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511. The Afghan refugee crisis: How to resurrect the global refugee resettlement coalition

Author:
Rory Stewart
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Six months after the fall of Kabul, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated at an alarming rate. The threat of famine and economic collapse looms over the entire country. Consequently, many Afghans are fleeing both these appalling conditions and the oppressive Taliban that now control the country. However, Afghan asylum seekers will be facing difficult circumstances even after they leave their country. The global resettlement order remains severely atrophied after the refugee crisis of the mid-2010s, leaving it unable to face the challenge in a rise in Afghan refugees or for other future refugee crises. As the humanitarian tragedy in Afghanistan intensifies, a new global refugee resettlement coalition has to be formed to address the escalating refugee crisis. The primary objectives of this report, written by Rory Stewart, Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute and former UK development minister, are to: outline the ways in which states have already attempted to respond to the Afghan refugee crisis; discuss realistic and measured ways to address the refugee crisis without undermining border security; improve transatlantic and global coordination in reinvigorating standards on refugee resettlement across the world. This report outlines how the refugee resettlement coalition can be restructured. Beginning with the United States, United Kingdom, and coalition of likely EU member states (such as France, Germany, Benelux, and the Nordic countries), these countries can resettle approximately 320,000 refugees annually. This would happen if each country committed to taking in 0.05% of their respective populations each year: 33,026 for the United Kingdom, 166,400 for the United States, and 120,000 for the likely coalition of willing EU member states. The report also explains how the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly since the fall of Kabul, why Afghans are leaving their home country in increasing numbers, and why the international community must reinvigorate the global resettlement coalition to address this crisis and future refugee crises.
Topic:
Refugee Crisis, Resettlement, Asylum, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and South Asia

512. US-China vaccine diplomacy: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
María Eugenia Brizuela de Ávila, Bosco Marti, Riyad Insanally, and Claudia Trevisan
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
COVID-19 has laid bare the competing strategies and practices of the United States and China to amass further clout in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In many ways, the pandemic is quickly accelerating a regional trend seen over the last decade: China uses its growing economic and diplomatic muscle to provide an alternative to US activities and interests. The implications of diverging COVID-19 responses, notably at the onset of the pandemic’s rise in the region, will reverberate beyond the health sector. What might the differing US and China pandemic approaches portend for future influence in the region? For the United States and China, the pandemic has opened new opportunities to deepen regional ties. Both countries’ assistance eventually centered on vaccine diplomacy, but China was first out of the gates in offering vaccinations beyond its borders. For LAC, its interactions with the United States and China during the pandemic are emblematic of broader trends: China provides an alternative to LAC during crisis moments; and regional leaders use US-Chinese competition to their advantage. Both instances are visible in the region, including in the four geographic areas analyzed in the following pages: Central America, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), Brazil, and Mexico. In each case, distinct US and Chinese engagement at various stages of the pandemic—along with the host countries’ own actions and reactions—have yielded short-term results and some that are likely to persist. In Central America, China provided strategic diplomatic messaging alongside vaccine shipments, but the United States donated more vaccines. In T&T, Chinese vaccines were accompanied by a new loan, and the country’s prime minister applied a pragmatic approach to acquire vaccines from both the United States and China. For Brazil, laboratory-to-laboratory agreements highlighted a different version of vaccine diplomacy: one that occurs at the subnational level. In Mexico, numerous diplomatic exchanges occurred alongside substantial vaccine purchases from US and Chinese manufacturers. Vaccine-related diplomacy also contributes to an evolving discussion about the different ways China and the United States more broadly engage the region—and vice versa. Starting from a low base, Chinese engagement with LAC has focused on and grown significantly in diplomacy, trade, and investment over the last decade. China is either the first- or second-largest trading partner for many countries in the Americas and a top source of foreign direct investment among its allies. Current US strategy in the region similarly reflects a new sense of deploying diplomatic tools to advance hemispheric prosperity, while doing so as part of a broader vision that reflects partnering to address global challenges—from climate change and the instability that sparks migration to shoring up democracy and addressing corruption. Overall, the region’s proximity, shared peoples, history, and borders with the United States provide greater depth and multidimensionality to the relationship. Consequently, vaccine diplomacy represents a greater marginal opportunity for China to broaden and deepen regional ties.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, Vaccine, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, Latin America, Caribbean, and United States of America

513. Iraq: Implementing a way forward

Author:
C. Anthony Pfaff, Ben Connable, and Masoud Mostajabi
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
A new report, Iraq: Implementing a Way Forward, authored by Atlantic Council staff and fellows C. Anthony Pfaff, Ben Connable, and Masoud Mostajabi lays out findings and recommendations to assist the Iraqi government and its international partners in improving political, social, economic, and security conditions to enhance national stability, stabilize Iraq’s democratic processes, and promote broad-based, Iraqi-generated economic growth. The report draws on two years of engagement with experts from Iraq, the United States, and Europe through a US-Europe-Iraq Track II Dialogue convened from March 2020 through December 2021. Convened by the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung with support from DT Institute, the Dialogue consisted of a series of workshops to identify policies to help address Iraq’s political, socioeconomic, and security challenges. Dialogue participants included former and current high-level officials and experts, all of whom are committed to a better future for Iraq.
Topic:
Politics, Reform, Economy, Youth, Legitimacy, Identity, Foreign Assistance, and Resource Management
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

514. Entangling alliances? Europe, the United States, Asia, and the risk of a new 1914

Author:
Bruno Tertrais
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
How has alliance formation and maintenance changed since the Cold War? As Russia invades Ukraine, China threatens Taiwan, Iran harasses Gulf States, and Turkey’s neighbors worry about Ankara’s designs, it is a good time to reassess the validity of alliances for global security. Some believe that traditional military alliances are getting weaker or outmoded, and will increasingly be replaced by looser ad hoc groupings such as the Quad, the defense-alliance trio known as AUKUS, or coalitions for given operations such as those in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. However, standing alliances are proliferating (increasing in numbers), widening (welcoming new members), and deepening (reinforcing solidarity and cooperation). The result is a network of interlocking defense relationships, to which an ever-thicker layer of new security groupings and quasi alliances is being added. The emerging system is complex, and policymakers would do well to think through possible future crises to imagine how the various moving parts would end up interacting. They should avoid drawing on the Cold War as a guiding epoch, as it was a comparatively stable and predictable bipolar order. Alliances will also be consistently tested as well, because, as alliances are created or reinforced, adversaries react and probe their limits. Will this expanding network of alliances create more stability or more instability? Does alliance proliferation reduce or increase the risk of war? And if war erupted somewhere, what would be the risks of escalation? The dawning multipolar world, featuring an increasingly dense network of security arrangements, uncomfortably remind us of the years 1912-1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I. A definitive answer may be impossible to arrive at, but evidence suggests that the current proliferation of alliances is, on balance, more stabilizing to world order than not. The broad set of alliances, suballiances, and security arrangements act as a “safety belt” for world order, rather than as a “conveyor belt” to catastrophe.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Affairs, Alliance, and Instability
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, and United States of America

515. The Impact of Finland's and Sweden's Accession to NATO on the Security of the Alliance

Author:
Wojciech Lorenz
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO will increase the Alliance’s ability to conduct collective defence missions in the Baltic Sea region and to deter Russia. Therefore, the gains from the enlargement of the Alliance will far exceed the costs, which may include the need to create a new command responsible for missions on the Northern Flank of NATO. However, Türkiye’s opposition may prolong the accession process and increase the risk associated with the intensification of Russia’s provocative actions against the candidates.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, Alliance, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Turkey, Finland, North America, and Sweden

516. Sahel States Opt for Negotiations with Jihadists

Author:
Jędrzej Czerep
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The inability of local and international forces to defeat the jihadists in the Sahel region has led to grassroots initiatives to reach an understanding with them. In Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, preparations are also underway for similar talks by governments, with the hope of including some extremists in the political mainstream. This may help with stabilising the volatile situation, but it carries the risk of strengthening the influence of the radicals.
Topic:
Non State Actors, Violent Extremism, Negotiation, Islamism, and Jihad
Political Geography:
Africa, Mali, Sahel, Niger, and Burkina Faso

517. Difficult Debate on an Intellectual Property Protection Waiver to Fight COVID-19

Author:
Szymon Zaręba
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The negotiations currently taking place at the WTO on the suspension of, among others, patent protection for vaccines and medicines against COVID-19, are at a standstill. This creates a risk of widening the rift between developing countries, which mostly support the idea, and some developed countries, which oppose it. It also makes it more difficult to increase the supply of patented items, particularly of vaccines, to an extent undermining other efforts by countries and international organisations to contain the pandemic. It is in the interest of Poland and the EU to overcome this impasse.
Topic:
Intellectual Property/Copyright, European Union, Vaccine, COVID-19, and WTO
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, and Global Focus

518. Humanitarian Catastrophe in Afghanistan: A Crisis by Choice

Author:
Patryk Kugiel
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
One of the world’s most serious humanitarian crises is taking place in Afghanistan and it is largely the result of flawed assumptions of Western policy following the Taliban’s seizure of power. The West’s suspension of development aid has led to the collapse of the economy and to hunger for millions of Afghans. Instead of forcing the Taliban to respect human rights, the actions will have the opposite effect—a humanitarian catastrophe, mass migration, and a failed state. The European Union may soon face these effects directly, so it should take steps to resume development cooperation and avert the worst-case scenario.
Topic:
Human Rights, Taliban, Economy, Development Aid, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and South Asia

519. Prospects for the Launch of the Digital Yuan

Author:
Oskar Szydłowski
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Among the digital currency projects developed by major economies, the Chinese digital yuan (e-CNY) is the most advanced. After pilot projects in selected Chinese regions, the biggest test was to be at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The spread of the digital yuan will enable the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand its digital authoritarianism through increased surveillance of citizens’ finances. It may also increase the Chinese currency’s share of international transactions in the region. The success of the e-CNY should accelerate the ECB’s work on a privacy-preserving digital euro.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Surveillance, Digital Currency, and Yuan
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Asia

520. Before the Invasion: The Russian-Belarusian Allied Resolve Exercises

Author:
Anna Maria Dyner
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
On 10-20 February, Belarus hosted the active phase of the Belarusian-Russian manoeuvres Allied Resolve, after which Russian troops remained in the country. The drills preceded the Russian invasion of Ukraine that started on 24 February. The scenario was an extension of last year’s Zapad exercises and simulated actions against the countries of NATO’s Eastern Flank and Ukraine. The manoeuvres showed Russia’s ability to deploy units over long distances (more than 10,000 km) and the high interoperability of the Russian and Belarusian armed forces. The growing military integration of Belarus and Russia, along with the decision to leave Russian military units in Belarus, is a challenge for NATO in the context of defending its Eastern Flank and its policy towards Ukraine.
Topic:
Armed Forces, Conflict, and Military Exercises
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Belarus