Indian Strategic Studies

26 August 2020

Mahan, Corbett, and China’s Maritime Grand Strategy

By Andrew Latham

A Great Wall 236 submarine of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy participates in a naval parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of China’s PLA Navy in the sea near Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong province, Tuesday, April 23, 2019.Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool

China’s naval establishment has long been enamored of the writings of the U.S. naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan. Indeed, it is not overstating the case to argue that since post-revolutionary China first turned its attention seaward in later decades of the 20th century no single thinker has exercised greater influence of Chinese maritime strategy. But that is now changing. Increasingly, Chinese navalists are paying attention to the writings of British naval theorist Sir Julian Corbett. This shift is both reflective of and conducive to a major shift in Chinese grand strategy – one that has implications both for the United States and the countries of the Indo-Pacific region more broadly.

Mahan’s main arguments, though revolutionary at the time he first made them in the 19th century, are relatively straightforward. Great powers, he argued, even instinctively insular ones like the United States, have crucially important maritime interests, ranging from defense of their coastlines to protection of their vital trade routes. Accordingly, every truly great power must take steps to secure these interests against the potential predations of its rivals and adversaries. For Mahan, this implied that a truly great power had to dominate the world’s oceans. And, he concluded, such domination could only be achieved by sweeping the enemy’s main fleet from the seas in a decisive battle. A corollary of this was that mere commerce raiding and other piecemeal naval operations were distractions that could never prove strategically decisive. Concentration of forces, and what Mahan called “offensive defense,” were the keys to “command of the seas,” which in turn was the only proper object of great power naval strategy.

Biden Joins the Anti-China Chorus

By Amitai Etzioni

If those concerned about the increased tensions between the U.S. and China are expecting that Joe Biden, if elected, will hit a reset button, they are likely to be disappointed. First of all, he will inherit a domestic mess of unprecedented dimensions, sure to command much of his attention. He is likely to recall the strategic mistake former President Barack Obama made by spending his political capital on pushing through a health care reform, when the nation was reeling from a major economic recession. This time, the economic crisis is even more severe, and Americans continue to die in large numbers because there is no national strategy in place to curb the pandemic. Moreover, the political pressures on Biden from the left, highlighted by demonstrations, do not concern foreign policy but social injustice at home.

The views Biden has expressed so far about China suggest that, far from choosing to confront the increasing anti-China sentiments in the U.S., he seems to share the prevailing public view.

He is critical of China’s human rights record:

2012 Scarborough Shoal Crisis: The Blueprint for Joe Biden's China Policy?

by Gordon G. Chang
Source Link

One of Biden’s foreign policy advisers, Ely Ratner, has recently hinted a Biden administration would replay President Obama’s approach to the Chinese party-state. Ratner’s main thrust is that America should focus on strengthening itself rather than confronting Beijing, deriding the notion of a global competition with Chinese communism. His remarks recall what Biden himself said last May when he inexplicably maintained the Chinese were “not competition for us.”

Although the Democratic Party’s platform to its credit includes strong language on China, those robust planks feel at odds with the Vice President’s expressed views.

Perhaps the best indication of what he would do in the future is what happened in the past. A crisis now simmering in the contested South China Sea, the eventual result of poor decisions in the Obama administration, could tell us a lot about Biden’s China policies.

Besieging Wei to Rescue Zhao: Combining the Indirect Approach with the Centre of Gravity

By Ian Li

The “indirect approach” and “centre of gravity” are two concepts central to modern strategic thought. Both have a long tradition. However, there continues to be debate over how these concepts should be interpreted and applied. The indirect approach advocates against attacking the adversary’s strength head-on while the centre of gravity refers to the most critical point of the adversary’s system. Logically extrapolating forward, there is a synergistic outcome when both concepts are considered in conjunction. This article argues that the indirect approach is most potent when directed against a centre of gravity. It does so by first unpacking what each concept means using the Gallipoli operation (1915-1916) as a point of reference. The article then examines the historical example of Besieging Wei to Rescue Zhao (围魏救赵) to illustrate how the indirect approach combines with the centre of gravity to achieve optimal results. Such was the success of the campaign which saved Zhao (354-353 BC) that it has since been immortalised in the form of a famous Chinese proverb, and provides the basis for one of the stratagems recorded in the Chinese military classic known as the Thirty-Six Stratagems (三十六计).[1]

The Indirect Approach

The indirect approach in war is not new. It was, however, more recently popularised by B. H. Liddell Hart in his post-war strategic writings, the most well-known being now titled Strategy.[2] Having witnessed the carnage wrought amidst the stalemate in the trenches during the First World War, Liddell Hart advocated against the futility of direct confrontation. He asserts the commanders of the day had misinterpreted Clausewitzian doctrine and by extension became obsessed with the idea of directly seeking out the adversary's main force and destroying it in decisive battle.[3] While there have been criticisms that Liddell Hart’s conclusion was too sweeping, oversimplifying the theories put forth in Clausewitz’s writings, there is some validity to Liddell Hart’s assertion that using the direct approach against the adversary’s strength was too costly a military stratagem.[4] Unless the adversary’s strength was far inferior, at the military-strategic level destroying an adversary’s main force would require a force of at least equivalent strength but likely more, resulting in costly and potentially long-drawn battles of attrition.[5]

Deciphering China’s ‘World-class’ Naval Ambitions

By Ryan D. Martinson
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The scale and speed of China’s naval construction bear only one conclusion: Beijing is seeking to erode U.S. naval supremacy. This judgment requires no specialized knowledge of China or access to top secret intelligence. One need only look at the platforms the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is building and the pace at which it is building them.

But to fully understand the nature of the China maritime challenge, one must dig deeper—into the ideas guiding China’s naval development. This is far more difficult. The Chinese military is extremely cautious about revealing its true intentions. It produces lots of media content, but most of it is fluff. Analysts who spend their days sifting through Chinese sources failed to anticipate Beijing’s decision to build three enormous military facilities in the heart of the South China Sea. One day, China just began dredging sand and coral.

Still, many important things cannot be hidden. The service cannot build and shape a fighting force in secret. Major priorities must be communicated and inculcated. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and rocketeers need to know what is asked of them and why it matters. By necessity, much of this happens in the open. The PLA can conceal plans to build bases; it cannot obscure broader aspirations.

The PLAN’s newest aspiration is to transform itself into a “world-class navy.” The idea of becoming “world class” was not a PLAN invention. Sometime in 2016, China’s head of state Xi Jinping told the PLA to transform itself into a world-class military. This injunction later appeared in Xi’s report at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, making it the official policy of the Chinese party-state.

Of Belarus, China and Watching a Perfect Game Pitched

By George Friedman
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There are moments in history when disparate global events combine to change the shape of the global system. People like me long for these moments, much like how baseball fans want to witness a perfect game be thrown. Even more, we want to be in a position to claim, with evidence, that we knew that this moment was coming all along. Knowing that something extraordinary will take place and then watching it take place, rather than longing to make vast amounts of money, is a form of neurosis, and a sad one at that. But we are what we are.

We are also frequently wrong. The hunger to see and predict the extraordinary often leads to wishful thinking, hoping to be the first to notice the coming apocalypse. It turns out there are more forecasts of apocalypses than actual ones. The solution is difficult. It is to be an expert on the apocalypse, yet believe deeply in your own ignorance.

This is a long-winded preface to a theory that the international system is undergoing a major shift. It’s not a 1945 or 1991 shift, nor is it attributable to a single event. There are two things happening that have not fully unfolded, are disconnected, and have little to do with COVID-19. One has to do with Belarus and the other with China.

As I have written before, Belarus is a critical buffer for Russia, one that has been fairly neutral. Obviously, Russia wants to keep it that way since the eastern border of Belarus cuts deep into Russia. But the western border cuts into NATO territory, particularly Poland. In a region where the Baltics are part of NATO and Ukraine is tilting toward the West, the Russians can’t tolerate a pro-Western Belarus. Nor can Poland and the Baltics tolerate a pro-Russian Belarus.

Does the U.S. Need to Fear That China Might Invade Taiwan?

Hal Brands

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Most recently, he is the co-author of "The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order."Read more opinion

No scenario worries American strategists like a possible war with China over Taiwan. Recent months have brought a stream of reports making two things uncomfortably clear: The danger of a Chinese assault on Taiwan is growing. And the U.S., which has an ambiguous security commitment to Taipei, might well lose if it joined such a war on Taiwan’s behalf.

Given this grim forecast, many Americans might fairly ask why the U.S. would even try to defend an island thousands of miles away — a country that wasn’t supposed to have survived this long in the first place. The answer is that the fate of Taiwan may determine the fate of the Western Pacific. But in addressing the possibility, Americans have to understand just how difficult and dangerous it could be to preserve a free Taiwan.

There’s no question that the Chinese military threat to Taiwan is greater than it’s been in decades. From probing Taiwanese air and naval defenses, to posturing forces that could be used in an invasion, to dropping the word “peaceful” from its calls for reunification, Xi Jinping’s government is advertising its determination to bring Taiwan back under its control — perhaps not today or tomorrow, but at some point in the coming years. And whereas China long had more ambition than capability, the military balance has now moved sharply in its favor.

Of Belarus, China and Watching a Perfect Game Pitched

By George Friedman

There are moments in history when disparate global events combine to change the shape of the global system. People like me long for these moments, much like how baseball fans want to witness a perfect game be thrown. Even more, we want to be in a position to claim, with evidence, that we knew that this moment was coming all along. Knowing that something extraordinary will take place and then watching it take place, rather than longing to make vast amounts of money, is a form of neurosis, and a sad one at that. But we are what we are.

We are also frequently wrong. The hunger to see and predict the extraordinary often leads to wishful thinking, hoping to be the first to notice the coming apocalypse. It turns out there are more forecasts of apocalypses than actual ones. The solution is difficult. It is to be an expert on the apocalypse, yet believe deeply in your own ignorance.

This is a long-winded preface to a theory that the international system is undergoing a major shift. It’s not a 1945 or 1991 shift, nor is it attributable to a single event. There are two things happening that have not fully unfolded, are disconnected, and have little to do with COVID-19. One has to do with Belarus and the other with China.

Greece irked by Germany in standoff with Turkey

This time, Greek officials are frustrated that they have not received more support in their military standoff with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean from their fellow EU member and Europe's economic powerhouse.

The tension between Athens and Berlin is not nearly as high as during the last financial crisis, when furious Greeks blamed their biggest creditor for an overdose of painful austerity. But it does have at least faint echoes of that discord.

“We and Germany have a completely different perspective of how we should deal with our neighbor. We cannot continue to caress them — Turkey has abandoned the Western values once and for all; the appeasement period has ended,” a senior Greek diplomat declared. “Germany has a misconception about the intentions of the other side.”

The diplomat insisted that the two sides remain close. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will visit both Athens and Ankara on Tuesday, a visit that Berlin hopes will help to mediate a dialogue between Greece and Turkey that could start as soon as late next week.

Another sign of Greek frustration came after Germany's ambassador to Athens, Ernst Reichel, tweeted about an Ottoman governor who ruled over parts of modern-day Greece.

But such is the depth of disagreement between Greece and Germany up to now that it has spilled over into another pressing issue facing the EU — the crisis in Belarus.

The world's great powers will soon face off in Lebanon

Iran has long been fault line in the politics of great power rivalries, and now it is increasingly so. China and Russia have been investing in the country based on their own calculated desires for the region, but also in the context of their respective rivalries with the US. This, however, does not stop them from being deeply concerned about the costs that could come with their investments in the form of US sanctions targeting Iranian interests.

A new flashpoint of the wider tension, however, is in Lebanon. Russia, which has an expensive alliance with Iran in Syria, has declined to take on the same level of involvement in Lebanon. Iranian allies in Beirut – namely, Hezbollah – have therefore eyed eyeing Chinese funds and expertise to restore the city and its port after this month’s devastating ammonium nitrate explosion demolished them. The speediness and lack of conditionality that comes with Chinese support would provide a shortcut for Hezbollah to pre-empt any other powers stepping in as the city’s saviour and to bring its dominance of Lebanese politics to the level of a monopoly.

The Terrorist Threat Is Not Finished

By Russell E. Travers

With every year that the 9/11 attacks recede into the past, it seems easier for the United States to move on from terrorism. That impulse has become all the more appealing in the wake of COVID-19, a pandemic that is killing more Americans every few days than were lost on September 11, 2001. Since that tragic day, there has been not one successful, externally directed, large-scale terrorist attack on Americans, and attacks by Islamist homegrown terrorists have declined, too. Several years have now passed since the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) perpetrated its horrific attacks in Paris and Brussels. In Iraq and Syria, the group’s so-called caliphate lies in ruins.

But it is important to remember that none of this happened by chance. As I saw in the final two decades of my 42-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, most recently as acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the United States’ post-9/11 counterterrorism effort has been nothing short of extraordinary. That campaign is the closest the country has come since World War II to addressing a transnational threat with a whole-of-government, whole-of-society, and even whole-of-world approach. The U.S. government took the fight overseas, identifying and killing countless terrorist leaders. It used sophisticated screening to keep terrorists from slipping into the United States, and it made the country a difficult place to operate for terrorists who were already inside. It worked with the private sector to make cyberspace and financial networks less hospitable for terrorists. And it shared more information with more partners, domestic and foreign, than ever before.

Struggling With Drought on the Mekong

By Luke Hunt

At dawn on the Mekong River, fishermen start plying the waters, often heading out for two or three hours, two or three times a day. But the lower Mekong Basin is suffering its second year of drought.Credit: Luke Hunt

Fisherman cast their traditional nets into the Mekong River in southern Laos.Credit: Luke Hunt

In full flood the Mekong Delta is bigger than the size of Belgium. But upstream dams in China and Laos, coupled with climate change, have exacerbated the drought.Credit: Luke Hunt

A fish catch is laid out to dry in the sun and then stored. Some 70 million people live hand to mouth and rely on the Mekong for their daily protein.Credit: Luke Hunt

A fisherman prepares his nets by the Mekong River in Kien Svay, Cambodia near the Vietnamese border. At this time of year, water levels normally reach the edge of his balcony.Credit: Luke Hunt

Village fishermen repair their broken nets.Credit: Luke Hunt

Report to Congress on Russian Military Doctrine and Strategy

The following is the Aug. 20, 2020 Congressional Research Service Infocus report, Russian Armed Forces: Military Doctrine and Strategy.

Russia’s official security doctrines are detailed in its 2014 Military Doctrine and 2015 National Security Strategy. Other key strategy documents include the 2016 Foreign Policy Concept, 2017 Naval Strategy, and 2020 Principles of Nuclear Deterrence Strategy. These documents offer insight into how Russian leaders perceive threats and how Russian military and security policymakers envision the future of conflict. In addition, the Military Doctrine and the National Security Strategy identify the importance of information and the danger of internal, as well as external, threats.

The 2014 Military Doctrine divides the perceived nature of threats to Russia into two categories: military risks and military threats. Military risks are a lesser designation, defined as situations that could “lead to a military threat under certain conditions.” A military threat is “characterized by a real possibility of an outbreak of a military conflict.” Once fighting breaks out, Russian military theory and doctrine identify a typology of conflicts relating to the extent and type of conflict, gradually increasing in intensity: armed conflict, local war, regional war, large-scale war, and global (nuclear) war. These levels of conflict are important for understanding how the Russian military envisions the scale, nature, actors, and levels of escalation in war.

They are ubiquitous, diverse and very powerful

The outsiders inside

Humans are lucky to live a hundred years. Oak trees may live a thousand; mayflies, in their adult form, a single day. But they are all alive in the same way. They are made up of cells which embody flows of energy and stores of information. Their metabolisms make use of that energy, be it from sunlight or food, to build new molecules and break down old ones, using mechanisms described in the genes they inherited and may, or may not, pass on.

It is this endlessly repeated, never quite perfect reproduction which explains why oak trees, humans, and every other plant, fungus or single-celled organism you have ever seen or felt the presence of are all alive in the same way. It is the most fundamental of all family resemblances. Go far enough up any creature’s family tree and you will find an ancestor that sits in your family tree, too. Travel further and you will find what scientists call the last universal common ancestor, luca. It was not the first living thing. But it was the one which set the template for the life that exists today.

And then there are viruses. In viruses the link between metabolism and genes that binds together all life to which you are related, from bacteria to blue whales, is broken. Viral genes have no cells, no bodies, no metabolism of their own. The tiny particles, “virions”, in which those genes come packaged—the dot-studded disks of coronaviruses, the sinister, sinuous windings of Ebola, the bacteriophages with their science-fiction landing-legs that prey on microbes—are entirely inanimate. An individual animal, or plant, embodies and maintains the restless metabolism that made it. A virion is just an arrangement of matter.

Russian operation goes ‘offshore’ in Syria

by Anton Mardasov, Kirill Semyonov

Anton Mardasov and Kirill Semenov describe how Moscow is trying to support the armed opposition without weakening al-Assad

Southwest Syria, the ‘cradle of the revolution’, is witnessing contradictory developments: the locals who called for a country without Assad but then ‘reconciled’ with the regime are now rallying again and even engaging in gun battles with pro-government forces. They are no longer opposition members, however, but fighters in the pro-Russian 8th Brigade of the 5th Corps. The brigade’s commander took part in the Arab Spring and was supported by Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates until 2018. He then accepted Russian protection and later more than doubled the size of his squad. His autonomy is causing anger and perplexity in Damascus: Moscow practically saved Assad by weakening his opponents, but now has started helping an alternative centre of power. Does this mean Russia is ready to further violate commitments to fulfil the whims of Israel and the West and prevent the empowerment of Shiite groups in southwest Syria?

Russia has failed to establish its own nationwide political pressure groups in Syria. Nor has it been able to occupy a special position in the Syrian armed forces. The situation is paradoxical because of absence of a lobby. Its absence complicates relations between Moscow and Damascus: Russia is often forced to concede on issues that pose risks to its relations with various actors in the Syrian arena. For instance, every escalation of the conflict in Idlib complicates relations between Moscow and Ankara, reducing Russia’s flexibility, making its actions seem even more toxic in the eyes of Sunni monarchies and the West.

A New Grand Strategy for a New World Order: US Disengagement from Sub-Saharan Africa

Lila Ovington

This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program. It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. This work can be used for background reading and research, but should not be cited as an expert source or used in place of scholarly articles/books.

The grand strategy of the U.S. during the Cold War sought to defeat the Soviet Union and halt the global spread of communism. During this time, conflicts in the sub-Sahara were used as channels through which the two superpowers waged proxy conflicts.[1] The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union inevitably called for a revised grand strategy, which would also entail a new attitude towards the sub-Sahara. This essay argues that sub-Saharan Africa experienced a general American disengagement in the 1990s, as conflicts on the sub-continent and U.S. responses to them epitomised the grand strategic means of retrenchment, whilst also exposing the hierarchy amongst the pillars of grand strategy. The essay will begin by outlining American grand strategy in the aftermath of the Cold War, and will subsequently address disengagement with the sub-Sahara on a sub-continental level, as well as its use of proxies to limit resources spent on a sub-regional level. Thereafter, it will be demonstrated how such policies reveal Washington’s willingness to compromise its democratic values, both by analysing its proxies and through a comparison with policy towards North Africa.

Deterrence and Fear: Incorporating Emotions into the Field of Research

Amir Lupovici

For many years deterrence was seen and has been constructed as a rational strategy, relying on the view that policy makers are making cost-benefit calculations when they are considering challenging their opponents. These theories were based on the assumption that rational actors would avoid challenging their opponents (the deterrer actor) if the costs of such attacks are higher than the gain they can achieve. Indeed, as early as the 1970s, important works showed how psychological factors take part in shaping the practices of deterrence (e.g., Jervis et al., 1985). However, these psychological approaches were mainly auxiliary tools to explain actors’ divergence from the rational model. In a nutshell, these approaches provided a more accurate account of how actors respond to threats given various biases they have in acquiring and interpreting information. Nonetheless, these psychological approaches could not provide alternative frameworks to explore deterrence.

Within these theories, emotions, and specifically fear, were left out of the study. Indeed some scholars and practitioners mentioned fear as part of the practices of deterrence. For example, Morgan (2003: 1) argues that deterrence ‘is the use of threats to manipulate behavior so that something unwanted does not occur.’ He sharpens this view by relying on the definition of the Department of Defense Dictionary (1994) according to which deterrence ‘is the prevention from action by fear of the consequences’ (in Morgan, 2003: 1, my emphasis). However, despite the nuanced and detailed discussion of the practices of deterrence Morgan provides in his book, the notion of ‘fear’ is repeated along the manuscript without elaboration on how exactly it shapes deterrence practices, and how it differs from mere cost-benefit calculations (e.g., Morgan, 2003: 21, 147-8, passim). How Morgan treats fear is not an exception and other scholars who study this strategy (or the security dilemma) while acknowledging the influence of fear on actors’ behavior (e.g., Schelling, 1966; Kugler et al., 1980) do not untangle its influence on international security(see also in Crawford, 2000; Bleiker and Hutchison, 2008: 116, 121).

COVID-19 and Online Activism: A Momentum for Radical Change?

Julie Uldam and Tina Askanius

Historically, crises have been seen as opportunities for change. The current crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. For example, the pandemic has brought about calls for rethinking how we organize our everyday lives and society. For climate activists, this has involved calls for using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to envision, articulate and act on solutions to the climate crisis. In doing so, the climate crisis is articulated both as a larger looming crisis, which will eclipse the COVID-19 crisis, and as connected to social inequalities also exposed by the COVID-19 crisis. Theoretically, this short article draws on critical approaches to crisis and the notion of social imaginaries to capture the ways in which the COVID-19 and climate crises are articulated and collectively imagined, with implications for possibilities for action. Empirically, it draws on observations of online events and activities organized by activist groups and NGOs, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, PUSH and Fridays for Future in Denmark and Sweden. On the basis of preliminary findings of a digital ethnography of the everyday practices of online activism during the first months of the pandemic (March-June 2020), we show how the COVID-19 crisis was articulated as both a window of opportunity for imagining a more sustainable post-corona world and as a challenge for activism. Further, we point to similarities in articulating hope over despair and visions of solutions – including technologies of climate change mitigation, decision-making processes and how we organize society – to dealing with the climate crisis rather than returning to business as usual.

History tells us that crises work as a source of fear, of affirmation, but also of inspiration and opportunity. Koselleck (2006), for example, has argued that a crisis is a moment of rupture where instability advances by challenging the legitimacy of social institutions, the sense of normality and ideas and discourses that are taken for granted. The crisis itself signifies a moment of rupture, where new socio-political configurations can emerge. The concept of a crisis, he argues, is used to fit “the uncertainties of whatever might be favored at a given moment” (p. 399). The current health crisis is intricately tied into political, economic and environmental crises. In this sense, the pandemic is both accelerating and shining a new light on an already existing set of crises related to racial discrimination, economic injustices, environmental destruction, etc. At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis is connected with the emergence of rival narratives, discourses and actions of social agents. The contingent space that a crisis foregrounds until the moment of its resolution allows for different possibilities and scenarios to emerge, for better or worse.

Opinion – Macron’s Pivot Towards Russia

Kareem Salem

Russia has become an important component of Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy. In his first sorties on the world stage, Macron sought to reconnect with his Russian counterpart at the Château de Versailles in an effort to reset relations. Under François Hollande’s presidency, relations with Moscow were marred by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine, as well as by Franco-Russian disagreements over Syria at the United Nations Security Council. Thus, Macron sought to pivot away from the neoconservative diplomatic approach of his predecessor, by seeking to open a new chapter in relations between Paris and Moscow.

Macron’s vision is rooted in French foreign policy promulgated under President Charles de Gaulle. In the midst of the Cold War, the founder of the Cinquième République had the vision that the Soviet Union should be encompassed in a united Europe stretching from the Atlantic to Urals and, as such, he believed that France had an interest in overcoming its divisions with it. This political effort has now been revived under Macron in response to the structural changes in international relations that have been accelerated under the Trump administration. Indeed, French and European security interests have been undermined by Donald Trump’s disparaging views on multilateral security alliances and disinterest for multilateral arms control treaties.

California Is a Preview of Climate Change’s Devastation for the Entire World

Stewart M. Patrick

California prides itself on being a national and global trendsetter. Unfortunately, the state is also setting the pace for climate change disasters, with searing heat and intense wildfires now regular features of its endless summer. Last Sunday, Aug. 16, the aptly named Furnace Creek ranger station in Death Valley posted the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth, when the thermometer hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit. That same weekend, lightning strikes north of Lake Tahoe set off the massive Loyalton Fire in desiccated Lassen and Sierra counties, producing a rare “fire tornado” as high winds whipped flames into a violent, all-consuming vortex, sending a pillar of smoke and ash miles into the air. The statewide heatwave resulted in rolling electricity blackouts, a situation Gov. Gavin Newsom called “unacceptable” but was powerless to prevent.

Last week, as smoke from the Loyalton Fire darkened the normally brilliant Sierra Nevada sky and turned Lake Tahoe’s famously blue waters a dull grey, residents and vacationers hunkered down indoors, unable to see across the water, much less enjoy a view that Mark Twain rightly called “the fairest picture the whole earth affords.” They had plenty of company across California, where more than two dozen major fires were raging. Since Jan. 1, the state has experienced 6,754 wildfires, up from about 4,000 this time last year.

Taiwan’s Military Has Flashy American Weapons but No Ammo

BY PAUL HUANG

As China builds up military forces across the Taiwan strait and vows to take back the island through “any means” necessary, the United States and others hope for a Taiwan that can stand on its own feet against Chinese aggression. But in reality, not only is the Taiwanese military facing a serious shortage of soldiers and an entirely dysfunctional reserve system, as my previous reporting for Foreign Policy revealed, half of its tanks may not be able to run—and even fewer have functional weapons. These failures are costing lives even before China fires a single shot. As Taiwanese politicians showcase flashy U.S. weapons bought with taxpayers’ money, the logistics inside the military remain so abysmal that a young army officer killed himself after being pressured to buy repair parts out of his own pocket.

Huang Zhi-jie was a 30-year-old lieutenant in the Taiwanese army. Initially serving in the airborne troops as an enlisted soldier, Huang was so committed that he requested officer training—normally considered more work for little reward—and was later commissioned as a lieutenant in charge of a maintenance depot of the 269th Mechanized Infantry Brigade. Huang was supposed to be the model soldier of which Taiwan desperately wanted more: a young, college-educated volunteer who chose to serve the country out of his own volition, at a time when the military was still facing difficult transition from conscription to an all-volunteer military.

What’s New In Gartner’s Hype Cycle For Emerging Technologies, 2020

Louis Columbus

Health passports lead all technologies in their potential to make a transformational impact in two years or less, accelerated by early adopters in China (Health Code) and India (Aarogya Setu).

Social distancing technologies enter the Hype Cycle for the first time at the top of the Peak of Inflated Expectations due to the extraordinary amount of media coverage and client inquiries.

Gartner continues to expand its coverage of AI’s potential in this year’s Hype Cycle, with several categories added this year, including Composite AI, Generative AI, Responsible AI, AI-augmented development Embedded AI and AI-augmented design.

These and many other new insights are from Gartner Hype Cycle For Emerging Technologies, 2020 published earlier this year and summarized in the recent Gartner blog post, 5 Trends Drive the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2020. Gartner’s definition of Hype Cycles includes five phases of a technology’s lifecycle and is explained here.

25 August 2020

Could Russia side with the US and India against China?

Maria Siow

China and Russia have often described their relationship as “special” and “unprecedented” and have recently promised to maintain what they call a “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

In fighting the coronavirus pandemic, the “specialness” of this relationship has been clear for all to see. In February, Moscow sent medical supplies to Wuhan, then the epicentre of the outbreak, and when the virus peaked in Russia, China repaid the favour by delivering to its neighbour millions of masks and other protective equipment.

What’s more, the leaders of the two countries seem close, having met more than 30 times since 2013. Last month, in what appeared to be a veiled dig at the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for China and Russia to jointly “oppose hegemony and unilateralism”, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said the two countries’ ties had reached an “unprecedented” level.

India-Japan Defense Ties to Get a Boost With Modi-Abe Virtual Summit

By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe will meet for a virtual summit in September. This will be Modi’s second virtual summit this year, after one with the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in June. According to Indian media reports, citing India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the two sides are expected to sign an important military logistics agreement, the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA). While this remains an important milestone moment for New Delhi and Tokyo, it also remains key for both countries to take stock of what has been accomplished so far.

India and Japan missed their planned 2019 summit because of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Guwahati, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, where the meeting was supposed to be held. Although the Modi government was reportedly keen to shift the meeting venue to Delhi, the Japanese side insisted that the focus of the 2019 summit was on Japanese investment in India’s Northeast infrastructure development and therefore, as a Japanese diplomat said, “The venue is the message.” Since then, India and Japan have been trying to reschedule the summit, but the COVID-19 pandemic further delayed their plans.

India’s Frontier Paradox

By Abhijnan Rej

The ongoing India and China crisis, which led to a bloody clash on June 15, is the manifestation of a Sophoclean paradox that followed from the Narendra Modi government trying to resolve a strategic dilemma. For more than two decades – since India emerged on the global stage as a potential great power – New Delhi has struggled to reconcile its immediate geostrategic imperatives with aspirations for its future role. The ongoing military standoff with China suggests that in the process of doing so in apparently decisive terms, India may have in fact made such a reconciliation impossible.

“India’s geographical dilemma,” as Robert Kaplan described it in a 2012 book, follows from a straightforward reading of the country’s geography and history. Long disputed borders and territories with Pakistan as well as China – festering legacies of the colonial era – meant that New Delhi’s military power has remained focused on land.

At the same time, smaller states on India’s periphery – like Nepal – continue to exercise their new-found political agency in ways New Delhi is increasingly finding difficult to accept. They challenge India’s historical aspiration of soft hegemony in the eponymous subcontinent, and tax its limited diplomatic energy.

India’s Tripura Has a New Transport Link to the Mainland – Through Bangladesh

By Rajeev Bhattacharyya

India’s Northeast has secured an outlet through the rivers of Bangladesh in a development that will have far-reaching implications for the economy of the landlocked region.

Last month, the chief minister of Tripura, Biplab Kumar Deb, received the first trial cargo container ship sailing from Kolkata and through the neighboring country to the state. Tripura, in India’s Northeast, shares an 856 kilometer-long border with Bangladesh.

A temporary jetty was constructed at Sonamura for the new waterway through the Gomati River flowing between Tripura and Bangladesh.

Speaking to reporters, Deb explained that the new arrangement reduced the distance between Kolkata and Tripura’s capital, Agartala, from 1600 to 600 kilometers. Its use would therefore help decrease prices of essential commodities, he noted.

Tripura was linked with the rivers of Bangladesh following five new protocol routes that were finalized between the two neighbors. The Sonamura-Daudkandi route on Tripura’s Gomti River and Rajshahi-Dhulian-Rajshahi route were added to the list of Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) routes.

Imran Khan Isn’t Going Anywhere

BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN
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This past April, a Pakistani columnist named Suhail Warraich boldly predicted that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government could fall in June—less than two years after it took office—if it didn’t make major improvements.

But Warraich is just one of many observers speculating in recent months that Khan’s days as premier could be numbered as his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party confronts internal turmoil, damaging political scandals, and overwhelming public policy challenges it has struggled to fix.

Some believe “a political storm … will eventually sweep away” the government. Others claim it already finds itself “on the edge of collapse.” Still others speak of the possibility of a parliamentary initiative that ousts the government and replaces it with an interim administration.

It’s understandable that observers are questioning Khan’s survivability.

It’s understandable that observers are questioning Khan’s survivability. No prime minister in Pakistan’s history has served out his or her full term—thanks mostly to a powerful military that, even when it isn’t ruling the country directly, is prone to meddling in politics.

Xi Jinping is reinventing state capitalism. Don’t underestimate it

America’s confrontation with China is escalating dangerously. In the past week the White House has announced what may amount to an imminent ban on TikTok and WeChat (two Chinese apps), imposed sanctions on Hong Kong’s leaders and sent a cabinet member to Taiwan. This ratcheting up of pressure partly reflects electioneering: being tough on China is a key strut of President Donald Trump’s campaign. It is partly ideological, underscoring the urgency the administration’s hawks attach to pushing back on all fronts against an increasingly assertive China. But it also reflects an assumption that has underpinned the Trump administration’s attitude to China from the beginning of the trade war: that this approach will yield results, because China’s steroidal state capitalism is weaker than it looks.

The logic is alluringly simple. Yes, China has delivered growth, but only by relying on an unsustainable formula of debt, subsidies, cronyism and intellectual-property theft. Press hard enough and its economy could buckle, forcing its leaders to make concessions and, eventually, to liberalise their state-led system. As the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, puts it, “Freedom-loving nations of the world must induce China to change.”

Simple, but wrong. China’s economy was less harmed by the tariff war than expected. It has been far more resilient to the covid-19 pandemic—the imf forecasts growth of 1% in 2020 compared with an 8% drop in America. Shenzhen is the world’s best-performing big stockmarket this year, not New York. And, as our briefing explains, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is reinventing state capitalism for the 2020s. Forget belching steel plants and quotas. Mr Xi’s new economic agenda is to make markets and innovation work better within tightly defined boundaries and subject to all-seeing Communist Party surveillance. It isn’t Milton Friedman, but this ruthless mix of autocracy, technology and dynamism could propel growth for years.

The Coming Russian-Chinese Clash

by John Herbst
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The emerging Sino-Russian entente has rightly received a great deal of attention, but observers have missed the limitations to this entente and the first signs of problems to come. The entente is rooted in the aggressive foreign policy turn both countries took in the late 2000s. Watching the global financial crisis in 2008, Beijing decided that American decline had begun and it could abandon its mantra of “peaceful rise” and pursue its imperial designs in the South and East China Seas. China began to claim those waters by building artificial islands impinging on the rights of its neighbors and ignoring international law—a policy bound to challenge Washington. Perhaps a few years earlier, certainly by the time of the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Moscow set out on an explicitly revisionist policy course designed to assert its “right” to a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space despite its written commitment to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbors in documents such as the Helsinki Act, the Paris Charter, the Belovezha Accords, and bilateral treaties with Ukraine. The consequences of this turn include Kremlin wars against Georgia and Ukraine. For Russian president Vladimir Putin, one attraction of this policy was the challenge to U.S. policy. This is the basis for the increasing cooperation between Russia and China.

South Korea Seeks to Boost China Ties, With an Eye Toward North Korea

By Gabriela Bernal

Seoul may be rethinking its relations with Beijing, according to recent developments. This is significant given the lack of diplomatic engagement between both nations for quite some time.

South Korea’s recently inaugurated unification minister, Lee In-young, directly reached out to China this week, asking the Chinese to play a “constructive” role in the resumption of inter-Korean talks. Lee made the remarks during a meeting with China’s ambassador to South Korea, Xing Haiming.

Lee took the opportunity to praise China for its efforts regarding issues on the Korean Peninsula and expressed his hope for continued bilateral cooperation on such issues in the future. He also called on China to support his plans to “develop inter-Korean relations into a peaceful, economic and biotic community” through various South Korean-led economic and social projects.

The Chinese ambassador welcomed Lee’s remarks and also expressed his country’s intent and continued commitment to denuclearization, peace, and the eventual reunification of both Koreas.

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