Strategy&Future

On Trump's New Term | Jacek Bartosiak | Louis-Vincent Gave | Strategy&Future

Jacek Bartosiak and Toshi Yoshihara (Senior Fellow at CSBA, author Mao’s Army Goes to Sea (2022) on the war with China in the Western Pacific.

December 2024. Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Warsaw, Aleje Ujazdowskie. A few days before Christmas. One o’clock in the morning. The outgoing President of the United States is trying to call the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland to let him know that war has broken out in the Western Pacific.

Structural issues, i.e. a set of conflicting interests between the United States and China, prevent them from getting out of the spiral of growing rivalry in the summer of 2023. The political imbalance in and around Eurasia is growing, and with it more and more tensions and disputes, and the mutual perception of both these powers, both in terms of mutual intentions and, perhaps above all, the possibility of harming the other side in the globalised flows of the world economy and not only there. Now or in the near future. This begs the question of the leadership of both countries, and how the leaders are coping in a dynamic situation of growing distrust with a large number of contentious current issues. But also in the context of events and decisions that may be taken or will occur in the future: from the embargo on semiconductors and bans on cooperation in the development of artificial intelligence, through the ban on the export of machines for the production of new technologies.

Jacek Bartosiak speaks to Elbridge Colby on strategy vs China.

On Thursday 27th April, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan delivered a speech at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank. His speech is worth paying closer attention to, being – after recent remarks by Janet Yellen – another in a series of speeches by representatives of the administration aimed at presenting the vision of the United States regarding the direction of changes in the international order desired by the US.

Australia has entered into an alliance with the US and UK called AUKUS, which we at S&F refer to as the alliance of the nations of the World Ocean, aimed at preventing the consolidation of the Eurasian landmass under the sceptre of China. Australia concluded this alliance despite the obvious risk of its geopolitical location — as an unsinkable “guardian” of China’s oceanic communication route to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, just behind the “moat” of the Indonesian straits and the protruding Anglo-Saxon border in the southern hemisphere, remaining in communication through the South Pacific with US bases in the Carolinas, Guam and Hawaii. The risk for Australia is high: its position has changed from comfortable — when Europe was the source of wars, to quite difficult, when China has become the factory of the world in the era of globalisation, and the American hegemon of the ocean is letting the world know that China’s road to hegemony does not find the slightest approval in Washington.

The war in Ukraine continues. Its course emphasises the very significant influence of the USA on the political system of Europe. At the same time, a “rebellion of the periphery” is being carried out through an attempt to reduce the power of Germany and France in the European Union by Central and Eastern Europe with Poland at the forefront. In this combined context, we (in Poland) are not reaching out enough to the Scandinavian countries with joint initiatives: in particular, to Sweden, Finland and Norway – let’s skip Denmark as an insignificant player in the political game in Europe. These countries are a multiplier of the potential of our region, which wants to be supported by the Anglo-Saxons, through liaison with the Atlantic policy of the USA. The Scandinavians unanimously share this geostrategic orientation and have real troops and real importance in the clash with Russia.

Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan begins a new era of confrontation between the US and China, and with it, marks the beginning of an already open conflict over Eurasia, this unique place where world history takes place and world wars are fought. It begins an era of war slightly different than the previous world wars, because it is scalable. Each of the subsequent system wars was obviously different from the previous one, so there is no surprise here. This time, in a scalable clash, each side will try to force its interests through various domains of contemporary dependencies in a densely globalised world that will be violently split open before our eyes.

The war in Ukraine unleashed by Russia represents the most serious challenge that has been faced by the United States since the end of the Cold War, a clear challenge to both the international order and the rules of the road established by Washington during the unipolar moment. In fact, the most important postulate that was part of the list of demands made by Russia against the collective West in December 2021 was the recognition of Russia’s right to have its own sphere of influence – and thus accepting its imperial status.

At the beginning of the 21st century, two main geopolitical visions were formed in the European Union.

It seems that 2022 may not be easy, bringing many challenges to the world and Poland. We at S&F will list a few of them, focusing on the absolute most important issues.