Key Reflections
* Despite the Wagner Group’s mutiny, Vladimir Putin still relies on the private military company and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to act as arms of the Russian government in other parts of the world, such as Africa.
* Russia’s agenda in attacking grain stores at ports on the River Danube is to cause hardship in the Global South as a means of putting pressure on Western governments to end sanctions in response to potential concerns of a famine.
* There are concerns that Iraq’s new government has sectarian elements with ties to Iran. Pro-Iran Shia militias are utilised to advance Tehran’s political goals.
* The Taliban is not a coherent entity, but rather a very fractious organisation consisting of various factions, wherein moderate elements have less power than the hardliners.
* The Afghan Taliban benefited from Pakistan’s support in their return to power in Afghanistan. However, much to the Pakistani military’s chagrin, the Taliban have not clamped down on the TTP, who have proliferated and come back to haunt Pakistan.
* Pakistan’s government is firmly controlled by the country’s military and intelligence establishment. Politicians who attempt to step over red lines will be punished.
Transcript:
SG: Dr. Sajjan Gohel
KK: Dr. Karl Kaltenthaler
SG: Welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast, I’m your host Dr. Sajjan Gohel and in this episode I speak with Dr. Karl Kaltenthaler, Director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Akron.
I speak with Karl about the global geopolitical picture, from Ukraine to Africa, to Syria and Iraq, and from Iran to Afghanistan and Pakistan. We unpack the myriad of challenges facing the international community right now.
Dr. Karl Kaltenthaler, warm welcome to NATO DEEP Dive.
KK: Thank you for having me.
SG: So, let’s look at the fallout of the Wagner Group and Vladimir Putin. What does this mean for the Ukraine war and Wagner’s future when it comes to conflicts abroad, such as their engagements in Sub-Saharan Africa?
KK: Well, first of all, I would say it’s not completely clear what the fallout is going to be over the long term of what some people described as an attempted coup by Wagner. I’m not sure I fall into the category of analysts that think of that as an attempted coup. It may very well have been an attempt to get rid of some of the people in the Ministry of Defence that Prigozhin felt were very responsible for limiting Wagner’s battlefield capability and leading to a lot of casualties. So, one of the things that I’ve seen, since the events that were so dramatic with Wagner going up the highway towards Moscow, is that the fallout hasn’t been as extreme as some had predicted. It’s clear that there was a deal cut between Prigozhin and Putin and we don’t know what the details of that deal are. Clearly some Wagner forces redeployed into Belarus, but there are still some Wagner forces that remain in Ukraine, although a lot of those have been moved away from the battlefield itself. So, around Bakhmut, where they were primarily deployed.
So, I think the thing I would say is that Putin still depends on Wagner, he still depends on Wagner, particularly in Africa and in the end probably will eventually depend on Wagner again, to some degree, in Ukraine. I think, probably, Prigozhin told Putin, ‘Look, if you don’t fully supply my forces in Ukraine, we’re just not going to commit to the battlefield the same way we did.’ But the thing that really strikes me is that there’s been a great deal of consistency in how Wagner’s forces have been deployed outside of Russia, and one of the things that we see is the forces that have been sent to Belarus have really been doing two things [that are] very useful to the Russian government. One of the things is they’ve been training the Belarusian army. The other thing is that they’re clearly training to be deployed into Africa. So, these guys are not sitting there in some kind of exile where they have to give up their weapons and they’re not meaningful, they’re still very much acting as really the arms of the Russian government.
SG: That’s very interesting and the context that you provide and the relevance that Wagner still has to Vladimir Putin in particular. I guess time will only show how that continues, or the faultlines that may emerge, or new faultlines that may emerge. In relation to that, Russia has attacked grain stores at the river Danube ports. Is this a tactic that we can assume will continue? And what will be the global consequences of this? Because very often we hear that Ukraine is the breadbasket of the world.
KK: Yeah, I unfortunately think that these attacks will continue. Some have predicted that they’ll taper off. What we’re seeing is an unevenness to the attacks, some days are worse than others, and that’s to be predicted [and] to be expected. I think the consequences of this will be felt mostly in Africa, because as you pointed out, yes, Ukraine is a very important supplier of grain, particularly to the developing world. And the way I interpret what is going on, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, is that the Russian government has come to the to the decision that the best way to get out of some of the sanctions that have been put there by the West, is to really cause hardship in the Global South, and that will put pressure on governments in the West then to react to famine, which is most likely to happen in some of these African countries. And then they’ll relieve some of the sanctions on Russia. So, this is a very hard-nosed tactic on the part of the Russian Government to really precipitate a food crisis in the Global South to get out of some of these sanctions.
SG: You mentioned the word ‘hardship.’ We often forget that Russia remains active in Syria too, a country that has not recovered from the civil war, that is also going through hardship. Recently, a Russian fighter jet flew very close to a U.S. aircraft over the skies of Syria, which was an incident that actually put the lives of the four U.S. crew members in danger, according to the Pentagon. What is Russia’s game plan in Syria? And can they afford to be involved, even now, because of their interference in Ukraine?
KK: It is costly for Russia to continue to be involved in Syria. From the Russian perspective, Syria is a very, very important ally in the Middle East. It’s an area where Russia can show off its power; it’s an area where Russia can say, ‘Look, we’re committed to our allies.’ And that’s important for Russia because Russia has so few allies. So, staying committed to the Syrian situation, I think, is something that the Russians will continue to do into the future. They’ve clearly upped their pressure on the Americans to leave. I think they think there is not a strong appetite in Washington to potentially get into a conflict with the Russians in Syria. And that’s probably correct. But I also don’t see the US administration deciding, ‘Well, the Russians are threatening our aircraft or they’re harassing us on the ground [so] we’re going to withdraw our few remaining forces in Syria.’ That’s just not going to happen.
The United States views Syria as a very, very important aspect of stability in the region, partially because of ISIS, also, partially because of Iran. The few U.S. forces that are deployed down in the south, and some of them that are up with the Kurds, they’re in a supportive mission. They’re not carrying out large scale combat operations, but that supportive mission is very important to keeping ISIS at bay, [and] also sending a signal to the Iranians that the United States is not going to simply abandon its mission in Syria. And one of the things that we have to keep in mind too, is that you’ve got camps like al-Hol and al-Roj, which are extremely important as potential incubators for future ISIS fighters. And while the Kurds control those camps, they control those camps with a lot of American support. There’s a lot of American money that goes into helping support that mission; there’s Americans that are involved in trying to solve the problems of these people in these camps. Al-Holl camp has upwards of 55,000 people in the camp, the vast majority of which are essentially ISIS families and so, if the United States was to withdraw from that area, and kind of give up support for the Kurds in meaningful ways, you could see a breakout from those camps and have 10s of 1000s of potential new fighters for ISIS.
So, this is an important region, I don’t see the United States abandoning it. The Russians sometimes miscalculate the fortitude of the American administration; I think they think the United States only wants to focus on China. And I can kind of understand that sometimes, because that seems to be the discussion of the day in Washington [about] what to do about China, but I don’t see the United States really abandoning its operations and its mission in Syria.
SG: You make a very important point about the camps of al-Hol and al-Roj. They definitely have unfortunately, become incubators for extremism and may well breed the next generation of terrorist fighters that could plague very many parts of the world, including potentially if they returned to the to their home countries and we know in some cases, they are being returned, and the full consequences of that only time will tell.
Aside from Russia, another supporter of the Syrian Assad regime is Iran. We have recently started seeing the gradual return of the infamous gašt-e eršâd, which is the ‘morality police’, so-called ‘morality police’ on the streets of Iran. What does this mean in terms of women’s rights inside Iran because women in Iran have been very vocal in protesting, calling for greater equality, and in many cases, they have been detained and even murdered by the establishment?
KK: Well, it’s a very bad sign. It’s an indication that the Iranian regime wants to get back to business as usual. I think they planned to do this from the get-go. That this was something that they were clearly going to reintroduce, because it’s so important to their supporters. One of the things that you have to keep in mind is that the clerical regime, while it is unpopular with very large proportions of the Iranian population, still have supporters that they depend on, and they can’t lose that kind of support, they can’t look like they’re weakening their resolve, or that they’ve lost their religious credentials. So, from my perspective, I look at them basically doing two things: One is cracking down very hard, and as you said, yes, arrests, murder, all kinds of intimidation, to get the protesters off the street.
And then they did their time, this was kind of the second part of their plan, to wait until things calmed down a bit, wait until the protesters are back in their houses, wait until the international attention turns away a little bit, and then we’ll gradually reintroduce the kind of harsh policies towards women and others as well, that they had prior to the protests. So, yeah, it’s very unfortunate for women and I have been in frequent contact with Iranians, particularly Iranian women, journalists who I’ve worked with, and there’s a great deal of unhappiness with the status quo, and a lot of Iranians would just rather leave the country, than put up with the status quo because they’re not optimistic that things change positively.
SG: Well, it’s very disconcerting what you’re saying. And again, another challenge that doesn’t really get necessarily the attention it should do right now. If we look at one of Iran’s other neighbours, Iraq, the country there has a very complex political mesh of different actors with different allegiances. Can you demystify what is happening in Iraq right now and why that also should matter to us?
KK: So, this didn’t get a lot of attention in the Western press, because so many other things have happened, the war in Ukraine, the deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and China, and other things, but Iraq has really undergone a very important change in the last year. And the changes that the government, that is in power right now, that came to form its present constellation of parties that have the coalition that run the country, didn’t win the most votes in the last election. But it played hardball on the streets of Iraq. It also did some very smart things, in terms of blocking those who would have come to power, who got the most votes, they blocked them from coming to power by using particularly the judiciary, which is aligned with this government.
So, this government that has come to power, which is not backed by the majority of Iraqis, is very pro-Iranian. In fact, this government is the political representation of the pro-Iran Shia militias. So, this is a very sectarian government, a very pro-Iran government, a very anti-Western government, a government which, frankly, uses its armed wings to accomplish a lot of its political goals. So, this is a major change in Iraq, because the previous government, under [Mustafa Al-] Kadhimi, was very adept at balancing Iraq’s relationship with the United States and Iran. And they viewed this as absolutely crucial for Iraq’s future because if Iran becomes the dominant power at the expense of the United States, that could very well lead to the kind of situation that produced ISIS in the first place in Iraq.
So, the key question that I think about now, when I look at this present government, is: are we looking at a government that will create the conditions that will re-energise ISIS support based in Iraq? Will it alienate the Sunni Arabs in the country to the point where they say, ‘Okay, we don’t trust this government anymore, we have no faith in it’? Will it alienate the Kurds to an extent that the Kurds once again think about, ‘Maybe we need to move towards independence’? But what we’ve seen so far is actually this government playing its cards very carefully. It has said that it’s in no rush to get American troops out of the country, which came as a huge surprise, I think, to just about everybody who follows Iraq, in the United States. And this government has also not gone after the Sunnis the way some had expected.
But I would say it’s early days. And one of the things that we have to think about is if there is any kind of conflict between the United States and Iran, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in Iraq, somewhere in the Gulf, there’s kind of a cold war going on there and sometimes it actually involves a little bit of shooting, but mostly it’s a cold war between the Iranian forces and the Iranian government and the United States, but Iraq will become part of that conflict if it does break out, and that would very likely help ISIS to have a revival.
SG: Well, you’ve effectively answered my next question, which is that is this a sign of history repeating itself? Because we saw, under one of the previous Iraqi Governments, a slow diffusion of sectarianism, where Sunni Muslims were being disenfranchised, ostracised, the hard earned gains that were made previously all evaporated and coincidentally tied up with the Arab Spring and the knock on effects from the Syrian Civil War, which then, as you said, gave birth to ISIS. So, again, there are eerie signs that you’re pointing out where history is potentially repeating itself. So, we’ll have to watch that very carefully.
KK: Absolutely.
SG: Sticking with Iran, it has reestablished diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, courtesy of China’s diplomatic intervention. What does that mean in real terms, that Iran and Saudi Arabia appear to have mended their fractious relationship for now?
KK: So, that’s a very important question. And there’s a lot of people who are trying to figure that out. What does this actually mean? I’ve had the benefit of speaking to quite a few folks in the Saudi military establishment since this has happened. And one of the things I would say is we shouldn’t make too much of this. This does not indicate a sea change in Saudi-Iranian relations, it does not indicate that Saudi Arabia has decided somehow that it’s ending its close relationship with the West in favour of some kind of a new, Middle Eastern focused foreign policy that includes Iran. Saudi Arabia still views Iran as a very grave threat.
What this is about, more than anything else, is getting Iran to help Saudi Arabia solve some of the immediate problems that they have. So, one of the things that’s actually tied to this is the rehabilitation, if you want to call it that, of Bashar al-Assad. So, as you well know, the Iranians and the Syrian government are very closely tied. Bashar al-Assad depends very heavily on the Iranians, politically, militarily, and to a degree diplomatically as well. One of the things that Bashar al-Assad has done to really make life difficult for the Saudis and other countries in the region is to allow, if not facilitate, a huge amount of Captagon smuggling into countries like Saudi Arabia.
So, Captagon is a drug that has become, unfortunately, very popular among Saudi youth, Iraqi youth; different countries’ young people have gravitated to this because it is a very popular stimulant, it makes people feel energetic and happy. And so, to a degree, this is part of it, that Saudi Arabia is saying to the Iranians, ‘Look, we’ll get better relations with you, we’ll get better relations with the Saudis, please help us with this Captagon problem.’
So, that’s part of it and that’s not, I don’t think, widely understood that it’s issues of domestic politics or domestic health issues in Saudi Arabia that’s driving a good deal of this. And part of it is just to create more stability in the region in general. It’s really a no-lose prospect for the Saudis to work out a really basic, not very deep, deal with the Iranians to say, ‘Okay, let’s tone it down a little bit, you don’t like us, we don’t like you, but we’ll tone this down a little bit, because we both have issues we’ve got to deal with.’ But it does not signify any kind of really meaningful realignment.
SG: Okay, it’s one of those interesting moving pieces that I think again will evolve in some predictable ways and unpredictable ways, but the drug aspect that you mentioned is certainly something that doesn’t get enough notice at all. If we continue with Iran, they have just become part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the SCO. Is that an important development? Does that enhance the SCO as a growing and significant multilateral organisation, or is this something that again was perhaps not as important as some are making out?
KK: I don’t think it’s very important. That organisation really is not a very meaningful organisation. It’s more of a talking shop than anything else. It’s not really one of those organisations where you see decisions being made or executed that had been very important for any of the countries that are part of the organisation. So, I don’t perceive this as being an important thing at all. Iran’s trying to rehabilitate their image internationally. They’re also clearly trying to get closer to China and Russia. They need a lifeline because they’re in pretty desperate economic straits. They also want military help from China and Russia. So, it makes sense that Iran is really trying to develop more of a sense that ‘Hey, we’re a global cooperative power.’
SG: So, Iran is certainly moving its actors around as we’ve been looking at—Syria, Iraq, then of course the SCO, Saudi Arabia, and then with China as well. Let’s move to Iran’s two neighbours, Afghanistan and Pakistan, starting with Afghanistan. The Taliban in power in Afghanistan, they’re seeking recognition from the international community. There’s been some interesting events that have transpired recently, with some politicians in the West advocating that. Yet there are major concerns that remain that the Taliban continue to harbour al-Qaeda; a UN report was pretty clear and direct about that. How can the international community consider Taliban recognition whilst terrorist groups appear to be reconstituting in Afghanistan?
KK: Well, the issue of international recognition is obviously very important to the Taliban regime. And it’s been very interesting to me that the Pakistanis who I worked with and talk to have changed their tune on that a bit. And what we saw was after the Taliban grabbed power, the Pakistanis were all over the issue of international recognition. You know, ‘We need to help the Afghan people. We need to make sure that Afghanistan doesn’t become a source of instability.’ And so, the Pakistanis were very much the cheerleaders of the Taliban regime in terms of getting them international recognition. They’ve backed off from that now. A lot of that has to do with the very fraught relationship that now exists between the Taliban and the Pakistani government, more importantly the Pakistani military and ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.
But in terms of the international recognition issue, the main reason that proponents of that idea have called for it is to try to help with aid and to get the necessary food and other forms of support to the Afghan population, which is suffering miserably. Almost the entire population is in poverty now by global measures, and it’s a very desperate situation for a lot of Afghans. So, there’s also been the argument that if you recognise the Taliban regime, you’ll somehow moderate that regime and that they’ll become more friendly towards their female population, not abuse them as much, they’ll follow international norms more, they’ll throw al-Qaeda out of the country. I think those voices are relatively few and far between, and I think the biggest enemy of the Taliban getting international recognition is the Taliban itself.
The Taliban has proven that, if anything, they’re not going to weaken their stance towards restricting women’s lives in Afghanistan. They’re more hardline than they were before. And a big reason for this is that the Taliban is a fractious organisation, and I think not everybody understands that—that this is not a centralised, coherent organisation. This is a very fractious organisation; it’s essentially a group of militias that come together under a single banner. And so, in order to maintain some kind of coherence, at least the militias not fighting with each other that are part of the Taliban, the Taliban regime, the government, the very central decision-makers caved into the hardliners. And so, the moderates in the Taliban are not going to have sway over the direction of the Taliban; hardliners will continue to dominate the types of decisions that that government makes. And so, I think any hope of that regime being recognised internationally any time soon is unrealistic.
SG: You mentioned a lot of important dynamics when it comes to Afghanistan, and one of them was the relationship with Pakistan. Pakistan, as we know, had long backed the Taliban, had given them sanctuary during the War on Terror years. Well, to quote, actually, a person who we had on the podcast previously, David Loyn, he used the term “buyer’s remorse.” And that leads me to what I wanted to ask you now. Pakistan’s military establishment has long had those ties with the Taliban. They had hoped that by the Taliban returning, that the Taliban would then clamp down on the activities of the TTP, also known as the Pakistan Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. But what we’ve actually seen is the opposite. There’s been a major upsurge in attacks in Pakistan, including on Chinese nationals that are working on the Belt and Road initiatives, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC. Why has it been so difficult for Pakistan to resolve this issue with the Taliban when they had decades of close ties, and can we expect more attacks on infrastructure projects and other big targets in Pakistan?
KK: Well, I’ll answer your last question first. Yes, we can expect to see more attacks. The Pakistani Taliban seems to be growing stronger, not weaker. And there are very few good options for the Pakistani military, for their intelligence services, to really deal with this, short of some kind of military operation in Afghanistan. And it’s interesting that we’ve not really seen discussion of that in Pakistan, any indication that the Pakistani military is really contemplating that. And they know full well, because if they go into Afghanistan, to go after the TTP, or there’s other groups, it’s not just the TTP—if they go after the Pakistani Taliban, they’re going to get stuck in a situation very similar to what the United States faced. They’re going to be in an insurgent war, which they very likely don’t want to get involved in. There’s not a tremendous amount of gratitude and love for the Pakistanis among even the Afghan Taliban, let alone the Afghan population.
To a great degree, the Afghan Taliban used the Pakistanis. And I think a lot of people thought that there was this ideological overlap and that there was this very close allegiance and cooperation between ISI, the Pakistani intelligence, which was the primary supporter of the Taliban, and the Taliban leadership. It was never there. I’ve followed Afghanistan very closely for many years, and this is not surprising to me. I think the Pakistanis expected gratitude, they expected strategic cooperation, and they got burned. But this is not the first time the Pakistanis have gotten burned, right? Particularly the ISI—the ISI has created groups, literally created them, they played a role in organising the groups. And then those groups came back to then start to attack targets in Pakistan. So, we talk about the Taliban sometimes as being blowback for the American support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets. There’s some truth to that, but it’s much more complicated than that. This is blowback for the Pakistanis in terms of their attempts to use essentially religious zealots as a form of their foreign policy, their security policy. It’s not gone well for them. It’s destabilised the country. It’s made the country much less secure. Now they’ve got a country next-door, which they had hoped would be not only strategic depth, but a country that they didn’t have to worry about. Now, they’ve got a country next-door that is a major source of security concerns. And so, I’m not one to say, you know, ‘You get what you deserve’ to the Pakistanis, but I would say to them, ‘You really shouldn’t be surprised that this has happened.’
SG: Indeed. I definitely echo those thoughts. I’m reminded by that adage that you can never buy a Taliban, you can only rent one, and their rates change by the hour. And I think with Pakistan’s economic challenges, they’re realising they can’t keep pleasing the Taliban. And when it comes to being used, yes, I think often the perception was the Taliban were being used by Pakistan; in many ways, it potentially was the other way around. You mentioned about the role of the ISI, and they have often been seen as not just an agency that’s involved with terrorist groups, but also when it comes to politics in Pakistan as well. Pakistan’s general elections are due to be held by November of 202 at the latest. Imran Khan, the former prime minister, international cricketer at one time, he’s claimed that the military and the current coalition government are trying to prevent him from running because they fear he would win. With Pakistan, the political scene often tends to resemble Groundhog Day, where you have the military, the ISI, they create and nurture a politician, there’s a falling out, they get removed, someone replaces them, and the cycle repeats itself. So, in your mind, Karl, as a final question, what is happening in Pakistan? What can we expect is going to happen?
KK: Well, Pakistan is a very, very unstable place right now. And despite the IMF bailout, Pakistan’s economic problems are not solved. Pakistan’s political problems run very, very deep. And I don’t remember a time—maybe with Musharraf—we saw this level of conflict between the military and a politician, but probably not. This is more profound than that. I see Imran Khan not being allowed to run. His party is in shambles. There have been many defections from the party. And even if he is allowed to run—which, like I said, I think is unlikely, I think that’s basically been made impossible for him—the vote would be rigged so that he wouldn’t win. He’s clearly angered the military establishment; he has picked a fight with the most powerful force in Pakistan. He’s not going to win that fight. I think he has personally angered many in the Pakistani military and the ISI. His supporters attacked the military. That’s just something that you would have never thought would have happened before in that country, and not just because of the military having so much support in the country, which a lot of people don’t realise—the military is the most popular institution in the country. But it’s also the most feared institution in the country, rightly so, particularly the ISI. The conversations I have with Pakistanis, except when they’re here in the US or in the West, they’re always extremely—how should I put this—careful to not say anything that’s going to get them in hot water with the ISI. So, the fact that the PTI, Imran Khan’s party, took such an open, negative stance towards the military, I think has finished that party off and has probably finished Imran Khan off as a politician, at least into the foreseeable future.
So, I think we’ll see more of the same politically in Pakistan. It’ll muddle along—well, more accurately, it’ll lurch from crisis to crisis. But Pakistan is not going to be able to really solve its deep structural problems. And to me, Pakistan is a very good example of a country with a deep state, and the deep state is the military. And the politicians get to play politics, act like they’re in charge, and then they step on the toes of the military, and then the military slaps them down again. And I think that’s what we saw with Imran Khan. It can very well happen with the present government into the future, but I doubt it; I think they know where the red lines are. Imran Khan is an example, in my view, of a politician who probably thought he was more powerful than he was in reality and stepped across a red line, and then has kept stepping across red lines. It’s not good for Pakistan, because there’s a lot of youth, and for what Imran Khan stands for, you know, he’s not my favourite guy, but I’m not a fan of most Pakistani politicians, but for a lot of young people in Pakistan, he stood for change. And you know, now they see more, oh, okay; the establishment runs this country, the establishment is the military and their allies, there’s not really much hope. And like I said with Iran, what I hear from a lot of not just younger Pakistanis, but Pakistanis in middle age, they desperately want to get out of the country. They are very pessimistic about the future of Pakistan. And I don’t blame them. I don’t see Pakistan turning a corner and becoming a stable, functioning political and economic entity.
SG: Well, that’s definitely a pretty concerning and almost depressing note to conclude with, but I think it’s a sobering reality that you present, and I would echo again what you said about Pakistan and the economic, political, military, social challenges that the country faces. In many ways, Pakistan should actually be a member of the G20; it has all the potential of being a G20 country, and yet, its economy is lagging behind even Bangladesh, which was a former part of Pakistan. So, concerning times in Afghanistan, Pakistan, but also in the Middle East. Karl, very grateful to you for spending this time on NATO Deep Dive and look forward to having you back in the future and providing us with more depressing updates.
KK: Well, thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.
SG: It’s been our pleasure.
Thank you for listening to this episode of NATO DEEP Dive, brought to you by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP). My producers are Marcus Andreopoulos and Victoria Jones. For additional content, including full transcripts of each episode, please visit: deepportal.hq.nato.int/deepdive.
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This transcript has been edited for clarity.