Suchergebnisse

Russia's invasion of Ukraine opened with a march toward Kyiv. The northern thrust of this push came from Belarusian territory. To this day, Belarus remains a hub for Russian attacks on its southern neighbor. Worryingly, the country now hosts Russian tactical nuclear weapons, a situation unthinkable a few years earlier. Why did Belarus, previously keeping its distance from Russian power, throw in its lot with Moscow? Could the United States have prevented such an outcome?Since its independence, Belarus has had close relations with Russia but always stayed out of the Kremlin's overwhelming shadow. Following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Minsk refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, despite Russia's insistence. A dispute over dairy product exports led to the 2009 "Milk War." Relations became so poor that Russian TV channels aired programs presenting President Alexander Lukashenko as a despicable tyrant, something unimaginable today.Before 2014, Americans and Europeans had little sympathy for "Europe's last dictatorship." But the Crimean annexation, the Donbas war, and the Russian threat's resurrection changed the West's outlook. Some envisioned pulling Belarus away from Russia's orbit and associating it with Europe instead. Western capitals put democracy promotion on hold for dialogue's sake. Belarus, too, felt an existential threat and pursued better relations with the West. It became defiant toward Moscow and tried to limit Russian influence over the national military.Belarus released all its political prisoners in 2015 to please the United States. In turn, Washington ended some sanctions on the regime. While the Russians pushed hard to establish an air base, the Belarusians resisted. They also distanced themselves from Russia's most confrontational policies. For instance, Lukashenko invited NATO observers to the massive 2017 Russian-led Zapad military maneuvers, fearing the exercises would scare away its Western neighbors.Bilateral U.S.-Belarus relations kept improving. In October 2018, Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell was the first senior American diplomat to travel to Belarus and meet Lukashenko in over a decade. Diplomatic contacts intensified, and the two countries signed a bilateral "Open Skies" agreement, a sign of increasing trust. Then-national security adviser John Bolton visited Minsk in August 2019. Lukashenko responded enthusiastically to American openings, encouraging him to resist Russian pressure to accelerate political and economic integration in the supranational "Union State." That year also saw Belarus take significant steps to hedge against the Russian risk. Minsk introduced a policy of "Belarusianization" to mobilize the populace's nationalism and insulate it from Russian societal influence while introducing a visa-free regime for EU and American citizens' short-term travels. The country intensified its efforts to modernize the military and sent security cooperation feelers toward Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine, all countries at odds with Russia. Minsk expressed hope for building up ties with NATO.In February 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Belarus. Never had U.S.-Belarus relations been so cordial, and never had Russia-Belarus relations been so poor. When Belarus faced an oil price dispute with Russia, Pompeo quickly agreed to sell it oil, justifying that this deal "strengthens Belarusian sovereignty and independence," a wise policy if one fears Russian influence. But the U.S.-Belarusian honeymoon was not to last, and the Russians soon gained more than they ever bargained for.In 2020, Lukashenko's decision to run for the upcoming presidential election profoundly disgruntled the liberal opposition, as the election would likely be rigged in his favor. Indeed, he won the August election in a landslide. This engendered a mass protest movement against the regime. Following the EU, the United States refused to recognize Lukashenko's victory, sanctioned his regime, and openly sided with the opposition. U.S.-Belarus ties became nonexistent. After relations with the West collapsed, Belarus threw in its lot with Moscow. Sensing the opportunity, Putin was quick to congratulate Lukashenko for his victory. He assured Minsk he would deploy Russian security forces if the protest movement got out of control. Now in the Kremlin's debt, Lukashenko and Putin had a flurry of conversations and meetings, and Lukashenko accelerated the Union State integration process in exchange for Russian money. In retaliation to the West's hostility, Minsk engineered a migrant crisis by pushing large numbers of refugees toward the Polish border. Throughout 2021 and early 2022, military cooperation reached a height unseen before, which we know in hindsight was preparation for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The two countries' air defense units started joint combat duties, and Belarus finally agreed to host the Russian air force. In November 2021, Lukashenko promised to intervene in a future war in Ukraine and acknowledged Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Belarus also decided to amend its constitution to introduce Russian nuclear weapons. Previously, Russian forces could enter Belarus only during prearranged exercises. But pretexting military maneuvers, Russian troops arrived en masse. Ultimately, Belarus received the West's opprobrium for accepting that Russian forces use its territory to attack Ukraine on February 24, 2022.This sequence shows that adroit statecraft can accomplish much at little cost and that ideology can create widespread, unforeseen damage to U.S. interests. Minsk resisted aligning with Moscow until 2020 despite intense Russian pressure. Indeed, the U.S. and European engagement policy after the 2014 Ukrainian crisis offered Belarus leverage over the Kremlin. However, following the 2020 elections, Washington abandoned engagement and opted for maximum pressure, perceived as regime change. Out of options, Lukashenko requested Russian help. Now forced to do Putin's bidding, he accepted the Russian military on his soil, enabled the thrust toward Kyiv in early 2022, and now even hosts Russian nuclear weapons. Washington had no direct interest in openly siding with the opposition against Lukashenko. Had the protesters seized power, it could have endorsed them. Had Lukashenko triumphed, it could have maintained the course of strengthening Belarus's hand against Russia. But America's urge to support the losing side for ideological motives sank U.S.-Belarus relations to the bottom and made it impossible for Minsk to play the West against Russia. Lukashenko was then forced to follow the orders of Putin, his last backer, ultimately leading to Belarusian support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.Now under Russian military control, independent Belarus's race is run. The current regime might remain in office as a Russian satrap. But the Kremlin will probably conclude that annexing the country represents the safest option to guarantee long-term domination and grow Russia's power base. Counterfactuals are always risky, but Moscow would have struggled to subjugate Lukashenko had the United States not jettisoned engagement for maximum pressure in 2020.Although Belarus's fate is sealed, Washington must not repeat the same mistake elsewhere. Many potential partners to counterbalance Russian and Chinese power are unsavory authoritarian states. Preaching non-proliferation and liberalization, legacy neoconservative policies pushed North Korea toward Beijing despite Pyongyang expressing fear of China's rise. While Iran traditionally eschewed great power alignment, American intransigence and Trump's abandonment of the 2015 nuclear deal encouraged Tehran to embrace China and Russia, even supporting Putin's war effort. Washington can continue growing Beijing and Moscow's spheres of influence by letting ideology drive American foreign policy. In that case, China and Russia will gain additional means to threaten the United States and its allies. Otherwise, it could use efficient statecraft, such as its pre-2020 Belarus policy, to secure new partners and limit its rivals' opportunities. Of prudence or ideology, which will prevail?

Bertrand Badie on the Trump Moment, the Science
of Suffering, and IR between Power and Weakness



Lire en français




IR retains a traditional focus on the
game of power between states as its defining characteristic. But what, so asks Bertrand
Badie, if this means that our discipline is based on a negation of our humanity?
A giant in Francophone IR, Badie has labored to instead place human suffering
at the center of analysis of the international, by letting loose sociological
insights on a truly global empirical reality. In this Talk, Badie—amongst others—challenges the centrality of the idea of
state power, which makes little sense in a world where most of the IR agenda is
defined by issues emanating from state weakness; argues for the centrality of
suffering to a more apt IR; and uses this to contextualize the Trump Moment.




Print version (pdf) of this Talk



What is (or should be), according to
you, the biggest challenge / principal debate in current International
Relations? What is your position or answer to this challenge / in this debate?



Unquestionably, it would be the matter of change. It is time to conceptualize,
and further than that, to theorize the change that is happening in the field of
International Relations (IR). Humans have always had the feeling that they are
living in a period of upheaval, but contemporary IR is really characterized by several
landmarks that illustrate the drastic extent of change. I see at least three of
them.



The first one concerns the inclusive nature of the international system.
For the first time in the history of mankind, the international system covers
nearly the whole humanity, while the Westphalian system was an exclusively European
dynamic in which the United States of America entered to turn it into a system,
that I would call, Euro-North-American.



The second element, around which publications abound (see notably Mary
Kaldor's work, Theory Talk #30), is the deep mutation of the nature of conflict. War used to be, in
the Westphalian model, a matter of competition between powers. Today we have
the feeling that weakness is replacing power, in that power cannot any longer
function as central explanatory term of conflictual situations, which are
rather manifestations of state weakness. Think of 'failing' or 'collapsing'
states, which refers to the coming apart of nations that have been built badly
as well as the deliquescence of social ties. This new form of conflictuality
completely turns the international environment upside down and constitutes a
second indicator of transformation.



The third aspect concerns mobility. Our international system used to be
fully based on the idea of territory and boundaries, on the idea that fixity
establishes the competences of States in a very precise way. In this
perspective, the state refers to territory—as the definition given by Max Weber
states very clearly—but today this territorial notion of politics is challenged
by a full range of mobilities, composed of international flows that can be
either material, informational, or human.



These are three indicators illustrating a deep transformation of the
inner nature of IR that encourage me to speak about 'intersocial relations'
rather than 'interstate relations'. The notion of interstate relations no
longer captures the entirety of the global game. Our whole theory of IR was
based on the Westphalian model as it came out of the peace of Westphalia, as it
was confirmed by the accomplishment of the nation-state construction process
and as it dominated the historical flow of international events until the fall
of the Berlin wall.



Until the fall of the wall, all that was not related to Europe or to the
United States of America, or more precisely North-America, was simply called 'periphery',
which says enough. Today, by contrast, the periphery is central at least
regarding conflictuality. We should therefore drop our Westphalian prism and
build up new analytical tools for IR that would take these mutations as their
point of departure. Doing away with our Westphalian approach to IR would mean
questioning both our classical IR theories and questioning the practical models
of action in international politics, which means the uses of diplomacy and
warfare.





How did you arrive at where you
currently are in your thinking about International Relations?



You know when we write, when we work, we are first of all influenced by
our dissatisfaction. The classical Westphalian approach to IR, as I said
earlier, did not satisfy me as I had the feeling that it was focusing on events
that no longer had the importance that we kept giving them—for instance the arms
race, great power politics, or the traditional diplomatic negotiations—while I
was seeing, maybe this was the trigger, that the greatest part of suffering in
the world was coming from places that IR theory was not really covering.



I have always told my students that IR is the science of human suffering.
This suffering exists of course where we are—in Europe, in North America, they
exist everywhere in the world—but the greatest part is outside of the
Westphalian area, so the classical approach to IR gives a marginal and
distorted image. Africa and the Middle East seen through the Westphalian prism are
a dull image, strongly different from the extraordinary wealth, both for good and
bad, that these areas of the world have. I've also always held that in a world
where 6 to 9 million people starve to death each year, the main foci of traditional
IR were derisory. Even terrorism, to which we collectively attribute so much
importance, hardly comes near how important a challenge food security is.



My three latest books take a stand against traditional IR theories. In Diplomacy of
Connivance (2012) I tried to
show that the great power game is really a game way that is much more
integrated than we usually say and that this game plays out in all multilateral
fora. There is indeed a club, and that is precisely what I wanted to describe,
a club of powers—one which results to the detriment of less powerful members in
the international system.



In Le Temps des humiliés ('the
era of the humiliated', 2014), I tried to crystallize what the classical theory
could not express, which is domination seen through the lens of the dominated,
humiliation as felt by the humiliated, violence as experienced by the
desperate. For instance, even if we look at powers as accomplished as China
today—sharing the first place with the USA in terms of GDP—we have to admit
that their historical experience of humiliation constitutes a huge source of inspiration
when it comes to the elaboration of its foreign policy.



And then, in my last book Nous ne
sommes plus seuls au monde ('we are no longer alone in the world', 2016), this
critique was even more explicit. We are writing an IR that encompasses only about
one billion of human beings, while forgetting all the others. Today it is
simply no longer true that these old powers are setting the international
agenda. Global politics today is written by the little, the weak, the dominated;
often with recourse to extreme forms of violence, but this needs to be analyzed
and understood, which would mean to totally change the IR theory.



We should not forget that in large part, IR theory was a given as the USA
triumphed in 1945. The well-known 'great power politics' that dominates
traditional IR theory, inaugurated by Morgenthau and supported by so many others,
described what was true at that time: the ability of American power to set us
free from the Nazi monster. Today the challenge is strongly different, and it
is by the way meaningful that two of the greatest American internationalist
political scientists, Robert Keohane (TheoryTalk #9) and Ned Lebow (Theory Talk #53),
have both written books that elude to the end of this global order
(respectively After Hegemony and Goodbye Hegemony). Well what interests
me is exactly to dig into what comes after hegemony.





What would a student
need to become a specialist in International Relations or understand the world
in a global way?



First of all, I would advise them to rename their science, as I said
earlier, and to call it intersocial relations. The future of what we call IR
comes down to the ability to understand the extremely rich, multiple and
diversified interactions that are happening among and across the world's
societies. It does not mean that we have to completely abandon the state-centric
perspective, but rather dethrone states from the middle of this multiplicity of
actors in order to realize how very often these states are powerless when faced
with these different actors. That would be my first advice.



My second advice would be to look
ahead and not back. Do not let yourself be dominated by the Westphalian model,
and to try to build up what we need—since almost nothing has been done yet
today to construct this post-Westphalian, meta-Westphalian model. Beyond power,
there are things that we still misidentify or overlook while they are the driving
forces of today's and tomorrow's IR. From this point of view, sociology could
prove particularly useful. I consider, for instance, that Émile Durkheim is a very important inspiration to understand the
world today. Here is an author to study and to apply to IR.



The third advice that I would give them would be to not forget that IR
or intersocial relations are indeed the sciences of human suffering. We should
be able to place suffering at the core of the thinking. We've lost far too much
time staring at power, now it is time to move on to place human suffering at
the center. Why? First of all because it is ethically better; maybe will we be
able to learn from it? But also because in today's actual international
politics suffering is more proactive than power, which is not necessarily
optimistic but if recognized, would allow us a better questioning of new forms
of conflictuality. Perhaps unfortunately, the international agenda is no longer
fixed with canons, but with tears. Maybe this is the key point on which we
should concentrate our reflection.



Your insistence on placing suffering at the center of
IR scholarship seems to place you firmly alongside those who recognize "grievance" ratherthan "greed" as a central logic of international politics. What do you make of this parallel?



You are right: the idea of grievance, of recrimination, is a structuring
logic of the international game today. We did not see it coming for two
reasons. First of all because our traditional analysis of international
politics presupposed a unity of time, as if the African time, the Chinese time,
the Indian time and the European time where all identical. Yet this is
completely wrong because we, in our European culture, have not understood that
before Westphalia there were
political models, political histories, that profoundly marked the people that would
then shape contemporary politics. Remember that China is 4000 years of empire,
remember that precolonial Africa was composed of kingdoms, empires,
civilizations, philosophies, arts... Remember that India also is multi-millenary.
The Westphalian time came to totally deny and crush this temporality, this
historicity, almost in a negationist way, which means that, in the spirit of
those who were defending the Westphalian model, only this model was associated
to the Renaissance; and that the age of enlightenment and reason with a big R
had a calling to reformat the world as if it were a hard drive. This was a
senseless bet, a bet for which our European ancestors who led it had excuses
because at that time we did not know all these histories, at that time we did
not have all the knowledge we today have of the other and thus we simply
resolved it, through the negation of alterity. Yet, IR ought on the contrary aspire
to the accomplishment of alterity. Inevitably, all those who saw themselves
denied their historicity, over several centuries and even several millenaries,
accumulated a feeling of recrimination, of particularly deep grievances.



The second element is that all of this happened in a context of
disequilibrium of power resources, linked to different factors that reflected
indeed the fact that at a given moment of time western powers were both
literally and figuratively better armed than other societies. Abovementioned negation
of alterity was mapped onto, and amplified, by the forceful imposition of a
multilateral system that turned into the worst situation, into a proclaimed
hierarchy of cultures; as a result and there were, as Jules Ferry put it in the France
of the 19th century, 'races'; as in, 'We have the obligation to
educate inferior races'. It is not the beginning of history, but it is the
beginning of a history of humiliation. And through subsequent waves of globalization,
this humiliation has turned into a central nerve running through international
life. A nerve that has been used by both the powerful, who made a tool out of
humiliating the others to better dominate them (think here of the opium wars, colonization)
and simultaneously a nerve that fed the reaction of mobilization in the extra-Westphalian
world by those that had to stand up against those who were humiliating them. So
you see how it truly lies at the basis of IR. In my mind, it became a forceful paradigm,
it explains everything, even though others factors continue to weigh in on
actual dynamics.



In order to appreciate all this, we need a sociological approach, which
has for me two aspects. Both these aspects must be considered together for the
approach to be well understood. The first one is a timeless aspect, which is to
consider that everywhere and in all eras politics is a social product. Politics
cannot be understood as somehow outside society. This I would say contradicts the
majority of IR scholars, who believe excessively in the autonomy of politics
and of the state—even if only for analytical purposes. The second element of
this sociological approach is the historical or temporal component. That is
what I was talking about earlier: with globalization the social fabric strongly
progressed compared to the political fabric, and considering that intersocial
relations grew, we need a sociological approach to understand them.





Do you think that the Trump period constitutes a
fundamental break with the conduct of IR?



Trump himself maybe not, but what he represents certainly. If we look at
the USA today we see, since the new millennium, three models succeeding each
other. After 11-09 there was a time of neo-conservatism where globalization was
considered by American leaders as a means or maybe a chance to universalize the
American model, willingly or not. By force, as was the case in Iraq in 2003.
This model failed.



This lead to a second model which I would describe as a liberal model,
neo-liberal, incarnated by Obama who learnt from the lessons of the failure of neo-conservatism,
and had the courage to question the hypothesis hitherto considered as indisputable
of American leadership in the world, and who considered that the USA could win
only through soft power or smart power or free-trade. That is the reason why
Obama was just a little bit interventionist and was counting a lot on the TTIP
and on all these transregional agreements.



With Trump we arrive at a third model, one that I would call
neo-nationalist, that looks at globalization in a different way. In his perspective,
globalization constitutes a chance to satisfy the national American interests. The
idea of the national comes back after a long interlude of a globalizing vision.
It does not mean that we are not interventionist anymore. What happened in
Syria proves it. It means that we will intervene not according to the needs of
globalization but rather to American interests. It is about sharing a strong
and powerful image of the USA on the one hand and on the other serving the
concrete interests of the American people and nation.



This neo-nationalist model is not defended only by Trump, that is the
reason why I was saying that we should not consider Trump individually. We find
it exactly the same way with Putin. We find it by many other world leaders,
such as Erdogan or Duterte or Victor Orbán—really different figures—or Marshal
Sissi in Egypt.



We find it as well in attitudes, for instance Brexit in Great Britain, in
right-wing neo-populism in Europe: Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Wilders...  or in a certain left-wing neo-populism as
Mélenchon in France. It is in the air, seeming almost a passing fad. But it
constitutes perhaps a double rupture within IR. First of all because since the
emergence of globalization, let's say around the 70's, the national interest as
a thought category was bit by bit replaced with approaches in terms of collective
goods. Today by contrast we witness the abandonment of this image of collective
goods for a return to the national interest. This is very clear in Trump's renouncing
of the COP21 of Paris. At the same time, second, this constitutes some form of the
rehabilitation of the idea of power, which again seeps into the language of IR.




You know the IR scholar is not a neutral person, we have to use our science
towards positive action and for the definition of sound public policies. Going
against the idea of collective goods, casting doubt on the ideas of human
security, environmental security, food security, and sanitary security is
extremely dangerous because the composition of national interests and egoism
will never converge to a globally coherent policy. It is the weak that will
suffer first.



And the same time that power is reinstated as a driving principle of IR
praxis, the paradox is that great powers are becoming more and more powerless. If
we look only since 1989, and ask, when did state power ever triumph in IR?
Where did the strongest ever find a battleship enabling him to resolve a
problem to his benefit and according to his goals? Never. Not in Somalia, not
in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not in Syria, not in Palestine. Nowhere. Not in
Sahel, not in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nowhere. So I am a little
worried, indeed, about this naive and old-fashioned rehabilitation of state
power.





Can we say that globalization, or rather the ambition of
integration at either the European or global scale, has failed? Can today be
considered a good moment to bury of the idea of integration?



I do not like burials, it is not an expression that I would use, but
your question is very pertinent. For around twenty years I have been saying and
teaching that regional integration constituted an intermediary and realistic
level of adaptation between the era of the nation state and that of globalization,
which means that I believed for a long time that regional integration was the
final step towards a global governance of the world.



I thought for a long time that what was not possible at the global
scale, a global government, was possible at the regional level and this would already
strongly simplify the world map and thus go in the way of this adhesion to the
collective dimension required by globalization. Nevertheless, not only Europe
suffers a setback, but all the regional constructions in the world are in a
similar situation. Mr. Trump openly shoves the NAFTA agreement, MERCOSUR is
down as every State that is composing it has recriminations against it, and we
could extend the list… All the forms of integration that have been set by
Chavez around his Bolivian ideal have ceased to exist; Africa progresses very
slowly in terms of regional integration; the Arab Maghreb Union, which is an
essential device, totally failed. Thus indeed the situation does not look good.



In the case of Europe there is a double phenomenon: on the one hand,
there is this really grave failure due to the secession of Great Britain from
Europe, and then there is a general malaise of the European model. Brexit is
really rare, if you look at the contemporary history of IR it is simply
unprecedented that a state shuts the door on a regional or global organization.
As far as I remember, it only happened a few times before, with Indonesia in
the UN in 1964, which lasted only 19 months. It happened with Morocco with the
African Union and Morocco is currently reintegrating in it. This British
situation came as a thunderbolt, worsened by the fact that paradoxically it is
not so much because of regional integration that the British voted against the
European Union. It was more from an anti-migration, xenophobic and nationalist
(in reference to that nationalism trend that I was earlier talking about)
perspective and what is dramatic is that we can clearly see that the
nationalist sentiment is really attacking the inner principles of regional
integration.



I was saying that in the European case there are internal problems which
run even deeper than the British defection, and I will underline at least two
of them. First of all there is a democratic deficit of Europe, meaning that
Europe was not able to match electoral spaces with the ones where decisions get
made; people still vote at the national level while the decisions are taken in
Brussels. In consequence, democratic control over these decisions is extremely
weak. How to resolve this equation? And here the breakdown is total since very
few people are coming up with suggestions. The other factor of this crisis is,
according to me, the fact that Europe has been built with success after World
War II in a progressive way around association and indeed, Durkheim proved it,
the integrative logic makes sense. Unity makes strength and it did make
strength once in Europe to prevent war, a third World War, and secondly to
encourage the reconstruction of European countries where economy was totally
collapsed. This time is now over and it is the fault of Europe to not have
known how to recontextualize itself, to react to the new contexts.



Paying one more time tribute to Durkheim who guessed it right, Durkheim
said that there are two ways of constructing social ties: around association
and around solidarity. I think that the time of association is now over, we
should enter in the time of solidarity, which does not consist in saying 'We
Germans are associated with Greece', but rather 'We Germans are joined together
with Greece because we know that if Greece collapses, in a long term
perspective, we will suffer the consequences'. Thus this idea of fundamental
unity is an idea that has been a little bit overlooked, abandoned by the
Europeans and now they find themselves in a complete paralysis.





Is the decolonization period still having an impact on
contemporary IR?



Oh totally, totally. I would first say because it is a major event in
the field of IR, which made the World switch from 51 sovereign States of the UN
in 1945 to 193 today but above all, a very aggravating circumstance, is that
this decolonization has been a complete failure and this failure weighs
enormously on international politics.



It has been a failure because decolonization assumed the format of copying
the western state model in countries that were accessing independence, while
this model was not necessarily adapted, which provoked a proliferation of
failed states, and these collapsed states had a terrible effect on IR.



Secondly because decolonization should have led to the enrichment and to
the substantial modification of multilateralism, by creating new institutions
able to take charge of new challenges resulting from decolonization. Yet,
except the creation of UNCTAD in 1964 and of
UNDP in 1965, there have been very little innovations in terms of global governance.
Thus global governance remains dominated by what I earlier called 'the club',
which means the great powers from the north, and this is very dysfunctional for
the management of contemporary crises. Then also because the ancient colonial
powers happen to find new forms of domination that did somehow complicate the
international game. Thus in fact decolonization is a daily aspect of the crisis
that the international system faces today.





In conclusion, which question should we have asked? In
other terms, which question have we forgot?



I found your questions very pertinent as it allowed the discussion of themes
that I consider essentials. Now, the big problem that makes me worry is the
great gap between the analysts and the actors in IR. I am not saying that the
analysts understood everything, far from it, but I think that IR theorists are
very conscious of some of these transformations I have mentioned. If you look
at some great authors such as James Rosenau, Ned Lebow or Robert Keohane, to
name just a few—there are way more—they all contributed to the reconstruction
of IR.



What truly strikes me is the autism of political actors, they think that
they are still at the time of the Congress of Vienna and that is an
extraordinary source of tension. Thus as long as this spirit of change does not
reach political actors, maybe Barack Obama was the first one to enter this game
and then the parenthesis was closed, as long as there will not be this move
towards the discovery of a new world, maybe as well through the inclusion in
our reflection about the international fabric such partners as China, it is not
normal that this very powerful China does not have any choice but to share the
paradigm and the model of action proper to occidental diplomacy, as long as we
would not have done this precise effort, well, we will remain in the negation
of the human, and that is the essential problem today, we are unable to
understand that at the end there is just one unity, which is the human being.



I had the chance to visit 105 countries and everywhere I met the same
men and the same women, with their pain, with their happiness, their hardship,
their joy, their sorrow, their needs that were everywhere identical. As long as
we will not understand that, well, we will be living in a world that is in total
contradiction with what it is truly and essentially. We will live in a world of
artifice and thus a world of violence.



Related links  



Read Badie's
The Arab Spring: A starting point (SER
Études 2011) here
(pdf)



Print version (pdf) of this Talk

Central Asia, an area stretching from the Caspian Sea to Russia, China, Iran, and Afghanistan, has been firmly under Moscow's influence for several centuries due to Russian and Soviet conquest. However, as Russia has concentrated its attention and resources on the Ukraine war and China's economic engagement with Central Asia has deepened, Moscow's role in the region has diminished. Meanwhile, the region has grown in importance to the United States, first during the "Global War on Terror," when the United States established temporary bases (now closed) in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and later as a source of natural resources, including oil and gas and rare-earth minerals. The changing dynamics of Russian, Chinese, and American engagement in Central Asia raise a critical question: What combination of great power involvement and Central Asian autonomy will best advance American interests and ensure stability in the region? As the region's most populous and influential player, Uzbekistan is the key to answering this question. Recognizing this, Washington has formed a strategic partnership with Uzbekistan. Recently, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu met with Uzbek officials last month to highlight mutual open channels of communication, aiming to boost trade and investment, specifically in energy and technology.U.S. policy toward Uzbekistan has made several missteps that compromise what could be a fruitful, limited partnership with Tashkent. The most significant of these blunders has been the relentless harping on Washington's commitment to Uzbekistan's "independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity." Support for Central Asian sovereignty implies military assistance akin to the Regional Cooperation 22 military exercise, which took place in 2022 with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan participating. These military activities in a region with a robust Russian security presence are dangerous and unnecessary. After Washington's proper decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, not only is Central Asia's relevance to U.S. national security relatively low, but Uzbekistan's chances of being invaded by Russia are slim, as Moscow continues to face difficulties in achieving maximalist goals in Ukraine.A better strategy for Washington is to allow Russia, Central Asia's historic security guarantor, to continue to play a security role in what Vladimir Putin calls Russia's "most stable region." There is little danger that Russia, already overstretched in Ukraine, will be capable of restoring its former dominance in Central Asia. But Russia helps to maintain regional stability through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), encompassing its military allies Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, all of which host Russian military bases. Deepening U.S. military involvement in Central Asia ruins Tashkent's attempts to balance regional actors, cooperate with the West, and not be stuck in the middle of great power competition. While military exercises between the United States and Uzbekistan may seem appealing to Tashkent in the short term, such practices will inevitably raise Moscow's threat perceptions and contribute to a higher degree of great power competition in the region. Rather than Washington viewing its relationship with Tashkent as an opportunity to expand militaristic influence in Russia's backyard, Uzbekistan should be considered by the United States as a regional facilitator and convenor, as Uzbekistan has acted as such in recent years. This would improve Uzbekistan's ability to counterbalance Russian and Chinese involvement and facilitate an equilibrium between great power actors in the region. After Uzbekistan's first president, Islam Karimov, died in 2016, Uzbekistan quickly mended ties with Tajikistan and its other neighbors, removing the greatest obstacle to regional cooperation. Under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took power in 2016, Tashkent's foreign policy has been one that has strived for regional connectivity and cooperation. It has also sought to present Central Asia as a platform for multilateral cooperation to expand the region's economic, transport, and logistics potential.The desire for Central Asia to act as a transport and logistics hub has materialized through the "Middle Corridor," a trade route that spans the Central Asian steppe, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains. Amid a lack of viable alternatives, the Middle Corridor will only become more relevant as the geopolitical disruption of the Russo-Ukrainian War obstructs other trade routes like the "Northern Corridor" that flows through Russia. The Middle Corridor also facilitates the transport of Chinese goods to European consumer markets.Openness with regional great powers, including Russia and China, will be critical to the success of Central Asian connectivity projects. China's incentives for such transit projects are clear as they give Beijing more significant access to Western markets. On the surface, it may appear that Russia will disapprove of alternative trade routes. Still, these routes could be useful for Moscow in the future as the Middle Corridor has turned into a North-South logistic opportunity rather than a direct challenge to the Northern Corridor, with Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan becoming critical corridors for Russia to reach international markets. Uzbekistan could continue to act as a regional facilitator to ensure openness among all parties.Unfortunately, legislation that was relevant to the Soviet Union is still inhibiting constructive cooperation with Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan, along with Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, is subject to the archaic, Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a law designed to punish the Soviet Union on Jewish immigration issues and other human rights. This legislation denies permanent trade relations with its targeted countries, including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.One could argue that independent Uzbekistan should be exempt from Jackson-Vanik because Tashkent is being penalized for the actions of the Soviet Union. Since Uzbekistan's independence, it has never repressed its Jewish population. Independent Uzbekistan has allowed its Jewish population to emigrate freely to destinations like Israel and the United States. Emigration from Uzbekistan to other countries has been mainly due to better economic opportunities elsewhere rather than oppression. Uzbekistan has a vibrant Jewish population that practices its religion openly and has access to Jewish schools and synagogues in Bukhara, the historical Jewish center of Uzbekistan, where Jews have lived for more than two thousand years.Additionally, the United States continues to punish Tashkent for its human rights record despite its improvements. For decades, the government of Uzbekistan, under President Karimov, forced adults and children to pick cotton under appalling conditions during the harvest season. However, under President Mirziyoyev, these forced labor policies were abolished, and Uzbekistani cotton is now 100% free from any allegations of forced labor. Despite the United States lifting sanctions on Uzbek cotton in 2019, Uzbekistan is still punished by being included under Jackson-Vanik.The United States has a valuable opportunity to contribute to peaceful, limited cooperation and expand economic opportunities in Central Asia. Abandoning militaristic activities, focusing on the transit of goods that serve the U.S. interest while maintaining openness with regional great powers, and discarding irrelevant legislation will be conducive to a productive relationship with Uzbekistan, a regional leader for years to come.

Since October, Egypt has joined most of the international community in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. With Egypt being the only Arab country to border Gaza, Cairo's stakes are high. The longer Israel's war on the besieged enclave continues, the threats to Egypt's economy, national security, and political stability will become more serious.Located along the Gaza-Egypt border is Rafah, a 25-square-mile city that until recently was home to 300,000 Palestinians. Now approximately 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah because of the Israeli military's wanton destruction of Gaza City, Khan Younis, and other parts of the Strip. Having asserted that four Hamas battalions are now in Rafah, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that deploying Israeli forces to this Palestinian city is necessary for his country to defeat Hamas amid this war. As of writing, Israel's military is preparing to launch a campaign for Rafah.Officials in Cairo fear that Israeli military operations in Rafah could result in a large number of Palestinians entering the Sinai. "An Israeli offensive on Rafah would lead to an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe and grave tensions with Egypt," said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on February 10.Not only could such a scenario fuel massive amounts of friction between Cairo and Tel Aviv, but it could also severely heighten tensions between the Egyptian public and President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi's government. It's easy to imagine a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which would amount to essentially a "Nakba 2.0," triggering widespread unrest in Egypt if the government in Cairo is widely seen by Egyptians as playing a role in permitting, if not facilitating, such an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. Along with economic considerations, this is one of the main reasons why Cairo has articulated that Israel depopulating Gaza of Palestinians and forcing them into Egypt is a red line that Tel Aviv must not cross."The biggest concern for Cairo is related to the fate of the [Palestinians in Gaza] forcibly evacuated by the Israelis and who might find a 'safe haven' in Sinai. An uncontrolled influx of Palestinians into the [Sinai] Peninsula would be an enormous burden on Egypt, which would have to manage a problematic situation from a political and security point of view, as well as having to justify internally to its own public opinion an imposition that came from outside," Giuseppe Dentice, head of the Middle East and North Africa Desk at the Italian Center for International Studies, told RS."It is no coincidence that Cairo has reinforced the border with Gaza, closed the Rafah crossing, and warned Israel that any unilateral action involving a forced exodus of the Strip's inhabitants to Egyptian territory could jeopardize not only bilateral relations, but the preconditions for peace and stability guaranteed in the [Camp David Accords]," added Dentice.On February 15, Maxar Technologies, a Colorado-headquartered space technology company, captured satellite images showing Egypt's construction of a wall roughly two miles west of the Egypt-Gaza border. The following day, the London-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights said that this construction "is intended to create a high-security gated and isolated area near the borders with the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the reception of Palestinian refugees in the case of [a] mass exodus."What might happen to the Camp David Accords?On February 11, two Egyptian officials and one Western diplomat told the Associated Press that Cairo might suspend the 1979 Camp David Accords if Israeli troops wage an incursion into Rafah. A day later, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry denied such reports about his government's plans to freeze the peace treaty with Israel, yet he emphasized that Egypt's continued adherence to the 1979 deal would depend on Tel Aviv reciprocating. Alarming to Egyptian officials were Netanyahu's statements late last year about the Israeli military taking control of the Philadelphi Corridor (a nine-mile-long demilitarized buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt which was established in accordance with Egypt and Israel's peace treaty) because such a move on Israel's part would be a breach of the Camp David Accords.Are Egyptian officials serious about possibly freezing the historic peace deal? Or does such talk amount to empty threats issued for political purposes at home, as well as pursuing certain Egyptian aims vis-à-vis Washington and Tel Aviv? Mouin Rabbani, a political analyst and co-editor of Jadaliyya, told RS that if these statements from anonymous Egyptian officials are geared toward a domestic audience but Cairo doesn't follow through, Sisi's government could have a "potentially serious problem on its hands."Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with the Chatham House and a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council, doubts that Egypt would go as far as suspending the Camp David Accords. "In the end, Egypt is unlikely to take the first step to tear the treaty up unilaterally," he said.But what Egypt is doing is embracing "discursive strategic posturing" whereby Cairo uses "rhetorical escalation" and directs messages at three audiences, Aboudouh told RS. First is the domestic audience to say that Cairo is standing up for Egypt's core security interests as well as the Palestinian cause. The second is Washington to relay the Egyptian government's anger at the Biden administration for not stopping Israeli actions that threaten to displace Palestinians into the Sinai. Third is to Netanyahu, generals in the Israeli Defense Forces, and the Israeli intelligence community.Gordon Gray, a former U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia, also discounts recent suggestions that Cairo would suspend its peace treaty with Israel for three main reasons. "First, Egypt does not seek military confrontation — even an inadvertent one — with Israel. Second, Egypt does not want to risk losing U.S. military assistance ($1.3 billion annually), which was granted as a direct result of the Camp David Accords. Finally, while Egypt abhors the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, it shares Israel's views about the threat Hamas poses," said Gray in an interview with RS.What would come from Egypt freezing the treaty?Despite many experts believing that Egypt would not freeze the Camp David Accords, that potential scenario should be considered. There are important questions to raise about what it could lead to in terms of region-wide ramifications, as well as Cairo's relationships with Western capitals. But it's difficult to predict how events would unfold if Egypt took that step because there would be so many unknown variables in play.Egypt could act in different ways after suspending the peace treaty with Israel. Rabbani asked, "Would it simply declare the peace treaty suspended and leave it at that or would it stop implementing provisions of that treaty?"Regardless, any freezing of the Camp David Accords by Egypt would inevitably bring a layer of instability to Egyptian-Israeli relations never seen since Jimmy Carter's administration, which — with help from Iran, Morocco, and Romania — brought Egypt's then-President Anwar Sadat and Israel's then-Prime Minister Menachim Begin together in northern Maryland's Catoctin Mountains to sign the peace treaty in September 1978. The response from Washington would likely be extreme, particularly given how central Egyptian-Israeli peace has been to U.S. foreign policy agendas in the Middle East for almost half a century while surviving a host of regional crises, including Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and all the previous Gaza wars."The U.S. is certain to act true to form and retaliate against Egypt without holding Israel in any way accountable for producing this crisis, and Washington may well cease foreign assistance to Egypt, which is a direct function of its peace treaty with Israel. The EU will probably announce it is launching an investigation of the Egyptian school curriculum or some other nonsensical initiative," Rabbani told RS.Irrespective of how Egypt approaches its relationship with Israel, the fact that officials in Cairo are suggesting a potential freeze of the Camp David Accords speaks volumes about the Gaza war's impact on Israel's diplomatic standing in the Arab world. With the probability of more Arab countries joining the Abraham Accords in the foreseeable future having essentially dropped to zero, the pressing question is not which Arab government might be next to normalize with Tel Aviv. The focus has shifted to questions about how Arab countries already in the normalization camp, such as Egypt, will manage their formalized relationships with Israel at a time in which Israeli behavior in Gaza is widely seen across the Arab-Islamic world as genocidal.

Niger's July 26 military coup, which ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, has created a volatile situation. While France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threaten military action against the Nigerien junta under the guise, respectively, of protecting French diplomatic and military facilities and restoring Niger's constitutional order, the crisis risks escalating into a regional conflict.Each of Niger's seven neighbors has a unique set of interests and perspectives on Niger's situation. Algeria, which shares a 620-mile border with Niger, is focused on promoting stability and a return to Niger's constitutional order while also preventing foreign powers from violating the country's sovereignty.Algiers is concerned about instability spilling into neighboring countries (including Algeria) and violent extremists exploiting the turmoil in Niger itself. Memories of Algeria's "Black Decade" (1991-99), in which a jihadist insurgency and a state-led crackdown led to much bloodshed, remain vivid in Algerian minds. No Algerian takes peace and stability at home for granted."National security officials in Algiers already have their hands full due to increasing tensions with Morocco to the west, continued instability in Libya to the east, and the worsening economic situation in Tunisia, also to the east," Gordon Gray, the former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, told RS. "Uncertainty to the south, i.e., along the border with Niger, is yet another problematic development they will need to deal with."In 2012, three hardline jihadist terrorist groups — al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine — gained control of two-thirds of Mali, including territory bordering Algeria. Algerians worried about these armed extremists' ability to threaten Algeria's security. The 2013 In Amenas hostage crisis further informed Algeria's understandings of its vulnerability to transnational terror groups operating in neighboring countries. Today, Algerian officials have similar concerns about instability in Niger creating opportunities for the ISIS- and al-Qaida-linked terrorist groups operating in the country to wage attacks throughout the region.Algerian officials also worry about the devastating impact that the situation could have on Niger's 25 million people. ECOWAS-imposed sanctions on Niger in the wake of the July 26 coup do not include humanitarian exemptions, and Algeria's government worries that political turmoil and a worsening economic situation in Niger could prompt refugee flows into Algeria and other neighboring countries, further threatening regional stability.Algeria's concerns about Niger's crisis go beyond the threat of terrorism and worsening humanitarian disasters. Although in favor of restoring Niger's constitutional order, Algiers strongly opposes military intervention by foreign forces."Algeria opposes all kinds of external intervention in North Africa and the Sahel, whether it is military or political. Algiers stands firm by the principle of sovereignty and considers any foreign presence in its neighborhood as an infringement on the local countries' sovereignty, regardless of the nature of the foreign intervention or presence," Ricardo Fabbiani, North Africa project director for the International Crisis Group, told RS."For Algeria, a military intervention against Niger would be a catastrophe. The Algerians point out that the previous interventions in Libya and Mali have exacerbated pre-existing problems, rather than solving them," he added. "These operations have a significant political and security impact, with repercussions that can be felt for decades."In this sense, Algeria occupies a somewhat unique position — at odds with both France and ECOWAS threatening to wage a military campaign to reverse the coup on one side, and Burkina Faso and Mali vowing to militarily assist Niger's junta if ECOWAS attacks on the other.Seeing itself as a regional heavyweight, Algeria's sensibilities and principles guide the country's foreign policy. Having existed as a French colony before waging a war for independence (1954-62), Algerians view national sovereignty as sacrosanct. This history helps one understand the North African country's past opposition to foreign interventions in Libya, Iraq, Mali, and Syria.Viewing itself as a vanguard in anti-imperialist, pan-African, and Arab nationalist causes, Algeria will always oppose Western (especially French) military intervention in Africa, the Middle East, or anywhere in the Global South. Whereas many states evolve in their foreign policy strategies, Algeria's firm commitment to certain principles, concepts, and institutions has remained consistent over the decades, making Algiers' stance vis-a-vis Niger both predictable and characteristic.Within this context, Algeria is playing a leading role in advocating for a diplomatic solution to the Nigerien crisis that prevents any external military intervention. Last month, Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf visited three ECOWAS member-states — Nigeria, Benin, and Ghana — on orders from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. After the visits, Attaf proposed a six-month transition plan to bring civilian rule and democracy back to Niger.He stressed Algeria's opposition to foreign military intervention and affirmed that external actors will be barred from transiting Algerian airspace as part of any intervention. The six-point plan's objective is to "formulate political arrangements with the acceptance of all parties in Niger without excluding any party" within the six-month-window, according to Algeria's top diplomat, who has also had contacts with junta members, as well as Nigerian civilian leaders. Overseeing this process should be a "civilian power led by a consensus figure."Before Attaf announced Algeria's plan, Niger's military leadership, backed by Burkina Faso and Mali, laid out its own very different plan. The junta called for a three-year transition period to restore constitutional order. ECOWAS has summarily rejected that plan, asserting that three years is much too long. Some members even called the junta's proposal a "provocation."Algeria is hoping that its proposal offers a middle ground that saves face on all sides but also leads to a restoration of democracy in Niger while preventing any military action against the landlocked and sanctioned country.Fortunately for Algeria, there is growing international support from foreign governments, such as Italy's, for its mediation efforts as the standoff over Niger intensifies. "If successful, this diplomatic effort could strengthen Algeria's role in the Sahel, which is one of Algeria's long-term goals in the area," said Fabiani.Washington has not yet taken a position on Algeria's plan and has generally followed a more cautious approach than Paris, a source of irritation between the two NATO allies. Despite an early unsuccessful mission by a top State Department official to engage the junta, the U.S. has thus far declined to label Bazoum's ouster a "coup," a legal determination that would require the U.S. to end military aid to Niamey, a key counterterrorism partner in the Sahel for years."The United States remains focused on diplomatic efforts toward a peaceful resolution to preserve Niger's hard-earned democracy," a State Department spokesperson told RS. "We all want a peaceful end to this crisis and the preservation of the constitutional order."Looking ahead, officials in Algiers understand that they must address the Nigerien crisis pragmatically while accepting the limitations of Algeria's influence in Niamey. Algerian policymakers are "working on a shortened timeline for the transition" and Algiers "thinks that the coup is difficult to reverse," which leaves them believing that "the quickest route out of this predicament is by accelerating the transition announced by the military junta and guaranteeing Bazoum's personal safety," explained Fabiani. "Yet, it is unclear what leverage Algeria has to make this happen and, most importantly, how willing to listen are the military authorities, given the regional polarization around this issue.""Today, Algiers doesn't want to antagonize the military junta in Niger, nor does it want to push for a military intervention," Dalia Ghanem, a Middle East and North Africa Senior Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, told RS. "Yet, Algiers learned that this noninterference stance is no longer efficient because it leaves the door open to foreign meddling like in Libya. The country's [leadership is] hence stuck between an old doctrine and the new regional realities. The country had no other [option] than [to] maximize security at its borders and this can't be done without hard choices being taken."In the public eye, Algeria will continue investing diplomatic energy into its six-month transition plan. Yet, as Gray told RS, "Behind the scenes, Algeria will be seeking ways to cooperate with the military junta to ensure the security of its southern border."

 The first thing we have learned after one year of war in Ukraine is that there is no evidence that Vladimir Putin wanted to rebuild the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, or the Warsaw Pact. His present post-imperial concern is to regain and consolidate the Russian Federation's borders. Despite its huge losses of territory, Russia keeps being, by far, the largest country in the world. To prevent its further disbanding, which is always a latent danger due to its ethnic diversity and territorial dispersion, control of its borders is a national security priority.On
the Eastern side, the Russian rulers are strongly interested in maintaining
control over Siberia, which gives the country an exit to the Pacific; thus,
their geopolitical interest in having friendly relations with China. On the
Western side, Russia retains an exit to the Baltic Sea in Saint Petersburg and managed
to keep the enclave of Kaliningrad despite the independence of the three Baltic
republics. The third border, on the South, which affects Crimea, implies having
access to the Black Sea, which is the gate to the Mediterranean and the Suez
Canal.  If
Putin were a new Peter the Great or a new Stalin, a settlement between great powers
would be within reach: a kind of Yalta-Potsdam division of spheres of
influence. But as a country in decline and with repeated loss of territories, it
feels hostility from its neighbors as an existential threat, to which it
responds in exasperated despair.The
invasion has not worked as well for Russia as Putin expected. We have learned
that, in war, it is more difficult to conquest than defend. Some experts in
military history and strategy estimate that for an attack to succeed in
conquering adverse territory, the attacker may need three times more resources,
in troops and weapons, than the defender. This alone can explain why, so far,
the Russians haven't entered Kyiv or Kharkiv, while the Ukrainians have not arrived
in Crimea or most of the Donbas. The
attacker's disadvantage is aggravated by bad management, typical of
authoritarian governments. As stated by strategist Lawrence Freedman, "A lot of
most catastrophic decisions from autocracies is the lack of open and often
critical feedback. They dig themselves in by believing that their advantage is
bold decision-making."In
addition, some crucial potential allies have not joined Russia's adventure. A
few weeks before the invasion, Putin and Xi Jinping signed an agreement for
"unlimited cooperation", but the invasion of Ukraine moved the Chinese to keep their
distance. India's prime minister Narendra Modi told Putin in public that
today's era is not an era of war. From
the current protracted stalemate without a winner, the conflict has a difficult
outcome. In a lecture at Georgetown University a couple of weeks ago, the
director of the CIA, William Burns, said that the next six months will be
critically decisive. He suggested that the alternatives are either a quick
military overturn followed by negotiation and peace or an escalation towards a
long-durable war.A
negotiated peace would require that none of the two sides gets an absolute
defeat, and thus not an absolute victory either. Joe Biden said in Warsaw that
"Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia", which is something different from
saying that it might be a victory for Ukraine or a total defeat for Russia. But
so far, the two parts are still at the rhetoric stage of being maximalist in
their demands with the expectation to be in a strong position if a real
negotiation ever starts. A few months ago, Volodymyr Zelensky explicitly stated
he could accept to concede on Crimea and Donbas, which were the original
objectives of the Russian "special military operation". But now he proclaims
his determination to move back to the borders in 2014 and insists on the
country's unlikely EU and NATO membership. Russia, in turn, verbally rejects
any concession of moving backward. For
an escalation, the Kremlin would need risky domestic moves, including new
conscriptions and mobilizations, to make Russian politics the continuation of
war by other means (which is what Clausewitz meant even if he phrased it the
other way). It is from impatience and distress that Putin toys with using
tactical nuclear weapons over Kyiv –as if he were playing a challenging Chicken
game in which the US would not retaliate to avoid risking World War III. In
turn, Ukraine might be able to sustain its belligerence for as long as the US
and NATO keep providing increasingly effective and lethal weapons, including
drones, tanks, etc. But political calculations and concern about excessive
financial costs may make the US Congress and several European countries lean
toward restricting further overheads.The
conflict has already lasted longer than many regional wars and might degenerate
into attrition. An end might come from changes away from the war fronts. There
should be elections in Russia and Ukraine twelve months from now. They are
uncertain not only about their results, including whether Putin would remain in
power but about whether the elections will be actually held. There will also
be elections in the United States, Great Britain, and the European Parliament
in 2024, when nobody may be interested in running an electoral campaign in the
middle of a war.One
thing we certainly know and can be sure about is that war is the worst human
activity, whose only secure consequence is death and destruction. We have
plenty of information and images about the disasters in Ukraine, but if you
want an additional compelling display of this truth, watch the movie All Quiet on the Western Front, probably the best war movie ever, which strikingly
shows the horrors of it. ---





























Also in Spanish in:La Vanguardia: clickIn English in:Fair Observer clickEurasia Review click One News Page click










 

"Wie Privatjets dem Klima überdurchschnittlich schaden"Deutschlandfunk vom 16.01.2023"So viel trägt der Luftverkehr zum Klimawandel bei"Frankfurter Allgemeine vom 03.09.2020"Eine Flugreise ist das größte ökologische Verbrechen"Süddeutsche Zeitung am 31.05.2018Spätestens durch die Studie des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt aus dem Jahr 2020 ist klar, dass die Luftfahrt einen bedeutenden Anteil der globalen Klimaerwärmung ausmacht. Forschende belegten, dass der Anteil der globalen Luftfahrt an der Klimaerwärmung 3,5 Prozent beträgt (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt 2020). Entsprechend steht die Luftfahrtindustrie in Zeiten der wachsenden Sorge um den Klimawandel und den damit einhergehenden Auswirkungen auf den Menschen vor einer wesentlichen Herausforderung: Wie kann die Luftfahrt CO₂-neutral werden?Bislang stehen keine Technologien zur Verfügung, die eine solche Luftfahrt ermöglichen. Gleichzeitig ist eine – durch die Reisebeschränkungen während der Hochphase der Coronakrise nochmals verstärkte – hohe weltweite Nachfrage nach Flugreisen zu verzeichnen. Experten gehen davon aus, dass durch diese fatale Kombination zukünftig der Anteil des Luftverkehrs als Ursache von CO₂ weiter steigen wird (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 31). Deshalb müssen schnell Lösungen gefunden werden, um weitere negative Auswirkungen auf das Klima zu reduzieren.Im vorliegenden Blogbeitrag wird versucht, mögliche Wege der Luftfahrtindustrie hin zu einem klimaneutralen Flugverkehr zu skizzieren. Dazu wird zunächst die Ausgangslage beschrieben und ein Zukunftsszenario skizziert, bevor anschließend mögliche Technologien und politische Maßnahmen zur CO₂-Reduktion erläutert werden. Dabei werden neben technischen Neuerungen, wie nachhaltige Kraftstoffe und das Potenzial von Wasserstoff, die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der betrieblichen Optimierung und einer staatlichen Regulation diskutiert. Die Ansätze werden dabei stets kritisch hinterfragt.Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit wird untersucht, inwiefern sich Airlines um eine nachhaltige CO₂-Reduktion bemühen. Als Beispiel wurde die Lufthansa Group ausgewählt. Die diesbezüglichen Maßnahmen werden ebenfalls zunächst dargestellt und anschließend kritisch betrachtet. Der Blogbeitrag endet mit einer Zusammenfassung, einer abschließenden Betrachtung der Ergebnisse und einem Verweis auf weitere Aspekte von Nachhaltigkeit beim Reisen.Eine klimaneutrale Luftfahrt – AusgangslageDer weltweite Luftverkehr hat in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten stark zugenommen. Im Jahr 2018 [1] wurde weltweit eine so hohe Zahl an Passagieren wie nie zuvor befördert. Deren Anzahl hat sich seit den 1990er-Jahren um mehr als 100 Prozent erhöht (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 17). Allein im Jahr 2018 stieg die Anzahl der Passagiere weltweit um 6,7 Prozent und in Europa um 6,1 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahr (International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 2019, S. 1). In Deutschland hat sich die Zahl der Fluggäste seit 1991 verdreifacht und erreichte 244 Millionen im Jahr 2018 (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 17).Trotz des Einbruchs im Flugverkehr aufgrund der Coronapandemie in den Jahren 2020 bis 2022 wird spätestens im Jahr 2025 mit einer vollständigen Erholung des Luftverkehrs gerechnet. Es gibt auch Modelle, gemäß denen davon ausgegangen wird, dass sich die Luftfahrt bereits bis 2023 vollständig erholt und bis 2025 das Vorkrisenniveau weit überschritten wird. Je nach Szenario wird bis 2040 mit einem jährlichen Wachstum von 2,8 bis 3,5 Prozent gerechnet, was einen Anstieg der Passagierzahlen auf bis zu 9,4 Mrd. Passagiere weltweit bedeutet (Gelhausen 2021; vgl. EASA at al. 2019, S. 15).Das Wachstum des Luftverkehrs in den vergangenen Jahren hat mehrere Ursachen. Eine zentrale Rolle spielen dabei sinkende Kosten auf der Angebotsseite, insbesondere durch den Rückgang von Produktionsfaktoren wie dem Kerosinpreis um mehr als die Hälfte in den letzten zwanzig Jahren (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 17f.). Auch Lohn- und Beschaffungskosten für Luftfahrzeuge sanken. Durch die steigende Treibstoffeffizienz, eine höhere Auslastung und eine höhere operative Leistung der Flugzeuge sowie die Bildung von Airline-Allianzen wurde diese Entwicklung unterstützt.Neben dem Passagierverkehr verzeichnete auch der Frachtverkehr erhebliche Zuwachsraten in den letzten Jahrzehnten. Die jährliche Frachtmenge in Deutschland ist seit 1991 um 243 Prozent auf 4,9 Mio. t im Jahr 2017 gestiegen (ebd., S. 21).Die steigende Nachfrage im Personen- und Frachtverkehr führt dazu, dass in Zukunft deutlich mehr Flugzeuge benötigt werden. Airbus prognostiziert eine Verdopplung der weltweiten Flotte bis 2036 (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 21). Trotz technischer Weiterentwicklungen und gesteigerter Effizienz bei gleichzeitiger Reduktion umweltschädlicher Schadstoffe trägt die Luftfahrt in einem bedeutenden Ausmaß zur Umweltbelastung bei. Flugzeuge sind zwar energieeffizienter geworden, aber die jährliche Effizienzsteigerung hat in der laufenden Dekade abgenommen und wird in der kommenden Dekade voraussichtlich im Durchschnitt bei 1,4 Prozent pro Jahr liegen (ebd.).Trotz dieser Fortschritte kann durch Effizienzsteigerungen der prognostizierte Anstieg der Verkehrsleistung nicht ausgeglichen werden, was bedeutet, dass der Kerosinverbrauch und der Endenergiebedarf des Luftverkehrs in Zukunft weiter zunehmen werden (ebd., S. 25). Es wird erwartet, dass der weltweite Kerosinverbrauch im Jahr 2050 je nach Szenario zwischen 484 und 1096 Millionen Tonnen liegen wird (Cames et al., 2019).Der Treibstoff verursacht eine Vielzahl klimarelevanter Emissionen. Treibhausgase wie Kohlendioxid, Methan, Lachgas, halogenierte Fluorkohlenwasserstoffe, Fluorkohlenwasserstoffe, Schwefelhexafluorid und Stickstofftrifluorid beeinflussen die Strahlungsbilanz der Erde (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 26). Sie lassen die einfallende Sonnenstrahlung passieren, blockieren aber die von der Erdoberfläche abgestrahlte langwellige Wärmestrahlung. Treibhausgase absorbieren diese Wärmestrahlung und strahlen sie in alle Richtungen, einschließlich der Erdoberfläche, ab. Dies führt insgesamt zu einer höheren Strahlungsbelastung auf der Erdoberfläche.Zusätzlich zu den Treibhausgasemissionen, die direkt bei der Verbrennung von Kerosin im Luftverkehr entstehen, gibt es andere Emissionen, wie Partikel, Wasserdampf, Schwefel- und Stickoxide, die ebenfalls zur Klimaveränderung beitragen (ebd. S. 27). Diese Emissionen beeinflussen die Bildung von Aerosolen und Wolken sowie die Konzentration bestimmter atmosphärischer Gase und tragen dadurch ebenfalls zur Veränderung des Strahlungshaushalts bei.Die CO₂-Emissionen des zivilen Luftverkehrs in Deutschland betrugen im Jahr 2017 etwa 31,2 Mio. t CO₂, wovon 2,1 Mio. t auf Inlandsflüge entfielen (ebd. S. 30). Im Vergleich dazu betrug die Gesamtmenge der CO₂-Emissionen des zivilen Luftverkehrs in Deutschland im Jahr 1990 etwa 14,3 Mio. t CO₂ (Inlandsflüge: 2,2 Mio. t CO₂) (ebd.). Somit ist der CO₂-Ausstoß des Luftverkehrs in Deutschland innerhalb von 27 Jahren um 117 Prozent gestiegen. Global betrachtet trug der zivile und militärische Luftverkehr im Jahr 2015 etwa 875 Millionen Tonnen CO₂-Emissionen bei, was etwa 2,5 % der gesamten vom Menschen verursachten CO₂-Emissionen entspricht (ebd.). Ohne weitergehende Maßnahmen werden auch klimarelevante Emissionen zukünftig weiter ansteigen.Im European Aviation Environmental Report 2019 werden Prognosen für die zukünftigen CO₂-Emissionen des zivilen Luftverkehrs in Europa bis zum Jahr 2040 präsentiert. Die Prognosen basieren auf drei Szenarien, die sich in der Entwicklung der Verkehrsleistung unterscheiden. Beim wahrscheinlichsten Szenario, dem 'base traffic forecast' der ICAO, wird bis 2040 von einem Anstieg der weltweiten CO₂-Emissionen, verursacht von der Luftfahrt, auf 198 Mio. t bis 224 Mio. t ausgegangen, abhängig von der technologischen Entwicklung. Dies entspricht einem Anstieg von 21 Prozent bis 37 Prozent gegenüber dem Referenzjahr 2017 (EASA et al. 2019, S. 23).Folglich werden in den kommenden Jahrzehnten durch den zunehmenden Flugverkehr die bereits bestehenden Umweltbelastungen weiter verstärkt. Ferner ist mit einem überproportionalen Anstieg der auf den Luftverkehr zurückzuführenden Treibhausgasemissionen zu rechnen, da andere Sektoren, wie die Automobilindustrie und der Energiesektor, voraussichtlich früher und umfassender ihre CO₂-Emissionen reduzieren werden (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 31).Maßnahmen für die Erreichung einer klimaneutralen LuftfahrtAufgrund des zunehmenden Umweltbewusstseins ist auch die Luftfahrtbranche gezwungen, sich intensiv mit dem Thema Nachhaltigkeit auseinanderzusetzen. Entsprechend wurde in den vergangenen Jahren eine Vielzahl an Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Nachhaltigkeit in der Luftfahrt umgesetzt bzw. befindet sich noch in der Umsetzung. Im Folgenden wird ein Teil dieser Maßnahmen exemplarisch erläutert.Nachhaltige und klimaneutrale AntriebsstoffeKernpunkt einer nachhaltigen Luftfahrt ist das Umstellen auf alternative Antriebsarten von Flugzeugen. Bis zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt gibt es allerdings keine Antriebskonzepte, die bei Autos, Schiffen oder Zügen funktionieren und größtenteils bereits etabliert sind und die auch bei Flugzeugen eingesetzt werden können. Daher wird in der Industrie vor allem auf drei zukunftsweisende Technologien gesetzt, den Einsatz von nachhaltigen Kraftstoffen, Wasserstoff als Antriebsmittel für Flugzeuge sowie elektronische Antriebsarten.In der Entwicklung am fortgeschrittensten und daher kurzfristig einsetzbar sind nachhaltige Treibstoffe für die Luftfahrt, konkret nachhaltige Flugkraftstoffe (engl.: Sustainable Aviation Fuels – SAF). Eine nachhaltige und CO₂-neutrale Luftfahrt erfordert den Einsatz von Flugkraftstoffen, die aus erneuerbaren Energiequellen und nachhaltig produzierten Rohstoffen hergestellt werden, um fossiles Kerosin zu ersetzen (Bundesregierung 2021).Durch den Einsatz von SAF entsteht ein Kohlenstoffkreislauf, der weitgehend geschlossen ist. Der eingesetzte Kraftstoff wird aus CO₂ gewonnen, das im Idealfall zuvor aus der Atmosphäre absorbiert wurde (Geffert 2022). Es entsteht ein Kreislauf, bei dem kein zusätzliches CO₂ produziert wird, sondern das in der Atmosphäre vorhandene Kohlendioxid wiederverwertet wird.Von der Bundesregierung besonders gefördert werden 'Power-to-Liquid'-Kraftstoffe (PtL), bei denen aus Strom, Wasser und CO₂ flüssige Kraftstoffe hergestellt werden. Diese Art von Antriebsstoffen wird auch als 'strombasierte Kraftstoffe' bezeichnet (Bundesregierung 2021). Um einen Beitrag zur Reduzierung von Treibhausgasemissionen zu leisten, ist es entscheidend, erneuerbare Energiequellen bei der Herstellung zu nutzen. Es wird als realistisch angesehen, dass bis 2030 im deutschen Luftverkehr mindestens 200.000 Tonnen Kerosin aus PtL verwendet werden (ebd.). Diese Menge entspricht etwa 2 Prozent des Kerosinverbrauchs in Deutschland im Jahr 2019 (ebd.).Die bis zum derzeitigen Zeitpunkt hohen Produktionskosten und die begrenzte Verfügbarkeit der PtL sind zentrale Herausforderungen für eine nachhaltige Luftfahrt (Flottau 2023). Um diesen zu begegnen, wurden von der Bundesregierung Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Produktion veranlasst. In einem gemeinsamen Papier der Bundesregierung und der Luftfahrtindustrie werden die Maßnahmen erläutert. Unter anderem plant die Bundesregierung, sich dafür einzusetzen, die Kostenlücke von SAF zu herkömmlichen Kraftstoffen zu schließen, die weitere Forschung und Entwicklung finanziell zu fördern (dazu zählen auch die Förderung und der Bau von SAF-Produktionsanlagen, um den Markthochlauf von PtL-Kerosin zu beschleunigen) sowie SAF bei der Flotte der Flugbereitschaft beizumischen, um als Vorläufer und Ankerkunde zum Markthochlauf beizutragen (Bundesregierung 2022, S. 5f.).Der bedeutendste Vorteil gegenüber anderen Antriebsmitteln und Technologien ist, dass SAF herkömmlichem Kerosin bis zu 50 Prozent beigemischt werden können, ohne dass es nötig ist, Anpassungen an Flugzeugen und Triebwerken vorzunehmen (Geffert 2022). Entsprechend hat die EU-Kommission im Frühjahr 2023 gesetzliche Regelungen für eine Beimischung beschlossen. Ab dem Jahr 2025 ist es erforderlich, dass alle Flüge, die von Flughäfen in der Europäischen Union starten, mindestens zwei Prozent nachhaltige Flugkraftstoffe beimischen (Flottau 2023; Europäische Union 2023). Bis 2030 wird die Quote auf sechs Prozent erhöht und schließlich bis zum Jahr 2050 schrittweise auf eine Beimischungsquote von siebzig Prozent angehoben.Beim Abflug von Flughäfen in der Europäischen Union dürfen Luftfahrzeugbetreiber zudem nur so viel Kraftstoff tanken, wie für den Flug tatsächlich benötigt wird, um zusätzliche Emissionen aufgrund von erhöhtem Gewicht zu vermeiden und um ein 'Tankering' zu verhindern (Europäische Union 2023). Durch Letzteres wird die absichtliche Mitnahme von zusätzlichem Kraftstoff beschrieben, um den Einsatz von nachhaltigen Kraftstoffen zu vermeiden.Neben den SAF als kurzfristig verfügbare Brückenlösung spielen die Entwicklung neuer emissionsfreier Antriebe eine zentrale Rolle. Als vielversprechender Ansatz gilt der Einsatz von regenerativem Wasserstoff als Antrieb, dessen Potenzial vor allem für den Einsatz in Brennstoffzellen, Gasturbinen und hybriden Lösungen untersucht wird (BDLI 2020, S. 4ff).Zwei Ansätze werden hierbei verfolgt. Zum einen wird beobachtet, inwiefern Wasserstoff, wie bei herkömmlichen Turbinen, direkt verbrannt werden kann und dadurch Triebwerken Schub verleiht. Bedeutend höheres Potenzial wird 'Flying Fuel Cells' zugesprochen, einer Brennstoffzelle, die flüssigen Wasserstoff in Strom umwandelt, der dann für den Antrieb des Flugzeugs genutzt werden kann (Weiner 2022; Geffert 2023).Gemein haben beide Technologieansätze, dass lediglich Wasser als Emission zurückbleibt, sofern Wasserstoff mithilfe regenerativer klimaneutraler Energien gewonnen wird (Geffert 2022). Bevor diese Technologien jedoch in hohem Umfang im Flugbetrieb zum Einsatz kommen können, bedarf es erheblicher Entwicklungsprozesse und Innovationssprünge. Neben der Entwicklung von Antriebstechnologien besteht die zentrale Herausforderung darin, das erheblich größere Volumen von verflüssigtem Wasserstoff im Vergleich zu Kerosin und damit notwendige größere Tanks in das Flugzeug zu integrieren (ebd.).Ebenfalls noch ungelöst sind Probleme, die im Zusammenhang mit Batterietechnik und Fliegen stehen. Die Verwendung von Batterien im elektrischen Flugverkehr hat zwar den Vorteil, dass sie während des Fluges keine Emissionen verursachen, einen hohen Wirkungsgrad aufweisen und es ermöglichen, eine hohe Energiemenge in kurzer Zeit abzugeben, aufgrund ihrer begrenzten Speicherkapazität sind derzeitige Batterien für den Einsatz in der kommerziellen Luftfahrt jedoch nicht geeignet. (BDLI S. 8).Auch wenn in den kommenden Jahren weiter Fortschritte hinsichtlich der Speicherkapazität zu erwarten sind, ist anzunehmen, dass elektrisches Fliegen sich vornehmlich auf die Bereiche kleine Motorsegler, Flugtaxis und Kleinflugzeuge für regionale Strecken beschränkt. Eine vielversprechende Option auf lange Sicht sind hybride Antriebe. Gasturbinen und elektrische Antriebe werden dabei so kombiniert, dass sie sich ergänzen und elektrische Antriebe besonders in Phasen mit hohem Energiebedarf die kerosinbetriebene Turbine unterstützen (ebd.).Effizientere Flugführung im europäischen LuftraumDurch die Fortentwicklung eines 'Single European Sky' kann ein maßgeblicher Beitrag zur aktiven Bekämpfung des Klimawandels geleistet werden. Bereits durch die Optimierung von Flugrouten im deutschen Luftraum konnte eine Reduzierung von Umwegen und somit eine Reduzierung des Treibstoffverbrauchs erzielt werden. Auf europäischer Ebene konnten beispielsweise seit 2014 durch die Einführung des 'Free Route Airspace' mehr als 2,6 Millionen Tonnen CO₂ eingespart werden. Dies entspricht etwa 0,5 Prozent der insgesamt durch den Luftverkehr verursachten CO₂-Emissionen innerhalb der Europäischen Union (BDL 2021).Um das vollständige Potenzial auszuschöpfen, wurden von politischer Seite weitere Maßnahmen zur Vereinheitlichung des europäischen Luftraums eingeleitet. Anhand von Untersuchungen wird deutlich, dass durch die Realisierung eines einheitlichen europäischen Luftraums pro Flug 250 bis 500 kg Kraftstoff bzw. 0,8 bis 1,6 Tonnen CO₂ eingespart werden können, indem optimierte und direktere Flugrouten genutzt werden (ebd.).Verbesserte Flugverfahren, wie kontinuierliche Sinkflüge und das Vermeiden von Warteschleifen, bieten weiteres Einsparungspotenzial von bis zu 325 kg Kraftstoff pro Flug (ebd.). Neben der Optimierung der Flugdurchführung gilt es auch, die Prozesse am Boden weiter zu verbessern. Kürzere Rollwege mit weniger Zwischenstopps bieten weitere Einsparungsmöglichkeiten von 38 bis 75 kg Kraftstoff (ebd.).CO2-neutraler FlughafenbetriebNeben den Flugzeugen selbst tragen Flughäfen und die damit verbundene Infrastruktur zu einer Belastung der Umwelt durch den CO2-Ausstoß bei. Entsprechend kann eine Optimierung der Flughafeninfrastruktur dazu beitragen, die Menge an Treibhausgasen zu reduzieren und so das Fliegen umweltfreundlicher zu gestalten. Zahlreiche Flughäfen haben bereits Maßnahmen ergriffen, um dies zu erreichen. Unterstützt werden sie in diesem Zusammenhang von der Bundesregierung, die eine Reihe von Projekten finanziell fördert (Bundesregierung 2022).Die Maßnahmen schließen folgende Bereiche ein: Energieversorgung der Flughäfen, Gebäudetechnik, Einsparungen im Bereich der flughafenspezifischen Anlagen sowie der Bereich Fuhrpark und Mobilität (vgl. BDL 2021). Im Kontext der Energieversorgung wird eine besondere Förderung für Projekte gewährt, die sich auf die lokale und ökologische Energieerzeugung konzentrieren. Hierbei liegt der Fokus entweder auf der Eigenproduktion von Energie, z.B. durch den Einsatz von Photovoltaikanlagen, oder auf der Nutzung regional gewonnener erneuerbarer Energien (ebd.).Zusätzlich werden Fördermittel für Projekte bereitgestellt, die auf die energetische Nachhaltigkeit von Gebäuden abzielen, wie durch den Bau von entsprechend konzipierten Neubauten oder durch die energetische Optimierung bereits bestehender Bauten. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Optimierung von flughafenspezifischen Anlagen. Beispielhaft ist hier die Umstellung der Vorfeldbeleuchtung auf LED-Leuchtmittel zu nennen. Besonders hohes Einsparpotenzial bietet ferner die Umstellung von für den Flugbetrieb nötigen Bodenfahrzeugen auf alternative Antriebsformen wie Elektromobilität und alternative Kraftstoffe.Vernetzung mit anderen VerkehrsträgernEine Vernetzung der Verkehrsträger trägt zu einer Reduktion der Treibhausgasemissionen bei. Dabei sollen Verkehrsträger miteinander vernetzt werden, um ihre verkehrlichen, wirtschaftlichen und ökologischen Vorteile am geeignetsten zu nutzen (BDL & DB 2021, S. 2). Ziel ist hierbei eine Verringerung des innerdeutschen Flugverkehrs auf ein Minimum. Dazu ist es allerdings unabdingbar, die Bahninfrastruktur weiter auszubauen und Flughäfen stärker an das bestehende Bahnnetz anzuschließen.Durch den umfangreichen Ausbau der Infrastruktur, die Bereitstellung leistungsstarker und attraktiver Angebote sowie die Verbesserung der gemeinsamen Services entlang der Reisekette können das Mobilitätsangebot attraktiver gestaltet und die Kundenzufriedenheit gesteigert werden. Hierbei liegt das Potenzial bei bis zu 4,3 Mio. Reisenden jährlich und einer damit verbundenen Reduzierung der CO₂-Emissionen um rund ein Sechstel im innerdeutschen Flugverkehr (ebd., S. 3).Prognosen zufolge wird der Luftverkehr innerhalb Deutschlands auf Kurzstrecken bis 2030 stark zurückgehen und nur noch auf längeren Strecken, wie zwischen Hamburg und München, profitabel sein. Bis zum Jahr 2050 ist zudem geplant, die Schieneninfrastruktur in Deutschland so weit auszubauen, dass nahezu alle innerdeutschen Flugverbindungen zwischen den großen Drehkreuzen und Ballungszentren durch Bahnfahrten innerhalb von vier Stunden ersetzt werden können (Bopst et al., 2019, S. 58). Durch die Einbindung der Flughäfen ins Schienennetz wird auch der Schienengüterverkehr profitieren. Die allgemeine Zielsetzung ist, dass bis 2050 schnelle Güterzüge im Nachtverkehr nationale Frachtflugverbindungen ersetzen können (ebd.).EmissionshandelDer Emissionshandel gilt als weiterer Baustein für eine klimaneutrale und nachhaltige Luftfahrt. Inwiefern der Emissionshandel zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit beitragen kann, wird bereits in verschiedenen Blogbeiträgen näher erläutert. An dieser Stelle sei daher insbesondere auf die Beiträge von Marion Stieger und Alexandra Knöchel verwiesen. Beide Autorinnen beleuchten, inwiefern der Emissionshandel zu einer Transformation der Wirtschaft hin zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit führen kann. Die in den Blogbeiträgen beschriebenen Prinzipien gelten selbstverständlich gleichermaßen für die Luftfahrt.Kritische Betrachtung der MaßnahmenObwohl es in den vergangenen Jahren zahlreiche Innovationen und technologische Fortschritte in der Luftfahrtindustrie gab, besteht weiterhin ein signifikanter Entwicklungsbedarf, um das Ziel der Klimaneutralität zu erreichen. Zur Nutzung von Wasserstoff als Treibstoff in Fluggasturbinen und Brennstoffzellen müssen zunächst zahlreiche neue Technologien entwickelt werden. Dies sind insbesondere Brennstoffzellen, Elektroantriebe und Tanks, die speziell für flüssigen -253 Grad kalten Wasserstoff konzipiert sind.Diese Technologien müssen anschließend wiederum in das Design und die Struktur des Flugzeugs integriert werden, was aufgrund des deutlich größeren Volumens von Wasserstoff im Vergleich zu herkömmlichem Kerosin eine Neukonstruktion des Flugzeugs erforderlich macht (Geffert 2022). Unter Berücksichtigung der langen Entwicklungszyklen von Flugzeugen, die zwanzig bis dreißig Jahre betragen, sind solche Technologien frühestens Mitte der 2050er Jahre verfügbar.Wie weiter oben beschrieben, setzen EU-Kommission und Fluggesellschaften daher auf SAF. Neben den bekannten Herausforderungen der hohen Kosten und begrenzten Verfügbarkeit stellt die Nutzung von SAF auch in ökologischer Hinsicht eine komplexe Problematik dar (Frankfurter Allgemeine 2022). Das bisher bedeutendste Problem ist die begrenzte Produktionskapazität von alternativem Flugtreibstoff, da momentan die Verfügbarkeit von Rohstoffen nicht ausreicht, um den tatsächlichen Bedarf an Kerosin zu decken (ebd.; vgl. McCurdy 2021).Außerdem wird dieser alternative Treibstoff mittlerweile auch in anderen industriellen Bereichen eingesetzt, was zu einem Wettbewerb zwischen der Luftfahrtindustrie und anderen Branchen um eine begrenzte Ressource führt. Ferner ist für die Produktion dieser Treibstoffe ein erheblicher Energieaufwand notwendig. Diese Energie müsste demnach ebenfalls nachhaltig gewonnen werden, um eine positivere Klimabilanz als herkömmliches Kerosin zu erreichen. Die Produktion von nachhaltigem Kerosin ist entsprechend vom Ausbau der nachhaltigen Energiegewinnung abhängig.Der Einsatz von PtL-Kraftstoffen in der Luftfahrt wird von einem Teil der Experten kritisiert, da die vermeintliche CO₂-Reduktion durch diese Treibstoffe nicht auf einer tatsächlichen Einsparung von CO₂ beruht. Stattdessen wird das für die Herstellung der PtL-Kraftstoffe benötigte CO₂ zunächst der Umwelt entzogen und später bei der Verbrennung des Kraftstoffs wieder in die Atmosphäre freigesetzt. Dieser Ansatz führt zu einer scheinbaren Kompensation von CO₂-Emissionen, die jedoch letztlich darauf hinausläuft, dass die CO₂-Bilanz lediglich als ausgeglichen angesehen werden kann. Im günstigsten Fall sollte kein zusätzliches CO₂ bei der Herstellung und dem Transport anfallen. In diesem Fall ergibt sich ein Nullsummenspiel, das jedoch nicht zur Lösung des Klimaproblems beiträgt (McCurdy 2021).Kritik kommt auch von den Airlines, die insbesondere die deutlich höheren Preise von SAF und einen damit verbundenen Wettbewerbsnachteil kritisieren. Gemäß dem Bundesverband der Deutschen Luftverkehrswirtschaft (BDL) führt die Einführung von Quoten sowohl auf innereuropäischen Flügen als auch auf Langstreckenflügen, die von Drehkreuzen innerhalb der Europäischen Union starten, zu signifikanten Preissteigerungen.Berechnungen des Wirtschaftsprüfungsinstituts PricewaterhouseCoopers zufolge können durch den Einsatz von SAF Flugtickets um bis zu 16 Prozent teurer werden, wodurch ein erheblicher Wettbewerbsnachteil europäischer Airlines gegenüber außereuropäischer Konkurrenten entsteht (Frankfurter Allgemeine 2022; Flottau 2023). Laut den Berechnungen ist ebenfalls davon auszugehen, dass die genannten Kraftstoffe noch bis weit in die 2040er deutlich teurer als herkömmliches Kerosin aus fossilen Rohstoffen sein werden.Um einen dadurch entstandenen Wettbewerbsnachteil deutscher und europäischer Airlines zu minimieren, setzt sich die Bundesregierung dafür ein, durch Luftverkehrsabkommen mit Drittstaaten zu gewährleisten, dass sich Luftfahrtunternehmen aus Staaten außerhalb der Europäischen Union beim Über- und Einfliegen in das Hoheitsgebiet der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verpflichten, die nationalen und europäischen Umweltschutzvorschriften einzuhalten (Bundesregierung 2021).Nachhaltigkeitsstrategien der Lufthansa GroupIm ersten Abschnitt dieses Beitrags konnte dargelegt werden, inwiefern durch die Luftfahrt zu einer nachhaltigeren Lebensweise und zur Reduktion des CO₂-Ausstoßes sowie dem damit verbundenen, durch Menschen verursachten Klimawandel beigetragen werden kann. Dabei wurde vorwiegend die wissenschaftliche Perspektive eingenommen und über den aktuellen Stand der Forschung berichtet.Im folgenden Abschnitt soll eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Frage erfolgen, welche konkreten Maßnahmen von den Airlines, d.h. den Verursachern, zur Reduzierung des CO2-Ausstoßes ergriffen wurden. Hierzu wurde die Lufthansa Group als eines der führenden Luftfahrtunternehmen weltweit ausgewählt.Vorstellung der Lufthansa GroupIm Jahr 2022 hat die Lufthansa Group 826.379 Flüge mit 710 Flugzeugen durchgeführt und etwa 100 Mio. Passagiere befördert (Lufthansa Group 2023a, S. 3). Um die Beförderungsleistung erbringen zu können, wurden 7.284.584.000 Tonnen Treibstoff benötigt, was wiederum zu einem Ausstoß von 22.946.441.000 Tonnen CO₂-Emissionen führte (ebd.) Durchschnittlich wurden 3,59 Liter Kerosin pro 100 Passagierkilometer verbraucht, wobei auch ein Ausstoß von 9 Kilogramm CO2 je 100 Passagierkilometer zu berechnen ist (ebd.). Je nach Entfernung eines Flugs variiert der Verbrauch. Im Vergleich zu Kurzstrecken- wird auf Langstreckenflügen lediglich rund die Hälfte des Treibstoffs verbraucht (3,32 l/100 pkm auf Langstrecken- im Vergleich zu 5,89 l/100 pkm auf Kurzstreckenflügen) (ebd., S. 17). Trotz des höheren Verbrauchs auf Kurzstreckenflügen entfallen vor allem aufgrund der längeren zurückgelegten Strecken rund 57 Prozent des Treibstoffverbrauchs auf Langstreckenflüge, womit diese den größten Anteil an CO2-Emissionen haben.Um die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit weiterhin zu stärken, wurde in den letzten Jahren der Fokus verstärkt auf die nachhaltige Ausrichtung des Unternehmens gelegt und Maßnahmen, insbesondere im Bereich der CO₂-Reduktion, wurden weiter verstärkt (Lufthansa Group 2023a, S. 6). Nach eigenen Angaben hat sich das Unternehmen das Ziel gesetzt, die Netto-CO₂-Emissionen im Flugbetrieb verglichen zum Jahr 2019 zu halbieren und bis zum Jahr 2050 einen CO₂-neutralen Flugbetrieb durchzuführen (ebd.). Zudem soll zumindest an den Heimatflughäfen (Frankfurt, München, Wien, Zürich, Genf, Brüssel und den Eurowings-Basen) der Bodenverkehr auf CO₂-neutrale Antriebe umgestellt werden (ebd., S. 8).Um die angestrebten Ziele zu erreichen, wurden die eingeschlagenen Maßnahmen 'Science-based Targets initiative' validiert (ebd.). Dieser Standard verpflichtet Unternehmen, sich kurz- bis mittelfristige Ziele (fünf bis fünfzehn Jahre) zur CO₂-Reduktion zu setzen, wobei genau festgelegt wird, wann wie viele Emissionen reduziert werden. Die Vorgehensweisen und Werte orientieren sich dabei an den Zielen des Pariser Abkommens und beziehen neueste wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse ein. Im weltweiten Vergleich ist die Lufthansa Group erst die zweite Airline, die nach diesen Standards zertifiziert wurde (ebd.).Maßnahmen zur Reduzierung der Treibhausgasemissionen der Lufthansa GroupDie Maßnahmen sind vielfältig und erstrecken sich vorwiegend auf die Bereiche Flottenerneuerung, nachhaltige Kraftstoffe und die erhöhte intermodale Vernetzung von Flug- und Bahnverkehr. Trotz einer erheblichen Steigerung der Transportleistung wurde in den vergangenen Jahren der Treibstoffverbrauch im Verhältnis deutlich gesenkt. Im Zeitraum von 1991 bis 2022 stieg die Transportleistung der Lufthansa Group um 290 Prozent (Lufthansa Group 2023a, S. 14). Beim Vergleich des Anstiegs des Treibstoffverbrauchs mit den Werten der Transportleistung ist im gleichen Zeitraum lediglich eine Zunahme um 133 Prozent zu verzeichnen. Im Vergleich zum Bezugsjahr 1991 ist dies eine Effizienzsteigerung von über vierzig Prozent (ebd.).Zurückzuführen ist dies auf eine kontinuierliche Erneuerung der Flugzeugflotte und dem damit verbundenen Einsatz effizienterer und kerosinsparender Flugzeuge (ebd.). Neue Flugzeuge, wie die Langstreckenmodelle Airbus A350-900 und Boeing 787-9, sowie die Kurzstreckenmodelle Airbus A320neo und A321neo haben einen im Vergleich zu den Vorgängermodellen reduzierten Treibstoffverbrauch von bis zu dreißig Prozent (ebd.).Auch zukünftig fördert die Lufthansa Group eine konsequente Erneuerung der Flotte und hat im Zuge dessen zahlreiche Flugzeuge der neuesten Generation bestellt. Allein bis Ende 2024 stoßen 24 neue Langstreckenflugzeuge zur Konzernflotte hinzu und ersetzen ältere Modelle, wie die mit vier Triebwerken versehenen Flugzeuge des Typs Airbus A340-300 und 747-400. Bis 2030 werden weitere 180 neue Flugzeuge ältere, weniger effiziente Flugzeuge ersetzen (ebd.).Die Lufthansa Group engagiert sich neben der Erneuerung ihrer Flotte für die Entwicklung und Erforschung nachhaltiger Kraftstoffe und neuer Antriebsmethoden für Flugzeuge. Bereits im Jahr 2022 konnten durch den Einsatz von modernen SAF rund 43.900 Tonnen CO₂ eingespart werden, wobei etwa 40.000 Tonnen auf die direkte Einsparung beim Verbrennungsprozess und etwa 4000 Tonnen auf vorgelagerte Prozesse, wie den Transport, zurückzuführen sind (Lufthansa Group 2023a, S. 16).Es wird angestrebt, den Anteil von SAF kontinuierlich zu erhöhen. Hierzu fördert die Lufthansa Group zahlreiche Projekte, die darauf abzielen, die Verfügbarkeit dieser Kraftstoffe zu erhöhen und ihre Produktionskosten zu senken. In diesem Rahmen wurde eine Partnerschaft mit einer der ersten Raffinerien zur Herstellung von SAF-Kerosin eingegangen und es wurde vereinbart, dass die Lufthansa Group eine garantierte Menge von mindestens 25.000 Liter dieses umweltfreundlichen Kraftstoffes abnimmt (Lufthansa Group 2022).Zudem haben das Unternehmen und der Energiekonzern VARO Energy eine gemeinsame Absichtserklärung über einen zügigen Ausbau nachhaltiger Treibstoffe unterzeichnet. Diese beinhaltet die Herstellung und Lieferung größerer Mengen von SAF ab 2026 an das Drehkreuz München (Lufthansa Group 2023b). Daneben wollen beide Unternehmen gemeinsam an "innovativen Verfahren" (ebd.) zur Herstellung von grünem Wasserstoff aus biogenen Abfallstoffen arbeiten.Die Erforschung des Potenzials von Wasserstoff als zukünftigen Antrieb für Flugzeuge ist auch Thema bei einer gemeinsamen Forschungsinitiative des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt, des Zentrums für Angewandte Luftfahrtforschung und des Hamburg Airport. Gemeinsam wollen die Partner Wasserstoff als potenziellen nachhaltigen Flugzeugtreibstoff erproben und haben dazu das Projekt A320 Hydrogen Aviation Lab entwickelt (Lufthansa 2023a, S. 15). Das Projekt umfasst die Konzeption und Erprobung von Boden- und Wartungsprozessen in Verbindung mit Wasserstofftechnologie.Lufthansa Technik unterstützt vor allem bei der Entwicklung zukünftiger Wartungs- und Reparaturtechniken sowie bei der Entwicklung eines auf -‍253 Grad Celsius kühlbaren Tanksystems für Wasserstoff an Bord von Flugzeugen (ebd.). Basierend auf dem derzeitigen Stand der Technik würde die Betankung eines Verkehrsflugzeuges mit Wasserstoff mehrere Stunden dauern (ebd.). Um den Betrieb mit diesem Kraftstoff wirtschaftlich realisieren zu können, ist es notwendig, Technologien zu entwickeln, die einen wirtschaftlichen Flugbetrieb ermöglichen.Weiterhin ist die intermodale Vernetzung mit anderen Verkehrsträgern, speziell der Bahn, erklärtes Ziel der Lufthansa Group. In den letzten Jahren ist der innerdeutsche Flugverkehr bereits erheblich zurückgegangen. Im Vergleich zum Jahr 2004 ist die Zahl an innerdeutschen Flügen um 22 Prozentpunkte gesunken (Lufthansa Group 2020).Um die Vernetzung weiter zu fördern, bietet Lufthansa Express Rail Passagieren aufeinander abgestimmte Zug-Flug-Verbindungen an. Dies beinhaltet neben einer Umsteigegarantie die Möglichkeit, das Gepäck direkt am 'AIRail-Terminal' einzuchecken (ebd.). Eine weitere Ausweitung des Lufthansa Express Rail-Netzes wird bei gleichzeitiger Verdichtung der Taktfrequenzen angestrebt.Zudem investiert das Unternehmen in eine Vielzahl kleinerer Projekte zur Reduzierung des CO₂-Fußabdrucks in der Luftfahrt. Die AeroShark-Technologie, die von der BASF und der Lufthansa Group gemeinsam entwickelt wurde, soll an dieser Stelle exemplarisch angesprochen werden. Dabei handelt es sich um eine bionische Klebefolie, die der mikroskopischen Struktur der Haut eines Haifischs nachempfunden wurde und an den Rumpf von Flugzeugen angebracht wird (Lufthansa Group 2022). Durch die aerodynamische Wirkung verringert sich der Luftwiderstand und der Treibstoffverbrauch wird gesenkt. Der erste Test an einer Boeing 777 der Swiss hat eine jährliche Treibstoffersparnis von bis zu 1,1 Prozent ergeben (ebd.). Dies entspricht etwa 4800 Tonnen Kerosin und 15.200 Tonnen CO₂-Ersparnis bei einer Ausweitung der Technologie auf die gesamte Boeing 777-Flotte der Konzerntochter (ebd.).Kritische Betrachtung der Nachhaltigkeitsbemühungen der Lufthansa GroupTrotz der erläuterten Bemühungen und Fortschritte der Lufthansa Group im Bereich der Nachhaltigkeit gibt es Kritikpunkte an den getroffenen Maßnahmen. Kritik kann besonders an der bestehenden Flotte der Lufthansa Group geäußert werden. Obwohl die Flottenerneuerung beschlossen wurde, um der steigenden Nachfrage gerecht zu werden und Kapazitäten zu erweitern, setzt das Unternehmen weiterhin auf eine Vielzahl älterer Flugzeuge.Im Vergleich zu anderen Fluggesellschaften hat die Lufthansa Group einen besonders hohen Anteil an vierstrahligen Flugzeugen im Einsatz, deren Effizienz und Treibstoffverbrauch schlechtere Ergebnisse als vergleichbare neuere Flugzeuge erzielen. Aktuell werden im gesamten Konzern noch 84 viermotorige Langstreckenflugzeuge betrieben (Lufthansa 2023b, S. 26). Gemessen an der Gesamtzahl von 194 Langstreckenflugzeugen entspricht das einem Anteil von 43,3 Prozent. Bei den europäischen Konkurrenten ist der Anteil deutlich geringer. Die Air France-KLM-Gruppe betreibt lediglich vier vierstrahlige Flugzeuge, was mit einem Anteil von 1,6 Prozent gleichzusetzen ist (Air France-KLM-Gruppe 2023, S. 55). Einen ähnlich niedrigen Anteil hat auch die International Airline Group, deren Anteil an vierstrahligen Langstreckenflugzeugen im Jahr 2022 bei 6,3 Prozent lag (IAG 2023, S. 104).Ein weiterer Kritikpunkt an der Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie ist, dass die Lufthansa Group sich vornehmlich bemüht, durch technische Lösungen den CO₂-Ausstoß zu senken, während eine Reduzierung des Flugverkehrs, insbesondere im innerdeutschen Verkehr, nicht konsequent umgesetzt wird. Die Partnerschaft mit der Deutschen Bahn in den vergangenen Jahren wurde zwar intensiviert, dennoch bietet die Lufthansa Group weiterhin auch Flüge an, bei denen der Zug eine gleichwertige und zugleich umweltfreundlichere Alternative darstellt.Eine solche Strecke ist unter anderem die Linie Stuttgart-Frankfurt. Im Sommerflugplan 2023 werden die beiden rund 200 Kilometer entfernten Städte weiterhin bis zu fünfmal täglich mit dem Flugzeug bedient, obwohl der ICE als umweltfreundlichere Alternative die Strecke in etwa einer Stunde und 15 Minuten ohne Umsteigen befährt. Die Verbindungen Düsseldorf-Frankfurt, Nürnberg-München und Nürnberg-Frankfurt sind ebenso kritisch zu beurteilen.In diesem Zusammenhang ist auch der fehlende Ausbau der Bahninfrastruktur an deutschen Flughäfen zu bemängeln. Am Beispiel des Flughafens München lässt sich dieser Mangel deutlich erkennen. Der zweitgrößte deutsche Flughafen ist nicht an das ICE-Netz der Deutschen Bahn angeschlossen und wird es nach einer Entscheidung des Bundesverkehrsministeriums auch zukünftig nicht werden (Süddeutsche Zeitung 2023). Eine Buchung von FlyRail-Verbindungen, wie dies in Frankfurt möglich ist, ist dort nicht umsetzbar, wodurch der Zug an Attraktivität verliert. Besonders die Strecken Stuttgart-München und Nürnberg-München könnten im Rahmen einer Fernverkehrsanbindung des Flughafens München eingestellt werden.Die Kompensationsmaßnahmen der Airline sind ebenfalls kritisch zu betrachten. Mit dem 'Green Fare' bietet die Lufthansa Group seit diesem Jahr Passagieren die Möglichkeit, durch den Kauf eines Tickets vermeintlich klimaneutral zu fliegen, indem die durch die Flugreise verursachten Emissionen kompensiert werden. Zwanzig Prozent der beim Flug verursachten CO₂-Emissionen werden dabei durch den Einsatz von SAF-Treibstoff und die verbleibenden achtzig Prozent durch Ausgleichsmaßnahmen kompensiert, indem an anderer Stelle CO₂ eingespart wird (Lufthansa 2023).Die Kompensation scheint jedoch nur vordergründig das Klima zu schützen. Die Stiftung Warentest bemängelt in diesem Zusammenhang die zu niedrig angesetzte zu kompensierende Menge, durch die nur etwa ein Drittel des ausgestoßenen CO₂ berücksichtigt wird (Stiftung Warentest 2022). Zudem liegt die Kompensation in den Händen der Passagiere. Lufthansa lässt sich entsprechend für die Kompensation und ihre Umweltbemühungen bezahlen. Ferner wird im Verhältnis zum gesamten CO₂-Ausstoß der Airline nur ein kleiner Teil kompensiert (ebd.).Auch Airline-unabhängige Anbieter von Ausgleichszertifikaten befinden sich auf demselben Niveau. Kritisiert werden speziell die Kompensation durch Ex-ante-Zertifikate, bei denen Einsparungen erst in Zukunft anfallen, und die mangelnde Transparenz (ebd.).Im Zuge der Rettung von Teilen der Lufthansa Group durch die Bundesregierung wurde oft die fehlende Verknüpfung der Milliardenhilfe mit Klimaschutzauflagen kritisiert. Besonders im Fehlen von Umweltauflagen, wie die Reduktion bzw. die Einstellung des Inlandsverkehrs und das Bekenntnis zur Emissionsreduktion, zeigt sich eine rein die wirtschaftlichen Interessen berücksichtigende Vorgehensweise (Forum nachhaltig Wirtschaften 2020). Die Coronakrise und die damit verbundene Reduktion des Flugverkehrs hätten stärker als klimapolitische Chance angesehen werden können, indem vermehrt Nachhaltigkeit und Klimafreundlichkeit in den Vordergrund gerückt worden wären (ebd.).ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag beschäftigte sich mit der Frage, inwiefern sich die Luftfahrt in Richtung Klimaneutralität entwickelt. Dazu wurde zunächst die Ausgangslage beschrieben, dass die weltweite Luftfahrt stark wächst und auch – trotz technischer Innovationen und schadstoffärmerer Flugzeuge – für einen immer höheren Anteil der weltweiten CO₂-Emissionen verantwortlich ist. Auf dem Weg zur Klimaneutralität werden verschiedene Pfade verfolgt, die teilweise geringe Erfolgsaussichten haben. Exemplarisch wurden die folgenden Möglichkeiten erläutert und anschließend einer kritischen Betrachtung unterzogen:der Nutzen und die Effektivität nachhaltiger Kraftstoffe, insbesondere SAF;eine effizientere Flugführung im europäischen Luftraum und die dadurch ermöglichten kürzeren Flugstrecken;Möglichkeiten eines CO₂-neutralen Flughafenbetriebs unddie intermodale Vernetzung mit anderen Verkehrsträgern, v.a. der Bahn.Trotz der Bemühungen und der vielfältigen Ansätze, die Luftfahrt in eine CO₂-neutrale Zukunft zu steuern, wird dies auf absehbare Zeit nicht möglich sein, da sich die Forschung noch am Anfang befindet und es noch Jahre bzw. Jahrzehnte dauern wird, bis das erste klimaneutrale Flugzeug serienmäßig gebaut werden kann.Am Beispiel der Lufthansa Group wurden schließlich Maßnahmen aufgezeigt, die Airlines ergreifen, um die Luftfahrt nachhaltiger und klimaneutral zu gestalten. Es zeigte sich, dass der Konzern vorwiegend auf den Einsatz nachhaltiger SAF setzt. Zudem wird die alternde Flotte schrittweise erneuert, wodurch die Effizienz gesteigert wird und der Kraftstoffverbrauch verringert werden kann. Auch die Vernetzung mit der Deutschen Bahn am Flughafen Frankfurt kann als positives Zeichen gewertet werden, wenngleich hierbei eine noch stärkere Partnerschaft wünschenswert wäre.Trotz aller Bemühungen der Lufthansa Group muss die Frage gestellt werden, inwiefern wirtschaftliche Interessen und Nachhaltigkeitsbemühungen in Einklang gebracht werden können. Häufig bleibt der Eindruck zurück, dass finanzielle Aspekte höher als Bemühungen um mehr Nachhaltigkeit gewichtet werden. Zahlreiche Aspekte deuten darauf hin, dass Nachhaltigkeit und Klimaschutz nur dann mit Nachdruck angegangen werden, wenn dies einen wirtschaftlichen und finanziellen Vorteil mit sich bringt oder von politischer Seite durch Reglementierungen Handlungsdruck erzeugt wird. Dies kommt auch in der ablehnenden Haltung gegenüber fixierten SAF-Quoten innerhalb der Europäischen Union zum Ausdruck.Auch als Kunden der Airlines dürfen wir uns nicht der Verantwortung entziehen, sondern müssen uns über die Konsequenzen unseres Handelns bewusst sein. Wenn wir von Frankfurt nach New York in den Urlaub fliegen, ist dies mit einer erheblichen Belastung für die Umwelt verbunden und die Kompensation der Flugemissionen trägt nicht dazu bei, das Klima nachhaltig zu schützen. Jeder Flug belastet das Klima erheblich, unabhängig davon, ob wir ihn kompensieren, was sich auf absehbare Zeit nicht ändern wird, wie aufgezeigt wurde. Die einzige nachhaltige Lösung ist demnach, den Flugverkehr radikal zu reduzieren, wenn das 1,5 Grad-Ziel noch eingehalten werden soll.Allerdings sollten nicht nur Flugreisen kritisch betrachtet werden, auch der zunehmende Tourismus in zahlreichen Städten und Regionen weltweit hat verstärkt negative Auswirkungen auf psychischer, sozialer, ökonomischer und ökologischer Ebene. An dieser Stelle möchte ich auf den Blogbeitrag von Lea Kopp verweisen, der sich mit dem Thema 'Overtourism' in Barcelona befasst und in dem dargelegt wird, wie die einheimische Bevölkerung und die Natur unter der steigenden Nachfrage nach Reisen in die spanische Metropole leiden. Kopp beschreibt, wie innerstädtische Gentrifizierungsprozesse negative Auswirkungen auf die dort lebende Bevölkerung haben und wie sich die Zufriedenheit der Einwohner:innen, aber auch der Tourist:innen in den letzten Jahren verschlechtert hat.Abschließend bleibt festzuhalten, dass die Reiselust der Menschen, an die ich mich anschließe, ungebrochen ist. Dennoch müssen wir uns über die Auswirkungen unseres Handelns bewusst sein. Möglicherweise gelingt es, zukünftig mehr Personen davon zu überzeugen, nachhaltig mit dem Zug statt mit dem Flugzeug zu reisen und Urlaub nicht in Übersee, sondern innerhalb Deutschlands zu machen, wodurch ein - wenn auch geringer - Beitrag zur klimaschonenden Zukunft geleistet werden kann.LiteraturBopst, J., Herbener, R., Hölzer-Schopohl, O., Lindmaier, J., Myck, T., & Weiß, J. (Hgs.) (2019). Umweltschonender Luftverkehr lokal – national – international. Umweltbundesamt.Bundesregierung (2021) PtL-Roadmap Nachhaltige strombasierte Kraftstoffe für den Luftverkehr in Deutschland. Verfügbar unter: https://www.bdl.aero/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PtL-Roadmap.pdf (Zugegriffen: 16. Mai 2023).Bundesregierung (2022) Klimaneutrale Luftfahrt - Gemeinsames Papier der Bundesregierung, bmwk.de. Verfügbar unter: https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/J-L/220621-Klimaneutrale-Luftfahrt-Juni-22-Vfin-Anlage-BR.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1 (Zugegriffen: 28. April 2023).Bundesverband der Deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrtindustrie e. V. (BDLI) (2020) Nachhaltige und klimaneutrale Luftfahrt aus Deutschland für die Energiewende am Himmel. Verfügbar unter: https://www.bdli.de/sites/default/files/2020-09/TechStrategie_2020_3.pdf (Zugegriffen: 16. Mai 2023).Bundesverband der deutschen Luftverkehrswirtschaft (BDL), Deutsche Bahn (DB) (2021) AKTIONSPLAN für ein verbessertes Zusammenwirken von Luftverkehr und Deutscher Bahn: Ein gemeinsamer Beitrag für ein attraktives Mobilitätsangebot und Fortschritte beim Klimaschutz. Verfügbar unter: https://www.bdl.aero/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Aktionsplan-DB-BDL.pdf (Zugegriffen: 16. Mai 2023).Bundesverband der Deutschen Luftverkehrswirtschaft (BDL) (2021) Masterplan Klimaschutz im Luftverkehr, bdl.aero. Verfügbar unter: https://www.bdl.aero/de/themen-positionen/nachhaltigkeit/klimaschutz/ (Zugegriffen: 28. April 2023).Cames, M., Graichen, P., Kasten, P., Mottschall, M., Faber, J., Nelissen, D., Scheelhaase, J., Grimme, W. & Maertens, S. (2019). Klimaschutz im Luft- und Seeverkehr: Strategiepapier Luftfahrt. Im Auftrag des Umweltbundesamtes. Dessau-Rosslau: Deutschland. Umweltbundesamt.Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) (2020) Luftverkehr trägt 3,5 Prozent zur Klimaerwärmung bei, Dlr.de. Verfügbar unter: https://www.dlr.de/de/aktuelles/nachrichten/2020/03/20200903_der-globale-luftverkehr-traegt-3-5-prozent-zur-klimaerwaermung-bei (Zugegriffen: 16. Mai 2023).European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), European Environment Agency (EEA) & Eurocontrol. (2019). European Aviation Environmental Report 2019. Köln.Flottau, J. (2023) "Fliegen wird grüner, zumindest ein bisschen", Süddeutsche Zeitung. Verfügbar unter: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/green-deal-eu-fluege-1.5823033 (Zugegriffen: 16. Mai 2023).Forum Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften (2020) Kritik an Lufthansa-Rettung ohne Klimaauflagen, Forum-csr.net. Verfügbar unter: https://www.forum-csr.net/News/14689/Kritik-an-Lufthansa-Rettung-ohne-Klimaauflagen.html (Zugegriffen: 15. Mai 2023).France-KLM-Gruppe, A. (2023) Universal Registration Document 2022. Verfügbar unter: https://www.airfranceklm.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/AFK_URD_2022_VA_24-04-23.pdf (Zugegriffen: 12. Mai 2023).Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2022) Studie: Nachhaltiger Sprit würde Fliegen nicht viel teurer machen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Verfügbar unter: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/studie-nachhaltiger-sprit-wuerde-fliegen-nicht-viel-teurer-machen-18118721.html (Zugegriffen: 6. Juni 2023).Geffert, N. (2022) Auf Kurs zum emissionsfreien Fliegen, aeroreport.de. Verfügbar unter: https://aeroreport.de/de/innovation/auf-kurs-zum-emissionsfreien-fliegen (Zugegriffen: 28. April 2023).Gelhausen, M. (2021) Corona und dann? Neue DLR-Prognose für den Luftverkehr bis 2040, DLR Blog. Verfügbar unter: https://www.dlr.de/blogs/de/alle-blogs/corona-und-dann-neue-dlr-prognose-fuer-den-luftverkehr-bis-2040.aspx/ressort-1/ (Zugegriffen: 20. Juli 2023).International Airlines Group (IAG) (2023) IAG full year results 2022. Verfügbar unter: https://www.iairgroup.com/~/media/Files/I/IAG/documents/2022-full-year-results.pdf (Zugegriffen: 12. Mai 2023).International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). (2019). Presentation of 2018 Air Transport statistical results. ICAO. Verfügbar unter: https://www.icao.int/annual-report-2018/Documents/Annual.Report.2018_Air%20Transport%20Statistics.pdf (zuletzt abgerufen am 30.07.2023)Jänicke, M. (2018). Nachhaltigkeit: Ein umstrittener Begriff und seine Konsequenzen. Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, 87(2), 47-60.Kafsack, H. und Kotowski, T. (2022) Klimaschutzpläne der EU: Wird Fliegen jetzt teurer?, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Verfügbar unter: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/klimaschutzplaene-der-eu-wird-fliegen-jetzt-teurer-18520089.html (Zugegriffen: 6. Juni 2023).Lufthansa (2023) Green Fares: Nachhaltiger fliegen, lufthansa.com. Verfügbar unter: https://www.lufthansa.com/de/de/green-fare (Zugegriffen: 15. Mai 2023).Lufthansa Group (2020) Innerdeutscher Verkehr - intermodalität stärken. Verfügbar unter: https://politikbrief.lufthansagroup.com/fileadmin/user_upload/2020-1/artikel2/LHG-PB_2020-1_intermodalitaet_de.pdf (Zugegriffen: 11. Mai 2023).Lufthansa Group (2022) Von der Natur lernen und CO2 sparen: Lufthansa Group rüstet Flugzeuge als weltweit erste Airline-Gruppe mit aerodynamischer Haifischhaut-Folie aus, lufthansagroup.com. Verfügbar unter: https://www.lufthansagroup.com/de/newsroom/meldungen/von-der-natur-lernen-und-co2-sparen-lufthansa-group-ruestet-flugzeuge-als-weltweit-erste-airline-gruppe-mit-aerodynamischer-haifischhaut-folie-aus.html (Zugegriffen: 11. Mai 2023).Lufthansa Group (2023a) Nachhaltigkeit 2022 - Factsheet. Verfügbar unter: https://www.lufthansagroup.com/media/downloads/de/verantwortung/LH-Factsheet-Nachhaltigkeit-2022.pdf (Zugegriffen: 11. Mai 2023).Lufthansa Group (2023b) Absichtserklärung unterzeichnet: Lufthansa Group und VARO Energy kooperieren im Bereich nachhaltige Flugkraftstoffe, lufthansagroup.com. Verfügbar unter: https://www.lufthansagroup.com/de/newsroom/meldungen/verantwortung/absichtserklaerung-unterzeichnet-lufthansa-group-und-varo-energy-kooperieren-im-bereich-nachhaltige-flugkraftstoffe.html (Zugegriffen: 11. Mai 2023).McCurdy, M. (2021) To what extent can Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) mitigate the environmental impact of flying?, ICF. Verfügbar unter: https://www.icf.com/insights/transportation/sustainable-aviation-fuels-environmental-impact-flying (Zugegriffen: 6. Juni 2023).NABU (2022) BER noch immer Todesfalle für Vögel, NABU - Landesverband Berlin. Verfügbar unter: https://berlin.nabu.de/news/newsarchiv/2022/november/32539.html (Zugegriffen: 20. Juli 2023).Süddeutsche Zeitung (2023) Münchner Flughafen bleibt ohne ICE-Anbindung, süddeutsche.de. Verfügbar unter: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-flughafen-ice-bahnhof-1.5750545 (Zugegriffen: 15. Mai 2023).Stiftung Warentest (2022) CO2-Kompensation: Mit diesen Anbietern helfen Sie dem Klima­schutz, Stiftung Warentest. Verfügbar unter: https://www.test.de/CO2-Kompensation-Diese-Anbieter-tun-am-meisten-fuer-den-Klimaschutz-5282502-5928682/ (Zugegriffen: 15. Mai 2023).Weiner, M. (2022) DLR und MTU: Gemeinsam forschen für eine emissionsfreie Luftfahrt, aeroreport.de. Verfügbar unter: https://aeroreport.de/de/innovation/dlr-und-mtu-gemeinsam-forschen-fuer-eine-emissionsfreie-luftfahrt (Zugegriffen: 28. April 2023).Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen (WBGU). (2016). Der Umzug der Menschheit: Die transformative Kraft der Städte. Hauptgutachten. WBGU.[1] Aufgrund der infolge der Coronapandemie eingebrochenen Passagierzahlen werden die Daten unmittelbar vor der Pandemie verwendet, um ein unverfälschtes Bild des Luftverkehrs zu bekommen.

Hamas's attack into Israel and massacre of Israelis, followed by Israel's war of obliteration on Gaza backed by the United States, is a political earthquake in the Middle East. Its tremors are shaking up the politics of the Horn of Africa, bringing down an already tottering peace and security architecture. It's too early to discern the shape of the rubble, but we can already see the direction in which some of the pillars will fall.The most obvious impact is that the Israel-Palestine war has legitimized and invigorated protest across the wider region. Hamas showed that Israel was not invincible, and Palestine would no longer be invisible. Many in the Arab street — and Muslims more widely — are ready to overlook Hamas's atrocious record as a public authority and its embrace of terror, because it dared stand up to Israel, America, and Europe.Hamas's boldness has given a shot in the arm to Islamists, such as Somalia's al-Shabaab. As the African Union peacekeeping operation in Somalia draws down, al-Shabaab remains a threat— and will likely be emboldened to intensify its operations both in Somalia and neighboring Kenya.Kenyan President William Ruto gave strong backing to Israel while also calling for a ceasefire. For the U.S. and Europe, Kenya is now the anchor state for security in the Horn — but it desperately needs financial aid if it is to shoulder that burden.The war is consuming Egyptian attention and terrifies President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is treading a fine line between sponsoring pro-Palestinian protests and suppressing them.Red Sea SecurityThe Red Sea is strategic for Israel. One quarter of Israel's maritime trade is handled in its port of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba, an inlet of the Red Sea. Eilat is Israel's back door, vital in case the Mediterranean coast is under threat. Israel has long seen the littoral countries of the Red Sea — Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia — as pieces in the jigsaw of its extended security frontier.Historically, Egypt has shared the same concern. Last year, revenues from the Suez Canal were $9.4 billion— its third largest foreign currency earner after remittances from Egyptians working in the Gulf States and tourism. Neither Israel nor Egypt can afford a disruption to maritime security from Suez and Eilat to the Gulf of Aden.The Red Sea is also the buckle on China's Belt and Road Initiative, with China's first overseas military base — strictly speaking a "facility" — in the port of Djibouti near the Bab al-Mandab, the narrow straits between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. More than 10 percent of world maritime trade is carried on 25,000 ships through these straits every year.Having long neglected its Red Sea coastline, Saudi Arabia has reawakened to its significance in the last decade. In the 1980s, amid fears that Iran might block tanker traffic through the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia built an east-west pipeline from the Aqaig oil fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu al Bahr. Its strategic significance is back in focus.In parallel, the United Arab Emirates is well on track to securing a monopoly over the ports of the Gulf of Aden, which forms the eastern approaches to the Red Sea. It has de facto annexed the Yemeni island of Socotra for a naval base. The UAE is looking for a foothold in the Red Sea proper, and a string of satellite states on the African shore.All these factors intensify the scramble for securing naval bases in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Djibouti is already host to the U.S.'s Camp Lemonnier along with French, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese facilities. Turkey and Russia are actively seeking bases too, focusing on Port Sudan and Eritrea's long coastline.Empowered Gulf StatesWell before the recent crisis, the Horn of Africa was becoming dominated by Middle Eastern powers. This process is now intensified. Decades of competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran for alignment of Sudan and Eritrea has swung different ways. Sudan's General Abdel Fattah al-B­­urhan, formerly political partner of Benjamin Netanyahu and signatory to the Abraham Accord, cut an ill-timed deal with Iran in early October, to obtain weapons, which has embarrassed his outreach to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. More recently, Turkey and Qatar's regional ambitions have clashed with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, especially over the Muslim Brothers — supported by the former, opposed by the latter. The latest emerging rivalry is between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as the regional anchor. While running for president, Joe Biden called Saudi Arabia a "pariah." But it is now indispensable to the U.S.Among the Arab states. the UAE has been the most restrained in condemning Israel for its actions in Gaza. It has also said that it doesn't mix trade and politics— meaning that it will continue to implement the economic cooperation agreements it signed with Israel following on from the Abraham Accords. The UAE is also positioned at the center of the U.S.-sponsored India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), unveiled at the September G20 summit in India as a response to China's Belt and Road Initiative.The UAE also has a free hand in the Horn of Africa, and in the last five years it has moved more rapidly and decisively than Saudi Arabia.Sudan's Fate between Riyadh and Abu DhabiAfter the eruption of war in Sudan in April, the joint Saudi-American mediation was in large part a gift from Washington to try to mend fences with the Kingdom. Talks in Jeddah resumed in late October, with the modest agenda of a ceasefire and humanitarian access, and a pro forma "civilian track" delegated to the African Union, which has shown neither commitment nor competence.Meanwhile, the Emiratis are backing General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, known as "Hemedti," who is currently driving the Sudan Armed Forces out of their remaining redoubts in Khartoum. This followed more than six months of fighting in which Hemedti's Rapid Support Forces gained a reputation for military prowess and utter disregard for the dignity and rights of civilians. Despite widespread revulsion against the RSF, especially among middle class Sudanese, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, known as MBZ, stuck with his man.In charge of the ruins of Sudan's capital city, Hemedti will soon be in a position to declare a government, perhaps inviting civilians for the sake of a veneer of legitimacy. What's holding him back is the ceasefire talks in Jeddah. His rival, Gen. al-Burhan is meanwhile floating a plan to form a government based in Port Sudan — raising the prospect of two rival governments, as in Libya. The real negotiations there are between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. If the two capitals agree on a formula, the U.S. and the African Union will applaud, and the Sudanese will be presented with a fait accompli.Ethiopia Goes RogueIn Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's rule is underwritten by Emirati treasure. MBZ has reportedly paid for Abiy's vast new palace, a vanity project whose $ 10 billion price tag is paid for entirely off-budget. Abiy told lawmakers that this bill was none of their business as it was funded by private donations, directly to him. Other megaprojects in and around the capital Addis Ababa, such as glitzy museums and theme parks, have similarly opaque finances.Ethiopia's wars have depended on largesse from the UAE. Ethiopian federal forces prevailed against Tigray, forcing the latter into an abject surrender a year ago, on account of an arsenal — especially drones — supplied by the UAE. Abiy is currently rattling his saber against his erstwhile ally, Eritrea, demanding that landlocked Ethiopia be given a port, or it will take one by force. The likely target is Assab in Eritrea, though other neighbors such as Djibouti and Somalia have been rattled too.Eritrea unexpectedly finds itself as a status quo power and is relishing this role, tersely expressing its refusal to join in the confusing discourse from Addis Ababa. It suddenly has allies in Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia and even Kenya — all of them threatened by Abiy's bellicosity.If Abiy does invade Eritrea, he will violate the basic international norm — the inviolability of state boundaries — and risk plunging his already failing economy deeper into disaster. This will pose a sharp dilemma for the UAE. It is ready to override multilateral principles, but whether it would bail out its errant client in Addis Ababa, and jeopardize its winning position in Sudan, is a different matter. It would also present Saudi Arabia with the dilemma of whether to back Eritrea's notorious dictator, President Isaias Afewerki.America and the Pax AfricanaPeace and security in the Horn of Africa isn't a priority for the Biden administration. Despite a rhetorical commitment to a rule-based international order, Washington has neither protected Africa's painstakingly-constructed peace and security architecture nor brought the Ethiopian and Sudanese crises to the U.N. Security Council.While the American security umbrella was in place over the Arabian Peninsula, the countries of the Horn of Africa had the chance to develop their own peace and security system, based on a layered multilateral structure involving the regional organization, the InterGovernmental Authority on Development, the African Union, and United Nations, with peacekeepers and peace missions funded by the Europeans. This emergent Pax Africana was already imperiled as the U.S. drew down and the Middle Eastern middle powers became more assertive. President Donald Trump authorized his favored intermediaries — Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — to pursue their interests across the Horn of Africa. The Biden administration has not pulled that back.It's possible that the administration cares about peace, security and human rights in Africa. But for as long as the U.S.'s Horn of Africa policy is handled by the Africa Bureau at the State Department — whose diplomats scarcely get the time of day from their counterparts in the Gulf Kingdoms — Washington's views will remain all-but-irrelevant. The Horn of Africa doesn't make the cut when staffers prepare talking points for President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken or national security adviser Jake Sullivan to speak to their Arab counterparts. It's a prioritization that leaves the region in a deepening crisis, at the mercy of ruthless transactional politics.America's well-established practice of treating Israel as an exception to international law is rubbing off on Israel's allies and apologists across the Middle East, who are actively dismantling the already-tottering pillars of Africa's norm-based peace and security system. Those African countries most in need of principled multilateralism are paying the price.

The failure of successive U.S. administrations to distinguish between core and peripheral national security interests lies at the heart of much of the trouble that we now face.
Nowhere is this failure of discernment clearer than in the Biden administration's 2022 National Security Strategy, which laid out an ambitious two front Cold War strategy that seeks to simultaneously staunch China's rise in the East while countering Russian revanchism in the West. It defines the emerging world order as one in which "Democracies and autocracies are engaged in a contest to show which system of governance can best deliver for their people and the world."
Close observers of U.S. foreign policy over the past three years might be forgiven for wondering whether the administration has succeeded in achieving any of the particular goals it has set for itself. But in fairness to the Biden administration, such failures have become commonplace over the past 30 years.
The journalist and editor Lewis Lapham noted as far back as 2002 that, "The makers of America's foreign policy over the course of the previous fifty years have embraced a dream of power almost as vainglorious as the one that rallied the disciples of Osama bin Laden to the banner of jihad."
In the 20 years since Lapham wrote those words, the U.S. has stumbled into multiple foreign policy disasters, including but not limited to the needless and counterproductive regime change operations in Libya and Syria, the failed nation-building enterprises in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the current NATO-Russia standoff in Ukraine.
Surely then, the time has arrived for a policy of retrenchment and a shift toward an approach based on a hemispheric conception of U.S. national security.
The old way of doing business has failed: Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the U.S. has nearly 800 military bases and outposts spanning the globe; an annual national security budget of over $1 trillion; and formal bilateral defense commitments to 69 countries.
Still more, the U.S. has seemingly committed itself to the security and prosperity of countries to which it is not treaty bound, such as Israel and Ukraine.
The dangers of American overextension and Washington's desire to remake the world in its self-image have been apparent for decades.
For generations, revered analysts and thinkers across a wide range of the political spectrum — including George F. Kennan, George Ball, William Pfaff, Reinhold Niebuhr, Walter Lippmann, Ronald Steel, Jack Matlock, Chas Freeman and John Mearsheimer — have been sounding the alarm.
Yet our professional political class has been unwilling or unable to consider common-sense alternatives to the so-called "grand strategy" of American global hegemony laid out by Paul Wolfowitz in 1992.
It was then, as under secretary for policy at the Pentagon, that Wolfowitz authored the Defense Planning Guidance, which posited that "If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action" in order "to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival."
The new defense strategy, wrote Wolfowitz,
"….requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia."
In a curious twist of history, though Wolfowitz's doctrine was savaged by the press and publicly disavowed by the administration at the time, in the years that followed, little by little (under Bill Clinton) and then all at once (under George W. Bush) his vision became the cornerstone of U.S. national security policy. In the same way that George Kennan's Long Telegram set the template for U.S. policy during the 40-year Cold War, Wolfowitz's doctrine of global primacy set the agenda for the post-Cold War world.
Thirty years of Wolfowitz has been more than enough, thank you.
As the world continues to evolve and the center of gravity moves from the North Atlantic to Eurasia and the Global South, Washington would surely be better served if it abandoned its global pretensions and focused on securing its own neighborhood in the Western Hemisphere.
The U.S. can and should pursue a national security policy that abjures the costly strategy of U.S. military forward presence and brings American troops home. After all, as the decorated US Army Colonel (ret.) Douglas Macgregor has pointed out, "Forward presence actually discourages 'allies' and 'partners' from taking full responsibility for their own defense. In an age dominated by precision guided intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance-strike systems any forward presence force — aerospace, maritime, or ground — risks annihilation in the opening phase of any peer or near-peer enemy attack."
As has been said many times over, Europe is plenty capable of looking after itself both economically and militarily. Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the U.S. should finally cede guardianship over matters relating to European security. Recall that as far back as 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed his frustration with Europe's stubborn unwillingness to look after itself. According to the historian William R. Keylor, Eisenhower believed it was high time to to "wean" the Allies from their excessive dependence on the U.S. "and encourage them to make better efforts of their own."
The benefits of a less Euro-centric security policy are only too clear in light of current events. Given the emerging geopolitical realities in Asia, the U.S. might usefully rethink its posture in Europe. One way to signal to the Europeans that the time has come for them to stand on their own would be to open for the first time in NATO's history the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) to non-Americans. While a full withdrawal from the alliance seems highly unlikely in the near to medium term, other options remain, such as drawing down the number of U.S. military personnel in Europe, currently estimated at 100,000. Such a shift would perhaps allay Russia's fears (and belligerence) regarding the North Atlantic alliance, and could provide an opening for the Europeans to at long last craft a new, comprehensive security architecture that takes into account the security interests of all of Europe.
Indeed, such a shift would allow the U.S. to deploy its resources to the Western Hemisphere. One way to do so would be to use the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) as a framework to implement mutual defense provisions between the three nations - with an eye toward expanding it to other strategically relevant countries, such as Panama and Colombia.
A hemispheric alliance stretching from the Arctic to the Panama Canal might reasonably be coupled with a New Marshall Plan for Latin America in order to win hearts and minds and to help address the scourge of drug and human trafficking that has long afflicted the region. After all, shouldn't securing the American border take priority over securing Ukraine's?
There is little doubt that proposals such as these will give rise to accusations of promoting isolationism — or worse. So be it.
The fact is that U.S. national security strategy has too often left us at the mercy of client states from Taiwan to Ukraine to Georgia to Israel: States that are all too eager to leverage, with the relentless agitation of their large and well-funded domestic lobbies, American largess and military might in disputes that have little if anything to do with the actual security of the United States.
A hemispheric posture would allow the U.S. to finally, three decades after the end of the Cold War, redirect our sorely needed resources back to where they belong: the American people.

The deterioration of nuclear arms treaties, especially within the context of the war in Ukraine, presents worrying trends not seen in generations as Washington and Moscow are one step away from direct conflict. The Doomsday Clock "now stands at 90 seconds to midnight–the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been," according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.The Russian Duma has advanced plans to withdraw ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty, citing the need to restore parity with the U.S. which has yet to ratify the decades-old treaty. While the decision to withdraw ratification will not be as damaging as America's unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2002 and 2019, respectively, it serves as another reminder that attention must be directed towards addressing an increased nuclear threat, especially as war rages in Ukraine. The U.S. must lead by example — like ratifying the CTBT — when it comes to international treaties it expects other countries to abide by. Unsurprisingly, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments on the subject earlier this month at the Valdai International Discussion Club, the legislative process for de-ratification began at pace. Officials have clarified that, at present, Moscow does not see a need to resume nuclear tests even if Russia were to withdraw.The CTBT, adopted in 1996 by the United Nations General Assembly and ratified by 174 countries, prohibits nuclear weapon tests or explosions anywhere in the world. The treaty has never officially entered into force as several states have not yet signed on or completed the process of ratification, including China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Israel, and the U.S. Nevertheless, "the CTBT is one of the most successful agreements in the long history of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Without the option to conduct nuclear tests, it is more difficult, although not impossible, for states to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs," notes Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association.In part due to Russia's war in Ukraine, Moscow has increased reliance on its nuclear arsenal in an attempt to deter escalation as its conventional forces have encountered stiff resistance by Ukrainian fighters heavily backed by American and European financial and military support.Indeed, there have been several warnings (and even threats) from the Kremlin and the Russian security establishment, some more subtle than others, about Moscow's willingness to defend what it views as its existential interests in Ukraine, ultimately with nuclear force if necessary. Not to be outdone by their Russian colleagues, commentators in the U.S. and Europe appear comfortable calling Moscow's bluff and encouraging an array of options for the intensification of the conflict. The Biden administration, however, has generally approached the introduction of new weapon systems into the conflict with a healthy dose of moderation, so as to assess the reaction from the Kremlin. This deliberative process, even if opposed by many in the transatlantic community, is critical. Nevertheless, and as bitter as it is to accept, the uncertainty over "how much is too much" for Moscow does implicitly impose restraints on Kyiv's backers.While American and European commentators have proven right thus far, and no nuclear escalation has occurred, the greatest tragedy is that the day after they are proven wrong there will be nobody left to tell.Following the near apocalyptic episode remembered as the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders from the U.S. and the Soviet Union sought to establish mechanisms to prevent once again from being on the doorstep of nuclear annihilation. These began in 1963 with the Limited Test Ban Treaty and by 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan jointly stated that "a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought." The two leaders eventually went on to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which represented the first time the U.S. and the U.S.S.R agreed to reduce the actual number of nuclear arms. As strategic stability between the two most heavily equipped nuclear states on Earth continues to deteriorate and the deplorable state of diplomatic relations does not bode well for the return of nuclear treaties, China, Britain and others are seeking to modernize and enhance their nuclear capabilities. It's also possible that more states may resort to developing their own nuclear arsenals, viewing the possession of such weapons as the only real means of self-defense in an increasingly disorderly world.For its part, the U.S. is in the process of a $2 trillion, three decades-long initiative to upgrade its nuclear triad and accompanying infrastructure. A recently published report by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States paints an alarmist picture of the strategic threat the U.S. faces in the world today, and offers recommendations that will likely produce further instability. As the Quincy Institute's Bill Hartung recently wrote, "Astoundingly, the commission argues that these investments are not enough, and that the U.S. should consider building and deploying more nuclear weapons, even as it endorses dangerous and destabilizing steps like returning to the days of multi-warhead land-based missiles while placing nuclear-armed missiles in East Asia. These steps would only introduce more uncertainty into the calculations of China and Russia, making a nuclear confrontation more likely."The exorbitant expense that the maintenance and modernization of nuclear arsenals require, not to mention the otherworldly destruction that their usage entails, ought to be reason enough for the leading nuclear nations of the 21st century to work towards managing relations so as to eschew a new nuclear arms race.Unfortunately, a return of serious strategic stability discussions in the short-term appears to be more wishful thinking. Nevertheless, these conversations will prove essential once the acute phase of the war in Ukraine is over and amidst a changing international context where responsible statecraft will be foundational to collective humanity's survival. The environmental degradation that occurred when unrestricted nuclear testing was the norm following World War II is still visible in parts of the world today. While today a de facto ban on nuclear testing has long been followed by the vast majority of states, even those not ascribed to the test-ban treaty, a return to previous levels of testing — when the global climate is already suffering severe challenges — must be averted.

For the Arab Gulf kingdoms, the Horn of Africa is a strategic perimeter. They want to minimize political threats — some are hostile to Islamists, all want to suppress democracy movements. Anticipating a post-carbon and food insecure world, the Gulf States want to possess rich farmlands. Each has its own vision of African client states that will do their bidding. This is a recipe for proxy wars, state fragmentation and autocracy in northeast Africa.For the Horn of Africa, today's crises are existential. War, dictatorship and famine are causing state collapse. The African Union is compromised, its peace and security system unravelling. The United Nations is retreating from peacemaking, increasingly reduced to a bare-bones humanitarian provider.The dangers were illuminated by the surprise New Year's Day deal between Abiy Ahmed, prime minister of Ethiopia, and Muse Bihi, president of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, a breakaway region of northwest Somalia. Ethiopia has been renowned for careful diplomacy, including championing the inviolability of existing boundaries. After fighting wars with Somalia in the 1960s and '70s, Ethiopia had learned to be circumspect and consultative in its dealings with Mogadishu.Last week, Ethiopia upended that tradition. It promised to recognize Somaliland as an independent sovereign state, in return for Somaliland leasing it a 12-mile stretch of land, including a seaport, that will allow Ethiopia to establish a naval base. This in turn unleashed strong words from Somalia — which had not been informed ahead of time. The AU called for Ethiopia to treat Somalia with respect. Fears of new conflicts were stirred. Unsaid in public is that the UAE is widely suspected to be the patron of the deal.For the United States, crises in the Horn of Africa are a sidebar to the ongoing Israel-Gaza war and the confrontation with Iran. Gunboat diplomacy in the Red Sea — the warships deployed under Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect shipping from attacks from the Houthis in Yemen — is the priority.The narrow strip of water carries 12 percent of world seaborne trade. For sailors, the Red Sea is "a sea on the way to somewhere else," its shores at best an inconvenience, at worst a security threat.There's a global consensus on keeping the shipping lanes open. If the Red Sea shuts down — as happened following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war— the knock-on effects on trade between Europe and Asia would be economically severe. The EU-run Operation Atalanta runs an anti-piracy flotilla involving warships from 13 European nations, (including the UK, which provided the flagship until Brexit), working with ships from Ukraine, India, Korea and Colombia.After a few years the flotilla commanders concluded that the solution to piracy lay onshore, in the form of diplomacy to resolve Somalia's conflicts and economic assistance to provide livelihoods to impoverished fishermen. That was a step in the right direction.Saudi Arabia chairs a Red Sea Forum that includes eight littoral states (all except Israel), to tackle piracy, smuggling and marine resources — not political issues.Six years ago, Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa who chairs the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for the Horn of Africa, introduced the term "Red Sea Arena." The idea was to create a diplomatic forum that would include not just the littoral states, but all the other countries with vital interests in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden or with political and commercial links across the narrow strip of water.The former AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ramtane Lamamra explained: "The Red Sea has historically been a bridge rather than a divide, with the peoples on the two shores sharing culture, trade, and social relations." Egypt has millennia-old interests in the Nile Valley and both shores of the Red Sea. Ethiopia has a vital interest in access to the sea. The UAE, Qatar, Oman, and Turkey all have historic or current interests.Regional and global power struggles are played out in the Red Sea Arena. Seven nations including the U.S., China, Turkey and the UAE have naval bases there. Others, including Iran and Russia, have warships in the vicinity and are actively seeking bases. The port of Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba is Israel's strategic back door, as the Houthi attacks on shipping have dramatically shown.The plan for a standing conference of Red Sea Arena states built on proposals contained in the World Peace Foundation report to the AU, "African Politics, African Peace" — for which Mbeki and veteran UN diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi co-authored the preface. The idea was that Middle Eastern states should sign on to the principles of the AU's peace and security architecture and establish joint mechanisms for cooperation.The AU failed to act on these proposals. Nor were they raised at the UN Security Council.Instead, Arabian Gulf states are increasingly assertive in the Horn, and they're bringing an aggressive form of transactional politics, including funding proxies to fight wars. The U.S. — whose security umbrella sheltered the Red Sea for decades — seems uninterested.Saudi Arabia has long seen the African shore of the Red Sea as part of its security perimeter. Qatar and Turkey sought influence in Sudan and Somalia, especially among the Islamists. Israel has discreetly sought a determining role in the region.But the key actor is the UAE. A small, rich state, it uses proxies to project power, and supports separatists in disregard of international norms. Abu Dhabi's clients include key players in Libya and Chad, and it is positioning itself as kingmaker in the Horn. The UAE supports and arms Ethiopia. It already controls many ports in the region — including, it is suspected, the proposed Ethiopian port and naval base in the land leased from Somaliland. But Abu Dhabi has yet to clarify its strategic goals for the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.The UAE has long had a free pass in Washington. Only recently has the U.S. begun to criticize Abu Dhabi's adventurism in Sudan, calling out its arming of the murderous Rapid Support Forces there.The last decade has been a rollercoaster of hope and horror for the peoples of the Red Sea Arena. Popular uprisings in Yemen, Ethiopia and Sudan all descended into lethal brews of autocracy, war, atrocity, and famine, with local conflicts escalating into proxy wars. Guided by the short-term imperative of staying in power — and by the ambitions of cash-rich foreign sponsors — today's leaders are too often short-sighted and transactional.Under UN and AU guidance, a raft of peace agreements was crafted to serve as the threshold for democracy. Today a peace pact, such as the threadbare "Permanent Cessation of Hostilities" that ended Ethiopia's war in Tigray, may be no more than a truce. The principle of the primacy of politics — that served Africa's peace agenda well — has come to mean short-term transactionalism rather than a commitment to democracy, good governance, and inclusivity.A key African norm was "sovereignty as responsibility," developed by the Sudanese/South Sudanese lawyer and diplomat Francis Deng. Today we have its antithesis, decried as "neo-sovereigntism" by the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe.Today's regression means that Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki is being rehabilitated. For 30 years, Isaias has ruled an iron fist, with no constitution let alone political parties or an open media, hoping that the tide of global liberalism would recede. He looks to be proven correct.Sudanese General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, known as "Hemedti," commander of the Rapid Support Forces, the insurgent paramilitaries notorious for their human rights abuses, is touring Africa in a Royal Jet airplane (an Emirati airline). He arrived in Addis Ababa last week where he met Prime Minister Abiy. Extending protocol to Emirati-backed disrupters is the new normal in the region.To the extent that it functions at all, the AU is becoming the face of illiberal multilateralism, veering away from its founding principles. The UN's practice of deferring to its regional partners leaves it eviscerated. The InterGovernmental Authority on Development — the eight-member northeast African bloc — is now deeply divided and approaching paralysis.With the Horn of Africa and Yemen slipping far down the priority list in Western foreign ministries, America and Europe are sending mid-ranking diplomats into the snake pit, woefully under-armed for the perils they encounter. Too easily intimidated by swaggering local despots, perhaps swayed by zombie "Pan Africanist" slogans that challenge their right to talk about human rights, they have left their countries irrelevant in the face of ruthless Gulf power-broking.Recent developments could not have been anticipated in detail. But American diplomats saw the broader challenge some years ago. In 2020, a bipartisan "senior study group" on the Red Sea convened by the United States Institute of Peace, prioritized a broad diplomatic strategy for the Red Sea Arena. The USIP report warned that conflicts in the region could threaten U.S. national security and proposed a high-level envoy with a broad mandate.The Biden administration quickly appointed a special envoy for the Horn of Africa, but the Africa Bureau at the State Department soon downgraded the position. The cost of this strategic neglect is becoming clear today.There's still a chance for a diplomatic forum that promotes collective security. Washington has lost its best opportunities to take a lead — any U.S. initiative today will arouse deep suspicions among others. Middle Eastern powers don't, as a rule, propose collective action, and the Gulf states are divided. The Europeans will follow, not lead.The onus of leadership then falls on Africa and on the United Nations. Acting together, they can create a consensus that brings on board America, Europe, China, and Russia in a forum framed by the agenda of a stable and cooperative Red Sea Arena.

As NATO commemorated its 75th anniversary this month, the direction of the alliance's posture toward the Arctic region has been called into question. The recent accession of Sweden means that seven of eight of the world's Arctic nations fall under NATO's security umbrella, with Russia being the outlier. While some analysts see the addition of Sweden and Finland as an opportunity for NATO to "increase its footprint" and "deter Russia," the last thing the alliance needs is to scour for another avenue for confrontation with Russia. Sweden and Finland's NATO membership undoubtedly affects the alliance's influence in the Arctic. In March, over 20,000 NATO soldiers from 13 nations, including Finland, Sweden, and the United States, participated in the latest leg of the ongoing Nordic Response 2024 exercise in Norway. Additionally, over 50 frigates, submarines, and other vessels, as well as over 100 aircraft, were involved in the exercise. Ultimately, Nordic Response 2024 will involve over 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO allies. Defensive exercises are a necessary feature of NATO's newly increased Arctic presence, but the Russian threat in the Arctic should not be inflated.The Arctic served as a frontline in the confrontation between NATO and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Over several decades, Russia has revitalized Soviet-era Arctic bases, which outnumber NATO's by about a third. In recent years, Russia has launched significant investment projects and built up its military presence in the Arctic as it develops a crucial northern maritime route linking Asia and Europe. The United States only has one operational heavy icebreaker — compared to the 40 that Russia currently maintains. Irrespective of hawks sounding the alarm about Russia's supposed "militarization" and "dominance" of the Arctic, Russia retains a relative incapacity to threaten a conventional military land incursion into European Arctic territory. Moscow's military efforts in the Arctic have been mainly defensive in nature as it has established multi-layered anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities around the Kola Peninsula, a fundamental Russian interest. Such developments pose little threat to the United States and its NATO allies, especially as Russia is bogged down in Ukraine. Moreover, given that Russia's Arctic coastline is ten times longer than America's, the "icebreaker gap" is to be expected. Russia's fleet of icebreakers is primarily dedicated to escorting commercial shipping through dangerous polar seas. Otherwise, it performs the same missions as the U.S. Coast Guard: "search and rescue, anti-smuggling, oil spill response, and resupply of remote coastal communities and polar research stations." Regarding force projection capabilities, the American-dominated NATO nuclear submarine fleet outmatches the opposing Northern Fleet of the Russian navy.On top of NATO's military capabilities, the alliance's most influential member, the United States, has placed little military importance on the Arctic. Russia's inability to pose severe threats in the Arctic has led to the region appearing at the bottom of the list in the 2022 Biden-Harris National Security Strategy (NSS) overview of regional policies. In addition, the document lacks any language regarding deterring threats to Arctic allies and partners.Rather than seeing the addition of Finland and Sweden as an opportunity to increase the militarization of the Arctic, NATO should work toward utilizing working groups like the Arctic Council to forge multilateral arrangements to reduce tensions, avoid crises, and mitigate the risks of conflict through an accident or miscalculation. In February, Russia suspended annual payments to the Arctic Council until "real work resumes with the participation of all member countries." Yet, while Russia removed several listed multilateral formats from its official Arctic strategy, it kept the point of "the Arctic Council as the key regional platform coordinating international activities in the region." Thus, Russia doesn't appear poised to form an alternative platform. Tensions are high, and Arctic Council cooperation with Moscow effectively ceased after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Despite this, the Council should refrain from pushing out the largest Arctic player and severing an essential communication channel. Deepening isolation has pushed Russia to look east for partners in the Arctic, namely China. Further ostracization will only incentivize Russia to coordinate more with Beijing in the region. Russia and NATO share an interest in maintaining peace in the Arctic region. A war in such terrain would be extremely costly and difficult for both sides. Furthermore, the Arctic Council has facilitated the improvement of marine safety in the Bering Strait, where the U.S. and Russia share a maritime border. Communication channels and shared objectives must also be kept open to keep the peace there.Amid a worsening situation in Ukraine, escalation in the Arctic region would do no favors for the United States or its NATO allies. Russia's considerable influence in the Arctic is not going to change in the near future. Therefore, taking advantage of existing channels will enable the West to signal to Russia that NATO does not intend to engage in offensive operations but is fully prepared to defend its interests.

The leaders of the world's largest economies will gather this weekend in New Delhi, India, for the G20 summit. The meeting comes at a complex time for the grouping, which is one of the rare venues where Russian, Chinese, American and European leaders have to rub shoulders each year.India no doubt hopes to boost its profile as a Global South leader by focusing on issues like climate change and global food prices, but this year's summit risks being paralyzed by Russia's war in Ukraine, arguments over which prevented the grouping from agreeing on a joint communique at its 2022 meeting.Further complicating the summit is the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are not planning to attend. Xi's snub has drawn particular attention given increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, which got a rare respite last year when the Chinese leader held a three-hour meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.Few analysts are better positioned to break down these dynamics than Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's former ambassador to the United Nations and a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute. After a 30-year career in diplomacy, Mahbubani has emerged as a leading commentator on international affairs with a special focus on Asia and the Global South.RS caught up with Mahbubani over email to get his take on the summit and the shifting geopolitical landscape that will frame it. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.RS: What is India hoping to get from the G20 Summit? How does it factor into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for India's role in the world?Mahbubani: The G20 summit is a big deal for PM Modi and his government. He has both domestic and international goals to achieve at this meeting. Domestically, a successful G20 will raise the stature of his government and himself in the build-up to the national elections in 2024. Internationally, PM Modi would like to position India as an emerging world leader. Hence, he will work hard to enhance the voice of the Global South in the G20 summit in India. He will push hard to get the African Union represented as a member.RS: Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both chosen to forgo this year's event. How will their absence affect the meetings?Mahbubani: Putin's absence is not surprising. He also missed the G20 summit in Bali last year. He is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. He may also be shunned by other leaders. Hence, it is wise for Putin not to attend. However, if Xi Jinping decides not to participate, it will sadly diminish the significance of the G20 Summit. The most important bilateral relationship in the world is between the U.S. and China. Just before the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022, [Indonesian] President Jokowi invited me to breakfast to discuss the agenda. I told him that the world would thank him if he organized a good meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping. He responded to me by saying, "Please don't worry. I've given them the nicest room in Bali for the meeting." This worked. Biden and Xi had a good meeting. The world breathed a sigh of relief. There will not be a similar sigh of relief after the G20 summit in New Delhi.Please let me add here that it is possible that President Xi may have decided not to attend this meeting in New Delhi as he will have another opportunity to meet President Biden in the U.S. for the APEC Summit in November.RS: Biden will be in attendance in New Delhi. Do you have a sense of what the United States is hoping to get from the summit?Mahbubani: The U.S. is courting India ferociously. Paradoxically, the best comparison to make of this courtship is with the ferocious courtship of China by the U.S. to counterbalance the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Today, to counterbalance China, the U.S. is courting India. This is why President Biden is attending the G20 summit in India and skipping the East Asia Summit in Indonesia. Realistically, the U.S. does not expect to get much from the G20 Summit in India. The most successful G20 summit ever was the 2009 meeting in London, when the G20 came together to rescue the U.S. and other Western economies during the global financial crisis. Today, the U.S. economy is doing relatively well. Hence, the U.S. expects little from the G20 summit in New Delhi. Little of substance will emerge from the summit. It may well prove to be, like many G7 meetings, a photo opportunity for the leaders attending it.RS: Do you expect the war in Ukraine to dominate conversation as it has in other international forums? Are you concerned that it will pull attention away from other global issues, like climate change and the ongoing food crisis?Mahbubani: There will be a continuing tension between the leaders of the Global South and the G7 leaders attending the G20 meeting. The Global South would like to focus on their preoccupations, like their ongoing development challenges, including the food crisis. They would also like the G7 leaders to fulfill their commitments to help the Global South fight climate change. By contrast, the G7 leaders would want to focus on the war on Ukraine and try to get a strong statement condemning Russia at the meeting. There will be no meeting of minds between the Global South and G7 leaders. At best, one can expect a compromise which tries to fudge the big differences between the two sides.In many ways, it is fortunate that India is hosting the G20 summit this year. The only major country that enjoys a high level of trust from both the Global South and G7 countries is India. Only India can pull off a compromise solution between the two sides. If India fails, it will show that the gap between the two sides is too big to be bridged. The world will remain divided.RS: The event comes less than a month after BRICS held a much-remarked summit in South Africa, where the group formally invited Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Ethiopia, Argentina and Egypt to join. BRICS and the G7 each now have seven members of the G20. Do you expect these groups to act as competing blocs in the summit? How does the rise of BRICS change the G20's dynamics?
Mahbubani: Over the past 20 years, the global media, especially the Western media, has paid far more attention to G7 events than to BRICS events. This reflects a major error of judgment. The G7 is a sunset organization. BRICS is a sunrise organization. In 1990, in PPP terms, the combined Gross National Product (GNP) of G7 was more than double that of the BRICS countries. Today, it is less. Equally significantly, 40 countries have applied to join BRICS. There is no similar rush of applications to join the G7. In my book, The Asian 21st Century (which is an open access book), I describe how the world is psychologically preparing for the Asian century. The 88 percent of the world's population who live outside the West understand this reality. The 12 percent who live in the West don't understand this.If the West wishes to pursue a wiser course of action, it should use the forthcoming G20 summit in New Delhi to build new bridges with the Global South. It should also learn to share power by allowing, for example, Global South representatives to run organizations like the IMF and World Bank. Sadly, the West is unlikely to do this. Hence, it will waste the valuable opportunity provided by the G20 summit meeting in New Delhi to build new bridges to the Global South.

It speaks volumes that the death of Henry Kissinger, announced on Wednesday, drew major news obituaries that rivaled those of late American presidents' in length and depth. The news was met with equal parts of vitriol and paeans across social media, the former reflected in words like "war criminal" and "monster," the latter, "genius" and "master."His intellectually-driven, hard-nosed statecraft and strategy has long been embraced by realists who appreciate Kissinger's rejection of ideological doctrine in favor of interest-driven realpolitik. They credit him with détente and managing the Soviet threat in the Cold War. His critics say his approach was responsible for government-led massacres in developing nations and Washington's scorched earth policies in Indochina. Humanity suffered while the "great game" was played, no matter how well, from the Nixon White House and in later presidencies (12 total) for which Kissinger advised.But was his impact on U.S. foreign policy ultimately positive or negative? We asked a wide range of historians, former diplomats, journalists and scholars to pick one and defend it.Andrew Bacevich, George Beebe, Tom Blanton, Michael Desch, Anton Fedyashin, Chas Freeman, John Allen Gay, David Hendrickson, Robert Hunter, Anatol Lieven, Stephen Miles, Tim Shorrock, Monica Duffy Toft, Stephen WaltAndrew Bacevich, historian and co-founder of the Quincy InstituteI met Kissinger just once, at a small gathering in New York back in the 1990s. When the event adjourned, he walked over to where I was sitting and spoke to me. "Did you serve in the military?" "Yes," I said. "In Vietnam?" "Yes." His tone filled with sadness, he said: "We really wanted to win that one."I did not reply but as he walked away, I thought: What an accomplished liar.George Beebe, Director of Grand Strategy, Quincy InstituteHenry Kissinger's impact on American foreign policy, although controversial, was on balance overwhelmingly positive. As he entered office in 1968, America was overextended abroad and beset by domestic political conflict. An increasingly powerful Soviet Union threatened to achieve superiority over America's nuclear and conventional arsenals. The United States needed to extract itself from Vietnam and focus on domestic healing, yet any retreat into isolationism would allow Moscow a free hand to intimidate Western Europe and spread communism through the post-colonial world. Kissinger's answer to this problem, conceived in partnership with President Nixon, was a masterwork of diplomatic realism. Seeing an opportunity to exploit tensions between Moscow and Beijing, he orchestrated a surprise opening to Maoist China that reshaped the international order, counterbalancing Soviet power and complicating the Kremlin's strategic challenge. In parallel, the United States pursued détente with Moscow, producing a landmark set of trade, arms control, human rights, and confidence-building arrangements that helped to constrain the arms race and make the Cold War more manageable and predictable.By comparison to 1968, the scale of the problems we face today seems more daunting. The Cold War architecture of arms control and security arrangements is in tatters. Our middle class is more distrustful and disaffected, our international reputation more damaged, and our ability to manage the challenges of a peer Chinese rival more limited. A statesman with Kissinger's strategic acumen and diplomatic skill is very much needed. Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive, George Washington UniversityThe declassified legacy of Henry Kissinger undermines the triumphant narrative he labored so hard to build, even for his successes. The opening to China, for example, turns out to be Mao's idea with Nixon's receptiveness, initially dissed by Kissinger. His shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East did reduce violence but it took Anwar Sadat and then Jimmy Carter to make the peace that Kissinger failed to accomplish. The 1973 Vietnam settlement was actually available in 1969, but Kissinger mistakenly believed he could do better by going through Moscow or Beijing. Meanwhile, Kissinger's callousness about the human cost runs through all the documents. Millions of Bangladeshis murdered by Pakistan's genocide while Kissinger stifled dissent in the State Department. A million Vietnamese and 20,000 Americans who died for Kissinger's "decent interval." Some 30,000 Argentines disappeared by the junta with Kissinger's green light. Thousands of Chileans killed by Pinochet while Kissinger joked about human rights. Untold numbers of Cambodians dead under Kissinger's secret bombing.Adding insult to all these injuries, Kissinger cashed in over the past 45 years through sustained influence peddling and self-promotion, paying no price for repeated bad judgments like opposing the Reagan-Gorbachev arms cuts, and supporting the 2003 Iraq invasion. A dark legacy indeed.Michael Desch, Professor of International Relations at the University of Notre Dame Almost all of the obituaries for Henry Kissinger characterize him as the quintessential realist, harkening back to a bygone era of European great power politics in which statesmen played the 19th century version of the board game Risk otherwise known as the balance of power. Kissinger seemed straight out of central casting for this role with his deep, sonorous voice and perpetual Mittel-Europa accent. All that was missing was a monocle and a Pickelhaube. But in reality, Kissinger was at best an occasional realist. His best scholarly book — "A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-22" — came out in 1957 and was more of a work of history than an articulation of a larger realpolitik theory of global politics in which power is used, and more importantly not used, to advance a country's national interest.And while his (and Richard Nixon's) opening to the People's Republic of China in 1972 remains a masterstroke of balance of power politics in action, at the drop of an egg-roll dividing the heretofore seemingly monolithic Communist Bloc, he was more often an inconstant realist.At times Kissinger embraced a crude might-makes-right approach (think of the Athenians bullying of the Melians in Book V of Thucydides) epitomized by the escalation to deescalate the war in Vietnam by invading Cambodia and the meddling in the fractious politics of Third World countries like Chile, seemingly to no other end than that's what great powers do. More recently, he's worked to remain the indispensable statesman through an embarrassingly obsequious pattern of making himself indispensable to nearly every subsequent president, whether or not they were really interested in sitting at the knee of the master realpolitiker. His hedged endorsement of George W. Bush's disastrous Iraq war is exhibit A on this score.Kissinger kept himself in the limelight for much of his career but not as a consistent voice of realism in foreign policy.Anton Fedyashin, associate professor of history, American UniversityIn his long and distinguished career, Henry Kissinger made many decisions that history may judge harshly, but oversimplifying and exaggerating complex geopolitical issues was not one of them. With their instinctive aversion to the trap of conceptual binarism, Kissinger and Nixon applied their flexible realism to China and the USSR in 1972. Abandoning the assumption that all communists were evil forced Beijing and Moscow to outbid each other for U.S. favors. Treating the USSR as a post-revolutionary state that put national interests above ideology, Nixon and Kissinger decided to bring the Soviets into the American-managed world order while letting them keep their hegemony in Eastern Europe.In Kissinger's realist version of containment, statesmanship was judged by the management of ambiguities, not absolutes. As Kissinger put it in an interview with The Economist earlier this year, "The genius of the Westphalian system and the reason it spread across the world was that its provisions were procedural, not substantive." Kissinger's realist wisdom would serve American leaders well as they navigate the rough waters of transitioning to a multipolar world order. The era of great power balancing is back, and non-binarist realism can help Washington manage hegemonic decline rather than catalyzing it.Ambassador Chas Freeman, visiting scholar at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public AffairsKissinger embodied a global and strategic view and because it was global, it often offended specialists in regional affairs. Because it was strategic, he often made tactical sacrifices for strategic gain. And the tactical sacrifices that he made were often rather ugly at the regional or local level. The classic example of that is the refusal to intervene in the war in Bangladesh. Obviously, he had nothing but contempt for ideological foreign policy. This has led ideologues, of which we have an abundance, to see him as an enemy, and you're seeing this now with some of the coverage after his passing.Kissinger's achievement of detente at a crucial point in the Cold War will be remembered for its brilliance, as will his significant scholarship. His statecraft and scholarship were inseparable. He was a very good negotiator and probably had more experience negotiating great power relations than any secretary of state since early in the Republic. He was moderately successful in the short term. He was not successful in the long term because his interlocutors correctly perceived that he was manipulative. If one wishes to keep relationships open to future transactions, one must not cheat on current transactions. But this problem is not uncommon. It's very typical in American politics. For example, Jim Baker was famously uninterested in nurturing relationships. He was interested in immediate results in his dealings with foreign governments. He left a lot of anger and dissatisfaction in his wake. Kissinger less so, but the same for different reasons, reflecting his personality, his character, and the character of the president he served.John Allen Gay, Executive Director, John Quincy Adams SocietyKissinger's legacy in the Third World commands the most attention and criticism. He has been made the face of the tremendous toll the Cold War took on the wretched of the earth. Yet his work on great power relations deserves more regard. The opening to China he engineered with President Richard Nixon was a masterstroke to exploit division in the Communist world. Granted, the Sino-Soviet split had happened long before, and the opening was more a Nixon idea, but Kissinger set the table. And Kissinger was also a central figure in détente with the Soviet Union.Both policies were deeply unpopular with the forerunners to the neoconservative movement, but reflected the Continental realist mindset that Kissinger, along with thinkers like Hans J. Morgenthau, brought into the American foreign policy discourse. The opening to China and détente were, in fact, linked. As Kissinger pointed out, the opening to China challenged the Soviet Union to prevent the opening from growing; contrary to the advice of Sovietologists, this did not prompt new Soviet aggression, but made the Soviets more pliable. As Kissinger wrote in his 1994 book "Diplomacy" — "To the extent both China and the Soviet Union calculated that they either needed American goodwill or feared an American move toward its adversary, both had an incentive to improve their relations with Washington. […] America's bargaining position would be strongest when America was closer to bot communist giants than either was to the other." And so it was. Today's practitioners of great-power politics would do well to borrow more from this happier part of Kissinger's legacy. They have instead helped drive China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea together, and have no answer to this emerging alignment beyond lectures and sanctions. The19th century European statesmen Kissinger admired would have seen the failure of such a policy. David Hendrickson, author, "Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition"The great oddity of Nixon and Kissinger's record in foreign policy is that they gave up as unprofitable and dangerous the pursuit of ideological antagonism with the Great Powers (the Soviet Union and China), but then pursued the Cold War crusade with a vengeance against small powers. Kissinger's diplomatic career reminds me of the charge that Hauterive (a favorite of Napoleon's) brought against the confusions of the ancien regime, that it applied "the terms sound policy, system of equilibrium, maintenance or restoration of the balance of power . . . to what, in fact was only an abuse of power, or the exercise of arbitrary will."Parts of Kissinger's record, like the bombing of Cambodia, are indefensible, but there are good parts too: had Henry the K been in charge of our Russia policy over the last decade, we could have avoided the conflagration in Ukraine. He was sounder on China and Taiwan than 90 percent of the howling commentariat. He was, in addition, a serious scholar who wrote some good books about the construction of world order (A World Restored, Diplomacy). Young people should take his thought seriously, not consign him to the ninth circle.Robert Hunter, former U.S. Ambassador to NATOLike all outstanding teachers, Henry Kissinger was also a showman — and he could be fun. He used his accent and self-deprecating humor as weapons for his policies and getting them taken seriously. Journalists might at times scorn what he was doing and how he did it, but they were still charmed and tended so often to give him the benefit of the doubt — as well as the credit, even when not deserved. Everyone recalls his roles in promoting détente with the Soviet Union and, even more, the opening to China, with Richard Nixon following in his wake. In fact, both policies sprang from Nixon's mind. But when the dust settled, Kissinger was the Last Man Standing."Henry," we could call him who never worked for him (!), made intelligent and literate speeches on foreign policy that everyone could understand, bringing it into the limelight. A man of great ego, he still recruited and inspired talented acolytes at the State Department and White House — matched only by Brent Scowcroft and Zbig Brzezinski. He had other policy positives in the Middle East ("shuttle diplomacy") but major negatives in Chile, in prolonging the Vietnam War, and bombing Cambodia.Take him altogether, a true Man of History.Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy InstituteThe problem about any just assessment of Henry Kissinger is that the good and bad parts of his record are organically linked. His Realism led him to an awareness of the vital interests of other countries, a willingness to compromise, and a prudence in the exercise of U.S. power that all too many American policymakers have altogether lacked and that the United States today desperately needs. This Realist acceptance of the world as it is however also contributed to a cynical disregard for basic moral norms — notably in Cambodia and Bangladesh — that have forever tarnished his and America's name.When in office, reconciliation with China and the pursuit of Middle East peace took real moral courage on Kissinger's part, given the forces arrayed against these policies in the United States. But in his last decades, though he initially criticized NATO expansion and called for the preservation of relations with Russia and China, he never did so with the intellectual and moral force of a George Kennan.Perhaps in the end the best comment on Kissinger comes from an epithet by his fellow German Jewish thinker on international affairs Hans Morgenthau: "It is a dangerous thing to be a Machiavelli. It is a disastrous thing to be a Machiavelli without Virtu" — an Italian term embracing courage, moral steadfastness and basic principle.Stephen Miles, President, Win Without WarNearly as many words have been spilled marking the end of Henry Kissinger's life as the lives he's responsible for ending, but let me add a few more. It would be easy to simply say that the devastating impact of Kissinger on U.S. foreign policy was clearly and wholly negative. As Spencer Ackerman noted in his essential obituary, few Americans, if any, have ever been as responsible for the death of so many of their fellow human beings. But Kissinger's true impact was not just in being a war criminal but in setting a new standard for doing so with impunity. Earlier this year, he was feted with a party for his 100th birthday attended not just by crusty old Cold Warriors remembering 'the good ole days,' but also by a veritable who's who of today's elite from billionaire CEOs and cabinet members to fashion megastars and NFL team owners. Sure, he may have been responsible for a coup here or a genocide there, but shouldn't we all just look past that and recognize his influence, power, and intellect? Does it really matter what he used those talents for?And in the end, that's the benefit of Kissinger's horrific life and decidedly not-untimely death. By never making amends for the harm he did and never being held accountable for the horrors he caused, he made clear just how truly broken and flawed U.S. foreign policy is. Perhaps now that he has finally left the stage, we can begin to change that. Tim Shorrock, Washington-based journalistKissinger nearly destroyed three Asian countries by causing the deaths of thousands in U.S. bombing raids, covertly intervened to subvert democracy in Chile, and encouraged an Indonesian dictator to invade newly independent East Timor and inflict a genocide upon its people. These were criminal acts that should have made him a pariah. Instead, he is lauded as a visionary by our ruling elite. And it was mostly accomplished through lies and deceit, in the name of corporate profit.I'll never forget in 1972 watching Kissinger declare "peace is at hand" in Vietnam. After years of protesting this immoral war, I truly thought that Vietnam's suffering, and my own countrymen's, was finally over; they had won and we had lost. But my hope was shattered that Christmas, when Kissinger and Nixon ordered B-52s to carpet-bomb Hanoi in an arrogant act of defiance and malice. Afterwards, a shaky peace agreement was signed that could have sparked an honorable U.S. withdrawal. But it took 3 more years of bloodshed before the United States was forced out.Kissinger broke my trust in America as a just nation and overseas sparked a deep hatred of U.S. foreign policy. Few statesmen have caused such harm.Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director, Center for Strategic Studies, Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityI have a pair of midcentury teak chairs once belonging to the late eminent scholar Samuel P. Huntington in my office. Sam was a colleague and friend of Henry Kissinger's, and a mentor to me. Sam and I sat in these chairs discussing world politics and the everyday challenges of running a scholarly institute. When a new set of chairs arrived, Sam insisted I take the old ones, but not before emphasizing their significance — reminders of the hours he and Kissinger spent in deep debate and casual banter. These chairs have history.Henry Kissinger was, and shall remain, a controversial figure. His gifts were two. First, across decades of U.S. foreign policy challenges, he remained consistent in his conception of power, and how U.S. power should be used to enhance the security of the United States. Second, he was gifted at assembling, mentoring, and deploying cross-cutting networks of influential people. Like many of my colleagues who study international politics, there are policies — his support of Salvador Allende's ouster in Chile, for example — I find odious. I am also uncomfortable with Kissinger's elitism: his preferred policies favored those with wealth and political power at the expense of those without.But what I admire about Kissinger's U.S. foreign policy legacy and, by extension, international politics, was his profound grasp of the importance of historical context: a thing as important to sound U.S foreign policy today as it is rare; and of which I am pleasantly reminded every time I sit in one of Sam's chairs.Stephen Walt, Quincy Institute board member, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy SchoolHenry Kissinger was the most prominent U.S. statesman of his era, and that era lasted a very long time. His main achievements were not trivial: a long-overdue opening to China, some high-wire "shuttle diplomacy" after the 1973 October War, and several useful arms control treaties during the period of détente. But he was also guilty of some monumental misjudgments, including prolonging the Vietnam War to no good purpose and expanding it into Cambodia at a frightful human cost. His diplomatic acrobatics in the Middle East were impressive, but they were only necessary because he had missed the signs that Egypt was readying for war in 1973 in order to break a diplomatic deadlock that he had helped orchestrate. His indifference to human rights and civilian suffering sacrificed thousands of lives and made a mockery of U.S. pretensions to moral superiority.Kissinger owed his enduring influence not to a superior track record as a pundit or sage but to his own energy, unquenchable ambition, unparalleled networking skills, and the elite's reluctance to hold its members accountable. After all, this is a man who downplayed the risks of China's rise (while earning fat consulting fees there), backed the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, opposed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, and dismissed warnings that open-ended NATO enlargement would make Europe less rather than more secure. Kissinger also perfected the art of transmuting government service into a lucrative consulting career, setting a troubling precedent for others. Debates about his legacy will no doubt continue, but one suspects that the reverence that his acolytes exhibit today will gradually fade now that he is no longer here to sustain it.Dear RS readers: It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!

The second Republican debate last night hosted by Fox news was marked by a lot of acrimony, interruptions, personal insults and jokes that didn't quite land, like Chris Christie calling an (absent) Donald Trump, "Donald Duck," and Mike Pence saying he's "slept with a teacher for 30 years" (his wife).What it did not feature was an informed exchange on the land war in Europe that the United States is heavily invested in, to the tune of $113 billon dollars and counting, not to mention precious weapons, trainers, intelligence and political capital. Out of the tortuous two hours of the debate — which included of course, minutes-long commercials and a "game" at the end that they all refused to play — Ukraine was afforded all but 4 minutes and 39 seconds. This, before the rancor moved on — not to China, though that country took a beating throughout the evening — but to militarizing the border and sending special forces into Mexico to take out cartel-terrorists who are working with the Chinese.Here is how the Ukraine conversation went (keep in mind this was recorded by a translation tool and most of this discussion was overwhelmed by interruptions from the other candidates, so this was edited for clarity and ellipses indicate crosstalk):Florida Gov Ron DeSantis : "It's in our interest to end this war. And that's what I will do as president. We are not going to have a blank check. We will not have U.S. troops. We're going to make the Europeans do what they need to do. But they've sent money to pay bureaucrats, pensions and salaries and funding small businesses halfway around the world. Meanwhile, our own country is being invaded. We don't even have control of our own territory. We have got to defend the American people. Before we even worry about all these other things. I watch these guys in Washington D.C. and they don't care about the American people. They don't care about the fentanyl deaths. They don't care about the communities being overrun because of this border. They don't care about the Mexican drug cartels. So as Commander in Chief, I will defend this country sovereignty."Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (0:52): "It's never been a territorial dispute!"Senator Tim Scott: "Ninety percent of the resources that we send over to Ukraine is guaranteed as a loan... at the end of the day, 90% of the money that we send over there is actually about Ukraine... is paid by the NATO or NATO allies ... our national vital interest is in defeating the Russian military, by degrading the Russian military, we actually keep our homeland safer. We keep our troops at home. And we all understand article five of NATO. ... So at the end of the day...we reduce if not eliminate an attack on NATO territory."Vivek Ramaswamy: "We have to level with the Americans. We have to level with the American people on this issue. The reality is just because Putin's an evil dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties so ...."Haley: "A win for Russia is a win for China! A win for Russia is a win for China! A win for Russia ...."Ramaswamy: "You'll have you'll have your chance in just a moment. The hurling personal insults isn't helping. China's the real enemy and we're driving Russia further into China's arms. We need a reasonable peace plan to end this. Especially this is a country whose president just last week was hailing..."Vice President Mike Pence:"Vivek, if you let Putin have Ukraine, that's a green light to China [to] take Taiwan!"Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie:"They're all connected. The Chinese are paying for the Russian war in Ukraine. The Iranians have supply more sophisticated weapons, and so are the North Koreans now as well, with the encouragement of the Chinese, the naivete on the stage from some of these folks is extraordinary. Look, I understand people want to go and talk to Putin. Guess what so did George W. Bush. So to Barack Obama, so to Donald Trump. And so to Joe Biden when he said a small invasion wouldn't be so bad. Every one of them has been wrong. And the fact of the matter is, we need to say right now that the Chinese Russian alliance is something we have to fight against, and we are not going to solve it by going over and cuddling up to Vladimir Putin. Well, Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was brilliant, and a great leader. This is the person who is murdering people in his own country and now not having enough blood, he's now going to Ukraine to murder innocent civilians and kidnap 20,000 children. And let me tell you, if you think that's where it's going to stop. If we give him any of Ukraine, next will be Poland. This is a guy who in 1991 said that was the darkest moment world's history when the Soviet Union fell. Listen, everybody. He wants to put the old band back together and only America can stop it. And when I'm President, we will ...."Fox Host Stuart Varney (4:39):"Let's get to the governor of Oregon. He hasn't had a chance. I have a question I think you're going to really like or at least you have experience in it. And we need to talk about America's farmers because there is a foreign policy connection here, the U.S. and China and this fierce economic competition. It's hurting American businesses, and there is blowback against American farmers because China then targets them in retaliation. How would you as president protect American farmers and ranchers from that kind of retaliation from a foreign government like China?"