Quotes of the Day:
“Make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it occurs.”
-Epictetus
“No fight for civil liberties ever stays won.”
- Roger Baldwin
“If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.”
- Robert Ingersoll
1. As China Speeds Up Nuclear Arms Race, the U.S. Wants to Talk
2. As U.S. Hunts for Chinese Spies, University Scientists Warn of Backlash
3. Iran’s Nuclear Negotiators Make the U.S. Sit at the Kiddie Table
4. Solomon Islanders need freedom from PRC, not Australian troops
5. Congress should support the Biden administration’s effort to sell defensive missiles to Saudi Arabia
6. War Between Russia and Ukraine: A Basic Scenario?
7. Fighting The Last (Cold) War – OpEd
8. Three Laws Turn Up Heat On China’s Territorial Disputes – OpEd
9. Russia’s Power Games Extend to the Orthodox Church
10. China, Russia ambassadors urge to stop using 'value-based diplomacy' to provoke division, confrontation
11. Can Cold War History Prevent U.S.-China Calamity?
12. Intelligence and Love - Geopolitical Futures
13. The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism
14. China’s use of refueling aircraft during recent Taiwan sortie raises concern
15. Assessing the Threat from Social Media Enabled Domestic Extremism in an Era of Stagnant Political Imagination
16. We Know Almost Nothing About the Omicron Variant
17. A Squabble About History Almost Killed Xi Jinping’s Father
18. Giving Tuesday Recommendations
1. As China Speeds Up Nuclear Arms Race, the U.S. Wants to Talk
"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."
- John F. Kennedy
Excerpts:
But China’s decision to maintain a “minimum deterrent” for the past six decades — a nuclear force large enough to assure that it could respond to a nuclear attack, but not nearly the size of America’s or Russia’s — largely knocked its nuclear program off the Pentagon’s list of top threats. Now, its recent moves, from building new missile silo fields to testing new types of advanced weapons, come just as Mr. Biden’s aides are deep into an examination of American nuclear strategy that will be published in coming months.
The review, which every new administration is required to undertake in its first year or so, will contain key decisions — including whether to go ahead with a modernization plan that by the last comprehensive estimate, four years ago, looked likely to cost 1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years. The future of those plans has been the subject of furious lobbying campaigns, especially among the nation’s top defense contractors.
As China Speeds Up Nuclear Arms Race, the U.S. Wants to Talk
The Pentagon thinks Beijing may build 1,000 or more weapons by 2030. But it’s the new technologies that worry strategists.
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China’s DF-17 hypersonic ballistic missiles have warheads that can zero in on targets at more than five times the speed of sound.Credit...Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock
Nov. 28, 2021Updated 7:45 p.m. ET
The United States has no nuclear hotline to Beijing. The two countries have never had an in-depth, serious conversation about American missile defenses in the Pacific, or China’s experiments to blind U.S. satellites in time of conflict.
And Chinese officials have consistently rejected the idea of entering arms control talks, shutting down such suggestions by noting — accurately — that the United States and Russia each have deployed five times more nuclear warheads than Beijing possesses.
President Biden is seeking to change all that.
For the first time, the United States is trying to nudge China’s leadership into a conversation about its nuclear capability. U.S. officials, describing the American strategy, say Mr. Biden and his top aides plan to move slowly — focusing the talks first on avoiding accidental conflict, then on each nation’s nuclear strategy and the related instability that could come from attacks in cyberspace and outer space.
Finally — maybe years from now — the two nations could begin discussing arms control, perhaps a treaty or something politically less complex, such as an agreement on common norms of behavior.
In Washington, the issue has taken on more urgency than officials are acknowledging publicly, according to officials who are involved. Mr. Biden’s aides are driven by concern that a new arms race is heating up over hypersonic weapons, space arms and cyberweapons, all of which could unleash a costly and destabilizing spiral of move and countermove. The fear is that an attack that blinded space satellites or command-and-control systems could quickly escalate, in ways that were not imaginable in the nuclear competitions of the Cold War. China’s capabilities could also pose a threat to President Biden’s hopes of reducing the role of nuclear weapons in American defenses.
In his virtual summit meeting earlier this month with Xi Jinping, China’s president, who clearly has sought to present himself as a epoch-defining leader alongside Mao, Mr. Biden raised what the White House has euphemistically called “strategic stability talks.”
In interviews, Mr. Biden’s aides have said the effort is a tentative first step toward a far larger agenda, akin to the initial conversations about nuclear weapons that Russia and the United States held in the 1950s. The starting goal, they insist, is to simply avoid miscommunication and accidental war — even if it never rises to the level of a nuclear threat.
“You will see at multiple levels an intensification of the engagement to ensure that there are guardrails around this competition,” Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said in a presentation at the Brookings Institution the day after the virtual summit.
The nuclear relationship with Russia, he noted, is “far more mature, has a much deeper history to it.” After the summit meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi, he added, it is time to begin such conversations with China. “It is now incumbent on us to think about the most productive way to carry it forward,” he said.
But China’s decision to maintain a “minimum deterrent” for the past six decades — a nuclear force large enough to assure that it could respond to a nuclear attack, but not nearly the size of America’s or Russia’s — largely knocked its nuclear program off the Pentagon’s list of top threats. Now, its recent moves, from building new missile silo fields to testing new types of advanced weapons, come just as Mr. Biden’s aides are deep into an examination of American nuclear strategy that will be published in coming months.
The review, which every new administration is required to undertake in its first year or so, will contain key decisions — including whether to go ahead with a modernization plan that by the last comprehensive estimate, four years ago, looked likely to cost 1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years. The future of those plans has been the subject of furious lobbying campaigns, especially among the nation’s top defense contractors.
When the Chinese launched a hypersonic missile in July, circling the globe once and then deploying a maneuverable glide vehicle that could zig and zag on an unpredictable path and deliver a weapon anywhere on earth, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the U.S. was “very close” to a “Sputnik moment.” But in the weeks since, American officials have been reluctant to say what, exactly, about that experiment so rattled them — beyond the fact that it revealed a technological sophistication that they did not know the Chinese had achieved.
The hypersonic nature of the missile — meaning it can move at more than five times the speed of sound — was the least interesting element of the test. All nuclear missiles go at least that fast. But the stubby glider it released — which could hold a nuclear warhead — was designed to evade the United States’ primary missile interceptors, which can operate only in outer space. (In recent weeks, the Pentagon issued a contract for design work on technology to intercept the gliders, but that would be years away.)
It’s unclear whether China plans to deploy a hypersonic weapon in the future, and, even if it does, whether they would be armed with nuclear warheads. But General Milley’s deputy, Gen. John Hyten, who is retiring as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told reporters in October that the Chinese military had conducted “hundreds” of hypersonic tests, compared with nine by the United States.
President Biden raised the possibility of “strategic stability talks” with Xi Jinping, the president of China, during a virtual summit this month.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
General Hyten said the test, combined with Beijing’s other moves, such as digging hundreds of new silos for long-range missiles, suggest the Chinese government may now be interested in developing a nuclear first-strike capability, not just the minimum deterrent.
“Why are they building all of this capability?” he asked on CBS News. While it is not clear what Chinese strategists intend, he said, the hypersonic glide vehicle appears to be “a first-use weapon.”
Inside the White House and the Pentagon, there is no unanimity on that point. Mr. Biden has long been wary of assessments that could be intended to drive up the Pentagon’s budget — and certainly American defense contractors, their executive offices jammed with former senior military officers, have a vested interest in describing a new threat that could lead to billions of dollars in new investments.
Understand U.S.-China Relations
Card 1 of 6
A tense era in U.S.-China ties. The two powers are profoundly at odds as they jockey for influence beyond their own shores, compete in technology and maneuver for military advantages. Here’s what to know about the main fronts in U.S.-China relations:
Pacific dominance. As China has built up its military presence, the U.S. has sought to widen its alliances in the region. A major potential flash point is Taiwan, the democratic island that the Communist Party regards as Chinese territory. Should the U.S. intervene there, it could reshape the regional order.
Trade. The trade war started by the Trump administration is technically on pause. But the Biden administration has continued to protest China’s economic policies and impose tariffs on Chinese goods, signaling no thaw in trade relations.
Technology. Internet giants have mostly been shut out of China, but plenty of U.S. tech companies still do big business there, raising cybersecurity concerns in Washington. Mr. Xi has said China needs to achieve technological “self-reliance.”
But even some skeptics agree that the Chinese hypersonic test, along with antisatellite technologies that could blind American early-warning and command-and-control systems, suggest a major rethinking of American nuclear strategy and plans is overdue.
Gen. John Raymond, who commands the newly created United States Space Force, recently told New York Times reporters and editorial writers that in the case of a crisis, he has no direct channel for communicating with his Chinese counterpart — a dangerous situation if, for instance, an accidental collision with a Chinese spacecraft were to be misperceived as an act of aggression.
That appeared to be at the core of Mr. Sullivan’s first concern: establishing lines of communication between the two militaries, of the kind the United States and Russia have had for decades. (He avoided the use of the word “nuclear” in his talk, a reflection of how space, cyberweapons and other high technologies need to be part of the conversation, Mr. Biden’s senior aides say.)
On Capitol Hill, the conversation so far is largely about matching the Chinese investment, rather than rethinking the nature of the arms race.
“I’m very concerned,” Rose Gottemoeller, an arms control official in several administrations who now teaches at Stanford University, said in an interview. “What’s worrying me is the automaticity of the actions — of more nuclear weapons and more missile defenses without thinking if there’s a smarter way.”
Mr. Xi and Mr. Biden, American officials said, agreed to further conversations — but there was no commitment on how deep those would go. Asked whether the talks would include the topic of arms control, the National Security Council, in a statement, said, “No. What we are seeking — and what Jake Sullivan spoke about — are conversations with empowered interlocutors” about “guardrails to reduce risk or the chance of miscalculation.”
The history of those conversations is not encouraging. For years, across several administrations, the United States tried to get Chinese officials to talk about how they would secure nuclear weapons in North Korea if the nation collapsed. The effort was to avoid a collision among Chinese, South Korean and American forces seeking to find and secure loose weapons. The Chinese have always demurred, perhaps for fear of being caught talking about the possibility of the North’s collapse.
It is possible, many arms control experts say, that the Chinese buildup is motivated by the deployment of U.S. missile defenses in the Pacific — land-based systems in California, Alaska, Guam and South Korea, and aboard ships patrolling off Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has always insisted that these systems are designed to deter North Korea. But the Chinese government has long voiced worries that North Korea’s nuclear program provides a convenient excuse for the United States to build a system aimed at containing Chinese nuclear weapons.
China and the United States have never engaged in a detailed discussion of missile defenses in the Pacific. But the hypersonic test may force the issue, independent experts say, because it is clear Beijing’s ambitions are expanding.
Even before the test, American officials and military contractors were trying to figure out new defenses against the hypersonic warheads. That would be more complex than intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile, a project that has already cost more than $300 billion over several decades and yielded only episodic success. This month, Raytheon, Northrop and Lockheed won Pentagon awards to compete with one another in building an interceptor seen as agile enough to knock out a hypersonic glider. The defensive weapon is billed as the first of its kind.
The Pentagon also has embarked on a vast effort to loft up to 500 satellites that would provide improved means of tracking ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles. The swarm is considered crucial for establishing an end-to-end system that would identify hypersonic attacks and direct interceptors onto flight paths that would let them destroy the incoming gliders.
2. As U.S. Hunts for Chinese Spies, University Scientists Warn of Backlash
How do we effectively balance the competing issues?
As U.S. Hunts for Chinese Spies, University Scientists Warn of Backlash
A chilling effect has taken hold on American campuses, contributing to an outflow of academic talent that may hurt the United States while benefiting Beijing.
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The campus of Princeton University, in New Jersey. Chinese and Chinese American scientists working in U.S. universities have been disproportionately targeted by the U.S. government.Credit...An Rong Xu for The New York Times
By
Nov. 28, 2021Updated 8:08 p.m. ET
The F.B.I. agents spent nearly two years tailing the professor, following him to work, to the grocery store, and even keeping his college-age son under surveillance. They told the university where he held a tenured position that he was a Chinese operative, prompting the school to cooperate with their investigation and later fire him.
But the F.B.I. was unable to find evidence of espionage, according to an agent’s testimony in court.
Federal prosecutors pressed charges anyway, accusing Anming Hu of concealing his ties with a university in Beijing and defrauding the government in connection with research funds he had received from NASA. The trial ended in a hung jury. One juror called the case “ridiculous.” In September, a judge took the rare step of acquitting the Chinese-born scientist on all counts.
“It was the darkest time of my life,” Dr. Hu said in his first in-depth interview since being acquitted.
Universities in the United States once welcomed the best and brightest scientific talents from around the world. But government officials have become increasingly suspicious that scientists like Dr. Hu are exploiting the openness of American institutions to steal sensitive taxpayer-funded research at the behest of the Chinese government. It’s had a chilling effect across campuses that scientists and university administrators say has slowed research and contributed to a flow of talent out of the United States that may benefit Beijing.
In interviews with several scientists of Chinese descent working in American universities, a picture emerged of a community on edge. Some described being humiliated by mandatory training on foreign interference that featured only examples of ethnic Chinese scientists, and unexplained delays for visa renewals. They were all concerned that seemingly anything — a collaboration with another scientist from China, a slip-up on a disclosure form — could provide an opening for federal investigators to come knocking.
The trial of Dr. Hu, who worked at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, is being held up as a clear example of government overreach. He was under house arrest for 18 months during the investigation with no job or income, reliant on GoFundMe donations for his legal defense fees. Neighbors and church friends delivered groceries and took out his garbage. While the university has since offered to reinstate his job, Dr. Hu, a naturalized Canadian citizen, said his immigration status remains in limbo.
“My basic human rights were invaded, my reputation was destroyed, my heart was deeply hurt, my family was hurt,” he said. “This is not fairness.”
Anming Hu at home in Knoxville, Tenn. The Chinese-born scientist and professor has spent the last few years fighting accusations that he acted as a spy for China.Credit...Shawn Poynter for The New York Times
A recent study conducted by the University of Arizona and the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese Americans, surveyed scientists of both Chinese and non-Chinese descent working at academic institutions in the United States on issues of race and ethnicity in science and research. Around half of the Chinese scientists surveyed — including some American citizens — said they felt they were being surveilled by the U.S. government. Some have blamed a law enforcement program called the China Initiative, which was started during the Trump administration and has continued under President Biden.
The program is aimed at preventing the Chinese government’s theft of American trade secrets and other acts of espionage. But scholars, scientists, civil rights groups and lawmakers have asked whether it has gone too far in targeting academics, especially since most research done at universities is unclassified and eventually published.
“So much of our intellectual technological power is from immigrants,” said Steven Chu, one of the signers, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Stanford University and a former U.S. secretary of energy. “We’re shooting ourselves not in the foot but in something close to the head.”
Dr. Hu was the first academic charged under the China Initiative to stand trial. So far the F.B.I. has brought 12 prosecutions at universities or research institutions in three years, but none have involved charges of economic espionage or theft of trade secrets or intellectual property. Most involved allegations like wire fraud, lying to federal investigators and failure to disclose ties with China.
Behind the recent scrutiny of academics is a problem years in the making.
Over the past two decades, as federal funding for basic scientific research at universities stagnated, scientists sought alternative sources of money. Eager to expand their global footprint, American universities promoted collaborations with international peers, including in China. Beijing, which has set its sights on becoming a science and technology superpower, was happy to oblige.
Researchers took advantage of growing opportunities in China, including talent recruitment programs, lucrative consulting contracts, honorary titles and grants.
The Chinese government already had a record of stealing or incentivizing the transfer of intellectual property from American companies. As the Trump administration intensified scrutiny of espionage by China, it expanded the dragnet to include academic collaboration as well, prompting federal agencies that provide funding — and some universities — to step up enforcement of policies on the disclosure of foreign ties and conflicts of interest.
In recent months, academics have signed open letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, center, urging that the China Initiative program be terminated.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
“There’s no room for xenophobia or ethnic profiling,” said Anna Puglisi, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “But what gets lost in the discussion is the bigger question that we need to be asking, which is: ‘Do we have the system in place to mitigate the behavior and central government policies of a nation state that are specifically set up to target the seams in our system?’”
To some, the intensified scrutiny amounted to overreach.
Many scientists have expressed frustration over what they say are shifting and overlapping disclosure guidelines from universities and funding agencies that make it hard to avoid getting caught in the F.B.I.’s web. During Dr. Hu’s trial, for example, it emerged that both NASA and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville had provided unclear rules on how he should disclose foreign ties.
Understand U.S.-China Relations
Card 1 of 6
A tense era in U.S.-China ties. The two powers are profoundly at odds as they jockey for influence beyond their own shores, compete in technology and maneuver for military advantages. Here’s what to know about the main fronts in U.S.-China relations:
Pacific dominance. As China has built up its military presence, the U.S. has sought to widen its alliances in the region. A major potential flash point is Taiwan, the democratic island that the Communist Party regards as Chinese territory. Should the U.S. intervene there, it could reshape the regional order.
Trade. The trade war started by the Trump administration is technically on pause. But the Biden administration has continued to protest China’s economic policies and impose tariffs on Chinese goods, signaling no thaw in trade relations.
Technology. Internet giants have mostly been shut out of China, but plenty of U.S. tech companies still do big business there, raising cybersecurity concerns in Washington. Mr. Xi has said China needs to achieve technological “self-reliance.”
“I don’t think anybody doubts the Chinese government and C.C.P. are engaged in economic espionage and other malign behaviors,” said Michael German, a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and a former F.B.I. agent. “So that’s where the U.S. government should focus its resources, instead of trying to grab easy statistical accomplishments by targeting college professors who have nothing to do with Chinese espionage.”
A Justice Department spokesman said the department was dedicated to countering Chinese efforts to undermine national security, but that the department also took concerns about discrimination seriously.
For now, unease is growing. Yiguang Ju, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton and a naturalized U.S. citizen, said it had been the honor of a lifetime in 2010 when NASA asked him to help develop a plan for the future of American rocketry.
If he were to receive the same invitation today, he would decline, he said. The spotlight on Chinese scientists at academic institutions was too great, and the pride of working with the agency not worth the possible risk to him and his family. “It’s not because I don’t want to serve,” he said. “I’m scared to serve.”
“It’s not because I don’t want to serve. I’m scared to serve,” said Yiguang Ju, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University who fears that if he were to work with NASA again, he would attract undue scrutiny.Credit...An Rong Xu for The New York Times
That fear comes as China has started to experience a reverse brain drain. Over the last decade, a growing number of Chinese scientists have been lured back to the country by the promise of ample funding, impressive titles and national pride. More recently, scientists returning to China have cited a hostile environment in the United States as a factor.
Westlake University, a research university in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, has recruited an impressive roster of talent, including many who once held faculty positions at top American schools. In August, Westlake announced several new hires, including a tenured professor from Northwestern University and another from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Shi Yigong, a prominent molecular biologist and the president of Westlake University, said colleagues had complained about the atmosphere of suspicion in the United States. “For those who have chosen to relinquish their jobs in the U.S., sometimes I do hear stories of a bitter nature,” Dr. Shi said. “I think some of them, not all of them, have been singled out for what I think was pretty harsh treatment.”
At least one person, though, is determined to stay in the United States: Dr. Hu.
The son of a factory worker, he grew up in a poor village in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong and said his interest in science began at a young age. In elementary school, he rigged a simple radio by wiring a speaker with scrap mineral and connecting it to a makeshift antenna he hung from a tree.
After earning advanced degrees in China, he left the country in 1997 with his wife and worked in several countries before obtaining a second Ph.D. in physics in Canada. Like countless immigrants before him, he moved to the United States in 2013 with hopes for a better life and career.
He has sacrificed too much to give it all up now, he said.
He would rather stay in the United States to contribute not just to science, his first love, but also to his new passion: promoting justice. “I have no interest in politics and know almost nothing about it,” he said. “But I know that targeting Chinese and Asian Americans — that will not make the United States strong.”
Javier C. Hernández and Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting.
3. Iran’s Nuclear Negotiators Make the U.S. Sit at the Kiddie Table
Conclusion:
Mr. Biden can’t turn back the clock. Diplomacy and extortion—the two are synonymous for the Islamic Republic—may have had their day. Mr. Khamenei is going to make the president pony up a huge amount of money for the fleeting relief of his nuclear anxiety—assuming the supreme leader still even wants to play such games with the U.S. For Mr. Biden, the only question is whether he wants to endure this humiliation in return for so little.
Iran’s Nuclear Negotiators Make the U.S. Sit at the Kiddie Table
The Islamic Republic relishes humiliating Americans while granting no concessions.
WSJ · by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
The clerical regime’s atomic ambitions will continue to progress rapidly because the U.S. administration has no intention of trying to rescind what President Obama’s nuclear deal granted: the development of high-yield, easily hidden centrifuges, the key to an unstoppable bomb program. The Islamic Republic has displayed an uncanny ability to advance its aspirations and eviscerate American red lines with impunity.
The theocracy’s nuclear diplomacy succeeds precisely because it seeks no agreement. The mullahs understand things their interlocutors don’t. The U.S. and Israel have repeatedly chosen not to disable Iran’s nuclear program by force, undermining the regime’s fear of attack and allowing the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, more maneuvering room. All U.S. administrations have sincerely, at times desperately, wanted an accord. The United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency censure the Islamic Republic, and the regime ignores them. If Tehran pretends to be interested in diplomacy, Washington, always fearful of another war in the Middle East, makes more concessions.
The achievements of this diplomatic stratagem are extraordinary. Washington and the Europeans once insisted that the Islamic Republic couldn’t have a domestic enrichment capacity. This was a sensible precaution. The infrastructure required to enrich uranium for nuclear power is the same as what is needed to make a bomb. The process is costly, and most nations that use civilian nuclear power import refined uranium.
Yet today U.S. and European officials, and many nuclear experts, pooh-pooh the idea that Iran should forgo indigenous enrichment. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal Mr. Obama struck and President Trump abandoned, has become canonical among Democrats. It specifies not only that Iran has the right to enrich but that its enrichment capability can become industrialized. The clerical regime obtained this permissive accord by merely showing up at various conclaves and holding firm. American officials fulminated, threatened, bickered among themselves and eventually capitulated.
The Biden administration isn’t diverging from Mr. Obama’s path. A well-timed Israeli leak shows the White House is considering an interim arrangement whereby Iran would cease some of its activities in exchange for sanctions relief. It won’t be long before Washington deludes itself into believing that a threshold capability will satisfy Iran, that it can be an Islamist version of Japan—inches away from developing a bomb but with no intention to take the next step.
The ascendance of the hard-line Ibrahim Raisi to the presidency altered the economics of arms control. He subscribes to Mr. Khamenei’s “economy of resistance,” the notion that Iran can meet its needs by relying on its internal market and trade with China and neighboring states. In this view, segregation from the global economy is virtuous, wise and courageous. Unlike former President Hassan Rouhani, the new crew isn’t looking for Western commerce as a means of rejuvenating the economy and the revolution. There appears to be little concern among Mr. Khamenei’s ruling elite that this scheme will lead to poverty and another lost generation.
Even more than Mr. Raisi, Mr. Trump accelerated history. According to Mr. Obama’s blueprint, we were going to see a nuclear Iran and a much richer clerical regime. Freed from sanctions, the ruling clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards would have had time to build up their armed forces, as well as the nuclear-weapons program. Thinking that renewed and improved sanctions would give him a “good” nuclear deal (always a dubious proposition), Mr. Trump collapsed 15 years of Western diplomacy and the JCPOA’s envisioned decade of sun-setting restrictions into clear and irrevocable choices.
Mr. Biden can’t turn back the clock. Diplomacy and extortion—the two are synonymous for the Islamic Republic—may have had their day. Mr. Khamenei is going to make the president pony up a huge amount of money for the fleeting relief of his nuclear anxiety—assuming the supreme leader still even wants to play such games with the U.S. For Mr. Biden, the only question is whether he wants to endure this humiliation in return for so little.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh, the author of “The Last Shah,” is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
WSJ · by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
4. Solomon Islanders need freedom from PRC, not Australian troops
Blunt criticism.
Given time, and the involvement of culturally respected leaders, it could have spread across the Solomons. None of the leaders wanted violence. They are calling for calm and want reconciliation—and peace—across the country. It’s built into their faith. They are trying to use what peaceful methods they can, including tabling a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister.
The only foreign engagement needed is the sort of thing that helps at a community level—humanitarian response, transparent and accountable investment, some sound journalism that helps clear up and dissuade corruption. That sort of thing.
What we have instead is an expeditionary force seemingly acting at the behest of a despised local administration backed by a callous and rapacious foreign power. Beijing must be sitting back, munching on popcorn and enjoying the show.
The Australians will need to tread very carefully if they don’t want to create the sort of situation that will require Solomon Islanders to once against knit their country back together in a reconciliation ceremony a hundred years from now.
Solomon Islanders need freedom from PRC, not Australian troops - The Sunday Guardian Live
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Cleo PaskalPublished : November 27, 2021, 8:34 pm | Updated : November 27, 2021, 8:35 PM
What we have is an expeditionary force seemingly acting at the behest of a despised local administration backed by a callous and rapacious foreign power. Beijing must be sitting back, munching on popcorn and enjoying the show.
Alexandria: Last week in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, demonstrations against the corrupt, CCP-linked Prime Minister Sogavare turned violent. At the request of Sogavare, Australia and Papua New Guinea have sent troops to “restore order”.
But in another part of the Solomons, less than two weeks before, locals were showing they could create the sort of peace that is truly durable.
Too bad no one outside the country noticed because how they did it holds the key for resolving the current crisis. And it doesn’t involve Australians. Or Chinese. Or even Papua New Guineans. It involves Solomon Islanders.
THE MALAITA MASSACRE
It all started in 1927, when Solomon Islands was a British Protectorate.
The Brits had imposed a head tax on able-bodied men. Conveniently, the British also had plantations where those able-bodied men could work to earn the money to pay the head tax. Unsurprisingly, it was not very popular.
On 3 October 1927, William Bell, an Australian-born District Officer, showed up in a coastal town on the island of Malaita to collect the taxes. Bell was killed by Basiana, a local leader. Basiana and his men also killed around a dozen others in the tax collection party, including local policemen from another part of Malaita who were accompanying Bell.
When word got back, the British thought the protectorate was in full revolt and asked the Australians for help to “restore order” (sound familiar?). The Australians sent the light cruiser HMAS Adelaide to land troops near the site of the attack.
Meanwhile, the Colonial administrators planned a punitive expedition. The expedition included white plantation owners who were so out of shape, they became known as the “whiskey army” as they drank to the point many were of no use. Vengeful relatives of the local policemen who had been killed were more focused on the task at hand.
By the time the retaliation was over, at least 55 had been killed, close to 200 arrested, villages were burned and Basiana was hanged.
Culturally, the worst lasting damage was the deliberate desecration of ancestral shrines. They believed if the shrines of ancestors were disturbed, their spirits will seek vengeance on their descendants. The trauma was so severe, some converted to Christianity in an attempt to escape their wrath.
An Australian with a Solomon Islander in 1927.
FINDING PEACE
So, why are we talking about this 94 years later?
Because a couple of weeks ago, in Malaita, they held a deeply important, open to all, reconciliation ceremony to heal the wounds left festering after the Malaita Massacre.
At the same gathering they unveiled a memorial to Maasina Ruru (roughly “rule of relationship of siblings together”), the multiethnic network that fought for independence from the British.
CCP IS SYSTEMICALLY ATHEIST
The current foreign power distorting local economics and politics is China. Again, there has been concern and pushback across the country about the effects of CCP influence.
In 2019, soon after the central government switched from Taiwan to China, the Malaita Provincial Government (MPG) issued the Auki Declaration which read: “MPG strongly resolves to put in place a Moratorium on Business Licenses to new investors connected directly or indirectly with the Chinese Communist Party.”
It explained one of the reasons why: “MPG acknowledges the freedom of religion as a fundamental right and further observes the entrenched Christian faith and belief in God by Malaitan and MOIan peoples and therefore rejects the Chinese Communist Party—CCP and its formal systems based on atheist ideology”.
So, obviously, the CCP, via its proxies, has been trying to break the resistance in the Solomons. But it’s hard to buy or bully people of faith (which is also why the CCP is trying to eradicate Tibetan and Uyghur culture). The leaders and people of Malaita, through a deep understanding of each other—and under a shared canopy of respect and faith that leads them towards reconciliation—have been working towards healing wounds created almost a century ago by a callous and rapacious foreign power. They are strengthening themselves to face up to the next one, alongside their similarly concerned siblings in the rest of the country.
FIGHTING FOR PEACE
And this is the situation the Australians walked into—fully armed and ignoring the quarantines they’ve been saying are so important. It is possible few of the young soldiers on the streets on Honiara have ever heard of the Malaita Massacre. But you can be sure locals looking at them remember.
In an interview with this paper a few weeks ago, respected Solomon Islands leader Hon. Peter Kenilorea, said: “Things don’t build up very clearly in the Solomon Islands—things explode suddenly. You need to be more nuanced to read these things.”
He was talking about the potential for violence caused by anger at corrupt CCP-linked politicians that, as he predicted, exploded last week. But he could also have been talking about peace. After quietly building momentum, reconciliation and peace was exploding in Malaita. Finally.
Given time, and the involvement of culturally respected leaders, it could have spread across the Solomons. None of the leaders wanted violence. They are calling for calm and want reconciliation—and peace—across the country. It’s built into their faith. They are trying to use what peaceful methods they can, including tabling a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister.
The only foreign engagement needed is the sort of thing that helps at a community level—humanitarian response, transparent and accountable investment, some sound journalism that helps clear up and dissuade corruption. That sort of thing.
What we have instead is an expeditionary force seemingly acting at the behest of a despised local administration backed by a callous and rapacious foreign power. Beijing must be sitting back, munching on popcorn and enjoying the show.
The Australians will need to tread very carefully if they don’t want to create the sort of situation that will require Solomon Islanders to once against knit their country back together in a reconciliation ceremony a hundred years from now.
5. Congress should support the Biden administration’s effort to sell defensive missiles to Saudi Arabia
Excerpts:
If the flow of Iranian weapons to the Houthis is not stopped, the conflict will almost certainly persist, meaning continued Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Under such a scenario, if Riyadh can’t get its weapons from the United States, we should expect them to look to Russia and China. When that happens, American national security interests will suffer, and things will only get worse for civilians in Yemen.
On this arms sale decision, the Biden administration got it right. Congress should now permit the sale of AIM-120C air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia. Members of Congress are entitled to criticize Riyadh, but blocking the U.S. provision of even defensive missiles to a security partner facing a suicide drone onslaught will only undermine U.S. national security interests, empower a terrorist proxy of Tehran and worsen the suffering of innocent individuals in Yemen.
Congress should support the Biden administration’s effort to sell defensive missiles to Saudi Arabia
A fight is brewing within the Democratic party over whether to permit the sale of defensive air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration’s State Department approved the sale of 280 AIM-120C missiles to Riyadh, but a far-left group of members in the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., introduced legislation on Nov. 12 to block the sale.
Refusing to provide even defensive missiles to Saudi Arabia will not only damage U.S. relations with a valuable security partner, make it harder for the kingdom to defend itself against drone attacks by Iranian-supported Houthi terrorists, and incentivize Riyadh to acquire weapons from suppliers such as Russia or China; it will also worsen the conflict in Yemen, which is the primary cause of the horrible humanitarian crisis there.
The $650 million sale in question includes 280 AIM-120C-7/C-8 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles and related equipment, including missile rail launchers, spare parts and contractor support. The Saudis would use the additional missiles and equipment on their Eurofighter Typhoon and American-made F-15 fighters to destroy Houthi drones attacking Saudi citizens and infrastructure. In other words, the AIM-120C is an air-to-air missile designed to be fired at enemy aircraft (of which the Houthis have none) and drones.
That’s significant because much of the criticism of U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia has focused on Riyadh’s airstrikes in Yemen that have resulted in civilian casualties. Those strikes, however, were conducted with air-to-ground weapons, not air-to-air missiles like the AIM-120C.
In fact, Riyadh needs the AIM-120C missiles to destroy unmanned aerial systems that the Houthis have increasingly used to attack Saudi citizens and destroy infrastructure there. This is not some rare or minor problem for Saudi Arabia. In April, Riyadh told The Associated Press that the Houthis have launched more than 550 bomb-laden drones toward Saudi Arabia since the war’s inception.
“We’ve seen an increase in cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia over the past year,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Nov. 18. “Saudi AIM-120C missiles, deployed from Saudi aircraft, have been instrumental in intercepting the persistent UAS attacks on the Kingdom that also put more than 70,000 U.S. citizens living and working in Saudi Arabia at risk.”
The war started in late 2014, when Houthis marched on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia intervened, with U.S. support, at the head of a coalition that included the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, aiming to reinstate Hadi’s internationally recognized government. The war continues today despite diplomatic efforts to get the Houthis to the negotiating table.
Seeing an opportunity to cultivate another terrorist proxy in a key location to attack U.S. and partner interests, the Islamic Republic of Iran for years has systematically supplied the Houthis with small arms, anti-tank missiles, anti-ship missiles, drones and ballistic missiles. The terror group has used its weapons to indiscriminately target civilians in Yemen and to bombard Saudi cities and critical infrastructure.
As a U.N. report documented, the Houthis have also employed human shields, seeking to protect terrorist fighters while inviting civilian casualties that can then be blamed on Saudi Arabia. That deplorable tactic takes a page from Tehran’s other terror proxies and will sound familiar to Israelis battling Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as to some American service members who fought in Iraq.
A man walks through a parking lot as smoke from a fire at the Abqaiq oil processing facility can be seen behind him in Buqyaq, Saudi Arabia, on Sept. 14, 2019. Drones launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and another major oilfield. (Al-Arabiya via AP)
While Riyadh has endured widespread criticism (some of which is warranted) for its actions in Yemen in the past, the failure to seriously address the flow of weapons from Iran to the Houthis has given the latter little reason to stop its military offensive and negotiate in good faith. In March, the Houthis responded to a genuine Saudi peace initiative by firing 18 armed drones at Saudi energy and military sites.
A continuation of Washington’s one-sided approach will simply leave Yemen with more of the same: more violence and more humanitarian suffering.
Members of Congress on the extreme end of the debate, such as Rep. Omar, want to end all U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. But some members of Congress distinguish between the provision of offensive and defensive weapons. Under that distinction, which can be somewhat arbitrary, Riyadh’s use of the additional AIM-120C missiles to destroy suicide drones destined for targets in the kingdom would clearly be defensive.
The Biden administration recognizes this fact, as do many Democrats on Capitol Hill. Earlier this month, Democrats such as Reps. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., criticized Saudi Arabia and the campaign in Yemen, but noted that the AIM-120C missiles are “intended to serve defensive purposes and protect against further Houthi airborne attacks.”
Those persistent attacks have forced Saudi Arabia to invest heavily in air defense to protect its population and infrastructure. The air-launched AIM-120C is a critical component of this defense system, as the kingdom’s large landmass necessitates mobile intercept platforms — exactly the capability that air-to-air missiles would provide.
RELATED
About two months have passed since the attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities by drone swarms and low-altitude cruise missiles. What steps has the country taken to bolster its defenses?
The AIM-120C sale, therefore, is consistent with the Biden administration’s policy of ensuring Saudi Arabia has the means to defend itself. But if Congress blocks the sale, it would leave Riyadh with two options — both of which would damage American national security and humanitarian conditions in Yemen.
If unable to procure defensive arms from the United States, Saudi Arabia will not simply shrug and leave itself defenseless. Riyadh would likely turn toward Russia to procure additional air defense systems. In particular, the Russian S-400 is a capable system that Saudi officials have previously discussed purchasing. Acquisition of the S-400 has severely strained the U.S.-Turkey relationship and is also creating problems in U.S.-India relations.
Reminding us once again that great power competition happens in the Middle East, not just Europe and the Asia-Pacific, Saudi procurement of the S-400 would represent a political and military bonanza for Russian President Vladimir Putin. And unlike the United States, Putin would never use the associated leverage to push Riyadh to avoid the indiscriminate use of weapons that results in civilian casualties.
It is true that transitioning from American to Russian weapons takes time and is hardly easy. But it is a mistake to believe that Riyadh would not take that step if core Saudi national security interests required it. Plus, it is worth noting that Saudi Arabia has already demonstrated a willingness to make modest initial purchases of weapons from America’s authoritarian adversaries, acquiring Wing Loong II drones from China that were then used to conduct strikes in Yemen.
Regardless of any decision to purchase weapons it needs elsewhere, if Riyadh sees its supply of air-to-air missiles being depleted in the face of an onslaught of Houthi suicide drones, Saudi Arabia may decide that it has no choice but to intensify its air campaign in Yemen to destroy the drones before they are launched. Such a campaign would increase civilian casualties in Yemen, exacerbating humanitarian suffering there.
Advocates of banning even arms sales deemed defensive to Saudi Arabia seem to think that there is a third option: that Riyadh will simply sit back as the kingdom is bombarded by Houthi rockets, drones and missiles. This expectation is unrealistic and devoid of strategic empathy. After all, how would U.S. politicians and policymakers react if Minneapolis or Detroit was attacked from the air every week? The answer, of course, is that they would take all available measures to defend the American people.
That would include taking steps that some could consider offensive, which is why the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons can be unhelpful. Is targeting a Houthi drone or missile about to be launched toward a Saudi city an offensive or defensive action?
No nation or military would be satisfied with purely playing defense in the light of an intensifying missile, rocket and drone barrage against its homeland and citizens. Eventually, defenses will fail, and action must be taken to target the aggressor’s supply, assembly and launch capabilities to prevent the barrage from continuing or escalating.
If the flow of Iranian weapons to the Houthis is not stopped, the conflict will almost certainly persist, meaning continued Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Under such a scenario, if Riyadh can’t get its weapons from the United States, we should expect them to look to Russia and China. When that happens, American national security interests will suffer, and things will only get worse for civilians in Yemen.
On this arms sale decision, the Biden administration got it right. Congress should now permit the sale of AIM-120C air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia. Members of Congress are entitled to criticize Riyadh, but blocking the U.S. provision of even defensive missiles to a security partner facing a suicide drone onslaught will only undermine U.S. national security interests, empower a terrorist proxy of Tehran and worsen the suffering of innocent individuals in Yemen.
Bradley Bowman is the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow and Ryan Brobst is a research analyst. FDD does not receive financial support from Raytheon Technologies, foreign governments or indirect lobbyists for Saudi Arabia.
6. War Between Russia and Ukraine: A Basic Scenario?
Don't the costs of war nearly always outweigh the benefits? (except when the war is about survival). The question for Ukraine is does Russia pose an existential threat?
And of course, we should always be wary of "logical" analysis - As Clausewitz wisely counsels us, passion and chance can trump reason.
Excerpts:
In other words, the costs of a possible war far outweigh the benefits. The war is fraught with significant risks to the economy, political stability and Russian foreign policy. It fails to solve key security problems, while it creates many new ones.
The question arises—to whom and under what conditions is this scenario beneficial? First of all, it is attractive precisely as a hypothetical rather than a real situation. In this form, it makes it possible to consolidate Ukraine on an anti-Russian basis, to seek the expansion of Western military aid, and to justify such aid to the West. The threat of war and an exercise of power can also be used by the Russian side. Moscow shows that it is technically ready for a radical scenario and will not allow its “red lines” to be crossed. These “red lines” include a military solution to the Donbass problem. In other words, the scenario has a practical meaning as a tool for information warfare and political signals.
From the point of view of the balance of benefits and losses, neither side is interested in a real war. Therefore, it is hardly worth considering the war scenario as a likely one. However, history knows many examples when rational calculations have failed to put an end to escalation. There is only the hope that this isn’t the case here.
War Between Russia and Ukraine: A Basic Scenario?
Published 1 day ago on November 28, 2021
Published
1 day ago
on
November 28, 2021
Concern is growing in the Western media over Russian military activity in the southwestern theatre. There are opinions that Russia is preparing a military campaign against Ukraine. The supposed goal is to break the deadlock of the Minsk Agreements, to impose further coexistence conditions on Kiev and its Western partners, to prevent the US and NATO from “developing” the territory of Ukraine for military purposes, and also to reformat the country’s political system and its state structure. Such rumours are spreading quickly, causing alarm among the political leaders of foreign countries as well as latent, albeit tangible fears in the business community. However, it is still premature to consider such a development as a baseline scenario.
Several circumstances speak in favour of the military scenario outlined by foreign commentators. The first is the recent experience of the Russian armed forces and the political consequences of their use. Moscow intervened in Georgia’s conflict with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, quickly changing the situation and recognising the two autonomies as independent states. In 2014, Russia carried out a lightning-fast operation in Crimea, creating conditions for the subsequent referendum on reunification. Later, the Ukrainian army was defeated in Donbass, and the political consequence was the formation of the LPR and DPR. In 2015, Moscow radically changed the military situation in Syria by deploying a compact but highly effective air group. The political result has been the preservation of power in the hands of the Assad government and the defeat of a number of terrorist groups. All these events indicate that Russia is ready to use force suddenly, in a concentrated manner and at the same time to seek concrete political changes.
The second circumstance is that the international political consequences for Russia which resulted from the military campaigns were relatively insufficient. No foreign state has intervened openly in these conflicts. Foreign military aid does not radically alter the balance of power. Economic sanctions in their current form harm the Russian economy, but they are still not the main factor contributing to existing problems. The economy itself is stable. In short, there are no major checks and balances on a new military campaign.
The third circumstance is that Russia is not ready to bear with the existing status quo in relations with Ukraine. Kiev is almost openly talking about sabotaging the Minsk agreements, and is not ready to implement them. The US and the EU cannot or do not want to change this; while at the same time they are verbally calling on Russia to abide by the agreements. Ukraine itself, after 2014, for obvious reasons, has been pursuing an anti-Russian line. The events of 2014 significantly strengthened the position of the nationalists. Any attempt to pursue a political dialogue with Russia is deemed unacceptable. A “mopping-up” of politicians who are in any way loyal to Russia is under way. Militarily weak and fearful of further complications with Moscow, Ukraine is seeking to deepen its defence ties with the United States and its allies, as well as trying to expand military aid and supplies. In Moscow, this is perceived as the “utilisation” of the territory of Ukraine by Western countries and is accompanied with subsequent threats to the strategic interests of Russia. Moscow considers the emergence of Western military infrastructure in Ukraine only a matter of time.
Taking into account these circumstances, a scenario where Russia takes action can be hypothetically considered in the West and in Ukraine in the following vein. With a sudden and decisive blow in several directions at once, Russian troops dismember the armed forces of Ukraine in the East of the country, surround separate groups, or press them against the Dnieper river. The actions of tank and motorised units are accompanied by powerful air, missile and artillery strikes. The Russian Aerospace Forces seize air supremacy. The apotheosis of the operation should be the encirclement and the subsequent capture of Kiev, and the stabilisation of the front line along the Dnieper. The creation of a new Ukrainian state with the capital in Kiev would be announced and recognised by Russia. It would include the previously-independent DPR and LPR. Russia thereby resolves several historical problems at once. The immediate threat to the southwestern borders is removed. Full control over the Sea of Azov and a land corridor to the Republic of Crimea are ensured. Two Ukrainian states appear on the map, one of which should be “friendly and fraternal”.
Even if one fails to write off this scenario as a reflection of existing phobias and nationalist complexes, it still seems unlikely for a number of reasons.
First, such a military conflict is unlikely to culminate in any intelligible agreement. A victory over the armed forces of Ukraine will not by itself lead to a fast peace. The war could develop into a long and sluggish confrontation, especially if part of the territory (for example, Western Ukraine) remains under the control of the Ukrainian armed forces. Capturing the whole of Ukraine is technically possible. However, it will be more costly, and subsequent control would be much more difficult. The option of “two Ukrainian states” would allow Russia to squeeze nationalists out by sending them West. Under a “one Ukraine” scenario, this would be impossible, given all the ensuing consequences.
Second, the conflict would inevitably lead to a sharp change in the Western approach toward providing Ukraine with modern weapons and military equipment. In the United States and in the West as a whole, the new situation would be considered as an emergency and they would not limit funds to support the armed forces of Ukraine. Moreover, in this case, all possible types of conventional weapons will be supplied. Large-scale military aid from the West would prolong the conflict. Russia would not be able to block such supplies. The United States and its allies will not enter open military confrontation with Moscow. However, the level of support for the Ukrainian army will grow significantly.
Third, regarding the Ukrainian issue, Russia would find itself in diplomatic isolation. It is unlikely that any country would voice support for Moscow’s actions. Unlike Crimea and Donbass, we’re talking about a large-scale and open clash between the armed forces, that is, about a full-fledged war. Russia would certainly be on the offensive. This would allow its actions to be classified as aggression without any problems. While the situation in Crimea and Donbass arose against the backdrop of revolutionary events in Ukraine and could be construed as part of a civil conflict, then in this scenario, such conditions are not visible. At the moment, there is no obvious conflict between the East and West of Ukraine. The legitimacy of Moscow’s actions in this case would be extremely weak, if not entirely impossible. In addition, Russia would have to bear responsibility for the civilian casualties, which would be inevitable in a large-scale conflict.
Fourth, all key Western players would introduce qualitatively new sanctions and restrictions against Russia. These would harm a number of Western countries and cause temporary shocks in world markets. But in an emergency situation, the West would take such measures, despite their economic cost. Possible measures include blocking sanctions against all Russian banks, including the Bank of Russia. This would largely cut Russia off from the global financial system. Another possible measure is a ban on the purchase of Russian oil, and then gas. Such bans can be increased gradually in order to avoid crisis situations with fuel supplies in the West itself. But in the event of a war in Ukraine, the West would take these measures. Other, more focused restrictions would be applied to imports and exports of oil and gas. The cumulative damage to the Russian economy would be colossal in scale.
Fifth, controlling Ukraine, even its eastern part, could be problematic. Taking into account the Western sanctions blockade, any transactions with the territories of Ukraine under Russian control would be impossible. Russia would have to take on a huge territory. The big question is whether the Russian market, in the grip of new sanctions, would be able to compensate for the damage to the Ukrainian territories under Russian control. The seizure of territories wouldn’t solve any of the problems facing the Russian economy today.
Sixth, the loyalty of the population of Eastern Ukraine to Russia is not obvious. Despite all the internal disagreements, over the past 30 years Ukraine has developed its own civic identity. The population of the eastern regions may have a negative attitude towards excessive nationalism. However, this does not guarantee their loyalty to Russia. Moreover, the war could finally undermine sympathy for Russia, which has already dwindled over the past six years.
Finally, seventh, the war is fraught with destabilisation of the situation inside Russia itself. There is no demand in society for a war with a neighbour, even despite the odiousness of the anti-Russia discourse in Ukraine. It is quite possible that Russian troops would be able to inflict resounding defeats on the armed forces of Ukraine and push them to the West. The losses, however, would still amount to hundreds, and possibly thousands of fighters. In the event of a possible prolongation of the conflict, human losses would become a permanent factor. Combined with a possible economic crisis, these are not the best conditions for generating public support. While reunification with Crimea was accepted with enthusiasm in Russian society for many reasons, a big war is unlikely to find such support.
In other words, the costs of a possible war far outweigh the benefits. The war is fraught with significant risks to the economy, political stability and Russian foreign policy. It fails to solve key security problems, while it creates many new ones.
The question arises—to whom and under what conditions is this scenario beneficial? First of all, it is attractive precisely as a hypothetical rather than a real situation. In this form, it makes it possible to consolidate Ukraine on an anti-Russian basis, to seek the expansion of Western military aid, and to justify such aid to the West. The threat of war and an exercise of power can also be used by the Russian side. Moscow shows that it is technically ready for a radical scenario and will not allow its “red lines” to be crossed. These “red lines” include a military solution to the Donbass problem. In other words, the scenario has a practical meaning as a tool for information warfare and political signals.
From the point of view of the balance of benefits and losses, neither side is interested in a real war. Therefore, it is hardly worth considering the war scenario as a likely one. However, history knows many examples when rational calculations have failed to put an end to escalation. There is only the hope that this isn’t the case here.
Related
RIAC Director of Programs, RIAC Member, Head of "Contemporary State" program at Valdai Discussion Club, RIAC member.
7. Fighting The Last (Cold) War – OpEd
Nice alliteration here: "reflexive decline denial deepens the damage done to US interests."
Excerpts:
It is important to remember that elites on both sides of the formal political aisle continued to work together throughout and after America’s Vietnam adventure. During the Watergate hearings Democrats and Republicans argued hard over whether President Richard Nixon broke the law, but both sides agreed on how to run the proceeding. In the 1980, President Ronald Reagan and Democratic leaders in Congress continued to dispute major issues while cooperating to keep the American political system working.
That changed when Newt Gingrich and the Republican Right took over the House of Representatives in 1995. Gingrich poisoned politics by refusing to treat political opponents with respect and shaming any Republican willing to do so. He engineered a precipitous, poorly prepared impeachment of Bill Clinton that cost Gingrich and his successor – but not Clinton – their jobs. The Democrats later proved just as vindictive when they undertook a first impeachment of Donald Trump so lacking credibility that it undermined a second impeachment effort based on Trump’s very real encouragement of supporters who attacked the US Capitol last January 6.
In short, the US was divided but functional in the 1970s. It is fractured and dysfunctional now. In this context reflexive decline denial deepens the damage done to US interests and residual power by failures abroad and hatreds at home. The United States retains considerable assets and capabilities and, with self-examination and some semblance of leadership, could conduct a successful management of a global position that is going to continue to recede. However, as things stand the odds on such a constructive future are not good.
Fighting The Last (Cold) War – OpEd
By David B. Kanin*
The argument goes as follows: The United States lost the war in Vietnam in 1975. Less than two decades later the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Empire in eastern Europe collapsed, and then the Soviet Union itself imploded. The US had won the Cold War. Therefore, there is no reason to overate China’s rise and failures of US strategy and leadership in Syria, Afghanistan, the South China Sea, and elsewhere. America still can restore its luster and reassert its global predominance, just as it did after 1975. Sure, the country faces serous internal divisions, but these also existed in the 1960s and 1970s. China may seem powerful but it faces serious economic problems that will limit its capability to challenge the American hyperpower. Pessimists were wrong when they predicted the Japan of the 1970s and 1980s would overtake the US as the world’s leading innovator and they will be wrong now when they make the same predictions about China. The US and Democracies in general are resourceful and resilient and, with the right leadership and policies, once again can regain their balance and retain their teleological power.
Every now and then, the term “cognitive dissonance” comes up in common parlance. It refers to the experience facing information or events that upend a person’s or a community’s core beliefs and self-confidence. This is an emotional as well as rational process and leads to anxiety as well as a crisis in logic.
What sometimes gets lost in the use of this concept is a companion term coined by those who first studied cognitive dissonance and necessary to its understanding [2]. “Dissonance reduction” is the process by which one discounts the unsettling information or development and rationalizes reasons and feelings that prove the uncomfortable person or conventional wisdom has been right all along. The feeling of disorientation and anxiety is soothed and the individual or community returns to comfortable cognitive and affective inertia.
Minimizing China’s challenge and the misuse of the Vietnam analogy are examples of the use of dissonance reduction to assuage cognitive dissonance and to avoid the anxiety of taking seriously the structural causes of US global decline and internal weakening. Perhaps I am not the only person who finds the narrative spin of America’s failure in Vietnam as a good news story to be more than a little perverse.
So, consider differences between the Vietnam era and current conditions. First, global power dynamics were much more favorable to the US then than now. In both periods the US, Russia (Soviet Union), and China were the major international actors (Europe, then as now, was more a theater of others’ actions than a credible international player). Whenever three is the relevant geopolitical number two actors line up against the third. In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split and clashes along those countries’ northern borders in 1969 the US and China found common cause against Soviet power. Starting with the “Ping Pong Diplomacy” of the early 1970s and accelerating after Deng Xiaoping came to power, China began absorbing knowledge, technology, and resources from the US while the Soviet model proved rigid, rickety, and unsustainable. China perched in a winning corner of the triangle.
Now, Moscow and Beijing are lined up against Washington. That they have different goals is irrelevant – China and Russia agree that weakening American power is a prerequisite to whatever else each has in mind. Their diplomacies, militaries, and – most likely – intelligence services cooperate to undermine American interests and positions on every continent and over every issue. China inhabits a comfortable corner of the triangle. The US, does not, even taking into account its residual alliance network.
Second, the Soviet Union was a global military power and had significant human resources in science and technology, but it never was a serious economic rival to the United States It never threatened US global dominance in any area but that of brute force. China clearly is an economic powerhouse. Deng, unlike the Soviet leadership, conceived and successfully implemented flexible adaptation of Communist Party rule to the needs of material development. His visionary approach to overtaking US advantages through a combination of dialogue, innovation (buttressed by skillful, persistent technology theft), and military buildup continues to guide his successors. China’s “Belt and Road” initiative is something the Soviet Union could never have dreamed of, much less implemented.
Third, China’s current status as a largely regional rather than global rival to the United States likely makes it more willing to confront the United States with hard power than was the Soviet Union. The Soviets and Americans competed in all places and on all levels but — as proved during both Berlin crises – no piece of ground or issue was considered worth the danger of what both Moscow and Washington feared would be a catastrophic nuclear war. China is moving toward world power status but its growing might will not cause it to deviate from its single minded focus on retaking Taiwan and establishing command in its western Pacific back yard. An analogous situation might have existed if the United States faced off against an existing Soviet hegemony in, say, Florida. Cuba, which never was part of the US, was not the same thing.
Make no mistake – Taiwan is a domestic Chinese issue, not a matter of international law or of some notional rules based international order. Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 the UN and most governments – including the United States – have agreed that there exists one China and Taiwan is part of it. The only question has been whether that one China is governed by Beijing or Taipei. In the 1970s the US concocted rhetorical logic to explain why it could establish formal diplomatic relations with China while maintaining a security relationship with Taiwan. That arrangement was synchronically convenient for the US but global acknowledgment of one China was and remains a diachronically powerful weapon for Beijing.
- When it deems itself ready China will attempt to retake Taiwan one way or another. Success would mark an event which would be celebrated in China as was the fall of the Berlin Wall in the West.
Fourth, the internal disintegration of the United States now is deeper and more dangerous than was the social and racial discontent of the 1960s and 1970s. As is often noted, the US always has suffered from serious internal divisions caused by its history of racism, economic dislocations, inequalities, and regional divides. However, for the country’s first century and a half of existence two oceans protected squabbling Americans from outside powers. Even its former British master came to realize messing about in America was not worth the effort. Then, as the US came to global power all possible competitors – whether friends or foes – wiped themselves off the playing board twice within twenty years in world wars that were devastating to them but enriched an America relatively immune to physical attack. Those unique conditions are gone and will not reoccur. Therefore, the US no longer has the luxury of being able to engage in domestic street fighting without suffering diminution of its international hard and soft power.
It is important to remember that elites on both sides of the formal political aisle continued to work together throughout and after America’s Vietnam adventure. During the Watergate hearings Democrats and Republicans argued hard over whether President Richard Nixon broke the law, but both sides agreed on how to run the proceeding. In the 1980, President Ronald Reagan and Democratic leaders in Congress continued to dispute major issues while cooperating to keep the American political system working.
That changed when Newt Gingrich and the Republican Right took over the House of Representatives in 1995. Gingrich poisoned politics by refusing to treat political opponents with respect and shaming any Republican willing to do so. He engineered a precipitous, poorly prepared impeachment of Bill Clinton that cost Gingrich and his successor – but not Clinton – their jobs. The Democrats later proved just as vindictive when they undertook a first impeachment of Donald Trump so lacking credibility that it undermined a second impeachment effort based on Trump’s very real encouragement of supporters who attacked the US Capitol last January 6.
In short, the US was divided but functional in the 1970s. It is fractured and dysfunctional now. In this context reflexive decline denial deepens the damage done to US interests and residual power by failures abroad and hatreds at home. The United States retains considerable assets and capabilities and, with self-examination and some semblance of leadership, could conduct a successful management of a global position that is going to continue to recede. However, as things stand the odds on such a constructive future are not good.
*David B. Kanin is an adjunct professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University and a former senior intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Intelligence Community, or any other IU.S. Government agency.
Footnote:
- Check out the “new rhetoricians” of the 1950s and Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics,” (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976), chapter 11.
8. Three Laws Turn Up Heat On China’s Territorial Disputes – OpEd
Excerpt:
Geopolitical experts have long referred to these new set of regulations as the classic activity of ‘lawfare.’ Major General Charles Dunlap Jr. of the US Airforce (retired) explains the word lawfare as “a method of warfare where the law is used as a means of realizing a military objective.” Although China has provided a clarification that new laws will not affect existing treaties, it is evident that the economic giant is now shifting to aggressive policies which will spike tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. Amidst this, an uncomfortable question looms: Are these laws ticking time bombs?
Three Laws Turn Up Heat On China’s Territorial Disputes – OpEd
By Ashutosh S Patki
The Senkaku Island dispute with Japan, Macclesfield Bank, Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands dispute with Vietnam, variance over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India, disputes with North Korea over Baekdu Mountain and Jiandao, differences with the Philippines over the South China Sea, a 160,000 square kilometer land dispute with Russia, differences with Singapore over parts of South China Sea, and the list of Chinese dispute goes on and on…
China shares borders (land and water) with more than 13 nations and has a conflict with nearly all of them. As it gains a prominent position in the world order, neighboring nations face the brunt of its growth. Its foreign policy has always been expansionist and recently passed three contentious laws concerning its land border as well as marine boundary, indicating a more aggressive approach to its future expansion. These laws passed are: the Land Boundary Law, Maritime Law, China Coast Guard Law.
On October 23, 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the apex legislative body of China, passed the Land Boundary Law to protect the country’s land border areas. The law authorizes the use of weapons against ‘illegal crossers.’ China said that the step was taken in response to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, which shares a narrow border with China. The law further specifies that Beijing shall take steps to strengthen border defense and ensure economic and social development in the border areas, along with improving public services and infrastructure. It focuses on encouraging and supporting people’s working lives. The promotion of coordination between border defense and social, economic development in border areas is another part of the law’s focus; and it could well be applied with regard to China’s other land disputes with countries such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Mongolia, and Tibet.
The newly passed Maritime Law by the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) of China is designed to control the entry of foreign vessels in ‘Chinese territorial waters.’ Before entering these areas, foreign vessels, commercial as well as military, must obtain permission from the Chinese administration, otherwise they face a penalty. “This law is developed for the purposes of strengthening maritime traffic management, maintaining the maritime traffic order, ensuring the safety of life and property, and safeguarding the rights and interests of the state”, stated the official statement. China currently has maritime disputes with Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Singapore, and Brunei.
In January 2021, the country passed the China Coast Guard (CCG) law which grants its maritime law enforcement fleets permission to use lethal force against foreign ships sailing in waters that the government lays claim to. Neighboring countries have alleged that the law is an attempt to exert dominance by military means, and that it is meant to challenge the territorial status quo in the region. Moreover, the implementation of such a law is a blatant violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS). As The Diplomat writes: “Article 21 of the CCG Law stipulates that if a foreign warship or government vessel violates China’s domestic law in waters where China claims jurisdiction, the CCG will take enforcing measures, up to and including forced eviction and towing.” The CCG is permitted by article 22 to use weapons against foreign organizations and individuals that contravene China’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction at sea. It further adds that articles 32, 95, and 96 of UNCLOS maintain that warships and government ships are absolutely immune from the jurisdiction of any country other than the flag state. Thus, these laws point to growing Chinese assertiveness which directly challenges international law and the global rules-based order.
India’s incumbent Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, in his book entitled The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, highlights the fact that India’s approach toward China is changing against the backdrop of China’s rise. He writes: “India is not the only country focused on coming to terms with a significantly more powerful China. In fact, the entire world is doing so, and each nation is refashioning its terms of engagement in its own way.” He further adds that if there is a common approach, it is of them simultaneously strengthening capacities internally, evaluating the external landscape, and seeking understandings with China.
Geopolitical experts have long referred to these new set of regulations as the classic activity of ‘lawfare.’ Major General Charles Dunlap Jr. of the US Airforce (retired) explains the word lawfare as “a method of warfare where the law is used as a means of realizing a military objective.” Although China has provided a clarification that new laws will not affect existing treaties, it is evident that the economic giant is now shifting to aggressive policies which will spike tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. Amidst this, an uncomfortable question looms: Are these laws ticking time bombs?
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com
9. Russia’s Power Games Extend to the Orthodox Church
Excerpts:
The State Department’s designation of Russia as a Country of Particular Concern on November 17 for having engaged in or tolerated “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom” was a move in the right direction. However, Foggy Bottom sent the wrong message by ignoring the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) recent recommendationto designate Syria as a Country of Particular Concern and place Turkey on its Special Watch List.
An effective pushback against Russia also requires calling out the Kremlin’s partners in crime. If the Biden administration would like to avoid promoting a culture of impunity for autocratic regimes, it should heed USCIRF’s call and correct its course next year.
Russia’s Power Games Extend to the Orthodox Church
Pushing back against Russia’s multipronged assault on the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which includes Putin and Erdogan’s coordinated pressure on an institution they see as posing a threat to their respective illiberal projects, requires devising and implementing a concerted transatlantic strategy.
by Aykan Erdemir Paul Gadalla
Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, on November 7 returned to his seat in Istanbul following a sixteen-day visit to the United States. Bartholomew is the spiritual leader of nearly 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide and the first among equals of Orthodox church leaders. During his trip, Bartholomew received an honorary doctorate at Notre Dame University and met with U.S. president Joe Biden at the White House.
The trip wasn’t without any mishaps though. The eighty-one-year-old patriarch landed in the hospital twice, adding to concerns over his health as he celebrates thirty years on the ecumenical throne. His meetings with top U.S. officials also made him a target of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns. Pro-Russian websites claimed that the patriarch insulted other Orthodox hierarchs and that he teamed up with the U.S. State Department to “invade the Ukrainian Church territory.”
Such allegations are categorically false, much like Moscow’s earlier smear campaigns against Bartholomew. Shortly after Turkey’s failed coup attempt in 2016, the pro-Kremlin Oriental Review published an article—falsely labeling Arthur Hughes, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, as the author—that purported to implicate Bartholomew alongside the CIA as an architect of the coup. Moscow, nevertheless, hopes that such lies, which Turkey’s pro-government media also amplify, will tarnish Bartholomew’s image and paint him as a mere tool of the West.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate, based in Istanbul since the fourth century, carries significant geopolitical weight, which puts it in the crosshairs of Orthodox-majority Russia. Given that a majority of the world’s Orthodox Christians live in former Iron Curtain countries, many of which have joined or would like to join NATO to escape the Kremlin’s domination, Russian-language journalists have long alleged that the Ecumenical Patriarch is a proxy for American and NATO interests.
Russia has also repeatedly claimed over the past decade that its own Moscow Patriarchate should be the mother church of Orthodox Christians instead of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Russian church intensified its attacks when Bartholomew agreed in 2019 to allow Ukrainians to form their own autocephalous church separate from the Moscow Patriarchate, shearing off one-third of its parishes. The move caused Moscow to break communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, effectively severing ties.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate has managed to carry on despite Russia’s attempts to undermine the institution. Moscow’s interference in the Orthodox world is not limited to attacks on the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s seat in Istanbul, such as a multi-year attempt by Russian hackers to steal the emails of Bartholomew’s senior aides. Since its intervention in the Syrian Civil War in 2015, Moscow has also portrayed itself as a protector of the Middle East’s dwindling Orthodox Christian minority while accusing the Ecumenical Patriarchate of being in the CIA’s hands. In Lebanon, over the last decade, Russia sponsored the now-defunct pro-Orthodox Levant Party and opened a cultural center in 2018 in predominantly Christian Mount Lebanon. Meanwhile, in Syria, Russian president Vladimir Putin has extended his influence over the patriarchate of Antioch, the spiritual seat of the Levant’s Orthodox Christians. Locally known as the “Roum” community, the Greek Orthodox of the Levant are a wealthy and influential minority. Russia has vowed to help rebuild churches and has met with the local patriarch. And although mum on Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s much-criticized conversion of the original Hagia Sophia into a mosque, Putin has offered to build a replica of the church in the province of Hama—home to an Orthodox population and one of the first cities retaken by the Syrian regime.
It is only recently that the Greek and Cypriot governments have begun doing some outreach to the Roum community in hopes of drawing them back from Russia’s orbit toward the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Greece and Cyprus also reopened their embassies in Damascus and have sent representatives to the Orthodox communities in Syria and Lebanon.
Pushing back against Russia’s multipronged assault on the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which includes Putin and Erdogan’s coordinated pressure on an institution they see as posing a threat to their respective illiberal projects, requires devising and implementing a concerted transatlantic strategy. A good start for the United States and European Union would entail imposing sanctions against authoritarian regimes that violate religious freedoms and minority rights.
The State Department’s designation of Russia as a Country of Particular Concern on November 17 for having engaged in or tolerated “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom” was a move in the right direction. However, Foggy Bottom sent the wrong message by ignoring the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) recent recommendationto designate Syria as a Country of Particular Concern and place Turkey on its Special Watch List.
An effective pushback against Russia also requires calling out the Kremlin’s partners in crime. If the Biden administration would like to avoid promoting a culture of impunity for autocratic regimes, it should heed USCIRF’s call and correct its course next year.
Aykan Erdemir is senior director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament. Follow him on Twitter: @aykan_erdemir
Paul Gadalla is an independent analyst and researcher, writing on a wide range of socioeconomic and security issues. He was previously a Beirut-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter: @BoulosinDC. The views expressed in this piece are his own.
Image: Reuters.
10. China, Russia ambassadors urge to stop using 'value-based diplomacy' to provoke division, confrontation
Values are a threat to China and Russia. They fear value based alliances and political arrangements.
China, Russia ambassadors urge to stop using 'value-based diplomacy' to provoke division, confrontation - China.org.cn
视频播放位置
Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang attends a virtual conversation jointly held by the Carter Center and the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations in Washington, D.C., the United States, Sept. 22, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]
Chinese and Russian ambassadors urged to stop using "value-based diplomacy" to provoke division and confrontation at this critical time that stronger coordination and cooperation are in urgent need in addressing an array of global challenges including the COVID-19 and climate change.
Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang and Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov made the remarks in their co-authored article Respecting People's Democratic Rights published on The National Interest website on Friday.
Calling the upcoming U.S.-led so-called online "Summit for Democracy" "an evident product of its Cold-War mentality," the ambassadors said the event will "stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world, creating new 'dividing lines.'"
"This trend contradicts the development of the modern world. It is impossible to prevent the shaping of a global polycentric architecture but could strain the objective process," they said, adding "China and Russia firmly reject this move."
The ambassadors noted peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom are common values of humanity. Democracy is not a prerogative of a certain country or a group of countries, but a universal right of all peoples. "It can be realized in multiple ways, and no model can fit all countries," they added.
Whether a country's path works depends on whether it meets the country's realities, follows the trend of the times, and brings about economic development, social stability and progress, and better lives for the people, the article said. "Ultimately, it relies on the support of the people and will be proven by its contribution to human progress."
"Therefore, a basic criterion of democracy should be about the people, i.e. whether the people have the right to govern their country, whether their needs are met, and whether they have a sense of fulfillment and happiness," the ambassadors wrote.
"If the people are only awakened when casting their votes and sent back to hibernation when the voting is over, if they are served with sweet-sounding slogans in campaigns but have no say after the election, if they are wooed during canvassing but left out in the cold after that, this is not a genuine democracy," they added.
What China has is an extensive, whole-process socialist democracy, which reflects the people's will, suits the country's realities, and enjoys strong support from the people, the article said.
File photo taken on April 15, 2016 shows Anatoly Antonov during an interview with Xinhua in Moscow, Russia. [Photo/Xinhua]
Russia is a democratic federative law-governed state with a republican form of government, the article said, noting that democracy is the fundamental principle of Russia's political system.
"Democracy is not just about domestic governance; it should also be reflected in international relations. A truly democratic government will support democracy in international relations. It will not foster hegemony and division abroad while building democracy and unity at home," the ambassadors said, noting "the path to prosperity of nations goes through respectful cooperation with each other, despite some differences in views on particular issues."
They said the sovereignty, security, and development interests of a country should not be violated, noting that interfering in other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of fighting corruption, promoting democratic values, or protecting human rights, hindering their development, wielding the big stick of sanctions, and even infringing on their sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity "go against the UN Charter and other basic norms of international law and are obviously anti-democratic."
International affairs should be handled in accordance with the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and decided in the spirit of true multilateralism, the ambassadors said. "Seeking supremacy and putting oneself always first are acts of hegemonism and unilateralism, and are obviously anti-democratic."
There has seen no shortage of wars and turmoil worldwide to prove that spreading "democracy," its political system, and values against other countries' will severely undermine regional and international peace, security, and stability, the ambassadors said, adding bombings of Yugoslavia, military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and "democratic transformation" do nothing but harm.
They called on countries to focus on running their own affairs well, instead of condescendingly criticizing others. "Certain foreign governments better think about themselves and what is going on in their homes. Is it freedom when various rallies in their countries are dispersed with rubber bullets and tear gas? It does not look very much like freedom," said the ambassadors.
Faced with an array of global challenges, countries urgently need to strengthen coordination and cooperation for common progress, especially today when the international community needs to improve cooperation between all countries to counter the pandemic, foster economic development, and neutralize cross-border threats, said the ambassadors.
"China and Russia call on countries: to stop using "value-based diplomacy" to provoke division and confrontation; to practice mutual respect and win-win cooperation in international relations, and to work for harmonious coexistence between countries with different social systems, ideologies, histories, cultures, and development levels," concluded the ambassadors.
11. Can Cold War History Prevent U.S.-China Calamity?
Note the use of Thinking in Time in the last section heading. Although not specifically referenced it is now a relatively old book (1980s) that is still timely.
Can Cold War History Prevent U.S.-China Calamity?
Learning the Right Lessons of the Past
November 29, 2021
In February 1961, at the outset of his presidency, John F. Kennedy wrote a personal letter to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. While deploring the overall state of affairs in relations between the two countries, the new president argued that “if we could find a measure of cooperation on some of these current issues this, in itself, would be a significant contribution to the problem of insuring a peaceful and orderly world.” Kennedy went on to explain how the two leaders could achieve such cooperation:
I think we should recognize, in honesty to each other, that there are problems on which we may not be able to agree. However, I believe that while recognizing that we do not and, in all probability will not, share a common view on all of these problems, I do believe that the manner in which we approach them and, in particular, the manner in which our disagreements are handled, can be of great importance…. I believe we should make more use of diplomatic channels for quite informal discussion of these questions, not in the sense of negotiations …, but rather as a mechanism of communication which should, insofar as is possible, help to eliminate misunderstanding and unnecessary divergencies, however great the basic differences may be.
Kennedy’s approach back then helped save the peace, even during some of the darkest moments of the Cold War. Today, leaders of the United States and China must take a similar approach—as both sides seemed to acknowledge at the recent “virtual” summit. “It seems clear to me,” said U.S. President Joe Biden, “that we need to establish some common-sense guardrails.” Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed: “China and the United States need to increase communication and cooperation.”
The question of whether U.S.-China competition bears much resemblance to the Soviet-American Cold War has become highly contested. When a group of American and Chinese historians of the Cold War (the two of us included) met last summer to discuss the comparison, there was considerable disagreement about both the accuracy and value of the analogy. But most agreed that it offered at least some lessons for managing tensions between the United States and China today. Given how intense and dangerous the rivalry between today’s two great powers has become, rather than fixating on disagreements about the analogy, both scholars and policymakers should consider those lessons—especially when it comes to the essential tasks of facilitating stability and reducing the risk of unnecessary conflict.
DON’T ASSUME
Strategic misunderstanding—of the intentions and capabilities of rivals, of the international situation, even of one’s own position—played a major role in the escalation of the Cold War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union over-emphasized the aggressive intentions of the other and stressed irreconcilable domestic political, institutional, and cultural differences as justification for massive military build-ups. Guided by grand narratives that stressed confrontation, both frequently misinterpreted the other’s motives.
Strategic misunderstanding was especially evident during crises. Washington, for example, thought the outbreak of the Korean War was a prelude to a Soviet global offensive, and therefore carried out an unprecedented mobilization that militarized its Cold War strategy. Beijing, in turn, thought intervention in Korea was essential to its own survival after the United States sent naval forces into Taiwan Strait and its troops crossed the 38th parallel. In both Vietnam and Afghanistan, fear of exploitation by the other side generated costly military interventions.
The U.S. and China must rely on analysis from experts who know the other side well.
Today, China and the United States can both work to better understand the strategic aims of the other side. Many Americans now believe that China has a strategy to replace the United States as the predominant global power, while many Chinese think that the United States is intent on curtailing China’s rise. Such assumptions should be tested against concrete actions. Both Washington and Beijing must learn to rely on trustworthy analysis from experts who know the other side well, and to avoid regarding interpreting any friction in terms of worst-case scenarios.
This is especially true with regard to regional rivalry. During the era of détente, the United States and the Soviet Union managed to achieve a basic level of trust when it comes to the other side’s actions in Europe. China and the United States should strive towards achieving the same in eastern Asia, even as competition between the two sides continues. While absolute strategic distrust tends to maximize and militarize competition, efforts at confidence-building help allay misunderstanding, even when these measures cannot by themselves resolve underlying conflict.
HONORING GUESTS
Personal diplomacy was an essential part of this effort. During the Cold War, leaders in the United States and the Soviet Union often used diplomatic means and personal contacts to convey respect of the other side as a great power, even as they worked to stymie its strategic designs. Such efforts made competition easier to manage and, ultimately, easier to resolve as ideological and political tensions began to ease. A degree of mutual respect also made it easier to pull back from the brink in some of the Cold War’s most dangerous confrontations, such as the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 or the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.
In the case of U.S.-China relations during the Cold War, the real breakthrough came when U.S. President Richard Nixon went to Beijing himself—making both him and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, revered figures in China, despite their being anti-Communists acting to advance their own country’s national interest. Nixon and Kissinger frequently stressed their high regard for their hosts, despite vast differences in worldview, as did Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who stuck to their principles even while honoring their guests. Such mutual respect facilitated the transition of from hostility to normalization.
Technology today makes it more difficult to stick to principles while honoring guests. What leaders say in public (and often in private) is immediately available to both domestic and foreign audiences, making it all too easy to prioritize rhetoric that may satisfy one side’s public opinion while appearing disrespectful and confrontational to the other. Even if the tone of conversations behind closed doors is civil, harsh public remarks—such as those by made both sides in Anchorage last March—make any compromise difficult. On such occasions, both sides should remember the value of conveying basic respect for the others’ position as a great power, even while speaking out on matters of concern. And in planning high-level encounters—especially between the two country’s presidents—policymakers should choose both a setting and format with such objectives in mind.
ALL CONFLICT IS LOCAL
In an intense rivalry, local conflicts can easily become entangled with great-power interests—as happened in, among other flashpoints, Berlin, Cuba, Korea, and the Middle East during the Cold War. It took adept crisis management, by diplomats, military officers, and political leaders, to ensure that none of these confrontations led to global war.
Such crisis management relied on a number of steps by both sides, starting with the pursuit of limited and flexible objective. During the Berlin crises, the Soviets did not try to move into West Berlin or the United States and its allies into East Berlin. In the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy administration focused on withdrawal of Soviet nuclear missiles rather than overthrow of Fidel Castro or the total elimination of the Soviet presence in Cuba. Both sides must also leave space for the other to de-escalate, since unilateral de-escalation rarely happens when critical interests are at stake. In the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. policymakers designed and implemented a maritime quarantine with particular caution, rather than following traditional naval blockade procedures, in order to allow Soviet de-escalation (while also promising, through back-channels, to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey and not to invade Cuba). The Soviets, accordingly, could accept withdrawing their missiles from Cuba as an acceptable option given the risk of nuclear war.
In such crisis situations, communication was especially important: with emotions running high and high-level meetings off the table, there must be effective lines of communications to reduce the risk of miscalculation and identify shared crisis-management objectives. Traditional diplomatic channels were often inadequate for such purposes, but back channels—such as those used during the Cuban Missile Crisis—must be developed before the crisis begins. They must also be supplemented by effective command and control, and by efforts to manage relations with allies, to avoid third-party escalation. All major Cold War crises involved third parties, which often pursued their own objectives incompatible with de-escalation and crisis management. The only way to manage third party policies and objectives was through direct communication between the two Superpowers. The insights gained from such exchanges could also help each of them shape third party behavior.
Mutual respect made it easier to pull back from the brink.
Crisis management is always difficult and inherently risky. Cold War policymakers learned over time that their best option was to do what they could to prevent crisis from breaking out in the first place. On the strategic level, this involved dialogues, hot-lines, and specific agreements on difficult issues such as Berlin. On the operational level, the two sides developed to codes of conduct to regulate military encounters. Beijing and Washington seem to have learned some of these lessons, reflected in measures such as the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) and hotlines between defense establishments. Nevertheless, neither side is doing enough to facilitate crisis prevention and communication, in particular with regard to cyber-issues and other new technologies.
During the Cold War, the potential for incremental improvement in great-power relations was often neglected in favor of the pursuit of fundamental changes. Given the intense ideological conflict and sharp regional confrontations, such neglect was understandable. Yet it meant many lost opportunities, in areas from joint research and people-to-people exchanges to agreements on non-intervention in certain regions. The focus on ideology also prevented both sides from using leadership transitions to facilitate improvements rather than introducing new risks (by giving the impression of seeking short-term gain by testing a new leader or renegotiating past understandings).
THINKING IN TIME
However inexact the Cold War analogy, policymakers today have a great deal to learn from this history—and from the historians who know it best.
Unfortunately, in both the United States and China, historians of international affairs interact with analysts and political leaders less frequently than they did a generation ago. Given the likelihood that relations between China and the United States are going to get worse before they can get better, it will take all the accumulated knowledge of the past to avert worst-case scenarios and find a way forward together.
LI CHEN is an associate professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China.
ODD ARNE WESTAD is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University.
12. Intelligence and Love - Geopolitical Futures
Interesting essay on intelligence analysis. George Friedman.
Conclusion:
Analysts must bury themselves in the countries and leaders they’re dealing with. It’s their job to know the leader’s mind, and to do that, passages like Matthew 5:44 are essential. Loving your enemy is the means to destroy him. Hating him blinds you to his fundamental strength: the fact that he believes deeply in his virtue. And if you don’t understand the pride and patriotism of someone like Putin, you will never contain him.
The public will inevitably draw moral judgments. It will make clever counters difficult but not impossible. But if the people charged with predicting the actions of nations succumb to the pleasures of moral judgment, then all is lost. There is no one I regard as more evil than Hitler, and I have probably spent more time in his head than in anyone else’s. I had to understand him, and that meant I had to feel what it meant to be him. I had to imagine the Western Front in World War I, his capture of a group of French soldiers single-handedly, the award of the Iron Cross, and then German capitulation. Imagine risking your life so others could surrender while you lay blinded by poison gas in a hospital. In “The Old Man and the Sea,” Ernest Hemingway’s title character said, “Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.” That is the strange logic of analysis.
Intelligence and Love - Geopolitical Futures
Intelligence and Love
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
November 26, 2021
1330
In the Bible, Matthew 5:44 enjoins you to love your enemies. The Jewish Passover Seder begins with the words, “Remember Laban the Syrian who injured our father Jacob.” These passages would suggest that Christianity is a religion of peace and forgiveness, while Judaism is a religion of war. But ignoring the fact that Christianity can be as warlike as any other religion, and Judaism as pacific, the paradox here is this: The greatest weapon of war is intelligence – understanding the enemy, his intentions and his capabilities. Without intelligence, wars are lost. The Christian notion of loving your enemy is the foundation of intelligence, and therefore of war.
It’s been said that you cannot grasp the enemy’s intentions without understanding him. I would put it more radically: You must become him. You must see what he sees as he does, fear what he fears, lust after what he lusts after, and from this understand what he will do and how he will do it because, being him, it is what you would do and how you would do it. If you hate your enemy, the hatred will blur your vision, telling you things that you believe about him rather than the things he believes. Analysis is therefore a form of madness whereby you split yourself in two, merging one part with the enemy and stowing away part of yourself for safekeeping.
I thought of this dilemma after I wrote a recent piece called “Russia’s Move.” A few people wrote to me asserting that I did not mention the evil of Russian President Vladimir Putin or the primitive nature of Russian culture. The charges were true insofar as I excluded moral judgment. To understand Russia’s moves, I needed to see the situation as Putin or a Russian would. I am a Hungarian refugee whose family fled Soviet power, so my own view might comport with those of my critics. But I cannot permit myself the comfort of moral superiority. I must understand them as they understand themselves.
The idiosyncrasies of conflict are such that it’s rare to find leaders or warriors who think of themselves as evil. They think the others are evil. They think they are the protectors of decency. Adolf Hitler did not think he was immoral, nor did millions of others. Putin would say that the U.S. violated fundamental understandings with Russia made at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union and that the evil arrogance of the United States is responsible for all that has followed. He would say that the ruthless American actions of overthrowing a constitutionally elected president in Ukraine violated all norms of decency. This is not a hypothetical argument; it’s one that I’ve heard from numerous Russians.
If your goal is to defeat an enemy, you must first understand his nature fully, and you can’t do that if your goal is to feel morally superior. The question of who is worse might make for a worthwhile conversation in a Viennese coffee shop, where you will always prove your superiority to your own satisfaction, but it does not win wars. I have had to put myself in the place of many leaders and nations at various times. And in embracing them, I found none who thought they were evil.
Here’s another example. Not so long ago, the Japanese invaded China. The U.S. demanded that the Japanese withdraw from China. Japan refused. Washington proceeded to freeze Japanese assets in the United States, interfered with Tokyo’s ability to buy oil, and sought to cripple its economy. The Japanese concluded that if they compromised, they would be permanently subservient to the U.S. They went to war believing that the United States started the war.
The debate of who was in the right and who wasn’t is a subject for moralists. The American problem is that it did not anticipate what Japan would do and was therefore surprised at Pearl Harbor. It was surprised because it saw Japan as evil, not as it saw itself. The U.S. could not predict that Japan would choose war and did not imagine its people were brave and bright enough to hit Pearl Harbor. U.S. intelligence analysts didn’t understand the fear the U.S. engendered or how recklessly the U.S. was acting. Washington therefore failed to avoid war or at least failed to control its opening. It’s true that Japan committed atrocities in China. But in concentrating on how evil and stupidly wicked the Japanese were, the U.S. failed to imagine the possibility of American defeat.
So whether Putin is good or evil is a nice conversation to have. But if you want a sense of what he might be thinking, start with the fact that he doesn’t think he is evil and grasp what he is afraid of and confident in. Empathize with him. He is a former KGB officer and a patriot who watched his country collapse and be treated with disdain. Feel the pain he feels and then grasp how intelligent he is. Then it is possible you might catch a glimpse of his next move.
Analysts must bury themselves in the countries and leaders they’re dealing with. It’s their job to know the leader’s mind, and to do that, passages like Matthew 5:44 are essential. Loving your enemy is the means to destroy him. Hating him blinds you to his fundamental strength: the fact that he believes deeply in his virtue. And if you don’t understand the pride and patriotism of someone like Putin, you will never contain him.
The public will inevitably draw moral judgments. It will make clever counters difficult but not impossible. But if the people charged with predicting the actions of nations succumb to the pleasures of moral judgment, then all is lost. There is no one I regard as more evil than Hitler, and I have probably spent more time in his head than in anyone else’s. I had to understand him, and that meant I had to feel what it meant to be him. I had to imagine the Western Front in World War I, his capture of a group of French soldiers single-handedly, the award of the Iron Cross, and then German capitulation. Imagine risking your life so others could surrender while you lay blinded by poison gas in a hospital. In “The Old Man and the Sea,” Ernest Hemingway’s title character said, “Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.” That is the strange logic of analysis.
George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures.
Dr. Friedman is also a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book, THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, published February 25, 2020 describes how “the United States periodically reaches a point of crisis in which it appears to be at war with itself, yet after an extended period it reinvents itself, in a form both faithful to its founding and radically different from what it had been.” The decade 2020-2030 is such a period which will bring dramatic upheaval and reshaping of American government, foreign policy, economics, and culture.
His most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media. For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.
13. The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism
Excerpt:
In light of the UN’s anti-Israel bias, the United States currently deducts 22 percent of the budgets of Palestinian-specific bodies from Washington’s total contributions to the UN. The US should increase this number to 100 percent. The US should also launch a campaign to convince countries to vote against resolutions that empower the Palestinian-specific bodies. The US should help eliminate these bodies, which create double standards for Israel and set back the cause of peace.
The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism
The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com
November 25, 2021 3:18 pm
Opinion
The United Nations logo is seen at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
The United Nations reserves November 29, its International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, for robust anti-Israel activity. The day’s events inappropriately put the UN’s thumb on the scale in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, encouraging Palestinian obstinacy by normalizing Palestinian viewpoints.
November 29 marks the anniversary of the 1947 partition plan, which would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state in British Mandatory Palestine.
While the Jewish leadership accepted partition, Arab leaders rejected it, setting in motion more than seven decades of bloodshed. Now, many pro-Palestinian activists have embraced Solidarity Day as a repudiation of Israel’s existence.
In previous years, speakers at Solidarity Day events have falsely charged one of Israel’s founding fathers — David Ben-Gurion — with advocating ethnic cleansing; mendaciously accused Israel of perpetrating apartheid and ethnic cleansing; called for boycotts of Israel; and advocated a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which is a call to ethnically cleanse the land of Jews.
Related coverage
November 28, 2021 2:29 pm
According to the UN, Solidarity Day provides an opportunity to focus on how the Palestinians have yet to “attain their inalienable rights,” including “the right to return” to Israel, as a UN advertisement put it. Yet the Palestinian “right to return” is fictitious, according to many international law experts, since it rests on non-legally binding documents, including a General Assembly resolution. Forcing Israel to accept an influx of potentially hostile individuals would infringe on the Jewish state’s right to security — a recipe for promoting violence and strife.
The UN event’s advertisement also highlights the participation of “Palestinian activist” Mohammed El-Kurd. El-Kurd has previously praised the violence of the Second Intifada, which occurred between 2000 and 2005, for terrorizing Israelis; he has described all Israelis as terrorists; and he also called for ethnically cleansing the land of Jews. Just this month, El-Kurd justified the murder of an Israeli civilian in Jerusalem by posting an old photo of the victim in an army uniform and falsely calling him a settler — which, in any case, is not an open license for murder.
Solidarity Day is also sandwiched between the General Assembly’s 16 annual end-of-year resolutions promoting the Palestinian agenda and castigating Israel. One resolution, titled “Occupied Syrian Golan,” even deplores Israel’s presence in the Golan — without mentioning the Syrian regime’s butchering of over half a million of its own people.
These efforts also empower the UN’s various Palestinian-specific bodies. For example, the Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR) oversees Solidarity Day and maintains a unit devoted to promoting the Palestinian narrative. The DPR purports to promote Palestinian rights, but such rights often come at Israel’s expense: The Palestinians seek to end security measures designed to prevent terrorism, such as the blockade of Gaza, checkpoints, and the security barrier.
Another body is the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, which has a mandate to probe alleged Israeli crimes rather than Palestinian ones. The UN Register of Damages (UNRoD) helps Palestinians seek payment from Israel for hardships caused by Israel’s security barrier. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a refugee agency exclusively for Palestinians, keeps the Israeli-Palestinian conflict simmering by maintaining a uniquely expansive definition of refugees that enables their descendants to identify as such. In so doing, the agency encourages Palestinians to demand entry into Israel, rather than resettling and building a better life where they live.
Other UN bodies have Palestinian-specific divisions, such as the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s Assistance to the Palestinian People’s Unit. The Human Rights Council has a special rapporteur devoted to scrutinizing Israel; maintains a standing agenda item focused exclusively on Israel; and has assembled an ongoing commission of inquiry designed to punish Israelis in international courts.
In this context, the UN helps amplify the disparity between Palestinian expectations and reality. The UN ‘celebrated‘ Solidarity Day in 2012 by accepting the “State of Palestine” as a non-member observer state. This granted the Palestinians gains on paper without requiring any concessions to Israel. Yet the Palestinians can achieve real statehood only through negotiations with Israel, and a willingness to compromise. The UN’s activities make a Palestinian leadership — which has already rejected numerous Israeli peace offers — even less likely to compromise.
In light of the UN’s anti-Israel bias, the United States currently deducts 22 percent of the budgets of Palestinian-specific bodies from Washington’s total contributions to the UN. The US should increase this number to 100 percent. The US should also launch a campaign to convince countries to vote against resolutions that empower the Palestinian-specific bodies. The US should help eliminate these bodies, which create double standards for Israel and set back the cause of peace.
David May is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow David on Twitter at @DavidSamuelMay. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
14. China’s use of refueling aircraft during recent Taiwan sortie raises concern
China’s use of refueling aircraft during recent Taiwan sortie raises concern
Beijing deployed 18 fighter jets and five H-6 bombers along with the Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft, Taiwan says
Fox News contributor Kiron Skinner weighs in on the key foreign policy challenges facing the Biden administration.
China’s unusual decision to deploy a Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft during Sunday’s foray into Taiwan’s air defense buffer zone may be indicative of the country’s ambition to extend its military reach and capabilities in the region, according to a report.
On Sunday, Beijing deployed 18 fighter jets and five H-6 bombers, that have nuclear capabilities, Reuters reported. The report said that the Y-20 was likely used to refuel the fighters during the mission, which could help the country extend its military reach in any possible future confrontations.
FILE 2021: A Y-20 large transport aircraft of the Chinese People's Liberation Army PLA air force. (Photo by Xu Yi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Tingting Liu, a reporter for TVBS, a Taiwanese TV station, tweeted that it appears to be the first time that China deployed the Y-20 and analysts say its presence "significantly changes’ the game as fighters can stay longer mid-air now."
The Chinese aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone near the southern part of the island and out into the Pacific Ocean before returning to China, according to a map by Taiwan authorities.
China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, to be brought under its control by force if necessary. It refuses to recognize the island’s government and has increasingly sought to isolate the independence-leaning administration of President Tsai Ing-wen.
15. Assessing the Threat from Social Media Enabled Domestic Extremism in an Era of Stagnant Political Imagination
I nominate this article for the best title of the year.
Excerpts:
In “The Return of History and the End of Dreams[12],” Robert Kagan responded to Fukuyama by framing an international political struggle characterized by the rise of a new impulse toward autocracy, led by Russia and China. Kagan goes on to propose a “concert of world democracies” work together to challenge this new international autocratic threat. Kagan’s solution to “the end of dreams” is to awaken to the ideological struggle at hand and rise to its challenge of identifying and affirming our values and promoting the fulfillment of democratic political dreams abroad.
In the spirit of Kagan’s response to Fukuyama, America won’t rise to meet the dual challenges of social media’s capability to enable far-reaching social change and the inevitability of ideological struggle with domestic extremists until it accepts that history has not ended. Unless America can assertively identify and affirm its underlying national values, the convergence of information echo chambers with stagnant political imagination will continue to motivate this threat to U.S. national security. America has seen the warning signs in the headlines. History illustrates what this may portend if not abated. America’s enemies are many. Chief among them, however, is dreamless slumber.
Assessing the Threat from Social Media Enabled Domestic Extremism in an Era of Stagnant Political Imagination
David Nwaeze is a freelance journalist and former political organizer based out of the U.S. Pacific Northwest, who has spent over two decades among the U.S. left. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.
Title: Assessing the Threat from Social Media Enabled Domestic Extremism in an Era of Stagnant Political Imagination
Date Originally Written: November 19, 2021.
Date Originally Published: November 29, 2021.
Author and / or Article Point of View: The author contends that despite efforts by legislators and social media platforms to reduce online mediated domestic extremism, America’s political stagnation is a chief contributor to the appeal of extremist movements to the domestic public at large.
Summary: Social media is enabling domestic extremism. Where recruitment and incitement to action once took a great deal more effort for domestic extremists, they can now instantly attract much larger audiences through social media. While some may blame social media echo chambers for the growth of domestic extremism in recent years, equally culpable is stagnant political imagination within the U.S.
Text: The threat of social media enabled domestic extremism in the U.S. is all too real today. Below are some recent examples:
– An 18-year-old Army National Guardsman murders two of his housemates in Tampa, Florida[1]. A fourth is later arrested, tried, and convicted of possessing explosive material. All four are members of a Neo-Nazi organization that’s been built up in the preceding years through social media chatrooms.
– A drive-by shooting takes the life of a security guard on contract with the Federal Protective Service at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, California[2]. The following weekend, a suspect in the attack kills a Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sergeant and injures a deputy seeking to arrest him in relation to the attack. This suspect – along with another man – is arrested. Both suspects were part of an online subculture organized mainly over social media, oriented around preparing for or inciting a second American Civil War, or “boogaloo.”
– A mob of rioters storms the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C.[3]. In the conflagration, there were five deaths and an unknown number of injuries[4]. To date, 695 individuals have been charged with crimes associated with this event[5]. Inspired by a mix of social media-mediated conspiracy theories, the January 6th attack would go on to wake America up to the real-world threat imposed by online extremism.
As we enter 2022, Americans are witnessing an uneasy calm following a violent awakening to the threat of social media enabled domestic extremism. What got us here? It is easy to look at recent history as moments in the process of evolution for online radicalization and mobilization toward violence:
– Email list-servs are used in 1999 to organize the shutdown of the World Trade Organization’s conference in Seattle[6]
– Al Qa’ida uses early social media as a propaganda and recruitment tool[7]
– The Islamic State dramatically improves this technique[7]
To understand where we are, the fundamental character of the present American mediascape needs examination. Today’s mediascape is unlike anything in human history. The internet provides an immense capability for anyone with a connection to transmit ideas and information at nearly instantaneous speeds worldwide. With this opportunity, however, comes the deep risk of information bottlenecks. According to SEO marketing strategist Brian Dean[8], “93.33% of [the] 4.8 billion global internet users and 85% of [the] 5.27 billion mobile phone users are on social media.” This means that the most popular social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc) substantially impact how internet users connect to news, information, and ideas.
Additionally, in late October 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked documents now known as The Facebook Papers[9]. In her testimony since the leak, she has identified the moral hazard faced by social media companies as their “engagement-based metrics” create “echo chambers that create social norms” which exacerbate the “normalization of hate, a normalization of dehumanizing others.” In her words, “that’s what leads to violent incidents[10].” In a threat-free environment, this would be worrying enough on its own. However, the American people face many ideological opponents – both at home and abroad – who seek to leverage this media space to violent ends. To understand U.S. vulnerability to these threats, let’s examine the underlying character of our political environment since “the end of history.”
In “The End of History and the Last Man[11],” Francis Fukuyama presents a case for liberal democracy as the apotheosis and conclusion of historical ideological struggle as viewed through the Hegelian lens. In his words, the end of the Cold War brought us to “the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Stemming from this, Fukuyama holds that humanity, once having achieved this “end-point,” would reach a condition in which “here would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled.” In other words, he concludes that humanity is no longer capable of achieving far-reaching social change. This political theory – and the phenomenon it sought to characterize – found its expression during the 1990s in the rise of neoliberalism, and its attendant policy shifts, in the anglo-American political space away from the welfare state and toward finance capital mediated economic goals. Such subsequent ideas have come to define the limits of the American political space.
In “The Return of History and the End of Dreams[12],” Robert Kagan responded to Fukuyama by framing an international political struggle characterized by the rise of a new impulse toward autocracy, led by Russia and China. Kagan goes on to propose a “concert of world democracies” work together to challenge this new international autocratic threat. Kagan’s solution to “the end of dreams” is to awaken to the ideological struggle at hand and rise to its challenge of identifying and affirming our values and promoting the fulfillment of democratic political dreams abroad.
In the spirit of Kagan’s response to Fukuyama, America won’t rise to meet the dual challenges of social media’s capability to enable far-reaching social change and the inevitability of ideological struggle with domestic extremists until it accepts that history has not ended. Unless America can assertively identify and affirm its underlying national values, the convergence of information echo chambers with stagnant political imagination will continue to motivate this threat to U.S. national security. America has seen the warning signs in the headlines. History illustrates what this may portend if not abated. America’s enemies are many. Chief among them, however, is dreamless slumber.
Endnotes:
[5] Hall, M., Gould, S., Harrington, R., Shamisian, J., Haroun, A., Ardrey, T., and Snodgrass, E., (2021, November 16). 695 people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection so far. This searchable table shows them all. Retrieved November 19, 2021 from: https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1
[6] Arquilla, J., & Ronfeldt, D. (2001). Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy. RAND Corporation.
[11] Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press.
[12] Kagan, R. (2009). The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Vintage.
16. We Know Almost Nothing About the Omicron Variant
We Know Almost Nothing About the Omicron Variant
Here’s everything we do.
Omicron, also known as B.1.1.529, was first detected in Botswana and South Africa earlier this month, and very little is known about it so far. But the variant is moving fast. South Africa, the country that initially flagged Omicron to WHO this week, has experienced a surge of new cases—some reportedly in people who were previously infected or vaccinated—and the virus has already spilled across international borders into places such as Hong Kong, Belgium, Israel, and the United Kingdom. Several nations are now selectively shutting down travel to impede further spread. For instance, on Monday, the United States will start restricting travel from Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi.
It’s a lot of news to process, and it comes without a lot of baseline knowledge about the virus itself. Scientists around the world are still scrambling to gather intel on three essential metrics: how quickly the variant spreads; if it’s capable of causing more serious disease; and whether it might be able to circumvent the immune protection left behind by past SARS-CoV-2 infections or COVID-19 vaccines, or evade immune-focused treatments such as monoclonal antibodies. All are risks because of the sheer number of mutations Omicron appears to have picked up: More than 30 of them are in SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, the multi-tool the virus uses to crack its way into human cells—and the snippet of the pathogen that’s the central focus of nearly all of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines. Alterations like these have been spotted in other troublesome variants, including Alpha and Delta, both of which used their super-speedster properties to blaze across the globe. (Omicron is only a distant cousin of both, not a direct descendant.) If—if—Omicron moves even faster than its predecessors, we could be in for another serious pandemic gut punch.
But it’s way too early to know if that’ll be the case. What’s known so far absolutely warrants attention—not panic. Viruses mutate; they always do. Not all variants of concern turn out to be, well, all that concerning; many end up being mere blips in the pandemic timeline. As Omicron knocks up against its viral competitors, it may struggle to gain a toehold; it could yet be quelled through a combination of vaccines and infection-prevention measures such as masks and distancing. Vaccine makers have already announced plans to test their shots’ effectiveness against the new variant—with data to emerge in the coming weeks—and explore new dosing strategies that might help tamp down its spread. Omicron might be set up for some success, but a lot of its future also depends on us.
To help put Omicron in perspective, I caught up with Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious-disease physician, virologist, and global-health expert at Emory University. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Katherine J. Wu: Why don’t we yet know for sure how worried we need to be about Omicron?
Boghuma Kabisen Titanji: What we do know about the variant is this: Some of its spike-protein mutations have been seen in other variants and other lineages described earlier on in the pandemic, and have been associated with increased transmissibility and the ability of the virus to evade the immune response. What we don’t know, and what is really hard to predict, is what the combination of mutations will do together. This particular variant now appears to be outcompeting other circulating variants in South Africa—there have been these clusters of cases. That is actually what led to this variant being identified in the surveillance systems that they have in place there. That raises the concern that the variant is more transmissible or may be escaping the effects of the immune response induced by vaccines or infection from earlier strains. But we really don’t know that for sure yet.
The disconnect is this: The surveillance systems have worked exactly in the way they are designed to. It makes us know what to look out for. However, when these systems pick up a signal, we don’t immediately get the epidemiologic data we need to know all of the impacts a new variant can have. That takes time. Right now, we have a limited number of [viral genomic] sequences, and a limited number of cases. Now the alert is out. People will start looking for this new variant, not only in the countries that initially reported on this, but now worldwide. There’s now a search to make sure this variant is well-characterized. That’s when we will gain a better understanding of whether it’s causing more severe disease, how much it is escaping immunity, and how transmissible it is.
It’s important to keep in mind that other variants of concern have emerged before, including immune-evasive variants like Beta, which was first identified in South Africa, but eventually petered out.
Wu: Could we have seen the arrival of Omicron coming?
Titanji: Viruses are going to evolve regardless of what we do. There are things we can do to slow that down: barrier measures [such as masking], vaccinating. And there are things that we can do that can maybe speed up or aid the evolution of the virus. One is if we’re not doing what we need to do to prevent spread of the virus within the population. Every time a virus spreads, it gets another opportunity to infect a new host, and it gets another opportunity to evolve and change and adapt.
All of this means that it is worth having a conversation about whether the slow rollout of vaccines globally has had an impact. In certain parts of the world, not enough people have been given a measure of protection to allow them to be able to withstand infection, and to slow down transmission of the virus. Are we actually giving the virus an opportunity to spread unrestricted in certain places and drive its evolutionary trend? It’s basically exposing ourselves to the emergence of more variants. So this was predictable. If the virus has the opportunity to spread unchecked in the population, then we’re giving it multiple ways in which to evolve and adapt.
If we had ensured that everyone had equal access to vaccination and really pushed the agenda on getting global vaccination to a high level, then maybe we could have possibly delayed the emergence of new variants, such as the ones that we’re witnessing.
Wu: We’re still dealing with Delta, a previous variant of concern. Where do we go from here?
Titanji: A good place to start is reminding people that we are definitely not where we were two years ago, when SARS-CoV-2 emerged. We now have a better understanding of how the virus is transmitted from person to person. We have antivirals that are coming down the pike. We have a better understanding of how to manage and treat cases of people who do get infected. We have vaccines and incredible mRNA technology that allows us to adapt quickly to a changing virus, and we will have second-generation vaccines. It’s definitely not back to square one.
Secondly, this does not mean that the vaccines that people have are now completely useless—the doses they have received are not null and void. We have not yet seen a variant of concern emerge that has been able to completely escape the effect of vaccines. The immunity from the vaccines may be less protective, which may translate into more post-vaccine infections from a new variant, if it takes off. But that is yet to be determined.
We also know that a booster dose really does boost the antibody response. A new variant could dent the [protection offered by the immune system], but that usually happens in degrees. There is still going to be immune responsiveness from previous immunizations, and infections from ancestral versions of the virus. It may simply mean that you need more of those antibodies to be able to neutralize that new variant of concern. We also have T cells, which play a role and may not be as impacted by the variant.
This variant could not have chosen a worse time to emerge. We’re in flu season. This is a time when respiratory viruses tend to spread quite efficiently. And we are in the holiday season, and there’s a lot of traveling, and a lot of people getting together with family. But it’s certainly not the time for people to let their guard down, or relax on nonpharmaceutical interventions. People have to be mindful of wearing their mask when they’re out in public, or in crowded areas with people whose vaccination status they may not know. People have to be mindful of getting tested when they feel unwell, and isolating appropriately and doing all of those things that we have learned how to do over the course of the past two years, and that we know are effective in mitigating the spread of virus. The same measures will still work while we figure out just what this new variant means for us. Get your boosters. We’ll figure it out.
Wu: Several countries instituted travel bans this week, many of them primarily focused on African countries, where surveillance systems detected Omicron not long ago. How big of an impact might that make?
Titanji: Historically, there is a lot of evidence that by the time a travel ban is instituted, the virus has already gone … and potentially well beyond the borders of the countries that [the ban is] restricting travel from. Instituting travel bans as a knee-jerk reaction can send the wrong message to countries that are contributing to the global effort of virus surveillance. We could end up disincentivizing countries from reporting because they fear retaliation. There are other measures that could be taken to ensure that travel is safe. For example, to get an international flight, you have to be fully vaccinated as a requirement for most countries, or show proof of negative tests.
We will be better served if we put the emphasis on the countries that have seen the highest number of cases of this new emerging variant: providing them with the resources to actually contain the variant, and making sure that they have the resources for testing, for isolating cases, for doing the science that we need to better understand Omicron.
Wu: Some countries are already deep into their rollout of booster shots, and have, in recent months, lifted many restrictions; others are still barely making a dent in administering first doses. Regardless of where we go with Omicron, what does this say about our approach to COVID-19 as a global society?
Titanji: What this reiterates is that the world is so interconnected. We are in a global pandemic, and we cannot address this fully if we only have regional solutions. The solutions really have to be with a global mindset. And that global mindset means that the resources we have—vaccination, testing, access to therapeutics, and also the support to carry out appropriate surveillance—need to be equally accessible and equitably distributed in all parts of the world.
We can’t leave people behind. The virus will catch up with us regardless of where you are, regardless of what country you’re located in. You may be fully vaccinated, you may have had your booster, but you’re not that disconnected from the person who lives in a country where only 2 percent of the population is vaccinated, and who doesn’t have access to any of the treatments. We need to have less of an inward-looking focus. Because otherwise we’re just going to prolong how long we stay in this pandemic.
This story was originally published by The Atlantic. Sign up for their newsletter.
17. A Squabble About History Almost Killed Xi Jinping’s Father
Interesting history.
Excerpts:
Why was history so dangerous for the Xi family? As a member of the CCP, everything was political. These men and women who gave their lives to the CCP were enormously sensitive to how this all-encompassing political organization characterized their contributions to the revolution. Moreover, as I argue in my forthcoming book, for much of the CCP’s history, the most powerful source of authority for leaders has been their historic contributions to the party—and the most powerful weapon has been compromising material about someone else’s history.
In this kind of political environment, party leaders understand that history must be treated carefully. Compromise is essential, and compromise usually means adopting vague formulations, emphasizing victories, and avoiding blame. Ultimately, however, as the story of the Xi family shows, most party members accept that, even when narratives do not go in the direction they like, the party’s interests come first.
A Squabble About History Almost Killed Xi Jinping’s Father
Fights about the party’s past are serious business in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is the son of a revolutionary whose life was more shaped by the danger of competing narratives about party history than perhaps anyone else in his generation. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was persecuted for 16 years because of his support for a novel about party history. Now, his son has led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to a new “historical decision”—only the third in its hundred-year history—and one in which Xi junior is an extraordinarily prominent figure.
A new history resolution allows Xi to implicitly compare himself to illustrious predecessors such as Mao and Deng Xiaoping and present the CCP as a historic force uniquely capable of modernizing China. But the actual content of the document prioritizes continuity, treats several controversial subjects vaguely, and avoids assigning blame. Although the resolution acknowledges an accumulation of problems during his predecessors’ eras that only Xi is allegedly capable of solving, the Cultural Revolution is still characterized as a mistake and Reform and Opening Up a triumph. Xi uniquely understands why historical grudges and differing views about the past are so potentially explosive.
Xi Zhongxun was from the northwest, where the local CCP movement was far distant from the Central Soviet, the party’s core leadership, in the southern provinces of Jiangxi and Fujian. The Long March of 1934-35 would eventually bring the central party leadership to Shaanxi, but before that Xi and other Communists from the northwest went through vicious factional infighting that left behind mutual antagonisms that lasted decades. Personal and party histories became deeply intertwined, and the battles of the 1930s would shape CCP politics for decades. Wang Xiaozhong, who worked for the Central Advisory Council in the 1980s and helped manage those continuing debates over what happened 50 years earlier, wrote in his memoirs:
The scars left behind by brutal killings within the revolutionary units left a deep mark on their hearts forever, hurting them for their whole lives. … In party history propaganda, such a major historical event as the Northwest Issue was played down, skirted around, treated casually. As for the internal turmoil and butchery that are unbearable to look back on, they were simply not brought up.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is the son of a revolutionary whose life was more shaped by the danger of competing narratives about party history than perhaps anyone else in his generation. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was persecuted for 16 years because of his support for a novel about party history. Now, his son has led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to a new “historical decision”—only the third in its hundred-year history—and one in which Xi junior is an extraordinarily prominent figure.
A new history resolution allows Xi to implicitly compare himself to illustrious predecessors such as Mao and Deng Xiaoping and present the CCP as a historic force uniquely capable of modernizing China. But the actual content of the document prioritizes continuity, treats several controversial subjects vaguely, and avoids assigning blame. Although the resolution acknowledges an accumulation of problems during his predecessors’ eras that only Xi is allegedly capable of solving, the Cultural Revolution is still characterized as a mistake and Reform and Opening Up a triumph. Xi uniquely understands why historical grudges and differing views about the past are so potentially explosive.
Xi Zhongxun was from the northwest, where the local CCP movement was far distant from the Central Soviet, the party’s core leadership, in the southern provinces of Jiangxi and Fujian. The Long March of 1934-35 would eventually bring the central party leadership to Shaanxi, but before that Xi and other Communists from the northwest went through vicious factional infighting that left behind mutual antagonisms that lasted decades. Personal and party histories became deeply intertwined, and the battles of the 1930s would shape CCP politics for decades. Wang Xiaozhong, who worked for the Central Advisory Council in the 1980s and helped manage those continuing debates over what happened 50 years earlier, wrote in his memoirs:
The scars left behind by brutal killings within the revolutionary units left a deep mark on their hearts forever, hurting them for their whole lives. … In party history propaganda, such a major historical event as the Northwest Issue was played down, skirted around, treated casually. As for the internal turmoil and butchery that are unbearable to look back on, they were simply not brought up.
Mao Zedong during what is thought to be the Long March in Shaanxi, China, circa 1934-1935. Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images
When the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), turned against the CCP in 1927 and began a bloody anti-communist purge, the party in Shaanxi was badly damaged. Subsequent uprisings and mutinies almost all ended in failure, and communication with the party center was poor. Power struggles became common. In February 1932, for instance, two prominent cadres, Xie Zichang and Yan Hongyan, secretly decided to execute Zhao Erwa, a close associate of Liu Zhidan, another legendary Shaanxi Communist. At a rally in Sanjiayuan, Xie declared that Zhao was a bandit and that his unit’s weapons would be confiscated; Zhao was shot dead as he started to realize what was happening. Xi joined the base camps shortly after the incident and became one of Liu’s favored proteges.
In 1935, Guo Hongtao and Zhu Lizhi led a purge in the region that culminated in the arrest of Xi, Liu, Gao Gang, and other prominent local Communists under the charge of “right-ism,” a term that referred to not adopting sufficiently radical policies. These men were only released when Mao and the rest of the party leadership happened to arrive in the region. Yet Mao did not fully reverse the verdicts—for many years, the cadres who suffered in the purge worked in low positions with a black mark on their record.
In 1936, Liu, Xi’s beloved mentor, died trying to demonstrate his loyalty to the CCP by showing personal valor on the battlefield. Zhou Enlai himself later said Liu “was trying to clean himself, to prove that he was not an agent. He preferred to charge ahead into battle to sacrifice himself.” Despite Liu’s valiant efforts, however, his record still included the verdict that he had “previously committed the serious mistake of rightism” when he died.
Since Xie Zichang had already died from a battlefield injury in 1935, Liu’s death the following year left the northwestern cadres without a leader whom both they and outsiders respected. This was a particularly tricky problem because of regional prejudices: As Mao noted, outside cadres often said, “What do locals understand? They’re country bumpkins!”
It was under these circumstances that Mao used his own interpretation of party history to “adopt” Xi and the other northwesterners. At the 1942 88-day Northwest Bureau High-Ranking Cadres meeting, Mao, himself determined to rewrite the history of the CCP in a way that would put the stamp on his final victory over internal opposition, helped shape a resolution on the Northwest Issue that defined its history as a microcosm of the party as a whole. Gao Hua, a historian of the Yanan era, noted that Mao was “making the resolution on the Northwest a test case for a resolution of the entire party.”
For the chairman to compare himself in such powerful terms to Liu, Xi, and Gao Gang must have been electric for these men who had suffered so much. At the meeting, Xi said, “If past history is not clarified, that means, in the future, the party in the border region will suffer major failure!”
One purpose of the new version of history was to install Gao as the undisputed leader of the northwesterners. Yet not everyone, especially Yan Hongyan, believed Gao had made enough contributions to deserve such a position. Yan, along with Zhu Lizhi and Guo Hongtao, rallied to oppose Gao, and recriminations were so severe that rumors spread that the party in northern Shaanxi would split when the party center left the region. According to Gao, some people spread rumors that “Xi Zhongxun is a baby, he didn’t do any work, he’s stupid and confused, he smokes opium, and so on.”
Therefore, another history discussion meeting on the Norwest Issue was held in 1945, at which Yan, Guo, and Zhu were mocked. In Xi’s own speech at the meeting, he emphasized that while it was “no big deal” if people did not know history, “the most damaging is the distortion and falsification of history.” Kang Sheng, a close ally of Mao, declared, “Gao Gang is the revolutionary leader of the northwest. Subsequently, no one is allowed to oppose him. Yan Hongyan’s opposition to Gao Gang is wrong.”
But this version of the northwest’s history was soon challenged. In 1953-54, Gao was the target of the first great purge of the People’s Republic of China. Goaded by Mao, Gao complained to many top elites about Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s named successor who was associated with the “white areas,” meaning underground CCP activities in KMT-controlled areas. Gao said it was inappropriate to equate the historical contributions of cadres in the white areas with those of cadres in the red areas (controlled by the CCP), and he was upset that the northwesterners were dismissed as “riffraff, bandits.”
Yet Gao had misunderstood Mao’s intentions. While Mao had likely only wanted to issue a warning to Liu, Gao, believing Mao’s intent was to remove Liu, went too far and started to tell people about private conversations with the chairman. Gao’s behavior became too dangerous, and Mao, with some regret, was forced to give up one of his cherished allies. Gao was subjected to outrageous accusations and killed himself.
Xi was upset with Gao’s machinations, which he thought were foolhardy, because they, as northwesterners, could never, in his mind, win the respect of people who had participated in the Long March. But Xi was also deeply frustrated by how Gao was treated. Xi was forced to perform multiple self-criticisms, managed by Deng Xiaoping, another rising star in the party, about his relationship with Gao. In 1958, Mao apologized to Yan Hongyan for ignoring his warnings against Gao. Deng encouraged Guo Hongtao and Zhu Lizhi to challenge the Yanan-era history decisions, and in 1959, the Central Supervisory Committee finished a report that absolved them of most of their crimes.
Chinese peasants work on a communal farm in the 1950s during the Great Leap Forward. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Also in 1959, Defense Minister Peng Dehuai was purged from the leadership because of his criticisms of the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s disastrous agricultural-industrial project that produced mass starvation. It was the second fall, after Gao, of a major party figure since the foundation of the People’s Republic. Xi and Gao were deeply linked to Peng—Xi was Peng’s top civilian lieutenant on the northwestern battlefield against the KMT, and Gao was the party boss in the northeast during the Korean War, during which he supported Peng’s forces on the front line.
As trends in official historiography were moving against Xi, and his old friend Peng was facing persecution, Li Jiantong, Liu Zhidan’s sister-in-law, pressured Xi to support a book she was writing about his old hero. Xi said no. He warned her that she did not understand the history well enough, it was too complicated, and it touched on too many people who might misunderstand what she was doing. Yet Li rallied other northwesterners to pressure Xi to support her, and he finally relented.
When excerpts of the novel, titled Liu Zhidan, appeared in 1962, Yan Hongyan complained that it was trying to rewrite party history. The top party leadership response was vicious. At the time, Mao was returning to the theme of class struggle after a brief period of rectification following the Great Leap Forward, and the chairman was worried about Peng’s attempts to achieve rehabilitation. The novel could not have appeared at a worse time. As the Chinese historian Xiao Donglian explains:
According to the logic of the time, writing about Liu Zhidan meant writing about Northern Shaanxi, writing about Northern Shaanxi meant writing about Gao Gang, Gao Gang and Peng Dehuai had already established an anti-party alliance, and Xi Zhongxun moreover was the commissar of the Northwest Field Army, Peng Dehuai’s old partner. Therefore, the “Gao, Peng, Xi anti-party clique” and the “Northwest anti-party clique” were formed.
Kang Sheng demanded that investigations into the book look for evidence that it propagated the ideas that “the northwest saved the party center” and “Gao Gang was the king of the northwest” and Xi his heir. Ultimately, Xi was forced to say he had tried to “use propagandizing a dead person to propagandize the living me.” Xi was fired from his position as vice premier, and Zhou told Xi’s wife, Qi Xin, to make sure he did not kill himself. In the end, some 20,000 people were persecuted, some fatally, as part of the “Xi Zhongxun anti-party clique.”
Xi Zhongxun in his office in July 1987. Xinhua News Agency via Redux Pictures
Xi only returned to work in 1978. According to Gao’s widow, Li Liqun, Xi was distressed when she asked him for support in rehabilitating Gao’s history:
Xi said while crying, “What can I say now? Everything is linked to me. … You also know I was investigated again over the Liu Zhidan novel. To be honest, I sympathized with Gao Gang. I felt very sad over his death. … Look, what could I say to the [Central Committee] now? Could a verdict on Gao Gang be done in a way that seeks truth from facts?”
When Li Jiantong told Qi Xin that she was campaigning for Liu Zhidan’s rehabilitation, she said, “Jiantong, absolutely do not appeal for justice. My husband was just released. As soon as you appeal, he will be thrown in jail again!” One high-ranking official told Li: “Comrade Zhongxun does not agree to rehabilitate you. He believes if you are rehabilitated, it would be bad for Chairman Mao.”
When all three volumes of Liu Zhidan were republished in the mid-1980s, again some of the northwesterners complained. Xi supported the party leadership’s decision that the book should be banned if Li did not make appropriate changes. Li refused to obey. In August 1986, she wrote directly to Xi:
I already do not understand you. Now, you have changed. You cannot resist the “leftist” opportunism, the repeated attacks of the factionalists. You are beaten with fear. Soon you’ll be a fool. … As soon as you fall into disarray, the “leftist” factionalists go drink in celebration. … This book should not be banned—the more it is banned, the more people will want to read it!
Yet the book was yet again pulled from shelves.
Ultimately, Gao was never rehabilitated, and Liu Zhidan was never published freely. In January 2000, Li Liqun called Li Rui, Mao’s former secretary, and told him that she had seen Xi in Shenzhen to discuss the matter of rehabilitating Gao Gang. She said: “Zhongxun was very agitated. He said even Chen Duxiu [one of the founders of the CCP who was later expelled from it] has been rehabilitated. … Gao’s verdict should be reversed.” In 2009, a publisher in Jiangxi tried to release all three volumes of Liu Zhidan. But again someone complained, and the book was banned a third time. In other words, even when Xi Zhongxun’s son was the party’s designated successor, Liu Zhidan still could not be published.
Xi Jinping, his wife, and daughter walk with Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, in an undated photo. Xinhua News Agency via Redux Pictures
Why was history so dangerous for the Xi family? As a member of the CCP, everything was political. These men and women who gave their lives to the CCP were enormously sensitive to how this all-encompassing political organization characterized their contributions to the revolution. Moreover, as I argue in my forthcoming book, for much of the CCP’s history, the most powerful source of authority for leaders has been their historic contributions to the party—and the most powerful weapon has been compromising material about someone else’s history.
In this kind of political environment, party leaders understand that history must be treated carefully. Compromise is essential, and compromise usually means adopting vague formulations, emphasizing victories, and avoiding blame. Ultimately, however, as the story of the Xi family shows, most party members accept that, even when narratives do not go in the direction they like, the party’s interests come first.
18. Giving Tuesday Recommendations
Dear Friends,
I do not normally do this (except I did this last year and for the last few years now, too) and I certainly do not mean to use my email distribution and news service for solicitation so please forgive me. I was asked for recommendations of organizations to support so I thought I would share with you the organizations to whom I give. I support six main causes: The Green Beret Foundation, The Small Wars Journal, The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Spirit of America, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, and the OSS Society (and I do also contribute to WAMU so I can get my daily dose of NPR as well as well as scholarship funds of various organizations of which I am an alum). As we near the end of the year and since it is "Giving Tuesday" (on November 30th) and people are making decisions to give to worthy causes I thought I would share this with you. Please give to your favorite organizations this year (despite the changes in the tax laws which may reduce the incentive for some to give). If you need a suggestion for giving please consider Spirit of America, The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, The Green Beret Foundation, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, the OSS Society, and Small Wars Journal. Lastly, I joined a new organization to help Afghan refugees, escape to safety, resettle, and integrate. Please consider supporting Shona ba Shona (shoulder to shoulder).
I would be remiss if I did not add the great organization to which I now belong, The Foundation for Defense of Democracy (a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy) which is a 501(c) research institute. It has the best mission for a retired Special Forces soldier (and anyone interested in national security and foreign policy): "FDD conducts in-depth research, produces accurate and timely analyses, identifies illicit activities, and provides policy options – all with the aim of strengthening U.S. national security and reducing or eliminating threats posed by adversaries and enemies of the United States and other free nations."
Shona ba Shona
The Committee For Human Rights in North Korea:
Spirit of America:
Green Beret Foundation:
Special Operations Warrior Foundation
OSS Society
Small Wars Journal:
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
