Giuseppe GAGLIANO

Emerging victorious from the long years of the Cold War, the United States was the first to fully grasp the new international and strategic reality devoid of the opposition of the two blocs. The new American approach unfolds in a renewed focus on the economic field, of fundamental importance not only for the overseas superpower but also for the rest of the world: determined to conquer a hegemonic role also in this field, the United States uses every kind of means to fight the economic war. The effects of this new attitude are especially visible in the strong growth of American foreign trade and in the employment, rate created by this sector. In a world where the international influence of the United States is increasingly measured by the criterion of the number of markets conquered, “trade diplomacy” is evidently revealing of the new American perception of global challenges. The US “trade diplo-macy” for the conquest of new markets is based first and foremost on an intense mobilization of the American administration. The tip of this enormous iceberg, which therefore should not appear as an isolated and spontaneous act, is the individual initiative of President Bill Clinton who, since his installation at the White House, has not ceased to use every means at his disposal to ensure an effective promotion of national economic interests. Examples of this presidential interventionism are the pressures on the Saudi king to assign the telephony company AT&T the realization of an important project or, more generally, the signing of large commercial contracts within the White House.

Another important activity in supporting the competitiveness of American companies has been, on the part of the administration, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, and India in Asia, Poland and Turkey in Europe, South Africa in Africa, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. Collectively, these countries represent a com-bination of emerging economies and so-called “pivot states,” a geopolitical concept denoting nations whose regional influence and economic potential demand particular attention from the United States.

In parallel with the identification of the economic sectors in which US com-panies are especially competitive (environmental technologies, information, healthcare, transportation, energy, and financial services), the new “trade diplomacy” has esta-blished three phases of market conquest action. Firstly, there is the preparation of the playing field, through the liberalization of trade and the definition of rules favorable to American interests (for example, within the European Union, through intensive lobbying activities). The next phase involves the collection and dissemination of stra-tegic information among key players, which implies the creation of a sophisticated economic intelligence system that provides companies with the analytical capabilities

available to the executive branch. In this phase, the CIA also intervenes, especially in the case of destabilization operations of companies or competing states. Finally, the actual active phase occurs through the mobilization of structures created specifically for this purpose, such as the permanent inter-ministerial network Advocacy Network, which brings together the expertise of various political-administrative actors (de-partments of State, Defense, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, International Deve-lopment Agency, etc.) and is charged with monitoring the progress of major projects under negotiation. All these entities are tasked with implementing a veritable “na-tional export strategy,” a significant part of which consists in focusing on the so-called emerging countries.

At the height of its power, to maintain and defend its economic interests, the United States has launched the battle for free trade, which primarily envisages the opening of borders through the creation of vast regional blocks. This strategy, also strengthened by the entry into force of the World Trade Organization on January 1, 1995, which has significantly reduced customs barriers, aims in particular at imposing American norms and standards, as well as consumption habits, on the rest of the world.

However, this opening of borders and markets as the main weapon of the battle for free trade seems to apply only when the United States is the principal actor. Relations with Latin America are a clear example in this regard: first, the extension of NAFTA to Chile, an important partner for US commercial interests, was considered without regard to the opinions of Canada and Mexico, the other two countries parti-cipating in the agreement; then, the open hostility towards Mercosur, the Southern Cone’s common market that would hinder the project of American economic inte-gration from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, was the main message of President Clinton during his trip to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in 1997. This last stance elicited a negative response from Brasilia, which is strongly intent on marking the autonomy of its emerging economy from the US superpower, and it triggered an arm-wrestling match between the United States and Brazil, the most striking manifestation of which was the elevation of Argentina to the rank of privileged ally outside of NATO.

To ensure the generalization of free trade in line with its own vision, Wa-shington has managed to secure the support of various international (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, etc.) and regional organizations. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is no exception, as European money invested in the standardization of economic policies in Central and Eastern European countries according to American laws rather than German, French, or Italian.

The United States’ interest, which is predominantly economic, can also be analyzed within strategic and political fields. The case of the UN is emblematic in this sense: the United Nations experiences a chronic financial crisis due to the unpaid dues of certain States, amounting to around 2.4 billion US dollars, of which approxi-mately 1.5 billion is owed by the United States. This crisis of the Organization is only seemingly financial, as it reveals a well-marked political will: by refusing to settle its arrears and negotiating its share on a case-by-case basis, exactly as happens with States aspiring to a future seat on the Security Council, Washington effectively places the UN under financial guardianship and makes it dependent on American goodwill in all aspects of its actions (ordinary operations, world peacekeeping, management of international tribunals, etc.).

This context also includes so-called civil-military affairs. It was with the Gulf War that these affairs took on strategic importance in the conduct of operations, de-monstrating Washington’s ability to skillfully and competently carry out a large-scale operation from start to finish. After the first two phases, the preparation of Ameri-can and world public opinion for military intervention and the ground offensive, there was a third phase, generally little considered, that of reconstruction. This last phase was conceived as a military action, using the same criteria of preparation, rigor, and precision, with the result that overseas companies secured 80% of the reconstruction markets. Civil-military affairs, therefore, are now part of any military planning, as was also confirmed in the case of Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia, where, in parallel to the deployment of armed forces, there was a deployment of actual battalions of cooperatives and civilian experts charged with assessing the needs related to the reconstruction of devastated Bosnia.

NATO is another strategic-political field on which Washington plays its card of economic and commercial development. After the end of the Cold War, this card has materialized above all in the proposals for expansion to Central and Eastern Eu-ropean countries formerly part of the Soviet bloc, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania, in a challenge that is not only political and strategic but also and above all commercial and financial. Admission to the Alliance has a price for the aspirants, as they must acquire Western armaments and equipment. Officially there is no link between, on the one hand, Bill Clinton’s political decision to let these countries into NATO and, on the other hand, the opening of markets for an American military industry already dominant within the current borders of the Alliance. The reality of the facts is quite different: in the case of renewing fighter aircraft, the deal is already done and the preferences of the local authorities necessarily lean, for political reasons, towards American devices rather than Swedish or French ones. The potential market could reach, for combat aircraft alone, tens of billions of dollars.

In addition to the issue of NATO expansion, other initiatives in the strategic and military field respond, at least in part, to economic imperatives. Numerous officers from the former Soviet bloc participate in internships or joint training with American forces, also within the Partnership for Peace, in the United States, Europe, or elsewhere. This practice is a formidable vector of American influence in the general staffs of the armies of Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union. The deployment of several dozen American Special Forces green berets to Senegal, Uganda, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Mali to train the future African Crisis Response Force (which coincides in the civilian sphere with the strengthening of Peace Corps activities) follows this logic of influence.

However, the “trade diplomacy” applied by the United States is not without controversy, both internationally and domestically, for obviously different reasons. Regarding economic sanctions, for example, it is estimated that in the last four years, the President and Congress have imposed them, or have passed laws authorizing them, in sixty cases against about thirty-five different countries. It is a weapon that, in an era when military actions are increasingly less accepted, the United States has used more and more frequently to impose its own views and suppress everything that is considered anti-American. Two laws, both passed in 1996, which for their extra-territorial scope have drawn heavy criticism, especially internationally: the Helms-Burton Act, which allows American businesses or citizens who have suffered expro-priation by the Fidel Castro regime to sue in a U.S. court the acquisition of the expropriated property by foreign investors; the D’Amato-Kennedy Act, which prevents any foreign investment in Iran and Libya in the hydrocarbon sector that exceeds because the proceeds from this sector would finance international terrorism.

Whether one chooses to see “trade diplomacy” as part of a planned strategy of economic superiority and global domination, or rather as the effect of a deeply ingrained market culture in the psychology of the American people, what is clear is that this policy leverages the strategic weaknesses of the United States’ main com-petitors, who have not always understood the fundamental role of the global economic war for their future.

INTERNATIONAL LAW AS A TOOL OF ECONOMIC WARFARE

Given these premises, it is necessary to emphasize that modern international law is undergoing a profound change, thereby calling into question its very legitimacy. It tends to become a real instrument of economic warfare, adapting to the power in-terests of the most influential countries. This international law is today being emptied of its main substance, which was to govern a set of binding rules for states and to support international justice. Indeed, some states are increasingly engaging, through legal sophistries, to orient their policies towards a goal of geo-economic and geo-political dominance.

It is clear today that there is a blatant abuse of extraterritorial legislation, with rules that are not valid for all but instead benefit one or a few states, while being unfavorable, and even very harmful to others. This is demonstrated by a series of foreign and community laws that establish legal norms with extraterritorial scope, such as American law or European law. These are ultimately international norms aimed at legitimizing the economic power of the states that are their mouthpieces.

Through the fight against transnational crimes (terrorism, money laundering, financing of terrorism, corruption, etc.), certain states seek to legitimize their rights to assert themselves beyond their borders. However, the fact remains that behind this interest in global security are real specific competitive and commercial objectives of a state or a minority of states. Indeed, in the context of the internationalization of companies and the globalization of trade, every state seeks to resort to legal intelli-gence. This latter is nothing more than the set of all techniques and means that allow an actor – private or public – to know the legal environment on which it depends, to identify and anticipate risks and potential opportunities, to act on its development, and to have the information and rights necessary to be able to implement legal tools capable of achieving its own strategic objectives.

In short, a new form of power struggle is taking hold among the most deve-loped countries, with the goal of imposing their rights, each in its own way, through the use of legal intelligence tools. One of these techniques is the creation of advanta-geous norms with extraterritorial reach. If we turn our attention to American extraterritorial law, just mentioning the following norms can give a clear idea of how the USA exercises its right to interfere.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the Helms–Burton Act, the Amato–Kennedy Act, the Patriot Act, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (“Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act”), the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, and the Cloud Act have enabled the United States of America to force the entire international community to adhere to its strategic objectives.

Over a decade (2008-2018), the American state, through the FCPA, for example, has imposed fines totaling nearly 6.9 billion US dollars, of which just a quarter (1.7 billion dollars) were on American companies and the rest primarily on European companies. The same is true for US violations of their embargoes and/or anti-money laundering efforts, sanctions which, between 2004 and 2015, generated 16.945 billion dollars again mainly targeting European entities.

It is evident that such sanctioning measures have achieved a dual objective: on one hand, to save the American treasuries, and on the other, to destroy the potential competitors of American companies. Ultimately, the extraterritorial US laws target most foreign competitors.

In conclusion, legal intelligence is undoubtedly becoming a new weapon of influence for states. This contributes to providing economic intelligence with additional tools to enable it to broaden its spectrum of analysis in order to adopt a more effective strategy.

Victim states of this disproportionate legal arsenal should therefore be interested in thinking about developing alternative solutions to avoid their adoption. In this regard, “blocking statutes” or “blocking laws” certainly provide a good example.

This is why new emerging powers, such as China, India, Brazil, Turkey, or even Indonesia, are gradually undermining the international order structured around the United States of America.

THE ROLE OF SOFT POWER

But the use of international law as a tool of struggle for the attainment and expansion of global hegemony is accompanied, in the case of the United States, by the wise and effective use of soft power. It is not possible, therefore, to separate the use of international law from the simultaneous use of soft power to consolidate one’s power globally.

By presenting themselves as the leading country of free competition, the United States carried out the best operation of influence of the twentieth century. They were able to mask their economic aggressiveness by drawing attention to the denunciation of European colonial empires. This rhetorical trick worked well. The stigmatization of the major dominant powers allowed them to disguise their own initiatives of con-quest as happened with the colonization of Hawaii. It is in the same spirit that they were able to trivialize their multiple external military interventions as operations to protect their citizens during the crucial period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

American economic soft power was built around this misunderstanding. The United States supported the emancipation of peoples from colonial oppression and at the same time supported the “open door” and free trade. One of their main criti-cisms of the European colonial empires was the privileged trade between those empires and their metropolises. The Commonwealth was particularly targeted during the GATT negotiations (1947), and Washington refused to sign the Havana Charter (1948), which it had desired but which maintained the principle of “imperial preferences” between European countries and their colonies.

Presenting themselves as the guarantors of the discourse on free competition and open markets, the United States built an image of themselves as a “peace judge” in international trade. This cognitive advantage allowed them to disguise their ini-tiatives of conquest. The United States’ grip on oil fields in the Middle East and Iran was the most visible illustration of the United States’ economic war machine. The State Department, intelligence agencies, and oil companies collaborated to impose their will on the countries concerned and potential competitors. The means of action used were often based on the use of force (indirect and then direct participation in armed conflicts in the Middle East, coups such as the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, destabilization of regimes supporting Arab nationalism).

The economic soft power of the United States took shape in the aftermath of the Second World War. Armed with their decisive military superiority, the United States seeks to establish a process of dominance in some vital markets. The designers of the Marshall Plan encouraged the purchase of American soy for animal feed by European agriculture. This desire to establish a relationship of dependence on the United States subsequently spread to other key sectors such as the computer industry and then information technology.

Data storage (Big Data) is one of the areas where the American system is most determined to maintain its primacy and dominant position. To “mask” these logics of dominance and dependence, American elites have resorted to two types of action.

On one hand, there is the formatting of knowledge. Major American universi-ties have gradually imposed their view of how global trade functions, being careful to exclude discussions of geoeconomic power struggles. This omission has had sig-nificant consequences, as it has deprived European elites of a critical understanding of the aggressive nature of American corporate practices in foreign markets. Academic disciplines like management sciences or economics have removed any analysis of economic warfare from their purview, a phenomenon the United States nonetheless practiced discreetly.

On the other hand, there’s the capture of knowledge. To avoid being over-whelmed by competing innovation dynamics, the United States has developed a highly sophisticated surveillance system over time to identify sources of innovation around the world in order to contact foreign researchers and engineers as soon as possible, offering them emigration solutions or funding through private funds. If this type of knowledge acquisition fails, resorting to espionage is not excluded.

In this context, there is a systematic use of disinformation and manipulation. The rise of European and Asian economies from the 1970s forced defenders of American economic interests to adapt their economic warfare techniques to the post-Cold War context. Allies and main adversaries were faced before the decisive phase of the emergence of the Chinese economy.

In the 1990s, the United States opened several fronts. The most visible was the economic security policy implemented by Bill Clinton under the pretext that overseas companies were victims of “unfair competition.” The Europeans were the first targets. Unmasking corruption became one of the favored weapons of American economic diplomacy. However, behind this principle, much more offensive operations were concealed. In 1998, the Alcatel group suffered a series of information attacks carried out on the internet, through media leaks regarding the financial transparency of its general management. This campaign led to a historic fall in its stock price on the Paris Stock Exchange. To echo this demand, American industrialists financially supported the creation of NGOs like Transparency International. These proponents of the moralization of business stigmatized countries that did not respect global rules. On the other hand, none of the subjects of this movement were interested in the opacity of the payment methods of the major players in the big auditing firms heavily involved in the underwriting of large international contracts. The instrumentalization of a moralizing discourse is now reaching its operational peak with the extraterrito-riality of law.

But the main transformation of American soft power over the past twenty years is the total instrumentalization of the information society.

Everyone remembers the importance of the Echelon system or Snowden’s statements about the extent of American espionage through the internet and social media. In contrast, the techniques of information warfare applied in the economy are still not well known to the general public. The United States is now at war over how to use civil society actors to destabilize or weaken their adversaries. Color revolutions, like the Orange one, are a stark example of the capability for political destabilization implemented by the United States.

From these premises, we can now provide a different reading of recent events and highlight how the current conflict with Russia also stems from the economic war waged by the USA against Russian gas.

RUSSIAN GAS, GERMANY, AND THE USA

The North Stream 2 (NS2) project represents an annual capacity of 50 billion cubic meters of gas. Even as carbon neutrality goals have shifted the share of LNG in the energy mix, the decline in coal production and nuclear power in Germany must be compensated by gas in the medium term. Germany is Russia’s number one gas customer. This greater dependency stems from a dual decision: the end of nuclear power and the gradual phasing out of coal-fired power plants.

European gas imports are distributed as follows: 74% is transported via pipelines, with 41% from Russia, 35% from Norway, 11% from Algeria, 5% by ship from Qatar, 3% from Nigeria, and a portion from the USA. Washington has consistently opposed the NS2 project in the name of European energy independence.

Donald Trump had also expressed his incomprehension regarding a trade policy of Europe, and particularly Germany, which aimed to “strengthen Russian financial capabilities while the United States is spending billions of dollars within the frame-work of NATO.” He also pointed out the contradiction between Germany’s low GDP share dedicated to defense (1.5%) and the maintenance of 50,000 American troops.

The American power wishes to become one of the main countries exporting gas to Europe, particularly through shale gas. Washington will thus implement a series of gradual measures related to soft and smart power: influence over Poland and Den–mark, membership in the Baltic – Adriatic – Black Sea (BABS) project, extraterritorial sanctions, and use of NATO.

Unlike Russia, which maintains that NS2 is a commercial project, the United States asserts that it is a political project, justifying the sanctions within the frame-work of the American CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) of 2017 and the PEESA (Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act) of 2019.

In open contrast with Russia, Ukraine and Poland actively support the United States’ interference in this struggle against NS2, but for divergent and contradictory reasons. Thus, it is an alliance of convenience. Ukraine, through which Russian gas passes, opposes the NS2 project because it derives an income of 7 billion euros a year from it. If NS2 were to replace the Soyuz and Brotherhood pipelines, which supply Europe through Ukrainian territory, Ukraine would face additional risks such as energy disruptions and increased pressure from Moscow. The Soyuz and Brotherhood pipelines have so far given it relative autonomy. Gas is for Moscow a source of income as well as a tool of influence over Europe and an economic and political weapon against the United States of America.

However, among the actors involved in this match, there is the Visegrad Group, which includes Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia: beneficiaries of European budgets. These countries, however, remain particularly Atlanticist, es-pecially for historical reasons because they have suffered Soviet and German invasions in the past. All these countries joined NATO before entering the European Union. The Visegrad countries also differ from the rest of Europe on economic issues such as recovery plans and energy transitions. However, differences within the Visegrad Group on NS2 remain: Slovakia benefits from a right of precedence thanks to the Transgaz pipeline (extension of the Droujba and Soyuz pipelines). Hungary is de-pendent on Russian gas and is also connected to Russia by two VVER-1200 nuclear reactors produced by Rosatom.

Despite these differences, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia are signatories to the BABS (Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Sea) project agreements, a cooperation project between 12 Central and Eastern European countries, which is supported by the United States with a billion dollars. From the American perspective, this would allow the creation of a corridor for US LNG, thus countering dependence on Russian gas.

The signatories to the BABS agreements include Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. It is interesting to note that Germany’s request to join was not welcomed in Poland. On the contrary, Donald Trump was received at the BABS summit in Warsaw in 2017.

In short, Russian gas is a tool of trade war against the United States of America but also against other LNG exporting countries. Moscow is all the more inclined to carry out the NS2 project as it will hardly fit into the framework of the third energy package adopted by the European Community in 2009. The “energy package” contains in particular a right of access to pipelines by third-party suppliers. Like the pipeline that crosses Ukraine, it provides that the same operator may not simultaneously be a producer and distributor. The third imperative is the transparency of gas prices.

Given the geographic position and the path of the pipeline, these legislative conditions seem difficult to satisfy. It is also interesting to note that the conditions of the energy package were scrupulously respected in the South-Stream pipeline project (supply through the Black Sea, arriving in Bulgaria, reentered into the Balkans and Austria), this project was abandoned mid-construction by Moscow, under the pretext of sanctions exercised by the EU on Russia during the events in Crimea. Vladimir Putin then terminated it quite slyly, thereby avoiding any possibility of third-party connection to the pipeline. Just two months after the withdrawal, Russia was con-structing the Turk Stream project with Ankara. Since Turkey is not an EU member, it is not affected by the energy package agreements.

As for the USA, Donald Trump had questioned Germany’s attitude during a NATO summit. He viewed NS2 from a purely accounting perspective. The basis of his opposition was simple: Russia would earn an annual 10 billion from selling gas to Germany. This argument, more than the volumes traded, would predominate in his statements and would allow him to justify the intention to move 12,000 soldiers from Germany to Poland. The Congress remained responsible for sanctions throughout the Trump presidency; forcing him to sign laws and decrees, Trump always had an ambivalent attitude towards Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Already in January 2018, American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had opposed the project, along with Poland. Rex Tillerson is a senior energy engineer, having been CEO of Exxon Mobil from 2006 to 2017. On December 12, 2018, a resolution of the House of Representatives was voted on with the possibility of sanctions against the Russian oil/gas sector. On December 21, 2019, President Trump signed the congres-sional law, forcing him to adopt sanctions against North Stream 2. Senator Ted Cruz was one of the architects of this text. It is worth remembering that to finance his senatorial campaign, Donald Trump had notably signed a commitment with the billionaire industrialists of the oil sector, the Koch brothers.

Poland has certainly played a very important role in supporting American policy. Its Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, in Warsaw, had been supported by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, American President Donald Trump, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, and the UK’s Foreign Secretary, in the person of Boris Johnson, who declared that NS2 could leave Europe dependent on Russia. On January 29, 2018, Mateusz Morawiecki stated, “We want the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be included in the American bill, which includes among other things sanctions against Russia.” The Polish minister would come to harshly criticize the United States of America for not yet having applied sanctions against NS2.

In 2016, Germany believed that American involvement in this NS2 file con-stituted a commercial intervention orchestrated to sell liquefied gas in the European market. Germany is still particularly determined to maintain its positions, and political analysts believe that dialogue between Vladimir Putin and Berlin will be built, espe-cially on a realpolitik attitude from both sides.

To mitigate the negative perception in Washington, German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz proposed in early August 2020 to grant funding of 1 billion dollars for the con-struction of terminals.

In January 2021, Germany attempted to implement a legal package to circum-vent the sanctions of the CAATSA and PEESA laws. The state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the landing point of NS2, established a public foundation that acts as a cover company against sanctions from the State Department and European companies involved in the project. The scope of PEESA indeed excludes legal entities and public persons. This is an unscrupulous response to legal sanctions, which took Congress by surprise. The foundation would be responsible for acquiring supplies and sending orders to service companies. This fund is named “Climate Protection Fund of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania,” financed with 20 million euros by the NS2 / Gazprom consortium. The foundation is a public commercial structure without profit motive and can thus escape sanctions. However, the financing is facing reluctance from banks, which fear being exposed to compliance issues.

Even though the Biden administration is determined to uphold the law passed in 2019 by Congress, which mandates sanctions for entities involved in the contro-versial project, there is a contradiction between Biden’s objectives and those of Congress.

If Biden was fiercely opposed to NS2 when he was Vice President of the White House in the Obama administration, his goal now is to mend ties between the United States with Europe and Germany. However, he must confront the hardline, majority, and bipartisan consensus within Congress.

Sanctions are being prepared, targeting insurance companies (AXA), the certi-fication company (DNV GL), as well as ship providers (Pioneer Spirit of the Swiss-Dutch company). In total, a list of 120 legal and physical entities is targeted. The effects of hard power have an immediate impact on the companies involved, as well as on Germany and France, which have many private actors involved in the construction of the project. By decree, the US Congress will remove 18 Western companies from sanctions after work stoppage, reiterating the risk for companies that persist in continuing to be involved in the project. In January 2021, in a very small paragraph, the last defense budget voted by Congress was reinforced to allow the application of sanctions against entities involved in NS2.

Clearly, the protection exerted by the United States over Europe and the inter–twining of military power in the European geoeconomic sphere can be seen. Economic and military issues are interwoven in this North Stream 2 affair, feeding off each other. The German contradiction comes to light, a country decidedly Atlanticist for its defense issues, for its history but also motivated by its own interests: Germany, which has made NATO the cornerstone of its defense, is divided between its pro-American loyalty, its nationalist approach, and its European project.

North Stream 2 fits into a context of a global economic war, increasingly aggressive unleashed by the United States of America in the world and in Europe, to impose their choices. North Stream 2 also shows the limits of a Europe with divergent interests. We could say, in a certain provocative sense, that Europe has become the soft underbelly of the United States, Russians, and Chinese.

Before the current conflict, Russia was developing its Arctic Yamal and Gydan gas fields, as well as related LNG technologies. The key players in this development are the Russian private company Novatek, and European (Total, Technip, Saipem, others), Chinese (CNPC, Silk Road Fund, CNOOC), and Japanese firms. Russia aims to become a major player in LNG given its resources and also seeks to develop know-how in these technologies.

Global warming makes it possible to exploit these resources and to navigate the Northern Sea Route, despite extreme conditions. This route offers a strategic ad-vantage as it is 15 days shorter to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific without passing through the Suez Canal. Another strategic advantage is Russia’s significant icebreaker fleet, with 39 vessels compared to the United States’ single operational one. Part of the U.S. strategy is to limit Russian development in the Arctic by implementing coercive measures on navigation through international bodies in the name of environmental protection. In November 2020, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) banned ships carrying heavy fuel oil from navigating in the Arctic, targeting the Russian fleet.

The United States has become the third-largest exporter of LNG after Australia and Qatar, with Russia in fourth place but with many plans to increase its capacity, leveraging the considerable Arctic resources that depend on the navigability of the Northern Sea Route. The U.S. is trying to contain a competitor in the LNG market, but also Russia’s strategic rise in the Arctic, a region that has already become a geopo-litical issue.

Beyond the merits or demerits of the Nord Stream 2 project, or American interest in supplying LNG to Europeans, the issue has now shifted to European sovereignty. The United States has crossed the Rubicon. It is in the heart of Europe, on European territory, that the United States wants to sanction European companies through the supposed extraterritoriality of their law. Indeed, the current conflict has achieved a long-pursued U.S. objective of preventing Europe from remaining in the Russian sphere of influence through gas supplies. Their goal, thanks to this war, has been achieved. Let’s not forget that before this war started, Biden had surrendered to the Nord Stream 2 project.

THE PREMISES OF THE CURRENT CONFLICT

Well, alongside the economic warfare offensive against Ukraine, the United States had long prepared the ground for a conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

The first documented reports of Ukraine and the CIA date back to 2014, when John Brennan was directing the agency. In 2014, the Agency was subject to very harsh attacks from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, criticizing both the detention and the secret interrogation program of the CIA. To overcome this critical phase, the former director of the CIA decided to invest considerable resources in building a close synergy with the internal intelligence service of Ukraine, the SBU.

The investment made by the former CIA director in Ukraine was so significant that the agency’s headquarters were established on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, which allowed it to conduct its operations smoothly and efficiently.

If Brennan decided to invest substantial resources in Ukraine, he did so with the backing of the White House and, in particular, Obama, who through the Authori-zation Act passed by Congress on December 10, 2014, intended to strengthen its synergy with the intelligence institutions in Ukraine.

This project emphasizes the need for the agency to send more agents to the field to build programs capable of enhancing defensive-offensive cyber capabilities in Ukraine as well as improving information exchanges between the American agency and Ukrainian ones.

Now to 2018. That year, the former director of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Anthony Tether, was appointed to the supervisory board of Ukraine’s largest military-industrial complex, Ukroboronprom, with the aim of designing a DARPA-like agency in Ukraine, which would be called the Government Agency for Advanced Research Development, funded by then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Given the excellent relations between Ukraine and the United States in this sector, it is not surprising that there are synergies between American companies and the Ukrainian military-industrial complex. For example, the Ukrainian aeronautics industry Motor Sich, which built Antonov An-124, has received several million dollars from American companies, including the Oriole Capital Group, which is closely linked to Boeing.

Let’s move forward to 2019. In that year, a new bill known as the “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act” was introduced by the American Congress concerning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being constructed from Russia to Europe. The purpose of the bill was to request a detailed report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of the Treasury on what the implications of the pipeline could be in terms of the security of the United States, namely, regarding the strengthening of the pipeline’s ability to influence the political choices of the European Union. However, opposition to the construction of Nord Stream 2 did not start with these two important institutions; it was first opposed by the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources.

Now, let’s consider 2021 and the relations between Ukraine and Great Britain. The United Kingdom has built its military synergies with Ukraine both in the naval sector, through six Barzan-class vessels, and via submarine mine hunters. To achieve its objectives, in 2021, at the port of Odessa, Jeremy Quin and Tony Radakin, the Minister for Defense Procurement and the Chief of the Defense Staff, respectively, signed a cooperation agreement in the naval sector. This renewed cooperation in the naval sector is, of course, aimed at countering Russian influence.

Remaining in 2021, but turning our attention to the relations between France and Ukraine, as Asia Times detailed in March of the previous year, the French go-vernment believed that the cutting-edge Rafale built by Dassault stood a good chance of winning the bid in the former bastion of Russian industry, thanks to having a significant commercial apparatus already in place.

What political conclusion can we reach? France has undoubtedly had a partnership of a predominantly economic nature in both civilian and military fields; in contrast, America and Great Britain have cooperated with Ukraine not so much and not only for economic reasons, but above all to use Ukraine as an outpost to contain and encircle Russia. As for Russia, it has always tried to bring Ukraine back into its sphere of influence and to distance it from the Anglo-sphere.

Are we therefore making a legal or even moral assessment? Not at all. All this falls within the logic of power struggle, a logic characterized by destabilization, pro-paganda but also by offensive actions on the military level.

THE ROLE OF CHINA

Finally, we must consider another very important player in this war: China. Indeed, how will the Dragon face the changes that will occur because of this war?

Undoubtedly, the current war between Russia and Ukraine profoundly recon-figures the balance of global geoeconomics. We refer not only to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) but also to the European Union’s Global Gateway, the United States-led Blue Dot Network (BDN), the G-7 Build Back Better World (B3W), Japan’s Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII), the Russian Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) led by Russia, Iran, and India.

But let’s focus our attention on the Chinese BRI, which is currently the most significant economic initiative because it involves 140 countries. The Silk Road will be profoundly reconfigured by this war; we must not forget that for China, Russia was a more reliable overland route to enter the European Union market. In other words, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus were supposed to be part of a sort of new Eurasian land link based on rail in the Chinese project, and these expectations of land connectivity have been nullified by the current conflict. The 17+1 platform, which is known to be a strong synergy between China and the 17 Central and Eastern European countries, had already suffered several setbacks due to the economic war between China and America. Well, this synergy can only suffer a further decline due to the contrast between the West and Russia and, above all, due to the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, which makes it practically impossible both short and medium-term to realize this synergy.

At this point, relations between China and the European Union will have to focus on traditional maritime routes. Let’s not forget that 80% of global trade is still conducted via sea routes, and so China’s enthusiasm for railway routes will have to be set aside for the moment.

China will need to find ways to bypass Russian-Belarusian geography, which means that the BRI will have to give greater importance to other corridors, such as the Central-West Asia corridor that involves the Caspian region, Iran, and Turkey. Through this corridor, the BRI can bypass Russia to reach European markets.

In this sense, the Iranian nuclear deal and, more importantly, the 25-year collaboration agreement between China and Iran will strengthen this corridor further, allowing it to become central. China’s close ties with Iran are due to the fundamental role of both gas and oil, which could be an alternative to Russian supplies and hence give Iran more geoeconomic weight. Alongside Iran’s growing centrality, the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor, which provides connectivity to the Indian Ocean, will consequently gain more weight. This corridor is connected to Iran and Turkey via road and rail infrastructure such as the Islamabad – Tehran-Istanbul railway. This could lead China to integrate this corridor with the Iranian corridor, thereby consolidating connections with Pakistan and Iran to reach Europe by land. From this perspective, Turkey has gained greater importance and weight in China’s economic considerations. Indeed, there is no coincidence that Turkey and China have enhanced their synergies in recent years.

Another consequence of these new synergies is certainly the centrality that China will acquire for Russia in the sector of economic transactions. Both MasterCard and Visa have left Russia due to sanctions, and the Chinese UnionPay will become the only possible alternative for Russia. It is not ruled out then that – in the long term – the economic and geographical potential of Russia and the EAEU may be absorbed by the Chinese economy and the geography of the BRI.

Essential Bibliography

1. Denécé, E. L’autre guerre des Etats-Unis: Economie: les secrets d’une machine de conquête. Paris, Laffont, 2005.

2. Gagliano, G. Guerra economica. Stato e impresa nei nuovi scenari internazionali, Florence, GoWare, 2018.

3. Harbulot, C. Le manuel de l’intelligence économique, comprendre la guerre économique, Paris, PUF, 2015.

4. Lorot, P. Introduction à la géoéconomie, Paris, Economica, 2000.