As these lines are drawn the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China sits in its fourth plenary session (20-23 October 2025). Beijing’s brand of diplomacy has made extensive achievements in the process of reform and opening up despite the tangled and complex domestic and international situations.

It has earnestly sought to achieve progress through stability, promote reform through openness, and raise the capacity of openness to expand international cooperation. China’s diplomacy also pursues an unparalleled “firm and resolute” independent peaceful policy, and pushes to build a community of common destiny based on respect and application of common values. Therefore, Chinese diplomacy has put forward the four global initiatives namely development, security, civilization, and governance with the aim of achieving international multilateralism on the basis of fairness and justice and respect for the rights and sovereignty of all countries to achieve peace and sustainable development.

Hence, it is necessary to pay attention to reform and openness by uniting efforts, mobilizing forces, achieving progress in all seriousness and vitality, and then completing the construction of a modern and strong system.

The Importance of Success of Chinese diplomacy

Beijing put forward a set of initiatives and ideas that are in harmony with the spirit and aspirations of international law to resolve most international issues. The importance of this lies in the reconsideration of the current international system to work on a sound and just basis, doing away from strengthening the control of one or some parties over the international decision-making process in order to achieve special interests, or reduce respect for the sovereignty and rights of states or interfere in their internal affairs of others. For China every state is equal under the international law in rights and duties.

Chinese diplomacy has come through with a series of initiatives towards the most outstanding international issues. These initiatives offer actual solutions in line with local and international aspirations and laws. Beijing did not impose solutions in order to build alliances against any party, nor did it seek to compliment one party at the expense of the rights of others. China’s aim has been of one of re-activating international institutions to resolve fundamental issues. The absence of multilateralism in international governance means the formation of groups and alliances in order to strengthen control away from the Rule of Law, Justice and international consensus.

Therefore, the importance of supporting the success of the goals and principles of Chinese diplomacy is a collective responsibility that everyone bears by cooperating with China to solve vital international issues, especially since the success of the goals of that diplomacy concerns not only the Chinese, but also others with the goal of achieving sustainable peace and development. The world is going through complex challenges and circumstances, and this requires strengthening cooperation and joint action from all parties in order to achieve collective and common benefit in maintaining international peace and security, as well as sustaining the effectiveness of the two international covenants on human rights in 1976, the International Covenant on civil and political rights and the International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.

2013: Landmark Year: Belt and Road is Launched

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative, which the Chinese leadership considers a successful attempt to strengthen regional and international communication to embrace a more stable, open and prosperous future on the basis of equality among all without exception, based on mutual respect and benefit. Between 2021-2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping also launched the Four Global Initiatives for:

1.Development 2. Security 3. Civilization 4. Governance  

in order to collectively confirm that all of humanity has a historic opportunity to promote unity, sustainable cooperation, human solidarity, and civilized exchanges.

Accordingly, Chinese diplomacy is seeking to support and strengthen the work of the United Nations to be more effective to solve various international core issues. Multilateralism is at the core of Beijing’s foreign and security policy.

Effectiveness of Chinese diplomacy in the international system

The United Nations Organization was founded in 1945 after the Second World War. The Charter of the United Nations specified that the purpose of its establishment is to protect international peace and security, and the development of international relations between states on the basis of mutual respect for all regardless of the size, wealth and power of each state, as well as respect for the principle of equal rights. In this context, Chinese diplomacy aims to strengthen the role and status of the international system by emphasizing the international consensus. In Beijing’s frame of mind domination by any strong member state must be ruled out.

The Middle East region has been living in a state of instability as a result of the continued absence of a solution to the Palestinian issue, eroding international peace and security.

The root cause of the ME instability is the disregard of influential countries to abide by international law. Chinese diplomacy seeks through effective cooperation with the countries of the region to promote Arab and regional unity and solidarity in order to arrive at inclusive stability and prosperity.

The Global Governance Initiative, recently launched by President Xi Jinping, coinciding with the anniversary of Victory Day in September 2025, emphasizes the importance of the governance of the international system to be more powerful and effective in solving all international issues. Salient among these is the governance of the Middle East through the resolution of its outstanding issues.

Primary task is to address the Palestinian issue on the basis of justice, equity and the rule of international law. This is the only way to achieve security therefore peace, stability and prosperity.

The Workshop of Young Researchers on Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy was held at the Songjiang campus of SISU on 30 September 2025. The conference was organised by the School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA) of SISU and the Study Center on Diplomacy of the Shanghai Universities.

Professor Yang Jiemian, former president of the Shanghai Association of International Relations and Chairman of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, delivered a keynote address entitled My vision of the Systematic Construction and Academic Interpretation of Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Thought.

The workshop was attended by young SIRPA graduates, as well as current graduate students keenly interested in mainstream theoretical research. Participating graduate students came from no less than eight country wide institutions as follows:

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

East China Normal University

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

Shanghai Institute of International Studies

Jiangsu University

Jiaxing University

Tongling University

Gansu University of Political Science and Law.

The workshop was chaired by Professor Guo Shu Yong, Party General-Secretary of SIPRA at SISU, and the leading expert of the Xi Jinping Thought Institute of Diplomacy. Professor Chang Can from the Department of research results and platform management of the Research Office at SISU, and Professor Liang Kun, Director of the Institute’s Office, also shared their practical experiences.

In his closing speech, Professor Guo praised the brilliant speeches delivered by the graduates, noting that the Chinese Communist Party committee of SISU, the university leadership, and its bodies attach great importance to academic research of Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Thought, the practice of the “three progressions”.

Co-Authors: Dr. Morris Mottale & Dr. Yiorghos Leventis

At the end of the Cold War, in Washington and Western Europe there was a consensus that a new world order was coming around. Overlooked was the fact that an Islamic revolution in Iran led by an octogenarian Ayatollah brought a series of upheavals in the Islamic world that saw radical terrorism, revolutions in Africa, and civil wars that continue to this day. These events were capped years later by conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Africa, and Sub Saharan Africa and eventually a radical Islamic takeover in Afghanistan. In short, the end of the Cold War brought an endless list of conflicts of which the two outstanding ones are the war in Ukraine and the war within the Gaza Strip. There are at least fifty other wars in Africa and Asia but they do not make the news, including conflicts in Somalia, Central Africa Republic, Ethiopia, Sudan, Southern Sudan, and The Republic of Congo among many others.

The preeminence of international news networks such as CNN and the BBC along with social media brings the focus solely on the Arab-Israeli conflict and American politics. By the year 2000, there was a consensus that the new International System would see antagonism between China and the United States. By 2025, Chinese commercial trade preeminence was challenging the European Union and the North American free trade area. From 2000 onward, the Chinese set out to create a new economic block known as BRICS which is composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and by 2025 they included Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The direct challenge to the US in many areas of the International System began with the challenge that Radical Islam, shaped and manipulated by the Ayatollah, posed against the US, France, and Great Britain. The outstanding tool for Islamic expansion was the Arab-Israeli conflict and more specifically the Palestinian issue. Within a few years of the establishment of what appeared to be peace treaties between Israel and some of its neighbors (Abraham Accords), the Islamic world and the Global South saw antagonism to the existence of the Jewish state, with regional conflicts in which conflicting parties took sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Interestingly, the same parties, with some exceptions including India, are also members of BRICS.

The preeminence of the United States – however much challenged by China, Russia, and Iran – did not decrease the importance of the United States presidential elections of 2024. For the world, the US election was bound to be a defining moment in international politics, regardless of the outcome. The outstanding elements in the International System are the resentment and imitation of American cultural trends, including US mass media. What passes for American soft power is affirmative action and the woke ideology. The US stands out as an agent of cultural change. The anti-women movement in Islamic society has been influenced by the globalization of American culture and the preeminent role of women in American and European society. Misogyny has become a political ideology in the Islamic world. The competition between the major powers is compounded by the rise of new technologies, shaped by electronic communication, artificial intelligence, and cyber technology.

In 2013, China proposed changes to global currency to bypass, if not outright abolish the US Dollar. The original BRIC group was dubbed very loosely the “BRICS,” including Brazil, China, Russia, India, and South Africa. In time, other countries also joined. Venezuela and Turkey are seeking entry to the trade group, which has gained momentum.

The official members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are primarily Asian, Arabic and nations within the former Soviet Union, but growing interest across the Middle East and South America is notable. In 2004, the SCO officially established relations with the United Nations as an observer, in addition to other international bodies.

Two principle international conflicts, the Gaza War and Ukraine, along with conflicts in Africa and Asia have sped up the process of this new world order, where the Anglo-American ideal of a rule-based system is being challenged on the grounds that it is fundamentally pro-American, pro-Liberal, and pro-Capitalist. The rise of conflicts within the Islamic world and the widespread anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic positions of many countries from Latin America to Asia to Africa are adding another dimension to this new world order yet to come.

Rise of Islamic Politics in the West

The rise of Islamic politics in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Canada the United States and the United Kingdom has influenced domestic electoral politics. In Europe, for example, the rise of the so-called extremist parties like AfD (Alternative for Germany) or the Rassemblement National in France have given new weight to the idea that liberal democratic order, which has characterized the development of Western Europe and America in the post-war period, is not accepted by large portions of the population. Similar trends are evident across Europe, with the rise of Vox from Spain, 5 Stelle in Italy, and BNP in the United Kingdom.

Speaking of the latter, let’s take a closer statistical look at the upsurge of Islamic politics in the UK. There is an array of hard political facts: Muslims count for four million in a total population of 66 million in the UK. Yet they elect Muslim mayors in no less than nine major urban centres in the country, including the mayor of the capital, London, of the second largest city Birmingham and of the world-renowned liberal university city of Oxford. The other six Muslim-led municipalities are: Blackburn, Leeds, Luton, Oldham, Rochdale, Sheffield. There are now 3,000 mosques, (one mosque per 80 square kilometres roughly) 130 Sharia Courts and 50 Sharia councils in the UK. Seventy-eight per cent of Muslim women do not work and receive state support, 63 per cent of British Muslims are out of work and receive state support. UK Muslim families on the receiving end of state support and free accommodation have on average six to eight children. Every school in good old Christian England is required to teach about Islam. Under such circumstances, guess which is the most common name given to British boys nowadays. You guessed right: it is Mohammed!

Greece: Demographic Collapse

At the other end of the Old Continent, Greece, an ancient nation reborn in 1830, lying at the southeastern fringes of the European Union, has been in deep trouble for the past two decades. Endemic corruption and leadership incompetence brought up mounting external foreign debt. Greece’s government debt hovers around 160 per cent of the GDP. The country’s economic woes are compounded by the hordes of irregular migrants. Periodically, vulnerable segments of Hellas’ 15,000 kilometres long coastline get awash with hundreds of mainly sub-Saharan and Middle Eastern unsolicited destitute visitors. The Hellenic Republic currently hosts a large number of immigrants accounting for over a million or approximately ten per cent of the total population, a considerable proportion of whom are Muslim. Pew Research and other international reports estimate there are 520,000 additional Muslims in Greece who are refugees, regular or irregular migrants, or asylum‑seekers. This number is in addition to the indigenous recognized Muslim minority in Western Thrace numbering around 140,000 people. Sharia law applies for this minority, which enjoys a special status in terms of religious and cultural rights, in derogation to the Hellenic Civil Law, in compliance with the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 governing its status.

Greece’s Muslim immigrants are in the most part Albanians (over 0.4 million) who are not particularly devout Muslims given their socialization for over 50 years in a totalitarian communist regime banning religion. In fact, a number of them, in their everyday life, adopt Greek names – either ancient or modern.

However, what should be underlined, is that the rise in the incoming Muslim population in the Hellenic Republic comes on the sharp backdrop of the flight of an impoverished indigenous Greek Orthodox population. Young Greeks are forced to become economic migrants themselves in the more affluent countries of the northern tier of the EU, the UK, the US and Canada. A rough total figure of migrant Greeks for the first quarter of the 21st century is estimated to be around 1.3 to 1.5 million! This is definitely a generation lost for the country. Brain drainage ad nauseum.

To make things worse, Greek birth rates are falling rapidly. Though a small nation, or perhaps because of this, the sharp demographic decline of Greece, has not escaped the attention of Elon Musk. The flamboyant billionaire businessman reposted, on 2 September 2025, an article that reported over 700 schools in Greece were closing due to falling student numbers. He captioned the post: “The death of Greece.” The actual number of Greek schools shutting down because of failing to reach the threshold of fifteen pupils is 721. Conclusively, in the first quarter of the current century, the Hellenic Republic lost well over a million of highly qualified young Greeks only to be replaced by half a million of unskilled Muslim immigrants.

Development of communication technology, social media

The causes of such new developments have to be found in the development of communication technology and what we used to call rising expectations, which characterized the study of development in the 50s and 60s. Social media and international visual communications have fueled rising expectations in the 21^st century. This New World Order has also been characterized by large numbers of so called “illegal” immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America moving to North America or into Western Europe.

In the case of Germany, for example, the growth of “extremist” parties has been fueled by the presence of illegal immigrants and the ease with which the German government has allowed real and imaginary refugees to move and enjoy the benefits of a welfare society in Germany under Angela Merkel. In fact, by September 2024, Germany had imposed passport controls on its borders, irritating some of its neighbors because this policy is against the idea of an integrated, borderless Europe. Both in Europe and North America, the rise of Chinese exports and the decline of local industries, ranging from the car industry to chemicals and steel, has led the traditional working classes to support nationalist and protectionist parties. American elections have seen both parties talking about protecting American industry. This also seems to be the case in Canada.

This new world order has also been propelled by the so-called “Woke Business,” the rise of racial identification, which has added to racial and identity politics all over the world. In Islamic countries, ranging from Pakistan to North and West Africa, this has meant the persecution of Christians and Jews, to the extent that women who do not wear the hijab face persecution. Paradoxically, Islamic society is also being threatened by radical Islamic societies. Al Qaida and violent subversive groups are propagating across Africa and Asia.

Leadership in Western Europe and North America has sometime faced this issue in response to radical terrorism such as 9/11 and Bataclan. More immediate political concerns and challenges see democratic political systems concentrating on jobs, education, human rights, immigration and, last but not least, climate change. Historically, from the Napoleonic period onward, world orders and balances of power never lasted more than a generation. For example, the Peace of Versailles world order lasted twenty years. The Cold War order in Europe lasted from 1947 to 1989. The relative peace that followed the fall of the Soviet Union lasted fifteen years at most, as NATO expanded into Eastern Europe and the rise of a new Russia set off a renewed arms race and added more weight to the developing BRICS.

The spectacular victory of the Ayatollahs in the Middle East and the rise of radical Shiite politics saw Iran waging ideological and international antagonism against Israel. This was historically due to the fact that Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers were violently opposed to the existence of a Jewish state and Zionism. The war in Gaza, while carried out by Hamas, has been instigated and pushed by the Ayatollahs of Iran, unhinging any attempt by the United States and Europe to bring some degree of a peaceful order in the Middle East.

An interesting facet of this new world order was how India, China, and even some Islamic countries such as the United Arab Emirates became interested in a race to the moon. The increasing competition for status and prestige saw an explosion of international sports. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar bought themselves international competitions and famous European players to attempt a change in global perspective towards them, with mixed success.

One approach to studying these new developments would focus on the idea of cultural and political resentment by non-European countries, which for the last two centuries have seen France, Britain and the United States shaping the international order and cultural and political values, ranging from the status of women to economic protectionism and the assertion of secular Euro-American values. For example, the decline of Indian socialism has meant the rise of a new Indian identity which focuses on Hinduism, and the reassertion of Indian heritage against Islam, creating further violent conflict with Pakistan. Cultural trends from the United States, such as radical feminism, transgenderism, the acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual marriages have added even more contentious issues characterizing this new world order. In Russia, Putin’s government has made clear that homosexual values and marriages will not be accepted, and this has of course been the case in countries in Africa and Asia.

An insight into the cultural and economic context of the rise of BRICS and the New World Order should not overlook the fact that many of the conflicts in the world are of cultural origins. At one time, one could have employed the term “ideological,” but culture and ideology overlap each other, as do religious attitudes. While Islam began as a religion, after centuries of theologically based governance, it has also become a foundational cornerstone of the political ideology of the Middle East. In today’s world order, Islam has taken on heavy political connotations and has been used by radical groups to unhinge societies in European and American states.

Trumps administration in Washington in 2025 was attempting to enhance American power and control conflicts in the name of an American regulated international system. Whether that idea was feasible remains to be seen. As it was of May of 2025, India and Pakistan were on a threshold of war in Kashmir. It added even more to the notion of civilization and religious conflicts that characterized the Islamic world. From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and from North Africa to the Cape.

International news agencies reported that at least ninety Afghan civilians and thirteen American soldiers were killed in the two explosions outside Kabul airport. Video shot by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies strewn around a canal on the edge of the airport. The death toll may rise as dozens of severely wounded have been hospitalized. ISIS, the English acronym for the Islamic State (Daesh), took responsibility for the double attack, claiming that one of its suicide bombers targeted “translators and collaborators with the American army”. Surely, the jihadists target ‘collaborators of the West’, however they kill indiscriminately. The severity of the situation prompted Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, to express his ‘grave concern’ and to call an emergency meeting of the Security Council.

What is really worrying is the prospect of more deadly terrorist attacks. U.S. commanders are on alert for more attacks by ISIS, including possibly rockets or vehicle-borne bombs targeting the airport, where Western powers’ hectic evacuation operations have been forced to come to halt. General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, appeared apologetic in saying that ‘some intelligence is being shared with the Taliban’ which led him to believe that the latter ‘thwarted some of the [Daesh-planned] attacks’. In other words, at this dire juncture, the US military intelligence is engaged in an operation of damage control. A horrified and distressed American President vowed for revenge saying: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” Joe Biden has already ordered the Pentagon to draft operational plans on how to strike ISIS-K, the ISIS affiliate which claimed responsibility for the carnage at Kabul airport.

But is it not too little too late? Any lessons learnt from the most costly and deadly US foreign and security policy operation in the 21^st century? The numbers speak volumes. The twenty-year long American ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan has had mind-boggling costs and huge negative results as the new carnage adds up to an already abominable record. The figures in economic cost and human suffering and loss of life (published in Forbes) are phenomenal!

The US spent a total of two trillion dollars on the two decades long war terror. This figure translates to $300 million per day or $50,000 per Afghan citizen – in a country with a population of forty million people. American governments have been financing this war on loans. Researchers at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, have calculated that $500 million in interest has already been paid. Their estimate is that by 2050, the interest cost on the Afghan War debt alone will reach $6.5 trillion, equivalent to $20,000 for every US citizen.

About $800 billion related to direct war fighting costs. In addition, Washington spent $750 million per year for Afghan soldiers’ salaries.

Furthermore, eighty-five billion dollars were spent on training the Afghan military and security forces. The latter folded and surrendered to the Taliban in the weeks following the closure of the Bagram US Air Force Base in July. The closure of this important airbase effectively signaled the beginning of the end of the US-backed regime in Afghanistan: Afghan government armed forces could no longer count on decisive US air support to win the battle against the Taliban.

In comparative terms, as we are speaking about the world’s leading military power but also the world’s leader in corporate capitalism, let us remark that successive American administrations from George Bush to Joe Biden have spent more on the failed attempt to defeat the Taliban than the net wealth of Jeff Bezos (Amazon owner), Elon Musk (Tesla), Bill Gates (Microsoft) and the thirty richest billionaires in the US.

Sadly, the human cost of the War on Terror Operation is also phenomenally high: 47,000 Afghan civilian deaths; 69,000 Afghan security forces deaths 3,500 Coalition troops died of which 2,500 American military personnel; 4,000 US contractors’ deaths; 51,000 is the estimate of deaths of opposition fighters.

Moreover, three hundred billion dollars is the cost so far for medical treatment of about 20,000 wounded American soldiers and civilians. As one can imagine, this medical care cost is expected to shoot up to $500 billion in the years to come.

All in all, the Afghanistan affair amounts to a debacle: a huge failure of US foreign policy burdened with huge costs that American people will still be paying for years to come…

Two years back, in September 2019, Ankara first raised the issue of Kashmir at the United Nations General Assembly. What prompted Ankara to do so?

Since the British colonialists’ withdrawal and the partition of the Indian subcontinent in two states in 1947, part of Kashmir has stayed under Indian sovereignty. New Delhi had granted autonomy and a special status to the predominantly Muslim populated Kashmir. (In 2003, the percentage of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley was 95 percent and those of Hindus four percent). However, in August 2019, India passed a constitutional amendment revoking the special status and autonomy for Indian-administered Kashmir and absorbed it into the country’s governance mainstream. Since then, tensions with Pakistan remained high. (Note the parallel with Makarios’ failed attempt in 1963 to strip the Turkish Cypriot Muslim minority from its prerogatives through a raft of sweeping amendments of thirteen articles of the Republic of Cyprus constitution). Within a month after the Indians devested the Kashmiris of their autonomy, Ankara raises the issue at the foremost international forum.

Nine months later, on the 17^th of June 2020, the United Nations General Assembly elects Volkan Bozkir of Turkey, as President of its seventy-fifth session (Sep 2020 – Sep 2021). The seventy-year-old Volkan Bozkır is a veteran diplomat and politician. He served as Minister for European Union Affairs from November 2015 to May 2016 and previously held the same office from August 2014 to August 2015.

At the heels of his UNGA top job election – the first ever Turkish national to strike such a success – Volkan Bozkir visited Pakistan (August 2020). The following year, he paid a second three day long visit to Islamabad (26-28 May 2021) as president of the UNGA.

Erdoğan himself visited Pakistan in February 2020. Addressing the parliament in Islamabad, the Turkish president said the Kashmir issue was as important to Turkey as it was to Pakistan, recalling the help of the Pakistani people during Turkey’s War of Independence and stating that Kashmir would now be the same for Turks.

According to recent Indian intelligence reports the Turkish government has been trying to radicalize Indian Muslims and recruit fundamentalists. “Fronts for the Turkish government or the outfits it supports – some of them directly linked to Erdogan and his family – appeared to have made deeper inroads in India than assessed earlier,” the Hindustan Times reported. Much of the effort is directed via Turkish state media, educational institutes, the nonprofit sector, the NGOs.

The Indian daily reports that “Turkey has been providing lucrative scholarships and running exchange programmes for Indian Kashmiri and Muslim students to study in Turkey through state-sponsored NGOs. Once the students land in Turkey, they are approached and taken over by the Pakistan proxies operating there.” Moreover, Indians “who serve Ankara’s agenda are being sent to Turkey by the embassy on exposure trips and encouraged to speak against India.”

It is highly likely that the Turkish leadership in lending a helping hand to Pakistani claims on Kashmir is expecting the return of the favour by Islamabad on the Cyprus front. Indeed, in international diplomatic corridors, it is rumoured that Pakistan may well be the first country – save for Turkey itself – to establish formal diplomatic relations with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.

We need to guard against such a negative development as well as draw the necessary lessons learnt from our failed campaign to get our own top diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis elected president of the UNGA five years ago in 2016. Though the vote was close – Mavroyiannis lost for only four votes – the fact that he lost to the candidate of Fiji, a light weight in international affairs (who would doubt that?) is telling.

Fast forward four years, we witness the Turks winning the top seat we failed to secure in the biggest global multilateral organization. Incidentally, second largest after the UN, inter-governmental organization, is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), (formerly Organization of the Islamic Conference) where we do not even have a say whereas Turkey in tandem with Pakistan may exercise much more leverage …

In the Rimland Theory, the renowned American political scientist Nickolas Spykman introduces the Inner Crescent Theory. The theory’s introduction forms the basis of America’s geopolitical thought and in extension the practice of the Western World. The Inner Crescent Theory is a worthy mention in this article owing to the importance of the contents contained therein. However, such mention will be brief as this article’s main intention does not lie in making a detailed reference to the previously mentioned theory. Instead, the objective is to understand it through perceiving the world as a competitive environment between land and sea forces.

Sir Halford John Mackinder was Nickolas Spykman’s mentor. Sir Halford helped shape his perception. In his work The Geographical Pivot of History Mackinder discusses the importance of the World-Island, which comprises the interlinked continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia. These are the most populous and richest land combinations possible. He also traces the Pivot Area, which consists of the territories of the earth’s centre. His idea is that the alliance between the two would lead to domination resulting from abundant population as well as natural resources. Mackinder published his book Democratic Ideals and Reality in 1919. His perceptions can aptly be summarized as follows: “whoever rules East Europe commands the Heartland; whoever rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; whoever rules the World-Island commands the World.”

In his essay “The Geography of the Peace” (1944) Spykman revised Mackinder’s work. He sought to correct Mackinder’s geopolitical perceptions regarding the primary geopolitical importance of the Pivot Area. Instead, he shifted focus to those states that formed a circle around the Central Earth, also known as the “Heartland” or Russia. These are the countries surrounded by the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and also the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. An alliance of the states found in that common area would effectively strangle the Heartland’s land forces and deny them access to both the land and sea trade routes.

Maritime isolation, viewed as a disadvantage can be reversed into an advantage by controlling the sea trade routes. The US, UK, and Japan as maritime powers have been utilizing this advantage to the present. Control of the Crescent of Containment is more significant in geopolitical terms than a grip on the Heartland. Failure to control the former, allows the land forces to decisively turn the global balance of power in their favor.

Climate Change & Ice Melting

The Rimland Theory has for a long time persisted with much prevail even as it is in support of the plan by the West to impose a chokehold on the USSR and subsequently to its heir, the Russian Federation. An interesting dynamic has since occurred that Spykman could not have foreseen in 1944: ice melting in the Arctic Circle has opened up the possibility of a northern sea trade passage. Such an opening will effectively weaken the level of importance that the Crescent carries.

The melting ice introduces a significant shift in power dynamics strengthening the RF over its rivals. Such melting eases the extraction of energy resources in the AC. Moscow gets into position to gain maritime advantage in addition to the immense land power that it already has. One could suggest that EU and UN member states turn to green growth does not only pertain to the need to channel capital into a new investment area in an effort to protect the environment from the long term deleterious effects of fossil fuel consumption. Climate change moves centre stage in geopolitical competition.

Opening of the northern sea passage weakens maritime trade through the Suez Canal. This is the desire of both Russia and China, but also India, within the framework of the Polar Silk Road (PSR) project. The PSR project is seen as a less costly alternative for merchant shipping from East to West. Implementation of the PSR has been met with US hostility. Washington has taken both diplomatic and military steps to frustrate its development. The EU, on the other hand, has not taken any aggressive stance. Brussels is rather defensive in its approach. China tends to become the most significant trade partner of the Union. (It is now closely trailing in second place behind the US). After US President Donald J. Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) negotiations (2017) this trend became more accentuated.

Both positive and negative attributes accrue from every phenomenon. It would be wrong to assume that only either of the two should be expected. Predictions thus become difficult to make. A most appropriate example: as the EU turns increasingly to Renewable Energy Sources (RES) thereby diminishing the importance of Russian natural gas imports, Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline is coming to fruition. Nord Stream 2 pipeline will establish an energy link between Russia and Germany which will, in turn, weaken the Western Bloc’s attempt to secure alternative routes mainly through the EASTMED and TAP pipelines.

A developing phenomenon is in the making whose consequences will climax in the next twenty to thirty years: Russian acquisition of the Crimean, Syrian, and Libyan ports has cracked the Crescent. However, the opening of the northern passage would create a different dynamic as the Russian merchant fleet develops, with ports and shipbuilding industry within Russian territory.

With the ice melting, Russian access to the Arctic’s mineral wealth is expected to further increase:  a phenomenon already witnessed in Stalin’s era. Yet Russia is in a unique position of strength over the Arctic Circle contestant countries due to its technological know-how in icebreaking technology and pumping of mineral wealth from soils with such characteristics. In addition to maintaining its military superiority over the US, Russia is also renovating its ports on the icy northern shores of Arkhangelsk and Kronstadt.

The EU and the UN on Climate Change and the Dilemmas of the States

The Paris Climate Agreement, of which the US is a member state, aims at a global temperature reduction by two degrees Celsius in comparison to the pre-industrial levels. Reducing pollution by 55 per cent by the year 2030 is an objective of the UN encapsulated within this framework. Additionally, 2050 is the year within which the UN hopes to achieve the first climate-neutral world race that would have zero greenhouse gas emissions and would also disassociate growth from the use of resources.

Despite the effort being made to achieve the goals, the EU report on the participation of RES in total energy consumption for 2019, reveals that the Union is just 0.3% behind the 20% goal. Greece and Cyprus have managed to achieve the national goal they set but are slightly behind the goal set by the EU. It is necessary to mention at this point, that the up-to-date studies regarding the results of the development of RES are not sufficient to determine whether the rate of environmental recovery – and therefore the reversal of the ice melting trend – is higher than its rate of environmental deterioration.

Achieving the Arctic Route remains a big dream. Its operation will, no doubt weaken the significance of North African ports and the Eastern Mediterranean as the initial reception points through the Suez Canal. This will make Russia a remarkable global power with the ability to dynamically project power at sea.

In conclusion, the adaptation of a state’s international alliances must take such tendencies into account, but it does not cease to be shaped based on the respective nation’s advantages. A sober study of the unfolding trend is necessary even as we see its co-existence with compensatory trends. The melting of the ice will strengthen the Russian naval force at the expense of the US bringing a relative balance in this area. At the same time, the RES weakens Russia’s “Natural Gas” superpower weapon as an exportable product to the EU.

*Elias Hadjikoumis is Foreign, Security & Defence Policy Expert and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

However, since the NPT entry into force, fifty years ago, the world moved in the wrong direction: India, Pakistan and North Korea joined the list of recognized NWS. In addition, Israel is widely believed to possess 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and to have produced enough plutonium for somewhere in the region of one hundred to two hundred more weapons. Further, Israel’s possession of NW has triggered a serious response from Middle East arch-rival Iran. Tehran’s nuclear programme has sparked a huge international controversy. In the summer of 2015 the UN Security Council (Resolution 2231: 20 July 2015) endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached between the P5+1 (the five permanent UNSC members plus Germany) and the regime in Tehran that placed Iran’s nuclear programme under the monitoring conditions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal, Iran resumed its programme unchecked. For what is worth, Joe Biden, the new US president committed the US to re-engage with Iran re-entering the JCPOA that his predecessor called a bad deal. However, at the end of February Tehran clearly indicated it is unwilling to resume talks with either the US or the Europeans unless the former lifts all sanctions imposed, crippling its economy over the last few years.

In the run-up to the 50^th anniversary NPT Review Conference tentatively scheduled to meet 2–27 August 2021 in New York (postponed from its original dates 27 April–22 May 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic measures the noble cause of nuclear disarmament received another blow: this time from the UK. The British government in its Integrated Review announced it will increase its nuclear weapon stockpile cap to 260 nuclear warheads. On March 16th, the United Kingdom announced that it would increase its limit on its nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades. Instead of decreasing its nuclear stockpile to 180 warheads – which is still a far cry from zero – in the mid-2020s, the UK will increase its stockpile cap to 260 warheads which represents a 40% increase.

The Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) deplored the British government’s colossal reversal of its decades old policy of reducing its nuclear arsenal, calling it ‘shocking’ and ‘unacceptable’. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2017) organization stresses in its relevant statement:

While most of the world’s countries have declared that nuclear weapons are illegal, the United Kingdom is moving in the wrong direction to increase its stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. The United Kingdom is currently engaged in a costly and lengthy project to build new nuclear-capable submarines, which it bases off the coast of Scotland, despite Scottish resistance to the bomb. In 2019 alone, the United Kingdom spent $8.9 billion on its nuclear weapons. This decision to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile, announced as part of its Integrated Review, flies in the face of UK promises under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to disarm.

In what concerns Cyprus, the UK’s Integrated Review envisages an upgraded role for the British military bases and other surveillance installations on the island: Significant investment in the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus will assure our ability to contribute to security, with allies, in the Eastern Mediterranean, the 100 plus page strategy, Global Britain in a Competitive Age, states.

However, in 2018, things began to go the wrong direction when US President Donald Trump called the agreement a ‘bad deal’ and pulled the US out of the JCPOA. The latter, initialed by the seven contracting parties in July 2015, was the product of 20 months of hard negotiations based on the “Roadmap Agreement” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In a nutshell, under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98 per cent, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. Till 2030, Iran would have to enrich uranium only up to 3.67 per cent. Tehran also agreed not to build any new heavy-water facilities for the next 15 years. Uranium-enrichment activities would have to be limited to a single facility using first-generation centrifuges for ten years. Other facilities would also be converted to avoid proliferation risks. The IAEA was granted access to the Iranian nuclear sights – predominantly at the Fordow underground facility – in order to verify compliance with the deal. Trump announced the US withdrawal on May 8, 2018. By November of the same year, US sanctions came back into effect designed to force Iran to dramatically change its policies, including its support for militant groups in the region and its development of ballistic missiles.

The unravelling of the JCPOA continued in the next couple of years: the world saw Iran violating several parts of the deal. Worst still, confrontation reached a peak towards the end of last year (November 27) with the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, allegedly by Israel. Iran’s parliament retorted by authorising Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, to produce and store at least 120 kilogrammes of 20 per cent-enriched uranium per year: half the amount considered necessary for a single nuclear bomb. In a conciliatory tone, however, Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, stressed that Iran’s violations of the deal are fully reversible, should the US rejoin the JCPOA deal. In this connection, Julia Frifield, US Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, advised, at the time of the conclusion of the deal, that the JCPOA is not a treaty or an executive agreement and is not a signed document. The JCPOA reflects political commitments between Iran, the P5+1, and the EU, she stressed. In this respect, political commitments seem to be good enough for president-elect Joe Biden who committed to rejoin the deal, if Tehran backsteps to ‘strict compliance’.

For the time being, tensions in the Persian Gulf are rising: the same day Tehran announced resumption of its uranium enrichment programme (January 4, 2021) Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized a South Korean oil tanker for allegedly polluting the Gulf with chemicals. The South Korean-flagged MT Hankuk Chemi oil tanker carrying 7,200 of oil chemical products was stormed by the IRGC as it was navigating the Strait of Hormuz.

However, Iranian regime news agencies suggest the real reason behind the oil tanker seizure is the wish to negotiate with the South Koreans the release of eight billion USD of Iranian money frozen in Seoul accounts in compliance to the US imposed sanctions regime. According to Tehran Times, Iran needs those funds to procure supplies of covid-19 vaccines, a reasonable claim with reference to the current worldwide humanitarian crisis, one has to admit. At any rate, concentration of naval forces continues to build up. Washington ordered US aircraft carrier Nimitz to stay put in the Gulf – reversing an earlier order to sail home. In addition, the South Koreans dispatched a destroyer to the region. Seoul, however, added it does not intend to use force, while bilateral negotiations with Iran are under way.

But what is the purpose of this multilateral treaty? The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as its full title suggests, aims at limiting the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the NPT’s opening for signature, 24 May 2018 in Geneva:

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is an essential pillar of international peace and security, and the heart of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. Its unique status is based on its near universal membership, legally-binding obligations on disarmament, verifiable non-proliferation safeguards regime, and commitment to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Thus the NPT is the essential pillar of the frail international disarmament regime. The Treaty not only demands from the signatories not to proliferate Nuclear Weapons but it also urges the Nuclear-Weapon States (NWS) to take effective measures to disarm themselves from their lethal arsenal. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament.

The NPT is a unique treaty in the universal body of international law: it represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the Nuclear-Weapon States.

While the list of the parties to the NPT opened for signatures July 1^st, 1968, the Treaty actually entered into force two years later in 1970. The provision for review conferences every five years (article VIII, paragraph 3) meant that on the fiftieth anniversary of the NPT’s entry into force, in 2020, we should have had the Tenth Review Conference. The Review Conference is going to take place before the end of summer in 2021 as explained above.

Why is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons so important? Simply because its membership coincides almost entirely with the UNO membership, that is to say 191 participating states including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which are all NWS. Consequently, the NPT is the most widely adhered to multilateral disarmament agreement. However, the second most populous country in the world, India, has not been admitted to the NPT as it has acquired nuclear weapons after the Treaty’s entry into force. India became a NWS in 1974.

Neighbouring Iran is a party to the NPT since 1970 but was found in non-compliance with its NPT safeguards agreement, and the status of its nuclear programme remains to this day in dispute, especially after the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a hard negotiated compromise between Iran on the one hand and the rest of the world. In the US Department of State view, however, ‘the JCPOA is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document. The JCPOA reflects political commitments between Iran, the P5+1, and the EU’. [The P5+1 include the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: US, Russia, China UK and France plus Germany]. This is what Julia Frifield, the US Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, opined in 2015. Subsequently, Donald Trump pulled out from the Iran nuclear deal. Nevertheless, president-elect Joe Biden undertook to restore it.

In all frankness, the NPT in its fifty years of life, failed to deliver the goals for which it was established i.e. to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and further to disarm the Nuclear Weapon States. Be that as it may, and in the absence of any other legally binding multilateral agreement, the NPT continues to be ‘the heart of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime’.