War/Where: 3 Fronts

Thich Nhat Hanh, the much-lauded Buddhist Monk and peace activist, passed away a few days ago. Students of geopolitics are about to understand what he meant when he said, “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” In geopolitics, little is separate anymore. But all eyes remain focused on Ukraine not realizing that events there are connected to many events elsewhere. We need to widen the aperture of our focus and expand our field of view.  Snapshots of Ukraine need to be placed in the context of a larger, almost cinema-graphic, drama that is underway worldwide.

As I argued last week, there are a myriad of strategically important events occurring in Northern Europe and the Baltics that are materially important to our understanding of the conflagration that is underway. It’s a strange world where CNN reports that the mild winter in Ukraine means that Russian tanks can’t make their move until the land ices over yet fail to clock that the Swedes have deployed tanks on Baltic islands in preparation for the landing of Russian amphibious ships. What else is the world missing? So much that some will look back and find it hard to remember that Ukraine was once the epicenter of attention, just as today people only vaguely remember that WWI started in Sarajevo with the shooting of the Austrian Archduke. That became a detail when compared to what ensued.

There are three distinct fronts in the developing conflagration:

One front cuts across Europe. It runs on a line that runs from the headquarters of the Russian Fleet in St Petersburg, through the Baltic Sea past the Swedish island of Gotland and the Danish island of Bornholm, down through Kaliningrad to Belarus via a 64-mile gap (The Sulwalki Gap) to the start of the Dnieper River and into the Russian exclaves that many have never heard of including Transnistria, The Crimea, The Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Black Sea across into Cyprus (said to be the Russian offshore banking capital and home to a number of banking scandals) to the Russian bases at in Syria at Latakia, Tartus, and Khmeimim and on into Libya and Alexandria in Egypt, where the Russians have been trying to re-establish their old military base. Notice that the US also recently announced a new SOCEUR Special Ops Command in Southern Europe. They are building a new base in Albania. The US is also doubling its troops and presence in Estonia. There are many more examples. Both sides are ramping up across Europe.

The Soviet Union used to have an Iron Curtain across Europe. It was made of high concrete and barbed wire walls and fixed into place. Its modern equivalent is a metal chain made up of tanks, aircraft, submarines, troops, and other moveable military capabilities which connect valuable territories Russia has a chain and NATO has a chain. These are Chains of Pearls. The Iron Curtain is morphing into a Chain of Pearls. From a Russian perspective, the US and NATO have been pushing up against their border with ever more offensive firepower. From an American perspective, Russia’s threat to border states is itself the problem. Both sides feel cornered by the other.

The second front is between China and the US but also involves Russia where its interests are aligned with China. Americans pontificate about whether the “Dragonbear” alliance makes any sense. Are Russia and China really aligned? While we debate this, the two are persistently defending their common interests. Both want the US out of the way. China and Russia are aligned in the Arctic. Russia has built hundreds of new military bases there, particularly the Shamrock. CNN wrote last spring, “Satellite images show huge Russian military buildup in the Arctic”. “Russia is amassing unprecedented military might in the Arctic and testing its newest weapons in a region freshly ice-free due to the climate emergency, in a bid to secure its northern coast and open up a key shipping route from Asia to Europe.” China has a national interest here too. It has spent a fortune developing the Belt and Road Strategy that connects China’s economy to the rest of the world. They have the fastest icebreakers and now the Arctic is melting, so they can cross from Dalian to Rotterdam in just 28 days.

The Arctic route and an Arctic Strategy has been a priority for China since 2004, soon after President Putin planted a Titanium flag deep under the ice declaring that “the Arctic is Russian.” Russia has been militarizing the Arctic while China has been commercializing it.  But now, all the superpowers are weaponizing it. All want access to the protein and valuable real assets there: freshwater, fish and protein, oil, gas, rare earth minerals, and more. Notice that China has been actively making ownership claims on Greenland, the world’s largest island, which is also loaded with valuable assets, not to mention proximity to the US. The Head of the Danish Intelligence Service (FE), Lars Finden, recently said, Greenland is now a top security issue for Denmark because a "power game is unfolding" between the US and other global powers in the Arctic. Anders Henriksen, The Head of Counterintelligence at the Danish Security and Intelligence Service was similarly quoted by Reuters saying, "The threat from foreign intelligence activities against Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands has increased in recent years.” Few noticed that China threatened Denmark’s tiny Faroe Islands over the Huawei crisis. Remember when the US and China were pressuring nations to choose sides? Denmark chose the US. The NYTs wrote in 2019: At the Edge of the World, a New Battleground for the US and China: The Faroe Islands have become Perhaps the Most Unexpected Place for the US and China to Tussle over the Chinese Tech Giant Huawei. “Commercially, the Faroe Islands cannot be very important to Huawei or anybody else,” Sjurdur Skaale said (he represents the territory in the Danish parliament) “The fact that the Chinese and American embassies are fighting over this as hard they are, there is something else on the table. It is about something else than purely business.” Let us not forget that it was only in 2015 that Russia threatened to train their precision nuclear weapons on Danish commercial ships in the Baltic if Denmark joined the NATO shield. Now the US has placed long-range bombers and F-35s in Norway.

If we are to understand how Russia and China see the Arctic, we must look at the maps of the world in a very different way.

China and Russia are also aligned in the East. Both have supported the recent ending of hostilities between North and South Korea. The Armistice was signed in 1953 but the war was never declared over. The current Prime Minister of South Korea is pushing hard for a formal declaration that the war between the North and South is over. He wants a peace treaty. China seems to have pushed the North Koreans pretty hard to accept. The deal seems to be that China has agreed to pay the cost of keeping the North Korean population from spilling over the borders in exchange for effective control over North Korea. All the surrounding nations have always feared an exodus from the North and an ensuing refugee problem. All have preferred to pay the North Koreans to keep their own population contained. But China now wants effective control over North Korea for a number of reasons. They want access to the last pool of cheap labor in the world. The coastline brings tremendous strategic value and access to protein and shipping. China has built new roads into North Korea and is now reopening transportation links there.

Notice that the US is no longer including South Korea in the new defense pacts such as AUKUS which strategically links together the US, Australia, and the UK. The feeling in Washington is that South Korea chose China over the US. Their “strategic ambiguity” is now clear. South Korea is no longer fighting China’s ambitions in the North. The key point in Asia is this – if the two Koreas are reconciled there is no more need for the US to maintain some 30,000 troops on the 38th Parallel to protect South Korea from the North. Do Russia and China want the US off the Korean Peninsula? Yes. It is no accident that we now hear of joint Russian and Chinese military exercises in the region. Would the departure of US troops from the Korean Peninsula make it easier for China and Russia to push into Taiwan? Yes. Like in Europe, our eyes are focused on the wrong target. We watch Taiwan when, in fact, the Korean Peninsula is the more important location to watch now.

Also, notice how the US is also ramping up its presence in Asia. It began when President Clinton surprised the Chinese by sending in Ohio-Class nuclear submarines loaded with Tomahawk Cruise Missiles back in 2015. America’s subs surfaced in a range of locations in a quiet but compelling show of force. Today more and more are surfacing again at America’s main base in Guam.

The Third front is in Emerging markets, particularly Africa and Latin America. Here we see all three superpowers actively reaching for control over territory and clashing in new kinds of warfare. The US has prioritized U.S. Africa Command has strongly ramped up its presence across Africa. The Intercept reported, “The 2019 planning documents provide locations for 29 bases located in 15 different countries or territories, with the highest concentrations in the Sahelian states on the west side of the continent, as well as the Horn of Africa in the east. Since the plans were created, according to AFRICOM spokesperson John Manley, two bases have been shuttered, leaving the U.S. with an archipelago of 15 “enduring locations” and 12 less-permanent “contingency locations.”  “Theis, Senegal, and Singo, Uganda” are “cooperative training locations” while “Faya Largeau, Chad, Lakipia Kenya, Benina, Libya and Gao, Mali” are “contingency locations”. US troops are also in Niger and Gabarone Botswana. Somalia remains “the site of America’s most intense and longest-running undeclared war in Africa” with a record number of US airstrikes.

But not all the militaries in Africa are official troops. The US and Russia alike have privatized militia, which are deployed there. In an era of record money printing, there has been an overwhelming amount of cash available for private mercenaries. Governments facing ever-growing debt have been inclined to push costly military engagements “off-balance sheet”. After the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been lots of personnel with certain extreme skills that are not very easy to redeploy back at home. So, they look for work where those skills can be monetized. Private Military Security Companies (PMSCs)also bring other benefits. This explains the extraordinary growth of private security firms like Academi (formerly Blackwater) and its peers on the US side and Wagner Group and its peers on the Russian side. These PMSCs provide the superpowers with plausible deniability. “It wasn’t us”. See Africa at the Mercy of Private Security Companies, Rolling Stone’s take “Erik Prince’s Private Wars”,  Erik Prince’s own book Civilian Warriors (2013) and Vanity Fair’s take, “TYCOON, CONTRACTOR, SOLDIER, SPY”. On the other side is a murky collection of Russian private contractors, the most infamous of which is called “The Wagner Group” owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Both sides are heavily comprised of former Special Operations personnel with extremely highly refined skills. Wagner is in the press now due to their alleged involvement in Mali and the recent coup in Burkina Faso and many other locations including The Central African Republic (the EU cut ties with that country over the involvement of Russian mercenaries there), Sudan, Djibouti, Rwanda, Mozambique Madagascar and on the West coast as well in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Angola. A classified German government report that leaked to The Bildt suggested that Russia has prioritized Africa and "Since 2015, Russia has concluded military cooperation agreements with 21 countries in Africa." It said Russia will "be allowed to build military bases in six countries," namely the Central African Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Sudan.” Meanwhile, China has begun to establish military bases in Djibouti on the East coast and Bata in Equatorial Guinea.

China has also sent its Navy as a show of force in various locations around Africa including The Maldives, The Azores and both China and Russia are increasingly present in the Caribbean. China has been more subtle in its approach, leading with its commercial strategy which is widely known as The Belt and Road Initiative. They have been building infrastructure that connects China to supply chains across the world including Africa and Latin America. Note that both China and Russia are increasingly focused on their presence in the Caribbean, particularly Cuba and Venezuela.

So, this is a very very large chessboard of a landscape. Now we need to understand how the pieces are being moved around this chessboard. For example, Russia deployed nuclear Blackjack bombers to Cuba in 2008 in response to America’s efforts to side with Georgia during the Georgian-Russian confrontation at that time. It was a “you threaten us on our border, we’ll threaten you on yours” move. Events can happen in one place and give rise to a response in an altogether different location. But we have a world of specialists and local journalists who think in terms of their assigned geography, and who stay inside their subject matter silos. Few can see a larger pattern of events.  

My father’s Uncle, Harald Valdemar Malmgren, was the Swedish Correspondence Chess Grand Master. He was ranked number two in the first World Correspondence Chess Championship from 1950-1956. He played many games at the same time. Great chess players can play many chess games at once. This is true in geopolitics as well. For example, just as the Russians walked away from the negotiating table in the last few weeks, the US suddenly announced that Havana Syndrome is “in most cases” not caused by the Russians. Recall that the US has complained for several years that its diplomats have experienced some kind of debilitating sonic attacks that are causing outright brain damage. These attacks began in Havana but spread to many other locations including Paris and Geneva. These might not seem connected. But Thich Nhat Hanh was right. Everything is connected. Why do we fail to see it? He captured it in this quote, “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” The old ways of viewing reality stop us from finding new lenses to view it. We want to ignore whatever doesn’t fit the narrative. For example, The Chief of the German Navy resigned, or rather had to resign, this week. Why? As CNN reported, “The chief of German navy (Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach) has resigned after suggesting that Crimea would "never come back" to Ukraine, a statement that is in direct contradiction to the stance taken by the German government, the European Union, and NATO. Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach said he asked the German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht to relieve him of his duties "effective immediately." Schönbach also intimated that Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably" deserved respect.” A first, Schönbach sounds to Americans like an appeasing pacifist. But perhaps he is a realist who sees how very close to war we are, and perhaps unnecessarily close to a catastrophe.

The Moscow Times reported Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying, “If it depends on Russia, there will be no war. We don’t want a war.” The Times went on to say, “U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan later Friday equated Lavrov’s comments on not wanting war while having Russian troops near Ukraine to having “a gun on the table” during negotiations.” Then suddenly we got an announcement yesterday that Russia is pursuing greater technical cooperation with Cuba. Related? Coincidence?

Either way, we are teetering on the brink of things spiraling out of control. My father was President Kennedy’s advisor during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was a bad ten days. Today both Russia and China have hypersonic cruise missiles with speeds and precision the US cannot yet match. We’ll have ten minutes, not ten days.

Is it possible that we are drifting into conflict without fully understanding the multiple chessboards and multiple pieces in play? Are we being too narrowly focused on our own perspective and not seeing the world as others do, whether rightly or wrongly? Maybe this explains why the President of Ukraine is asking the US to back off. This may be how this all ends. Imagine a world where Ukraine invites Russia in as a partner, not necessarily as a friend, but as a partner. Imagine a world where the two Koreas invite China in as a partner, not necessarily a friend, but as a partner. Would most Americans rather face a global conflagration or get back to solving the many problems of everyday life and of building a better future? Maybe there is a way to talk down the build-up? Maybe this is not about logic. Our love of peace may outweigh our desire to have this particular fight in this particular way at this particular time. That doesn’t mean the end of competition. The superpowers will always compete. But it isn’t often they talk themselves to the brink of a nuclear exchange. When they do, ironically, emotion might work better than rationale.

That’s what Thich Nhat Hanh said:

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have
problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will
grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive
effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason
and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no
reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
understand, and you show that you understand, you can
love, and the situation will change”

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