Velina Tchakarova on China, Russia, and the Future of Geopolitics

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1:06Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations With Tyler. Today I'm very happy to be chatting with Valena Chakarova, who is a geopolitical strategist with long -standing experience, she is founder of a group, Face, which stands for For a Conscious Experience, I first learned of Valena by reading her on Twitter. Valena, welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with you, and I look forward to a highly interesting conversation. Now you're from Bulgaria, so I've long wondered. The first and second Balkan wars. the preceded world war one. Do they still matter today or what did we learn from them?

1:48Well, of course they matter in a sense because you are probably familiar with the term Balkanization and unfortunately the term Balkanization that means splitting a country into smaller parts in order for external powers to interfere, to play you know different political actors off against each other and that kind of thing is still very much relevant and it's being used and applied to other regions, to other parts of the world. It matters also in terms of sentiments and in terms of, you know, if you like moods, if you take a look at the political landscape in most of the, let's say, Balkan countries, we still call our region the Balkan region even though that outside there is described it as South -East Europe mostly.

2:35You will find all of these sentiments being kind of you know reflected in various political groups and parties. We have nationalists in most of these countries which are getting stronger by the day and are running for you know for elections and are using actually agenda and narratives that have been known for the last 200 years. All you know, it's yeah, unfortunately quite quite relevant and even let me use another example the incident the helicopter crash From yesterday where the Iranian President and the four the foreign minister has to weigh was used as an example by some Analysts already I would just use the reference here that it could be the next arrival moment now again we have Balkan Wars and then we had also, as you know, the big moment, the biggest black swan as being described by Professor Nasim Talib, the Sarajevo moment from 1914, that was an unanticipated event which eventually resulted in the first world war.

3:46So even now, this reference is being used as Sarajevo moment is something that is defined as a black swan even and that could lead to a major military conflict, if not even, let's say, another world war. So all these kind of things are still kind of relevant even though they are not having the same influence or scale as it used to be the case 200 years ago. Now Bulgarian nationalism in the past, as you know, it's so often been about dreams of a greater Bulgaria, and there are Bulgarian minorities and Albania, different parts of the Balkans, and this notion of creating something like a Bulgarian world, or some Stefano Bulgaria with larger borders.

4:34But with current demographic collapse in Bulgaria, migration to the EU, other places, low birth rates, what is the future of Bulgarian nationalism? Does it have a future at all? I think that the second part of the question is easier to be answered. Yes, nationalism as I already outlined is always going to have some sort of solid ground in the whole region including Bulgaria and again right now we have a very strong sentiment, nationalistic sentiment that is also finding a political reflection and we have elections in June for a parliament since the coalition government between the conservatives and the Liberals has as part of ways.

5:16But coming to the first part of your question, these sentiments will be politicized and instrumentalized, but they will not find a common denominator among the population in Bulgaria. The dream of let's say San Stefano Bulgaria, or if you like, you know, big Bulgaria, including parts of other countries, neighbors is over. This is not going to come back specific in the case of Bulgaria. I will argue actually in the case of the other neighbors as well. Unless we see a major process that right now I don't see happening in the short term of let's say disolvenment of the European Union because, along as this country is a part of the European Union or a candidate for the European Union, this kind of conflicts will always find a kind of solution mechanism within the institutions and there will be enough incentives for broader part of the parties and actors, you know, to find a common denominator.

6:23So yes, even countries like North Macedonia and we saw that, there were immediately conflict, a kind of a verbal conflict between North Macedonia and Greece because the newly elected president of North Macedonia didn't use the full name but used only the name of Macedonia. These kinds of sensitivities will remain, but again, they do not find a common denominator even in these countries. Now, going back to the demographics, I think this is a bigger issue, because right now, probably the most famous person right now, who is making the case, the strong case of shrinking demographics all over the world, with a few exceptions, of course, because Africa and Southeast Asia will still see at macro level kind of positive demographics.

7:13But in general Bulgaria is probably one of the fastest shrinking, you know, democratically shrinking countries in the world, not just in Europe. And here we have a very, very, you know, serious issue that is a systematic and a structural issue that goes back to 30 years of political mismanagement corruption. And, you know, precarious I would say socio -economic indicator, so it's not just about the missing birth rates, it's also about the skyrocketing death rates in this country, and more or less three million, three and a half million people who have sought their happiness and tried to find a look outside of the country, which is quite telling.

7:56Are the countries in the Balkans the right size? Are there too many of them? So if we go back to the Balkan wars, well first Bulgaria and a number of other countries take from the Ottoman Empire, then you turn around and basically a year later, countries take from Bulgaria. Is there any stability in that region without an outside Hedjaman? There is a stability outside the influence exercise by Hedjaman. For instance, through the balance of several external powers. This is the case right now. So we do not have a Hedjamanic power in the region right now. We have, let's say, if you like a balanced act of several external and very powerful actors.

8:39That's not just the European Union, it's due to economic cloud. It's also Russia still very much active in the region. And we have also Turkey, which is also, of course, quite active. And we have the United States and China also trying to play their leverage in the region. So you see that it's not one specific hedgemon. That's always been the case, by the way, if you would like to go back to the Balkan Wars, if you would like to go back to previous periods of the Balkan region, you would find out that once again it was a competition of several empires and each of these empires was trying to get a chunk of this region for itself and practically through this balancing act, these small states were trying to capitalize on their own interests.

9:25And this is a continuum, a geopolitical continuum that is still very much in play in this region. Why do you think it is say that Bulgaria and Serbia remain closer to Russia, even with Putin? Or if you compare Czechia and Slovakia, Slovakia seems much closer to Russia, or at least some parts of Slovakia, than Czechia does, what predicts which nations in Eastern Europe will have this attraction to the East? First and foremost, I would say it's cyclical. It's not just, you know, you don't have a recipe that reflects on the realities on the ground, you know, one on one. You have a very strong cultural, personal, cultural and historical roots.

10:04Of course, specifically in this region, you have religious and also post -imperial roots in the case of the Russian Empire that has been, you know, I would argue that what we see right now with Russia's continuum of the Russian Empire, DNA. And practically I use this golden rule of the closer, the better, you know, in terms of influence and in terms of penetration and subversion, the closer to the core, the bigger the influence. We saw this clearly also during the Cold War with Bulgaria being probably the most affected and highly influenced satellite with almost no saying in whatever topics. And at the same time, if you look at the policies and actions of Soviet block satellites, such as Poland or Czechoslovakia at the time, you will see that they had much more space to act and there were more, there were prompt more turmoil, internal turmoil, even Hungary, if you consider their moments of turning against the Soviet Union.

11:11This hasn't been the case with Bulgaria. In the case of Serbia, because again, you cannot use a common denominator. You cannot just say that these two, because they were geographically and still are geographically closer, they would be more influenced by Russia. Because in the case of Serbia, being still in a very, very specific situation following the collapse of Yugoslavia, trying to find external partners that support the leadership at the same time facing new realities with the buildup of the other states, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and so on and so forth. Of course Serbia was in a dire need to have a very strong supporter and it has found the supporter in the face of Russia.

12:01In the Bulgarian case, This is more historic. It has a sentiment in the Bulgarian population, even up until today, that has to do with emancipation of the Bulgarian state, the third Bulgarian state, following the Russian -Turkish war from 1878, and then practically because of the Russian Empire, Bulgaria could regain its state And the first czar of Bulgaria was also practically from the Russian Empire with Alexander Battenberg. So we had a very different, you know, mode of development and at the same time, influence, you know. Today we have, for instance, political parties in Bulgaria that are still very much, let's say, rooted in the same mindset that one needs an internal friendship with Russia, that this is the only way forward, even on behalf of the social democrats, you will find this kind of voices.

13:04We have a Bulgarian president who is very much also pro -Russian, even though that he will deny it. So you see that this kind of layers of influence and penetration to some extent are very, very, you know, are manifold. You will have some that are taking place on a free, let's say free base out of political convention or out of individual, you know, convention, but you will have also some instrumentalized influences. I wouldn't use any generalization for the region except as I said this golden rule that could be applicable that of course geographic approximation is certainly an indicator that will tell you a lot about how an external and powerful player would behave towards the smaller neighbors and will try to of course increase its leverage via via different mechanisms and actions and This goes through cultural ties, through personal business ties, but also political and economic projects.

14:13So it goes also via instrumentalization of dependencies, raw materials and all of these kind of things. Let me give you another example, just to end this topic. If you go to Serbia nowadays and ask the, and you know, just conduct a poll in the Serbian population and ask who is, you know, one of the biggest investors in Serbia. You know, a lot of people will tell you that this is Russia, which is actually not the case. It's not factual, because still the European Union is, in fact, the biggest institutional investor in the country. But it tells you a lot about perception, how Russia is being perceived, in terms of its strong -crowing, you know, in the country.

14:57Maybe we'll come back to Bulgaria, but let me try some questions about the broader world. Why is it you think China will not attack Taiwan? They claim it is theirs, and arguably in five to ten years, they'll be able to neutralize our submarine advantage from the U .S. with underwater drones and surveillance of our submarine presence. At that point, why don't they just move on Taiwan and try to take it? Well, I do understand that there is a lot of analysis coming out right now, especially on behalf of the military experts, not only in the United States, but also in other parts of the world, pointing to this realistic scenario that we may see a military attack by China on Taiwan, but not later than 2027 and why 2027, because it is being anticipated as the year when China will be able to catch up militarily with the United States.

15:52And I do not share this assessment. I just Don't see why China will have to take such a big risk in achieving something that it can achieve in a much smarter and more efficient way. What do I mean by that? I call this approach a debt by a thousand cuts. That would mean that China could spend a little bit longer in a slow but steady political, social, economic and societal penetration of Taiwan. And we could argue it's the old Soviet playbook. It could be done in a more subtle way, using plausible deniability. Taiwan is still the most successful democracy in the Indo -Pacific. That means also it is vulnerable to this kind of penetration where you can practically use agents provocateurs on the ground.

16:58You can buy up a lot of institutional or individual players. You can start doing all this subversion process in a, let's say, longer time frame, but it could bring about bigger success than actually risking military intervention, which is not giving you, I would even say, 50 -50 % of success. The terrain of Taiwan, if we compare it with the most sophisticated war that's going on right now, It's much more difficult. You have a very, very limited window to attack in the case of Taiwan. This window of opportunity is limited only to probably two periods in the whole year, which of course is also known by everyone in the region.

17:58And that particularly means defense of Taiwan. one, you have window of opportunity in April and then in October. So you cannot take any time in the year. It is sophisticated military attack that cannot be conducted on the whole of the island. And even though the China is catching up militarily right now, I think that the mindset of the Chinese leadership, the way how the Chinese leadership is, you know, is actually conducting strategy does contradict such risky endeavor again because time is on China's side. And China only needs to really prepare this sum of minor actions in a longer period of time.

18:46This is what I would actually do as a strategist, which would promise a much better percentage of success than like I said an adventurous military attack. Now we may argue that under unanticipated circumstances for the political leadership think of a situation where the political stability in China is shaken, where the Chinese leader Xi Jinping is somehow put into the corner to take a very, let's say, ad hoc decision on the matter because of certain circles of the hoax, of the military hoax. Of course we have this kind of possibility as well. It could be a black swan event, something that has happened in China and this makes him take this decision in order to draw the attention away from internal problems.

19:44and foreign policy adventures are always kind of, you know, gathering the public support. So it's not 100 % to be excluded, but in my scenario, I would actually point to rather, as I explained, this debt by thousands could approach rather than military attack on Taiwan. Are we now in a world where the laws of war are basically obsolete? So Putin is acting in Ukraine without restraint, killing civilians. The conflict in the Middle East, whatever one might think of it, there's clearly a lot of disagreement about it. So the ICC, the morning of this recording, is bringing charges against Netanyahu in the Israeli government.

20:29The United States government does not really recognize that as legitimate. Do we have international law anymore at all? Well, we have international law, but in the world of, you know, reality can geopolitics, the strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. And this is the principle, unfortunately, that more or less overrides international law norms and rules. And right now in this gray area of a inter -ministerial international system, so the old international is crumbling down, and the new international system is trying to be born. So we are in this, let's say, a stadium of an emergence of a new global system, in which each and single field, including the international law, we see it also with international organizations, such as the United Nations, the United Nations Security Council, is a perfect example for it, where we have clear bipolarization, bifurcation of the club between China and Russia on the one hand and United States, France and UK on the other.

21:41And the same goes for all these international bodies. And that is to say that they are being, of course, used on both sides. And at the same time, they are being misused, unfortunately. That is the reality. We are right now. We are in a dispute of international relations where the number of international military conflicts and wars hasn't been that high since the end of the Cold War. So it's the highest number of military conflicts and wars. We have a lot of, as you said, casualties. I argue we are going to have even more tensions and more military conflicts in the next years to come. with this year, 2024 being extremely volatile.

22:28And in a sense, I'm not surprised that we are in this situation where both sides are trying to instrumentalize legal norms, rules, standards. But to no avail, because in the end, up until we do not have, let's say, a new winner or new emerging blocks with their reading of international law, with their understanding of organizational principles, with their structures. We will be in this crazy zone of interpretation and misinterpretation, and practically there is almost no common ground in between. We do see that there is no more global, you know, policeman, a power that can decide over the end of military conflicts or wars.

23:21At the same time, we also see that more or less, not in the ratings that are coming from both sides are equally being instrumentalized because on the one hand right now you mentioned the case of the Middle East. In fact, I argue that the war between Israel and Hamas probably will find its way by the end of this year as compared to some other tensions that will be still ongoing and like the war for instance in Ukraine, which will still be ongoing in the next several years. But here we have a clear case where you see that the West, United States, European Union powers are supporting Israel and countries like China, Russia are actually supporting the Palestinian question.

24:08And I argue that in the end, probably this kind of balance, balancing act will be the positive influence on finding a two -state solution for this conflict with devastating humanitarian consequences for the Palestinian people without a doubt. Let's say that Putin manages to take and then keep something like a third of Ukraine, and then there's an uneasy truce. What would Putin do next? Is it Suwalki Gap? Is Lithuania? Is it Eastern Estonia? Is it Moldova? Play out the scenario in that case. Okay, so first, let's start with the calculus what Putin wants. I would like to give you my assessment as to what's going on there and what's been going on there for quite some time now.

24:53Now, first and foremost, Putin wants the whole of Ukraine, not just one -third of Ukraine or 20 % right now, Russia controls around 18%. No, they want all of it. And if it's necessary, they will just make, you know, 10 to 15 years planned how to slowly but surely subjugate the whole of Ukraine. That means in a similar way how it's been proceeded since 2014, you had practically a serious of military actions followed by ceasefire followed by some kind of negotiations then followed by military actions and reason repeat tactics. This was the case for almost 10 years. And due to this kind of strategy, Russia was able to military really control Eastern Ukraine and then it could see the opportunity to make a move.

25:56Of course, I have to say that in my assessment from December 2021, I was pointing to a scenario in which I was absolutely sure that there will be a war, but I actually even called this war a limited military operation. And I thought, this was my mistake, that the war will start in the east and south of Ukraine. I did not think that Putin will make an all -in move in 2022. I must say, it was a mistake on my side. Because, as I said, I was seeing this as a 10 to 15 years plan how to slowly subjugate the country. Why did he make Owen move and he practically launched the Fuske War from five directions?

26:47Well, I think it's so early to make all these assessments, but certainly I would argue the regional environment and situation prior to 2022 and also the global environment. That means think of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, then think of elections in key European countries in 2021. There was a political vacuum until new governments were built. We had key election in Germany. This is, as you know, meanwhile, the key provider of support for Ukraine. So we had worst energy crisis in 2021 already, looming in Europe. And we had the worst actually indicator for food prices. This is the FOW index that was reaching already levels of 2011 in December.

27:45So all of these were, you know, regional and global environment indicators that probably led also to this decision. But more importantly, what Putin got was also this, assurance of comprehensive, if you like full scale, comprehensive support coming from China. He has been building up this models with Andy with Xi Jinping since 2013, when Xi Jinping came to power. And he knew that by launching a Foscow War, and this is my personal assessment, of course, he would not just trigger the systemic competition between United States and China, China at that time was not ready for that kind of fast -speeded competition, which meanwhile as we know has accelerated to the point of the introduction of tariffs and the decoupling has really really been triggered but also you know to in a sense put in correctly bet on China that China was even if not agreeing with the whole decision would actually support Moscow in this endeavor as it turned out.

28:56So going back now to your question, I just wanted to make this clarification. What would be the next steps, right? What would be the next on his agenda? Now again, first and foremost, what is on his agenda is that he will not give up on attacking Kieff and attacking, you know, Odessa and trying to get as much as possible from Ukraine. And if He's not able for whatever reasons we cannot debate now about technical issues of you know the technicalities of the war Russia has been adapting but Russia has also made a lot of mistakes Ukraine has been adapting in the war, but in reality right now There are attacking the second largest city Korkiv but obviously there also attacking Odessa and like I said my Expectation is that they will be attacking Kiev again.

29:46So let's assume even if partially successful or fully successful, but let's assume putting succeeds in getting large part of Ukraine and then we have some sort of negotiations, some sort of ceasefire and then negotiations and like I said this is the best case scenario from Russia's point of view because every time when there were ceasefire agreements and any kind of negotiations in this case this will also legitimize the Russian territorial gains. This ceasefire has always been violated. So in a sense, this is actually placing to the cards of Russia. I mean, this is the main question. Will Russia actually attack other countries in Europe?

30:34Am I understanding correctly your question? Display NATO, right? So if Putin hates NATO and holds a grudge against NATO, he'll want take some marginal action that will split the NATO coalition, not so dramatic that everyone is against him. So something like, say, send an army group into Eastern Estonia, claim there's ethnic turmoil, side with the Russian minority, tell a bunch of lies, and then work to subvert the Baltics. Is that in the cards to come next or not? Yes, absolutely. If I were him, or if I were to consult him and you know he's successful in his in his action so far why would he not try it I mean first and foremost the Baltics I think that they already understand high risk of such situation in fact we have to split it in two parts the one part being neighboring countries like Moldova and Georgia and there I would also go for you know territories because I have already the military presence.

31:34I have already, I mean from Russia's point of view. Territories like Transnistria, which is neighboring Odessa and practically will enable Sanitir Cordon with the European Union, but also in Georgia with the sweeping borders in South Ossetia. For instance, in Abkhazia, I would just go for these territories because this is, you know, about status and about great power exercise. And in the next step, I would actually consider doing something like this, like an attack on the Baltic because first and foremost, there will be a certain regional environment that will allow it. What do I mean by that?

32:12If let's say the members of NATO and the European Union are somehow in conflictual blocks because of the future of you know these organizations, I mean we do not talk about 2024 obviously. But in the next years in the European Union as a bloc will undergo major shifts and a lot of troubles and you know the member states will probably not be so coherent in their positions all the time and the same goes for NATO especially if we have a very very different US leadership so under these circumstances provocation like this would mean to test the article five, to let's say to use the opportunity to show that the article five of NATO is not really going to be activated.

33:02This is a possibility. I would say right now from today's point of view, it is absolutely possible and to some extent probable but not plausible. But in the next few years, depending on the success of Russia in Ukraine, and I mean the time frame of 2025 -2026, I would not exclude, as I said, such possible and probable act by Russia, for instance, on the Balticom. Not so much on Poland, I do not take this really seriously as some analysts appointing a tech on Poland. I would also think that Poland may actually seek to get nuclear weapons. So in the case, if Poland decides to go nuclear, this question will be automatically answered as to whether Russia would be eager to attack Poland.

33:53No, I know this is a highly speculative question, but if you had to guess, where would strategic nuclear weapons most likely be used next? What would be your pick? First and foremost, I want to stress that the risk of the use of nuclear weapons has not grown bigger. With all the nuclear blackmail, with all the threats that nuclear weapons will be used, coming from Russia, we saw a president in the international relations, you know, modern times that country, obviously a great power, tries to legitimize territorial gains by the threat of the use of nuclear weapons. But this risk, the risk of the realistic use of nuclear weapons hasn't grown bigger.