Indian Strategic Studies: 08/15/23

15 August 2023

China has fallen into a psycho-political funk

James Kynge

Sly, Soviet-style jokes are enjoying a subtle revival on Chinese social media platforms. Their art resides in being too obscure for censors to understand yet clear enough for cynics to chuckle at their mockery.

Some are so esoteric that their satire is confirmed only by the censors’ decision to delete them — echoing the cat-and-mouse dynamic that distinguished dissident humour in the former Soviet Union. One joke this week monitored by the China Digital Times, a US-based site that covers Chinese affairs, belonged to this genre.

It read: “While out and about on vacation, I stubbed my toe on something. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was a bronze lamp. It was smudged, so I picked it up and gave it a good wipe — and out popped a genie! The genie said it could grant me any wish. ‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘Well then, could you make you-know-who you-know-what?’ No sooner had the words escaped my lips than the genie rushed over, clamped my mouth shut, and asked: ‘Are we even allowed to say that?’”

The author’s account appears to have been shut down after the joke was deleted. “Of course, by banning the joke and its author, censors merely proved the punchline,” commented the China Digital Times. “This is not the first time that ‘Soviet-style’ jokes have become Chinese realities.”

Dark humour is just one of a rash of adverse indicators besetting China these days. A slowdown in economic growth is having a palpable impact on people’s lives, with labour unrest spreading, youth unemployment spiralling and families feeling poorer following a decline in the value of their homes since mid-2021.

News this week that China has officially fallen into deflation, with consumer prices dropping 0.3 per cent year on year in July, adds a particularly unwelcome ingredient into the mix. Deflation is feared because declining prices persuade people to defer purchases, cooling the consumer vigour that Beijing has been trusting to propel a recovery from the pandemic.

Western leaders welcomed China’s presence at Ukraine peace talks. But Beijing’s relationship with Europe is still testy

Luke McGee

While Beijing didn’t budge from its stated position of impartiality, China’s mere presence at a meeting to which Russia says it was not invited has, some sources claim, sent a message to the international community that it’s not willing openly to pick Russia’s side against the West.

It might be a very small victory, but in the diplomatic world of zero-sum games, Russian President Vladimir Putin not getting exactly what he wants is something to celebrate.

“We never expected China to move fully to the Western position, but supporting this meeting will be a major disappointment to Russia,” a senior EU official told CNN.

“From our point of view, China is visibly engaging with the West, talking to the Ukrainians, and pushing back on Russia. We really welcome that,” the official said. Multiple European sources have echoed this view.

However, while China’s engagement with the international community might be a blow for Russia, it’s still being viewed with suspicion by Western allies, not least because of the continued economic, diplomatic and security ties the countries share.

Despite the optics of its delegation’s attendance in Jeddah, Beijing has not appeared to scale back ties with Russia. Its top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a day after the Jeddah talks concluded, reiterating Beijing’s “impartiality” in the conflict.

China’s game of Ukrainian chess

YUN SUN

Last weekend, Saudi Arabia hosted a two-day summit in Jeddah dedicated to ending the war in Ukraine. Nearly 40 countries attended, including the United States, India, and dozens across Europe. But it was the presence of one nation that raised expectations for a breakthrough – China.

Because China had rejected a similar meeting in Copenhagen in late June, many interpreted its participation this time as evidence Beijing was ready to play a more active role. But an examination of the context surrounding the Jeddah summit suggests a different motivation for China’s involvement. Simply put, peace wasn’t Beijing’s primary concern.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022, Beijing has avoided anything that would compromise its neutrality or force it explicitly to take a side. This principle of neutrality made it impossible for China to attend the June meeting, given that Denmark is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Although NATO isn’t directly at war with Russia, its military support to Ukraine gives the Kremlin ammunition to claim NATO involvement. For China, attending the Copenhagen meeting without Russian participation would have tarnished Beijing’s image of objectivity.

By comparison, Saudi Arabia, one of the leading middle powers in the Global South, was a more acceptable host from the Chinese perspective.

Saudi Arabia has voted in favor of several UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia and demanding an end to the war. But it also abstained from a 2022 vote to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, and the two countries have been on a more coordinated path recently over oil production and global crude-oil supply.

This more nuanced position has made the kingdom a more natural partner for Beijing.

But image concerns aside, what’s driving China’s involvement now?

Importance of China-Saudi ties

A new White House order is taking aim at investment in Chinese tech. How will it actually work?

Sarah Bauerle Danzman and Emily Weinstein

The Biden administration has put forward plans to require certain US persons to notify the US government in advance of making certain types of investment in People’s Republic of China (PRC) entities. In particular, the United States is interested in entities engaged in activities related to “covered national security technology or products.” The White House released a long-anticipated Executive Order on August 9 that directs the Treasury Department, in consultation with the Commerce Department, to develop a new regulatory system for these notifications. This may at first sound narrow and procedural, but it has important implications for US national security and US-China trade.

In addition, the new regulations will prohibit US persons from engaging in certain investment transactions with covered foreign parties. The order gives the Treasury Department the authority to, in conjunction with the interagency, identify the types of transactions and technologies that may pose a risk to US national security and thereby warrant notification or prohibition. At the same time, the Treasury Department issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) outlining questions under consideration for the development of such rules, and it has provided the public forty-five days to comment.

The order’s release comes after a long and sometimes confusing policy discussion among the foreign policy community, the White House, Capitol Hill, and partners and allies. The main point of contention was on whether the United States needed new authorities over outbound investment activities to protect national security and, if so, what those authorities should look like. The new executive order is the Biden administration’s move to settle this debate. Below is a brief and accessible overview of the order, the impending regulations, and potential implementation challenges.

Why is the administration doing this?

Rising U.S. Debt Is the Mirror of Rising Chinese Debt

MICHAEL PETTIS

Both Washington and Beijing treat rising debt as a consequence of irresponsible behavior by local institutions. But in China and the United States, rising debt is spurred by policies that have encouraged distortions in the distribution of domestic income. Until these distortions are addressed, both countries must choose between rising debt and rising unemployment.

The urgent debate earlier this year about the establishment of a binding debt ceiling for the U.S. government implicitly (and sometimes quite explicitly) assumed that rising debt is a measure of Washington’s profligacy, and that if only policymakers were a little more frugal or a little less irresponsible, the American debt burden would stop rising. The purpose of the debt ceiling, by this logic, is to impose discipline on lawmakers.

There is a similar debate within China about the surge over the past ten to fifteen years in local government debt. The press is full of stories about regulators attempting to clamp down on hidden local government debt and fraudulent borrowing practices, suggesting that once the regulators impose borrowing discipline on local governments and state-owned enterprises, rising debt will no longer be a problem.

But in both cases, this is confused thinking. In the United States and China, rising debt is structural, and necessary to the way in which their economies currently operate. While it is indeed likely that part of the debt in both countries is due to profligacy, irresponsible behavior, and even fraud, these do not explain the bulk of the increase in debt. Even with the strictest controls, until more fundamental changes are made to the two economies, either debt must continue to rise or growth must slow to politically unacceptable levels—levels that cause unemployment to rise.

Rising debt, in other words, is baked into the current structures of both the U.S. and Chinese economies, with similar causes for rising debt and mirror images in the ways in which rising debt occurs. In the United States, rising debt is how the economy balances the impact of conditions—including most importantly high levels of income inequality and the large U.S. trade deficit—that automatically reduce the demand available for American businesses. That is because high levels of income inequality, as I explain below, force a contraction in sustainable demand in the U.S. economy.

IRREGULAR WARFARE PODCAST: A TWENTY-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE ON IRREGULAR WARFARE AND COUNTERINSURGENCY

Julia McClenon and Louis Tobergte

In what ways do irregular warfare and counterinsurgency overlap? Is China engaged in irregular warfare against its adversaries? What are some of the failures of the wars and conflicts of the last twenty years and why did they occur? What do irregular warfare practitioners need to do to avoid the mistakes and to ensure they learn the hard-won lessons of the last twenty years?

In Episode 85 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, our guests address these and other issues confronting irregular warfare thinkers and practitioners as a retrospective episode with two leading experts on the subject. The episode features David Kilcullen and John Nagl and makes references to recent pieces of their written work, including Nagl’s “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars” and Kilcullen’s Blood Year.

Our guests first delve into issues of defining the overlapping terms “irregular warfare” and “counterinsurgency,” and continue by discussing some of the struggles encountered in seeking to measuring success and failure over the past twenty years. They then discuss how challenges in understanding the human domain affected the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They wrap up the episode with their thoughts and suggestions for irregular warfare practitioners and thinkers who may not have significant direct experience in the wars of the last twenty years.

China has fallen into a psycho-political funk

James Kynge

Sly, Soviet-style jokes are enjoying a subtle revival on Chinese social media platforms. Their art resides in being too obscure for censors to understand yet clear enough for cynics to chuckle at their mockery.

Some are so esoteric that their satire is confirmed only by the censors’ decision to delete them — echoing the cat-and-mouse dynamic that distinguished dissident humour in the former Soviet Union. One joke this week monitored by the China Digital Times, a US-based site that covers Chinese affairs, belonged to this genre.

It read: “While out and about on vacation, I stubbed my toe on something. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was a bronze lamp. It was smudged, so I picked it up and gave it a good wipe — and out popped a genie! The genie said it could grant me any wish. ‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘Well then, could you make you-know-who you-know-what?’ No sooner had the words escaped my lips than the genie rushed over, clamped my mouth shut, and asked: ‘Are we even allowed to say that?’”

The author’s account appears to have been shut down after the joke was deleted. “Of course, by banning the joke and its author, censors merely proved the punchline,” commented the China Digital Times. “This is not the first time that ‘Soviet-style’ jokes have become Chinese realities.”

Dark humour is just one of a rash of adverse indicators besetting China these days. A slowdown in economic growth is having a palpable impact on people’s lives, with labour unrest spreading, youth unemployment spiralling and families feeling poorer following a decline in the value of their homes since mid-2021.

News this week that China has officially fallen into deflation, with consumer prices dropping 0.3 per cent year on year in July, adds a particularly unwelcome ingredient into the mix. Deflation is feared because declining prices persuade people to defer purchases, cooling the consumer vigour that Beijing has been trusting to propel a recovery from the pandemic.

What Should America Do If China Invades Taiwan?

Daniel Davis

Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-Te, a 2024 presidential candidate, will visit the United States on Saturday to meet with American officials. China warns the visit is “like a gray rhino charging at us.” In China, this metaphor is used to indicate a big, obvious threat that needs to be dealt with.

As that charged language indicates, tensions between the U.S. and China remain strained. Beijing’s preparation for future combat continues to accelerate, and Washington must contemplate the pros and cons of fighting a war with China.

It should be an article of faith for any American Congress or president that the decision to fight a conventional war should only be taken under the most dire of circumstances — when the U.S. has been attacked or is threatened with an imminent attack, and all diplomatic and peaceful means of resolving a conflict are exhausted. In any circumstance short of a direct attack against our country, people, or allies, the United States should measure such decisions against the most rigorous criteria designed to ensure the security, viability, and prosperity of the country.

Taiwan: Fundamentals to Influence Choose-Refuse Decisions for War

The legislative and administrative branches of government must meet a few requirements before choosing any war. These non-negotiable criteria should be obvious, but Washington’s decisionmaking over the past few decades indicates that they are not, so laying out a rational, logical framework is necessary.

First, American leaders must understand that any war in the modern age against a peer or near-peer is going to be costly. The U.S. will lose men and women in uniform and some percentage of our tools of war, and the impact on the economy will likely be high. Even in the best-case scenarios where the U.S. prevails, the road to recovery in all categories will be uncertain and painful. Leaders must also acknowledge it is possible the U.S. could lose.

SOCOM: THE BEST RESULT OF AMERICA’S WORST SPECIAL OPS FAIL

Randall Stevens

A US special operations forces member conducts combat operations in support of Operation Resolute Support in northeast Afghanistan, April 2019. US Army photo by Spc. Jonathan Bryson.

As if special operations and operators weren’t cool enough, SOCOM also gets the coolest name in the Department of Defense. How is INDOPACOM supposed to compete with a name like that? How is TRANSCOM supposed to hype its mission to sound SOCOM-level cool? What’s so special about special operations, anyway?

If your experience with special operations is logging hundreds of hours of playing SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, you might not understand how special ops come together. The alphabet soup of special operations commands probably doesn’t help. Knowing the difference between JSOC and SOCOM is just the beginning.

Many moving parts make up SOCOM, and each branch with special operations forces plays a role. At this point, some of you may be wondering what these words mean. If they don’t make sense right now, I’m about to make their meaning clearer. By the end of this piece, even the most civilian reader will have a firm grasp of all the SOCs.

It’s Time to Modernize America’s Nuclear Power Policy

Jeff Luse

For the first time in nearly thirty years, a newly constructed nuclear power plant provides energy for the U.S. grid. On Monday, the Georgia Southern-owned Vogtle Unit 3 powered up, bringing reliable, carbon-free power to nearly 500,000 homes and businesses in Georgia.

While originally projected to come online in 2016 or 2017, Vogtle Unit 3 has run over time and over budget due largely to outdated regulations and inefficient licensing requirements. Unfortunately, the challenges Vogtle faced have become the status quo for the nuclear industry in the United States, hampering our ability to bring reliable nuclear energy to the grid. To reverse this trend, lawmakers must modernize regulations and implement a policy framework that supports innovation and deployment.

An oft-cited criticism of nuclear power is that power plant construction is expensive. While some of these delays can be attributed to human error and poor project management, a far greater portion of these costs resulted from increased regulations legislated in the 1970s and 1980s. Over this time, the cost of building nuclear power plants increased by nearly 19 percent annually as power plants hired more engineers and managers to accommodate increasing regulations and inspections from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Safety changes after the accident at Three Mile Island alone—which led to precisely zero deaths, injuries, or direct health-related effects—were responsible for 10 percent of increased labor costs and 15 percent of new material costs required for new plants after 1979.

Material regulations such as quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) rules—which require plant operators to purchase “nuclear grade” versions of materials like steel and cement—are yet another cause of bloated project budgets. In some instances, nuclear-grade components are 50 times more expensive than their average industrial counterparts. That might be worth it if nuclear-grade cement was stronger or safer than standard market-grade cement, but it isn’t. In many cases, the materials are the same but require far more paperwork to comply with QA and QC standards, which leads to increased costs and less market competition.

America Must Create a Multilateral Semiconductor Supply Chain Security Agreement

The United States, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Korea, and Japan should consider forming a multilateral supply chain tracing and customs agreement to prevent crucial technology from falling into the wrong hands.

by Nicholas A. Henderson

Securing semiconductor chip production has become one of the hottest topics in current economic discourse. As a result, one of the oldest concepts in economic warfare came back to the forefront of the conversation: export controls. Export controls boast a long history in the annals of American statecraft. Unfortunately, the current system used to enforce them is equally antiquated and unable to navigate the complex supply chains of multinational companies.

To save its export control system, the United States must share the load with trusted partners and create an allied supply chain intelligence-sharing and tracing cooperative.

Supply chain tracing is “the process of tracking the provenance and journey of products and their inputs, from the very start of the supply chain through to end-use.” Effective tracing illuminates the supply chain of dual-use (tech with civilian and military applications) and other sensitive technologies that could benefit unfriendly states and non-state actors. U.S. export controls, in theory, are meant to prevent this outcome.

The Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List handles export controls. This function was born of the necessity to keep nuclear materials and other dual-use technology out of the hands of adversary nations like Russia, North Korea, Iran, and others.

Despite the Bureau of Industry and Security shouldering heavy supply chain tracing lifts, which have assessed the semiconductor industry in the past, the increased friction between the United States and China has led to an expansion of its mission into a wider, deeper, and overall more comprehensive level of tracing of the highly globalized semiconductor technology supply chain.

U.S. international image rebounds with Biden reversing Trump policies

After four years of decline during Donald Trump’s presidency, America’s reputation abroad is bouncing back.

That’s a major takeaway from a new Pew Research Center survey on international views toward the United States.

Those attitudes have “certainly rebounded since President Biden was elected,” Richard Wike, director of global attitudes at the Pew Research Center, said on Tuesday at a forum held by the University of Southern California’s Washington center. While concerns about American behavior remain, “there’s been a big shift in America’s global image in a positive direction.”

Pew surveys of 3,576 adults in 23 countries indicate 59 percent have a favorable opinion of the United States, while 30 percent don’t. Similarly, 54 percent have confidence in Biden, while 39 percent don’t. While Pew does not have directly comparable data for a global sweep of countries for the Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush presidencies, it does have confidence and popularity information by individual nations that show Biden’s ratings far above Trump’s.

Poland, “where positive views of the U.S. have increased substantially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” gave the United States the highest rating, with 93 percent favorable. Hungary was the only nation where fewer than half, 44 percent, viewed America positively.

The 23 countries surveyed skew toward wealthy, predominantly White nations. Ten are in Europe, plus Canada and Australia are on the list. Meanwhile, Africa and Latin America are represented by three nations each. Asia has four.

“Next year, we plan to do somewhere between 35 and 40 countries,” Wike said, “with a much larger representation from Africa, from Latin America, Southeast Asia and different parts of the world.”

Despite the improved image, “typically,” the report said, “people do not think the U.S. considers their interests.”

Will We Sacrifice DC and New York For Taiwan?

Francis P. Sempa

Last month, National Defense University professor Donald Stoker wrote a thought-provoking article for Real Clear Defense that examined China’s actions in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and concluded that it will be “exceedingly difficult to deter China in regard to Taiwan,” and that a successful American strategy of deterrence “requires strength, capability, credibility, and will.” A grand strategy of deterrence affects the mind of the enemy--in this case, the mind of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the minds of Xi’s top advisers. The United States and its allies, Stoker writes, must “produce overwhelming doubt in the minds of China’s leaders” that they can take control of Taiwan “at an acceptable cost.”

China under Mao Zedong in the early 1950s in Korea was not deterred from fighting U.S. forces there even though the United States possessed atomic weapons and China did not, and even though America had a much stronger and technologically advanced military than China did at the time. China, Stoker explains, was willing to “endure the risks of escalation, and pay enormous costs in blood and treasure” to protect what its leaders perceived as threats to their security. China also had the advantage of geographical proximity to the conflict. In short, China was willing to risk atomic attack and to expend countless lives and treasure to ensure that the northern half of the Korean peninsula was ruled by a regime friendly to China’s interests.

Stoker notes that China was much less involved in the fighting in Vietnam than in Korea, but attributes that to the U.S. decision not to invade North Vietnam. Stoker writes that Mao told Hanoi’s leaders that his armies would fight the Americans if they invaded northern territory. If Mao was serious--and we have no reason to doubt that--Chinese forces would have intervened in North Vietnam, just as they did in Korea, had American forces crossed into northern territory with the express purpose (as in Korea) of uniting the country under non-communist, pro-American rule.

B-21 RAIDER POWERS UP, PREPARES FOR FIRST FLIGHT LATER THIS YEAR

ALEX HOLLINGS

America’s new stealth bomber in development, the B-21 Raider, has officially powered up its engines for the first time in preparation for the beginning of test flights later this year.

The news of the power-on milestone came during a second-quarter earnings call with Northrop Grumman executives, along with the revelation that the firm will not be competing to field a design for America’s next stealth fighter currently in development for the Air Force, currently known as the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.

During the call, Chief Financial Officer David Keffer explained that the advanced bomber effort remains “on track for first flight this year,” but cautioned that getting there won’t be a sure bet. Getting the B-21 into the sky will depend on the program continuing to mature on schedule, but Northrop’s team seemed optimistic. According to the call, the company expects to secure the first Low Rate Initial Production contract for the Raider shortly after its first flight.

The B-21 program was always expected to be costly. After all, the bomber’s predecessor – Northrop’s B-2 Spirit – was said to have ballooned up to nearly $2 billion per aircraft during its own abbreviated production run. Northrop Grumman has said they’ll be able to deliver the more advanced B-21 for a comparatively small $692 million per bomber, but concerns about inflation have already placed that figure into question.

The unbearable strangeness of the Ukraine war

Sean Thomas

As a journalist, I’ve been on the periphery of quite a few wars: for example, I went to Bosnia as the war ended in 1995 (at a time when snipers were still a threat). I was in Egypt during its 2011 revolution, with its jubilant but scary air of lawlessness. And smouldering buildings in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Just once, before now, I have plunged into the heart of a war, when, with a photographer friend, we persuaded a reluctant cab driver to take us from Beirut to south Lebanon during one of the Israeli invasions. As soon as we arrived, in a small mountain town called Machgharah, we were seized by gun-toting Hezbollah soldiers. They thought we were Israeli assassins posing as idiot tourists. They interrogated us in the neighbourhood Hezbollah HQ, even as the Israeli forces bombarded the town all around.

I know, therefore, that war produces moments of jarring strangeness. The normal butts up against the madly abnormal. One moment you are actually enjoying a kebab given you by a sympathetic local, the next you are anticipating death as a shell lands nearby, evoking terrible screams, and the Hezbollah fighters casually discuss whether they should shoot you (in the end, miraculously, they let us go, with a warning never to return).

Nonetheless after two weeks in Ukraine, this war feels stranger than any.

Where did this strangeness begin? Probably before I even crossed the border. In the stately, ex-Habsburg, Polish frontier town of Przemysl I was having an al fresco wheat-beer in a popular bar and realised I was sitting next to a peculiar couple, comprising two young guys: one a wiry, hard-looking Ukranian, adorned with facial tatts, the other a skinny British lad with a faintly posh accent.

Irregular warfare in space is an ongoing threat – and the US must adapt.

JOHN J. KLEIN

This long-exposure image shows a trail of a group of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites passing over Uruguay as seen from the countryside some 185 km north of Montevideo near Capilla del Sauce, Florida Department, on February 7, 2021. (Photo by Mariana SUAREZ / AFP)

The war in Ukraine has proven how irregular warfare tactics work in the modern era. Part of that involves Russia operating in the “gray zone” when it comes to blocking and impacting satellite systems. In the following op-ed, Dr. John J. Klein of George Washington University warns that we are now in an era of irregular warfare in space — and that the US has to learn how to adjust.

Irregular warfare has never been an irregular occurrence. Throughout history, national and military leaders have used irregular warfare — activities apart from major, conventional military conflicts — to achieve political goals. Irregular styles of warfare and competition often are pursued by either choice or out of necessity.

Likewise, irregular actions in the space domain are ongoing and routine occurrences. The US Space Force and US Space Command must account for irregular approaches by both Russia and China within applicable strategies and plans, lest the US cede space superiority to its rivals. This includes updating applicable strategies and plans, along with making the necessary investments in space capabilities and architectures to counter the irregular methods of competitors.

But to develop the right countermeasures, the threats must first be fully identified. The good news is that US officials have made clear they are aware of the threat, if largely in broad terms. When issuing his initial planning guidance [PDF], Gen. John Raymond, the first US Space Force chief of space operations, observed “Adversaries actively create and exploit ‘gray zones’ in which they achieve political objectives through actions that avoid traditional triggers for conflict where the United States enjoys clear military advantage.”

Generals shouldn't lead the Department of Defense

Garrett Exner & Amber Smith

When Congress wrote Section 113 of Title 10, a code that outlines the role of the armed forces , it was instituting the belief that former generals should rarely, if ever, lead the Department of Defense . Such appointments were meant to be a last resort.

Yet both the current administration and the previous one asked Congress to waive this law and approve their defense secretary picks, and in both instances, Congress quickly acquiesced. Regardless of the rationale behind each nomination, this emerging trend should not be normalized and needs to be reversed.

In under 18 months, the next president will commence the process of filling out his or her Cabinet with political appointees. Congress should recommit to upholding Section 113, and perhaps consider expanding its scope. This would serve as a departure from the current trend of encouraging more general officers to pursue political careers after their military service.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, for example, who retired from the military in 2016, waited just four years before taking control of the Pentagon. His waiver received overwhelming support, 326 votes in the House and 69 in the Senate. That confirmation came just four years after Gen. Jim Mattis received his waivers with bipartisan support for his nomination for secretary of defense under then-President Donald Trump. It should be noted that several Democrats vowed, falsely, never to support another waiver after confirming Mattis.

If opportunities for general officers to take on political roles become more prevalent, we will see more generals expressing political ideologies in uniform. Just last month, a three-star Space Force general, speaking in uniform at the Pentagon, criticized state laws passed by state legislatures with which she personally disagreed. She even suggested she takes into consideration these laws when determining which officers should serve in certain jurisdictions.

This at a time when the majority of Americans believe the military leadership has already become too politicized and trust in the military as an institution has fallen from 70 % in 2018 to 48% in 2022.

Ukraine war driving US Army electronic warfare development, Bush says

Colin Demarest

WASHINGTON — The observable success of electronic warfare in the Russia-Ukraine war is motivating the U.S. Army to get its own in-development jammers deployed as soon as possible, according to an acquisition official.

After decades of arsenal atrophy, the service is again prioritizing electronic warfare, including through its Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team and -Echelons Above Brigade initiatives.

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush on Aug. 7 told reporters at the Pentagon that both TLS-BCT and -EAB are “on track, and I feel good about them.”

“What we’re seeing in Ukraine is adding to that urgency to get those going,” he said.

The TLS is a combined cyber, electronic warfare and signals intelligence system. The BCT variant is meant for smaller formations; the EAB variant is its beefier sister destined for divisions and corps. Control of the electromagnetic spectrum is critical in modern warfare, as it is used for weapons guidance, allied communication and enemy identification and suppression.

The Army in April tapped Lockheed Martin to fit Stryker combat vehicles, made by General Dynamics, with TLS-BCT technologies and begin planning for work aboard the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, a BAE Systems product. Lockheed in June also bested a rival to continue prototype work on TLS-EAB.

Together, the wins totaled roughly $110 million. Lockheed earned $63.3 billion in defense revenue in 2022, according to Defense News analysis.

Irregular warfare in space is an ongoing threat – and the US must adapt.

JOHN J. KLEIN

This long-exposure image shows a trail of a group of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites passing over Uruguay as seen from the countryside some 185 km north of Montevideo near Capilla del Sauce, Florida Department, on February 7, 2021. (Photo by Mariana SUAREZ / AFP)

The war in Ukraine has proven how irregular warfare tactics work in the modern era. Part of that involves Russia operating in the “gray zone” when it comes to blocking and impacting satellite systems. In the following op-ed, Dr. John J. Klein of George Washington University warns that we are now in an era of irregular warfare in space — and that the US has to learn how to adjust.

Irregular warfare has never been an irregular occurrence. Throughout history, national and military leaders have used irregular warfare — activities apart from major, conventional military conflicts — to achieve political goals. Irregular styles of warfare and competition often are pursued by either choice or out of necessity.

Likewise, irregular actions in the space domain are ongoing and routine occurrences. The US Space Force and US Space Command must account for irregular approaches by both Russia and China within applicable strategies and plans, lest the US cede space superiority to its rivals. This includes updating applicable strategies and plans, along with making the necessary investments in space capabilities and architectures to counter the irregular methods of competitors.

But to develop the right countermeasures, the threats must first be fully identified. The good news is that US officials have made clear they are aware of the threat, if largely in broad terms. When issuing his initial planning guidance [PDF], Gen. John Raymond, the first US Space Force chief of space operations, observed “Adversaries actively create and exploit ‘gray zones’ in which they achieve political objectives through actions that avoid traditional triggers for conflict where the United States enjoys clear military advantage.”

AI Is Starting to Look Like the Dot Com Bubble

As the AI industry's market value continues to balloon, experts are warning that its meteoric rise is eerily similar to that of a different — and significant — moment in economic history: the dot com bubble of the late 1990s.

The dot com bubble — and subsequent crash — was an era defined by a gold rush-like frenzy and inflated valuations. Hungry to cash in on a new, lucrative age of technology, venture capitalists took to throwing large sums at companies that, though they made all the right promises about their ability to change the world, had yet to actually prove their viability. And when the vast majority of these ventures ultimately fell short, they failed, swallowing roughly $5 trillion in fundraising as they sank into www dot oblivion.

Fast forward to today, as The Wall Street Journal details in a new report, and that same gold rush energy is palpable in the burgeoning AI marketplace. VCs are all too happy to pour massive amounts of cash into a growing constellation of AI firms, even those that have yet to turn a profit. Or, for that matter, have yet to even introduce a discernible product.

Company leaders, meanwhile, continue to make sweeping claims about the transformational power of their tech, which they consistently argue could save the world, destroy it, or — conveniently — both. Investors keep biting, and, per the WSJ, the stocks keep rising — shares of Nvidia, for example, the chipmaker whose GPUs are sought after for AI projects, have tripled in value this year, while tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, which are all working on AI tech, have seen their stock prices skyrocket by 154 percent, 65 percent, and 35 percent, respectively.

And yet, though the tech is impressive, its true value — nevermind path to profitability — is still wildly unclear.

"There's a huge boom in AI — some people are scrambling to get exposure at any cost, while others are sounding the alarm that this will end in tears," Kai Wu, founder and chief investment officer of Sparkline Capital, told the WSJ. "Investors can benefit from innovation-led growth, but must be wary of overpaying for it."

Critical thinking education trumps banning and censorship in battle against disinformation, study suggests

Eric W. Dolan

A new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University suggests that the battle against online disinformation cannot be won by content moderation or banning those who spread fake news. Instead, the key lies in early and continuous education that teaches individuals to critically evaluate information and remain open to changing their minds.

The study was recently featured in SIAM News, a publication of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

“Disinformation is one of the most important problems of modern times and is poised to worsen as the power of AI increases. Our research group develops models for the spread of ‘contagions,’ so disinformation, like disease, is a natural topic,” explained study author Michael Murillo, a professor in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering.

The researchers used a type of math called “agent-based modeling” to simulate how people’s opinions change over time. They focused on a model where individuals can believe the truth, the fake information, or remain undecided. The researchers created a network of connections between these individuals, similar to how people are connected on social media.

They used the binary agreement model to understand the “tipping point” (the point where a small change can lead to significant effects) and how disinformation can spread.

They tested three main disinformation mitigation strategies under consideration by the U.S. Congress: content moderation (such as banning those who spread fake news), public education (teaching people to fact-check and be skeptical), and counter campaigns (promoting groups committed to spreading the truth).

The researchers implemented each strategy in the simulated environment to test its effectiveness. They created thousands of small networks representing different types of social connections and applied mathematical rules to simulate real-world scenarios.

Gen. Berger Knew What He Was Doing with His Transformation of the Marine Corp

Retired Maj. Gen. Bill Mullen

I have tried to stay out of the Force Design 2030 debate because I thought those still serving on active duty could best defend what is best for the Marine Corps. I also have a great deal of respect for the retired officers who have weighed in against what Gen. David Berger was doing. I know they care deeply about our Marine Corps, as do I, but I could not possibly disagree more with their approach.

I was taught and always believed that you do not openly criticize the man in the seat because his job is hard enough already. If he does not do anything that violates the honor of the office of commandant, then you should have faith that he is best placed to know what is required and has the intelligence and energy to see that it happens for the Marine Corps.

I was stung into providing this response when I read Gary Anderson's opinion piece, "How the Strong Commandant System Caught Up with the Marine Corps." In that piece, he casts aspersions on Gen. Berger and backs up his statements with false claims about the way FD 2030 was developed, as well as the Marine Corps' inability to respond to the evacuation mission in Sudan or the humanitarian assistance mission in Turkey. These were bad enough in themselves, but when he ends the article essentially calling Gen. Berger "delusional," I had had enough.

I first met Gen. Berger when he assumed command of Regimental Combat Team 8 in combat in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005. I was his operations officer. I have maintained contact with or worked for him again since that time, and I can assure you that he is one of the best officers I have had the pleasure of serving with. He is an intelligent and humble Marine who has only ever wanted to do the right thing for the Marine Corps and only for the right reasons. He knew what the right thing was because he assumed the office of commandant after serving in several senior operational command roles, all responsible for looking directly at the challenges the Marine Corps would face with a potential fight in the Western Pacific.

The few, the proud, the chatbots: Marines seek new AI tools for geospatial intelligence

JON HARPER

NIWC Atlantic engineers helped reduce the DCGS-MC footprint while also increasing battlespace awareness capabilities. (DCGS-MC illustration by Wendy M. Jamieson)

Marine Corps Systems Command is looking for chatbots to support a key intelligence initiative, according to a sources sought notice published this week.

The search comes as the service is preparing to refresh technology for the Distributed Common Ground/Surface System-Marine Corps Geospatial Intelligence program.

The DCGS-MC GEOINT platform is a secure, multi-level, integrated, tactical data system that provides Marine analysts with the capability to task, collect, process, analyze, exploit, produce, store, disseminate and expose geospatial intelligence data and products, according to a request for information released Aug. 8 on Sam.gov.

The tech “provides georeferenced data and products that establish the GEOINT foundation for battlespace visualization and a common frame of reference to support the commander’s decision-making process. It enables the ability to rapidly respond to, or predict, threats around the world by providing near real time geospatially referenced data and products supporting the full spectrum of Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF), joint, and multinational partners operations,” per the RFI.

As it looks to upgrade the system’s capabilities, the Corps is pinging vendors to find out what solutions are available for “an artificial intelligence chatbot capability to receive, parse, and output information pertaining to Marine Corps geospatial processes, requirements, and workflows through natural language processing.”

The chatbots must be operable on all the service’s network domains, the RFI noted.

The Coup in Niger Threatens American Interests

Francois Baird

After the recent coup in Niger, the medium-term implications are undetermined, but the outcome is clear. The coup threatens stability in West Africa, American and French interests in the continent, and advances Chinese opportunities. Africans will suffer and Muslim extremists will continue to gain ground. Niger is unlikely to return to democracy in the short term.

Initial hopes expressed by France that the Niger Armed Forces would step in to defuse the coup by the Presidential Guard quickly fizzled when the army sided with the coup. The angry deadline set by leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for the military to return deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to power or face military intervention has come and gone. Sanctions were imposed and electricity to Niger was cut by Nigeria, but this hurts the people of Niger, not the military or the insurgents.

Developments in Niger follow the deteriorating security situation in Burkina Faso, which is also affecting other countries in the region. This is an early test for the newly-appointed UN special representative for West Africa and the Sahel, Leonardo Simão, who must muster a coherent response. Formerly Mozambique’s minister of foreign affairs, he is expected to pull together a better response to the risks in West Africa and the Sahel than has so far happened.

ECOWAS has been planning to establish a crisis response team, but so far has failed to fund it. Despite a planning meeting of ECOWAS military chiefs, there is little likelihood of actual African military intervention unless funded and supported by the United States and France. The question is whether a lack of political will, leadership, and funding means nothing will happen.

The military in Niger has learned from coups in Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau that the consequences of such are manageable and rewards desirable. Mostly, in these other coups, when America and France walked away, Russians, in the form of the mercenary Wagner Group, were invited in. American and French governments have not learned from this near-term history.

Why the US Military Wants You To Rethink the Idea of ‘Cyber War’

LAS VEGAS — The term “cyber war” conjures mental images of hackers shutting down energy grids and hospitals en masse, but that’s not how cyberattacks have actually factored into recent armed conflicts, the U.S. military’s top cyber official said on Friday.

“There’s a huge difference between cyber war and then cyber in war,” Mieke Eoyang, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, said during a talk at the DEF CON security conference.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, many national security experts expected the conflict to become the first example of a modern cyber war, with Moscow’s formidable keyboard warriors unleashing digital devastation on infrastructure throughout Ukraine — and possibly beyond. But thanks to extensive support from the U.S. and other Western countries, plus years of experience, the Ukrainian government was able to repel most of those attacks.

When the anticipated chaos didn’t materialize, people started arguing that cyber had failed to live up to its much-discussed promise as a domain of war. They called it “the dog that didn’t bark,” Eoyang noted.

“Actually, the dog barked at the volume of a normal dog,” she said. “It just didn't cause the Ukrainians to roll over and say, ‘Okay, you can take our country.’ It was not going to do that.”

The mismatch between expectation and reality partly stemmed from how the U.S. military originally envisioned cyber conflict.

When the Pentagon created U.S. Cyber Command in 2009, officials placed the new digital warfighting unit inside of U.S. Strategic Command, which operates the country’s nuclear arsenal. As a result, Eoyang said, nuclear doctrine “infected a lot of the ways in which we thought about the cyber domain.” Military planners assumed that concepts like mutually assured destruction applied to cyberspace the same way they applied to nuclear weapons. Cyber capabilities —like malware capable of wiping the computer systems running power grids— acquired the same fearsome aura as nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

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