Indian Strategic Studies: 11/22/17

22 November 2017

American Leadership in the Asia-Pacific

American Leadership in the Asia-Pacific

- Maj Gen P K Mallick,VSM (Retd)

Those who are China watchers would be familiar with the name of Dr. Michael Pillsbury . He has been a China expert from USA. His book Chinese Views of Future Warfare published in 1998 has been read by people interested in China and are available in all libraries of Indian defence services.

His recent book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower published in 2016 has been getting rave reviews.

Dr. Michael Pillsbury , presently Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Chinese Strategy, The Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. gave a statement to U.S. Senate Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy on “American Leadership in the Asia-Pacific, Part 4: The View from Beijing” on 14 November 2017. His statement was very interesting. But what caught my attention was a statement of the fact of US informing China about our troop movement during 71 Operations.

He stated and I quote :

Two months after Zhou’s conversation with Kissinger, with Nixon’s visit just around the corner, Kissinger made the first of many covert offers to the Chinese. Unbeknownst to a public that would have been shocked to see the United States aiding and abetting the People’s Liberation Army, Kissinger gave China detailed classified information about Indian troop movements against Pakistan, as well as America’s “approval of Chinese support for Pakistan, including diversionary troop movements.” In return, Kissinger asked for Chinese troop movements on the Indian border to distract India from its efforts to invade and then dismember eastern Pakistan. China’s troops did not move, but that did not dampen American expectations.

Now there is nothing new in this. Uncle has been and will be doing these. See uncle’s refusal to access Hadley by our intelligence agencies. However, there is a sizable number of our strategic community who bend over backwards to support everything Uncle does and keep quiet about these issues.

Any reasons? Your guess is as good as mine.

ISIS PLOTTING ATTACKS FROM AFGHANISTAN

By: Jennifer Cafarella and Caitlin Forrest with Charles Aubin

Key Takeaway: Afghanistan remains a safe haven for terrorist plots against the U.S. homeland. The Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham’s (ISIS) affiliate in Afghanistan and an American ISIS member in Pakistan coordinated an attack attempt in the U.S. in early 2016. ISIS seized at least one district in northwestern Afghanistan in early November, and is assembling new foreign fighter units. ISIS will use this safe haven to conduct new attacks abroad.

Infographic Of The Day: 35 Chinese Cities With Economies As Big As Countries

Of course, cities like Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong are the metro economic powerhouses that most people are familiar with. But have you heard of cities like Shijiazhuang, Wuxi, Changsha, Suzhou, Ningbo, Foshan, or Yantai? There are literally dozens of Chinese cities that most people in Western countries have never heard of - yet they each hold millions of people and have an economic output comparable to nations.

The Rise Of A Not-So-New World Order

by Sarang Shidore

For decades the United States has sat atop a unipolar world, unrivaled in its influence over the rest of the globe. But now that may be changing as a new, informal alliance takes shape between China and Russia. The two great powers have a mutual interest in overturning an international order that has long advantaged the West at their own expense. And as the Earth's sole superpower turns inward, they will seek to carve out bigger backyards for themselves. Will their marriage of convenience once more give rise to the bipolarity that characterized the Cold War, or will it unravel in the face of a natural rivalry rooted in geopolitics?

An Informal Alliance Emerges

Ian Bremmer Argues That We Are At The End Of The Global Free Market — As The Rise Of China Dominates Recent Asean Summit

Ian Bremmer, the President and Founder of the EURASIA Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm, spoke to a luncheon in Boston, Mass., on November 14, 2017 at the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations. Mr. Bremmer’s main thesis was that “the U.S. is no longer fit to lead in global governance; and, that is driving a change in world order. As a consequence, the coming decade will be vastly more unstable,” Marianne Brunet wrote on the November 16, 2017 online edition of the website — Advisor*Perspectives.

The Real Winner in America's Russia Crisis Is China

Leon Hadar

When thinking about male-pattern baldness, what comes immediately to mind? Genetics? Thanks for this, grandad. But then I conducted my own scientific research and discovered the following: I started losing hair at the temples or the crown of the head when Vladimir Putin first held the position of president from 2000 to 2008, and my hairline receded big time after the Russian leader took office again in 2008. Coincidence? Or is it possible that the balding Putin, resenting the hairy Dmitry Medvedev, not to mention those American presidents with their incredible full heads of hair, decided to do something about that? Isn’t that what you would expect from the Kremlin’s notorious alpha male, who was probably envious of my Fabio-like flawless hair in the late 1990s?

THE LEAP INTO QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY: A PRIMER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY PROFESSIONALS

MICHAEL J. BIERCUK AND RICHARD FONTAINE

China recently announced the launch of its Jinan Project, a quantum information effort billed as “the world’s first unhackable computer network.” Building on its launch last year of the world’s first quantum-enabled satellite, China has made significant strides in quantum technology, a field with rapidly increasing relevance to national security. Its satellite has been hailed as a major step toward “unbreakable” encrypted communications.

Nuclear War: Could China's Mach 10 Hypersonic Weapons Unleash the Unthinkable?

Dave Majumdar

The People’s Republic of China is continuing its quest to develop a new class of hypersonic weapons that could strike at the continental United States in less than 15 minutes from launch.

An operational long-range hypersonic weapon is likely years away, but China, the United States, Russia and other states are in a race to field such weapons. In the meantime, China is working on building the world’s fastest hypersonic wind tunnel to help its scientist develop this new class of weapon. The new facility should become operational by 2020.

ISIS, Radicalization and Humiliation

Nir Eisikovits

The Islamic State is in retreat and has been for a while. It has lost most of its holdings in Iraq and Syria and has just lost its capital, Raqqa. Its leaders and fighters are on the run. It is tempting to breathe a sigh of relief and tell ourselves that the nightmare of lightning conquests, mass executions and devastating attacks against European cities is finally over. But that would be a mistake. For one thing, the Islamic State still holds a small amount of territory, roughly the size of Lebanon, near the Iraqi-Syrian border. More importantly, the organization’s franchises in Africa and Asia are doing quite well. So are its training camps in Afghanistan. The group has probably implanted sleeper cells across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. And we should remember that the Islamic State managed a spectacular comeback last time it was nearly defeated—when it was decimated in Iraq by the American “Surge” and the so called “Sunni Awakening.”

THE UNCOUNTED

By AZMAT KHAN and ANAND GOPAL

LATE on the evening of Sept. 20, 2015, Basim Razzo sat in the study of his home on the eastern side of Mosul, his face lit up by a computer screen. His wife, Mayada, was already upstairs in bed, but Basim could lose hours clicking through car reviews on YouTube: the BMW Alpina B7, the Audi Q7. Almost every night went like this. Basim had long harbored a taste for fast rides, but around ISIS-occupied Mosul, the auto showrooms sat dark, and the family car in his garage — a 1991 BMW — had barely been used in a year. There simply was nowhere to go.

Dealing with the Russian Bear: Improving NATO’s Response to Moscow’s Military Exercise Zapad 2017

By Guillaume Lasconjarias and Lukáš Dyčka

Major military exercises are never a simple routine but carry important political significance. This is the case with the recent Russian military manoeuvres of Zapad 2017, which took place in Belarus as well as in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad – bordering the territory of two NATO Baltic States – on 14-20 September. The exercise was closely monitored by European and US military and political elites and caused considerable concern in Poland and the Baltic states.

Roger Pielke Jr. describes the decay of climate science

Welcome to issue #7 of my occasional newsletter on climate and energy issues. As a reminder, my day-to-day research or writing is focused on sports governance and various issues of science policy. But I’ve written a fair bit on the topics of climate and energy over the past 25 years, including two recent books and a boatload of academic papers, and I’m paying attention. So caveat lector {reader beware}! …

Mertonian Norms and Climate Debates.

Russia's T-72 Tank: Over 40 Years Old and Still the Backbone of the Russian Army

Michael Peck

While Russia has 3,500 T-80s, that tank seems to be a dead end. While the T-14 Armata is an intriguing and sophisticated next-generation tank, it seems unlikely that it will be mass-produced enough to become the primary Russian main battle tank any time soon. Which means that for the foreseeable future, the T-72 will continue to be the backbone of Russia's armor fleet. When the Soviet T-72 tank was first deployed, Richard Nixon was President, the F-4 Phantom was America's primary fighter, and the world's steel beasts had yet to discover a nemesis called the wire-guided anti-tank missile.

Working Group on Climate, Nuclear, and Security Affairs: Report One

A First-of-its Kind Framework for Managing the Intersection of Climate Change and Nuclear Security

In its initial report released on November 15, 2017, the Working Group on Climate, Nuclear, and Security Affairs (CNSA), chaired by the Center for Climate and Security, articulates a first-of-its kind framework for understanding and addressing the complex connections between climate change, security, and nuclear issues.

Countries such as Nigeria, Jordan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are dealing with numerous internal climatic, economic, security, demographic, and environmental pressures as they pursue nuclear energy. The report notes the importance of such countries in terms of how these issues might influence one another—and raises concerns that Russia may be a dominant nuclear supplier to such countries.

How technology has taken the Cold War online

By Con Coughlin

Fifty years ago, when the Cold War was in full swing, the easiest way for Moscow to sow the seeds of discord and disharmony in the West was to recruit and fund Communist sympathisers who sought to destroy the political status quo. Now a new form of information warfare being waged against the West by hostile states can achieve the same aims through the clever application of modern technology. And what is really terrifying about this new propaganda war is how credible it can appear. One of the more egregious examples of Moscow’s modern-day black arts was the photograph that went viral on the internet that appeared to show a Muslim woman nonchalantly walking past the bodies of victims of the westminster Bridge terror attack in March as they lay prone in the street. It was an image that was guaranteed to stoke the fires of Islamophobia in the highly charged atmosphere immediately after the attack, and could easily have resulted in greater antipathy towards Muslims in Britain.

Pandora’s Box of the Digital Age

CARL BILDT

a series of hacks and ransomware attacks by hostile governments and other malign actors have raised alarms about a major threat to global stability. Unfortunately, many governments are responding by developing still more cyber weapons, on the mistaken assumption that offense is the best defense. One country after another has begun exploring options for bolstering their offensive capabilities in cyberspace, and many other countries have already done so. This is a dangerous escalation. In fact, few other trends pose a bigger threat to global stability.

Dunford: U.S. Military Advantage Over Russia, China Eroding

By Jim Garamone

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks with a student after a moderated discussion at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass., Nov. 14, 2017. The chairman spoke about challenges facing the Defense Department and answered questions from students, faculty, and alumni. DoD photo by Army Sgt. James K. McCann Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford -- an alumnus of the school -- said Russia and China have examined U.S. operations since the Gulf War and invested in capabilities and doctrines to counter America's conventional overmatch.

An Expert on Warfare Examines Centuries of Evolving Mayhem

By Gary J. Bass

When it mattered most, the next war was too awful to imagine. In 1933, the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, an influential French author warned what might happen: “A hundred planes each carrying a ton of asphyxiating shells would cover Paris with a gas sheet 20 meters high, all in an hour.” To a French public preoccupied with aerial bombardment and chemical warfare, much of the appeal of appeasing Nazi Germany was that the alternative was unthinkable. To justify selling out Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938, Neville Chamberlain played on similar fears among the British, emphasizing how “horrible, fantastic, incredible” it was that a foreign quarrel led to “trying on gas masks here.”

NSA: Cyber Attacks Are Becoming More Sophisticated, Aggressive, and Disruptive

BY: Bill Gertz

Cyber attacks by foreign nations and criminals against both government and private sector networks are increasing in both sophistication and scale, a senior National Security Agency official said Wednesday.

Jonathan L. Darby, deputy chief of NSA’s cybersecurity operations group, said in a speech that recent cyber attacks against Ukraine’s power grid, malware strikes in Saudi Arabia, the Equifax data breach, and global ransomware attacks are the latest examples of the kind of attacks that are growing more dangerous and that will increase in the future.

“I expect the trend lines to continue. We’re going to continue to see attacks all around the world,” Darby told a conference sponsored by the State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council.

The future of cyberwar: Weaponised ransomware, IoT attacks and a new arms race

By Steve Ranger

After at least a dozen years in the shadows, cyberwarfare is gradually emerging into daylight. While cyber weapons were mostly developed and used by intelligence agencies as part of secret missions, they are now becoming an acknowledged military option during conflicts. Here are predictions about how cyberwarfare will evolve over the next year.

The cyber arms race will accelerate

Having a cyberwarfare capability is the latest must-have for many nation states, which has sparked a cyber arms race that shows no sign of slowing down. NATO, for example, recently updated its strategy to include the potential use of cyber weapons alongside traditional munitions. In the short term, this will likely mean that researchers will find a ready market for the zero-day exploits, as governments continue to build their stockpiles. However, as intelligence agencies and the military spend more on building up cyber weapons there will come, inevitably, pressure to prove the worth of that investment.

Cyber weapons will become a standard feature of warfare

The Pentagon is set to make a big push toward open source software next year

by Kelsey Atherton

Nestled hundreds of pages into the proposed bill to fund the Department of Defense sits a small, unassuming section. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 is the engine that powers the Pentagon, turning legislative will into tangible cash for whatever Congress can fit inside. Thanks to an amendment introduced by Sen. Mike Rounds of (R-SD) and co-sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), this year the NDAA could institute a big change: should the bill pass in its present form, the Pentagon will be going open source.