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Friday, October 31, 2025
Thursday, October 30, 2025
[Salon] Chinese read-out of Busan summit - Guest Post
[Salon] Chinese read-out of Busan summit - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail
Xi Jinping Holds Meeting with U.S. President Trump in Busan
October 30, 2025, 14:22
On October 30, 2025 local time, President Xi Jinping met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Busan.
Xi Jinping pointed out that under our joint leadership, China-U.S. relations have remained generally stable. The lesson of history and the current reality both show that the two countries should be partners and friends. Due to different national circumstances, some disagreements are inevitable. As the world’s two largest economies, occasional friction is normal. In the face of challenges and turbulence, the heads of state of both countries are like the helmsmen, and should set the right course and keep the overall situation in hand, so that the great ship of China-U.S. relations can move forward steadily. I am willing to continue working together with President Trump to lay a solid foundation for China-U.S. relations and create a favorable environment for the development of both countries.
Xi emphasized that China's economic momentum is quite good, with a growth rate of 5.2% in the first three quarters of this year and a 4% increase in global goods trade imports and exports. These achievements were hard-won in overcoming internal and external difficulties. China's economy is like a vast ocean—large in scale, resilient, and full of potential. We are confident and capable of handling all kinds of risks and challenges. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has reviewed and adopted recommendations for the country's economic and social development plan for the next five years. For more than 70 years, we have consistently pursued one blueprint and continued to work generation after generation, never wanting to challenge or replace anyone, but rather focusing on doing our own things well, becoming a better version of ourselves, and sharing development opportunities with the world. This is an important key to China's success. China will further advance comprehensive reforms and expand opening up, work to promote steady qualitative and reasonable quantitative growth of the economy, promote all-round human development and common prosperity for all, and I believe this will also create broader space for China-U.S. cooperation.
Xi Jinping pointed out that the economic and trade teams of both countries have conducted in-depth exchanges on major economic and trade issues and have reached a consensus on problem solving. Both teams should quickly specify and finalize the follow-up work to properly maintain and implement the consensus, and achieve tangible results to give reassurance to the Chinese and American people as well as the world economy. Recent ups and downs in China-U.S. economic and trade relations have also brought some lessons to both sides. Economic and trade ties should continue to be the ballast and engine for China-U.S. relations, rather than being stumbling blocks or points of conflict. Both sides should look at the bigger picture and focus more on the long-term benefits of cooperation, rather than falling into a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation. Both teams can continue talks in the spirit of equality, respect, and mutual benefit, continually reducing the list of problems and expanding the list of cooperation.
Xi stressed that dialogue is better than confrontation. Channels and levels of communication between China and the United States should be maintained to enhance mutual understanding. The two countries have promising prospects for cooperation in such areas as combating illegal immigration and telecom fraud, anti-money laundering, artificial intelligence, and addressing infectious diseases. Relevant departments should strengthen dialogue and exchanges to carry out mutually beneficial cooperation. China and the United States should also interact constructively on both regional and international stages. There are still many challenges in today’s world, and China and the United States can act as major powers with responsibility, joining hands to do more for the benefit of both countries and the world. Next year, China will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the United States will host the G20 summit. Both sides can support each other to ensure both summits achieve positive results and contribute to global economic growth and improved global economic governance.
Trump stated that it is a great honor to meet with President Xi. China is a great country, and President Xi is a highly respected, great leader, as well as my good friend of many years; we have enjoyed a very pleasant relationship. U.S.-China relations have always been good and will be even better in the future. I hope for an even better future for both China and the United States. China is America’s largest partner, and working together, the two countries can accomplish a lot in the world. Future U.S.-China cooperation will yield even greater achievements. China will host the 2026 APEC Informal Leaders’ Meeting, and the United States will host the G20 summit. I am pleased to see both sides succeed.
The two heads of state agreed to strengthen cooperation in economic, trade, energy, and other fields, and to promote people-to-people exchanges.
The two leaders agreed to maintain regular contact. Trump looks forward to visiting China early next year, and invited President Xi to visit the United States.
Cai Qi, Wang Yi, He Lifeng, and others attended the meeting.
[Salon] The Risk of a Radical Escalation Leading to Actual Conflict Between NATO and Russia Grows - Guest Post
The Nation
October 28, 2025
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ukraine-russia-war-nato-putin/
The Risk of a Radical Escalation Leading to Actual Conflict Between NATO and Russia Grows
Verdun in the Donbas.
By Anatol Lieven
Anatol Lieven is a coauthor, with George Beebe and Mark Episkopos, of the policy brief, Peace Through Strength in Ukraine, published by the Quincy Institute for International Peace.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ukraine-russia-war-nato-putin/
The future of Ukraine and Russia, of European security, and of US-Russian relations now all hang on a few small half-ruined towns in the northwestern part of Donetsk province. Indeed, given the continued risk of a radical escalation leading to actual conflict between NATO and Russia, the stakes may be higher even than that.
The Russian government continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw from this territory as part of a peace settlement, and during a visit to Russia this month, very nearly everyone I talked with said that it is politically impossible for President Putin to give up this demand, even if the Trump administration were to offer major concessions on wider security issues. Equally, every Ukrainian I have talked to in recent months has said that it is politically impossible for the Ukrainian government to accede to this. Almost all the other key issues can be resolved by the Trump administration in direct negotiation with Russia if Trump can come up with a concrete set of proposals. Not this one.
How on earth did we get to this point? If during the Cold War you had said that European security depended on who controlled the northwestern Donbas, even the very greatest hawks would have called you a lunatic. At that time, let us remember, Soviet armies stood in the “Fulda Gap” in the middle of what is now a united Germany, barely a hundred miles from the French border. The Donbas is more than 1,200 miles east of Fulda. That is a measure of the West’s victory at the end of the Cold War.
Key to an understanding of this grotesque situation is that since the end of the Cold War, two different issues have become horribly entangled, and to achieve a peace settlement requires disentangling them. On the one hand, there is the wider geopolitical issue: the way in which the expansion of NATO and the European Union expelled Russia from the European security order, leading to Russia’s attempt to force its way back in again. On the other, there is a rather typical postcolonial struggle over borders, territory, minorities and identity between Russia and Ukraine. The fall of every empire in modern times has led to such conflicts, and the fall of the Soviet Union was no exception.
As to the part of Donetsk province in question, it would be hard to exaggerate its intrinsic unimportance. As a journalist and then a researcher, I must have driven through or past Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk (previously Krasnoarmeyisk) a dozen times on my way to and from Donetsk. I cannot honestly say that I noticed or can remember them. Their economic importance has been hugely exaggerated. Only a small proportion of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is situated in this small area (only around 1 percent of the whole of Ukraine), and it can hardly be developed if the war continues.
Even today, its military importance has been greatly exaggerated by both sides. Russians sometimes say that it is important to push the Ukrainian army further from the city of Donetsk; and from 2014 to 2024, when the front line ran virtually through the city’s western suburbs and Donetsk was under bombardment by short-range Ukrainian artillery, that was actually true. Over the past two years, however, the Ukrainian army has been pushed 25 miles to the west, and the additional few miles to the provincial border will make no significant difference to the safety of Donetsk city.
The Ukrainians say with more reason that Pokrovsk and the line of towns to its north (Konstaninovka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk) have been heavily fortified, and that if the Russian army takes them, it would be far better placed to advance further west toward Kharkiv and the Dnieper river. This is only true, though, if Russia seizes them during the war. If they were ceded as part of a peace settlement, it would be open to Ukraine (with European help) to build a new and formidable defensive line slightly further west. As the Ukraine war has demonstrated, contemporary military technology gives huge advantages to the defensive. After all, the northern border between Russia and Ukraine stretches for more than 600 miles and runs through overwhelmingly rural territory; yet, despite years of effort, the Russian army has been able to make only tiny advances along this front.
In truth, like Verdun or Ypres in the First World War, the importance of northwestern Donetsk for both sides has become overwhelmingly political. Ukraine can hardly voluntarily surrender around 250,000 of its citizens to Russian rule, especially after engaging in almost four years of (largely but not wholly exaggerated) propaganda about the horrors of that rule. And after sacrificing tens of thousands of lives to defend the Ukrainian-held Donbas, for the Ukrainian Army voluntarily to surrender what they still hold would be morally impossible. Even if Zelensky could be brought to give the order, my Ukrainian sources tell me that the army would almost certainly refuse to obey, leading to a deep political crisis—and Trump does not want to be seen as responsible for the collapse of the Ukrainian regime and a repeat of the US debacle in Afghanistan on a far larger scale.
As to Putin’s insistence on taking the whole of the Donbas even though the Russian advance is proceeding with agonizing slowness (after 15 months of bloody effort, the Russian army has still not taken Pokrovsk), the main point is that this is about the very minimum in terms of territorial gains that will allow him to portray any eventual peace settlement as a victory. One must be aware—and there can be no doubt that Putin is well aware of it himself—that so far all the sacrifices of this war have brought results extremely far short not only of his initial aims but also of the achievements of his imperial predecessors. Ukraine has not been subjugated; the great cities of southern Ukraine remain in Ukrainian hands; and there seems no realistic chance that Russia can now achieve these goals. I was struck by the number of Russians—including ones who would never have launched this war and would happily end it tomorrow—who still feel the loss of the Russian-founded city of Odessa, and the Ukrainian state’s attacks on Russian language and heritage there, as a deep cultural wound.
In these circumstances, it is all the more important for Putin to stick to Russia’s central stated goal in launching the “Special Military Operation”: the “liberation” of the whole of the Donbas from Ukrainian rule and the protection of its people from Ukrainian bombardment. This is all the more important because it was a public promise made to the separatist governments of Donetsk and Lugansk provinces.
Given the limited scale of Russian mobilization, their forces are playing a quite disproportionately large role in the army fighting in Ukraine, and, as I observed on Russian television, they also play a huge role in the Russian state’s domestic propaganda about the war. They can be expected to protest bitterly—and for Putin, very embarrassingly—if Russia ends the war while any significant part of their region remains in Ukrainian hands. As for Russian hard-liners with whom I talked, they are demanding that Putin escalate radically against NATO to terrify Western leaders into forcing Ukraine to surrender.
If the fight for these 2,500 or so square miles of territory continues, it is certain that tens of thousands more people will die on both sides. It is possible that eventually either the Ukrainian war effort will collapse, or that European support for it will do so. On the other hand, fearing this, it is also possible that European governments will seek radically to escalate their actions against Russia, by seizing Russian cargoes on the high seas or shooting down Russian planes that enter NATO airspace. If this happens, every single person with whom I spoke in Russia said that given the faltering Russian advance on the ground and the pressure on him from nationalist hawks, Putin will have no choice but to respond militarily, shooting down NATO planes and sinking NATO ships. Then we really would be staring into the abyss.
Is there any way out of this atrocious and tragic impasse? As far as I can see, the only possible compromise solution is to demilitarize the area and place it under the control of a United Nations peacekeeping force, while retaining Ukrainian civil control. Some leading members of the Russian foreign policy establishment with whom I spoke said that they thought it just possible that Putin might agree to this, if Trump offered major compromises in terms of wider security issues. Some Ukrainians with whom I have spoken have said that they also think that this might be just possible for Ukraine, especially if the Russian army finally manages to take Pokrovsk. As to the legal status of the Donbas, like Northern Cyprus, that will have to be left for (probably indefinite) future negotiation.
Failing a compromise on this issue, the war will continue and quite possibly grow more dangerous—and all we can hope is that it does not spread to engulf us all.
Dr Anatol Lieven,
Andrew Bacevich Chair
Director, Eurasia Program,
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Michael Shellenberger on X: "In the spring of 2022, former President Barack Obama gave a major policy addressat Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, where he laid out a sweeping proposal for government censorship of social media platforms through the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. Six https://t.co/dBfnJrZhWX" / X
Inflating Russian missile costs hides our own weapons crisis | Responsible Statecraft
Inflating Russian missile costs hides our own weapons crisis | Responsible Statecraft
The West likes to inflate the cost of Russian weapons as a way to suggest Moscow is in a financial bind and manipulate the narrative of a looming Ukraine victory — while also masking real inefficiencies in the U.S. defense industry.
By assuming Russian weapons have input costs similar to U.S. systems or conflating export prices with Russia’s internal costs, Western estimates produce misleading figures. These inflated costs bolster the narrative that the strain on Moscow is tremendous, while downplaying the increasing challenges for Ukraine and NATO to effectively counter Russia’s relatively inexpensive missiles and drones.
Moreover, these estimates obscure a stark reality: due to difficulties in expanding production of prohibitively costly Western missiles, combined with low real-world missile interception rates, even if the U.S. and Europe sent all their air defense missiles to Ukraine, they would fall far short of being able to stop most Russian missile and drone attacks.
Let's look at the numbers: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/cost-russian-missiles/
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Monday, October 27, 2025
[Salon] The Evolution of Sisi’s Militarised Capitalism - Arab Digest.org Guest Post
The Evolution of Sisi’s Militarised Capitalism
Summary: despite a massive 2024 bailout for a severe debt crisis the Egyptian regime is avoiding structural reform, instead relying on its model of militarised state capitalism. To generate fast cash the government is hollowing out the civilian public sector by selling its most profitable companies to Gulf investors and relying on luxury real estate deals, a path that will likely increase the economy's fragility and its dependence on foreign states.
We thank our regular contributor Maged Mandour for today’s newsletter. Maged is a political analyst who also contributes to Middle East Eye and Open Democracy. He is a writer for Sada, the Carnegie Endowment online journal and the author of the recently published and highly recommended Egypt under El-Sisi (I.B.Tauris) which examines social and political developments since the coup of 2013. You can find Maged’s most recent AD podcast here.
It has been three years since the start of a debt crisis that engulfed the Sisi regime and with it the mass of Egyptians. Throughout the crisis, the regime has shown dogged insistence on maintaining its debt-fuelled model of militarised state capitalism, almost at any cost, going as far as to flirt with bankruptcy in the process. The regime’s calculus, which eventually proved correct, is that it would eventually be saved, and saved it was, with a bailout of over 50 billion USD in 2024. At the time of writing, even though the government has proclaimed its intention to privatise some of the military owned companies, not a single one has been offered to investors. The regime’s resistance to reform was noted in an unusually blunt report issued in July as part of a periodic assessment by the IMF, the latest in a long line of funding programmes.
The military's economic influence in Egypt is growing through a process of "cannibalisation" of the civilian public sector, weakening the economy and creating a highly uneven playing field that deters investment
Behind this apparent calm, however, changes are taking place in the regime’s economic model in ways that will deepen and worsen existing dynamics, while birthing new ones, compounding the fragile and peripheral nature of the Egyptian economy and making a renewal of the crisis more likely. The most notable development is the sale of the public sector’s most profitable companies to Gulf investors, mostly the UAE, which has scooped up a total of 3.2 billion USD worth out of a total of 4.9 billion USD of state assets sold between 2022 and 2024. The Emirati investment includes investment in extremely profitable companies like Eastern Tobacco Company that has a strong monopoly on the tobacco market in Egypt, the dominant tobacco market in the Middle East and Africa. In September, the UAE acquired 30% of the company for 625 million USD, giving it a controlling stake. The same pattern recurred with other profitable companies, including CIB, one of the largest banks in the country. The deal was worth 911 million USD.
The sale of these profitable firms with dominant market positions poses a number of issues for the regime, and increases the fragility of the economy. The most obvious consequence is that the transfer of profits outside the country is bound to create pressure on the country’s already scarce hard currency sources. Second, it deprives the state of important sources of revenue, either directly from these companies’ profits or through exemptions given to investors. Finally, it grants a foreign state direct power over a captive market, reaping windfall profits at the expenses of the Egyptian consumer. Finally, this process of asset stripping means that the regime is slowly but surely selling its most profitable assets which leaves it with a very weak safety net for when the next crisis erupts, as is bound to happen.
Selling the crown jewels of the Egyptian public sector is coupled with another trend, namely its cannibalisation by the military. The most obvious example is the Future of Egypt for Sustainable Development, the business arm of the airforce, which over the past few months has either acquired controlling stakes or increased its stake in various companies. This includes the Arab Company for Land Reclamation, in which the Future of Egypt acquired almost a 90% stake, and ICMI, a company in the medical supply industry, in which the Future of Egypt acquired an 8.8% stake. This comes after the Future of Egypt was designated as the official procurer of wheat and strategic commodities for Egypt, replacing the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), a civilian public entity which has decades of experience. Hence, the Egyptian civilian public sector is under dual pressure - from both sales of its most profitable companies and from cannibalisation by the growing tentacles of the military - effectively hollowing it out.
In addition to these two developing trends, the need for fast cash injections to meet the growing debt obligations has generated a policy of reliance on luxury real estate investment from the Gulf as a source of capital inflows. More specifically, the North Coast of the country, which is reported to have received 70 billion USD worth of investment in the last two decades. On top of the Ras El Hekma deal signed in 2024 and worth 35 billion USD, Qatar is in talks for another deal worth 3.5 billion USD. These investments have been met with large demand, with the prices in the North Coast increasing by 15.8% year on year. In September the sale of properties in Ras El Hekma achieved 210 million USD in the first 48 hours. This over-reliance on real estate as a source of capital accumulation, however, will have devastating consequences on the economy at large and will accelerate the process of militarisation. The most obvious consequence is that in the midst of a weakening currency and an uncertain future, the upper classes are likely to invest in real estate whose value is rapidly increasing, rather than in more risky economic activity. This will lead to an over accumulation of non-productive dead capital in real estate, when it is desperately needed elsewhere to spur economic growth. The abundance of these projects is also bound to increase competition with other real estate projects, leading to losses, especially if one looks at the regional level. The fate of Neom is a case in point, which has been scaled back, arguably because of the massive costs and the lack of clear return. Finally, these cash injections are shielding the regime from any suggestion of possible reform and allowing it to continue its spending spree on white elephant projects. The new city of Jirain, which is not dissimilar from Ras El Hekma, is a case in point. Even if these projects are successful, they will be islands of wealth surrounded by a sea of poverty, a recipe for mass social unrest.
The final result, however, is the weakening of the Egyptian economy and its increased reliance on the Gulf States and financial markets to survive. The regime’s economic model is evolving into something vicious, predatory and even more prone to crisis. The opportunity for a genuine economic revival is being eroded in the hope that building luxury developments and rich foreigners will do the job, cementing Egypt’s economic periphery status and making an even more devastating financial collapse inevitable.
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Saturday, October 25, 2025
Friday, October 24, 2025
Thursday, October 23, 2025
[Salon] Are Mediterranean Gas Fields Gold Mines or Volcanoes? - Arab Digest.org Guest Post
Are Mediterranean Gas Fields Gold Mines or Volcanoes?
Summary: A crisis is brewing in the Mediterranean, as Türkiye and Greece exploit Libya’s political instability to advance rival claims over offshore gas and maritime zones.
We thank Tarek Megerisi, the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and Afkar for permission to republish the article below. Tarek discussed this article in depth in his last Arab Digest podcast, Vultures over Libya, which was broadcast on October 15. You can listen to the podcast again here.
The Mediterranean is a region more practiced at crisis management than resolution. From Cyprus to Palestine, Lebanon to Libya, migration to energy, the region’s chronic fault lines simmer beneath the surface, flitting between active and dormant states like geopolitical volcanoes. Time and again, the states attempting to contain or capitalise on these crises end up intensifying their fallout, turning volatility into a defining regional feature rather than an exception.
This dynamic is playing out right now as Libya’s long-burning political crisis and the battle over the Mediterranean Sea’s underwater gas fields are being dangerously combined by Türkiye—along with partners including the United States, Italy and the United Arab Emirates—in the hopes of creating a geostrategic fait accompli in its favor. However, the volatility churned up by this gambit raises the likelihood of a catastrophic eruption, devastating the stability and prosperity of Libya and Mediterranean energy markets, while leaving the region mired in political toxicity for years after.
A Bonfire of Crises
The poly-crisis currently brewing over the offshore gas fields between eastern Libya and the Greek island of Crete has been a long time coming. A consortium of oil companies is preparing to prospect Libya’s offshore fields as their state backers enforce a corrosive political status quo on an already beleaguered nation to ensure privileged access. Meanwhile, Greece is deploying its navy to Libyan waters, determined to disrupt an enterprise it fears will cripple it for generations.
That is because this interplay is not merely about selling gas. Türkiye has long perceived Libya as a catalyst for its “blue homeland” project, a plan to secure sovereignty over large swathes of the Mediterranean and the financial, geopolitical and security benefits that would accompany it. Given Greece’s parallel pursuit—and rancorous history with Türkiye—it is the natural antagonist of this policy.
Back in 2020, it was Athens priming the pump. Multinationals were prospecting natural gas fields off Cyprus, as Greece joined with local powers like Egypt and Israel, as well as regional powers like the United Arab Emirates, in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF). Thus, Greece was locking in its economic domination, while marketing itself in America as a new-look, regional security provider.
The core showdown between Athens and Ankara here, is a perception over who should have the prevailing economic rights over the eastern Mediterranean. Greece, observing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), perceives a right to a 200-mile exclusive economic zone around each of its thousands of islands, which would essentially allow it to dominate half the Mediterranean and its hydrocarbon riches.
Türkiye and other regional states like Libya and Israel, along with the United States, are not signatories to UNCLOS. Ankara instead contends that a just maritime law should privilege the rights of continental land masses over islands. Given it has the longest contiguous coastline, this would see it dominate the eastern Mediterranean, strangling the Greek islands while increasing the share of other large littoral countries like Egypt and Libya.
This dynamic makes Mediterranean gas inherently confrontational, especially as both Greece and Türkiye advance legal contentions that would result in their domination over the other while seeking to leverage their gas holdings for broader geopolitical benefits. In 2020, Türkiye escaped Greece’s geopolitical snare by using its navy to disrupt excavations, while offering Libya’s government protection against an assault backed by EMGF members on its capital Tripoli in exchange for an agreement demarcating maritime boundaries on Türkiye’s terms.
The Mediterranean is stuck in a cycle of crises, notably in Libya and the fight over offshore gas, which is now being dangerously exacerbated by Türkiye's geopolitical maneuvers, increasing the risk of a regional explosion with Greece
Poxy Libyan Proxies
Türkiye’s savvy Libyan engagement—anchored by a maritime deal that disregarded claims of even major Greek islands like Rhodes and Crete—allowed Ankara to establish diplomatic, legal and militarily inroads across the region. Greece could only fallback upon European Union solidarity, while tensions nearly escalated into war as French and Turkish naval forces squared off in 2020. But falling global gas prices, high extraction risks and unviable infrastructure costs defused the crisis.
Still, it was Libya who bore the brunt, as heightened geopolitical stakes deepened stakeholder divisions and incentivised maintaining Libya’s political crisis rather than resolving it. European hostility to the Türkiye-Libya maritime deal shaped its Libya policy, refocusing efforts to enforce the UN arms embargo onto Turkish assets and generating support for the authoritarian Khalifa Haftar as a foil, despite his record of atrocities.
The result was weakening Libya’s already fragile sovereignty. Instead of addressing the root crisis of political legitimacy, foreign actors—including Türkiye and Europe—manipulated Libya’s divisions for strategic gain. As regional rivalries cooled, Türkiye then leveraged these gains into a broader rapprochement with the UAE, Egypt and France, translating them into lucrative business and security deals on both sides of Libya’s divide.
The effect has been to entrench two de-facto dictatorships with no local constituencies, both backed by the same foreign powers. Türkiye expanded its reach with new energy deals and military privileges, while it and other countries helped Libyan factions fragment the national oil sector and divert revenues through new intermediaries. The creation of the Arkenu oil company symbolizes Libya’s erasure from its own resource wealth—an emblem of external domination masquerading as partnership.
The Best Laid Plans
Türkiye has skillfully built a platform of political influence in Libya—leveraging its ties with elites, forging new partnerships with EMGF members, and expanding energy cooperation with U.S. and European companies—ensuring any windfall flowed in their direction. But despite these realignments, Libya’s fragility and the enduring antagonism between Greece and Türkiye steer the region toward perpetual crisis.
A few dynamics are driving this trend. Foremost among them is the sheer scale of Libya’s offshore gas reserves, estimated at 122 trillion cubic feet. This potential goldmine has attracted an insecure Libyan prime minister eager to trade access for international backing, a Europe desperate for post-Ukraine energy alternatives, and a new U.S. administration motivated by raw commercialism.
Libya’s elites have all courted Washington in various ways, but energy remains the key currency. During a recent visit, Trump advisor Massaad Boulos brokered deals for Hill International and Exxon Mobil to survey and develop offshore gas fields.
This bought America into ready-made coalitions: Türkiye’s state-owned oil firm had already partnered with Libya’s national oil company (NOC), and the Hill International deal linked the U.S. company to an existing consortium between Libya’s NOC and Italian energy giant ENI. In order to stimulate closer cooperation, Turkish President Recep Erdogan recently hosted a special conference with his Italian and Libyan counterparts.
With momentum building, Ankara is launching a new charm offensive towards Haftar and eastern Libya, using the familiar model of leveraging military support to coax mutually beneficial contracts as the foundations for a political relationship. The prize is getting Libya’s speaker of parliament—a man who unilaterally speaks for the otherwise inert body in eastern Libya that cannot meet quorum or cross Haftar—ratifying its maritime agreement. This would strengthen Türkiye’s claims over Mediterranean energy zones and open the door for privileged access.
But these mounting foreign interests in Libya are causing the country to buckle. Haftar, empowered by international attention, is amassing weapons and reviving ambitions to conquer Tripoli. In turn, Prime Minister Dbeiba, eager to preempt Haftar, has pushed Libya’s first energy concessions in decades to endear himself to the international community and launched a war in the capital to centralise power.
An Eruption on the Horizon?
With Libyans becoming increasingly impoverished and frustrated, and the political stakes rising and growing more lucrative, pressure is building toward a violent explosion. International dynamics are not helping, either. Greece, feeling provoked by Türkiye, as well as Haftar’s political promiscuity, is now feuding with its erstwhile Libyan partner. Haftar responded over the summer by exporting migrants to Crete, ostensibly to pressure Athens’ right-wing government. Instead, Greece seized one of Haftar’s arms shipments, reminding him of their importance to his operations, deployed their navy, and then launched a charm offensive to win Haftar back.
While Türkiye may believe its energy alliances with the U.S., Italy, and others buffer it from unified European opposition, it may simply be fueling new rifts. Haftar’s weaponisation of migration taps into Europe’s deepest anxieties. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil has recently discovered new gas fields off Cyprus, which is working with Egypt to expand exports—rekindling the Eastern Mediterranean dispute.
Greece’s navy is already deployed, another EU member-state, Cyprus, is reactivating its energy interests, and other regional players like the UAE, Egypt and Israel may be tempted to inflame tensions further to gain leverage over both Türkiye and Europe.
The rational path forward would be diplomacy: a multilateral forum to equitably manage Mediterranean resources and a UN process that prioritises Libyan sovereignty over foreign proxy politics. Even a realpolitik view would see such steps as the key to stability and long-term economic gain. Yet solutions remain unconsidered. Instead, overlapping rivalries, short-termism and conflicting maximalist ambitions across the region are stoking the volcano that is Libya and the eastern Mediterranean toward another predictable, yet preventable, eruption.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.
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