[Foreign Affairs] Treacherous Triangle

China, Russia, the United States, and the New Superpower Showdown

By David Gordon and Jordan Schneider

MAY 22, 2014

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in China, looking to deepen ties between his country and his neighbor to the south. The trip could mark the start of a new era in U.S.-Russian-Chinese relations, the trilateral relationship that dominated the final decades of the Cold War and is now making a comeback. After Russia’s aggression in Crimea, Moscow and Washington are locked in conflict. Beijing has thus become the new fulcrum, the power most able to play one side off the other.

It is hard to overstate just how significant the shift could be. During the Cold War, the United States capitalized on the constant, at times extreme, Sino-Soviet tension. Thanks to the United States’ closer relations with China, first illustrated during U.S. President Richard Nixon’s famous 1972 visit to Beijing, the Soviet Union feared total isolation. It consequently became more willing to accommodate U.S. demands. American leverage increased, manifesting itself in the U.S.-Soviet agreement on the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty just three months after Nixon’s trip, and in the Helsinki Accords three years later. In return for Chinese support, Washington gradually normalized its dealings with Beijing, culminating in 1979 in the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, which had been suspended after the communist takeover.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the shock of Tiananmen Square marked the end of the first era of triangulation. In the post–Cold War unipolar era, the United States did not need to use a reeling Russia against an internally focused China to achieve its goals. But, thanks to China’s rise as a major power and Russia’s newfound assertiveness, trilateral dynamics are back. This time, though, the United States isn’t the dominant player.

CHINA'S CHOICE

If animosity between China and the Soviet Union defined trilateral relations during the Cold War, today it is U.S.-Russian tensions that drive the triad’s dynamics. Clashing interests, a real ideological divide, and the likely escalation of U.S. sanctions will add to the strain. Unlike U.S. President Barack Obama at the start of his first term, though, the next president will not likely attempt a “reset” with Russia, if only to avoid the domestic political blowback. Likewise, Putin has his own reasons for keeping tensions high; he would like to stir up nationalism to preserve his popularity at home, especially in the face of continued economic contraction.

Between these two clashing powers lies China. As the nation in the triad with the broadest policy options, China is positioned to play Russia and the United States off each other, much as the United States did with China and Russia in years past.

Putin has hoped to convince China to use its influence to provide Russia significant economic and political support. In that, he is likely to be disappointed. For one, the two sides don’t have the same strategic goals. China wants global respect for its peaceful rise to great power status. Russia wants to challenge and undermine the West at every opportunity. Further, China sees the United States as its most important partner because of the two nations’ economic interdependence. In other words, even as China balances between the United States and Russia, it won’t risk provoking a real falling out with the United States. It will, however, drive hard bargains and extract concessions from both sides, particularly from Russia.

For example, Putin would like China to legitimize Russia’s aggressive regional stance. To this, China won’t say “no,” but it won’t say “yes” either. The last thing the country would want to do is lend public support to the principle that issues of sovereignty can be decided through referenda. The spillover effects in Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang would be too severe. What Russia can reasonably expect, though, is for China’s leaders to maintain their benign neglect, continuing to abstain on UN votes against Russia and undermining Western sanctions.

Putin has also been looking to dramatically expand Russia’s role as an energy provider to Beijing, which would create leverage for Russia in its energy dealings with Europe. And, after a decade of false starts, during the first part of Putin’s trip to China, Moscow and Beijing did ink an agreement for the “Power of Siberia” pipeline, presaging a new phase in bilateral energy relations. On this issue, Moscow’s desire to expand energy exports intersects with Beijing’s search for greater energy security. And although Russia secured some $25 billion in prepayment to finance the pipeline -- very important in the face of Western sanctions -- China got the better the deal. Russia will supply it natural gas at significantly lower-than-market rates, saving China tens of billions of dollars and pushing down the price of gas across Asia.

In addition to energy, China would like Russia to make it easier for Chinese firms to invest in Russia and sell to Russians. For China, Russia’s middle class economy is a huge market opportunity, especially now that Western firms have started to defer investment there. Russia, fearful of competition, has tended to restrict access to the Russian market for Chinese companies. But in the new geopolitical triangle, Russian and Chinese economic interests will converge; Moscow is already loosening restrictions on Chinese investment and will likely speed up the process.

China might also ask Russia for access to Russia's most advanced military technology. Moscow has been reluctant to sell Beijing its highest-end materiel, partially out of fear that China might someday use these weapons against Russia. Russia might now be more willing to share some technology in return for strategic concessions, but such a policy shift will be gradual. And it might have spillover effects outside of the triangle, for instance driving India into the arms of U.S. arms manufacturers in its search to match China’s increased military capabilities.

TRIFECTA

Just as the United States was emboldened by its lead position in the U.S.-Russian-Chinese triad during the Cold War, so too will China's resolve increase as Russia pursues its affections. For instance, China might become less eager to liberalize its foreign investment policy, something the United States has long wanted as a way to drive down the bilateral trade deficit. With new economic opportunities to China’s north, it simply won’t be as desperate for U.S. money. And the more Russia opens up its technological storehouse, the more willing China will be to press its interests in the South and East China Seas.

Unlike during the Cold War, however, when Washington’s rapprochement with Beijing pressured Moscow to change many aspects of its global policy, the closer Russian-Chinese relationship is unlikely to change U.S. policymakers’ calculations on most major U.S.-Chinese issues. Thus, the dynamics of the new triangle will not exactly mimic the old.

A rising China supported by a desperate Russia will make for a formidable geopolitical pair. Even so, the United States will not weaken its commitments to its allies, such as Japan and the Philippines, in the face of increased Chinese confidence. It will continue to pursue its flagship regional trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And it will press China on its state-sponsored commercial espionage with increasing vigor. Unlike the Soviet Union, the odd nation out in the first triangle relationship, the United States today has the military, financial, and political strength -- coupled with a global network of alliances -- to stand on its own. But an emboldened Beijing will nevertheless make it harder for the United States to maintain its current position as the Pacific’s regional balancer.

[Foreign Affairs] Who Will Win the Middle East?

How New Rivalries Are Transforming the Strategic Landscape

By Tarek Osman

MAY 20, 2014

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the Middle East has seen regional hegemons come and go. The 1950s and 1960s were Egypt’s era: Cairo was the Arab World’s capital and the home of its charismatic postcolonial leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. But Israel’s victory over Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the 1967 war; Nasser’s death, in 1970; and the spike in oil prices after the 1973 war brought that era to an end. As millions of Egyptians and other Arabs left home for the oil-wealthy Gulf, the gravity of Arab politics went with them. As the Gulf’s fortunes rose, especially in Saudi Arabia, so too did Riyadh’s political clout. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, however, and the subsequent U.S.-led war, which was launched from Saudi soil, made clear that oil could buy Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, a lot of influence, but they still needed American protection.

After the Gulf War, in the first half of the 1990s, the Oslo Agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty, shepherded by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, gave rise to Israel’s moment in the Middle East. Regional economic cooperation took center stage, casting the politics of the previous four decades aside with the optimism of peace and integration. Rabin’s assassination in 1995 abruptly dashed those hopes. The peace process floundered by the end of the decade, as a new rightwing in Israeli politics rose to power, hardly disposed to any closeness to its neighbors. 

Then there was a void; the 2000s was no one’s decade. No Arab country had the power, resources, or credibility to assert itself across the whole region. Sectarianism spread, fuelled by the U.S. occupation of Iraq and ensuing civil war. Arab republics, such as Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia, witnessed shocking levels of corruption that eroded the foundation upon which they were built in the 1950s: social equality and the consent of the lower middle classes to the reigning regimes. In the Gulf, the ruling dynasties sought to turn their desert towns into glittering cities, modeled on Hong Kong and Singapore, and detached themselves from the problems of their other Arab neighbors. Whereas in previous decades the region’s strategic landscape had depended on one country’s ascendancy, by 2011, with so much of the region muddling through and failing to put together serious national or regional political projects, the dominant players in the Middle East seemed to be economic actors, from multinational corporations to regional financial interests.

The Arab uprisings of the last three years shook up the balance of power once more, toppling three of the Arab republics, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia; threatening Arab monarchies in the Gulf; and sewing chaos around Israel. Whereas most observers evaluate the uprisings in terms of the political changes they did -- or did not -- usher in, there are other forces at play. A larger power struggle has emerged out of the ashes of revolution, repression, and war from Tunisia to Syria, which is reshaping the entire strategic landscape of the Middle East. Its outcome will transform the entire region more than any regional rivalry or the rise or fall of any single power in the preceding half century. 

The emerging confrontation is over the nature and future of the region’s societies, from North Africa to the Gulf.

FACE OFF

At the heart of this transformation are two groups of countries and political forces with opposing objectives. The first, led by Islamist forces in Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and the large Arab political Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, aims to channel the energy of the Arab uprisings toward a gradual Islamization of the region. The definition of that Islamization varies depending on the ideologies, backgrounds, and social and political circumstances of each country. The camp’s unifying conviction, however, is that political Islam is the sole framework for governing. Its members believe that, unlike the old rhetoric of secular Arab nationalism or republicanism, Islamism can actually win the support of the widest social segments in the region -- and keep it. To promote its goals, the camp uses a loosely organized network of media, religious authorities, and financial interests to rouse wide sections of the more than 180 million Arabs who are under 35 years old to demand bottom-up change.

The other camp, led by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and supported by Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, sees this transformation as a threat. They -- the traditionalists -- believe that Islamization will bring further fragmentation in some countries, such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria; highly disruptive political and social discord in others, such as Egypt; and the strengthening of jihadist groups across the region. Favoring a more gradual, managed, and cautious evolution of the existing order, the traditionalist camp relies on militaries, security apparatuses, media and financial interests, and other state or state-backed institutions to enforce a message of national preservation and shield their countries from the upheaval unfolding across the region. 

The battle between the two groups is a new kind of fight in the Middle East. Previous struggles between Arab secularists and Islamists (for example, between Nasser and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s, or between the Assad regime and the Brotherhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s) were country and regime specific. The Arab-Israeli conflict, meanwhile, has been primarily over territories. And the contest between secular Arab republics and Gulf monarchies throughout the 1960s (such as between Nasser’s Egypt and Saudi Arabia) revolved around the survival of specific regimes. This emerging two-camp confrontation, however, is over the nature and future of the region’s societies, from North Africa to the Gulf.

TROUBLE IN EVERY DIRECTION

The struggle between these two camps will be determined by four factors. The first is Egypt’s future. With nearly 90 million people, the country is the home of a third of all Arabs and, for decades, has been the region’s cultural trendsetter. Political Islam has already shaped Egypt’s politics since the fall of President Mubarak, throughout President Mohamed Morsi’s year in office, and, since Morsi’s ouster last summer, in the ongoing struggle between the resurgent nationalists -- and at their core, the military establishment -- and the Islamists. But it is really Egypt’s economy that will determine the country’s course. If Egypt’s government, likely led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is widely expected to win a May 25–26 presidential election, can finally put forward badly needed economic reforms, including cutting back on unaffordable public subsidies, without losing popular support and risking another round of political protest, then Egypt could regain its status as a player in the region and significantly bolster the second camp. But that is a tall order. And if it fails, another round of unrest would doom the traditionalists’ camp.

The second variable is the future of Algeria, North Africa’s largest and richest country, thanks in large part to its oil and gas wealth. (Algeria is Europe’s third-largest energy supplier.) The military regime has been buying time until it can find a replacement for the ailing, aged President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. His replacement must be acceptable to the generals who have controlled the country for over four decades and be conciliatory to the political Islamists that fought the regime throughout the 1990s in a war that cost 100,000 lives. The regime still survives by buying off such dissenters and playing off the public’s fear of returning to the violence of the 1990s, which compels many Algerians to accept the lack of plurality in return for peace and stability. But although the Algerian regime survived the wave of protests in 2011 intact, it is hardly bulletproof. Algerian political Islam has evolved beyond its 1990s antagonistic worldview. New Algerian Islamist parties could reemerge as a serious rival to the military regime. And with Algeria’s immense financial resources, this would give the first camp a major strategic advantage.

The third factor is Saudi Arabia, where the royal family is digging in its heels. A rising middle class that has a huge stake in the economy -- and has been increasingly exposed to political and social currents outside the conservative kingdom -- has finally started to demand political representation. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s economic prospects are slowly deteriorating. (The country is expected to become a net energy importer by 2030.) A sagging economy will only hinder the royal family’s ability to keep buying middle-class support through social welfare and public allowances. The threats of a low-level Shiite insurgency in the kingdom’s eastern province, a renewed Shiite Houthi militancy on the borders with Yemen, or a protest movement among young, disaffected Saudis could erode the government’s authority. A weakening of the Saudi regime would undermine the traditionalists’ camp by diverting the resources and dampening the will of its most powerful and assertive member.

But there is another scenario. King Abdullah, who is 89 years old, has shuffled responsibilities and positions within the ruling family, and the rising (relatively young) princes are aware of the challenges their political system faces. If, motivated by these existential threats, the Saudi regime can evolve and turn the kingdom into a functioning constitutional monarchy in which the political, social, and economic rights of large groups of young Saudis are respected, it could lead to a long but relatively stable transition. A new, assertive Saudi leadership, buoyed by political legitimacy, would imbue the traditionalists’ camp with strong momentum.

The fourth factor is just how much more chaos the Middle East sees over the coming decade. The civil war in Syria is likely to end with a semblance of a centralized authority in Damascus, surrounded by quasi-independent political entities. Several Salafist jihadist groups in the country could manage to entrench themselves in the increasingly lawless desert plains extending from eastern Syria to western Iraq, where they could try to establish Islamic statelets, isolated from the surrounding world (as similar groups have tried in Afghanistan and the Caucasus). Their presence will be a source of violence and political fragility, primarily for Syria and Iraq, but also for Lebanon and Jordan, opening more fronts in the battle between the two camps.

The camp that can turn the political contests in the region to their advantage, by deflecting potential chaos and inflicting its consequences on the other camp, will be better positioned to win this strategic struggle.

THERE’S A STORM COMING 

As unpredictable as the Middle East will be over the next few years, there are a few certainties. First, following a pattern of the last five decades and increasingly spurred by demographics and the already palpable cultural trends within the region’s colossal youth segment, the wave of urbanization, Westernization, and increased liberalism will prove unstoppable. That will weaken the Islamists, because their attempts to evolve their rhetoric and political messages to match these trends will diminish their support among their core constituencies and gradually detach them from the Islamic frame of reference upon which their entire movement has been built. Second, because of competitive deficiencies in educational quality, technological advancement, and energy costs -- in addition to looming water crises in the Nile and Jordan River basins -- almost all large countries in the region will confront socioeconomic turbulence in the next decade. That will weaken the traditionalist camp, which relies on structured authority.

In a sense, then, both camps could lose. The socioeconomic challenges that all of these countries will confront could trigger a new youth rebellion, which, unlike the 2011 uprisings, would not be directed at the current rulers but at the entire political and economic establishments that control these countries. Such a movement could rapidly dilute the powers of entrenched institutions in old Arab republics as well as in Gulf monarchies. It could also undermine the prospects of political Islam. No matter what, then, adaptability will be key for Islamists and traditionalists alike. The camp that adjusts to these social, political, and economic waves will have better chances of withstanding the approaching storm.

[Foreign Affairs] Arms and Influence in the Gulf

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi Get to Work

Bilal Y. Saab
May 5, 2014

Since the formation of the modern Arab state system in the mid-twentieth century, no Arab country has succeeded in building and sustaining an indigenous national defense industry. Egypt tried hard, but ultimately failed because it lacked the requisite financial and human capital. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq came closest, thanks to its skilled population and oil wealth, but it was stymied by corruption, mismanagement, and war. The Gulf countries, meanwhile, have spent lavish sums on the most modern U.S. and European arms, which they often lack expertise in handling and servicing. “Arabs don’t do maintenance,” the adage went.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may finally end this streak of Arab failures. Over the past decade, the two countries have quietly developed their military-industrial capacities. Today, they are capable of manufacturing and modernizing military vehicles, communication systems, aerial drones, and more. Further, they have significantly improved their ability to maintain, repair, and retrofit aircraft. And with U.S. assistance, they have trained their militaries to operate some of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world, including Hawk surface-to-air missiles.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are nowhere near self-sufficiency. (Even the most advanced U.S. allies remain heavily dependent on the United States for its military technology and know-how.) Indeed, their defense-industrial efforts are hardly complete, and retain some glaring weaknesses. But both countries have taken advantage of strategic partnerships with the top transatlantic defense companies in order to learn from the best. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have primarily done so through so-called offset agreements, which compel foreign suppliers to invest in local industrial projects so that the recipient country can offset the typically huge cost of defense procurement. Such programs have allowed the two countries to connect their domestic defense sectors with global defense producers and acquire advanced defense industrial knowledge and technology. Meanwhile, the information technology revolution has made the international defense market even more accessible to smaller players, allowing Saudi Arabia and the UAE to manage, and in some instances, overcome key technological hurdles.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s drive for military industrialization reflects their desire to reduce their political dependence on the United States. That is perfectly understandable. No nation wants to be totally reliant on another to protect itself and its interests. But unilateralism on the part of U.S. partners and allies can sometimes undermine U.S. security interests; take, for example, Israel’s unilateral military actions in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. Washington has often favored and called for regional solutions to many of the region’s security problems, and it would be relieved if Saudi Arabia and the UAE could use their own new resources to help defuse crises in the future. But if the Saudis or the Emiratis decided to act independently in the event of a new regional crisis, in the mold of the 1990­­–91 Gulf War, the United States could see its regional influence diminish.

Given Saudi Arabia’s size and its own leading role in the Gulf, its current disappointment with U.S. policy in the Middle East deserves closer scrutiny. Should relations between Riyadh and Washington fail to improve, bold unilateral moves by the kingdom, bolstered by more developed national defense and security capabilities, could challenge the U.S. regional force structure and threaten Washington’s other relationships in the Gulf. The UAE is a different story: Abu Dhabi’s armed forces are more technically proficient and combat-ready than the Saudi military, but its leaders are less interested in acting outside of U.S.-led coalitions.

But Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also invested in military industrialization to modernize their societies and diversify their economies. And ultimately, the pace, scope, and effectiveness of Saudi and Emirati military efforts will continue to depend on broader societal changes. Both countries still have considerable deficits of human resources and expertise -- key barriers in the way of building a sustainable defense industry.

Moving forward, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi need to further institutionalize their defense industrial processes, formulate clearer production policies, put in place more competent government managers, and make larger investments in education, research, and technological development. It could take anywhere between five and 15 years before either country can sustainably export military products and rely on its own manpower and arms production capabilities to address national security needs. But the Saudis and Emiratis are wise not to rush. It is only a matter of time before they have more advanced defense industries -- and the independence that comes with it.
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BILAL Y. SAAB is senior fellow for Middle East security at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.