War in Ukraine, Europe, and the Weaponization of Winter – Anthropocene Wars (7)

(Art direction: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli,
Photo: durik1980, CC BY 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons,
colorised and cropped by RTAS)

Since October 2022, the Russian military has regularly launched waves of missiles and drones strikes on the Ukrainian energy infrastructures. (Greg Myre, “Russia strikes, Ukraine repairs, in a battle to survive the winter”, NPR, 25 November 2022).

As a result, millions of Ukrainians have to spend the winter without light, heat or running water. Meanwhile, the interplay of U.S. and European sanctions against Russian oil imports and the drastically diminished Russian gas exports to Europe are exposing European countries to winter cold (“Russian oil exports dip 4% in Sep. ahead of EU sanctions – IEA”, Reuters, 13 October, 2022).

The timing of the Russian strikes turns the Winter season into a (Russian) weapon of massive destabilization in Ukraine and Europe. In other words, the Kremlin redefines the military use of winter that is historically inscribed in the Russian strategic culture (Dominic Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, 2009).   

As we shall see, this seasonal medium is nothing but the intentional transformation of an entire season into a projection of force outside of Russia in an era of climatic change. This is a major improvement on the Russian strategic history, dominated by the use of winter to weaken invaders (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Arctic, a Hyper Strategic Crisis”, The Red Team Analysis, 20 January, 2014).

This strategic evolution also reveals itself through the massive reduction of gas exports from Russia towards Germany and the rest of Europe since May 2022.

In effect, from the start of the “gas bridge” between Russia and European countries at the start of the 1960s and until 2022, Russian gas has been used to heat cities and homes, while powering industries all over eastern and western Europe. Thus, the drastic reduction of the gaz exports by Gazprom deprives people and economies of energy at the very scale of the Russia-Europe gaz relationship (Thane Gustafsson, The Bridge – Natural gas in a redevided Europe, Harvard, 2020).

As we shall show, the weaponization of the 2022-23 winter is not the “usual” defensive way Russian strategists and tacticians take advantage from freezing conditions while defending the Russian heartland from invasion, that they know and understand better than their opponents. It is something else: an offensive weather force projection upon Ukraine and the European continent.

Winter as “force projection”

As it happens, what is at stake in 2022 is a literal “projection” of winter inside the very energy, economic and living conditions of their opponents. In other terms, the Russian strategists are literally weaponizing winter, in order to destabilize the intimate equilibria and complex relations existing between energy parameters, national security and economy and the very intimacy and wellbeing of entire societies (Sam Mednick, “Kyiv prepares for a winter with no heat, water or power”, AP, 6 November 2022).

Weaponizing winter

As it happens the Russian “projection of winter” aims at weakening both Ukrainian society and its European and American backers, through the weakening of their ability to protect themselves from the cold (Nina Chestney and Bozorghmer Sharafedin, “Analysis- Russian gas supply cap casts chill in Europe as winter nears”, Reuters, October 11, 2022).

One must add that this strategy may know involuntarily “enhancement” resulting from the effects of climate change. Indeed, the current planetary crisis  has the potential to turn seasonal weather events into abnormal extreme events. (Mark Lynas, Our Last Warning: 6 Degrees of Climate Emergency, 2020,).

However, we must understand this situation in its context, composed of the convergence of the basics of the Russian strategy and of the massive chains of impacts of climate change, especially on the Gulf Stream evolution (IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Impact, Adaptation, Vulnerability, 2022).

Economic degrowth and risk growth

This military use of a season is made possible through a timely use of its arsenal against Ukraine and by the strategically timed diminished gas exports to Europe, that follow international sanctions. This “degrowth” of the Russian gas exports took massively place between June and September 2022.

It follows the first spring exports’ decreases, triggered by the Kremlin’s demand that gas exports were paid in rubles. Thus the end of summer is also the start of a gas crisis that prolong itself during fall and winter (Chestney and Sharafedin, ibid).

In November 22, the different European gaz companies and government had had time to refill their national reserves. However, the question remains to know if those reserves will be sufficient in the face of a harsh winter, and if imports will offset the risk of competition between European nations (Elena Mazneva, “European gas gains as weather risks counter high reserves”, Bloomberg, 6 december 2022).

Winter is coming for Ukraine

During October and November 2022, the Russian military has launched six waves of missiles and Iran Shahed drone strikes. They disrupted or destroyed numerous Ukrainian water and energy infrastructures. Some missiles also impacted urban areas and killed several civilians.

Those strikes of several cities in centre and western Ukraine included Kiev and Lviv (“October-November 2022 nationwide city strikes on Ukraine”, Wikipedia, Max Hunder and JonathanLanday “Ukraine says half its energy system crippeld by Russian attacks, Kyiv could “shutdown”, Reuters, 19 November, 2022).

In the same time, teams of Russian engineers finally cut down the major Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from the rest of the Ukrainian electric grid (Lilia Rzheutska, “Zaporizhzhia plant no longer connected to Ukraine grid”, DW, 11/07/2022 and Jean-Michel Valantin, “Nuclear Battlefields in Ukraine – Anthropocene wars 2”, The Red Team Analysis, April 25, 2022).

Anticipation

The timing of these attacks corresponds to the beginning of autumn and has not stopped since. It therefore occurs when the cold weather starts and intensifies, approaching zero and then descending into negative temperatures. Thus, the Russian strikes have deprived almost half of Ukrainian cities, buildings and homes of electricity. Citizens loose light, running water, heat and refrigeration (Max Hunder and Tom Balmforth, “Freezing Ukraine gradually restores power after Russian strikes on grid”, Reuters, November 26, 2022).

In other words, the Russian strategy turns Ukrainian housing infrastructures into a nation-wide cold trap through a literal destruction of the protective “heat bubble” that buildings powered and heated by electricity are meant to be, especially during harsh wintertime. And thus, homes cease to be the place of “artificial climate”, which emerged thousands of years ago from the “fireplace”. Instead they become a “cold shelter” (Lewis Mumford, The City in History, its origins, its transformations and its prospects, 1968).

Winter strikes at continental scale

However, Ukraine is not the sole target of this weaponization of winter. This military use of winter may have extremely serious consequences for European countries. It will put economic and social cohesion as well as, as a result, governments legitimacy under pressure.

As we have seen, the interplay of western economic sanctions against Russia and of Russian “counter-sanctions” against the EU translate into a harsh decrease of Russian gas exports towards Europe.

These Russian reactions and their combination with the strange sabotage of unknown origin of the Russo-German Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipe-lines, trigger a massive energy crisis throughout Europe (Joanna Plucinska, “Nord Stream gas “sabotage” – who’s being blamed, and why?”, Reuters, 6 October, 2022).

The missing energy

This crisis is all the more intense and complex that the European national gas and electricity grids, as well as the national economies, are deeply interconnected. As it happens, for example, the loss of Russian gas intervenes while half of the nuclear reactors of the French national utility EDF are down for maintenance or repair (Sonal Patel, “European energy crisis prompts utility take over in Germany, France”, Power, News and technology for the global energy industry, 1 November 2022)

Because of the poor situation of its nuclear sector, France has to import electricity. This reverses EDF’s traditional over-production and foreign sales, especially to Germany and Italy. Thus, the remaining power utilities in Europe have to over-produce, while some countries import via pipe-line and ships American liquid natural gas (LNG).

This translates into a historic inflation of energy, transport, food and health prices, while revealing wildly different situations in Europe.

For example, facing decreasing Russian gaz flows since spring, going from 32 million cubic meters / day to 21 million cubic meters / day, Italy and giant energy utility ENI authorities looked for alternatives, new suppliers and energy economies as soon as June 2022 (Sofiane louacheni, “Italy prepares for a gas shortage”, Energy News, 14 July 2022). However, the inflationary prices in Italy also “heated” social tensions, translating into “energy bill demonstrations” in September (“Italian retailers put their energy bills on display as they fight for survival”, AA Anadolu Agency, 12/09/2022).

The European governments, as well as the EU Commission, sollicitated other countries, such as Algiers, Qatar, Azerbaidjan (Giovanni Sgaravatti, Simonetta Tagliapietra, Cecilia Trasi, “National energy policy responses to the energy crisis”, Bruegel, 11 november 2022 and Eldar Mamedov, “Azerbaidjan and the EU faltering gas realpolitik”, Responsible Statecraft, 21 July 2022).

The continental interconnectivity of the European massive energy crisis becomes the vector of a networked projection of the vulnerability to winter cold at all scales in the same time. It is going to be felt from rural homes to entire megapolis. Winter is not only coming. The Kremlin is literally projecting it in the offices, while severely degrading work conditions and service and production activities in industry and transportation sectors as well as in the “warm climate bubble”  of individuals, societies and nations created by interior heating .

So, the latter will be sensibly less protected from it, despite the levels of development they have reached since 1945.

This dire situation is all the more possible that there is a major threat of electricity and heat supply rupture when the demand peaks, i.e. in January, at the heart of winter (Alec Blackburn, “Europe pins hopes on mild winter to avoid worse energy crisis in 2023”, S&P Global Intelligence, 17 November, 2022).

The Russian strategic culture and winter as a weapon of mass disruption

In that regard, this intrumentalization of winter through the destruction of the Ukrainian power grid and the vulnerabilization of the national and European power production appears as an extension of the fundamentals of the Russian strategy.

The Russian angle

Starting in the 1920s, then during World War II and the Cold War, the Russian defence ministry has developed strategic concepts that integrate military means with other ones, such as economic ones. This integrated framework defines the Russian “operative strategy” (“Transformation in Russian and Soviet military History, Proceedings of the Twelfth military Symposium“, USAF Academy, 1986 and David Glantz, Soviet Military operational Art: in pursuit of deep battle – Military theory and practice, 2012 ). 

Fragmentation

War is a competition not only between armies, but between the economic, industrial and political national systems behind these armies. The goal is to dramatically degrade the economic, political and social cohesion of the opposite system by fragmenting it.

The aim of this fragmentation is to deeply disrupt the connections between the different systems and institutions necessary to a state to wage a war. As a result, the enemy state becomes materially and politically incapable to perpetuate the war effort.

In this perspective, the use of military forces is to fragment the enemy forces and territory (Stephen Covington, The culture of strategic thought behind Russia’s approaches to warfare, Belfer Center – Harvard University, 2016). The Russian strategy also uses other kinds of forces to disorganize the economic depth of the adversary, while fragmenting the economic and social apparatus upon which it depends. The goal is to degrade the enemy’s fighting means as well as its political fighting will.

Indeed, the recent report Russian military strategy: core tenets and operational concepts highlights the fluidity between defense and offense in an operative strategy perspective (Michael Kofman et al., Russian military strategy: core tenets and operational concepts, CNA, 2021). It also highlights that:

“The theory of victory [of the Russian strategy] is premised on degrading the military-economic potential of opponents, focusing on critically important objects, to affect the ability and will of an adversary to sustain a fight, as opposed to ground offensives to seize territory or key terrain.

…

The calculus is that the center of gravity lies in degrading a state’s military and economic potential, not seizing territory”.

Russian military strategy: core tenets and operational concepts in Michael Kofman et al., Russian military strategy: core tenets and operational concepts, CNA, 2021

War by other means

If we use that framework, the Kremlin’s weaponization of winter in Europe becomes a new dimension of the Russian strategic fundamentals. Its goal is to disrupt the depths of the national social and economic systems’ cohesion that underpin the European support to Ukraine, as well as the Ukrainian political will to fight. This supports Hélène Lavoix’s hypothesis in “An Alternative Red Scenario for the War Between Ukraine and Russia”(The Red Team Analysis Society, September 19, 2022).

We must also keep in mind that this strategy is also disrupting and threatening the economic and political cohesion of NATO and, as a result, of the U.S. efforts in favour of Ukraine. In other terms, the winter’s cold becomes a weapon of “mass destabilization” in a time of energy crisis (Mark Galeotti, The weaponization of everything, a field guide to the new way of war, Yale University Press, 2022).

Europe in dire straits

This destabilization may become a chronic feature of the European political landscape during 2022-2023. It will work through the combination of the invasion of the interior of cities and habitats with the atmospheric cold, as well as with inflation and energy, food and health insecurity.

The middle or low income families with young children and elderlies will be especially sensitive to the thermic situation. Being the majority of the population, they are particularly at risk of feeling that the social contract between them and the governments and institutions is under strain, if not broken (Michael Lind, The New Class War, Saving democracy from the metropolitan elite, Atlantic Books, 2020).

This will put European governments in very difficult postures. Indeed, they will have to manage recessionary and social crises, even possibly insurrectional situations, while supporting Ukraine and NATO’s effort (Tyler Durden, “Germany preparing for emergency cash deliveries, bank runs, and “aggressive discontent”, ahead of winter power cuts”, Zerohedge, November 17, 2022, “UK Gov’t “War gamed” emergency plans for multi day power black-outs ; leaked docs reveal”, Zerohedge, November 3, 2022).

Indeed, the Russian “offensive by winter” may exact a significant toll in lives, because of the vulnerability of populations to the cold. According to a scenario by The Economist, this toll, outside Ukraine, could go from a 32.000 excess death in a mild winter to as high as 335.000 extra lives in the case of a harsh winter (“Russia is using energy as a weapon – how deadly will it be?”, The Economist, 26 November, 2022).

In this context, the European Union will certainly have to endure very dangerous endogenous pressures (Silvia Amaro, “Europe’s real energy crisis will come next winter – but it won’t last forever”, CNBC, 27 November 2022, Jorge Libeiriro “Energy crisis: EU countries still split by “different views” on gas cap”, 25 October 2022 and Adam Tooze, “The European project is now at the mercy of the weather”, Foreign Policy, 2 November 2022).

Strategic meaning of the weaponization of winter

Furthermore, weaponizing winter also means instrumentalizing the effects of climate change upon seasonal as well as weather changes. Indeed, because of climate change, the thermic radiant of seasons becomes increasingly irregular. For example, the current trend of the evolution of cold temperatures see them happening later in the winter season than thirty years ago (Jacob Dykes, “As the world warms, seasons are shifting”, Geographical, 7 May, 2021).

However, if this seems like good news in the face of the strategic use of winter, one must keep in mind that weather events are leaving their normal intensity envelop. Because of climate change, they tend to go to the extremes (David Wallace Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Life after Warming, 2019).

For example, the disorganization of the Arctic jet stream induces arctic air breaks. Those have the potential to cross entire continental regions. Those “polar vortex” immerge regions adapted to mild oceanic weather or to harsher continental weather to extreme thermic situations that inflict heavy damages. It was the case, for example, in Texas in January 2021 (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Losing Texas to Climate Change and Covid 19 ?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 16, 2021).

Cold winds as bombing

This danger is accentuated by the current slowdown of the Gulf Stream. This Atlantic ocean current vehicles heat in less regular way, thus entailing a greater European vulnerability to cold winters.

From a strategic point of view, this means that the Kremlin is potentially leading a revolution in geopolitical and military affairs. It does so by further developing the weaponization of a season. As it happens, as we have seen since our first research with The Red Team Analysis Society, climate change inflicts systems of impacts that have the characteristics and the consequences of a global “hyper siege”’ (Jean-Michel Valantin “Hyper Siege: Climate change versus U.S National security”,The Red Team Analysis Society , March 31 2014).

Here, as the Kremlin weakens or even destroys the thermic defense systems against cold that power utilities and grid are, the hyper siege is turned by the Russian strategy into a “hyper assault”. And the assault has begun.

This means that, potentially, “climate strategies” are emerging and become new dimensions of the management of the current and certainly coming conflicts of a multipolar world on a changing planet.

Can You Unbias Analysis? The Russian Nuclear Threat

Starting in mid-September 2022, the Western media and political world has been abuzz with a Russian threat of nuclear Armageddon. Against such evil, the West, supporting Ukraine, may only show outrage, unveil the real malevolent nature of Russia and increase pressure to try to deter Russia, so runs the narrative.

On 27 October 2022, reputable news agency Reuters published a fact-box on the said Russian nuclear threat: “Factbox: Has Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons?“. Because this is a factbox and Reuters publishing it, then we are meant to believe not only what is included in the article, but, also, most importantly, the implicit conclusion: Russia is guilty of unwarrantedly threatening the world with a nuclear strike.

The article by Reuters is a perfect example of what should NOT be done if one wants to have a clear understanding of an escalation process. The way Reuters looks at evidence leads to a biased analysis, be it intentionally, for propaganda motivation or for the sake of political correctness, or unintentionally by lack of analytical skill.

Can you do better than Reuters? With this article we open a competition with an award at the end: re-publication of the best result first received as a complete article and complimentary registration to our online course “Mitigating biases“.

First we shall explain what is wrong with Reuters’ analysis. Out of this explanation we shall highlight what should have been done and what you must do if you want to participate in the competition. Share your chronology with us either as comment for this article or by using our contact form (paste your text in the message box).

To help you we shall stress what we identified in open source as a major starting point for the “Russian nuclear threat”.

What’s wrong with Reuters’ analysis?

When you read Reuters’ article, you immediately notice that only a couple of statements are presented, that they are most often only a sentence extracted from a speech, without context, that the exact references (dates, place, type of speech) are not given and replaced by a link to another Reuters’ article. In the meanwhile, the gist and the reasons for the statements are lost. If the reader does not make the effort to read the other article, assuming the other article is unbiased, then s/he cannot have a proper understanding of the reference used. These are already major flaws for a proper analysis.

Then, and this is the major issue, in the first and last part of the article, only one side’s statements, the Russian one, are highlighted.

Imagine that you are watching a film, and that you only hear what actor A says and see what actor A does. Meanwhile, everything related to the other actors, B, C, D, etc. is muted and blackened. This film would be neither very interesting nor actually understandable.

Yet, this is what readers accept from journalists – and unfortunately often from academics and researchers. This is also what many so-called analysts offer to decision-makers.

Yet, statements in international politics, especially considering the stakes of a nuclear war – mutual assured destruction (M.A.D.), can NEVER be considered without what other actors express and do. Similarly, actions cannot be understood without also looking at relevant others’ actions. Note that domestic politics and interactions should also ideally be taken into account, and here we mean the whole political sphere in the noblest and most complex meaning of the term, not politician politics.

In this exercise, though, we shall only limit ourselves to international statements.

A correct approach to analysis and what you must do

Once we know that international politics is about interactions, then what must be done is easy to understand.

What you will get is certainly not the final resulting analysis. It is however the basis for a good analysis. Once you obtain this foundation, then you can add other elements to refine your understanding. Alternatively, if you do not do this first step right, then everything else will most probably be flawed, however brilliant your other reasonings and well documented your other pieces of information.

We must build a chronological record of relevant statements (and ideally actions) by relevant actors, and read them and understand them as chronological INTERACTIONS.

Thus, for this competition, what we challenge you to do is to rebuild this chronology of main relevant statements (with proper references).

To use again the film metaphor, we ask you to make appear major relevant actors B, C, D, E, etc. alongside Russian and allied actors A(s). In doing so, you will give the audience the sound when everyone speaks – and for the bravest among you – the image when everyone acts.

You can post the reconstructed chronology below in the comments, with a valid email if you want to make sure you will be able to win the free access to our online course “Mitigating biases“. You do not have to give your real name if you are afraid to do so, but the email must be valid. You can also use our contact form (paste your text in the message box).

How it all began

To help you, we share what we identified as the start of this newly perceived threat, as highlighted by the media.

Reuters takes as starting point President of Russia Vladimir Putin 21 September 2022 televised address to the nation as described in the corresponding Reuters’ article: Guy Faulconbridge, “Putin escalates Ukraine war, issues nuclear threat to West“.

The real, primary reference is Address by the President of the Russian Federation, in relation to the Executive Order on partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation, the two being dated 21 September 2022, published on the website of the President of Russia.

If you want to properly understand what is truly happening, the original text of the address must be read, not the commentary by Reuters. Commentaries are best read after the primary material.

If you read attentively both the original address and Reuters’ article verbatim quote, you notice that first President Putin stresses the perception of threat felt by Russia as created by the West, he labels “the nuclear blackmail”:

“Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

Address by the President of the Russian Federation, 21 September 2022, reference

It is only after this explanation of the Russian perceptions that we find President Putin’s sentence highlighted by Reuters and others as the threat to use nuclear weapon:

“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

Address by the President of the Russian Federation, 21 September 2022, reference

Thus, first, to read the integrality of a speech chronologically gives us insights into the perceptions and understanding of others, which is truly key for a good analysis and even more important in terms of foresight as well as prevention.

Second, we can note that there is nothing new here in Putin’s statement, compared to the Russian nuclear doctrine, as detailed in the Executive Order of the President of the Russian Federation of June 2, 2020 No.355 – “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence”, notably paragraph 19 (access text through Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation – long upload time – or through Defense Media, St Petersburg; for a Western analysis explaining the Western fear regarding this doctrine, Mark B. Schneider, “Russian Nuclear Threats, Doctrine and Growing Capabilities“, RealClear Defense, 28 July 2022).

19. The conditions specifying the possibility of nuclear weapons use by the Russian Federation are as follows:

a) arrival of reliable data on a launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies;

b) use of nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction by an adversary against the Russian Federation and/or its allies;

c) attack by adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions;

d) aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.

Many in the U.S., however, tend to perceive the Russian nuclear doctrine as a kind of right to use nuclear weapons in case of any type of defeat against the West. This perception is now largely spread as the reality of the Russian nuclear doctrine, even so it is only an American interpretation of the doctrine. Indeed, even in the U.S., controversies exist regarding this understanding. The American perception and controversies are well described in a U.S. Congressional Research Service’s document: “Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine, Forces, and Modernization, Updated April 21, 2022:

“This doctrine has led some U.S. analysts to conclude that Russia has adopted an “escalate to de-escalate” strategy, where it might threaten to use nuclear weapons if it were losing a conflict with a NATO member, in an effort to convince the United States and its NATO allies to withdraw from the conflict. Russian officials, along with some scholars and observers in the United States and Europe, dispute this interpretation; however, concerns about this doctrine have informed recommendations for changes in the U.S. nuclear posture.”

Congressional Research Service’s document: “Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine, Forces, and Modernization, Updated April 21, 2022

Finally, Putin confirms what a regular reading of international news and a bit of memory tells us, other actors related to NATO have made statements or acted in such a way that a feeling of threat related to nuclear deterrence was prompted in Russia.

Since 2007 for the most recent phase, many episodes of heightening tension regarding nuclear threats can be traced throughout historical interactions between the West and notably the U.S., on the one hand, and Russia on the other, as reminded by Schneider (ibid.). For the latest spat, which is of concern to us, President Biden in a one hour interview recorded on 15 September 2022 and aired on 18 September, prompted by the speculations of the journalist, was the first to greatly hype a possible Russian nuclear threat:

Scott Pelley: As Ukraine succeeds on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin is becoming embarrassed and pushed into a corner. And I wonder, Mr. President, what you would say to him if he is considering using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons.

President Joe Biden: Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.

Scott Pelley: And the consequences of that would be what?

President Joe Biden: I am not going to speculate–

Scott Pelley: What would the U.S. response be?

President Joe Biden: You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be? Of course, I’m not gonna tell you. It’ll be consequential. They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur.

President Joe Biden: The 2022 60 Minutes Interview – 18 September 2022

Here, President Biden expresses the American pervasive fear and perception created by the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine. This fear is real. Furthermore, Russia is also perceived as a real danger to the U.S. national interest as we explained previously (see Hélène Lavoix, The American National Interest, The Red Team Analysis Society, 22 June 2022).

This 15/18 September interview, added to the repeated absurdity of accusing Russia to bomb itself on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, may be taken as a possible origin or trigger for the Russian perception of Western nuclear blackmail as expressed by Putin on 21 September (e.g. Jacopo Barigazzi, “G7 calls for return of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to Ukraine control“, Politico, 23 October 2022).

Thus, if we look at the chronology, it is the American fear of the Russian nuclear threat, that is the origin of the near panic regarding that threat, not Putin’s statements. Of course, Putin’s statements in reply then alimented the American fear. we have here a perfect case of escalation.

Meanwhile, the claim by Reuters that “The recent surge in concern over a possible nuclear escalation come after two Putin speeches last month in which he clearly indicated that he would, if needed, use nuclear weapons to defend Russia”, is false.

To examine the right sequence of statements and events, in the right order, shows why there is escalation, how it could be avoided or on the contrary intensified. It also highlights perceptions and thus would help in acting properly to achieve objectives. For example, assuming peace were really the aim, understanding perceptions would show how fears could be assuaged and the situation progressively stabilised. However, up until November 2022, the aim in the Western world appears to have been more about supporting Ukraine so that it achieves victory, than about peace (e.g. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: ““Ukraine needs our help to win today. And they will still need our help when the war is over”, Speech at Ramstein Air Base, Politico, 26 April 2022 British Foreign Minister James Cleverly : “We will support them [Ukraine] until this war is won. We will support them until their sovereignty is restored”, “UK Vows to See Ukraine ‘Through to Victory’ Over Russia, The Defense Post, 4 October 2022; EU Van der Leyen: “I’m deeply convinced you will win this war… There’s one clear rule: The conditions are defined by Ukraine. It’s your decision,” Oleksiy Sorokin, Kiev Independant, 15 September 2022 – note that in early November 2022 support might be changing towards negotiation, e.g. Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Paul Sonne”U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show Russia it’s open to talks, Washington Post reports”U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia“, The Washington Post, 5 November 2022).

Can you now reconstruct a proper timeline of statements for all sides on the nuclear threat issue and improve on Reuters’ article? We are looking forward to reading your chronologies.

Featured image: Firestorm cloud over Hiroshima, United States Army, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons – 6 August 1945: “This image was identified in March 2016 as the cloud created by the firestorm that engulfed” Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on the city, “a fire that reached its peak intensity some 3hrs after the bomb… Earlier estimates derived solely from the quantity of fuel in the city, and more recently on the height of the Pyrocumulonimbus cloud both point at approximately 1000 times the equivalent energy of the bomb having been released by this firestorm. During the birthing of this cloud, 20 mins after detonation soot filled black rain began to fall on survivors. Climate scientists suggest that 100 of these identical firestorm clouds could cause 1-2 celsius of “catastrophic” global cooling, which is termed a small “nuclear winter”.

An Excluded Russia? Not for Asia – Anthropocene Wars (6)

(Art direction: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

From 1 September to 16 September 22, Vladimir Putin, President of the Federation of Russia, presided the Russian military exercises Vostok 2022. Besides the Russian military, the exercise gathered troops from 14 countries, including India and China (Arang Shidore, “Vostok military exercises indicate that Russia is far from isolated”, Responsible Statecraft, September 1, 2022).

On 5 September, he opened the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. There, high level representatives from 60 countries, including, once again, India and China, and numerous Asia-Pacific countries attended the forum (“Putin speaks at forum in Russia’s far east region”, Reuters, September 7, 2022).

On 15 and 16 September, President Putin attended the 2022 session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in Uzbekistan, where he met Xi Jinping, President of China, as well as heads of state and governments from 14 countries (“Putin, Xi and Modi attend SCO summit”, Barron’s from AFP News, September 16, 2022).

Most of the countries attending these three international military, economic and security events are also members of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also One Belt One Road – OBOR), which includes 138 member states. Furthermore, some OBOR members are also members of the International North South Transport Corridor that links Russia, Central Asia and India.

As it happens, while the war in Ukraine is raging, the status of Russia in Asia rapidly changes and strengthens, largely because of its growing importance for the energy and food security of China.

We are even going to argue that Russia is becoming a major component of the climate resiliency of India and China. The Russian new status is inseparable of the new continental network of transport infrastructures. Those are composed of the continental networks of railways and oil and gas pipelines that integrate Russia, China, India and the Central Asia countries.

Hence, the convergence of attendance to Russo-Asian military and diplomatic events and imports of Russian cereals, oil and gas by China and India in a time of climate shocks begs the question of the real state of the relations between these three major countries.

The war in Ukraine and Russia’s Asian centrality

The internationalization of Vostok 2022

At the beginning of September 2022, the Ukrainian military started an offensive against the Russian forces in the region of Izium and Kherson. While quite successful, the Ukrainian army claiming to have taken back 9000 km2 by 24 September, it appears that, at the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the Russian President and the highest members of the general staff were in the Russian far east, presiding and leading the Vostok 2022 military manoeuvres (Hélène Lavoix, “An Alternative Red Scenario for the War Between Ukraine and Russia”, The Red Team Analysis Society, September 19, 2022 and “Vostok 2022: Russian military joined by allies in major drills”, DW, 01/09/2022; Ukrainian army has already liberated 9,000 sq.km. in the east, – Ukraine’s President, 24 sept 2022).

In the context of the war in Ukraine, those quadrennial manoeuvres gather troops from fourteen nations that send military units working with Russian military for a highly scrutinized military and political session.

Those 14 nations are China, Algeria, India, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Syria and the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It must noted that, during the 2018 edition, there were 300.000 Russian troops. At the time, the “only” other participating nations were China and Mongolia (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Warming Arctic – The Road to Neo-Mercantilism(s)“, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 12, 2018). In 2022, there were 130.000 Russian troops, the other troops being mobilized by the war in Ukraine.

This military gathering reveals that the Russian military and geopolitical influence extends to the whole of Central Asia, to South and Eastern Asia, to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as to Central America. From a diplomatic point of view, this also means that the Chinese and Indian governments wish to be seen training their military with Russia.

Each of those two countries representing 1,4 billion people, their combined demographic weight is of almost 3 billion people, meanwhile their sheer force is far from being light as they are the two mammoth Asian powerhouses (see also Hélène Lavoix, “China: With or Against Russia?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, 28 February, 2022).

In this context, one must note that the maritime side of the manoeuvres took place in the Sea of Japan. The Russian, Chinese and Indian fleets are thus gathered in a region that is in a state of constant dispute between China and Japan (Hélène Lavoix, “From the Diaoyu Islands, with Warning”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 22, 2022). It is difficult not to see in these manoeuvres a silent challenge not only to Japan, but also to the Western and Asia-Pacific “Quad” alliance of which Japan is a member, alongside the U.S., Australia and Great Britain (Hélène Lavoix, “The East Seas Security Sigils”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 16, 2022).

Samarkand forever

On 15 and 16 September, the heads of states and governments of Russia, India and China met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand, the capital of Uzbekistan. They gathered with other heads of state from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, Tadjikistan, and Uzbekistan. The observer states were Iran, Mongolia and Belarus, while the invited guests were Turkey, Azerbaidjan, and Turkmenistan (“Leaders of SCO states sign Samarkand summit declaration”, CGTN, 16 September 2022).

During this diplomatic sequence, it must be noted that if the Prime minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping expressed some political reservations about the war in Ukraine, they also explicitly attended official and private meetings with the Russian president, and reasserted friendship and cooperation.  

It is also worth noting that, historically, Samarkand is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia and in the world. The city has been one of the main points and stage of the Silk Road. During the last 1500 years, it has been a place of confluence, conflicts and exchange between Russia, China, the Mongol empire and the Persian empire (Peter Frankopan, “The Silk Roads, A New History of the World”, 2015).

Thus, choosing to host the SCO summit in this city is also a message in itself by the SCO. This message recalls and asserts the political and economic combined weight of its powerful and internationally strategic member states.

It is important to note that in an article about the summit, the Chinese Government’s sponsored international media Global Times, highlighted that:

“During the summit, Xi said China is also willing to deepen pragmatic cooperation in such areas as trade, agriculture and connectivity”. 

Xi called for both sides to strengthen coordination within the SCO, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, BRICS and other multilateral mechanisms to promote solidarity and mutual trust among related parties, according to Xinhua… (and that) … Analysts said the two leaders’ summit is a crucial guarantee for the steady development of bilateral ties, signaling that China-Russia relations will not be affected by external noises. At the same time, China will also be on high alert against attempts by the US and the West to tie China and Russia into a political and military bloc and drive a wedge between the pair and the rest of the world…

“Even before the Ukraine crisis, the US and some Western countries had tried to drive a wedge between China and Russia, fearing the pair would get closer. But after the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, they tied China and Russia into one camp, playing the pair off against the rest of the world”, Yang said. 

China’s interests are worldwide, and it can cooperate with Western countries on economic, cultural and even some major security issues, but there is no reason why China can’t strengthen cooperation and exchanges with Russia, which also has the right to interact with the world, the Beijing-based expert said.”

Wang Qi, “Xi, Putin meet at SCO summit, forging closer times amid US-caused World turbulences”, Global Times, September 15, 2022.

This vision is what China broadcasts to the world. In other words, Beijing affirms its ties with Moscow and its will to reinforce them. While doing so, China will develop its economic ties with Western countries. Beijing also asserts that the Russia-China relationship is a partnership, however not an alliance.

All is well on the Indian front

In parallel, narendramodi.in, the official web site of the Indian Prime minister summarizes his discussions with President Vladimir Putin (Narendra Modi, “PM Modi Holds Bilateral meeting with President Putin of Russia in Samarkand”, narendramodi.in, September 16, 2022).

He writes that:

“The leaders discussed important issues of bilateral cooperation as well as regional and global issues of interest. Discussions also pertained to global food security, energy security and availability of fertilizers in the context of the challenges emanating from the current geo-political situation. In the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Prime Minister reiterated his call for an early cessation of hostilities and the need for dialogue and diplomacy…. They agreed to say in touch.”

(Narendra Modi, “PM Modi Holds Bilateral meeting with President Putin of Russia in Samarkand”, narendramodi.in, September 16, 2022)

This was followed by a tweet from Prime minister Modi writing :

Text of the tweet « Had a wonderful meeting with President Putin. We got the opportunity to discuss furthering India-Russia cooperation in sectors such as trade, energy, defense and more. We also discussed other bilateral and global issues. »

In other words, the Indian Premier and Chinese President have reasserted they are going to deepen the relations between their countries and Russia. And the war in Ukraine does not seem to be an obstacle to these plans.

However, this situation begs the question of understanding why giant China and India are so keen on cultivating their relationships with Russia in such a visible way.

The stupendous impact of climate change on Asia is certainly a major factor in explaining the  importance of the “Russian pivot” for India. It also helps to explain the reinforcement of the Sino-Russian already strong relationship.

Furthermore, those Asian relationships are strongly bolstered by the series of climate mega catastrophes of 2021 and 2022. Those have hammered China and India, as well as the whole South Asia continent in 2021 and 2022.

China’s and India’s climate shocks

The 2021-2022 agricultural crisis

Well-ordered charity begins with oneself

Since 2021, a growing number of major agricultural countries restrict or ban exports of their own production. The process started in June 2021. At the time, the Russian government imposed taxes on grain exports, trying to stabilize domestic food prices.

Then, in December 2021, Argentina took a similar step (Clément Vérité, “Argentina stops exports of soybean oil and soybean meals “until further notice“, Newsendip, 14 March, 2022). Since then, the Argentinian political authorities limit corn and wheat export volumes. They do so in order to control domestic food prices. In March, the Argentinian government tightened these measures.

Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Turkey, Serbia, Hungary, and Kuwait took similar steps. (Weizhen Tan, “India is not the only one banning food exports. These countries are doing the same”, CNBC, 17 May, 2022).

Then, since February 2022 and the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the exports of grain from Ukraine and Russia are also largely down. This diminution comes from the blocking of the Black Sea ports.

India

In May 2022, India, the second largest wheat producer, decided to ban exports. The decision was based on the destructive effects of the massive heatwave that impacted India and Pakistan. The Indian crops yield lost 20% because of a month-long, climate-change driven extreme weather event. (Manavi Kapur, “India’s extreme heatwave is already thwarting Modi’s plan to “feed the world”“, Quartz, 28 April 2022).

China… and Russia

In the context of this global agricultural crisis, since 2021, China has developed massive stockpiles of grains. Indeed, China imported 28,2 million of tons of corn in 2021. (Shin Watanabe and Eiko Munakata, “China hoards over half the world’s grain, pushing up prices”, Asia Nikkei, 23 December 2021 and (“China corn imports soar to new records in 2021”, Reuters, 18 January, 2022). This is the equivalent of 152% of the 2020 annual record imports of 11,8 million tons.

In other terms, the globalized agriculture and food markets are going through a major “perfect storm”. (Jean-Michel Valantin, “War in Ukraine, The U.S Mega drought and the Coming Global Food Crisis”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 1, 2022).

In the current strategic and climate context, imports of Russian grain are of special importance for the Chinese food security. This is because Russia is both a major producer and neighbour. Furthermore, since the launch by Xi Jinping, of the Belt and Road Initiative (OBOR) in 2013. Russia plays a central role in this project because the Chinese railways operate through Russia in order to reach Europe.

Hence, the development of OBOR infrastructures de facto augments the shipments capabilities between Russia and China. (Frederic de Kemmeter, “OBOR-One Belt, One Road”, Mediarail.be, January 2018 and Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Russia and the New Silk Road in Central Asia – The great co-empowerment”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 17, 2016). As it happens, a new railway bridge between Chinese Tongjiang and Russian Nizhnelenizskoye opened on 27 April 2022 and became operational during the 2022 summer.

It appears that, between January and March 2022, the trade turnover between Russia and China rose 28,7% year on year. It reached $38,17 billion for the first 2022 quarter. (“Russia-China trade surges in 2022”, The Moscow Times, 13 April 2022).

Inflation, energy and resiliency

These agricultural situations are interlaced with the energy needs of China and India. The “post” Covid economic recovery drives a rapid growth in oil and gas demand, thus driving energy prices higher. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine triggers an overheating of oil prices. The prices err between $96 and $120 since the start of the war. (Scott Patterson and Sam Goldfarb, “Why are gasoline prices so high? Ukraine-Russia  War Sparks Increases Across the U.S“, Wall Street Journal, 1 April, 2022).

Meanwhile, given the daily needs of twice 1,4 billion people, India and China both benefit from the lower than market Russian oil and gas prices.

Inflation, energy and India’s resiliency through connectivity

That is why India’s import of oil from Russia have jumped from 2% of India’s oil imports to a staggering 12% in September 2022. Those imports are meant to try to control Indian inflation. This happens while Russia remains the first supplier of defense hardware for India (Aftab Ahmed, “India says it is importing Russian oil to manage inflation”, Reuters, September 8, 2022).

What makes these transactions possible is the International North South Corridor Transport (INSTC).

This 7.200 km transcontinental infrastructure is based on rail-sea-road interconnectivity from the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan and Central Asia, Iran and India and Europe. It links hinterlands, ports and sea routes. The INSTC involves 13 countries, for now. It was established in 2000 and developed ever since. It allows products from Russia to reach India in 25 days instead of 40 days by sea connections only (“The International North South Corridor” Wikipedia and Angelo Mathais, “India Ramps Up Russian trade Volumes via North-South Corridor”, The Load Star, 23/08/2022).

The Great Russia, China, India Connection

Some commentators try to analyse the INSTC and OBOR in terms of a competition of international routes (Eurasian Times Desk, “China and India battle for Global Influence with OBOR and NSTC projects”, The Eurasian Times, January 18, September 2018). Unfortunately, they miss a crucial point. In fact, there are multiple connections between the OBOR and the INSTC. Those interconnections are de facto installed through the countries involved in both INSTC and OBOR and their transport infrastructure, especially Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran.

Russia is especially at the intersection of the two international routes. That is why it is able to rapidly export growing volumes of agricultural and energy products to China and India. This is also the case in other Central and South Asian countries.

As we have seen, Russian exports play a major part in the resiliency of China and India. Those have to face the combination of the international inflationary trends as well as the planetary climate shocks. Their imports from Russia play a key role in their resiliency to these shocks.

So, it appears that China as well as India develop deep ties with Russia, which becomes a major actor of their national resiliency. This “Russ-asian” “triad” becomes a geopolitical new entity. And it is a mammoth powerhouse. Thus, it is hard to think that one of its members could be “isolated” on the international scene.

An Alternative Red Scenario for the war between Ukraine and Russia

(Art direction: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

The September 2022 Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russia is hailed as very successful. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the “true heroes” who allowed for a “very rapid liberation” of 8000 sq km by 14 September 22 “in the east, notably in the Kharkiv Oblast, and the south, notably in the Kherson oblast”, (e.g. BBC News, 12 September 22; CNN, 14 September 22).

Yet, U.S. President Joe Biden and other American officials, as well as Germany Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht first cautioned against a feeling of “premature victory”, of a “turning point in the war”, even though they acknowledge the territorial gains (Lolita Baldor and Ellen Knickmeyer, “US leaders avoid victory dance in Ukraine combat advances“, AP, 13 September 22; Reuters, “Too early to tell if Ukraine counter-offensive is turning point, Germany says“, 14 September 22). As time passed, on 18 September, President Biden appeared as far more confident in an interview, stating that “They’re defeating Russia” (Reuters, “Zelenskiy vows no let-up as Ukraine says troops cross Oskil river in northeast“, 19 September 2022).

What lies ahead?

With this article we shall first briefly stress why it is important to look at a comprehensive set of scenarios, and why it matters even more in the context of a war where information is degraded by the use of propaganda or psyops. Then, we shall focus not on the scenario favoured in the West, which predicts a victory of Ukraine, as this scenario is well-known, but describe another scenario, different from the most common narrative. We shall call it the Red Scenario, in reference to red teaming (taking the point of view of the enemy). We mainly present explanations rather than scenario narrative (story-telling), using maps tracking the evolution of the control of the terrain in Ukraine by the two protagonists and established daily by the Institute for the Study of War. First we present our key hypotheses and then develop an explanatory narrative according to phases during the war.

The need for alternative scenarios

Useful and actionable scenarios are constituted in a set with evolving likelihoods

Many commentators tend to focus on a single scenario highlighting a Ukrainian victory and a Russian defeat. The current Ukrainian counter-offensive goes hand in hand with the Russian “debacle”, “rout”, “disaster”, “disintegration”, etc. This is indeed one scenario. Its narrative runs more or less as follows:

The current counter-offensive heralds coming successes for the Ukrainian army while showing deep seated problems within Russian forces that will lead to a string of defeats, until Moscow is vanquished.

However, proper foresight must consider all possible scenarios (see FAQ on scenarios), even those that are unlikely, contrary to one’s objectives or unpalatable. Actually those scenarios are even more interesting because they are those that allow for the best planning, for truly countering the enemy and finally for victory and success.

The likelihood of seeing a scenario taking place actually is something that is separated from the narrative of the scenario itself. The key variables for a set of scenarios are used both to craft the narrative and then to assess the probability of the scenario. Yet, to create a specific scenario for this set does not mean that this scenario is more likely than another. A good set of scenarios must consider all possible scenarios. Then according to reality the probability of each scenario is assessed, varies and evolves. This is where scenarios become most useful, because they help steer policy. However, to be able to reach this lofty aim, we need first to have a complete set of scenarios, and not only a couple of pleasant scenarios that fit our aims, beliefs and wishes.

Overcoming potential propaganda

Furthermore, a swift Ukrainian victory by heroes in the framework of a Russian rout could also be a way to narrate events that is part of the information operations (I/Os – psyops) of Ukraine and its allies (see Helene Lavoix, “Information Warfare and the War in Ukraine“, The Red Team Analysis Society, 24 May 2022). More surprisingly but not impossible, it could even be part of Russian I/Os and deception, as Russia is meant to be a master at using “reflexive control” (refleksivnoe upravlenie / рефлексивного управления).

As during war information is degraded and as we shall not know with certainty what is truly taking place on the ground until archives are opened – i.e. in 30, 60, or 100 years according to cases and countries, we need to rely on scenarios. Scenarios allow to make hypotheses and to take into account uncertainty, which is key when information is lacking or of dubious quality. Furthermore it will help us stretching our minds, asking inconvenient questions and thus think out of the box.

A Red Scenario – Main hypotheses

Our first hypothesis for this scenario is that Russia has two major territorial aims in Ukraine and only two.

The first territorial objective, as declared when Russia launched its “special operation”, is to free and protect the territory of the two separatist Republics of the Donbass: the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) (Address by the President of the Russian Federation, February 24, 2022, 06:00, The Kremlin, Moscow).

The second aim can be inferred from the same Russian Address, and consists in protecting Crimea (Ibid.). This means creating strategic depth for the peninsula, which would allow protecting it from any Ukrainian threat.

North Crimean Canal. Connects the Denpr at the Kakhovka reservoir with the east of Crimea – Berihert, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The importance of that goal is highlighted by one of the first actions of the Russian army on 24 February 22, thus at the very beginning of the war. It restored water flow to the North Crimean canal (Pivnichno-Krymskyi kanal) between the Dniepr River in Ukraine and Crimea, which had been cut off by Ukraine in 2014 (Reuters, “Russian forces unblock water flow for canal to annexed Crimea, Moscow says,” 24 February 2022).

These territorial aims are shown on the map below. The size of the necessary strategic depth for Crimea is an estimate and may vary according to other factors. It is against this map that operations elsewhere will be evaluated.

War in Ukraine 2022 – Russian objectives – Red scenario (on an ISW map as background)

The second hypothesis is that the Russian leadership is neither mad nor stupid, nor completely out of touch with reality, nor any of the extreme epithets and ungrounded emotional assertions that have been made about the Russian political authorities. This does not mean that leadership cannot be surprised. As for any system, analyses and evaluations may be flawed. Actions may not go as planned. The fog of war operates.

The third hypothesis or rather principle is that if something cannot be explained or understood when using prior reasoning and framework for understanding, then it is likely that the initial line of thinking is flawed.

A Red Scenario – Phases in the war

Phase 1 – 24 Feb 2022 to 29 March 2022

Creating the conditions for the conquest of the South (outside Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts)

Considering the Russian territorial objectives for this scenario, all operations carried out outside Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and the southern part of Zaporizhzhia oblasts are either “decoy” operations or “negotiation” ones.

They aimed at focusing the attention and effort of the enemy and its allies on non-essential, indeed false aims. At best, if gains are achieved, they will be used for exchange during negotiation, against the territory that constitutes the real aim, or against other key objectives such as the neutrality of Ukraine.

This phase ended on 29 March 22. Then, in the framework of the negotiations taking place in Istanbul, Russian Ministry of Defence announced to “fundamentally reduce military activity in the direction of Kiev and Chernihiv” in order to “increase mutual trust for future negotiations to agree and sign a peace deal with Ukraine” (DW; Asia Times 29 March 22).

As far as its territorial objectives are concerned, in one month, the Russian side succeeded in creating strategic depth for Crimea by taking a large part of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. It made the junction with Donetsk Oblast or rather, from a Russian perspective, the DPR. It gave the latter its connection to the sea. Finally, it conquered a large part of Luhansk.

However, hardly any progress was made in the western part of Donetsk Oblast, which remained strongly in Ukrainian hands. There, the 2015 “contact line” acts as a quasi border where an attrition war started and would last.

All other territorial gains and operations – which includes Kiev, despite Western beliefs – were secondary or part of Russian psyops and could be abandoned to consolidate the territory taken that is part of the objectives.

“Contact line” or “line of contact”: “A stretch of land that separates conflict-affected people residing in Government (GCA) and non-Government-controlled areas (NGCA) of eastern Ukraine” (UNOCHA). It runs over approximately 420km. It has hardly moved between 2015 and February 2022 (ICG, Conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas). Defined in the Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements, 12 Feb 2015.

On 1st April 2022, the massacres of Bucha and other locations around Kiev was then revealed, creating widespread outrage (e.g. Eliot Higgins, “Russia’s Bucha ‘Facts’ Versus the Evidence“, Bellingcat, 4 April 22). The negotiations stopped, despite initial Turkish hope to see them continuing (Daily Sabah, “Turkey expects more Russia-Ukraine peace talks, FM Çavuşoğlu says“, 7 April 22).

Phase 2 – April 2022

Withdrawal from the north and repositioning of forces on real territorial objectives with, as potential “decoy area”, Kharkiv Oblast

Throughout April, the Russian forces withdrew from all northern territories as stated at the end of March. They repositioned their forces where territory matters in terms of main goals and started consolidating what they had already conquered. Meanwhile they also began the slow grinding progress to conquer or free according to side the territory of Luhansk oblast for the LPR and of Donetsk Oblast for the DPR.

The only remaining territory not belonging to their main goals is in Kharkiv oblast. This area could then be used as “decoy” or way to pin down Ukrainian forces on areas that did not matter to the Russian side. The slow withdrawal from Kharkiv region started then.

Phase 3 – May 2022 to date

Attrition warfare, freeing/conquering Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts territory, keeping as much as possible of the southern oblasts.

Phase 3-1 – The conquest of Luhansk Oblast – Attrition warfare elsewhere

By 25 June 2022, in Luhansk, Severodonetsk fully fell to the Russian army (ISW, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 25). Lysychansk followed suit on 2 July and the border of the Luhansk Oblast was reached on 3 July (ISW, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 3).

Kharkiv Oblast remains a zone that is dispensable and does not belong to true Russian objectives. It is partly in Russian hands, but by mid-May, Ukrainian forces have regained a small part of this territory, east of Kharkiv (city).

Elsewhere, the frontline hardly moved compared with previous periods. Attrition warfare settled, with rather offensive objectives in Donetsk Oblast and defensive aims in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.

Assuming the new weapons Ukraine received from Western allies, notably the U.S., as well as intelligence and special forces support, and consequent Ukrainian actions do not change the strategic situation for Crimea, it is likely that Russia will mainly seek to consolidate its gain in the south.

The western part of Donetsk remains, however, apparently stubbornly out of reach. As it is the last objective that needs to be met, then it should be the focus of the next phase.

Hypothetical Phase 3-2 – Conquering Donetsk, Keeping what was taken and Ending the War?

Reflexive control again?

Russia must find a way to conquer what remains of the Donetsk oblast, which represents a large part of territory and demands overcoming entrenched Ukrainian defense. Meanwhile, it must also preserve what matters, the territory conquered that corresponds to its real objectives.

This also means countering the Ukrainian counter-offensive officially started on 29 August 22, but with earlier premises (Reuters, “Ukraine says long-anticipated southern offensive has begun“, 29 August 2022, Oleksiy Yarmolenko, Tetyana Lohvynenko, “The Russian army sacrificed a massive offensive in Donbas to strengthen its position in the south‘, 12 August 22).

By 14 September, Ukrainian troops have re-conquered 8000 sq km of Kharkiv oblast (DW, “Ukraine stabilizes counteroffensive gains in northeast“, 14 September 2022). Notably the Ukrainian army could mobilise enough men, with a smart strategy to surprise “the rather small Russian forces of the 144th Motorised Division reinforced with disparate independent units” (Michel Goya, “1918 en Ukraine ?“, La Voix de l’Epée, 11 September 2022). Russian forces did not really fight and the “massive Russian forces stationned in Izium retreated eastwards” (ibid.). Izium was re-taken by Ukraine (Ibid.). Actually, according to the maps below, the territory liberated seems to have stabilised on 12 September, and even up to 18 September with different declarations however (see below).

Whatever the rhetoric used to explain Ukrainian successes in Kharkiv oblast, be it withdrawal of Russian troops for repositioning elsewhere (Russian MoD Telegram) or plain defeat in losing a territory (by Western analysts and Russian nationalists military bloggers and discussions in the Duma as stressed by the ISW “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 13“), it remains that the territory held in Karkhiv was not part of the main Russian objectives. This area could, of course, have a tactical, operational and strategic use, but yet it was not part of the Russian aims. Furthermore, its value in obtaining territorial gains in Donetsk may not have been that high considering the absence of results of the previous months. Hence losing it may not be as crucial as commentators, whatever their nationality, including Russian, may think, if – and this is a key “if” – a new front line along the river Oskil, or along the border of Luhansk oblast is established.

The Russian “recognition” of defeat in Kharkiv that is hailed in the West as something new (see details in ISW, “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 13“) may not matter that much either, as long it is not followed by other defeats or series thereof in areas corresponding to main territorial objectives. In that light, the loss of a very small part of Luhansk oblast on 10 September may be far more important, if it were to be followed by other losses.

Moreover, considering Russian practice of reflexive control and psyops, we should not forget the possibility that not only the change of rhetoric regarding the Ukrainian victory in Kharkiv – i.e. Russia recognising defeat there – but also, most importantly the very swift loss of territory could actually be part of an information operation.

This could be a Russian version of Operation Fortitude, when the allies deceived the Germans about where they would land on D-Day. In terms of reflexive control, we may imagine that the Russians acted in such a way that they prompted the decision by Ukraine and its allies to attack militarily on Kharkiv oblast.

One possible indication that deception could have been at work comes from an inconsistency highlighted by military experts. Specialists wonder about the inability of the Russian army to detect “five armoured-mechanised brigades near the front in Zmiv”, despite all the Russian intelligence capabilities (Goya, “1918 en Ukraine ?“). The only explanations that are offered are a failure of tactical assessment in the chain of command and failure of understanding at highest level (e.g. Goya, “1918 en Ukraine ?“). Of course, these explanations may very well be correct. Yet, one possibility is not envisioned: would it be possible that detection took place and that nothing was done, purposefully, because something else is at work, indeed deception.

The questions we would need to ponder would then be: what would be the interest of the Russian leadership in not defending and thus losing territory? Then in acknowledging defeat? Which goals could this serve? Answers to these questions are multiple. For example, as far as acknowledging defeat is concerned, the ISW details some of them, notably in terms of Russian domestic politics with bearings on Ukraine. To these, we should also add answers, for example, that would be related to really repositioning Russian and pro-Russian forces on major objectives, to pinning down Ukrainian troops away from main Russian objectives, as well as answers related to creating conditions that could favour over-confidence in Ukrainian forces.

Of course, an alternative would be that indeed the Russian tried to focus their war effort elsewhere considering that Kharkiv oblast was not part of the main aims, that American and Ukrainian intelligence spotted it and that they smartly took advantage of the Russian strategy. If ever a “Reflexive Control” operation was at work, then in would have backfired.

Whatever the explanation, the Ukrainian advance also signals the disappearance of the last non-key position held by Russia, while a large part of Donetsk oblast remains to be conquered. A new line of front must be established that will be a defense line to protect Luhansk oblast, i.e. from a pro-Russian perspective, the LPR. This new front line could run along the Oskil River with as main cities Logachevka-Dvorichana -Kupyansk-Boroza-Lyman, possibly joining the Siverskyi Donets river. It would allow Russia to keep use of the railway, and protect le LPR “border”.

However, by 19 September 22, Ukraine would already be on the Eastern bank in some ares, and either fighting to keep that position, while Russia tries to repel Ukrainian forces (e.g. ISW, “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 18“), or in full control of it according to Ukrainian Armed Forces and President (Reuters, “Zelenskiy vows no let-up as Ukraine says troops cross Oskil river in northeast“, 19 September 2022).

If Russia proved unable to construct and hold that new front line, or if it considered the threat has now increased considerably considering the support given to Ukraine, then Russia might resort to escalate longer range attacks behind the front line to disrupt Ukrainian advances, as signaled by attacks during the first part of September (e.g. The Guardian, “Russian strikes knock out power and water in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region“, 11 September), or to other means. This could mean a change towards enlarging the scope of war. Russia could justify these attacks by a similar strategy used by Ukraine that now utilises longer range armament besides support such as intelligence provided by its allies, notably Americans, as well as foreign “mercenaries” and “advisors”.

Once the retreat, plus holding of the new front line, and repositioning are done, Russian and pro-Russian forces will likely focus on their main objectives, Donetsk oblast, while defending elsewhere, with the right bank of the Dniepr in Kherson Oblast – which includes Kherson – as potential focal line of defence for the south.

The choice of an offensive on Donetsk oblast could be supported by Russian advances south of Bakhmut over the second week of September, as shown on the maps below. Fighting also takes place in Spirne, Adviivka and south of Marinka. Russian advances are still small in terms of area, and the moves forward have only taken place on less than one week. We are thus more in the realm of signals than of certainty.

Ending the war? Patience and length of time…

Finally, we may ponder the following hypothetical situation. Let us imagine that Russia would conquer the whole of Donetsk oblast, and succeed in keeping what it has conquered elsewhere. How would it then end the war?

The polarisation at work in Ukraine and among its allies – i.e. the U.S. and Europe, would probably forbid any peace negotiations allowing Russia and the separatist Republics of the Donbass to keep the territory conquered. (e.g. Reuters, “Zelenskiy vows no let-up as Ukraine says troops cross Oskil river in northeast“, 19 September 2022)

If we assume that the Russian leadership is well aware of this key pitfall, then we may wonder if one possible Russian strategy is not to buy time or to be ready to wait until international conditions have changed.

The key actors which positions would need to change are Ukraine’s allies. The latter, from a Russian point of view, need to favour stopping the war and reaching a negotiated settlement recognising the territory conquered by Russia, the DPR and the LPR, plus probably the neutrality of Ukraine.

The Russian political authorities may thus position themselves for a kind of “intense frozen war” that would last at least over the winter 2022-2023.

Their bet would be that Europe notably will not be able to sustain a winter without energy or with a complicated energy situation, while a deep recession is very likely to be triggered (Blackrock commentary 12 September 2022; Jennifer Sor, “Europe will spiral into a severe recession as the energy crisis hikes inflation and weighs on GDP, BlackRock says“, 12 September 2022).

Relatively, Russia may suffer less of the sanctions it faces, all the more so it benefits from the rise in energy prices. Indeed, for example, a Russian economy ministry document expects to see “Russian earnings from energy exports to $337.5 billion this year, a 38% rise on 2021 revenue from oil” (Reuters, 17 August 22). However, Russia still has to face recession and probably long term economic damage (Bloomberg, “Russia Privately Warns of Deep and Prolonged Economic Damage“, 6 September 22).

Nonetheless, Russia is also most likely to withstand pain with more equanimity, compared with European populations, which are already showing signs of rebellion against energy prices (Reuters, “Can’t pay, don’t pay” – Italian group urges energy bill strike“, 15 September 2022).

Furthermore, the very aggressive American actions worldwide, aiming at remaining the leader of the world and enforcing its international order, notably against China, only strengthen the partnership and friendship between Russia and China (e.g. Al Jazeera, “French, US delegations visit Taiwan as tension with China festers“, 8 September 2022; Helene Lavoix, “The War between China and the U.S. – The Normative Dimension“, 4 July 2022, and “The American National Interest“, 22 June 22, The Red Team Analysis Society)Ministry of foreign affairs of the People’s Republic of China, “President Xi Jinping Meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin“, 15 September 2022). As a result, Russia is likely to have time on its side. Finally, the American stance may get out of hand, fundamentally upsetting the global strategic terrain.

Hence, Russia may choose to wait and keep waiting, while war goes on in Ukraine with its pains and hardships, and both Europe and Russia suffer of deep recession.

Winter is coming.

Featured image: Russian T-90 tanks during a parade in Volgograd region; 2010, www.volganet.ru, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

War in Ukraine in the Warming Arctic – Anthropocene Wars (5)

The war in Ukraine is morphing from a war between Russia and Ukraine into a war that involves NATO members supporting the war effort in Ukraine (Darlene Superville and Zeke Miller, “US Boosting Military Presence in Europe amid Russia Threat”, APNews, 29 June 2022).

This situation generates strategic tensions between NATO and Russia that spill into the Arctic. One of the major strategic effects of the Ukraine war is the Sweden and Finland bid to adhere to NATO. As it happens, the Swedish and Finnish decision to adhere to NATO triggers a strongly adverse Turkish reaction (Abdullah Bozkurt, “Turkey’s “divide and conquer” plot for Sweden and Finland in their bid for NATO failed”, Nordic Monitor, 8 June 2020) .

These tensions take pace within the framework of the rapid warming of the region, a powerful variable that destabilises the Arctic regional and international geopolitical equilibriums (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Is the West Losing the Warming Arctic?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, 7 December, 2020).

Furthermore, the Arctic is already fraught with proliferating tensions between Russia and NATO since 2018. They happen through the multiplication by Russian as well as by NATO members of sea and air military exercises, weapons systems tests and manoeuvres (Thomas Nilsen, “Three Nations, One mission- The New NATO in the North”, The Independent Barents Observer, 3 June 2022 and “Russian Navy Launched Hypersonic Missile from the Barents Sea”, The Independent Barents Observer, May 28, 2022). Meanwhile NATO manoeuvres in the Arctic interact with the Russian militarization of the region.

However, the extension of tensions in the Arctic generated by the war in Ukraine has far deeper and larger ramifications. Over the course of the last decade or so, Russia has been developing the “Northern Sea route”. This new maritime corridor links the Bering Strait to Norway and the North Atlantic.

The development of this new road results from the rapid warming of the Arctic region. Thus, it is one of the ways Russia strategically adapts to climate change (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Towards a US-China War? (1) and (2): Military Tensions in the Arctic”, The Red Team Analysis Society, September 16, 2019).

As it happens, the Northern Sea route attracts a growing number of Chinese convoys. By using this road, the Chinese ships and tankers reach the Northern Atlantic, turning China into a North Atlantic economic powerhouse. Meanwhile, the energy development of the Russian Arctic is the template for numerous Sino-Russian joint ventures in the field of offshore oil and gas (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Arctic China: Towards new Oil Wars in a Warming Arctic?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, September 14, 2020). In the same time, Russia exports growing volumes of Arctic oil and gas to China and India.

Those multiple cross-dynamics mean that the tensions the war in Ukraine generates in the Arctic take place in an already geopolitically and geophysically turbo-charged environment. However, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. Thus, we are going to study the different dimensions of these new tensions and the way they interact with the warming Arctic changes.

From Ukraine to the warming Arctic

The political consequences of the war in Ukraine are spreading from the battlefield to the Arctic regional equilibrium. Indeed, on 18 May 2022, neutral Sweden and Finland reacted to the Russian offensive in Ukraine by officially applying for NATO membership (Steven Lamy, “Finland’s and Sweden’s pursuit of NATO membership is the exact opposite of what Putin wanted for Russia’s Neighbors”, The Conversation, 21 June 2022).

This move drastically turns upside down the Arctic regional strategic equilibria. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, the Russian federation opposes NATO’s expansion in Eastern and Northern Europe. Furthermore, Sweden and Norway were neutral countries. Thus, they were avoiding the “hammer and anvil” status of being caught between NATO interests and Russia’s security interests.

Finland’s “national insecurity” and Sweden’s fear

The Finnish decision is backed by a parliamentary due process. It also follows a massive shift in public opinion. Indeed, in January 2022, only 24% of the Finnish citizens were in favour of a NATO membership. On 28 February, 4 days after the start of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, 68% of Finns were in its favour. This shift may be explained by Finland historical context (Steven Lamy, ibid).

One must remember that, for Finland, the twentieth century collective experience is defined by its two bloody wars with Russia. The first one occurred in 1918. At that time the Russian revolution and the rise of the Bolshevik regime triggered the Finnish civil war. This civil war opposed “White Finland” to the “Finnish socialist workers Republic”. The latter was supported by the nascent USSR and the Bolshevik power (Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, Paradoxes of power, 2014).

Then, in August 1939, the signature of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR installed Finland, as well as the Baltic states,  in the Soviet sphere of influence. In 1939-1940, the ferocious Finland-USSR war ended with Finland losing 10% of its territory (Stephen Kotkin, Stalin vol II- Waiting for Hitler, 2017).

So, Finland allied with Nazi Germany in 1941. It participated in the assault on the Soviet Union, in order to take back the lost parts of its territory. After the Allies victory in 1945, the USSR imposed the status of neutral country on Finland.

This historical background certainly shapes the collective Finnish perception of Russia (Helene Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority, and opposition – the case of Cambodia (1861-1979) – PhD Thesis – School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2005).

The will to join the NATO alliance happens at a time when Russia uses its military might on its western borders for the third time since the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. This situation triggers a strong collective feeling of “national insecurity” towards Russia (Lamy, ibid).

From the Swedish point of view, the military support to Ukraine started at the very beginning of the war: Sweden shipped more than 5,000 anti-tank weapons, 5,000 body shields, 5,000 helmets and 135,000 field rations (Lamy, ibid).

There has not been any war between Sweden and Russia since 1814. However, one must remember that Sweden faces the Russian and highly militarized Kaliningrad enclave. From Kaliningrad, the Russian navy radiates its influence on the whole of the Baltic Sea (Guy Faulconbridge, “Russia warns of nuclear, hypersonic deployment if Sweden and Finland Join NATO”, Reuters, April 14, 2022).

Arctic Turkey

However, Turkey, a historic NATO member, contested those Swedish-Finnish NATO candidacies. Between May and 29 June 2022, President Erdogan’s government opposed the adhesion of the two Scandinavian countries. It did so on the ground of their numerous declarations and policies denouncing the Turkish policies against the Kurds.

Ankara denounced the way Sweden and Finland have been accusing Turkey of human rights abuses. The adhesion to NATO necessitating a unanimous vote of its 30 members, Turkey de facto blocked both candidacies (Abdullah Bozkurt, “Turkey’s “divide and conquer” plot for Sweden and Finland in their bid for NATO failed”, Arctic Monitor, 8 June 2020). Finally, on 29 June, President Erdogan agreed to allow these applications during the Madrid’s NATO summit (Humeyra Pamuk and Anne Kauranen, “Turkey lifts veto on Finland Sweden joining NATO, clearing path for expansion”, Reuters, 29 June 2022).

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the warming of the Arctic has very concrete consequences for Turkey.

Indeed, the opening of the Northern Sea Route by Moscow necessitates the building of a new fleet of nuclear icebreakers. Those icebreakers need to dock in Murmansk, where the historic dock sank in 2018. As a result, Russian Rosatom launched an international bid, that the Turkish KuzeyStar won in June 2021. The Turkish company is supposed to deliver the new giant floating port at the end of 2024. It is a 4,9 billion rubbles (55 million Euros) investment by Rosatom (Polina Leganger Bronder, “Turkish yard wins bid to build nuclear icebreaker dock”, The Independent Barents Observer, June 13, 2021).

Moreover, Turkey also benefits from the Russian oil and gas development of the Arctic. For example, in 2021, there was a 63% increase of the Turkish gas imports from Gazprom. This increase is coupled with the 10% increase from Germany and 20% increase from Italy, as well as from “abroad countries” (thus labelled by Gazprom). This global increase is only possible through the massive Gazprom operations in the Arctic (Ate Staalesen, “As Moscow Prepared for War, State company Gazprom sold Arctic gas worth almost 140 $billion”, The Independent Barents Observer, 3 May 2022). It is especially true of the mammoth Yamal fields, on the façade of the Kara Sea.

Thus, the warming Arctic becomes a place where the Russian, Turkish, Swedish and Finnish national interests unexpectedly entangle.

Arctic energy and trade development

The Sweden-Finland application for NATO membership is inseparable from the fact that, since 2018, the warming Arctic has become a major attractor for NATO. This results from the rapidly retreating summer sea ice and of the growing instability of the Arctic sea ice and consequences for Russia.

Indeed, since the end of the 2000s, the Russian government has been adapting to this geophysical change by opening a new maritime causeway along the Siberian coastline.

This “Northern Sea route” links the Bering Strait, thus the Pacific and Asia, to the Barents Sea and the Norway sea, thus to Northern Europe and the Northern Atlantic. In the same dynamic, Russia develops several on- and offshore oil and gas deposits, such as the Yamal I and II LNG projects.

The Northern Sea Route and the energy opportunities attract massive Chinese investments, as well as Chinese cargo convoys (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Warming Russian Arctic: Where Russian and Asian Strategies Interests Converge?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 23, 2016).

China and NATO, new Arctic actors

Using the Northern Sea route, Chinese convoys save several days on travel time to reach northern Europe major ports. Meanwhile, Beijing systematically signs bilateral trade and technology agreements with Northern Europe governments (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Arctic China 2- The Chinese Shaping of the North”, The Red Team Analysis Society, June 9, 2014).

In other words, thanks to the Russian development of the climate change consequences on the Arctic, China becomes a major economic power in Northern Europe and in the North Atlantic area.

It is in this context that, in September 2018, the Russian military organized the Vostock 18 giant maneuvers in Siberia and in the Russian Far East (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing the Warming Arctic- The Race to Neo Mercantilism(s)”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 12, 2018).

The Chinese military was associated to this “Vostok 18” exercise. Then, from 23 October 2018 to 7 November 2018, NATO organised the “Trident Juncture 2018” manoeuvres in the Arctic region, between Norway and Iceland, thus leading its largest military exercise since the end of the Cold war in 1991 (Christopher Woody, “The US Navy is pushing north, closer to Russia in freezing conditions — and it’s planning on hanging around up there“, Business Insider, 7 November 2018).

These manoeuvres mobilized 50.000 soldiers, 150 planes, 10.000 land vehicles and 60 warships. They were centered on Norway, where landing, deployment and combat exercises took place. They were led to demonstrate the reaction capability against a hypothetical and unnamed adversary that would endanger a fellow NATO member in the Arctic region.

This official “anonymousness” did not stop Russia to protest officially against this military exercise taking place very close to its land and maritime frontiers (Christopher Woody, “Russia aims its missile drills shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO’s biggest war games in years”, Business Insider, 31 October, 2018).

Since then, Russia has sped up the militarization of the coastline and of its maritime economic zone. Meanwhile, in 2020, NATO has created its Arctic command at the U.S Navy Norfolk base (Levon Sevuts, “NATO’s new Atlantic command to keep watch over the European Arctic”, The Independent Barents Observer, September 18, 2020). During the same period, the Scandinavian countries and Russia have multiplied military air, sea and land exercises (Thomas Nilsen, “Increase in NATO scrambled jets from Norway”, The Independent Barents Observer, and “US warship returns Barents Sea”, September 14, and October 2020).

Then, on 5 June 2022, while the war in Ukraine raged and NATO members support Ukraine in a military, financial, medical and humanitarian way, NATO implemented its annual Baltic exercise, BALTOPS 22 (Anadolu Agency, “Largest-ever NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea ends”, Dayly Sabah, June 12, 2022).

The exercise gathered 45 warships, 75 planes and 7500 serving men and women. Among them were Swedish and Finnish troops, invited to participate following their NATO application. The Russian ministry of defense reacted by deploying a 60 strong maritime force. This deployment was the occasion for a maritime and land exercise involving Russian forces from the Kaliningrad enclave.

Arctic Madrid

As these exercise take place, so does the Madrid NATO summit of the 27-30 June 2022. Then, the Organization published its new strategic concept, that includes Russia and China as systemic threats (Hélène Lavoix, “The War between China and the U.S. – The Normative Dimension“, The Red Team Analysis Society, 4 July 2022). As far as the Arctic is concerned, it specifies that:

“In the High North, its (“Russian”) capability to disrupt Allied reinforcements and freedom of navigation across the North Atlantic is a strategic challenge to the Alliance. Moscow’s military build-up, including in the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean Sea regions, along with its military integration with Belarus, challenge our security and interests.”

NATO 2022 Strategic Concept

In other words, NATO officially integrates the warming Arctic to its strategic doctrine, while identifying China and Russia as being its competitors in many areas, including in the Arctic. This also means that the Russian and Chinese development of the warming Arctic and the capabilities they could derive from this approach are clearly understood by Washington D.C ( Sean Monaghan, Pierre Morcos, Colin Wall, “What happened at Madrid ‘s NATO summit ?“, CSIS, July 1, 2022).

Kaliningrad for ever

Meanwhile, since the start of June 22, following the EU and the US, Lithuania applies sanctions on Kaliningrad by blocking half the railway traffic going from Russia to the enclave (Tim Libster and Rob Picheta, “Why Kaliningrad, Russia’s Toehold in Europe, could be the next flashpoint in its war against Ukraine”, CNN, June 22, 2022).

Kaliningrad is located between Poland and Lithuania and faces Sweden across the Baltic Sea. Being the Russian Baltic fleet port, Kaliningrad is very highly militarised, and hosts an Iskander missiles facility. Iskander weapon systems have the capability to carry nuclear weapons if so equipped.

Lithuania involves itself in the sanctions systems imposed by the G7, the EU and the US. As Finland’s, this policy has roots in its painful history with the Soviet Union. Since 2004, it is part of NATO and of the EU.

However, more recently, it is also under the direct pressure of Belarus, that, since 2021, literally “projects” migrants from Middle East, Africa and Central Asia on the borders of Poland and Lithuania, in order to destabilize them. Belarus does so as reprisal against the sanctions imposed by the EU since the contested reelection of president Lukashenko. (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Belarus and the weaponization of migration“, The Red Team Analysis Society, 7 February, 2022).

However, in the meantime, on 17 June, the Russian new nuclear icebreaker Sibir sailed towards the tricky Viltitsky Strait. In the same time, the LNG carrier Nicolaï Yevgorov left the Sabetta port, where special Arctic carriers load up with the LNG that the giant Yamal operation produces (Atle Staalesen, “As Russia turns towards Asia, this year’s first vessel heads east on Northern Sea Route”, The Independent Barents Observer, 17 June 2022).

The Sibir will certainly escort the Nicolai Yevgorov along the Northern Sea route towards the Bering strait. Thus, it will ship LNG to the ravenous Asian market, especially the Chinese one.

In other words, the war in Ukraine increases strategic tensions that were already growing since 2018 in the nexus of international relations that the warming Arctic attracts. The Arctic attraction also reveals that the Russia-China-Turkey-Asia nexus is deepening through trade and energy, while NATO projects itself in this rapidly changing and “polarizing”region.

It is in this tense context that the war in Ukraine “spills” into the Arctic and accelerates its strategic changes. We must now see if the rapidly changing geophysics of the region are going to “overheats” this new state of things.

Featured image: AK, UNITED STATES, 03.18.2022, Photo by Sgt. Seth LaCount, United States Army Alaska, (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Seth LaCount) – Public Domain.

The War between China and the U.S. – The Normative Dimension

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

The whole world is caught in a battle of giants with the U.S. on the one hand and China on the other. This confrontation takes place at different levels and through all forms and dimensions of power. The escalation towards war is at work. War is not inevitable, it is however likely. To best survive the escalation and possibly the war, we must understand its multiple aspects. State actors, for their part, should act according to their own national interest considering the forces at work.

Even though this may appear as unthinkable to many, the aim of the major actors may not be to avoid war. As we saw in the American National Interest, peace and avoidance of war are nowhere part of the objectives of America. Indeed, the U.S. very precisely write that the American defense has as priorities “Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe” (U.S. National Defense Strategy 2022 – Factsheet). This means that war is an option. Thus we must all be ready for the possibility of war between China and the U.S.. It is also with this strategic framework in mind that we must understand the war in Ukraine, the relationships with Russia and NATO’s expansion.

In this article we focus on the systemic and normative dimension of the conflict between China and the U.S..

First, we briefly explain the dimensions of the confrontation, systemic and interstate. We look then at two interrelated approaches for the systemic dimension: the evolution of the relative power of states and the struggle for norms and international order and consequences on war. Finally, we examine examples of Chinese global strategic communication (aka “propaganda“) at normative level, looking at seven short videos published on official Chinese Youtube channels dealing with various issues, from the ecology to NATO’s expansion through the U.S. essential wrongdoing.

Dimensions of a confrontation

At systemic level, the third level of analysis(1), we witness the rise of China as new dominating power and the struggle of the U.S. to remain the sole superpower ruling the world. In the meantime there is a war at work between the two corresponding orders: an emerging order linked to China and a still preponderant but declining order led by the US.

Even though there is not yet a real war, stricto sensu, between China and the U.S., the war between the two orders has started in Ukraine, while escalation towards a war involving China is taking place. For example, the June 2022 NATO summit not only included Asian allies of the U.S. but the new key document that resulted, 2022 NATO Strategic Concept highlights “the systemic challenges posed by the PRC to Euro-Atlantic security” (pp. 5 & 10). For example:

It [China] strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains. The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.

2022 NATO Strategic Concept, 29 June 2022, p.5

At the second level of analysis, interstate relations, the various actors on the world stage enact the systemic battle through a combat between the U.S. on the one hand, China on the other. This level or more precisely the result of the actions of the states will, in turn influence the systemic battle.

A good representation for this ongoing “battle of giants” is a kind of 3D board, where each level of the board also interacts with other levels. Using a 2D board as representation cannot yield a proper understanding of the confrontation.

As a result, the strategy, policy and, more generally, all actions of actors must be understood, planned, and evaluated according to their impact within each level across all domains, and on each level.

A global battle of norms

Triggered traps

Thus, at systemic level, the rise of China threatens the dominant American position.

The Americans perceive it as such, as expressed in their many national threats assessments (see Helene Lavoix, “The American National Interest“). American scholars condone also this understanding of world politics, as exemplified by the Harvard publication on Thucydides’s Trap (from the research and book by Allison, Graham. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). According to Allison, the rise of a new world power threatens the existing power and, as a result, over the last 500 years, war ensued in 12 out of 16 cases. Fear is a critical element in the triggering of the trap (Ibid.)

Joseph Nye criticism of Thucydides’s trap, the Kindleberger Trap questions Allison’s number of cases and argues that bad policy choices rather than systemic inevitability were at work to trigger wars. However, Nye does not discard the existence of Thucydides’s trap. He adds a new explanatory component, following Kindleberger, the architect of the Marshall plan, according to which one cause of war when a new power rises is its inability to provide global public goods. Thus, the world in general, and the United States in particular, must also worry about the strength, capacity and willingness of China to deliver global public goods.

However, in the case of China and the U.S. we may wonder if the Kindleberger trap theory would not need to be refined. Indeed, as the interactions of forces push China in increasingly playing an important role at normative level, ideally, this should lower the risk to see the Kindleberger trap being triggered. However, of course, from the American perspective, Chinese normative actions and related communications are perceived as a threat to the American international supremacy and national interest. Hence, the U.S. and the actors benefiting from the Pax Americana order are bound to attack this evolution.

To summarise we are between the anvil and the hammer: a strengthening China, including at systemic level, is very likely to increase the perception of threat of the U.S. and thus to generate a war with America and its allies, while a China that would not be strong enough would in any case favour war because it cannot provide global public goods.

Furthermore, the question remains on the nature of the global public goods provided. Indeed, it is very likely that the vision and understanding of global public goods differ for China and the United States.

This leads us to the question of global norms.

A battle of norms and perceptions

As Thucydides’s trap is triggered, the U.S., through their actions at both interstate and systemic levels, further force China to also act at normative and international order level.

An order is ruled by norms, i.e. “a standard of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity” (Martha Finnemore, Kathryn Sikkink “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change” International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4, International Organization at Fifty: Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics, Autumn, 1998). As a result, international norms “make clear what behaviour is considered appropriate and when a line has been crossed” (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Priority #2: International Norms, November 2020).

Thus, in our case, we have an order ruled according to American standards of appropriate behaviour, alongside what we tend to currently perceive as universal principles, as enshrined, for example, in the UN charter. This American order is declining (Thucydides’s trap). The challenging and rising order is ruled according to Chinese standards of appropriate behaviour, alongside also universal principles that may or may not be enshrined in the UN charter, and may only be partially perceived as universal. Possibly also, some of the principles enshrined in the UN charter are perceived differently according to order.

The perception and interpretation of international norms are also part of the normative battles taking place at the systemic level of analysis. For example, the norm of territoriality for sovereign states is a fundamental and universal principle for the modern state system. We understand it as universal. However, before that norm spread throughout states and space, from the 17th century until the end of the 19th century – start of the 20th century, we could find other types of norms and organisations. The “galactic polities”(2) in the Southeast Asian Buddhist system constitutes a case of a different type of order (see note (2) below and also Thongchai, Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994). Hence the so-called universality of norms is actually contingent to space and time and thus not universal at all. The Caliphate promoted by the Islamic State is another case of order totally different from the current system (see, for example, Hélène Lavoix, The Islamic State Psyops – Worlds War, The Red Team Analysis Society, 19 January 2015).

When the U.S. act to uphold the norms of their order according to their own standard of behaviour and protest against or combat China’s standard of behaviour, they truly perceive Chinese norms as threatening and often “wrong”, according to their own norms, which they genuinely believe to be universal. For example, as we spelled out, 2022 NATO Strategic Concept stresses what NATO perceives as attacks on its rules-based international order. During the June 22 NATO Summit, according to a South Korean official, “South Korea’s president warned… of the threat to universal values at a time of new conflict and competition, a reference to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and China’s engagement with Russia” (Hyonhee Shin, Reuters, 30 June 2022).

Of course, China, does not perceive itself as “wrong” or “malevolent”. Thus, it will want to counter any strategic communication of the U.S. and its allies that would spread the perception of a China that is dangerous and negative for the world. China is therefore enticed into first increasingly having an international strategy that promotes global public goods as it defines it – and not as the U.S. sees it – and into a related global communication that will explain why the Chinese vision of the norms and the very norms China’s upholds are right, good and universal. In the same time, the Chinese will portray the wrong doing of the U.S..

In terms of strategic communication the two messages – promoting one’s norms and fighting against the other’s norms – may be grouped together or presented separately, as we shall see with the examples below.

Meanwhile, the differences between the two normative visions of the world is emphasised. At the end of the process, if China triumphs, a new global order built on Chinese norms, including Chinese perceptions of universal norms will have emerged.

In other words, the very battle for normative supremacy co-constructs the type of global order that emerges, its content and its capability to rule globally.

Chinese global normative communication

Chinese communication goes global and normative

As expected, China “is increasingly targeting a wider audience than just its diasporas, as demonstrated by the growing number of Chinese propaganda outlets published in a number of foreign languages (Global Times, China Daily, CGTN, Xinhua, etc.)” (Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer and Paul Charon, “Russia as a Hurricane, China as Climate Change: Different Ways of Information Warfare”, War on The Rocks, 21 January 2020). In so doing, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is only catching up with what the U.S. and other world nations have been doing since World War II through the use of international broadcasting services as supporting capabilities for their information operations (see Helene Lavoix, Information Warfare and the War in Ukraine, The Red Team Analysis Society, 24 May 2022).

This is the Chinese strategic communication element of what we explained earlier: China being pushed into fighting at normative level through delivering global public goods and through battles over perception and understanding of norms.

Interestingly, the very way the American and allied doctrine labels “adversary strategic communication” as “propaganda”, as we saw (Information Warfare), is already a preemptive strike against all Chinese international broadcasting services’ production and thus against emerging Chinese norms. It is an effort to make sure these normes do not spread and settle. For example, Jeangène Vilmer and Charon belittle Chinese media as “propaganda outlets” in their analytical paper (see above), when these media are merely international broadcasting services, and thus supporting China’s strategic communication. Many Western analysts and officials, similarly would immediately cast any Chinese media production as “propaganda”.

Yet, what is produced by the PRC media will be priceless indications regarding the content of Chinese norms. It will indicate which future norms may become preponderant, the norms around which battles are and will be fought, etc. We shall now turn to such examples.

Cases of Chinese normative strategic communication through videos

We examine here some of the videos produced by Global Times and CGTN as indications of the Chinese global strategic communications at normative level. We only look at examples posted on Youtube, thus aimed at a non-Chinese audience.

At first glance, we can note a flourish of series that could reveal an effort at finding something that works in addressing a global audience. The second observation is that China seems to have difficulties to truly captivate Youtube’s audience and get traffic as expressed in number of views. However, considering the number of Chinese TV channels available in many countries, the relatively small number of views on Youtube should be taken with a pinch of salt. Further research would be needed to measure the real impact of China’s normative actions and of its related global communication in the world.

Whatever their impacts, as we explained, these videos will be useful to us as they will indicate Chinese efforts in terms of norms. We should expect to find videos highlighting the good brought about by Chinese actions with their normative underpinnings, videos stressing more simply Chinese norms and finally videos highlighting American wrongdoing, either singularly or by comparison with Chinese behaviour. Actually, we could identify other interesting videos according to China’s perception of itself and of the world (see Hélène Lavoix, “China’s Perception of U.S. International Politics“, The Red Team Analysis Society, 27 September 2021), but this will be for another article.

Video highlighting the good brought about by Chinese actions with their normative underpinnings

Ecology and ecological actions are increasingly featured in Chinese videos. This let us expect that a normative battle will take place at this level.

With this video, “China launches first megaton-capable offshore carbon storage project”, China highlights technological capabilities and the importance of ecological concern and restoration as norm.

“China launches first megaton-capable offshore carbon storage project” – 29 June 2022

The example below, where Chinese President “Xi Jinping encourages green development modeled on the Kekeya project” not only features efficient Chinese actions regarding the restoration of ecological systems, but also the benefit of Chinese political system as headed by President Xi Jinping (by opposition to Western vision of China as an autocratic system) and the benevolence and positivity of China’s actions in Xinjiang (by opposition to Western attacks regarding human rights in Xinjiang).

“Xi Jinping encourages green development modeled on the Kekeya project” – 5 June 2022

Videos stressing Chinese norms

We have here videos showing, for example, the promotion of Chinese culture and tradition. Cultural influence and outreach is fully part of the normative level. Examples of the U.S. influence in that matter go from Hollywood to MacDonald and Coca-Cola.

The video below from a CGTN series on martial arts is a classical instance of this genre.

Nanzhi Quan: Be fierce and forceful at every step|南枝拳 – 29 June 2022

Videos highlighting American wrongdoing

One of the longest series (651 videos by 27 June 2022) on Global Times is “Hu Says” where Mr Hu makes brief analyses and comments on international affairs. He not only gives China’s perspective and position on various topics but also often highlights American or Western negative or questionable behaviour.

For example, regarding the June 2022 G7, “Hu says” highlights that the G7 has become subservient to American aims. As a result, from a Chinese perspective, this shows that the G7 cannot be seen as a global institution interested in global public goods.

A more violent example of these types of videos was broadcast on 22 April 2022 and is named “Unmasking the superpower”. It aims at “unmasking the true evil nature of the U.S.”

“Unmasking the superpower”, Global Times, published on 22 April 2022

Videos highlighting American wrongdoing by comparison with Chinese behaviour.

In this category, we have as example two videos of the series “Mr Hu”.

The first is an answer to the 2022 European enlargement of NATO and compares a war torn Europe under American influence to a peaceful Asia thanks to benevolent and peace-loving China.

Europe will certainly not become more secure after this round of NATO expansion – 29 June 2022

The second example highlights Chinese incomprehension when seeing Americans accepting an extremely bad management of the COVID-19 pandemic by the U.S. political authorities. In so doing, Mr Hu highlights a weakness of America in terms of organisation when compared with China alongside the fact that the U.S. does not truly puts first the lives of its citizens. The audience is meant to contrast this American policy with the Chinese one, which is truly concerned with human lives. From there follows an interrogation regarding the true value of democracy and legitimacy in America, which is an answer to American’s denunciations of the Chinese autocratic system. We are truly in a normative battle for the best type of belief-based socio-political system.

The tolerance that US society isn’t in chaos despite of its COVID-19 deaths is incredible – 9 February 2022

Those examples are only some cases among myriads being regularly broadcast by China.

We are in the midst of a total belief-based war pitting an emerging world against a declining one. Which order will prevail is not yet clear. What is certain, however, is that no order is ready to yield, on the contrary. As a result, escalation may only continue, possibly until a fully fledged war.

Notes

(1) We use here the classical model of analysis of international relations according to three levels, as identified and established in Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis by Kenneth N. Waltz (New York, Columbia University: 1959) – Readers in a hurry may also read the review by David. J Singer, “International Conflict: Three Levels of Analysis.” World Politics, vol. 12, no. 3, 1960, pp. 453–61. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2009401.

There is also a first level of analysis, the individual actors, but we shall not consider it here.

(2) Extract from Helene Lavoix, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Genocide’: the construction of nation-ness, authority, and opposition – the case of Cambodia (1861-1979) – PhD Thesis – School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2005. Access and download through the British Library Ethos.: “In the Southeast Asian Buddhist political system characterised as “Galactic polities,”… various centres’ relative importance and power fluidly increased (waxed) or decreased (waned) (for this paragraph Stanley Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer: a Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp.121-127). A waxing centre attracted into its orbit centres of lesser strength. The loose control of main centres over the others decreased with distance and entailed shifting alliances and tributary relations. Impermanence was the rule.

However, the development of such factors as maritime trade, firearms, and interstate competition brought a slow evolution to the galactic polities.Victor Lieberman, “Local Integration and Eurasian Analogies: Structuring Southeast Asian History, c.1350-c.1830;” Modern Asian Studies 27, 3 (1993), pp.475-572. and Strange Parallels, Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800-1830, Vol.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). The system progressively lost its fluidity and tended towards an increasing and irrevocable “political integration” of the lesser tributary centres by the major centres (Ibid. p.485).”

The American National Interest

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli

Do the United States still consider France to be their ally?

We have to ponder this question because of the submarine contract signed between France and Australia, and broken in September 2021, to the benefit of the U.S.. If a country takes 35 billion euros from you, possibly revalued to 55 billion, then is it still your ally? This actually looks more like hostile behaviour on the part of the Americans.

Hence, whether the U.S. and France are still allies is a puzzle. And one that is important to solve. Indeed, this kind of American attitude could possibly happen again in other circumstances, with other countries. We must therefore understand what happened and why.

This understanding, the explanation of the puzzle, lies in the American national interest, which this article and the video address. The article also details all the sources and footages used in the video.

Continue reading “The American National Interest”

Understanding the War in Syria – 2013 to 2017/18

You will find here a series of research articles that were published from 2013 to 2017 and early 2018 to help actors navigate the war in Syria, with different focuses according to years.

The early years of the war: up until 2013-2014

State of play and actors of the war in Syria

In this section you will find the state of play and the various categories of actors fighting in and over Syria. Articles written before July 2013 are open access.

General and evolution of the war

(A full report in pdf – Potential Futures for Syria in the Fog of War, published on 15 July 2013 is also available).

Al-Assad Groups

The Kurds (2013, 2014, 2017, 2018)

Salafis and Jihadis

Scenarios (2013) for the future of the war in Syria

Back in 2013, we also built scenarios for the future. Keep in mind that ideally, scenarios should then be used for monitoring and early warning. Indeed, scenarios evolve, notably in terms of likelihood, out of changes on the battleground and interactions between all actors.

Evaluating Scenarios and Indicators for the Syrian War, by Helene Lavoix, 10 March 2014.

The war against the Islamic State

Then we focused mainly on the Islamic State. You can access our detailed work in the corresponding section as it is broader in scope than the war in Syria (see notably: At War against the Islamic State – From Syria to the Region by H Lavoix, 2 November 2015).

The years 2016 and 2017

A more recent phase of the war in Syria, end of 2016 to 2017 is handled mainly through signals’ analysis in the Horizon Scanning Board, with longer articles on the Kurds (see package above).

The Battle of Raqqa, the Kurds and Turkey – by H Lavoix, 2 May 2017.

The Kurds in Syria – State-Building, New Model and War – by H Lavoix, 22 May 2017.

The Middle East Powder Keg and the Great Battle for Raqqa – by H Lavoix, 12 June 2017.

Towards Renewed War in Syria? The Kurds and Turkey – by H Lavoix, 3 July 2017.

Bibliography

The Syrian War – Bibliography and Sources (first years of the war in Syria)

Methodology

See also our section on scenarios and scenario-building.

Food Security: China-Russia and Ukraine – Anthropocene Wars (4)

The War in Ukraine and the Great Amplification

Since the start of the Russian offensive on 24 February 2022, the raging war has triggered an amplification of the tension on global food and energy prices. The price trends for oil, gas, coal and agricultural products were already on the rise because of the Western “post” Covid pandemic economic recovery.

Since March, the war in Ukraine is turbocharging inflation trends (Charlotte Hebebrand and David Laborde, “High fertilizers prices contribute to rising global food security concerns“, International Food Policy Institute, April 25, 2022 and « Oil Prices Will Remain Above $100/ Barrel as long as the Ukraine War Rages On », The Economic Times, 25 April 2022).

Then, as seen in “War in Ukraine, U.S Megadrought and the Coming Global Food Crisis” (Jean-Michel Valantin, The Red Team Analysis Society, 1 May 2022), the effects of the war in Ukraine, not only block the exports of the Ukrainian and Russian crops but also combine with the consequences of the multiple megadroughts that impact the U.S. and Indian crops.

Meanwhile, the U.S. executive and legislative branches mobilize a 40 billion dollars package, in order to support Ukraine financially and militarily. As it happens, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the legislation in South Korea, while being on a tour in Asia (“Biden signs $40 Billion aid package for Ukraine during trip to Asia”, CNBC, 21 May 2022).

Two days later, in Tokyo, he declared that the U.S. would militarily support Taiwan in case of a Chinese attack on the island (Tripti Lahiri, “Did Biden just end U.S strategic ambiguity on Taiwan?”, Quartz, 23 May, 2022). One can infer that, given the current state of tension, those legislations and declarations are very closely monitored by Beijing.

Those political and strategic American signals happen at a time when the Chinese decision-makers have to manage difficult domestic and international crises.

On the one hand, they have to handle the struggle against the Covid-19 new wave and, on the other, the Taiwan-U.S.-mainland China tensions. Simultaneously, they must guarantee China’s food security, while having to deal with a very bad winter wheat harvest (Hallie Gu and Shivani Sing, “China agriculture minister says winter wheat condition could be worst in history”, Reuters, March 7, 2022).

In this regard, it appears that, in fact, China has stockpiled grains since 2021. Chinese companies buy, among others, wheat and corn to Russia, France and Ukraine (“China corn imports soar to new records in 2021”, Reuters, 18 January, 2022). Beijing implements this food policy as major extreme weather events impact major crops in China and around the globe.

Since 2021, extreme weather events have impacted winter and spring crops worldwide and especially in China, the U.S., India, Brazil (Sara Schafer, “Brazil’s drought: the trigger that could take corn prices higher?”, AgWeb, 28 April, 2022).

In the context of this very tense international situation, the linkages between agriculture and energy confer a reinforced geopolitical meaning to the Sino-Russian relation.

The question is to evaluate if one of the major consequences of the current geopolitical and climate change induced tensions could be the reinforcement of the Russia-China relationships. In which case, the close cooperation between Russia and China is not only about economic development. It is also about supporting each other power, while maintaining each other vital access to food and energy resources.

Chinese food security: a turning point in 2021

Export Bans

Since 2021, a growing number of major agricultural countries restrict or ban exports of their own production. The process started in June 2021, when the Russian government imposed taxes on grain exports, trying to stabilize domestic food prices.

Then, in December 2021, Argentina took a similar step (Clément Vérité, “Argentina stops exports of soybean oil and soybean meals “until further notice“, Newsendip, 14 March, 2022. Since then, the Argentinian political authorities limit corn and wheat export volumes. They do so in order to control domestic food prices. In March, the Argentinian government tightened these measures.

Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Turkey, Serbia, Hungary, and Kuwait took similar steps (Weizhen Tan, “India is not the only one banning food exports. These countries are doing the same”, CNBC, 17 May, 2022).

Then, since February 2022 and the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the exports of grain from Ukraine and Russia are also largely down. This diminution comes from the blocking of the Black Sea ports.

In May 2022, India, the second largest wheat producer, decided to ban exports. The decision is based on the destructive effects of the massive heatwave that impacts India and Pakistan. The Indian crops yield lost 20% because of this month-long, climate-change driven extreme weather event (Manavi Kapur, “India’s extreme heatwave is already thwarting Modi’s plan to “feed the world”“, Quartz, 28 April 2022).

Meanwhile, the U.S. Midwest and South are experiencing a major megadrought, as well as episodes of short but heavy rains that delay the planting of the spring cultures.

In other terms, the globalized agriculture and food markets are going through a major “perfect storm” (Jean-Michel Valantin, “War in Ukraine, The U.S Mega drought and the Coming Global Food Crisis”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 1, 2022).

China’s stockpiles

In the context of this global agricultural crisis, since 2021, China has developed massive stockpiles of grains. Indeed, China imported 28,2 million of tons of corn in 2021 (Shin Watanabe and Eiko Munakata, “China hoards over half the world’s grain, pushing up prices”, Asia Nikkei, 23 December 2021). This is the equivalent of 152% of the 2020 annual record imports of 11,8 million tons.

Since 2021, China’s stocks of wheat represent 51% of the global stocks, while its stocks of corn represent 61% of the global total, and its rice reserves 60% of the global ones. In other words, China as apparently stockpiled the equivalent of 1,5 year of food (Watanabe and Munakata ibid). Since the fall of 2021, this massive stockpiling seems to be one of the drivers of the global food inflation.

The Chinese agricultural situation is worsened by the current rural exodus taking place in China. This social trend deprives the countryside, thus the agricultural sector, of farmers and agricultural workers (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China: Towards the digital ecological revolution?”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, October 22, 2017. To add insult to injury, China suffers from a national shortage of freshwater stemming from waste, pollution, changing weather patterns, urbanization, which is another massive limiting factor for agricultural development (Ting Ma, Sia Sun et al., “Pollution exacerbates China’s water scarcity and its regional inequality”, Nature communications, 31 January 2020).

The Mandate of Heaven at Risk 

Food security and the Mandate of Heaven

When studying China, one must always remember that it is a 1,4 billion people strong giant country. This giant of a country knows a mammoth economic and urban development since the implementation of the “Four Reforms” decided by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 (Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, Harvard University Press, 2013).

So, the scale of the national needs in food and resources defines the scale of the Chinese food security as well as the global scale of its food resources.

The development of massive food reserves by China takes place in a domestic and international context that is potentially adverse to China’s food security, because competition for food and power could limit its ability reach the grain volumes Beijing wants to stockpile.

Thus, the Chinese political authorities may have to face the risk of a return to hunger in China. This would be a massive breach in the social contract defined by the collective enrichment of China since 1978 (Loretta Napoleoni, Maonomics, Seven Stories Press, 2011).

As a result, it would entail a critical loss of legitimacy for the regime.

In the context of China’s history, it would be the equivalent of the loss of the “Mandate of Heaven”. Indeed, when a crisis of legitimacy happens, the Chinese society usually knows very profound and violent disruptions, while the regime topples (see John King Fairbank, Merle Goldman, China, a New History, Enlarged Edition, Harvard University Press, 1998; Andrea Janku, “‘Heaven-Sent Disasters’ in Late Imperial China: The Scope of the State and Beyond,” in Christ of Mauch and Christian Pfister, eds., Natural Disasters, Cultural Responses: Case Studies Toward a Global Environmental History, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 233–64; Chris Courtney, “The Dragon King and the 1931 Wuhan Flood: Religious Rumors and Environmental Disasters in Republican China,” in Twentieth-Century China, April 2015 and Cohen, Paul A., Paul A. Townsend, History in Three Keys, Columbia University Press, 1997).

Protecting the social contract from COVID and hunger

So, securing food for China is also a way for the Chinese government to make sure its legitimacy is maintained, while the new wave of Covid-19 induces fierce lockdowns in Shanghai and other major industrial and trade cities, as well as restrictions in Beijing.

As these lockdowns are a new occurrence of the domestic protracted fight against the pandemic, they drive a significative slowdown of the Chinese economy (Brenda Goh and Kevin Yao, “Shanghai targets June COVID lockdown exit as economy slumps”, Reuters, May 16, 2022).

This jeopardizes the promise of a shared economic growth for all Chinese citizens implemented since 1978 reforms. So, the lockdowns may become dangerous for the legitimacy of the government.

In the meantime, this serious domestic situation is combined with the tensions regarding Taiwan. This happens because the U.S. government supports the autonomous status of Taiwan.

Russia and China’s food security

In this context, the privileged relationship with Russia takes a vital dimension. Beijing authorized wheat and barley imports from all parts of Russia on 24 February 2022. Before this date, Beijing was restricting Russian grain imports for phytosanitary reasons, especially because of a fungal threat (Laura He, “China lifts restrictions on Russian wheat imports”, CNN Business, 25 February 2022).

This authorisation followed the signature of numerous trade contracts between Russia and China, during President Vladimir Putin visit for the February 2022 Beijing winter Olympics (CNN’s Beijing Bureau and Anna Chernova CNN, “Putin and Xi call for a halt to NATO expansion during show of unity at winter Olympics”, CNN, February 4, 2022).

The Russia-China food and energy Great Convergence

Stockpiling, a national endeavour

In the current strategic and climate context, imports of Russian grain are of special importance for the Chinese food security, because Russia is both a major producer and neighbour. Furthermore, since the launch by Xi Jinping, of the Belt and Road initiative in 2013. Russia plays a central role in this project, because the Chinese railways operate through Russia in order to reach Europe.

Hence, their development de facto augments the shipments capabilities between Russia and China (Frederic de Kemmeter, “OBOR-One Belt, One Road”, Mediarail.be, January 2018 and Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Russia and the New Silk Road in Central Asia – The great co-empowerment”, The Red Team Analysis Society, March 17, 2016).

As it happens, a new railway bridge between Chinese Tongjiang with Russian Nizhnelenizskoye opened on 27 April 2022 and will become operational during the 2022 summer.

This new line is all the more important as the war in Ukraine imposes a slowdown to the Chinese railways shipments from China to Europe. However, in this context, there is marked growth of the trade between Russia and China. As it happens, in April, the Russia- China railway traffic rose by 27% at Manzhouli border crossing, and by 10% at the Suifene border crossing (Majorie Van Leijen, “This railway bridge brings China and Russia closer together”, Rail Freight.com, 28 April 2022).

 China has reduced its U.S. imports since the launch of President Trump “trade war” in March 2018 (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The US Economy, Between the Climate Hammer and the Trade war Anvil – The US Soybean Crop case”, The Red Team Analysis Society, October 8, 2018) . However, in 2021, China made large purchases of Australia’s wheat and barley, despite tensions with Canberra.

The trade war with the U.S. is also the reason why, since 2018, China quadrupled its imports of cereals from Ukraine. Chinese companies also buy large purchases of wheat and corn from France (Gus Trompiz and Michael Hogan, “EXCLUSIVE China snaps up large volumes of French, Ukrainian grain”, Reuters, 10 December, 2021) .

So, China’s grain imports appear as a way to compensate the loss of U.S. and Ukrainian imports. Furthermore, the blocking of large volumes of Ukrainian imports confers de facto a greater importance to the Russian export capabilities.

2022: the rise of China and Russia trade

At the time of writing, detailed statistics of the grain volumes traded between China and Russia since March 2022 have not yet been disclosed. However, it appears that, between January and March 2022, the trade turnover between Russia and China rose 28,7% year on year. It reached $38,17 billion for the first 2022 quarter. (“Russia-China trade surges in 2022”, The Moscow Times, 13 April 2022)

In the same dynamic, Russian exports to China rose 32% to $21,73 billions during the first quarter of the year. In March alone, Russia exported 7.84 billion worth of goods to China (Ibid).

This takes place when major agricultural producers diminish or ban their exports in order to protect their domestic market, at a moment when China establishes massive stockpiles. Indeed, these bans and restrictions de facto mitigate China’s international access to international cereals volumes. That is why, because of the combination of their large availability, of their relative proximity and the existence of transport capabilities those Russian imports are of particular importance.

In other words, in the middle of the war in Ukraine, the Russian-China agricultural closer relationship supports the Chinese food security as well as the Russian economy, that is under massive strains because of the economic sanctions that the U.S. and the E.U. inflict upon Moscow (Jean-Michel Valantin, “War in Ukraine, The U.S Mega drought and the Coming Global Food Crisis”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 1, 2022)).

From Food to Energy special relationship

The strengthening of the China-Russia relationship through food security takes also place in the energy field, through again another increase of the Chinese purchases of Russian oil and gas. As it happens, the oil market being an international market, the rising demand by countries and companies triggers rising prices.

Meanwhile the international output remains tightly controlled by the producers, especially by OPEC+. However, since 2021, the OPEC+ members, led by Saudi Arabia, are only slightly rising their output, despite pressing demands by the U.S..

In March, the global output slightly inferior to February, thus triggered a strong price growth (“OPEC+ crude production falls as sanctions take bite out of Russia: S&P standard survey”, S&P Global Commodity insight, 7 April 2022).

Mirroring those sanctions, the Kremlin started to demand that Russian oil be paid in Russian rubles, instead of dollars or euros (Archana Rani, “4 European companies make gas payments to Russia in rubles”, Offshore Technology, April 28, 2022).

This already complex situation keeps on becoming even more complex. Indeed, the whole Russia-EU energy situation worsens with the blocking by Ukraine of some the gas flows towards Europe, in order, according to Kiev, to deprive some Russian-backed separatists from the flow of gas  (“Ukraine halts Russian gas exports to Europe at eastern transit point”, Euronews, 11 May 2022).

A Geopolitical Giant Emerges

This highly complex dynamic reinforces the oil and gas global price inflation. Consequently, the higher oil and gas prices impact importer countries, China being among the most important ones.

So, in order to secure Chinese purchases of Russian oil and gas, Gazprom and Rosneft sell to China at discount prices. This helps Russia maintaining its economy hobbled by the western sanctions, while those purchases support China’s energy security (Chen Aizhu and Florence Tan, “EXCLUSIVE: China quietly increases purchases of low-priced Russian oil“, Reuters, May 20, 2022).

In other words, Russia and China become each other economic and political supports. This takes place in the context of an increasingly polarized international geopolitical environment

It now remains to be seen how this China-Russia “special relationship” evolves, while facing the rising involvement of the U.S. in Ukraine through the 40 billion USD humanitarian and military aid package as well as the unfolding of the global food crisis in a time of accelerating climate change.

Featured image: by Vladislav Nekrasov – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Information Warfare and the War in Ukraine

(Art design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli
on a photo by Francesco Ungaro)

The war(*) in Ukraine is hastening changes in international politics in many different ways.

The possibility to see the conflict morphing into World War III acts as a convincing spur for continuing efforts at understanding and adapting. Concerned and informed actors are thus trying to make sense of the ongoing conflict and of its prospects. They seek to comprehend the way relationships between actors could evolve, and more generally to understand changes at work.

How information is used during the war is one key element that deserves close attention, as it strongly shapes and influences the conflict and its future, as well as global international relations. Indeed, Ukraine has been hailed for its formidable mastery of information and communication (e.g. Michael Butler, “Ukraine’s information war is winning hearts and minds in the West“, The Conversation, 12 May 2022). Actors on the world stage are assessing the way information warfare is carried out during the war in Ukraine and will continue to do so. The resulting lessons learned will deeply impact future handling of information in the international arena.

In this article, we present first what is information warfare, using mainly American doctrine. Then, we turn to Ukraine and some of the features of its information warfare, and give examples of its “strategic communications”. We highlight what can be seen as success, but also point out more worrying potential consequences. As much as possible we tried to include videos to illustrate our points, including a documentary on the history of psyops and an interview by Pr Noam Chomsky on the war in Ukraine and propaganda.

The galaxy of Information warfare

If we wanted to summarise quickly what information warfare is, then we could simply say that it is the use by an actor – usually a state or state-like actor, but that could be any entity, in all settings, be it war or peace, of all possible means related to and involving information to gain influence over others and see objectives met. The “others” can be anyone. It can be for example, a domestic or overseas audience. Let us examine this brief summary more detail.

Information warfare, strategic communication and propaganda

The use of information in politics, international politics, and more specifically during war means:

“Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly”.

Dennis M. Murphy “Strategic Communications: Wielding the Information Element of Power”, in U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues – Volume I: Theory of War and Strategy, Edited by Dr. J. Boone Bartholomees Jr., Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, June 2012, p. 162

It is considered as being as old as human history.

For its part, the American Congressional Research Service, using conceptualisations given by practitioners defines information warfare as:

“A strategy for the use and management of information to pursue a competitive advantage, including both offensive and defensive operations.”

CRS, Defense Primer: Information Operations, December 2021

For the U.S., information warfare, especially since the 2018 National Defense Strategy, is understood “as competition short of open warfare” (Ibid. – see more below with the concepts of IE and OIE).

Thus, it is indeed the use of information, including when we are not at war, directed at anyone.

When information warfare is used by actors deemed unfriendly or perceived as the enemy, then it tends to be qualified as “propaganda“, which only became a pejorative term around World War I and especially following World War II (Murphy: 162-163). For example, the U.S. Department of Defence defines propaganda as

“Any form of adversary communication, especially of a biased or misleading nature, designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly” .

“Psychological Operations,” Joint Publication 3-13.2, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 7, 2010.

When, on the contrary, information is used by the sponsor itself, as well as allies and friends, then this activity is labelled as “strategic communication.” The U.S. military defines it as:

“Focused U.S. Government efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of U.S. Government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products synchronized with the actions of all instruments of national power”.

“Psychological Operations,” Joint Publication 3-13.2, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 7, 2010.

NATO’s definitions are very similar, if not identical, to those used by the U.S (see AJP 3-10.1: Allied Joint Doctrine for Psychological Operations, UK).

The problem with these dichotomous definitions is that they tend already to incorporate a biased perspective: what comes from the enemy is disinformation, misinformation, in a nutshell “lies” and “false”; what comes from me – or those allies that serve my purpose is “true” or “the Truth”. Somehow, the psychological war has already started. Once an adversary is identified as such, thence all its communication becomes tainted, which definitely will obscure understanding. As a result, this approach is inherently escalating and favours war over peace and diplomacy. It may also generate a feeling of self-righteousness, which then will imply that one becomes so sure of oneself that one becomes prey to any bias. As a result, these dichotomous definitions may end up favouring defeat if comprehension increasingly lacks as one becomes more and more persuaded that everything stemming from the adversary is false, while what comes from one’s system is right.

The “American” understanding of “strategic communication” corresponds almost exactly to China’s approach labelled “comprehensive engagement” by Jeangène Vilmer and Charon (“Russia as a Hurricane, China as Climate Change: Different Ways of Information Warfare”, War on The Rocks, 21 January 2020). Indeed, China’s strategic communication is described by Wallis as:

“A holistic approach in which language and messaging are used in tandem with other elements of statecraft, including diplomatic, military and economic efforts.”

Jake Wallis, “China and Russia aren’t the same when it comes to information warfare“, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 25 September 2019

Whoever the sponsor or initiator of strategic communication, it is key to comprehend that strategic communication is grounded in “the inherent understanding that all Diplomatic, Information, Military & Economic (DIME) activities have the potential to influence the behaviors and attitudes of specific groups” (Steve Tatham, U.S. Governmental Information Operations and Strategic Communications: A Discredited Tool or User Failure? Implications for Future Conflict, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, December 2013: 8). 

As a result, all the DIME activities may and should become the target of strategic communication if an actor wants to see its communication succeed. Meanwhile, all these activities should be combined to create a successful “strategic communication”.

Where it becomes even more interesting is when strategic communication itself works at using others’ DIME activities to carry out one’s aim. At individual level this would just be called plain manipulation. The DIME activities that are thus targeted can be not only those of allies and friendly countries, but also those of the competitors and enemies. We are here in the realm of the Russian Reflexive Control (refleksivnoe upravlenie / рефлексивного управления), built upon the Soviet Cheka’s Maskirovka (the art of surprise through deception, concealment, or psyops). Reflexive control can be defined as:

“A means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action.”

Timothy L. Thomas, “Russia’s Reflexive Control Theory and the Military,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 17, p 237.

In this case, it is key to see that there is no need for the information used to be false, biased or directly misleading. Reflexive control can very well be done with something completely real and true. For example, leaking a real information can be very efficient. One can also set up actions in a way that will prompt people in thinking and acting in the way one wants.

Supporting capabilities and related operations

In the U.S., for example, four capabilities are traditionally supporting “strategic communication”: public affairs, military information operations, public diplomacy as well as international broadcasting services (Murphy: 163-164). Any capacity and activity that could usefully support strategic communication should ideally be involved (Ibid.).

Public affairs

Public affairs means information communicated to a domestic and international audience on the activities of the government in the interest of the latter (ibid).

Information Operations (I/Os), Operations in the Information Environment (OIEs) and Psyops

Militarily and operationally, strategic communication is supported by what is called Information Operations or I/Os:

“The integrated employment, during military operations, of information-related capabilities in concert with other lines of operation to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.”

U.S. JP 3-13 in CRS Information Primer, 2021.

Actually, I/Os could be designed to involve all available supportive capabilities, and not only military ones, and be carried out in combination by them.

Indeed, in 2016, the DoD added a new concept, the “Information environment” (IE), with its corollary, the “Operations in the Information Environment” (OIE) (Strategy For Operations In The Information Environment, June 2016, revised in 2018 with the Joint Concept for Operations in the Information Environment).

IE is comprised of and aggregates numerous social, cultural, cognitive, technical, and physical attributes that act upon and affect knowledge, understanding, beliefs, world views, and, ultimately, actions of an individual, group, system, community, or organization. The IE also includes technical systems and their use of data. The IE directly affects and transcends all operating environments.

Glossary, Joint Concept for Operations in the Information Environment, July 2018, p.42.

Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) [are] actions taken to generate, preserve, and apply informational power against a relevant actor in order to increase or protect competitive advantage or combat power potential within all domains of the operating environment.

CRS, Defense Primer: Information Operations, December 2021.

Information warfare would then become either “a subset of OIE” (Ibid.) or coterminous with OIE.

Most importantly, these definitions and thus American actions apply to competitors too and not only to enemies in the framework of war. Competitors may, of course, also mean “friends and allies”. If we refer to the definition of “relevant actors”, we indeed read:

Relevant Actors. Those individuals, groups, populations, and automated processes and systems that, through their behavior, could substantially impact U.S. national strategy, policy, campaigns, operations, or tactical actions. These relevant actors may include governments at the national and subnational levels; state security forces, paramilitary groups, or militias; non-state armed groups; local political, religious, civil society, media, and business figures; diaspora communities; and global/regional intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Law or policy may further limit the definition of relevant actors at the time of the proposed operation.

Glossary, Joint Concept for Operations in the Information Environment, July 2018, p.42.

Hence, relevant actors maybe be close to anybody and anything according to U.S. wishes. The protection (for non-Americans) afforded by the last sentence is rather flimsy.

The IE and OIE’s perspective highlights an extremely offensive approach by America in terms of international politics. The U.S. wants to preserve its status as sole super power. The potential doubts that existed in 2017, for example, were de facto overcome (see Helene Lavoix, “Which U.S. Decline? The View from the U.S. National Intelligence Council,” The Red Team Analysis Society, 25 September 2017).

A detailed analysis of this “new” approach to information warfare, of the way it is implemented, and of the results obtained, for example in the case of the war in Ukraine, would most probably yield extremely interesting results.

A primary capability of I/Os is called Psychological Operations (Psyops) in Europe and within NATO, except in the U.S. where it has become Military Information Support Operations (MISO) (Ibid.). Note however, that in 2021, in the U.S., MISO would tend to become PSYOP again (CRS Defense Primer: Information Operations). Psyops are defined as:

“Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.”

JP 1-02. SOURCE: JP 3-13.2

The video documentary below presents notably the use of psyops and its historical evolution, as well as real life examples.

The Lies and Brainwashing Of Psychological Warfare Tactics | Secrets Of War | Timeline, May 2021.

Public Diplomacy

Public Diplomacy is classically carried out by ministries of Foreign Affairs.

However, we may also think about other types of activities handling public diplomacy of a sort, and that could thus support strategic communications.

For example, we have Track II Diplomacy, carried out ideally by private individuals, actually usually by academics and ex-officials (e.g. Charles Homans, “Track II Diplomacy: A Short History“, 20 June 2011, Foreign Policy).

NGOs and humanitarian aid, considering notably their funding – through the use of foreign aid programs (see CRS Defense Primer: Information Operations) – and reporting process, may also be seen as being potentially part of the activities supporting strategic communication.

International broadcasting services

Finally, within the strategic communication supporting capabilities, we find “international broadcasting services” (Murphy: 164).

For the U.S., these media are managed and led by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (see also History – renaming in 2018 of the Broadcasting Board of Governors), which oversees Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, etc. The USAGM budget is USD 840 million for FY 2023.

These types of international services exist in most countries seeking global influence, for example BBC World News for the UK, France 24 and TV5Monde for France, Deutsche Welle (DW) for Germany, Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik for Russia (censored in the EU, e.g. HuffPost avec AFP, “Les médias russes Sputnik et Russia Today (RT) interdits dans l’UE,” Huffington Post, 27 February 2022), etc. In the case of China, we have notably China Global Television Network (CGTN), Global Times, and the oldest Beijing Review.

These services have of course adapted to the overall media environment and use the Internet, apps, social media platforms, or, more broadly all device and ways available. They will probably all continue to adapt to new technologies and this may also sooner rather than later mean Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Information warfare in Ukraine

Ukraine, a new master of information operations?

Ukraine seems to have fully integrated the whole extent of information warfare into its strategy and operational capacities.

It benefits from organised capabilities, which, in 2019 under the separate Special Forces Command counted “some 4000 operators under arms” with “four Informational Psychological Operations Centers: the 16th at Huiva, 72nd at Brovary, 74th at Lviv, and 83rd at Odesa” (Max Gaelotti, Armies of Russia’s War in Ukraine, Bloomsbury Publishing, Jun 27, 2019, pp.46-47).

As a result and logically, following 24 February 2022, Ukraine rapidly highlighted the importance of the use of I/Os and psyops by “strictly forbidding” to divulge anything related to them in its “Important information for the media, bloggers and all citizens who take photos or write about the war and the army,”according to the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny (published 2 March 2022; modified 14 April 2022).

A recent paper on I/Os in Ukraine estimates that the Ukrainian political authorities manage and use I/Os “highly efficiently” (Matthew Ford, “The Smartphone as Weapon – part 1: the new ecology of war in Ukraine”, 8 April 2022). Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government contributes to reinforce the emergence of what Ford and Hoskins call the new war ecology (Radical War, 2022):

“In its totality, MSM [mainstream broadcast and print media], social media, military communications and the information infrastructures they depend on form a complex constellation of platforms that interact in a number of different ways, producing …the new war ecology”

Matthew Ford, “The Smartphone as Weapon – part 1: the new ecology of war in Ukraine”, 8 April 2022, p.2.

Among what could be seen as an efficient way to use strategic communication, a new supporting capability seems to be fully used by Ukraine: their own civilian population. Indeed, it is likely that Ukrainian citizens received a training in I/Os before the war started (“The Smartphone as Weapon – part 1, p. 4).

This, in turn, for example, allows integrating civilians in the targeting cycle, i.e. the whole process through which an enemy target can be identified in such a way it can be attacked and the effect of the attack is what was expected (“The Smartphone as Weapon – part 2: the targeting cycle in Ukraine, 10 April 2022). As Ford puts it,

“Ukraine’s armed forces have outsourced parts of the kill chain to civilians… On the battlefields outside Kyiv, civilians have become sensors, extending the targeting cycle into civil society.”

Matthew Ford, “The Smartphone as Weapon – part 2: the targeting cycle in Ukraine, 10 April 2022, p.1.

Other types of I/Os are carried out in Ukraine, for example “managing” the mainstream broadcast and print media news cycle (e.g. Nick Newman, “Mainstream media and the distribution of news in the age of social discovery“, Oxford University, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, September 2011). Ford reports that Ukraine’s authorities tightly surveil what journalists can report and film (“The Smartphone as Weapon – part 1, pp. 4-5). He then documents the timeline for the Battle for Voznesensk showing that between 9 and 19 days took place between the battle itself – 2 to 3 March 2022 – and first reports on main media – 15 to 22 March 2022 (Ibid. pp. 5-7). He concludes that Ukraine media handlers had thus enough time to put together material to promote a specific narrative (Ibid.).

Meanwhile, communication is broadcast from all levels, from Ukrainian President Zelensky and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to armed elements, for example the now famous Azov Special Operations Detachment (Окремий загін спеціального призначення «Азов»), which belongs to Ukraine National Guard, or the less famous but as controversial Volunteer Ukrainian Corps “Right Sector”- Добровольчий Український Корпус “Правий сектор” ДУК ПС (DUK PS), through Ukrainians living abroad (on Azov and “Right Sector”, Hélène Lavoix, “Ukraine Spring 2022: Armed Groups”, commissioned report, 21 April 2022). This comprehensive approach, using multiple channels, allows reaching and influencing all the DIME activities of other states and relevant actors, including through the general public.

A couple of examples of Ukrainian Strategic Communication

20 March 2022 – Telegram message by Ukraine Directorate Intelligence warning about Wagner PMC presence in Ukraine

Wagner in Ukraine

This message was then “confirmed” by British Intelligence on Twitter and the piece of information was re-shared multiple times throughout social media.

Translation of the message

🇺🇦 “‼The occupiers send another terrorist group to Ukraine in order to eliminate the leadership of Ukraine 

▪️Regular groups of militants connected with Yevgeny Prigogine, a Russian propagandist close to Putin and owner of the League (Wagner), have started arriving in Ukraine today. The main task of criminals is to eliminate the top military and political leadership of Ukraine…”.

The Ukrainian Directorate of Intelligence shares what is meant to be an intercepted phone conversation – The 23 May 2022 message had been viewed 80.400 times 1 hour after it was shared on Telegram.

📞Rape, looting, mass crimes – the occupiers are discussing the latest news in the unit.

▪Two soldiers from the so-called “DPR” share their impressions of the course of events in their unit. They were recently told that the once-promised rotation could not even be expected: Until Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are “liberated”, you can forget about rotation. And then we do not move, because the whole group is in the DNR. When they finish there, they will send troops here and we will start moving. “

▪Then we talk about the rampant crime in the occupying army: “They told about the 125th Regiment. Until an eight-year-old girl was raped. Looting. “Squeezed” someone’s gas station. People were deprived of fuel and sold through this gas station. Regiment commander, battalion commanders. And assistant battalion commanders. “

▪DNRivets warns its interlocutor to be more careful and cannot understand why he is taking part in a Russian special operation.

🔥4th Separate Battalion Performs Combat Tasks for Victory over Moscow

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Support by the UK Defense Intelligence and US intelligence carrying out related I/Os throughout media platforms greatly contributes to the efficiency of Ukrainian strategic communication.

In the Western world, outside Ukraine, Western political authorities, elite, mainstream media and social networks then amplify the Ukrainian narratives.

The polarisation at work, where people according to their personal preference tend to flock to one or the other media/social network platform and the speed inherent to social networks serve the direct amplification of narratives, rather than a peaceful and objective analysis (e.g. Matthew Ford, “The Smartphone as Weapon – part 1).

So far, Ukrainian strategic communication, in convergence with American and British ones, were efficient enough in bringing to Ukraine quasi complete support by the European Union and its members states, regardless of the cost, military aid, financial support and, on the contrary, in degrading Russian power notably through sanctions (e.g. BBC News, “What sanctions are being imposed on Russia over Ukraine invasion?” 17 May 2022; CRS “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine“, 29 April 2022).

Furthermore, Sweden and Finland, so far European neutral countries decided to abandon this status and join NATO, the fate of their membership being in the hands of Turkey, which by the same token enhances its international power (France 24, “Turkey’s Erdogan sets conditions for Finland, Sweden’s NATO bids“, 23 May 2022).

Support of populations in many Western countries are also indicators of the success of Ukrainian strategic communication.

A global Ipsos survey carried out on 27 countries (but not including China), worldwide, can help assessing the efficiency of Ukraine’s information warfare on populations at large (Ipsos, “The World’s Response To The War In Ukraine“, 19 April 2022).

Ukraine succeeded in attracting attention, which is a feat in a world where the span of attention lasts a couple of days at best and is generally more focused on sport or the latest influencer than in world affairs (mouse over the IPSOS image below to see the percentages).

Ukraine could also garner support for its cause, with a majority of people welcoming Ukrainian refugees, supporting financial help, military aid and economic sanctions "in general" against Russia (Ipsos, Ibid.).

Yet...

A less optimistic picture?

Actually, according to the Ipsos survey, the effects of the war and of Ukraine's strategic communications are more nuanced than what an average on 27 countries could let us believe.

For example, Ipsos highlights that there is "no consensus on supporting Ukraine’s military response" (Ibid.). Ipsos found, for example, that "those who support sending their own troops to Ukraine are a minority in each one of the 27 countries, averaging 17%."

On average, only "one-third support their country providing weapons – such as guns and anti-tank weapons – to the Ukrainian military (36%), providing funding to the Ukrainian military (33%), and sending troops to NATO countries neighboring Ukraine (32%)". However, as in most Western countries we have more than 50% ("a majority") supporting these propositions, this means that outside the West, the percentage of support is even lower than the average.

Furthermore, only 54 % on average are ready to pay more for their oil and fuel as a result of sanctions on Russia, with "fewer than 40% in Mexico, Peru, Hungary, Brazil, and Argentina" being ready to do so. "While more than 50% in Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, Poland, Australia, the U.S., and France support such a ban [ leading to further oil price increase], it is the case of fewer than 20% in Hungary and Turkey. In Germany, which is highly dependent on Russian natural gas, 45% support such a ban, 30% oppose it, and 25% are not sure".

As a result, what we see unsurprisingly happening is the emergence of a divided world, with the "West" on the one hand and the very large "rest" of the world on the other.

Indeed, in "Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Malaysia, and India, the opinion that “the problems of Ukraine are none of our business and we should not interfere” prevails". Meanwhile, as highlighted in the Al Jazeera's video below, double standards in the perception, concern for and handling of conflicts and refugees are also pointed out.

Ukraine: The information war | The Listening Post, 5 Mar 2022

We thus witness a potential polarisation of the world, with Ukraine and "the West" plus notably Japan and South Korea on one side, and the rest on the other side. The "rest' of the world, may feel all the more alienated that it has to face a tragic food crisis, consequence of the war.

Many scenarios resulting from this fracture, if it is not mended, are possible. Some are negative for the world, such as a new world war. Others are especially negative for the West, with an acceleration of a possible impoverishment, and a demise of the U.S.-led liberal order. Such a scenario could be worse for Europe, notably considering its geographical location and the now defunct importance of European trade and industrial links with Russia (e.g. "Eurozone inflation soars to record 7.5 percent in March", Politico, 1st April 2022; Balazs Koranyi and Dan Burns, "Economic outlook has 'darkened', business and government leaders warn in Davos, Reuters, 24 May 2022).

In that case, Ukraine's strategic communication would have contributed to strengthen its ties with a declining world order, while also accelerating this very decline. This would hardly be a success.

Some voices also start denouncing what feels as propaganda being constantly hammered upon Western audience, as expressed and highlighted by Noru Tsalic in "Russia & Ukraine: The smartened-up story – Chapter IV" (The Times of Israel, 28 April 2022):

"I’ve said in the previous chapters and I’ll mention it again: in the current war Russia (and only Russia) is the guilty party.  But that’s no reason for Western politicians and mainstream media to treat us as if we’re all simple-minded, unable to grasp complexity or nuance and incapable of telling reality from wishful thinking.
In this series of articles, I fight the groupthink; I attempt to expose the dumbed-down narrative that’s being fed to us and smarten it up. I trust my fellow human beings: we are able to cope with the stark, unadulterated, unvarnished reality; treat us like intelligent adults."

Noru Tsalic, "Russia & Ukraine: The smartened-up story – Chapter IV", The Times of Israel, 28 April 2022.

In this perspective it is enlightening to listen to Pr Noam Chomsky on the war, propaganda and the media:

Noam Chomsky on the Russia-Ukraine war, The Media, Propaganda, Orwell, Newspeak and Language, 1st week of May 2022, EduKitchen

With time, the negative consequences of what would increasingly be denounced as propaganda and not seen anymore as efficient strategic communication could endanger the political authorities of the countries acting as supporting capabilities for Ukraine's information warfare.

Within these countries, trust could be damaged, and thus legitimacy could decrease. Within "the West", if some countries such as the US are perceived as taking advantage of the situation while not sharing in the cost - the advantage of a US-led monetary system being that the true burden of aid is lowered - the US-led order could be fragilised.

People could start wondering about the national interest of their country regarding the war in Ukraine, and if other alternatives, less costly to everyone and primarily to Ukraine, were not and would not still be possible. For example, if Ukraine had been prompted in being neutral, its security guaranteed through new security arrangement, if Minsk II had been truly respected and enforced, then war would likely never have started. Unfortunately, the US did not favour Minsk II, as highlighted by the signature of the U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership on 10 November 2021 and by the vocabulary used, while the UK did not trust it either (Samuel Charap, "How Could the United States React to Russia's Latest Posturing on Ukraine?", The Rand Blog, 19 November 2021; Office of the spokesperson of the U.S., U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership, 10 November 2021; e.g. for UK sentiment, Duncan Allan and Kataryna Wolczuk, "Why Minsk-2 cannot solve the Ukraine crisis", Chatham House, 16 February 2022; Duncan Allan, "The Minsk Conundrum: Western Policy and Russia’s War in Eastern Ukraine", Chatham House Policy Paper, May 2020).

Minsk agreements best means to protect Ukraine, says Macron • FRANCE 24 English
8 Feb 2022

Internationally, if propaganda were to become increasingly perceived as being blindly accepted and promoted within and by Western countries, the very standing and values of "the West" would suffer, with considerable consequences in terms of influence and power.

Finally, normatively, the use of citizens in the targeting cycle (Ford, ibid. part 2) and as willing vectors of strategic communication adds a new layer of difficulties to the already blurred lines between the status of civilians versus combatants (Lavoix, "Ukraine - Spring 2022"; Ford, The Smartphone as Weapon - part 3: participative war, the laws of armed conflict and genocide by smartphone,). The ICRC and the Law of Armed Conflict could try to argue that "combatant status only applies to those with ‘lasting integration into an organized armed group’ (Ibid). But what does mean lasting? If all civilians are trained in I/Os and henceforth completely part and parcel of the national defense, then is it not a lasting integration? This very evolution could imply renewed international normative discussion and disagreement, and at worst seriously challenge whatever progress had been made in terms of "law of war".

Practically, during war and irrespectively of law, the simple possession of a smartphone could transform a civilian into a target for enemy armed forces and get the civilian to be killed. Later on, there may well be a trial, but the owner of the cell phone will remain dead. The responsibility of political authorities thence knowingly endangering the lives of their civilian population could also be engaged.

Ukrainian information warfare, thus, on the short term appears as efficient. Thanks to its strategic communication, Ukraine could fight more and resist. The price to pay in destructions and probably in death and wounded, however, is very high. On the longer term, if extreme caution is not exercised in dealing with Ukraine's strategic communication and if we do not come back to reason and rational thinking, then Ukraine's information warfare could backfire. At worst, it could lead us all towards not only a world war but also a total war.

Notes

(*) We use the term of war following von Clauzewitz definitions according to which “War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will” and “War is a mere continuation of policy by other means” (Carl von Clausewitz, On War, vol. 1. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, and Company, 1832).
Our choice of word is thus functional and descriptive and not a legal statement. 
Russia says it launched a "special military operation" on 24 February 2022 to “demilitarise” and "denazify" Ukraine. Furthermore, it stated it did so “in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, …to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime” (Address by the President of the Russian Federation, February 24, 2022, 06:00, The Kremlin, Moscow).
On 22 March 2022, the UN General Assembly voted a draft resolution introduced by Ukraine, with 141 states in favour, five against and 35 abstentions that “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in violation of Article 2 (4) of the Charter” (UN, “General Assembly Overwhelmingly Adopts Resolution Demanding Russian Federation Immediately End Illegal Use of Force in Ukraine, Withdraw All Troops”, 2 March 2022; Draft resolution.
Note that the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic are hardly recognised internationally; however, legally, the case is linked to the principle of “self determination”, which is a fundamental principle of the UN charter.

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