Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Russia’s shadow fleet just won’t go away. Countries in the Baltic Sea region have tried virtually every legal means of stopping this gnawing headache for every country whose waters have been traversed by these mostly dilapidated vessels — and yes, sinking them would be illegal. Now, these rust buckets are starting to cause an additional headache. Because they’re usually past retirement age, these vessels don’t last long before they need to be scrapped. This has opened a whole shadow trade that’s bound to cause serious harm to both humans and the environment. Earlier this month, the globally infamous Eagle S ship met its end in the Turkish port of Aliağa. The bow of the 229-meter oil tanker was on shore, its stern afloat, with cranes disassembling and moving its parts into a sealed area. The negative environmental impact of this landing method “is no doubt higher than recycling in a fully contained area,” noted the NGO Shipbreaking Platform on its website. But in the grand scheme of things, the Eagle S’s end was a relatively clean one. The 19-year-old Cook Islands-flagged oil tanker is a shadow vessel that had been transporting sanctioned Russian oil since early 2023. It then savaged an astonishing five undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland on Christmas Day last year, before being detained by the Finnish authorities. People are willing to own shadow vessels because they can make a lot of money transporting sanctioned cargo. However, as the tiny, elusive outfits that own them would struggle to buy shiny new vessels even if they wanted to, these ships are often on their last legs — different surveys estimate that shadow vessels have an average age of 20 years or more. Over the last few years, Russia’s embrace of the shadow fleet for its oil export has caused the fleet to grow dramatically, as tanker owners concluded they can make good money by selling their aging ships into the fleet. (They’d make less selling the vessels to shipbreakers.) Today, the shadow fleet encompasses the vast majority of retirement-age oil tankers. But after a few years, these tankers and ships are simply too old to sail, especially since shadow vessels undergo only the most cursory maintenance. To get around safely rules, less-than-scrupulous owners often sell their nearly dead ships to “final journey” firms, which have the sole purpose of disposing of them. | Ole Berg-Rusten/EPA For aged ships, the world of official shipping has what one might call a funeral process: a scrapping market. In 2024, 409 ships were scrapped through this official market, though calling it “official” makes it sound clean and safe, which, for the most part, it isn’t. A few of the ships scrapped last year were disassembled in countries like Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, which follow strict rules regarding human and environmental safety. A handful of others were scrapped in Turkey, which has an OK record. But two-thirds were scrapped in Southeast Asia, where the shipbreaking industry is notoriously unsafe. To get around safely rules, less-than-scrupulous owners often sell their nearly dead ships to “final journey” firms, which have the sole purpose of disposing of them. These companies and their middlemen then make money by selling the ships’ considerable amount of steel to metal companies. But in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — the latter is the world’s most popular shipbreaking country — vessels are disassembled on beaches rather than sealed facilities, and by workers using little more than their hands. Of course, this makes the process cheap, but it also makes it dangerous. According to the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, last year, 15 South Asian shipbreaking workers lost their lives on the job and 45 were injured. Just one accident involving an oil tanker claimed the lives of six workers and injured another six. This brings us to the shadow fleet and its old vessels, as they, too, need to be scrapped. But many of them are under Western sanctions, which presents a challenge to their owners since international financial transactions are typically conducted in U.S. dollars. Initially, I had suspected that coastal nations would start finding all manner of shadow vessels abandoned in their waters and would be left having to arrange the scrapping. But as owners want to make money from the ships’ metal, this frightening scenario hasn’t come to pass. Instead, a shadow shipbreaking market is emerging. Open-source intelligence research shows that shadow vessel owners are now selling their sanctioned vessels to final-journey firms or middlemen in a process that mirror the official one. Given that these are mostly sanctioned vessels, the buyers naturally get a discount, which the sellers are more than willing to provide. After all, selling a larger shadow tanker for scrap value and making something to the tune of $10 to $15 million is more profitable than abandoning it. And how are the payments made? We don’t know for sure, but they’re likely in crypto or a non-U.S. dollar currency. These shady processes make the situation even more perilous for the workers doing the scrapping, not to mention for the environment. “Thanks to a string of new rules and regulations over the past five decades, shipping has become much safer, and that has reduced the number of accidents significantly in recent decades,” explained Mats Saether, a lawyer at the Nordisk legal services association in Oslo. “It’s regrettable that the shadow fleet is reversing this trend.” It certainly is. Indeed, the scrapping of shadow vessels is a practice that demands serious scrutiny. Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs could do a good deed for the environment and unfortunate shipbreaking workers by conducting investigations. And surely the Bangladeshi government wouldn’t want to see Bangladeshi lives lost because Russia needs oil for war? Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs could do a good deed for the environment and unfortunate shipbreaking workers by conducting investigations. | Ole Berg-Rusten/EPA There’s an opportunity here for Western governments to help too. They could offer shadow vessel owners legal leniency and a way to sell their ships back into the official fleet — if the owners provide the authorities with details about the fleet’s inner workings and vow to leave the business. Does that sound unlikely to succeed? Possibly. But that’s what people said about Italy’s pentiti system, and they were proven wrong. Besides, the shadow fleet is such a tumor on the shipping industry and the world’s waterways that almost any measure is worth a try.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Over the past two years, state-linked Russian hackers have repeatedly attacked Liverpool City Council — and it’s not because the Kremlin harbors a particular dislike toward the port city in northern England. Rather, these attacks are part of a strategy to hit cities, governments and businesses with large financial losses, and they strike far beyond cyberspace. In the Gulf of Finland, for example, the damage caused to undersea cables by the Eagle S shadow vessel in December incurred costs adding up to tens of millions of euros — and that’s just one incident. Russia has attacked shopping malls, airports, logistics companies and airlines, and these disruptions have all had one thing in common: They have a great cost to the targeted companies and their insurers. One can’t help but feel sorry for Liverpool City Council. In addition to looking after the city’s half-million or so residents, it also has to keep fighting Russia’s cyber gangs who, according to a recent report, have been attacking ceaselessly: “We have experienced many attacks from this group and their allies using their Distributed Botnet over the last two years,” the report noted, referring to the hacktivist group NoName057(16), which has been linked to the Russian state. “[Denial of Service attacks] for monetary or political reasons is a widespread risk for any company with a web presence or that relies on internet-based systems.” Indeed. Over the past decades, state-linked Russian hackers have targeted all manner of European municipalities, government agencies and businesses. This includes the 2017 NotPetya attack, which brought down “four hospitals in Kiev alone, six power companies, two airports, more than 22 Ukrainian banks, ATMs and card payment systems in retailers and transport, and practically every federal agency,” as well as a string of multinationals, causing staggering losses of around $10 billion. More recently, Russia has taken to targeting organizations and businesses in other ways as well. There have been arson attacks, including one involving Poland’s largest shopping mall that Prime Minister Donald Tusk subsequently said was definitively “ordered by Russian special services.” There have been parcel bombs delivered to DHL; fast-growing drone activity reported around European defense manufacturing facilities; and a string of suspicious incidents damaging or severing undersea cables and even a pipeline. The costly list goes on: Due to drone incursions into restricted airspace, Danish and German airports have been forced to temporarily close, diverting or cancelling dozens of flights. Russia’s GPS jamming and spoofing are affecting a large percentage of commercial flights all around the Baltic Sea. In the Red Sea, Houthi attacks are causing most ships owned by or flagged in Western countries to redirect along the much longer Cape of Good Hope route, which adds costs. The Houthis are not Russia, but Russia (and China) could easily aid Western efforts to stop these attacks — yet they don’t. They simply enjoy the enormous privilege of having their vessels sail through unassailed. The organizations and companies hit by Russia have so far managed to avert calamitous harm. But these attacks are so dangerous and reckless that people will, sooner or later, lose their lives. There have been arson attacks, including one involving Poland’s largest shopping mall that Prime Minister Donald Tusk subsequently said was definitively “ordered by Russian special services.” | Aleksander Kalka/Getty Images What’s more, their targets will continue losing a lot of money. The repairs of a subsea data cable alone typically costs up to a couple million euros. The owners of EstLink 2 — the undersea power cable hit by the Eagle S— incurred losses of nearly €60 million. Closing an airport for several hours is also incredibly expensive, as is cancelling or diverting flights. To be sure, most companies have insurance to cover them against cyber attacks or similar harm, but insurance is only viable if the harm is occasional. If it becomes systematic, underwriters can no longer afford to take on the risk — or they have to significantly increase their premiums. And there’s the kicker: An interested actor can make disruption systematic. That is, in fact, what Russia is doing. It is draining our resources, making it increasingly costly to be a business based in a Western country, or even a city council or government authority, for that matter. This is terrifying — and not just for the companies that may be hit. But while Russia appears far beyond the reach of any possible efforts to convince it to listen to its better angels, we can still put up a steely front. The armed forces put up the literal steel, of course, but businesses and civilian organizations can practice and prepare for any attacks that Russia, or other hostile countries, could decide to launch against them. Such preparation would limit the possible harm such attacks can lead to. It begs the question, if an attack causes minimal disruption, then what’s the point of instigating it in the first place? That’s why government-led gray-zone exercises that involve the private sector are so important. I’ve been proposing them for several years now, and for every month that passes, they become even more essential. Like the military, we shouldn’t just conduct these exercises — we should tell the whole world we’re doing so too. Demonstrating we’re ready could help dissuade sinister actors who believe they can empty our coffers. And it has a side benefit too: It helps companies show their customers and investors that they can, indeed, weather whatever Russia may dream up.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Seven years ago, Sweden made global headlines with “In Case of Crisis or War” — a crisis preparedness leaflet sent to all households in the country. Unsurprisingly, preparedness leaflets have become a trend across Europe since then. But now, Sweden is ahead of the game once more, this time with a preparedness leaflet specifically for businesses. Informing companies about threats that could harm them, and how they can prepare, makes perfect sense. And in today’s geopolitical reality, it’s becoming indispensable. I remember when “In Case of Crisis or War” was first published in 2018: The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, or MSB, sent the leaflet out by post to every single home. The use of snail mail wasn’t accidental — in a crisis, there could be devastating cyberattacks that would prevent people from accessing information online. The leaflet — an updated version of the Cold War-era “In Case of War” — contained information about all manner of possible harm, along with information about how to best prepare and protect oneself. Then, there was the key statement: “If Sweden is attacked, we will never surrender. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.” Over the top, suggested some outside observers derisively. Why cause panic among people? But, oh, what folly! Preparedness leaflets have been used elsewhere too. I came to appreciate preparedness education during my years as a resident of San Francisco — a city prone to earthquakes. On buses, at bus stops and online, residents like me were constantly reminded that an earthquake could strike at any moment and we were told how to prepare, what to do while the earthquake was happening, how to find loved ones afterward and how to fend for ourselves for up to three days after a tremor. The city’s then-Mayor Gavin Newsom had made disaster preparedness a key part of his program and to this day, I know exactly what items to always have at home in case of a crisis: Water, blankets, flashlights, canned food and a hand-cranked radio. And those items are the same, whether the crisis is an earthquake, a cyberattack or a military assault. Other earthquake-prone cities and regions disseminate similar preparedness advice — as do a fast-growing number of countries, now facing threats from hostile states. Poland, as it happens, published its new leaflet just a few days before Russia’s drones entered its airspace. But these preparedness instructions have generally focused on citizens and households; businesses have to come up with their own preparedness plans against whatever Russia or other hostile states and their proxies think up — and against extreme weather events too. That’s a lot of hostile activity. In the past couple years alone, undersea cables have been damaged under mysterious circumstances; a Polish shopping mall and a Lithuanian Ikea store have been subject to arson attacks; drones have been circling above weapons-manufacturing facilities; and a defense-manufacturing CEO has been the target of an assassination plot; just to name a few incidents. San Francisco’s then-Mayor Gavin Newsom had made disaster preparedness a key part of his program. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images It’s no wonder geopolitical threats are causing alarm to the private sector. Global insurance broker Willis Towers Watson’s 2025 Political Risk Survey, which focuses on multinationals, found that the political risk losses in 2023 — the most recent year for which data is available — were at their highest level since the survey began. Companies are particularly concerned about economic retaliation, state-linked cyberattacks and state-linked attacks on infrastructure in the area of gray-zone aggression. Yes, businesses around Europe receive warnings and updates from their governments, and large businesses have crisis managers and run crisis management exercises for their staff. But there was no national preparedness guide for businesses — until now. MSB’s preparedness leaflet directed at Sweden’s companies is breaking new ground. It will feature the same kind of easy-to-implement advice as “In Case of Crisis or War,” and it will be just as useful for family-run shops as it is for multinationals, helping companies to keep operating matters far beyond the businesses themselves. By targeting the private sector, hostile states can quickly bring countries to a grinding and discombobulating halt. That must not happen — and preventing should involve both governments and the companies themselves. Naturally, a leaflet is only the beginning. As I’ve written before, governments would do well to conduct tabletop preparedness exercises with businesses — Sweden and the Czech Republic are ahead on this — and simulation exercises would be even better. But a leaflet is a fabulous cost-effective start. It’s also powerful deterrence-signaling to prospective attackers. And in issuing its leaflet, Sweden is signaling that targeting the country’s businesses won’t be as effective as would-be attackers would wish. (The leaflet, by the way, will be blue. The leaflet for private citizens was yellow. Get it? The colors, too, are a powerful message.)

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Between January and April of this year, an astounding quarter of all flights in the eastern Baltic Sea region experienced GPS disturbances. And the fact that these incidents haven’t resulted in any aviation disasters so far is thanks to pilot skill. This is yet another example of Russia’s callous disregard for human life. The Kremlin knows that the impacted countries would never countenance doing the same to Russian aviation. But collectively, we can still blunt the harm of these dangerous tactics. When I boarded a flight to Helsinki and back again last month, I did so without any fear, as I knew the pilots were highly skilled and up-to-date with their training. That’s a good thing because Finland is one of half a dozen countries currently experiencing an extraordinary surge in GPS interference. According to the Swedish National Television, 122,607 flights in Swedish, Finnish, Polish and Baltic airspace were affected by GPS disturbance during the first four months of 2025. In April, more than 27 percent of all flights were affected, and in some places, the figure was up to 42 percent. It didn’t use to be like this. Though most countries experience occasional GPS blips, constant disturbances aren’t a regular part of daily life in any peaceful part of the world. But in aviation — and shipping — 2023 was the last somewhat normal year for the Baltic Sea region, at least in terms of GPS. That year, the Swedish Transport Agency received reports of 55 incidents resulting from both GPS jamming — which blocks crucial positioning signals — and GPS manipulation, which distorts them. Since then, the interference has grown at a mind-boggling rate, reaching 495 cases in 2024. And during the first four months of this year, the Swedish Transport Agency received a staggering 733 reports of incidents in Swedish airspace. The authorities know the source of the disturbances: They’ve traced them to devices in Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Smolensk and Rostov. The latter three cities have military installations, and Kaliningrad is practically an arms depot. Blocking or manipulating GPS helps Russia protect such installations, presumably against Ukrainian drones. But the scale of this jamming and spoofing is massive, and it poses risks to civilian pilots, airline and shipping crews, passengers and anyone else who depends on the global positioning system. Of course, pilots are trained to smanually operate their aircraft whenever such problems occur, but GPS exists for a reason: It makes flying safer and more efficient. Without it, pilots need a line of sight, and they need to be able to interact with systems on the ground. That often means having to wait to land, which also creates additional carbon emissions. But what does Russia care about carbon emissions? The war in Ukraine has been an environmental disaster. It’s a mind-boggling situation we’re in: Persistent GPS interference that endangers both aviation and the environment, and yet, we can’t stop it. An astounding quarter of all flights in the eastern Baltic Sea region experienced GPS disturbances. | Johannes Simon/Getty Images No, we really can’t. Commentators and members of the public often complain that European leaders are spineless, that they don’t take action or recognize the threats facing their countries — but they do. They recognize the threats posed by foreign militaries, as well as nonmilitary aggression like GPS jamming, gig agents, the shadow fleet, the weaponization of migration and much else. They’re aware that Russia’s GPS interference poses an immediate and unnecessary risk to aviation and shipping across Europe and not just the Baltic Sea region, as the jammers can reach far into the continent. But what would we do about such activities if we were in charge? Retaliate by jamming GPS in Russian airspace and risk the lives of airline passengers there? Hire gig agents to set fire to Russian shopping malls or plant parcel bombs on airliners? I think not. Such actions are immoral, unethical and unworthy of liberal democracies — and they would trigger dangerous escalation by Russia or whichever country we’d be trying to punish for its dirty aggression against us. But while governments can try to find ways of blocking GPS jammers, putting the shadow fleet out of business and so on, the rest of us can be vigilant and aware of our surroundings. If we see someone behaving suspiciously, we can report it to the authorities. If the aircraft we’re on needs a bit longer to land, we can refrain from bickering with the flight attendants or the ground staff. We can thank the pilots. National security is a collective undertaking. Being our usual self-centered selves simply won’t do when other countries are on the attack.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that our transition away from fossil fuels won’t be possible without electric cars (EVs). Pulling ahead in this field, China has recently been making EVs that are far cheaper than Western-manufactured ones, and much of it comes down to one humble yet indispensable component: the battery. But now, thanks to one small town in Norway, it seems there might yet be hope for Europe, and for a greener future without risky dependencies on China. Oh, how the times have changed. Four years ago, Tesla was the world’s largest all-electric car brand, followed by China’s state-owned SAIC, Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi and BYD ( another Chinese manufacturer). Today, five of the world’s 10 biggest EV brands are Chinese — and it’s not because buyers specifically want Chinese cars. It’s simply because they’re cheaper. Take, for example, BYD’s Dolphin Surf. Available in Europe as of this summer, these cars start at €22,900. That’s significantly less than Tesla models — and a couple other Chinese EVs are cheaper still. One reason for all this is that their batteries — that all-important part of an EV — cost less. For the past few years, Chinese makers have been switching to so-called LFP batteries, which are different from the NMC batteries most Western cars still use. LFP stands for lithium iron phosphate, and batteries made with these components aren’t just cheaper but last longer, thus making them more sustainable too. (NMCs still get more usage out of each charge, which makes them better for longer drives, but that gap is narrowing.) Given their focus on price, it’s not surprising Chinese brands have so massively adopted LFP batteries. “[China has] a huge cost advantage through economies of scale and battery technology. European manufacturers have fallen well behind,” David Bailey, a professor of business and economics at Birmingham Business School told the BBC. “Unless they wake up very quickly and catch up, they could be wiped out.” But there’s good news for Western EV makers: a renewable-energy company called Å Energi — a Norwegian hydropower giant — has been thinking ahead precisely along these lines. Four years ago, Å Energi teamed up with ABB, Siemens, the Danish pension fund PKA and the Norwegian investment firm Nysnø to form Morrow Batteries. Majority-owned by Å Energi, Morrow is based in the picturesque town of Arendal on Norway’s south coast, and it recently began producing LFP batteries for energy storage systems — think sun and wind energy that needs to be stored after being captured in solar panels and wind turbines — as well as for defense equipment. If all goes according to plan, Morrow will then expand to vehicles, with plans to build another three LFP facilities in Arendal before 2029. Of course, this company won’t be able to match China’s formidable LFP production on its own  — and yet, it exists. It exists because Å Energi dared to commit to this new technology, because the Norwegian government agreed to grant a loan, and because the EU decided to support the undertaking too. Four years ago, Tesla was the world’s largest all-electric car brand, followed by China’s state-owned SAIC. | Allison Dinner/EPA To date, the path to EV batteries has been strewn with grand ambition and, alas, bankruptcies. In the past couple years alone, Northvolt in Sweden and Britishvolt in the U.K. have both gone bust. But as technical as it may sound, LFP batteries are the surest way for Europe to reduce its dependence on Chinese EVs. So, if Morrow succeeds, and is perhaps joined by one or two new European battery-makers, Europe’s EV manufacturers will be better able to compete with Chinese rivals. To be viable, the green transition has to be a collective undertaking. It’s no surprise that this pioneering LFP factory is located in Norway, as the country has made EV adoption a priority. In 2023, nine in 10 cars sold in the country were already EVs, and the Norwegian government wants all newly sold cars to be zero-emission by the end of this year. Norway doesn’t have any significant car manufacturers, and unlike most battery-makers, Morrow isn’t owned by a car manufacturer. But LFP batteries look certain to be the future in all kinds of applications — and Norway is grabbing that opportunity. Morrow’s factory, or factories, may lose money at first, but in the long run, they’ll be a benefit to their owners and to Norway — not to mention Western consumers. Even more crucially, the arrival of a battery factory in Arendal points to a fundamental reality: that to do the right thing for our supply chains and, in many cases, the climate, companies need to team up with unexpected partners, and occasionally with the government too. In today’s climate, so to speak, business plans can no longer solely focus on immediate profit.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. For many locals the world over, this summer — just like every summer and, indeed, every month — tourism brings misery rather than enjoyment. In Barcelona, locals fed up with overtourism took to the streets in protest. In Genoa, Lisbon and the Canary Islands, they did the same. And in Venice, locals were enraged their city had to play backdrop to tech billionaire Jeff Bezos’s wedding party. Copenhagen, however, has turned the tourism curse on its head, inviting visitors to do good deeds for the city and be rewarded for it in return. And it’s time other cities got similarly creative. “During 2024, the Spanish tourism sector experienced its best year since 2019. Its contribution to GDP rose by almost 8% to €248.7 billion, or 15.6% of the economy. It also employed 3 million people, nearly 14% of the country’s total jobs,” the World Travel & Tourism Council reported in May. For many Spaniards, though, this hardly feels like good news. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. To them — and to locals in many other cities tourists like to visit — what it actually means is overcrowding, lack of housing and constant littering. It’s a cursed bargain, tourism: It brings in cash and jobs, but the more tourism you get, the more locals’ discomfort turns to misery. These days, even the trails leading up to the Himalayas are tainted by litter — and don’t even mention Instagram tourism. But tourism doesn’t need to be this destructive. Switzerland, for example, has begun giving rail discounts to those who book a stay at sustainable hotels, and it charges anyone visiting the Lake Brienz pier, which was made famous by the Korean drama “Crash Landing on You,” 5 Swiss francs. The proceeds are then invested in local infrastructure. Copenhagen’s approach is even more innovative. Last year, the Danish capital launched CopenPay, a scheme that invites tourists to do good deeds for the city — and get rewarded. “All you need to do is, for instance, bike instead of drive, help maintain the city, work in an urban garden or take the train to Copenhagen instead of flying, stay longer at the destination,” CopenPay explains. The initiative was launched as a four-week pilot program last year, and this summer it expanded to nine weeks, with 100 attractions participating — a fourfold increase. For instance, as part of CopenPay, there are currently 15 different opportunities to clean up litter across the city, one of which is to “Clean the harbor with GreenKayak and enjoy a free non-alcoholic drink and rye bar with your Smørrebrød purchase at Hallernes Smørrebrød.” While I can’t speak for everyone, to me, cleaning the harbor in central Copenhagen by kayak certainly sounds like an exciting undertaking I’d do for free — though I’d also happily claim the beverage. And if that doesn’t quite strike your fancy, you can help clean the harbor by self-sailing boat too. And picking up litter is just the beginning. If you bike or use public transport to get to the National Museum, you get a free ice cream with your entry ticket. If you arrive in Copenhagen by train or electric car, you get similarly rewarded. There are free bike rentals, free yoga sessions, free guided tours, all waiting to be claimed. Visitors arriving by train from abroad can even get free surplus meals at Copenhagen Central Station. There are free bike rentals, free yoga sessions, free guided tours, all waiting to be claimed. | Mads Claus Rasmussen/EPA You get the idea: Be a good citizen while you visit, and good things will come your way. And hopefully the impact of CopenPay — and other similar initiatives currently in the works — won’t stop there. Imagine if participants start thinking differently about their role as tourists. Once you take part in city maintenance as a temporary sanitation worker, perhaps you start viewing your surroundings less as an Instagram commodity and more as a local community worth protecting. Imagine what such participatory schemes could do for other tourist destinations, especially those most affected by throngs of oblivious visitors. I’ve long wondered how Romans can be so tolerant of the throngs that crowd their beautiful piazzas and narrow streets. How could the local government convince visitors to stop congregating and littering in front of Fontana di Trevi? Perhaps they should introduce a scheme inviting tourists to pick up litter and intimately get to know a street or two, or perhaps sweep the floor of one of the city’s many stunning churches, or tend to part of a graveyard. It would certainly be a memory to tell one’s friends about. Yes, there are reasons why such initiatives may not work. Dishonest tourists will claim to have done a good deed when they haven’t — CopenPay, for example, operates on an honor system. But tourism isn’t just a burden to locals, it’s a burden on our planet. It emits some 8 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide and is 20 percent more carbon-intensive than the average for the global economy. Offering tourists the opportunity to pick up litter as they explore local waterways may not work for every town and city, but each destination can easily come up with its own innovative ideas. Just imagine cities full of visitors who bring a helping hand as well as their cash. That ought to be tourism we can live with.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Every five years, Estonians put on an extraordinary show: the Song and Dance Festival (Laulu- ja Tantsupidu). Featuring some 43,000 performers of traditional song and dance, mostly dressed in national habits, plus nearly a thousand musicians and some 80,000 audience members, this remarkable show of culture and unity is not a new phenomenon — it has (mostly) taken place since 1869. Occupations and other hardships haven’t stopped it. And when it took place again this year, during the first week of July, the performers and audience members were undeterred by unremitting rain. The Song and Dance Festival is a perfect reminder that countries can have a strong national identity and collectively nurture it, and that they can do so entirely peacefully. It also demonstrates that a nation can be strong and resolute while posing no threat. On the afternoon of July 5, I sat down with Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna at this year’s festival. However, the purpose of our meeting was not to discuss politics. It was to discuss the power of communal singing and dancing. Tsahkna arrived wearing a hat and sash that identified him as a member of the Korp! Sakala student society. The foreign minister sings in the group’s choir, and like 45,000 other Estonian singers and dancers, he had just completed a 5-kilometer procession from central Tallinn to the Song and Dance Festival grounds — in the pouring rain. Dancers perform in Tallinn on July 4. | Raigo Pajula/AFP via Getty Images Once on the grounds, he and the other performers were able to take a short break. Most of them headed to the vast food hall, where members of the Women’s Voluntary Defence Organization were serving soup and bread, with 46,000 meals cooked just outside the hall on army field stoves. It was remarkable to see hundreds of Estonians in their national habits civilly file in, eat their soup and put their trays away before making way for the next wave of the procession. All told, 32,022 singers and 10,938 dancers would arrive that afternoon, all braving the route and rain. They then sang — all of them, in the pouring rain — joined by an audience of tens of thousands. The following day, they performed again, this time joined by an audience of some 58,000, enjoying the music from the lawn, under the pouring rain once again. “The Song and Dance Festival demonstrates our societal resilience,” observed Tsahkna, who has sung since age seven and participated in several festivals. “Estonia had a culture minister in the 1990s, who said ‘now that we have independence, we don’t need the Song and Dance Festivals anymore.’ He didn’t last long.” The minister in question was also demonstrably wrong. The Song and Dance Festival may have brought about Estonia’s singing revolution in 1988 and its subsequent independence from the Soviet Union, but it isn’t political: Since the beginning, it has simply been about singing and dancing together. This year, just as every time, the event featured choral singing of the highest caliber, with folk songs performed both in their traditional iterations and newer variations. Countless hours of practice had gone into the elaborate routines. Among the spectators, I spotted former Prime Minister Andrus Ansip saluting the procession and successor Kaja Kallas enjoying one of the songs. Beyond the artistic and technical skill on display, it was joy that permeated the festival. | Elise Joost/POLITICO But beyond the artistic and technical skill on display, it was joy that permeated the festival. That joy is why Estonians keep coming back, and why, in recent years, they’ve been joined by a growing number of diaspora Estonians. This year, more than 500 Global Estonians (as the government calls them) participated as dancers, and more than 30 diaspora choirs sang. Jordan Brodie, a New Mexican singer with an Estonian grandmother, excitedly told me he found himself seated just behind President Alar Kurtis, who delivered the opening address. During another break, I also spoke with career diplomat Toomas Tirs, who most recently served as ambassador to Kazakhstan. At the festival, he was participating as a dancer. “You have to practice for years to be able to do this,” he said. But the effort is nothing compared to the reward, he added. “The festival is such an emotional feeling. We Estonians are all together, in unison … It sends the message that this is who we are, that we’re proud of our culture and that we’re valuable.” The foreign minister felt similarly. “How do we keep our societies together? How do we make sure our citizens feel commitment to the country?” he asked. For him, too, the festival provides an answer. Though created to simply perform folk music back in the 1860s, it long ago became an Estonian way of sticking together. It also dawned on me that a festival of folk music is the best possible way to nurture a country’s national identity: It gathers people from all walks of life for a collective undertaking, and it’s enjoyable, joyful and entirely peaceful. Beyond the artistic and technical skill on display, it was joy that permeated the festival.. | Raigo Pajula/AFP via Getty Images “Thirty thousand people singing together — that’s Estonia,” said Kadri Tali, a member of the Estonian Parliament, as well as a long-time choral conductor and artistic manager who also conducts the parliament’s choir. “If we didn’t have a national identity, what would be the point of being a country of 1.5 million people?” Indeed. Without such a strong identity, Estonia might be the sort of territory that, in the eyes of certain large countries, practically deserves to be gobbled up. And while countries have occupied Estonia in the past, by now they ought to have learnt that it is inhabited by a people who share a strong sense of self and unity and are no one’s lackeys. As in the 1800s, this summer Estonia once again demonstrated it’s a unique country — and one that wishes no ill on anyone. While other countries celebrate with military parades, Estonia does it with song and dance. In the words of its national anthem, which the crowds at the festival grounds energetically sang: “My Fatherland, My Happiness and Joy.”

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Germany needs to significantly expand its armed forces — and it’s concluding the only feasible way to do so is to introduce some form of national service. Latvia recently did so; Sweden and Lithuania joined Europe’s ranks of national-service nations several years ago; and even the U.K., which ended military service long before the end of the Cold War, has floated the idea. Teenagers, it seems, are in vogue. But rather than merely talking about them, we should invite them to contribute their ideas to national security. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius — the country’s perennially  most popular politician — is trying to fix to an increasingly urgent problem: the Bundeswehr’s shortage of soldiers. In recent months, Europe’s largest country committed previously inconceivable sums to its armed forces, but even the shiniest new equipment is useless without soldiers. And Germany is already some 50,000 short of the 230,000 to 240,000 soldiers the coalition government wants it to field. (At the end of last year, the Bundeswehr had 181,174 men and women on active duty.) Pistorius, much-liked for his pragmatism and for speaking in ways the public can easily understand, has a practical solution in mind, and that is to create a “new military service” based on Norway’s selective military service. The Norwegian system — which I’ve frequently highlighted as a model other countries could adopt and adapt — sees all 18-year-olds assessed for military service, with only a small percentage eventually selected. It’s a clever system because modern militaries don’t need human masses for trench-style warfare, and the selectivity makes military service extremely attractive. Sweden adopted a similar model a few years ago, and now Pistorius wants Germany adopt it too. But it’s a gamble. What if enough young Germans don’t accept the offer of military service the way Norwegians so enthusiastically do? What if the Bundeswehr needs so many soldiers that being selected for military service doesn’t quite resemble getting a place at Oxbridge? Would the government then force them to serve? That’s the Gordian Knot the defense minister must now solve, and the coalition’s Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union on the one hand, and the Social Democrats on the other are divided on the issue. The U.K., which also wants to grow its military, faces recruitment challenges too. At the moment, its armed forces comprise 148,230 active-duty personnel, and they have fallen short of recruitment targets. Even though the armed forces have produced some truly impressive recruitment advertisement campaigns in recent years, the numbers refuse to leap. The issue is much the same in other European countries that don’t have military service. Even some that do haven’t managed to make the prospect of serving (including signing up for active duty after competing military service) quite as attractive as Norway does. One-quarter of Norwegian conscripts go on to active duty. Sweden and Lithuania joined Europe’s ranks of national-service nations several years ago. | Artur Reszko/EPA But there’s a solution: Ask the teenagers. Discussions around military service naturally focus on what might work, what should work, how the youngsters might respond, how they can be incentivized to participate and much else. But the teenagers themselves aren’t consulted. Imagine if they were. Just as we appoint seasoned experts to write national-security strategies, we could invite young people to participate in task forces focusing on military service and related matters. Naturally, such task forces would have to be led by senior government officials, but the rest of the membership could be comprised by young people of serving age. In fact, the defense of our countries now hinges on our young people. They have skin in the game — and just as important, they’re extremely likely to have good ideas about how military service should be set up. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to provide recommendations regarding the military training itself, but they’d be the best possible experts on what might make Gen Z and its successors want to be part of national security, and what national security should look like. This goes beyond what kind of sleeping quarters they might like. For example, would they consider getting a driver’s license as part of their military training — as Germany is considering — a significant carrot? How would they get young tech types interested in the armed forces? What about educating the general public about what the armed forces do? The latter is a particularly crucial undertaking now that virtually every European country says it wants to spend more money on defense but is struggling to get the message out. Young people might have good, constructive ideas; solutions the rest of us have failed to think of. And let’s remember they aren’t just potential national-service participants: They’re also the future stewards of our countries. Whatever we decide today will have an impact — whether positive or negative — on the future of our nations. Let’s get them involved.