. True, in this country, a kind of Damocles sword is suspended over the problem of migration: the murder of film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 by a native of North Africa stimulated the growth of anti-migrant sentiment in the Netherlands, which traditionally had a reputation as a “home of tolerance”. Note that the need for skilled workers in the Netherlands is higher than the EU average (by 10%). Here, as in other countries of Western Europe (primarily in the UK), expat Indians represent the most dynamically growing group of migrants. In the Netherlands, this community includes workers with the necessary professional training in the fields of information technology, consulting services, engineering, and enterprise personnel management. Significant Indian migration to the Netherlands began in the 1980s. By the beginning of the 2010s, about 22 thousand Indians lived in the country (compared to 9 thousand in 1996). The Kingdom attracts Indian migrants, first of all, with a favorable living environment, a high standard of living, the widespread use of the English language in the country, a tolerant attitude towards foreigners, etc.  Young educated Indians find themselves in the Netherlands in several ways. In addition to the traditional recruitment practices of Dutch companies, the factor of expanding the activities of Indian companies in the kingdom is becoming increasingly important. Thus, currently more than 200 companies from India, mainly from the information technology sector, are active in this country. It should be taken into account that the information technology sector, on the one hand, is a powerful driving force for economic growth in India, and on the other hand, this segment of the national economy accounts for more than 45% of all exports of services from India. Another way of delivering Indian labor to the Netherlands is the activity of transnational companies (TNCs) operating in the country, interested in attracting from India the profile workforce of the required quality. The reluctance of some Dutch people to perform certain types of activities in the information technology segment also plays a role. In this case, English-speaking and law-abiding Indians are perhaps the best candidates for high-paying positions in this sector. In other words, the Netherlands attracts skilled, expensive labor to the country, the price of which (as of the beginning of 2019) starts at 4.5 thousand euros per month and 3.2 thousand euros per month for people under 30 years old. In turn, the Italian economy is experiencing a need to increase the volume of dairy production, which opens up opportunities for the Indian labor force, primarily from the northern state of Punjab. Many migrants from India arrived in the Apennine peninsula without an accurate understanding of the nature of the Italian labor market and the peculiarities of Italian society. Some migrants have joined families of relatives who have already arrived in the EU. Arriving in the Apennines, Indian settlers from the Punjab countryside quickly adapted to northern Italy, an industrial zone that lacks quality labor for the agricultural sector. However, this was more a happy coincidence than the result of the successful functioning of the labor market due to the competent intervention of Italian government departments. Indian migrants have recently turned their attention to Italy. Thus, in 2003, the total number of Indian migrants to the Apennine Peninsula was fixed at around 35.5 thousand people, while by 2018 it had more than quadrupled to 151.7 thousand peoplef. As a result, India has now moved from 10th to 6th place in the list of the main “suppliers” of migrants to the EU countries (and to 5th place among non-EU countries). The configuration of the main concentrations of Indian immigrants to Italy has also become somewhat different. If in 2003 the Indians settled unevenly in the central subregions of northern Italy and in Rome, then at present the contours of settlement have become more dispersed: the Indians live mainly in ten provinces, and their largest concentration is in Brescia (14 thousand people per 200 thousand of the local population). Unlike the Netherlands, migration to Italy is often carried out on an unplanned basis - as a result of a situational shortage of labor in a particular segment of the labor market or as a situational reaction of the Italian migration system to migration flows from non-Western societies. It should be noted that in Italy the majority of Indians are engaged in low-skilled labor outside the agro-industrial complex, in particular in industry. In terms of the share of employment in this segment of the national economy, immigrants from India do not stand out among migrants who came from non-Western societies. The agricultural sector, being the area of activity of 28.6% (2016) of migrants, remains the main area for the application of labor skills for Indian migrants (24.1% of the total labor force from outside the EU countries). Even among self-employed workers who came from countries outside the EU, the share of Indians (7% in 2016) has increased almost sixfold since 2007. It should be noted that agriculture is a relatively small and ever-shrinking segment of the Italian economy, accounting for no more than 2% of the country's GDP and in which wages are only half of the total level in the national economy. However, when assessing the potential of the agro-industrial complex, nuances are important. Thus, with the declining role of agriculture, agricultural production in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto tends to increase - not least due to the hard work of Indian immigrants. The dynamic dynamics of development in these regions is shown by dairy production. An illustrative example is Cremona (population - about 75 thousand people), the administrative center of the Italian province of the same name. The resettlement of Indians began in the first half of the 90s with the use of tourist visas. Dairy production in the region was affected by the technological modernization of this sector, which began in the 60s and sharply reduced the demand for labor in Italian agriculture. However, the reduction in the supply of labor in the dairy sector was so significant that it was necessary to attract skilled labor from abroad, and this was a historic opportunity for hardworking Punjabis. A particularly significant contribution of Indian migrants was to the preservation of the cheese industry in the province of Cremona. In other words, the traditions of working on the ground were in demand in the north of Italy, where climatic conditions and temperature conditions almost perfectly match those of the Punjabi. Finally, the hard work of the Indians, their willingness to work on weekends and holidays, as well as overtime, are invariably noted by Italian employers. However, the interest of Indians to work in Italy has its own practical reasons. On the one hand, overtime work allows you to earn up to 3 thousand euros per month, receiving part of the payment “in an envelope” (a procedure common in Italy). Thus, the total income increases, which allows not only to send part of the proceeds to Punjab, but also to invest in the future - to invest savings in various sectors of the Italian economy. On the other hand, living on farms at work allows Indians to avoid the vicissitudes of the housing market in Italy, including discrimination against newcomers. In addition, employers highly appreciate the role of family ties among Indians as a stimulant of productive work. It is significant that employers have a positive attitude towards such qualities of Indians as internal balance, punctuality in the performance of official duties, enthusiasm for work, and note their lower predisposition to conflicts (both with the employer and with colleagues), which favorably distinguishes Indians from, for example, Egyptians and Moroccans. However, it should be taken into account that the Punjabis are a historically formed community of high-quality labor force. Their qualifications are highly valued far beyond the borders of India, whose national economy clearly lacks professionally trained workers capable of performing modern production operations. European migration crisis in 2015–2016 made significant adjustments both to the routes of movement of immigrants, and to the intensity of the human flows themselves from the “global South” to the “historical North”. India and other countries of South Asia remain one of the main sources of migration activity in the world. The examples of the Netherlands and Italy show that there is a “demographic dividend” in the South Asia region that can be used to benefit economic growth and development in industrialized countries. Both the Dutch and the Italians use the services of India's competitive populations. This experience, perhaps, should be used by Russia, which is in need of importing a “demographic dividend”. However, it is advisable to remember that the Indian authorities, conducting relevant negotiations with the Russian leadership, offer labor with low qualification characteristics for export. Defending national interests in such a specific area of bilateral relations will contribute to a better understanding by the Indian side of our real needs in the import of human capital and will confirm Russia's serious attitude towards multidisciplinary cooperation with the "largest democracy in the world." 

The dollar’s strength is placing pressure on economies around the world, including in developing Asia. What makes this bout of dollar strength unique is that the stress is not limited to Asia’s developing economies. Asian economies are diverse and the direct financial impact of dollar strength varies. Some regional economies have significant foreign currency debts and limited foreign currency reserves. Unsurprisingly, these economies are in financial trouble. Sri Lanka defaulted on its bonds earlier in the year and is now trying to restructure its external debt. Pakistan has had to seek an emergency financing package from the International Monetary Fund, backstopped with pledges of additional support from both China and the Gulf. Bangladesh has proactively sought out IMF financing in the face of a terms of trade shock. Laos is, in all probability, relying on the continued forbearance of China’s policy banks to manage its unsustainable debt loads. All these countries are struggling to pay for imports of oil and natural gas. A broader set of Asian economies have relatively strong foreign currency balance sheets and are not at risk of immediate financial distress. Many have been able to rely on their local currency bond markets to finance fiscal deficits, limiting their direct financial vulnerability to swings in the dollar. India is in a much stronger position than during the 2013–14 ‘taper’ tantrum. It started 2022 with US$650 billion in foreign reserves, more than double the US$250 billion it held in 2012. The Indian government’s external debt, primarily to the multilateral development banks, only totalled US$125 billion. Thailand’s government started 2022 with over US$250 billion in foreign exchange reserves — or over 50 per cent of its GDP — while owing a bit over US$30 billion to external creditors. Other countries have more subtle strengths. For example, a substantial share of Indonesia’s US$80 billion in international sovereign bonds are denominated in yen. At the same time, balance sheet resilience is not sufficient to insulate a country’s broader economy from the impacts of a strong dollar. Even countries that have little to fear financially worry about the impact of currency weakness on households’ costs of living. There has been little correlation to date between the extent of currency depreciation across the main Asian currencies and the underlying strength of countries’ foreign currency balance sheets. The currencies of advanced Asian economies have actually depreciated more than the currencies of developing Asian economies. Japan — with plenty of reserves, significant foreign assets in its government pension fund and insurance companies that are structurally ‘long’ dollars — has experienced the largest depreciation. Taiwan and South Korea have followed. Meanwhile India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have experienced smaller depreciations. The reason for this is simple. Up until Japan’s heavy intervention in late September 2022, lower income Asian economies had been more willing to defend their currencies through a combination of rate increases and foreign reserve sales. There are signs that this is changing. Japan intervened heavily in September and October. South Korea is now worried that the won  has become too weak and is seeking to join Japan in obtaining a standing Federal Reserve swap line to meet dollar liquidity needs in its financial sector — potentially freeing up more of its existing reserves for intervention. Even though the dollar is now off its October peak, developing Asian economies continue to face several risks. The first is that certain economies may overestimate their balance sheet strength and sell foreign exchange for longer than is prudent. The basic principle is that temporary shocks can be financed with borrowed or reserve sales while permanent shocks require adjustment. The longer global energy prices remain high and the dollar remains strong, the more difficult it will be for countries to avoid adjustment. The second risk is the possibility of an additional shock from Japan. Japan’s efforts to limit the yen’s depreciation through intervention may fail, as it is harder for Japan to defend its currency through intervention than it is for smaller economies, whose financial markets remain less integrated into global markets. There is the additional risk that yen weakness and imported inflation could lead the Bank of Japan to abandon its policy of ‘yield curve control’ and that the associated rise in long-term Japanese government bond rates could push up interest rates globally. Many emerging economies would likely need to raise their domestic interest rates to avoid importing additional inflation, and to limit popular pressure for fiscal subsidies to offset higher fuel prices. This would be the Asian version of what is now called a reverse currency war. The third risk is a currency shock from China. China has long relied primarily on the signal sent by the People’s Bank of China’s daily fix — the central reference point for daily trading — to manage the yuan with only limited direct intervention by its central bank. To date, the pressure on China appears manageable. News reports suggest that the PBoC has leaned on China’s large state banks to use their balance sheets to help maintain the trading band around the yuan, but there is little evidence of pressure on the central bank’s reserves. However, if its economy remains weak, China may choose to allow more depreciation — both against the dollar and against the currencies of its trading partners to restart its economy. This would be an admission that China’s ability to avoid a prolonged stall through internal demand is limited and that exports are again required for growth. A yuan that is as weak as the yen could easily trigger a race down across the currencies of developing Asia. Many, though not all, developing Asian economies are less vulnerable to a repeat of the 1997 crisis. But few countries will be able to escape the fallout from the dollar’s current strength. A broader overshoot of many currencies that amplifies concentrated pockets of debt difficulties and complicates the fight against inflation globally remains a real risk.

The significant rise in defence and security ties between India and Australia has led to an ease in dealing with their responsibilities in multilateral regional forums. The institutionalisation of cooperation has also become more strategic.  The geostrategic positioning of India and Australia on the Indian and Pacific Oceans has helped with the convergence of interests, enabling relations to expand and steadily deepen. Unlike in earlier times when New Delhi and Canberra were searching for equal grounds for cooperation, the concept of the Indo-Pacific has made this easier, enhancing the conviction that greater engagement was an inevitability of their geographic circumstances. It made them partners to jointly take responsibility for maintaining a free, open, inclusive and peaceful Indo-Pacific, which demands a noticeable tilt towards defence and security cooperation. India has long aspired to be the key protagonist in the Indian Ocean; Australia has wanted to more naturally belong to the region. Moreover, Australia’s foreign policy over the years has emphasised playing a constructive role in the region with enhanced regional engagement. Though China looms large in each nation’s strategic calculation, the issues that unite both countries go beyond China and include the multifaceted challenges of maritime security, piracy, armed robbery, smuggling of small arms, protracted internal conflict, illegal, unprotected, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, cyber security, climate change, and ocean-born trade security. The India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2020), upgraded from the bilateral strategic partnership of 2009, is an effort to broaden the scope of their defence and security relationship by finding new initiatives, methods, and mechanisms to sustain mutual security interests. These have been bolstered to-date through cooperation in the AUSINDEX, Kakadu, Pitch Black, Milan, and Malabar military exercises, and with further collaboration in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, 2+2 ministerial dialogues, Joint Working Group for research on enhancing defence industry, mutual logistics, and intelligence support and sharing agreements. These have included, for example, the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement and officer exchange programs. In addition, Australia’s invitation to India to join Exercise Talisman Sabre, the most important military exercise between Australia and the United States, will set another milestone for cooperation. Both countries further engage in humanitarian matters, energy security, and marine and space research. Their commitment to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief in Afghanistan and within the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in vaccine distribution, for example, highly has been successful. In energy security, both have agreed to focus on UN Sustainable Development Goals and work on new and renewable technology in solar and wind energy. One potential area for cooperation – being maritime powers – will be wave energy for sustainable and resilient energy sources. The Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, in which India and Australia are deeply involved, will work on a whole array of issues involving marine ecology; security of maritime borders; pollutants, like marine plastics; IUU fishing; and marine research for conservation purposes. In addition, India and Australia have updated the Memorandum of Understanding in space programs, technology advancement, and joint space programs. Australia will also be supporting India in tracking the Gaganyaan mission – India’s first space-manned mission – at Cocos Keeling Island. Currently, India and Australia are at a crucial juncture. The election of the new government in Australia in 2022 is likely to aid the strong relationship between the two nations. But the turn for India to head the G20 is also expected to facilitate greater cooperation, particularly in economic and trade liberalisation and potential reform of economic regimes such as the World Trade Organization. In April 2022, India and Australia signed their first Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement. The fast pace at which their trade took off – from US$13.6 billion in 2007 to US$24.3 billion in 2020 – shows the many benefits of diversifying their trade. In addition, the elimination of tariffs for nearly 90 percent of Indian exports will further boost the Indian economy. The question is whether India will continue to engage its economy regionally in multilateral economic bodies. While it declined to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, India has begun a process of seeking bilateral FTAs with most member countries. What Australia and India can achieve bilaterally to make the comprehensive strategic partnership effective is to engage in dialogue with regional littoral countries on defence and security. This engagement will help with confidence-building and familiarity among partners. However, the advantage of this type of institutionalisation of the Indo-Pacific depends upon the degree to which states seek interaction. The littoral states, in this sense, should be included within the Indo-Pacific complex as much as possible. The emerging paradigm of inclusivity and pluralism within a free, open, and peaceful Indo-Pacific will bring together the littoral and less powerful countries of the region and empower them to join and engage with others; that is, those who otherwise do not have a voice or clout in international political platforms. Along these lines, the Indian Security and Growth for all (SAGAR) initiative seeks to enhance cooperation through information sharing, capacity building, coastline surveillance, and infrastructure building. The India-Australia-Indonesia trilateral dialogue is another attempt to enhance cooperation in the same direction. Although it was presumed in India that the Labor government in Australia might be more inclined toward China, it was understood that this did not mean a policy and behavioral turnaround. Instead, Canberra’s focus will include a mix of continuity and change. Australia has come a long way in its institutionalisation of the Indo-Pacific, and its ability to diversify its interests by engaging with the littoral countries deserves special attention. To be sure, China’s increased aggression in the South China Sea and it’s diplomatic handling of Australia’s COVID-19 inquiry have been influential here. But the process has also been captive to such institutionalisation as mentioned above. Australia’s involvement with Quad and its participation in the military exercises with India and other Quad countries in the Indian Ocean will continue to strain its relations with China. In addition, the Russia-Ukraine war will likely continue to drive foreign policy activism and cooperation among like-minded countries, of which Australia figures prominently. The takeaway here is that regular interaction between the two countries on various defence-related activities has worked to enhance mutual respect and understanding of shared values. This interaction has broader implications. Both nations can support each other in addressing issues of mutual concern internationally. Their engagement in trilateral groupings like the India-Australia-Indonesia and India-Japan-Australia dialogues, as well as joint engagement in the Supply Chains Resilience Initiative and the Quad with the United States and Japan, represent successful examples of bilateral and multilateral trust and relationship-building. One significant outcome of these growing partnerships will be to revive and strengthen the Indian Ocean Rim Association in awareness generation, capacity-building, and consensus-building. Lastly, all the above initiatives are government efforts to enhance partnerships. The involvement and regular interaction of academia, think tanks, civil society, and the media have been equally important and will continue to play an important role in boosting these relationships.

Late night on May 12, the official spokesperson of the Pakistan military, Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, came on Geo TV to dispel rumours about resignations and dismissals of officers of the Pakistan Army. Since the events of May 9—the large scale violence that broke out after the arrest of Imran Khan, much of it targeted against the Pakistan Army and its installations and establishments—there have been reports that the Corps Commander of IV Corps along with some other senior officers were removed from their posts. On May 12, a former army major who has been running a relentless campaign against the current army leadership from the United Kingdom, revealed names of officers who had been sacked for disobeying orders. There were also rumours that a number of other Corps Commanders who were believed to be part of the Imran Khan cult were on the firing line and would soon be sacked. It was amidst such sensational ‘news’ spreading like wild fire over the last few days that the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) chief came out with a somewhat perfunctory clarification that is really not going to silence the jungle telegraph that has gone into an overdrive. Clearly, all is not well within the Pakistan Army. That the Pakistan Army is a divided house is not breaking news. Over the last one year, there are straws in the wind, whispers in corridors of power, insinuations and inferences that suggest that the divisions in the rank and file, and even in the top brass, are not just personality driven but also ideologically and politically. Imran Khan appears to have achieved what was supposed to be impossible and unacceptable—dividing the Pakistan Army. If General Asim Munir is now trying to stamp his authority over the Army and restore the command and control system of the only somewhat functional institution in an otherwise dysfunctional country, then this is an exercise fraught with risk. Drastic steps to enforce discipline and reassert the authority of the Army Chief at this stage could either precipitate the crisis in the Army or consolidate it behind the chief. In case of the former, the crisis of the state in Pakistan will become deeper. The institutional integrity and coherence of the Pakistan Army will be irretrievably damaged. If a cabal of generals succeed in defying the Army Chief, then it will be a template that will be followed by others as well. Forget about coups against civilian governments, the new normal will be coups against the Army Chiefs. In the worst case scenario, Islamabad might even witness Khartoum like scenes. But even if General Munir manages to hold on, the discontent in the rank and file will be palpable and could hobble him and his command. In the past also, the much vaunted discipline and unity of Pakistan Army has come under tremendous strain with ambitious generals trying to grab power and middle ranking and junior officers questioning their superiors. After the 1971 debacle, the junior officers literally abused the top brass openly which forced them to not stay in office. In the 1970s, some young officers planned a coup against the army leadership. In the mid-1990s, a group of officers led by Major General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi plotted to wipe out the entire top rung of the military and grab power. In the early 2000s, there were arrests made of disgruntled officers who were linked with the Hizbut Tehrir. Among other officers, a brigadier was arrested. At that time, the then Director General of ISPR, Major General Athar Abbas, had said the Army cannot allow officers to become members of another group or cult, which is precisely what is happening today where officers appear more loyal to the Imran cult than to their own institution. There was also a conspiracy hatched by a cabal of generals, including the Inter-Services Intelligence chief and a couple of Corps Commanders, against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and General Raheel Sharif when they used Imran Khan’s 2014 ‘dharna’ to create conditions in which the PM would sack Raheel Sharif, and the Army would move in doing a double regime change—in the government and in the army. Although all these plots failed, they suggest a persistent problem in the Pakistan Army, of officers tempted to usurp power. Something similar is underway now. Only this time, things appear to be far more fraught than ever in the past.

The border standoff between China and India illustrates the growing rivalry between the two countries – and the part that other major powers play in it On 27 April, the defence minister of India, Rajnat Singh, met his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers Meeting in Delhi. The meeting was yet another attempt to find a way out of the three-year-long standoff between thousands of soldiers along the disputed border, which began in May 2020 when Indian and Chinese forces clashed in the Galwan Valley, killing 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese ones. Since then, officials from both countries have met for 18 rounds of talks to try to agree on a disengagement of troops from the area with no success. India has blamed China for unilaterally trying to move the border by sending troops beyond the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the countries. While it is in both China’s and India’s interest to settle the dispute, Beijing seems unwilling to engage in actual negotiations about the LAC, instead expressing hope that the two sides could move on from the issue and strengthen their mutual trust.   India’s and China’s dispute along the border is illustrative of the growing rivalry between the two countries, which is shaping the security landscape and strategic environment of South Asia. China is gaining power and influence in the Indo-Pacific – where India has long been the dominant power – and using it as yet another arena for its strategic rivalry with the United States. Given Europe’s trade with the region and the complex interplay of relations between China, the US, India, Russia, and the European Union, this dynamic will have severe consequences not just for the region, but for Europe as well. Beijing has tightened its grip over the entire Indian Ocean region in the past two decades. It has created a network of military and commercial facilities – the so-called string of pearls – and strengthened its economic relations with countries of the region. In 2022, Sri Lankan debt obligations to China rose to $7 billion, while the Maldives owes some 40 per cent of its GDP to China. These economic dependencies have eroded India’s influence in its immediate neighbourhood. New Delhi had built up strong diplomatic ties with other countries in the region through its “island diplomacy” and initiatives such as the Security and Growth for all in the Region maritime cooperation. China’s investment in the region has now pushed New Delhi into an economic competition which it may ultimately have difficulties sustaining. New Delhi still exerts a dominant role in South Asia and, specifically, the Indian Ocean, but as China consolidates its position in the region, its attitude towards India has become more assertive. India remains resolute about preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia, repeatedly stressing that a multipolar world starts with a multipolar Asia, and seeking partnerships with a variety of countries, including the US and the EU. Beijing is concerned about India’s growing military ties with the US and tends to consider India’s intentions through the lens of its own rivalry with the US. India’s inability to push back China at the border also further diminishes New Delhi’s influence over the smaller regional states, namely Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and even the Maldives, by absorbing the financial, military, and administrative resources that could be spent on expanding India’s footprint in the region. It also poses questions about India’s relative power and its ability to protect smaller neighbouring countries from Chinese coercion. This leaves New Delhi even more isolated in the region that includes its arch-rival Pakistan. Both India and China insist that they want to rebuild trust but they cannot agree on the process. Because it currently has the upper hand, China would like trust building to remain a strictly bilateral matter and does not want organisations such as the G20 and the SCO, the other three BRICS states – Brazil, Russia, and South Africa – or even the ASEAN-led institutions to play any role in the so far hypothetical normalisation process. In doing so, China challenges India’s multilateral aspirations and de facto reduces New Delhi’s capacity to manage collectively the consequences of China’s rise for itself and the region. The war in Ukraine makes this even easier as Russia, traditionally on India’s side in multilateral regional arrangements, seems distracted and neutralised by its new, albeit uneasy, proximity to China. The escalating tensions and aggression since 2013 are therefore no coincidence. Beijing’s coercion on the border and naval build-up in the Indian Ocean force India into a costly arms race and warn it against what Beijing considers excessive proximity to the US. In the ongoing great power competition between China and the US, every issue becomes a zero-sum game. This makes it harder for India to solve its border conflict with China and at the same time manage China’s rise and growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region in a peaceful manner. Strengthening India’s position in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region is in line with Europe’s own interests in free trade and supply chain resilience, as well as sustaining a multipolar world order – one in which countries’ political decision-making is not restricted by their economic dependency on China. In this regard, India should play a crucial role in the EU’s diversification and de-risking strategy. The Indo-Pacific region accounts for 40 per cent of the bloc’s extra-EU imports and 27 per cent of its total exports, most of which are sea-borne. As such, the Indian Ocean is Europe’s primary gateway to the Indo-Pacific region. China and India may be slowly but effectively moving towards a new phase of antagonistic rivalry. While the prospect of open confrontation remains only a distant possibility, further polarisation of India-China relations in the Indian Ocean is a problem not only for India, but also for Europe. The EU declared India a priority partner in its 2021 Indo-Pacific strategy, but its relationship with New Delhi has long been characterised as not living up to its full potential. Europe’s growing disillusionment with China over the past two years has shown the need and prepared the ground to further strengthen relations with India. The EU should prioritise the establishment and implementation of  the EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, the EU-India free trade agreement, the Trade and Technology Council, and the Connectivity Partnership to demonstrate its commitment and effectively move beyond symbolic cooperation with India.

An ongoing power struggle for the position of ambassador at the Afghan embassy in New Delhi underlines India’s diplomatic quandary about the nature of its engagement with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has not issued any public statement regarding the dispute between representatives of the previous Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan over who should occupy the post, but reports suggest India has conveyed to both sides that they need to settle their internal issue on their own. However, the fact that the visa of Qadir Shah, the person appointed by the Afghan Taliban as chargé d’affaires in New Delhi, has reportedly expired further complicates the power struggle. If the Indian government decides to extend Shah’s visa, it would interpreted as India’s willingness to accept a Taliban-appointed diplomat in the Afghan embassy in New Delhi. Following its seizure of power in August 2021 after overthrowing the U.S.-backed Ashraf Ghani government, the Taliban regime has been seeking international diplomatic recognition along with Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations. The Taliban regime has so far taken control of more than a dozen missions abroad, but India is yet to have a Taliban-appointed ambassador. In March, the Taliban regime’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, revealed that “efforts are underway to take charge of other diplomatic missions abroad. [...] Diplomats of the former government are continuing their activities in coordination with the [Taliban] Foreign Ministry.” Afghan embassies in Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and some other Arab and African countries are now working under Taliban-appointed diplomats. India’s involvement in Afghanistan The security, economic, and humanitarian vacuum left by the withdrawal of American troops has significant implications for India’s interests in Afghanistan. India has always required and worked for a relatively stable Afghanistan free from threats by terrorist groups. Without formally recognizing the Taliban regime, in its many recent official statements India has made clear that it recognizes the reality on the ground. While India has also underscored the need for the Taliban regime to reform its governance in terms of gender and ethnic inclusivity, such normative considerations are unlikely to influence the substance of the India-Taliban relationship insofar as they do not essentially affect regional stability. India has no history of military intervention or political interference in Afghanistan and New Delhi has focused on forging people-to-people connections and projecting soft power. That is why, despite setbacks due to the hasty exit of U.S. forces, India continues to maintain goodwill among ordinary Afghans and perhaps even a section of the Taliban leadership (such as Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, who is believed to have a soft spot for India). Next to the U.S., India was Afghanistan’s principal regional source of development assistance since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001. In fact, India’s engagement with Afghanistan offers a compelling example of the use of soft power. Beyond its geostrategic motives, New Delhi was determined to bolster Kabul to ensure that a radical Islamist regime beholden to Pakistan’s security establishment did not gain a foothold in the region. That India and the Taliban-led Afghanistan have gradually drawn together to the extent that they have is an example of pragmatism in foreign policy making at its best. For India, it makes sense to try to give some reason, in the form of diplomatic exchanges and developmental assistance, for the Taliban not to permit the export of terrorism from Afghan soil. For the Taliban, notwithstanding their ideological rigidity domestically, the dire need for development assistance means maintaining silence on India’s policies on the Kashmir Valley, which is predominantly Muslim.  The Taliban have sought India’s assistance in rebuilding their country. For a regime that has been diplomatically and financially isolated, its normal relationship with India also holds much pragmatic appeal, given New Delhi’s growing geopolitical influence and longstanding interest in accessing Central Asian markets via Afghanistan. New Delhi expands its presence and engagement In June last year, New Delhi decided to deploy a “technical team” at the Indian embassy in Kabul to re-establish its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban takeover. And soon after, when India delivered a consignment of medical supplies to Afghanistan as part of its humanitarian assistance, India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, characterized India as “a true first responder” in Afghanistan. India’s move to expand its diplomatic presence is also driven by a desire to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts. In order to avert a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, India supplied 40,000 metric tons (MT) of wheat overland via Pakistan in February 2022 and an additional 20,000 MT via Iran’s Chabahar port in March 2023 to be distributed through the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), along with 45 tons of medical assistance in October 2022, including essential life-saving medicines, anti-TB medicines, 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, winter clothing, and tons of disaster relief material, among other supplies. In addition, India’s union budget for 2023-24 also made a special provision for a $25 million development aid package for Afghanistan, which has been welcomed by the Taliban. The Taliban have reportedly requested that India finish about 20 incomplete infrastructure development projects across the country. In April, during the signing of a memorandum of understanding with India for the dispatch of an additional 10,000 MT of wheat, the WFP assured India that it has the necessary infrastructure on the ground to quickly deliver the wheat to the most needy sections of the Afghan population. Recently, the MEA, under the aegis of the India Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC), invited Afghan government officials to attend a four-day virtual course on Indian legislation and business climate. In principle, India’s outreach to the Taliban is also conducive to achieving its counterterrorism objectives. However, there is a risk of over-expectation on the part of New Delhi that the Taliban would crack down on anti-India terrorists, as well as indications that the Taliban regime continues to maintain its deep links with Pakistan’s security establishment. It has been suggested by National Defense University Professor Hassan Abbas in his recently published book, The Return of the Taliban, that the Taliban regime consulted the Pakistani military before allowing India to reestablish its diplomatic presence in Kabul in June 2022. The Taliban’s ideological constraints India-Taliban relations could be hampered by the Taliban’s internal ideological positions, which the group has clung to rigidly even at the expense of its efforts to secure international recognition. The Taliban regime banned girls from educational institutions and prevented women from working in most fields of employment, including at non-governmental organizations. Women have also been ordered to cover themselves in public and are barred from many entertainment and sports venues. External pressure, including the imposition of sanctions, has not done much to convince the rigid hardliners within the Taliban regime to change their direction on human rights, gender equality, or ethnic representation in governance. This suggests that there are limits to what India can achieve through its interactions with the Taliban. The risks for India are heightened because some Pakistan-based terrorist groups would likely criticize the Taliban regime for seeking closer ties with India. Moreover, were Kabul’s cooperation with New Delhi to pose a threat to the Taliban’s own internal ideological legitimacy, this would also serve as a check on efforts to normalize relations. Regional dynamics and prospects for cooperation The Taliban regime is enthusiastically courting other regional powers as well, such as China, Russia, and Iran, each of which has its own regional interests. For instance, in contrast to India’s passive role and limited footprint in Afghanistan, China has been expanding its diplomatic and economic presence in the country. Recently, China discussed with the Taliban regime how to bring Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost investment in the crisis-hit country, while also pressing Kabul to deliver on its regional and international commitments to counter terror. In January of this year, Beijing signed a 25-year contract to extract oil from the Afghan Amu Darya Basin and is also negotiating other lucrative commercial deals with the Taliban regime. Central Asia has often been seen as a test case for Indian leadership. It is in Afghanistan that India has taken a notably more proactive approach to driving regional cooperation through connectivity initiatives. India has also used the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) platform for this purpose. With inclusion of Iran this year, membership in the Eurasian political, economic, and security organization now includes all of Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors with the exception of Turkmenistan. Early this month in Goa, India, the foreign ministers of SCO countries called for the establishment of a representative government in Afghanistan as well as the protection of women’s rights. Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar remarked, “Our immediate priorities include providing humanitarian assistance, ensuring a truly inclusive and representative government, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, and preserving the rights of women, children, and minorities.” While the SCO might appear a viable platform for regional cooperation, there are certain limits to its effectiveness in dealing with Afghanistan due to the divergent political and security interests of some SCO members, particularly India and Pakistan. Moreover, given Russia’s reduced international stature and Beijing’s growing leverage over Moscow due to its brutal war against Ukraine, the SCO is now a China-led organization. China is a key participant in many important regional forums where Afghanistan remains a core security concern. Since India has a very uneasy relationship with China and supports U.S.-led geopolitical initiatives, primarily the Quadrilateral Security Initiative or Quad (comprising India, the U.S., Japan, and Australia), to counter China, there are practical constraints to what India can achieve through the SCO.   While the Taliban have not yet shown the traits required for recognition as a legitimate political organization responsible for governing Afghanistan, the non-recognition of their regime should not worsen the suffering of the Afghan people. India has a clear interest in a stable and well-governed Afghanistan, not least to prevent spillover into Kashmir. For now, India’s policy toward Afghanistan remains focused on building pragmatic, if not cooperative, relations with the Taliban. India is engaging the regime on its own terms and continues to highlight its commitment to Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities and women. India is equally careful that its interactions should not be viewed as a diplomatic embrace of the Taliban or its acceptance of their repugnant governance model.

At a time of intense polarisation in Pakistani society, the army cannot remain unaffected by intense divisions among Pakistanis. The images of enraged mobs attacking a Corps Commander’s residence and General Headquarters (GHQs) immediately after the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan illustrate the challenge facing Pakistan’s mighty army. Speculation of divisions among the army’s officer corps notwithstanding, there is no doubt that the chain of command and discipline within the army will endure. But at a time of intense polarisation in Pakistani society, the army cannot remain unaffected by intense divisions among Pakistanis. Imran Khan enjoys massive popularity in military families, which have spent the last three decades hating the country’s traditional politicians. Serving and retired military officers and their children have had a privileged life since the days of General Zia ul Haq and most of them buy into the overly simplistic view that Pakistan’s only problem is politicians who are “crooks” or “traitors”. Since, in their view, Imran Khan is neither, and he also reflects nationalist ‘jazba’; he is the only civilian leader acceptable to them. In my book ‘Reimagining Pakistan’, I have explained the concept of ‘jazba’, which means ‘passion, spirit, and strong feeling or emotion’, a uniquely Pakistani blend of religion, patriotism, and antagonism towards India, the United States, and anyone else who might interfere with the greatness for which Pakistan is destined. For those who believe, ‘jazba’ is the guarantor of Pakistan’s success in all fields, from the sport of cricket to the economy and warfare. The believers in ‘jazba’ often do not analyse, they only emote. For them, Pakistan’s problems are not the result of bad policies. They are attributable to “the lack of sincerity and jazba” of someone or the other. Imran Khan’s engineered political rise was largely based on the ‘jazba’ narrative. In fact, his hardcore followers speak of ‘jazba junoon’, or the spirit of madness, in loving him as Pakistan’s saviour. The army nurtured the ‘jazba’ narrative that propelled Imran Khan into power and is now finding it difficult to get men and women who live in or have grown up in cantonments to change their worldview just because senior generals have realised its limitations. Pakistan’s generals have always been divided between pragmatists, who realise the complexities of the world, and those who are ideological to the point of ignoring everything else. The latter are often drawn to conspiracy theories, which Imran Khan also loves spreading. Former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had thought that he could use Imran Khan’s charisma and celebrity status to create a political force that would keep traditional politicians in check and enable him to drive from the back seat while maintaining the trapping of democracy. That did not work out. When Bajwa tried to make pragmatic adjustments in Pakistan’s relations with the West and India, Imran Khan stuck to the ideological paradigm. Moreover, Pakistan’s economy did not do better under Khan, who failed to fulfil his key promise of repatriating wealth allegedly ‘stolen’ from Pakistan by traditional politicians and stashed abroad. Imran Khan also interfered with Bajwa’s personal ambitions and that led to Bajwa’s decision not to help his mentee beat the Vote of No Confidence brought against Khan last year by the traditional politicians. Imran Khan has, over the years, become a master narrative builder, which is easy to do when you deliberately ignore every fact and have cult-like followers who accept everything you say. Khan blamed his ouster on a conspiracy by the United States and virtually called upon the army to restore him to office or hold immediate elections, which he hopes to win. The army’s refusal to do so has led to stepping up of rhetoric against the army’s senior commanders. It is wrong to portray Khan’s supporters as having turned against the army or even against military intervention in politics. His party, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), has in its ranks the son of late military dictator General Zia ul Haq, the grandson of Pakistan’s first coup maker Field Marshal Ayub Khan, and all major civilian collaborators of General Pervez Musharraf. None of them have publicly said anything to suggest there was anything wrong with Pakistan’s past military interventions. By speaking out against the current army leadership, these people are simply trying to get the army to put its weight behind Khan again, where they feel it rightly belongs as long as Pakistan is a democracy. If, at some point, Pakistan’s democratic system breaks down again, and direct military ruler returns (which is difficult under current circumstances), many of Khan’s supporters will go back to supporting the army against ‘corrupt’ politicians (minus Khan, of course.) Imran Khan’s strategy seems to be to use his popularity with military families to force a change in the high command’s decisions. Several years ago, Khan had remarked in a dinner conversation overseas, which was recorded on video, that Pakistan’s generals feared the mob. In recent months, he has been testing out his theory by gradually unleashing the mob against the army. But if, as a Chinese government statement recently described it, the Pakistan army is the “defender of Pakistan’s national security and stability”, its leaders cannot afford to be swayed by either the mob or the ideological spirit of military family members and retired officers. Given its size and command structure, the Pakistan army is not an institution that can easily be fractured or divided. But ideologues have flourished in its ranks before and might exist even now. The late Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, for example, often bragged that he put his Islamic faith and his own resolve to protect Pakistan from external and internal enemies above his loyalty to the chain of command or to Pakistan’s Constitution. But Gul’s bragging came largely after retirement. Even now, the most outspoken advocates of Imran Khan’s cause are retired officers, not serving ones. Pakistan’s army chief has to take into account the sentiment of his officers and troops but, at the end of the day, the decisions of the army High Command prevail. We are currently seeing a massive effort by Imran Khan and his supporters to sway the High Command. Of course, attacking military installations will probably dent that effort significantly.

I. Introduction  This paper focuses on countries having extended nuclear deterrence arrangements with a nuclear-armed patron from whom they have received a nuclear security guarantee. Extended nuclear deterrence is often called a ‘nuclear umbrella’—a metaphor that hardly captures the risks inherent in nuclear deterrence practices—and the non-nuclear weapon states belonging to an alliance with such arrangements are commonly referred to as ‘umbrella’ states. As of 4 April 2023, upon the accession of Finland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 31 countries were relying on the extended nuclear deterrence provided by the United States or, at the least, were accepting nuclear weapons as part of the mix of military capabilities intended to create a collective deterrent effect. In the absence of a ‘no first use’ policy, this means that the USA could use nuclear weapons to respond not only to a nuclear attack but also to an act of conventional aggression against its non-nuclear-armed allies. The USA is not the only country providing nuclear security guarantees to its allies: recently, Russia claimed to have included Belarus under its respective nuclear umbrella.   Umbrella states base their security on military capabilities that include the nuclear weapons of other countries, and in some cases, they also host nuclear weapons and take part in military exercises simulating their use. Thus far, the role of the umbrella states in the global nuclear order has received relatively little attention, and they are generally categorised as non-nuclear weapon states. Their agency in maintaining or potentially changing the existing nuclear order tends to be downplayed and overshadowed by that of nuclear-armed states. However, umbrella states received some attention at the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT). At the conference, held in 2022, Parties to the Treaty discussed whether to recognize ‘the importance for States parties that are part of military alliances that include nuclear-weapon States to report . . . on steps taken to reduce and eliminate the role of nuclear weapons in national and collective security doctrines’. Owing to resistance by the USA and several of its allies to create a third category of states alongside nuclear weapon states and nonnuclear weapon states, this reference was ultimately removed from the draft outcome document.  The discussions at the 2022 NPT Review Conference reflected the current context, wherein greater military value is being placed on nuclear weapons, including by umbrella states. Provided that Sweden’s application to join NATO—which it submitted in 2022 together with Finland’s application—is accepted, the number of countries under the extended nuclear deterrence arrangements of the USA will increase to 32. At the same time, US allies in the Asia-Pacific region are responding to perceived threats from China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) with increasing calls for the redeployment of US non-strategic nuclear weapons to the region. Reflecting its concerns about potential new nuclear weapon deployments in Asia, China was vocal in opposing US nuclear hosting arrangements at the 2022 NPT Review Conference. That an increasing number of non-nuclear weapon states see security value in nuclear weapons does not bode well for the global nuclear dis armament and non-proliferation regime. The development also highlights the need to better understand how the policies of umbrella states affect the global nuclear order. That order is characterized by the continuation of nuclear deterrence practices by the world’s nine nuclear-armed states despite a shared understanding of the devastating planetary-scale humanitarian and environmental risks involved in such practices and the consequent need for nuclear disarmament.  Taking a broad historical perspective, this paper explores the ways in which umbrella states both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe have supported prevailing nuclear deterrence practices or, at times, distanced themselves from such practices and broken ranks with their allies on relevant issues. The goal of the paper is to assess the scope of umbrella states’ agency in maintaining, shaping, and potentially challenging the global nuclear status quo in support of nuclear disarmament. II. Endorsing nuclear deterrence through policy and practice  This section examines policies through which umbrella states support and contribute to the prevailing nuclear deterrence practices or have done so in the past. Such policies provide support that ranges from operational, which sees allies directly involved in such practices, to political, which is better understood in terms of moral burden-sharing. While such policies serve to maintain and legitimize the existing nuclear status quo, in some cases the endorsement by umbrella states of nuclear deterrence has moved beyond supporting the status quo to calling for new nuclear sharing arrangements or outright nuclear proliferation.  Operational support for nuclear deterrence practices  Umbrella states can provide operational support to their nuclear-armed patron for nuclear deterrence practices by hosting nuclear weapons and related facilities, participating in military exercises simulating nuclear strikes, conducting joint flights with strategic bombers, and engaging in planning and consultation on nuclear weapons-related issues. Given the broad nature of existing bilateral and multilateral consultation mechanisms, which also cover issues such as arms control, it is sometimes difficult to draw a boundary line between operational and political support.  Nuclear weapon hosting  During the cold war, the USA stationed non-strategic nuclear weapons in the territories of several of its Asia-Pacific and European allies. In Europe, the first such weapons were deployed in 1954 in the United Kingdom and West Germany to complement the deterrence provided by US strategic (long-range) nuclear weapons, which was deemed insufficient against the Soviet Union’s overwhelming conventional power. In 1958, the first nuclear sharing agreements were established, meaning that European allies would not only host US nuclear weapons but also take control of and launch such weapons against their            bintended targets during times of crisis. By the mid1960s, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye were hosting various types of non-strategic nuclear weapon under NATO nuclear sharing arrangements. By 1971, there were 7300 forward-deployed nuclear weapons in Europe. In addition to the eight above-mentioned European countries, the USA also stationed nuclear weapons in the Danish territory of Greenland (see section III below). The deployments in Europe coincided with deployments elsewhere in the world. In Asia and the Pacific, the USA stationed nuclear weapons in the late 1950s in the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as in overseas territories of the USA. The largest deployments were in South Korea and the Japanese island of Okinawa, with the number of warheads hosted by the country and island respectively peaking at almost 1000 in the late 1960s. Most of these weapons had been withdrawn by the late 1970s; South Korea remained the only host state in the Asia-Pacific region in the following decade. The USA also deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons in Morocco in the 1950s and Canada in the 1960s. The Soviet Union deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons in all of its 15 republics as well as in some of its Warsaw Pact allies. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing over the following decade, non-strategic nuclear weapons were gradually deployed in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. All of these weapons had been withdrawn by the early 1990s. During the remainder of that decade, the strategic nuclear weapons that had been hosted in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were also withdrawn.  With the end of the cold war, forward-deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons effectively lost their raison d’être, particularly in Europe. Reflecting the new geopolitical context, in the early 1990s the USA unilaterally withdrew most of its non-strategic nuclear weapons from allied countries. In South Korea, the nuclear hosting arrangement ended completely. While NATO nuclear sharing continued, only the air-delivered B61 bombs remained and their numbers were reduced, while all other non-strategic nuclear weapon types were removed from Europe.  In 2001, the B61 weapons were removed from Greece. In the years that followed, the military value of the non-strategic US nuclear weapons that still remained in five NATO countries was frequently called into question. As noted in a 2005 US study, ‘Nuclear burden sharing in NATO, in as far as host country nuclear strike missions are concerned, is on a slow but steady decline toward ending altogether’. The political momentum for ending nuclear sharing was at its highest during the administration of US president Barack Obama, whose vision for a nuclear weapon-free world arguably inspired some allies to more vocally argue for the withdrawal of non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe. Yet, the same US administration also pushed back against and, as it seems, silenced such critical voices (see section III below).  Today, an estimated 100 non-strategic nuclear weapons remain stationed in five European countries—Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye—and the USA is modernizing its B61 bombs. The nuclear weapon hosting states, with the exception of Türkiye, plan to replace their ageing dual-capable aircraft with F-35 aircraft, which will enable use of the precision strike feature of the new B61-12 bombs. As before, allies are responsible for delivering these weapons during a crisis. Since 1976, US gravity bombs in Europe have included electronic locks (permissive action links, PALs) to reduce the risk of unauthorized use. The delegation of authority for nuclear weapon use from the USA to its allies is based on a dual key system: following an agreement by the NATO Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) and authorization by the US president, US military personnel at allied bases would deactivate the PALs, handing over control of the weapons to pilots of the weapon hosting states.  As noted above, China recently raised its opposition to NATO nuclear weapon hosting practices, reflecting its apparent concerns about the prospect of US non-strategic nuclear weapons being redeployed in Asia. Russia, alongside China and other countries, has long argued that NATO’s nuclear sharing policy is not in accordance with Articles I and II of the NPT. Russia’s normative case against NATO nuclear sharing is, however, currently undermined by its own plans to share nuclear weapons with Belarus. Echoing the arguments of the USA in this regard, Russia maintains that the weapons will remain under Russian control, hence the arrangement—announced in March 2023—will be in line with international non-proliferation obligations. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the construction of nuclear weapon storage facilities in Belarus is to be completed by July 2023. Russia reportedly provided Belarus with dual capable Iskander missiles and modified Belarusian Su-25 bombers to enable them to carry nuclear weapons prior to the March announcement. Military exercises simulating tactical nuclear strikes  Some umbrella states that do not host nuclear weapons nevertheless actively contribute to nuclear sharing by taking part in military exercises involving dual-capable aircraft. NATO’s Support of Nuclear Operations with Conventional Air Tactics (SNOWCAT) programme comprises a unique form of such participation. In SNOWCAT missions, allies provide conventional aircraft to escort dual-capable aircraft, and they also provide surveillance and refuelling. The aim of the exercises is to practise nuclear strike operations.  In 2022, 14 allies were reported as having participated in the annual SNOWCAT exercise called Steadfast Noon. While NATO does not reveal the participating countries, in previous years they have reportedly included at least Czechia and Poland alongside host states and nuclear-armed states. In addition, Denmark confirmed its participation in the 2022 exercise, and Greece too seems to have taken part.  Joint flights with strategic bombers  US nuclear sharing arrangements are limited to Europe, hence there is no programme comparable to SNOWCAT in other regions. According to a 2011 report, ‘There are no nuclear weapons–related exercises conducted between the United States and the military forces’ in umbrella states in Asia. However, US allies in the Asia-Pacific region frequently fly with US strategic B-2 and B-52  bombers to signal deterrence to regional adversaries. For example, US B-52 bombers were ‘met with and escorted by’ Japanese F-15J combat aircraft in August 2021, and accompanied by South Korean F-35As and F-15Ks in December 2022. Australia has also taken part in joint flights with US strategic aircraft, as have NATO allies in Europe. Even countries that are not part of extended nuclear deterrence arrangements—including Indonesia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Sweden—have been involved in this practice.  Thus far, the B-52s used in regional operations in Asia and the Pacific have only been deployed rotationally in the US territory of Guam. However, Australia is currently expanding a military air base in its Northern Territory with the intention of hosting US B-52 bombers. Once completed, the base would appear to be only the second one of its kind outside US territory (after Royal Air Force, RAF, Fairford in the UK) and the first one of its kind in an umbrella state.  Consultation and planning  All NATO members other than France are involved in collective decision making on nuclear weapon-related issues through their participation in the NPG. The NPG ‘provides a forum in which NATO member countries can participate in the development of the Alliance’s nuclear policy and in decisions on NATO’s nuclear posture’. Discussions under the NPG cover issues such as ‘the overall effectiveness of NATO’s nuclear deterrent, the safety, security and survivability of nuclear weapons, and communications and information systems’. The mandate of the NPG also covers arms control and non-proliferation.  Various observers have characterized the group’s main function broadly in terms of information-sharing and the establishment of ‘NATO’s common nuclear deterrence culture’. While the NATO line is that participation in the NPG is not limited to members that maintain nuclear weapons, one source points to ‘an unwritten rule that only the stationing countries speak up in NPG meetings’.  The NPG was established in 1966 primarily in response to the concerns of European host states about plans for the use of the non-strategic nuclear weapons on their territory and the desire of these countries to become more involved in relevant decision making. After having been first limited to host states, the NPG was later expanded to include other NATO allies. The participation of the latter countries was viewed by nuclear weapon states as a valuable contribution to political or moral burden-sharing.  With the salience of nuclear weapons decreasing for much of the post-cold-war period, NPG meetings became less frequent. In addition, during this period, unlike during the cold war, the group’s work no longer involved ‘nuclear planning in the strict sense of targeting’. However, the role of nuclear weapons in NATO policy has been increasing following Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, which has also impacted the NPG’s work and increased the group’s visibility. For a long time, nuclear consultations were unique to NATO; no mechanism similar to the NPG existed between the USA and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. In the words of one observer, ‘US alliance relations in Asia as a whole developed in a considerably more hierarchical fashion, arranged in a hub-and-spoke model in which Washington dealt bilaterally and from a position of strength with each allied government rather than collectively through a single multilateral alliance’. However, over the past decade, the USA has also conducted bilateral consultations with Australia, Japan, and South Korea, based on these allies’ desire to gain more insight into and influence in US nuclear weapons-related policy. Plans have also been made to extend such consultations to a trilateral (Japan, South Korea, and the USA) or a quadrilateral (as for trilateral but including Australia) format.  One forum for bilateral nuclear consultation is the US–Japan Extended Deterrence Dialogue, which was established in 2010. Similarly, to the NPG, the dialogue ‘provides an opportunity . . . to discuss regional security, Alliance defense posture, nuclear and missile defense policy, and arms control issues, and to engage in an in-depth exchange of views on means to enhance as well as deepen mutual understanding on alliance deterrence’. South Korea and the USA, in turn, have conducted nuclear consultations under their Deterrence Strategy Committee and Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group. These consultations were apparently expanded or replaced with a new—more substantive—mechanism in April 2023, when US President Joe Biden announced in a joint press briefing with his South Korean counterpart, President Yoon Suk-Yeol, that the two countries had ‘agreed to establish a Nuclear Consultative Group to map out a specific plan to operate the new extended deterrence system’. In addition to sharing information on ‘mutual nuclear assets and intelligence’, this new system would also cover ‘ways to plan and execute joint operations that combine Korea’s state-of-the-art conventional forces with the US’s nuclear capabilities’. The announcement followed controversial statements by the South Korean president that suggested the country might be considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons of its own (see below).  Possibly reflective of the greater need for reassurance related to extended nuclear deterrence based mainly on US strategic nuclear weapons, the bilateral consultations of the USA with both Japan and South Korea have included visits and tours to familiarize these allies with US strategic weapons delivery vehicles. Moreover, the new US–South Korean Nuclear Consultative Group that was announced in April includes visits by South Korean officials to US nuclear submarines in South Korean ports.  Assessment of the degree of operational involvement of umbrella states in nuclear deterrence  The hosting of nuclear weapons can be seen to constitute a particularly high level of commitment to nuclear deterrence—especially in the case of NATO nuclear sharing, which involves the handing over of control of nuclear weapons by the USA to an ally and the potential execution of a nuclear strike by that ally during a crisis. The host state takes on an enormous burden in sacrificing its own security, as military bases with nuclear weapon infrastructure and housing dual-capable aircraft for nuclear strike missions are logical targets for adversaries in wartime. Although European host states would ultimately be responsible for dropping B61 bombs on their target locations, other allies’ provision of support for the nuclear strike mission under the SNOWCAT programme must also be seen as a direct operational contribution to nuclear deterrence practices.  Assessment of the degree of operational involvement of umbrella states in nuclear deterrence  Political support for nuclear deterrence  Acceptance of a nuclear security guarantee constitutes political support— albeit passive—for existing nuclear deterrence practices. Typically, this kind of support involves endorsing the strategy documents of an alliance that stress the need for nuclear deterrence or as discussed above, participating in allied nuclear consultations. Some countries choose to go further in their political support by making public statements highlighting the perceived security value of nuclear weapons. Another form of political support by umbrella states of nuclear deterrence practices is signalling opposition to multilateral initiatives that question the legitimacy of nuclear deterrence.  Statements supporting extended nuclear deterrence  Umbrella states tend to keep a low profile regarding the role of nuclear weapons in their national security policies. In most cases, their national security strategies do not even mention nuclear deterrence and nuclear weapons are either discussed in relation to the perceived threats posed by adversaries or viewed exclusively as objects of arms control and disarmament. In multilateral forums, nuclear-allied countries usually do not wish to stand out from non-nuclear weapon states.  In some cases, however, umbrella states do explicitly stress the importance of nuclear weapons and extended nuclear deterrence for their national security. A recent example of public endorsement of nuclear deterrence is the German response to the criticism by China, Russia, and several nonnuclear weapon states of NATO nuclear sharing arrangements at the 2022 NPT Review Conference. Using its right of reply, Germany said that NATO nuclear sharing is ‘fully consistent and compliant with the NPT’, adding that the practice was ‘put in place well before the NPT entered into force’ and that it ‘has long been accepted and publicly understood by all States Parties to the NPT’. At the same conference, a representative of Hungary defended nuclear sharing by saying that it contributes to non-proliferation by ‘remov[ing] incentives for nations to develop their own nuclear deterrence capabilities’. Both of these arguments have long been made by NATO to justify nuclear sharing.  When comparing the defence white papers of umbrella states, Australia and Germany stand out for the reason that both countries explicitly refer to extended nuclear deterrence as a source of national security. Germany, in addition to repeating key tenets of NATO’s deterrence policy—for example that ‘The strategic nuclear capabilities of NATO, and in particular those of the United States, are the ultimate guarantee of the security of its members’— also states in its 2016 white paper on security policy and the future of the Bundeswehr that, ‘Through nuclear sharing, Germany continues to be an integral part of NATO’s nuclear policy and planning’. Australia, in its 2020 Defence Strategic Update, states that ‘Only the nuclear and conventional capabilities of the United States can offer effective deterrence against the possibility of nuclear threats against Australia’. Statements supporting extended nuclear deterrence can be viewed as examples of moral burden-sharing, particularly when they are made in forums such as the NPT Review Conference, where nuclear deterrence practices are subject to regular criticism by non-nuclear weapon states. On other occasions—such as when they are made in connection with national security documents—these statements indicate a strong belief that nuclear weapons are an integral part of allied deterrence.  Opposition to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons  Since 2016, an important show of solidarity among the nuclear weapon states and their allies has been to cast votes against the United Nations General Assembly annual resolution endorsing the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW not only questions the legitim acy of existing nuclear deterrence practices but also seeks to stigmatize nuclear weapons globally through its comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons, including on the threat of their use. Not surprisingly, nuclear-armed states have fervently opposed the Treaty, as the credibility of their nuclear deterrents depends on their readiness to threaten nuclear weapon use.  The USA has warned its allies against supporting the TPNW or participating in related meetings. For example, in 2016 it strongly encouraged NATO member countries to vote against UN General Assembly Resolution 71/258, which called for negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons, arguing that such efforts were ‘fundamentally at odds with NATO’s basic policies on deterrence’. In that year, all umbrella states cast a negative vote on the resolution, with the exception of the Netherlands, which abstained from voting (see the section ‘Engagement by umbrella states with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons’ below). Similarly, all umbrella states, with the exception of the Netherlands, were absent from the TPNW negotiations in 2017; Albania, Poland and South Korea joined the USA in protesting against these negotiations. With only a few exceptions, umbrella states have also uniformly voted against the annual UN General Assembly resolution expressing support for the Treaty. Arguably in line with their decision to apply for NATO membership, in 2022 Finland and Sweden also voted against the resolution for the first time. Calls to expand nuclear deterrence practices  Some countries without existing nuclear sharing arrangements have expressed an interest in hosting nuclear weapons. In 2020, before the recent reports of nuclear sharing between Belarus and Russia (see the section ‘Nuclear weapon hosting’ above), the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, had offered to host Russian nuclear weapons as a response to the potential deployment of US nuclear weapons to Poland. Belarus’ interest in positioning itself under the Russian nuclear umbrella was in fact first articulated more than 20 years ago.  Poland has on several occasions expressed an interest in hosting US nuclear weapons. For example, in October 2022, following reports of Russian nuclear sharing with Belarus, the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda said that ‘a potential opportunity’ for Poland to participate in nuclear sharing had been discussed with the USA. While the US leadership has not confirmed that such discussions took place, in May 2020 the US ambassador to Poland suggested that ‘perhaps Poland . . . could house the capabilities’ in case Germany were to ‘reduce its nuclear potential and weaken NATO’ by ending its nuclear sharing arrangements with the USA. Stationing US nuclear weapons in former Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland would go against the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, in which NATO member countries reiterated that they have ‘no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members’.  Regarding the Asia-Pacific region, the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-Yeol, said in an unprecedented statement made in January 2023 that if the nuclear threat from North Korea grows, his country might ‘introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own’, adding that ‘we can have our own nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities’. While there has been a long-standing debate in South Korea on both the reintroduction of US non-strategic weapons and the development of an indigenous nuclear weapon programme, and popular support for both proposals, this was the first time such a statement was made by a high-level government official. Similarly, discussions on the possibility of hosting US nuclear weapons in a manner based on the NATO model have taken place in Japan. Thus far the Japanese government has rejected the idea.  The above-mentioned calls to establish new nuclear weapon hosting arrangements suggest that the umbrella states in question view the existing extended nuclear deterrence practices as insufficient. While these states may view forward-deployed nuclear weapons themselves as key to strengthening deterrence, they might also view them as instruments of alliance cohesion— meaning that, in principle, nuclear weapons could be replaced with any other military system requiring the permanent deployment of US troops on allied territory. Statements supporting indigenous nuclear weapon development go further, indicating the desire of an umbrella state to assume sovereign authority over national nuclear deterrence practices through proliferation. While such statements may be used to appeal to domestic constituencies or to pressure the nuclear-armed patron to strengthen its extended deterrence commitments, they undermine the global non-proliferation norm, particularly if not met with strong international condemnation.  III. Stepping back from nuclear deterrence policies  This section recounts and analyses the ways in which some umbrella states, or government officials in such states, have at times sought to challenge or distance themselves from existing nuclear deterrence practices and broken ranks with allies on relevant issues, often in a manner considered controversial within the alliance. In many such cases, govern mental policymaking has mirrored anti-nuclear sentiments in the population.  Bans on or limits to the stationing of nuclear weapons on national territory  The political reservations of Nordic NATO members about the stationing of nuclear weapons on or their transit through their national territories date back to the late 1950s—a time of strong popular sentiment against nuclear weapons inspired by, for example, the Russell–Einstein Manifesto of 1955 and international efforts at the UN to control and eliminate nuclear weapons. In Spain, similar reservations took shape in the early 1980s, when the antinuclear movement was strong.  Political declarations on potential future deployment or transit  Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Spain have long had policies that prohibit nuclear weapons being stationed on their national territories. While the policies of Denmark, Norway and Spain leave open the option of allowing the stationing of nuclear weapons during times of war, Iceland’s prohibition seems to apply in all situations.  Danish reservations about nuclear deterrence have been influenced by domestic opposition to nuclear weapons and were captured in a policy that was adopted in May 1957. According to the policy, Denmark would not allow ‘the deployment and transit of nuclear weapons on its territory’, in particular Greenland, where, as a result of a 1951 bilateral defence agreement, the USA was allowed to operate military bases. However, this declaratory policy was contradicted by a secret agreement, according to which the USA was not obliged to inform Denmark of its deployment of nuclear weapons on US bases in Greenland. In practice, Denmark thus allowed both the stationing of US nuclear weapons at Thule Air Base in 1958–1965 and overflights of nuclear armed bombers in Greenland in the 1960s. Although the veil of secrecy was briefly lifted in 1968 when a US B-52 bomber crashed in Greenland, it was not until the 1990s that the full scale of the clandestine activities came to light, causing a political scandal in Denmark.  In Norway, a 1957 motion by the governing Labour Party held that ‘nuclear weapons must not be placed on Norwegian territory’, a decision that the country’s prime minister reiterated at a NATO meeting in December 1957. In 1960 it was specified that this policy applied in peacetime only. At the time, Norwegian government officials also repeatedly said that Norway would not allow visits by naval vessels that had nuclear weapons on board. In a more recent reiteration of the policy, a 2017 white paper on Norwegian foreign and security policy states that ‘nuclear weapons are not to be stationed on Norwegian territory in peacetime’ and, furthermore, that ‘foreign military vessels that call at Norwegian ports must not have nuclear weapons on board’. Norway did not enforce this policy during the cold war by preventing US surface ships—which no longer carry nuclear weapons but at the time would neither confirm nor deny they were carrying them—from entering their ports. Denmark did not enforce its ban on the transit of nuclear weapons on its territory either.  Iceland’s policy of not allowing nuclear weapons on its soil is less well known than that of the two other Nordic NATO members. It has, however, been consistently expressed by successive Icelandic foreign ministers since 1964 and codified in parliamentary resolutions since at least 1985. A 2016 resolution reconfirmed that part of the country’s national security policy is ‘To ensure that Iceland and its territorial waters are declared free from nuclear weapons . . .’.  Spain hosted US strategic bombers and nuclear-armed submarines during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939–75). When Spain joined NATO in 1982, it did so on the condition—set by the Spanish parliament—that nuclear weapons would not be brought to the country. The 1986 referendum that confirmed the country’s NATO membership mentioned the prohibition of ‘the deployment, storing or the introduction of nuclear weapons in Spanish soil’ as a precondition to this decision. However, the transit of nuclear armed vessels through Spanish waters—which would have in any case been difficult to monitor—was not prohibited.  The political reservations of the four NATO member countries discussed above stand out as the most visible expressions of scepticism about the security benefits of extended nuclear deterrence within the alliance. The practical impact of such declaratory statements has been called into question by the case of Denmark, where the declaratory policy was contradicted by a clandestine agreement. That all of these countries—with the apparent exception of Iceland—have not ruled out the possibility of hosting nuclear weapons during times of war can also be seen to reduce the normative significance of their reservations about such hosting.  Legislation prohibiting nuclear weapons on national territory  Lithuania’s constitution unambiguously states that ‘There may not be any weapons of mass destruction’ on its territory. Although it is legally binding, applicable in wartime and would seem to represent the strongest stance possible against nuclear sharing, this prohibition is disconnected from Lithuania’s political statements, which are silent on this part of the constitution and have even, at times, highlighted the value of nuclear weapons to NATO’s deterrence policy. One explanation for this might be that Lithuania’s constitution—which was drafted in 1992 and thus preceded the country’s NATO accession in 2004—signalled sovereign independence from the Soviet Union rather than marked distance from NATO nuclear policies.  New Zealand is a former nuclear umbrella state that passed legislation against the introduction of nuclear weapons on its national territory in 1984. The country had been part of a trilateral defence alliance under the 1951 ANZUS Treaty. More specifically, New Zealand declared itself a nuclear weapon-free zone and introduced relevant legislation, including a prohibition on nuclear-capable vessels from entering the country’s ports. Given the US policy at the time of neither confirming nor denying its ships were armed with nuclear weapons, US Navy vessels could not dock in the harbours of New Zealand. In February 1985, New Zealand demonstrated its readiness to enforce its policy by turning down the request of a US missile destroyer to dock. The USA reacted by cancelling its security guarantee to New Zealand in August 1986. Although New Zealand signalled its willingness to remain part of the ANZUS Treaty, the position of the USA was that it was not feasible for an ally to enjoy the benefits of a conventional defence partnership while renouncing its nuclear dimension. As suggested by one observer, the USA’s severe response to New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy reflected concerns by the USA that, if it would accept the policy, this ‘could generate eventual ripples of pressures for unilateral disarmament throughout other western societies’.  In sum, national legislation prohibiting the stationing and transit of nuclear weapons in or through a given umbrella state’s territory can be seen to constitute a strong prohibition against nuclear weapon hosting. Yet, the political significance of such a prohibition is diminished if not backed up by corresponding declaratory policy, as exemplified by the case of Lithuania. In contrast, the combination of legal and political prohibition and its practical enforcement by New Zealand was deemed excessive by the USA, which ultimately punished its ally by terminating the conventional security guarantee. A similar crisis over the transit of nuclear weapons is unlikely to occur today given that the USA stopped deploying nuclear weapons on surface ships in the early 1990s. Instead, potential controversies over allies’ anti-nuclear weapon policies are now more likely to arise in connection with their approach to the TPNW (see the section ‘Engagement of umbrella states with the Treaty on the Prohibition of nuclear weapons’ below).  Political decisions to end nuclear weapons hosting  By the end of the cold war, several nuclear weapon hosting arrangements had been terminated. Arguably, these arrangements were ended largely on the basis of unilateral decisions taken by Russia and the USA; however, in at least two cases—Canada and Greece—the initiative clearly came from host states.  Following a heated domestic debate and a change of government, Canada decided in 1963 to host US nuclear warheads that were to be fitted with the Bomarc anti-aircraft missiles that Canada had previously bought from the USA. However, only six years later, in 1969, a new Canadian government reversed the hosting policy. It did so in line with its ratification in that same year of the newly negotiated NPT (Canada was one of the first countries to ratify the Treaty). As a result, by 1972 all US nuclear warheads reserved for the anti-aircraft missiles had been withdrawn from Canada. However, the country retained nuclear-armed air-to-air Genie rockets deliverable by Voodoo aircraft until 1984.  Greece, which had hosted US non-strategic nuclear weapons since the early days of the cold war, decided at the turn of this century not to replace its ageing A-7E dual-capable aircraft with a new model that could have continued the country’s nuclear sharing arrangements with the USA. As a result of this decision, US nuclear weapons were quietly removed from the country in 2001, putting an end to the arrangements. The apparent lack of public discussion on the decision—or any discussion that reached an international audience—contrasts with the vocal but ineffectual calls made by Germany a decade later for the withdrawal of such weapons.  Calls to end nuclear sharing  The military value of the US non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe was frequently called into question in the post-cold-war period, with arguments against them growing louder in the late 2000s. At this time, two successive German foreign ministers—Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Guido Westerwelle—openly called for an end to nuclear sharing in Germany. As Steinmeier said in 2009, ‘These weapons are militarily obsolete today’, which is why he would seek to ensure that the remaining US warheads ‘are removed from Germany’. The following year, Westerwelle said that the nuclear weapons in Germany were ‘a relic of the Cold War’ that ‘no longer serve a military purpose’ and that the German government was ‘working to create the conditions for their removal’ in cooperation with allies and partners.  In February 2010, Germany—together with Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway—wrote a letter to the NATO secretary-general calling for the inclusion of non-strategic nuclear weapons in arms control agreements. The Benelux countries and Norway also highlighted this issue in their national statements but more cautiously than Germany, often linking it to reciprocal steps being taken by Russia.  These high-level efforts to change NATO nuclear sharing practices ultimately proved unsuccessful. Ironically, the same US administration that arguably inspired the German position against the hosting of non-strategic nuclear weapons also strongly pushed back against this position. The former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to the above-mentioned letter by saying that ‘as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance’, stressing the importance of ‘sharing nuclear risks and responsibilities’. At the same time, she stressed the need for Russia to make reciprocal reductions as a condition for the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe. The definition of NATO as a nuclear alliance was included in its 2010 Strategic Concept, which ultimately made it harder for Germany to push for an end to nuclear sharing. Although the debate on the merits of nuclear sharing continued in the country after that, Germany’s continued participation in the practice appeared to be confirmed with the March 2022 decision to replace its ageing dual-capable Tornado aircraft with F-35s.  ‘Footnote politics’ in the 1980s By the early 1980s social democratic parties in Europe, particularly in the Nordic countries, had become critical of mainstream NATO nuclear policy, a sentiment that grew stronger during the early years of the US administration of President Ronald Reagan. Because of the leverage of a coalition of centre-left opposition parties over the liberal-conservative government’s foreign policy at the time, Denmark stood out from other NATO members by frequently dissociating itself from allied policy on nuclear issues. The Danish government—in addition to making public expressions of dissent— sometimes inserted footnotes in NATO communiqués, so its policy came to be known as ‘footnote policy’.  Initially, the most contentious issue for Denmark was NATO’s ‘dual-track’ decision, adopted in December 1979. This decision included a plan for the USA to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Western Europe in 1983 unless the Soviet Union agreed to discuss its respective SS-20 missiles in arms control negotiations. The Danish foreign minister had proposed postponing the decision, but it went ahead. In a 1982 NPG meeting communiqué, Denmark added a footnote expressing support for the Soviet proposal for a compromise solution to the INF crisis. Denmark’s position deviated from that of the other NATO members—they supported the Reagan administration’s ‘zero solution’, which called for the elimination of all land-based INF missiles in Europe. Danish opposition to the INF deployments included a parliamentary decision to suspend their funding. When the INF missiles were finally deployed, Denmark dissociated itself from the NATO policy by placing a footnote on a NATO communiqué describing it.  Other issues of contention included the US request that NATO allies endorse its Strategic Defense Initiative, which both Denmark and Norway opposed through footnote politics, and the proposal for a Nordic nuclear weapon-free zone. Although the Danish government had for most of the 1980s been driven by the opposition parties to agree to implement the footnote policy, a 1988 parliamentary resolution that would have led to a stricter policy on port visits by nuclear-armed ships—similar to the legislation put in place by New Zealand—prompted the government’s call for a new general election, which ultimately put the social democrats at a disadvantage.  Engagement of umbrella states with the Humanitarian Initiative  One umbrella state, Norway, played a key role in an initiative highlighting the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The Humanitarian Initiative built on the 2010 NPT Review Conference final document, in which deep concern was expressed over the ‘catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from the use of nuclear weapons’, as well as on three conferences exploring the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons held in 2013–2014. By drawing attention to the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapon use, the historical record of near misses, and personal accounts of the victims of past nuclear weapon use and testing, the Humanitarian Initiative questioned the legitimacy of existing nuclear deterrence practices, thereby paving the way for the TPNW negotiations. Norway was among the states that initially advocated for the inclusion of humanitarian language in the 2010 NPT Review Conference final document. In this it was inspired by the success of the humanitarian approach in bringing about the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. Indicative of the Norwegian government’s goals at the time, in February 2010 the country’s foreign minister said that ‘experience from humanitarian disarmament should guide us on how to pursue and negotiate disarmament issues in general’, and that, although ‘Some maintain that consensus is vital when it comes to nuclear disarmament . . . I believe it would be possible to develop norms against the use of nuclear weapons, and even to outlaw them, without a consensus decision, and that such norms will eventually be applied globally’.  Norway hosted the first of the three above-mentioned conferences in March 2013. The conference was criticized by the five nuclear-armed Parties to the NPT (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA) as ‘divert[ing] discussion away from practical steps to create conditions for further nuclear weapons reductions’. However, some of the nuclear-armed states participated in the third conference, held in Vienna in December 2014. Preparing the ground for the TPNW, Austria launched what eventually came to be known as the humanitarian pledge for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, which called for ‘effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons’, at the conference.  Although Norway did not ultimately endorse the pledge, it had been one of the few nuclear umbrella states supporting the joint humanitarian statement, which preceded the pledge and stated that ‘It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances’. Most NATO allies would not endorse this wording as it contradicts the basic principles of nuclear deterrence. In addition to Norway, Denmark consistently endorsed the joint humanitarian statement in 2012–2015, and Iceland and Japan joined them in doing so at the ninth NPT Review Conference, held in 2015.  According to one observer, the goal of a new treaty outlawing nuclear weapons had been ‘a key aim for the Norwegian centre-left coalition government from 2010 onwards’. However, following the 2013 elections that brought a right-wing coalition to power in the country, the Norwegian government began to dissociate itself from the humanitarian initiative. For example, at the 2022 NPT Review Conference Norway no longer supported the joint humanitarian statement, leaving Greece and Japan as the only umbrella states to endorse it.  Norway’s role in the humanitarian initiative demonstrates that umbrella states can play an instrumental role in shaping nuclear disarmament norms even in the face of opposition by their patron. However, it also shows how domestic political differences—arguably in combination with external alliance pressures—limits the sustainability of such revisionist policies over time. Engagement of umbrella states with the Treaty on the Prohibition of nuclear weapons  The TPNW challenges both the legitimacy and the legality of existing nuclear deterrence practices, which is why nuclear-armed states have fervently opposed the Treaty. The USA has also sought to ensure its allies do not join or in any way signal support for the treaty. However, some allies have found it difficult to fall into line with this policy owing to significant domestic support for the TPNW.  Meetings under the Treaty  Although none of the nuclear umbrella states supported the December 2016 UN General Assembly Resolution 71/258 that formed the basis for the TPNW negotiations, the Netherlands stood out from the others in that it abstained from voting rather than casting a vote against the resolution. The Netherlands was also the only umbrella state that took part in the two rounds of TPNW negotiations in 2017, although it did not support the adoption of the Treaty at the end of those negotiations. This deviation from US allied policy by the Netherlands has been explained in terms of domestic pressure from the Dutch parliament.  The Netherlands attended the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW, held in June 2022, as an observer, following a vote of the Dutch parliament mandating it to do so. Four other umbrella states (Australia, Belgium, Germany, and Norway) also attended the meeting as observers. Although observing TPNW meetings is not equivalent to supporting the Treaty, the presence of five umbrella states at the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW was particularly noteworthy given the 2020 North Atlantic Council statement upon the entry into force of the TPNW. This statement expressed NATO member countries’ collective opposition to the TPNW, which NATO saw as ‘not reflect[ing] the increasingly challenging international security environment’ and being ‘at odds with the existing non-proliferation and disarmament architecture’.  Official statements in support of the Treaty  In 2018 the Spanish government’s socialist minority agreed to sign the TPNW as part of a package of commitments adopted by the country’s prime minister and the leader of the far-left coalition party in exchange for the latter’s support for the following year’s budget. However, the government never acted on this commitment.  Also in 2018, the Australian Labor Party, in opposition at the time, committed itself to a policy of seeking signature and ratification of the TPNW if it were to be elected to government. The policy was initiated by Anthony Albanese, who became prime minister in May 2022. Although his subsequent rhetoric has been more cautious, in October 2022 Australia decided for the first time to abstain from voting rather than to vote against the annual UN General Assembly resolution in support of the TPNW. This shift prompted the USA to issue a warning to its ally, with the US embassy in Canberra saying that the Treaty ‘would not allow for US extended deterrence relationships, which are still necessary for international peace and security’. However, the US assessment of the compatibility between allied commitments and TPNW support appears to be contingent on political circumstances, as evidenced by the conventional alliance between the Philippines and the USA, which seems to be unaffected by the Philippines being a Party to the TPNW. In addition, some observers have suggested that the likelihood of the USA taking punitive measures against umbrella states that join the TPNW would depend on whether they were to join the treaty individually or as part of a group of several allies.  IV. Conclusions  While countries under extended nuclear deterrence arrangements retain their sovereign freedom of action, being part of a military alliance with a nuclear dimension contributes to a tendency for a country to side with its nuclear-armed patron on matters related to nuclear weapon and disarmament norms. This tendency may reflect genuine belief in the security benefits of nuclear deterrence or merely political pressure to fall in line with the views of allies, or both. Support for existing nuclear deterrence practices mostly takes a low-key, passive form but in some cases umbrella states have proactively supported such practices either politically or operationally. While such support tends to come with a reputational cost in multilateral forums and domestic politics, it also increases the status of the umbrella state within the alliance as a valued ally doing its part of the moral burden-sharing.  At times, however, umbrella states have used their freedom of action to take bold strides—or more modest steps—away from the allied mainstream position by advocating for anti-nuclear weapon policies, often reflecting popular sentiments that question the morality of nuclear weapons. Some of these policies—such as certain NATO members’ reservations regarding nuclear sharing—demonstrate that it is possible for a country to distance itself from nuclear deterrence practices while still remaining part of a military alliance. While the exceptional case of New Zealand, whose antinuclear weapon policies led to its banishment from the ANZUS alliance in the 1980s, was tied to past US nuclear weapon deployment practices that no longer exist, it set a precedent that may still add caution to the approach of umbrella states to potentially divisive issues such as the TPNW. Any punishment by the nuclear-armed patron could nevertheless be expected to be more lenient if several allies were to pursue an anti-nuclear weapon policy simultaneously—a development that might ultimately influence alliance policy by reducing the role of nuclear weapons. Absent such a prospect, allies face the challenge of balancing normative pressures to support nuclear disarmament with alliance commitments that require at least passive support for nuclear deterrence practices.

Officials from the United States and India occasionally have some difficult private conversations about Ukraine and India’s domestic politics. But the official state visit this week by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the U.S. will mainly be about showcasing the strength of the two countries’ burgeoning partnership.   Modi and President Joe Biden both need the optics of a visit rich in symbolism to demonstrate the substantive achievements of a relationship based on shared concerns about China and multi-billion dollar deals in technology and defense. Modi wants to highlight his standing as a world leader ahead of the 2024 Indian election. Biden wants to underline that, contrary to the criticism of some, he does have a plan to deal with China’s rise and the U.S. has lined up partners and allies to execute that plan. Indian prime ministers have been regular visitors to Washington D.C. since India’s independence in 1947. But Modi’s visit is only the third time an Indian prime minister will be given official state visit protocol, including a state banquet at the White House on June 22.  The fifth Indian prime minister to address a joint session of Congress, Modi will be the only Indian leader to do so for a second time. Indians will be thrilled by the attention given to their prime minister, and the speeches about shared values and similar strategic vision of the world’s oldest and largest democracies will play well in the Indian media.  But the visit will not be about just pomp and show. Trade in goods and services between India and the U.S. reached $190 billion last year and the U.S. is now India’s largest trading partner. Companies from the two countries have made significant investments across borders and Indian and American enjoy close people-to-people ties. Moreover, the U.S. is keen to “friendshore” with India to deal with the threat America sees in China’s rise, and to ensure supply-chain resilience. This involves shifting the manufacturing of certain critical components from China to friendly countries, especially India. The U.S. is funding Indian technology startups and infrastructure projects from its $200 billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) Fund.  India, as the world’s most populous country, represents a large potential market for U.S. companies currently reducing their Chinese presence. When Air India, India’s largest airline, decided to purchase 220 Boeing aircraft in a $34 billion deal, Biden celebrated, saying it “will support over 1 million American jobs across 44 states, and many will not require a four-year college degree.” U.S. aerospace and military industries have wanted a greater share of the Indian market for years.  This January, India and the U.S. announced the launch of the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) to the pave the way for “technology value-chain partnerships that would lead to co-development and co-production of high technology products and services in both countries,” in the words of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.  During a recent visit to Delhi by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a defense industrial roadmap was unveiled, reflecting an American willingness to share state-of-the-art technology with India. But India wants to build an indigenous defense industry and is keen on American technology and investment, while the U.S. wants India to stop purchasing military equipment from Russia and buy more from the United States. Historically, that divergence has resulted in announcements that have not always resulted in implementation.  For the Modi visit, the two sides have planned two key defense related deliverables: the purchase by India of 30 General Atomics-manufactured Predator or MQ9B Sea Guardian drones for $3 billion, and an agreement between General Electric and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to coproduce GE-F414 turbofan engines for India’s indigenous Tejas Mark-2 fighter jet. India and the U.S. have a long way to go before reaching the $500 billion mark in bilateral trade, which experts see as the future potential of the trade relationship. Americans blame India’s default preference for protectionism, reluctance to offer a level playing field to domestic and foreign players, strict digital privacy rules, and historical skepticism towards free and open trade. Indians complain that America is used to allies who are junior partners, not a country that is not an ally and wants to be treated as an equal. India is not alone in that view in an era when several powers want recognition and are showing a preference for economic and technology partnerships, rather than military alliances.  India is not a treaty ally of the United States, but a partner that prides itself on its strategic autonomy and one that has reservations about how it was treated by U.S. officials in the past. The closest equivalent of that in U.S. experience from the Cold War era would be France under the Gaullists. But just as the U.S. overcame its reservations about real or perceived French prickliness in the interest of preserving the Atlantic Alliance, Americans realize the importance of India in their plans for maintaining a rules-based international order.