China’s Recent Political Bureau Meeting And The Trend It Sets – Analysis

He Jun

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On July 24, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China convened a meeting to analyze and study the current economic situation and set forth economic plans for the second half of the year.

The meeting was presided by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Given the highly complex economic situation and the release of China’s half-year economic data, researchers at ANBOUND provide the following preliminary interpretations regarding the assessment of the economic situation and the country’s measures for the second half of the year.

Firstly, the meeting pointed out that the economy is facing new difficulties and challenges. These mainly include insufficient China’s domestic demand, operational difficulties for some enterprises, multiple risks in key areas, and a complex external environment. After changes in the country’s COVID-19 policy, the economic recovery is characterized by wave-like development and twists and turns. However, China’s economy has enormous development resilience and potential, and its fundamental long-term positive trend remains unchanged.

ANBOUND researchers point out that a key focus of the recent meeting of the Political Bureau was the special emphasis on the fundamental judgment of “insufficient domestic demand”, while also acknowledging that the economic recovery is characterized by “wave-like development and twists and turns”. This implies that a series of economic policies and adjustments in the future will revolve around addressing this demand shortfall in their design and implementation.

Secondly, regarding the economic work for the second half of the year, the meeting emphasized the need to adhere to the general principle of making progress while ensuring stability. The goal is to continuously promote the sustained improvement of economic performance, enhance endogenous growth drivers, improve social expectations, and address hidden risks, ultimately achieving qualitative and efficient improvement, as well as reasonable growth in the economy.

China’s Control Over AI Apps: Emerging Dynamics In The Field Of Artificial Intelligence – Analysis

Aishwarya Sanjukta Roy Proma

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China is actively fostering and encouraging innovation in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) via a multitude of approaches. With the order from the Chinese government, Apple has removed over 100 artificial intelligence applications from the Chinese App Store. These apps have broken enacted governmental regulations that seek to curb the dissemination of “subversive” discourse originating from chatbot platforms such as ChatGPT.

The deletions represent the beginning of a new era of artificial intelligence regulation put into place by Chinese authorities. Concurrently, the same authorities are also pushing local enterprises to intensify the development of their language models, subject to stricter oversight. These models can compete with established entities such as OpenAI and Google in the US. In recent times, the Cyberspace Administration of China has issued fresh recommendations that urge creators of artificial intelligence to undertake comprehensive security evaluations and officially register their algorithms with governmental regulatory bodies.

This has potentially provided Chinese developers of artificial intelligence (AI) with the opportunity to narrow the gap between themselves and their American counterparts. Simultaneously, it allows them to retain strict control over the information generated by extensive language models that is subsequently shown to users.

Following the order, Apple informed developers in a letter that OpenCat posted on Twitter that it was removing some applications because they contained information that was illegal in China. According to reports, many widely used Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as Spark, ChatGAi Plus, OpenCat, and ChatbotAI, have been eliminated as a result of the government’s recent efforts to eradicate generative AI technologies. These regulations, which will take effect on August 15, 2023, require that AI developers obtain a license from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and ensure that their products adhere to the core socialist values and do not produce content that is fake or misleading to state power.

Normalizing Assad Has Made Syria’s Problems Even Worse

Charles Lister

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Three months ago, Saudi Arabia kick-started a concerted regional effort to reengage and normalize Syria’s regime within the Middle East and, Riyadh hoped, farther afield. On April 18, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Just one month later, on May 19, the Arab League embraced one of the world’s most notorious war criminals for the first time since 2011.

Inside the Wagner Group’s Armed Uprising

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“How can Putin claim to have total control over the country, and then something like this happens?” a member of the Russian political élite said.Photo illustration by Cristiana Couceiro; Source photographs from Alamy and Getty

On May 20th, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, stood in the center of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, and recorded a video. The city once housed seventy thousand people but was now, after months of relentless shelling, nearly abandoned. Whole blocks were in ruins, charred skeletons of concrete and steel. Smoke hung over the smoldering remains like an early-morning fog. Prigozhin wore combat fatigues and waved a Russian flag. “Today, at twelve noon, Bakhmut was completely taken,” he declared. Armed fighters stood behind him, holding banners with the Wagner motto: “Blood, honor, homeland, courage.”

More than anyone else in Russia, Prigozhin had used the war in Ukraine to raise his own profile. In the wake of the invasion, he transformed Wagner from a niche mercenary outfit of former professional soldiers to the country’s most prominent fighting force, a private army manned by tens of thousands of storm troopers, most of them recruited from Russian prisons. Prigozhin projected an image of himself as ruthless, efficient, practical, and uncompromising. He spoke in rough, often obscene language, and came to embody the so-called “party of war,” those inside Russia who thought that their country had been too measured in what was officially called the “special military operation.” “Stop pulling punches, bring back all our kids from abroad, and work our asses off,” Prigozhin said, the month that Bakhmut fell. “Then we’ll see some results.”

The aura of victory in Bakhmut enhanced Prigozhin’s popularity. He had an almost sixty-per-cent approval rating in a June poll conducted by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent polling agency; nineteen per cent of those surveyed said they were ready to vote for him for President. His new status seemed to come with a special license to criticize top officials in Moscow. Prigozhin had accused his rivals in the Russian military, Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff, of withholding artillery ammunition from Wagner. “That’s direct obstruction, plain and simple,” Prigozhin said. “It can be equated with high treason.” In the battle for Bakhmut, he said, “five times more guys died than should have” because of the officials’ indecisive leadership.

How Ukraine is Crushing Russia's Famed "God of War" Artillery

WILLIAM M. ARKIN 

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The artillery that has been the centerpiece of Russia's offensive in Ukraine is running severely short as Ukraine's increasingly effective weapons of the same type exact devastating losses, according to U.S. intelligence analysts.

Artillery, called the "God of War" by Joseph Stalin for its deadliness, is also central to Ukraine's ongoing counter-offensive. While that has made slower progress than last year's dramatic advances against the Russian invasion, the analysts believe Russia's artillery shortages are not only allowing the Ukrainians to operate with greater flexibility but were also behind Yevgeny Prigozhin's attention-grabbing mutiny in late June.

"Artillery has been Russia's advantage, until now," says a senior defense intelligence official, in an emailed statement to Newsweek, "and though the artillery duel between the two countries has been relentless and had crushing effect on both sides, it is Russia that is now suffering the greatest losses." The official requested anonymity to speak about sensitive matters.

The counter-offensive is now impeded mostly by the task of breaching Russian minefields and defenses, which after a year of preparation are enormous.

Russian authorities did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment. The Russian Ministry of Defense has not publicly addressed the shortages or supply problems associated with artillery. The Ministry has said that Russian forces are increasingly using small drones to spot targets for indirect artillery attack, and that "high explosive and high explosive fragmentation shells are used to inflict as much losses on Armed Forces of Ukraine personnel and fortified positions as possible, including deep underground concrete fortifications of Ukrainian nationalists."

A combination of factors, including Western supplies of better guns and shells, superior intelligence information and counterbattery fire, and long-range attacks on Russian supply lines have accumulated in favor of Ukraine over the past 10 months.

Disjointed and uncoordinated Russian attacks, including human wave attacks by Prigozhin's private Wagner group have also resulted in higher and higher casualties amongst Russian soldiers, analysts say.

That was a factor in Prigozhin's dramatic rebellion in late June when his forces barreled towards Moscow before reaching agreement to pull back.

THE WAR IN UKRAINE

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ADAPTING THE EU’S SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY

Russia’s war in Ukraine is violating the rules-based international order and poses a significant threat to European security. The EU and NATO have responded by taking coordinated action. The measures taken have varied from unprecedented sanctions on Russia to assisting Ukraine with the delivery of arms and ammunition. The war in Ukraine has led to an even stronger focus on collective defence, which was already put in motion after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Furthermore, the European security architecture has witnessed a significant change with Finland (and later this year Sweden) joining the North Atlantic Alliance. At the Vilnius Summit (11-12 July 2023), NATO has taken new decisions to strengthen its deterrence and defence posture.

Download the policy brief.

Off the MAP: Ukraine and the Problems of Expanding NATO

Walter Landgraf

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The North Atlantic Council’s decision at the 2023 Vilnius summit to exempt Ukraine from obtaining a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the formal institutional mechanism used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to guide chosen applicants toward membership, is a turning point for the alliance’s expansion in the post-Cold War era.

NATO has now undercut its own established procedure to ensure that candidates have met the alliance’s standards for membership.

This could have serious repercussions for Ukraine, other potential members, and Euro-Atlantic security. By removing the MAP for Ukraine but not other countries in the membership queue, NATO exposes itself to accusations of double standards, while drawing closer to direct war with Russia.

To join NATO, prospective members typically must follow a MAP, or membership action plan. The MAP has been NATO’s standard bureaucratic procedure to convert applicants into members for over two decades. After Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999, this plan was created to streamline the process. The idea was based on the feeling that the initial set of candidates had been promised membership before the military and political reforms outlined in the alliance’s own 1995 “Study on NATO Enlargement” had been finished. The MAP acronym was intentional, as explained a former U.S. National Security Council official. Candidates were told “if you follow the map, you will get there.”

Nearly all countries that have joined NATO in the twenty-first century have first finished a MAP, beginning with the so-called big-bang expansion in 2004 which involved seven countries, including the three Baltic states. The Balkans region was the focus of subsequent expansion rounds in 2009, 2017, and 2020, all of which included nations that had MAPs. At the moment, the one exception to the rule is Finland, which joined in April 2023. It was not necessary for Helsinki to obtain a MAP because it was already a member of the EU, which has more stringent political, economic, and legislative admission requirements than NATO. Another reason Finland did not need a MAP was that it already has a capable military that is interoperable with NATO in most respects. This partly explains why all countries that have joined both organizations since the end of the Cold have joined NATO first.

Jamestown Foundation

China Brief, July 21, 2023, v. 23, no. 13 

Illegal Fishing in Southeast Asia: Scope, Dimensions, Impacts, and Multilateral Response

The PLA Reconceptualizes Control of the Air

The PRC Eyes Vietnam: Chinese Assessments of Vietnam’s Hedging Strategy

Xi Shifts Blame as Chinese Economy Continues to Falter

If Ukraine Is Any Barometer Of Expenditure Rates In Modern War, America Is Gonna Lose Taiwan

Mackenzie Eaglen

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U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine is important, but it has served up yet another reminder that the U.S. is short on stuff that blows up. Responding to reporters’ questions about the decision to send those shells, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “We need to build a bridge from where we are today to when we have enough monthly production of unitary rounds.”

Building a production and manufacturing “bridge” for munitions and mines takes time. These lines and workforces are not light switches that can be turned off and on quickly. From the consolidation of firms and suppliers, to long lead times for parts and energetics, and a number of other issues in between, our inability to produce munitions at scale has numerous causes.

Funding Woes

Dig a little deeper, though, and it is clear that money is the main reason the munitions industrial base lacks surge capacity. And like so much else when it comes to the state of our military today, the insufficient funds are no accident.

When past defense budgets did not provide for real growth, policymakers often allowed munitions to take the hit, choosing to support other underfunded accounts. Flying hours, munitions, sustainment, and workforce are regular bill payers for other defense priorities, according to Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante.

The result is munitions funding — and therefore production — that has come in waves. From over $30 billion at the end of the Cold War, funding fell to around $10 billion during the so-called procurement holiday of the 1990s, and it sits just under $20 billion today. There has not been for decades a sustained and steady increase in how much we spend on the things that give our planes, tanks, and ships firepower.

How to Reverse the Erosion of U.S. and Allied Military Power and Influence

David A. Ochmanek, Anna Dowd, Stephen J. Flanagan, Andrew R. Hoehn, Jeffrey W. Hornung, Michael J. Lostumbo, Michael J. Mazarr

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Research QuestionsWhat are the principal demands for which U.S. and allied military forces should prepare?

If those forces are deemed inadequate, what gaps exist in the capabilities, posture, and operational concepts of those forces?

What options exist to fill those gaps, and what steps should policymakers consider in reformulating plans for future forces?

The U.S. defense strategy and posture have become insolvent. The tasks that the nation expects its military forces and other elements of national power to do internationally exceed the means that are available to accomplish those tasks. Sustained, coordinated efforts by the United States and its allies are necessary to deter and defeat modern threats, including Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and reconstituted forces and China's economic takeoff and concomitant military modernization. This report offers ideas on how to address shortcomings in defense preparations.

Key Findings

The nature of warfare has evolved since the Cold War, and it has become increasingly clear that the U.S. defense strategy and posture are insolvent.

The U.S. defense strategy has been predicated on U.S. military forces that were superior in all domains to those of any adversary. This superiority is gone. The United States and its allies no longer have a virtual monopoly on the technologies and capabilities that made them so dominant against adversarial forces.

The ratings agency said that the downgrade reflects an ‘erosion of governance’

Matt Grossman and Andrew Duehren

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Fitch Ratings downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating weeks after President Biden and congressional Republicans came to the brink of a historic default, warning about the growing debt burden and political dysfunction in Washington.

The downgrade, the first by a major ratings firm in more than a decade, is evidence that increasingly frequent political skirmishes over the U.S. government’s finances are clouding the outlook for the $25 trillion global market for Treasurys. Fitch’s rating on the U.S. now stands at “AA+”, or one notch below the top “AAA” grade.

America’s reputation for reliably making good on its IOUs has cast Treasury bonds in an indispensable role in global markets: a safe-haven security offering nearly risk-free returns. Treasurys serve as a critical benchmark for returns on stocks and other bonds, because investors generally demand greater yields on any other securities that they buy.

Few investors believe that Fitch’s downgrade will immediately challenge that role. Still, it is the first time a ratings firm lowered its headline assessment of the U.S. government’s propensity to pay its bills on time since Standard & Poor’s in 2011 lowered its rating one notch below the top grade. That decision followed another tense debt-ceiling standoff in Congress.

Moody’s, the other member of the three big U.S. ratings firms, continues to give the U.S. its strongest assessment.

Fitch said Tuesday that the downgrade reflects an “erosion of governance” in the U.S. relative to other top-tier economies over the last two decades.

“The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management,” the agency said.

Biden administration officials criticized Fitch’s decision, blaming governance problems on the Trump administration and arguing that the U.S. was not at risk of missing its debt payments.

“The change by Fitch Ratings announced today is arbitrary and based on outdated data,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

HackerOne: How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Cyber Threats and Ethical Hacking

Megan Crouse

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Security experts from HackerOne and beyond weigh in on malicious prompt engineering and other attacks that could strike through LLMs.Image: NicoElNino/Adobe Stock

HackerOne, a security platform and hacker community forum, hosted a roundtable on Thursday, July 27, about the way generative artificial intelligence will change the practice of cybersecurity. Hackers and industry experts discussed the role of generative AI in various aspects of cybersecurity, including novel attack surfaces and what organizations should keep in mind when it comes to large language models.

Generative AI can introduce risks if organizations adopt it too quickly

Organizations using generative AI like ChatGPT to write code should be careful they don’t end up creating vulnerabilities in their haste, said Joseph “rez0” Thacker, a professional hacker and senior offensive security engineer at software-as-a-service security company AppOmni.

For example, ChatGPT doesn’t have the context to understand how vulnerabilities might arise in the code it produces. Organizations have to hope that ChatGPT will know how to produce SQL queries that aren’t vulnerable to SQL injection, Thacker said. Attackers being able to access user accounts or data stored across different parts of the organization often cause vulnerabilities that penetration testers frequently look for, and ChatGPT might not be able to take them into account in its code.

The two main risks for companies that may rush to use generative AI products are:Allowing the LLM to be exposed in any way to external users that have access to internal data.

Connecting different tools and plugins with an AI feature that may access untrusted data, even if it’s internal.

4 Tools That Make It Easy to Write and Work—Wherever You Go

ERICA KASPER

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I LIKE TO say “I’m a writer by trade,” but I rarely feel like a writer. I feel like a social media manager, a researcher, a content creator, or a brand marketer. I feel as far removed from writing as one can be while still putting words to paper. After all, a “writer” is someone who sips coffee and churns out books and articles and thoughtful observations from the shore of some charmingly remote pond, right?

Not quite. All of those jobs (and many more) require writing, sometimes hours of it. And while we may not see ourselves as writers, we use the tools of the writing trade every day to do the jobs we do. Meanwhile, many of us are also on the go: traveling to meetings, visiting offsites, working from home or from public spaces, and writing at every turn. For my fellow writers—and my fellow “people who write for work”—here are four must-have items to help you write from anywhere.

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. 

A Reliable (and Large) Portable Power Bank to Avert Disaster

Every writer’s worst nightmare is your device powering down when you’re in the middle of tapping away on the keyboard. Did it save? Is your work lost? Most airports, hotels, and other public spots have charging ports available, but these sources are often scarce, crowded, or difficult to get to (who hasn’t sat on a dirty airport floor just to access a plug socket?).

It’s best to plan for the worst by keeping a charged power bank on you at all times. The one I travel with is a hefty red brick with two USB ports that takes hours to charge up completely, so I make sure to fill it days before a trip. I’m willing to endure the weight and bulk of the battery in exchange for the power to completely charge my devices multiple times. The best power bank for you will vary depending on your needs, but we have a list of options here to help you choose.

Drone ships: What are they and how much do they cost?

Joshua Cheetham

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Two attacks by Ukrainian drone ships against Russian warships have been thwarted, according to Moscow. Ukraine's navy has denied any involvement.

While aerial drones have been used to great effect by Ukraine and Russia since the start of the war, a new form of drone technology has also been gaining momentum in the Black Sea.

What are drone ships?

Drone ships are small, unmanned vessels. Unlike aerial drones, these ones operate on or below the water's surface.

There are many terms used to describe them, including drone boats, sea drones, and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs).

They come in all shapes and sizes and are used for a variety of tasks, including environmental monitoring.

These drones can be used for military purposes too - like clearing mines, carrying out surveillance or detonating near targets like enemy ships.

Many drone ships have been pictured since the start of the war, including one which reportedly washed up on the Crimea shores.

Army Futures Command honing in on ‘human-machine integration,’ beyond a ‘bolt-on’ capability

JASPREET GILL

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Modern warfare futuristic soldier using virtual reality glasses on purple background as concept of artificial intelligence on Hud screen display (Getty images)

WASHINGTON — Army Futures Command is going to be “very focused on human-machine integration” in the next year, one of several research and development (R&D) “seeds” the service is planting, Gabe Camarillo, the service’s under secretary said today.

“And as we continue to work on automating some of our systems, for example, on logistics and supply, and experiments with robotic combat vehicles, we’re also trying to understand the relationship between those platforms, and the soldiers and operators who use them,” Camarillo said at the Potomac Officers Club’s Army Summit.

“And that’s going to be a big focus from Army Futures Command over the next year, relying more heavily on armed and unmanned combat vehicles for things potentially like reconnaissance and delivery, in order to keep the soldier safer,” he added.

But even if the service gets its R&D efforts right in that space, there’s still the question of how soldiers will be integrated with machines and how autonomous systems will be employed, he said. Those are questions that the service hopes to answer in fiscal 2024.

“I think what I’m trying to say also is that we want to remove — or move past I should say — the mindset where all of these autonomous systems are a bolt-on capability, and ensure that they’re adequately integrated across our formations,” he said. “And AFC is going to lead the charge on that.”

Other R&D focus areas in FY24 include software applications and energetic materials, or chemicals found in weapon systems, a key area of value for the Army.

AI-enabled social media tool ‘promising’ new tech for Army: Officials

JASPREET GILL

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The Army is testing new AI-enabled social media tech to aid decision-making. (DVIDS soldier image, Getty social media graphic)

WASHINGTON — As the military explores how it can best use artificial intelligence to enhance operations on the battlefield, the Army is testing how one specific AI-enabled social media tool can help commanders make better informed decisions.

The technology, called Data Robot, was one of 17 technologies tested during this year’s Cyber Quest, an experiment aimed at emerging technologies, at Fort Gordon, Ga. Led by the US Army Cyber Center of Excellence, soldiers tested several technologies from 11 different industry vendors spanning from electronic warfare to networking to cyber this past month.

“This is our opportunity to make sure that those new technologies will actually work when we take them out to the field,” Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton, commanding general of the US Army Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Gordon, told reporters July 28. “And over the years I’ve noted that there’s one very distinct difference between capabilities that are designed for industry and commercial purposes, and capabilities that we require in the United States Army. And that has been our enemies are trying to see us constantly in order to kill us.

“So regardless of how sound the science is from an industry or academic or scientific perspective, it oftentimes needs to be tweaked in order to meet some of the fundamental requirements that we have in the Army,” he added.

Data Robot used open-source data to detect bots and deep-fake algorithms, Col. John Agnello, director of the Army’s program officer for information advantage, explained.

The tech could potentially help the service in the information advantage and dominance space by creating an “overlay” for a commander to see and make decisions — a capability the Army doesn’t have yet, Col. Brett Riddle, director of the Army’s cyber battle lab, added.

AI and Gray-Zone Aggression: Risks and Opportunities

Elisabeth Braw

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Key PointsGenerative artificial intelligence (AI), which causes confusion among the public through its generation of sophisticated and credible-seeming text, audio, and imagery, poses a considerable threat to societal discourse, especially since it can be used in hostile powers’ disinformation.

Western countries’ legislators are struggling to keep pace with generative AI’s rapid advance. In June 2023, the EU became the first jurisdiction to pass legislation aimed at limiting generative AI’s harm.

At the same time, AI can be useful in detecting gray-zone aggression, which can appear anywhere, anytime, in any shape. Today, countries targeted by gray-zone aggression struggle to identify it at an early stage because doing so primarily involves monitoring by humans.

Read the PDF.

Introduction

In mid-May 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT-creator OpenAI, told a congressional committee that one of his “greatest concerns” was the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to persuade voters and provide “interactive disinformation” in the 2024 US election campaign.1 One might ask why, given these concerns, Altman and OpenAI decided to release their technology. But even if they hadn’t, considering how much damage Russian disinformation caused during the 2016 election campaign, AI-aided falsehoods in upcoming election campaigns are an alarming prospect.

Generative AI, the category to which ChatGPT and other chatbots belong, refers to algorithms often called large language models (LLM), which are capable of generating new and credible content including text, images, and (to a lesser extent) video and audio from training data. During the early months of 2023, such AI caught the public’s attention with the arrival of ChatGPT, a chatbot that composes prose as elegant and informative as that written by humans. The skyrocketing popularity of the tool, which reached 100 million active monthly users within two months of its launch, on November 30, 2022, helped people realize that any written text can now be the work of a robot and that the reader is mostly not in a position to establish whether a written work’s author is a human or a machine.2

Building Partner Capabilities for Cyber Operations

RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery

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Executive Summary1

In December 2015, Russia turned the lights out in Kyiv. In the spring of 2022, they could not. But this was not for lack of trying.2 Since the war began, Ukraine has sustained thousands of Russian cyberattacks,3 but the nation has endured because it has spent the better part of the last decade building its cyber defenses, often with the help of the United States and other international partners. The country has demonstrated that one country’s ability to prevent, mitigate, and recover from cyberattacks enhances global economic stability and security. Because of strong Ukrainian defenses, Russian cyberattacks have not cascaded across Europe and America, as was the case in 2017 with the Russian NotPetya malware.4

The Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy argues that a prosperous future requires resilient global digital infrastructure built on the values of democracy, free speech, and innovation.5 This means building and strengthening international partnerships to reinforce norms of responsible behavior, disrupt malicious actors, and enhance the ability of allies and partners to secure themselves against cyber threats. The 2023 U.S. Defense Cyber Strategy calls these allies and partners America’s “foundational advantage in the cyber domain.”6

The U.S. government conducts partner cyber capacity-building programs across multiple federal departments — to include the Departments of State, Justice, Energy, Homeland Security, Treasury, and Defense and the intelligence community. These programs help allies and partners build cyber resilience, develop national cyber strategies, prosecute cyber criminals, and evict malicious cyber actors from critical networks. They have become so popular around the world that demand “exceeds our capacity to deliver,” Nathaniel Fick, U.S. ambassador at large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, said in June.7

Capacity-building programs help other countries learn to defend themselves in cyberspace. More resilient partners are less likely to succumb to an attack or need recovery assistance. But the U.S. government also helps partners recover, remediate, and conduct forensic analysis to determine the cause and culprit when cyberattacks succeed. These efforts can yield valuable insights about attacker techniques that can then be shared with other governments and the public.

Supporting Command and Control for Land Forces on a Data-Rich Battlefield

Dr Jack Watling

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Forces that can leverage battlefield hyperconnectivity capabilities are likely to secure a competitive advantage over those that cannot. This paper seeks to explain what is driving changes to land forces’ command and control, the enterprise architecture that best supports the emerging requirements, and the implications for how command is practised.

The maturation of an ecosystem of data bearers and data management tools means battlefield hyperconnectivity is now realisable for militaries. Forces that can leverage these capabilities are likely to secure a competitive advantage over those that cannot. However, adopting these technologies requires a series of changes in how land forces conduct command and control (C2). To that end, this paper seeks to explain what is driving changes to land forces’ C2, the enterprise architecture that best supports the emerging requirements, and the implications for how command is practised. The foremost drivers of change are that:Armies that achieve greater situational awareness will have a competitive advantage.

Situational awareness is achieved by moving relevant data between both units at echelon and sensors and effectors to enable forces to converge their efforts.

Data relevance must either be determined by pre-agreed prioritisation or by analysis conducted at higher echelon.

Latency in data transfer must be minimised for control of effects.

Latency may be high for command of the force, but the picture must constitute as complete a data set as can be reasonably assembled.

Low-latency, high-bandwidth communications impose an unacceptable draw on power for most tactical units, which must support low-latency, low-bandwidth communication to maintain situational awareness.

The concentration of analytical capacity at higher echelons exposes the formation to an unacceptable degree of risk from long-range fires unless these elements can be dispersed.

Dispersion demands the automation of a significant proportion of headquarters tasks.

Automation demands a bearer-agnostic heterogeneous data ecosystem for the force, the remotely accessible nature of which also makes it vulnerable to cyber attack.

Any future C2 architecture must degrade gracefully and in a predictable manner under constant disruption of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS).

The Soldier-Statesman in the Secret World: George C. Marshall and Intelligence in War and Peace

David Robarge, CIA Historian

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Introduction

Marshall, the Army’s Chief of Staff during 1939-45 and Secretary of State and Defense during 1947-49 and 1950-51, respectively, is best known as the Allies’ “true organizer of victory” during World War II and steward of the economic recovery program named after him—the Marshall Plan—that helped stave off communist-incited instability in postwar Western Europe as it started to rebuild from wartime destruction.

Marshall’s illustrious reputation as one of America’s greatest 20th-century leaders rests almost entirely on his achievements in wartime and the immediate postwar cold peace. In contrast to that familiar heroic narrative, an examination of Marshall’s far less-well-known engagement with the world of intelligence during those years reveals a significantly more complicated picture. . . .

A thorough review of the resources at the George Marshall Research Library, official records, and a large body of primary and secondary sources reveals that between 1939 and 1951, Marshall was much more involved in intelligence affairs than has been indicated in the extensive literature about his role in World War II, his diplomatic mission to China, and his service as head of the State and Defense Departments. His sterling reputation as a “soldier-statesman” and “the military equivalent of a corporate manager” is well deserved, but his record as an “organizer of intelligence” during World War II is much more nuanced and has only been superficially examined up to now.

‘Joint Vision’ With India Raises Concerns in Sri Lanka

Lasanda Kurukulasuriya

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In late July, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe made his first visit to India since taking office. His remarks at an Indian CEOs’ Forum in Colombo ahead of his trip gave a clue to the scope of the agreements to be disclosed in New Delhi. Once the country’s debt restructuring process was completed, he told the businessmen, Sri Lanka’s focus will shift toward a program entailing “a massive overhaul of our economy, legal framework, and systems, aligning our path with that of India.”

After talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 21 – a year to the day since Wickremesinghe took office – an identical statement was released, separately, by the Sri Lankan and Indian sides. Described not as a “Joint Statement” but a “Joint Vision” statement, it listed a summary of decisions, reached or anticipated, in five areas of “connectivity” – maritime; air; energy and power; trade, economic, and financial; and people-to-people.

“We have agreed on a Joint Vision of the future India-Sri Lanka economic partnership through enhanced connectivity” Wickremesinghe said, addressing dignitaries and media in Delhi.

The neutral tone and language of the statement gives no hint of the significant revamp taking place in bilateral relations, influenced by recent history. The talks come in the aftermath of an economic crisis that led to bankruptcy, when India came forward with significant financial assistance to allow Sri Lanka to import essential fuel and medicine. As inescapable as the imbalance in the power equation is the dominance of geopolitics in the new phase of India-Sri Lanka relations.

Against this backdrop, the ambiguous language used in the official communications, short on specifics in many areas, gives rise to speculation. Even Sri Lanka’s Parliament is unaware of the contents of the five MoUs exchanged. Opposition Member of Parliament Udaya Gammanpila has called for them to be tabled in the House, and other opposition parliamentarians expressed dismay about the lack of clarity.

In Manipur, Women Are Both Victims and Instigators of Sexual Violence

Kavita Chowdhury

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Activists protesting ethnic violence in northeastern Manipur state hold placards in Mumbai, India, July 24, 2023.Credit: AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool

The picturesque northeast Indian state of Manipur, literally the “land of gems,” has been engulfed in a violent ethnic conflict for the past three months. The killings, rapes, and rioting in the state since May, unsurprisingly, did not merit the attention of the national media, until a horrific video from Manipur went viral last fortnight. The 26-second clip showed two Kuki tribal women paraded naked by a mob of men who were groping their genitals and assaulting them. The horrific video has since been removed from YouTube.

Nationwide public outrage followed after the two-month old video surfaced, forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in the state to break their silence.

The extremely disturbing video of the two women has managed to do what 79 days of bloody conflict could not: put the spotlight on Manipur and on the inaction of the authorities in preventing the ongoing violence. The opposition is now demanding answers from the Modi government on the Manipur violence and has even moved a No Confidence motion against the government in the ongoing parliamentary session.

The gruesome incident took place on May 4. The older of the two Kuki women who were paraded naked now lives in a relief camp. Showing tremendous courage, she narrated her trauma to a reporter from the news portal Scroll, saying, “Everyone should know what happened to us.”

Drone Intrusions Along the India-Pakistan International Border: Countering an Emerging Threat

SURYA VALLIAPPAN KRISHNA, ASHIMA SINGH

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INTRODUCTION

Over the last three years, ceasefire violations and cross-border infiltrations have ebbed and flowed along the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) between India and Pakistan. In recent times, a new challenge has emerged in the form of drone intrusions along the International Border. This commentary describes the nature of the threat, the security risks posed, and the countermeasures deployed so far. It argues that this emerging threat needs more attention.

WHAT DOES THE DATA TELL US?

China: The Need to ‘Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick’

Anthony H. Cordesman

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President Theodore Roosevelt’s most famous quote is his advice to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” But it is often taken out of context. Roosevelt made it clear that he was introducing his remarks on foreign policy by quoting a West African proverb. His other major quotes on U.S. foreign policy are far more sophisticated and far less rough rider in character. One key example is his statement that U.S. foreign policy should be “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis.” Roosevelt set goals in this latter statement that seem as valid today as when Roosevelt originally said it in 1902.

It is his advice to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” however, that seems particularly valid in the case of the current state of U.S. policy toward China. U.S. national strategy documents are all too correct in noting that the emergence of China as an authoritarian superpower has created a nation that “harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit.”

The latest U.S. National Security Strategy document is equally correct in stating that

The PRC is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it. Beijing has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power. It is using its technological capacity and increasing influence over international institutions to create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model, and to mold global technology use and norms to privilege its interests and values. Beijing frequently uses its economic power to coerce countries. It benefits from the openness of the international economy while limiting access to its domestic market, and it seeks to make the world more dependent on the PRC while reducing its own dependence on the world. The PRC is also investing in a military that is rapidly modernizing, increasingly capable in the Indo-Pacific, and growing in strength and reach globally – all while seeking to erode U.S. alliances in the region and around the world.

China Was the World's Biggest Economic Miracle and It Will Be Again | Opinion

DAVID P. GOLDMAN 

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According to the World Bank, China's real per capita GDP rose from $404 in 1979—the year Deng Xiaoping opened the economy to private enterprise—to $11,560 in 2022 in constant 2015 U.S. dollars. It jumped five-fold since 2001. By contrast, India's real per capita GDP rose from $373 in 1979 to just $2,085 in 2022. By comparison, you can see what a success story China has been, one unique in economic activity.

This is not to say Deng's trajectory is still at play. Deng Xiaoping's economy, which turned subsistence farmers into semi-skilled industrial workers, surely has peaked. The great migration from country to city is slowing, and China's workforce is slowly shrinking.

But China is building a new digital economy powered by AI and high-speed broadband, with 2.3 million of the world's 3 million 5G base stations and download speeds double ours. It has automated ports that can empty a container ship in 45 minutes rather than the 48 hours required at our port of Long Beach. It's also automated mines where no worker goes underground, factories controlled by AI, and warehouses in which robots do the sorting and packaging.

Most of all, nearly two-thirds of Chinese citizens have an education beyond high school, compared to just 3 percent who had one in 1979. China graduates more engineers than the rest of the world combined, and Chinese universities teach at world standards.

China has also extended its economic reach to developing economies. It now exports more to the Global South than to developed markets, doubling its exports to ASEAN and tripling its exports to Central Asia after 2020. It builds broadband, railroads, and ports from Africa to South America, promoting a permanent market for its exports.

The United States Has Countered China's Growing Influence

Joseph Bouchard

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China has become America’s greatest competitor and will most likely remain so for the next few decades — and if recent headlines are to be believed, the U.S. is headed to its downfall.

Apparently, the U.S. is losing in the Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Middle East — the entire Global South. This month, Brookings called the U.S. a “losing superpower.”

Such alarmism shouldn’t cloud our judgment. The U.S. has done well pushing for its own interests and advancing its values around the globe. Where it could improve is in using public media to broadcast its successes.

The U.S. has made significant progress combating China in the Asia-Pacific. In the last decade, a number of countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Pacific Island States, and Thailand, have signed new defence commitments and partnerships with the United States. AUKU.S. and the Quad also help the U.S. defend its interests in Asia against China.

Ties between the U.S. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) couldn’t be stronger. Its mission has expanded beyond trade into security cooperation and democracy promotion, while the U.S. remains the largest investor in ASEAN. Western partners have also made the Asia-Pacific a key region of interest, increasing security and political expenditures while making the fight against Chinese influence an agenda-defining priority. As a result, most countries in the region are growing skeptical of China’s bullish attitude, and turning the tide on strategic ambiguity. Many are overtly choosing to work with the U.S. over China.

The U.S. has also been engaging strategically in Africa’s diplomatic space. Unlike China and Russia, who have intervened in Africa to boost oppressive policies and propagate their own superiority complex, the U.S. has been focused on upholding universal values of freedom, democracy, and development, treating African nations as equal-footing partners.

The End of China’s Economic Miracle

Adam S. Posen

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As 2022 came to an end, hopes were rising that China’s economy—and, consequently, the global economy—was poised for a surge. After three years of stringent restrictions on movement, mandatory mass testing, and interminable lockdowns, the Chinese government had suddenly decided to abandon its “zero COVID” policy, which had suppressed demand, hampered manufacturing, roiled supply lines, and produced the most significant slowdown that the country’s economy had seen since pro-market reforms began in the late 1970s. In the weeks following the policy change, global prices of oil, copper, and other commodities rose on expectations that Chinese demand would surge. In March, then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a target for real GDP growth of around five percent, and many external analysts predicted it would go far higher.

Initially, some parts of China’s economy did indeed grow: pent-up demand for domestic tourism, hospitality, and retail services all made solid contributions to the recovery. Exports grew in the first few months of 2023, and it appeared that even the beleaguered residential real estate market had bottomed out. But by the end of the second quarter, the latest GDP data told a very different story: overall growth was weak and seemingly set on a downward trend. Wary foreign investors and cash-strapped local governments in China chose not to pick up on the initial momentum.

This reversal was more significant than a typical overly optimistic forecast missing the mark. The seriousness of the problem is indicated by the decline of both China’s durable goods consumption and private-sector investment rates to a fraction of their earlier levels, and by the country’s surging household savings rate. Those trends reflect people’s long-term economic decisions in the aggregate, and they strongly suggest that in China, people and companies are increasingly fearful of losing access to their assets and are prioritizing short-term liquidity over investment. That these indicators have not returned to pre-COVID, normal levels—let alone boomed after reopening as they did in the United States and elsewhere—is a sign of deep problems.

Is the Middle East’s Makeover a Mirage?

Joost Hiltermann

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In mid-July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan completed a high-profile tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, a trip that brought tens of billions of dollars in investment deals in Turkey’s struggling economy. The trip was the culmination of a growing diplomatic thaw between Turkey and the Saudi and UAE governments after nearly a decade of icy relations. In fact, this rapprochement was itself made possible by Turkish ally Qatar’s resumption of ties with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, after a years-long rupture. In June, just weeks before Erdogan’s visit, Qatar and the UAE had themselves renewed formal diplomatic relations.

These are not the only such deals taking place in the Middle East. In 2020, Israel agreed to open relations with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in the Abraham Accords—the first such act of normalization between Israel and Arab states since the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in 1994. A few months later, Morocco and then Sudan joined the Abraham Accords as well. In March 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to resume diplomatic relations after seven years of mutual antagonism. And in May, even Syria’s dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, was brought in from the cold when he was welcomed back to the Arab League after more than a decade of isolation.

At first glance, the swell of normalization deals rolling across the region seems to mark a break from the decade of turbulence set off by the 2010–11 Arab uprisings. States that had pursued military approaches to some of the region’s conflicts, directly or by proxy, have decided, for now at least, that diplomacy is a better way to advance their interests. A case in point might be Yemen, where, over the past couple of years, Riyadh has engaged in talks with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in an effort to end the long-running civil war, or at least end Saudi involvement in it. Such are the perceived benefits of normalization that the Biden administration is now suggesting that a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia might help rescue the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Have We Created the Philosopher’s Stone? Policymakers Should Care about Room-Temperature Superconductors

Carlos Roa 

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Arecent development has rocked the scientific community over the past two weeks. Advocates proclaim that we now potentially stand on the brink of a transformative age in technology that could render our current power network and level of technology as quaintly outdated as the telegraph.

The harbinger of this new age? Room-temperature superconductors—materials that conduct electricity with perfect efficiency, without the need for deep chilling. If viable, then the arrival of these superconductors is not just a technological leap; it’s a paradigm shift with significant implications for the economy, national security and defense policy, and the future of energy consumption.

First, however, we must determine whether these superconductors can truly be made. Policymakers and experts ought to be aware of the currently unfolding events.

The Quest for the Holy Grail

Let’s start with some basic science. A superconductor, as the name suggests, is a material that can conduct electricity with zero resistance. In other words, it allows an electric current to flow indefinitely without any loss of energy. Compare this to say, contemporary batteries, which can lose up to 25 percent of stored energy over time.

If that sounds astounding, that’s because it is. However, this magic comes with a caveat: traditional superconductors only function in high-pressure, low-temperature environments akin to those found in the deepest recesses of outer space, thus limiting their practical application.

Enter room-temperature superconductors. As the name indicates, these are superconductors that operate at temperatures you would typically find in your everyday environment. The quest for this radical development has been ongoing for decades, with physicists and material scientists around the globe drawn to this scientific holy grail like bees to honey.

Squaring the Triangle: Four Big Ideas from the Latest British Defense Review

Sean Monaghan

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The British government has a penchant for defense reviews. It has published four of them since 2015—the same number it conducted throughout the entire Cold War. The latest review, the Defence Command Paper 2023, was published last week. It sets out the Ministry of Defense’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and intensifying U.S.-China competition. It also follows new national security guidance published in March, which taken together update the previous security and defense reviews released in 2021.

Two years is a long time in international politics—long enough for the “competitive age” described in the previous review to have become a “contested and volatile world,” as the full title of the new document describes. Russia’s war of conquest in Ukraine most dramatically demonstrates the transition from competition to conflict and confrontation. As the House of Commons Defence Committee puts it, “For the first time since the end of the Cold War, we have to face the prospect that we could become involved in a peer conflict with Russia, with little further strategic warning or opportunity to scale up our industrial, as well as military capabilities.” This tectonic shift in the United Kingdom’s security landscape justifies a wholesale rethink.

Some will be disappointed the latest defense review does not go that far: it contains no new announcements, no changes to force structure and doubles down on the basic judgements made two years ago. It also offers little new spending, beyond £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) on munitions stockpiles and £400 million ($500 million) on service accommodation. Such continuity is understandable given the department is led by the same people (although Defense Secretary Ben Wallace will leave his post in September) and a general election is only a year away.

However, what the review lacks in new deliverables, it makes up for in new ideas. Four key ideas in the review—about people, science and technology, productivity, and lessons from Ukraine—show how the United Kingdom is pursuing bold new ideas to solve an old problem in defense strategy: squaring the triangle of trade-offs between readiness, modernization, and force structure.

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