Quotes of the Day:
“It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.”
- Philip Pullman
“To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed. It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression”
- Rowan Atkinson
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
[The One Un-American Act, Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award (December 3, 1952)]”
- William O. Douglas
1. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has coronavirus, symptoms ‘mild’
2. Angst over China, Russia lessens chance of US nuke changes
3. Even My Business-School Students Have Doubts About Capitalism
4. Twitter permanently bans U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
5. Biden vows US to act decisively if Russia invades Ukraine
6. The United States Should Avoid Waging a Two-Front Cold War
7. Chinese ‘brain control’ warfare work revealed
8. Exclusive: Secret commandos with shoot-to-kill authority were at the Capitol
9. Rising Threat From China Pushes U.S. and Japan to Deepen Military Cooperation
10. US names two women to senior diplomatic posts for Afghanistan
11. Taiwan president warns China over 'military adventurism'
12. Why does the West think China wants global hegemony?
13. The English Voice of ISIS Speaks Out Against the Group
14. IntelBrief: Geopolitical Trends to Watch in 2022 - The Soufan Center
15. Stop counting warships. China's special-operations forces are Taiwan's real problem.
16. The Biden Team Knows Its Iran Policy Is Failing
17. 1 in 3 Americans say violence against government can be justified, citing fears of political schism, pandemic
18. U.S. on Sidelines as China and Other Asia-Pacific Nations Launch Trade Pact
1. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has coronavirus, symptoms ‘mild’
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has coronavirus, symptoms ‘mild’
In a statement released Sunday evening, Austin said he took the test after “exhibiting symptoms” related to the fast-spreading virus. He described his symptoms as mild and said he was working with his doctors to limit any health complications.
“Stemming the spread of this virus, safeguarding our workforce and ensuring my own speedy and safe recovery remain my priorities,” he said. “To the degree possible, I plan to attend virtually this coming week those key meetings and discussions required to inform my situational awareness and decision making.
“I will retain all authorities [related to his military leadership role]. Deputy Secretary [Kathleen] Hicks will represent me as appropriate in other matters.”
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The head of the Oklahoma National Guard has ordered unvaccinated airmen to stay home from drill weekends.
Austin said he had informed the president of his diagnosis on Sunday. The pair have not been in the same room since Dec. 21, a week before Austin said he felt any symptoms of the virus.
The White House did not provide any immediate statement on the diagnosis.
Austin said he received both the COVID-19 vaccination early last year and a booster shot in early October. He said doctors told him that “my fully vaccinated status … have rendered the infection much more mild than it would otherwise have been. And I am grateful for that.”
All active-duty troops and federal civilian workers were required to get coronavirus vaccines last year in an effort to limit the spread and severity of the virus. Defense officials have also said they are considering mandating the booster for all troops, but have not yet made any final decisions.
Austin re-emphasized his support for the shots in his statement Sunday.
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The department recorded more than 27,000 cases on Thursday morning, almost 30 percent above its January high.
“The vaccines work and will remain a military medical requirement for our workforce,” he said. “I continue to encourage everyone eligible for a booster shot to get one. This remains a readiness issue.”
Austin is not the first Cabinet-level official in the Biden administration to test positive for COVID-19, nor the first senior Pentagon official.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tested positive in late October, and in November 2020, Anthony Tata, who was serving as the undersecretary of defense, tested positive.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
Joe Gould is the Congress and industry reporter at Defense News, covering defense budget and policy matters on Capitol Hill as well as industry news.
2. Angst over China, Russia lessens chance of US nuke changes
Key summary here:
It’s unclear whether Biden will approve any significant change in what is called “declaratory policy,” which states the purpose of nuclear weapons and the circumstances under which they might be used.
The Obama administration, with Biden as vice president, stated in 2010 that it would “only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.” It did not define “extreme circumstances.”
Eight years later, the Trump administration restated the Obama policy but got more specific. “Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
Some believed that Biden as president would go a different direction, following his own advice on a “no first use” pledge. He said in a January 2017 speech: “Given our non-nuclear capabilities and the nature of today’s threats, it’s hard to envision a plausible scenario in which the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States would be necessary, or make sense.”
But some argue that China and Russia this year have changed “today’s threats,” perhaps keeping Biden on a cautious path.
Angst over China, Russia lessens chance of US nuke changes | AP News
AP · by ROBERT BURNS · January 3, 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House nearly a year ago seemed to herald a historic shift toward less U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons and possibly a shrinking of their numbers. Even an American “no first use” pledge — a promise to never again be the first to use a nuclear weapon — seemed possible.
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Now, major shifts in U.S. nuclear weapons policy seem much less likely, and while Biden may insist on certain adjustments, momentum toward a historic departure from the Trump administration’s policy appears to have stalled.
The outlook will be clearer when the Biden administration completes its so-called nuclear posture review — an internal relook at the numbers, kinds and purposes of weapons in the nuclear arsenal, as well as the policies that govern their potential use. The results could be made public as early as January.
The biggest unknown is how forcefully Biden will weigh in on these questions, based on White House calculations of the political risk. During his years as vice president, Biden talked of new directions in nuclear policy. But heightened concerns about China and Russia would seem to improve the political leverage of Republicans seeking to portray such change as a gift to nuclear adversaries.
Russia became a more urgent focus of Biden’s attention after President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks sent an estimated 100,000 troops to positions near Ukraine’s border and demanded U.S. security guarantees. Biden and Putin discussed Ukraine by phone on Thursday, and senior American and Russian officials are scheduled to follow up with more detailed talks in Geneva on Jan. 9-10.
Tom Z. Collina, policy director at Ploughshares Fund, an advocate for nuclear disarmament, says the China and Russia problems complicate the politics of Biden’s nuclear review but should not stop him from acting to reduce nuclear dangers.
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“We do not want a new nuclear arms race with either nation and the only way to prevent that is with diplomacy,” Collina said. “We must remember the main lesson we learned in the Cold War with Russia — the only way to win an arms race is not to run.”
“Both Beijing and Moscow have invested heavily in efforts meant to check U.S. strengths and prevent us from defending our interests and allies around the world,” the guidance said. Biden pledged to counter with actions to strength the United States at home, repair its alliances abroad and elevate the role of diplomacy. Nuclear weapons were mentioned only briefly.
“We will take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy,” the guidance said without offering details, while also ensuring a safe and reliable U.S. nuclear force and seeking arms control opportunities.
“Because of what China has done, it has really changed the complexion of this review,” says Robert Soofer, who was the Pentagon’s top nuclear policy official during the Trump administration and led a 2018 nuclear review.
“Rather than it being a review that examines reducing the role of nuclear weapons and even eliminating a leg of the triad, now they’ve been obliged to basically stay the course and determine how to tweak it at the margins.”
“And so, obviously Russia is the wolf closest to the shed as it relates to the nuclear issue, but close behind is China’s desire to grow their nuclear arsenal, both quantitatively and qualitatively,” Kahl said June 23 at a nuclear policy conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Kahl did not preview the policy review outcome, but he said it is intended to fit inside a broader defense strategy, which also is to be published early in 2022.
The Pentagon has not publicly discussed details of the nuclear review, but the administration seems likely to keep the existing contours of the nuclear force — the traditional “triad” of sea-, air- and land-based weapons, which critics call overkill. It also may embrace a $1 trillion-plus modernization of that force, which was launched by the Obama administration and continued by Trump.
It’s unclear whether Biden will approve any significant change in what is called “declaratory policy,” which states the purpose of nuclear weapons and the circumstances under which they might be used.
Eight years later, the Trump administration restated the Obama policy but got more specific. “Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
Some believed that Biden as president would go a different direction, following his own advice on a “no first use” pledge. He said in a January 2017 speech: “Given our non-nuclear capabilities and the nature of today’s threats, it’s hard to envision a plausible scenario in which the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States would be necessary, or make sense.”
But some argue that China and Russia this year have changed “today’s threats,” perhaps keeping Biden on a cautious path.
AP · by ROBERT BURNS · January 3, 2022
3. Even My Business-School Students Have Doubts About Capitalism
Excerpts:
My M.B.A. students who doubt the benefits of capitalism see the various ways in which government policy has ensured the system’s survival. For instance, limits on monopoly power have preserved competition, they argue, and government spending during economic crises has forestalled greater catastrophe.
They also see that something is missing. These young people, who have grown up amid considerable pessimism, are looking for evidence that the system can do more than generate prosperity in the aggregate. They need proof that it can work without leaving people and communities to their fate. Businesses will—I hope—keep pushing for greater globalization and promoting openness to technological change. But if they want even M.B.A. students to go along, they’ll also need to embrace a much bolder agenda that maximizes opportunities for everyone in the economy.
Even My Business-School Students Have Doubts About Capitalism
A generation raised amid major economic turmoil needs more reassurance that an open economy won’t leave people and communities behind.
During a lecture in my Modern Political Economy class this fall, I explained—as I have to many students over the course of four decades in academia—that capitalism’s adaptation to globalization and technological change had produced gains for all of society. I went on to say that capitalism has been an engine of wealth creation and that corporations seeking to maximize their long-term shareholder value had made the whole economy more efficient. But several students in the crowded classroom pushed back. “Capitalism leaves many people and communities behind,” one student said. “Adam Smith’s invisible hand seems invisible because it’s not there,” declared another.
I know what you’re thinking: For undergraduates to express such ideas is hardly news. But these were M.B.A. students in a class that I teach at Columbia Business School. For me, those reactions took some getting used to. Over the years, most of my students have eagerly embraced the creative destruction that capitalism inevitably brings. Innovation and openness to new technologies and global markets have brought new goods and services, new firms, new wealth—and a lot of prosperity on average. Many master’s students come to Columbia after working in tech, finance, and other exemplars of American capitalism. If past statistics are any guide, most of our M.B.A. students will end up back in the business world in leadership roles.
If these students are harboring doubts about the free market, business leaders need to take notice. An economy open to change depends on public support; voters need to believe that the system of private enterprise works to broad benefit. But many Millennial and Generation Z Americans have come of age amid dislocations that give even M.B.A. students pause about capitalism.
The more I thought about it, the more I could see where my students were coming from. Their formative years were shaped by the turbulence after 9/11, the global financial crisis, the Great Recession, and years of debate about the unevenness of capitalism’s benefits across individuals. They are now witnessing a pandemic that caused mass unemployment and a breakdown in global supply chains. Corporate recruiters are trying to win over hesitant students by talking up their company’s “mission” or “purpose”—such as bringing people together or meeting one of society’s big needs. But these gauzy assertions that companies care about more than their own bottom line are not easing students’ discontent.
Over the past four decades, many economists—certainly including me—have championed capitalism’s openness to change, stressed the importance of economic efficiency, and urged the government to regulate the private sector with a light touch. This economic vision has yielded gains in corporate efficiency and profitability and lifted average American incomes as well. That’s why American presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama have mostly embraced it.
Yet even they have made exceptions. Early in George W. Bush’s presidency, when I chaired his Council of Economic Advisers, he summoned me and other advisers to discuss whether the federal government should place tariffs on steel imports. My recommendation against tariffs was a no-brainer for an economist. I reminded the president of the value of openness and trade; the tariffs would hurt the economy as a whole. But I lost the argument. My wife had previously joked that individuals fall into two groups—economists and real people. Real people are in charge. Bush proudly defined himself as a real person. This was the political point that he understood: Disruptive forces of technological change and globalization have left many individuals and some entire geographical areas adrift.
In the years since, the political consequences of that disruption have become all the more striking—in the form of disaffection, populism, and calls to protect individuals and industries from change. Both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have moved away from what had been mainstream economists’ preferred approach to trade, budget deficits, and other issues.
Economic ideas do not arise in a vacuum; they are influenced by the times in which they are conceived. The “let it rip” model, in which the private sector has the leeway to advance disruptive change, whatever the consequences, drew strong support from such economists as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, whose influential writings showed a deep antipathy to big government, which had grown enormously during World War II and the ensuing decades. Hayek and Friedman were deep thinkers and Nobel laureates who believed that a government large enough for top-down economic direction can and inevitably will limit individual liberty. Instead, they and their intellectual allies argued, government should step back and accommodate the dynamism of global markets and advancing technologies.
But that does not require society to ignore the trouble that befalls individuals as the economy changes around them. In 1776, Adam Smith, the prophet of classical liberalism, famously praised open competition in his book The Wealth of Nations. But there was more to Smith’s economic and moral thinking. An earlier treatise, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, called for “mutual sympathy”—what we today would describe as empathy. A modern version of Smith’s ideas would suggest that government should play a specific role in a capitalist society—a role centered on boosting America’s productive potential (by building and maintaining broad infrastructure to support an open economy) and on advancing opportunity (by pushing not just competition but also the ability of individual citizens and communities to compete as change occurs).
The U.S. government’s failure to play such a role is one thing some M.B.A. students cite when I press them on their misgivings about capitalism. Promoting higher average incomes alone isn’t enough. A lack of “mutual sympathy” for people whose career and community have been disrupted undermines social support for economic openness, innovation, and even the capitalist economic system itself.
The United States need not look back as far as Smith for models of what to do. Visionary leaders have taken action at major economic turning points; Abraham Lincoln’s land-grant colleges and Franklin Roosevelt’s G.I. Bill, for example, both had salutary economic and political effects. The global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic alike deepen the need for the U.S. government to play a more constructive role in the modern economy. In my experience, business leaders do not necessarily oppose government efforts to give individual Americans more skills and opportunities. But business groups generally are wary of expanding government too far—and of the higher tax levels that doing so would likely produce.
My students’ concern is that business leaders, like many economists, are too removed from the lives of people and communities affected by forces of change and companies’ actions. That executives would focus on general business and economic concerns is neither surprising nor bad. But some business leaders come across as proverbial “anywheres”—geographically mobile economic actors untethered to actual people and places—rather than “somewheres,” who are rooted in real communities.
This charge is not completely fair. But it raises concerns that broad social support for business may not be as firm as it once was. That is a problem if you believe, as I do, in the centrality of businesses in delivering innovation and prosperity in a capitalist system. Business leaders wanting to secure society’s continuing support for enterprise don’t need to walk away from Hayek’s and Friedman’s recounting of the benefits of openness, competition, and markets. But they do need to remember more of what Adam Smith said.
As my Columbia economics colleague Edmund Phelps, another Nobel laureate, has emphasized, the goal of the economic system Smith described is not just higher incomes on average, but mass flourishing. Raising the economy’s potential should be a much higher priority for business leaders and the organizations that represent them. The Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce should strongly support federally funded basic research that shifts the scientific and technological frontier and applied-research centers that spread the benefits of those advances throughout the economy. Land-grant colleges do just that, as do agricultural-extension services and defense-research applications. Promoting more such initiatives is good for business—and will generate public support for business. After World War II, American business groups understood that the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe would benefit the United States diplomatically and commercially. They should similarly champion high-impact investment at home now.
To address individual opportunity, companies could work with local educational institutions and commit their own funds for job-training initiatives. But the U.S. as a whole should do more to help people compete in the changing economy—by offering block grants to community colleges, creating individualized reemployment accounts to support reentry into work, and enhancing support for lower-wage, entry-level work more generally through an expanded version of the earned-income tax credit. These proposals are not cheap, but they are much less costly and more tightly focused on helping individuals adapt than the social-spending increases being championed in Biden’s Build Back Better legislation are. The steps I’m describing could be financed by a modestly higher corporate tax rate if necessary.
My M.B.A. students who doubt the benefits of capitalism see the various ways in which government policy has ensured the system’s survival. For instance, limits on monopoly power have preserved competition, they argue, and government spending during economic crises has forestalled greater catastrophe.
They also see that something is missing. These young people, who have grown up amid considerable pessimism, are looking for evidence that the system can do more than generate prosperity in the aggregate. They need proof that it can work without leaving people and communities to their fate. Businesses will—I hope—keep pushing for greater globalization and promoting openness to technological change. But if they want even M.B.A. students to go along, they’ll also need to embrace a much bolder agenda that maximizes opportunities for everyone in the economy.
This piece is adapted from Hubbard’s book
4, Twitter permanently bans U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
Look, the Congresswomen says idiotic things, things that are dangerous to our democracy. But I have to defend her right to say them as the famous quotes goes. I would rather her being able to make the statements than to have the government. or private businesses decide what can be said.
We are going to have to get this social media space right.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Voltaire
"In our Constitution, it is said that we have freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In my mind, unless that freedom is total, it is no freedom at all." - Akshaye Khanna
Twitter permanently bans U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) listens as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., July 29, 2021. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) on Sunday said it permanently banned the personal account of Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for tweets that repeatedly violated the social media's misinformation policy on COVID-19.
The congresswoman from Georgia is the first member of Congress to ever have a Twitter account permanently banned.
Twitter has previously issueda short-term suspension for Greene's account, @mtgreenee, for tweets about COVID that it called "misleading". At least two other Republican members of the House have received temporary suspensions on Twitter -- Jim Banks and Barry Moore.
"Twitter is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth," Greene said in a statement on messaging app Telegram, adding that social media platforms "can't stop the truth from being spread far and wide. Big Tech can’t stop the truth. Communist Democrats can't stop the truth."
The official account of the congresswoman, @ReptMTG, remains active on Twitter and has 390,000 followers, slightly less than the 465,000 on her banned personal account.
Greene has come under fire before for remarks on the pandemic. Last June she apologized after comparing COVID-19 mask requirements and vaccinations to the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews.
Last January, Twitter temporarily locked Greene's account after she sparred with a state election official over voter fraud allegations.
Twitter and several other social media platforms banned former President Donald Trump from their services after his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Reporting Katanga Johnson in Washington; Additional reporting by Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
5. Biden vows US to act decisively if Russia invades Ukraine
It would be logical to assume that if we mean this that we would not take any options off the table, especially the use of military force to protect our interests. Also taking the use of military force off the table would seem to weaken our negotiating position.
Biden vows US to act decisively if Russia invades Ukraine | AP News
AP · by AAMER MADHANI · January 2, 2022
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden conferred on Sunday with Ukraine’s leader over the Russian troop buildup near its border with Ukraine, promising that the U.S. and allies will act “decisively” if Russia further invades Ukraine.
Biden and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call came as the U.S. and Western allies prepared for a series of diplomatic meetings to try to de-escalate a crisis that Moscow said could rupture ties with Washington.
“President Biden made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement following the call.
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Psaki added that Biden underscored his commitment to the principle of “nothing about you without you,” the tenant that it won’t negotiate policy that impacts Europe without its allies’ input.
Biden has spoken of hitting Russia with economy-jarring sanctions if it moves on Ukraine’s territory, but he said last month that U.S. military action is not on the table.
The Kremlin has demanded that any further expansion of NATO exclude Ukraine and other former Soviet countries. The Russians have also demanded that the military alliance remove offensive weaponry from countries in the region.
The White House has dismissed Russia’s demands on NATO as a non-starter. A key principle of the NATO alliance is that membership is open to any qualifying country. And no outsider has membership veto power. While there’s little prospect that Ukraine would be invited into the alliance anytime soon, the U.S. and its allies won’t rule it out.
Zelenskyy said in a Twitter posting after Sunday’s call that “keeping peace in Europe, preventing further escalation, reforms, deoligarchization were discussed.”
“We appreciate the unwavering support,” Zelenskyy said.
The United States has made little progress in efforts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease tensions. Senior U.S. and Russian officials are scheduled to meet Jan. 9-10 in Geneva to discuss the situation. Those talks are to be followed by meetings at the NATO-Russia Council, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
Biden spoke with Putin for nearly an hour on Thursday. He told reporters the next day that he warned Putin that his economy would pay a “heavy price” if Russia, which has massed some 100,000 troops near the border, made further moves against Ukraine.
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“I’m not going to negotiate here in public, but we made it clear that he cannot — I emphasize cannot — move on Ukraine,” Biden said Friday..
Biden said he told Putin it was important for the Russians to take steps before those meetings toward easing the crisis. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, in describing the presidents’ conversation this past week, said Biden’s pursuit of sanctions “could lead to a complete rupture of relations between out countries and Russia-West relations will be severely damaged.”
U.S. intelligence findings indicate Russia has made preparations for a potential invasion in early 2022. But White House officials say it remains unclear whether Putin has already made a decision to move forward with military action.
Still, Biden said he remained hopeful for the upcoming talks. White House officials say they will consult closely with Western allies
“I always expect if you negotiate you make progress, but we’ll see,” he said Friday. ”We’ll see.”
Past military incursions by Putin loom large as Biden weighs his next steps.
In 2014, Russian troops marched into the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and seized the territory from Ukraine. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was one of the darker moments for President Barack Obama on the international stage.
The U.S.-Russia relationship was badly damaged near the end of President George W. Bush’s administration after Russia’s 2008 invasion of its neighbor Georgia after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered his troops into the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he feared that Putin was intent on invading Ukraine and “nothing other than a level of sanctions that Russia has never seen will deter him.”
“Russia needs to understand we are united in this,” Schiff told “Face the Nation” on CBS. ”I also think that a powerful deterrent is the understanding that if they do invade, it is going to bring (NATO) closer to Russia, not push it farther away.
___
Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv contributed to this report.
AP · by AAMER MADHANI · January 2, 2022
6. The United States Should Avoid Waging a Two-Front Cold War
But it is better than a two front hot war.
The United States Should Avoid Waging a Two-Front Cold War
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The Biden administration appears to be heading in the direction of waging a two-front Cold War over Ukraine in Eastern Europe and Taiwan in East Asia, both of which could turn "hot" any day. The imprudence of such an approach should be obvious, but the great danger is that such "crises" could get out of hand before the leaders involved step back from the brink.
Russia's Vladimir Putin may want to extend Russia's rule to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, but he definitely wants to ensure the end of NATO expansion. China's Xi Jinping, like all of his predecessors, wants Taiwan unified with the mainland, and while he would prefer to do it peacefully, he may be willing to risk war with the United States to achieve his goal--especially if he believes he can win such a war at an acceptable cost.
That leaves the Biden administration, which to date has been sending mixed signals to both Russia and China. Administration spokespersons have warned of severe consequences should Russia invade Ukraine, but President Biden has stated that those consequences will be primarily economic in the form of sanctions. Meanwhile, President Biden has stated that the United States will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, but administration spokespersons have walked that back and reaffirmed the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity.” This is a recipe for confusion, misunderstanding, and possibly war on two fronts.
This muddled U.S. approach was highlighted at the recent Summit for Democracy, where the U.S. President portrayed international politics as a global struggle between democracies and autocracies and characterized the United States as democracy's "champion." Biden and other American democracy proponents appear to have forgotten the wise counsel of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams that America was the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own. The U.S. democracy proponents have likewise forgotten the prudent diplomacy of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger that sought America's geopolitical benefit to exploit the divisions and fissures between the two most powerful autocracies on the Eurasian landmass. And they have forgotten the wise and timeless counsel of Sir Halford Mackinder, the great British geopolitical thinker, who urged the democratic statesmen of his time to reconcile democratic ideals with geopolitical realities.
Foreign policy and strategy involve understanding and prioritizing threats and then devoting the necessary resources to meet those threats. China clearly poses the greatest threat to U.S. national security interests in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. The Biden administration's focus should be there, and it should allocate resources accordingly. China's President Xi needs to understand that he cannot forcibly annex Taiwan without incurring unacceptable costs in a war with the United States. "Strategic ambiguity" should be replaced by "strategic clarity." Meanwhile, the U.S. should use diplomacy to wean Russia from China's orbit, including foregoing any further expansion of NATO and avoiding the democracy versus autocracy rhetoric. High-sounding principles are no substitute for hard-headed realpolitik. Biden's role model should be John Quincy Adams, or George Washington, or Richard Nixon, or looking across the oceans, Otto von Bismarck or Lee Kuan Yew--statesmen who understood geopolitical realities and who were unbound by so-called universal principles. Or perhaps, Biden could simply emulate Abraham Lincoln, who during the Trent Affair in the midst of the American Civil War, wisely cautioned his Cabinet and military advisers: “One war at a time.”
Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21stCentury, America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War, and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He has written lengthy introductions to two of Mahan’s books, and has written on historical and foreign policy topics for The Diplomat, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, the Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the Claremont Review of Books, American Diplomacy, the Washington Times, and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.
7. Chinese ‘brain control’ warfare work revealed
Chinese ‘brain control’ warfare work revealed
NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
The Commerce Department imposed sanctions on Chinese technology companies and announced last week revealed that China’s military is engaged in dangerous work related to “brain control” warfare research.
The announcement of the sanctions provided limited specific details of the work by China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 related Chinese research institutes. Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security said only that the academy and its affiliates are using “biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end-uses and end-users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.”
However, three reports by the People’s Liberation Army obtained by Inside the Ring shed light on the depths of China’s brain warfare research and show that it has been underway for several years.
The translated 2019 reports discuss developing brain control weaponry as part of what Chinese officials call the “intelligentization” of warfare.
According to one of the reports, advances in science and technology are leading to upgrades in methods and the ability to subdue enemies. “War has started to shift from the pursuit of destroying bodies to paralyzing and controlling the opponent,” said the report headlined, “The Future of the Concept of Military Supremacy.”
“The focus is to attack the enemy’s will to resist, not physical destruction,” it stated.
Brain science is being used to extend warfare in the sphere of human consciousness “causing the brain to become the main target of offense and defense of new concept weapons,” the report added.
“To win without fighting is no longer far-fetched,” it stated, quoting ancient strategist Sun Tzu’s maxim.
The report, which was published in the official military newspaper PLA Daily, also asserted that China is merging four major technology fields for military purposes: nano, bio, information and cognition.
The intended result will be enhanced individual capabilities. “Future human-machine merging will revolve around the contest for the brain,” the report said. “The two combatant sides will use various kinds of brain control technologies and effective designs to focus on taking over the enemy’s way of thinking and his awareness, and even directly intervene in the thinking of the enemy leaders and staff, and with that produce war to control awareness and thinking,” the report said.
A second Chinese report, also from 2019, disclosed that brain-machine interface is part of Beijing’s plan for the development of intelligentized warfare. The second report said “interactive intelligentization” will involve “direct control of machines using thoughts through mature brain-machine interface.”
Fused intelligentization is also being studied and involves integrating humans and machines toward the goal of creating enhanced human physiological and cognitive capacities.
A third report published by the PLA revealed that the China Electronic Technology Group is working on “brain confrontation” technology for warfare.
Among its various research focuses are “brain control technologies, such as measuring neuronal activity in the brain and translating neuro-signals into computer signals, establishing uni-directional or bi-directional signal transmission between the brain and external equipment,” the third report said.
Research also is being conducted on “neuro-defense” technology such as “leveraging electromagnetic, biophysical, and material technologies to enhance human brain’s defense towards brain-control attacks,” it said.
One brain enhancement technology involves wearable equipment that stimulates or manipulates brain electrical activities. Another is the use of brain-implanted microchips or other computer interfaces that enhance brain functions.
In sanctioning the Chinese institutes, the Commerce Department said the research activities are “contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy.”
The other institutes hit with sanctions include China’s Institute of Health Service and Medical Information; the Institute of Radiation and Radiation Medicine; the Institute of Basic Medicine; the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine; the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology; the Institute of Toxicology and Pharmacology; the Institute of Medical Equipment; the Institute of Bioengineering; the Field Blood Transfusion Institute; the Institute of Disease Control and Prevention; and the Military Veterinary Research Institute.
The 11 institutes have been added to the Commerce blacklist called the Entity List.
Report: Japan, U.S. plan for defense of Taiwan
Japanese and U.S. military officials have drawn up plans for a joint defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack by China, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported last week.
Japanese government officials told the Chinese-language edition of Kyodo on Dec. 23 that the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Pentagon developed a new draft of a joint operations plan for “emergencies” in Taiwan.
The plan calls for U.S. Marines to set up temporary bases for offensive operations on the islands near Okinawa.
The Japan-U.S. Security Consultative Committee, known as the 2 plus 2 forum of foreign and defense ministers is expected to hammer out the military contingency plan early next year.
Initial operations will involve joint deployment of U.S. and Japanese troops to existing bases, according to the Kyodo report, which noted that it is unlikely new bases will be set up.
After holding a summit meeting together in April, President Biden and Japanese then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga issued a joint statement that referred for the first time to the “importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Beijing has been putting increased military pressure on the Chinese-claimed, self-ruled island.
Last summer, Japanese officials let it be known through the press that a Chinese attack on Taiwan poses a threat to Japan and that Japan’s military would join a U.S. defense of the island.
Then in November, Australia’s Defense Minister Peter Dutton joined in, telling a news outlet that it would be “inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the U.S. in an action [in support of Taiwan] if the U.S. chose to take that action.”
Both nations’ position put the U.S. government on the spot as the Pentagon and State Department for decades have avoided directly stating the U.S. military would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan from a mainland attack.
U.S. policy toward the defense of Taiwan has remained unclear over concerns about upsetting U.S.-China relations.
China has been increasing military pressure against the island state that broke from the mainland in the 1940s during a civil war that saw Nationalist Chinese forces flee to the island.
Since then, Taiwan has evolved into a vibrant democracy that Beijing regards as a threat to its authoritarian communist system.
Chinese warplanes regularly intrude into Taiwan’s air defense zone around the island and Chinese warships conducted frequent war games that state media has described as preparation for attacks.
Defense law hits contractors on China
The fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by President Biden requires greater transparency for defense contractors and other companies doing business with the Pentagon in revealing work conducted in and for China.
The measure is aimed at preventing China from obtaining the fruits of Pentagon contracts through espionage or trade secrets theft.
Section 855 of the new law says Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has until July to report to Congress on contractors that employ people who work for the Chinese government. The reporting must include numbers and locations of the world.
The disclosures are now required from all companies that submit bids or proposals for defense contracts.
The requirement will be in force through the end of 2024 and covers all contracts worth $5 million or more for commercial products and services. Those covered by the law include corporations or companies that conduct work on contracts in China.
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8. Exclusive: Secret commandos with shoot-to-kill authority were at the Capitol
Wow. What a load of crap from William Arkin.
Sure it is possible the FBI's Hostage rescue Team could have been in position. Based on some intelligence reporting it would make sense to have them staged for potential operations. Did they have shoot to kill orders? BS. Sure they are likely to have rules of engagement that authorizes them to engage hostile targets that threaten hostages and and others. Is that a shoot to kill order? I think not.
Exclusive: Secret commandos with shoot-to-kill authority were at the Capitol
Newsweek · by William M. Arkin · January 3, 2022
In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.
On Sunday, January 3, the heads of a half-dozen elite government special operations teams met in Quantico, Virginia, to go over potential threats, contingencies, and plans for the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. The meeting, and the subsequent deployment of these shadowy commandos on January 6, has never before been revealed.
Right after the New Year, Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting Attorney General on January 6, approved implementation of long-standing contingency plans dealing with the most extreme possibilities: an attack on President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, a terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, and a declaration of measures to implement continuity of government, requiring protection and movement of presidential successors.
Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called "national" forces. There was no formal request from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the Metropolitan Police Department—in fact, no external request from any agency. The leadership in Justice and the FBI anticipated the worst and decided to act independently, the special operations forces lurking behind the scenes.
Secret commandos, authorized to shoot to kill, were at the Capitol. FBI and ATF law enforcement confront supporters of President Donald Trump as they protested inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. Brent Stirton/Getty Images
"I believe that DOJ [Department of Justice] reasonably prepared for contingencies ahead of January 6, understanding that there was considerable uncertainty as to how many people would arrive, who those people would be, and precisely what purposes they would pursue," Rosen later told Congress. He stressed that his department "no frontline role with respect to crowd control," that they were focused on "high-risk" operations.
The contingency units meeting on January 3 included the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, the FBI's national "Render Safe" team, an FBI SWAT team from the Baltimore Field Office, Special Response Teams from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group.
All of these assets were "pre-deployed" and ready to go over the weekend of January 2-3, staging out of the FBI Academy complex in Quantico, 30 miles south of the Capitol building. If a WMD or terrorist attack occurred, the units were to move via helicopter to the site of the incident. The activation of the catastrophic response units, operating under plans already approved by President Trump, entailed an automatic green light allowing federal responders to take the initiative and spare no resources, including shoot-to-kill authority, to deal with this most extraordinary condition.
The 350-strong Hostage Rescue Team was established in 1983 to be a national level counterterrorist unit, offering a "tactical" option—a military option—for the most extraordinary law enforcement situations within the United States. Prior to 9/11, HRT was primarily a domestic counter-terrorism unit; after the attack, the team took on additional missions, including working with the Joint Special Operations Command overseas in high-profile raids and the targeting of high-value targets.
Jeffrey Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called "national" forces. Here, Rosen removes his face mask as he speaks at the Justice Department on October 21, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images)
The FBI is the lead agency for what insiders call the "no-fail, 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-per-year response capability." In 1999, the Bureau was assigned the responsibility for the render safe mission, a euphemism for extraordinary and highly classified actions that are slated to take place in cases of a lost, stolen, or hidden nuclear or radiological weapon. The FBI had already been given primary responsibility for domestic counterterrorism, including quasi-military action against armed groups inside the United States. President Bill Clinton approved new rules that assigned "national response" to the FBI (it had previously resided in the Defense Department). The FBI would form the dedicated rapid response force, and technical response assets from various departments would be seconded to this so-called National Mission Force, operating under a National Asset Commander, an FBI officer appointed by and reporting to the Attorney General and ultimately the White House.
In April 2005, the FBI consolidated its various extraordinary response teams under the National Asset Response Unit (NARU), responsible for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The dedicated rapid response force, ready to deploy anywhere in the United States within two hours of notification, reached operational readiness during the Obama administration, with dedicated national response elements from the Department of Energy and augmentation from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
The overlap of counterterrorism and WMD forged this extraordinary force, operating under Top Secret and compartmentalized presidential directives. The National Mission Force, however, also had to plan for other crisis response contingencies, such as hostage rescue and continuity of government. Those latter functions could also fall under the operational control of the Secret Service (an element of the Department of Homeland Security) or to military commanders who were operating in response to immediate emergencies.
Most of the literature mistakenly says that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)—including, famously, the units formerly known as Delta Force and SEAL Team 6—is the primary national mission force. Although overseas, the National Mission Force often operates as a Joint Special Operations Task Force (with FBI augmentation), made up of dedicated teams assigned to JSOC, inside the United States, the FBI is in charge.
On the morning of January 6, most of these forces staged closer to downtown Washington, particularly after intelligence was received indicating a possible threat to FBI headquarters building or the FBI's Washington Field Office. FBI tactical teams arrived on Capitol Hill early in the day to assist in the collection of evidence at sites—including the Republican and Democrat party national headquarters—where explosive devices were found. FBI SWAT teams and snipers were deployed to secure nearby congressional office buildings. Other FBI agents provided selective security around the U.S. Capitol and protection to congressional members and staff.
A tactical team of the Hostage Rescue Team was one of the first external federal agencies to actually enter the Capitol after protestors breached the building. In addition to augmentation of emergency security assets, one team coordinated with the U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service to provide additional safeguarding of Vice President Pence, who had been moved to the underground parking structure beneath the Capitol, from where he was supposed to evacuate. But Pence refused to leave the building and stayed underground instead.
The presence of these extraordinary forces under the control of the Attorney General—and mostly operating under contingency plans that Congress and the U.S. Capitol Police were not privy to—added an additional layer of highly armed responders. The role that the military played in this highly classified operation is still unknown, though FBI sources tell Newsweek that military operators seconded to the FBI, and those on alert as part of the National Mission Force, were present in the metropolitan area. The lingering question is: What was it that the Justice Department saw that provoked it to see January 6 as an extraordinary event, something that the other agencies evidently missed.
Newsweek · by William M. Arkin · January 3, 2022
9. Rising Threat From China Pushes U.S. and Japan to Deepen Military Cooperation
Alliance operations are hard especially when we use US military jargon!
The recent computer-based war-games showed some challenges to deeper integration. In one meeting, Japanese leaders sought repeated clarification of dense terminology used by the American side.
Maj. Gen. Takanori Hirata, commander of the Japanese amphibious brigade, said that communication wasn’t a problem between the two sides.
“We have been deploying missile batteries and military bases to our southern islands, which is in line with the Marines’ new strategy, and we have to continue strengthening our relationship,” he said.
Rising Threat From China Pushes U.S. and Japan to Deepen Military Cooperation
The two allies are staging joint exercises to prepare for regional conflict that could spill over from Chinese aggression
These were the first joint drills between the Marines and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces that practiced destroying maritime targets using surface-to-ship missiles, controlled by Japanese and American officers working alongside each other to direct missiles, aircraft, ships and radar from both sides.
The exercises come amid concerns about possible conflict in the region. A mobile U.S. Marine radar station.
Photo: Alastair Gale/The Wall Street Journal
“In the Indo-Pacific region you’re talking about huge distances,” said Maj. Ben Reading, the officer coordinating the simulated missile strikes for the Marines. “We have to fight together with our allies with all the assets that we can bring to bear.”
Concerns about regional conflict, most significantly if China follows through on threats to seize Taiwan, are driving the U.S. and Japanese militaries to deepen their integration.
Japanese equipment used during the exercises. The U.S. and Japan are stepping up their cooperative efforts.
Photo: Alastair Gale/The Wall Street Journal
Japan has been concerned by Chinese moves over the past decade to lay claim to Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea. In 2018, it created its Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, modeled on the Marines.
In recent computer-based war-games separate from the field exercises in northern Japan, U.S. participants including Brig. Gen. Kyle Ellison said they saw advances in the Japanese brigade’s ability to deploy and engage the enemy quickly.
“Part of our ability to deter is making it not about one versus one, but one versus two, or one versus three, or one versus four,” said Gen. Ellison, deputy commander of a Marine force that would likely be on the front line of any clash in the western Pacific that draws in the U.S. Preparing for island conflict in the Pacific is now the primary focus of the Marines.
In any clash over Taiwan, Japan would be unlikely to fight outside its own territory because of restrictions imposed by its pacifist constitution. But leaders in Tokyo now assume that any Taiwan conflict would spill over to nearby Japanese islands, and say they need to work with the U.S. to prepare.
Japan’s antiship missile units on its chain of southern islands could help counter any attempt by China to send vessels into the western Pacific to repel the U.S.
“One of the most important objectives of U.S.-Japan combined operations if war breaks out across the Taiwan Strait would be to stop Chinese forces before they cross the island chain,” said Narushige Michishita, vice president of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
China’s foreign and defense ministries didn’t reply to requests for comment.
A concealed Japanese antiship missile launcher was deployed in the joint exercises.
Photo: Alastair Gale/The Wall Street Journal
Enhancing coordination with allies is one of the guiding ideas of a new U.S. national defense strategy set to be released in early 2022, according to U.S. officials. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set to hold talks with Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi this month.
Tension in recent years between the U.S. and its major Asian allies over the cost of the U.S. military presence in the region appears to be resolved for now. Tokyo agreed recently to raise its annual payments to share the costs of U.S. forces in Japan, including about 50,000 personnel. Japan will spend an average of $1.85 billion over the next five years, up 4.6% from last year. South Korea last year also agreed to raise payments for the U.S. military.
In the recent field exercises known as Resolute Dragon, about 2,650 U.S. Marines and 1,400 Japanese soldiers deployed to nine training areas throughout Japan. At the control center for the exercises, American and Japanese participants sat alongside each other to monitor operations and issue orders.
In the drill to attack a ship, Japan, using radar mounted nearby on a Mitsubishi Pajero truck, identified the target. A U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft flew over the ocean site in the role of confirming it was an enemy. After a joint headquarters phoned in targeting information, Japanese troops drove two truck-mounted missile launchers out of tree cover, raised the missile tubes and counted down to launch, though the rehearsal didn’t involve actual firing.
Training by the Marines and Japan’s military to jointly target Chinese ships marks significant progress in cooperation, said Grant Newsham, a former Marine colonel and liaison officer to the Japanese military. But rather than periodic exercises, he said, the two sides should set up a joint headquarters to build a permanent operational relationship.
Members of Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade should also be part of Marine units when they deploy around the region, Mr. Newsham said.
The recent computer-based war-games showed some challenges to deeper integration. In one meeting, Japanese leaders sought repeated clarification of dense terminology used by the American side.
Maj. Gen. Takanori Hirata, commander of the Japanese amphibious brigade, said that communication wasn’t a problem between the two sides.
“We have been deploying missile batteries and military bases to our southern islands, which is in line with the Marines’ new strategy, and we have to continue strengthening our relationship,” he said.
10. US names two women to senior diplomatic posts for Afghanistan
US names two women to senior diplomatic posts for Afghanistan
The US has named two female diplomats to senior roles representing Washington in Afghanistan, as women’s rights in the country continue to deteriorate under the new Taliban government.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appointed Rina Amiri as a special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights on Wednesday.
Amiri has spent two decades advising governments, the UN and think-tanks on issues related to Afghanistan. Under former US President Barack Obama, she served as a senior adviser to the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I welcome Rina Amiri back to @StateDept as Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights. Rina brings over two decades of expertise and specialized knowledge that will advance our vital work toward a more peaceful, stable, and secure Afghanistan for all.
“Rina brings over two decades of expertise and specialized knowledge that will advance our vital work toward a more peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan for all,” Blinken said on Twitter.
Blinken also named Stephenie Foster, a Department of State veteran, as a new senior adviser for women and girls to US operations to evacuate and resettle Afghans at risk of retaliation from the Taliban after it took over the country.
Since then, the Taliban has curbed the rights of women and girls, banning most of the former from working and most of the latter from attending schools in what US officials decry as back-tracking from assurances they gave to observe human rights.
Weeks ago, the ministry asked Afghanistan’s television channels to stop showing dramas and soap operas featuring female actors. It also called on female TV journalists to wear headscarves while presenting.
The government of US President Joe Biden has come under fire from women’s rights groups for failing to ensure safe passage for activists and others that had long been targeted by the Taliban.
Women inside the Biden administration traded concerned emails and text messages behind the scenes after the lightning-fast Taliban takeover in mid-August and the subsequent chaotic US exit from the country, the Reuters news agency reported, citing multiple sources inside and outside the administration.
At the time, Amiri told Reuters the process of evacuating women at risk had been a disaster.
The Taliban has allowed all boys and younger girls back to class, but has not let most girls attend secondary school [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Biden had made clear early on in high-level policy discussions that concerns about women’s rights would not sway his decision to exit Afghanistan, despite promising during the campaign to forge a gender-sensitive foreign policy, she said.
The United States and other governments also have accused the Taliban of failing to establish an “inclusive” government and they have expressed concern about reports of summary executions.
About 30 women rallied in Kabul on Tuesday, calling for women’s rights to be respected and accusing Taliban authorities of covertly killing soldiers who served the former US-backed government.
“I want to tell the world, tell the Taliban to stop killing. We want freedom, we want justice, we want human rights,” protester Nayera Koahistani told the AFP news agency.
11. Taiwan president warns China over 'military adventurism'
Taiwan president warns China over 'military adventurism'
The Hill · by Olafimihan Oshin · January 2, 2022
"We must remind the Beijing authorities to not misjudge the situation and to prevent the internal expansion of military adventurism," Tsai said in a live Facebook message on Saturday to mark the new year.
Taiwan has publicly said that it is an independent country and has vowed to defend its freedom and democracy.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, has claimed Taiwan as its own territory and in the past two years has increased military presence and diplomatic pressure to support its claims, Reuters noted.
A spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhu Fenglian, said Beijing is “willing to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification."
"But if Taiwan independence separatist forces continue to provoke and coerce, or even cross any red line, we will have to take decisive measures,” Zhu said in a statement.
“The pursuit of independence will only throw Taiwan into a deep chasm and bring about profound catastrophe," Zhu added.
Tsai also added that military presence isn’t an option to solve “cross-strait disagreements,” saying those types of conflicts would hurt the economic stability, Reuters reported.
In his address marking the start of the new year, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the complete unification of “the motherland” is an inspiration shared by people on both sides of the spectrum, Reuters noted.
The Hill · by Olafimihan Oshin · January 2, 2022
12. Why does the West think China wants global hegemony?
Interesting analysis.
Excerpts:
Americans think that China aspires to world hegemony, while Professor Wen contends that the aspiration to hegemony as such is the fatal flaw of empires past and present. Americans will dismiss Wen’s analysis as Chinese dissembling, but they would be mistaken to do so.
China’s exaggerated assertion of sovereignty in the South China Sea, its island-building campaign and attempts to intimidate its neighbors give Washington reason to assume the worst about China’s intentions. But China never has been a hegemonic power in the past, certainly not in the sense of the British Empire or Soviet Communism. Nor does it intend to become such a power in the future.
America’s Cold War triumph, Wen believes, was simply “the most recent decisive victory” in a long series of contests with other putative hegemons, including “the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire and the German Empire.”
China, adds Professor Wen, was a bystander to the Great Power competition for hegemony during the 1960s and 1970s. This in turn was a contest within a “small world,” between Western civilization and Eastern Orthodox civilization, in which the non-Christian civilizations – Chinese, Indian and Islamic – had limited stakes.
This “battle for world hegemony within ‘Christian civilization’ is unacceptable,” he concluded: “World hegemony exercised in the name of liberalism must be opposed by the people of the world, and world hegemony exercised in the name of communism also must be opposed by the people of the world.”
Why does the West think China wants global hegemony?
Professor Wen Yang argued Russia failed because it sought hegemony and says China won’t – but questions remain
China’s decisive advantage, Professor Wen Yang of Fudan University wrote in a recent essay for The Observer (guancha.cn), is its lack of ambition for global hegemony. The Observer website often acts as a sounding board for the State Council.
The Soviet Union fell, Wen argued, precisely because it attempted to become a hegemon, a concept that Professor Wen finds alien to Chinese civilization.
“Even though the history of modern international relations has emphatically pointed to the undefeated record of ‘the Anglo-Saxon countries,’ the real reason for this is not to be found in the boast of liberal theory that liberal democracy and the free market must prevail,” he wrote. “
“The real reason for the failure of the Russian-Soviet empire is certainly not to be found in errors of Marxist theory and the socialist system. It should be regarded as the inevitable result of the misguided goal of pursuing hegemony.”
This, of course, is the diametric opposite of the usual American view of Chinese intentions. American analysts take for granted China’s intention of “displacing the United States as the world’s leading state,” as National Security Council official Rush Doshi argued in his 2021 book The Long Game.
“Beijing would project leadership over global governance and international institutions, advance autocratic norms at the expense of liberal ones, and split American alliances in Europe and Asia,” he wrote.
Former Trump Defense Department planner Elbridge Colby claimed China wanted to subjugate the countries of the First Island Chain (Taiwan or the Philippines, as convenient) to drive America from the “Second Island Cloud” and thence to the blue oceans.
Americans think that China aspires to world hegemony, while Professor Wen contends that the aspiration to hegemony as such is the fatal flaw of empires past and present. Americans will dismiss Wen’s analysis as Chinese dissembling, but they would be mistaken to do so.
China’s exaggerated assertion of sovereignty in the South China Sea, its island-building campaign and attempts to intimidate its neighbors give Washington reason to assume the worst about China’s intentions. But China never has been a hegemonic power in the past, certainly not in the sense of the British Empire or Soviet Communism. Nor does it intend to become such a power in the future.
America’s Cold War triumph, Wen believes, was simply “the most recent decisive victory” in a long series of contests with other putative hegemons, including “the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire and the German Empire.”
China, adds Professor Wen, was a bystander to the Great Power competition for hegemony during the 1960s and 1970s. This in turn was a contest within a “small world,” between Western civilization and Eastern Orthodox civilization, in which the non-Christian civilizations – Chinese, Indian and Islamic – had limited stakes.
This “battle for world hegemony within ‘Christian civilization’ is unacceptable,” he concluded: “World hegemony exercised in the name of liberalism must be opposed by the people of the world, and world hegemony exercised in the name of communism also must be opposed by the people of the world.”
Hegemons have an invariant characteristic. Real empires run deficits. Imports made up half of the food supply in Pericles’ Athens, paid for by tribute exacted on threat of annihilation.
A view shows details of the sculptures on the Trajan’s Column in Rome, erected in AD 107-113. Photo: AFP / Andreas Solaro
Profesor Graham Allison notes in his 2017 book Destined for War, “Athens [during the Thirty Years’ Peace] continued to use its powerful navy to dominate – and extract gold from – its own subjects throughout the Aegean. It amassed a strategic reserve amounting to the previously unheard-of sum of 6,000 talents of gold, and was adding 1,000 talents per year in revenue.”
When the island of Melos resisted, Athens massacred its population in 416 BCE.
The Roman Empire kept between 5 and 8 million slaves, requiring 250,000 to 400,000 new slaves per year, in Walter Scheidel’s estimate. That required ever more wars of conquest.
The Spanish Empire, Fernand Braudel reported in his classic study The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II, sent all the bullion wrung from the conquered New World to China to pay for silks and spices.
And all the wealth accumulated by China returned to the West when Britain compelled it at cannon-point to buy Indian opium. Opium in 1837 accounted for 57% of China’s imports, and opium smokers paid 100 million taels (about 130 million ounces of silver) yearly for the drug when the Imperial government stood at just 40 million taels.
America doesn’t force its trading partners to buy opium, but its chronic trade deficits have produced a $13 trillion negative net foreign asset position. America’s borrowings from the rest of the world include $8 trillion of Treasury securities held by foreigners and about $16 trillion in dollar-denominated foreign bank deposits, which constitute de facto loans to the United States.
Historic China accumulated vast wealth through the exports of silk, tea, porcelain and other goods, but it never built an imperial economy like Athens, Rome or Britain. Agriculture was centered on the extended family farm rather than slave-based latifundia.
Unlike Rome, which constructed roads to speed its armies from Mesopotamia to Britain, China built walls to keep invaders out. The Qin dynasty which gave China its name, consolidated power through infrastructure, including the Dujiangyan on the Min River that turned the Sichuan plain into China’s breadbasket.
Unlike Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, Englishmen and Americans, the Chinese never sent their armies or large numbers of colonists around the world.
When I wrote of “China’s plan to Sino-form the world” in my 2020 book, I referred to the export of China’s digital infrastructure to the Global South, in the ultimate exercise of soft power.
Its 5G broadband, fast trains, e-commerce, e-finance, telemedicine and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies well may transform backward economies into little Chinas, starting in Southeast Asia.
China surely aspires to return to first position in world manufacturing technology, which it held from the beginning of recorded history until the 18th century, and it will try to extend its influence and power by dominating the new technologies enabled by fast broadband.
An ancient power-wheel shelter on the bank of a man-made canal in Kiangsu province, China. Photo: WikiCommons
In a sense, China’s strategic use of infrastructure, physical as well as digital, bespeaks a certain continuity from the Qin era. Massive investment in flood control, river transport and irrigation created China, and the export of Chinese infrastructure well may hard-wire a great deal of the world into China’s economy.
But China is indifferent to how we barbarians govern ourselves. Elsewhere Professor Wen has compared the character of the Chinese, a settled people for thousands of years, to that of Westerners, who (as he put it) only recently walked out of the jungle.
I think that he is quite unfair to us. But the point is that the Chinese have no intention of imposing their political system on the United States; they do not believe we are capable of such enlightened governance.
The Soviet Union, I should add, fell not only because it overreached, but because the United States responded to its hegemonic ambitions by starting a revolution in military technology. From this we derived every important invention of the digital age, from mass-produced computer chips to optical networks.
China is well aware of this: Its promotion of dual-use technologies, as I wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2020, is adapted from America’s best practice.
If China has no hegemonic ambitions, Western analysts ask, why has it built a navy worthy of a hegemon? With 355 ocean-going vessels, the Peoples Liberation Army Navy has more ships than the US – although much lower tonnage.
A November 2021 Pentagon report warned: “As of 2020, the PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-role platforms featuring advanced anti-ship, anti-air and anti-submarine weapons and sensors … This modernization aligns with the PRC’s growing emphasis on the maritime domain and increasing demands for the PLAN to operate at greater distances from China.”
At this writing, China has only one overseas military base, on the Horn of Africa at Djibouti, built for anti-piracy operations. The US has 750 bases. There have been unconfirmed reports of Chinese attempts to build military facilities in the UAE and Equatorial Guinea, but they do not add up to a campaign for global military supremacy.
Chinese soldiers in front of a PLA flag at the force’s base in Djibouti. Photo: PLA Daily
China wants to dominate its coasts and has invested massively in surface-to-ship missiles, submarines, missile boats, aircraft and other weapons to prevent the United States from projecting power in the Western Pacific. A December report from Harvard’s Belfer Center under the direction of Graham Allison argued that it had already succeeded.
Military superiority near Chinese territory – including Taiwan, which China considers a rebel province – is one motivation for China’s naval buildup. Another is China’s long-range vulnerability to a blockade.
China depends on Middle Eastern oil and African as well as South American raw materials, and Western strategists daily draw up contingency plans for naval interdiction of supplies to China. That raises at least the theoretical possibility of naval engagements between Chinese and American warships near the Persian Gulf.
Luttwak’s World War I analogy, to be sure, has one Gargantuan omission: Germany would have crushed Britain without the intervention of the United States. If the United States has to play the part of Britain, who will play the part of the United States?
It is worth taking the World War I analogy a bit farther.
Two charts provide context for our national debate over war with China. The first shows the population of Germany (adjusted for present territory) versus France in the century before World War I, and the second shows the number of science and engineering graduates in China versus the world’s other technological powers.
The general staff who prepared the Great War used demographic tables to estimate the number of infantrymen they could deploy and the casualty rate they might sustain. In our era of high-tech war, the balance of science and engineering graduates gauges better the relative strength of prospective adversaries.
Comparisons between China and other countries are inexact because definitions of STEM degrees vary, but the chart captures the broad trend.
Revanchist France, determined to reconquer Alsace and Lorraine, had almost no population growth since the Franco-Prussian War, while the German Empire’s population had risen by 40%.
In another decade or two, France would lack the manpower to fight Germany. French leaders seized their last chance to wage a successful war against Germany in 1914, and succeeded thanks to American intervention, but at the expense of 1.5 million dead and 4.3 million wounded.
In 1940, France decided that another sacrifice of this magnitude wasn’t worth it and folded in a few weeks of fighting.
Today, China graduates 1.2 million scientists and engineers a year, according to the National Science Foundation, roughly double the combined total of the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan.
The quality of Chinese universities, moreover, has risen to international standards during the past 10 years. China now surpasses or is poised to surpass the United States in several realms of technology that bear on military power, including Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing, according to a Harvard University study directed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Professor Graham Allison.
They wrote: “China has become a serious competitor in the foundational technologies of the 21st century: artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, quantum information science (QIS), semiconductors, biotechnology and green energy. In some races, it has already become No 1. In others, on current trajectories, it will overtake the US within the next decade.”
Professor Allison is rightly celebrated for his “Thucydides Trap” argument that an established power will choose war to stymy a challenge by a rising power. In some ways, the Peloponnesian analogy is strained, as I argued in a review of his book, but his warning is valid and timely. He might have titled it The Poincaré Trap after France’s belligerent president in 1914.
China has only itself to blame for provoking its neighbors in the South China Sea. “Wolf warrior” diplomacy and the perceived bullying of its neighbors lend credence to Western accusations about Chinese hegemonic ambitions.
As Professor Allison warns, though, many in the United States will risk war to prevent China from displacing the United States from first position among world powers. For this current of American opinion, it doesn’t matter whether China is hegemonic; its offense is being China.
Follow David P Goldman on Twitter at @davidpgoldman.
13. The English Voice of ISIS Speaks Out Against the Group
I have not seen any other reporting on this.
PERSPECTIVE: The English Voice of ISIS Speaks Out Against the Group - HS Today
Khalifa, being a high-level part of the media arm of the terror group, lived a privileged and protected life inside ISIS.
By
December 20, 2021
Before Mohammed Khalifa, though, there was Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni American, preached in English about the glory of suicide terrorism for the sake of martyrdom and the obligation of all Muslims to engage in endless offensive jihad against the West, whom he deemed to be at war with Islam. Al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011, but his legacy and influence lives on. Among his disciples was Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in 2014 – at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Other notorious followers include Boston Marathon bombers the Tsarnaev brothers, the San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, and the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan. Another follower of al-Awlaki was Mohammed Khalifa. When he was interviewed by the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism in 2019, Khalifa recalled the process by which he radicalized to militant jihadism as a young adult in Canada: “I was listening to lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, and his lectures had an impact on me. [They] kind of pushed me to make the decision to move the date forward. It’s in general, just the fact that he was approaching the life of the Prophet Muhammad and bringing it into like a modern context and interspersing it was like, like a jihad narrative.”
Khalifa was not alone in being inspired to join ISIS by a man who died when ISIS was still al Qaeda in Iraq. Of the 273 ISIS returnees, defectors, and imprisoned cadres whom ICSVE has interviewed, many Westerners referenced Anwar al-Awlaki in describing their influences in deciding to travel to join the group. His charismatic, modern, style of preaching made him accessible to them, convincing them that they too had an obligation to defend Muslims abroad. Even now, after the fall of the territorial Caliphate, Instagram pages live on in his name, regularly posting videos and quotations that could easily inspire violence.
Now, however, Khalifa is speaking out against his infamous predecessor and the group for which he was once the most well-known English-speaking voice. In May 2019, Khalifa agreed to participate in the creation of counter-narrative videos as part of ICSVE’s Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Project. After an in-depth psychological interview conducted by ICSVE director Dr. Anne Speckhard, Khalifa consented for the videoed interview to be cut to create counter-narrative videos and gave permission for his real name to be used and for his face to appear in the videos.
In a video titled “Standing in Front of Allah,” Khalifa recounts all of the moving parts that went into creating ISIS’ propaganda videos: Those who followed the fighters with camcorders, those who cut together the raw footage, those who composed and sang nasheeds to be used in the background of the videos, those who added special effects, and his team – the translators and narrators. Khalifa admits that he liked some of the videos he helped to make. In one particularly moving video, a story is recounted of a man whose job it was to register “martyrs” – suicide bombers. One day, it was the man’s own young son’s turn to register, and the man was full of pride. Khalifa liked those videos that “played on your heartstrings” much more than those that simply cut together battle footage.
Khalifa, being a high-level part of the media arm of ISIS similar to the ISIS emni (secret police) and leadership, lived a privileged and protected life inside ISIS and was not subjected or even fully aware, according to his claims, of the extent of ISIS’ brutality toward their own. It was after his capture by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that Khalifa began to become disillusioned with ISIS. Hearing the stories of his fellow prisoners, he understood that what he had previously thought were rumors about ISIS’ brutality, especially that of the emni, were actually true. He was also disillusioned by ISIS’ practice of takfir. He was horrified at the idea that he should denounce his own parents as apostates, in ISIS’ view, deeming them worthy of death. He also learned that ISIS leadership had fled from the locations of the final battles, “basically to leave the foreigners hanging.” About the “bad scholars” who influenced him to join ISIS, including al-Awlaki, Khalifa says, “You really have to be careful who you are taking [Islamic knowledge] from.” He points out that taking the time to learn Arabic, he realizes that he doesn’t need to “rely on modern-day [self-proclaimed] scholars. I can go back to the more classical books and see what they have to say.”
In another video, “Does Following Anwar al-Awlaki’s Teachings Make You Safe on the Day of Judgment?”, Khalifa explains, “There is always like discussions by scholars related to jihad and what the boundaries are […] On the takfir issue, no, I’m against that […],” he says, asking what his own parents could have done to deserve to be takfired. He points out “[the ISIS] scholar overriding a verse of the Qur’an or a hadith of the Prophet Muhammed, and you see this a lot.” About the actions he took in part because of al-Awlaki’s influence, on behalf of ISIS, a group he has now washed his hands of, Khalifa says, “The [worldly] judge, that’s not what’s on my mind. My greater concern really is being absolved of my sin in front of God.”
Finally, in a very short video designed for use on Facebook counter-narrative campaigns, titled “The New Scholars of the Islamic State Caliphate,” Khalifa says of his time in ISIS, “I’ve learned along the way that a lot of the problems had to do with the fact that they wouldn’t follow the texts exactly as they should be […] Learning to do your own research and having the tools at hand, it’ll keep me from just swallowing anything I see from ISIS or anyone else.”
Will the “English voice of ISIS” be able to convince those vulnerable to radicalization to turn away from militant jihadism and the teachings of Anwar al-Awlaki? At ICSVE, we look forward to analyzing the results of these counter-narrative videos in Facebook ad campaigns. Previous ad campaigns in Europe have suggested that videos whose speakers are men of immigrant descent who show their faces and use their real names are most capable of garnering engagement from Facebook viewers in the form of comments, reactions, and shares, and that they are also able to retain viewers’ attention. The three videos featuring Mohammed Khalifa fit those criteria to a T. His credibility will also be enhanced among vulnerable viewers if they recognize his voice as that of a trusted insider. However, qualitative analysis of the comments on these high-engagement counter-narrative videos suggests that such engagement may derive in part from the ire felt by Europeans toward those ISIS members whom they deem the most dangerous. Whether viewers will perceive Khalifa’s expressions of regret as sincere is still left to be learned, and this may affect the opinions of Canadians in particular, who may eventually see Khalifa return home. Interestingly, Khalifa is now admitting guilt in secular court as well, having just pled guilty to charges against him this month. Yet, the opinions of those most susceptible to militant jihadist radicalization and recruitment are unlikely to hinge on Khalifa’s contrition, but rather on the emotionally evocative way in which he describes how militant jihadist scholars like al-Awlaki influenced him to take actions so terrible that he is afraid of the day that he will have to account for his sins in front of God. Perhaps these individuals will be swayed, perhaps not for the first time, by the voice of Mohammed Khalifa.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by Homeland Security Today, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints in support of securing our homeland. To submit a piece for consideration, email Editor@Hstoday.us.
14. IntelBrief: Geopolitical Trends to Watch in 2022 - The Soufan Center
A useful new year forecast. I would add that all of these have some relations to irregular warfare.
Nation-States Matter
Intensification of Civil Wars
Africa as the Epicenter of Jihad
Malicious Cyber Activity
More Sophisticated Disinformation Campaigns
IntelBrief: Geopolitical Trends to Watch in 2022 - The Soufan Center
January 3, 2022
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IntelBrief: Geopolitical Trends to Watch in 2022
Bottom Line Up Front
- Many of the most worrisome current and potential conflicts are multidimensional and could involve fighting across numerous domains—land, maritime, cyberspace—and also challenge traditional conceptions of warfare.
- While the global jihadist movement undoubtedly received a major boost from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, 2022 will feature an even greater focus on Africa as the epicenter of jihadist terrorism.
- Cyber-enabled crime will continue to reach all-time levels, creating hardships for private and government sector entities—costing billions and possibly wreaking havoc on critical infrastructure.
- Disinformation stoked by Russian and Chinese actors will continue in an unrelenting manner throughout 2022, and its focus will be in countries holding elections.
In both 2020 and 2021, the beginning of each year started with a major event that reverberated around the world. In early January 2020, the United States killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani, escalating an ongoing tit-for-tat between Washington and Tehran. In early January 2021, insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the government and usurp American democracy. As 2022 begins, it is imperative to think about what geopolitical trends could have the most significant impact on global security, and how violent extremists could try to dangerously capitalize on this moment of attention as the year begins. Many of these trends will be impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to wreak havoc heading into its third year.
Nation-States Matter
After twenty years of fighting the Global War on Terrorism, the pendulum has swung away from violent non-state actors back to nation-states, with a political focus on counterterrorism being replaced by a pivot to great power competition. Inter-state wars threaten to destabilize entire regions. Among the most serious concerns in 2022 are conflicts involving states; continued Russian hybrid warfare in Ukraine and the ongoing shadow war between Iran and Israel both have the potential to escalate further in 2022, with the possibility of enveloping surrounding countries in the region or allies of the countries involved. Many of the most worrisome conflicts are multidimensional and could involve fighting across numerous domains—land, maritime, cyberspace—and also challenge traditional conceptions of warfare. Jihadist groups linked to Pakistan and emboldened by the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan could seek to target India, bringing Islamabad and New Delhi to the precipice of war, as occurred following the November 2008 Mumbai attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba. 2022 could also be characterized by continued confrontation between the world’s two major powers, the United States and China, as Washington and Beijing continue to compete for influence and frequently trade barbs over a litany of grievances, some of which could lead to increased tensions this year.
Intensification of Civil Wars
With the looming threat of inter-state conflict, concerns stemming from intra-state conflict also abound. A civil war in Ethiopia threatens to destabilize East Africa, with dire humanitarian implications. There have been accusations of war crimes by each side against the other, including massacres, rapes, and wanton violence targeting civilians. In Afghanistan, the Taliban-led government is struggling to contain a growing insurgency from Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), while millions of Afghans are facing a humanitarian crisis spurred by food insecurity and a collapsing economy. IS-K could develop the capability to launch external operations beyond Afghanistan’s borders, while groups like al-Qaeda are also going to benefit from ongoing conflict throughout South Asia. The war in Yemen has reached a stalemate, with no clear end in sight. Houthi rebels backed by Iran continue to display sophisticated capabilities, while the Saudi-backed war effort has exacerbated the situation, worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis for the people of Yemen. Elections in Libya, scheduled for late December, were postponed, raising fears that the country could return precipitously to civil war, with the respective sides convinced of the futility of political negotiations. Other potential hotspots in 2022 include Somalia, Myanmar, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey will continue to sell drones to the highest bidder, as demand for Turkish-supplied weaponry spikes, seen as a difference maker in several ongoing conflicts.
Africa as the Epicenter of Jihad
While the global jihadist movement undoubtedly received a major boost from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, 2022 will feature an even greater focus on Africa as the epicenter of jihadist terrorism. In West Africa, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and several al-Qaeda-linked groups have increased their operational tempo of attacks in Nigeria and Mali. Jihadist activity spread in 2021 and will continue to do so this year, impacting countries such as Togo, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Niger, and Burkina Faso, among others. The Islamic State continues to evolve in Central Africa as well, through its ISCAP affiliates, as each gains strength in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mozambique, respectively. In the Horn of Africa, al-Shabaab has refined both its operational and organizational capabilities, posing a direct threat to Somalia’s embattled government. There is growing concern that al-Shabaab could evolve into a viable transnational threat, with the intent and capabilities to target Western interests in the region, but also beyond.
Malicious Cyber Activity
A combination of cybercriminal endeavors sponsored by states and perpetuated by non-state actors is a trend most expect to see continue, if not accelerate, this year. During the first half of 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reported that approximately $100 million a month of ransomwaretransactions were processed. Many of the payments associated with recent ransomware attacks have been made in Bitcoin routed to the coffers of Russia-based hackers. In 2021, the U.S. government sanctioned Maksim Yakubets for his actions related to a cybercrime operation dubbed “Evil Corps.” These types of responses are likely to continue as the Russians and Americans snipe at each other from their terminals. At the end of 2021, a major cyber vulnerability (known as Log4J, in open-source code) was identified as a serious threat by cybersecurity experts, although some major firms have provided patches in an attempt to mitigate the damage. Still, on December 29, the cyber firm Crowdstrike noted that a state-sponsored attack by China using an Log4J-linked exploit was likely the culprit targeting a large academic institution. The early half of 2022 will be marred by continued efforts by state-linked groups and independent hackers seeking to exploit Log4J for nefarious purposes. This, coupled with the continued use of ransomware and other tactics like Business Email-Compromise, will continue to cause major issues for states and multinational corporations alike.
More Sophisticated Disinformation Campaigns
With high-profile events such as the 2022 U.S. mid-term elections, disinformation campaigns will continue apace and progress in sophistication. China could even surpass Russia as the most effective online provocateur, continuing a trend identified last year. The New York Times recently outlined how the Shanghai Police Department conducted an operation where it contracted out disinformation operations over major social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to stoke division and dissent. Moving into 2022, the United States should anticipate that both China and the Russian Federation will continue to leverage a wide array of state-borne and third-party tools to exacerbate schisms within the American polity. In particular, the U.S. midterm elections slated for the fall of 2022 will present the Chinese and Russians the perfect opportunity to amplify disinformation perpetuated by leading American political conspiracy theorists such as Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and Paul Gosar. Rather than creating disinformation content on their own, troll armies associated with state actors can simply echo, retweet, and “like” at scale the false narratives peddled by U.S. political figures. As this escalates throughout 2022, the tensions that manifest will make it more difficult for the United States to counter other activities that may threaten its national security interests. Election interference through disinformation, however, will not just impact the United States. For instance, the looming French election in the summer of 2022 will also figure heavily in disinformation-lodged attacks. The Kremlin has long meddled in French elections, and it is highly likely that Russian actors will attempt to do so again.
15. Stop counting warships. China's special-operations forces are Taiwan's real problem.
Assuming this is valid analysis, one of the ways Taiwan must defend itself is to take away the PLA SOF's freedom of action - empty the sea which allows them to operate. ("The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." - Mao Zedong.) This takes a strong civil defense effort to wage a counter-SOF campaign. The resistance operating concept can be a useful tool for developing the necessary capabilities within the civilian population to assist in defending against PLA SOF.
Stop counting warships. China's special-operations forces are Taiwan's real problem.
The Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, departs Hong Kong, July 11, 2017.
- China's military expansion, especially of its naval fleet, has received worldwide attention.
- As impressive as those ships are, China's leaders may not rely on them to recapture Taiwan.
- Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities and a former research professor at the US Naval War College.
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In December, two Chinese carrier battle groups went to sea simultaneously for the first time. They did so only weeks after the Chinese Navy's newest large helicopter carrier began its sea trials.
These are major milestones for the PLA Navy, which is clearly advancing quickly in all respects. Yet they may be a red herring when it comes to the "the most dangerous place on the planet," as the Economist accurately described the Taiwan situation last year.
Indeed, China does not require large and advanced warships to attack the island. This is quite easily grasped if one simply looks at a map and sees that the medium-sized island is less than 100 miles off of China's coast.
If the US were to try to invade Cuba, would it need the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleets? Hardly. The US Army and Air Force most likely would be quite sufficient without support from the US Navy. The same is true for Taiwan, which is unfortunate enough to be a very close neighbor of a nationalistic, rising superpower.
No warships necessary
Less than 3 miles of the South China Sea separate the Chinese city of Xiamen and Taiwan's Kinmen islands, February 2, 2021.
An Rong Xu/Getty Images
In the first phase of an attack, Taiwan would be pulverized by thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles (not even counting lethal rocket artillery), eliminating its air defenses, hitting runways, and knocking out key communications nodes.
The main purpose of these strikes, aside from eliminating Taiwan's small navy and air force, would be to clear corridors over the island with massive firepower, paving the way for PLA soldiers to insert via parachute and helicopter.
Beijing has been massively upgrading its airborne forces so that all three major services are now making very regular parachute jumps. Exercises demonstrate that Chinese airborne forces, moreover, are undertaking more challenging jumps, including at night, in coastal areas, and even over the water.
Chinese PLA paratroopers jump from a Y-8 aircraft during a Pakistan-China military exercise in Jhelum, November 24, 2011.
AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images
Having studied major airborne operations like Normandy in great detail, the PLA understands well that these troops require additional firepower and mobility, for which special light tanks, jeeps, and anti-tank weapons have been developed.
The PLA's parachute troops will get crucial assistance from a parallel effort by an enormous fleet of transport and attack helicopters. Demonstrating the salient role of helicopters in the evolving PLA, and in a Taiwan scenario in particular, China has been simultaneously fielding two types of transport helicopters and two types of attack helicopters.
This crowded production schedule is supplemented with ample imports from Russia. A Russian expert on the PLA recently estimated the PLA force at 1,500 helicopters in a December 2021 analysis titled, "The Celestial Rotary-wing Empire."
Between parachute and heliborne forces, China could quite reasonably hope to put 50,000 soldiers on the island in the first wave and well over 100,000 in the first 24 hours.
It is worth noting that Chinese strategists are acutely aware that these first assault waves will suffer very high casualties, but they consider this a necessary cost to obtain victory.
Chinese Air Force special-operations troops during a drill, March 3, 2015.
Xinhua/Huang Hui
Just as Chinese strategists are working to solve the firepower issue with airborne assault, they have been working assiduously on the supply problem. Beijing's heliborne and airborne forces will be resupplied by parachute-dropped pallets and by heavy drones developed specifically for this purpose.
Most Western defense analysts seem enamored of China's amphibious tank force, which is extolled almost daily in PLA news reports. Yet Beijing's strategists know very well that amphibious assault against dug-in defenders with slow and highly visible assault vehicles is risky.
So while armor may get some use, the main forces coming ashore, at least initially, will be infantry in small, light craft that can built cheaply. This approach is in line with cutting-edge thinking about amphibious warfare.
As two US strategists giving advice to the US Marine Corps not long ago wrote: "smaller ground units and capabilities dispersed over wide areas [can] … achieve outsized effects."
A cadet demonstrates an amphibious all-terrain vehicle at the PLA's Armored Forces Engineering Academy, July 22, 2014.
GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images
Reflecting that emphasis on small size and greater dispersion, the PLA has in recent years taken great interest in operations with light craft.
These vessels have speed, stealth, and low cost, but perhaps their most notable virtue is their small size, allowing them to be carried and launched by almost any civilian vessel, including ships of China's enormous fishing fleet.
Such vessels will run the gamut from inflatable rafts with outboard engines to small landing craft to more high-performance vessels. At the latter end of the spectrum is a 16-meter "new type high speed vessel," specifically the Type 928D assault boat for ground forces, details of which were revealed in January 2020 by a Chinese shipbuilding magazine.
In such craft, which could easily be hidden in cavernous storage areas proximate to China's massive ports, Chinese assault teams could access the entire Taiwan coastline in four or five hours.
Normal force vs. extraordinary force
Chinese soldiers at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center in Amman, May 3, 2016.
Xinhua/Mohammad Abu Ghosh via Getty Images
The assault vectors outlined above do not depend heavily on warships, but they do rely upon a large force of highly trained assault troops, special forces in particular.
As elite formations in Western militaries increased in size and ability during the war on terror, Beijing also invested keenly in such capabilities.
There was a glimpse of China's intensity in developing these forces a few years ago, when a reporter for the Atlantic sized them up during an international counterterrorism competition. The PRC teams did not disappoint.
If one watches the Chinese military news regularly, it is apparent that these select soldiers are being prepared for stealthy insertion, night operations, sniper tactics, securing hard targets, urban combat, and mountain operations.
These troops would create mayhem in Taiwan's rear areas, closing roads and attacking headquarters, but they would also secure crucial objectives, including crucial high ground, airfields, and small ports.
When Chinese forces do come ashore on Taiwan's beaches, special-forces teams may well have already secured those landing areas.
The PLA fondness for special operations should not be very surprising. More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote: "use the normal force to engage; use the extraordinary force to win."
A Taiwanese military exercise simulating an attempted amphibious landing by Chinese forces, May 30, 2019.
Kyodo News Stills via Getty Images
American strategists, however, seem to prefer simply to count how many amphibious tanks could be put in the water, since the massive ships transporting those tanks could potentially be targeted by American torpedoes and missiles.
Crude models that seek a "technological silver bullet" to defeat a Chinese invasion fail to account for the fact that Taiwan is mostly composed of mountains and urban areas. In other words, this will be a good old infantry fight.
It should be noted that amphibious tanks have never been a decisive factor in beach assaults — not at Normandy, not at Inchon, and not in the Falklands. Rather, air power was decisive in those campaigns, and China has that in spades, supplemented by vast missile, drone, and long-range artillery forces.
An infantry fight can be deeply affected by airpower, of course, but soldier motivation will also play a decisive role. In that respect, China also seems to have a major advantage over Taiwan, which has been lackluster in its own defense.
American strategists would be wise to get real about this scenario with a better understanding of the local geography and developments in current Chinese military doctrine.
If, as this analysis suggests, favorable geography, combined with highly trained and motivated special forces — not to mention the obvious first-mover advantage — afford Beijing near-total mastery in a Taiwan scenario, these factors also mean Taiwan is the wrong place for Washington to draw a "red line" in the Asia-Pacific.
Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities. Formerly, he served as research professor at the US Naval War College for 20 years. In that post, he was awarded the Superior Civilian Service Medal for founding and leading the China Maritime Studies Institute.
16. The Biden Team Knows Its Iran Policy Is Failing
The Biden Team Knows Its Iran Policy Is Failing
Tehran’s march toward the bomb has been enabled by the administration’s refusal to impose consequences.
The Biden administration now admits a nuclear deal with Iran may not happen despite its continued outreach to Tehran. There are signs the administration wants to pin the blame on former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose withdrawal from the original nuclear deal supposedly provided Iran with the pretext to advance its nuclear weapons capabilities. But the uncomfortable truth is Iran’s most aggressive moves came after U.S. President Joe Biden was elected. What’s driving Tehran forward is not Trump’s maximum pressure campaign but Biden’s decision to ease that pressure. Simply put: Iran is doing what it can get away with.
In early December, the administration acknowledged it is discussing alternatives “if the path to diplomacy towards a mutual return to compliance [with the 2015 nuclear deal] isn’t viable in the near term.” A U.S. State Department spokesperson made that comment while Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was visiting Washington to propose joint military exercises to prepare for potential strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The need for such consultations indicates a deal is slipping out of reach.
Earlier this month, an unnamed senior U.S. official also warned that “in the first quarter of [2022],” Tehran could “configure things and rapidly get one bomb’s worth of [highly enriched uranium].” In other words, Iran has taken advantage of lengthy negotiations in Vienna to move toward nuclear breakout, which is when a state achieves nuclear weapons capability.
The Biden administration now admits a nuclear deal with Iran may not happen despite its continued outreach to Tehran. There are signs the administration wants to pin the blame on former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose withdrawal from the original nuclear deal supposedly provided Iran with the pretext to advance its nuclear weapons capabilities. But the uncomfortable truth is Iran’s most aggressive moves came after U.S. President Joe Biden was elected. What’s driving Tehran forward is not Trump’s maximum pressure campaign but Biden’s decision to ease that pressure. Simply put: Iran is doing what it can get away with.
In early December, the administration acknowledged it is discussing alternatives “if the path to diplomacy towards a mutual return to compliance [with the 2015 nuclear deal] isn’t viable in the near term.” A U.S. State Department spokesperson made that comment while Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was visiting Washington to propose joint military exercises to prepare for potential strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The need for such consultations indicates a deal is slipping out of reach.
Earlier this month, an unnamed senior U.S. official also warned that “in the first quarter of [2022],” Tehran could “configure things and rapidly get one bomb’s worth of [highly enriched uranium].” In other words, Iran has taken advantage of lengthy negotiations in Vienna to move toward nuclear breakout, which is when a state achieves nuclear weapons capability.
Washington’s European allies also know the talks are headed for failure. British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said this is Iran’s “last chance” for a deal.
Yet acknowledging failure and taking responsibility for it are two very different things. Earlier this month, when an interviewer told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “the path for diplomacy seems to be failing,” Blinken pivoted to blaming Trump. He said Trump’s “decision to pull out of the [original] agreement was a disastrous mistake because what’s happened since is that Iran has used that as an excuse, despite the maximum pressure applied against Iran, to also renege on its commitments under the agreement and to inexorably rebuild the nuclear program that the agreement had put in a box.”
Biden will have to recognize that his decisions, not Trump’s, have brought the United States to this point.
As my colleagues have pointed out, the problem with that argument is Tehran’s most egregious nuclear advances occurred after Biden was elected, not after Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018. Does Blinken believe Tehran is ignoring Washington’s outstretched hand because it is still angry about Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal more than three and a half years ago?
Unlikely. Rather, Biden has incentivized Tehran’s march toward the bomb by refusing to impose any consequences on the clerical regime for its provocations. There were five key instances when Biden stuck to his “engagement only” strategy despite Tehran’s nuclear advances.
First, Iran began producing uranium metal, a crucial element in nuclear weapons, in February. Tehran also started enriching uranium to 60 percent purity in April—its highest level ever and a short distance to the 90 percent purity needed for nuclear weapons. The knowledge Tehran’s scientists have acquired is irreversible.
The United States and its European allies condemned Iran’s actions and emphasized there is no civilian need for such advances. But Tehran faced no consequences.
Second, Tehran has obstructed the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) investigation into Iran’s undeclared nuclear activities at several suspect nuclear sites. Last month, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi warned that Iran’s stonewalling “seriously affects the Agency’s ability to provide assurance of the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.” Again, no consequences.
Third, Iran reduced its cooperation with the IAEA at declared nuclear sites as of February. Since then, the agency cannot review data from surveillance equipment and other techniques used to monitor Iran’s nuclear program’s status. Grossi said Iran’s actions “seriously undermined” the agency’s verification and monitoring activities. Consequences? None.
Fourth, Tehran has increased production of advanced centrifuge parts since August but has not allowed the agency to inventory or verify the location of this equipment. Grossi brokered a deal with Iran in mid-December that will allow the agency to install new surveillance cameras. But he also warned that even if monitoring and verification is restored, “there might be gaps. And these gaps are not a good thing to have.”
Fifth, the Biden administration has allowed each IAEA Board of Governors meeting this year to conclude without a censure resolution against Iran. One could argue the Biden administration was still getting its Iran policy and personnel in place during its first months in office, so the March board meeting was an inopportune time. No such excuse exists for the June, September, and November meetings. At the last meeting, the U.S. representative suggested the board should be recalled by the end of the year for a special session if Tehran does not cooperate.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration declined to convene a special session, losing a high-profile opportunity to show Iran’s impunity has come to an end. Even if a censure resolution is discussed at the next regular IAEA meeting in March, the outcome would not be a foregone conclusion. The administration would have to expend the diplomatic capital needed to secure the board’s agreement.
Next, Biden should pursue a bipartisan Iran policy so Iran cannot exploit divisions in Washington. This can be achieved by tasking a senior Democrat and senior Republican to conduct a quick policy review. Biden prides himself on being a deal-maker; only a bipartisan nuclear deal would be ratified by U.S. Congress and withstand a future administration’s whims.
Tehran’s amassing of knowledge about the development of nuclear weapons will irreparably harm the global nonproliferation regime and lead to a more dangerous world. If Biden hopes to stop it, he will have to recognize that his decisions and no one else’s have brought the United States to this point.
17. 1 in 3 Americans say violence against government can be justified, citing fears of political schism, pandemic
A scary poll. There are people on the left, right, and among independents who find violence acceptable.
Excerpts:
The percentage of adults who say violence is justified is up, from 23 percent in 2015 and 16 percent in 2010 in polls by CBS News and the New York Times.
A majority continue to say that violence against the government is never justified — but the 62 percent who hold that view is a new low point, and a stark difference from the 1990s, when as many as 90 percent said violence was never justified.
While a 2015 survey found no significant partisan divide when it comes to the question of justified violence against the government, the new poll identified a sharper rise on the right — with 40 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of independents saying it can be acceptable. The view was held by 23 percent of Democrats, the survey finds.
Acceptance of violence against the government was higher among men, younger adults and those with college degrees. There was also a racial gap, with 40 percent of White Americans saying such violence can be justified, compared with 18 percent of Black Americans.
I wonder how many of those who approve of violence have been committed to making the American experiment work and committed to the ideal of our founding principles? As I always ask, what is their vision of the outcome of violence? How do they view a future America after the violence takes place? How do they think violence will solve the problems they perceive? Have those who support violence really thought this through to the logical conclusion? I hope they are not romanticizing that they are following in the footsteps of our Founding Fathers and they are going to create another new American experiment.
The brilliance of the Founding Fathers is that they provided the tools for Americans to correct our mistakes so we would not have to resort to violence. Those who would resort to violence are need staying true to the Constitution.
1 in 3 Americans say violence against government can be justified, citing fears of political schism, pandemic
The Washington Post · by Meryl Kornfield and Mariana Alfaro Today at 5:59 p.m. EST · January 1, 2022
Phil Spampinato had never contemplated the question of whether violence against the government might be justified — at least not in the United States. But as he watched Republicans across the country move to reshape election laws in response to former president Donald Trump’s false fraud claims, the part-time engineering consultant from Dover, Del., said he began thinking differently about “defending your way of life.”
“Not too many years ago, I would have said that those conditions are not possible, and that no such violence is really ever appropriate,” said Spampinato, 73, a Democrat.
The notion of legitimate violence against the government had also not occurred to Anthea Ward, a mother of two in Michigan, until the past year — prompted by her fear that President Biden would go too far to force her and her family to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“The world we live in now is scary,” said Ward, 32, a Republican. “I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but sometimes it feels like a movie. It’s no longer a war against Democrats and Republicans. It’s a war between good and evil.”
A year after a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol in the worst attack on the home of Congress since it was burned by British forces in 1814, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds that about 1 in 3 Americans say they believe violence against the government can at times be justified.
The findings represent the largest share to feel that way since the question has been asked in various polls in more than two decades. They offer a window into the country’s psyche at a tumultuous period in American history, marked by last year’s insurrection, the rise of Trump’s election claims as an energizing force on the right, deepening fissures over the government’s role in combating the pandemic, and mounting racial justice protests sparked by police killings of Black Americans.
The percentage of adults who say violence is justified is up, from 23 percent in 2015 and 16 percent in 2010 in polls by CBS News and the New York Times.
A majority continue to say that violence against the government is never justified — but the 62 percent who hold that view is a new low point, and a stark difference from the 1990s, when as many as 90 percent said violence was never justified.
While a 2015 survey found no significant partisan divide when it comes to the question of justified violence against the government, the new poll identified a sharper rise on the right — with 40 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of independents saying it can be acceptable. The view was held by 23 percent of Democrats, the survey finds.
Acceptance of violence against the government was higher among men, younger adults and those with college degrees. There was also a racial gap, with 40 percent of White Americans saying such violence can be justified, compared with 18 percent of Black Americans.
People’s reasoning for what they considered acceptable violence against the government varied, from what they considered to be overreaching coronavirus restrictions, to the disenfranchisement of minority voters, to the oppression of Americans. Responses to an open-ended question on the survey about hypothetical justifications included repeated mentions of “autocracy,” “tyranny,” “corruption” and a loss of freedoms.
The growth in the share of Americans willing to accept violence against the government identified by The Post-UMD poll may be partly due to methodology. Previous surveys were conducted by phone, while the new poll was largely conducted online, and studies have found respondents are more willing to voice socially undesirable opinions in self-administered surveys than when asked by an interviewer.
Recent surveys, though, have identified a similar trend, and subsequent interviews of some of the 1,101 respondents who participated in the Dec. 17-19 Post-UMD poll found that the events of the past two years have prompted people to reconsider their views. (The new poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.)
It wasn’t until Jan. 6 that 75-year-old Beverly Lucas considered the fact that people could attempt to violently attack the government. Lucas, who voted for Trump and identifies as a Republican, said she was horrified watching the images of people clad in “Make America Great Again” apparel storming the Capitol, assaulting police officers who were guarding the building.
“That never should have happened in this country,” she said. “It’s a sobering idea that elected representatives should fear for their lives because of a mob.”
Still, Lucas said she had not ruled out the possibility that she would agree with violence if there was no available nonviolent alternative, referencing the Revolutionary War.
“When in the course of human events the government no longer represents the people, and there is no recourse, then it might be time,” she said.
“I don’t think that will ever happen,” she added.
The Capitol attack also set off alarms for Rob Redding, 45, a New York political independent who has been a talk-show host and runs a website focused on Black-oriented news. He said he has since considered arming himself to protect his loved ones.
The insurrectionists, he said, were attempting to “subvert American democracy because now it’s becoming equal for all people.”
“We are in a state where we’re going to have to arm ourselves, absolutely,” Redding said. “I’m a Black man in America. … I believe in protecting myself.”
Redding added that he doesn’t believe in breaking laws “unless laws are unjust.” “To sit up here and say that I support violence against our government, I don’t. I support government being level and equal for all people.”
Taylor Atkins, 29, who lives in Atlanta and works in health-care administration, said she “absolutely” believes it is justifiable to take arms against the government in situations where those in power use their positions to oppress Americans, particularly those of ostracized identities.
Atkins, a Democrat, described the Jan. 6 riot as “insane,” saying “there wasn’t a need for violent outrage just because the president that you wanted to didn’t win.”
But, she added: “For people of color — I’m Black — we’re actually losing our lives. We’re actually fighting over if my life is valuable.”
A new mom, Atkins said she didn’t join Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020 because she had a baby back home. She also said she doesn’t support looting — but often, she noted, that’s the only way demonstrators can get attention.
Atkins said she has considered arming herself for her own “protection,” especially as the pandemic continues heightening tensions between civilians and the government. She pointed to clashes in Europe last year, where thousands of civilians protesting coronavirus measures fought police across the continent.
“I feel like that’s justified because, obviously, we do all care about each other … but everybody has the right to be a person and be free and make their own decisions,” she said. “As long as they’re not truly impacting somebody else, as far as they have covid and are not going to the store and actually coughing on somebody, they should be allowed to leave their house.”
Ward, the Michigan mother of two and self-employed housekeeper, said she would not participate in violence that she anticipates could come in her lifetime if the government imposes stricter rules such as an expansive vaccine mandate. She said she believes other people could be justified to “express their Second Amendment right” if the government infringes their freedom of choice and nonviolent action such as protests were unsuccessful.
Despite voting for Trump, Ward and other Republicans expressed disappointment with the insurrection on Jan. 6, saying they did not believe rioters had justification to commit violence.
Many respondents, particularly Republicans, cited the hardening battle lines over public health measures — and how far the government might go to combat the coronavirus — as a factor in their shifting views.
Don Whittington, 62, who lives in Prattville, Ala., and works in construction, said the pandemic has shown how easily it can be for some Americans to lose control over their freedoms, sparking angst among some groups, though he said he believes America is still far from a scenario that would push civilians to rebel against their government.
“What I can see across the country — there is going to come a point where people, both Democrat and Republican, are going to quit putting up with the things that are taking place,” said Whittington, a Republican.
Still, Whittington, a devout Christian and a firearm owner, said he wouldn’t be one to fight in a revolution.
“Because of my worldview, and because of my belief in God, I don’t know that I would ever use a weapon against a government or anybody else,” he said.
Matthew Wood, 37, a call center operator in Nampa, Idaho, said he has gotten more involved in local politics since the start of the pandemic, demanding fewer restrictions. If officials won’t listen to people like him, he said, violence would be acceptable as a last resort. “If governments aren’t willing to work and make changes, then so be it,” said Wood, a Republican.
Tomasz Antoszczak, a 39-year-old Democrat from New Jersey, said he did not believe justified violence could happen any time soon, stressing that such action would be “a very last resort.” But he said that the last administration’s attempts to overturn the results of the election could have gone differently, potentially tipping the scales.
“With last year’s insurrection, if things had gone in a different direction for some reason, and if the folks who stormed the Capitol were successful, and if the election was overturned and the results were overturned, and if Trump would have stayed in power,” Antoszczak said. “That’s just a lot of ifs.”
Antoszczak expressed concern about the lawmakers he said “caved in” to the demands of the last administration.
“The last couple of years definitely opened my eyes a little bit more as to how fragile our government can be,” he said.
James Lee, a Democrat in Florida, argued that American democracy was built on negotiation based on conflict, meaning that it took the Revolutionary War to achieve the political system the country has now.
“Whenever you lose that negotiation factor or the democracy itself, then, yeah, violence is going to have to be used in order to reestablish the democracy that we have,” he said.
Still, Lee said he wouldn’t be one to fight a despotic government.
“If I have to resort to firearms, in my opinion, I’ve already lost the battle,” he said.
Scott Clement and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
The Washington Post · by Meryl Kornfield and Mariana Alfaro Today at 5:59 p.m. EST · January 1, 2022
18. U.S. on Sidelines as China and Other Asia-Pacific Nations Launch Trade Pact
As I have said, the decision to withdraw from the TPP is probably one of the worst strategic decisions of the 21st century.
U.S. on Sidelines as China and Other Asia-Pacific Nations Launch Trade Pact
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will eventually eliminate more than 90% of tariffs on commerce among 15 member countries
It will also give China a more prominent role in setting rules of trade in the Asia-Pacific region at the expense of the U.S., according to some analysts.
“This will be a grouping of countries that will work together and try to develop new rules and new standards,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former U.S. trade official. “[The U.S. is] moving in the other direction.”
China had been excluded from an earlier trade agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the U.S. had led to counter China’s influence in the region.
Henry Gao, an Asia trade expert and associate professor of law at Singapore Management University, said the new RCEP “could be a wake-up call for the U.S. to rethink its strategy and come back to Asia-Pacific.”
He said the RCEP will benefit China by making its parts and components more attractive to factories that make up supply chains in Southeast Asia, and by boosting trade with Japan and South Korea.
The RCEP was initiated in 2012 by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to strengthen ties with China and other nations in Asia. Ms. Cutler, who worked with the U.S. Trade Representative’s office at the time, said the U.S. wasn’t invited to participate and said it wouldn’t have joined anyway because the agreement was considered too weak, lacking requirements for labor and environmental standards.
When the RCEP members unveiled the completion of their agreement in November 2020, then-President-elect Biden said the U.S. needed to “set the rules of the road instead of having China and others dictate outcomes because they are the only game in town.”
The other member nations of the RCEP are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
So far 10 of the 15 member nations have formally ratified the agreement and the others are expected to do so in the months ahead.
With RCEP members accounting for 30% of global population and gross domestic product, the partnership becomes the world’s largest regional trade agreement, exceeding the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the European Customs Union.
The agreement aims to eliminate almost all tariffs on imports between the nations in up to 20 years and establishes common standards on intellectual property rights and e-commerce.
Some trade analysts have said the RCEP falls short by not addressing issues where China could be vulnerable, including labor and environmental standards and its support for state-owned enterprises.
In a Nov. 8 letter, 13 GOP senators led by Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, urged Mr. Biden to get involved in new trade rule making in the Asia-Pacific region, saying the absence of the U.S. “encourages potential partners to move forward without us and ensures China will hold the reins of the global economy.”
As an early indication, they pointed to the launch of the RCEP, calling it “an agreement that comports with China’s interests, including weak rules on intellectual property rights, and none whatsoever on state-owned enterprises.”
Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) has urged President Biden to get involved in new trade rule making in the Asia-Pacific region.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said China is “committed to building an open world economy, rather than forming an exclusive and closed ‘clique,’”
The launch of the RCEP comes at a time when China seeks bigger roles in making trade rules in the Asia-Pacific region while the U.S. remains largely absent.
In recent months, Beijing applied to join the CPTPP and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, an ambitious new pact between Chile, New Zealand and Singapore that aims to build common standards in areas like e-commerce and artificial intelligence. Some experts see the DEPA as a model for a future agreement for the broader region.
Emphasizing the progress China has made in opening up its economy in a Nov. 5 speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out that China was among the first nations to ratify the RCEP domestically. He also pledged to work actively toward joining the CPTPP and the DEPA.
As the first free-trade agreement that links China, Japan and South Korea, the RCEP is expected to help boost trade between the nations significantly.
Tariffs will be eliminated on 86% of industrial goods exported from Japan to China, up from 8% currently. That includes the elimination of levies on 87% of auto-parts exports worth nearly $45 billion annually, according to the Japanese government.
Some 92% of Japanese industrial products will be exported to South Korea duty free, compared with 19% currently.
The Brookings Institution estimates the RCEP could add $209 billion annually to world incomes, and $500 billion to world trade by 2030.
The most notable feature of the RCEP, trade experts say, is flexible origin rules. It requires only 40% of the contents of a product to originate within the RCEP bloc to qualify for duty-free treatment, compared with the 50% to 60% floors for the USMCA.
“That provides a lot of opportunities for building and strengthening intra-Asian supply chains,” said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
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.
