Bill Sims
Contributing columnist
In the midst of our domestic concerns about presidential campaigns, inflation, interest rates, unemployment and immigration, there’s a global backdrop of strategic tensions that grow largely overlooked, or disregarded as someone else’s problem, something that will eventually just go away. Yet their combined impact on peace and stability in the world is potentially titanic.
It’s useful to compile these global hot spots to get a sense of their collective potential for catastrophic effect. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most noticeable to most Americans, with the possible exception of the Middle East.
The Middle East is a collection of hot spots that include proxies of Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the focus of their angst, Israel.
Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela and Cuba are proxies of Russia and remain a constant potential threat to the Americas.
The tremendous civil strife in central Africa has the potential to boil over into a major global problem. Sudan has turned itself into a state of apocalyptic disorder in which Russia, China and other African neighbors are trying to gain leverage in the immense political vacuum. The surge of military coups sweeping through Africa in Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea and Niger have destabilized the continent and not only threaten expansive, explosive consequences but increasing massive migrations of people into Europe and elsewhere.
China’s promise to invade Taiwan and control the East and South China Seas has ratcheted up tensions not only with the U.S. but also Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines.
India and China have been fighting along their shared border for decades, and Sino-Indian wars have recurred in 1962, 1967 and 1989. Things have heated up again between these two goliath nations in the 21st century. In 2020, at least 20 soldiers were killed and many more wounded.
North Korea’s increasing menace to the West through its escalating nuclear and ballistic missile threats and its military ties to Russia are increasingly problematic.
When you overlay these multiple strategic threats with economic tensions like competitive tariffs and punishing sanctions, the likelihood of strategic trouble becomes more realistic, unpredictable, volatile and globally dangerous.
Any one of these could trigger a larger regional conflagration that could pull in more global participants. Africa is perhaps the best example. According to a recent PBS report, “Moscow has aggressively expanded its military cooperation with African nations by using the private security company Wagner and its likely successor, Africa Corps, with Russian mercenaries taking up roles from protecting African leaders to helping states fight extremists.” With the so-called Africa Corps, “Russia has taken an assertive approach to expand its presence in Africa,” competing with China, the U.S. and other nations for the rich mineral resources of the continent.
Russia has promised financial support and cheap oil in return for African nations’ support for its invasion of Ukraine. It’s worth noting that the 54 nations of Africa make up the largest voting block in the United Nations. Again PBS: “Violence linked to extremists allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group has been on the rise in the Sahel (sub-Saharan Africa) for years.”
The Middle East could be more immediately problematic. If Iran and Hezbollah decide to join Hamas in attacking Israel, that could draw in the United States, Russia, Syria and possibly other Middle Eastern and European nations.
In the Asia-Pacific theater, the possibility of a massive war involving China, Taiwan, North Korea, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines is frighteningly real.
Separate from accidental triggers like a North Korean missile going mistakenly awry, a provocation by a non-state actor like ISIS and Al Qaida, or a misguided Russian missile hitting a NATO nation, tightening tensions could trigger a larger global conflict. Larger incursions into Russian territory by Ukrainian forces could provoke Vladimir Putin into using theater nuclear weapons. A decision by China to attack Taiwan could prompt U.S. support, creating a spark that could ignite a much larger regional or global conflict.
As we become increasingly focused on the 2024 elections, we need to be mindful of how important level-headed diplomatic skill is in a world where tensions are ratcheting up.
The Pew Research Center recently did a cross-national set of focus groups with younger adults, zeroing in on how to engage on global matters. In their report on these focus groups, they noted the following:
1. “Decades of cross-national surveys have found that younger people tend to be more internationally oriented than older adults. But young people differ from one another over how they want their country to engage with the world.”
2. “The left-leaning, internationally engaged groups emphasize the moral duty to be involved overseas. Still, there is a great deal of doubt about whether they can trust their government to get involved for the right reasons.”
3. The left-leaning, domestically-focused groups also feel a moral obligation to help overseas. But skepticism about their government and a widespread sense that their own country needs dramatic changes leads them to prioritize “getting their own house in order.”
4. “The right-leaning, internationally engaged groups see their country as intertwined with others. They view international cooperation as benefiting their country’s economic and security interests.”
5. The right-leaning, domestically focused groups see their country in a state of economic distress. They feel that their country’s resources are limited and that it is more important to focus on domestic issues than to send resources abroad – and that their country should strive for self-sufficiency.
Putting these Pew findings in the context of increasing global tensions is useful and it underlines another universal finding of the cross-national focus groups. All of the groups expressed a “desire for greater transparency in their countries’ global affairs.” Greater transparency means more information about goals, objectives, strategies, limits and boundaries, and that implies that our diplomats know what they are doing and aren’t just being political “cowboys,” with wet fingers in the air to see which way the political winds are blowing.
Today’s world is too intertwined, too unpredictable, too volatile and too dangerously close to conflict, to disregard or underrate the importance of leadership skills in the global arena, as we consider who we want representing us in Washington DC. One more thing to think about as we check the boxes on our ballots for the 2024 elections.
Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.
