Will the Lights in Britain Go Out This Winter? | Will Turkey Attacks Greece in 2023? | New ‘Great War of Africa’ Is Raging, and more

War Over Taiwan Is Nowhere Near Inevitable  (Michael Mazza, Foreign Policy)
Does peace in the Taiwan Strait truly stand on a knife’s edge?
The Chinese Communist Party wants the international community to accept that China’s approach to Taiwan is governed by some supposedly immutable law of cross-strait physics: For every action on the part of Taiwan or its foreign supporters, there will be a disproportionate and opposite reaction. As a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman warned ahead of the Pelosi visit, “the U.S. will be responsible for all of the serious consequences.” This is the equivalent of a movie villain pointing a gun at a hostage’s head while telling the cops that their actions will determine whether the hostage lives or dies.
But the party is responsible for its own actions and, with respect to Taiwan policy, has locked itself in a cage of its own making, which limits its flexibility to productively engage with Taiwan and to respond to a variety of perceived slights. Still, it would be a mistake for American policymakers to conclude that alternative pathways are not still available to Beijing.

How to Trump-Proof the Transatlantic Alliance  (Peter Wittig, Foreign Affairs)
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caught Europe by surprise. Although U.S. intelligence services predicted the Russian offensive almost to the day, few European leaders took heed of their warnings, instead choosing to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would use nonmilitary means to destabilize Ukraine. Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was among the European leaders who sleepwalked into the crisis. Like much of German society, his administration was completely unprepared for a major war in Europe. For too long, the German government had clung to old certainties: that close energy ties with Russia fostered stability, that trade promoted political change, and that dialogue with Moscow was valuable in and of itself. The awakening was brutal. Overnight, all these cherished assumptions were shattered.
But the shock of Russia’s war of aggression occasioned an impressive about-face in German foreign and security policy. Within days of the invasion, Scholz’s government scaled back energy imports from Russia, began arms deliveries to Ukraine, and announced a 100 billion euro special budget for defense investments, which would allow Germany to achieve the goal of spending the equivalent of two percent of GDP on defense that NATO members have pledged to do since 2014. Along with other EU countries, Germany joined the United States in imposing an unprecedented raft of sanctions on Moscow. The message from Berlin was unequivocal: Germany needs hard power to preserve European security.
This sudden transformation in Berlin has helped strengthen the transatlantic alliance, bringing Germany and the United States into closer alignment than they have been in years. After the tumult of Donald Trump’s presidency, Germans have welcomed the return of the United States as a resolute defender of European security and of the rules-based international order. At the same time, however, the war in Ukraine has opened Germany’s eyes to the risks of depending on the United States for security when Washington is focused on great-power rivalry with China and mired in its own democratic uncertainty.
Germany still regards the United States as an indispensable lifeline, but the possibility of Trump or some other Trumpist candidate retaking the White House has German officials deeply worried. As Norbert Röttgen, a German lawmaker who previously served as chair of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, stated publicly, the greatest threat to European (and German) security is the “precarious, endangered state of American democracy.” To prevent their relationship from withering during a future far-right American presidency, Germany and the United States must urgently fortify the transatlantic alliance, deepening security and trade ties while forging a common approach to the challenges posed by China and climate change. In an era of increasing geopolitical uncertainty, only a future-proofed transatlantic bond can ensure the security of Europe.

This Could Be How Turkey Attacks Greece in 2023  (Michael Rubin, National Interest)
Erdogan needs an excuse either to postpone elections or to distract Turks with nationalism. A conflict with Greece checks both boxes.

Ethiopia: How a New ‘Great War of Africa’ Is Raging Under the Cover of a Media Blackout  (Will Brown, Lucy Kassa, and Zecharias Zelalem, The Telegraph)
Ethiopia is becoming “Africa’s world war” with tens of thousands of deaths in the last few months potentially going unreported as Tigrayan rebels battle a coalition of armies and militias in a media blackout…Ethiopian federal forces, Eritrean soldiers and allied ethnic militias have been battling Tigrayan rebels in a desperate infantry war on four fronts across the Tigray region’s mountainous terrain since a fragile ceasefire shattered in late August. But there has been hardly any reporting on the conflict after the Ethiopia government cut phone and internet lines to the region and almost completely stopped media access to hide the extent of the fighting.

What Is the Meaning of North Korea’s Nuclear Opportunism?  (Katie Stallard, New Statesman)
With the West distracted by the war in Ukraine, Kim Jong Un may have decided now is the time to press ahead with his weapons program.

No Blob, We Are Not “Already Fighting” World War III  (Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft)
These Washington foreign policy elites are recklessly suggesting that Russia is a universal threat that requires absolute victory over evil.