Tag Archive for: Ukraine

British public opinion on foreign policy: President Trump, Ukraine, China, Defence spending and AUKUS

Results snapshot

President Trump

  • Britons support an open and engaged foreign policy role for the United Kingdom. In light of the re-election of President Donald Trump, 40% believe Britain should continue to maintain its current active level of engagement in world affairs, and 23% believe it should play a larger role.
  • Just 16% of Britons support a less active United Kingdom on the world stage.
  • When asked what Britain’s response should be if the United States withdraws its financial and military support from Ukraine, 57% of Britons would endorse the UK either maintaining (35%) or increasing (22%) its contributions to Ukraine. One-fifth would prefer that the UK reduces its contributions to Ukraine.

UK–China relations

  • Just a quarter (26%) of Britons support the UK Government’s efforts to increase engagement with China in the pursuit of economic growth and stabilised diplomatic relations.
  • In comparison, 45% of Britons would either prefer to return to the more restricted level of engagement under the previous government (25%) or for the government to reduce its relations with Beijing even further (20%).
  • A large majority of Britons (69%) are concerned about the increasing degree of cooperation between Russia and China. Conservative and Labour voters share similarly high levels of concern, and Britons over 50 years of age are especially troubled about the trend of adversary alignment.

Defence and security

  • When asked whether the UK will need to spend more on defence to keep up with current and future global security challenges, a clear two-thirds (64%) of the British people agree. Twenty-nine per cent of Britons strongly agree that defence spending should increase. Just 12% disagree that the UK will need to spend more.
  • The majority of Britons believe that collaboration with allies on defence and security projects like AUKUS will help to make the UK safer (55%) and that partnerships like AUKUS focusing on developing cutting-edge technologies with Britain’s allies will help to make the UK more competitive towards countries like China (59%).
  • Britons are somewhat less persuaded that AUKUS will succeed as a deterrent against Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, although the largest group of respondents (44%) agree that it will.

Brief survey methodology and notes

Survey design and analysis: Sophia Gaston

Field work: Opinium

Field work dates: 8–10 January 2025

Weighting: Weighted to be nationally and politically representative

Sample: 2,050 UK adults

The field work for this report was conducted by Opinium through an online survey platform, with a sample size of 2,050 UK adults aged 18 and over. This sample size is considered robust for public opinion research and aligns with industry standards. With 2,000 participants, the margin of error for reported figures is approximately ±2.3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Beyond this sample size, the reduction in the margin of error becomes minimal, making this size both statistically sufficient and practical for drawing meaningful conclusions with reliable representation of the UK adult population. For the full methodological statement, see Appendix 1 of this report.

Notes

  1. Given the subject matter of this survey, objective and impartial contextual information was provided at the beginning of questions. There are some questions for which fairly substantial proportions of respondents were unsure of their answers. All ‘Don’t knows’ are reported.
  2. The survey captured voters for all political parties, and non-voters; however, only the findings for the five largest parties are discussed in detail in this report, with the exception of one question (6C), in which it was necessary to examine the smaller parties as the source of a drag on the national picture. The five major parties discussed in this report are the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, Reform (formerly the Brexit Party and UKIP), and the Green Party.
  3. This report also presents the survey results differentiated according to how respondents’ voted in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, their residency within the UK, their age, their socio-economic status, and whether they come from White British or non-White British backgrounds. The full methodological notes are found at the end of the report.
  4. Some of the graphs present ‘NET’ results, which combine the two most positive and two most negative responses together – for example, ‘Significantly increase’ and ‘Somewhat increase’ – to provide a more accessible representation of the balance of public opinion. These are presented alongside the full breakdown of results for each question for full transparency.

Introduction

There’s no doubt that 2025 will be a consequential year in geopolitical terms, with the inauguration of President Donald Trump marking a step-change in the global role of the world’s largest economy and its primary military power. The full suite of implications for America’s allies is still emerging, and there will be opportunities for its partners to express their agency or demonstrate alignment. For a nation like the United Kingdom, whose security and strategic relationship with the United States is institutionally embedded, any pivotal shifts in American foreign policy bear profound ramifications for the UK’s international posture. The fact that such an evaluation of America’s international interests and relationships is taking place during a time in which several major conflicts – including one in Europe – continue to rage, only serves to heighten anxieties among policy-makers and citizens alike.

Public opinion on foreign policy remains an understudied and poorly understood research area in Britain, due to a long-held view that the public simply conferred responsibility for such complicated and sensitive matters to government. Certainly, many Britons don’t possess a sophisticated understanding of the intricacies of diplomatic and security policy. However, they do carry strong instincts, and, in an internationalised media age, are constantly consuming information from a range of sources and forming opinions that may diverge from government positions.

The compound effect of a turbulent decade on the international stage has made Britons more perceptive to feelings of insecurity about the state of the world, which can be transposed into their domestic outlook. At the same time, their belief in the efficacy of government to address international crises, or their support for the missions being pursued by government, isn’t guaranteed. This creates a challenging backdrop from which public consent can be sought for the kind of bold and decisive actions that may need to be considered as policy options in the coming months and years.

This study provides a snapshot of the views of British citizens at the moment at which President Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second time. It shows a nation which, overall, continues to subscribe to clear definitions of its friends and adversaries, carries a sense of responsibility to Ukraine, and greets the rise of a more assertive China with concern and scepticism. Underneath the national picture, however, the data reveals some concerning seeds of discord and divergence among certain demographic groups and political parties. The UK Government must build on the good foundations by speaking more frequently and directly to the British people about the rapidly evolving global landscape, and making the case for the values, interests, and relationships it pursues.

Sophia Gaston

March 2025

London

The geopolitical implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The geopolitical implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Background

The eminent Harvard University professor of Ukrainian history, Serhii Plokhy, observed that Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 raised fundamental questions about Ukraine’s continuing existence as a unified state, its independence as a nation, and the democratic foundations of its political institutions.1 This created a new and dangerous situation not only in Ukraine but also in Europe as a whole. For the first time since the end of World War II, a major European power made war on a weaker neighbour and annexed part of the territory of a sovereign state. This unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine threatened the foundations of international order—a threat to which, he said, the EU and most of the world weren’t prepared to respond.

Two years later, Plokhy published a book called Lost kingdom: a history of Russian nationalism from Ivan the Great to Vladimir Putin 2 in which he observed—correctly, in my view—that the question of where Russia begins and ends, and who constitutes the Russian people, has preoccupied Russian thinkers for centuries. He might have added that Russia has no obvious or clear-cut geographical borders. Plokhy also stated that the current Russo-Ukrainian conflict is only the latest turn of Russian policy resulting from the Russian elite’s thinking about itself and its East Slavic neighbours as part of their joint historical and cultural space, and ultimately as the same nation. He asserts that the current conflict reprises many of the themes that have been central to political and cultural relations in the region for the previous five centuries. Those include Russia’s great-power status and influence beyond its borders; the continued relevance of religion, especially Orthodox Christianity, as defined in Russian identity and the conduct of Russian policy abroad; and, last but not least, the importance of language and culture as tools of Russian state policy in the region. Moreover, the conflict reminds the world that the formation of the modern Russian nation is still far from complete. Plokhy concludes that this threat is no less serious than the one posed in the 19th and early 20th centuries by the German question—the idea of uniting all the German lands to forge a mighty German Empire.

Since those words, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has already become the worst international crisis since the end of the Cold War. Plokhy worried that a new and terrible stage in the shaping of European borders and populations was emerging. He said that it all depends on the ability and readiness of the Russian elites to accept the post-Soviet political realities and adjust Russia’s own identity to the demands of the post-imperial world. The alternative, he concluded, might be a new Cold War—or worse.

For many of us today, we face the spectre of not only a new Cold War but the prospects of a wider general war in Europe erupting if Russia persists with its post-imperial expansion objectives at the same time as an increasingly authoritarian China is working with its strategic partner in Moscow to remake the international order. This deeply disturbing picture is made all the worse by Putin’s now frequent references to the potential use of nuclear weapons.

I have deliberately begun these introductory words with reference to the deeply entrenched historical context of Russia’s relations with Ukraine, which extend over more than nine centuries. For much of that time—and particularly throughout the more than 70 years of Bolshevik power—Russia’s long history has been consistently reinvented.

As the Soviet-era quip goes: ‘The future is certain. It’s only the past that is unpredictable’, which is applicable to history as remade and retold by Russia’s leadership. And for the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, today’s past is being continually reinvented, along with his reasons for his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. Fake news and fake facts are the key tools of his huge propaganda offensive to reinforce Russian popular support for his ‘limited military operation’.

The structure of this paper is as follows:

  1. Why did Putin decide to attack Ukraine?
  2. Why have Russia’s military forces performed so woefully?
  3. What are the geopolitical implications for the world order, including for Australia?
  4. Key policy and intelligence recommendations.

The policy background to this assessment is that Russia’s outright invasion of Ukraine is an extremely dangerous moment for global security because Europe’s security order is now being fundamentally challenged with the real risk of escalation into a major war involving Russia and the US. The ugliest days of this war are in front of us, not behind us.

Moreover, the war is occurring at a time in world history when relations between Moscow and Washington have never been so fraught, and the Moscow–Beijing relationship has never been so close in the past half-century. In comparison, throughout much of the Cold War, senior Soviet and American defence, foreign policy and intelligence officials and nuclear arms control experts engaged in prolonged and deeply informed discussions about each other’s nuclear weapons capabilities and the risks of nuclear war. That involved mutual on-site inspections to confirm the numbers and characteristics of each side’s most advanced strategic nuclear weapons, as well as what the late Professor Coral Bell described as a comprehensive array of measures to signal to each other and engage more closely in times of tension.

Certainly, that wasn’t a foolproof method of avoiding—let alone managing—global nuclear conflict. But the fact remains that the outright use of nuclear weapons (as distinct from their threatened use) was avoided even when towards the end of the Cold War both sides possessed more than 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads on high alert. These days, there are no such confidence-building measures or frequent high-level meetings to signal concerns to each other. That should be a matter of grave strategic worry, given the current state of high tension between Russia and the US.

  1. Serhii Plokhy, The gates of Europe: a history of Ukraine, Basic Books, London, 2015. ↩︎
  2. Serhii Plokhy, Lost kingdom: a history of Russian nationalism from Ivan the Great to Vladimir Putin, Penguin, London, 2017. ↩︎

China’s messaging on the Ukraine conflict

In the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, social media posts by Chinese diplomats on US platforms almost exclusively blamed the US, NATO and the West for the conflict. Chinese diplomats amplified Russian disinformation about US biological weapon labs in Ukraine, linking this narrative with conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19. Chinese state media mirrored these narratives, as well as replicating the Kremlin’s language describing the invasion as a ‘special military operation’.

ASPI found that China’s diplomatic messaging was distributed in multiple languages, with its framing tailored to different regions. In the early stage of the conflict, tweets about Ukraine by Chinese diplomats performed better than unrelated content, particularly when the content attacked or blamed the West. ASPI’s research suggests that, in terms of its international facing propaganda, the Russia–Ukraine conflict initially offered the party-state’s international-facing propaganda system an opportunity to reassert enduring preoccupations that the Chinese Communist Party perceives as fundamental to its political security.

Tag Archive for: Ukraine

Diplomacy is the newest front in the Russia-Ukraine war

The war between Russia and Ukraine continues unabated. Neither side is in a position to achieve its stated objectives through military force. But now there is significant diplomatic activity as well.

Ukraine has agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, in large part to patch up relations with US President Donald Trump’s administration, which unravelled during a 28 February Oval Office confrontation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia rejected the ceasefire proposal, instead suggesting (but not implementing) a prohibition on attacking energy infrastructure. Both sides also indicated a readiness to accept a ceasefire in the Black Sea, but with Russia linking its support to a relaxation of sanctions, it is far from clear when—or even if—such a limited ceasefire would start, much less what it would encompass.

Such partial steps, if implemented, could be a way-station to something more significant. But it is at least equally possible that partial steps would not lead to a comprehensive peace agreement. Russia could prosecute the war even if the Black Sea were not an active theatre.

The biggest question remains US policy. The Trump administration has used a combination of pressure and incentives to persuade the two sides to stop fighting. But its approach has been skewed toward offering benefits to Russia while bringing heavy pressure to bear on Ukraine.

To be clear, it is appropriate to offer Russia certain incentives. This could include a willingness to resume high-level contacts and restaff embassies, support for limited relaxation of sanctions if specified conditions are met, and to allow Russia to keep its long-term objectives for Ukraine on the table.

What is not acceptable is to embrace flawed Russian positions, such as its claims to Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia based on the results of illegal referenda conducted by Russian occupation forces. It is one thing for Trump’s envoy to the Kremlin, the property-developer-turned-novice-diplomat Steve Witkoff, to characterise Russia’s stance and quite another for him to adopt it as his own.

More broadly, there is no good reason to introduce final-status considerations at this point. The goal for now should be an open-ended ceasefire agreement, not a permanent peace treaty. In this instance, excessive ambition is likely to be the enemy of the possible.

To achieve a cessation of hostilities, the agreement ought to be as clean and simple as possible. Only two elements are essential for a viable ceasefire: a cessation of all hostilities, and a separation of forces, ideally with a peacekeeping contingent between them.

Everything else, including the disposition of territory and populations, should be left for final-status negotiations. For now, both sides should be allowed to arm or agree to security arrangements with third parties. Nothing should be done to preclude measures that would buttress a ceasefire. Russia should be permitted to retain North Korean troops on its territory; Ukraine could invite forces from European countries.

What is essential is for the United States to continue providing military and intelligence support to Ukraine. Such support is the only way to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that further stalling is not in his interest, and is essential to Ukraine’s ability to deter renewed Russian aggression even if there is a ceasefire agreement. But it need not be unlimited: such US assistance has totalled around US$40 billion a year for three years—a level that is likely to suffice for the foreseeable future.

The goal should be to give Ukraine what it needs to deter and defend against Russian aggression, not to liberate its lands. To assert, as Witkoff did, that there is no reason to worry about renewed Russian aggression is not serious. After all, the current war is Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea. Given Putin’s intentions, what matters are capabilities.

Matters could come to a head by summer, when the pipeline of congressionally-approved arms for Ukraine runs out. The Trump administration will have to decide (if it has not already done so) on the connection between the security relationship with Ukraine and US diplomacy.

As we attempt to discern what the administration will choose to do, the February 2020 deal that the first Trump administration signed with the Taliban should give us pause. The agreement was negotiated over the head of the US’s Afghan partners through direct talks with the Taliban, paving the way for the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan a year and a half later. One can only hope that the price President Joe Biden paid, both domestically and internationally, for implementing Trump’s deal will lead Trump to think twice before abandoning Ukraine to a similar fate.

Trump should also keep in mind that abandoning Ukraine would not bring peace. Zelensky, who is more popular than ever at home (thanks in no small part to the infamous Oval Office meeting) would likely opt for no ceasefire or peace treaty rather than one that compromised Ukraine’s core interests. It could fight on in one form or another for years using domestically produced arms and weapons imported from Europe and Asia—and, free of US restrictions as a condition of aid, it might even be tempted to act more aggressively in its choice of targets within Russia.

At the same time, Russia would most likely view US separation from Ukraine as an opportunity to press or even escalate militarily. Far from bringing peace, a US military cutoff of Ukraine could actually bring about an escalation in the fighting.

The stakes are high, and not just for Ukraine. What plays out with Russia will have a significant effect on the future of Europe, on whether China uses force against Taiwan, or North Korea against South Korea, and on how the US is perceived both by its friends and enemies around the world.

Europe can still prevent a Russian victory

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy and he could not have predicted what would follow. Though Donald Trump’s return to the White House has caught Europe flat-footed, it can still keep Putin from walking away a winner.

For now, Putin seems to hold all the cards. The transatlantic relationship is fracturing, as Trump’s isolationist administration criticises its European allies and casts doubt on his commitment to NATO. Worse, Trump appears to be aligning the United States with Russia in the Ukraine war. While he has threatened to impose new sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire and peace deal are reached, he has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the fighting and suspended military aid and intelligence support for Ukraine (now apparently set to resume).

But Europe still has a chance to turn things around. Already, it is abandoning its post-Cold War ‘end of history’ mindset, according to which international law reigned supreme, European militaries were for keeping peace, not fighting wars, and the US could be counted on to safeguard Europe’s security.

Finland and Sweden were perhaps the first to realise that history is back, and their accession to NATO—in 2023 and 2024, respectively—provided a major boost to the Alliance’s northern flank. Now the European Union also appears to be coming to terms with its new security situation, having just announced an $840 billion rearmament plan. Even Germany, for which the return of history is particularly fraught, is preparing to rearm: incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his likely coalition partners have agreed to create a €500 billion infrastructure fund and loosen fiscal rules to allow for greater investment in defence.

The significance of this move should not be underestimated. Since the end of World War II, Germany has eschewed hard power in favour of the soft kind, serving as an engine of European integration and a bulwark of the rules-based world order. Beginning in the 1960s, this included the pursuit of constructive engagement—a foreign-policy approach known as Ostpolitik—with the Soviet Union and then Russia. This explains former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s embrace of Russian energy supplies, despite the objections of other EU members and the US.

Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine drove a stake through the heart of Ostpolitik. Within days, Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, announced an ‘epochal change’ (Zeitenwende) in Germany’s defence and foreign policy. But it is Merz who is set to oversee a true break from Germany’s postwar past—a change that will require the country to confront the most daunting, destructive ghosts of its history.

For starters, there is the fiscal revolution. Germany’s frugality has been a source of considerable tension in the EU, particularly during the eurozone debt crisis of the early 2010s. But Germans—not least Merkel—recalled all too well how hyperinflation had paved the way for the rise of Adolf Hitler, and in 2009 Merkel’s first government introduced a constitutional restriction on structural budget deficits to 0.35 percent of GDP annually, also known as the debt brake. Against this backdrop, Merz’s planned overhaul of borrowing rules—including the modification and possible elimination of the debt brake—represents a radical change in Germany’s priorities.

More broadly, Merz appears prepared to embrace European leadership. Despite being the EU’s largest economy, Germany has long been reluctant to assume a genuine leadership role in Europe, particularly in the security domain. The combination of Russian revanchism and US isolationism, however, has made this stance untenable. As Europe’s most populous country, situated in the continent’s ‘geostrategic centre’, Merz says, Germany must ‘take greater responsibility for leadership’ on defence.

Any effort to keep Europe secure starts with Ukraine. As it stands, Trump wants to have his cake and eat it: ‘negotiate’ a peace deal—which will almost certainly involve capitulation to Russia and an economic shakedown of Ukraine—then walk away and let Europe enforce it. But what good is a peace broker who offers no guarantees?

To avoid a repeat of the Munich Agreement of 1938—when France and Britain forced Czechoslovakia to cede territory to Hitler, setting the stage for WWII—Europe must step up quickly to improve Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and, thus, at the negotiating table. Fortunately, substituting lost US financial aid will not be as difficult as Trump would have us believe: to date, Europe has provided far more support for Ukraine’s war effort in dollar terms than the US has. Fulfilling the weapons gap would, however, be far more challenging and probably impossible in the all-important short term.

Once a peace agreement is reached, Europe will have to act as its guarantor—and that means delivering effective deterrence against Russian aggression. A credible nuclear umbrella is essential. That is why Merz has suggested replacing US nuclear warheads in Europe with French and British alternatives. There is even talk of Germany becoming a nuclear power itself.

When NATO intervened in the Kosovo War in 1999, Germany’s then-chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, ruled that sending ground troops to fight in a country that had once been occupied by Hitler’s Wehrmacht was ‘unthinkable’. Today, as Merz seems to recognise, the unthinkable has become necessary. Only if Germany—and Europe as a whole—puts aside its moral and political inhibitions can it continue to perform its most important role: as a global force for peace and a defender of democratic principles.

The value of Ukraine’s critical minerals is overstated

Anyone involved in Australia’s critical minerals industry would be rolling their eyes at the transaction still reported to be under consideration between Ukraine and the United States.

US President Donald Trump was initially asking for the first US$500 billion in proceeds from Ukraine’s minerals development. Preliminary discussions spoke about the country’s critical minerals reserves being worth ‘trillions of dollars’.

As Lynas Rare Earths chief executive, Amanda Lacaze, said to The Australian:

In the time that I’ve been involved in rare earths, I’ve heard about a rare earth race to the moon because there could be lots of mining on the moon to get rare earths.

I’ve heard about a sort of rare earths race to the sea floor because there’s lots of rare earths on the sea floor, which could be useful in the future. I heard about a rare earths race to Afghanistan at one stage.

In fact, Ukraine has no proven rare earths reserves—as distinct from deposits, which may or may not be economically recoverable. Its only established rare earths deposit, of unknown size or quality, is near Azov, a town currently under Russian control.

Ukraine does have some other critical minerals, but nothing established to the point that it would warrant the investment of billions of dollars, let alone hundreds of billions or trillions.

Ukraine’s geological survey agency claims 19 million tonnes of reserves of graphite, used for batteries. China was the major world supplier of graphite, but it restricted exports last October in response to US controls on sales of semi-conductors.

Australian listed company Volt Resources holds 70 percent of Ukraine’s major graphite operation, the Zavallivsky mine, which has been active since 1934. However, its output is not up to lithium-battery standards. The scale of its operation is indicated by Volt’s market value of just $18 million.

Ukraine has more substantial deposits of manganese, but its output is barely a tenth of Australia’s and would earn it little more than $200 million a year.  Ukraine’s claims of critical minerals riches mainly rest on Soviet geological surveys done 30 to 60 years ago, not nearly recent enough to justify investment by Western financial standards.

Trump said Ukraine ‘holds no cards’ in negotiations over its future. Ukraine’s government essentially invented its mineral riches to give itself a card to deal with Trump.

With considerable foresight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the D-Day ceremonies in France in June to lobby a key Trump ally and rare Republican supporter of aid to Ukraine, Senator Lindsay Graham. Zelenskyy told him that Ukraine’s minerals were worth as much as US$12 trillion.

‘If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of’, Graham said. ‘That $10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China.’

Graham repeated those comments after leading a Senate delegation to Kyiv, a few weeks before Zelenskyy travelled to the US last September. Zelenskyy’s visit was controversial: the Republican leader of Congress, Mike Johnson, refused to meet him, and Trump was expected to do the same.

After making a personal appeal to Trump, Zelenskyy was granted an audience at Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, he evidently sold the idea of a minerals partnership, mentioning the potential revenue of US$500 billion.

Ukraine doubled down on these claims at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where its delegation spoke of critical mineral reserves worth US$12 trillion. Trump took the bait, but Zelenskyy could not close the deal, despite guidance from Graham on how to handle Trump ahead of the ill-fated televised meeting on 28 February.

While Trump responded to the appeal of large numbers, the reality of critical minerals mining, and particularly rare earths, is that it is painstaking work. It takes years to prove up deposits, to determine how to process them, to secure customers and then, and only then, to raise the capital for development.

Australia has been discussing collaboration with the US on critical minerals ever since former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s first meeting with Trump in February 2018.

There has been follow-up: the US Department of Defense helped fund a Lynas joint venture to process heavy rare earths in Texas; the US Export-Import Bank provided conditional letters of intent to lend $1.3 billion to two Australian rare earths miners; and there has been collaboration between Geoscience Australia and the US Geological Survey.

The Albanese government agreed on the Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact with former president Joe Biden in May 2023. However, it was not formally ratified by US Congress ahead of the new administration, which will likely not appreciate the compact’s climate change focus.

While Japanese government support was pivotal to the success of Lynas, the Australian government has been left to put up the risk capital behind the development of recent Australian rare earths processing capacity.  There has been no influx of US risk capital.

The US is gone—Europe must replace it

Donald Trump and JD Vance’s verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office will mark 28 February 2025 as an infamous moment in US and world history. The United States is rapidly destroying its good name and alienating everyone except the world’s most brutal dictators. The damage to the US’s credibility and reputation will take decades to repair—and may be irreparable.

More broadly, with the end of the postwar US-centred international order, we are witnessing the collapse of any global authority. As rogue states seek to capitalise on the chaos, Europe must step up and assume the role once played by the US. That starts by fully supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

Yes, Europe is not as powerful as the US militarily; but that does not mean it is weak. In fact, it holds all the cards that it needs. Its combined military forces are among the world’s strongest, most experienced and most innovative. The Oval Office quarrel—which Trump and Vance seemed all too eager to provoke—should be the final impetus for Europe to get its act together, after decades of complacency. It has everything it needs to stand on its own, to support Ukraine and to deter Russia.

Moreover, Trump’s shameful behaviour is pushing the US’s dearest ally, Britain, closer to Europe, helping to bridge the post-Brexit divide. It is galvanising the forces of democracy and compelling political elites to wake up. Europe may soon have a moderate two-party ruling coalition in Germany and a committed democratic one in Austria. After a terrible year, French President Emmanuel Macron’s star is rising again.

Europe has a half-billion people and a GDP comparable to the US. We may not be as innovative, but the gap is not as large as pundits would have you believe. If we forge a coalition with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, we can close it soon—especially now that Trump, Vance and Elon Musk are destroying the pillars of US power with their own cultural revolution.

In addition to raising costs for US consumers with tariffs, the Trump administration is waging a war on immigrants—long a unique source of US strength. Europe should capitalise by welcoming the best and brightest—including those being hounded out of the US’s world-class federal agencies.

As for defence capabilities, Germany’s industrial base is sufficient to arm the continent, while France and Britain’s nuclear umbrella can replace the US’s. The five largest European countries and Britain all currently have responsible, predictable governments that make a mockery of those now in power in Washington.

Poland has an especially important role to play in what happens next. Economic trends are on our side. Our army is growing. We made the right arms purchases while there was still time. Not even Trump can find a bad word to say about us. All of Europe can see this. The French (slightly jealous) speak of le moment polonais. Poland’s current leaders are among the most experienced, respected and resolute statesmen to be found anywhere.

At the recent Munich Security Conference, I spoke with many US politicians—including those, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who are bending the knee to Trump—and I did not see much self-confidence. Rather than saying what they really think, they debased themselves and toed the Dear Leader’s line. It was embarrassing to watch.

When the Trump administration’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, was asked backstage whether ‘we still have an alliance’, he admitted that he himself doesn’t know. Power in Washington is now completely concentrated in Trump. There are no longer any ‘adults in the room’, only sycophantic parrots competing to amplify their foolish master the loudest.

The historian Timothy Snyder struck the right note in arguing that 2025 is not about what America thinks; it is about what Europe can do. The Trump policy (a generous term) can only be profitable in the short term; for now, no one will dare to go head-to-head with the US. In the long run, however, the dismantling of the US state, the pointless tariffs and the alienation of friends and allies will cause lasting damage.

This is the moment to stand behind Ukraine. The treatment that Zelensky received was an absolute disgrace, loudly cheered by Russia. And no, he would not have gotten a better result if he had let himself be pushed around. This US government has shown where its loyalties lie. The same thing happened with the critical minerals agreement that Trump’s advisers have been forcing on Ukraine. The first version amounted to mafia-style extortion and Zelensky rightly rejected it. When a follow-up deal came, it was much better.

I will not be surprised if Trump and Vance’s disgusting behaviour provokes a backlash from the US public. But Europeans cannot afford to wait. With Trump back in the White House, Americans will have their own very big problems to worry about. Europeans must take our future into our own hands.

Peace in Ukraine depends on European commitment

Peace is an attractive, yet elusive, concept. It can mean different things to different people at different times. Ukraine is a case in point. The quest for peace could yield either of two fundamentally different outcomes: a Vichy-style capitulation, perhaps with an interim ceasefire that buys Russia more time to rearm and prepare its next attack, or a robust defence of a frozen frontline, as one finds on the Korean Peninsula today.

The Kremlin’s vision for peace in Ukraine is clear. Russian forces would directly occupy swathes of illegally seized Ukrainian territory, and a compliant, helpless Ukrainian government (lacking any meaningful military capacity) would take orders from Moscow. Something quite similar happened in France during World War II, when the part of the country not under direct German occupation was run by General Philippe Petain’s collaborationist government and took orders from Berlin.

Thus, for most of WWII—roughly between 1940 and 1944—the situation on the ground in France was ‘peaceful’. The Vichy regime under Petain regularly boasted that it had protected France, while blaming the Resistance—French guerrillas—and periodic Allied bombing raids for any disturbances to the ‘peace’. This option has been on offer for Ukraine since the first hours of Russia’s large-scale invasion. Yet having witnessed the executions, rapes and other atrocities committed by Russian forces against civilians in Bucha and elsewhere, the Ukrainians have understandably refused to capitulate.

The alternative is the type of peace that kept Germany peaceful for decades after WWII and kept the Korean Peninsula peaceful since the 1953 armistice. In each case, the peace was secured by accepting de facto borders, which were fortified with massive defensive military buildups, boots on the ground and credible security guarantees. While West Germany enjoyed NATO membership after 1955, South Korea relied on a bilateral alliance with the United States. Even today, the US keeps around 28,000 active-duty troops in South Korea and 50,000 in Germany.

Such backstops made the former wartime frontline almost impregnable, allowing each rump state to consolidate, develop and remain at peace. The equivalent of a West German or South Korean model for Ukraine today would require a freezing of the frontline and either NATO accession or a deployment of tens of thousands of Western troops to Ukrainian territory.

The French government has pushed for this kind of solution since February 2024, and it now features prominently in discussions among European leaders. With the new US administration demanding that Europe do more to ensure its own peace and security, at least a half-dozen European governments are said to be seriously considering it.

Of course, if Europeans dislike the first model (a Vichy-style peace) but prove unable to deliver a sufficient security guarantee, that will create the conditions for a third possible scenario: a bogus peace leading to another war. A temporary ceasefire—like the one that prevailed under the Minsk agreements after 2014—would allow Russia to regroup, rearm and attack again sooner rather than later. Not only might this cycle be repeated more than once; it also could implicate countries beyond Ukraine—such as the Baltics or Poland.

Thus, if Ukraine does not get enough support in the coming months and years, Europe will find itself confronting a dangerous new strategic reality, one that would challenge NATO solidarity and leave EU territory perpetually vulnerable. With enough prodding and hybrid warfare, Russia could test the limits of NATO’s mutual defence guarantee and either expose it as a dead letter or precipitate a direct military confrontation between nuclear powers. Such would be the consequences of a bogus peace.

The immediate task for Europe, then, is not only to navigate US President Donald Trump’s unilateral pursuit of a settlement with Russia that could offer Ukraine on a platter to Russia, but also to ensure that any deal does not increase the likelihood of an even wider war in the near future.

Many Europeans think that if Russia could not conquer Ukraine in 2022, Russia would not dare challenge NATO and the European Union. That is dangerously wishful thinking. Occupying most of Ukraine would not only allow Russia to expand its territory, but also allow it to unite Europe’s biggest and second-biggest armies, under Kremlin command. Occupied territories bring in new people, defence production capacities, and resources—from rare-earth minerals to gas and nuclear power plants. Ukraine’s defence industrial capacity—which has been impressive in multiple areas, from sea drones to the sheer capacity to produce equipment en masse—would be a welcome bonus for Russia as well, and it could be used against Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron already publicly warned that the combined armed forces of Russia and Ukraine would be unstoppable.

The bottom line is that avoiding a Ukrainian capitulation or a fake peace will require a European commitment to, at the very least, freezing the current frontline. Otherwise, vulnerable EU and NATO members could be the next targets. European public opinion must wake up to the reality that the only alternative is something that no one wants: a perpetual threat of war for much of Central and Northern Europe, with all the security and economic uncertainty that comes with it.

Negotiations can’t end the war in Ukraine; it would just evolve

In the coming days, a slew of commentary will claim that the Russia-Ukraine war may well imminently conclude after three years, following peace talks in Saudi Arabia. Such commentary will be wrong.

Regardless of what agreements the United States and Russia may come to, the war would likely continue; it would just evolve.

The belief that a negotiated end to the war would stabilise the status quo is the same misconception as thinking that the war started with Russia’s invasion in 2022 and that it involves only Ukraine and Russia. It also ignores the opportunities for rebuilding that a break in conventional fighting would present to Russian forces.

Russia’s war against Ukraine did not begin with the start of conventional warfare on 24 February 2022. Rather, it followed soon after the ousting of pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, on 22 February 2014. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula on 18 March 2014 and, through proxies, occupied parts of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions. This began a simmering seven-year-long proxy war in Ukraine’s east, long before the outbreak of conventional warfare.

Russia conducted the proxy war predominantly through grey zone tactics: sabotage, subversion and economic warfare. During what is now 11 years of conflict, tactics have also extended to cyberattacks, disinformation and large-scale combat operations.

Conventional warfare is thus an extension of Russian tactics: its beginning did not mark the start of conflict in Ukraine, nor will the end of conventional warfare necessarily mark its end.

Moreover, the conflict is not, nor has it ever been, just a war in Ukraine. Putin long-ago expanded his confrontation with NATO, challenging European interests through intervention in Syria, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Mozambique and the Central African Republic. Much of this was done surreptitiously through the Wagner Group.

Ukraine responded in Sudan and Syria to block Russian interests via a proxy warfare dynamic. In Syria, Ukrainian support of political organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham helped to deny Russia the warm water port of Tartus. But in Sudan, Ukrainian support for the government has so far failed to persuade it to refuse a Russian request to set up a naval base there.

Over the past three years, Russia has engaged in more than 150 subversive activities and sabotage operations in European countries. Further horizontal escalations against NATO began before the 2022 escalation in Ukraine. Russia also has a long-demonstrated pattern of ending active conflicts without establishing peace treaties or frameworks. It then exploits these frozen conflicts to coerce opponents.

Considering this history, believing that a nominal end to the Russia-Ukraine war will bring peace is simply naive.

Putin’s very willingness to negotiate now should give pause. By some accounts, Russia has lost 10,000 tanks and nearly a million personnel in the past three years, in addition to an enormous quantity of other materiel. This will take time to re-build.

Russian losses have weakened domestic support for Putin. Russia’s ability to use conventional warfare as a tool of coercion elsewhere is constrained as long as it remains focused on Ukraine. Russia’s military and security budget present amounts to some 40 per cent of the federal budget, while weathering 10 per cent inflation. Under such pressure, there are signs the Russian economy is reaching its breaking point.

Given these conditions, a negotiated end to conventional hostilities would likely embolden, not discourage, Putin.

Having achieved a supposed peace, Putin could be expected to revert to the practiced political warfare handbook and continue to subvert Ukraine’s institutions, while he rebuilt his military power and revelled in the glory of having defied the West. This increasing strength might dash the hopes of pro-democracy groups in Georgia, Belarus and, indeed, in Russia itself.

Putin will also likely increase coercive pressure against the Baltic States, Ukraine, Georgia, and Central Asian countries. Moldova was the victim of a massive Russian influence campaign in 2024 and will almost certainly face another to sway its 2025 parliamentary election.

Understanding such risks, the Nordic and Baltic States have affirmed their ongoing support to Ukraine.

The one thing that a negotiated snap freeze to the Russia-Ukraine conflict would bring would be a false sense of stability and security. In reality, it would mark a shift in Russia’s tactics and a chance for it to rebuild depleted forces.

The underexploited potential of Ukrainian defence tech

Western companies and entrepreneurs are largely missing a chance to invest in the thriving and innovative Ukrainian defence tech industry and take its experience back to their home markets.

Failure of foreign investors to put even modest sums into the Ukrainian defence industry also means that Western armed forces are missing out on rapid developments, for example in drone technology. Foreign drone programs developed in peacetime conditions don’t have the benefit of insights and innovation from the pressure-cooker of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s own companies dominate its industry, with 1.5 million first-person-view drones built by Ukrainian firms in 2024. Yet Ukrainian producers would welcome further mutually beneficial cooperation with Western companies.

According to Brave1, a state-run innovation cluster, the number of defence tech startups it encompasses more than doubled in 2024 and now totals 1500. Some of these firms develop multiple products. Products include unjammable drones directed through fibre optic cords instead of radio signals; remotely-controlled machine gun turrets on uncrewed ground vehicles; and anti-drone drones, which intercept uncrewed Russian reconnaissance aircraft.

Although manufacturers must put Ukrainian defence needs first, they’re also looking at export markets and even civil applications for their products.

Take, for instance, the startup Farsight Vision. It combines a software platform with a tiny hardware device that together can quickly create a 3D model of an area from drone-captured footage. Such models allow unit commanders to keep up with the constantly changing terrain in their area of operations—something that satellite imagery fails to provide due to longer production cycles. At the same time, such 3D models have non-defence applications, including monitoring environmental changes in areas that are hard to access, or scouting locations for offshore construction projects.

2025 is likely to become a turning point for Ukrainian defence tech: startups will appear more slowly, and established firms will cooperate more. Smaller teams may be absorbed by bigger companies, leading to concentration and, thus, faster sharing of frontline experience.

Yet foreign investors’ commitment to the industry remains half-hearted.

Kyiv School Economics calculated that in 2024 US$25 million was invested in the Ukrainian defence tech industry by both Ukrainians and foreigners. In other words, all Ukrainian companies were able to attract four times less capital than Helsing, a German defence AI startup, got in its first investment round.

The chair of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, asked whether European investors were ‘stupid’, because they looked away from defence industry altogether.

To be fair, rethinking is underway, as more private money is directed into defence innovation globally. More investors now recognise that security, not other forms of wellbeing, will be the most important commodity in the coming quarter of the century.

Yet very little defence capital makes it to Ukraine, with most investors deterred by various misconceptions and some legitimate concerns. To them the Ukrainian startup ecosystem remains terra incognita. But local actors, including  Brave1 and funds already active in Ukraine, can help foreign private capital make the most of opportunities in Ukraine.

Finally, foreign-built drones have sometimes underperformed in Ukraine. A US producer said it had failed to anticipate the intensity of electronic warfare in the war. That failure prompted the company to scout for Ukrainian talent.

Without battlefield pressure, Western companies cannot innovate and respond to changing technology and techniques as quickly as Ukrainian firms do simply because they must.

On the other hand, those fast-moving, sleep-deprived Ukrainian innovators, constantly incorporating feedback from the frontlines into their tech, have no time for the cumbersome procurement procedures of Western defence ministries.

Thus, win-win partnerships can spring up. Ukrainian startups can bring fresh ideas while well-established foreign defence contractors use their experience with officialdom to export the technology into Western armed forces. Exposed to wartime industry, the foreign firms would themselves build expertise faster.

So far, they are missing the opportunity.

‘Battle-tested in Ukraine’ has become a marketing label in the arms industry. It can be applied more widely with greater cooperation between Ukrainian and Western companies.

Norway should cede its war windfall to Ukraine

Norway’s government has effectively become a war profiteer, we argued in a commentary in December. It is an opinion shared by a number of European politicians and by European and Norwegian media. But rather than paying attention, Norway’s government is getting defensive.

The basic facts are not up for debate. After the outbreak of the Ukraine war caused natural gas prices to rise sharply in Europe, Norway reaped windfall profits totalling some €108 billion, according to Norway’s Ministry of Finance. That is more than the value of all military and civilian support Ukraine has received from the United States and Germany combined from when the war started through October 2024. It is roughly one-third of the value of the Russian central-bank assets that are currently frozen in the West (and which Western governments have extensively debated channelling to Ukraine for defence and reconstruction).

But Norway has kept its windfall for itself, providing a measly three billion euros in aid to Ukraine in its 2025 budget, only slightly up from the previous year. This approach is simply wrong: Norway must transfer its recent super-profits, excess profits above the normal level, in full, directly to Ukraine. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum seem more interested in justifying their decision not to do so than in helping Ukraine, Europe or even future Norwegians.

Store and Vedum contend that the windfall gains were a normal result of the myriad market forces that determine gas prices. But this argument is disingenuous. While it is true that many factors shape energy prices, Norway’s excess profits overwhelmingly reflect one: in 2022–23, it had in Europe a captive market for its natural-gas exports. This was a direct result of the Ukraine war: Russia had cut its natural-gas supplies to Europe, but European gas importers had not yet managed to build liquefied natural gas terminals to offset the loss.

Store and Vedum do not stop at dismissing Norway’s war profits as good fortune; they claim that their government, and the oil companies operating in Norway, did our European neighbours a favour by stepping up gas supplies when Russian deliveries ceased. Europe should be thanking us, Vedum says. This ‘good Samaritan’ narrative smacks of hypocrisy, especially as Norway, while pocketing its lucky gains from the spike in gas prices, sends a pittance to the Ukrainians fighting and dying for their country’s survival and Europe’s security.

In fact, from the perspective of European gas consumers, the elevated gas prices were equivalent to a Norwegian war tax on them. The increased energy costs strained the budgets of households and companies, thereby reducing European governments’ room to raise taxes for supporting Ukraine’s war effort. And yet, many of these countries have still managed to provide far more support to Ukraine, as a share of GDP, than Norway has.

Store and Vedum say that, rather than use its windfall as a political instrument, the excess profits should go directly into the Government Pension Fund Global, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, where they will be preserved for future generations of Norwegians. This position aligns with Norway’s longstanding commitment to safeguarding its long-term fiscal sustainability, exemplified by a rule that no more than three percent of the fund’s value can be transferred to the government budget each year.

But Store and Vedum’s position is short-sighted in the current context. After all, what could harm future generations of Norwegians more than the failure to preserve democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in Europe?

In any case, the fiscal rule was created to prevent domestic macroeconomic problems (such as exchange-rate appreciation and excessive inflation), which would not arise if the funds were transferred directly to Ukraine. The leaders responsible for establishing it—including former Norwegian prime minister and former NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg—could not possibly have imagined that Norway’s government would one day use it to justify holding on to wartime rents.

Norway did provide critical energy supplies to Europe in a desperate moment. But in a purely fiscal sense, one can argue that the country did more to support Russia, as its captive market for gas (which it did nothing to create) limited its neighbours’ ability to raise wartime taxes, while Norway refrained from sending much aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Norway has enriched itself immensely, through the returns on the government’s direct investments in oil and gas fields, dividends from its ownership share in its parastatal oil company Equinor, and tax revenues from oil companies, which are subject to a 78 percent marginal rate on their profits.

Refusing to use this war windfall to support Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction reflects a myopic perspective that Norway’s government would do well to abandon. Despite our reluctance to join the European Union, we Norwegians are part of—and dependent on—the European community. Rather than focussing exclusively on narrow domestic interests, Norway’s government must start considering the well-being of all of Europe. Growing threats to liberal democracy—coming not only from our big neighbour to the East, but also from our big ally across the Atlantic—makes this shift all the more urgent.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘As important as Ukraine is, a Taiwan war must be Australia’s biggest worry’

Originally published on 30 September 2024.

Other than the Middle East, the world faces the possibility of two major wars escalating in Europe and East Asia, over Ukraine and Taiwan.

Australia must worry about either of those wars, but ultimately it’s the possible loss of Taiwan to China that could be the front-and-centre issue for our national security.

Ukraine and Taiwan each face a military threat from a large neighbouring great power that is nuclear armed. In Ukraine’s case, Russia has already invaded, and the two have been at war for more than two-and-a-half years. In Taiwan’s case, communist China’s President Xi Jinping is making increasing threats that China should integrate Taiwan, and he reserves the right to use force to occupy it.

In Russia’s case, Putin is bogged down in a slow war of attrition, which he did not expect. And he is making increasing threats of the use of nuclear weapons. Ukraine’s recent occupation of Russian territory in the Kursk oblast (region) is the first time that a non-nuclear power has invaded the territory of a nuclear superpower. One of Putin’s self-proclaimed advisors, Sergei Karaganov, has recently said, ‘Any attack on our territory must get a nuclear response.’

There are, however, some obvious differences between Ukraine and Taiwan. First, Ukraine is an internationally recognised independent state, and we should remember that post-communist Russia recognised it as such in the 1994 Minsk Agreement.

In the case of Taiwan, there is no such recognition that it is an independent country. To the contrary, nearly every major power in the world does not recognise Taiwan as a separate independent nation state. Even so, more than 70 percent of Taiwanese identify themselves as being Taiwanese—not Chinese.

This leads us to another significant difference. Ukraine cannot yet be recognised as a full democracy free from corruption and having an independent judiciary. Quite the opposite. After Ukraine became a separate country, it suffered prolonged instability and violence due to the rise of oligarchs and widespread corruption involving criminal gangs. Corruption continues to be a major impediment against it joining the European Union.

By comparison, Taiwan is not only a much longer established democracy, but it does much better in surveys about corruption and has a basically independent judiciary.

Both these countries have a chequered recent history. Ukraine declared its independence from Russia in 1990. Yeltsin was so anxious to be president of a separate Russia that despite being reminded by one of his senior advisers to raise the issue of Crimea with the new Ukrainian president, Leonid Kravchuk, Yeltsin hastily remarked that Crimea could be settled later.

In January 1994, Ukraine agreed to cease being a nuclear power; it transferred 1300 strategic nuclear warheads to Russia in exchange for security reassurances from the US and Russia about Ukrainian sovereignty. Had Ukraine retained some nuclear weapons, it would probably not have faced the humiliation of being invaded by Russia.

In Taiwan’s case, it was effectively under ruthless martial law from 1949 under the dictator Chiang Kai-shek until the demise of the KMT single-party system and the rise of the democracy movement in the 1980s. Martial law was eventually lifted by Chiang’s son, president Chiang Ching-kuo, in 1987, and constitutional democracy was restored.

We have now seen a vibrant democracy in Taiwan with routine, peaceful changes of government over the past 37 years. The success of democracy in Taiwan has contradicted an old assertion that Chinese people, including those in Singapore and Hong Kong, would never be able to make democracy work properly.

This brings us to the crucial issue of all-out military contingencies involving the survival of both countries and their differing strategic implications for Australia. In the case of Ukraine, the big question is what Australia would do if Russia’s war with Ukraine escalated into a full-blown military confrontation between Russia and NATO. From a moral and international legal perspective, there would be pressure on us to make some sort of contribution. But Ukraine is not in our region of broader strategic concern in the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover, if the war in Europe were to escalate to include Russian attacks on neighbouring NATO members, such as Poland and the Baltic countries, it would involve high intensity land-based military conflict for which the Australian Defence Force is not structured. We could make no more than a limited military contribution.

But such an escalated European war might create an opportunity for China to attack Taiwan. China could perhaps attack Taiwan at the same time as Russia expanded its war to neighbouring NATO countries. Although Taiwan itself is not in Australia’s area of immediate strategic interest (Southeast Asia and the South Pacific) a successful conquest of Taiwan and defeat of America by China would raise potentially first-order strategic threats to Australia, and our own survival as a fully independent state, for the following reasons.

First, if China decisively defeated the United States in such a war, then there might be nothing to stop China from expanding southwards and establishing military bases in our immediate vicinity. And a beaten US might retract into one of its historic phases of isolationism. Australia would then be strategically isolated and without a protector. Southeast Asia and the South Pacific would effectively come into China’s sphere of influence.

Second, such a shock defeat of the US would have grave consequences for Japan and South Korea. It would involve them conceding sea and air control of the East China Sea and the South China Sea to China. A China commanding the island of Taiwan would have military dominance over the South China Sea and Southeast Asia. A new China-centric geopolitical order would then most likely prevail throughout East Asia. Such a crisis might reasonably drive Japan and South Korea into acquiring a reliable retaliatory nuclear strike capability of their own.

Third, Australia would have to consider where its future lied under the jackboot of a dominant Beijing. Without the US alliance and our critical access to American intelligence, surveillance, targeting, weapon systems and world-beating military platforms, we would no longer have credible military capabilities. Would we then retreat into a neutral posture with only the pathetic remains of a credible military force?

Fourth, the truly nightmare scenario would be a conjoining of Russian military successes against contiguous NATO members such as the Baltic countries and Poland with China’s defeat of America over Taiwan and the resulting dominance of Japan and South Korea. This wicked brew then drums up the ultimate contingency of an all-out nuclear war.

Those Australians who carelessly proclaim that the United States is finished, that China will inevitably dominate the entire Asia-Pacific region and that our only survival will be to get out of the ANZUS partnership need to think again. Theirs is a value-free world where we would be on the receiving end of communist China’s dominance.

So, in the event of a US war with China over Taiwan, what could Australia contribute? Our defence force is of a modest size but we have considerable potential to defend ourselves if, instead of just waiting for AUKUS submarines, we rapidly acquire sufficient long-range anti-ship missiles with ranges of more than 2000km.

We would, however, require access to airfields and ports—for example in Okinawa, which is less than 600km from Taiwan. But a more credible military mission for us would be to deny the narrow straits of Southeast Asia (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok) to China’s maritime traffic—including the 80 percent of its oil imports.

The purpose of this analysis has been to demonstrate the dangers of listening to those who focus only on the risks of resisting and deterring China. Instead, my analysis here concentrates on the dangers of not resisting and not deterring China.

Moreover, when strategic push comes to shove, we need to recognise that, unlike Ukraine, Taiwan may become directly important in our defence planning priorities. Even so, we do have a strong national interest in seeing Ukraine liberated from Russia’s illegal invasion and we should do what we can to bring that about.

Norway is a Ukraine War profiteer

When Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the order to invade Ukraine in February 2022, he surely did not expect that one of Russia’s neighbors would be the main beneficiary of his war. Yet as Russian hydrocarbon exports to Europe cratered in the wake of the invasion, Norway emerged as the continent’s largest supplier.

Owing to the steep increase in gas and oil prices that followed the outbreak of the war, Norway ultimately enjoyed a massive financial windfall. In 2022 and 2023, it reaped nearly 1.3 trillion kroner ($111 billion) in additional revenue from gas exports, according to recent estimates from the finance ministry.

Why, then, has Norway allocated only a little more than $3.1 billion for support to Ukraine in its 2025 budget? Combined with what it contributed in 2024, Norway’s support for Ukraine amounts to less than 5 percent of its two-year war windfall. For comparison, Germany, Europe’s largest single contributor, provided $16.3 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian support for Ukraine from January 2022 until the end of October 2024, and the United States has contributed $92 billion. But while Norway’s two-year windfall is larger than the US and German contributions combined, Norway’s support for Ukraine as a share of GDP, at 0.7 percent, ranks only ninth in Europe, far behind Denmark (2 percent) and Estonia (2.2 percent).

Not only does Norway have the capacity to be making far more of a difference to the outcome of the war and the subsequent civilian reconstruction; it has an obvious moral obligation to do so. Given that its excess revenues are a direct consequence of Russia’s war, surely a greater share of them should go to those fighting and dying on the front lines to keep their country free.

Instead, Norway’s government has effectively decided to be a war profiteer, clinging greedily to its lucky gains. To their credit, opposition parties have proposed higher levels of support for Ukraine, ultimately pushing up the sum that the government initially proposed. No party, however, has come anywhere close to suggesting a transfer of the total war windfall to Ukraine.

The Norwegian government’s position is puzzling, given that Norway shares a border with Russia and has long relied on its allies’ support for its defense. Its own national security would be jeopardised if Russia wins the war or is militarily emboldened by a peace agreement skewed in its favor.

Moreover, it is not as though Norway would be immiserated by transferring its war windfall to Ukraine. This windfall represents about 6 percent of its sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, with assets valued at $1.7 trillion—or $308,000 for every Norwegian.

True, Norway channels all government revenue from oil and gas production to its sovereign wealth fund, and no more than 3 percent of the value of the fund can be drawn down and transferred to the government budget each year. This rule helps limit the effects on inflation and the exchange rate, and ensures that the fund exists in perpetuity.

But as a macroeconomic and national savings instrument, the drawdown rule was not designed with wartime demands in mind. It therefore should not be seen as an obstacle for a larger transfer to Ukraine. Since such a transfer would not enter the Norwegian economy, it would have no domestic inflationary or other macroeconomic implications. (With the 2025 budget largely set, it would need to be an extrabudgetary measure justified by the wartime circumstances.)

This is not the first time that Norway’s hoarding of its war windfall has been an issue. But it is the first time that we have been given an official estimate of the windfall’s value. The finance ministry has assigned a number to natural-gas export revenues in excess of what they would have been had gas prices remained around their five-year pre-invasion average. Although such counterfactuals will always be subject to uncertainty and debate, the official estimate is the closest we will get to a value for Norway’s war windfall. In fact, the actual number is probably much higher, as the estimate does not include excess revenues resulting from higher oil prices following the invasion.

With Europeans wringing their hands about the implications of Donald Trump’s return to power, Norway’s government and parliament should transfer the windfall to Ukraine in the form of military and financial support. Norway has a powerful national-security interest in doing the right thing.

Tag Archive for: Ukraine

Bringing Russia’s war criminals to justice, with Nobel Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk

Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk heads the Center for Civil Liberties, which won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for its work documenting Russian war crimes. She speaks with Stop the World about her hopes that Vladimir Putin and other powerful Russians can be held accountable for their human rights abuses against Ukrainians.

Oleksandra also talks about Ukraine’s resilience and morale, the need for a just peace, the collapse of the international order, her organisation’s work documenting more than 84,000 Russian war crimes, the need for a new approach to international justice, and why Ukraine is fighting not just for itself but for all of us … and for the future of the free world.

Vladimir Putin is taking the peace, with Peter Tesch

During a two hour phone call this week with US President Donald Trump, Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin did what everyone expected—he raised impossible demands, promised next to nothing, and generally made a mockery of Trump’s patience. 

Australia’s former Ambassador to Russia and Germany Peter Tesch speaks with David Wroe about the dynamic between Trump and Putin, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s perilous place in the middle, Ukraine’s courageous fight for global democracy, the future of European security, the shape of a new world in which major powers carve out spheres of influence, and Australia’s defence investment with the budget and election looming. Peter and David also discuss gaps in their reading habits.

The Economist’s Shashank Joshi on Trump, Ukraine and Europe’s rearmament

Donald Trump has upended US foreign policy—in particular his nation’s role in supporting Ukraine’s self-defence against Russia’s unprovoked invasion, and its traditionally close relationship with its NATO allies in Europe. As a consequence, Europe is scrambling to lift its defence investment and capability with a sense of urgency not seen in the post-War years.

The Economist’s Defence Editor Shashank Joshi gives us his expert take on the latest developments, what they mean and where the world is headed from here. Shashank helps us to understand what Trump is trying to do, how Europe sees the threat from Russia in a possible future in which Putin’s aggression is rewarded rather than penalised, and the increasingly positive signs of strong European leadership to take up the role defending a liberal international order. Finally he gives his view on what it all means for Australia and the Indo-Pacific.

Stop the World: Why Ukraine matters to the Indo-Pacific

Today on Stop the World, the conversation on Ukraine continues, with ASPI’s Alex Bristow speaking to Jakub Zajączkowski and Saroj Kumar Aryal from the University of Warsaw. They discuss the EU and US approaches to peace in Ukraine, the security guarantees Ukraine needs, and the links between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic, including through NATO and the Indo-Pacific Four.

They discuss Poland’s increased interest in the Indo-Pacific, the value of minilaterals such as the Quad, and India’s relationships with Russia, Europe and Quad countries.

Guests:
Alex Bristow
Jakub Zajączkowski
Saroj Kumar Aryal

Stop the World: A new world order? Ukraine’s Ambassador on Russia, the United States and Europe

In this special episode of Stop the World, ASPI’s David Wroe speaks with Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, on the morning after US and Russian representatives met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Ambassador responds to the blizzard of recent developments affecting the prospect of a peace agreement to end Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against its democratic neighbour as we approach the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion. He talks about signs of a turning point in the world order, Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO, recent remarks from the Trump administration, a security guarantee for the Ukrainian people, and the grim future the world faces if aggression is allowed to go unchecked.

Guests:

David Wroe

Vasyl Myroshnychenko

Stop the World: Strategic shifts with Thijs van der Plas, Anita Nergaard and Scott M. Oudkirk

In the latest episode of Stop the World, ASPI’s Executive Director Justin Bassi is joined by Netherlands Ambassador to NATO Thijs van der Plas, Norway’s Ambassador to NATO Anita Nergaard and the US Chargé d’affaires to NATO Scott M. Oudkirk. 

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO has undergone a strategic shift with increased collective defence spending and the expansion of the alliance to include Finland and Sweden. This conversation explores NATO’s recent evolution and how Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine contributed to it. 

Justin, Thijs, Anita and Scott also discuss the current state of the war in Ukraine and whether the conflict is headed towards a stalemate, or if there is a credible path towards a Ukrainian victory. They also talk about China’s role in enabling the Russian war effort, the introduction of North Korean troops into the conflict and how to deter Russia’s increasing hybrid warfare. 

Finally, they explore NATO’s relationship with the Indo-Pacific, including its ties with the Indo-Pacific Four countries – Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand – and they discuss the indivisibility of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security. 

Guests:
Thijs van der Plas
Anita Nergaard
Scott M. Oudkirk

Stop the World: Not just another conversation on Russia, with Mark Galeotti

This week on the pod, David Wroe interviews Russia expert Mark Galeotti. Mark is a renowned author of many books, including ‘We Need to Talk About Putin’ and ‘Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin, and the new fight for the future of Russia’, and host of the podcast ‘In Moscow’s Shadows’.

David asks Mark for an update on Russia’s war on Ukraine, whether time is on Ukraine or Russia’s side, the impacts of the war on Russia domestically and Putin’s hold on power. They also discuss the increase of Russia’s sabotage activities across Europe and the potential impacts of the US elections on Russia’s war on Ukraine. Mark is a true Russia expert and he’s full of insights that you’re unlikely to have heard elsewhere.

Guests:

⁠David Wroe⁠

⁠Mark Galeotti

Stop the World: Peace on Ukraine’s terms, with Minister Bill Shorten

In a special episode of Stop the World, ASPI’s Executive Director, Justin Bassi, speaks with Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and former leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, about his recent attendance as Australia’s representative to Switzerland’s Summit on Peace in Ukraine.

The Minister outlined why what happens in Ukraine matters to Australia and our region, and how it will be important for countries to not only support Ukraine during the conflict, but also with its recovery and reconstruction post-war. They also discuss the impact of the war on people with disabilities, the importance of assistive technologies and how Australia can help.

Guests:

⁠Justin Bassi⁠

⁠Bill Shorten

Stop the World: EU security and strategic stability in the Indo-Pacific

This week on Stop the World, ASPI Senior Analyst Alex Bristow speaks to Niclas Kvarnström, Managing Director for Asia and the Pacific at the European ExternalAction Service, to discuss the European Union’s engagement in and relationship with the Indo-Pacific.

With war in Europe and conflict in the Middle East, they discuss how much capacity the European Union (EU) has to focus on the Indo-Pacific, how Russia’s war on Ukraine has forced a rethink of the EU’s future security, as well as its relationship with China.

And in the episode’s second segment, Alex is joined by William Leben, Expert Associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College, to unpack his recent ASPI report ‘Escalation risks in the Indo-Pacific: a review for practitioners’. They discuss the main threats to strategic stability in the Indo-Pacific, how a potential crisis in the region might develop, and whether or not AUKUS will contribute to a balance of power in the region.

Mentioned in this episode:

⁠https://www.aspi.org.au/report/escalation-risks-indo-pacific-review-practitioners#:~:text=The%20outbreak%20of%20war%20in,potential%20miscalculations%20heighten%20the%20risk⁠.

Guests:

⁠Alex Bristow⁠

Niclas Kvarnström

⁠William Leben