Climate change threatening megacities in the Asia-Pacific, using the agricultural sector as a strategic resource against China, the role of naval power in American grand strategy – there’s plenty to talk about in this week’s HCSS Digest.
Tropical storms are increasing in intensity and frequency, exposing the extreme vulnerability of megacities to climate change and thus instability and insecurity. In a new HCSS Snapshot, The Face of Climate Insecurity, Assistant Analyst Femke Remmits and Senior Strategic Analyst Laura Birkman analyze the critical exposure of megacities in the Asia-Pacific region to extreme weather events.
The debate about the agricultural sector is reduced to a discussion about nitrogen and the amount of livestock, says Rob de Wijk in an extensive interview with the Agriculture and Horticulture Association (LLTB). The Dutch government is losing sight of how important the sector is to the Netherlands, and how it could be a strategic resource against China.
Newspaper De Telegraaf also picked up on this in a follow-up interview with Rob de Wijk, reporting that China’s need for food gives the Netherlands a strong asset with our superior agricultural sector. But our country lacks any strategic thinking about our national earning capacity.
Last week, HCSS hosted a special webinar on Sino-American Maritime Competition, featuring Paul van Hooft and an impressive lineup of security scholars moderated by Tim Sweijs. The first event of our newly launched Initiative on the Future of Transatlantic Relations, you can now watch a registration of the event on our website and YouTube.
If Poland and Hungary do not renounce nationalism, racism and xenophobia, the EU could issue them with an ultimatum: accept the rule of law or leave the Union, states Rob de Wijk in his weekly column for Trouw.
In Europe there has been less panic over China’s rise than across the Atlantic, but that is now changing. “It’s very much turned much more sour, much more realistic from the EU side,” HCSS Asia expert Richard Ghiasy says to Courthouse News Service. “China is {…} now a serious tech contender. So, I think that has woken a few strategists in Europe and that new notion, or awareness of realism, is here to stay.”
So far, the energy transition has been too slow to achieve the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, notes Rob de Wijk in his column for Energiepodium: that ‘new energy order’ is nowhere to be seen.
Strategic Analyst Patrick Bolder spoke on BNR Nieuwsradio’s Spitsuur about the rising possibility of conflicts on the moon (starting at 27 min. 40 sec).
In its final days, the Trump administration is pushing hard for a major anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East. Even Saudi Arabia is now openly embracing Israel. How do they look upon this in Iran? And what does this mean for Joe Biden? In BNR’s De Wereld, Bernard Hammelburg talks about it with HCSS defense specialist Peter Wijninga.
As we find ourselves at the dawn of a new era of warfare, an age of autonomous systems, the highly charged debates are often dominated by apocalyptic visions of “killer robots”, reports the Good Data Initiative. It is possible to discuss them in a meaningful way without falling into the talking points of this polarized approach: notable exceptions are the research issued by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
Last but not least: let’s all wish Dataguy Paul Verhagen a very Happy Birthday this Sunday!
