8 June 2024

MITRE Releases EMB3D – A Cybersecurity Threat Model for Embedded Devices


EMB3D MODEL STRENGTHENED BY PEER REVIEWS FROM INFRASTRUCTURE INDUSTRIES

After the model garnered significant interest for peer review across diverse industries, numerous organizations piloted the threat model. The EMB3D team appreciates the interest and feedback from vendors and integrators across many industries, including energy, water, manufacturing, aerospace, health, and automotive, as well as researchers and threat tool vendors. This ongoing collaborative effort has been instrumental in refining and enhancing the model’s content and usability. The team looks forward to continued collaboration to strengthen the ability of the model to enable “secure by design.”

“Our framework’s strength lies in the collaborative efforts and rigorous review process across industries,” said Yosry Barsoum, vice president and director, Center for Securing the Homeland at MITRE. “The diverse perspectives and invaluable insights shared have fortified our approach, ensuring a robust and effective solution to address the evolving challenges in embedded device security.”

LEVERAGING ESTABLISHED MODELS TO STRENGTHEN EMBEDDED DEVICE SECURITY

EMB3D aligns with and expands on several existing models, including Common Weakness Enumeration, MITRE ATT&CK®, and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, but with a specific embedded-device focus. The threats defined within EMB3D are based on observation of use by threat actors, proof-of-concept and theoretical/conceptual security research publications, and device vulnerability and weakness reports. These threats are mapped to device properties to help users develop and tailor accurate threat models for specific embedded devices. EMB3D suggests technical mechanisms that vendors should build into devices to mitigate each given threat. EMB3D is a comprehensive framework for the entire security ecosystem—device vendors, asset owners, security researchers, and testing organizations.

Cyber, MacGyver, and the Limits of Covert Power

Ciaran Martin

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February 2022, I received two separate messages from colleagues stranded on the tarmac at major mainland European airports. One was a very senior former British government adviser with extensive direct experience in global affairs. The other was an internationally renowned academic. They had separately reached the same conclusion: Russia’s much predicted cyberwar against the West had begun. Grounding Western commercial aircraft would be one of many ways the Kremlin would use its feared cyber arsenal to stop Western capitals from coming to the aid of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his beleaguered nation.

This view was unexceptional among the British elite: A week later, the Sunday Times, Britain’s most influential weekly newspaper, published a long read entitled “How the Russians Could Paralyse Britain” via remote malware attacks. More significantly, Russia’s feared cyber capabilities were central to many predictions of a short war and easy Russian victory: One of many such predictions, from Chatham House, went as far as saying that Vladimir Putin could further his illegal objective of territorial conquest by cyberattacks alone and without a physical invasion. Plenty of other analysts, while not going this far, predicted cyber “shock and awe” that would degrade Ukraine’s ability and willingness to fight. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the war broke out, told the New York Times in April this year that “for a while, we thought this would be a cyberwar.”

7 June 2024

Embracing AI: A strategic shift towards software-centric innovation in India

Arindam Goswami

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by a coalition of tech giants and developers rallying behind an OpenAI-led initiative to build software that facilitates switching between different AI chips. As Nvidia’s dominance in AI hardware faces challenges due to supply shortages and high costs, this initiative aims to democratise AI development by reducing dependence on Nvidia’s proprietary software platform, Cuda. This article contends that India, with its robust software development industry, is uniquely positioned to contribute to this transformative shift, and this strategy plays well to India’s strengths and could assist India from a geopolitical perspective too.

Breaking Free from Nvidia’s Grip

Nvidia’s near-monopoly on AI chips has been underpinned by its powerful Cuda software, which optimizes its GPUs for AI tasks. Developed over nearly two decades, this software creates a formidable barrier for competitors. However, the industry is fighting back. Companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Google are contributing to Triton, an open-source software initially developed by OpenAI. Triton aims to make AI applications compatible with a wide range of chips, offering a viable alternative to Cuda.

India-Russia Relations in Troubled Times: Steady but Stagnating

Dr Aleksei Zakharov

Introduction

February 24, 2022, will be a date to remember in Russia’s history, although it is not yet clear how it will be treated in the history books. President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops to Ukrainian territory, dubbed as a “special military operation”, provoked a war between Russia and Ukraine, increased (even if not direct) confrontation between Russia and the West, and a severe military and humanitarian crisis in Eastern Europe, with no clear path for resolution. As a result of this decision, Moscow has found itself isolated and desperate to reorient its policies and exports from the West to the East.

Despite gloomy forecasts by many analysts, the Russian economy has managed to ride out the unprecedented sanctions and the exodus of large international companies. Yet, the sanctions will have a long-term effect, disrupting Russia’s access to advanced technologies and gradually eroding its capacities across various industries. In effect, the restrictions have already challenged Moscow’s attempt to initiate another “pivot to the East”, with foreign transactions facing various hurdles and globalized businesses from across Asia and the Middle East hesitating to connect with Russian companies.


The Real Threat to Taiwan

Seth Cropsey and Harry Halem

The U.S. is preparing for a crisis in the Taiwan Strait but getting China’s calculations wrong. The assumptions are twofold: that China won’t invade unless provoked, and that China still needs to get its military built to attack. Most Americans miss the centrality of manipulation and subversion to Chinese strategy. Taiwanese political security, not simply military deterrence and rhetorical balancing, are key to Chinese success.

Taiwan’s politics are a complicated accident of history. From 1949 to 1987 the island was governed by the Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT. It is now the major opposition party, and because of the Taiwanese system’s design is the largest party in the legislature and holds an informal majority alongside the populist Taiwan People’s Party. The KMT is little more than a series of patronage networks with no formal ideology. Its leaders fantasize about eventual reunification with a democratic mainland China. Unlike the KMT, the center-left Democratic Progressive Party, which just won a third presidential term, has a distinct ideology. It seeks recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign nation, which angers Beijing.


Sleepwalking toward WWIII in the South China Sea

BOB SAVIC

China’s announcement of its intention to enforce a law that would arrest foreign nationals venturing into waters it claims in the South China Sea (SCS) may be the trigger for a direct military confrontation with the United States. The regulation, known as the Administrative Law Enforcement Procedures for Coast Guard Agencies, will come into force on June 15, 2024.

Violent incidents between US ally, the Philippines, and China, have been ratcheting up in recent months. Dramatic film footage by Britain’s Sky News showed several large Chinese Coast Guard vessels pounding a smaller Philippine Coast Guard ship with powerful water cannons in disputed waters surrounding the Scarborough Shoal.

Shortly before, US President Joe Biden met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington DC to discuss regional security. Biden affirmed “iron-clad” support for the Philippines under the auspices of their mutual defense treaty, including protection of coast guard vessels that come under armed attack in the South China Sea.

CECC RELEASES 2023 ANNUAL REPORT


“The Annual Report sets the standard in terms of documenting the People’s Republic of China’s failure to abide by human rights norms and in holding Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their repeated and sustained atrocities and crimes against humanity – up to and including that most pernicious of human rights violations, genocide,” said CECC Chair Smith. The CECC staff does great work on the Annual Report and throughout the year, maintaining a state-of-the-art political prisoner database and organizing cutting-edge hearings that lead to heightened awareness and actionable legislation. The annual report will continue to guide Congress and the Administration on PRC policy, and I hope provide corporations with clarity, so that they are no longer complicity in the subsidization of tyranny. Above all, it is my hope that the long-suffering people in Communist China know through our report that they have not been forgotten, and that they, and we, can look forward to that day when oppression ends.”

“The people of China deserve to enjoy the full range of human rights to which they are entitled under international law. As the Congressional-Executive Commission on China documents in this report, the Chinese government continues to deny them their ability to exercise these rights,” said CECC Cochair Merkley. “This report highlights the new ways that Chinese authorities are violating their citizens’ basic rights, including the use of digital and biometric surveillance and transnational repression of Americans and others, and calls attention to the prisoners of conscience for whom we must continue to raise our voices. I urge Congress and the Biden Administration to act on the CECC’s policy recommendations.”

Why Is Xi Not Fixing China’s Economy?

Scott Kennedy

China’s economy is performing dreadfully. The post-pandemic bounce was far smaller and briefer than the Chinese government had anticipated. Despite recording a respectable, if diminished, official growth rate of 5.2 percent in 2023, the reality may have been much slower, with some analysts estimating growth was no more than 1-2 percent. Some indicators showed modest improvement in the first few months of 2024, but the economy still appears to be sputtering, with growth now highly dependent on exports.

Along with the economic slowdown has come a collapse in confidence in China’s trajectory, both at home and abroad. The quantitative data is stark, showing a sudden drop in confidence by consumers and producers in the spring of 2022 following the Shanghai lockdown. Consumers’ outlook improved briefly when the zero-COVID policies ended in late 2022 but has hovered in record-low territory since. Various indices for domestic business show a recent modest recovery, but the numbers are still far off their historic highs.

35 Years After Tiananmen, China’s Conduct Again Triggers Alarm

James T. Areddy

China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists sparked a seminal crisis in Beijing’s relationship with the West. On the massacre’s 35th anniversary, China’s leaders face familiar international blowback over their conduct.

Instead of gunfire, today’s sources of discomfort about China are a mix of its aggressive industrial policy and militarization toward neighbors, plus a national-security agenda from Chinese leader Xi Jinping that has curtailed personal freedoms at home and shaped affairs abroad.

A poor and relatively backward nation in 1989, China is now an economic powerhouse backed by a formidable military and diplomatic corps vying to reset the global order and impose its will internationally.

The U.S. Needs a New Purpose in the Middle East

Steven A. Cook

When we arrived at the gates of Iraq’s Bardarash refugee camp in December 2019, the emotional pain of the scene leveled me: Cold, wind-swept rain fell as a gaggle of small children, ankle-deep in mud, congregated around our delegation of Washington-based think tankers who had come to Iraq at the invitation of UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency. The camp, which had been decommissioned in 2017, had reopened in the fall after Syrian Kurds fled to Iraq seeking safety from Turkish airstrikes. Camp officials said Bardarash had “only” 10,000 inhabitants, but it was hard to make sense of that qualifier. Extending in every direction for what seemed like miles were rows of white tents emblazoned with the UNHCR logo in the familiar U.N. blue.

It was eight years after the U.S. withdrawal, and Iraq was deeply unstable. Mass protests raged in the streets against government dysfunction, a corrupt ruling class, and nonexistent social services. Provincial governments had few resources, and governors and small-town volunteer mayors spoke derisively of officials in Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, who left them with meager, if any, resources. Millions of Iraqis had to fend for themselves.







UST IN: Kamikaze Drone Threat Putting Air Defense Back in Army Maneuver Formations

Stew Magnuson

The use of loitering munitions on modern battlefields is forcing the Army to consider merging the now segregated worlds of long-range offensive fires and air defense, one of the service’s top officers said June 3.

“Air and missile defense, counter-UAS capability has to get back into our combined arms maneuver, all arms maneuver formations,” Army Futures Command leader Gen. James Rainey said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies talk.

“We should do it right now,” he added.

The use of loitering munitions, also called kamikaze drones, has been a hallmark of the Ukraine war, and militaries throughout the world are adopting the tactic, including the U.S. military, which is pursuing drone swarms to overwhelm opponents under its Replicator initiative.

Illusions of U.S. Foreign Policy

Jakub Grygiel

US and, more broadly, Western foreign policy is affected at its core by a mistaken view of the causes of political order. Built on the conviction that political order is engineered through a top-down process, it assumes that the state apparatus creates domestic order, while international institutions and rules build global order. Accordingly, what establishes a more efficient and lasting order is nothing more than the right application of power in its military, economic, or institutional forms. Three specific illusions stem out of this view: that removing a bad leader or toppling a bad regime will result in a more benign state; that membership in international institutions will fundamentally alter hostile states; and that wealth and commerce will create lasting peace. The result of these illusions is that we overestimate the capabilities of the basic tools of statecraft, from military power to economic means.

The Tigray War May Be One of the Deadliest Conflict of This Century

Azeem Ibrahim

Measured by the estimated number of deaths, the Tigray War in Ethiopia could be the deadliest armed conflict of the twenty-first century and one of the bloodiest since the end of the Cold War. From its outbreak in 2020 to the official ceasefire in 2022, the civil conflict claimed the lives of up to 400,000 soldiers and 300,000 civilians.

Despite the intense human suffering, this “forgotten” war has not garnered the international attention it desperately needs. There is an unfortunate sense in which the world is too ready to move on after its initial efforts. The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia dissolved before concluding its work. The United States, despite recognizing more than half a million deaths in the region and that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed there has restored financial and economic assistance to the status quo ante bellum. Similarly, the EU has returned to its $680 million development strategy with the nation despite a lack of accountability for the widespread abuses in the region.

‘We Are the World Power.’ How Joe Biden Leads

Massimo Calabresi

Joe Biden makes his way through the West Wing telling stories. In the Cabinet Room, with sun pouring through French doors from the Rose Garden outside, he remembers the first time he sat around the long mahogany table, its high-backed leather chairs ordered by seniority. It was more than 50 years ago, Biden says, and Richard Nixon told National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to brief the 30-year-old first-term Delaware Senator on the still secret timing of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Walking slowly through the halls, the President unspools anecdotes about heads of state: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Emmanuel Macron. In the Oval Office, he talks about his childhood home in Scranton, Pa., and the 2008 phone call from Barack Obama asking Biden to be his running mate.

Biden recounts these memories over the course of more than 90 minutes on a warm spring day, speaking in a quiet, sometimes scattershot way. The impression he gives is one of advancing age and broad experience, of a man who has lived history. Biden leads the U.S. as the American century is fading into an uncertain future, a changing world of threats, opportunities, and power shifts. At 81, he holds fast to a vision that has reigned since World War II, in which a rich and powerful America leads an alliance of democracies to safeguard the globe from tyranny.

Who will succeed Netanyahu as his era comes to an end? - opinion

AMOTZ ASA-EL

Having climbed his deceased father’s throne, King Solomon heard God – “in a dream, by night” – telling him what the rest of us can only wish God would whisper in our ear: “Ask: What shall I grant you?”

The famous answer – not treasure, power, nor fame, but “an understanding mind… to distinguish between good and bad” – is a prerequisite for any leadership, but Solomon’s explanation of his choice was unique to his task, leading Israel: “Who can judge this vast people of yours?”
Those aspiring to take Netanyahu's place
Now, leading Israel is even more challenging than it was then. Even so, as the Netanyahu era approaches its end, a collection of aspiring successors all claim to possess the “understanding mind” that millions of Israelis think Netanyahu has lost.

Failed state from the start: Why a sovereign Palestine isn’t happening any time soon

ILAN BERMAN

On May 22, the prime ministers of Spain, Norway and Ireland held a joint press conference formally announcing that their governments were poised to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state. The move, though largely symbolic, is fraught with significance, coming amid Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip (and clearly intended to influence it). As a practical matter, it is also decidedly dangerous — first and foremost, for the Palestinians themselves.

Set aside for a moment the moral dimensions of rewarding Hamas’s October 7 atrocities with Palestinian sovereignty. The other problem, which does not get nearly enough attention, is the new legal and political status quo that would prevail between Israel and the Palestinians once statehood kicks in.

For one thing, it would dramatically expand the international obligations of whichever entity ends up governing Gaza and the West Bank. Currently, the Palestinian Authority enjoys lavish subsidies, including from the U.S., for its security forces, while assuming only limited responsibility for maintaining order in the West Bank and simultaneously adopting policies that incentivize terrorism against Israel.

America can’t grab the wheel from Netanyahu in Gaza - Opinion

Daniel DePetris

Depending on which Israeli official you ask, Israel is either close to a total and complete win over Hamas in Gaza or in the middle of what will be a long, grinding year ahead. On April 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that “we are one step away from victory” after nearly eight long months of combat. Yet Tzachi Hanegbi, Netanyahu’s national security adviser, had an altogether different assessment of the situation this week: “We’re now in the fifth month of 2024, which means that this year we are expecting another seven months of fighting.”

Whoever you believe, one thing is indisputable: Israel doesn’t have a plan in Gaza. Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, is winging it.

At first glance, this would seem like an odd statement to make. Israel, after all, has consistently stated that it has two objectives for this military campaign: defeating Hamas and freeing the remaining hostages.

Western Values Are Expanding | Opinion

Timothy Head

Civilizations rise and civilizations fall. But the greatest and most enduring civilizations can also adapt. Western civilization and Western values are not in decline as much as they are adapting to the irreversible move toward globalization.

When the city of Rome crumbled, the city of God took its place. Christianity blossomed in the Middle Ages, and by the Renaissance, the popes saw themselves and the Church as the heirs to the greatness that was Rome. There was a unique cultural chemistry that brought about the extraordinary rise and proliferation of Christianity. Non-Christian religions in the ancient world were static religions of magic and myth that failed to keep pace with advances in dynamic philosophy and human mobility. Meanwhile, the thinkers of Greece and Rome admired the religious genius of Judaism. These philosophers recognized the brilliance of monotheism and the contribution Judaism brought in linking morality to religion.

The writers of the New Testament and the early Christian fathers were able to synthesize the monotheism and morality of Judaism with the insights of the philosophers. Importantly, in the expansive, transient, multi-ethnic era of the Roman Empire, Christianity was socially, culturally, and ethnically flexible while still providing a clear doctrinal and moral framework. And it was a revolutionary and practical religion in that it taught personal choice, hence calling for personal responsibility.

Emerging disruptive technologies: Dilemmas of deterrence


The issue of emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT) has been trending in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) of late. The 2019 NATO Leaders Meeting in London set out an EDT Roadmap.1 The NATO 2030 Report cited EDT as a major area for focus and investment. In February 2021, defence ministers agreed in general terms on coordinating investment in EDT, strengthening relationships with private sector innovation hubs and creating foreign export protection mechanisms.2 NATO has set a headmark of developing policies on seven key EDT areas: artificial intelligence (AI), data, autonomy, biotechnology, hypersonic technology, quantum physics-based technologies, and space. The ministers also announced plans to complete specific AI and data strategies by summer 2021. The AI Strategy was released in August 2021.3

On 1st March 2021, NATO’s Advisory Group on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies released its first annual report with recommendations to create an internal agency based on the United States (US) Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that would group together existing centres, invest in new technology, and collaborate with allied innovation hubs in the public and private sectors. This would be backed by a NATO investment bank to fund innovation in EDT. Those recommendations were approved at the Brussels Summit.4 At the 2022 Madrid Summit, the allies established NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic to strengthen transatlantic collaboration on emerging technologies. Twenty three allies also committed to a €1 billion (£860 million) NATO Innovation Fund which began project support last year.

Marine Corps University PressJournal of Advanced Military Studies, Spring 2024, v. 15, no. 1

Military Spacesteading: Space-based Logistics Mediums for Future Beachheads

The Void Above: The Future of Space Warfare and a Call to Update the Rule of International Space Law

The Soviet Sputniks and American Fears about the Militarization of Outer Space

Marine Corps and Space Force Integration for a More Lethal Joint Task Force to Counter China

A Call for Space-Domain Intelligence Training

Kim Jong United: How a Future North Korean ASAT Threat Makes Strange International Bedfellows and Novel Opportunity

Characterizing Future Authoritarian Governance in the Space Domain

Space Technology and Its Military Application: Options for Pakistan

Breaking the Newtonian Fetish: Conceptualizing War Differently for a Changing World

The Sky Is Not the Limit: The Unknowable Future of Space

What Israel’s Leaders Can’t—or Won’t—Say About Biden’s Ceasefire Announcemen

Isaac Chotiner

On Friday, President Joe Biden publicly called on Hamas to agree to what he said was an Israeli ceasefire proposal that would bring the war in Gaza to an end. Since then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given conflicting signals about whether he even supports the deal, which, if accepted, could cause right-wing ministers in the Knesset to leave Netanyahu’s coalition, resulting in its collapse. Moreover, last month, Benny Gantz, the retired army general and centrist Israeli politician, announced that he would leave Netanyahu’s war cabinet if the Prime Minister did not announce a plan for post-war Gaza by June 8th. (Biden’s publicly announced proposal mentions the need for reconstructing Gaza.) Israel’s military campaign has been going on for eight months, and despite an enormous number of Palestinian deaths—more than thirty-five thousand, by current estimates—Israel is continuing its invasion of the city of Rafah. Netanyahu has still offered no plan for what to do when the war eventually concludes. (Several members of his far-right coalition have spoken in favor of permanently occupying Gaza.)

I recently spoke by phone with Ofer Shelah, a military analyst and onetime member of the Knesset who helped lead the government’s coronavirus response in 2020. Shelah also helped found the Blue and White coalition, which tried to unseat Netanyahu in 2019; he was a co-founder of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, a centrist party, which Shelah eventually left. He is currently at the Institute for National Security Studies, in Tel Aviv, where he analyzes political and defense issues.

How the FBI took down the world's largest zombie 'botnet'

JUSTIN KLAWANS

The United States is taking a major victory lap after federal authorities took down what was allegedly the largest zombie "botnet" in the world. A Chinese national, YunHe Wang, was arrested as the mastermind of 911 S5, a proxy bot service that was "used to commit cyber attacks, large-scale fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats and export violations," the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a press release.

The DOJ, FBI and other federal agencies, working in tandem with law enforcement from around the globe, were able to disrupt and shut down 911 S5, the press release said. Wang was arrested in Singapore "on charges that he created and operated the botnet and deployed malware." In addition, as part of the shutdown dubbed Operation Tunnel Rat, the feds "seized over $29 million in cryptocurrency, and Wang and associates were sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury," FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Cyber Operations Brett Leatherman said on LinkedIn.

The botnet is hardly the only criminal cyber operation, but was thought to be the most widespread; 911 S5 was believed to have infected more than 19 million IP addresses around the world, the DOJ said, including more than 613,000 in the U.S.

Should US weapons be used against Russian targets?

JOEL MATHIS

A red line has been crossed. President Joe Biden "secretly gave Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia with U.S. weapons," Politico said. That's a dramatic change in policy after two years of war in which Biden has conspicuously attempted to balance Ukraine's defensive needs against the risks of escalating America's tensions with a nuclear-armed Russia. Until now, that meant no direct attacks on Russia with U.S.-made weapons. "Worsening conditions for Ukraine on the battlefield … led the president to change his mind."

The move means Washington is "abandoning a pillar of its strategy for the past two years," Foreign Policy said. It comes out of desperation. Ukraine's "strategic position is becoming progressively more perilous" — the defenders are losing ground and undermanned while Russia has been able to replenish its depleted invasion forces faster than anyone expected. Biden's decision may help Ukraine, but it means "accepting the potentially escalatory consequences that might follow."


How Hamas Ends

Audrey Kurth Cronin

The war in Gaza has settled into a mind-numbing pattern of violence, bloodshed, and death. And everyone is losing—except Hamas. When Israel invaded the territory last fall, its stated military objective was to destroy the terrorist group so that it could never again commit acts of barbarity like the ones it carried out during its October 7 attack. But although the war has culled Hamas’s ranks, it has also vastly increased support for the group—among Palestinians, throughout the Middle East, and even globally. And even though Israel was fully justified in taking military action after the attack, the way in which it has done so has caused immense damage to its own global standing and put intense strain on Israel’s relationship with the United States, its most important partner.

Israel’s overwhelming, unfocused military response has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mainly women and children, even as Israelis taken hostage on October 7 languish or die in the custody of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian groups. By limiting the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israel has produced near-famine conditions in parts of the territory. Late last year, South Africa, with the eventual support of dozens of other countries, filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza. In May, the Biden administration halted some U.S. arms shipments to Israel, signaling its displeasure with Israeli plans to invade the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where more than a million civilians had taken refuge.

Two far-right Israeli ministers threaten to topple the government if it accepts Biden peace plan

Eugenia Yosef, Sophie Tanno and Benjamin Brown

Two far-right Israeli ministers have threatened to resign and bring down the governing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he accepts a peace proposal laid out by US President Joe Biden.

Biden unveiled on Friday what he said was a three-phase Israeli proposal to end the conflict in Gaza that would pair a release of hostages with a “full and complete ceasefire.”

During a speech at the White House, Biden said Hamas had been degraded to a point where it could no longer carry out the type of attack seen on October 7 that launched the current war in Gaza.

Viva Libertad Silicon Valley

Spencer Neale

Sideburns, pursed lips, and two thumbs in the air—Argentina’s President Javier Milei was fully in character during a selfie snapped with META founder Mark Zuckerberg posted to X on Thursday. For his part, Zuckerberg was all smiles and comfortably rested his hand on the diminutive Argentine’s shoulder. The two were clearly smitten.

The photo was part of a 36-hour whirlwind tour of Silicon Valley where Milei met with Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Zuckerberg. The meetings are intended to broker new investments into the struggling South American nation, and the high-profile swing was exactly the sort of spectacle that has come to mark the chainsaw libertarian’s brand at home and abroad.

“His challenge now is to turn the photo-ops into concrete investments in the country,” remarked Marcelo Garcรญa, director for the Americas at geopolitical risk consultancy firm Horizon Engage.

And though it’s uncertain what was said or promised to the tech giants during his California jaunt, each company offers a different sort of unique intrigue for a nation crippled by spending, spiraling debt, and annual inflation approaching 300 percent.

Countermeasures in international law and their role in cyberspace

Dr Talita Dias

The emergence of information and communications technologies has reignited debates about how and when countermeasures can be used in cyberspace. Countermeasures are a well-established response mechanism available to states against violations of international law. They involve measures that would otherwise be unlawful, such as breaches of treaty obligations, but are allowed under certain strict conditions. However, considerations unique to cyberspace – such as the speed, scale and covert nature of cyber operations – have prompted calls for international law on countermeasures to be interpreted more flexibly in the cyber context.

This paper explores the conditions under which countermeasures may be taken in cyberspace and other contexts, in line with customary international law. The paper also looks at the extent to which states other than the injured state are entitled to take so-called ‘collective’ or ‘third-party’ countermeasures. There still seems to be insufficient evidence that states indirectly injured by a serious breach of obligations protecting community or collective interests (erga omnes or erga omnes partes obligations) may take ‘general interest countermeasures’ in support of the injured state or affected individuals. But the law is in flux, and support for general interest countermeasures is growing in light of serious violations of international law, such as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Beyond situations involving community or collective obligations, international law does not allow third states to take countermeasures in support or on behalf of the injured state. Nonetheless, third states may still aid or assist the injured state in taking its own countermeasures.

6 June 2024

BRICS and de-dollarization, how far can it go?

MICHAEL CORBIN

As the current chair of BRICS, Russia is pursuing a rather extensive agenda related to finance that includes enhancing the role of member countries in the international monetary and financial system and developing interbank cooperation and settlements in national currencies.

BRICS is an intergovernmental organization founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa that recently expanded and now includes Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.

There has also been discussion of a potential BRICS currency as part of a strategy of de-dollarization — the substitution of the dollar as the primary currency for international financial transactions. The U.S. trade war with China, as well as U.S. sanctions on China and Russia, are central to this ongoing discussion.

Although much U.S. media attention was paid to the enhancement of military and political cooperation during the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this month, financial issues also figured high on the agenda.

Facing up to China’s Hybrid Warfare in the Pacific

Anne-Marie Brady

This year, for the first time ever, the People’s Republic of China registered 26 China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels to operate in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission Convention Area. The Convention manages 20 percent of the globe, from the Aleutians in the North Pacific, all the way down to the Southern Ocean.

It is also the area of the First, Second, and Third Island Chains.

The CCG, widely used for gray-zone operations in disputed waters, will soon legally be allowed to board any foreign fishing vessels on the high seas in the First, Second, and Third Island Chains.

Since 2020, China has also had four Coast Guard vessels registered to monitor foreign fishing vessels in the North Pacific Fishing Commission Area. Starting from June this year, China will have the third largest maritime security presence patrolling throughout the whole of the Pacific, after the United States and Australia.

Competing US-China Defense Tactics Dominate Singapore Forum

Philip Heijmans, Peter Martin, and Josh Xiao

Global defense leaders descending on Singapore this weekend confronted conflicting visions of the region: the US touted expanding military exercises and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific, while China criticized “outside forces” for interfering with peace and stability.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin addressed the Shangri-La Dialogue on Saturday and name-checked nearly every country as US partners or allies. He praised recent joint drills with Indonesia and the Philippines, improved coordination with Japan, India, South Korea and Australia, and strengthened ties with Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam.

“We are witnessing a new convergence around nearly all aspects of security in the Indo-Pacific,” Austin said. “It isn’t about bullying or coercion — it’s about the free choices of sovereign states.”

Pentagon Chief Says War With China Neither Imminent nor Unavoidable

Feliz Solomon and Chun Han Wong

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that a war with China is neither imminent nor unavoidable, striking a nonconfrontational tone a day after his first face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart.

Speaking at a security summit in Singapore on Saturday, Austin signaled that the Biden administration is seeking to cool tensions with China, despite an increase in friction following military activities by both countries around Taiwan and in the disputed South China Sea.

“Our goal is to make sure that we don’t allow things to spiral out of control unnecessarily,” Austin said at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of defense officials organized by the London-based think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
s.

Shanghai firm behind G60 megaconstellation raises $943 million

Andrew Jones

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology has raised 6.7 billion yuan ($943 million) for the construction of its G60 low Earth orbit megaconstellation.

SSST recently secured the series A funding according to Feb. 1 news reports, citing a major investor. The round was led by a fund set up by the National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund (NMTUF), Reuters reported.

Other investors included Shanghai Alliance Investment, a venture capital arm of the Shanghai Municipal Government, CASSTAR, a venture investment and incubator firm ultimately under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guosheng Capital, Hengxu Capital and CAS Capital, also under CAS.

The development comes as SSST prepares to begin construction of its 12,000-satellite strong “G60” constellation. An initial 108 satellites of a total of around 12,000 “G60 Starlink” satellites are to be launched across 2024.

SSST and CAS’s Innovation Academy for Microsatellites (IAMCAS) established Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology (Genesat) in 2022 to set up satellite manufacturing facilities.

China’s Next-Gen Fighter Jet Engine Could Surpass US As Scientists Claim Another “Groundbreaking Innovation”

Ashish Dangwal

According to Chinese claims, this development promises to significantly reduce drag and enhance engine efficiency, potentially propelling China to the forefront of next-generation engine development.

The newly-introduced “shark skin” structure, meticulously crafted from a high-strength, large titanium alloy through precision 3D printing, has been hailed by Chinese researchers as a game-changer in aerodynamics.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), this cutting-edge technology has the potential to slash drag by up to 10%, marking a substantial leap forward in engine performance.

The focal point of this groundbreaking endeavor lies in an engine component known as the intermediate casing. This crucial element, exceeding a meter in diameter, features meticulously designed bionic grooves, each measuring a mere 15 to 35 micrometers in depth — finer than a human hair.

Beijing advances technological self-reliance by all means


Xi’s geopolitically focused political economy is on full display in the way innovation is being pursued in China, as well as how the country’s innovation dividend is materializing. Considering the remarkable progress that China has made in advancing itself as a technological great power, there would normally be an expectation that total factor productivity would have climbed as the returns on innovation gains kick in. Instead, total factor productivity has trended downward, begging the question of where the dividend has gone.23 Rather than going towards productivity, much of it has gone towards Xi’s tech self-reliance goals. This is because in most technologies, China is playing catch up in terms of tech effectiveness, but it has enjoyed extensive access to foreign technology – in previous years, Chinese firms could simply acquire the foreign technology to maximize their return, which could bring productivity growth. Instead, Xi has set the country on a path where, in many key areas, it is more important that companies expensively develop that tech themselves. Had China instead focused on its own comparative advantages and accepted interdependencies on others in areas where it lagged, the innovation dividend would likely have moved the needle up on productivity, but instead, it has only gone to closing tech gaps.

The tech self-reliance priority has now been cemented in place. Now facing a showdown with the US and its allies, Xi has called for a “New type of whole-of-nation approach” (ๆ–ฐๅž‹ไธพๅ›ฝไฝ“ๅˆถ) in the 2020 Central Economic Work Conference to close technology gaps and rid China of its dependency on the foreign actors he believes intend to contain his country.

The Clash of Constellations

RACHEL CHEUNG

On one of the last days of 2023, Shanghai officials proudly unveiled what they believe to be a game changer in the ongoing space race with the United States: the new smart factory for Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology, also known as Genesat. Genesat's G60 flat-panel satellite, presented at the ceremony for the opening of Genesat's new factory in Shanghai, December 27, 2023. Credit: Genesat With the lights dimmed, a flat-panel satellite the size of a motorcycle appeared on the stage. Altho