Tag Archive for: Russia

The end of Scandinavian non-alignment

Having debarked from ports in western Sweden, military convoys from various NATO countries are crowding Swedish streets and prompting the police to issue traffic warnings. They are on their way to Norway, where some 50,000 soldiers, airmen and seamen will come together for NATO’s largest military exercise in years. The operation—‘Trident Juncture’— has a clear goal: to demonstrate the alliance’s ability to defend Norway against a foreign aggressor.

There is no need to name the potential aggressor. Obviously, it is not Sweden or Finland, both of which have contributed soldiers to the exercise. During the Cold War, Finland did occasionally come under Soviet pressure as the Kremlin sought to expand its room for manoeuvre. But it always remained firm in its commitment to defend its Nordic and Western identity.

Similarly, Sweden has always abstained from joining NATO, owing to its longstanding geopolitical neutrality and out of solidarity with the Finns. And while Denmark and Norway did join the alliance, they long opted out of hosting foreign forces during peacetime.

But in recent years, Northern Europe’s security landscape has changed. In response to Russian aggression and revisionism, NATO has deployed battalion battle groups in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as air force squadrons to police those countries’ skies. And in both Sweden and Finland, defence spending is increasing, and there is an ongoing debate about whether to upgrade the privileged partnership with NATO to full membership.

For its part, Sweden already acknowledges that its territory would fall well within the theatre of NATO operations should a conflict arise in Northern Europe and this realisation has increasingly factored into its own security policy and defence preparations. The Swedish foreign policy establishment understands that any threat to the sovereignty of the Baltic countries or Norway would also be a threat to Sweden’s security. Hence, Sweden is not just participating in Trident Juncture, but also developing a security partnership with Poland to see to the defence of the Baltic Sea area.

Sweden’s deepening partnership with NATO is a far cry from its Cold War-era doctrine of non-alignment. Back then, the custodians of neutrality would have shouted down any hint of collaboration with NATO and the West as an act of treason. The strategy was to persuade the Kremlin that no such thing could ever happen.

But, of course, it was always a charade. The Soviet Union had recruited enough high-level assets in the Swedish government to know about its secret ties to the West. Whatever the Swedish people were led to believe about their country’s neutrality, the Soviets knew it was a lie. Now the ruse is over: full-scale military integration with NATO is in the offing.

Still, full NATO membership remains a controversial issue in Sweden. In the old days, Swedish foreign policy was torn between two very different approaches. On the one hand, Sweden was an extroverted activist, sounding more like a non-governmental organisation than a nation-state; on the other hand, it maintained a hyper-realist ‘deep security’ policy, albeit one that was talked about only in low voices behind closed doors. To this day, the same clash of cultures stands in the way of a rational debate about security policy.

As for Finland, it always had plenty of the second approach, but almost none of the first. And in the absence of much domestic disagreement, it has had an easier time adjusting to new geopolitical realities. For example, Finland has explicitly said that it considers NATO membership to be an important option for its security policy, which is something that the Swedish centre-left has not yet been willing to countenance.

Nevertheless, with Trident Juncture, Swedes will see a Swedish-led brigade (comprising Swedish and Finnish units) join with NATO forces in a large-scale defence drill. They will witness the extent to which the Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian air forces are already integrated. And they will watch as Finland leads naval exercises in the Baltic Sea.

In the years ahead, Sweden will continue to move closer to NATO. Joint exercises will lead to deeper operational alignment and the establishment of common deterrence capabilities for all of Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea area.

To be sure, today’s mobilisation is not driven by an acute threat from Russia. But Russia’s aggressive effort to modernise its military all but requires the West to increase its own defence capacity in the region. We need to send a clear message that opportunistic acts of aggression will be answered, both now and in the future. By preparing a proper defence, we can ensure peace and stability in the region, which is a prerequisite for moving towards a more constructive relationship with Russia in the long run.

Why the World Cup mattered

The 17th-century philosopher and satirist Jean de La Bruyère once quipped that, ‘Corneille portrays men as they should be, Racine depicts them as they are.’ For Europeans, and even more so for the French, the 2018 World Cup was a Corneillian event. The month-long soccer tournament in Russia offered an enchanted respite from a tumultuous world and revealed the better angels of our nature.

In the counter-reality of the tournament, a mood of self-confidence, altruism and openness to the ‘other’ prevailed. At least for a while, the chauvinism, alienation and despair that have dominated this era of populist nationalism seemed to be forgotten.

Geographically speaking, all four of the semi-finalists—France, Croatia, Belgium and England—hailed from the Old Continent. Denounce Europe for its supposed weakness and decadence all you want. When it comes to the world’s most popular sport, Europe is king.

Moreover, it is clear that Africa is the soccer continent of the future, whereas Latin America is the continent of the past. Having won the cup in 1930 and again in 1950, Uruguay was once the smallest country (by population) to reach the final. But that honour is now shared by the brave team fielded by Croatia, the newest EU member state.

In stark contrast to the ‘real world’, the two leading powers, the United States and China, played no role in the tournament. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s dream of turning the US into a great soccer power has proved to be more difficult than he had hoped. And China under President Xi Jinping remains a soccer lightweight, despite having invested billions of dollars in the sport. Instead, North America was represented with brio by Mexico, and Asia by Japan and South Korea.

The strange divergence between the real world and the world of soccer this year was also evident in expressions of nationalist emotion. The great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges once condemned the sport for its role in fuelling toxic forms of nationalism (such as the short-lived ‘Football War’ between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969). But in the 2018 World Cup—a century after the end of the nationalist bloodbath that was World War I—a ‘soft’, even gentle nationalism prevailed.

Russia is hardly an exponent of soft power, yet it deserves credit for the absence of violence during the tournament. International press reports showed Ukrainian and Russian fans fraternising like old friends. Whereas the Vietnam War–era Woodstock festival exemplified the slogan ‘Make Love, Not War’, the de facto slogan of the 2018 Cup seems to have been ‘Balls, Not Bombs’.

In addition to channelling a more constructive form of nationalism, the semi-finalists and their fans also embodied effective collective action, altruism, openness and tolerance. Interestingly, the teams that relied on a single star player—whether Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, Lionel Messi of Argentina, or Neymar of Brazil—all failed to advance beyond the quarter-finals.

In the real world nowadays, people are increasingly tempted to erect walls and close themselves off from ‘others’. And yet, the strength of the winning team, France, was in its diversity. This year’s chant of ‘Liberté, Egalité, Mbappé’ (for the 19-year-old French forward Kylian Mbappé) was a more enlightened version of the slogan from France’s victory in 1998: ‘Zidane for President’.

On the eve of the 2017 French presidential election, many political commentators repeated the mantra, ‘never two without three’. After the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and the election of US President Donald Trump, they warned, a victory for Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front could complete the trifecta. Similarly, at the start of 2018, many French commentators seemed to think that we were approaching another ‘May 1968’ or ‘December 1995,’ when mass strikes and street protests paralysed the entire country.

Although there have been limited strikes against French President Emmanuel Macron’s reform agenda, these commentators got it wrong. The closest parallel to this year is not 1968 or 1995, but 1998, when France first won the World Cup.

Domestically, France’s victory likely will have little effect, if any, on Macron’s popularity. Soccer emotions are intense, but generally fleeting. On the international scene, however, France’s win could have a longer-lasting impact. No one can deny that ‘France is back’, at least in terms of soccer. The country has emerged as an oasis of dynamism, realism and youthful enthusiasm, much of which is also reflected in Macron himself.

An obvious foil is Germany. Usually a soccer powerhouse, the German team was eliminated in the first round of this year’s tournament, just as its politics were entering a deeper malaise. In geopolitical terms, if one were to name just two winners this year, the titles would have to go to Russia and France.

ASPI suggests

The world

Let’s dive right into world politics and get the Helsinki meeting out of the way: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s long-anticipated get-together was the talk of the week. It seems they had a jolly good time despite Putin making Trump wait, as is his wont. The press conference created a stir when Trump supported Putin’s denial of Russian election meddling. Here are the Brookings experts’ feelings post-Helsinki. In a European Council on Foreign Relations article, Kadri Liik provides a European perspective on the meeting, asking whether Russia really won and Europe lost in Helsinki. For Elena Chernenko, the answer is clear: in the New York Times she argues that Putin ended up on top. And Alexander Gabuev explains in The Hill why sanctions might be more of a blessing to the Kremlin than troubles.

Meanwhile, AP reported that a collection of bots and trolls is yet again ‘testing the waters’ in the run-up to the American midterm elections later this year; they’ve already launched a website called USAReally. Maybe the US authorities (and others) should read this CSIS Brief explaining how to successfully counter electoral interference.

Oh, and one more on Russian influence: the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project shows how a former Russian parliamentarian partly financed recent riots in Macedonia against a name-change deal with Greece that opened the door to NATO membership for Macedonia.

Jumping over to the Asia–Pacific: In the Wall Street Journal, Lynn Kuok argues that China will succeed in the South China Sea if the White House doesn’t step up its efforts. Beijing and Washington’s relationship is also the centre of attention in The National Interest, where Lyle J. Goldstein draws comparisons between the Cuban missile crisis and possible scenarios on Taiwan, calling for American analysts to better understand the military balance in the Pacific. And Foreign Affairs concentrates on Japan and the East China Sea: Eric Heginbotham and Richard Samuels urge Tokyo to rethink its military strategy for practising ‘active denial’.

Speaking of strategy, a recent essay in Strategy Bridge revisits the roots of modern military education (cue: Prussia), while Robert H. Latiff, a former US Air Force major general, writes about ethical challenges for soldiers in modern warfare in the New York Times. And in the New York Times Magazine we found this insightful analysis of war graffiti and its meaning in the culture of war.

Rounding things up with two fascinating reads: The American Interest’s long essay on the connection between fear, societal insecurities and terrorism; and The Conversation highlighting the importance of indigenous people in the global conservation and sustainable development debate, as they manage around a quarter of the world’s land.

 Tech geek

There have been some big developments in the fighter aviation sector at the Farnborough International Airshow, so tech geek has an air power focus this week.

The big news was the release of a full-scale mock-up of the new Tempest fighter, which will be developed by the British with European partners. Tempest is designed to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon by 2035. It is designated a sixth-generation fighter, as it is set to be optionally manned and have the ability to support AI and directed-energy weapons.

The fighter model was displayed at the same time as the Royal Air Force released its new combat air strategy.

Germany and France are moving ahead with their own sixth-generation fighter, and Northrop Grumman has joined the competition to provide what could be a ‘5.5’ or sixth-generation fighter for Japan, challenging a Lockheed Martin proposal for an F-22/F-35 hybrid.

Meanwhile, the Russians have put large-scale production of their Su-57 (formerly ‘PAK-FA’) on ice. Moscow will continue to produce small numbers of the jet, but will rely more heavily on enhancing the very capable Su-35 Super Flanker.

Boeing is pitching an advanced F-15 to the US Air Force. The F-15X would have enhanced avionics and radars and carry more than two dozen air-to-air missiles. This follows the lead of the Block III Super Hornet, which has been bought by the US Navy.

Finally, the XQ-58A Valkyrie built by Kratos is set to be used as a test vehicle for the ‘loyal wingman’ concept. This could see manned fighters supported by unmanned vehicles, which enhance the combat capability of air forces at a reduced cost compared to additional manned fighter aircraft.

Multimedia

Reuters photographer Oswaldo Rivas captured the violent clashes between anti-government demonstrators and Nicaragua’s special forces last week.

Nelson Mandela would have celebrated his 100th birthday this week. A DW documentary honours his legacy with a very personal portrait. [42:25]

Podcasts

In its latest Audio Long Reads, the Guardian looks at the collapse and failure of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, which was established to investigate alleged war crimes committed by British soldiers against Iraqi civilians, and how the public discourse on such investigations has changed over the last decade. [42:03; strong language]

The Defence Science and Technology podcast dissects the Next Generation Technologies Fund, especially the grand challenge program. Alison Caldwell hosts Shane Canney, who’s the inaugural project director of the first grand challenge, countering improvised threats. [6:26]

Arms Control Wonk talks about Chollima (Kangson), North Korea’s enrichment site, which the podcasters have (probably) found after a long investigation. [40:48]

Events

Sydney, 24 July, 12–1 pm, UNSW Grand Challenges program: ‘Hysteria or hazard? Big data and what the UN thinks about your privacy’. Free registration essential.

Canberra, 25 July, 6.15–8.15 pm, Young Australians in International Affairs: ‘The South China Sea: a challenge to international law’. More info here.

Brisbane, 26 July, 1–4 pm, QUT Faculty of Law: ‘The Australia–European Union free trade agreement and Brexit’. Free registration.

Canberra, 26 July, 4.15–5.15 pm, ANU College of Law: ‘New respect for old rules: turning traditional rules of warfare into modern law in PNG’s highlands’. Info and registration here.

The Royal Australian Navy in Southern Russia, 1918–20

The guns on the Western Front had fallen silent and the armistice had been signed, but in Eastern Europe there was no peace. In Russia the civil war between the Imperial ‘White’ government and the Bolshevik ‘Reds’ was dragging on into its second year and soon the RAN would also become involved.

When the war ended, there were seven Australian warships serving in the Mediterranean: the destroyers HMA Ships Huon, Parramatta, Swan, Torrens, Warrego and Yarra and the light cruiser HMAS Brisbane. In addition, some RAN officers were attached to ships of the Royal Navy serving in the region.

On 12 November 1918, the day after the armistice was signed, Parramatta, Torrens and Yarra steamed through the Dardanelles and began operations in the Sea of Marmara enforcing the terms of the Turkish surrender. By early December they had been joined by the other three destroyers and Brisbane.

All seven ships were soon involved in carrying out additional duties in the Black Sea in support of Allied (British, French and Italian) forces supporting the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. Parramatta and Swan (which had arrived at Constantinople on 21 November) became part of a larger Allied naval task force, entering the Black Sea on the 25th and the next day were anchored off the port of Sevastopol (Crimean peninsula). Ashore, the situation was confused, with stray German and Austro-Hungarian units still in the area as well as White Russian and Bolshevik forces. Russian navy ships were in the harbour and a number of scuttled German torpedo boats could also be seen.

Parramatta was then employed as a dispatch vessel steaming from Sevastopol to Constantinople (Istanbul) on a regular basis delivering mail and signals to the various commanders and ships, as well as carrying passengers as required. She continued in this role until 16 December. Yarra and Torrens went to the Russian ports of Novorossiysk and Batumi, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Yarra was later used to move a cargo of ammunition, petrol and two motorcycles to Sevastopol for use by British personnel ashore.

Warrego arrived at Constantinople on 1 December 1918 and was also briefly attached to the British forces operating in the Black Sea. Huon entered the Dardanelles on the 3rd of December and arrived at Sevastopol on the 7th. Her ships company noted that German soldiers were being employed to provide security in the area in case of Bolshevik attack. She sailed on 9 December and proceeded east to the port of Theodesia (Fedoesia), where she went alongside on the 10th in a show of force. Huon departed Theodesia the next day and returned to Sevastopol on 12 December, where she took the captured German submarine UC 37 in tow to Constantinople. She then operated in the Sea of Marmara for the remainder of the month.

The cruiser Brisbane also served briefly in the Black Sea. On 8 December, she embarked 345 Royal Marines at Chanak (Cannakale) and steamed, at 22 knots, to Sevastopol, disembarking them on the 10th. With the aid of a captured German chart, the cruiser entered harbour avoiding a large defensive minefield before offloading the British troops who proceeded to restore order in the city. Some desultory shots were fired at Brisbane but the marines landed safely. One of Brisbane’s officers later wrote:

Our Marines were landed to police the city, and if ever a city needed policing, Sevastopol did. The rounding up of Bolsheviks and putting an end to their ghastly ways and filthy practices, and their habit of creating dirt and ruin of everything they touched was a large order … It was with deep regret that the Brisbane received the order to Smyrna (Izmir) and leave others to attend to the business here.

While the RAN ships were at Sevastopol, they kept a landing party on standby and small arms were available for immediate use. No attacks were made on the ship but occasional sniping kept the crews motivated.

Of the Australian ships it was Swan that was to play the most significant role in the region. On 4 December, Swan (under Commander Arthur Bond, RN), in company with the French destroyer Bisson (Captaine de Corvette Cochin) was sent on a special mission to the Sea of Azov (northeast of the Crimea) to make contact with White Russian forces in that area.

The destroyers were chosen because the only entrance to the Sea of Azov was via the shallow Strait of Kerch and all navigational beacons in the area had been destroyed. In early December Swan embarked the Russian Admiral Kononoff, and an interpreter, and transited the strait with Bisson; both ships had barely a foot of water under their keel. Steaming north they berthed at the port city of Mariupol during a heavy snowstorm.

On 8 December, Commander Bond, accompanied by three officers and six ratings from Swan, and a similar sized French delegation from Bisson, boarded a train to travel to the cities of Rostov and Novocherkassk to inspect White Russian forces and facilities.

The combined Australian–French delegation was met by General Peter Krasnov, the Ataman of the Don Republic, commanding the White Russian forces, with much celebration. The entire Don Cossack regiment lined the streets to greet the delegation and a church service and banquet were held in their honour. An inspection of military facilities and training camps was undertaken and the officers then visited frontline units by train and motor vehicle. Bond noted that the White Russian forces were exceptionally brave, but significantly outnumbered by the Bolsheviks and heavily reliant on captured arms and ammunition to continue the fight.

On 14 December, the inspection tour was nearing the frontline near Bobrov (some 480 kilometres north of the Sea of Azov) when the Bolshevik forces broke through and forced them back to Mariupol where they rejoined Swan. The two Allied destroyers then steamed to Sevastopol where Bond delivered his written report, concerning the state of the White Russian forces, and this was dispatched to the British Foreign Office for review. Swan remained at Sevastopol to support other Allied warships, due to a surge in Bolshevik activity near Inkerman (5 kilometres east of Sevastopol), until sailing for Constantinople just prior to Christmas 1918.

All nine members of Swan’s delegation were decorated by General Krasnoff. Bond was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir (4th Class with Swords); Engineer Lieutenant George Bloomfield, RAN, and Paymaster Sub-Lieutenant Douglas Munro, RAN, were both awarded the Order of St Anne (2nd Class); and the six ratings (Chief Petty Officer Stoker Alexander White, Petty Officer John Neal, Petty Officer Telegraphist Arthur Swinden, Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Edward Robinson, Officers Steward Eric Bouchier and Officers Steward Wilberforce Rostron) were each awarded the Medal of the Order of St Anne.

On 26 December 1918, Huon, Parramatta, Swan and Yarra departed Constantinople bound for Malta, before continuing on to England for maintenance. Torrens and Warrego sailed a few days later also bound for England. Brisbane was at this stage still operating off Smyrna (Izmir) supporting minesweeping operations and the safe entry of shipping into the harbour. She departed Smyrna on 4 January 1919 for a refit in Portsmouth, England. This ended the RAN’s first involvement in the Russian Civil War.

In 1920, 12 RAN midshipmen saw service in southern Russia while on loan to the Royal Navy. The RAN College class of 1915, graduating in late 1918, arrived in England in early 1919 and was too late to see active service. In May 1919, however, midshipmen Chesterman, Dowling, Hall, Hewitt, Rorke and Rosenthal joined the battleship HMS Ramillies while their classmates midshipmen Hodgeson, Hore, Miller, Selk, Townsend and Walker went to the battleship HMS Revenge.

During 1920, both battleships served in the Black Sea as part of the Royal Navy force protecting British interests in that region during both the Russian Civil War (1917–22) and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22). The ships conducted operations at Batumi in April and Sevastopol and Yalta in August. Landing parties of sailors and marines were frequently put ashore as a show of force and on one occasion the midshipmen were able to visit the Crimean War battlefields including Balaclava, Inkerman and the ‘Valley of Death’ where the charge of the light brigade took place on 25 October 1854.

All 12 midshipmen were subsequently awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for their service in Russia. The criteria for the award of these medals normally had a cessation date of 11 November 1918 except for those personnel serving in Russia, and adjacent waters, during the Russian Civil War.

One member of the RAN did serve in North Russia in 1919, but by a very circuitous route. John Edward Boag enlisted in the RAN as a HMAS Tingira boy on 8 June 1916 and in January 1918 joined the light cruiser HMAS Encounter as an ordinary telegraphist 2nd class. The cruiser was employed on convoy escort and patrol duties, in Australian waters, and this lack of adventure caused Boag to desert in June 1918 and enlist in the 1st AIF as Private Edward Redmond (10th Battalion).

He arrived in France shortly after the armistice was signed, but was determined to see action and on 28 May 1919 enlisted in the 45th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (British Army) and went to Russia as part of the Allied North Russian Relief Force in June. Redmond (Boag) completed his service in North Russia in September 1919 and returned to England for discharge in January 1920.

Despite the efforts of Allied maritime and land forces, the White Russian forces collapsed and by late 1922 had been defeated by the Bolshevik forces on all fronts—although a few units held out in far eastern Russia until the middle of 1923. This ushered in the period of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which lasted until its collapse in 1991.

The trouble with Telegram (part 1)

Telegram is an encrypted internet messaging app developed in Russia to avoid censorship by the Putin regime. It’s so effective that it’s proving problematic for law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies around the world, including in Australia.

Russia’s Pavel Durov founded the service after he came under Kremlin pressure to relinquish control of his social media platform, VKontakte (VK), which was so popular that it earned Durov the title ‘the Zuckerberg of Russia’. When he launched Telegram in 2013, a Kremlin-linked firm attempted to wrest control of it away from him, but the case went through the American legal system because Telegram was registered in the US. In 2014, Durov won ownership of the app.

Durov’s willingness to stand up to an authoritarian regime paid off: Telegram is the 8th most used messaging service worldwide. Its 200 million users come mainly from illiberal countries such as Russia and Iran, where it’s mostly used as a political platform—just as VK was—to evade state censorship. This is likely to be the real reason behind Russia’s and Iran’s recent bans of Telegram. Telegram’s refusal to capitulate to the Kremlin earned it Amnesty International’s support.

So why is Telegram a problem? As a company, Telegram appears hostile to law enforcement: the head of Europol said that the force was getting some cooperation from Telegram ‘but nowhere near what we are getting from Facebook, Twitter and some of the others’. Durov himself has said he’s willing to live with terrorist attacks because privacy must come first. The company has been generally unwilling to comply with requests from law enforcement bodies, and the Russian Telegram ban started when Telegram refused to hand over encryption keys.

Telegram is also structured to resist government requests and subpoenas. It’s incorporated in Dubai, but its servers’ locations and employees’ names are secret, thanks to a complex of transnational shell companies scattered worldwide. Access to user data requires not only international cooperation, but knowing where the data is located—a nearly impossible task without cooperation from the messaging service.

Telegram’s technology has also made it the ‘app of choice’ for the Islamic State terrorist group. Telegram offers ‘channels’, in which one user broadcasts a content feed to be read or watched by unlimited subscribers. When channels are taken down, IS quickly uploads thousands of megabytes of old data to new and backup channels, using bots to disseminate information broadly across multiple channels. And IS is quickly across attempts to put out fake media in its name, reminding users to trust only its accounts. The Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy, West Point, has extensively analysed IS’s file-sharing methods on Telegram.

Telegram also offers two types of communications: server–client encrypted and end-to-end encrypted (‘secret chats’). The former aren’t secure—and indeed are the default setting, which has been critcised for tricking unwary users. But IS uses them for massive group chats (Whatsapp allows a maximum of 256 people) that provide a virtual community for followers to engage with violent jihad and be targeted for recruitment. A few IS administrators monitor dozens of chatrooms, removing suspected infiltrators. The chatrooms are taken down by Telegram fairly rapidly, but IS has developed methods to retain and transfer followers to new ones.

The ‘secret chat’ function uses end-to-end encryption. Data is stored locally—if the phone is lost, the data is gone, and not even Telegram can access the content of chats. Only message participants have the encryption key needed to read secret chat messages. The Telegram app doesn’t permit screenshots, and participants can set self-destruct timers that delete messages from histories and phone logs. Without those messages, law enforcement is unable to access what may be important evidence for prosecutions.

Of course, its encryption could be broken—skilled cryptographers have doubts about Telegram’s encryption algorithms. And contradictory claims abound about whether secret services worldwide have broken the algorithms; just last week a Chinese-language media source claimed that the PLA’s cyber unit had broken into Telegram. But, so far, no confirmed major problems have been found. In the meantime, Telegram is believed to have been used to help plan terrorist attacks in Russia and France and to disseminate extremist propaganda.

The problems will be more acute if Durov realises his ambition to build a closed ecosystem of integrated applications onto Telegram’s platform, including cryptocurrency payments for digital and physical goods and services. If successful, the system will function like China’s WeChat, which is used by a billion people for everything from paying utility bills and hailing taxis to messaging friends, all without ever leaving the app.

But, unlike WeChat, which operates under the benevolence of the Chinese Communist Party, Durov doesn’t want Telegram to go the same way as his earlier project, VK. He wants it to be an ecosystem separated from state regulation. Like a tax haven, it would allow users to avoid taxes and state scrutiny of financial movements. If Durov succeeds in this endeavour, states will have a harder time tracking the financing, locations and interactions of terrorists.

So between the company’s unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement—seen both in the Russian case and in Europol’s frustration—and IS’s preference for the app’s technology, Telegram is a major problem.

In part 2 of this post, I’ll look at why legislative fixes—such as the one proposed by the Australian government—will be insufficient to address these issues.

Is cyber the perfect weapon?

For years, political leaders such as former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have warned of the danger of a ‘cyber Pearl Harbor’. We have known for some time that potential adversaries have installed malicious software in our electricity grid. Suddenly the power could go out in large regions, causing economic disruption, havoc and death. Russia used such an attack in December 2015 in its hybrid warfare against Ukraine, though for only a few hours. Earlier, in 2008, Russia used cyberattacks to disrupt the government of Georgia’s efforts to defend against Russian troops.

Thus far, however, cyber weapons seem to be more useful for signalling or sowing confusion than for physical destruction—more a support weapon than a means to clinch victory. Millions of intrusions into other countries’ networks occur each year, but only a half-dozen or so have done significant physical (as opposed to economic and political) damage. As Robert Schmidle, Michael Sulmeyer and Ben Buchanan put it, ‘No one has ever been killed by a cyber capability.’

US doctrine is to respond to a cyberattack with any weapon, in proportion to the physical damage caused, based on the insistence that international law—including the right to self-defence—applies to cyber conflicts. Given that the lights have not gone out, maybe this deterrent posture has worked.

Then again, maybe we are looking in the wrong place, and the real danger is not major physical damage but conflict in the grey zone of hostility below the threshold of conventional warfare. In 2013, Russian chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov described a doctrine for hybrid warfare that blends conventional weapons, economic coercion, information operations and cyberattacks.

The use of information to confuse and divide an enemy was widely practised during the Cold War. What is new is not the basic model, but the high speed and low cost of spreading disinformation. Electrons are faster, cheaper, safer and more deniable than spies carrying around bags of money and secrets.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin sees his country as locked in a struggle with the United States but is deterred from using high levels of force by the risk of nuclear war, then perhaps cyber is the ‘perfect weapon’. That is the title of an important new book by New York Times reporter David Sanger, who argues that beyond being ‘used to undermine more than banks, databases, and electrical grids’, cyberattacks ‘can be used to fray the civic threads that hold together democracy itself’.

Russia’s cyber interference in the 2016 American presidential election was innovative. Not only did Russian intelligence agencies hack into the email of the Democratic National Committee and dribble out the results through WikiLeaks and other outlets to shape the American news agenda; they also used US-based social-media platforms to spread false news and galvanise opposing groups of Americans. Hacking is illegal, but using social media to sow confusion is not. The brilliance of the Russian innovation in information warfare was to combine existing technologies with a degree of deniability that remained just below the threshold of overt attack.

US intelligence agencies alerted President Barack Obama of the Russian tactics, and he warned Putin of adverse consequences when the two met in September 2016. But Obama was reluctant to call out Russia publicly or to take strong actions for fear that Russia would escalate by attacking election machinery or voting rolls and jeopardise the expected victory of Hillary Clinton. After the election, Obama went public and expelled Russian spies and closed some diplomatic facilities, but the weakness of the US response undercut any deterrent effect. And because President Donald Trump has treated the issue as a political challenge to the legitimacy of his victory, his administration also failed to take strong steps.

Countering this new weapon requires a strategy to organise a broad national response that includes all government agencies and emphasises more effective deterrence. Punishment can be meted out within the cyber domain by tailored reprisals, and across domains by applying stronger economic and personal sanctions. We also need deterrence by denial—making the attacker’s work more costly than the value of the benefits to be reaped.

There are many ways to make the US a tougher and more resilient target. Steps include training state and local election officials; requiring a paper trail as a backup to electronic voting machines; encouraging campaigns and parties to improve basic cyber hygiene such as encryption and two-factor authentication; working with companies to exclude social-media bots; requiring identification of the sources of political advertisements (as now occurs on television); outlawing foreign political advertising; promoting independent fact-checking; and improving the public’s media literacy. Such measures helped to limit the success of Russian intervention in the 2017 French presidential election.

Diplomacy might also play a role. Even when the US and the Soviet Union were bitter ideological enemies during the Cold War, they were able to negotiate agreements. Given the authoritarian nature of the Russian political system, it could be meaningless to agree not to interfere in Russian elections. Nonetheless, it might be possible to establish rules that limit the intensity and frequency of information attacks. During the Cold War, the two sides did not kill each other’s spies, and the Incidents at Sea Agreement limited the level of harassment involved in close naval surveillance. Today, such agreements seem unlikely, but they are worth exploring in the future.

Above all, the US must demonstrate that cyberattacks and manipulation of social media will incur costs and thus not remain the perfect weapon for warfare below the level of armed conflict.

Deterring Russia

If you wanted to sum up America’s (and its allies’) military-strategic posture towards China in Asia today in a sentence, you’d say that we aim to deter China from using force in situations like Taiwan by the threat of a full-scale military response. So it’s worth asking whether we’re really doing enough to deter China.

We can illuminate this a little by looking at Europe. In 2016, after Russia annexed Crimea and invaded other parts of Ukraine, NATO feared that some of its members—the Baltic states or even Poland—might be next. It responded by deploying multinational combat formations to these frontline member states. This ‘enhanced forward presence’ (EFP) consists of four battalion-sized ‘battle groups’, one in each of the Baltic states and Poland, composed of contingents from a total of 20 different NATO member states.

In NATO circles the EFP is seen as a big deal, because it is believed to show the alliance’s resolve to resist with armed force any Russian military move against these new member states. This is thought to be an effective deterrent.

Of course, these tiny forces are not expected to stop or even slow a Russian advance. Though NATO is reluctant to use the term, they are a classic tripwire. Ensuring that allied forces are engaged by the Russians at the start of any incursion is supposed to make a full-scale NATO military response inevitable. Moscow is expected to calculate that no NATO member could stand back once its own forces had been attacked. That is why so many member states are represented.

But is that right? Does the EFP tripwire do much to strengthen Moscow’s expectations that an attack on Latvia, for example, would mean war with NATO? It’s easy to assume that any NATO member would find it hard to refrain from contributing to a full-scale military response once its own forces had been engaged, and soldiers killed. Both domestic and international pressures would be intense.

However, things might not play out that way. Much depends on what happens on the battlefield. The pressure on NATO to escalate would indeed be intense if an EFP battalion was rolled over and crushed with many casualties. But things would be different if the Russians were smart enough to encircle the NATO units without doing much damage to them, and then invite them to surrender, offering to send them home with their tails between their legs.

This is not an unlikely outcome, when a single battalion faces multiple divisions. Would NATO member governments then order their forces to fight on against hopeless odds, or would they meekly accept Moscow’s offer? And how much resolve for an escalating fight would they have then? So here is one problem with the EFP: the forces are too small to guarantee the kind of fight that would compel NATO to escalate.

But there’s a bigger problem too. Imagine that an EFP battalion does get into a serious fight with Russian forces, and takes many casualties. Everyone in NATO agrees that a major military response is required. What would they do?

There seems little doubt that Russian forces could quickly seize control of one of the Baltic states or a sizable chunk of its territory, so the only meaningful NATO response would be a major military operation to expel them. That would be a huge and costly business—by far the largest land operations undertaken anywhere in Europe since World War II.

Massive forces would need to be deployed long distances—including, presumably, large US forces across the Atlantic—and would need to be protected as they did so. Russian airpower would have to be neutralised with a sustained campaign of strikes on targets within Russian territory, to which Russia would be sure to retaliate. And then a major land campaign would need to be undertaken. In all this, the risk of nuclear escalation would be very real.

How credible is it that NATO would take this on, at massive cost and risk, to push the Russians out of Latvia, for example? That’s the key question, because what will deter Moscow, if anything does, isn’t the presence of the EFP tripwire itself, but the military campaign that it believes NATO would launch if the tripwire were crossed.

Therefore, in addition to the tripwire, NATO needs to conceive, plan and exercise a credible full-scale campaign to expel Russian forces from frontline NATO member states. Unless Russia can see that NATO has a credible plan for such a campaign, it is unlikely to be deterred. It is more likely to conclude that, faced with a Russian fait accompli, NATO would talk tough but do little.

Moreover, Moscow would need to be persuaded not just that NATO had a plan, but that its members were willing to implement it. There would need to be a clear and evident consensus among NATO members and their voters that they would be willing to bear the costs and risks of a major war to rescue Latvia from the Russians.

Building that consensus will not be easy. It won’t be enough to appeal to abstract principles of international law or the sanctity of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. It will be necessary to explain why other NATO members’ security depends on recovering Latvia, rather than stopping Russia from advancing further west and south. It’s not clear how that argument could be made.

Without this, the EFP tripwire looks a very feeble deterrent. Indeed, it risks becoming the opposite of a deterrent. Instead of displaying NATO’s strength and resolve, it demonstrates just how far the alliance was weakened when it was extended into the territory of the former Soviet Union itself.

This brings us back to Asia. We readily assume that the US and its Asian allies can deter China from attacking Taiwan, for example. But there’s no credible campaign plan which would convince Beijing that Washington and its partners could intervene effectively, or that they would be willing to pay the costs of such a campaign even if they had a plan. Without those, China doesn’t face much of a deterrent.

Australia, don’t underestimate Russia’s interests in Korea

Fiery rhetoric between the White House and Pyongyang dominated news in 2017. The Kim regime caused the world to hold its breath amidst numerous missile launches and one nuclear test, which were condemned in capitals around the world. Multiple commentators stated that the world was on the brink of war.

In contrast, it seems that this year has offered not only a change in rhetoric but also perhaps the beginnings of a change in behaviour. We witnessed an inter-Korean summit at the end of April, and a meeting between Kim Jong‑un and President Donald Trump is planned.

The optimists’ excitement should be met with caution, however, as the past has shown similar developments, but talks or negotiations eventually failed.

Multiple stakeholders are involved in attempting to find a solution to the security issue on the Korean peninsula. One that has been often overlooked in the past is the Russian Federation. Sharing an 18‑kilometre border and having an historic economic, political and military relationship, Moscow remains an important player in the Northeast Asian game.

While the ‘North Korea issue’ doesn’t top the Kremlin’s priority list, it offers a chance for the Russian government to work on its ambitious strategy to expand the country’s international presence and engagement. Based on its involvement in the Syrian conflict, Russian officials often claim that the Russian government has powerfully and successfully returned to the global stage. Unfortunately, the way in which that was occurred has mainly generated concern in the international community.

In my new paper for ASPI, Putin and North Korea—Exploring Russian interests around the peninsula, I argue that ‘the Kremlin opposes a nuclear North Korea and its development of nuclear and missile programs, it favours a stable peninsula, and it increasingly criticises the US presence and involvement in the region’.

To illustrate the specific interests driving the Russian government’s involvement around the peninsula, the paper examines geopolitical, strategic, economic and national policy interests, drawing on official statements over 2017, as well as interviews with Russian experts on North Korea.

Close involvement in possible negotiations would secure the Russian government’s ability to influence the security architecture in the region based on its own interests and rules. This might affect the influence and presence of the US in the region, as well as the nuclear proliferation environment in the Indo-Pacific.

The Kremlin also always promotes its economic interests. Stability on the Korean Peninsula would open up opportunities to tap into the energy market on the peninsula itself, and further establish regional economic partnerships. That would benefit the poorly performing Russian economy, assist the development of the Russian Far East and help compensate for the effects of international sanctions applied to Russia since its illegal annexation of Crimea.

Expanded economic relations is another national interest that Moscow is pursuing. The Russian government opposes what it claims to be increased use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool, in part because President Vladimir Putin wants to demonstrate that sanctions are insufficient to cause regime change. More importantly, Russia wants to undermine the international communities’ confidence in sanctions in order to reduce pressure on Russia itself.

Putin notes that North Korea has been disregarding international agreements by developing its own missile and nuclear program, despite being subject to sanctions since 2006. The sanctions haven’t prevented the regime surviving and developing the country to a certain degree.

I’ve argued before that an increased Russian role in the Indo-Pacific shouldn’t be underestimated.  Alexey Muraviev also noted Russia’s increased military power throughout Asia and the Indo-Pacific in his ASPI report, BEARing back: Russia’s military power in the Indo-Asia-Pacific under Vladimir Putin.

At first, it might seem unclear why Australia would have an interest in Russia’s motivation to be involved in finding a solution to the security issues on the peninsula. The Kim regime’s missiles, which may one day be able to reach the US, don’t pose a direct threat to Australia, mainly because the Kim regime is unlikely to prioritise Australian territory for a strike from its limited arsenal of long-range weapons. Australia is geographically detached from the Korean Peninsula and only a middle power in the region.

However, the consequences of instability in Northeast Asia have implications for Australia. The country is part of the Indo-Pacific as an arena of both security and economic relations. Canberra is, furthermore, connected through security alliances to South Korea as a security guarantor since the 1953 Korean armistice agreement, to Japan as a security partner, as well as to the US as its most important ally in the region.

The unstable situation, even without an escalation to military use, will continue to affect the Indo-Pacific over the long term and has the potential to affect the US position in the region. North Korea watchers and analysts in Australia that I’ve spoken with in preparing the paper agree that the future of Canberra’s main ally in the region is of vital interest to the Australian government.

Furthermore, they stated that a potential conflict in the region would have enormous economic consequences for Australia. The Australian government should therefore have a conscious interest in developments and stakeholders involved around the peninsula, and especially be aware of what specifically drives the involvement of major actors—including Russia.

Europe’s pipeline politics

Angela Merkel’s statement after her meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Berlin on 10 April came as a surprise to many. The German chancellor said that the highly controversial pipeline project Nord Stream 2 would have a future only if the project included a transit role for Ukraine.

The German maritime authority had approved the project in late March. Nord Stream 2 aims to transport Russian natural gas from Siberia to Germany through a 1,200‑kilometre pipeline under the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream 2’s capacity would be 55 billion cubic metres per year. The €9.5 billion project is intended to be online by the end of 2019. It’s being financed mainly by Russian state-run Gazprom, with support from British firm Royal Dutch Shell, German companies Uniper and Wintershall, French firm Engie and Austria’s OMV.

Because the pipeline would run through the Baltic Sea, it would circumvent countries such as Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states. Europe has been arguing about the project for years, and the German government had supported the original plan to run it through the ocean. Merkel’s change of mind could rattle Germany’s young coalition government. In the past, the German government had argued that because Nord Stream 2 would be a private industry project, politicians shouldn’t dictate the route. This argument was also used to deflect the European Union’s stark criticism of the project.

Proponents of the project argue that it would diversify Europe’s range of energy providers, secure its gas supply and drive competition in its energy industry. It seems the political character of the project has finally been recognised. Aside from avoiding transit through central-eastern and eastern European countries, a major point of criticism is the heightened dependence on Russian energy that Nord Stream 2 would bring to Europe.

Europe’s dependence on Russian gas is at an all-time high: 30% of EU gas deliveries come from Russia, and 40% of the continent’s gas is supplied by Gazprom. And the volume is growing from year to year. The dependence differs from country to country. Central-eastern and eastern European nations often buy only Russian gas, though some are trying to change that. Poland and the Baltic states are trying to minimise their dependence on Russian gas by increasing their imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US or Arabian peninsula states such as Qatar. Around Europe’s coast, dozens of LNG terminals have been installed and are ready to use. That also explains the strong aversion of the US towards Nord Stream 2: if the project fails, it creates the opportunity for greater US exports of LNG to the continent.

Another criticism is the intended one-pipe construction. Nord Stream 2 would carry almost all of Russia’s gas exports to Europe through one pipe, at very low cost to Russia because it would circumvent transit countries. But it also gives the Russian government the power to regulate the flow of gas.

Ukraine has had very bad experiences because of its high dependence on Russian energy. Several times Moscow has turned off the flow to put political pressure on Ukraine’s government. Ukrainians froze as a result. Between 1991 and 2004 central-eastern and eastern European countries ‘suffered over 40 politically motivated cutoffs’ of gas supplies.

Ukraine’s role as a transit country would become irrelevant with the implementation of Nord Stream 2 (and its sister project, Nord Stream 1). Furthermore, Russia intends to build another pipeline through Turkey to avoid supplying gas via Ukraine, as this infographic highlights. War-torn Ukraine relies heavily on this income, and could lose up to $3 billion per year if it ceases to be a gas transit country.

According to Dr Elizabeth Buchanan from the Australian National University, there’s another strategic issue presenting itself: ‘If Ukraine lost all its transit-ability for European gas deliveries, there is no longer the incentive for Russia to avoid all-out armed conflict as the region is not required to be relatively peaceful for those pipelines anymore.’

Many might wonder what triggered Merkel’s change of heart. European states have been authorising the disputed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, with Finland the latest to give the green light. Merkel’s message was crucial: it would send the wrong message to the Kremlin to expel Russian diplomats after the Salisbury attack, and to impose sanctions following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, while at the same time facilitating business with Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom and ignoring Moscow’s strategic exclusion of embattled Ukraine.

Russia will need to listen to the chancellor. Alternatively, its struggling economy will suffer a significant blow if gas exports to Europe are reduced. Russia relies on them. While the continent has an interest in keeping Russia dependent on Europe as a customer for its gas, the continent also clearly needs to ensure that gas flows along a range of pipeline routes.

Grand strategy: all along the polar silk road

Under Xi Jinping, China has a grand strategy to reshape the current geopolitical landscape. Xi has set out an integrated and coherent set of ideas about China’s ultimate objectives in the international system, and how it should go about achieving them over the coming decades.

That’s the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Chinese government ‘has mobilized the country’s political, diplomatic, intellectual, economic and financial resources’ to meet ‘the most pressing internal and external economic and strategic challenges faced by China’.

The effective power of China’s political–economic model to implement a grand strategy is evident in the Arctic. The release of China’s Arctic Policy white paper in January coincides with what the US National Snow and Ice Data Center describes as ‘the second lowest Arctic maximum [extent of Arctic sea ice] in the 39-year satellite record’.

The Chinese white paper outlines a proposal ‘to jointly build a “Polar Silk Road”’ with existing BRI partners in order to ‘facilitate connectivity and sustainable economic and social development of the Arctic’.

In China, there’s no partisan debate over the scientific consensus on global warming like that found among political elites in the US. Climate change is simply accepted as an objective fact that needs to be accommodated.

The white paper opens by saying, ‘Global warming in recent years has accelerated the melting of ice and snow in the Arctic region.’ The ‘development of shipping routes in the Arctic’ as the ice retreats is therefore a goal because those routes will ‘become important transport routes for international trade’.

The sea ice is disappearing at a greater rate than expected. Arctic-capable shipbuilding technology is advancing in parallel. A South Korean-built Arc7 LNG carrier transited the Northern Sea Route in December 2017. The passage marked a major milestone—the first time a shipping vessel has made independent passage without the support of an ice-breaker during that time of year.

The Arc7 LNG carrier is one of 15 of the new class being built for the Yamal LNG project on the Kara Sea. This isn’t just ‘one of the largest and most complex LNG projects in the world’. The project is half-owned by Russia, 20% owned by the China National Petroleum Corporation and, significantly, 10% funded by China’s ‘Silk Road Fund’.

China’s partnering with Russia aligns China’s ‘geopolitical and economic interests’, providing it with a strategic stake in the Arctic, as well as access to LNG and potentially to other resources.

Geographically Russia already has a huge advantage in the Arctic. If the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf decides in Russia’s favour on the Lomonosov Ridge claim, it will increase Russia’s exclusive economic zone by 1.2 million square kilometres. The Arctic is believed to hold up to one‑third of the world’s untapped oil and gas reserves, as well as extensive but as yet unquantified mineral riches.

The Northeast Passage overlaps the Northern Sea Routh through Russian waters, which is most of its length. It’s the shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Traversing along the northern coast of Siberia, it cuts travel time from China to Europe by at least 12 days compared to the Suez route.

While the commercial advantages are obvious, the strategic importance of that route lies in the fact that ‘both China and Japan import 80% of their oil through the Strait of Malacca’. The so-called ‘Malacca dilemma’ of a potential US naval blockade of the straits in a conflict makes establishing the Arctic alternative all the more attractive.

Russia recognises the northern route’s importance and launched the world’s biggest ice-breaker in 2016, one of four being constructed. China already has one Arctic-capable ice-breaker and is building another to enter service in 2019.

In contrast, the Americans’ ability to operate year round in the Arctic is limited because the US has only one heavy and one medium ice-breaker that are operational. Both are beyond their life-of-type.

At best the US might get a new Arctic-capable ice-breaker around 2025. Professional assessments suggest that the US needs six, but significant investment in ice-capable shipbuilding capacity would be required.

Even before the Arctic white paper, China’s ambitions were evident. Although not an Arctic nation, China has used diplomacy, trade, investment and research in pursuit of its Arctic objectives while trying to avoid a resource rush from which it might be excluded.

Therefore, an important objective of the new policy is to ‘participate in the governance of the Arctic’. China has pursued this by making a substantial contribution to the work of the Arctic Council, and by strengthening its relations with European Arctic nations. It has also established coordination mechanisms with Japan and South Korea, non-Arctic nations that share China’s commercial and strategic interests in the Arctic.

The combination of long-term strategic objectives, a settled view of the objective facts, one-party rule, and substantial government direction of its economic activity account for China’s effectiveness in positioning itself to be a geopolitical force in the Arctic in the long term.

By contrast, the recent US National Defence Strategy summary didn’t refer at all to the Arctic, and the National Security Strategy mentioned it just once in passing. Neither raised global warming as an issue. Moreover, the myopic obsession with ‘America first’ seems to preclude the early emergence of a new grand strategy in the US.

The Arctic demonstrates in a microcosm the potency of China’s capacity to implement its grand strategy generally. Whatever criticisms and grievances the US has with China’s contemporary trade, investment and intellectual property policies, or how distastefully Western commentators regard one-party rule, the true challenge for the US is to marshal its political and economic strengths behind a comparable long-term strategy.