World Focus from Brussels

Russia’s war on Ukraine rages on and soon three years have passed since the full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022.  Experts on Russia gathered in Brussels on 27 January at a conference headlined: “Russia and Europe in Wartime.” In this episode I interview one of the speakers,  Félix Krawatzek, Senior Researcher at the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), in Berlin. He says that despite Western sanctions Russia will not run out of money to finance the war effort. We spoke about how the Russian government is increasingly militarizing education through propaganda and other methods. And our conversation also covered potential negotiations to end the war now that Donald J. Trump has taken office as the President of the United States.

More about the conference: “Russia and Europe in Wartime.”
https://coruscant.therussiaprogram.org/tpost/nzgb3v47k1-coruscant-conference-russia-and-europe-i

Donald J. Trump is back in the White House, after being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on 20th of January.  In his inaugural address Trump said that America will “be respected again all over the world."  Leaders of other NATO Allies and the European Union have been bracing themselves for a second Trump presidency and how that will affect transatlantic relations. President Trump takes office at a time when the global security environment is very challenging. The episode focuses on the cooperation between NATO and the European Union  as the annual European Defence Agency conference, was held today 22 January in Brussels. The new NATO Deputy Secretary General, Radmila Šekerinska from North Macedonia, delivered a speech at the conference.  The episode also includes an interview with Björn Malmquist, Brussels correspondent for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, about Europe and Trump. We hear other voices from the news, political leaders and experts, responding to Trump’s messages on defence and security in his inaugural speech.

Read the EDA speech by NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Šekerinska:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_232543.htm

On 17 January, Admiral Rob Bauer from the Netherlands finished his term as Chair of the NATO Military Committee, after serving for three and a half years as NATO’s senior military official.  His successor is Admiral Cavo Dragone from Italy.  This episode focuses on Admiral Bauer’s time in this important post. He was  the senior military spokesperson for the Alliance on all military matters and the principal military adviser to the NATO Secretary General, first Jens Stoltenberg and then Mark Rutte. We hear clips from Admiral Bauer's speeches, interviews and press conferences.

Effective deterrence rests on strong military capabilities and political will. The sound advice of military leaders to politicians in democracies is crucial. It is also important that high ranking military officers are able to engage the public – that the voice of the military can be clearly heard in discussions on defence and security in an increasingly divided and dangerous world.  Admiral Bauer has been an example of that - greatly contributing to NATO's collective defence and unity.

Massive seismic activity has led to the evacuation of close to 4000 inhabitants from the fishing town of Grindavík, on the south coast of the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland.   I speak to my fellow Icelander, geophysicist Ari Trausti Guðmundsson, who explains the immense forces at work. Geoscientists still think it is likely that an eruption might start, close to or even in Grindavík itself. Already earthquakes, sink holes and other activity have caused huge damage to houses and infrastructure in the town. Few kilometers away, barriers are being built to protect the geothermal power plant in Svartsengi, next door to the Blue Lagoon, a popular tourist destination.  We also hear from  Gregory de Pascale, a geologist who went into Grindavík last Monday to assess the situation and inhabitants who were briefly allowed into their town to collect some of their most precious belongings. Special thanks to Icelandic National Broadcasting Service for providing material for the show. You can follow their coverage in English here:
https://www.ruv.is/english/2023-11-10-liveblog-reykjanes-peninsula-and-grindavik-396249

France plays a major role in Europe as one of the leading nations of the European Union,  plus being a founding member of NATO and a key Ally.  Nevertheless French governments have often been critical of the Alliance through the years. French President Emmanuel Macron has focused on strengthening the influence and status of France on the global stage, while also emphasizing the importance of Europe's strategic autonomy.  For this episode I travelled to Paris and interviewed dr. Élie Tenenbaum, the Director of the Security Studies Center at the French Institute for International Relations - IFRI.  We spoke about the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, the threat of terrorism and the role of France in NATO to name  few major topics. Before the interview with dr. Tenenbaum we hear President Macron announcing major military support to Ukraine earlier this year.

Major conflicts are raging in different parts of the world. The war in Ukraine continues and since early October, a war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, following Hamas terrorist attack on Israel - adding a new chapter to the violent and complicated history of that region. Leaders of the European Union member states met in Brussels late last week to discuss these two conflicts and other pressing matters. In this episode I interview Belgian professor Sven Biscop, an expert at the Egmont Institute, about the role and the influence of the EU on the global stage. In this context we discuss the Middle-East, China, NATO, US politics and the support of the West to Ukraine, in a wide-ranging interview about geopolitics. 

Targeting LGBTIQ+  people is one tool that the Kremlin and other foreign threat actors use to manipulate the information space, in order to sow discord and weaken democracy, aiming to achieve their own political and even military objectives. The most prominent anti-LGBTIQ+ disinformation narrative, asserts that the West is trying to destroy everything that is good, normal, and moral by actively pushing ‘the LGBTIQ+ agenda.” The European External Action Service – the diplomatic service of the European Union  – launched a landmark report on this issue at a conference in Brussels last Monday, 23 October. The report identifies cases of foreign information manipulation and interference, or FIMI, targeting LGBTIQ+ communities in the EU’s Eastern Partnership countries, the Western Balkans and the Southern neighbourhood. Building on these cases, interviews with stakeholders and other work the report includes recommendations to address this threat, calling for a collaborative response, basically whole-of-society approach.  The goal is to protect diversity and human rights. In this episode I speak to three participants in the conference and below is a link to the report.
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/fimi-targeting-lgbtiq-people_en

US President Joe Biden  met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 October, in a high-stake visit to Israel, trying to break the latest cycle of violence in the region or at least prevent the current conflict from escalating even further. On 7 October the Hamas organization launched a horrific terrorist attack on Israel across the border from it’s bases in Gaza. Israel has retaliated with massive air strikes on the Gaza strip, also cutting fuel, water and other supplies to this densely populated area of around 2.2 million people. My guest in this episode is Erlingur Erlingsson, an Icelandic military historian and former diplomat. We speak about, the Hamas attack, what the Israeli military would face in Gaza as a ground invasion seems imminent, the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza, the possibility of a wider regional war, if there is any path to stability and peace and many other related topics. 

NATO ministers of defence meet  in Brussels today 11 October and tomorrow to discuss the war in Ukraine as almost 600 days have passed since the full-scale invasion by Russia on 24 February last year.  Volodymyr Zelensky President of Ukraine was welcomed to NATO's headquarters this morning by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, In this episode I speak to top Danish defence and miltary expert Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, a professor in political science at the University of Copenhagen.  He says the geopolitical implications of the war will be felt for generations to come. The use of Artificial Intelligence in warfare and the importance of innovation is another subject we address in this wide-ranging interview. We also discuss how the war in Ukraine has affected the defence strategy of Denmark, a founding member of NATO.  

China’s military – the People’s Liberation Army – aims to be world class by mid century, equal to the United States military. The PLA has already added massive capabilities, such as enlarging the navy and is also preparing for intelligentized warfare through developing and analyzing AI – Artificial Intelligence.  Brigadier General Ole Kværnø, was a contributor to a conference on 2 October organized by the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen, about the Chinese military.  General Kværnø returned home late summer from Beijing where he had been the Danish military attaché for the past four years. He says that major changes have occurred in the posture and strategy of the PLA which is now focused on global reach while also being able to fight and win potential wars in the region, for example over Taiwan. That of course adds to an already tense China-US relationship. For information on the conference see here: https://cms.polsci.ku.dk/events/cms-conference-chinas-military---present-and-future-/