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Coronavirus adds to the risk of miscalculation between global enemies

2020-03-13 00:00:00.0 美国有线电视-特朗普新闻原网页

(CNN)COVID-19 presents a once-in-a-generation challenge. But this painfully unpredictable new world conjures a risk of miscalculation between global adversaries, in conflicts where knowns and norms held crisis at bay.

It throws normal assessments off-balance. It introduces the possibility that a troublesome neighbour may be weak; or a long-term threat not as threatening as it has been for the past decades. Governments or militaries may see opportunity -- or danger -- where before certainties of response meant they ruled it out.

As I write, an extraordinary tit-for-tat is occurring between the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militia group, Kataib Hezbollah and the US. Three Coalition personnel were killed by rocket fire in Iraq, prompting CENTCOM to retaliate, leveling Kataib Hezbollah facilities and possibly killing their personnel.

In normal times, this would chime uglily with the January killing of the head of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force Qasem Soleimani and hint at an escalation towards open conflict. Does the minimal attention this escalation is getting mean it will pass without further incident, or rapidly develop into something worse? We simply don't know. Against the backdrop of a pandemic, all normal bets are off.

US conducts airstrikes against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq

Iran is the first, big uncertainty in the equation. COVID-19 has likely left it vulnerable, weak and angry. Washington's campaign of "maximum pressure," sanctions and other less visible methods of punishment, has inflicted some damage. But, according to Ali Vaez, Crisis Group's Iran Project Director, the Trump administration may see "the outbreak as the final nail in the Iranian economy's coffin and (be) likely less interested in any mutually beneficial compromise."

Vaez warns that Iran will not negotiate with its current weak hand and will instead probably "significantly escalate -- both in the region and in the nuclear realm -- to accumulate leverage" ahead of possible talks in the future, maybe with another US administration.

"Washington's self-confidence and Tehran's diffidence increases the risk of miscalculation on both sides," he adds.

The Trump administration's tearing up of the rules of US behavior and global conduct have led to so many recalculations globally, in frozen conflicts, hot wars, and nascent peace efforts. Yet the idea they could be entirely distracted is another wild card in a global poker game where Washington used to have the best hand.

Does China -- hit hard, but in part recovering earlier from COVID-19 than the rest of the world -- feel emboldened? What does that mean for the South China Sea, for Hong Kong's protest movement? For trade negotiations with a US plunging towards recession? For Washington and Beijing's perceptions of each other and their own clout when this has passed?

Deterrents are also delayed. Already, NATO military exercises across Europe, ones that were meant to show strength and readiness against a resurgent Russia, have been scaled back. That message, that the US is ready to deploy to Europe at a scale and pace not seen since the Nazis, will be diluted. What does that mean for Russia's increased ambitions in the Arctic? For the peace talks stumbling in Ukraine, where Moscow and Kiev have incompatible visions for elections in the separatist areas in October? If you are an opportunist and a pragmatist, like Vladimir Putin, this sort of moment is suited to your daily arithmetic.

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