Strategy&Future

After the recent talks between Blinken and Lavrov, and the US and Germany getting along over Nordstream, we smelled Rapallo. Obviously different than 100 years ago, but the mechanism is similar.

The Last 21 Years: Year (2)018

Any effective strategy (for a country in Poland’s position) requires an understanding of one’s own limitations, both related to the foundations of one’s own power and to the existing obligations of a superpower. Any strategy blindly supporting, for example, democracy and all democracies means a failure to respect and understand the limitations resulting from the fact that even the largest resources are still limited Any strategy blindly supporting, for example, democracy and all democracies means a failure to respect and understand the limitations resulting from the fact that even the largest resources are still limited.

Return to the Republic: The Polish Premier at Wawel

The Euromaidan protests in Kyiv started on 21st November 2013 after President Viktor Yanukovich announced Ukraine’s suspension of an association agreement with the EU, meaning the East European country would instead seek closer ties with Moscow. This was a post-colour revolution.

Jacek Bartosiak and Albert Świdziński talk to Louis-Vincent Gave, CEO and co-founder of Gavekal Research, on the future of global markets, US-China showdown, US bond market and the doomsday coming.

In 2013 Russia’s Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov jointly announced the creation of a Special Operations Forces. Already back in 2008, during the tenure of Shoygu’s predecessor Anatoliy Serdyukov, it had been decided to establish an SOF under the Special Operations Forces Command of the General Staff with its HQ on the outskirts of Moscow.

Some years are more memorable than others: the terror attacks of 2001, the Iraq invasion of 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the birth of the smartphone era in 2007, the financial crisis of 2008, the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011, the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbas in 2014. And although we might not have thought so at first, 2016 would turn out to be another “one of those years”!

2015 was the year of the European Migrant Crisis, when makeshift refugee camps in Greek Islands off the coast of Turkey began filling up with families (and young men) fleeing the ongoing Syrian Civil War. It was on 31st August that Angela Merkel uttered the famous words: “Wir haben so vieles geschafft – wir schaffen das.”

Perhaps the greatest operational advantage of the USA over the Chinese side is the possibility of waging a modern submarine war in conditions of domination over the enemy, both in terms of combat technology and training of the crews. Submarines are great for breaking China’s A2AD strategy. Especially in the early stages of the conflict, nuclear strike submarines and cruise missile carriers will be the first offensive option for the US Navy’s operations deep in Chinese-controlled waters (hitting inland targets, mining ports, combating communications and Chinese ships, and destroying Chinese air defence positions). Despite nuclear propulsion, American ships have operational limitations: above all, a limited ammunition slope that cannot be replenished on the high seas. Hence the operational dilemmas.

Barack Obama’s (second) inauguration speech on 21st January 2013 contained this rather hopeful line: “A decade of war is now ending.” What he meant was that it had been nearly a decade since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. But as the situation in neighbouring Syria was now beginning to show, an alternative reality in which the Iraq invasion had never taken place might not have been so calm and peaceful.

Jacek Bartosiak and Nicholas Myers discuss Mackinder, Kennan and Spykman theories’ application in the 21st century, including transformations brought by infromation age and increased connectivity.