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한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Political loyalty to PT-led governments has garnered support among the poorest. However, the Brazilian center-left has lost its hegemony over its social base. Can Bolsonaro return to power in 2026? Yes, he could. We must consider the existence of powerful objective and subjective factors to explain the resilience of the far right, even after the defeat of the semi-insurrection in January 2023. But, first of all, it is wise to recognize the international context of the phenomenon, in which the far right plays an instrumental role: (a) the turbulence in the system of states with the strengthening of China and the strategy of U.S. imperialism to preserve the supremacy of the Troika, for which a tougher protectionist orientation is useful; (b) the disputes caused by the emergence of the environmental crisis and the energy transition, which temporarily disadvantage those who decarbonize more quickly; (c) the shift of bourgeois factions towards the defense of authoritarian regimes that face popular protest and embrace a national-imperialist line; (d) the trend towards economic stagnation and the impoverishment and rightward shift of the middle classes; (e) the faltering crisis of the left, among others. But there are Brazilian peculiarities in the political fragmentation of the country. These are essentially five: (i) the hegemony among the military and the police; (ii) the gravitation of the vast majority of Pentecostal evangelicals towards the far right; (iii) the weight of the Bolsonarism in the most developed regions, the Southeast and South of the country, especially among the new middle-class property owners, or those with very high levels of education who hold executive positions in the private and public sectors; (iv) the leadership of the neo-fascist current within the far right; (v) the support base of the far right among the salaried middle classes with wages between three and five or even up to seven minimum wages. The first four peculiarities have been widely researched, but the last one less so. Studying it is strategic because it may be the only one possible to reverse in the context of a very unfavorable situation of still reactionary social power relations. There are objective factors that explain the distancing, division, or political separation between parts of the working class and the poorest, such as the inflation of private education and health plans, and the increase in income tax, which are threats to a model of consumption and living standard, and subjective factors, such as social resentment and moral-ideological rancor. Both are intertwined and may even be indivisible. But that was not the case when the final phase of the struggle against the dictatorship began, forty-five years ago. The PT was born, supported by metalworkers, public school teachers, oil workers, bankers, and other categories who, compared to the reality of the masses, had more education and better salaries. Lulism, or political loyalty to the experience of PT-led governments, allowed for support among the poorest. However, the left, although it maintains its positions, has lost hegemony over its original mass social base. This tragic reality, due to the fracture of the working class, requires that we analyze it from a historical perspective. The post-war period (1945-1981) of intense growth, during which GDP doubled every decade, and which favored absolute social mobility in Brazil, accompanying accelerated urbanization, seems to have irretrievably passed. Full employment and increased schooling, in a country where half of the active population was illiterate, were the two key factors in improving the lives of this layer of workers. But they no longer exert the same pressure as in the past. It is clear that in the last decade, Brazilian capitalism has lost momentum. It lost 7% of its GDP between 2015/17 and, after the Covid pandemic in 2020/21, it took three years to return to the 2019 levels. Despite all the anti-social counter-reforms - labor, social security - aimed at reducing production costs, the investment rate did not exceed 18% of GDP in 2023, despite the authorization of the Transitional Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) to breach the Public Spending Ceiling. Brazil, the largest industrial park, and consumer market for durable goods in the periphery, has become a nation of slow growth. The increase in schooling has ceased to be such a powerful driving factor. Improving life has become much more difficult. The Brazil of 2024 is a less poor country than in the 20th century, but not less unjust. Of course, there is still a lot of poverty: tens of millions or even more continue suffering from food insecurity, despite the ‘Bolsa Familia’, depending on the economic cycle. But there has been a reduction in extreme poverty without a qualitative reduction in social inequality. The functional distribution of income between capital and labor has experienced variations in the margin. The personal income distribution improved between 2003 and 2014, but it has increased again since 2015/16, following the institutional coup against Dilma Rousseff's government. Extreme poverty has decreased, but half of the economically active population earns no more than two minimum wages. A third of wage earners earn between three and five minimum wages. Inequality has remained almost intact because, among other reasons, the position of middle-income wage earners with higher levels of education has stagnated with a downward bias. Numerous studies confirm that the increase in average schooling is not related to employability, and IBGE surveys paradoxically confirm that unemployment is higher as schooling increases. Most of the millions of jobs created since the end of the pandemic have been for people earning up to two minimum wages, with very low educational requirements. To assess the greater or lesser social cohesion of a country, two mobility rates are considered: absolute and relative. The absolute rate compares the occupation of the parent and the child, or the first activity of each one with their last job. The relative mobility rate checks to what extent the obstacles to accessing jobs - or opportunities for study - that favor social advancement could or could not be overcome by those in a lower social position. In Brazil, both the absolute and relative mobility rates were positive until the 1980s, but the former was more intense than the latter. In other words, we experienced intense social mobility in the post-war period due to the pressure of urbanization and internal migration, from the Northeast to the Southeast, and from the South to the Midwest. But this is no longer the case. This historical stage ended in the 1990s when the flow from the agrarian world was exhausted. Since then, poverty has decreased, but middle-class workers have experienced a more hostile reality. What explains this process is that the social mobility trajectories of the last twenty years have benefited millions of people who lived in extreme poverty, but very few have ascended significantly. Many have improved their lives, but they have only ascended to the step immediately above to the one occupied by their parents. Relative social mobility has remained very low because the material incentives to increase schooling have been lower in the last forty years than they were for the generation that reached adulthood in the fifties or sixties. The rewards that families receive for keeping their children out of work for at least twelve years until they finish high school have decreased compared to the previous generation, despite the greater ease of access. A country may start from a situation of great social inequality, but if social mobility is intense, social inequality should decrease, increasing social cohesion, as happened in post-war Italy. Conversely, a country that had low social inequality compared to its neighbors occupying a similar position in the world may see its situation deteriorate if social mobility becomes regressive, as is evident in present-day France. In Brazil, contrary to what is commonly thought, most of the new jobs in the last ten years have not benefited the most educated sector of the population. Studying more has not reduced the risk of unemployment. In the forty-five years since 1979, average schooling has increased from three to over eight years. But two transformations have occurred that have had a lasting impact on the consciousness of the working youth. The first is that Brazilian capitalism is no longer a society of full employment, as it had been for half a century. The second is that, even with the sacrifices made by families to keep their children studying and delaying their entry into the labor market, employability has concentrated in activities that require little schooling and offer low wages. For the first time in history, children have lost hope of living better than their parents. Unemployment among those with higher education is proportionally higher than among those with lower education, and if the inequality of personal incomes has decreased in the last fifteen years, it is because the average salary of those with middle and higher education has been decreasing. The dizzying expansion of uberization is not surprising. The monthly employment surveys by IBGE in the São Paulo metropolitan region indicate a very slow evolution that, at best, only approximates the recovery of inflation. Nearly forty years after the end of the military dictatorship, the economic and social balance of the liberal democracy regime is discouraging. The reforms carried out by the regime, such as expanding access to public education, implementing the SUS (Unified Health System), the ‘Bolsa Familia’ for the extremely poor, among others, were progressive but insufficient to reduce social inequality. The hypothesis that a more educated population would gradually change the political reality of the country, driving a sustainable cycle of economic growth and income distribution, has not been confirmed. One form of gradualist illusion in the perspective of social justice within the limits of capitalism was the hope that a more educated population would gradually change the social reality of the country. This brings us to the limits of the coalition governments led by the PT, which bet on conciliation with the ruling class to regulate “wild" capitalism. Although there are long-term correlations between schooling and economic growth, no direct effects that are incontrovertible have been identified, even less so if we include the variable of reducing social inequality, as confirmed by South Korea What is incontrovertible is that the Brazilian bourgeoisie was united in 2016 to overthrow the government of Dilma Rousseff, despite the moderation of the reforms carried out. It should not surprise us that the ruling class had no qualms about going to the extreme of manipulating the impeachment, subverting the rules of the regime to take power for their direct representatives, such as Michel Temer. The challenge is to explain why the working class was not willing to fight to defend it. At the beginning of the 1990s, wages represented more than half of the national wealth, and in the last thirty years, they fell to just over 40% in 1999. Despite the recovery between 2004 and 2010, they still remain below the 50% level of 2014. This variable is significant for an assessment of the evolution of social inequality because Brazil in 2024 is a society that has already completed the historical transition from rural to urban (86% of the population lives in cities), and the majority of those under contract, 38 million with labor contracts and 13 million civil servants, receive salaries. Another ten million have an employer but no contract. It is true that there are still 25 million Brazilians who live off self-employment, but they proportionally fewer than in the past [ii]. In summary, the functional distribution of income between capital and labor has not improved. The bourgeoisie has no reason to complain about the liberal regime. Nevertheless, a fraction of the bourgeoisie, such as agroindustry and others, supports neo-fascism and its authoritarian strategy. The data indicating that social inequality has decreased among wage earners is convincing. But not because injustice has decreased, although misery has. This process has occurred because there have been two opposing trends in the labor market. One is relatively new, and the other is older. The first was the rise in wage floors for less skilled and less organized sectors. The minimum wage has been increasing above devaluation slowly but steadily since 1994 with the introduction of the real, accelerating during the years of the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments. This is a new phenomenon, as the opposite had occurred in the previous fifteen years. The minimum wage is a key economic variable because it is the floor for INSS pensions, which is why the bourgeoisie demands it to be delinked. The economic recovery favored by the global cycle of increased demand for commodities allowed unemployment to fall from the second half of 2005, culminating in 2014 in a situation of almost full employment. The widespread distribution of the ‘Bolsa Familia’ also appears to have exerted pressure on the remuneration of manual labor, especially in less industrialized regions. The second trend was the continued decline in the remuneration of jobs that require middle and higher education, a process that had been occurring since the 1980s. In conclusion, the available data suggest that increasing schooling is no longer a significant factor in social upward mobility, as it was in the past. The political loyalty of the popular masses to Lulism is an expression of the first phenomenon. The lives of the poorest improved during the years of PT governments. The division among wage earners earning more than two minimum wages expresses a social resentment that has been manipulated by Bolsonarism. If the left does not regain confidence in this sector of the workforce, the danger for 2026 is significant. Jacobinlat The article was translated and licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 ES (Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 3.0 España).

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском French and German credibility has reached new lows on the Ukraine issue, risking European security as each seeks to sure up political and geopolitical influence. Solidarity is weak, and arms corporations have proven influential in national decisions for EU integration on security matters. In the numerous crises that hit the European Union (EU) in the 21st century – the role of the so-called “integration engine,” as the French-German duopoly is called – was crucial. However, after Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022, both integration leaders from Western Europe receded into the background. The leaders of aid for fighting Ukraine were mainly the countries of NATO’s eastern flank, led by Poland and the Baltic states. Germany and France defended themselves against too radical sanctions imposed on Moscow, did not support Kiev, and did not want, among other things, either Ukraine’s accession to the EU nor to NATO. Why did Paris and Berlin distance themselves from Russian aggression in 2022, which violated European values and human rights and also threatened the EU itself? In short, the war hit various economic interests that France and Germany conducted with Vladimir Putin’s regime. An example of this was the expansion of Nord Stream, a gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea, after Putin’s first military aggression against eastern Ukraine in 2014. It is worth recalling that the entire climate transformation in the EU in its initial phase was based on cheap Russian gas. Economic ties were not the only reason for the strange behavior of Berlin and Paris in the face of Moscow’s aggression. Geopolitical considerations were even more important. The elites of Western Europe have traditionally, with minor interruptions, cooperated with Russia and considered it an important economic and political partner. The geopolitical goal of both Western European countries was to seek strategic autonomy from Washington and rapprochement with Moscow and Beijing. Historically, Central Eastern Europe has been treated as an area of influence of Berlin and Moscow, which they share or (less frequently) compete for. Before 2022, for Berlin, this sphere of influence included the Central European countries and the Baltic states; for Moscow, this included Belarus and Ukraine. This is why, among other things, Western Europe distanced itself from Moscow’s aggression in 2022. It did not want to spoil relations with Moscow. It also did not want to provoke even greater Russian aggression, fearing a full-scale war with NATO. Western Europe wanted to reach an agreement with Putin as quickly as possible and return to the previous economic and geopolitical arrangement. However, in 2024, there was a clear change in Western Europe’s position towards the war in Ukraine. First, Germany increased its financial and military assistance, although it continued to block the delivery to Kiev of the most modern weapons requested by President Volodymyr Zelensky. France and Germany increased the scope of sanctions imposed on Moscow, although they were still full of loopholes that allowed the Kremlin to avoid them. Meanwhile, Berlin and Paris unblocked their veto on Ukraine’s accession to the EU, nevertheless they continued to maintain their opposition to Kiev’s membership in NATO. Under the influence of both Western European countries, the EU’s financial and military assistance to Kiev increased. It was still too small in relation to Ukraine’s needs, and Brussels faced great problems and delays in fulfilling aid declarations. The most radicalized person was President Emmanuel Macron who announced in 2024 that he would send troops to Ukraine. In the same year, German politicians proposed that NATO troops should protect the sky over western Ukraine from the territory of Romania and Poland. What caused this radical turn in Berlin and Paris? First of all, it turned out that both countries were losing credibility in NATO and the EU, and thus political influence in Central Europe and Ukraine. What was no less dangerous – especially for German politicians – was the growing dissatisfaction with their attitude in the US. The Germans feared that Washington would lose trust in Berlin and focus on NATO’s eastern flank, mainly Warsaw. Furthermore, Germany and France believed less and less in renewing good relations with Moscow. They also had little hope that their “neutral attitude” could protect Europe from further aggression by Putin, including his attack on NATO and EU countries. At this point, both Western European countries launched a diplomatic offensive to introduce changes in the European Union. It was primarily about revising EU treaties to strengthen the political influence of the two largest countries in Western Europe. Therefore, it was proposed, among others, the abolition of voting based on unanimity in foreign and defense policy, which gave a decision-making advantage to the countries with the greatest voting power (Germany and France). In addition, efforts were made to strengthen the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). The main goal was to increase the production of ammunition and weapons from EU funds. Typically, such actions were aimed at strengthening the potential of arms corporations in Western Europe, as well as limiting arms exports from outside the EU, including from the US and South Korea. It goes without saying that in the event of a real threat from the East, the EU should not limit the transportation of weapons from non-European allies, because Europe itself produces too little ammunition and weapons. Nevertheless, subsequent actions of the European Commission after 2022 clearly rewarded aid for German and French corporations, as well as restricting access to arms imports from outside the EU. These attempts to strengthen the strategic autonomy of the EU against Washington are short-sighted in the face of a real threat on the EU and NATO. Moreover, instead of primarily supporting coordination within NATO, France and Germany have sought to duplicate the structures of the North Atlantic Alliance, focusing on the expansion of EU’s rapid reaction forces (rather than NATO’s rapid reaction forces), which were much more modest in terms of numbers and equipment. In other words, their goals were political, not real defense. The idea was to strengthen Franco-German leadership in Europe, and this was to be achieved by supporting the development of EU structures in the area of security. All these aspirations to expand the CSDP could encounter serious obstacles in implementation. First, Germany and France often disagree on EU security considerations, particularly when it comes to their own national interests. For example, the French were disappointed with Germany’s decision to purchase the American F-35 multi-role fighter capable of carrying nuclear warheads. This affected plans to build a sixth-generation aircraft in cooperation between German, French, and Spanish corporations. Moreover, Berlin was developing its own anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense project in the EU (European Sky Shield Initiative), to which it did not invite the French, and even competed with their own European defense program (La défense aérienne du continent). Therefore, Macron criticized the German shield initiative, which he considered hasty and incomplete. Instead, he promoted a truly “European initiative,” where the French arms industry is the dominant force. Secondly, the actions of France and Germany in the field of defense have been delayed and ineffective. More than two years after the announcement of the famous Zeitenwende, the modernisation of the Bundeswehr, the federal government in Berlin managed to order only eighteen Leopard 2 tanks and twelve Panzerhaubitz 2000. Thirdly, it became increasingly clear early on that Germany and France were not ready to defend NATO’s eastern flank in solidarity, wanting rather to show initiative and leadership in order to maintain geopolitical influence in Europe. In terms of real security, their subsequent ideas were controversial. They were certainly beneficial to their arms corporations. For all these reasons, the credibility of Germany and France has been trending downwards on eastern EU security considerations. For the time being, it is difficult to predict whether the plans of Paris and Berlin will ultimately be implemented and whether cooperation within the CSDP will be strengthened. However, if this does not happen, it will paradoxically be a good solution for the security of the eastern flank. Efforts to defend it will be focused within NATO and, above all, located in the countries most at risk from Moscow’s aggression. This analysis is based on a recent article published by the Journal of International Affairs.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Narendra Modi, India’s two-time prime minister, was elected on June 5, 2024, as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance, a coalition of political parties that won with a slim majority in the recently concluded parliamentary election. Modi is expected to be sworn in for his third term as prime minister on June 8. The BJP had hoped for a landslide victory in the country’s six-week general election – the largest display of democracy, by far, in a year of voting around the world. But the party scored only 240 parliamentary seats in the final tally and needs coalition partners to secure a majority of 272. The Conversation U.S. spoke with Sumit Ganguly, distinguished professor of political science and the Tagore chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, to understand more about the election results and what they mean for Indian democracy. The BJP had talked about an overwhelming victory, but it seems it will not get a majority. How do you explain these results? Part of the answer lies in the Modi government’s failure to realize that while economic benefits had been substantial, their distribution has been uneven. India has seen a growth in inequality and persistent unemployment both in rural and urban areas. Unemployment of those aged 20 to 24 years is at a high of 44.49%. And that is the overall national number; that data does not tell us that it may be much worse in certain regions. The other explanation is that Modi’s exploitation of historic Hindu-Muslim tensions seems to have run its natural course. You can beat the religious drum – and Modi did with rhetoric including calling Muslims “infiltrators” – but then the day-to-day issues of jobs, housing and other such necessities take over, and these are the things people care about the most. BJP made a miscalculation, in my analysis. It failed to realize that in a country where only 11.3% of children get adequate nutrition, Hindu pride cannot be eaten – ultimately, it’s the price of potatoes and other essentials that matter. Let’s talk about Uttar Pradesh, the northern Indian state with 80 parliamentary seats. It plays a crucial role in any national election, and Modi and his alliance are set to lose the state. What happened? It’s another example of the same miscalculation we are seeing nationally by the BJP. The chief minister of the state,Yogi Adityanath, saw himself as a firebrand Hindu nationalist leader and likely a successor of Modi. But he, too, failed to take into account how his policies were playing out in the poorer segments of the state’s population, who are mainly Muslims and those at the bottom of India’s caste hierarchy. He pursued grand infrastructure projects such as new highways and airports, and those might well have appealed to the middle class – but not to the poor. Additionally, years of presiding over a state government that has used police power to suppress dissent, often those of the poor and marginalized, have taken their toll on Adityanath’s support. What explains BJP’s inroads into the southern state of Kerala, where it is on course to make history by winning a parliamentary seat for the first time? The gains in the south are perplexing and will require more data on voting patterns for a more accurate analysis. Historically, the BJP has not been able to make inroads into the southern states for a number of reasons. These include linguistic subnationalism owing to the hostility toward Hindi. The other issue in the south is that the practice of Hinduism is quite different, including festivals and other regional traditions. The BJP’s vision of Hinduism is based on the “great tradition” of northern India, which believes in the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer gods. The southern states are also engines of economic growth and end up subsidizing the poorer states of the north. As a consequence, there is resentment against the BJP, which has long had its political base in northern India. In July 2023, 26 opposition parties formed a coalition called INDIA – the Indian National Developmental and Inclusive Alliance – to challenge the BJP in the election. Were they given a fair chance? No, the playing field was far from level. The mass media has been mostly co-opted by the ruling BJP to advance its agenda. Apart from one or two regional newspapers, all the national dailies scrupulously avoid any criticism of the BJP, and the major television channels mostly act as cheerleaders of the government’s policies. A number of intelligence agencies are alleged to have been used for blatantly partisan purposes against the opposition parties. Political leaders have been jailed on charges that may prove to be dubious. For example, Arvind Kejriwal, the highly popular chief minister of New Delhi, was charged with alleged improprieties in the allocation of liquor licenses and jailed just days after election dates were announced. Despite the electoral losses, Modi is expected to return as prime minister for a third term. Given that the BJP got just two seats in the 1984 elections, what factors led to the party’s meteoric rise? The BJP has built a solid organizational base across the country, unlike the Indian National Congress, the principal opposition party. And the Congress party has done little to revitalize its political foundations, which had eroded in the 1970s after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency and a non-Congress government came into power for the first time. The BJP has also appealed to the sentiments of the majority Hindu population through slogans that paint India’s principal minority, Muslims, as the source of myriad societal problems. Hate crimes against Muslims and other minorities surged across India over the past few years. Finally, the BJP also benefited from economic reforms that the earlier Congress government had set in motion from the 1990s, including a national goods and services tax and the privatization of the loss-making, state-owned airline, Air India, thereby contributing to substantial economic growth in India. In December 1992, Hindu nationalists destroyed the 16th-century Babri Mosque. How crucial was that to BJP’s rise to power? And what should we read into BJP losing its seat in Ayodhya? The destruction of the Babri Mosque certainly galvanized an important segment of the Hindu electorate and led to a growth in support for the BJP. In 1999 – just seven years after the event – the BJP first came to power in a coalition government in which it had 182 out of 543 seats in the Indian Parliament. Two national elections later, in 2014, Modi assumed office as the prime minister with a clear-cut majority of 282 seats. In January 2024, just a few months before the election, Modi inaugurated a newly constructed temple in Ayodhya, the site of the Babri Mosque. It was a carefully stage-managed event with an eye on votes. However, BJP lost its seat in Ayodhya. It’s possible that all the fanfare around the new temple appealed to people outside of Ayodhya – but not to the city’s residents who continued to deal with waste mismanagement and other issues. What’s next for Modi? And what do the results tell us about Indian democracy? It’s certainly possible that Modi will form the government with coalition partners. I believe that Modi, as an astute politician, will most likely learn from this setback and adapt his tactics to new realities. The results might also be a useful corrective – the Indian voter has once again demonstrated that he or she might be willing to put up with some things but not others. Indian voters have demonstrated in the past that when they see democracy being threatened, they tend to punish leaders with autocratic tendencies. We saw this when the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suffered a crushing defeat in the elections in 1977. The elections followed a state of emergency that Gandhi had imposed on the country, suspending all civil liberties. Back then, it was India’s poor who voted her out of power. This time around, we might need to wait on additional electoral data about how particular caste and income groups voted. This article was updated on June 5, 2024, with the final election results and other developments.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском In the last 48 hours, a series of events and situations have significantly contributed to redefining the military and diplomatic scenario in Gaza. It all began on the night of May 5, when Hamas launched several rockets that hit Israel, causing some civilian casualties. At the same time, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) responded to the act with massive artillery bombardments against several Hamas positions in the al-Zahraa, al-Mughraqa, and Nuseirat camps (in the central-northern areas of the Gaza Strip) and took control of the Kerem Shalom crossing, which separates the enclave from Israeli territory. However, the IDF's actions went further with the announcement on May 6 of the expansion of the humanitarian area of al-Mawasi (in the coastal south of the Strip). This choice seems to be driven by the political will to regain control of the southern strip of Palestinian territory through the forced evacuation of Palestinian refugees from Rafah and Khan Younis towards al-Mawasi (where it is estimated that over 100,000 people will arrive shortly), also guaranteed by the Israeli resumption of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing. All these actions seem to suggest a green light from the war cabinet for the launch of the repeatedly announced Israeli ground operation in the area. Simultaneously with the war preparations, just a few hours later, came the unexpected announcement from Hamas that it had accepted a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza. The terms of the ceasefire – admittedly still very unclear given the often-unreliable media reports – were reportedly mediated by Egypt and Qatar, with U.S. approval, which reportedly infuriated representatives of Tel Aviv. Based on the details announced by Hamas officials, the proposal is expected to outline a three-phase plan. The first phase involves a 42-day ceasefire period during which Hamas would release 33 hostages in exchange for the release of some Palestinian militants detained in Israeli prisons. In the second phase, Tel Aviv would partially withdraw its troops from Gaza and allow the free movement of Palestinians from the south to the north of the Strip. After this preliminary phase, another 42-day period would be activated only if it clearly emerged that both parties were willing to restore a climate of "sustainable calm" in Gaza, which would also favor the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area and the final release of the reservists and IDF soldiers held by Hamas. To crown this prolonged "silence of arms," the final step would be reached: the establishment of a true ceasefire and the start, among other things, of a reconstruction phase, including the end of the total Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, according to a plan supervised and shared by Qatar, Egypt, the USA, and the United Nations. Based on leaks and fragmented information, it is very difficult to make precise assessments, but it is plausible to imagine that if the terms of the agreement were as presented here, it would be very difficult – almost impossible – for Israel to accept the Egyptian-Qatari proposal. It would be much more satisfying for their expectations to continue with a military operation in Rafah. In the preceding days, the Israeli war cabinet had also explained the necessity of maintaining its action in Gaza unchanged, with or without an agreement with Hamas, as it was fundamental and strategic to achieve its primary objective: the destruction and eradication of the Islamist organization from the Palestinian enclave. Given this evidence, both the nature and complete terms of the diplomatic proposal accepted by Hamas, as well as the Israeli willingness to follow through on the agreement, are fundamental to creating a positive development in the current dynamics. However, no actor (regional or international) involved in the negotiations is under the illusion that a turning point has been reached, given both the opposing positions of the contenders and the operation in Rafah, which is now about to enter the heart of the action. This latter element is crucial to understanding the behavior and calculated risk taken by Hamas. In fact, at least until late afternoon on May 6, the organization had shown no interest in the Egyptian-Qatari proposal. The change of pace would suggest that the Islamist organization may have wanted to take advantage of the situation to put the ball back in the opponent's court, shifting all responsibility to Israel in the event of its refusal to follow through with the ceasefire, preferring instead military action in Rafah. In this regard, it could be argued that Hamas's twist of events was as clever as it was politically significant in contributing to weakening Tel Aviv's position. Not surprisingly, the movement led by Ismail Haniyeh understands that Israeli mediators cannot accept any negotiation that involves the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the end of the total blockade of the enclave's borders, but above all, the continuation in power of the organization towards, which Benjamin Netanyahu himself has declared, their destruction as an undeniable objective. A position that, regardless of whether Israel accepts the agreement already approved by Hamas in whole or in part, as well as its rejection, would expose Israel to a difficult condition of internal contention and to some strategic considerations that the Islamist movement knows well and has already exploited precisely to launch that tremendous attack on the heart of the country on October 7, 2023. In the perspective of Tel Aviv, the acceptance or rejection of the proposal by Egypt and Qatar, as well as the start of the operation in Rafah, raise a series of questions on multiple fronts, in which Netanyahu plays his usual game of political survival. If his government were to follow through with the agreement and stop/postpone the operation in Rafah, it would undoubtedly benefit diplomatically, enjoying a resurgence of credit after the storms of recent months. However, this would also mean opening an internal front, especially within his government, with extremist ministers threatening the fall of the executive. Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have clearly stated that without the destruction of Hamas and the conquest of Rafah (and the entire Strip), the government would have no reason to exist. At the same time, even more moderate figures in the war cabinet, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant or Ministers Benny Gantz and Gady Eisenkot, have not taken a clear position, wavering between the possibility of a more contained humanitarian ceasefire and the wavering political opportunism on the military operation in Rafah in a challenge that seems more oriented towards the country's future and the conquest of the conservative electorate and the national right, the current Prime Minister's target audience. However, it is equally true that even in the face of a rejection of the international proposal, some clear repercussions would emerge: Israel would worsen its position and reputation, although it could keep that government in place that is now pushing relentlessly on Rafah. Such a situation would not avoid, either, domestic social protests by the families of the hostages, who demand guarantees from the government not to endanger the lives of their loved ones. In both cases, Tel Aviv would be called into question and would risk losing internal and external credibility, along with the political and security dilemma (mainly supported by the military establishment) linked to the failure to eradicate Hamas. Such a fluid and unpredictable scenario with potential repercussions even on different levels of the regional and international context. In fact, a resumption of hostilities in Rafah would have the opportunity to activate the Lebanese scenario in a different way than what has happened so far (where violent exchanges of fire have been occurring along the Blue Line border areas for days) and lead to a worsening of security conditions in the West Bank (especially in the triangle between Tulkarem-Nablus-Jenin, where IDF raids have become more pressing). A similar situation could open the door to external actions by other actors interested in instability, such as Iran, which would benefit from the role played by its proxies in Syria and Iraq, as well as the potential and renewed threat from the Yemeni Houthi militias to exert pressure on Israel, but also on other regional players involved in the ongoing dynamics - the thought in these cases essentially revolves around Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which for different reasons have so much, and perhaps even too much, to lose from an escalation of the Gaza scenario. No less decisive must be considered the international impact of Tel Aviv's rejection of the Egyptian-Qatari proposal, especially considering how the United States has been engaged in recent weeks in trying to convince its ally to reconsider its positions on Iran and advocate for particular attention to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. In this sense, Washington has clearly expressed its warning to its ally about the risks associated with a possible miscalculation that could open up various considerations. Not surprisingly, the White House can always leverage the issue of military supplies as a tool of pressure. Just last week, the United States suspended a shipment of ammunition to Israel without providing details on the reasons. It could have been a simple bureaucratic error or a signal, but it's evident that considering such a scenario would provide new space and considerations for both internal and external detractors of the Biden Administration. Conversely, such a development could give new impetus to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has never hidden his strained relationship with almost all US administrations he has collaborated with during his 15 years in office. With the sole exception of the Trump Administration, which in the post-election American context could see the New York tycoon returning as the new occupant of the White House and Israel's key partner in the Middle East. Therefore, the assessments remain complex and highly susceptible to changes due to the volatility of the local scenario. However, it is undeniable that from this initiative, Israel has much to lose, and the concrete risk is that Hamas has carefully assessed this "trap" with the intention of further weakening Tel Aviv. License under Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0).

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Abstract The war in Ukraine is the biggest, bloodiest and longest war in Europe since 1945. Its initial stage holds similarities with several other armed conflicts and wars in the last 50 years on Cyprus and in the territories of the former Soviet Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Among the cases in ex-Yugoslavia the greatest similarity is seen with the war in Croatia (1991–1995). These conflicts stemmed from almost simultaneous breakdowns of two multinational ‘socialist federations’ and their communist regimes. The dissimilarity of the second stage of the war in Ukraine and the war in Croatia is primarily due to the processes of NATO and EU enlargement coupled with the USA’s policy of using NATO enlargement and Ukraine as tools to harm and weaken Russia. The conflict about Ukraine developed into an indirect war between Russia and the US-led West, where Ukraine is the West’s proxy and the main victim. The final outcome of the war in Ukraine will be decided on the battlefield and not around a diplomatic table. Still, it will be very different from that in Croatia. Responsibility for the war in Ukraine and its consequences must be shared between the two direct belligerents, the co-responsible USA and other NATO members. Introduction Among about four dozen contemporary wars, the armed conflict in Ukraine since 2014 stands out as an exceptional event. It involves in its second stage four nuclear powers –one as a direct belligerent and three as providers of many-sided assistance to the second belligerent, with the presence of military personnel of all four nuclear powers on the territory of Ukraine. The war has been the biggest, bloodiest and longest war in Europe since 1945. It has also produced a strong impact on Europe and the broader international community. According to two measures (at least), the war in Ukraine has been exceeded by a number of other wars since 1945, namely those occurring in Asia and Africa. In terms of mortality, it has been exceeded by the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Algeria, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Iraq. In terms of duration, it is unlikely to be longer than the wars in Vietnam, Algeria, Sudan and Afghanistan. Among all these armed conflicts, the war in Ukraine may be sharply distinguished by the reverse ratio between military and civilian mortality. In the European framework, the central trigger of the first stage of the war in Ukraine was similar to what caused the armed conflicts and outright wars occurring between 1974 and 1999 on Cyprus, in Moldova, Georgia, the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan as well as on the territory of the SFRY. Among the former, the first stage of the war in Ukraine most resembled the war in Croatia (1991–1995). The war in Croatia, which started prior to its international recognition, and the war in Ukraine 22 years after its recognition as an independent state, display a number of similarities that not accidental. The second stage of the war in Ukraine has had several similarities with the war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1999) which ended up with forceful separation of Kosovo from Serbia. The similarities The wars in Croatia and Ukraine involved two adversary pairs of neighboring and partly overlapping Slavic nations. These wars unfolded in the territories of two defunct ‘socialist federations’ – the SFRY and the USSR. The causes of both wars were closely related to the almost simultaneous breakdowns of these two federations in 1991 and the demise of their communist regimes that had preceded and caused the breakdowns. The institutional structure of the SFRY was modelled after and closely resembled the structure of the older ‘socialist federation’, the USSR. Shared features of the two included the division of each federation into full-fledged republics and autonomies. Most or all of these federal units were ethnically designated. The minorities of the biggest ethnic groups (Serbs and Russians) were not accorded autonomy within other republics. In both cases, war followed the declarations of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘autonomy’ and referenda organized by some members of the Serbian community in southwest Croatia and some members of the Russian and Russian-speaking community living in Eastern Ukraine. In each case, the central governments refused to negotiate with the insurgents and decided to suppress them militarily. The armed conflicts in Croatia and Ukraine developed into partly different combinations of civil and interstate wars. The civil war component referred to an armed conflict between the ultranationalist regime in the former second-most populous republic on one hand, and part of the biggest national minority related to the largest ethnic group in the former federation, on the other. The civil war deepened the divisions based on loyalty within both the Serbian community in Croatia and the Russian community in Ukraine. Each war was fought almost exclusively on the territory of the former second-most populous republic, which suffered the most. In both wars, the two sides were responsible for gross violations of international humanitarian law. International sanctions were applied in these two wars. The causes of each war were tangibly related to profound geopolitical changes underway in Europe about 35 years ago. These changes entailed the slackening and termination of the Cold War between two military-political blocs and the wave of liberal-democratic transformation of political systems in Eastern Europe. Over the span of 3 years, about 30 different state entities declared their sovereignty in the area of 3 ‘socialist federations’ (Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia). Of these, 23 entities survived and soon gained universal recognition as sovereign states, including Croatia and Ukraine. The specificity of the war in Ukraine Ancestors of today’s Russians and Ukrainians shared in the distant past close to 400 years of common history in Kievan Rus. In the XIII century this large state formation was destroyed by the invasion of Tatars-Mongols. The subsequent centuries-long domination of Lithuanian and Polish feudal rulers over the ancestors of today’s Ukrainians contributed greatly to their cultural and language distancing from the Russians. In 1648, the Cossack ancestors of some of today’s Ukrainians rebelled against Polish feudal rule, in 1654 begged for protection and voluntarily submitted themselves to Moscow Tsardom. For two and a half centuries, until 1917 they remained as part of the Russian empire, named Ruthenia and later Malorossiya. In 1918, an independent state was proclaimed under the new name Ukrainian People’s Republic. The name Ukraine remained under the Bolsheviks and in 1922 Soviet Ukraine became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Over several decades, the territory of Soviet Ukraine was more than doubled by Moscow in several successive stages in 1920–1922, 1939–1940, 1945–1947 and 1954. This was accomplished by including into it the lands of Novorossiya, with millions of Russian and Russian-speaking people in the East and South, as well as annexed parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and part of Moldova in the West. In all of these cases, this was done without their population’s consent. In 1992, all these territorial gains became parts of independent Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, whereas the collective rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population were left unprotected. From 1945 for more than four and a half decades Ukraine enjoyed Moscow’s symbolic gift – the status of a UN founding member although it had been a constituing part of another UN founding member (USSR). When Ukraine, at Moscow’s initiative attained independence it did not have to apply for UN membership which from then on it deserved. Divergent political and economic developments in the two independent states exposed a number of different interests and of problems unresolved at the time of separation. These issues, in somewhat different combinations during the two stages of the war contributed to three groups of conflictual relations: (1) between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, (2) inside Ukraine and (3) between the Russian Federation and the West, primarily USA. The non-recognition of collective minority rights by the Ukrainian authorities became a growing political problem with the rise of Ukrainian ultranationalism. Combined with divergent attitudes in Western and Eastern parts of the country concerning Ukraine’s relations with Russia, EU and NATO, language-related problems contributed tangibly to political explosions in Ukraine in February/March 2014. Since 1991, two processes have altered the geopolitical map of Europe. These are the Eastward expansion of the US-dominated NATO along with the closely intertwined enlargement of the European Union. The first stage of these two processes in 1990–1991 – the absorption of Eastern Germany into both organizations – had no impact on the internal crisis in Yugoslavia, including the conflict in Croatia. Two decades later, however, the process of NATO expansion had already reached the borders of both Ukraine and Russia, thereby adding a very real extra-regional component to the conflict in and about Ukraine. For over two decades, one of the USA’s geostrategic goals has been by fostering ‘color revolutions’ to bring about regime change in the post-Soviet space, including Ukraine and also Russia. By using Ukraine as a tool, the USA has endeavored to harm and weaken Russia. Under US pressure and notwithstanding German and French objections, at the NATO summit held in Bucharest in April 2008 Ukraine was promised membership in the alliance, yet without stating a date. Openly and strongly opposed by Russia, this decision unleashed a chain of events, 6 years later leading to a war in Ukraine. The European Union and its policy of Eastern neighborhood negatively contributed to these developments. The prospect of an association agreement with the EU deepened the internal political conflict in Ukraine and motivated a mass protest movement that was exploited in February 2014 to stage a US-guided coup d’état in Kyiv. The combination of Ukraine’s promised membership in NATO and the new regime in Kyiv fully dependent on the USA foretold that Russia would certainly lose its old naval base in Sevastopol, for which it had paid high rent since 1992. Moreover, as a NATO naval and air base, Sevastopol would pose a direct threat to Russia and its geopolitical position in the Black Sea and Mediterranean area. To thwart this threat, lightly armed detachments of Russian marines, already legally stationed on Crimea, were ordered to move in unmarked uniforms to take control of the entire peninsula. They did so without facing any resistance, on Kyiv’s strict orders, from the about 22,000 Ukrainian troops or inflicting any casualties. The Ukrainian officialdom then simply vacated Crimea. This takeover was soon followed by a successful referendum accompanied by international observers on approving Crimea’s legal separation from Ukraine and it rejoining Russia. Moscow thus took back Nikita Khrushchev’s present to Ukraine on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of its unification with Russia. First stage of the war in Ukraine Closely related to the dramatic developments in Kyiv, there were uprisings in several Ukrainian cities and proclamations of ‘‘sovereignty’’ and ‘‘autonomy’’ in Lugansk and Donetsk. These uprisings largely featured protests against the discriminatory measures adopted by the new authorities against the Russian and Russian-speaking population. The ultranationalist regime in Kyiv responded on 13 April 2014 by branding the protesters ‘‘terrorists’’, declaring a “wide anti-terrorist operation” and entrusting the Ukrainian Army to carry it out. This military operation launched the first stage of the war in Ukraine. In its attacks on the Donbas autonomists, the Ukrainian Army employed bombers, tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery while battalions of Ukrainian ultranationalist volunteers with neo-Nazi leanings and financed by Ukrainian oligarchs used artillery and light weapons. On the defending side, there were about 35,000 members of the territorial people’s militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as Russian and other (including Serbian) volunteers. The Russian Federation offered multi-sided support to the two besieged republics, encompassing financial, material, humanitarian and military assistance. Russian professional military personnel were integrated into the local militias and did not operate as separate and regular units of the Russian Army. At the same time, the US and British armed forces offered very sizeable material and other military assistance to the Ukrainian Army, also involving thousands of advisors and instructors. In numbers, they were comparable to the Russian military personnel on the other side of the frontline. By February 2022, this armed conflict had led to 14,000 to 20,000 dead. Two armistice agreements, Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, did not halt the Ukrainian shelling of Ukrainian territory, which was responsible for thousands of casualties among the civilian population of the two self-proclaimed republics. These attacks continued for more than 9 years, accompanied by gross violations of international humanitarian law. In February 2015, Petro Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine signed the Minsk 2 agreement. It was co-signed by the leaders of Germany, France and Russia and unanimously adopted as a resolution by the UN Security Council, thereby becoming part of international law. The Minsk 2 agreement provided for peaceful resolution of the conflict in Donbas. Nonetheless, Petro Poroshenko and his successor Volodimir Zelenski refused to implement most of Ukraine’s 12 obligations, including the key provisions under which Ukraine was to grant constitutionally guaranteed autonomy to the Russian and Russian-speaking population in Donbas. In addition, Zelenski reneged on his pre-election promise that saw him win the election in 2019 and did not stop the war. Second stage of the war in Ukraine On 21 March 2021, Zelenski blatantly violated the Minsk 2 agreement and international law by ordering the Ukrainian Army to liberate the territories of the two republics and Crimea. The bulk of the Ukrainian Army was then relocated to their vicinity, clearly visible by Russian satellites. Instead of peaceful resolution of the conflict, Zelenski, no doubt with the USA’s full approval, thus decided on full-scale military suppression of the Donbas autonomists and on reconquering Crimea, well aware that it would provoke a strong reaction from Russia. On 16 February 2022, upon his order the Ukrainian Army initiated the second and much more violent stage of the war. From that date on, the intensity of Ukrainian shelling started to grow from several tens to 1,500 explosions daily. Combined with movements of Ukrainian troops, this strongly indicated that a massive attack was coming as part of implementation of the March 2021 order. It was very similar to the Georgian offensive against the self-proclaimed Republic of Southern Ossetia on 7 August 2008. This escalation was no doubt coordinated with US President Joe Biden, who publicly predicted that Russia would invade on 16 February 2022. Ukraine’s stepping up the level of violence successfully provoked a predictable Russian response. On the political and legal levels, this entailed the Russian Federation’s recognition of the two republics as independent states, signing two agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, accepting their pleas for assistance and protection in line with Art. 51 of the UN Charter and invoking the Responsibility for Protect. In the latter the Russian Federation used a very similar justification as did NATO in 1999 for its aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On the military level, Putin was faced with the real prospect of Ukraine quashing the two client Russian-speaking parastates. This would have submitted their discriminated Russian and Russian-speaking majority population to retribution by the Ukrainian ultranationalist and assimilationist regime, causing it to flee en masse across the border. He later explained that moral duty is higher than legality. Putin could not, also for domestic reasons, afford a humiliating political defeat similar to that suffered by Slobodan Milosevic in Croatia in August 1995. Unlike in August 2008 in Georgia, he did not wait for an all-out Ukrainian attack. Putin knew full well that stronger Western sanctions than those currently in place would follow, even if Russia’s response to the Ukrainian offensive were only moderate. Probably on the basis of a faulty assessment of both Ukraine’s capacity and determination to resist and the West’s response, he precipitously and knowingly in violation of international law ordered a ‘special military operation’ with an invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, by a limited contingent of Russian land forces. This move was combined with extensive destruction of the Ukrainian air force, the air defense system, and other military infrastructure. Ignoring an axiom of military science, an invading force of some 90,000 Russian land troops was sent against the Ukrainian Army thrice superior in numbers. It was also grossly insufficient and unprepared to accomplish the officially declared task of “demilitarizing” and “denazifying” entire Ukraine. In spite of its shortcomings, this force managed to swiftly occupy additional 15% or so of Ukrainian territory (some as a diversion and only temporarily) and effectively protected the two republics. It additionally established and secured a land bridge between Crimea and Donbas, made the Azov Sea part of Russia’s internal waters, took control of the largest European nuclear power station at Zaporizhie, and deprived Ukraine of its stocks of plutonium and uranium. These stocks would have been sufficient to make Ukraine the world’s fourth-strongest nuclear power. The latter was an effective response to Zelenski’s earlier declaration that Ukraine was intending to again acquire nuclear weapons. Preventing this dangerous prospect certainly served as an additional and important incentive for Putin’s decision. For USA, the by far most frequent transgressor of international law, provoking Russia into an act of aggression fitted nicely with the their strategic goal. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provided a perfect occasion for demonizing and isolating it internationally and for uniting the West under USA’s guidance on imposing on Russia an unprecedented array of drastic economic and other sanctions. These punitive measures were expected to quickly ruin the Russian economy, hopefully bring down Vladimir Putin’s regime, defeat Russia militarily without losing American lives, and cause the fragmentation of Russia into several states (as elaborated earlier publicly by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the RAND Corporation). However, these hopes have not materialized. Moreover, the effects of the Western sanctions proved to be more harmful to the EU economies than to Russia while in no way helping Ukraine. The two wars compared Still officially undeclared by both direct belligerents, the war in Ukraine is already twice as long as the war in Croatia, and is still ongoing. There are also other important differences caused by the mismatch between Croatia and Ukraine in the size of their population and territory (approximately 1:10), and by the different configuration and extent of the theatres of war. Further, there are differences in the size and structure of the armed forces involved, in the disparities between Serbia’s and Russia’s military capabilities compared to the respective capabilities of Croatia and Ukraine. The war in Ukraine in its second stage is also unlike the war in Croatia due to the massive use of particular weapons systems (notably drones and missiles). Vast differences also exist in the direct involvement of international organizations and other external actors in the two wars. In the autumn of 1991, the European Economic Community (EEC) sent Croatia its first mission of white-clad and unarmed observers who as impartial intermediaries tried unsuccessfully to stop the armed clashes between the Croatian police and Serbian insurgents. The United Nations established UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force) in February 1992, operating from Zagreb. It was followed by UNCRO (UN Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia) in 1995–1998, UNTAES (UN Transitional Administration in Eastern Croatia) in 1996–1998, and UNMOP (UN Mission of Observers in Prevlaka) in 1996–1997. For several years, the UN-supported International Conference on Former Yugoslavia was active operating from Geneva. In comparison, there have been no UN or EU peacekeeping or observer missions in Ukraine. The UN General assembly has adopted a number of resolutions related to the war in Ukraine. In several resolutions it deplored and condemned Russia’s invasion with huge majorities for and only five votes against. The OSCE had no observer missions in Croatia, but deployed two such missions in Ukraine, notably the sizeable OSCE Special Monitoring Mission from 2015 until March 2022. In addition, the OSCE played an active role in facilitating the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 ceasefire agreements. Extra-regional states were not openly involved in the war in Croatia. In 1991–1992, the Croatian forces included 456 foreign fighters (British, French, German et.al.), accompanied by about 2,000 private American military instructors. On the other hand, Ukraine has received huge support from several dozen foreign states, in particular the USA, as well as other NATO and EU members in the form of heavy arms, ammunition, training, intelligence, economic and humanitarian assistance. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, since 2022, 13.387 foreign fighters, mercenaries and volunteers joined the Ukrainian Army of whom 5.962 lost their lives. Polish citizens have been most numerous in both categories – 2.960 enlisted and 1.497 dead. They are followed by Americans and others. This strong external involvement transformed the local war into an extra-regional armed conflict between Russia and the US-led collective West, with Ukraine acting and sacrificing its soldiers and itself as the West’s proxy. The war in Croatia and its outcome were closely linked with the war in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, while there has been no similar regional linkage of the war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has also had by far a bigger international political and economic impact on other countries, not only in Europe, than the war in Croatia. Most importantly, there are enormous differences between the two wars in the number of dead (at least 1:25), number of refugees and displaced persons (approximately 1:25), and extent of destruction and amount of economic damage (at least 1:20). The war has inflicted considerably greater damage on Ukraine as a state and on Ukrainian society than the war did on Croatia. Since 2014, the population under Kyiv’s control has so far been reduced by at least one-third and the territory by close to one-fifth. It is estimated that the Ukrainian Army, National Guard and volunteers have suffered well over 400,000 deaths. Ukraine has also lost a good deal of its industrial capacity, agriculture, energy generation and critical infrastructure. The war’s continuation suits the USA’s geostrategic, chiefly anti-Russian objectives, whereas Ukraine is paying a horrible price for them. The dragging on war of attrition is sapping Ukraine’s ability to sustain itself, at least in its already rump shape. It increases the probability of Ukraine becoming (again) a landlocked country on less than a half of its territory internationally recognized since 1992. The first stage of the war in Ukraine and the war in Croatia revealed substantial similarities as far as their causes and destructive consequences were concerned. On the other hand the second stage of the war in Ukraine strongly differs by being predominantly an interstate war and the first interstate armed conflict in Europe caused by NATO enlargement. As a result, the war in Ukraine is sharply distinguished by its magnitude, destructive outcomes, violations of international humanitarian law, international impact, and the involvement of great powers. At the beginning of the second stage of the war in Ukraine, the Russian Army pre-empted the anticipated Ukrainian version of an offensive akin to the Croatian operations “Flash” and “Storm”. It not only prevented the possibility of Volodimir Zelenski’s triumphant entrance in Donetsk like Franjo Tudjman’s entrance in Knin. The Russian Federation also annexed four Ukrainian provinces with Russian and Russian-speaking majorities in their populations and the Russian Army occupied a good share of them. In 2014 and 2022, Moscow thus took back a considerable part of former Novorossiya given to Soviet Ukraine in 1920 and 1954. Unlike in Croatia, but like in Kosovo (1999) the war in Ukraine has extended the list of the more than three dozen new or de facto changed borders between European states since 1945. Responsibility for the war in Ukraine In a speech given at the UN General Assembly, US President Joe Biden ascribed Russia with full responsibility for the war in Ukraine. Yet, in fact, a number of states are directly responsible or co-responsible for its outbreak and continuation, including notably USA. First, the war was initiated by the Ukrainian Army in April 2014 according to orders of the Ukrainian interim Presidency. Under two subsequent Presidents Poroshenko and Zelenski, Ukraine violated two armistice agreements and sabotaged realization of the Minsk 2 agreement on peaceful resolution of the Donbas conflict. President Zelenski failed to fulfil his pre-election pledge to end the war, a pledge that had seen him win the election in 2019. On 21 March 2021, he ordered the Ukrainian Army to attack Donbas and Crimea in direct violation of both the Minsk 2 agreement and of international law. The Ukrainian leadership’s orders to steeply increase the artillery shelling of Donetsk from February 16, 2022 on, together with the movement of troops provoked an invasion by the Russian army. This led to the armed conflict transforming from an internal to largely an interstate war. In April 2022, President Zelenski reneged on an initialed agreement with the Russian Federation on resolving the conflict, as forged with assistance from the leaders of Israel and Turkey as intermediaries. Ukraine is responsible for the casualties and damage caused by its forces in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation. On the other hand, the Russian Federation has grossly violated the UN Charter, the Helsinki principles, and a dozen international treaties and agreements by which it guaranteed Ukraine’s security and sovereignty within its internationally recognized borders. In February 2014, it committed an act of aggression by occupying and annexing Crimea. On 24 February 2022, it committed a second act of aggression by invading, occupying and annexing four Ukrainian provinces. The Russian Federation is responsible for the casualties and huge damage the Russian armed forces have caused on Ukrainian territory. The leading NATO members are co-responsible for the outbreak and continuation of the interstate conflict and war in and over Ukraine. This primarily applies to the USA, which knowingly unleashed a chain reaction in the conflictual relations between NATO and Russia. The USA used NATO to embroil EU in this conflict, even though that contradicts the objective economic and other interests of many EU members, notably Germany. This chain reaction led to the political conflict deteriorating into a war in which the USA is using Ukraine as a tool to harm and weaken Russia. Germany and France with their swindling signatures under the Minsk 2 agreement and with subsequent policies for 7 years allowed Ukraine’s sabotaging of peaceful solution of the Donbas conflict. As leaders in the European Union’s collective foreign policy, they encouraged and supported Ukraine’s active preparations for a war with Russia. The Western powers became co-responsible for the transformation from a relatively limited internal war in Ukraine into a wider, much more lethal, bloody and destructive, predominantly interstate war. In April 2022, the USA and Great Britain prevented the conclusion of an initialed Russian-Ukrainian agreement on resolving the conflict. The members of NATO and EU by politically encouraging and by providing arms and funds to Ukraine have been enabling the continuation of this war. Without this intrusion, the war in Ukraine would already be over and very probably on better terms for Ukraine than there will actually be. The NATO and EU members will certainly fail to achieve their main declared goal – Ukraine’s victory and hence Russia’s military and political defeat. This applies chiefly to the leader of the West. After that in Afghanistan, the USA will suffer one more political defeat. On the other hand, the USA has this time been rather successful in realizing several related goals. The USA has solidified its hegemony in the Western camp and in most of Europe, reactivated NATO, attracted two new members Finland and Sweden, bolstered its dominant role in the alliance, subordinated even further and simultaneously economically and politically weakened the European Union, for quite some time poisoned Germany’s and the EU’s relations with Russia, and inflicted very considerable economic and political damage on Russia. Conclusion Ukraine is today much farther away from accomplishing its cardinal strategic goal – to re-establish its sovereignty on the entire internationally recognized territory – than it was in February 2022, let alone in February 2014. Moreover, another goal remains unattained. It was stated in Zelenski’s decree as a condition for lifting the prohibition on any negotiations with the Russian Federation – to remove Putin from the position of President. However, with his mandate expired in May 2024 Zelenski himself will certainly be out of his presidential office much sooner than Putin will be from his. On the other hand, the Russian Federation has achieved some of its strategic goals, albeit not the two declared principal ones – Ukraine’s permanent “neutralization” and “demilitarization”. Due to the two sides’ mutually excluding objectives, the final outcome of the war in Ukraine will not be decided around a diplomatic table as a compromise. Like what happened in Croatia in August 1995 and very recently in September 2023 with the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh, it will be decided on the battlefield. Still, the outcome will be very different from both cases mentioned above and certainly will not be viewed as just by both belligerents. Just like how almost all wars end. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Baud, Jacques (2023): Ukraine entre Guerre et Paix. Paris, Max Milo. Bebler, Anton (ed.). (2015): ‘Frozen conflicts’ in Europe. Opladen, Barbara Budrich. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1997): Geostrategy for Eurasia. Foreign Affairs 76 (5): 56–68. Goldstein, Ivo (2008): Hrvaška zgodovina. Ljubljana, Društvo Slovenska Matica. Larrabee, F. Stephen, Peter A. Wilson and John Gordon (2015): The Ukrainian Crisis and European Security. Santa Monica, RAND Corporation. Maver, Aleš (2023): Ukrajina: Od Igre Prestolov do Vojne za Samostojnost. Celje, Celjska Mohorjeva Družba. Pleiner, H. (2023): Der Konflict um die Ukraine. ÖMZ 5: 571–583. Wien. Plokhy, Serhii (2022): Vrata Evrope: zgodovina Ukrajine. Ljubljana, UMCO.

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском  With this Instagram post, Claudia Sheinbaum announced her overwhelming victory, which doubled the numbers of her main contender, in a gender perspective. The fact that one of the most macho countries in the Americas has chosen a female president among two female engineers reflects the historic change experienced. Sheinbaum, candidate of the Morena party and the popular leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was the clear favorite to win the elections. The cards seemed to be laid out. It was reminiscent of the 2018 election, where the leftist AMLO remained ahead in the polls, at least two years before the electoral appointment. Regardless of what happened during the campaign, AMLO, like Sheinbaum now, was always the front-runner during the contest. The big difference between the 2024 scenario and that of 2018 is that the change is not a massive ambition this time. At that time, traditional Mexican political parties had bet on fear of AMLO as their main message, but in an environment of significant system discredit, the electorate's biggest fear in 2018 was continuity. Transfer of popularity from the president to the candidate Throughout the entire government term, President López Obrador enjoyed significant stability in his popularity, according to the polling firm Mitofski. Based on those high levels of popularity, he managed to fully endorse his candidate, Sheinbaum, and his party, Morena.   Including Sheinbaum, only ten women have been heads of state in Latin America through the popular vote. Several of them have done so on the shoulders of prominent male figures who endorsed their votes. Today, Sheinbaum comes to power with the popularity of AMLO, just as happened before with Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, victorious with Lula's endorsement, or those who received the endorsement of their husbands, like Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua, the Honduran Xiomara Zelaya, or the Argentinian Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Sheinbaum’s campaign strategy unequivocally acknowledged that her formula was one of continuity with López Obrador. She reaffirmed this after the victory:    It will be from now on when we see how much Sheinbaum separates herself from those shoulders, or if her presidency will bear the stamp of AMLO's tutelage. Mexico excels in political equality but falls short in economic equality Despite being a country where machismo is caricatured as part of Mexican culture, and where one in every four Mexican men believes that being male guarantees better political performance, Mexico has positioned itself relatively well in terms of gender equality, ranking 33rd out of 146 countries evaluated according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2023 (GGG). Among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico ranks sixth out of 22. Regarding access to education and health, it has virtually achieved gender parity since 2006. It is in the realm of political empowerment (the third of the sub-indices measured in the report's methodology) where the most progress towards gender equality has been made in the country. In 2023, Mexico ranked 15th out of 146 countries evaluated, representing a significant leap forward in recent years. There are parity laws in Congress with gender quotas implemented in 2014 that guarantee political participation and representation. The greatest challenge facing the new president Sheinbaum in this regard is gender equality in the economic sphere. According to the GGG, the country ranks among the lowest globally in this sub-index. While 76% of men participate in the workforce, only 44% of women do so. In terms of average income and wage equality, Mexico ranks among the worst positions. Two challenges for the new president: security and democratic quality But challenges exist in other areas as well. Far beyond the gender issue, Mexican democracy and governance are plagued by serious problems that Sheinbaum will have to address. The issue of security is grave. Violence ran rampant during the campaign, setting records. The pressure of social programs is also significant. Democratic quality, according to V-DEM data on the liberal democracy index in Mexico, reached its peak after the alternation in 2000, during Vicente Fox's government. However, since then, the indicator has been declining.   This indicator is based on Robert Dahl's concept of "polyarchy," which emphasizes the importance of protecting individual rights and those of minorities against the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of the majority. The liberal model takes a negative view of political power insofar as it values the quality of democracy more if there are limits and checks on the government. This is achieved through constitutionally protected civil liberties, a strong rule of law, an independent judiciary, and effective checks and balances that, together, limit the exercise of executive power. For this to be a measure of liberal democracy, the index also takes into account the level of electoral democracy. The Mexican election of 2000, which made Vicente Fox, the PAN candidate, president, can be considered a critical election as it ended 70 years of uninterrupted PRI governments. Fox won with a historically strong and well-institutionalized party, but his campaign platform included significant innovations in terms of volunteerism and mobilization that came from outside the party structure. The first PAN president was a businessman who had chaired the Latin American division of Coca-Cola. He brought different ideas about organization and marketing possibilities, both for the campaign and for the government. From there, healthy reforms were made in democratic and electoral institutions. However, the index has been declining during López Obrador's administration. Presidential efforts to make changes in electoral institutions have raised alarms. During his tenure, AMLO has questioned the independence of the National Electoral Institute (INE), he has announced plans to dismantle the INAI (official transparency body) before leaving the Presidency, and delegitimize judicial instances, acknowledging his direct influence over Supreme Court justices. One step away from the qualified majority and constitutional reforms The scope of Sheinbaum's victory, AMLO's, and, in general, Morena's is notable, not only in the presidential chapter. Perhaps more impact is what it implies at the parliamentary level. Pending the final scrutiny, the ruling alliance could have a qualified majority, both in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, paving the way for constitutional changes. The necessary balances are at stake. The system of checks and balances in the parliament and in the states of the Republic has been greatly weakened, which identifies clear dangers for Mexican democracy. The relative stability of Mexican political parties during the 21st century contrasts with that of other Latin American countries. Unlike the rest of the countries in the region, where new parties have proliferated at a dizzying pace, only seven new parties have emerged in Mexico in these two decades, and three of them are linked to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's candidacy in 2018. Three periods after Fox's rise to power, AMLO's victory in 2018 showed, live and direct, the implosion of the Mexican party system. Weakness of opposition parties It is possible to foresee, given López Obrador's institutional behavior during his presidency, that the judiciary and electoral authority will continue to be under pressure, to levels hitherto unknown. Claudia Sheinbaum will need to quickly put an end to this if she wants to demonstrate a democratic attitude. The underlying problem in 2024 lies in the weakness of political parties to address these new times ahead. Electoral losers need a thorough analysis, with a good dose of self-criticism, and a solid strategy for the immediate future.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском The growing tension between Algeria and Morocco must be analyzed considering the backdrop of the geopolitical competition among major powers characterizing the current world, wherein Morocco, above all, strives to position its conflict with its neighbor. However, this should not overlook the local and regional dynamics that have characterized it since ancient times. The origin and evolution of the strategic tension between both Maghreb states. Since Algeria achieved independence in 1962 – Morocco's independence dates back to 1956 and was much less dramatic than Algeria's – Rabat has been applying the concept of "territorial deficit" also in relation to this Arab, African, and Muslim neighbor. Defining the concept of "territorial deficit" immediately shows that Morocco is an uncomfortable neighbor for a number of states. It was so before Algeria for Mauritania, as it took ten years to recognize it as an independent state, not doing so until 1970. And before that, it was in relation to Spain, as in 1958, that is, two years after its independence, it managed to reclaim Tarfaya. And in 1969, it would achieve the return of Sidi Ifni. Even in relation to Mali, independent since 1960, Morocco immediately began to argue about the supposed rights acquired by Moroccan power, that is, by the reigning dynasty, based on old caravan routes and the political, religious, and commercial ties that for centuries allowed weaving contacts that Morocco would like to see reflected in terms of sovereignty over territories that have never been theirs. But Algeria is the state with which Morocco has been developing a more intense and assertive policy, which has already led both states to two armed conflicts: in 1963, in the Sand War, and in 1976, against the backdrop of the war between Moroccans and Mauritians, on one side, and with the Sahrawis, on the other, which had erupted that same year after the evacuation of Spanish forces. The strategic tension between the two Maghreb states is based both on Morocco's questioning of its neighbor's borders and on the evolution in the positioning of each on the regional and global stage. Morocco’s questioning of inherited borders Although both states signed a Border Treaty on June 15th, 1972, in Rabat, which was ratified by Algeria on May 17th, 1973, and by Morocco on June 22nd, 1992, two decades later; the Moroccans not only dragged their feet to ratify it but also, once authorized by Parliament, Morocco did not take the final step of depositing the ratification instruments with the UN. Therefore, we can affirm that the Treaty is not in force, and also that Morocco did accept the inherited border at that time, and it is important not to forget this. Morocco’s questioning of the possibility of an independent Western Sahara Morocco severed diplomatic relations with Algeria in 1976 and would not restore them until 1988. During that distant period, Algeria was the champion of national liberation movements and initially supported the emergence of the Polisario Front in 1973, a movement committed to accelerating the self-determination and independence of the still Spanish Sahara. It must be said that Spain was already preparing to leave the territory at that time – with the development of a rigorous census in 1974 in preparation for the self-determination referendum under the direction of Colonel Rodríguez de Viguri, Spanish diplomatic dynamics at the UN led by Ambassador Jaime de Piniés, etc. – but everything would accelerate with the regrettable launch of the Green March in the fall of 1975, which forced our country to evacuate the territory in February 1976 parallel to the invasion of our former province by Moroccan and Mauritanian troops. Already in 1975, Morocco was demonstrating its skills in relation to hybrid strategies that it has continued to apply to this day. The war would last until 1988, and throughout that time, we find a diplomatic maneuver that once again brings Morocco into relation with the 1972 Border Treaty: King Hassan II suggested at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Nairobi in 1981 that he accepted the formula of a referendum to define the final status of the territory, then he retracted, leading to the situation we are in 43 years later, with an expansionist Morocco that uses all sorts of tricks under the leadership of his son, Mohammed VI, to annex the territory. Competition between the two regional powers and their African scenarios If it was Morocco who broke diplomatic relations with Algeria in 1976, it has been recently Algeria, in August 2021, who broke them with Morocco. Both countries have had their land border, the one that Morocco now questions with renewed zeal, closed since 1994, indicating thereby that the foundation of the relationship is structurally flawed, hence the concern that burdens us. The three most important tension scenarios between Algeria and Morocco on African soil today are as follows: the management of the future of Libya, the growing Moroccan influence in the Sahel, and the open competition for the construction of respective gas pipelines connected to Nigeria. All this against the backdrop of a relentless Moroccan offensive within the African Union (AU), the successor of the OAU that Morocco left in 1984 – as a protest against the admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) – and to which Mohammed VI decided to return in 2017 to weaken Algeria's strong position within it from within. In the diplomatic management of the evolution of Libya – aiming to pull this Maghreb country out of the chaotic situation it found itself in as a result of the Arab uprisings and the subsequent fall of Muammar Al Gaddafi in 2011 – two Moroccan cities, Sjirat and Bouznika, have been chosen as the venues for sensitive meetings and achieve supposed progress. This only exacerbates the double wound perceived by Algeria: the first, resulting from foreign interference that led to the destabilization of Libya and, with it, that of the Sahel; and the second, the positioning of its Moroccan rival in a scenario of the eastern Maghreb where Algeria had traditionally held a privileged position, a position that we will soon see is also being lost in the Sahel. Morocco also leverages its advantages in relation to Libya, including its strong relationships with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), who are also present in Libya, as well as its influence in multinational circles, particularly at the UN. When advocating for the territorial integrity of Libya, Morocco skillfully introduces the caveat of the "territorial integrity" of Morocco regarding the Western Sahara, something that is always present in all Moroccan diplomatic dynamics. And linked to the Libyan dossier is also the Sahelian dossier in Moroccan initiatives that enter into direct competition with the interests of Algeria. Algerian foreign and security policy, which in the 2000s established the Coordination of Joint Operational Staff (CEMOC, by its initials in spanish), based in Tamanrasset, and which in 2015 achieved the signing – in May and June of that year – of the Algiers Accords – considered since then and until recent times the key tool for achieving the stabilization of Mali – has been overshadowed by the development of events and Moroccan exploitation of its initiatives. Although – from the Algerian point of view – the pernicious Western military presence in the Western Sahel, led by France, is now practically gone, instability persists, and the events that have occurred are exposing Algeria and facilitating the acceleration of Moroccan penetration. Examples we are going to highlight as illustrative, the first is the drift in Mali, where the coup government led by Colonel Assemi Goïta considers many of the signatories of the Algiers Accords as "terrorists," pursues them, and thereby deteriorates relations between Algiers and Bamako. In parallel, Morocco's presence is becoming increasingly visible, from diplomatic and commercial dimensions to the religious one. The second example is of a multilateral nature: in a complex scenario where the three coups d'état that have occurred and consolidated – in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – have cooled relations with the West and also those of Algeria with these three members of the Western Sahel subregion, Morocco threw down the gauntlet with the holding of the meeting of Foreign Ministers of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, in Marrakech, on January 4th, 2024, convened by their Moroccan counterpart Nasser Burita to strengthen ties and design the future. The competition for gas pipelines pits, and will continue to do so in the coming years, the oldest and supposedly most viable initiative - lingering since 2009, although it has been delayed -, of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) connecting Nigeria with Algeria through Niger, against the newer and also complex initiative, the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP), in relation to which Rabat is deploying all its tools of influence. The TSGP has the advantage of being only 4,300 kilometers long and having sections already completed both in Algerian and Nigerian territory, requiring an estimated financial effort of $13 billion, and the possibility of being operational between 2027 and 2030. Its main drawback is having to traverse the volatile scenario of Niger. The NMGP is, of course, longer and more expensive, as it has to be deployed through the waters of fourteen states and its cost is estimated at over $25 billion, in addition to the estimated two decades it will take to put it into service. However, in its seduction efforts, Morocco seeks to attract important international, Arab, and Western backers, as well as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), by designing attractive scenarios of "Atlantic cooperation" - Mohamed VI described it in his speech on the 48th Anniversary of the Green March, on November 6, 2023, as a "development tool for the Atlantic band of Africa" - and, of course, includes the territory of Western Sahara as one of its important stages. With the latter, it aims to consolidate the image of an always prosperous and full of potential "Moroccan Sahara" in the region and in the world. If the TSGP can be a link promising energy supply to Niger and other countries in the Western Sahel, Morocco has already conveyed to these same states that with the NMGP, their energy needs and even access to the Atlantic of these landlocked states will be met. And finally, Morocco's diplomatic repositioning in the AU also exacerbates tensions with Algeria, which has been accustomed to a comfortable position during more than three decades of absence of its Moroccan adversary from the continental organization. Algeria has lost some key positions held by its diplomats in the peace and security organs of the organization and must be very attentive to subtleties such as Morocco's attempt, along with other African countries, to accept Israel as an observer state in the AU. Led by the AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki in July 2021, the combined Algerian-South African effort in Addis Ababa prevented this from happening. Since then and up to the present, Morocco's efforts to weaken the position of the SADR as a full member of the organization remain constant. Struggle led by Morocco in an international arena characterized by geopolitical competition among major powers During the Cold War, Morocco demonstrated great skill by presenting itself as a champion of the West in the sensitive region of the Western Mediterranean. It convinced the US and European capitals that, apart from being a moderate and stable country in the Arab world, it should be considered a bulwark against communism, which it perceived as taking root in Algeria and Libya. After the Cold War, Morocco continued to play the card of moderation and stability against the radical Islamist threats emanating from neighboring Algeria. This was the period when it devised its alleged excellence in preventing and managing the jihadist threat, thanks to its information and intelligence tools, which, it tells us, we should still rely on as a guarantee for our security. Throughout this time, Morocco has managed, thanks to its evident ability to promote its own image while tarnishing that of its adversary, to establish a privileged strategic relationship with both the United States and NATO, as well as with the EU starting in the 2000s. In relation to the United States, Morocco skillfully sells the narrative that it all began in December 1777 when the Moroccan sultan of the time, despite Morocco not being a modern state at the time, was the first world leader to recognize the independence of what is now a superpower. Acting as a bulwark against communism for decades, and now against the advances of Russia or Iran in the Maghreb, Morocco holds high regard in Washington DC, and its ‘lobbyists’ continuously polish its image. The longstanding combined military maneuvers "African Lion" enjoy a momentum that grants Morocco leadership, enabling it to showcase its territory – endeavoring at each stage, albeit unsuccessfully thus far, to solidify the ‘de facto’ "Moroccan-ness" of Western Sahara – and continue projecting the image of an indispensable actor. And in relation to the EU, Morocco – who formally and unsuccessfully applied for accession to the European Communities in 1987 - perseveres in its efforts to continue benefiting from privileged treatment in various domains, all of them lucrative, and to ‘lobby’ in EU institutions using various tools to strengthen its most sacred aspirations, prominently among them the consolidation of the principle of the "Moroccan-ness" of the Sahara. Are we heading towards an open conflict? In relation to Western Sahara, Moroccan ambition is becoming increasingly evident, and the use of various pressure tactics is becoming more scandalous, to the point of blackmailing various states using different instruments. Meanwhile, the territory is the scene of a hybrid war in which the Polisario Front – which broke the ceasefire in place for more than three decades on November 13th, 2020, due to incidents at the strategic Guerguerat border with Mauritania – issues periodic war reports, and Morocco primarily uses drones to inflict casualties on the Polisario (and incidentally, as collateral damage since then, deaths of Algerian and Mauritanian nationals). Although considered by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, as “low-intensity hostilities”, the risk of escalation is always present. Meanwhile, Morocco's relations are increasingly tainted not only with Algeria but also, and more recently, with Mauritania, and to a lesser extent, with Tunisia. But let's remember that it's not just the unresolved Western Sahara conflict the cause of tension between Algeria and Morocco; it runs deeper. Apart from the reinforcement of irredentist discourse in recent years – reviving the term “Eastern Sahara” accompanied by increasingly provocative cartography –, and as it also does in relation to Spain, Morocco is situating the management of its neighborhood within the broader context of geopolitical competition among major powers, hence the growing concern about the potential evolution of the situation. The transaction that led to the murky scene in which the recognition via Twitter of the “Moroccan-ness of the Sahara” in 2020, by President Donald Trump, who in exchange obtained, advantageously, Morocco's inclusion in the Abraham Accords signed with Israel by three Arab states (Bahrain, UAE, and joined by Morocco), opened a Pandora's box in the Maghreb and Western Mediterranean region. To the effects of our analysis on the increasing tension between Algeria and Morocco, Algerian authorities had to add, to their strategic concern about the deterioration of the situation in Libya and the Western Sahel due to foreign interference and the resizing of Morocco's foreign and security policy during all this time, the landing of the considered by Algiers "Israeli enemy at its doors". After the signing of the Abraham Accords by Morocco, Israeli presence on Moroccan soil is increasingly visible, with its epicenter in the visit to Rabat in November 2021 by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and reflected in the growing acquisitions of high-end Israeli defense material. All this occurs furthermore in a scenario aggravated by the outbreak of the fifth war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023. The presence of Israeli military observers in the multinational exercise "African Lion 2022", which might seem innocuous to other states, was seen – by Algeria, which had just severed its diplomatic relations with Morocco the previous year – as a hostile act to add to the increasingly long list of grievances. Morocco also uses this scenario to portray Algeria, which, as a traditional supporter in the Arab world of the Palestinian cause, reinforced its perception of threat regarding Israel in the second half of the 1980s - following the Israeli bombing of the PLO Headquarters in Tunisia in 1985 - as an ally of Iran and its ‘proxies’, particularly Hezbollah. Morocco, which severed diplomatic relations with Iran twice, in 2009 and 2018, seizes any opportunity to launch delusional accusations against Algeria, portraying its neighbor as a close ally of Iran - both to its Western partners and to the Gulf petro-monarchies most opposed to Iran - and to accuse Hezbollah of training and arming the Polisario Front. In addition to exploiting the volatile Middle East scenario to its advantage, Morocco also adds to the equation the backdrop of growing tension between Russia, as well as China, and the West. Morocco, which has excellent relations with Russia, reinforced even after the invasion of Ukraine - signing the Morocco-Russia Strategic Partnership Agreement in 2022, an Agreement on nuclear cooperation with ROSATOM also in 2022, or hosting the Arab-Russian Summit in Marrakech in December 2023 - does not hesitate to portray Algeria as a dangerous ally of Russia at the gates of the West. As an example, Morocco, through its various electronic tools, portrayed the Algerian-Russian maneuvers in November 2022 in the Bechar region, an area claimed by Morocco from Algeria and which involved the participation of a hundred Russian paratroopers, as an imminent threat. It is interesting to note that these maneuvers took place shortly after 7,500 troops from thirteen countries, including Israeli military observers, participated in the "African Lion 2022" exercises; in this case, near the borders with Western Sahara and also with Algeria. References, although less intense, to China, overlook the fact that Moroccan military personnel have been trained in recent years at Chinese bases in drone operations, and that both China and Russia are fishing in the waters of Western Sahara, thereby violating International Law as it belongs to a non-self-governing territory and not to Morocco. And to the political-diplomatic and security dimension, we must add the advancements, especially those made by Morocco, given that Morocco is the most proactive actor, as we have been witnessing, occurring in the defense realm, which are also a cause for concern. The backdrop is the increase in defense spending by both countries, which represents a typical example of a security dilemma. Algeria has traditionally been among the small group of states spending more than 7 percent of its GDP on defense, but Morocco's entry into the club of states generously spending on defense, and in its case growing in geometric progression (from 3.6 percent in 2022 to the projected 9 percent in 2024), increases our concern. Moreover, qualitative aspects are more important than quantitative ones, especially concerning Morocco, as Algeria evolves as usual, maintaining the specificity of a submarine weapon that Morocco does not possess, with significant figures in its land and air power. However, Morocco, while also modernizing and expanding its land and air assets, takes advantage, and does not hide it, of its advantageous relations with Israel to make acquisitions in select areas such as air defense systems, electronic warfare, and its upcoming observation satellite, which will no longer be French (Thales Airbus) but Israeli (Israel Aerospace Industries, IAI). And all this while persisting in the use of armed drones in a war scenario like the Western Sahara, while continuing to refine its tools in the ongoing hybrid warfare. Conclusions Morocco, which is accustomed, and has accustomed us, to playing with the white pieces, thus always taking the initiative, is immersed in a game where its ambition and arrogance stand out, and its neighbor Algeria suggests with its attitude, as does Spain, that it accepts such a situation. In ruptures’ times — the ceasefire by the Polisario Front in November 2020, and diplomatic relations by Algeria in August 2021 — the growing tension between Algeria and Morocco is at a much more dangerous level than in previous crises. The possibility of escalation, either in Western Sahara or at the common land border, is more present than ever, and the multiplication of deteriorating fronts in the Maghreb and the Sahel makes the situation much more volatile than before. Having analyzed the case of the relationship between Algeria and Morocco and its characteristics, we should not conclude this article without a reference to Spain. Morocco is undoubtedly an important commercial partner and a window of opportunity for Spain to develop significant business ventures. However, this should not make us forget that Morocco is also an actor that consistently plays an unfriendly role with its illegitimate territorial claims. In terms of national interest, it has never been clearer than today that Spain needs to have more demanding relations with Morocco, shaking off the constant annoyance represented by both its territorial claims and its attempts to consolidate the annexation of Western Sahara. And in the turbulent times of permanent tension between Morocco and Algeria, the latter country cannot be sacrificed by a Spanish foreign policy that should have a healthy and advantageous relationship with both states.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Japan has embarked upon a transformative journey that signifies a departure from its conventional pacifist stance. Despite encountering pockets of domestic opposition, Japan’s vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific has received increasing support from neighbouring nations. Within a regional backdrop of countering China’s military modernisation and expansionism, Japan is now laying the groundwork for collective defence while working to institutionalise these efforts and ease concerns about remilitarisation. Japan has gradually undertaken various steps to enhance the role of self-defence forces and allow military partnerships. The three new requirements for exercising self-defence, adopted in 2014, expanded Japan’s right to self-defence in the “occurrence of an armed attack against Japan or another country with close ties to Japan”, a threat to national existence, with “no other means to ensure the survival of the country”, adding the use of “minimum amount of force necessary”. Japan broadened the definition of security to encompass any changes in its vicinity that may compromise its territorial integrity. Following these changes, on 16 Dec 2022, the Kishida administration formally approved three revised strategic documents – the National Security Strategy (NSS), the National Defense Strategy (NDS), and the Defense Buildup Program. These revisions reduced the limitations imposed on the Self Defense Forces and collective defence. Viewing these changes in today’s security conflict in East Asia, the first requirement effectively extended the parameters of self-defence to include Taiwan. In the NSS, Japan identified Taiwan as an “extremely important partner and a precious friend” while characterising China as “a matter of serious concern” and “the greatest strategic challenge.” The documents also designated North Korea as “a graver, more imminent threat” and Russia as “a serious security concern.” The documents revealed Japan’s acquisition of counterstrike capabilities, filling gaps in its defences, and broadening the second and third requirements for collective self-defence. Furthermore, Tokyo intends to upgrade the indigenous Type 12 surface-to-ship missile, with a range of approximately 200 km, to approximately 1,200 km, substantially increasing the cost of Chinese attacks in the region. In January 2024, Japan signed agreements with the US to acquire 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles, with a firing range of approximately 1,600 km. Reportedly, Japan aims to rectify its current ammunition reserves by constructing “70 ammunition depots within five years” and plans to construct up to 130 ammunition depots by 2035, drawing lessons from the conflict in Ukraine. Japan revised the Three Principles of Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology overcoming the past restrictions on transfer of defence equipment and technology to other countries. These revisions marked the beginning of Japan’s evolving role as a security provider in the region. Together this amounts to the doubling of the defence spending from 1% to 2% of GDP by 2027 to speed up the advancement of Japan’s peacetime and immature military and bring it to NATO standards. The revisions are consistent with Japan’s understanding of its new security environment where Chinese assertions are reinforced by the largest naval force in Asia. The shift also underscores the limitation of the US power in the region to remain the sole security provider by enabling Japan to take a central role. Japanese people also resonated with the sentiments, as a poll conducted in 2022 revealed that 89% see China as a threat in 2022, and 49% of respondents supported an expanded role of Japan in the alliance while 46% were against it. In 2023, Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force conducted Indo-Pacific Deployment 2023 (IPD23) to “clearly demonstrate the intention that Japan will never tolerate unilateral changes to the status quo by force” as specified in NSS. The Japanese forces visited 17 countries and held 27 exercises with like-minded countries, highlighting Japan’s intention to expand security ties across the nations with territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and with the ASEAN. In the same year, Japan established a Permanent Joint Headquarters to oversee all three forces – the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces – to ensure effective joint operations. Acknowledging Japan’s growing ambition, in December 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping instructed the coast guard to strengthen its activities to assert sovereignty over the East China islets. Japan has actively pursued collective defence in Southeast Asia with its introduction of “Official Security Assistance” in February 2023, under which the Philippines was the first to receive aid, followed by Malaysia. Japan also plans to include Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia. These plans will allow Japan to establish a military-industrial complex, extending the nexus of partnership and interdependency between Japan and Southeast Asia. The changes when seen together with the U.S.-Japan Joint Leaders’ Statement mark a decisive shift in Japan’s strategy to counter China. In an upgrade to the US-Japan alliance, the two parties agreed to establish a unified Japanese-US command, enabling the US to make a headquarters in Japan for overseas military operations in the region. They also agreed upon the co-development and co-production of missiles and cutting-edge technologies in Japan, enhancing its defence industrial complex, and export to third parties. The statement noted Japan’s cooperation with AUKUS in its Pillar II advanced capability projects. The statement also relayed the “existential crisis” facing Japan making these efforts natural, conforming to Japan’s revisions to strategic policy documents. Previously, in 2022, Japan had announced a collaboration with the UK, and Italy to develop next-generation fighter jets and subsequently in March 2024, decided to authorise the export of jointly developed fighter jets to other nations. Cross-strait relations, once dealt with utmost precaution through the lens of the “One-China Policy” have now shifted to a more openly debated foreign and strategic policy surrounding Taiwan. Since 2021, Japanese leaders have made a series of statements and comments concerning Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. In May 2022 a statement from US-Japan Summit reiterated that “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element in security”. In a January 2024 speech, former PM Aso Taro also reiterated that the Taiwan crisis constitutes “a threat of national existence” for Japan. China reacted to former US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022 with large-scale military exercises around the island. Four months later in December 2022, Japan released three new strategic documents. Taiwan’s importance to Japan’s security was cited seven times in NSS and NDS. Furthermore, Japan intends to enhance the defence of all of its 6,852 islands, focusing on the Ryukyu Island chains, the cornerstone of Japan’s defence against China, lying only 100 Km from Taiwan, which also tightens security around the island. The deployment of a surface-to-air guided missile unit is now under consideration on Yomaguni, home to a JSDF surveillance station adding to Japan’s understanding of Taiwan’s security tied closely to its own. China’s preferred military scenario of a “lightning war”, or a surprise attack to take over Taiwan within weeks or days, has increased the level of urgency and acted as a precursor for the military acceleration of the past several years. The history of Japanese aggression in East Asia and Chinese military support for North Korea diluted the possibility of a regional framework between Japan, South Korea and China. However, through years of efforts in August 2023, a rapprochement was reached between Japan and South Korea when they met at Camp David for a trilateral summit between US-Japan-South Korea. The trilateral took the first step in removing historical obstacles and proving trust in Japan’s new regional role. South Korea has remained averse to participating in major power competitions, but this trilateral institutionalised the effort, guarding the progress against changes in the political situation in either country. For South Korea, North Korea remains its primary security concern. For Japan, the North remains the second most crucial threat with its launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile in the Sea of Japan in 2022, provoking cooperation on the same despite fractures. Through the joint statement of the trilateral summit, the US got support from South Korea in recognising the perils of not maintaining peace and security in the Taiwan Strait. South Korea got a much-needed boost in intelligence sharing on North Korea’s missile launches and cyber activities which will strengthen ballistic missile defence cooperation. However, it is unlikely that South Korea will endanger its security by interfering in a cross-strait crisis. It will still play a critical role in keeping North Korea at bay in the event of an armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait or East China Sea. Nevertheless, Taiwan thanked the support shown through the trilateral, while China warned against destabilising the region. Japan stands as one of the Philippines’ most trusted partners, second only to the US. Ties have grown deeper as the two have signed a series of agreements from Military and Capacity Building to Maritime Security and Intelligence Sharing in the Indo-Pacific. In 2023, under Japan’s Official Security Assistance, the Philippines received USD 4 million worth of coastal surveillance radars. The two parties are discussing signing a Reciprocal Access Agreement before the end of 2024. An April 2024 joint statement between Japan, the Philippines and the US prioritised advancing “multilateral maritime domain awareness cooperation”, and developing “an information communications technology ecosystem”. It also committed to trilateral defence cooperation and support for the Philippines’ defence modernisation priorities. The statement noted concerns about China’s aggressive behaviour, its “coercive use of Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels in the South China Sea”, conjoining it with the situation in the East China Sea. It also reiterated the importance of the Taiwan Strait in global security. Under this framework, reliance and trust in Japan have increased, setting it up for a larger security role and the collectivisation of security has brought new assurances for the smaller powers of the region. The Taiwanese President thanked the trilateral joint statement supporting peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. China, however, slammed the anti-China gathering, accusing it of forming a NATO analogue in the region. China summoned Japanese and Philippine diplomats, expressing dissatisfaction and urging Japan to “take actions beneficial to regional peace”. Beyond South Korea and the Philippines, Japan has also maintained long military and diplomatic relations with Vietnam, having had 10 defence dialogues in the past. Furthermore, Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced the Vietnam-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership on 27 November 2023. According to their joint statement, Kishida and Thuong reinforced the vision of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”. The US also upgraded its ties with Vietnam in September 2023. These developments led to President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vietnam in December 2023, culminating into an agreement to establish a hotline between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theatre Command and the Vietnamese navy. But mistrust towards China runs deep in the Vietnamese public, which is furthered when China continues to lay new claims in Vietnamese waters. While Vietnam remains reluctant to participate in US-China conflict, its closeness with Japan is a sign that the latter is seen as a reliable regional partner with similar territorial problems. In a wider regional sense, Japan views ASEAN as its key partner in fulfilling the Indo-Pacific vision. The ASEAN centrality resonates in both the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral. Japan maintained close ties with the region through robust economic and defence cooperation. But the latter has gained momentum in the past few years. Beginning with the Philippines in 2016, Japan forged bilateral agreements for defence equipment and technology collaboration with multiple ASEAN nations (with Malaysia in 2018, Indonesia and Vietnam in 2021, and Thailand in 2022). In February 2023, the “Expert Panel for the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation” issued a report emphasising that ASEAN has evolved from being primarily an aid recipient from Japan to a growing and influential partner. In December 2023, the ASEAN and Japan summit released a joint statement, committing to “strengthening security cooperation including maritime security” in the light of growing threats in the South China Sea. The statement highlighted the trust ASEAN has in Japan amid China’s growing claims in the South China Sea. This reflects a growing realisation among ASEAN members that collective defence is the answer to their security challenge – which China reacted negatively to. In the face of a major power conflict, the trust of Southeast Asian countries in Japan’s security guarantee has been increasing. A poll conducted in 2022 reflected these sentiments when 43.1% of Taiwanese confirmed their belief that Japan would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from China, while 42.8% of citizens felt that the US would be a security guarantor to Taiwan. Surveys undertaken in 2023 and 2024 substantiate the increasing affinity between ASEAN and Japan. While China surpassed the US as the preferred partner for ASEAN, Japan remained the most trusted partner, with 58.9% of respondents expressing faith in the country, surpassing levels for the US, China, India, and the European Union. This suggests that ASEAN is gradually transitioning its geopolitical alignment towards Japan as (at least part of) a viable alternative, rather than seeing things as a binary choice between China and the US. The predominant theme in the understanding of the current security environment in Southeast and East Asia is that, while US assistance and reliance on its security guarantee in the region are essential to counter the so-called China threat, the defence of the maritime nations ultimately rests with those nations themselves. This sentiment has served as a catalyst to address gaps in individual countries’ defence preparedness and work towards a collective approach to protect against potential changes in US strategy – which has evolved into one of enabling regional stakeholders by providing technology, skills, and assistance, while maintaining dominance through other platforms. This has necessitated a collective defence posture where a more interconnected network, involving Japan, can be more resistant to isolation and coercion.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele has been elected the next prime minister of Solomon Islands, defeating the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, in a vote in parliament. The result is a mixed bag for former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s Ownership, Unity and Responsibility (OUR) Party. The party won just 15 of 50 seats in last month’s election. But even though Sogavare declined to stand for PM this week, his party still had the upper hand in the vote after courting independent MPs. So, what kind of leader will Manele be? Will he bring big changes to the country or its relationships with China, Australia and the United States? Quality-of-life issues remain paramount One of the authors here (Claudina) voted in Solomon Islands’ general election in November 2014. At that time, political campaigns were low-key and largely localised to particular areas in the country. Ten years on, we have noticed a huge change in the way campaigns are staged. This year, the livestreaming of campaign events was ubiquitous on social media, which amplified and sensationalised the messages of candidates like never before. Frenzied parades involving floats and legions of supporters were common. Despite all the fanfare leading up to polling day, the primary concern of ordinary Solomon Islanders was not political wrangling, but the dire state of services in the country. The healthcare system is dilapidated, road conditions and infrastructure are poor and power cuts are constant. The increased cost of living and lack of educational and job opportunities have only made daily life more difficult for residents. For example, one voter in Isabel Province told us as part of our research that he did not care what political party his preferred candidate aligned himself with. His main concern was for his MP to continue to provide financial support through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF). The fund pays for iron roofing for homes, school fees, outboard motor engines for transport, chainsaws and other material needs. Many voters similarly wanted their MPs to join the majority coalition so they would be able to access more benefits through the government. This was why nine of the independent MPs who unseated incumbents from the governing coalition came back to join that same coalition going into the PM’s election this week. Manele got 31 votes from lawmakers, which included 15 from his OUR Party, three from Solomon Islands People First Party, one from the Kadere Party, nine independents and three other MPs who switched allegiances from Wale’s camp. It was a smart move for Sogavare and his coalition to select Manele as their candidate. Sogavare’s popularity has waxed and waned over the past two decades. He was forced to vacate the PM post after no-confidence votes in both 2007 and 2017. He survived another no-confidence vote in 2021, which led to violent protests on the streets of Honiara and the destruction of Chinatown. Though Sogavare managed to hold onto his seat in last month’s election, he won by just 259 votes. It was his narrowest margin of victory since he was first elected to parliament in 1997. To avoid a similar backlash from voters who did not want to see Sogavare become PM again, the sensible thing for his coalition was to select another candidate. The 55-year-old Manele is from the same village (Samasodu) in Isabel Province as the governor-general, Sir David Vunagi, which means the two men in the highest offices in the country are closely related. Manele will likely be an inclusive leader. He has a friendly and humble personality, as reflected in his maiden speech in which he acknowledged his rival, Wale, and members of his coalition. A more matter-of-fact foreign policy One of the main reasons Sogavare courted controversy was his increasingly cosy relationship with Beijing since his government switched Solomon Islands’ diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China in 2019. He signed a secretive bilateral security deal with China in 2022 that raised alarm bells in Australia. Last year came another deal to boost co-operation with China on law enforcement and other security matters. With Manele now at the helm, the country should return to a more business-as-usual approach to diplomatic ties with China. His experience as a career diplomat, public servant, opposition leader and foreign minister will help him navigate the country’s complex relationships without the fiery rhetoric his predecessor had become known for. In addition, we may finally be able to see what the 2022 security agreement entails now that a former foreign minister is in charge. Asked by the ABC whether his government would keep the deal, Manele said “yes”, then added: If there is a need to review that, it will be a matter for China and Solomon Islands to discuss. However, he may face some pressure from the opposition. Peter Kenilorea junior, the political wing leader of the Solomon Islands United Party (SIUP), has publicly expressed a desire to scrap the security agreement with China. Manele should also maintain a cordial and perhaps more engaged relationship with Australia. When announcing his PM candidacy this week, he reiterated he would continue the long-held Solomon Islands foreign policy stance of “friends to all and enemies to none”. What matters most to Solomon Islanders The broader region must continue to see the plight of ordinary Solomon Islanders as separate from the decisions of its leaders, who at times may not necessarily reflect the wishes of the people. Ask any Solomon Islander in a rural area what he or she thinks of the security agreement with China and the implications for traditional partners like the US, Australia and New Zealand. Chances are he or she might just shrug it off without uttering a response. This is because Solomon Islanders have other pressing issues to worry about, such as how to pay school fees, how to feed their families, how to get their kids to school when the river floods and how to get fuel to take an expecting mother to the nearest health centre. This is what matters most to people’s lives, not diplomatic tussles between global powers.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском As Beijing’s investment approach to Latin America focuses on industries of strategic importance, the EU and US will need to contend with growing Chinese competition China is pouring less foreign direct investment (FDI) into Latin America. But while this may seem like a sign of Beijing’s disinterest in the region, data suggests that Chinese companies are simply recalibrating, not retreating. In doing so, they are becoming important players in sectors key to Western interests: critical minerals, fintech, electric vehicles, and green energy. While the European Union and the United States have long been top investors in Latin America, increased competition with Chinese investment now jeopardises their interests in the Latin American industries that will become most crucial to the digital and green transitions. The number of Chinese projects in Latin America grew by 33 per cent from 2018-2023, compared with the previous five-year period of 2013-2017, even as the total value declined. In other words, Chinese companies are making more investments in the region but are pursuing smaller-scale projects on average. These investments are also more focused on what China calls “new infrastructure“ (新基建), a term which encompasses telecommunications, fintech, renewable energy, and other innovation-related industries. In 2022, 60 per cent of China’s investments were in these frontier sectors, a key economic priority for the country. Beijing also views smaller projects in these industries as incurring less operational and reputational risk, especially compared to some of the large-scale infrastructure investment projects often associated with the Belt and Road initiative. Like China, the investment priorities of the G7 grouping – particularly the US and the EU – are centring on critical minerals, fintech, electric vehicles, and green energy as they aim to grow and reinforce existing economic and political partnerships in Latin America. However, both the US and the EU risk falling short of China’s investment strategy in the region. The US has signalled want for greater economic engagement with the region, especially in sectors of strategic interest. However, to date, US efforts to compete with China remain largely focused on building US domestic capacity in these strategic sectors, even as some US companies, such as Intel, are increasingly focused on including regional partners in their supply chains. Some see opportunity for Latin America in Joe Biden’s landmark legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is aimed at incentivising the energy transition while also de-risking critical supply chains. For example, certain countries in the region may benefit from preferential market access for their lithium or other key inputs to new energy and technology supply chains. However, the reach of the IRA – which remains a largely domestic policy – does not stretch as far as China’s current investment reshuffle. The Americas Act, announced by members of Congress in March could generate promising new investment opportunities for the region, as it encourages US companies and others to move their operations out of China, to which Latin America stands as a promising replacement. But Americas Act reshoring would primarily incentivise textiles and potentially medical equipment manufacturing, with less overall focus on the range of “new infrastructure” industries that China is prioritising. Chinese interests in information and communication technologies reveal a similar story. While the US has focused its policy on 5G equipment sales, China is undertaking a process of vertical integration in Latin American tech sectors that will dramatically boost its competitiveness. For instance, Chinese company Huawei is rapidly expanding its focus to include data centres, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and other services, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. (Computing accounted for a sizable 41 per cent of total Chinese information technology investment in the region between 2018 and the first half of 2023.) At the same time, Global Gateway, the EU’s proposal for a global investment initiative is yet to reach its potential in the region. Brussels is looking to be Latin America’s partner of choice by building local capacity for making batteries and final products like electric vehicles, as European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen noted last year. Yet even as the EU signals renewed commitment, China is becoming increasingly dominant in the electric vehicle market in Latin America and other regions. China surpassed the US in electric vehicle sales in 2023, with Chinese companies accounting for 45 per cent of total global sales and three times that of Germany’s. What is more, China has invested $11 billion in lithium extraction in the region since 2018, as part of a bid to control a third of global lithium-mine production capacity. Meanwhile the EU has secured some access to lithium as part of trade deals with Chile, alongside other nations, but this pales in comparison to what will be required to fuel the future of EU battery production. Latin America as a whole accounts for an estimated 60 per cent of the world’s lithium reserves. Based on its current levels of engagement in the region, the EU risks falling short of lithium, stalling its battery production and subsequently, its electric vehicle sales, just as China advances in this field. The window is closing for the EU, the US, and other partners looking to both maintain market share and compete with China in these Latin American industries, despite still-high rates of US and EU investment in and trade with the region. Indeed, US automakers increasingly see Chinese competition across the globe as an “extinction-level event.” Ensuring competitiveness in “new infrastructure” and related sectors will require a continuous commitment by partners to building and supporting project pipelines, and to delivering products and services at price points that can compete with China’s subsidised offerings. Both the EU and the US remain critical economic partners for Latin America and are contributing in ways that China is not. Still, complacency risks allowing China to take the lead in emerging industries in the region, some of which weigh heavily in the EU’s green and digital transformation. To protect their own future industries, the EU and the US need to first take a longer look at Latin America’s – especially as China vies for a dominant position.