Less than two months after synchronizing with the European electricity grid, Ukraine has begun landmark commercial energy exports to neighboring Moldova in a move that is likely to further dent Russia’s grip over the region. Ukraine’s state-owned hydro producer Ukrhydroenergo has booked between 80-150MW per hour of transmission capacity to Moldova and the first imports by the Moldovan state-owned wholesaler Energocom started on May 12.
The attack launched by ISIS on 20 January 2022 against the Al-Sina’a Prison in Al-Hasakah, an area situated in North-Eastern Syria and currently under the authority of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, with the intention of freeing ISIS fighters held there, once again demonstrated the importance of adequately addressing the situation of the foreign fighters still being held in camps in Syria (and Iraq).
(Paris) Les Occidentaux défendent la volonté de mettre fin à la guerre en Ukraine sans la faire, mais l’ampleur de l’aide à Kyiv et des sanctions contre Moscou soulèvent une question plus crue : s’agit-il d’une guerre par procuration entre l’Ouest et la Russie ?
On May 16, wheat prices reached a new high, as India banned exports amid a disastrous heat wave. India, the second largest producer of wheat worldwide, conveyed growing concerns about the status of its own food supply amid skyrocketing prices and decreased harvests.
Late last week, Finland’s prime minister and president jointly announced Helsinki’s intention to move ahead with its application for NATO, a move that, if completed, would be a significant boon for the transatlantic alliance.
China has been unabashed about making its intentions known. Already in 1999, two colonels in China’s People’s Liberation Army, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiansui, wrote, “Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America.” In it, the authors “suggest the significance of alternatives to direct military confrontation, including international policy, economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure and networks, and terrorism. Even a relatively insignificant state can incapacitate a far more powerful enemy by applying pressure to their economic and political systems.” Ideally, “one might not even know that one is the target.”
Earlier this month, Journalists Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index placed Greece last among European Union countries for press freedom, citing a number of challenges faced by journalists in the country. The index suggests that Greece is a country in which democratic norms are in serious crisis.
Peace and conflict need to be considered in the climate change agenda.
The Paris Agreement was nothing less than a landmark agreement. Legally binding, adopted by 196 parties to the convention, it has inspired hope and ambition to get to net-zero emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement does not, however, mention conflict or fragility, neither peace nor security, even once – neither did the Kyoto Protocol before it, nor does the Sendai Framework directly address any of these issues either.
While Defence Intelligence’s daily briefings have garnered praise, the emphasis has been on publicity over analytical quality.
In the world of secret intelligence, at least in the UK, such is the mystique surrounding the various agencies that a rare public speech by ‘C’ or the head of GCHQ is treated as a ‘must watch’ event and the words of the intelligence chiefs are assumed to hold great significance. Traditionally, intelligence released into the public domain has tended to be infrequent, indirectly attributed or deliberately obscured.
Russia’s failures are a result of outdated Soviet attitudes and ideas that cannot keep up with the evolving intelligence environment.
The Russian offensive against Ukraine has been dogged by a cascade of intelligence failures at every level of command. This has ranged from completely failing to assess the likelihood and shape of a unified Western response and Ukraine’s determined resistance, to inadequate preparations for Ukraine’s ‘mud season’ and a bewildering lack of any effective operational security (OPSEC) measures. The irony of this, of course, is that Vladimir Putin’s ruling coterie is numerically and functionally dominated by former intelligence officers. Attempts to explain this paradox have tended to rely on conventional wisdoms of why authoritarian regimes are often bad at strategic intelligence. Such governments, the orthodoxy runs, may invest heavily in covert information collection, but they are typically poor at analysis and assessment. In part this is because of an institutional bias towards espionage that neglects analysis, partly because of a pressure to tell autocrats what they want to hear because of the personal and professional risks of doing otherwise, and partly because autocrats tend to act as their own intelligence officers and ignore the truth even when someone dares speak it, acting instead on their own judgement.
