The World’s (Currently) Most Critical Chokepoint

We’ve been hearing about supply chain issues since COVID-19 forced much of the world indoors for approximately two years.

Even after the pandemic ended, these issues persisted around the world. Shifts in labour availability combined with a spike in demand for goods where supply has not able to keep up is leading to empty shelves in the supermarket, and higher prices at the petrol pump. This hasn’t been helped by the geopolitical strains faced in eastern Europe and the Middle East, either. While they’ve largely settled now, food prices soared in the initial aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine due to chaos in the Black Sea and Europe’s most agriculturally productive area.

The Strait of Hormuz at the end of the Persian Gulf. Source: Business Insider

The other critical area for international supply lines - specifically fossil fuels - currently looks increasingly unstable.

The Strait of Hormuz is, on average, only about 35 miles wide. It sits at the end of the Persian Gulf, a waterway stretching from Kuwait, past Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman before entering the Arabian Sea. Most importantly, however, the entire Gulf - Strait of Hormuz included - runs along the entire southern edge of Iran.

The Gulf states - which get their moniker from the Persian Gulf - are wealthy in two things: oil, and finances generated from the sales of oil. In fact, six* out of the top 20 exporters of oil directly border the Gulf, with the seventh (Oman) just behind in 21st. Each day, the Strait of Hormuz exports an astonishing USD $1.2 billion worth of oil per day - an amount which the American Energy Information Administration estimates equated to approximately one-fifth of all global liquid petroleum consumption (of which oil is merely a component).

But if this area has been the backbone of international oil trade for years, why is it only now coming into the spotlight?

Tensions in the Middle East, at the time of writing this article, are extraordinarily high. The aftermath of the October 7th attacks in Israel have undone years of diplomacy as militia groups in Palestine, Yemen, and southern Lebanon have become more active and violent than at any point in the past decade. These groups do not share geography, but they do share backing from Iran - the country with the longest coastline along the Persian Gulf.

If a major conflict breaks out in the Middle East - which currently seems well within possibility - an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will cause oil prices to skyrocket.

Russian oil export revenues have fallen since the implementation of sanctions - but could be revived if prices spike. Source: Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air

A spike in oil prices will, of course, not affect only the Middle East - though the impact will certainly be felt there. The knock-on implications will be truly global. Higher oil prices will certainly benefit the Russian economy, which has already generated nearly USD $800 billion after becoming the most heavily sanctioned country in the world after invading Ukraine. Higher oil prices will only cause that figure to grow higher, faster - placing even greater strains on the current situation in Ukraine. The spike in oil prices will also be felt in India and China, which imported 40% and 75% of their fossil fuel supplies in 2022, respectively. Although great efforts towards better renewable energy production are being taken in both India and China, the transition in either country is far from complete and a reliance on fossil fuels remains the norm.

Thus, while the COVID-19 pandemic may seem like a distant memory, we may not be out of the woods regarding supply chain issues yet - and the worst may be yet to come. This is, of course, only looking at a crucial, but single, shipping lane as well - the human, environmental, and infrastructure cost of a major conflict across the Middle East is barely calculable - and almost unimaginable.

TAI Score: Degree 5. All eyes are currently on Iranian proxies and how the situation in the Middle East will unfold. The current risk to the international economy - let alone local human security in the region - is extraordinary. If they are not already implemented, decision makers and business leaders must have a plan for adapting to the possibility of severe conflict as soon as possible. Leading news outlets are referring to the region as being “on the brink” - all parties involved must proceed with caution, and rely on reputable intelligence to move forward.

*Those six countries are, in order from highest to lowest, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Political Science’s Greatest Debate

The 20th century is arguably the most radical period of change in human history.

In the space of a single lifetime, humans went from testing out the first aeroplane prototype in 1903, to landing on the moon in 1969. Escalators, radios, neon lights, teddy bears, teabags, stainless steel, and cellophane were all invented before 1920 alone, and the world of international politics was no less active. In the year 1940, effectively all forms of government along the mainstream political spectrum (democracy, fascism, and communism) were active somewhere in the world. Entire empires experienced both their rise and fall inside of this century, and de-colonisation took place almost entirely before the year 1999.

There’s no doubt that the 20th century was absolutely pivotal - especially with its recency guaranteeing ease of access to information. So why, then, is there still one question that we can’t answer?

Does democracy create economic development, or is it the other way around?

Accra, Ghana, is home to one of Africa’s most robust democracies, but the country remains relatively impoverished. Source: The Conversation

The laissez-faire approach is fairly easy for most people to understand: better freedoms in politics, market choices, and general way of life allows people to make choices that they feel suit them the best, thus allowing for growth in nearly every sector. A University of Chicago study found that countries that shifted from authoritarianism to democracy experienced, in the long run, a staggering 20% growth in GDP per capita. A further article from the European Journal of Political Economy combined 188 studies across a 36-year period, finding that while human capital was the major driving force of economic development, “democracy has a positive and direct effect on economic growth beyond the reach of publication bias”.

The results also speak for themselves. The GDP per capita in several post-Soviet states shows an undeniably positive trend: the figures have grown by approximately USD $8,000 in Armenia, USD $12,000 in Kazakhstan, and USD $20,000 in Poland. Looking to the non-formerly communist world, Taiwan’s average GDP per capita began to take off after the military-aligned government loosened restrictions and ended the White Terror in 1987, Indonesia’s has risen approximately ten-fold since Suharto’s resignation, and the average person in Portugal experienced real economic growth less than ten years after implementing a democratic constitution following 43 years of dictatorship.

But if democracy creates economic growth, why then has GDP per capita remained low in democracies like Nigeria, India, and Kenya? Common trends across impoverished democracies include corruption, a lack of economic diversification, a lack of investment into education systems, and more.

Looking at the other side of the debate, which claims that economic development ushers in democracy, the case studies lean heavily towards three of the four Asian Tigers (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, with the exception being aforementioned Taiwan). Although Hong Kong has never been fully democratic, and Singapore’s status is up for debate, their cases alongside South Korea - which only became liberally democratic as recently as 1987 - show that shifts towards democracy are possible even under economic development led by authoritarianism.

China is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but the country remains authoritarian in nature. Source: National Geographic

But if economic growth creates democracy, why do countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China remain authoritarian? Single-party systems often point to economic development as a justification for their existence under the status quo. Since Putin’s leadership began in the late 1990s, the Russian GDP per capita has risen by USD $14,000, and China’s Communist Party has eradicated enormous amounts of domestic poverty in the last century.

This debate will likely continue for the foreseeable future in socio-economic and socio-political circles. With both democratic trends and economic matters being extraordinarily multi-dimensional, tracking the causes and effects of outcomes is an exceptional undertaking, and a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely appropriate - or even feasible.

TAI Score: Degree 2. Curiously, the debate itself holds no more importance than its component parts: economic development and democratisation. While the two are inseparable, and should be promoted where possible, a downturn in one may cause a similar effect in the other. Thus, rather than arguing which acts as the cause and which as the effect, we should accept that the true threat is neglecting either one.

Do Sanctions Work?

If you’re an expert in international economics, you’ll know that the answer to the above question is not particularly straightforward. The word itself is somewhat confusing, because it has two opposite definitions: “an official, formal, or legal permission to do something”, and “a punishment given when people do not obey a rule or law”. Today, SimpleNation takes a closer look at the latter definition in international politics, and asks whether this is an effective method of upholding a rules-based international order.

Former Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, inspects a nuclear power plant in southern Iran. Source: NPR

The list of countries financially sanctioned by the UK for a variety of reasons includes North Korea, Russia, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, and more. Reasons for their presence on this list include human rights violations, terrorism-related activities, and illegal exploitation of natural resources. Regulations are imposed unilaterally by the UK’s government, but as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK is automatically obligated to uphold sanctions made by this body as well. We also hear about high-level targeted sanctions made on individuals in governments deemed hostile or national security threats to the origin country. The United States has quite openly sanctioned senior officials from Russia and China, for example. Financial sanctions can come in many forms, including export restrictions, asset seizures, disincentivising of trade, and even full-scale trade embargoes.

The central question remains, however: do sanctions work?

We should begin our answer with a question: do they work to achieve what? If the objective is to prevent jumping towards open conflict against a hostile power acting against a country’s interests: then, yes. In terms of instigating regime change, however, it isn’t as clear-cut. Vali Nasr, one of the world’s leading Middle East and international studies experts, says that “What we have found [in our study] is that it works in ways that we don’t want it to work. And it doesn’t work in the ways that we want it to work.”. Although sanctions on Iran, which have been implemented in response to nuclear weapon treaty violations, have caused enormous national unemployment and devastated the economy, they have not resulted in de-throning the current political status quo. Rather, they have promoted the cultivation of financial loophole exploitation and black market goods growth. In the case of nuclear weaponry pursuits, this will not only allow for the proliferation of illegal weaponry, but also the enrichment of regimes willing to sell materials to Iran.

Russian government spending has actually increased since the invasion of Ukraine, despite being the most heavily-sanctioned country in the world. Source: Financial Times

In the case of Russia, now the most sanctioned country in the world following the invasion of Ukraine, the story appears somewhat different. Restrictions placed on Russian resources, military technology, and financial sectors have undeniably inflicted damage on the national economy. GDP per capita, which measures the average person’s income in US dollars, shows a decline from an average annual salary of USD $15,000 to $13,000 in Russia from 2022 onwards. But the Russian economy has adapted to these sanctions: trends in the oil market keep revenues to the Russian economy available, and a labour shortage means that jobs with higher wages than normal are easy to obtain and maintain. Perhaps most obviously: the sanctions have not ended the war in Ukraine, nor have they led to any type of regime change in Russia.

Furthermore, countries had threatened sanctions prior to the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine, allowing time for Russian money to be moved elsewhere. The UAE was a popular destination for finances to remain largely untouched.

Some countries even use incoming sanctions to their advantage. Scholars have identified that military and single-party states can use the existence of these barriers to justify their grip on power, citing the constant “threat” of incoming pressure from foreign adversary, while increasing taxes to adjust for economic woes. In North Korea, the ruling party uses sanctions to actually depict its people as “empowered”, a rallying cry for those struggling against foreign oppression in an almost ultra-nationalistic tone.

Ultimately, it seems that sanctions are less effective than those imposing them intend. While they have certainly damaged the economies of their targets, they have often led to unintended, non-financial consequences. Restrictions placed on Iran have led to the growth of a nuclear black market, those placed on Russia have fueled arguments that a new Cold War is now in effect, and those placed on North Korea have further entrenched the Korean Worker’s Party. New solutions will need to be found to new problems - or old solutions will risk making them worse.

TAI Score: Degree 3. In addition to ensuring that businesses and governments do not conduct business with sanctioned individuals or groups, sanctions must ensure a lack of knock-on effects. Proper due diligence and long-term analyses of financial sanctions should be taken before they are put into place, and states should be less inclined to threaten sanctions before they take place - allowing for an increased element of strategic ambiguity against rivals.

Will Britain Be Democratically Alone?

There’s been quite a turnaround from nearly ten years ago.

In July the Brexit referendum shocked the world by being publicly approved, which (arguably) signaled the beginning of political chaos in Westminster - with five Prime Ministers holding office in eight years, including one that lasted less than two months in office. Meanwhile, in the rest of Europe, politics had been largely holding steady. In France, the 2012 elections resulted in more than half of all votes going to Hollande and Sarkozy, two largely centrist candidates. Germany’s federal elections in 2013 resulted in approximately two-thirds of the Bundestag’s seats going to centre and centre-left parties, the Dutch elections in 2017 went to the incumbent’s centre-right party, and centre-right coalitions secured their leadership bids in Spain and Italy in 2015 and 2018, respectively.

Sir Keir Starmer’s victory in the last general election led to a change in British leadership for the first time in over a decade. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica

In fact, during the last decade, the only country other than Britain to shift to the right in a major and unanticipated way was the United States, which saw the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

This decade looks quite different, however.

The result of this past July’s general election in the UK were a relief to many, but a surprise to few. On July 3rd, one day before voters headed to the polls, the UK’s Labour Party was estimated to be a staggering 18 points ahead of the Conservative Party - which was, in reality, a decrease from October when Labour led in the polls by an astonishing 31 points. A very clear and decisive shift has taken place in British politics that has taken us back to the centre-left after 14 years of perceived disorganisation from the Conservative Party.

In the rest of Europe, however, there has been an undeniable shift to the right. Germany’s right-wing AfD party has come second in the country’s European parliament elections, the right-wing National Rally has made record-breaking gains in France, Geert Wilders has become one of the most powerful politicians in the Netherlands, and elections in 2022 voted a right-wing parties into power in Italy and Sweden. In several EU countries, this is explained by factors including (but neither universal nor limited to) concerns over migration, economics, better organisation of right- and far-right parties, and gradual normalisation of their ideologies through the mainstream’s adoption of ideas or partnership with them directly. This is occurring at the same time as the US presidential election campaign, which is facing similar outcomes for similar reasons. Election polls on the other side of the Atlantic show a currently neck-and-neck result.

Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella lead France’s right-wing National Assembly party. Bardella is only 28 years old. Source: Associated Press

Ultimately, this shows a striking phenomenon: almost ten years ago, Britain and the USA shifted to the right while the rest of Europe held onto centrist ideals. Now, Britain has shifted left while Europe moves to the right. Ultimately, we will need to wait and see if the USA shifts back to the right again as well - leaving Britain as the most major centre-left power in the West.

TAI Score: Degree 3. While the election of right-wing parties throughout the West is not in itself a significant threat, the implications beyond this shift may hold a much more serious outcome. Funding for projects such as solutions to climate change and the responsible handling of human rights in questions of irregular migration patterns may become subject to risk. Perhaps more significantly, security matters - such as ongoing support for Ukraine - may find themselves vulnerable. Key decision makers will need to remain aware of political shifts in Europe and the United States, and plan accordingly.

The Social Credit System

Policing people is extremely difficult.

Of course, more extreme crimes are far and few between, and are normally handled on a case-by-case basis. But while we have laws against littering, loitering, jaywalking, and smoking near the entrance to buildings, the fact of the matter is that it’s near impossible to control the way people behave without centuries of cultural norms - or exceptionally harsh penalties for violations. Perhaps the most famous (and often outrageous) modern example of disproportionate response was the former president of The Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, who told a crowd of 300,000 the night before he was elected in 2016, “You drug pushers, holdup men, and do-nothings, you better get out because I'll kill you.” before launching an anti-drug war that may have amounted to crimes against humanity due to its level of extrajudicial killings.

CCTV cameras overlook Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Source: NPR

The Chinese social credit system (SCS), which turns a decade old this year, has thankfully never killed anyone. But its presence in China’s vast society is powerful nonetheless.

China’s government published a document around the time of the SCS’ creation stating that “Accelerating the construction of a social credit system is an important basis for comprehensively implementing the scientific development view and building a harmonious Socialist society…and stimulating the development of society and the progress of civilization.”.

In theory, the system is simple: individuals performing actions deemed favourable by the government are rewarded with a higher score, while actions deemed negative towards society are given a lower score and penalised. This information is captured along a vast network of sources: CCTV cameras (of which an estimated 54% of the world’s supply exist in China) supported by facial recognition software and artificial intelligence, Internet algorithms, and more.

Although the exact methodology of the SCS is a secret held by the Communist Party, what is known is that it ranks individuals nationwide for a variety of offences - including ones as minor as bad driving, posting fake or anti-government content online, or smoking in areas where it isn’t allowed. Businesses in particular can also be subject to social credit scores for fraud, illegal fundraising, or debt evasion - MERICS actually identifies that most published SCS reports target companies, likely in a move to continue improving China’s economy and global perceptions thereof.

So what’s behind the scores themselves, which rank from 0 - 1300?

Mobile phone apps allow individuals to view their Social Credit score in real-time. Source: Morson Talent

Positive actions - like praising the government online, cleaning up litter, and donating blood - assign a high score to an individual that can result in faster Internet speeds, priority in healthcare, schooling, and better jobs. For businesses, which are particularly subject to the SCS system, this could mean fewer inspections and audits, better interest rates at banks, and even faster processing of tax returns. For individuals with a more rebellious nature participating in “disgraceful” actions, slower Internet speeds, public transportation bans, and even public shaming are all potential - if not certain - punishments.

The system, however, is not centralised - a somewhat unusual trend for the single-party state. Although the amount of data collected and processed by the system is colossal, it remains “disjointed” and non-standardised across provinces at this time.

While supporters of the system point out that it contributes to public safety and upholds laws, critics identify that the practice is invasive and too prone to mistakes. Whether the SCS continues to become more robust and centralised is likely, but uncertain. Given its vast capability to change an individual or business’ everyday life, however, it’s not likely to be something that vanishes any time soon.

TAI Score: Degree 2. A security crisis arising from the Chinese social credit system is extremely unlikely, and foreign nationals remaining excluded from the system greatly reduces individual risk. Nevertheless, business leaders and individuals should remain aware of its implications and existence - while non-Chinese citizens are not subject to its regulations, foreign businesses operating in China appear to be. This will become increasingly critical over time as the system centralises and becomes standardised nationwide.

The City of Darkness

It’s amazing how many different ways we, as a human race, live.

There are those of us in the jungle, atop mountains, in cities, and way out on the open plains. There are those who live in Alert, Canada, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world 1300 miles away from Iqaluit - the next largest city, which itself had a population of less than 8,000 in 2016. The average temperature for July in Alert is just 7 degrees Celsius. This is a stark contrast from the 24 degrees on average that locals in Miyake-jima, Japan face - and where they are required to wear a gas mask at all times due to poisonous gases from high-frequency volcanic activity. Miyake-jima, however, is likely more culturally homogenous than Auroville, India, an internationally-endorsed social experiment in Tamil Nadu where 50,000 people from around the world seek to live in intentional harmony with both nature and one another. Auroville isn’t far away from North Sentinel Island, where the local tribe still lives with Stone Age technology and violently kills anyone who attempts to visit.

One human settlement, however, did find itself growing so far out of control that the local government ordered its complete destruction.

Streets inside of the Kowloon Walled City often did not receive sunlight at any time of day, earning it the nickname of City of Darkness. Source: Architectural Review

The former site of Kowloon’s Walled City, also known as the City of Darkness, lies just a thirty minutes’ drive from the hospital where I was born. Originally settled as a military fort by China, it quickly became home to enormous numbers of as-yet unprocessed refugees fleeing the violence of the Chinese Civil War and political persecution. Unable to maintain operations in a territory surrounded by foreign powers, Chinese lack of use for the fort led to it falling into disrepair - and worse.

The amount of illegal settlements, crime, and anarchy quickly led to Kowloon becoming known as “Hak Nam”, Cantonese for “City of Darkness”. This was a result of its almost unthinkably dense population - the densest on Earth, with 50,000 people in 0.025 square kilometers - meaning that neither the British nor Chinese could enforce laws within. For comparison, this rate is, at the Walled City’s peak, 119 times denser than New York City is today. Opium dens, brothels, and even unlicensed dentists operated within the Walled City in the 1950s and 1960s.

And yet, paradoxically, some public services continued. Atlas Obscura has written a fascinating article about the Walled City’s only postman, responsible for delivering mail to an area less than 300 square meters in size but with “350 buildings, almost all between 10 and 14 stories high, occupied by 8,500 premises, 10,700 households, and more than 33,000 residents.”. In the face of being unable to receive most public systems, however, the community largely looked after one another - even if it meant doing so without official regulation.

Naturally, the local government found itself with a need to address the lawless situation. With much of the real power laying in the hands of organised crime syndicates, the city government launched a wave of anti-corruption campaigns in the 1970s that tackled them directly. From there, efforts to begin its demolition began in 1987, and were completed in 1993. The timing is no accident - with the handover of Hong Kong back to China taking place in 1997, government pushback against the settlement did not take place.

Passengers flying into the now-closed Kai Tak airport claim they could see into the flats of Walled City residents from their seats. Source: Billy-Clarke.com

Today, the site on which the City of Darkness stood is about as stark of a contrast as it could be: a green park now sits adjacent to Tung Tau Tsuen Road. Its legacy, however, lives on in a number of pop culture references, casinos, and documentarians seeking inspiration for anarchy and hedonism by drawing upon the Walled City’s status as a territory claimed by two countries, but neglected by both.

TAI Score: Degree 0. Kowloon Walled City’s demolition in the early 1990’s may not have eradicated the threat of Chinese organised crime, but the lack of a disorganised, anarchic settlement in Hong Kong will have certainly contributed to the city’s overall safety. In fact, Hong Kong routinely ranks as one of the world’s top twenty safest cities, and one of Asia’s top ten, in 2024. There is no modern threat from the Walled City or its legacy that decision makers or business leaders need to be aware of - rather, many have capitalised on the risks that it used to hold decades ago.

Europe’s Next Major Conflict - A Forecast

At the time of writing this article, the war in Ukraine is slightly over six months away from entering its third year. Russian ambitions in eastern Europe are arguably at their highest since the late 1980s, and the world’s security landscape is looking decreasingly stable. The relative peace that Europe has enjoyed since the late 1940s, with a possible break in the late 1990s, seems to be on the decline as time goes on.

So where is the next conflict in Europe likely to emerge? At this time, Kosovo seems like a likely candidate.

Kosovo’s Flag. Credit: Aboodi Vesakaran

Largely unrecognised outside of the Western world (with a few exceptions in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia), Kosovo is a small area of land in (or, depending on who you ask, next to) southern Serbia. The territory is approximately the same size as Lebanon or Jamaica in terms of land area, and is home to less than two million people - about the same size as Rabat or Warsaw in terms of population.

Recent history has not been kind to Kosovars.

Violence in Kosovo is a product of ethnic tensions between Albania, which ethnically represents the majority of the local population, and Serbia, the country of which Kosovo has historically belonged to as a province. Decades of oppression took place under the Serbian government, including police brutality and arrest rates so high that the territory emerged as Europe’s most distinct region for human rights violations. Kosovo thus declared independence in 2008 - an outcome which Serbia (unlike the United States and major EU nations) continues to deny as legitimate to this day.

So how does a 16-year-old independence movement emerge as a leading contender for the next security crisis in Europe?

A map detailing the ethnic breakdown of Kosovo, which leans heavily Albanian. Credit: Encyclopaedia Britannica

To begin with, we should never underestimate the potential for security breakdowns in the Balkan Peninsula to quickly draw in major players, resulting in conflicts that far outsize their origins. The First World War effectively began in Serbia, and the breakdown of Yugoslavia eighty years later resulted in the Bosnian Genocide at the hands of Serbian forces. Later that very decade, a Serbian crackdown against Kosovar separatists went so far as to pull in NATO forces. One does not need to look particularly far into the past to recognise how ethnic tensions in the Balkans have caused significant crises - and it is not difficult to imagine how it may happen again.

Further complicating the situation is Serbia’s backing by Russia and, increasingly, China. This network of alliances - Albania, Kosovo, and the West, against Serbia, Russia, and China - is a perfect example of how, as previously stated, the outcome of a crisis in the Balkans can quickly become dramatically inflated, just as it did 110 years ago. And the results are clear: in May 2024, Kosovo’s Prime Minister himself stated that “The threat of war in the Balkans is not merely a theoretical one…[it is] real.”.

TAI Score: Degree 4. Despite the tension in itself being geographically contained between non-nuclear and relatively small states, the situation in Kosovo remains uncertain and holds high potential to become another proxy clash between NATO and Russia. The lack of a definitive path forward, combined with the issue serving as yet another vector for conflict not only in the Balkans, but also for major external actors, mean that constant monitoring of the situation is required. Diplomacy, compromise, and further study of how ethnic identity impacts security throughout the world will all be required to avoid another catastrophe in Europe.

The Modern Warsaw Pact

Formed during the midst of the Cold War’s early years, the Warsaw Pact was a political and military alliance between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European states. It was established in 1955 as a counter-balance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that had been implemented six years prior, and was led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow, Russia. In addition to the USSR, the Warsaw Pact included Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia (now the two separate countries of Czechia and Slovakia). For those curious, a the founding charter of the Warsaw Pact can be found here.

As one might expect, the Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991, mere months before the wholesale end to the Soviet Union. Not long after, however, a new, less well-known alliance arose in its place.

CSTO leaders meet in the Kremlin. Source: Office of the President of the Russian Federation

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (henceforth, and more commonly, referred to as the CSTO) was founded in 2002, based on a treaty from ten years prior. According to Nikolai Bordyuzha from the Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik (Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy) in Germany, the priority goals of the CSTO are “to strengthen peace and international and regional security and stability, and to defend on a collective basis the independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty of member states.”.

Much like the Warsaw Pact, the CSTO is led from Moscow, though its membership has largely shifted from eastern Europe to Central Asia, now including Russia, Belarus, Armenia*, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Most recently, the CSTO made headlines during its intervention in Kazakhstan during civil unrest in January of 2022 - Kazakhstan’s president (falsely) claimed that “threats from outside” existed, thus justifying a request for CSTO troops to restore order. The organisation’s intervention, however, was largely symbolic: most of the troops came from Russia to protect major infrastructure and strategic national assets such as airports and government buildings, rather than actively suppressing protests. Upon their departure, the CSTO declared the operation “a success”.

Critics of the CSTO, naturally, do not agree with this assessment. Finabel, the European Land Force Commanders Organisation, identifies that CSTO members are looking elsewhere for security guarantees - namely, China. The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation in Germany further asserts that Moscow “does not have the resources [or willpower] to turn the CSTO into a manageable instrument to support its political ambitions.”. The American Georgetown Journal of International Affairs has even gone so far as to refer to it as a “Shambling, lifeless alliance”.

Whatever the case may be - it appears that at face value, the CSTO is either not designed to be, or not capable of being, a counterweight to NATO. But it may still serve as an excellent example for Russia’s desire to maintain a sphere of influence and hegemony in the former Soviet Union - even outside of Europe.

*At the time of writing this article, Armenia is making headlines for declaring its departure from the CSTO.

TAI Score: Degree 2. While the phenomenon of Russia’s ongoing desire for influence in the former Soviet world poses significant security risks, particularly in eastern Europe, the CSTO itself is likely not a significant threat to outside actors. A lack of active participation in suppressing Kazakh protests, combined with the loss of Armenia as a member, signify the the organisation likely lacks the strength it needs to carry out its - or Moscow’s - objectives.

The Global Population Shift

A family in Niger, the country with the youngest average population in the world, poses for the camera in their home. Source: World Vision International

For decades, demographers, geographers, and other social scientists have been warning about the dangers of overpopulation. Resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and strains placed on public infrastructure are all effects of the planet’s status of having, quite simply, too many people. However, the late Hans Rosling, a legendary Swedish demographer, advised the world not to panic - identifying as early as 2010 that assuming the world’s most impoverished nations continued to develop, global populations would not surpass 11 billion before declining - all within the next century. In spite of his optimism however, Rosling may have been a little too correct. The most developed countries in the world - and even those with middling levels of development - are indeed facing a demographic crisis, though curiously, it is the opposite of that which so many geographers predicted less than 20 years ago.

To give an example, in 2010, Brookings published an article stating that “China still has the world’s largest population and its population is still growing. It is also due in part to a continued tendency in China and elsewhere to believe that overpopulation is the root cause of all problems.”. In direct contrast, in April of this year, the BBC identified that “the country is running out of time to build enough of a fund to care for the growing number of elderly.” - a certain sign of a rapidly shrinking population.

Declines in global fertility rates are caused by a wide variety of factors, the primary three of which are identified by the World Economic Forum: women’s education and workforce empowerment, lower child mortality, and rising costs of raising a family. In 2023, this crisis was especially severe in East Asia, with half of the ten least fertile entries on the list located in the region (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and South Korea). By contrast, only two (Spain and Italy) are located in western Europe. By contrast, the list of countries with the highest fertility rates are dominated by countries in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa - of the top 20 countries listed, only one (Afghanistan) is not located in Africa.

A graph shows the current predictions for the number of working-age individuals in South Korea until 2072. Source: Statista

Where overpopulation presents numerous challenges - as mentioned above - underpopulation introduces obstacles of a different nature. Businesses experience lower demand and fewer workers, governments struggle to tax working populations, and less money is spent on public infrastructure as a result. If a population is aging, this is especially serious as an increasing amount of money will be further required to spend on pensions and medical facilities - without a return on investment.

At the time of this article’s publication, no country appears to have a plan for tackling the issue of shrinking demographics. The European Union has turned to immigration as a solution, while Japan has introduced financial aid for young families. What may be most certain, however, is that a one-size-fits-all policy across the world’s multitude of cultures, economies, and environments is unlikely to emerge.

TAI Score: Degree 3. While low fertility rates and a declining population may not be security threats in and of themselves, they may cause shifts in politics and society that may lead to increased competition between actors. Finding ways to maintain pensions and public infrastructure with a declining population will lead to challenges that may require tough decisions to be made. Political and business leaders will need to remain creative and aware of challenges and risks caused by a shrinking number of people.

The Great Toyota War

“The fact of being an underdog changes people in ways that we often fail to appreciate…[it] permits things that might otherwise have seemed unthinkable”

-Malcolm Gladwell

The beginning of this century heavily featured conflict in the Middle East and North Africa. The aftermath of the September 11th attacks witnessed the beginning of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, while instability in Sudan took place only a short flight away from the Yemeni Civil War and Boko Haram War in northern Nigeria. For a period, many of these conflicts became overshadowed by the Arab Spring that erupted across the Middle East and North Africa region in the early 2010s - and continues to affect Syria today.

The Aouzou Strip, the area of dispute, is marked in blue. Source: New World Encyclopedia

The Middle East, North Africa, and Sahel regions are no strangers to conflict, and all three regions continue to struggle with instability after decades. But there’s one that stands out as being somewhat unusual from the others.

From 1978 - 1987, a series of skirmishes between Libya and Chad erupted over a border dispute along their shared border in the Aouzou Strip, an area believed to contain considerable uranium deposits. Hostilities had begun after a revolt in the north of Chad in the early 1960s, spurred on by the president’s banning of opposition political parties, was armed by Libyan forces, then led by Muammar Qaddafi. This guerrilla-style civil war continued for approximately two decades, during which time the appointment of numberous anti-Libyan Prime Ministers, including Felix Malloum (the first to be appointed by the outcome of a military coup), and Hissene Habre, took place.

In 1987, the series of guerrilla skirmishes that had been taking place along the Strip significantly flared up. A Libyan force of over 8000 soldiers, 300 tanks, and a considerable amount of airpower invaded Chad to secure the Aouzou Strip, greatly outnumbering and overpowering the Chadian forces.

Until the donation of 400 Toyotas from the French Air Force changed the face of vehicular warfare.

A technical hauls an anti-aircraft battery through the Sahara Desert. Source: CarsGuide

Although the term itself comes from the Somali civil war in the 1990s, the modern “technical” was so widely used against Libyan forces in 1987 that it gave birth to the name “Great Toyota War”. By being too light to trigger anti-tank mines, and too fast to properly pin down, Toyota pickup trucks with heavy weaponry (including .50 calibre machine guns and anti-tank missiles) strapped to the truck bed allowed for Chad to unleash extremely rapid and powerful attacks against Soviet-supplied Libyan forces before vanishing back into the desert. The tactic proved so successful that at their first use in the Battle of Fada alone, Chadian forces neutralised nearly 800 Libyan fighters, over 90 tanks, and 18 armoured vehicles while sustaining only 18 casualties and the loss of three Toyota pickup trucks. In doing so, Chad successfully retained control over the Aouzou Strip.

Toyotas have since been used - and continue to be used - as technicals in irregular warfare throughout the world, including Nicaragua, Rwanda, and Pakistan. In 2014, likely in response to their use by ISIS forces in the Levant, Toyota issued a statement that reads “Toyota abides by the laws and regulations of each country or region where we operate. [We have] a strict policy and due diligence in place to not sell vehicles to a potential purchaser who may modify such vehicles for military use without our knowledge and consent.”. The Military Times (via the @ToyotasOfWar instagram account) reports that Toyotas excel at warfare due to their development in the Korean War, as well as adaptability, durability, reliability, and availability.

TAI Score: Degree 2. While the Libya-Chad conflict has ended, the use of Toyotas and other civilian vehicles by insurgents and other asymmetric war actors continues to pose a challenge to counter-insurgency (COIN) efforts. The University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, has identified a number of reasons for this, including naivety and inefficient in fighting the enemy through their own means, constrains on state actors created by international laws, and difficulty in identifying technicals using aerospace technology.

High Stakes, Low Tech: The Sino-Indian Border Dispute

The city of Itanagar, in the southwestern part of Arunachal Pradesh, is home to approximately 80,000 people. Located in the Himalayan foothills approximately 150 kilometers east of Bhutan, the surrounding area is famous for its Buddhist sites of historical significance, medieval forts, and even outdoor adventure opportunities across the high-altitude landscape.

A map indicating disputed areas between China and India, marked in red. Source: Tribune India

Sadly, Arunachal Pradesh - and other areas along India’s northern, Himalayan frontier - is also home to one of the world’s most tense, complex, and under-reported border disputes. Yet, it manifests itself in one of the most unusual ways: skirmishes between India and China that consist not of firearms, but of fists and blunt weaponry.

The source of tension comes from a poorly defined border stretching approximately 3500km, roughly the same length as the US-Mexico border, along the geographically-hostile Himalayan mountains, and is commonly referred to as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The LAC includes not only Arunachal Pradesh, but stretches further west towards Aksai Chin, near India’s border with Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir territory as well. The map to the right shows that in reality, given the lack of conflict over borders between China, Nepal, and Bhutan, an overwhelming majority of India’s northern border with China is quite poorly defined.

So why fight with blunt weapons, rather than through more contemporary and conventional means?

According to The Economist, a conscientious desire to avoid open conflict and wide-scale bloodshed has led to an agreement between both China and India to prohibit the use of firearms, explosives, or other means of modern warfare to establish a claim along the LAC. This is based on a 1996 agreement that limits or bans the use of combat tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, the flight of military aircraft inside a 10km radius from the LAC without prior notification, and more.

Video footage released by China shows military police from both sides clashing in the Galwan Valley. Source: South China Morning Post

The agreement, however, appears fragile at best, and violence frequently erupts over the construction of “dual-use” infrastructure (which can be easily converted from civilian to military use) along the LAC. In June 2020, four Chinese soldiers and nearly two dozen Indian soldiers were killed in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh, near Aksai Chin, after facing off with Chinese forces for over a month. Tensions in this particular instance were sparked over the Indian construction of a road leading to an airfield in spite of Chinese protests. Similarly, Chinese infrastructure developments linking Tibet with northern and eastern China via air, road, and railway have sparked considerable concerns in India, given the now-bolstered capability to quickly move large amounts of Chinese troops from across the country towards the Himalayan border.

Thankfully, it has been several years since violent clashes broke out along the Sino-Indian border, and diplomatic discussions (though fruitless thus far) remain a relied-upon resource for both sides. Nonetheless, the situation remains tense and politicised. In late 2023, a map published by the Chinese government showed all disputed territories as part of China, to which the response to Indian outrage was simply: “Stay calm.”.

TAI Score: Degree 3. A more assertive foreign policy stance has emerged under the presidency of Xi Jinping, but spectators have commented that India and China have “too much to lose” by entering armed conflict over the disputed territories. SimpleNation further builds on this line of thought by stating that not only do both sides have much to lose, but also little to gain: the relatively inhospitable geographies of the territories in question offers little to either country, both of which boast already enormous diversity of biomes, robust economic output, and a population of over 1 billion people each. Though a victory for either side would be a significant political and symbolic win, the costs are far too high. Thus, while the situation requires constant monitoring to prevent a disaster, it is not likely to do so at this time.

Caribbean Jihadism

Central America and the Caribbean is no stranger to organised, trans-national crime. The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime lists the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and people as key issues within the region, with cocaine smuggling emerging as a serious threat to local stability and human life, given the ability of groups to manipulate local politics and exact violence on targeted individuals. Trafficking in the region is especially rife due to difficult-to-patrol coastlines, corruption, and easy access to money laundering capabilities through areas such as the Cayman Islands.

Image Source: Office of the President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

With all of that being said, however, there is one highly focused, and seemingly unusual trend that emerges as a particularly unique security threat: the presence of Jihadist groups in Trinidad & Tobago.

First of all, it is important to define the problem before addressing how it came to be: jihadism refers to the engagement in violent struggle to “eradicate obstacles to restoring God's rule on Earth…[it] is not just a collective obligation, but an individual duty that must be fulfilled by every able Muslim, just like ritual prayer and fasting during Ramadan.” (BBC).

NOTE: Many Muslims do not use this term, as it is viewed as an incorrect association between a noble practicing of faith, and an unacceptable use of force. The word “jihad” itself simply translates to “struggle” or “effort” in English, and in the context of Islam, could refer to any number of things depending on context. The word does not have any ties to violence on its own.

So, why Trinidad & Tobago, a country halfway across the Earth from the Middle East with a population that is 95% non-Muslim?

Tensions between the country’s largest Muslim insurgency, the Jamaat al Muslimeen (JAM), and the local government can be sourced back to a land dispute in the early 1990s, when the group began the construction of housing, a school, a clinic, and a mosque on land without government approval or legal backing. According to Raul Jerrick, from the United States’ Naval Postgraduate School, the group’s evolution from a religious community towards a violent sect took place due to ethnic polarisation and economic repression, compounding on one another until the government’s confiscation of the property led to a fierce backlash by the JAM.

Yasin Abu Bakir, the leader of the Jamaat al Muslimeen’s coup attempt. Image Source: Caribbean National Weekly

During the coup itself, which lasted for six days, 42 armed insurgents stormed the national parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, with a further 72 taking control of a national broadcast station. Hostages (including the Prime Minister) were taken, the police headquarters were bombed, and demands were made that the government and military surrender, the Prime Minister resign, their leader to be made Minister of National Security, and elections called within 90 days. Twenty-four civilians were killed, and dozens more injured. At the end of the six days of violence and negotiations, the Prime Minister signed an amnesty agreement with the JAM, later rescinded by the Privy Council (Trinidad’s highest court), though the members were never re-arrested.

Although there exists an ongoing debate concerning the validity of the amnesty offered, and the coup’s leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, gained his freedom, allegations of criminal activity continued to be associated with the JAM. Until his death, Bakr remained confident that his actions were “in the defence of the people”. The government’s Commission of Enquiry, established after the coup attempt, assert that crime and violence have grown since the incident, with a Senior Magistrate stating that “1990 expanded the dimensions of crime”. The legacy of the coup is still felt as recently as 2017 however, with Trinidad remaining as the nation with the highest per capita number of ISIL recruits in the Western Hemisphere.

To this day, the attempt remains as the Western world’s only Islamist coup.

TAI Score: Degree 2. It is unlikely that the lasting impact of the 1990 coup will have significant consequences at this time. While it does allow for jihadist extremism to exist in the Americas, it is far dwarfed by the same threat existing in the Middle East. Proximity to the United States further guarantees that unless particular conditions for this phenomenon to grow considerably in scope emerge, it is not likely that jihadist violence in Trinidad and Tobago, or the Caribbean region at large, will be of significant concern.