Indian Strategic Studies: 12/07/24

7 December 2024

The Geopolitical Crossroads Of Bangladesh – A Looming Threat To India

South Asia stands at a pivotal juncture, where shifting geopolitics and internal upheavals could significantly impact regional stability. Among these, the current situation in Bangladesh demands India's urgent attention. What may appear as a domestic crisis in our eastern neighbour has broader implications, creating potential opportunities for Pakistan and China to intensify their strategic footprints in the region.

Bangladesh’s Internal Turmoil

Bangladesh, historically a bastion of stability in a turbulent region, now faces growing political unrest, economic challenges, and discontent among its population. With elections on the horizon, the political landscape has become highly polarised. Protests and violence are escalating, testing the resilience of its governance and institutions.

The chaos risks fostering an environment ripe for external manipulation. Pakistan, which has long sought to undermine India's eastern borders, and China, with its expanding Belt and Road ambitions, are likely to see this as an opportunity to exploit Bangladesh’s vulnerabilities.

The China-Pakistan-Bangladesh Triangle

China's growing influence in South Asia is no secret. With infrastructure investments under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has made significant inroads in Bangladesh. Ports like Chittagong are critical to China's "String of Pearls" strategy, aimed at encircling India with strategic assets.

How the Cold War Forged India’s Intelligence Setup

Sushant Singh

When Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned under pressure amid mass student protests in August, some of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist supporters were quick to blame—without much evidence—the CIA.

Labeling Hasina’s forced resignation a “color revolution,” these Indian conspiracy theorists suggested that something similar could be attempted in New Delhi. They aimed to discredit India’s political opposition and possible protests against Modi; the alleged role of the United States in destabilizing Hasina’s government made the United States a convenient scapegoat.

Trump inherits a Middle East in flux

Colin Demarest

The greater Middle East is erupting, and in just six weeks — tick tock, tick tock — it's Donald Trump's problem.

Why it matters: For all the attention paid to technological face-offs with China and measurements of military might in the Indo-Pacific, it will be the pressures of the Middle East that dominate the early days of Trump's Pentagon.

That puts a premium on drone and counter-drone tech, which evolved in the post-9/11 world, as well as air defenses.
In turn, the teeth of American forces posted in China's backyard could be dulled, as Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo cautioned days ago.

Between the lines: Some of Trump's picks for key government posts are global war on terrorism veterans. Their experience and potential disillusionment will color, not determine, the administration's approach.

Task and Purpose explained it expertly this week.
"The worldview of these veterans has largely been shaped by more than two decades of war," Jeff Schogol wrote. "[Pete] Hegseth, [Tulsi] Gabbard, and [JD] Vance in particular have shown a deep distrust for the foreign interventionalist ideology that underpinned the start" of the war on terror.

Our thought bubble: Squaring much-debated MAGA isolationism with the dangers of the Middle East, including continued assaults on U.S. warships, is difficult.

Protecting U.S. Allies and Partners from Chinese Economic Coercion

Elliott Abrams Ezra Hess and Joshua Kurlantzick

Even as China’s economy faces massive domestic problems, from sluggish consumer demand to industrial overcapacity, its leadership, headed by the increasingly assertive and nationalistic Xi Jinping, has continued a strategy of applying intense economic coercion to countries it feels have disregarded China’s major interests.

As the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and others have noted, Beijing usually applies economic coercion—while consistently denying it is doing so—when it feels its core interests in international relations are threatened. Those core interests can sometimes be blurry, but tend to encompass

isolating Taiwan from the world;
ensuring that China is not deprived of what it needs to continue long-term economic growth;
preventing other states from threatening the power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for example, through criticism of its human rights record and authoritarianism;
preventing threats to China’s security, as in the case of states, particularly in Asia, signing new defense arrangements with the United States or agreeing to play larger roles in patrolling the South China Sea; and
delivering a message to the world that China acts peacefully in international affairs.

Xi Jinping Doesn’t Have an Answer for China’s Demographic Crisis

Lizzi C. Lee

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent article in Qiushi, the Communist Party’s flagship journal for outlining core ideology and policy, frames China’s demographic challenges as a strategic opportunity. It offers Xi’s most detailed vision yet for addressing the country’s aging population: shifting from a labor-intensive, population-driven economy to one powered by innovation, education, and productivity. Yet beneath the lofty rhetoric lies a familiar and contentious concept: renkou suzhi, or “population quality.”

The notion of suzhi has long been a cornerstone of Chinese policymaking, shaping debates on everything from education to health care. On the surface, it advocates for cultivating a healthier, better educated, and more skilled population. But its implications run deeper—and are more divisive. Historically, suzhi has been used to draw lines between urban elites and rural or migrant populations, carrying connotations of class bias and, at times, embracing eugenicist thinking. Implicit in calls for a “high-quality population” is the judgment of a “low-quality” counterpart, reinforcing societal divides in a way that is rarely acknowledged outright.

China hits out at latest US effort to block Beijing’s access to chip technology

Juliana Liu and Sean Lyngaas

The Chinese government has slammed America’s introduction of fresh export controls on US-made semiconductors that Washington fears Beijing could use to make the next generation of weapons and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

The new measures, unveiled by the outgoing Biden administration, have raised the political temperature between the world’s top two economies ahead of the imminent inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made self-sufficiency a major pillar of his economic strategy to make China a tech superpower.

On Monday, the US Commerce Department announced curbs on the sale of two dozen types of semiconductor-making equipment and restrictions on numerous Chinese companies from accessing American technology.

The goal of the new controls, US Commerce Department officials said, was to slow China’s development of advanced AI tools that can be used in war and to undercut the country’s homegrown semiconductor industry, which threatens the national security of the US and its allies.

China’s Commerce Ministry condemned the move, accusing the US of “abuse” of export controls and posing “a significant threat” to the stability of global industrial and supply chains.

Pentagon Confirms Centcom Destroyed Weapons Systems In Syria

Matthew Olay

U.S. Central Command on Tuesday successfully engaged and destroyed several weapon systems that posed a threat to U.S. and coalition forces in Syria, the Defense Department announced.

The weapons destroyed — which included three truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers, a T-64 tank and multiple mortars — presented a “clear and imminent threat” to U.S. and coalition forces in the vicinity of eastern Syria’s Mission Support Site Euphrates, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told the media.

“The self-defense strike occurred after the mobile multiple rocket launchers fired rockets that landed in the vicinity of MSS Euphrates, and mortars were fired toward U.S. forces,” Ryder said.

He added that, while DOD is still assessing who was operating the weapons, Iranian-backed militia groups are operating in the region that have attacked MSS Euphrates in the past.

Tuesday’s incident was the second time in less than a week that Centcom forces were used to neutralize a hostile threat in the region.

On Nov. 29, Centcom employed A-10 fighter aircraft to successfully engage a hostile target that imposed a threat to U.S. and coalition forces at MSS Euphrates.

Iran’s strategic limbo

John Raine

Israel’s war on Hizbullah and its strikes against Iran have left the leadership in Tehran in a strategic limbo. Weakened both by its inability to project power through its partners and by damages to its air defences, the leadership’s long-standing strategy, championed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), of fighting Israel below the threshold of war has lost credibility. That strategy has resulted in the destruction of Iran’s air defences, damage to its missile capability and a devastating blow to the capabilities of Hizbullah, the strategy’s keystone. The leadership must now face up to a renewed threat to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, its key state-level ally and protégé that it cannot afford to lose.

However much revolutionary zeal and rhetoric it may be displaying, the parameters for Iranian strategy and ambitions will be constrained by new, and difficult, operational realities.

Four problems

Firstly, Israel’s ability to acquire and attack targets at pace and with accuracy, including individual leadership figures within Hizbullah and the IRGC, has effectively demonstrated that the IRGC’s battlespace is now transparent.

The 2004 EU Enlargement Was A Success Story Built On Deep Reform Efforts – Analysis

Robert Beyer, Claire Yi Li and Sebastian Weber

Poland is one of the success stories of European economic convergence. The country, which in January takes the reins of the Council of the European Union (the decision-making institution representing the Union’s member states) is now the EU’s sixth largest economy. This convergence process was driven by the 2004 EU enlargement, which also welcomed the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, and Slovakia into the Union, expanding the EU’s population by about 20 percent.

Twenty years later, as new EU accession discussions are underway, it is worth looking at how much the earlier enlargement benefitted new members and the whole Union, and reflect on the economic returns of broadening the European single market. The current accession candidates, in different stages of the process, are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Türkiye. In October, the European Commission issued a new report with detailed assessments of the state of play and the progress toward EU accession made by each candidate.

A new note by the Regional Economic Outlook for Europe shows that the 2004 EU enlargement brought substantial income gains. These gains were particularly large in the new member states: after 15 years GDP per person was on average more than 30 percent higher than it would have been without EU accession.

Earth's magnetic North Pole is shifting toward Russia

Devika Rao

The planet's magnetic North Pole, where compasses point, has been unexpectedly moving toward Russia. While shifting is not a rare occurrence, the pole is moving both faster and differently than it was before, raising questions about the planet's magnetic field. If the Earth's field is disrupted, it may cause problems in technology and navigation, as well as expose the planet to unwanted radiation.

Moving the poles

There are two types of poles on Earth: the geographic and magnetic poles. The geographic North Pole "stays at the same place, as it is where all lines of longitude converge," while the magnetic North Pole is where a compass points, which "changes from time to time as the contours of Earth's magnetic field also change," said USA Today. Because of this, scientists have long tracked changes in the magnetic pole. "For centuries, the magnetic North Pole steadily tracked along Canada's northern shore," but in the past few decades, it has "taken a new path, accelerating across the Arctic Ocean toward Russia's Siberia province at varying speeds that have puzzled scientists," said Newsweek.

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire cause for celebration, but situation ‘highly fragile’: Experts

Jennifer Bell

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday, but regional and global security analysts warn while the agreement should bring celebration the situation remains “highly fragile” as both sides navigate the delicate truce.

The agreement marks a tentative pause to more than a year of conflict that has claimed the lives of thousands and displaced tens of thousands in Israel and hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

Raphael S. Cohen, senior political scientist and director of the Strategy & Doctrine Program at RAND’s Project AIR FORCE, told Al Arabiya English that the news should be a cause of celebration - and caution.

“First and foremost, the ceasefire is obviously good news both for the people of southern Lebanon and northern Israel,” he said. “For 14 months now, tens of thousands of Israelis and - by some estimates - over a million Lebanese civilians have been displaced from their homes; this ceasefire is the first step in allowing them to return home,” he said. “Second, the ceasefire came about because both sides wanted a deal.”

Beyond Deterrence

Lawrence Freedman

The concept of ‘deterrence’ has dominated strategic discourse in the West for some 75 years. It describes the supreme quality that western governments expect from their military establishments, and in particular from their continuing investments in nuclear capabilities. The fixation with deterrence began during the Cold War when it was hard to think of any other role for nuclear weapons. It now continues because it was judged to be successful then, only with the expectation that somehow it can be made to work on a wide range of contemporary security threats that may be quite unrelated.

It is also discussed as an effect that can largely be achieved simply by being strong enough. The result is that when things happen that we don’t like this is described as a failure of deterrence even if nobody had previously suggested that there was anything that needed deterring. This encourages a relatively passive approach as if sufficient strength and a demonstrated readiness to use it will mean that deterrence occurs naturally.

There is a real life Star Wars happening - and the UK isn't ready - OPINION

Fiona Hill

Space Odyssey and dozens of other sci-fi stories set in space have delighted us for decades. What’s really happening in space right now, though, should worry us.

It is part of the great power competition that is going on across the world. What’s going on up there can no longer be divorced from terrestrial geopolitics, geo-economics and statecraft.

So, as the UK Government works on its upcoming strategic defence review, which was launched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer with the aim to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad for decades to come, policymakers will become increasingly aware that to omit space would be a mistake.

To stay ahead of strategic competition we must look at space as a crucial part of our defence and security thinking. Ships, aircraft and tanks tend to dominate the debate and headlines, yet none of those things will operate effectively without assured access to space capabilities. Nor could GCHQ function without the satellites in space, a strand of our intelligence gathering that will arguably become more important in the modern world.

To understand just how much we need protection in space, we must recognise that what goes on above us impacts everyday life on earth.

South Korea’s sloppy coup attempt: Why’d Yoon do it?

Bradley K. Martin and Uwe Parpart

Journalists going after a story traditionally focus on answering the “five Ws” but that has often been difficult in South Korea.

That certainly was the case during a period of martial law in the 1970s and 1980s when the military-backed government had all the tools needed to intimidate Korean journalists. Government agents were known to spy on foreign journalists using wiretaps and even blackmailed some after catching them in honey traps baited with supplied sexual partners.

The country has become more transparent since becoming a democracy in 1987 and a sloppy attempt at a coup d’etat by President Yoon Suk Yeol failed before any censors in the coup plotters’ group could keep the world from learning the pretty fully available answers to four of the five W questions regarding the incident: the who, the what, the when and the where.

It looks like Yoon colluded with elements of the military by appointing General Park An-su, the Republic of Korea Army’s chief of staff, as martial law commander. But, in the National Assembly in Seoul on Tuesday (December 3), with soldiers in battle gear trying to get in and shut down the country’s parliament, Yoon’s own civilian party leader turned on the president.

The Lebanon ceasefire alone won’t bring regional peace. The Gaza war must end

Mohamad Bazzi

Joe Biden stood in the White House Rose Garden last week to announce a ceasefire deal, but it wasn’t the one he has been desperate to secure for months. Biden confirmed that Israel and Hezbollah had accepted a US-brokered agreement to stop a war that has devastated large parts of Lebanon. But the deal does nothing to end Israel’s calamitous war on Gaza, where Biden and his administration had purportedly been pushing for a ceasefire – while enabling Israel with US weapons and political cover for 14 months.

Biden could have achieved a ceasefire in Gaza months ago if he had truly applied pressure on the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. On 26 November, Netanyahu made clear the importance of an uninterrupted flow of US weapons to Israel, saying the 60-day truce with Hezbollah would give Israeli troops “a breather” and provide time to replenish arms supplies from Washington.

5 Places World War III Could Break Out in 2025

Robert Farley

World War III in 2025? The year 2024 is promising to leave a dangerous legacy for its successor. Not in decades has the world witnessed a more dangerous international environment, with unsettled, ongoing conflicts in some of the world’s most critical regions. It will take deft, mature statesmanship to avoid even greater conflict in 2025, but the situation that we find ourselves in demonstrates that deft statesmanship is in short supply.

5 Places World War III Could Start in 2025

No one wants another global conflict, but in some ways we are already in a potential World War III. The Russia-Ukraine War, one of the largest conventional conflicts that the world has seen since World War II, has had far-reaching global effects. These have necessarily touched upon the parts of the world where Russia, China, the European Union, and the United States have interests, which in effect is the entire international system. None of the conflicts discussed here are separate from the others; just like the different theaters of WWII, they each have an effect on the balance of power and threat in the other regions.

The UK is preparing for a cyber war with Russia - The Guardian

Details

Richard Horn, Head of the UK's National Cybersecurity Center, said that the serious risks that his country may face due to Russia and China are extremely underestimated. This statement was not groundless, because the British National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC) recorded a significant increase in cyber attacks over the past 12 months, the newspaper writes.

For example, last week, British minister Pat McFadden noted the potential consequences of extending Russia's already active cyber operations to more serious areas.

"China can be destabilized by that kind of pressure. For an additional cyberattack, Russia can shut down millions of people," says Pet McFadden.

In addition, all countries affected by the upcoming conflict have begun to urge their citizens to prepare for power outages. For example, a Swedish brochure reprinted this month contains links on how to deal with power outages, as well as the Norwegian government's Emergency Preparedness Guide. A report from the Finnish government refers to cyber attacks that cause "prolonged power outages", while Denmark refers to various crises, including a digital attack that causes "loss of utilities".

South Korea’s Standoff Over Martial Law

Antonia Colibasanu

South Korea’s president took the extraordinary step on Dec. 3 of declaring martial law. In announcing the move, President Yoon Suk Yeol accused the opposition Democratic Party of “anti-state activities” and efforts to block the operation of government. Within hours, 190 of 300 lawmakers convened and voted unanimously to demand that Yoon revoke the martial law declaration – an order that the president must respect, according to South Korea’s Constitution. A few hours later, Yoon relented on what was bound to be a test to Seoul’s democratic institutions, the regional geopolitical order and the strength of South Korea’s alliances.

South Korean leaders have invoked martial law several times in the nation’s history, typically during turbulent times and often coincident with military coups, but the last time was in 1979. In the latter case, the ensuing pro-democracy backlash eventually led to the country’s complete adoption of democracy in 1987.

A Weak Assad Benefits Turkey—and Is a Headache for Trump - Analysis

Jeremy Hodge and Hussein Nasser

After nearly five years of being written off as a frozen conflict, a new and unprecedented chapter was written over the weekend in Syria’s 13-year civil war. On Wednesday, rebels in the north of the country launched a lightning ground offensive against regime forces and managed, within 72 hours, to take over the major metropolis of Aleppo.

A day later, rebels captured Tal Rifaat, the last major stronghold in northwest Syria that had been held by a third group, the Kurdish-dominated and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Why these Israeli men volunteered to fight - but now refuse to return to Gaza

Fergal Keane

Every single person in his platoon knew someone who was killed. Yuval Green, 26, knew at least three. He was a reservist, a medic in the paratroops of the Israel Defence Forces, when he heard the first news of the 7 October Hamas attack.

“Israel is a small country. Everyone knows each other,” he says. In several days of violence,1,200 people were killed, and 251 more abducted into Gaza. Ninety-seven hostages remain in Gaza, and around half of them are believed to be alive.

Yuval immediately answered his country’s call to arms. It was a mission to defend Israelis. He recalls the horror of entering devastated Jewish communities near the Gaza border. “You're seeing… dead bodies on the streets, seeing cars punctured by bullets.”

Back then, there was no doubt about reporting for duty. The country was under attack. The hostages had to be brought home.

Then came the fighting in Gaza itself. Things seen that could not be unseen. Like the night he saw cats eating human remains in the roadway.

“Start to imagine, like an apocalypse. You look to your right, you look to your left, all you see is destroyed buildings, buildings that are damaged by fire, by missiles, everything. That's Gaza right now.”

Eighteen ways Palantir wants the Pentagon to change

LAUREN C. WILLIAMS

The Defense Department is a sclerotic monopsony whose communist approach to acquisition has the United States on a precipice, writes Palantir’s chief technology officer, who prescribes a “painful” but “necessary” reformation based on competition and software.

“I think we're just scratching the surface,” said Shyam Sankar, whose company calls itself the first software prime contractor. “The other huge opportunity is really on using AI to drive efficiencies,” including using technology to supplant human workers and processes that slow innovation and adoption.

Sankar recently penned 18 theses that could reform how the Pentagon does business, in explicit comparison to Martin Luther’s criticisms of the Catholic Church. He highlights several well-documented problems often studied by congressionally mandated commissions—such as a belabored budgeting-and-planning process, the perils of requirements, and how cost-plus contracts remove incentives to innovate.

The 18-page document also manages to say the quiet part out loud, demanding the Pentagon and Congress to change its practices with colorful curtness. One of Sankar’s main themes is the need for competition—whether it’s companies vying for Pentagon contracts or customers in the Defense Department looking for solutions.

Coming Full Circle on Semiconductor Deterrence

Jared M. McKinney

In November of 2021, as the world faced semiconductor shortages due to fragile supply chains and just-in-time business practices, a colleague and I proposed an idea intended to reduce the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait: Taiwan should threaten to self-destruct its prized semiconductor machinery in response to a People’s Republic of China (PRC) invasion.[1]

The idea, as originally conceived, was inspired by two sources.

The first source was the longstanding idea of a “Silicon Shield in Taiwan,” which suggested that semiconductors were to Taiwan what oil was to Kuwait: something so important the United States would intervene to see the resource protected.[2] However, by 2021 it was not just the United States that was dependent on Taiwan’s chips, but China too. The problem had become one of interdependence, with Taiwan as the critical node.

The second source was a Chinese novel series, the Three-Body Problem, which introduced the idea of “dark forest” deterrence.[3] The dark forest described a structural condition of hostility among civilizations across the universe. Could understanding this “cosmic sociology” allow Earth to deter an invasion? This was to be done by threatening to reveal the location—to the universe—of both Earth and the Trisolaran home world, which would result in the destruction of both. The trick was: could such a threat be credibly made?

How Henry Kissinger foresaw the power and potential of AI

Niall Ferguson

When the late Henry Kissinger — who died a year ago, on Nov. 29 — published his essay “How the Enlightenment Ends” in June 2018, many were surprised that the elder statesman’s elder statesman had a view on artificial intelligence.

Kissinger had just turned 95. AI was not yet the hot topic it would become after OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022.

As Kissinger’s biographer, however, I wasn’t surprised that AI gripped his attention.

He had, after all, come to prominence in 1957 with a book about a new and world-changing technology.

“Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy” was a book so thoroughly researched that it won the approval even of Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project.

Contrary to his unwarranted reputation as a warmonger, Kissinger was strongly motivated throughout his adult life by the imperative to avoid World War III.

He understood that the technology of nuclear fission would make another world war an even greater conflagration.

A testing time for telcos: analysing the cyber threat landscap

Simon Viney

As integral enablers of a digitalised society, the telco sector faces a unique blend of threats. For example, state-sponsored threats are extremely prevalent, with hostile nations deploying telco-specific malware and carrying out disruptive campaigns to support military operations – as has been seen recently in Ukraine.

Cyber-criminal ransomware threats are also commonplace, while changing laws and regulations around network equipment and the evolving nature of the physical and cyber threat to both subsea and space communications are providing further challenges for today’s telcos.

State-sponsored threats

In our tracking of state-sponsored threat activity, the telco sector has historically been the second-most targeted after government. In our most recent statistics, telco has dropped to third place (after academia) but the sector clearly remains a high priority for state-sponsored threat groups with the advanced techniques and lengthy timescales for attack execution.

New USAF Foci: Fighter-Like Drones and Electromagnetic Warfare

Bill Sweetman

‘Listening to new options’, according to a senior civilian advisor, is a key piece of the U.S. Air Force process of force redesign.

One of those options is using the fighter-like drones that will come from the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, which was central to a panel discussion at the U.S. Mitchell Institute’s Air Power Futures Forum in November. Another is a tighter focus on electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO), the currently favored term for electromagnetic warfare (EW) and related activities.

CCAs, formerly called loyal wingmen, will be much cheaper than crewed fighters and are intended to work with them and enhance their value—for example, by moving forward to detect targets. EMSO encompasses such decisive effects as seeing what is going on in a battle while blinding or deceiving the enemy’s sensors, foiling the guidance of its weapons, and disrupting its communications while preserving one’s own.

Both designs chosen for the CCA program’s Increment 1, from General Atomics and Anduril, have passed critical design review, according to Colonel Timothy Helfrich, cyber systems lead in Air Force Material Command. The project is ‘ahead in some areas’ of an overall objective to achieve initial operational capability by the end of the decade, he said—because demands had been relaxed where necessary. ‘We need to be able to know when good enough is enough. Instead of adding features, we have made tough decisions.’

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