Biotechnology and Today's Warfighter

Timothy Marler and Daniel M. Gerstein

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Biotechnology has a broad and often misunderstood scope, one with significant implications for today's warfighter. In many respects, biotechnology—and the bioeconomy more broadly—is still an emerging field, and this can exacerbate the already limited understanding of their scope. Despite a 2020 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study that characterized the bioeconomy (PDF) as more than five percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (or $959.2 billion) in 2016, it is relatively young and often ill defined. It may have far greater potential than even these impressive totals would suggest. Furthermore, just as the technology is emerging, so too are the definitions that govern these areas. Fundamentally, however, biotechnology involves the manipulation of living organisms or their components to produce useful products. Meanwhile, the broader term, bioeconomy, is based on products, services, and processes derived from biological resources (PDF).

In addition to an unclear definition, public awareness (PDF), understanding, and acceptance (PDF) of biotechnology may sometimes be insufficient, and this presents yet another confounding factor. It makes gaining attention for these issues and developing proactive policies challenging. Policymakers may also underestimate what biotechnology entails or how important it can be. Yet, the field can provide a wide range of opportunities to the United States while also presenting challenges and risks. Mitigating these risks and capitalizing on the opportunities could provide substantial competitive advantages for the United States—but only if we better understand what biotechnology is.

Array Of Sensors, Unmanned Systems Creating Data Headaches For Army Commanders

DAN PARSONS

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As the U.S. Army fields more advanced technologies in greater numbers, its commanders are on the receiving end of an increasingly powerful firehose of data. It's not necessarily a bad problem to have, senior leaders say, but managing all of that information is critical to operating in a more distributed environment where the service foresees future conflict, like in the vast Pacific region where the "battlefield" could stretch thousands of miles.

With modern unmanned systems, particularly networked flocks of uncrewed aircraft, remote sensors, and satellites, relatively few personnel can draw enormous reams of data about enemy positions and capabilities. Data from various sources can then feed it into a coalition network where the most appropriate available force can act upon it, but commanders must be able to make sense of it all.

Deepfakes are Russia’s new 'weapon of war'

Paul Szoldra

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ABOUT A MONTH AGO, Michael McFaul, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, issued a strange warning. He claimed someone was impersonating him using a phone number with a Washington, D.C. area code, trying to speak with associates on a video call.

“You will see an AI-generated ‘deep fake’ that looks and talks like me,” he said on Twitter, using a term coined in 2017 to describe imagery that has been deceptively edited to alter a person’s identity. The tech has been used to place Vladimir Putin on SNL for laughs among other amusements. Scammers have pretended to be CEOs and Navy admirals to trick people out of cash. But this seemed different; it was a live video call.

“It is not me,” McFaul said. “This is a new Russian weapon of war. Be careful.”

McFaul later said he wasn’t entirely sure who was behind the calls. But given his passionate support of Ukraine in its fight to eject Russia after eight years of war, he believed it was “obviously designed to undermine Ukraine’s diplomatic and war efforts.”

Army Will Fire Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles From Robots & Drive 10-Truck Robotic Convoys

KRIS OSBORN

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(Washington, D.C.) The Army is preparing to fire Javelin Anti-Tank missiles from 7-ton robots able to surveil forward, high-threat areas, find and track enemy targets such as tanks and heavy armored vehicles and fire weapons when directed by a human.

In a recent Army demonstration at Fort Hood, Texas, soldiers tested the technology to eventually fire Javelins and .50-cal machine guns from robotic vehicle prototypes during a series of war preparation and weapons development exercises.

“We just finished our second large scale operational soldier evaluation done at Fort Hood, Texas, we had 12 robotic platforms with six control vehicles. It's a culmination of about four years of activity. This really, really is a huge learning opportunity for the Army to understand how combat robotics can inform future decisions on how we buy material and how we fight,” 

As part of the evaluation, Army weapons developers placed armed robots in the hands of soldiers to assess weapons, refine tactics and help fast-track a new class of Robotic Combat Vehicles to war. The service is moving forward with three variants, a RCV-Light, RCV-Medium and RCV-Heavy, and each robotic vehicle variant is being developed for a complex, interwoven set of unmanned missions. These include manned-unmanned teaming efforts wherein forward ground drones or robotic vehicles perform reconnaissance and scout missions, deliver supplies and ammo or actually track and destroy targets themselves when directed by a human.

Will The West Point Superintendent Show Courage And Do The Right Thing?

John Hughes

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This timeless wisdom from General Douglas MacArthur is both sage and sorely needed counsel for modern American general officers. Twice, MacArthur and officers of his caliber saved the country and the world from tyranny in wars that engulfed the entire world. Though charismatic, he had relevance in US military operations from WW1 to the Korean war not just because of his technical ability to command armies but also because of his moral fiber as a leader. On April 11, 1951, President Truman fired General MacArthur for his public statements regarding how the revered general thought the Korean War should be fought. Taking a stand cost MacArthur his command and his career, but highlighted what was special about one of America’s most famous generals. He was willing to risk his career for what he believed in. That altruistic belief was not about personal promotion or cushy post-military employment (goals that corrupt too many general officers of today). His concern was about the nation. It was about the troops in his command and winning a war.

Fast forward to 2022. The new breed of generals and admirals advance through the ranks but very few if any will be remembered in the history books decades from now. None have been ‘mavericks’ arguing for any new methods of warfare. They presided over a disaster in Afghanistan where no senior leaders were fired or held accountable. A political ideology has consumed the branches of service with little to no pushback from senior military leaders. Nearly 15,000 military servicemembers have been booted from the ranks for a controversial vaccine mandate. From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to Service Chiefs to senior commanders to academy Superintendents, generals and admirals have obediently and faithfully executed the bidding of political masters to the detriment of the force. Recruiting and retention levels are at crisis levels. US military strategic deterrent is a disaster. Admiral Charles Richard recently stated, “We used to know how to move fast, and we have lost the art of that,” the admiral added. The military talks “about how we are going to mitigate our assumed eventual failure” to field new ballistic submarines, bombers or long-range weapons, instead of flipping the question to ask: “What’s it going to take? Is it money? Is it people? Do you need authorities?” That’s “how we got to the Moon by 1969.”

The Retreat from Kherson

Seth Cropsey

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The War’s Next Phase Will Be Bloody

Russia’s announced withdrawal from Kherson has initiated a new phase of the war. Out of it come several considerations. Operationally, Ukraine has an opportunity to press retreating Russian forces and destroy them. Strategically, Ukraine must now consider its next offensive steps. And politically, the US and its allies cannot mistake temporary success for long-term strategic stability. Fundamentally, the war’s military factors still militate against a political resolution. If Ukraine is to negotiate a peace favorable to it and the West, the war must continue to a strategic equilibrium.

The Paradoxes of War

Russia’s retreat from Kherson is the greatest Ukrainian victory thus far of the war. It demonstrates the long-term viability of Ukraine’s anti-logistical strategy of corrosion. The terrain and unit frontage in Kherson Oblast made major frontal assaults extremely costly. Hence Ukraine, just as it did in the Donbas, targeted Russian logistics, employing long-range rocket artillery to degrade Russian supply depots far behind the front line, and to hit the bridges over the Dnieper so vital to Russian sustainment.

Saudi Oil Assets At High Risk From New Missile Strikes

Simon Watkins

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According to several local and international news sources, Saudi Arabia has informed the U.S. of an imminent attack from Iran. This warning follows a report on Iranian state television showing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, telling a group of students marking the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran that the modern U.S. is “very vulnerable” and that the country is no longer the world’s dominant power. These comments come at a time as well when Iran has been gripped by a wave of popular unrest following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, and when Iran has been censured by the U.S. for supplying drones to Russia for use in its invasion of Ukraine. What seems to have gone largely unnoticed, though, is that plans were already underway for Iran to launch such a strike against Saudi Arabia back at the beginning of October through its usual channel for such attacks – the Yemeni Houthis – against whom Saudi Arabia (together with support from the UAE, among others) has been fighting a de facto war since 2015. It is not, therefore, a question of whether such an attack will take place against Saudi Arabia, but rather, when, and what will the ramifications of it be?

There are comments from the Houthis themselves, in early October, about what they are going to do, and precedents of their previous Iran-backed attacks on Saudi Arabia to work with. Back on 2 October, Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, wrote: “If the Saudi and Emirati [UAE] coalition continue to deprive our Yemeni people access to their resources, our military forces can, with God’s help, deprive them of their resources.” He added: “As long as the American-Saudi aggression countries are not committed to a truce that gives the Yemeni people the right to exploit their oil wealth in favour of the salary of the Yemeni state employees, the armed forces give oil companies operating in the UAE and Saudi Arabia an opportunity to organize their situation and leave.” These comments focusing on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure – the only basis of its global power and the money-making engine that allows it to fight its ongoing war against the Houthis – perfectly align with the targets of previous Houthi attacks on the country. Unfortunately for the Houthis, and for the global industrialised economies that are already trying to deal with rising inflation driven in large part by historically elevated oil and gas prices, such attacks have previously pushed oil prices higher in the short-term. Provided that the Houthi attacks did not completely obliterate Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, which is almost impossible, given their wide dispersal across the country, then Saudi Arabia would benefit ultimately from these higher oil prices, as would Russia, and as would Iran. Only the Houthis would not.Related: Saudi Arabia Cuts Oil Prices For Asia

From Afghanistan to Colombia, the War on Terror Has Failed

Matthew Petti

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Lisette is frustrated with her job as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, where she has spent years trying to alert an apathetic American public to their country’s failing war effort. “I remember Raul telling me to find another war, one we’re winning. So I type one sentence, ‘Are there any wars right now where we’re not losing?’” she narrates. “And within 15 minutes he responds with one word. ‘Colombia.’”

So begins the second act of Phil Klay’s 2020 novel “Missionaries.” The book’s characters are the soldiers, mercenaries, journalists and humanitarian do-gooders on the front lines of U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns around the world. Lisette follows some of her special forces contacts from the Middle East to Latin America, where they are helping manage Colombia’s campaign to bring communist rebels to heel.

“Missionaries” is more than a work of fiction. It is a human-scale portrayal of the way U.S. counterinsurgency tactics have moved back and forth across the globe. Latin American battlefields — particularly Colombia — were indeed a laboratory for developing tactics later exported to Muslim countries. Sometimes, the same military officers fought in both parts of the world, swapping tactics; other times, U.S. administrations copied and pasted strategies wholesale. In some instances, the real-life results were more convoluted and brutal than anything Klay depicted in his novel.

Three Fronts

Edward Lucas

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Ukraine’s liberation of Kherson comes six weeks early. Western intelligence estimates in September were that it would take until Christmas before the Russians were forced out of the only provincial capital they have occupied. Russian generals badly need a pause, to regroup and refit their battered and demoralized forces, and find boots, orders, and instructors for the newly mobilized reserves. But Ukrainian commanders are in no mood to stop. Options abound. The “land bridge” to Crimea along the north coast of the Sea of Azov is now in range of Ukrainian missile strikes. So too is the peninsula itself. Putin’s great trophy now looks like a hostage. Defending its infrastructure, supply lines, and naval and military bases there will be a persistent headache.

The victory is a game-changer on another battlefield: the contest in the West between sympathy, timidity, and fatigue. The outcome is clear. Contrary to the naysayers’ predictions, military and other support for Ukraine has proved neither futile, nor insanely risky, nor prohibitively costly.

Indeed, we clearly should have done much more and done it much earlier. The lack of contrition or even reflection about this in the West is striking. The price of dithering is that tens of thousands of people are dead, with many times that number maimed and millions of lives blighted. The bill for physical destruction is already close to a trillion dollars, let alone the cost of missed opportunities to deal with climate change, famine, and natural disasters elsewhere. We may be waiting for some time for an epiphany about these failures. But at least the obvious lesson is to do more now.

Can the Ukraine war now end only with Russia’s defeat?

Lawrence Freedman

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Russia’s recent military setbacks have led to hopes that the war might be over sooner rather than later, bringing an end to both the continuing death and destruction and the global economic disruption it has caused. What had appeared to be a rather slow-moving confrontation is now more dynamic. In one key respect Ukraine’s successful offensive, in which Kyiv has recaptured thousands of square kilometres of eastern territory in a matter of days, has brought peace a little closer. The only conditions for a stable peace involve Russia withdrawing its forces from Ukraine. The prospect of further battlefield humiliations should encourage the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to seek a dignified exit.

Whether he will is another matter. It was clear what Putin wanted when he started this war: a compliant regime in Kyiv that would accept Ukraine’s subjugation. Once the February invasion faltered he could not achieve this. There were negotiations in March, which fizzled out completely in April, that addressed the issue of Ukrainian neutrality. On that, the talks seemed to make some progress, but they did not sort out what neutrality would mean in practice, especially in the light of Russia’s demand for Ukraine’s demilitarisation. Nor did they fully address the territorial issues.

The enduring power of war memorialsFrom magazine issue

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This Sunday, in my village of Etchingham, East Sussex, we will gather around our war memorial. It is a fine monument, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, with the names of the dead inscribed around an octagonal base. There are no famous names upon it: indeed, there is only one commissioned officer, a Second Lieutenant (who had once been a commercial clerk, working from the age of 14). The rest were mostly young farm labourers: the oldest, aged 44, had been a ‘domestic chauffeur’.

The rural working classes leave little in the way of records. These men left no ‘voices of the Great War’. But though mute, they are not inglorious; and one of the most eloquent writers of the era spoke on their behalf. On 28 April 1920, in ‘rain, sleet and bitter wind’, Rudyard Kipling made the speech at the unveiling of the memorial.

It seems fitting to read the speech out again this year, to mark the restoration of the memorial with money from the War Memorials Trust. The Clipsham stonework has been cleaned and repaired and is golden again, as it was on that rainy day in 1920. The work was done by Gordon Newton: war memorials, old and new, have been his life’s calling.

Short of War: Is the World Ready to Defend Taiwan?

Sze Hong Lam Wei Azim Hung

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For the first time, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) constitution stipulates its intention to oppose and deter separatists seeking Taiwanese independence. The revised charter takes a more aggressive stance than the language adopted at the 19th National Congress in 2017, which set out to strengthen the unity among all groups within China “to facilitate national unification.” However, the language from the 20th National Congress is arguably nothing new. In March 2005, the 10th National Congress enacted the Anti-Secession Law of which Article 8 states that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures…” in the event that

“Taiwan independence” secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted.

America Did Not Cause Afghanistan’s Collapse

Arwin Rahi

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The Afghans who benefitted from U.S. presence in Afghanistan have been bashing Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation, ever since he signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban on February 29, 2020, which paved the way for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. The government of President Ashraf Ghani collapsed less than eighteen months after the signing of the agreement and the Afghans accuse Khalilzad—acting on behalf of the U.S. government—of betraying the former Afghan government (or the Republic, as some call it), and facilitating the Taliban’s return to power. Had the United States not signed the Doha Agreement, the argument goes, the Ghani government would still be in power today.

But the rage directed toward the United States for the Taliban’s return to power is unjustified, albeit understandable, given how a small segment of the Afghan population—mainly based in Kabul—benefitted from the American presence. Many of the Kabul-based, pro-U.S. Afghans who enabled the U.S. presence in Afghanistan—such as former warlords and government officials, and Afghans with dual citizenship or work experience with foreigners—have already been evacuated from the country. It is mostly these above-named Afghans that are trying to shape the narrative that the United States in general and Khalilzad, in particular, are responsible for the Taliban’s swift comeback to power.

Islamic State-Khorasan’s Transition Into a Transregional Threat

Atal Ahmadzai

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The rise of the Taliban to power did not bring peace to Afghanistan. Quite the reverse, different forms of political violence have either continued or emerged, including the Taliban regime’s extrajudicial executions, the anti-Taliban armed resistance, and the indiscriminate and targeted violence of the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP). The latter is a cross-regional subsidiary of the previously Iraq and Syria-based Islamic State in the broader historical Khorasan region, which encompasses parts of modern Western, South, and Central Asia. Despite expanding the scope of its operations in these regions since the fall of Kabul in 2021, much information about ISKP is contradictory.

The Taliban regime has continued to downplay the threat of ISKP and claim that they have rooted the organization out in Afghanistan. Similarly, some Western experts assert that the threat of ISKP is modest or is in decline. Regional and global actors, such as Russia, China, and India, as well as U.S. intelligence sources, on the other hand, warn about the growing tentacles of ISKP in the surrounding regions. The striking contrast in insights about the capabilities and potential of ISKP has been persistent. In addition, each stance assumes the truth of the conclusion.

For Western Weapons, the Ukraine War Is a Beta Test

Lara Jakes

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Three months ago, as Ukrainian troops were struggling to advance against Russian forces in the south, the military’s headquarters in Kyiv quietly deployed a valuable new weapon to the battlefield.

It was not a rocket launcher, cannon or another kind of heavy arms from Western allies. Instead, it was a real-time information system known as Delta — an online network that military troops, civilian officials and even vetted bystanders could use to track and share desperately needed details about Russian forces.

The software, developed in coordination with NATO, had barely been tested in battle.

But as they moved across the Kherson region in a major counteroffensive, Ukraine’s forces employed Delta, as well as powerful weaponry supplied by the West, to push the Russians out of towns and villages they had occupied for months.

A Year After Taliban Takeover Afghan Women are Prisoners in Their Homeland

JENNI FINK 

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Almost exactly a year ago, the last American troops left Afghanistan and the Taliban regained full control of the country. Since then, Afghanistan has descended into worsening poverty, repression, particularly of women and girls, and international isolation, underscored by the killing last week of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri by an American drone strike in Kabul.

Azra Jafari, an Afghan politician and human rights activist, who was the sole woman co-author of the country's 2003 constitution and in 2008 became her nation's first female mayor, has watched all this from exile in the U.S. with growing despair. "We were a working democracy for 20 years and during this 20 years we were hopeful," she tells Newsweek. "Now, we have nothing. What we worked on for 20 years is reduced to nothing."

Despite an initial public relations push to depict themselves as more moderate than during the 1990s, since retaking power the Taliban have banned women and girls from schools and most workplaces outside their homes. Their dress, speech and movements are tightly restricted. In the worsening economic situation, some poor families have resorted to selling their young daughters into arranged marriages. Arbitrary arrests, disappearances, torture and killings of men and women are widespread. Without an organized pressure campaign from the United States and its allies, Jafari says, nothing will change.

At Project Convergence, data management is Army’s biggest challenge

JASPREET GILL

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FT. IRWIN, Cali. — In the past, Army leaders have lamented the lack of data on hand and the inability for what information they had to break across stovepipes. Which makes the big finding out of this year’s Project Convergence experiments an ironic one: the service, officials say, now has too much data to work with. And now Army leadership has to figure out how to better manage it before they drown.

Speaking to reporters Nov. 9 at the “Scenario Bravo” demonstration of Project Convergence, an annual experiment meant to build out the Pentagon’s broader Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) effort, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said “the problem is not a lack of data, you know, we’re now able to tap into a huge volume of data.”

“So a lot of the challenge is going to be figuring out how…we process that as quickly as we can,” she continued. “And I think we did see some real…improvements in terms of how quickly we were able to take information and change it into sort of what I would call more actionable knowledge.”

Can the Army’s robotics programs build AI the Silicon Valley way?

SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

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WASHINGTON — Cost overruns and schedule slips abound in the defense business, but at least the Pentagon has plenty of experience building physical weapons. By contrast, training AI algorithms takes very different skills, which the Defense Department and its traditional contractors largely lack.

That’s why it’s worth noting that, this morning, a small Silicon Valley company called Applied Intuition announced it had won a contract — brokered by the Pentagon’s embassy in the Valley, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), using its streamlined Commercial Solutions Opening process — to provide software tools for the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program (RCV). (This contract complements the Army’s existing deals with Qinetiq and Textron to build prototypes). While pocket change by Pentagon procurement standards, with a maximum spend of $49 million over two years, Applied’s contract could help bring private-sector innovation in self-driving vehicles to the armed forces.

“Commercial industry has a leg up on this, because they’ve invested a tremendous amount into these efforts,” said David Michelson, a former Army infantryman who now manages autonomous systems for DIU. “The industry also understands how to deploy this stuff and how to get these systems and software actually out in the real world.”

Father of Pentium chip Dham says India will start chip-making in a year

Prasid Banerjee

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NEW DELHI : Vinod Dham has signed up to be one of the advisers to the government’s India Semiconductor Mission (ISM). He, along with a group of individuals, will oversee proposals from firms looking to build semiconductor plants in India under the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI). In an interview, Dham, known as the father of the Intel Pentium chip, said he sees great progress on the country’s chip plans and expects some movement to happen within a year. Edited excerpts:

What is different about India’s chip push this time around?

There were actually no trials in the past—there were isolated attempts by private individuals, mostly from abroad, who would work with states, never with the federal government, to launch a fab. It did not materialize for the obvious reason that there are lots of factors involved in building a fab—not just building a fab, but you need to build an entire ecosystem. I know it because I was invited to be a figurehead in those activities many times.

IBM VS INTEL: WHO WILL BECOME THE QUANTUM COMPUTING LEADER OF THE FUTURE?

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Quantum computing is heating up, as a growing number of entities race to benchmark, stabilize, and ultimately commercialize this technology. As of July 2021, a group from China appears to have taken the lead in terms of raw performance, but IBM, Intel, and other quantum computing developers aren’t far behind. All of that could change overnight, though. At this point, it’s too early to declare a winner in quantum computing, a technology that promises to outperform today’s conventional supercomputers. Google, IBM, Intel, and other quantum computing developers aren’t standing still, and are aggressively devising faster processors. It’s too early to declare a winner, as the technology is still in its infancy. But when it comes down to IBM vs Intel, who will become the Quantum computing leader of the future?

The Basics of Quantum Computing

Quantum computers process data using qubits (represent the probability that their observed state will be either 1 or 0) as opposed to classical computers that use bits (represent a value of either 1 or 0).

How to Slow Climate Change While Fighting Poverty

Rabah Arezki

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This year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP27—which opened on Nov. 6 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt—has been called “Africa’s COP.” Voices from developing economies, most prominently Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, have become louder in demanding that richer countries compensate them for “loss and damage.”

That term, used in climate negotiations, refers to the irreversible consequences caused by climate change to which poor countries or communities cannot adapt. When options to adapt exist, they are not affordable to these countries or communities. The debate over loss and damage is occurring at a time when the future of traditional aid is in doubt. Indeed, political support for aid budgets has been dwindling.

Donor countries have increasingly been under pressure from a series of crises—from the global financial crisis in 2008 to the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s war in Ukraine—which have raised their debt levels. Fiscal and monetary space is increasingly limited, and taxpayers are facing rising costs of living. Politicians in advanced economies will increasingly face the difficult choice between giving citizens more financial support at home and providing aid internationally.

TikTok Time Is Running Out

Peter Schweizer

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At a time when an invasion of Taiwan by Communist China looms ever larger, why worry about TikTok?

Targeted at American teens, TikTok is a mobile app for sharing short videos, owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance. After five short years on the market, it has more than one billion users worldwide. The app has lived under deep suspicion for much of that time, as American cyber-security and counter-intelligence experts have warned about its enormous reach and direct connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

During the administration of President Donald Trump, the White House considered an outright ban on the app. Senators as diverse as Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Josh Hawley (R-AR) led the charge to ban it or force its parent company to sell it. Nothing ever came of that push, and sale negotiations between ByteDance and both Microsoft and Oracle failed to reach a deal. The only concession made was that today, internet traffic to and from TikTok in the US supposedly flows only through servers owned by Oracle, which is paid by ByteDance to manage the app within the US.

IP22061 | 20th CCP Congress: Key Storylines and the Future of China

Benjamin Ho

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To many international observers, the week-long 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), held from 16 to 23 October 2022, will be best remembered for President Xi Jinping’s thorough consolidation of power within the party. This was symbolically evidenced by the image of a forlorn-looking former Chinese president Hu Jintao being escorted out of the meeting on the last day. Beyond this, however, what were some of the key storylines that have emerged in the course of the week-long meeting? And, what would they mean for the future of China?

Political Allegiance above All

Hindsight is always 20/20, and there were all sorts of speculation as to who would make the final list of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee. The final line-up however suggested a more straight-forward selection logic: political allegiance to Xi trumps everything else. Whether there was any horse-trading, compromise or concessions behind the scenes would never be known, but it would seem that in the final reckoning those who would lead China into the future are those who demonstrated loyalty to Xi in the past.

The new era of decoupling, deglobalisation and economic war

Graeme Dobell

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China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden give fresh shoves to the decoupling that will define this new world. Decoupling of trade and tech shapes the contours of strategic competition.

Biden last month lunged at Beijing’s throat by banning the sale of semiconductors and chip-making technology to China.

‘A superpower declared war on a great power and nobody noticed,’ was Edward Luce’s comment in the Financial Times. Biden had launched a ‘full-blown economic war on China—all but committing the US to stopping its rise—and for the most part, Americans did not react’.

America’s reaction was relatively low key because elements of the world being born are already the established reality. Given the reality, US policy responses follow.

How to defeat Russia and prevent nuclear armageddon with one weird trick

Rafael Loss

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Three weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I suggested there “would not be a nuclear war, but a war with an undeniable nuclear dimension.” This remains true today – despite some recent claims to the contrary. The risk of nuclear escalation may have increased since 24 February, but it is still extremely remote. Genocide, however, is a certainty if Western leaders, paralysed by the Kremlin’s nuclear talk, were to abandon Ukraine.

Nuclear rhetoric from Russia has been the norm throughout this war. This should not come as a surprise. Russia’s nuclear weapons are an integral part of its escalation-management toolkit, and frequent referrals to its nuclear potential are standard practice. According to researchers Anna Clara Arndt and Liviu Horovitz, Russia calibrates its nuclear rhetoric in pursuit of three distinct goals: “to deter foreign military intervention; dis­suade foreign aid to Ukraine; and coerce the government in Kyiv”.

Defend. Resist. Repeat: Ukraine’s lessons for European defence

Hanna Shelest

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Introduction

Ukraine’s response to the Russian invasion holds vital lessons for the rest of Europe. Kyiv has placed cross-society resistance at the heart of its national defence, bringing all military and security agencies under a single command, assisted by support from the civilian population. Since 2014, the country has transformed its armed forces, upgrading logistics and communications and empowering mid-level officers; put in place a network of reservists; and taken measures to ensure Ukrainian society’s broader resilience to crises. It built this approach both on the adoption of NATO best practices and on a unique movement of volunteers who raise funds to support the war effort, merging defence and measures to increase national resilience into a single system.

This constitutes a ‘third way’ between the ‘total defence’ model of Sweden, Finland, Singapore, and Switzerland, which brings together military and civilian actors in a whole-of-society approach to security; and the strongly hierarchical model of the United States, Russia, and China, where decision-making is centralised in the political leadership. The total defence approach concentrates on defence and deterrence, while Ukraine’s approach also prioritises resilience – including a comprehensive but agile coordination of a variety of forces within and beyond the government.

China’s Diaspora Policy under Xi Jinping

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China estimates the number of people of Chinese origin outside the People’s Republic to be 60 million. Beijing considers them all to be nationals of China, regardless of their citizenship.

Xi Jinping views overseas Chinese as playing an “irreplaceable role” in China’s rise as a world power. Beijing is working hard to harness overseas Chinese resources for its own goals in the fields of economics, science and technology, as well as diplomacy and soft power.

Beijing also expects people of Chinese origin in Germany to deepen rela­tions between China and Germany. But not only that: As “unofficial ambassadors”, they are also expected to spread China’s narratives to the German public, defend China’s “core interests”, and help with the trans­fer of knowledge and technology to China.

Ukraine’s drone raid on Russian naval base was tactically innovative but not revolutionary

Alessio Patalano

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Last week the naval war in Ukraine came back to international attention. In a theatre that first defined by the Russian assault against Snake Island in the early stages of the invasion and then by Ukraine’s sinking of the cruiser Moskva, Russian sources report a new blow. This time, Ukrainian surface and air drones conducted a daring raid on the Crimean port of Sevastopol where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based.

Authorities in Moscow claim that the uncrewed capabilities involved in the attack were all neutralised, though they also admitted minor damage to a minesweeper and to harbour defences. With limited information available on overall battle damage, unlike in the Moskva’s case, the extent of the Ukrainian success this time remains unclear.

Nonetheless, unverified video footage of the events suggests that the attack was much more consequential than Russia claims. Images show uncrewed surface vessels reaching their targets, including the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship since the Moskva was sunk, the frigate Admiral Makarov. Images on Russian social media in the aftermath of the raid show the frigate damaged at sea. If confirmed, this would indeed be a significant result.

The End of the China Illusion

Horst Fabian and Andreas Fulda

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A press photo from the closing day of the 20th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress has captured the global imagination. It shows the moment former General Secretary Hu Jintao (2002–12) is forcibly removed from the main stage. The highly symbolic picture represents China's 'Führer era', which began in 2012. It is also a public repudiation of China's so-called 'reform and opening up era', which lasted from 1978 until 2012.

What had happened before Hu was walked off the stage, and why does this incident matter? A video recording by Singapore's CNA shows that he attempted to access a red folder in front of him. Hu was prevented from doing so by Li Zhanshu, the outgoing Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

The Russian Air War and Ukrainian Requirements for Air Defence

Dr Justin Bronk, Nick Reynolds and Dr Jack Watling

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Executive SummaryRussian Aerospace Forces (VKS) conducted significantly more extensive fixed-wing strike operations during the first days of the invasion than has been previously documented, while Ukrainian ground-based air-defence (GBAD) capabilities were suppressed by initial attacks.

During this period, Ukrainian fighter aircraft inflicted some losses on VKS aircraft but also took serious casualties due to being totally technologically outmatched and badly outnumbered.

Russian fighters have remained highly effective and lethal against Ukrainian aircraft near the frontlines throughout the war, especially the Su-35S with the R-77-1 long-range missile and, in recent months, the Mig-31BM with the R-37 very long-range missile.

From early March, the VKS lost the ability to operate in Ukrainian-controlled airspace except at very low altitudes due to its inability to reliably suppress or destroy increasingly effective, well-dispersed and mobile Ukrainian surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems.