Heavy Metal

NATO colonisation of ASEAN, Indonesia drives development with minerals and metal exports, Russia has new weapons for new wars

Jun 05, 2023

UPDATE: NATO’s incursion into the Indo-Pacific region is a move that will exacerbate regional conflicts and tensions. That’s because NATO cannot be separated from the history of European colonialism and imperialism that shaped modern Asia — and plays a major role in Chinese nationalism today.

Indonesia’s economic development strategy is being spearheaded by its commodities exports from nickel to coal to gold and copper. This approach — often referred as resource nationalism — is guided by Indonesia’s Constitution of 1945, which states that the waters, land, and natural resources of the country are controlled by the state and must be used for the benefit of the people.

Military technology and tactics become stagnant over time. Whenever there has been a large time gap in conflicts between major powers military theory has had to adjust to new battlefield realities. Ukraine possessed one of the most modern armies in the world having been funded and trained by NATO since 2014. Now, in Ukraine, Russia achieved a monumental victory at the Battle of Bakhmut. Here are the weapons that swung the tide.

NATO colonisation of ASEAN

Edited

NATO’s incursion into the Indo-Pacific region is a move that will exacerbate regional conflicts and tensions. That’s because NATO cannot be separated from the history of European colonialism and imperialism that shaped modern Asia — and plays a major role in Chinese nationalism today.

In 2022, NATO declared that China was a “challenge” to the alliance’s “interests, security and values.” Recently, NATO has argued that possible Chinese assistance to Russia in its war against Ukraine makes China a military threat to Europe.

NATO is opening a liaison office in Japan and is partners with Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. This may be a first step to deeper European involvement in Asia’s security architecture.

Japan argues that the war in Ukraine has destabilized the world, and has invited NATO into the Indo-Pacific to deter China. However, NATO is widely distrusted in the non-western world.

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has acted as an extension of American power. NATO’s bombing of Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 violated the United Nations Charter. NATO’s intervention in Afghanistan was authorized by the UN, but it assisted the illegal and devastating U.S. invasion of Iraq by freeing American military resources.

The UN Security Council also gave the green light to NATO’s intervention in Libya, but NATO states violated the terms of that resolution to pursue their own political and economic objectives in the North African country. The result was the destruction of Libya and the spread of instability across North Africa. There are no states in Africa that would call NATO “a defensive alliance.”

Very few countries support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the non-western world — including most of Southeast Asia — generally accepts Russia’s claim that it invaded Ukraine to protect itself against the expansion of NATO. To much of the world, the reality of western militarism makes Russia’s arguments entirely plausible.

China is the No. 1 trading partner of most Asian states. Regional prosperity depends on China’s success. Asians are cautious about western provocations over issues like Taiwan. Asians want the U.S. present to balance China’s power, but that doesn’t mean they want a European military alliance operating in their region. In particular, states that are part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) want to manage regional security without outside interference.

Southeast Asians’ perception of a predatory international system is based on their experiences with European colonialism. Their focus on protecting state sovereignty is directly linked to this history. Their stated preference is to build economic and diplomatic connections to manage regional conflict.

China has also prospered under the existing system and has a stake in its continuation. But it’s considered a threat because it will not be subservient to western power, especially American. Consequently, it’s been encircled by more than 300 American military bases and subjected to intense U.S. economic and technological sanctions.

Chinese nationalism has been stoked by what’s known as the “century of humiliation” from 1839 to 1949, when European powers, the U.S. and Japan took part in seizing Chinese territory, imposing unequal treaties and brutalizing the Chinese people.

NATO is a European military alliance that is establishing a strong working relationship with Japan. This plays directly into China’s concerns that the same powers that humiliated it in the past are lining up for a second attempt.

Asian states that find the Russian explanation for the war in Ukraine plausible will clearly be concerned that NATO’s move into the region is duplicating the same hostile dynamic of backing an adversary into a corner.

For the past several centuries, world politics have been defined by western colonialism and violence. That era never really ended. NATO’s growing presence in the Pacific evokes a painful history that the western world has never confronted or fully acknowledged. NATO ignores how its recent actions affect how it’s perceived in the larger world and how those actions lend credence to states that see NATO as a threat. Its presence in the Indo-Pacific can easily be construed as a new attempt to reassert western military domination of the region.

Nickelnesia

The country has begun to ban the export of mineral ores, most notably nickel ores with the government active in persuading foreign investments in processing plants and smelters. This move adds value to the country’s commodity reserves.

Although 70 percent of all nickel usage goes towards the stainless-steel sector, there is increasing demand for the manufacture of electric vehicle (EV) batteries. This demand from electric batteries is expected to account for one-third of total nickel demand by 2030, particularly as countries worldwide look to lower carbon emissions and meet their net-zero targets. As such, Indonesia is aware of the huge economic opportunities this provides and is focused on increasing production capacities along the EV supply chain and become an EV battery production hub.

Indonesia holds the world’s largest nickel reserves with an estimated 21 million tons, which roughly accounts for 22 percent of global reserves. The country is also the world’s top producer of metal, with production hitting 1 million tons in 2021.

Indonesia first imposed the ban on the export of nickel ores in 2014 and introduced a requirement for producers to purify the raw nickel in Indonesia before export. Foreign investors, primarily from China, began investing in the Indonesian nickel supply chain, particularly in the building of smelters – Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has targeted to have 30 smelters by the end of 2023. This is an ambitious target – Indonesia had only two smelters in 2016 and 15 per current count.

Indonesia’s exports of processed nickel reached an estimated US$30 billion in 2022, a huge increase from just US$1 billion in 2015. The country is expected to account for half the world’s increase in nickel production to 2025. However, the ban on nickel ores prompted the European Union to launch a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2019 who argued that Indonesia’s ban was unfairly harming the EU’s stainless-steel industry. In November 2022, the WTO ruled in favor of the EU, citing that Jakarta’s ban was not in line with global trade rules. Indonesia has appealed the ruling.

The WTO ruling poses a direct challenge to Indonesia’s desire to ensure its mineral raw materials are processed domestically. The government has not announced its next strategy if it loses the appeal but has not ruled out implementing a heavy tax on nickel raw exports as one initiative.

For 2023, the Indonesian government is determined to expand the raw mineral export ban with bauxite ores set for a June 2023 ban.

Indonesia’s nickel reserves are making the country indispensable to the global EV industry with the country aiming to be a global EV hub. Global EV makers, which include US’s Tesla and China’s BYD, are said to be finalizing deals to invest in Indonesia, according to the country’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. Indonesia aims to be one of the top three producers of EV batteries in the world by 2027.

Moreover, to complement its nickel-based battery industry, the country is also developing lithium refineries and anode material production facilities. Historically, Indonesian nickel smelters are equipped to produce Class 2 nickel (ferronickel/pig iron) while battery cathode production requires Class 1 nickel that contains at least 99.8 percent nickel.

With its 278 million population, Indonesia also presents opportunities for the sale of EV vehicles ranging from motorbikes to cars. Formidable challenges and opportunities for investors include consumer affordability and the lack of public charging infrastructure. The government has an ambitious target of having 2.5 million EV users by 2025.

In the three years since the nickel export ban was introduced, Indonesia has signed deals worth over US$15 billion for electric battery production with multinationals such as Hyundai and LG. Tesla are also rumored to have plans to expand in Indonesia.

2020

German company BSAF and French mining company Eramet signed an agreement to develop a nickel and cobalt hydrometallurgical refining complex that includes a High-Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) plant. The US$2.6 billion partnership is expected to be finalized by the end of 2023.
Also in 2020, Indonesia’s Ministry of Investment and LG signed a US$9.8 billion MoU for LG Energy Solution to invest across the EV supply chain.

2021

LG Energy and Hyundai Motor Group being developing Indonesia’s first battery cell plant worth an investment value of US$1.1 billion. The facility is expected to have a capacity of 10 Gigawatt hours (GWh).

2022

Indonesia’s Ministry of Investment signs an MoU with Foxconn, Gogoro Inc, IBC and Indika Energy on battery manufacturing, e-mobility, and their related industries.
Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Tsingshan Holding Group and China Molybdenum Co completed the first shipment of nickel mixed hydroxide precipitate to China from Indonesia’s biggest nickel processing hub in South Sulawesi province.
Indonesian state mining company Aneka Tambang signed a framework agreement with China’s largest battery manufacturer CATL Group for partnership in EV manufacturing, battery recycling, and nickel mining.
LG Energy breaks ground on a US$3.5 billion smelter in Central Java province. The smelter will have a capacity to produce 150,000 tons of nickel sulphate per year.
Vale Indonesia and China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt sign an agreement with Ford Motor to build a hydroxide precipitate (MHP) plant in Southeast Sulawesi province. The plant will have a capacity to produce 120,000 tons of hydroxide precipitate. Vale Indonesia and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt have also agreed to build a second MHP plant with a 60,000 ton capacity.

Read the full report here.

New Weapons for a New War

By Todd Davis (edited)

At the start of the Ukraine war, Russia was effectively backward in drone technology. Battlefield experience showed how important drones were for surveillance but also, more decisively, in combat situations. Drone use in warfare is familiar to Americans as Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump widely used drones during the colonial wars of empire in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans used expensive Predator drones to target insurgent targets but the application of drone use on the modern battlefield was taken to new areas by the Russians.

Russia first started using Iranian-produced Shaded 136 drones to conduct tactical strikes. Building upon the success it was having with these, Russia greatly increased the production of and use of its own ZALA Lancet drone. The Lancet was only revealed in 2019, so for a new weapon to go from prototype debut to mass battlefield use in only three years is remarkable. The longer range Shaded drones (called Geranium-2 in Russian service) are now being used to degrade Ukraine’s infrastructure. Lancets have a wide variety of applications on the battlefield being used to attack tanks, AFVs, artillery, and air defense systems. Continuing a trend we have seen throughout the war, Russia is able to produce cheaper more effective weapon systems than its NATO opponent. Geranium and Lancet drones cost about $15,000 each. Compare that to the cost of an American-made Reaper drone which sets the taxpayers back $32 million apiece.

Ukraine inherited the excellent S-300 air defense system from the Soviet Union and one of the flaws in the operational doctrine of all modern air forces is the high manufacturing cost of fighters and bombers. Russia cannot afford to get its best aircraft shot down. Traditional bombing required aircraft to be above its target to drop munitions. This brings the planes directly into the teeth of air defense systems. Glide bombs solve this problem on both a tactical and production level.

A glide bomb is a conventional bomb that has been upgraded with a precision-controlled GPS system and wings. The bomb can now be released on a flat trajectory allowing it to “glide” toward its target. Glide bombs are extremely accurate, allowing for precision strikes that minimize civilian casualties. Russia is using Su-34 and 35 jets to release glide bombs outside of the range of Ukranian air defense networks. The planes cannot be targeted and the bombs fly in and hit their marks.

Russia is conducting up to 20 strikes a day with glide bombs. And, unlike Lancet drones that carry a 40-kilogram warhead, glide bombs deliver one and half-ton payloads that cause serious damage. Russia was able to devastate Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut with these, in particular, they wreaked havoc on high-rise buildings Ukraine was using as defensive strongholds. Ukraine currently has no effective way to defend against glide bombs and these are a major problem for any large Ukrainian formation attacking on open ground.

Glide bombs further showcase Russian ingenuity in developing a weapon system from the hardware they already have in stock. Russia has hundreds of thousands of bombs it can convert to glide bombs at very little cost. Currently, the FAB-500M-62 is the most commonly used munition as a glide bomb platform.

In January of 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that the 1B75 Penicillin counter-battery system was being used in Ukraine. Penicillin moved from prototype to battlefield use in only 3 years. Penicillin is a counter-artillery system mounted on a KamAZ chassis capable of detecting the launch of enemy mortar, artillery, and MLRS ordinance. When Ukraine fires one of these weapons, Penicillin can detect the launch in as little as five seconds allowing Russian artillery to find the firing position with pinpoint accuracy and to deliver a precision retaliatory strike.

Penicillin fulfills a similar role to the US-made AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder and the Swedish-designed ARTHUR system. However, what makes Penicillin stand out over these two NATO designs is that Penicillin does not use radar to track projectiles, it uses sound waves. An array of thermoacoustic sensors and both optical and infrared cameras are set up around the Penicillin unit. The sensors detect sound waves produced by the incoming fire while the cameras track the projectiles in flight. Radar is also capable of tracking shells and rockets, this is how NATO systems work. Radar-based systems have two major drawbacks; small targets like mortar shells may be undetected, and, most importantly, a radar-based system may be suppressed with electronic countermeasures, effectively being rendered “blind” or destroyed with weapons designed to hunt radar. Penicillin has no such disadvantages.

Radar systems do have a longer range; the Firefinder detects projectiles at 50 kilometers and ARTHUR has an effective range of 60 kilometers compared to the 1B75 Penicillin’s range of 25 kilometers. However, because it doesn’t use radar, Penicillin is almost impossible to find, NATO has no equivalent technology, and the 25 km range works well in the claustrophobic, WW1-style battlefields on which this war is being decided. Penicillin along with enhanced jamming techniques is one of the primary reasons the effectiveness of the US-supplied HIMARS systems has been dramatically curtailed over the last several months.

Since late spring of 2022, Russia has conducted a series of strikes on the infrastructure of Ukraine. Sometimes these attacks would knock out power, sometimes they would hit water or internet distribution nodes. The conventional view was that Russia was trying (and failing) to cut the electricity in Ukraine. After nearly a year of these attacks, it has become clear that what Russia was really doing was degrading the Ukrainian air defense system.

Russia has been experimenting and attempting to come up with the ideal way to attack high-value targets within Ukraine. They will flood the area with cheap Geranium drones overwhelming Ukrainian air defenses. Russia will then strike the target with conventional missiles like the Iskander. Russia has begun to use its first-generation hypersonic missile, the Kinzhal, more and more recently as production of these high-tech projectiles has ramped up.

Hypersonic missile technology is one area of advanced weapon design where Russia is leaps and bounds ahead of the United States. The US has no functioning hypersonic missile. The US Army recognizes this deficiency and described hypersonic missile research as one of the key areas it must improve upon. What is a hypersonic missile? A missile capable of moving at extreme speeds that cannot be detected or intercepted by any air defense system currently in use by NATO.

Recently the world saw spectacular footage of a US-supplied Patriot missile battery attempting to intercept a Kinzhal missile. The Patriot launched 30 missiles into the air over a period of ninety seconds, unable to find and bring down the Kinzhal before being struck and destroyed. The Kinzhal was designed to destroy NATO air defense units like the Patriot and also to target warships, specifically Carrier groups. Kinzhal can also carry a nuclear warhead. Bear in mind that the Kinzhal is only the first generation of Russian hypersonic missile, they have two more in the prototype stages. Kinzhal changes how the US can deploy its carrier fleets, it changes how NATO would be able to conduct an air war, and most importantly, it changes how we must assess a nuclear threat when a Su-35 fighter can launch a Kinzhal that can’t be intercepted.

Tanks are not capable of conducting armored offensives on the deadly battlefields of the Donbass without taking huge losses. Ukraine squandered nearly all the tanks it had and then all the tanks NATO gave it during the offensives at Izyum and Kherson. Russia lost a lot of tanks in the first few months of the war, but has adapted and focused on using tanks in an assault gun role. Tapping into its large stockpiles of previous generation tanks, Russia has upgraded old T-62 and T-54/55 tanks and is using them as assault guns.

Evolving Russian tactics during the war no longer has armored units attacking entrenched Ukrainian positions. Instead, Russia will deploy the T-62s and T-54/55s up to a mile from the frontline. There are far fewer anti-tank devices that can hit them at that range while the excellent tank guns are able to provide fire support for infantry BTGs. When Russia does use tanks on the offensive, it uses them in small numbers, one, two, or three tanks supporting infantry in the role of BMPs then moving back from the direct combat zone. Like in WW2, Russian infantry is riding into a tactical engagement on the tanks, dismounting and going on the attack while the tanks withdraw to a safe distance where they can support the infantry but are more protected from Ukrainian artillery strikes.

Today, the largest shock among the NATO general staff is how ineffective its weapons are against the Russians and how rapidly the Russian army has adapted to the course of this war. America, and by extension NATO, has never fought an artillery war like this. They don’t understand it. None of their operational doctrines are prepared for this. Russia closed off the flanks and forced Ukraine to fight at Bakhmut and over the course of nine months killed over 50,000 AFU soldiers decimating nearly half the brigades under Ukrainian colors. Russia achieved the most significant military victory of the 21st century by making adjustments and revamping military ordinance and tactics. Russian flexibility and experience don’t bode well for NATO as the conflict heads deep into its second year. If Russia didn’t quit in 1942 under far more excruciating circumstances, they sure aren’t going to quit in 2023. And the only way Ukraine can win is if Russia quits. NATO is locked into a wrestling match with a Bear and the Bear is evolving.

Long Mekong

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