India's economic corridor to Europe via Saudi, UAE: a win for US, West Asia
In reflection of the emerging multipolar world, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi aim to transform their bilateral relations with Washington, Brussels, and Delhi into multidimensional partnerships by joining the IMEC, with energy serving as a core pillar but not the sole one.
September 11, 2023
During the G20 summit held in New Delhi on Saturday, a significant development unfolded as the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union introduced the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor , designed to stimulate economic development by fostering connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Arabian Gulf and Europe.?
The IMEC represents a multimode transit corridor spanning over 3,000 miles and it consists of two corridors. The eastern corridor links India to the Arabian Gulf, while the northern corridor connects the Arabian Gulf to Europe. Upon its completion, as outlined in the White House’s memorandum of understanding, this connectivity project will establish a dependable and cost-effective cross-border ship-to-rail transit network. It will complement existing maritime and road transport routes, facilitating the seamless movement of goods and services between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Europe.
Opportunity for Washington
In contrast to the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin from the G20 summit, the Biden administration swiftly claimed victories by positioning the corridor as an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has placed a strong emphasis on the Middle East and Mediterranean states, such as Greece and Italy. However, it's important not to perceive the IMEC merely as a rival to the BRI. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two central pillars of the corridor, reject the idea of a bipolar world order that would compel them to choose between China and the United States or vice versa.
This reality is exemplified by their recent admission to the BRICS group of major emerging economies and active participation in the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor. Nonetheless, the IMEC offers greater autonomy for participating countries to pursue their own interests and, importantly, to safeguard their sovereignty. This distinguishes it significantly from the BRI. This represents a success for Washington, which, along with Brussels, has grappled with the challenge of presenting a viable alternative to the BRI that doesn't force partners like the Gulf and India into an either-or choice, as such a choice was highly unlikely.
More importantly, the IMEC is a manifestation of the deepening integration between India, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the broader geopolitical and economic convergence between the Middle East and South Asia into West Asia. India holds the distinction of being Saudi Arabia's second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $52.75 billion during 2022-23, elevating Saudi Arabia to India's fourth-largest trading partner. Furthermore, trade between India and the UAE surged to $85 billion in 2022, positioning the UAE as India's third-largest trading partner for the year 2022-23 and its second-largest export destination. The IMEC further underscores the evolving state of Pakistan-Gulf relations, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE, longstanding allies of Islamabad, have shifted their economic and geopolitical posture toward India. This shift reflects their acknowledgement of India's rise and signifies their aspirations in the emerging multipolar world. In this new landscape, legacy relationships must be reevaluated and adapted to align with geopolitical realities and economic opportunities.
Looking for integration and beyond oil
The IMEC serves as a declaration from the United States and the EU that the Gulf states — with Saudi Arabia and the UAE at the forefront — are more than mere energy producers. It would be a strategic error to perceive them solely through that lens, as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are actively seeking more serious partners to fulfill their economic, technological and logistical needs. This is integral to their ambitious agendas of transitioning toward diversified economies beyond their dependence on energy. For so long, Washington has maintained an energy-first posture toward the Gulf states, and the IMEC is a declaration that the bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE are multidimensional, and energy is a core pillar but not the only pillar.
The American objective from the IMEC is to change the trajectory in the Gulf, transforming it from a dual hierarchical structure where the United States is the dominant security partner and China is the dominant economic partner by bringing India into the geopolitical and economic mix. While the United States understands that India will only partially align with Washington's interests in the Middle East and Asia more broadly, Delhi's inroads into the Middle East are unlikely to undermine US interests as China does. More importantly, Delhi's inroads into the region dilute the dual hierarchical realities of the Middle East by the mere fact of integration with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which undermines China's economic influence in the medium and long term.
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Arab Gulf and Central Asian states continue to pursue economic integration, experts say
WASHINGTON: A recent wave of extensive economic cooperation between Arab Gulf states and Central Asian republics has the potential to boost economies in both of the oil-rich regions and open up new horizons of cooperation and economic ties. This was the view of experts during a discussion on Wednesday, organized by the Washington-based Middle East Institute, titled “Gulf States, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus: Is an unprecedented push for economic integration underway?” In July, Saudi Arabia hosted a summit that marked the first collective meeting between the Gulf Cooperation Council member states (the Kingdom, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman) and the C5 group of Central Asian nations (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), with the aim of boosting trade and economic corporation between the regions. Akbota Zholdasbekova, an associate professor of international relations at L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University in Kazakhstan, said Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the way among Gulf states in terms of investment in energy-rich Central Asia, as part of their efforts to diversify investment portfolios and open up new markets for exports. She said Central Asian countries benefit from such investments because they help spur economic growth and create new avenues for bilateral trade and investment. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in energy companies in Kazakhstan and other countries in the region, she added. In June, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan agreed to establish a framework for cooperation in the energy sector, as part of the Kingdom’s efforts to advance its global energy partnerships. The deal envisions collaboration in the fields of petroleum, gas, refining, petrochemicals, electricity and renewable energy. Mohammed Al-Sulami, the head of Rasanah, the International Institute for Iranian Studies in Riyadh, highlighted the similarities between the two regional blocs, and said that as Gulf states pursue economic opportunities they have rediscovered the potential of Central Asian states as valuable partners with shared values and objectives. Gulf nations are also interested in investing in the agriculture, supply-chain projects and skilled labor that Central Asian markets are well-placed to provide, he added. Al-Sulami also pointed out that Gulf nations are not taking sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine, which is having negative effects on the global economy and regional trade, despite US and European pressure to do so. “The policy in the Gulf states today is that we want to be a bridge … without the burden of having to take sides,” he added. Fariz Ismailzade, from ADA University in Baku, said that Azerbaijan has traditionally looked toward Europe for trade and bilateral ties but there is now a broader belief in the country that the Gulf region is more valuable and so Azerbaijan should look “in our neighborhood” for better options for economic growth and development. Noting that trade between Azerbaijan and Gulf states had increased by a factor of between five and 10 in the past five years, he added: “The larger point is that Azerbaijan is looking at the Gulf region as a strategic partner because it is a source of valuable investment, tourism and economic growth.” Ismailzade also pointed out that Azerbaijan has signed two large contracts with ACWA and Masdar, energy companies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, respectively, that have invested heavily in Azerbaijan. “As a result, Azerbaijan will be able to export clean and renewable energy to Europe, which would spur economic growth in the country,” he added.
Arab Gulf and Central Asian states continue to pursue economic integration, experts say ( arabnews.com )
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New US-backed India-Middle East trade route to challenge China’s ambitions
Abu Dhabi, UAECNN?—?
US President Joe Biden, along with leaders of India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, announced on Saturday the launch of a new trade route connecting India to the Middle East and Europe through railways and ports. The White House said the project would usher in a “new era of connectivity .”
Some analysts are saying it will be a direct challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure project launched a decade ago by Beijing with the aim of connecting China to the rest of the world.
Announced at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in India, Biden’s plan also includes the European Union, France, Italy and Germany. It is comprised of two separate routes – an east corridor linking India to the Gulf Arab states and a northern corridor connecting the Gulf states to Europe.
The ambitious plan shows that the US can count on its Middle East allies in its efforts to contain China’s rise, but also how the Gulf states try to find a balance between traditional allies like the US and emerging partners like China in what they see as a world order that is no longer unipolar.
At the same time, they are positioning themselves as essential economic and political partners to the world’s most powerful states.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Biden told UAE President Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ). “I don’t think we would be here without you.”
Goods and services would transit through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Europe. The route will also enable electricity and digital connectivity, as well as pipes for clean hydrogen export.
Seated between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and MBZ, Biden said the agreement announced at the summit was “a big deal.”
“The world stands at an inflection point in history,” Biden said, adding that investment in the plan today is more critical than ever.
Israel, which has made it a priority to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia, also hailed the project, saying it “changes our global and historical situation” and advances the vision of “joining Israel to the world.”
Notably absent from the summit was China’s Xi Jinping, who has never missed a G20 summit since taking power in 2012, and whose country has been strengthening ties with Gulf Arab states.
An alternative to a ‘debt and noose’ agreement
Some analysts say the corridor intends to challenge China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Beijing launched the massive infrastructure project in 2013 and has poured around $1 trillion into its projects so far. Beijing last month said that, over the years, it signed BRI cooperation documents with more than 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations.
However, the plan has faced problems, including funding shortfalls and some political pushback, which have stalled certain projects. China has pushed back on assertions of risky lending when it comes to BRI, saying “such allegations do not reflect the whole picture.”
Biden last month called China’s BRI a “debt and noose agreement ,” which the US and Group of Seven (G7) nations hope to counter with alternatives.
“We got together literally billions of dollars in the G7 nations to provide for alternatives to China’s – what they call Belt and Road Initiative, which is basically a debt and noose agreement that they have,” Biden told donors in August at a campaign reception in Salt Lake City, Utah.
But on Sunday, Biden said he was “sincere” about improving the US-China relationship, pushing back against comments out of Beijing that the president’s trip to India and Vietnam seemed focused on containing China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
“I don’t want to contain China, I just want to make sure we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up squared away, and everyone knows what it’s all about,” Biden told reporters traveling with him in Vietnam, adding that he wants to see China succeed as long as it succeeds “by the rules.”
The question remains whether a new trade route in the region would complement China’s BRI or compete with it.
Cinzia Bianco, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Berlin, said that there likely isn’t enough trade volume in the region to make both Biden’s project and China’s viable at the same time. “The heart of the matter is that it is an alternative (to China’s BRI),” she said.
The partners in the new trade route also have both the funds and the political will to bring the project to fruition in a sufficient enough time to be able to challenge the BRI, Bianco added.
But three of the nations in the new corridor are already members of China’s BRI, and may find themselves in an awkward position for having joined a project that is widely seen as being designed to undermine Beijing’s plans. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are already members of China’s BRI, along with Italy, the only G7 nation to have joined.
Italian media however reported Sunday that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was looking to bolster ties with China whilst seeking a “soft” exit of China’s BRI, which Rome joined in 2019.
Bianco said Italy’s BRI membership is an “anomaly,” and that Meloni was bound to withdraw.
Gulf states ‘not taking sides’
For the UAE and Saudi Arabia, however, the India-Middle East-Europe corridor isn’t necessarily a replacement to the BRI, experts say.
The corridor is “a manifestation of the global connectivity agenda the UAE and the region (are) perusing,” Mohammed Baharoon, director general of the Dubai Public Policy Research Center, known as B’huth, told CNN. “It will complement, more than compete with China’s BRI since both of them are attempts to facilitate the movement of goods (including energy) money, people and data,” he said.
Baharoon added that the project, if perceived as a “replacement” or “competitor” to China’s BRI, would fail to realize its potential.
Bianco said that the Gulf states’ decision to join the new project may also be driven by the slowing of China’s economy, prompting them to “put their chips in different games and see what happens first.”
The G20 summit and Biden’s economic corridor come just weeks after oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the UAE were invited to become members of the BRICS group of developing nations.
The group currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and its first-ever potential expansion in a decade has been seen by some as a challenge to the US’ global influence.
Despite pressure to choose sides, Gulf states have insisted that they maintain a balanced position that involves political and economic cooperation across the board, something that analysts say makes Gulf states strategically vital.
A senior UAE official previously told CNN that from Abu Dhabi’s perspective, “joining BRICS is about extending and enhancing our diplomatic circle.”
“We look at BRICS from a geo-economic not a geo-political perspective, with the aim of strengthening our economic competitiveness,” the official said, against the backdrop of pouring commentary about Gulf states siding with the East.
Meanwhile, Gulf states aim to continue to remain relevant to all sides.
“Gulf countries are using this multipolarity and this new world (order) to try to put themselves at the heart of global trade, trying to invest even more in connectivity and globalization,” Bianco said.
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Erdo?an pushes back against India-Middle East-Europe corridor — ‘no corridor without Turkey’
Story by Keshav Padmanabhan
New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has said there can be no trade corridor between the East and Middle East or Europe “without Turkey” — a statement seen as a pushback against the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that was announced on the sidelines of the New Delhi G20 Summit.
Turkey is part of the China backed global infrastructure project — One Belt One Road Initiative (BRI) — which the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor backed by the US is seemingly countering .
The proposed corridor, announced Saturday, will link India with the Middle East and from there to Europe. It aims at doing this by bypassing Turkey.
“There cannot be a corridor without Turkey. Turkey is an important production and trade base. The most convenient line for east-to-west traffic has to pass through Turkey,” Erdo?an reportedly told journalists on his return flight from India, according to Hürriyet Daily News, an English language newspaper in Turkey.
Erdo?an had attended the G20 summit, which was held from 8-10 September in New Delhi.?
领英推荐
As reported earlier , India, the US, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, the European Union (EU), Italy, France and Germany came together Saturday, to launch an ambitious infrastructure plan connecting India to Europe through the Middle East.?
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor would reshape the trade routes between the Gulf, Europe and South Asia and connect them by rail and sea links.?
India-Middle East-Europe Mega Economic Corridor Announced: Is This An Investible Idea? | CNBC TV18 | Watch ( msn.com )
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The project would consist of two corridors — the eastern corridor linking India to West Asia and the Middle East and the northern corridor linking West Asia and the Middle East with Europe.?
India will likely be connected with the UAE via sea links to the Dubai port, and this would likely be the starting point of the railway line connecting UAE to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and Europe.?
While the agreement signed Saturday did not have any binding financial agreements among the partners, the parties agreed to draft an action plan within 60 days for the corridor.
Separate West Asia corridor with Europe?
According to Middle East Eye — a London based news agency that focuses on North Africa and the Middle East — President Erdo?an said he was aware of many countries looking to expand their influence through the creation of trade corridors.
Significantly, Ankara backs the Iraq Development Road Project — a corridor connecting the Gulf with Europe through Turkey.?
Erdo?an revealed that discussions were held with Gulf countries regarding an agreement on the Iraq Development Road Project during the G20 Summit.?
“We are talking about a corridor to Europe through Iraq, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey,” the Hürriyet Daily News quoted Erdo?an as saying.?
Erdo?an pushes back against India-Middle East-Europe corridor — ‘no corridor without Turkey’ ( msn.com )
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VERTEIDIGUNG
Pistorius: ?Es reicht nicht zu sagen, wir spielen nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern“
Pistorius fordert eine Neuorientierung der Au?en- und Sicherheitspolitik. M?gliche Partner sollen so nicht in die Arme von Autokratien wie Russland und China getrieben werden.
Deutschland trete oft als der ?Waisenknabe mit der wei?en Weste“ auf, sagt der SPD-Politiker. (Foto:?dpa)
Berlin Bundesverteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius hat sich für eine Neuorientierung der deutschen Au?en- und Sicherheitspolitik in einer multipolaren Welt ausgesprochen. ?Wir brauchen eine Sicherheitspolitik mit Haltung“, sagte der SPD -Politiker am Mittwochabend bei einer Veranstaltung der Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik (BAKS) in Berlin.
Trotz seiner Nazi-Vergangenheit trete Deutschland in der Welt gerne moralisch als der ?Waisenknabe mit der wei?en Weste“ auf und wende sich zu schnell von Akteuren ab, die die eigenen Werte nicht vollst?ndig teilen. ?Es reicht nicht zu sagen, wir spielen nicht mit diesen Schmuddelkindern“, betonte Pistorius.
Die Politik müsse wieder st?rker in langen Linien denken, forderte der Verteidigungsminister. Denn wenn Deutschland sich abwende, k?nne es keinen Einfluss mehr auf L?nder nehmen, die im Wettbewerb um das globale System unsicher seien. Man treibe sie damit nur in die Arme von Autokratien wie Russland oder China.
Pistorius setzt damit andere Akzente als Au?enministerin Annalena Baerbock (Grüne), die mit ihrer feministischen Au?enpolitik vor allem einen moralischen Kurs f?hrt. Die Grünen sind es auch, die mit dem geplanten Rüstungsexportkontrollgesetz Waffenlieferungen künftig restriktiver handhaben wollen als bisher.
Man k?nne aber ein Land wie Indien, dessen Armee stark von russischen Rüstungsgütern abh?ngig ist, nicht für sich gewinnen, wenn man es jahrzehntelang auf U-Boot-Ersatzteile warten lasse, sagte der Verteidigungsminister.
Pistorius war im Juni dabei, als die Marinetochter von Thyssen-Krupp und die indische Firma Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited in der Hafenmetropole Mumbai die Absichtserkl?rung über den Bau von sechs dieselgetriebenen U-Booten unterzeichneten. Auch hat der Bundessicherheitsrat jüngst den Export von MTU -Motoren und Bauteilen für Panzer nach Indien genehmigt . Das Schreiben, mit dem Bundeswirtschaftsminister Robert Habeck (Grüne) den Wirtschaftsausschuss über die Genehmigung informierte, liegt dem Handelsblatt vor.
Ringen um das Rüstungsexportkontrollgesetz
Um das Rüstungsexportkontrollgesetz wird in der Ampel-Koalition weiter gerungen. Dass auch nach der Halbzeit der Ampel noch kein Entwurf vorliege, begründete Pistorius auch damit, dass als Grundlage zun?chst die Nationale Sicherheitsstrategie und die China-Strategie h?tten verabschiedet werden müssen. Beide Dokumente liegen mittlerweile vor.
Er sei deshalb zuversichtlich, dass es ein ?handhabbares“ Rüstungsexportkontrollgesetz geben werde, sagte Pistorius, ohne sich zum Zeitplan zu ?u?ern. Die deutsche Rüstungsexportpolitik müsse geleitet sein von Frieden und Stabilit?t, aber auch die legitimen Sicherheitsinteressen von Verbündeten berücksichtigen. Da stehe es Deutschland gut an, ein ?verl?sslicherer Partner“ in der Rüstungszusammenarbeit zu werden, betonte der Verteidigungsminister.
Saudi-Arabien erw?hnte Pistorius nicht explizit. Aber hier verhindert Deutschland aktuell die Ausfuhr gemeinsam produzierter Eurofighter in das arabische K?nigreich – und Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (SPD) l?sst nicht erkennen, dass sich an dieser Haltung bald etwas ?ndert.
Pistorius betonte, das zentrale Element deutscher Sicherheitspolitik in der multipolaren Welt blieben die Vereinten Nationen. Man werde auch weiter Beitr?ge zum internationalen Krisenmanagement leisten. Auch müsse die Politik den Reflex überwinden, das Engagement sofort einzustellen, wenn es irgendwo einen Machtwechsel gebe, der nicht unseren Vorstellungen entspreche. Es müsse st?rker um eine Politik des M?glichen gehen, nicht des Wünschbaren.
Pistorius: ?Es reicht nicht zu sagen, wir spielen nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern“ ( handelsblatt.com )
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Why Republicans Are Increasingly Opposing Aid to Ukraine
The illegitimate ingredients should not be allowed to overshadow sound reasons to question an open-ended supply line to Ukraine.
Waning American support for military aid to Ukraine displays a marked partisan division, among both the public and politicians in Washington. In a poll conducted for CNN and published in August, respondents were asked whether the United States “should do more to stop Russian military actions in Ukraine” or had “already done enough.” Among Democrats, 61 percent said it should do more, and 38 percent said it had done enough. A majority of Republicans—59 percent—said the United States had already done enough, and only 40 percent said it should do more.
Such views among the Republican Party faithful are being reflected in the posture of many Republican candidates on the campaign trail. In Congress, the loudest voices opposing aid to Ukraine are coming from some members of a Republican caucus that is divided on the issue.
No single explanation underlies this pattern. Multiple factors are in play, including ones that are legitimate parts of a healthy foreign policy debate and ones that are not. The following are the principal factors involved, beginning with the two that can be part of a healthy conversation about foreign policy.
Calculated response to the course of the war
Although it might be hard to point to evidence of careful analysis, especially among respondents to public opinion polls, opposition to further military aid to Ukraine can be an understandable response to how people see the war going. Many view the current Ukrainian counteroffensive as yielding meager results at a high cost. This leads to an opinion that more aid to Ukraine would be throwing good money after bad. A related view is that further aid discourages the Ukrainians from accepting the inevitable outcome of a compromise settlement and only prolongs a needless expenditure of blood and treasure.
This is not, of course, the only reasonable way to interpret the story of the war so far. Even those who see an eventual negotiated settlement as inevitable may favor additional military aid to Ukraine as necessary in persuading the Russian leadership to accept a compromise peace agreement. But opposition to more aid is a legitimate, defensible posture, and one that Republicans can hold just as much as anyone else.
In the CNN poll, self-declared independents expressed views on this issue closer to Republicans than to Democrats. This may suggest that for Republicans as a whole, partisan considerations are playing no greater role in positions about the war in Ukraine than they are for Democrats, although the result masks the sharp divisions among Republicans on the issue.
Traditional isolationism
Opposition to aiding Kyiv’s war effort may be based at least as much on general foreign policy ideology as on interpretations of the specific war being waged in Ukraine. Isolationism, with an eschewing of involvement in other nations’ conflicts, has a long pedigree in America, and has been a prominent strand of opinion in the Republican Party. Some of the most prominent isolationist figures of the twentieth century were leading congressional Republicans such as William Borah and Robert Taft. The only senators to vote against ratification of the United Nations Charter were two other isolationist Republicans, William Langer and Henrik Shipstead.
The isolationist strand is competing against another ideological strand in the Republican Party, one that is partial to using military means to assert interests abroad and that favors standing tall against aggressive tendencies of regimes in Moscow. The conflict between these two ideological traditions is reflected in the split among congressional Republicans today regarding the war in Ukraine.
Making political life difficult for a Democratic president
The partisan warfare mode of addressing issues of the Ukraine war was demonstrated in the early days after the Russian invasion when the reflexive response of some Republican politicians was to blame President Joe Biden for the war, just as they might, as a matter of habit, try to blame him for any other untoward happening in the world. Senator Ted Cruz’s comment at the time that “Joe Biden sought to appease Vladimir Putin from the very beginning” was a ludicrous as well as puzzling way to wage partisan warfare when one compares Biden’s posture toward Putin with the posture toward the Russian president of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.?
That a Democratic U.S. president has been leading not only U.S. but also international support for Ukraine stimulates the Republican instinct to oppose whatever a Democratic president proposes. That instinct, like the isolationist tradition, has been colliding with Republican inclinations to oppose Russian aggression. The resulting confusion within the Republican caucus was aptly described by Democratic senator Chris Murphy when he said of his Republican colleagues, “I think many of them really do want to help Ukraine, but they are so used to opposing a Democratic president on everything and anything that they can’t figure out how to get out of their own way.”
Sympathy for Russia as “anti-woke”
The culture war to which the Republican Party devotes much attention and effort intersects with the issue of the war in Ukraine because Putin is waging a cultural war with similar themes, which has won him admiration among much of the American Right. Putin is “anti-woke,” former Trump political advisor Steve Bannon approvingly declares . Putin has used his own culture war, with its religious and anti-LGBTQ themes, as a device not only to help build support within Russia for his war in Ukraine but also, by appealing to culture warriors in the West, to weaken Western support for the Ukrainians.?
To the extent this strategy is even partially successful, it is another reason for Republicans to balk at added military support to Ukraine. Apart from any isolationist or analytical reasons for such opposition, Russia is seen as not the bad guy, and maybe even the good guy, in the conflict.
The projection of domestic social and cultural preferences onto a foreign policy issue is not new. Something similar happened in the early years of the United States, when attitudes of Federalists and Democratic-Republicans toward Britain and France sometimes had less to do with protecting U.S. interests abroad than with how partisans saw in each of the two warring European powers social patterns that they either sought or feared in the United States itself.
The Trump-Russia connection
That the Republican Party is still largely in thrall to Trump is reflected in his huge lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and in how most of those ostensibly running against him say they would support his candidacy even if he were a convicted felon. It follows that Trump’s extraordinary relationship with Putin and Russia colors Republican attitudes toward the war between Russian and Ukraine, and all subsidiary issues such as military aid to Ukraine.
The most evident foundation for that relationship was Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election in favor of Trump. More opaque but evidently no less real given Trump’s secretive dealings with Putin while still in office have been Trump’s business or other connections with Russia. All this augments any disinclination to aid another state in defending itself in a war against Russia.
Added to this disinclination have been related efforts to demean Ukraine and to associate it with corruption supposedly involving Biden or his family—the notion that was at the center of Trump’s caper that led to his first impeachment. Some other Republicans, in an apparent effort to deflect attention from Russia’s pro-Trump election interference, have falsely suggested that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election in favor of Democrats. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, continued to push this notion even after it had been investigated and debunked.
Conclusions
First, Republican opposition against aid to Ukraine is over-determined. This opposition is thus likely to continue growing.
Second, among the reasons for that opposition are some that are not legitimate ingredients of a healthy foreign policy debate and are likely only to confuse and pollute that debate.
But third, the illegitimate ingredients should not be allowed to overshadow sound reasons to question an open-ended supply line to Ukraine. The future course of the war in Ukraine has yet to be determined, and the jury is still out on which approach toward the war is best for U.S. interests and for bringing a stable peace to that part of Europe. All the arguments both in favor of and opposed to added military aid to Ukraine need to be carefully considered, regardless of any other reasons some participants in the debate have for taking the stand they do.
About:
Paul R. Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy . He is also a contributing editor for this publication.
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