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Energy & Economics
Chinese yuan on the map of South America. Trading between China and Latin American countries, economy and investment

China-Latin America Green Cooperation and the Global Development Initiative

by Cao Ting

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Abstract The global development initiative proposed by China aims to promote global sustainable development and has received support from many Latin American countries. At present, green cooperation between China and Latin America has achieved positive results in multiple fields such as clean energy, green agriculture, and green transportation. Latin American countries can become important partners for China to promote the Global Development Initiatives. However, in terms of green cooperation, China and Latin America also face some challenges. Both sides must strengthen consensus and achieve coordinated development in various fields. Sustainable Development and the Global Development Initiative The current international situation is turbulent and constantly changing, with a global economy that remains stagnant, while challenges such as geopolitical conflicts, climate change, and the food crisis are becoming increasingly intertwined and exacerbated. In this context, all countries around the world face the important task of promoting sustainable development and maintaining healthy economic and social growth. On September 21, 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping officially launched the Global Development Initiative at the United Nations, outlining a path toward a new stage of global development that is balanced, coordinated, and inclusive (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, 2021). The Global Development Initiative is aligned with the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and places climate change and sustainable development as key areas of cooperation, emphasizing the idea of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. Its goal is to promote stronger, more sustainable, and healthier global development, and to build a global community for development. The 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are a fundamental part of the Global South and, in general, place great importance on sustainable development, which has allowed them to achieve notable successes in the field of sustainable cooperation. In a context of great power competition and ongoing regional conflicts, the strengthening of sustainable cooperation between China and Latin American countries presents numerous opportunities, creating ample space to jointly advance in sustainable development. The concept of a sustainable economy evolved from the idea of sustainable development, with harmony between humanity and nature at its core and the goal of achieving long-term sustainability. This approach maintains that economic growth is not an unlimited or uncontrolled process but rather must be conditioned by the ecological environment’s capacities and the resource carrying capacity. The concept of a sustainable economy emerged in the late 1980s when British environmental economist David Pearce introduced it in his work “Blueprint for a Green Economy”, published in 1989. However, it was not until the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, that the sustainable economy began to receive greater attention and became a central concept in global development strategies. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a sustainable economy is driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, improve energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems. A sustainable economy has always promoted development goals that integrate economic, social, and environmental aspects. This respect for the environment and nature is closely linked to traditional Chinese worldviews. Since ancient times, the Chinese have developed ideas about following the laws of nature and protecting the ecological environment. In the classical text “Yi Zhou Shu Ju Pian”, it is recorded: "During the three months of spring, no axes are used in the mountains and forests, to allow plants to grow; during the three months of summer, no nets are placed in rivers and lakes." These ideas have been a fundamental part of the spiritual thought and culture of the Chinese people for over five thousand years, and through them, they have envisioned humanity and nature as an organic and indivisible whole. They represent the basic understanding of the relationship between humans and nature in ancient Chinese agricultural society, where coexistence and mutual promotion between people and the ecological environment reflected a dialectical relationship of unity. These ideas, full of deep wisdom, constitute an essential component of China’s rich cultural tradition. Consensus Base for Green Cooperation In 2021, the Global Development Initiative, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda, established eight key areas of cooperation: poverty reduction, food security, industrialization, connectivity, pandemic response, development financing, climate change, and the digital economy. It also proposed key principles such as “prioritizing development,” “people-centered focus,” “universal inclusion,” “innovation-driven efforts,” “harmony between humanity and nature,” and “action-oriented approaches.” Latin American countries also place great importance on sustainable development and share numerous points of consensus with China on these principles. Currently, several countries in the region, including Peru and Colombia, have joined the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative.” This shared commitment to sustainable development between China and Latin America provides an important foundation for advancing sustainable cooperation. Particularly, China and Latin American countries have broad consensus in the following areas: 1. Prioritizing national development. Both China and many Latin American countries are developing nations and consider the promotion of sustainable development a crucial goal. President Xi Jinping emphasized in the report presented at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC): “The fundamental fact that our country is still and will long remain in the primary stage of socialism has not changed; our international status as the largest developing country in the world has not changed.” (Xi, 2017) China’s fundamental national situation determines that its main task is to advance along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and to focus its efforts on socialist construction. The Global Development Initiative also highlights “prioritizing development” as one of its core pillars. Latin America, for its part, faces the challenge of progressing in development. Although it was one of the regions in the Global South to achieve national independence and begin economic development relatively early, some Latin American countries have experienced stagnation in their economic transformation and have not managed to overcome the so-called “middle-income trap.” Affected by factors such as low global economic growth, fiscal constraints, and limited policy space, Latin America’s economy has shown a weak recovery in recent years, with some countries facing serious inflation and debt problems. Therefore, promoting sustainable development has become a top priority for governments in the region. In 2016, Latin American countries promoted the creation of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, as a regional mechanism for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (ECLAC, 2016). By the end of 2023, six successful conferences had been held, and the Latin America and the Caribbean Sustainable Development Report had been published annually to assess the region’s progress in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 2. Addressing welfare issues as a central task Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party’s central leadership, led by Xi Jinping, has promoted a people-centered development approach, insisting that everything should be done for the people and depend on the people, always placing them in the highest position. During the centennial celebration of the CPC’s founding, General Secretary Xi emphasized: “To learn from history and forge the future, we must unite and lead the Chinese people in a tireless struggle for a better life.” In contrast, Latin America is one of the most unequal regions in the world. The unequal distribution of wealth, along with gender and racial discrimination, are persistent issues that have been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economic slowdown. According to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in 2023 the region’s poverty rate was 29.1%, and extreme poverty was 11.4%, both slightly higher than in 2022 (29% and 11.2%, respectively) (France24, 2023). As a response, many Latin American governments — such as those in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Cuba — have incorporated attention to welfare issues and improving their citizens’ quality of life as key pillars in their public policy agendas. 3. Embracing inclusion and shared benefits as a guiding principle Following the end of the Cold War, the world experienced a trend toward multipolarity and continued economic globalization. However, in recent years, there has been a resurgence of protectionism in various forms, accompanied by a rise in unilateralism and hegemonic policies. These “deglobalization” practices not only fail to resolve internal problems, but also disrupt global supply chains, hinder healthy economic development, and harm the interests of countries. In response, developing nations such as China and Latin American countries advocate for multipolar development and oppose unilateralism and power politics. In December 2023, China’s Central Conference on Foreign Affairs Work emphasized the importance of inclusive and mutually beneficial economic globalization. Similarly, Latin America has maintained a diversified foreign policy and has worked toward building a new, fair, and equitable international political and economic order. Amid rising tensions among major powers, most Latin American countries have chosen not to take sides, maintaining a non-aligned policy. Moreover, countries in Latin America are increasingly focused on inclusive development both within their nations and across the region, striving to address internal development imbalances. In 2010, the Andean Development Corporation (predecessor to the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean) released the “Latin America Vision Plan 2040”, which highlighted the need to strengthen economic inclusion in order to achieve truly sustainable growth (CAF, 2010). In January 2023, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit in Argentina approved the “Buenos Aires Declaration,” which stressed the importance of promoting inclusive development in the region and fostering inclusive dialogue with other regions (CELAC, 2023). 4. Embracing innovation as a key driver Marx pointed out that “science is also part of the productive forces” and that “the development of fixed capital shows the extent to which the general knowledge of society has become a direct productive force.” In 1988, at the National Science Conference, Deng Xiaoping declared, “science and technology are the primary productive forces.” Since the 18th CPC Congress, China has firmly pursued innovation-led development. It launched the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy, issued the Medium- to Long-Term Science and Technology Development Plan (2021–2035), and rolled out the Technological Innovation Blueprint under the 14th Five-Year Plan. Thanks to this framework, China has made significant progress in accelerating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, quantum communication, and blockchain. Latin American countries are also intensifying their focus on technological innovation. In 2023, CELAC’s Buenos Aires Declaration underscored the importance of innovation for enhancing regional competitiveness and job quality, while encouraging scientific exchanges among nations and subregional organizations. Furthermore, the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, committed to increasing investment in technological development. To that end, he announced at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change an investment of approximately 21 billion reais (around 4.28 billion U.S. dollars) in sustainable economy, innovative technologies, and low-carbon economy. In the 2023 Global Innovation Index, Brazil ranked 49th out of 132 countries, improving by five positions compared to the previous year. The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, pledged to increase public funding for research and to finance the work of universities and research institutions. In 2019, the Colombian government established the “International Mission of Wise People,” a body composed of 46 national and international academic experts to promote production diversification and automation, with the goal of doubling the share of manufacturing and agriculture in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030. The current president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has committed to transforming the country into a “knowledge society” and to continuing this initiative. 5. Making harmony between humans and nature a central goal Developing countries — including China and Latin American nations — prioritize climate issues and actively contribute to global climate governance. Since ancient China during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, philosophical schools such as Confucianism and Taoism had already proposed concepts about the “unity between Heaven and humankind.” Similarly, Indigenous cultures in Latin America also share related cultural traditions. The Quechua peoples of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia promote the concept of “’Buen Vivir’” (“Good Living”), which emphasizes harmony between human society and nature. The Aymara of Peru and Bolivia, the Guaraní of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, the Shuar of Ecuador, and the Mapuche of Chile all have similar philosophical expressions. So far in the 21st century, China and Latin American countries have intensified their focus on sustainable development. In August 2005, during a visit to Anji in China’s Zhejiang Province, Xi Jinping, then Secretary of the Communist Party of China in Zhejiang, put forward the principle that “lucid waters and lush mountains are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver,” highlighting the idea that economic growth should not be achieved at the expense of the environment. China’s Global Development Initiative includes climate change and sustainable development as key cooperation areas, aiming for stronger, healthier global progress. Simultaneously, Latin American countries value sustainability highly. Ten nations in the region have officially submitted carbon-neutrality timelines and developed emissions-reduction plans. Several governments have taken significant measures to accelerate energy transition, restore ecosystems, and enhance international cooperation. Notably, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay have made substantial strides in renewable energy: in Q1 2023, more than 90 % of Brazil’s energy came from renewables — the highest level since 2011. Progress of Green Cooperation between China and Latin America 1. High-level design for sustainable cooperation between China and Latin American countries has been continuously strengthenedAs comprehensive cooperation between China and Latin America progresses, sustainable collaboration has also become integrated into the strategic high-level planning. At the third Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum in 2021, the "Joint Action Plan for Cooperation in Key Areas between China and CELAC Member States (2022–2024)" was adopted. This plan emphasizes the continuation of cooperation in areas such as renewable energy, new energy, civil nuclear energy, energy technology equipment, electric vehicles and their components, as well as energy-related geological and mineral resources. It also outlines the expansion of cooperation in emerging industries related to clean energy resources, support for technology transfer between companies, and the respect and protection of the natural environment. Joint declarations between China and countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina on establishing and deepening comprehensive strategic partnerships mention strengthening cooperation in areas such as climate change and clean energy. During the sixth meeting of the Sino-Brazilian High-Level Commission for Coordination and Cooperation in May 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Brazilian Ministry of Economy agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on Promoting Investment Cooperation for Sustainable Development, aimed at promoting investment in clean and low-carbon technologies in both countries. In April 2023, during Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's visit to China, the two countries issued the “China-Brazil Joint Declaration on Combating Climate Change” and signed several cooperation agreements related to the sustainable economy. For example, Article 3 mentions “expanding cooperation in new fields such as environmental protection, combating climate change, the low-carbon economy, and the digital economy,” while Article 10 notes the aim to “strengthen cooperation on environmental protection, climate change, and biodiversity loss, promote sustainable development, and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.” In the same month, the “China-Brazil Joint Declaration on Combating Climate Change,” the “Memorandum of Understanding on Research and Innovation Cooperation between the Ministries of Science and Technology of China and Brazil,” and the “Memorandum of Understanding on Promoting Investment and Industrial Cooperation between China and Brazil” identified key areas of future cooperation, including sustainable infrastructure, the development of sustainable industries, renewable energy, electric vehicles, sustainable technological innovation, and green financing. 2. Clean energy cooperation has deepened The development and use of clean energy are essential means for achieving green development. In recent years, clean energy cooperation between China and Latin America has shown the following main characteristics. The scope of clean energy cooperation is becoming increasingly broad. Currently, cooperation between China and Latin America in the fields of clean energy — such as hydropower, solar energy, wind power, nuclear energy, biomass energy, and lithium batteries — has reached a certain level of breadth and depth. At the same time, both sides have also initiated cooperation efforts in emerging areas such as green hydrogen and smart energy storage. China is constantly diversifying its target countries and modes of investment in clean energy in Latin America. In 2015, China began increasing its investment in the renewable energy sector in the region. Between 2005 and 2020, China’s main investment targets in renewable energy in Latin America included countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia. Investments in projects, mergers and acquisitions, and greenfield investments have gone hand in hand. 3. Green cooperation in the transportation sector has yielded outstanding results. Chinese companies continue to cooperate with Latin American countries in the field of public transportation infrastructure and electric vehicles, promoting the low-carbon development of the transport sector in Latin America. First, cooperation in public transportation infrastructure is advancing. In recent years, Chinese companies have actively participated in the construction of public infrastructure such as railways, roads, and bridges in Latin American countries, aiming to promote interconnectivity and green travel across the region. Bogotá Metro Line 1, in the capital of Colombia, currently under construction with Chinese investment, is to date the largest public-private partnership (PPP) project in individual transportation infrastructure in Latin America. Second, trade in electric vehicles is developing rapidly. China’s electric vehicle industry has extensive experience in large-scale production and a relatively complete industrial supply chain, making it a new growth area in China–Latin America trade. Electric buses and cars from independent Chinese brands such as BYD, JAC, and Dongfeng are favored in Latin America due to their good quality and low price. Third, cooperation in battery and tram production is also improving. China and Latin America have also begun bold attempts in green capacity cooperation within the manufacturing sector. Currently, BYD is carrying out a range of production activities in Brazil, including the assembly of bus chassis and the production of photovoltaic modules and batteries. 4. Green agricultural cooperation is on the rise. Latin America has vast and fertile land, and agricultural cooperation is an important component of China–Latin America trade. In recent years, Chinese companies have paid increasing attention to using advanced technologies to strengthen environmental protection and actively promote the green transformation of agricultural cooperation. COFCO (‘China National Cereal, Oil & Foodstuff Corporation’) and its Brazilian partners conducted risk assessments of more than 1,700 soybean suppliers in the Amazon and Cerrado ecological zones, and mapped over 1.1 million hectares of soybean fields using remote sensing satellites, which has raised farmers' awareness of sustainable development. By the end of 2021, COFCO had achieved 100% traceability for all direct soybean purchases in Matopiba, a major soybean-producing region in Brazil. At the same time, China and several Latin American countries are promoting cooperation in green agricultural research and development. The Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences has established cooperative relationships with nine Latin American countries, including Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. It has achieved progress in exchange and cooperation in areas such as the innovative use and protection of germplasm resources, efficient transformation and comprehensive utilization of biomass energy, green pest and disease prevention and control technologies, and efficient cultivation techniques. 5. Cooperation on green financing plays an important bridging role. The Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund and the China-United Nations Peace and Development Fund are key financial platforms through which China supports project cooperation under the Global Development Initiative. In addition to the above-mentioned platforms, current green financial instruments between China and Latin America include the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the China–Latin America Cooperation Fund, the China–Latin America Development Finance Cooperation Mechanism, and subsidies provided by China’s Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Currently, all three financing projects of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Brazil are related to the green economy. Challenges facing Sino–Latin American green cooperation Although green cooperation between China and Latin America has gradually achieved results and presents many development opportunities, the risks and challenges of cooperation should not be ignored. Most Latin Americans expect that foreign cooperation will promote social well-being, eliminate poverty, and reduce inequality in their countries. They place great importance on the social benefits of projects and pay close attention to the environmental impact of projects on local ecosystems. Currently, the process of extracting lithium from brine places high demands on water resources and carries the risk of air and water pollution. As a result, lithium mining has also faced opposition from Indigenous communities in some Latin American countries. In 2023, Indigenous peoples from Argentina’s Jujuy Province staged several protests against the exploitation of a lithium mine (Reventós, 2023). To reduce pollution in lithium extraction, further scientific and technological research is needed. The integration of Chinese companies into Latin America also faces many obstacles. The official languages of most Latin American countries are Spanish and Portuguese, which are deeply influenced by European and U.S. cultures. In addition to geographical distance, there is limited mutual understanding between the peoples of China and Latin America, and transportation and logistics costs are high. Most Chinese companies lack personnel fluent in Spanish or Portuguese and familiar with local laws and regulations. Currently, the U.S. government continues to view China as a strategic competitor. Latin America has also become a battleground for strategic competition between China and the United States. The U.S. has increasingly turned its attention to China’s cooperation with Latin American countries. In 2019, the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs published an article stating that “China’s green investment in Latin America cannot offset local environmental damage” (Cote-Muñoz, 2019). In general, green cooperation between China and Latin America will face a more complex environment in the future. Final considerations In recent years, China has put forward the Global Development Initiative to promote international cooperation for sustainable development. Latin America, one of the regions with the most developing countries in the world, actively promotes the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda and has a solid green economic foundation. In this sense, the region can be an important partner for China in achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda and building a shared future for humanity. China must continue to build consensus on development priorities with Latin American countries, plan key areas of cooperation according to their conditions and needs, promote connections between governments, businesses, universities, and media in China and Latin America, and jointly advance the green cooperation to a new level. China and Latin America have achieved multidisciplinary coverage in green cooperation. It is necessary to further improve the quality of cooperation in the future and achieve coordinated development across various sectors. For example, in the long term, the development of renewable energy will require greater energy storage capacity and wider electric grid coverage. Additionally, Chinese companies need to integrate more into local societies and generate greater social benefits while ensuring economic returns. They can strengthen cooperation with Latin American companies in order to quickly become familiar with local laws, regulations, and market conditions. Furthermore, more research — including environmental assessments and social consultations — should be conducted before launching projects. References CAF (2010). "Corporación Andina de Fomento, Visión para América Latina 2040 Hacia una sociedad más incluyente y próspera". https://scioteca.caf.com/bitstream/handle/123456789/496/latinamerica_2040_summary_esp.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=yCELAC (2023). "Declaración de Buenos Aires". https://www.cancilleria.gob.ar/userfiles/prensa/declaracion_ de_buenos_aires_-_version_final.pdf CEPAL (2016). "El Foro de los Países de América Latina y el Caribe sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible y el Seguimiento Regional de la Agenda 2030". https://www.cepal.org/es/temas/agenda-2030-desarrollo-sostenible/ foro-paises-america-latina-caribe-desarrollo-sostenible-seguimiento-regional-la-agenda-2030Cote-Muñoz, N. (2019). "China's Green Investments Won't Undo Its Environmental Damage to Latin America". Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-green-investments-wont-undo-its-environmental-damage-latin-americaFrance24 (2023). "Tasa de pobreza se mantiene en 29 % en América Latina en 2023". https://www.france24.com/es/minuto-a-minuto/20231125-tasa-de-pobreza-se-mantiene-en-29-en-am%C3%A9rica-latina-en-2023-dice-cepalMinistry of Foreign Affairs of China (2021). "Global Development Initiative-Building on 2030 SDGs for Stronger, Greener and Healthier Global Development". https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/jj/GDI_140002/wj/202406/ P020240606606193448267.pdfReventós, B. y N. Fabre (2023). "Los grupos indígenas en Argentina que se oponen a la extracción del litio". BBC. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cevzgv0elp9o Cuadernos de Nuestra América. No. 014 | Nueva Época 2025, Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional (CIPI). Under CC BY-NC 4.0

Diplomacy
Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, Morocco, a photo of an atlas map, suitable to illustrate travel. tourism, trade and politics topics

The Gibraltar-Spain Border Deal: The Last Piece of the EU Exit Jigsaw?

by Peter Clegg

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Brexit has had numerous consequences, many of which were scarcely discussed in the lead-up to the 2016 referendum. The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) were not exempt from the repercussions following the decision to leave the European Union (EU). All BOTs maintained a formal relationship with the EU through the 2013 Overseas Association Decision, which provided a range of benefits—including economic and environmental cooperation, development assistance, policy dialogue, and the free movement of goods, services, and people. For Gibraltar, the end of free movement raised concerns about the future of its open border with Spain. Interim measures were introduced to maintain a ‘fluid’ border when the UK formally exited the EU in 2020. However, without a comprehensive agreement, there remained a real risk that the border would become much harder—especially with the EU’s upcoming implementation of the new Entry/Exit System (EES). Indeed, there were signs that managing the border was becoming increasingly difficult. For instance, Spanish authorities began to intensify checks on people crossing the border, resulting in long delays and queues. Approximately 15,000 people commute daily from Spain to Gibraltar for work, comprising over half of Gibraltar’s workforce. Additionally, waste disposal in Gibraltar was becoming more problematic, as much of it is transported across the border. Many older Gibraltarians recall the border closure between 1969 and 1982, a decision made by General Franco. Although Gibraltarians demonstrated flexibility and resilience in adapting to the closure, it caused significant short- to medium-term economic hardship and separated families and friends. Spanish workers also suffered during this period. The desire to protect the economies of both Gibraltar and Spain was therefore a key factor in the push to secure a post-Brexit agreement. Negotiations that began under the UK Conservative Government were protracted, with key obstacles including the precise role of Spanish officials conducting Schengen checks in Gibraltar and the status of Gibraltar Airport, which also serves as an RAF base. However, on 11 June 2025, an agreement was reached on the core aspects of a future treaty. The overarching goal is to enhance prosperity across the Gibraltar–Spain region by removing physical barriers and checks on people and goods, while safeguarding the Schengen Area, the EU Single Market, and the Customs Union. The hope is that the deal will provide legal certainty, stimulate economic growth, and strengthen cooperation between Gibraltar and Spain. More specifically, the agreement includes the following commitments: First, joint border checks at Gibraltar’s port and airport will replace controls at the Gibraltar–La Línea crossing, easing daily travel. Spain will conduct Schengen checks, while Gibraltar will maintain UK checks. One outcome of this will be that UK nationals visiting Gibraltar will be counted as part of the time-limited allowance (90 days) for short stays in the Schengen area. Second, a customs union between Gibraltar and the EU will eliminate goods checks and ensure tax alignment—particularly on tobacco—to prevent market distortions and support regional development. Third, guarantees on fair competition in areas such as labour, the environment, anti-money laundering, transport, and social security. The agreement also establishes a financial mechanism to support training, employment, and regional cohesion. On announcing the agreement, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “Alongside the Government of Gibraltar, we have a reached an agreement which protects British sovereignty, supports Gibraltar’s economy and allows businesses to plan for the long-term once again”. He also took a swipe at the previous Conservative government: “This government inherited a situation from the last government which put Gibraltar’s economy and way of life under threat. Today’s breakthrough delivers a practical solution after years of uncertainty”. Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, Fabio Picardo, who played a central role in the negotiations, also welcomed the deal. While José Manuel Albares, the Spanish foreign affairs minister, said it would bring down “the last wall” on the continent. To her credit, Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, Priti Patel, did not dismiss the deal, but reserved judgement until full details were available. However, others on the right went to their usual default position. Former Tory Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “We are absolutely furious about this deal. It’s another unbelievable and unimaginable betrayal”. Reform UK described the agreement as a “total surrender”, while Conservative Armed Forces spokesperson Mark Francois declared: “First Chagos, now Gibraltar—and next, probably the Falklands. Labour used to sing The Red Flag—now they just wave a big white one instead”. Previously, I have argued that this narrative—linking decisions about one BOT to others—is misleading and overlooks the important differences between them. Many Brexiteers’ opposition to this deal is a classic case of wanting to ‘have their cake and eat it.’ They voted for Brexit (which Gibraltar strongly opposed), demanded a hard Brexit, yet seem either unable or unwilling to acknowledge and address the problems it has caused. Without a pragmatic border deal, Gibraltar’s political and economic position—which the right claims to staunchly defend—would almost certainly have been hurt longer term. Right-wing voices in Spain are also opposed to the agreement, but they feel it concedes too much to the UK and Gibraltar. Interestingly, this is not the first instance in which a complex border issue has been successfully addressed between the UK and an EU member state. The Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, located on the southern coast of Cyprus, form a single BOT. These areas were retained by the UK following Cyprus’ independence and are home to a non-permanent British population as well as a permanent Cypriot community. Prior to Brexit, the border between the SBAs and the Republic of Cyprus was entirely open. Given the unique characteristics of the territory, it was essential to maintain this openness. To preserve the status quo, a specific Protocol was included in the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated under Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This Protocol ensures the continued application of EU law in key areas such as taxation, goods, agriculture, and fisheries within the SBAs, with enforcement carried out by the Republic of Cyprus. Although Gibraltar has been described as “the last piece of the EU exit jigsaw,” several Brexit-related issues concerning the BOTs remain unresolved and, hopefully, will soon be addressed. Perhaps the most pressing of these involves the Falkland Islands and its fisheries exports to the EU. At the time of Brexit, none of the BOTs were included in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. While only a few BOTs engage in trade with the EU, the Falklands is a notable exception—particularly in its trade with Spain. Over the years, the Falklands has developed strong ties with Spanish fishing fleets and importers. As a result, more than 90% of the fish caught in its waters—primarily Loligo squid and various finfish—are exported to Spain. This industry is vital to the Falklands’ economy, contributing around 40% of the government’s annual revenue. It is also significant for Spain, which sources over 30% of its imported calamari from the Falklands. Before Brexit, Falklands fisheries exports entered the EU tariff-free. Now, they are subject to the EU’s common external tariff, which ranges from 6 to 18%, amounting to approximately €15 million annually—a substantial burden for a small economy. There is hope that, as part of a broader reset in UK-EU relations, the trade status of the BOTs can be improved. In a recent parliamentary response, David Lammy stated, “we are always seeking to reduce tariff burdens for our overseas territories, and we are in ongoing discussions with the European Union in particular”. The text of this work is licensed under  a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

Defense & Security
Iranian missile strike in Bat Yam, 15 June 2025

Will the fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel hold? One factor could be crucial to it sticking

by Ali Mamouri

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском After 12 days of war, US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that would bring to an end the most dramatic, direct conflict between the two nations in decades. Israel and Iran both agreed to adhere to the ceasefire, though they said they would respond with force to any breach. If the ceasefire holds – a big if – the key question will be whether this signals the start of lasting peace, or merely a brief pause before renewed conflict. As contemporary war studies show, peace tends to endure under one of two conditions: either the total defeat of one side, or the establishment of mutual deterrence. This means both parties refrain from aggression because the expected costs of retaliation far outweigh any potential gains. What did each side gain? The war has marked a turning point for Israel in its decades-long confrontation with Iran. For the first time, Israel successfully brought a prolonged battle to Iranian soil, shifting the conflict from confrontations with Iranian-backed proxy militant groups to direct strikes on Iran itself. This was made possible largely due to Israel’s success over the past two years in weakening Iran’s regional proxy network, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Syria. Over the past two weeks, Israel has inflicted significant damage on Iran’s military and scientific elite, killing several high-ranking commanders and nuclear scientists. The civilian toll was also high. Additionally, Israel achieved a major strategic objective by pulling the United States directly into the conflict. In coordination with Israel, the US launched strikes on three of Iran’s primary nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Despite these gains, Israel has not accomplished all of its stated goals. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had voiced support for regime change, urging Iranians to rise up against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s government, but the senior leadership in Iran remains intact. Additionally, Israel has not fully eliminated Iran’s missile program. (Iran continued striking to the last minute before the ceasefire.) And Tehran did not acquiesce to Trump’s pre-war demand to end uranium enrichment. Although Iran was caught off-guard by Israel’s attacks — particularly as it was engaged in nuclear negotiations with the US — it responded by launching hundreds of missiles towards Israel. While many were intercepted, a significant number penetrated Israeli air defences, causing widespread destruction in major cities, dozens of fatalities and hundreds of injuries. Iran has demonstrated its capacity to strike back, though Israel has succeeded in destroying many of its air defence systems, some ballistic missile assets (including missile launchers) and multiple energy facilities. Since the beginning of the assault, Iranian officials have repeatedly called for a halt to resume negotiations. Under such intense pressure, Iran has realised it would not benefit from a prolonged war of attrition with Israel — especially as both nations face mounting costs and the risk of depleting their military stockpiles if the war continues. As theories of victory suggest, success in war is defined not only by the damage inflicted, but by achieving core strategic goals and weakening the enemy’s will and capacity to resist. While Israel claims to have achieved the bulk of its objectives, the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program is not fully known, nor is its capacity to continue enriching uranium. Both sides could remain locked in a volatile standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, with the conflict potentially reigniting whenever either side perceives a strategic opportunity. Sticking point over Iran’s nuclear program Iran faces even greater challenges when it emerges from the war. With a heavy toll on its leadership and nuclear infrastructure, Tehran will likely prioritise rebuilding its deterrence capability. That includes acquiring new advanced air defence systems — potentially from China — and restoring key components of its missile and nuclear programs. (Some experts say Iran has not used some of its most powerful missiles to maintain this deterrence.) Iranian officials have claimed they safeguarded more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium before the attacks. This stockpile could theoretically be converted into nine to ten nuclear warheads if further enriched to 90%. Trump declared Iran’s nuclear capacity had been “totally obliterated”, whereas Rafael Grossi, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief, said damage to Iran’s facilities was “very significant”. However, analysts have argued Iran will still have a depth of technical knowledge accumulated over decades. Depending on the extent of the damage to its underground facilities, Iran could be capable of restoring and even accelerating its program in a relatively short time frame. And the chances of reviving negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program appear slimmer than ever. What might future deterrence look like? The war has fundamentally reshaped how both Iran and Israel perceive deterrence — and how they plan to secure it going forward. For Iran, the conflict has reinforced the belief that its survival is at stake. With regime change openly discussed during the war, Iran’s leaders appear more convinced than ever that true deterrence requires two key pillars: nuclear weapons capability, and deeper strategic alignment with China and Russia. As a result, Iran is expected to move rapidly to restore and advance its nuclear program, potentially moving towards actual weaponisation — a step it had long avoided, officially. At the same time, Tehran is likely to accelerate military and economic cooperation with Beijing and Moscow to hedge against isolation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi emphasised this close engagement with Russia during a visit to Moscow this week, particularly on nuclear matters. Israel, meanwhile, sees deterrence as requiring constant vigilance and a credible threat of overwhelming retaliation. In the absence of diplomatic breakthroughs, Israel may adopt a policy of immediate preemptive strikes on Iranian facilities or leadership figures if it detects any new escalation — particularly related to Iran’s nuclear program. In this context, the current ceasefire already appears fragile. Without comprehensive negotiations that address the core issues — namely, Iran’s nuclear capabilities — the pause in hostilities may prove temporary. Mutual deterrence may prevent a more protracted war for now, but the balance remains precarious and could collapse with little warning.

Defense & Security
President Donald Trump announces the Golden Dome missile defense system P20250520JB-0081 (54536146884)

The Evolution of U.S. Defense Space Doctrine under the Donald Trump Administration

by Vadim Kozyulin

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском From 2017 to 2021, the administration of Donald Trump radically changed U.S. space policy by focusing on military dominance, integrating the commercial sector, and abandoning previous restrictions on the militarization of space. New doctrinal documents were adopted, the United States Space Force was created, and the United States Space Command was reestablished. The emphasis shifted toward the development of offensive capabilities, cybersecurity, and public-private partnerships. During his second presidential term (2025–2029), Donald Trump initiated large-scale defense projects — in particular, the “Golden Dome of America” — and expanded the involvement of private companies in their development. This policy increases international tensions, provokes an arms race in space, and draws criticism for undermining international agreements and fragmenting the legal framework. Architecture of the New Space Order: Doctrinal Principles of the 2017–2021 Administration The national security space policy of the United States is formed both through presidential directives and on the basis of legislative acts. Presidential directives remain in force until they are revised by the next president. Thus, today the U.S. operates under a set of directives issued by Presidents George W. Bush (2001–2009), Barack Obama (2009–2017), Donald Trump (2017–2021), and Joe Biden (2021–2025). During his first presidential term, Donald Trump signed an updated National Space Policy, seven Space Policy Directives (SPDs), five space-related executive orders, two strategies, two reports, and one National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM). His “space policy” was aimed at “reviving the proud legacy of American leadership in space,” including in the field of national security, accelerating the exploration of the Moon and Mars, and developing the commercial sector. It was based on a number of firm beliefs: America must remain the leading power in space in both scientific and commercial areas; space is a strategically important domain for protecting U.S. interests; space should become a driver of the country’s economic development; and achieving these goals would be supported by cooperation with private companies and international partners. “We are a nation of pioneers. We are the people who crossed an ocean, settled a vast continent, inhabited a boundless wilderness, and then looked to the stars. That is our history and that is our destiny,” declared Donald Trump. These beliefs were embodied in a number of doctrinal documents. The Presidential Memorandum “Space Policy Directive-1” (SPD-1) in December 2017 became one of the first steps in Donald Trump’s space policy. The document set a course for the exploration and use of lunar resources, as well as preparation for missions to Mars. In order to carry out such costly projects, the memorandum emphasized cooperation with commercial entities and international partners. In the area of national security, Donald Trump formulated the principle that the United States must maintain “peace through strength” in outer space. In the 2018 “Nuclear Posture Review” approved by him, the goal was set to modernize space-based intelligence and communication systems to strengthen nuclear deterrence. In the “National Defense Strategy” adopted in the same year, the focus was on investments in resilience and the restoration of production capabilities necessary to enhance the country’s space potential. In December 2018, the “National Security Strategy” was published, in which space was defined as a zone of confrontation, marking a more rigid approach compared to Barack Obama’s position, who merely acknowledged threats from adversaries. This document, along with the “National Space Strategy,” emphasized the strategic importance of space and the need to ensure peace in it through the demonstration of strength. In the new 2018 National Space Strategy, the administration focused on creating a more resilient space architecture, enhancing deterrence capabilities, and ensuring security in space. In 2018, under the pretext of a threat in space from China and Russia, the Trump administration initiated the creation of the United States Space Force, which in December 2019 became the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Under Donald Trump, the United States Space Command (SPACECOM) was restored as an independent combatant command. SPACECOM, which existed as a separate military branch from 1985 to 2002, was dissolved during the reorganization following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The president restored it by using his executive powers. Today, the command is responsible for integrating the space capabilities of all military services (management of satellite communication, intelligence, navigation, and missile warning systems), developing doctrines and tactics for warfare in space, and ensuring U.S. superiority in this strategic domain. In the updated 2018 Missile Defense Strategy, special attention was given to the creation of a multi-layered system of space sensors and satellites for tracking hypersonic and ballistic threats — in particular, the satellite system “Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Layer,” which provides continuous monitoring of potential threats and data transmission. Additionally, the Trump administration initiated a transition from large satellite systems to a more resilient and distributed architecture — the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR). Another presidential initiative was to accelerate the development of a “persistent monitoring layer” within the “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture,” which includes hundreds of satellites capable of tracking enemy missiles at all stages of flight. The administration actively promoted a public-private partnership model. SPD-2, issued in 2018, aimed to simplify the regulation of commercial space activities, including the licensing of launches and satellite operations. NASA’s budget was also oriented toward supporting private companies through contracts and partnership proposals. In September 2020, the administration of Donald Trump approved Space Policy Directive SPD-5, which became the first national document establishing cybersecurity standards for space systems. It outlined principles for protecting space assets and infrastructure from cyber threats, including the design and operation of systems based on a risk-oriented approach and the introduction of engineering solutions that account for cybersecurity threats. The directive emphasized cooperation between government agencies and commercial companies, and called on space system operators to develop cyber protection plans, including measures to counter unauthorized access, secure command and telemetry systems, prevent jamming and spoofing, and manage risks in the supply chain. The Trump administration aimed to strengthen international alliances in the space sector. One of its projects was the Artemis Accords, signed on October 13, 2020, which set standards for the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies, including the registration of objects, sharing of scientific data, and ensuring the safety of space missions. A total of 53 countries joined the agreement. According to independent researcher Irina Isakova, the ultimate goal of the Artemis Accords was to attract technologies and form a new space community willing to operate under American rules. A notable departure from the policies of previous U.S. administrations was the rejection of multilateral initiatives to limit the militarization of space. The view of outer space as a new domain of warfare contradicted the spirit of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Nevertheless, the United States refused to participate in discussions on new international agreements aimed at preventing an arms race in space — in particular, proposals from Russia and China to ban the placement of weapons in space and to prevent their first use. Instead, the Trump administration focused on the development of offensive orbital systems, including satellites capable of disabling enemy spacecraft. This approach increased tensions on the international stage and drew criticism from other countries. “Peace Through Strength”: An Analysis of Space Initiatives (2017–2021) During his first presidential term, Donald Trump’s administration introduced new initiatives aimed at strengthening U.S. leadership in space, supporting the private sector, and ensuring national security. However, the implementation of these ambitious goals left a mixed legacy for the next administration. The use of the term “space superiority” provoked a negative response from the international community. The White House’s drive toward the militarization of space weakened the U.S. position on the diplomatic stage — the American view of space as a “warfighting domain” raised concerns that U.S. policy was provoking a space arms race. Declarations of a desire to strengthen international cooperation often contradicted the administration’s actual actions, leading to disagreements with allies and complicating the implementation of joint plans to protect satellites or develop norms of behavior in space. Doctrinal documents (such as the Defense Space Strategy) lacked a clear connection between goals and the means to achieve them. Unlike the more detailed strategies of previous administrations, Trump’s strategy offered only general recommendations. The initiative to create the Space Force turned out to be quite costly and led to excessive bureaucratization. Some initiatives faced budget constraints or delays due to technological unpreparedness, while cuts to Earth science programs caused concern among scientists. Overall, the stated goals of peaceful space exploration, aggressive rhetoric, and the actions of Trump’s administration undermined trust in the United States on the international stage. Evolution of Approaches in the Second Term (2025–2029) According to American analysts and former government officials, in its doctrinal approach to defense space policy, the Trump 2.0 administration will focus on offensive capabilities and the integration of commercial service providers into Pentagon projects. The main obstacle for the president’s space projects will be the issue of funding. One of Donald Trump’s key initiatives during his first presidency was the promotion of the idea to form a National Space Guard (NSG) as a reserve component to support the United States Space Force. At the time, the idea did not receive support. In March 2025, a bill to establish the NSG was introduced to Congress. One of its authors, Senator Mike Crapo, stated that “Guard members and reservists are often highly specialized and trained individuals entrusted to counter serious threats posed by global actors such as China and Russia.” On January 27, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create the “Iron Dome of America”, which includes land-, air-, sea-, and space-based components, including orbital interceptor missiles. Just one month later, the ambitious initiative was renamed Golden Dome for America. The system is intended to protect the entire country from all types of missile threats. The general provisions of the order closely resemble the Strategic Defense Initiative plan of President Ronald Reagan from the 1980s. Creation of a dense system for intercepting and striking enemy missiles during the launch phase and even before launch;Deployment in outer space of intercept systems equipped with lasers to destroy enemy nuclear weapons;Deployment of interceptors in various orbits;Construction/deployment of a global ground-based infrastructure;Protection of critical assets and infrastructure within the framework of the extended deterrence concept;Modernization of battlefield air defense systems to protect military formations on the ground;Establishment of a complete and self-contained production cycle for all components of the “shield” exclusively within the United States, ensuring the security of the defense industry and logistics for the production of upgraded and advanced interceptors and tracking systems. In addition to the obvious analogy with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the current program also reflects the evolution of military technologies — the use of hypersonic sensors (Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Layer) and satellite networks like Next-Gen OPIR, which provide continuous monitoring. It is assumed that the system will be entirely produced in the United States. However, Kari Bingen, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security during the first Trump administration and now a fellow at CSIS, believes that the new administration will strive for close cooperation with Israel in the space domain. Although the technical and financial scale of the project raises skepticism among experts, the Golden Dome for America program may lead to greater involvement of private companies in the development and production of missile defense system components, stimulate the U.S. defense-industrial base, and ultimately contribute to a revision of the national defense strategy aimed at winning the arms race and achieving strategic invulnerability. At the same time, according to the December 2024 report “Government Space Programs: A Comprehensive Review of Government Space Strategies, Activities, and Budgets through 2033” by NovaSpace, 59% of global government funding for space programs comes from the U.S. budget, but Washington remains dissatisfied with the current funding level. The White House is betting on encouraging the involvement of private capital and foreign partners in space programs. A discussion held during the Small Satellite Symposium on February 5, 2025, in California highlighted strong competition for government contracts between legacy space program contractors (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing’s Millennium, General Dynamics) and several new consortium groups (Palantir Technologies and Anduril Industries, OpenAI and SpaceX). In the space sector, the United States holds not only strong technological and financial advantages but also significant competitive capacity. Trump’s 2.0 team includes many prominent figures with professional or commercial interests in space: Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX and Tesla; Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, CEO of Shift4 Payments and Draken International (which trained U.S. Air Force pilots); Steve Feinberg, candidate for Deputy Secretary of Defense and founder of Cerberus Capital Management; Tom Krause, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Director of Cloud Software Group; Jeff Bezos, advisor to space coordination councils and founder of Blue Origin, among others. The recent conflict between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, despite its public resonance, has not had a systemic impact on the administration’s strategy regarding the private sector. NASA officially stated its intent to continue implementing the president’s space priorities, using the full range of industrial partners. Any potential tactical slowdowns caused by corporate conflicts are offset by strong competition and diversification of contractors. NASA’s flagship program, the Artemis Accords, may undergo a shift in priorities. Its outspoken critic, Elon Musk, has consistently argued that the U.S. should abandon lunar exploration and focus on Mars. There remains a possibility that the Space Launch System (SLS) — the super-heavy launch vehicle for crewed missions beyond Earth orbit — may be canceled or significantly altered. Key roles could shift to private companies such as SpaceX or Blue Origin, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship becoming the cornerstone of Martian ambitions. This is evidenced by budget cuts and job reductions: Boeing, the primary SLS contractor, has already announced potential layoffs. The future of the Artemis Accords will depend on decisions by the Trump administration, the influence of the private sector, and Congressional support. Invitation to a Space Arms Race The doctrinal approaches of the current U.S. president’s administration are transforming space into a full-fledged theater of military operations, where the United States seeks to establish dominance through a combination of military, commercial, and regulatory tools. During his first presidential term, Donald Trump laid the institutional groundwork for this strategy; in his second term, he is launching a qualitatively new phase of militarization. The 2018 National Space Strategy, with its emphasis on building a large-scale space architecture, marks a shift to the concept of “space as a warfighting domain.” The Golden Dome program effectively abandons the principle of “stability through vulnerability” and revives the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which in the 1980s undermined nuclear deterrence stability and triggered a new round of confrontation. The Artemis program contributes to the fragmentation of the legal framework and undermines the regime established by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Trump’s “space” agenda is expected to further militarize the civilian sector of the economy, draw U.S. allies around the world into military space projects, and intensify global competition over frequencies, orbits, and cybersecurity standards. Such policies by the Trump administration have dangerous consequences for international security, including the escalation of the space arms race, the risk of space-based conflicts, and the provocation of nuclear arsenal expansion — especially by China. The New Space Landscape and Future Challenges Donald Trump’s administration has radically revised the U.S. approach to outer space, turning it from a domain of international cooperation into a stage of strategic rivalry. The creation of the U.S. Space Force, the launch of the Golden Dome program, and the promotion of the Artemis Accords represent a clear trajectory toward military-technological dominance, supported by public-private partnerships. These steps have sparked not only a wave of technological advancement but also increased international tension — including criticism from Russia and China, which advocate for banning the militarization of orbital space, as well as major disagreements over the interpretation of space law. The Trump era will leave behind a dual legacy: on one hand, accelerated innovation and commercialization; on the other, risks of legal fragmentation and the escalation of an arms race. Under Donald Trump, space is becoming an integral part of U.S. defense strategy. The future of humanity in space will depend on whether the White House administration can balance its desire to deter space competitors with a willingness to preserve dialogue — otherwise, near-Earth space risks turning into the “new front of a cold war.” Sources: V.P. Kozin. U.S. Space Forces: Their Key Missions and Future Potentials. Moscow: Sabashnikov Publishing House, 2022. 444 pages. ISBN: 978-5-82420-184-0. 

Energy & Economics
Climate migration vector illustration word cloud isolated on a white background.

Pathways to respond to climate change, forced displacement, and conflict challenges

by Edoardo Borgomeo , Anders Jägerskog

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Abstract The collision of climate impacts with forced displacement and conflict renders efforts to promote peace and development particularly challenging. Most of the academic literature to date has focused on exploring and predicting causal links between climate change, conflict, and forced displacement. Much less attention has been paid to the need to inform actual policy interventions and responses, particularly to support climate-resilient development. Here, we address this gap and develop a decision framework to inform long-term climate responses in contexts affected by conflict and forced displacement. Building upon previous World Bank policy reports and the authors’ professional experience, we suggest that a focus on decision pathways can help inform a long-term, development response to conflict, forced displacement, and climate challenges. Pathways capture the sequence of interventions that are required to reduce climate risks in contexts affected by conflict and forced displacement. They also offer an opportunity for aligning climate change adaptation interventions, such as water storage or flood embankments, with peacebuilding and stabilization initiatives. Case studies from Lebanon and South Sudan are discussed to illustrate the pathways approach to climate adaptation in contexts affected by conflict and forced displacement. 1. Introduction Research and policy analysis on climate change, migration, and conflict have expanded significantly in recent years (Swain et al., 2023; Von Uexkull and Buhaug, 2021). Attention has been mostly devoted to answering questions of causality, trying to unpack the complex causal linkages between these issues (e.g., Abel et al., 2019), and viewing climate as a “driver” of security risks. While research on causality has yielded important insights into some of the potential channels through which climate change might affect human mobility and conflict, it has also been criticized for its lack of nuance and context sensitivity (Brzoska and Fröhlich, 2016). Moreover, it has led to some statements about conflict–climate relationships, especially in the context of the Syrian civil war, that largely fail to account for broader political economy considerations and are, as such, unhelpful from a policy perspective and unwarranted from a scientific perspective (Daoudy, 2020; de Châtel, 2014; Fröhlich, 2016). Here, we argue that rather than attempting to quantify and model causal linkages between climate, migration, and conflict, research should focus more on questions of policy and intervention design. This will address urgent needs to anticipate people’s movements and to find lasting solutions to displacement caused by conflict- and climate-related factors (African Union and International Organisation for Migration, 2024). A focus on solutions and policy design will also support governments in conflict-affected areas in adopting a position on climate security and in prioritizing scarce development resources to address climate security risks (International Crisis Group, 2025). A focus on policy and intervention design requires understanding two sets of interactions. First, the impacts of climate risks—encompassing hazard, exposure, and vulnerability—on efforts to address protracted conflict and migration. For example, there is little knowledge of the drought and flood hazards faced by forcibly displaced populations living in refugee camps under high-end climate change scenarios, or of the effects that short-term humanitarian responses to flood hazards might have on exacerbating long-term flood exposure in conflict-affected areas. Second, the impacts of efforts to advance climate change adaptation or mitigation on forced displacement and conflict risks. For example, there is little knowledge of the potential conflict and forced displacement risks arising from investments in climate infrastructure (e.g., flood embankments, irrigation) in certain contexts. This perspective focuses on these interactions and presents a decision framework for evaluating options to address forced displacement and conflict challenges while not exacerbating the climate risks faced by populations. The perspective specifically focuses on the role of water development interventions in influencing interactions between forced displacement responses and climate risks. Forced displacement is interpreted as situations where individuals or communities leave or flee their homes due to conflict, violence, persecution, and human rights violations. 2. Promoting climate-resilient development in situations of protracted forced displacement2.1. Decision points and path dependencies shape success in development responses When responding to protracted forced displacement situations, policymakers will likely face trade-offs between short-term uncoordinated measures to respond to immediate risks (e.g., lack of drinking water supplies, temporary flood embankments) and long-term measures needed to address structural issues (e.g., provision of sustainable water services, land-use zoning to reduce flood exposure) (Borgomeo et al. 2021). These trade-offs are time-specific, meaning that they can create path dependencies and lock-in, thus influencing countries’ ability to achieve stability and climate-resilient development over the long term. Hence, at different stages of a protracted forced displacement crisis, policymakers need to be cognizant that their efforts can undermine or support long-term policy objectives such as climate resilience and peace. Building upon Borgomeo et al. (2021), we propose a framework (Figure 1) that identifies three decision points at which specific trade-offs shape future development and climate resilience paths: • Prevention and pre-crisis coordination and planning• Responding to protracted forced displacement• Preparing for recovery and return  Figure 1. Decision points and impact of climate and water-related events at various stages of conflict and forced displacement cycle. Adapted from Lund (1996). The framework adapts Lund’s peace and conflict cycle (Lund, 1996) to the specific case of climate change, conflict, and forced displacement responses. The bell-shaped curve in Figure 1 is a stylized representation of the potential course of a complex forced displacement and conflict crisis, with the vertical axis representing the intensity of the crisis, and the horizontal axis representing time. Different conflict and forced displacement crises will follow different curves: responses can prevent or reduce the risks of the crisis escalating further. Moreover, climate-related events might make addressing the crisis more challenging, exacerbating risks of armed violence, or perpetuating forced displacement cycles. At each of the decision points in Figure 1, policymakers need to explore trade-offs between addressing short-term needs and achieving longer-term development. Policymakers confront a series of choices through time; their choices will determine a “pathway” and the type of outcomes they can achieve. Figure 2 shows three examples of pathways that emerge (from left to right) depending on choices made at each of the three decision points. While timing and responses will be context-specific, these decision points are likely to arise in any protracted forced displacement situation, making the framework shown in Figures 1 and 2 generally applicable in different contexts.  Figure 2. Decision points shape three example pathways to respond to climate change, forced displacement, and conflict challenges. Prevention and pre-crisis coordination and planning At Decision point 1, in a situation where the crisis has not yet materialized, building preparedness through coordination between development, humanitarian, and security actors is essential. Development actors have access to ministries and service providers and should ensure that these public sector entities that are tasked with providing climate-related information (e.g., hydrometeorological services), managing water, and delivering services establish functional links with humanitarian and security actors (World Bank, ICRC and UNICEF 2021). Development actors should promote and support data collection and information-sharing protocols to build a common understanding across parties involved in climate-related sectors in fragile contexts. For example, a joint understanding of water resource availability and safe deployable outputs (i.e., the quantity of water that can be consumed without compromising it through depletion or salinization) and of water governance structures can ensure that humanitarian actors have a better understanding of when and where water resources might be compromised or depleted during a crisis. This joint understanding also involves mapping critical interconnected infrastructure systems, notably energy, digital, and water infrastructure, and ensuring that there are no single points of failure that—if targeted—can bring down the entire system (Weinthal and Sowers, 2020). Similarly, joint understanding should be developed in the area of flood and drought hazards, to prevent any potential crisis responses from further exacerbating exposure to climate impacts, for example, by locating refugee camps in flood-prone areas. Response to protracted forced displacement During a protracted forced displacement crisis, policymakers face significant trade-offs between short-term responses to meet immediate needs and long-term measures that address underlying sector weaknesses (Figure 2, decision point 2). Overreliance on temporary solutions provided by humanitarian actors and private sector providers can undermine long-term institutional ability to provide sector oversight, understand climate risks, and deliver services. Moreover, it might paradoxically exacerbate vulnerability and exposure to climate hazards leading to lock-in, where temporary responses perpetuate, delay, or prevent a transition to more sustainable and long-term adaptation to climate shocks (Pathway 1 in Figure 2). Two examples help elucidate the type of trade-offs that might emerge at decision point 2. In the case of water service delivery, private water vendors might be interested in maintaining control of water distribution even after the crisis ends, complicating the transition to a sustainable and affordable water delivery model. They might also avoid protecting water sources from pollution and overexploitation or promote the drilling of new wells, contributing to an uncontrolled expansion of unlicensed users and exacerbating vulnerability to droughts under climate change. This pathway has been observed in Yemen, for example, where most urban residents are supplied by privately operated tanker trucks, with ensuing issues for affordability, public health, sustainability of water use, and long-term resilience to drought (Abu-Lohom et al. 2018). In the case of flood risk management for forcibly displaced communities, short-term responses can have profound implications for future climate resilience and vulnerability. Forcibly displaced communities often relocate to marginal lands exposed to water-related hazards, such as landslides and floods. This pattern has been observed in several contexts, such as Colombia (Few et al., 2021), Sierra Leone (Gbanie et al., 2018), and South Sudan (Borgomeo et al., 2023). Once the forced displacement crisis and conflict end, these communities are likely to experience heightened climate impacts because they settle in areas highly exposed to floods and landslides. These communities might also receive inequitable benefits from recovery efforts, as settlements on marginal lands are often considered illegal and therefore not serviced by infrastructure. In turn, this might make historical grievances resurge, heightening the risk of relapse into conflict and hindering efforts to build government legitimacy and trust. Although sustainability of use, resource protection, and land use planning might not seem like priorities in the short term, they are key tenets of a development approach to the forced displacement crisis at decision point 2. Often, short-term responses, such as drilling a well, can have long-term impacts on the sustainability of both short- and long-term interventions by inevitably depleting or contaminating water resources. Similarly, short-term responses to settlement issues can also aggravate exposure to climate impacts. A development approach focused on addressing urgent needs while responding to structural challenges is better able to achieve long-term climate resilience and stability outcomes. In the context of water service delivery, this approach entails rationalizing the use of existing water resources and prioritizing demand-side solutions (e.g., reducing water use) to avoid placing additional pressures on already strained supplies (Borgomeo et al. 2021). In the context of flood risk management, this entails using integrated gray and green solutions to respond to flood risks and adopting floodplain zoning strategies. A longer-term approach might also combine short-term humanitarian actions with interventions that support the business continuity of water service providers and water resource management agencies with one-off capital injections or specific staff support programs to prevent brain drain. Although a development approach helps to address water sector issues in host countries, it might be challenging to adopt in practice. In already politically fragile and financially stretched contexts, governments might not be willing or able to provide water services or protection to forcibly displaced communities. In turn, this leaves humanitarian actors or unregulated private vendors to meet the immediate needs of vulnerable populations. However, these short-term responses might be counterproductive in the long run because they might create patterns of inclusion and exclusion between host communities and forcibly displaced populations, making integration and cohesion harder to achieve (Pathway 2 in Figure 2). When host communities perceive that forcibly displaced populations are receiving better services through humanitarian actors, this can fuel grievances against the forcibly displaced populations and the state. While temporary solutions might offer a relatively easier way to respond to forced displacement, they can also lead to lock-in and foreclose alternatives in the long term for host countries. The different responses to the Syrian refugee crisis observed in Jordan, Lebanon, and Türkiye demonstrate this problem: the water security of forcibly displaced populations and their host communities varies significantly depending on host countries’ willingness and ability to adopt a long-term development approach to the crisis rather than short-term temporary solutions. Preparation for recovery and return A third decision point relates to a post-conflict situation of recovery, peacebuilding, and potential return of the forcibly displaced. At this point, water- and climate-related interventions need to be integrated within broader plans for reconciliation and for extending basic services to camps and informal settlements, rehabilitating infrastructure, and expanding the capacity of existing urban water systems to respond to higher demand (Pathway 3 in Figure 2). For example, a higher presence of refugees in urban areas can increase water demands, highlighting the need to upgrade and in some cases increase the capacity of existing supply and sanitation infrastructure. This demand growth is different from normal surges in demand for water services, which are typically short-lived increases in demand in response to weather conditions or public health measures (e.g., COVID-19 lockdowns). In contrast to these demand surges, forced displacement causes long-lasting increases in service demand, thus requiring a master plan and long-term response. For water utilities and service providers, restoring and expanding services will be an opportunity to improve service quality for their constituents and customers while avoiding the promotion of exclusionary practices that benefit factional interests and that can contribute to fragility (Sadoff et al 2017). A development approach to recovery and return should also consider a regional perspective. Following a protracted forced displacement crisis, new economic realities and incentives might arise. In some situations, the forcibly displaced populations might not intend to go back to their place of origin (as reported by some Syrian refugees) (IPA, 2020). In this case, it might make more economic sense for development actors to prioritize the use of scarce financial resources to support the expansion of water infrastructure in the host country rather than to rebuild infrastructure in the place of origin. A regional perspective also helps to identify opportunities to share benefits from transboundary waters and identify regionally beneficial approaches to water management. 3. Insights from balancing and sequencing development interventions to respond to climate, conflict, and forced displacement challengesLebanon: addressing the needs of the forcibly displaced and their host communities in situations of crisis At the height of the Syrian crisis in 2014, the Lebanese authorities estimated that around 1.5 million Syrian refugees had entered Lebanon, causing the country’s population to increase by almost 25% (World Bank 2018). Lebanon chose not to establish refugee camps, and the majority of the Syrians settled amid Lebanese communities in urban and rural areas. The sudden increase in demand for services placed significant pressure upon already limited and poorly performing infrastructure. In 2014, the Ministry of Environment estimated that domestic water demand had increased by 43 million m3 to 70 million m3 a year, which corresponds to an increase in overall national water demand of between 8% and 12% (Ministry of Environment of Lebanon 2014). This crisis took place against a backdrop of growing water-related hazards including increasing drought hazards because of climate change, and also chronic water scarcity caused by decades of underinvestment in water systems and soaring water demands (World Bank 2017). Faced with this situation of crisis (decision point 2 above), the Republic of Lebanon, with support from the World Bank, adopted a long-term response strategy that intervened in host communities in a way that benefited both hosts and refugees. Rather than creating a parallel system of assistance only for the forcibly displaced, the Lebanon Municipal Services Emergency Project targeted both the host community and Syrian refugees through infrastructure and social interventions (World Bank 2018). Community social interventions were urgent and indispensable to complement water and energy service delivery as well as to support the long-term objective of enhancing social cohesion and living conditions. Based on consultations, communities prioritized 12 social interventions around five themes—environmental awareness, employment training, skills training, health, and social cohesion—for both Lebanese and Syrians, with a focus on women, youth, and children (World Bank 2018). Infrastructure interventions addressed urgent community priorities which were also identified through community consultations involving both forcibly displaced and host communities. This included installing solar pumps to improve the reliability of water supplies and improve the ability to meet growing water demand. This had the additional advantage of reducing electricity costs for the financially weak water utility. South Sudan: water as an enabler of durable solutions for the forcibly displaced South Sudan is the main source of refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa and hosts one of the world’s largest internally displaced populations (IDPs) (UNHCR, 2025). The country presents a multilayered mix of IDPs, asylum seekers, refugees, returnees, stateless persons, and persons at risk of statelessness. South Sudan is also among the most vulnerable countries to climate change, ranking as the second most vulnerable country to natural hazards such as floods and droughts in the world, according to the 2024 INFORM Risk Index. Forced displacement was traditionally associated with armed conflict, but in recent years water-related disasters, notably floods, have triggered large-scale internal and cross-border displacement (UNHCR, 2021). These sobering statistics position South Sudan as one of the global hotspots where urgent responses at the nexus of climate change, forced displacement, and conflict are needed. At the time of writing, South Sudan confronts a situation of relative stability and an urgent need to address the needs of IDPs and returnees (decision point 3). Since 2018, the country has faced unprecedented floods, which have contributed to protracted cycles of displacement. These floods are directly linked to rainfall patterns in the African Great Lakes region, where the Bahr el Jebel (White Nile) originates, and in the Ethiopian Highlands. Because of South Sudan’s very flat landscape and impermeable soils, flooding persists for a long time, posing long-term challenges for climate adaptation. The country also faces a water supply and sanitation crisis, with about 60% of the population using unimproved sources at risk from contamination (Borgomeo et al., 2023). Decision-makers face stark trade-offs between temporary fixes and long-term, durable solutions that lay the foundation for sustainable service delivery and flood risk management over the long term. In the context of South Sudan, the provision of water services is an area where the Government has identified the importance of transitioning towards long-term solutions instead of just relying on temporary humanitarian actions. This provides an example of how responses to decision point 3 can help countries gradually improve climate resilience and water security while addressing the urgent needs of the forcibly displaced. The provision of clean drinking water in areas of return or local integration is one of the Six Priority Areas under the South Sudan 2021 Durable Solutions Strategy, highlighting that water availability is a governing factor in the government’s response to forced displacement. The strategy recognizes that without access to water supply and sanitation services, local integration processes, voluntary returns, and relocations cannot materialize. Durable solutions are achieved when individuals no longer have specific assistance or protection needs linked to displacement and represent the closure of the displacement cycle. The Government of South Sudan and a range of humanitarian partners developed a WASH Transition Strategy for Former Protection of Civilian (PoC) Sites, to ensure that the responsibility for maintaining and operating WASH facilities is progressively transferred to local populations and the responsible local authorities. The WASH Transition Strategy for Former PoC Sites, through the WASH exPoC Task Force, is contributing to building the capacity of the responsible local authorities who should become responsible and accountable for ensuring regular services to eventually promote suitable solutions for IDPs by creating service conditions conducive to durable solutions (returns and local integration) (WASH Cluster South Sudan, 2021). In several locations, multisectoral plans are being developed at the site level, including transition plans for security, services, and community engagement (WASH Cluster South Sudan, 2022). The challenge of providing durable solutions to forced displacement in South Sudan is extremely complex: because the security conditions in multiple parts of the country remain fragile and the impacts of climate change are increasing. The country’s efforts to advance durable solutions in terms of water services show that it is indeed possible to take a long-term view of forced displacement as one that is complementary to humanitarian efforts; focuses on medium-term socioeconomic aspects; is government-led and places particular attention on institutions and policies. While water service delivery has been included in the Government’s durable solutions plan, the issue of flood risks under climate change remains largely unaddressed, posing significant challenges to break the forced displacement cycle and build climate resilience in the country. The scale of the flood challenge and the risk of regional spillovers call for more regional and international attention to climate security risks in South Sudan (International Crisis Group, 2025). Research and policy should focus on identifying opportunities to link climate adaptation interventions to broader reconciliation and stabilization efforts at local and national levels. 4. Discussion and conclusions This perspective focuses on the design of interventions to respond to complex challenges at the nexus of climate change, migration, and conflict. It suggests that sequencing and trade-offs need to be considered when implementing humanitarian interventions, to avoid perpetuating existing vulnerabilities or delaying opportunities to pursue climate-resilient development. This perspective also highlights that development and humanitarian actors should work more closely together to align perspectives and create a level of readiness for when a crisis occurs. The perspective identifies three specific decision points that can help focus planning and interactions among the different stakeholders from the humanitarian, security, and development sectors involved in crisis response. Frameworks based on pathways and decision points, such as the one presented here, have been found valuable in guiding decision-making and design of interventions in the field of water security (Garrick and Hall, 2014) and climate adaptation under uncertainty (Haasnoot et al., 2024). However, their application for intervention design and implementation at the humanitarian-development nexus is limited and likely to be affected by stakeholder cultures and objectives. Moreover, a focus on decision points and pathways requires capabilities to conduct monitoring and options identification and assessment which are often absent in contexts characterized by fragility and conflict. Moving forward, research should focus on developing models and frameworks that can help design and monitor effective policy responses at the climate change, migration, and conflict nexus. First, research should attempt to develop typologies of climate adaptation and water interventions to address conflict and forced migration challenges, including an assessment of their potential to increase risks of conflict and violence (see Gilmore and Buhaug, 2021 for an example in relation to climate mitigation policies). Typologies will help design interventions and compare experiences across different geographies and settings. Second, research should focus less on ex-post analysis or future predictions and concentrate more on careful monitoring and evaluation of ongoing climate change adaptation and conflict-resolution and peacebuilding interventions. This will help inform the early stages of policy implementation (including options assessment and monitoring strategies mentioned above), support learning, and help with early identification of risks of relapse into conflict. Finally, analysts have highlighted several challenges related to access to climate finance in contexts affected by conflict and forced displacement (Cao et al., 2021; Meijer and Ahmad 2024). Research should examine opportunities for climate finance to support the transition from humanitarian to long-term development approaches in a context characterized by fragility and conflict. This includes creating frameworks to evaluate project contributions to financiers’ objectives, as well as improved evidence on the need for urgent climate adaptation among conflict and forcibly displaced communities worldwide. Acknowledgments Findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent, or of the Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is partly derived from Chapter 4 of the World Bank report Ebb and Flow, Volume 2: Water in the Shadow of Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa. As such, it benefited from funding from the World Bank and the Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership. Data availability statement This article is not based on any new data and it contains practitioner insights based on the authors’ experience. References Abel G. J., Brottrager M., Cuaresma J. C., Muttarak R. (2019). Climate, conflict and forced migration. Global Environmental Change, 54, 239–249.Abu-Lohom N. M., Konishi Y., Mumssen Y., Zabara B., Moore S. M. (2018). Water supply in a war zone: A preliminary analysis of two urban water tanker supply systems in the Republic of Yemen. World Bank Publications.African Union and International Organisation for Migration. (2024). Africa Migration Report. Second Edition. PUB2023/132/R. African Union.Borgomeo E., Chase C., Godoy N. S., Kwadwo V. O. (2023). Rising from the depths: Water security and fragility in South Sudan. World Bank Publications.Borgomeo E., Jägerskog A., Zaveri E., Russ J., Khan A., Damania R. (2021). Ebb and flow: Volume 2. Water in the shadow of conflict in the Middle East and North Africa. World Bank Publications.Brzoska M., Fröhlich C. (2016). Climate change, migration and violent conflict: vulnerabilities, pathways and adaptation strategies. Migration and Development, 5(2), 190–210.Cao Y., Alcayna T., Quevedo A., Jarvie J. (2021). Exploring the conflict blind spots in climate adaptation finance. Synthesis Report. London: Overseas Development Institute. Enable Finance for Climate-Change Adaptation in Conflict Settings. London. Retrieved December 12, 2023, from www.odi.org/en/publications/exploring-the-conflict-blind-spots-in-climate-adaptationfinance/Daoudy M. (2020). The origins of the Syrian conflict: Climate change and human security. Cambridge University Press.de Châtel F. (2014). The role of drought and climate change in the Syrian uprising: Untangling the triggers of the revolution. Middle Eastern Studies, 50(4): 521–535.Few R., Ramírez V., Armijos M. T., Hernández L. A. Z., Marsh H. (2021). Moving with risk: Forced displacement and vulnerability to hazards in Colombia. World Development, 144, 105482.Fröhlich C. J. (2016). Climate migrants as protestors? Dispelling misconceptions about global environmental change in pre-revolutionary Syria. Contemporary Levant, 1(1), 38–50.Garrick D., Hall J. W. (2014). Water security and society: Risks, metrics, and pathways. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 39(1), 611–639.Gbanie S. P., Griffin A. L., Thornton A. (2018). Impacts on the urban environment: Land cover change trajectories and landscape fragmentation in post-war Western Area, Sierra Leone. Remote Sensing, 10(1), 129.Gilmore E. A., Buhaug H. (2021). Climate mitigation policies and the potential pathways to conflict: Outlining a research agenda. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 12(5), e722.Haasnoot M., Di Fant V., Kwakkel J., Lawrence J. (2024). Lessons from a decade of adaptive pathways studies for climate adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 88, 102907.International Crisis Group. (2025). Eight priorities for the African Union in 2025. Crisis Group Africa Briefing N°205. International Crisis Group.IPA (Innovations for Poverty Action). (2020). “Returning home? Conditions in Syria, not Lebanon, drive the return intentions of Syrian refugees.” Policy brief. https://www.poverty-action.org/publication/returning-home-conditions-syria-not-lebanon-drive-return-intentions-syrian-refugees.Lund Michael S. (1996)., “Early Warning and Preventive Diplomacy.” In Crocker CA, Hampson FO, Aall P (Eds.), Managing global chaos: sources of and responses to international conflict (pp. 379–402). U.S. Institute of Peace.Meijer K., Ahmad A. S. (2024). Unveiling challenges and gaps in climate finance in conflict areas. SIPRI.Ministry of Environment of Lebanon. (2014). Lebanon environmental assessment of the Syrian conflict and priority interventions. MOE/EU/UNDP Report, Beirut. https://goo.gl/5c9DQa.Sadoff C. W., Borgomeo E., De Waal D. (2017). Turbulent waters: Pursuing water security in fragile contexts. World Bank Publications.Swain A., Bruch C., Ide T., Lujala P., Matthew R., Weinthal E. (2023). Environment and security in the 21st century. Environment and Security, 1(1-2), 3–9.UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). (2021). Mid-year trends. UNHCR.UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). (2025). South Sudan. Global appeal 2025 situation overview. UNHCR.Von Uexkull N., Buhaug H. (2021). Security implications of climate change: A decade of scientific progress. Journal of Peace Research, 58(1), 3–17.WASH Cluster South Sudan (2021) WASH transition strategy for former POC/IDP sites in South Sudan. WASH cluster South Sudan, Juba.WASH Cluster South Sudan (2022) South Sudan WASH cluster strategy 2022–2023. WASH Cluster South Sudan, Juba.Weinthal E., Sowers J. (2020). The water-energy nexus in the Middle East: Infrastructure, development, and conflict. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 7(4), e1437.World Bank (2017) Beyond scarcity: Water security in the Middle East and North Africa. World Bank.World Bank (2018) Lebanon—Municipal services emergency project. Implementation completion report. ICR4600. World Bank Publications.World Bank, ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) (2021) Joining forces to combat protracted crises: humanitarian and development support for water and sanitation providers in the Middle East and North Africa. World Bank.

Energy & Economics
Chinese yuan Renminbi money rolls 3d illustration. Camera over the RMB rolling banknotes. Concept of economy, crisis, finance, cash, business and recession in China.

Understanding China’s Renminbi Strategy: Strategic Integration over Monetary Supremacy

by Monique Taylor

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском China’s strategy to internationalise the renminbi (RMB) is about building resilience and influence through selective, state-managed global integration. Beijing is not seeking to elevate the RMB to the status of a global reserve currency on par with the dollar, nor is the strategy solely about insulating China from the geopolitical risks of dollar dependence, although this is an important component. Rather, it represents a pragmatic response to an increasingly fragmented global economy—one marked by rising geopolitical tensions, growing weaponisation of the dollar, and accelerating financial and technological innovation. China is pursuing a targeted, state-managed form of internationalisation that involves building an alternative web of financial relationships and infrastructures facilitating transactions outside the US-dominated system. These include currency swap lines with strategic partners, the establishment of RMB clearing banks, bilateral trade settlement mechanisms, and payment infrastructures such as the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which serves as a partial alternative to SWIFT. While these efforts help reduce exposure to potential disruptions from dollar weaponisation, they are part of a broader strategy to embed the RMB in key transactional domains like trade, investment, and energy. In these spheres, China seeks to expand its influence and establish rules and mechanisms conducive to its own strategic and financial interests. Building functional alternatives to the US dollar China’s RMB internationalisation strategy is multi-layered, spanning bilateral currency swaps, RMB clearing arrangements, development finance, and payment system alternatives. Instruments such as RMB-denominated oil trades (referred to as the “petroyuan”) and the digital yuan illustrate this approach. The petroyuan enables sanctioned countries like Russia and Iran to settle oil trades in RMB, while China’s growing financial ties with Gulf states suggest that broader adoption may follow. Similarly, the digital yuan, though originally intended primarily for domestic use, is now being piloted for cross-border transactions, potentially laying the groundwork for an international digital payments network. Technological innovations are facilitating this shift by enabling the creation of central bank digital currencies, alternative financial messaging systems, and blockchain-based settlement tools—all of which can support secure transactions that operate outside traditional dollar-clearing infrastructure. In the long run, such developments could gradually reduce global reliance on the dollar. These initiatives are less about achieving global reach and more about securing strategic autonomy and expanding influence in key domains. China’s aim is to reduce vulnerability to US sanctions and dollar volatility, while gradually expanding the RMB’s role in trade, energy, and infrastructure finance, especially in the Global South, where demand for alternatives is growing. BRICS+, the BRI, and the strategic reach of the RMB Platforms like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and BRICS+ play an important role in China’s RMB internationalisation strategy. They provide the geopolitical and institutional scaffolding for RMB usage in trade and investment, particularly in politically aligned or dollar-constrained contexts. For instance, RMB settlements with BRI countries reached 5.42 trillion yuan in 2021, and China has concluded dozens of currency swap agreements with its partners. While the lion’s share of these transactions is still conducted in US dollars, RMB usage is growing steadily. These arrangements point to a shift toward a multipolar and domain-specific currency landscape—one where the RMB gains traction in selected spheres, even if it remains marginal in global reserves and FX markets. Currency swap agreements, RMB clearing banks, and trade invoicing in local currency are all being promoted among China’s partners, especially those looking to reduce reliance on Western financial systems. The result is a modest but growing network of RMB-based interaction shaped by political alignment and strategic institutional design, rather than spontaneous market demand. While dollar dominance persists, de-dollarisation gains momentum The US dollar still dominates global finance. It accounts for nearly 90 percent of FX transactions and more than half of global reserves. However, that dominance increasingly rests on geopolitical foundations that are showing signs of strain. Trump 2.0’s chaotic tariffs combined with the US’s aggressive use of financial sanctions in recent years have made allies and adversaries alike question the long-term reliability of the dollar-based system. For countries exposed to US foreign and economic policy swings, whether through sanctions, interest rate volatility, or trade frictions, China’s RMB-based alternatives offer a way to diversify. In this sense, de-dollarisation is not a revolution but a structural recalibration: a rebalancing of risk rather than a zero-sum rivalry with the dollar. What China offers is not a wholesale exit from the dollar system, but an incremental hedge—a monetary space in which RMB-denominated transactions gain traction in contexts where diversification and reducing dollar dependence are prioritised. This logic underpins a broader push within the BRICS+ grouping to reduce reliance on the dollar in trade and finance. The group has floated proposals for a shared reserve currency, possibly backed by a basket of member currencies or commodities like gold, as part of its effort to foster a more multipolar monetary system. While such proposals face significant practical challenges, they reflect a clear political intent to diversify away from dollar-dominated structures. China plays a central role in these efforts, not by promoting the RMB as a global hegemonic currency, but by embedding it in alternative financial arrangements. In doing so, China contributes to a monetary order where the dollar remains dominant but increasingly contested. Why RMB leadership is not only unlikely but unnecessary Despite growing cross-border use of the RMB, significant structural constraints remain. China’s capital account remains closed, its financial markets lack transparency and depth, and its central bank operates under the authority of the party-state and, as such, lacks institutional independence. Unlike the US, which issues dollars globally through persistent trade and capital account deficits, China runs a trade surplus. This further limits the global supply of RMB and restricts its viability as a reserve currency. Central banks are unlikely to adopt the RMB as a core reserve asset under such conditions, and China has little interest in changing that right now—Beijing’s RMB internationalisation strategy is designed to work within, not against, these constraints. Indeed, the party-state’s emphasis on control and stability sits uneasily with the financial liberalisation required for global monetary leadership. In Beijing’s view, this is not a contradiction. The goal is not to supplant the dollar, but to achieve selective integration: a system in which China and its partners can transact securely, predictably, and independently of Western pressure. This approach enables China to expand its influence within specific domains, without challenging the broader dollar-centric monetary order. Adapting to a divided global economy RMB internationalisation is neither a bid for currency supremacy nor a mere act of self-defence. It is a tool of pragmatic adaptation—part of China’s effort to build resilience and exert influence through selective financial integration and institutional alternatives. As the world moves further into geopolitical and economic uncertainty, especially with the return of a Trump administration bent on upending the global trade system, China’s efforts may accelerate. The RMB won’t displace the dollar anytime soon, but its growing role in alternative trade, finance, and payment systems signals the slow but significant emergence of a more layered, fragmented, and contested global monetary order. This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 101079069–EUVIP–HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily re ect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.

Defense & Security
The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf ,is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the uae

Transactional Politics: Rethinking U.S.-Gulf Security and Defence Relationships amid U.S. Decline

by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Abstract This article analyses the shifts in security and defence policies across the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and disentangles political and geopolitical strains in the U.S.-Gulf relationship from practical measures to boost cooperation and deepen interoperability. In examining the trajectory of security and defence relationships, the article assesses the stability and durability of the underlying components of U.S.-Gulf partnerships in a time of rapid change. The article begins a section that details how and why the perception of U.S. disengagement has evolved, despite ongoing reliance on facilities such as Al-Udeid in Qatar for forward basing arrangements, before a second section examines regional responses to the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, and the Israeli war in Gaza that erupted in 2023. A third section explores the ‘nuts and bolts’ of security and defence relationships and considers issues such as U.S. arms sales and Department of Defense programs, such as Red Sands in Saudi Arabia and the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement with Bahrain, as ways to boost cooperation in the face of political tension and stiff competition. As U.S. troop levels have ebbed and flowed, a final section considers whether a more flexible approach to security relationships is sustainable in a far more transactional era of international power and politics. Little more than 6 months separated the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 from the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[1] The manner by which the U.S. was seen by many observers to abandon the Afghan government in the face of a resurgent Taliban cast doubt among partner nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as to the reliability and ‘staying power’ of the U.S. in the region, and rekindled memories of the withdrawal of American support for Hosni Mubarak in Egypt as the Arab uprisings began in early 2011.[2] Kabul appeared to be another blow to a U.S.-led regional order that was already being questioned by officials in the Gulf States even as they contributed to its weakening by diversifying their own political, economic, and, to a lesser extent, security and defence relationships. For many in leadership positions in the Gulf States, the fall of Kabul appeared to be one more step in a process of U.S. disengagement which they perceived to be one-directional and to take place across successive presidencies as different as Obama was to Trump and Trump was to Biden.[3] Whereas the withdrawal from Afghanistan witnessed the U.S. acting unilaterally to secure its own interests, narrowly defined and without seeming to take account of those of its partners and allies, the build-up of tension in Ukraine saw the Biden administration engage intensively with allies and partners in the runup to and aftermath of the Russian invasion. U.S. intelligence and information-sharing, which were seen to have erred badly in Afghanistan in 2021, was a high-profile and very visible policy over Ukraine in 2022, and restored a measure of credibility, especially among NATO allies.[4] However, in the Gulf States, the policy response to Ukraine did not deliver a ‘dividend’ in terms of restoring faith in the U.S. as a trustworthy partner, as GCC states pursued hedging strategies and further diversified their range of security partnerships, albeit in divergent ways. The war in Gaza, which erupted after the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, generated additional questions about the durability of an increasingly fragile regional order.[5] And yet, the ‘nuts and bolts’ of security and defence ties between the U.S. and Gulf States have continued to evolve, albeit in a looser and more transactional form that at any time since the structure of U.S. primacy in the region took shape in the late-1980s and early-1990s. Examples of diverging trajectories include the United Arab Emirates becoming a safe haven for Russian capital and business, regional responses to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, and the resilience of Saudi-Iranian ties even as hopes for Saudi-Israeli normalization faded. In October 2024, the decision of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to receive Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, just as the Biden administration was weighing its support for a retaliatory Israeli attack on Iran, demonstrated how perceptions of regional interests were moving apart.[6] It is this ‘puzzle’ of divergence in the political and security tracks of U.S.-Gulf relations that is the focus of analysis, as ties have simultaneously become more fragile yet also shown resilient adaptability. This article examines the changing trajectories of U.S.-Gulf security relationships and moves beyond the focus, often seen in American policy discourse, on U.S. demands for ‘burden-sharing’ among regional partners, which redoubled in the first and second Trump presidencies. Instead, the article examines the ways in which the Gulf States are developing a more transactional approach to U.S. partnerships, resulting in a more flexible model of cooperation. This is consistent with broader shifts from a U.S.-dominated regional order toward the internationalization of regional security structures, as policy preferences (on all sides) have gradually diverged. While there is no monolithic approach to ‘the Gulf’, by and large there is a trend toward states no longer being willing to rely solely on U.S. guarantees, borne out of events in the 2010s, and to developing a more diversified portfolio of security and defence partnerships, again at different speeds across different countries, and with no uniformity on the choice of external partner. At the same time, several Gulf States, notably Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar have emerged as assertive regional and international actors, and new forms of partnership have evolved. There are four sections to this article, which begins with an examination of how and why the perception in the Gulf States of U.S. disengagement has evolved, despite ongoing reliance on facilities such as Al-Udeid in Qatar for forward basing arrangements. A second section examines regional responses to the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, and the conflict in Gaza which began in October 2023. The third section explores the ‘nuts and bolts’ of security and defence relationships and considers issues such as U.S. arms sales and Department of Defense programs, such as Red Sands in Saudi Arabia and the recently concluded Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement with Bahrain, as ways to boost practical security cooperation in the face of political tension and stiff competition. As U.S. troop levels have ebbed and flowed, the concluding section considers whether and how a more flexible approach to security relationships is sustainable in a more transactional era of power and politics. Gulf States’ Perceptions of U.S. Disengagement A belief held by many policymakers in the Gulf States, that the U.S. is less engaged and/or less reliable and predictable in its approach to regional affairs, has taken root over the decade and a half which has elapsed since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010–11. To be sure, this belief is rooted in an idealized view of U.S.-Gulf relations which has, over the three decades since the Gulf War in 1991, been based on extremely visible and large-scale force deployments in the region, especially during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which were not typical of long-term trends.[7] Nevertheless, this perception has lasted across consecutive presidential administrations and has become more deeply entrenched precisely because a pattern has been seen to develop across such different presidencies as Obama to Trump to Biden, and as U.S. troop levels in the region were inexorably drawn down.[8] While there was no regionwide consensus or monolithic view of the U.S. in the Gulf, and no one single incident which sparked a reassessment, attitudes evolved in response to a series of policy decisions which unfolded over the space of a decade. The effect has been to strengthen a process of diversification of Gulf States’ security and defence relationships to avoid over-reliance on any single partner in a world of growing multipolarity and strategic options.[9] Deciding where to begin with the many issues which caused degrees of concern in Gulf capitals at U.S. policymaking intent is a little like asking the proverbial question about how long a piece of string might be. For example, the second term of the George W. Bush administration saw frictions develop between the U.S. and GCC states, notably Saudi Arabia, over the mishandling of the occupation of post-Saddam Iraq and the sense of anger in Gulf capitals that Iran appeared to be the primary geopolitical beneficiary.[10] This caused significant mistrust in Riyadh at U.S. policy intent (and outcomes) in Iraq and the region.[11] It was in the Obama administration, however, that the perception of drift began to develop, including in relation to the so-called ‘pivot to Asia’ in the late-2000s which Gulf leaders (erroneously) saw as a shift in U.S. focus away from the Middle East, rather than post-Cold War Europe.[12] However, it was the withdrawal of political support from the embattled Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, in February 2011, which caused shock and bitterness in Gulf capitals, who saw the move as a betrayal of a longstanding U.S. partner.[13] The Obama administration’s response to the Arab uprisings (which, in the case of unrest in GCC states, was far more muted and reflective of U.S. interests in the stability of its regional partners) was followed by the disclosure in November 2013 that American and Iranian officials had been meeting secretly in Oman for over a year, and by the subsequent negotiations between the P5 + 1 and Iran for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to address the Iranian nuclear file in 2015. Both negotiations cut out the GCC states and added to concerns at the direction of U.S. policymaking in the region.[14] Partly in response to concerns that the JCPOA focused too narrowly on only one aspect of Iran’s regional activity and did not address other issues, Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened militarily in Yemen in March 2015 to push back the advance of Houthi rebels they believed were in receipt of direct Iranian assistance.[15] An interview given by Obama to The Atlantic magazine in 2016 sealed the breakdown in working relations as officials reacted with fury to a comment about ‘free riders’ which they perceived to be directed at them rather than, as was the case, against the British and French governments over their intervention in Libya in 2011.[16] Genuine displeasure, as well as a degree of bewilderment, at the direction of certain aspects of the Obama administration’s policies toward the Middle East contributed to the early embrace of the Trump presidency by officials in several Gulf capitals, including Riyadh and Abu Dhabi as well as Manama.[17] In June 2017, Trump initially endorsed the Saudi-Emirati-Bahraini (as well as Egyptian) move to isolate Qatar, in a decision which caused shockwaves in Doha as well as in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. The sight of a sitting president seemingly abandoning a U.S. partner, albeit only temporarily, raised powerful questions about the reliability and durability of the Gulf States’ most important external relationship.[18] Two years later, it was the Saudis’ and Emiratis’ turn to call into question the partnership with the U.S. as the Trump administration chose not to respond to a series of attacks, generally although never formally attributed to Iran or to Iranian proxy groups, on energy and maritime targets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.[19] In September 2019, 2 days after a missile and drone attack on Saudi oil facilities temporarily knocked out half the Kingdom’s oil production, Trump noted pointedly ‘That was an attack on Saudi Arabia, and that wasn’t an attack on us’ and added that ‘I’m somebody that would like not to have war’.[20] Political decisions by successive presidential administrations therefore injected doubt as to the value or even the existence of security guarantees which were believed by many observers of regional affairs to form the bedrock of contemporary U.S.-Gulf relations.[21] The impact became clear when tensions between the United States and Iran soared in the aftermath of the killing of Qassim Soleimani in an American drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, when regional officials in GCC states called for de-escalation.[22] President Biden sought to restore U.S. credibility when he reasserted ‘the U.S. commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory as it faces attacks from Iranian-aligned groups’ after he took office in 2021.[23] However, poor relations between Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, stemming from comments Biden made in a campaign debate in 2019, proved insurmountable, with MBS going so far as to reply ‘Simply, I do not care’, when asked in 2022 what he thought of Biden’s opinion of him.[24] Regional Responses to Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Gaza In August 2021, the disorganized and seemingly unilateral nature of the final U.S. withdrawal from Kabul provided yet another indication, in the eyes of already sceptical policy analysts and officials in GCC states, of the potentially capricious nature of American interests. While there was a broad consensus that the ‘forever wars’ launched in the 2000s could not continue indefinitely, the manner by which the Biden administration conducted its final drawdown reinforced the concerns listed above about the durability of U.S. commitments to regional partners, and as elements of the political right and left coalesced around support for policies of restraint and isolationism.[25] The sight of the Afghan air force rendered inoperable after the withdrawal of American training and maintenance, and the flight of Ashraf Ghani, the U.S.-backed President, to the UAE, were indicators of the vulnerability of over-reliance on single security partners, however powerful.[26] Less than six months later, the strenuous attempts made by the Biden administration to work with allies and partners to coordinate policy in early 2022 as Russian forces massed on the border with Ukraine, and then to push back against Moscow after the full-scale invasion commenced on February 24, ought to have repaired some of the damage caused by the optics around the chaos in Kabul in 2021. Specific measures included the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Eastern Europe as well as the sharing of intelligence designed to deter Vladimir Putin from moving into Ukraine.[27] Qatar, which was accorded Major Non-NATO Ally Status by the Biden administration in January 2022, in part a recognition of its assistance to U.S. and international humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan during and after the withdrawal, also sought to play a balancing role in gas markets as Emir Tamim visited Biden in the White House and hosted Russian energy officials in Doha.[28] Europe’s pivot away from Russia restated the Gulf States’ centrality in global energy security considerations, while the rise in oil and gas prices in late-2011 and for most of 2022 also returned GCC states’ budgets to surplus after years of deficits following the oil price crash of 2014.[29] However, the ‘coming together’ effect noticeable in the U.S.-European (and NATO) response to Russia-Ukraine in 2022 did not appear to mollify strained relationships in the Gulf; if anything, the responses to the invasion made the different trajectories which had taken shape in prior years all the more visible. Like much of the Global South, the Gulf States did not take sides in the Russia-Ukraine war. Policymakers in GCC capitals did not share the view of their counterparts in Washington and Europe that the collective defence of Ukraine was ‘an international order defining event, a generational moment in which international alliances and norms are being reshaped’.[30] Regional leaders refused to get drawn into a new era of bloc rivalry and, unlike the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, did not deem Russia’s aggression against Ukraine to pose a direct threat to their political or security interests, in common with counterparts across much of the ‘Global South’.[31] A variation in stances toward the February 2022 invasion and subsequent developments nevertheless fell along a spectrum that ranged from Qatar aligning most closely with Ukraine (and the U.S. position) and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE leaning more closely toward Russia, with Kuwait and Oman falling somewhat in-between. These variations in position mirrored those during the GCC rift between 2017 and 2020, and indicate that, for the Qatari leadership, the sight of a larger power threatening (and ultimately invading) a smaller neighbour carried resonance, so soon after the blockade era when Doha faced pressure from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE. However, while Qatari leaders announced a pause in new investments in Russia, existing links with Moscow remained unchanged, and the Qatar Investment Authority became the largest non-Russian shareholder in Rosneft after BP announced it would terminate its own relationship with the state-owned giant.[32] The UAE position was complicated by the fact that the country had just taken up a rotating two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2022–23. This forced the UAE to take positions even if the Emirati choice was to abstain on two Security Council votes in February 2022 which condemned the Russian invasion and called for an emergency session of the United General Assembly – abstentions which caused considerable friction with the U.S.[33] Policy responses in and after 2022 reinforced perceptions of drift in relations between the U.S. and key Gulf partners. Both Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi and Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh spoke on several occasions with President Putin and appeared to rebuff entreaties by President Biden during the opening weeks of the war.[34] Positions taken on Russia-Ukraine in 2022 illustrated how tensions that built up over a period of years beforehand became manifest in the regional reactions. After the imposition of additional U.S., European Union, and British sanctions on Russian entities in 2022, the UAE (and Dubai in particular) emerged as a welcoming haven for Russian capital and business elites, several of whom appeared to obtain Emirati citizenship.[35] Many of the sanctioned Russian companies continued to do business with counterparts in the Gulf States with few evident consequences, creating gaps in the moves to isolate the Putin regime. In 2023, Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada, the former Minister of State for Energy in Qatar from 2011 to 2018, was elected Chairman of the Board of Rosneft, in a private capacity but demonstrative of the limited reach of Western appeals to reduce Gulf ties with sanctioned entities in Russia.[36] The case of oil prices illustrated how the Gulf States assertively put their own interests forward even if they were seen to clash with the interests of partners such as the U.S. There is nothing untoward about this, as states routinely pursue national interests based on a pragmatic calculation of internal and external interests. However, in the context of the emphasis placed by the Biden administration and its European allies on the defence of Ukraine in the name of an international rules-based order, the sight of their closest partners in the Middle East not joining with anything like the same strength of approach sent visible signals of policy divergence over Ukraine. European and American leaders, including Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, visited Saudi Arabia in the spring and summer of 2022 to make the case for an increase in Saudi (and OPEC/OPEC+) output in order to bring down oil prices which had surged.[37] Moreover, the acrimonious aftermath of President Biden’s visit to Jeddah and meeting with Mohammed bin Salman in July 2022, and the coordinated Saudi-Russian oil output cut in October 2022, demonstrated the divergence of interests, especially as officials in D.C. and Riyadh traded barbs over whether (or not) the Saudi decision to cut output, or the Biden administration’s request to increase production, were politically motivated.[38] Following the outbreak of the war in Gaza after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the legitimacy of aspects of the system of international order came under growing scrutiny by critics who contrasted U.S. responses to developments in Ukraine as opposed to Gaza. Images of Palestinian suffering caused anger across the Middle East as well as much of the Global South, including in the Gulf States, and made it politically difficult for officials to ignore, with the Saudi leadership, in particular, reassessing the terms of any normalization agreement with Israel.[39] Discrepancies in labelling acts committed by Russian and Israeli forces (in Ukraine and Gaza, respectively) as ‘war crimes’, and about whether to engage with the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, brought accusations of double standards and hypocrisy, and weakened the credibility of the international order in the eyes of many in the non-Western world.[40] While Gaza did not prove a breaking-point in U.S.-Gulf relations, it did bring to the surface the different trajectories in security and defence interests and priorities. Statements by leaders in Gulf capitals hardened as the bombardment of Gaza continued, with even Mohammed bin Salman going as far as to condemn ‘the collective genocide committed by Israel against the brotherly Palestinian people’ at an Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh in November 2024.[41] These remarks came just 14 months after the Crown Prince told Fox News in September 2023 that ‘every day, we get closer’ to a Saudi-Israeli breakthrough that, he predicted, would be ‘the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War’.[42] Officials in Oman went further in the use of harsh language to condemn Israeli actions which at times bordered on tacit support for Hamas, and was reflective of and rooted in an upsurge of anger among Omani citizens, hitherto one of the most politically quiescent commentariats in the region.[43] Leaders in all GCC states had to acknowledge the domestic backlash against the destruction of Gaza, a balancing act made more delicate in Bahrain and the UAE, the two Gulf signatories to the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020.[44] An additional consideration for policymakers in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha, in particular, was an interest in ‘de-risking’ potential regional volatility as focus turned to large-scale developmental, energy, and infrastructure projects, including those associated with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.[45] ‘Nuts and Bolts’ of Evolving Security and Defence Relationships In the face of the political and geopolitical tensions noted above, U.S. security relationships and defence partnerships with the Gulf States have evolved. A decade of change since 2015 has illustrated that ties tend to work better on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis rather than as part of a grand strategic framework. An example of the latter was the launch of a U.S.-GCC Strategic Partnership in 2015, at a summit at Camp David between Gulf leaders (only two of whom attended) and President Obama, and the creation of five working groups to cover cooperation in counterterrorism, missile defence, military preparedness and training, critical defence capabilities, and cyber security.[46] Both the working groups and the strategic partnership fell into abeyance during the Trump administration, and were superseded by U.S. efforts to form a Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) with GCC states plus Egypt and Jordan. MESA failed to gain traction for a variety of reasons, including the intra-GCC rift over Qatar, a failure of parties to agree on the scope and scale of the issues to be covered by the initiative, and Egypt’s withdrawal in 2019.[47] The U.S.-GCC working groups reconvened in February 2023, nearly a year into the Russia-Ukraine war, for their first meeting in years, against the backdrop of the supply of Iranian armed drones to Russia and the provision of Russian defence assistance to Iran. The fact that Iranian weapons systems were being tested on the battlefield in Ukraine and in operational and combat settings against civilian and infrastructure targets highlighted how a secondary impact of the Russia-Ukraine war could impact on U.S.-GCC interests.[48] U.S. and Gulf States’ navies then participated in a major 18-day International Maritime Exercise in February and March 2023 co-led by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the U.S. and directed from the Maritime Security Centre in Oman. Held under the auspices of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, more than 7000 personnel and 35 ships from over 50 countries and organizations took part in exercises in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf.[49] Perhaps uncoincidentally, Russia and China joined Iran in a joint naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman the same month, illustrating how, in the ‘nuts and bolts’ of security and defence relationships, the GCC still chose to side with the U.S.[50] A host of new initiatives since 2020 suggest that new security partnerships between the U.S. and individual Gulf States are evolving on bespoke bilateral and issue-specific lines. CENTCOM has worked closely with Saudi officials to develop the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Centre as a regional testing facility in Saudi Arabia to boost cooperation against the shared threat from missile and drone attacks from Iran and regional proxies.[51] Joint exercises involving U.S. and Saudi forces have tested systems to destroy and disable unmanned aerial systems of the type that breached Saudi air defences during the ballistic missile and drone strikes on oil infrastructure facilities in September 2019.[52] U.S. officials also play an integral role in Saudi Arabia’s defence transformation plan with Department of Defense personnel assisting their Saudi counterparts with overhauling human-capital development, joint staff development, intelligence reorganization and force sustainment, and the development of a National Defence College. The U.S. role in capacity-building is a step up from the hitherto-largely scattered interventions tied to the foreign military sales process rather than in support of any deeper or underlying policy objective.[53] Another example of renewed U.S. commitment to security ties with a Gulf partner was the signing in September 2023 of a Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA) with Bahrain. Announced during a visit to Washington, D.C. by Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa and described as ‘the most advanced formal security agreement the United States has with any country in the region’, C-SIPA will expand defence and security cooperation as well as trade and investment ties through collaborative measures across the security spectrum, albeit without a mutual defence guarantee.[54] Although many of the specific security-related initiatives are classified, C-SIPA may build upon the recent spate of U.S. strategic dialogues with Gulf partners, which began with Qatar in 2017 and now encompass every GCC state on a bilateral (rather than collective) basis. How C-SIPA unfolds will likely be studied carefully in other Gulf capitals, especially Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which have long demanded enhanced U.S. defence guarantees, most recently in relation to any U.S.-brokered agreement to normalize with Israel (in the Saudi case) and in the desire for ‘codified’ U.S. security commitments (for the UAE).[55] Officials in the UAE have chosen a different approach which reflects the confidence of Emirati policymakers that the country is an influential ‘middle power’ capable of holding its own on an inter-regional and increasingly global stage. This was evident in the signing of the Abraham Accord with Israel in September 2020 in which the text of the agreement signed by the UAE was far more substantive than those signed by Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan, and included reference to a ‘Strategic Agenda for the Middle East’ that was unique to the Emirati-Israeli accord.[56] The strategic and security-focused aspects of the UAE-Israel agreement enabled the normalization process to survive periodic frictions in the political relationship, as security and defence relations took centre-stage in the new initiatives and joint ventures announced by both parties, and neither the UAE nor Bahrain has withdrawn from the Accords although other states have not joined.[57] Both Israel and the UAE, as small states with significant hard power capabilities, have operationalized formal cooperation in the security and defence realm, including a first joint military exercise in the Red Sea in November 2021 which was coordinated by the U.S. Fifth Fleet (stationed in Bahrain), which ‘set a precedent for collective policing at sea to counter weapons-smuggling and threats posed by pirates and the Iranian navy’.[58] In February 2023, a venture between EDGE, an Emirati defence consortium and Israel Aerospace Industries unveiled their first jointly created unmanned naval vessel, for use in surveillance, reconnaissance, and mine detection, during the annual Naval Defence and Maritime Security Exhibition in Abu Dhabi.[59] Sharing of intelligence, reportedly concerning Hezbollah and the Houthi movement in Yemen, also took place, including in the aftermath of three missile and drone strikes on Abu Dhabi in January 2022.[60] Emirati policymakers have continued to engage with the U.S. and other regional and international partners in a series of more focused ‘mini-lateral’ fora, including the 12U2 (with India, Israel, and the U.S.), the Negev Forum (with the U.S. and other Arab states which have normalized relations with Israel), the Somalia Quint (with the U.S., the U.K., Qatar, and Turkey), and the Yemen Quartet (with the U.S., the U.K., and Saudi Arabia).[61] Such issue-based tie-ups outside formal institutions provide opportunities for middle powers such as the UAE to engage with specific partners and have become key elements in the UAE’s evolving approach to regional and foreign affairs, especially in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, areas of increasing focus both for the Gulf States (for economic and energy reasons) and the U.S. (connected to power competition and strategic rivalry with China).[62] How the U.S. and its partners in the Gulf balance (or fail to balance) the competing and sometimes diverging interests vis-à-vis China (and, to an extent, Russia) will go some way toward defining the next phase of political relationships that may still impinge on defence and security ties, as seen in the furore over a possible Chinese naval facility in Abu Dhabi that contributed in part to significant tensions in the bilateral U.S.-UAE relationship in 2021.[63] Shifting Toward a Transactional Approach It may be that the future of relationships between the U.S. and the Gulf States will be based around a set of transactional principles that do not commit or bind the parties to long-term arrangements and represent a more fluid approach to regional affairs. A stronger but narrower technocratic focus on shared areas of interest could help to insulate U.S.-Gulf relationships from the types of political pressures and uncertainties which have generated the perception of drift. However, ‘taking politics out’ of the equation may not be easy to do in practice and could add to layers of mutual misunderstandings or grievance, as with the U.S. pressure on the UAE over its relations with China and Russia, or on Saudi Arabia not to join the expanded BRICS + grouping in 2023 (which the UAE joined but the Saudis have yet to do).[64] Several developments since 2023 provide indications as to how a new configuration of interests could function in a genuinely multipolar landscape. The Saudi-Iran agreement in March 2023 to restore diplomatic relations, which was announced in (and by) China, could be a harbinger of what a more variegated relationship might look like, with greater flexibility to rethink and reorient interests and policies. The Beijing deal appeared to take U.S. officials by surprise, and came in the midst of Beltway speculation about the prospect of Saudi normalization with Israel rather than with Iran.[65] While Saudi and Iranian officials had engaged in multiple prior rounds of talks, beginning in 2021 and facilitated by Iraq and Oman, the decision to obtain Chinese endorsement of the deal was as symbolic as it was significant.[66] China has diplomatic relations with Teheran and Riyadh as well as energy and economic ties in both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and thus could play a balancing role in ways the U.S. simply cannot. Moreover, at a time of rising tension between Iran and the U.S. and Israel, the Chinese backing for the Saudi deal signalled the desire of Beijing and its two regional partners for diplomacy and not conflict.[67] As the Gulf has seen a regional de-escalation of tension since 2021, officials in Gulf States have leveraged what influence they have to contribute to security in different ways. These include mediation, whether in regional conflicts (by Oman and Qatar) or in aspects of the Russia-Ukraine war (by Saudi Arabia and the UAE). Oman’s Foreign Minister since 2020 has been Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, for whom a characteristic of Omani foreign policy has long been that ‘we try to make use of our intermediate position between larger powers to reduce the potential for conflict in our neighbourhood’.[68] Omani officials have kept open indirect channels of dialogue between the U.S. and Iran and also between Saudi and Houthi officials as they continue to seek to reach agreement in Yemen.[69] Qatari mediators engaged intensively with U.S. and Egyptian counterparts to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas in October 2023, in return for a pause in Israeli military operations in Gaza, and reached a fragile three-stage ceasefire agreement in January 2025, one day before the Biden administration gave way to the second Trump presidency.[70] The close Qatari-U.S. coordination over Gaza built upon the confidence in Qatari mediation abilities generated by their role in facilitating and supporting the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul in 2021.[71] Saudi and Emirati officials engaged differently as they sought to leverage their relationships both with the U.S. and Russia to facilitate prisoner exchanges and contribute to confidence-building measures to mitigate the impact of the war in Ukraine. The occasional releases of prisoners may only have amounted to pinpricks in the course of the most serious conflict in Europe since the Second World War, but they illustrate that, for all the political tensions over the Gulf States’ reluctance to be drawn into picking sides in any great power competition, the ability to maintain diverse contacts and balance different relationships is conducive to diplomatic initiatives in a polarized world. The subsequent Saudi centrality to the process of U.S.-Russian re-engagement in Trump’s second term illustrated the Kingdom’s desire to have a seat at the table and burnish its credibility as a diplomatic facilitator, possibly with potential future Iran-U.S. talks in mind, especially after Saudi and Emirati displeasure at being cut out of the JCPOA negotiations in 2015.[72] Attacks on maritime targets in the Red Sea by Houthi militants in Yemen have nevertheless highlighted the delicate balancing act facing Gulf States as the deadliest war between Israelis and Palestinians since 1948 threatens the rapprochement that had marked the conduct of regional politics across the Middle East prior to October 7, 2023. Memories of Houthi missile and drone attacks against Saudi cities and infrastructure targets (between 2015 and 2022) and against Abu Dhabi (in 2022) remain fresh. Especially as Vision 2030 passed its halfway point (having been launched by Mohammed bin Salman in 2016) and the ‘giga-projects’ along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastline move into the construction and delivery phase, ‘de-risking’ has become a priority for the Saudi leadership as they seek to attract foreign investors and visitors.[73] Officials remain mindful of the optics that went around the world during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in March 2022 when the annual Formula One race in Jeddah took place against the backdrop of thick black smoke billowing from a nearby oil storage facility struck by the Houthis the day before.[74] Policy responses to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea which began in November 2023 and triggered a multinational response in January 2024 indicated the careful balancing act at play in the Gulf, especially for Saudi Arabia, given the location of projects such as Neom on the Red Sea coastline. Bahrain was the only GCC state to be named as a participant in Operation Prosperity Guardian, the multi-country coalition which was formed in December 2023 to respond to the maritime attacks. However, Bahrain did not take part in the kinetic ship- and air-based operations and it was notable that the airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen did not involve U.S. or British forces based in the Gulf.[75] Instead, the strikes were launched from bases in Cyprus, the U.K., and the U.S., thereby minimizing the risks to the Gulf States from any blowback either from the Houthis or Iran. Operation Prosperity Guardian may therefore be a harbinger of a more flexible approach to U.S.-GCC relations in which security and defence cooperation continues on a technocratic basis even as there is greater elasticity, and, at times, degrees of divergence in (geo)political interests.[76] The return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office in January 2025, as the first president in 130 years to serve a non-consecutive second term, suggests that U.S. decision-making, in both domestic and foreign policy, will continue along highly transactional, unpredictable, and volatile lines. A move toward a ‘post-American’ order, regionally in the Middle East and in the structure of international politics, is likely to further reshape perceptions and policies. As the Gulf States are neither allies (in the formal sense) nor adversaries of the United States, they occupy a middle ground which may shield them from swings in U.S. policymaking toward these categories of states. It is probable that the assertion of Gulf States’ interests in engaging with Iran, as well as with China and Russia will deepen the divergence of trajectories with the U.S. and increase the likelihood that ties will reframe around a looser and more transactional-based approach. The Gaza war may not have led to a rupture with the U.S., or with Israel, but, coming in parallel with the war in Ukraine, it has intensified the repositioning of the Gulf States in a rapidly changing system of international power. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Footnotes 1. References in this paper to the Russian invasion of Ukraine refer to the full-scale invasion which was launched by Russian forces on February 24, 2022, rather than the invasion and subsequent Russian occupation of areas of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea in 2014. 2. David Kilcullen and Greg Mills, The Ledger: Accounting for Failure in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & Co., 2021), 222–24; Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East (New York: Public Affairs, 2012), 94. 3. Tobias Borck, Seeking Stability Amidst Disorder: The Foreign Policies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, 2010–20 (London: Hurst & Co., 2023), 193. 4. Huw Dylan and Thomas Maguire, ‘Secret Intelligence and Public Diplomacy in the Ukraine War’, Survival 64/4 (September 2022), 34. 5. John Raine, ‘Ukraine versus Gaza’, Survival, 66/1 (February/March 2024), 173–74. 6. Ben Hubbard, ‘Iranian Official Heads to Saudi Arabia as Israel Postpones U.S. Meeting’, New York Times, October 9, 2024. 7. Dania Thafer and David Des Roches, The Arms Trade, Military Services and the Security Market in the Gulf States: Trends and Implications (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2016), 1–7. 8. Bilal Saab, ‘After Hub-and-Spoke: US Hegemony in a New Gulf Security Order’, Atlantic CouncilReport, 2016, 4 9. Tobias Borck, Seeking Stability Amidst Disorder: The Foreign Policies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE andQatar, 2010-20 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 18; Khalifa Al-Suwaidi, The UAE After theArab Spring: Strategy for Survival (London: I.B. Tauris, 2023), 120. 10. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era(London: Hurst & Co., 2011), 40. 11. Katherine Harvey, A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq (London: Hurst & Co., 2021),144–45. 12. David Roberts, Security Politics in the Gulf Monarchies: Continuity amid Change (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2023), 158. 13. Fawaz Gerges, Obama and the Middle East: The End of America’s Moment? (New York: PalgraveMacmillan, 2012), 166–67. 14. William Burns, The Back Channel: American Diplomacy in a Disordered World (London: Hurst & Co.,2019), 361–62; Marc Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (New York:Public Affairs, 2016), 226–28. 15. Thomas Juneau, ‘Iran’s Policy Towards the Houthis in Yemen: A Limited Return on a Modest In-vestment’, International Affairs 92/3 (May 2016), 658. 16. Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘The Obama Doctrine’, The Atlantic, March 10, 2016; Turki al-Faisal Al Saud, ‘Mr.Obama, We Are Not ‘Free Riders’, Arab News, March 14, 2016. 17. Mehran Kamrava, Troubled Waters: Insecurity in the Persian Gulf (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,2018), 71. 18. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Qatar and the Gulf Crisis (London: Hurst & Co., 2020), 77–78. 19. By contrast, the Trump administration did respond on two occasions when U.S. assets were targeted, firstin June 2019 after a U.S. drone was shot down over the Gulf and then in December 2019 after anAmerican contractor was killed in a missile strike on a base in Iraq. 20. Steve Holland and Rania El Gamal, ‘Trump Says He Does Not Want War After Attack on Saudi OilFacilities’, Reuters, September 16, 2019. 21. David Roberts, ‘For Decades, Gulf Leaders Counted on U.S. Protection. Here’s What Changed’,Washington Post, January 30, 2020. 22. Tamara Abueish, ‘Saudi Arabia’s Vice Defense Minister Discusses De-escalation with Esper’, AlArabiya English, January 7, 2020. 23. Anon., ‘Biden Raises Yemen, Human Rights in Call with Saudi King Salman’, Al Jazeera, February 25, 2021. 24. Emile Hokayem, ‘Fraught Relations: Saudi Ambitions and American Anger’, Survival 64/6 (November 2023), 9. 25. David Deudney and John Ikenberry, ‘Misplaced Restraint: The Quincy Coalition Versus Liberal Internationalism’, Survival, 63(4), 2021, 9; Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Theda Skocpol, and Jason Sclar,‘When Political Mega-Donors Join Forces: How the Koch Network and the Democracy Alliance In-fluence Organized US Politics on the Right and Left’, Studies in American Political Development, 32(2),2018, 128. 26. Marika Theros, ‘Knowledge, Power and the Failure of US Peacemaking in Afghanistan 2018–21’,International Affairs, 99(3), 2023, 1249–50. 27. Trine Flockhart, ‘NATO in the Multi-Order World’, International Affairs 100/2 (March 2024), 473. 28. David Ottaway, ‘U.S. Calls for Help – Again – From the Tiny Arab Emirate of Qatar’, Wilson Center,February 2, 2022. 29. Li-Chen Sim, ‘The Gulf States: Beneficiaries of the Russia-Europe Energy War?’, Middle East Institute,January 12, 2023. 30. Marc Lynch, ‘Saudi Oil Cuts and American International Order’, Abu Aardvark’s MENA Academy(Substack), October 9, 2022. 31. Chris Alden, ‘The Global South and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine’, LSE Public Policy Review, 3(1),2023, 2–4. 32. Hazar Kilani, ‘Qatar Investment Authority Holding Onto its Russian Assets for Now’, Doha News,March 2, 2022. 33. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, ‘The GCC and the Russia-Ukraine Crisis’, Arab Center Washington, March 22, 2022. 34. Dion Nissenbaum, Stephen Kalin, and David Cloud, ‘Saudi, Emirati Leaders Decline Calls withPresident Biden during Ukraine Crisis’, Wall St Journal, March 8, 2022. 35. Natalia Savelyeva, ‘Understanding the Russian Exodus to Dubai Following the Ukraine Invasion’, TheRussia Program, George Washington University, May 8, 2024. 36. Anon., ‘Rosneft Elects Qatari Ex-Minister as New Chairman’, Energy Intelligence, July 5, 2023. 37. Mark Colchester, Summer Said, and Stephen Kalin, ‘Boris Johnson Visits U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, SeekingMore Oil’, Wall St Journal, March 16, 2022. 38. Alex Marquardt, Natasha Bertrand, and Phil Mattingly, ‘Inside the White House’s Failed Effort toDissuade OPEC from Cutting Oil Production to Avoid a “Total Disaster”’, CNN, October 5, 2022;Anders Hagstrom, ‘Saudis Say Biden Admin Requested Oil Production Cut to Come After Midterms’,Fox News, October 13, 2022. 39. Elham Fakhro, The Abraham Accords: The Gulf States, Israel, and the Limits of Normalization (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2024), 220. 40. Stacie Goddard, ‘Legitimation and Hypocrisy in Gaza: Implications for the LIO’, in Marc Lynch (ed.),Debating American Primacy in the Middle East, POMEPS Studies 54, 2024, 47. 41. Mostafa Salem, ‘Saudi Crown Prince Accuses Israel of Committing “Collective Genocide” in Gaza’,CNN, November 13, 2024. 42. Peter Aitken, ‘Bret Baier Interviews Saudi Prince: Israel Peace, 9/11 Ties, Iran Nuke Fears’, Fox News,September 20, 2023. 43. Giorgio Cafiero, ‘Gaza War Undermines Oman’s Role as Bridge in a Conflict-Ridden Middle East’,Stimson Commentary, August 26, 2024. 44. Dania Thafer, ‘Palestinian Statehood Tops GCC Security Agenda as Diplomatic Struggles Persist’,Middle East Council on Global Affairs, October 7, 2024. 45. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, ‘Saudi Plans to “De-Risk” Region Have Taken a Hit with Gaza Violence – butHitting Pause on Normalization with Israel Will Buy Kingdom Time’, The Conversation, October 18, 2023. 46. Anon., ‘Fact Sheet: Implementation of the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Strategic Partnership’, TheWhite House, Office of the Press Secretary, April 21, 2016. 47. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, ‘What Next for the Middle East Strategic Alliance?’, Arab Digest, October 29, 2020. 48. Barak Ravid, ‘Senior U.S. Delegation in Saudi Arabia for Talks with GCC’, Axios, February 15, 2023. 49. Anon., ‘US Leads Gulf Partners in 18-day Naval Exercise’, Gulf States Newsletter, 47/1166, March 23,2023, 11. 50. Anon., ‘China and Russia Join Iranian Exercise at Sea’, Gulf States Newsletter, 47/1166, March 23,2023, 10. 51. Melissa Horvath, ‘Is Red Sands the Future of Middle East Defence Cooperation?’, Middle East Institute,October 4, 2022. 52. Anon., ‘U.S. and Saudi Arabia Conduct Combined Counter-UAS Exercise’, U.S. Central Command press release, September 14, 2023. 53. Bilal Saab, ‘The Other Saudi Transformation’, Middle East Policy 29/2 (Summer 2022), 27–28. 54. Kristian Alexander and Giorgio Cafiero, ‘Biden’s Realpolitik Approach: Analyzing the C-SIPAAgreement with Bahrain’, Gulf International Forum, October 29, 2023. 55. William Roebuck, ‘Bahrain Sets the Pace for Enhanced Gulf Security Cooperation with the UnitedStates’, Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, September 27, 2023; Anon., ‘The UK’s Accession to the Bahrain-US Security Agreement’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Comment,February 2025. 56. Sanam Vakil and Neil Quilliam, ‘The Abraham Accords and Israel-UAE Normalization: Shaping a NewMiddle East’, Chatham House Research Paper, March 2023, 5. 57. UAE officials expressed their reservations about Netanyahu’s perceived attempts to leverage the normalization agreement in his 2021 campaign by downplaying suggestions of a visit by Netanyahu asPrime Minister to the UAE, and again after Netanyahu returned to office and announced that his first foreign visit would be to the UAE, choosing instead to receive other Israeli political leaders rather thanNetanyahu himself. 58. Vakil and Quilliam, ‘The Abraham Accords and Israel-UAE Normalization: Shaping a New MiddleEast’, (March 2023), 29. 59. Anon., ‘UAE, Israel Unveil Joint Naval Vessel as Military Ties Grow’, AFP, February 20, 2023. 60. Jean-Loup Samaan, ‘The Shift That Wasn’t: Misreading the UAE’s New “Zero-Problem” Policy’,Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sada blog, February 8, 2022. 61. Nickolay Mladenov, ‘Minilateralism: A Concept That is Changing the World Order’, The WashingtonInstitute for Near East Policy, April 14, 2023. 62. Husain Haqqani and Narayanappa Janardhan, ‘The Minilateral Era’, Foreign Policy, January 10, 2023. 63. Gordon Lubold and Warren Strobel, ‘Secret Chinese Port in Persian Gulf Rattles U.S. Relations withU.A.E.’, Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2021; Warren Strobel, ‘U.A.E. Shut Down China FacilityUnder U.S. Pressure, Emirates Says’, Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2021; John Hudson, EllenNakashima, and Liz Sly, ‘Buildup Resumed at Suspected Chinese Military Site in UAE, Leak Says’,Washington Post, April 26, 2023. 64. Sam Fleming, Henry Foy, Felicia Schwartz, James Politi, and Simeon Kerr, ‘West Presses UAE to ClampDown on Suspected Russia Sanctions Busting’, Financial Times, March 1, 2023. 65. Dion Nissenbaum, Dov Lieber, and Stephen Kalin, ‘Saudi Arabia Seeks Pledges, Nuclear Help for Peacewith Israel’, Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2023; Michael Crowley, Vivian Nereim, and Patrick Kingsley,‘Saudi Arabia Offers its Price to Normalize Relations with Israel’, New York Times, March 9, 2023. 66. Anon., ‘Great Expectations: The Future of Iranian-Saudi D´etente’, International Crisis Group, June13, 2024. 67. Amrita Jash, ‘Saudi-Iran Deal: A Test Case of China’s Role as an International Mediator’, GeorgetownJournal of International Affairs, June 23, 2023. 68. Badr bin Hamad Al Bu Said, ‘“Small States” Diplomacy in the Age of Globalization: An OmaniPerspective’, in Gerd Nonneman (ed.), Analyzing Middle East Foreign Policies and the Relationshipwith Europe (London: Routledge, 2005), 258. 69. Giorgio Cafiero, ‘Oman Keeps Trying to Dial Down Tensions in the Middle East’, Stimson Centre,February 2, 2024. 70. Samy Magdy, Adam Geller, and Aamer Madhani, ‘To Secure Gaza Ceasefire, Dealmakers OvercameEnemies’ Deep Distrust’, Associated Press, January 22, 2025. 71. Mirdef Alqashouti, ‘Qatar Mediation: From Soft Diplomacy to Foreign Policy’, in Mahjoob Zweiri andFarah Al Qawasmi (eds.), Contemporary Qatar: Examining State and Society (Singapore: Springer,2023), 73. 72. Diana Galeeva, ‘Saudi Arabia as a Global Mediator: From the Ukraine to Gaza War’, Menara Magazine,March 24, 2025. 73. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, ‘Saudi-Israeli Normalization and the Hamas Attack’, Arab Center Wash-ington, October 11, 2023. 74. Ben Church, ‘F1 Organizers Insist Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Will Go Ahead Despite Houthi Attack onNearby Oil Facility’, CNN, March 26, 2022. 75. Ahdeya Ahmed Al-Sayed, ‘Better Late than Never: Bahrain’s Attitude Towards the Red Sea DefenseCoalition’, The Washington Institute, Fikra Forum, December 29, 2023. 76. Nikolay Kozhanov, ‘Why Gulf Arab States Are Not Intervening in the Red Sea’, Amwaj Media, February27, 2024.

Energy & Economics
Antipolo City, Philippines - June 1, 2020: RIder use motorcycle to deliver multiple tanks of LPG or liquified petroleum gas to a customer..

Philippines bets on natural gas to accelerate renewable energy

by Gaea Katreena Cabico

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Climate campaigners label law paving way for natural gas promotion an “insult” as fishers warn of environmental devastation Wilma Abanel is worried about falling fish numbers in the waters she has long relied upon for a living. The Verde Island Passage is a biodiversity hotspot off the coast of Luzon Island in the Philippines. Abanel attributes the decline in the passage to the growing number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, which she says are damaging marine sanctuaries. “In the past, before the plants were built, our catches were plentiful and we didn’t worry about our daily expenses. We also had no problems sending our children to school,” Abanel said. “But when these plants started to increase, we faced a big problem because it’s not just our livelihood and income that are affected here. More than anything, it’s the destruction of the environment and the impact on our health,” she added. LNG is a natural gas that has been cooled into a liquid that is easier and safer to store and transport over long distances. Once LNG arrives at import terminals, it is warmed up and converted back into gas. From there, the gas is sent through pipelines to homes or power plants, where it is burned to generate electricity. In early January, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr signed the Philippine Natural Gas Industry Development Act, to promote the development of the country’ natural gas as a “safe, efficient, and cost-effective” fuel for power plants and an “indispensable contributor” to energy security. The new law aims to promote natural gas as a “transition” fuel to intermittent renewable energy. Through the measure, the Philippines is not only positioning itself as a key LNG importer but also prioritising locally sourced gas to reduce reliance on foreign supply. Senator Pia Cayetano, who authored the law, explained that securing a steadier local supply would reduce the country’s vulnerability to price fluctuations caused by geopolitical conflicts like Russia’s war in Ukraine. She pointed out that natural gas exploration has declined significantly over the decades. More than 150 wells were drilled in the Philippines in the 1970s, but none have been since 2019, she said. The exploration efforts of Philippine petroleum company PXP Energy Corp, in Reed Bank, a resource-rich area in the West Philippine Sea, have been stalled for years due to a maritime dispute with China, which claims the area as its own. Since 2001, the Malampaya gas field off the western province of Palawan has been providing fuel to power plants that produce roughly a fifth of the country’s electricity. It is expected to run dry by 2027, forcing the Philippines to seek alternative energy sources.  “Malampaya was supposed to be the first of many producing gas fields in the Philippines, but it turned out to be the only one,” Cayetano said in a release. “The country needs more Malampayas: we barely have one left.” However, energy analysts and environmental advocates argue that doubling down on natural gas could still force the country to depend on fossil fuels and further delay the transition to clean energy. Krishna Ariola, an energy campaigner with the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, a Philippine think-tank, said: “The [law] is a clear indicator that this is a detour from what was committed by the president with regards to renewable-energy commitments in his previous State of the Nation Addresses. This just looks like a bridge to nowhere.” In his previous addresses, Marcos said the government is actively promoting renewable energy to help the Philippines reach its goal of increasing the share of clean energy in the power mix to 35% by 2030 and 50% by 2040. Problem, not solution The role of natural gas in powering the Philippines is “driving this idea that we need to quickly replace” domestically produced natural gas with LNG,” said Sam Reynolds, an energy finance analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). Although burning natural gas releases considerably less carbon dioxide than coal or oil, critics point out that it remains a major source of planet-warming emissions. It can also release methane, a greenhouse gas more than 10 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, during extraction, transport and processing. Relying on LNG can also lock nations into long-term fossil-fuel infrastructure like import terminals and gas-fired power plants. To limit warming to 1.5C, the world needs to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, including LNG, and fully transition to renewables, scientists stress. Verde Island Passage, where Abanel fishes, hosts five of the six operating gas plants in the Philippines, along with two LNG terminals, and over a dozen other proposed projects. The passage is situated in the Coral Triangle, a region spanning six countries in Southeast Asia and Melanesia that harbours 76% of the world’s known coral species and over 2,000 species of coral reef fish. There are 19 LNG terminals in the Coral Triangle. A report by US nonprofits Earth Insight and SkyTruth warned that expanding gas infrastructure increases the risk of harm from water pollution, heightened shipping traffic, and oil spills, all of which threaten marine ecosystems and local livelihoods. According to the report, over 100 offshore oil and gas blocks are currently producing in the Coral Triangle, with over 450 additional blocks being explored for future extraction. If all existing blocks were to go into production, approximately 16% of the biodiverse region would be directly impacted by oil and gas development. “The Philippines has the second-highest number of oil slicks from transiting vessels in the Coral Triangle. With a large amount of oil and gas blocks in the exploration phase, there is still an opportunity to change course and defend its many sensitive habitats,” the report noted. Under the new legislation, the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is ordered to establish national standards for methane emissions and other pollutants from the natural gas industry not regulated by existing laws. The DENR must also determine and monitor compliance with the environmental standards for the siting, construction, operation and maintenance, expansion, rehabilitation, decommissioning, and abandonment of natural gas facilities. The path from fossil fuels On the day he returned to the White House, Donald Trump lifted a freeze on processing export permits for new LNG projects. IEEFA’s Reynolds said the move’s impact on the Philippines would be minimal, but would add to the “volatility of LNG even more”. “We’re already seeing that play out with China. LNG becomes the target of trade bullying and retaliation, and it creates, overall, a much more uncertain environment,” said Reynolds. “I think that’s going to be very important for the Philippines to consider. Much of its LNG is coming from the United States but to what extent does Trump even exacerbate some of the challenges that the fuel was already facing?” he added. China is the world’s largest buyer of LNG, while the US is the largest exporter. But China has not imported any LNG from the US since February when Trump announced tariffs on the country, reports Nikkei Asia. Many US LNG contracts are set to begin in the coming years but much of this supply may not reach China due to the tariffs, said Reynolds. So Reynolds thinks China will resell increasing volumes of the US LNG they are contracted to buy. “I think that could drive a larger push into Southeast Asia on behalf of Chinese traders.” China National Offshore Oil Corp, the largest offshore oil and gas producer in China, is already supplying LNG to Filipino energy provider First Gen Corporation. As the world warms and the Philippines continues to face devastating climate disasters, gas should have no place in the country’s energy future, environmentalists and clean energy advocates argue. They say the Philippines, one of the most climate-vulnerable nations, must instead prioritise renewable energy. The timing of the law’s passage “can almost be interpreted as an insult to the many who have suffered and continue to suffer from recent climate disasters,” said Jefferson Chua, campaigner at Greenpeace Philippines, referring to the six consecutive tropical cyclones that hit the country in late October and November 2024. “The president must use his significant influence to reverse this decision and improve the policy and infrastructure environment for renewable energy. His administration must mandate a net-zero target that would ensure the phase out of coal, oil and gas and start enabling the transition of energy systems towards a massive uptake of renewables,” he added. CEED’s Ariola said renewable energy should be the country’s “exit plan” from fossil-fuel dependence. “Without the Philippine government tapping our massive potential for renewable energy, we will always be in a revolving door with fossil fuels,” she said. “The industry will keep going back between coal and gas and probably, in the future, other false solutions, unless we’re able to displace them. Unless we allow renewable energy to become dominant.” Abanel, the fisher from Batangas, could only plead for the gas infrastructures in her community to cease operation and for the government to protect Verde Island Passage. “The life of Verde Island Passage is intertwined with our survival. If it gets destroyed, we’ll have nothing left,” she said. This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

Diplomacy
Ursula von der Leyen & Emmanuel Macron - Choose Europe for Science event at La Sorbonne - 2025

Opinion – European Credibility and the Illusion of Normative Power

by Joseph Black

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском On 30 May 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore – Asia’s premier security summit – and his comments were unusually blunt. He warned that the West – Europe and the US – risk losing credibility over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and unless these conflicts are resolved with integrity and consistency, the broader rules-based international order and Europe’s place in it will unravel. Macron’s concern wasn’t just about the tactical consequences of geopolitical instability, but something deeper: the symbolic and normative weight Europe claims to carry in global affairs. His comments mark a turning point, one that exposes the crisis of coherence at the heart of the European Union’s foreign policy – and the growing tension between the EU’s aspirational identity as a “normative power” and the harsh realities of a world governed by realpolitik. For over two decades, the EU has presented itself as a values-based actor, using diplomacy, development aid, legal harmonisation and multilateralism rather than coercion to wield influence. The concept of the EU as a “normative power” – famously coined by Ian Manners – is based on the idea that Europe seeks to shape global affairs by promoting norms such as human rights, democracy and international law. But the simultaneous occurrence of two deeply symbolic and contested wars – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – makes it increasingly hard for the EU to maintain this self-image without being accused of hypocrisy and selective morality. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the gap between Europe’s response to Ukraine and Gaza. In Ukraine, the EU has mounted one of the largest and most united responses in its history: military aid, sanctions, diplomatic isolation of Russia and open arms for Ukrainian refugees. In Gaza, the response has been fragmented, inconsistent and – by many accounts – morally ambiguous. Some European states like Ireland and Spain have called for recognition of Palestinian statehood and condemned Israeli actions, others have hesitated or doubled down on support for Israel in the name of counterterrorism and alliance politics. This has not gone unnoticed in the Global South, where Europe’s normative claims are increasingly seen as hollow, if not ridiculous. Macron’s talk of credibility reflects an elite awareness that Europe’s legitimacy is no longer taken for granted outside its borders. The credibility crisis he describes is not just about diplomacy – it’s about identity. If the EU says territorial integrity is sacred in Ukraine, how can it do nothing when the same principles are being flouted elsewhere? If the Union says human rights are universal, can it be silent – or ambiguous – on the civilian casualties in Gaza? These are not questions asked by foreign policy analysts; they are asked in international forums, in Asian capitals courted by Brussels and in the protests that fill European streets. The more the EU fails to match its words with its actions, the more its normative brand erodes. But there’s another layer to Macron’s intervention that needs to be looked at. His comments on “strategic autonomy” and not being caught in the crossfire of the US-China rivalry suggest Europe is dealing with more than just a credibility crisis. It’s facing a strategic choice that will redefine its global role: whether to double down on the postwar transatlantic compact or to chart a more independent course that allows it to mediate between blocs in a multipolar world. Macron’s consistent advocacy of strategic autonomy (however controversial) means he recognises the EU can’t outsource its geopolitical relevance to Washington indefinitely, especially with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. This dilemma is made worse by the structural weaknesses within the EU itself. The Union’s foreign policy is crippled by institutional fragmentation, national interests and a consensus-based decision-making process that often leads to lowest-common-denominator positions. While the EU was impressive in its initial unity on Ukraine, the Gaza crisis has shown the limits of that unity when values collide with political alliances or domestic political considerations. This is not just a crisis of perception but of capacity. Can the EU actually be a geopolitical player when its member states can’t even agree on what is legitimate force, occupation or humanitarian necessity? The illusion of normative power, then, is not just an external branding problem – it is an internal governance challenge. For Europe to maintain credibility abroad, it must first reconcile its internal contradictions. That means rethinking the balance between values and interests, between ideals and strategic imperatives. It may also require a degree of institutional boldness: deeper integration in foreign and security policy, a greater role for the High Representative, or a shift toward qualified majority voting in foreign affairs. At the same time, Europe must also acknowledge the changing global landscape in which it seeks to operate. In a world no longer dominated by Western hegemony, the EU’s normative influence depends not only on its coherence but on its ability to listen and engage with actors in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as equals rather than as recipients of European lectures. Macron’s call for a “positive new alliance” between Europe and Asia, one that resists domination by any superpower, hints at a potential path forward. But such an alliance will only be credible if Europe demonstrates that it is willing to apply its principles even when inconvenient—especially when those principles are tested not just by adversaries but by allies. In the end, Macron’s speech serves as a mirror held up to the European project itself. It reflects both its aspirations and its anxieties, its potential and its paradoxes. Whether Europe can move beyond this moment of crisis to forge a foreign policy that is both principled and strategic remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that credibility cannot be commanded—it must be earned. And in an era of increasing global scrutiny, that will require more than rhetoric. It will require resolve. The text of this work is licensed under  a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

Defense & Security
ISS052-E-37828 - View of Earth

Space in the international relations of Asia: a guide to technology, security, and diplomacy in a strategic domain

by Saadia M. Pekkanen

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском ABSTRACT This essay brings space into the international relations of Asia. It orients readers to three unfolding trends that are shaping the evolution of the new space race at present – democratization, commercialization, and militarization (DCM). It surveys how these trends reflect, illuminate, or are connected to the theory and practice of international relations (IR) both in global and regional settings in Asia. Where possible, it brings in the space activities of the main independent and autonomous space powers in Asia – China, Japan, India, South Korea, North Korea – and probes what their activities signify for international and regional politics. It ends with some thematic takeaways for space policy, strategy, and diplomacy. Space is a strategic domain, meaning that its uses cut across civilian and military realities and will therefore long remain of vital interest to all states. Since its inception, space has drawn significant and long-standing attention in the fields of law and policy. Lawyers, legal scholars, diplomats, and policy analysts have covered the rise and interpretation of the space law regime in place today, which is centered on a set of space treaties, resolutions, and organized multilateral activities.Footnote1 Thanks to these efforts we have a good understanding of governance frameworks, the challenges they face, and how they may play out in constructing the peaceful uses of outer space. But studies that bring international relations (IR) theory and practice to bear on outer space affairs are far fewer in comparison to the voluminous law and policy literature. While IR scholars have generated works related to other emerging technologies, such as drones, cyberweapons, and artificial intelligence, space generally still remains understudied.Footnote2 This is surprising as the critical infrastructure of space anchors modern economies, militaries, and societies in a way no other technology does. It lies at the intersection of virtually all political, economic, and social forces that have been and will remain of concern to states. The space domain is not aloof from the “harsher realities of politics;”Footnote3 and, in fact, continues to reflect almost every feature of global politics in play – ideology, nationalism, aid, integration, division, and security, for example.Footnote4 Using the lens of states and their national interests, this symposium is among the first comprehensive efforts to combine IR perspectives, space studies, and the history, politics, and economics of Asia – a region with the most dynamic, ambitious, and competent sovereign space powers today. Alongside China, Japan, India, and North Korea, South Korea has risen rapidly as another determined player that is leveraging its industrial capabilities, alliances, and networks to position itself in the unfolding competition of the new space race. Australia and New Zealand, and other countries in South and Southeast Asia have also long been marked with emerging space activities and ambitions.Footnote5 These developments come at a time when both the United States and China are leading two different space regimes that extend beyond territorial matters to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and celestial bodies.Footnote6 What states are doing in the IR of space, who with, why, and how affects prospects for war and peace. One indication of the importance of space nested in the contemporary geopolitical flux is reflected in The Camp David Joint Statement from August 2023, in which the U.S., South Korea, and Japan seek to enhance trilateral dialogues on space security.Footnote7 This essay guides readers to developments in the space domain, and the ways they connect to the theory and practice of IR. The first part interrogates the idea of the IR of space at the broadest level, and sets out the three principal trends that are shaping its evolution today – democratization, commercialization, and militarization (DCM). The second part then turns to asking where Asia fits in this tapestry, drawing on the intellectual lineage of key debates in the field as well as the findings from this symposium. The third part extracts some thematic takeaways that are likely to be of interest to makers of space policy, strategy, and diplomacy. What is the International Relations of Space? Space has always been – and will long remain – couched in IR theory that is centrally concerned with alternative explanations about competition and cooperation.Footnote8 The paradigmatic or theoretical approach analysts bring to space – such as realism, liberalism, constructivism, and so on – has consequences for relations among and within states.Footnote9 Political scientists are increasingly interested in the theory and practice of the IR of space, and in understanding the implications for real-world collaboration, competition, leadership, and diplomacy.Footnote10 This section provides a guide to the principal actors and the trends of the new space race in which they seek to position. The State in the International Relations of Space For the foreseeable future, outer space affairs will remain rooted in the geopolitics on Earth, and this will necessitate a focus on the makers of policy, strategy, and diplomacy. Nothing about this is new. Space could not escape the “political rivalries of this world” in the old space race; and the idea that U.S. leaders may well have had no option from the late 1950s onwards but to “allow for all possibilities by speaking of idealism and acting with realism” speaks with equal force to the complexities of decision-making in the present space race.Footnote11 The IR of space is about actors, their motivations, and the consequences of their actions for stability in, through, and at the nexus of space. This general framing of the IR of space draws attention away from unproductive and narrow theoretical debates, encourages analytical eclecticism, and privileges a pragmatic, policy-relevant, and problem-focused approach.Footnote12 Further, the approach locates actions and agency in known circumstances, remains deeply attentive to both material and ideational processes over time, is mindful of situational idiosyncrasies, and in sync with the inevitable ups and downs of geopolitics. Frankly, this kind of eclectic pragmatism is necessary in a dynamic domain in which scholars and practitioners want to grapple with visible challenges that need real-world solutions. As in other areas, a focus on states allows us to capture the “deeper political foundations, trajectory, centrality, and implications”Footnote13 of newer developments that can be consequential for the theory and practice of IR. Even when theoreticians are supportive of, opposed to, or merely agnostic about states as a unit of analysis, almost all of them have to grapple with interactive state actions at both the domestic and international levels.Footnote14 The idea of space policy analysis, which draws attention to sub-state actors and drivers of decision-making while crisscrossing levels of analysis, certainly enriches our understanding of major players beyond the West.Footnote15 But in many emerging space countries, and especially in the IR of Asia, the state remains the gatekeeper to the domestic-international nexus. Focusing on states also induces an equality in the IR of space, as many developing and emerging countries do not have the numerous legal, commercial, and nonprofit actors from the advanced industrial world who seek to influence outcomes across international forums and processes. This state-centricism is especially relevant in the strategic space domain − 95% of which comprises dual-use space technologies.Footnote16 In it, states are proactively seeking to position their countries vis-à-vis others because its very duality promises both civilian and military benefits. This reality is reinforced by the present legal space regime, which privileges the role of states as a matter of public international law. As on Earth so also for space, it is ultimately states that back and consume innovative space technologies, design strategies and policies, and construct or scuttle governance in line with their political and economic interests.Footnote17 None of this is to suggest that states are the only actors in the space domain, or that their preferences magically prevail in all matters of policy, strategy, or diplomacy. Rather, at the end of the day, it is states that possess both the ultimate and final authority over their citizens, thus regulating how this collective interacts with its counterparts.Footnote18 The Key Trends Shaping the IR of Space The new space race demands as well a new way of seeing the whole picture, which balances its principal trends without privileging any one of them. All states are presently navigating the intersections of three deeply intertwined trends in the new space race that pose novel questions and challenges for their own security – democratization, commercialization, and the slide from militarization to outright weaponization (DCM).Footnote19 While these trends may be analytically distinct, they are in reality fluid, nonlinear, and synergistic. They are interwoven into the fabric of the IR of space today, and if a problem-focused approach is to lend itself to real-world solutions it is meaningless to talk about strategy or policy concerning one or another in isolation. This has implications for IR theory more generally. A plethora of well-debated approaches, concepts, and constructs mark its two main subfields of international security and international political economy across all regions of the world – war, peace, balance of power, industrial policy, interdependence, governance, norms, diplomacy, for example. These theoretical constructs have to reconcile with the complexities of DCM. Doing so prevents hyperbole about a “knowable and certain future” for organizations, societies, and soldiers with stakes in space.Footnote20 It encourages vigilance about the commercialization-militarization axis fueling gray-zone ventures in space, where a commercial space actor operating for a rival could do what previously was the realm of only government military operations.Footnote21 It prevents naïve thinking that space commerce is unrelated to defense, or that private assets cannot become legitimate military targets in the fog of war.Footnote22 When it comes time to pass United Nations resolutions backed by a leading space power that can govern prospects for space safety how old and new actors in space align diplomatically on a normative basis is affected by their industrial and political interests in the context of DCM.Footnote23 The high-profile return of industrial policy in the U.S. stretches to the space industrial base, and includes efforts to strengthen the resilience of its supply chains with commercial space players and nongovernmental actors.Footnote24 As an analytical rubric, the trends in the DCM triumvirate, fleshed out below, help states see the many moving and equally important parts of the new space race, connect actions and technologies involving their counterparts spread around the world, and build a far more balanced awareness of the policies and strategies necessary to advance their own interests amid all the dynamism. The triumvirate, in short, is a powerful conceptual reminder for all states that “the church of strategy must be a broad one” in the space domain.Footnote25 One trend of the triumvirate stems from changes in manufacturing and accessibility, which have opened up — or “democratized” — the space domain to newcomers. Many of the newer state entrants have created space agencies, written national space legislation, targeted specific manufacturing or regulatory niches, and signed agreements with international partners and private companies. Alongside the rising number of nation-states, this democratization draw in nongovernmental entrants such as commercial startups, activist billionaires, criminal syndicates, and so on who could aid or thwart government objectives.Footnote26 New actors continue to proliferate across all regions and continents, with activities that crisscross the public and private spheres and that affect prospects for transnational collaboration in myriad ways. The year 2023 is illustrative of democratization in practice. In mid August, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station (ISS).Footnote27 This was the seventh crew rotation mission by SpaceX, a private U.S. company, and it carried four civilian agency astronauts from America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. In its previous mission to the ISS, SpaceX flew NASA astronauts, along with those from Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Earlier in May, SpaceX used its Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to launch an all-private astronaut mission to the ISS for a company called Axiom Space, which aims to build the world’s first commercial space station; it then carried passengers from the United States as well as both a male and female astronaut from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Footnote28 Democratization extends to the moon. With India’s successful soft-landing on the moon in August, yet another Asian country after China now holds the distinction of being on the lunar surface.Footnote29 Private actors in Asia are also part of the tapestry. While a lunar lander attempt by a private Japanese company, ispace, was not successful in April, the company is persevering with bringing both governments and private payloads to the moon.Footnote30 More foundational for the purposes of enabling certainty for commercial transactions are some of the steps ispace took prior to the launch. It was granted a license by the Japanese government to engage in an “in-place” property transfer of ownership of lunar regolith to NASA. All these developments represent a dramatically varied landscape, which also raises challenges for building meaningful consensus in the years ahead.Footnote31 A second trend in the triumvirate is commercialization, driven by a whole new generation of space entrepreneurs. Chief among their unprecedented innovations are reusable rocketry and mega-constellations of satellites, driven by so-called newspace corporations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Amazon, Planet, ICEYE, Blacksky, Axelspace, and Synspective. Together these companies have not only changed prospects for frequent and cheaper access to space, but they have also changed the geospatial view of virtually all human activities on the planet, whether on land or the oceans.Footnote32 These newer entrants present competition for more established players like Boeing, Arianespace, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui, and Thales Alenia, for example. All these corporations seek profitable niches in the global space economy, which one estimate puts at a minimum of $384 billion in 2022 and others put higher.Footnote33 Notably, the present satellite industry accounts for over 70% of the space economy. This indicates a “space-for-earth” economy, meaning space goods and services with direct use on Earth such as telecommunications and internet infrastructure, Earth observation satellites, military satellites, and so on.Footnote34 This reality accounted for 95% of the revenues earned in the space sector in 2019. Given the dependence of the global economy on space-based assets, some argue the commercial peace thesis may stay the hand of space-related conflict.Footnote35 This is good news also if the space market grows, as projected, to between $1.1 trillion and $2.7 trillion by the 2040s.Footnote36 But there is a healthy debate about what else may be scalable beyond just the satellite-enabled communications infrastructure that sustains the space economy at present. Further, despite all the rosy projections about the space economy, there is little information about which of the venture-backed private newspace entrants is or likely to be profitable anytime soon. After over two decades of operation, it is only recently that SpaceX, which leads with its rocket launches and internet-satellite business, has reported it generated $55 million in profits on $1.5 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2023.Footnote37 In the non-satellite segment of the space economy, the search for new markets and customers certainty continues worldwide. But government budgets will matter to the survivability of many innovative technologies, products, and services where market prospects are nascent, emerging, or just plain uncertain. These include, for example, commercial human spaceflight, space stations, lunar landers and habitats, and space resources mining. The total governmental budgets for space programs worldwide is estimated to be between $92.4 billion to $107 billion.Footnote38 The U.S. government leads the world with the largest institutional budget at around $55 billion; setting aside the collective European budget at $14 billion, the single-country budgets that successively follow the U.S. are China (speculatively, $10 billion), Japan (over $4 billion), Russia ($3.5 billion), and India ($1.96 billion). More generally, the presence of government actors alerts us to a range of theoretical political economy considerations that cut across geopolitics and geoeconomics in the space domainFootnote39: the logic of state-centricism in and out of Asia in fostering innovation, the multifaceted drivers of space commercialization and privatization around the world, and the newspace business hype that needs to be reconciled with the dynamics of state interests in economic-security linkages. A final trend in the DCM triumvirate is militarization sliding into weaponization of a dual-use technology. But we may be returning to the historical roots of space technology because what we now think of as dual-use originated as military first.Footnote40 From rockets to satellites to missile defense, civilian and commercial space technologies can be morphed to serve military or national security ends. A state’s military space power can be measured not just by total space expenditures but also latent capabilities in existing commercial architecture.Footnote41 Many actors can access, or collaboratively develop, a wide spectrum of military capabilities while professing to pursue worthy civilian and commercial goals, such as launching rockets, enabling satellite communication, expanding Earth observation, developing GPS capabilities, or servicing malfunctioning satellites. These activities can be legitimized as peaceful and defensive, but their uses can also be converted to offensive purposes. As more actors join space activities and as commercial players spread space products and technologies around the world, the ambiguities of dual-use space technologies make it more and more difficult to distinguish a space asset from a weapon, or space control operations as defensive or offensive. This melding of the commercialization-militarization axis means that many advanced, emerging, and disruptive technologies that are significant for defense applications and for potentially gaining an edge over rivals are couched in commercial rather than military-industrial complexes; these technologies and capabilities are also spread unevenly across geopolitical lines.Footnote42 Depending on their financial and organizational capacities to adopt innovations, states may well face risky scenarios in an international system out of tune with power realities in which the actual balance of power diverges sharply from the distribution of benefits.Footnote43 Further, the problem is that all space assets are equally vulnerable to a range of both kinetic and non-kinetic threats, which can go from an irreversible missile hit to temporarily disabling electronic and cyber attacks on a space asset.Footnote44 Since it is hard to separate military and civilian space services, accidental or purposeful actions against those used by the military would inevitably also affect those used by civilian and commercial stakeholders. Protecting access to space and safeguarding operations within space are, therefore, a vital interest for all states interested in space for national advancement. Unfortunately, no orbit is safe or secure. This is especially concerning for the United States, which is the world’s most space-dependent power, and whose nuclear command-and-control operations worldwide rely on space assets. As of January 2023, roughly 67% of all operating satellites belonged to the U.S., with a significant part of them commercial.Footnote45 This dependence will only grow as U.S.-led mega constellations, as well as other in-space activities, proliferate. Accidents can happen, and this specter is rising as orbits become more and more crowded with civil, commercial, and military activities.Footnote46 Orbital debris, big and tiny leftovers from decades of space activities that whiz around at lethal speeds, already represent known hazards. The ISS often has to maneuver to get out of the way, and functioning satellites are also vulnerable. Satellites can collide accidentally, degrading or ending their operations; human beings can die. But it is the menace of purposeful and deliberate targeting of the space-enabled infrastructure that cannot be ruled out in the geopolitical turmoil today. There is an intensifying strategic competition between the U.S. and its allies, China, and Russia over the making of a new world order.Footnote47 This means also that there are ample incentives for U.S. adversaries to deny the heavily space-dependent United States use of its space assets in peacetime or wartime under cover of dual-use ambiguities; there are also incentives for the U.S. and its allies to do the reverse to adversaries.Footnote48 In all likelihood, every country would suffer under such scenarios, but the heavily space-dependent U.S. would suffer most. Kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) tests have already been carried out by some of the top spacefaring powers – China (2007), the U.S. (2008), India (2019), and Russia (2021) – and have led to a U.S. declaration to ban them.Footnote49 In the non-kinetic realm, cyber attacks are a looming realistic threat for satellites and other space assets just as they for any another digitized critical infrastructure.Footnote50 Many key U.S. allies, such as Japan and Korea as well as members of NATO, see the same threats and, with extended deterrence in mind, have begun working closely with the U.S. to reshape security architectures and postures in the space domain. The war in Ukraine has also changed perceptions worldwide about the safety of the critical infrastructure of space, with Russia’s electronic and cyberattacks targeting satellite systems.Footnote51 Both the U.S. and its allies also understand that targeting U.S. space assets affects the great power status of the U.S. – the basis for its hard and soft power – which is why space will long remain a national and international imperative. Space is also pivotal because it is at the intersection of virtually all emerging and disruptive technology frontiers, such as AI, quantum computing, and cyber weapons, which can potentially affect a country’s military edge over others.Footnote52 One indication of the importance of U.S. space systems to the government for critical national and homeland security functions is reflected in institutional budgets. Worldwide, in 2021, an estimate is that civilian budgets were around $54 billion and military budgets at about $38 billion.Footnote53 The United States stands out relative to the rest of the world, irrespective of the actual size of these budgets, accounting for just under 60% of all government expenditures on space program on a global basis. The U.S. military space budget is estimated to be between roughly $30–34 billion dollars, significantly higher than its civilian budget at around $25–26 billion. With the formation of the U.S. Space Force, and the perceived growing threat to space, these patterns are unlikely to shift and will affect the evolution of U.S.-led space security architectures worldwide. Beyond orbital regimes, there are also concerns about celestial bodies, which include the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids. The moon has become a prestigious prize. There is a race to put the next humans and outposts on it. While every state wants to be a space nation and to benefit from space-enabled prosperity and security all the way to the moon the simple point is that not all of them can be in the elite club of states who have the will and capabilities to do just that.Footnote54 Collaboration too is likely to remain divisive in the new lunar space race, whether intentional or not.Footnote55 54 countries have already signed the Artemis Accords led by the U.S. since 2020, which contain principles outlining civil exploration in space that are heralded for their openness, transparency, and predictability for all stakeholders.Footnote56 Meanwhile, China has entered into an MOU with Russia to establish an international lunar research station, with multiple scientific and exploration objectives, that is likely to be constructed on the south pole of the moon.Footnote57 The south pole on the moon is where both China and the U.S. have marked out potential landing sites as their new competing lunar programs get underway.Footnote58 It is also the region in which India, a signatory of the Artemis Accords, was instrumental in confirming the presence of water and where it has also soft-landed before anyone else.Footnote59 While no IR analyst can easily predict how the strategic culture of any state will affect its behavior in the context of space resources or space habitats it is foreseeable that such developments are significant for advancing national and relative power.Footnote60 The defense-industrial complex in the United States is paying attention to what all this will mean for the balance of power in space. The LunA-10 framework represents the next-generation quest for an integrated 10-year lunar architecture that could catalyze a commercial space economy with the U.S. in the lead.Footnote61 How competition and collaboration play out depends on how states choose to reconcile the trends of the DCM triumvirate with their own interests as they, and their counterparts, all set their sights on the moon. As technologies are always uncertain and the landscape of allies and rivals can shift, diplomacy for space security may be more necessary than ever as these lunar armadas set off.Footnote62 How Does Space Fit in the International Relations of Asia? The new space race is not going into some vacuum in the study and practice of the IR of Asia. Nor are the regional space politics divorced from the DCM trends that are reshaping prospects for all actors across all continents. There is history and intellectual precedent in how we can expect Asian states to engage with DCM trends, signifying also prospects for conflict and collaboration both in and out of the region. It is especially important to get this narrative right at a time when Asia can boast the greatest concentration of independent and autonomous space powers relative to every other region on the planet, making it pivotal for the future of space security. These are, to date, also the principal powers who have been central to shaping the dynamics of the IR of Asia in the world – China, Japan, India, North Korea, and South Korea. Caveats and Preexisting Works A few things first. This is not the place to get into polemics about what Asia is, a contested term that is perhaps most useful for differentiating it from the equally murky idea of the “West.”Footnote63 For the purposes of this essay the most useful broad category is the one from the United Nations which categorizes Member States into the regional group of the “Asia-Pacific.”Footnote64 This includes countries from Northeast, Southeast, South, Central, and Southwest Asia as well as those from the Pacific islands. This keeps us attuned to not just to the activities of the independent and autonomous space powers, but also others in the broader Asia-Pacific, such as Australia, New Zealand, and others in Southeast, Central, South, and West Asia, who are also making strides and positioning in the DCM triumvirate. This broad sweep is likely to be most useful for understanding the entanglements of the space domain in the years ahead. There is of course a substantial body of knowledge on the IR of Asia. This is also not the place to do justice to the painstaking works that have, over decades, improved our solid understanding of key aspects of the IR of Asia and allowed us to portray region-wide, sub-regional, and extra-regional interactions. A few broad works can only help us extract and reflect on the broad nature of the subject-matter involved in the making of IR of Asia to date, which continues to resonate in debates about whether or not Asia’s geography is “ripe for rivalry.”Footnote65 In very broad brushstrokes the subject-matter includesFootnote66: historical, political, and social forces that have shaped the region over time; the relevance or irrelevance of mainstream Western IR theories; the making and makeup of foreign economic or security policies; the drivers of integration or rivalries amid structural global shifts, the organizational and institutional patterns of governance, for example. More closely mirroring the IR concepts and constructs noted earlier, there are also in the IR of Asia prominent cross-cutting ideas, such as the role of states and industrial policy, economic-security linkages, technonationalism, economic regionalism and interdependence, regional organizations and institutions, balancing, bandwagoning, hedging, alliances and security architectures, and so on. But as in IR more generally, so also regionally there appears to be less of a focus on integrating space technologies into the broader fabric of changed global and regional politics. In terms of work on specific technologies in Asia, there has certainly been longstanding attention on conventional military capabilities, nuclear acquisitions, and ballistic missile defense, all of which can exacerbate security dilemmas. But there is less so on space in particular, though a number of works have contributed to our general understanding of individual space powers in Asia.Footnote67 The findings from this symposium, interwoven with IR themes below, also contributes to advancing these knowledge frontiers with implications for national interests, regional risks, and interstate stability. A cogent case for a space race in Asia back in 2012 did not prejudge any particular outcome for space security. Footnote68 In the broad sweep of space activities across Northeast, Southeast, and South Asian countries, one conclusion at the time was that Asia’s emerging space powers were keenly attuned to keeping score, following relative gains, and marking nationalist advantages vis-à-vis regional rivals. Footnote69 From the benchmark of that study, the question is what has changed in terms of Asian states and their motivations in a world returned to great power competition. Su-Mi Lee raises these questions at the start of this symposium focusing on the case of South Korea: Will South Korea and other Asian states take sides between great powers building competing blocs in the region? Or as a middle power, will South Korea recast itself as an agenda setter, rather than a passive follower, and expand its own network in space development, independently of great powers, and contribute to the peaceful uses of outer space? Jongseok Woo offers up a view on the impact of the ongoing Sino-U.S. rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region specifically on South Korea’s strategic choices in security and military affairs, as well as its space policies. There is a close connection between South Korea’s space policies and its broader economic, security, and military interests. He asserts that South Korea’s choice to align with the United States and China on trilateral cooperation in space development has arisen directly as a response to China’s assertive and aggressive policies in the Asia-Pacific region, which have also fostered negative perceptions about China among South Koreans. Material and Ideational Building Blocks There are also material and ideational building blocks that clue us into the ways space can be brought into the IR of Asia. They can guide work at a theoretical level, illuminate intersections with the politics and trends of the DCM worldwide, lead to distinctive expectations about collaboration and stability, and help us reflect on likely pathways for policy, strategy, and diplomacy in the new space race. There are three thematic clusters fleshed out below that might prove to be fruitful for these aims: (1) the state and industrial policy, intertwined with thinking on technology, economic-security linkages, and geoeconomics, (2) complex regional interdependence including economic integration, supply chains, and institutional governance, and (3) security architectures and alliances amid the changed geopolitical dynamics of the U.S.–China bipolar competition. All these clusters suggest that divorcing military and economic security for states in the region would be an analytical and policy blunder in the new space race. The Evolution of the State and Industrial Policy First, whatever the debates about its nature,Footnote70 the state in the IR of Asia is alive and well. Relative to other actors, it is unlikely to be displaced as the preeminent sovereign entity, particularly in matters of industrial and technological transformations. It has a distinguished pedigree in the region, finding its conceptual role at the center of huge theoretical and policy controversies about states and economic development.Footnote71 At one point, eight economies – Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand – rose prominently in the international economy, a phenomenon that became known as the “East Asian miracle.”Footnote72 At the heart of the controversy was the role played by states, and whether their interventions in the market made the difference to their economic and industrial transformations. The domestic institutional configurations of the so-called newly industrializing countries (NICs) also drew attention to the reasons why states could manage to undertake industrial policies in the ways they did.Footnote73 All this came at a time of new thinking about the merits of free trade, in which activist trade policies were shown to possibly advantage some countries relative to their competitors especially in high-technology industries.Footnote74 As today, so then, high-technology industries, such as semiconductors, were at the epicenter of controversies about the fairness of then perceived Japanese activism.Footnote75 Asia is again center stage in these policy concerns, such as those about the foundational global value chain in semiconductors that fuel high-technology production and consumption. Between 2016 and 2020, 26 economies in Asia and the Pacific accounted for about 84% of total world integrated circuit exports.Footnote76 They also accounted for about 62% of total world electrical and optical equipment exports in 2021. Long mindful of their positions in the global political economy, all this suggests that for states of all stripes across Asia “developmentalism is not dead,” picking winners is still of interest, and, as in the past for other strategic sectors so also for the foreseeable future, Asian states will remain involved in shaping the frontiers of space technologies to their home advantage.Footnote77 Industrial policy motivations have clearly been a driver of South Korea’s expanding space program, and Kristi Govella points out the South Korean government has considered potential commercial opportunities when making decisions about how to structure its engagement with regional space institutions. The maxim of “rich country, strong army” pervades the intellectual landscape of prominent works, alerting us that for many countries in Asia the synergistic pathway to security comes through technology and the economy. These symbiotic economic-security fundamentals resonate in both regional and country-specific works.Footnote78 Japanese planners, for example, have long enhanced Japan’s technological edge by stimulating the interdiffusion of civil-military applications and the nurturance of a military-commercial axis.Footnote79 While not inattentive to the policy tradeoffs that must be made in practice, the Japanese state remains consistent in the twin goals maximizing both its military and its bargaining power through economic means.Footnote80 China is held up as a techno-security state – innovation-centered, security-maximizing – at a historic moment of bipolarity in world politics in which both China and the U.S. see the economic-security nexus as a pivotal peacetime battleground.Footnote81 These themes resonate also in the idea of geoeconomics – best thought of as “the logic of war in the grammar of commerce” – that would hold in a world of territorial states seeking technological innovation not just for its own sake but to explicitly maximize benefits within their own boundaries.Footnote82 With themes that echo seminal works on economic-security linkages,Footnote83 the practice of geoeconomics means the use of economic instruments in defense of national interests and geopolitical gain while being watchful of the impact on the home country of others doing exactly the same.”Footnote84 Whether geoeconomics is criticized or refined as an idea,Footnote85 is considered relevant or irrelevant to state conduct, or even goes in and out of fashion, its core continues to resonate in lively debates about the nature of statecraft in the IR of Asia.Footnote86 The case of space in South Korea is instructive along these themes. Given that the economics of the space industry require a long-term commitment with massive investments, Wonjae Hwang’s principal argument is in line with the idea of the developmental state. The South Korean government is taking a lead role in developing the space industry, and its core geoeconomic strategy in space manifests in the promotion of public–private partnerships. By building a strong governing structure within the public sector, coordinating with selective private partners, assisting them with financial support and technology transfer, the government has built strong partnerships with private firms in the space industry. There are plans to establish also a guiding public institution, which can make far-sighted plans for space development, implement the plans, and control associated institutions. As a latecomer to the space race but as a critical player in the global supply chains in the space industry, he also discusses how South Korea has promoted international partnerships with other space powers such as the U.S., EU, India, Australia, and the UAE. Complex Regional Interdependence Second, Asian economies and their integration into the international system makes them pivotal players. But indicators suggest that regional economic integration is important too.Footnote87 A regional cooperation and integration index, which tracks and meshes key dimensions across all principal regions of the world is noteworthy.Footnote88 In 2020, the index in which higher values mean greater regional integration, the EU was recorded at 0.59, North America at 0.49, and Asia and the Pacific at 0.43. This puts the Asian region on par with its peers in the global political economy. As concerns about supply chain vulnerabilities rise worldwide, less visible forces behind Asian economic fusion will also rise to shape strategies. In 2014, production networks were acknowledged as outlets for new modes of interstate friction such as between Japan and China but were still seen as reinforcing traditional commercial liberal arguments.Footnote89 Over time, despite the dramatic expansion of global supply chains involving all actors in the region over, the phenomenon remained underappreciated. But work on point finds that they may be more distinct, complex, and unique mechanisms of interdependence, and could well affect prospects for interstate conflict and cooperation in and out of the region.Footnote90 Their very presence complicates blustering proclamations of decoupling or derisking in both regional and global politics. States across Asia remain watchful about trade and investment agreements to enhance their regional and international economic prospects.Footnote91 Whatever the criticisms about this institutional proliferation, it draws attention to Asian standing and strategies relative to other regions. Among the most high-profile developments is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), with 15 members including 10 ASEAN countries as well as Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.Footnote92 China and Japan, respectively, account for around 48% and 19% of the RCEP GDP.Footnote93 RCEP’s comparative indicators put it ahead of its peer agreements, with 28% of global trade, 31% of the share of global GDP, and about 30% of world populationFootnote94 The agreement’s economic significance was deemed considerable, with one estimate suggesting it could generate over $200 billion annually to world income, and $500 billion to world trade by 2030.Footnote95 The duality of space technology also creates new dynamics for the IR of space in Asia. Even agreements that are technically about trade can be seen as opportunities to enhance alliances and alter the broader security context.Footnote96 This thinking should be borne firmly in mind in analyses of regional space governance, which is nested in broader international legal and normative frameworks. The degree of institutional density in an issue area, such as preexisting rules or regimes on point, may condition the type of diplomacy countries like China pursue in projects from space stations to lunar research stations.Footnote97 It also affects how countries like Japan can use institutional constructs for political reassurance in the region.Footnote98 At present, two markedly different Asian institutions, the China-led Asia Pacific Regional Space Organization (APSCO) and the Japan-led Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) mark diplomatic prospects for the regional dynamics of collaboration and competition stretched over decades.Footnote99 Asia also leads other regions with two other space-centered institutions, the India-led Centre for Space Science Technology and Education in the Asia-Pacific (CSSTEAP) and the China-led Regional Centre for Space Science Technology and Education in the Asia-Pacific. Kristi Govella argues that these institutions have been shaped by broader geopolitical dynamics in the region, and that rising space players like South Korea carefully choose how to engage with these regional institutions on the basis of economic, security, and institutional factors. She further claims that diplomatic engagement with regional space institutions can complement states’ security alliances and bolster relationships with other like-minded strategic partners. Future patterns of regional cooperation will also continue to shape and be shaped by nonhierarchical international regime complexity in the space domain.Footnote100 Current trajectories suggest scenarios in which states’ à la carte approaches affect the integrity of existing cooperative multilateral space law and processes. Security Dynamics and Alliances Third, there is evidence for longstanding expectations that Asia’s economic rise would lead to increased military capacities and modernizationFootnote101 The grouping of Asia and Oceania stands out in this respect.Footnote102 In 2022, it accounted for about $575 billion in military spending, with China, Japan, and South Korea making up 70% of that. This figure is second only to North America with over $900 billion of military spending, the bulk of which is by the United States. Estimates between 2018 and 2022 also suggest that Asia and Oceania accounted for 41% of the total global volume of major arms, the largest compared to other regions; and, with 11% of the total, India is the largest arms importer of all countries. All this should be set against the politics of a region with the busiest sea lanes, nine of the ten largest ports, seven of the world’s largest standing militaries, and five of the world’s declared nuclear nations.Footnote103 The region is also marked by an intensifying bilateral security competition between the U.S. and China that increases the risk of inadvertent escalation of hostilities, entangling conventional, nuclear, and space capabilities.Footnote104 The U.S. has stated outright that it will consider the use of nuclear weapons in the event of any kind of a “significant” nonnuclear strategic attack on its or its allies’ nuclear forces as well as “their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities” whose nodes run in and through space.Footnote105 In believing that the U.S. seeks to lower the threshold for nuclear use and so degrade its conventional strength China is responding by expanding and modernizing both its conventional and nuclear capabilities.Footnote106 A new arms race may well be underway, enmeshing old and new warfighting domains like space and affecting prospects for arms control and strategic stability. Amid these shifting military postures and perceptions, security architectures matter and have received significant attention for their origins, shapes, consequences, and transformations in the IR of Asia.Footnote107 If, prior to the 1990s, Asia was “infertile ground” for security institutions today it seems the opposite is true; new security institutions such as QUAD have come to stand alongside old ones like the ASEAN Regional Forum.Footnote108 The United States is prominent in the region for its creation of a network of bilateral alliances seen not just as instruments of containment against rivals but also as instruments of control over allies.Footnote109 As the view of space as a warfighting domain embeds itself in regional security architectures formal U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea in the region are coalescing, connecting and responding in distinct ways.Footnote110 As well, they are motivated by other security threats and dynamics – territorial disputes and politics, North Korean missile threats and its other purported scientific missions into space – that have sobered prospects for stability in regional and global politics. Asia is leading the world in how some of these space-centric alliance transformations are coming about, and how they may affect military operations such as communication and intelligence gathering. In practice, the U.S.-led military alliances also serve as contracts in which, while one component is certainly a military commitment, there is also agreement about a continuous (and changing) exchange of space goods and services.Footnote111 The U.S.- Japan Alliance, with its attendant geoeconomic and geopolitical elements in play, is the first bilateral one in Asia to extend to the space domain.Footnote112 Although its legal foundations need far greater clarity in light of existing international space law and policy, as well as shifting nuclear postures, this extension is nevertheless becoming more concrete with the formation of a new subordinate command in Japan for the U.S. Space Force.Footnote113 But these pronounced changes on the military side sit alongside others; the Japanese state is also continuing to bargain to enmesh its civilian and commercial space interests under the umbrella of the alliance, such as those related to GPS or astronauts on the moon. A similar story is unfolding under the U.S.-Korea Alliance. As Scott Snyder notes in this symposium, the combination of South Korea’s entry into the space launch and satellite sectors and the emergence of the Sino-U.S. geostrategic competition have made it possible for both countries to pursue bilateral cooperation within the alliance. Space cooperation within the alliance brings South Korea on board to support U.S.-led development of international norms for use of space and strengthens the U.S. space-based military infrastructure to protect South Korea from adversary threats while also assisting South Korea’s long-term aspirations to gain a part of the commercial space sector. There are also implications for the hub-and-spoke model of U.S. alliances in Asia. It may not have originally encouraged trust and interactions between quasi-allies such as Japan and South Korea that are not directly allied but share the United States (hub) as a common ally. But this model may be transforming in the space domain. Tongfi Kim explains that South Korea–Japan relations, traditionally the weakest link in U.S.–Japan–South Korea trilateral cooperation, have made remarkable progress since the inauguration of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in May 2022. Due to the three states’ increasing focus on space security and geopolitical development in East Asia, Kim argues, space cooperation is one of the most promising paths for institutionalizing the trilateral cooperation. What are the Thematic Takeaways? Asian states are not just passive recipients in the new space race but proactive and high-profile shapers of the DCM trends in it. They represent the new forces of democratization, which opens up diplomatic opportunities for new alignments in pursuit of material and normative quests. They know the unprecedented trends in space commercialization can boost their industrial base and position them for economic prosperity in the new frontier. They are attuned to how space militarization can give them a military edge and, carried to its extreme, how weaponization can dash prospects for strategic stability around and above us. A few takeaways stand out. The Gravity of the International Relations of Space Has Shifted to Asia Asia leads all other regions of the world with the highest concentration of independent and autonomous sovereign states – China, Japan, India, South Korea, North Korea – who possess some of the most advanced capabilities for civilian, commercial, and military space. They do not act in unison but are guided by their own national imperatives. Along with Australia and New Zealand, they are also joined by a wide variety of states in Southeast, South, and West Asia who aim for niche capabilities or capitalize on geographic locations. The State in Asia Will Be the Prime Decision-Maker in Shaping Space Activities Consistent with the state-centric nature of the IR of Asia, both the top and emerging spacefaring powers in Asia will seek to shape and balance the DCM trends in line with their own economic and political interests. They will not be dictated to, but can be persuaded through bargaining and communication. Many will try to take advantage of commercial trends abroad while reinforcing them at home, some will try to strike a balance in the commercialization-militarization axis, but a few will attempt to shift it toward offensive purposes. Dual-Use Space Technology is Another Means to Wealth and Security for Asian States All Asian states are interested in acquiring space technology, whether through direct or indirect means, to advance their prosperity and security. This is consistent with a historic intellectual lineage in the region about staying abreast of strategic high-technology sectors that crisscross civilian and military benefits, and that promise to pull other sectors along. The intersection of the space domain with emerging and disruptive technology frontiers – AI, quantum, cyber – is also of vital interest to all principal regional actors. New Patterns of Interconnectedness May Stay the Hand of Space Conflict Space nationalism drives the principal spacefaring states to compete with others in and out of the region. But continued economic integration – trade and investment flows, resilient supply chains, and space assets that facilitate them – also underpin prospects for continued engagement among all regional players. Its disruption is of concern to regional states, as in the U.S. bid to secure critical supply chains for semiconductors worldwide. As well, regional institutions that formally and informally govern relations, including those focused on space, routinize engagements, and information exchanges among all states. U.S.-Led Alliances in Asia are at the Forefront of Transforming into Space Alliances Security institutions in Asia are important for continued dialogue in the region, and for socializing emerging players into the realities of the new space race. But the designation of space as a warfighting domain — and of the U.S. declaration about the need to protect command-and-control structures that underpin extended deterrence — has put U.S.-led alliances with Japan and South Korea at the center of transformations into space alliances. This may affect the “hub and spoke” model, with the spokes also strengthening their relations in the distant future. Much however, depends on the continued domestic political support in the U.S., Japan, and Korea for alliances and such alliance transformations in the years ahead. Asian States Will Be Pivotal to Shaping or Scuttling Prospects for Peace - in Outer Space The capabilities of Asian states make them ideal candidates for large-scale collaboration in space, as well as on the moon and beyond. Diplomatically, they are being courted in the bipolar space competition between the U.S. and China. The rules on which they operate, and who gets to write and interpret them, will matter for patterns of polarity in the IR of space. Some Asian states have responded by signing up to U.S.-led interpretations of the Outer Space Treaty in practice, such as in the Artemis Accords. Other states from Asia may move to the China-led camp with Russia for an international lunar research station. 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