The Return of Nuclear Energy

(Art direction and design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

On 21 March 2024, thirty two heads of states and governments and special envoys met in Brussels for a summit that received little media attention, despite a very high level attendance. This meeting was the first ever Nuclear Energy Summit, jointly hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Belgium (IAEA Website).

Why is nuclear energy coming back on the agenda and why such a high level interest? What did leaders decide and which leaders? Could the renewal of interest in nuclear energy entail new geopolitical challenges? These are questions this article explores and answers, taking as example in terms of geopolitics and energy security the case of the Franco-Mongolian € 1.6 billion deal for uranium.

Why nuclear energy increasingly matters

Keeping our way of life while reducing GHG emissions means nuclear energy

Energy is a fundamental element of life. Energy is key for the development of all the activities that underlie a civilization. Thomas Homer-Dixon highlighted that is was a master resource (The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of civilization, Knopf, 2006). Energy is indeed present and indispensable from every step of the food chain – food being itself energy – to transportation, industry, trade and availability of goods, defense, etc.

The amount of energy human life and its civilizations use – excluding food – is measured as the world final energy consumption. In 2022, this world final energy consumption represented 442,4 EJ (Exajoules), a 1,7% increase compared with 2019. To allow this demand to be met, the world had to supply globally 632 EJ in 2022 (International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2023, October 2023; IEA, Net Zero by 2050 – A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, May 2021). Renewables (solar, wind, hydro, modern solid, liquid and gazeous bioenergy) represented only 11,7% of the energy supply, while together, oil, gas and coal represented 79,4% of the energy supply.

At the same time, climate change is increasingly obvious, and threatens human ways of life. Hence, there is an absolute necessity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the culprit for climate change.

As governments and populations wish, as much as possible, to keep their model of civilizations, and as the way we produce energy is a major cause of GHG emissions, then human beings must rethink the very production of energy.

Considering the challenge of GHG emission and civilizational constraints, in 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) created a scenario for the world energy sector that would allow reaching net zero emissions (NZE) by 2050: Net Zero by 2050 – A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. It included in its scenario efforts to make some relatively minor behavioural change and to develop new technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), but fundamentally the scenario is about changing our way to produce energy. The IEA slightly revised the data used with the publication of the World Energy Outlook 2023, but the logic and the scenario remain the same.

In this scenario, global demand for energy must decrease to 406 EJ final energy consumption in 2030 and to 343 by 2050, with a substantial increase in the share of electricity in this global demand (IEA, World Energy Outlook 2023). The latter must represent 53% of global energy demand in 2050, when it represented 20% in 2022 (Ibid.).

Correspondingly, the supply energy mix must change.

Thus, not only renewables, but also nuclear energy must increase, while other energy sources must decrease until 2050. Renewables must represent, respectively for 2030 and 2050, 29% then 71% of the energy supply, and nuclear 7,5% then 12,4% (Ibid.).

This means reverting the trend towards moving away from nuclear energy, which was notably triggered by the 2011 accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant in Japan, after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Indeed, according to the IEA scenario, continuing using nuclear energy and increasing nuclear power generation is key to see the NZE scenario being successfully achieved. The international body estimated that a “Low Nuclear and CCUS case” would make the transition far more costly and less likely (IEA, Net Zero by 2050, p.120). If the “global nuclear power output were 60% lower in 2050 than in the NZE” – i.e. approximately 24,4 EJ – then the IEA estimates the added cost in investments to USD 2 trillion and the added cost of electricity to consumers between 2021 and 2050 to USD 260 billion.

As a result, if we want to keep the same type of civilization, not only nuclear energy must be kept but it must be drastically developed.

Doubling the nuclear energy capacity by 2050?

If we consider the IEA NZE scenario, how does that translate in terms of nuclear energy capacity?

On 1st January 2021, the world counted 442 commercial nuclear reactors operating and connected to the grid in 31 countries, while 52 reactors were under construction (Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)/International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Uranium 2022: Resources, Production and Demand – also called “Red Book“, p. 99). The 2021 net energy generating capacity was of 393 GWe (Gigawatt electrical) requiring about 60.100 tU/y (tonnes of uranium per year) (Ibid. p. 12). As a result, in 2020, about 2.523 TWh (Terawatt hours) were generated (Ibid.).

The IEA, for its part, estimates this amount to 2.698 TWh, corresponding to 29 EJ (IEA, Net Zero by 2050…, Annex A, Tables for scenario projections).

The IEA NZE 2050 scenario plans that nuclear electricity production should reach 3.777 TWh by 2030, 4.855 TWh by 2040 and 5.497 TWh by 2050 (ibid., p. 198). It estimates that the corresponding nuclear net generating capacity should be 515 GWe in 2030, 730 GWe in 2040 and 812 GWe in 2050 (Ibid. p. 198).

If we follow the figures in the “Red Book” and use them for the IEA NZE scenario, then nuclear electricity production should reach 3.532 TWh by 2030, 4.540 TWh by 2040 and 5.140 TWh by 2050. Everything being equal, this would translate in a nuclear net generating capacity of 550 GWe in 2030, 707 GWe in 2040 and 800 GWe in 2050.

In both cases, the IEA NZE 2050 scenario demands doubling the nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

States and industry step in to trebling nuclear energy capacity by 2050

However, according to the NEA, “the average IPCC 1.5°C scenario requires nuclear energy to reach 1.160 GWe (gigawatts electrical) by 2050 (NEA, Meeting Climate Change Targets: The Role of Nuclear Energy, OECD Publishing, 2022, Paris, p. 33).

It is this figure the NEA took as objective for the new nuclear energy capacity (Ibid.).

This means almost tripling the current world nuclear capacity by 2050, and not “only” doubling it.

The “Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050”

The objective to triple the current nuclear capacity was supported by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), the international organisation representing the global nuclear industry. In September 2023, the WNA and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, as founders, supported by the IAEA, launched an advocacy effort, “Net Zero Nuclear”, ahead of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP28), that:

“Calls for unprecedented collaboration between government and industry leaders to at least triple global nuclear capacity to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”

NZN website

Among the main partners of the advocacy effort, we find the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and the Americano-Japanese alliance GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.

Then, on 2 December 2023, at the COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, the trebling objective was officially endorsed. There, French President Emmanuel Macron and American Special Envoy John Kerry announced the “Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050” (Présidence de la République Française, official text, 2 Dec 2023), signed by 22 countries that thus showed their commitment to make efforts to reach this goal (Nuclear Energy Agency, “COP28 recognises the critical role of nuclear energy for reducing the effects of climate change“, 21 December 2023).

The 22 signatories of the “Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050” were Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Ukraine, the UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States (ISHII Noriyuki, “22 Countries Sign Declaration to Triple Global Nuclear Energy Capacity“, JAIF News, 2 December 2023).

The 22 signatories of the 2023 “Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050”.

China and Russia were thus initially not part of the signatories, despite their growing role in nuclear generation. For example, 27 of the 31 reactors built since 2017 are of Russian or Chinese design (IAE, Nuclear Power and Secure Energy Transitions, p.15).

A couple of days later, on 5 December, the nuclear industry followed suite. “120 companies, headquartered in 25 countries, and active in over 140 nations worldwide” endorsed the Net Zero Nuclear Industry Pledge (Press statements, “Net Zero Nuclear Industry Pledge sets goal for tripling of nuclear energy by 2050“, 5 December 2023). At industry level Russia through Rosatom was part of the signatories. However, neither the CNNC, although having supported the initiative, nor the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) signed the pledge.

Unsurprisingly, geopolitics and national interest are also part of the agenda.

The First Nuclear Energy Summit

To follow suite on the “Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050”, and as promised in December 2023, governments and international agencies convened the first Nuclear Energy Summit on 21 March 2024.

In the run up to the 21 March Summit, as they prepared it, the members of the European Nuclear Alliance (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, the Netherlands,Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden), created on 28 February 2023, reasserted their commitment to nuclear energy alongside renewable energies (Declaration of the EU Nuclear Alliance – Meeting of March 4th, 2024).

Finally, 33 countries attended the Nuclear Energy Summit, from the initial 22 countries involved in the December 2023 declaration, and signed the new “Nuclear Energy Declaration” (Belga News Agency, “Nuclear declaration adopted by over 30 countries at first nuclear energy summit“, 21 March 2024; 32 countries by some accounts, e.g. “Leaders commit to ‘unlock potential’ of nuclear energy at landmark summit“, World Nuclear News, 21 March 2024):

“We, the leaders of countries operating nuclear power plants, or expanding or embarking on or exploring the option of nuclear power … reaffirm our strong commitment to nuclear energy as a key component of our global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from both power and industrial sectors, ensure energy security, enhance energy resilience, and promote long-term sustainable development and clean energy transition….”

Extract from the Summit Declaration, “Leaders commit to ‘unlock potential’ of nuclear energy at landmark summit“, World Nuclear News, 21 March 2024

Unsurprisingly, the nuclear industry also endorsed the declaration (Industry Statement pdf).

We are thus entering a totally new era for nuclear energy, compared with years of disengagement and fear.

Towards a geopolitics of nuclear energy?

In terms of international relations, in 2024, China joined the signatories, but Russia was still not part of them (e.g. CGTN, President Xi’s special envoy to attend first nuclear energy summit in Brussels; Nuclear energy declaration adopted at Brussels summit).

Interestingly, if in March 2024 some countries joined the new nuclear effort, some of the countries that had signed the initial declaration were not present in Brussels. The reasons for their absence may be multiple, some of them simple and with no geopolitical component. Yet, those countries were signatories of the 2023 declaration and not of the 2024 one. We represented the evolving participation in the map below:

Signatories of the Nuclear Energy Declarations 2023 and 2024 – Signatories of the 2023 “Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050”, as founding members, were given a 3, signatories of the 2024 declaration were given a 1. The signatories of both declarations therefore receive a 4.

Mongolia, notably, did not joint fellow states in 2024, despite holding significant amount of reserves of uranium, having signed nuclear cooperation agreements with, for example, India in 2009 and France in 2010, and planning to develop nuclear power (e.g. World Nuclear Association, “Uranium in Mongolia“, September 2022).

Yet, in October 2023, following the first ever visit of a French President to Mongolia in May 2023, when Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh was in Paris for a three-day state visit, France and Mongolia signed a € 1.6 billion deal, which would notably include mining of uranium by French Orano – one of the leading international nuclear industrial actor (Le Monde/AFP, “Emmanuel Macron en visite en Mongolie, une première pour un président français“, 21 May 2023; Mailys Pene-Lassus, “Mongolia opens way for uranium mining with $1.7bn French deal“, Nikkei Asia, 13 October 2023).

This deal is part of French efforts at diversifying its supply of uranium, which is fundamental for the country’s security.

Indeed, considering that 70% of French electricity comes from nuclear energy, that France’s supply of uranium originated in 2022 from five main sources according to Euratom – Kazhakstan 37,3%, Niger 20,2%, Namibia 15,8%, Australia 13,9% and Uzbekistan 12,9% – and that French relations with Niger are at best tense following the coup d’Etat, even though Orano only highlighted a delay in operations, mining restarting indeed in February 2024, it is key for France to diversify its supply of uranium (World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in France“, March 2024; Euratom cited in Assma Maad, “A quel point la France est-elle dépendante de l’uranium nigérien ?“, Le Monde, 3 August 2023; Olanrewaju Kola, “Niger severs diplomatic ties with Nigeria, France, US, Togo“, Anadolu Agency, August 2023; Laura Kayali, “France closes embassy in Niger“, Politico, 2 January 2024; “Orano : arrêtée depuis le coup d’Etat, la production d’uranium redémarre timidement au Niger“, La Tribune, 16 February 2024).

Furthermore, when the coup in Niger had already increased French insecurity in terms of uranium supply, Kazakhstan warned in January 2024 it could have to reduce its production forecast (Ibid.), which was confirmed in March 2024 (Colin Hay, “Global uranium supply in jeopardy as Kazatomprom lowers production forecasts“, Small Caps, 18 March 2024).

As a result, the diversification of uranium supply became even more important.

Unfortunately, on 22 February 2024, information surfaced that the Franco-Mongolian deal was facing challenges and could be postponed until June (Bloomberg News, “France’s $1.6 billion uranium deal with Mongolia faces delays“, Mining.com, 22 February 2024).

Knowing that Russia supplies more than 80% of the petroleum products needed by Mongolia, and that Russia “had to” “cut energy supplies to its neighbour” in December leading to rationing (Ibid.), and considering the tense relations between U.S. allies and Russia, including as a result of the war in Ukraine, we may make the hypothesis that Russia’s actions and Mongolia’s dependence on Russia played a part in the setback impacting the Franco-Mongolian uranium deal.

France’s uranium supply is thus under threat and the country sees one of its efforts at diversifying its supplies potentially undermined, at best delayed. We cannot ignore that Russian influence may have played a part in these hurdles. Although firmer evidence would be needed here too, we may nonetheless wonder in which way these challenges related to the supply in uranium and thus to nuclear energy did not play a part in the new, harsher approach on Russia taken by France on 27 February 2024 (e.g. Le Monde & AFP, “War in Ukraine: Macron doesn’t rule out sending Western troops on the ground, announces missile coalition“, Le Monde, 27 Feb 2024).

This case study, although involving many hypotheses, highlights how the new era for nuclear energy, as ushered by the two international 2023 and 2024 declarations, will also come with new geopolitical challenges and tensions, as states seek to reduce the potential for insecurity.

When studying and developing policy recommendations for the trebling of nuclear energy capacities, international agencies stress the various challenges ahead, focusing on “cost, performance, safety and waste management” (IEA, Nuclear Power and Secure Energy Transitions, 2022; NEA, Meeting Climate Change Targets: The Role of Nuclear Energy, OECD Publishing, 2022, Paris, pp.39-46). The March 2024 Nuclear Energy Summit emphasised, among others, the complexity of financing the heavy investments in nuclear energy (e.g. Nuclear Energy Summit 2024’s Programme; Nuclear newswire, “Nuclear Energy Declaration adopted at Brussels summit“, 22 March 2024).

Furthermore, as the case study above highlights, challenges could also stem from uranium mining and milling as exploration and industrial process converges with geopolitics.

In future articles, we shall thus focus on those challenges the world is likely to face to fuel nuclear energy’s new development, i.e. uranium mining and milling in the unsettled world of international politics.

Climate Change, Planetary Boundaries and Geopolitical Stakes

Adapting and Making the World Sustainable Again

Strategic Foresight, Early Warning and Geopolitics Serve the Future

Planetary boundaries* are being overstepped. These changes are fundamentally upsetting our world. These mutations are here to last, spread and increase.

We must act now. We must prepare to adapt to the myriad of alterations taking place in all areas. We must be creative to design new solutions to make the world sustainable again.

We put all our expertise at the service of these objectives.

In this section of the think tank, we develop an experimental approach to address all the issues related to the environment, climate change and geopolitics, or more broadly national and international security.**

We want this new initiative to be geared towards action and towards changing mindsets.

If you want to participate in making the world sustainable again, while enhancing your preparedness, join us by becoming a partner of this project: Contact us.

Categories are being reorganised. In the meantime…

French translations: Only recent articles are human translations. We gradually review the automatic translation (DeepL) of the remaining 600 plus articles…

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The Present and The Future

Following the seminal works by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center et al. on planetary boundaries*, by Thomas Homer Dixon*** and many others, as well as our own findings over the last fifteen years, we have organised this new project through two approaches.

2023
2022
The 2023 update to the Planetary boundaries. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Credit: “Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Richardson et al 2023”; State of Planetary Boundaries – January 2022 – Designed by Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Persson et al 2022 and Steffen et al 2015; The evolution of the planetary boundaries framework. Licenced under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. Based on Richardson et al. 2023, Steffen et al. 2015, and Rockström et al. 2009)

Each perspective corresponds to a way to understand a world that considers climate change and planetary boundaries.

The Present and Near Future
Planetary boundaries and impacts

The first approach is – relatively – classical. It starts from planetary boundaries. That system is powerful and extremely valuable, not least because each boundary is measurable and can be monitored.

This frame of reference is a way to categorise and order our comprehension of and knowledge about the world that corresponds to the past and the present. It is how we think the world currently. It allows orientation and action without upsetting too much the categories to which we are used.

The translation of the overstepping of planetary boundaries into impacts relevant to human societies needs to be further developed. This is what we shall endeavour here, within our field of expertise.

Further into the Future
Blueprint for a different world

The second perspective is located further into future, notably in terms of mindset.

It seeks to find a different way to look at our world, as we integrate a blueprint for our planet (and beyond) where planetary boundaries are being overstepped. Its focus is on national and international security and geopolitics, as these will be determining features of this new world.

The objective is to find a better way to understand this new world for adaptation and action.

This approach is innovative and in the making.

The Present and Near Future

Approach through Planetary Boundaries, Impacts and Geopolitics

As the project progresses, access the articles in this section by “planetary boundary”

Water security

Energy security (links to land-system change and biogeochemical cycles)

(Not initially part of planetary boundaries, but key)

Climate Change and security, stratospheric and atmospheric changes (incl. Environmental geostrategy)

Oceans (acidification and use, links to biogeochemical cycles)

Biosphere integrity (links to land-system change and biogeochemical cycles)

Novel entities and pollutions

Should AI belong to “Novel entities”?

If you want to participate in making the world sustainable again, while enhancing your preparedness, join us by becoming a partner of this project: Contact us.

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(from left to right) Photos by Pixabay, Pixabay, Ralph W. Lambrecht (Pexels), Lukas Rodriguez (Pexels), Roger Brown (Pexels), Pixabay.

Further into the Future

An experimental blueprint to understand how to live on our planet, where planetary boundaries are being overstepped, and beyond.

As the project progresses, access the articles in this section by types of political and geopolitical stakes.

Rising physical impacts on (national) governance capabilities

This section will consider the impacts of the overstepping of planetary boundaries domestically and on the capabilities to govern of each political authority. For example, we shall look at crises, emergencies, fires, floods, etc.

Rising physical impacts with geopolitical stakes

This section will focus on the physical impacts of the overstepping of planetary boundaries on geopolitics and the international world. It will interact with the previous section in as much as capabilities of each state are affected. For example, we shall classically look at transnational conflicts related to fresh water issues. We shall also address the appearance of new spaces of competition such as the Arctic, among others.

Responses, possible consequences and political and geopolitical stakes

This section will focus on the responses that need to be created an implemented to face the overstepping of planetary boundaries and their impacts. It will address novel approaches being put forward, the making of new norms, the efforts at adaptation, creation and implementation. It will also look at the consequences of these efforts and at the novel interactions that they will generate, from cooperation to tension. As in the previous section, we shall also address the appearance of new zones and types of environments (for humanity), where human activity will need to expand, what we also called extreme environments.

If you want to participate in making the world sustainable again, while enhancing your preparedness, join us by becoming a partner of this project: Contact us.

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(from left to right) Photos and Art Design by Hernan Pauccara (Pexels), Pixabay, Yaroslav Shuraev (Pexels).

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*Planetary boundaries: the idea and concept were developed in 2009 as “Johan Rockström led a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists to identify the nine processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system” – see Stockholm Resilience Center, “Planetary boundaries“. On that page you will find a list of updated publications. See also, for an updated paper, Steffen et al., “The nine planetary boundaries“, Stockholm Resilience Center, 2015.
In France, Aurélien Boutaud and Natacha Gondran recently contextualised and presented the idea to decision-makers and the larger public with Les limites planétaires (La Découverte, 2020).

**It builds on and follows from our contribution to Alterre-Bourgogne Franche Comté day, first panel: Hélène Lavoix, “Unsustainability, Planetary Boundaries and Geopolitical Stakes”, 21 January 2022.

***Thomas Homer Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Random House Canada, 2006).

Apocalypse in the Red Sea – Anthropocene Wars (9)

(Art direction and design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

Given the speed and political density of the historic sequence opened by the war in Gaza, this third article only covers the period from 20 October 2023 to 10 February 2024.

In December 2023, the Pentagon launched Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea. The operation is the U.S. military reaction to the Yemeni Houthi war in the Red Sea (Sam Lagrone, “”Operation Prosperity Guardian” set to protect ships in the Red Sea, Carrier IKE in Gulf of Aden”, U.S. Naval Institute, 18 December 2023).

This operation is based on the creation of a combined naval task force, mainly with elements of the U.S. and of the UK navies, while the Houthis’ guerrilla war at sea becomes more and more intense.

In other words, the extension of the Gaza war in the Red Sea area through the Houthis offensive is triggering the emergence of a whole new theatre of operations. The Red Sea becomes the attractor for the U.S. and U.K navies, for the Houthis operations, while the international traffic of cargoes is at stake.

In the same dynamic, the Houthis’ targets of choice besides the Russian and Chinese they choose not to target reveal how a rapidly emerging multipolarity is becoming a regional reality.

This situation is even more disruptive for the West and for globalisation because the Red Sea war sees the Somali piracy reaching a new peak of activity in the Gulf of Aden, which opens up on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea.

Indeed, the Houthi Ansar Allah militia officially started their operations in solidarity with the Palestinians and against Israel and its allies. Their forces launched salvos of missiles and drones on Israel. They began attacking civil or military ships with their speed boats flotilla. They also used helicopters and mini submarines (Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor, “US Military shoots down missiles and drones as it faces growing threats in volatile Middle East”, AP, 20 October 2023). On 27 October, another missiles’ salvo failed to reach Israel (Michael Horton, “Houti missiles launches against Israel risk reigniting war in Yemen”, Responsible Statecraft, October 30, 2023).

The name “Operation Prosperity Guardian” is a clear reference to the global trade disruption induced by the Houthi’s continuous offensive. Indeed, several major shipping companies such as Danish Maersk, French CMA-CGM and Taiwanese Evergreen had to order their ships to avoid the Red Sea crossing. However, the Red Sea being a major maritime artery, those decisions increase the costs and duration of the cargo journey.

This triggered shockwaves through global logistical supply chains, while increasing costs for companies and customers (Simon Scarr, Adolfo Arranz, Jonathan Saul, Han Huang and Jitesh Chowdhury, “Red Sea attacks – How Houthi militants in Yemen are attacking ships in one of the busiest maritime trade routes”, Reuters, February 2, 2024).

The Red Sea War : a case study in asymmetric warfare

In other words, the Red Sea war reveals that the houthis guerrillas are becoming a regional power in the Middle East. Furthermore, they develop the capability to be disruptive on a global scale. This transformation, from a land militia into a regional strategic land and sea power necessitates to understand the Houthis strategy at different levels, from the level of the war in Gaza to the level of the Yemen regional war and of the Middle East conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, including the interactions with the US military presence in the region.

This naval war also reveals how this asymmetry plays itself not only at the military level of the “weak” Houthis against the “strong” U.S. and UK navies, but also in the media-political-symbolic dimension of what we call “performative warfare”, as well as in the financial dimension of the costs of weapons systems. This latter dimension being awfully in favour of the “poor and weak” Houthis.

Thus, the Red Sea war reveals how major western powers are in dire difficulties when confronting a naval guerrilla that installs its activities on the long run. This naval war of the weak to the poor prolongs itself with the return of Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Indeed, the latter’s actions reach a peak of activity not seen in years. As it happens, their renewed presence literally “complements” the Houthi’s naval warfare and sea power.

This synergy of the Houthis and Somali pirates sea power reveals the essence of the Red Sea war asymmetric character (Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: a History, Penguin Books, 2017). It is a fight between a very powerful military machine – the U.S. and its allies – and a militia from a desperately poor country, added to pirates from a no less poor country.

Those warriors emerge from an extreme environment defined by one of the worst civil war on Earth. And they redefine the meaning of victory: to them, victory appears as installing their operations from the short to the middle term, while for Operation Prosperity Guardian, victory would mean eliminating the means of action of the Houthis.

In order to study the different layers of strategic meaning of the Red Sea war, we shall start by understanding how the Yemeni civil and regional war prolongs itself in the Red Sea at the occasion of the war in Gaza, and how the Houthis mobilize different levels of tactics and strategies.

Then, we shall see how the Houthi guerrilla has learned asymmetric warfare through a long war in a country ravaged by the combination of a 20 years long civil war, climate change and pandemic.

Then we shall see how the “asymmetric sea power” of the weak is reinforced by the added “poor sea power” of the Somali pirates and how globalization is thus put at risk by the emergence of this new kind of “weak but highly disruptive” sea power.

War on the Red Sea: convergence of wars, convergence of tactics

Since 20 October 2023, the Houthi militia has launched salvos of missiles from Yemen across the Red Sea, trying to strike Israel. U.S. warships intercepted and destroyed those missiles.

Since then the number of Houthis strikes and attacks has grown ceaselessly.  coinciding with the Israeli military built up and the offensive against Hamas in Gaza that lasts since the 28 October (Jean-Michel Valantin,  “The war in Gaza and China’s pivot to the Middle East”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 22, 2023).

Who Rules the Red Sea, Rules Globalization

As it happens, the Red Sea is one of the most important maritime routes on Earth. It is home to two crucial global chokepoints. To the north, the Suez Canal links the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, to the Red Sea. To the south, the Bab-El-Mandeb strait links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian sea, the Indian Ocean, East Africa and South and South-East Asia.

If the Red Sea represents 10% of the international maritime traffic, it also accounts for 30% of container traffic. Those have a total value of 1000 billion dollars each year. In other terms, the Red Sea is the main artery of globalization. The freedom and security of circulation on this waterway is crucial for global trade and for global supply chains (Ariel Cohen, “The world is going into the red from the Red Sea Crisis”, Forbes, February 7, 2024, and Thibault Denamiel, Matthew Shleish, William Alan Reinsch, and Will Todman, “The global economic consequences of the attacks on the Red Sea Shipping lanes”, CSIS, January 2024).

It is also the case in the energy sector. Around 75 oil and gas tankers use the Red Sea daily. They deliver products from the Persian Gulf to Europe, or from Russia to India (Denamiel et al., ibid).

In this heated geopolitical context, the Houthi political authorities claimed they launched strikes in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza (Lori Ann Larocco, “As more tankers divert from Red Sea, there’s a “sea change” in way Europe is buying crude”, CNBC, January 24, 2024).

The Long March of the Houthis

Nevertheless, from a historical perspective, the Houthis operations in the Red Sea may very well appear as a continuation at sea of the twenty years long Yemeni civil and regional war. As it happens, the Yemeni civil war really started in 2004. Then, the NorthWest Shia Yemeni Houthi minority demanded to be fairly treated by the regime of President Saleh. The latter replied with a heavy campaign of repression. A civil war soon followed (Dr Abdo Albahesh, “The Houthi movement in Yemen: from insurgency to military coup, 2004-2014“, Medium, Oct. 23, 2018).

The support of Iran, as well as the Houthi own excellent strategists allowed the Houthi militia to multiply successes. In January 2015, the Houthi militia seized Sanaa, the Yemen capital, forcing then president Abd Rabbo Mansour Abdi to flee to Aden (Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield, Nation Books, 2013 and Marcus Montgomery, “A Timeline of the Yemen’s crisis from 1990 to the present”, Arab Centre Washington D.C., February 19, 2021, and Kali Robinson, “Yemen’s tragedy, War, Stalemate and Suffering”, Council on Foreign Relations, last updated May 1, 2023).

During the following weeks, this Houthi victory led Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to gather a military coalition against them. This coalition gathered the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait.

Their goal was to prevent the victory of Iran-allied Houthis in the immediate neighbourhood of Saudi Arabia. One must also keep in mind that Yemen literally commands the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait (Bruce Riedel, “Yemen’s war shakes up the Saudi palace”, Brookings institution, April 2019, 2015).

Apocalypse Yemen

From 2015 to 30 March 2022, Saudi Arabia launched its troops in Yemen. Meanwhile, the UAE supported this offensive with  hundreds of Columbian and U.S. mercenaries. The Emirati also hired 15.000 Sudanese soldiers alongside Saudi forces. The Saudi-led coalition also benefitted from the strong support of the U.S. Navy and special forces. The UK and French militaries provided too technical and training assistance and ammunitions contracts (“Guerre civile yéménite“, Wikipedia and Andrew Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle east, A Military history, Random House, 2016).

Furthermore, since 2004, the intensity of the Yemeni war has combined with a series of drought and famines in the country. This war and climate extreme events nexus killed hundreds of thousands of people through hunger, thirst, displacements, bombings, combats and epidemics. So, in twenty years, Yemen turned into one of the deadliest places on Earth (“Starvation stalks Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen”, Al Jazeera, 11 April 2017.

On the opposite side, Iran is said to support the Houthis. The Iran Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRCG) organizes the weapons, military and technical training (Katherine Zimmerman, “Yemen’s Houthis and the expansion of Iran’s axis of resistance”, American Enterprise Institute, 2022).

Technical training is essential in order to assemble ground-to-ground and ground-to-sea missiles. Still, according to the UN, North Korea would also have provided combat drones ( David Axe, “The Houthis might be using North Korea missiles”, The National Interest, November 4, 2021, Samuel Ramani, “The North Korea-Iran relationship: an anti-american axis or a transactional partnership?”, 38 North, 24 November 2021).

A Houthi’s multilevel strategy ?

Since 2022, the string of Houthi victories has achieved a suspension of the hostilities between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition.

So, from a geopolitical perspective, we can hypothesize that the current Houthi attacks against Israel, then against passing cargo ships and U.S. and UK warships may very well appear as a multilevel strategy. Indeed, the Yemen political and military authorities state their support to the Palestinians as soon as 20 October, when they initiate their first tentative strikes against Israel. Yet, one cannot help noticing that these strikes, then the multiple air and sea attacks against commercial and military warships in the Red Sea have strictly no military or political incidence on the way Tsahal or Hamas wage the war in Gaza.

However, from the Houthi strategic point of view, Israel also appears as an ally of the United States. And the U.S. are both militarily and politically committed against both Houthis and Iran, their main supporter (Ibrahim Jalal, “The Houthis Red Sea missile and drone attack: drivers and implications”, Middle East Institute, 20 October, 2023).

Furthermore, waging a “claimed” war against Israel, while waging a real naval war against the U.S. and the UK Navies, while disrupting one of the main arteries of globalization, elevates the geopolitical and strategic status of the Houthi militia to the status of ascending regional power.

This new regional power thus supports the Iranian influence from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, while containing the Saudi influence (Fatima Abo Alasrar, “From Yemen to Palestine: the strategic depth of the Houthi-Iranian alliance“, Middle East Institute, February 16, 2024). Thus, the Houthis militia affirms itself as a literally pivotal power in one of the most important energy and transport region in the world.

So, in a very practical way, the stated level of military solidarity with the Palestinians and its consequent attacks induces the positioning of U.S. and Israeli destroyers in the Red Sea, in order to intercept the Houthis missiles and drones, while becoming occasional targets for the militia (Ibrahim Jalal, “The Houthis Red Sea missile and drone attack: drivers and implications”, Middle East Institute, 20 October, 2023 and John Gambrell, “Houthi rebels fire missile at US warship, escalating worst Middle East sea in decades“, PBS, January 27, 2024 ).

Indeed, when the Houthis started bombing Israel, the U.S. and UK Navies, i.e. the military allies of the enemies of the Ansar Allah / Houthi militia, were attracted in the Red Sea.

Hence, the intensification of the Houthi campaign and attacks against U.S. warships may very well also be understood as a continuation and an extension of the Yemeni regional war at sea (“Houthis target U.S destroyer in latest round of missiles attack; strike British merchant ship”, CBS News, January 27, Jana Choukeir and Nadine Awadalla, “Yemen Houthis threaten more attacks on US, UK warships”, Reuters, January 31, 2024).

Asymmetric warfare as geoeconomic warfare…

This confrontation of the Houthis versus U.S. and U.K navies triggers a strange technological and economic warfare. Indeed, the drones the Houthis use cost only 2.000 $ and the missiles cost about 100.000 $. However, the western warship use hardware costing from 1 million $ to 4 million $ to destroy the Houthis low-tech drones and missiles (Lara Seligman and Matt Berg, “A $2M missile vs a $2000 drone: Pentagon worried over cost of Houthi attacks”, Politico, December 12, 2023).

Then, as of this writing, since December 2023 the U.S./UK maritime combined force launched three bombings campaigns against Houthi bases and installations. However, basically, those bombings only destroy low-tech hardware such as pick-ups, easily replaceable missiles ramps, etc.

Then, the maritime operations against the very agile Ansar Allah speed boats fleet mobilizes combat helicopters and important tactical resources (Simon Scarr, Adolfo Arranz, Jonathan Saul, Han Huang and Jitesh Chowdhury, “Red Sea attacks – How Houthi militants in Yemen are attacking ships in one of the busiest maritime trade routes”, Reuters, February 2, 2024). However, these high level and very costly military means are unable to deter the sea attacks.

… and performative warfare

The Houthis reinforce their strategic and political efficiency through performative warfare. As did Hamas when attacking Israel during the monstrous massacre of 7 Octobre 2023, and during the subsequent Gaza battles, this strategy rests on the filming and transmission by the U.S. and UK medias of the missiles and drones salvos (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The war in Gaza and China’s pivot to the Middle East”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 22, 2023).

The same approach is used to film the damages of the bombing campaigns on Yemeni ground. Those salvoes of videos orient perceptions on the suffering of Yemeni civilians. They also aim to create a framework of perception on how those bombings achieve very little in tactical or operational terms.

This media and information warfare projects the Houthi influence upon the global audience, while diminishing the charisma of the U.S. military power (Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, Radical War, Data, Attention and Control in the 21st Century, Hurst Publishing, 2022).

The Place to Be

To add insult to injury, on 19 November 2023, a Houthi commando used a helicopter taken to the Yemeni government to hijack the passing cargo Galaxy leader.

Once taken, the ship became a kind of “Houthis maritime theme park”. It is now a touristic destination for Houthis militiamen, Houthis influencers, Yemeni families, etc ( FP Staff, “Pirate Park: Yemen Houthis convert Galaxy Leader into tourist attraction at 1$ per visit”, Firstpost, 29 January, 2024). Multiple videos of dancing warriors, tourists and parties launched with the crew are downloaded on social networks.

This performative strategy has a politically corrosive effect. Indeed, from a global perception point of view, it turns the forces that constitute Operation Prosperity Guardian into lumbering and powerless giants. Reciprocally, the small and agile forces of the Shia militia are shown as imposing tremendous costs to First World military great powers.

Taking time as victory

In this situation, the definition of victory is not military any more, but performative. So, the longer the “strategic reality show” of the humiliation of military great powers by militiamen from an Arab and lethally violent and poor country is, the more stunning the “long victory” becomes (Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, Radical War, Data, Attention and Control in the 21st Century, Hurst Publishing, 2022).

Disrupting globalization…

Furthermore, this military-symbolic performative warfare goes hand in hand with a very efficient geo-economic strategy. As it happens, turning the Red Sea into a naval battle zone incites major shipowners such as Maersk or CMA-CGM to order their ships to avoid the Red Sea.

This forces ships to make a diversion around the Cap of Good Hope, lenghtening their journey while increasing costs (Tyler Durden, “Red Sea crisis send Maersk shares crashing as outlook darkens, Buybacks suspended”, ZeroHedge, February 8, 2024).

… But which globalization ?

However, Russian and Chinese ships, especially tankers, obtain a de facto safe-conduct, provided they have no business with Israel. So, Russian oil exports to China and India have safe passage. However, the Saudi, Iraq, Qatari and Kuweiti oil and LNG tankers take a longer road around the Cap of Good Hope (Michelle Wiese Bockmann, “Russia oil exports uninterrupted by mounting Houthi attacks on the Red Sea”, Lloyd’s List, 10 January 2024).

The vessels that have to use the longer route around Africa and the Cap of Good Hope have to pay larger fuel expenses, as well higher costs for containers leasing. Those that dare to use the Red Sea waterway have to pay huge premium insurance rates. Meanwhile, chronic supply chain disruption is taking hold in Europe (Thibault Denamiel, Matthew Shleish, William Alan Reinsch, and Will Todman, “The global economic consequences of the attacks on the Red Sea Shipping lanes”, CSIS, January 2024).

In other words, the Houthis successfully target Western supply chains. They also demonstrate that they are now a regional power with which other powers must reckon.

No westerners allowed

It is in this context that, on 19 January 2024, Mohamed Al Bukhaiti, a senior member of the Houthi command hierarchy, declared that the militia would not harm Russian and Chinese ships, if they were not involved with Israel (“Houthis won’t target Russian, Chinese ships in the Red Sea”, Voice of America, January 19, 2024).

This declaration confers a wider strategic meaning to the situation that a “simple” support of the Iran-backed militia to the Palestinian Hamas. Through this declaration, Mohamed Al Bukhaiti unveils the greater geopolitical landscape of the Red Sea war.

With this statement, the Houthis define the geopolitical meaning of their Red Sea operations as a war against the western supporters of Israel, but not against China and Russia. Thus, China’s and Russia’s ships acquire the strategic status of “protected navies” by the Houthis. So, implicitly, from the Houthis’ perspective, the status of China and Russia is one of “non-aligned” or “passive supporters”, or even “implicit allies” (Jean-Michel Valantin, “From the War in Gaza to the Great U.S-China War ? (2) “, The Red Team Analysis Society, December 26, 2023). On the opposite side, the members of Operation Prosperity Guardian are enemies that must know defeat.

As it happens, the efficiency of the military, geopolitical and geo-economic disruption wrought by the Houthis is optimized by the way a network of Middle Eastern non-state militias are attacking U.S. forces.

The warriors from Hell

Let’s get some Americans

As soon as 9 October 2023, i.e. two days after the horrendous massacre by Hamas in Israel, the U.S. White House, as well as the Pentagon warned the Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as Iran, not to get involved in the conflict opposing the Israeli defense force against Hamas in the Gaza strip (Jared Szuba, “Pentagon warns Iran, Hezbollah to stay out of Hamas war with Israel”, Al Monitor, October 10, 2023).

However, if, as of this writing, Hezbollah and Iran indeed appear officially to involve themselves only politically but not militarily in the Gaza crisis, there is nonetheless a proliferation of attacks against U.S. bases and military staffs. Multiple Iraqi and Syrian militias, more or less allied with the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guardian Corps, lead those attacks.

In order to retaliate, the U.S. forces launched bombing campaigns in Syria, Iraq and Yemen (Michael Dimino, “Bombing is not the only way out of the Houthi crisis”, Responsible Statecraft, 29 January, 2024 and Balint Szlanko, “What to know about the US strikes in Iraq and Syria, and its attacks with the UK in Yemen ?”, AP, 4 February, 2024.

However, there is an obvious firepower asymmetry between the formidable military machinery of the U.S. forces and the Houthis militia as well as the multiple militias in Iraq and Syria. And how is it that they reach an indisputable asymmetric level of success? (Stephen Biddle, Nonstate Warfare, the military methods of guerrillas, warlords, and militias, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2021).

The Houthis and the struggle for life

It has been twenty years that the Houthi militia is waging both civil and international war. It has had to fight the Saleh regime and its successors. They also survived the fight against Saudi troops, Colombian, U.S., British and Sudanese mercenaries and special forces, as well as against the U.S. Navy.

This long war takes place in one of the most arid countries on Earth. In Yemen, heat, drought and inhuman heatwaves driven by climate change exert a terrible pressure upon agriculture, while depleting water resources (Cedric de Coning and Florian Krampe, “Climate, peace and security fact sheet : Yemen”, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), June 2023. The climate and war induced famines and epidemics, especially cholera, have killed hundreds of thousands of people (377.000 by UN estimates at the end of 2022, Yemen: Why is the war there getting more violent? – BBC News).

In other words, the Yemeni civil and regional war takes place in a zone of collapse  (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Will there be climate civil wars?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 30, 2021 and Harald Welzer, Climate wars: what people will be killed for in the 21st century, 2012)

What doesn’t kill the Houthis…

Hence, in the Red Sea, the U.S. and UK navies try to confront one of the most robust and resilient non-state military actor in the world, on its way to probably become a state.  

The long war they have been waging has trained them to develop the necessary stamina for a protracted naval war. Meanwhile, their political authorities know that that the military and political U.S. habitus is short-term victory oriented.

As it happens, in 2024, the U.S. strategic staying power may be even shorter than usual. Indeed, the U.S. presidential election campaign already impacts the U.S. commitment in the Middle East (Mark Weisbrot, “A widening war in the Middle east could alter election results”, Centre for Economic and Policy research, January 29, 2024).

Sea power from Mad Max Land

If Yemen commands the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the Gulf of Aden, which joins that strait to the Sea of Arabia, is commanded by Somalia. As it happens, the Somalian littoral hosts several fishermen’s communities turned pirates since the turn of the 21st century.

Those pirates attack all kinds of ships. They stop them and take the crews as hostages. Through a twenty years long experience, Somali pirates know how to exact very significant ransoms from governments and private shipping companies (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Somali Piracy: a model for tomorrow’s life in the Anthropocene?”, The Red Team Analysis Society, 28 October, 2013).

And it appears that, since the start of the Houthi’s Red Sea war, the Somali pirates are on the offensive again. The Somali piracy is reaching a level of activity not seen since 2017 (Lori Ann Larocco, “Somali pirates are back on the attack at a level not seen in years, adding to global shipping threats”, CNBC, February 6, 2024 .

The Somali pirates strike back

For example, at the peak of pirates attacks in 2009, they exacted more than 58 millions dollars through ransoms. Their learning and efficiency curve allowed them to reach 238 millions dollars in 2010 (Oceans beyond Piracy, The Economic Cost of Piracy).

Starting with the beginning of the 21st century (Parenti, Tropic of Chaos, 2011) Somali piracy’s home-made, small-scale tradecraft has been a tentative reconversion of a few (very) poor Somali fishermen. It quickly became an industrial activity, generating tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Thanks to these financial successes, the pirate fleets became progressively better equipped and armed through the years. Those better conditions allow them to go farther and farther away in the Indian ocean (Valin, EchoGeo, 2009).

So, they turned a whole swathe of the Indian Ocean into a “pirates lake”. The consequent pressure led major financial actors such as the members of the insurance market, e.g. Lloyd’s, to raise insurance premiums. In 2012, those new costs reached five to six billion dollars that global trade had to bear (Tim Bailey, Thiemo Fetzer, Hannes Mueller, “The economic costs of piracy”, International Growth Centre, April 2012).

Since 2002, European, US, Russian and Asian governments have had to divert some of their Navies in the region, integrating their naval forces, for example through the “combined task to force 150”.

Combined Task Force 150 got finally efficient and imposed a strong reduction of the Somali piartes activity. However, after a steady decrease in activity between 2012 and 2017, in 2018, Somali pirates were back and even hijacked a cargo, starting again kidnapping, ransoming, etc… (Abdi Latif Dahir, “Piracy made a strong come back in Somalia in 2017”, Quartz, May 24 2018).

Piracy as a (successful) survival strategy

This is explained by the fact that the original causes of the Somali piracy phenomenon, i.e the overfishing of Somali waters by foreign industrial fleets, poverty, failing agriculture due to climate change induced drought, youth without any future, are becoming worse than at the start of the 21st century (Ian Urbina, The Outlaw Sea, Crime and Survival in the Last Untamed Frontier, 2019).

Then, following the start of the 2023-24 Red Sea War, the Somali pirates became more and more active. The reason for this probably resides in the fact that a part of the anti-piracy capabilities that were deployed in the Gulf of Aden have been recalled or are mobilized by the Operation Prosperity Guardian. In order to fight the pirates, the French navy has positioned three warships in and out of the Gulf of Aden (Lori Ann Larocco, ibid).

As it happens, the Somali pirates emerge from a nexus of “military and collapse Darwinism” that is very close to the one endured by Houthis (for the idea of “military Darwinism”, David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes, How the Rest Learned to fight the West, Hurst, 2020). Their “evolutionary artificial” pathway led them to raid the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with such efficiency that multiple great and regional powers had to combine their maritime strength against them (Ibid.).

The Mad Max Axis

In the Western world, “armies and navies from the wasteland” are only known on screen through the movies of the Mad Max saga.

Mad Max: Fury Road – Official Theatrical Teaser Trailer [HD] – Warner Bros. Pictures – fair use.

This series of dystopian movies describes hordes of road warrior fighting each others in a world ravaged by war, climate change and state collapse.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior – Theatrical Trailer – Warner bros. Fair use.

However, what is the fiction of Western movies is the dire reality of Yemen and Somalia. Those collapse zones literally become selective evolutionary systems from which emerge the armies for which asymmetric warfare is their way of life and survival as well as their strategic advantage, in a situation of virtual breakdown of civilization (Hélène Lavoix, “How to create new civilizations (2):  Creation and Mimesis”, The Red Team Analysis Society, 15 January, 2024).

In other terms, the convergence of the Houthis war on the Red Sea and of the new rise of Somali piracy leads to the emergence of a bipolar Houthis-Somali pirates asymmetric sea power. This “sea power from Mad Max Land” endangers the maritime dimension of Western globalization. In the same dynamic, it is dragging modern and powerful navies into a protracted, politically and financially exhausting fight.

It now remains to be seen how this coalescence of the Gaza war, of the Red Sea war and of the multiple asymmetric guerrillas taking place in the Middle East against the U.S. military is going to lead, or not, to a regional escalation towards a full scale conflict, or not.

Stabilising Or Escalating a Protest Movement?

Farmers’ protests have spread throughout Europe (notably France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania…) since at least mid-2023 with escalation at the start of 2024, as well as in India although for different reasons. In this light, we republish two articles that address the issue of protests and how they should or could be answered.

The first article explains how and why protest movements spread, through which dynamics. This article is the second part and focuses on the role of governments and political authorities in stabilising or escalating movements. It locates protests movements in a larger more encompassing dynamic that is at work since at least 2010.

This article seeks to show how to assess the future of a protest movement with the example of the Yellow Vests and of the situation in France in 2018-2019. It looks at the way the actions of political authorities can stabilise a protest movement. Then it applies this understanding to the French movement. It can be used and applied for other protest movements, such as the farmers’ movements of 2023-2024.

Indeed, if protests in France continue, Saturday 26 January 2019 would have seen a decrease in mobilisation. According to the much debated figures given by the French Ministry of Interior, the number of protestors involved went from 287 710 people (17 November 2018), to 84 000 (19 January 2019) and 69 000 people (26 January), i.e. minus 17.85% in one week. Alternatively, the movement itself tried to develop its own way to count the participants, “Le Nombre Jaune“. The figures here went from 147 365 people on 19 January to 123 151 on 26 January, i.e. minus 16.43%.

Thus are we in a stabilising process?

Needless to say, the impact of a revolutionary France would be huge. Indeed, France has a permanent seat at the UN Security council, and is the 6th largest economic power (Business Today, 22 Nov 2018). It also has a crucial place and weight in the EU. It is thus imperative for all actors to closely monitor the events in France. Indeed, the basic rule of risk management or strategic foresight is to pay attention to high impact events, even if the probability to see such an event taking place is low (below 20%). And, in the case in France, as we shall show below, this likelihood is not that low, even if it is not highly probable (above 80%) either.

This article builds on a first part, where we focused on the birth and spread of a protest movement. It uses knowledge obtained from the past to decrypt the present and the future.

The Yellow Vest movement is part of a wider pattern of protests, which has been spreading globally since 2010. As we expected when we started monitoring these dynamics, the current global protest movements spreads, multiplies and recurs. Thus, globally, the situation is escalating. Nonetheless, each movement also displays its own idiosyncrasies, while it learns from previous protests. For each protest, when the political authorities do not stabilise the movement from the start, then the situation becomes escalating. This is exactly what has been happening so far in the French case.

In this article, we are thus concerned with national or country-wide protests. We first point out that the initial blind response of political authorities is escalating. Then we identify three stages that “rulers” can follow to stabilise a movement. For each stage, we assess the French situation, what needs to be monitored and briefly outline possible futures.

Blind first response: escalating a protest movement

As previously, to identify the phases of responses of the political authorities, we use the past case of the 1915-1916 peasant movement in Cambodia. That protest involved up to 100.000 people, which represented approximately 5% of the population. In the case of France, 5% would mean that approximately 3 million people would be in the street.

Then, the political authorities initial feedback actions occurred as soon as the movement appeared, in November 1915. They were not stabilising but escalating, as they did not end the protest but, on the contrary, increased it. Indeed, the answers dealt with only one part of the multiple motivations for escalation. They only considered the 1915 prestations (corvées) and ignored all the issues that created the rising inequalities, as well as the related resentment and feelings of injustice. The response then was built upon a complete lack of understanding of the situation. Furthermore, they incorporated the belief in a potential plot, rather than considering the real causes for grievances.

We had a similar dynamic in France. The timing is, however, worse for the French political authorities (references at the end of the article). When the first protest took place on 17 November, the government hardly reacted until 4 December 2018. Despite these three weeks, the French political authorities did not take the measure of the problem. The Prime Minister only answered on the trigger of the protest, the oil tax. He ignored all other demands, which the process of demonstrating without answer revealed. Note that the French protestors’ demand are, in essence, very similar to those expressed in 1915 in Cambodia.

The Cambodian case shows that stabilising actions must be related to the reasons for escalation. Furthermore, it points out that partial solutions are not stabilising. The French case confirms this finding. As a result, what is crucial is understanding the protest movement. The 1915 belief in a plot also underlines the difficulty to obtain a realistic analysis, when one is prey to biases and when one does not have time to reflect but must act immediately. In the French case the situation indeed looks worse as, despite an absence of immediate reaction, understanding did not improve. The French political authorities may not benefit from a proper monitoring system or from a proper analytical framework to understand what is happening. This could be inherently escalating.

Stabilisation phase 1: Listening and immediate feasible redress

In 1915, the first phase of the stabilising actions was to increase the authority’s understanding of the protest movement and of the situation. Meanwhile, the authorities took immediate measures to show they had heard and taken seriously the protestors. Throughout January 1916, the peaceful and mainly non-violent demonstrations in Phnom Penh and the dual authority (both Cambodian and French as this was a Protectorate) willingness to listen and understand allowed for real communication (i.e. exchange and listening truly to others, not communication campaigns created by advertisers and spin doctors). As a consequence, understanding arose. The only exception took place in Prey Veng. There, the anti-German fears and related belief in a foreign plot of the Resident forbade communication. 

The authorities took note of the various reasons for discontent. They gave immediate satisfaction to the protestors on the feasible and most urgent points, such as the buy-back of prestations done by a 22 January 1916 Royal Ordinance. By 1st February, the number of demonstrators reaching Phnom Penh had decreased to a few hundred.

In France, on 10 December 2018, the President announced measures that could partially answer the demands of the people. He also declared the start of a Great National Debate. Yet, the measures hardly actually solve the fundamental purchasing power problem of the French protestors. Meanwhile, nothing addressed their feeling of injustice. Communication seems to have improved, but only marginally. Furthermore, the many disparaging comments of elements of the elite and of the political authorities let the Yellow Vest believe that real communication is not indeed complete. The announce of the Great National Debate, however, may be seen as the promise of a real communication.

Source: Le Nombre Jaune

As a result, the mobilisation, actually, did not substantially decrease. If we take as benchmark our past example, we should have no more than a dozen people or so still demonstrating in France. It did not continue increasing either. It appears to remain stable.

Furthermore, the opinion surveys stubbornly remain favourable to the movement by more than 50% (see Wikipedia synthesis of results). There is a decrease compared with the start of the movement yet at least half of the country supports the protest. By comparison, only 31% of the French people have a favourable opinion of President Emmanuel Macron (25 January 2019 Survey BVA pour Orange, RTL et La Tribune). Meanwhile,Prime Minister Edouard Philippe reaches 36% (Ibid.). The same survey gives a 64% support to the Yellow Vest Movement (Ibid.). 53% of the French wish the movement to continue.

We are thus neither in a real stabilisation nor in an escalation but in an in-between phase. The movement may go one way or another. However, the Yellow Vest being more supported than the political authorities, the odds seem to be in favour of escalation.

Thus, compared with the Cambodian case, the French situation starts now the second phase at a high level of tension, with a continuing mobilisation.

Stabilisation phase 2: Rebuilding trust and asserting legitimate authority

Communication and Trust

In 1915, the second phase was to increase the feeling of understanding and communication and to build trust to permit in-depth work towards reforms. The permanent commission of the council of ministers under leadership of the Résident Supérieur began to reflect on the peasants’ grievances. The King, after having condemned violence, abuse and the massive protests in Phnom Penh because they favoured unrest, issued a proclamation that detailed all grievances and announced that they would be seriously examined. Thus, by 10 February, the situation in Phnom Penh was judged normal.

Selective and Just use of Force

A reassertion of the authority’s monopoly of violence through selective and just use of force accompanied these two phases. In the provinces, as the authorities had understood the three phases of the protest, it had the possibility to discriminate between different kinds of leaders and to know where and how violence originated. Thus, the state could reassert its monopoly of violence in a selective and proper way. The central authority struggled against any provincial authorities’ unjustified use of violence. They fought against excessive and unfair punishment (all intrinsically escalating) and penalised them when they happened.

Thus, the means of violence remained in the hands of the authorities. This prevented the perception of a waning authority that would have led to more escalation. For example, towards the end of the movement, the villagers helped the authorities to suppress agitation and arrest agitating leaders.

Fundamental Beliefs

The authorities understood and considered the fundamental beliefs of the population and the specific structure of religious institutions and practices. Yet, they also avoided escalating ways. Indeed, they prevented people to take advantage of the latter. In agreement with the heads of the two Buddhist branches  (Mohanikay and Thommayut), they suspended all travels by monks to Siam. They informed all pagodas of this measure to prevent rebellious leaders using Buddhist robes and Pagodas networks to escape.

In the meantime, from the second part of February 1916 onwards, the King and the ministers, representing respectively the symbolic and acting parts of the Kampuchean authority, toured the most agitated provinces, explaining the proclamation, and the reforms on the one hand, scolding villagers for their behaviour, on the other. These tours first reinforced the feeling of communication and understanding. Second, they lent legitimacy to the authorities’ actions and declaration of future actions. Third, they contributed to ensure that potentially remaining demonstrators would not travel to Phnom Penh. Thus, they would not drag along other villagers. In turn, this decreased opportunities for violence. Residents similarly toured the less agitated provinces.

By the end of February 1916, the movement had ended.

French Measures

The Great National Debate

Planned Great Debate Session – Official – 28 January 2019

Compared with the French Yellow Vest Protest, we see the crucial importance of the Great National Debate. Indeed, it is an absolute necessity to truly create communication, to rebuild trust and legitimacy and to find solutions.

Meanwhile, the political authorities must also go and see the people. This is what seems to start happening, for example with the President organising large meetings with mayors. However, some signals would indicate that we are also facing an orchestrated communication campaign – not to confuse with understanding and communicating (e.g. Gerard Poujade (French mayor) “Souillac Inside“, Le Blog de Mediapart, 20 janvier 2019).

Thus, to know if the political authorities will succeed in stabilising the French Yellow Vest Movement, monitoring the way the Great Debate takes place is crucial. It must not be about convincing people that this or that policy is right and will bear some fruits in an unknown time. It has to be about listening to all fundamental grievances and feeling of injustice and finding ways to address them.

Fundamental Beliefs

Historically constructed beliefs and norms, including fundamental respect for others, as constructed in France will also need to be respected. The resurgence of the use of old regional flags as well as the use of the Marseillaise, the French national hymn, by the protestors, are an indication that these deep collective beliefs are operating.

Just use of force?

Finally, the means of violence definitely remain in the hand of the political authorities, but is their use perceived as just and legitimate, considering the fact that the other stabilising elements tend, so far, not to be fully present?

The loss of an eye by a protestor on 26 January, as well as the number of casualties among demonstrators that the media initially ignored, and the political authorities rarely acknowledged may indicate that the conditions for a perception of a just use of force are not present. An indication of this phenomenon is the absence of precise and updated figures regarding casualties. On 20 December 2018, the official number of casualties was 1843 for the Yellow Vest and the college students (which briefly protested) and 1048 for the police force (“Gilets jaunes et lycéens: 2891 blessés depuis le début du mouvement“, BFMTV, 20 December 2018). At the end of January, we only have mid-January blurred official figures of 2000 Yellow Vest and 1000 policemen (AFP, “Gilets jaunes” gravement blessés: la colère monte et met la police sous pression“, Le Point, 17 January 2019)

Furthermore, the police force (including the Gendarmes) also increasingly expresses grievances, similar to those of the Yellow Vest (e.g. Syndicat Alternative “Gilets jaunes, ras-le-bol policier, revendications” 15 Dec 2018; “Nous aussi on va les enfiler, les gilets”, prévient un syndicat de police“, Valeurs Actuelles, 10 Dec 2018; “IJAT des gendarmes mobiles : toujours pas payée …“, APNM GendXXI,25 January 2019)

In 1915, symbolic and coercive power interacted, mutually reinforced each other and lent legitimacy to the authority-system. Now, in France, the dynamics does not look as positive.

Stabilisation phase 3: in-depth reforms

In Cambodia in 1915, the third phase, in-depth reforms, could now begin, as promises had been made with the King’s proclamation and had to be held. The Résident Supérieur took immediate measures aimed at reducing abusive or erroneous practices in tax collection, prestations and requisitions. For example, he recommended that Residents get closer to the population by multiplying tours to ensure effective control of the lower levels of the Kampuchean administrative apparatus. Posters were put up in all villages to explain to the inhabitants which taxes were owed by whom. Meanwhile, the dual authority had to examine the validity of the other complaints and to propose reforms, that were studied, discussed, enacted and applied by the end of 1917.

Thus, we can see first that communication was necessary to permit stabilising actions. The pooling of resources at all levels of the politico-administrative apparatus in a bottom-up and horizontal fashion was also crucial. The authority worked in a dual fashion. If final decision-making power remained vested in the French, it still reflected joint work. Indeed, the Resident did not discard the suggestions of the Cambodian Assembly. He incorporated most of them into the final decisions.

Second, the speed with which the political authorities acted was stabilising. The visibility of the first phase of actions, compensating for those that had to be delayed, strongly contributed to the stabilisation.

Finally, the Cambodian case confirms the necessity of multi-dimensional actions truly addressing the grievances of the protestors, selective and fair use of force and the importance of sustained and persistent efforts. The dual authority had taken the measure of the discontent and consequent risks, persisted in its stabilising efforts, and thus stabilised the situation for the next twenty years.

Estates-General of 1789, revolution, old, outdated order

France and the Future

To assess what will take place in France, we shall thus need to monitor what happens with the results of the Great Debate. Furthermore, and notably, the fundamental demands of the people will have to be addressed and solved.

Two batches of measures and policies will be necessary. Some will have to be short-term and truly solve purchasing power issues and injustice feelings. They will need to allow for the longer term measures to become operative. Sole operations of “false communication” or “pedagogy” will not work, if the situation is to be properly stabilised. The real implementation of the shorter term measures will be all the more important that the protest has not been stabilised in stage 1 and remains at a high level of tension in stage 2.

Alternatively, the French political authorities may choose to use coercion and force. Indeed, one must never underestimate the power of violence of the state. Yet, this is a more expensive and less efficient way to govern. Internationally, in term of national wealth and competitiveness, and thus, ultimately, power of the ruling elite and political authorities, this would probably be a sub-optimal strategy. We may also wonder, considering the grievances of the police force if such a policy is feasible at all.

Last but not least, we may wonder if the French political authorities and France indeed can stabilise the movement. In other terms, can the country address all the grievances of the population and its feeling of injustice considering the international situation, the profound changes resulting from new technologies and climate change. Indeed, we are probably in an overall escalating phase, because the various institutions built in the past are not anymore fully adequate to deal with the reality of a transformed present, of a paradigm shift, and of the multiple pressures that we must face. To be able to reach stability again, we must adapt, transform, sometimes create, everything, from capacities to understand and beliefs, if we want to properly handle changes and be ready for the future.

In this framework, protest movements are a constructive and crucial component of ours societies’ evolutions. It is only through the interactions they prompt, through the change they impose that a new better adapted system may hope to emerge.

This is what the Yellow Vest movement may bring to France, if the actors transmute the movement in a new national momentum, adapted to the 21st century. The other possible scenarios range from revolution and civil war, to apathy, loss of national wealth and capabilities to handle change and threat.

About the author: Dr Helene Lavoix, PhD Lond (International Relations), is the Director of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. She is specialised in strategic foresight and warning for national and international security issues. Her current focus is on Artificial Intelligence and Security.

References and Bibliography

To find, check and follow events, dates and facts on the Yellow Vest: for example, The Guardian “as it happened“; Le Figaro; France Info, Mediapart, etc.

For the Cambodian case, the references are in the first part of the article.

Kant, Immanuel, Political Writings edited by Hans Reiss, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Doyle, Michael W. 1983. “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs,” Part 1 and 2, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 12, nos. 3-4 (Summer and Fall).

Scott, James, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press, 1985.

Understanding a Protest Movement and its Crescendo

Farmers’ protests have spread throughout Europe (notably France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania…) since at least mid-2023 with escalation at the start of 2024, as well as in India although for different reasons. In this light, we republish two articles that address the issue of protests and how they should or could be answered.

This article constitutes the first part and explains how and why protest movements spread, through which dynamics. The second article focuses on the role of governments and political authorities in stabilising or escalating movements. It locates protests movements in a larger more encompassing dynamic that is at work since at least 2010.

France faced an escalating protest movement in 2018-2019. This movement was called the “Yellow Vests” or “Yellow Vest”. The French government appeared to be always late in the way it answered it; political analysts appeared to be surprised by what was happening and to struggle to understand. Meanwhile, violence increased.

Part 2 of the article: Stabilising Or Escalating a Protest Movement?

Here we explain how a protest movement starts with a triggering demand, then spreads and grows in terms of scope and intensity, pointing out similarities with the French situation.* In the winter 2018-2019 French case, the rising loss of legitimacy not only of the government, but also of the state, dramatizes the situation and makes the matter worse.

As soon as 2011 we foresaw the rise of new political opposition movements. Indeed, geo-temporal spread must also be understood across countries, all the more so in the age of the world-wide-web and of connected societies and groups.

Since December 2010 with the “Arab Spring,” protests and demonstrations have so much flared successively in so many countries that all should be aware, at least, that something is going on.Among others, this allowed for the feared rise of “populism”, we explained in other articles.  Furthermore, earlier (weak?) signals could be found with the French 2005 riots and 2006 students’ protests, with the 2007-2008 food riots, as well as with violence in Greece during the winter 2008-2009. In 2007-2008, fifteen countries, mainly in Asia and Africa were hit by the food riots. Since then at least 25 countries (Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Thailand, Ukraine, Turkey, the U.S., UK, Yemen) have been the theatres of various types of protests with different kinds of escalations up to civil war, while sporadic demonstrations also occurred elsewhere in the MENA countries, with the Arab Spring, in Latin America and Asia, following the Spanish Indignados and then Occupy movements back in the years 2011-2012.

The recurrence and spread of those movements, their links (either direct – notably since the Arab Spring, people on social networks know and help each other – or in the world of ideas, as people have learned from other movements they witnessed), even if each mobilisation has its own dynamics and challenges, show that, in general, stabilisation is not at work. Could a case from the past help shed some light on what is happening or not happening?

The 1915-1916 peasant movement in Cambodia involved up to 100.000 people, which represented approximately 5% of the population of the country, 30.000 of whom reached Phnom Penh (i.e 1,8%) to demonstrate peacefully.[1] To give a better idea of what such mobilization represents, nowadays, for a country like the U.K. or France, 5% demonstrators would imply approximately 3 million people; for the US, 15 million people. In France, according to Government’s figure which are believed to be vastly underestimated, the Yellow Vest were 283.000 on 17 November 2018 (a Union of policemen gives more than a million people), 106.000 on 24 November and 75.000 on 1st December (i.e. respectively out of 67.12 million inhabitants, World Bank, 0,4%; 0,15% and 0,11%). as comparison, in 2012, in Tunisia, on 19 and 20 February, 40,000 protesters were in the streets, and on 25 February, 100.000, i.e. respectively 0,37% and 0,9% of the estimated 2012 population.

The  French global figures for 17 November 2018, however, hide a different reality if we look at local figures, as shown by the map below as reconstructed from the original map made by demographer Hervé Le Bras (see original article and map here)

yellow vests

by MrAlex19 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons copied from 17 November Map by Demographer Hervé le Bras – Click on map to access the original map on France 3.

   de 1,8% à 6,8%
   de 1% à 1,8%
   de 0,3% à 1%
   de 0,04% à 0,3%

 

The peasant movement in Cambodia, thus, representing 5% of the population, was thus huge quantitatively.

Causes, build up and lack of awareness

The main causes for the Cambodian peasant protest were reinforcing inequalities, when these were not perceived as such and thus not tackled by the political authorities (the dual administration of the French Protectorate and of the Kampuchean Kingdom).[2] Peasant resentment had progressively built up around issues ranging from taxes on tobacco to requisitions, with the latter and the underlying prestation or paid corvée system epitomising unfairness. We have exactly the same situation in France, as the Yellow Vests denounce rising inequalities over the last 30 years, and notably since the 2007-2008 financial crisis (e.g. various interviews on French TV, BBC News), as well as, in the French case, a despise shown by the French government and notably the French President Macron against people (e.g. Bloomberg 2 Dec 2018).

Actually, in the Cambodian case, weak signals of discontent had previously existed, witness the multiplying peasants’ petitions brought to governors or residents from 1907 to 1913. Yet, as these signals were spread over time and space, they were insufficient to bring the awareness that would have allowed for reforms. Since the turn of the millennium, France has known a similar situation with a multiplication of unsuccessful protests over the years.

Thus, when the Cambodian peasant movement started and spread, the authorities perceived it as sudden and massive, because of their lack of awareness. Early explanations for the causes of the protest included references to an uprising synchronous with event happening in Cochinchina and the possibility of a German-sponsored plot, maybe involving exiled Prince Yukanthor, his wife and Phya Kathatorn. With hindsight, such a plot, as all conspiracy theory, was far-fetched. Yet, for some of the actors (e.g. the Prey Veng Resident, The Gouverneur Général Roume and his Director of Indigenous Political affairs), it was a reality when the demonstrations exploded.

anarchist, bomb, terrorism, King Alfonso XIII, Spain

The insecurity and fear created by World War I, combined with the general European apprehensions regarding anarchist and revolutionary terrorist attacks and assassinations, added to a wariness arising from the removal of most troops from Indochina were conducive to belief in plots. A false understanding and awareness settled that favoured escalation. Indeed, as the protests were not understood, then wrong actions were taken, because those answers were built on the erroneous analysis.

Full awareness and conscious analysis of the widespread and deep peasant discontent reached the highest levels of the dual authority only after the escalation took place, during the Summer 1916.

Trigger

When the Kompong Cham Resident sent convocations for prestation labour to Ksach-Kandal in November 1915 in prevision of road works, even though the peasants had already done their prestation for the year, the villagers used the traditional form of protest to express their discontent. They went to the King to ask for redress. As these specific demands were met, they went back to their villages, but, considering their other motives of discontent, the matter was not closed as the authorities expected.

On the contrary, the villagers planned to come back for more, i.e. the possibility to buy back the 1916 prestations. This was legally offered to them, but rarely used because the small Kampuchean population meant a lack of manpower and thus led to transform prestations into requisitions to see public work done.

In France, the trigger was supplementary taxes on oil, and as in our past case, the other motives of discontent, added to timing discrepancies in the response given by political authorities, forbids the movement to stop, even though the French government finally accepted to postpone the tax (e.g. BBC News). Furthermore, in the French case, postponement rather than cancellation added to the rising distrust between the people on the one hand, the government and the state on the other.

Mobilizing through social network and communication

The villagers spread the words of their earlier protests’ success to neighbouring villages, demanding others to follow the movement. Messages were transmitted orally by travelling leaders and via letters originally sent by the inhabitants of Kompong Cham. The letters’ contents show not only the easy use of threat and the commonality of violence, but also the way the letters were circularised to obtain mobilisation as they were transmitted from villages to villages.

Anonymous letters circulating in the villages of Prey Veng and Svay Rieng (translation 1916) – The inhabitants of Khet Kompong Cham mobilize those of Khet Prey-Veng by using threat:

“The Khum of Lovea-Em has left this letter this 15/1:

“All the village of Kas-Kos must leave on 20/01. If someone does not leave on this date, we shall come in group to hit him with knives without fault. We shall also hit with knives his children and grand-children. Moreover, we shall burn his house – beware to the one who does not leave. Because we are all very discontented.”

Other letters ended with these sentences:

“Once you will have received this letter, seriously take your precautions. If someone does not want to listen; gather and beat him until his last generation.”

Or

“Have this letter circulate in all provinces and khums once you will have read it. Signal any delay in any village and the whole village will be severely punished.

In each Khum, the Mékhum will have to write the words “seen” on the verso.”

Shared discontent, communication and threat allowed the mobilisation to grow and spread.

We need little imagination to see that the processes that are currently at work through Facebook and Twitter are very similar, with “only” different means of communication. Those new media allow for quicker spread, and abolished distances, as pointed out by Bloomberg. As far as the content of current messages are concerned, threats also exist, witness the threats received by the most moderate among the Yellow Vests (e.g. BFMTV).

Space-time pattern: Speed of communication, escalating phases and geographical spread

In the past, the slow means of communication introduced differences in the kinds of mobilisation achieved. Each movement involved three escalating phases:

  1. Original peasant discontent and consequent demonstrations;
  2. Young villagers hoping to reach leader status and thus pushing for continuation and spread of the movement;
  3. Bandits, millenarian leaders or vengeful individuals taking advantage of the created disorders.

Each phase implied escalation in violence. Thus, the further away the villages reached, the closer they would be in terms of time to the more violent phase for the initial villages. Yet, because the authorities, once they started understanding what was happening – even if full awareness had not taken place – were also taking stabilising actions, the further away the villages, the more likely stabilising actions were operative and thus the more likely the initial mobilisation was deflected.

This explains the apparently sudden explosion of violence in some areas, such as Prey Veng, where 2000 demonstrators assaulted the Pearang salakhet (provincial tribunal) to free arrested leaders, and where the Indigenous Guard fired on the crowd killing eight individuals. These areas were far away enough to be reached during the third phase of escalation, but close enough not to feel the effects of stabilising measures. This also explains the quasi or total absence of demonstration in areas located further away, such as Kampot, Takeo, Pursat or Battambang.

The communication speed-rate explains the space-time pattern of the demonstrations. The first demonstrators of Ksach-Kandal reached Phnom Penh on 3 January 1916, the bulk on 7 and 8 January. By 20 January, the inhabitants of various Prey Veng villages had left for Phnom Penh, while the inhabitants of Thbong Khmum in Kompong Cham were about to depart. For Kompong Chhnang, the movement had spread from Choeung Prey to Mukompul in Kompong Cham to Lovek to Anlong Reach in Kompong Chhnang, but could not go further.

The consequences for our present and near future are crucial. Regarding awareness and understanding, thus capability to deal with protests, a slow pace of communication plays into the hands of those who truly want to understand. A slow pace of communication thus favours stabilisation, if we are in an overall stabilising phase.

On the contrary, as is taking place in France, technological sophistication allows speed, collapse of phases, quasi-instantaneous geographical spread, and helps muddling understanding. Besides other biases, this favours de facto escalation in the movement. This escalation in terms of violence is enhanced by the fact that the “cognitive system” of administrative apparatuses does not efficiently incorporate technological changes. Even if, in the case of 2018 France, digital change is integrated, administrative and usual political – or rather politician – processes and practices cannot accommodate the digital instantaneous spread in-built within the movement. The resulting incapacity to understand of the political authorities and elite groups around them forbids awareness, which, in turn, further leads to escalating actions, which, again,  contributes to an overall escalating phase.

With the next article, we shall look more in detail at the way political authorities may escalate or, on the contrary, stabilise such a movement.

About the author: Dr Helene Lavoix, PhD Lond (International Relations), is the Director of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. She is specialised in strategic foresight and warning for national and international security issues. Her current focus is on Artificial Intelligence and Security.

*The original title was “Protest Movements, Mobilisation, Geo-Temporal Spread: Some Lessons from History (1)”

[1] This post is a shortened and revised version of pp.114-125, Lavoix, Helene, ‘Nationalism’ and ‘genocide’ : the construction of nation-ness, authority, and opposition – the case of Cambodia (1861-1979) – PhD Thesis – School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2005, where new available evidences allowed to further the analyses by Milton Osborne “Peasant Politics in Cambodia: the 1916 Affair” Modern Asian Studies, 12, 2 (1978), pp.217-243; Forest, Cambodge, pp.412-431. The interested reader will be able to refer to the original text to find detail and full references fo archives. Figures for the mobilization are from A. Pannetier, Notes Cambodgiennes: Au Coeur du Pays Khmer; (Paris: Cedorek, 1983 [1921]); pp.46-47 CAOM/RSC/693/249c/mouv1916IAPI/24/10/1916. Alain Forest estimates the overall population of Cambodia in 1911 at 1,684 million. The 1921 census finds 2,395 million inhabitants.

[2] For a schematic representation, see Lavoix, Ibid, appendix 4.2. p.321, for detailed explanations on the dual authority in Cambodia, see, notably, David P. Chandler, A History of Cambodia, (Boulder: Westview Press, [1992, 2d ed.]); Alain Forest, Le Cambodge et la Colonisation Française: Histoire d’une colonisation sans heurts (1897-1920), (Paris  L’Harmattan, 1980); Milton Osborne, The French Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response (1859-1905), (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1969); Lavoix, ibid.

Which Country has the most Influence in the World?

(Art direction and design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

Given the escalating geopolitical tensions at the beginning of 2024, it is crucial to understand the evolution of the international influence of players on the world stage and its trends.

In this article, we offer a vision of this international influence and how it changed over time, since the end of World War II. We use participation in regional and multilateral fora displayed in a graph to gage this influence.

“Comparing International Influence through regional and multilateral fora: 1957 and 2024” by Helene Lavoix, The Red Team Analysis Society

First, we present the results of this study through a series of images and through a video showing the dynamic evolution of the graph through time. We move then to tell the story of the evolution of international influence as depicted by the graph visualisation and highlight main points. Finally we explain how we built the graph.

Visualising the evolution of multilateral international influence from 1945 to 2024

We considered the following fora, focusing mainly on general and security related organisations (by alphabetical order): Five Eyes (FVEY – an Anglosphere intelligence alliance), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN, the African Union (AU), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI – using notably research by the Green Finance & Development Center), the BRIC then BRICS then BRICS+, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the European Union, the G7, the G20, NATO, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Quad, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), United Nations Security Council Permanent Members, defunct Warsaw Pact. We further explain below how we built the graph and handled each organisation.

Country colour coding

In the graphs below, each country is coloured according to its geographical region (the percentage represents the share of each region in number of countries compared with the total number of countries included for the entire period).

Here are the results depicted as a series of screenshots (click on each picture to see a larger one in a new window). The years were chosen because the graph showed an evolution of the system for that time period.

1945
1957
1971
1984
1992
1996
2000
2009
2017
From 1945 to 2024: International Influence through regional and multilateral fora – Helene Lavoix, The Red Team Analysis Society

The evolution of international influence through regional and multilateral fora can also be visualised through a video:

https://youtu.be/uZu3YWKhnZU

Now we have a dynamic graph depicting the evolution of international influence resulting from multilateral and regional fora. What analysis can we make using this visualisation?

Rise and demise of the international influence of state actors from 1945 to 2024

We can see the U.S. dominating the international order from 1945 until approximately the end of the millenium.

During this period, the “grand moment” of the U.S.-led Western world plus Japan lasts from the end of the 1970s until the mid-1990s.

However, in 1992, we start seeing Russia rising. This turns upside down the perception according to which the collapse of the Soviet Union was a victory for the U.S. and its allies. Then, during the second half of the 1990s, if the U.S. and its close allies remain dominant, we nevertheless see the rise of China and the increasing influence of Russia. At the turn of the millenium, Russia has an influence which is almost on a par with the U.S.’s, followed by the UK, then Canada, then France and Germany, then Japan and Italy, then by China, Australia and New Zealand.

The following two decades sees the U.S. succeeding in remaining as influential as Russia. Yet, in the meantime, its main allies relatively lose influence, while China gains influence and is now more influential than the UK. Brazil and India also become more influential players on the world stage, on a par with Japan. This time also saw the emergence of Iran as an influential player, although in a slightly lesser way.

At the start of 2014, Russia is as influential as the U.S., while China has become more influential than all other players apart from Russia and the U.S.. This validates the U.S. strategy that one may see emerging around 2013 to try to stop Russia’s gain in influence. In 2016/2017, Russia saw indeed its international influence diminish, but the U.S. did not regain anything, and its influence decreased. The great winner was China, while India and in a lesser way Pakistan saw their influence increase. The U.S. allies all saw their relative influence diminish.

The early 2020s confirmed the rise of China, now with an international influence far above the influence of other players, including the U.S.. Meanwhile and very interestingly, Middle east and northern African countries moved away from the U.S. sphere of influence towards the “Russian group”, which is confirmed in 2023. We can also see then Ukraine drifting towards the US. and its allies. China, so much more influential than anyone now, seems to sit on top yet also in the middle of everyone, somehow enacting its name, the “Middle Kingdom” (Zhongguo 中國).

It would be particularly interesting to add other multinational fora, as well as other dimensions to see if other variables and elements change the story of international influence, and in which way.

Meanwhile, this graph of the evolution of international influence casts an interesting light on Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s analysis on the evolution of the international order. He sees it as a quasi-determined evolution towards a polycentric world grounded in regional and multilateral fora (see video Sergey Lavrov Interview with RIA Novosti and Rossiya 24 – English Subtitles by Michael Rossi – Dec 28 2023 – esp from 58:53 to 1:04:36).

https://youtu.be/xMpLFYp1iEs?si=rdPCatR43E8t41Ny&t=3533

Of course, as Russia – and China – abide by this worldview and thus have adopted the related strategy, they also carry out the actions necessary to see their strategy succeed. They are thus very active in strengthening and developing these multilateral and regional organisations. As a result, the graph here also measures their efforts.

Other actors, such as the U.S. or European member states and the EU could very well decide upon another type of strategy, emphasising very different ways and means. We could then develop a graph focused around this strategy. At the end we would have two visions of influence competing for power.

How we built the graph of international influence

The graph is dynamic, which means that it evolves across time. Overall it includes 211 actors (states and quasi-states) and 2256 links (directed edges or arrows), each representing influence of one actor over another.

We did not account for World War II.

The graph is done with the open source software Gephi.

Actors

Each actor is represented by a node (a circle on the graph). It is an independent, sovereign and territorial state or quasi-state.

Accounting for the dissolution of the Soviet Union

To obtain continuity in our graph, we kept the name Russia throughout time whatever the regime of the country. We proceeded similarly for each Soviet Republic. For example we used “Kazakhstan” for the current “Republic of Kazakhstan” and previously the “Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic”.

Until 1991, we expressed the relationship with the Soviet Republics through a directed link from “Russia” to each Soviet Republic.

Accounting for decolonisation

For the sake of simplicity and to have a dynamic graph that is useful across time, we could not account for the variety and complexity of each situation. We tried however to be as logical and representative of reality as possible. When colonised countries were fully part of the colonising country, we used the date of independence as date of “birth” for the country (in graph language a new node is created). When colonised countries were under regimes of protectorate or had autonomy for a while, then we considered the country as existing prior to independence and added a directed edge from the colonising country to the autonomous country. For example, this is the way we portrayed the situation for the British Raj, even though it is far more complex.

Accounting for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (ROC) and Taiwan

Our aim is to portray influences and tensions, not to make a political statement.

Taiwan currently “province of China” is considered as the ROC until 1971, holding the permanent seat for China at the UN Security Council. From 1971 onwards it is replaced by the PRC. We use China for the PRC. Reciprocal arrows unite both PRC and Taiwan considering the large influence each has on the other.

Relationships

To show the relationship between actors we draw a link, an edge, from one actor to another. Because the relationship is one of influence, from one actor onto another, then the edge is directed and displayed as an arrow. For mutual influence then we draw two arrows between two actors, one from A to B and one from B to A.

Multinational organisations with their own actor

For multinational organisations, which are also actors such as the EU and the AU plus the OAS, we created a node for each organisation. The member states influence the organisation, which, in turn, influences each member state.

Multinational organisations and fora focusing on dialogue

For multinational organisations and fora that are more of an exchange and dialogue type, then we consider that each member influences all other members. The dialogue or associate members are influenced by the members, but not the other way round.

The organisations which are handled in this way are: Five Eyes, the ARF, the ASEAN, the BRIC then BRICS then BRICS+, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the G20, the G7, the Quad, the SCO.

The case of the UN Security Council Permanent Members

The veto power of each permanent member not only influences the other permanent members but also all the other states. However, for the sake of clarity and simplicity, we decided not to add a directed edge from each permanent member to each and every state. This is an approximation, that must be remembered.

Organisations and fora with a power imbalance

For a couple of multilateral efforts and fora, we considered that one actor is largely more influent than the others.

In that case we described the relationship as one directed edge or arrow from this actor to each of the others. This is an approximation as relationships will run in two directions, and as various member states will learn to cooperate. Yet, as we are looking at influence, we wanted to highlight the importance of the most influential state.

The fora handled in this way are the BRI with China as lead, the CSTO and the defunct Warsaw Pact with Russia as lead, NATO and defunct SEATO with the U.S. as lead.

Measuring influence

To assess influence we use measures specific to graphs called centrality measures. We use the degree centrality, which counts how many edges (arriving and departing) a node has.

For example, let us imagine that at one time t, the node “United States of America” has 10 departing arrows – the U.S. influences 10 actors, and 4 arriving arrows – the U.S. is influences by 4 actors. Hence the degree of the U.S. is 14 (10 + 4).

On the graph, the size of the circle that represents an actor will grow relatively compared with the others according to the degree centrality of each. The larger the circle the more central in terms of degree the actor will be. Thus the more influence compared to the other this actor has.

Furthermore, here, we need to account for time. The software calculates the dynamic degree centrality through iterations considering time intervals. We use average degree for technical reason (CPU usage).

As a result, for our graph, we obtain the following result:

Average degrees over time for the graph “International Influence through regional and multilateral fora since World War II” by Helene Lavoix for The Red Team Analysis Society –
Bounds: from -895708800000,000000 to 2524608000000,000000
Window: 3.1536E10
Tick: 8.64E9

How to Create New Civilizations (2)? Creation and Mimesis

(Art direction: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

How can we create new civilizations adapted to the challenges of the present and of the future? Can we do it despite tremendous pressures such as climate change, or blows such as defeat at war?

In this series of articles, we use Toynbee’s masterful A Study of History to explore the fate of civilizations and, more specifically, to understand what could happen to our 21st century civilizations (Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Oxford University Press, 1934 [tomes 1-3], 1939 [tomes 4-6], 1954 [tomes 7-10], 1959 [tome 11], 1961 [tome 12] – page references in the body of the text are to the abridged version we used: D. C. Somervell, A Study of History: Abridgement of Vols I-VI, with a preface by Toynbee, Oxford University Press 1946).

Following on our previous article, we focus here on the second factor that is necessary to make a society truly dynamic again and create a new civilization.

As seen, the challenges and pressures a society faces are the first factor necessary to create a new thriving civilization.These challenges, however, must have an intensity that is neither too weak nor too severe but in the “golden mean”.

As a result, facing pressures such as climate change or defeat at war may also become the beginning for something new. Indeed, once a civilization is faced with pressure, a stimulus is created that will generate a response.

This article focuses on the response to challenges and its process. Only if the answer is adequate will the process of generating a new or adequately renewed civilization be successful. If not, the society will remain petrified and disappear in the long term or, alternatively, succumb rapidly.

There can be only one

Toynbee stresses three different ways a society may choose to answer the key challenges and pressures it faces, each with different outcomes.

First comes the least favorable result. If, when faced with a civilizational challenge, a society refuses or is incapable to change anything to its way of life, habitat, organisation, economy, values, etc., then extinction follows (p.69).

Second, comes a range of average outcomes. If a society changes a series of factors mainly to avoid changing one factor it deems as key, then a series of various fates, more or less dynamic and interesting may evolve (pp. 69-70). However, none of them is optimum and leads to a higher and better adapted civilization (Ibid.).

Finally, Toynbee outlines the best possible result. If a society accepts to change everything, from its way of life through its economy to its values, creatively, in order to overcome the new challenge and adapt to the new conditions, then it evolves into something more advanced and superior (p. 70).

In this best case, then there is a supplementary condition that must be met. The various comprehensive changes the society carries out must be done in a way that does not spend all the energy of the said society. Indeed, should the efforts that lead to change exhaust the society’s energy, then the price to pay would be the creation of a new yet aborted civilization (pp. 164-186; 574-575).

Real and false growth

More generally, Toynbee defines what is a proper answer to challenges and pressures so that the response leads to civilisational growth.(1) Then he uses this approach to single out two types of responses that are commonly believed to bring growth, but actually lead only to “false growth”.

Real growth

According to Toynbee, the proper answer to challenge and pressure that leads to real growth takes place when, through the “overcoming of the material obstacle”, a society releases its energy “to make responses to challenges which henceforth are internal rather than external, spiritual rather than material” (p.576). The author names this process “etherialization”.

In other words, the successful response does not only imply overcoming an external challenge but also demands a shift in energy towards transforming one’s society into something better adapted to the challenge. It implies a displacement of energy from one area that is external, to another that is internal (pp. 198-199).

For example, at the end of the first millenium, in Europe, overcoming the Viking onslaught could take place, among others, thanks to the creation of the feudal system (p. 202). Meanwhile a complex system involving spiritual and secular powers and relationships evolved, for instance, with the creation and development of castles (castrum) and advowson (advocatus) (Brigitte Meijns, “Les premières collégiales des comtes de Flandre, leurs reliques et les conséquences des invasions normandes (IXe-Xe siècles)“, Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, Année 2007  85-3-4  pp. 539-575). Hence, an external threat the Viking attacks – was not met only through external means, such as military defense. Actually, the external threat was answered by an internal response, the political and religious organisation of society.

As an illustration for the 21st century, let us take the example of the hyper industrial and consumer society faced with climate change. We may recall that our era is also now known as the anthropocene. This very name highlights that “Our new geological period is … defined as being “anthropos” (meaning “human”) driven, because humankind has become the major geological and biological force on Earth” (for a detailed explanation of the anthropocene, Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Anthropocene Era and Economic (in)Security – (1)“, RTAS, 19 September 2016). Hence, this implies that human societies – or rather the majority of scientists as well as concerned people – have started understanding that climate change is not something external to 21st century human civilizations, but internal to them. We have thus come part of the way, if we do not want our civilizations to break down but, wish, on the contrary to see renewal and real growth in the wake of this immense challenge.

Having the proper understanding, in Toynbee’s perspective, we can now create the proper answer. The response that must be given, and that is indeed imperatively demanded of all civilizations is internal: reduce GHG emissions (e.g. see all the IPCC reports). If Toynbee is correct, then it is highly likely that reducing GHG emissions will be and need to be part of far ranging changes and shifts, involving all components of our civilizations, as seen above.

As a civilization ages and grows, then challenges must increasingly be handled internally. This is also the case even if a new civilization has to be created by secession to face pressures, leaving behind the part of civilization that does not want to change and is thus doomed to fail.

False growth

Real growth, thus, does NOT take place when a civilization only develops an increasing control over the external environment. The two cases Toynbee studies are first conquest and military attacks (notably pp. 189-192), and second technical innovation (pp. 192-197). Using various counter-examples from various civilizations, he shows that neither one nor the other leads to a higher and better civilization. For him, limiting a response to these two aspects is inadequate.

Considering 21st century beliefs in the virtue of technical innovation and thus how counter-intuitive Toynbee’s findings are, we highlight now why the author stresses that technical innovation does not lead to real growth for a civilization.(2)

Using historical cases, Toynbee shows that some civilizations have known periods of continuing technical innovation in some areas, while the corresponding civilization was not growing. For example, in Hellenic society, a century of war “from the outbreak of the Atheno-Peloponnesian war to the Macedonian victory …(421-338 B.C.)” had as outcome an improvement in the technique of war while the Hellenic civilization also broke down (pp. 194-195).

Similarly, always in the case of the Hellenic or Graeco-Roman civilization, the author stresses that the technique of agriculture improved as decline gathered speed. For example, in Attica, approximatively during the late 7th to 6th century B.C., the transformation from mixed farming to specialised agriculture for exports was first followed by a boost of energy that could make believe that the response was adequate. Yet, the next stage, which was the development of mass production through slave labour, brought about so many negative social and moral consequences over four centuries it contributed, according to the author to the “general social débâcle of the third century after Christ” (pp. 195-196).

As Toynbee showed with counter-examples that technical innovation alone led to growth that could also be correlated or even contribute to decline and break-down, then it implies that the growth deriving from technical innovation alone is not real in the sense that it does not lead to a better, higher and more evolved civilization.

Notably for the tech savvy 21st century civilizations, Toynbee’s findings on technical developments are key.

Indeed, 21st societies tend to believe that technology is a universal saviour, and that no effort other than technological innovation is required. For example, for some people, carbon sequestration and elimination along various high tech devices of geo-engineering still to be created or manufactured are meant to be THE solution to climate change. Yet, if we follow Toynbee, whatever the importance of solutions such as carbon elimination, which must indeed be endeavoured, it is certain that only trying to find technical solutions to climate change will not allow us to use the pressure of climate change to grow and develop a better civilization. This finds an illustration in the report “How to avoid carbon removal delaying emissions reductions” (Carbon Gap, 27 September 2023), as both emissions’ reductions, which will necessitate many fundamental changes, and carbon removal are necessary (e.g. Nathalie Mayer, “Nous n’arriverons pas à éliminer les 10 milliards de tonnes de CO2 par an annoncés pour 2050“, 7 October 2023). Carbon removal’s technical innovation alone will not be enough.

Following Toynbee, if we decided to count only on technical innovation to answer the challenge of climate change then we could focus on an inadequate answer for a very real pressure. As a result, such a response could contribute to see the 21st century civilizations break down.

On the contrary, a response designed to include creative internal changes, as we saw previously, as well as, why not, technical innovation, could be the adequate way forward.

Now we have seen that multi-dimensional changes to our 21st century civilizations are necessary and that these must involve primarily internal changes, thus fundamentally novel ways and values, how can we imagine and create these changes? How can we design such a response to the many challenges we face?

Responding to Pressures: a two stages process

1st stage – Creation and the creative group

“The responsibility of a few”

For growth to happen, to answer challenges and pressures, thus, a society needs to see truly creative ideas, taking into account all factors and elements constituting both the challenges and the society.

Building notably upon the philosopher Bergson (Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion), the author insists that the creative process is “the responsibility of a few”, who are sole able to carry out this process. Not to succumb to their genius notably because of rejection and incomprehension, the creators will need, later on, to teach the new ways to the “uncreative masses” (pp. 209-216).

For the stage of creation, imagination and design, creative individuals (pp. 217-230) and creative groups (pp.230-241) need to withdraw from society to carry out the necessary creative process. Sometimes this withdrawal may be forced upon them (ibid.). Withdrawal is necessary to be away from distractions and social obligations (ibid.).

As examples of creative individuals, Toynbee refers to what he calls “great pioneers”, such as “Saint Paul, Saint Benedict, Saint Gregory the Great, The Buddha, Muhammad, Machiavelli, Dante” (pp. 217-230).

As far as creative groups are concerned, Toynbee refers to sub-societies, “constituent parts of societies”. He gives among other examples Italy “in the second chapter of the growth of Western Society”. Then, between the middle of the 13th century and the end of the 15th, Italy withdrew from the “tumultuous feudal” strife, which allowed for the development of the intensive and “greatest achievements of the Italian genius” across all arts, which then could spread (pp 231-233). Another example is Athens during the second period of growth of the Hellenic Society. Athens had to overcome the challenge of over-population in the 8th century B.C. and created an original solution over two centuries, which led to a new more vibrant, influential and involved role, starting in the 5th century B.C. (pp. 230-231).

We deduce from Toynbee’s examples that the “creative group” may be different entities, of different size, with different characteristics. It needs, however, to be organised – even informally – enough to then allow for the next stage of the process to happen.

We also have to consider, however difficult it maybe for our 21st century thinking, that the creative processes Toynbee addresses were long, and lasted a couple of centuries. This question of time, considering the urgency of the challenges the 21st century civilisations face on the one hand, the perceived acceleration of time, on the other, deserves further reflection and research.

The uncreative power of the dominant group

Even though we have past historical examples showing the success of creation in answer to civilizational challenges, there is actually no fortunate fatality in seeing a creative individual or group succeed when facing such pressures. If creative individuals and groups fail to find the adequate creative response to the challenges faced, then the civilization will succumb (pp.214-243, 245).

If ever the creative group were to lack proper creative power and be unable to design a truly creative and adequate answer, then what was initially the creative group would become a mere “dominant” group (p.246).

Using history as previously, Toynbee explains that, most often, the creative group that successfully solved past challenges is rarely the one that will solve the next ones (pp. 307-317). It thus becomes a dominating group and not a creative one, which leads to the break-down of a civilization.

It is thus key, considering the number of challenges and pressures the 21st century faces (see article 1), that true creativity be fostered in our civilizations, however difficult this may be. Without being pessimistic, we may wonder, however, if dominating groups truly can, considering the numbers and intensity of the interests at hand, allow others to develop creative solutions, and later to spread them (see Helene Lavoix, The Chronicles of Everstate – “2212 EVT: Ideological Stakes in an Outdated Worldview” and “2212 EVT: Material Stakes in an Outdated Worldview“, RTAS, February 2012).

In terms of geopolitics and international relations, Toynbee’s argument implies that the U.S., having been the architect of the Pax Americana and of the Washington consensus, and the leading power of the last forty years or so, is very likely not to be the “creative group” that will renew the world civilizations as they are confronted to the challenges of the 21st century. The U.S. have indeed not taken the lead in answering the challenge of climate change. For example, if we consider we want to limit warming to 1.5°C – assuming American emission have remained flat compared with 2019 – 2024 is the year when the U.S. carbon budget runs out (e.g. Helene Lavoix, “Climate Breakdown: Towards War to Reduce CO2 Emissions?“, RTAS, 19 September 2023). Moreover, recent international events highlight a loss of influence that tends to constantly impacts American actions, not only in Asia but also in the Middle East (e.g. Jean-Michel Valantin, “The war in Gaza and China’s pivot to the Middle East” and “From the War in Gaza to the Great U.S.-China War (2)?“, RTAS, 22 Nov and 26 Dec 2023), to say nothing of the expansion of regional bodies such as BRICS into BRICS+ (BRICS+, “Brics to add Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE as new members“, 24 August 2023). These signals of an American loss of influence would tend to stress that, if the U.S. has been a creative body in the past, the third decade of the 21st century shows strengthening evidence that America is increasingly becoming merely a dominant group. We may thus expect rebellion and secession away from its civilization.

Without hindsight, it is of course harder to identify which individuals or groups are truly creative considering the 21st century challenges. It may be that they are still in the withdrawal phase and that we cannot see them. It could be that the couple China-Russia, as the U.S. fears, will be the creative group that will answer adequately the current challenges (Helene Lavoix, “The American National Interest“, RTAS, 22 June 22). However, the Sino-Russian management of the challenges of climate change does not suggest that these two countries are the obvious creative group for the future either (Helene Lavoix, “Climate Breakdown). Likely, the creative group or groups, considering the breadth of change that must be accomplished, will be entities that are not or not only modern states. A comprehensive strategic foresight exercise should be carried out on this theme.

2nd stage: mimesis

Assuming true and adequate creation has taken place in response to pressures and challenges, then the creative individuals and the creative group, must return to society to diffuse their creation (pp. 209-241).

They must make sure that the “uncreative majority” follows their lead and “breaks the cake of customs” (an expression Toynbee borrowed from Walter Bagehot(3) – pp. 214-216).

According to Toynbee, it is through mimesis, i.e. imitation, a “generic feature of social life”, that the “uncreative majority” comes to adopt the creative novel response (p.216). Examples of mimesis are fan-like behaviour, following the herd mentality, influencers and their followers, as well as automatic admiration for signs of status, attempts at acquiring such signs and reproduction of behaviour.(4) Mimesis is necessary because the creative group must not only spread entirely new – and adequate – ideas, but also real changes in values, ways of life and behaviour, sometimes in very practical, day to day, matters.

Toynbee’s succinctly describes the way mimesis takes place:

“In order to draw the inert majority along in the active minority’s train, the ideal method of direct individual inspiration has always had to be reinforced by the practical method of wholesale social drill [mimesis] – a habitual exercise of primitive mankind, which can be made to serve the cause of social progress when new leaders take command and issue new marching orders.

Mimesis may lead to the acquisition of ‘social assets’ – aptitudes or emotions or ideas – which the acquisitors had not originated and which they would never have possessed if they had not encountered and imitated those who possessed them.”

Somervell, A Study of History… p.216.

From these paragraphs we can deduce two points.

First, the creative group can trigger mimesis only from a place where it leads followers. This implies that the withdrawal the creative group operates to create does not mean an exit from society, but only a temporary retreat. The creative group likely finds back at least a modicum amount of power and status when it fully returns to life in society. Then, to become a leading group, the creative group will have to contend with other groups, which means power struggle as well as mobilization of followers, which Toynbee glosses over, but must not be forgotten.

Second, Toynbee’s argument begs a question. Why would the masses or part of them choose the novel ideas and ways over the old ones, as for both the same process, mimesis takes place. Part of the answer may be related to the new social assets that those using mimesis acquire, and that they would not have obtained without imitation. This may lead them to choose new ideas and ways over old ones, for example if old behaviour and past mimesis had not allowed them to acquire enough assets, and if they see an interest – including in meeting their needs – in acquiring the new assets.

Hence, mimesis, even if it is the only process possible to see the creative response widely adopted, appears nonetheless as fraught with uncertainty. The creative group must be able to foster mimesis and the majority must see an interest in changing the object of its mimesis.

Then, as mimesis takes place, Toynbee highlights various reactions that can be triggered that will impact both the mimetic process and the future of the civilizations as they face challenges and pressures (pp.279-307). Indeed, as we earlier wondered if existing interests groups would allow creativity and its early diffusion, we may similarly wonder how these interests would react to spreading mimetic changes related to a truly creative answer to challenges and pressure.

When the new creative elements of the response are introduced in society, new social forces, constituted according to the author by emotions, aptitudes and ideas, are unleashed (p. 279). However, the existing institutions of society, built in the past, are not made to handle these new forces. Henceforth disharmony and tension occur.

Ideally, new institutions should be built for the new ways. But this is only an ideal which is impossible in reality (Ibid.).

The best case happens when the new ways are carried out throughout society through new adapted institutions co-existing with old institutions, while the latter evolve and adjust harmoniously to novelty. In that case, a new stage of growth for the existing civilization or a new civilization, able to face the challenges and pressures at hand, emerges. Toynbee calls this case “adjustment“.

Alternatively the old institutions may be unable to handle the new ways through adjustment and block them. We then have two possibilities.

First, the old institutions finally break down. This is what Toynbee calls a “revolution”. In this case, we must face “retarded and proportionally violent acts of mimesis” (p.280). Indeed, the mimetic process for the adoption of new ways is thwarted by the old institutions. This means a delay, and as the delay lengthens, power builds up, until the old institutions cannot contain anymore the new, which erupts with violence. The obvious example chosen by Toynbee is the French Revolution of 1789, inspired by both the American Revolution and two generations of “glorification” of English achievements in France through the enlightenment (p. 280-281).

Second, the old institutions do not break down but successfully thwart the new ways. Toynbee calls such a case an “enormity”. It is equivalent to a “frustrated mimesis” (p.281). This leads to the break-down of society and civilization.

In any given society the three “adjustment, revolution and enormity” may coexist in different sectors. If harmonious “adjustment” prevails then civilization renews itself. If revolutions prevail, growth and thus survival of the civilization will “become increasingly hazardous”. If “enormity” prevails, then civilization breaks down (p. 281).

However tragic some of these futures may be, Toynbee also offers us some supplementary glimmers of hope. He explains that one may secede from a civilization heading towards its fall. We shall address the creation of a new civilization through secession in another article.

Notes

(1) Toynbee mainly describes the process of response for the stage of growth after the birth of a new civilization. However, we assume here that the process described for growth is similar to the process necessary for the creation of a new civilization. Furthermore, the insights of the author are so interesting and at times so surprising it would be wrong not to present them.

(2) On a related yet distinct topic, that nevertheless reinforces Toynbee’s argument, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson highlight that technology alone does not bring progress; it is a tool that must be “brought under control” to obtain governing objectives such as democracy, empowerment for people or widespread prosperity, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, (MIT Press, 2023).

(3) Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 1872: see, for example Calvet Henri, “Un économiste victorien : Walter Bagehot“, In: Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, tome 3 N°2, Avril-juin 1956. pp. 156-163.

(4), It would be interesting to consider René Girard’s mimetic theory of desire in the light of Toynbee’s work.

From the War in Gaza to the Great U.S.-China War (2)?

(Art direction: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli –
design with DALL-E 2)

Given the speed and political density of the historic sequence opened by the war in Gaza, the second article in this new RTAS series only covers the period from 27 October to 20 November 2023.

In the first part of this series, we saw how the war in Gaza accelerates a profound political recomposition not only in the Middle-East but also internationally.

Arab countries and Iran develop new relationships, while China and the Middle East and Persian Gulf countries rapidly reinforce their political ties. As a result, Israel and its U.S. ally appear as being isolated internationally (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The war in Gaza and China’s pivot to the Middle East”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 22, 2023 .

In this context, on 15 November 2023, amid the raging battles in Ukraine and Gaza and related international tensions, Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Joe Biden in San Francisco. The two heads of state of those major great powers agreed on several topics, especially on the reopening of military to military communication channels (AAmer Madhani, Collen Long, Didi Tang, “Biden, Xi agreed to “pick up the phones” for any urgent concerns: “that’s progress”, AP, November 16, 2023).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqHORbxa-pM

One week later, on 20 November, the Pentagon announced that it would deploy new medium-range missile systems in the Pacific in 2024 (Patrick Tucker, “U.S to deploy new land-based missiles, Army’s Pacific commander says”, Defense One, November 19, 2023).

The very same day, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi welcomed in Beijing the high level ministerial committee of the Joint Islamic-Arab Summit. Among the delegates were the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, as well as the Chadian Brahim Taha, head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The delegation was in Beijing to ask China to insist on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza (Yew Lun Tian and Laurie Chen, “In Beijing, Arab and Muslim Ministers urge end to Gaza war”, Reuters, November 20, 2023).

This delegation was a follow up to the historic 11 November 2023 Islamic Arab-Iran conference. This event took place in Riyad, the Saudi Kingdom capital. Leaders of major Arab countries and Islamic powers attended this summit, such as Syrian president Bashar el Assad, Turkish president Recep Erdogan and Shiite Iranian President Raisi. Other guests were Qatar’s emir Tamim al Tani and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. The aim of the conference was to condemn the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza while calling for a ceasefire (“Arab-Islamic reject justifying Gaza war as Israeli self-defense”, Al Jazeera, 11 November 2023).

Meanwhile, after the positioning in October of two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea along the Israeli littoral, a third was positioned off the coast of Oman.

This third carrier and its combat group reinforce the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf and in the Middle East (Tara Copp, “The U.S is moving quickly to boost Israel’s military. A look at what assistance is providing”, AP, 15 October 2023 and Sam LaGrone, “Aircarft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower Now in Gulf of Oman”, USNI News, 13 November, 2023).

Thus, it is able to support the U.S. policy of deterrence against Iran as well as against the numerous militias that attack U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, some Houti militias, which are meant to be Iran proxies, send missiles’ waves against Israel, while the Israeli Defense forces wages its war against Hamas in Gaza (Connor Echols, “Tracking the U.S Military build-up today in the Middle East”, Responsible Statecraft, October 25, 2023).

In other terms, while the war in Gaza rages, the political importance of China in the Middle East keeps on growing. Symmetrically, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East acts both as a deterrent and as an attractor for the attacks of the regional militias. Thus, the Chinese political influence versus the U.S. military one in the Middle East appears as being a new dimension of the global China-U.S. great power competition (John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Powers Politics, 2014).

In this article, we look at the development of this competition throughout the Middle East during the war in Gaza. We focus on the densification of the geoeconomic and political convergence between the Arab countries and China versus the heightening U.S. military presence.

Gaza, Riyad and Beijing: war on the Chinese Belt & Road

On 11 November, the Saudi Government held an extraordinary joint Summit of both the Arab League and the OIC. Among others, the conference gathered heads of state of Syria, Iran and of the Palestinian Authority.

The attendees used very strong language to denounce the Israeli war in Gaza, while praising Hamas (Aziz el Yaakubi and Nayera Abdallah, “Arab and Muslim leaders demand immediate end to Gaza war”, Reuters, November 12, 2023).

For example, Turkish president Recep Tayib Erdogan, asked for a condemnation of Israel and of its offensive in Gaza. He also asked for a permanent ceasefire and a permanent solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict (ibid).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhq77oHUS_g

Then, on 20 November, a delegation of foreign ministers of the Arab League and of the OIC went to Beijing and met with the Chinese vice-president Hang Zhen. The delegation was composed of ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, from the Palestinian authority, from Indonesia and from the OIC (“Arab Muslim delegation in Beijing asks for immediate Gaza cease fire”, VOA, November 20, 2023).

The delegation, which was going to meet each member of the Security Council, started its tour in Beijing. The Saudi foreign minister declared:

“We are here to send a clear signal: that is we must immediately stop the fighting and the killings, we must immediately deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza …”

in Yew Lun Tiand and Laurie Chen, “In Beijing, Arab and Muslim Ministers urge end to Gaza war”, Reuters, November 20, 2023.

From Riyad to Beijing

From a geopolitical and strategic point of view, it is important to note that all the delegates to the 11 November and 20 November Beijing summits represent countries that are all members or partners of the Chinese Belt & Road initiative (BRI) (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Towards a US China War? (1) – The New Cold War and the Chinese Belt and Road go to the Arctic”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 20, 2019 and « China, Saudi Arabia and the Arab AI Rise“, The Red Team Analysis Society, January 31, 2023). 

This is also true of Israel, which develops strong ties with China and expands its cooperation with the “Middle Kingdom”. Israel is already a partner of the Asian infrastructure bank, i.e. the banking entity that finances BRI projects. To reinforce the Israel-China relationship, the Israeli government also contemplates the possibility to formally join the BRI, (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Israel and the New Silk Road”, The Red Team Analysis Society, June 8, 2015).

Indeed, the Gaza war generates massive tensions in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. This war opposes the Hamas, historically supported by Iran and Qatar, to the Israeli military after the monstrous attacks of the 7 October 2023. Such is the scope of the conflict because of these chains of actors, that it triggers regional and world shockwaves (Bill Hutchinson, “Israeli-Hamas conflict: time line and key events”, ABC News, 30 October, 2023 ).

As it happens, this region is strategic for the BRI, because it is at the junction of the West Asian segments of the BRI and of the Mediterranean world. The BRI reinforces the political relationship between the Arab states, Iran and China.

In other words, the Gaza war is happening de facto inside a strategic regional sector of the New Silk Roads/Belt & Road Initiative.

So, for China, the Gaza war is of tremendous consequences.

It’s raining U.S. aircraft carriers

However, the war also attracts a massive U.S. military mobilization (Courtney Kube, “At least 45 service members may have been injured in Iran-linked attacks”, NBC News, November 6, 2023 and Connor Echols, “Tracking the U.S Military build-up today in the Middle East”, Responsible Statecraft”).

Two U.S. aircraft carriers operate from the Mediterranean Sea, in the vicinity of Israel, and one more positions itself off the coast of Oman. Those three U.S. Navy aircraft carriers are defining a strategic perimeter that encloses the Middle East from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. Thus, this perimeter defines the whole region as the theatre of operations of the Gaza war (“U.S. Aircraft Carriers – What they bring to the Middle-East”, Reuters, 16 October, 2023, and Sam LaGrone, “Aircarft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower Now in Gulf of Oman”, USNI News, 13 November, 2023).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTCm1MWCoKY

In this context, the three U.S. carriers and their combat groups are deterring Lebanese Hezbollah and “other hostile third parties”, i.e, Iran. This deterrence operation aims at blocking their direct involvement against Israel. As it happens, Iran is also a member of the Chinese BRI (Sebastian Goulard, “Iran China signed a 25 years agreement: a BRI milestone”, OBOREurope, 31 March, 2021).

Attacks of the Houthis

The influence of Iran can be felt through numerous proxy actors. For example, pro-Iran Houthi rebels are launching random missiles salvos against Israel. In the Red Sea, they started operations with hijacking an Israeli-linked cargo ship.

Meanwhile, regional Iran-proxy militias target U.S. land bases as well as Israel and cargo ships in the Red Sea (Jon Gambrell, “3 commercial ships hit by missiles in Houti attack in Red Sea, US warship downs 3 drones”, AP, 4 December).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z21n8xvLLDs

From the Persian Gulf to China: an emerging energy and AI block?

In the meantime, the conflict contributes to transform China from being an active economic actor into a political and strategic player in the Middle-East.

The ever-growing Chinese political influence in the Middle-East intricately links itself with the Chinese energy interests in the region. In the first part of this series, we have studied how Saudi Arabia and China are mutually “pivoting” towards each other (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The war in Gaza and China’s pivot to the Middle East”, The Red Team Analysis Society, November 22, 2023). We saw how it is based on the Saudi oil exports to China as well as upon the development of artificial intelligence and nuclear power in the Saudi kingdom by China.

Oil for China

The same is true for Iran, after the signature in 2022 of the Iran-China 25 Years Cooperation agreement. This signature occurred despite the current regime of U.S. sanctions, forcefully denounced by both Iran and China (Maziar Motamedi, “Iran says 25 years agreement enters implementation stage”, Al Jazeera, 15 January, 2022).

The signature of the Iran-China 25 years agreement officially brings Iran in the Chinese BRI. Under the agreement, during the next 25 years, China will invest 400 billion dollars in Iran. In exchange, it will receive a steady oil supply. This humongous investment is divided in two parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-549ZUK2w

A first 280 billion dollars part is dedicated to the development of the Iranian oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors. The second 120 billion dollars part is dedicated to transport and communication infrastructures (Simon Watkins, “China inks military deal with Iran under secretive 25 years plan”, OilPrice.com, 2020).

It must be noted that the Chinese communication, digital surveillance and AI giant ZTE will support the Iranian government’s effort by developing a network of landline, mobile and internet communications (Ghazal Vaisi, “The 25 years Iran-China, endangering 2500 years of heritage”, March 1, 2022).

This export of Chinese surveillance and digital technology appears as a BRI framework. Indeed, the same terms of exchange “resources vs technology” is also part of other deals. It is the case with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States as well as with Serbia (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Saudi Arabia and the Arab AI Rise”, The Red Team Analysis Society, January 31, 2023 and  “China, Serbia, AI and the Pincer Movement on Europe”, The Red Team Analysis Society, April 2, 2023) .

It is also the case, for example, of the China-Gulf states free trade agreement that should be signed at the end of 2023 or in 2024. This deal establishes that Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Koweit, Oman and the United Arab Emirates will export gas to China (Andy Sambridge, “GCC chiefs predicts deal with China Free Trade deal signed “soon”“, Arabian Gulf Business Insight, October 23, 2023) . Reciprocally, those countries will have access to Chinese digital and surveillance technologies (Mordechai Chaziza, “China-GCC digital economic cooperation in the age of strategic rivalry”, Middle East Institute, June 7, 2022).

“In the Middle” of Iraqi Oil

In Iraq, the government signed a massive oil and gas development deals with both China and Russia, in exchange for investments in the energy sector (John Calabrese, “Beijing to Baghdad: China’s growing role in Iraq’s energy sector”, Middle East Institute, June 7, 2023). Iraq is the third oil exporter to China, with 9.9 million tons of crude oil in 2022.

The first oil exporter to China is Russia, with 15.6 million tons. The second is Saudi Arabia, with 13.9 million and the UAE is ranking fourth, with 6.5 millions tons (“Iraq ranks third in China’s oil imports”, Shafaq.com, 2023-23-21). Furthermore, half of the Iraqi oil production comes from operations that are led by Chinese companies or from operations that involve China.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaXDyYYivIY

As it happens, in 2022, Chinese companies won 87% of all the Iraqi contracts in the energy sector (Will Crisp, “Chinese win 87% of Iraq’s energy contracts”, MEED Middle East Business Intelligence, 07 November, 2022). Especially, those companies obtained rights for the exploration and development of numerous energy operations. Most of the Chinese investments in Iraq take place within the Belt & Road energy investment framework (Jon Calabrese, ibid).

The Oil Block

Meanwhile, the Russian companies Lukoil and Rosneft also obtained other massive contracts in Iraq. Even if the French Total Energies is still an important partner, Western companies such as Exxon are very much on the losing side in Iraq (Calabrese, ibid).

In other words, when on 20 November 2023 the Chinese vice-president received representatives of the Arab League and of the OIC, including Iran, he received de facto delegates of the main oil and gas suppliers of his country. Those delegates represent or are also part of the OPEC+, of the BRICS Organization, and of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

And as it happens, all of those are also members of the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative. In other words, the BRI has become a major vehicle for Chinese energy investments as well as for digital, surveillance and artificial intelligence in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf.

So, all of these countries and organizations benefit from their relationships with China. In the same dynamic, China needs them for its long term strategy of development. This takes place in the context of its hardening competition with the U.S. (Hélène Lavoix, “The War between China and the U.S- The Normative Dimension”, The Red Team Analysis Society, July 4, 2022).

From the “Great Game” to the “Go Game”

So, as it happens, the pro-palestinian stance that the Chinese government adopts is also, de facto, a common political platform with the Arab states and Iran. Doing so, Beijing sends a message to Israel as well as to the U.S. This message is not “only” about the Gaza war. It is as well about the new conjoined economic, political and strategic weight of the Arabic, Iranian and Chinese convergence.

Military power vs Political influence

However, the Gaza war is also a major attractor for U.S. “crisis management” military power. But this heavy U.S. involvement triggers numerous tensions and military incidents in a region where China and Russia are rapidly developing their influence.

In this regard, the U.S. remains the main military power in the region. However, China appears as becoming a rapidly-growing economic, technological and political player. And the Middle Kingdom benefits from the repulsive effect triggered by the renewed presence of the U.S. military.

Indeed, from a Chinese point of view, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf are now particularly “useful spaces”. This notion of “usefulness” is anchored in Chinese philosophical and strategic thought. (Valantin, “China and the New Silk Road: the Pakistani strategy”, The Red Team Analysis, May 18, 2015).

That dimension is grounded in an understanding of the spatial dimension of China, in the geographical sense. Space is not only conceived as a support to spread Chinese influence and power to the “outside”. It also allows the Middle Kingdom to “aspirate” what it needs from the “outside” to the “inside”. (Quynh Delaunay, Naissance de la Chine moderne, L’Empire du Milieu dans la globalisation, 2014).

Welcome on the Go Board

Therefore we qualify some spaces as being “useful” to the deployment of the Chinese strategy. It is also why each “useful space” is related to, and is “useful”, to other “useful spaces”. Thus this “chain” of “useful spaces” relates to the China’s space. In the same dynamic, the different countries involved in the deployment of the Chinese strategy are “useful spaces” for China. 

This philosophy of space and time as flows is the basic material of the Chinese strategic tradition. As Scott Boorman, Arthur Waldron and David Lai, among others, establish quite clearly, this tradition expresses itself especially well through the game of Go.

This very ancient game emphasizes the importance not to control, but to master the space of the adversary (Arthur Waldron, “China’s Military Classics”, Joint Forces Quarterly, Spring 1994). The strategy is to “convert” that space into one’s own. To do so, one has to “surround in order to convert “ conquer” the pieces, i.e. the space of the adversary.

So, the Chinese presence in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf may very well be understood as a “conversion” of the Arab and Iranian “spaces” into “useful spaces” for China. In the same dynamic, this “conversion” weakens the influence of its main competitor, i.e the U.S. Reciprocally, China becomes a “useful” Great power for Middle East countries.

However, it now remains to be seen if the Gaza war accelerates, or not, the heightening of tensions between China and its partners on the one hand, the U.S  and its own partners and allies on the other.

Using Videos for Scenarios: The Future Operational Environment 2035-2050

(Screenshot from the video FOE 2035-2050
Army Futures Command)

Once valid scenarios for the future are built, we still need to deliver them to policy-makers and decision-makers.

We need to understand the various challenges implied by the communication of strategic foresight products, and among them all the biases and traps that may hinder this communication, as seen in previous articles.

More prosaically, we also need to find concrete means to communicate our perfectly crafted efforts. Creating a video, assuming resources are available, may be an interesting way to do so.

We present below a fascinating example of such a video, created, true enough, thanks to the means of the U.S. Army. Our purpose is not to validate or not the methodology used, nor to approve or not the content of the scenarios themselves, but to give readers an example of what can be done to communicate scenarios.

Context of the video

The Army Futures Command was created in 2018 within the U.S. Army and its objective is to “transform the [U.S.] Army to ensure war-winning future readiness“.

As part of its mission, it explores the future operational environment. It published in the Fall of 2020, Future Operational Environment: forging the future in an uncertain world 2035-2050 (download pdf), presenting four scenarios – The New Cold War; Ascending Powers; Stable Competition; Clashing Coalitions – with the related video.

The Video – The Future Operational Environment (FOE) 2035-2050

https://youtu.be/Hx-H2nh2OCI?si=JCdrA5tcKhLiZeYP
The U.S. Army Future Command’s Future Operational Environment (FOE) 2035-2050 Video (October 2020) – shared initially on the APAN network of the Mad Scientist Laboratory.

The war in Gaza and China’s pivot to the Middle East

(Art direction and design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

Given the speed and political density of the historic sequence opened by the Gaza war, the first article in this new RTAS series covers only the period from 7 to 27 October 2023.

Introduction: A new war in a new Middle East

On 27 October 2023, Israel’s military launched a massive offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli offensive is the response to the 7 October formidable attack by land, sea and air by hundreds of Hamas commandos in the depths of Israel. That operation, the killing of 1400 Israeli people, and the taking of 237 hostages, destabilized the whole Middle East (Bill Hutchinson, “Israeli-Hamas conflict: time line and key events”, ABC News, 30 October, 2023). This dynamic expands globally. Adding to this explosive situation, the U.S. sent two carriers in the vicinity of Israel and Gaza, as well as military advisers to Israel (“U.S. Aircraft Carriers – What they bring to the Middle-East”, Reuters, 16 October, 2023).

https://youtu.be/6ogOxc4xb98?si=MT5HnlCto4xDN0kF

This conflict drives considerable and very powerful shifts, at the regional and international levels. Those became quite obvious between 12 and 14 October, when President Biden flew to the Middle East in order to meet Israeli president Netanyahu and other regional leaders. However, in a massive political shift, the Arab heads of states refused to meet him (Naheed Ibrahim, “Biden snubbed by Middle East allies as Arab world seethes over Gaza hospital blast”, CNN, October 23).

In the same time, the Chinese high level diplomat Zhai Jun toured the Middle East, was in contact with Arab leaders, as well as Israeli and Palestinian leaders, in order to prevent the emergence of a large-scale armed conflict in the Middle east (John Calabrese, “The war in Gaza as a major test of China’s Middle East diplomacy”, Middle East Institute, October 19, 2023).

Towards the Flame

This emerging geopolitical reality is the de facto context of the Middle East regional conflict, which opposes directly Israel to the Hamas movement, while having the potential to attract the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement, as well as Iranian forces in Syria, which would mean deeply implicating Iran.

As it happens, this highly volatile situation triggers political reactions of a new kind, especially the emergence of a possibly common position between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In other terms, this gigantic, multidimensional crisis reveals that the international distribution of power is rapidly and deeply shifting (Jared Szuba, “Pentagon warns Iran, Hezbollah to stay out of Hamas war with Israel”, Al Monitor, October 10, 2023).

Meanwhile, the American power appears to be losing political and military influence, despite a massive force projection in the region.

Among these novel trends, we may highlight that the Middle East is now pivoting towards China, which asserts its power at the global level. This could also mean that the Middle East is also becoming a powerful attractor for the rising China-U.S. great powers conflict (John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Powers Politics, 2014).

The West and the Rest

As soon as 8 October, China intervened to urge a resolution of the conflict by asserting that:

“The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine. The international community needs to act with greater urgency, step up input into the Palestinian question, facilitate the early resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel, and find a way to bring about enduring peace.”  

Remarks at RPC Foreign Ministry Press conference, RPC Foreign ministry, 8 October 2023.

In the very same time, the U.S. took a radically different stance. The White House asserted its full political and military support to Israel, while threatening “any hostile third parties”, such as Iran, if they involved themselves in the Israel-Hamas conflict (“Statement from President Joe Biden Condemning Terrorist Attacks in Israel”, The White House, 7 October 2023).

However, during the following days, Beijing assumed a stronger and stronger stance in favour of the Palestinian “national sovereignty” and of a two-states solution, while actively promoting a rapid and diplomatic issue to the conflict (“China tells U.S that Beijing opposes ‘all actions that harm civilians among Israel’s bombing in Gaza’”, Islam Uddin, Anadolu Ajenci, 15 October 2023).

https://youtu.be/aiDCKN_luiw?si=7oABou7ufHGN94hS

In this context, one must note that all the Middle East and Persian Gulf countries are now part of the Chinese Belt & Road initiative. As a result, this new geoeconomics and political reality deploys itself in the context of the Gaza war crisis (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Saudi Arabia and the AI Arab Rise”, The Red Team Analysis Society, January 31, 2023 and Khoder Nashar, “China-Arab States Expo to commemorate Belt & Road initiative 10th anniversary attracts major Companies”, Zawya.com, August 1, 2023).

Scaling wars

In other terms, the Israeli-Hamas war is taking place in a deeply and rapidly changing Middle East and world order.

This change is all the more important that the main ally of Israel in the region is the U.S. However, the White House and Pentagon’s warnings to “hostile parties” do not seem to deter the Hezbollah or Iran to be increasingly hostile to Israel (Jared Szuba, “Pentagon warns Iran, Hezbollah, to stay out of Hamas war with Israel”, Al Monitor, October 10, 2023).

So, this conflict is rapidly changing in scale and inserts itself in the dynamics that are transforming the Middle East.

In that regard, this war risks triggering a chain of interactive geopolitical conflicts at different scales. And, as David Kilcullen puts it, it may also reveal “how the rest learned to fight the west” (David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes, How the Rest Learned to fight the West, Hurst, 2020).

1. Radical War

From Massacre…

On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a massive military and terrorist offensive in southern Israel. This offensive was defined by a long series of slaughters, acts of horror and of hostage taking. This military-terrorist sequence was prolonged through the massive use of social medias. Indeed, the Hamas militiamen used gopro cameras to record their attacks and the slaughters they commit, killing at least 1 400 people (Eric Cortellessa, “Oct. 07 revealed a Hamas new social media strategy”,Time Magazine, October 31, 2023).

Posting these videos online projects the terrible efficiency of the Hamas attack in the cyberspace. Hence, those streaming videos became a major and political dimension of this attack.

… To Hyper object

The use of social medias transformed the Hamas offensive into a performative action of global scale, which, by flooding social medias, mobilized and polarized public opinions in the Arab world, as well as in the whole world. (Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, Radical War, Data, Attention and Control in the 21st Century, Hurst Publishing, 2022).

Thus the Hamas attack became a global political “hyper object” that established itself as both a common but also divisive political reference (Ford and Hoskins, ibid).

Meanwhile, Israel prepared and embarked on its large-scale attack on the Gaza strip, while launching wave after wave of air bombing there. Thus, it reaches a global audience. But this audience divides itself through its very diverse and contrasted reactions, at the individual as well as at a collective level.

The video feeds of the Hamas attack, which show monstruous slaughters, that were both live feeds and recorded for subsequent internet posting, shock and enrage immense segments of the Israeli society, of Jewish people and friends and allies. The live feeds were generated either by Gopro cameras used by the Hamas militiamen, or by the activation of the smartphones of the victims by Hamas men while assaulting villages people and families, thus live streaming the horrendous last moments of these people. Afterwards, those pictures are used to create a continuous flow of edited videos that circulate on social medias. (Staff, “Hamas launched unique terror tact: live streaming horrors on victim’s social medias”, Times of Israel, 18 October 2023 and Dr Eitan Azani, Daniel Aberfeld, Hamas Media Campaign: Al Aqsa Flood, Reichmann University, October 2023).

Meanwhile, the video feeds of the bombings in Gaza also shock and mobilize Arab opinions as well as many people staggered by the issuing dreary conditions for the Gaza civil population.

Specifically in the Palestinian case, those collective emotions mingle with the painful problem of the Palestinian issue, still “unresolved” after almost 75 years of conflict (Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World, Penguin Books, 2014).

Those video streams feed collective reactions, such as the massive pro-Palestinian protests throughout Europe and the Middle East. All these reactions are interacting with the Hamas videos and expand its reach and its scale of hyper object.

And the more the Israeli bombing and attacks create victims, the more they reinforce the anti-Israeli protests (“Global protests in support of Palestinians, rallies for hostages trapped in Gaza”, Reuters, October 22, 2023).

https://youtu.be/AFr2M0qgXxg?si=JhGymRK8yby31NKx

However, Hamas undoubtedly prepared itself to the gruesome urban and subterranean battle. Those combats may be quite costly to the Israeli forces. Hence, it is quite possible that forcing the IDF to intervene into Gaza was one of the main objective of the slaughter/performative initial attack of the 7 October (Nathan Rennolds, “It’s a trap, warns UK warns UK spy chief, as Israel prepares for months of brutal urban warfare against Hamas in bombed-out Gaza”, Business Insider, 15 October 2023).

Thus, the Gaza war itself becomes a performative cyber and political battlefield on the global scene.

A new level of information strategy

If the ground attack by Hamas is a large scale asymmetric and low-tech tactical sequence, it roots itself in an information strategy (For a strong development about information warfare: Hélène Lavoix “Information warfare and the War in in Ukraine”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 24, 2022). This multi-domain strategy inserts the Hamas production of images in the global information / on-line streaming video infrastructure. Thus, the Hamas “streaming strategy” becomes a “global attention capture” strategy (Ford and Hoskins, ibid).

Giant rivers of streaming

Retroactively, the protests are filmed by dozens of thousands of people as well as by TV reporters. Thus, they create new “affluents” of the online streaming giant “rivers” of images. Those are conflictually interpreted by crowds and individuals all around the world.

As a result, this installation and the full use of the interactive power of the social media matrix at the global, national and personal levels of the Hamas-Israel war becomes a mammoth driver of political emotions at the global scale (Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: a History, Penguin Books, 2017, and David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes, How the Rest Learned to fight the West, Hurst, 2020).

This strategy then is prolonged by the flow of images, commentaries and interpretation of these online video streams at a global scale. Indeed, those video streams hybrid themselves with the explosive content of the political and affective collective memories of the Palestinian history “versus” the Israeli and Jewish history.

So, the information war strategy of the Hamas triggers an enormous and emotionally turbo-charged “conflict of interpretation” of these video streams, that infuses and immerses through constant dialectics the different levels of political and military decision-making processes (Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis by Kenneth N. Waltz, New York, Columbia University: 1959).

Being a small giant power

Thus, in itself, this performative/political efficiency becomes a driver of the Israeli political-military decision-making process. In effect, it infuses the public opinion with the images of the attack. Those images trigger very painful emotions in the population. They are also being deeply humiliating for the Israeli security and defence forces. This way, the Hamas performative strategy fed the massive scale of the Israeli war preparation against the Hamas in Gaza (Tariq Dana, “Israel Palestine war: this humiliation has shaken Israeli psyche to its core“, Middle East Eye, 10 October 2023”).

https://youtu.be/Px4YeaqS4i8?si=j5yfuJtVsmMjd63d

The power of this military/terrorist/ performative strategy is growing by the day. For example, on 17 October 2023, the bombing of the Al Arabi Hospital in Gaza and its hundreds of victims came with the downloading of videos of the burning hospital and of the wretched Palestinian victims.

As of now, the only certainty is that a missile hit the hospital and killed and wounded hundreds of people. But, during the minutes following the strikes, the competition for interpretation started.

Hamas rapidly accused the IDF to strike at Palestinian people, while the IDF soon counter-reacted by asserting that the missile hitting the hospital was very probably a misfired missile sent by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad ( Paul Brown, Joshua Cheetham, Sean Seddon, Daniele Palumbo, “Gaza Hospital: what video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital Blast”, BBC Verify, 19 October 2023 and “What is Islamic Jihad, The Organization that Israel Holds responsible for the Bombing of the Gaza Hospital?”, The Statesman, October 18, 2023).

In other words, on the information / social media plan, the Hamas and the Israeli Government are, at the very least, an equal impact power. So, this way, if Hamas remains a small non-state actor hidden in the Gaza urban dystopian battlefield, it also becomes a political performative hyper-power on the international scene.

The Hamas strategy forces each and every government, in the Middle East and elsewhere, to quickly align itself on one side or on another of the world scale “conflict of interpretation”. 

2. From the cyberworld to the political word

If the installation of the Gaza war in the cybersphere becomes a political force multiplyer for Hamas, it also has a political weakening effect on the U.S., the principal ally of Israel.

Indeed, for instance, on 13 October, a civil convoy left north Gaza. A strike killed at least seventy people while dozens of others were terribly wounded. The event was recorded and the videos quickly uploaded.

Hamas asserted that IDF stroke deliberately at Palestinian civilians, while the Israeli authorities accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields” (Paul Brown & Jemimah Herd, “Strike on civilian convoy fleeing Gaza: What we know from verified video”, BBC Verify, 16 October 2023, and “70 Killed after convoys of evacuees in Gaza hit by Israeli airstrikes”, NBC News, Updated October 2014).

A few hours after this bombing and its transformation into a new social network hyper object, the king of Jordan refused to meet with U.S President Joe Biden, cancelling an emergency summit between the Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian and U.S. leaders (Naheed Ibrahim, “Biden snubbed by Middle East allies as Arab world seethes over Gaza hospital blast”, CNN, October 23). Thus, Abdallah of Jordan inflicted a massive blow to the political American influence in the Middle East, despite the mammoth U.S. presence and influence in the region since 1944 (Andrew Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle east, A Military history, Random House, 2016).

Then, on 13 October, the Saudi Arabia Kingdom announced putting on hold the diplomatic talks about the normalization between Israel and the Saudi kingdom. This happened despite the huge pressure applied by the U.S. to keep the talks alive (Reuters and Ben Samuels, “Reports: Saudi Arabia freezes normalization talks with Israel amid ongoing war with Hamas”, Haaretz, October 13, 2023).

However, it is interesting to note the United Arab Emirates strongly condemned Hamas. As such, they were true to their political stance of fighting Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. As of this writing, while they denounce the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza, neither the UAE or Bahrain, have reneged on their signing of the Abraham accords, which aim at “establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbours in the region” ( Rachna Nuppal, “UAE, after Israel-Gaza conflict, says it does not mix trade with politics”, Reuters, October 10, 2023 and  “UAE condemns Israeli ground operations in Gaza strip”, Reuters, October 28, 2023). Since their start, those accords are strongly supported by the U.S (James F. Jeffrey, “The Abraham Accords: a three-year success now at crossroads”, Wilson Center, September 14, 2023).

On the opposite side, Qatar, which supports Hamas as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, strongly denounces Israel.

The “New” Middle East political and energy dynamics

While the IDF started striking Gaza, on 12 October Mohamed Ben Salman, acting ruler of the Saudi Arabia Kingdom and Ibrahim Raissi, President of the Republic of Iran, had their first phone call. They discussed the fact that both their countries, being regional powers, had a role to play to solve the crisis. Albeit, they also had to support the Palestinian cause (Amelie Zaccour, “ MBS’ “Balancing act” phone call with Iran’s president”, L’Orient Today, 13 October 2023).

A Tale of Two Theocrats

On this occasion, the Crown Prince emphasized that the Kingdom is making every effort to engage with all international and regional parties to halt the ongoing escalation.

He asserted the Kingdom’s opposition to any form of civilian targeting and to the loss of innocent lives:

“[Mohamed Ben Salmane] stressed the necessity of adhering to the principles of international humanitarian law and expressed deep concern for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and its impact on civilians. HRH The Crown Prince also underscored the Kingdom’s unwavering stance in standing up for the Palestinian Cause and supporting efforts aimed at achieving comprehensive and fair peace that ensures the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.”

“HRH Crown Prince receives phone call from Iranian president”, Saudi Press Agency, 12 October 2023.

In itself, this call between the two regional leaders signals the seismic geopolitical shift happening in the Middle East/Persian Gulf region. Implicitly, this conversation reinforces the dynamics of reconciliation that the two countries cultivate under the aegis of Beijing.

End of an Era, Dawn of a new one

It also reveals how quickly the two major oil producers of the Persian Gulf are aligning their positions. And they do so in the midst of this major strategic crisis, while being major energy suppliers of China. Indeed, since 2015, China imports 25% of the Saudi oil, while Asia as a whole represents 79% of Saudi crude oil exports (“Saudi Arabia”, U.S Energy Information Administration, Last Updated 11 October 2023).

https://youtu.be/AFf-082A-mw?si=kpkPeCDSVIB-NvcW

In other terms, the very foundation of the Saudi-U.S. relationship based on the “oil vs security” strategic relationship, dating back to 1944, is deeply altered. Indeed, because of the U.S. shale revolution, the U.S. imports of Saudi oil have dramatically fallen (Michael Klare, Blood and Oil, the dangers and Consequences of America’s growing dependency on imported oil, Holt, 2005). They went from an all time high of 2.244 thousands barrel a day in 2005, to a paltry 392 thousands barrel a day in July 2023 (“Petroleum & other liquids”- U.S Energy Information Administration, August 2023).

In this context, it is not surprising that Saudi Arabia aims at keeping its rank as energy power. To do so, it orients itself towards China, its main customer that also happens to be a major power. In the very same time, Beijing actively supports the reconciliation of Saudi Arabia and Iran (Adam Pourhamadi, Irene Nasser, Simone Mac Carthy, “Saudi Arabia and Iran agree on reopening embassies during Beijing talks on resumption of diplomatic ties”, CNN, April 6, 2023).

Indeed, this will secure China’s relationship with major energy suppliers while turning China into the centre of Middle eastern politics. So, de facto, the Saudi-Iran reconciliation contributes to strongly reduce the influence of the U.S. in the Middle east.

This state of affairs expresses the new depth of the relationships between each of these Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf countries and China.

The Return of Bashar

For instance, in July 2023, Syria was reinstated as a member of the Arab league after an 11 years suspension.

Syria joined China’s Belt & Road initiative in January 2022. Then, in September 2023, Bashar El Assad went to China for a state visit at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. Now, all the Middle East/ Persian Gulf countries are part of the Chinese Belt & Road initiative (“Syran President Bachar el Assad is in China on his first visit since the beginning of the Syria war”, AP, 21 September 2023). In other terms, the invitation of President Bashar El Assad by President Xi Jinping is a way to reinstall Syria on the international scene.

Thus, China confers to civil and international war torn Syria since 2011 a status of equal importance as to other members of the Belt & Road, despite the intense pressure and sanctions initiated by Washington to limit the regional and international reach of the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, on 24 August, the 2023 BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit took place in South Africa. It ended with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates integrating the organization. Thus, this integration creates a new geopolitical and geoeconomic common space between main Middle eastern and Persian Gulf countries and world powerhouses as China, India and Russia (Samantha Granville, “BRICS Summit: is a new bloc emerging to rival U.S leadership?”, BBC, 24 August, 2023.

Xi, Vladimir and the Belt…

Then, between 16 and 18 October, the Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed in Beijing the high-level delegations of the 130 countries attending the Summit celebrating the 10 years anniversary of the Belt & Road initiative.

President Xi Jinping presented Russian President Vladimir Putin as a considerably important guest. President Putin was given the title of “friend” of China. Meanwhile, Russia is at war with Ukraine, as well as with NATO (Tessa Wong, “ Vladimir Putin Feted at Xi Jinping’s Global Belt & Road summit”, BBC, 18 October, 2023).

https://youtu.be/6ptzBm7YTLo?si=YfG_Iyu3iLmCN_Mk

As it happens, on the eve of the summit, the two heads of state signed a mammoth bilateral trade deal. These agreements include a 12 years massive grain import-export 70 million tons of grains package. This will dramatically improve the Chinese food security as well as the Russian agricultural perspectives.

This China-Russia development happens while the trade and energy relations between the countries keep on increasing despite the trains of western sanctions imposed to Russia since February 2022 (Arvin Donley, “Russia signs grain export deal with China”, World-Grain.com, 18 October 2023).

… and the war (with U.S.)

The summit was also taking place in the context of the trade and technology war between the U.S. and China. Indeed, two days before the Summit, a new set of rules banning the export of U.S. microchips in China was put in place.

This new U.S. microchips ban includes 22 countries developing AI partnerships with China. Saudi Arabia, that develops a giant relationship with Beijing in the fields of energy and artificial intelligence, is on the list of countries banned by the United States. (Alex Wyllemins, “US expands chip export ban to China”, Radio Free Asia, 17 October 2023, and Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Saudi Arabi and the Arab AI Rise”, The Red Team Analysis Society, January 31 2023).

And so, it begins!

Then, on 21 October, Chinese warships reached the Mediterranean Sea. They started patrolling the area where, since 10 October, two of the most powerful U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have been navigating, in order to support the Israel war effort (Tara Copp, “The U.S is moving quickly to boost Israel’s military. A look at what assistance is providing”, AP, 15 October 2023).

https://youtu.be/btLoTTRm_bY?si=I55CcyY9xcSTsXB6

In the same timeline, the Pentagon sends weapons systems, men and high ranking military advisers in Israel. The U.S. political and military authorities also put on high alert U.S. embassies and the numerous military bases in Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan. In the meantime, the Pentagon installs anti-missiles weapons systems in Israel (Luis Martinez and Benjamin Siegel, “US surging air defense and other munitions to Israel, Official says” ABC News, 9 October 2023).

Then, during the days following the bombing of the Gaza hospital, the Hezbollah or proxy militias of the Iranian “‘Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution’)” (IRCG) sent multiple missiles and drone attacks against U.S. military bases in southern Syria and Western Iraq. In retaliation, the U.S. Air Force bombed sites in eastern Syria.

On 20 October, in Yemen the Iranian-backed Houti rebels sent a salvo of missiles over the Red Sea, certainly towards Israel. The three missiles were taken down by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney (Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor, “US Military shoots down missiles and drones as it faces growing threats in volatile Middle East”, AP, 20 October 2023). On 27 October, another missiles’ salvo failed to reach Israel (Michael Horton, “Houti missiles launches against Israel risk reigniting war in Yemen”, Responsible Statecraft, October 30, 2023.)

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Those sites were said to be linked with the Iranian Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Then, on 27 October, two U.S F-15 fighter jets bombed other Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRCG linked sites in Syria. A few hours later, the Israeli government launched a large air and ground offensive in Gaza. (Lolita C. Baldor, “U.S fighter jets srike Iran-linked sites in Syria in retaliation for attacks on U.S troops”, AP, 28 October 2023 and Carla Babb, “Pentagon: 27 attacks target U.S forces in Iraq, Syria“, VOA, 31 October, 2023).

In other terms, the Pentagon involves itself at the regional scale in order to protect Israel from strikes from Lebanon and from Yemen. Both the Israeli military mobilization and the reinforcement of the U.S. military activity all over the Middle East activate a new level of anti-U.S. military activity in Iraq and Syria, where U.S bases have been installed since the U.S. Iraqi occupation between 2003 and 2010 and since the involvement of the U.S military against Daech as well as against the Assad regime in Syria since 2013. However, as expressed by the attacks, the very presence of the U.S. bases is strongly contested, both by states and by local or regional militant militias (Jason Burke, The 9/11 Wars, 2011 and The New Threat, The Past, Present and Future of Islamic Militancy, 2017).

3. Battleground : U.N

Tipping points

So, while the Israeli Defence force bombs Gaza and prepares itself for the ground war, the whole regional and international system rearranges itself at a very high speed. These dynamics are quite strongly expressed at the U.N., where the new international distribution of power is revealed under the pressure of the Gaza war and of its multidimensional cascading consequences.

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For instance, on 26 October, the adoption of a resolution calling for an immediate and sustained humanitarian truce by the U.N Assembly took place.

Out of the 193 member states of the United Nations Organization, an overwhelming majority of 120 countries, including China, Russia, France and New Zealand, voted in favour of the resolution. 10 voted against, among them Israel and the U.S. 45 abstained, among them Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and Japan (“U.N Assembly adopts Gaza resolution calling for immediate and sustained “humanitarian truce”, United Nations, 26 October 2023).

The Israeli ambassador called the passing resolution a “day of infamy”. At this occasion, he showed photos of Hamas militants committing atrocities in Israel.

In other words, despite the U.S. support and the weight of the horrors inflicted by Hamas on the 7 October, the level of international support, thus the capital of international legitimacy, of Israel’s operation is very low.

From alliances to divergences

The U.N. votes also reveal important political divergences among members of U.S.-centred military alliances. Indeed, the vote reveals that the diverse member-states of NATO, AUKUS and the “Five Eyes” know new fault lines, given the different, or opposite stance adopted by their members in regard of the U.S. position. All of this happens in the midst of the world scale “performative war” that prolongs the Gaza conflict in the cyberspace.

The vote of this U.N. resolution unveils how the cascades of military and political consequences of the Gaza war from the regional to the international scales turn this conflict into a driver of the new 2023 Middle East dynamics. This regional conflict is also becoming an attractor of regional and of the U.S./China great powers competitions.

In other words, the Hamas-Israel war is a particularly dynamic matrix of the rapidly emerging multipolar world. It now remains to be seen how this regional conflict affects the international distribution of power. It will be especially important in regard of the Ukraine war.

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