The 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) is scheduled to take place in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12, under the co-presidency of the United Kingdom and Italy. Brookings scholars from around the institution weigh in on how what does (or does not) happen at the conference will impact their area of expertise. 

Climate change finance at the macro level

AMAR BHATTACHARYA
Senior Fellow, Center for Sustainable Development

Earlier this year, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry described COP26 as “our last, best, chance on climate.”  Since then, evidence has mounted on the costs of climate change and the urgency of action. Most compellingly, the United Nations’ 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report amasses the scientific evidence on the rapid acceleration of climate change, dramatically narrowing the window for limiting global warming from 2°C to 1.5°C and underscoring the imperative to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The U.K. COP26 presidency aims to respond to this urgency through four priorities: secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5°C within reach; adapt to protect communities and natural habitats; mobilize finance; and work together to deliver. In each of these four areas there has been a substantial ramp up in ambition.  But this progress still falls short of what is needed.

One hundred and thirty countries have committed to net zero, and several — including the G-7 — have set much more ambitious targets for emission reductions by 2030. But many major emitters have not, and the aggregate commitment will fall far short. Many donors have stepped up their climate finance commitments, and a new delivery plan indicates that the $100 billion of climate finance per annum by 2020 commitment will be met no later than 2023. But we now know that around $1 trillion per annum will be needed in developing countries other than China, to accelerate climate investments at the pace needed.

All efforts must be made at COP26 to press for ambitious, concrete deliverables. Inevitably though, much more will need to be done. It will be a success, not a failure, for COP26 to clearly recognize the shortfalls and set a path that can allow us not just to deliver on climate goals but also realize the growth and development opportunities that lie in a low-carbon future.

China’s economic calculations on climate

DAVID DOLLAR (@davidrdollar)
Senior Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center

China has put itself in a tough situation heading into the Glasgow conference. It has created problems in its own power sector for reasons not directly related to climate change. It stopped importing coal from Australia because that country called for an independent international effort to find the origins of COVID-19. Strong rebound in China’s economy in the first half of the year then led to a surge in the price of coal. But prices for electricity were kept at arbitrary low levels, so that it was not economically efficient to use coal to generate power. The result has been the worst power shortages in 20 years, and still high prices of coal as China heads into the winter season.

Meanwhile, the world is looking to China — by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases — to lay out bold new measures and targets for carbon reduction. But it is difficult for the government to make concrete commitments as long as its immediate energy crisis continues. With the right policies, Beijing could address both short and long-term issues at once. Most important would be a higher price for power and energy more generally, which would discourage wasteful use and solve the immediate power shortage. China has ambitious plans to increase reliance on solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear to generate power, and to transition its vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. But its plans still rely on coal for a long time. More commitment to energy efficiency and use of gas as a transition fuel would significantly reduce its near-term carbon footprint.

Biodiversity

VANDA FELBAB-BROWN (@VFelbabBrown)
Senior Fellow, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology and Director, Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors

Coming on the heels of the first part of COP15 to the Convention on Biodiversity, COP26 is an opportunity not only to implement meaningful climate commitments, but also to integrate them with biodiversity conservation. Climate change is one — but only one — manmade cause of critical biodiversity loss. Our current rate of biodiversity loss is the highest since the extinction of dinosaurs, and about one thousand times the historic average. Climate change compounds the extinction of species, yet biodiversity loss also hampers the planet’s natural climate control systems. In other words, the greater the biodiversity loss, the more the planet will heat up. This is merely one example of how many of the planet’s self-sustaining ecological systems are undermined by biodiversity loss.

Yet biodiversity protection has been the poor relation of climate mitigation efforts in international diplomacy. Worse yet, many proposed and even implemented climate mitigation measures ignore biodiversity protection, such as when they predominantly focus on urban areas and do not focus on preserving natural ecosystems like forests.

Some presumed climate mitigation measures even directly contradict biodiversity conservation. Take, for example, subsidized programs for planting trees. If such programs do not also provide funding for the conservation of mature and diverse forests and their biodiversity — and if such payments for conserving ecosystems are not significantly higher than the subsidies for cultivating new trees — local communities or industries frequently tend to fell existing forests (thus undermining or destroying the entire ecosystem) to qualify for subsidies for monocrop plantations. The resulting carbon capture is smaller, and biodiversity is lost.

Security around the Arctic

JEREMY GREENWOOD
Federal Executive Fellow, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology

It’s been well-documented that the Arctic is the bellwether for how global warming is impacting our planet. So, it’s no surprise that leaders gathering for the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow next week have been laser-focused on the Arctic.

Russia is often accused of doubling down on its future in fossil fuel development, much of it from its melting northern coastline that is rich in offshore oil and gas deposits. That same melting ice has opened up a transport corridor that Moscow has unilaterally formed as a maritime “toll road” — known as the “Northern Sea Route” — which has the potential to decrease sailing times from Europe to Asia by 40% compared to traditional Suez Canal routes. Moscow seems to have bet part of its future on these two cash cows, despite the worldwide focus on limiting carbon emissions from fossil fuels and preventing the very ice melt that is opening up this speedy shipping route.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he will not attend in person, most have consigned the Russian delegation to a spoiler role, for which there is much evidence to support. But it might behoove Moscow to think a few steps ahead, as the melting Arctic may bring more chaos than treasure in the long run. Rampant climate change is likely to bring severe weather to the very offshore rigs that float in treacherous waters, and international law may eventually strip them of the thin veil by which they portend to control the Northern Sea Route. A recent major oil spill in Norilsk demonstrated the risks posed by melting permafrost to even land-based industrial activities. Meanwhile, Article 234 of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea only allows coastal states to adopt regulatory measures for passing ships “where…the presence of ice covering such areas for most of the year create obstructions or exceptional hazards to navigation.” It’s only a matter of time until Russia’s northern coastline is not covered by ice most of the year, a planetary climate warning that terrifies most of the COP26 delegates and, if they had a longer vision beyond the increased shipping traffic, should also scare Russia.

The energy transition

SAMANTHA GROSS (@samanthaenergy)
Director and Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Initiative

COP26 is facing the highest expectations of any climate meeting since Paris in 2015. This marks the five-year point in the Paris Agreement, when countries are expected to renew and deepen their commitment to fighting climate change.

The United States and Europe, along with a varied slate of other countries that together account for most of the world’s emissions, have pledged to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century. Even China and Saudi Arabia are pledging net zero emissions by 2060. But the burning question in my mind going into Glasgow is whether countries are on track to achieve those long-term commitments.

For now, the answer is no. The formal goals at Glasgow are for the near term, through 2030. If countries achieve these goals (Nationally Determined Contributions, in the lingo of the Paris Agreement), emissions in 2030 will be 16% greater than they were in 2010. To be on a path that limits warming to 1.5°C, the level scientist say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need a 45% reduction in emissions instead.

My hopes for the COP are twofold. First, I hope to see a spirit of cooperation to encourage further action to reduce emissions. The real action here won’t happen at Glasgow, but afterward, when leaders go back to their capitals to establish policy to actually implement their emissions goals. Sharing technology and policy successes among countries could help. Second, I hope to see a renewed commitment from wealthy countries to fund the low-carbon transition in the developing world, along with funding for resilience projects to help these countries adapt to our changing world. Using public funding as leverage to encourage more private investment will be particularly important to achieve a just transition.

Maritime security in Asia

SHUXIAN LUO (@joy_shuxian_luo)
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center

There is a maritime security dimension as to why it is an imperative for leaders gathering in Glasgow to act collaboratively to tackle climate change. Global warming and the resulting rise of sea level is likely to affect Asia’s maritime security landscape in at least three ways.

First, available fish stock may further decline as ocean warming can cause fish populations to be less productive and/or migrate to other regions, aggravating the problem of fish depletion, intensifying fishery-related disputes and conflict, and negatively impacting millions of marine workers in coastal states who rely on fishing for their livelihood.

Second, it can alter the nature of a land feature in a way that raises questions about the maritime zones that the feature is entitled to. For example, a “high-tide elevation” is entitled to the surrounding 12 nautical miles as territorial sea (and an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf as well if it is capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life). But as the sea level rises, the feature may become submerged at high tide and remain above water only at low tide, making it “a low-tide elevation” which is not entitled to a territorial sea if it is located outside an existing territorial sea.

Third, and related to the second point, states might be tempted to protect their land features from being submerged by engaging in more land reclamation activities, which would likely exacerbate maritime environmental degradation and further complicate Asia’s existing maritime territorial disputes.

U.S. economic and financial implications of climate policy

SANJAY PATNAIK (@sanjay_patnaik)
Fellow, Economic Studies and Director, Center on Regulation and Markets

One of the most important aspects of climate change is that it is fundamentally an economic issue and a problem of risk management. Therefore, climate change itself, and any climate policies (and the lack thereof) will have significant implications for our economic and financial system. As the rest of the world and especially the EU move quickly to facilitate a transition towards a low-carbon economy, it will become even more important for the United States to follow the same path. Policy measures like a price on carbon, mandatory climate risk disclosures for publicly traded companies, and climate stress testing in the financial system are being implemented in countries around the world. These policies are critical to prepare countries for a low-carbon future, and are also significantly shaping global markets.

Without implementing a policy plan at home that can credibly lead to the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to reach the Biden’s administration’s stated goals by 2030, the U.S. will have a difficult standing in Glasgow. Importantly, without credible climate policies, U.S. firms’ ability to remain competitive when operating in global markets will be impeded and the potential for the U.S. to become a leader in new, low-carbon technologies and industries will be reduced. It is therefore more critical than ever that the Biden administration and Congress implement a wide range of carrot and stick policies that address climate change and bring us in line with other developed nations. This will also strengthen our negotiating position at COP26.

Climate as a threat multiplier in the Middle East

NATAN SACHS (@natansachs)
Director and Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy

COP26 is an instance of the gaping disconnect between Middle Eastern stakes in climate change and the marginal role Middle Eastern countries assume in combating it and adapting to it. The region is already one of the worst affected by climate change, and the potential for future damage is huge. The Nile Delta for example, with dozens of millions of people, is at direct risk of rising sea levels, with the city of Alexandria facing potential inundation. Water insecurity throughout the region could worsen dramatically, necessitating costly and energy-intensive desalination, and fueling political crises in and between states. Millions could find themselves living in areas where working outside during the day becomes impossible due to heat. And many millions will likely find themselves seeking refuge in new places, exacerbating the already-acute refugee crises in and around the Middle East.

The challenges are truly immense. Yet in many countries, the political structures are incapable or unwilling to meet them, busying themselves instead with geopolitical, ideological, and especially domestic rivalries. There are a few exceptions where capacity or resources allow for efforts to combat climate change on a serious scale, including the Gulf States and Israel. But the wealthiest countries in the Gulf, who could finance regional efforts, are also the major producers of fossil fuels, creating a conflict of interest on mitigation. So far, they’ve also exhibited vastly insufficient efforts on adaptation, as they prepare for a potential change in energy markets away from the oil and gas that provide their wealth and sustain their political model. As a result, most Middle East countries will not feature prominently at COP26 — a telling sign of historic political failure.

U.S. as a global leader on climate

TODD STERN (@tsterndc)
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Initiative

The central measure of success for COP26 in Glasgow will be whether countries have ramped up their Paris emission targets enough in 2021 to “keep 1.5 alive.” This COP coincides with the first of the five-year cycles for countries to ratchet up their targets. And it is all the more important because the broad consensus of climate opinion has shifted since Paris from embracing a below 2°C temperature goal to embracing a limit on temperature increase of 1.5°C. This is an enormously challenging target, thought to require net zero global emissions by 2050 and a roughly 50% global emissions cut within this decade.

There has been some striking progress this year. The U.S., EU, and U.K., among a number of others, have announced 2030 emission reductions at the right scale. But other big players have not cranked up their Paris targets consistent with a 1.5°C effort, and the biggest and most important is China, responsible for 27% of global CO₂ emissions — more than all developed countries put together. A strong move by China would also encourage other big emitters to follow their lead. However, if, as is likely, China does not make a serious move in Glasgow, it will be vital that the COP outcome send a clear message that 1.5 must still be kept alive and that countries who have not yet met their climate responsibility will be expected to do so in 2022. Failing to act in Glasgow should get no one off the hook.

India, net-zero, and equity

RAHUL TONGIA (@DrTongia)
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Initiative

There is immense pressure on India to announce a carbon net-zero pledge at COP26. With emissions under half the world average, it would be rational for Delhi to avoid doing so just yet. India could announce a later date than China, which pledged net-zero by 2060. Or it could make sectoral plans, such as the aim to more than quadruple renewables in 10 years, or even to peak use of coal in the power sector. However, some plans could be conditional on global support, especially finance.

India, with others, will argue that we cannot entirely ignore equity issues. This is likely to come up in contentious issues like Article 6, which will set the rules for markets, transfers, and offsets. A number of countries are banding together for negotiations. The Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), including China, India, and a few dozen others, have the clout of representing some half the world’s population, but it’s also questionable to speak of Saudi Arabia or China, who are not “low-emitters,” in the same vein as Mali or even India.

Once again, India risks being pegged, unfairly, as possible spoilsport. Delhi will have to walk a tightrope to show its actions, with or without a net-zero pledge, are globally leading but also don’t cap inevitable growth in emissions in the coming years. More meaningful than a grand ambition decades out is what India (or anyone else) does in the short and medium term. Watch for that.

Innovation and decarbonization

DAVID G. VICTOR
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Initiative

Diplomacy will be in the spotlight at COP26 — along with a lot of posturing about which countries are making big enough efforts to cut emissions. But diplomacy, for the most part, is overrated. At best, it sets a general direction for cutting emissions. When the diplomats reach consensus, as they usually do, they make legitimate the efforts to push governments and firms to make deeper cuts in emissions.

But what really matters is innovation that disrupts old industries. As new technologies get cheaper they also rewrite the politics of decarbonization — making it easier to build and hold together the political coalitions for supporting policies.

COP26, while formally a diplomatic event, will also be a watering hole for the firms and governments that are doing the most to back innovation. Leaders from industries on the front lines — such as oil and gas, electricity, and transportation — will show up, keen to show serious plans that take decarbonization seriously. The bankers will be there too, for capital is already shifting into decarbonization.

A technological perspective helps explain why most people overestimate how quickly the world economy will decarbonize in the short term — disruptive change is slow to take hold, and the incumbents don’t leave quietly — but underestimate just how transformative all the changes will be over the long haul. And when you look at entry of new low-carbon technologies you see quite a lot of hope. This hope comes from working on decarbonization sector by sector, not pretending that a global diplomatic committee will do the job.

      

What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, during the runup to what became the Paris Agreement, it was cooperation between the United States and China that largely set the direction for global efforts on climate change. The two countries funded joint research projects and exchanged best practices with regulators and academics. Most visibly, in 2014, just a year before the Paris Agreement was adopted, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a summit in Beijing at which the two nations pledged to each other the actions they would take. That pledging approach is a centerpiece of the Paris Agreement — today, nearly every country on the planet has a pledge, and most have updated them to reflect new efforts.

Today that cooperation is gone. The only high profile actions between the world’s two most powerful nations seem to involve acrimony and disagreement, like the angry confrontations in March when U.S. and Chinese officials met in Alaska to take stock of their relationship or the repeated efforts by U.S. officials, including Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, to get China to commit to more climate action. There are hints that quiet diplomacy is making a bit more headway — it usually does, especially when diplomats need to signal to interest groups at home that they are being tough — but the toxicity between the nations is palpable. For the U.S., the road to climate cooperation no longer runs through Beijing. And it doesn’t help that the U.S. itself is having a hard time putting together its own credible plan for emissions control.

All of this is terrible news for serious action on climate change, but what can be done? In this month’s edition of Issues in Science and Technology, the magazine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, I offer some answers in an essay co-written with Valerie J. Karplus and M. Granger Morgan. Our interest is in finding places where the two powerhouses in science and technology can cooperate — a big agenda that includes much of what is most important for progress on climate change.

Although less visible than cooperation on topics like arms control and trade agreements, science and technology is the centerpiece to making progress on topics like climate change. That’s because deep cuts in emissions are impractical without a lot of new technology. And while the whole world benefits from that technology, progress in just a handful of markets defines the global technological frontier. With only a few places that matter most, cooperation in principle should be much easier when compared with efforts to forge global agreements that require consensus from nearly every nation. (The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP26 taking place in Glasgow over the next two weeks will put a spotlight on those global efforts; even for agreements with little content, progress will be slow). And for both China and the U.S., the benefits from successful science and technology cooperation are palpable and huge. These benefits are important incentives because in these times any effort to cooperate — no matter how worthy — will face political headwinds.

To assess the potential for cooperation on various issues in science and technology, Valerie, Granger and I outlined a framework that works in two dimensions, as shown below. Along one dimension are the joint gains from cooperation. Places where both nations have comparable skills and operate at the frontier offer the greatest prospects. Along the other dimension are the political risks. Many areas where cooperative gains could be huge — whether joint investigation on the origins of COVID-19 or technologies known as “geoengineering” that might let us manipulate the climate directly if warming gets out of control — are politically toxic not just bilaterally but also in how they create suspicions for important U.S. allies.

The trick is to pick and choose — and the more the U.S.-China relationship deteriorates overall, the more choosy the architects of cooperative arrangements must become. The good news is that there are many topics in the low-political risk, high-social gains sweet spot that could advance the climate for cooperation. One is the testing and deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that would make it possible to keep using some fossil fuels while capturing and safely disposing of the carbon pollution that all fossil fuels make when burned. There is a long record of failure with CCS — not because the idea is technologically flawed but because we lack much real world experience with large scale CCS projects that can test a variety of approaches. Joint demonstrations and learning could help commercialize and scale CCS — and other new technologies — faster than either country would on its own. As the U.S. struggles to cut its emissions, it would benefit directly from a more viable CCS industry — along with other low carbon industries such as those that will emerge with demonstration of the next generation of nuclear reactors.

New technologies are important because they open new industrial and business opportunities for cutting emissions. When solar panels got cheap, for example, more countries adopted them. Interest groups that previously saw disruption and cost in the new industry were refocused on the gains from bigger market shares for solar. Politics that had been nasty, brutish, and gridlocked opened up. In industry after industry the same story repeats — technology changes politics, and cooperation changes technology faster.

A strategic approach to science and technology cooperation won’t stop climate warming by itself, but it is a necessary condition. And success offers something important for the two countries beyond making progress on joint problems like climate change: a way to cooperate on practical topics when broader cooperation is impractical. During the Cold War, the U.S. set up a similar technical cooperative approach with the Soviet Union — creating an invaluable community of experts on both sides of the Iron Curtain that made it possible to keep talking even when top government leaders couldn’t. I went to graduate school just as the Cold War ended and one of my most formative experiences was working alongside Soviet scientists at one of those curtain-crossing institutions, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna.

In an earlier era, before the unraveling of the last decade, U.S. and Chinese scientists could cooperate because it was easy. Ideas abounded. Partnerships flourished not only because there were gains but also because many of the key scientists knew each other — many of the key Chinese academics were, in fact, educated in the United States.

Today, cooperation is perhaps even more important but harder. (That so much Chinese education is leaving the U.S., and that both sides are vilifying each other, are bad news for our long-term cooperative prospects). The U.S. and China have both promised the world they’ll do something serious about climate change. Both now face the world’s ire for not doing enough. Strategic cooperation around the topics where cooperation is possible and useful is a way forward.

While it is unfashionable to be a globalist these days, when it comes to the technology revolutions needed for deep decarbonization, a large dose of globalism is essential. The great visions for new technologies to address climate change are based on the opportunity for technological advance through collaboration and economic improvement through scaling to global markets. That’s how solar got cheap and global. And that’s the same story now playing out in many other technologies, from electric vehicles to electrolyzers that make hydrogen, possibly one of the fuels of a clean energy future. It all starts with globalism in technology and with the two biggest players — the U.S. and China.

      

Iraq’s parliamentary elections rarely produce surprises. But the elections that were held this month constituted a potential make-or-break moment amidst widespread social unrest, systemic violence against civilians, and an existential economic crisis.

Muqtada al-Sadr’s victory is an example of strategic acumen within a movement that continues its transition from insurgency to government, propelled by a yearning for respite and leadership, and by rampant destitution within Iraqi society. Almost 32% of Iraq’s population could soon be impoverished. But it is precisely this despair that has resulted in the emergence of a protest movement that considers Sadr and his militia to be part of the problem, and complicit in the bloodshed that has engulfed the country, including violence against protesters. In its electoral debut, the bloc representing the protesters, Imtidad, secured 10 seats out of 329, a remarkable feat for a movement that is subjected to systemic assassinations and contested the elections amid unprecedented voter apathy.

There will consequently be tricky waters for President Joe Biden’s administration to navigate. Now is the moment for the administration to double down on its diplomatic efforts to develop and exercise a political strategy for a shifting political landscape, one that requires managing two prevailing contradictions that represent Iraq’s reality for decades to come: the superiority of militias in Baghdad and a protest movement that yearns for democratic rights and good governance.

Implications for Iran

Some observers will see these elections as an opportune moment to combat Iran’s influence. Iran’s proxies within the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) — the umbrella militia organization established to fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State — saw their seats reduced to 17, down from the 57 they won in 2018. The organization’s defeat contrasts with the success of their foremost rivals, the Sadrists, who won 74 seats (an increase from the 54 they won in 2018). But Sadr should not be complacent. While Sadr will reign politically supreme for the foreseeable future, he still has political rivals that the PMF and its allies, with Iran’s support, can exploit to manage the fallout from their loss.

These rivals include Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s former prime minister and leader of the Islamic Dawa Party who was responsible for the collapse of the army in 2014 when ISIS took control of Mosul. He has long been at odds with Muqtada and his State of Law coalition won 34 seats in the elections. Hence, even with Sadr’s impressive victory, the current state of play can hardly be described as insurmountable for the PMF and Iran. Iran and its proxies can find ways to cope.

But Iraq is entering a new phase in its political history that the PMF and its Iranian sponsors are ill-equipped to manage, one in which coercive power may not be sufficient. Together with Iran, the PMF is learning the hard way that power through the barrel of a gun is not sustainable. Its brutality has alienated supporters and large segments of the society that once thought of them as battle-field heroes in the campaign against ISIS.

While the Sadrist movement is also complicit in human rights abuses, the movement can draw on its decades of support to the destitute and disenfranchised, a legacy that preceded their transition to an insurgency in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion and established the infrastructure that has been so critical to their ascension. The PMF’s key factions, on the other hand, have yet to make that transition from militias that emerged from the ruins of the invasion to credible social movements or political actors that can provide at least some sections of the society with a stake in the future of their country.

The PMF’s vulnerabilities have been exposed

The PMF is vulnerable. After its Iran-aligned militias turned their guns on Iraqi civilians, factions within the organization that were not aligned with Iran — namely, the groups aligned with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani — withdrew last year and now constitute direct rivals. The PMF must also manage the emergence of a protest movement that is becoming a political force committed to shifting the tide of public opinion against the PMF and Iran.

The PMF is contesting the electoral results. Militia heads have issued threats against the officials that oversaw the elections. The factions that comprise the PMF collectively secured more votes than the Sadrists, but they lacked a viable strategy and consequently struggled to secure as many seats. These are desperate times for the PMF: it does not constitute a cohesive political force or social movement, and has been in a state of tumult. Its leading factions are widely disdained because of their atrocities and their defeat in this election is symbolically catastrophic and could set the tone for their future political contestations.

If the PMF views its challenges as existential, the immediate future is dangerous. In practice, that means losing access to the $2.6 billion budget allocated to it as a state-sanctioned auxiliary force, a designation that is detached from reality since the PMF operates outside of the state, and has threatened and attacked the military, U.S. personnel, and Kurdistan.

A reduced budget could be a red line, since it effectively means losing patronage networks and a diminished capacity to mobilize fighters. It imposes extra pressure on Iran’s finances and ability to maintain its militia network in Iraq. Tehran has struggled to prop up this network since the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign and the onset of the pandemic.

Navigating tricky waters

This is an opportune moment. The reverberations of the PMF’s defeat will intensify the organization’s internal disarray and makes it highly unlikely that the organization will ever reclaim popular support. Since the PMF first emerged in 2014, U.S. policymakers have formulated policies around the idea that the PMF enjoys substantial grassroots support and social legitimacy. U.S. sanctions or airstrikes, for example, have been dismissed as viable policies or undertaken in limited fashion on the basis that such measures could embolden the PMF locally and swell its ranks. But such reasoning is no longer plausible.

The U.S. and its European allies must reconsider how they develop strategic relations with Iraq’s political actors. Beyond the PMF, there are others who fan the flames of ethnic and sectarian tensions. The National State Forces Alliance led by Haidar al-Abadi of the Islamic Dawa Party and Ammar al-Hakim of the Hikma Movement, managed only five seats. Abadi’s political irrelevance notwithstanding, al-Hakim still commands a strong support base and has been a voice of moderation in a toxic environment of demagogues and militants. Abadi, on the other hand, far from attempting to calm tensions, attempted to deflect focus away from his poor performance by celebrating his infamous decision to attack the Peshmerga in the wake of the Kurdish independence referendum in 2017 when he was prime minister, which, ironically, was undertaken to improve his prospects of winning the 2018 elections. He came third.

It is here that Washington can put the pieces of a strategy together, focused in equal measure on the protest movement, moderate actors, and Western interests in Iraq. The U.S. should underpin its Iraq policy with the fact that its allies now command a significant chunk of the political landscape, with the Kurdistan Democratic Party securing 32 seats and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan winning 17 seats (for a combined total of 49 seats). The Taqadum party led by parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi won 37 seats. A coalition of moderates — comprised of Kurdistan, Halbousi, al-Hakim and a selection of independents whose interests and values are aligned with those of the West — is the best hope of transforming the PMF’s decline into an opportunity.

The U.S. must work out what it wants. The political elimination of the PMF is not possible, but containing it is, and there will be no better moment for Biden to signal steadfast U.S. commitment and support by convening the coalition of Iraqi moderates. Such support could improve the Iraqis’ ability to work with each other, and enhance their negotiating position to contain the PMF’s attempts to re-assert itself. At the least, Secretary of State Antony Blinken should undertake a visit to Iraq at the earliest opportunity. Iraq’s political transition may take many months, but the contours of the post-election environment are shaped early on.

Empowering a robust Western-aligned coalition will ease the West’s job of engaging the Sadrists, a bloodstained movement with a total disregard for basic human rights but that nevertheless represents Iraq’s reality for the foreseeable future. A strong coalition would improve U.S.-aligned Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s prospects of securing another term and imposes political costs on the PMF if it opts to coerce its rivals.

Critically, it could insulate the protesters from violence by providing them with political cover, without which the militias will have carte blanche. It could empower the protesters to make the crucial transition into a viable political force. Iraq’s political system might be impervious to major restructuring, but the protest movement can still engage with some of Iraq’s most established political actors as they navigate dangerous waters.

      

Havertz began by asking the panel to share what they considered the biggest surprise or upset from the September 26 election. Borucki noted how close the results of the top two parties were — with Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) at 25.7 percent, only narrowly outperforming Armin Laschet’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which received 24.1 percent. These numbers, she said, marked “the beginning of a new era of party systems and party politics.” For Mounk, while “there weren’t any major upsets” from recent polls, two broader developments did come as unexpected: the expectation that the SPD would likely win the chancellery and the fact that support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) declined. Schwarzer agreed, adding that the relatively low turnout for radical parties compared to 2017 — for the AfD as much as the Left Party — was a positive surprise. Stelzenmüller pointed to the still-stark divide between eastern and western Germany over 30 years after reunification.

The conversation then shifted to the issue of coalition negotiations, the next step toward government formation. Of particular note, the panelists agreed, was the power held in the process by the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), with the two likeliest coalitions involving the Greens, FDP, and SPD (a so-called “traffic light” coalition, named after the colors of the parties) under a Chancellor Scholz, or the Greens, FDP, and CDU (a “Jamaica” coalition) under a Chancellor Laschet. While Stelzenmüller outlined motivations for the two smaller parties to pursue the option with the CDU, she ultimately agreed with Mounk that the Christian Democrats would do well to go into opposition “to renew themselves.” As she later noted, “the CDU do not have a mandate,” and “Armin Laschet’s performance has been too poor.” But it is not only party leaders who would dictate coalition negotiations. Each party’s Bundestag members and electoral base, too, would play a pivotal role. Borucki emphasized the levels of dissatisfaction among certain party bases with party leadership.

Havertz next homed in on the possible climate and foreign policies of the next government, asking why the Green party had failed to gain more traction among voters despite high aspirations and the ever-growing threat of climate change. Stelzenmüller and Borucki pointed out that other parties highlighted the importance of finding climate-based solutions that are socially viable (SPD) or connected to innovation and technology (FDP). Such solutions, according to Mounk, avoid reference to the level of suffering to which climate change will inevitably lead, a prominent talking point of the Greens. On foreign policy, Schwarzer pointed to the urgent need for Berlin to position itself clearly on foreign and security issues in advance of Germany’s G-7 presidency and the French presidential elections in 2022, as well as in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and AUKUS deal.

Audience questions picked up on the issue of geopolitics, inquiring about implications of the election for German-China relations. Schwarzer said change would not be quick, but that Germany now possesses much better means of risk assessment. She added that with a traffic light coalition, a stronger line might be pursued on human rights. Finally, independent of the makeup of the incoming government, China’s influence in the EU’s direct neighborhood would be placed under greater scrutiny, in Germany as in Europe.

In closing, Havertz asked the panelists to predict Germany’s future governing coalition. All four agreed on a traffic light government, with Olaf Scholz at the helm. What does this portend for Angela Merkel? According to Stelzenmüller, an international position or future in politics is quite unlikely — instead, the chancellor’s longing for “walks and plum cakes” might finally become reality.

      

In mid-September, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the crown prince and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (widely known as MBZ), at the historic Chateau de Fontainbleu outside Paris, recently restored with UAE funding. Over the past number of years, and despite some setbacks, Paris and Abu Dhabi have developed a multi-layered strategic partnership that encompasses political, security, and economic dimensions.

Deeper French-Emirati engagement highlights a key trend in Europe-Gulf relations. Despite years of engagement at a multilateral level between the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Gulf and European countries have largely bypassed multilateral mechanisms and have opted to deepen their relationship at a bilateral level. Both as a result of structural and contingent factors, bilateralism has tended to prevail in EU-GCC relations with individual countries on both sides competing with each other in the advancement of their goals. The failure to establish a region-to-region free trade agreement (FTA) in 2008 dealt a severe blow to the EU-GCC multilateral framework, as did the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 and the ensuing conflict and fragmentation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In a recently published edited volume titled “The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council: Towards a New Path”, we explore these trends, examine the various aspects of EU-GCC relations and their trajectory moving forward.

L’ennemi de mon ennemi, est mon ami

It is no surprise that the UAE and France have moved to deepen their ties as they are aligned on many issues in the Middle East and North Africa. In Libya, they have both supported Libyan National Army leader Khalifa Hifter over the government in Tripoli. Along with other external powers, both have contributed to perpetuating the country’s civil war.

They have also had challenging relations with Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They have supported Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, including participating in joint naval exercises last year. While Turkey and the UAE have recently moved to settle some of their differences amongst a growing regional détente, it remains to be seen if this is a permanent de-escalation or a shorter-term strategic calculation.

Furthermore, both Macron and MBZ share a distrust of Islamist political parties across the region. The UAE has been very active in recent years in fostering inter-faith dialogue initiatives to cultivate an image as a moderate and welcoming Muslim country. Overall, both Emirati and French leaders have shown a tendency to focus on stability and the continuation of the status quo ante in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

The UAE: Seeking a larger role

The past few years have been a busy time for Emirati diplomacy. Under founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who ruled from 1971-2004, the UAE’s foreign policy was grounded in a cautious approach and the young country viewed itself within a Gulf, Arab, and Muslim world context. Over the past years under MBZ and especially after the Arab Spring, this has shifted and the country has grown more assertive and ambitious in the region and across the world.

In addition to expanding its ties to France, the UAE has been also deepening its engagement with China by signing a comprehensive strategic partnership with Beijing. According to one analyst, the UAE’s “mercantile grand strategy of controlling access to key maritime checkpoints in the Indian Ocean, the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, made Abu Dhabi an important partner for Beijing.”

The Abraham Accords and resulting normalization with Israel were also a boon for Emirati diplomacy. Having been cultivated by President Donald Trump in his early days, the deal was concluded in August 2020, giving Trump a “win” ahead of the election. At the same time, the accords highlighted the UAE’s importance and indispensability to Joe Biden’s team, providing Abu Dhabi with the needed platform to diffuse potential challenges with what became the new administration and ensuring a much-coveted F-35 fighter jet deal went ahead.

The U.S. response to the Arab Spring and subsequent developments in the region have highlighted to GCC and Emirati leaders in particular that the American commitment to the MENA region (and to their regimes) is not as ironclad as they had thought. The recent chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and continued signals from the Biden administration that it wants to limit its exposure to instability from the region, have reinforced that view. While the U.S. currently underwrites Gulf security, GCC leaders need to increasingly imagine and prepare for an unpredictable regional security environment and rely on themselves more as the U.S. “pivots” to Asia.

The view from Paris: Business and security go hand-in-hand

Despite setbacks that have included calls to boycott French products after inflammatory comments by Macron, France has undoubtedly been the most active European country in the MENA region over the past few years. And the UAE has been the pivot of French activism both on security issues and in business. Indeed, these represent two sides of the same coin.

Bilateral trade between Paris and Abu Dhabi has been thriving in the past few years. This includes approximately $4 billion annually of French goods exported to the UAE, as well as lucrative arms deals worth 8.3 billion euros in 2020. Conversely, imports to France (estimated at 1.1 billion euros) are dominated by hydrocarbons.

There are more than 600 French companies working in the United Arab Emirates and their number has increased by roughly 10% annually in recent years. Among the most active sectors of the cooperation, defense stands out, thanks to the presence of French permanent military bases in Abu Dhabi, hosting more than 700 soldiers, since a 2009 joint defense agreement.

However, French-Emirati bilateral relations are not limited to the military-industrial nexus. In the era of Gulf “Visions” and of ambitious plans to foster sustainable development, investments in renewable energy — as well as the sharing of nuclear know-how — are gaining traction. Similarly, cultural and academic cooperation is the domain that has been developed the most and the one on which both the French government and Emirati rulers bet with a view to casting a positive mutual image and to attracting further investments. From the Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi established back in 2006 and part of the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 to the world-famous Louvre Abu Dhabi museum inaugurated in November 2017, French culture and language are seen as a pillar of cooperation that can contribute to “building a more open, united, tolerant and peaceful world.” In this context, it is not a coincidence that at the recently-opened Expo 2020 Dubai France occupies a central place, both physically and symbolically.

But hydrocarbons, defense cooperation, and culture are not necessarily the end goals in themselves for France vis-à-vis the UAE, the Gulf, and the broader Middle East. They are means to attain greater security and leverage in diplomatic terms, both domestically and externally, by exploiting France’s added value and ability to attract investments in business and defense. From Beirut to Baghdad (and including recent setbacks with Algiers), Macron has focused on strengthening France’s role in the region to protect the human connections existing between MENA populations and France due to the presence of conspicuous diasporas, which translate into very developed security, commercial, and people-to-people ties.

Bilateralism rules the day  

The Qatar blockade, cooler relations with Oman, and disagreements with close ally Saudi Arabia highlight how the GCC as an institution is less important for the UAE, as Abu Dhabi seeks to play a larger independent role that often puts it at odds with its neighbors. The same might be said for France, which is often seen projecting its own autonomous foreign policy role in the Gulf and wider Middle East beyond the contours of the EU’s multilateral engagement to the region. Having been recently blindsided by some of its closest allies with the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., it is no surprise that French policymakers will continue to deepen their engagement with other partners in the MENA region and across the world.

As we have argued in our volume, when it comes to the Gulf, individual EU member states have relentlessly hedged between various parties to protect their own interests and businesses. This has, among other factors, contributed to weakening the EU’s common Gulf approach and policies. Despite this, the space still exists to work at the multilateral level and leverage existing opportunities and cooperation mechanisms to unlock the EU-GCC relationship’s full potential.

The recent visit of Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, to Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia from September 30 to October 3 — his first official visit to the Gulf region in the role — could represent the first step in this direction. Expectations are high but until they are met, bilateralism will rule the day.

      

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In spring 2020, several Facebook groups coalesced around opposition to coronavirus- related lockdowns. These online groups quickly devolved to hotbeds of conspiracy theories, malign information, and hate speech.¹ Moreover, they drew from multiple online communities, including those opposed to vaccination — known as “anti-vaxxers” — anti- government militias, QAnon supporters and other conspiracy theorists. How did the anti- lockdown online forum unite these seemingly disparate groups and ultimately mobilize people with such different ideologies to show up at local protests? While algorithmic recommendations helped people find these Facebook groups,² we find the answer to what makes these groups so compelling is their narratives, in this case narratives of government and elite conspiracies and of threats to individual freedom.

Drawing from the field of cultural sociology, we define narratives as social stories that help people understand events and assign moral meaning. Narratives elicit and play on emotion by tapping into deeply held beliefs and values. Critically, they also establish or reinforce group or collective identity. They may be used to speak to a core audience of believers and also to engage new and even initially unreceptive audience segments with potent cultural messages. Focusing on the networks linking the anti-lockdown narratives to other key social narratives, we illuminate the pathways linking seemingly disparate groups.

We conceptualize messengers, like Fox News, MSNBC, or the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) — or even social movements — as seeking to increase commitment to a group identity through strategic deployment and presentation of narrative. This task involves an incremental, iterative, and possibly non-linear process that has similarities to those used by sexual predators to lure victims.³ Combining cultural sociology insights on narrative with interdisciplinary work on radicalization, we have developed the “WARP” framework. WARP stands for Weaponize, Activate, Radicalize, Persuade, and points to the way narratives are deployed in service of identity and collective action projects, the rhetorical or persuasive strategies used in service of these aims, and variations in individual response and susceptibility to influence operations. Using the data from the Russian influence operations on Twitter, we use the WARP framework to illustrate how groups deploy and weaponize narratives to energize conspiracy theories, exacerbate social divisions, mobilize protest, and even promote violence. Russia’s influence operations provide a prominent example, but other foreign as well as domestic actors have similarly used narratives. To the extent that these various influence operations use the same narrative touchpoints, the impact of foreign versus domestic influence operations is likely impossible to disentangle.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, understanding narrative as a weapon of influence and the process through which people become engaged with and mobilized by divisive content has significant policy implications. To counter or prevent the proliferation of weaponized and radicalizing narrative content, we must monitor the network of narratives, in particular the pathways leading to violence and hate. In addition, we must ensure that social media algorithms direct people away from radicalizing groups rather than feed them leads for new recruits. No company should be able to profit off of promoting the destruction of democratic norms and institutions. To this end, the social media companies’ algorithms should be opened to public scrutiny and federal regulation.⁴ Social media platforms also must demonetize and remove from algorithmic recommendations any individual, group, or page that weaponize narratives which undermine civil society and national security. We need more privacy protections to prevent malign actors from microtargeting vulnerable individuals. And, finally, we must concentrate on telling true and inspiring stories about the United States of America that draw us together instead of tearing us apart.

      

China is definitely on the rise. But don’t write off American dominance just yet.

Even if the trade wars between the United States and China that dominated the Trump era have receded slightly, many other issues have intensified.

China tested a hypersonic and potentially globe-spanning weapon this summer. It conducted dozens of sorties by combat aircraft that touched on Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification zone and otherwise menaced the island of 23 million (plus much of the world’s semiconductor production capacity) that it claims as its own. The Pentagon’s artificial intelligence guru, Nicolas Chaillan, recently resigned with a warning that the United States is losing the AI race to China. Intelligence and military officials warn that China may be expanding its nuclear arsenal by up to several hundred warheads. And commanders of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii have estimated that China might well attempt to take Taiwan within a half-dozen years or so, given its military modernization trends.

We should not overreact to these troubling trends. They are serious. They are, however, far from truly foreboding.

China is flexing its muscles more than preparing for war; this is not the equivalent of Europe in the late 1930s, given how much China depends on a stable international order for its continued success. We do need to stay vigilant, remember the art of war even in this age of (relative) peace, and expand our economic as well as military toolkit for crisis management. We need not and must not panic, however, because doing so could turn manageable crises into truly scary ones.

China won’t take the risk

First, let’s remember America’s many strengths. Our military budget is about three times’ China’s, and our allies in Europe and East Asia together outspend China themselves (even if not all would fight in a war in the Pacific, admittedly).

The loose coalition of European nations and the U.S. also represents the consumer market of more than a billion comparatively wealthy individuals whom China needs in order to sustain its still-export-driven economy. That means we have many tools of economic, as well as military, warfare if needed.

Since 1945, seven Democratic and seven Republican U.S. presidents have collectively upheld a rules-based international order that has established a very strong norm against interstate aggression, making any Chinese attack on Taiwan hugely problematic for President Xi Jinping and his fellow leaders in Beijing.

The world’s response to an actual attack against Taiwan — and this is the scenario that is truly the most worrisome for its potential to shake world peace — would likely be rather unified and strong. China knows it. For this reason, I believe that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and other parts of the government need to be careful and restrained with their rhetoric (as most but not all are). China may have growing capacity to attempt to seize Taiwan, but it knows that actually making the attempt would be a cosmic roll of the dice, to be attempted only under the most extreme of circumstances.

America’s options against China

Beyond these broad advantages are a number of specific factors working in our favor to direct China’s rise in a generally peaceful direction:

• Even if our AI efforts, at the Pentagon and elsewhere, could be better focused, we enjoy numerous advantages in high technology vis-à-vis China, including in stealth, submarine technology, and long-range strike platforms like aircraft carriers. Even if China’s military is bigger than ours in some ways — total troop count, total ship count — ours is much better (and battle-hardened). Also, just to take one frequently misused statistic, if China’s navy has more ships than ours, we have a fleet with larger vessels, meaning the U.S. Navy wields twice the total ship tonnage, based on calculations my colleagues and I have done.
• Every time China fortifies another artificial island, should it continue down that path, we can respond. We can add bases in the Indo-Pacific region ourselves, or tighten various security partnerships, as with India. We should do this with restraint, and proportionality, to be sure — but the bottom line is that the United States has lots of allies and China does not. We also have a globally capable military that can, for example, continue to uphold our access to the South China Sea even when Beijing wrongly and dangerously claims it as territorial waters.
• If China does attack Taiwan, with the goal of reunification, I believe it is far more likely to attempt a blockade (combined with cyberattacks) than an outright invasion. Moving big ships near the coasts of a vigilant adversary is very hard to do in the era of precision-strike weaponry and advanced mines. In a blockade scenario, we have other options besides fighting right next to Taiwan — we can, for example, use economic warfare backed up by our military to interfere with China’s access to oil and other commodities coming from the Persian Gulf and Africa.

Managing China’s rise

To be sure, the United States needs to stay vigilant — and to keep getting “stronger” ourselves, as Brookings Institution scholar Ryan Hass argues in a new book of that very title. Our military command and control must be more resilient in order to makes sure our “kill chain” is robust. Our armed forces need more long-range strike platforms, including more bombers and long-range unmanned systems operating off aircraft carriers and attack submarines, given China’s ability to threaten nearby U.S. bases.

Nations need to diversify and harden their economies, and the global supply chains that undergird them, so that China does not have the upper hand in any future economic warfare scenarios.

Managing China’s rise is going to be a challenge for America and her allies for a generation. But if we stay calm in crises, and make ourselves stronger and more resilient militarily and economically, we should have the tools needed to sustain the peace.

      

Executive Summary

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has evolved considerably since the end of the Cold War — taking on emerging threats like transnational terrorism and piracy, and venturing into new arenas such as cybersecurity and space. Today, two new issues are rising fast on NATO’s agenda, despite neither fitting comfortably into the mission of an alliance founded to address a direct military threat to Europe: China and climate change.

The primary geostrategic competitor of the future — for the United States at least — is China. But while China presents a complex set of economic, political, technological, and military challenges for which developing common trans-Atlantic positions is proving challenging, it is also very unlikely to trigger NATO’s Article 5 collective security provision.

Meanwhile, the primary existential threat faced by allies is climate change, which will of course affect NATO operations (including through its impacts on low-lying military bases) and the livelihoods — and potentially political systems — of NATO nations. The alliance is but one forum, however, that ought to be utilized to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to combat human-induced global warming. Moreover, mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis will require cooperation with China even as the strategic rivalry between the West and China intensifies.

How the alliance plans to address China and climate change remains far from clear — as does NATO’s approach to these two issues as member states continue to calibrate their national positions. Nonetheless, the June 2021 NATO summit communiqué made clear that the alliance intends to tackle both of these security challenges as it develops its new Strategic Concept.

In this paper, we examine how NATO might usefully contribute to the trans-Atlantic response to the China challenge and climate change, while stressing why the United States and Europe will need to look beyond NATO to strengthen other frameworks — particularly the U.S.-European Union and NATO-EU relationships — as they seek to develop trans-Atlantic responses to these increasingly complex twin challenges.

      

As tensions rise over the Taiwan Strait, the urgent sense of threat is increasing in Japan. So is the realization that trilateral cooperation with the United States and Taiwan is needed.

Preventing and coping with the military crisis across the Taiwan Strait has been regarded as one of the main raisons d’être of the Japan-U.S. alliance for decades, along with the defense of Japan and the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has long been Japan’s number one threat, but now China has replaced it. In a recent public opinion poll in Japan, 80% of respondents answered that they felt threatened by China. Those polled were not even asked if they felt threatened by North Korea.

Why Japan is worried

The reason why the threat from China is getting increased attention in Japan is not just China’s tenaciously aggressive activities around the Senkaku Islands. It’s also the emerging perception that Taiwan’s problem is also Japan’s problem. If Taiwan were to be attacked, Japan would inevitably be attacked as well, mainly because Japan hosts the U.S. Armed Forces at several major bases and facilities throughout the country, including the U.S. Seventh Fleet. Taiwan and Japan are situationally in the same operational theater when it comes to facing potential aggression from China.

This kind of view gained further traction when then Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. President Joseph Biden put out a joint statement after their first meeting in April that said, “We underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” Another poll conducted soon after this meeting showed that 74% of the Japanese public — an overwhelming majority — supported this commitment.

How Japan has supported Taiwan

This strong support, along with the Japanese public’s perception of the threat from China, has given rise to a sentiment of “resist China and assist Taiwan.” When China imposed sanctions on the import of pineapples from Taiwan, Japanese consumers responded by voluntarily purchasing Taiwanese pineapples. When Taiwan was struggling to secure COVID-19 vaccines, partly because China allegedly blocked their import, the government of Japan quickly and repeatedly donated some of its inventory to Taiwan. When Taiwan decided to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade framework, Japan immediately expressed support.

These examples are clear manifestations of the consensus view that Japan should support Taiwan in the face of mounting pressures and intensifying intimidation from China. Behind such consensus is, of course, a realization that supporting Taiwan is not just a demonstration of goodwill to a democratic neighbor but also necessary to protect Japan’s interests from China, whose strategic intentions raise fundamental doubts and fears among the Japanese population.

However, beyond support for pineapples, vaccines, and CPTPP, if Japan wants to substantiate its commitment to the “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” at the policy level, it has no choice but to turn to the Japan-U.S.-Taiwan trilateral framework with the United States at its center.

Why Japan needs to cooperate with the United States on Taiwan

The need for this trilateral framework stems from Japan’s limits to having only “working relations on a non-governmental basis” with Taiwan, a consequence of switching its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing five decades ago, when the expectation for the relationship with China was much more optimistic. Under this self-imposed restriction, there is no way for Japan to conduct direct and meaningful policy coordination with Taiwan, much less to work together militarily to deter or repel an invasion by China. Japan does not even have an active-duty defense attaché in Taipei. In the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo there is no section or even a single official who is formally tasked with managing the relationship with Taiwan. The official communication channel is close to nonexistent.

The only way to overcome this systemic challenge and to coordinate effectively with Taiwan is to go through the United States, which has a much deeper wide-ranging relationship with Taipei based on the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). The law stipulates that it is the policy of the United States to assist Taiwan to defend itself. For example, it was recently reported that the United States sent a special operations unit and a contingent of Marines to Taiwan to train Taiwanese military forces.

Japan’s intention to institutionalize the trilateral relationship is clear. It was demonstrated when Japan joined the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF), which was originally launched by the United States and Taiwan. The Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, which is the unofficial representative of the Japanese government in Taiwan, has co-hosted all GCTF workshops since 2019. This has created a trilateral framework, even though it is non-governmental and non-military.

Japan has a legal and policy framework to respond to military confrontations that involve foreign countries other than the United States, when such situations pose serious threats to Japan’s security. In reality, however, it is hard for Japan to conduct such military operations alone.

This institutionalization of the Japan-U.S.-Taiwan relationship is by no means an easy task. The fundamental challenge is to have a unified view on strategic objectives and the best way to achieve them. This seems simple and self-evident, but it is not necessarily so.

The difficulty of finding a consensus on Taiwan

The long-held U.S. approach to Taiwan issues is to commit to helping Taiwan with its self-defense capability, as is stipulated in the TRA. The Trump administration broke away from this policy when it declassified the “U.S. Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific” a week before handing over power to the Biden administration. It said, “Devise and implement a defense strategy capable of defending the first-island-chain nations, including Taiwan.” This could be understood as meaning that the United States itself would take direct military action to defend Taiwan, instead of just helping Taiwan to defend itself. Biden seemed to imply that his administration has a similar approach on a couple of recent occasions, most recently during a CNN town hall on October 21. Asked if the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan, he said, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.” But the White House immediately clarified his statement to say that the president did not announce any change in the U.S. policy and that “we will continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense.” This rather suggests that the official policy of the United States stays with the TRA, and the United States maintains its so-called strategy of ambiguity.

Japan’s position is more conservative. It does not go beyond the commitment that Japanese Prime Minister Suga made in the joint statement with Biden, which is to “underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.” A prominent Taiwan scholar in Japan emphasized that this is not a pledge that Japan would defend Taiwan. Of course, it made big news when then Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso stated a couple of months after the Suga-Biden summit that Japan “would have to defend Taiwan” with the United States if the island is invaded by mainland China, but his statement was never endorsed by the Japanese government.

For now, neither Japan nor the United States clearly pledges that it would directly intervene in a military conflict to defend Taiwan.

Taiwan’s changing defense strategy

The other potential problem is the defense strategy of Taiwan itself.

Taiwan’s defense strategy is now going through a rather confusing transition. The Overall Defense Concept (ODC), which was launched in 2017 and was described as a “revolutionary new approach to Taiwan’s defense” by a former senior U.S. Department of Defense official, suddenly disappeared from the 2021 Quadrennial Defense Review of Taiwan, which was released in March this year.

It once looked as if Taiwan was fundamentally restructuring and updating its defense strategy under the ODC by employing an asymmetrical approach to overcome its decisive resource gap with China. The essence of Taiwan’s asymmetric capabilities is to equip the military forces with “a large number of small things,” such as sea mines and anti-ship cruise missiles instead of advanced fighter jets and heavy tanks. This basic direction may not change, but now it is hard to predict where the transition will eventually end up. A fierce battle over strategic thinking within Taipei’s national security policy circle is reported in the Taiwanese media.

The question is whether Taiwan can come up with a new systemic defense strategy based upon this asymmetric approach. The jury is still out.

Uncertainty over this strategic transition in Taiwan makes it more challenging for Japan and the United States to conduct meaningful strategic coordination with Taiwan and to eventually establish a workable, efficient trilateral framework. If Japan and the United States do not know how Taiwan will fight, they cannot help Taiwan.

More coordination is also needed in other less politically charged domains, such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and cybersecurity. Japan should probably aim to set up cooperation in these areas as a first step to improve trilateral cooperation.