Xi Jinping's newfound strength obscures China’s political risks

Brahma Chellaney

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The just-concluded 19th Chinese Communist Party congress sanctioned president Xi Jinping’s centralisation of power by naming no clear successor to him and signalling the quiet demise of the collective leadership system that has governed China for more than a quarter century.By enshrining “Xi Jinping thoughts on Chinese-style socialism in a new era” in its constitution, the party has made this new “ideology” – just like Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong’s thoughts – compulsory learning for Chinese students at all levels.

China’s ‘Chairman of Everything’: Behind Xi Jinping’s Many Titles

By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

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He is president, general secretary of the Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission, to name a few. He leads working groups on issues as varied as Taiwan and internet security, and he has been hailed as the party’s “core leader.” Mr. Xi’s multiple designations reflect his status as one of China’s most influential modern leaders. On Wednesday, he gained another five-year term as the party’s general secretary and introduced a new leadership teamwith no clear successor, prompting speculation that he intends to rule beyond the customary second term.

These Seven Men Now Run China

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

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The six men, whom Mr. Xi presented before cameras in the Great Hall of the People, will join him on the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist Party’s highest decision-making body. In addition to Mr. Xi and Premier Li Keqiang, who was already a member, the Standing Committee has added five new faces to help steer China as it seeks greater global influence.

Xi Jinping Unveils China’s New Leaders but No Clear Successor

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

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BEIJING — The ceremony in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Wednesday was meant to introduce the world to China’s new leaders, members of an elite committee that for decades has tried to govern by consensus and sometimes has been compared to a corporate board of directors. Instead, the nationally televised event was more a display of the political power that Xi Jinping has amassed in just five years as president. None of the other members of the new Politburo Standing Committee could be considered equals or potential rivals. The six men stood stiffly in dark suits on the stage, each bowing as Mr. Xi introduced them.

America's Catastrophic Success Against Islamic State

by Eli Lake 

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One might expect President Donald Trump to take a victory lap after last week's liberation of Raqqa from the Islamic State. Thanks to American air power, Maoist Kurds, Syrian patriots and U.S. special operators, this caliphate ended as the shortest-lived in Islamic history. And yet the president chose not to exploit this win. The White House issued a five-paragraph statement. Much of last week was consumed with the president's feud over his phone call to the mother of one of the soldiers killed in Niger.

Alhurra Interview: LTG H.R. McMaster on Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Kurdish Issue

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Originally published by Alhurra ("The Free One") - A United States-based public Arabic-language satellite TV channel that broadcasts news and current affairs programming to audiences in the Middle East and North Africa. National Security Adviser Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster is a longtime Army officer who gained national attention for a book that criticized the military's leadership and strategy in the Vietnam War.

The Fall of a Jihadist Bastion: A History of the Battle of Mosul (October 2016 – July 2017)

By: Brian Glyn Williams, Robert Troy Souza

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Islamic State’s (IS) greatest conquest was its bold June 2014 seizure of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and home to approximately two million predominately Sunni inhabitants. For almost three years, IS dug in to defend this strategic stronghold and the site of the declaration of the IS khilafah (caliphate) by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled “Caliph Ibrahim” (al-Jazeera, July 6, 2014). When a U.S.-backed coalition of jostling Kurdish Peshmerga, Iranian-backed Shia militias and Iraqi Security Forces made up of 114,000 troops launched “Operation We are Coming Nineveh” on October 16, 2016, they knew they were in for a bloody slog to dislodge IS fighters who had “worm-holed” the city, creating tunnels through buildings and building extensive defensive barricades. [1] They were not mistaken in this assumption, and for nine months the allies battled their way first through modern east Mosul, then through the warrens of older west Mosul on the opposite side of the Tigris.

Dark Victory in Raqqa

By Luke Mogelson
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In August, in the living room of an abandoned house on the western outskirts of Raqqa, Syria, I met with Rojda Felat, one of four Kurdish commanders overseeing the campaign to wrest the city from the Islamic State, or isis. Wearing fatigues, a beaded head scarf, and turquoise socks, Felat sat cross-legged on the floor, eating a homemade meal that her mother had sent in a plastic container from Qamishli, four hours away, in the northeast of the country. In the kitchen, two young female fighters washed dishes and glanced surreptitiously at Felat with bright-eyed adoration. At forty years old, she affects a passive, stoic expression that transforms startlingly into one of unguarded felicity when she is amused—something that, while we spoke, happened often. She had reason to be in good spirits. Her forces had recently completed an encirclement of Raqqa, and victory appeared to be imminent.

Globalism in the Eyes of Two Beholders

By Rodger Baker

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The world over, the topic of globalism rarely fails to elicit a strongly held opinion. At its extreme in Europe, the march of globalization is accepted as a near-inevitability: In that view, it is no longer merely a path that should be taken, but the inexorable destination of humanity. As such, there is little room for assessing, much less understanding, alternative perceptions about the structure of the world, either internationally or domestically. Whether talking with a German economist, a British investor or an expatriate businessman in Spain, there is a near-bewilderment as to why anyone would want to pursue nationalism over globalism. As such, the bump in popularity for the Alternative for Germany party, the independence referendum in Catalonia and the Brexit are all seen as anti-historical trends. To them, the European Union remains the moral and political compass for the world, the guiding principle upon which the nation-state will be subsumed and a new global society will emerge.

Autumn Brings Fresh Persecutions in Russian-Occupied Crimea

By: Ridvan Bari Urcosta

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Despite Western diplomatic efforts and sanctions against Russia, Moscow continues to attack and put pressure on the last vestiges of organized political and social opposition in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in early 2014. Indeed, September and October brought renewed persecution on the peninsula. The latest wave of harassment and intimidation began right after the opening of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) annual Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) conference in Warsaw. On September 13, Crimean Tatar Renat Paralamov was kidnapped by unidentified Russian authorities and, he says, severely beaten. However, thanks to international pressure, he was released the next day and found at a bus stop in Simferopol (Krymr.com, September 14)—the first instance, since 2014, that a disappeared individual in Crimea was found within 24 hours of having gone missing.

Militarization and Nuclearization: The Key Features of the Russian Arctic

By: Pavel K. Baev

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Taking ownership of and “conquering” the Arctic are themes Russian authorities love to amplify. But sometimes, the harsh Northern reality interferes. The crash of an Mi-8 helicopter in Svalbard (Spitsbergen), last Thursday (October 26), with eight lives lost, was one such occasion. Norway launched a rescue operation within 30 minutes, while Russian officials continued to falter for hours about the unclear circumstances surrounding the incident; the Russian search party arrived only on Sunday (RBC, October 26; RIA Novosti, October 29). 

Warning of the coming “Strange Death of Europe”

Larry Kummer

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Summary: Immigration and loss of confidence in its culture and values. Either is survivable for Europe as a society. The combination might not be. Here is the Introduction from The Strange Death of Europe, a controversial book about one of the great stories of our time. This is the second in a series about this book. Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide. Whether the European people choose to go along with this is, naturally, another matter. When I say that Europe is in the process of killing itself, I do not mean that the burden of European Commission regulation has become overbearing or that the European Convention on Human Rights has not done enough to satisfy the demands of a particular community.

As forces become more connected, are they becoming more vulnerable?

By: Meredith Rutland Bauer  

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The internet of things has transformed industries by providing the ability to quickly collect data and interconnect multiple nodes of data input seamlessly. IoT is doing the same for the military, providing greater access to essential information and helping soldiers make decisions faster. But despite all its benefits, IoT comes with its own set of security risks.

Disinformation and the Decay of Nations

PETER POMERANTSEV

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Discord is a niche social media platform used by the video gaming community to organize strategies for competing in massive multiplayer online worlds. It has also been used by the extreme Right to plan international revolution. Extremist discussions on Discord are hard to penetrate. During September’s German election, for example, anyone wanting to join the Infokrieg or Reconquista Germanica groups was vetted through several layers of interviews and social media background checks to weed out spies from true believers. Researchers from the counter-extremism NGO Institute for Strategic Dialogue managed to infiltrate the sites however, and, as their report (which is to be released next week) details, they discovered an impressive, international psy-ops operation aimed at helping the right-wing Alternative Fūr Deutschland (AfD) make it into the Bundestag for the first time.

cyber enabled information war challenges grip reality

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One of the opening rounds of an information war between the Kremlin and a democratic country came from Melvin Redick, a fake Facebook account designed to look like your average American – only he was believed to be the handiwork of Russian intelligence.  “These guys show hidden truth about Hillary Clinton, George Soros and other leaders of the US,” Redick’s account posted on June 8, 2016, in the midst of the U.S. presidential campaign. “Visit #DCLeaks website. It’s really interesting!”

*** In China, Innovation Cuts Both Ways

By Matthew Bey

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China is in a bind. The heavy industry that propelled the country's economy through three decades of dizzying growth has reached its limits. To escape the dreaded middle-income trap, China will need to shift its focus from low-end manufacturing to other economic industries, namely the technology sector. Beijing has put tech at the center of its long-term economic strategy through campaigns such as Made in China 2025 and Internet Plus. But these initiatives alone won't push the Chinese economy past its current plateau. The tech sector is notorious for relentless innovation. And innovation requires flexibility.

Army finalises mega procurement plan to replace ageing weapons

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A large number of light machine guns (LMG), battle carbines and assault rifles are being purchased at a cost of nearly Rs 40,000 crore to replace its ageing and obsolete weapons. The broad process to acquire around 7 lakh rifles, 44,000 light machine guns (LMGs) and nearly 44,600 carbines has been finalised and the defence ministry is on the same page with the army in moving ahead with the procurement, official sources said.

Arming India’s response to Xi Jinping thought

Narayan Ramachandran

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The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing came to a conclusion last week. The NCCPC is held every five years in the fourth calendar quarter and is technically the apex body of the single party that has ruled China since the Communist revolution in 1949. In recent years, the NCCPC has lasted about a week each time and it is commonly understood that all important decisions are taken before the meeting convenes. The NCCPC is a giant career-defining body that shifts people upwards, laterally or out. Younger members are inducted every five years and older members are retired. 

India ships wheat to Afghanistan via Chabahar

Kallol Bhattacherjee

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New route being used for first time to send consignment

Days after hosting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, India on Sunday began shipment of wheat to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chabahar.

A press release from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) noted that the consignment would be the first to use the new route via Chabahar to access Afghanistan, even as India plans similar transfers in the coming months.

The Chinese Juggernaut Continues To Run Strong, Leaving The US, Europe Behind

Manish Singh

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They have to lower tariffs. They open up telecommunications for investment. They allow us to sell cars made in America in China at much lower tariffs. They allow us to put our own distributorships there. They allow us to put our own parts there. We don’t have to transfer technology or do joint manufacturing in China anymore. This a hundred-to-nothing deal for America when it comes to the economic consequences.

Chinese Internet Law: What the West Doesn’t See

By Jan Fell

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The People’s Republic of China entered the Internet age in 1994; 23 years on, China is considered to have the largest online population worldwide, with 731 million active users. At the same time, China has one of the world’s strictest online legal frameworks. One could easily assume that an online ecosphere as vibrant and active as China’s would lead to many differentiated approaches to interpreting Chinese Internet law. Instead, China researchers, legal scholars, and observers of the Chinese internet industry have engaged in ever-repeating, entrenched, and constricted narratives focused on human rights abuses, censorship, and political oppression. Simultaneously and largely unnoticed, China has devised a strategy of innovation security as part of its internet law.

ISIS post caliphate: who's left, and where they are

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The rapid territorial losses in Iraq and Syria will likely drive the jihadists underground there, but ISIS 'provinces' and expatriates are scattered broadly, and the resilient organization remains a threat even without its caliphate. 

Can ISIS Survive Defeat in Raqqa?

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As the last remaining ISIS fighters are hunted down in Raqqa after a four-month Kurdish-led and US-backed offensive, some are heralding the group’s final defeat, three years and four months after it declared its ‘Caliphate’ across Syria and northern Iraq. But while its impending territorial defeat is significant, reports of ISIS’s death are wrong. You can’t kill an idea. Especially when the group has laid down deep ideological roots through its “Islamic state,” building a flourishing global network and a considerable online presence.

America’s love affair with uniformed men is problematic

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A POIGNANT feature of American bases in Iraq were their walls of Thank You cards sent by American schoolchildren. Often displayed outside the chow-hall, where the troops gathered to eat, they typically thanked them for “being over there to keep us safe”. Hardly any of the soldiers Lexington spoke to, during several trips to Iraq, believed that to be the case. Their Iraqi enemies were fighting a defensive war, not trying to launch one against America. Yet the soldiers accepted the sentiment unblushingly. No soldier expects the beloved chumps back home to understand what he gets up to. He just needs to feel appreciated.

America Asleep at the Keyboard as Cyber Warfare Gets Real Dmitri Alperovitch on Russian hacks at the DNC

by Christine Parrish

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It took Dmitri Alperovitch and the CrowdStrike cybersecurity team a few minutes on May 6, 2016, to find two hacks into the Democratic National Committee computer network. They recognized one, Fancy Bear, as being affiliated with Russian military intelligence. Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, is an expert in detecting and stopping hacks that can undermine financial systems and governments.

PUTIN STARTS AIMING HIS CYBERWEAPONS AGAINST INDIVIDUALS

BY NOLAN PETERSON

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Kiev, Ukraine—Since 2014, Russia has used Ukraine as a testing ground for its hybrid warfare doctrine, underscoring what some security experts say is a case study for the new kinds of security threats the U.S. and its Western allies can anticipate from Moscow. “The threats Ukraine faces are harbingers of things to come for the U.S. and its other allies,” said Junaid Islam, chief technology officer and president of Vidder, a California-based cyber security firm that does work in Ukraine.

Can Kim Jong-un Control His Nukes?

Michael Auslin 

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Any travelers waiting for the few flights out of Pyongyang International Airport early on August 29 were treated to the spectacle of a North Korean intermediate-range missile blasting off only a few miles beyond the runways. Just before six in the morning, a Hwasong-12 missile, also known as the KN-17, with a purported range of nearly four thousand miles, arced northeastward over North Korea and the Sea of Japan. Eight minutes later, it passed over Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four home islands. Roughly six minutes after that, and approximately 730 miles east of Hokkaido, it broke apart and fell into the Pacific Ocean.

Infographic Of The Day: 3D Printing Is Finally Changing The Manufacturing Landscape

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Today's infographic highlights a most recent snapshot of the 3D printing industry. Importantly, it shows that the technology is still chugging along in a way that is changing how things are made - just at a less hype-worthy pace.

Cyber Defense Must Be Global

by Emanuel Kopp, Lincoln Kaffenberger, and Christopher Wilson

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Cyberattacks on financial institutions are becoming more common and considerably more sophisticated. High-profile cases like the Equifax breach, which compromised the confidentiality of 143 million Americans’ credit information, and the theft of US$81 million from Bangladesh Bank, are just two examples of recent cyber breaches in the financial industry.

Where Fiber Broadband Is Most Prevalent

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Although South Korea is well ahead of the pack with 30 percent of inhabitants enjoying a superfast internet subscription, other developed countries such as the U.S. and Germany can boast a mere 3.7 and 0.7 percent, respectively.

We Must Listen to Clausewitz

By Daniel DePetris

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As the foreign policy establishment in Washington should have learned over the last 16 years, nothing in the Middle East is straightforward or clean. There simply isn't a black-and-white, good vs. evil paradigm that Americans can use to navigate the treacherous and complicated politics of the region. Sure, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is undeniably a war criminal whose forces have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, wiped out entire city districts through merciless bombing, and sent over 11 million Syrians to leave their homes. Assad is a bloodthirsty authoritarian, but his opponents in the Syrian civil war are not angels either.

Why America Could Lose a War with Russia or China

William Adler

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Incremental improvements in doctrine, global basing, and force structure are all steps in the right direction, but they are fundamentally insufficient to allow the United States to prevail in a large-scale conventional war. Political and military leaders seek solutions in sterile funding debates, vociferous force size comparisons and acquisition deliberations, but then fail to address one of the elements critical to success in warfare – endurance. The ability to regenerate expended war-fighting capability is essential to maintain military staying power in a protracted war. The United States must build this kind of endurance into future force design and emphasize those military means that can be regenerated quickly and affordably to preserve military options.

Challenge of rapid equipping in a technology-centric world

Mark Pomerleau

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“With ready availability of these commercial drones, ISIS and other groups have taken advantage of that…and have adapted it for everything from the intended purpose of some of these drones to conduct reconnaissance because they’re camera-equipped,” said Tim Clauss, an intelligence analyst with the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, during an event at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on Oct. 17. “But in some instances…they’ve adapted them and dropped some small munitions,”

How Americans Learned to Fight Modern War

By David Fitzgerald

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In a recent interview reflecting on his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, General David Petraeus recalled an incident that took place during the invasion of Iraq. Petraeus, then commanding the 101st Airborne, recounted that after a tough fight to take the city of Najaf, he called the V Corps Commander, General William Wallace to say, “Hey boss, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we own Najaf...The bad news is the same as the good news: we own Najaf. What do you want us to do with it?”

Street Sense: The Urban Battlefields of the Future

LEVI MAXEY 

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Conflict follows humanity wherever it goes, and the world’s population is increasingly living in cities. Waning are the days of the Maoist blueprint of rural insurgents pillaging small peripheral villages and seeking refuge in the hard terrain of mountainous caverns, dense forests, or expansive deserts. Soon terrorist and insurgent groups will mount operations from crowded slums and ritzy skyscrapers – not just in a dense urban landscape, but in coastal megacities that pose a unique challenge for which the U.S. military largely remains unprepared.