The new ways the military is fighting against information warfare tactics

Mark Pomerleau

Source Link

One of the clearest examples of how the military wants to defeat adversaries using information warfare is by publicly disclosing what those enemies have been doing and what capabilities they have.

Information warfare can be abstract, combining cyber, intelligence, electronic warfare, information operations, psychological operations or military deception as a way to influence the information environment or change the way an adversary think.

“At our level, the most important thing we can do is to be able to expose what an adversary is doing that we consider to be malign activity, in a way that allows that to be put in the information environment so that now more scrutiny can be applied to it,” Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander 16th Air Force, the Air Force’s newly established information warfare organization, told reporters during a media round table in late February.

One of the first ways the Department of Defense has sought to test this is through U.S. Cyber Command’s posting of malware samples to the public resource VirusTotal. Malware samples discovered in the course of operations by the Cyber National Mission Force are posted to the site to inform network owners. It also helps antivirus organizations of the strains build patches against that code and helps identify the enemies’ tools being used in ongoing campaigns.

The United Kingdom Bans Huawei From 5G Networks

by Adam Segal
Source Link

Score one for the Trump administration. Months after announcing that it would allow Huawei to play a limited role in the country's 5G networks, the United Kingdom has reversed course. The British government has now decided that buying new Huawei equipment will be banned after December 31, 2020; all existing Huawei equipment will be removed from 5G networks by the end of 2027; and the existing ban on Huawei from the most sensitive "core" parts of 5G network will remain in place. Beijing and Huawei are, not surprisingly, unhappy, warning that the decision "threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane."

This is an important win for the White House's efforts to block Huawei's international expansion, especially in Europe. In the face of U.S. pressure and threats—at one point, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that a deal with Huawei endangered U.S.-UK intelligence sharing—British officials had argued that they could address the security challenges of allowing the Chinese telecom to build its 5G networks by keeping it out of the "core" and limiting it to 35 percent market share. These arguments gave cover to others who were on the fence about Huawei. If the United States' closest intelligence partner believed it could mitigate the risks, the thinking went in other European capitals, then perhaps we can also find a compromise that does not completely ban Huawei. That future no longer looks possible, and the pressure to keep Huawei out in Germany and France will grow.

CFR experts investigate the impact of information and communication technologies on security, privacy, and international affairs. 2-4 times weekly.

Hacked: Why Cyber Attribution Remains an Unsolved Problem for U.S. National Security

by Kyle Ropp

Source Link

In the midst of a growing debate on social media’s role in American democracy, Twitter recently announced the removal of 32,242 accounts linked to state-sponsored information operations. The surprise finding: Chinese, not Russian, accounts made up the majority, and by a factor of more than 20 to 1.

According to Twitter, the evidence linking these accounts to a PRC information campaign was as follows: most had “little to no follower accounts”; they were tweeting “predominantly in Chinese languages”; and were “coordinated” in “spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China (CCP), while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong.”

Given everything that has happened over the last four years, one would be forgiven for asking: is that all?

Certainly, the CCP is no stranger to information warfare. But the description above could just as easily describe millions of Chinese citizens who, indoctrinated or not, share the views of their government on Hong Kong and world politics. Or does Twitter think that the thousands of Chinese student counter-protestors last year were also bots?

Cyber Wargame - An Indian Scenario

Maj Gen P K Mallick, VSM (Retd), Consultant, VIF

Immediately after the first gulf war in the early 1990’s the theories of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and Information Warfare were being studied all over the world as a new kind of warfare. During that time, a course on Information Warfare was conducted at the National Defense University of USA. The course participants were from senior officers of the armed forces, representatives of Department of Defence and Department of State and policy makers from the government. Rand Corporation of US was conducting this course. Continue reading.......

Military Digest | Detailed Order of Battle: Chinese Forces in Eastern Ladakh

Written by Mandeep Singh Bajwa 
Source Link

The talks are a tedious, prolonged process. One reason for the long duration of the meetings is the need to translate everything. It seems the Chinese are playing for time. These are their typical tactics.

The one division plus and an armoured brigade with which India normally garrisons Eastern Ladakh has been reinforced many times over with backup formations both from Northern Command and Army HQ reserves. Opposed to them are two full-strength Chinese mobile divisions earmarked for high-altitude warfare, an airborne brigade and some odds and endsamounting to two more brigades. A deeper look at these manoeuvre formations’ composition and equipment should give us a good idea about their capabilities and the inherent threat.

6th Highland Mechanised Infantry Division now occupies jumping-off points in the Chinese half of Depsang Plains. It consists of 7 Mechanised Infantry Regiment, 18 Mechanised Infantry Regiment and an armoured regiment. Combat support consists of a field artillery regiment, an air defence regiment, a combat engineer battalion, an electronic warfare battalion and a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defence battalion. The presence of the latter two units show how much of a march the Chinese have stolen over us in the implementation of hybrid warfare concepts. The divisional reconnaissance battalion is a small, lithe unit for scouting and flank protection tasks. Its mainstays are eighteen ZBD-04A infantry fighting vehicles armed with AFT-10 anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). These are the divisional commander’s eyes and ears. The division HQ has an infantry company and air defence platoon for its protection.

Taliban Make Big Changes Ahead of Expected Talks With Kabul

By Kathy Gannon

Source Link

The Taliban have put the son of the movement’s feared founder in charge of their military wing and added several powerful figures to their negotiating team, Taliban officials said. The shake-up, one of the most significant in years, comes ahead of expected talks with Kabul aimed at ending decades of war in Afghanistan. 

As head of a newly united military wing, 30-year-old Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob brings his father’s fiercely uncompromising reputation to the battlefield. 

Equally significant is the addition of four members of the insurgent group’s leadership council to the 20-member negotiating team, Taliban officials told the Associated Press. 

The shuffle, overseen by Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhunzada, is meant to tighten his control over the movement’s military and political arms, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inner workings of the Taliban. 

Analysts say the shake-up could be good news for negotiations with the Afghan political leadership, and a sign of how seriously the Taliban are taking this second — and perhaps most critical — step in a deal Washington signed with the insurgents in February.

America's Days of International Policing are Over

by Ramon Marks
Source Link

The Trump administration indicated that it may change the number of U.S. troops in NATO when it threatened to remove those troops from Germany and possibly send them to Poland. While Congress appears to have blocked that step, this festering controversy in NATO over troop levels and participation is not going to disappear. Ever since President Donald Trump took office, he has raised the complaint level by several decibels over the continuing failure of European NATO allies to meet a 2014 agreement to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on their defense budgets by 2021. Of the major powers, Germany is the worst offender, spending only 1.3 percent of its GDP on defense, and not pledging to meet the 2 percent annual goal until 2031.

The Trump administration has been verbally attacked for exerting excessive pressure on European allies to assume more responsibility for their defense. The intensity of his rhetoric has been seen as evidence that U.S. interest in NATO is waning, leading some people to fear that the United States could even “abandon” NATO, or substantially reduce its long-term strategic commitment to the Alliance. 

Closing Hong Kong

Archie Hall

Source Link

The June 4th Museum, as it is officially known, dedicates most of its limited space to pressing an urgent analogy. Adorning a long wall are two timelines, one above the other: Beijing in 1989, Hong Kong in 2019, with the two moments matched up beat for beat. A few feet to the left are the self-authored wills of students, trying to explain to their grieving families why they had to risk their lives in Tiananmen Square. And, beside them, similar letters from protestors in Hong Kong, written late last year as tear gas filled the streets, university campuses were besieged, and police violence ran rampant. The overall message is clear: these two revolts should be spoken of in the same breath.

But over the past few weeks, another Tiananmen parallel has begun to suggest itself—one that you certainly won’t find celebrated in the June 4th Museum. In late June, the Chinese government imposed a National Security Law, which criminalizes “subversion”—carrying pro-independence stickers can mean jail time—and grants China’s notorious security services an open foothold in the city. If Hong Kong’s 2019 was like Beijing’s 1989, what does that mean for the Hong Kong of the 2020s and 2030s? Will Hong Kong, which has long cherished its boisterously free civic culture, come to look like Beijing in the years after the tanks rolled into the square?

The United States Has Gotten Tough on China. When Will It Get Strategic?

Source Link

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported the Trump administration is weighing a ban on all members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their families from traveling to the United States. We do not know the full details of the proposal, and we do not need to. The move, however it might eventually be worded or implemented, would be a mistake. 

Several flaws with the plan are immediately obvious:

There is no public membership list, so there is no way of knowing for certain who is a CCP member and who is not. How could an individual prove they are not a member of the CCP?

There are nearly 92 million CCP members, yet less than 8 million serve in party or government organs, meaning the vast majority of members have no meaningful connection to policy decisions. The single biggest occupational category of party membership is “farmers, fishermen, and cattle workers.”

More than 12 million party members are below the age of 30, which means the United States would be cutting off ties and any potential influence over the future leaders of the country.

Op-ed: The cold war between U.S. and China just got a lot hotter

Frederick Kempe

Source Link

Some argue that the danger of a U.S.-Chinese war is growing. What that misses, a prominent Asian business leader told me this week, is that China has already decided the war has begun.

Like the Cold War before it, the outcome is unlikely to be decided by military means. Also like the contest before it, the war will be fought not over days but over decades.

So, this is what life feels like “in the foothills of a new Cold War,” as Henry Kissinger has called it.Though perhaps the better metaphor would be “in the trenches,” for this week one could hear the steady din overhead from the escalating U.S.-Chinese conflict that will define our times.

On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea as “completely unlawful,” and he pledged U.S. support for those countries that would wish to challenge Beijing.

After Huawei, the Nuclear Question Looms Large for China-UK Relations

By Philip Crowe

Source Link

The iconic photo of President Xi Jinping sipping a pint of ale in then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s local pub (subsequently itself acquired by Chinese investors) seems like it was taken a lifetime ago. In the interim, the U.K. has endured one referendum, one messy divorce from the EU, two general elections, and two new prime ministers, compared with Xi’s constant position as the “core” of China’s leadership.

The photo was taken just five years ago, in 2015. At the time, Xi’s visit reflected a new era for U.K.-China relations, affectionately dubbed the “golden era.” The U.K. welcomed Chinese investment into many aspects of its public and private sectors, from football clubs to film and from education to energy. Today, Chinese investment of any kind is subject to increased scrutiny and suspicion.

In 2016, Huawei agreed to strategic research partnerships for 5G technology in the U.K. with both Vodafone and BT. Fast forward four years, and Huawei’s involvement in U.K. telecoms infrastructure is set to end given the recent government decision that Huawei, as a high risk vendor subject to recent sanctions imposed by the United States, cannot guarantee the future of U.K. telecoms security. A legislative schedule for the complete removal of Huawei from the U.K. by 2027 will be included in the forthcoming Telecoms Security Bill. This will anger Conservative backbench parliamentarians, who demand that Huawei be gone by 2024.

China Launches 5+1 Format Meetings With Central Asia

By Umida Hashimova

Source Link

On July 16, 2020, China held its first meeting with the foreign ministers of all five Central Asian countries in the “5+1” format. The meeting was reportedly initiated by Beijing and focused on joint cooperation to fight the pandemic and restoring the economies in the region. For decades, China had been pursuing relations bilaterally with these countries, or within the context of larger regional groupings that included Russia, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. With its 5+1 China has graduated to a more narrow regional arrangement. Beijing might have sensed an opportune moment to increase its clout in the region as the health systems of the Central Asian countries are overwhelmed and their economies are under stress. 

During the online meeting, China announced its readiness to offer a green corridor for its products into Central Asia and to purchase more agriculture products from the region. Feeling the economic pinch and health crisis as a result of a second wave of COVID-19 cases, the Central Asian countries are turning to Beijing for assistance. 

The “5+1” format, in which Central Asia states hold regular meetings with a single country outside the region, is not a new arrangement. Japan was the first country to institute such a cooperative format in 2004, followed by South Korea, the European Union, the United States, and now China. 

Trump Has Damaged the U.S.-Japan-South Korea Alliance—And China Loves It

by Gene Park Mieczysław Boduszynski
Source Link

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump suggested that his competitor for the presidency, former Vice President Joe Biden, is a "gift to communist China," implying that Beijing will work to sabotage the election in Biden’s favor. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Chinese leaders must be giddily toasting Trump on a nightly basis. Trump has accomplished in just three years an objective that China has long pursued: reducing U.S. influence in the region by weakening the U.S.-Japan-South Korea partnership. 

Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK), steadfast American allies in Asia for nearly seventy years, provide the basis for American power in the Pacific. These alliances are the core of the security architecture in the region that deters a nuclear-armed North Korea, prevents China from using force against Taiwan, and allows the United States to maintain a robust naval presence in the seas. Both countries are important economic actors and influential middle powers on the global stage. The value of these relationships hasn’t been lost on the Pentagon, which has labeled the U.S.-ROK alliance the “linchpin of peace and prosperity” and the U.S.-Japan alliance the “cornerstone of peace and security.” 

Tech Giants Halt Hong Kong Data Requests; The US Considers Banning TikTok

By Richard Altieri, Benjamin Della Rocca 

Source Link

Major tech companies announced plans this month to suspend compliance with data requests from Hong Kong’s government following China’s enactment of a new national security law for the city. On July 6, Facebook said it would halt its reviews of such requests, including those directed to WhatsApp, a popular messaging app that Facebook owns. Google and Microsoft made similar announcements that same day. Other large American platforms like LinkedIn and Zoom later followed suit. And some international platforms have suspended compliance, including Telegram, a Russian messaging app used widely in Hong Kong’s protest movement. Social media app TikTok, which the Chinese company ByteDance owns and markets abroad, released plans to leave Hong Kong altogether.

Under normal circumstances, tech companies often provide data about users in particular jurisdictions to those jurisdictions’s governments or law enforcement upon request. In the latter half of 2019, Hong Kong authorities made 241 such requests of Facebook and WhatsApp. But with the city’s security law in place, tech companies are worried that data requests could help Hong Kong’s authorities suppress speech they oppose. The security law includes vague provisions that apply extraterritorially and potentially criminalize a wide range of speech that could be construed as subverting the government or otherwise threatening security. One Facebook representative, when discussing the company’s decision, explained that it sought to protect “freedom of expression” as a “fundamental human right.” A spokesperson from Twitter emphasized that the company had paused compliance out of a need to evaluate the new law’s implications.

Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang

Source Link

Dr. Adrian Zenz is one of the world’s leading scholars on People’s Republic of China (PRC) government policies towards the country’s western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. Research performed by Dr. Zenz in 2017-2018 played a significant role in bringing to light the Chinese government’s campaign of repression and mass internment directed against ethnic Uyghur persons in Xinjiang (China Brief, September 21, 2017; China Brief, May 15, 2018; China Brief, November 5, 2018). Dr. Zenz has also testified before the U.S. Congress about state exploitation of the labor of incarcerated Uyghur persons (CECC, October 17, 2019), and was the author earlier this year of an in-depth analysis of the “Karakax List,” a leaked PRC government document relating to repressive practices directed against religious practice among Uyghur Muslims (Journal of Political Risk, February 17, 2020).

In this special Jamestown Foundation report, Dr. Zenz presents detailed analysis of another troubling aspect of state policy in Xinjiang: measures to forcibly suppress birthrates among ethnic Uyghur communities, to include the mass application of mandatory birth control and sterilizations. This policy, directed by the authorities of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is intended to reduce the Uyghur population in Xinjiang relative to the numbers of ethnic Han Chinese—and thereby to promote more rapid Uyghur assimilation into the “Chinese Nation-Race” (中华民族, Zhonghua Minzu), a priority goal of national-level ethnic policy under CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping.

The United States Has Gotten Tough on China. When Will It Get Strategic?

Source Link

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported the Trump administration is weighing a ban on all members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their families from traveling to the United States. We do not know the full details of the proposal, and we do not need to. The move, however it might eventually be worded or implemented, would be a mistake. 

Several flaws with the plan are immediately obvious:

There is no public membership list, so there is no way of knowing for certain who is a CCP member and who is not. How could an individual prove they are not a member of the CCP?

There are nearly 92 million CCP members, yet less than 8 million serve in party or government organs, meaning the vast majority of members have no meaningful connection to policy decisions. The single biggest occupational category of party membership is “farmers, fishermen, and cattle workers.”

More than 12 million party members are below the age of 30, which means the United States would be cutting off ties and any potential influence over the future leaders of the country.

Is Erdogan after a Caucasus adventure?

Fehim Tastekin
Source Link

Amid flaring border clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia since July 12, Turkey has used unusually tough language to assert its support for Azerbaijan, raising questions as to what its intentions might be in the long-running and complex conflict in the South Caucasus.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has urged Armenia “to come to its senses,” pledging that Turkey will stand by Azerbaijan “with all its means.” Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has warned that the Armenians “will drown in the ploy they have started and will definitely pay for their actions.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, seemed to imply that a foreign hand was behind the rekindled clashes, when he said July 14 that Armenia’s “deliberate offensive” was “an affair beyond Armenia’s caliber.” The purpose, he argued, is to block settlement efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed enclave between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and “create new conflict zones” in the region.

Russia is the first power that Erdogan’s allusion brings to mind. Could it be that Moscow is seeking to create an extraordinary situation to reassert its influence over Yerevan, wary that Armenia might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018 after a “Velvet Revolution” and whom Moscow distrusts? 

The Undeclared War Against Iran

by Paul R. Pillar

Source Link

Aseries of violent attacks, involving explosions and fires, has been hitting Iran. The incidents have been too frequent and intense to be random accidents. They are part of an organized effort. 

Caution is always advisable in attributing responsibility for such unclaimed acts, especially for all of us outside the government channels that possibly have better information about what is going on. But circumstances point strongly, as some mainstream press reporting reflects, to either or both of two suspects: the Netanyahu government in Israel, and the Trump administration in the United States. 

Both of those suspects have track records that point that same way. The most conspicuous relevant act by the Trump administration was its assassination in January, with a drone-fired missile at the Baghdad airport, of Qassim Suleimani, one of the most prominent political and military figures in Iran. The Israeli record of aggressive acts against Iran has included a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Those murders were part of a larger, longstanding Israeli campaign of assassinations throughout the Middle East. That campaign is in turn part of an even larger Israeli record of aggressive acts throughout the region—including, over the past couple of years, scores of aerial attacks in Syria.

Will Iranian sea corridor compete with Suez Canal?

Source Link

Iran has announced a sea corridor for commercial exchange with Russia and India as an alternative to the Egyptian Suez Canal, which raises questions about the impact this corridor will have on one of the main national economic resources in Cairo that has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

This picture, taken Nov. 17, 2019, shows the Liberia-flagged container ship RDO Concord sailing through Egypt's Suez Canal in the canal's central hub city of Ismailia on the 150th anniversary of the canal's inauguration. 

CAIRO — The Iranian Chabahar Free Trade Zone Organization announced July 5 that trade connections to Mumbai, Hamburg and St. Petersburg will be made through Astrakhan (in Russia), Anzali and Chabahar (in Iran) and Nhava Sheva (in India) instead of the Suez Canal. This raises questions about the impact the move will have on the revenues generated by the Egyptian canal, a key source in an economy that has been deeply suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.

Military Review, July-August 2020, v. 100, no. 4

Preparing for the Unexpected: Enhancing Army Readiness in the Arctic 

Lethal Weapon: Combatives and Mental Skills Training to Ensure Overmatch in the Close-Combat Fight 

Larger War, Smaller Hospitals? 

A Russian Military Framework for Understanding Influence in the Competition Period 

Operationalizing Artificial Intelligence for Algorithmic Warfare 

Ensuring the Political Loyalty of the Russian Soldier

The People’s Bank of China’s: Monetary Armament Capabilities and Limitations of Evolving Institutional Power 

The National Liberation Army (ELN), Early 2020 

The Strategic Relevance of Tic-Tac-Toe 

Punching Above Our Weight: The New Infantry Tactics of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment 

Tactical Data Science 

The Battlefield Development Plan: A Holistic Campaign Assessment to Inform the Army Modernization Enterprise 

Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities 

Death of Democracy in Hong Kong: Harbinger of the Future in East Asia

Geopolitics Of Public Health: The One And Only WHO

By Alex Berezow, PhD
Source Link

As infuriating as the World Health Organization can be, the reality is that the U.S. cannot "go it alone" on issues like global disease surveillance. Staying in the WHO is aligned with America's long-term security, economic, and geopolitical interests.

In 1958, the Soviet Union proposed a global effort to eradicate smallpox, a disease that kills roughly a third of those it infects, including 300 million in the 20th century alone. On Dec. 9, 1979, it was completely eradicated. This public health triumph – perhaps the greatest in the history of mankind – would not have been possible without the efforts of the U.N.’s World Health Organization, which coordinated the immunization campaign. The magnitude of this achievement – removing a microbe from existence – cannot be overstated.

Restoring Strategic Competence

By Van Jackson

Source Link

For the foreseeable future, America’s Northeast Asian allies Japan and South Korea must live in the shadow of a nuclear North Korea, whose capabilities they cannot match. During the Obama and Trump administrations, North Korea dramatically expanded and improved its ability to hold Japanese, South Korean, and even U.S. territory at risk with its nuclear and missile arsenal.1 Despite high-profile summitry and promises to the contrary, there is no sign that this imbalance will be rectified, and its continuation exacerbates regional risks and ally insecurity.2

The mounting North Korea threat is compounded by poor timing—U.S. policy has proven exceptionally erratic, unreliable, and risk-prone in recent years. The very existence of Japan and South Korea depends on strategies built around a partnership with the United States that has become shaky, and on faith in the competence of U.S. statecraft—which both countries are starting to perceive as a risk rather than a source of security.

Ally perceptions of U.S. strategic incompetence generate real costs and risks for the United States and Northeast Asian security. If the United States continues to squander its deepest relationships in Asia, the allies could become rivals with each other, increase risks of nuclear instability, play a spoiler role in U.S. regional strategy, withhold basing and access rights to U.S. forces operating in the region, and potentially take independent aggressive actions against North Korea that unintentionally escalate to war.

The return of ’empire’ in international politics

Gareth Smyth
Source Link

It is over 70 years since the sun set on the British Raj. A century has elapsed since U.S. president Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the triumph of “national self-determination” on the ruins of the Romanov and Hapsburg dynasties.

And yet there is growing talk of “empire.”

Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, told the Munich Security Conference last December that both Russia and China had “empire desires.” The same month, in Lisbon, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed “Iran’s empire is tottering.”

Recent books by leading academics resonate with imperial themes. In Erdogan’s Empire, Soner Cagaptay argues much of Turkey’s current behavior — in Libya, Syria and elsewhere — needs to be understood in the context of the Ottoman past. Richard Sakwa’s The Putin Paradox portrays Russia’s president as indifferent to the end of Communism while viewing the Soviet Union’s demise as “a major geopolitical catastrophe.” With The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, Rashid Khalidi analyzes a century of a Zionist “colonial war waged against the indigenous population… to force them to relinquish their homeland.”

Empire. Colonialism. Imperialism.

The Future of Transatlanticism Is Up to Europe

SIGMAR GABRIEL

Source Link

BERLIN – Politicians who don’t know what to do when confronted with new or difficult circumstances often resort to empty phrases. This certainly appears to be the case for Europe and its changing relations with the United States.

For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel now argues that transatlantic relations need a “fundamental” reappraisal, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insists that there is an “urgent need for action.” But what does this mean? Where are the concrete proposals specifying what such action should entail?

The fact is that we Europeans – especially we Germans – long took comfort in the assumption that the post-war order would more or less maintain itself after the Soviet Union’s disintegration. After all, the US was the only remaining superpower, and it happened to be our closest friend. While we looked after ourselves at home, the US (with a little help from its nuclear-armed French and British friends on the United Nations Security Council) would assume responsibility for the wider world.

The big engine that might: How France and Germany can build a geopolitical Europe

Jana Puglierin

Source Link

The covid-19 crisis and the resulting economic recession have made many foreign policy challenges more acute, even as policymakers on the EU level devote much of their attention to internal issues.

ECFR’s Coalition Explorer survey of European policymakers and experts reveals the importance of Germany and France within the EU, and the impact they can have when they cooperate with each other.

The survey shows that EU member states are still geopolitical navel-gazers that must change their mindset if they are to establish a strong common foreign policy.

France and Germany should use the momentum they created through their agreement on the recovery fund to give the EU a stronger geopolitical voice.

Together, they have all they need: connections to the south and the east, as well as ambition and pragmatism.

Paris should try more actively and sensitively to work with its partners who are critical of French foreign policy initiatives.

Service and Serendipity – Ten Reflections Prior to Sub Unit Command

NICK ALEXANDER
Source Link

I was recently selected for a sub-unit command appointment and as with all significant milestones, this selection made me pause and look at where I’ve come from. In particular, I have reflected on a paper that my dad wrote as a Navy career advisor on junior officer career paths, titled Touched by the Fairies. My story of service can be best summarised in one word, serendipitous. What follows are ten reflections of when the fairies have influenced my professional trajectory, which I hope may also come in handy for other junior officers as they progress through the first parts of their careers.

As a 19-year-old who’d just started a Physio degree – having 18 months earlier shifted targets from becoming a professional ballet dancer – I never would have imagined that by 2021 I’d be a Company Commander in the Australian Army. To be honest I didn’t even know what this was.

But I saw an ad on a bus on my way to class, with a long haired yahoo’s face – that looked surprisingly like my own – pasted onto an Army uniform with the word ‘Physiotherapist’ printed alongside and that afternoon I put in my application through Defence Force Recruiting.

Reflection 1 – Always look forward and take the first step.

Keeping the Skies Open over Europe

Source Link

According to this CSS Policy Perspective by Névine Schepers, the Open Skies Treaty requires coordinated and outspoken European support to ensure its survival following the US’ withdrawal announcement. If the treaty is to continue, with or without US participation, resolving existing compliance issues with Russia will be crucial. 

Key Points 

The Open Skies Treaty serves European security interests by providing transparency, predictability and stability, as well as enabling military-​to-military cooperation between NATO allies, partners, and Russia. 

While a US withdrawal from the treaty may be inevitable, there is a small window of opportunity for western European parties to coordinate an appeal to the US highlighting the benefits of the treaty, and to continue to work together with Russia to resolve outstanding compliance issues. 

The European response has thus far been mostly led behind closed doors, but with limited time available, a more public defense strategy should be pursued. European parties should also seek strength in numbers and ensure that future statements bring together as many members as possible.

Legal Considerations Raised by the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission Report

By David Simon

Source Link

Editor's note: This article is part of a series of articles by analysts involved in the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, among others, highlighting and commenting upon aspects of the commission's findings and conclusion.

To cope with the coronavirus crisis, Americans rely more than ever before on information and communications technology to stay connected, do our jobs, see our families and live fulfilling lives. But this shift has come with a significant increase in cybersecurity and data privacy risk. One recent study estimates that remote work increased 70 percent between February and April this year, with a near 150 percent increase in ransomware attacks in March over baseline levels the previous month.In particular, China has engaged in cyber espionage against U.S. companies’ intellectual property in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine.Meanwhile, numerous alerts from around the world have warned of malicious threat actors targeting hospitals and health care organizations with ransomware.Technological interconnectedness has fueled much of our progress in the twenty-first century. But among the more critical lessons we have learned from the coronavirus pandemic is that both public- and private-sector infrastructure are far too vulnerable to cyberattacks—and do not always possess the necessary resilience to recover quickly.

A New U.S. National Security Strategy: A World Transformed

by John Poindexter Robert McFarlane Richard Levine

Source Link

Three world-class experts and policy practitioners declare: "Despite the wrongs committed against China in the past, the People’s Republic of China must not represent the future, for it is corrupt. Harking back to what Ronald Reagan did to spur the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States must enunciate that its objective is the peaceful end of the Communist Party of China. China existed for four thousand years before the formation of a communist junta within its borders; China can only achieve greatness combined with liberty and wealth if it frees itself from one-party rule and the despotism that this type of government always brings." 

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” This declaration by Goethe concerns the fabricated semblance of freedom, which humbles humankind. Elites after Tiananmen Square in 1989 misjudged the course charted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Our leaders thought that after the fall of the Soviet Empire, the PRC’s adaptation of capitalism would inevitably lead to a pluralistic form of government. 

China, infused with American and other foreign capital and technology, was creating great wealth and with it, millionaires. Surely, this was capitalism, which would lead to democracy and to freedom for the Chinese people. What was not understood was that an alternative national model existed, which fused party control and the eradication of internal opposition with an ostensibly capitalistic structure. The PRC, in its economic measures and in its ruthless suppression of dissent and targeted minorities, in fact, resembles the prewar form of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Cyber Wargame - An Indian Scenario

Maj Gen P K Mallick, VSM (Retd), Consultant, VIF

Immediately after the first gulf war in the early 1990’s the theories of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and Information Warfare were being studied all over the world as a new kind of warfare. During that time, a course on Information Warfare was conducted at the National Defense University of USA. The course participants were from senior officers of the armed forces, representatives of Department of Defence and Department of State and policy makers from the government. Rand Corporation of US was conducting this course. Continue reading.......