DoD Winnowing Efforts To Counter Small Drones

By THERESA HITCHENS

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ARLINGTON, VA: DoD will finish down-selecting “best of breed” systems to counter small drones in April, as a first step in a longer-range plan to streamline the myriad programs across the services, according to Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, deputy director for force protection on the Joint Staff

The goal, he told the Association of the US Army (AUSA) here today, is to “eliminate redundancy and excess across the joint forces.”

Gainey heads the new Joint Counter Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-sUAS) Office that the Army stood up to manage its 2019 mandate from Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to serve as DoD’s C-sUAS Executive Agent (EA). The EA is charged with finding joint solutions to the threat caused by small drones, and to ensure that the services are not duplicating each other’s efforts. Esper approved the EA implementation plan on Jan. 6.

Gainey showed a chart that laid out the C-sUAS EA’s deliverables for its first year: a DoD Directive; a Joint C-sUAS threat assessment; a DoD counter-drone strategy; down-select of Joint Urgent Operational Need (JUON) counter-drone systems; and a Joint Capability Development Document including delivering capabilities to the warfighter.

These are the industries most likely to be taken over by robots

Andy Kiersz
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The fear of robots coming for your job is one of the many challenges confronting 21st-century workers, but the machines aren't ready to take on every industry just yet.

Bridgewater Associates, the massive hedge fund founded by legendary investor Ray Dalio, just released a report on the changing relationship between labor and capital in the US.

One of the big factors the Bridgewater authors highlighted was the ongoing rise in automation across industries, which they noted could be a support for corporate profits in the years to come as more efficient robots and software potentially replace slower and error-prone human labor.

Bridgewater cited a 2016 report from consulting firm McKinsey & Company that looked at which industries in the US were most susceptible to being automated.

The McKinsey report used data from the Department of Labor to estimate how much time workers in various industry sectors spent doing different types of tasks, and which of those tasks could, theoretically, be automated using present technology.

McKinsey noted that tasks like physical labor in a predictable environment, like a fast-food restaurant or a factory assembly line, and basic data processing, like tracking payroll accounting, could easily be automated using the robots and software available to us now.

Laser weapons are almost ready for the battlefield

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When martians descend on England in H.G. Wells’s novel “The War of the Worlds”, published in 1898, they incinerate troublesome humans and lay waste to suburban towns with heat-rays that turn all before them into a “a smoky dance of lurid flames”. Such ray guns have been a recurrent feature of science-fiction ever since.

Despite the efforts of military types, though, reality has lagged far behind sci-fi. In 1934, to no avail, Britain’s Air Ministry offered £1,000 to anyone who could use rays of some sort to kill a sheep at a distance of 180 metres. A decade later a Japanese device that generated microwaves managed to snuff out a rabbit that was 30 metres away. But it took ten minutes to do so. Even the invention of lasers, in 1960, failed to usher in the age of the directed-energy weapon, as ray guns are known in the jargon. Ronald Reagan’s effort to weaponise lasers in the “Star Wars” programme of the 1980s was spectacularly unsuccessful.

THE CITY IS NOT NEUTRAL: WHY URBAN WARFARE IS SO HARD

John Spencer 

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“Contrary to what is often supposed, urban warfare is not more difficult than other types of warfare.” That’s what a recent article published in the Texas National Security Review argues. The authors believe, in fact, that urban environments are “neutral,” not to be feared—that, as in almost every other environment, the better-trained and more-professional force should have an advantage.

Unfortunately, history does not support this notion of urban terrain’s neutrality, nor do the realities of modern warfare. The article presents solutions to urban challenges, but is mistaken in its characterization of these challenges as simple dilemmas.

British soldier F. Spencer Chapman once wrote of a very different type of terrain,

The truth is that the jungle is neutral. It provides any amount of fresh water, and unlimited cover for friend as well as foe—an armed neutrality, if you like, but neutrality nevertheless. It is the attitude of mind that determines whether you go under or survive. ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ The jungle itself is neutral.

Eye on China is a weekly bulletin offering news and analysis related to the Middle Kingdom from an Indian interests perspective.

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I. Battling the Virus

On Saturday, Chinese health officials reported a total death toll of 2,835, with the number of confirmed cases at 79,251. There were 427 new cases reported in China on Saturday according to official data. NYT’s mapping of data shows that the outbreak has sickened more than 85,100 people, according to official counts. So far, cases have been reported in 57 countries. Over this week, there’s been a massive spike in cases in Japan, Italy, South Korea and Iran, with an increasing worry that this is developing into a pandemic. The World Health Organization has raised its global risk assessment for the outbreak from “high” to “very high,” while warning that hospitals even in developed countries might not be ready to handle the situation.

One interesting point to note on the spike in cases internationally, while a slowdown in new cases in China. WSJ reports: “A number of Chinese municipal governments are imposing stricter health screenings on people entering China and, in some cases, even quarantine measures on those arriving from coronavirus-afflicted countries. These controls come after Beijing waged a concerted campaign urging other governments not to impose restrictions on travel to and from China, saying such measures were out of line with World Health Organization guidance.”

Exclusive! How India reached out to the Afghan Mujahideen

By M K Bhadrakumar

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'It was a mission undertaken in darkness in every sense -- literally, because Afghanistan had no electricity at that time; and, metaphorically because Delhi historically dealt only with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and the foreign ministry's vast archives had nothing to offer on the culture and politics of the northern tribes in the Hindu Kush.'

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who played a stellar role in beginning India's systemic dealings in Afghanistan in 1994, reveals for the first time how he undertook that most important and risky mission.

One thing I learnt early enough in South Block was that as head of a territorial division, the success of a policy initiative almost always would lie in slipping it in innocuously when the superiors were overworked. Even if the idea were heretical, the chances of it finding habitation depended on the timing.

That was how the saga of India's systemic dealings with the Afghan Mujahideen began in 1994.

The fifteenth anniversary of the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary 'Lion of Panjshir,' becomes an appropriate occasion to reminisce.

Medicines in India: Accessibility, affordability and quality

Prachi Singh, Shamika Ravi, and David Dam

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Healthcare expenditure is financed through various sources in a country. It can be financed by the government (state or union), insurance schemes (public or private) or borne by households directly in the form of out-of-pocket expenditures (OOPE). More financing by the government implies less financial burden on households in the form of huge out-of-pocket expenses. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) data on global health expenditures reveals that when it comes to out-of-pocket expenditure as a proportion of current health expenditure, India does much worse in comparison to the world average (65% for India versus world average of around 20% in 2016). A comparison with other Asian countries also reveals a similar scenario. Thailand and China have reduced the proportion of out-of-pocket expenditure over time, while Sri Lanka and Bangladesh witnessed an increase over time.

The state-level scenario is not very different from the national picture which reveals that the burden of health expenses falls mostly on households. In the state of Bihar, out-of-pocket expenses are a whopping 80% of the total health expenditure. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, OOPE forms three-fourth of the total health expenditure. Some states do relatively better, such as Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Gujarat, but even in these states, households bear almost half of the total health expenditure as OOPE.

As Taliban Attack, Esper and Milley Downplay ‘Mixed’ Results of Peace Deal

BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS
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Joint Chiefs chairman argued before Congress that the Taliban’s “small low-level” attacks on Afghan forces don't violate their four-day-old agreement with the United States.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper acknowledged to Congress that the “results have been mixed” in the four days since the United States inked a peace deal with the Taliban, which has conducted at least 76 deadly attacks on Afghan forces since Saturday. 

In a Senate hearing, Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley downplayed the increase in violence, with Milley calling them “small, low-level attacks” that were within the boundaries of the agreement. 

“The Taliban have signed up to a whole series of conditions,” Milley told Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers on Wednesday. “Of significance, there’s no attack on 34 provincial capitals, no attacks in Kabul, no high profile attacks, no suicide bombers, no vehicle-born suicide, no attacks against U.S. forces, no attack against coalition [forces].

“There’s a whole laundry list of these things that aren’t happening,” he said. 

Is Donald Trump Trapped In Afghanistan?

by Madhav Joshi
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After 18 months of negotiations, the U.S. and the Taliban signed a peace deal on Feb. 29. It is expected that the deal will provide a plan for a comprehensive Afghan peace process.

The deal addresses the security of foreign troops; the Taliban’s commitments to sever ties with terrorist organizations; prisoner exchange; a gradual withdrawal of U.S. and foreign troops; and the beginnings of a negotiation between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The Afghan government was not a party to the deal, and the Taliban must now negotiate a final peace agreement with that government. Yet that prospect is far from certain.

The U.S. approach of negotiating withdrawal first and initiate a peace process later is unheard of and has never been tested in the contemporary peace process. This nontraditional method is not necessarily doomed to fail, but it does not align with tactics of successful peace processes to date, as I know from my years of research on peace building.

What Can the Coronavirus Teach Us?

By Bill McKibben
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There’s nothing good about the novel coronavirus—it’s killing many people, and shutting millions more inside, with fear as their main companion. However, if we’re fated to go through this passage, we may as well learn something from it, and it does strike me that there are a few insights that are applicable to the climate crisis that shadows all of our lives.

Some of these lessons are obvious: giant cruise ships are climate killers and, it turns out, can become floating sick wards. Other ideas evaporate once you think about them: China is producing far less carbon dioxide, for the moment, but, completely apart from the human toll, economic disruption is not a politically viable way to deal with global warming in the long term, and it also undercuts the engines of innovation that bring us, say, cheap solar panels.

Still, it’s worth noting how nimbly millions of people seem to have learned new patterns. Companies, for instance, are scrambling to stay productive, even with many people working from home. The idea that we need to travel each day to a central location to do our work may often be the result of inertia, more than anything else. Faced with a real need to commute by mouse, instead of by car, perhaps we’ll see that the benefits of workplace flexibility extend to everything from gasoline consumption to the need for sprawling office parks.

How Will COVID-19 Affect The World Economy?

by Fabius Maximu 
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Summary: Now that the COVID-19 epidemic is spreading beyond China (while China’s containment efforts are succeeding), let’s look at its likely effects on the world economy. We have to tools to manage them, but they won’t be pretty.

The impact of an epidemic on people’s health is, of course, the most important factor to guide policy-makers. But the economic effects also require attention.

Most obviously, somebody must pay for the required health care, the testing, the quarantines, the drugs, and the vaccines. Putting that burden on individuals means that some will avoid these necessary steps - and spread the disease. Others will pay and reduce spending (or go broke) - which is how recessions become depressions and deflationary spirals. But we have the political machinery available to handle these issues, if we have the will and wit to do so.

IGNORANCE OF CHINA IS NOT BLISS

By Capt. Brent Ramsey (ret.)

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China is modernizing every element of its military. It has announced plans to field a world-class military by 2035 and a dominant military by mid-century.1 Consistent with its goal of regional hegemony, China is building Navy, Coast Guard, and merchant ships faster than any other nation. Its Navy now directly commands China’s Coast Guard, adding hundreds of ships to its fleet. China’s fleet of warships now outnumbers U.S. warships in the Indo-Pacific by about 10 to 1. With this new capability, China constantly intimidates its neighbors through its increasingly aggressive maritime behavior.2

China intends to control the international waters off its shores.3 It has invested heavily in long-range anti-access area denial (A2/AD) missiles. These missiles represent a serious threat to warships, since considerable uncertainty exists about the effectiveness of the defenses against them.4 A strategic benefit of robust A2/AD missiles is increasing the stand-off distance from China that warships must maintain to avoid attack. By pushing navies further away from shores, these weapons look to turn the China Seas into Chinese territorial waters. According to the Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Phil Davidson, “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”5

OPEC Tries to Forestall a Coronavirus Oil Collapse

BY KEITH JOHNSON
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As the death toll and economic carnage of the coronavirus mounts, the world’s big oil producers met in Vienna in a desperate bid to prevent oil prices from collapsing, tentatively agreeing to cut their total output by an additional 1.5 million barrels a day.

But the big question is still whether countries outside the OPEC exporters’ cartel, namely Russia, will ultimately agree to the ambitious proposal, which would take the group’s production to the lowest level since the Iraq War.

Oil prices shrugged off the preliminary agreement, which goes much further than the actions that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was talking about late last month. But OPEC saw a decisive move as necessary as the economic and human toll of the COVID-19 outbreak continues to rise, with nearly 3,300 deaths globally and now 11 in the United States, including the first in California, which declared a state of emergency. Factories in Asia and Europe are sputtering, schools are closing, sporting events are being canceled, and airlines expect to lose more than $100 billion this year as business travel and tourism screech to a halt.

That sudden slowdown in economic activity—in a year that was meant to mark a return to stronger growth—shows up clearly in the demand for oil.

What Does Beijing Believe About the Coronavirus?

BY JAMES PALMER 

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Welcome to Foreign Policy’s weekly China Brief. The highlights this week: China’s government says things are getting back to normal, but Beijing’s coronavirus lockdown is tightening, South Korea’s outbreak is now the worst beyond mainland China, and questions remain about the number of asymptomatic cases.

What to Make of China’s Virus Messaging

As the coronavirus spreads globally, China is keen to convince the world that things are getting back to normal within its borders. But the message that all is well is undercut by the tightening lockdown in Beijing, where streets remain empty and many offices and factories are required to have no more than 30 percent of their employees physically at work at any given time. For Chinese officials, protecting the party leadership from infection is clearly the highest priority. Deaths in Beijing appear to matter more than deaths elsewhere, so the response there is a telling vision of what the government really believes about the virus.

The economic outlook in China remains dire. The services sector may be hit just as hard as manufacturing, with new data showing an all-time low in consumer confidence. The figures look very bad, especially considering that long delay times caused by inactivity are still factored into the index as a sign of positive growth—usually, delays are the result of busy factories. There is little sign of recovery yet, and migrant workers are still stranded and unlikely to return to work anytime soon.

Understanding China’s ‘preventive repression’ in Xinjiang

Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Myunghee Lee, and Emir Yazici

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What is happening in Xinjiang is deeply concerning and abhorrent. Trying to change it, however, is difficult. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Myunghee Lee, and Emir Yazici write that any attempt to do so requires a full and clear understanding of the threat perceptions that are driving China’s behavior in the region, particularly this most recent strategy of intensified collective repression. This piece originally appeared on Lawfare.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) crackdown on Uighur and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has attracted intense scrutiny and polarized the international community. At least 1 million people, maybe as many as 1.5 million, have been detained in a large network of recently constructed camps, where they undergo forced reeducation and political indoctrination.

These developments have shaped not only Chinese domestic politics but also international politics and debate. Chinese authorities have put pressure on Uighur diaspora networks, increasing surveillance and pressuring other countries in which Uighurs live to repatriate them to China. Beijing has also attempted to build an international coalition in support of its policies: When 22 countries sent a letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council asking China to stop its involuntary internments in Xinjiang, that letter was countered by another letter from 37 countries defending the government’s “counter-terrorism, deradicalization and vocational training policies.” The issue has also fueled U.S.-China tension and resulted in U.S. sanctions against Chinese individuals and companies.

Why The Death Rate From Coronavirus Is Plunging In China

NURITH AIZENMAN

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When it comes to the spiraling global coronavirus outbreak, scientists are still trying to pin down the answer to a basic question: How deadly is this virus?

Estimates have varied widely. For instance, at a Feb. 24 news conference in Beijing, a top Chinese health official, Liang Wannian, said the fatality rate for COVID-19 was quite high.

"Between 3 to 4% of patients have died," said Liang.

Then he added a twist. Outside of Wuhan — the city at the epicenter of the outbreak — the death rate in China has been much lower: about 0.7%. That's fewer than 1 fatality per 100 cases.

Similarly, a study released by China's Center for Disease Control last month found that if you factor out all the data from Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, the fatality rate in the rest of China drops to 0.4%.

Why such a big difference between Hubei and the rest of China?

The U.S.-China Strategic Competition: Clues from History

Graham Allison 

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Introduction

Churchill observed that the further back one can look, the farther ahead one can see. To help the Aspen Strategy Group look ahead to prescriptions for the U.S. in the current strategic competition with China, the organizers asked me to look back at previous great power rivalries. Specifically, they assigned me two Applied History questions:

“What are the lessons from history we should be aware of when two great powers collide?”

“What should the U.S. learn from these to shape its policies on China?”

Since these questions are discussed at length in my book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017), the organizers asked me to provide a succinct summary of key takeaways from the book that may be helpful in analyzing the strategic-military dimension of this relationship today. This paper begins with that overview, followed by a brief analysis of the current strategic-military competition, and concludes with provocative questions.

Overview

China demands US response over CIA hacking claims

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry has asked the US for a "clear explanation" after claims the CIA had been hacking targets in China for at least 11 years.

The allegations were made by Qihoo, a well-known cyber-security firm based in Beijing.

The company said it had found evidence in malware suggesting the CIA had targeted airlines, petrol companies and government agencies.

The BBC has contacted the CIA for comment.

Qihoo said it had analysed malicious code and found similarities between it and information about alleged CIA hacking tools which was published three years ago.

Among other alleged targets of the hacking campaign were internet firms, scientific institutions and energy companies.

"We speculate that in the past 11 years of infiltration attacks, CIA may have already grasped the most classified business information of China, even of many other countries in the world," added Qihoo.

Winning Small Wars in Contests for the People

M. Knight

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Introduction

In 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, a contingent of elite Spartiac hoplites found themselves stranded and surrounded on the island of Sphacteria. They had been unable to subdue their opponents who insisted on using slings and arrows as an effective distance-weapon to counter the heavy infantry close-quarter tactics of the Spartans. The Athenians refused to engage the Spartans in a manner that would ensure their own defeat, much to the chagrin of the Spartans. Facing defeat themselves, the Spartan forces on Sphacteria send a message to Sparta asking what they should do. The reply was clear, “Do nothing shameful”(Nichols, 2015). Following discussions the Spartans on Sphacteria decided that their best course of action, and one that held no shame, was to surrender.

A similar dilemma is now facing western militaries, in-so-far as, the contextual terrain has shifted to such an extent that their enemies refuse to engage them in a manner that would ensure their own destruction. Focus on this modern Sphacterian-dilemma has led to discussions and debates that are encapsulated within the ‘War amongst the people’ arena. A recent notable addition to this discourse is “War Amongst the People: Critical Assessments” (Brown, et al. 2019) that summarises the present thinking and highlights common themes along with critical questions. This paper is a response to the ‘Critical Assessment’ in Brown (2019), and aims to deliver an equally Laconic response as that received by the Spartans on Sphacteria, to the dilemmas identified in ‘War amongst the people’ (Rossi. N, & Riemann. M. ‘Conclusion’ in Brown, et al. 2019).[i]

Sphacterian-Dilemma

The City Is Neutral: On Urban Warfare in the 21st Century

by David Betz and Hugo Stanford-Tuck

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Contrary to what is often supposed, urban warfare is not more difficult than other types of warfare. The combat environment is neutral, just like every other environment. Urban warfare is, however, likely to be more prevalent in coming years, which is why it is important that Western armies learn to do it confidently. The current approach to this type of fighting is wrong because it is burdened by bad history. The problems of urban combat are not new. Moreover, they are solvable through a combination of hard training, changes in command mindset, and technological innovation. We propose a “strongest gang” model as a realistic solution to the problems of urban conflict that cannot be addressed by the current dominant methods that are too positively controlled, too manpower-intensive, too cautious, and cede too much initiative to objectively weaker and less capable opponents.

The urban environment is complex and difficult. Tactically, it strains communications, overloads sensory capability, and pushes the decision-making onus to the lowest level. Strategically, it is complex because tactical actions are amplified and the speed at which local and international audiences are informed has never been faster. American and British environmental doctrine emphasizes the significant operational challenges that this environment presents.2 In truth, however, the urban setting is neutral. It affects all protagonists equally, even if it does not always appear to do so. In The Jungle is Neutral, the classic account of three years of behind-the-lines jungle fighting against the Japanese in Malaya during World War II, the British soldier F. Spencer Chapman attributed his success to the principle that the environment is intrinsically neither good nor bad but neutral. What is true for warfare in the jungle — an environment that inflicts its own demands every bit as severe as those of the city — ought to be true for urban warfare.

10 Things You Can Do About Climate Change, According To The Shepherds Of The Paris Agreement

Jeff McMahon
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Christiana Figueres once credited the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh with helping her shepherd 192 countries from blaming to collaborating, from paralysis to empowerment in the Paris Agreement.

Now Figueres and her strategic advisor, former Buddhist monk Tom Rivett-Carnac, have penned a book that shepherds climate activism from changing mental states to changing the world.

“Throughout our lives we have found that what we do and how we do it is largely determined by how we think,” Figueres told me via email. “While there is never a guarantee of success at any challenge, the chances of success are predicated on our attitude toward that very challenge....

“It is a lesson we learned as we prepared the Paris Agreement, and is a valuable guide for the urgent challenge we are facing this decade."

Why Amazon CEO Je Bezos's $10 bn to fight climate change may not help

Utkarsh Narain & Rohan Seth

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Amazon CEO Je Bezos. (Reuters Photo) Amazon CEO Je Bezos recently announced through an Instagram post that he would donate $ 10 billion from his personal wealth to the newly created Bezos Earth Fund to fight climate change. The global initiative will fund scientists, activists and NGOs according to the social media post. However, questions such as when the will the money be disbursed, whether the fund will be a private foundation, a limited liability corporation or a donor-advised fund remain unanswered. In recent years, we are seeing increased instances of giving by mega billionaires. Warren Buet committed a majority of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mark Zuckerberg also pledged 99 per cent of his Facebook shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, soon aer the birth of his daughter in 2015. 

Billionaires like Infosys’ Nilekanis and Wipro's Azim Premji have signed the ‘Giving Pledge’, committing the majority of their wealth. Bezos, who hasn’t signed the ‘Giving Pledge’ is the latest to jump onto the strategic philanthropy bandwagon. While the individual grant by Bezos is laudable, fighting the adverse eects of climate change will require ‘collective action from big companies, small companies, nation-states, global organizations, and individuals’, as Bezos’s post acknowledges. Thus, to understand the direction the fund takes, it makes sense to analyse the policies and actions of Amazon with regard to climate change over the years. On September 19, 2019, Amazon signed ‘The Climate Pledge’ and committed to achieving the requirements of the Paris Agreement by 2040, ten years in advance of the 2050 deadline. For the record, Amazon releases 128.9 grams CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per dollar (USD) of Gross Merchandise Sales (GMS). Amazon’s total emissions in the fiscal year 2018, equalled an enormous 44.40 Million Metric Tons (mmt) CO2e, according to the Amazon Sustainability Report 2019. 

The Dismal Kingdom

By Paul Romer 

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Over the past 60 years, the United States has run what amounts to a natural experiment designed to answer a simple question: What happens when a government starts conducting its business in the foreign language of economists? After 1960, anyone who wanted to discuss almost any aspect of U.S. public policy—from how to make cars safer to whether to abolish the draft, from how to support the housing market to whether to regulate the financial sector—had to speak economics. Economists, the thinking went, promised expertise and fact-based analysis. They would bring scientific precision and rigor to government interventions.

For a while, this approach seemed a sure bet for steady progress. But several decades on, the picture is less encouraging. Consider, for example, the most basic quantitative indicator of well-being: the average length of a life. For much of the last century, life expectancy in the United States increased roughly in tandem with that in western Europe. But over the last four decades, the United States has been falling further and further behind. In 1980, the average American life was a year longer than the average European one. Today, it is two years shorter. For a long time, U.S. life expectancy was still rising but more slowly than in Europe; in recent years, it has been falling. A society is hardly making progress when its people are dying younger.

Another Unilateral Decision by Trump, Another Blow to the Multilateral Trading System

Kimberly Ann Elliott 
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The status of developing countries under international trade rules has long been a divisive issue. The World Trade Organization does not explicitly define what “developing” means, leaving members to determine for themselves where they fall. Even countries that have become relatively rich or are major export powers have been loath to give up the preferential access to foreign markets—or “special and differential treatment”—that developing country status entails. After decades of negotiation, the practical impact of special and differential treatment is less than it once was. But it is nevertheless a major irritant for developed country members of the WTO. And the United States under President Donald Trump seems determined to do something about it—even at the expense of the system as a whole.

Perpetual Chaos: Why the Middle East Has Been Marred By America’s Presence

by Brian Clark

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You would not know it from its behavior, but America’s foreign policy goal in the Middle East has been to create stability. Stability ensures continued access to the region’s oil and it keeps hostile and ideologically motivated Islamists out of power, both of which are considered to be in America’s national interest. With a long list of rival groups competing for influence, the Middle East is considered to be too combustible of a region to be left to its own devices.

The United States, therefore, keeps about fifty thousand troops in the region to ensure it does not spiral into chaos. And despite his pledges to do otherwise, this number is growing, as over his first term President Donald Trump has incrementally added more to America’s existing deployments in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait.

But after twenty-plus years of having one military action after another failing miserably in the region, it should be obvious by now that if America wants to create stability in the Middle East, then it needs to remove its troops and officials. American attempts to bring order to the region usually make things worse. Contrary to the popular wisdom of the foreign policy establishment, this is not because America lacks a military presence in the area, but because it has too much of one.

An Isolated Erdogan Learns the Cost of Hubris in Idlib

Frida Ghitis 

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to Russia on Thursday, seeking to persuade President Vladimir Putin to help stem disaster in Syria’s Idlib province. Turkish forces are locked in fierce combat there with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army in what has become the last bastion of the armed rebels fighting the regime.

Before the trip, Erdogan made two other related moves to strengthen his hand. First, he pleaded with NATO to come to his aid. Then, to increase his leverage with his European allies, he opened Turkey’s borders for Syrian refugees to cross into Greece, raising the specter of another mass refugee crisis like the one that roiled Europe in 2015. That previous wave of refugees and asylum-seekers boosted far-right parties across the continent, with consequences that are still visible today

In disruptive times, the power comes from people: An interview with Eric SchmidtMarch 2020 | Interview

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In disruptive times, the power comes from people: An interview with Eric Schmidt

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As we enter a new golden age of technological innovation, nurturing talent will become more critical, according to the former chairman of Alphabet.

With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley, Eric Schmidt is regularly tapped for his views on the future of technology and how the latest disruptive innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence could shape the world. Yet he’s quick to point out that it’s the people behind the technology who make the difference, a sentiment he admits is oft repeated yet still somehow underestimated. Developing young talent into the inventors and leaders of tomorrow is a major focus of Schmidt’s philanthropic efforts—and Rise, a new joint initiative between Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, embodies that mission.

At the recent McKinsey BLINK Conference in the United Kingdom, Schmidt spoke about the dizzying speed of disruption, as well as how to nurture and position people to harness technological dynamism for the greater good of organizations and society. An edited version of his remarks follows.

Talent: Where incredible meets profound

Accelerating AI impact by taming the data beast

By Anusha Dhasarathy, Ankur Ghia, Sian Griffiths, and Rob Wavra

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to dramatically enhance the way public-sector agencies serve their constituents, tackle their most vexing issues, and get the most out of their budgets. Several converging factors are pressuring governments to embrace AI's potential. As citizens become more familiar with the power of AI through digital banking, virtual assistants, and smart e-commerce, they are demanding better outcomes from their governments. Similarly, public servants are pushing for private sector–like solutions to boost on-the-job effectiveness. At the same time, AI technology is maturing rapidly and being incorporated into many offerings, making it increasingly accessible to all organizations.

Most government agencies around the world do not yet have all of the building blocks of successful AI programs—clear vision and strategy, budget, high-quality available data, and talent—in place. Even as AI strategy is formulated, budget secured, and talent attracted, data remains a significant stumbling block. For governments, getting all of an organization’s data “AI ready” is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming (see sidebar, “AI-ready data defined”), limiting the impact of AI to pilots and projects within existing silos.

AI-ready data defined

China: China, Supply Chain Risk, And The Race To 5G

by Hogan Lovells

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A deeper dive into the president's fiscal year (FY) 2021 budget request for the U.S. Department of Commerce reveals new initiatives aimed at safeguarding technology

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) seeks US$31 million increase to standup new program on telecommunications supply chain risks and update spectrum management for 5G.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) requests increased funding for new enforcement tools to target "China's destabilizing actions."

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) requests US$27 million for three new programs on industries of the future, artificial intelligence (AI), and 5G technologies.

The U.S. Department of Commerce may have the broadest array of agency types and mission sets across all of the federal government. The department is responsible for such disparate activities as managing our nation's fisheries, supporting minority-owned businesses, and counting every person in the country every 10 years.

However, the department also plays a significant role in trade, technology, and the race to 5G.

Is Trump Risking the Bedrock Principle of the U.S.-India Partnership?

Aditi Kumar

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During his state visit to India last week, President Trump focused on promoting our increasingly important strategic relationship with Delhi. Working with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with whom he shares a populist brand of politics, social media savvy, and a penchant for raucous rallies, Trump rightly emphasized strengthening military ties and a trade and investment partnership that has doubled in recent years.

This new US reliance on India, aimed, in part, at limiting China’s ambitions in the region, enjoys rare bipartisan support at home. It has been a high priority of recent presidents and congressional leaders of both parties. It was also made possible by the shared values between the world’s two strongest democracies — the United States and India — to democracy, the rule of law, and human and religious rights.

Whither al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula?

By: Michael Horton

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On January 29, an airstrike killed Qasim al-Raymi, the “emir” of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Raymi, who assumed the leadership of AQAP in 2015, has been reported dead on numerous occasions in the past. However, on February 6, the White House released a statement confirming al-Raymi’s death (al-Jazeera, February 7).

What does the death of al-Raymi mean for AQAP’s future operations and long-term strategies? In short, very little. While al-Raymi was, by some accounts, a skilled tactician, his influence within the organization was never as pronounced as that of his predecessor, Nasir al-Wuhayshi. While this partly reflects the different styles and core competencies of the two leaders, more importantly, it reflects the fact that AQAP has moved away from relying on a hierarchical core for leadership. [1] Instead, it is implementing an atomized organizational structure that empowers local operatives. [2] AQAP has also reordered its priorities and objectives.

Such changes began as early as 2017. They were a response to the increased pressure from coalition-backed forces and the fluid socio-political environment that AQAP must navigate. [3] While AQAP maintains a veneer of ideology, it has long since deprioritized imposing strict interpretations of sharia, holding territory, and carrying out attacks on foreign targets. Instead, AQAP’s focus is parochial and pragmatic. [4]

Trump and Modi Embrace, But Remain Digitally Divided

By Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu

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U.S. President Donald Trump traveled to India last week for a series of meetings with Indian Prime Minister Modi and his administration. The populist strongmen embraced — literally — with Trump attending a campaign-style rally of cheering fans at the largest cricket stadium in the world. On the core issues that are sowing democratic discord, the two strongmen seemed united. Trump insidiously praised Modi’s religious tolerance despite Modi’s recent track record clearly indicating otherwise.

However, for all the bonhomie, the two countries remain divided on a core national security and digital question — whether to allow Chinese telecommunications company Huawei to supply 5G infrastructure. Last week, the sustained U.S. efforts in this regard (advocating a total ban on Huawei equipment) continued to fall visibly flat. This underscores not only the structural weaknesses in the U.S. diplomatic campaign around 5G, but also the potential for discord in the digital relationship between India and the United States going forward.

Running Into Roadblocks on 5G

International Criminal Court Approves Afghanistan Investigation

By Mike Corder

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Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court gave the green light Thursday for prosecutors to open an investigation targeting the Taliban, Afghan forces, and U.S. military and CIA personnel for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The decision marked the first time the court’s prosecutor has been authorized to investigate U.S. forces. Washington has long rejected the court’s jurisdiction and refuses to cooperate with it. 

In 2018, then-U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said the court established in 2002 to prosecute atrocities throughout the world “unacceptably threatens American sovereignty and U.S. national security interests.”

The global court set itself on a collision course with Washington with Thursday’s decision to uphold an appeal by prosecutors against a pretrial chamber’s rejection in April last year of Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s request to open a probe in Afghanistan.