For this, the sixth series of A View from Afar, political scientist and former Pentagon analyst Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning deep-dive into geopolitical issues and trends to unpick relevancy from a world experiencing rapid and significant change.

And, in this episode, the topic will be: How to Define A Way Forward When the World is in Chaos.

Since the re-election of the US President Donald Trump, Paul has been doing a lot of work… a lot of reading… and a huge amount of thinking.

Today we hear from Paul about:

1. The US Trump Administration’s “Authoritarianism at home, Imperialism abroad” currency.
2. How to deconstruct the entire “spheres of Influence” nonsense.
3. About United States fears of the rise of the Global South in a poly-centric world.
4. And Paul and I will lean-forward and consider; what to expect in the medium and longterm.

If listeners enjoy interaction in a LIVE recording environment, you can comment and question the hosts while they record this podcast. And, when you do so, the hosts can include your comments and questions in future programmes.

With this in mind, Paul and Selwyn especially encourage you to join them via YouTube, as on YouTube live interaction is especially efficient.

You can join the podcast here (and remember to subscribe and get notifications too by clicking the bell):

OK, let us know what you think about this discussion. Let the debate begin!

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SIGNIFICANT QUOTE PAUL G. BUCHANAN: “The sad fact, though, is that the US is the center of our earthly geopolitical universe, serving as the first rock to drop in the global pond whose ripple effects are extensive, negative, and washing up in unexpected and unforeseen ways. That rock, in fact, is a black hole sucking the remnants of the rule based order into oblivion, or if not oblivion, irrelevance in a new age of power politics (might makes right, etc.). It is a dark force from which things as they exist cannot return.”

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Source: Anonymous on X.com.

The lethal theatre of the absurd that has been the Trump administration’s sabre rattling performances in the Central American basin over the last few months culminated with the military attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president and his wife in the early hours of Saturday morning, Caracas time. The tactical precision of the special operation was excellent, efficient and low cost when it came to human lives. While the number of Venezuelan casualties are yet unknown (although deaths are reported in the dozens and include Cubans among the victims), US forces suffered eight injuries and although some of the helicopters deployed received shrapnel damage, all assets returned to base safely. From a military tactical standpoint, the operation was a success and a demonstration of capability.

Even so, the broader picture is more complicated and therefore less straightforward when it comes to assessing the aftermath. Here I shall break down some of the main take-aways so far.

The strike on Venezuela was interesting because it was a hybrid decapitation and intimidation strike. Although US forces attacked military installations in support of the raid (such as by destroying air defence batteries), they only went after Maduro and his wife using their specialist Delta Force teams. That is unusual because most decapitation strikes attempt to remove the entire leadership cadres of the targeted regime, indulging its civilian and military leadership. They also involve seizing ports and airfields to limit adversary movements as well as the main means of communications, such as TV and radio stations, in order to control information flows during and after the event. The last thing that the attacker wants is for the target regime to retain its organizational shape and ability to continue to govern and, most importantly, mount an organised resistance to the armed attackers. This is what the Russians attempted to do with their assault on Kiev in February 2023.

That did not happen in this instance. Instead, the US left the entirety of the Bolivarian regime intact, including its military leadership and civilian authorities. Given reports of CIA infiltration of Venezuela in the months prior to the attack and the muted Venezuelan response to it, it is likely that US agents were in “backdoor” contact with members of the Bolivarian elite before the event, providing assurances and perhaps security guarantees to them (amnesty or non-prosecution for crimes committed while in power) in order to weaken their resistance to the US move. US intelligence may have detected fractures or weakness in the regime and worked behind Maduro’s back to assure wavering Bolivarians that they would not be blamed for his sins and would be treated separately and differently from him.

This might explain Vice President (now interim President) Delcy Rodriguez’s promise to “cooperate” with the US. That remains to be seen but other Bolivarian figures like Interior Minister Diosdaro Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, notorious for their leadership of Maduro’s repressive apparatus, may not be similarly inclined given that their post-Maduro treatment is likely to be very different–and they still may have control over and the loyalty of many of the people under their commands.

Trump says that the US “will run” the country for the foreseeable future until a regime transition scenario is developed, but in light of the limited nature of the military operation, it is unclear how the US proposes to do so. What is clear is that the US had real time intelligence from the CIA and perhaps regime insiders that allowed them to track and isolate Maduro in a moment of vulnerability. Ironically, for Maduro this proved fortunate, because given the surveillance that he was subjected to, any attempt to escape Caracas could have resulted in his death by drone. Instead, he and his wife get to be a guest of the US federal justice system.

(As an aside, it is noteworthy that the Maduro’s were indicted on cocaine trafficking charges and possessions of machine guns. No mention is mentioned in the indictments of fentanyl, the justification for the extra-judicial killings of civilians at sea by US forces and one of the initial excuses for attacking Venezuela itself (the so-called “fentanyl shipment facilities”). Possession of machine guns is not a crime in Venezuela, certainly not by a sitting leader facing constant violent threats from abroad. So the US is basically charging them with unlicensed firearms violations in the US rather than in Venezuela–where it has no jurisdiction–even though they do not reside there while switching the basis for the kidnapping from a fictitious accusation to something that may have more evidentiary substance. But in truth, the legal proceedings against the Maduros are no more than a fig leaf on the real reasons for their extraordinary rendition).

Even if limited in nature as a decapitation strike, the immediate result of the US use of force is intimidation of the remaining Bolivarians in government. Unless they regroup and organise some form of mass resistance using guerrilla/irregular warfare tactics, thereby forcing the US to put boots on the ground in order to subdue the insurgents (and raising the physical and political costs of the venture), at some point the post-Maduro Bolivarians will be forced to accept power-sharing with or replacement by the US backed opposition via eventual elections, and as Trump has indicated, the US will take control of Venezuelan oil assets (in theory at least). In his words: “they (US oil companies) will make a lot of money.” For this to happen the US will maintain its military presence in the Caribbean and adjacent land bases, in what Marco Rubio calls “leverage” in case the Venezuelans do not comply as demanded. This is coercive diplomacy in its starkest form.

Source: Wikimedia Commons, November 30, 2025

Put bluntly, this is an extorsion racket with the US military being used as the muscle with which to heavy the Bolivarians and bring them to heel. In light of Trump’s and the US’s past records, this should not be surprising. The question is, has the US read the situation correctly? Are the Bolivarians ao much disliked that the country will turn against them in droves and support an ongoing US presence in the country? Is the military and civilian leadership so weak or incompetent that they cannot rule without Maduro and need the US for basic governmental functioning (which is what the US appears to believe)? Have all of the gains made by lower class Venezuelans been eroded by Maduro’s corruption to the point that a reversal of the Bolivarian policy agenda in whole or in part is feasible? Will average Venezuelans, while thankful for the departure of the despot, accept abject subordination to the US and its puppets? Or will Cuban and Russian-backed civilian militias and elements in the armed forces retreat into guerrilla warfare. thereby forcing the US into a prolonged occupation without a clear exist strategy (i.e. deja vu all over again)?

There are some interesting twists to the emerging story. Maria Corina Machado, the US-backed opposition figure-turned-Nobel Peace Prize winner, has positioned herself to be the power behind the throne for Maduro’s heir apparent, Edmundo Gonzalez, who most election observers believe won the 2024 presidential elections but was denied office due to Maduro’s clearly fraudulent manipulation of the vote count. But Trump says that she “is not ready” and does not have the ” support” or “respect” within Venezuela to run the country. This seems to be code words for “too independent-minded” or “not enough of a puppet” (or even “female”) for Trump, who seems unaware of how a close overt association between his administration and any potential future Venezuelan leader may receive mixed reactions at home and abroad. In any event, sidelining Machado could have some unexpected repercussions.

Then there is the issue of how the US and its Venezuelan allies propose to purge the country of foreign actors like Hezbollah, Russians, Cubans and most importantly from an economic standpoint, the Chinese. Rounding up security operatives is one thing (although even that will not be easy given their levels of experience and preparation); dispossessing Chinese investors of their Venezuelan holdings is a very different kettle of fish So far none of this appears to have been thought out in a measure similar to the planning of the military raid itself.

Finally, Trump’s claims that Venezuela “stole” US oil is preposterous. In 1976 a nationalisation decree was signed between the Venezuelan government–a democracy–and US oil companies where Venezuela gained control of the land on which oil facilities were located and received a percentage of profits from them while the private firms continued to staff and maintain the facilities in exchange for sharing profits (retaining a majority share) and paying sightly more in taxes. That situation remained intact until the 1990s, when a series of market-oriented reforms were introduced into the industry that loosened State management over it. After Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998 on his Bolivarian platform, that arrangement continued for a short time until 2001 when the Organic Hydrocarbon Law was reformed in order to re-assert State control and foreign firms began withdrawing their skilled labor personnel and some of their equipment when taxes were increased on them. By 2013 the oil infrastructure was decrepit and lacking in skilled workers to staff what facilities are still operating, so Chavez (by then on his death bed) expropriated the remaining private holdings in the industry.

This was clearly unwise but it was not illegal and certainly was not a case of stealing anything. Moreover, the Venezuelan oil industry limped along with help from Bolivarian allies like the PRC and Russia because it is the country’s economic lifeline (and cash cow for the political elite dating back decades). So it is neither stolen or completely collapsed. As with many other things, the complexities of the matter appear to be unknown to or disregarded by Trump in favour of his own version of the “facts.”

Regardless, the PRC has stepped into the breech and invested in Venezuela’s oil industry. They may resist displacement or drive a hard bargain to be bought out. It will therefore not be as simple as Trump claims it to be for US firms to return and “make a lot of money” from Venezuelan oil.

It is these and myriad other “after entry” (to use a trade negotiator’s term) problems that will make or break the post-Maduro regime, whatever its composition. In the US the word is that the US “broke it so now owns it,” but the US will never do that. It has seldom lived up to its promises to its erstwhile allies in difficult and complex political cultures that it does not understand. It has a very short attention span, reinforced by domestic election cycles where foreign affairs is of secondary importance. So it is easily manipulated by opportunists and grifters seeking to capitalise on US military, political and economic support in order to advance their own fortunes (some would say this of the MAGA administration itself). If this sounds familiar it is because it is a very real syndrome of and pathology in US foreign affairs: focus on the military side of the equation, conduct kinetic operations, then try to figure out what else to do (nation-build? keep the peace? broker a deal amongst antagonistic locals?) rather than simply declare victory and depart. Instead, the US eventually leaves on terms dictated by others and with destruction in its wake.

One thing that should be obvious is that for all the jingoistic flag-waving amongst US conservatives and Venezuelan exiles, their problems when it comes to Venezuela may just have started. Because now they “own” what is to come, and if what comes is not the peace and prosperity promised by Trump, Rubio, Machado and others, then that is when things will start to get real. “Real” as in Great Power regional conflict real, because launching a war of opportunity on Venezuela in the current geopolitical context invites responses in kind from adversaries elsewhere that the US is ill-equipped to respond to, much less control.

The precedent has been set and somewhere, perhaps in more than one theatre, the invitation to reply is open.

Stay tuned and watch this space.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

Photo credit: Reuters.

Conceptual clarity is important in any context but especially when it comes to international relations, foreign policy and the initiation of conflict. Recent events in the Middle East have shown once again how clarity in the use of words is often deliberately obfuscated in pursuit of political agendas.

Unlike what is being reported in the corporate media and by some Western defense officials, the Israeli strike on Iran was not “pre-emptive.” “Pre-emptive” means “a sudden strike thwarting an imminent attack.” That is not the case here. Iran was not about to imminently attack Israel before Israel, and then the US, attacked it. What Israel did was a preventive attack designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear R&D/storage facilities, missile launcher sites and command and control capabilities. The IDF attack focused on preventing and delaying development of Iran’s nuclear strike capability before it reached operational status and was telegraphed in advance (remember the US pulling out embassy staff and military families from facilities in the Middle East in anticipation of an tit-for-tat Iranian response). Both suspected weapons-grade nuclear stores as well as launching platforms were on the target list, as were those responsible for them. The US then followed up with some preventive strikes of its own, using so-called “bunker buster” bombs to penetrate deep into suspected Iranian nuclear development and storage sites. The Iranians responded by lobbing some short and medium-range missiles in the direction of the main US base in Qatar.

Just like his response to October 7 with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, Netanyahu has seized his moment of opportunity because, quite frankly, he can. No one will stop him (certainly not the Iranians) and the US backs him, with most of the West tacitly supporting Israel with their silence or tepid responses to the conflict. This, I suspect, is due to Israel’s value as an intelligence partner of the West as much as any other reason.

The preventive nature and targets of the strikes may have helped moderate the Iranian response. On the other hand, killing the Revolutionary Guard Commander and Deputy Commander is a serious affront that will require a response in order for the Iranian regime to save face among its domestic audiences. So the escalation scenario is real, albeit not as bad as it could be. What is clear is that unlike preemptive attacks, the Israeli and US preventive attacks had no justification in the Laws of War (jus ad bellum) and were therefore illegal under International law. One might understand why the Israelis and US conducted the strikes and there is plenty of precedent for them, but that does not make them legal.

Deliberate conflation of the terms “pre-emptive” with “preventive” by security officials and media is either a product of conceptual ignorance or deliberate obfuscation in pursuit of  legalistic white-washing of a blatant violation of international law. If the latter is true we know why they do it, but that does not mean that we have to accept they’re doing so.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

Thomas Hobbes wrote his seminal work Leviathan in 1651. In it he describes the world system as it was then as being in “a state of nature,” something that some have interpreted as anarchy. However, anarchy has order and purpose. It is not chaos. In fact, if we think of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of the market” we get something similar to what anarchy is in practice: the aggregate of individual acts of self-interest can lead to the optimisation of value and outcomes at the collective level. Anarchy clears; chaos does not.

For Hobbes, the state of nature was chaos. Absent a “Sovereign” (i.e. a government) that could impose order on global and domestic societies, humans were destined to lead lives the were “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” This has translated into notions of “might makes right,” “survival of the fittest,” “to the victor goes the spoils” and other axioms of so-called power politics. The most elaborate of these, international relations realism, is a school of thought that is based on the belief that because the international system has no superseding Sovereign in the form of world government with comprehensive enforcement powers, and because there are no universally shared values and mores throughout the globe community that ideologically bind cultures, groups and individuals, global society exists as a state of nature where, even if there are attempts to manage the relationships between States (and other actors) via rules, norms, institutions and the like, the bottom line is that States (and other actors) have interests, not friends.

Interests are pursued in a context of power differentials. Alliances are temporary and based on the convergence of mutual interests. Values are not universal and so are inconsequential. International exchange is transactional, not altruistic. Actors with greater resources at their disposal (human, natural, intellectual) prevail over those that have less. In case of resource parity between States or other actors, balances of power become systems regulators, but these are fluid and contingent, not permanent. Geography matters in that regard, which is why geopolitics (the relationship of power to geography) is the core of international relations.

It is worth remembering this when evaluating contemporary international relations. It has been well established by now that the liberal international order of the post WW2 era has largely been dismantled in the context of increasing multipolarity in inter-State relations and the rise of the Global South within the emerging order. As I have written before, the long transition and systemic realignment in international affairs has led to norm erosion, rules violations, multinational institutional and international organizational decay or irrelevance and the rise of conflict (be it in trade, diplomacy or armed force) as the new systems regulator.

These developments have accentuated over the last decade and now have a catalyst for a full move into a new global moment–but not into a multipolar or multiplex constellation arrangement in which rising and established powers move between multilateral blocs depending on the issues involved. Instead, the move appears to be one towards a modern Hobbesian state of nature, with the precipitant being the MAGA administration of Donald Trump and its foreign policy approach.

We must be clear that it is not Trump who is the architect of this move. As mentioned in pervious posts, he is an empty vessel consumed by his own self-worth. That makes him a useful tool of far smarter people than he, people who work in the shadow of relative anonymity and who cut their teeth in rightwing think tanks and policy centres. In their view the liberal internationalist order placed too many constraints on the exercise of US power while at the same time requiring the US to over-extend itself as the “world’s policeman” and international aid donor . Bound by international conventions on the one hand and besieged by foreign rent-seekers and adversaries on the other, the US was increasingly bent under the weight of overlapped demands in which existential national interests were subsumed to a plethora of frivolous diversions (such as human rights and democracy promotion).

For these strategists, the solution to the dilemma was not to be found in any new multipolar (or even technopolar) constellation but in a dismantling of the entire edifice of international order, something that was based on an architecture of rules, institutions and norms nearly 500 years in the making. Many have mentioned Trump’s apparent mercantilist inclinations and his admiration for former US president William McKinley’s tariff policies in the late 1890s. Although that may be true, the Trump/MAGA agenda is far broader in scope than trade. In fact, the US had its greatest period of (neo-imperial) expansion during McKinley’s tenure as president (1897-1901), winning the Spanish-American War and annexing Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Philippines, so Trump’s admiration for him may well be based on notions of territorial expansionism as well.

Whatever Trump’s views of McKinley, the basic idea under-riding his foreign policy team’s approach is that in a world where the exercise of power is the ultimate arbiter of a State’s international status, the US remains the greatest Power of them all. It does not matter if the PRC or Russia challenge the US or if other emerging powers join the competition. Without the hobbling effect of its liberal obligations the US can and will dominate them all. This involves trade but also the exercise of raw (neo) imperialist ambitions in places like Greenland, the Panama Canal and even Canada. It involves sidelining the UN, NATO, EU and other international organisations where the US had to share equal votes with lesser powers who flaunted the respect and tribute that should naturally be given in recognition of the US’s superior power base.

There appears to be a belief in this approach that the US can be a new hegemon–but not Sovereign–in a unipolar world, even more so than during the post-USSR-pre 9/11 interregnum. In a new state of nature it can sit at the core of the international system, orbited by constellations of lesser Great Powers like the PRC, Russia, the EU, perhaps India, who in turn would be circled by lesser powers of various stripes. The US will not seek to police the world or waste time and resources on well-meaning but ultimately futile soft power exercises like those involving foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. Its power projection will be sharp on all dimensions, be it trade, diplomacy or in military-security affairs. It will use leverage, intimidation and varying degrees of coercion as well as persuasion (and perhaps even bribery) as diplomatic tools. It will engage the world primarily in bilateral fashion, eschewing multilateralism for others to pursue according to their own interests and power capabilities. That may suit them, but for the US multilateralism is just another obsolescent vestige of the liberal internationalist past.

Source: Northrop-Grumman.

A possible (and partial) explanation for the change in the US foreign policy approach may be the learning effect in the US of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s scorched earth campaign in Gaza. Trump and his advisors may have learned that impunity has its own rewards, that no country or group of countries other than the US (if it has the will) can effectively confront a state determined to pursue its interests regardless of international law, the laws of war or institutional censorship (say, by the UN or International Criminal Court), or any other type of countervailing power. The Russians and Israelis have gotten away with their behaviour because, all rhetoric and hand-wringing aside, there is no actor or group of actors who have the will or capability to stop them. For Trump strategists, these lesser powers are pursuing their interests regardless of diplomatic niceties and international conventions, and they are prevailing precisely because of that. Other than providing military assistance to Ukraine, no one has lifted a serious finger against the Russians other than the Ukrainians themselves, and even fewer have seriously moved to confront Israel’s now evident ethnic cleansing campaign in part because the US has backed Israel unequivocally. The exercise of power in each case occurred in a norm enforcement vacuum in spite of the plethora of agencies and institutions designed to prevent such egregious violations of international standards.

Put another way: if Israel and Russia can get away with their disproportionate and indiscriminate aggression, imagine what the US can do.

If we go on to include the PRC’s successful aggressive military “diplomacy” in East/SE Asia, the use of targeted assassinations, hacking, disinformation and covert direct influence campaigns overseas by various States and assorted other unpunished violations of international conventions, then it is entirely plausible that Trump’s foreign policy brain trust sees the moment as ripe for finally breaking the shackles of liberal internationalism. Also recall that many in Trump’s inner circle subscribe to chaos or disruption theory, in which a norms-breaking “disruptor” like Trump seizes the opportunities presented by the breakdown of the status quo ante.

Before the US could hollow out liberal internationalism abroad and replace it with a modern international state of nature it had to crush liberalism at home. Using Executive Orders as a bludgeon and with a complaint Republican-dominated Congress and Republican-adjacent federal courts. the Trump administration has openly exercised increasingly authoritarian control powers with the intention of subjugating US civil society to its will. Be it in its deportation policies, rollbacks of civil rights protections, attacks on higher education, diminishing of federal government capacity and services (except in the security field), venomous scapegoating of opponents and vulnerable groups, the Trump/MAGA domestic agenda not only seeks to turn the US into a illiberal or “hard” democracy (what Spanish language scholars call a “democradura” as a play on words mixing the terms democracia and dura (hard)). It also serves notice that the US under Trump/MAGA is willing to do whatever is necessary to re-impose its supremacy in world affairs, even if it means hurting its own in order to prove the point. By its actions at home Trump’s administration demonstrates capability, intent and steadfast resolve as it establishes a reputation for ruthless pursuit of its policy agenda. Foreign interlocutors will have to take note of this and adjust accordingly. Hence, for Trump’s advisors, authoritarianism at home is the first step towards undisputed supremacy abroad.

The Trump embrace of international state of nature differs from Hobbes because it does not see the need for a superseding global governance network but instead believes that the US can dominate the world without the encumbrances of power-sharing with lesser players. In this view hegemony means domination, no more or less. It implies no attempt at playing the role of a Sovereign imposing order on a disorderly and recalcitrant community of Nation-States and non-State actors that do not share common values, much less interests.

This is the core of the current US foreign policy approach. It is not about reorganising the international order within the extant frameworks as given. It is about removing those frameworks entirely and replacing them with an America First, go it alone agenda where the US, by virtue of its unrivalled power differential relative to all other States and global actors, can maximise its self-interest in largely unconstrained fashion. Some vestiges of the old international order may remain, but they will be marginalised and crippled the longer the US project is in force.

What does not seem to be happening in Trump’s foreign policy circle are three things. First, recognition that other States and international actors may band together against the US move to unipolarity in a new state of nature and that for all its talk the US may not be able to impose unipolar dominance over them. Second, understanding that States like the PRC, Russia and other Great Powers and communities (like the EU) may resist the US move and challenge it before it can consolidate the new international status quo. Third, foreseeing that the technology titans who today are influential in the Trump administration may decide to transfer there loyalties elsewhere, especially if Trump’s ego starts becoming a hindrance to their (economic and digital) power bases. The fusion of private technology control and US State power may not be as compatible over time as presently appears to be the case, something that may not occur with States such as the PRC, India or Japan that have different corporate cultures and political structures. As the current investment in the Middle Eastern oligarchies shows, the fusion of State and private techno power may be easier to accomplish in those contexts rather than the US.

In any event, whether it be a short-term interlude or a longue durée feature of international life, a modern state of nature is now our new global reality.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

In strategic studies “friction” is a term that it is used to describe the moment when military action encounters adversary resistance. “Friction” is one of four (along with an unofficial fifth) “F’s” in military strategy, which includes force (kinetic mass), fluidity (of manoeuvre), fog (of battle) as well as uncertainty (of outcomes, which is usually referred to in military circles as the “oh F**k” factor)). Friction comes from many causes, including terrain, countervailing force, psychological factors, the adversary’s broader capabilities and more. As German strategist Karl von Clausewitz noted, friction can be encountered at the three levels of warfare: strategic, operational and tactical.In other words, “Clausewitzian friction” is not just confined to the battlefield.

The notion of friction is drawn from the physical world and has many permutations. It is not confined to one particular element or dimension. It is about opposition, even if of similar elements or forces, including the element of will. For example, when they meet, fluids and air of different weights create turbulence. Fire on different fire extinguishes or expands. Earth on earth leads to crumbling or inertial momentum. The product of the combination of these physical forces, say fluid on air or earth or fire, depends on the relative weight of each. The same goes for psychological factors in human contests. Mutatis mutandis (i.e., with the necessary changes having been made), this is applicable to international relations. It may seem like a conceptual stretch but I see the use of the notion of friction in terms of international relations more as an example of conceptual transfer, using Clausewitz as a bridge between the physical and the political/diplomatic worlds (more on this later).

In the past I have written at length about the systemic realignment and long transition in post Cold War international relations. The phrase refers to the transition from a unipolar post-Cold War international system dominated by the US (as the “hegemon” of the liberal internationalist world order) to a multipolar system that includes rising Great Powers like the PRC and India and constellations of middle powers such as the other BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, South Africa and recently added members like Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Ethiopia and perhaps Argentina (if it ratifies its accession)) as representatives of the rising “Global South.” In spite of their differences, these rising power blocs are counterpoised against what remains of the liberal institutionalist order, including the EU, Japan, South Korea and Australia. I have noted that the long moment of transition is characterised by international norm erosion and increased rule violations and the consequent emergence of conflict as the systems regulator until a new status quo is established (and from which that new status quo emerges). That conflict may come in many guises–economic, diplomatic, cultural and, perhaps inevitably, military or some combination thereof. When conflicts turn military, the moment of force has arrived. And when force is met by opposing force, then friction is inevitable.

Here I extend the notion of friction to include the international moment that we are currently living in. That is, I have conceptually transferred the notion of friction to the international arena because “transfer” in this instance means applying the notion of friction to a wider environment beyond the physical plane without distorting its original meaning. That allows me to avoid the methodologically dubious practice of conceptual stretching (where a term is stretched and distorted from its original meaning in order to analytically fit a different type of thing).

The long transitional moment is what has taken us to this point and allowed me to undertake the transfer, and it is here in the transitional trajectory from unipolar to multipolar international systems where the future global status quo will be defined. It is a decisive moment because it is the period where force has become the major arbiter of who rises and who falls in the systemic transitional shuffle. Given that there are many competitors in the international arena who are capable and willing to use force as well as other means to advance their interests, I suggest that the global community has reached its moment of friction, that is, the turning point in the long transitional process. Everything that has come before was the lead-in. Everything that comes after will be the result of this conflict-defined moment.

It is no exaggeration to write this. Besides the Ruso-Ukrainian war and the Israel-Hamas war, there is the armed stand-off in the Red Sea between Iran-backed Houthis and a naval coalition led but he US, the ongoing skirmishes between PRC naval forces and those of the Philippines, Vietnam and Western naval forces as well as the PRC military threats to Taiwan, the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, Islamist violence in the Sahel and Eastern Africa as well as in Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other other parts of Central Asia, ongoing conflict in Syria between Assad’s Russian-backed forces, the remnants of ISIS and Western-backed rebels, the Turkish-Kurd conflict along the Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi borders, the civil war in Libya, escalating fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda over mineral rich areas in and around the eastern Congolese city of Goma (in which private military companies and irredentist militias are also involved), narco-violence in Latin America that has reached the level of challenging state monopolies over organised violence in places like Ecuador and parts of Mexico, piracy in the Indian Ocean and in the Malacca Straits, cross-border ethno-religious conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, the PRC and Gaza, tribal conflict in Papua New Guinea and more. Norms and rules governing interstate as well as domestic forms of collective behaviour are honoured in the breach, not as a matter of course. Individuals, groups and States are increasingly atomised in their perspectives and interactions and resort to the ultimate default option–conflict–to pursue their interests in the face of other’s opposition.

Phillipines and PRC Coast Guard Ships clash in South China Sea. Source: UNN.

Friction extends to economics. The era of globalisation of free trade has ended as nations revert to post-pandemic protectionism or focus on “near-“and “friend-shoring” in order to avoid supply chain bottlenecks resultant from commodity production concentration in a small number of countries. Although not a trade pact strictly speaking, the PRC Belt and Road Initiative undermines Western trade agreements like the TPPA and lesser regional arrangements because it ties developmental assistance and financing to Chinese industries and markets. Intellectual property and technology theft is wide-spread despite International conventions against them (endnote just by the PRC). The era of Bretton Woods is over and the agencies that were its institutional pillars (like the World Bank, IMF and regional agencies such as the IADB and ADB) are now increasingly challenged by entities emerging from the Global South like the China Development Bank and BRICS common market initiatives.

In addition, as part of international norms erosion and rules violations, many diplomatic agreements and treaties such as those prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and even genocide are also now largely ignored because, in the end, there is no international enforcement capability to reinforce what is written. The International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court can impose sanctions and issue arrest warrants but have no enforcement authority of their own. The UN can authorise peace-keeping missions and issue resolutions but is subject to Security Council vetoes on the one hand and belligerent non-compliance in the other (besides Israel ignoring UN demands for a cease-fire and humanitarian pauses in Gaza, people may forget that there are UN peace keeping missions in the Sinai, Golan Heights and Israel-Lebanon border, including NZDF personnel among them, because these “blue helmet” missions have had no ameliorating impact on the behaviour of the participants in the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah-Syria conflict). Adverse rulings in international courts have not stopped the PRC island-building and aggressive military diplomacy in the South China Sea. The examples are many. Given that state of affairs, States and other actors increasingly turn to force to pursue their interests.

Whatever restraint was promoted by the laws of war and international conflict-resolution institutions during the post-Cold War interregnum has been abandoned or become exceptions to the new anarchic rule. One might even say that the international community is increasingly living in a state of nature, even if the terms “anarchy” and “state of nature” are loose interpretations of what Hobbes wrote about when he considered the Leviathan of international politics. But the basic idea should be clear: the liberal internationalist system has broken down and a new order is emerging from the conflict landscape that characterises the contemporary international arena.

Again, the friction is not just things like the military confrontations between Russia, Russian and Iranian-backed proxies in the Middle East and the PRC against a range of Western and Western-oriented nations in the Western Pacific. The BRICS have proposed to develop a single unitary currency to rival the Euro and are openly calling for a major overhaul of international organizations and institutions that they (rightfully so), see as made by and for post-colonial Western interests. But the question is whether what they have in mind as a replacement will be any better in addressing the needs of the Global South while respecting the autonomy of the Global North. My hunch is that it will not, and will just add another front to the moment of friction.

Empty UN Security Council Chamber. Source: United Nations.

I shall not continue enunciating the reasons why I believe that we have arrived at an international moment of friction (e.g. cultural degradation and social vulgarisation, etc.). That is because I cannot specify what will be come given that push has now led to shove, nor can I offer a solution set to the problems embedded in and underwriting this sorry moment. What I can say is, just like the fact that we need to learn to embrace uncertainty in the transitional process since outcomes are not assured and guarantees cannot be offered (although some industries like tobacco, liquor, weapons and insurance all profit during times of uncertainty and market hedging strategies become the common response of risk-adverse actors to uncertain economic times, so can be calculated or anticipated), so too we must, if not embrace, then learn to prepare for an era in which friction will be the dominant mode of international transaction for some time to come.

For small countries like NZ, repeating empty mantras about foreign policy “independence” no longer cuts it even as a slogan. The moment of international friction poses some existential questions about where NZ stands in the transitional process, how it will balance competing international interests when it comes to NZ foreign and security policy, and about who to side with when conflict comes.

Because it will.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

Announcement that NZ has joined with 13 other maritime trade-dependent states in warning Houthis in Yemen to cease their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea (particularly in the Bad-el-Mandeb Strait) raises some finer points embedded in the confrontation.

First, there is the question of who is not participating. Even though they are also maritime trade dependent, India, Indonesia and the PRC, among other Asian states, have not joined the coalition. This suggests that protection of freedom of navigation is not the sole criteria behind the decision to join or not, something confirmed by the fact that other than Bahrain, all of the signatories to the statement are 5 Eyes partners, NATO members or NATO partners (like Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea). Bahrain is the location of the US Navy Central Command, the US Fifth Fleet and the combined task force (CTF-153) responsible for overseeing “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” the name given to the anti-Houthi maritime defense campaign. It has a strained relationship with Iran due to its suspicion that Iran foments unrest among it’s Shia majority (which is ruled by a Sunni aristocracy). Like many Sunni oligarchies, it sees the Houthis as Iranian proxies.

Some Muslim majority states may have declined to join Operation Prosperity Guardian out of caution rather than solidarity with the Palestinians. Anti-Israel demonstrations have broken out throughout the Islamic world, so reasons of domestic stability and elite preservation may be as much behind the calculus to decline as are sympathies with Gazans or Houthis. Others, such as those in the Western Hemisphere other than Canada and the US, may simply feel that their foreign trade is not significantly impacted by blockages of Red Sea maritime lanes and therefore feel that it is best to leave the conflict to others more directly (and materially) affected.

The name of the Operation suggests that is focused on maritime security and freedom of navigation. Twelve percent of the world’s trade passes through Bad-el-Mandeb. There is an average of 400 ships in the Red Sea at any one time. The Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on Red Sea shipping since the Gaza-Israel War began using a variety of delivery platforms. The situation has the potential for expansion into regional war, and even if it is not, it is adding transportation time delays and billions in additional costs to the global supply chain, something that will sooner or later be reflected in the cost of commodities, goods and services.

But there is a twist to this tale. The Houthis claim that they are only targeting ships that are suspected of being in- or outward-bound from Israel as well as the warships that seek to protect them. They argue that they are not targeting shipping randomly or recklessly but instead trying to impede Israel’s war re-supply efforts (this claim is disputed by shipping firms, Israel, the US, UK and various ship-flagging states, but the exact provenance of cargoes is not subject to independent verification). They claim that their actions are justified under international conventions designed to prevent genocide, specifically Article One of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide(given the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 7) and point to UN statements supporting the claim that what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, if not a “complete” genocide, certainly has the look and feel of ethnic cleansing. The South Africa application to the International Court of Justice charging Israel with genocide in Gaza, now supported by Turkey, Malaysia, Jordan, the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and hundreds of civil rights organisations around the world, is also being used by the Houthi rebel regime (and alternate sovereign) in Yemen as justification for their attacks.

In essence, what has been set up here is a moral-ethical dilemma in the form of a clash of international principles–guaranteeing freedom of navigation, on the one hand, or upholding the duty to protect against genocide on the other.

Source: Quora.com

Needless to say, geopolitics colours all approaches to the conundrum. The Houthis (who are Shia) are clients of Iran (home to Shia Islam), who are also patrons of anti-Israel actors such as the Shia Alawite regime in Syria, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and numerous Iraqi Shiite militias. Iran (and through it its various regional clients and proxies), has strong military ties to Russia and the PRC (for example remember that Russia is using Iranian-made attack drones in the Ukraine). For their part, the NATO alliance and its partners are all major intelligence partners of Israel, as is Bahrain. So the confrontation in the Red Sea may not be so much about the moral-ethical obligations in defending freedom of navigation or resisting genocide per se, but instead is part of larger balance-of-power jousting in which the principles are extra-regional but the agents are in the Middle East.

New Zealand has already chosen a rhetorical side based, presumably, on its support for the principles of freedom of navigation and its rejection of the argument that the Houthis are doing the little that they can to resist genocide in Gaza. Should NZ send a warship to join the CTF-153 naval picket fence protecting commercial ships running the gauntlet at Bad-el-Mandeb, then it will have further staked its position on the side of its Western security partners as well as put its sailors in harm’s way. Some will say that it has placed more value on containers than the lives of Gazan children. Others will say being signatory to a warning statement is more symbolic than practical and that New Zealand is not in a position to send a warship to the Red Sea in any event.

For New Zealand the choice may be a pragmatic decision based on sincere belief in the “freedom of the seas” principle, disbelief in the Houthi’s sincerity when it comes to resisting genocide (or the argument itself), concern about Iranian machinations and the presence of Russia and the PRC in the regional balance of power contest, indirect support for Israel or simply paying, as former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key once said, “the price for being in the club.” Whatever the reason or combination thereof, it appears to the neutral eye that once again NZ has put facilitation of trade ahead of upholding universal human rights in its foreign policy calculations.

Perhaps the best way to characterise this approach is to call it a matter of prioritising conflicting principles in strategically pragmatic ways. Whether that puts NZ on the right side of history given the larger stakes in play remains to be seen.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

Summary

Conventional wisdom believes that increased prosperity brings with it increased security. As individual, group and national material fortunes rise, domestic crime decreases and tensions ease between States. Yet, in South America improved macroeconomic indicators derived from increased trade within and from without the region have not followed convention. Not only has domestic insecurity increased, but the entrance of the People’s Republic of China as a major regional trade partner has heightened tensions with the United States, which sees a growing security threat associated with the PRC regional presence. Since the US adheres to the Monroe Doctrine as the basis for its regional security posture, this opens up the possibility of conflict with the PRC over its South American activities.

Source: Gateway to South America, 2018.

The Paradox Unpacked.

South America confronts a strategic paradox. It is not threatened by any significant extra-regional threats or serious inter-regional conflict (Venezuela’s threats to annex the oil-rich Essequibo region of Guyana notwithstanding). Its countries are members in good standing of many International organisations and conventions. It maintains deep cultural, diplomatic and military ties with extra-regional partners, including deepening diplomatic relations with the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) that will admit Argentina in 2024. It has extensive trade ties as an exporter and importer of primary and value-added goods within the region well as with extra-regional partners. These ties have extended beyond the traditional trade relationships with the USA and Europe to include the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Australasia (via the Transpacific Partnership Agreement—TPPA). With some notable exceptions (Bolivia, Brazil and Peru) it has had very few armed coups or revolutionary uprisings in a decade.

As a result, some consider South America to be on the global geopolitical periphery, while others see it as benefitting from non-alignment. The reality is more complex. Although not party to the major conflicts of the age, South America is deeply integrated into core geopolitical networks via memberships by countries and regional organisations in a latticework of international agreements, alliances, conventions, institutions and treaties covering the full scope of global endeavour, from climate change to military alliances. Specific engagements are aligned in different ways due to historical as well as practical reasons depending on the subject and national interests involved.

The paradox is that increased macroeconomic prosperity has accentuated domestic and regional tensions. It is part of a larger split in the world order that involves differences between the post-colonial Global South and the post-imperial Global North, a rift that has widened as the international system transitions from a unipolar to a multipolar realignment. The divide is seen in China’s growing presence in South America, something that is largely welcomed by regional diplomatic and business elites but has drawn negative attention from the hemispheric power that the PRC is eclipsing in terms of trade and investment—the US.

South America is also plagued by transnational crime, political-criminal networks, civil unrest and socio-economic deprivation leading to social disorder and high social violence levels, including homicide rates (one third of the world’s murders happen in Latin America). Recent wealth growth in South America has not translated into increased employment, wages or the provision of public goods and services paid out of tax revenues. Instead, relative deprivation has increased because rising social expectations are not met by improvements in material conditions for all. Instead, after years experimenting with market-driven macroeconomic policies (often first employed by authoritarian regimes with poor human rights records) and then an assortment of state-capitalist “correctives,” the region has a checkered record across a swath of socio-economic indicators: income inequality and wealth concentration, childhood poverty and infant mortality levels, education participation and literacy rates, access to electricity, potable water and sanitation facilities, etc. As overall wealth increased, so too has human insecurity.

Source: Quora.com.

This has happened during a period of relative political stability. The “Pink Tide” of indigenous socialists that came to power Latin America in in the early 2000s (exemplified by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia) has given way to rightwing national populists (Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil), neo-libertarians (recently elected Javier Milei in Argentina), leftwing populist authoritarians (Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela), and mixes of centre-right and centre-left democratic coalitions in countries like Brazil, Chile and Ecuador (left-centre), or Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay (right-centre), with the elasticity of their respective commitments to democracy duly noted. Political competition is often raucous, but regime continuity has been the regional norm for the last twenty years.

Trade-based Prosperity.

South America has extensive trade links to the world and within the region itself. Its major regional trading bloc, MERCOSUR, is one of the world’s largest, with four permanent members (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay now joined by Bolivia) holding a combined GDP of USD$2.2.trillion, bolstered by trade with seven regional associate members. Other than Venezuela, all of the region’s States have a working relationship with the MERCOSUR trading bloc as well as participating in smaller trade networks. Having joined MERCOSUR in 2012, Venezuela’s membership was suspended in 2016 for non-adherence to democratic principles. South America also includes the Andean Community (CAN) and Latin American Integration Association (ALADI) as smaller sub-regional trading blocs, the combined total of which is to promote extensive cross-regional economic exchange.

South America exports primary and value-added goods to the EU, North America and Asia, with investment flows and value-added products coming into the region primarily from the US, People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the European Union (EU). In the last 20 years the PRC has overtaken the US as South America’s main trading partner in exports and imports, with nineteen countries signing up to the Belt and Road Initiative. The volume of trade between South America and the PRC rose from US$14 billion in 2000 to US$500 billion in 2022.  Eight South American countries now have “strategic partnerships” that have made the PRC their largest trading partner and in 2022 Latin American-PRC trade exceeded US-Latin American trade by USD$72 billion.

Even so, the USA accounts for 22 percent of Latin American foreign trade (mostly with Mexico) and retains its dominant position as South America’s main foreign interlocutor when factoring in other exchanges involving diplomatic and military relations, professional services, dollar remittances and cultural interactions (e.g. concerts and other artistic endeavours). In 2020-21 the volume of trade between South America and extra-regional partners briefly dropped as a result of the Covid pandemic’s impact on supply chains, but it has returned to surpass pre-pandemic levels even if the total value of South American trade in 2023 is less than previous year because of price deflation and low (1.7 percent) annual GDP growth.

Foreign investors have recently focused on lithium and other strategic mineral extraction as well as forestry, fuel and agricultural export sectors. PRC firms have joined Australian, European and US firms in developing brine-based extraction facilities in the so-called “Lithium Triangle” encompassing NW Argentina, NE Chile, Western Bolivia and SE Peru. There is potential for more expansion of the sector,  and Chile has moved to nationalise the industry within its borders. However, the surge in extractive enterprises has seen increased environmental damage (groundwater pollution in particular), something that has caused backlash from environmental and indigenous groups connected to the lands in which they are located. That constitutes a political problem for the elected governments that govern them.

Moreover, as trade linkages  increased, so has the presence of transnational and domestic organised crime. To “traditional” illicit trade such as narcotics, which itself has increased significantly in the last decade, there are now added an assortment of other criminal enterprises that use legitimate commercial trade conduits as covers for their activities. Fisheries poaching, animal, human and weapons trafficking and an assortment of other black market enterprises have been added into the mix. The Hezbollah presence in the Tri- border area joining Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay is a salient example of the criminal/ideological nexus.

 Similarly, construction of modern container terminal facilities by PRC firms has facilitated increased volumes of goods arriving in South American ports, but has not been matched by increases in resources, personnel or the efficiency of administrative agencies responsible for trade. Corruption permeates customs and border control units in spite of government promises to clean up their respective sectors, so the problem is  compounded rather than mitigated by the advances in trade volumes within and from without the region. One specific concern is that container terminals built along the Panama Canal and at several South American ports may be used for criminal as well as legitimate ends given lax enforcement capabilities.

To be sure, increases in foreign trade and investment and entrance of the PRC into South American markets have brought material benefits to the region. But PRC investment is focused on capital-intensive infrastructure (such as power plants), extractive and logistics activities that has resulted in increased income inequalities because employment opportunities are limited, elites monopolise revenue streams derived from those sectors, tax evasion is rampant and environmental degradation and land dispossession are closely associated with the industries in which investment is concentrated. Even as a trickle-down effect, trade-driven economic prosperity has not produced the anticipated results.

 Instead, material hardship has produced mass migrations throughout South America. Venezuela has lost 7 million people under the Maduro regime, with most heading to Colombia, the US and Chile. Argentines and Peruvians have flocked to Chile because of its relative stability and growth, and Paraguayans and Uruguayans have sought greener pastures in their larger neighbours as well as further abroad. For Brazilians, the destinations of choice are the US and Portugal (which also serves as a gateway into the Eurozone). For many recipient countries, the presence of thousands of non-citizen migrants poses grave challenges to public good and services provision, stretching many of them to the breaking point. That is believed to contribute to increased crime, disorder and ethnic/nationalist conflict between native-born locals and foreign migrants. Accordingly, migration has turned into a regional security issue.

The Security Dilemma.

Arrival of the PRC as a South American trade and investment partner produced an adverse reaction on the part of the US. The US sees pernicious effect in Chinese “dollar” and “debt” diplomacy, where PRC-partnered firms, national and/or state governments are offered favourable terms for PRC direct economic assistance and infrastructure development loans that sometimes includes unduly influencing local officials responsible for approving and administering those projects. Dollar diplomacy is seen as contributing to South America’s culture of corruption, much in the way PRC dollar diplomacy is viewed in Subsaharan Africa, South Asia and Pacific Island nations. Moreover, the debt side of PRC loan facilitation can result in debt traps, where unserviceable loans are traded for equity swaps in sectors where the PRC has financially contributed, again along lines seen elsewhere. Since debt swaps occur in strategically important sectors, that makes them a threat to national sovereignty and hence a security concern.

Many Chinese projects in South America have “dual use” potential that can serve military/security as well as civilian purposes. Along with investment in modernising sea- and airports, key examples of this are, most broadly, the prevalence of Chinese telecommunications firms in South American broadband networks and, more specifically, PRC satellite tracking facilities erected in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela (and Cuba) over the last fifteen years in addition to space research partnerships with Brazil and Chile that grant Chinese access to jointly operated ground stations in those countries. The PRC-operated signals stations are controlled by Chinese intelligence services, are staffed by Chinese nationals and are suspected of engaging in electronic and technical eavesdropping on regional communications as well as undertaking offensive and defensive tasks (such as hacking and jamming) that integrate with PRC military assets in space and in the oceans surrounding the continent. Chinese surveillance systems are also used by South American domestic security services, leading to concerns that they may be employed in invasive ways and/or are being accessed and data mined by PRC intelligence via embedded “backdoors” in them.

PRC Signals Collection Land Base, Bajada del Agrio, Neuquen, Argentina. Source: The Storiest, December 2022.

To this is added US concern about the potential for the PRC to establish military bases in South America. A recent PRC proposal to build a PLAN naval facility in Ushuaia, in Argentine Tierra del Fuego, has raised concerns about their ability to project force across the strategic Magellan Strait choke point and onto Antartica. 

That creates a “security dilemma.” It is a situation where a State, perceiving that a rival seeks military-security advantage over it, prepares for impending conflict by increasing its full-spectrum fighting capabilities. Seeing that the first State is bolstering its forces, the rival responds in kind, leading to a tit-for-tat arms race and a greater possibility for miscalculations leading to conflict. Whatever eventuates, what matters here are perceptions of threat and planning for conflict rather than the actualities of threat when it comes to force projection. 

Entrance of the PRC as a trading partner, strategic investor and diplomatic interlocutor in South America is seen by the US as a threat to regional stability, thereby making South America a potential contestation zone. There is real possibility that a regional security dilemma is in the making. Recent statements by senior US military officials confirm this view.

Issue linkage and decoupling.

“Issue linkage” in international affairs refers to a negotiating strategy where one issue (migration) is linked to another (climate change) in order to facilitate agreement on both; and to concrete outcomes where two or more issues are linked in practice (say, trade and security). The historical record is for security partners to preferentially trade with each other and vice versa. The bipolar trade and security arrangements of the Cold War are a classic example of the practice. However, in the 1990s some countries including New Zealand began to de-couple their trade and security alignments. They separated their trade portfolios from their security commitments, figuring that the post-Cold War environment eased tensions on a global scale that permitted a move towards more elastic types of linkage.

The underlying assumption for de-coupling was that it would supersede rather than counterpoise trade and security commitments. In simple terms, countries would try not to straddle the divide between antagonistic foreign partners, but instead would “silo” approaches to them so as to insulate one issue from the other. Or, they would create parallel trade/security linkages with different partners as circumstances dictated.

However plausible this may have been in theory, South American embrace of the PRC as a trade partner has alarmed the US. The result is a perverse issue-linkage where the growth of PRC-South American trade and investment is seen by the US as a potential pathway to an increased PRC military-security presence in the region. Given continued US adherence to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine when it comes to hemispheric security (which affirms that the US will militarily resist attempts by non-hemispheric powers to establish a military presence in the Western Hemisphere), that offers a chilling prospect for regional peace.

Problems of Governance and Democratic Backsliding.

The South American strategic paradox (increasing prosperity/increasing insecurity) is grounded in its mixed governance record. While relative democratic stability in the majority of countries freed citizens from the fear of state violence and gave them nominal voice in selecting their political leaders, democracy has not universally brought with it improved transparency, lesser corruption and more accountability in government (Chile and Uruguay being exceptions). In some cases it replaced dictatorial practices with an electoral veneer that better disguised the self-serving behaviour of economic and political elites.

This has led to a regional phenomenon known as “democratic backsliding,” a process in which democracies are undermined from within by presidential imposition, so-called “constitutional coups” (where legislatures manufacture justifications and use institutional procedures to impeach and remove presidents), and by a general “hardening” of the institutional order when it comes to accountability and transparency. Government processes become increasingly opaque and unresponsive to the popular will. Nepotism, patronage and clientelism rival meritocratic criteria for social and bureaucratic advancement. Efficiency in the provision of public goods and services is reduced and black and grey (informal) markets expand. In response, crime rises, disillusioned populations lose faith in democracy and disenchanted groups adopt nihilist social and political attitudes rooted in a sense of survivalist alienation. In effect, inequality, indifference and lack of opportunity undermine good governance. 

To recap: improved macroeconomic conditions boosted by increased trade have not extended to South American masses in the form of growing employment, rising wages and better public services. Corporate and individual tax evasion remains a hemispheric problem. Corruption is endemic and resources to combat crime and increase official transparency and accountability are insufficient in most countries. That prevents States from controlling their borders in efficient fashion, so the foreign trade sector becomes a magnet for illegal activities.

That is the ultimate cause of South America’ strategic paradox. Lacking responsive government and effective regulatory enforcement, the benefits of trade have not served the regional commonweal and instead have exacerbated social inequalities that increase domestic insecurity. The emergence of the PRC as the region’s largest trading partner has also caused a defensive security reaction from the US that has the potential to cause a regional security dilemma. Macroeconomic growth in South America may have improved thanks to the upsurge in foreign trade, but increased regional security has not come with it.

NOTES

¹ Andres Malamud and Luis L. Schenoni, “Latin America is Off the Global Stage and That is OK,” Foreign Policy, September 10, 2020.   https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/10/latin-america-global-stage-imperialism-geopolitics/

² For an early analysis of the contradiction, see Laura Jaitman and Stephen Machin, “Crime and Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: towards evidence-based policies,” CentrePiece, Winter 2015/2016  https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp461.pdf.

³ CEPALSTAT, Statistical Databases and Publications. United Nations, ECLASC/CEPAL, November 2023. https://statistics.cepal.org/portal/cepalstat/dashboard.html?theme=1&lang=en.

⁴ Council on Foreign Relations, “Mercosur: South America’s Fractious Trade Bloc,” Backgrounder, May 9, 2023.  https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mercosur-south-americas-fractious-trade-bloc.

⁵ US House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, “China Regional Snapshot: South America,” Foreign Affairs Committee Media Centre Press Release, October 25, 2022.  https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/china-regional-snapshot-south-america/

⁶ United Nations, ECLAC, “Value of Latin America and the Caribbean’s Goods Exports Will Fall 2% in 2023 in a Context of Great Weakness in Global Trade,” CEPAL, Press Release, November 2, 2023. https://www.cepal.org/en/pressreleases/value-latin-america-and-caribbeans-goods-exports-will-fall-2-2023-context-great.

⁷ Nicolas Devia-Valbuena and General Alberto Mejia, “How Should the US Respond to China’s Influence in Latin America?” United States Institute for Peace, August 28, 2023. https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/08/how-should-us-respond-chinas-influence-latin-america.

⁸ Cate Cadell and Marcelo Perez del Capio, “A growing global footprint for China’s space program worries Pentagon,” Washington Post, November 21, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/china-space-program-south-america-defense/?itid=hp_only-from-the-post_p004_f001.

⁹ Jeff Seldin, “China Infiltrating US “Red Zone” With Latin American Push,” Voice of America: Americas, August 4, 2023.  https://www.voanews.com/a/china-infiltrating-us-red-zone-with-latin-american-push/7212335.html.

¹⁰ Guillermo Saavedra, “China Pressures Argentina to Build Naval Base,” Dialogo Americas, January 3, 2023.  https://dialogo-americas.com/articles/china-pressures-argentina-to-build-naval-base/.

¹¹ John Grady, “Chinese Actions In South America Pose Risks to US Safety, Senior Military Commanders Tell Congress,” US Naval Institute News, March 8, 2023.  https://news.usni.org/2023/03/08/chinese-actions-in-south-america-pose-risks-to-u-s-safety-senior-military-commanders-tell-congress.

¹² Giovanni Maggi, “ Issue Linkage,” in Kyle Bagwell and Robert. W. Staiger, eds. The Handbook of Commercial Policy, Vol. 1, Part B, pp. 513-564. Elsevier/ScienceDirect, 2016.   https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2022-10/IssueLinkageDraft_041216.pdf.

¹³ Mainwaring, Scott and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán. “Why Latin America’s Democracies Are Stuck.” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 34, N. 1, 2023, pp.156-170. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.0010.

¹⁴ For an early discussion of this syndrome, see Paul G. Buchanan, “That the Lumpen Should Rule: Vulgar Capitalism in the Post-Industrial Age,” Journal of American and Comparative Cultures, V.23, N.4 (Winter 2000), p.1-14. https://www.proquest.com/openview/3e47ea2c49d289b57f0641c02cc8b592/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=29587

¹⁵ Adriana Arreaza Coll,  “Latin America’s Inequality Is Taking A Toll on Governance,” Americas Quarterly, February 8, 2023. https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/latin-americas-inequality-is-taking-a-toll-on-governance/#:~:text=Low%20educational%20and%20occupational%20mobility,in%20income%20in%20the%20world.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

In International relations, realism refers to the view that States have interests and use relative power capabilities to pursue those interests in an anarchic world order lacking a superordinate power or Leviathan (that is, a condition that Hobbes referred to as the “state of nature’). Conversely, idealism refers to the better angels and perfectibility of humankind, seeing a desire for cooperation as being equally as strong as the urge to enter into conflict with others. Constructivism tries to bridge the gap between realism and idealism by positing that the creation and expansion of international institutions designed to foster cooperation and diminish conflict is a means to constrain anarchy in world affairs. International systems analysis serves as a meta-theory that sees the world order in quasi-organic terms, as an evolving entity that is more than the sum of its aggregate parts and which has an unconscious logic and process of its own that is a collective response to the machinations of individual States and other non-State actors, thereby mirroring the invisible hand of the economic market when it comes to determining efficiency at a systemic level.

Classic realism dates back to Otto von Bismarck and has it most recent exponents in Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer. Idealism draws its inspiration from Woodrow Wilson, and constructivism owes its reputation to Alexander Wendt. International systems theory is the brainchild of Morton Kaplan. The works of these authors and others such as Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz continue to be the guideposts for current practitioners throughout the West (the list is illustrative only, as the number of authors involved in International relations theorising is great).

Realism posits that States have core and secondary interests; that threats are existential, imminent, or incidental; that States may have allies and enemies but do not have friends because interest, not affection is what defines their relationships; that wars are defensive or offensive in nature and are fought for existential and imminent reasons that can lead to pre-emptive strikes against existential and imminent threats as well as preventative attacks to reduce the possibility of an adversary reaching imminent threat status. Wars of opportunity are discouraged because they can lead to uncertain and unexpected outcomes and do not involve existential or imminent threats or core interests; wars of necessity are fought because they have to be, as they involve core interests and are fought against existential or imminent threats.

The current world moment has seen another development, one that is less salubrious in part because it originates from within authoritarian regimes like those governing Russia, the PRC, DPRK, Turkey, Iran and other contemporary dictatorships. The basic premise of this school of thought, which I will call “authoritarian realism” is that a new world order must be created that replaces the Western-centric liberal international order that has been present in world affairs for the last sixty or so years and which has dominated the landscape of international relations since the end of the Cold War. The latter is the system that we see in the form of the UN and other international organisations like the ILO, WTO, WHO, IMF, EU, OAS, OAU, PIF, SPC, NATO, SEATO, UNITAS, ASEAN, IADB, World Bank and a word salad of other regional and multilateral organisations.

For authoritarian realists, these organisations constitute an institutional straitjacket that constrains their freedom of manoeuvre on the global stage as well as that of most of what is now known as the “Global South:” post-colonial societies locked into subordinate positions as a consequence of Western imperialism and neo-imperialism. For authoritarian realists, the supposed ideals that liberal international institutions espouse and what they were constructed to pursue were done for and by Western colonial and neo-colonial powers seeking to establish an undisputed hierarchical status quo when it comes to how international affairs and foreign policy is conducted. More pointedly, in authoritarian realist eyes now is the time for that hierarchy to be challenged because the balance of power between the liberal democratic West and emerging non-Western contenders has shifted away from the former and towards the latter.

That is due to the fact that in the transitional period after the US lost its status as sole superpower “hegemon” in world affairs (stemming from 9/11, its ill-advised invasion of Iraq, long-term and futile engagement in Afghanistan and other conflict zones as well as it mounting internal divisions), the world has been moving to a new order in which other Great Powers compete for prominence, and in which the norms and rules-based liberal internationalist system has been replaced by norm erosion, norm violations and conflict on the part of uncooperative nation-States and non-State actors pursuing their goals outside of established institutional parameters.

This is, in other words, the state of nature or anarchy that Hobbes wrote about on which realists are most focused upon. Liberal rules and norms are no longer universally binding so the default option is to use national power capabilities to pursue individual and collective interests unfettered by self-binding adherence to dysfunctional and biased global institutions. It should therefore not be surprising that a new global arms race has developed over the past decade involving the full spectrum of force, including advanced submarines and nuclear-tipped intercontinental and intermediate missile systems.

In realist views power is relative rather than absolute and covers a host of material and ideological dimensions–economic base, diplomatic acumen, military might, internal political and social stability and ideological consensus, and so forth. Adversaries must calibrate their responses to others based on their assessments of relative aggregate power vis a viseach other as well as other States and international actors. For authoritarian realists it is clear that the West is in decline on most power dimensions, especially morally, culturally and politically as exemplified by the US in the last decade. The West still has economic, military and diplomatic power, but the rise of the PRC, India (nominally democratic but increasingly authoritarian in practice), Russia, Turkey, Iran and lesser dictatorships, coupled with an rightwing authoritarian shift in places like Hungary, the US, Italy and France, demonstrates that the halcyon days of liberal democracy are now past. All talk of climate change, work-life balance, LBGTQ rights and indigenous voice notwithstanding, progressivism (either class-or identity-based) is not making significant gains on the world stage, at least in the eyes of realists in both the West as well as the South and East.

Most fundamentally, what separates the democratic and authoritarian realists is not power per se, but values. For authoritarian realists the liberal democratic West is in decline, overcome by its own excesses, degeneracy, corruption, inefficiencies, vacilliatory leaders and other affronts to the “natural” or “traditional” order of things. In contrast, modern authoritarians (including those in the West) value hierarchy, efficiency, unity of purpose, the demographic superiority of their dominant in-groups, decisive leadership and strength of resolve. Freedoms of speech, association and features such as judicial independence from political authority are seen by authoritarians as easily exploitable Achilles Heels through which division and disunity can be fomented in liberal democracies using disinformation, misinformation, graft and other influence campaigns. Liberal democrats are egalitarian “betas.” Authoritarian realists are self-identified “Alphas.” Consequently, the current word moment is seen as a window of opportunity for authoritarian realists to press their relative (Alpha) advantage in order to re-draw the global geopolitical map and its institutional superstructure. This redrawing project can be considered the authoritarian (neo) version of constructivism on the world stage.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel are examples of how Russia practices authoritarian realism directly and indirectly. The idea in the first instance was to redraw the map of Europe via direct aggression on a former vassal state, assuming that NATO and the EU were too divided and weak after BREXIT and Trump when it came to a collective response. That would impede military support for Ukraine, thereby facilitating a Russian victory on Europe’s southeaster flank, something that would further divide and weaken European resolve to confront Russia, leading in turn to more Russian “assertiveness” along its Western Front. Although that assumption proved false and in fact has backfired at least for the moment, the original concept of exploiting perceived Western weakness was and is clearly at play given ongoing divisions within Western nations about if and how to continue supporting the Ukrainian military effort. The end game of that conflict has yet to be written and could well play into Russia’s favour if extended indefinitely until Western electorates tire of supporting governments that continue to direct resources towards someone else’s war.

Hamas’s attack on Israel came after long-term planning, training and equipping involving its two major sponsors: Iran and Russia (who are military partners). Here the goal is to use the attack and the expected Israeli over-reaction (collective punishment of Gazan civilians for Hamas’s crimes) to sow discord within the Arab world and beyond. Although the official response from most Western governments and corporate media is (at times jingoistically) pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the world have laid bare the broader social-political divisions aggregated around the conflict. Moreover, other than the US and UK, no major power is offering military support to Israel, and China and Russia have both condemned the Israeli response without mentioning Hamas in their pronouncements (and in fact are silent partners with Iran in supplying war materiel to Shiite militias like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis and the al-Sadr brigades in Iraq, even while both maintain strong economic ties to Israel). Sunni Arab governments such as those of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have worked to normalise relations with Israel, have now had to backtrack in the face of unrest emanating from the Arab street, and the prospects of the conflict expanding to several fronts in Southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights and West Bank and even spilling over into a major regional war involving Syria, Iran and their patrons cannot be discounted. All of which will help redefine the geopolitics of the Middle East as well as its relationship to extra-regional interlocutors regardless of the specific outcome of this latest iteration of what has become a perpetual war.

In the South and East China Seas, the Sino-Indian border and the borderlands of Tibet and Bhutan, the PRC has engaged in aggressive military diplomacy, using force to annex foreign territories and present a new territorial status quo to its neighbours. As with the Russian interventions in Georgia and Ukraine, these usurpations have been declared unlawful by international courts and condemned by international organisations like the UN. And yet, because of alack of enforcement power–and will–on the part of the International community as currently represented by its institutional edifice of regional bodies and international organisations, these moves have been only lightly challenged, gone largely unpunished and certainly have not been reversed. The result is a new status quo in East Asia in which PRC sovereignty is claimed and de facto accepted well to the West of its recognised interior land borders and far to the South of its littoral seas.

PLANS carrier Liaoning (CV-16) conducting air operations with Shenyang J-15 PLAn fighter. Source: Wikipedia Commons 2022.

In the authoritarian realist mindset, moves to take advantage of the current moment in order to redraw the international geopolitical order, including its institutional foundations, are critical to their survival as independent powers. The PRC is driven by a desire to finally achieve its rightful place as a Great Power after centuries of humiliation by foreign powers. For Russia it is about re-claiming its place as an Empire. For lesser dictatorships it is about using national power to move unconstrained in the global arena, unencumbered by the protocols, norms and niceties of the liberal internationalist order. For all of these authoritarians, marshalling their resources in a common effort to undermine and replace Western institutions is a giant step towards real freedom of action in which relative power is the sole determinant of what a nation-State can and cannot do when it comes to foreign relations. If one is charitable, there might even be a bit of idealism attached to these various projects, as authoritarian realists use soft power applications in order to help the Global South out from under the yoke of Western post-colonial imperialism once and for all even as they empower themselves by doing so.

Some of this is evident in projects like the PRC Belt and Road Initiative, which is a global developmental project that is designed to challenge and replace Western developmental assistance and cement the PRC’s position as the foremost provider of infrastructure investment and financial aid to the Global South. In parallel, both Russia and China have expanded their military alliance networks in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa while courting more engagement with Latin American and Central Asia countries (India and Pakistan, respectively). Russia and the PRC have quietly revived and assumed stewardship of the so-called BRICS bloc of nations, including expanding its membership to include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 2024. On both economic and military fronts, authoritarian realists are constructing an alternative to the liberal international order.

All of this manoeuvring has added a new twist to the long transitional moment that the international system is undergoing and in fact has altered the way in which the emerging systemic realignment is being shaped. Rather than the anticipated move from a unipolar world dominated by the US to a multipolar world in which the US shared space as a Great Power with emerging and re-emerging Great Powers like the PRC, India, Russia, Japan and perhaps Brazil and/or others, what is coming into shape is a new bipolar world made up of competing constellations or networks of like-minded nation-States, to which are being added non-State technology actors looking for economic opportunity in increasingly loose regulatory environments brought about by the erosion of international rules and norms in the field of transnational commerce.

Multipolarity is not always symmetric in nature or geopolitics. This is an aspartic acid molecule. Source: Wikimedia Commons 2017.

There is some time to go before the full shape of the new bipolar “constellation” order is confirmed. Authoritarian realists will retain their own nation-centric views even if their interests overlap in the bipolar constellation format. Western nations will need to revise their approaches to world affairs and in particular their positions vis a vis the post-colonial Global South given the competition for the South’s attention provided by the authoritarian realists. All of this makes for uncertain and fluid times in which the best hedge is multi-level power multiplication with focused application by the emerging constellations of competing States and associated non-State actors. How the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza turn out will give us a relatively short-term glimpse into what the geopolitical order will look like by the end of the decade because technology, will and multinational commitment are now being put to the test in both new and old ways in those arenas.

Two things are worth noting. At this critical juncture it is by no means assured which side of the emergent bipolar constellation balance of power will be favoured over the long term. What is certain is that only one side is actively working to re-make the world order in that image, Those are the authoritarian realists.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

Last year the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Solomon Islands signed a bilateral security agreement that includes police training and port visits by Chinese security advisors and naval vessels. This includes training in “crowd control” and protection of Chinese investments in the Solomons and opens the door to the possibility of forward basing of Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) assets in the archipelago. Needless to say, Western governments, including the US, Australia and New Zealand, reacted negatively to the deal (whose terms have not been entirely released), as have some members of the Pacific Island Forum community.

This year, the Australia, the UK and the US formally signed the AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement whereby Australia would first acquire, then manufacture nuclear powered submarines based on US and British attack submarine designs. The PRC and several Pacific Island Forum (PIF) states reacted negatively to the agreement (which may violate the 1997 Treaty of Rarotonga establishing a South Pacific nuclear free zone), although other Western Pacific Rim nations were either muted or supportive in their responses.

Also this year the US and Papua New Guinea (PNG) signed a bilateral security agreement that will allow US forces to operate on and from PNG soil and which includes a significant economic development component as part of the package. More recently, Japan and New Zealand signed a bilateral military cooperation agreement that is focused on joint operations in the South Pacific, initially for humanitarian reasons (such as the recent disaster relief efforts after the volcanic eruption in Tonga, where Japan participated) but opening the possibility of future joint military training and exercises in kinetic operations, especially in the West and SW Pacific maritime security environment. This follows on an intelligence-sharing agreement between Japan and NZ signed last year that allows better Japanese access to the 5 Eyes signals and technical intelligence collection alliance involving the US, UK, Australia and Canada as well as NZ, and which may pave the way for eventual Japanese integration into the alliance. Since intelligence sharing is part of military synergies and interoperability between different armed forces, this sequence of bilateral agreements would seem to be a natural progression in the NZ-Japanese security relationship.

What does all of this have in common? it is part of what might be seen as balance of power gamesmanship between the PRC and various rival powers in the SW Pacific region. Balances of power are, as the name implies, about balancing the power of one or more states against that of other states. These balances involve military, economic and diplomatic power and/or influence projection. Some so-called balances of power are actually not balanced at all and involve the domination by one state of a given strategic arena. This was the case for the US in the greater Pacific basin from WW2 up until recently. Now, with the decline of the US as a unipolar international “hegemon” and the rise of an emerging multipolar world that includes the PRC as a Great Power contender, the Western reaches of the Pacific basin have become a zone of contestation in which US and Chinese influence and power projection compete.

Other balances of power may be between two or more states sometimes operating as partners against common rivals and sometimes operating as sub-sets of a larger arrangement. Most balance of power subsets involve regional subsets of global rivalries.For example, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were European regional balancing vehicles contained within the larger bi-polar balance of power between the US and USSR during the Cold War. The contemporary rivalry between the Sunni Arab oligarchies and the Persian theocratic regime in Iran is a Middle East example of a regional balance of power in which competition for influence and support for armed proxies is part of the balancing game.

In East and Southeast Asia, several states have joined US-led coalitions in order to balance out the increasing PRC military presence in that part of the world. The Philippines, Singapore, Malyasia, Vietnam and Thailand, to say nothing of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, all have bilateral military-security agreements with the US that are specifically designed to help counter Chinese power projection in Western Pacific Rim area of operations (AOR).

A way to think about this multi-tiered/multi-faceted geopolitical balancing is to envision as what economists call a “nested” game, i.e. a game or games played within a larger game or games. The largest game sets the broad contours of what happens within it, with smaller games or subsets focused on specific meso- or micro-aspects of the larger (macro) game and with each level of games reinforcing balancing plays on the others. A less academic way is to think of balance of power games as being akin to a Matryoshka Doll with the largest game holding within it a number of smaller subsets that give internal substance to the overall representation.

The action/reaction dynamic between the PRC and rival powers involves a) the attempt to ring-fence the PRC in terms of its power projection in order to limit its capability to influence, via the threat of coercion or otherwise, regional politics; and b) the attempts by the PRC to break out of the corralling project erected against it. Arguments aside about whether the breakout move or the ring-fencing project came first, that is now a fait accompli. The dynamic is out in the open in the South China Sea, where the PRC has abandoned its insular, land-based strategic perspective and announced its maritime presence with its island-building project in international waters and its increased deployments of armed vessels off the coasts of its littoral neighbours as well as out into the blue waters of the West and Southwestern Pacific.

In return, the US has shifted sixty percent of its naval assets to the Pacific (rather its traditional focus on the Atlantic), and moved significant contingents of long-range bombers and fighter aircraft to bases in Guam, Okinawa and in the near future Australia. It has bolstered troop numbers and rotations in places like the Philippines, South Korea and Australia and increased the tempo of joint exercises with a host of regional partners. Likewise, the French have increased the size of their Pacific army and naval fleets (headquartered in Noumea and Papeete, respectively), as well as the number of exercises with Australian and US forces in the SW Pacific. The ring-fencing versus breakout balancing project, in other words, is well underway.

For a podcast discussion based on this post, please head to “A View from Afar.”

This begs a larger question. Does the PRC have legitimate interests in the Pacific and as a Great Power should those interests be understood and respected? Think of the Belt and Road Initiative and other large Chinese investments in foreign infrastructure development and resource extraction and the great risks that they carry. Accordingly, the PRC has an interest in maintaining access to major sea lanes and potential resource opportunities in the Pacific region. The question is whether it wants to work in accordance with international norms and in concert with the international community on things like freedom of navigation and regulation of seabed mining or does it wish to control sea lanes and set its own rules when it comes to exploiting natural resources in the Western Pacific.

The issue seems to be not about the legitimacy of PRC interests but the way it behaves in pursuit of them. The South China Sea is an example: bullying of neighbors, violating international norms with its island-building projects, the illegitimate extension of sovereignty claims over the whole South China Sea basin, the attempt to claim and control key choke points in international waters like the Taiwan Straits. All of these moves would seem to set a bad precedent for PRC power projection aspirations further South and are therefore the basis for regional concern about its growing presence. Then there is the issue of governance and PRC checkbook/debt diplomacy reinforcing corruption in the PIF states.

All of this suggests that, contrary to expectations two decades ago, the PRC behaves like a bad global/regional “citizen.” It violates norms and the rules based order and ignores established codes of conduct regarding the pursuit of national interests when projecting power and influence abroad. It is militarily and diplomatically aggressive when asserting its claims abroad, and as the pandemic response demonstrates, it is less than transparent and truthful when dealing with the motivations for and consequences of its actions.

To be sure, it is equally true that the “rules-based international order” was made for and by Western Great Powers before and after WW2, and the PRC is correct in noting that when calling for a new global regime that is not dominated by Western interests. Western colonialism and neo-imperialism has much to answer for. But it should also be understood that the setting of international rules by Western powers was as much a form of self-limiting strategy o themselves as it was an imposed (Western dominated) status quo.

That is, the Western great powers agreed to set rules that limited their relative freedom of action in the international sphere as much as it consolidated their dominant positions within it. The reason for this was that by establishing mutually accepted self-limiting rules as codes of conduct in various arenas (say, trade), Western powers reduced the chances that competition could turn into conflict because mediation and arbitration clauses are part of the rules-based order. More than dominate the global South, they wanted to reduce the risk of unfettered competition on any front leading to conflict among them.

One of the assumptions that underpinned inviting the PRC into the WTO and World Bank was that the PRC would understand and accept the self-limiting strategy that was the conceptual basis of the rules-based order. It was assumed that by playing by the rules the PRC could be integrated peacefully as an emerging Great Power into the community of nations. The trouble is that those assumptions proved false and under Xi Jinping the PRC has embarked on a project of individual aggrandizement rather than multinational cooperation. In its military posturing and wolf warrior diplomacy, violation of things like intellectual property and patent rights, use of telecommunication technologies for espionage, violation of resource protection regulations etc., the PRC’s behaviour shows its contempt for the self-limiting premise of the rules-based order.

That could well be what alarms the West as much as any specific instance of Chinese aggression. If the rules-based order can be successfully ignored or challenged, then a turn to a Hobbesian state of nature or international state of anarchy becomes potential reality. Russia has already signalled its rejection of the rules-based order and is in a strategic alliance with the PRC that explicitly claims a need for the establishment of a new world order. Many in the global South, tired of Western imperialism, interventionism and rigging of the trade and diplomatic rules and mores of the current “liberal” internationalist system., have indicated support for a new global regime led by Russia and the PRC. Thus the concern in the West and allied nations is not about any specific action on the part of the PRC but about said actions being a trigger point that not only could lead to military conflict but to a collapse of the international consensus in support of the rules-based order (and of liberal internationalism in general).

The West-led ring-fencing coalition will argue that the matter is not about thwarting PRC ambitions but about getting it to accept the mutual self-limiting logic of the li, rules-based liberal international order. The Chinese will argue that the issue is precisely about thwarting PRC breakout ambitions to national greatness on the world stage.

In the end the argument will be made in Western security circles and amongst their allies that the regional balancing acts going on in the Western Pacific are due to the need for a defensive response to contemporary PRC military-diplomatic belligerency that, along with other authoritarian challenges, attempt to usurp the rules-based liberal international order. The PRC will counter that its breakout policies are designed to overcome years of Western-imposed containment pursuant to claiming its rightful place as a global Great Power leading a revamped multipolar international system. The arguments one way or the other are themselves evidence of geopolitical balancing at work, but the consequences should miscalculations occur or mistakes happen have the potential to make for much more than an imbalance in or rebalancing of relative power projection capabilities in the West and Southwest Pacific. At that point mutual self-limitation as a foreign policy consensus may become a thing of the past.

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Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

What does the Geopolitical balancing that is taking place in the West and South-West Pacific mean for the region and the globe?

Analysis: Paul and Selwyn consider the question from several angles, and provide a context to the headlines that suggest both global powers, the USA and the Peoples Republic of China, are on a collision-course toward conflict.

Paul takes us through the US-PNG and Japan-NZ bilateral security/military agreements as a balancing response to the PRC-Solomons security agreement.

In addition, Paul considers the question: Does the PRC have legitimate interests in the Pacific and, as a great power, should those interests be understood and respected?

Selwyn considers whether China’s ascendancy as a global power threatens the United States’ position as the perceived ‘preeminent defender’ of the Global Order?

And Selwyn raises for debate, highlighting what the two global powers’ messaging was at the Shangri-La security dialogue that took place over last weekend.

Paul then analyses what this all means for the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

Recommended Links:

•  KiwiPolitico.com Ref. https://www.kiwipolitico.com/2023/06/…
•  Shangri-La Security Dialogue; General Li Shangfu, State Councilor; Minister of National Defense, China Ref. https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/med…
•  Shangri-La Security Dialogue; Lloyd J Austin III, Secretary of Defense, US Ref. https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/med…

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE: Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

They recommended the audience does so via EveningReport’s YouTube channel, as Facebook has undergone significant changes. Here’s the link: Youtube (remember to subscribe to the channel).

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here, also YouTube podcasts and the Podcast hosts below.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

PODCAST: In this the second episode of A View from Afar podcast for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning analyse the question:

• How stable is Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin’s regime?

PAUL AND SELWYN look at this question from a number of angles, and, reveal shifts within the regime’s control and structure that may surprise many in the West.

In this episode Paul deep dives into the dynamics between the mercenary Wagner Group’s commander Yevgeny Prigozhin, his relationship with Putin, the Kremlin, and the estrangement from Russia’s military generals and Putin appointees.

Paul and Selwyn consider: What is going on here? What is Prigozhin’s end-game? Does he have the support of Putin? Or is that support conditional on successes on the Ukraine conflict frontline?

And Selwyn digs into the pillars of power in the Russian Federation, in particular:

• Putin as the head of Russia’s personalised autocracy
• The Putin-era Oligarchs
• Russia’s State military
• And the rise of Private armies and militia.

Then Paul take us, contextually and comparatively, through all of this complexity so we can more accurately assess the big question: How stable is Putin’s regime?

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE: Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

They recommended the audience does so via EveningReport’s YouTube channel, as Facebook has undergone significant changes. Here’s the link: Youtube (remember to subscribe to the channel).

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here, also YouTube podcasts and the Podcast hosts below.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

LIVE@MIDDAY NZ Time – 8pm US EDT – In this the first episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning will examine the pros and cons of New Zealand, and other APAC nations, joining the AUKUS security defence pact.

Specifically, Paul and Selwyn will examine the following questions:

* What is AUKUS’s purpose?

* What are the risks to New Zealand’s national and public interest?

* What does AUKUS ‘success’ look like? What could its failure look like?

ALSO, Paul and Selwyn will headline:

* The latest on the US Pentagon leaks. What really is happening here?

* The Global Geopolitical Theatre and how stable is Russian Federation’s president, Vladimir Putin’s regime?

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE: Paul and Selwyn invite and encourage you to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

They recommend you do so via EveningReport’s YouTube channel, as Facebook is undergoing significant changes. Here’s the link: Youtube (remember to subscribe to the channel).

You can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

After the Cold War the consensus among Western military strategists was that the era of Big Wars, defined as peer conflict between large states with full spectrum military technologies, was at an end, at least for the foreseeable future. The strategic emphasis shifted to so-called “small wars” and low-intensity conflicts where asymmetric warfare would be increasingly carried out by Western special forces against state and non-state actors who used irregular warfare tactics in order to compensate for and mask their comparative military weakness vis a vis large Western states. Think of the likes of Somalian militias, Indian Ocean pirates, narco-guerrillas like the Colombian FARC, ELN and Mexican cartels, al-Qaeda, ISIS/DAESH, Boko Haram, al-Shabbab, Abu Sayyaf and Hezbollah as the adversaries of that moment

Although individual Western states configured their specific interpretations of the broader strategic shift to their individual geopolitical circumstances, the broader rationale of SOLIC (Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict) made sense. The former Soviet Union was in disarray, with Russia militarily weakened, diplomatically shrunken, economically plundered and political crippled. Its former Republics were yet unable to independently exploit their material resources, and some of its former vassal states in the Warsaw Pact were seeking NATO membership. NATO itself had lost it main purpose for being, since the threat of major war with the USSR (the original rationale for its creation) no longer existed. The PRC had yet to enjoy the economic fruits of fully embracing capitalism in order to buy, borrow and steal its way to great power status and thereby shift away from its defensive land-based strategic posture. In a swathe of regions “failed states” awash in local armed disputes replaced proxy regimes and propped up despots. In other words, there were no “big” threats that required “big” wars because there were no “peers” to fight. The strategic emphasis shifted accordingly to countering these types of threats, often under the guise of “peace-keeping” and nation-building multinational missions such as the ill-fated ISAF mission in Afghanistan.

More broadly, the strategic shift seemed right because the world had moved from a tight bipolar system during the Cold War, where the US and USSR led military blocs armed with nuclear weapons, to a unipolar system in which the US was the military, economic and political “hegemon” dominating global affairs. At the time US strategists believed that they could single-handedly prevail in 2.5 major regional wars against any adversary or combination of adversaries.That turned out to be a pipe dream but it was the order of the day until the sequels to 9/11. Even then, the so-called “war against terrorism” was asymmetric and largely low-intensity in comparative terms. Other than the initial phases of the invasion of Iraq, all other conflicts of the early 2000s have been asymmetric, with coalitions of Western actors fighting much weaker assortments of irregulars who use guerrilla tactics on land and who did not contest the air and maritime spaces around them. As has happened in the past, the longer these conflicts went on the better the chances of an “insurgent” victory. Afghanistan is the best modern example of that truism but the persistence of al-Shabbab in Northern Africa or emergence of ISIS/DAESH from the Sunni Triangle in Iraq’s Anbar Province in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime demonstrates the validity of the notion that guerrilla wars are best fought by insurgents as protracted wars on home terrain. In other words, apply a death by a thousand cuts strategy to foreign invaders until their will to prolong the fight is sapped.

When I was in the Pentagon in the early 1990s the joke was that bomber pilots and tank operators would need to update the resumes in order to become commercial pilots and bus or truck drivers. Money moved away from big ticket items and into the SOLIC community, with a rapid expansion of SEAL, Green Beret, Ranger and Marine Recon units designed to operate in small group formations behind or within enemy lines for extended periods of time. If the Big War moment culminated in “Shock and Awe,” the SOLIC strategy was two pronged when it came to counter-insurgency (COIN) objectives: either decapitation strikes against “high value targets” or a hearts and minds campaign in which cultural operations (such as building schools, bridges and toilets) supplemented kinetic operations led by allied indigenous forces using the elements of military superiority provided by Western forces. This required familiarisation with local cultures and indigenous terrain, so investment in language training and anthropological and sociological studies of societies in which the SOLIC units operated was undertaken, something that was not a priority under Big War strategies because the objective there is to kill enemies and incapacitate their war effort as efficiently as possible, not to understand their culture or their motivations.

An Afghan National Army Special Forces soldier maintains security from a temporary patrol base in Herat province, Afghanistan, Feb. 17, 2013. Coalition force members and ANASF conducted satellite patrols from a temporary patrol base in order lure insurgents out of hiding. Afghan National Security Forces are taking the lead in security operations to bring security and stability to the people of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Sgt. Pete Thibodeau/Released)

SOLIC turned out to be a mixed bag. The US and its allies found out, yet again, that much as like in Viet Nam, indigenous guerrilla forces were often ingenious, inspired and persistent. They learned to get out of the way when Western forces were massed against them, and they knew how to utilise hit and run tactics to frustrate their enemies. It was only when they made mistakes, like ISIS/DAESH’s attempt to create a territorially based Caliphate in Northern Irag and Northern Syria, and then engaged in a protracted defence of its base city Mosul, that they were decisively defeated. Even then remnants of this group and others continue to regroup and return to the fight even after suffering tremendous setbacks on the battlefields. As the saying goes, it is not who suffers the least losses that wins the fight, but instead it is those who can sustain the most losses and keep on fighting that ultimately prevail in a protracted irregular warfare scenario. Again, the Taliban prove the point.

During the time that the West was engaged in its SOLIC adventures, the PRC, Russia and emerging powers like India invested heavily in military modernisation and expansion programs. While the US and its allies expended blood and treasure on futile efforts to bring democracy to deeply entrenched authoritarian societies from the barrel of a gun, emerging great powers concentrated their efforts on developing military power commensurate with their ambitions. Neither the PRC, Russia or India did anything to support the UN mandates authorising armed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact Russia and the PRC funnelled small arms to the Taliban via Pakistan, another yet nuclear armed but unstable state whose utility lies in its strategic ambiguity when it comes to big power conflicts. That fence-straddling posture will eventually be called.

However the future specifics unfold, that move to new or renewed militarisation was an early sign that the unipolar moment was coming to an end and that a multipolar order was in the making. Meanwhile, politics in the West turned inwards and rightwards, the US withdrew from Iraq and ten years later from Afghanistan without making an appreciable difference on local culture and society, with the entire liberal democratic world responding weakly to the PRC’s neo-imperialist behaviour in its near abroad and increasing Russian bellicosity with regards to former Soviet states, Georgia and Ukraine in particular (to say nothing of their direct influence operations and political interference in places like the US, UK, Germany and Australia). The challenges to US “hegemony” were well underway long before Donald Trump dealt US prestige and power a terminal blow.

Things on the strategic front came to a head when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The West and NATO had responded weakly to the annexation of the Donbas region and Crimea by pro-Russian separatists and Russian “Green Men” ( professional soldiers in green informs without distinctive insignia) in 2014. The same had occurred in Georgia in 2008, when Russian forces successfully backed pro-Russian irredentist groups in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Vladimir Putin read the West’s response to these two incursions as a sign of weakness and division within NATO and the liberal democratic world in general. He figured that an invasion of Ukraine would be quick and relatively painless because many Ukrainians are of Russian descent and would welcome his troops and prefer to be part of Mother Russia rather than a Ukrainian government presided over by a comedian. NATO and the US would dither and divide over how to respond and Russia would prevail with its land grab. And then, of course, Russia has a legion of hackers dedicated to subverting Western democracy in cyberspace and on social media (including in NZ) and better yet, has acolytes and supporters in high places, particularly in the US Republican Party and conservative political movements the world over.

In spite of all of these points of leverage, none of the Kremlin’s assumptions about the invasion turned out to be true. Russian intelligence was faulty, framed to suit Putin’s vainglorious desires rather than objectively inform him of what was awaiting his forces. Instead of a walk-over, the invasion stiffened Ukrainian resolve, ethnic Russians in Ukraine did not overwhelmingly welcome his troops and instead of dividing, NATO reunified and even has begin to expand with the upcoming addition of Finland and Sweden now that the original threat of the Russian Bear (and the spectre of the USSR) is back as the unifying agent.

Meanwhile the PRC has increased its threats against Taiwan, completely militarised significant parts of the South China Sea, encroached on the territorial waters and some island possessions of neighbouring littoral states, engaged in stealthy territorial expansion in places like Bhutan, clashed with Indian forces in disputed Himalayan territory and cast a blind eye on the provocative antics of its client state, North Korea. It has used soft power and direct influence campaigns, including wide use of bribery, to accrue influence in Africa, Latin America and the South Pacific. It arms Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in spite of their less than splendid regime characteristics. It violates international treaties and conventions such as the Law of the Sea, the sovereignty of airspace over other nation’s territories and various fishery protection compacts. It uses its state-backed companies for espionage purposes, engages in industrial espionage and intellectual property theft on grand scale and acts like an environmental vandal in its quest for raw material imports from other parts of the world (admittedly, it is not alone in this). It does not behave, in other words as a responsible, law-abiding international citizen. And it is now armed to the teeth, including a modernised missile fleet that is clearly designed to be used against US forces in the Western Pacific and beyond, including the US mainland if nuclear war becomes a possibility.

PLAN Marines practice joint amphibious assault exercises with Russian Marines in 2017. Photo: Xinghua.

All of this sabre rattling and actual war-mongering by the PRC, Russia and allies like Iran and North Korea were reason enough for Western strategists to reconsider the Big War thesis. But it is the actual fighting in Ukraine that has jolted analysts to re-valuing full spectrum warfare from the seabed to outer space.

Since 2016 the US Defense Department has begin to shift its strategic gaze towards fighting Big Wars. In its 2022 National Defense Strategy and related documents, this orientation is explicit, mentioning north the PRC and Russia as main threats.For its part, the PRC has responded in kind and warns that US “interventionism” will pay a heavy price should it interfere with China’s rightful claims on its near abroad (which on Chinese maps extend well into the Pacific). The DPRK is accelerating its ballistic missile tests and openly talking about resuming nuclear warhead testing. India is going full bore with aircraft carrier and submarine fleet expansion. Germany is re-arming as its supplies Ukraine with increasingly sophisticated battle systems while the UK and Australia are raising their defense spending above 2 percent of GDP (the much vaunted but until recently ignored NATO standard). France has withdrawn from its SOLIC operations in North and Central Africa in order to prepare for larger conflicts involving its core interests. Japan has revised its long-standing pacifist constitution and has begun to add offensive weapons into its inventory as well as more closely integrating with the 5 Eyes Anglophone signals intelligence network.

The arms race is on and the question now is whether a security dilemma is being created that will lead to a devastating miscalculation causing a major war (security dilemmas are a situation where one State, seeing that a rival State is arming itself seemingly out of proportion to its threat environment, begins to arm itself in response, thereby prompting the rival State to increase its military expenditures even more, leading to a spiralling escalation of armament purchases and deployments that at some point can lead to a misreading of a situation and an armed clash that in turn escalates into war).

The race to the Big War is also being fuelled by middle powers like those of the Middle East (Israel included) and even Southeast Asia, where States threatened by Chinese expansionism are doubling down on military modernisation programs. A number of new security agreements such as the Quad and AUKUS have been signed into force, exacerbating PRC concerns that its being ring-fenced by hostile Western adversaries and their Asian allies. As another saying goes, “perception is everything.”

None of this means that large States will abandon SOLIC anytime soon. Special forces will be used against armed irregular groups throughout the world as the occasion requires. But in terms of military strategic doctrines, all of the major powers are now preparing for the next Big War. That is precisely why alliances are being renewed or created, because allied firepower is a force multiplier that can prove decisive in the battle theater.

One thing needs to be understood about Big Wars. The objective is that they be short and to the point. That is, overwhelming force is applied in the most efficient way in order to break the enemy’s physical capabilities and will to fight in the shortest amount of time. Then a political outcome is imposed. What military leaders do not want is what is happening to the Russians in Ukraine: bogged down by a much smaller force fighting on home soil with the support of other large States that see the conflict as a proxy for the real thing. The idea is get the fight over with as soon as possible, which means bringing life back to the notion of “overwhelming force,” but this time against a peer competitor.

B-2 Stealth Bomber on training run. Photo: USAF.

The trickle down effects of this strategic shift are being felt in Australasia. Singapore has agreed to hosting forward basing facilities for a US littoral combat ship and its shore-based complement as well as regular port calls by US Navy capital ships such as aircraft carriers. The Philippines have renewed a bilateral defense pact with the US after years of estrangement. Australia has aligned its strategic policy with that of the US and with the signing of the AUKUS agreement on nuclear-powered submarines and adjacent military technologies has become a full fledged US military ally across the leading edges of military force (Australia will now become only the second nation that the US shares nuclear submarine technologies with, after the UK). Even New Zealand is making the shift, with recent Defense White Papers and other command announcements all framing the upcoming strategic environment as one involving great power competition (in which the PRC is seen as the regional disruptor) with the potential for conflict in the South and Western Pacific (with a little concern about the adverse impact of climate change of Pacific communities thrown in). In other words, the times they are a’changin’ in New Zealand’s strategic landscape. For NZ, comfort of being in a benign strategic environment no longer applies.

It remains to be seen how long New Zealand’s foreign policy elite fully comprehend what their military commanders are telling them about what is on the strategic horizon. They may well still cling to the idea that they can trade preferentially with the PRC, stay out of Russian inspired conflicts and yet receive full security guarantees from its Anglophone partners. But if they indeed think that way, they are in for an unpleasant surprise because one way or another NZ will be pulled into the next Big War whether it likes it or not.

Analysis syndicated by 36th Parallel Assessments –

LIVE@MIDDAY NZ Time – 6pm USEST – In this, the 24th episode of A View from Afar for 2022 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning will examine whether there is, in reality, such a thing as foreign policy independence in today’s world.

Specifically, Paul and Selwyn will examine the following questions:

• What does it mean to be foreign policy independent, and what would independence look like?
• How is foreign policy independence different from foreign policy autonomy and flexibility?
• What factors inhibit or constrain foreign policy independence (domestic and international)?
• In an interdependent world can FP independence be a realistic objective?
• And finally: is FP independence possible for a small state in this era, if it ever was, and conversely, do great powers really exercise independence in their foreign affairs?

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE: Paul and Selwyn invite and encourage you to interact while they are live with questions and comments. They recommend you do so via EveningReport’s YouTube channel, as Facebook is undergoing significant changes. Here’s the link: Youtube (remember to subscribe to the channel).

You can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

In this, the 22nd episode of A View from Afar for 2022 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning deep dive into the consequences of the United States midterm elections.

In particular Paul and Selwyn examine how an historically strong performance by the Democrats bolsters the reputation and abilities of US President Joe Biden on the world stage and domestically.

Also, they examine what does the GOP’s poor performance in the midterm elections mean for Trumpism, Trump, the Republican Party, and the MAGA faction that has, for quite a time now, stifled conservative voices within the Grand Old Party.

And, of course, Paul and Selwyn examine Donald Trump’s announcement that he will seek to be the GOP’s candidate to take back the presidency in 2024.

You can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.