Cyber attacks in India triple in last three years, but security funds underutilised

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The number of cyber attacks in the country has witnessed three-fold increase over as many years, however, the funds meant for cybersecurity have been underutilised with only Rs 98.31 crore used of the total Rs 213 crore sanctioned.

According to government data, in 2019, total number of cyber security incidents tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was 3,94,499. The number spiked to 11,58,208 in the year 2020 and further increased to 14,02,809 in 2021. This year, as many as 6,74,021 cyber security incidents were reported till June.

Cyber attack which has put All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi’s servers out of order on November 23 is yet to be resolved completely.

Multiple agencies have been looking into the cyber attack at the crucial installation of the country.

The Mountains Facing Pakistan’s New Army Chief

Tim Willasey-Wilsey

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For most of Pakistan’s history the Army Chief has held the most important role in the country. So, the appointment of a new Chief this week by the prime minister is a significant moment. General Asim Munir faces a dizzying range of internal and external challenges.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has made his decision and has chosen Lieutenant-General Asim Munir to be the next Chief of Army Staff. Sharif has agonised for weeks over this choice and even flew to London in early November to consult his brother, Nawaz, the former prime minister. Both Nawaz and Shehbaz are still haunted by their near-fatal error in choosing Pervez Musharraf in 1998, only for the apparently mild-mannered general to mount a coup the following year and appoint himself president for the next eight years. Nawaz’s long periods of exile and imprisonment serve as constant reminders of the perils of such decisions.

However, the choice seems to be a good one. Munir was the highest ranking general on the list and has a good pedigree. He has commanded a brigade on operations in the northwest and an army corps near the Indian border. He has run Military Intelligence (MI), the body which monitors the security of the army itself, and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the powerful espionage and security agency which looks at external and internal threats to the state. The latter two appointments demonstrate that he has the total confidence of the outgoing chief, General Qamar Bajwa. After all, Bajwa needs someone to protect his back against any future political or judicial moves against his record in office.

Taiwan’s military not remotely ready for a China invasion

CLAIRE TIUNN

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Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Taiwanese polls indicated that, should the People’s Republic of China attack Taiwan, 74% of Taiwanese citizens were willing to defend the island. The question is not if they will fight, but rather how prepared they are.

In Taiwan, all men are conscripted into the military. But the period of service has been shortened in recent decades – from the original two years to one year as of 2008 and now, since 2018, to just four months.

Yet, with the Ukraine invasion and the Chinese military drills following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan, the reality of war is inching closer. Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said in late March that Taiwan is considering extending the compulsory military service.

TAIWAN FACES ITS UKRAINE MOMENT

Damir Marusic

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The night before boarding a flight home, at the end of a trip that had taken me from D.C. to Taiwan, Japan, Macedonia, Turkey, and back again, I came across a tweet that succinctly crystallized many of the fleeting impressions I had accumulated on the Pacific leg of my journey. The tweet was from Tanner Greer, a brilliant and iconoclastic China scholar, citing a quote about Taiwan sometimes attributed to Kurt Campbell, years before he became President Joe Biden’s chief Asia adviser on the National Security Council: “I thought I was going to find a second Israel; I found a second Costa Rica.”

“Whether Campbell ever said such a thing is beyond the point,” Greer wrote, explaining that he’d heard it from a Taiwanese think-tank associate. “What mattered was that this retired Taiwanese nat/sec official believed he could have said it, and believed the description accurate.”

The point of the anecdote is that the Taiwanese don’t seem to take the threats to their security nearly as seriously as most observers in Washington do. The Taiwanese worry, of course. It’s impossible not to, especially because China has altered the status quo in the Taiwan Strait after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit earlier this year by repeatedly sending fighter jets and frigates far into Taiwan’s territorial waters. But the mood on the island is much more relaxed than the mood in Israel, a country that similarly faces implacable hostility from some of its neighbors. Indeed, the contrast could not be more pronounced.

China’s Protests Punch a Hole in Xi’s Credibility

Deng Yuwen

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Students and members of the public have taken to the streets in major cities across China, with protesters in Shanghai calling for Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to step down—a rare sight in China, where protest is strictly curtailed. Coming shortly after the 20th Party Congress, which marked the beginning of Xi’s third term as CCP general secretary, these protests bear closer examination and consideration for their potential to affect China’s political situation and Xi’s grip on power—and even to usher in a “new era” of social movements akin to the wave of protests that swept the country in 1989.

Commentators calling these the largest protests since 1989 are mistaken. The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao years saw mass protests that drew tens of thousands of participants or more, destroyed local government offices, and had to be put down by armed police. The crowds in videos emerging from protests in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, and other cities are generally small, ranging from several hundred to over a thousand. Rather, it is Xi’s heavy-handed suppression of social dissent over his time in office and his concomitant expansion of public expenditures and targeted poverty alleviation, buying the affections of the underclasses and all but eliminating open public protest, that makes the current wave of protests significant.

What Sparked China’s Weekend of Anger?

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Over the weekend, large demonstrations broke out in cities across China. The protests followed news, spread rapidly across Chinese and international social media, that a fire in an apartment building in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi on Friday had turned deadly, claiming at least 10 lives (and potentially dozens more), possibly as a result of the region’s COVID-19 lockdowns. Throngs of residents took to the streets in anger, where the singing of “The Internationale” and China’s national anthem mingled with calls to end the zero-COVID policy. In Shanghai, where protesters gathered Saturday on the city’s Urumqi Road, chants expressed support for the fire’s victims as well as calls for the lifting of zero-COVID restrictions and even demands—extraordinary in a country that does not tolerate political dissent—that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its newly reappointed leader, Xi Jinping, “step down.” On Sunday, demonstrators appeared at multiple locations across Beijing, including Peking and Tsinghua universities, where some called for “universal rights” and “freedom of expression” while others held aloft blank sheets of paper, symbols of the many things they were forbidden to say.

What to expect after China’s 20th National Congress

Meia Nouwens, Haoyu Tong

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China’s leader, Xi Jinping, cast aside succession norms and secured a third five-year term in October. But his rule is becoming increasingly personalistic, and with slowing growth and increasing challenges internationally, governing effectively until 2027 will probably be more difficult than in the decade since he came to power.

In November 2002, at the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), then-general secretary Jiang Zemin yielded to the heir apparent, Hu Jintao. This power transition had been arranged roughly a decade earlier by Deng Xiaoping, who had been paramount leader since the late 1970s, and it was the first that might be called orderly after more than a half-century of CCP rule (even if Jiang retained a degree of political control and influence for many years afterwards). This prompted the scholar Andrew Nathan to write a seminal 2003 article on the institutionalisation of Chinese politics in which he noted that by observing norms in leadership succession, following meritocracy in promotions and dividing party from state institutions, the CCP had strengthened its rule. In other words, it had shown an ability – rare in an authoritarian context – to place limits on its top leaders and embrace a collective decision-making process.

How the Chinese government is financing its way to becoming a techno-superpower

Ngor Luong

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On October 7, the Biden administration announced a new rule to control exports of advanced-computing semiconductor chips to China. As the United States works to cut off technology and capital flows to China, Beijing’s desire to achieve technological self-sufficiency is greater than ever. In fact, during the 20th Party Congress in the following week, Xi Jinping further pledged self-reliance in technology to gain a competitive edge in the tech competition with the United States.

Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has sought technology-focused securitization to build an innovation system that supports its broader economic, societal, and geostrategic goals. In response to the economic impact ranging from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to the US-China trade and technology war, the Chinese Politburo unveiled the new “dual circulation” strategy at a Central Financial and Economic Commission meeting in 2020. At its core, dual circulation aims to reduce China’s vulnerability to external shocks, and to increase the country’s self-reliance to better guard against global volatility. The Chinese government works to improve China’s innovation-building capacity by attracting foreign capital and technology know-how in order to maximize their benefits while retaining overall control of the system.

Why China Isn’t Facing Another Tiananmen Moment

Andrew J. Nathan

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In April 1989, a peaceful protest by several hundred university students in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square swelled over the course of four and a half weeks into massive demonstrations. Students, workers, and government and party officials took part, and similar protests broke out in over three hundred other cities across China.

Last week’s anti-Covid protests, by contrast, are now petering out, after a few heady days of defiance. Despite the country’s deep-seated and widespread public outrage at three years of rigid Covid restrictions, Xi Jinping has China under much tighter control than his predecessors did three decades ago.

The 1989 demonstrations swelled to crisis size because of a split in the Chinese Communist Party leadership. The General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, believed that the students were patriotic and their reform demands were reasonable. He wanted to reason with them, offer reforms and disperse the demonstrators peacefully. The premier, Li Peng, argued that any such opening would spell the end of the regime, as one social group after another would start making demands on the ruling party. The other top leaders split between Zhao and Li.

Apple Makes Plans to Move Production Out of China

Yang Jie

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In recent weeks, Apple Inc. AAPL -0.34%decrease; red down pointing triangle has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the supply chain that built the world’s most valuable company, say people involved in the discussions. It is telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn 2354 0.37%increase; green up pointing triangle Technology Group.

Turmoil at a place called iPhone City helped propel Apple’s shift. At the giant city-within-a-city in Zhengzhou, China, as many as 300,000 workers work at a factory run by Foxconn to make iPhones and other Apple products. At one point, it alone made about 85% of the Pro lineup of iPhones, according to market-research firm Counterpoint Research.

US Funds Arabs Who Want to Destroy Israel

Bassam Tawil

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What is disturbing is that a large portion of this incitement is coming from Arabs whose governments signed peace treaties or other agreements with Israel: Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians.

What is even more disturbing is that the hate against Israel is coming from Arabs who continue to benefit from unconditional US financial aid.

The Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, continues to spearhead the Arab campaign of incitement and delegitimization against Israel. In addition to the incendiary rhetoric, the Palestinian Authority does not hide its vehement opposition to any kind of peace with Israel.

In its latest tirade against Israel, Abbas's ruling Fatah faction claimed that the Israeli counter-terrorism measures, designed to save the lives of Jews and Arabs alike, are acts of "terrorism and war crimes." According to the logic of the Palestinian Authority, a terror attack against Israel is legitimate and the perpetrator is a hero and martyr, but an Israeli action to stop terrorism is illegitimate.

How To Engage And Prevail In Political Warfare Against China – Analysis

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Introduction

In his report to the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party in October, Xi Jinping praised the progress made over the past decade under his leadership to advance the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation domestically and internationally. According to Xi, this is taking place in an era of “momentous changes of a like not seen in a century [and which] are accelerating across the world.”1 For Xi, these “great changes” comprise “a significant shift [that] is taking place in the international balance of power, presenting China with new strategic opportunities in pursuing development.”2

A pillar of Xi’s plan to realize the rejuvenation of China and to emerge as the preeminent nation in the region and beyond is to shrink the strategic, military, economic, political, and normative ground in the region on which the United States can sustain, build, and demonstrate its power and influence. This is because China knows there is no material or nonmaterial counterbalance without the US. Additionally, the more China can weaken the resolve of US allies and other countries to support American-led initiatives to counter China and the credibility of the US-led alliance system, the smaller and weaker the ground for Washington to maintain its footholds in distant lands becomes, and the closer China draws to its goal of preeminence.

Preparing for a Russian cyber offensive against Ukraine this winter

Clint Watts

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As we report more fully below, in the wake of Russian battlefield losses to Ukraine this fall, Moscow has intensified its multi-pronged hybrid technology approach to pressure the sources of Kyiv’s military and political support, domestic and foreign. This approach has included destructive missile and cyber strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, cyberattacks on Ukrainian and now foreign-based supply chains, and cyber-enabled influence operations[1]—intended to undermine US, EU, and NATO political support for Ukraine, and to shake the confidence and determination of Ukrainian citizens.

In recent months, cyberthreat actors affiliated with Russian military intelligence have launched destructive wiper attacks against energy, water and other critical infrastructure organizations’ networks in Ukraine as missile strikes knocked out power and water supplies to civilians across the country. Russian military operators also expanded destructive cyberactivity outside Ukraine to Poland, a critical logistics hub, in a possible attempt to disrupt the movement of weapons and supplies to the front.

Meanwhile, Russian propaganda seeks to amplify the intensity of popular dissent over energy and inflation across Europe by boosting select narratives online through state-affiliated media outlets and social media accounts to undermine elected officials and democratic institutions. To date, these have had only limited public impact, but they foreshadow what may become broadening tactics during the winter ahead.

NATO prepares for cyber war

MAGGIE MILLER

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TALLINN, Estonia — Some 150 NATO cybersecurity experts assembled in an unimposing beige building in the heart of Estonia’s snow-covered capital this week to prepare for a cyberwar.

It’s a scenario that has become all too real for NATO member states and their allies since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The conflict has forced Ukraine to defend against both missile attacks and constant efforts by Russian hackers intent on turning off the lights and making life more difficult for their besieged neighbors.

“There is a level of seriousness added; it’s not anymore so fictitious. It has become quite obvious those things are happening in reality,” Col. Bernd Hansen, branch head for Cyberspace at NATO Allied Command Transformation, said of the impact of the conflict in Ukraine.

Developing-country status at the WTO: the divergent strategies of Brazil, India and China

Till Schöfer, Clara Weinhardt

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The economic rise of Brazil, India and China has engendered significant power shifts on the world stage. International Relations (IR) scholars have often debated the implications of these shifts for established global governance frameworks and the liberal international order.1 Power shift theory points out that established powers are themselves partly responsible for the extent to which existing institutions of global order are accepted or rejected by emerging powers.2 In distinction from previous research, the primary interest of this article is not in whether established powers give up their institutional privileges in response to global power shifts, but in whether emerging powers do so as they rise. While scholars have recently started to recognize that both emerging and established powers may challenge the status quo,3 the latter aspect remains under-studied.4

Why should established powers challenge the institutional privileges of emerging powers? The common assumption is that the existing global order serves the interests of established powers,5 and that this may lead to challenges from emerging powers. What is often overlooked, however, is that international institutions not only grant their most powerful members institutional privileges, such as more extensive voting rights, but also rely on differentiation that seeks to address the disadvantaged position of ‘weaker’ regime members. Along these lines, Caroline Fehl and Katja Freistein note that international organizations often ‘grant … disadvantaged categories of members privileged access to resources’.6 In the world trade regime, several differential treatment provisions are institutionalized that grant developing-country members exemptions and flexibilities regarding liberalization commitments. Similarly, the environmental regime in the 1970s and 1980s established the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) among its members. In recent years, however, the question of whether emerging powers should still be allowed to claim special rights as developing countries has become a subject of heated debate. In times of intensifying interstate economic competition, a low-yield environment and post-pandemic inflationary pressure, established powers are increasingly concerned about their relative economic position vis-à-vis emerging economies. As a result, they have begun to challenge the developing-country privileges to which emerging powers continue to have access. Nevertheless, scholarly research on the strategies that emerging powers have adopted in response to such challenges remains scarce.7

Russia’s War on Ukraine: Two Inconvenient Truths for the EU

Zachary Paikin

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Following a spectacular counteroffensive and the retaking of Kherson, the war in Europe’s east has moved into a new phase. The immediate focus is now shifting to the chilling effects of winter – both on the frontline and on Western morale. However, this must not prevent the EU and its member states from confronting two key – and unavoidable – strategic questions.

The continued risk of escalation

The first is short-term. Russia’s partial mobilisation may help to slow its territorial losses. But if Ukraine has indeed acquired “irreversible momentum”,[1] this raises questions over how far Kyiv can continue to press its advantage before Moscow chooses to escalate even further, possibly employing non-conventional means. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex four Ukrainian territories has already demonstrated his penchant for escalating in the face of setbacks, especially when the benefits of de-escalating are unclear.

A complete Ukrainian victory on the battlefield may engender such dynamics as political instability within Russia or even the use of nuclear weapons, which present an arguably greater security threat than Putin’s current near-total disregard for the established norms of the European security system. It should be recalled that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine before the country obtained NATO membership. Nominal (as opposed to concrete) promises of eventual accession for Kyiv were said to be a concession to Moscow given that few (if any) steps were taken to advance its membership prospects. It turns out that the West misread Putin’s red lines. Similarly, it is difficult to know for certain where Russia’s red lines will be when it comes to nuclear use.

Putin Is Doing Xi’s Dirty Work (and the West Is Helping Him)

William R. Spiegelberger

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Ultimately, Russia and the West can and should be partners, not Russia and China. The infrastructure is in place: numerous oil and gas pipelines, extensive rail connections, and convenient ports. Russia and the West face common challenges from China, whose economy has greatly outstripped Russia’s and threatens—over time—to overtake America’s as well. Rich and powerful Russians, especially public officials, may toe Vladimir Putin’s pro-China line, but they tend to have their homes in London and New York, not Shanghai; their money is in Switzerland and Cyprus, not China; and their children attend Eton and Harvard, not Tsinghua University.

The idea that Russia could have normal relations with the West anytime soon is not one that is widely held today. Eugene Rumer and Andrew Weiss have convincingly argued that it would require “magical thinking” to believe “that somehow Russia will address Western concerns by embracing sweeping changes to its domestic political order, or by replacing its well-established brand of foreign policy opportunism and calculated risk-taking with cooperation.” The Sino-Russian relationship, as Sergey Radchenko notes, does have certain indisputable factors going for it: it is not hierarchical, neither side expects the other to embrace its ideology (apart from authoritarianism and anti-Americanism), and the two countries can be expected “work hard to avoid frictions” because “they understand … that they are destined to be neighbors.”

The Perpetually Irrational Ukraine Debate

Stephen M. Walt

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Because war is uncertain and reliable information is sparse, no one knows how the war in Ukraine will play out. Nor can any of us be completely certain what the optimal course of action is. We all have our own theories, hunches, beliefs, and hopes, but nobody’s crystal ball is 100 percent reliable in the middle of a war.

You might think that this situation would encourage observers to approach the whole issue with a certain humility and give alternative perspectives a fair hearing even when they disagree with one’s own. Instead, debates about responsibility for the war and the proper course of action to follow have been unusually nasty and intolerant, even by modern standards of social media vituperation. I’ve been trying to figure out why this is the case.

Russia’s “dirty bomb” disinformation, annotated

 

Matthew Bunn

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In late October, after eight months of war, the Russian government claimed that Ukraine was preparing to use a "dirty bomb" and blame it on Russia. There was never any evidence for this claim. But Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nbenzia, nevertheless sent a letter (reproduced below) demanding that the Security Council hold a meeting to discuss the "dirty bomb" issue.

Russia's claims have been widely dismissed. Nevertheless, Russian spokesmen are continuing to press the narrative. (See, for example, the November 8 statement from Anatoliy Antonov, Russia's ambassador to the United States, which slurs together with the dirty bomb theme a variety of other false claims about Ukraine.) It seems worthwhile, therefore, to debunk Russia's claims in detail.

Nuclear energy in a low-carbon future: Implications for the United States and Japan

Stephen S. Greene

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Nuclear power has received renewed global interest as a secure source of carbon-free energy. In the context of worsening climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resultant energy market constrictions, many countries are actively pursuing conventional and advanced nuclear development, while others are canceling or postponing scheduled shutdowns. As climate change continues to impact both energy supply and demand, nuclear energy is poised to play a major role in the reliability of the future clean energy mix.

Challenges to nuclear rollout will require solutions. Construction timelines remain extended, as do licensing processes. Social constraints also hinder development prospects. These potential stumbling blocks require steadfast coordination between allies like the United States and Japan, especially as other nuclear energy heavyweights like Russia and China avoid many of those same bottlenecks in their pursuit of domestic buildout and export.

Despite those issues, though, nuclear energy is forecasted to play a major role in the later stages of the energy transition, in which countries look to decarbonize the more difficult parts of their economies. The advent of advanced technologies and the completion of large-scale projects portends the arrival of nuclear energy’s reliability and versatility just as the global energy sector needs it.

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The New Geopolitics of Global Finance

Brad W. Setser

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I first started to write a balance of payments focused blog back in 2004.

Initially, I spent most of my time documenting the rapid rise in China’s surplus, the relentless rise in the surplus of the oil exporters, and the massive run up in global foreign exchange reserves—and showing that for all the talk (at the time) about exchange rate flexibility, most emerging markets were heavily intervening in the foreign exchange market.

I also sought, with only limited success, to figure out the vulnerabilities associated with that particular global system. The “balance of financial terror” ultimately held. China never stopped financing the United States. Yet by the summer of 2007, obvious stress had emerged inside the financial systems of advanced economies.

With hindsight, a world where demand for safe reserve assets far exceeded net Treasury issuance created enormous problems for financial intermediation. “Synthetic” safe issues proved to be a poor substitute for good old full faith and credit claims on the U.S. Treasury. It wasn’t the conventional wisdom at the time, but a world of large “uphill” capital flows likely could have lasted a bit longer if the United States had run larger fiscal deficits. That would have made the U.S. economy, and the global economy, less dependent on European banks to intermediate between the world’s sources of surplus savings and the borrowing need of U.S. households.

Opinion – A Psychological Perspective on Putin’s War with Ukraine

Katie Titherington

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One of the most interesting, but less discussed, catalysts to the Ukraine war and Russia’s harsh foreign policy rhetoric is Vladimir Putin’s age and background. These two factors help shed a psychological light on the reasoning why Putin chose the path of conflict and constitute what we might think of as his “identity” (a set of complex multi-layered constructs that cultivates one’s sense of self). Our identity is filled with many complex layers, all shifting to reflect the present positions an individual is facing. In Putin’s case, these two multi-layered factors have worked together to bring about a more dominant layer of his identity that has impacted his decisions, namely his ultra-nationalism and desire to leave a legacy behind.

Although numerous factors contributed to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, there are two that stand out. The first is the war provides Putin the opportunity to create a legacy for himself. Legacies play a unique psychological role in which it helps an individual cope with certain aspects of their life, especially regarding one’s age (Horowitz, Stam, and Ellis 2015, 141-144 and Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski 2015, 100-123). It also provides a way for a leader to shape not only their identity but the identity of their country. The second is Putin’s personality. A leader’s personality can help explain their political behavior. According to political psychologists, Putin is considered to exhibit a ‘dark personality.’ A leader with such a personality is believed to have certain psychological traits, which include being manipulative, deceptive, and narcissistic. These leaders even display psychopathic tendencies such as being impulsive, aggressive, and lacking empathy. These traits, according to research, makes him less competent as a leader (Linden and Wilkes 2002). It also illustrates that with such a personality, Putin is a high risk-taker, and it is probable, given his narcissism, that he believed Russia’s army would easily be able to annex part of Ukraine quickly and effectively. In doing so, Putin would not only illustrate Russia’s strength on a global stage but reinforce the Russian nationalistic identity, an identity that he is attempting to shape.

From CNN to Paramount, Media Companies Cut Jobs as Pressures Mount

Sarah Krouse

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An advertising slowdown, economic worries and strains of the shift to streaming have many major media companies in cost-cutting and layoff mode.

News organizations, TV networks, movie and television studios, and entertainment giants laid off hundreds of workers over the past week alone, including Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s WBD -0.69%decrease; red down pointing triangle CNN and Paramount Global PARA 1.04%increase; green up pointing triangle‘s television-production units.

The moves come after many entertainment companies spent the past few years spending heavily on streaming services that are now a drag on financial results. Traditional broadcast and cable television, meanwhile, continue to face viewer and subscriber erosion.

Add on fears of a recession and a slowdown in ad spending, and an industry that managed to survive and in some cases thrive as audiences swelled during the Covid-19 pandemic is now in retreat.

Managing Escalation While Competing Effectively in the Indo-Pacific

Bryan Frederick, Kristen Gunness, Bonny Lin, Cortez A. Cooper III

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The expansion of Chinese military activity and capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region has led the United States to undertake its own increase in activity in the region over the past decade. As the United States expands its military activities to safeguard its regional interests, the potential reactions of China are a crucial consideration. This report provides U.S. military planners and policymakers with guidance regarding how the characteristics of different potential U.S. military activities may affect Chinese perceptions and reactions, either in ways that the United States may prefer, such as by enhancing deterrence of People's Republic of China (PRC) aggression against U.S. allies and partners, or in ways that the United States may wish to avoid, such as by increasing the risk of aggression and escalation.

The authors developed a framework for assessing likely Chinese reactions to U.S. military activities. The framework identifies the key factors that drive Chinese thinking and reactions, assesses how the characteristics of U.S. activities — their location, the U.S. allies or partners involved, their military capabilities, and the public profile or messaging that accompanies them — have the potential to affect Chinese reactions through each key factor, and provides a typology of potential Chinese reactions organized by their level of intensity.

Sen. King: Government-private sector cooperation vital in cyberwar

Stephen Losey and Joe Gould

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SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The rise of cyberwar means the United States must rethink how it approaches conflict, and government cooperation and information sharing with the private sector will become indispensable, a leading senator said Saturday.

The vast majority of enemy targets for a cyberattack will be in the commercial world, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said during a panel at the Reagan National Defense Forum here.

To defend the U.S. in such a war, King said, it will be vital to develop a “relationship of trust” between businesses — particularly companies handling critical infrastructure — and the government, to share information on potential threats and how to stop them.

“We have to have an entirely different kind of thinking about how the interface between government and the private sector works in cybersecurity,” King said. “Cybersecurity starts at the individual desktop. Somebody can do everything right, but if somebody in an engineering firm [who] works for a major defense contractor clicks on a phishing email, we can be in real trouble.”

Why technology does not make easy wars

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You argue in your article that the US overly relies on technology in war. When did this start?

I don’t necessarily think the US is exceptional. I think all states have tried in some ways to use technologies. One of the key arguments in the article is that the US is an enlightenment country, and part of the enlightenment is a belief in rationality and science and that you can better things through the application of science.

The idea is that if you have perfect information, you are going to be able to dominate the battlefield, and that’s proven itself to be false.

I think that there is this particular scientific approach or embracing of technology, in the American and in fact larger Western tradition on technology as a way to save lives. There is a strange humanitarian impulse that often underlies this use of technology.

The China-US Tech War: What’s Next?

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In October, the U.S. government released a major set of new regulations restricting China’s access to advanced technologies. A few weeks later, China’s rulers doubled down on their determination to become a leading technological power at the 20th Party Congress and a subsequent white paper.

What comes next in the China-U.S. competition for tech dominance? And how will the “tech war” impact third countries – and the global technology sector? Watch the recording of our November 29, 2022, discussion about the future of the China-U.S. tech competition.

Featuring Johanna M. Costigan, a Junior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis; Shihoko Goto, the Director for Geoeconomics and Indo-Pacific Enterprise and Deputy Director for the Asia Program at the Wilson Center; and Alexandra Seymour, an Associate Fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

The 6G Showdown with China Is Coming

Elisabeth Braw

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Now that 5G, or fifth-generation mobile telephony, is being rolled out across the world, the race for 6G is on. This is not only a contest for technology, but also for geopolitical influence. China has grown in economic and political strength since the creation of 3G and 4G and its flagship telecoms firm Huawei is now intent on creating world-beating 6G technology. This puts the west at a crossroads: will companies and governments be able to set aside their doctrine of market competition in time to work collectively towards an alternative?

The bruising battles of 5G deployment should serve as a cautionary tale. Initially, most western

governments leaned towards allowing Huawei to compete for the contracts. But then concerns over the national security implications, led by the US, prompted countries such as the UK, France and Canada to ban or phase out Huawei equipment from their 5G infrastructure. The US has multiple sanctions on Huawei technology and just last week banned the purchase of certain components made by Huawei and the smaller Chinese firm ZTE. China, meanwhile, has retaliated by edging Sweden’s Ericsson out of the country—Huawei and ZTE now completely dominate the domestic market.

As Twitter defends its counterterror work, experts fear a spike under Musk

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Twitter stops enforcing its covid-19 misinformation policy, and Tim Cook plans meetings in Washington. First:

As Twitter defends its counterterror work, experts fear a spike under Musk

Twitter and other social media platforms took to the Supreme Court this week to defend their efforts to police against terrorist content, arguing that a lawsuit alleging they bear responsibility for aiding a 2017 terrorist attack in Istanbul is meritless.

But as Twitter defends its past work to crack down on terrorism, there’s mounting concern among researchers that the company’s protections against violent extremism could be weakened under new owner Elon Musk.

In a pair of filings to the court on Tuesday, Twitter, Facebook and Google argued that a lower court erred in finding that they could be held liable for allegedly aiding and abetting the killing of a Jordanian citizen during an Islamic State attack by hosting the group online. The case is set to test what responsibility platforms bear to curb such content under anti-terrorism laws.

Chinese military’s future warfare will aspire to ‘information dominance,’ Pentagon warns

Bill Gertz
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NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

The Chinese military will wage large-scale information warfare in a future conflict using cyber, electronic and conventional attacks to achieve “information dominance,” according to new details of Beijing‘s growing military capabilities outlined in the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the Chinese military.

“The concept of information warfare is an expansive concept that includes individuals, enterprises, societies and national communications networks that form integrated entities, encompassing the electromagnetic spectrum, psychology and perception and intelligence operations,” the report released this week states in a special section on the topic.

Cyber, electronic and conventional military strikes will seek to destroy enemy information systems and promote Chinese Communist messaging and disinformation, according to U.S. analysts.