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Perspectives on Ecuador: The Sky Isn’t Falling
The takeover of Ecuadorian TV station TC in the middle of a widely watched news broadcast, Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s declaration of a state of internal armed conflict, and his deployment of the military as part of the response dominated international news and captured the attention of Washington policymakers last week. Ecuador’s homicide rate has increased eightfold over the past eight years, including almost doubling last year to over 8,000 murders, giving the country a murder rate of 46.5 per 100,000, one of the highest in the region. The number of murders in prisons has similarly almost doubled to over 400 last year. Perspectives on Ecuador: The Sky Isn't Falling - Global Americans (theglobalamericans.org) Background image from United Press International via Global Americans Article (https://theglobalamericans.org/perspectives-on-ecuador-the-sky-isnt-falling)
Jan. 22, 2024 - The takeover of Ecuadorian TV station TC in the middle of a widely watched news broadcast, Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s declaration of a state of internal armed conflict, and his deployment of the military as part of...
Deterring War without Threatening War: Rehabilitating the West’s Risk-averse Approach to Deterrence
Antulio J. Echevarria II - US Army War College Shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, defense scholars began asking why the West’s approach to deterrence had failed. Some critics claimed the West never had an official deterrence policy regarding Ukraine, or at least not a consistent one; others maintained the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took military force “off the table” too soon, relying too much on the coercive power of sanctions.[i] In truth, the West had both a deterrence policy and a supporting deterrence strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine. US President Joseph Biden and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reinforced the policy and the strategy by repeatedly warning Russia’s President Vladimir Putin not to attack Ukraine. However, the West’s approach was too risk-averse to succeed against a major power armed with military capabilities comparable to NATO’s own. It attempted to deter war without threatening war, which in turn rendered it vulnerable to Russian deterrence. By attempting to minimize the risk of a major war, the West made the right call, even though it resulted in the failure of its own deterrence measures. The “value of the political object,” to borrow Clausewitz’s expression, did not warrant risking a potentially ruinous war.[ii] The question now is whether it is possible to rehabilitate the West’s approach to deterrence without requiring NATO to act as irresponsibly with military force as did Putin’s Russia. https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/deterring-war-without-threatening-war-rehabilitating-the-wests-risk-averse-approach-to-deterrence/
Jan. 19, 2024 - Shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, defense scholars began asking why the West’s approach to deterrence had failed. Some critics claimed the West never had an official deterrence policy...
China’s Growing Strategic Position in Nicaragua
China’s Growing Strategic Position in Nicaragua – R. Evan Ellis in The Diplomat https://thediplomat.com/2023/12/chinas-growing-strategic-position-in-nicaragua/ Background images from Vecteezy (China: https://www.vecteezy.com/video/1618488-china-flag) and FreePik (Nicaragua: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/waving-flag-nicaragua_10419403.htm)
Dec. 21, 2023 - R. Evan Ellis | The October 2023 announcement of multiple major infrastructure projects to be performed by Chinese companies in Nicaragua highlights China’s deepening strategic position in that country, with significant...
Is the Baltic Sea a NATO Lake? 
Is the Baltic Sea a NATO Lake? John R. Deni This article is part of the Baltic Sea Region Security Initiative developed by the Carnegie Endowment’s Europe Program. With the addition of Finland and soon Sweden into the NATO fold, nearly all of the Baltic Sea littoral states will be alliance members. This has prompted some observers to label the Baltic Sea a kind of “NATO lake.” This is unfortunate framing that implies the Baltic is NATO’s alone, that the Western alliance has little to worry about from a security perspective, or that the littoral states can lean back and rest in the warm embrace of Article 5 and the United States’ commitment to their security. This, of course, does not reflect reality, underlined recently by suspicious damage to the Baltic Connector gas pipeline and telecom links. The fact remains that, today, the Baltic littoral states face a number of significant threats that membership in NATO alone will not ameliorate. Instead, the members of the alliance on the Baltic Sea—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, and Denmark, as well as aspirant Sweden—and the United States confront a dynamic regional security picture that will require further refinement of capabilities and increased capacity as well as more considered efforts in collective cooperation through both NATO and the European Union.
Dec. 20, 2023 - John R. Deni | This article is part of the Baltic Sea Region Security Initiative developed by the Carnegie Endowment’s Europe Program. | With the addition of Finland and soon Sweden into the NATO fold, nearly all of the...
Alarm Grows Over Weakened Militaries and Empty Arsenals in Europe
Budget cuts and an eroded weapons industry have hollowed out armed services; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals risks “People may say the Russians have taken it on the chin, and we don’t need to worry. That’s a valid point, but it ignores residual Russian strength,” said John Deni, a professor at the U.S. Army War College and an expert on European militaries. “If the Russians present us with a mass problem in Europe, the challenge is, can technology and advanced capabilities do it? And there we see some challenges.” Article quote and background image from: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/alarm-nato-weak-military-empty-arsenals-europe-a72b23f4
Dec. 12, 2023 - Budget cuts and an eroded weapons industry have hollowed out armed services; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals risks John R. Deni, as quoted in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal: “People may say the Russians have...
The Monroe Doctrine, Then and Now
The Monroe Doctrine, Then and Now - Evan Ellis - The Dispatch In November 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared, to thunderous applause, that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Flash forward to 2019 and John Bolton, the national security adviser at the time, proclaimed that the Monroe Doctrine was alive and well. Within six years, high-level administration officials had shown the range of views toward the 200-year-old proclamation and U.S. policy in Latin America more broadly: While the left tends to treat the Monroe Doctrine as a symbol of the imposition of U.S. hegemony, the right regards it as a defense of U.S. strategic interests in the hemisphere. Despite those divergent views, the Monroe Doctrine—first proclaimed on this day in 1823 by President James Monroe—deserves renewed attention. Revisiting it should lead us to ask anew how to appropriately engage with our neighbors in Latin America, a task made all the more imperative today by the troubling and often unnoticed activities of China, Russia, and Iran in the hemisphere we share. Background image from article: https://thedispatch.com/article/the-monroe-doctrine-then-and-now/
Dec. 8, 2023 - R. Evan Ellis | In November 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared, to thunderous applause, that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Flash forward to 2019 and John Bolton, the national security adviser at the...
Would Venezuela Really Invade Essequibo?
By R. Evan Ellis In the context of unfolding global conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and the dangers of an increasingly aggressive yet economically fragile People’s Republic of China (PRC), Venezuela’s provocative referendum on its claim to two thirds of the territory of neighboring Guyana has received understandably little attention in Washington, D.C. Original background image from article: https://theglobalamericans.org/2023/11/would-venezuela-really-invade-essequibo/
Dec. 4, 2023 - R. Evan Ellis | In the context of unfolding global conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and the dangers of an increasingly aggressive yet economically fragile People’s Republic of China (PRC), Venezuela’s provocative...
How to stop Ukraine’s NATO bid from derailing Washington summit
How to stop Ukraine’s NATO bid from derailing Washington summit by John R. Deni Marking the 75th anniversary of NATO’s founding, the alliance’s next summit in Washington is just months away, and allies are eagerly preparing the agenda. This time around, several member countries are keen to avoid the kind of divisive discussions over Ukraine’s path to membership that publicly played out at last year’s summit in Vilnius — and none more so than hosting nation the United States. Background image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ukraine_%E2%80%93_NATO_Commission_chaired_by_Petro_Poroshenko_(2017-07-10)_48.jpg
Dec. 4, 2023 - John R. Deni for POLITICO | It’s time to tear up the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act.  John R. Deni is a research professor at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. He’s the author of “NATO and Article 5.”...
Bolivia’s Descent into Deep Chaos and the Implications for the Region
The resource rich, land-locked South American nation of Bolivia has traditionally received limited attention from Washington. The country, historically mired in poverty, corruption, and cycles of political conflict is one of the hemisphere’s major sources for coca and illegally mined gold, as well as a transit country for both. Bolivia’s leftist populist Movement for Socialism (MAS) governments of Evo Morales and Luis Arce have made the country an important point of entry into the hemisphere for extra-hemispheric U.S. rivals including the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Iran. In recent weeks, a power struggle has emerged for control of the MAS between current President Luis Arce and former President Evo Morales. This has implications for the stability of the country as it plays out in the context of crosscutting political rivalries, economic difficulties, and a significant criminal economy with competing interests. This work examines the deteriorating situation in Bolivia and the potential implications for the region. Image adapted from: https://theglobalamericans.org/2023/11/bolivias-descent-into-deep-chaos-and-the-implications-for-the-region/
Nov. 22, 2023 - R. Evan Ellis | The resource rich, land-locked South American nation of Bolivia has traditionally received limited attention from Washington. The country, historically mired in poverty, corruption, and cycles of political...
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