foreignpolicy--2020-10-09--This November, America’s Safety Is on the Ballot

This November , America ’ s Safety Is on the Ballot In the popular imagination , espionage is all about lies , deceit , and deception .
But the ability of the United States ’ security agencies to warn against threats and inform sound foreign policies depends on a more elusive condition : trust .
Slow to grow , easy to break , and painstaking to rebuild , trust is flagging in four essential intelligence relationships .
The country will be less safe until it is restored .
When Americans vote in November , this trust—and their nation ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first relationship where trust is eroding is with the human sources on whom intelligence-gathering depends .
Every day around the world , courageous foreign sources risk everything to provide information that protects the United States , relying on a promise that the U.S. government will safeguard their identities , alert them to hazards , and , in extreme cases , extricate them from danger .
The reasons why sources cooperate with U.S. intelligence are invariably complex , but if the U.S. government falls into the habit of compromising clandestine sources and creates the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it will inevitably diminish its future ability to collect intelligence from human sources .
Last year , for example , media reported on the 2017 exfiltration and resettlement of a source from Russia who had knowledge of the Kremlin ’ s role directing interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election .
If these accounts are true , U.S. intelligence leaders deserve credit for honoring their pledge and removing the source from harm ’ s way .
But , according to what government sources told journalists , this high-value operation did not end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rather , it was curtailed because U.S. intelligence officials concluded that they would not be able to continue to protect the source ’ s identity amid the political maelstrom unleashed by the U.S. administration ’ s campaign to discredit all evidence of Russian interference in the election—in other words , because they feared a leak in Washington .
As a result , U.S. policymakers are now deprived of important insights into Russia ’ s policies , including the game plan for disrupting this year ’ s election .
Trump has been persistently hostile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him better understand external threats .
The worry over politically motivated exposure of intelligence sources was not misplaced .
Earlier this year , the attorney general declassified and released redacted FBI records to one of President Donald Trump ’ s allies in the Senate .
These were promptly made public and resulted in the public identification of a source who had agreed to provide confidential help to the FBI in its investigation of Russia ’ s actions during the 2016 election .
Whether the disclosure was malicious or inadvertent , cases like this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ promises to their contacts can not be trusted .
It is safe to assume that Russian , Chinese , Iranian , and other counterintelligence services are already busy spreading this narrative that will harm the ability of U.S. intelligence to recruit new sources .
The second , even more critical , relationship where trust has collapsed is between the intelligence services and the U.S. president , whose direct control of the security agencies is firmly established in law and practice .
If the information and expert assessments these agencies provide about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not demonstrably shape the views and actions of the commander-in-chief , a serious re-examination of the entire national security enterprise is in order .
When this relationship between the producers and most important consumer of intelligence works best , a president trusts that the intelligence agencies ’ assessments are fact-based , unbiased , and policy-neutral .
His intelligence briefers , in turn , respect his scarce time , safeguard the confidentiality of Oval Office exchanges , and can count on his public support when they are unfairly attacked .
For reasons that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been persistently—and publicly—hostile to agencies whose main purpose is to help him better understand external threats that he is constitutionally obliged to address .
This hostility surfaced even before Trump was inaugurated—when he dismissed the intelligence community ’ s consensus judgment that Russia had interfered in the election that brought him to power .
That judgment has subsequently been affirmed by Trump ’ s own intelligence leaders , members of his cabinet , and a bipartisan oversight panel in the U.S. Senate .
The president inflicted his most crippling humiliation on U.S. intelligence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin , an unreconstructed former KGB officer , Trump said he believed the Russian leader ’ s word over the findings of his own intelligence community .
Last year , Trump publicly dismissed the full slate of intelligence officials—whom he himself had appointed—as “ passive and naive ” and suggested they “ go back to school ” because Trump disagreed with professional assessments they had provided during an obligatory congressional hearing .
Trump suspects both the facts and assessments he receives , and treats the experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own ignorance is publicly exposed .
Trump is , by all reliable accounts , a reluctant , inattentive , and incurious consumer of intelligence .
He suspects both the facts and assessments he receives , and treats the experts who brief him as convenient scapegoats when his own ignorance is publicly exposed .
A government enterprise consisting of 17 agencies funded to the tune of $ 80 billion a year can not be expected to function effectively in a climate of distrust deliberately created by its leader and primary customer .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dissipating is with U.S. allies and partners around the world .
U.S. intelligence is a uniquely capable information service with significant resources and global reach .
Notwithstanding its impressive capabilities , the intelligence community can not master all the security challenges generated by a fluid and unstable world order .
To address this gap between resources and responsibilities , U.S. intelligence it has over decades built an extensive network of relationships with foreign security services .
Indeed , it would be difficult to identify a major U.S. intelligence success that did not include @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so-called liaison partners .
This interdependence is sometimes mischaracterized as a weakness—but in practice , close working relationships with foreign partners are a decisive advantage enjoyed by U.S. intelligence in both peacetime and war .
Intelligence partnerships—which provide vital intelligence information and operational support—hinge on trust .
Most often , the U.S. side provides money , technology , or information in exchange for a foreign service ’ s specialized expertise , physical access , or manpower .
Both services in a liaison relationship commit to confidentiality and to safeguarding each other ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ operation .
These foreign security partners were still grappling with Trump ’ s surprise election victory when they were served notice that the confidences underpinning their dealings with U.S. intelligence were in jeopardy .
According to media reports , during a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office with Russia ’ s foreign minister and ambassador to Washington , Trump disclosed information he had received in a classified intelligence briefing that was derived from a sensitive intelligence collection operation being conducted by a valued foreign partner .
Whether this lapse was attributable to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work , the damage was done .
Foreign intelligence counterparts are unsentimental in calibrating their cooperation with U.S. intelligence .
We will never know what information and operational opportunities have been withheld and remain unavailable to U.S. policymakers because of foreign partners ’ diminished confidence in the Trump administration ’ s ability to responsibly handle hard-won intelligence information .
Finally , the fourth relationship where trust has deteriorated is with the U.S. Congress , whose oversight is crucial to the democratic legitimacy of the intelligence services .
Building and sustaining popular support represents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intelligence bureaucracies that operate largely in secret .
Since their establishment in the 1970s , the select oversight committees in the House of Representatives and Senate have served as an important link to the American public .
The fabric of trust that allows U.S. intelligence to successfully complete its essential mission has been badly frayed—and even destroyed .
The equation for effective legislative oversight of intelligence is simple but has proven difficult to achieve with consistency .
Traditionally , the agencies share sensitive information—including advance notice of high-risk operations—with congressional committees and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agree to handle that information with discretion , conduct oversight in a non-partisan manner , and defend the agencies when their activities are misunderstood .
With the exception of the Senate Intelligence Committee ’ s commendably bipartisan investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election , the hyper-partisanship that energizes both Trump ’ s supporters and his detractors in Congress has crippled legislative oversight of intelligence .
When Republicans controlled the House in the first half of Trump ’ s term , they surrendered the Intelligence Committee to the White House for use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s enemies—real and imagined .
The Democrats , after their 2018 mid-term victory , shortsightedly entangled the committee in Trump ’ s impeachment .
Both the House and Senate intelligence committees will have another opportunity to prove their worth during upcoming investigations into allegations by a whistleblower in the Department of Homeland Security that the White House crudely suppressed intelligence for political reasons .
Dysfunctional oversight by Congress distracts and weakens U.S. intelligence .
But more importantly , it removes an essential link between poorly understood agencies normally working in the shadows and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , a solid foundation on which the intelligence agencies can build greater legitimacy .
Recent polling suggests that—notwithstanding Trump ’ s disparagement and the low profile adopted by battered intelligence leaders as a result—a strong majority of Americans still believe that intelligence agencies are both necessary and effective in carrying out their national security missions .
Durable democratic legitimacy for the United States ’ secret services will remain an elusive goal until a president provides informed leadership of this powerful government bureaucracy and Congress credibly monitors its performance .
Agency leaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the public to explain their contributions , their fidelity to U.S. laws and values , and the existing safeguards that protect Americans ’ privacy and civil liberties .
The fabric of trust that allows U.S. intelligence to successfully complete its essential mission has been badly frayed—even destroyed—within key relationships .
Americans are already less safe because of growing distrust in their intelligence , and these hazards will multiply without a change in political leadership .
When Americans vote for a president in November , those who value the integrity and effectiveness of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense should pick the candidate they judge best able to restore and sustain trust .

In the popular imagination, espionage is all about lies, deceit, and deception. But the ability of the United States’ security agencies to warn against threats and inform sound foreign policies depends on a more elusive condition: trust. Slow to grow, easy to break, and painstaking to rebuild, trust is flagging in four essential intelligence relationships. The country will be less safe until it is restored. When Americans vote in November, this trust—and their nation’s safety—will be on the line.
In the popular imagination, espionage is all about lies, deceit, and deception. But the ability of the United States’ security agencies to warn against threats and inform sound foreign policies depends on a more elusive condition: trust. Slow to grow, easy to break, and painstaking to rebuild, trust is flagging in four essential intelligence relationships. The country will be less safe until it is restored. When Americans vote in November, this trust—and their nation’s safety—will be on the line.
The first relationship where trust is eroding is with the human sources on whom intelligence-gathering depends. Every day around the world, courageous foreign sources risk everything to provide information that protects the United States, relying on a promise that the U.S. government will safeguard their identities, alert them to hazards, and, in extreme cases, extricate them from danger. The reasons why sources cooperate with U.S. intelligence are invariably complex, but if the U.S. government falls into the habit of compromising clandestine sources and creates the perception of being indifferent to their fate, it will inevitably diminish its future ability to collect intelligence from human sources.
Last year, for example, media reported on the 2017 exfiltration and resettlement of a source from Russia who had knowledge of the Kremlin’s role directing interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. If these accounts are true, U.S. intelligence leaders deserve credit for honoring their pledge and removing the source from harm’s way. But, according to what government sources told journalists, this high-value operation did not end because the Russians uncovered the source. Rather, it was curtailed because U.S. intelligence officials concluded that they would not be able to continue to protect the source’s identity amid the political maelstrom unleashed by the U.S. administration’s campaign to discredit all evidence of Russian interference in the election—in other words, because they feared a leak in Washington. As a result, U.S. policymakers are now deprived of important insights into Russia’s policies, including the game plan for disrupting this year’s election.
Trump has been persistently hostile to agencies whose purpose is to help him better understand external threats.
The worry over politically motivated exposure of intelligence sources was not misplaced. Earlier this year, the attorney general declassified and released redacted FBI records to one of President Donald Trump’s allies in the Senate. These were promptly made public and resulted in the public identification of a source who had agreed to provide confidential help to the FBI in its investigation of Russia’s actions during the 2016 election. Whether the disclosure was malicious or inadvertent, cases like this reinforce a perception that U.S. intelligence officers’ promises to their contacts cannot be trusted. It is safe to assume that Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and other counterintelligence services are already busy spreading this narrative that will harm the ability of U.S. intelligence to recruit new sources.
The second, even more critical, relationship where trust has collapsed is between the intelligence services and the U.S. president, whose direct control of the security agencies is firmly established in law and practice. If the information and expert assessments these agencies provide about the world beyond the United States’ borders do not demonstrably shape the views and actions of the commander-in-chief, a serious re-examination of the entire national security enterprise is in order.
When this relationship between the producers and most important consumer of intelligence works best, a president trusts that the intelligence agencies’ assessments are fact-based, unbiased, and policy-neutral. His intelligence briefers, in turn, respect his scarce time, safeguard the confidentiality of Oval Office exchanges, and can count on his public support when they are unfairly attacked. For reasons that only he can explain, Trump has been persistently—and publicly—hostile to agencies whose main purpose is to help him better understand external threats that he is constitutionally obliged to address.
This hostility surfaced even before Trump was inaugurated—when he dismissed the intelligence community’s consensus judgment that Russia had interfered in the election that brought him to power. That judgment has subsequently been affirmed by Trump’s own intelligence leaders, members of his cabinet, and a bipartisan oversight panel in the U.S. Senate.
The president inflicted his most crippling humiliation on U.S. intelligence from a stage in Helsinki in 2017. Standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, an unreconstructed former KGB officer, Trump said he believed the Russian leader’s word over the findings of his own intelligence community. Last year, Trump publicly dismissed the full slate of intelligence officials—whom he himself had appointed—as “passive and naive” and suggested they “go back to school” because Trump disagreed with professional assessments they had provided during an obligatory congressional hearing.
Trump suspects both the facts and assessments he receives, and treats the experts who brief him as convenient scapegoats when his own ignorance is publicly exposed.
Trump is, by all reliable accounts, a reluctant, inattentive, and incurious consumer of intelligence. He suspects both the facts and assessments he receives, and treats the experts who brief him as convenient scapegoats when his own ignorance is publicly exposed. A government enterprise consisting of 17 agencies funded to the tune of $80 billion a year cannot be expected to function effectively in a climate of distrust deliberately created by its leader and primary customer.
The third intelligence relationship where trust is fast dissipating is with U.S. allies and partners around the world. U.S. intelligence is a uniquely capable information service with significant resources and global reach. Notwithstanding its impressive capabilities, the intelligence community cannot master all the security challenges generated by a fluid and unstable world order. To address this gap between resources and responsibilities, U.S. intelligence it has over decades built an extensive network of relationships with foreign security services. Indeed, it would be difficult to identify a major U.S. intelligence success that did not include contributions by one or more of these so-called liaison partners. This interdependence is sometimes mischaracterized as a weakness—but in practice, close working relationships with foreign partners are a decisive advantage enjoyed by U.S. intelligence in both peacetime and war.
Intelligence partnerships—which provide vital intelligence information and operational support—hinge on trust. Most often, the U.S. side provides money, technology, or information in exchange for a foreign service’s specialized expertise, physical access, or manpower. Both services in a liaison relationship commit to confidentiality and to safeguarding each other’s officers, sources, and methods of operation.
These foreign security partners were still grappling with Trump’s surprise election victory when they were served notice that the confidences underpinning their dealings with U.S. intelligence were in jeopardy. According to media reports, during a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office with Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to Washington, Trump disclosed information he had received in a classified intelligence briefing that was derived from a sensitive intelligence collection operation being conducted by a valued foreign partner. Whether this lapse was attributable to malice, naivete, or poor staff work, the damage was done.
Foreign intelligence counterparts are unsentimental in calibrating their cooperation with U.S. intelligence. We will never know what information and operational opportunities have been withheld and remain unavailable to U.S. policymakers because of foreign partners’ diminished confidence in the Trump administration’s ability to responsibly handle hard-won intelligence information.
Finally, the fourth relationship where trust has deteriorated is with the U.S. Congress, whose oversight is crucial to the democratic legitimacy of the intelligence services. Building and sustaining popular support represents a particular challenge for large, powerful intelligence bureaucracies that operate largely in secret. Since their establishment in the 1970s, the select oversight committees in the House of Representatives and Senate have served as an important link to the American public.
The fabric of trust that allows U.S. intelligence to successfully complete its essential mission has been badly frayed—and even destroyed.
The equation for effective legislative oversight of intelligence is simple but has proven difficult to achieve with consistency. Traditionally, the agencies share sensitive information—including advance notice of high-risk operations—with congressional committees and their vetted staffs. In return, legislators agree to handle that information with discretion, conduct oversight in a non-partisan manner, and defend the agencies when their activities are misunderstood. With the exception of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s commendably bipartisan investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the hyper-partisanship that energizes both Trump’s supporters and his detractors in Congress has crippled legislative oversight of intelligence. When Republicans controlled the House in the first half of Trump’s term, they surrendered the Intelligence Committee to the White House for use as a platform to discredit Trump’s enemies—real and imagined. The Democrats, after their 2018 mid-term victory, shortsightedly entangled the committee in Trump’s impeachment.
Both the House and Senate intelligence committees will have another opportunity to prove their worth during upcoming investigations into allegations by a whistleblower in the Department of Homeland Security that the White House crudely suppressed intelligence for political reasons.
Dysfunctional oversight by Congress distracts and weakens U.S. intelligence. But more importantly, it removes an essential link between poorly understood agencies normally working in the shadows and the people they defend. There is, however, a solid foundation on which the intelligence agencies can build greater legitimacy. Recent polling suggests that—notwithstanding Trump’s disparagement and the low profile adopted by battered intelligence leaders as a result—a strong majority of Americans still believe that intelligence agencies are both necessary and effective in carrying out their national security missions.
Durable democratic legitimacy for the United States’ secret services will remain an elusive goal until a president provides informed leadership of this powerful government bureaucracy and Congress credibly monitors its performance. Agency leaders themselves must step out and reengage directly with the public to explain their contributions, their fidelity to U.S. laws and values, and the existing safeguards that protect Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.
The fabric of trust that allows U.S. intelligence to successfully complete its essential mission has been badly frayed—even destroyed—within key relationships. Americans are already less safe because of growing distrust in their intelligence, and these hazards will multiply without a change in political leadership. When Americans vote for a president in November, those who value the integrity and effectiveness of the country’s first line of defense should pick the candidate they judge best able to restore and sustain trust.


foreignpolicy--2020-10-09--Without Russian Aid to Armenia, Azerbaijan Has the Upper Hand in Nagorno-Karabakh

Without Russian Aid to Armenia , Azerbaijan Has the Upper Hand in Nagorno-Karabakh The renewal of fighting in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenian forces could have been foretold .
A four-day outbreak of hostilities in mid-July occurred in northwest Azerbaijan , 60 miles away from Nagorno-Karabakh , but that is not even the proximate cause of today ’ s fighting .
The current conflict broke out in the late 1980s , when Armenians in Azerbaijan ’ s Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast ( NKAO ) began organizing to take the territory out of Azerbaijan .
When the NKAO Regional Council voted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republic in February 1988 , central Soviet authorities abolished the local government and instituted direct rule from Moscow .
In 1992 , a year after the two countries became independent , Armenian forces seized control of the “ Lachin corridor , ” a winding mountain road since improved with funds from the Armenian diaspora , connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia .
Turning northward , they then seized and held the Kelbajar district of Azerbaijan .
They continued , until early last month , to hold not only the former NKAO but seven additional Azerbaijani @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bloc having a long common border with Armenia .
For a quarter century , Azerbaijan has had to support a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons representing 10 percent of its total population .
That was the situation when the war ended in 1994 .
Despite periodic skirmishes , the worst of which were in 2016 , the status quo remained—until last month .
The whole area under occupation represents 20 percent of Azerbaijan ’ s internationally recognized territory .
No fewer than four U.N. Security Council Resolutions ( 822 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) adopted in 1993 called for Armenian troops to leave all these occupied territories without delay .
Approximately 800,000 Azerbaijanis were ethnically cleansed from those areas .
Another 200,000 were driven out of Armenia proper , finding shelter as refugees in Azerbaijan .
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE ) set up its “ Minsk Group ” —co-chaired by the United States , France , and Russia—to promote negotiations for settlement of the conflict .
For a quarter century , Azerbaijan has had to support a large number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of its total population .
These negotiations languished .
Azerbaijan warned over the years that the use of force would be a last resort if the peace process were exhausted .
This resort to force finally occurred after Armenia overtly and unilaterally rejected the Madrid Principles .
That rejection of the agreed basis for talks brought negotiations to an impasse .
Baku still attempted to revive the defunct peace talks .
By doing so , it probably sent Yerevan the wrong signal .
Instead , Armenia completely discarded the Madrid Principles .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Nikol Pashinyan , who came to power in what resembled a “ color revolution ” in May 2018 , was initially conciliatory toward Azerbaijan .
Early on , he gave the impression that he was an open interlocutor ready to discuss thorny issues .
Unfortunately , he was unable to make good on the many promises he made to the Armenian public—promises that , if realized , would have improved Armenia ’ s isolated socioeconomic situation and heavy dependence on Russia .
After failing to deliver on these preelection promises , Pashinyan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seemingly required to survive in Armenian domestic politics .
Trapped there , he seems then to have fallen hostage to his own nationalist rhetoric , which has in turn strengthened domestic Armenian populism and militarism .
This irredentist nationalism finally touched not just the Nagorno-Karabakh issue—which Pashinyan , like his predecessors , politically manipulated—but extended to other neighbors beyond Azerbaijan .
In particular , Pashinyan ended up making territorial claims against Turkey .
He did this by unleashing a debate over the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres , which never entered into force and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lausanne .
The Treaty of Sèvres had been the Allies ’ attempt , after World War I , to liquidate the Ottoman Empire and distribute its territories .
In that division , Armenia would have received part of what is now the northeastern region of modern Turkey .
During the centenary celebrations of this Treaty of Sèvres , in August 2020 , Pashinyan characterized the never ratified treaty as a “ historical fact ” and called for the restoration of historical justice .
This meant that the Armenian state , in his person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claiming title to lands that have been part of Turkey for 100 years .
The previous year , in March 2019 , his defense minister , Davit Tonoyan , had declared in front of the Armenian community in New York : “ As the minister of defense , I announce that this [ old ] format , territories [ in exchange ] for peace , I have rephrased it .
We are doing the opposite—a new war for new territories.
” This threatening slogan could have referred to more territories around those already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nakhchivan , or to yet other lands .
What it meant was that Azerbaijan should have anticipated military provocations from Armenia to carve out new territories .
These came with the July-August hostilities in the country ’ s northwest Tovuz region , 100 miles from Nagorno-Karabakh , which had been peaceful for over 26 years .
The domestic political pressure against Pashinyan increased when he put former President Robert Kocharyan and former Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan on trial , respectively for “ overthrowing the constitutional order of Armenia ” and for embezzlement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ handpicked successor , had jailed Pashinyan in 2009 in connection with the latter ’ s protests against allegedly fraudulent elections .
Both Sargsyan and Kocharyan are originally from Karabakh itself and members of the same political clan that dominated Armenian politics from the mid-1990s until just a couple years ago .
In words akin to a verbal annexation , Pashinyan declared that the territories were part of Armenia itself .
Five months after Tonoyan ’ s statement in New York , Pashinyan in August 2019 undermined the myth that Armenians in the occupied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” and is unrecognized internationally—governed themselves .
Specifically , in a controversial speech on Aug. 5 during the pan-Armenian games held in Khankendi ( also called Stepanakert ) , Pashinyan declared that “ Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia , and that is all.
” In words akin to a verbal annexation , he declared that the territories were part of Armenia itself .
No Armenian politician had said that since the war in the early 1990s , first because it was political dynamite—since the territory was internationally recognized to be part of Azerbaijan—and second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaf of independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Armenia proper .
Indeed , in the Chiragov et al .
v. Armenia court case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg , the court ruled in 2015 that in fact it was Armenia , and not the local administration in Nagorno-Karabakh , that exercises effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories .
Pashinyan ’ s declaration represented a definitive rejection of the OSCE ’ s Madrid Principles , according to which the territories ’ final status would be the product of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government failing to give the Madrid Principles at least lip service .
In July , after several months of belligerent rhetoric , he explicitly and overtly confirmed his rejection of the Madrid Principles by proposing seven new conditions for negotiations with Azerbaijan .
The Madrid Principles had called for the eventual participation in those negotiations by both the Armenian and the ( ethnically cleansed ) Azerbaijani populations of Nagorno-Karabakh .
Pashinyan now demanded that Armenian representatives from the region should participate on an equal basis with Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves—and without their expelled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or less kept a show of political balance as a Minsk Group co-chair , having refrained from extending open political and military support to Armenia , despite having a military base at Gyumri in Armenia hosting 3,000 soldiers as well as an air base near the capital , Yerevan .
Russia has generally supported Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan , despite developing increasingly friendly relations with Baku as well over the last dozen years .
Today , the Russian military continues to resupply Armenia .
It flew generous resupplies to Armenia even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took a Russia-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Armenia flight path because Georgia refused overflight rights .
Azerbaijan did not understand Russia ’ s military assistance to Armenia in the middle of the conflict , since Baku had been significantly improving its relations with Russia after the United States lost interest in the region more than a decade ago .
The Kremlin has been caught out in the South Caucasus .
It was preoccupied with Belarus , the Nord Stream 2 pipeline , the uproar over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny , and increasing domestic protest .
Azerbaijan succeeded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategic heights overlooking the two highways that connect Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh .
( Indeed , a further incitement to Azerbaijan was probably an official Armenian government announcement in late July that a third would be constructed this year . )
The Armenian military probably knows that it is in danger of facing a long-term siege there .
It has been trying to distract and provoke Azerbaijan with increasing attacks on civilian Azerbaijani towns and cities outside the conflict region .
Russia is keen to preserve its influence in what it calls its “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the countries concerned for 70 years under the Soviet Union , not to mention a further-reaching imperial Tsarist history .
It sells arms to both sides .
Thanks to Western embargoes , it is now Azerbaijan ’ s largest arms supplier , although Baku pays Moscow full world prices in hard currency , whereas Yerevan pays domestic Russian prices with ruble-denominated loans from Moscow .
Turkey , on the other hand , has always expressed political and military support for Azerbaijan ’ s struggle to recover its occupied territories .
It has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indeed , Turkish drones purchased by Azerbaijan were an important factor turning events in Azerbaijan ’ s favor .
Azerbaijan also now has missile batteries and long guns , mainly from Russia , that it did not have before .
With those and new drones from Turkey , it has been picking off Armenian tanks and other armor rather regularly and with relative impunity , although it has suffered some losses .
Given the close ties between Turkey and Azerbaijan , Pashinyan himself has played the Turkophobia card and even the religious card @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the conflict between Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan is a clash of civilizations .
This all seems to betray a certain desperation .
Russia declines to support him as strongly as he had wished , and the worldwide Armenian diaspora has been unable to help him when push came to shove .
Azerbaijan ’ s battleground victories are mounting .
Yerevan ’ s rejection to engage in meaningful negotiations and withdraw from Azerbaijani lands enhances Baku ’ s determination to make more advances .
Twenty-six years of waiting for negotiations have only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still hosts 1 million refugees and internally displaced persons ; Armenia has increased its settlements in the occupied territories ; and goods manufactured there are labeled as “ made in Armenia ” and exported without a problem to the European Union .
The rhetoric out of Yerevan has only gotten worse over time .
The Kremlin has been caught out in the South Caucasus .
It was preoccupied with Belarus , the Nord Stream 2 pipeline , the unexpected uproar over the poisoning of the opposition activist Alexei Navalny , and increasing domestic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Moscow will wait until Azerbaijan achieves certain territorial gains to weaken Pashinyan in Armenia and then use its own influence in Yerevan to oust him and install another Armenian leader more pliable to Russia ’ s wishes .
In doing so , Russia would accomplish several objectives .
It would keep the conflicting parties on a short leash by perpetuating a lingering conflict , thus maintaining the Kremlin ’ s clout in the region while earning some points with Azerbaijan , with which it enjoys generally good relations .
Moreover , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pashinyan for overstepping Armenia ’ s historic role as a client state of Russia .

The renewal of fighting in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenian forces could have been foretold. A four-day outbreak of hostilities in mid-July occurred in northwest Azerbaijan, 60 miles away from Nagorno-Karabakh, but that is not even the proximate cause of today’s fighting.
The renewal of fighting in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenian forces could have been foretold. A four-day outbreak of hostilities in mid-July occurred in northwest Azerbaijan, 60 miles away from Nagorno-Karabakh, but that is not even the proximate cause of today’s fighting.
The current conflict broke out in the late 1980s, when Armenians in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) began organizing to take the territory out of Azerbaijan. When the NKAO Regional Council voted to unite with the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic in February 1988, central Soviet authorities abolished the local government and instituted direct rule from Moscow.
In 1992, a year after the two countries became independent, Armenian forces seized control of the “Lachin corridor,” a winding mountain road since improved with funds from the Armenian diaspora, connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Turning northward, they then seized and held the Kelbajar district of Azerbaijan. They continued, until early last month, to hold not only the former NKAO but seven additional Azerbaijani districts outside the former NKAO, forming a bloc having a long common border with Armenia.
For a quarter century, Azerbaijan has had to support a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons representing 10 percent of its total population.
That was the situation when the war ended in 1994. Despite periodic skirmishes, the worst of which were in 2016, the status quo remained—until last month. The whole area under occupation represents 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory. No fewer than four U.N. Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) adopted in 1993 called for Armenian troops to leave all these occupied territories without delay.
Approximately 800,000 Azerbaijanis were ethnically cleansed from those areas. Another 200,000 were driven out of Armenia proper, finding shelter as refugees in Azerbaijan. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) set up its “Minsk Group”—co-chaired by the United States, France, and Russia—to promote negotiations for settlement of the conflict. For a quarter century, Azerbaijan has had to support a large number of refugees and internally displaced persons representing 10 percent of its total population.
Azerbaijan was patient for over a generation. With Armenia, it subscribed to the Madrid Principles for a settlement, proposed by the Minsk Group more than a decade ago. These called for returning the seven districts around Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; giving Nagorno-Karabakh an interim status that would provide “guarantees for security and self-governance”; linking it with Armenia by a corridor; determining its final legal status “through a legally binding expression of will”; returning all refugees and displaced people to their former places of residence; and putting in place a peacekeeping operation.
These negotiations languished. Azerbaijan warned over the years that the use of force would be a last resort if the peace process were exhausted. This resort to force finally occurred after Armenia overtly and unilaterally rejected the Madrid Principles. That rejection of the agreed basis for talks brought negotiations to an impasse. Baku still attempted to revive the defunct peace talks. By doing so, it probably sent Yerevan the wrong signal.
Instead, Armenia completely discarded the Madrid Principles. The country’s current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power in what resembled a “color revolution” in May 2018, was initially conciliatory toward Azerbaijan. Early on, he gave the impression that he was an open interlocutor ready to discuss thorny issues. Unfortunately, he was unable to make good on the many promises he made to the Armenian public—promises that, if realized, would have improved Armenia’s isolated socioeconomic situation and heavy dependence on Russia. After failing to deliver on these preelection promises, Pashinyan became a victim of the irredentist nationalism seemingly required to survive in Armenian domestic politics.
Trapped there, he seems then to have fallen hostage to his own nationalist rhetoric, which has in turn strengthened domestic Armenian populism and militarism. This irredentist nationalism finally touched not just the Nagorno-Karabakh issue—which Pashinyan, like his predecessors, politically manipulated—but extended to other neighbors beyond Azerbaijan.
In particular, Pashinyan ended up making territorial claims against Turkey. He did this by unleashing a debate over the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which never entered into force and was replaced by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Sèvres had been the Allies’ attempt, after World War I, to liquidate the Ottoman Empire and distribute its territories. In that division, Armenia would have received part of what is now the northeastern region of modern Turkey.
During the centenary celebrations of this Treaty of Sèvres, in August 2020, Pashinyan characterized the never ratified treaty as a “historical fact” and called for the restoration of historical justice. This meant that the Armenian state, in his person as head of government, was overtly claiming title to lands that have been part of Turkey for 100 years.
The previous year, in March 2019, his defense minister, Davit Tonoyan, had declared in front of the Armenian community in New York: “As the minister of defense, I announce that this [old] format, territories [in exchange] for peace, I have rephrased it. We are doing the opposite—a new war for new territories.” This threatening slogan could have referred to more territories around those already occupied, to Azerbaijan’s exclave Nakhchivan, or to yet other lands. What it meant was that Azerbaijan should have anticipated military provocations from Armenia to carve out new territories. These came with the July-August hostilities in the country’s northwest Tovuz region, 100 miles from Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been peaceful for over 26 years.
The domestic political pressure against Pashinyan increased when he put former President Robert Kocharyan and former Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan on trial, respectively for “overthrowing the constitutional order of Armenia” and for embezzlement. Sargsyan, who was Kocharyan’s handpicked successor, had jailed Pashinyan in 2009 in connection with the latter’s protests against allegedly fraudulent elections. Both Sargsyan and Kocharyan are originally from Karabakh itself and members of the same political clan that dominated Armenian politics from the mid-1990s until just a couple years ago.
In words akin to a verbal annexation, Pashinyan declared that the territories were part of Armenia itself.
Five months after Tonoyan’s statement in New York, Pashinyan in August 2019 undermined the myth that Armenians in the occupied territories—which they called the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,” and is unrecognized internationally—governed themselves. Specifically, in a controversial speech on Aug. 5 during the pan-Armenian games held in Khankendi (also called Stepanakert), Pashinyan declared that “Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia, and that is all.” In words akin to a verbal annexation, he declared that the territories were part of Armenia itself.
No Armenian politician had said that since the war in the early 1990s, first because it was political dynamite—since the territory was internationally recognized to be part of Azerbaijan—and second because Armenia sought to maintain the fig leaf of independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Armenia proper. Indeed, in the Chiragov et al. v. Armenia court case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the court ruled in 2015 that in fact it was Armenia, and not the local administration in Nagorno-Karabakh, that exercises effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories.
Pashinyan’s declaration represented a definitive rejection of the OSCE’s Madrid Principles, according to which the territories’ final status would be the product of negotiations. His was the first Armenian government failing to give the Madrid Principles at least lip service.
In July, after several months of belligerent rhetoric, he explicitly and overtly confirmed his rejection of the Madrid Principles by proposing seven new conditions for negotiations with Azerbaijan. The Madrid Principles had called for the eventual participation in those negotiations by both the Armenian and the (ethnically cleansed) Azerbaijani populations of Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan now demanded that Armenian representatives from the region should participate on an equal basis with Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves—and without their expelled ethnic Azerbaijani counterparts.
As the conflict escalates, Pashinyan now has a Vladimir Putin problem; the man who could act as Armenia’s patron and ally is not doing so. Kocharyan and Sargsyan both had good personal relations with Russia’s president. When Pashinyan was in the political opposition, however, he criticized Armenia’s dependence on Russia and the advantage that Russia took of Armenia’s weakness and isolation. As a result, Putin is not particularly sympathetic to Pashinyan. The Russian media have not always treated him kindly.
Russia still more or less kept a show of political balance as a Minsk Group co-chair, having refrained from extending open political and military support to Armenia, despite having a military base at Gyumri in Armenia hosting 3,000 soldiers as well as an air base near the capital, Yerevan. Russia has generally supported Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan, despite developing increasingly friendly relations with Baku as well over the last dozen years.
Today, the Russian military continues to resupply Armenia. It flew generous resupplies to Armenia even during the July hostilities. The airplanes took a Russia-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Armenia flight path because Georgia refused overflight rights. Azerbaijan did not understand Russia’s military assistance to Armenia in the middle of the conflict, since Baku had been significantly improving its relations with Russia after the United States lost interest in the region more than a decade ago.
The Kremlin has been caught out in the South Caucasus. It was preoccupied with Belarus, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the uproar over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, and increasing domestic protest.
Azerbaijan succeeded in late September in taking control of strategic heights overlooking the two highways that connect Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. (Indeed, a further incitement to Azerbaijan was probably an official Armenian government announcement in late July that a third would be constructed this year.) The Armenian military probably knows that it is in danger of facing a long-term siege there. It has been trying to distract and provoke Azerbaijan with increasing attacks on civilian Azerbaijani towns and cities outside the conflict region.
Russia is keen to preserve its influence in what it calls its “near abroad,” where it cohabited with the countries concerned for 70 years under the Soviet Union, not to mention a further-reaching imperial Tsarist history. It sells arms to both sides. Thanks to Western embargoes, it is now Azerbaijan’s largest arms supplier, although Baku pays Moscow full world prices in hard currency, whereas Yerevan pays domestic Russian prices with ruble-denominated loans from Moscow.
Turkey, on the other hand, has always expressed political and military support for Azerbaijan’s struggle to recover its occupied territories. It has not acted any different this time; indeed, Turkish drones purchased by Azerbaijan were an important factor turning events in Azerbaijan’s favor. Azerbaijan also now has missile batteries and long guns, mainly from Russia, that it did not have before. With those and new drones from Turkey, it has been picking off Armenian tanks and other armor rather regularly and with relative impunity, although it has suffered some losses.
Given the close ties between Turkey and Azerbaijan, Pashinyan himself has played the Turkophobia card and even the religious card, going so far as to suggest that the conflict between Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan is a clash of civilizations. This all seems to betray a certain desperation. Russia declines to support him as strongly as he had wished, and the worldwide Armenian diaspora has been unable to help him when push came to shove.
Azerbaijan’s battleground victories are mounting. Yerevan’s refusal to engage in meaningful negotiations and withdraw from Azerbaijani lands enhances Baku’s determination to make more advances. Twenty-six years of waiting for negotiations have only produced an increasingly worse situation. Azerbaijan still hosts 1 million refugees and internally displaced persons; Armenia has increased its settlements in the occupied territories; and goods manufactured there are labeled as “made in Armenia” and exported without a problem to the European Union. The rhetoric out of Yerevan has only gotten worse over time.
The Kremlin has been caught out in the South Caucasus. It was preoccupied with Belarus, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the unexpected uproar over the poisoning of the opposition activist Alexei Navalny, and increasing domestic protest and dissatisfaction. It is possible that Moscow will wait until Azerbaijan achieves certain territorial gains to weaken Pashinyan in Armenia and then use its own influence in Yerevan to oust him and install another Armenian leader more pliable to Russia’s wishes.
In doing so, Russia would accomplish several objectives. It would keep the conflicting parties on a short leash by perpetuating a lingering conflict, thus maintaining the Kremlin’s clout in the region while earning some points with Azerbaijan, with which it enjoys generally good relations. Moreover, it would punish the so-called revolutionary and unpredictable Pashinyan for overstepping Armenia’s historic role as a client state of Russia.


foreignpolicy--2020-10-09--How a Beach in Northern Cyprus Could Derail Peace Talks

How a Beach in Northern Cyprus Could Derail Peace Talks Welcome to While You Weren ’ t Looking , Foreign Policy ’ s weekly newsletter focused on non-coronavirus news .
Here ’ s what we ’ re watching this week : Northern Cyprus stokes tensions just ahead of potential U.N.-backed peace talks , a new report warns of a worsening situation for Colombian civil society activists , and China may have its sights on a Cambodian naval base .
If you would like to receive While You Weren ’ t Looking in your inbox , please sign up here .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ beach that until Thursday had been closed to the public since 1974 , when the island was partitioned after Turkey ’ s invasion .
The move to reopen part of the beachfront in Varosha , which was supported by Turkey , the unrecognized territory ’ s patron , will likely fuel tensions in the eastern Mediterranean .
It also threatens to derail efforts to restart peace talks between the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the breakaway northern territory .
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and European Union foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ For sure , this is not going to help .
On the contrary , it ’ s going to make it more difficult to reach an agreement on an especially difficult situation for all of us on the Eastern Mediterranean , ” Borrell said .
The U.N. Security Council is set to discuss the issue during a closed session on Friday at the request of Cyprus .
Peace talks hosted by the United Nations are expected shortly after presidential elections in Northern Cyprus on Sunday .
Tensions have flared in the region @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gas deposits in the Mediterranean Sea .
Last week , the EU threatened to impose sanctions on Turkey—a NATO ally—if it didn ’ t halt drilling and energy exploration efforts in waters claimed by Cyprus and Greece .
After years of ethnic tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots , Turkey invaded the island in 1974 following a coup by Greek army officers who sought to unite Cyprus with Greece .
Turkish troops eventually seized 36 percent of the island .
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus unilaterally declared its independence in 1983 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
More than 35,000 Turkish troops are based there .
Once considered the “ French Riviera of Cyprus , ” Varosha attracted the likes of Richard Burton , Elizabeth Taylor , and Brigitte Bardot .
But the resort ’ s Greek Cypriot residents fled when Turkish troops approached 46 years ago , with once-thriving hotels and restaurants left to fall into disrepair .
A 1984 U.N. Security Council resolution prohibited resettlement in the area .
On Thursday , Turkey said that only the beach would reopen and the rest of the town would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for now .
Growing danger for Colombian activists .
Human rights and environmental activists in Colombia have warned that they are being “ massacred , ” with at least 223 civil society leaders killed so far this year because of their work , according to the watchdog Indepaz .
Colombia has been described as the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders , and a new report released by Amnesty International on Thursday accused the government of a “ lack of political will ” to ensure their safety .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil society leaders more exposed to danger .
In some cases , the authorities have reduced protection arrangements while stepping up activities that put their communities at greater risk , such as natural resource extraction and forced eradication of the illicit crops that many have come to depend on .
Indictment exposes more shady lobbying .
Elliott Broidy , a former fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump , has been indicted on charges that he sought to lobby the Trump administration to drop a federal investigation into the theft of over $ 4.5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known as 1MDB .
Broidy allegedly asked Trump to play golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak during the leader ’ s visit to the United States in 2017 , seeking an opportunity for Razak to make his case to Trump .
The pair never did play golf , and Razak was handed a 12-year prison sentence by a court in Malaysia for his role in the scandal—one of the largest known financial frauds in history .
Broidy is also accused of seeking to get the Chinese dissident businessman Guo Wengui deported from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indictment released on Thursday , Broidy was recruited to lobby U.S. officials in 2017 , while serving as the national deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee .
The indictment is just the latest example of foreign nationals seeking to use people within the Trump orbit to surreptitiously advance their interests .
Nagorno-Karabakh talks .
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are set to meet in Moscow on Friday for talks in the first diplomatic breakthrough since renewed fighting broke out in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh last month .
The Kremlin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the warring countries were invited to the Russian capital for talks on prisoner exchanges and recovering the bodies of those killed in the fighting .
“ We are moving toward a truce tonight or tomorrow , but it ’ s still fragile , ” French President Emmanuel Macron ’ s office said in a statement to Agence France-Presse .
France is working alongside Russia and the United States to mediate an end to the conflict .
Some 400 people have been killed over the past two weeks in the worst flare-up in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China ’ s naval ambitions in Cambodia .
The State Department voiced concern this week over Cambodia ’ s decision to tear down a U.S.-funded facility used for a maritime security program at one of its naval bases last month .
As the United States and China vie for influence in Southeast Asia , Cambodia ’ s decision prompted speculation that it was tied to plans for China to use the Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand .
“ Such a military presence would negatively impact the U.S.-Cambodia bilateral relationship and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region , ” said a Wednesday statement from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh .
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen , who , with Beijing ’ s backing , has cracked down on opposition in recent years , said in June that China , one of the country ’ s closest allies , had not been given exclusive rights to use the base .
More sanctions for Moscow .
The foreign ministers of France and Germany issued a joint statement on Wednesday proposing sanctions on individuals believed to be involved in the poisoning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as an entity involved in the Novichok nerve agent program .
The proposed sanctions will be circulated among France and Germany ’ s European partners , according to the statement .
This week , the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed earlier conclusions by other European labs that samples taken from Navalny contained traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok family .
Fishy idea .
As the United Kingdom tries to beat a path out of the European Union , demanding a significant increase in fishing rights as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fisheries policy , Belgium ’ s Ambassador to the European Union Willem van de Voorde made an unlikely invocation on Wednesday : a charter signed in 1666 by King Charles II granting 50 fishermen from Bruges “ eternal rights ” to fish in England ’ s waters .
It ’ s not unprecedented for centuries-old documents to play a role in British diplomacy today ; the Anglo-Portuguese alliance of 1373 still stands and was invoked during the Falklands War .
Although unlikely to sway the negotiations , the ambassador ’ s intervention underscores @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become .
Laurence Blair reported for Foreign Policy this week on how diplomatic wrangling over fishing stocks could scupper Britain ’ s Brexit trade deal with Europe altogether .
If former Vice President Joe Biden wins the presidency next month , his first major foreign-policy battle may be at home : The left wing of the Democratic Party could see an opening to push for a more progressive approach that puts economic issues and diplomacy over military might .
In some ways , they ’ ve already succeeded , as Politico ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read .
That ’ s it for this week .
For more from FP , visit foreignpolicy.com , subscribe here , or sign up for our other newsletters .
Send your tips , comments , questions , or corrections to newsletters @ foreignpolicy.com .

Welcome to While You Weren’t Looking, Foreign Policy’s weekly newsletter focused on non-coronavirus news.
Here’s what we’re watching this week: Northern Cyprus stokes tensions just ahead of potential U.N.-backed peace talks, a new report warns of a worsening situation for Colombian civil society activists, and China may have its sights on a Cambodian naval base.
If you would like to receive While You Weren’t Looking in your inbox, please sign up here.
Northern Cyprus Beach Reopening Stokes Regional Tensions
Authorities in Northern Cyprus have reopened a beach that until Thursday had been closed to the public since 1974, when the island was partitioned after Turkey’s invasion. The move to reopen part of the beachfront in Varosha, which was supported by Turkey, the unrecognized territory’s patron, will likely fuel tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. It also threatens to derail efforts to restart peace talks between the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the breakaway northern territory.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and European Union foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell have both expressed concern about the move. “For sure, this is not going to help. On the contrary, it’s going to make it more difficult to reach an agreement on an especially difficult situation for all of us on the Eastern Mediterranean,” Borrell said. The U.N. Security Council is set to discuss the issue during a closed session on Friday at the request of Cyprus.
Peace talks hosted by the United Nations are expected shortly after presidential elections in Northern Cyprus on Sunday. Tensions have flared in the region in recent months over competing claims to gas deposits in the Mediterranean Sea. Last week, the EU threatened to impose sanctions on Turkey—a NATO ally—if it didn’t halt drilling and energy exploration efforts in waters claimed by Cyprus and Greece.
After years of ethnic tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Turkey invaded the island in 1974 following a coup by Greek army officers who sought to unite Cyprus with Greece. Turkish troops eventually seized 36 percent of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus unilaterally declared its independence in 1983, but it is only recognized by Ankara. More than 35,000 Turkish troops are based there.
Once considered the “French Riviera of Cyprus,” Varosha attracted the likes of Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Brigitte Bardot. But the resort’s Greek Cypriot residents fled when Turkish troops approached 46 years ago, with once-thriving hotels and restaurants left to fall into disrepair. A 1984 U.N. Security Council resolution prohibited resettlement in the area.
On Thursday, Turkey said that only the beach would reopen and the rest of the town would remain out of bounds to the public for now.
What We’re Following
Growing danger for Colombian activists. Human rights and environmental activists in Colombia have warned that they are being “massacred,” with at least 223 civil society leaders killed so far this year because of their work, according to the watchdog Indepaz. Colombia has been described as the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders, and a new report released by Amnesty International on Thursday accused the government of a “lack of political will” to ensure their safety.
The report found that the coronavirus pandemic leaves civil society leaders more exposed to danger. In some cases, the authorities have reduced protection arrangements while stepping up activities that put their communities at greater risk, such as natural resource extraction and forced eradication of the illicit crops that many have come to depend on.
Indictment exposes more shady lobbying. Elliott Broidy, a former fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump, has been indicted on charges that he sought to lobby the Trump administration to drop a federal investigation into the theft of over $4.5 billion from a Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB. Broidy allegedly asked Trump to play golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak during the leader’s visit to the United States in 2017, seeking an opportunity for Razak to make his case to Trump.
The pair never did play golf, and Razak was handed a 12-year prison sentence by a court in Malaysia for his role in the scandal—one of the largest known financial frauds in history. Broidy is also accused of seeking to get the Chinese dissident businessman Guo Wengui deported from the United States.
According to the indictment released on Thursday, Broidy was recruited to lobby U.S. officials in 2017, while serving as the national deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. The indictment is just the latest example of foreign nationals seeking to use people within the Trump orbit to surreptitiously advance their interests.
Nagorno-Karabakh talks. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are set to meet in Moscow on Friday for talks in the first diplomatic breakthrough since renewed fighting broke out in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh last month. The Kremlin announced late Thursday that the foreign ministers of the warring countries were invited to the Russian capital for talks on prisoner exchanges and recovering the bodies of those killed in the fighting.
“We are moving toward a truce tonight or tomorrow, but it’s still fragile,” French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement to Agence France-Presse. France is working alongside Russia and the United States to mediate an end to the conflict. Some 400 people have been killed over the past two weeks in the worst flare-up in the region since the 1994 cease-fire.
Keep an Eye On
China’s naval ambitions in Cambodia. The State Department voiced concern this week over Cambodia’s decision to tear down a U.S.-funded facility used for a maritime security program at one of its naval bases last month. As the United States and China vie for influence in Southeast Asia, Cambodia’s decision prompted speculation that it was tied to plans for China to use the Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand.
“Such a military presence would negatively impact the U.S.-Cambodia bilateral relationship and be disruptive and destabilizing to the Indo-Pacific region,” said a Wednesday statement from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who, with Beijing’s backing, has cracked down on opposition in recent years, said in June that China, one of the country’s closest allies, had not been given exclusive rights to use the base.
More sanctions for Moscow. The foreign ministers of France and Germany issued a joint statement on Wednesday proposing sanctions on individuals believed to be involved in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as well as an entity involved in the Novichok nerve agent program. The proposed sanctions will be circulated among France and Germany’s European partners, according to the statement.
This week, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed earlier conclusions by other European labs that samples taken from Navalny contained traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok family.
Odds and Ends
Fishy idea. As the United Kingdom tries to beat a path out of the European Union, demanding a significant increase in fishing rights as it leaves the bloc’s common fisheries policy, Belgium’s Ambassador to the European Union Willem van de Voorde made an unlikely invocation on Wednesday: a charter signed in 1666 by King Charles II granting 50 fishermen from Bruges “eternal rights” to fish in England’s waters.
It’s not unprecedented for centuries-old documents to play a role in British diplomacy today; the Anglo-Portuguese alliance of 1373 still stands and was invoked during the Falklands War. Although unlikely to sway the negotiations, the ambassador’s intervention underscores how fraught discussions over fishing rights have become.
Laurence Blair reported for Foreign Policy this week on how diplomatic wrangling over fishing stocks could scupper Britain’s Brexit trade deal with Europe altogether.
Foreign Policy Recommends
If former Vice President Joe Biden wins the presidency next month, his first major foreign-policy battle may be at home: The left wing of the Democratic Party could see an opening to push for a more progressive approach that puts economic issues and diplomacy over military might.
In some ways, they’ve already succeeded, as Politico’s Nahal Toosi writes in this essential preelection read.
That’s it for this week.
For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to newsletters@foreignpolicy.com.


foreignpolicy--2020-10-09--China’s Belt and Road Initiative Is a Mess, Not a Master Plan

China ’ s Belt and Road Initiative Is a Mess , Not a Master Plan Confrontation with China is reaching fever pitch in many Western countries .
Clashes over trade , the South China Sea , COVID-19 , and Huawei ’ s role in 5G development all signify a growing appetite for a new Cold War with Beijing .
But while there are many good reasons to criticize China , there is also mounting danger that blanket Sinophobia generates distorted understandings of Chinese behavior , and knee-jerk policy reactions follow .
As Shahar Hameiri and I argue in a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this is certainly true when it comes to China ’ s Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI ) .
President Xi Jinping ’ s signature foreign policy , the BRI promotes infrastructure connectivity across Eurasia and east Africa .
Pundits and policymakers typically view it as a grand strategy designed to challenge US hegemony , requiring a confrontational response .
Narratives of debt-trap diplomacy , originating in a New Delhi think tank , have been especially influential .
Beijing is supposedly deliberately luring poor countries into unsustainable debts to finance infrastructure projects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when recipients experience debt distress , extending China ’ s strategic reach .
As secretary of state , Rex Tillerson lambasted the BRI ’ s “ predatory economics , ” while Vice President Pence accuses Beijing of using debt-trap diplomacy in Sri Lanka to establish a “ forward military base for China ’ s growing blue-water navy.
” As our report shows , this is simply untrue .
This whole narrative misunderstands China and ignores the interests and agency of recipient countries .
While Western states are often criticized for lacking grand strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and enviously viewed as the exact opposite : tightly controlled , hyper-strategic and well-organized .
In reality , for decades Sinologists have documented the reality of what they term fragmented authoritarianism , recounting fierce inter-agency rivalries and factionalism , which top leaders struggle to manage , even under Xi , China ’ s most centralizing leader in decades .
A forerunner of the BRI , for example , the Great Western Development Campaign , was more of a slogan than a clearly defined policy .
Intended to uplift China ’ s poorer inland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by state-owned enterprises ( SOEs ) and provincial governments into infrastructure projects that generated massive surplus capacity but enriched companies and advanced local cadres ’ careers .
The BRI expresses fragmented authoritarianism .
It is typically traced to two speeches Xi gave in 2013 , as if the idea emerged fully formed from his unique mind in response to flailing American leadership and China ’ s rapid economic rise .
In reality , the idea of aggregating China ’ s long-standing infrastructure connectivity projects beneath a broad banner originated with the National Development @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the main agency responsible for economic planning .
But what began as a moderately coherent plan to improve connectivity with around 60 neighboring countries quickly morphed into a global initiative as party-state agencies jostled for resources .
The NDRC , not geostrategists , led the policy planning process .
But the real content was supplied by SOEs and provinces , which inserted their own pet projects into the BRI platform .
These actors care little about China ’ s diplomatic objectives ( indeed , they often undermine them in practice ) , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ top leaders ’ vague ideas and slogans .
Accordingly , BRI planning documents are extremely loose , accommodating various interests and projects , rather than directing the party-state ’ s resources towards specific geopolitical ends .
There is no detailed grand strategy .
There is not even an official map—and unofficial ones were banned in 2017 .
China ’ s fragmented development financing system is also ill-suited to directing the BRI for geopolitical ends .
Diplomatic , military , and strategic agencies are again barely involved .
Chinese development financing is recipient-driven : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not Chinese planners .
The whole edifice—especially today , with growth slowing , profitability collapsing , and surplus capacity endemic—is skewed towards helping Chinese businesses expand overseas .
Firms ’ commercial interests are prioritized ; feasibility analysis , risk management , and oversight are weak .
This results in the piecemeal , non-strategic approval of many questionable loans and investments .
From 2014-16 , even state media were warning about the lack of corporate oversight , while the central bank governor bemoaned the many projects that “ do not meet our industrial policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great benefit to China , and have led to complaints abroad.
” Although this has led to some tightening of outbound investment , notably around real estate , still around half of Chinese overseas investments are loss-making .
Outbound investment is not even flowing to the six “ corridors ” sketched in official policy documents .
Indeed , only 13 percent of outbound investment is going to BRI countries .
Company documents show that commercial interests and domestic over-capacity are the main drivers of projects , which are “ not regulated or guided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the BRI is not a coherent and sinister scheme , nor are recipient countries simply hapless victims of Beijing ’ s debt-trap diplomacy .
Nothing can be built in their territories without their approval , and they participate for their own reasons—good and ill .
The World Bank estimates that $ 97 trillion of infrastructure investment is required worldwide by 2040 .
The need is especially acute in poor , developing countries—yet Western donors have generally abandoned infrastructure-development for useless so-called good governance projects .
Understandably , Chinese assistance looks attractive to many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often at work .
Construction is an incredibly corrupt economic sector .
Elites can extract kickbacks , allocate projects for electoral advantage , and insert their business cronies into lucrative joint ventures .
Greed can easily overwhelm rational development planning , especially if recipients wrongly assume that China will do their due diligence for them .
Harm is compounded where governments fail to regulate Chinese firms adequately , and neglect to consult or compensate affected populations .
Thus , for example , we see recurrent corruption scandals around energy projects in Kazakhstan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regime-linked tycoons and their Chinese partners operate with impunity .
These pathologies—on both the Chinese and recipient sides—shape the selection , design , implementation and results of BRI projects .
Rather than emerging top-down from a unilateral “ grand strategy , ” projects—and their flaws—typically emerge from below , through the interface between recipient-elite interests and Chinese developers ’ commercial agendas .
They can easily exploit the vague BRI to gain loans and approvals , especially in countries where top Chinese leaders want to cement warm ties .
Sri Lanka ’ s Hambantota @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case par excellence of debt-trap diplomacy , but it actually exemplifies these messy real-world dynamics .
The proposal to build the port didn ’ t originate with Chinese geostrategists , but with Sri Lanka ’ s powerful Rajapaksa family .
It was part of a grandiose development strategy—adopted in 2006 , long before the BRI was launched—aimed at bolstering electoral support in the family ’ s home district , and feathering the regime ’ s own nest .
A new airport , conference center , cricket stadium , and airline also featured in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encouraged by China ’ s state-owned China Harbor Engineering , which was prospecting for lucrative deals in post-conflict Sri Lanka .
The firm exaggerated the project ’ s payoffs and helped Colombo apply for Chinese funding , only for a rival firm , Sinohydro , to muscle in , with both firms recruiting different brothers of the president to try to secure the contract .
Chinese regulators waved the deal through as a no-brainer : Colombo shouldered the risk through $ 1.34 billion in sovereign debt ; both Chinese firms shared the lucrative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a friendly government .
In practice , though , everything went sour .
Construction went smoothly , but Colombo bungled the operational side , opening the port prematurely to celebrate the president ’ s birthday while a massive rock still blocked entry , and failing to provide port services or attract investors .
Like the nearby airport—the world ’ s emptiest—Hambantota Port was soon heavily loss-making .
By 2016 , Sri Lanka was in a serious debt crisis—caused not by Chinese lending , which accounts for only 6 percent of Colombo ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ international markets amid U.S. quantitative easing .
Nor did Beijing exploit the crisis to seize the port in exchange for debt relief .
At Colombo ’ s urging , it arranged for another state-owned firm , China Merchant Ports , to “ invest ” $ 1.1 billion in exchange for a 99-year lease .
But the original loans remained in place .
The cash injection went to repay Western creditors and bolster Sri Lanka ’ s foreign reserves .
This is why Sri Lanka ’ s port minister “ thank [ ed ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us from the debt trap.
” China Merchant Ports is now struggling to make this white elephant turn a profit to recoup its investment .
China is also supposed to have seized Hambantota to extend its naval reach , but in reality , it can not use the port for military purposes .
This was expressly forbidden in the lease agreement .
Sri Lanka ’ s navy remains responsible for port security and is shifting its southern command to Hambantota .
No Chinese naval vessels have called at the port—though U.S. , Japanese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , much of what pundits profess to know about Hambantota port is actually a myth .
Chaos is far more common than conspiracy in Chinese overseas investment practices .
Strategic narratives do not guide BRI projects so much as create opportunities that self-interested actors can exploit .
Beijing ’ s diplomats and regulators do not inspire specific projects so much as clean up the mess when things go wrong .
Arguably , rather than denouncing and trying to curtail the BRI , Western policymakers would be better off encouraging it .
Overextension and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China in many BRI countries , without any outside interference .
But if the West wishes to help populations in the global south , there are better options .
They can provide alternative financing options .
They can help bolster recipients ’ ability to assess projects ’ feasibility , and to bargain harder with Chinese lenders and contractors .
And they can support civil society campaigns for transparency and public participation in planning , procurement , and oversight .
There is also scope to cooperate with China .
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can collaborate , improving the integrity and standards of Chinese projects .
Collaborative financing could be further promoted .
But this would require setting aside the Sinophobia that is increasingly clouding policymaking , and developing a more realistic understanding of the nature and limits of Chinese power .

Confrontation with China is reaching fever pitch in many Western countries. Clashes over trade, the South China Sea, COVID-19, and Huawei’s role in 5G development all signify a growing appetite for a new Cold War with Beijing. But while there are many good reasons to criticize China, there is also mounting danger that blanket Sinophobia generates distorted understandings of Chinese behavior, and knee-jerk policy reactions follow.
Confrontation with China is reaching fever pitch in many Western countries. Clashes over trade, the South China Sea, COVID-19, and Huawei’s role in 5G development all signify a growing appetite for a new Cold War with Beijing. But while there are many good reasons to criticize China, there is also mounting danger that blanket Sinophobia generates distorted understandings of Chinese behavior, and knee-jerk policy reactions follow.
As Shahar Hameiri and I argue in a new report for British think tank Chatham House, this is certainly true when it comes to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy, the BRI promotes infrastructure connectivity across Eurasia and east Africa. Pundits and policymakers typically view it as a grand strategy designed to challenge U.S. hegemony, requiring a confrontational response.
Narratives of debt-trap diplomacy, originating in a New Delhi think tank, have been especially influential. Beijing is supposedly deliberately luring poor countries into unsustainable debts to finance infrastructure projects, enabling China to seize these assets when recipients experience debt distress, extending China’s strategic reach. As secretary of state, Rex Tillerson lambasted the BRI’s “predatory economics,” while Vice President Pence accuses Beijing of using debt-trap diplomacy in Sri Lanka to establish a “forward military base for China’s growing blue-water navy.”
As our report shows, this is simply untrue. This whole narrative misunderstands China and ignores the interests and agency of recipient countries.
While Western states are often criticized for lacking grand strategy and shambolic governance, China is widely and enviously viewed as the exact opposite: tightly controlled, hyper-strategic and well-organized. In reality, for decades Sinologists have documented the reality of what they term fragmented authoritarianism, recounting fierce inter-agency rivalries and factionalism, which top leaders struggle to manage, even under Xi, China’s most centralizing leader in decades. A forerunner of the BRI, for example, the Great Western Development Campaign, was more of a slogan than a clearly defined policy. Intended to uplift China’s poorer inland regions, associated funding was mostly directed by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and provincial governments into infrastructure projects that generated massive surplus capacity but enriched companies and advanced local cadres’ careers.
The BRI expresses fragmented authoritarianism. It is typically traced to two speeches Xi gave in 2013, as if the idea emerged fully formed from his unique mind in response to flailing American leadership and China’s rapid economic rise. In reality, the idea of aggregating China’s long-standing infrastructure connectivity projects beneath a broad banner originated with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the main agency responsible for economic planning. But what began as a moderately coherent plan to improve connectivity with around 60 neighboring countries quickly morphed into a global initiative as party-state agencies jostled for resources.
The NDRC, not geostrategists, led the policy planning process. But the real content was supplied by SOEs and provinces, which inserted their own pet projects into the BRI platform. These actors care little about China’s diplomatic objectives (indeed, they often undermine them in practice), but are adept at harnessing their interests to top leaders’ vague ideas and slogans. Accordingly, BRI planning documents are extremely loose, accommodating various interests and projects, rather than directing the party-state’s resources towards specific geopolitical ends. There is no detailed grand strategy. There is not even an official map—and unofficial ones were banned in 2017.
China’s fragmented development financing system is also ill-suited to directing the BRI for geopolitical ends. Diplomatic, military, and strategic agencies are again barely involved. Chinese development financing is recipient-driven: Disbursements start with requests from abroad, not Chinese planners. The whole edifice—especially today, with growth slowing, profitability collapsing, and surplus capacity endemic—is skewed towards helping Chinese businesses expand overseas. Firms’ commercial interests are prioritized; feasibility analysis, risk management, and oversight are weak.
This results in the piecemeal, non-strategic approval of many questionable loans and investments. From 2014-16, even state media were warning about the lack of corporate oversight, while the central bank governor bemoaned the many projects that “do not meet our industrial policy requirements,” “are not of great benefit to China, and have led to complaints abroad.” Although this has led to some tightening of outbound investment, notably around real estate, still around half of Chinese overseas investments are loss-making. Outbound investment is not even flowing to the six “corridors” sketched in official policy documents. Indeed, only 13 percent of outbound investment is going to BRI countries. Company documents show that commercial interests and domestic over-capacity are the main drivers of projects, which are “not regulated or guided” by government policy.
Just as the BRI is not a coherent and sinister scheme, nor are recipient countries simply hapless victims of Beijing’s debt-trap diplomacy. Nothing can be built in their territories without their approval, and they participate for their own reasons—good and ill.
The World Bank estimates that $97 trillion of infrastructure investment is required worldwide by 2040. The need is especially acute in poor, developing countries—yet Western donors have generally abandoned infrastructure-development for useless so-called good governance projects. Understandably, Chinese assistance looks attractive to many.
However, nefarious interests are also often at work. Construction is an incredibly corrupt economic sector. Elites can extract kickbacks, allocate projects for electoral advantage, and insert their business cronies into lucrative joint ventures. Greed can easily overwhelm rational development planning, especially if recipients wrongly assume that China will do their due diligence for them. Harm is compounded where governments fail to regulate Chinese firms adequately, and neglect to consult or compensate affected populations. Thus, for example, we see recurrent corruption scandals around energy projects in Kazakhstan, and protests around land-grabbing in Cambodia as regime-linked tycoons and their Chinese partners operate with impunity.
These pathologies—on both the Chinese and recipient sides—shape the selection, design, implementation and results of BRI projects. Rather than emerging top-down from a unilateral “grand strategy,” projects—and their flaws—typically emerge from below, through the interface between recipient-elite interests and Chinese developers’ commercial agendas. They can easily exploit the vague BRI to gain loans and approvals, especially in countries where top Chinese leaders want to cement warm ties.
Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port has been held up as the case par excellence of debt-trap diplomacy, but it actually exemplifies these messy real-world dynamics.
The proposal to build the port didn’t originate with Chinese geostrategists, but with Sri Lanka’s powerful Rajapaksa family. It was part of a grandiose development strategy—adopted in 2006, long before the BRI was launched—aimed at bolstering electoral support in the family’s home district, and feathering the regime’s own nest. A new airport, conference center, cricket stadium, and airline also featured in this dubious vision.
The Rajapaksas were encouraged by China’s state-owned China Harbor Engineering, which was prospecting for lucrative deals in post-conflict Sri Lanka. The firm exaggerated the project’s payoffs and helped Colombo apply for Chinese funding, only for a rival firm, Sinohydro, to muscle in, with both firms recruiting different brothers of the president to try to secure the contract. Chinese regulators waved the deal through as a no-brainer: Colombo shouldered the risk through $1.34 billion in sovereign debt; both Chinese firms shared the lucrative contract; and Beijing won favor with a friendly government.
In practice, though, everything went sour. Construction went smoothly, but Colombo bungled the operational side, opening the port prematurely to celebrate the president’s birthday while a massive rock still blocked entry, and failing to provide port services or attract investors. Like the nearby airport—the world’s emptiest—Hambantota Port was soon heavily loss-making.
By 2016, Sri Lanka was in a serious debt crisis—caused not by Chinese lending, which accounts for only 6 percent of Colombo’s external debt—but rather reckless borrowing on dollar-denominated international markets amid U.S. quantitative easing.
Nor did Beijing exploit the crisis to seize the port in exchange for debt relief. At Colombo’s urging, it arranged for another state-owned firm, China Merchant Ports, to “invest” $1.1 billion in exchange for a 99-year lease. But the original loans remained in place. The cash injection went to repay Western creditors and bolster Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves. This is why Sri Lanka’s port minister “thank[ed] China for arranging this investor to save us from the debt trap.” China Merchant Ports is now struggling to make this white elephant turn a profit to recoup its investment.
China is also supposed to have seized Hambantota to extend its naval reach, but in reality, it cannot use the port for military purposes. This was expressly forbidden in the lease agreement. Sri Lanka’s navy remains responsible for port security and is shifting its southern command to Hambantota. No Chinese naval vessels have called at the port—though U.S., Japanese, and Indian warships have. In short, much of what pundits profess to know about Hambantota port is actually a myth.
Chaos is far more common than conspiracy in Chinese overseas investment practices. Strategic narratives do not guide BRI projects so much as create opportunities that self-interested actors can exploit. Beijing’s diplomats and regulators do not inspire specific projects so much as clean up the mess when things go wrong.
Arguably, rather than denouncing and trying to curtail the BRI, Western policymakers would be better off encouraging it. Overextension and poor oversight are generating substantial pushback against China in many BRI countries, without any outside interference.
But if the West wishes to help populations in the global south, there are better options. They can provide alternative financing options. They can help bolster recipients’ ability to assess projects’ feasibility, and to bargain harder with Chinese lenders and contractors. And they can support civil society campaigns for transparency and public participation in planning, procurement, and oversight.
There is also scope to cooperate with China. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank shows how Western and Chinese development agencies can collaborate, improving the integrity and standards of Chinese projects. Collaborative financing could be further promoted. But this would require setting aside the Sinophobia that is increasingly clouding policymaking, and developing a more realistic understanding of the nature and limits of Chinese power.