The New Silk Road: Where East meets West
And the topic of our next novel
Welcome back to the Two Navy Guys Debrief, the (mostly) weekly forum where we look at a national security issue and how we have explored that topic in our fiction.
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When working on a national security thriller, sometimes you go looking for the research and sometimes the research just finds you.
Last month, David was on a trip to Croatia. It was not supposed to include research for our Command and Control series, but sometimes you just can’t get away from your day job…
The entire Balkan region is a fascinating place with a fraught history that is still being worked out in many ways. For example, if you drive the 230 KM from the coastal city of Split, Croatia, to Dubrovnik, Croatia, you have to cross an international border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Yup, the country of Croatia is divided in two.
How is that possible?
In 1991, when the country of Yugoslavia was broken into seven smaller countries, Bosnia was almost entirely landlocked except for a 12-mile strip of coastline called the Neum Corridor that gave the country access to the Adriatic. There was only one problem: the Neum Corridor cuts across Croatia. If you want to drive from Split to Dubrovnik (which served as Kings Landing in Game of Thrones) you need to cross a border.
At first, the border was more of a suggestion. Vehicles routinely crossed without even stopping. In 2013, Croatia joined the EU and border control became more important. Long waits at the border ensued.
So the Croatians came up with a new plan: If we can’t go through the border, we’ll just go around it.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The coastline is rife with peninsulas, so all they needed to do was build a bridge from the north Croatian mainland to a southern Croatian peninsula, a distance of about 2.5 KM. The project was started in 2007 and then stalled with the global financial crisis of 2008. For ten years.
If you’ve read this far, you might be asking yourself “Guys, what on earth does this have to do with national security thrillers?”
The Peljesac bridge, pictured above, was finally completed in summer of 2022…by China. In 2018, the Chinese Road and Bridge Corporation won the bidding for the contract over the objections and competing bids of multiple EU companies.
And here is where this travelogue intersects our national security thrillers.
The bridge in Croatia is part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative—which is a key flashpoint in our next book, Covert Action.
The BRI is China’s 10-year-old economic experiment designed to strengthen China’s influence with the rest of the world. To date, the PRC has poured about one trillion dollars into “hard infrastructure” projects, things like energy, rail lines, ports, and roads.1
[The terminology is a little confusing. "Belt" refers to overland routes connecting China to Europe through Central Asia. "Road" means seaborne connections.]
A quick glance at the map2 above shows the sheer scope of what China is trying to do. They have opened up numerous markets all over the world and put the Chinese stamp on global trade.
Their global project is not without controversy. Our driver in Croatia told us that the bridge was built almost entirely with Chinese labor and materials, meaning there was little local economic benefit from the project. The Chinese government has also been accused
…of engaging in "debt trap diplomacy" by luring poorer countries to sign up for expensive projects so that Beijing could eventually seize control of assets put up as collateral.
When we studied the map above, one region popped out at us right away: Central Asia, specifically the countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
Historically, these countries3 were part of the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia and Europe. As a result of trade, invasion, and geography, the region is home to many distinct cultures. Indeed, the suffix -stan is Persian meaning “land of.” In other words, Land of the Turks, Land of the Tajiks, etc.4 Later, the lands fell under the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union, so there is a strong Russian cultural connection that exists even today.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, these countries became buffers between the Russian Federation and the rest of the world. When Mr. Putin mentions his “near abroad” he’s referring to buffer countries like Kazakhstan and Ukraine on the borders of Russia.
Geographically, these countries are sandwiched between the Great Powers of Russia (debatable) to the north and China (not debatable) to the east.
So, let’s summarize:
Multiple countries with strong ethnic roots
Insanely complex and oft-disputed borders, often drawn for political reasons by outside parties.
On one flank, a declining Great Power with strong historical connections to the region
On the other flank, a rising Great Power with a lot of money to burn.
And into this combustible mixture, China dumps billions of dollars into a New Silk Road, a thousand-mile land connection between western China and Tehran.
Billions of dollars at stake, Great Power struggles, local politics and simmering ethnic tensions…I mean, what could go wrong?
Introducing our next novel, Covert Action, Book 5 in the Command and Control series.
On his radio show, National Security This Week, JR talks with Christopher Townsend, National President of the Navy League of the United States. They discuss the maritime services and American national security interests in the maritime arena.
Be happy. Stay healthy. Read (or listen to) a book.
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David & JR, AKA the Two Navy Guys
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67120726
Photo credit: AsiaGreen
Photo credit: wikipedia creative commons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asia
Really insightful ideas on our current events. I look forward to your book.