Indian Strategic Studies: 10/29/24

29 October 2024

The Strategic Significance of India’s First National Security Semiconductor Plant

Arvind Mohan

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden met at the fourth Quad Leaders’ Summit in Delaware in late September. Among various decisions, they announced a plan for the two countries to establish India’s first national security semiconductor fabrication plant (a “fab” or “foundry”) which will be dedicated to manufacturing chips deployed in military hardware, critical telecommunication networks, and electronics.

Established under the aegis of the India Semiconductor Mission, the fab will produce infrared, gallium nitride, and silicon carbide semiconductors. Under the strategic technology partnership between Bharat Semi, 3rdiTech, and the U.S. Space Force, India will get 100 percent technology transfer for making compound semiconductors.

The fab, named Shakti, is expected to be established in 2025. Within three years, 3rdiTech hopes to start with phase one production of 50,000 semiconductors a year. The start-up founders have stated that the primary objective is to plug the gaps in the supply of semiconductors for the Indian Armed Forces while in subsequent phases they will look toward exports.

Reshaping global governance: the Global South, BRICS and the West

Irene Mia

As BRICS states meet in Kazan, Russia from 22–24 October for their annual summit, the organisation continues to elude clear definition. Established in 2009, its informal structure, diverse membership – often divided by long-standing geopolitical rivalries – and varied agendas defy easy categorisation within traditional schemes of free trade, economic integration or political cooperation. These factors have prompted scepticism about the organisation’s significance as a multinational forum and its long-term viability. Yet BRICS has continued to expand and prosper, building institutions like the New Development Bank and welcoming new members, reflecting its strong appeal to the Global South, as evidenced by the numerous countries eager to join.

Global governance architecture not fit for purpose

BRICS’ resilience despite the odds must be understood in the context of current geopolitical shifts. The international order is undergoing a transformation and rebalancing, driven by the rising economic influence and diplomatic assertiveness of China and several emerging powers in the Global South. As the world moves towards multipolarity, more countries are aligning with China (at least economically), often at the expense of the United States and the West. Meanwhile, a revanchist Russia has emerged as another focal point attracting many states, particularly those from the Global South. In this fragmented global landscape, the governance system established after the Second World War, which is centred around the US (and the US dollar), faces increasing criticism from Global South powers, who consider it outdated and unrepresentative of current economic and geopolitical realities.

Why The BRICS Summit In Russia Could Be The Most Important One Yet – Analysis

Reid Standish

As Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts leaders for the 16th annual BRICS summit, he’s looking to signal to the West that Moscow is not isolated on the world stage.

Putin will drive that message home in Kazan from October 22-24 as he positions the BRICS grouping of countries as a counterweight to the West in global politics and trade through a newly expanded version of the bloc sometimes referred to as BRICS+ that includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as previous members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

“BRICS once again has fresh air coming into its lungs, in part because the Western-led order and its organizations are experiencing disarray,” Carlos Solar, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, told RFE/RL. “The larger idea is that the world is changing and what happens next for international banking, finance, and law could define which regions of the world will be the most important in the decades to come.”

This year’s summit could also set the stage for further expansion, and Putin has also invited more than two dozen other countries that have applied for or are considering membership in the growing club that includes Azerbaijan, Belarus, Turkey, and Mongolia.

The Fall of Secular Bengali Nationalism

Shafi Md Mostofa

Bangladesh emerged as a secular nation-state in 1971, one of the few Muslim-majority countries to do so. However, the country is currently undergoing a profound ideological transformation.

Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, resigned and fled the country amid the student protests this summer. This revolution, which propelled Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus to power as the chief adviser to the interim government, signals a pivotal moment in Bangladesh’s history – a decisive shift away from the secularism that has defined much of its post-independence narrative.

To understand this shift, it is essential to explore the historical context that shaped Bangladesh’s political and ideological landscape. Bangladesh was born in 1971 after a bloody war of independence from Pakistan. The war was, in many ways, a repudiation of the religious nationalism that underpinned the idea of Pakistan. Bangladesh’s founders sought to establish a secular state that would embrace all faiths and reject the communal politics that had led to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

Taiwanese Missile Units Are Giving Away Their Positions to China

Paul Huang

It’s a typical day in Taiwan, and China is conducting yet another round of military drills. As Chinese warships and planes yet again aggressively circle around Taiwan, Taipei scrambles its military to defensive positions across the island. Among the most important is a cohort of mobile ground units carrying anti-ship missiles to deter Chinese ships from invading. But unknown to the Taiwanese, their movements are exposed, and their supposedly secretive hideouts are readily tracked by China’s intelligence. If this were an actual war, they would be seconds away from destruction.

This was an actual chain of events in May, just days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te was inaugurated on May 20. Beijing accuses Lai and his Democratic Progressive Party of pursuing independence for Taiwan—but it takes very little nowadays to provoke China into imposing another round of exercises around the island it claims as part of its territory.

Understanding China’s Intelligence Strategy

Mercy A. Kuo

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Matthew Brazil – a senior analyst at BluePath Labs, senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation and co-author of “Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer” (Naval Institute Press 2019) – is the 437th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”

What are the core objectives of China’s intelligence strategy?

Under Xi Jinping, Beijing initiated a worldwide espionage and influence offensive. It seems tailored to fulfill expanding requirements generated by his aggressive policies.

First, some points about organization. The agencies employed that we most often hear about are the Ministry of State Security (MSS, 国家安全部), and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD, 统一战线工作部). They perform HUMINT (human intelligence, or spying) and influence operations, respectively. Their work may often crisscross to the point of conflation, though how much and how often is a controversial topic. Alex Joske’s book “Spies and Lies” goes deep into this question and asserts that coordination has been on for decades.

China’s Battle for Narratives in Africa

Samir Bhattacharya and Yuvvraj Singh

In 2014, during the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping advocated for strengthening China’s soft power globally by improving how the country communicates its message. In the subsequent years, Chinese state-controlled media focused on cultural investments and international cooperation, establishing marketing networks and expanding the reach of quality cultural assets abroad, particularly in Africa.

China has built narratives to its advantage in a region that has increasingly become a theater of great power rivalry, amid what The Economist has termed as “The New Scramble for Africa.”

China’s African Outreach

China’s information campaigns in Africa are subtle, focusing on economic issues and promoting a positive narrative around its investments, mainly of the Belt and Road Initiative. State-controlled media outlets like Xinhua, China Daily, China Radio International (CRI), and CGTN (formerly CCTV International) play a vital role in this narrative.

China’s Joint-Sword B exercise: a calculated follow-on

Erik Green & Meia Nouwens

China’s 13 October announcement that the Joint Sword-2024B military exercise had begun raised alarm bells in Taipei and Western capitals alike. Coming three days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s address for Taiwan’s National Day, the Central Military Commission’s promotional video declared that the exercise would ‘deter separatist extremists’ and involve all branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the China Coast Guard (CCG). The announcement gave little warning and raised expectations of further escalation across the Taiwan Strait.

The exercise, however, appeared less escalatory than expected. Beginning at 5am, the PLA Ground Force, Navy, Air Force and Rocket Force as well as the CCG conducted drills that lasted 13 hours. The PLA deployed 153 aircraft, with 111 crossing the median line. This is the most recorded in a single day and significantly greater than the 111 aircraft deployed during the Joint Sword-2024A exercise that took place between 23 and 24 May.

Fourteen PLA Navy ships (including the Liaoning carrier strike group), 17 CCG and 12 government vessels also participated in the exercise, representing a smaller naval presence than the 46 vessels the PLA deployed during 2024A. In contrast, the CCG’s contribution increased to 17 vessels from 9. Its activities were also less conservative than in 2024A, with the vessels encircling the entire island rather than primarily focusing their efforts around eastern Taiwan. No vessels, however, entered Taiwan’s territorial waters, although activity took place in the restricted waters around Matsu and Dongyin islands (but notably not around Kinmen, despite a spate of incursions around it in recent months). In addition, no live-fire activity was discernible as a direct part of the drills.

Evaluating Current Arms-control Proposals: Perspectives from the US, Russia and China

The last remaining strategic-arms-control treaty between Russia and the United States will expire in February 2026, with little prospect of a follow-on agreement. Russia’s war in Ukraine has upended the European security order and the adversarial relationship between Moscow and NATO has dashed any chance of near-term engagement. China, meanwhile, has steadily expanded its nuclear- and conventional-missile arsenals, and has thus far only sporadically engaged in consultations with the US.

The US, Russia and China have over the last five years tabled proposals for arms-control and risk-reduction measures that each viewed as mitigating arms-racing, lowering the risk of nuclear use and contributing to upholding global non-proliferation norms. However, conflicting interests and adversarial relations have so far served to stymie any progress.

In this report, three experts – one American, one Russian and one Chinese – set out an examination of selected arms-control and risk-reduction proposals from their respective countries, and assess their potential contributions to strategic stability. They also provide short critiques of the proposals tabled by the other two countries, thereby highlighting both the differences and the commonalities between the positions currently held by Washington, Moscow and Beijing.

Evolution In Action: How Ethnic Tibetan Women Thrive In Thin Oxygen At High Altitudes

Breathing thin air at extreme altitudes presents a significant challenge—there’s simply less oxygen with every lungful. Yet, for more than 10,000 years, Tibetan women living on the high Tibetan Plateau have not only survived but thrived in that environment.

A new study led by Cynthia Beall, Distinguished University Professor Emerita at Case Western Reserve University, answers some of those questions. The new research, recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America(PNAS), reveals how the Tibetan women’s physiological traits enhance their ability to reproduce in such an oxygen-scarce environment.

The findings, Beall said, not only underscore the remarkable resilience of Tibetan women but also provide valuable insights into the ways humans can adapt in extreme environments. Such research also offers clues about human development, how we might respond to future environmental challenges, and the pathobiology of people with illnesses associated with hypoxia at all altitudes.

“Understanding how populations like these adapt,” Beall said, “gives us a better grasp of the processes of human evolution.”

The Role of Cyber Operations in Middle East Conflict

Lauren Menzie

Widespread Cyber Campaign Targets Israeli Interests

Hacktivist groups from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan are working together under the campaign name "OpIsrael" to pool their resources and expertise to launch more sophisticated and destructive attacks. These attacks aim to disrupt infrastructure, gather intelligence or spread propaganda to undermine Israel’s war efforts. Israeli-based cybersecurity firm Check Point Software tracked over 40 cybergroups conducting attacks on government and media sites during Hamas’ initial attack. As of July 2024, Israel reported that Iran and Iran-backed groups have been responsible for roughly three billion cyberattacks, with Israel’s cyber defenses successfully preventing almost every attack. However, some attacks were reportedly able to circumvent Israel’s cyber defenses.

The pro-Russia hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan is collaborating with pro-Palestine hacktivist groups to conduct large-scale Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on critical Israeli websites. In November 2023, the pro-Palestine, Iranian-linked hacking group Cyber Toufan claimed responsibility for targeting multiple Israeli government sites, including the Israel State Archives, stealing the personally identifiable information of thousands of the archives’ users. This attack reportedly took the State Archives offline for several months, highlighting the effectiveness of the coordinated cyber campaign.

We need a whole-of-society approach to intelligence

Elisabeth Braw

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO.

A nondescript suite of rooms in an office building in central Oslo hosts activity of the kind one would normally associate with a military headquarters or the CIA. In the central situation room, a monitor displays activity across the world’s oceans, while analysts at neighboring desks update this information around the clock. But this is not an intelligence agency — it’s DNK, a Norwegian insurer of maritime war risk.

Today, intelligence is no longer just the domain of government agencies — or, rather, it shouldn’t be. Companies are now far more likely to be harmed by geopolitically linked events than ever before outside of full-scale wars. Thus, they need to keep a constant eye on the world. And if they do, they’re likely to see things that would be equally useful for their governments to know.

DNK (a partner of the Atlantic Council’s Maritime Threats initiative, which I lead) has long insured merchant vessels against serious risks, and in today’s geopolitical climate, such risks are growing — fast. That means the company needs to know precisely what’s taking place in every corner of the maritime world, at all times.

Why North Korea’s Deployment of Troops to Russia Really Matters

Keith Johnson

The deployment of 10,000 or so North Korean troops to Russia marks a sharp escalation and internationalization of Europe’s biggest war in generations, with potential impacts on the battlefield, in Europe, and in Northeast Asia. It’s an embarrassing comedown for Moscow, bad news for Ukraine, and a very scary development for South Korea and the rest of the world.

Pyongyang has been underwriting Russia’s war in Ukraine for years by supplying literal boatloads of artillery shells. Injecting actual combat troops into the war at a critical time not only ratchets up the pressure on a war-weary and manpower-weak Ukraine, it also deepens the bonds and implications of the four-month-old Russia-North Korea mutual defense pact.

The U.N. Is Ineffective in Lebanon—and Indispensable

Giovanni Legorano

Israel has always had a thorny relationship with the United Nations. In recent weeks, it has become even thornier, after the U.N. accused Israeli armed forces of having fired on U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon amid fighting in that area with Hezbollah.

The U.N. mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, has said at least five peacekeepers have been injured and some of its bases damaged. The peacekeeping force also said that on Oct. 13, two Israel Defense Force (IDF) tanks destroyed the main gate of UNIFIL’s post in Ramyah, close to the Israeli border, and “forcibly entered” to request the base to turn out its lights. The same day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged UNIFIL to leave the area and get “out of harm’s way” but denied that the targeting of the mission was deliberate.

David Petraeus: Israel Needs to Adapt Its Strategy

Ravi Agrawal

Last week, an Israeli patrol in southern Gaza chanced upon the person who had been at the very top of their kill list for more than a year: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. When his death was confirmed, it immediately raised some big questions: How much of a blow would this be for Hamas? How should Israel’s strategy now change? And if Sinwar was the person Israel was blaming for a lack of progress on a hostage deal, would removing him change that equation?

Big moments in a war can feel defining. But as several writers at Foreign Policy have argued, Sinwar’s death might not be the turning point many imagine. There’s a long history of states killing leaders of militant or terrorist groups only to see another leader step in.

The Effectiveness of U.S. Economic Policies Regarding China Pursued from 2017 to 2024

Keith Crane, Timothy R. Heath, Alexandra Stark & Cindy Zheng

Introduction

After China began its economic reforms in 1979, the United States pursued policies designed to bring China into international institutions governing trade and foreign investment. In the following decades, U.S.-China trade relations expanded rapidly. By the 2000s, China became the largest source of U.S. imports and one of the United States’ top four trading partners, along with Canada, the European Union (EU), and Mexico. The surge in trade and investment often contributed to contentious economic relations. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States imposed tariffs on Chinese subsidized exports that supplanted U.S. production, criticized Beijing for placing restrictions on the activities of U.S. companies that wished to invest in China, and denounced China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property. China, for its part, complained about U.S. controls on exports of technologies, constraints on imports from China, and efforts to curb purchases of Chinese products and technologies on the part of U.S. friends and allies.

U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden have adopted considerably more-restrictive policies concerning trade, investment, and technology flows between the two countries than their predecessors. Regarding China as a formidable economic competitor, the United States has passed laws, such as the Inflation Reduction Act,2 designed to support research and development (R&D) and increase investment and domestic production in key industries, including some in which China is dominant or threatens to become so. Increases in tariffs on Chinese goods have been adopted to “de-risk” U.S. supply chains by encouraging U.S. businesses to diversify their sources of supply away from China.3 Other policies have aimed to curtail Chinese efforts to coerce neighboring countries through economic punishments. Still others have sought to restrict China’s access to technologies that could enhance the capabilities of its military.

Can the United Nations Be Saved?

Thant Myint-U

The quest to fix the United Nations is almost as old as the organization itself. Eighty years ago, Allied leaders imagined a postwar order in which the great powers would together safeguard a permanent peace. The Security Council, dominated by its five veto-wielding members—the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China—reflected the world as it was. Other, less hierarchical parts of the new UN system were meant to foster international cooperation across a host of issues: the global economy, public health, agriculture, education. The seeds of a future planetary government were evident from the start.

The UN was initially conceived as a military alliance, but that objective became impossible with the onset of the Cold War. Many observers predicted an early death for the UN. But the organization survived and was soon reenergized, fashioning aims that its founders never imagined, such as peacekeeping. Its secretary-general became a figure on the global stage as the world’s preeminent diplomat, jetting off to war zones to negotiate cease-fires. Specialized agencies under the UN, such as its Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and a raft of new technical assistance programs spread their wings. For some officials, scholars, and activists both within and outside the UN, a hopeful vision of global government persisted.

Hamas’s Guerrilla Tactics in North Gaza Make It Hard to Defeat

Patrick Kingsley and Aaron Boxerman

The top commanders of Hamas are mostly dead. The group’s rank and file has been decimated. Many of its hide-outs and stockpiles have been captured and destroyed.

But Hamas’s killing of an Israeli colonel in northern Gaza on Sunday underscored how the group’s military wing, though unable to operate as a conventional army, is still a potent guerrilla force with enough fighters and munitions to enmesh the Israeli military in a slow, grinding and as yet unwinnable war.

Col. Ehsan Daksa, a member of Israel’s Arab Druse minority, was killed when a planted explosive blew up near his tank convoy. It was a surprise attack that exemplified how Hamas has held out for nearly a year since Israel invaded Gaza late last October, and will likely be able to even after the death of its leader, Yahya Sinwar, last week.

Hamas’s remaining fighters are hiding from view in ruined buildings and the group’s vast underground tunnel network, much of which remains intact despite Israel’s efforts to destroy it, according to military analysts and Israeli soldiers.

Battles of Precise Mass Technology Is Remaking War—and America Must Adapt

Michael C. Horowitz

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian forces deployed a handful of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 uncrewed aerial vehicles to hit Russian targets. Those precise drone strikes were a sign of things to come. More than two years into the war, the TB2 is still a fixture of Ukraine’s arsenal, but it has been joined by a plethora of other uncrewed systems. Similar technology features in the current conflicts in the Middle East. Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen launch one-way attack systems (drones armed with explosives that slam into their targets) and missiles at Israel, commercial shipping, and the U.S. Navy. For its part, Israel is using a range of unmanned vehicles in its war in Gaza. China is exploring ways to use uncrewed systems to blockade Taiwan and prevent outside powers from helping the island in the event of a Chinese attack. And the United States has launched several initiatives to help it rapidly field affordable uncrewed systems at greater scale. In all these cases, advances in artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, combined with a new generation of commercially available technologies and reduced manufacturing costs, are allowing militaries and militant groups to bring “mass” back to the battlefield.

For millennia, commanders considered mass—that is, having numerically superior forces and more materiel than the other side—critical to victory in battle. An army stood a greater chance of vanquishing its foes if it could deploy a greater number of troops, whether armed with spears, bows, and rifles or sitting in tanks. This principle dictated how militaries, especially those of great powers, pursued and achieved victory, from Roman legions in Gaul to the Soviet army on the eastern front of World War II. Having the biggest navy allowed the British empire to rule the seas, and having more planes empowered the Allies to bomb the Axis powers to smithereens. Mass has never been everything—better prepared, smaller militaries can thwart bigger and ostensibly more powerful ones—but it has traditionally established the odds in wars.

Grayzone Warfare Intensifies as the West Dithers

Elisabeth Braw

There was a time, not so long ago when many viewed gray zone aggression as a marginal concern. Even those who paid attention to it mostly focused on cyber aggression and disinformation campaigns.

Now, it has become much more serious because we haven’t managed to deter it. Examples of hostile activity by the authoritarian axis of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are proliferating.

The UK faces “state-backed sabotage and assassination plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war,” MI5’s Director-General, Ken McCallum, warned on October 8. The same is true for every Western country. Defending free societies against it remains extremely difficult. But Western countries are not defenseless — or rather, they don’t have to be.

As early as 2018, when I launched RUSI’s Modern Deterrence initiative to focus on deterrence of grayzone attacks, it was clear that authoritarian states had (rightly) concluded that using aggression below the threshold of armed military violence was a cheap and effective way of hurting Western societies.

Europe’s defence procurement since 2022: a reassessment

Ben Schreer

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European powers have rushed to increase their defence spending to reduce their military-capability gaps, brought about by decades of underinvestment in the armed forces and the defence-industrial base. In doing so, they appear to have relied primarily on non-European suppliers. That was a conclusion of the September 2024 report by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi for the EU Commission on Europe’s competitiveness, including in defence-industrial terms. His report led to a much-cited assessment that ‘between June 2022 and June 2023, 78% of procurement spending went to non-EU suppliers, out of which 63% went to the US’. The message picked up by politicians and the European defence industry has been that too little of the uplift in European funding is being spent in Europe.

However, there are good reasons for a reassessment of these figures. The figures were first published in a September 2023 policy paper by the French think tank IRIS. They were then referenced in a March 2024 EU Commission report on Europe’s defence-industrial strategy, before finding their way into the Draghi report. However, while the IRIS paper provides a good assessment of some of the challenges for Europe’s defence-industrial base, it omitted, for instance, domestic sales.

In contrast, new research by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) tells a more positive story for European defence suppliers and the defence-industrial base. Indeed, in a forthcoming IISS dossier on building European defence capability, which will be launched at our upcoming IISS Prague Defence Summit in November 2024, we estimate European procurement to be significantly higher.

Take lessons learned from joint exercises and turn them into capabilitie

Project Convergence and Valiant Shield are teaching joint and coalition forces how to connect systems, share data, and exchange intelligence. The next step is to take lessons learned and apply them to actual warfighting capabilities.

We discussed the challenges, opportunities, and use cases for interoperability with Bradford Powell, president, C2I&E division, Ultra Intelligence & Communications.

Breaking Defense: A primary focus of DoD experimentation like Project Convergence has understandably been on foundational interoperability. The next phase will focus more on how they can take advantage of the interoperability that’s in place versus worrying about the interoperability. Explain.

Powell: As interoperability strengthens across joint and coalition forces, we must shift our focus from merely ensuring connections to fully harnessing the resulting connectivity and visibility. The services and coalition partners initially had to solve the challenge of linking systems, sharing data, coordinating tasks, and exchanging C2 and intelligence across the joint force — a complex and demanding effort. But as you pointed out, that’s only the beginning. The next step is to actively leverage this interoperability.

The Science of AI Is Too Important to Be Left to the Scientists

Hadrien Pouget

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent decision to veto SB-1047, a state bill that would set a new global bar for regulating artificial intelligence risks, was closely watched by policymakers and companies around the world. The veto itself is a notable setback for the “AI safety” movement, but perhaps even more telling, was Newsom’s explanation. He chided the bill as “not informed by an empirical trajectory analysis of Al systems and capabilities.” The words “empirical,” “evidence,” “science,” and “fact” appeared eight times in Newsom’s brief letter.

The lack of scientific consensus on AI’s risks and benefits has become a major stumbling block for regulation—not just at the state and national level, but internationally as well. Just as AI experts are at times vehemently divided on which risks most deserve attention, world leaders are struggling to find common ground. Washington and London are bracing for AI-powered biological, cyber, and information threats to emerge within the next few years. Yet their counterparts in Paris and Beijing are less convinced of the risks. If there is any hope of bridging these perspectives to achieve robust international coordination, we will need a credible and globally legitimate scientific assessment of AI and its impacts.

Hybrid Threats and Grey Zone Conflict Symposium – Rethinking Coercion in Cyberspace

Ido Kilovaty

Non-intervention is a bedrock principle of international law which prohibits States from interfering in the domestic or foreign affairs of other States. Non-intervention is based on two constitutive elements: domaine réservé and coercion. The former protects the core areas of sovereignty under the exclusive jurisdiction of a State, while the latter creates a threshold of wrongfulness, which typically involves using force or pressure to compel a State to pursue an action that it otherwise would not pursue.

While the contours of non-intervention are well-understood outside the cyber context, the emergence of cyber operations as a tool of interference has complicated application of the non-intervention principle. Primarily, coercion as a pillar of unlawful intervention is increasingly becoming outdated and insufficient to address cyber operations that seek to destabilize election processes, spread disinformation online, or cause disruption to critical infrastructure systems.

This short post, based on my chapter entitled “Rethinking Coercion in Cyberspace” (which appeared in Mitt Regan and Aurel Sari’s Hybrid Threats and Grey Zone Conflict), explores how the traditional standard of coercion is losing its relevance in cyberspace, where State and non-State actors can engage in harmful interference without meeting the traditional threshold of coercion.

Nowhere To Run

Eighteen thousand other people would be killed by these V-2’s in less than six months. And countless others, like the young woman were left severely wounded in both body and mind for a life time.

Years later on, as she tearfully shared this story with her only son, my mother whispered that in modern warfare, there was nowhere to run, nor anywhere to hide. In those years of my childhood, she was speaking in terms of massive nuclear weapons and their destructive capabilities.

Today, the technology of terror is drones. Narrower in scope, but more focused in dealing out death and destruction. And is seems as drone technology has vastly improved and played out in the past few years from the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, to the Ukraine-Russia war, and most recently in Israel, my mother’s resigned statement is sadly now truer than ever before.

Killing As A Video Game

Today’s drones are long range, long dwell, and are moving from human directed targeting to pre-programmed targeting. The technology is cheap, easily produced, and easily used. All of which means it is not going away. And it will continue to spread in use and targeted lethality.